Title: Downfall, Chapter 3
* * *“Mom,” Sarah called to her. “Have you seen my jewelry box?”
It had been several more weeks of teaching since Victoria had come to Laura’s house, and those several more weeks had brought Laura and all her family to the point of living through another Tuesday morning. Another Tuesday morning before Laura and Sarah both carpooled onto campus together, and Gerrit went to work.
On this particular morning, Laura was at the table in the kitchen with Gerrit, feeling more jittery than the caffeine could make her, and Sarah was calling down the stairs from her bedroom.
Laura knew exactly where the jewelry box was of course. It was in Victoria’s possession, where Laura had last seen it. It belonged to Victoria now and always would, just like Laura’s soul.
But she couldn’t tell that to her husband or daughter, because Victoria didn’t want it told, and so it wouldn’t be right, so she called back, “No, dear.”
The minute later, Sarah was seen descending the stairs. She had not once mentioned her missing jewelry box; Laura had been waiting for that shoe to fall, wondering if she’d even noticed it go missing. Maybe she had only noticed for the first time to day.
Sarah was wearing a frown when she reached the point of standing over the table at which her mother and father sat, drinking their coffee and reading their newspaper respectively.
Sarah took a pastry off the table’s platter, which Laura had stocked by taking the car out to the bakery that was about a 5 minute drive away. She still did thoughtful things for her family like she always had, despite the fact she was now Victoria’s slave. She told herself it alleviated some of the guilt but it didn’t really.
Sarah bit into her pastry thoughtfully and bit down. “It’s the weirdest thing,” she contributed after swallowing. “I don’t know where it could have went to. I haven’t seen it for three weeks, and I’ve searched this entire house twice over. You’re sure you haven’t seen it, Mom?”
Sarah turned her eyes on Laura. She might have shrunk in culpability if Victoria’s ownership in her hadn’t sprung up like a rod, holding her up like a structural support. It was Right that she had stolen for Victoria. It was Right now that she lie to her daughter.
“No, Sarah, I really haven’t seen it. It’s still in the house. You’ve just overlooked it. You’ve just missed it. You should look again.” A bold lie Victoria would have liked to see her tell. She shivered in that knowledge.
But she had just lied to her daughter; tried to warp her own sense of reality to benefit someone else; she did still feel a twinge of guilt from that. The constant mental reinforcements to her servitude that Victoria had now programmed Laura’s mind to do every day in class, whether she was attending or not, still hadn’t gotten the last of the guilt out of her.
She understood now why Sarah had not mentioned the jewelry box before; she’d wanted to give a good search first before extending her ask for help.
Sarah frowned skeptically. “Look a third time? But I’ve already turned the house upside down twice—”
Laura nodded, finding the lying feel easy. It felt good until that old twinge of conscience caught up to her. “A third time. Then you’ll find it.”
Laura’s coffee mug was empty and it was time to go. She kissed Gerrit on the cheek and he looked up from his paper to smile at her; then she hurried Sarah, still with half-eaten pastry in hand, out the door with her other school things and drove them both to campus, dropping Sarah outside her class building and parking in her faculty parking space and then going in to her own auditorium.
Class went by easily enough, and Victoria actually was in attendance today. Laura’s mouth knew how to go on teaching while her mind tangled into obedience just as it should; the effect was always present, but more powerful still on the days that Victoria was there for Laura to fix her eyes upon.
As it was a Tuesday, after class there was immediately another course in the auditorium, so Laura vacated it with the last of her students.
A slight tap to the arm in the hallway outside thrilled Laura’s entire body, and she stopped to see as the next class started filling in to the auditorium she’d left.
It was Victoria.
What else really needed to be said, or thought, except that she was Beautiful and Good and Right and she had not talked to Laura in or out of class since that day three weeks ago that she’d been at her house, and now it seemed she would bless her with her company; she would end the separation between them. Laura thrilled for it as much as she feared it.
“You needed a few more weeks of softening up,” Victoria said, though a perfection like her owed no explanations to a slave. “I thought I would give them to you before giving you direct guidance again. I knew the mind of a clever slave like you would know what to do with the time.”
Laura flushed at this indirect praise.
“Let’s go to your office now,” Victoria said. “I think you’re ready.”
When they got back to Laura’s office, they had only just made it through the door when Victoria threw herself around Laura’s body; lips against hers so overwhelming that it shorted out her brain, and she barely heard the words when Victoria whispered to her to close the door; and she had to reach both around and through Victoria’s kisses to set her hand on the knob and swing the door closed.
