PART 1

INTO THE SHADOWS

 

Chapter 1

 

'He is the Master - I am the Slave. I am there to serve him and to give him pleasure. I am nothing to him ... nothing but a tool for his desires.'

'What kind of desires are we talking about, Mel?'

Her blue eyes flicked towards the tape machine at the sound of her own voice. Now, as two days previously, she waited patiently for the answer.

'Sexual desires.'

Slowly she stood up and walked away from her desk to stand beside the window. She was the only occupant in the room, the tape and her breathing the only sounds.

'Can you tell me more?'

'He is the Master - I am the Slave. I serve his appetites as he commands. If he wishes to fuck me then he will, wherever we are and however he chooses. If he chooses to beat me and watch me writhe beneath the whip, it will be done. If he wants me to pleasure others, I will pleasure them. He has spent years with his desires and there is no end to his imaginings and creativity. He desires only pleasure and I am there to give it to him.'

'Do you want to give him pleasure?'

'Not really.'

'Then why do you?'

'I have no choice. I can either give it or he will take it anyway.'

'How do you mean?'

'Once, when I was a new slave, I refused to suck him. He forced me to my knees and while I was beaten he thrust himself between my lips and fucked my mouth as I writhed in pain. Then he fucked me until I came.'

'You orgasmed?'

'Yes.'

'You enjoy what he does to you?'

Her voice was calm, flat and unemotional as it echoed from the tape but inside she had been reeling from the young woman's words, just as her stomach contracted to hear them again.

'It depends what they do. My Master is an expert at manipulation. He knew how to make my body override my mind's commands. I didn't want to enjoy the fucking that I was given but my body responded in a way that I couldn't control. He saw it and he knew that he could do it again any time that he wished. He knew that he could make me scream in pleasure as easily as he could make me scream in pain. I hate him for that, and I hate myself for it just as much.'

'Is that why you are here, because you hate yourself for your pleasure?'

'No.'

Silence echoed from the tape machine. She had deliberately not asked any further questions as a way to prompt her client further. It was several minutes before the young woman's voice echoed from the machine once again.

'I'm scared.'

'Of him?'

'Of myself.'

Again - the silence.

'I am not the only slave that my Master uses, just as he is not the only Master to use me. Some are like me, manipulated into this life, while others come willingly. Those that come willingly, you would probably call Submissives. They enjoy the beatings and the humiliation. They live to be controlled and abused ... just as my Master lives to be in control. I do not. I do not actively seek pleasure from the abuse that is thrust upon me, they do. They are addicted to their lives of pain and humiliation; they seek it out and are rewarded with the whip. It's like a drug to them.

'The Slaves are different. Manipulated by their Masters, the pleasure that we are given is just another way of controlling us. My Master knows that I hate the pleasure that he gives me, and he uses that to bend me to his will. I fight against the pleasure because I cannot fight against him. But I have seen what happens to slaves who give up fighting. They lose themselves completely to the dark world where I live. It happens to the Masters and Mistresses too, sometimes. The world where I live is so dark and so far removed from everything that you know, that it's so easy to lose yourself in the shadows. I have met slaves who do not know their true name and who cannot remember anything from their life before they became a slave. These slaves are lost and nothing can save them - they haven't lost the will to live, they've forgotten what living is!'

The fear in the young woman's voice was picked up perfectly by the tape machine and she turned slowly to stare at the rolling spools as the sound of her breathing mixed with the fearful breathing on the tape.

'And if that is what can happen to a slave, imagine what could happen to a Master.'

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, happy now that she was alone to let her own emotions show.

'I fear for myself because I can feel myself being swallowed by the shadows. I have been a slave for three years and I know that many slaves lose themselves in shorter periods of time. But more than that, I can see that my Master is losing himself too. He has always been a cruel and vicious Master, feared and respected by all around him, but he is getting drawn deeper and deeper into a dark abyss and I know that he will take me with him. But what I fear the most is the thought that I will follow him willingly into it and I will be lost forever.'

 

Chapter 2

 

Doctor Leigh Goldman turned from the window and stared at the tape machine. She had been so lost in thought that she hadn't heard the rest of the conversation and had only been dragged from her thoughts by the sound of the tape snapping off. Slowly she walked towards her desk and pushed a button on the machine. The top sprang open and she slid the tape out, replacing it in its cover before her searching fingers selected another tape from her desk. She opened the case and glanced at the neat handwriting across the label: Mel - Meeting 2 12/08/01.

