Kaylee's Keeper (17 page)

“I don’t think I want to be backed into a…a shadowy corner and…and molested.” Unless it was Master Marshall doing the backing and the molesting…and the collaring. The heat in her face burned hotter as she looked up at skimpy dress. She couldn’t quite keep her longing from showing.

Lisette reached around Kaylee to bring the costume back down. She held it up so they could see it side by side with the more modest one. “Do you know why Master Marshall sent me here to talk to you?”

Abandoning the mirrors, Kaylee twisted to look at Lisette directly. “No. Why?”

“Because I get two full hours of Jackson’s undivided attention just to show you what the Little Maids are all about. You must be new, not just to the Castle, but to the lifestyle, right?”

Kaylee felt a little deflated. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only if you know what to look for. You have a little lost lamb feel about you. But that’s okay; Doms love that sort of thing. And how are you supposed to learn to swim if you don’t first jump in the pool? Just consider me—” Lisette paused and smiled. “—a really sexy water wing. Trust me, baby girl. That costume might be more modest, but if you put it on, you’re going to regret it. Deep down inside of you, you already know it’s not who you are.”

“B-but…” Kaylee felt herself weakening. When Lisette gave a tug, she let go of the modest outfit and took the one that left her blushing.

“Don’t worry,” Lisette said, and hung it up again. “There are ways to avoid all those touchy-feely hands out there…until you’re ready to enjoy them, that it.”

Hands settling on Kaylee’s thin shoulders, the sultry maid turned her physically from the extra costume choices, until all she could see in the dressing room mirrors was herself, Lisette, and that barely-there costume held between her hands.

“Have you ever worn a man’s collar before?” Lisette purred in her ear.

“Last night,” Kaylee confessed.

“Did you like it?”

Pure desire flushed her. She tried to say yes, but the word stuck in her throat. She nodded instead.

“Strip,” Lisette commanded, taking the costume off its hanger. “We’ll get you dressed and then, if you want, we’ll put a collar on you. If everyone thinks you’re already taken, they won’t bother you too much. So long as you avoid the demerits, this is like a free pass: you can be just as sultry, sexy and naughty as you want to be to the clients and there’s nothing they can do about it. It’ll give you the chance to get to know who you are and what you really want. Strip, I said. Come on, you’ve taken your clothes off in front of other women before, haven’t you?”

“Not since high school gym.” Kaylee dutifully bent to pull her shirt off and unfastened her jeans.

“Bra, too.” Lisette grinned.

Kaylee hesitated all over again, but the bustier was cut to flatten her breasts and push them up, offering the swells to their best visual advantage. Wearing a bra in conjunction with that would only look ridiculous.

She took it off, painfully aware of how small and inadequate her breasts were compared with Lisette's, not that the other maid seemed to notice. She simply loosened the laces of the bustier and helped Kaylee thread her way into it.

The actual dress part was soft and shined like satin, and the bustier fit her like a second skin, even before Lisette began to tighten the laces. It felt constraining, but in a nice way. She had to change the way she breathed, drawing air up instead of outward because with every jerk and cinch, Kaylee’s ability to expand her chest diminished. Breathing this way did two things: it made the rise and fall of her near-naked breasts incredibly pronounced; and it made her a little lightheaded. But from her first glance in the mirror, Kaylee decided the former was well worth the price of the latter.

She looked good.

No, not just good. She looked fantastic. Women weren’t made to have hourglass figures like this, but damn if it didn’t look hot. The skimpy skirt barely came down low enough to cover the gusset of her panties in front and the lower swell of her bottom cheeks in back. Her blushing bottom cheeks, she might add. When she turned around to see how she looked from behind, her eyes were drawn to the tell-tale flush left over from yesterday’s spanking.

Lisette noticed too. Her eyes sparkled and her smile turned knowing all over again. “Sit. I’ll help you with your stockings and heels.”

Sit, she'd said. Easier said than done. Kaylee hadn’t realized how much bending was required in the act until suddenly the corset prevented it.

“It’s like learning to move all over again, isn’t it?” Lisette teased as she knelt in front of Kaylee. “Don’t worry. It feels funny for about an hour or so, but you quickly get used to it. And you still look hot, even when you feel completely awkward.”

