Dangerous (7 page)

“Do you like my fish?"

“Very much, Ma’am.” She had at least a dozen, of different colors. I watched an especially large orange and white one moving slowly among water lilies with its delicate fins trailing like a dancer’s veil.

“Yes, I should think so, little Koi. You are not so different, are you? A small creature, kept for my pleasure. Pretty, and sometimes graceful. But thoroughly ridiculous and completely subject to my whims.” Her words were hypnotic, seductive, yet tinged with calculated condescension.

I said nothing, feeling small.

She tossed a handful of fish food into the pond, and the quicksilver surface erupted in a frenzy of fins and sucking, toothless mouths.

The clink of silverware told us Yolanda was setting the patio table. “Ah, dinner,” Val said with a smile. “Are you hungry, my pretty fish?"

§

Dinner with Val was an incredibly strange experience, with me being the only one not wearing clothing. She’d told me to sit opposite her, and because of the glass tabletop I was completely exposed to her scrutiny. The seat cushion stuck to my bare thighs in an uncomfortable, squeaky way. Yolanda’s comings and goings added to my sense of humiliation, but apparently she saw this kind of thing often, for she never once registered the least reaction to my condition.

And yet, here on the other side of that magic door which Val had opened for me, the rules were completely unlike the real world. Had I been told to strip naked at a business lunch with my visual effects supervisor, I’d have slapped him and filed a sexual harassment suit. With Val it was quite a different thing. Yes, I was humiliated, but somehow it was part of the game. The feelings it evoked were…silken, impossible to describe. Which, I guessed, was the whole point.

“I would like to know
why
you have basically thrown yourself to me, a total stranger,” she demanded. I didn’t really have an answer, much as I tried. “All right then, I’m going to suggest a task for you, to help focus your thinking. Do you trust me?” Her question was laced with a hint of menace.

“Yes, Ma’am, I trust you."

“Very well. I want you to pick someone in your life. I don’t care who, so long as you’ve known them for at least a few years. I want you to tell them that you have become my doll. I want you to be able to tell them about anything we do, if I require it. And once you have informed this person, I am going to want to meet them, to verify that you have indeed fulfilled your task. I don’t have a specific deadline for the assignment, but I won’t wait forever. Certainly a month at the most. Will you do this for me?"

Thinking
no no no
I mumbled, “Yes, Ma’am.” To whom could I possibly make such a confession? Trish? No, it was unthinkable.

“Good. Now I want to watch you touch yourself as we eat."

Oh my god.
I blushed deeply.

I had never,
ever
, done that in the presence of another person. But my first fumbling attempt only irritated her.

“Stop that,” she barked. “Forget I’m here. Pretend you’re alone. And you’d better make me believe it, or else."

I thought of those whips hanging in the soundproof room, and struggled to put Val and the maid out of mind. It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done in my life.

§

After dinner, she told me to fetch my clothes from the study and dress.

“At ease,” she said, after I dressed.

I stood, unsure of how to behave.

“You can relax. ‘At ease’ means the scene is over and we’re just friends, chatting.” She gave a warm smile. “I choose my dolls carefully. I prefer to spend my time with interesting people I care to know inside and out. Being a doll is only part of that process. However,” she added somewhat darkly, “the better I know you, the deeper we can go spelunking later. So I do have an ulterior motive."

I nodded, “Should I call you Ma’am, then, when I’m at ease…er, Ma’am?"

“Not if you don’t want to. ‘Val’ is fine in such cases. Let me warn you, though: I might return to Keeper mode if I smell blood in the water."

“Blood in the water?” With an effort, I stopped myself from adding the ‘Ma’am’.

“My way of saying you’ve done something to provoke me, such as willful disobedience, or acting submissively when you’re at ease. Of course, I’m capricious, too. I might simply do it because the mood strikes me."

“How will I know which mode we’re in?” It felt strange to not use the honorific after the events of tonight.

“Don’t worry, you’ll know.” Then she tilted her head slightly and asked, “Do you like wine?"

