The Slave (47 page)

“
Yes, isn’t it? Signal whip. As in,
‘On you huskies, mush!’ and all that jazz.”

“
It makes noise?”

“
Like a gunshot.” Monica crossed the
room, silver chains jangling around one western boot ankle. She
took the whip from Robin’s hands, let it uncurl, and then made a
strange motion that Robin wouldn’t have associated with such a
whip: she seemed to throw it, like a ball.

It did indeed make a loud crack that
resounded in the room. Robin jumped. “Impressive, isn’t it? It
wants to be hung up.” She passed it back, and Robin dutifully hung
it on one of the hooks inside the closet door.

“
You never used anything like that on
me, ma’am,” Robin casually remarked, continuing the
unpacking.

“
No. For one, you’ve never made me
angry enough to want to genuinely punish you. For two, I don’t
think you could take it in a way that would amuse me or get me hot.
It’s a mean mother of a whip. I tend to use it mostly on boys.
They’ve got the back and shoulder development that’s best suited
for the trauma, I think.”

You’d be surprised at what I
can take
,
Robin thought. But she didn’t give voice to that impertinent
comment and concentrated instead on putting Monica’s things away.
“I’m glad I’ve never gotten you that angry,” she finally
offered.

Monica laughed in response and stretched. “I
think I’ll go cook in the Jacuzzi for a while, sugar. When you’re
finished, come down and give me a nice massage, will you?”

“
It will be my pleasure,
ma’am!”

“
You know, sugar, from you, I almost
believe that.”

Oh, but it is a
pleasure
,
Robin thought as Monica left the room.
To be able to touch all of your body,
to rub oil into your skin and make you moan and sigh. It’s better
than having sex, because then you’re still paying attention to me.
But when I touch you and press into you, you just melt away and let
it happen and for minutes at a time...

For minutes at a
time
―you
belong to me.

Blasphemous. Shocking!

But true.

It didn’t matter, though. Later on, Monica
would take herself back and make sure that Robin would feel nothing
but the sensation of being owned and used. Things would be in
balance again. The pallet was already at the foot of the bed, the
restraints ready at hand and Monica’s favorite paddle on the
bedstand.

Another weekend in paradise.

But that night, Monica got a phone call that
sent her running to find Jimmy. The two of them went into his
office, and the sounds of work started to emerge. Robin looked over
to Carl, but he could only shrug in confusion. Eric was home, but
he only dropped into the office from time to time, seeming to check
on the proceedings but leaving the situation in Jimmy’s hands.

Carl served coffee and sandwiches, but had
nothing new to report when he got back.

And in the hours after midnight, when Monica
emerged, all she did was call up an order to pack her overnight bag
and get the car ready. As Robin repacked all the things she had
happily unpacked that morning, she kissed the perfect weekend
good-bye. When she took the bag downstairs and gave it to Muscledog
to take out to the car, Monica was standing by the kitchen doors,
hastily drinking a cup of coffee and checking her watch.

“
I... I hope everything is all right,
ma’am,” Robin offered.

Monica turned, and smiled. “It sure is,
sugar. Here.” She passed the cup into Robin’s hands and wiped her
lips with the back of her hand. “You go take care of that. I’ll be
back soon. Be good!”

And with a whirl and a jangling sound, she
was out of there, running to the car. Robin stood with the cup in
her hands until Raul coughed a warning. Then, with a start, she
went into the kitchen to dispose of it.

When she came out, Jimmy and Eric were on
the upstairs landing, conferring. She waited politely until Eric
went back to the master bedroom and Jimmy ducked back into his
downstairs office to go to her own room to sleep. Carl was waiting
on Jimmy, Muscledog was driving to the airport, and Raul probably
had gone off to be with Eric.

It was the first time she could recall going
to sleep alone. But since she couldn’t even begin to imagine what
the crisis or excitement was all about, she only mourned the lack
of Monica’s company and went to sleep.

* * * *

The following morning, Eric and Jimmy did
something that they almost never did.

They turned the TV on.

And then, after an hour of watching the
news, they turned it off and went back to business as usual. Carl
shrugged, his face a mask of confusion. They had been watching the
clock all morning, and nothing had been said about the commotion
the night before. Muscledog mentioned to Robin that in the entire
drive to the airport, Monica hadn’t said one word, only listened to
the radio and looked out the window.

It took three more mornings before the
expected incident happened.

At ten o’clock that morning, a regular
news broadcast was interrupted with a “just breaking” story about a
scandal concerning two or more senators and a consortium of banks
and investment agencies in the southwest. Robin glanced at Jimmy.
His eyes were narrow with concentration, but his lips were
compressed into a smile. She was firmly pushed back toward the
stairs by Raul, whose patience seemed totally unrealistic now;
didn’t he want to know what was happening? But she obeyed, slowly,
taking her time to mount the stairs. To her surprise, she had
barely reached the landing when Jimmy’s voice reached her―in fact,
resounding throughout the ground floor.

“
Yes!” It was followed by his laughter, and
then a whole string of “Yes, yes, yes!” until Eric shushed
him.

Well, whatever it was, it was good. Robin
went into her office sure that she’d find out what it was all about
later.

She began to find out during her first call
to New York. Everyone was talking about it. It was going to be a
major problem for the president, because prominent members of his
own party were involved. It had also hit the market badly, with
money shifting around like mad to remove it from the spheres
surrounding the implicated fiduciary institutions. It was another
Iran/Contra, another BCCI scandal.

Robin knew at once how it affected her
owners. Jimmy had done extensive business with some of the banks in
the middle of the mess. She didn’t find out until later how much he
had pulled back in the past year, all based on Monica’s
suggestions. And then, three nights ago, she had done him a final,
invaluable service by giving him the ultimate insider information,
that the scandal would break sometime this week.

