Part 14 (1/2)
”I heard. I don't know if it's real or not.”
She thought about that for a minute. ”How would I find out?”
”I guess you have to try it for yourself.” He thought for a minute. ”Try this. Put your finger inside your c.u.n.t. As far as you can reach.”
She did.
”Now try squeezing your finger.”
She did. She frowned and pursed her lips and concentrated. Her hips twitched and her stomach muscles contracted. After experimenting for a couple of minutes, her eyes grew wide. ”I felt it. I felt my c.u.n.t squeezing my finger.” She tried again. ”It happens when I squeeze myself like I'm trying not to pee.” Again. ”It's not very strong, but it's definitely happening. I wonder if a man could feel that?”
Barry shook his head. ”I'm going to be able to tell you that.”
”Of course not.” She withdrew her finger. ”Do you mind if I ask you something personal?”
”What?” He raised an eyebrow.
”Do you ever get real s.e.x? I mean something besides b.l.o.w.j.o.bs?”
”Feeling sorry for me?”
”No. Just curious.”
”I have a wife and two children.”
”Oh. I guess you do, then.”
He smiled. ”I do.”
”Good.” It made her happy to know that Barry got proper s.e.x when he wanted it. She liked him, probably more than any man that she had ever known.
”So what are you going to do about squeezing things with your c.u.n.t.”
”Squeeze things with my c.u.n.t. See how strong I can get with exercise. See how much control I can develop with practice.”
”Sounds like a plan.”
After three weeks of small dinner parties, Flame was getting a better idea about what Dodge was up to.
At first, she thought that Dodge was mining the highborn for business opportunities. He was a successful businessman and never lost an opportunity to engage a wealthy man in a contract. Soon, though, it was clear that Dodge was looking for more than that.
”May I be blunt?” she asked after their latest post-dinner-party debriefing.
”Of course.” He frowned. She knew that he expected her always to be direct with him. If she felt that she needed special permission, she must have something exceptional to say. ”I won't cane you for honesty.”
Rather than relaxing, she tensed at the mention of the cane. She never wanted to feel its bite and was instantly on guard when she saw that it was on his mind.
She could think of no way to choose her words delicately so she laid it out in bald language. ”You want a knighthood.”
He nodded. ”Yes.”
”Sir Drake is helping you by introducing you to society. I'm helping you by telling you and Mrs. Dodge how to be presentable.”
”Yes.”
”I would like to see you knighted. Not just because you own me but because you would be an a.s.set to society.”
He raised an eyebrow. She was right to be concerned for her skin. Any other slave would be beaten for daring to offer an opinion about something so far above her station. But Flame was a special case. t.i.tled ladies were sometimes adjudicated into slavery, but almost all of those were the daughters of knights and other minor aristocrats. The wife of a lord had never been known to fall so far from her station so she was given considerable lat.i.tude. ”Thank you.”
She was encouraged by his grat.i.tude and continued. ”You have a problem. Drake can't knight you. He can introduce you to baronets, but they can't knight you, either. He doesn't have the status in society to introduce you to a lord and that's the lowest rank that can bestow a knighthood.”
”I know that.”
Flame wasn't sure that he really understood. ”You have to understand that, among the ranks of knights, Drake is not highly esteemed. His status is barely higher than Sir Anthony's and Anthony is always only one creditor away from bankruptcy. That Drake managed to introduce you to two baronets surprises me, but I'm not surprised by the ones that he found. Both are at the bottom of the baronets' social cla.s.s. There's a good reason why I only met Grenfeld at a large ball and never met Baronet Lazard at all.”
Dodge stared at her in silence.
”I'm not saying that Drake isn't doing you a service. You need to be introduced to society at his level. And you and Mrs. Dodge are getting excellent chances to practice your skills. You would have little difficulty being accepted in society, now.” She was exaggerating somewhat. The Dodges' behavior was mediocre at best. They had a lot to learn yet. But they would no longer be an embarra.s.sment, either. ”But this is as far as Drake can take you. All you can expect from him is more of the same. From what I have overheard, you may be disadvantaging yourself in your business dealings with Drake in exchange for promises that he can't keep. I caution you from giving away too much for the little that you are receiving in return.”
Dodge's face drained white. He slapped Flame hard across the face.
She reeled from the force of his blow.
”Get on the bench!”
She had never heard her owner snarl like an animal. The sound was terrifying.
She fell to her knees. ”Please. I didn't mean to offend. Please forgive me.”
”The bench!”
She scrambled to obey.
He cuffed her wrists and ankles with sharp, angry movements.
”Please, sir. Please have mercy.”
She watched him pull the cane from the hook on the wall. It was a dense black plastic rod, three feet long and a half inch in diameter.
Her stomach knotted with fear. ”Please, I'm begging you. I'm so sorry. Plea”
Her pleading was silenced by the first cut of the cane across her b.u.t.tocks.
The rod was made of dense black plastic. When it struck, the thick, dense thud of the blow echoed from the walls.
Agony flared in Flame's a.s.s. Her arms and legs contracted, pulling hard against the chains that restrained her.
She howled in pain.