The Compound (16 page)

“You can. You will.” Zap. Scream. Pant.
Tongue. Soothing, lovely, relentless tongue easing away the pain on her nipples, the underside of her breasts, her hip, her thigh.

“Oh god!” she cried, as her tender, swollen clit throbbed beneath Sam’s touch. “Please, Sir,
pleasepleasepleaseplease may I come!”

“Yes.”

Though she heard him, her body took a second longer to react, tensing in anticipation of the prod. But then it caught up, and she felt herself careen headlong into an orgasm, with Sam kissing, licking and suckling for all he was worth. Alexis bucked, her body lifting entirely from the stool, all her weight on her wrists as she writhed in a pleasure that bordered on pain, it was so intense.

“No, yes, oh
god, stop, don’t stop, help me, oooooh…”

Sam didn’t stop until Master John said quietly, “That’s enough, Sam.”

At once he leaned back on his haunches. Alexis, her heart pounding, sagged hard against her wrist cuffs, her pussy throbbing, her body wracked in a series of aftershock orgasmic spasms.

As Sam moved away, Master John moved close and unclipped
Alexis’s cuffs. He caught her in his arms as she fell forward, steadying her on the stool and then lifting her into his arms. He carried her toward a sofa set against one of the dungeon walls and lowered her gently to the cushions.

He sat beside her, stroking her hair from her face. “I am pleased. You are showing progress.” He offered a rare smile, adding, “There’s hope for you yet.”

Chapter 11

Paul lifted the brandy snifter to his lips and took a long sip. It felt good as the heat of it spread through his chest. Since Tiffany’s training was done and he hadn't yet been given a new assignment, he just listened as the other trainers reviewed their current assignments and discussed the progress of their trainees.

When John began to talk, Paul perked up. “She is making progress,” John was saying, “but there remains a core resistance. It’s like she can get so far and then, wham, we come up against a wall.”

“The brick wall she referenced in her essay,” Miriam offered with a smile. “Marta has befriended her. I do believe Alexis is sincere, but it’s possible she just doesn’t have whatever that submissive gene is that allows one to truly let go.”

“She does. I think she does,” Paul found himself interjecting more forcefully than he’d intended. He thought about the scenes he’d witnessed and been a part of with the lovely young woman. In a calmer tone, he elaborated, “I agree with John about her resistance, but she’s still early on in her training. Don’t forget, she comes more from a scene perspective. You
know, the artificial construct of an impersonal BDSM scene at a club. She’s still getting used to the all-encompassing experience of The Compound. She needs to achieve a certain comfort level so she can truly let go.”

Miriam regarded him with a discerning glance, her mouth quirking in a half smile. “You certainly seem well-informed about John’s trainee, Paul.”

Paul felt his face heating. “Oh, well,” he said lamely. “John shared her profile with me. And he invited me to participate in an exercise the other day.” The compelling image of Alexis naked on the bondage table, the rope drawn taut against her cunt, the shudder and tremble of her body as they whipped her to a frenzy while the vibrators inside her did their work, leaped in blazing detail into his mind. He had felt her tension, her lust, her aching desire to submit, to obey, to endure what they gave her. It had been almost as if he’d had a direct conduit into her heart and mind. They’d been connected in a way that had startled him. He’d said nothing about this to anyone, certainly not to John, instead just storing it away for contemplation when he was alone in his room that night.

He was, he knew, falling for this girl.
Falling hard.

Paul realized his cock had hardened at the memory of that scene. He shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. John and the other trainers were regarding him now with quizzical stares. Embarrassed, Paul lifted his glass and took another healthy swig of the brandy.

But Miriam wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. “Tell us more, Paul. Are you suggesting you have a special connection with this trainee? Something Master John hasn’t been able to tap into on his own?”

“No, I didn’t mean—”

“There might be something to that,” John interrupted in his calm, careful way. “She seems to respond with more authenticity when Paul is around, whether just as an observer or a participant. It could be he might have more success with her as her trainer.”