“Yeah, but I don’t know the first thing about it."

“I’ll teach you. Come,” she said, and led me inside.

5     
tasting

FOR THE NEXT few weeks I led two separate lives.

On weekdays I was the same person as before. I still went to work dressed in jeans and tee shirt, spent long hours in a dim office bathed in the glow from three big computer monitors. I still ate lunch with a book under a tree, or with coworkers at the studio’s cafeteria. No one had the faintest clue there was anything unusual about me. Perhaps I seemed a bit more preoccupied, nothing more.

But two or three nights a week I drove to Val’s place after work, with a change of clothes packed in an overnight bag. I didn’t always spend the night, but I liked the option of going straight to work the next morning. And during all this time, Val was never once intimate with me. In fact, aside from that first day, she rarely asked me to undress.

My education as a doll was stranger and more difficult than I could have imagined. I came to think of it as
Mutant Geisha Boot Camp
, though I never shared that notion with Val.

Protocol, a doll’s strict rules of conduct, was the meat of my education.

But above all, I learned the importance of reading Val’s mood, as a ship carefully makes its way through coral reefs. It was hard, and I often guessed wrong. Her silence, for example, could signify either contentedness or rising displeasure, whereas her playful banter might mean the laying of a trap, or simply a relaxed, chatty mood. I learned to look for her tells: a gleam in the eye, the angle of a grin…precisely what the signs were, I could not have said, but I learned to sense them.

Once I’d guessed her mood, the next step was to determine proper position. Sometimes this was easy; Val would simply point to a spot on the floor, or wave me close. But usually she’d make me figure it out, and that could be fiendishly complicated. Like a cat, Val was mercurial and could be cuddly or cruel. When seated, she might have me sit by her feet, the better to stroke my hair or twist my ear. Conversely, she might keep me at a distance, to savor me with hungry eyes. If she was vexed, that same separation became a punishing exile.

There were similar complexities involved when Val was standing, or walking. It was like conjugating verbs in Latin.

After placement, there was the question of posture. Should I stand, sit, or kneel? Head up or down? Hands behind my back, or resting lightly on my folded legs?

Protocol also involved speech. As a rule I was expected to be quiet, to answer promptly and respectfully when spoken to, and to address her as Ma’am (never Miss or Mistress!). But Val didn’t want mindless automatons, and I was punished more than once for being too docile. She expected to be entertained, which meant I must speak up and be witty, yet avoid blunders which could trigger her wrath.

Unless, of course, she was intent on punishment. In that case, there was nothing to do but suffer, and bask later in the embraces and affection which always followed such torments. That was sweet, so sweet.

She was a master of the trick question. For example:

“Tell me, doll, do I spoil you?”

Such questions set my brain afire. If I answered ‘no’, she’d accuse me of failing to appreciate her kindness. But saying ‘yes’ could be even worse; I might just as well call her a pushover. In such cases there was no way to win.

I judged my situation akin that of entertainers to royalty, whose very lives depended on being found pleasing. There is nothing like fear, and disaster averted, to sweeten a successful performance.

I suspected she’d trained many girls in this way. She never faltered, and seemed to follow a plan. Curiously, I found that comforting.

My training involved other things beside protocol.

For example, she took detailed, precise measurements of my body.

She made me fill out questionnaires and write essays about my likes, dislikes, personal experiences.

And she delighted in ordering me to compose haiku on the spur of the moment. I grew to dread that, even as I got better at it.

§

We also communicated by email during this time. Her address was
clarity.dagger@
something called
bathypelagic.com
, which gave me a chance to play private investigator on the internet.

The only real reference I found for ‘clarity dagger’ was an item in an obscure MMORPG—but she didn’t strike me as online gamer. The name fit her, though, with its connotations of clear sight, deep penetration, implied violence.

As for the domain name ‘bathypelagic’, it wasn’t any company or organization I could find. Most likely it was just something she’d registered herself. But the word was unusual, and when I looked it up online, I found it meant “of, relating to, or living in the depths of the ocean, especially between about 1,000 and 4,000 meters (3,280 and 13,120 feet).”

