Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (42 page)

“Yes.”

“Virgin or whore? Virgin, no makeup. Whore, lots. That was how done in olden times.”

“How about something in between?”

She nodded her understanding and set to work, carefully selecting an array of pots, powders and brushes. “Turn around,” she ordered. “No look in mirror until done.”

I obeyed and let her do her magic. I thought about striking up further conversation in an attempt to glean some more information about her, about
Elzbeta, about Ludwig, about anything---but figured that would only interfere with her work. Plus I figured that in her years here Katerina had learned discretion. She wouldn’t be an easy mark, I was certain.

After nearly twenty minutes of painting, blushing, and powdering, she stood back for a moment and admired her handiwork. “Only one more thing you need,” she said, and tucked back into her makeup case, rummaging around until she found a thick black stick of kohl. She produced a cigarette lighter and touched the end of the kohl stick into the flame, then dragged the warm tip across both my eyelids. She dusted me with light powder, then stood back to give me a once-over. “Tha
t will do,” she said, and spun my vanity stool around to face the mirror again.

I almost didn’t recognize myself. My face resembled a porcelain mask, with heavy black lines around my eyes, which were almost devoid of shadow, and a thick red gash for a mouth. She’d placed heavy streaks of blush not on my cheekbones but just below them, which gave my face an almost sunken, skeletal look. What wasn’t heavily colored was powdered bone-white. I almost resembled a porcelain doll----if porcelain dolls were made up to look like clowns.

“Are you sure this is right?” I asked. “I look----well----“

Katerina
held up her hand. “Wait. Not finished.” She went to the mirrored cabinet on the wall and returned with my silver domino mask, which she placed on my face, tying its ribbons in a tight knot at the base of my skull. She went to the wall switch and turned down the electric lights, and lit the multiple pillar candles that were scattered around the room. “Now look,” she ordered.

I glanced into the mirror again, and this time was pleased. Between the mask and the dim light,
now I resembled a sultry temptress. I could tell that Katerina had done this many times; without her skilled makeup application, my face would have disappeared behind the mask and the darkness. “I suppose I should get dressed now,” I said. “I’ll need some help getting into the corset.”

Katerina
nodded. “I know,” she said, her voice seeming to come from far away. “In other time, it was mine.” She picked up the steel contraption and stroked two of its bones lovingly, her eyes closed. “You will enjoy very much. I did. Here, stand by bed.”

I did as ordered. She stripped me of my bathrobe, leaving me naked there in the middle of the room. Then she went to my wardrobe and came back with a black satin bra with matching panties and garter belt, and then helped me into them. She selected a pair of black fishnet stockings and handed them to me to slip on while she prepared the corset and bustle.

“Once you wearing these, you cannot move much,” she said, unfastening a row of dozens of tiny hooks and eyes. “You must use words, not body. Ludwig, he speak English, French and German. He obey, but only if you amuse him.”

She didn’t elaborate further on how I might amuse him. I supposed that
Katerina must have once been an entertainer like me, but now she was relegated to doing up hair and makeup, and maybe washing out used laundry. I noticed then that she moved languidly, as if it pained her, and her eyes seemed to have had the light knocked out of them. They were the eyes of a defeated woman just going through the motions. Was this what was in store for me in ten or fifteen years?

I resolved then and there never to let such a thing happen to me. I would use my wiles, skills, even my body to ensure I would not suffer
Katerina’s fate, and I would start that very day.

I stood still to allow
Katerina to dress me in my elaborate steel costume and feathery accessories, biding my time as I waited for an opportunity to ask my last and most important question. Only when my upper body was encased in the corset’s steel cage, with the wide-brimmed feather hat atop my head and my feet balanced on the sculpted heels of the kidskin highbutton boots did I dare venture into what I was sure was forbidden territory. “Why did you stop seeing clients, Katerina?”

She was fastening the last few buttons on my left boot then, and stopped short. The words of my question hit her like a blow, but she didn’t reply at first and instead just kept on with her task. When the last button was fastened, she looked up. “I no longer
do my job, so Mr. Bluschencko find another one for me.” She pursed her lips tightly then, as if to signal that was all she intended to say on the subject. But I pressed her further. “You serviced Ludwig, didn’t you?”

She gave a single nod, and looked away.

“Was it him that you failed to satisfy?”

She did not meet my eyes, but nodded again.

“Why? Tell me. I don’t want to fail.”

She winced then, and I realized that my last statement came out sounding like a direct insult to her. I softened my expression and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I appreciate all that you’ve
done for me this evening. I just hope you can help me with this one thing. Because truthfully, I’m scared to death.” That last part was probably the first honest thing I’d said all day.

“Ludwig, he love
to fear,” she said, finally. I didn’t understand what she meant at first. Katerina guessed this and went on. “Frighten him. Use your power to do this. Your words are your power. Anything you do, make it part of the game. This is what will save you.”

This is what will save you.
I didn’t quite know what to make of that. But then, as Katerina gathered her things to leave, she shot me a probing look with those dead eyes of hers. “You have power,” she said, with more force and clarity than she’d said anything so far. “Use it.”

She turned on her heel and left.

I stared at the empty space where she’d stood a moment before, and suddenly, an idea came to me. I decided I’d have to thank her for it, if I ever had the chance.

That’s assuming it worked, of course. There was only one thing to do now.

****

Ludwig arrived in my quarters about an hour later, wearing a silk paisley bathrobe and carrying a glass of fine cognac. He was older and paunchier than the pictures in his portfolio; by the looks of him now, those photos had to have been taken at least ten years ago. Either that, or he’d been living hard and fast recently----doubtful, since he was a Swiss banker who came to establishments like the House of Pleasure mostly out of boredom.

