Sandy and I worked as Administrative Assistants in Manhattan; she for a securities company and me for a bank.  She worked for a Vice President of sales and I was assigned to a COO.  We were both in our late twenties and, in our chosen careers, were doing very well.  We had been friends since high school and the only real difference between us was that she was married and I was not.

Sandy’s husband worked for an insurance company.  He was a few years older, but was on the fast track.  He had an MBA from Harvard and had just been promoted (again) so that he was the number two person in the marketing department.  As a result of his career, Sandy lived in a large and luxurious apartment while I had a small flat in a good area.  I wasn’t jealous of Sandy at all.  She was my best friend and I really was happy for her.  She was deeply in love with Rich.  But I think she felt a little guilty when she compared our lives and she was constantly trying to fix me up.  So when she asked me to dinner in the early fall, I asked her who else would be there.

She got that big smile that said she knew this was the one for me.  Rich had been working with sales on a national account.  He had invited the CEO to dinner to close the sale and, since the guy was single, Sandy thought I would be the perfect person to round out the group.

That Saturday night, I arrived early to help Sandy prepare the dinner.  I was in a black cocktail dress with a string of pearls at my throat.  When the dinner guest arrived, I was tossing the salad in the kitchen.  I sneaked a peek at him through the breakfast bar as Rich brought him in.  Sandy and I came out so Rich could make the introductions.  The man’s name was Lyle and he owned an electronics firm with headquarters on Long Island.  Lyle was handsome.  He was in his early thirties and was dressed in an expensive blue suit and white shirt.  The tie was tied just right and his shoes had a deep shine.

The dinner was uneventful until we reached the coffee and desert stage.  Soon Rich would take him to the den and try to close the sale.  We had gotten along well at dinner; the conversation was interesting and the food terrific.

Lyle started a new topic.  He asked Rich if his company had been looking at the impact of some of the new genetic research and the potential it had for curing disease.  Rich was very well read and was able to talk intelligently about almost everything.  After a few minutes back and forth between them, Lyle looked at me and asked if I knew anything about the subject.

"No, not really.  Just what I read in the papers."

"They are doing some amazing things in Germany.  I just finished reading a study that indicates that major portions of our personality may be linked to genetics and not just our environment."

"Can you give me some examples?" I asked.

"Sure.  One part of their study showed that the tendency to dominance or submission is linked to genetic makeup more than environment.  Since they found the dominance genes mostly in men, and the submissive ones mostly in women, they hypothesized that the genetic predisposition was a survival characteristic in the race’s early development."

"And how did they make that connection?"

"Well, think about what is in the race’s best interest.  If I am a strong, healthy male, then I want to impregnate as many women as possible.  And if I am female, I want the strongest male to father my children to give them a better chance of success.  In that situation, the best way for me to retain that male’s interest is to be completely submissive to him."

"But that should not affect us today.  What relevance does it have thousands of years after the characteristic was needed?"

"I’m not sure that is the correct way of asking the question.  It is only in the last twenty or thirty years that women have made any real progress in obtaining equality with men.  For most of our history, the pattern has been dominant male and submissive female.  You can’t reverse thousands of years of genetic programming that quickly.  I believe that the recent changes in status of both men and women have led to a lot of the unhappiness in our society.  In poor nations that don’t have anywhere close to our standard of living and where the pattern still exists, people are generally happier according to most research."

"I find that hard to believe.  How could a woman be happier being submissive?"

"Are you happy and fulfilled at work?"

"Yes," I answered, not seeing the trap.

"And what do you do?"

Then I understood that I had walked right into it.  But the way I phrased my answer surprised me.  "I serve men," and laughed.

His laughter was honest and long.  Finally, he leaned back with a smug ‘I got you’ look on his face.  I tried to salvage something from the discussion.

"But that does not mean I am submissive.  It means I do my job and do it well.  Yes, it is satisfying to me, but I am not their slave or anything.  They treat me well and respect my work."

The smugness he had shown a moment before disappeared from his face and he got serious.  "I think you would be happier if you were their slave."

"You’re joking!"

"Not at all.  And I am willing to back up my belief.  Are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Be my slave for three months.  At the end of that time, if you tell me that you are not happy and fulfilled, I will pay you one million dollars.  If on the other hand you say that you are happier than you are now, I owe you nothing."

All during this, Rich and Sandy had sat quietly listening.  But at the last statement, Sandy jumped up out of her chair.  "You are both nuts.  Rich, put a stop to this."

Rich didn’t say a word.  He looked at Sandy and just leaned back for a moment.  Finally, he chimed in.  "This is Karen’s decision.  I would not interfere."

I thought Sandy would explode.  If I had been her, I would have seen Rich as doing anything for the sale, and it would have lessened what I thought of him.  But I really wasn’t paying attention.  All I could think about was one million dollars.  There was no way I was ever going to save that much money.  And he was handsome, intelligent, and rich.  I probably would have gone to bed with him anyway, even without this crazy slave thing.  So all in all, I thought it was a good bet.

"I accept."

"My driver will pick you up tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.  Give me your address."

I told him and he wrote it down in a small pad he carried in his breast pocket.

"You won’t need to bring anything.  I will supply you with everything you need.  And wear old clothes.  Sandy, Rich, thank you for an excellent evening."  The last was said as he stood.  Rich rose and walked him to the door.  I could hear them whispering.  Sandy was glowering at me.

When Rich came back to the table, he sat down heavily.  "Karen, are you sure you want to do this?  Do you understand what you are getting yourself into?" he asked.

I wasn’t having second thoughts so I gave him a flip answer.  "Sure I do.  For three months, I will be his sex slave and he will give me a million bucks.  I guess if I am going to prostitute myself, it should be for a very high price," I responded laughing.

"Are you sure that sex is all there is to it?  Sandy asked.  "I think it could be much more.  And what about your job?"

‘What else could there be to it?  Do you think he is going to keep me caged in the dungeon?  And the job can go to hell.  With money in the bank, I can afford to find another one."  I was still laughing a little at the thought of getting a million dollars for putting out.  Most men figured they could buy me for a classy dinner and were disappointed when that turned out to be a wrong assumption.  Then I had a thought.  "Sandy, here is my mail key.  Will you take care of the rent and utilities while I am gone?  I will pay you back as soon as I collect."  She took it from me reluctantly.

Saturday morning, I got up early to get ready.  After my shower and make-up, I put on a pair of cut-off blue jeans, a polo shirt, and some sneakers.  I made sure everything was turned off, cleaned out the refrigerator, and threw away the trash.  Then I went down to the street to wait for his driver.

Just at eight, he pulled up in a limo.  I let him open the door for me then settled back for the ride to Long Island.  Traffic was light, so it did not take us long to get there.  His house was right on the ocean with its own beach.  It was a large, two story, modern structure, painted white with large windows and a high wall built around it.  The driver took me inside and told me to wait in the living room.

I sat down and debated picking up one of the coffee table books, but decided to study the room instead.  It had expensive art on the walls, and several sculptures at key points.  It was lit by the sun coming in a large picture window facing the water.  The furniture was leather and very comfortable, what you would expect from a wealthy man living alone.  There was a fire in the fireplace and I wondered why he would have lit one on a gorgeous spring day.

That was as far as I got before he came into the room.  He sat down across from me and looked me over.  I suppose I blushed a little at being examined like that, but I also enjoyed it.  It didn’t really bother me that we had just met and would soon be making love.  I was attracted to him anyway.