Miriam seemed to ponder this a moment. Then she slowly shook her head. “I don’t think that’s necessary, unless you’re unhappy with her, John?”

“No. I enjoy working with her. It’s a challenge to push past all the shields. And what she lacks in experience, she does make up for in enthusiasm.”

“Perhaps, especially now while he has no formal assignment, Paul could be an assistant.” She turned to Paul. “What do you think?”

“Oh, I, um, I’m not sure…” He trailed off, annoyed with himself for being so inarticulate.

Miriam leaned over and patted his arm, as if she were in on the turmoil of his thoughts. “Paul,” she said gently. “This isn’t about you. It’s about what’s best for Alexis. I’m sure that whatever feelings you might have for this
girl, you’re professional enough to keep them at bay, for her sake. Am I right?”

For the second time that night he felt his face heating, and only hoped the blush didn’t show beneath his tan. “Yes,” he said, forcing his voice to be firm.
“Of course, Miriam. Absolutely.”

~*~

Wendy poked her head into Alexis’s room. “It’s free time till nine o’clock. A couple of us are going down to the creek. Want to come?”

“Yeah.
That would be great.” Alexis closed the journal she’d been writing and slipped it under her pillow. Marta, Sam and Rachelle were waiting for them outside the slave quarters and they walked companionably together across the meadow, which was dappled with little pink and yellow wildflowers.

It was a lovely summer evening, the sky streaking with gold and royal blue as the sun lowered itself below the horizon. The staff trainers were ensconced in what Alexis had been told was their weekly after-dinner meeting with Mistress Miriam to review trainee progress and handle various administrative details.

Alexis had completed a week of her training. Each session was a new challenge, and though she still failed more than she succeeded, Master John never gave up on her. In between sessions, she attended what was called grace training, working on the standard slave positions, as well as learning how to move with grace and beauty. Various pure service duties were thrown in, usually with Marta in the slave quarter bathroom. Marta was teaching her how to do the waxing, a definite step up from cleaning the toilets.

Alexis felt more alive than she’d ever felt in her life. The concept of submission was no longer just a sexy game. It had gone far beyond the slap and tickle in which she’d
engaged at the BDSM clubs. She was, she thought happily, making progress. More than that, to her surprise she also found she was making friends.

She had gone straight from undergraduate school to earning an MBA, and then right into a CPA job that consumed forty to as much as eighty hours in a week, depending on tax season. As her twenties had sped by, she had, she was realizing now, rarely come up for air. This month-long vacation was a huge departure for her, and while she’d been afraid at first she wouldn’t be able to handle so much time away from the office, now she realized with a startled pang of surprise that she never wanted to go back.

She found herself able to open up with the other trainees and the staff slaves in a way she never would have dreamed of doing with other women, let alone men. Back in the city she had work friends she sometimes hung out with after hours, but there had never been a girlfriend with whom she had felt comfortable enough or safe enough to confide about what she used to think of as her “kink” and now was coming to realize was a lifestyle she wasn’t sure she could do without.

Marta spread a large picnic blanket over the soft grass while Sam set down a cooler filled with bottles of soda and beer. Rachelle and Alexis exchanged glances and grinned as they looked at the two trees where they’d been bound together for the predicament bondage session. Though it had only been a matter of days since that scene, Alexis felt like she’d come a long way in a short time. She wondered if Rachelle felt the same and made a mental note to talk it over with her when they were alone.

The five of them settled on the blanket, soothed by the sound of the burbling creek nearby. “This must have once been a working farm,” Rachelle remarked. “A horse farm, from the look of the buildings and pastures. The slave quarters used to be stables, I reckon. I grew up on a farm down in Arkansas.”

“You’re right,” Marta agreed. “Though the place hadn't been used for that purpose for years when Mistress Miriam bought the property.”

“I love old barns like that,” Rachelle said, waving her beer bottle toward the wooden structure. Its once red paint had faded to a pale pink, bleached by sun and age, and the huge old doors didn’t quite close, warped by time.

