NOT A CRUEL MAN
PART THREE
I finished work early that evening and went round to the supermarket to pick up supplies for the weekend. When I got back, I took the car round to the back entrance of my house and was pleased to see that Ann-Louise’s car was already there.
The house is a big place, bought with the money I acquired from the judicious use of the Gizmo around London casinos. It’s too big for one person really, if I didn’tt have the help of my ‘pets’ I’d be unable to keep it decent. The back garden is huge and not visible from any of my neighbours’ property. Which is one of the reasons I bought this particular place.
I opened the back door into the kitchen and smiled to myself. Ann-Louise was already waiting there as she had so many times in the year in which she was my ‘toy’. She was just as I liked her: kneeling with her head to the floor and her arse in the air, naked and submissive. Her long blonde hair was spread around her and she had already put on the metal collar that was the mark of my ownership. I closed the door behind me and waited a moment before clicking my fingers.
At that she crawled across to where I stood and lovingly, delicately, licked my dirt stained shoes, kissing my ankles, each in turn. When she had shown enough submission for my taste, I clicked my fingers again and she knelt up.
She was lovely, still. Her face had acquired a little more character and a few more lines since the days when she served me as an undergraduate. But her body was still firm and her breasts still breath-taking. In a few years she would be past her best but for now she was a sight to behold.
“Well, Ann-Louise. It has been a long time.”
“It has, Master. Thank you for letting me serve you again.”
“You should have found another Master after I let you go.” I couldn’t erase her submissive personality. After a while the changes go too deep. I could have erased her memory of my time as her Master. I had done that with some of the others. But she had been too useful to me. And sometimes I remembered her...
“There have been one or two, Master. But none of them...Well, and I had to be careful not to choose anyone too close to the University and my job.”
“Indeed. Tonight I’m planning to introduce a new...subject to my requirements. I shall want your assistance. Will that be a problem?” I wanted to know. I could alter her attitude with a simple code word but, as I say I am not a cruel man. I wouldn’t want to cause her unnecessary pain. But she shook her head.
“No, Master. I will be glad to be of service to you in any way I can.”
“Good. Go and unload the car and bring the groceries in here. I have dinner to prepare.”
She smiled and sprang to her feet before going out into the back, as she was, naked and getting the carrier bags.
The next hour or so was busy as Ann-Louise unpacked supplies and I prepared the meal. When everything was cooking nicely, I went upstairs to bath and change. I ordered Ann-Louise to go to the bedroom where she had slept when she had been y weekend toy and change into a ‘French maid’ outfit that I had bought for her all those years ago. It still fit like a charm and she looked a picture as she brought me my pre-dinner drink. The inbuilt bra virtually pushed her substantial breasts up and into your face. She still wore her collar but with her hair down you could not see the lock at the back: it looked like a fairly normal piece of costume jewellry. I took a deep sip of the perfectly prepared martini she had brought me and reflected that this should prove to be a most interesting evening.
“You are clear on your instructions?”
“Yes, Master. I have everything prepared as you instructed.”
“Good.”
The doorbell rang.
“That will be my guest. Let her in please, Ann-Louise.”
She curtseyed and went to the front door.
A few moments later Cynthia Matell entered. What a transformation from her normal, fairly drab and lifeless working garb. She wore a long black dress that fell from her shoulders down to the floor. The material was sheer and shimmering and I could see the curve of her waist, breasts and thighs through it. It hung about her like smoke and her hair floated about her head like a dark cloud. I went forward and took her hand and, to her suprise, kissed it in the old-fashioned European way.
“How charming you look, Cynthia. Most lovely.”
“I...Ahhh, thank you, Professor. I thought...Well, this is something of an occasion...” She was justifying to her own mind her peculiar compliance with my suggestion that she wear ‘her sexiest dress.’. Given time she would convince herself that she had thought of the idea first.
“Oh, now there’s no need to be formal. I will call you Cynthia and you must call me Richard.” For now, I added to myself. For now.
“Well, thank you. Richard. You have a lovely place here. Not how I imagined a Professor would live at all.”
