Rete and Trident Vol. 02 - Pt. 04

This is part four of a seven-part story. See Author's note of Rete and Trident Vol. 2 - Part 1 before reading this.

***

Chapter 12

The instructions in the Glaukopis book spelled out how to make contact with the tattoo artist and how to do it to keep the man's anonymity. Matt contacted the tattoo artist, who agreed to spend the entire next day working on me for a mound of cash.

The Glaukopis kept a one-bedroom basement apartment for tattooing. It was about three blocks from the vault. The entrance to the apartment was to the rear of the building through an alley, At 9:00 AM the next morning, I showed up to the apartment wearing a hat and sunglasses. I let myself in using a number pad which opened an electronic lock.

The kitchen was empty except for a shrink-wrap pack of bottled water, a large shrink wrapped package of paper towels, a rack of mugs, a k-style coffee machine, and a rack of coffee cups, sweeteners, and creamers. The kitchen was utterly spotless. Matt Gilbert told me that it was cleaned once every two weeks by one of the Albas.

The bedroom to the apartment contained no bed. Instead, it contained a massage table with adjustable height and the type of massage chair you see in a mall kiosk, where the person can sit, lean forward, and rest their faces on a donut pad while giving the masseuse unfettered access to their back.

There were also a couple of very comfortable-looking roller chairs that would allow the artist to position themselves comfortably for the work.

There was a black out curtain over the single window. The light came from an overhead system with indirect lighting.

Agains the wall opposite of the massage table and chair was a computer desk with an Apple computer with an enormous screen.

The only other furnishing in the room was a peculiar lamp in there which was a black light on a swing arm. The black light had barn doors like a theatrical light, so the throw of the light could be controlled.

The room's four walls were covered with the most amazing floor-to-ceiling painted artwork. One wall had a depiction of the tattoo which was to go on my back. The art on the other walls were painted with hieroglyphs and images of Athena with her owls done in various styles. It was amazing.

Inside the closet to the room was a small chest of drawers made out that very cheap particle board stuff sold at Walmart. I looked through it and it contained a couple of dozen open-chin BDSM leather hoods that were stylized to look like the heads of owls.

I tried a couple on to figure out the best size for me and I chose the one I liked the best, which was made to resemble a great horned owl with large piercing eyes, a hooked beak, and ear-like tufts of feathers. There was something about the mask that appealed to me. The way the eyes were depicted as having an intense stare made me chuckle.

I stripped naked, stored my clothes and belongings in the drawers, and slipped the mask on. I examined myself in a long mirror on the back of the bathroom door. I must admit that I was a hell of a sight. I was in the best physical shape of my life and I had removed all of my body hair in anticipation of the tattooing. With the mask on, I cast quite an intimidating figure. Without pubic hair, my cock looked enormous even in a semi-erect state.

Why I was hairless was something I had not planned. Olivia, who hadn't spoken with me since I told her father she had eaten my ejaculate out of Sunny's pussy, walked into the master bath looking for a roll of toilet paper. She caught me trying to shave my back, which wasn't really working. She laughed and then volunteered to do it for me.

She filled up the big bathtub and had me sit in it. She knelt beside the tub and meticulously shaved my back, chest, and arms. She even did my armpits. When she was done, she tisked like she was not satisfied and dragged me over in front of the mirror.

"Your bottom half is hairy and your top half is bare. This is not a good look. Let me get the rest of you. You'll look a lot better."

I'm not sure why, but I allowed her to do it. She did my legs first, and my butt cheeks after that. She then turned me around and automatically started in on my crotch without asking. In a dozen quick cuts with her scissors, she got the bulk of it off. She then applied shaving cream and shaved me bare."Hold still," she said. "I'm going to do your balls."

She shaved my balls and clearly knew what she was doing.

"You've done this before?" I asked.

"My college boyfriend was on the swim team and he had me shave him," she said. That was something she'd never shared with me before.

When she was done, I saw myself without body hair for the first time since I was in fifth grade. When she was done, she had me stand in front of the mirror. She looked like the cat that ate the canary. "You know, this was a fantasy I've had for years. I've wanted you hairless."

She made a show of walking around me and lightly ran her fingertips around the base of my cock. She shuddered with an erotic thrill.

I expected Olivia to come onto me and I was not disappointed. "I know you don't want a continued relationship with me," she said. "but I'm so horny right now I'm going to burst. I'd love to go down on you and maybe fuck. It doesn't have to mean anything. I just need sex."

To punctuate her statement, she slipped her hand into her leggings and withdrew her fingers and showed them to me. They were covered with a gooey mess. It was tempting, but I turned her down. I thought she would be mad. Instead, she just shrugged and said, "Your loss."

She went into her bedroom. Without shutting the door, I heard her large wand vibrator start thrumming like an industrial sander. A few minutes later, she came so hard I'm suspected our neighbors heard her groaning. I certainly did.

***

There was a knock on the basement apartment door promptly at 9:30 AM the next morning. The tattoo artist was a woman. She was holding two tackle boxes and there was a roller-bag parked next to her.

She looked at me with surprise

She was very tall. She was at least six feet and was statuesque. She was in her early thirties. Something about her looked European to me. Her hair was meticulously prepared to resemble Alice from the Disney animated classic, complete with a ribbon tied into a bow.

Her hair had been incongruously dyed a shade of industrial black which did not look natural at all. The ribbon was glossy white latex. It was clear her original hair was blonde because her eyes were extremely blue and she had alabaster skin. One of her nostrils was pierced with a black hoop and she had black hoop earrings in each ear about two inches in circumference. The tops of her arms were covered with small colorful photorealistic tattoos of beautiful flowers. It was really the only color in her appearance at all.

She was wearing a latex 'Goth Alice' costume. The base of the outfit was a gloss black latex dress with a tight sleeved bodice and a loose flared skirt. Over that, she wore a gray textured linen pinafore that looked like it was dyed gray with an ink wash. Her stockings were black silk which had runs and had generally been abused. The way the bodice clung to her breasts and the way the skirt flared made the outfit extremely sexy. Despite her efforts to profane her body, she was a remarkably pretty woman and she had a stunning vital presence to her.

I looked down at her feet. They were clad with heavy leather boots with a four inch block heel. I could see that she was probably five ten and the boots added a good three inches to her. She expected to tower over me when I opened the door.

Instead, her startled and shocked face ended up looking up at me. My height, nudity, and the unsettling mask momentarily terrified her. I saw her eyes quickly flick down and she got a pretty good look at my semi-erect cock. Her alabaster cheeks flushed pink.

I instantly intuited that she'd dressed like that to impress and intimidate. She wanted to shock and awe me and assume dominance in the space. I instantly understood she was doing this because she was in an unknown man's apartment alone.

I decided to fuck with her. I instantly stepped right into her personal space and cupped her cheek with my hand. I expected her to quail, but instead she stood there transfixed in total fear, unable to move. I saw her nostrils flair open as she took huge rapid breaths as the fear washed over her.

I very quickly squatted and threw her over my shoulder. I did this so fast and it was so unexpected that she didn't even protest. I could feel her trembling on my shoulder. She was almost hyperventilating. There was something amazingly erotic about this to me. She showed up with the intention of intimidating me, but was now so frightened, she wasn't even fighting back. While I carried her into the apartment, I slid my hand up the back of her leg and rubbed all the way up to her ass. Under the dress, she had on a pair of tight latex panties. I rubbed my hand over her ass and the feel of it was exquisite. She groaned and trembled even harder.

I walked her into the kitchen and gently set her down on her feet in front of the kitchen counter.

"You may call me Ascalaphus. What's your name?" I asked.

"I am Greta," she said in an ambiguously heavy German or Scandinavian accent.

"Do I frighten you, Greta?" I asked.

She nodded like a little girl.

"You have my word that I won't do anything you do not want, Greta," I replied. "You will not be hurt in our service."

I pointed at the note I'd printed out that were her instructions. It talked about the computer, the image to use for the stencil, and how it was to be positioned. It had a sample photo. It talked about breaks, and water, and how to have food delivered if she was hungry. The note also said that I had to be cuffed when she was inking the back tattoo. The note didn't say this, but being tattooed while being cuffed and naked except for the hood was part of the Glaukopis routine and had nothing to do with the tattooo process. She nodded. She'd seen this exact note before and she knew the drill.

Next to the note were two straps of hundred dollar bills: $20,000 which I'd taken from the vault. When she saw them, Greta's eyes grew huge. She tried not to act like it was a big deal, but she couldn't conceal that it was very meaningful to her and that she couldn't believe she got paid that much for one day of work.

I slid the non-disclosure agreement in front of her. I took the tackle boxes out of her hands and carried them into the bedroom. Her first move was to pick up the two small bottles of the invisible ink. She quickly looked at their labels, obviously looking for the expiration dates.

While she did that, I then went to the front entrance and pulled the roller bag inside and shut the door.

Greta quickly poked her head around the corner to see what I was doing. In that moment, she looked like a scared little girl hoping to avoid an angry parent, so I deliberately didn't lock the door.

I rolled the bag into the bedroom.

I went to the living room of the apartment and sat down on the leather couch that was there and read from my iPad. She quickly made herself a cup of coffee, filling the apartment with a redolent smell. She left the signed NDA on the coffee table in front of me and walked back into the bedroom, her boots making heavy footfalls. I could hear her setting up equipment and making preparations. Fifteen minutes later, she came out and looked at me expectantly.

I got up and walked into the bedroom and at Greta's direction used the bathroom. After that, Greta efficiently put a set of thick padded leather cuffs on my wrists and ankles. She had me sit in the massage chair and while leaning forward, she clipped the cuffs attached to the chair frame.

As soon as I was clipped in, Greta visibly relaxed. "You are quite the physical specimen-- not at all what I expected," she said. "You do not sit at a desk for your work like the others."

It was at that point I realized that she was indeed German and not Scandinavian. She stepped back to my side so I could see her from where I was clipped down. "Working on you is going to be a pleasure."

I then watched her very consciously strip in front of me. The latex dress wasn't easy to remove, so she took her time to build up suspense. She knew a little something of showmanship. After the dress and the stockings came off, she feigned indecision and rotated around as if deciding what to do next, but was really giving me a chance to see her breasts from all angles.

She then started working on her latex panties. They were glossy black high rise panties that crossed just under her belly button. It took about a minute for her to carefully work them off. As she removed them, a tube was left behind that went into her vagina. It took me a moment to figure out a condom had been built into the panties.

When her panties were off, I could see that she was completely hairless and her genitals were pierced. Both of her labia were pierced with rings and there was a vertical bar with metal dots above and below her clitoris.

"You like my piercings?" she asked, quite pleased. "This is the Isabella piercing. It runs vertically behind the clitoris. Quite painful to receive, quite pleasurable to have."

She turned and bent to take her panties off the floor. On her back, she had a peculiar tattoo that looked like a cartoon. It was a depiction of Alice from Alice in Wonderland as a young Goth woman. She bore more than a passing resemblance to Greta. Alice in the tattoo was shown from the back. She was naked and was cuffed to a wooden X with her wrists well above her head.

There were angry red welts from Alice's calves to her neck in parallel lines where she'd been whipped with a cane. Some of the welts were bleeding. Alice was looking back over her shoulder to the viewer and there was an unmistakable look of ecstasy on her face. Alice's feet looked like they were resting on the start of the ass crack and was twelve inches tall or so.

Greta's own back was covered with parallel welts from her calves to her shoulders. They were a day or two old and were healing.

"Cool tattoo," I said as she bent over. When I saw the welts, I barked a laugh. "The welts are a nice touch, Greta. Life imitates art."

She looked over her shoulder in an uncanny imitation of the tattoo. Instead of a face of ecstasy, she had a smile. She was pleased as punch that I'd mentioned the welts.

"Danke", she said. "Aren't they beautiful? I measured them. Each stripe is exactly spaced to the centimeter. My mistress was amazing that night. It was the hottest scene I've ever been a part of."

Greta then took out what looked like a tailor's measuring tape and measured my back. She did this carefully and it took some time. She then sat down at the computer and started working on the stencil template in an art program.

While she worked, I asked, "You are a submissive?"

Her answer was a mirthless laugh. "You could not tell this from my response to your greeting? When you stepped into me and took control, I was certain that you knew."

"Can you talk while you work?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"I want to learn more about domination and submission. Tell me about it," I said.

Again, she deployed her mirthless laugh. "What is there for you to learn? You made me submit to you in less than five seconds. If you had bent me over and fucked me through my panty condom I would have exploded into a puddle on the floor." Her description of that was flat and emotionless.

"I want you to teach me about domination and submission in your own words. Explain as if teaching a beginner," I said.

She gave me a look as if I were crazy.

"Humor me," I said.

"You wish for me to make a joke of this?" she asked.

"Greta, 'humor me' is an idiom that means I want you to do what I instructed even if you don't think it is necessary."

She hesitated.

I made my voice harder. "I didn't ask you, Greta," I said. "To this point, I think I've been polite."

This had a marvelous effect. She sat up straighter and her alabaster cheeks flushed pink again. "Yes, Sir."

