CHAPTER 1

Erica had been dreaming, but the more she tried to remember the dream, the further away it went. She opened her eyes, half expecting to see Grace in the room, but she was alone.

She liked to have the curtains closed, since from her bedroom window she would be able to see the hated Complex in the distance, a constant reminder that if she disobeyed or upset her Mistress in any way she could be sent back there, to suffer the whims of the cruel masters and mistresses who were regular guests in that terrible place. She’d lost count of the number of celebrities she’d recognised in her few years as a slave at the Complex, whose behaviour would shock their fans, their constituents, their patients ... But since the Complex is run by and for just about anyone who has power in Britain and is therefore beyond the reach of any laws, the guests could do anything they liked, from sex, punishments ... right through, it was rumoured, to the power of life and death over the slaves.

Erica, or 51 as she was known in the Complex, was glad Grace had chosen to buy her as her personal slave. She could easily have been sold to someone overseas, someone crueller and less tender than Grace. Not that Grace wasn’t cruel, she was very keen on repeatedly demonstrating to Erica that she was in control and could do precisely what she liked, but Erica knew Grace was also in love with her. Erica wasn’t a lesbian, but her years in the Complex had made a person’s sexuality immaterial. She had no choices and she went along with anything that caused her the least suffering. So she made love with Grace whenever she wanted, she licked and sucked and kissed and caressed in whatever way was required of her, and with her Mistress or whoever her Mistress chose. Sometimes it all left her unmoved. At other times she very nearly enjoyed it.

Her mind turned to her stepfather, Laurence Pettinger, MP. She’d never forgiven him for her imprisonment. She knew that she’d been an embarrassment to his political career and she realised that with her off the scene both her mother and her stepfather would have used the media images of tragic martyrdom to their utmost effect. But to leave her there, at the Complex, to suffer the pain and humiliation dished out to her and her fellow slaves on a daily basis was too much. She could never ever forgive that. And one day she would get even.

Grace had been all too ready to discuss the possibility of helping out with that revenge. Her motives, Erica realised, were to prove her love, when perhaps Erica might think her cruelty proved the opposite. Why someone in Grace’s powerful position felt the need to prove anything eluded Erica, since she was in the supreme position of being able to force Erica to do anything she desired, and Erica was in the position where any resistance was futile, and meek, even eager, compliance made her life a lot easier and a lot less painful.

When Erica was beaten these days it was purely because Grace, her owner, wanted it, and not because she warranted punishment. Her days of rebellion were long gone, systematically beaten out of her over an unknown period of time.

Erica sometimes wondered about time. There were no clocks and calendars in the Complex. She was not allowed to watch television, hear a radio or see a newspaper. She was aware of changes of days only by light and dark, and aware of passing months only by changes of seasonal weather, and she counted neither. She estimated she’d been at the Complex for eight years, but it could have been six. Or ten. Or twelve. What had happened in the world outside? How old was she? Had her friends and family forgotten all about her?

She listened for sounds of movement in the house. Life was much more relaxed here. The fact it was still in the grounds of the Complex didn’t mean it was as cruel as the Complex. She didn’t fear each approaching noise any more.

A distant clatter told her there was someone in the house. She moved up the bed slightly to allow her to pull a few strands of stray hair away from her face. The chains linking the locked leather cuffs to the ring at the left side of her bedhead rattled as she moved. She was restrained in some way each and every night, not to prevent her escape - the electrified fences, traps and dog patrols prevented that - but because Grace decided it. And possibly to constantly remind Erica she was a piece of owned property.

Footsteps approached her door. She recognised the sounds of her mistress easily.

“Good morning my darling,” Grace smiled as she appeared in the doorway.

“Good morning, Mistress,” Erica replied as the woman approached the bed.

“On your belly,” Grace told her.

As Erica moved awkwardly round to lie face down, Grace reached for the zip at the back of her black dress and drew it down. Before she came to the Complex, Erica had little interest in women as sexual partners, but after years of being forced to have sexual contact with other slaves and female guests, she’d got to quite like the idea. And Grace was a very attractive woman. It was no punishment for Erica to watch as Grace slipped the dress off her shoulders and downwards, revealing the shoestring straps of her black bra and the well-filled C cups below. She watched as the dress went lower, until the equally inadequate thong came into view, its gauzy front showing the bush of intimate hair it revealed more than hid.

When the dress had gone, Grace reached into the bedside cabinet and took out a crop. No reason was given for the fact she was about to be beaten. Nothing new there. Grace even smiled as she reached across and pulled the duvet towards Erica’s feet, letting it slide to the floor at the foot of the bed.

“I’ve got an interesting conundrum for you,” Grace told her, running her fingers across the raised skin where her slave number, 51, had been branded into her buttocks by her mother and stepfather soon after she’d been imprisoned at the Complex. “I’ve decided to forbid you to cry out when I beat you.”

Erica waited as Grace paused, wanting the second part of her announcement to have its full effect. “You understand?” she asked.

“Yes, Mistress.”

“The only problem, for you at least,” the woman added eventually, “is that I intend to beat you until you cry.” Grace paused again to let the message sink in. “Questions?”

“So the only way to not disobey is to not cry out?” Erica asked, uneasily.

“Correct.”

“But you keep going until I do?”

“Right again.”

“May I ask the penalty for disobedience, Mistress?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Let’s be honest here; you won’t cry out until you have to because you’re a proud bitch and you want to show me you can take anything I can dish out. And I’ll keep going because I need to break you. Right?”

Erica didn’t need to reply.

“I will give you one get-out,” Grace offered. “If you can take it till you pass out, I’ll stop. But no pretending.”

“With respect, Mistress, I think you know me better than that.”

Grace smiled down at her slave, excited about the pain and punishment she was about to give. She knew Erica wouldn’t be broken easily, but that was the very thing that attracted her to Erica in the first place.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Does it make a difference?” Erica sighed, bracing herself.

“No.” She raised the crop, ready to strike, before adding, “It’s all set up for your revenge, my love. I have a party at the weekend, at which you will be the centre of attention for a few of my friends and when that’s over, he’s all yours. Does that please you?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good. Then you can show me how grateful you are by lasting a bit longer before you cry.”