“I’ve been very lucky. Take Ms Matell’s bag, Ann-Louise.Will you have a drink?” I didn’t give her a chance to reply but turned said: “Another martini, Ann-Louise. Come into the library, Cynthia.”
I lead the way into the next room. I lead her to a chair beside the fireplace. She seemed a little nervous. As well she might be.
Ann-Louise brought in a fresh drink and put it on the table by Cynthia’s chair, curtseyed and left.
“Your...servant?”
“Ann-Louise? Yes, what about her?”
“Is she...foreign?”
“No, she’s English. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just I haven’t heard her speak.”
“I prefer it that way.”
“You mean...Is she dumb?”
“No,but I have told her to be quiet and she will be until I give her permission to speak.”
“Oh.” Cynthia didn’t seem to know what to make of that so she reached for her drink. It was then that she noticed the small stack of paperback books I had so carefully arranged on the table by her chair. She turned white and nearly spilled her drink. The titles were familiar to her. They should be: she had been reading them and fantasising about them for the past week, following the instructions I implanted in her during our first session.
“Is there something the matter?” Silence. She took a gulp at her drink and gasped a little as the gin hit her throat. “Please tell me what is wrong, my dear.”
At that code phrase, forced by the conditioning I had implanted, she stammered out: “Those,,,Those books on...Are they yours?”
“They are my copies of some books I’m rather fond of. The author is a well-known American horror novelist writing under a pseudonym. Have you read them?”
“I...uh...yes.” Her voice was very small.
“And did you enjoy them?” She looked down and away. “I find them very pleasing little fantasies. I collect books in that vein. And not just books.”
She looked up at me at that. There was a little fear in her eyes. More than a little.
“What did you think of them. Please tell me, my dear.”
Compelled she spoke quietly and tonelessly. “I...I found myself...thinking about them a good deal.”
“Yes?”
“I found them very....stimulating.”
“In what way?”
“Very stimulating...sexually. I found myself wondering what it would be like to be... owned the way Beauty was. To have to....serve. To serve....” she paused and looked at me. “...a man.” She reddened and looked down again. “I thought about that a lot.”
“Indeed. And what is wrong with that?”
Her haead snapped up. “It is degrading! Humiliating! To be reduced to the status of a....a....”
“A servant? A slave?”
“Yes! To want such things, to want to do such things is...disgusting!”
“And yet you tell me, you thought about it.”
“I...I...I don’t...I would not ever...Not to really...”
“If you say so, Cynthia. If you say so. Ah, I see that our meal is ready.” Ann-Louise was hovering in the door of the library. “Come along.”
I lead her out and onto the patio at the back of the house. The evening was warm and still, the last tail end of an English summer and I had ordered Ann-Louise to set up the table outside.
I seated Cynthia at the table, positioning her chair with a male-chauvanist courtesy that she was either too flustered or too scared to comment on. I poured her some wine and signalled to Ann-Louise to begin serving.
I didn’t want to spoil the moment by begining my transformation of her too soon or spoil her enjoyment of the meal by churning up her stomach with fear. So I let her settle back and forget our moment in the library. I chatted about the politics of the University and let her talk about her new job and her new flat. The meal was good, if I say so who shouldn’t, but light enough not to make us too stuffed for what was to follow. No point in overindulging in one sort of pleasure when you can have two.
We were just finishing a blackcurrant sorbet and Ann-Louise was pouring coffee when I turned the evening back towards the path I had intended.
“Tell me, my dear, those books that you saw in my library, what was it that so disturbed you about them?”
Under the compulsion of the code phrase she could not avoid help but answer.
“I...They made me...they gave me...ideas. Thoughts that disturbed me.”
“Fantasies?”
“Yes! Look this is really none of your business, Professor...”
“I thought we agreed I was going to be called Richard, for this evening? Please, my dear, don’t be angry.” She gnawed at her lip and took a gulp of her coffee. “I am a psychologist, after all. I have a natural interest in anything that causes such high emotion. Tell me, my dear, what is the nature of these fantasies?”
