Dee sat on the hard wooden chair, her back stiff, her shoulders aching from the tension of holding them immobile for over an hour. Lounging beside her on an overstuffed chesterfield was Armande DeMartande, one of her captors.
"He's such a perfectionist, don't you think?" Armande asked, gesturing with a meaty, be-ringed hand at her other captor, his partner Lariat whom Dee could see clearly through the two way mirror she and Armande faced.
"Yes. Very detailed," she admitted with grudging admiration as Lariat, with a large brush in hand, highlighted with blusher the cheekbones of the man who stood, bound hand and foot, before him.
That man, that captive, was Xavion. But the change Lariat had wrought in him was so disconcerting Dee found it difficult to look at him for more than a few seconds. It was easier to return her attention to the artisan, now reaching for a lipstick, dithering for a moment before selecting a pearlescent shade of coral pink which he applied with a fine brush to Xavion's stiffly held lips.
Dee watched Lariat's thin fingers intently, fascinated by their translucent quality. More like the tentacles of a deep sea creature than anything belonging to a human, they moved with an odd fluidity — a stickiness, as though once having touched something, they found it difficult to disengage.
Dee hadn’t yet 'been' with Lariat, not that he hadn't intrigued her — a ruined English Lord who, in his faded black tuxedo, looked more like an anaemic, overgrown schoolboy than a member of the aristocracy. With his colourless scraggly hair and washed-out watery eyes, everything about Lariat was pale, even his voice which had the habit of fading out in the middle of a sentence, as though he were continually drifting back to some confusing past.
To Dee, Lariat was like the melancholy inhabitant of a Poe story, driven to madness by the wretchedness of humanity. He fascinated her. But Armande would not let her mate with him. And Armande was her new master.
So it was with some wistfulness that she watched Lariat's ministrations, pouting her own full lips as he filled in the line of Xavion's, undaunted by her Champion's jaw-clenched resistance.
"Watch closely, cherie, and you will learn," Armande instructed quietly, and Dee nodded. She wanted to learn. She had already learnt much from Armande.
Her first impression of him — when she'd been dragged aboard his submarine, an aeon, or perhaps only a few weeks earlier — had been his resemblance to Pietre. An older brother, as it turned out. A heavier, moodier DeMartande, but with the same dark, autocratic features as her previous captor.
Yet where Pietre had been reclusive, his brother was a social animal. Not genial, but verbose. Dee had learned many things. That the brothers were not on friendly terms. That Armande had stolen her on a whim to see how Pietre would react. That Xavion, whom he claimed to be retraining for his own service, had been a present from Belle.
There had been many revelations, yet not once had Armande substantiated Long Shadow's claim about Pietre's criminal activities. Conversely, Armande had stated that both brothers were independently wealthy and had no use for work of any kind. Dee herself had been with Armande for weeks — given free run of the ship — and had seen nothing illegal.
Admittedly she was a prisoner, but once the 'rules' had been explained and she'd started into the game, her captivity had been more symbolic than enforced. The pleasures offered were ample inducement to stay, even if the choices were not her own.
And so she began to doubt the man she'd thought she loved, remembering that Long Shadow had lied to her about other things. Could his attack on Pietre's character have been a lie as well? Fostered by jealousy, perhaps.
Long Shadow hadn't wanted to share her, yet for all his professed love, he hadn't come after her either — hadn't tried to 'rescue' her from these pirates.
Even Belle's attempt to kill her could have been staged. Dee's injuries had been painful and unpleasant, but she'd never believed they were potentially fatal. And the resulting fear and gratitude had given her interchange with Long Shadow a piquancy it would never have achieved without the life-and-death scenario that had instigated it.
These were matters on which Dee had spent much time in thought, and her deliberations had led her to the conclusion that Long Shadow had been playing a part.
She also accepted now that Pietre was not a God. He was simply a man who had promised to entertain her with a fantasy — an obligation he had fulfilled to her complete satisfaction.
If he chose to take his own pleasure in watching her, she of all people could hardly complain.
Seen in this light, her interlude with 'the pirates' would obviously be a continuation of that fantasy, a realistic kidnapping to heighten her jaded sexual palate — an opportunity she intended to exploit to its maximum sensory gratification.
