Read Online Marketplace by Laura Antoniou - Free Book Online

leave here, or what your
owners may want you to be, is also irrelevant. Right now, you are
nothing. Do you understand that?” He stepped closer to Sharon, and
she gulped. And nodded.
    “Then I want to hear you
say it, girl.”
    “Yes. Yes, sir.”
    “Yes sir, what?”
    She trembled. He stepped
closer, lowered his voice. It made him more menacing. She stared
into his dark eyes and whined, “Yes! What you said! Whadda you want
me to say!”
    “That you’re nothing,”
Grendel gently prompted.
    “I’m nothing!”
    He shouted into her face,
sending her stumbling back. “You’re nothing, what?”
    “Sir! I’m nothing, sir!”
She whimpered and looked down and then had a sudden inspiration.
She dropped to her knees and lowered her head to his
feet.
    The other three gazed at
her, bent into a sexy, trembling package. Claudia nodded
approvingly. Robert felt a stirring between his legs and bit his
own lip.
    Grendel went back to his
chair and sat down. “Now, as I was saying,” he began. Sharon
stirred and started to raise her head. “No, stay where you are,
Sharon, that’s the first correct thing you’ve done since you got
here, and I want to enjoy the moment. As I was going to say, you
are especially nothing this week. At the end of the week, if you
stay, your education pattern will change.”
    “Except for one thing,”
Alexandra noted. “You will still be required to obey everyone else
in the house, and you will still be subject to whatever discipline
is necessary to help you remember what your place and purpose
is.”
    Brian raised his hand,
sneaking a glance back at Sharon. God, but that bitch was a laugh
and a half. When Alexandra nodded at him, he asked, “Sir, ma’am,
will we always get punished for someone else’s, um,
mistakes?”
    “Maybe,” the two of them
answered at once. The trainers looked at each other and
laughed.
    Alexandra said, “During
this week, absolutely. You can worry about next week when it
comes.”
    “Think of it as an
incentive to encourage good behavior in your fellow applicants,”
added Grendel.
    “And... if I may? What
about safe words?”
    Sharon’s head snapped up at
the question, and Grendel sighed. He snapped his fingers. “Crawl
over here, missy pleasure slave. Get your head down there.” He
pointed to a spot near his left foot. She did as he said, her body
slinking across the patio like a cat. When she put her head gently
down, he raised one booted foot and planted it between her shoulder
blades, pushing her down further.
    “Now stay put for once!
I’ll let you know when you can get up.” He looked back at Brian,
but Alexandra had decided to take the question.
    “This is not like your old
life, Brian,” she began. “There are no safe words here. Grendel and
I—and Chris—know what we’re doing. And if you are driven to the
limit of your capacity, we will know it. If you experience some
physical problem that requires attention, you will say so,
immediately, and it will be attended to.
    “But you have no way of
changing what is going on because it’s uncomfortable, or boring, or
difficult, or because it hurts and you don’t like it. You aren’t
here to like it. You may like the life, you may love it and never
leave it, but we will not be your owners, this will not be your
house. You are here as a student, and you will leave—hopefully—as
property.”
    Brian nodded and lowered
his head. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
    “Are there any other
questions right now?” Grendel shifted his foot to a more
comfortable spot on Sharon’s back and leaned on it a little. Her
moan sounded muffled, no doubt her cheek was pressed against the
stone. He relented a little and eased up.
    The other two, the
‘goodies,’ as Alex had phrased it, were silent for a moment. Then,
timidly, Robert raised one hand, still trying to cover his chest.
Alex nodded at him.
    “Ma’am? Um...” He shifted
nervously and almost whispered his question. “May I have a