READING ALLOWED, Part 7
One hour later, Marie was feeling decidedly cranky. Her wrists were cuffed securely to her collar, held there by short lengths of chain, so that her hands dangled impotently at the level of her shoulders. Her ankles were hobbled by an 18-inch length of chain, enough slack that she could walk around, but only by taking ridiculous, mincingly short steps. And there was an uncomfortably large ball gag in her mouth, pulled cruelly tight and locked into place at the back of her head.
But that wasn’t the worst of it, Marie thought morosely as she stared into the supply cabinet in the laundry room. No, worst of all was that he’d ordered her to clean his house–as if she were his maid, or as if this were an appropriate task for her just because she was a woman. Marie admitted that she loved being subservient to him in bed…but this sucked. She hated housework. She barely kept up with cleaning her own apartment, and now she was supposed to make this giant place spic and span.
“Especially the bathrooms,” he’d said. “And, princess, make sure you’re thorough—I’m going to inspect.” He’d shown her the closeted alcove housing the washer and dryer and cleaning supplies. Then he’d left.
This was after she fucked herself almost to a climax on his fingers, only to have him pull them away at the last minute. While she panted in frustration, he’d positioned her kneeling again, sitting back on her heels. He’d placed her hands palm-down on her thighs, nudged her legs a little further open, then said merely, “Don’t move.”
Marie had listened with dismay to the sound of his footsteps going up the stairs. Diligently she’d held still, using every ounce of her willpower to keep from touching her aching sex. But as the minutes ticked by, the restless heat of her pussy became the least of her problems. Her knees and the front of her ankles, bearing the brunt of her weight, began to hurt. Her thighs ached from being folded strenuously beneath her. Before long, Marie wanted nothing in the world but to be able to stand up, or shift her weight at the very least. How long had she been sitting like this, anyway? Her eyes darted around, searching for a clock, but she couldn’t see one from her position on the floor. Did shifting her weight from knee to knee count as moving? Would he know if she did it? Marie had been sorely tempted, but with her back to the stairs, she knew he could be watching her. Besides, even if he didn’t witness it, he’d know if she had cheated. He could read her so easily…
So, she had waited, and she had obeyed. It had felt like she’d been waiting there for an hour, her knees and ankles screaming for relief, when he finally came to stand in front of her. She bit her lip to keep from begging, and when he at last said, “You can get up,” she was so relieved she fell forward onto her hands, pressing her lips to his shoes and gasping, “Oh, thank you, Master!”
She had stood up shakily, rubbing her sore knees, and to her surprise he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her, saying, “I think I should punish you more often.” Marie had blushed, knowing he was referring to her effusive display of gratitude, but before she could think too much about his words he had brought out the cuffs. And the chains and the gag. And then he had steered her over to the laundry closet and left her, hobbled, still horny, and utterly dismayed at the task before her.
There was a dark blue, rectangular plastic basket of laundry at her feet. She stared down at it then flinched in disgust as a thread of drool escaped from around the ball-gag in her mouth and fell onto the pile of clothes. She jerked her head upright, which meant that the remaining drool draped itself over her chin. She tried to say, “Shit!” but only succeeded in making an imbecilic grunt. She groaned out loud. She had been reduced to the level of an inarticulate, chained animal, left alone in the house like a neglected pet. A pet who was expected to do the housework as well.
And she was going to do it. There was no doubt about that. All right, god damn it, she thought to herself. The bottle of laundry detergent was sitting on top of the dryer and Marie found that by tilting to the right and leaning down she was able to grasp and unscrew the cap. She placed it carefully next to the bottle then without changing her stance moved to the right and awkwardly lifted the lid of the washing machine. She returned to the bottle, grasped it by the neck and managed to pour some detergent into the washer. Along with another streamer of drool. Well, so what.
She returned the bottle to its spot and replaced the cap. Now, how to get the laundry into the machine? She knelt and leaned the same way as she had before. She grasped as many clothes as she could with one hand, then realized it would take forever if she had to pick up a few items at a time, stagger to her feet and drop them into the machine. She hesitated only a moment…then plunged her face into the pile of laundry. She was now able to use both hands to scoop up a much bigger batch of clothes and hold them as she rose again to her feet.
Oh, but now they were all pressed against her face…and they all smelled of him. Her nostrils filled with the scent of his musk, his sweat and even, it seemed to her, a faint trace of his semen. She stood, trembling, pressing his clothes more tightly against her face and breathing him in with deep inhalations. Her nipples popped erect and suddenly, without warning, her loins flooded with moisture. Oh god, she was going to…no, she mustn’t! Oh, but she needed it so badly, he had tortured her then left without letting her come… But he would know, oh god, he would know, she was sure of it! But it was too late; she could feel the orgasm racing up her spine… NO!
