Chapter 21 : A Girls' Day Out

THE FIRST DAY

I am back in my cell and I am so very glad to be back in my cell!

That will sound strange but I did not enjoy the party. Perhaps it was supposed to be some sort of reward but I found the whole affair horrible and very intimidating. Really frightening.

I suppose I was starkly confronted with the difference between who I want to be, and the person my Owners want me to be. And then there was me trying to be the person they want me to be. I have been trying to play the part these people want me to play. And that's the point - inside I have been Jennny McEwan; outside, I behave like Vyera. It's so very different; me and them, me and me.

I'm not sure if ... I ... I don't think I can carry on doing that anymore.

Vyera is taking over. It feels like the tide coming in. Vyera is swamping me, covering every surface, seeping into every corner. There is less and less space for Jenny; less and less time for Jenny. It's stopped being Jenny pretending to be Vyera. It's more like there's Vyera and this other person sometimes, who is Jenny. How long before I am Vyera all the time? Sometimes I look at Jenny as if she is a different person. I see, through Jenny, her husband; a man called Joe. He is ever so far away now. When I was Jenny ... When there was a Jenny, the party was just the sort of evening I enjoyed - she enjoyed - perhaps especially if there were people she did not know. New people to find out about, new ideas, new thoughts. This time, I felt completely out of place; worried that I might say the wrong thing; worried that saying the wrong thing might lead to punishment. Not feeling myself? Not being myself, anymore.

Then at the end, to be officially recorded as Vyera Anatol'yeva Kuznetzova. To be shown a passport with my picture and that new name beneath it. If they could make that happen then it must be true? Who are these people who can arrange things with the Offices of the State to get what they want? It felt like a final sentencing. It made me feel so small, so powerless and puny. Jenny seems like some article of clothing where the colour fades and fades with each wash.

I look up. Neena is standing above me.

"Good morning Vyerochka." She speaks slowly and a little formally. "Today is a new day; your first official, full day, as a Russian citizen. So from today, I will never speak English to you again. I will speak Russian all the time and so will you. There will be penalties for each and every word or English phrase you have to use to get through the day. I will have them recorded and you will pay at the end of each week. If you don't want to spend the weekends nursing the sore bottom I have given you on Fridays, you are going to have to work especially hard. Understand?"

"Da, Gaspazha." I'm careful not to start off by making a mistake. Careful to say nothing more in English.

"Well done!" Neena seems genuinely pleased that I am doing as I asked. She puts her hand on my shoulder and rubs gently. It feels nice. Reassuring. She is not trying to find an excuse to punish me. She hasn't told me this as part of some slave game or something to humiliate me. She's told me this, because this is how it has to be. "You have washed?"

"Da."

"Teeth?"

"Da."

"Cell cleaned?"

"Da." The routine of questions, the ritual of response is the same every day.

"Good. Go to the kitchen and have breakfast then ask for the toilet then report to me in the office."

I say "Spaseba, Gaspazha" and go to do as she says. You can't imagine how reassuring it is to be able to just do as she says. Not to think. Just to do. I never get into trouble if I just do as I am told. Presently, I make my way upstairs.

Neena is sitting behind the desk checking her emails. She has been outside running. She's still wearing her shorts and vest, her trainers. There's the healthy glow of effort shining from her forehead. Even though it's cool outside, she's been sweating. I can see a dark crescent of perspiration on her vest under each arm pit.

"Ah, Vyerochka you are here. Good. Come and help me get washed. Then wash my running kit. Do not forget to brush the dirt from my shoes and wipe any grass stains from them. Also the soles."

She leads the way to her suite. I follow behind her. She never turns to see if I am there, never doubts for one moment that I will be just where I should be.

In her room, I bend down to untie her shoes and ease her feet from them. She lifts her feet in turn and I peel the socks off and instinctively bend forwards and kiss each foot. As she raises each foot I kiss her soles and then plants her foot back on the floor. I look up at her and she down at me. I can see she approves. She can see that I can do nothing but obey her.

I roll her shorts down and then stand to peel off her sports bra. She is so beautiful! My mouth waters. Neena notices as I swallow. She laughs. "Perhaps tonight!" she flirts.

"Spaseeba, Gaspazha," I respond and smile.

She slaps my bum. "Come along rabinya. You must wash me."

