Helene wore a one-piece, nearly opaque, light blue piece of lingerie that hung from thin straps over her shoulders and came down to mid-thigh. Although it was cut low in front and back, slit high on her hips, and obviously the only thing that she was wearing, I was deeply envious of her. Since being abducted, I had never been granted permission to wear clothing, except in a training situation. Now I was appearing before her nude and disheveled, the traces of the previous days' degradations still apparent on my body and in my hair. Surely she must think me the lowest type of slut, I thought.
Helene showed me where to shower and clean myself up, which I did, and gave me a brief tour of the slaves' wing. Unlike the relatively friendly atmosphere of the training center I had just left, here the various girls seemed sullen and unfriendly - an impression that would only be strengthened during my stay in my new home. Soon enough, I heard an intercom system paging Helene and Jenny. She accompanied me to the double gates of the slaves' wing, where I was met by Felix again. He reattached a leash to my collar and led me through a maze of corridors to a sumptuous corner office, appointed with heavy wood furniture and dark red curtains.
When Felix stopped, I knelt on the hardwood floor, awaiting instructions. Behind the desk was a large, imposing man with gray hair and sharp, almost crooked features. He finished reading some papers, rose, and walked around the desk in front of me. At his side materialized Mr. McGregor, who had so thoroughly humiliated me only two days before.
"Well, Jenny," his voice boomed in the large room, "do you know why you are here?"
"I have been purchased by a new owner, master," I answered. "I am here to obey his every command."
He smiled. "Claudia does such a wonderful job training her girls, doesn't she, Colin?"
Mr. McGregor answered, "Yes, but this one is particularly remarkable. You would think she didn't even need training."
"So I hear, so I hear," the large man said, turning back to me. "I am Philippe Arnaud, although you will refer to me as Monsieur Arnaud or, when addressing me, as master. This is a business, and I run it. Do you know what kind of business it is?"
"No, master," I said, not wanting to make a mistake.
"Surely you must have some idea."
I thought for a moment. "A business where girls such as I are used as slaves," I ventured.
"The business of pleasure. My business is pleasure. My customers come here seeking pleasures they can find nowhere else, and I make sure they get them. And you are the key to that business. The pleasure they seek is the kind of exquisite, absolute satisfaction they can only get from a trained, sensuous slave girl. You are here to give them that pleasure. As long as you do so, you will be treated well. If you should fail in the slightest, you will be punished, or discarded." I listened quietly. This was essentially what I had expected. I took the time to subtly and continually adjust my position, drawing attention to my charms, to my soft, uplifted breasts and to my open, inviting thighs. I knew I was attractive, that men desired my body. I wanted M. Arnaud to desire it as well. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, master," I replied readily. "I will be absolutely obedient."
"Sometimes slave girls come here who are resolved to be obedient, but are really only playing a game, going through the motions without really embracing their slavery. They are constantly scheming, looking for ways to get ahead and make their lives easier, only pretending to live for their masters." He looked into my eyes. "Are you such a girl?"
I looked down at the floor. "No, master," I whispered. "I am a true slave, a natural slave, a girl who desires nothing more than to please her masters in any way she can."
"Well, we shall see," he said simply.
He made a brief motion with his hand. Felix tugged on my leash, drawing me to my feet, and led me over to a corner of the room. Above my head, an overhanging beam jutted out from the wall. A ring was set in the bottom face of the beam. I wondered what was going on. Then Felix quickly cuffed my hands together in front of me and attached them to a long chain, which he looped through the ring and pulled down on the other side. He was incredibly strong despite his moderate build. I felt the tension on the chain pulling my feet off the ground. My toes could barely graze the floor. The steel cuffs bit into my wrists.
Then I realized what was happening. I was to be whipped.
"This is only a demonstration," I heard M. Arnaud saying behind me. "This is to let you know what awaits you should you ever be in the least displeasing." He paused. "You may thank me."
"Thank you, master," I said, my voice trembling. I wondered how many times I would be struck. I had felt switches and whips in training, but only to correct lapses in my concentration or technique. I had never been subjected to a sustained, disciplinary beating.
M. Arnaud walked in front of me and help up a whip in front of me. It was long and black, with thick, heavy blades. He pressed the handle to my mouth. I licked and kissed it, almost instinctively. I hoped to mollify him with my eager obedience, to soften the blows that would follow.
He walked behind me again. I tried to steel myself for the blow. Then I heard the hiss of the air behind me, and my back exploded in pain. I screamed despite myself. Then the whip fell again. And again. It fell on my back, my bottom, the back of my thighs, the front of my thighs, my belly, my breasts, and my shoulders. The blades of the whip were too large and heavy to bite into my skin and draw blood, but their weight made it feel like I was being struck with clubs. I quickly lost count of the blows in the haze of pain that followed. In retrospect, I realized I was probably only whipped ten or fifteen times. But in my mind, the beating lasted an eternity. I screamed and begged for it to end, promising to do anything, anything at all to make it stop, but knowing that, as a slave, anything could already be demanded of me, and what was demanded now was that I scream in agony. My body twisted in the air. I remember seeing Mr. McGregor and Felix and wondering at how calmly they looked on. I begged them all to rape me, to let me please them, to exact from me the price of my slavery. But they were impassive.
Finally the blows seemed to stop for longer than usual. I was hanging from my wrists, sobbing, my body alive with pain. I know there are people for whom physical pain is erotic and stimulating, the elixir that fires their arousal. I am not one of them. As a slave girl, I knew that I was subject to the whip, that I might be beaten for any disobedience, or even for no reason at all, and I knew that was only fitting, for I was a slave. But I could never enjoy the actual pain of the beating. I would gladly have served a hundred men in succession rather than undergo the torture I had just experienced.
When Felix released my wrists, I could only collapse on the floor. I dragged myself on my belly over to M. Arnaud's feet and frantically began kissing them. "Please, master," I begged. "Let me please you. Take me any way you want. Have your way with my body. Let me serve you." I was desperate to prove my worth to him, thinking that could spare me another beating.
"Remember, Jenny, that was a warning," he said as I continued to lick his shoes.
"Yes, master," I said. "Thank you, master." I expected to be raped then and there. Instead, he pulled me up to a kneeling position by my hair. I kept my knees as far as apart as I could, in terror. I would do nothing that might earn me the slightest disapproval. He put his hands to my neck and unlocked the collar that had been there since I had first been abducted. An instant later, he replaced it with another - a smooth, gleaming, gold-colored collar engraved with my name and the name of my owner: Club Aphrodite.