Chapter 18: Moving In, Moving Closer

Moving into Mistress Penelope’s apartment is both exciting and challenging. Our relationship at work has evolved into an arrangement that we both understand and accept. Mistress Penelope owns and runs her discreet private dungeon, located in a former engineering workshop in a light industrial area across town. She is the dominatrix to sixteen clients; men and women, each known to me by a single letter name. Each client books sessions up to two hours in duration, to be subjected to whatever fetish they need to satisfy under Mistress Penelope’s thrall. I’m her submissive assistant, helping Mistress Penelope deliver whatever service her client requires. My duties can vary from fastening restraints, to playing a cock-tease to excite a male client.

More mundane duties include keeping the dungeon, office, storeroom and restroom clean and servicing the bondage equipment. My reward is a small regular wage plus a share of the client’s fee for those sessions where I assist. Although Mistress Penelope and I were initially in a strict working relationship, she and I have developed a bond that we both wish to explore further. We are very different in several ways, both in appearance and background. Mistress Penelope has dark ebony skin and she’s from a large family, with extremely wealthy parents and talented siblings. Her father is a partner in a prestigious law firm. I can’t claim any of those features. I’m an impoverished white skinned sole child, descended from several generations of factory hands and shop assistants. It was the closure of the store where I worked that lead me into Mistress Penelope’s dark and alluring world.

Behind the closed door of the ‘workshop’, our existing mistress-slave arrangement at work is easy to switch on and off. That may not be so easy now that our arrangement is going to extend into our outside-work lives. I’ve accepted Mistress Penelope’s invitation to be her live-in slave at home. It’s not entirely a new experience for me, since my former flatmate Christy dabbled at being my dominatrix at home for several weeks, before losing interest and moving away.

At the appointed time I arrive at the building housing Mistress Penelope’s apartment. I study the building that is to be my new home. The engraving on the entrance door lintel says the place was built in 1935. That’s consistent with the Art Deco architecture. Improvements have clearly been made over the years, including modern lighting and digital locks. However, the Art Deco theme has been carefully preserved.

There are ten apartments in the building, two on the entrance level and four each on the two floors above. There’s no elevator, only a wide spiral staircase giving access to the upper floors. Mistress Penelope’s apartment is number Five, on the middle level.

I’m allocated my own bed in the tiny second bedroom. The small window overlooks the street below and the park and river beyond. We aren’t in the most affluent part of town, but it’s a pleasant location nonetheless.

The wardrobe for my clothes is going to be far too small for my things. Mistress Penelope instructs me to place what I don’t need in a trunk she provides, to be stored in her apartment’s basement locker. She helps me to sort my clothes, retaining only two sets of regular clothing and my leather slave harness I use for work and play. I’m instructed to manage without underwear and my footwear is limited to three pairs of sandals and shoes. Mistress Penelope says that tomorrow she’ll provide me with a uniform to wear around the apartment.