She flung the clothes away from her face, half of them falling onto the machine and the rest falling back into the basket. She clenched her hands into fists, digging the nails into her palms until they bled, falling to her knees again, gasping as she fought off the orgasm she so desperately wanted. At long last it subsided and she groaned through her ball gag, drool and now sweat running down her face.
This was going to be really hard.
After she’d finished the laundry and wiped down the kitchen with great difficulty, Marie was exhausted. She hoped to God her Master didn’t think she was going to clean the whole place. Not only did her chains make every task a thousand times more arduous and humiliating, but wearing those same bonds meant that she had no chance of calming her persistent arousal. Her mind ran riot with visions of him holding her down and fucking her, bending her over the kitchen counter as he had earlier, or perhaps back over the table, pushing her bound legs over his shoulder and ramming himself into her, ignoring her muffled screams of shock, then pleasure…
Get a grip! Marie mentally willed herself to calm down. Wildly she considered humping some piece of furniture—if she could just come, maybe she could focus again. But despite how much he’d humiliated her just that day, she balked at resorting to such crude, animal-like behavior. Besides, he’d know, she knew he’d know, and maybe this time he would decide he’d had enough of her. She’d just have to suffer.
It would help if she had some idea of when he was coming back, so she could prioritize her chores, but he’d given her none. Where had he gone, anyway? To the bookstore? Looking around, Marie again wondered how owning the store could possibly be lucrative enough for him to live in a place like this. There had to be more to the story.
Suddenly Marie spied a door she hadn’t paid much attention to before now, sort of tucked away near the stairs. His study! It had to be. She hadn’t seen a computer yet and he had to be keeping it somewhere. Heart pounding with excitement, Marie inched her way towards the door. She was dying to find out more about her enigmatic Master, and there must be some clues in his home office. He hadn’t told her not to clean in there.
But even as she bent awkwardly to twist the knob, Marie trembled at her own boldness. He may not have told her not to go in his study, but somehow she knew it was off-limits—especially since she was sneaking in here to snoop, not to clean. She didn’t even have so much as a duster with her. If he should walk in right now… Marie shuddered to think of his anger.
But she was dying to find out something about him. She was at such a disadvantage—he seemed to know her every thought, while she knew nothing about him. She didn’t know if he had a family, when his birthday was—hell, she didn’t even know his last name, Marie realized.
Feeling more determined, she eased her way into the room, hardly daring to breathe lest she somehow disturb his things, leaving a clue she’d been here. Sure enough, there was a massive mahogany desk with a brand-new, shiny Mac atop it. Three of the walls were dominated by shelves holding, not books this time, but hundreds of CDs and records. Marie longed to browse the titles, but forced herself to focus so she could get out of here as quickly as possible.
There was a paper tray on one side of the desk containing a pile of what looked like mail. Mincing forward as fast as she could, Marie went to examine it. The letter on top was unopened and had his full name typed on the envelope. The return address was for a well-known human rights foundation. Slowly and with elaborate care, Marie lifted the letter to peer at the one beneath it. This one was not in an envelope, but it was folded. Laying the first letter aside, with her pulse crashing in her ears, Marie carefully unfolded it and quickly scanned the contents.
It was a statement, listing the monetary balance in some type of fund—not a bank account, Marie thought. Her eyes boggled at the sum. If this was his account, then the man was filthy rich. And this probably wasn’t all of it, Marie thought, suddenly putting two and two together. She hadn’t taken much notice of his last name—it was common enough. But there was one particular family of that name notorious for their high society antics and flagrant displays of wealth. The children, now in middle age, were that way, at least. The family owned a massive media and publishing conglomerate the patriarchal grandfather had been building into an empire for several decades.
Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that her Master, rolling in money as he seemed to be, shared their name. Marie tried to recall how many children there were, and if he’d been one of them, but that would have been news for an older generation and she didn’t know.
Someone honked a car horn on the street below and Marie started guiltily. She carefully placed the statement and the letter back on the pile and shuffled out of the room. As she eased the door closed, Marie half expected to turn and find him standing before her, silently watching her digging her own grave through curiosity. But she was just as alone as before, and she sighed with relief, shaking as the adrenaline receded. She had a thousand questions. With that kind of money, what was he doing here in a coastal college town, running a bookstore and driving an old van? Why wasn’t he freewheeling throughout Europe like his siblings? What was he doing with all that money?