After a few moments of silence, he started.  "Do you understand what you are getting involved in?" he asked.

"Yes, I am pretty sure that I will live here for three months, do whatever you want me to do, and then you will pay me a million dollars," I said smiling.

"It is the ‘whatever you want’ part that I want to make sure you understand.  Do you?"

I nodded and said that I understood but just then a little doubt crept in.  What if it was more than just making love and going down on him?  But it’s too late now to back out, I thought.  I knew it wasn’t, so I guess I was rationalizing.

"Stand up," he ordered, "and remove your jewelry."

I stood and looked him in the face from across the room.  I put my ring, earrings, watch, and necklace on the coffee table.  I had a good idea what was coming next, but I was only half right.

"Take off your clothes and throw them in the fire."

I just stood there for a moment.  Burn my clothes?  Then I remembered that he said he would supply everything I needed.  That is why I did not pack anything.  I pulled my shirt over my head, walked over to the fireplace and threw it in.  I started to unbutton my jeans when he stopped me.  "Watch it burn," he told me.  "When it is gone, throw the next piece in."

I watched for a few moments as the flames consumed my shirt.  Then I unbuckled my shorts and let them fall to the floor.  After stepping out of them, I bent over, picked them up, and threw them into the fire.

The jeans took much longer to burn than the shirt.  As I stood there in my bra, panties, and sneakers, I tried to ignore him watching me.  I folded my arms across my chest as I watched, more to hold myself still then anything else.

When the jeans were gone, except for the brass buttons, I kicked off my shoes.  I bent over to pick them up and was about to throw them in when he stopped me.  "The rubber won’t burn.  Put them down again."

After setting them down, I looked at him.  Then I slowly reached up behind my back to unhook my bra.  As the straps slid down my arms, I blushed before throwing it onto the fire.  It was gone in seconds.  As the last wisps of it disappeared in smoke, I pulled my panties down.  When they were in the fire, I turned my back to him to watch them burn.

"Face me and kneel down, slave" he told me.  The tone in his voice was one of command.  I turned around and knelt down.  "Sit back on your heels," was his next order.  I lowered myself down.  "Now lace your fingers together and put your hands behind your head, pulling your elbows back as far as possible."

As I did, I could feel my breasts lifting and thrusting out.  My nipples got very hard and the aureoles crinkled, shrinking them to the size of quarters.  I had never been particularly shy and I knew my body looked good because I kept fit and toned.  But this was different somehow.  It wasn’t just that I was naked and he was clothed.  There was always a quid pro quo in the relationships, even the one-night stands.  That was what was missing, I thought, the reciprocity.  He owed me nothing and I owed him everything.  I shuddered as the realization about just how vulnerable I was hit me.  I think it had to do with the fact that he addressed me as slave, instead of using my name or just telling me to kneel.

"For your first lesson, you will address me as Master.  Do you understand, slave?"

"Yes, Master."  I couldn’t believe it.  I had addressed a man as Master.  Twenty-four hours ago, if someone had told me I would do that, I would have laughed.  I shuddered again, despite the warmth of the room from the fire.

He told me to wait and left the room.  When he came back, he was carrying a plastic shopping bag.  The first thing he took out was a steel collar and a lock.  He went behind me, fit the collar around my throat after lifting my hair out of the way, and locked it in place.  Kneeling behind me, he locked matching steel cuffs around my ankles, stood up, and locked smaller versions around my wrists while I held my hands behind my head.  The last thing he did was lock a short chain, about twenty inches long, between the cuffs on my ankles.

While kneeling on the floor, all I could think about was that I could not remove any of the devices locked onto my body.  It accelerated the process of my understanding of my loss of control over what happened to me and for the first time, I felt a little scared.  He wasn’t threatening me at all, but I still felt some fear about what was going to happen because the collar and cuffs were beyond my ability to remove.

As it turned out, I was right to be afraid.  He told me to stand up and clipped the wrist cuffs together behind my back.  Then he led me downstairs to the basement.  I had to get used to being hobbled by the short chain between my ankles as I walked to keep from falling over.  Going down the stairs was an exercise in extreme caution because I could not use my arms to hold on to the banister or for balance.  But the treads were set closely together and I negotiated them successfully.  He was waiting for me at the bottom, watching me as I came down like a small child, stopping with both feet on each step.  The fact that he had a complete view of my nude body never crossed my mind because of my concentration on not falling.  Not that is, until I reached the bottom and saw the grin on his face.  Then I blushed furiously at the image of myself coming down the steps.

The room was very large, running the length of the house.  It was finished in expensive wood, not paneling, but boards mostly in cherry and oak.  There were wood pillars every fifteen feet that were square and about a foot on each side.  Solid wooden beams stretched from one side to the next every five feet to support the twelve foot high ceiling.

There was expensive leather furniture and art throughout the room.  One area was an entertainment center with a ten foot wide plasma TV on the wall and a stereo system.  Another area of the room was set up as a bar.  There were several old fashioned pinball machines along one wall as well as some newer video games.

Near the center of the room, large rings had been installed in a pillar and a pulley in the beam overhead.  He had me stand under the pulley and freed my hands before relocking them in front.  Then he tied a rope hanging from the pulley through the rings on the cuffs.  Hauling on the other end of the rope, he lifted my arms until I was standing on tiptoes, my body stretched taught.

"Are you ready for your second lesson, slave?" he asked.

"Do I have a choice, Master?"

"Listen to me.  You always have a choice.  You can choose to go or to stay.  I will not keep you here against your will.  Do you understand, slave?"

"Yes, Master."

"Are you ready for your next lesson?"

"Yes, Master."

He moved behind me and I heard him take something from a drawer.  When he came back, he remained standing behind me.  Looking back on it now, I think it was a measure of my naiveté that I had no idea what was about to happen.

"I want you to know what will happen if you disobey me or if I find you displeasing in any way," he said.  "This will be the only time this happens unless you give me a reason."

I still was not sure what he was talking about.  Then I heard the whistling sound of the whip flying through the air just before my back exploded in pain.  I hung in my bonds, my entire weight held up by my arms as he waited for me to recover.  I couldn’t even scream I was so shocked and breathless.  After a few moments, I struggled to pull myself up so my toes took some of the strain off my arms. 

Then he struck me again and I did scream.  He waited for me to quiet down then whipped me across the backs of my thighs.  The pain was consuming me, driving everything else from my mind.  I was hanging again from my arms, screaming, just sounds, no words, as he continued whipping me.

When he finished, he lowered me to the floor.  My legs wouldn’t support me so I just sank down as he slowly let the rope run through the pulley.  When I was prone, he sat beside me and put my head in his lap, stroking my hair while I cried.  The intense burning gradually subsided to a dull, throbbing ache.  As it did, my sobbing changed to soft whimpers.  He moved my head off his lap and stood up.  Then he ordered me to kneel.  I pulled my self up to my knees and sat back on my heels as I put my hands behind my head.  He went behind me and untied the rope that was still attached to my wrist cuffs before returning to stand in front of me.

"Do you want to call of the bet, slave?"

"No, Master, I’ll stay."  The fact that I answered immediately seemed to surprise him.  It also surprised me.

"Very well.  Come with me, slave."

I followed him upstairs and into the kitchen.  As I climbed the steps, I could hear the chain hobble I was wearing between my ankles scraping and clinking.  There were dishes in the sink from the day before.  I was ordered to clean the dishes and put them away.  When I finished, I was supposed to go to the den upstairs and wait for him.

