Chapter 5:The Owner's Tale

Part 1 : Daphne Gets Ready

This is me, Daphne. I'm going to run in the next London Marathon. Run in it and finish it. I tell everyone that. I'm beginning to believe it.

I was pretty pleased with what Larry had set up. Steve Glennis had been right, Clegg's operation seemed to know how to handle things. The Izotova woman looked as if she could do the job. She was due to come to the house on Monday. I cleared my business diary for the day and told Branca she was to stay out of the way while Katya was around. That wasn't so hard, she'd earned some time in ropes. She's a bit of a bondage slut anyway. Her original trainer — Connie, I guess — must have used it quite a bit in her training.

I'd got Branca settled down in the bottom of my closet just before Katya arrived; sleeve arm binder, straps for her thighs and ankles, the lether hood and a rubber plug gag. She whimpered a bit when I locked her in but I really didn't want to be disturbed. Katya and I sat in the lounge. I got her some coffee. She ignored the biscuits and looked pretty disapproving when I had a couple but she didn't say anything at first.

I took her around the house and explained about Branca's room. A friend of mine, I said. I thought Katya raised an eyebrow but then I guessed she wouldn't be very interested in my personal life. Branca knew enough to keep quiet in the closet while we were in the bedroom. I know the conditioning means that they won't ever try to do anything to escape but it's really hard to remember that sometimes. I showed Katya the room, down in the basement that I though we could use for the gym. It's actually next to a cell I can use for Branca, but I had carefully locked the door to that room! She looked at the kit I'd bought. She didn't look very impressed.

We went back to the lounge.

"This is going to be difficult," Katya said with a thoughtful look. "We have a lot to do. Your height is — what? — one metre 70?"

"What's that in feet and inches, five feet six?" I said. I never could get this metric stuff you Europeans use. I can do weight though 20 kilos airline baggage — 44 pounds.

"Weight?"

"178 pounds say, 80 kilos."

Katya looked sceptical. "Are you sure?" she said. "You have scales in the bathroom we could check."

I felt a bit sheepish. "OK well maybe it's a bit more. Last week it was maybe 182 pounds."

"Hmm," Katya grunted. She pulled a clip board from her grip and turned over a few sheets, looking at a series of tables. "BMI 28.5 Let me check that." She pulled a pair of callipers from her bag and asked me to let her measure a fold of flesh on my belly. She looked at the reading and checked her tables again. "Uhhuh — border line obese."

"Hey," I said, trying to defend myself, "I've got big bones."

Katya looked at me, scornfully. "You've got a big mouth and you spend too much time with it full of food. That's not the real problem though. Sure you have too much weight but it's not just food." She was looking at my bare arms. "There's no muscle tone. You don't take care of your body. Cigarettes?"

"Err, maybe ten a day," I said.

Katya obviously didn't believe me. "Your aerobic capacity is poor, I am sure. There is a lot to do diet, aerobic work, weights, and grooming."

"Katya, I'm paying you to make me fit, not to make me beautiful."

Katya looked back at me as if such a task would be impossible. I must have looked crushed because then Katya looked more sympathetic. "It's not about beauty. It's about you liking yourself. You can't be fit if you don't like what you are."

"I like me fine," I said, folding my arms.

Katya looked squarely back at me. "So why do you do to yourself what you do?" she said. "If you keep on doing what you do, you keep on getting what you get. We do something new. We do new things, you will like yourself better. Diet, aerobics, weights, grooming. Four things. Not difficult. Now let's look at food. Where's the kitchen?"

I showed Katya the kitchen, explained that Branca does most of the cooking — she lives rent free, I said in exchange for keeping the place clean and looking after things around the flat. I could see that Katya was making her own decisions about my relationship with Branca.

Katya was soon rummaging in the pantry and cupboards in the kitchen, in the fridge and the freezer. She was shaking her head. "Too much wrong food. Much has to go. I need a bag," she said. "Much has to go."

She started to pile food up on the breakfast bar. "Hey," I said, "is this really necessary?"

Katya looked back at me with determination. "Daphne," she said, "the kitchen is the hardest gym of all. Here it is too easy to go wrong. Too easy to slip back. Too much junk here." She picked out a pack of burgers from the freezer and tossed it onto the pile. "You cannot run on junk. Cannot train with rubbish in your body."

