“Good. It’s always made me gnash my teeth somewhat to see such prime real estate given over to coots and moorhens. If the coots and moorhens want to live there, they can pay for the privilege, like everyone else.”
Trewin and Cordwainer chuckled companionably while Michelle, fingers frozen on her suspender clips, shook her head, thinking she must have mistaken the inference she had drawn from those last words. They couldn’t mean to parcel up the nature reserve at the western sweep of the bay and build on it. They just couldn’t. Surely. She decided she must have got the wrong end of the stick and carried on with her dressing, pushing her feet into ridiculously high heels and replacing her workaday collar with the leather-covered steel version.
“Building permissions are all in place,” Trewin repeated. “The licenses for the supercasino and the alcohol will be granted next week, I assume. I’ll be there anyway. I’ve got most of the others on side, apart from batty Barbara. We’ll work on her. What is this stuff?”
“Artichoke. Don’t you like it?” Cordwainer raised his voice. “Are you prepared, Miss Object?”
“One moment, sir,” she answered, flustered, picking up the nipple clamps he expected her to apply by herself.
“I’m putting on my watch timer. You will receive one stroke of the cane for each minute you keep
us waiting.”
Her fingers trembled as the clips bit into her tender nipples. It was never a good idea to rush this. She would just have to put up with whatever penalty her masters decided to exact.
“I don’t dislike them. Just don’t understand them. What are they for? What’s wrong with a pickled egg, for God’s sake?”
“I certainly shan’t be serving pickled eggs in my new establishment. I envisage the full Las Vegas experience—obscenely luxurious in a way that appeals to high rollers and lowlives alike. Goldsands will finally be on the map.”
Michelle, wincing at the clamps’ sharp teeth, performed the finishing touches to her toilette. She passed the final harness strap between her thighs, fitting it neatly into her sex lips and the cleft of her buttocks. Its roughened leather rubbed her clit unforgivingly when she moved, sparking it into vivid life. The first time Cordwainer had made her wear this—oh, such a long time ago it seemed now, when her self-control was terrible—she had come three times in the course of serving his friends. He had had her whipped, hard, over the dining table and then taken by all four of them in a row. Her eyes misted with nostalgia and she stepped out from behind the screen.
“Four minutes, Miss Object,” said Cordwainer, glancing at her over the rim of his wineglass. “Four strokes of the cane. I gather you want to practise your caning technique, Trewin? Perhaps you could do the honours.”
“Glad to. Fetch the cane, missy, and bring it to me between your teeth. No, on your knees, please.”
Michelle crawled to the sideboard where a selection of spanking and flogging implements reclined, picked up the length of cruel rattan between her teeth and returned with it to Councillor Trewin, knees chafing against the cheap acrylic carpet.
He took it from her and stood, bending it contemplatively.
“Stand and touch your toes,” he ordered. Michelle’s least favourite position, she reflected ruefully, a devil to sustain, especially when her bottom burned with the heat of a blast furnace. Trewin was learning a lot from his sadistic mentor.
Bent thus, the harness strap tightened over her clit and abraded the sensitive inner flesh of her buttocks, bisecting them neatly so that they were offered for the cane with the skin stretched taut. Michelle’s elegant talons found the pointed toes of her stilettoes and scraped the surface as she swayed, straining to maintain balance on those vertiginous heels, dreading the first cruel cut of the cane.
Trewin did not extend the anticipation in the same way as Cordwainer, nor did he prolong the agony. “Now you must count these out, little slut,” he informed her gruffly and then, without further ado, the rod sliced down on her rear and she uttered a small cry that turned into a long moan before obliging him with a “One, sir.”
Cordwainer, she thought, would have let that stroke fizzle and burn for a good half to full minute before laying on the next, but Trewin lacked his finesse and was in haste to deal the second blow. Michelle pushed back on her heels and sucked in her breath, but her “Two, sir,” was steady nonetheless.
“You need not hurry,” remarked Cordwainer from his armchair. “We have all night.”
Michelle was made to wait for the next stroke, until her calves began to ache in sympathy with her bottom, with its twin slashes of raised red.
“You’ll have to work on your punctuality, little slut,” said Trewin, and Michelle felt a prickle of something—irritation?—at his chosen endearment for her. She wanted Cordwainer’s low, dark, elegant voice calling her “Miss Object” again, not this gruff usurper. But at least Cordwainer was watching, and hopefully approving, her abject humiliation at the hands of another. She would take this caning to the best of her ability, for him. She worked at stilling her twitching muscles, composing her screwed-up face, maintaining the perfect punishment posture, while Trewin stood tapping the cane against his leg, examining the stripes he had made.
“Okay,” he said. “Yes, we have all night. That’s good. Right. Ready for another.”
Fierce pain, white-hot, something Michelle could never imagine getting used to, although she had learned to breathe through it, to mentally trick herself into finding it bearable. A small sob this time before the count of “Three,” and sighs of satisfaction from the sadists in the room. Trewin had learned his lesson this time, and he let the stroke build to its peak of intensity before he lined the cane up for its final assault, choosing a low portion of Michelle’s buttocks, where it would hurt the most and cause maximum discomfort over the course of the evening.
He didn’t have Cordwainer’s whoosh, snap of the wrist, explosion of heat, but he could hit hard enough to hurt, even if the stroke didn’t quite line up so neatly with its fellows. Cordwainer prided himself on the complex geometrical patterns he could draw on a girl’s behind, whereas Trewin was happy with a jumble of purplish markings, any old how. The fourth was a killer, though, and Michelle cried out, providing Trewin the satisfaction he craved. “Four, sir. Thank you for correcting me, sir.”
“You may stand corrected,” he said, and chortled at his weak witticism.
Michelle straightened her back with some difficulty and hopped from one foot to the other, limbering up those overworked calves.
Cordwainer rose and joined Trewin in examining Michelle’s rear. The pair of men laid their hands over the burning stripes, admiring the heat and hardness left by the cane, something for Michelle to remember her lesson by.
“We are both low on wine,” Cordwainer reminded her once the men had returned to their chairs. Michelle stood before them, refilling their glasses, before kneeling at their feet, head bowed, waiting for further instruction. This was the true meaning of waitressing, she thought. I am a person who waits. I await their pleasure.
“Kiss our feet,” Trewin suddenly ordered on a whim. “I don’t think I make her do that often enough. Or boot licking. I could get into that, I think. Having her lick my muddy, dusty boots after a day overseeing the site.”