Clarisse

 

I did not approve of the arrangements in my husband's will, but I wasn't asked. The Slut belonged to him: I could make suggestions, but the decisions were his.

To be fair, if the cancer hadn't come on so fast and so unexpectedly, he might have found something better. He couldn't risk involving some colleague in the gross breach of professional ethics involved, and as for my own co-workers, I would have died rather than admit to the whole shameful business. But to leave the Slut to his gardener was unforgivable.

I might have seen it coming. Martin had formed some kind of laddish friendship with MacMann years before; he could never understand that treating the hired help like equals only makes them negligent. (MacMann was a careless worker, and not a week went by but I had to point out something he'd missed: weeds in a flowerbed, dead leaves on the drive, a lawn edge left ragged.) I learnt of it when Martin mentioned, quite casually, that he had told MacMann about the Slut!

Martin has his consulting rooms in the house (he used to joke that he could write an Internet advertisement: "Make money working from home, become a psychotherapist,") and in the Summer months when MacMann ate his lunch in the potting shed, Martin had formed the habit of dropping in on him with a plate of sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer - to relax, no doubt, with an hour of man-talk about sport and telly, before returning to the subtleties of his patients' neuroses.

On one of these visits, Martin had walked in and caught the man with a magazine of spanking pornography spread out beside his lunch. Instead of firing him, Martin had hailed him as a kindred spirit and regaled him with a smutty tale about taking a belt to his first girlfriend's posterior. After that, I gathered, they were as brothers, and before long Martin had confided that he owned a live-in slavegirl, who did the housework nude, served his pleasure and was routinely beaten.

"I trust him," Martin absurdly tried to reassure me. "All I've said about you is that you're harder on the Slut than I am, and often tell me to punish her more. Which reminds me, how's her work been looking?"

"Unforgivably sloppy," I told him, "there was soap on the bath this morning. Your canes don't seem to be getting through to her, I think it's time you whipped her between the legs again. See how the little trollop enjoys being fucked after that." So he sidetracked me onto my favourite topic, how to make the Slut suffer, and I forgot to complain more about his indiscretion.

But thinking it over later, it became clear. Like most men, Martin never grew up past teenage, and teenage boys want to brag about their conquests. He couldn't brag to his peers, so he shared it with a common working man who'd see it simply as a tasty piece of first-hand dirt. No doubt their convivial lunches were enlivened afterwards by descriptions of the Slut's latest tortures and sexual abuse. I tried to forget about it.

But now here the man was, hovering uncertainly in the parlour doorway in what he no doubt thought was his best suit, and boots with the mud scraped off them. Our solicitor was waiting on a video link on the desk. "Ah, Mr. MacMann," he said as I waved the man to a chair, "then we can proceed. This is the last will and testament of Dr. Martin Jones..."

It began, of course, by leaving everything "to my devoted and much loved wife Clarisse, with the following exceptions." There were lump sums to some favourite charities, and to the children of his previous marriage, which didn't seriously dent the estate. And then "To my gardener and friend, old Jock MacMann, I leave a life tenancy of his flat over the garage, in the certainty that he will continue to keep the garden as well as ever." Thank you Martin, you just halved the value of my house. Then came the clause I'd been dreading. "I also leave Jock the red envelope in my desk, which will explain itself. He is the only person I trust to make proper use of it." MacMann looked blank - Martin hadn't warned him. The solicitor was equally baffled, and visibly burning with curiosity, but when I didn't give him a hint he shrugged and went on to the official paperwork.

MacMann clearly thought he was done, and stood up, but I waved him to stay while I ended the formalities and shut down the screen. Then I forced myself to take the envelope out and turn to him.

I'd never looked at him before except as a figure crouched over a flowerbed, usually keeping his head down even when talking to me. I was relieved to see that he wasn't actually ugly: fifteen or twenty years older than me and a few inches shorter, he had a wind-tanned face netted with lines and fringed with pepper-and-salt whiskers. He was returning the study, and I wondered what he saw. His employer and a rising star of investment banking? Or just a woman with a figure that I work to keep trim and dress to show? (In business you use whatever you have.)

I felt I should say something before I handed him the envelope. "This is about our ... slave." He gave a silent Ah of comprehension. "You must understand," I pressed on, "the Slut is an extreme submissive: for the sake of her happiness and emotional health she needs to be kept under strict discipline by a man. Obviously some kind of arrangement had to be made for her, and this was my husband's choice. I won't pretend I like it, but at present I can see no alternative."

"Aye, Ma'am," he said in his growly Scots accent. He puts it on, like insisting on being called Jock, I know for a fact he comes from St. Helens. The first thing he took out of the envelope was the mandala, a big laminated white card with a complicated design of overlapping squares and triangles. Just seeing it made me flinch. Under that was a long letter in Martin's handwriting. He looked up from the first page.

"He says I should show you this," he held up the mandala, "and say ..." he read from the letter, "It's time for a change. Go and prepare my slave for me." I felt the familiar mix of sick apprehension and pulse-racing excitement, stronger than ever; it had been too long. "And then, he says, I should go to his room before I read any more?"

"I suppose you must," I admitted. "This way."

At the door of Martin's room I paused, still looking for the words to make it right. "The girl is a tart, a nymphomaniac, and idle. She's neglected her work shamefully these last few weeks; of course it's been difficult, with my husband's illness, but that's no excuse. You should punish her very severely, right away."

I closed the door on his puzzled look, dived into my own room and was shedding clothes before the door slammed.

I once considered myself a well-adjusted, moderately successful woman. I'd tried sex, found it disappointing, and decided I was one of the lucky ones for whom it wasn't important. Then in the midst of a rising career the fantasies began, visions that an earlier century would have said were sent to torment me. Bound and flogged, brutally raped, crawling naked at my captors' feet ... all loaded with the frustrating arousal I hadn't suffered since I gave up masturbation in my teens. In the midst of intense work or important meetings, I'd find my face hot and my pants wet with irrelevant unwanted lust.

In agony I went to Martin - Doctor Jones - and got bad news. Sexuality, he told me, and produced expert opinions, was fixed: I might as well ask him to turn me gay. He proposed a desperate cure. Strong repressed urges, he explained, sometimes emerged as a split personality. With his help I could intentionally create a secondary personality under my control, to act out the needs I couldn't bear to.

There was only one lie in his proposal, that it would be under my control. Even then, I could see that he would own the character I named the Slut: someone had to deliver the punishment and rough sex she needed. Too late, I found that he also owned me. He was happy to let me get on with my job and my life, so long as it didn't interfere with our arrangements. But the first time I complained, he told me to try doing without. In a week I was clawing the walls, begging him to evoke the Slut and beat the living daylights out of her so I could get some peace.