I found her a plastic bin liner. She carried on scooping things out of the cupboard and into the bag. I hadn't thought I had that much food in the house anyway. At the end there didn't seem left apart from a few vegetables — I've never had much to do with them, I guess — and some pasta.

Katya was standing hands on hips contemplating the pile of food she intended to discard. "Ha!" she said. "Is better without all these." I was just pleased she didn't seem to have found the chocolate. Next up was the wine cupboard. "You don't need this Daphne," Katya said, peering at the array of bottles inside. "Water, fruit juice, vegetable juice, green tea, that's what athletes drink. I'll take these for Larry — he deserves something for introducing us and if he has them you can't nag me for them and I won't be tempted to hand them over."

It was odd watching her pack up the wine bottles into a couple of boxes. If you'd said to me a few days ago I'd be content to watch as someone took my Burgundies, my Barolo, my Californian chardonnays, I'd have said you were mad. Somehow with Katya it just seemed sensible. In fact, I was beginning to feel that the relationship an athlete has with their trainer must be a bit like Branca's relationship with me.

"Cigarettes?"

Reluctantly I handed over a pack of two hundred Camels that I'd been working my way through. Living without those was going to be difficult.

"Now, we're going to start a diet. You say Branca does the cooking? I need to talk to her. Can she be here tomorrow?"

I was a bit worried about Katya meeting Branca and I guess it showed. Katya jumped to the wrong conclusion however.

"Daphne, I'm not worried how you run your love life if it doesn't interfere with your training but we have to get your diet under control. Look, here is a diet sheet," she passed me a printed sheet with a list of meals and foods. "Get Branca to look at this. You have to get Branca to help. This is going to be difficult Daphne. Maybe more difficult than anything you have done. You need all the help you can get. If Branca can, she should help."

I nodded. I said that Branca was quite good at doing as she was told. If I told her to use the diet sheet, she would. Katya gave me a look that said she was drawing more conclusions about our relationship.

"Now we start with something very easy. We'll go for a walk."

"A walk?" I said.

"Yes. A walk. It's not so difficult and you have to start easily. You have to get fit to be able to get fit. You aren't in any shape to do anything strenuous so we start with a simple walk."

"OK," I said getting to my feet and turning towards the door. I looked back to see Katya had her head in her hands.

"Daphne, not like that. Go put on something loose, something comfortable. And some flat heeled shoes — you can't walk far in those."

I went and looked in the closet and checked on Branca at the same time. She looked up at me from the floor of the closet where she sat helplessly bound. Her eyes were blinded by her hood but she didn't appear to be in distress. I checked her gag she was breathing easily enough. I left her. I couldn't find much that qualified as comfortable but I found an old pair of jeans, a sweater and a pair of flat shoes. When I went back to the lounge I could see that Katya didn't approve.

"You'll need something better than that," she said, "but we can fix that soon. That will be OK for now, I guess. Come on."

She led the way out of the building and set a slow but steady pace as we walked out along the street and down to the riverside. After five minutes I was breathing heavily, after ten, I was running with sweat, after fifteen I was coughing and glad when we turned the corner back to the front of the building again. I let us in and collapsed, sweating, on the couch. I was wondering if the marathon was a realistic objective at all.

Katya was showing no more signs of effort than if she had just walked across the room and although we hadn't walked far or quickly, we had walked steadily and without stopping. I was exhausted. "Don't worry," Katya said. "It's going to feel hard at first but it gets easier." I went to wipe the sweat from my forehead, pushing matted hair back from my face. Katya was shaking her head. She started to rummage in her bag. "I thought we'd need these," she said. She pulled out a pair of scissors, a comb and a set of hairdresser's clippers. "Sit there, I'm going to clip your hair back to a manageable length. If you try to work out with your hair like that it will be plastered to your scalp and face with sweat and that's no good for your skin. When you're a bit fitter we might let it grow back again."

I looked in disbelief as she plugged in the clippers. "But..." I began.

"No buts. If things are wrong we change them. That's how we make a difference," said Katya and without waiting to hear anymore she spread some papers on the floor and started. The scissors took off great chunks of hair and then the clippers whirred as she pushed them through what was left. The sensation of cool air on my scalp was odd, to say the least and when Katya had finished I ran my hands through the short hairs feeling them spiky beneath my fingers. "Tomorrow we find some better clothes for you to exercise in," she said. "Tonight, make sure Branca gives you something from the diet sheet. There was pasta — have that with tomato sauce. Make sure she measures quantities. Best to start right away. There is much to do. Back tomorrow, ten o'clock. We'll work more then."