We stand in her shower. I go in first and check the temperature of the water. I know how hot it must be. Cooler than I like. Cooler than Jenny liked. I turn to her and nod. She follows me in and stands under the stream of warm water. I play it all over her and then turn off the jet. I put shower gel on my hands and rub my hands all over her body: shoulders, back, tummy, mons, crack, thighs calves and feet.

I stand and open the taps once more. The water cascades over us both, sluicing the gel away.

She kneels in front of me – a strange sensation. I wash her hair, running my fingers through the strands and rubbing her scalp gently. Again, I take the hose and sluice out the gel until the water runs clear. She stands and I repeat over the rest of her body.

I turn off the water again and wrap her in a large warm towel.

The floor of the shower area is heated: it is drying fast.

I massage her through the towel, then strip it from her and use a smaller towel to absorb the final traces of moisture; around her neck, beneath her arms, between her legs, around her labia and her crack and finally between her toes.

We go into her bedroom and I carefully dry her hair, combing out the pale blond strands in the stream of air from the dryer.

At last she is done. I help her into her clothes: G string, bra, T shirt, slacks and leather flip flops.

She takes perfume and sprays a mist over her face and neck.

Without being asked, I return to clean and dry the shower area, polishing the tiles and the marks from the chrome. By the time I am done, I am dry myself; without the need for any fluffy towels.

When I go back into her room, Neena has gone. She didn't say anything but then why should she? I tidy up. I take her kit to the laundry down to the basement to wash it. I clean her shoes, just as I have been instructed.

The basement. It's my area. I feel much more sure of myself down here. It's where I belong. I am Cinderella, but a Cinderella who does not want to go to the Ball anymore.

By the time I have finished, I feel pleased with a job well done.

I return to Neena's suite. The door is unlocked. I enter and set out her running kit for the next occasion. I can hear that Gaspazha is in the bathroom once more. She is cleaning her wonderfully straight white teeth. Her wide, even, smile makes her so attractive! I am really glad to be able to serve her. Is that all it is? All because of a smile? No, I do not think so. Her smile is just one of the many chains which bind me, chains which together have become unbreakable.

I wait till she is done. She comes out of the bathroom and says nothing to me at first. She's looking for something in her clothes cabinet. I go in to clean the sink, straighten the towels and lay out her brush and toothpaste for the next time.

What to do next? There is nothing obvious. I kneel by the door and wait. On the wall, I notice, once again, the curious picture. It looks like an x-ray. It shows someone's spine. There is a metal skeleton inserted, spanning the gap between the vertebrae. And then I remember the fine surgical scar I have seen on Gaspazha's body. The picture is her!

Neena has finished her search. Picking up a pale blue pashmina, she turns and realises I have been gazing at the little picture. Our eyes meet and I quickly cast mine down. I am worried that I should not have looked. I have violated her privacy. She speaks, looking first around the room, checking to see I have completed my tasks to her satisfaction. "Well done rabinya Vyerochka! Today Gaspazha Alana needs you in Moscow. We will go together." She gathers up a handbag and some items of makeup from her dressing table and then walks across to where I am kneeling.

"Yes: the x-ray photograph is me," she says. "I used to be in the Army. I had an accident parachuting and broke my spine. The metal plates held my vertebrae whilst they healed. I was discharged, of course and Gaspadeen Kustensky gave me a job. Training new recruits. It was similar to what I was doing before. The funny thing was, I was not 'on exercise' when the accident happened. It was a jump I did for fun and it cost me my career. So, little rabinya," (she takes my chin in her hand, forcing me to look into her eyes), "you are not the only one who has had to give things up and move on, are you?"

Instinctively, I get up and embrace her, hugging her gently. As I speak I pat her back as though I was comforting a child. "I am so sorry, Gaspazha. So very sorry. Yes: I understand. I am not the only one carrying burdens. I am sorry if I seem self-pitying sometimes"

And yet. And yet. She was doing her job, or at least doing the sort of adventurous things soldiers do – and her life changed. I was stolen – and my life changed. That is surely different, isn't it? I am not sure, anymore. I just feel, as I so often do nowadays, that I have been 'put in my place' once again.

