Chapter 13: Nicole. Saturday Week 6 of Tessa’s stay

Faye and her aunt Lydia are leaving in a few hours. I feel as though I can start breathing again. Normally Faye’s visits generate a whole series of complaints from other guests ... abused slaves, insulted ladies and mistresses complaining about Faye monopolising the facilities. The last ten days have been unbelievably quiet in that respect. Faye has been a model guest ... at least for someone from the Mistress caste. My only lingering concern is that Slave Tessa has been emotionally or physically damaged during her time submitting to Faye’s dominion.

I’ve only been able to keep a distant watch over Tessa. Faye has kept her word, and allowed Tessa two hours of free time each day. I notice that Faye has scheduled Tessa’s free time to make it impossible for her to socialise with other slaves. I wish I could have made that a requirement, but the club rules don’t stipulate the timing of a slave’s temporary manumission.

“I release Slave Tessa into the club’s care,” says Faye as she checks out. “I’ll have her report here for a re-assignment of her accommodation as soon as she’s carried my luggage down to the ferry.”

“Did you find Slave Tessa satisfactory for your needs?” I probe.

“Yes. Most satisfactory. She’s agreed to come as my chattel slave next time I visit.”

“Um ... Slave Tessa isn’t a club member,” I reply. “She won’t be able to visit the island once her current stay concludes.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. I think you’ll find that there’s a pending application for Slave Tessa to join La Chatte Heureuse as a member of the Slave caste.”

While I’m pleased at Slave Tessa’s decision, I’m surprised by Faye’s comment. A new applicant needs two existing members to sponsor her application for membership. Processing new membership applications is part of Helen’s role, so it’s easy enough to ask her to verify Faye’s assertion. I wait until the ferry has departed before checking. Sure enough there’s an application from Tessa, sponsored by Faye and Lydia. It will take a few days to verify the details on Tessa’s application, although we have already checked her birth certificate and other identification documents when she first claimed her prize.

“I see that you’ve applied for membership of La Chatte Heureuse,” I say, when Slave Tessa appears at the reception desk. “You must be enjoying your stay here to make that decision so soon.”

“Yes, Madame,” replies Tessa. “So far my stay has surpassed my wildest expectations. I’ll be sorry to leave in a week’s time.”

“Well, once you are a member, you can visit again. The membership fee allows a member of the Slave caste seven nights of free accommodation on the island each year.”

“Madame Faye wishes me to come for two fortnight stays as her chattel slave, so I will need to use my free accommodation during one of those stays, Madame.”

“That’s not how being a chattel slave works. The mistress bringing a chattel slave must pay for their combined accommodation. Your own allowance for free accommodation won’t be needed. You can use your seven nights how you like. Now, we had best find you a bed in E4 for the remainder of your stay. There are eighteen members of the Slave caste arriving today.”

I escort Slave Tessa to building E4. The bed she has occupied for the first two weeks of her stay has been allocated to member who goes by the name of Slave Bambi. A third of the visiting slaves use a made-up name for anonymity. I don’t inquire as to the reasons why members choose particular alternative names. Slave Bambi is a shy thirty year old with long blond hair, who arrived last Saturday with two of her slave friends. Her friends have already departed, but Slave Bambi is booked to stay until next Saturday. She’s scheduled to depart on the same ferry as Slave Tessa.

“Do you prefer a bed by the window?” I ask.

A slave isn’t normally allowed any choice about her allocated accommodation. However, I feel I owe Slave Tessa a favour after she kept Faye out of my way for the last ten days.

“Yes, Madame. If that is convenient.”

I reallocate the bed opposite the bed now used by Slave Bambi. It was originally earmarked for one of today’s arrivals, but I move the her nameplate to an unallocated bed further along the row. I fix Slave Tessa’s nameplate over her bed and lock it in place. Keeping the nameplates firmly fixed to the bed-head avoids squabbles between slaves over bed allocations, and prevents the more dominant slaves from bullying other slaves into trading their beds. The beds by the door are the most favoured as it means being first in the queue for the bathroom and kitchen in the morning. The beds by the window at the other end are second choice, with those in between least favoured because of the heat and smell of crowded bodies.

“Madame Faye allowed me to keep the leather corset and skirt she gave me, Madame,” says Slave Tessa. “Am I allowed to continue wearing them, or should I change into the standard slave uniform?”

“I think you should change,” I reply. “You will be too much of a target for mistresses and slaves alike if you wear that expensive outfit. We can put the outfit in your locker until you are ready to leave.”

I take Slave Tessa back to the administration building and we place Tessa’s leather corset and skirt inside her locker. I arrange for Slave Brooke to reissue a standard Slave caste outfit to Tessa.

“Report to the Slave Holding Area as soon as you are ready,” I say to Slave Tessa as I leave her in Brooke’s care.

I turn my attention to the arriving members. Four mistresses, three ladies and eighteen slaves are among today’s arrivals. Kirsty is having to make two round trips to transport everyone. The abnormally high number of arrivals can be attributed, in part, to Faye having left the island this morning. Perhaps if Faye is preoccupied with Slave Tessa in future, we’ll have fewer members rescheduling their visits to avoid confronting Faye during their stay.

“What do you intend to do with all these extra members of the Slave caste?” I ask Stephanie and Rebecca, who are in charge of allocating work to the slaves. “We’ll have fourteen field slaves, six general slaves ... excluding club staff, and three bondage slaves this week.”

“Some of last week’s tasks had to be deferred until this week because we could only muster one work party of field slaves,” replies Stephanie. “It will take us a few days to catch up. I think our biggest problem is going to be satisfying the four arriving mistresses. They’ve requested that a bondage slave be allocated to each of them.”

“What?!?” I say in surprise. “There’s no record of that request on their booking. I would have warned them how difficult that would be to achieve had I known.”

“Nevertheless, the club received an email late last night making the request,” says Stephanie. “Apparently Monique promised them that we would do our best to satisfy their request.”

Monique’s reply doesn’t surprise me. La Chatte Heureuse always does its best to meet the requirements of members, particularly those of the Mistress caste. I check the details of the four arriving mistresses. They are all close friends, so they are probably visiting the island as a group. However, we only have three slaves booked as bondage slaves this week, so the mistresses are going to need to share.