Emotions had no place in the game and she'd been a fool to let Long Shadow lure her into exposing them. But as she had done with Billy before, she now pushed Long Shadow from her mind.
Yet he was not banished completely. His love gift still adorned her neck for a simple, practical reason. Her life had become a blur of sexual fantasies and she needed a method of differentiating between imagination, dreams and actual events. Physically touching the talisman grounded her in reality. It was real, even when her own actions seemed too bizarre to be believed — actions dictated by her master, Armande.
Initially she'd resisted Armande's control, but now her will was his plaything. In obedience, Dee had discovered a freedom from responsibility that was as intoxicating as it was erotic.
The tiny room before her was one she had often been sent to, and now, seated in the viewing room, she understood why. Armande would have lain in comfort on the very lounge he now occupied, with Lariat on the uncomfortable chair as suited his masochistic personality, both watching her 'perform' with whomever Armande had sent for the purpose.
Outside the small room, she had raided the showers on several occasions, and once included herself on the menu in the mess hall. Her days had been filled with these episodes, all explorations of variety and texture, sounds and scents as adjuncts to the act. Pain and satisfaction, surprise and inventiveness. She had become a mistress of technique. The only woman on the vessel, she had been charged with servicing them all. All except Lariat.
The omission irked her, but perhaps in time, Armande would reconsider.
For the moment, she had enough to please her appetite — teasing entrees, satisfying main courses, luxurious desserts, not to mention the obligatory 'nightcap' with Armande.
At the end of each performance she would shower and present herself at his suite which she entered without knocking, interrupting whatever he was doing to sprawl across his desk.
There would be no light in the room except for the desk lamp which he would angle over her body before seating himself in the darkness beside her. Then he would wait.
And so would Dee, until the tension grew too great in her and she would begin, relating in a husky whisper the tale of her obedience, touching herself intimately as she lingered over every lurid detail; the taste of the man's skin, of his sex, the way they'd touched each other if she'd let herself be touched, how it had made her feel — shivering with expectation or hot and demanding — the words she'd used to bend him to her will, or the look in his eyes as she'd teased him mercilessly.
Armande never spoke at these times, and neither did he touch her. It was only her words he wanted, the picture. And so Dee painted it for him as vividly as she could, recalling each of the five senses.
Vividly enough, it seemed, as always before she reached her pleasure she would hear his, the sound of his grunt as the warm fluid spurted over her body.
This evidence of his pleasure was the signal for her to leave and she would do so wordlessly, never knowing whether he'd touched himself, or if her words alone had caressed his organ into its ecstatic eruption.
Pausing only to shower again, she would return to her own room to sleep, oblivious to everything but the necessity of resting her tired body. Armande's inventiveness exhilarated, but also exhausted her.
The previous night he'd instructed her to tie a sailor to his bed and tease him for two hours which she'd done entirely with her fingernails, flicking lightly at times, while at others sinking them deep into the tender flesh — armpits, instep, groin.
She'd enjoyed that — the pain, more so than the pleasure she'd given him. Pleasure, Dee had discovered, was easily conferred, but to inflict a pain the recipient would appreciate — there was an art she was only beginning to understand.
Pain, and restraint. At the end of the two hours, she filled her hands with warm avocado and masturbated him, slowly. The visual stimulus was increased. His room-mates, who had been waiting impatiently, were now allowed to take her from behind, jabbing into her in rapid succession, jarring her hand as she continued to frustrate the sailor. She remembered particularly the envy in his eyes as he'd watched them taking what he wanted.
The body-memory of it too, was still strong in her mind and she wondered if that was the reason she was feeling a tingle of arousal at the scene before her, when as yet, nothing of a sexual nature had occurred. Was it anticipation? She was sure something would happen.
"You see why I didn't send you to Lariat?" Armande asked, and Dee nodded, beginning to understand. "You simply weren't pretty enough for him."
It wasn't an insult. She could see exactly what Armande meant. Lariat's surprisingly deft makeup application had smoothed away the masculine bone structure and enhanced Xavion's already-large blue eyes in such a way that Dee was sure no heterosexual male could resist them. The full lips that had dominated hers so masterfully were now advertisements for a very feminine, kissable mouth.
