Chapter 10

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Slave training is a process. At each stage different techniques must be used to get the final results desired. In the beginning the whip is remarkably effective, but does tend to create longer lasting marks. If a slave is nearing a projected delivery date there is an effort on the part of the trainers to limit such marks.

Judy was almost ready for sale when a problem arose. She had decided, after almost a year of training, that being non-compliant and unresponsive was a good form of protest and rebellion. Her lead trainer thought it had something to do with her younger sister, who had been in training with her, being sold to a man down in Los Angeles. Whatever the cause, she had become belligerent to the staff and Randy, as the one in charge of problem slaves, had to make some adjustments to Judy’s attitude without marring the product.

Training is also a mixture of pressure and time. The cage Judy now occupied had a number of features that provided both. Her body was held upright but her lower legs were bent at ninety degrees with no support for her knees. This gave Randy easy access to the soles of her feet, the principle target of his cane. If she did not use her hands to pull up or brace herself, all of her weight would rest on her pussy as it was crushed on square bar of steel running between her legs. Her arms could only hold her up for short periods of time and that really only resulted in spreading the fatigue and agony across more of her body. The cage itself was suspended below a short chain attached to a circular piece of heavy steel. An eye hook above allowed a hoist to lift and move the cage around the octagonal room called the Gallery. At the moment the cage, with Judy trapped in it, was being lowered down into its resting position which was inside a dark, round chamber barely wide enough to hold the cage and its passenger. The circular steel and concrete lid settled on the top just in time to cut off light, sound, and a hoarse scream.

Randy was unhooking the hoist when he noticed someone at the door, “Hello?”

Carl stepped into the room, “Hello Randy.”

“Hey Master Carl, it has been a while.” Randy pushed the hoist aside and reached out to shake his guest’s hand. “How is Lord Blackmon?”

“He is recovering and making progress every day.” Carl nodded to the line of concrete cylinders along the wall, “What are those?”

“It is amazing how simple things can be re-tasked. They are concrete culverts mounted upright to convert them into isolation cells. Terror does not cause marks or bruises. Mixing it with a measured amount of pain allows us to reshape problem behaviors.”

Carl pointed to the last one, “Why is that one different?”

Randy pointed to the bottom, “That is ... an experiment I guess you would call it. It has a water reservoir around it and on the inside. I have used it a couple of different ways. One slave had a fear of water. I poked a pin hole in a gallon jug of water and rigged it to drip down. Hearing the dripping, confined in the dark, knowing there was water below convinced her to get back on track. She did not know the water was only an inch deep. Another was terrified of bugs. Argentine ants don’t bite but will find and eat sugar. I tied a bucket with a colony of Argentine ants under her cage and dusted her face and tits with powdered sugar. She spent two days suspended in the dark with ants crawling all over her. The water kept the ants from crawling away.”

“Was it effective?”

“Both showed marked improvement in their attitude and cooperation. Neither had a mark on them.”

Carl looked again at the chamber, “The ant thing seems a bit extreme.”

Randy looked at Carl, “I did not think this thing up. I have heard of slave owners using bees, roaches, scorpions and even snakes. Back in South Carolina my mother had a setup like this but for a different purpose. It was a post set on an island in the middle of a small pond except it was not Argentine ants she used. The island was the home of a permanent colony of fire ants. A fire ant bite is one of the most painful things you will ever experience and when they attack, they attack by the hundreds. My mother made sure we all watched so that the lesson was learned by everyone. I saw it used three times. Twice she left the slave tied there for fifteen minutes but the other was left all day. Only the first two slaves survived the ordeal.”

Carl pointed back to the chamber holding Judy, “How long... ?”

“I will lift her out in about three hours, cane her feet again then put her back for another three hours. She will be allowed to rest for about two hours before we test her cooperation. If there is any sign of resistance she repeats the cycle.”