"Do you submit to a dominant, Greta? Are you owned?"

She nodded.

"Then, I'm not your 'Sir', am I?"

"No, S..." she stopped before she called me "Sir" again, but she couldn't remember the name I gave her.

"Ascalaphus," I corrected.

"No, Ascalaphus," she repeated.

"Very well, you may proceed, Greta."

"For each person dominance and submission is a different thing. I can speak only for me. Will this suffice?"

"It is a good place to start," I said.

"I was intelligent even as a child and knew from my earliest years that I am not normal," she said. "I have spent many hours studying myself to understand how and why I am different. There are two things that I get off on: submission and massochism.

"What I seek when I submit is freedom. Freedom from the burden of responsibility, freedom from guilt, and freedom from having to make a proper choice. I crave the abandonment of submission. What I seek from pain is release, atonement, propitiation, and permission to feel pleasure."

This answer was simple, direct, elegant, and I sensed the truth behind it.

"It is clear that you have been thinking about it for a while," I observed.

"Yes, Ascalaphus."

She hit a keystroke combination and the printer suddenly roared to life. It began to print out a stencil.

Greta stood to watch the printer work.

I asked her, "What about the dominants, Greta? What do they want?"

She laughed her mirthless laugh. "None of the dominants that I have known ever explained to me why they do what they do. They are closed to the scrutiny of those who submit to them. Transparently, dominants like to be in control, but this explanation is too simple. Observation has taught me that their motivations for being in control are opaque and it is far more complicated than it is for submissives. Some dominants are sadists. Some are dark tetrad personality types. Some are loving and use dominance in a loving parental way because they want what is best for their sub."

"Why did you strip, Greta?" I asked.

She looked up for the first time. She was at a loss for what to say. Some part of her made a decision.

"It will be difficult to ink the tattoo with the latex dress on," she replied. "I planned to change into leggings and a tee shirt for the work, but you made me submit so quickly...." She tailed off, leaving her thought unfinished.

She finally said, "Being naked before you feels more natural."

Her arousal in that moment was obvious.

***

The process was taking a long time. The fact that she was using an invisible ink meant that she'd been manipulating the peculiar lamp on the swing arm, moving back and forth between a normal light and a black light to check her progress. She took a break in the last ten minutes of every hour and did yoga, naked on the floor where I could watch. She knew that this display was giving me pleasure and soaked up the attention that I gave her as she stretched before me.

The whole time she worked, she chatted with me giving me a comprehensive history of her as a submissive. She started slow, but after she started unburdening herself, she picked up momentum and spoke quite earnestly about her experiences, which started with being bullied by an older female cousin during her early adolescence. These experiences evoked ambiguously sexual feelings which led to exploration that culminated with her first experience with a dominant while she was in University.

She talked about the psychology of submission, what works and what doesn't, and what is easy and what is hard when you are in a committed D/s relationship. It was a masterclass on the mind of a submissive. I thanked my lucky stars that Matt Gilbert had the apartment wired for video and sound so I could go back and re-listen to it later.

At 12:30 PM, she ordered Thai food for us. She took a break, rinsed off in the shower, and then put on her leggings and a tee shirt. She unclipped my cuffs and had me lay face down on the massage table. Being able to move and shift position was a welcome relief. My tailbone was sore and my legs were stiff from sitting in one position that long.

When the food came in, the first thing she did was strip naked again. I sat up on the massage table with my legs dangling over the side. She rolled her chair up next to the table, and insisted on feeding me. I thought it was peculiar at first, but she was an absolute expert at doing this cleanly and efficiently. I realized that feeding her dominant must be part of her routine.

"Bring me my iPad from the couch in the other room," I commanded.

She quickly set the food aside and returned with the tablet. She sat back down in her chair, poised to feed me again. I made a show of reading my novel and ignored her. I was curious as to what would happen. She sat there quiescent and patient waiting for me to open my mouth. The amount of patience she displayed was pretty amazing. She was completely concentrated on me and her focus didn't wander, not for a second..

Every once in a while, at irregular intervals, I would open my mouth and almost instantly, she'd bring her chopsticks up loaded with my next bite of my Pad Thai.

After the third such bite that she fed me, I got annoyed. "You aren't feeding a child, Greta. I'm a grown-ass man and I need bigger bites to chew." She adjusted and the next time, she gave me an appropriately-sized bite. "Good Girl," I said. A visible frisson went through Greta's body.

After screwing with her a bit, I settled down and allowed her to get into a rhythm. When we were done, I said, 'Thank you, Greta."

I noticed through the meal that she hadn't eaten. I said, "You may eat now."

"Thank you, Ascalaphus," she replied.

She pulled a container of noodles out of the bag. She knelt on the floor and unfastened the container to make a plate with a steaming pile of noodles in the center. She untied the latex ribbon in her hair, pulled her hair back and into a tight pony tail and tied it with the ribbon. She knelt before the plate and dipped her face down like she was going to eat like a dog without using her hands.

"Stop!" I said. She raised back up to look at me.

"Bring me your phone," I commanded.

She stood and pulled her phone out of the roller bag.

"Unlock it," I ordered.

She unlocked the phone. I put my hand out and she set it into my hand. The look on her face was fascinating. She didn't want me to look at her phone and felt violated, but at the same time, it wasn't in her nature to refuse. I could see her trying to figure out what to say.

"What is your dominant's name, Greta?" I asked.

"Mistress Jillian," she responded.

"You are such a pretty thing, all ready to eat your meal while on your knees. Don't you think Mistress Jillian would like to see how you are eating in submission in front of your client?" I asked. "I think I'll take some video as a gift to her."

Her entire body turned beat red. An expression of panic and horror filled her face. She clearly didn't know how her mistress would respond to the fact that she was submitting in front of a stranger. At the same time, she was both humiliated and aroused. She actually swooned.

"Eat, Greta," I commanded. "Your noodles are getting cold."

She knelt back down and rested her hands on her thighs. She leaned forward, and I activated the recording, which made a distinctive series of beeps. When she heard her phone start to record, she groaned.

She leaned forward and placed her face all the way into her food. She began to slurp in the noodles. She chewed them and then she'd raise her chin up and swallow. While she ate, I slowly circled her and made a running commentary to Mistress Jillian.

"Jillian. I thought you'd want to see a video of your submissive, the exquisite Greta here, taking her lunch. As you can see, she is very committed to your lifestyle. She fed me, then waited for me to give her permission to eat. When I told her she could, this is what she did: she put her plate on the floor and started eating like a dog.

"I'm going to assume that this is how she eats in your presence. I wanted you to know that I did not ask her to submit to me, to make herself naked, or to eat like this. She did it all voluntarily.

"I must confess that I am a novice to the community and I wasn't sure about the protocols or how to handle such a situation. I humbly apologize if I should have put my foot down and stopped it. I don't know what the customs are and I honestly didn't know what to do. Now that we've gone this far, I've decided to just let it continue through lunch and let the chips fall where they may. If you wish for me to stop this, or you wish to order Greta to stop, reply to this text and I shall immediately make it so."

At this point, Greta was utterly humiliated. She stopped eating and tears were pouring down her messy noodle-smeared face.

"I didn't say you could stop eating, Greta," I said forcefully. She quickly pressed her face back down and started slurping up noodles again.

I walked around to get a shot of Greta from behind. I focused on the welts on Greta's back. "These welts are utterly magnificent by the way. Greta shamelessly bragged about how beautiful they were. She is very proud of them. She told me she measured them and marveled about how precisely spaced they were."

I focused the camera on how wet her sex was. "She's also rather fond of being humiliated in front of strangers. I've got to say, Jillian, I'm envious as hell."

I stopped the recording. I said to Greta, "Stop eating."

Greta raised up, but stayed on her knees. Her face was a mess. She was crying and there were noodles and sauce smeared all over her lips, nose, and chin.

I held her phone in front of her. "Text it to her."

Her hands were literally shaking as she texted the video.

"Are you finished eating?" I asked.

She handed her phone back to me, leaned back over, and continued to eat.

Within three minutes, Greta's phone started ringing. The caller ID said it was Jillian. I handed Greta's phone to her and said, "Answer it."

I picked up my iPad and left her to some privacy. I went into the living room, and sat on the coffee table in front of the couch. There was no way I could lean back on anything with my back coated with petroleum jelly.

After five minutes, she came in, looking poised. Her face was still a mess, but she had settled down and whatever her discomfort was from before had been dispelled.

"Mistress Jillian would like to talk to you," she said.

"Hello?"

"This is Jillian, with whom am I speaking?" she asked in a crisp Boston accent.

"Please call me Ascalaphus," I said.

"Ascalaphus the son of Archeron and Orphne? Ascalaphus the son of Ares and Astyoche? Or Ascalaphus of the Argonauts?" she asked very quickly.

"Ah, a Greek scholar," I said. "Did Greta not describe my mask to you?"

"She said you were in an owl mask?"

"So, then you have your answer, don't you?" I replied.

"I suppose so," she said, amused. "Tell me, is the needy little slut listening in?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Send her away," she said.

"Greta, go finish your lunch," I said.

Jillian said, "Tell her I said to clean her plate."

"Your mistress wants you to clean your plate," I said to Greta as she stood.

"Yes, Mistress." she said as she left the room.

"She's in the other room now," I reported.

"You said you are a total novice to our community? It doesn't sound like it," she said.

"I am. I have a need to learn and sadly no one to guide me," I said.

"If you don't know what you're doing, why did you attempt to dominate my submissive?" she asked.

"She showed up in that Grunge Alice latex getup with block heeled boots. She invaded my personal space trying to intimidate me," I reported. "Fuck that. That wasn't going to happen."

Jillian, to my surprise, laughed. "Spoken like a natural born dominant."

"Tell me, Jillian, did I do the wrong thing to indulge her desire to be submissive before me?"

There was a long pause. "Yes and no," she replied. "Customs may vary from place to place, but within our community here, if I recognized you as a peer dominant, in my absence, I would expect you to take her in hand. In my presence, you would defer to me. In your case, however...."

"I see," I replied, "You haven't formally recognized me as a peer, so I have done the wrong thing."

"Just so," she replied.

"Then, I humbly apologize. I did not wish to usurp your power or place. Is there some way that I can atone or make restitution for overstepping my bounds?"

"At this time, I think we can call it a beginner's mistake and I will extend grace to you. This incident is more of a failing on Greta's behalf than yours. There will be consequences for her, but that is between us. Tell me, Ascalaphus, why did you have her report her behavior to me?"

"Honestly?" I asked, "When I saw how aroused she was with her face in that plate of noodles, I felt like she was deliberately trying to entice me. It felt like infidelity to me."

This made Jillian laugh. "She was aroused because that silly slut fairly covets a good humiliation. Greta knows she oughtn't have submitted to you, but in terms of infractions, it isn't as severe as infidelity," said Jillian. "Greta has a terrifically needy cunt and it does her thinking for her most of the time. I have meticulously trained her for years to submit when her cunt gets her into such a situation. When in doubt, good subs will do as they are trained. In a certain regard, her submission to you is a positive reflection on my training."

I didn't have anything to say to that.

"Tell me, Ascalaphus," she asked. "Do you have a sub of your own?"

After a pause I answered, "It is a complicated story, but a sub has come into my possession. If this woman had been a beginner like me, I would be on solid footing. We could experiment and learn together. The sub in my possession, however, is both deeply experienced and she is a pain slut whose requirements are extreme. I am reluctant to inflict the kind of corporal punishment that will be required without some instruction."

"I see," she said. There was a long pause. "When you are finished with Greta today, give her a phone number. I will ask around and see if anyone would be willing to give some instruction."

"Thank you, Jillian," I replied.

"In the meantime, I have decided to formally recognize you as a peer. You have my permission to play with Greta with two limitations. There must be no genital sexual contact. No offense, but I don't know you well enough to entrust you with that."

"I completely understand," I responded.

"As for the second, she may not orgasm. Her needy cunt seems to be overriding her judgement, so a program of denial is in order. She will go into chastity tonight. Feel free, however, to play with her. Consider it a challenge to get her as hot as you can and send her back to me."

***

I hurt. It felt like I had a combination sunburn and road rash-- like I'd fallen off a motorcycle onto my back and scraped my skin off.

Greta just applied a product to my new tattoo that was called Saniderm. It was a plastic sheet that came in a roll like cling wrap. You roll it over the new tattoo and then peel away the backing. It creates a thin transparent barrier over the new tattoo which protects it from infection and from abrasions.

Just before she applied the Saniderm, she took some pictures with my phone under black light. The pictures showed that the tattoo was large and impressive.

Greta had worked very carefully and very slowly for hours to get it just right. The massage chair was great for the upper and middle back, but it was hard for her to get to the parts on my lower back. When she worked her way down, she moved me off of the massage chair and had me lie face down on the massage table.

She basically climbed on top of me. She straddled my leg with her breasts pressing down on my ass and her sex resting directly on my calf. Before too long, she was grinding against my calf as she worked. I had to caution her repeatedly not to come. She would bring herself close and I'd flex my calf trying to catch her unawares in an attempt to bring her over. This went on for over an hour and a half.

