Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Roselia winced with every step she took. The four stripes she'd begged her Master to inflict on her backside were more painful than any he'd ever given her before. The sadist was masterful at landing them evenly so that one stripe was on the back of her thighs just above her knees. The next was several inches higher below her butt cheeks. The next had landed directly over her ass. And the final strike had landed at the top of her ass.

The one high on her thighs was the worst because it was nearly impossible to sit on the toilet to pee. The bastard knew this. He took perverse pleasure in watching her squat over the commode to do her business and would chuckle when she returned to the room.

She'd been here four months, and she didn't think she could live like this much longer. Her master was so mercurial that it was impossible to predict what might set him off from day to day.

It had taken her only a week under his roof to learn that she would never fully please him. She could cook the bacon to perfection, but the eggs were too runny. Or she prepared the eggs perfectly, but the bacon was too crispy.

She could vacuum the carpet in lines four days in a row, and the next day, he would go into a fit of anger because he preferred the vacuum stripes to be diagonal.

Roselia had learned to keep her head down as much as possible. It kept him from seeing her wincing. Days like today were the hardest. He'd never struck her that hard that many times, and especially not the day after another severe punishment.

Yesterday, he'd accused her of leaning over the side of the couch too far to fluff up the pillow and intentionally grazing her nipples across the leather. Not only would she never intentionally let anything touch her nipples, but she hadn't come even close to letting them graze the leather sofa.

Her Master had forced her to lift her arms high above her head and stand still while he'd struck her breasts two times, once above and once below her nipples. Both of those strikes had come close to breaking the skin. She'd been left with thick red welts that hurt so badly she couldn't hold back the tears and was still struggling to do so today.

There was no arguing with her Master. When he made up his mind about something, it was better to go along with it rather than risk his wrath by accusing him of making a mistake. She'd only done that once. He'd not only caned her ass twice right where her thighs met her butt cheeks, but he'd made her kneel for the next eight hours on what he called his punishment rug. It looked a bit like a welcome mat, except the surface was made of tiny hard points that reminded her of toothpicks. They'd dug into her knees all day, causing tears to run down her cheeks.

To make things worse, he'd forced her to accept an open-mouth gag, which nestled behind her teeth and fastened tightly at the back of her head. It was tight and painful and caused her to drool on herself all day long.

Her Master had said the gag would teach her not to speak out of turn in the future, and he'd been right. She had never again argued with him when he'd wrongly accused her of some misbehavior.

As badly as Roselia's backside hurt today, she kept reminding herself it was not as bad as that punishment had been. Nothing had ever come close. The combination of kneeling for eight hours while drooling and trying to ignore the pain across her ass had been challenging, but he'd also sat next to her the entire time at his desk working, glancing at her every fifteen minutes to remind her to stop swaying, to pull her shoulders back, to thrust her tits forward so he could look at them. And on and on.

True to his word, she had learned a lesson. It wasn't a logical lesson, but she'd learned one.

"Stop whining, girl," her Master admonished as she dusted the shelves in his office. He hadn't let her work in any other room today, and he was being particularly hard on her because he had a guest.

The days her Master had company over were the most challenging. Like the men who'd come and gone from Master J's estate, it boggled her mind that so many men could casually come to the house without flinching over the nearly naked "maid" wearing a shock collar, pigtails, and no shoes. Did any of them honestly think what she did was consensual?

Every time her Master informed her there would be a guest, she had mixed feelings. On the one hand, she hoped that with each visitor, someone would leave the house and immediately call the authorities.

On the other hand, her Master was harder on her when guests were present. He liked to show her off like a prized cow. He would make her stand for long periods of time in the inspection pose with her hands locked behind her head and her feet wide so that whoever was visiting could see his slave's assets. He would comment on her fine tits and her smooth cunt.

If anyone suggested touching her, he would growl and tell them he was the only one permitted to touch his slave. He did not share.

The irony in all that, and one of her saving graces, was that she could count on one thing from her Master—he had never once touched her sexually. She had no idea why. He bragged about her smooth skin, her tight cunt, and her even tighter asshole, but he had never tested the merchandise.

That didn't mean she wasn't miserable. Roselia had never been so tired in her life. Even the months of intense training under Master J hadn't compared to how hard she worked in her new Master's home. She got up every day at five o'clock and worked hard until usually nine or ten at night. He'd initially told her he would let her go to her room at eight, but he reneged on that more often than not.

Most evenings, just when she thought she would drop from exhaustion, he would declare that she certainly could not retire until she'd done something outrageous, like mopping the entire enormous foyer and cleaning every single step on the winding front staircase on her hands and knees.

She dragged herself to her room every night, showered as quickly as possible, brushed her teeth, and peed. The most excruciating task each night was lifting her arms to dry her hair before bed. If she didn't do that task to his satisfaction—and he was always watching her on his monitor—he would discipline her first thing in the morning.

Yanking her out of her pity party, her Master's voice boomed in the room. "Do you not hear the doorbell, girl?"

She flinched and spun around. She had not heard it. "No, Sir. I'm sorry, Sir. I'll go get it right now."

Roselia walked to the door as quickly as she dared, having perfected the exact gait he would allow, not so fast that she was running but fast enough that she acknowledged the constant urgency of his requests.

