Odalisque (10 page)

“So...do the clothes come off now?”

“Whatever you want,” she signed. “Always.”

“Except on your day off. When is your day off?”

She shrugged and signed again. “Whichever day you prefer.”

“So I’m in charge from here on out. Is that what you’re saying?”

Her gaze left his lips to meet his eyes and smile. She knew he didn’t really expect an answer. He dipped his head and kissed her again, undressing her slowly, taking a while to stroke and trace her stockings before he finally drew them off. He gathered her close then, so close. She basked in his warmth, his gentleness, his leashed strength and the comforting breadth of his chest. He tipped her face up to his.

“I can hardly believe you’re finally here.”

My God, his eyes. They were like the earth and sea in one. Constance wanted to snuggle with him, skin to skin. She wanted him to fuck her again, to take her with the same raw need he’d just shown. She reached for his shirt, wishing to pull it off him, but he stilled her hands.

“Not now. She’s still out there, isn’t she? Your overmistress? I don’t even know her name.”

Constance spelled it out for him, twice, because she spelled too fast the first time.

“Ms. Dresden.” Kai nodded. “I think Bastien told me that. We’ll have plenty of time--a year--to fuck like bunnies, but I hate to think of her standing out there waiting in the hall.” He gave Constance one last kiss and squeeze and stood to fasten his pants.

“My God,” he said, leaning down to be sure she was listening. “You have no idea how happy I am about that disappointed look on your face. Or that smile,” he added as she burst into laughter. “Now get your little odalisque ass out of bed.”

*** *** ***

They dined together on takeout, Constance, Kai, and Ms. Dresden. Kai was relieved to learn the overmistress had no expectation of being put up in the house. He didn’t want to be looking after a guest at the moment.

No, Ms. Dresden would stay at a hotel nearby for a month in order to check in with Constance weekly, and then continue to check in with his odalisque--in person--once a month until the end of her sojourn with him. It was a lot of flying, and he told her so.

“Can’t you just video conference with her or something?”

Ms. Dresden shook her head and shot that down in her clipped New England accent. “You can’t always gauge someone’s well-being over webcam, or telephone. We want to be in the presence of our charges, to touch them and look in their eyes to reassure ourselves everything is okay.”

Kai paused, digging through his Lo Mein. “Have there been times things weren’t okay? Odalisques who had to be...removed?”

He could feel Constance’s eyes on him, listening. Ms. Dresden stopped with her fork lifted halfway to her mouth, and put it down again.

“Yes, there have been a few instances. Very few. Our owners know from the outset they’ll be monitored, and that scares away the majority of the bad-intentioned. Background checks and our own freak radar shake out the rest. But in our twenty-three year history, there have been a few unfortunate situations. A couple of women who were actually harmed. There are always those wealthy men who feel the rules don’t apply to them.”

Ms. Dresden continued eating, although both she and Kai were watching Constance. The silent woman seemed particularly vulnerable, nude as she was, while the other two of them were clothed. Ms. Dresden took a sip of wine and asked in a casual tone, “How do you feel, Constance? About your new home?”

Constance thought a moment and then let loose in a stream of sign language that left Kai utterly stumped. He caught words here and there, and her smiling expression reassured him the overall tone was positive, but he also realized how much he still had to learn. What would he do when Ms. Dresden left?

Well, it wasn’t like they’d be hanging out all day chatting. He’d have to go back to work in a day or two, when he was sure she was settled in. When he’d completely spent his pent-up erotic yearnings on her. All over her.

He fidgeted in his chair. Even the way Constance signed was a turn on. Or maybe it was her gorgeous, perky breasts. Either way...

“I’m glad to hear it,” Ms. Dresden said, still trying to include him in the conversation. “Did you get all that, Mr. Chandler?”

His befuddled look made Constance laugh. Kai loved her laugh so much. He shot her a crooked smile and Ms. Dresden grinned at them both like a flustered chaperone.

“It is only my opinion, but I believe the two of you will suit just fine. Mr. Chandler, I’ll contact you with the approximate dates of my visits.”

