Euryleia's 3rd Level Two Assignment

[Euryleia]

“Okay then, here is your chance, three questions. I can't promise I can answer them fully, but I will tell you as much as I can.”

The voice of the trainer came out of the speakers concealed in the ceiling. They had been artfully designed to keep from ruining the look of the eighteenth century mansion.

“What did he say?” demanded Montgomery Braxton. Shaking his head in disbelief, he scowled around the room. He extended a bony, liver spotted hand and poked the woman sitting next to him. “What did he say?” he repeated loudly.

“He’s letting her ask some questions.”

“What?” he bellowed. “He…” Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a coughing fit. Holding a maroon silk handkerchief to his lips, Montgomery gasped for breath. He croaked querulously, “Turn it up.”

“Yes, Father.” Eleanor said from her seat next to computer workstation that held a wireless keyboard and large, multi-purpose remote. She bumped up the volume and glanced over at her younger sister and her father.

The three of them were sitting in a semi-circle in center the presentation room. The room had been converted from a library and there was a palpable sense of history within the walls. Multiple generations had sat in these same Moroccan leather and oak chairs and witnessed the training of other young women into slavery.

Those past generations did so without many of the modern conveniences found in the renovated room. The most obvious change was twenty large screen, plasma televisions that took up one entire wall.

Montgomery clenched his hand and pounded on the carved armrest. “What is that damned pup thinking?"

“Steve is one of our best trainers, Daddy,” Antonia replied mildly.

“He gives them too much power. Letting them ask questions, what in the blazes is that?’

“He knows what he’s doing.”

“In my day, you wouldn’t catch us treating slaves like…like people.”

Eleanor suppressed a sigh and debated turning the volume up further. Her eyes were constantly moving from screen to screen. As she watched Steve and the company’s newest acquisition, she was already planning how to edit the recordings for sale.

There were over fifty cameras in the training house, including one in the basin of the toilet. The monitor on her workstation showed all of them and she was able to bring up the best views onto the big screens with just a click of the mouse.

Antonia crossed her legs and flicked a miniscule particle of dust from her grey stockings. “Well, young women these days respond better if you engage their minds. It makes their eventual enslavement more permanent,” she said, tapping a riding crop against the bottom of her knee high boot.

Growling about the old ways, Montgomery glared at his daughters. He felt no pride at how capable they were proving to be in the running of the family business. To his mind, women belonged either on their knees or birthing the next generation of sons.

Unfortunately, his only son spent more time sampling the merchandise than in increasing the family’s share of the slavery market. Robert might be a great disappointment but at least he had the proper equipment between his legs.

He turned his glance to his oldest child. Eleanor, like her famous namesake, was a very intelligent and strikingly beautiful woman. She used her mind and body to equal effectiveness in improving the revenue stream. It was her ideas that had brought the family business into the twenty-first century. Instead of just providing the highest quality slaves to the buyer, they also produced DVD’s, streaming video, and pay per view satellite programs to those who were unable to afford a slave made to order.

Swiveling his head, Montgomery looked at his youngest child and could not help but respond to her concerned frown with a quirking of his lips. She smiled in answer and turned her attention back to the screens.

Antonia’s ready smile hid a capacity for cruelty that seemed nearly boundless. She trained the trainers and oversaw the teams of observers assigned to locations around the country. She was ultimately responsible for ensuring the quality of the end product. Slaves had to pass her tests before they could be branded with the house seal.

There were many broken bodies that were proof of her rigorous standards. Those too flawed to wear the company’s symbol ended up in Third World brothels or, if they were lucky, six feet under. It was Eleanor’s brilliant idea to use the failures in snuff films.

Montgomery glanced at the trainer and fledgling slave on the large screens. He hawked some phlegm into his handkerchief and sneered, “In my day, we didn’t waste time or energy coddling them.”

“In your day, our buyers were isolated. Now, we send girls to every city on the planet. They join households that are connected to the world through the phone and internet. If they’re not convinced of the rightness of their slave status, they could potentially escape and bring down scrutiny that could destroy our business.”

“Our business is fine,” Montgomery replied. “I don’t know why you’re worrying your pretty little head about nothing.”

