Zorie
Nearly midday and cars were parked up and down the street near Reuben’s stonework-and-white, modern two-and-a-bit-story mansion. As I left the car and shut the door behind me, people waved from the rooftop, with flutes of wine in hand. Laughter filtered down.
How many people were here?
The thought of anyone else seeing my degradation was horrifying. Except, I wasn’t letting that happen, was I?
The heaviness of my handbag spoke volumes as I neared the front door.
Dirke opened it and stripped me with his eyes, as per usual. “Into the study, to the right. Remember it?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“Take off all your clothes and put on what’s there, then go up to Reuben. Top story, above the birdcage.”
At my hesitation he grinned. “Don’t worry. Someone else has that privilege today. You can watch her.” I turned and had taken two steps when he added, “Put your hair in pigtails! Orders!”
His laugh followed me down the hallway. The study was empty and I closed the door with my palm, quietly, leaning against it as I checked out what lay over the chair and on the long glass desk. The outfit was skimpy, as I’d thought it might be – a leather harness, a leather collar with blunt chromed spikes. When I padded over for a closer inspection, I found a dog tag that said slut attached to the collar. Plus there was a see-through, pink, baby-doll dress.
A foot-square mirror propped on the desk let me see my apprehensive expression.
Take off all my clothes. That would mean my underwear as well as my skirt and top.
“Damn.” I toed off my shoes and eyed it all again, nibbling my lip. Did the dress go on over the harness? It must.
If I didn’t wear this, I’d never get near him without Dirke spotting me coming out of the study in the wrong clothes. From past experience I knew he had permission from Reuben to chastise me.
I donned the collar then the leather harness, with some difficulty, doing up buckles and cinching things so they fitted. How quaint to be preparing myself for defilement. The collar went round my neck and the harness connected to it by clips at the side of the collar. A mirror helped me figure everything out. Straps circled my waist and my breasts. Two thin straps delved from the waist between my thighs and up again to the back of the waist strap. Silver rings, here and there, would allow for me to be attached to other things.
The baby doll dress, when slipped over the top, barely concealed anything. All the leather was visible as well as the strip of hair on my mound and the dark circles of my areolae.
A swirl of lust washed across me, so unexpected I staggered, and making me instantly wet and my nipples jut out. I closed my eyes, shivering. Reuben had detected me. His use of will was as subtle as a slap in the face compared to Mister Black. I prayed Reuben wasn’t as perceptive as the other man.
There was no way to conceal the gun, unless I took my handbag. If Dirke thought to take it from me he would surely notice the weight. If that happened I was done for.
Courage. I removed the shoulder strap to make the bag less conspicuous and clutched the top of the bag. If I kept it at my side and my arm long, it would look casual. I needed to get close. The man might be drunk already, or something.
“Let’s go,” I whispered to the mirror.
My journey seemed so obvious, and the weapon in the bag so like a snake in my hand, that I waited for discovery all the way as I marched along the hall to the spiral stairs. Up I walked, passing men and women, most of them blatant in their appreciation of my see-through clothes. Laughs, murmured sexual insults, and growls followed me. Two men cornered me in an angle of the stairs just to smirk and lift the baby-doll dress high enough to show my pussy.
“Hey,” I spat. “I’m Reuben’s.”
“We know, slut.” He flicked my dog tag but backed away. The skirt of the dress floated down again. “Off you go. We’ll come watch, later, while he has you fucked.”
Their dark glowers were on me as I turned and began to climb the stairs again.
“Nice fucking ass,” one of them murmured. “All the better to fit two cocks at once.”
“Or three.”
Their laughter made my grip the handbag tighter.
Everyone was in on this. Where did he get these people? None of them were mesmers, I was sure. Being Reuben’s slut for en-masse fucking was not happening today.
If I pulled out a gun, they’d be witnesses though? If I failed and he did something to me, a court of law wouldn’t look kindly on his actions either.
What was I thinking? I was going to shoot him, no, I’d kill him. Fuck the consequences.
Each step I took, as I rose to the level of the roof, summoned ominous, stomach-clenching moments. Through the open, Mediterranean-blue doors I could see his back. He leaned on the edge of the breast-height wall, looking down at whatever festivities were going on in his birdcage garden. Someone getting gangbanged, I guessed from the hoots of guests also looking down, but from the opposite side of the house. To the left a little bridge spanned from this rooftop to theirs. A profusion of small trees and large-leafed plants in pots broke up the lines of the white building.
I took it all in as I stepped onto the paved roof. Shady gazebo to the right, chairs for lounging in, chairs for sitting, a cane-framed blue lounge, and a long, low table with wine bottles and trays of snacks. Men? Only Madoc, over near the footbridge and a truck-sized, hulk of a man standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Reuben. No one looked my way. I set my face, slipped my hand under the cool leather flap, and seated my fingers and thumb around the butt, with my forefinger nestled on the trigger.
If I blew off my foot, so be it. The decocker on the Beretta was off. I only needed to aim, and squeeze, and put all ten shots into Reuben’s back.
The breeze whisped my dress about my thighs and curled between my legs, cooled the light sweat on my brow.
My ears heard nothing but the shush of wind and laughter.
Don’t get close. You know...
I knew.
Feet apart, I began to draw the gun from my bag. When the gun was halfway emerged, his will smacked into me.
I rocked in place.
In that instant I recognized the bleak pall of failure but also that the man beside Reuben was a mesmer. A strong one.
“You have a problem?” the stranger drawled in a posh British accent that reminded me, poignantly, of Cherie’s boyfriend, Jacob. He didn’t bother to look away from the courtyard spectacle.
“No.” Slowly Reuben turned, locked eyes with me then leaned back and put his elbows and forearms on the stone top behind him.
He looked at ease, while I was desperately frozen and awaiting Armageddon. My heart belatedly began to race, as if trying to catch up with something I’d lost. Myself...
“No. I have this one in hand.”
“Good.”
“Yes.” Reuben smiled. “This was going to be our day of celebration, Zorie. Don’t you know we’re getting married soon? This is our engagement party, and here you are being naughty.”