Legacy

Master Lockwood had given her a framework. He'd given her the key to thinking about herself, to understanding both who and what she was. For her, the most important thing became compartmentalization. On the one hand, she was a fairly ordinary girl: bright and occasionally bubbly, athletic and eager, sometimes a handful. On the other, she was a slave: chattel property, without desires of its own, without fears, without shame or needs or even a name of her own. She was this girl or Your servant or just little cunt sometimes. This was abnegation—something she had practiced since she was very young, and not simply because that made life easier at home.

It was a big part of the way she was brought up at school as well. Complaints about this or that injury were met, more often than not, with a coach's instruction to walk it off, or to toughen up and learn to play with pain. That last one—she'd heard that a hundred times or more. Learn to play with a little pain. It wasn't kinky back then; she was in seventh grade, and she had a sprained ankle, and the coach needed her to stay in the game. She was the only good setter they had, so she stayed. She learned to play with pain.

She learned to turn off the part of herself that warned her when things became too much. Where other girls would stumble or falter, she pushed through. Where her teammates might hold something in reserve for the next game, or the next set, or just the next play, she never did. She strove to be her very finest in any given moment, because some part of her understood that she wasn't guaranteed to have another.

If this were the last play of your career, would you be happy with the way it ended?

For a few days, Dakota was happy with the way every play turned out. She kept Master Lockwood's schedule, made sure that he arrived on time and in comfort wherever he went, saw to his every need—except for that need—and ensured that no one was able to waste his time.

"Please address inquiries to Dr. Lockwood's university mail," she said to a too-pompous professor who demanded Lockwood's attention after a lecture he'd given. The professor almost swallowed his tongue. She was dressed for battle, clad in a blazer and pencil skirt and with her hair drawn back in a look that said I'm a professional but I fuck your boss. He didn't dare to argue with her.

"Master Lockwood gave clear instructions in his last letter, and he recommends that you review page six for further details," she told a domme who became irate at her refusal to allow a private meeting with Lockwood at the club. The domme hissed and spat at her the way women do; she thought she could frighten Dakota into stepping aside. She didn't realize that Dakota had no real fear of dommes in the first place, and that Your servant had no ability to experience fear at all. "Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter."

"Fucking cunt!" the woman roared on her way out, but Master Lockwood's servant took no notice of it.

That servant was invincible. Nothing could touch her. It didn't matter that she was a naked slave and this was a BDSM club. She was Dorian Gray; Dakota was the painting in the attic, and perhaps she was trembling when a woman clad in leather and holding a whip was screaming at her, because the last thing she wanted was to make enemies in a world she had yet to understand, but that was the painting. Not Dorian. Dorian smiled a saccharine smile and watched the domme stomp away, entirely unafraid.

Afterward, Master Lockwood sent her in search of a man called Sir Justin. She went down the stairs and through the bar and found Sir Justin watching a soccer match on television as he enjoyed the service of a young woman. He looked to be thirty or so, handsome, with broad shoulders and an admirable physique. The woman wrapped around his cock was pale and sleek, and hard, subtle muscle quivered just beneath the surface as she moved. She worshiped Sir Justin as though his throbbing shaft were all that mattered in the world, and hate glowed in her eyes when Dakota interrupted. Dakota didn't blame her: she'd have felt exactly the same.

Dakota showed them both upstairs and into the drawing room. Once there, Justin occupied the chair nearest the couch where Lockwood sat, both at one corner of the coffee table. Dakota and the other slave waited, kneeling near the opposite corner, where Dakota could observe the men without intruding, and where she could keep an eye on her watch—which she had left on the coffee table near Master Lockwood's tea. She would need to alert him—a simple nod would do—when it was time to leave for his next appointment. When she wasn't watching the time, she was watching the other girl.

The slave. The one who belonged to Sir Justin.

The other girl looked twenty-something. Her hair fell to the middle of her back—longer than Dakota's—and was the kind of bright, raven black one read about in stories about Celtic goddesses. She had a single tattoo, just above her cunt mound, which appeared to be a serpent wound around the letter T. The girl watched Dakota in turn, but without the same kind of curious hunger; to her, Dakota was another long-legged, golden-tan blonde in a world that was probably filled with beautiful women, and not even a real slave at that. The dark-haired girl, in contrast, was the real thing: a body slave.