Rolling her eyes, Antonia had to physically bite her tongue to keep her response behind her teeth.

Montgomery turned back to the screens. He cupped his hand behind his ear. “What questions did she ask?”

“I don’t know, Father. I couldn’t hear her responses.”

“Play it back!”

Eleanor shook her head. “The system is capable of many things but not of immediate playback. It isn't like your Tivo, Father. There is no way to pause live recordings.”

Shoving himself to his feet, he glared at Eleanor. “Since you can’t do what I request, I’m going to bed.” He took several steps toward the door before turning back. “I will want to see the questions and his responses tomorrow,” he announced.

“Yes, Father,” Eleanor replied.

“Good night,” the two sisters said in unison.

He glowered at them both and stomped toward the door. Eleanor stuck her tongue at his back as he headed out of the room.

Antonia coughed to disguise a laugh. The two of them were careful not to make eye contact until the door had swung shut behind him. Once it had, they both giggled like schoolgirls.

“I thought he was going to try and spank you.”

“Even he knows that his doing so would be his last act on Earth.” Eleanor grimaced and pulled her keyboard into her lap.

“You’re right. He would never give either of us that sort of satisfaction.” Antonia stood up and stretched. “Well, I’ve got a Phase Five slave to deal with before I can go to bed. I hope your evening is as fun as mine,” she said with a wink.

Her sister was already absorbed in the mixing of the multiple recordings. Distractedly, Eleanor waved her hand at her sister. “Good night.”

Antonia walked to her wing of the house with a smile on her face. She always enjoyed putting the Five’s through their paces. They had completed all the mandatory trainings and were well on their way to becoming purely sexual beings. They had also been schooled in basic and intermediate deportment and it was this that she intended to test tonight.

Opening the door, she spied the handler leaning against the far wall. A quick scan of the room and she saw the slave prostrate on the floor. Snapping her fingers, Antonia dismissed the handler and ordered the slave to stand at attention.

She walked over to her desk and opened the middle drawer. She pulled out a grey metal wand with a red handle and tip. Turning to the slave, Antonia asked, “Do you know what this is? You may speak.”

For the first time since Antonia’s arrival into the room, the slave looked fully at her and then at the instrument in her hands. “No, Mistress.”

Thumbing it on, Antonia smiled. “Come here and touch it.”

The slave obeyed with alacrity. Reaching out a hand, she made contact with live end. Her hand flew backwards and every muscle in her body convulsed. She barely kept from collapsing onto the floor and howling in pain. Holding her throbbing hand close to her chest, the slave could feel her heart pounding as she gasped for breath.

Antonia smiled in satisfaction. She was pleased that the slave kept from uttering a sound. She said, “This is a cattle prod. There are four settings. The one you just experienced is level one. It is possible that level four will kill you.” Antonia shrugged. “In any event, I’m going to give you a test. For every wrong move, error, or mistake, you will get a jolt. After each jolt, I will increase the level. If you want to make it out of this room alive, I suggest you make your trainers proud.”

The slave swallowed but returned to the attention position. “Yes, Mistress.”

For the next two hours, Antonia put the young woman through her paces. The slave took the cane, the alligator clamps and her anal raping with silence and tears.

That was just as she had been trained. Although it was a decided bonus, they did not expect the girls to enjoy themselves. As a point of fact, they had found that many of their clients liked to see the suffering of the slaves. Crying was acceptable; crying out was not.

Feeling rather pleased with her team’s efforts, Antonia sank down on her leather sofa and began testing the slave on proper positions. From strappado to penitent slut to tower, the slave moved with only the slightest hesitation. She followed both the verbal commands and hand signals with a certain tense grace. Her forms were perfect, though, so Antonia kept the cattle prod at her side.

As the young woman moved to the leash position, Antonia barked out, “Hold.” She cocked her head and studied the frozen form of the slave. Standing up, she walked around the slave and trailed a finger up the slave’s spine feeling the muted trembling.

Closing her eyes, Antonia replayed the past few moments and tried to think of what it reminded her. Her eyes flying open, she suppressed a gasp. The movement of this Five echoed the actions of the newest acquisition. The slave before her had over six months of training while she had just watched Lisa’s first day of captivity.

