Owned And Owner (18 page)

My exhausted mind tumbled around, falling from one wordless fear to another, occasionally landing on something solid.
And usually painful.
The
workroom,
and the look in
Arleben’s
eyes.
The remorseless cane on my hands and feet.
Cringing before my master, his smile like an exquisite knife, flaying me down to the core.

Curled up in that dark shed one night I looked up at the stars through the one window. My welts hurting against the hard floor, the gag roundly filling my mouth, the weariness, sent me falling somehow, into that dark place where I was peaceful and safe, and was not at my own mercy. The place where I floated gradually expanded, until I was adrift in a globe the size of the universe, with his huge hands enclosing and cradling the darkness.

Garid saw the last of the functionaries off into the night with a smile and an inward sigh. The decisions were made, the contracts signed. He’d even hired some of the project staff, who could hire the rest. The environmental restoration projects that he did had rarely been so complicated, involving four ministries and seven quasi-official agencies, not to mention the frequently splintering public action conglomerates. To pull it all together had been almost miraculous. But this was the kind of thing he was known for. Not without cost, however; he was nothing but a grounded
aircar
at this point.

Still, he could not rest without a look at his little pet. She had been in the tool shed for two and a half days now. He could have looked at the portable monitor in the kitchen; it was always on, but he wanted some privacy, away from
Pav’s
eye. He went into the screen room, opened the monitor panel and pressed a couple of buttons.

There she was. She was sleeping. The curling hair glinted slightly, a lock that spilled forward trembling with her breath. He turned up the sound to hear her soft breathing. The bridle and ball gag looked so natural on her little face that he hardly noticed the pleasure they gave him, like a satisfying bass line in a piece of music. His hands moved without thought on the controls; he zoomed in to examine her, the infrared picking up details in the dim light. The unaccustomed roughness on her curved back and shoulders would take a while to heal; he planned to let it take its course. And he would need to decide whether to make her move on her welted feet, or make her crawl and let the even more tender hands take the brunt. He’d leave the mitts off for a while. He smiled a little. The chastity belt pressed firmly into her flesh; he could see the lock, as solid as ever. Her beautiful, animal breasts with their glinting nipple rings – how he longed to get his hands on them. Despite his weariness, at the sight of the bound woman his erection was throbbing, and even more at the knowledge that the keys were in his pocket.

Still, he had said three days, and three days it would be. He had practiced restraint for years; restraint was not difficult. He went to bed. In the first dream he heard, too late, about a crucial splinter group that meant he had to start the process all over again. But the rest of the long night he dreamed about completion and the promise of pleasure.

The next day he got up late, relaxed and happy, climbed into casual clothes (rescued from his silly slave’s predations by the machine’s repair program), and went out to the tool shed. His pet was sitting back on her heels, leaning against the wall, the low chain pulling her head down, her eyes riveted on the door. The face under its bridle lit up at the sight of him; the eyes immediately filled. Her body opened toward him, despite the bonds that held her, opened and presented as far as it could. He looked at her for a long moment, then walked across the shed in two strides and crouched down in front of her. He touched her face with his fingertips for a moment, then grasped both her nipple rings and pulled down hard. She gasped and followed the pull, putting her face to the floor. Garid examined her closely, yanking her roughly this way and that. Then he took her jaw in one hand, then in his deep voice he said, ‘Bad
jeedy
!’ and slapped her face. Her downcast eyes spilled over and she turned her face toward his hand.

He left then, and organized the workshop cleanup with
Pav
. The room was a sorry mess. He described a new appliance for the man to make in the space that was left. Being no more than a modified dustpan,
Pav
rigged it up quickly enough. On
Garid’s
orders he fetched the slave out of her isolation and made her crawl, without mitts or kneepads, along the brick path and down through the basement door to the workshop.
Pav
ignored her obvious attempts to favor her painful hands. He was motivated by some residual anger about the trouble she had caused, and some serious anger about his workshop. He was perfectly aware that he would not be so angry if he did not feel himself to have been at fault for misjudging and indulging her. The self-awareness did not soften him, however; his new attitude communicated itself through the leash, and the slave bowed her head and scurried along beside him, wincing as much from his anger as from the pain.

The sight of the workshop made her turn her head away and whimper.
Pav
, exasperated, found he was finally able to hit her. He pushed her nose into every mess, scolded and smacked her while she groveled, squirmed and yelped. He sensed her real repentance, but thought he wouldn’t put it past her to do the same again, given the opportunity.

He found himself a little surprised that there was no shame attached to what he was doing. He felt he wasn’t abusing a helpless creature, but correctly punishing a naughty one, who not only deserved but craved the retribution. His sense of the rightness of the whole thing clicked into place; he felt satisfied.

Humming, he removed the slave’s bridle and fitted another to her head; this one had a wide strap covering her gagged mouth. He had reinforced the bridle with metal and brackets, and attached a wide flat pan that jutted forward from the gag. Once it was on she looked a bit like she had a duck’s bill. Then he fastened her hands behind her back, and set her to scooping up the mess on the floor. He crossed his arms and watched her strain; it was very inefficient, but perhaps it would teach her something. Getting the pan low enough to the floor without the use of her hands was extremely difficult, and several times she fell forward on her breasts before she got anything. Then the bits and pieces tended to roll out of the pan before she could lift it. When she did manage to pick up something she had to shuffle on her knees, her head tipped back, over to the low container he’d provided. It wasn’t long before she had ball bearings, rivets and other debris under her knees, and was flinching with almost every move. The scoop blocked her forward vision, and several times she missed the container with her load altogether.
Pav
provided himself with a thin rod, and made sure to whip her with this when she did poorly, or when she stopped for more than a moment to rest. He was busy injecting oil underneath the spilled
stoneform
, to more or less float it off the floor’s surface. He looked up at the place where the line of fixative across the walls had adhered to some of his tools, and he gave the woman an extra swat.