Then Victoria kissed her back to her desk, kissed her into sitting on it and straddled her over it; her thoughts were more distant this time. She wasn’t thinking about— wasn’t thinking about— the thing she should not be thinking about, guilt or feelings she shouldn’t be feeling while Victoria was— while Victoria was—
Pulling away to speak into her ear. “You know when I kiss you… when I touch you… when I make you feel pleasure, it only reinforces your devotion.”
Victoria had said similar things to her but not so explicitly; Laura croaked a noise, and felt the Truth of that settle into her; the more Victoria kissed her, the more she was hers… she fumblingly kissed back…
“Tell me what’s happening in the rest of your day,” Victoria broke the kiss to say again, and Laura understood the concept before Victoria finished saying, so when she was answering she was already speaking over her despite the failing in servitude this was.
“I have a second class later,” Laura gasped; and Victoria kissed on the side of her face and down her neck so that she could keep talking. “In an hour and a half; I have to finish the lesson plan; I have to finish grading a few quizzes in my stack that I kept back from the TAs… I have to…”
“Skip your class,” Victoria said. “Get a TA to cover. Tell them you’re sick; tell them to come pick up those quizzes and grade them themselves.”
“I—” Laura stuttered; Victoria pulled back from kissing the side of her, and made eye contact.
Laura exhaled; her mind had just been slaughtered again inside Victoria’s eyes; when she was so open and vulnerable and killed, there was nothing she could do… nothing she could say… “Yes, Victoria,” she breathed…
Victoria kept kissing on the side of her face while she used her deskphone— reached behind herself to get it— the only thing powerful enough to sustain her through her desired and required task was the devotion to the same girl still kissing on her; the devotion carried her through dialing, carried her through saying the necessary things, feigning illness, evoking sympathy, getting the agreement of that TA to come to her office and get the last few quizzes; and work from the incomplete lesson plan as best they could… when she hung up the phone she was free, but they couldn’t stay here very long because the TA was coming… unless Victoria wanted them to be caught like this, wanted Laura to be ruined and if she was the only thing Laura would be able to say in response would be… thank you…
Luckily, Laura was climbing back off of her body to standing. “Take me home to your house now,” Victoria said; and flashed Laura another look of her eyes. She didn’t need the override they provided this time; she was less resistant to taking Victoria home than she was to skipping out on her professedly duties. But it was loud in her head, that flash of clear blue shouting it out. It had been Right to skip out, it was Right now to take Victoria home.
She didn’t even need to tell Victoria so, or say anything, or nod; she only stood and led the way out of her office; she locked it, because she’d called the TA who had a key in case of emergency… like today’s feigned one… and the walk back to the car was a haze. She was only lucky Victoria hadn’t asked her to skip class on a day she taught a class that had no TAs… like on Wednesday afternoons, when she taught her specialized fourth-year mathematics course. If it had been Wednesday, and not Tuesday, it would have been necessary for Laura to cancel that class entirely.
And maybe Victoria would have done with her by the time that she should have been carpooling home with Sarah… or maybe she wouldn’t, and Laura would once again be betraying her daughter, however minimally, because Victoria had said… she was pierced with latent shame again as she drove them by car, home… she was tangled in an affair with a girl the same age as her own daughter… shameful… scandalous… and Victoria whispered in Laura’s ear as she drove, “You’re doing so well for me,” in that throaty way she had, and Laura knew she was hers even more… and Laura nearly lost control of the car… as that time with the deer… and the memory of that and what it had come to mean to her nearly made her lose control again… “You’re driving us safely,” Victoria added, when she recognized the power of the effect she could have, and the problem was resolved.
They did not speak or touch when Laura stopped the car, not until they had reached the inside hall of Laura’s home. They passed by the hutch in the living room, where Laura had left the mailed report of interest accrued to Sarah’s trust fund… Laura looked at as they went by; but Victoria did not; oblivious or deliberately ignoring, but it reminded Laura of the ways in which she failed as a slave. She had failed to do that when Victoria asked.
Victoria did not speak orders, or ask questions, but kept walking the two of them forward. Back upstairs, and would she ask Laura to steal something else from Sarah? Laura wouldn’t be able to say no— but no, they walked past Sarah’s open door, the only footsteps in an empty house. To the end of the hall… they had reached Laura’s and Gerrit’s bed again.
She had smiled him and kissed him goodbye on the lips this morning; but when Victoria stepped to the bed, Laura had to follow and get on to it when Victoria did.
Victoria smiled at her— like seeing the sun— and laughed lightly. “I think enough time has passed. I think every kiss I give you—”
Victoria drew her head by both hands and kissed her to the side of her mouth. “Makes you more ready to give your body to me.”
