Kingsley let Polly lead him by the hand into her bedroom. It was sumptuous and sensual with pale blue walls and a grand blue bed, with draperies hanging over the padded silk headboard and a large steamer trunk at its foot. He studied the room in silence. He must’ve been quiet for too long, because Polly squeezed his hand.

“Don’t worry,” Polly said with a teasing smile. “I won’t use you for breeding stock.”

“I wasn’t worried,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “So you do want to be bred?”

“Not at the moment,” he said. “I’m free for breeding tomorrow.”

Polly laughed. “Come on, you. Bath time.”

The bathroom, too, was elegant, if decadent. A large claw foot tub was already filled with steaming water and rolled white towels were stacked on a rough wood table by the pedestal sink.

“Do I take my clothes off or do you?” he asked. “I don’t know the etiquette here yet.”

“We don’t go for a lot of rules around here. The etiquette for the men is to serve the women with enthusiasm and good humor. The etiquette for the women is to treat the men with mercy. We tend to spare the rod.”

“What if the man likes the rod?”

“Do you like the rod, Kingsley?”

“What kind of rod are we talking about?” he asked. “Never mind. Whatever kind of rod it is, I probably like it.”

“Interesting,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind. As for removing your clothes, I’ll do most of the work. Only because it pleases me to undress you tonight. Tomorrow it may please me to watch you undress yourself. That’s why we have so few hard and fast rules. As long as you strive to do your best to please the women of the house, you’ll do fine here.”

“How many women are in this house?” Kingsley asked as Polly pulled his sweater off over his head and went to work unbuttoning his jeans.

“Ten counting Colette, though she’s not officially a member of the household yet.” Polly pushed his jeans down to his ankles and he stepped out of them.

“And how many men?”

“Eight. Nine, counting you. Madame doesn’t allow equal numbers. There can never be the same number of men as women. Too easy to pair off. All the men are used by all the women. If you fall in love and want to be monogamous, like my parents, that’s fine, but you don’t do it in this house.”

“Ten women and nine men…where does everyone sleep?” Kingsley asked, trying to sound merely curious while he pumped Polly for information.

“Only the women have rooms of their own,” she said. “The men sleep wherever they’re told to. On the floor if ordered. In bed with one of us if ordered. On the lawn if ordered. Or the roof or the bathtub or wherever we say.”

“With Madame?”

“If ordered. Though I don’t know if she’s ever ordered one of the boys to sleep with her.”

Kingsley stepped into the bathtub. The water was hot, very hot, just the way he liked it. The heat seeped into his wounds and his aching muscles, and he felt more relaxed than he had in months.

“I don’t like the idea of sleeping alone on the ground,” Kingsley said.

“In that case,” Polly said and flicked water into his face, “you’ll just have to please us, and you’ll get to sleep in a bed every night.”

“I suppose I will. If I must, I’ll make the sacrifice.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You have to earn a place here. And you haven’t done that yet.”

“How does a man earn a place here?” he asked.

“Madame tests you. If you pass, you may stay.”

“When will she test me? I mean, if I wanted to stay.”

Polly lowered her voice. “Don’t look now, but you’re already being tested.”

Before he could ask another question, she dumped a wine glass filled with soapy water over his head.

The bath was hardly the sexual sensual affair he’d anticipated. With a rough sponge, Polly scrubbed him with a vengeance from head to toe and dunked him under water twice to rinse his hair. He needed the scrubbing after last night’s sex and the day’s long miserable public payphone vigil. Kingsley decided he liked that Polly didn’t make the bath into something sexual. That would give it a meaning he didn’t want it to have. He hadn’t been taken care of in a long time. He used and was used in return. When was the last time someone had paid him a simple kindness like a home-cooked meal and a hot bath? Too long, he decided. He hadn’t even known he missed someone caring if he had dirt under his fingernails or not. By the time she’d finished with him, he was red and raw and squeaky clean.

“Good. Your fingernails are very short,” she said, inspecting his hands. “That’s a requirement in this house.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Kingsley said. She gestured for him to stand up, and she tossed him a plush white towel.

“You’re very handsome when you’re wet and being a smartass,” she said. “I might have to do bad things to you tonight.”

“Bad bad things?” he asked as he roughly dried his hair. “Or good bad things?”

“Good bad things.”

“Those are my favorite kind of bad things.” He wrapped the towel around his waist and leaned back against the bathroom counter. He felt good. Relaxed and clean and warm. In a house this warm, it was easy to forget that winter waited for him outside. Outside and in his dreams.

Polly stepped close to him and unwrapped the towel from his waist and tossed it on the floor.

“Tell me what your favorite bad things are,” she said. Then she kissed his bare shoulder. His bare clean shoulder. He could smell himself and he smelled like warm skin and soap. Polly was close enough that he could smell her—simple floral shampoo and maybe a touch of vanilla behind her ears.

“My favorite bad things?” he asked. “Just this morning I was lying in bed imagining my wrists tied to the headboard.”

“Were you hard thinking about it?”

“A little.”

“Nothing little here,” she said, taking his cock in her hand. “Were you alone?”

“I was. The girl I’d brought home had already left.”

“So did you masturbate?”

“No,” he said. “I thought about it, but I try not to give those fantasies too much power over me. Especially if they’re not going to come true.”

“Maybe tonight,” she said, “they will. If you’re good.”

Kingsley resolved to be very very good. Polly ran her fingers through his still-damp hair, but not in a sexual way. Not really. She was pushing the long strands off his face.

“There,” she said. “That’s better. You need a haircut.”

“You should have seen my hair in high school. Down to my shoulders.”

“Why did you cut it?” she asked.

“I joined la Légion.”

“They have no respect for pretty-boy hair.”

