Chapter 43: The Day She Stopped Being Alicia

Pamela's questions took the girl formerly known as Alicia back to the moment her best friend had left her life; the moment her tears had drenched the expensive silk on Angique's shoulder — a lifetime ago. The tears had proved to be a cleansing tide, flushing out her last resistance. In the end it threw her onto a far-away beach where she was left lying naked under a baby-blue sky. A virgin sun kissed her newborn skin; wavelets played with the strands of her long, dark hair. Yesterday's raging storm was forgotten — as was her name, her past, her very identity. Just the muted thunder of eternal surf remained.

Through time Atol had become an almost forgotten dream to her. Now it returned, changing from bittersweet memory into paradise regained.

Things had stopped mattering to the girl who wasn't Alicia anymore. Her identity was just one more of the many items that had ended being of importance to her — like the names and the faces of people she might have known; friends she'd had, houses she'd lived in, work she'd done. She didn't miss them; there was no need for memories — especially since the good ones always invited multitudes of bad ones: loneliness, drunken bouts and confusion. No confusion now; no need to think; no wine-induced regret.

In the end it had all been easy. Once she let go of Paula the clouds evaporated and everything became clear — who she was, whom she belonged to, what her duties were. The metal cage became her calm eye of the storm; a center of safety she shared with her gray-pelted companion — the Master who's devoted bitch she loved to be. He never asked questions; he never caused dilemmas — he just fucked her, warming her and making her come gloriously with his gifted tongue. She could talk to him and he'd listen; she could cuddle with him, kiss him and be kissed. He never let her down.

At long last her days became sweetly predictable. There were no crippling sways of emotion anymore; no fear of demons or disrupting events that forced her to make wrong decisions — no choices, no tiring dilemmas. Her days rolled on in pleasant repetition, with chores that were no chores. She awoke around six each morning, taking care of Brynn's rigid cock and swollen bladder before leaving her cage to move her bowels and take the first of two cleansing enemas. Then she showered, washing her hair and getting her cunt lips free of regrown stubble. Finally she took her second enema, brushed her teeth and hair, made up her eyes and coated her lips before oiling every square inch of her body. Only then was she ready to make breakfast for her Mistress — on the days she was in — taking a muffin and a mug of tea for herself and returning to her cage — where she knelt, waiting for her first customer.

The endless pageant of paying visitors was another routine that became self-evident. With the pile of money on the table grew a sense of meek pride she had never felt before. This was something she could do without thinking or worrying, without fear of failing. She kept improving her skills. Every cock was a challenge as if it were her first one; no woman left her cage unsatisfied. And there always was Brynn's calm, sweet reward at the end of the day; or a rare but unforgettable night with her Mistress.

Living the life of a slave felt natural from the very start; it was like coming home to a reassuringly one-dimensional existence of quietude. It was balm to her soul after leaving an increasingly incomprehensible outside world — a life that was a mixture of stress, demands and confusion.

There was only one simple duty left — to please her Mistress; and that wasn't a duty, it was a pleasure.

How removed from her former stressful life she'd become she discovered when the outside world touched her one more time. One day Angique took her to this police station. She'd dressed her in a simple, flowery dress. It felt uncomfortable after so many weeks of nakedness — as did the cotton bra, the panties and the sweet low-heeled pumps. She was glad that Angique had informed her about the questions that would be asked — and that she should answer them truthfully.

So she told the two officers — a man and a woman — about her new life, even her special bond with Brynn. They seemed shocked below their professional masks, but in the end all they wanted to know was if she was doing all this out of her own free will. She guessed they were satisfied with her answers, as she never heard from them again.

The female doctor who examined her later that same day had probed her with fingers and questions. She'd also taken a few tubes of blood. A male doctor had riddled her with yet another barrage of questions he'd read from a list. She'd answered them all and when he was done she'd asked him if he wanted a blowjob.

He'd ushered her out of his office, his face flushed and his hands shaking.

Her confrontation with Pamela in the plane should have been a shock, and at first it was. It dragged up sinful memories of a proud and independent existence. They were reminders of her being Alicia, this stubborn girl who still believed she had a right to the swirling butterflies of stupid teenage infatuation.

