“What a marvelous space,” Master Stefan said as he moved into the room. He stumbled forward suddenly, his hands thrust out as he struggled to keep his balance. “Wat de hel…” he cried. Fortunately, he regained his footing and didn’t fall.
Master Lawrence rushed forward and then stopped suddenly. “Slave Jaime! What is this on the floor?” His tone was angry and Jaime’s heart clutched in her throat.
“What is it, Sir?” She stepped forward.
He pointed to the floor. There was a puddle of what looked like floor wax directly in front of the door. Jaime stared at it uncomprehendingly. “Unacceptable,” Master Lawrence barked. She started to reply, to explain there was no way she’d left that there, but he cut her off. “Silence. Don’t move.”
He turned away from her where she stood frozen to the spot, confusion and horror short-circuiting her brain. “Stefan, are you all right?” he asked solicitously, moving toward the older man.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing,” Master Stefan said quickly.
“I’m so sorry,” Master Lawrence said. “I should have inspected the dungeon before bringing you here, but the day got away from me. This trainee was permitted to do this task unsupervised”—he flashed Jaime a venomous look—“and evidently failed to finish the job.”
Jaime opened her mouth once more to protest, but then closed it, recalling his order that she stay silent.
“Oh dear,” Master Stefan said, gesturing toward one of the counters. “A bit of a mess here, I’m afraid.”
Jaime stared in mute horror. The dildos, cuffs, gags and other paraphernalia she’d meticulously dusted and neatly arranged were in a jumbled pile on one end of the counter, some of them in a heap on the floor beside it, as if someone had used their arm in a sweeping gesture along the surface.
Dread moved with an icy finger along her spine. Someone had done this—someone had deliberately made a mess of all her hard work. Her gaze shifted, her eye caught by something white beside one of the St. Andrew crosses. There sat a bucket, a wet rag hanging over its side, another puddle of soapy water on the floor beside it. A dildo was perched on the seat of one of the bondage chairs, a tube of lubricant beside it, as if someone had masturbated there and forgotten to clean up.
The whole thing was such an obvious setup it was ridiculous, and again Jaime opened her mouth. This was insane. She had to tell Master Lawrence. “Please, Master Lawrence,” she said urgently. “Permission to speak.”
“Denied,” he barked, whipping his head back to glare at her. His face was purple with fury. “You were given a simple task. How dare you treat this incredible training opportunity with such disdain? We have a guest here! What were you thinking?”
“Lawrence,” Master Stefan interjected, placing his hand on Master Lawrence’s arm. “Perhaps you’re overreacting? Please don’t worry on my account. You mentioned she is still in training. Perhaps she didn’t properly understand the assignment?”
Master Lawrence pressed his lips together in a thin, hard line. “Perhaps,” he said, his tone calmer now, some of the blood draining from his face. His lips lifted into something resembling a smile, though his eyes were like chips of blue ice. “If you don’t mind waiting in the living room for a few minutes, we’ll get the dungeon properly prepared for you to set up.”
“Not a problem,” Master Stefan said, flashing a sympathetic look in Jaime’s direction. “I’m sure this is easily remedied.”
Turning back to Jaime, Master Lawrence spoke in a measured tone, though Jaime could feel the anger just beneath it. “Get your ass to the punishment room. Close the door behind you and kneel down in the offering position. Wait in that pose until I come for you.”
“Please, Sir!” Jaime cried desperately. “I didn’t—”
“I did not grant you permission to speak.” His voice was sharp as a knife’s edge as it cut across hers. “If you speak out of turn again, you will be dismissed from this training program. Do. You. Understand.”
Jaime swallowed hard, tears springing to her eyes, her hands clenched into fists of frustration. Someone had done this, and she had an idea who it must have been. She also recognized, even in her turmoil, that Master Lawrence was embarrassed in front of Master Stefan for the apparent failure of his trainee. Surely once they were alone, she would be able to explain what must have happened, and he could seek out and punish the actual culprit.