Striding over to her desk, she pulled out the folder with the complete report of the observation team. Flipping through the pages and pictures, she stopped and went back when she realized that there was a time gap.

Sitting in her chair, she read that the team was forced to pull back for two weeks because of an Amber Alert in the city. She set the folder in the exact center of her desk and punched in the primary contact number for the team’s leader.

“Bryant.”

“Tell me about your most recent mission.”

“Nothing much to tell. It was a cakewalk.”

“The file is incomplete.”

“What?”

“There is a blank fifteen days long.”

“That’s not our fault. We’re observers. Once we heard the alert on the scanner, we followed protocol and left the vicinity.”

“Did you have the target in sight at the time?”

“No, the team on her school lost visual. Once they reported that fact, I put a team on the house.” He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, due to the increased activity following the alert, we had to vacate the area before we were able to reacquire her.”

“You lost her? A seventeen year old managed to elude a team of seasoned professionals?” Antonia slammed her hand on the desk. “Am I surrounded by incompetents?”

The operative wisely held his tongue.

Taking a deep breath, Antonia slowly calmed as she exhaled. “What was the description in the alert? It is not in the file.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Could something have happened to her during the time you lost her and when you returned to observing her?”

“I don’t know.”

Antonia would swear that she could hear the operative sweating. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she said, “I’m seeing from the file that she quit the track team right afterwards. Do you know what that was about?”

“No, ma’am.”

“It was in the middle of the season and a sport she loved. Don’t you think that such a radical change of behavior deserved a little investigation?”

“We were in the end phase. We didn’t think it mattered.”

“I thought we paid you to think.” Antonia’s voice could have cut glass. “If I discover that our latest girl was spoiled prior to pickup, I will be very put out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Find out what happened. Now!” she ordered. “I want a report on my desk as soon as possible with details of what happened to her during that period. Have I made myself clear?”

“Crystal, ma’am. It will be done.”

Antonia slammed down the phone. She barked at the slave who had continued to stand frozen in place. “Get me a pot of tea. Tell the cook to make it oolong and strong.” She watched the slave back from the room as she picked up the handset and dialed her sister's extension.

Her sister’s voice came through the receiver in her hand. “Hello? Antonia?”

Turning her attention to the phone, Antonia cleared her throat. “Eleanor, I think we might have problem.”

[Aussiegirl1]

Thank you very much Euryleia. I have had a read through and really enjoyed what I read. I will come back to it tomorrow and pick the very few nits I noticed.

I have to say that I really enjoyed both the plot and the different tones you brought to the story. The way you went from touches of humour in the first section, to very serious in the middle and finally the lightbulb moment at the end was excellent.

I feel I already know something about your characters and almost forget this was based on my own story! Well done. I will get H Dean to have a look at it too, and then we will be shipping you off very soon to level 3.

[H Dean]

Well, I must say that I was impressed. There are a few things I would make adjustments to, however.

He turned his glance to his oldest child. Eleanor, like her famous namesake, was a very intelligent and strikingly beautiful woman. She used her mind and body to equal effectiveness in improving the revenue stream. It was her ideas that had brought the family business into the twenty-first century. Instead of just providing the highest quality slaves to the buyer, they also produced DVD’s, streaming video, and pay per view satellite programs to those who were unable to afford a slave made to order.

This was a good paragraph. I would change the highlighted "also" to a "now". that is my only stylistic complaint here.

Swiveling his head, Montgomery looked at his youngest child and could not help but respond to her concerned frown with a quirking of his lips. She smiled in answer and turned her attention back to the screens.

Antonia’s ready smile hid a capacity for cruelty that seemed nearly boundless. She trained the trainers and oversaw the teams of observers assigned to locations around the country. She was ultimately responsible for ensuring the quality of the end product. Slaves had to pass her tests before they could be branded with the house seal.

How many times are you going to start a sentence with a pronoun? This is something you do all the time and you need to change it. Especially, you do not want to start two sentences in a row with the same pronoun.

Antonia walked to her wing of the house with a smile on her face. She always enjoyed putting the Five’s through their paces. They had completed all the mandatory trainings and were well on their way to becoming purely sexual beings. They had also been schooled in basic and intermediate deportment and it was this that she intended to test tonight.

this was quite dry and could do with a creative combining of ideas.

