The Inferior

The Inferior

By

Kurt Steiner

Prologue

Naked, back against the smooth painted plaster of the living-room wall, legs sprawled out before him on the cold parquet flooring; he looked on as she entered from the dining room carrying a chair.

Panic provoking hysteria, he watched her position it over and to either side of his feet before taking the single step required to bestride his body. Powerful legs, clad in the sheerest black hose, towering above his shivering frame as her eyes bore down into his own to intensify his terror.

Levels of empathy and warmth remarkable only for their complete absence.

Unlike him, she was fully dressed. Outfitted in a sombre, severely cut, two-piece suit in charcoal grey - crisp white shirt and matching accessories completing the ensemble. A uniform, of sorts, imparting an impression more redolent of authority than service; out of keeping with the position she held in his household yet apposite at one and the same time.

“Authority”, he thought, loss matching terror, that had once been his; certain, as he watched hands rest on hips and an insolent tongue slither across somewhat inflated lips, it would never be gifted to him again.

As she stared down upon him, brown features implacable; yet unable to quite disguise their delight at the depths to which she had reduced him; his whole body became a film of perspiration. The subconscious divining her intention and reacting accordingly. Fear -along with levels of humiliation even he as a writer would be hard-pressed to describe– adding a perverse urgency to the throbbing at his groin.

A reaction to his situation, and another source of shame, he found difficult to reconcile with the man he had once believed himself to be.

Though not restrained in any way, movement was impossible -as was intelligible speech. All he could do was watch as she seated herself and slipped her feet from the spiked black court shoes that had pecked their way across the parquet towards him a few seconds earlier. The smell of moist nylon assailing his nostrils heightening a disgrace already functioning at high altitudes.

The position, gender and race, of his tormentor an unholy trinity in the mind of the man on the receiving end of her intentions

To allow this woman… this… girl… this… flunkey, to manipulate him in such a fashion was unthinkable and had to be… had to be…

So why, that being true, he asked himself; truncating his own thoughts; did his breath catch in his throat as she slowly slid her skirt over powerful young thighs to bunch it at her hips?

Why did the expanse of shiny black pantyhose, clinging to her legs so tightly, command his attention with more urgency than a nearby oasis dominated the thoughts of a thirsty nomad?

Why, as she undid the buttons of her shirt to reveal even more of the full breasts he had only recently noticed and developed such an infatuation for, was he unable to look away?

And why, finally; when the soles of her nylon-encased feet came to rest on his own thighs; did his restricted breathing suddenly find release with a sigh that sounded, for all the world, like a swoon?

“You want this?” she asked; the English in which she had some degree of fluency unable to prevent the linguistic corruption resulting from the accent of her mother tongue. The cold implacability of her tone breaking the silence and belying her youth in a way he found utterly terrifying - even as his masculinity berated him for reacting in such a spineless way to someone so many years his junior.

With a supreme effort, he managed to nod, eyes halted on their unavoidable upward swing by a glimpse of her cleavage and remaining there. Astounded two such beauteous things could co-exist with the less than stunning visage above them.

And then, suddenly, his attention was elsewhere. Eyes lowering as the friction of her pantyhose against his manhood diverted his gaze to her feet. His tormentor’s surprisingly dainty peds sliding along his penis, sole of each turned inwards, as the column betraying him found itself trapped between the high arches of her instep.

“Look at me,” she demanded; the unfamiliar frisson of nylon against foreskin and the undeniable submissiveness inspired by the situation overwhelming him.

Her command, however, jolting him from his preoccupation just long enough for a modicum of spine to assert itself; it was one thing, after all, to debase himself in front of her in such a way - quite another, he knew, to actually look into her eyes and see his disgrace and humiliation mirrored back at…

His body jack-knifed with agony as both his thoughts and his “Resolution” vanished.

Suddenly; before his mini rebellion had any chance to morph into full-scale revolt; he was screaming. 

Silently – unable to give voice to his pain.

His very life force sucked from him as his body spasmed involuntarily and he voiced soundless anguish towards the heavens; the same foot that had seconds ago been bestowing such intense and perverse pleasure upon him stamping down on his testicles; intent, it appeared, upon mashing the cylinders defining his masculinity into the wood of the parquet flooring itself.