“They’ve actually fixed it up some inside,” Sam said. “There’s some play equipment in there, and even a little cot. It’s a great place to hide out when you need a little time alone.” This remark made Alexis wonder when or why Sam would ever feel the need to hide. He seemed so supremely comfortable with himself.

He didn’t elaborate, however, and she didn’t feel comfortable asking, so she turned instead to Wendy, who had stretched out next to her. “That ceremony the other night was really moving. Can I see the brand?”

“Sure.” Wendy rolled to a sitting position and spread her legs to give Alexis a better view of her inner thigh. Rachelle also leaned over to examine the small infinity sign. It was still a dark red, though it seemed to be healing well.

“Hoo wee!” Rachelle enthused. “That must have hurt like hell.”

“Not really.” Wendy ran her finger over the sideways 8. “I mean, yeah, it hurt, but I was so excited and hopped up on endorphins, and it was over so quick that I almost didn’t feel it.”

The sound of Wendy’s muted but agonized cry when the red hot metal burned into her skin echoed in Alexis’s mind, but she knew how the mind and body had a funny way of processing and remembering pain, and she didn’t think Wendy was pretending. For Wendy the memory of the experience was that it wasn’t so bad. And therefore it wasn’t. That was her reality.

“You and Master John must be so in love, Wendy, to do that ritual. It was like watching a marriage ceremony, only more intense, you know? Did you meet him here at The Compound?” Rachelle asked.

“Yes. He was my trainer, in fact. I fell in love with him pretty much from the minute we met, but he was a lot slower on the uptake.” She grinned an impish grin. “He’s very much one for protocol, and I had to petition to be his slave, even though my training was done and I’d signed on for permanent placement at The Compound, and everyone told me he was head over heels for me. But to tell you the truth, that just made me love him more. He completes me.” She frowned. “I don’t mean that in a co-dependent icky way. I mean that before I met him, I wasn’t fully alive, not all there, if that makes any sense. Belonging to him has made me whole.”

There was a collective sigh from the others, including Alexis. Would she ever find such a connection?

“So what’s your story, Sam?” Rachelle asked, interrupting Alexis’s musings, for which she was grateful. She wasn’t in the mood for a private personal pity party. “What brought you to The Compound? Did you train here?”

Sam reached for another bottle of beer. “I never did formally train here. I came at Mistress Miriam’s request. We knew each other on the outside.”

“How’d you meet?”

Alexis thought she saw a spasm of pain move over Sam’s usually sunny countenance, but then he smiled. Marta put her hand lightly on Sam’s shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze. He put his hand over hers but faced Rachelle with a smile. “She and my partner used to run a dungeon in the city. I worked there too, much in the capacity I do now in the training dungeon. When Miriam moved here to start The Compound, she sold her share of the business to us. We used to visit the place, especially that first year when she was just getting started.” He took a breath. “When my partner passed away three years back, she invited me to come here as a permanent staff slave. I sold the club for a nice sum and here I am.” He smiled again, though Alexis saw the pain still lingering behind his eyes.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Sam,” Rachelle said, putting her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ve accepted it. He was sick a long time—cancer. In the end it was better for him to go. I’ve made peace with it. He was the best thing I ever had, and more
than most folks ever get. I’m happy here. I’m good.” He took another long drink of his beer and said, “So turnabout is fair play. How about you, Rachelle? What brings you to The Compound? What are you seeking here?”

“What brings me is my fiancé, Michael Horton. When we get married we want a 24/7 Master-slave relationship, but he says I need more training than he can give me.” She laughed without a trace of chagrin. “We heard about this program and he got busy helping me write my application. The second I got accepted he packed me up and shipped me off.” She shrugged, though she was still smiling. “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m having the time of my life here. It’s so
intense,
you know? But so hot, too. Master Clarence is fantastic. I’m thinking I need to get Mike’s ass up here too. He could learn a thing or two about being a Master from Master Clarence!”