By the time she was finished, Greta looked like she'd been put through the wringer. Greta was red and sweaty all over, her hair was disheveled and wild, her nipples were distended, and her juices had dripped down her inner thighs all the way to her knees. I laughed when I saw her.

"Unhook my cuffs and bring me your phone," I commanded.

She quickly unhooked my cuffs from the table and then brought me her phone.

I hit the video record button and I told her to kneel and edge herself. Within about fifteen seconds, she was on the verge of coming.

"Please, Ascalaphus, may I come?" she begged.

"Don't beg me!" I commanded fiercely. "Beg your mistress!"

"Please mistress! May I come?" she begged. She looked miserable and pitiful, which made me laugh.

"I want you to keep edging until your mistress replies. Keep your self good and close. If she gives you permission, you will have twenty seconds to make yourself come. If you don't come within twenty seconds of receiving permission, you lose your chance."

I stopped the recording and handed the phone to Greta. "Text it," I said.

I needed to use the restroom. While I was in there, I cleaned off the back of my leg, which was sticky from her juices from the back of my knee to my ankle.

Greta's phone rang as I stepped back into the room. Greta answered it while continuing to edge herself. She was almost in a fugue state.

"Hello Mistress?" she said, barely able to speak.

"Yes, Mistress," she said. She extended the phone to me.

"Hello Jillian," I said.

Jillian was laughing a wicked laugh. "You really got her worked up. What did you do?"

"To finish the tattoo, I had to lie flat on my stomach on a table and she had to straddle my leg. She started rubbing her puss on my calf, so I let her. That part of the tattoo took an hour and a half. So you could say that she did it all to herself."

We shared a laugh.

"I have to say, most of our games are about holding her back from an orgasm. Forcing her to have an orgasm quickly is an innovation I hadn't thought of. Very devious!"

"Could you put me on speaker phone?" she asked.

I put her on speaker.

"Are you listening to me Greta?" she asked.

"Yes, mistress," replied Greta. Her voice was wavering. She was almost gone.

"Listen closely, Pet. I'm going to give you three chances to come," said Jillian. "When I say 'Come now', you are to lift your hands over your head. When you do, Ascalaphus is going to pinch and twist your nipples hard with no stimulation to your cunt. If you can orgasm from that, Pet, I will allow it. If you can't come from that, with three tries, you will go into chastity for a minimum of two weeks. Make sure you're ready, Pet."

"Yes, Mistress," Greta replied with her wavering voice.

I sat my phone up on the massage table, put it on video record and, aimed it at Greta.

I sat on the floor facing Greta to put her nipples within reach. "I'm ready, mistress," she said.

Greta worked herself up into a frenzy and got as close as she dared. After a moment of waiting, Jillian shouted out on the phone, "Come now!"

Greta instantly lifted her hands over her head. I reached out and pinched her nipples between my forefinger and thumb. I pinched hard, pulled them out and twisted.

Greta grunted fiercely. She thrust her hips fruitlessly as she lost her edge and failed to come. She whimpered and said, "Fuck!" in frustration.

Jillian and I both started laughing. Tears started pouring down Greta's cheeks.

"She's very disappointed she didn't come, Jillian," I reported.

Jillian was extremely amused, "I imagine so. Strike one, Pet. Get yourself back on edge. Let me know when you're ready to try again."

Greta dropped her hands and began working again. She gave me such a plaintive look I laughed again.

"Tell me Jillian, what makes it easier for Greta? More pain or less pain?" I asked. "I was pretty forceful with it last time."

"I would have thought more pain. What would you say, Pet? Would more pain or less pain help you?" asked Jillian.

Greta wasn't sure. "Not as much as last time, Mistress?" was her answer.

I figured she expected I would go light for the second time. My plan was to do it even harder the second time, then give her the sensual one on her third attempt. I mentally prepared to make it very hard on her.

After a minute, Greta suddenly slowed her fingers down, 'I'm ready mistress," she said almost breathlessly.

Jillian waited almost a minute and then said, "Come now!"

Greta quickly raised her hands over her head. I pinched even harder than the first time and even got my fingernails involved. I pulled her nipples viciously outward towards me, almost pulling her over. I thought the pain would kill her arousal as it had last time, but this time it made her absolutely detonate.

"Mein Gott!" she shouted and then gave out a hellacious groan. She came so hard she couldn't balance upright and the tugging I was doing to her nipples pulled her over until she fell against me, shaking and convulsing. She squirted, dumping out several ounces of moisture on my legs and the floor. The orgasm seemed to go on for fifteen or twenty seconds, and I saw that I was pulsing my pinches and she was groaning and thrusting her hips in time with what I was doing with my fingers.

Her moans and groans of pleasure suddenly turned into shouts of pain as my forceful pinching on her nipples was no longer pleasurable.

I took my hands away and Greta, more or less slumped down to the floor and began to cry.

"Jillian, I guess you caught that she just came really hard. She squirted and then slumped down to the floor and she's crying pretty hard. Any recommendations on what to do?" I asked.

"If she squirted it was an unusually strong orgasm for her," said Jillian. "It is not unusual for her to cry after a good hard orgasm. For her it is a tension release and a happy cry. If you are so inclined, you should give her a cuddle and settle her down."

"I'm going to do that. Do you want me to give the handset to Greta so you can talk to her?"

"Yes," she said.

I took the phone off speaker and handed it to Greta. While she put it up to her ear, I pulled Greta up into my lap and held her so that her back was to my front. I wrapped my arms around her so that my hands were on her upper stomach underneath her breasts. I held her tightly, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to encourage her to match my breathing.

After a moment, Greta responded to something Jillian said with a shuddering, "Yes, Mistress."

Jillian asked her several yes/no questions and I held on to Greta. The only answer she gave that was not yes/no was, "I wore my latex condom panties, Mistress."

A minute later, Greta said, "Yes, mistress" one last time and hung up the phone.

"She said that I could service you if you desire it," she said, almost eagerly. "We could use the latex panties with the condom."

"Thank you Greta, but as desirable as you are, I'm going to have to pass. My back is fucking killing me and I'm not much in the mood for that kind of fun," I replied.

***

Chapter 13

The next few days were pretty miserable. It was two days before I could bring myself to touch my back against a seat rest, or lay on my back in bed. I was supposed to keep my SaniDerm patches on for four full days unless they started to leak. Luckily, the patches remained intact, so I didn't have that worry. My skin did bleed and leak plasma beneath the patches, which made my back look godawful.

I spent hours and hours trying to learn as much as I could about dominance. I went online and read what I could find there. There was a lot of information available about the philosophy and psychology of power exchange. I became aware of the concepts of "safe, sane, and consensual" and "risk-aware consensual kink". I rewatched the rituals that Naeem Carter performed with the Albas. It was clear neither SSC nor RACK was a standard that was adhered to. It appeared to be unrestrained sadism with no consideration for the woman involved. The fact that these women were having hard orgasms in the midst of brutal sadism felt very, very wrong. One of the first things I'd have to suss out was whether the control mechanism was submission, pain, or the sadism itself.

In a bit of an unusual twist, Olivia was running in and out of the house almost continually over those four days wearing scrubs. She said that she was working with Sunny to prepare for taking Sloane home. She was putting in time acting as a nurse's assistant at the confidential clinic so that Sloane would get used to seeing her and Sunny together.

***

On the third day, I went back to the Glaukopis apartment so that Greta could tattoo the image of the Athena coin to my chest.

When Greta arrived, she walked through the door and dropped down on her knees in front of me. She handed me a hand-written and perfumed note on exquisite stationary. It was from Jillian. She thanked me for tending to her sub so masterfully in our last session. She allowed me to give Greta orders, but asked that I refrain from playing with Greta. She asked me to prevent her from instigating play, and asked that I not allow her to submit to me during the day's session.

"This is not a reflection on you or my opinion of you, Ascalaphus," she wrote. "Greta is being punished. She allowed her worthless needy pussy to make decisions for her. My slave must learn that while she has many betters, she has only one mistress who must come first and be obeyed above all others. This punishment is for the best."

The note was stylishly done and the penmanship was almost a work of art. It made me wish that I could respond in kind, but I wouldn't have the first idea how to do it without coming off like a pretentious asshole dilettante.

"Text your mistress, Greta. Tell her that I was flattered by her handsome note and that I will adhere to her conditions to the letter."

While I carried Greta's equipment into the bedroom, Greta stripped in the other room. She came into the bedroom naked except for a chastity appliance, which is something I'd never seen before. It looked like a nylon-coated bike lock wire belted around the narrow part of her waist. The wire was threaded through a gusset section that passed between her legs. The gusset was made of metal backed with leather and attached to her labia via a metal pin which passed through her labial piercings. The pin and the chastity device were held in place with a single lock.

There was a shallow bowl built into the gusset that covered her clitoris like a helmet. The bowl was wide enough that it wouldn't transfer vibrations anywhere near her pudendum. You could not defeat the device with a powerful vibrator.

Greta had a fresh set of welts up and down her front and back. The beating that she'd taken to her tits had been particularly vicious. Her welts radiated out from her areolas like spokes from the hub of a wheel. Written with black magic marker on her belly were the words "I belong to Mistress Jillian". It was written backwards so that Greta could read it when she looked at herself in the mirror.

Greta caught me looking at her welts. She asked with evident pride that bordered on conceit, "Aren't they beautiful, Ascalaphus?"

"They are, but disobedient slaves with a hungry insistent pussy are not attractive, Greta," I said. "Not at all."

She looked like she'd been slapped. She was so ashamed, she swooned after I said it. I had forgotten that humiliation was one of her triggers. Her limbs were suddenly shaky from arousal.

"Phone," I commanded.

After she handed me her phone and unlocked it, I walked her over to the full-length mirror attached to the back of the bathroom door. I ordered her to kneel in front of it.

I began to record video.

"What do those words say, Greta?" I asked.

"They say 'I belong to Mistress Jillian'," she replied.

"That's right. I want you to look yourself in the eye and repeat those words a hundred times out loud. I want you to think about what that means. I also want you to contemplate what it would be like if you didn't belong to your mistress any more. You'd never receive her markings or taste her discipline again. Think about what that would be like."

As I said that, a horrified expression shot across her face.

"Count each time you say it. If you lose count, start over. When you are finished, you may rejoin me."

She started saying it over and over. Her voice was soft when she started. "Louder," I demanded. "With confidence. This is who you are. You are owned by Mistress Jillian."

She started saying it louder. It took about ten minutes to get through it. When she was done, I could see that she was in a completely different headspace. I turned off the recording and handed the phone back to Greta.

"Do you want me to text the video to Mistress?" she asked with evident hope.

"No," I replied.

She was very disappointed but fought not to show it.

"If you wish to share it with your mistress later, that is your concern," I said dismissively. "I made the video for you. Use it as a reminder of who you are and who you belong to. You fell into temptation and it forced your mistress to lock your worthless pussy up. This is how you should deal with temptation: remind yourself you are owned by Jillian. Slaves don't have desires. Mistresses do. It's that simple. Greta responded with a subconscious nod.

I admit that I took a few liberties in instructing Greta to do that as it could be construed as "play", but given that Jillian sent her to me with those words written on her torso, I saw it as merely reinforcing Jillian's own instruction. The exercise and the conversation had an astonishing effect on her. She developed strength and confidence from her ownership. After that, she was much more in control.

The tattoo on my chest took about three hours. I came to realize that Greta dragged it out so that she could justify having lunch with me. She asked me what I wanted to eat. The first food I could think of which she could not serve to me with utensils was a sub sandwich. I told her that was what I wanted. She was so disappointed, I had to fight back a laugh.

When the delivered food arrived, she set up to feed me anyway as she had in our previous session. I ordered her to put a shirt on, sit next to me, and feed herself as a human would. She was horrified. The whole time, her hands were shaking.

"Phone," I commanded. She leapt up and returned with her phone. I took a video of how miserable she was.

"Does eating like a friend of equal stature to me make you feel uncomfortable, Greta?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Is the problem that you are incorrectly viewing me as your owner?" I asked. It was all I could do not to laugh at her shocked expression. As her mouth flapped open and shut. I said, "Your mistress made it quite clear you are not to submit to me. When you let your needy pussy make your decisions for you, you lose the privilege of submitting and serving."

Her mind was blown. It was clear that she'd never conceptualized her submission as a privilege which could be taken away. She'd been taught only that her submission was required. She'd grown comfortable with that-- it was how the universe was ordered. When I revoked the privilege of submitting to me, she was almost frantic with worry.

By then, I'd figured out that a good part of my psychological power was from the owl mask I was wearing. I considered the pros and cons of wearing it and I decided to take a risk. I ordered her to remove my mask.

She was horrified by that. She begged me not to.

"Nonsense, Greta," I replied.

At my insistence, I made her unzip the back of the mask and slide it off of me. I made her clean the mask and carefully set it out to dry. The whole time she did that, Greta steadfastly refused to look at me. She would either shield her eyes with her hands, or she would look away.

