One Week in the Private House (10 page)

'What?' Anderson said with a start. 'Oh, yes. Of course. Tell your story again, my dear, for Julia's benefit.'

'I think you tell me to repeat my story for the benefit of your flicker,' Asmita replied, 'but OK. Here it is.

'I'm working in the Health Club at the moment; it's a bore, but someone has to do it I suppose. Anyway, there were some new customers today, and one of them has been asking a lot of questions. She's taken a liking to me, and so the Chief thinks that I can find out who she really is, and what she wants.'

'And, Asmita, you'll report back to Julia here. I want the two of you to work together. I'll get you a posting to the Club, Julia, so you can get to know her too. She's calling herself Lucy Larson, although she's got no identification with her - and that's fishy by itself. We've got her on video of course.'

Anderson pressed another button on his desk, and one of the many screens that lined the walls burst into colourful life. On the screen was a bedroom; and in it a tall young woman with golden blonde hair, an open, fresh face, and lithe suntanned body was taking her clothes off. She discarded her blouse, and was now wearing only white briefs and a white bra. It was clear that she was slim and fit, and Julia was disappointed that she didn't release her heavy breasts or reveal the golden curls between her legs. Instead, the young blonde glanced suspiciously about her-, as if she knew that she was being watched, and began to search the room, opening every drawer, moving everything moveable, inspecting every cranny.

'She didn't find the cameras, of course,' Anderson said, 'but I'd love to know what sort of customer sets about ransacking an empty bedroom as soon as she arrives at a health club.'

'A paranoiac,' Julia suggested.

'Or a spy,' Anderson said. 'And I want to know which she is. Right then, you two - you've got your instructions. Julia, my sweet, I think you'd better pretend to be a fellow customer. So change back into your ordinary clobber, go round the front way to the Club, get yourself booked in, and start chatting up this Lucy Larson. Now I've got work to do: the Master's on his way. Both of you report back here first thing tomorrow. And I'll be expecting some ideas.'

'Or else we get a flicker, I suppose?' Julia asked.

'I think we'll get that anyway,' Asmita said as they left, 'although with two Security flickers and three people we can at least ring the changes a little, can't we?'

The hospitality suite was very hospitable, Jem decided. Room 109 contained everything she could have asked for, except the answers to any of her questions. She had wallowed in the circular bath, and had then turned on the jacuzzi to restore her vitality. She had had a glass of the Dom Perignon, and had eaten with it a little of the
salade Nigoise
and warm bread. She had plundered the dressing table and had smothered herself in scented talc and Magie Noir perfume spray before carefully applying make-up to the same high standard as that which had been ruined by her foray into Darren's shorts.

. She left the curtains open and watched the last red arc of the sun slide below the horizon before she switched on the discreet lights that surrounded the full-length mirror. She looked at her naked reflection. I feel beautiful, she said to herself, stretching and pirouetting. They'll be watching me, that's for sure, but who cares? So far, I'm having a whale of a time. Now let's go see what they want me to dress up in.

It was a costume of wine-red satin. The top consisted of little more than a pair of wide padded shoulders; at its back the yoke divided into two strips of gathered material which crossed each other and then curved down Jem's back and ribcage to meet again just below her navel, where they buttoned up to the waistband of a short skirt. At the front similar wide strips of satin descended from the shoulders, narrowed as they parted, covering and separating Jem's tits, and then left her stomach bare as they curved down to the small of her back, coming together at the top of the cleavage between her buttocks where they too buttoned to the skirt waistband. From front to back the skirt's waistband sloped downward: its highest point was Jem's belly-button, and it ran diagonally across her hips to its lowest point, resting on the upper slopes of her bum. The skirt's hemline mirrored this slope: at the front it was merely a short skirt, the softly-pleated satin reaching the midpoint of Jem's thighs; but the hemline rose diagonally across the sides of Jem's hips so that there were only a few inches of material draped across the upper half of Jem's pert bottom.

Jem studied herself in the mirror. All very well, she thought, but as soon as I lift my arms, or stretch ... There you go, the skirt lifts half-way up to my neck and the whole effect is ruined. This can't be right. What else have they stashed in this box of goodies?