“I warned you what would happen if you disobeyed,” she said, eyes mocking as his agony increased and threatened to void his stomach of its contents.

Had it held any.

“Perhaps,” she suggested with much relish; “you will find it easier to obey as a eunuch.”

He could only watch with terror; eyes bugging from his head as she increased the downward pressure of her foot; soundless entreaties rising in intensity and going unheeded as she stood to gain more leverage in order to neuter him. Malevolent brown eyes finally displaying warmth as the pleasure she took in his unmanning went into overdrive prior to taking orbit as his masculinity and the testicles symbolising it, were crushed beneath her pretty young feet.

Any second now, he knew he would hear that inevitable “Squish!” sound as those same testicles burst outwards and flattened themselves to the floor; reducing him to something less than a man and something no more useful than a… than a…

Uncharted territory, pain levels soaring off the graph, that finally allowed him to give voice to his agony as he screamed and screamed and screamed and…

 

Chapter One

Anya

In the studio quarters allocated to her above the garage, Anya Jalav studied herself in the bathroom’s full-length mirror; pleased with the progress she was making with her older employer in the main house.

Entering the seventh month in her new position, she knew she had some way to go still, both youth and the sheer power of unfulfilled desire making her more impatient by the hour to reach her desired destination. Even if, with the help of a new friend, expectations of success for her endeavour grew at a corresponding rate.

As the Indian girl in her early twenties took in the shapely, if prematurely matronly, contours of her firm body and its magnificent breasts -those same breasts that, amazingly, had yet to know the caresses of a lover- she cursed the somewhat equestrian features of her face. Features, with large cheekbones and prominent overbite, she had to thank for the neglect extended to the rest of her body thus far. Accepting that the face her “Friend” described as: “oozing character”, made what she had in mind for her handsome English “Master” so much more difficult.

Though not, she prayed, impossible.

For, despite her concerns at what rested atop her neck, the body below gave her little pause for thought. That, she was now assured, in no way presented a problem.

A loner by nature -and a preference confirmed by experience- her confidence in the body staring back at her from the mirror was both shared and bolstered by Rajiv, her aforementioned, new –and only- friend.

“Patience, my dear,” her Internet mentor had told her earlier that evening, via the wonder that was Skype; connecting Cornwall to Calcutta in no more time than it took to take a sip of ice cold kucchi lassi. The same “Mentor” whose idea it had been to suddenly start addressing her employer with the old-fashioned form of respect.

A form of respect -as he had assured her it would- the man employing her would find curious to begin with but soon view favourably as his all too obvious vanity and self-importance kicked in.

“I have scrutinised the photos of yourself you attached to me,” he all but leered. “Scrutinised them, very, very, closely – if you take my meaning. Trust me, my young friend, your charm may not be of a conventional nature but it is undeniably present and all the stronger for not being of the bland and uninteresting kind.

Anya felt her cheeks flush: criticism she was used to and could deal with; compliments were new territory. 

“I speak of that bastardisation of womanhood,” Rajiv was continuing; represented by the bulimic stick insects the moronic magazines of mass culture label: ‘Physically beautiful’.”

As ever, the words of her new friend had instilled welcome assurance -much needed after yet another inspection of the looking glass and her: “Equestrian” features as she had once heard them described. That same friend’s on-screen face a visual corroboration of his existence and a compliment she had yet to return with the setting up of a webcam of her own.

“Your appeal to this man,” he went on, the expression on his aged and fleshy, if still appealing, features giving witness to his seriousness; “must lie in more than just the allure of a pretty face, anyway.”

“In that,” she answered ruefully; features reflected back at her from the window behind the computer, “I hardly have a say.” Ending her complaint with a derisive snort.

“Do not despair over that which you can do nothing about,” he advised her; sounding, at times like this, as if he were a venerable Japanese sensei rather than a sixtysomething former clerical officer with the Indian Civil Service. “A discerning man will always take quality over prettiness and your face suggests nothing if not character and moral fibre.”

His words of reassurance winning only a cynical: “Humph!”

“Remember, Anya,” he went on, neglecting to mention the perverseness of that ‘Moral fibre’: “to rush the process will be to invite failure. If he once suspects the nature of your intentions you will lose him and the journey will be over, for you as well as me. The opportunity to place your brand upon the tender white buttocks of such a creature is one that comes along all too rarely.”

