FREEDOM OF CHOICE Part 2 Anita led Lisa through a side door in the evening room and across the hall to her chambers. A shortcut for when she needed to slip back and forth quickly. Lisa gripped her hand tightly, nervously. As soon as the door to her chambers had closed behind them Anita placed her other hand around the younger woman's and said, "You don't need to worry." "I, I'm sorry," Lisa stammered. "I can't help it." "The master thinks you're beautiful," Anita told her. "Extraordinarily so, I should think. This has never happened before in my time with him." Lisa chanced a brief glance at her face. "Perhaps you are angry with me?" Anita smiled. "Of course not. I find myself intrigued, as well." And to herself she added, If I chose to draw his eye back to me, you would stand no chance, you naïve fledgling. But even though she was now possessed of years of experience, Anita had not forgotten what it was like to be overwhelmed in the mater's presence. "I was much like you when I first came here," she said to Lisa, to which Lisa smiled gratefully. "Now," said Anita, leading the woman to the corner of the room dominated by the large sunken-stone bathtub, "I will draw the bath. You may ask me any questions you'd like as we bathe." She turned on a powerful gush of water. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lisa studying the iron rod that ran above the tub, anchored in each wall a few feet from the corner. Lisa's eyes lingered on the leather cuffs dangling from the bar. After testing the temperature Anita scooped a handful of gelatin bath balls from a wicker basket and dropped them into the tub. As she began to disrobe, a light scent of jasmine rose up on the steam coming off the rising water. She was aware of Lisa watching her, apparently waiting for instruction. Rather than tell her what to do, Anita took her time undressing, allowing the other woman to observe the easy confidence she had in her own presence. She folded her things and then came behind Lisa and began to lower the zipper at the back of her dress. "When you are with the master you will need to learn when to act and when to await his instructions," said Anita as she finished with the zipper. She brushed the dress off Lisa's shoulders and helped it down her body. Lisa wore a simple black bra underneath and, as had already been provocatively established, no underwear. "But in here, with me, you should act as you please," she said, and bent down for Lisa to step free of her garment. "It's all just a bit..." "Overwhelming?" asked Anita as she snapped Lisa's bra open. "Yes," said Lisa, allowing Anita to pull it off her arms. Anita stood back, surveying Lisa's nakedness from behind. Her appreciation for the slender curvaceousness of Lisa's form was levied against her consciousness of the places in which her own body had lost the firm shapeliness of young womanhood. Anita smirked at the faint pink streaks her master's light flogging had left across Lisa's bottom. She recalled how Lisa had writhed and whimpered at those strokes. Yet they had been so light that their memory on Lisa's skin wasn't even strong enough to be proud and red. "Turn around," she said quietly, and Lisa did so, presenting the frontal complement to what Anita had observed from behind. Her raven hair fell about her shoulders, accentuating the white ridges of her breasts, her nipples finely punctuated and tipped slightly up towards the moon. She was very beautiful. Anita wondered if what she now saw in Lisa was anything like what her master had first seen in her. Then her eyes were drawn to the bare, disappearing skin between Lisa's legs. The absence of hair was starkly erotic. Anita had long kept her own pubic hair closely cropped, neatly tended for her master's pleasure, but he had never asked her to eliminate it completely, nor had she ever thought to do so. She wanted to touch it. To know what such smooth, private skin felt like. Lisa squirmed, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Anita chuckled. "The master likes to look. He appreciates the female form like some people appreciate art. He has left me on display for hours at a time." To Lisa's questioning expression she said, "I like it. Very much. To be looked at, admired, appreciated. You should learn to love it, as well. You are very beautiful to look at." Lisa blushed, not seeming to know where to look. "It's OK," said Anita softly. "Please look at me. We are in many ways similar and in some ways quite different. You should understand that the master is drawn to something similar in our bodies as well as our spirits." Lisa's eyes came up and, after some momentary tentative flicking, began to study Anita's nakedness with a hungry curiosity. Anita breathed deeply, straightening her posture yet letting her muscles relax, knowing that Lisa was observing something she couldn't yet name, a strength flowing around Anita's physical form. Lisa's eyes on her skin were like the wisps of steam rising from the tub. A pleasing yet fleeting warmth, so unlike the burning heat with which Leo's gaze had consumed her in the evening room. "You are beautiful, too," Lisa finally said. "I'm honored the master would think my beauty in any way similar to yours." "And you are kind," said Anita. "I think the bath is ready." She took the younger woman's hand once again and led her down the two marble steps into the water. Lisa sank gratefully into the tub, immersing her body up to her neck. She closed her eyes and sighed. The bath beads had caused a gentle head of bubbles to form on top of the water. Lisa raised a bubble-covered hand to her nose. "You spoil me," she smiled. "The master is very good to his slave," Anita responded. "This is a life unlike any other you can imagine, in so many ways." "I think you must feel very lucky," said Lisa. "I am