I forced her to come back to the table to finish lunch. She continued to look away, so I commanded her to look at me. Her facial expression was quite complicated as she absorbed my features. I could tell that she liked the way that I looked. I could also see a tangible disappointment as her preconceptions of me were dispelled. She'd been mythologizing me.

I turned off the video. "When you get back home, you are to show this to your mistress right away."

"Yes, Ascalaphus," she said bitterly.

Through lunch. I forced her to maintain eye contact while keeping up a steady chit chat about her life. I asked her about her University studies, her art, how she became a tattoo artist, and her struggles as a small business owner to keep her parlor running while dealing with flaky employees and apprentices.

Every time she attempted to speak of Jillian, or submission, or her lifestyle, I cut her off and redirected her back onto vanilla banal trivialities.

This was absolutely devastating to her and she became increasingly upset as the lunch went on. She lost her appetite and I had to force her to eat. I did that by ordering her to smile when she wasn't chewing. She decided chewing was better than trying to fake an unconvincing smile.

After lunch, Greta worked on the Alba Wrangler marks on the backs of my hands. This was simple line work and took less than twenty minutes.

As Greta was cleaning up, I said to her, "You have seen my face, Greta. I'm taking a risk that you will handle that knowledge appropriately. I took that risk because I really like you. You are such a conscientious and diligent slave that I trust you implicitly. I know that you will do as you are told. I am very envious of Mistress Jillian to have a possession like you."

Greta practically swelled with the praise that I gave her.

"If we meet, or see each other, or we are thrown together in the future, you will pretend like I am a complete stranger. Understand? I want you to tell your mistress so that she can hold you accountable."

"Yes, Ascalaphus," she replied.

"You know what happens if you slip up, Greta?" I asked.

She shook her head, looking scared. "When Ascalaphus saw too much and handled it poorly, he was turned into an owl. I will do likewise to you. Do not make me turn you into an owl, Greta."

***

An incoming text hit my burner phone that afternoon. It was from Jillian.

"The video you took when you forced Greta to treat you as an equal and remove your mask was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I must confess that it never crossed my mind that submission could be taken away from her as a punishment. Again, you have challenged my preconceptions and taught me something about my own craft. Thank you, Ascalaphus."

"My pleasure," I replied. "I an extremely grateful that you entrusted such a marvelous possession like Greta to my care. Your gift to me was both handsome and generous."

Another text came in a minute later. "The video of her reciting her ownership to me was also profound. My mind is already awash with what I could accomplish with Greta with intensive mirror work."

I typed out a quick reply. "I must confess, I had not considered it before I ordered it. It was so effective that I have decided that this is where I will begin with the sub which I have inherited."

Five minutes later, another text came in. "As you have unmasked yourself to Greta, would you be willing to unmask yourself to me also? I would like to meet you face-to-face."

I'd done a very thorough background check on Jillian as soon as I learned who she was. She was powerful, connected, and utterly clean. She had the knowledge and skills which I needed to master. I decided to take a gamble. "I would like that," I replied.

***

On the evening of the fourth day after my back tattoo, I was supposed to remove the SaniDerm from my back. Sunny and I spoke about it a couple of days ago and she agreed to do it for me, but we hadn't talked through the logistics of where to meet.

I texted her that morning: "Where do you want to do the unwrap?"

There was a long delay and she texted back an address, which was in Bethesda, Maryland. I peeked at it on a maps application and realized it was Sloane Moore's address.

"Is meeting there a good idea?" I texted back.

"We brought Sloane home today. This is where I'm going to be tonight."

"Is she coherent?" I texted. "My understanding is that she was heavily sedated to prevent her from knowing she was in government custody."

"She's mostly out of it," Sunny texted back. "She does not recognize Olivia at all." replied Sunny.

"Is Olivia helping or hindering?" I texted.

Sunny's reply was almost immediate. "Olivia's helping. Plus I'm training her."

"On what?" I asked.

The reply was a picture. It was of a naked Olivia kneeling on the floor. Sunny's big toe was in her mouth. The look on Olivia's face was pure arousal. The message had one word: "submission".

"WTF?" I texted back.

"She wants to be forced because she's dealing with shame, remember? I'm forcing her to make conscious decisions to submit and I'm working with her to get her to accept who she is. Self acceptance is an inoculation against shame. We're making progress." she texted back.

"And you're getting off from it too," I shot back.

"Guilty as charged!" was her reply.

***

That evening, I found myself before Sloan Moore's front door in Bethesda. This was a five-thousand square foot five bedroom home that was about ten years old. I looked it up online. Sloane paid nearly two million dollars for it two years ago.

I knocked. After a half minute or so, the front door opened up. I stepped into a foyer carrying my backpack. The foyer had a gorgeous hardwood floor and a twenty foot high ceiling. This was clearly a luxury home. I heard the door close behind me.

I turned to see that Olivia had let me in and had been hiding behind the door. She was wearing a short dancer skirt made out of transparent black chiffon. It was blatantly obvious that she wore no underwear beneath the skirt. Her top was a black bralet with the word "slut" on it in bold white letters. Olivia looked humiliated. My first thought was that Sunny forced her to wear that. That's when I remembered that Sunny's game was making Olivia choose for herself.

"Jesus, Olivia. Did you volunteer to dress like that?" I asked.

Olivia nodded, but would not meet my eye.

"Are you two playing in front of Sloane?" I asked.

Olivia nodded again, still looking at her feet.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" I asked. "Is this who you are: a slut who gets off on being humiliated? Casual sex in front of strangers?" I tried to modulate my tone, but my disgust was evident.

The skin over her entire body went beet red. She chose not to answer.

I growled and shook my head. In that moment, Sunny's plan to get Olivia to admit to herself what she was and to take pride and own that identity seemed bat-shit crazy to me.

"Where is Sunny?" I asked.

"She is tending to Sloane in the master bedroom, which is on the. first floor back there," she said while pointing her finger towards a back hallway. "She knows you're here. She'll be out in a minute."

When I didn't speak to Olivia, she returned to the master bedroom.

I went into the kitchen and helped myself to a bottle of water from the fridge. I wandered around looking at the house. There was a living room on the first floor on the opposite end of the house from the master bedroom hall. Every square inch of the wall space in that room was covered with artwork. There were paintings, drawings, and photographs in every style. Sloane had an amazing eye for interesting artwork. Some of the artwork really had a profound impact on me.

I'm not sure how long I was in there, but it was a while. I suddenly felt Sunny nestle up behind me as I looked at a series of photographs of blue and white stuccoed Mediterranean houses on an island somewhere. I turned and she mashed her breasts into my chest and raped my mouth with her tongue. This was no mere greeting. She was already on fire from whatever games she'd been playing with Olivia all day.

Sunny read my mind and said. "Yes, Will. I've been playing around with Olivia all day and I'm dripping."

"Seriously. Sunny? Are you doing this shit in front of Sloane?"

"Yes," she replied. "I am helping Olivia, and I'm getting to explore," she replied. "I'm learning a lot about myself, Will. It has also helped tremendously with Sloane."

This seemed really unlikely. "How so?" I asked.

"Olivia and I thought that Sloane was asleep, so we played some. I gave Olivia an order and we heard Sloane gasp. It turns out she was awake and she'd been watching us for a bit. Seeing her nurse sexually dominating her assistant nurse instantly sold the notion that this wasn't a garden-variety situation.

"She asked, 'Did the organization send you?' I told her that if the organization she referred to was the Glaukopis, the answer to that was yes. She tried to play it cool and act like she'd never heard that word before. I scoffed at her, lifted up her gown, and used that small flashlight black light you gave me to light up the tattoo on her belly. She was convinced at that point.

"I'm telling you, the fact that I was dominating Olivia sealed it in her mind. Dominance and submission is a milieu that she understands. I've been dominating her, too. Not sexually, but I've been tasking her and talking down to her. She tried to call me ma'am and then later mistress. She was testing me."

"How did you respond?' I asked.

"I chewed her out and told her with no ambiguity I wasn't her fucking mistress and never would be," said Sunny with a laugh. "I then told her she was too smart for her own good and that if she tried to be too smart and manipulative like that around my boss he would humiliate her. She just about shit herself."

"Did you name me to her?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "I just called you 'my boss'. I told her you were coming by this evening and would introduce yourself."

"Did you have a plan for how to handle this tonight?" I asked.

"Sloane still has pain in her abdomen and she can't stand up straight. We have a wheelchair for her. I figured we'd wheel her out into the great room to let her watch us take the tattoo bandages off there."

Sunny again pressed up against me."I missed you lover. I'm so worked up I'm dripping."

She went to pull me into another embrace and I ducked it.

She gave me a penetrating look and asked, "What's wrong? Is this about Olivia?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Are you jealous?" Sunny asked, surprised.

"Yes," I replied. "I'm not jealous over her. I'm jealous over you."

In reaction to her sour look, I said, "Look, I know we've never promised each other exclusivity, Sunny. I have never asked you if you had other lovers, not one time, have I?"

"You haven't," she agreed.

"If you were doing this with any other person in the world it wouldn't matter. The fact that you're doing this with Olivia, however, is killing me."

"Why?" asked Sunny.

"My life is not a happy one. When I started working at the DHS, I had a great career, a great marriage, and I was going to make a difference. That's when Olivia cheated and everything I treasured about my life went to shit in my hands. My career sucks. This mission sucks. I'm being blackmailed into a life I despise and it's all Olivia's fault. To add insult to injury, I'm now forced to work with her as my partner when I'm continually so angry at her that I could spit.

"The lone sole bright spot in my life is you, Sunny. Now that you've become sexually involved with Olivia, it feels like the best part of my life is being polluted by the shittiest part of it."

"I promise, this won't affect what we have, Will," said Sunny. "You'll never have to know or to see."

"Sunny, you texted me pictures and bragged about it," I said. "I got to watch the best part of my life being coated in shit from the worst part of my life in realtime."

Sunny's confidence suddenly faltered. "I'm sorry Will, that was thoughtless of me. Having her submit to me is sexy. I really am seriously getting off on it and I wanted to share that with you. I should have stopped to consider how you'd take it, but I didn't. It will never happen in front of you again and I'll never rub it in your face again. I promise."

I nodded. My only other choice was to walk away and I didn't want to contemplate being forced to work with two women who I'd split with.

Sunny reached out and hugged me. She rested her head on my shoulder and said, "Look, I know she hurt you badly, but she's actually a pretty incredible woman. We've talked quite a bit about her cheating. Not the specifics of how, or when, or with whom. We talked about why. The people who seduced her dominated her. She didn't understand her submissive tendencies. She said she objected to them and they just bulled over her. She says that they used drugs. Is that true?"

"They did use drugs, but she was seduced over a period of months. At the point she was given the drugs, she was already a willing partner. Any excuse she uses is bullshit. The bottom line is that she cheated because that's what she wanted."

"What was he like?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Her seducer," she asked.

"She was beautiful, clever, a decided flirt, and a truly evil psychopath," I pronounced. "The woman captured Olivia and then gave her to the men she slept with."

I could see understanding blossoming on Sunny's face. A lot of things that she'd wondered about fell into place.

"You need to talk with her about it for real," I admonished. "It would be just like her to undersell what she did."

"She loves you to death, Will. If there was a way she could fix it, she would," Sunny stated.

"I know, but after what she did to me? I just don't know how to express the impossibility of it."

***

Sunny and Olivia prepared for the bandage removal. They brought a chair from the breakfast nook into the great room. Olivia prepared a basin of warm water while Sunny laid out a stack of towels and washcloths on the coffee table. Sunny opened the bottle of cleanser which Greta had given me. It was supposed to be gentle and good for the skin as the tattoo healed.

While they did that, I unpacked my own bag. I got my laptop hooked up to the enormous television in Sloane's family room. I took the industrial black light that I'd purchased off the internet and set it down on the coffee table. It was made out of heavy duty anodized aluminum, weighed five pounds, and had an enormous rechargeable battery that would last for four days of continuous use.

I pulled out the carabiner with the zip tie cuffs on it. I threw it onto the coffee table. "Given that the last time I saw Sloane, she tried to kill me, we should probably cuff her to the wheelchair."

I pulled out the mask and set it down on the chair. Both Sunny and Olivia got curious and came over to look at it. Sunny broke the silence, "Oh wow," Sunny said. "Where'd you get this?"

I explained about wearing the mask while getting the tattoo. I also explained how I immediately forced Greta to submit by appearing naked except for the owl mask.

Both Sunny and Olivia laughed at my story. "You should totally do the same to Sloane," said Olivia.

"I was considering it," I admitted. "You really think I should?"

She said, "I would like to see what it looks like."

I pulled the curtains closed and started to strip. When I was naked, I slipped on the mask and zipped it closed in the back.

Both Sunny and Olivia looked at me wide-eyed. "Holy shit, Will. That's incredibly intimidating," said Sunny.

Olivia shivered, "That's unbelievably sexy, Will."

Sunny nodded. "Sure is."

"Should I really show myself naked to this woman?" I asked.

