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“Two weeks later, before the opening night of the symphony season, he stopped me in the hallway just a half hour before the curtain was to rise. ‘In my dressing room,’ he says. I hadn’t been with him again since that first day, and I was a little anxious about that. Of course, I knew the whole arrangement was dangerous, but I wanted it even if it was. He’d been the only thing in my mind, and I know Cabral could see that in my eyes every time I looked at him during rehearsal. I went to the dressing room just as he ordered. He stared at me, like he’d stared at me in the motel room, then said, ‘Take off your panties.’ I was all dressed up, make-up perfect, my clothes immaculate, you know me, I won’t go on stage otherwise. This could get ugly, I’m thinking, but I lifted my skirt and removed my panties and handed them to him. He proceeded to drop them in his trash can and turned back to me, ‘Unzip your dress and straddle the chair,’ he pointed to a straight back chair he’d placed there for the occasion. I did as he asked, drawing the zipper down my back, my head bowed like a measly slave girl, then I climbed on the chair, having to hike the skirt up around my waist. I could imagine the wrinkles forming in the cloth. Something Cabral wouldn’t care about. I shrugged the dress off my shoulders and leaned into the back of the chair, as I offered my flesh for the braided flogger he had clasped in his hand. I held my breath and tucked my head, while the ferocity of his wrath rained on me again. It might have been a small flogger, but this was a lively one, jumping across my skin like a cunning joker, cutting my flesh to shreds, to the point just before it started to bleed. My naked cunt rocked against the wooden seat; I ground it in harder, the harder he whipped me, mewling softly as the rush of endorphins carried me away. He whipped me until he exhausted himself, maybe about five minutes, almost non-stop. The punishment was horrific and wonderful, but I couldn’t imagine recovering enough to play my solo—which would begin no more than fifteen minutes after the opening curtain.”
Elise paused, her eyes connected with both Sandra and the mesmerized Laney.
“Both of you were there that night, in the second row.”
“Yes, and you played like an angel, Elise,” Laney remembered.
“I know. He made me a better pianist and I made him sane enough to be brilliant.” Elise smiled. “I asked him later how he knew about the brand. ‘How do I know these things? I have no idea,’ he said. We don’t talk about why I have to do this. He knows I’ll do anything he asks. He likes thinking of me as the over-the-hill woman. I don’t think of myself that way. Not at all. I still feel foolish being dominated by this horny, overachieving kid. He’s still dating starlets, going to head-banging nightclubs, downloading hip-hop to his I-Pod and ‘IM-ing’ his Gershwin trio friends about the cute cunt with the big boobs in the first row of the string section. Dammit!” her emotions rose and her shame twisted in her gut. “I’m so deeply into this man—I couldn’t extricate myself from him without severely damaging my career. And, of course, Matthew knows nothing about it,” she took a deep breath, as she finally reached the end.
She looked up, as if a great load had been lifted off her weary shoulders. “So, now I’ve told you everything.”
All was quiet in Elise’s living room for a long time. The pretty, chestnut-haired pianist had talked herself hoarse, maybe as much as she’d ever talked at one time.
Laney commented first, “So this had nothing to do with the Island, or the Marquis…?”
“Nothing.” Elise thought a moment. “Not as far as I know. How would Cabral know about that scene? He’s just a kid from New York, who took Julliard by storm and now has taken over me. I keep thinking he’ll tire of me, and I weep about that. He even had me here, in my own house just last week, in my own bed, in Matthew’s bed. I did get him to promise he wouldn’t take those chances again, but if he showed up on my doorstep now, I’m not sure I could send him away.”
“What if during one of the little scenes before a performance, someone just walks into his dressing room?” Sandra asked, sounding shell-shocked by the torrent of raw passion behind Elises’s story.
“I try not to think about that.”
“So, does he use you often?” she probed further.
“So far, every week. Sometimes after rehearsal, sometimes before, sometimes the motel or his apartment—but only once at his apartment. I’m not a girlfriend, I’m his whipping girl. That distinction has been made very clear. I probably need to speak to him about discretion, since he’s as deeply into this as I am, and it would be damning to both of us.”