As I stood at the sink cleaning the dishes, my thoughts were, to say the least, confusing.  Stripped, collared, cuffed, hobbled, and whipped, I had had a chance to end my slavery and turned it down.  What sane person would have turned down the offer to leave?  But I knew I wasn’t insane, so what other explanation could there be?  There had to be something else going on in my mind that I did not understand and I tried to find it.  It had to be the money I told myself, but I also knew there was more to it than that.  It wasn’t really sexual, because he hadn’t touched me other than incidentally as he cuffed and collared me.  I had never thought of myself as submissive; in fact, I considered myself aggressive.  I had always been able to channel the aggression into my work and got positive results from it by being demanding of myself and setting high standards.  But in reality, I did the bidding of others and did feel that I was in control of much outside of my own performance.  In a way, this was going to be a similar experience.  I could control my own actions to the extent that I used that to comply with the demands someone else was making of me.  Maybe it was just the money because I was in essentially the same situation as work but I was getting paid a lot more.

I laughed to myself a little at that because this was in no way similar to work.  I didn’t get whipped at work, and I didn’t work naked.  As I dried the last dish and put it away, I was still as puzzled as I was about my choice to remain in the house as a slave.  I went upstairs and started looking through the open doors until I found the den.  One wall of the room was a floor to ceiling bookcase that was packed with thousands of books.  Facing the window was a desk with a computer.  There was a short conference table that could seat eight people and two easy chairs with tables and lamps.  Wondering where he was, I walked to the center of the room and knelt down.  In a few minutes, he came in and told me to follow him.  We went to the guest bathroom.

"You’ll find everything you need in here.  Shave your pubic hair completely and return to the den."  Then he walked out and left me alone.

Oh, God, I thought, I don’t want to do this.  I looked down at my mound and wondered what it would look like bare.  I remembered how I looked as a girl, before I grew hair and wasn’t sure I wanted him to see me that way.  But I also knew that I was going to do it because he told me to.  I turned on the hot water and looked in the medicine chest where I found shaving cream and a razor.  I soaked a washcloth under the hot water and used it on myself.  Then I lathered my mound, sat down on the toilet seat and began to shave.  Because of the hobble connecting my ankles, I couldn’t spread my legs very wide without pulling my knees up to my chest first.  It was awkward, trying to shave with my legs in the way, but I managed.  When I was bare, I dried myself off and went back to the den.

This time, he was at the desk.  I knelt down beside him and waited for him to pay attention to me.  He turned in his chair and looked down on me.

"Spread your knees wider, slave."

As I did, I could feel myself open a little and the breeze from the ceiling fan touch the inside of my lips.  I blushed all over and he just waited.  I pulled my knees a little further apart and still he waited, not saying anything.  Finally I opened them as far as they would go and felt my opening gapping at him.  He smiled and returned to the work he was doing on the computer.

As I waited for him to finish, I wondered when he was going to make love to me.  My pussy, stretched wide and open to the air was getting damp as I thought about it.  I began to squirm a little, partly to keep my circulation going because I was getting stiff holding the same position for so long, but also because I wanted to touch myself.  I wasn’t sure if he noticed my small movements or not until he told me to hold still or I would be whipped.  I froze immediately.  I would have done anything to avoid the pain of being whipped again.  As I knelt immobile, my arms began to ache because I was holding them up behind my head.  Also my knees and back began to hurt.  As the ache grew, it became sharper, more fiery, and I felt as if my muscles would spasm.  Finally, he stopped what he was working on and turned off the computer.  He turned around to face me before standing up.

"Let’s talk a little," he said.  "Why are you doing this?  Is it just for the money?"

"Certainly, Master."

"I could turn you into hamburger with the whip.  Would it be worth it?"

"No, Master, but I also don’t believe you would do that."

He smiled at a little at that.  "Come with me," he said standing up.  "I need to show you the house and were everything is."

Still being hobbled, I was forced to take baby steps and walk very fast to keep up with him.  We toured the upstairs first and he carefully pointed out all of the cleaning supplies and laundry equipment.  As he did, I had this image of myself naked doing all of the cleaning and laundry.  After all, who else would do that kind of drudgery but a slave?  Downstairs was the same thing, especially in the kitchen.  I already had an idea of where the dishes and things went because of having to hunt around when I put them away earlier.  Last, we went back down to the basement, an area I was all too familiar with.  It was with some trepidation that I crept carefully down the steps.  But when we got there, he had me kneel and sat down facing me.

"I’m sure you have some questions.  Now would be a good time to ask because you may not get another one."

For the life of me, I really could not think of one.  I am not sure what I expected when I took the bet, but I figured that sex would be a big part of it.  I had been here two hours already and he had barely touched me.  I understood well enough what was expected of a slave; obey commands.  I also figured there would be some nudity and bondage.  But what had happened so far, the steel collar and cuffs, the whipping, and the hobble had not matched the image I had created last night.  So I finally asked the only thing that came to mind and asked him what happens next, remembering to address him as Master.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized the implications.  I was living in the present moment.  When I used the word next, I meant right now, this minute.  Not later today, not next week.  Suddenly my future was gone.  I had always been able to understand where I was going, what the plans were, and had a good idea of what the future held.  But not any more.  It was as if a gray fog had settled over it.

"In the mornings, you will be trained.  In the afternoons, you will work around the house at whatever I need."

"What kind of training, Master?"

"I have some ideas about that, but I am not willing to share them yet.  Better that it be revealed to you a little at a time.  Do you have another question?"

When I said I didn’t, he told me to stand up.  We went over to the pulley and once again he fastened my hands together and lifted them over my head with the rope.  He took a blindfold from his pocket and slipped it over my eyes.  In the blackness, I thought I was going to get whipped again.  But instead he stood behind me and cupped my breasts in his hands as he kissed my neck.  As I responded to him, I rubbed my bottom against his groin, pushing it back and into him.  He played with my nipples and ran his hands down my sides, all the while kissing my neck.  Then brought his hands up and was caressing my arms stretched overhead.  After about fifteen minutes, he suddenly, stopped and stepped back.  It was a measure of the intensity of what I was feeling that I didn’t realize it for a moment and continued to move my hips.

When I realized he had stopped, I let my chin fall forward onto my chest in frustration.  Looking down, I saw the welts on my body from the earlier whipping and briefly wondered which was worse; the whipping or the stimulation without fulfillment.  "Please, Master," I whimpered, "don’t stop."  Instead, he lowered my arms and had me kneel.

"I want you to masturbate, but before you have an orgasm, you need to ask for permission."

I didn’t hesitate at all.  My hands, still bound together, went directly to my pussy.  It felt strange masturbating without any hair down there, but as I worked my finger in, I liked the feel of my hand on my bald crotch.  Within a few minutes, I was close to a climax.  "Please, Master, may I cum?"

"No.  Put your hands behind your head."

Reluctantly, I pulled my finger out and put my hands at the back of my neck.  I was still squirming a little, my hips trying to find something that they could push against so it would enter me when he told me to hold still.  Slowly, I calmed down, still very frustrated.  All that existed for me right then was my physical need.  My brain was telling me to obey him and stop shifting around, while my body was doing the exact opposite.