Laura felt her brain fry again, temporarily; the tension, the pressure of being torn between the feeling of wanting to serve Victoria and the lingering loyalty to her husband. They could have done this in the office, anywhere on campus, but Victoria wanted to do it here and Laura understood why. This was her marital bed, it was how she thought of it, what she’d thought before.
To violate it by committing infidelity in it would be the ultimate proof of corruption, Laura thought… it would be unforgivable… and Gerrit would never know… and he would sleep in it tonight beside her, and never know, and the next time they had sex in it they wouldn’t know… but by doing this, by being Laura’s first sexual experience with another woman in this bed, Victoria was claiming it, and claiming Laura twice or three times over… it was a frightening prospect. She didn’t know how much more owned she would feel if every night she lay down in a bed that kept her bound up in memories of being taken by Victoria in the same…
But Victoria was kissing her with greater desperation. What had happened in the office had only been a prelude, a beginning, and this was an encore, and then it went further than that. Victoria’s tongue twisted with hers wretchedly; it was more heaving and desperate and animal than anything she had ever tasted with her husband; Victoria’s hands twined in Laura’s hair so hard it hurt and all Laura could do was try to match the touchings of Victoria’s tongue… each one felt like sparks going into her body, and when they reached her brain, each time she knew Devotion.
She was Victoria’s, she would give her anything, she would give her everything; every kiss sparked it into her, and when Laura sometimes opened her eyes and saw Victoria’s there, opened by the prompting of feeling Victoria’s eye lids kiss against her face while her lips did the same… then her mind died again and she knew it more. She was Victoria’s and she would give her anything.
“Yes,” Laura spoke against her lips, and it felt closer than her own breath, seemed inside of her in the same moment she made it vocal. “Yes, here.”
Victoria knew perfectly what she meant, and then her hands left Laura’s hair, and they were passing along her body. They twisted at her breasts while still Victoria’s tongue twisted inside of her, and Laura cried out when her pleasure multiplied manyfold, jerking farther forward into its grip, and the grip of her deft owner’s hands.
Victoria’s fingers slipped below Laura’s shirt and moved aside her bra; and then furiously moved over her skin and flesh, and Laura cried out again and arched her back further up into that touch; and the touch increased in intensity, and Laura thought she might already be coming, only there seemed no point of release, only a sense of accelerating that had no culmination. It was a car crash without a hit, it would just keep happening, keep fasting up in speed and veering out of control unless a wall presented itself to arrest the momentum.
Victoria’s hands spread over Laura’s stomach, got past the waistband of her pants, under her underwear, and Laura was so, so wet when Victoria touched; so— and when she vocalized she thought she might be crying but Victoria stirred through the tears that slipped past her lower lips, the salt of which could not be tasted by them, though the salt on her upper set of lips was perfectly sample-able. Victoria was kissing her hard there, so she must be able to taste it too.
The pleasure kept streaking on, and Victoria lowered her mouth all along Laura’s body; rolling her pants, her underwear down, and kissing her with as much insistence on the lower pair as she had showed to the upper; her tongue was inside that mouth, and Laura arched again but the car crash kept happening. There was no wall yet. There was no wall.
A finger of Victoria’s slipped inside, and that still wasn’t the wall yet— two fingers and it still wasn’t the wall— three— pumping in and out of her as Victoria’s tongue slathered over Laura’s clit. She had Laura screaming and crying out in the bed she fucked her husband in and he was the farthest thing from her mind, totally forgotten; she kept seizing up, but it still wasn’t the wall.
Victoria kept her hand pumping in and out of Laura but she drew her mouth back, and looked up at her— Laura found her eyes and lost herself in them; and Victoria was speaking, and every word seared to her mind.
“You’re ready to give me that money you’ve been saving up for Sarah,” Victoria said; and her lips still glistened from Laura’s lower tears. “You’ll call the bank when we’re done, and tell them to change all the details of the fund. So every legal reference to Sarah is removed; and the only remaining reference is to me; and there will be no trace of Sarah left. No one will ever be able to see, from looking at it, that it was ever hers; and you’ll change the terms of the fund so I can begin accessing and withdrawing the money whenever I like.”