I hug her once again. The slave comforting her Mistress and then I get back down on my knees. Showing me her own hurts, her own vulnerability has put me in my place – or at least, that is how it feels. As so often, its another step down the road away from a normal life and into slavery. Neena has shared her own history with me, instead of punishing me for prying into her privacy. Instead of pain, I now feel the weight of an added responsibility: a greater responsibility to bear my own situation with patience and to redouble my efforts to be the best slave I can be.

Neena gets back to business. "In future, you will follow your physical training programme with Andrei and after any other chores the Domestics need you for, you are to continue work on your research thesis. Julia tells me there will be some further statistical work to do and the report must be formally written up. You will be allowed to use English for this project."

It's only as she says this that I realise that I haven't spoken a word of English so far, today. Vyera may know English but she doesn't speak it. How long will it be before she forgets?

SOME SURPRISING PERSPECTIVES

Neena, Alana and I drive up to Moscow in Alana's car. It is Neena who does the driving. Alana finds driving uncomfortable at this stage of her pregnancy. They sit together in the front chatting. I sit in the back. There doesn't seem to be any need for me to join in the conversation between them and in any case, who would be interested in anything a slave might have to say?

Alana and Vitaly's home is a small detached house in a neat Moscow suburb called Chysty Purdy – or 'Clean Ponds' in English. You see, Vyera still remembers a little of her English.

It is on four floors, if you count the cellar (where I will have my cell) and the attic (where the security team stay). Security is two very tough looking individuals who stay 24 hours and are then replaced by two more and so on.

There is a modest garden surrounded by iron railings that form a pleasant "nineteenth century" floral ironwork screen and are painted an attractive shade of pale blue. Practical and attractive, simultaneously.

During the drive up Alana and Neena have been talking animatedly together. Now that we have arrived at the house, Alana turns to me. "One of the reasons we have acquired you is to help me after the baby is born. Do you think you can handle that?"

My mind flies back to grim stories of young naive, inexperienced, au pairs in the United States who got themselves into all sorts of trouble looking after the young children of their employers. It seems to me, that I am in an even more exposed position. But what if I say no? If this is what they have their slave for, what do they do with a slave who can't do what they need? But on the other hand the dangers of making a mistake with the child are worse than could be imagined.

I answer in halting Russian. Some of the words are unfamiliar and I am not sure I have the right way of speaking about family things. "I will try to do whatever you ask Gaspazha" I say, "but I must be honest and say I have no experience with very young children. I do not have infant nephews or nieces. Will I be supervised with the baby?"

Neena smiles. My answer was obviously the right one.

"No," replies Alana. "I want you to help with the normal house work whilst I manage the baby. Of course when the little one gets older, you would be able to baby-sit but we would expect you to call us, if you were running into trouble."

This scenario seems safer from my point of view. I reply. "Yes, I can certainly do all that you expect of me."

"You have not had to leave any children of your own behind?" A curious question from Alana. She must certainly know the answer.

"No." I wonder if the question implies that having my own children might have saved me from abduction?

"Were you planning to have a family when you were older?"

"Yes." I reply. At once I feel a painful stab of regret because this most basic female desire seems to have been plucked from me.

"Hmmm," continues Alana brightly. "Well, we might want to have you bred – when the time comes of course."

Bred? It seems like such a clinical term. Yes, but who would look after the child? Perhaps that's implied by the "might want to have you bred"? Would I merely surrogate for another couple or would they let me keep my children? Or is that the idea? That I would produce more slaves for them? No, that's silly. Why take twenty years to breed a slave when you can snatch one in moments? How could they let me keep the child, unless I was to be "retired" from service? In which case, how would I support myself? No, better look to after children for others or be a surrogate and accept the sting of parting, of giving up to others.

But, isn't that my life so far? To finish my research for the benefit of others, to be a mother's help; to be a sexual toy and muse; and to be a hostess and waitress at the parties of the wealthy. Not the life Jenny had planned but perhaps a better life than many people in the world have to endure?

"So tell me rabinya Vyerochka, are you enjoying your new life? Is it fulfilling for you?"

It is such an unexpected question. I falter.

She follows through, "Be honest now." She stresses honest, reminding me of my name – I mean my new name.

Neena takes up the theme. "Two years ago – well, more now - when you were at IWB. That was just playing? Now you have gone the whole way. No more playing, This is real. Real submission. You didn't choose it but perhaps it has become your vocation?"

