As She's Told (47 page)

There were six left over which he'd put aside. Something told me the use to 294

As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

which they were going to be put.

Anders sat back down at the desk still in the midst of his conversation, and clicked away at the computer. I suspected him of downloading recipes, or perhaps his mother was sending them? Lately he'd been trying out all sorts of goodies on me, holding up tidbits and making me beg first, of course. He'd have to be careful, or the restraints would need to be let out a notch; that would be a first. His culinary skills never ceased to amaze me. I felt more than lucky to eat what he made, even from a plastic dog dish.

Given my own ineptitude in the kitchen, I was still giving thanks that my work as a slave didn't include attempts at cookery.

I curled around his leg, and felt a hand briefly in my hair. After a while the phone went down, and a bare toe flicked my nipple. The bell jingled.

Anders went back to whatever he was doing on the computer.

The big production he was making of Christmas rather amused me, but his enthusiasm was infectious. I hadn't felt this much excitement over it since my cynical adolescence. My manufacture of ornaments had gone on from set pieces to productions more or less original. A few miniature dreamcatchers first of all. As I made those I could feel my grandmother's hands guiding mine, their warm, thin skin spotted and shiny with age. I also constructed little figures out of bits of cloth and paint and Anders' leftover wood scraps. Some of these he had me make into Julnisse, elf-characters in pointy red hats. Apparently the originals hung around making mischief at Christmas unless fed. These were all male, with the exception of one completely nontraditional female Julnisse with dark, curly yarn hair under her red hat.

The other figures were whatever my imagination could come up with. A construction worker, complete with a round shampoo cap hard hat, was my favourite. Every afternoon I sat naked over these things, and then searched for empty branches from which to hang them. I'd made a couple to send home to amuse my parents.

Anders had already kindly allowed me the use of a debit card and a couple of afternoons to do some shopping for my family, with time and location tightly specified, of course. The resultant package was probably safe in the keeping of Homeland Security by now. This didn't solve my constant problem, which was my present for Anders. Gifts were flowing in one direction only, from a lavish and imaginative soul. I had so little ability 295

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to reciprocate. But I was determined that come hell, high water or GPS

tracker, he was going to find a surprise under that tree.

The week before I'd gestured toward a piece of paper on the dresser, the Home Depot gift certificate bestowed upon me at the Halloween ball. It was half hidden under a pile of small change and a telephone bill.

"Could I have that?" I'd asked him.

He'd looked puzzled, then amused. "Sure. Hey, you won it. Do you need more time to shop?"

For a split second I was tempted. Shopping on my own, even in Home Depot, now had an air of forbidden adventure. But he'd know eventually that it hadn't been necessary, and then I'd be in trouble. "No, master, thank you."

He'd glanced at me with narrowed eyes, and for a second I'd thought he was going to squeeze it out of me, but he'd let it go.

The bare foot slid out from beneath my breast, and the legs were gone again. Oh, lord. Anders was near the tree, hanging something from the ceiling beam. My heart began to thump. "Come here, my little ornament, and let's decorate the living room some more."

I crawled out from beneath the desk, jingling all the way, and presented myself to him. The apparatus above me wasn't the wrist and ankle cuff arrangement, but a sling of some sort. He extracted me from the chastity belt and lifted me up into it. I swung a little, feeling momentarily like a little kid.

"What are you looking so shiny about?"

"Wow, a sitting position!"

"Why of course, my dear. Your comfort is my goal, always."

I snorted, and peered around. He'd put me at about at his own eye level, and the floor was surprisingly far away.

"The house looks so different from this angle," I said. "How bizarre to spend your life at such an altitude."

He tingled the bell hanging from my nose. "So speaks the floor-dwelling tambourine." Daringly I stuck out my tongue at him, and got it yanked.

"Behave yourself, moppet. All right, hands behind you. There. Legs now. Wider. That's good." He strapped my thighs and ankles to the sling.

Then he ran his fingers through channels and inclines, and over the arc of pubic bone. Tiny squirms were amplified by the setup; I began to swing. He steadied me, and confirmed my expectation about the remaining bells, 296

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hanging them from the labia rings. They were heavier than I'd expected.