"We're in uncharted territory," replied Sunny. "She was really responding to my dominance earlier, wasn't she, Olivia?"

Olivia nodded, but flushed red with embarrassment.

"When Matt Gilbert asks you later why I exposed myself to Sloane, what will you say?" I asked.

"It was the right move for her." replied Olivia. Her answer was confident and immediate.

"Okay then," I said. I began scratching furiously. The shaved body hair around my crotch, between my ass cheeks, and on my nuts had formed this industrial-strength grit stubble that itched and chafed like crazy.

Sunny watched me scratch myself with amusement. "Did you shave your body hair?" she asked.

"Olivia did," I responded.

Her comment made me focus on the discomfort. I scratched again, which made Sunny laugh.

"And that's why I wax instead of shave," Sunny said. "You can either feel a short sharp burning pain while the hair is pulled out by the roots, or you can experience what I call 'death by sandpaper'. You get to pick your pain."

"I can give you a touch up," said Olivia eagerly.

Sunny liked this idea. "We could bring Sloane in and give you a touch up shave in front of her. It would be an impressive way to introduce you to Sloane."

"We don't have our official cover yet," I said. "What have you two been using for names?"

"We've not introduced ourselves," said Sunny. "I've had Olivia call me Minyeo. That's Korean slang for beautiful woman."

"How about you Olivia?" I asked.

She blushed and said, "Sunny's been calling me 'Slut'."

I gave her a hard look. "Is that what you want me to call you?"

Some secret reserve of assertiveness suddenly emerged on her face. She set her jaw and said, "Yes, call me Slut."

Sunny looked like the cat that ate the canary. "What did I say, Will? Progress."

I shook my head in disbelief.

"What do we call you?" asked Olivia.

"You've been referring to me as 'Boss', right?" I asked.

They nodded.

"That'll do."

***

Ten minutes later, Sunny rolled out Sloane. Sloane was sitting in a wheel chair and her wrists were zip tied to the arm rests. Her hair had been elaborately braided out of her face and she was wearing a hospital gown with a thick terry cloth robe over it.

We'd staged it so that Olivia was hand washing me in preparation for the shave when Sloane came in. She took one look at my naked form and the owl mask and gasped.

"Silence," I commanded mildly.

Olivia started by washing my skin with a washcloth. While she did that, Sunny grabbed the shaving gel that they pulled out of Sloane's bathroom. Sunny lathered and Olivia shaved. They silently communicated and coordinated with gestures. The only noise was the sound of their quiet work and our collective breathing.

While they worked on me, I stared at Sloane, making constant eye contact. She stared right back at me. It wasn't a challenge. It was fear. This is where it started going off the rails for me. The fact that I was scary and intimidating to her made me aroused. Before I knew what was happening. my cock was hard and thumping as Olivia tried to shave the area around it.

Sloane's eyes went right to my cock and when she saw I was aroused, something happened to her. She suddenly calmed and her expression eventually settled into that confident submissive relaxation that I'd seen on Greta's face. This was her milieu: the dominant scary aroused man seizing control of her. She was suddenly perfectly at peace. I could practically read on her face that she longed to be on her knees before me worshiping me. She became very flushed and squirmed in the wheelchair.

After the shaving was done, Olivia went into the kitchen, dumped the soapy water and returned with a basin of clean warm water. She and Olivia used fresh washcloths to rinse all of the suds off of me. After that. they dried me with towels. Olivia started rubbing a moisturizing lotion on me where I'd just been shaved while Sunny dumped the water again and came back with fresh water that was visibly steaming.

Sunny arranged the chair from the breakfast nook so that it was facing towards Sloane with its back to the television. I sat in it backwards to face the TV.

Sloane again made a heavy gasp as she saw the condition of my back under the SaniDerm patches.

Sunny began to meticulously peel off the bandage, starting at the bottom. Olivia was gingerly catching the blood and the plasma that trickled out using a damp washcloth. The peeling was somewhat painful, like when you peel off the sticky part of a bandage that's been left on too long. It stung, but I ignored the pain. While they worked, I started a video of one of Naeem Carter's torture sessions of Sloane. It showed up on Sloane's enormous television.

What Sloane would be seeing was the videos of her being tortured in the background, while I had two women peeling a large bandage off my back in the foreground. It was probably quite a tableau.

A scream on the screen was so attention-getting that both Sunny and Olivia looked up. They were both instantly enthralled and horrified.

"Why did you stop?" I asked with a mild questioning tone.

Sunny and Olivia jumped back to work. Sunny restarted her meticulous peeling of the bandage. The video ended with Sloane screaming in both pleasure and pain as she orgasmed out of control.

I turned the video off and spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Sloane Moore. I don't know anything about administering pain with BDSM, but even I can see that Naeem Carter was a clueless asshole dilettante. There was nothing careful or measured in how he acted. When you orgasm, one thing that is noticeable is that both of you are surprised. Look at this again."

I ran back the video to the last minute or so and rolled it again. When Sloane orgasmed, both of them were shocked. Once I'd pointed that out, it was as clear as day.

I stopped the video again. "Did Naeem have the slightest idea what he was doing when he tortured you?" I asked.

Sloane cleared her voice and said, "No, sir."

"My understanding was that little session there was supposed to be a reward for you. Was it a reward?"

"It was a reward, Sir," she replied cautiously. "I did orgasm very hard."

"The people who trained you would have done it differently, though?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"That's what I thought. So, this is going to be one of those good news/bad news things for you. Naeem Carter has outlived his usefulness to the organization. He is no longer going to serve as the Alba wrangler, so you will no longer have to suffer under a clueless dilettante. That's the good news.

"The bad news is that I have been named as his replacement. I don't know any more about the expert application of pain than he did. The only upside from your perspective, is that I won't pretend that I do. I'm going to have to learn. You and the other Albas are going to have to teach me. Perhaps, though, I'm getting the cart before the horse."

About this time. Sunny peeled the last of the bandage off of me and Olivia quickly and gently wiped the area clean.

"Nicely done, ladies," I complimented. I turned around to face Sloane. "Now peel off the bandages on the chest and hands."

This was two days early, but my chest and hands were actually doing much better than the back.

After the SaniDerm patch on my chest was off, Sunny then took a washcloth and began to use the detergent to gently scrub my back and my chest. "How's the skin look?" I asked Sunny. "Any scabbing?"

"No, Boss," she replied.

After she was done scrubbing and rinsed everything, Olivia swooped in with a fresh fluffy towel and dried me off. When she was done, I stood.

"Let's show it to her," I said.

Sunny walked over and picked up the UV light. Olivia walked over to the light switches.

Sunny positioned herself behind Sloane and when Olivia turned the lights off. Sunny turned the flashlight on and I could see the emblem on my chest start to glow. It was perfectly done. Very clean and very precise. It actually looked better than the ones that Cameron and his crew had.

After a good half minute, I turned my back. I could hear both Olivia and Sunny gasp. There was a grunt from Sloane and a strange noise coming from the wheel chair.

I turned around and couldn't see anything.

"Lights!" I commanded.

When the light came on, Sloane tried to slide off the wheelchair so she could kneel on the floor. She just barely managed to get on her knees, but her back was bent severely by her arms, which were still cuffed to the wheelchair armrests. She was in severe pain.

I pulled my folding knife out of my back pack and cut the cuffs.

Sloane immediately slumped prostrate on the floor and said,"Master."

I slid my foot underneath her chin and tilted her face up to look at me.

"No, Sloane," I said in a flat tone. "You don't get to kneel before me or call me 'Master'. We haven't even established that you are allowed to submit to me."

I commanded to Sunny and Olivia. "Get her back into that chair."

As they lifted her up, I sat on the couch right next to Sloane's chair. When Olivia and Sunny got Sloane settled into place, I asked, "Do you think you can stay in the chair, Sloane?"

"Yes, Sir," she replied.

"Good," I replied. "I've got to show you my hands. No matter what, you stay in that chair, understand me?"

Sloane nodded and said, "Yes, Sir."

Olivia cut the lights off and Sunny shined the UV light on the backs of my hands.

"What do those tattoos mean?" I asked her.

"You are the Alba Wrangler," she answered.

"That's right," I replied.

"Lights back on," I commanded.

When the lights came back on, Sunny set the UV light down on the coffee table. Sunny snapped her fingers at Olivia and pointed at the floor next to her. Olivia instantly ran over and knelt where Sunny pointed. I had not planned this, but obviously this was something Sunny discussed with Olivia in advance.

"Sloane," I said to get her looking into my eyes. "I said earlier that the organization decided that Naeem was no longer required, so Naeem is dead."

Sloane's eyes got large.

"You already know that both Steve Chen and Burton McKee are dead. You saw their bodies at the Glaukopis vault," I said.

She nodded. Her heart was beating so hard, I could see her pulse in her neck.

"They were taking advantage of their positions. They were greedy and their greed placed the entire organization at risk. That was unacceptable. Consequently, they were removed and terminated," I said.

"I was sent in to clean up the debris and to determine which parts of the organization are salvageable. I am your boss effective immediately. Do you recognize this fact?"

"Yes, Sir," she replied.

"There will be plenty of time to talk about names and form of address later. Right now, I want you to call me either 'Boss' or 'Sir'."

"Yes, Sir," she responded.

"Tell me, Sloane, are you a free woman?" I asked.

"No Sir," she replied. "I'm a slave. I'm a loyal slave of the Glaukopis."

"Tell me, Sloane, what is this concept of 'loyal slave'? How can an owned object have loyalty?" I asked.

This unnerved her. "I am a slave of the Glaukopis," she corrected.

"Why do you say that you are a slave?" I asked. My tone was incredulous.

"I was sold to the Glaukopis by my previous owners," she said.

"Nonsense. You are aware that slavery is not legal in this country, right? You've heard of the thirteenth amendment?"

Her mouth was flapping again. I decided to try a different tack.

"Did you buy this house?" I asked.

She instantly got a panicked look on her face. She could see where I was going.

"Did you buy this house?" I repeated.

"Yes, Sir."

"I looked it up online. It said you paid two million for it. Is that really what you paid?" I asked.

She didn't want to answer, but she did. "Yes, Sir."

"I also understand that you have an art gallery. You are listed as the gallery owner. I admired your art collection in your living room, earlier. I know little about art, but the pieces in there are all amazing. Did you assemble those together?"

She nodded again.

"Tell me Sloane. how does a slave come to own a two million dollar house, an art gallery, and an art collection? Slaves don't own property," I observed. "They are property."

The question hung in the air like a fart in an elevator. Sloane's mouth started flapping. She did not know how to answer. She was about to melt down.

"Relax Sloane," I commanded. "I have no desire to claim your home or your business or to confiscate anything that your hard work, sacrifice, and effort earned for you. I'm merely trying to illustrate a principle here. That principle is that you aren't a slave and haven't been since the Glaukopis acquired you. You have been an employee, but not a slave. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"You were acquired to perform targeted seductions for the organization. That was your purpose. You and your colleagues have done an admirable job at this. Years before you were acquired, somehow this role transitioned into something extra. Some of the organization members paid you a pretty penny over the years to serve as their personal plaything. There has been quite a bit of discussion over whether you were given any choice in the matter. Follow me so far?"

She nodded.

"We need to ask about this and we need an accurate answer. I give you my word that there will be no repercussions for you no matter what the answer is, as long as you tell the truth. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir," she replied.

"Were you doing this of your own volition? Or were you forced to participate?"

"We were all forced," she replied immediately. "We were compensated, but we were not allowed to refuse."

"That stops immediately," I said. "If anyone attempts to force you into doing anything for them, my expectation is that you will refuse and you will let me know immediately. From now on everything will be on a volunteer-only basis."

Her expression was stunned. It was disbelief. She looked like what she was hearing was too good to be true. She wanted it to be true, but she couldn't bring herself to believe it was.

"The truth is this: the Glaukopis are making a strategic shift and we don't know what to do with the Albas. The number of seductions we will require going forward is going to be a lot less than we needed before. Some of the membership had access to you and abused it. That was a source of corruption in the organization. We were thinking about retiring the Albas altogether.

"All of you have developed successful careers, and you've built out your cover marvelously well. As long as you'd subject yourselves to a strict non-compete agreement, we'd put you on a generous pension and you'd never have to be subject to that kind of hateful shit again." I pointed at the television, where the image of Naeem Carter torturing Sloane remained paused on the screen.

"It is not complete freedom. Your days as a seducer would be over, but it will be as close to complete freedom as someone with your background will ever have."

She was suddenly full of fear and shaking. She was nearly hyperventilating. "Please, Sir. Please don't cast me aside. I'll do anything you ask. I'll be a very good girl. I'll be the best girl, Sir!" Her desperation was unforced and absolutely genuine.

"You won't be cast aside, Sloane. As I said before, you will continue to be supported by the Glaukopis. You will still be under our protection and your physical needs will be generously met."

She started blubbering. "Sir, I need the sessions. Please don't stop the sessions."

"Why?" I asked. "It is evident you despise having to please the men, and how they handled you."