On seeing Pamela again, those returning memories were strong enough to hit her with shame and humiliation. Curiously enough, though, they felt like someone else's shame, someone long forgotten. But having those treacherous feelings at all was enough to make her cringe under Angique's eyes. The woman always knew her thoughts. So she hid behind her skirt, holding on to the safe warmth of her thighs. She inhaled the sweet perfume and just prayed that it would all be over soon.

The influx of long-forgotten shame was still enough, though, to make her flee into silly non-excuses when Angique forced her to confess how she'd betrayed her with Pamela. The slap in her face upset Pamela, she saw. The blonde seemed shocked by the physical violence — a shock that changed to wide-eyed amazement. Or was it disgust? Maybe not, because Pamela became all intrigued and curious when she showed her the piercing in her nipple and the brand on her cheek.

The shock returned in full, though, when she offered Pamela Angelthorn and begged her to punish her tits with it. It took her Mistress a lot of effort to calm the woman down. Then Angique did something that made the girl want to dig herself a way out through the floor of the plane. She gave her to Pamela to be used however she desired during their stay on the island.

As she watched the blonde in the hammock, Alicia's memories again went past the happenings at the plane to her tear-soaked breakdown when she lost Paula. She'd cried on Angique's shoulder, feeling the hot tears sink into the silk robe. She knew it was like life-blood seeping away with a finality she couldn't fathom. She desperately embraced Angique, squeezing the air from her lungs. But Angique patiently let her cry; maybe she already knew they'd be the last tears she'd ever spend in misery. She hugged her, crooning endearments as she rocked the clinging body.

Then, when the sobbing came to an end, Angique wiped the tears from the girl's ruined eyes. She kissed each one softly — licking away the salty remains.

"Now stop this, silly slut," she whispered. "Enough crying for a lifetime. Be proud; you passed Surrender, the Gate of no return; now let's prepare for Oblivion." And she eased the body down till Alicia stood on wobbly legs. She carefully walked her to the marble bathroom, causing showerheads to unleash a scalding cloudburst.

The water was hot. It relaxed Alicia's stressed-out muscles, flushing away the sweat, the tears, and the reeking remains of urine she'd spilt in her desperate abandon. Angique joined her under the shower, still wearing her waterlogged robe. Her hands spread foamy soap over Alicia's slick limbs and rosy skin. She kissed and hugged her under the downpour.

They moved like ghosts in perfumed clouds.

"Now listen, honey," Angique said after they retired to the huge bed, cuddling naked under its freshly laundered sheets. "Listen well, for it concerns your future — and mine." The girl's eyes dwelt in a hazy distance. Ever since she'd stopped crying she had moved like a sleepwalker. She smiled at times, or frowned her dark eyebrows, but her mind seemed far away — thinking far away thoughts, if thoughts at all.

"Do you understand what I'm saying, darling?" Angique went on, kissing her face; then waiting for the faintest of nods.

"By passing the Gate of Surrender you have reached the point of no return — as I said, there is no way back. Breaking with your last real friend was your first step to giving up the girl Alicia. Do you understand?" A long pause, then another nod; Alicia's eyes never blinked. Her world was in a haze.

"Today you lose your name," Angique said, taking in a sharp breath after she said the words. "I and other people will call you slut or whore or bitch from now on ≠— or whatever pleases them, but never Alicia again." There was another nod; then one single blink of the fat, long eyelashes. Angique's hands closed tighter around her upper arms.

"Soon you'll be free from everything that ever burdened Alicia," the woman went on. "Freed from every tie to who she was. You'll allow me to sell her house, her computer and furniture, her car and all her clothes — everything that ever linked her to you. Do you hear?" Alicia sighed as she nodded yet again.

"Everything she owned will either be sold, given away or destroyed. All her souvenirs, pictures and letters will go. Do you understand why, honey?"

Alicia didn't know how to react, or why. There was an urge to the question — an urging for her to understand, but what — why? Angique had talked about a 'she' and a 'her, ' a third person already remote. She'd talked about things that needed to be destroyed — pictures, memories of 'she' and 'her.' What was there to understand? One single image invaded her mind.