I watched him stand back and consider me. "You're extremely ornamental, but I think I'll make you a little more obviously seasonal." He went off and came back with garlands and glittery chains, which he spiralled round my neck and legs and around my breasts. Two tree ornaments ended up hanging from my ears.

"Better. Very festive. This calls for a beer." From the kitchen he came back with a dark and foamy glass, wiping his lips. "Wait, I forgot the hat."

Red and pointy, on it went. "That really is cute," he said, standing back and admiring.

He brought out a couple of those little wooden sticks with balls at the ends. "Okay, let's see how the bells sound. Get you tuned up." This turned into serious musician business; one bell was trifle flat and he spent several minutes fiddling with it. A few got moved around on some harmonic principal or other; he exchanged a nipple bell with the nose bell, and rearranged me to be more upright so that the collar bell would hang free.

Then he began to play. First a scale and an arpeggio, then a tune, initially clumsy but defter with practice. I was vibrating along with the bells.

"Recognize that?" he asked conversationally.

"Um…something about drinking…harvest supper…?" I breathed.

"Very good!" He continued tapping, and belted out the tune in his deep baritone, loud enough for a whole roistering table full of farm hands.

Our sheep shear is over and summer is past,
Here's a health to our mistress all in a full glass,
For she's a good woman and provides us with cheer,
Here's a health to our mistress, so drink up your beer.

He grinned at me and took a deep draught. "Here my good mistress, try this, it's the Granite's Peculiar; outstanding stuff." Dutifully I took a sip. It all tasted the same to me: like beer.

A lively little jig now. "Stop whimpering, you're out of tune. Name this one. Quick, now.”

“The – The Sailor's Wife?" The bells seemed to keep vibrating even when they weren't being struck. Despite my efforts to hold back, my hips thrust rather desperately forward, causing Anders to strike a wrong note. I 297

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got a good whack across the ass that hurt quite a lot even through the sling, and set everything jingling at once. "Hold still!”

“Sorry, master."

The next song seemed to be in the key of the nose bell; anyway, the tune kept returning to that one. My head started to buzz. The bell was tingled four times in two bars and I sneezed. "Hey!" he laughed, but he didn't stop.

At the next nose vibration I sneezed again, and we both cracked up. "All right, that's it, it'll have to go somewhere else." A brief pause while he strung a chain between my nipples, polished the bell and hung it from that.

He played a couple more tunes, quizzing me on each. I couldn't dredge up the fourth one, though it sounded vaguely ragtime, and I got whacked again.

"You know," he said, striking notes at random, "this would be a great way for people to start making their own entertainment again at parties.

Most of them have lost the knack; they just shove in a CD, and leave it to the music industry. Where's the fun in that?" Ping, pang, clangle. "Not everyone

– has your talent – master –"

He gave me a slow, rather ominous smile "Oh, but with such an instrument available – and so decorative, too – almost anyone could make a pretty tune." Suddenly I could envision the room full of people, laughing and drinking and joining in on the choruses. With me as the centrepiece.

He ran his sticks back and forth over the labia bells, hit the nipple bells with a little ta-ting, and then pressed one of the sticks up against my clit. Not moving it, just pressing. My voice slid upward in pitch, quavering like a violin tremolo. "See?"

The stick was withdrawn, and I groaned. "Oh, god…. Please, master…"

Here it came. Begging. Whether I wanted to or not. No matter how futile the exercise. "Please, master, please…"

"Stop wriggling, slave." He sang a teasing chorus of 'Beggin' Woman.'

Then he wiped the stick clean and played on. When I couldn't shut up and stay shut up I got strapped into a full gag and muzzle. The hat went back on top.

And somehow the stopping of my voice sent me inward, the recipient, now in no way a player but only played upon. The pure tones picked up some kind of harmonics in my flesh, which resonated with the ear's vibration. Melody, in the key of exquisite arousal, with no crescendo. There 298

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was a faint echo in my mind of that story of Kafka's, the ordeal and the enlightenment. What I was absorbing I couldn't put words to; couldn't have produced. I was literally nothing but the sounding board.