“Yes, Sir,” she managed. Not knowing what else to do, Jaime bowed her head, turned on her heel, and left the room. She walked in a daze through the empty living room, glad at least there was no one there to witness her humiliation.
She entered the punishment room and flicked on the overhead light. “This isn’t fair,” she wailed to the empty room. “Why wouldn’t he let me tell him?” Tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks and she angrily wiped them away.
She took in the small cage beside the cross and shuddered. One of her hard limits during casual BDSM play had always been confinement in very small spaces. But she hadn’t been asked about hard limits here at The Enclave. She had blindly, blithely trusted that Master Anthony and the others would intuitively understand and respect her limits, and so far, that had been true.
No safeword.
She could turn around and walk out. She wasn’t an actual slave with no recourse or rights. The clothing she’d had with her, along with her duffel containing her cell phone and other personal items, had been neatly stowed in the bottom drawer of her bureau. She could go there right now—there was no one stopping her—and get her things. She could call a cab and leave this place, never to return.
The thought nearly broke her heart.
She didn’t want to leave.
She would make Master Lawrence understand. He would have to listen to her. Hope fluttered like a trapped butterfly in her chest as she knelt on the floor as directed, wrists crossed, arms stretched out overhead, forehead touching the ground, ass in the air.
She no longer bothered to wipe away her tears as they splashed on the floor. She closed her eyes and focused on recapturing the blissful feelings she’d experienced during the Shibari exercise. She reached for the warm, sensual memory of Master Mark’s arms around her on the veranda and wrapped it around her senses. She thought about his tender, loving gaze after she’d soared during the edge play session, and the feel of his hand on her cheek as he brought her gently back to earth.
Patience, obedience, submission, grace.
She heard the door open. Her pulse, which had slowed during her meditation, leaped to life. Her heart thumped against her bones. She heard footsteps on the wooden floor and then a hand gripped her hard by the hair and yanked her upright. Master Lawrence’s face was suddenly close to hers, his breath hot on her face.
“You will be punished now, slave Jaime. Sloppy work is never tolerated here at The Enclave.” He pulled her to her feet, using her hair as a handle. Jaime winced in pain.
He dragged her toward the cross and yanked her right arm upward, locking it into a cuff before she could react. He quickly secured the second cuff. She whipped her head in his direction. “I didn’t do it,” she said fiercely.
He grabbed her hair again and jerked her head back, making her gasp with pain.
“Enough of your excuses. You are on very thin ice right now. Very thin, indeed. You can’t seem to keep that pretty mouth of yours shut, so I’m going to shut it for you.” He lifted his free hand and pressed something against her lips. He wasn’t going to let her explain. He didn’t care what she had to say.
She smelled the rubber of the ball gag and instinctively tried to turn her head away. She had to make him understand. But he was much stronger than she, and just as determined. Letting go of her hair, he gripped her jaw hard, forcing her mouth open. With his other hand, he pushed the ball of the gag into her mouth. Moving behind her, he buckled it tightly into place.
He stepped away and a moment later she heard the terrifying whistle of bamboo whipping furiously through the air. “Twenty stroke
s with the cane,” he said in a tight, hard voice.
Before Jaime could prepare, mentally or otherwise, the cane cut across her ass several times in fiery succession. She screamed but the sound was pushed back into her throat by the gag. The cane sliced into her thighs. More strokes of fire snaked along her calves. Tears streamed down her face.
When the cane met her back, Jaime couldn’t entirely process what was happening. There wasn’t a trace of eroticism in this punishment—just pure, fiery, agonizing pain. She tried to draw in a breath, but she had forgotten how to breathe. Her heart felt like it was exploding in her chest. There was an odd ringing sound in her ears and the room began to spin. A misty, gray film moved over her vision.
It took Jaime a second to realize she must have passed out, and as she came to her senses, she felt the cuffs being pulled from her wrists. Her knees gave way and she fell back into the arms of her tormentor.
“Dog!” Master Lawrence said sternly. “Now!”