She pulled at the drifts of white tissue paper in which the costume had been wrapped, and almost failed to notice the two short lengths of ribbon. They were soft and elasticated, wine-red to match the dress; each had a small hook, like those found on bras and suspender belts, at each end.

Where there are hooks, Jem reasoned, there must be eyes for them to hook into. She ran her fingers along the inside of the skirt waistband urftil she found the four corresponding fastenings. There were two at the back, close together, and two at the front that were wide apart, almost at the sides of the skirt. She hooked the ribbons on to the hooks inside the back of the waistband; the two red strips protruded, an inch apart, only a little below the ridiculously short skirt.

I know where they're supposed to go, Jem thought, but they don't look long enough to me. She leant forward, reached between her legs with both hands, and gripped the hanging ends of the ribbons. Then she pulled hard. With some difficulty she managed to drag the taut strips up to the inside of the waistband at her hips and to clip the hooks into the fastenings. Then she lifted the skirt and looked in the mirror.

The ribbons didn't exactly hurt; but they weren't exactly comfortable, either. Seen from the front they formed a wide V that enclosed Jem's tangle of red-brown curls and seen from the back . .. Seen from the back, Jem thought, I'm on display in this outfit. If I'm leaning backwards this skirt just about covers me; at all other times, I'm a walking invitation.

The two ribbons converged, but did not touch, as they entered the cleft of Jem's peach-like arse. The strips of tense elastic held apart the round cheeks, exposing and framing the puckered pink hole between them and, below it, the split swelling and its rich covering of hair.

Jem stretched and turned, watching her reflection in the mirror. The ribbons served their purpose: the skirt remained in its position, resting on Jem's hips and arse, whichever way she moved, and the strain was taken by the slight stretchiness of the satin material that criss-crossed her torso. And whenever she moved, she felt the taut ribbons between her legs and buttocks, and the soft satin sliding across her breasts. As long as I'm wearing this number, she thought, it's going to be difficult to wrap my mind around anything but sex.

In the bottom of the tissue-filled box Jem found a pair of wine-red shoes with wedge heels and satin bows at the heels; and three more satin ribbons with ready-tied bows, which she fastened round her wrists and her throat. I
look
like
a chorus girl from an Eddie Cantor movie, she thought,
except
that even chorus girls were allowed to wear knickers.

Behind her, the door opened.

Terence Headman was no longer wearing a pin-striped suit. He no longer looked like a city businessman. He was dressed in the uniform he had created for his role as Com-mander-in-Chief of the Security Corps, and therefore his costume resembled the one Julia had changed into only a few hours earlier. He had no lace gloves, but gauntlets of black leather that matched his boots and tunic. And unlike Julia's, his outfit included gold-braided epaulettes and a black codpiece of extraordinary dimensions. Hanging on a loop round his right wrist was a length of plaited leather, and he was carrying a cloak over his arm.

'Why, Master,' Jem said, 'what a big cricket box you have.'

'All the better for impressing the staff,' Headman replied with his usual half-smile. 'You look as stunning as I anticipated, Jem. Turn round and bend over. Legs apart, hands on knees.'

Jem bent forward, but lifted her head to watch him in the mirror as he approached. His icy eyes surveyed her body; his fists clenched and unclenched as he walked, highlighting the muscles in his bare arms. Jem was more aware than ever of the tight strips that were pulling apart her buttocks. She flinched as a gloved finger touched the lips of her sex, and started to move into her, pushing the lips aside to reveal the moist interior.

This is an exceptionally eloquent costume, Jem,' Headman said thoughtfully. 'What, do you imagine, is it saying to me?'

The finger was wriggling forward; it was almost at her clitoris. She could not help the movement of her hips. 'I guess - Ah! - I guess it's saying, Fuck me, Master.'

T think it probably is,' Headman said, sliding his finger backwards between Jem's labia and up to the stretched hole of her anus. 'What else might it say, Jem?'

Jem took a deep breath. 'Fuck my arsehole, maybe,' she suggested.

That's also very likely,' Headman went on, resting his gloved palm on the roundness of Jem's right buttock 'What else?'

