Chains in Mind Page 5

  The paper was where he had left it. He knelt up, keeping his hands at his sides, and grabbed it with his teeth. To get a grip, he had to drag it to the edge of the table first, and then hold it in a way that didn’t scatter individual sections on the floor, or get it wet with his mouth; but he had put it on the table earlier with some thought for this: his mistress gave this order at breakfast more often than not. He got a grip, and returned to his hands and knees.

  He nosed his way through the door back into the rear hall and crawled to his owner. He knelt up, his hands at his sides, still holding the paper in his teeth, and waited. After a few moments, she deigned to notice him, and took it.

  “Good boy,” she said idly. Harry blushed. He could hardly contain his pleasure at being praised by her; she was in a good mood today.

  A whim seemed to come to her. “Hubert,” she said, with a glance at Ms. Watson for tacit permission - Hubert wasn’t hers - “go and bring Harry’s breakfast feed, in a big shallow bowl.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He bowed his head, and hurried off, down the back stairs to the kitchen. He thought he knew what she had in mind, so he selected a large trencher, and ladled out a generous portion of the cold porridge that was the staple of the slave diet.

  When he got back, Ms. Denton snapped her fingers, and pointed to the floor under the table. Harry was still in position, kneeling at her left elbow, so Hubert moved round to her right. Yes, his guess had been correct: as he got down to place the great platter in position, she kicked off her pretty wedge-heeled mule slippers. Without being ordered, he collected the slippers and put them out of the way at the back of her chair, before returning to his place, standing behind Ms. Watson.

  Ms. Denton smiled. “Harry, today you may eat off my feet.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mistress.” He must have guessed what she intended, but still he turned scarlet with delight at the privilege. He returned to all fours, and crawled under the table.

  His mistress had already planted her right foot squarely into his breakfast, and then crossed her right leg over her left. Harry approached her foot with his mouth. In situations such as this, he knew that he did not have permission to restrain her foot with his hands in any way: it was up to him to bring his mouth to wherever her foot happened to be, and if he accidentally got kicked in the face, well, that was his own carelessness.

  He kept his hands on the floor, and began licking her instep, swallowing the bland oatmeal as he went. When he reached her skin, the slight saltiness of her actually improved the flavour, even without considering his deep yearning for any kind of contact with the light of his life. The curve of her instep was soft and smooth and firm. He ran his tongue along it in great sweeps, not just the tip but the whole width of his tongue. He moaned quietly with satisfaction, his eyes momentarily closing with joy. He moved on to her toes, getting his tongue well into each of the crevices between them. Her toenails scraped his tongue: perhaps she needed a pedicure, he thought; but it was not his place to suggest such a thing: if she wanted one, she would tell him. The remnants of nail-varnish remover made the nails bitter, too; his face puckered as he worked over them.

  He needed to get round to reach the outside of her foot, but he couldn’t do it under the table: the feet of Ms. Watson were only a foot away, as she sat opposite, so there wasn’t room. He left off, and crawled out from under the table, round the back of his mistress’s chair, and back under from the other side. Ms. Denton paid him no attention: she was engrossed in the newspaper.

  The outside edge of her foot was rougher. Harry would have liked it if he could have rubbed away some of the hard skin with his tongue, doing her a service while he ate, but his tongue was too soft, and his teeth too blunt: he was no substitute for a piece of emery board and a proper pedicure, and anyway his mistress was not precious about such things.

  To get at the sole of her foot, he needed to turn over onto his back; he supported himself on his elbows, raising his face to meet her foot. Her leg was swinging slightly now, but as she felt the pressure of his mouth underneath, she pressed down slightly, and ran her foot, idly, back and forth over his face. He moaned again, very quietly: this was heavenly. He could hear a rustle as she moved onto a new page of the paper.

  After a while, when she could feel that her right foot was clean, Ms. Denton swapped over, planting her left in the platter of porridge and then crossing her legs the other way. Harry worked on steadily, applying his tongue and his lips to her pretty feet. She would be having her shower straight after breakfast, of course; otherwise, she would never have allowed herself to be coated with saliva.

  Ms. Watson put down the magazine section that she had taken.

  “So, Susan, what are your plans for today?”

  Ms. Denton pouted in thought, and played with her hair. “Nothing important. Why?”

  “Well, I thought you might sit in and make sure you know what John and James are up to.”

  “Yes, okay.” She sat up straighter, and underneath the table her foot moved a little, catching Harry a blow across the nose. He winced, but stayed quiet and kept licking. It was easy to guess what she was thinking: even arbitrary power brought its responsibilities, if one wanted to keep it, and the main one was understanding how it was being wielded.

  “I’ve got time for my morning drive, first, right?”

  “Oh, certainly. John should be here at ten.”

  That wasn’t when John Sallis started work, Harry and Hubert both knew. John, unknown to his staff, slept in a locked cupboard marked ‘Miscellaneous Stores’ in the basement of his own offices, and was at his desk from six thirty in the morning until ten thirty at night, running the business for his mistress. He was tethered in his cupboard during the night, and to his desk during the day, by the same system that was used on Hubert, a discreet cable passing from the underside of his desk into his trouser pocket and so to his groin. He normally ran the business by phone, calling people to his office as necessary, but if he did need to leave his desk unexpectedly, he could phone Ms. Watson, and, if she agreed with his reasons, she could send a signal to allow him to disconnect.

