and your Claire Thompson starter library!
Morgan bit down hard on the ball gag as she clenched and unclenched her fists over the cuffs. Let me down, you son of a bitch.
To her relief, the guy, who liked to be called Lord Jim, dropped the electric shock wand and stepped toward the St. Andrew’s cross. His face twisted with annoyance as he ripped open the Velcro closure behind her head and yanked the gooey rubber ball from her mouth.
“I thought you were a sub, but you’re just a brat,” he snarled.
“I told you no ball gag and no shock wand,” she cried, outraged, “and then that’s exactly what you did.”
“Is there a problem here?”
Morgan turned gratefully toward Tom Reed, the owner of the exclusive Manhattan BDSM club where she got occasional gigs as a paid play partner for members who didn’t have subs of their own, or liked the occasional spice of someone new.
“Yeah, there’s a problem,” Jim snapped. “I pay a very hefty fee to scene here, and the girls are supposed to be compliant and submissive. This one keeps giving me a hard time.” He snorted with obvious disgust. “Just because she’s hot, she thinks can get her way. She has so many fucking limits she might as well be a fucking nun. She doesn’t seem to understand that ‘no’ shouldn’t be a part of her vocabulary.”
Morgan started to protest that the guy had specifically ignored her stated limits, but Tom stopped her with a raised hand and a shake of his head. She could almost hear the words he was silently beaming at her: the member is always right.
Tom turned to Jim. “Sub Morgan is still learning the ropes.” He smiled at his small pun but nobody else did. He put his hand on Jim’s shoulder in a conciliatory gesture. “Let me find Carrie for you. You always enjoy playing with Carrie, am I right? I do believe one of the private suites is open, if you’d like to enjoy a complimentary upgrade for the evening?”
“Carrie’s here?” Jim’s small, piggy eyes lit up. “I didn’t realize she was back from Europe. Absolutely I want to play with her.” He shot a venomous look at Morgan, adding, “Carrie knows how to submit.”
Tom turned to Morgan. “Wait for me in my office,” he said quietly.
Morgan sighed. She should have known this gig wouldn’t last. It had seemed too good to be true when her friend Jada had told her about the opening a few months before. At twenty-five, though she’d dated plenty of guys, true love had yet to find her. Meanwhile, the part-time job had been the perfect opportunity to scene at a really great BDSM club with guys pre-screened by management, and get paid to boot. Now she was probably going to be fired, and she earned more from the three or four nights at the club than she did the entire rest of the month at her day job.
As the two men walked away, Morgan grabbed her silk robe and wrapped it around herself. She walked slowly to Tom’s office, located just off the main dungeon, and settled herself glumly into a chair.
He arrived a few moments later and sat down behind the desk across from her. Folding his hands on the smooth wood, he regarded her for at least ten seconds without saying a word.
She waited him out. She wasn’t going to defend herself or beg for another chance. She briefly considered trying to flirt her way back into his good graces, but it wouldn’t work. Though he was discreet about it at the club, Tom was gay, married, and impervious to her feminine charms.
Finally he spoke. “What am I going to do with you, Morgan?”
“Hire me full-time?” she quipped, forcing a playful smile as she blinked back sudden, unwelcome tears.
He smiled back, though he shook his head. Now came the part where he said how sorry he was, but things just weren’t working out…
Instead, he said, “Have you ever heard of Le Chateau L’Esclave up in Westchester County?”
“Le Chateau what?” Morgan replied, confused by the sudden non sequitur.
“Le Chateau L’Esclave,” he repeated. “It’s French for the Slave Castle. It’s a training facility—very exclusive. They only train a few women at a time, but they’re very highly regarded. I’ve never personally availed myself of their services, but several of our members have sent their subs there for specialized training, and with great success.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been thinking I might like to send one of my more experienced subs there for a stint, a kind of tune-up, if you will. But after this most recent, ah, incident, I’m thinking maybe I’ve got it backward. Maybe someone like you, someone”—he paused, no doubt trying to come up with a diplomatic term—“someone with submissive potential, would be the right person to send. What would you think of a two-week, all-expenses-paid stay at a posh slave training facility?”
“Is there really such a thing—a slave training facility?”
“Absolutely. I know of one in Paris, another in London, several in Munich and one in Japan. The concept is not unique, but the Chateau is definitely one of the better ones. They accept trainees for anywhere from a week to a year. From what I understand, the program is specifically tailored to the needs of the individual. You’re a sexual masochist, obviously, but you could definitely use some work in the submissive grace department.” He smiled to offset the sting of his words. “I think two weeks would be a good start, do you agree?”
Morgan couldn’t deny she could use help in that department. While she loved BDSM play, it had never really been more than that. But slave training? That sounded pretty extreme. “Is that even legal?”
“Sure it is,” he replied. “No one is forcing anyone into something they don’t agree to. The arrangements are fully consensual and completely voluntary. While you wouldn’t be free to just pick up and leave once the training begins, you would have participation in the negotiated contract beforehand. And if it isn’t working out, I’m sure there’s a clause in the contract that allows you to terminate. It’s really that simple.”