At first Jaime had no idea what he was saying. Then she realized he was referring to the slave position. Dog meant she was to drop to all fours, ass thrust up, legs wide. When she didn’t immediately react, he pushed her roughly to the floor.
“Crawl,” he commanded. He pointed toward the small cage. Again, when she failed to react, he reached down and grabbed her by the collar and jerked her roughly toward the cage. Jaime instinctively tried to twist away, all at once on high alert, her heart smashing painfully in her chest.
“Get in there.” With strong, deliberate movements, he pushed her into the tiny space. “You will stay there and think about what you have done while the rest of us watch the branding demonstration.”
His words hit her like a tight fist. “No,” she screamed as she struggled against him. “No!” Though it came out as a gurgle, her shaking head and rigid limbs had to convey her meaning. Her back was to the room, and he reached into the cage, pulling at her arms so they were behind her as she lay on her side. Her wrists were pulled together, cuffs clipped into place around them. She could hear the cage door closing and its latch sliding home. Panic rose like bile in her throat.
“You will start once more with a clean slate once your punishment is complete, but I would caution you—this sort of behavior will not be tolerated. You’ve disgraced The Enclave.”
Jaime could barely hear his words over the rush of blood in her ears. His voice came from far away, as if he were talking through a tube. “Someone will return for you within the hour.” His footsteps echoed away from her along the hardwood floor. The door clicked closed and she was left alone in a small cage, her mouth plugged, her arms twisted uncomfortably behind her back, her skin in tatters, her mind blank with terror.
~*~
Mark stood near the door of the dungeon, too distracted by what Master Lawrence had told him to concentrate on the branding ceremony about to take place between Master Mason and Ashley.
It wasn’t the first time Master Lawrence, The Enclave’s resident disciplinarian, had found fault with a cleaning task and punished the errant submissive for his or her transgression. Mark hadn’t even realized what was happening until two staff slaves had been dispatched to put right what Jaime had apparently left wrong in the main dungeon.
Mark hoped the punishment hadn’t been too severe. Perhaps Jaime hadn’t understood what was expected. The whole thing didn’t sit quite right with Mark and made him wonder. That kind of carelessness didn’t seem like the Jaime he’d gotten to know. Was it possible he was letting his attraction for the woman cloud his perception of her as a sub?
He watched as Master Stefan heated the metal brand clamped in a pair of insulated pliers with the blue flame from a propane torch. Ashley was kneeling up beside Master Mason, her expression calm as she watched the heart-shaped brand glow a fiery red.
He thought about Jaime’s reaction at the dinner table to the prospect of being branded, and Danielle’s assertion of accepting whatever her Master meted out, no matter her own feelings on the matter. Master Lawrence and Danielle would make a good couple, it suddenly occurred to Mark. He thought back to the Sadie Hawkins session, recalling the intensity of their connection, both physical and emotional, during their scene. Master Lawrence favored that sort of dictatorial, all-knowing Master approach and, at least to hear Danielle tell it, so did she.
As he took in the people sitting, standing and kneeling throughout the dungeon, all eyes fixed on the proceedings, Mark’s thoughts veered again to Jaime. She should have been there, kneeling among the other subs.
He placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it. Pulling the door quietly open, he slipped out of the room and headed down the hallway. He knew the rules about interfering with another Dom’s punishment arrangement, but he didn’t care. Suspecting Jaime might be in need of a little TLC, given what he knew of Lawrence’s methods, Mark made a quick detour to the kitchen, where he grabbed a clean dishtowel and snagged a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
The punishment room door was closed. He opened it and stepped inside. For a second he didn’t see her, and then his eyes fixed on the cage. Jaime was huddled into a fetal ball inside it. She was trembling, her wrists cuffed behind her back, which was crisscrossed with welts, two of them wet with blood.
“Fuck,” he breathed softly, his heart constricting as he strode quickly to the cage. Tossing aside the water and towel, he crouched down, pushed back the latch and yanked open the cage door. Reaching inside, he pulled loose the Velcro cuffs at Jaime’s wrists. To hell with Lawrence and the rest of them, too, if they had a problem with his actions. He was taking her out of there.