When I was still, he told me to start again.  Eagerly, I pushed my finger back in.  It only took a few minutes until I was ready to orgasm again.  I asked permission and again was denied.  My hands went behind my head as he waited for me to calm myself.  Over and over, the pattern was repeated.  I cannot be sure how many times we went through this, or how long it lasted, but my body was covered with sweat and my hair was a tangled mess from shaking my head.  I was moaning constantly, first from the pleasure of touching myself and then from the emptiness when I had to withdraw my finger.  I tried to picture him sitting there, but couldn’t.  In the darkness that surrounded me, I could only hear his voice telling me to start and stop.

After the last time he told me to stop, he didn’t have me start again.  I just knelt there, blindfolded, my hands behind my head, waiting for him to tell me to start again.  I wanted to scream out my frustration.  The turmoil inside me was like an ocean storm raging.  I don’t know how long I waited until he told me to crawl forward to him.  Blindly, on all fours I inched forward, not just because of the blindfold, but because my wrists and ankles were still bound, inhibiting my movement.  When my head bumped against his knee, I stopped and remained on all fours.  I could feel my breasts hanging beneath me, the nipples hard, little points aimed at the floor.  He stood up and asked me what was most important, his pleasure, or mine.

"Yours is, Master," I responded.

"Then give me pleasure," he ordered as I heard him unzip his pants and he let them fall to the floor.  I sat up and reached my hands up to touch him.  When I found his penis with my fingers, I leaned forward and took it inside my mouth.  He stood very still, letting me do all of the work as I licked and sucked him.  Just before he ejaculated, he took the back of my head in both hands and pulled my head forward.  I don’t think I had ever had a man so deeply in my throat and I almost gagged as the tip of his penis pushed in.  When he came, there was no place for the cum to go except down my throat.  I swallowed it all, still forcing myself not to gag, before he released me.

"Now, you may climax," he told me.  "Lie down on your back and begin.  When you have your orgasm, don’t stop.  Keep fingering yourself."

For the next thirty minutes, I masturbated.  At first, I had several orgasms separated by only a couple of minutes.  But then he knelt down beside me and starting caressing me and kissing my nipples while I masturbated until they all merged into one, long, unbelievable orgasm.  When he finally let me stop, I was so exhausted that I could not move.  He pulled the blindfold off and I looked up into his face.

"Get up, slave, there is work to do."

I spent the rest of the day cleaning his house from top to bottom.  Dusting, vacuuming, laundry, cleaning toilets, washing windows, you name it.  If there was some household chore he missed, I couldn’t think of it.  I didn’t even get a break to eat because I cooked dinner.  He picked the food from the fridge and had me make it.  When it came time to eat, I placed two plates on the table and began to sit down when he stopped me.

He told me to kneel down next to his place while he ate.  When he finished, he took my plate and cut up the food.  Then he fed me, holding the food out in his hand toward me.  I wasn’t allowed to touch it with my hands; I had to take it directly into my mouth.  Of all the things that had happened to me that day, that was the thing that really got to me, even more than the whipping.  As I knelt there naked, I couldn’t help but feel less than human.  I was being treated as an animal, a pet, and for the first time, that is how I saw myself.  It is funny the things we take for granted like eating dinner by choosing what to have next.  I couldn’t even do that.  He decided what order I ate the food and even when I had a drink.  I wanted to scream at him that I wasn’t an animal, that I was a human being, and that he had no right to take that from me.

About ten o’clock, I finished the last chore he had set out for me.  I went around the house looking for him and found him in the basement listening to some music.  It was classical, Mozart I think, and I knelt down and waited.  When it was over, he told me to stand up and he locked my wrist cuffs together behind my back.  We went upstairs to his bedroom and I thought that we were going to make love in his bed.  But he took me to the bathroom and watched as I used the toilet.  It took me a long time to relieve myself with him staring at me.  Finally, I was able to go, but with my hands locked behind my back, he had to wipe me and I blushed from head to toe as he did.  Then he brushed my teeth for me and took me back into the bedroom.

He had me lie down on the floor at the foot of his bed and locked a chain to my collar.  The other end was locked around one of the legs of the bed.  I had about twenty inches so I couldn’t stand up even if I wanted to.  But I was exhausted so I lay down and thought I would go right to sleep.

Have you ever tried to sleep with your hands cuffed behind you?  And no pillow to support your head?  Let me suggest that it isn’t easy.  You can’t lie on your side because of the strain it puts on your neck without something to hold your head up.  And you can’t lie on your back because your arms are underneath you.  So by default, you lie on your stomach, a position I was not used to or comfortable with.  As tired as I was, I could not fall asleep, but only partly because of the position I was in.  Even though my body was tired, my mind was racing now that it didn’t have any physical tasks on which to focus.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on inside me.  I had spent the day hobbled and naked, I had been whipped, I had masturbated on command, and I did chores because I was told to and didn’t want to get whipped again for refusing.  I had let a man who was essentially a stranger feel me up and had given him a blow job because he ordered it.  And I had called him Master, acknowledging his right to do whatever he wanted to me.  Twenty-four hours ago, I would have said that these are not the actions of a sane person.  But I did not feel insane, in fact, I knew I wasn’t.  If insanity is the condition when a person’s symbols used for thinking don’t match very closely to reality, then I was sure I was still sane.  My symbols matched the reality perfectly.  I was a slave who belonged to a man.  So the next question I had to ask myself was how I felt about that.  At that moment, chained in the dark, I really wasn’t sure.  Someone had once said that little girls don’t grow up dreaming about becoming prostitutes as a way to convince others that prostitution was wrong.  Well they certainly didn’t grow up dreaming about becoming a slave.  Or did they?  How many women or girls had fantasized about being in this situation?  I had a few times as a teenager, but I always felt guilty about it afterwards.

That opened up a whole new train of thoughts for me.  I don’t think I felt guilty, and the morality of right and wrong conduct didn’t enter into my thinking.  I knew many people, maybe almost all, would not see what I was doing that way.  Their ideas of right and wrong were tied more to the approval of others than to any internal values.  I thought about the conversation at dinner about women being genetically programmed to be submissive and wondered if that was true for me.  If it wasn’t true, I would have thought that I would be more upset about what I was doing, so maybe it was.  But that is a long way from being satisfied and happy about being a slave.  What criteria should I use to measure the satisfaction I received from life?  Was satisfaction even possible if my own personality and desires were submerged in my slavery?  All I had were questions right now, and there were no apparent answers.

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.  My dreams, oddly enough, had nothing to do with the slavery I was experiencing.  I saw myself at work, making calls, typing, scheduling meetings, and performing all of the odd jobs of an administrative assistant to a high-powered executive.  Then in my dream, I saw myself talking with one of the other women at work and I was telling her that I was a slave to a paycheck.  We laughed about it and then I woke up with a start.  Was it really that similar to my new condition?  Of course there was, I thought.  I had the freedom to leave that job and find another whenever I wanted.  Then I remembered that I had been given the choice after I was whipped to leave or stay and had chosen to remain in slavery.  With that thought, I drifted off to sleep again.

I was awakened with a gentle shake on my shoulder.  Master leaned over and unlocked the chain at my collar and told me to go and fix breakfast; that he would be down in twenty minutes.  He fed me again as I knelt next to his chair.  Then we went down to the basement to begin the day’s training.

He had set up a mirror against one wall and had me kneel down in front of it with my knees spread and my hands behind my neck.  Then he told me that he wanted me to repeat the phrase "I am a slave girl," one hundred times.  After that came one hundred repetitions of "I must please my Master," "I will obey," and then "I am a slave girl" again.  As I was repeating the phrases, all I could see was me in the mirror.  At first, my eyes were drawn to different parts; my collar, my breasts (with the nipples very erect), and my open vagina mostly, but also my arms, legs, stomach, and face.  Eventually though, my eyes adjusted and I saw all of me.  Clearly, what I saw was a slave girl.  The verbal phrases merely reinforced the visual image.