"Sir!" she said plaintively. "I need the release. We all need the release. That's who we are. That's how we trained, Sir!"

"You need pain? Is that what you are saying?" I asked.

"Yes, Sir. I literally can't live without it," her voice was hoarse. "Please don't stop the sessions."

"Are you certain?" I asked. "I know nothing about how to administer pain properly. You will have to suffer under a beginner. You will also have to meet my requirements."

"I can meet them," she said immediately. Then she asked nervously, "What are they?"

The way she said it made me laugh. "There are two. The first, as I said previously, is that you must teach me what you require. That means you must work with me to discover what it is you are really after. You will have to be open. Share. Help me to understand how you arrived at where you are now."

She swallowed and nodded. "I can do that," she said. "What is the other?"

"Consent," I said. "Yes. If you want, you must ask. I have no requirement to cause anyone pain. I have no psychological compulsion to subject others to traumatic experiences. I do not get off on it. This is the bottom line. Nothing will ever be done to you that you don't beg for. It will be done to you as a favor or as a reward. Are you mentally prepared for that?"

She thought about that and nodded. "Yes, Sir," she replied.

"Good!" I said. "I have three tasks for you. Task number one is to heal from your wound. Help these ladies nurse you back to health. The sooner you are healthy again, the sooner our sessions can start."

"Yes, Sir," responded Sloane.

"Task number two is that I want you to start documenting what you want from your sessions. Write it down like a story. Make yourself the main character. Describe what you would have me do to you. Details matter. Don't just say, 'You whip me.' Tell me with what, why, how hard, how long, until when, and what you were hoping the whipping would do for you. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Show those stories to the ladies here. Ask them to edit them. Take their feedback and rework your stories where required."

I looked over at Sunny. "You got that Minyeo?"

"Yes, Boss," Sunny said.

I looked at Olivia. "And you Slut?"

"Yes, Boss," she responded.

"Task number three is that I want you to contact the other Albas and tell them what happened here. They need to know. When you are healed, I will meet them here."

"Yes, Sir," she responded.

"Boss?" said Sunny.

"What is it Minyeo?" I asked.

"Will you fuck me under the black light?" she asked.

For a minute there, I thought she was making fun of me. I scrutinized her face. I saw nothing there but lust. She was also uncharacteristically very insistent. I intuitively understood in that moment that she was just reading the room. There as an overall erotic tension in the air that was so thick that it was tangible.

I considered what she asked. If I fucked Sunny, it would demonstrate the superlative sexual chemistry that I had with her. It would show Sloane that I was capable of pleasing a woman and that would work to my advantage. It would also give the two of us release while denying Sloane. Additionally, it would underscore the consensual nature of our relationship. It also took leverage away from Sloane. She was a beautiful woman who was used to being admired. She would walk away knowing I didn't need her to seek pleasure or satisfaction.

I also knew that Sunny would really get off on fucking me in front of the people she thought of as her subs.

I stood up and said, "Where do you want me?"

Sunny instantly started clearing items off of the coffee table. "Right here, Boss," she said.

"Minyeo?" said Olivia.

"Yes, Slut?" said Sunny.

"May I get him ready?" she asked.

Sunny flicked her eyes at me. I gave her a nod. "Yes, Slut, you may get him ready."

Next thing I knew, Olivia was kneeling before me, sucking with a feverish intensity I'd never experienced in all the years we dated and were married. Before, when she sucked my cock, she was trying to give me quick and efficient pleasure. Now, however, she was utterly committed. She was making love to my cock, putting everything into it that she had.

I'm not going to lie, this change in mindset was exciting. She got me ramped up almost immediately and I had to seize the front of her hair and literally pull her off before she could bring me over. She fought to reseat her mouth on my cock as I pulled her off.

"Slut, stop!" I commanded. "Stop it!"

Olivia eventually quit fighting.

"When I start fucking, I want you to douse the lights," I commanded. "I want you to hand the UV light to Sloane."

"Yes Boss," Olivia said with evident disappointment. Sunny quickly approached Sloane and began to whisper to her.

Sunny removed her scrubs and was down to a sexy black thong and bra combo. She faced Sloane and undid the front clasp in her bra, releasing her breasts. She then stepped out of her panties, revealing how soaked she was. The room filled with the smell of Sunny's arousal.

Without breaking eye contact with Sloane, Sunny gingerly knelt on the coffee table, which was a solid Mexican-style rustic pine trunk. She presented herself to me doggie style, and positioned herself so that she was able to look Olivia and Sloane in the face while I fucked her. This was a repeat of what we'd done in the Air BnB when we caught Olivia spying on us.

I approached Sunny's magnificent ass and without preamble, I slid myself into her pussy with one long continuous stroke. She was at the warm honey consistency already and it felt utterly amazing. I groaned out a delighted chuckle. "You're ready Minyeo, aren't you?"

Sunny shivered and then orgasmed hard as the tip of my cock lightly grazed her cervix. "Oh, fuuuuuuck!" she growled. I rode out the internal spasms as her vagina milked me. When the pulsating eased, I made a few slow long strokes. I felt her vagina stretch out to accommodate me.

When I sensed she'd adjusted, I grabbed her hips and started railing her. I was trying to follow her lead and replay what happened the night we caught Olivia spying on us, but Sunny was so much hotter this time it didn't quite work that way. While I was pounding Sunny, the noise that she was making was not her normal pleasure grunts. It was a continuous moan that I'd never heard her make before. She looked back at me in the dim glow of the UV light. I could read her face before we made eye contact. Her appreciative expression read, "What the fuck are you doing to me?"

When she made eye contact with me, however, her mouth popped open and her face adopted a look of shock, surprise, and even horror. In an instant, I realized that she'd forgotten I was wearing the mask. When she saw it, she had a fight or flight response. As the adrenaline dump hit her, her whole body jolted. She lifted up like she was going to stand up and run. This changed the angle of my penetration. My next thrust I stabbed her right in the G spot. Sunny suddenly erupted into a massive full-body-contraction orgasm.

She collapsed down onto her upper chest, with her face flat on the trunk. Sunny's otherworldly groan became more urgent and then she ran out of air. What followed was that Sunny experienced a rolling series of orgasms that lasted what felt like four or five minutes. When I couldn't hold off any more, I shot my load into Sunny. I came as hard as I ever have. Searing white-hot pleasure caused my whole body to spasm and I ended up leaning against Sunny's magnificent ass, exhausted, breathless, and utterly out of my wits. She was mostly unresponsive and incoherent.

"Lights!" I commanded. It took Olivia a full half-minute to scramble back over to her switch and turn the lights back on. The trunk and the floor around it was a sodden mess. Sunny was semi-responsive and was sobbing silently. It was the same type of cry that I'd seen on Greta after I made her orgasm by twisting her nipples. I gently lifted up Sunny and pulled her into my lap as I sat on the couch. She cuddled into me until she relaxed enough to stop crying. She then called over to Olivia.

"Slut, would you like to taste me and clean me up?" Sunny asked Olivia.

"Yes, Minyeo," she immediately replied. She'd been waiting for the request.

The next thing I knew, Sunny was sitting in my lap with her heels up near her butt cheeks and her knees spread wide. Olivia was between Sunny's knees and was slowly and deliberately licking my ejaculate out of Sunny. When she did this the night she'd spied on us, she'd been tentative and uncertain. She now knew exactly what she was doing and did it with confidence. She had Sunny moaning and trembling in my lap almost instantly. Olivia, for her part, gave every indication of savoring the experience. It was a dead giveaway that the interactions between Sunny and Olivia had progressed to a full-blown sexual relationship. It was a serious "what the fuck?" moment for me.

I looked over at Sloane wondering what I would see. Sloane was watching with an evident fascination and her face was flushed. If I had to guess, she was aroused and a bit envious. There were two prominent hickies on Sloane's neck. They weren't there before. While I had been fucking Sloane, Olivia had been busy.

I had a moment of complete panic. I'd followed Sunny and Olivia's lead into a sexual encounter between myself and a workplace subordinate. I did in front of two of my other workplace subordinates, who may have been actively engaged in activities with each other as well. I could only hope that whatever Olivia did to Sloane was consensual. My stomach was roiling over the prospect of how Secretary Bollard would react if she ever found out. She'd previously thrashed me by invoking Julia Padget, my mentor and second mother. I'm not sure I could bear that again. I am certain Bollard would have stripped the skin off my back for what I just did.

"Relax," Sunny whispered into my ear. "I can see that you're getting ramped up over this, but it will work out. Trust me, this is exactly what you needed to do to get Sloane on the hook. Once you've got her, she'll drag the other Albas right along with her."

I hoped she was right.

***

Chapter 14

Jillian Matlin was utterly stunning. My first impression was that she was tall for a woman. I guessed she was just a hair under six feet. Her eyes were slate gray and it was clear that they missed little. She possessed a commanding presence and carried herself in a dignified and controlled way that made her seem as formidable as Seneca Bollard, although she was twenty years younger.

Her hair was magnificent. It was glossy black, straight, and hung naturally down past her shoulders. She had curtain bangs which did a marvelous job of framing her beautiful facial features. I had a feeling that haircut probably cost a thousand dollars.

The background check said she was fifty-one, but it was impossible to tell that just from looking at her. She had an ageless quality that was intriguing. There were only a few detectable signs of aging: a certain thickness to her bosom, crows feet at her temples, and tight skin on the back of her hands. Everything else looked like she was in her thirties.

She was also in phenomenal shape. It was clear that she had a stunning hourglass figure. She was supremely fit in a way that only older female yoga lifestylers tend to be.

In the club's drawing room, she was wearing a silk blouse, a pencil skirt, and a very soft linen blazer. The blouse was sheer enough that a ghostly hint of her brassiere was visible, giving off the impression of thin straps and white lace.

While I sized her up, I got the sense that she was looking at me with intense interest and that she liked what she saw. There was a bit of a flush and the hint of a smile as she took in my features.

"It is nice to finally meet you face-to-face Ascalaphus," she said.

I gave her an embarrassed smile. "I am sorry for using the pseudonym and for all the dramatics with my identity. My work situation demands it of me. Face to face, it seems silly to use a pseudonym like that. Please call me Will."

I reached out my hand to shake. "Will Archer."

Her eyes widened as I gave her my name. She shook my hand and the thrill of the contact shot down my spine.

"You said 'Call me Will'? I suppose that means that Will isn't your real name?" she asked with a hint of a smile.

"I could, or maybe should, be coy about my name and circumstances, but eventually, I'm already in a situation where I must utterly rely on your discretion. It seems silly to be parsimonious with my name when we know so much about each other's sexual foibles already.

"To answer your question, though, 'Will Archer' is not my real name. I cannot offer any particulars, but I have been working for our government for some time in a highly classified capacity. I am not supposed to confirm or deny that, but I was informed last week that my career in the clandestine service has concluded. The only reason why I can risk telling you now is that I will soon assume a public identity and take on a public role. SES level fives don't materialize out of thin air and it will be generally understood that I came out of clandestine service.

"This puts me into a difficult position, however. My public identity may change yet again, and I'll have to ask you to call me something different. I apologize, but circumstances...." I finished with a shrug

This admission delighted Jillian.

"From Greta's description of you," said Jillian, "I expected you to be a hard-faced, rugged man. That isn't you at all, is it? You are quite handsome and you have very kind features. I expect her misconception was the impact of the mask you were wearing."

"I think you're right," I replied. I pulled the mask out of the bag I brought with me. Jillian asked me to bring it to the meeting. I handed it to her. She examined it with some amusement.

"That's genuinely frightening," she admitted.

"I took my mask off in our last meeting because I suspected that Greta was mythologizing me because of it. My subordinates have all told me that mask is quite intimidating, and I think that was leading her to make assumptions about me. She was utterly horrified when I took the mask off and she was openly disappointed when she finally saw my face. I found it curious that she wanted me to look like a villain from a noir detective novel, but de gustibus non est disputandum."

Jillian laughed as I knew she would. my background check disclosed she was a lawyer and I knew she'd understand the Latin reference.

"Shall we sit?" she asked.

We were in a private room of a private club. Given the decor of the place, which mostly consisted of poster-sized photographs of faceless submissives in restraints and racks of bondage implements, this club was most emphatically a club for BDSM enthusiasts. In fact, when I was escorted in, the first thing I saw was a man dressed in a suit walking a woman on a leash. All she was wearing was a collar. She wasn't even wearing shoes. She was utterly unselfconscious of her own nudity in front of a complete stranger.

We sat in very comfortable leather armchairs which were facing each other. There was a coffee table between us.

"I take it that this club is for the bondage crowd?" I asked.

"It is a club for dominants," clarified Jillian. "Submissives are not allowed to be members. It was instituted in the nineteen fifties by my maternal grandfather. He was one of eight founders-- all of whom were dominants in an era where to be such was deeply frowned upon in polite society. It was much more socially acceptable when his daughter, my mother, joined in the late sixties. She was the first female member. She was very formidable and she showed the older members that a woman could belong and hold her own in a society such as this.

