The Compound (15 page)

He took her to a room just down the hall. Opening the door, he said, “You will spend the next hour in here. You need a time-out to ponder your lack of obedience and self-control.” A single naked bulb glowed from a ceiling fixture. One wall of the tiny, windowless room was lined with large hooks from which hung coils of rope of different thicknesses, as well as chains and leather cuffs. A video camera was mounted in a corner, the lens pointed toward a yoga mat that covered most of the floor space.

Master John unclipped the leash and folded it into his pocket. “Lie on the mat face down. Then pull your knees up under your stomach and place your arms on the mat alongside your legs, each wrist touching an ankle, ass toward the door.”

Alexis lay down meekly and tucked her legs underneath her body as ordered. Master John grabbed a coil of rope and began binding her right arm to her right leg from elbow to wrist, and then doing the same on her left side, tying her down in a compressed bundle.

“You will be monitored via the camera to make sure you aren’t in distress. You will not join us in the dining room this evening. A staff slave will come get you when your time out is over, and you can eat in the kitchen with the kitchen staff. In the meantime, I want you to ponder the nature of obedience and self-control. Think about why you’re in the punishment closet, and what you can do to stay out of here in the future.”

She heard the door close and realized she was alone. She had to bite her lip to keep from calling out, from begging him to let her out, not to leave her alone. After a minute or so, Alexis let out a little mewling whimper. She found she had clenched her hands into fists.

“Don’t panic,” she whispered aloud. She forced her fingers to uncurl.
Take deep, slow breaths
. She drew air deep into her lungs and let it out in a long, shuddery breath. After several of these breaths, she did actually begin to calm herself a little. She was safe, she reminded herself. She was being watched, and no one would let her come to any real harm.

She lifted her head, trying to shake the hair from her face and then resettled her cheek against the mat. She closed her eyes, continuing to focus on her breathing. She flexed her fingers, slowly opening and closing them. When she was calm enough to think, she tried to do as Master John had said, and ponder what had brought her to the punishment closet.

Though she was tempted to blame Master John and Master Paul for making her orgasm, she knew that wasn’t a useful line of thinking. Why was control of her orgasm so hard for her? Why couldn’t she seem to do what appeared to come so effortlessly for others?

She thought about dinner, about the empty cushion beside Master John’s chair that night, and again her eyes pricked with tears of shame and not a little self pity. Would everyone know the reason for her absence? Master Paul would know. He had witnessed her lack of control.

It was so unfair. How was she expected to resist his touch, his scent, her own longing? This was Master Paul’s fault.

Stop. Not useful
, she reminded herself.

It occurred to her it was a good thing Master Paul wasn’t her trainer. She was too sexually attracted to him to focus on the lessons of self control, discipline and obedience she knew were essential if she was to learn to be a proper submissive. He was definitely too much of a distraction. She was lucky, she told herself, to have been assigned to Master John. She wasn’t in the least attracted to him, and anyway, he was in love with Wendy.

She thought about trying to roll over onto her side, but decided she’d better stay put in the position Master John decreed for her. At least the panic at being bound and left in this small space had subsided to a manageable degree.

The rope wasn’t over-tight, and she was reasonably comfortable, though she would have liked to empty her bladder, and her nose was itching. She twisted her head, trying to use the mat to scratch her nose, but it didn’t work too well. Her right foot began to cramp.
Relax,
she told herself. Carefully she arched the cramping foot, willing her muscles to ease.

Finally, w
ith a sigh, she laid her cheek again against the mat and closed her eyes. She was exhausted in both body and mind by the ordeals of the day, and her ass and back felt flayed and tender. She would have loved to climb into a hot bath and soak for an hour, and then slip into her bed and sleep…

Alexis awoke to the sound of the door opening, for a moment confused to find she couldn’t move at all. Her hands and feet had fallen asleep, she realized, and her cheek was wet from the drool that had puddled from her open mouth against the mat.

She heard someone moving behind her and then saw bare feet and slender legs appear in her line of vision, the skin a smooth bronzed cinnamon. Twisting her head, she saw it was Marta.

Kneeling beside her, Marta unwound the ropes from Alexis’s cramped limbs and helped her to roll to a sitting position. Alexis wiped her mouth and shook back her hair. “Not much room in here,” Marta observed. “Stand up and do some stretching exercises to get the blood flowing again.”

Alexis took Marta’s offered hand, allowing the young woman to pull her upright. Her feet and hands were tingling like mad as they came awake. She lifted her arms high over her head and then brought them behind her back in a stretch, while stepping from one foot to the other to stamp away the tingle.

Marta led Alexis down the back stairs that came out by the kitchen. After a quick stop in the powder room, they entered the large kitchen and were assailed by the heavenly scent of roasted meat and baked apples. Two male staff slaves, their bodies covered with white bibbed aprons, were moving about the kitchen, putting things away and loading a large dishwasher.

One of the men pointed to a high butcher block table. “Sit. I’ll bring your plates.” He turned toward a huge oven and pulled open its door. Taking two plates from inside, he set them on the table in front of the girls while the other guy placed a napkin at each plate, topping them with a knife and fork. He placed glass goblets beside each plate and filled them with cold water.

Alexis’s stomach rumbled as she looked down at a plate loaded with pork tenderloin, sliced baked apples and steamed broccoli with a lemony sauce spooned over it. She looked questioningly at Marta. “Do we serve ourselves?” Since she’d been at The Compound, she’d gotten used to kneeling at her trainer’s feet, waiting patiently to be fed from his fork or spoon.

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Marta offered a sad smile.

Alexis understood then that this meal was in fact another part of her punishment. And by default, Marta had been dragged into it, and deprived of her chance to be fed at the hand of her Mistress. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” Alexis said.

