The Compound (17 page)

Marta smiled. “Mistress Miriam says that exact thing. She says
it’s all very well to train submissives, but if a Dom doesn’t know what he’s doing, all the training in the world isn’t going to matter. She’s talked about starting a program for dominants, and another one for couples who want to train together. She’s got a guy from Florida who specializes in training dominants who’s interested in working with her to design a program. We’re hoping to get it off the ground by next year.”

“Well, let’s get Mike signed up for the first class,” Rachelle grinned.
“And what about you, Marta? What’s it like to belong to the head honcho? Did you go the traditional training route like me and Alexis, and then just fall in love?”

Marta beamed.
“Pretty much, yeah. It was kind of ironic how it worked out. My partner sent me, much like yours, Rachelle. Looking back, it was a last ditch thing. We had been floundering as a couple for a while. The love just wasn’t there, though neither of us wanted to admit it, I guess. I signed on for a month, and when I was done and called her to come pick me up, she told me she had moved on, and she’d have my stuff shipped wherever I wanted.”

“Wow, that must have hurt,” Alexis said, wondering how anyone could break up with someone as lovely and seemingly perfect as Marta.

Marta smiled. “My ego maybe, but not my heart. Because, you see, Mistress Miriam had already stolen it, and I hope she never gives it back.”

“So what about you, Alexis?
Did someone send you here hoping to whip you into shape, pun intended?” Sam lifted his thick eyebrows.

Alexis shook her head. “I heard about this place from my play partner at a club I like to go to. I guess I wanted more, you know? You can only go so far at a club. I can only go so far on my own. I want to connect with that submissive part of me that lends meaning and worth to my sense of self, but I’m not doing so hot. I’ve been here a week, and I still think I suck at this most of the time.”

Sam shook his head. “I’ve been watching you, Alexis. You’re doing great. Progress, not perfection. That’s my motto.”

They all laughed in agreement. “Amen to that,” Rachelle said with feeling.

Fireflies flitted, creating arcing sparks of light in the air, and an owl hooted in the distance. “It feels like summer camp tonight,” Alexis said, feeling warm and happy. “We just need to build a campfire and get out the marshmallows.”

“Speaking of summer camp,” Sam said. “Remember that game we used to play as kids where everyone stood in a circle and you’d fall back into someone’s arms?”

“I know that game,” Rachelle piped up. “It’s called Trust Fall.” She scrambled to her feet. “Let’s do it. I’ll start.”

Sam stood behind her and said, “Ready.”

Rachelle crossed her arms over her chest, closed her eyes and let herself fall backward. Sam caught her in his arms and they laughed. “Your turn, Marta,” Sam said.

Marta rose with that fluid grace that always made Alexis think of a ballet dancer lifting from a low curtsy. Crossing her arms over her chest as Rachelle had done, she, too, closed her eyes and sank gracefully back into Sam’s arms.

“Now you,” Sam said, nodding toward Alexis.

Alexis was not sure she wanted to play this game. But they were all looking at her expectantly, and so she stood slowly and approached the young man, turning her back toward him. She let her arms hang at her sides and closed her eyes. “Cross your arms over your chest, like we did,” Rachelle instructed her. Alexis complied, feeling a little silly as she shifted from foot to foot. Why was she hesitating? This should be easy. Sam was strong and had already proved with the other two women that he wouldn’t let them fall.

“Go on,” Marta urged softly.

Alexis wanted to. And yet she couldn’t. It was like there was some kind of force field at her back, holding her up, stopping her from letting go. She glanced back at Sam, who was waiting, his arms extended toward her.

“Don’t think about it,” Rachelle offered encouragingly. “Just do it.”

The ease and happiness Alexis had felt was fast slipping away. She felt sweat prickle under her arms, and the skin on her back tingled against the invisible force field of her hesitation. She’d never been able to do this as a kid, either, she recalled now. What if Sam didn’t catch her? Despite his best intentions, what if his foot slipped, or he miscalculated his position in relation to hers?