Laura’s breath hitched in her; but she was dying again and again in every glance from Victoria’s eyes, and she was looking into them so the glance was sustained and continuous, and seemed to be thrusting her up the bed with relentless pressure inside striking against her tenderest places… she was too lost to know, to remember that wasn’t really the cause of those sensations inside, there was a better one, but she couldn’t know it. Could only look into Victoria and know…
There was still resistance here. Slight and so much weaker than it had been. But this— this wasn’t like letting Victoria take the jewelry box. It wasn’t even like anything else she’d done for Victoria before. She’d thought cheating on her husband would be unforgivable. No, nothing compared to his; this would be comprising her daughter’s entire future, stealing it from her and giving it away to Victoria…
“And when you’ve changed it all over to me, you’ll remove your husband from the account so that he has no claim to the money either… and you’ll give me authority to make changes and steward the money. And when I’m ready to, when I know all the transferring has really gone through properly, I’ll have you removed as well. This is what you’re going to do, Laura. Every frisson of pleasure you feel bonds you to this truth; and when all your pleasure releases in one rush of orgasm, you’ll know it better than you’ve ever known anything.”
The pleasure was putting white spots into her vision; she was jerking so hard on the bed as she was getting fucked on Victoria’s hand; even Victoria’s first seduction of her body, even this; it was not only for access, for pleasure, not only so Victoria could fuck her; she was seducing her to seduce her into something else; everything was only ever to assert more control, to seize hold of Laura more deeply, make her more and more owned.
Make her more and more Right. Everyone else would see what Laura was doing as wrong; stealing money meant to go to her daughter and giving it Victoria but Laura would know it was Right because everything Victoria wanted was always Right and this would be too.
“The pleasure is bonding you to the truth,” Victoria repeated again more insistent, jamming her given thrusts still more forcefully inside of Laura. Victoria’s eyes were right here and Laura was going deep into them. “You’re going to give me the money. You’ll know. You’ll understand, when you— Come.”
Victoria had said the last with enough insistence Laura had understood it to be an order.
There was the wall. She was crashing into it; all that accelerating momentum at a sudden stop that seized her body completely and made it jerk and twist and thrash convulsively; Laura was screaming and crying, and in her mind there was only knowledge and no other sound.
Yes, she thought, and she twitched again in orgasm’s after effect. She would give Sarah’s money to Victoria and Sarah would never have a claim to it again; she had done two betrayals in this bed, one to her husband and one to her daughter and she didn’t think it would ever be possible to betray one or the other any worse than she was doing right now.
“I’m giving you Sarah’s money, Victoria,” Laura said, her voice a bit hyperventilatory. “I’ll call now.”
She stumbled from the bed, her phone had been in the pocket of her pantsuit blazer all the time, and she retrieved it from there, disheveled on the floor… she dialled the number of bank employee who oversaw Victoria’s— Sarah’s, but that would soon be corrected— fund, she had the number for their direct line.
Victoria stayed sitting on the bed as Laura dialed the number of Sarah’s fund manager.
“Hello,” the manager answered.
Victoria perked up; she’d probably heard the voice speak, but failed to make out the words. Still she knew Laura was on the line with them... that Laura was now obeying her in the way she’d failed to do before... and Laura shivered at he knowledge of her obedience.
She was doing this for Victoria and she would go all the way through with it... there was nothing in her that could stop it from happening now. She was helpless with almost no resistance left inside herself... just becoming more of Victoria’s thing all the time and that was Right... would there even be anything left of her in a few months? Would she care anymore if there wasn’t? The thought of it alone had her clenching her thighs together. Belonging to Victoria completely, even to the point of losing her mind... she clenched again.
“It’s Laura Stanton calling,” Laura spoke, never letting her arousal show in her voice. “Can you confirm that myself and my husband are the only ones with the authority to make changes to our daughter Sarah’s invested fund?”
There was a pause; some typing. “Yes, the two of you are the only ones with that authority,” the manager confirmed.
“And those changes must take immediate effect? There are no checks on them or any holds?”
More typing. “No,” the fund manager spoke. “You have full authority. There is no hold on anything. Every change must take immediate effect and can only be undone if you change it back.”
That was just what Laura had hoped for; it would help her to serve Victoria. Help her to do the right thing.
Victoria: she was what Laura was looking at, every sighting of her further reinforcing her joy in obedience and servitude. She was what Laura was looking at so Laura saw it when Victoria gestured to her; she was beckoning to her to come back onto the bed with her. Laura had to follow the gesture; then she gestured to her to put the call on speakerphone—so clever, as everything about Victoria was admirable.
This way she would be able to hear what was happening in the call. She could see, could know in full context, how Laura was obeying her. Laura had to clench her legs together even harder; but Victoria pressed lightly inside the line of her legs, parting them, and her hand found Laura’s slit, and carefully stroked there, through the fabric of her underwear so nothing would be audible to the manager—so smart, so perfect, Laura was so wet that if Victoria had touched her naked it would definitely have been fully audible in its smacking.