But it was Ludwig’s boredom I was counting on. After careful thought I realized that
Katerina had been trying to warn me about this place. After going over and over the few cryptic things she’d said about herself and Ludwig, I could draw only one conclusion. She must have had a chance to get out of here at some point, probably through him, but for whatever reason had squandered that opportunity. I would not make the same mistake. I wouldn’t disappoint Katerina, who obviously looked at me as a successor of sorts. I’d inherited her steel corset, her bustle, maybe even her locks and chains----but I would not inherit her fate.

I greeted him at the door in full regalia, whip in hand and my head cocked slightly sideways in a manner I hoped would highlight my elaborate hat and coiffure. He strutted right past me without so much as a nod of acknowledgment, and instead made himself comfortable in one of my overstuffed armchairs, nonchalantly sipping his cognac. A tough customer, to be sure.

Well, nobody said this would be easy.

“Ludwig
, I am Domino. I am at your service. I hope you will have an enjoyable evening.”

He ignored me and sipped his cognac.

The subtle approach wasn’t going to work. I would have to shift to full-on Dominant mode, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it. So I improvised.

Rooting my feet firmly into the floor, I cracked the whip at his feet, once, twice. Then I wielded it once more, letting it land on his body---for now, his shins. I had no experience wielding a whip outside my imagination, but I found it light and supple; to my delight it obeyed my commands like a well-trained dog. “Rise, slave!” I
barked in a deep, husky voice. “Do not dare disobey, or there will be consequences.”

That got his attention. He stood up, meeting my eyes, though he still sipped his cognac.
That displeased me; I wanted him to focus solely on me. So on a whim I grabbed his glass and threw it into the fireplace, where the cognac ignited with a sudden flash as the glass shattered on the flagstone hearth. “There is no pleasure to be had in my chambers other than what I choose to give you,” I snarled, surprised at how easily the words came. “Remember that, slave, or there will be punishment.”

He cowered and nodded. But I wouldn’t say that he feared me, exactly; he just seemed to be going through the motions. That wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted---needed---more.
I snatched the tie to his bathrobe, letting its loose knot slide apart in my hands. His robe fell open, revealing his fat, pendulous belly and small, flaccid penis. He was not aroused in the least.

This would not do.

I pulled the robe off him and threw it to the floor. “You are not permitted clothing in my presence, Slave. You shall be naked as the day you were born.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but I cracked the whip against his shins again, this time hard enough to leave marks. “Did I give you permission to speak, Slave?” I was shouting now. My voice sounded like it came from a
stormcloud somewhere high above, not my own throat. All shreds of my former college-girl self had disappeared. My role as Domino came so naturally to me, I wondered if perhaps I had done this in another life.

Ludwig shook his head once in response to my question. “You’re right, Slave, I did not. You will not speak unless I expressly give you permission. Otherwise there shall be punishment. However, if you obey my commands, there will also be rewards. And you will derive great pleasure from them. Do you understand? Nod once if you do.”

He nodded.

“Good. Then let’s begin.”

I said nothing for a minute or two. I just watched him stand there, stock-still, shivering a bit as he awaited my next command. I had him under my power now. Hopefully I could keep him that way. I had a sneaking suspicion that an experienced and choosy submissive like him would not remain so if he ever became bored or otherwise dissatisfied. Katerina was the proof of what could happen to someone who failed in her role here. Katerina might not even be the worst-case scenario, either. She was alive, at least.

Finally I broke the silence. “Slave, you will get down on all fours.”

He obeyed.

“Now, Slave, you will lower your head, forearms and chest to the floor, while raising your hindquarters.”

Again, he obeyed. But not without some hesitation. That displeased me.

“Slave, you are too slow to obey my commands. You will now be punished.” I danced the tip of the whip along his spine, tracing feather-light circles instead of giving him the sharp blow I knew he craved.

Ludwig’s whole body began to tremble, and he emitted a single whimper.

Ah
. At last I had him, really had him. He was mine. “Will you ever hesitate to obey my commands again, Slave?” I barked, tracing ever-larger circles up and down his spine and then across his shoulderblades. His upper back was coated in a light gray down of hair, and the braided leather of the whip caught some of the wisps in between the interlacing, pinching him slightly, giving him a taste of the pain I could inflict on him if he pleased me, the pain I knew he wanted.

He shook his head and whimpered again.

I circled his supplicating body slowly, surveying every inch of it as I danced the tip of my whip along the floor just out of his reach. Here was an old man, his body melting away with age. His back and chest hair were steel-gray, while the thin rim of hair that encircled his bald pate was almost white. Paunchy, mottled and covered with moles, his aging body could hardly be considered attractive, but I found myself turned on by the very notion I held this wealthy and powerful man entirely under my power. I didn’t even have to touch him, and he cowered before me. I spoke orders, and he obeyed them. He didn’t just obey them---the more he submitted to my will, the more his body responded. His penis had been small, flaccid and wrinkled when he arrived; now it pointed skyward, almost quadruple its original thickness, with all the virility of a much younger man.

I had done that.

I had done that using only my words in the space of a few minutes. I marveled at this. What else could I make him do? I wanted to know.

“Slave, you will now bark three times like a dog.”

He obeyed, emitting three short, sharp barks. I smiled. “Very good, Slave. Now I want you to pant like a dog. Do not stop until I tell you to stop.”

He did, lolling his tongue over his thick, dry lips like a golden retriever on a hot summer day. I had reduced this man, an international fina
ncier worth millions of dollars with scores of people at his beck and call to a mere animal.