“Come on,” Sam called. “What’re you waiting for? Don’t you trust me?”

Alexis tried to conjure the image of Master John. If he was standing behind her, would she obey? Still her body remained stiff and unyielding. How about Master Paul? She pictured his kind smile and his sparkling eyes. It didn’t work.

She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she saw Marta standing beside her, and Wendy on her other side. “Sometimes you need to take baby steps,” Marta said. “We’ll hold you so you feel safe as you go back.”

Alexis nodded, feeling both embarrassed that she couldn’t do what the others had done with such seeming ease, but also warmed that they didn’t want to give up on when she’d been ready to give up on herself.

“I’m waiting,” Sam said behind her. “The girls won’t let you fall and I’ll be here to catch you.”

With their supportive hands at her shoulder and waist, Alexis let herself fall into Sam’s waiting arms.

Chapter 12

Alexis was suspended facedown about four feet from the ground, secured in a sturdy rope harness that wound around her torso and hips. Her head hung down, her long, dark hair obscuring her face. Her arms were behind her back, her legs bent at the knees so her wrists could be cuffed to her ankles.

Paul forced himself to focus on the knotwork and resist the temptation to stroke her smooth, soft skin. Miriam was right—he was professional enough not to let his desire get in the way of the training, but it was turning out to be harder than he expected.

“That should do it,” John announced, stepping back from the suspended girl and gripping the convergence of rope that hung from a pulley in the ceiling. Alexis’s trussed body swung gently between the two men.

Sam was at his usual post in the play dungeon, leaning against a wall w
here he could see all the scenes in progress, ready in case he was called for service. John gestured toward him and he came at once to their scene site. “Be on alert in case we need you.”

“Yes, Sir.”

John crouched in front of Alexis so his face was even with hers. “How are you? Are you comfortable? Do you feel secure in the harness?”

“Yes, Sir.”

She had a nice voice.
A sexy voice. Paul wondered what it would sound like in the throes of an orgasm. Not an orgasm wrested during erotic torture training, but the throaty cries of passion he would tease from her as she lay beneath him, his cock buried inside her.

“Wiggle your fingers for me,” John said to Alexis. “Good.
Now your toes.” The trainer stood, apparently satisfied, and turned to Paul. “You can put these on while I get the rest of the stuff.” He handed Paul a set of clover clamps and some lead fishing weights.

Reaching beneath the suspended woman, Paul found and rolled one of her nipples between his forefinger and thumb. He could feel it engorge and distend. Alexis moaned softly at his touch. Paul pushed away a brief fantasy of flicking the hardening nipple with his tongue and then sucking it into his mouth.

He attached the clamps to her erect nipples and knelt beside her to secure the weights that would add to the tension and heighten the erotic pain. Alexis responded with a sudden, sharp intake of breath. Paul tugged gently at the chain hanging down between her breasts, his cock hardening at her breathy gasp.

He stepped back when John returned holding a cane, a shock prod, a medium ball gag, two pairs of latex gloves and a tube of lubricant, all of which he placed on a small table near
Alexis’s head. John crouched again in front of Alexis, lifting her chin and looking into her eyes.

“This is endurance training. You will be subjected to both pleasure and pain. You may orgasm during the exercise. Obviously, with the gag in place you won’t be able to ask permission. If you are in a situation of such extreme distress that you need the action to cease, open and close your fingers as you’ve been instructed before. I know how much you can take, so make sure you don’t give the distress signal unless you absolutely must.” He let that sink in a moment and then added, “Your intermediate goal is to take as much as you can, for as long as you can. The ultimate goal is to achieve that altered state of being where you no longer distinguish between pleasure and pain—where you surrender completely and without reservation to what we give you. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” she whispered. Paul, who was standing beside her with his hand resting lightly on her back, felt a tremor move through her body.

