Chapter 67

With a feeling of utter dread in my heart I opened Susan's coffin. It was so small and she lay swamped by her final home. I pulled back the silk cloth that covered her. Julia and Karolina had dressed her in a simple yellow dress, its high neck covering wounds that we didn't want to be reminded of. They had told me that yellow was her favourite colour. I felt so ashamed that I didn't know what her favourite colour had been.

I looked at her bare throat. Whoever had abused both her and Varinka had stolen their collars. I could actually understand that, they were worth a lot of money. It would also make Wendy's job much easier. Wendy was like a woman possessed. She was everywhere. She'd finished her investigations locally and was now in Paris with the DGSE looking at port and airport records, trying to track the thugs entry into France. We were sure that they were English and had travelled directly from the UK.

Turning to Julia I held out my hand, Julia placed an exact copy of Susan's collar in my hand. It, and Varinka's collar, had arrived this morning from London. I'd been able to get the same jeweller to remake both collars as an urgent job. As usual he'd done a magnificent job.

Julia held Susan's hand and turned to me, "Master, slave Susan cannot ask, so I ask on her behalf. Please our Master, collar your slave."

I lifted Susan's head so easily, too easily, and secured her collar around her slender throat. The pearl, centred properly on her throat, glistened with an eerie light.

Sasha gave me a gold bracelet, it had the key to Susan's collar on a small chain, easy for her to use. If she ever wished to.

"Susan, you served me and our family faithfully. You have your collar and here is its key should you ever wish to be free." I choked on the last few words, overcome with emotion. I fastened the bracelet around her right wrist.

We turned to Varinka's coffin. Again with ease I lifted the small lid revealing our friend. Like Susan, Varinka had been dressed in a light summer dress, her's a pale green.

Though our actions were repeated they were no less meaningful for that.

Julia held Varinka's hand and stood tall and proud. "My Master, slave Varinka cannot ask so I ask for her. Please our Master, collar your slave."

If anything Varinka felt lighter than Susan, so, so easy to lift. I fastened her collar around her slim throat and laid her down again. The ruby in the centre of her gold collar flashed fire in the dim church light.

"Dearest Varinka, you have given me, and our family the gift of your servitude. Here is the key to you collar should you ever decide to be free."

I fastened Varinka's bracelet, with its key, to her left wrist. I had noticed that she had been left handed.

I turned and looked at the guards around the church, their shotguns and rifles incongruous in this quiet, reflective, setting.

"Please guard my ladies well. They are very precious to me," I said.

"It will be our honour to do so Baron." His Birmingham accent betraying which corner of Martinè he came from.

"Thank you. I leave my loved ones in your care." I replied. He seemed to swell with pride on hearing that.

Sasha and I led our small procession out of the church. We would all be returning tomorrow.

Tomorrow we would bury our friends.

My girls all managed to touch me at some point during our journey back to the chateau. Each thanked me for my words to their friends, all had been crying, most still were. Sasha held on to me as though her life or sanity depended on it. I wondered what I had done to deserve such love and affection, but decided that I would never know the real reasons.

Ela met us at the chateau's door. "Got some fuckin' good news for you Boss," she said with a smile. "Wendy called about ten minutes ago, she's got presents for Susan and Varinka. She said she should be here in time for the funeral."

"Thank you dearest Ela, we all could do with some good news," I said then kissed her. "When are you going to join us in bed again, precious one?" I asked her.

"Soon Boss, we've been so busy while we've been here, never had a chance to. I do want to Boss, Mrs Boss, even if only to sleep cuddling and being cuddled." Ela's wistful expression spoke of her true longing to join us, even if, as she said, it was just to cuddle.

While we stood talking Gerald and Bernie came out and stood waiting expectantly.

"Waiting for someone?" I asked amused.

"Yeah, two actually, Chantille and Sara Burton."

My mouth opened in surprise. Even I had heard of these two. Famously jealous of each other, fiercely competitive and world class divas, they were not women to get on the wrong side of. Their 'relationship', if an all out war could be described as such, started on the wrong foot. Chantille was reported as saying "Sara had the voice of an angel but no morals." Sara replied "Chantille has the morals of an angel but no voice." It went downhill from there.

"And you're expecting them to arrive here together?" Sasha asked in surprise, no, shock.

"They said they'd fly out on the same plane, save time for rehearsals," Bernie interjected.

"What are they going to be doing?" I asked.

"We asked if they'd sing with us on the extended Friends album. They're coming here to do our show for the locals. See how it goes sort of thing." Gerald answered.