I find my mouth watering. I swallow. They both notice.

"See, Alana. Her mouth waters at the idea of submission, doesn't it Vyerochka? Tell us: what are your feelings about submission. What did you feel when you served me in the shower this morning?"

Alana looks across at Neena with a glance that makes me think she doesn't entirely approve of Neena's sexual tastes.

Neena's question is an easy place to start, but it's also a slippery place for me. Easy to answer. Easy to betray myself – and I do. "Yes, I enjoyed washing you..."

"Enjoyed kissing my feet?"

"Yes, I enjoyed that."

"You were hoping that I would ask you to suck me. To lick me. I'd bet that by the time you had washed me, the thing you wanted to do more than anything was to kneel down and lick my bum: to rim me?"

She is right. It's clear that Alana is shocked but I am blushing bright red. My skin has answered her more clearly and more honestly than any words of mine could have done.

"Yes, I say finally. I have enjoyed it all ... that sort of thing."

Neena nods, approving my honesty. Alana might agree with that but she doesn't completely approve of what I'm being honest about.

"But Gaspazha Alana. Gaspazha Neena, may I ask a question?"

"Of course," responds Alana.

"If you wanted someone to give you sexual service, surely there are ever so many nice girls who could do that? If you needed help with your baby, there must be people who have training and qualifications in child care. They would have much more expertise than me, wouldn't they? If you wanted help with catering, or a hostess to help at a dinner party, there are companies who do just that. If you wanted the results of my research, you could have left me alone to complete it, in England and in due course my thesis would have appeared in the University library, available to any academic who wished to read it?" I pause and look from Alana to Neena. It's clear that they don't see where I'm going. "So why did you have to take me?"

Alana's earlier look of shock and disapproval disappears at once. Both women laugh in unison, as if I have made the most incomprehensibly stupid remark.

I stand before them, crest-fallen, feeling ridiculous and as usual, completely defeated. What did I think? That they might even say, "Goodness Vyerochkaa, how right you are! Look, here are air tickets to take you home..."

Instead Alana replies, "Vyerochka! You are so naive!" She looks at Neena who shrugs her shoulders and then continues. "First, yes you are quite right. There is a range of professionals who could do all the things we have you do. Better, possibly. Less trouble, possibly. With more qualifications and training in the areas other than the academic, certainly."

At least she acknowledges my academic expertise, I think.

"Second, that's actually not the point. The point is that it's the owning and training of people that we enjoy. Selecting just who will be suitable. Stalking them. The hunt. The capture. The great pleasure from watching as they struggle to come to terms with what has happened to them and then watching them struggle again with adapting to the new opportunities we have given them. Not that they have any choice, because disobedience, or laziness, or recalcitrance will always be punished with the cane or the whip or the birch. And then we have the fun of modifying our slaves: their behaviour; their bodies." She nods to my bald head. "And of course, I can whip you or birch you at any time I choose, just because I can and you have to take it and thank me. You cannot imagine what a satisfactory, a delicious feeling that is.

She pauses. Actually she is wrong. I can imagine it, because I know what it feels like to receive it. But of course, she knows that too.

Alana continues: "Also, Papa always tries to makes sure the slave's new life is better and more fulfilling than their old life – and he makes sure they are carefully looked after, so if you are ever sold, you can at least expect us to keep our eye carefully on you, to make sure you are looked after properly. Finally, you enjoy it! You have admitted to us just now. You enjoy it!"

She is right - at least I think that is what my feelings are telling me. This exotic, exhausting, demanding, erotically satisfying existence

Neena takes up the theme. "In a world where unemployment and poverty are constant companions; where women are betrayed or abandoned by unfaithful men; where so many people are worn down by dull unrewarding occupations; remember just how fortunate you are. You were sought out. Brought across a continent. You live with wealthy attractive people. Having your innermost sexual fantasies fulfilled. Guarded and cared for. Slavery is not a burden. It's a gift, a privilege."

How do I respond to this? It ought to make me angry. The presumption. The arrogance. And how do they know that the new life they have given me will be better than the life I was leading before? Once upon a time I would have been able to answer them, but now it's different, somehow. To the two of them I merely smile, look down, and say, "I'm sorry. Thank you for all the time and effort you have spent on me!"