“Should I get used to being treated like this?” he asked when she picked up a fresh dry towel and ran it over his hair again. He laughed as she rubbed it in his face, like the fun babysitter one hoped to get instead of the mean one.

“You all get special treatment on your first night.”

“Would you like me to give you some special treatment?” Kingsley asked as Polly dried off his thighs. She seemed to be taking her time with the task.

“Oh, but that’s the best part of being a woman in this house,” Polly said smiling up at him. “It’s not special treatment at all. It’s just how it’s done here.”

Polly took his cock in her hand, lightly, not stroking it, merely holding it. It felt good simply to have her soft fingers wrapped around his hardness.

He moved in to kiss her. She put her hand over his lips and grinned.

“Kisses are earned.”

She gave his cock a little tug before letting it go. She switched off the bathroom light and led him into the bedroom. Instead of turning on a lamp, she pushed open the heavy curtains. The moon was bright white and full. Polly looked radiant in her white nightgown, which glowed in the moonlit dark. She turned from the window, faced him, and said, “Have you ever let a woman take you?”

“I…what do you mean?” he asked, equal parts curious and nervous. “Woman on top? Of course.”

“That’s not what I mean. What I mean is…have you ever let a woman fuck you?”

Kingsley opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Polly laughed a little. “I take that as a ‘no.’ Don’t worry. You’re very young. How old are you? Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Very young.”

“I’m very experienced, I promise. I’ve been with a couple of men. And Madame’s finger was up there today, which was uncalled for.” But not unappreciated.

Polly winced. “Yes, sorry about that. We never know where your sort is hiding bugs and whatever else you all hide up there.”

“I promise you, I’ve never put anything business-related up my ass.” That wasn’t strictly true, but she didn’t need to know that.

“What about pleasure-related?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Let’s see what’s in the toy chest.” She knelt by the large steamer trunk at the foot of the bed and pushed it open. There was no lock, no key. Kingsley couldn’t resist peering inside as Polly rummaged through it.

“Are those cuffs?” he asked when he saw two loops on a chain.

“They are. Caught your eye, did they?” she asked. They weren’t quite handcuffs, not the sort he’d used for business and pleasure. They were some kind of thick, dark rope. She tossed them onto the bed, and Kingsley’s heart rate increased.

“Turn the covers down while I’m digging,” she said, waving her hand to shoo him off. While drawing back the blue-and-white silk quilt and top sheet, Kingsley smiled to himself. As attractive and buxom and curvaceous as Polly was, it wasn’t so much the prospect of having sex with her that excited him as it was the idea of her dominating him in whatever way she most desired. Once he’d been a slave to a beautiful sadist, but that was years ago. Seven years ago. Seven years ago according to the calendar. Seven thousand by the calendar of his heart.

“Here we are,” she said, pulling a black drawstring bag from the trunk. She carried it over to the bed and laid it on the covers. “Lie down,” she said, and Kingsley did, rolling onto his side to face her. She untied the string of the bag and laid out five different dildos of varying widths and sizes.

“Pick one,” she said as she sat across from him on the bed.

“What?”

“I’m going to fuck your ass tonight. Pick one.”

Kingsley blinked a few times.

“If you don’t hurry up and pick one,” Polly said, “I will. And you might not like what I choose.”

“You’re letting me choose?”

“It doesn’t make much difference to me. It’ll make a big difference to you.”

Kingsley blew out hard through his lips while he looked at the range of toys Polly had laid out in front of him. One was five inches. One was six inches and narrow. One was six inches and very thick. One was about eight inches with a bit of a curve and not too wide. And the other was roughly the size of his forearm.

“I…I am overwhelmed by the options. It’s a veritable cornucopia of dildos.”

Polly stroked his cheek with the back of her finger. “It’s cute that you’re shy.”

“I am not shy. I am not,” he said, playfully swatting her patronizing hand away. “I’m a whore.”

“You say that, but here you are, too nervous to pick out the dildo you want fucked with. Such a shy boy trying so hard to pretend he isn’t shy…so, so cute.”

“I’m deciding, okay,” he said, holding up a hand in surrender. “It’s a big decision. Or an average-sized decision,” he said, picking up the five-inch dildo. He tossed it back into the pile.

“Precious.”

“I’ve never done this with a woman before.”

She giggled. “Adorable. I’m in love.”

“I’m not adorable. I’m devastating.”

“Devastatingly adorable. Such pretty eyes, too.” She pinched his nose. “Pretty hair.” She pulled on a wavy damp lock that had fallen over his eye.

“Stop that.”

“And pretty hips,” she said, caressing his side and hip with her hand. “Boys have such beautiful curves. Better than women. Don’t tell Madame I said that. She doesn’t like you boys getting big heads.”

“Big heads or big heads?” he asked.

“I should spank you. I think I want to,” she said, singing the threat at him.

“I think you don’t,” he said, singing back.

“Speed it up, you adorable whore,” she said, giving his ass one vicious pinch to make her point. “I’m dying to play with your body.”

“Were all these dildos made in America?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Why?”

Kingsley held one up, tip facing her. “No foreskin.”

Polly glared at him. “Pick.”

“Hmm…” Kingsley said. “Who will it be tonight…David or Goliath?”

“Kingsley, if you don’t pick soon, it’ll be all five of them—at the same time.”

“Fine, that one.” Kingsley picked the second-largest one. Not for the width so much as the length.

“Oh…ambitious, aren’t we?” she asked, still grinning.

“I’ve taken bigger.”

“When?” she demanded.

“High school.”

“If you’ve taken bigger,” she asked, “then why didn’t you pick the biggest one?”

“Because,” he said quite seriously and solemnly, “high school was a long time ago.”