“And your eyes, they’re light and beautiful. When they fix on me I feel frightened and warmed at once.” She paused. “I loved the way you took your tie off by the door. Not because it made you seem more human, but because you seemed as godlike as ever, doing casual everyday things.”
Ah, but he’d forgotten that she was an artist, with an artist’s whimsy. “Godlike, Valentina?” he echoed, bemused.
“Yes. And there are many more things I admire in you, too many to name. I suppose that’s why I’m here.”
“Very flattering words. You’re wonderful company to have around. I look forward with great pleasure to the remainder of our—” Experiment. He almost said experiment for some reason, then he caught himself and substituted “engagement.” He smiled at her but she didn’t smile back.
“Will I get any breaks?” she asked, twirling her last stalk of asparagus on her fork.
He glared at her hand until she stopped. “No, you’re my slave. You don’t get breaks. And you’ll use proper table manners or you’ll eat from a dog dish on the floor. Sit up straight and stop playing with your food.”
She picked up her knife and started slicing what was left on her plate into numerous tiny pieces. So, so tempting to go for the dog dish.
“Can I earn a break with good behavior?” she asked when her chicken and asparagus were diced and sorted into separate piles.
He took her plate and removed it to the other side of the table. “No. But these silly questions have just earned you another assfucking against the contract wall. Eventually this will sink in. You are my slave. You belong to me from now until February 14th.” Valentine’s Day. He’d only just thought about that now. “Do you have any other questions?”
She stared across the table at her plate. He wouldn’t have taken it if he didn’t believe she’d eaten enough. Well, perhaps he would have.
“No, Master,” she said in a defeated voice. “I don’t have any more questions.”
She looked down at the mahogany table top while he finished eating. Poor, sad slave. “Sit up straight,” he murmured when she started to sag. “It’s only twenty-nine more days.”
She glanced sideways at him. He watched her throat work, heard the faint sniffles she tried to hide. He knew she was given to theatrics, but he didn’t think these were theatrics.
“It’s not as fun as you thought, is it?” He reached out and touched her hand where it rested in her lap. “Perhaps some nipple clamps would make it more fun?”
She looked up at him with such dread, such agony that he felt sorry for a moment.
Only a moment.
“Take a deep breath, Valentina, and stop crying. I can’t eat while you’re crying.”
She blinked through tears. “I thought you enjoyed making your slaves cry.”
“I do.” He took her hand and placed it over his hardening cock. “That’s exactly my point. If you don’t stop crying, I’ll have to carry you off and fuck you, and I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
She lifted the napkin out of her lap and mopped it over her face in a breach of etiquette that normally would have resulted in some scolding words. Well, it was day two. There was such a thing as pushing too far.
“I think you can go back to work on Wednesday,” he said once she’d composed herself. “You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”
“Yes, Master. I don’t want to fall out of shape.”
“Oh, you’re getting exercise. Just not the usual muscles.”
Galvin entered and poured coffee for both of them. “Go ahead,” he said when she looked to him for permission. “If you think it won’t keep you awake later.”
Valentina took little sips of the rich brew, gazing at him over the rim of her cup. He wondered when she’d last sat so still and quiet for so long, and the caffeine on top of it.
As for him, he felt a great sense of relaxation. Still and quiet suited him perfectly, perhaps because of his loud and hectic childhood, or perhaps because of his natural tendencies. He’d been half hard all the way through dinner, an enduring, pleasant feeling of arousal he didn’t need to fight. He was going to have her again, directly after the coffee, and then clean her up and store her neatly away in her cage.
Calm. Clean. Controlled. Did she realize how euphoric it made him feel?
“Come,” he finally said. “Let’s go back to your room.”
He escorted her upstairs, checked over her cuts and found them without infection, and then steered her over to the wall, to the black writing of which he’d become very fond. He wondered if she felt the same fondness as he pressed her against the words. “Stay.”
He went to the nightstand for the usual supplies. He’d already buzzed through nearly an entire tube of lubricant. Valentina’s mouth fell open as he slathered it over the condom.
“Again? Tonight?”
“Yes, I told you. Tonight, and any other time going forward that you ask for a break. There are no breaks in this sort of slavery.” He nodded toward the wall. “Eyes there, my dear. Right there on that line you signed with your little hearts.”
“But—”
“There are no buts either. No buts, no breaks.”
“I understand now,” she said as he parted her and lubricated her asshole. Lovely, how she closed up so tight in the space of a couple of hours, so he could force his way in again. “I understand, okay? I won’t ask for any more breaks.”
“Wonderful,” he replied, blithely and intentionally ignoring her point. “I asked you to face the wall.”
She turned and let out a sigh as he pressed against her from behind. His hands caressed her hips, her waist. Ah, but her body was lovely, her breasts high and full, her ass so round and strong, and still tender from her spanking over his lap.
“I don’t care if you punish me for saying this,” she said. “But I think you are way too obsessed with anal sex.”
He didn’t answer, only put a hand over her mouth and smiled into the soft, fragrant mass of her hair. With his other hand he pressed his cock between her ass cheeks and availed himself, once again, of her tightest, most sensitive orifice as she groaned and whined, pinned against the wall. “I belong to Le Maître,” he read, breathing against her ear. He let go of her mouth to tap the wall. “Signed, Valentina Maria-Rosa Sancia. Do you know what that means?” He eased deeper into her ass, as deep as he could go. “It means no breaks, ma mignonne. Ever.”
He put his hand back over her mouth, not that she had anything to say besides soft pleas
of entreaty. He just liked fucking her that way.
*** *** ***
Valentina had always loved work. Even when it was tedious, or challenging, she’d loved showing up for practice, but never, ever had she loved it more than today.
Oh God, to get away from the damn white room, from her cage in Mr. Lemaitre’s house.
Jason told her to ease back into her routine slowly, but she was bursting with pent-up energy, and besides that, the only way to stop thinking about Mr. Lemaitre...Master...was to throw herself full throttle into her act’s development. She had other parts to learn too, narrative elements that would be woven throughout the production. Some were as simple as sweeping across the stage in a theatrical way. Others involved acting and choreography, and interaction with other performers playing their own roles.
None of this worried her. It was all easy, even exciting, and she’d accomplish it all long before Cirque Élémental’s premiere in the spring.
By then, she’d no longer be his slave.
This idea both exhilarated and depressed her. She was less than a week into her four-week servitude and she already felt like Mr. Lemaitre had scrambled her brain. Whenever she saw him, a needy, aching longing took over her whole body, and she wanted his attention more than she wanted life itself, but at the same time, he frightened her until she could barely breathe from it. Add this to the fact that he scorned her as much as he fucked her...
Her feelings didn’t make any sense.
But work made sense and that was something she could do well. Work was something measurable, something useful that made all her other agitations go away.
Agitations? But you wanted this, Tina. You’re living your “dream.”
“Hey there. Valentina?” Jason’s voice jolted her from her thoughts. She looked at the clock and was disappointed to realize that practice, contractually limited to two hours a day, was already over. While she’d been busy daydreaming about her Master, Andrew, Roman, and Danil had packed up and headed off. Adei lingered, giving her a strange look. She’d gotten that look a lot today. He and Jason exchanged glances and then he left too.