Slave Wife (2 page)

Karen thought her parents should be ecstatic at their only child attracting the attention of a rich, handsome man. For days, she’d watched them trying to be enthusiastic about her impending date.

Her mother had spent one entire Saturday walking the many miles of the massive Mall of America with her and Delia trying to find just the right dress. They’d finally chosen black velvet with a wide skirt and a beaded bodice. Though from Donna Karan’s lower priced line, it was still far more than they could easily afford. Delia could not stop talking about how beautiful the dress looked on Karen and with each comment even more colour climbed into Karen’s usually rosy cheeks. She felt so elegant and adult in the dress – too grown up, too revealing, her mother had complained before she acquiesced.

Karen sat primly on the flowered sofa’s dented surface, her ankles crossed, her hands clasped in her lap, her parents hovering nearby, everyone waiting for him – Michael, he’d said to call him – to arrive. She peered from one face to the other. Yes, something strange was definitely below the surface. But she was way too excited to think about it now.

The loud bell her father had installed to ring throughout the house and in the barn almost made her jump to the ceiling. Her father motioned her to remain seated and went to the door. She heard his voice rumble, “Hello Mr. … erhmm, Michael. Please come in.” She had a fleeting awareness of her father’s tension before he ushered Michael into the small, dark, old-fashioned living room – suddenly so dowdy and insignificant – and she could think of nothing else.

Frenzied butterflies flew through her stomach as she tried to muster the nerve to look at him. He was so handsome! Even with no experience, she could tell his dark suit was perfectly cut for his tall, masculine frame. An unruly lock of hair fell into his velvety eyes and he abstractedly pushed it away with one large, perfectly manicured hand as he regarded – examined? – her. Suddenly she felt awkward and unsure of her appearance, even of her new dress.

“Shall we go?” He extended his hand and lifted her to her feet. She thought she saw a line form and as quickly disappear between his brows. His fingers moved, circling her elbow. She winced and jerked, inadvertently struggling to escape his metallic grip but he held her fast. She stopped still, surprised, and though his fingers remained on her elbow he immediately relaxed his grip.

Now he smiled down at her and she felt something entirely new, something hitherto outside her reality. She paused to put on her pink down jacket – her only coat and winter was cold in
Minnesota
. With his help, she slipped into the bulky sleeves and pulled the soft fluffy garment around her. The coat seemed somehow symbolic. She felt bathed in warmth and security far greater than ever before, far greater than her parents had ever given her. The very air formed an intoxicating fog around her, sparkling with silvery, sultry succour as Michael firmly propelled her to his long black limousine waiting on the farmhouse’s gravel drive.

 
Michael’s chauffeur – who wasn’t uniformed but looked like the pictures she’d seen of secret service agents in sleek dark suits and plastic earpieces – held the car door. Karen tried to climb daintily into the back seat. But despite her cheerleader’s agility she’d not been educated to finesse. The coat’s inflexible fabric pulled at her limbs from every direction and the dress bunched over her thighs. For many miserable seconds she strained to make her movements graceful, until she landed on the soft leather with an ungainly thump. She hoped he hadn’t seen but knew he had. Her eyes fixed on the floor and her cheeks flamed red.

Silence settled around her. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, felt far too self-conscious, but strangely didn’t think she needed to. Instead her senses seemed transfigured, tingling with enchantment. The seat’s dark leather was lush under her open palm. Its rich fragrance mixed with the illusive notes of Michael’s shadowy cologne, drenching her being. She realized she couldn’t hear, or even feel, the gravel crunch beneath the car wheels. Hushed and tranquil luxury became all there was.

After several minutes she realized he was looking at her. Timidly she raised her eyes. His next words sounded kind but they filled her with shame. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I’m afraid I can’t take you to the restaurant in that dress,” he fingered the pink microfiber and shook his head disapprovingly, “or that coat. We’ll have to find you something else to wear.” He pushed a button on a nearby, faintly lit panel. “George, please call Emeline and tell her we’re on our way.”