Carl shook his head and remembered why he was there, “I need a favor. I need you to get a note to Madame Carronade as soon as possible.”

“She is not here at the moment but will be back in about an hour. Do you want to stay and...”

Carl handed him the blue envelope, “No, I have some things that need my immediate attention. This is important. Please give it to her in private and tell her she needs to read it immediately.”

Randy turned the envelope over in his hand, “I can do that.”

Carl turned to leave but looked back, “Keep this between us, ok?”

“How ... how is Willow?” Randy almost looked embarrassed.

Master Carl looked hard at the short, thin man. He looked ... sad. “She is ... different. There is a maturity to her now.”

“She survived a very intense experience. I am not surprised she was changed. She came close to not surviving.”

Carl took two quick steps closing the distance between them, “You ... you did that?”

The smaller man did not flinch or retreat, “Yes I did. I took her to the edge of her endurance and held her there. Madame Carronade would not have spared her brother otherwise. I took her to hell because she asked me to save her brother’s life. I also left enough for her so that she might have a chance to rebuild and recover. I could have killed her. Most trainers would have. Are you upset because I helped save her life or her brother’s life?”

“I am upset because afterwards I held her for days as she sobbed and shook.”

“Did she keep the piercings?”

“Yes, she did. She seems to take pride in them.” Randy had pushed steel rods through her nipples and tongue. What she had never said and Carl did not know was that for eight hours, just before she was delivered back to Carl, those metal rods had been connected to a device that delivered electrical shocks based on the sounds it detected. The source of the sound was the video recording of her earlier torture. She had been forced to watch as each blow was delivered, each scream erupted from her throat, each thrust of the studded dildo violated her, she relived it through the electrical shocks. Madame Carronade had observed and approved of it all.

Carl backed up, “Please deliver the note.” With that he turned and left.

Houses sell better if they are furnished, or at least when they are shown with furniture in them. The large two story house would not be on the market long no matter what. It was located in Palo Alto, near the Stanford University campus, and close to five of the world’s largest software companies. But whoever had staged the house had done a very nice job. Expensive living room and dining room furniture decorated the downstairs with only the master suite containing furniture upstairs. The other two bedrooms were bare down to the hardwood floors.

Madame Carronade stepped into the smallest of the bedrooms, her heels echoing on the wood, “No place to sit?” She had dressed in a gray business suit and her hair was loose at her shoulders. She looked like a banker.

“I am sorry Madame, but these precautions were necessary.”

She noted with some puzzlement that it was Master Carl speaking and not the tall man leaning on a cane next to him. “I saw two houses before this one and I will see one after. I have documented my tracks so as not to draw any attention to my movements. In fact, I think I might buy the Burlingame property. It is, after all, important to diversify my financial holdings.”

Carl nodded towards the window, “We parked on the street behind this one and came in through the back yard. I cannot see how anyone could prove we met here.”

Lord Blackmon nodded, “Did you burn the note?”

“I felt like I was Jane Bond! Are we just playing a game here?”

Master Carl met her gaze, “I asked you to come, and asked you to indulge in this ... diversion, because I have information that is important and possible dangerous. Lord Blackmon is here to show you he has confidence in the validity of the information. He is also here for me ... to show me how much he trusts you.”

She leaned against the door frame, “Ok, I am intrigued.”

Carl took a deep breath, “Let me give you the bullet. If you are involved in this tell us now. Consider yourself warned and we will simply walk away. It concerns a federal investigation. Stolen intellectual property, software and hardware, are being sold through a hotel near the airport. Are you involved?”

Carl watched with a professional’s eyes as the woman’s face changed from confusion to anger, then to hurt and finally to wonder, “You do not believe I am involved but you are not sure.”

“I do not believe you are involved...” Lord Blackmon tapped his cane on the floor, “ ... knowingly.”

