Chapter 1
He lay in bed, the covers pulled up tightly around his neck. His hair, black, thick and curly, pressed down against the plump down pillows. The curtains were drawn and no light entered the room, though on the other side of the draperies the late morning sun was filtering through, strong and glaring in a cloudless and brilliantly blue sky.
But for the time being he was lost in his dreams, his breath deep and regular, his body curled up into a fetal position with his knees tucked up towards his chest. Nothing disturbed his slumber, not even the ominous and almost frightening click, rhythmic and staccato, of Lydia Rinald's slim and tapering high heels.
They seemed to grow louder, the sound of bullets richocheting, tapping an indecipherable message along the smooth and highly polished parquet floors. And then a hand with long sinewy piano fingers, fingers whose nails were glossed with blood-red polish, nails that were long and nearly as sharp as the talons of a raptor, an eagle or a hawk, gripped the glass doorknob and turned it, ever so slowly.
The door swung open silently.
She stood there, bathed in the stark light that seemed to fill the house. Her eyes narrowed to mere pinpricks and their deep and scalding blue irises shone like sapphires. She was a woman no one, no man in particular, could look upon lightly.
Now, she stood there, smug and regal, confident of herself and her powers of domination and control. She saw the figure of the young man sprawled out on the double bed, the outline of his body visible beneath the bedcovers.
A thin trickle of drool sluiced out of the corner of his mouth, dampening the pillowcase. She continued to smile, gripping the object she held in one of her hands all the more tightly and securely. And then, not content to merely stare, to study Seth Garrick in the posture of sleep, she moved slowly and steathily into the room, not even bothering to close the door behind her.
But why should she? After all, this was her house and for the time being at least, they were the only ones there, their privacy, their peculiar and unique life style observed by no one else, save their own alter-egos, their own consciences.
"Sethie dear," she whispered, her sarcasm as obvious as the fact that he was still sound asleep. "Come now, Sethie. Lydia's waiting for her breakfast, little man."
She waited, but got no response. Downstairs, she could hear her harlequin Great Dane, Count -- namesake of the notorious Count Donatien de Sade, occasionally known as the Marquis -- padding restlessly around the kitchen, growing increasingly fretful and impatient for his breakfast.
That too was Seth's job, among numerous others.
But the night before their ritualistic "games" -- for want of a better term -- had, in his mind at least, turned sour. He had been sorely bruised both physically and mentally and had retreated to his room, forgetting his responsibilities, forgetting to set the alarm at seven o'clock sharp so that he would be able to get up and prepare Lydia's breakfast as well as feed the dog.
But his insubordination, as she saw it, only gave her a perfect excuse to exercise her powers over him, both mental as well as physical. Fc: what she held securely in one hand, her fingers wrapped around the handle as one would wrap their fingers around a hard and throbbing cock, was none other than a long and frightening whip, a bull whip of stout braided rawhide, already darkened with the purple-black stains of dried blood.
"Sethie, you're not listening, dearie," she snickered.
And when he still failed to hear her, for the covers were pulled up high around his face, Lydia Rinaldo no longer hesitated. Her thick sensual lips curled back in an ugly and frightening grimace and she held the bullwhip before her, uncoiling it like a snake ready to spring and attack its prey.
Then, with a maddened and diabolical laugh, an infernal cackle which normally would have caused his hair to stand up along the back of his neck, she didn't hesitate to aim and lash out. The whip coursed through the air, coming down across the outline of Seth's sleeping figure.
It struck hard and fast, her mind cool and the whip hot, the long lashing length of leather twisting tightly around his slumbering body. Instantly she heard a scream, a scream which made her double up with laughter.
Seth groaned and tore at the bedcovers, instantly awake. He blinked and looked up, knowing how he would see even before his eyes focused on the insidious figure of Lydia Rinaldo. "Good morning, my precious little fawning dear," she laughed, rocking back and forth on her slim stiletto heels. "It's ten a.m., dear boy. And breakfast isn't ready!" The last was spat out, her tone of voice changing rapidly as she didn't hesitate to raise the whip in the air once again.
"No, don't..." he started to say.
But as usual, his words fell on deaf ears. Determined as always to have her way and with Seth Garrick in particular, Lydia didn't hesitate to bring the whip down with the crash of cymbals, its leather tongue coiling painfully and searingly around his covered body. The blanket was torn and he felt the leather etching its agonizing mark right across one thigh and buttock.