fortunate to have learned and grown during my time here." Lisa looked at her. "You speak of it as if that time is over." "Here," said Anita, indicating that the other woman should move closer to her. "I am to bathe you." Lisa sat in between Anita's legs, facing out. "I'll start with your face," said Anita, pulling her back until her head was resting on Anita's breasts. Anita covered her fingertips with soap from a dispenser and bathed Lisa's face with her fingers, beginning at her temples. "You seem quite taken with life here at the master's house," said Anita as she worked the soap into Lisa's skin with small circular motions. "It is fascinating," Lisa answered drowsily, luxuriating in the combination bath and massage. "It is," agreed Anita. "And yet, there are many fascinating things in the world." Like Leo, she said to herself, feeling a heat more intense than the bathwater creeping up her skin. Lisa's face was covered in a thick white lather. Anita took a cloth and dipped it in the water and began to rinse the soap off again. "Perhaps I find myself thinking of other fascinating things. Sit up now, and let me wash your back." "Is it possible for you just to leave?" said Lisa as she sat up, shedding water in a glittering sheet down her pale skin. "I stay here by mutual consent," said Anita, dispensing more soap into her fingers. "But surely he would be displeased," said Lisa. Anita worked the soap over Lisa's shoulders and up the nape of her neck. "Do you remember," said Anita, soaping Lisa's back down to the waterline, "what happened in the evening room a short while ago?" Of course Lisa remembered, as the sudden tensing in her back muscles indicated, remembering the feel of the leather tresses hissing against her skin. "That has never happened before. The master has never made use of another woman the way he made use of you tonight." "Do you mean that?" asked Lisa, as if Anita had just paid her the highest compliment she could imagine. Anita now worked her soapy hands around to Lisa's front, beginning again at her neck and working downwards. "Perhaps the master thinks of other fascinating things, as well. He would like to have you, I think." "Oh," gasped Lisa, both from Anita's words and from the fact that Anita's hands had reached her breasts and were now lavishing them with soap and warm water. Anita washed her hands open-palmed across Lisa's breasts, pausing a moment to cup them, to feel how different they were from hers, how much less of her hand they filled, but how rough and hard the nipples were against her skin. Lisa's body was still alert with the arousal her flogging had awakened. As she lingered around Lisa's breasts for a few more savory moments, Anita said, "Would you like that, to see if he likes you, and if you like him?" "But, wouldn't you be jealous?" Anita chuckled and washed Lisa's front again down to the waterline before splashing handfuls of water across Lisa's chest to rinse the soap. "I know where I stand with him," she reminded Lisa. "I have no need to be jealous. Besides, I would ask for something in return." "I don't know what I could give you," said Lisa. "I'll need to wash your lower body," said Anita, rising. She motioned for Lisa to do the same. Anita took one of Lisa's arms and raised it to the iron bar running overhead. "I saw you looking at this a few minutes ago," she said, sliding one of the leather cuffs over Lisa's wrist and pulling it tight. "There's no need for me to use it tonight, but since you were curious, I thought I would demonstrate. It might be handy for you to become familiar with the accoutrements in the master's house." She slid the other cuff over Lisa's other wrist and tightened it, as well. Lisa's arms were pulled straight up over her head as she stood in the tub. Lisa's extended posture gave Anita another pause to admire the slender curves of the younger woman's form. She glistened faintly in the soft light, the reflection of her damp skin feathering her in amber. Yes, thought Anita, I understand what the master sees in her. She is beautiful and complicit. Anita knelt in the water and began at Lisa's feet, lifting each and washing them, as she had done with the rest of her, with her hands. Lisa giggled and squirmed as Anita's fingers dug into the sensitive pads on her soles. Anita paused and said, "The master likes his slave to learn restraint. At least, up until a point. Earlier, when he was teasing you with the flogger, you bounced about like a kangaroo." "It hurt," said Lisa in an aggrieved tone. "I wonder, did it really hurt?" "Not badly," Lisa admitted. "He will never hurt you too much," said Anita, rubbing Lisa's foot more gently now. "He will ask you to explore your own capacity for pain, as well as other things, but he will never demand more of you than you can give. Do you understand?" "I don't know," said Lisa, an earlier fear creeping back into her voice. "Trust me," said Anita. "I am right about this. So you must set aside the fear of too much, which is what you were reacting to earlier. You were not flailing about because of what *was* happening, but because your mind was full of what *might* happen." "That's true." "Part of learning restraint is pulling yourself out of anticipation, out of fear, into a fullness of the moment. You must train your mind and your body to accept what's given, no more, no less." She set Lisa's foot down and lifted the other one out of the water. "Let's try it," she said as she began washing her ankle. "Don't squirm when I touch the sensitive parts." "I'll try," said Lisa. "Relax into the moment," coached Anita as she worked her way down across the top of her foot, gently massaging her toes, and then around to underneath. This time, when she lingered on the ticklish spots, she felt Lisa's body tremble above her, but Lisa did not flinch