"She was a true pioneer. So much so, in fact, that the membership was nearly forty percent female when I joined in the early nineties. There is a portrait of her in the library. Perhaps, if we have a chance, I'll show it to you later."

"It would be my pleasure," I responded.

"So Will, what can you tell me about you?" she asked. "I take it that discussing your work is out of bounds?"

"For now," I replied. "I will be able to speak about my public role once it materializes. What sort of information do you seek? It might help if you ask and let me refuse to answer."

"I want to know where you are in life. Are you married? Attached? Do you have children?" she asked.

"No children, thank God," I responded. "My relationship status is a shit show."

"How so?" she asked.

"I was married and my marriage fell apart due to my wife's infidelity."

"So you are divorced?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "Divorce is no longer possible at this point."

I gave her some time to think about this. The more she thought, the more confused she became. "Why not?" she asked.

"The identities we were married under were declared legally dead," I replied. "The identities we are using now state that we are married, but that marriage is not registered in any jurisdiction. There's no record anywhere which confirms we are currently married. You cannot get a divorce if you can't prove you were ever married."

This appealed to the lawyer in her. She was considering this like it was a puzzle to solve.

"You are estranged from your ex, then?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "We are coworkers and she is assigned to my team at work. Our current cover lists us as a married couple and this requires us to cohabitate. We see each other on a daily basis, although we operate on the principle that we are coworkers whose marriage is a sham and part of our current cover."

"So you live with your ex, you work together, you pretend to be married, but you don't sleep together?" she asked.

"You are correct, but it is worse than that," I replied.

"How so?" she asked.

"My wife does not want to divorce. She seeks a reconciliation and wages a continual low-grade battle to ingratiate herself to me," I said.

Jillian's face showed amusement. "Really?"

"Yes. She throws a shit fit whenever I go out on dates," I said.

"So, you are dating now?" she asked. "Do you have a girlfriend yet?"

"I have a lover," I admitted. "She lives here in the DC area. We are friends with benefits. It isn't exclusive."

"Is your girlfriend submissive to you?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "She's actually a novice dominant like me. We are both rank beginners."

"Does she dominate you?" she asked.

"Nope," I said with a laugh. "I'm not the slightest bit submissive."

"Is your ex dating too?" she asked.

"Kind of. That's complicated," I responded.

"How so?"

"My ex has decided that she is submissive and has submitted to my lover," I said.

Jillian laughed heartily. "I see! That is a shit show!" She was delighted. She asked, "Your wife's choice of partner is very curious. Does she imagine that submitting to your girlfriend will help her remain with you?"

"At this point, I've given up trying to analyze and understand," I said.

"I don't blame you!" she laughed."Shit shows are like that. Do the three of you play together?"

I considered this, "When my ex first got together with my girlfriend, they did a scene in front of me, but I was just a spectator. Since then, they play when I'm not there."

She then asked. "You said you have a sub that you inherited. One that was a pain slut? Are you referring to your ex?" she asked.

"No," I said. "My pain slut is someone different. We haven't actually played at all yet. She's just come to me and she's recovering from a physical injury. I also suspect she needs to be handled with care. Her previous dominant didn't have a clue about what he was doing and abused her horribly."

She nodded.

"I need to gauge your motivations, Will," she explained. "What is the appeal of dominance to you?"

"Two things, as near as I can tell," I responded.

"The first is that I like how it turns women on. The first meeting that I had with Greta was utterly eye-opening to me. Again, I'm sorry for overstepping my bounds, but I've never really had a woman respond to me like she did. It was heady. Since then, I've made the stunning realization that a much larger percentage of women than I ever would have suspected are wired that way. Only a few will admit it."

"Just so," replied Jillian. "This is true for men also. Very few submissive men will admit it to themselves."

"I am developing a great deal of admiration for truly submissive women like Greta," I continued. "There is a complete and utter honesty to their existence that I find deeply admirable. That degree of honesty is refreshing.

"Likewise, for those women who are naturally dominant and are willing to live that life style, the honesty of that is likewise remarkable. I suspect a lot of women live their entire lives feeling a pressure to pretend to be something that they aren't. The ones that are submissive feel obligated to act and show confidence, independence, and strength when they just want to be told what to do. The ones who are dominant feel obligated to be kind and polite, play peacemaker, or otherwise take a back seat in a situation where they would naturally want to be in charge."

"Many of the people in our community see it exactly this way," Jillian admitted. "I will confess that I do so myself. You say there were two parts?"

"Yes," I replied. "The second part is that I find the control to be extremely gratifying. I've never had much luck at getting women to do what I say when I go about asking politely. The idea of instant compliance based on my simple command is extraordinarily attractive. Greta is sublimely subordinate. During that first meeting, I sensed she was in a place where she would have done anything I commanded. Anything. Full disclosure: that simple fact gave me such a rush! I think it actually made me high."

Jillian laughed. "I know exactly what you are saying."

"I've done some navel gazing on that whole scene between Greta and I," I admitted. "What I figured out is that you must be a hell of a dominant. She has utter trust in you and when you gave her permission to play with me, she transferred all of that trust to me. She surrendered her critical capacity and just did what you said with no regard for her own safety or protection. The very idea of getting a woman into that headspace and keeping her there is arousing."

Jillian laughed. "It seems like our motivations and perspectives are pretty compatible, then."

She stood up. "Well, I have arranged for a bit of a demonstration that I think you will find illuminating. Would you mind putting your mask on?"

She handed it back to me. I put it on and zipped it.

"Very intimidating," she said. "If you don't mind, could you stand right there?"

Jillian stood and pointed to a spot on the floor to the side of the coffee table.

Jillian removed the table cloth off of the coffee table, revealing that the coffee table was actually a trunk-sized box made out of thick plexiglass. It was filled with water. Greta was in it, hogtied belly down and was completely submerged in the water. She was naked except for a pair of latex boy-short panties. Her hair was rolled into a bun.

It was a shocking sight.

"Greta is scared to death of submersion," reported Jillian. "We've had to work on this for a couple years to get her to the point where she could do this."

She held up her phone to me. The screen showed Greta's heart rate and blood oxygen levels. It was updating dynamically. The app reported that her blood oxygen levels were at the low end of nominal, but her heart rate was reported as 110 BPM and that was rated as elevated with a yellow status marker.

I squatted to get a better look at her face. She had swim goggles on. Her eyes were closed. Her nostrils were pinched shut with a plastic clip and she was breathing by means of a snorkel hose connected into a port on the top of the box above the water line.

Greta chose that moment to open her eyes, and quailed as she saw me in the mask, right in front of her face. This made Jillian laugh in delight. The phone app started to chime as Greta's heart rate increased and her blood oxygen decreased.

"She's panicking right now because I told her when tank time started to be mundane to her, I'd find a guy who would piss down the snorkel," said Jillian. "She has to be wondering if that's my plan."

"Is it?" I asked.

"Not today," replied Jillian. "Even if it was the plan, she'd have to know that I wouldn't do it here in the drawing room. That would be extremely risky to do. If she got into trouble, there is an emergency dump valve in the tank that will let the water out in less than ten seconds, but it would ruin the carpets and furniture in here."

Jillian walked over next to me and bent to listen at the mouth of the breathing port. "I love that sound, Will," she admitted to me. Something about her voice as she admitted that raised the hair up on my arms. She was admitting her innermost secret. An erotic thrill shot through me. In a sense, Jillian was baring her soul to me.

She stood aside and allowed me to listen. It was the gurgling sound of someone breathing from a tube. there was also the low hum of a pump running.

"I'm going to raise her heart rate up a bit," said Jillian. "Have no fear, I'm being very careful here."

In full view of a watching Greta, Jillian reached out and covered the breathing port with her hand. Greta tried very hard to remain calm, but her heart rate suddenly shot way up, and her blood oxygen diminished.

Jillian made eye contact with me. She was so aroused, she was trembling. "There's nothing more erotic to me than the feel of her sucking breath against my hand, Will."

After a moment, Greta started to struggle in the tank. The phone app began to chime, which I guessed was an oxygen alarm. Jillian removed her hand from the port. The port made a loud gurgling sound as Greta sucked in huge breaths.

When the breathing slowed again, Jillian asked, "Do you want to try it?"

I tentatively put my hand over the port. Greta watched my hand the whole way down. I did not completely seal the port off. I did restrict the airflow. I felt suction against my hands. In response to my obstruction, she breathed harder and her breath trembled. It was curiously intimate and it immediately doubled my state of arousal.

I looked over at Jillian in amazement. She flashed a smile back at me. There was a lot of silent communication in that glance.

"Cover it all the way, Will," she encouraged.

I did, and the suction against my hand was a lot stronger. Greta immediately settled down in the tank and went perfectly still. The suction receded.

"Oh, that little minx!" said Jillian in a delighted tone. "She's trying to show off for you. She has it bad for you. It has been a while since I've allowed her to be with a man."

I left my hand in place. After what felt like a very long time, Greta finally succumbed to the urge to suck in a breath. It made a hard suction against my hand. She quickly pushed a breath out, reversing the suction to an overpressure, which quickly returned to a suction as she breathed in harder. Her third breath, I could literally feel the trembling panic in her breath on my palm. I raised off my hand just for a moment, giving her just a little breath, she instantly relaxed, and took in a long continuous breath which I immediately cut off.

The moment of relief followed by a quick denial of breath wasn't how Jillian did it. The difference freaked out Greta. She struggled against her bindings in the tank. Jillian laughed again. "How do you get under her skin so effortlessly?" she asked.

"I did a lot of reading about OODA loops," I said. "Military stuff. You anticipate what someone will do and act to interrupt what they are going to do while they do it. It totally fucks with people. Once you start to see the world that way, it comes naturally."

I pulled my hand off the port and let Greta suck down breaths. Greta looked up at me and actually looked grateful that I allowed her to breathe. The fucked up nature of her gratitude in that scenario had me rock hard.

"Oh my God!" I said. "That's so fucking hot!"

I turned in profile and let Jillian see my erection tenting out my pants. She shivered and communicated with a smile that she knew exactly what I was thinking and why. Understanding and accord passed between us.

Jillian quickly knelt down and unplugged an extension cord from the outlet on a nearby wall. The low hum the unit had been making suddenly stopped. She coiled the extension and stowed it on a hook on the back of the tank.

"There is a pump and a heater that keeps the water exactly at body temperature," she explained. "Ninety-eight point six to within a half a degree."

"How long have you had her in there?" I asked.

"We started about an hour and a half before you arrived," she said.

Jillian pressed on a foot treadle and with a clunk, the heavy casters in the bottom of the box unlocked.

"Can you help me push this?" she asked. "I judge that Greta's mindset is sufficiently vulnerable at this point. We've got to get her out of this box before I can show you how Greta likes to take her pain."

***

I walked into the Cathedral Heights apartment to hear voices and laughter from the family room. Sunny was nominally supposed to be at work. Olivia was supposed to be at our apartment in Crystal City. I tracked Sunny here using the tracker I'd placed into her favorite purse.

I walked in the family room to see Sunny reclining on the couch. She was wearing a skirt which had been pulled up all the way to her waist, revealing the fact that she wasn't wearing panties. Her sex was swollen, inflamed, and slick with arousal. Sunny had a sheaf of papers in her hand and had been reading to Olivia.

Olivia was kneeling between Sunny's legs. Her face looked like a glazed donut and it was obvious she'd been eating Sunny out. Olivia was wearing her black bralet with the word "slut" on it, and a barely-there glossy black latex thong.

Olivia looked at me with alarm on her face, but Sunny was relaxed and remained so. "Sorry that you had to see this," she said with a shrug. "We came to this apartment specifically so you wouldn't have to."

Before Sunny finished her statement, I was in front of her with Olivia scrambling out of the way.

"Time to fuck," I said as I picked Sunny up and threw her over my shoulder.

Sunny hooted in laughter. I carried her into the bedroom and she shrieked in delight as I threw her down on the bed and hastily pulled my pants off. She was already soaked, so I slid into her in once stroke. causing her to groan and tremble.

I railed the ever-loving shit out of her for the next five or six minutes. It was just as vigorous as the railing I'd given to Olivia in the van the night we abducted Vance Cameron and his two buddies. Sunny responded eagerly to my ferociousness. At first, pulling her into me with her feet hooked to my ass. Later, she placed her ankles on either side of my head as she screamed out two humongous orgasms. I emptied into her for what felt like thirty seconds straight.

I was wobbly and dizzy exhausted and I collapsed down on top of Sunny, who ran her fingers through the sweat in my hair.

"God, Will, you were fucking amazing. You were absolutely on fire. What got into you?" she asked.

"I spent all afternoon with Jillian and Greta being shown how to pleasure a masochist using pain," I said. "Jillian got me pretty worked up and teased the crap out of me. Her plan was to fuck the shit out of me in front of Greta."

"Did you?" she asked.

"The offer was made," I admitted. "I didn't accept. I thought it was prudent to show them that I had the ability to refuse."

"So you were so needy, you came running to me?" asked Sunny with a grin.

"Who else could fuck me as good as that?" I asked.

That's when Olivia coughed in the doorway to the bedroom.