Carl went on, “This question does not come out of the blue. I have reason to believe your organization, or some element of it, might be involved. But Lord Blackmon has convinced me that you personally would not abide this activity. I owe you; we both owe you, a great deal. If you are involved I just broke the law and could be sent to prison for revealing that someone is looking into this matter. All of the risk at this moment is on me, but it will not stay that way for long unless we defuse this quickly. So, are you a crook?”

Madame Carronade’s face was as gray as her suit, “No, I am not dealing secrets at a hotel or anywhere else. Now, tell me everything.”

Carl pulled a piece of notepaper, torn from a pad that had been in hotel room, “I was asked by a branch of the federal government to reconnoiter this hotel for possible criminal activity. I got it done faster and in a different way than they expected so I have not reported anything yet. But one of the things I saw was Matt, your security guy from the Nimitz. He was there, talking with the suspects, and in the company of a slave that I assumed is one of yours. Either way, the presence of Matt and one of your slaves marks you as involved. This will place you square in the sights of the investigators.”

Madam Carronade turned slowly away from the two men and faced the far wall. They waited for her to turn back around, say something, make a sound, walk out, anything. Instead they just waited. Finally she asked, “What did the slave look like?”

Carl needed something first, “Are you involved?”

“No, I am not involved, at least I was not until now.” She turned around again and the men saw she had been crying. But her face did not reflect sadness or grief, but rage. “But I am now. What did the slave look like?”

Carl closed his eyes, “I did not get a good look but she was oriental, long black hair cut straight across just above her ass, small tits. She was short, shorter than Matt. That is all I remember.”

“I know her. Her name is Toni. She has finished her training and is getting some advanced exposure and preparation at the Nimitz. She is under contract to a businessman from Malaysia, a man that is not supposed to be her for another two weeks.”

Lord Blackmon tapped his cane again, “That explains how Matt could have access to her.”

Carl opened his eyes, “So, she was not being delivered to someone at the hotel?”

“No, I cannot see how.”

“So ... we have access to her?”

“Oh yes we do.”

It had been weeks since Page and Willow had the run of the house without either master around. The abrupt departure of both masters from the house that morning caught all three slaves by surprise. They left no word about where they were going or when they might return. Both Page and Heather were still recovering from their recent activities so it fell to Willow to cook the breakfast. It was closer to lunch time but all three slaves needed protein and omelets met the need very well.

They were in the kitchen around the small table in the corner. Heather had been quiet since her encounter with Willow in the closet. She would look Page in the face and seemed to be rubbing her hands together a lot. Page put her fork down, “I heard from Willow that you did well last night.”

Heather continued to look at her plate but answered in a soft voice, “Is that what I did? I cannot think of anything from last night could might be described as ‘good’ or ‘well’. I acted...”

“You acted just like you needed to, like you were required to, and like you were ordered to. Do you know what that makes you?”

Heather looked up, “Whore? Skank?”

Page met her eyes, “Slave. It makes you a slave. It makes you a slave that spends most of her time in a lovely home where you can share a meal with two friends that watch out for you and you watch out for them. In a world where we can be killed for entertainment the three of us are safe today. We’re not shuddering at the thought of our masters coming home because they like to carve their names into our skin. We have no idea or guarantee about tomorrow, but today we are safe.”

“But, what about you? Blackmon has been torturing you for days now...”

Page stood up, “First, never say his name like that again. He is always ‘Lord Blackmon’. Nothing endangers us more than for them to perceive that we do not respect them. That is a wound that is very hard to heal. Trust is the other breach that is unforgiveable. They need to trust us. They need to trust that we will not hurt them, lie to them, betray them, abandon them or they will abandon us without a thought. Last night Master Carl didn’t think of you as a whore but thought of you as a part of a team ... his team. It doesn’t matter that you got fucked in the ass by some guy from the hotel. What matters is what Master Carl sees when he looks at you. To him you are a part of the household, a part of the family, a part of the team. While he thinks that way you are safe from being sold off to a suck bar somewhere.”