at the sensations. "Good!" said Anita. "You have a natural instinct for it." "I'm afraid I won't be able to do it with... him," said Lisa. "You'll learn quickly," Anita assured her. "But you will also learn when to abandon your restraint. The master likes his slave to practice her discipline, but past a point he wants you to show off the overwhelming effect he's having on you." "He wants too much!" said Lisa. "It's not so very difficult, you'll discover. Your power lies in convincing him that he's broken your ability to resist." Anita was massaging Lisa's strong calves as she talked, working her way up around her knees. Lisa was ticklish behind the knees as well, Anita discovered, but the other woman immediately masked her ticklishness and stilled her body as Anita worked. "Good," Anita breathed. "You will do wonderfully." Past her knees Anita's fingers spread out along the length of Lisa's thighs, the firmness of her quads, the broader roundness of her hamstrings. She lingered a while in this area. She was fascinated with the shape of her legs, enticed by the way they changed as they rose, how they so subtly began to flare out from leg into something else, bottom, hip, the graceful juncture in between. Lisa was still, very still, until Anita's fingertips brushed close to the top of the insides of her thighs, when she sighed a little and bent one knee, opening her legs a little farther. Slowly, hesitantly, Anita stood up again, behind Lisa. With a fresh lather of soap she went to work on Lisa's bottom. "The master wanted me to take extra care here," she said softly, "in case he had left you too tender." "You have healing hands," Lisa said with a giggle, and she hummed lightly while Anita massaged away the remnants of the master's flogging. She worked the soap vigorously along Lisa's hips and across her cheeks before dipping down into the valley between. Her fingers slipped easily along the length, and Lisa only reacted when Anita's fingers came into contact with her rear opening. Lisa whimpered and shook her hips as Anita washed her there, and she pushed back against Anita when Anita's hand slipped farther forward and slicked across the mound of her bare womanhood. "It is so smooth," Anita whispered, now close to Lisa's ear. "So soft. Like baby skin." "Yes," Lisa answered. "Does Leo like it?" "Leo suggested it." A thrill went through Anita. "So," she said, drawing her hand back again, trailing one finger behind the rest, down the length of Lisa's pussy as she withdrew, "Leo has his own particular appetites." "Oh, yes," Lisa breathed, huskily because she was so aroused and Anita's finger so slick with soap that it had easily parted her lips and tickled the sensitive inner tissue as it passed by. "But he doesn't seem to care to... to..." "To dominate you?" Anita finished for her. "Yes." "Then perhaps my price will be well-named," said Anita, filling a pitcher with water and dousing it over the parts of Lisa's body she had just washed. "I don't understand," said Lisa. Anita took a thick, long-looped towel from a rack and chafed it roughly over Lisa's body to dry her off. "I am preparing you to be with the master," said Anita, "and in return I ask to be with Leo." "Oh," said Lisa, as if she hadn't considered that side of the possibility. "Surely you can't be surprised," said Anita. "Have you been so smitten with the master that you've failed to notice the attention Leo has paid to me?" She poured some moisturizing lotion into her hand and began applying it evenly over Lisa's skin. "I, I knew Leo thought you were beautiful," said Lisa slowly. "He watched you all evening at last year's holiday ball. I was jealous." "Are you still jealous?" "Of course. I am not beautiful in the deep places that Leo sees in you." Anita's head swelled with the thought that Leo's penetrating gaze had found so much to desire, but she just said, "And you think the master's education will help you find those deep places?" "Did it help you?" Anita smiled. "Yes. It is not a path that suits everyone, or even most. But for those of us who find it enticing, it can help you find those places. However," she added, "you must consider what you will do once you have discovered them, how you will hold on to them." "How do you do that?" "I am starting by offering you to the master, and by asking for Leo." There was a long pause as Anita finished applying the lotion. "I accept," Lisa finally said. "Good," said Anita, her assured tone betraying the trembling she felt in her gut, regret at leaving the master, excitement at the possibility of Leo. She suddenly had an image, of Leo coming inside her, that made her blush at her own longing, at her desire for that one thing that the master found so distasteful. So simple a thing. She rinsed her hands and reached for yet another bottle, a small decanter filled with a deep rubicund oil. She poured a few drops onto her fingers and with two fingertips anointed Lisa's nipples with it. After a moment Lisa took in her breath. "It tingles almost to burn," she said. "What is it?" Anita took another few drops on another fingertip and ran it lightly around the outline of Lisa's mouth. As Anita completed her tracing, Lisa suddenly captured her fingertip between her lips and pulled it into her mouth, and now it was Anita's breath that caught at the suction and the pull and at Lisa's tongue flitting around her finger as a bee would a bud, or as Lisa might a cock, or, Anita fantasized with another sigh, a clit. Lisa had sucked the last of the spiced balm from Anita's skin by the time Anita withdrew her finger. "Ah," gasped Lisa as the peppery fire spread in her mouth, "water, please." She pulled ineffectually at the leather cuffs that still held her fast to the iron rod. "You must learn restraint," said Anita, placing a hushing finger against