Carrie's Story: An Erotic S/M Novel (20 page)

I remembered then that it would definitely hold a whipping for me. At 10:00, Margot had said. Actually, she had said
a whipping and a punishment, and while I could hope she
hadn't spoken clearly, that the whipping rs'a; the punishment,
really I knew better. There was no clock in the room, so I
didn't know what time it was, but from the look of the bright
sunlight, I figured 10:00 wasn't that far away.

The doorknob rattled, and a slender young woman
dressed as a maid, or a nurse, or maybe a nun, entered.
I lowered my eyes quickly, so I didn't really get to look at
her face, but I think she was pretty, sweet-faced, about my age. Her very simple, uniform-like dress and coif-like head
covering were white, and she also wore a large white apron,
and I could see the handle of the ever-present whip sticking
out of the apron's pocket. She carried a white china chamber
pot and had a towel draped over her arm. Putting the chamber pot between my legs, she pointed downward. I squatted
and peed, and then she wiped me very gently with the towel,
which was warm and slightly damp. Then she left, to return
in a few minutes with a pan of gruel-like food, a saucer of
water, and another towel. She put them on a low table in the
corner of the room. Then she unchained me from the bed and
attached my hands together behind me.

She gestured to the table. I figured that I was supposed
to kneel down and lap the food and water, so I did. It tasted
dull and nourishing, but not bad. I mean, I guess that people
don't become sex slaves for the cuisine, and at least this was
recognizable people food, a healthy rice cereal. If it was any
indication of how I'd be eating here, I figured they'd be giving
me tofu for dinner (I was right, too). After I finished, she
wiped my face with the second towel.

The morning continued silently. There was a little bathroom-also all white-off my room. She removed my collar
and cuffs, placed my hands at the nape of my neck, and helped
me into the big, claw-footed tub, where she gently scrubbed
and rinsed me, then helped me out and dried me. She cut my
nails, rubbed some nice oil into my skin. She even brushed my
teeth. I liked it all, this Elizabeth Arden treatment. I knew the
point was to treat me like an object, hopefully an expensive one.
It wasn't bad. A woman had designed this system, I thought.

After the maid had dried me off, she led me back into
the bedroom, to a sunny spot by the window. She put the collar and cuffs back on, and hooked my hands behind my
neck again. Then she gently pushed me down, by the shoulders, to a kneeling position. While she quickly made the bed
and tidied up a little, I found myself trying to adopt the position Margot had commanded last night. The maid stroked my
cheek and very softly kissed me on the forehead. Then she
left the room. Her footsteps were silent, and the door barely
clicked as she shut it behind her.

I stayed quite still for the next ten minutes or so, just waiting,
making sure my back was arched, legs open, chin up, eyes
facing downward. I tried to breathe very slowly and deeply,
practicing what I had learned in yoga class. And I tried to
enjoy this momentary physical well-being and not to worry
about what was to come. Yeah, right. But the breathing did
help. Even if I was emotionally agitated, my body and some
important part of my spirit were relaxed and ready.

Finally, I heard a sound at the door, and the bright, quiet
little space became very busy as Paul and Margot strode in,
both still dressed in black. They sure could fill up a room.
Paul carried a leather satchel and a big, professional-looking camera. Margot also had a satchel and her laptop. They
parked their equipment on the little table and jerked me to
my feet. Together, they commenced a brusque yet very
meticulous inspection of) ust about every part of me, poking,
prodding, shoving.

"It says in her file," Paul remarked, "that she's always
got those shadows under her eyes. It's okay; I like it. I'll light
the room to play it up. I'll depend on you, though," turning to
Margot, "for the right expression on her face."

Margot just nodded thoughtfully. Then she turned to
me.

"Slave," she said, "stand against that wall. Best Posture.
Hands behind your neck. Elbows wide apart. Legs slightly
apart and pelvis angled forward."