“They are....sexual in nature.”
Damn! After all my delicate work trying to lead her gently to the point of telling me, she was fighting all the way. I decided to cut things short.
“Ann-Louise, would you fetch the brandy and two glasses please.” I let my her get out of earshot before I said: “Jade Fondue.” I don’t want my girls to know the exact nature of their submission to me. I prefer it if they believe that it is their own idea. Cynthia relaxed and smiled at me.
“How may I serve you?”
“Cynthia, from now on, you will always answer any question I ask you truthfully and completely. Also you will be perfectly relaxed and unashamed in my company. You know that I would never hurt you and that you can tell me anything at all without fear. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good. Topaz Timetable.” I got the release phrase out just in time as Ann-Louise returned with the brandy. “Now, tell me what sort of fantasies you have, my dear. Tell me all the details.”
She shook her head for a moment as if to clear it. “I...At first I would imagine myself as the Princess in the Beauty books. Kept naked in front of the court. Forced to grovel in front of people dressed in exotic fairy-tale costumes. Being captured by pirates. That sort of thing.”
“Yes?”
“And then it changed. I imagined what it would be like to be a slave today. I thought...Perhaps they would reintroduce slavery for debt, I mean you can just see our Beloved Government doing something like that can’t you? I thought about falling behind with my new mortgage, perhaps loosing my job. Sitting at home. And then they come for me.”
“They?” I took a glass of brandy from Ann-Louise and sipped it. I had found a subject with a vivid imagination. And her political beliefs had given a unique flavour to her fantasies.
“Two men. Baliffs with a warrant. They show it to me and say they’ve come for my ‘chattels, goods and person’ to pay off the debt. I try to argue, plead with them but they just laugh. They’re...thugs. Rough men.”
“I understand. Go on.”
“They laugh at me and they tell me to pack my things and get into the back of their van. I can’t fight them. I can’t go to the police. The police are on their side. So I put some things into a small case and they lead me to the van. They chain me, by the ankles, while they load up my furniture and stuff into the van. And then we drive off.”
“It’s dark in the back of the van and there’s no way for me to see out. I can hear them, though, and they’re chatting to each other. Talking about me, about what’s going to happen to me. They make jokes about me. They call me a ‘stuck-up cow’. They wonder if they will get a chance to.... to use me before I’m sold. That’s when it hits home: what’s going to happen to me.”
“When we get to the depot they take me into this huge building, a warehouse I suppose and then they take my bag and make me strip. They have women guards there, big burly women, and I have to strip in front of them. They put a collar on me, a horrid cheap plastic thing but I can’t possibly take it off. They tell me it is also an electronic tag and if I try to run they will find me by it. I have to have a shower and then a medical examination. And then the guards take me down to some cells.”
She paused. Her face was red and she was breathing heavily.
“Go on, my dear.”
“I...The next bit is a little vauge. They teach me how to stand on the block. How to pose. I won’t do what they want at first. I think they beat me. That bit I don’t think about but I finally do what they want. I....I’m put up for sale. I’m on a platform, naked and there are men bidding for me. I can’t see them because of the lights. I’m sold and they take me down from the platform. I get herded into a waiting room with the other slaves who have been sold until the money has been handed over and the sale finalised. They come and unchain me, take me to my new owner. It’s...It’s somebody I know. Somebody from the University.”
Her head was right down and she stared into her lap.
“Yes?”
“It’s you.”
“I see. And what happens then?”
“I...I think at first that you’ve done it to free me, to pay off my debts but you soon put my mind to rights on that. You have the slavers tie me up and then you beat me. I...I don’t visualise that very clearly. And then you make me kneel and kiss your feet, lick your shoes clean. Then you put your own collar on me and lead me to your car. I’m still naked. And you lead me on a leash across this huge car park. All the people in the car park can see me. The men stare and the women sniff at me in disapproval. As if I were nothing, not a human being like themselves. Just an animal. And it’s then I generally come. For the first time.”