“
That is so illegal,” Robin gasped,
when Carl filled her in.

“
In a way, yes, but in another way,
no,” Carl shrugged. “If she were a member of some justice
department, and she got the information during the investigation,
yes, it would be. But she was just making an educated guess. Her
sources told her about the time. All they knew was that something
big and nasty was brewing. She already knew that these idiots were
gliding on thin currents. She was the one who guessed that it was
probably the sound of their crash.”

“
What if she had been
wrong?”

“
We would have lost a little chunk of
money and a lot of good will with the bad guys. Jimmy figured, what
the hell. If Monica was right, they’d take a fall
anyway.”

“
How did he do it?”

“
Hey, he’s the genius, not me. I know
he made lots of calls. And you know what the best thing about this
is? Jimmy’s clients don’t know about Monica. All they’re gonna know
is that he advised pulling out months ago, gradually cut down on
his connections with these people, and then pulled out just in
time. They’re gonna think he’s a god.” Carl was exhausted, but
happy for his master. “Saved again, by the brilliant talents of a
financial wizard.”

“
And the information of a good
friend,” Robin added.

“
Oh yeah, that too.” But he winked to
show he was just pulling her leg, and they went back to their
work.

It was true that Jimmy basked in the
compliments and increased business that followed. Robin half
expected Federal agents to arrive and arrest him, but nothing of
that sort ever happened. Either the money wasn’t big enough, the
incident wasn’t important enough, or Carl was right and the action
wasn’t technically illegal.

Robin wasn’t much surprised when Jimmy told
her to get “something nice” as a gift for Monica. “Something nice”
in the price range of seventeen to twenty thousand dollars.

“
That’s what I call a nice gift,” she
giggled to the boys that night. Muscledog whistled and looked
impressed.

“
Well, get this, girl,” Carl replied.
“Jimmy figured that Monica’s advice saved him and his clients over
five million dollars in the short run. And the new clients he’s
picked up since then, and the new accounts from the old ones? We’re
talking huge, huge numbers here. He’s just taking some of the cream
off the sides of the bottle for this gift.”

Robin blinked. Somehow, she had never
given much thought to how much money Jimmy handled. And although in
her old life she knew many people who would consider such amounts
the mark of a small business (hell, she’d been at auctions where
minimum bids started in the millions), she was still
impressed.

That night, she tried to estimate how much
money her owners had invested in their slaves. Even though she
still had no idea how much money she had gone for, she knew that
she was due a specific amount when her new contract ended―should
she decide not to continue.

Adding percentages onto that amount to
figure out the value of Raul and estimating that Muscledog was
worth more because of his build, she started coming up with big
numbers. And granted that Carl was purchased six years ago, his
experience added to his value. Now, add room and board and medical
care, and the fact that only two of the slaves really replaced
people who would be paid a full time salary, given the amount of
work really needed to run the house and take care of the two
men.

It was definitely not the
picture that Chris had painted for her, of a family slave whose
work was necessary to keep a business running.
But it was sure nice to belong
to rich people
, she reflected.
It just adds to the security. I have a good life.
I do.

The next day, Jimmy told her to cancel the
search for the gift. “She says she doesn’t want anything that’ll
sit in her house and catch dust while she’s away,” he said to
Robin, who was not used to getting explanations. “Can you imagine?
I decided to send ten thousand dollars to this little AIDS clinic
in Washington and tell ’em it’s in her name. What do you think?
She’ll like it?”

Robin blinked, thought fast, and said, “Sir,
would you consider a different type of donation?”

“
More money? Do they need it that
badly? Or does it sound cheap?”

“
Well, no sir, it’s very generous. But
Ms. Monica once told me that, um, her mother died of breast cancer,
sir. And that she was thinking of endowing a new research chair in
her name, but she hadn’t raised all the money yet.”

“
How the hell do you know that?” Jimmy
grinned. “Pillow talk?”

Robin blushed, but nodded.

Jimmy nodded. “Good thinking, Robin. I’ll
take care of it.”

And Robin basked in the warm feelings that
ran through her. Monica might be a little annoyed at the
presumption, but she would have to be pleased when Jimmy and Eric’s
donation came through.

Eric scoffed a little, although not
seriously. “Now, wait a minute, doesn’t this seem a little
unnatural to you? Fags raising money to fight breast cancer! I
mean, what’s next? Lesbians doing their thing for prostate
cancer?”

“
Well, they’re sure working their
butts off for AIDS,” Jimmy countered. “Let’s set a trend for a
change. Look―you even get to wear a pink ribbon.”

Eric naturally didn’t fight for long, and
Monica was overwhelmed by the surprise donation to her fund. She
thanked them with flowers and kisses over the phone, but told them
that she couldn’t make it back to California for several weeks; she
was busy in DC.

And when she did make it, they gave her a
real hero’s welcome, with Raul outdoing himself in the kitchen and
a houseful of friends who didn’t quite know the whole story but
were glad of another opportunity to party and listen to all the
insider news of the nation’s capital.

And Robin found herself soundly spanked and
thoroughly ravished that night, as though Monica was trying to make
up for the last aborted evening they should have had.

With her bottom still sore, and her thighs
still wet, she lay cuddled in Monica’s arms, breathing together
with her, until the sweat began to dry from their bodies. Then, she
pulled away, went to the bathroom, and came back with a warm, damp
washcloth and wiped Monica’s body down until she purred. It had
become a regular event, this after-sex wipe-down, and they both
enjoyed it.

When she came back, she knelt on the floor
and laid her cheek against the mattress so that Monica could easily
touch her. Monica instantly did, running one manicured hand over
Robin’s head and stroking her hair.