Previous Chapter Back to Content & Review of this story Display the whole story in new window (text only) Previous Story Back to List of Newest Stories Next Story Back to BDSM Library Home

Review This Story || Author: lovelyandsad

Damascus

Chapter 2

     CHAPTER 2

     The delivery corridor down which I was crawling led to the
back of the Grand Ballroom, a huge cavernous room that in its
midmorning emptiness resembled a gymnasium dressed up for a
carnival.  Although Luke told me I could stand when the door shut
behind us, I had only the fleetest impression of equipment,
podiums, low room dividers, Japanese screens, ropes hanging from
the walls in haphazard locations.  There was no straight corridor
through the mess and jumble.  Rather, we twisted and turned to
zigzag our way to the main entrance.  Here and there workmen were
puttering around.  It reminded me of the floor of an auto show my
father had taken my brother and me to once, at a big convention
center downtown.

     As we neared what I later learned was the front, customer
entrance to the ballroom, a man came in carrying a large box.
Luke stopped him with a gesture, and the man put the box on the
floor, opening it for Luke.  At first I thought it was a box full
of snakes, but in fact it was full of whips, made of dark,
twisted leather.

     Luke picked one up with a nod toward the workman and snapped
it, making me jump.  "These are fine quality," the deliveryman
said to him, a trifle obsequiously.

     "Hmm," Luke grunted.  "All snap and no strength, these."

     "Oh, no, Mr. Hannigan," the delivery man protested.  "Let me
demonstrate for you."   He picked up a whip and turned
meaningfully towards me.  I involuntarily stepped back, behind
Luke, as if he would protect me.

     In fact, Luke raised his hand menacingly towards the
delivery man.  "Try it on her and you'll regret it," he said.
"This one is undamaged goods."

     The man immediately dropped the whip, and it fell to the
floor with a dull thud.  "Sorry, I really am," he babbled.  "I
didn't know."

     Luke gave him his quarter smile.  "No harm done," he said.
"These whips are fine for our floor models.  Excite the men, keep
the girls fresh.  That's why I ordered them."  He picked up the
whip from the floor, caressed it for a moment, tossed it back in
the box, and strode out the door.  I had to trot to catch up,
humiliated at the look the delivery man gave me, and where.

     The foyer was like the concierge area of a hotel, with a
long desk with room for at least five clerks behind it.  There
were cubbies for keys.  Luke gave a nod to the lone man behind
the desk, in his early twenties and with a hawk nose.  He led me
behind the desk and into an office there. Although it had no
windows--there were none in the entire complex, although several
skylights--the office was light and airy, and very masculine.  I
immediately knew it was Luke's office and Luke's alone.

     To the right as we entered was his desk, big and ponderous,
with stacks of papers in neat piles and a computer with a
shooting star screensaver.  The desk had a model sandbox on it,
about a foot square, with real sand, and miniature shovels,
pails, and rakes.  Someone had raked the sand into neat rows.
The wall behind the desk was all bookshelf, although only about
half the shelves had books on them.  My eyes stung from crying so
much that I could not see the titles of the books.

     To my left was a living room-like area, with a sofa and two
arm chairs, both, I noticed, covered with cloth, not leather.

     It was the walls that surprised me the most.  I had somehow
expected whips, or at least swords, to be ceremoniously hung
there.  But instead, the walls were hung with lovely photographs-
-a beam of light through a single leaf; a rock on a mountain
that, with its crags and bushes, looked so like a human head it
could have been carved;  a hugh wave lusciously about to break.

     Luke watched me take in the room with his quarter smile and
then gestured to one of the cloth-covered armchairs.  I sat
awkwardly, jumping when my hand brushed my own naked thigh.  I
did not know what to do with my arms.

     "Relax," he said in a voice that was soft and kind.  My eyes
filled with tears again, and stung with a sharp throbbing.  I
rubbed them with both hands.  While I did this, Luke had sat on
the footstool of my armchair.  With a gentleness utterly belied
by everything he had said and done to me until now, he took my
hands from my face and held them in his until I looked at him,
still crying.

     "You don't have to do this," he said.  "Everything I said
before still goes.  We'll protect you and you won't have to pay
us back, ever."

     At first I could not figure out what he was talking about.
But then I remembered, he had made the same offer earlier, before
I signed the contract.  "And my father?" I said hoarsely.

     Luke's voice was deep and strong.  "Your father doesn't
deserve you.  He doesn't deserve this. He's not worth it."

     I didn't say anything.  I knew that, for me, there was no
choice.

     Luke was still holding my hands.  He watched me for a
minute.  "You know what I'm saying is true, don't you?" he asked.

     I nodded.

     "But you'll give up everything for him?"

     Suddenly it was important to me to explain things to him.  I
tried to keep my voice low and even.  "When my mother died, I
promised her I would take care of him, and my brothers," I said.

     Luke looked at me appraisingly.  "She didn't mean this," he
said.

     I had no reply.  My mind was made up.

     Luke said, "You can change your mind now, but by tomorrow it
will be too late to ever go back."

     "It was too late when I signed the contract,"  I said.

     I swear to god that Luke rolled his eyes at that, a gesture
I already knew was completely uncharacteristic for him.  "You can
always break the contract," he said, "and we'll go after your
father. But if you stay, tonight you'll be broken in, and nothing
will ever undo that."

     "Then let's get it over with," I said.

     Luke gave a double take when I said this, and then a snort
of laughter.  And then he looked sad.  "I hope you keep your
spunk," he said softly, more to himself than to me.  Nobody had
ever accused me of having anything remotely related to spunk
before.

     "Did you eat today?" Luke asked, with his soul piercing look
again.  I nodded.  I had had the same breaksfast bar I ate every
morning, usually the only thing I would eat until dinner.  Lunch
in the school cafeteria meant people knew if you had no friends.
I preferred to hide in the library.  I was so used to being
hungry all day it felt like being full.

     Luke said, in the soft gentle voice that belied his words,
"When you are spoken to you will answer out loud.  You will
address me as 'sir' or 'master'."

     When he said this I felt a "ping" in my clitoris, the same
tingling feeling I had first known when I was a little girl
watching some teenage boys force a girl their age to sit in a mud
puddle while she struggled.  After that, I sometimes felt it when
I watched a cruel scene on tv, like a lynching in a western. But
I had never connected the feeling with my own life.  "Yes,
Master," I said, and Luke raised one eyebrow slightly as if he
had noticed the breathiness in my voice.

     TO BE CONTINUED



Review This Story || Author: lovelyandsad
Previous Chapter Back to Content & Review of this story Display the whole story in new window (text only) Previous Story Back to List of Newest Stories Next Story Back to BDSM Library Home