The cropped hair had grown into a cap of black ringlets which Lariat had threaded with strings of pearls and a pink satin cape concealed Xavion's muscular shoulders. Underneath that cape, his arms were tied behind his back, and inside the room, out of her sight, stood a guard with a gun.
Dee believed the captivity to be staged, as were her performances, but the props excited her all the same. She wondered whether Lariat would 'discipline' Xavion if he resisted. She hoped so. The thought of watching those beautiful, coral-pink lips part in a moan made her shiver with excitement.
Avidly, she slid her gaze down past the loose cape to settle on Xavion's hips. Wrapped in a pink leather skirt, those hips were slinky enough to distract her from the slight bulge at the front, and the skirt short enough to draw her attention lower to the smoothly shaven legs lovingly encased in pale pink stockings. His large feet had been disguised by a pair of high-heeled boots and his ankles bound with matching pink nylon cord.
The overall effect should have looked like something out of Le Girls, but to Dee who was so open to sexual experience, Xavion had become more overtly sexual a woman than she could ever hope to be. The transformation was startling, yet more shocking was her own reaction to Xavion's new femininity. She found herself responding to him in a masculine way, wanting to master him, to thread her hands through those soft curls and push him down to his knees. She longed to be a man with a throbbing, hard penis she could press into his mouth. She wanted to see those coral lips work the tip and then slide wetly down to the base.
Her loins grew hotter as she imagined the sensations that would flow from that penis. Involuntarily she squirmed on her seat.
"Still," Armande commanded and she instantly obeyed, but between her thighs the flesh cried out to be touched.
"I've always wanted Xavion," Armande remarked a moment later as Lariat lay his brushes aside and stepped behind his victim to cup those leather clad buttocks in his pale octopus hands. "His skills were wasted with Pietre."
Dee, so full of her own sexual needs, wasn't sure which skills Armande was talking about. "I want Xavion too," she said simply.
To which Armande replied, "I know."
Lariat was fondling Xavion's buttocks now but his victim stared straight ahead, eyes unreadable. Dee wished she knew whether Xavion was adverse to his fate. His ambivalence towards Josh had made her believe he was bisexual, but this… This was not something she would ever have imagined Xavion would willingly participate in. He'd been so masculine a man, so innately dominant a sexual partner that the idea of watching him submit to another male made her stomach churn, whether in fear or excitement she wasn't sure.
Would he truly be made to do something he didn't want? Was he really a captive?
Lariat was standing behind Xavion, his lean body a stick-insect caricature in the baggy tuxedo, yet he looked like a man next to Xavion. It had to be the makeup, Dee thought, entranced by the delicate beauty Lariat had wrought, as though his brushes and tints had somehow drawn feminine cells from beneath Xavion's skin to replace the masculine. Yet the body, beneath the candy-apple clothes, was still that of a man.
The tight skirt moved then and she noticed one of Lariat's hands had insinuated itself between Xavion's legs. It appeared to be fondling his scrotum. Dee looked back up and thought she saw a flicker of emotion cross Xavion's face.
"See," Armande whispered. Dee nodded. The front of the skirt was bulging in an obvious way.
Lariat's hand rose higher under the skirt to fondle that bulge. His other hand was stroking under the cape at Xavion's shaved chest, his groin rubbing against Xavion's bound hands.
Dee squirmed again but this time Armande didn't admonish her. Emboldened, she parted her legs to allow access to her own moist crevice and began stroking and soothing the heated flesh, her fingers starting her down the path to an eagerly awaited orgasm.
Xavion continued staring at the mirror, at the reflection of himself being dominated by a man, yet on the other side of the glass Dee felt as though he was staring straight at her.
Her mind flashed back to the previous night. The feel of those faceless sailor's hands on her hips, that first hard penis stabbing into her joyously, only to spurt and be replaced by another — other hands, another penis. And all the time, the sailor lashed to his bunk, watching his room-mates while her agonisingly slow hands worked the creamy fruit around his engorged flesh.
