Legacy

That night, Master Lockwood called for her. He made her understand that he would not order her to serve him in this way. That he would ask, and that she would consent, and that it would not—could not—be otherwise. Then he showed a carefully oiled rattan cane.

"You honor Your servant, Master," she breathed.

He began with six of the best across her buttocks. The trained, powerful muscle of her ass and thighs absorbed each impact, bruising though it was. The welts felt enormous—felt like she had sat on a stove and now the burns were blistering, but Dakota had never feared pain itself. Each blow landed and she responded with a gasp, and she pushed the pain onto the painting and thanked him for it. And she felt herself slipping away as a storm brewed all around her. Felt the house beginning to come apart at the seams. Felt the attic disintegrating, the roof timbers breaking and she thought she could hear crying somewhere up above.

"You mark beautifully," he said to her, his hand touching the welts. His fingers felt like brands—like barbs as he caressed her. His servant maintained her position. She wanted to moan for him but couldn't. Wanted to whimper sweetly at the compliment, but her throat could make no sound. Those things belonged to the painting. She'd given them up. She'd split herself in two, and this was the part of her that endured all things—not the part that felt and loved and wept. "You make a man think such very strange things... Will you accept more on my behalf?"

His servant had to remember how to nod. Then she did: she nodded. "Please, Master."

He moved her. Repositioned her. She lay on her back now, sweat-burned welts pressed against the leather pad atop the bench. His gentle hands parted her thighs, and his thumb and fingertips captured her very core: the thumb on her clit, the fingers behind her center, within her, kneading the very most sensitive places inside her. Her belly rippled and undulated, now hollowed, now carved and muscled, now on the brink of climax and now bereft as he pulled away.

The house shuddered beneath the fury of the storm. The painting, battered and bruised, hung in the balance.

He lifted the cane. She watched as it came down. It fell on her open cunt, and it hurt. It hurt deeply. It hurt in a raw and difficult way—she felt so many things all at once. The pain, yes. But also anger. How dare he? And shame. What kind of whore had she become? And a kind of strangely erotic bliss that she couldn't comprehend. Why did she crave this? What was broken inside her that she understood this as love rather than hate?

It was love that shattered her.

It was love that Master's servant couldn't feel. Hate and pain, hunger and cold, need and denial and all other things she could accept, and she could pretend they weren't there, but this was a feeling beyond all pretending. Upstairs, the picture of Dakota Rossi fell from the wall. The glass shattered. The torn canvas fluttered in the wind, ragged and ugly. The roof no longer protected it. The gale lashed and the rain pummeled and the painting, torn to shreds by all that it had borne for her, could bear no more.

Dakota screamed.

She covered herself. She closed her thighs and broke into sobs and shook her head and said no no no please no, and her own disobedience so shocked her that she wanted him to grab her and punish her, to chain her down and continue, and yet she could never have said it. Even the word no was too long for her mouth, for her tangled tongue to form, and she rolled to the side and squirmed and kicked and hated herself all the more for everything she said and did. He was going to put her on the next plane home. He would never think of her again. No one would. In September, she would go to community college and start learning how to be a nurse.

A moment later, she could breathe again. She came to her senses knowing what she had done and she threw herself at his feet. She groveled and begged forgiveness and she couldn't stop crying and shaking and she couldn't even feel any pain in that moment and yet she had been shattered like a clay pigeon—a clay cunt with no will, no discipline, no substance. She was a fake, and he was wasting his time on her. Then she realized that all her pleading served no purpose, and she surrendered.

"You deserve better," she whispered. And she hiccuped.

"No," he said with the voice of a man who has said it a hundred times in just the last few minutes. He gathered her up in his arms and he carried her—was she really so light?—and laid her beside him on the couch. "Hush now. It is you who have been ill-served, and now I will correct that."

"But—"

"Be silent, Dakota."

And she was silent. She was silent for a long time.

"I think my companion has been lost behind a mask," he said when her sniffles had slowed, when her hiccups had faded, and when he had dried her tears. "I think I didn't notice because I was enchanted by her beauty. That shame is mine, and I bear it without pride. You pretended to be what you are not—at least not yet—the way every American is told to, and I should have seen it for what it was."

Her lip trembled. She couldn't bear to face him.

"You must always face me, little cunt," he whispered.

"Y-yes, Master."