One of the few things Dakota had learned from Jolley was that most slaves didn't actually belong to anyone; rather, they were held by the Elm in common. They served—or did not serve—as it pleased them, and were free to come and go as they desired. To Dakota, these weren't really slaves at all: they were women who had undergone an initiation, who had been vouched for by another member, and they were little else beside. Some of them played hard, certainly, but it was only play. Play was for little girls, and Dakota wasn't a little girl anymore. By contrast, a body slave was genuine chattel. She had surrendered herself to become living property, could be bought and sold and exchanged, and had given up the right to choose her own fate. In return, she won the right to belong to her master. And what else mattered after that?

"Enough of this," muttered Lockwood. He wasn't angry—Dakota knew that at once by the set of his brows. He was tired, ready to be done with business and enjoy something. Last night she had accompanied him to an opera, wrapped in an evening gown that cost more than her first car. "You worry too much. You're young. Don't forget to enjoy it while you can. Tell me about that slave of yours—how's her training coming along?"

A hint of color, like subtle rouge, touched the pale slave's cheeks.

"Excellent," said Sir Justin. His gaze adjusted, slipping from Lockwood to where his slave knelt at the end of the table. He gave her a wink that only she and Dakota could see. "And, then again, she remains... intransigent."

"Intransigent! Big word. A little frightening. What's it mean?" Master Lockwood grinned.

"She still has this crazy idea that she'd like to become my life slave," said Justin. There was a wistful note in his voice. "She's too young for that. Life takes a long time, and we never know where we'll wind up."

"Well, she might be a little too young to get it, but she's not too young to want it. She's already become a very striking woman. You've progressed beyond your little problem?"

"Completely. Would you care to see?"

"Absolutely."

Master Lockwood's next appointment was in only forty-five minutes, and they would need at least twenty minutes to get there. When he glanced at Dakota, she shook her head—the signal they had agreed on for not enough time. He nodded to her in reply: cancel my next appointment. She bowed her head.

"Oakley!" said Sir Justin. "Run back to the bar and fetch the hazel birch."

Oakley's eyes lit up, and her chest rose with an intake of breath. She cast a meaningful glance at Dakota and rose, almost literally running as she left the room on bare, silent feet.

The hazel birch was a bundle of bare sticks or twigs bound together with cord to form a handle. This one was a little more than three feet long and had been soaking in brine beneath the bar. The sight of it stole Dakota's breath, and although Master's servant was silent and nonplussed, the painting in the attic was gnawing on her lip and squirming with discomfort. What manner of little problem could such a brutal instrument possibly solve?

Yet the body slave knelt before her master with the birch rod offered on open palms. Her head was bowed and her thighs were parted wide, her breasts heaving in anticipation and then hardly moving as her breathing was carefully restrained.

"How many?" said her master.

"Twelve, Master."

His mouth twisted. He didn't like that answer. Was it not enough?

"Please, Master," she said. But it didn't sound like she was begging for mercy. "Six on my ass and thighs and six more across my back. I'll heal. I always do."

Sir Justin cast a helpless glance at Master Lockwood, who could only shrug in answer. Lockwood did a poor job of hiding his grin at Justin's distress, and Justin gave a theatric sigh. "Never let a girl know who else you've been with," Justin advised him.

"I'm not trying to compete with her," said Oakley. "I only want You to be happy, Master."

The words were hardly out of her mouth when Sir Justin lashed out at her with the back of his hand. The blow landed hard, the sound loud enough to startle Dakota, who froze at what she was seeing. She'd never seen any girl hit that hard. Ever. Oakley's head was flung back by the blow, but she didn't move. She didn't shift her weight. She closed her eyes and lowered her head, shivering a little, more as if she'd been kissed than backhanded. She continued to offer the birch on her upraised palms.

"Thank You, Master," whispered the body slave. "Please accept my pain in token of my love for You."

He took the birch from her hands and said something too soft for Dakota to hear from where she knelt. In answer, the body slave went to the couch and bent, laying her upper body over the arm and presenting her buttocks and thighs for her master's enjoyment. Dakota caught a flicker of movement from Master Lockwood. He was standing just beyond the bent girl. His eyes dropped to the floor beside his feet. Come here. Dakota nodded and rose, quick and silent.

She stood beside him as the master and slave prepared, and Lockwood put a hand on her shoulder, drawing her naked body close against his clothed one. His fingers traced a gentle path down her shoulder and along the curve of her buttocks before, slowly, carefully, pushing inside her from behind. His fingertips curled as he penetrated her cunt, hooking into her and drawing her closer still. She couldn't move. She wouldn't, not even if she could. His fingers told her that this was where he wanted her. This place and no other.

"Watch," he said into her ear. "Do nothing. Say nothing."

Dakota nodded while her cream painted her thighs and coated his finger. She bit her lip, just a little. Then the painting bit its lip, and the girl was still.