***

Anders stood back and observed the silent figure in the sling, the muzzled head sagging back, the eyes, framed by straps, deep in the glaze of subspace. Setting the mallets aside, he gently removed the labia bells. A little height adjustment. Then he was inside her, his cock gliding slowly, slowly along slippery walls, his hands gripping her hips. By now he knew well how to make use of his vessel, stage by stage and nerve by nerve, always bringing her along with him, always gently leaving her just outside the door while he stepped through. Every moment, every movement, had to be considered and deliberate. And when the long, slow orgasm, magnificent as a cathedral chord, had played itself out, he stood there with his eyes closed, using his hold on her to stay upright, shuddering with the aftershocks brought on by the urgent convulsion of warm wet flesh around his softening cock. The rigid thighs, the helpless moaning. So sweet. A little further decoration and then it would be time to make dinner. Anders hung his slave's labia and nipples with the clamps and ornament-shaped weights that he'd been using all week, this time hanging the bells at the ends. He strung coloured lights across the ceiling from either side of her, down the sling, in a gentle loop between her feet, back under her to her bound hands. When they were turned on he swung her gently, listening to the bells' tinkle and the faint groans at the additional drag of weight on her flesh, and made sure the lights made no contact with skin. Then he turned on some old wassailing songs from the 18th century and went into the kitchen.

Every minute or so, between cutting board and saucepan he looked over at his creation. A Pervert's Christmas, he smiled to himself. The lights blinked, and skin and decorations glistened in their multicoloured glow. All the hanging things trembled at his footsteps' vibration. His most recent decoration gazed mesmerized at the tree, into the button eyes of another small dangling red-hatted female figure: her companion piece.

***

Christmas Eve: a very quiet morning at work. The information centre was closing at the end of my shift. No one was around; even the phone and email requests had dried up. We weren't exactly anyone's go-to destination 299

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for last minute gifts. I got my utilization logs up to date. At twelve-fifteen there was a frantic call from a student with a paper on hydrogen engine technology to write over the holidays, and no data to speak of. Fortunately I could mop that one up in half an hour. It was always satisfying to save someone's day, or year in this case. Her grateful relief took up another minute or two. Then it was time to shut the place down and go home.

I had my object all packaged up and ready to go. It was awkward to carry, but I'd tied on a couple of makeshift handles, and the thing was lighter than it looked. I was counting on Anders being so deep into food preparation that I'd be able to slip it past him. He'd stayed home to concoct a traditional Danish Christmas dinner. The oven and stovetop had already been full and bubbling when he'd sent me out the door into the cold. Now the temperature was dropping, and fine snow stung my face.

I stood in the damp steamy streetcar surrounded by mostly cheerful people loaded down with boxes and bags, trying to keep my package out of the melted slush on the floor. Blocking the erotic trance which called to me, sang to me, every harnessed inch of me joining in on the perfidious siren song. No, I mustn't go there. I forced myself to think about the day I lost track and got out of bounds, and I shuddered. Pay attention, girl...no wandering. Imagine messing up now. Spoiling Christmas.

Anders had been teasing me relentlessly, escalating the intensity each day, using every trick in his considerable repertoire. The night before I'd been balanced teetering on the edge five times, maybe six. How I managed to come even close to counting them I don't know, because by the time I was locked away again I'd devolved down into a primitive life form: mindless, incoherent, tormented and howling.

Even now I was wearing two plugs beneath the belt; I'd been wearing them to work every day for weeks. The flesh around them was heavy and aching. My nipples, even my lips felt swollen. If my frustration gave Anders pleasure, he'd been especially well served lately. Cautiously I angled my burden through the door of the streetcar, and hefted it along the icy sidewalks, pushed sideways by the sharp wind, gritting my teeth as the gusts played grab-ass with icy fingers beneath my coat. I was glad to get to the end of our street and into the house. The package stayed in the shadows between the two doors while I stripped, shivering, and donned chilly collar and cuffs. As I'd hoped, Anders only sent a greeting over his shoulder; his 300