“Thank you for doing this.” Kaylee puffed a little at the compliment, deserved or not, and she raised her feet to make it easier for Lisette. “I don’t think I can bend over far enough to reach my feet, much less put those shoes on.”

“By the end of the day, you’ll wish you never had to take it off.”

Unlikely. A practical girl at heart, Kaylee did so like both the ability to breathe and her sensible shoes, but she could also easily imagine herself playing dress-up in this outfit from time to time. Sometimes a girl just wanted to feel sexy, even if only in the privacy of her home, and especially even if no one else was there to see it.

Maybe the Castle had outfits like this for sale in the gift shop.

“Alley-oop.” Lisette gave her knee a pat once she’d finished lacing Kaylee into her heels. When she stood up, it was with all the grace and ease of someone who…well, who had been doing this twice a year for heaven only knew how long. Kaylee wasn’t quite as agile. It was like trying to balance on stilts.

“Wow,” she said, wobbling.

“But you look hot, just keep telling yourself that.” Laughing, Lisette provided a steadying hand. “Find your balance on your toes until you get used to it, and whatever you do, don’t trip or you’ll break your ankle.”

Kaylee turned in a slow circle, looking at herself from all angles in the mirrors. “Wow,” she said again. The effect of the heels on both her butt and her legs was incredible.

Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, Lisette grinned at her reflection. “Baby girl, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

* * * * *

Wardrobe provided the costume and the lacy tiara; make-up was across the hall. Apparently, they had been told to expect her. From the moment she stepped inside, she was plopped into a chair and provided with the full Victorian treatment—her fingernails were buffed and painted, her face was delicately made-up, and her hair was brushed, curled, twisted, tortured, pinned, sprayed and finally wrestled into a rare state of submission on top of her head. When that carefully choreographed mess of curls was finally tamed, the tiara was clipped into place. Lisette herself completed the image by teasing a few curls back out to hang freely around her cheeks. When it was all done, the two women stood side by side in front of the mirror until Lisette playfully bumped her shoulder and said, “Let’s go get into trouble.”

Kaylee let herself be led along so easily, she should have had a nose-ring. But just as Lisette predicted, in the beginning at least she had a ball.

At no other time in history, much less the history of this particular castle, had servants gotten away with as much as Master Marshall’s Little Maids. Although given chores, it quickly became apparent than Little Maids were not expected to actually keep the Castle clean—there was a small army of Castle employees who did that in shifts that spanned around the clock. But if there was a way of telling them from the actual guests, Kaylee couldn’t see it. Everyone dressed in identical costumes and wore the same yellow bracelets on their arms. Everyone dallied and flirted, miscommunicated and misbehaved, open defied and took the licks Mr. Grimsley dished out exactly the same as everyone else.

“That’s part of the Castle’s charm,” Lisette whispered to her. “You never know who’s your real sister in crime and who’s whispering in Mr. Grimsley’s ear, ‘Skinny-dipping party in the garden fountain tonight at midnight—shh, don’t tell anyone.’”

One look at Mr. Grimsley’s long-suffering face, however, and Kaylee suspected 12:01 would see him crashing said party with the same supple birch he had wielded earlier that morning in hand. Within her first few minutes of meeting of the man, the head butler forever cemented in her mind that he was nothing if not capable at his post.

Little Maids were supposed to be naughty; he was supposed to catch them at it, and that’s exactly what he did. All day, every day, he supervised all three tiers of maids, from the dowdy to the sultry, with his brown hawk-eyes keyed toward uncovering even the slightest misbehavior. To the purpose of this, he carried with him either a birch or a lithe garden switch, every morning freshly cut (and ofttimes replenished during the course of the day as necessity demanded). He walked from room to room with one lightly clasped behind his back—his scepter of duty, dutifully brandished however, wherever, and against whomever he deemed necessary. On that particular morning, as Lisette and Kaylee descended the servants’ steps to the rear kitchen and took their places in the daily inspection lines (each class of maid being segregated out into a column of her peers), Little Maid Mary was the first to become necessary.

