As ever, blackout blinds were drawn against the window that ran the room’s length and width. Only the central striplight was switched on, creating a harsh white rectangle in the centre of the floor. The whipping bench was out tonight, and so was the medical examination table, but there was no bondage chair, no cross-shaped flogging post, no chains dangling from the ceiling.
Charles, who opened the door, placed a hand on her shoulder and escorted her into the light, holding her head up by her hair so that she had to stare into the fluorescent beam. Through her haze, she could only make out shapes around the periphery of the room, but she thought there were four other people present tonight, all male. The semidarkness did not quite blot out all the jumble piled up in one corner of the large room—broken one-armed bandits, mainly—but it did serve to fine-tune her apprehension. Already the evening was out of her control.
“You all know Miss Object here already,” Charles began, “and I don’t think there is a man among you that has not had her in every way possible…oh, except Philip. I don’t
think you’ve had her arse yet, have you? Ah well, that will certainly change. Object, greet your guests, please.”
She dropped to her knees instantly and crawled across to the first of the guests, whom she now recognised as a senior police officer, a cold, hard man who nevertheless understood her needs very well. She greeted him in the traditional fashion, unzipping his fly and taking his semihard cock into her mouth, licking and sucking until it had stiffened to full tumescence, then moving on to the next.
Within a few minutes she had sucked the cocks of a police officer, a local councillor, a magistrate and the chairman of the chamber of commerce. Four different shapes and sizes, from the councillor’s mighty meaty sword to the magistrate’s lead-filled pencil, but none to compare with her Charles. He did not require her services, though, and waved her away when she crawled back to him, hoping to perform the same favour.
“Stay down,” he muttered. “Spine straight, please, chin up.”
She presented herself in this fashion, spotlit and trapped in the combined gaze of the guests, while Charles refreshed their whiskey tumblers.
“This is a special night for Miss Object,” he said. “Over the course of the week, I have been in negotiations with all four of you gentlemen, with a view to a shared ownership project.”
Michelle struggled to maintain her posture. She had always known that this would happen one day, but now? She had only belonged to Charles for eighteen months, and he had fulfilled every one of her needs and desires. She could not imagine another master coming close to his refined and sensitive cruelty. He took her fantasies and pushed them one step further—a tiny step, a seemingly insignificant step, but it was what made him perfect for her. She did not want this…honeymoon period…to end. But of course, there was a new girl downstairs now, and she was much younger than Michelle, and perhaps more attractive too. She knew that Loulou, who came before her, was happy now with her industrialist, but all the same, the uncertainty of her own future chilled her.
“I am now in the happy position of being able to pick a winner. You, Philip, will take joint responsibility for Miss Object’s further training and instruction. I am convinced that you are up to the task, having seen the way you handle her. Congratulations.”
Philip was the councillor. Councillor Trewin. He was also a local entrepreneur and property developer, in the paper on an almost daily basis with some new scheme or other to “put Goldsands on the map.” He had been a handsome man in his youth, though the effects of luxury living were beginning to tell on him. All the same, Michelle could have drawn a worse result—the chamber of commerce man was very ugly indeed, and the magistrate had very cold, purplish hands that always made her wince. She had often wanted to suggest a remedy for poor circulation, but of course, giving advice was far outside her remit.
“By way of celebration, I have organised a little ceremony. A marking of the event. Philip, step forward and join me.”
The councillor was eager in his movement towards the spotlight, coming to stand as Charles directed, opposite Michelle. In her subservient position she could only see his shoes and the hem of his trousers, but the memory of his kind eyes and genuine smile heartened her.
“Kiss his feet, Miss Object.” She bent and put her lips to the leather, once, twice. She was instructed to stay in this pose of obeisance, breathing in his shoe polish, while Charles made a speech.
“Miss Object lives to obey and to serve. She has promised me complete submission, and today the real test of her resolve begins. Service to two masters is a different and more difficult proposition than anything she has yet had to face, but today she undertakes to begin her lessons. I have no doubt that they will be arduous and demanding, but as her taskmasters, the councillor and I will be fair, firm and consistent. Should she fail to satisfy, or find that she cannot succeed, she will be released from service.”
Michelle listened to all this carefully. As usual, the suggestion of failure caused her spine to stiffen and her heart to race. I will not fail. I will perform as well for two as I do for one. I am certain of it.
“Miss Object, you have this one chance to make an objection to the proposed joint ownership scheme. Do you wish to take it? Remain in position if you do not object.”
No. I will not object. I am still half Charles’, and that half will have to do. It is still better than living in suburban suffocation with my ex-husband. Charles has changed my life and I will always be in debt to him for that.
“Good. Well, then. Part one of the ceremony. Miss Object, please place yourself on the whipping bench.”
She knew this bench of old so it presented no challenge to her. It was almost comforting in its familiarity, and she knelt on the padded leather, placing her wrists inside the restraints and making sure her bottom was high and straining, peeking out from beneath the abbreviated white slip of a skirt.
“Councillor, as Miss Object’s new part owner, it falls to you to prepare her for this ritual.”
The councillor appeared at her flank. He tugged the skirt sharply up to waist level, then untied the floppy black bow at the rear of her knickers. As the bow unfurled, the knickers fell away, floating silkily down to the floor. Now her taut white bottom was on show and, after the councillor had pulled apart her ankles to clip them into their cuffs, so was everything between her thighs.
She pictured the six beady eyes in the darkness, as well as those of her masters on either side of her, homed in on her shameful bareness, anticipating a swift change of skin colour from pale to deepest red.
“Now, this is not a punishment, of course,” murmured Charles, close to her ear, his hand resting on one of her shoulders. “This is a demonstration of your submission to us. Of course, it must hurt, but it will not be…excessive. We will, however, expect you to receive it with due decorum.”
“Due decorum” meant in silence, with the minimum of wriggling and gasping. She considered asking for a gag, but she knew that would disappoint him. Instead she gritted her teeth, clenched her fists and imagined that her flesh was iron.
Each man took up a strap, identical strips of black leather, slit into a trio of tongues at the end.
“We shall take turns,” decreed Charles. “As the new owner, you may lay the first stroke.”
The councillor was more tentative than Charles. He did not have the diabolical flick of the wrist with which Michelle’s master intensified each crack of the strap, and he seemed to be going deliberately gently. When Charles was sole administrator, she could breathe through it, knowing that he did not hold back, knowing that she needed every sense at full alert, but this two-handed bottom-warming was harder. It made her want to cry out to the councillor, “Harder. Don’t hold back.” but, as you might imagine, topping from the bottom was quite strongly frowned upon here. So with every other stroke she pushed out her bottom in a vain attempt to convey that it needed to fall with a louder, fatter slap, then she tried to regather herself for the searing artistry of Charles. But she could not. Her breath was all over the place, and despite her usual expertise, she began to squeak and pant. After fifty strokes, the straps were laid aside, and Charles cautioned her that she had earned six with the cane for her unseemly squirming.
She took these six in an almost joyful spirit, knowing that they came from Charles and would be suitably punishing—six burning stripes to remember with fondness every time she sat.