Well, while these ladies were world class singers and entertainers, they would be classed as second string when compared to The Screaming Monkeys. No wonder they put aside their rivalries to perform with Gerald and the band.

"We'll get in then and leave you to greet your guests," said Sasha. "Are they joining us for dinner?" she asked.

"They're gonna be fucking hungry if they don't," replied Bernie with a grin.

On seeing a black limousine turning into the drive Sasha, my girls and I hurried inside. I smiled at Sung Lu who had unobtrusively joined us while we had been talking. Melissa joined Sung Lu, standing behind Gerald and Bernie. Elastic and Sandy both said 'Hi' as they hurried outside to join the welcoming committee.

Dinner was a strange affair. Chantille and Sara sat next to each other and, judging from their body language and the way that they kept touching each other, I would have said that they'd been friends, no, lovers for some time. One of Sara's bodyguards, a hulking, brutal looking man who towered over my six foot two, wore bandages over an obviously broken nose and he kept darting nervous glances at the diminutive Sung Lu. I do hope he'd not upset her, Paula's girls can get a little ... forceful ... when someone upsets them. Sung Lu however showed no sign of any altercation, she stood behind Gerald's chair looking small and decorative, the kind of ornament any multimillionaire would love to have lounging naked around his house. Did I mention she was naked? She was, as were all of the other household servants, local girls and my girls. It did seem to distract both Chantille and Sara's male bodyguards though.

Paula sat on my right, Sasha on my left. For some reason they kept slipping their hands between my legs and caressing my, now erect, cock. Though they seemed to take it in turns, occasionally, such as right now, they both did it together. Neither of them gave any indication of the game they were playing, nor did they seem to object to the other player whose hand was in their playground.

I could, I think, understand Sasha's infatuation; she was still a little shocked by my proposal. But Paula was supposed to be an adult. Well, OK, so was I, but I have an excuse, I'm a man and two sexy women are groping my cock and balls. There was no way I could remain adult under that level of provocation.

The after dinner drinks provided a surprise.

"Why has the hulk got a broken nose?" I asked Gerald.

"Well, err ... Sung Lu thought he was trying to smuggle a handgun into the chateau." Gerald looked pleased, "When she questioned him about it he just tried to brush her aside. She put him on the ground and took the gun out of an ankle holster."

I, too, grinned at the thought of someone trying to brush aside one of Paula's special girls, that would be like trying to brush aside a brick wall, with far greater impact on your own health too.

Chantille and Sara joined us, they were holding hands.

"Do you mind me asking where you got your guards from?" I asked them.

Sara shook her head, "Not at all, Justin, my manager, said that Ms Morrison said we had to have them. We'd been receiving threatening letters, so we agreed."

"She also wanted us to pretend to hate each other. She said that it would be good publicity. She didn't want anyone to know we're lovers." Chantelle added.

"That would be Sydney Morrison, would it?" I asked. I could see that the Morrison's tentacles spread wider than anyone ever guessed.

"Yeah," answered Sara. "Why, do you know her?"

"Yes," I answered, "I know her." I turned to Elastic, "Elastic, I want Chantille and Sara's bodyguards under lock and key immediately." Elastic turned to go, already pulling out her mobile. "Use some of Paula's girls, I think you may need them."

I turned back to the two young singers. Sara looked at me innocently, "Do you know where Ms Morrison is? No one's seen her for a few days now and it's not like her to leave too much to her managers."

"She's been sold as a slave to a torture brothel." I answered her, perhaps a little too sharply.

"Couldn't have happened to a better person," interrupted Chantille. "She was a nasty little thief. Fortunately I had my own accountant before I joined the Morrison agency. She caught Ms Morrison cooking the books very quickly. We threatened to sue and make it public and nasty, but she always had some way of stopping us. Helen, my accountant died shortly after that but her brother took over her business and still runs it now. He won't have anything to do with Ms Morrison."

"Sounds like a sensible man to me." I said. "How about you Sara, do you have you own accountant?"

Sasha looked at me strangely. "You mean you actually know who these ladies are?" she asked in surprise.

"Of course!" I answered with a pretend show of huff. "I'm not totally ignorant of the current music scene you know."

For some reason this generated laughter from all who heard it. Even Cecy and Harold joined in which I thought was a little unfair of them.

"So what was Sara's last number one called then?" Sasha asked meanly.

"Err ... well I'm too busy to keep up with details," I said groping desperately for a way out of this hole I'd dug for myself.

