“But… I’ll deny it.”
“Nope. Because right now, he’s happy to think you just have a weird little kink, so he doesn’t look his little gift pony in the mouth. Once I plant that seed in his head, he’s going to get curious and ask you a lot of hard questions, and we both know you won’t lie to him about that. Not convincingly, anyway—you Hulked out just talking to me about it last night, so I can only imagine how shitty your poker face would be in front of your master.”
It was true. Dammit, it was true. Ashley would tell him and he’d get suspicious. She knew damn well she couldn’t fake her way through it, as strong as her emotions were on the subject.
He wouldn’t want her to serve him any more—might not even let her near him—and then she’d… she’d have nothing left. No one. No chance of redemption. Ever.
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“I said fine. I’ll serve you.”
“I’ll serve you…?”
“I’ll serve you, mistress.”
“That’s the spirit. Now quit looking so pissed off, and pick up that pen. I want you to take some dictation.”
Emily complied, and Ashley wore a pensive look as she put on her makeup—too much eyeliner, wine red lipstick, a little blush on her pale cheeks. “One,” she said finally. “Throw out all my bras and panties and never wear either ever again.”
Emily arched an eyebrow, but Ashley just peevishly made a scribbling motion, so Emily wrote it down. “Two. Get the words ‘fuck toy’ tattooed on my neck.” Emily wrote, wondering what this was—some kind of weird to-do list? She kept wondering as Ashley went down the list.
“Three—go to class naked.”
“Four—give a homeless guy a blowjob.”
“Five—pose nude, sell them to a porn site, then email my friends and family the link.”
“Six—go to the football team’s locker room and invite them to run a train on me.”
“Seven—start doing hard drugs.”
“Eight—quit my job, lose my housing, and live under a freeway overpass.”
Emily’s dread had been growing that this list pertained to her, but when she heard that last, she was sure. As a resident assistant, her room and board were paid for—if she quit, she’d have no housing, and no income with which to buy it. Ashley smiled wickedly as she saw comprehension dawn on Emily’s face.
“What is this?” Emily asked into the silence.
“Oh, my list? Well, your list, I guess we should call it. That’s a list—non-chronological, mind you—of the things I’m going to have you do each time you displease me.”
“You can’t!” Emily yelled. Pleaded.
“Can’t I? Sure feels like I can. Unless you want to refuse me? In which case, I’ll need to see the list so we can see what punishment to dole out first…” She craned her neck to see the words on Emily’s paper.
“No!” Emily yelped. “No, please don’t. I won’t displease you. I promise. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” She sunk to her knees, head lowered in humility, hands clasped as if in prayer.
Ashley smiled, and without a word, went over to her closet and got a rag, then began wiping it around her neck. Little by little, the concealer she’d been wearing there wiped off. Emily winced, both at seeing what she’d done, and beginning to realize what it meant for her.
Finally, Ashley stood before her, a ring of purple-yellow bruises now evident around her throat.
“Wrap your hands around your neck,” she commanded.
With a shudder, Emily obeyed.
“Good girl.”
Chapter Eight
Life was pretty good for DJ for a while. As the weeks passed, he made a few adjustments to his routine, and began living the life of a king. Per his promise, he made Ashley his queen, and her rule-with-an-iron-fist was a nice complement to his rule-with-an-apathetically-waved-hand. His residents didn’t like it, having to heed someone else’s whimsical rules, but he made a couple harsh examples and they soon toed the line.
Peace was achieved.
He’d worried—secretly, selfishly—that Ashley would wind up blocking him from other women, but in actuality, far from it. She’d vetoed a small handful of the girls on his floor and around campus and prohibited them for petty interpersonal reasons, though really, only one or two of them would he have considered anyway. The good-looking girls on her wrong side, she arranged for DJ to dish out a little punishment to. (She reasoned that they would tolerate the consequences handily, just as she and Emily had their first night together—so why not let her have her vicarious fun?)
She didn’t even veto Brittney, although… that was complicated.
The dilemma was introduced one afternoon while Ashley was at one of her art classes. (DJ no longer had classes; Ashley had convinced him to just email his profs and tell them the grade he expected—he’d have his whole life to get educated if he wanted to. He only went to campus to troll for ass, or meet up with Ashley.)
Anyway, Brittney stopped by, and before he even laid a finger on her, he texted a quick Brittney…? to Ashley, an implicit question of whether she was OK with his dalliance, and whether she’d like to join in. He kept it short—nothing to emphasize his particular interest in this case.
K came the reply. She wasn’t usually verbose, but still, one letter was uncommonly terse. He was suspicious, and opted to play it safe.
He invited her over and the beauty queen cheerfully accepted. They cuddled when she turned on a Disney movie, but both of them fell asleep before anything lurid could happen. Ashley came home to find them as such, and while it wasn’t unheard of for her to come home and find another woman in their bed, but there was an awkwardness about it today. Ashley offered to let them chill; Brittney declined and made an excuse to leave.
The tension lingered after, and DJ finally had to probe it. They had such a good thing; he didn’t want any unspoken issues disrupting it. “Is everything OK?” he asked tentatively. She gave him a one-word answer, so he pressed a little harder.
“Sorry, just… something about that girl,” she said uneasily. “It’s nothing.”
DJ was at least aware enough to know it’s nothing meant you damn well better find out what it is and fix it, so he turned to her earnestly. “Ash, talk to me.”
She fidgeted a while; he wasn’t used to this Ashley, this taciturn, anxious version. He waited patiently until she finally blurted, “she’s too hot!”
DJ arched an eyebrow, surprised. Ashley was an attractive woman, by any standard. Maybe she wasn’t a perfect ten, but she was happy in her skin and was generally confident that whatever her physical short-comings, she made up for in sheer pizzazz. “What do you mean, ‘too hot’? She’s not that hot.” (She was, but this wasn’t the time for honesty.)
“Eat my ass, Deej. She’s stupidly hot and it just… I dunno. It makes me… nervous.”
“Nervous? You have nothing to worry about. It’s just casual fun, same as any other girl we play around with.”
Only it wasn’t. Saying it out loud made him realize just how untrue the sentiment was. Fact of the matter was, DJ liked Brittney—more than just the carnal. (Though he liked that, too. Quite a lot, actually.)
Still. She wasn’t Ashley.
“See, you say that, but when was the last time I came home to find you sleep-cuddling another woman?”
“Last week, Emily,” he rebutted quickly.
“Emily doesn’t count. That’s like cuddling an inflatable doll or a security blanket.”