I watched as she packed up her bag. "Bye, Daphne," she said. "Don't worry, you can do it."

I felt really odd once she'd gone. I spent ages staring in the mirror looking at the short bristle of hair that Katya had left me with. When I went to get Branca from where she was in the cupboard, the look on her face was one of shocked disbelief.

I told her what would be happening. Told her that she needed to follow the diet sheet. Told her that she needed to meet with Katya. I told her that it was all so she could do her best for Connie. That would make sure she behaved as she should.

Part 2 : Diet Plan

Katya came back this morning. Branca behaved herself, which was just as well. I had her wear some jeans and a roll neck top to cover up her collar and the chastity belt. I guess Katya thought she was my live-in lover, which was OK. I didn't want to have to explain Branca's collar and belt, though. I just wanted to keep things simple.

Katya went through the diet sheet with Branca and gave her a shopping list. The delivery company must have had a surprise with the change from beef and pork to chicken, whole grain foods and pulses. At least Branca is an OK cook, so I knew she'd make it as interesting as she could.

Mind you it was all a bit of a shock when Katya started to talk me through it.

"Right Daphne, here's how this works. This is no crash diet, they don't work or if they do they leave you weak and that's no good to me because you need to be strong to exercise. So, we loose weight slowly; maybe one to two pounds a week. That way is practical. If you try to starve yourself thin, the body guesses that it's being starved and cuts down the resting metabolic rate. So you burn food slower and lose less weight." I nodded. I could see that made sense. "You have too much fat in your diet, we have to reduce that, so we use lean protein, carbohydrates, high fibre slow digesting foods like porridge, whole grain cereals, whole meal bread and pasta, brown rice, beans and lentils, fresh fruit, veg. You eat little and often. That way you don't feel hungry and you have the energy to work out. We keep your metabolic rate high and you burn much more of what you have eaten with less left over to go into the fat stores."

"Hey," I said, "do I get time to do anything else but worry about food?"

Katya gave me a look. A raised eyebrow suggested to me that I'd better start taking this seriously. Katya went on. "So, little and often, that way there's no craving between meals. No temptations to eat biscuits, crisps, chocolate éclairs," Katya gave me another look that said she knew just what I'd be off stuffing given half a chance. "In other words no going for the sugar/fat combo. That's what really destroys diets. Then no big meals after 6 or 7pm unless I OK it personally. The occasional evening do isn't the problem but I don't want you out having big meals every night. Change your business dinners - get the work done during the day." I felt like I was being pummelled. "And finally you need much more water. What colour is your pee?"

"What?" I was shocked. It wasn't a question I was used to being asked. Or even something I was used to thinking about.

"Your pee. When you go to the toilet. What colour is it?"

"I don't know. I don't really look. Sort of yellowy brown, I guess. Why?"

"You can't be fit unless your kidneys are flushing the body out properly and they can't do that without enough water. Your pee should be almost colourless. Maybe a very pale straw colour. I'll want to check. Take a glass next time you go and bring me a sample. You'll need to take a couple of glasses of water as soon as you wake up and then a couple before a meal. You need about five litres a day and," she said guessing what I was about to claim, "wine doesn't count!"

I guess I looked disappointed and embarrassed and I was. Katya ignored my concern and pressed on. "Then we change the lifestyle things. It's not your food that make you fat, it's your life that makes you fat. To change your weight you have to change your life. We need organised meal times, cut out eating to cure boredom — well, you'll have plenty to do so there's not much risk of that — no more eating at the TV and we'll take time eating too. You eat too fast."

"And you talk too fast," I cut in. I felt overwhelmed by the detail and all the do's and don'ts.

Katya stopped for a moment and then grinned. "Sorry," she said. "It's just that I know this works and I know you can do it. You've already made the commitment to yourself we just have to set the goals, establish priorities so you can do it and get on with it. It's not as hard as it sounds and it's actually quite addictive once you get started."

I took a glass to the toilet and brought a sample back for Katya. It was probably the most humiliating thing I have ever done and I stood watching as she peered at the amber liquid disapprovingly. She sighed and gave it back to me. "Lots of water, lots of water," was all she said.