Seth groaned and jerked to the side, trying to avoid the hissing path of the whip, a virtual extension of her hand, for he knew from past and painful experience that she was an expert at its use. The collision of flesh and leather set her nerves on edge and she trembled with rising delight.
To have such an excuse, a "legal" excuse that is, to wound him sorely, could not have turned her on more. His eyes narrowed and he stared up at her, taking in the bizarre yet undeniably arousing nature of her costume. Bizarre for some, but not for him, for her outfit was tame in comparison with the many other fetishistic bondage garments she wore around the house.
Now, as she contemplated his shuddering figure, not sure if an additional lash would be worth her effort, she was also aware of the way he was studying her. At least she got his respect willingly on that level and so now she openly flaunted her lush and voluptuous body before his wide and staring eyes.
"Suitably matutinal, wouldn't you say, my little robber boy," she giggled, shoving her chest forward so that he could get a better look at her massive and heaving jugs.
Seth nodded his head, struck dumb and almost hypnotized. He was yet to figure it out, the kind of trance she put him in, the way her body called out to him, demanding to be noticed, respected and ultimately obeyed.
"It is sweet to rule, my precious, but even sweeter to obey," she had once told him.
Now, the words came back to him as he pierced her nearly diaphanous and transparent peignoir with his eyes. It reached down to her black patent leather spike-heeled mules backless platform shoes that made her carriage seem even more imperious and arousing than ever.
And beneath the lacy nightgown he was able to see the strange yet frighteningly exciting arrangement of leather straps and chrome buckles. It was a halter-like arrangement of cinches which crisscrossed her breasts, concealing only each hard and turgid button nipple. He saw this quite easily, though he didn't know the pleasure Lydia was beginning to feel as the inner rawhide surface of the leather straps now rubbed and frictioned excitingly against her erogenous zones.
Her nipples were tingling in response, rubbing back against the rawhide while between her legs a narrow strap was fitted securely, flushed against her pitted and trembling asshole, wedged tightly and delightfully between the lush drooping lips of her black-haired snatch.
His eyes moved down, past her rounded heaving melons with their leather-clad nipples, farther still until he could see how she had arranged additional cinches between her thighs, right between her cunt lips and down between the cheeks of her ass.
Then, Lydia moved forward and savored the way the leather burned and itched against her muff and bottom-hole. The click of her heels made him jerk to attention, but before he could avoid the path of the whip, the leather cobra struck out in his direction.
It coiled tightly around his thighs a second time and he tried to claw it free as the blankets ripped further and she was rewarded with a telling and revealing glimpse of his own private parts. Seth slept in the nude, not so much a concession to Lydia as an ingrained habit he had practiced long before he'd met her.
And now, she could just about see the thick wiry black bush which marked his pubic region, that and the first delightful glimpses of his morning cockstand. Seth hadn't urinated yet and as a result his cock arched up towards his lean washboard stomach, a product of a full bladder and a full view of Lydia Rinaldo's body.
He turned to the side to avoid the whip as she screamed with glee, stepped even closer and brought its blood-stained and salt-impregnated length down across his trembling haunches. A low-pitched groan of misery and self-disgust escaped his lips and he shuddered under the shredded blankets, praying that she would soon vent her spleen and leave him to his misery, his private hell.
"I'm sorry, the alarm didn't go off, I'm sorry," he moaned, shaking with self-disgust as she giggled uproariously, pleased that she was discovering him easier to tame with each passing day. "It'll never happen again, never!"
"Quite right it won't, my little robber boy," she snickered, reminding him of their little unspoken arrangement. And with those words ringing in his ears, she turned on her heel, coiled the whip lovingly under her arm and strode hurriedly from the room, not even bothering to close the door behind her.
"I'm waiting, remember that. And Count is getting hungry ... and you know what happens when he's kept waiting, little man!" he heard her call out when she was out of sight.
Cursing her under his breath, he pulled the torn covers back and slid his legs over the side of the bed, pushing his ass gingerly off the mattress so that he didn't further traumatize the wounds she had etched across his bare and naked flesh.
He glanced down and examined the welts, eying their livid and puckered configurations. Fucking sonuvabitch, he said to himself and got to his feet, knowing as he did that the last thing he should do was keep her or her dog waiting any longer.