  The communications in both directions were handled by a private virtual network running over the internet: Hubert had installed the terminal in Ms. Watson’s study that gave her phone access and access to high-resolution images from the company surveillance system.

  Hubert was Ms. Watson’s first slave, although she didn’t seem sentimental about that fact. Three years ago, she had gone to a great many amateur boxing matches, looking for a male she liked who could fight, and he had caught her eye. When she discovered also that by day he was a car mechanic, competent with both electrics and welding, then the decision was made, and she acquired him at the first opportunity. He had made most of the unusual devices in her home, including the locked control device currently encircling his own genitals; he had made Ms. Denton’s pony-cart, and rebuilt the rocking horse from the innocuous toy that Ms. Watson had bought. It pleased him to think how useful he was to her.

  His mistress looked at her watch, and swigged her coffee. Alerted, Hubert had already got hold of her chair as she started to rise, and, unbidden but in accordance with her normal routine, he followed at her heel as she went upstairs to shower and dress.

  Chapter Six

  Susan Denton got out of the shower, took a towel from the rail, and dried herself. Most days, she liked to tease Harry, making him hold up the towel and keep his eyes averted, while she turned her back so that he could drape it round her shoulders; making him kneel in front of her and dry her feet; but she didn’t really have time to spare today, and it was quicker to do it herself. She had told him what clothes to set out for her, and then to get straight on with his gardening duties. Looking after the grounds was more than a full-time job for one person, and Harry rarely got any help. Instead, he got blisters, labouring from early morning until his mistress got up, whe
never he wasn’t needed elsewhere during the day, and going back out after waiting at the dinner table, until it was too dark to see. Today he was still, obviously, pathetically grateful for having been given the honour of licking his morning feed off her feet, and that amused her.

  She liked Harry like a favourite toy. She would have liked to keep him in attendance on her all the time, not only for practical convenience, but also because it so clearly tormented him to be so close to the object of all his desires, and yet not be allowed to touch her. But having him do the gardening was her contribution to the running of the house, and Katherine thought it was extravagant to have too many slaves around doing nothing useful. Susan had made her decision on the distribution of work between her two slaves, and was happy with it.

  She dressed quickly in black-tinted tights, a white cotton blouse, and a tight-fitting black leather mini-skirt, with matching leather waistcoat. She put on some soft-soled, slip-on, plimsoles, and then checked herself in the mirror while tying back her hair into a pony-tail. She looked absurdly young, in the flat pumps. She grinned at her reflection. Life was good.

  Sauntering downstairs and out of the back of the house, she made her way a hundred yards west of the main building, to where the cart shed nestled, half-hidden, within a stand of trees. It was another beautiful day in late spring, and the leaves on the trees looked fresh and new in the sunshine. Wearing her leather waistcoat, she was just warm enough in the light, cool, breeze. It would be hotter, later in the day. She arrived at the old wooden shed, about the size of a double garage. She pushed back the old-fashioned wooden beam that barred the double doors, pulled them open, making the hinges groan, and went inside.

  There were no windows, but now that the doors were open, there was plenty of light. In front of her was the cart, canted forward, with the end of the black, metal, shaft resting on the floor at her feet. Lined up in a neat row against the wall to her right, were ten pairs of her boots in different styles, ankle high and knee high, even a thigh-high pair. They gleamed. Three different cartwhips hung on display above them, against the bare wooden boards of the shed, and further along the wall was the tack.

  To her left was George, just where she had left him. It wasn’t too surprising that he hadn’t moved, because there was a small steel ring welded to the front of his steel collar, and a chain ran through it. Both ends of the chain went through a two-inch steel hoop set solidly in the concrete floor, and then went up vertically to be secured over a hook set in a beam nine feet overhead. George could not move his neck more than two and a half feet from the hoop in the floor in any direction: the hook in the beam was hopelessly out of reach, and it also had a little catch, to prevent any possibility that he might flick the chain free.

  Just to the left of the steel hoop and the vertical column of chain, there was a wooden pallet: much like a common goods pallet, it was made of rough wood, about six feet long, three feet wide, and four inches high. There was also a quantity of loose straw. These things, in Susan’s opinion, represented her thoughtfulness and care: they let the naked boy get off the cold concrete floor, and cover himself at night.

  On the far side of the pallet, but still within the boy’s reach, was a closed metal bucket and a roll of toilet paper. Susan didn’t have to concern herself: just another little job that Harry had to deal with. On the near side, was his food bowl. Following her instructions, for breakfast George was always given anything that Susan had left uneaten on her plate the day before. Congealed gravy; apple cores; half-drunk cups of tea; half-eaten sprouts; fat and gristle, fish skins. It was all scraped or slopped into his bowl, and then his ration was topped up, depending on the quantity of leavings, with milled oats. She checked that his bowl was empty. He had left a particularly disgusting bit of gristle once: she had deduced that he was getting too much to eat, and hadn’t fed him for four days. He never left anything again.