Lisa's lips, refraining from allowing Lisa to suck it in again. Lisa whimpered and tried to be still. Anita said, "The intensity will pass in a few moments," and then knelt in front of her. "It is peppermint extract oil," she said, dispensing another measure. "This formulation is very rare, very expensive. The master applies it only on special occasions." "The master applies it?" Lisa queried, allowing herself to hang a bit heavier from the bar as she spoke, so that her legs relaxed open. Anita insinuated her hand again between Lisa's bottom and began to rim her tiny asshole with the fiery oil. "Yes," she said, zeroing in on the very opening itself. "He applies it to all the places he plans to have me that evening." Lisa whined and clenched her ass cheeks at Anita's implication, as well as at the heat that the oil was beginning to lick into her bottom. "But I'm not the master," Anita reminded her, feeling like perhaps she had been toying too cruelly with Lisa. "I only send you to him with all possibilities available." She poured a final, larger measure into her hand and massaged it into the pale butterfly wings of Lisa's vulva. "Oh," said Lisa. "Now, I like that." "It's always been my favorite, as well," said Anita, spreading the oil now to the fluttered opening between her legs. There was no question that Lisa had risen to an intensely aroused state. The inner folds of her cunt had turned out pink and pearlescent with her copious lubricants, and it was to these engorged ridges that Anita now applied the peppermint oil. "Oh," sighed Lisa as Anita's finger ran lightly at first north and south the entire length of her opening, adding the oil's slickness to what Lisa's womb had already produced on its own. Anita added some more oil to her fingers and slid two of them up and inside. They disappeared at once, drawn inside by Lisa's hunger, and Anita felt her own pussy quickening at the soft rippling folds her fingers encountered inside the other woman. But delighted as she was, Anita drew herself back to her business, hooking her fingers down to brush Lisa's G-spot with what peppermint remained on her fingertips. Lisa was moaning and fucking at Anita's fingers now, having forgotten her call to restraint, but Anita was through instructing her. Now it was time to turn her over to the master. So she withdrew her fingers and with one more application of the oil swirled it copiously around Lisa's clitoris, which was by now engorged with arousal. "Oh, God," moaned Lisa. "It burns like nothing I've ever felt. I've never been on fire like this." Anita knew the signs. Lisa could climax at any moment, and indeed, Anita felt an unaccountable urge to bring her over. She wanted to taste the split fruit that hovered tantalizing inches from her face. She wanted to touch her lips to Lisa's unadorned vulva, to feel their polished smoothness against her cheek, and indeed, to taste her peppermint-spiced juices, to slurp and feast on the bursting cherry that crowned her opening, to experience the fierce inflexion and slow melting of the female orgasm as felt through another woman's body. Lisa was, if anything, even hungrier than Anita. "Please," she begged, thrusting her cunt right up against Anita's nose, "release me! Make me come!" But that would have to be, perhaps, for another time. Anita knew it was best to deliver Lisa to the master drunk and dizzy with arousal, as alive and open to the opportunities he would present to her as possible. So it was with that thought in mind that she planted only the lightest of kisses on Lisa's proffered pussy before she drew back. She looked up Lisa's towering body until their eyes met. "Restraint, remember?" she smiled somewhat regretfully. Lisa's expression said, "Fuck restraint! I want you!" but she was in no position to act on the notion, as Anita sat back. "We have lingered perhaps overlong. The gentlemen will have long since settled their part in this arrangement. Let me clean myself up quickly and we will return." "Let me tend to you," Lisa said eagerly, but Anita knew restraint would fly out the window if she allowed that to happen, so she washed her body and wrapped herself in a short cotton robe before she freed Lisa from the cuffs. Lisa stepped out of the tub on trembling legs, working the knots that had formed in her shoulders from being stretched upwards for so long. "There is one last thing," Anita said, hunting for something in the bottom of her jewelry box. "I was waiting for a special occasion to surprise the master, one night when I was feeling perhaps a bit willful, as I have been inclined to feel lately, yet the night had not yet arrived." She found what she was looking for and walked back to Lisa. "Now I think I will decorate you instead, gift-wrapped for the master." She opened a small box and withdrew twin tension rings, each a thick strand of silver threaded through a single green garnet stone. She opened pulled the beaded ends of one of the rings open and held it up to Lisa's breast. "Ow!" said Lisa, when Anita let it pinch back together with her nipple in between. "It doesn't truly hurt," Anita stated without sympathy. She knew by now Lisa's proclivity for pain. She affixed the second ring to Lisa's other nipple. "That's very nice," said Anita, admiring the small exotic accent it added to Lisa's already lovely body. She reached out and flicked one of the garnet stones. The stone ticked against Lisa's areola but the ring itself remained securely fastened. Anita gave a small sigh. "It's silly, I know, but I bought them thinking they would match my eyes. But I think they look like they belong on you." Lisa tentatively reached a hand up to fondle one. "I've never imagined them before." "You will experience many things here you never imagined before," said Anita, and then, after one last long