Laura convulsed but kept it silent. And she had stayed silent for too long. The fund manager prompted her. “Mrs.? Is there a change I can make to the fund for you today?”
The obedience inside she held for Victoria was the only thing sustaining her, allowing her to keep speaking while Victoria touched her.
“Yes,” she said. It took great strain, but her voice sounded surprisingly normal. “I want to remove my daughter as the beneficiary of the account and replace her with someone else.”
There was a beat of shocked silence in which Victoria only stroked her more punishing; Laura was convulsing again, she felt it in her abdomen but all her attention stayed with the call.
“Mrs. Stanton… that’s a big change... and it sounds like it might hurt your daughter...”
Laura’s mouth fell open in a soundless gasp. That only made it so much hotter. Victoria rewarded her with some sweeter strokes.
“Don’t question me,” Laura said, finding unexpected steel in herself. “I have full authority. Make the change.”
Funny for a slave like her to say those words; but as with all things she had it through Victoria, only had it because Victoria was allowing her to have it... Victoria must feel this when she wielded power... but her power was end in itself and not something borrowed from another source... Laura would have her power as long as she needed it, as long as it took to serve Victoria, and then Victoria would take it away when it ceased being necessary... and that was hotter too.
The fund manager sighed.
“What’s the name of the new beneficiary?”
Victoria shifted herself up the bed, closer to Laura. She kept touching her, then kissed the side of her face and whispered, inaudibly to everyone who was not Laura, into her ear, her full name including all her middle names.
The fund manager requested other information from Laura about Victoria and it passed to him this way, through her ear and out her mouth with none of it ever sticking in her mind as something she would later be able to recall... a slave like her didn’t need to remember, to know more about her owner than her owner would deem...
When all the information had passed through her this way, spoken as heard whispered but then forgotten... spoken so Laura couldn’t even follow with her own voice or even hear it... then when this portion of the call was over, Laura felt her mind clarify again; and Victoria ducked her head back to Laura’s waist, and started sucking her— still without a sound— through her underwear.
“That’s all the information, we can make the change. Thank you—”
“I’m not done,” Laura spoke authoritatively. She was using her Professor voice. That had been her source of power before; but now it was Victoria and always would be until all power stopped for her permanently and it wasn’t anymore. “Remove my husband’s access; so he can never make a change to the fund again, and scrub all evidence that the fund was ever connected to my husband or my daughter.”
A sigh. “Anything else?”
“Give Victoria access to make changes to the fund equal to my own; and remove the condition that the beneficiary must wait until they are 25 to start withdrawing from it. Victoria can start withdrawing from it today if she wants; do you understand?”
Another long suffering sigh.
“Yes, Mrs. Stanton. Is there anything else?”
At last there was not, so Laura told him so, and ended the call.
“The fund manager’s number is—”
Victoria lay a finger across her lips silencing her. “I’ll get it from you later if I need it or want it. I have access to you whenever I want, don’t I?”
Laura supposed so.
Victoria nosed back into kissing range again. “You did even better just then,” she spoke, and her voice was warm in a way that made Laura’s body thrill all over. “I think that was the best service you’ve ever given me. You were a very good slave for me... so, so good...”
Laura felt a shiver pass through her entire body; she had done Right, she only cared what Victoria thought and now Victoria was happy... from the way she was speaking she was clearly more than happy... so happy... and to have herself praised for her obedience, the thing she felt was the most important quality in herself... it made her happy in a way she couldn’t even express.
“So, so good for me,” Victoria repeated. “And getting better all the time...” she lowered her lips to Laura’s again, and kissed her once more, and every part of her praise and rewarding was in her kiss; Laura felt even more recognized, more appreciated... more important. She tried to kiss her thanks back in response to Victoria’s praise; Victoria was in control, Victoria was in command as she always was, and it made the slave in Laura quake; was there anything left in her that was not enslaved?
It seemed the most primary part of her; Victoria was in command, but Laura had no control over herself since that control was Victoria’s now, and Victoria had given her no direct order; Victoria kissed praise to her in the same steady rhythm but it affected Laura more each time it happened, and in response she was kissing more and more frantically, and pushing things further and further along. She needed Victoria to know how she loved her, how she loved her so much... Victoria broke the kiss. “You may,” she spoke softly to her. “You may repay the attention I gave you earlier.”
Laura had no experience at it, not with women; but she wanted to, hadn’t even known she did until Victoria recognized. And they had not finished reconsecrating Laura’s marital bed, taking it for the two of them. She lowered herself to between Victoria’s legs and uncertainly started up licking. Her lack of skill didn’t matter; she knew her devotion shone through every lick. Victoria would understand. She was a perfect slave. She was happy.