While I tried to follow her instructions, feeling my
breasts lift as I spread my elbows, Paul turned on some very
bright lights that were mounted on the wall across from me.
He fiddled with a bank of knobs and switches (they were in
a little box, also mounted on the wall), adjusting the angle
and brightness of the lights. I had just about gotten myself
arranged in a position I thought Margot would like, when she
called, "And you can raise your eyes. Look straight at me."

Paul began to shoot photographs, feeling his way
through subtle variations in angles and lighting. Meanwhile,
Margot carelessly said to me, "Oh yes, and I've forgotten to
tell you your punishment. For slowness to obey and talking
out of turn yesterday. You'll be displayed in the staff cafeteria
tonight at dinner. Swing shift will have you for dessert."

Paul snapped another picture, and Margot shot me a selfsatisfied look. Clever bitch. I guess my ill-concealed surprise
and outrage had been what they'd wanted all along.

"That's it," he called, jubilantly. "Super, Margot. On the
bed, slave, hands and knees." And Margot added, "And no
more looking us in the face."

I hurried onto the bed, while he got a set of straps out of
his satchel. Very quickly and expertly, he trussed my wrists to
my ankles, so that my ass was correctly angled at him. A few
more straps, and I was immobile on the bed. He had brought a
real gag this time, thick padded material, that tied at the back
of my head. Then he took out a last strap, doubled it, went into the bathroom, and held it under the water for a while,
stiffening the leather. Then he dried off the excess water and
started his meticulously placed, hard strokes. It hurt more
than Jonathan's cane. I wept, choked, and gurgled behind
the gag. Thank god I couldn't move. There weren't that
many strokes, however, though I could feel when they crisscrossed each other, no doubt the dark welts creating a most
impressive cross-hatching effect. At least, Margot thought so,
helping unstrap me and affectionately telling Paul, "You do
good work."

They could see that I was pretty teary-eyed and knocked
out by the whipping, so they just dragged me to the wall and
attached my wrist cuffs over my head to the chain I'd been
attached to the previous night. Working very quickly and
well together, they got the bed out of the way, readjusted the
lights, and prodded me into the right position. This was an
easy one for Paul, I guess, since he didn't have to worry about
my facial expression in this rearview shot. He even kept the
gag on, partly, I think, so they wouldn't have to listen to me,
but certainly for documentary effect as well. It all went very
quickly. Then he ungagged me, packed all his equipment, and
hurried out, leaving me with Margot.

She unchained me and freed my hands. "Kneel up at my
feet," she told me, and I did, while she typed some more into
her computer. I kept my eyes focused on her hands. Finally
she closed the cover. Her hands were folded in her lap and I
could feel her eyes on me.

"We take care of you slaves in several ways here," she
began. "First of all, we prepare for the auction by getting all
your information together for the big, glossy catalog we produce for potential buyers. That's whyyou're here for five days; that's how long it takes us to put it together and get it printed
up. We've got your photographs now and they'll weigh and
measure you at the gym later, and that's about it-I think we
know just about everything we need to know about you.

"And of course we feed you and keep you clean, rested,
exercised, and fucked. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that
anybody who comes to your room to fuck you is your master
or mistress, to be obeyed completely. And of course you'll
obey the trainers in our gym just as completely. You'll be
working out for two and a half hours every day. It's really
pretty businesslike, and slaves don't usually disobey the
trainers, probably any more than Cher or Madonna does.
See that you're good, though, because of course you could be
punished if you don't cooperate fully.

"Other than that, though, this is a display center. Buyers
come here to check you out. They can schedule visits to
your room, but mostly they do their shopping in the Garden.
Which is where you're going next. You don't really need to
know more than that. Actually, you don't really need to know
that, and I'll be explaining why in a minute. Well, what do
you say to me?"

I murmured my appreciation, not forgetting to address
her as "Mistress," and she continued. "Now, let's talk about
punishment. We are constrained, of course, in our choice of
punishments because we want you to be relatively unmarked
when you're sent to the auction. So exposure and humiliation
are what we use."