look at Lisa, took her hand. "It's time to present you to the master." Lisa allowed herself to be led along but said, "What about anything for me to wear?" "You're perfectly outfitted," Anita said with a wink, and led her the short distance back through the side door of the evening room. Leo was seated, flipping through a large book of erotic art. The master had obviously been prowling impatiently. "What the devil have the two of you been--" he began when he heard the door close, but stopped short when he saw Lisa, naked, the silver rings affixed to her nipples, the green jewels bouncing in time with the natural sway of her breasts as she walked. With each step they turned out small flashing reflections of the room's light. Anita let go of Lisa's hand and stood aside. "I bring you a present, Master." Anita watched the master fight to steady his breathing as Lisa stopped in the middle of the room. "Turn around," he said to her. She did, presenting her backside to him for a long moment before completing the motion. With an effort, the master lifted his eyes from Lisa to Anita, who was looking at him with no discernable expression on her face. "Is the gift freely given on all accounts?" he asked her. "It is," answered Anita. "And you," the master addressed Anita, the tiniest quaver in his voice. "You are at peace with the arrangement?" "Change can be refreshing," she said. Her eyes traveled briefly to Leo, who had closed the book and was observing the proceedings, his focus on Anita above all. He lifted a tumbler of scotch and sipped slowly as he watched her. The master read their looks and nodded slightly. "Leo and I have agreed, as well." "It took us far shorter a time than it did the two of you," added Leo, a twinkle in his eye. "We discussed it intimately," responded Anita. "The two of you may continue your banter at your leisure," said the master. "Lisa and I will retire to my chambers." He picked up the flogger he'd used on her earlier and held it out. "Carry this, Lisa." Her eyes fixed firmly on the implement, she took it from him and instinctively followed him as he strode from the room. He paused only briefly, at the door, to glance at Anita. "Thank you," he said simply, and exited before Anita could make any response. Lisa followed a few steps behind, the flogger trembling in her clutch as she rounded the corner. Anita stared at the empty space by the door for a moment. Just like that, something had ended. Her mind had gone blank. She was summoned back to the moment by Leo's mirthful voice. "Well," he said, "I thought we might never find a moment to ourselves." She turned in his direction. "Have you thought of it?" she asked, regaining her composure and her wits. He had risen. The book lay open on the table in front of the sofa. He was walking slowly in her direction. "Ever since I first saw you at the holiday ball," he said, his voice more serious now. She wanted to meet him in the middle but instead she waited for him to come to her, filling the distance by saying, "That has been some time ago." "And I've been working to arrange a visit ever since." He was halfway across the room now. She could feel the air charging around her. "Surely," she said coyly, "a lovely woman like Lisa was enough to bring your mind back to its senses." "Lisa's nothing but a girl in comparison," he replied, nearly close enough to touch her now. "But she is so--" Her reply was cut short by his mouth covering hers. His lips and tongue were urgent, famished, and she was his feast. She answered with her own appetite, licking, sucking, tasting, drinking the earthy remnants of the scotch from the deep corners of his mouth. Their bodies were fast against each other. His hands gripped her hips and she felt his hardness. His lengthening erection sought her out through their clothes and she wanted to take it in her mouth and feel it growing between her lips, to feel his cockhead swelling with every swipe of her tongue. But kissing him was too good, too deliciously tantalizing. Restraint, she reminded herself with a secret inside smile. Some of the rules still applied. Finally they released each other and stood back, slightly dazed. Leo's hair looked as if he had just stepped in from a rascally fall breeze. "I hope I wasn't too forward," he said at last. "Inexcusably forward," she admonished, straightening her robe, "but then again," she added, sweeping her hand around the room, "this place does not stand on the customary conventions." "Well," he said, running a hand through his hair, "that was the best way for me to answer your question about Lisa." "Will she like it here, do you think?" asked Anita. "You know this place better than I," said Leo. "But you know Lisa," replied Anita. As if on cue Lisa's voice carried out to them, a startled cry that ended in a moan. "I think she will," they both said, which made Anita giggle. Leo walked over to her but instead of throwing himself at her again, took her hand and led her to the settee where he had been sitting. "And you?" asked Leo. "Do you plan to stay?" "There can be only one master and only one slave," said Anita. "So many rules," Leo mused as they sat. "Do you plan to allow her to stay?" asked Anita. Her short robe had ridden far up her thigh but she did nothing to pull it down. Leo shrugged. "I have no control over her actions." "She wanted something more," Anita observed. A loud report of the flogger came to them, followed by another cry from Lisa. "Obviously," said Leo, and placed a hand on the exposed creaminess of her thigh. Anita felt a melting sensation between her legs. There were many things she wanted to ask Leo, so much she wanted to know about him, but after everything that had transpired so far that evening, she found it increasingly difficult to think in rational terms. "Well," she shuddered