Ah, a broad streak of exhibitionism in my new toy. Well, I could never risk my reputation by making her do it for real. But with the Gizmo I could make her believe that it was true, that she was a naked, pathetic debt slave exposed in public for all to view. I could make her believe anything...
Hmm, hold that thought....
“And what is there in this that makes you ashamed?”
“I...I could not possibly...I am a professional woman. Not some man’s property! It would be betraying everything I believe in. Everything I’ve worked for...”
“Come now, lots of women live full professional lives but like their sexual lives to be in the control of a man. Take Ann-Louise here.”
Cynthia blinked and looked at my ‘maid’ for the first time. “What? I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you recognise her from the Clinic?”
“The Doctor? Oh, but I....”
“And she is happy to serve in every way. Isn’t that so, Ann-Louise?”
She spoke for the first time that evening. “In any way at all, Master. I am yours to command.”
“Clear the dishes, Ann-Louise. Ms Matell and I will come in shortly. The evening is turning chill.”
I watched as Ann-Louise cleared the table and walked into the house. I was actually watching her lovely rear swaying away from me when I heard Cynthia say:
“How can she? How dare she?”
I turned back to see that Ms Matell had become quite red in the face. Her feminist personality was resurfacing again.
“She has...everything that most women would kill for and she chooses to spend her time running and scurrying! It’s...It’s...treason! That’s what it is! Treason against womankind.”
“But if that is how she chooses to spend her time...?”
“It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t be allowed!”
I’m not a cruel man, as I’ve said. But there are limits.
“Jade Fondue.”
“How may I serve you?”
“Stand up and take off your dress.” She obeyed and I took a long sip of my brandy. When she stood naked in front of me I ordered her to discard her stocking, shoes and jewellry. Then I began her reconstruction.
“Cynthia, kneel there in front of me. Now, then Cynthia, you will listen to me and believe what I tell you.”
“It is true, as you said, that the government has reintroduced slavery for debt. Although you never hear it spoken of, nor mentioned in broadcasting or the papers, you know, everybody knows this to be true.”
“And it is also true that you got into debt and were enslaved. I have bought you and I now own you totally. You have no rights and I can do what I like with you. Look down at you right thigh.” She did so. “You can see quite clearly that you are marked with a tatoo there. A large capital letter S: S for Slave. Do you see it, Cynthia?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“If anyone were to see that, they would know instantly that you were somebody’s property. Now feel your left buttock. You can feel a slight bump there can’t you? An slight lump under the skin?”
“Yes, yes. I can.”
“That is where they injected the tag. There is a minaturised transponder there which gives off a radio identification beacon. If you were to try to run away then you could be found anywhere in the world. You have no choice but to live the life of a Slave. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t despair. You know that I am not a cruel man and will not hurt you or harm you as long as you do what I ask. I have even told you that no-one in the University knows that you have been enslaved. You will return to your job on Monday and live your life normally except when I want you to do something. Then you must obey instantly for fear I tell everyone and expose you to the world as a mere Slave.”
“You will never mention Slavery to anyone, you will never mention our relationship to anyone. But you will know and I will know that you are in my power absolutely and must obey me in all things.”
“One last thing, Cynthia. You will find that, despite what you believe, you enjoy being a slave. Being ordered to do things that are submissive or even humiliating will excite you sexually and fulfill you spiritually. You will, perhaps to your horror at first, but eventually to your joy, discover that you enjoy being owned by men. You will come to love being my Slave and look forward to serving me.”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I understand.”
“Topaz Timetable.”
She shook herself and looked around in puzzlement for a moment and then tried to cover herself up, hands going to her breasts and pussy.
“Stop that!” She flinched at the sound of my voice.
“Please, Professor,...Richard...”
“No! From now on you call me Master when we are alone. Is that clear?”
“Yes. Yes, Master.” She bowed her head.
“Hands to your sides, then. Head up. Hmm, yes, I made a good purchase, I think. Come here, Slave. No! On all fours. Crawl! Yes, crawl here and kiss my feet.”
I think I saw, as she did so, tears forming in her eyes. That was sweet. I’m not a cruel man. But such moments are sweet.