We left Branca to finish off in the house and Katya took me to buy some training clothes. It was funny, I'm used to turning up at restaurants or shops and having the staff recognise me. This way it was the other way around. Katya was obviously known to the people in the first shop we went to, the guy that came to serve us said he was sorry about what happened to her boyfriend and how he was glad that her clients were standing by her — he nodded at me.

Katya said thanks and asked him to get a selection of track suits, exercise tops and shorts. I tried some on, surprised at how comfortable it felt and how it made me feel — well — serious about it all. We picked out some underwear that Katya said would work better when we were exercising and a pair of trainers that cost more than the last pair of evening shoes I bought. Katya had me try them on and then walk up and down so she could see they would be all right when I was working out. She then had me go outside the shop to try and run in the shoes. I had to go through this with several different kinds before she was satisfied. I felt a bit odd parading for her. I guess Branca must have felt the same when I first insisted on seeing her in corset and heels.

I kept the training gear on. Katya bundled up my other clothes and asked the shop to send them on with the rest of the things. Then Katya took me over to the gym, showed me the equipment and introduced me to some of the folk there. It was odd, everyone was really friendly. Nobody said they thought that what I was trying to do was ridiculous. Nobody even seemed that bothered that I looked pretty unfit and overweight. They just seemed happy to let Katya and me get on with things as we wanted to.

Part 3 : Breaking Training

I was sitting in the bedroom, getting my breath back after another brisk walk — longer this time and quicker. I pulled out a chocolate bar from the box I had hidden under the bed and I'd just managed to gulp down a bite when I heard Katya coming in.

"Daphne, there's some green tea in the kitchen and ... Hey? What's going on?" she said.

"Going on?"

"Daphne, don't try to fool with me. You weren't performing well today and you've got chocolate around your mouth. I don't think that's on today's diet sheet is it?"

I looked embarrassed and tried to bluster about needing an energy boost or something.

"Not good enough, Daphne," Katya chided and before I could stop her she bent down and pulled the box from beneath the bed. The only problem was that it didn't just have chocolate in it. "Disappointing," said Katya as she pulled the bag of chocolate bars from the box. As she did so a couple of packs of cigarettes fell out too. The fact they were Camel Nummber 9's didn't cut any ice with Katya. She was about to tear me off a strip when the pair of handcuffs fell out as well. Giving me a quizzical look she rummaged in the box some more, finding a vibrator, a leather hood, some wrist and ankle straps and a ball gag. "I see," Katya started, "this explains some things. You are tired to death. I can tell; you have bags under your eyes. You aren't making the progress you should."

"What do you expect with all this exercise and no food?"

"That's not the problem. You don't have balance in your life yet. You need a better balance. You have to do your work. You have to do your training. You have to stay off cigarettes and alcohol and you need at least ten hours sleep every night. And sleep is not reading in bed or watching TV or playing with Branca. I guess she wears these?"

I nodded. Things were getting complicated.

"Well, if Branca is used to doing as she is told, she can help me to help you. All right?"

I wasn't sure I liked the direction things were going but, embarrassed at being caught with the chocolate and cigarettes and at Katya's other discoveries, I nodded. Katya called Branca in. She looked worried when she saw the toys from under my bed, concerned that perhaps she was about to be admonished for some mistake in tidying up. Katya reassured her. "Branca, don't worry. I don't mind what you and Daphne get up to. My boyfriend and I used to do some kinky stuff too. These things can help us to help Daphne though. What I want you to do is to put this hood on Daphne at ten o'clock each night and put her to bed. To make sure she stays there you strap her wrists and ankles to the bed frame. I am guessing you know how to do that." I was a bit concerned by the enthusiastic way in which Branca nodded. I tried protesting but Katya and Branca ignored me. "If she needs to get up in the night for the toilet you can take her. But the hood stays on with the eye pieces closed. And it stays on until I call in the morning to pick her up for training. All right?" Branca nodded. Katya turned towards me. "And," she added, "if you can't stay off the chocolates and cigarettes we'll start using the ball-gag too."

I felt really uncomfortable with this for two reasons. Firstly I'm a top. I've always been a top. Even before I owned slaves I was a top. When I played cowboys and Indians as a kid, somehow it was the cowboys that ended up tied to the tree not the little Indian squaw that was me. Secondly I wasn't sure how Branca's conditioning would cope with something like that. But I didn't want to have either of those conversations with Katya, so I said, "All right," when she asked if I was prepared to go along with her ideas.