More laughter. I did notice that my girls looked sympathetic, June and Aline actually looked shocked at the treatment I was getting. I gently reached backwards to my right and touched what I expected to, naked flesh. I turned, Umber was behind me in her place as my chief body slave. "Umber, darling, please reassure June and Aline that these people mean no disrespect to me."

"Of course, my Master," she replied and was gone.

"Who was that girl and why is she naked?" asked Chantille. "Not that I'm objecting to her being naked of course." Her engorged nipples showed that she rather liked looking at the naked girls around the room. I bet her palms were a little sweaty too.

I did notice that both she and Sara watched carefully as Umber walked, or rather swayed, away. That girl has possibly the sexiest walk in the world.

"She's my head body slave," I answered. "Slaves, of course, don't wear clothes."

Chantille looked behind Gerald at the naked Sung Lu, "Are you a slave too?" she asked. Sung Lu looked at Gerald for permission to answer or not.

Gerald nodded.

"I have the honour to be enslaved to Master Gerald," she answered.

"Oh." Chantille was unsure of what to say next.

"Anyway," I said, thankful that we'd moved on from the subject of my knowledge of the current music scene and artist's back catalogues, "Sara, do you have your own accountant?"

"Oh yes, he's a very nice man, my agent found him for me," she answered.

"And does he work for the Morrison agency too?" I wondered just how naive a person could be.

Sara nodded.

Gerald looked a little shocked. "You two do me, and yourselves, a favour right?"

The girls looked at him surprised.

"Give Paul your credit cards. He's got this girl, Karolina, she can do magic with computers. Let her check your accounts and everything. Karolina will tell you whether they've been stealing from you or not." Gerald looked deadly serious as he said this.

The girls weren't so sure; they looked at each other nervously. "But giving him our credit cards, that's, like, giving him our account thingies," said Sara.

Sheryl, Bernie, JJ and Gerald laughed out loud. "Look," said Bernie, "you made, what, twelve million last year?" The girls nodded, a small smile on their lips at the success they'd enjoyed. "He," Bernie pointed at me, "makes more than that every day. How do you think he can afford to have all of these slaves around all the time?"

"I've given him my cards. Karolina saved me my fortune," JJ added.

"OK," Sara agreed, "I haven't got them on me of course. I'll give you them tomorrow."

"Just give them to one of my girls, they'll get them to Karolina and she'll see what's been happening with your money." I told them.

I turned and spotted Cecy and Harold sitting by the window. Slowly I moved over to them.

"See, she said yes didn't she. I told you she would," said Cecy with a smile.

"Sasha's been wondering when you'd ask her," added Harold.

I smiled and took a sip of my drink, to have time to gather my thoughts. "She said yes, and I've been too slow in asking her," I agreed with both of them.

I half turned and gestured to Sara and Chantille, "What do you think of those two?" I asked.

Cecy looked thoughtful, Harold laughed, "I never thought I'd be host to most of the top tier of the international music industry," he said with a chuckle.

"You watch yourself Paul," said Cecy seriously, looking over at Sara and Chantille. "Those girls haven't been told 'no' for a long time." She looked me in the eye, "They'll be after you very soon. Neither of them have ever met someone like you."

I leant forward and kissed Cecy, I meant it to be a peck on her cheek, but she turned her head and we met lips to lips. As I've said before, Cecy is a wonderful kisser.

Sasha and I cuddled in our bed; she wore my ring and perfume. I looked at her as she relaxed in post coital bliss. Alina lay behind her kissing her shoulders, her thin arm curled round my lover's body to cup her breast. Alison, or was it Melissa, lay behind me, pressed hard against my naked back, her hand had sneaked between my legs and currently gently cupped and squeezed my balls. Melissa, or possible Alison, lay behind her and I could feel her hand squeezed between my back and a breast. The three girls had 'helped' Sasha and I make love.

Umber lay at the foot of the bed, she had taken over Julia's pad and sleeping bag. This, I had been informed, was the proper position for the head body slave, a position of status and authority.

Together we slept.

The alarm buzzer sounded, it wasn't the raucous panic alarm, this was the much quieter beware alarm. It also meant that Elastic's girls were already dealing with the incident.

The buzzer cut off seconds before Sandy slipped in the door.

"Just lay still folks." She ordered.

We did as she said, though Sasha started to kiss and nibble at my chin, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes.

Her eyes suddenly widened, "Alina's just pushed two fingers up my bum," she said a little breathlessly.

I looked over at Alina who, with a broad grin on her face, nodded.