at last, "Lisa will stay and I will go." Leo stroked her flesh with his thumb. "You will not change your mind?" "No, no. I am quite decided on the matter." "Where will you go?" She looked at him, his cerulean eyes, his sandy mane of hair. "I would like to be a free woman." Surprise and disappointment clouded his face. He withdrew his hand. "I see," he sighed. "I suppose that--" "I want to be free to choose for myself," she interrupted, grabbing his hand and placing it back where it had been, perhaps a little higher and to the inside. His answer was another kiss that seemed to sweep both of them up. His hand trailed upwards until he matched the dancing of his tongue with fingertips fluttering along the ragged petals of her cunt. She, in answer, reached for the buckle on his pants, unsnapped him, unzipped him, eased his cock into view and kissed his chin, his neck, on her way down to finally taste the source of the heat that had been boring into her all night long. He was already urgently hard. She would not get to feel him come to fullness in her mouth as she had fantasized about a few moments ago, but perhaps she would get to show him her skills nonetheless. She felt saliva flood her mouth as she thought of sucking him, of thrilling him, of swallowing everything he could give to her. But he stopped her. His hand trembled with his desire to feel her mouth on him, but still he was firm and he inclined her chin upward again. "What will you miss?" he asked huskily. "What will you miss the most?" Almost as if some part of her had answered before she could speak, another sharp report came from down the hall. The master was turning up the intensity, and Lisa's cries and moans snaked through the air. Anita said, "It will take time to adjust to the freedom--" "I'm not talking about that!" Leo said in practically a hiss. "I'm talking about this!" He swept his arm across all the contents of the evening room. "Oh," said Anita. She looked around. At this moment, in her state, everything looked inviting to her. To be spread and bound on the table, to be loved and licked with leather and fucked almost to pain with the fattest dildo her master owned, to be taken in the mouth, in the cunt, in the ass. All the memories converged in her mind and she was unable to separate them, unable to pick one delight above all the others, until her eyes came to rest on the strappy sling hung by itself in the corner, and suddenly the menagerie of sensory recollections peeled away and she was left with only the one thing after all of the others: flying. The closest feeling one could get to weightlessness. "The sling," she breathed. "It is my favorite." Leo undid the sash of her robe with the touch of a finger and it fell away as he picked her up and carried her to the corner. They crossed the room to the call-and-response of the master's lashings and Lisa's ecstatic cries. She felt his exposed cock brushing against her bottom with every footstep. When they got to the corner with the sling Leo stopped. He stared at it. After a minute he said, "I, uh, I'm not sure how it works." Anita giggled and kissed him on the cheek before she slithered free of his arms. She sat down gingerly, letting the sling shape itself around her, tingling as gravity wrapped the soft straps tightly around her back and bottom. She looked up at Leo. His formal attire was rumbled with their making out. The untucked tail of his shirt hid his erection like a sheet draped over a soon-to-be-unveiled sculpture. She was thrilled at his rapt curiosity, and after she had settled all the way in she picked her feet up off the floor, snuggling even more tightly into the sling's embrace. The sling hung from the ceiling by four thick support straps. Anita lay back and raised her feet, spreading her legs until one foot was at each of the front support straps. Attached to each strap was a cuff. "Put them around my ankles," she instructed Leo. She was fully open to him now, her legs a wide vertical V, her breasts risen along the arch of her torso, her long black hair hanging loosely through the spaces in the straps and brushing the floor, her cunt pulled open into a crimson canyon tipped with rose-red walls. Leo barely managed to breathe as he took in her fullness. Recalling her earlier conversation with Lisa she brushed her hand across her pussy. "Do you wish I was shaved here?" "I can't imagine you more perfect than you are now," he answered. "Maybe I would like to try that sometime." "You would be perfect that way, as well." She sighed happily and wiggled her feet. "Strap them up," she insisted. Leo shook his head. "You've been restrained too long..." "It doesn't work otherwise; I can't hold this position without help from the cuffs." "You know best," he said with a cocked eyebrow as he went to work securing her ankles to the thick supporting straps. When he was finished she smiled and closed her eyes. "Now I am floating in every way." Leo began to explore her then, with his hands and his mouth, covering her with traces of his fingertips and his tongue, from the upturned soles of her feet to her forehead. The sling rocked slightly from his movements. But he was urgent with lust and didn't make great lingering sport of his exploration. He was too hungry for her. He quickly zeroed in on her mouth, her neck, her breasts. He leaned forward to take one of her nipples eagerly between his lips and the sling swung away, causing Anita to giggle. Leo brought his hand up underneath and gripped the bare flesh of her bottom and held her in place and she gasped with the electricity that passed between them when he sucked her nipple into his mouth. She wanted to clutch his head tightly to her and hold that ecstatic suckling connection, but he was gone too quickly, slipping smoothly down her body, from the plate of her