All during the mirror exercise, I could feel myself becoming wetter and wetter.  It had been twenty-four hours and he still hadn’t had sex with me.  He could have entered me any time he wanted to and I would not have resisted.  Being kept naked also kept me in a constant state of arousal.  But there was more to it than just that.  Being collared, I started to see myself as a sexual being.  That was my purpose, providing pleasure to the man who owned me.  The fact that he wasn’t using me for his pleasure was becoming frustrating to me.  Not just sexually frustrating because I was aroused, but also frustrating because I was not being allowed to fulfill my purpose.  When I had that thought I was startled.  If my self-image had changed that much in just twenty-four hours, what would I be like in another week, or month, or the three months that the bet required?

I guess that some people would consider what I was happening to me as brainwashing, being made to repeat the phrases.  In a class I once took, the instructor taught us about the power of self talk.  It relates to a basic concept in human psychology; that we believe what we say, not what we hear.  I was repeating over and over again that I was a slave and that I had to obey and please my Master.  Did the fact that I was saying it, instead of someone saying it to me, mean that I was more likely to believe it?

After three hours of kneeling, it was finally over and I was allowed to stand up.  He told me to take a few minutes to stretch so I got up stiffly and stretched a little.  I saw him watch me as I lifted my hands over my head, stood on my toes, and reached for the ceiling.  Then I slowly bent down and touched my toes.  After a few repetitions, I leaned from side to side.  When my muscles were loose again, he told me to start cleaning the house.  Except for lunch and dinner breaks, I worked because it was such a large house.  When I finished, he took me on an inspection.

After attaching a leash to my collar and securing my hands behind my back, he led me around the house.  He pointed out things that were wrong, some dust there, or a picture not quite straight on the wall, adding one or two strokes to a running total for everything I missed.  By the time we had completed the inspection, the total was up to seventeen strokes.  He took me back down to the basement and strung me up like I was the first day when he whipped me.

"Are you ready for your punishment, slave?" he asked.

Of course I wasn’t ready.  Nobody, except for a masochist, wants to be whipped and I knew from the first time I was whipped that I wasn’t into pain for pleasure.  But I answered him, "Yes, Master."  Instead of standing behind me, he stood in front and to the side.  I was able to watch him pull his arm back and swing the whip forward.  It struck across my breasts and I howled in pain.  The next stroke was lower, across my stomach and again I cried out.  I was pleading with him to stop beating me but he took no notice.  Up and down my body he laid the whip on with all of his strength.  When he finished, I was hanging from my arms, covered in perspiration an, and my body on fire with the pain.  He put his hand on my chin and lifted it so I was looking into his face.  Then he leaned in and kissed me hard.

Instead of releasing me, he left me hanging there, still sobbing while he went upstairs.  Eventually, I struggled to get back up on my toes when the pain in my shoulders from hanging became to be too much for me to bear.  Oh, God, I silently begged, please make the pain go away.

I don’t know how long it was before he came back to release me.  At least several hours, I thought, but I could not be sure.  I had been up and down twenty or thirty times in an exquisite dance caused by the pain.  Standing on my toes, my calves would soon cramp, forcing me to hang.  But when I hung, my breathing became very labored as I tried to pull air into my lungs and my shoulders would hurt.  So up and down I went, not trying to relive the agony for that was impossible, but just trying to minimize it.  When he finally came back down, I would have done anything to be released.  I heard him come down the stairs and move in front of me.  I used what little energy I had left to lift my head and look at him.

"Please, Master, let me please you," I begged.  I surprised myself.  I hadn’t pleaded for my release, only to please him.

He pulled a scarf from his pocket and tied it around my head, blindfolding me.  I thought I was going to be whipped again and I again begged him to use me for his pleasure.  He knelt down and unlocked the hobble between my ankles, then I heard the rustle of clothes as he undressed and felt him standing naked against my limp body.  He reached behind me, grabbed my bottom, and lifted me.  The relief I felt flooded through me.  For the first time in hours, my body was not stretched taut.

"Open your legs," he whispered in my ear.

When I did, I felt him shift me a little, and then all of sudden, he was inside me.  He held me up by holding my bottom while he rocked back and forth.  In a matter of seconds, I felt myself respond to him.  I wanted to grab him and pull him tight against me as we made love but my arms were still bound above my head.  I leaned back as far as I could and moaned as he continued to move in and out of me, the pleasure building and building until I thought I couldn’t take any more.  I cried out in joy as my orgasm exploded throughout my whole body.  Seconds later, I felt him tremble and he climaxed.

He pulled out and lowered me gently.  Then he undid the chain holding my arms up high and helped me kneel.  "Clean me," he ordered.

Still blindfolded, I leaned forward until I could feel him.  I licked and sucked him while he grew hard again, then I took him in my mouth until he came again.  With my hands on his hips, I kept him inside my mouth until he was drained then let my lips wipe him clean as he withdrew.  I remained on my knees while he took a step back.  I could imagine him looking down at me, knowing that he had all the power to do whatever he wanted me to do.  The image didn’t disturb me; on the contrary, I suddenly felt the rightness of it.  I bent forward so my head was near the floor and kissed his feet while thanking him for letting me please him.

For the next month, we made love two or three times a day.  I worked hard the rest of the time, either cleaning or in training.  I learned how to serve Gorean style (I still am not sure what that means), on my knees, kissing and caressing the plate or glass, and offering it with my arms extended, my head lowered between my arms, and speaking some phrase that makes it clear I am offering myself as a slave along with the food or drink.  I practiced a form of yoga where I put my body on display, moving slowly from one position to the next.  Each position left me open and vulnerable looking, or, if you are so minded, like a slut in heat.  But Master recorded my practices so he could show me things I was doing wrong.  And I thought I looked beautiful moving gracefully between the different positions.  That was also the sexiest part of the training, not because of how I looked, but because of the way Master’s hands and voice corrected me when I was slightly out of position.

During that month, I was never clothed and usually hobbled.  Master got a hair removal instrument through the mail after about two weeks and we spent two days removing all of my hair below my neck, even my public hair.  As a result, I will never again have to shave my legs, underarms, or pussy because the treatment killed the roots.  Losing my public hair permanently did bother me a little at first, but Master explained it to me.  As a slave, I was not allowed privacy, not even the little bit that pubic hair provided me.  Unspoken, but just as real to me was the fact that it kept reminding me of when I was a child and dependent on others for my well-being.

At the end of the month, I also knew that I had lost the bet and that was okay.  I loved my Master and, more importantly, I loved being his slave.  Not only was I sexually fulfilled, but I took joy from serving him in a hundred different ways.  I was still whipped occasionally, but only when I screwed up and, while I will never get to the point where I want to be whipped and feel that pain, I accepted it as part of the trade-off for all of the other good things about serving Master.  I loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life as his slave.  I thought he loved me also, but he never said it.  But I could see the look in his eyes as he watched me perform some simple task and I was pretty sure he did.