Humiliation overwhelmed her. Now she saw herself as she must look in his eyes – a poor, unsophisticated and no doubt coarse schoolgirl. Her happy fairytale fantasies dissolved. Her cheeks flamed crimson and hot. Jangled nerves surged from their hiding place just beneath her surface. Her heart thumped in her ears. Her stomach knotted and she was afraid she’d be sick. What was happening? Where were they going? Who was Emeline? And most important, what could he possibly want from her?

Michael seemed so capable – so able to take care of her. She’d been glad of his control but underneath, in places she hadn’t wanted to see, it also worried her. Now, though, something new, something incomprehensible, was happening. Her life no longer seemed her own and she had no idea where events were taking her. She was afraid to question or complain. But when through the tinted glass she saw the apparition of
Minneapolis
, no she realized,
St. Paul
’s scintillating skyline rise out of the night sky, she dared ask, “Are we going downtown?” Her own voice sounded insubstantial and as timid as a tiny grey field mouse.

Michael simply patted her hand. In the city light, faint through the tinted windows, she thought she saw his lips curl upward.

A silent half hour later the long limo pulled around an illuminated pool, surrounded with greenery even in mid-winter, to a stop under the covered entrance of the splendid old Saint Paul Hotel. A doorman, resplendent in the hotel’s elaborate, arcane uniform, stepped smartly forward to open the door. Michael stretched his long legs and slid dexterously from the car. He extended his hand to Karen. Shyly but gratefully she laid her hand in his and he helped her out.

Despite spending her entire seventeen and a half years within forty miles of the twin cities, Karen had never been this close to the
Saint Paul
. And her family would never have dared step inside. She was dying to look at everything, beginning with the dense ivy, sparkling under a light dusting of snow, which climbed far up the venerable yellow brick walls and to which Michael seemed utterly oblivious. Again, his strong fingers gripped her elbow – she felt their pressure even through the thick down – as he shepherded her through the glass doors into the lobby.

The warm, flower-scented air struck her face. She abruptly halted, staring at the heavy golden marble columns and the massive old-fashioned chandeliers, their hundreds of tiny, cascading pieces of cut crystal held together by gilded tendrils … for the instant he allowed before he again drove her forward to the bank of elevators.

The scrolled letters engraved into the bronze plaque on the wide penthouse doorway said “The Ordway Suite.” Karen could not believe what was on the door’s other side. Never in her life had she been in a place this grand – except some of the period rooms on the third floor of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts that she’d visited with her class. She had no idea the style of the suite’s furniture and decorations in polished wood, crystal and gold, only that they looked wonderful and unbelievably expensive.

But it was the woman she found most astonishing … and disturbing. Karen guessed she was 25 though worldly in a way Karen didn’t understand. She was model thin with flawless white skin and a smooth helmet of brown hair so dark it was almost black, cut to her upright shoulders and groomed with geometric precision. She wore a black dress that startled Karen with its impeccable, immaculate simplicity – how could anyone be so wrinkle free? Karen wondered – and shining black pumps with impossibly tall stiletto heels. Her lipstick and fingernails were the colour of red wine.

She glided toward Michael with long yet exquisitely feminine strides. “Bonjour, Michael.” Her voice was just slightly throaty and she pronounced the name almost but not quite like “Michel”. Michael released Karen’s elbow to press the woman’s slim arms between his hands. She kissed him full on the mouth and Karen first felt a hot, irrational surge of jealousy, then a little anger that she immediately squelched.

Finally, it was fear that stayed with her. Michael must have planned this in advance. Who was this woman and what did they want with her? Did they want her to participate in kinky sex? She acknowledged the fear but pushed it away. No one really did those things, did they?

At long last, or so it seemed to Karen, the woman disengaged. She and Michael smiled intimately at each other as if at some private, exclusionary joke. She turned toward Karen. “Hello, I am Emeline.” She pulled Karen toward her and kissed each cheek, letting her fingers linger on Karen’s shoulder. Back to Michael, “I see what you mean.” She lifted a long lock of Karen’s hair and rubbed it between her fingers. “We can fix this.”