He'd said nothing to her, she remembered. Hadn't moved, hadn't begged, though his eyes, when he'd looked at her finally, had reflected the torture his body was enduring. His companions had speculated loud and lurid on whether she might clean the churned fruit from his straining erection with her tongue. Or whether she would release him to take his turn behind her. But she'd done neither.
Obeying her instructions, when each man save the one on the bed had finished their turn behind her, she'd left the room to return to Armande, unconcerned by what the incited sailors might do to their bound and desperately aroused companion. It had been neither her responsibility, nor her concern.
They might have turned him over and smeared the thick avocado cream over his ass, poking it inside with their eager 'periscopes', each taking a turn at this new slippery orifice, each humping his ass until the hot liquid gushed into him, pulling out limp to make way for another stiff intruder.
He might have screamed and fought, wriggling that ass and unwittingly giving more pleasure to his assailants. Or he might have moaned at the exquisitely tight pressure, at the rough hands that could have reached around to pull on his over-stimulated organ, an avocado smeared ham-fist giving him the release he'd so desperately craved.
Did Xavion crave that release? Or was he disgusted by what was being done to him?
Dee didn't know which thought excited her more. She was panting erratically with pre-orgasmic excitement, her eyes locked on Xavion.
"Stop," Armande commanded, and with heroic control she withdrew her fingers, shuddering as she straightened on the chair. So close.
She raised the hand to her lips and sucked the fingers, the taste her own warm juices heightening her arousal as she watched Lariat pushing Xavion down onto his knees, just the way she'd wanted to.
"Mmm," she murmured, slurping softly as her tongue worked its way up and down each slippery finger, sliding into the spaces between.
"Still."
Dee dropped the hand to her side and calmed her body, managing to keep the external still. But inside she was an orgasm waiting to happen.
"Can you date the makeup style?" Armande asked, and she was thankful for the distraction. Lariat had freed his thin penis and was rubbing it against the coy pink satin of Xavion's cape, the tip brushing curls at the nape of Xavion's neck.
And still Xavion stared at his reflection.
"Sixties?" she guessed from the Priscilla Presley eyeliner and pale lipstick.
"Correct," Armande rumbled. "Thus the teenage Lariat was prepared."
"For what?" she asked, intrigued.
"To satisfy the perverted desires of his father's staff," Armande replied, shifting his attention away from the present scenario to explain its past. "Because there were no women on the Sinclair Estate — "
"Surely there was a Lady Sinclair," Dee interrupted. "Lariat must have had a mother."
"Once," Armande agreed. "But while he was still an infant, she was found in bed with her maid. Shortly afterwards, both were committed to an insane asylum."
"Were they insane?" Dee asked, glancing back at Lariat who was grunting softly, poking his penis into the dark curls at the back of Xavion's head.
"Not then," Armande replied, and both fell silent as they watched Lariat loop the pearls around his penis, squeezing it until his eyes watered. "Poor boy," Armande said softly. "So young and pretty. That was his undoing. His prettiness."
Not much of it left, Dee thought. She asked, "But weren't there other women?" imagining a castle with servants on tap. "Cooks? Other maids?"
"Hmmm?" Armande drew his attention back to Dee. "No. Lariat's father, Lord Sinclair, was shattered when he discovered his young wife was femme. He sent every woman off the estate, employed only men, then took to whoring and staying away a lot. Proving his manhood, was Lariat's guess."
"Poor boy," she echoed, glancing back at Lariat who was still trying to strangle his penis with the pearls. "Who cared for him?"
"The head butler," Armande explained, "an outwardly prudish man who bootlicked the shaken Lord Sinclair in his presence, and fucked his son mercilessly in his absence."
"My God," Dee whispered. "Did he make him wear…" she gestured at Xavion's ensemble.
"Lariat was dressed as a woman from the moment his father walked out the door until the time his car came back in the main gate. Even when his father was at home he was forced to wear women's underwear."
"He never told his father?"
"Sadly, no." Armande fell silent, but Dee wanted to know more.
"Was it only the butler?" she asked, fascinated by this glimpse into Lariat's past.