She reached into her satchel, and pulled out two neatly
lettered, laminated cardboard placards. They each said
SLOW TO OBEY/TALKED OUT OF TURN, and she attached one
in front and the other in back, so they dangled from the rings in my collar. "You'll wear these inside our staff areas all
day," she said, "so that any staff member who happens to see
you will know that you're to be among the slaves displayed
this evening. It's up to them how they use you. Sometimes
they squabble over the slaves they want the most, and sometimes they design group games. It's a good punishment, but
it makes life difficult for me, because I have to modify your
routine online. And since every time a buyer wants extra
time with you there's a systemwide ripple effect-fuzzy
logic and all-the extra modifications are no fun. So don't
make me have to punish you again." She slapped me on the
cheek.

"No, Nistress," I said clearly. "I won't, Mistress."

And then she reached into her satchel and took out a
small bracelet, which she buckled snugly onto my left wrist.
It was made of soft leather, and I could feel wires embedded
in its underside. She opened her laptop and pressed a key,
and I felt a small set of prickles from the bracelet's wires, as
though the points of many tiny pins were being stuck into the
inside of my wrist. I guessed it was a buzz from the wires, the
mildest possible electric shock, but somehow encoded to feel
sharp, metallic rather than electrical.

"This will alert you to get to your next station," she said.
"No, you won't know where it is. You'll have to consult one
of the Arguses," and she led me to a small computer screen
mounted in the wall of my room, near the door.

"You wave this stud on the bracelet over the little light,"
she said, holding my wrist and doing it for me. I heard that
crabby little computer disk reading sound, somewhere
between a click and a postnasal drip, and the screen lit up,
showing me a schematic map of myself and my surroundings, with arrows pointing me where to go next. It was actually
pretty clear, at least in direction, though I didn't know where
I'd be when I got there.

"We have lots of these," she said, "two hundred and
fifty-six of them, actually. So you can't get too lost, and of
course we can always find you. But the signal at your wrist
will become a little stronger in five minutes, so you'll want to
hurry. When you get to where you're going, you can log in at
the Argus, and then the signal will stop. Until, of course, it's
time for you to move on."

"Well," she said, "I think you'd better go. But what do
you say, slave?"

The bracelet's prickles got just a little sharper as I
thanked her again, as though slightly bigger needles were
going just slightly farther into my flesh. I waved it over the
Argus again, to review the directions, and then I hurried in
the direction the screen described to me. I was going down
a long corridor, past purposeful people, some naked, some
clothed, everybody, it seemed, going somewhere fast. Some
of the people with clothes on looked appreciatively at the
signs hanging from my collar. As I hurried to the Garden, I
tried not to think of what that would mean for me that evening.

The diagram on the Argus screen had been pretty schematic, but quite adequate and accurate. Out of my little room,
quite a ways to the left down a long corridor, a little way more
to the right, through a door, and then into a large open space,
maybe halfway into the center. Just before I got to the door
of the large open space, the pinpricks from my bracelet got
a notch sharper. This time it was really painful, but I almost didn't notice, I was so amazed to see what there was through
the large open door.

It was astonishing. A huge, beautiful, domed area, maybe
twice as big, I guessed, as one of those big domed baseball
stadiums. Fountains, large potted trees, beautifully raked
gravel paths and many, many flowers. It didn't pretend to be
outdoors; there wasn't Astroturf or anything on the groundmostly beautifully colored tiles and gravel, ivy and some
hardy succulents growing in shallow beds. But there was a
lot of green, considering, and running water, streams and
little waterfalls, and small hills and winding paths through
miniature arbors. The dome was made of sinuous art deco
ironwork, like the boulevard Saint-Michel Metro station, and
through its huge glass panels you could see that cold blue-gray
northern winter sky, contrasting with the balmy temperature
within. This was the Garden, I guessed, but I had to think
of it as a pleasure dome, decorated with fairy lights and the
naked and sometimes adorned bodies of the slaves scattered
throughout it.

A security guard was standing at the door looking bored.
"Log in at the Argus," he said, and after I did, he took the
signs off my collar. "You don't wear these for the rich people,"
he said, "but you're in trouble if you don't get them back from
me after you do your thing in there. And hurry up," he said,
shoving me through the door.