“Demerit to Mary, unkempt,” Mr. Grimsley intoned as he strolled along the line of dowdy maids, that switch held idle behind his back and lightly flicking the empty air. “Where is your apron, Mary?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Mary replied, her gaze held straight ahead and her expression as close to neutral as she could make it. “It was stolen.”

About to walk on, the head butler paused and then backed up a step to standing directly before her again. “Stolen or misplaced? Theft is a serious accusation, as is a baseless charge of the same. Consider carefully.”

Mary was quiet, the only hint of consternation being a slight tightening at the corner of her mouth. “I…I know it was stolen, sir,” she reaffirmed. “I took it off in my room last night. It wasn’t there when I got up this morning.”

“Mrs. Hardwick.”

Following along behind him, Mrs. Hardwick, the same head housekeeper who had given the orientation in the courtyard the day before, looked up from the ledger she carried and the demerits she was recording. “Yes, Mr. Grimsley?”

“Have the maids’ quarters searched and bring me the apron when it’s found. Mary,” he turned his dark eyes back on the dowdy maid, “if the apron is proved to actually have been stolen, I will suspend your demerit. If I judge it misplaced, you will receive double the count and present yourself to my office after the supper hour. Is that clear?”

Again, that slight tightening at the corners of her mouth. “Yes, sir.”

Nodding once, the head butler moved on, once more surveying the line. “Elizabeth, Unkempt. Your hair is showing, girl. Adjust your mobcap.”

The woman next to Mary quickly did, and the rest of the dowdy maids passed inspection and received their day’s assignment.

“I want every fireplace in the east wing swept, scrubbed and freshly laid. There are forty in all, which means you each have eight to attend to. I expect half done before lunch is called and the other half before dinner. Mr. Dodson will accompany you as you go about your duties. Demerits given by him will be upheld by me and doubled for any girl who fails to complete her duties by the end of the day. Dismissed.”

Led by an upper butler, the dowdy maids filed from the room and headed for the east wing. Mr. Grimsley watched until they were gone, then turned his steady gaze on the middle inspection row. There were only two proper maids in modest uniforms. Tapping his switch at the empty air, Mr. Grimsley began his inspection. The carrot-headed girl received a demerit for crooked stocking seams; the brunette received two, for untidy appearance (although she looked neat enough to Kaylee) and for the sin of wearing too much makeup.

Kaylee actually felt her palms sweat at that. She, like the other "French" maids, had enough makeup on to work a Broadway play.

“Did I or did I not take the switch to your knickers for that very thing yesterday?” Mr. Grimsley asked.

“Yes, sir.” Whisper soft, the brunette’s voice trembled just a bit. Straight at her sides, her fingers fidgeted in the folds of her uniform skirt.

“And here you are again, guilty of the exact same offense. Has my arm gone soft, is that it?”

A flush of color stained her cheeks. “No, sir.”

“No? Well, if the fault rests not with my arm, it must lie with you. Are you hard of hearing, Annie?”

“No, sir.”

“No? Then what’s the problem, girl?”

Her fingers fidgeted just a little faster and the hem of her skirt began to hike a little on the sides as she nervously wound them in the cloth. “I…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I do know. I’m even sure I know how to fix the problem. Carrie, you’ll be helping Cook in the kitchen. She’s short-handed today. Take your demerit down to her and she’ll settle your score at the end of the supper hour.”

“Yes, sir.” At her dismissal, the redhead took her demerit from Mrs. Hardwick and hurried for the kitchen.

“As for you—” Mr. Grimsley turned back to the unfortunate Annie. “Fetch clippers from the garden shed, cut five switches and bring them untrimmed back to my office. Have you ever made your own birch before?”

The brunette visibly trembled. “No, sir.”

“I would say this is your lucky day, but since I intend to apply the birch to your bare bottom until it’s nothing but a handle of frayed twigs, perhaps ‘lucky’ is not the best way to describe your current situation.” With a nodding gesture of his head, the head butler dismissed her. “Hop to, girl. You’ll be in my office within fifteen minutes or I’ll come searching for you and God help you then.”

The undefined threat made Kaylee’s bottom cringe. Beside her, Lisette smothered a soft giggle behind tightly pressed lips. The brunette must have overheard anyway. Her back stiffened, but she didn’t look around. She simply scampered obediently away.