“Be careful, Elise, and be careful with Matthew,” Laney warned. “Could you imagine what he’d say, what he’d do?”
“I’m as careful as I’m going to be, Laney. Maybe I have a handle on this, maybe not. But I don’t expect it to stop anytime soon. The island made me fair game, vulnerable to creative sadists…what did it make you?” she paused. “What about you? You started this, you begged us for these confessions.”
“Begged? I don’t remember that.”
“Oh, but Laney, you have this way about you. You’ve always been an instigator, a goad. You know that.”
“My story is more simple than either of yours.” Laney smiled, unable to hide now. “As you already know, Erik and I got pretty deeply involved with Domination and submission. Now since his death, I’ve become famished…so thirsty for sex that I feel as though I’m crawling in the desert gasping for water…and none comes. I can’t continue on like this. I know it’s only been six months, but I can’t wait as my desires grow stronger every day. That’s why I’m taking off next week—call it a vacation, I really don’t know what it will turn out to be, but I’m returning to Marquis Island.”
“What? Why?” the two women chimed in at the same time, both completely baffled.
Laney held up her arm and the bracelet that encircled it. The metal gleamed yellow in the light of the flickering candles and the fire, which was nearly out.
“This is the Marquis’ bracelet,” she said. “Several months before Erik died, he met someone; I never knew exactly who he was, I never met the man. I only know that he was a member of the Marquis’ elite circle of masters. He gave Erik the bracelet and then Erik gave it to me and I agreed to wear it. In doing that, I surrendered myself to a way of life, to rules, and an extreme form of sexuality that gave me more satisfaction than I could ever have otherwise. I put my life in Erik’s hands, and because I accepted this bracelet, I became bound to the Marquis. I know it sounds extreme, but I have to pursue this; I can’t let the promise of this bracelet end with Erik’s death.”
The two women stared in stunned silence at the bracelet they had assumed was a gift from Erik; they knew it was inscribed, although they’d never seen the actual inscription.
Laney showed them the inscription now: Property of the Marquis.
The pair sat back, mouths open in astonishment.
“If I am the Marquis’ property, then I need to find him.”
Chapter Two
Dozens of boats formed a forest of masts that rose high above her head. The docks were crowded and hot, the humid air sweltering, except when a breeze came in off the ocean and momentarily cooled the skin. Laney was the picture of a classy, sexual woman, dressed casually in a pair of white shorts and a yellow halter top that nicely accentuated her hourglass figure, her ample chest and her tawny skin. The hint of her nipples was visible at first glance, in style with fashion but not bold enough to assault the eye. She wore a broad-brimmed sun hat to shade her face from the intense Caribbean sun, a pair of dark tortoise-shell sunglasses, and the Marquis’ platinum bracelet, along with several silver bangles on her left arm.
Laney shuddered with remembrance as she walked along the docks toward the boat rental hut, trying to push away thoughts of Erik. This wasn’t about Erik anymore; he hadn’t deigned to stay in her life. Sometimes she was very angry about his death. She resented his checking out so early with so many questions left unanswered. Not the least of which was the mystery of the bracelet he’d placed around her wrist in a ceremony that signaled a deeper union between them as Owner and property, Master and slave—she was still not completely sure how Erik would have described them. Now Erik didn’t matter. She belonged to the Marquis, not her dead husband.
Sandra had Essex. Elise had her blonde boy conductor. And Laney had nothing but the bracelet. There were other options, certainly; cutting it off being one. But finding the man who owned it, who owned her seemed to be the only option she’d consider.
For months, Laney had believed that some unknown stranger might arrive on her doorstep and announce themselves as the Marquis—or his agent. Erik’s death had been public enough; anyone who knew him, knew he’d died. Learning that Essex had been in contact with Sandra confirmed that the masters from Marquis Island still had their eyes on the three women. But still no one came to claim her…or even use her. Why? The question begged an answer and consumed her thoughts for hours on end.