John picked up the ball gag. “Open your mouth,” he ordered. He pressed the red rubber ball into
Alexis’s mouth. Paul reached for her hair, lifting the thick, luxuriant tresses out of the way while John buckled the gag into place behind her head. Paul looped the hair into a loose knot at the nape of her neck to keep it out of the way.

John stood and pointed toward the items that still remained on the table. “Which do you want?” 

Paul reached quickly for the cane and the prod. If just touching her nipples was enough to nudge his cock into an erection, god only knew what touching her cunt would do to him. A trace of a smile moved over John’s mouth, which Paul ignored.

John moved behind Alexis and pulled on the gloves. He smeared lubricant over the fingers and placed his right hand between her legs. He placed his other hand on her thigh to hold her steady and nodded toward Paul.

“Begin,” John said.

Flicking upward beneath her suspended body, Paul tapped the bound woman’s breasts and the fronts of her thighs, relieved to find
himself easing back into a trainer mindset. He was aware of John standing behind the bound and suspended girl, his hand buried between her thighs. He lost his concentration as he imagined the tight, velvet heat of her cunt.

Focus,
he warned himself sternly. He increased the intensity of the cane strokes slowly but steadily. When he touched the live prod to her hip, Alexis jerked hard and swayed in her bonds, a muted cry gurgling behind the gag.

He touched the prod to her back, her shoulder, her calf and then resumed caning her clamped breasts, alternating between the cane and prod as the girl trembled and mewed behind her gag.

John reached for the lubricant and added some to the fingers of his left glove. He pressed a thumb into her asshole while his right hand remained buried in her cunt. Again a muted cry emerged from behind the gag. Her fingers were clenched into fists behind her back.

Paul tapped at her fists until she loosened her grip. Her back was sheened with sweat and she was trembling. Holding the cane and prod in one hand, he stroked her shoulders in a soothing motion with the other hand until he felt her relax.

John continued to frig the girl, his face a mask of concentration. Paul resumed the caning, flicking it upward beneath her body as he focused on her clamped breasts and the soft curve of her belly. He tapped at the clamps, each touch sending a spasm through her body and pulling a muted cry from her gagged mouth.

If Paul had been running the exercise he wouldn’t have gagged her, but that was John’s call. Paul preferred to receive verbal input directly from a trainee. He encouraged them to talk through what was happening to them, and he could better gauge their level of distress by their cries and moans. Paul had a gentler approach overall to his training than John, but John produced excellent results, so who was he to say?

“She’s coming,” John said suddenly. “Don’t let up.”

Paul reached between the ropes with the prod, zapping
Alexis’s ass while tapping the cane against the tender soles of her feet.  He didn’t let up until she had shuddered her way through an orgasm.

Her hands, he saw, had clenched again into tight balls. She wasn’t letting go. She hadn't yet surrendered. John nodded as if Paul had spoken aloud and said, “We continue. She isn’t there yet.”

Paul began again, tapping lightly beneath her at first, the cane just kissing the skin on her breasts and sides. As John rubbed harder and faster between her legs, Paul moved lightly on his feet around the suspended, swaying beauty. He matched John’s movements stroke for stroke, alternating between the cane and the prod as John brought the girl to another climax.

Alexis stilled and hung limp and Paul met John’s eyes. Was she there?

But a second later she went rigid again, her fingers clenched, a muscle flicking in her jaw, indicating to Paul she was clenching her teeth. She wasn’t there. Most subs would have been there by now, floating with no resistance in a cloud of pure white light and peace, but she was resisting. Paul could almost feel her panic as if it were his own. What was holding her back?

If Paul owned her, could he bring her there?

Owned her!

What was he thinking? She was a trainee, not a potential lover. And she was John’s trainee to boot, not his. He was simply serving in an assistive capacity. His job was to cane her while John stimulated her. His job was to follow John’s lead and keep his opinions and his desires to himself.