House Rules (5 page)

Margaret released him and moved away, calling for Helena to bring warm water and towels from the bathroom. She then had Helena clean her legs and dry them. Once more she caught Richard’s eye. With a gesture at the younger woman cleaning her, she said scornfully, ‘Sometimes I have her lick me clean, but this time I’m in a hurry.’

Helena flushed at the words but did not look up. Richard, perforce, stood in place. The younger woman moved from time to time as she worked, giving him the opportunity to study the chastity belt she wore. It appeared to be made of brass. Logical, he thought. Steel would rust and leave nasty stains. There was a narrow band that fitted snugly to Helena’s waist. It had been carefully shaped to her contours, dipping at the back as a more conventional belt would do. It was hinged on her left side, and there was a flat lock with a keyhole on the right. To the waist band in the front a V-shaped piece was hinged. The solid part covered her pubic mound, and a narrower band passed between her legs and up over her bottom, joining a short band that descended from the waist belt, to which it was secured with a similar flat lock.

The device was evidently designed to be worn for long periods, even under normal clothing, for it was lined with leather to avoid chafing or pinching the wearer. It was cleverly made: Margaret must have access to a highly skilled metalworker. He wondered what else he – or she – might have made for the tall blonde woman who stood before him.

When Helena had dried her long legs, Margaret began to get dressed. Helena made no move to resume her own discarded clothing. Richard, of course, was unable to dress himself even if he had had his clothes. He wondered what had been done with them, and when they would get around to releasing him. He wasn’t particularly worried about what Margaret might do to him. Torture and mutilation did not seem to be on the menu. Though taunting and humiliation might well have a central place on it. And bondage, of course, if his present situation was anything to judge by. He was interested.

Margaret ordered Helena to get dressed, to Richard’s mild regret. When she was clothed, the younger woman was told to go down to the car and fetch Richard’s clothes. He gathered from that that some change in his situation was imminent.

When Helena had departed on her errand, Margaret turned to Richard. ‘I’m glad to see that you aren’t in the habit of asking stupid questions, like what we might be planning for you. Though I’m sure you are thinking about that. Here’s what we’re going to do. When you’re fit to be seen in public once more, we – you and I, that is – will go to my country house, passing by your guesthouse to allow you to pay the bill and collect your belongings. Little Helena will remain here for the time being, a hostage to your good behaviour, if you like. I may allow you to be reunited when I judge you are ready.

‘At my country house you will be given obedience training. There’s no point in saying more than that just now. You’ll find out soon enough what is involved. Not all of it will be unpleasant. In fact, some of your predecessors even found parts of it very pleasurable. I hope you will make a similar discovery, because happy servants are the best kind. I will be your principal, though not your only, tutor. You will meet the others in due course.’

‘And what if I don’t like your plans for me? I’ve never been asked what I might like,’ Richard said. They were the first words he had spoken since Helena and Margaret had returned to the apartment. His voice sounded strange in his own ears after the prolonged silence, thin and somehow strained.

Margaret’s gesture included both Richard and his restraints. ‘What choice do you think you have? I could have you taken to my house exactly as you are – minus the sewing machine, of course. Our little Helena will be needing it in any case. But I’d much prefer you came without any undue reluctance. It would be so much easier on everybody. Including Helena,’ she added menacingly.

Richard believed her. He had never met a woman who seemed as self-assured and decisive as Margaret. She was what could be called a natural leader. Or a dictator. The undercurrent of excitement he had been feeling ever since this woman had come into his life stirred in him again, urging him to see where else she might lead him. ‘All right,’ he heard himself saying, as if from a distance, or as if a stranger had taken over his voice and body, and he had become merely a spectator. His throat felt tight.

Margaret nodded. ‘Good. I’m glad that’s settled. Now we will see about getting you loose.’ She picked up the dressmaker’s shears from Helena’s worktable and snipped the band that held his wrists behind his back. ‘Unsnap yourself and give me the lead,’ Margaret ordered.