Opening the door, she spied the handler leaning against the far wall. A quick scan of the room and she saw the slave prostrate on the floor. Snapping her fingers, Antonia dismissed the handler and ordered the slave to stand at attention.

Give me a little more life with this. A bit of description of people, not just the cold hard facts, would draw the reader in better.

She walked over to her desk and opened the middle drawer. She pulled out a grey metal wand with a red handle and tip. Turning to the slave, Antonia asked, “Do you know what this is? You may speak.”

More pronouns to start sentences. Combine sentences - create more of a moment with expression, sweat and description of people.

I could go on, but I think you see my points. You have a great knack and I found this to be quite interesting. Technically, you are as sound as anyone I have read. I just want to see more creative linking of sentences, descriptions of emotion, expression, physical nuances, etc. and the elimination of so many pronouns to start sentences.

I can't wait to get to your destruction in Level 3 - which I am certain you will be bumped up to as soon as Aussiegirl gets through this.

[Aussiegirl1]

Okay, now that Dean has had his pick, I have only a little more to add.

The three of them were sitting in a semi-circle in center the presentation room This just needs the added before center and of after center.

Reaching out a hand, she made contact with live end Did you mean to say "with the live end"?

In any event, I’m going to give you a test. For every wrong move, error, or mistake, you will get a jolt. You don't need to use both error and mistake.

As I said above, I really enjoyed this piece and feel it has earnt you your entry into level 3. I look forward to seeing your progress and am sure you will just continue to improve the impressive skills you already have.

Thank you for your hard work in this level and good luck in level 3.

[Euryleia]

Thank you both for your valuable advice. I found this level helpful and fun.

Do you want me to revise the story and repost?

[Razor7826]

I'm huge fan of your work in the Library, and this kept the same high quality. I'm extremely interested in seeing a continuation of this story.

[Aussiegirl1]

Thank you both for your valuable advice. I found this level helpful and fun.

Do you want me to revise the story and repost?

If you are able to do a quick edit, then yes, it would be good to see a revised version. You do already have access to level 3, so don't spend too long on the edit. I want to see what Mad Lews and Dean have planned for you.

I am also pleased you found this level both helpful and fun.

AG

[Euryleia]

“Okay then, here is your chance, three questions. I can't promise I can answer them fully, but I will tell you as much as I can.”

The voice of the trainer came out of the speakers concealed in the ceiling. They had been artfully designed to keep from ruining the look of the eighteenth century mansion.

“What did he say?” demanded Montgomery Braxton. Shaking his head in disbelief, he scowled around the room. He extended a bony, liver spotted hand and poked the woman sitting next to him. “What did he say?” he repeated loudly.

“He’s letting her ask some questions.”

“What?” he bellowed. “He…” Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a coughing fit. Holding a maroon silk handkerchief to his lips, Montgomery gasped for breath. He croaked querulously, “Turn it up.”

“Yes, Father.” Eleanor said from her seat next to computer workstation that held a wireless keyboard and large, multi-purpose remote. She bumped up the volume and glanced over at her younger sister and her father.

The three of them were sitting in a semi-circle in the center the presentation room. The room had been converted from a library and there was a palpable sense of history within the walls. Multiple generations had sat in these same Moroccan leather and oak chairs and witnessed the training of other young women into slavery.

Those past generations did so without many of the modern conveniences found in the renovated room. The most obvious change was twenty large screen, plasma televisions that took up one entire wall.

Montgomery clenched his hand and pounded on the carved armrest. “What is that damned pup thinking?"

“Steve is one of our best trainers, Daddy,” Antonia replied mildly.

“He gives them too much power. Letting them ask questions, what in the blazes is that?’

“He knows what he’s doing.”

“In my day, you wouldn’t catch us treating slaves like…like people.”

Eleanor suppressed a sigh and debated turning the volume up further. Her eyes were constantly moving from screen to screen. As she watched Steve and the company’s newest acquisition, she was already planning how to edit the recordings for sale.

There were over fifty cameras in the training house, including one in the basin of the toilet. The monitor on her workstation showed all of them and she was able to bring up the best views onto the big screens with just a click of the mouse.