I had a feeling these were clues to the inner workings of Valeria Stregazzi, if I were clever enough to assemble the pieces.

§

Sometimes Val would send me assignments by email. Here’s one example:

Koi,

I’ll be away on business for the next three days. I’m taking a client to dinner on Wednesday night, and I’d like you to find the best possible French restaurant in San Francisco, in or near downtown. Price is no object. Traditional or fusion, I don’t care, but I expect you to knock his socks off. You have until Tuesday night to send your choice, as I’ll need time to make reservations.

—Val

I loved this kind of challenge. I did a ton of research and sent her my recommendations along with maps and reviews, as well as alternates, just in case. But my stomach tied itself in knots on those nights, wondering how things went, praying to god the service was good.

§

As it turned out, my pick for the French restaurant was a success. When I saw her on the night of her return, she positively glowed. Which, in Val’s case, meant an almost-smile and casual manner, as we relaxed before her lighted hearth.

Val was in her stuffed chair, enjoying a glass of red wine. I sat clothed on the rug by her feet, legs bent to the side, my cheek resting against her leg. Usually I wasn’t allowed to touch her, but tonight she was feeling magnanimous.

It was pleasant to sit there, catlike, and simply watch the fire crackle in the hearth as she toyed with my hair.

“I think I want to mention something fairly personal,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am?” I purred.

“You’ve been a delight to me. My client was impressed with your restaurant choice. I’ll likely get a lucrative contract as a result."

When she talked like that I couldn’t help but wonder—again—what she did for a living. I really hoped it didn’t have anything to do with organized crime. Especially with a last name like Stregazzi. But she never said
anything
about her work, so it could just as easily have been programming malware that stole user data for bulk-emailer lists.

“Thank you, Ma’am,” I said, proud of myself.

“I feel like rewarding you. I’ll have to think of something appropriate…”

I didn’t reply to that.

“You
do
deserve to be rewarded, don’t you?” she pressed.

“I’m just happy I pleased you, Ma’am. I don’t need anything more,” I said carefully, as my brain began to smoke again.

“That’s not quite an answer. Don’t spoil this by dodging me. Do you deserve to be rewarded?”

“I don’t know, Ma’am."

Her voice was ice-cold now. “I’ll take that into consideration.” I could sense her glowering, like a developing thunderhead. The silence dragged on.

I turned slightly to look at her. “Can I change my mind, Ma’am?”

“On what?"

“Whether I deserve a reward,” I said.

“I don’t like indecision.” A weary sigh, and then: “Very well, what is your answer now?"

“I do deserve a reward.”
Tick tick tick tick tick
; her only response was a painful silence. I added, “You gave me a test, Ma’am, and I passed it. I should have accepted the reward without questioning your judgment.”

“It’s a little late for that realization.”

“Yes, Ma’am."

She put the wine glass down. “That should have been foremost in your mind from the second you knelt to me.” I felt tears start in my eyes. “I’m sorry, was the thought of a reward too much for you? Were you overcome by selfish pleasure? Or was it the smug satisfaction of passing a test?"

“I’m…bad with receiving gifts, Ma’am.”

“Oh, I daresay you are. This would have been quite simple if you’d remembered how to behave."

She pointed to the floor where I sat, and I promptly knelt. She reached to the table beside her chair and picked up her leather gloves, put them on.

“Drop your pants,” she snapped.

With fumbling hands I unfastened them and pushed them down around my thighs, lifting myself off my heels to do so. I waited. After a few anxious heartbeats I was quickly thrown over her legs, on my stomach.
You’ve got to be kidding me
, I thought. She trapped me in a painful arm-lock, then used her other hand to yank down my panties with a sound of annoyance.

My clenched heart squirted cold, black fear, like squid ink. When she rubbed my behind with the other hand, the textured leather was cool and snake-like on my bare skin.