Chapter 1: Day One, 22 December

I do my best to keep my excitement under control. Yet again I check that I’ve packed the supplementary contract I received by email from the administration office of La Chatte Heureuse. The club will expect me to hand over a signed copy when I check in for my fortnight’s stay on the island. My stay this time won’t be as an ordinary member of the Slave caste, but as a ‘chattel slave’ ... the exclusive property of just one mistress; Madame Faye. My doing so is a condition of Madame Faye’s offer to pay my first annual subscription as a member of the Slave caste at the club. Two fortnightly stays on the island as her chattel slave are what I must endure in exchange for her generosity. Despite the potential risks, I still think I’ve got the better end of the deal. What’s more, as her chattel slave, I don’t need to pay for my accommodation.

The supplementary contract goes to great lengths to emphasize how much I will be in Madame Faye’s thrall. Most of the much valued protection the club provides to members of the Slave caste from excessive maltreatment doesn’t extend to chattel slaves. There’s no limitation on how severely I can be punished; no maximum length of time I can be confined in a cell or kept in bondage; no daily free time to myself. Only the club’s compulsory restrictions on mistresses’ behaviour will apply; no life threatening activity; no mutilation; no starvation. That leaves Madame Faye with a lot of scope for activities I might not like, and it means I must trust her not to go too far. Which is precisely why the club normally prohibits a member from staying on the island as a chattel slave, unless she and her mistress have been in an established relationship for more than a year. However, Madame Faye is a major financial benefactor of the club, so exceptions are invariably made in her case.

“Are you having second thoughts, Tessa?” asks Madame Faye, as we ride side by side on the club’s shuttle bus from the nearby town to the lake.

“No, Madame,” I reply. “I was wondering what Christmas and New Year will be like on the island.”

“A lot of silly games and frivolity, I would imagine,” replies Madame Faye. “I’ve never been on the island at this time of year before, so it will be a new experience for both of us.”

Madame Faye has been willing to arrange our fortnights together to fit in with my breaks from university study. Which means that Christmas and summer are the two periods that work best.

I look around at the other passengers on the bus. There are fifteen others on the twenty-seater bus, suggesting the island will have plenty of guests over the holiday break. Technically none of us adopt our caste roles until we are on the island. However, Madame Faye has insisted that I respect her position as my mistress in real life. That’s not a great imposition as we live hundreds of miles apart, and we both have busy lives. We normally only communicate by email when we are not here.

“Are you wearing the outfit I provided under your coat?” asks Madame Faye.

“Yes, Madame,” I reply, feeling slightly aroused at being reminded that I’m virtually naked underneath my long outdoor coat and boots. I’ve travelled across country dressed as I am.

Madame Faye is a professional fashion designer. Her high-end exclusive garments sell for eye-watering sums to the rich and fashion conscious. However, she also designs and produces more modestly priced clothing, including a range of very kinky wear. The leather outfit I’m wearing could more accurately described as a harness. Not only are my tits left exposed ... a standard requirement for La Chatte Heureuse Slave caste members on the island ... but my crotch is bare, framed by a triangular pattern of leather straps around my freshly shaved cunt. Only the steel collar I’m to wear on the island is missing from my attire. That remains in Madame Faye’s care for now. All I know is that the collar is something special she has had made to her own design.

Having me change into my slave outfit before I left my university dorm was another of Madame Faye’s orders designed to reinforce my submission. Sending her a selfie of me wearing the harness standing next to my dorm bed was proof that I had obeyed her instructions. Fortunately my room-mate, Leigh, had already departed for the Christmas break, although I doubt she would have been too shocked at the sight. Since my time at La Chatte Heureuse last summer, I’ve admitted to being a submissive lesbian to any of my close acquaintances who ask. Leigh certainly tolerates my kinky lifestyle, and even helps test my understanding of the exercises Madame Faye has instructed me to learn. In exchange I recognise that Leigh’s sexual preferences are strictly for guys. I find Leigh really attractive, and I would happily have sex with her. Unfortunately, she never shows any spark of interest in anything sexual with me, so I don’t make her uncomfortable by coming on to her.

My openness about my sexual preferences has been rewarded with the development of some interesting friendships. Even Madame Faye has approved of my choice of new friends. Strangely, I feel Madame Faye understands my needs better than my own mother. While my parents’ lectures on the evils of intimate same-sex relationships have dried up for now, I know neither of my parents approve of my sexual preferences. It’s a relief to them, and to me, that we aren’t spending these holidays in each other’s company. Besides, it isn’t as though they are on their own over Christmas. They’ve gone skiing with my uncle and his family. I pity my cousin Jess, who has the same sexual preferences as me. Will she be bombarded with the same lectures that I used to receive?