Leigh slipped the tape into the machine and pressed the forward button, hitting play after a few moments. She listened for a moment and then reached for her cigarettes, lighting one and standing over the tape machine as Mel's voice echoed up to her:

'You want me to tell you about what they do so that you can understand me?'

'Yes, Mel. Don't you want me to understand?'

'I want you to understand more than anything. I need you to understand.'

'Why do you need me to understand?'

'I shall tell you about what happened two nights ago. My Master took me somewhere, I have no idea where but it was a house in the country. The house belonged to a friend of his and he has a slave too. I've met her before.

'We had been in the house less than a minute when I was dragged down into the cellar. Kneeling on the floor with her head bowed and her hands behind her back was the other slave.

The Masters stripped us both and then told me to kneel on all fours. I was beaten with a crop and they gagged me when I started to scream. They lashed my buttocks and back, made me bleed.

'When they were done they told the other slave to kneel behind me. I could hear my Master breathing heavily as his friend did something to his slave and then told her to begin. She moved forward and I felt something touch my vagina lips. It was cold and huge. Slowly it began to slide into me, stretching me. It hurt but it wasn't painful.

'Suddenly I heard the second Master shouting. The slave was pulled from behind me and I looked over my shoulder. He slapped her hard across the face and told her that she was doing it wrong. Then he pushed her back towards me and picked up the crop that he had used on me. He lashed her hard across the breasts three times; she screamed and wept with each blow. Then he told her to do as he had ordered.

'Still weeping, she grabbed my hips and positioned the dildo. When she hesitated he lashed her again with the whip. That's when she looked at me and I begged her with my eyes to do as her Master had asked. She nodded slowly and then we both closed our eyes as she rammed the dildo into me. I screamed in agony but it was muffled behind the gag.

'She continued to ram into me and then my Master started to beat her. He lashed her back with the crop and with every blow she rammed harder - as he commanded. I heard her crying and whimpering in pain and I pitied her more than I pitied myself.

'After several minutes she was pulled away and forced onto all fours beside me. She was gagged too and then my Master knelt down behind her and her Master knelt behind me. We were both taken violently, firstly in the vagina and then in the anus. I could see the pain in her face. The one who took me must have seen me looking because he laughed and when I looked away he ordered me to watch. My Master ordered her to watch me too.

'And so I watched her bucking beneath my Master's thrusts. I saw sweat glistening along her tanned flesh. Her beautiful blue eyes were filled with tears as she watched me and I knew that mine were the same. I saw the beads of blood on her breasts mixing with the sweat, just as she must have seen the blood on my back.

'I climaxed soon after and through my passion I saw her thrusting back against my Master as she orgasmed too.'

The tape played silently for several moments before Leigh's voice echoed from the small speaker. With her head leaning against the pane of glass, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

'Does listening to me turn you on?'

Leigh opened her eyes and frowned; she hadn't remembered Mel saying that. She turned sharply when she realised that the voice had come, not from the tape machine, but from somewhere within the office.

Leigh moved quickly to her desk and slapped the stop button on the tape machine.

The office was filled with a heavy silence.

Her eyes looked green in the sunlight when she stared at Leigh. But when a cloud passed across the sun and dimmed the light slightly, her eyes changed to become the steel grey that they really were.

Turning slowly, the young woman closed the office door and stood with her back to Leigh. Resting her hand against the wood of the door, Mel hung her head. Her hair fell around her neck and face, hiding her features behind a raven curtain. Her broad shoulders stretched the material of her leather jacket across her back, her other hand rested on her jean-clad thigh. She was tall and athletic. The black jeans clung to her legs like a second skin and the leather jacket rippled slightly as she breathed.

'Aren't you going to answer me?' Mel asked eventually, her voice quiet yet harsh. 'Or do you only ask the questions?'

'I thought that our appointment was for this morning,' Leigh sighed softly.

Mel didn't turn but just stared at the door ahead of her. 'I can't always make appointments.'

'I won't ask for an apology,' Leigh announced with a smile - her comment had been intended as a joke.

'I don't usually get the chance to apologise for anything that I've done wrong. I just get punished,' Mel responded quietly.

Leigh ran a hand through her hair and sighed. 'Why don't you sit down?'

'I want you to answer my question.'

'If you mean - does hearing that tape turn me on? - then the answer is "no",'.

Mel turned and stared at her, a strange look in the young woman's grey eyes.

'You don't believe me?' Leigh asked.

'Why shouldn't I?' Mel queried with a frown and Leigh realised that she had misread the younger woman's expression.