'What's left? Whip me, Master? Is that it?'

'I expect so, Jem. I expect we'll try all three, later on.'

'But not necessarily in that order,' Jem said, i'd like to get the whipping over with before I start having fun. If that's OK with you, Master. Can I stand up now?'

'Yes, it's time to go to the House. This cloak is for you.'

'Thanks, Master. What happens at the House?'

'The usual welcome-home party, I imagine. I like to celebrate on my first evening home. There will be a banquet, followed by various entertainments, considerable overindulgence in champagne, and then a general sexual melee, I should think. You will sit beside me on the top table, of course.'

'Sounds like a good time.'

'I think perhaps that for once I won't want to stay to the end. I want to respond to your earlier suggestions, my dear; and I don't want to share you with others, as yet. Shall we go?'

'By all means, Master. Hey - how'd your hand get in there?'

'A design feature of your cloak, Jem. The slit seems to be in exactly the right place, wouldn't you say?'

Headman's right glove, and his whip, were in his left hand; his right was inside Jem's cloak, and much of it was inside Jem. 'You know, Jem,' he said, 'you really are quite special.'

Jem said nothing, and squeezed her muscles around his fingers and thumb. But she was thinking: Soon you'll find out just how special, Terry baby.

Day 4:
Wednesday

Never again. I must never again pop amyl nitrate while drinking champagne, particularly after a six-course meal. This resolution was the one fixed point in Jem's whirling thoughts as she struggled to open her eyes.

Why did I have to stay to the end of the banquet, she asked herself plaintively. Because I wanted to drink Headman under the table, she told herself sternly as her consciousness reasserted itself. And it had worked: I kept him interested all evening, but by half-past one this morning the only bedroom activity he could manage was to fall asleep.

Jem snuggled under the quilted eiderdown and tried to remember everything that had happened the previous evening. The banquet had been held in the Great Hall, an appropriate name for the vast vaulted room that occupied most of the ground floor of the Round Tower. Headman, with his right hand still nestling between Jem's thighs, had entered the hall like an emperor with a captive queen. The doors had been thrown open to a fanfare of trumpets, and the procession had marched into the already crowded room.

First had come a double line of naked young men, each one holding aloft a flaming torch with a right arm as stiff and upright as his tumescent cock; then a Security Corps squad, black leather uniforms highly polished and glinting in the torchlight. Behind them came a team of slaves, six slender women with long blonde hair, thigh-high boots of red leather, and naked except for the red harnesses strapped across their torsos; they had been pulling the open coach in which Headman and Jem had been standing. A deafening roar had exploded from the crowd in the hall as the coach had crossed the threshold; Headman had acknowledged the greeting with an inclination of his head and a private smile. Jem had almost forgotten about the delicious sensations that his fingers had been causing under her cloak as she had gazed in awe at the magnificence of the thronged hall.

Headman had lifted his gloved left hand to demand silence, and had made a short speech, at the end of which he had introduced Jem as his latest acquisition. His left hand had unfastened Jem's cloak and had swept it from her shoulders, whereupon a gasp of appreciation had arisen from the crowd. Only when the hubbub had faded had he slowly pulled Jem towards him, revealing to the spectators Jem's exposed arse and the digits of his right hand embedded inside her; as his lips had met hers, a thunderous cheer had erupted and echoed from the stone vault.

Headman had lifted Jem into his arms and had carried her from the coach, and they had made their way across the flagstones towards the raised platform on which stood the Master's table. They had made slow progress: Headman had stopped at each of the lower tables to chat to his staff and to display Jem. Some of the revellers, overcome either with affection for their Master or with the wine that had already been freely flowing, had offered their bodies to Headman; he had addressed a passing remark to one particularly striking beauty with waist-length black hair, and she, at a loss for a reply, had torn open her bodice and begged him to use his whip on her mountainous white breasts. One of the waiters, a youth with his sexual equipment displayed on the wooden tray that was tied around his hips, had thrown himself at Headman's feet and had asked very courteously if he might suck the Master's cock. Headman had availed himself of some of these offers, and meanwhile other guests had been availing themselves of Jem.