Richard did as directed. Margaret stowed the lead in her handbag. He gestured at the chain that dangled between his legs. Margaret said, ‘We’ll leave that for a while. If I cut it off now I’d only have to replace it later this evening. And besides,’ she said with a mischievous grin, ‘I might accidentally cut you in a very sensitive place.’

Richard doubted that she would make such a mistake. Her acts were much too carefully calculated. But he said nothing more.

Helena came back a few moments later, saving him from the strain of making small talk. He put on his clothes, tucking the chain down one leg of his trousers. He saw Margaret extract a large wad of Deutschmarks from her handbag and hand over some of them to Helena.

‘Use this to buy whatever you need to get started on my order. Anything left over can be applied to running expenses. I’ll be around to see you again in a few days, and I’d like to see some progress on the design. Now I will allow you a few moments to say
auf Wiedersehen
to Richard.’ Margaret left the room.

There was an awkward silence between Helena and Richard, then both began to speak at once. Helena stopped in confusion; Richard told her to go ahead. He wanted to hear from her what he was getting into.

‘I’m sorry for what’s happened, Richard. I had to do it. One day – soon, I hope – I will be able to tell you all about it. For now, please go along with Margaret. For my sake. I don’t think she will hurt you. She has never done any serious or permanent harm to anyone else she took in hand.’ Helena stopped and blushed at her gaffe.

Richard smiled and nodded for her to go on.

‘Margaret likes to have people obey her. Especially men, but as you see she likes women to follow her orders as well. It can be unpleasant at times. Even humiliating. She enjoys humiliating people. And there is a certain amount of pain. But I can tell you from personal experience that it is not unbearable.’

Richard compared Helena’s understated description of the whipping with Margaret’s own more forthright one. But he nodded once again. ‘All right. I’ll go along, for your sake.’

Helena smiled in relief and gratitude. ‘Soon, I hope, we will be able to talk more freely. And maybe to escape from Margaret’s influence.’ She leant forward as if to kiss Richard but pulled back abruptly at the sound of the opening door.

‘Time to go. Come along, Richard. Helena, I will see you on Friday.’ Margaret summoned him as she dismissed Helena.

They went down the stairs and out into the soft light of early evening. Margaret led the way to a large BMW with darkly tinted windows that was parked at the kerb across the street. She unlocked the doors and motioned for him to get into the passenger seat. ‘Buckle up,’ she said.

They stopped at the guesthouse where he had been staying. Richard paid his bill and collected the rest of his luggage. Then they left Hamburg and drove south on the autobahn towards Hanover. Margaret said nothing. Presumably having given him all the information she thought necessary, she left Richard to consider it and to make whatever plans he could to face the obedience training he had been promised. Or maybe she felt her position as tutor imposed a duty on her to maintain her dignity and distance from the ‘trainee’. At any rate, they drove for something over two hours at a speed which ensured there were few drivers able or willing to overtake them, and in total silence. Somewhere in the Luneburg Heath area, Margaret took an exit marked ‘Soltau’.

They passed through the town centre and continued on into the outskirts. Soon cows became more numerous than cars, and fields more frequent than either. Margaret slowed and stopped before a pair of tall wrought-iron gates set into a high stone wall. The wall was lined along its top with razor wire and what looked like electrical insulators, no doubt carrying a discouragingly high electric charge. It was a wall that said plainly, ‘no trespassing’, if one was on the outside. From the inside it meant no escape.

With a remote control, Margaret caused these forbidding gates to admit them. She then drove along a private road for ten minutes or so before the house came into sight. Richard saw what she meant when she had spoken of allowing Helena to scream as loudly as she liked in the country house. No one was going to hear anything short of a very loud explosion from the road.

What Margaret had described as a ‘country house’ was in reality more like a manor. It was constructed of stone on the ground floor, while the first floor exhibited the fanciful ornamental woodwork so popular on Alpine chalets. Like those distant chalets, the large house had extensive flowerbeds on all sides, and Richard could see window boxes and hanging baskets in the lights from the veranda that ran across the entire front of the building. Margaret’s country retreat looked as if it could easily house three families.