But as Seth Garrick hurriedly pulled on some clothes, stuffing his long limber cock into the crotch of his blue jeans and adjusting his basket so that his meat rested comfortably as well as revealingly inside his jock, his thoughts turned back to three weeks before, when he'd first met Lydia Rinaldo, when he'd first accepted the "deal" she had made with him.
It wasn't so much important why he'd done it as what had happened as a result. She'd called him robber boy that morning, for that was precisely what he was, a wanted criminal with a warrant for his arrest and a thousand dollar reward on his head from the bank he had tried -- unsuccessfully at that -- to rob.
Everything had gone wrong and the why of what he had done, the reasons he had been ultimately forced to try such desperate measures to get money, were not nearly as important as what had happened afterwards, when Seth had at least been able to effect a getaway.
Some getaway it had been, for he ran from the police right into Lydia Rinald's hands. He'd ditched the stolen car he'd been driving several miles from the scene of the crime, not far from the outskirts of Stockton. From there, he'd gone on foot, tired, frightened and desperately alone.
It was then that he'd spied the house, guarded by a high brick wall and iron gates, dense shrubbery, an air of mystery and the supernatural emanating from every brick and cranny. He'd had no choice but to swing the gates back -- miraculously unlocked, he'd thought at the time, though now he was almost sorry he'd been able to get to the house as easily as he had -- and see if he could get some food and shelter.
But before he even had an opportunity to meet Lydia, he'd run smack into Count, the huge and savage Great Dane who patrolled the grounds as well as providing other dubious though interestingly bestial services for his sexually insatiable and dominating mistress.
The harlequin Great Dane had come hurtling out of the shrubbery, its huge dagger -- like canines tipped with flecks of foam, its eyes blazing with maddened delight as if, at long last, his job had meaning and a purpose.
Imagine the look of horror on his face when he'd seen the great savage beast hurtling towards him. Seth had let out a shriek of surprise and fear, trying desperately to hurl himself back over the brick wall.
He'd managed to grab hold of the top, only to discover it was fitted with shards of broken glass set in a cement base. Nevertheless, he'd had no choice but to hang on for dear life, his palms and fingers ripped and bloodied as the dog bounded towards him, growling and yelping with delight.
As prey he couldn't have been more trapped and he'd cried for help when Count had lunged forward, digging his jaws into the seat of his pants and shredding his trousers. It was no laughing matter, no joke in the least.
The dog kept lunging forward, clawing at him, ripping at his trousers until they hung in tatters from his body, his under shorts as well. His naked ass and the backs of his thickest and burly thighs were marked with the scars left by the dog's teeth and claws and he'd wondered then if it just wouldn't be better to give himself up to the police and forget whatever had happened, what he'd done less than an hour before.
But before he could even make up his mind, he heard a woman's high-pitched voice echoing into the air. Instantly, the dog froze and stopped its frenzied assault, growling and hissing while Seth turned his head over his shoulder and called out for help.
"Count, here, come here!" the woman cried out and the dog gave him a last growl, glaring at him with rage before trotting out to his mistress.
"Can I jump down now?" he'd asked, almost innocently and not waiting too long for an answer either, for by this time his hands were nearly useless, bloodied and torn from the needle -- sharp shards of broken glass set across the top of the brick wall.
"You shouldn't have been here in the first place, feller," the woman said, emerging in plain view so that as he got to his feet he stopped short, in absolute awe of her majestic appearance. The thought that immediately came to mind was what a bitch and a half. He tried to remove some of the glass fragments buried in his hands, looking up with a guilty expression his face.
Lydia held onto Count's studded leather collar, keeping him off of Seth. "What business do you have around here? You were lucky he didn't kill you. He's to do that, you know, to all intruders."
"I -- my car got stuck," he lied, something about the woman immediately frightening and yet arousing him at the same time.
She ran her fingers through her thick raven-hued shoulder-length hair and stared at him with obvious and open disdain. "What did you do to your hands? Here, let me take a look at them."
He'd moved slowly towards her, almost as if he was being drawn forward by a magnet. She wore an incredibly arousing outfit, a black suede mini skirt with matching knee-high black leather high-heeled boots, as well as a black suede vest thrown over her cashmere sweater.
Her eyes were made up to resemble a cat's and she'd taken one look at his hands and had led him into the house, situated at the end of the drive he'd seen when he'd first pushed the gates open and walked onto the grounds.