It didn’t sound simple to Morgan, but at the same time, she couldn’t deny being deeply intrigued. She adored the erotic allure of BDSM, she had to admit she’d never understood or been able to embrace the concept of D/s—of true submission to another person, without regard to her own desires or needs. Truth to tell, she wasn’t even sure she wanted that.
On the other hand, the idea of actual training was kind of exciting—thrilling, even. Rather than just engaging in play scenes with rich, horny guys at Tom’s club, she would learn how to submit with grace and serenity—something she’d observed in Jada, Carrie and the other full-time staff subs at the club, but which she’d never fully grasped.
There were logistics to consider, however. “What about my day job? It’s not the kind of place where you put in for vacation. If I don’t show up for two weeks, I’ll be fired, no matter what excuse I come up with.”
“You work at the Museum of Modern Art, is that correct? As a guard?”
Morgan was startled that Tom knew what her day job was, but she didn’t deny it.
Apparently reading her confusion, he volunteered, “Remember, when I hired you, you gave me permission to do a background check. Forgive me if I’m being rude, but isn’t that basically a minimum wage job?”
Morgan bristled. “It’s better than that,” she asserted, though in fact, not by much. The only reason she’d taken it was because she loved the artwork and could easily get lost in a single painting for an hour or more. One of the perks of the job was free membership at the museum with access to all the exhibits, even the private showings. Her favorite thing to do during breaks and before or after her shift was to explore the storerooms, where she found wonderful pieces that weren’t currently on display. Some of the work hadn’t been upstairs for years, and she loved knowing she was one of only a handful of lucky art lovers who got to enjoy it.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Tom said. “You’re a beautiful girl with a passionate nature. I’d like to hire you full-time, if you can prove yourself worthy at Le Chateau L’Esclave. What you’re earning nightly right now at the club—you’ll earn at least triple that as a salaried employee, and the work will be steady—four nights a week instead of a few nights a month.” When Morgan didn’t immediately respond, he added, “And because you might lose your day job, I’ll give you an incentive bonus of ten thousand dollars. Even if things don’t work out between us, that bonus money is yours to keep.”
Ten thousand dollars! Holy shit. She could pay off her credit cards and put down the deposit for a studio apartment with no roommates. Triple her present earnings times four days a week would be more than enough to pay rent and have plenty left over. And she’d have her days free. She might even be able to go to college someday. Instead of being a guard at the museum, she might one day be its curator.
But was she up to the challenge of 24/7 immersion at a slave training facility? What if she totally sucked at it? What if she hated it?
It’s just two weeks, she told herself firmly. You can do anything for two short weeks.
Tom glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly closing time. Why don’t you head on home for the night? Think it over for a day or two. Do some research, talk to friends—whatever makes you comfortable. Meanwhile, I’ll call my connection there and see if there’s an opening.”
~*~
Three days later on a Friday afternoon Morgan sat in the backseat of the black sedan headed toward Westchester County, butterflies of nervous, excited anticipation flitting in her belly. Tom was up front beside the driver. Both Jada and Carrie had encouraged her to seize the opportunity, Jada focused mainly on the bonus money and opportunity for full-time work at the club, Carrie on the rapturous joy of true submission.
“Those kind of programs are very expensive,” Carrie had said. “Tom must really see something in you to spend that kind of money on your training.” Hopefully, whatever he saw was actually there.
Miraculously, they hadn’t fired her outright at the museum when she’d explained she had to take a sudden, two-week leave of absence due a “family emergency.”
“I can’t promise you the job will still be waiting,” her boss had advised, “but I’ll do my best to keep it open for you.”
She cracked her window, enjoying the soft breeze of the late spring afternoon and the twitter of birdsong. Hard to believe they were only an hour from the honking, gasoline-fumed hustle and bustle of the city.
The car took a sharp turn and began to ascend a narrow ribbon of pavement that snaked back and forth as it angled upward into the foothills. Massive, leafy tree branches hung out over the road, no other houses in sight.
“I should only be an hour or so,” Tom told the driver as he killed the engine. “You can wait for me.”
A tremor of excited fear coursed through Morgan at his use of the singular pronoun. She would not be returning with him.
As they climbed out of the car, Morgan stared up at the huge three-story Tudor house with its steeply pitched slate roof. Its walls were dove-gray granite and, unlike their pushy, aggressive city cousins, the pigeons strutting across the pavement looked as if they’d been placed there purely for their decorative effect. Even the sound they made was refined, a low cooing murmur.
The driver popped the trunk and removed Morgan’s wheeled suitcase. Tom took the handle and nodded toward Morgan to follow him. “Ready?”
Reminding herself of the money that had hit her bank account that morning, and what a great opportunity this was to explore her “submissive potential,” Morgan managed a brave smile as she nodded.