Antonia crossed her legs and flicked a miniscule particle of dust from her grey stockings. “Well, young women these days respond better if you engage their minds. It makes their eventual enslavement more permanent,” she said, tapping a riding crop against the bottom of her knee high boot.

Growling about the old ways, Montgomery glared at his daughters. He felt no pride at how capable they were proving to be in the running of the family business. To his mind, women belonged either on their knees or birthing the next generation of sons.

Unfortunately, his only son spent more time sampling the merchandise than in increasing the family’s share of the slavery market. Robert might be a great disappointment but at least he had the proper equipment between his legs.

He turned his glance to his oldest child. Eleanor, like her famous namesake, was a very intelligent and strikingly beautiful woman. She used her mind and body to equal effectiveness in improving the revenue stream. It was her ideas that had brought the family business into the twenty-first century. Instead of just providing the highest quality slaves to the buyer, they now produced DVD’s, streaming video, and pay per view satellite programs to those who were unable to afford a slave made to order.

Swiveling his head, Montgomery looked at his youngest child and could not help but respond to her concerned frown with a quirking of his lips. She smiled in answer and turned her attention back to the screens.

Antonia’s ready smile hid a capacity for cruelty that seemed nearly boundless. As trainer of the trainers, she was responsible for ensuring the quality of the end product. Slaves had to pass her tests before they could be branded with the house seal.

There were many broken bodies that were proof of her rigorous standards. Those too flawed to wear the company’s symbol ended up in Third World brothels or, if they were lucky, six feet under. It was Eleanor’s brilliant idea to use the failures in snuff films.

Montgomery glanced at the trainer and fledgling slave on the large screens. He hawked some phlegm into his handkerchief and sneered, “In my day, we didn’t waste time or energy coddling them.”

“In your day, our buyers were isolated. Now, we send girls to every city on the planet. They join households that are connected to the world through the phone and internet. If they’re not convinced of the rightness of their slave status, they could potentially escape and bring down scrutiny that could destroy our business.”

“Our business is fine,” Montgomery replied. “I don’t know why you’re worrying your pretty little head about nothing.”

Rolling her eyes, Antonia had to physically bite her tongue to keep her response behind her teeth.

Montgomery turned back to the screens and cupped his hand behind his ear. “What questions did she ask?”

“I don’t know, Father. I couldn’t hear her responses.”

“Play it back!”

Eleanor shook her head. “The system is capable of many things but not of immediate playback. It isn't like your Tivo, Father. There is no way to pause live recordings.”

Shoving himself to his feet, he glared at Eleanor. “Since you can’t do what I request, I’m going to bed.” He took several steps toward the door before turning back. “I will want to see the questions and his responses tomorrow,” he announced.

“Yes, Father,” Eleanor replied.

“Good night,” the two sisters said in unison.

He glowered at them both and stomped toward the door. Eleanor stuck her tongue at his back as he headed out of the room.

Antonia coughed to disguise a laugh. The two of them were careful not to make eye contact until the door had swung shut behind him. Once it had, they both giggled like schoolgirls.

“I thought he was going to try and spank you.”

“Even he knows that his doing so would be his last act on Earth.” Eleanor grimaced and pulled her keyboard into her lap.

“You’re right. He would never give either of us that sort of satisfaction.” Antonia stood up and stretched. “Well, I’ve got a Phase Five slave to deal with before I can go to bed. I hope your evening is as fun as mine,” she said with a wink.

Her sister was already absorbed in the mixing of the multiple recordings. Distractedly, Eleanor waved her hand at her sister. “Good night.”

Antonia walked to her wing of the house with a smile on her face. She always enjoyed putting the Five’s through their paces. They had completed all the mandatory trainings and were well on their way to becoming purely sexual beings. Tonight, she was going to test how well the slave had learned her lessons.

Opening the door, she spied the handler leaning against the far wall. “Mr. Fox.”

“Mistress.” The young man straightened to his full height and grinned at his boss. He had spent the last two hours holding up the wall. Now, he felt himself begin to swell as he thought of what the night would bring.