'Did you think that listening to that would turn me on?' Leigh asked. 'Is that how you hope to make me understand you?'

'Hope,' Mel sighed. 'That is all I have now.'

'Why don't you sit down, Mel? We can talk.'

'I didn't come here to talk,' she responded but walked over to the sofa and sat down anyway.

Leigh moved to the armchair adjacent to it and sat down, crossing her legs.

'I came to ask for your help.'

'That's why I am here.'

Mel fixed Leigh with that steel gaze and studied her in silence for several moments. Eventually she said, 'My Master is getting worse. He is slipping deeper and deeper into the abyss with every passing day and he is taking me with him. I need to get out soon or I will be lost forever.'

'What makes you say that?'

'Last night he tied me between the posts of his bed. I was kneeling on the mattress with my wrists tied above my head and stretched out on either side. I was kneeling with my back to him as he lay and smoked a cigar. I had no idea what he had planned for me and I was shivering with fear. I could feel him staring at me but he didn't say a word.

'Eventually he finished smoking and I heard him move towards me across the bed. He knelt behind me and whispered in my ear. He told me that he could do anything that he wanted to me. He could beat me or fuck me. He could watch me being fucked or he could make me fuck him. He said that he could make me scream in pain or cry with pleasure. He spoke so softly; I have never heard him speak like that before. His words touched something inside me and I began to cry ... silently. The tears rolled from my eyes and I don't think he even noticed. He told me that I was his property. He could abuse me, he could set me free or he could lock me in the darkness for years. He told me that I didn't have a life of my own. He said that I was his slave, his pet, his animal, his tool and his property.' Mel hung her head and stared at her hands, 'I hated what he was saying and I wanted to tell him that he was wrong. No matter what he does to me or how he abuses me, I do not belong to him. My mind and my soul are still mine ... he doesn't own them. I wanted to say it but I was too terrified to speak ... all I could do was cry in silence.

'Then suddenly his hand slipped between my legs and his fingers probed my vagina. I gasped in pain but then his fingers were at my face and I could smell my musk. He thrust his fingers between my lips and ordered me to lick them clean and I sucked my own juice from his fingers even as I felt my pussy aching for the touch of his fingers again.

'After I had cleaned his fingers he grabbed my ankles and pushed my legs off the bed. Then he moved round and stepped between my thighs, positioning his penis at my opening. His hands gripped the posts to which my wrists were tied and he held himself up as he put his feet on the bed. He thrust upwards, sliding deeply into me and although I gasped in pain, I thrust down against him. He looked at me then and I knew that he could see my arousal. He smiled as he thrust again and watched as I gasped in pleasure.

'He fucked me for several minutes and then withdrew to suck at my nipples, arousing me further. His hands stroked my arms and breasts as he lowered himself to my cunt and licked me. His tongue felt beautiful and he drew me to the point of orgasm. I was on the verge of climax so many times but he kept me just on the edge.

'When I thought that I could take no more he suddenly pulled away completely and pulled something from beneath the bed. Before I knew what it was, the dildo was slid into me and I could feel a second nub pushing at my clitoris. He moved quickly, fastening the belt around my waist that would keep it in position. And then he ... turned it on.' Mel swallowed and glanced up at Leigh before returning her gaze to her hands that were shaking. 'He turned the vibrator to its lowest setting and I cried out as it tingled against my clitoris and deep inside my vagina. I closed my eyes and succumbed to the pleasure. I didn't see him snatch up the crop but I felt it land across my breasts and I tossed my head back to scream.

'Pain or pleasure, he said and turned the power on the vibrator up a little, I can give you both and there is nothing that you can do about it. He continued to beat me, pausing every once in a while to turn the vibrator up a little more. I screamed in pain and begged him to stop but as the vibrator grew more and more powerful, I begged him to fuck me. That was when he unfastened the strap at my waist and snatched the vibrator from my body. Then he just stood in front of me, the crop in his hands. If you want me to fuck you, then you must be beaten as well, he told me. So I begged him to lash me and I begged him to hurt me. He kept my hands tied to the bedposts but lowered them so that I was forced to kneel on the bed again but up on all fours. He lashed my buttocks as my juices ran down my thighs and my whole body shuddered with each blow. I begged him to strike harder. He knew that he had driven me beyond pain and that pain and pleasure had become one and the same. I begged him over and over to beat me and I was beginning to climax when he cast the crop aside and rammed into me. He fucked me solidly as I was racked by climax after climax. His nails raked my back and buttocks and I loved every minute. I pushed back against him, forcing him deeper with every thrust ... and that is the last that I remember.