Greeting his guests at the front door was the strangest one of her million assignments. After all, she opened the door wide, wearing the same uniform every day. Her tits were always pushed uncomfortably high, and her nipples had been trained to remain hard at all times. She often wondered if that were even possible. Could her nipples actually stay hard simply because he insisted on it?

"Good morning, Sir," she greeted the man who stepped into the house. "Master is in the study. I'll show you the way." She shut and locked the front door, not daring to get close to the threshold. She had yet to be shocked by the collar, but she would never risk finding out what would happen.

Today's guest was a man she'd greeted several times before. He was a bald man in his late sixties who'd been friends with her Master going back to their childhood. She'd easily pieced that together over the weeks.

Finding him at the door was always a disappointment because she already knew he would not save her—another missed opportunity.

"I trust you're well, Lily," he commented as he followed along behind her.

"Yes, Sir. Very well, thank you." It was the oddest, most ridiculous conversation since he could easily see the four recent welts on her backside now and couldn't have missed the stripes across her tits when she'd opened the door.

She was most certainly not doing "very well." Mind games were her Master's specialty, and he loved to bring his guests into her torment.

After she showed the man to her Master's study—another foolish show because he knew exactly where the study was located—she stood in wait pose next to her Master's desk, as was expected of her when there were guests.

"I see you've had to discipline your wayward slave again today, Leo."

"Yes. She is an obstinate girl. I'm convinced she's a masochist and misbehaves on purpose because she enjoys the feel of my cane."

Both men laughed as if this were the most hilarious news.

Roselia kept her head lowered and her teeth gritted tight. What she wanted to do was tell them both to go fuck themselves. She couldn't begin to imagine what her punishment might be for that.

It was clear that her Master enjoyed looking at her body. He liked it displayed for him often. He kept her close, inventing excuses to accompany her to any room where he wanted her to clean.

At first, she'd thought he didn't trust her to be out of his sight, but after a few weeks, she'd realized he derived perverse pleasure in watching her and would often dictate her moves.

"Bend at the waist when you clean that shelf, girl. Legs parted. I want to see your ass and your cunt while you dust."

"Shoulders back. How many times do I have to tell you to keep your tits high? They are one of your best assets. Pull that corset up a few inches."

In a preposterous twist, he would often order her to lie in the strangest places for an hour or two in the afternoon. He would verbally arrange her on the large glass coffee table, the dining table, his desk, or even the floor. Always with her legs spread as wide as she could, a pillow under her ass to elevate and expose her sex.

He would simply stare at her. The twist was she looked forward to those hours because she got a break from cleaning and cooking. She wasn't permitted to nap or even close her eyes, but she at least got some rest. She used those times to let herself think of Marco.

By now, it was hard to remember him. His face was fading. His voice was, too. She hated that she couldn't remember his scent or his smile. He probably hadn't even thought about her once. It was possible he'd forgotten her entirely.

The visitor jerked her out of her reverie with his comments about her body. "Those welts across her tits are a work of art. I have no idea how you're able to strike your slave so perfectly with straight lines that come just shy of bleeding."

"Honed skill, my friend. I'm too squeamish for blood, and I wouldn't want to watch it running down her body." Her Master laughed.

His guest's cell phone rang, and the fat man leaned to one side to pull it out of his pocket. He tapped the screen a few times and leaned again to return it to his pocket, but he missed.

Roselia watched in shock as the phone slid down between the couch cushions, then was shoved deeper when its owner leaned his excessive weight over the seam.

Heart racing, she spent the rest of the man's visit praying he wouldn't notice the missing phone until he got home.

Please, God. Grant me this one wish. Please .

Though her Master had a cell phone and a laptop, both items were always in his possession or locked in a drawer. Never once had he been careless enough to leave either unattended.

After four months, Roselia had given up hope of ever managing to use his phone when he wasn't in the room. Suddenly, she might have her opportunity.

She'd gone over this possibility in her head a million times in the first few weeks she'd been here. Who would she call if she had the opportunity? She only had two options. 911 or Marco. She was afraid if she dialed 911, she would never be discovered, and she would be punished in a way she couldn't fathom, perhaps even ending her life.

The police would surely believe her and come to the door, but her Master would simply answer it and accuse them of having the wrong address. She knew he could get away with that because he'd shown her the hidden room behind the bookshelf in his office. It was small and cramped, but that didn't matter. Its existence was singular, a place to force her to hide if anyone ever came to the house who was not privy to her existence. He'd assured her it was soundproof and locked from the outside.

If cops came to the house, lights flashing and sirens blaring, she'd find herself locked in that room for a week and probably die there.

Her only other choice was Marco. His was the only phone number she knew, and that was because she'd memorized it when he'd given it to her like a silly schoolgirl with a crush on a boy. Except Marco was no boy. He was a man. A man who'd smiled at her and cared about her more than anyone she'd encountered in recent years.

As the men finished their meeting, Roselia held her breath.

Please leave the phone .

Please leave the phone .

She repeated this over and over in her head as if she could will it to happen.

Her Master interrupted her silent pleading. "Please see our guest to the front door, girl. Don't linger. You have work to attend to."

She was shaking and nearly giddy as she walked her Master's friend to the front door. She said all the right things as courteously as always and blew out a breath as she shut the door behind him.

How long did she have before he returned for the phone? Minutes? An hour? Longer? Maybe he would go other places and later not recall where he might have lost it. She could only hope.