Marta lifted her delicately arched eyebrows.
“For?”

“I took you away from Mistress Miriam. You should have been with her, kneeling on your cushion, accepting her gift.”

Marta shook her head. “No, Alexis. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.”

“Huh? I don’t get it. Why should you have to suffer because I screwed up?”

“I’m not suffering.” She placed a hand gently over Alexis’s hand. “It pleases my Mistress that I’m here now with you. And so this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. More than that, it’s where I want to be, for you, for her, and for myself.”

Tears sprang to
Alexis’s eyes at this simple, sweet declaration. Blinking them away, she picked up her knife and fork and tucked into the delicious food. They ate quietly, each apparently absorbed with her own thoughts. Once the worst of Alexis’s hunger had been satisfied, she turned again to Marta. “Can I ask you a question?”

Marta put down her knife and fork and wiped her mouth daintily with her napkin. “Sure.”

“There’s something I just don’t get. Master John keeps talking to me about control. First he says I have to give over my control to him. Then he says I have to exercise
self
control. I’m supposed to let go and get out of my own way, but at the same time I’m supposed to keep hold of myself so I don’t, like, you know, come without permission, for example.” She shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I don’t get it. I mean, how do I do both? Give up control and maintain control?”

Marta tilted her head a little, studying Alexis, an enigmatic smile moving over her lips. “Well, I can only speak for myself, but I think you need to frame it differently. I think maybe it’s the language that’s tripping you up.” She wrapped her arms around her torso as she spoke, which caused her small, round breasts to lift and press together, drawing
Alexis’s eye to the small gold hoops that pierced each plump, dark nipple. She wanted to ask if the piercing had hurt, but forced herself to pay attention to what Marta was saying, aware she could learn something from this graceful and highly trained slave.

“It’s not about giving up control per se,” Marta continued. “It’s more about trust—about trusting your Mistress or Master to guide you. It’s about letting them direct your experience. It’s still
your
experience. I mean, the goal isn’t to become some kind of robot or Stepford Wife who does whatever is commanded without any thought or will of your own. It’s more like a process of relinquishing control with a conscious grace—of trusting that they know what you want and need, sometimes even better than you do.”

She smiled suddenly, her face taking on a radiant glow.
“Even little things, like being fed by your Mistress—that’s just another step in the journey of submission. I mean, think about it! You’re trusting another person to provide you sustenance. It doesn’t just feed your body, it feeds your soul.”

“Oh,” Alexis said softly, for now she understood Marta’s earlier sad smile. The privilege wasn’t in being allowed to sit at the table using one’s own knife and fork—the real privilege was in being welcomed at your Master’s feet, of receiving food and drink at his loving hand. For the first time she began to really understand the concept of
submission that went beyond the sexual. A submission that offered an abiding comfort and even love.

~*~

The next morning after breakfast found Alexis back in the dungeon with Master John. She was perched on the edge of a stool that rested against a whipping post, her arms bound over her head to the post. Her legs were spread wide, her feet flat on the floor. Sam was crouched between her knees, his hands resting on her thighs.

“Know what this is?” Master John held up a black plastic wand tipped with a metal point not unlike a dentist’s drill.

“Yes, Sir,” Alexis replied, her eyes widening and her mouth going suddenly dry.

“Have you ever experienced the shock of an electric prod firsthand?”

“No, Sir,” she whispered faintly.

“It’s an excellent operant conditioning tool. When you misbehave, you receive a shock, like so.” He touched the sharp metal point to Alexis’s arm, delivering a painful jolt of electricity. She squealed in pain and surprise.

“This morning,” he continued as if nothing had just happened, “we will work on control. If you hope to be a successful submissive, it’s essential you learn to control yourself. Sam’s going to lick your cunt until I tell him to stop. You are not to come until I give you express permission. Each time you feel yourself getting there, ask me for permission. If I say no, you
will not
come. Are we crystal clear on this?”

Alexis couldn’t take her eyes off the ominous prod he was waving casually to punctuate his words. “Yes, Sir,” she whispered.

“Good. Sam, begin.”

Gripping
Alexis’s thighs, Sam pushed them wider and leaned forward. He licked along Alexis’s outer labia and swirled his tongue in a tantalizing circle around her clit. In spite of her apprehension regarding the prod, his teasing touch felt wonderful, and Alexis almost relaxed against the whipping post as she gave in to the wet, hot pleasure of his tongue against her sex. The eroticism was heightened by her position, with arms extended and bound over her head, and legs spread wide, and it wasn’t long before she felt the warm, buttery rise of a climax.

She looked to Master John, who was watching her carefully, the prod still in his right hand. Trying not to focus on the prod or anticipate its shocking touch, she managed to gasp, “Please, Sir, may I come?”

“No.”

Before she realized what was he was doing, Master John leaned toward her with the prod, touching the sharp metal tip to her left nipple.

Alexis screamed, the climax rapidly receding.

“Go on, Sam.
Don’t stop what you’re doing.”

“Yes, Sir,” Sam replied.

Alexis again felt the warm, lapping stroke of Sam’s tongue against her pulsing clit. Her nipple still throbbed from the painful electric shock, but after a minute the pleasure continued to mount, while the pain receded. Again it wasn’t long before she felt the shuddering swell of an impending orgasm. Again she gasped, “Please, Master John. May I come?”

“No.”

He zapped her other nipple, and again the pleasure was eclipsed by the sharp prick of the electric shock.

Again and again the process was repeated, until Alexis was trembling uncontrollably, her skin damp with sweat, her ragged breathing making her chest heave. “I can’t,” she panted, nearly crying.
“No more, please!”