The worst part was when Master had to go into the office.  He could run the company from his house most of the time, but there were occasions when he had to meet face to face with either the staff or a customer.  He had purchased a small cage made of heavy stainless steel bars and had it bolted into the floor in the basement.  It was raised about three inches off the ground and had a tray underneath the bottom bars so I did not make a mess when I had to relieve myself.  The cage itself was three feet wide, three feet tall, and four feet long.  There was no way to stand up or stretch out in it, and he kept the key to the door on a hook high on the wall.  Whenever he left the house to go to the store or to the office, I was locked inside.  He never told me how long he would be, so I had to sit on the bars with my knees drawn up to my chest and just wait for him to return.

After six weeks, the training was completed.  Now I became his secretary as well as doing all of the housework, laundry, and cooking.  Obviously, having a slave as a secretary makes life a lot easier for any executive.  He had a stand up desk put in the den where he worked and it also was bolted to the floor.  When I worked as his secretary, he locked a chain attached to the desk to one of my ankle cuffs.  The chain was long enough that I could go anywhere in the room but not outside it.

The other thing that happened after the training was over was that I was allowed to call Sandy.  I was prohibited from telling her anything that had happened to me, but I was allowed tell her that I was alright and catch up on what she and Rich were doing.

The time flew by.  Before I knew it, the three months were up.  I hadn’t realized it until Master told me.  He took me up to his bedroom and we made love for several hours.  It was the first time I hadn’t been chained in some way in his bed so I should have known that something was different.  After we finished, we took a shower together.  When we were clean and dry, Master had me kneel and went into his closet.  He came back carrying a small bag and put it on the bed.

"You have a choice to make," he began and it was the first time I can remember him not addressing me as slave.  "In that bag are some clothes, the keys to your collar and cuffs, and a check for one million dollars.  You can put the clothes on and leave, or you can tear up the check, put the clothes back in the closet, and remain here as a slave.  But if you choose to stay, you will never again be given the chance to leave.  You will remain a slave for the rest of you life with no choices and no control.  I will be in the den waiting for you."

He turned and walked out, leaving me kneeling on the floor.  I made my decision instantly.  I took the check from the bag and put it on the bed before I put the bag back in the closet.  Then walking to the den, I ripped the check into tiny pieces.  He didn’t turn around when I came in and to this day I don’t know if it was because he was afraid to look or because he knew me so well that he knew what my decision would be.  I let the pieces of the check flutter onto his desk and when he saw them falling, he swiveled in his chair, pulled me into his lap, and began kissing and caressing me.

After about five minutes, he stopped and looked into my face.  "Why?" was all he asked.

"Master, as usual, you really gave me no choice at all.  I could leave and go back to an empty, unfulfilled life as a free person, or I could remain here, in love with my Master, happy and knowing that I was important to someone.  What kind of a choice is that?"

He smiled and nodded before pushing me gently off his lap.  I immediately went to my knees waiting for his next order.  He motioned for me to follow him and we went downstairs and out the back.  His backyard had a high wall on each side with the back open to the ocean.  His nearest neighbor was over three hundred feet away, so I wasn’t worried about being seen.  In fact, I had been nude for so long now that I didn’t even think about getting clothes before going out.  The fresh sea air smelled wonderful and I enjoyed the feel of the warm sun on my skin.  I was kept so busy that I never had a chance to catch ‘cabin fever’ and my first trip outside in three months was a real treat.  I suppose a passing boat could have seen me, but we were several hundred feet from the shore and, as I said, clothes were the furthest thing from my mind.

He led me over to a large oak tree and told me to stand with my back against it facing the house.  When I did, he got some rope from the patio and brought it over to me.  Several loops went under my arms and around the tree before he tied it off.  The trunk was so thick that I couldn’t get my arms all the way around, so he tied one end of a rope to one wrist before pulling my other one back and tying the rope to my other wrist.  Three more loops of rope went around my stomach and the tree, then three more around my right leg and the tree just below my pussy.  The last three loops went around my right leg and the tree just above my knee.  I wondered why he left my left leg free.

He went over to the brick barbeque near the patio and started a charcoal fire.  He stood there watching it burn, not paying any attention to me for about twenty minutes.  He looked lost in thought so I didn’t do anything to distract him.  Finally, he put something into the coals, keeping it shielded from my view with his body before coming back to me.  He took a ball gag from his pocket and I obediently opened my mouth so he could put it in.  I leaned my head forward so he could buckle it behind my head without him having to tell me.  He went back to the grill and watched it for another ten minutes.  Then he took out the object he had put into the coals.  It was a long rod with a wooden handle and something stuck on the other end.  It took him a few moments to walk back to me holding the rod in his hand and a few moments longer before I realized what it was.

I started shaking my head back and forth, crying into the gag, trying to plead with him not to do this.  He knelt down in front of me and pressed the branding iron into my thigh, just below the hip.

I went wild with the pain as he held the iron steady for a few seconds.  My body, completely immobilized except for my head and left leg strained against the rope holding me to the tree, so much so that the skin was rubbed raw in a few places.  But I couldn’t even feel the rope tearing at my skin because of the pain in my thigh.  I never realized it when he pulled the branding iron back and dropped it on the ground.  I was shaking and twisting as much as I could, trying to flee the pain.  But there was no relief.

He went into the house and returned in a few minutes carrying a spray can with antiseptic.  He sprayed my thigh and the sting added nothing to the agony I was in.  Then he went back inside, leaving me bound to the tree.

This was nothing like the whippings I had received.  As bad as they were, when they were over, the pain subsided.  But not this time.  The pain went on and on and on, radiating outward from my thigh until my entire existence was the pain.  Eventually, I couldn’t stand it any more and my mind shut down as I passed out.  It was dark when I finally regained my senses.  While I was out, the pain had lessened from a burning agony of fire to a dull throbbing equivalent to a thousand toothaches.  I looked over to the house and saw that it was dark.  Master must have gone to bed, leaving me outside.

The sky was just starting to lighten when he came for me.  I had passed out again and he had to wake me.  Before he untied me from the tree, he kissed me and despite everything, I returned the kiss as hard as I could.  I think it was my way of thanking him for teaching me my slavery.  Up until then, I always knew in the back of my mind that I could end this whenever I wanted.  Now, branded with a hot iron, I was just as convinced that I was going to be a slave forever.  That iron had driven away any thoughts of any other kind of life.

Once I was free from the tree, Master locked my wrist cuffs together behind my back and helped me to the house.  We went down to the basement and he sprayed more antiseptic on my brand.  Then he had me back into my cage and locked the door.  He reached in and secured each of my ankles to one of the corner bars of the cage then reached in from the back and unlocked my wrists.  Each wrist cuff was then locked to one of the top corners of the cage so I could not lower my hands.  I remained in the cage for a week while the brand began to heal.  After the first day, when I was able to hold a thought for more than a few seconds, Master told me that I would remain in the cage until it healed with my hands behind my back so I couldn’t scratch it when it began to itch.  Master fed me through the bars and gave me some water through a straw.  Later that day, most of the pain was gone but the itching he had promised had started.  Twice a day, he sprayed the antiseptic, which helped for a few minutes.  I wanted to tear at my thigh, to rip the brand off my leg so the itching would stop.  But bound as I was, I couldn’t get to it.  I tried to lean forward, to use my breast to rub it, but I couldn’t touch it.  I tried to turn my knees inward, hoping I could rub my thighs together but I failed at that also.

After about four days, the itching finally stopped and I could really look at the brand.  It was an old English S, which Master said stood for slave.  He kept me in the cage for another three days to give it time to heal.  When he finally let me crawl out, he had me lie down on the floor and massaged my legs, arms, and back.