Armande sighed. "Almost from the first the others knew what was happening," he said. "It started with the Gamekeeper fondling him in the hen house and soon he was being taken by everyone from stable-hands to kitchen staff. They were all sexually frustrated, you see. Some would give him pleasure, most would simply grab him and take what they wanted. It was not an easy life."
Armande returned his attention to Lariat but it took Dee a moment longer, her mind still dwelling on the vision of a young man in women's clothing being pushed over hay bales and kitchen benches and car bonnets, his buttocks parted roughly by the intrusion of a saliva-slickened penis. The grunting, the strange pleasure she herself had felt on many occasions, and then that last hard lunge that filled the tingling cavity with hot, thick fluid. She knew that feeling too.
"This is his therapy," Armande observed and Dee raised her eyes in time to see Lariat pulling Xavion to his feet with a hand in his hair. Despite his air of command there was a lost look to Lariat's eyes that made her feel close to him — made her wonder how much of her own 'play' had been therapy.
"Back on the bed. Back, back," Lariat was crooning, his voice flat through the speakers that brought it into the viewing room.
Dee watched him pull Xavion backwards over a low bed, his bound arms beneath him, his buttocks on the edge, spread legs giving her a good view of his straining penis confined beneath that lurid pink miniskirt.
"Pretty, pretty," Lariat crooned as he stroked over the bulge and up under the cape, caressing Xavion's smooth chest. "Pretty little nipples." He lifted the cape, obscuring Xavion's face as he bent to lick and suck them.
The bulge seemed to grow impossibly larger.
"Come, my dear," Armande said, and pushed himself up off the lounge with a grunt. "Let us leave them to it."
Dee dragged her gaze away. "Can't we watch?"
"No." Armande walked to the door and opened it, stood waiting for her to precede him.
She frowned. There might be another time. "All right," she said as she rose, but couldn't resist a last glance over her shoulder.
"Big boy," Lariat was saying as he stroked Xavion's released penis. The skirt lay open on the bed, the pale candy-pink stockings and their lace suspender belt incongruous now against the hard muscles of Xavion's thighs. His pubic area, like the rest of his body, had been shaved smooth.
" Wendee!"
Dee knew that tone. She turned quickly and exited the room, walking ahead of Armande down the narrow companionway towards his study where she would lay on his desk and tell him what she wanted to do to Xavion — what she would do if she were Lariat.
Despite her frustration, she could understand why Armande had not let her see more. He wanted her imagination. Reality could be unexpectedly limp or awkward. Fantasy was always satisfying.
She smiled to herself, licking her lips.
Then to Armande, said, "Did the butler wear a tuxedo? Is that why Lariat wears one?"
There was silence for a moment, then, "I don't know." Armande appeared to be considering the idea for the first time. "Quite possibly."
"Then I should like to wear one too when I see Xavion."
She reached his door and opened it herself, walking straight to the desk.
"You will not see Xavion," Armande informed her coldly. "While he remains here he is for Lariat."
Dee paused, frowned again, then sprawled over the warm timber surface, knocking papers and pens to the floor. "How long is Xavion here?" she asked, wondering if Armande's answer would reflect on her own captivity.
"That, my dear…" Armande said as he angled the light over her belly and settled out of its range on his chair — a creak in the darkness, "…is entirely dependant on my brother. I will make him choose between Xavion and yourself. He will not have both."
"If he chooses Xavion?"
"Then I will be happy and Lariat will be disappointed."
"And if he chooses me, visa-versa."
"Correct."
"I hardly think he'll choose me," Dee said, wondering if this was part of the game. Another threat to frighten her and up the sexual ante. "Xavion's been with him for years."
"Then you'd better hope you can keep me amused, my little Scheherazade. Or like Lariat, your life will become less than easy."
Dee tried not to be frightened — told herself it was all part of the game, that the adrenalin would arouse her more.
"Now tell me," he said, and she heard the upholstery creak again as though he were leaning back, "What exactly would you do if you were Lariat and had that lump of pretty pink flesh all to yourself."
Dee took a deep breath and relaxed her body, her hand sliding down between her thighs, the fingers warming immediately as they started the slow circular stroking she liked best. "Hmm. If I were Lariat? Let me see…"