Slipping his hands carefully beneath her trembling body, he drew Jaime gently from the confines of the small cage and took her into his arms. Jaime turned her tearstained face toward him and he saw the ball gag wedged tightly between her teeth. Reaching behind her head, he quickly unbuckled the gag and pulled it from her mouth, dropping it onto the floor.
Careful of her ravaged back, he drew her closer. Reaching for the towel, he dabbed lightly against her wounds. They would need to be properly cleaned and treated, but not now, not yet.
Jaime hid her face in his chest and began to sob. Mark held her gently, his heart cracking as she cried. While he understood the two-week initial training had to be rigorous in order to weed out the players and wannabes, Lawrence had gone too far this time.
Mark was clenching his jaw and he made a conscious attempt to let go of his fury, which served no one. “Shh,” he murmured, focusing on the girl in his arms. “It’s okay, Jaime,” he murmured soothingly. “You’re okay.” He began to hum a tune his mother had sung to him when he was a child, while he gently rocked the girl in his arms.
Eventually Jaime’s trembling subsided, as did her sobs. She pulled back from Mark and he let his arms fall away. They sat facing one another in the middle of the small room. Mark reached for the bottle of water that had rolled nearby. “Here. Have some water.” He twisted the cap off the bottle and handed the water to Jaime. After she had drunk her fill, he took the half-empty bottle from her and set it down.
He handed her the towel, waiting as she wiped her tear-stained face. “What happened, Jaime? Why did Master Lawrence punish you so harshly?”
“I didn’t do it,” she whispered, her eyes dark with misery. “I didn’t.” Tears sprang again into her eyes. Speaking louder, she continued, “It wasn’t me. But he wouldn’t let me tell him.” Her voice cracked. “He wouldn’t let me explain.”
“Hey, it’s going to be okay. Stay calm. Take a deep breath. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
With a nod, Jaime drew in a shuddery breath and let it out. Mark reached once more for the water bottle and held it out. Jaime accepted the bottle and took another swallow. “Thank you, Sir.” Jaime managed a wan smile.
“Better,” Mark said. “Now tell me, what didn’t you do?”
She pushed her hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ears in a way that made him want to kiss her. “I didn
’t leave the dungeon in that condition,” she said. “It was spotless, I swear. I never would have left puddles and buckets and a mess on the floor. I promise you, Master Mark. Someone came in after me. Someone deliberately made it look like I left that mess.”
Mark wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but that certainly wasn’t it. To blame someone else for your failures as a sub was the consummate no-no at The Enclave. Mistakes were tolerated, even expected, but excuses were not. Yet what she said made sense. Who in their right mind would be so stupid as to leave their task half finished, especially when they knew they would be the focus of keen attention and judgment? Jaime wasn’t a stupid woman, nor did she seem the self-destructive type.
But if she didn’t do it, then who?
All at once he knew.
“I believe you, Jaime,” he said.
“Thank you, Sir,” she whispered, and the light returned to her eyes.
Chapter 15
Mark placed his hands lightly on Jaime’s shoulders, pulling her closer so their faces were almost touching. All at once the door of the punishment room flew open. Lawrence stood there, fury washing over his face as he took in the scene. “What the hell is going on in here?” he spluttered indignantly. “How dare you interfere—”
Jaime froze, her eyes wide with fear, her back still to the door. Lawrence stopped abruptly as a large hand clamped firmly on his shoulder, and Mark saw Anthony just behind Lawrence. Taking in the scene, Anthony dropped his hand and pushed past Lawrence into the room, his expression grim. Lawrence crowded in behind him.
Anthony, his eyes fixed on Jaime’s welted back, spoke in a quiet but firm voice. “What happened here?”
“I did my job, that’s what. You saw the condition of the dungeon,” Lawrence snapped. “The trainee humiliated the entire house in front of Stefan and then tried to cover up her mistakes with excuses and lies. She got what she deserved and Mark had no right—”