"Do you like getting your c.u.n.t licked?" Nickel asked.

Irene shook her head. "Not much."

"I do. A lot. And you know what happens when I like something a lot?"

"No," Irene said, but she was pretty sure that she could guess.

"If one of my slaves can give me what I want, then I get it. I get it a lot," Nickel said. "What do you think about that?"

Irene's stomach churned. She had no interest in women. Once she had to partner with another slave and give a s.e.x show for a group of gentlemen. She had no choice but to lick the other slave's c.u.n.t so she had done it slaves did what slaves were told to do but she had not liked it.

This, though, was not part of a s.e.x show. This was an intimate service. It felt more real. Irene hated to think that she was going to have to satisfy Nickel with her lips and tongue, but slaves did what they were told to do. Their feelings were irrelevant.

"I think that your c.u.n.t is going to get an excellent licking," Irene said.

"d.a.m.n right, it is." Nickel sat on the edge of Irene's cot, leaned back until her shoulders and head were braced against the wall, and spread her legs wide. Her corset did not extend below her hips. Her bald crotch was naked and her nether lips spread wide to reveal the moist pink tenderness within.

Irene didn't need instructions. She lowered herself to her knees and bent her head over Nickel's s.e.x and drew her wet tongue along the pink slit, from the bottom end to the top.

Nickel tasted stronger than the other slave that Irene had licked. She was muskier. Saltier.

Irene licked at the hooded c.l.i.t softly, gently, and then kissed the area with relaxed, open lips.

Nickel sighed.

Irene wished with all her being that it were c.o.c.k rather than c.u.n.t in her mouth, but wishing wouldn't make it so. She had to service what was here. She slipped her tongue back down the slit and probed as far inside Nickel as her tongue would reach. She listened to Nickel's reaction. The whiphand's increased rate of breathing and a soft moan said that she was doing the right thing. So she kept it up.

A few minutes later, when Nickel's hips began to rock, trying to push themselves into Irene's face for more stimulation, Irene backed off.

She could do to Nickel what she did to gentlemen when she sucked their c.o.c.ks tease and frustrate them bring them to a higher level of l.u.s.t than they had ever before experienced.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, don't stop!" Nickel shouted.

Irene didn't stop. She began to explore Nickel's c.u.n.t with her tongue. The fat outer lips protected the more sensitive inner lips. She licked the fold between the two, up one side and down the other. Then she licked along the slit between the two inner lips, noting different reactions, mentally cataloging the more and less sensitive parts of the woman's c.u.n.t.

When Nickel's breathing began to slow, she returned to the gates of her v.a.g.i.n.a and plunged her tongue back inside.

Nickel's breathing accelerated again and she began to work her hips anew.

When Nickel began screaming, "G.o.d! G.o.d d.a.m.n it! Good, sweet G.o.d!" Irene slowed down again.

Nickel sounded like she was beginning to cry. "Keep doing that. Get back inside me." Now her voice was soft. Pleading.

Irene brought her fingers into play. When she was sucking a man off, she pumped his c.o.c.k at the base. What was the a.n.a.logous action with a woman?

She knew that there was a spot inside her that gave her special pleasure when a c.o.c.k rubbed against it. She moved her mouth up to Nickel's c.l.i.toral hood and began nuzzling around it, never quite making contact with the c.l.i.t itself. While she was doing that, she tucked two fingers under her chin and inserted them into Nickel. Crooking her fingers, she felt a rough, irregular spot on the front of her v.a.g.i.n.al vault.

As soon as she began rubbing that, Nickel began to scream and buck her hips.

Irene tilted her head and began mouthing Nickel's c.l.i.t, not touching it directly, but compressing the sides of her c.l.i.toral hood against it with her lips.

Nickel screamed incoherent gibberish for a long time while closing her thighs and squeezing Irene's head.

Then she relaxed. Her thighs fell limp and she reached down to grab Irene's hair and pulled her head away.