That was how it had started, the very beginning of their relationship together. He'd wondered if he was imagining things, or if the sight of his bloodied hands, plus the gaping wounds on his ass and thighs, were somehow serving to turn her on.
She'd gloated at the marks Count had left upon his body and he'd blushed with a mixture of fear and embarrassment, realizing too late his ass was sticking out, just about totally exposed. She'd used tweezers and then iodine to first remove the glass fragments and then decontaminate the wounds.
"You'll have to take those off so I can put some hydrogen peroxide on," she'd said, motioning offhandedly to his torn slacks. "Or else the cuts may turn septic."
"But ... but I don't have anything else to wear. I mean, the shorts are torn, too," he'd replied. Strangely enough, he realized even then that under any other set of similar circumstances, with any other woman that is, he'd have been more than willing to undress, to display his naked body.
Modesty was certainly the last thing he felt, for Seth took great pains with himself, vanity and self-satisfaction combining in a program of vigorous physical fitness. And, on top of that, he was the kind of young man who, at the age of twenty-six, was just hitting his prime.
And one of the things that was, indeed, prime meat and not even choice, was the long limp length of manflesh which dangled down over his balls, already showing signs of renewed life and vigor. Just looking at Lydia had begun to have the desired effect and, as a result, he was beginning to get physically aroused.
Yet there was still something about her which put him off and he was embarrassed to reveal to her all-consuming and narrowed eyes that he was already well on his way to sporting a full-grown and stiff-standing erection.
And, on top of that, Seth Garrick was a young man who was doubly blessed with what is usually referred to as "big meat." There could be little doubt of his virility, especially when she took a look at his hard and throbbing joystick, his meaty cock a good six inches around and, to match its marvelous full thickness, nearly nine inches long from hairy base to leaking plum-shaped glans.
"So what," she'd said when he blushed and mentioned that he was just about naked. "I suppose you think I haven't seen a man without his clothes on before. What are you, anyway, kiddo? I don't believe your car got stuck for one second. In fact, I just heard a most interesting report on the radio. About how the Fourth City Bank over in Stockton had an aborted holdup, how they're on the lookout for the guy who did it. Age about twenty-five or so. Five foot ten or eleven. Muscular build, black curly hair. Sort of fits you to the letter doesn't it, mister?"
He'd turned and made a move to escape, lunging towards the door. But before he could even reach the doorknob, Count had once again shown his stuff, hurtling himself forward and pulling Seth down to the floor.
"Okay!" he'd cried out. "Just get him off of me and I'll do whatever you want!"
His hands were almost useless, bandaged to allow his wounds to heal. She'd called out her dog and stood over him, tapping the heel of her boot on the tile floor of the kitchen where she had first taken him when they'd entered the house.
"Don't lie there like a perfect asshole, kiddo. I still have those other cuts to attend to," and saying this she'd reached down and dragged him to his feet, her strength amazing him as much as her hot lush body did, for she was more of a woman than he'd ever known before in his entire, life, save for his mother, that is.
He stood there, shaking before her, not understanding his newfound fear. And it was then that her eyes had chanced to glance down towards his crotch. She'd taken one look at the way the front of his tattered slacks were tented out, bulging with the hard and painfully stiff outline of his virile poker, and she'd thrown her head back and rocked back and forth, laughing uproariously.
"What's so fucking' funny?" he'd said, though he was blushing despite himself. "I don't find it a joke, lady. Sure they're looking for me and maybe I should just get my ass in gear and keep moving. You don't look like a very friendly person, after all."
"Tsk, tsk, you poor little bank robber, couldn't even pull off a job when you tried. Boy, you've got a lot to learn and my name isn't Lydia Rinaldo for nothing. You've come to the right woman, all right. Because I'm gonna teach you everything you don't already know. And that's obviously just about everything, right!"
That was how it had started, how he had come to be a virtual prisoner in her house. But the day he'd arrived on the scene he still hadn't figured her out yet. She was a tough cookie all right, but he didn't understand her real temperament, the kind of sado-sexual acts she got off on, the rituals of debasement and degradation, masculine abuse and obedience.
Those kind of things, however, were soon enough quickly revealed to Seth Garrick. And sooner than either he or even Lydia would have ever thought possible. In fact, it was almost midnight of that first day, little in the way of future plans having been discussed, when the beginning of the truth and the exposure of the real Lydia Rinaldo, were made crystal clear and blatantly obvious.
And much to his considerable shock and surprise, at that.