“What will you do in the meantime?” Kai asked. “Hang around L.A.?”

“There are other odalisques in the area to look in on, and women who’ve expressed an interest in the program. We visit them personally before we invite them over to France. There’s always work to do to keep the program running. But your work is at an end, Mr. Chandler. Now is your time for enjoyment.”

“You can call me Kai if you like.”

“I’ll call you Mr. Chandler, because ours will be a formal and necessarily distant relationship. I am here for her, you see. Not for you.”

Domme
, he thought to himself. Not long afterward, Ms. Dresden took her leave, bidding them both good-bye at the front door. Kai’s driver would take her to the Maison’s Los Angeles residence. She promised to return to check on Constance in about a week.

Constance turned to Kai as the door closed, looking for the first time slightly nervous. What should he do? He could help her unpack, perhaps. Give her the extended tour. Show her the swimming pool and rooftop garden. But he didn’t really want to do any of those things.

“Constance,” he said instead. “God help me. I need you again.”

Kai fucked Constance twice more in the saray adjoining the bedroom. The first time he draped her over a pile of cushions and took her right on the floor, doggie style, slamming his hips against her gorgeous heart-shaped ass and driving deep. He chose not to let her come. He didn’t issue any commands on the subject; she wouldn’t have heard him anyway. No, he simply took his pleasure, and she was well trained enough to understand that her role at the moment was to act as a vessel for his lust.

Afterward he turned her over and nuzzled her and gazed into her wide eyes. He said “Good girl,” and her smile told him she understood. He turned her back around and pushed the cushions away, making her kneel on all fours while he ran his hands all over her, squeezing and measuring her feminine curves. She endured his coarse investigation, spreading her thighs wider when he nudged them and arching her back when he ran a firm palm up her spine.

He could tell she was still simmering, still aching for satisfaction. She had also been driven deep into submission by his quick, selfish fuck. Her pussy was wet, glistening, and her eyes continuously searched his out, looking back over her shoulder at him for some signal of what would come next.

Kai thought she wouldn’t like what was coming next. Or perhaps she would. Her shapely, round ass cheeks were due to be marked. Past due. Poor thing. He knew she was tired from her journey and probably terribly sensitive from missing out on the previous orgasm.

Too bad.

Kai lifted her by the arm and walked her over to the platform in the center of the room which might have passed for an ornate iron bed. It wasn’t a bed though--her bed was in the other room, piled with soft pillows.

No, this was a stage designed for fucking, bondage, and other delicious pastimes. Each of the four solid posts was fixed with eye hooks at various heights. The headboard was a broad lattice of criss crossing bars so that he could affix her to it in any way he wished. The footboard was shorter and padded on top. It had been designed to be high enough that when he bent her over it, her feet would dangle off the floor. All in all, it was a wonderful place to torment a horny sex slave.

It also had an extra-firm mattress since it would be used for fucking, not sleeping. Rather than bright colors, this bed had taut white sheets. When he tied her there to await his pleasure, he didn’t want it to feel so comfortable she fell asleep.

Yes, he was a bit of a sadist.

She stared at the iron frame now, and her look of nervous arousal sparked new lust flaring in his veins. He had to urge her forward toward the padded footboard. A moment later, she was arranged in a position he liked very much, her hips draped gracefully over the black vinyl surface. Her bottom was forced up on display, and her legs hung below, trembling slightly. Every so often she would kick one leg as if testing how far it was to the floor. Even on her tip toes she couldn’t have reached the carpet.

Kai stood and watched her for a while, enjoying her tiny fidgets and noting the shiny succulence of her cleft. Then Kai crossed the room and opened a tall mahogany cabinet. He drew the doors wide so Constance would be able to see all the torturous instruments inside. She made a soft groaning sound.

There were clamps, paddles, whips, straps, cuffs, and other novelties he’d use to play with her. Straight sex would have been enough--quite enough--to sustain him. Her talents were just that good when it came to fucking and sucking. But he also got to play with her in the kinky ways he liked, which was the proverbial icing on the cake.