Karen nervously accepted Emeline’s help to remove the pink jacket. To Karen’s great chagrin, Emeline’s beautiful dark eyes widened at the sight of her new dress. “Oh la la.” She shook her head. “Michael, I cannot possibly completely make her over tonight.”

Relief and renewed excitement washed over Karen. Now she understood what was happening – and it could be really fun. Would Michael buy her new clothes? Momentarily she thought ashamedly of her dress. But then her mind whirled enthusiastically on, until the next moment when Emeline said, “Karen, please remove your clothing.”

Karen’s face flushed and her eyes jumped frantically to Michael, who smiled complaisantly back at her, and then back to Emeline. “I … I …” she stammered.

Emeline smiled at Michael then took Karen’s hand. Karen became uncomfortably conscious of the rough calluses on her palm rubbing against the French woman’s soft, silken skin. “We’ll go into the bedroom.”

Karen could sense Michael’s eyes on her back as she accompanied Emeline. Her muscles ached with the tension of his scrutiny. She was afraid he would follow but he didn’t. Emeline led her through the glass doors and released the window coverings, obscuring the bedroom from Michael’s view.

“Now please …” Emeline stopped, her regard caught at Karen’s feet. “Oh Cherie! Where did you find those shoes?” Karen was relieved that Emeline clearly didn’t need an answer. She did not want to tell her she’d bought the shiny black “evening” pumps on sale for fifteen dollars at a discount shoe store in the Mall. “Please, take them off quickly and then the dress.” When Karen stepped out of her shoes, Emeline gingerly picked each up between two fingers and rapidly deposited it in a small leather-covered trash bin.

Shyly, Karen reached behind and unzipped her dress, then, under Emeline’s intent and disconcerting gaze, slowly lowered it and stepped out. At once the bits of padding at her waist, her behind, her thighs, overwhelmed her awareness.

But the so slim woman didn’t comment. Instead she said, “Oh my dear, where did you get those awful stockings and that underwear?”

Once again – so many times now – colour rushed into Karen’s cheeks. That her lacy pink polyester underwear was inadequate had never occurred to her. In fact, she didn’t understand why it was. She’d thought it was pretty when she’d bought it at Wal-Mart, the giant store that supplied everything from food to hunting supplies to small towns throughout the
U.S.
And stockings, pantyhose actually, were stockings, weren’t they?

Emeline sadly shook her head. Her hair swung like a heavy velvet curtain as she plied her long legs to a lovely arched armoire adjacent to the four poster bed. “Fortunately I came prepared.” When she returned to Karen, she held several gauzy cream items in her fingers. “I think you’ll find these much more pleasurable.”

Karen saw that Emeline expected her to strip right then and there. The woman’s aggressive intention exerted tremendous pressure on Karen to do so. Karen began to unhook her bra, still facing Emeline. She paused. No. She just couldn’t do it. She turned her back, removed the pink bra and replaced it with soft cream lace. It was a little tight. Her small C-cup breasts bulged over the low cups and she could feel the band cutting into the flesh at back and shoulders.

With excruciating self-consciousness she pulled off the pantyhose – which Emeline immediately removed from her view, into the trash Karen was certain – and lowered her panties. The cream lace panties were definitely too small, she discovered when she pulled them up. She could wear them but they cut into her behind and her belly bulged over the top. Far worse, her pubic hair escaped their high cut leg openings. She tried to push it in but it wouldn’t stay.

When Karen lifted the stockings, she realized with dismay that they were real stockings and that a garter belt was with them. She’d never worn a garter belt and had no idea how one worked. What should she do? She stared at them in her hands for an interminable period. Finally she didn’t think she could wait longer. She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know how to put these on,” she said, feeling totally uncultured and ashamed.

Thankfully, Emeline was kind. “Let me help you.” Karen had previously been too nervous to notice Emeline’s perfume. Now its subtle fragrance struck and captivated her as the woman came close behind. What was different about it? She tried unsuccessfully to define its distinction from the scents her mother and her friends bought – only knew she’d never smelled perfume so gently intoxicating.