"The mask can be alluring, but it is the face behind it that I seek," he murmured, now stroking her hair. "The mask can hide what we feel, but some feelings cannot be hidden. What then? It is hard and brittle, but not strong. It crumbles. It is cast down, and us with it, and all that we have pretended is ruined. And what remains?"

"Nothing," she whimpered.

"Nothing?" he rumbled. "I think not. There is still a very pretty girl in my arms."

His kindness was almost too much. She almost broke into sobs again.

"What remains is all of you. The truth of you. That is all I desire: everything. The girl who cries and the girl who commands herself not to. The girl who shrinks from the cane and the girl who opens herself to it. You must have your whole self—be your whole self—before you can truly give any part of you to another."

Dakota wanted to blow her nose. She sounded like she'd been crying and she hated the sound of her voice. She nodded, and she knew what he would say. She said, "Yes, Master."

"Don't just say that."

"I'm not," she said automatically. Then, because she realized that it was true, she said, "Your servant is not, Master." And she meant it.

Myself to myself.

It wasn't enough to hide the ugly truth about herself. It would be enough—it could only ever be enough—to achieve genuine mastery of herself. Only then could she submit. And that was a verb, not an adjective. To submit was to serve was to act, not to be a thing; to do a thing. So many things... too many things... had suddenly begun to make sense now, while she cried in his arms, and she knew what she had to become, and she hoped that she was strong enough. She lay her head on his shoulder and cried.

It was Saturday. They were due to fly back on Monday. She had checked his schedule; there was nothing left on it. The next thirty-six hours or so were his to enjoy, and she was the only obstacle. Dakota resolved that the obstacle would become the way.

The last time she had asked him for anything, it was on the plane. She asked for a tuna sandwich. He allowed her one. It was his pleasure to feed her from his own hand. It still made her smile to think of it. This afternoon, after lunch, she would ask him for something else.

When Master Lockwood's meal was done, Dakota put away the dishes and returned to him, but she did not kneel by his side. She brought the cane with her—genuine dragon rattan—and knelt before him and offered it to him on upraised palms, eyes lowered and head bowed. She might also have stopped to oil her body until it glistened, and to take a short moment to gaze into her own eyes in the mirror. Myself to myself. She was ready to make the sacrifice.

"Your servant offers her pain in token of respect for you, Master," she said. "To accept would do Your servant great honor."

He crossed his arms and brought one hand to his gray temple, and his eyes were wide with astonishment. She shouldn't have known that, but admittedly she might have glanced up a time or two. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a slow puff of breath as he considered her offer.

"Your servant is terrified," she said, and her voice trembled at just the right time. It wasn't an act, though; it really did tremble a little. "But not of the pain. Just of... the way it makes her feel. Sometimes. But she wants to feel, Sir. Your servant loves the way You make her feel, and she hopes that You feel something like it. That's all. Master."

Master Lockwood no longer looked astonished. He looked pleased. Very pleased. "Good," he said, and he accepted the cane from her hands. "You must feel, Dakota. You must give yourself permission to feel. Without that, what would be the point of torturing you?"

For some reason, that made her smile, too.

She led him to the bench he had used before. She lay across it, offering him her buttocks and thighs. Her lips made a sound that she hadn't really planned: "Twelve, please," they said, because they weren't locked away with some painting of Dakota Rossi: they were right here, with all of her. He gave her twelve. She didn't scream, but she moaned and shivered, and the welts glowed purple alongside the fading bruises from before. She moaned more when his hand cupped her, caressed her, explored her.

Dakota turned on the bench. She spread her thighs as though she awaited a lover, licked her finger and stroked her clit. She looked up at him with lips parted and covered her cunt and said, "Twelve more, please, Master." He gave her twelve more: six on each of her inner thighs. The welts grew fit to burst, filled with her blood and her heat and her need to make his cock throb. She cried out again and again, sometimes biting down her cry and sometimes throwing back her head to wail, but she thanked him just the same.

"If it please you, Master," she panted, "continue."

Now her hands were on her cunt lips. They were slick. She dug in with her nails to spread them wide, to open herself yet further for him. She spread her thighs until the muscle corded beneath the skin and her legs trembled, and her lips pouted and her eyes implored. She needn't have worried. It pleased him very much.

Then his cock was hard. And it was inside her. And she worshiped. And if this were the final play, she would have been very glad indeed.