sternum to the compliant softness of her belly to the wide-open invitation of her cunt. And once there he wasted no time with tender greetings but dove straight into her drenching wetness with his tongue. Using the hand on her bottom as leverage he pulled her to him until her puffed-out lips wrapped around his lips, and she whined as his tongue danced and probed the furrowed walls inside her, and his nose bumped against her clitoris. After a minute of this he pulled back and leered up at her, his face glistening with her juices. "I am beginning to see the attractions of this device," he said, and dove back in, only this time he drove her mad by keeping his face still and swinging the swing slowly back and forth. She moaned with pleasure when her pussy closed around the tautness of his tongue and groaned with frustration when he swung her back and she felt it slipping free again. Anita was so strung out into limbo that she had forgotten about the master and Lisa, and it was only when the master suddenly burst into the evening room that she thought about him again. He was disheveled, his shirt halfway untucked, his face red with exertion. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. "I've never had one so unaccountably stubborn," he fumed, half in frustration and half in admiration, talking more to himself than anyone else. He was clearly preoccupied, going straight for the cabinet that held his choicest whips and floggers. "She is already bending my hand toward the sterner instruments," he muttered as he picked a leather crop with a devilishly tipped tail from the cabinet. He swung it appraisingly and Anita clenched involuntarily at the sharp hiss it made in the air. The master had only used that particular whip on her twice, and when it struck her it had felt like knives of fire slicing through her flesh. She had been over a year in his service before she had been ready for it. She wondered with a sudden surge of jealousy what Lisa had demonstrated to him that he should so quickly determine her capable of such an advanced implement. Leo seemed unperturbed by or unaware of the master's sudden entrance. He had not broken his rhythm, continuing to swing Anita slowly backward and forward again onto his waiting tongue. The gentle sensation of Leo's tongue fucking overlaid on the intensity of her memory of the whip combined to make Anita feel as if she were floating somewhere quite outside of herself. As she floated above herself, she observed her body shimmering with ecstasy. She was keenly aware of her beauty, her wantonness, the leonine stranger kneeling between her legs. The way he eased her back and forth was almost worshipful, yet the sight of his tongue formed into a taut pink prick disappearing inside her was positively pornographic. She heard herself whimper. The master looked around at the sound, as if noticing for the first time that he had company in the room. She saw the look of consternation on his face. The momentary unreality of seeing his faithful slave seeking her pleasure from another man. Possessiveness clenched his cheek muscles for a moment before he mastered himself. "You two have made yourselves at home," he said brusquely, slicing the air one more time with the crop. Leo didn't answer, except to slightly increase the tempo with which he brought Anita forward onto his tongue. Anita thought she would disintegrate with the energy charging the air. "I'm surprised at you, Leo," said the master, watching Leo happily bury his face between her legs. "I never went for that sort of thing myself. It seems a little... soft." Leo said, "She seems to like it," timing his statement with Anita's outward swing, so he never broke the constant rhythm. The master looked at Anita, unable to mistake her demeanor as anything other than consumed with passion. "Right," said the master after a moment. "I'm glad it suits the two of you. I think the evening has revealed more than one true nature." He swung the crop one last time, with a fixated purpose. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a student in urgent need of instruction." He turned on his heel and left, Bernoulli spirals troubling the energy field in his wake. Nothing changed for a few moments. Anita rocked back and forth against Leo's tongue. Leo's measured breath warmed her pussy. Then suddenly came the crack like lightning, the lashing report of the crop's tail against Lisa's skin, and Lisa's cry, following it like thunder, as a whole new storm broke in the master's chambers. Anita grabbed strong handfuls of Leo's mane-like locks and jammed his face hard against her pussy. "Do it!" she commanded him, and he did. As the master's whip sliced to the core of Lisa and her darkest pleasures poured forth in a pitched crescendo, Leo captured Anita's clitoris and sucked her orgasm out of her with such dizzying force that she experienced a sensation deeper than anything the master's lashes had ever sounded out. Her floating consciousness slammed back into her body, which had collapsed to the singular paroxysm of her orgasm. It had all led up to this, her time with the master, the drawn-out maneuvering of the long evening, had all culminated in this concentrated star of pleasure that now possessed her, and when it persisted long after any normal orgasm had subsided, she began to fear that it might never stop and that she would lose herself forever in it. Finally she wrenched Leo's head from between her legs and he fell back, gasping. He had been so swept up in Anita's sustained climax that he had forgotten that he needed to breathe. Anita had pulled his magnificent hair into a tangles mess, and his face was drenched in her secretions as he gulped for air, but his eyes danced as if touched by magic. Anita had trouble focusing on him at first--her vision was as mixed