Resolving to Google the family when she got home, Marie firmly bent her mind on housework again. She tried to figure out a way to prioritize, knowing it was unlikely she’d get to every room before he returned. “Especially the bathrooms,” he’d said. Marie grimaced. Of course he wanted her to scrub toilets. In fact, he’d probably find something wrong with the job she’d done no matter how spotless the bathroom was, just to watch her do it over again. Why did even the thought of that turn her on?
As it turned out, he didn’t have to resort to that. He came home when Marie was still scrubbing away.
There was a small bathroom on the ground floor, and she’d done that one first. A search under the sink revealed the toilet bowl cleaner, and Marie managed to squirt some all around under the rim of the bowl. She grabbed the toilet brush and knelt in front of the toilet. In order to get any sort of leverage with the brush, she had to lean far over the bowl, so that her head was hanging directly over the water, uncomfortably close. She blushed hotly even though no one was there to see her.
She was sure it would be the same story in the upstairs bathroom, but first she had to get up the stairs. She quickly discovered that her hobble chain was too short for her to climb them normally, by walking. Sighing in annoyance, she finally turned around and sat on the lowest step, pushing against the floor with her feet to lift her butt up to the next one. She made her way laboriously upstairs like this, backwards.
By this point, Marie was starting to get mad. Goddamn him, she was bored, lonely, uncomfortable, tired, and so horny she couldn’t think straight. Her jaw hurt, her knees were sore from kneeling, and her nipples seemed to be permanently hard and sensitive, driving her crazy with the need to touch them, though of course she couldn’t. Meanwhile, he was probably out having a perfectly interesting and relaxing day. Bound and ignored housekeeper was not the position she’d signed up for.
Still, Marie didn’t even consider defying his orders. She’d clean his stupid bathroom and she’d clean it excellently, but if he didn’t give her some attention when he got back she was going to—well, she wasn’t sure what she’d do, but surely something drastic was in order.
He wasn’t surprised that his little slave seemed completely absorbed in her task when he got back. He’d seen how abstracted she could get that morning, especially when she was doing something that bored her, and he was sure housework was as boring to her as cooking. At the sight of her he smiled in genuine amusement. She was on her knees on the cold tile floor, bent awkwardly over the toilet, her breasts squashed against the porcelain, her head practically inside the bowl as she wielded the scrubbing brush with her captive hands. Without making a sound, he leaned against the door frame, watching attentively, unwilling to interrupt the show.
But something about his presence must have eventually registered with Marie, because she suddenly sat up straight and turned her head, and when she saw him a muffled shriek escaped her gagged mouth. Jerking in surprise, she dropped the toilet brush, which fell into the bowl, splashing her face. As she wiped the water off her cheeks, Marie quickly dropped her eyes, but not before he saw the resentment burning in them. She was mad at him. Well, that was fine, as long as she hadn’t made herself come. He’d know soon enough.
He waited while she struggled into position, the chains just barely allowing her to clasp her hands behind her head as she knelt before him and spread her thighs. Her anger was now only obvious in her breathing and he looked her over, taking note of the various scratches, red marks and bruises she had accumulated during the day, the dried spittle on her chin. She had obviously been obedient to his instructions about cleaning the house—but the other? He stepped closer, almost between her legs, and seizing her chin tilted her face up so that she would have to meet his gaze.
As always, the instant Marie looked into his eyes she felt completely exposed to him, as if her every thought and memory was on display. For one terrifying moment she was sure he knew she’d been snooping in his office and she felt an irresistible urge to begin babbling apologies and excuses. But then she clamped down on the impulse and instead allowed her anger to blaze in her eyes, knowing it would distract him.
She was right. His face became a mask of mock-concern. “Oh, has my little pet had a hard day?” he asked. He placed both hands on her head and began to massage her aching jaws with his thumbs. It felt wonderful. Or at least it did until he moved his thumbs to her mouth and began pushing the ball-gag against the back of her throat.
Christ, he was choking her! Her chained hands plucked ineffectually at his as he pressed harder; she began to gag and gasp through her nose, tears running down her face.
Then the pressure was gone as he unlocked the gag and ripped it from her mouth, and before she could recover he had seized her by the collar and dragged her over to the toilet. He pushed her face down into the bowl, right into the water, and held it there while he gave her three extremely painful swats on the behind with the bristled end of the toilet brush. Then he jerked her out by the hair and dropped her back into an approximation of her original position. He waited while she caught her breath then seized her hair again and forced her to meet his gaze.
“Is there something you wish to say to me?” he asked. He released his hold and stepped back, his gaze burning into hers.
Marie couldn’t face him like this. She threw herself down and grasped his ankles, sobbing. She kissed his feet. She turned her dripping face up to his and whispered, “Thank you for letting me clean your house today…Master.”