But God, where to start? He finally decided on some leather cuffs and a whippy long-handled strap. He strolled over to the bed with them, going half hard already from her look of dread. He placed the strap in front of her flushing face, then stood behind her and drew her hands to the small of her back. He fixed a leather cuff to each wrist and then hooked them together. She was so horny she tried to scoot back against his cock as he worked the buckles. She was rewarded with a sharp slap to the side of her thigh. His cock surged again at the sound of impact and the sight of scarlet blooming over her unmarked skin. He reached for the strap--

Then he stopped. Damn. They hadn’t negotiated any type of play limits or safe words, and he’d already cuffed her hands. Signing wouldn’t work anyway, not for an important discussion like this. He didn’t fully trust his decoding skills yet.

With a sigh, he went back into her bedroom to the desk. He grabbed a notebook off the top of the stack, and a pen. He returned to the saray, writing as he went. He placed the notebook in front of her face.

We need to talk about limits and a way for you to safe out if you need to.

She looked up at him and shook her head firmly. “No.”

No.
It was one of the few words she could say. It sounded slightly forlorn when she said it. She drew it out more than a hearing person might.
Nooo...

He picked up the pen and wrote
Yes. And I want to have this conversation in writing, so I’m going to release you.

She pouted as he undid the cuffs. Without changing position, she grabbed the notebook and started to write.

I don’t want a safe word. I don’t want to put any limits on you. I’m yours to use as you wish. I’m your odalisque.

Kai frowned as she pushed it across to him. He wrote in his neat script just below her swirly hand.

I don’t know how much pain to give you. I have no idea how much pain you like.

She looked at him like he had taken leave of his senses. Without pause, she wrote
I like whatever pleases you.

Kai levered himself off the bed, stood over her and crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head. She was skilled in body language, and surely understood his meaning. They wouldn’t play if she didn’t give him some kind of guidelines. With a scowl, she grabbed the notebook and scrawled out a long passage.

I trust you to read my body language. I trust you to tell when I’m nearing my limits. I trust you not to truly injure me. I trust you to know when it ceases to be pleasure/pain, and just turns into pain. I TRUST YOU.

She showed it to him with a raised brow. He had to admit she had a point. As a dominant, he had learned to use his partner’s reactions to choose the intensity at which he played. But in past scenes, there had always been a backup plan. A word that meant stop.

He circled the words
I TRUST YOU
and wrote
Thank you
. Then he wrote,
Your safe word will be ‘no.’ Don’t say ‘no’ unless you want me to stop what I’m doing. Okay?

For a moment it looked like she might argue, but then she nodded. Kai whisked away the notebook and placed it on the floor under the bed. His mind was already back on track, and his body was itching to follow. He was going to strap her butt cheeks scarlet and then he was going to fuck her right over the footboard. He was going to take her ass while her legs kicked and dangled helplessly, and he was going to keep on fucking her tight hole until she came.

He thought about telling her that--making her look right at his lips and read the words there.
I’m going to beat your ass and then fuck it.
But then he thought it would be hotter to just do it and have her accommodate him. Cockslavery in action. All her holes were his to use at will.

He was so wrought up his fingers fumbled with the buckles. When he finally had her restrained again, he stood back to admire her. This time, the two-foot-long strap dangled from his fingertips. He swung the black leather in an arc and caught her across both cheeks. She jerked and made a lovely sound of distress. Why did he imagine she would be quiet? You didn’t need fluent speech to whine, moan, or scream. She wouldn’t be able to do much begging, true, but that suited him fine.

He brought the strap down again with a satisfying crack. She clenched her ass cheeks and struggled a little in her cuffs. With the third blow, he hit her a bit harder and she squealed through her teeth and reached down to cover her ass with her cuffed hands. His answer to that little attempt at respite was to bring the strap down lower, across the tops of her thighs. She almost rose off the bed, she jerked so hard, but the footboard had her pretty well stranded with her reddening ass up in the air.