Sunny and I looked over at her. She looked ridiculous wearing the "Slut" bralet and the latex panties. There were tears in her eyes from what I said.

"Minyeo," said Olivia in a trembling voice. "May I clean you?"

Sunny looked down at her crotch where my cock was still inside of her. I was still hard. She looked up at me and raised her eyebrow. She wanted Olivia to do this, so I slid out and rolled over to position myself next to Sunny.

Olivia rushed over to the foot of the bed and crawled sinuously over to Sunny's pussy and lowered her face into it. She was blushing with embarrassment, but she was fully committed and did not hesitate.

"I'm sorry I interrupted your training session," I told Sunny.

"This wasn't training," she said. "We were working together and things got kind of heated."

"You were working?" I asked.

"You asked us to help Sloane and the other Albas to edit their fantasies," she said.

"I take it that got you hot?" I asked.

"Yep," she replied. "What did Jillian and Greta get up to that got you so aroused?"

"I could tell you, but it would make more sense to let you experience it for yourself," I said. "We've been invited to a play session."

"We have?" Sunny asked.

"Yes. Jillian wants to meet you and Olivia," I said.

At that point, Olivia suddenly raised her face up out of Sunny's crotch. It was freshly covered with Olivia's juices. She was focused on what I was telling Sunny.

"Sunny, you would be extended courtesy as a fellow dominant, like me. I will be bringing Sloane as my sub. As she is still recovering, I will take it easy on her."

I met Sloane and the other three Albas for lunch earlier in the week in the private room of a well-known restaurant. I made it clear to them that they worked for me. All four of them asked me question after question about whether I would meet their particular physical needs. I told them I would to the best of my ability, but our relationship in that regard would be based on voluntary submission. Nothing would ever be required of them. Everything they would participate in required their consent. Pain would be meted out judiciously as a reward for playing by the rules.

"Even the smallest peck on the cheek or caress will be your decision, do you understand?"

All four of them nodded immediately.

"Can you play by those rules?" I asked.

Sloane took the lead. "We have talked about this and we think we can make it work. Have you seen our fantasies, yet?"

"Not yet," I admitted. "I promise you I will read them before our first sessions."

At the end of the meal, all four of them made a show of kissing the invisible tattoos on the backs of my hands. Unlike the others, Sloane gave me a goodbye hug and a kiss. I could smell her arousal on her.

I made eye contact with Sunny. "Olivia is welcome to attend as your guest."

I made eye contact with Olivia. "It will be a high-protocol event. That means you will be there in the guise of Sunny's submissive. It will be as if you are Sunny's pet or possession. You will be her plaything and not a human being."

Olivia shuddered as a wave of arousal visibly passed through her.

I looked back over at Sunny. "Jillian understands that we are novices and will be able to tolerate mistakes and silliness from us or our subs. However, we will be expected to deal harshly with our subs if they get out of hand. It would be rude to disrespect their lifestyle or relationship.

"I don't know the relationship the two of you have arranged for yourselves, but you two need to talk over whether you two would like to have the sort of relationship that Jillian has with Greta, or that I will have with Sloane and her fellow Albas. If you don't, then it is better if you don't attend."

***

Chapter 15

I was driving a luxury SUV over towards Jillian's club. Sunny was in the passenger seat next to me. Sloane was in the back seat with Olivia, doing her best to try to quietly instruct her and sooth her nerves.

In the apartment, prior to our departure, Sunny had dressed Olivia much as she had been dressed in the rave: latex booty shorts with a structured bra which could be worn on its own. Sunny added to that costume a pair of white thigh-high tights and a pair of black four-inch heels.

At my suggestion, Sunny had Olivia don her belly piercing jewelry and had on the same glittery makeup on her tummy that she'd worn to the warehouse. Sunny had also spent over an hour giving Olivia an extensive make-up job. She put fake-eyelashes on her and went heavy on the eye liner. She was actually much better at this than Olivia, and Olivia was super excited about her new look until Sunny enthusiastically observed to me, "I can't wait to see how that makeup runs when Olivia starts to cry!"

Olivia nearly cried just then. It was all I could do not to laugh.

Over the top of Olivia's outfit, Sunny had Olivia throw on a charcoal-colored tee-shirt midi dress. The combination of the dress with the white tights and the black pumps was a little weird, but the idea was that after we arrived at the club, the dress would come off and Olivia would be in her rave outfit.

Sloane was dressed in a deep blue sweater dress. The material was a heavy-weight knit. It was intentionally oversized in the sleeves, but only came down to mid-thigh. She paired it with a pair of black leather boots that came almost to the knee. She accessorized with a pair of diamond stud earrings and a black choker. It looked utterly exquisite on her.

Sloane told me she intended to take the dress off at the club. She promised I would be pleased with what she had on underneath. She was clearly trying to entice me into taking a peak. My response was not at all what she expected.

"It better be," I said, "Or I'll just have you strip naked, take off your makeup, coat your hair in lube, and I will write 'failure' on your belly with a thick sharpie. It will take you three days to scrub the words off. Believe me, you will regret disappointing me after teasing me like that.

I'd never talked to her so directly or dismissively and she instantly shivered. A shocked and reassessing look passed over her face until she saw that I was amused by her distress. She immediately looked down at the floor. Her mindset instantly changed. She was visibly aroused.

Olivia was wearing a latex dress done in the style of Wendy Darling's nightgown from Peter Pan. It was light blue with a dark blue ribbon around the waist. It was deliberately cut to make it seem like Sunny had to shimmy into a dress sized for a young teen, which made it resemble a skater dress. It was magnificently tight in the bodice and in the hips and ass, which really showed off Sunny's assets.

Sunny accessorized the dress with a large dark blue bow which matched the ribbon at her waist. She'd also done some sort of K-pop inspired Anime-girl makeup job which made her eyes pop and gave her face a smooth, almost-artificial quality.

In the car, Sloane said to Olivia, "Come now, there isn't all that much to remember. You don't look the Doms in the eyes unless instructed to. You don't speak unless spoken to. Always address the Doms formally. You will be told the correct address. If you are not, default to 'sir' or 'ma'am'. Most importantly, you do what any of the Doms tell you to do. Even if it doesn't make sense and you don't want to do it, you do it."

"Sunny?" said Olivia from the back seat. "Do you want to call me Mistress or Ma'am?" Her nervousness was palpable.

Sunny rolled her eyes at me. "What did you call me the night that we introduced Sloane to Will?"

"Minyeo," said Olivia.

"Sloane, what will you be calling Will tonight?" asked Sunny.

"I will be calling him, 'Sir' or 'Boss', Minyeo," replied Sloane confidently.

"Why?" asked Sunny.

"That was what he last told me he wanted me to say, Minyeo. He will instruct me if he wishes me to behave differently."

"See Slut? It is that simple," said Sunny. "There was really no need to ask that question, was there?"

"No, Minyeo," replied Olivia.

"Slut, would you like to put your fist into your mouth?" asked Sunny.

"What?" asked Olivia.

"You heard me," said Sunny. "I asked you if you wanted to put your whole fist in your mouth right now."

There was a pregnant pause and nervous tension in the car. I glanced at Sloane in the mirror who was looking at Olivia with confusion and abject fascination. In Sloane's world, she was ordered by someone to do their will and she obeyed. To watch Olivia struggle with being forced to choose her level of compliance was alien to her.

Olivia suddenly made a decision and started to stuff her fist into her mouth. It was clear she didn't understand why she was being asked to do it, but she was going to do it. I intuited that she did it simply because she'd grown to trust Sunny.

Olivia had to work hard to get her whole fist into her mouth. It took several minutes, but she got her whole fist stuffed in. I took a good look at Olivia in the rear view mirror at a stop light. She looked utterly ridiculous with her hand in her mouth like that.

Sunny turned around and faced Olivia. I caught a look of abject victory on Sunny's face. "Good girl!" she said enthusiastically with abject delight. Olivia's face lit up at Sunny's praise.

"Slut, I'm glad you put your fist in your mouth, because it will keep you from wagging your tongue uselessly. Remember, Slut, you begged me to bring you to this event. If you want to be here, then you need to play your role.

"The rules that Sloane covered aren't difficult. You just have to take your place and remember that you are here as my object. Objects don't get nervous, so settle the fuck down. Have I ever once commanded you to do anything you don't want to do?"

Olivia shook her head. With her fist in her mouth, it looked so ridiculous it made me want to laugh.

"That's right," said Sunny. "I've never commanded you to do anything. I asked you if you wanted to do things and it is up to you to decide. Tonight will be no different. I will ask you if you wish to participate in every single activity. It will be completely up to you and it will not be held against you if you refuse anything. Give me a little credit for knowing you, though, Slut. You're going to want to participate. If you do so with gusto, you will be rewarded. It's that fucking simple."

I caught Sloane in the rear view mirror making eye contact with me. She was obviously trying to figure out if my insistence on consent meant I was going to treat her the same way Sunny was treating Olivia.

As we neared the club entrance, Sunny turned around in her seat and handed Olivia a choker. "If you choose to wear this, it is a symbol that I own you. You don't have to wear it, of course, but without a Dom staking a claim to you, you'd be fresh meet for whatever Doms you ran across. They would not ask your consent for anything." She turned back around as if she didn't care what Olivia did.

Olivia immediately put the choker on.

***

We pulled into the rounded driveway in front of Jillian's club and pulled up to the vallet parking station. The vallet quickly rushed over to open Sunny's door. Another vallet opened my door and handed me my claim check ticket. Sunny and I got out.

The passenger-side vallet peeked into the back seat and saw that the ladies in the back were wearing chokers. He turned his back and walked away. Olivia and Sloane had to open their own doors and step out.

As Olivia and Sloane approached me, Greta stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing a long coat against the cool fall air. I guessed she was mostly naked beneath it. "Good evening Ascalaphus," she said. "Mistress said I was to intercept your subs lest they make the faux pas of using the entrance for humans."

The way she said it made Olivia gasp.

"One moment, Greta," I said. "I need a word alone with my sub."

Greta pulled Olivia off to the side.

"Knees," I commanded Sloane. "Look me in the eye." Sloane instantly dropped down onto her knees on the red carpet before the Dom entrance. She looked up at me.

"You looked confused in the car about what Sunny was doing with Olivia. You were wondering if what I will do to you is like what Sunny is doing to Olivia. Correct?"

"Yes, Sir," she answered.

"It isn't," I said. "Sunny has diagnosed Olivia as a slut who doesn't know she is one. She is trying to get Olivia to come to grips with her identity by forcing her to make explicit choices to do slutty things. She thinks that if she does this often enough and consistently enough, Olivia will eventually make peace with the fact that she is, in truth, a slut. Likewise, she expects that Olivia will eventually come to realize she is a submissive and ask to be collared. At that point, consent won't matter. Does this make sense to you?"

"Yes, Sir," she replied.

"You are a different matter. You are a natural-born submissive and I expect you are deeply and expertly trained in submission. You made peace with who you are long ago and you have no doubts about that. However, you are a pain slut. For most women, a whipping is a punishment. For you it is a reward. I watched a lot of the footage of Naem Carter and others playing with you and you've developed some bad habits, haven't you?"

As I asked that, Sloane flushed scarlet.

"You've become a brat. You intentionally misbehave to get punishment in order to force your Dom to give you the pain reward that you crave. That's very bad behavior on your part and it is very manipulative. I have decided that I won't be topped from the bottom that way. For the time being, I am going to force you into a consent mode not unlike the one that Sunny imposes on Olivia. I do this because if you choose not to comply you will not be punished. Your punishment will be that I will withhold pain.

"If you comply, are well-behaved, and you work very hard as my submissive, you will be rewarded commensurate with your effort. You will eventually earn the right to be commanded. I read your fantasy prior to tonight. Tonight will not be exactly like the scenario you presented, but it will be close enough that I'm certain you will enjoy what is in store.

"I'm going to be training under a Domme named Jillian tonight. She's going to help me make sure I don't go overboard. She knows you are deeply trained already. If you don't shine tonight, it won't hurt me in the slightest. I am acknowledged to be a novice. It will, however, heap embarrassment on you and it will bring shame on those who trained you."

I waited until she nodded,

"Any questions?" I asked.

"No, Sir," she said.

"I have one last question for you, Sloane."

"Yes, Sir?"

"What do you want your play name to be?" I asked. "I will call you anything you wish."

She took a deep breath and became extremely emotional.

"Will you call me 'Freckles', Sir?" she asked. "That is what the Dom who trained me called me. It will help me to remember how to be the best submissive I can be."

I liked that name.

"Very well," I replied. "Freckles, it is. Do not bring shame on the Dom who named you that."

"I won't, Sir," she said. "I promise that."

I leaned in and spoke quietly so that only she could hear.

"Remember that Slut is an utter novice and will be looking to you for guidance. I also want you to know that I admire Greta greatly as a submissive because she loves her mistress deeply, trusts her absolutely, is exceptionally compliant, and she has made peace with what she is. If you want to impress me tonight, exhibiting those qualities would not be a bad place to start."