Pav
looked up to find Garid leaning in the doorway, looking at him approvingly.

‘I thought you said you couldn’t hit her.’

Pav
gestured around. ‘Can you blame me?’

Garid smiled. ‘Let me show you a few things. If you’re going to use that, here are the most sensitive spots…’ He demonstrated a variety of techniques, and
Pav
took the opportunity to practice, the slave squealing and twitching under the repeated experiments. Garid took care also to teach
Pav
how to avoid real damage. Then he watched the cleanup for another few minutes.

‘In another half hour, put the knee pads on her; she’ll be all in by then, but that will keep her going a bit longer. Push her as far as she can go; I’d suggest punishing her with several more strokes when she has to stop, like we do when we exercise her.’

‘All right, sir.’

‘And
Pav
… once the workshop’s functional
again,
I think we need a cage for her. Can you make one?’

‘Metal?’

‘Yes, and small; dog kennel size. See if you can find some plans on the web base.’

‘Sure, I can make something like that. I’ll have to get the materials. You’re – you’re planning a tighter lock-up, I take it.’ He busied himself with the
stoneform
.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Garid, and
Pav’s
head swiveled round again. ‘The lock still has to be closed.
Pav
, we never had a problem with security before we got distracted; I don’t think it’ll be a problem again. I just think it’s a good idea to keep reminding her of what happens when she misbehaves, and besides…’

He looked at the straining little creature on her knees in the middle of the room, her head pushing against the debris with the humiliating pan strapped to her face. He took a quick breath.
Pav
watched
Garid’s
face, as motionless as usual, the eyes alight.

‘You’d like to see her in a cage, wouldn’t you?’
Pav
looked down to hide his smile, hoping he hadn’t overstepped anything.

‘You dead
wurlegh
!
You know me way too well.’ Garid laughed.
Pav
took the insult with equanimity. It was one Garid used only with affection, although it referred to a weed that clogged sewage systems in most of the southern hemisphere.

For the first three nights back from the shed I had to sleep chained under the workbench, wrists locked again to my thighs. The floor was cold, and those cursed ball bearings homed in on me like I had a magnet up my butt. Hell, maybe my belt was magnetized for the occasion; I wouldn’t put it past my master. I spent the days miserably trying to shovel the demonic things off the floor, and the nights wretchedly trying to wriggle them out from under me. Despite my history, I know I’m capable of learning from my mistakes, because no matter what mischief I get up to in the future, I’ll definitely never dump ball bearings on the floor again; I mean it.

I didn’t get up off my knees for three days. They let me use a litter box down the corridor, and I ate from a bowl under the workbench. They put pads on my knees when I got too sore. Apart from that I did my humiliating scooping with only
Pav’s
rod for assistance.

Initially
Pav’s
uncompromising and painful discipline felt like a betrayal. Where was the special relationship we had: cute pet, getting tidbits with a pleading look, being indulged and forgiven?

It was gone. There was force behind those blows, each one signifying
Pav’s
lack of forgiveness,
his
sense of betrayal. I began to feel guilty for pushing this gentle man so far. But in the end I was grateful for real punishment, and for the end to the last fragment of undeserved control. Whenever I was at the end of my strength during those days, I would crawl shakily to him over the debris, press the side of my head trembling against his ankle, and lift my ass for the rod.

Tighter

When they finally let me upstairs they kept me in incredibly stringent bondage. I spent a long time one day on my feet (thankfully healed by then) in the front hall, bent double, my arms pulled up vertically behind my back and fastened from elbow to wrist to a post behind my head. They left a flogger and a whip dangling from hooks on my nipple rings, for the convenience of whoever was passing. It seemed to be a goal to make me squeal as loud as possible under my hood and heavy gag. My pendent breasts took as much punishment as my ass that day. The hood had gone on first, but to my joy I had known my master’s hand at last, tightening the straps. I knew his hand on the whip, and his fingers on the welts. After he left I could still feel those hands on me, shaping me, outlining me with the attention of his blows. And the elation expanded until my restricted body could hardly contain it all. I wanted to dance for joy; all I could do was shake and shimmer enough to set the flogger and whip dancing.

I was not allowed to kneel between his legs during that period, and service him with all the delicate devotion of my mouth and tongue and breath. To my shame, he would instead force a ring gag into my mouth big enough for his cock, immobilize me with straps, and fuck my face. I needn’t tell you that the chastity belt came off only for cleaning, and the occasional rough ass fucking. Gradually the sexual torments increased up to their old level, but orgasm became a distant memory.

One day I spent hours hanging by my wrists and ankles, my back roughly parallel to the floor. After some time like this I began to feel disoriented, as if I was a quadruped trying to drop to the ceiling above me, but prevented by some weird anti-
grav
. My master spent a lot of time that day punishing my ass with various implements. He took off my belt and tormented me, hurting my clit, poking things up my ass and cunt. I could flex my arms and legs, lifting myself a little up and down, and twist and struggle helplessly. The effort exhausted me pretty fast, and there was nothing I could do to get out of the way of his torments. He let me down for a while to rest some of my weight on my reddened ass, my hands and feet still suspended. Then he hoisted me up again for more fun and games. My legs were widely spread; he chained my labia rings tightly to my thighs, and tried various substances on the exposed flesh: stinging sauces, ice,
not
-quite-burning oil. Eventually the residue was washed off – carefully, to avoid letting me come – and he lowered me a bit, and used my position to fuck my ass for a long, long time, while my breasts bounced and undulated painfully under his whip.