Sir Justin bent over the girl. He took a fistful of her hair, jerked her head back. The tension wrought lines in her flesh, the pull of firm muscle beneath the skin. He whispered into her ear. He kissed her neck. He released her. Then aloud he said, "This is my gift to you. Please accept it, in token of my love."

And then with a terrible sound, almost like a moan of the wind, the birch ripped the air and lashed against the young woman's thighs, leaving not one but an ugly braid of weals. The body slave jerked but remained still. She remained silent. Dakota flinched but said nothing. She did nothing—she did almost nothing. Her cunt clenched around those two fingers inside her. Shame flowered in her cheeks for the first time in a week, or so it seemed. To be aroused by what she was seeing was one thing: to have Sir know it, and know it with such intimate certainty, was another thing completely.

"Thank you, Master," said the slave. In spite of the damage done to her, there was no strain in her voice. "If it please you, continue."

Dakota's cunt throbbed and clenched again.

Blood soon streaked the girl's thighs, staining a lattice of terrible marks that swelled upon her lovely skin. One had to look to know it, but her hands shook with each impact. She wrung them together and Dakota could see her counting in silence—the numbers on her lips were the seconds, perhaps helping her to calm her breathing or to keep her voice steady. When she came to the end of the count, she would speak again.

"Thank you, Master," she said. Her voice was stretched and weakened. "If it please you, continue. Show your cunt love, not mercy."

This was a goddess. This was Artemis, the virgin huntress. How could she speak, given what she had endured? And to say such things! Dakota reeled to witness it. In the upstairs attic, the painting wept openly at the horror and the beauty that unfolded before her. Next to Master Lockwood, the girl swallowed hard.

The body slave took six lashes across her thighs and buttocks. That was enough. She had demonstrated her strength, her discipline, her resilience. She had not cried out, even though the floor and the couch were flecked with her blood, and the wall beside her. Even though her skin was limned with sweat and her ass and thighs lacerated, she had taken her master's love, and she had praised him for it. Dakota understood well enough that, at almost any other club, this pair would already have been ejected: the mere act of shedding blood was a step too far, and they had shed much. But this club was opened on behalf of the Bitter Elm. The slave's torment was only begun.

Sir Justin gripped her raven hair again. He lifted her, brought her ear near to his lips again as he bowed his head. Again, Dakota couldn't know what was said, but the slave reacted violently—she jerked against his grasp and shook her head. He kissed her shoulder. His teeth left their mark on her skin: the print of his teeth near her neck. She trembled—with desire, it seemed—at that little touch. Dakota thought she saw the dark streaks of tears in the girl's mascara, but she turned her head again too quickly. Then the slave placed her hands on the arm of the couch, bracing herself for the blows that would fall across her back. The master's hand stroked her shoulders, her spine, the flat plane of her back. He slapped her gently, and then he spoke loudly enough for Dakota to hear once more.

"Reveal your love for me, cunt, as I reveal to you mine."

Six more strokes, each brought down like a sledgehammer, each leaving a half-dozen lines of razor-sharp agony on that unmarred skin. The girl was opened again and again. Her tears fell. Her blood ran in rivulets down her back. Yet through it all she remained still and silent, unmoved and unmoving, willing and able to drink his love and to pay it back to him with her devotion. Were it not for Master Lockwood's command, and for his fingers locked inside her—were it not for the memory of Sarah Brennan and the scourge and the sacrifice she had made—Dakota might have fled from that room. Instead, her clit was twitching, her cunt was throbbing, and her nipples were once more like hard, sharp mountain peaks. Had Master Lockwood only brushed against her clit, she would have collapsed into climax.

"Thank you, Master," said the slave, whose head was bowed and whose hair was thrown forward to bare her bloodied back. Though her voice was barely more than a breath: "If it please you, continue. I have more love to reveal."

Sir Justin smiled. "I said that's enough," he whispered, the sound hoarse. The magnitude of her submission to him was... Dakota could understand.

"Master," whimpered the slave. "May Your cunt worship?"

His answer was to lead her to the couch and to take out his cock for her, and her silken hair covered his thigh as she bent to engulf him. Heedless of her wounds, of the agony he had caused her, her only thought was to return to what she had been doing when Dakota interrupted.

Master Lockwood took his fingers out of her and gave them to her to suck. "Take the birch," he said, very softly. "See whether it can be reused. If so, clean it and return it to the brine. If not, leave it with the stewards."

Sir's cock was hard—harder than Dakota had ever seen it. It tented beneath his pants, wet at the tip. Dakota hesitated, suckling his fingers and wishing for something else.

"Yes, Master," she whispered at last, tearing herself away.