  Next to the bowl was George’s drinking bucket, full of water. It smelled pleasantly of apricots and lavender, but when one looked closer, there was a scum visible on the surface. Again following her orders, Harry kept several buckets of used bathwater from her latest bath - which was just yesterday in this case - and provided one per day. There was plenty, and George needed it, because the dry oats were almost inedible without a lot of moistening.

  George was lying on his pallet, looking up at her, alertly. He did not attempt to speak. Nine months ago she had told him not to talk, and she had never rescinded the order: he hadn’t managed to articulate a word since.

  “And how are we, today?” she asked him, cheerily.

  He made a noise implying neither great joy nor great distress, which was about as specific as he could get. One of the boots she had worn yesterday was on the floor in front of him, and the other was in his hands. Clearly, he had been licking it when she arrived.

  “You soppy thing, George.” she told him. “I’ve told you before: you have to tongue-polish my boots after every outing, but really twenty minutes should be enough to get a shine. Half an hour at most: that’s all that’s required. But if you really want to carry on ....”

  He made an affirmative sound, that also contained a note of confusion and puzzlement.

  “Well, I wouldn’t dream of forbidding you.” She took the boots away from him, and put them with the others against the wall. Once a week, Harry took them all away to give them a restorative application of boot polish; but there was a secret that Harry wasn’t allowed to tell: Susan regularly bought a quantity of the special chewing gum that was designed to help people quit smoking, and Harry had to extract the nicotine from it, and mix it with the boot polish. The result was that George spent most of his time licking her boots, and didn’t know why he found it so compelling. Susan smirked to herself about her cleverness, as she turned to the cart.

  She didn’t quite know why she had done these things, but it warmed her to know that George would discover not only what she had had for dinner the night before, but which parts she hadn’t liked; he would know when she had indulged in a soak in the bath, and which bath-oils she had chosen, and even if he couldn’t actually taste her sweat, he would know it was there. And when she was relaxing elsewhere, reading or watching television, she knew he was here, probably still licking her boots, waiting for her to use him. It made a bond between them, even an intimate bond, although they hardly touched. She thought George felt it too, the attachment they shared.

  She lifted the end of the shaft easily and pulled it left, turning the whole cart to face more towards George. She just had to give him a nod: instantly he jumped up to his hands and knees and moved to straddle the shaft that she had brought within reach. He faced forward and waited, remaining motionless, in position, as she went back and forth, fetching each piece of tack. First came the leather sleeves. They slipped on over each of his hands, and were then tightened with lacing up the inside of each forearm; Susan tied them off with a tight double bow just below each elbow. As soon as they were on, she clipped them to the shaft, using metal D-rings sewn into the sleeves at wrist and elbow.

  Next came the heavy leather hip belt, which buckled on, and the leather strap dangling from it, that passed round the shaft, through a metal loop on the underside, and back up to the belt. She put on a pair of thick leather gauntlets, like those of a falconer, for this part of the job, because she had to push his genitals back out of the way to see what she was doing, as she squatted beside him and pulled the strap firmly. George submitted without a sound of complaint, as he was manhandled with the rough gloves.

  Already he was helplessly attached to the cart. She stood up and took off her gloves, then went over to the row of boots, to choose which to wear.

  “How about these?” she asked him, holding one up. It was an ankle boot with a pointed toe and a three-inch stiletto heel, in black leather. Prominent lacing, with a double row of shiny metal cleats, went all the way up the front, which was a couple of inche
s higher than the back, giving the boot an assertive, thrusting, look.

  George turned his head to look, and made a sound of agreement or acquiescence. Susan smiled and kicked off her plimsoles.

  “I’m glad you agree,” she said, carrying the boots over to him. She sat down on his back, and put them on, lacing them up carefully. She stood and turned, and stepped up onto his back, the heels immediately making indentations in his flesh. She could just hear a little involuntary gasp from his throat. From this height she could easily unclip the ends of the chain from the hook in the beam. She stepped down, and pulled the chain through, releasing him.

  He waited patiently as she went to fetch the bridle. It was not modelled on a horse bridle: it consisted of three leather straps sewn together: one went round the head, one over the head from front to back, and one over the head from side to side; together they made a single skullcap that fitted on the head, and secured under the jaw with an adjustable fourth strap. Susan pulled it tight.

  The bit assembly had two parts. First, a bite bar of wood, about as thick as a finger, fixed in place in his mouth by two rigid side bars, that ran flat against his cheeks and attached to the bridle just in front of the ear. As the name implied, George could bite on it, where it sat against his pre-molars: it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable.

  Behind the bite bar, was the real bit: a sharp-cornered rod of metal thinner than the bite bar - about as thick as a pencil - that spanned across between the side bars, and through slots cut through them, to end in little metal loops that retained it in position. The bit was free to slide along the long slots in the side bars, from the bite bar at the front, right back as far as the flesh of his cheeks would stretch, and the bite bar prevented George from closing his teeth on it. The reins were attached to the metal loops in each end.