"I want you to spend lots of time in the gym over the next several days to get your muscle tone back," he told me as he pulled me to my feet.  I just wanted to go to sleep in a bed.  Probably the longest sleep I got in the cage was a couple of hours because it is so uncomfortable and cramped.  He took me up to the bedroom and put me to bed, chaining me by the collar.  A week later, I was feeling great.  One of the reasons he branded my thigh was so that I would see it whenever I was in the kneeling position, which was frequently.  After another week, we were back into our routine.

It was a Saturday late afternoon another week after that he told me to get upstairs and get cleaned up because we were having guests for dinner.  Until then, everything we had done was private, just between us.  The idea of having others see me as a slave gave me some pause.  He saw the look on my face and asked me what was wrong.  When I told him, he said not to worry; he had picked out something for me to wear.  I flew up the stairs to get ready, excited at the idea of spending an evening with people.  After a long, hot shower, I took my time fixing my hair and makeup.  I hadn’t thought about wearing clothes in so long that it was all I could think about.  Maybe it was an evening gown or a black cocktail dress.  Whatever it was, I knew it was going to be nice and that I would look gorgeous in it.

Just as I finished, Master came into the bedroom carrying a bag.  He put it on the bed and reached in, pulling out a thin strip of leather, like a bootlace.  He tied it around my waist with a knot in the back, not so tightly that it pinched.  In fact, it came up over my hips and hung down low in the front.  I wondered what he was doing when he reached into the bag and pulled out a piece of green silk.  It was a rectangle, about six inches wide and two and a half feet long.  He tucked an inch in the leather thong so the silk hung down between my legs.  Then he had me stand in front of the full length mirror while he talked to me.  What I saw was really sexy.  With the steel collar and cuffs, the green silk, the brand on my thigh, and the leather thong around my waist, all I could think of was that I was a harem slave in some Middle Eastern country.

"This is your coming out party, tonight, slave," he told me.  "If you can’t have some interaction with other people, you will go nuts.  But at the same time, I am unwilling to present you as anything other than a slave.  Not just a slave, but the sexiest, most beautiful woman who ever wore a collar.  I want you to revel in your slavery and to be proud of who and what you are.  It is not everyone who can make the choice you made.  It takes imagination and a great deal of intelligence to sacrifice your freedom in order to be the slave you were born to be.  Tonight is a test of that.  I know you will do well, even if you are unsure of yourself."

"Master, are you going to share me with others?"

"Honestly, I am not sure but I don’t think so.  It depends on how the evening goes, and how my guests react to you."

"Master, I want to please you, but honestly, Master, I am a little scared."

"I would be worried if you weren’t a little scared.  How did you feel when you first came here?"

"Not as scared as I am now, Master."

"Why?"

"Because then it was just a game, Master, a stupid bet.  You are very handsome, Master, and I thought I would get some great sex and a lot of money.  Little did I suspect that you would truly own me, possess me as your property.  Master, I know I am your slave, and would not have things any other way, but this is a public acknowledgement of something that I have accepted only in private.  That is what makes it scary."

"I understand, slave.  Now get downstairs and make dinner for four.  The food is out on the counter."

I ran downstairs and saw what he had laid out.  The feeling of the silk swishing between my legs was very erotic.  He jotted the menu down on a note next to the food.  Beef Wellington, grilled asparagus, baby red potatoes with garlic and butter, soft breadsticks, and Caesar salad.  There were two bottles of a very good Merlot on the counter that would need some time to breathe before being served and a bottle of vodka and some vermouth for martinis.  The note also said that everything had to be ready at 8:00 and the guests would arrive at 7:30.

I had plenty of time since it was only about six.  I took my time, making sure that everything was done perfectly and coordinating so that I would have everything set when they arrived.  As I worked, I thought about what the evening would be like, being naked (almost, the strip of silk hardly counted) in front of Master’s guests, serving them as the slave that I was, and how I would react to all of it.  I didn’t want to disappoint Master, not just because I didn’t want to be whipped which I knew I would be if I screwed up, but also because I knew this was important to him.  I also knew that it was important to me.  I had made a choice and if I couldn’t handle this, I knew that I was going to struggle with that for a very long time.  I did not doubt for one instant that Master was going to keep me as a slave as he had promised.  I knew I no longer had the choice to leave, to resume my old life, and exercise free will.  I did not feel trapped, exactly, because I had a very good idea what I was giving up when I accepted him as my Master.  It was more concern over my own reactions if I learned that I had made the wrong choice.

I had been thinking much more furiously than I worked in the kitchen, so much so that I didn’t hear the doorbell ring or Master let his guests in.  I had set the table with three places, even though I was preparing enough food for four, because I did not kid myself that Master would let me sit at the table with free people.  Master came into the kitchen and told me to make the martinis because the guests had arrived.  I quickly mixed the drinks and poured three glasses.  Then I took a few moments to compose the phrases I would use as I served them.  I put the glasses on a tray, picked it up and carried it in two hands to the living room.

I almost dropped the tray as I saw Rich and Sandy sitting on the couch.  Sandy looked up and cried out, "Oh, my God," while Rich sat there with his jaw hanging open.  I snuck a quick look at Master and saw the smile on his face at their reaction to my entrance.

I set the tray down and picked up the first martini.  I knew I had to serve the guests first, but which one?  Normally, it would be ladies first, but this was so far from a normal situation that I wasn’t sure the same rules applied.  I made a quick decision and, still holding the glass in two hands, went down on my knees in front of Rich.  I sat back on my heels, with my knees spread wide, thankful for the silk between my legs.  I kissed the glass once while caressing it and extended my arms and lowered my head, offering Rich the glass.  As I did, I used the first phrase.  "Master, please take this drink and anything else you desire from this slave."

When he took it from my hands, I stood up and got the next glass.  Kneeling down in front of Sandy, I repeated my actions but this time I said, "Mistress, a slave offers you drink and herself for your pleasure."  Sandy took the glass and drank it down in one big gulp as I stood to get Master’s drink.

When I offered it to him, I said, "Master, let me please you with drink and myself."

I stood up and went back into the kitchen.  I knew I had to make some more martinis because Sandy, at least, would need another one and I suspected Rich would want one, too.  As I started mixing them, Sandy came barreling into the kitchen.

"My God, Meagan, what do you think you are doing?" she yelled at me.

I turned around and knelt down, lowering my eyes, because a free person had entered the room I was in.  "Mixing more drinks, Mistress," I answered.

"That’s not what I meant and you know it.  Get up off the floor and look at me."

I stood up and looked at her, waiting.  She just stared back at me.  I was surprised when she took her eyes off my face and let them roam up and down my body.  Then she stared back into my eyes.  "Well?"

"Why are you wearing that collar and cuffs?  Where are your clothes?  What do you think you are doing, traipsing around in the altogether?

"Mistress, the collar is a sign that I am Master’s property, his slave.  The cuffs he keeps on my ankles and wrists make it easier for him to bind me when he feels he must.  The silk is what he has permitted me to wear this evening.  I have no other clothes."  When I finished, I remained standing facing her.

"Meagan, what in the hell has he done to you?"

One of the things you learn as a slave is to answer questions fully and completely.  I started explaining what had happened the first day when I showed up and she cut me off.

"Mistress, he has made me his slave.  Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"I understand that, but why?  Why have you agreed to this?"

"Mistress, that would take a long time to explain and I am not even sure that I can explain it.  Would Mistress be satisfied if I told her it makes me happy to please him?"

