Safe Word: An Erotic S/M Novel Read Online Free PDF

small, cheerful woman with bronzey dyed
flyaway hair and rouged pink cheeks-imperiously telling me
in French that I must wake up and sit au dell, at the vanity
table across the room, my leash dangling between my legs.

    She worked cheerfully and carefully, humming to herself, chattering about what a sweet little boy I looked like
in my haircut, entirely unperturbed, it seemed, by my chain
and nakedness. Was this something she saw every day in this
hotel? I wondered. Or did Mr. Constant's money override
people's usual expectations? I gazed at myself in the mirror.
I looked better after my nap-my eyes huge and startled
above pale pink and ivory cheeks, mouth carefully painted
the color of a purplish bruise-while she rubbed a little more
of the purplish lip gloss on my nipples.
    Stand up, she told me. Turn around slowly, while she
considered what else to do with me. She brushed and trimmed
my pubic hair a bit, used a little more of the lip gloss at my
cunt, but that was about all she could come up with, since
I'd been manicured and depilated within an inch of my life
that morning, for the auction. She stroked my ass pensively,
and then she quickly packed up her makeup kit, tossing away
used Q-tips and cotton balls, gently prodding me back down
to the bench, this time facing away from the mirror. "Be good,
petite," she called to me, clattering out of the room on high,
slightly broken-down, platform shoes, the room suddenly
becoming very quiet, the wrought iron vanity table bench
cold and hard under me.

    Next act, I thought, hearing a sound at the door a few
minutes later. Opening acts for my own performance in this
commedia, all the characters sketched in broad strokes. The
dressmaker was thin, with features as sharp as the pins and
needles stuck into the front of her dress, her eyes glittering
gray behind spectacles. Her assistant, a bored, chunky teenager
with lots of black eyeliner and a nose ring, grimaced under the
burden of the big garment bag and various other packages, and
chewed bubble gum to the rhythm of the Discman plugged
into her ears. I could hear the tinny ghost of a back beat when
she bent to smooth long black stockings up my legs.
    No garter belt-the stockings went high up my thighs
and seemed to cling there. The shoes had very high, straight
heels, straps at the ankle, and an inch of platform sole. The
back beat from the Discman changed slightly as I stood upa new cut, reggae-inspired, perhaps-and I swayed a bit to its
distracting rhythm, my hands still bound behind me.
    They let me sway until I got my balance, freeing my
hands then, and unhooking the chain from my collar, to put
the dress on me. It was really two pieces. The top was dull,
matte black, a boned corset with cups for my breasts-a bustier, but with laces in the back so that you could tighten it. And
the bottom was a skirt made of many layers of white tulle or
organdy, one of those tired, old-fashioned-looking sheer fabrics that prom dresses-the good kind, that you get in thrift
stores-are made of. The hemline was uneven, sometimes
above my knees, sometimes below it. And above the organdy
was a layer of what felt like thin, transparent vinyl-well,
more like cellophane really-stiff, iridescent, unnatural.
    I heard the skirt's odd rustle as the assistant slipped it over
my head. The dressmaker tugged it here and there, turning it a bit, putting in a few clever stitches near the hem to make it less
even, more raffish. The bustier, now-the assistant hooked it
up the front, pulling at the laces behind me, and then indicating, with a nod and a little shove, that I should walk around
the room, so that her boss could see the effect.

    "The darts aren't right." Stefan must have come in
from the adjoining room. The dressmaker murmured what
sounded like grudging agreement, and the assistant rolled
her eyes in exasperation as she struggled to undo the hooks
and hand the corset to her boss for