up as the rest of her--but when he came into sharp view she saw that he was looking at her in awe. "That," he finally said with a crowning deep breath, "was the most amazing experience of my life." Your life? Anita wanted to say, but she couldn't banter at the moment. "Come," was all she could manage, and he rose and stripped out of his clothes and stood in front of her, and she was suddenly aware that, while he had had ample occasion to see her fully exposed, this was the first time she had actually seen his body, and somehow it was exactly as she'd known it would be: strong and subtle, without the overpowering truculence of the master's body, as if his strength had settled in him deeply but unmistakably. Anita, suspended in mid-air as she was, did not have leverage of her own to draw them together, so she reached for the closest thing, his cock, which danced as she closed her hand around it. "Come," she said again, smiling as she pulled him cock-first to her. The swing inclined forward and she tipped his cock to her entrance and sighed as she felt its heated crown pressing against her, spreading her lips and opening her canal around its wide flange. Leo placed his hands on her hips and pulled her against him. Nothing had ever been easier. His cock went into her like it had been uniquely formed to her inner space. Even as he stretched her, she felt herself settling back snugly around his length. When he brought her fully against him, when he was embedded to his root, she smiled at him happily. He began moving the sling in the same practiced back-and-forth rhythm he had used when he was fucking her with only his tongue, but now he was exploring her with the much more fulfilling dimensions of his cock. He seemed amazed at what he was feeling. His eyes were wide and all-encompassing. Anita bucked her hips as best she could given her position. "Come on, lover," she urged him, and that was all it took to inspire him, and he heated up, and instead of moving her against him, he began thrusting his own hips, so that when he fucked vigorously, the sling snapped backwards of its own accord, and soon he was rocking her wildly and she bounced like a spaceship hitting the outer edges of the atmosphere, but it was Leo who was catching fire, burning up, and it wasn't long before he wrapped the flames of his fingers around her and smashed their loins together, spending himself madly within her. Years. It had been so many years since Anita had experienced the sensation of a man coming inside her. She had never understood the master's distaste for it but she had never questioned him because he was, of course, the master, and in time she had grown used to pleasing him in all the other ways, and she had nearly forgotten such a fundamental joining of man and woman. And perhaps it was because it had been so long, or perhaps it was because Leo burned with more fire than any other man she had ever met, but she got lit with each hot burst that bathed her deep places, so much so that even as she and Leo were annealed with the heat, even as he pumped her full of four, five, six helpings of his come, she found herself coming again, from nowhere, with a squeal of shock, clutching down around his gushing manhood, milking even more out of him than he had already given to her. When they were both finally all finished he lay heavily against her, the sling supporting both of their weight. She cradled him until his breathing steadied again. All was quiet throughout the mansion. Down the hall, the master must have finally found what he sought in Lisa and given her her release, and Anita wondered if he had taken Lisa the same animalistic way he had the day he had claimed her, or if he was withholding himself, waiting for some other opportunity. With a smile she realized that it didn't concern her any longer. A page had turned, a new chapter was about to begin. Finally Leo stirred and withdrew and she was left with only the sticky warmth he had left behind. He freed her legs from the sling supports and began to massage her calves. "Are you cold?" he asked. "No," she said, even though their intermingled sweat was beginning to cool in the air of the huge room. She didn't want him to do anything else just yet. "I would like it," he said in an uncertain tone, "if you would choose to accompany me." "Where?" "Wherever I go." "I think I will." He looked suddenly relieved, as if he had been worrying over the prospect. He adored her. She understood that. It made her happy. He massaged both her calves until she really began to shiver with the cold. He got her robe. "Let me get a few things," she said as he wrapped it around her, "and we'll go tonight." When she returned from her chambers a few minutes later she was dressed in black pants and a blouse. She carried a small travel bag. Leo had dressed, as well. "That's it?" he asked, looking at the bag. "The slave has few possessions," she reminded him. "Ah, right," he said, though she knew he didn't really understand. He reached out to take her hand. "There is one last thing," she said, and placed her travel bag in his hand. "Hold this, would you?" He watched as she opened a closet and removed a step ladder. She placed it next to the sling and ascended the rungs. Balancing precariously on the top step and stretching to reach the high ceiling, she carefully unhooked the sling from the eyehooks that secured it to the ceiling. It fell to the floor with a soft hush of leather and fabric. After putting the ladder away she gathered it up in her arms. She answered his puzzled expression by saying, "I'm not a slave anymore. I'm taking this. Will you find me a place to hang it?" He smiled broadly, the heat in his eyes rekindling at once. "I am at your service," he said, taking her arm, and they escorted each other from the master's house.