Scanning the room, she saw the slave prostrate in the middle of the Persian rug. Antonia walked around the prone form and smiled. Glancing up at the handler, she shook her head at the smirk on his face. Irked by his assumption, she snapped her fingers. As he met her eyes, Antonia jerked her thumb at the door.

Resigned to spending the evening with a magazine, the handler suppressed a sigh and obeyed her silent order.

As the door closed behind him, Antonia barked out, “Attention.”

The slave leaped to her feet and stood with her feet together, shoulders back and spine straight. Her large breasts wobbled slightly but the rest of her body was completely still as she waited for the next command.

Antonia walked over to her desk and opened the middle drawer. She pulled out a grey metal wand with a red handle and tip. Turning to the slave, Antonia asked, “Do you know what this is? You may speak.”

For the first time since Antonia’s arrival into the room, the slave looked fully at her and then at the instrument in her hands. “No, Mistress.”

Thumbing it on, Antonia smiled. “Come here and touch it.”

The slave obeyed with alacrity. Reaching out a hand, she made contact with the live end. Her hand flew backwards and every muscle in her body convulsed. She barely kept from collapsing onto the floor and howling in pain. Holding her throbbing hand close to her chest, the slave could feel her heart pounding as she gasped for breath.

Antonia smiled in satisfaction. She was pleased that the slave kept from uttering a sound. She said, “This is a cattle prod. There are four settings. The one you just experienced is level one. It is possible that level four will kill you.” Antonia shrugged. “In any event, I’m going to give you a test. For every wrong move or mistake, you will get a jolt. After each jolt, I will increase the level. If you want to make it out of this room alive, I suggest you make your trainers proud.”

The slave swallowed but returned to the attention position. “Yes, Mistress.”

For the next two hours, Antonia put the young woman through her paces. The slave took the cane, the alligator clamps and her anal raping with silence and tears.

That was just as she had been trained. Although it was a decided bonus, they did not expect the girls to enjoy themselves. As a point of fact, they had found that many of their clients liked to see the suffering of the slaves. Crying was acceptable; crying out was not.

Feeling rather pleased with her team’s efforts, Antonia sank down on her leather sofa and began testing the slave on proper positions. From strappado to penitent slut to tower, the slave moved with only the slightest hesitation. She followed both the verbal commands and hand signals with a certain tense grace. Her forms were perfect, though, so Antonia kept the cattle prod at her side.

As the young woman moved to the leash position, Antonia barked out, “Hold.” She cocked her head and studied the frozen form of the slave. Getting to her feet, she walked around the slave and trailed a finger up the slave’s spine feeling the muted trembling.

Closing her eyes, Antonia replayed the past few moments and tried to think of what it reminded her. Her eyes flying open, she suppressed a gasp. The movement of this Five echoed the actions of the newest acquisition. The slave before her had over six months of training while she had just watched Lisa’s first day of captivity.

Striding over to her desk, she pulled out the folder with the complete report of the observation team. Flipping through the pages and pictures, she stopped and went back when she realized that there was a time gap.

Sitting in her chair, she read that the team was forced to pull back for two weeks because of an Amber Alert in the city. She set the folder in the exact center of her desk and punched in the primary contact number for the team’s leader.

“Bryant.”

“Tell me about your most recent mission.”

“Nothing much to tell. It was a cakewalk.”

“The file is incomplete.”

“What?”

“There is a blank fifteen days long.”

“That’s not our fault. We’re observers. Once we heard the alert on the scanner, we followed protocol and left the vicinity.”

“Did you have the target in sight at the time?”

“No, the team on her school lost visual. Once they reported that fact, I put a team on the house.” He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, due to the increased activity following the alert, we had to vacate the area before we were able to reacquire her.”

“You lost her? A seventeen year old managed to elude a team of seasoned professionals?” Antonia slammed her hand on the desk. “Am I surrounded by incompetents?”

The operative wisely held his tongue.

Taking a deep breath, Antonia slowly calmed as she exhaled. “What was the description in the alert? It is not in the file.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Could something have happened to her during the time you lost her and when you returned to observing her?”

“I don’t know.”

Antonia would swear that she could hear the operative sweating. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she said, “I’m seeing from the file that she quit the track team right afterwards. Do you know what that was about?”

“No, ma’am.”