'When I awoke I cried until it felt as if I was being turned inside out but nothing could erase the throbbing in my cunt and the darkness that has invaded my soul.'

Leigh stared at Mel for several moments after the younger woman had stopped speaking. Leigh was thirty-one years old and for eight of them she had worked as a professional psychologist. She had heard many harrowing tales during that time but had always managed to keep her feelings concealed behind a professional, expressionless face. Her face was still expressionless but as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, she realised that her hand was shaking. Slowly she uncrossed her legs and then crossed them again.

The movement caused Mel to look up and the two women locked stares. 'I am both ashamed and fearful of my reaction last night. I hate my Master for awakening that darkness within me and I hate myself because I am too weak to defend myself against it.'

'I can...' Leigh stopped and cleared her throat. 'I can understand that,' she managed to say. 'And from what you have said, you have two choices now. You can either accept what you are or continue to wage this battle with yourself.'

Mel shook her head, 'No, you don't understand. I already accept what I am. My Master awakened a side of my soul that I never knew existed and when it began I fought against it but he weakened my barriers until I had to yield. I am a submissive. That side of my nature will never go away, I have accepted that. But I want to explore that side of my life on my own terms. My Master forced me to accept it and he is forcing me to live it, I don't want that. I want a life beyond my life as a Slave ... I need it.' Mel stared down at her hands again, 'I can no longer deny the truth. I enjoy being helpless ... being used. I like the feel of the bindings around my wrists and although it hurts, I enjoy the feel of the whip on my skin ... but I want it to stop when I say so. When I have had enough I want to be able to walk away.'

'But you fear that if it goes much further you will never be able to walk away?'

Mel nodded slowly. 'I must get away from him or lose myself forever.' She looked up and they locked stares once more, 'I need your help ... I know that you can help me, the question is, will you?'

'I'll help you as much as I can, Mel, but I don't know how far talking about it will get us. You need to get away from him.'

'I know that but I can't get away on my own. I can't just run away.'

'What about the police? Surely they can-'

Mel shook her head quickly, 'No. My Master has powerful friends, I wouldn't stand a chance.'

Leigh stared at the young slave and suddenly had her first inkling as to how big the whole thing was. When Mel had first spoken about her Master, Leigh had thought that it was just an abusive boyfriend who liked to play games. As time had gone on she had realised that it was all much more than that and now she realised that it was all so much bigger than she could possibly imagine. Right there and then, Leigh considered walking away from it all. She suddenly felt completely out of her depth - the world that Mel described was so far removed from the world that she knew. But Leigh had spent her life wanting to help people, how could she now walk away from this and live with herself? No, she couldn't walk away. Right here and now she had to help this young woman. On both a professional and personal level she knew that she couldn't just turn her back on Mel. That was what she told herself and that was enough of a reason. It was also better than admitting that a part of her wanted to learn more about Mel's world - she couldn't have known that she would end up learning more about it than she would have ever dreamed. And in doing so, she would also learn about herself and her own hidden darkness that had already begun to invade the light.

Lost in Mel's plight, Leigh didn't notice the wetness in her panties as she leant forward to ask, 'What do you need?'

Mel also leant forward, her eyes shining with hope. 'The slaves are bought and sold like cattle. The only way that I can get away from my Master is if someone bought me off him.'

'You want me to buy you?' Leigh asked incredulously.

Mel nodded, 'I can get the money that you need.'

'How?'

'That is the least of my worries.'

'What do you mean?'

'If you are going to buy me, you will have to meet my Master and convince him that you are a Mistress,' Mel announced.

Leigh stared at her. 'Pardon?'

The young slave stared back in silence.

Slowly, Leigh shook her head, 'Mel, I don't think that I...'

'Think about it,' Mel suggested and slowly stood up, 'I know that you can do it.'

Leigh frowned.

'I know that you are wet, I can smell your musk. Slaves become very sensitive to things like that.' She gave a small smile that soothed Leigh's sudden anger, 'I don't mean to annoy you but I have known from the start that you were turned on by listening to me ... I probably knew it before you did. You ask questions to see inside someone's soul, a slave is rarely allowed to ask questions and so we learn to see inside by looking at a person's body ...' She hung her head slightly, '... your body can say a thousand words that your heart and mind deny.' She turned without looking at Leigh and moved towards the door. Pulling it open she stepped out and closed the door behind her.

Leigh stared at the closed door, her mouth hanging open and her breath ragged.