Irene withdrew her fingers and rocked back on her heels. Her neck was aching from being kinked backward and cricked over to the side. Her knees were burning. Even her jaw was sore.

Nickel's eyes were closed and her chest was heaving inside the corset. She flopped over onto the cot and pulled her legs up, kicking Irene in the head when she failed to clear it.

Too late, Irene ducked down out of the way.

As Nickel curled up into a fetal position on the cot, Irene rose to her feet an awkward, ungainly maneuver because her knees were so stiff.

She stood and ma.s.saged her shoulders, trying to work the kinks out.

After a few minutes, Nickel opened her eyes. "G.o.d d.a.m.n, woman, that was good. Don't tell me you never licked a c.u.n.t before or I'll beat you half to death for lying to me."

"No, ma'am. I did it once before as part of a show. But I've sucked a lot of c.o.c.k. I tried to adapt what I know about stimulating c.o.c.ks to your c.u.n.t."

"You expect me to believe that you were thinking about sucking c.o.c.k when you were eating me out?"

"I'm a great c.o.c.ksucker, ma'am. Gentlemen tell me that I'm exceptional."

Nickel grunted at that.

Irene stood and waited for instructions.

After a bit, Nickel said, "I was going to beat you after you finished eating me out, but I don't feel like it any more."

Irene's last owner had beaten her on the first day because he said that it was important for a slave to know her place. "You may beat me if you wish, ma'am. But I can a.s.sure you that I know my place even if you don't feel like doing it right now."

"You want me to send Cherry in here and lick your c.u.n.t? She's pretty good at it. Not quite as good as you, but pretty good. She'll get you off."

"Thank you, ma'am, but that's not necessary. I'd rather have Lord Snow get me off, but he doesn't seem interested in my service."

"He's missing out." She sighed. "There's no accounting for the whims of a gentleman slave owner."

"No, ma'am."

Nickel rose from the bed. Once again, she was standing so close to Irene that their chests were almost touching. Nickel wrapped her arms around Irene and pulled her into a hug. She whispered in her ear. "Now that I know what you can do, you're going to be doing that for me a lot. Believe me, if you ever give me any less than your best effort, I'll part your legs and strap your c.u.n.t until you're bruised and swollen. You know why I'd do that?"

Irene shook her head against Nickel's shoulder.

"So that, when a man, Lord Snow or some other man, does f.u.c.k you, it'll hurt like h.e.l.l and you'll get no pleasure from him. You understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am. I will always give you my best effort. You have my promise on that."

"Good. Now I'm going to see how Apple and Lime fared with Lord Snow. You can come or stay. I don't care."

Irene followed Nickel out of the cell.

The m.u.f.fled screams finally stopped and no sounds emanated from the pleasure room for a long time. But Apple and Lime didn't return yet.

Irene sat with the other silent slaves, waiting to see what would happen.

She wondered if she had made Lord Snow so angry and frustrated that he'd killed them. He could do it if he wanted they were his property to dispose of as he wished but Irene couldn't imagine her old friend doing such a thing.

But what did that mean? A couple of hours ago, she couldn't have imagined him being so expert with a strap that he could cover Tamarind's entire a.s.s with an even, unbroken bruise, either. Or imagine him making the two slaves, Apple and Lime scream themselves horse in response to some kind of agonizing torture behind a closed door.

She wondered if other ladies suspected that their husbands were capable of such cruelty or if she had been unusually naive.

Then she wondered if her own husband ex-husband James, beat his slaves when he went out to his kennel. Extrapolating from all the other gentlemen that she'd encountered as a slave, she had to conclude that it was likely.

The idea startled her.

Then she had another epiphany. If she'd known that he was capable of cruelty, she would never have dared put herself on the auction block. Refusing to buy her had been the cruelest thing that any gentleman had ever done to her, before or after enslaving herself.

She was relieved to see the door open and the two stray slaves emerge alive.