“It was in the middle of the season and a sport she loved. Don’t you think that such a radical change of behavior deserved a little investigation?”

“We were in the end phase. We didn’t think it mattered.”

“I thought we paid you to think.” Antonia’s voice could have cut glass. “If I discover that our latest girl was spoiled prior to pickup, I will be very put out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Find out what happened. Now!” she ordered. “I want a report on my desk as soon as possible with details of what happened to her during that period. Have I made myself clear?”

“Crystal, ma’am. It will be done.”

Antonia slammed down the phone. She barked at the slave who had continued to stand frozen in place. “Get me a pot of tea. Tell the cook to make it oolong and strong.”

Ignoring the slave backing from the room, Antonia picked up the handset and dialed her sister's extension.

“Hello?”

Clearing her throat, Antonia said, “Eleanor, I think we might have problem.”

[Aussiegirl1]

Thank you for the edit, and for the speed in which it was done. It is great when a student responds to suggestions like you do. I am very happy to send you on up now to level 3. I have let Mad now to expect you, so have fun! Do feel free to pop back here to review other student work too, I think you would be very good at that.

[Euryleia]

Thanks. Sometimes it is just easier when other eyes have given a read through and you think ah-ha, that's why the story didn't flow. You both were pretty gentle, too, so I didn't get defensive or possessive about my prose.

I will be happy to stop back by again.

[H Dean]

Frankly, I don't think I was particularly gentle. With some authors a certain method to get through is necessary - they have particular mistakes that are constantly repeated. Your mistakes are not often repeated and seem to be more a cause of attempting to get your assignments up in quickly.

Frankly, I have been very impressed with your skills and I look forward to being mean to you in the upper levels - I do suspect, however, that I won't get the same chance I usually get.

My glass is up to you and I look forward to having you chastise me for my writing.

Dean

[Euryleia]

Frankly, I don't think I was particularly gentle. With some authors a certain method to get through is necessary - they have particular mistakes that are constantly repeated. Your mistakes are not often repeated and seem to be more a cause of attempting to get your assignments up in quickly.

Frankly, I have been very impressed with your skills and I look forward to being mean to you in the upper levels - I do suspect, however, that I won't get the same chance I usually get.

My glass is up to you and I look forward to having you chastise me for my writing.

Dean

I don't equate not being tactful with being mean. The criticisms that you have made of my writing are perfectly valid. Sure, you could have prettied them up with niceties but the blunt question "How many times are you going to start a sentence with a pronoun?" was very effective in getting me to pay attention to what I had done and what I need to do to improve.

Nice try but I'm beginning to thing you're actually a teddy bear.

I look forward to lifting a virtual glass with you as I navigate the next level. Thank you for your positive comments and support.

[Aussiegirl1]

Nice try but I'm beginning to thing you're actually a teddy bear.

Yep, I think you may be right LOL

[Nikita]

I'm sorry to be late in my response. But, imo, better late than never.

I like the plot a lot, slave trade as a family business.

One of the things that as a reader I pay a lot of attention to is the characters.

Can you describe his children a little more? For instance, I had to go back to see who Eleanor and Antonia were. Eleanor was the one sitting next to keyboard, but I don't know anymore about her other than she is one of the daughters. I understand the mention of his son later on but, I'd like to know who the players are earlier. What makes them different from one another? What is their function in the story?

The highlighted phrases are examples and the bla blas are just that. I think you know what I mean.

“Yes, Father.” Eleanor said from her seat next to computer workstation that held a wireless keyboard and large, multi-purpose remote. She bumped up the volume and glanced over at her younger sister and her father. Eleanor, who was wearing wire rimmed glasses that softened the angles of her face, was in charge of bla bla bla.

“Steve is one of our best trainers, Daddy,” Antonia replied mildly.

“Steve is one of our best trainers, Daddy,” Antonia, his eldest daughter replied mildly. She was the most experienced one of the siblings, and as such, responsible for bla bla bla

“He gives them too much power. Letting them ask questions, what in the blazes is that?’

(sentence structure?) I'm sorry if someone already mentioned that. It's just a minor thing.

By the end of the story, it is clear who is the strongest of the characters. I like how you set the stage look forward to reading the rest.