As the car drew up, the front door opened and an attractive young woman in a maid’s costume came out: black satin dress that came only as far as mid-thigh, a white frilly apron and cap, black stockings or tights and black high-heeled shoes. She was blonde like Margaret but shorter and slighter of build. She approached the car with curiously short steps, and Richard saw with a thrill of surprise that she wore leg-irons.

The maid opened the door for Margaret, who tossed the keys to her with a terse order to put the car into the garage and to bring the packages in the boot back to the house. She gestured for Richard to follow her into the house. The maid got awkwardly into the driving seat, hampered by her leg-irons. She seated herself and then swung both legs together into the car after her. Richard saw a flash of white flesh as her short dress rode up her thighs. Evidently she wore stockings rather than tights. Carrying his bag, he followed the tall blonde woman towards the front door.

In the hall another maid awaited orders. This one was taller and somehow less willowy, but wearing the same sort of uniform as the one who had come out to the car. Unlike her, the maid in the hall was not wearing leg-irons. Richard wondered why.

Margaret handed her coat to the woman to hang up and asked for drinks and a snack to be served in the drawing room in ten minutes’ time. Then she led Richard down the hallway and into a large, high-ceilinged room with comfortable-looking furniture arranged in two groupings. Each group consisted of a long couch with armchairs facing it and a coffee table in the centre. Above each group was a chandelier that shed a soft glow from many candle-shaped bulbs over the thick, light-blue carpet. Margaret sat on one of the couches and waved Richard to one of the armchairs.

He set his bag on the floor and sat down across from her. He waited for the next move, which had to be hers.

Realising this, Margaret began to speak. ‘This is where you will stay during your training period. I do not mean this room. There are attached quarters for the trainees, and you will have your own assigned to you. But before we begin there are some things you need to know. House rules, you might say.’

Richard interrupted her before she could get into the details. ‘What makes you think I’ll abide by your rules, or even that I’ll stay here? I’m on holiday now, but I have obligations back home which can’t be shrugged off.’ Even as he spoke, he was aware that his words sounded feeble.

Margaret was undeterred by his objections. ‘The answer to your question is that you are already here. If you need any further convincing, just think back to what happened this afternoon at Helena’s apartment, and to your less than active participation or objection. You have not said anything since then either, even though you could have spoken at any time as we drove here. Your silence is admission enough that you are interested in what will happen. So you need not bother to deny it. Nor,’ she added with a tone of finality, ‘should you interrupt me again. After I have finished you will be permitted to ask questions, but for now you need only listen.’

At that moment the maid came in with a trolley laden with bottles of liquor and a tray of sandwiches. She said, ‘We have had another delivery, Madame.’ Margaret nodded but didn’t speak. The maid began to arrange the food, the glasses and the dishes on the coffee table. Richard watched with interest as she deferentially placed the drinks trolley near the couch. The woman was stockier than the other maid, with a thicker waist and more muscular legs, but she moved lightly and easily about the room. Her hair was cut short so as to frame her face, and was a soft brown shade. When everything was arranged, she asked, ‘Will that be all, Madame?’ in a husky voice and with a French accent.

Margaret dismissed her with a negligent wave of the hand, and the woman withdrew silently, closing the double doors behind her. Margaret gestured for Richard to help himself.

He made a drink for himself, a scotch over ice, and looked questioningly at Margaret, the bottle still in his hand. She nodded, and he poured the amber liquid into a glass, added ice and handed it to her before resuming his seat. Yes, he was interested to see where this would lead. There was a stirring of excitement in him that kept his throat tight.

Margaret spoke into the silence. ‘I train servants here,’ she said. ‘You have seen two of them already. There are several others. here now, and more trainees may come at any time. When their training is over, I recommend them to anyone who applies to my employment agency in Dusseldorf, Hamburg or Stuttgart. Several of them have found employment with the top executives at a top car manufacturer. One has even been taken by a vice-president of a multi-national company. She accompanied him back to London when his appointment here ended. As far as I know, she is still with him.’