She stomped out of the kitchen and I returned to mixing the drinks.  After I served them, I went back to the kitchen to finish the dinner.  When everything was ready, I went to the living room and told Master that it was ready.  The three of them went to the dining room and sat down.

Serving kept me busy, first the salads, then the entrees and wine.  In the few minutes I had between serving them, I knelt by Master’s chair and he fed me.  Sandy didn’t talk much, but Rich and Master talked about me as if I wasn’t there.  Sandy kept glowering at Rich whenever he asked another question that got Master going again.  Finally, she stood up, her dinner only half eaten.  "I can’t take any more of this; listening to you two talk about this slut.  Rich, please take me home."

Clearly, Rich wasn’t interested in leaving so he tried to make a joke.  "Maybe you can help me make Sandy more obedient," he said looking at Master.

Sandy exploded, swearing and yelling at Rich and Master.  The upshot of it was that they were filthy perverts who would burn in hell, I was a whore, and she was the only one of the four of us who was the least bit sane.  Rich and Master had trouble suppressing their grins at the last part because she was ranting like a wild women and the three of us were very calm.  When she finally spent herself, Master asked her a question.

"Has Meagan done anything to offend you, Sandy?

This set her off again.  Prancing around naked, offering myself to her husband, spreading my legs at every opportunity, shaking my boobs in everyone’s face, and probably thirty or forty other things that I never did obviously offended her.

"Would you like to punish her?" Master asked Sandy.

"What do you mean punish her?"

"I mean would you like to punish her for offending you?  In all honesty, I can’t do it because she has done exactly what she was trained to do, and done it superbly."  I smiled to myself at the compliment as Master went on.  "But Meagan knows that she is subject to the whims of free people.  If you insist on it, I would not stop it."

"How would I punish her?" Sandy asked.

"The normal punishment is whipping, but there are other types of punishment.  You are limited only by your imagination and my wish to see my property maintained.  That means no cuts or scars, no crippling, and no burns."

Sandy looked over at me and asked if had really been whipped before.  When I told her I had, she told Master that she wanted to see the slut punished.  So once again I found myself with my hands drawn up over my head, standing on tiptoes.  As I hung, Master removed the leather thong and piece of silk that had been the only clothing I had worn in three months.  I missed the feel of it.

As I waited for my whipping (I could not call it punishment because I hadn’t really done anything wrong), something occurred to me.  Sandy had been my best friend and now she was calling me a slut and was about to whip me.  Since we hadn’t seen each other and talked only briefly, I realized that just seeing me as a slave had changed the entire dynamic of our relationship.  So what was it about seeing another woman as a slave that made her so angry that she wanted to hurt me?  Only two possible answers came to mind, although I will admit the possibility of others.  First, I had surrendered the gains women had made.  Neither Sandy nor I were ardent feminists but we both knew how the world worked and that men were essentially in control of it.  If you are not a woman, you might not be sensitive to that but I think most of the women I had ever talked to realized it and, to some degree, resented it.  My slavery was an acknowledgement of that fact in the most open way possible and it brought that resentment to the surface.

The second reason that came to me was that I was living a life she had only fantasized about.  At some point, many if not most women have dreamed about being enslaved.  Hardly any will ever admit it, and even fewer will act on it.  But since I had, it might be that Sandy resented my living of the fantasy because she knew she could never do it.

It takes much longer to write that then it did for me to think it.  It was only a few moments after I had been bound for all of it to flash through my mind.  When Sandy laid on the first stroke, my mind cleared itself of everything but dealing with the pain.  Sandy wasn’t as strong as Master, so the strokes didn’t hurt as much as his, but he usually stopped at ten.  When Sandy reached ten, I was crying a little, and grunting with each stroke but not screaming in agony the way I did when Master whipped me.  I expected Master to stop her and was surprised when he did not.  As Sandy continued, the pain built up, layer upon layer as she covered my back and thighs with the strokes.  I don’t know how many times I had been hit when I finally cried out for her to stop.  But it did not stop.  Master let her go on and on and now I was just hanging again from my wrists, my body covered in perspiration and my hair a tangled mess as I kept shaking my head no, begging her to stop.  When Master finally put a stop to it, Sandy dropped the whip and stood in front of me.  She lifted me back onto my feet and then held me close to her while she whispered how sorry she was in my ear.

"Mistress has nothing to be sorry for," I croaked, barely audible to her and unheard by Master and Rich.  "Let me please you, Mistress."

Sandy stepped back with a look of horror on her face and slapped me so hard my head snapped to the side.  She asked Master to put me on my knees and he did, lowering the rope enough that I could go down on my knees while keeping my hands held high.  She told the two men to turn around and when they did, she lifted her dress and pulled her panties down.  "Eat me, slave," she ordered.

I shook the hair out of my eyes and she stepped up to me.  I had never done a woman before but I knew what I liked when men had done me in the past and I tried to copy that.  I kissed and licked outside her slit for several moments before opening my mouth and pushing my tongue in.  I found her clit and began to lick it.  As I did, she grabbed the back of my head and pulled it tighter against her.  I was having trouble breathing, so hard did she press my face into her, but I managed to get some air into me as I kept up my attention to her.  After about five minutes, I felt her tremble a little and she pulled my head harder against her as she climaxed.  The orgasm went on and on with Sandy’s whole body shuddering, almost convulsing, with the climax.

It was funny, but as she stepped back, the only thing I thought of was how my make-up, so carefully applied, must be a mess because of the mixture of tears and Sandy’s fluid.

One of the things that I have not mentioned yet was that Master had installed a type of swing in the basement.  When he freed me, he placed me in the swing.  It was actually two swings; one that supported my bottom and one my shoulders so that I was parallel to the ground.  Other attachments kept my legs spread wide.  The first time Master had put me in it, he had explained that it kept both my vagina and mouth available for whoever wanted to use me.  Sandy’s action had opened the floodgates and I spent long hours in the swing that night, servicing Master, Rich, and Sandy over and over while they sat around drinking wine at first and then coffee.  Master even went upstairs and brought the desert I had made down so they could eat it between taking turns using me.  I lost track of how many times I brought them to a climax but it was close to dawn before they finished with me.  By that time, I had had several orgasms myself from the men being inside me and was actually feeling good, although tired.

Rich and Sandy were gone when Master finally took me down from the swing.  We lay on the floor with my head on his shoulder, too tired to even go upstairs and get cleaned up.  "You did well tonight, slave," Master told me.  "So well, that I want to reward you."

"Thank you, Master."

"Aren’t you curious about your reward, slave?"

"Yes, Master, but I am sure you will tell me when you are ready."

"You were born to be a slave, weren’t you?"

"Apparently, Master," I laughed.

"Do you know what a slave name is?"

"No, Master."

"Since I own you, I can call you anything I want.  While Meagan is a very pretty name, Meagan really doesn’t exist anymore.  That part of your life is over and done with.  For three months, I have addressed you as slave but now I want to give you your slave name.  From now on you are Tara."

"Thank you, Master.  It is a beautiful name."

"Just remember, you can lose it just as fast as I gave it to you if you displease me."

"I will try to please you, Master.  Thank you for naming me."

Later that day, after we had showered and slept, Master went out.  When he returned, he had a disk that he affixed to my collar permanently by soldering the ring closed.  On one side it says, "I am the slave Tara."  On the other it says, "I am the property of _____________ ____________."  I have worn that disk on my collar for five years now and can barely remember what my life was like as Meagan.  And I don’t ever regret that day I met the dinner guest.