They looked disheveled and acted subdued. Exactly how Irene would expect women would appear after they had been beaten into submission for over an hour.

Lime raised her eyes and looked at the other slaves waiting in the kitchen.

Irene could see trails of sweat and tears marking her cheeks. Her hair was matted against her head.

"He was an animal," Lime said.

"A beast," Apple confirmed.

Irene looked for bruises but could see none. She looked for dried blood but couldn't see that, either.

Apple slumped into an empty chair. "I've never been f.u.c.ked like that in my life."

Lime sighed. "He was hard as steel."

"And it took him only a couple of minutes to get hard again after he came," Apple said.

"He f.u.c.ked me twice," Lime said.

"Me, too." Apple looked disappointed. Then she smiled softly. "But he was slower the second time. I came three times before he was finished."

"I can't believe that a man could get it up four times in an hour."

"Was it only an hour?" Apple asked. "It felt like days."

"It was a good thing that there were two of us," Lime said. "I needed a break between f.u.c.kings."

"Not that it was much of a break," Apple said. "It was so hot seeing him go at you that I almost came just watching."

"I've never seen a man so ... so energetic. He was like a jackhammer. I felt penetrated all the way from my t.i.ts to my toes."

"You screamed like a banshee."

Lime giggled. "I did, didn't I? I barely knew what I was doing."

"I know," Apple said. "Nothing in the world mattered when he was going at me." She turned to look at Irene. "I don't know what you did to him in there, but you sure turned him on."

"To the highest setting," Lime said.

Irene felt a flush of envy. She wanted Lord Snow to f.u.c.k her like a beast. She deserved to feel like there was nothing in the world but his c.o.c.k thrusting deep in her c.u.n.t. She wanted to bask in the contented exhaustion of multi-o.r.g.a.s.mic afterglow.

Nickel looked at her with hard eyes. "Tell me again what you did to Lord Snow."

Irene shrugged. "Just told him about putting myself on the auction block. I don't know why that would turn him on so much."

"You said that you didn't touch him."

"And he didn't touch me, either."

"You watch yourself," Nickel said. "I've got my eye on you." She left the room.

The other slaves turned to stare at Irene.

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I just don't know."

Irene didn't see Lord Snow for the next week. Nickel sent other slaves into the pleasure room, presumably at Lord Snow's request, but never Irene. The slaves were called to the billiard room twice to provide entertainment while Irene was left alone to amuse herself.

She did not develop the same intimate relationship with Lord Snow's kennelman as she had with her previous owner's. The slaves were inspected in the kitchen, en ma.s.se, rather than in their individual cells. It was brisk and impersonal.

On the second day, though, her b.u.t.t plug and v.a.g.i.n.al weights appeared in her wardrobe. She didn't know if Barry had sent them along especially or if it were standard practice for a slave's most personal items to be forwarded to her new owner. They had to be hers, though. The b.u.t.t plug was fairly standard for slaves, but the v.a.g.i.n.al weights were a rare item that almost no other slave would recognize, much less know how to use.

She was relieved that she could continue to keep her a.s.shole stretched and her c.u.n.t tuned up, even if they weren't being used. A smart girl kept herself prepared, just in case.

Not having a chance even to reward her kennelman with a b.l.o.w.j.o.b, her only s.e.xual activity was being ordered to eat out Nickel every day. She was not acquiring any taste for p.u.s.s.y. It remained a dull, unpleasant ch.o.r.e for Irene.

Nickel seemed to find her service exciting.

Irene badly wanted c.o.c.k and she had no way to get any. Her life as a slave in Lord Snow's kennel was as boring as her life as a lady in James' manor had been.

She didn't even get a decent paddling. Not even once.

She could have left Nickel unsatisfied and earned herself a whipping, but she wasn't that desperate. Especially when she saw what happened when Peach displeased Nickel.

Peach had an att.i.tude. Mostly she kept it under control but, on the third morning after Irene arrived, Peach stepped out of bounds.