Though he was telling her no more than what she had told herself on numerous occasions, Anya nodded at the screen containing her mentor and his habitual jogging-suit as if she were hearing his counsel on the subject for the first time and he was actually in a position to see her do it.

A favour he had extended to her and, as he frequently reminded her, waited to be returned.

“Keep in mind,” he continued, “the nature of the prize lying in reward for the self-control I urge upon you.”

“I seldom think of much else,” she assured him.

“Yes,” he could do no more than agree. “It is a heady prospect – especially for one of your tender years. A fellow human being as your chattel. Your creature. Complete control over a man who once employed you. The same man who, at this moment, regards you as no more than a substandard form of life; placed on this earth with no greater purpose than to make his worthless existence more comfortable. A man, moreover, from whom you will have obliterated all traces of pride, masculinity and self-dependence until he looks to you for everything – even though he may hate you as he does so.”

He gave his words some thought; sensing she was doing the same.

“As well as your possession, Anya, you must also think of him as your… creation”

He paused for a few moments more, knowing he had her full attention.

“If you do as I suggest,” he began again, deadly serious, “your power over him will become total and irrevocable. He will look to you for everything and regard the smallest, most infinitesimally minute, gesture of approval from you as if it were a gift from mother Kali herself.

She remained silent, sure her, somewhat: verbose; mentor was not quite finished.

“More,” he continued, not disappointing; “though he may continue to detest you for bringing him to such a pass, he will never possess the strength to deny you anything – even though he will, at times, make pitiful attempts to try. Each unsuccessful effort leaving him worse off than before.”

At the last of his claims, an image had formed behind Anya’s eyes.

She saw her still clothed body, hands-on-hips, as she stood in the large en-suite adjoining the main bedroom; her naked employer crouched on all fours at her feet as she stepped over his legs to bestride his back - his eyes, much to her gratification and in obedience to her instructions, lost in contemplation of the terra cotta floor tiles. Her employer supporting himself with his arms to remain in position while she raised her skirt and pulled her panties to one side; the shaking of his shoulders indicating he knew what was to come.

Lost to the desire inspired by her fantasy, Anya smiled as she saw a stream of hot, warm, urine gush from her pussy to saturate his hair and neck before trickling down his face towards nostrils and mou…

“How would you feel, dear Anya,” her mentor’s words cut into her daydream, “to return here to your hometown with a handsome and obedient English servant in tow?”

Coming back to planet earth with a thud, she allowed herself a smile at his words and forgave him his intrusion into her daydream. Ill-timed or not, the welcome nature of the prospect he dangled before her ensured she forgave his intrusion and made touchdown less anti-climactic.

“Consider,” he urged, “the reaction of the sewer-stupid shits you told me made your time here in Calcutta such a torture. Imagine how their dismal and fixed little lives would be put in perspective to see the object of their taunts; elevated so far above them she is capable of commanding the obedience and devotion of such a possession.”

Considering that “Reaction” gave her much pleasure.

“Tell me honestly, Anya,” he pressed, “is the winning of such a prize not worthy of some small application of patience?”

Despite the familiar excitement his words instilled in her –not to mention flaunting her power in the faces of those: “Little shits”; who had indeed made her early years so miserable- Anya’s hackles, as they always did whenever she was criticised unjustly, rose instantly.

“My impatience, Rajiv,” she protested loudly and heatedly, correcting her fellow countryman and native of ‘Kolkata’; “shows only when I speak with you on the subject of my prospective slave.”

The raised decibel levels, filling the room as she put him right, of no concern to her; knowing that -even in the unlikely event of her employer venturing near her quarters from the main house where she served as his housekeeper- he had no knowledge whatsoever of the Bengali in which their conversation was being conducted.

“I would not dream of ruining things at the crawling stage by attempting to run,” she assured him. “Fate and good fortune have conspired to place me with the right man, at both the right place and time. If you think I will allow such a gift to slip through my fingers you are a very deluded ‘mentor’.”

It was a reprimand he accepted graciously and one she was sincere about, her earliest sexual memories having been of control. Power over another human being so strong it was unanswerable. The same thrill of dominion over an unwilling man of greater years she had been able to experience up to now only through the texts fuelling her dreams. The same “Dreams” she had now committed herself to knowing in the first-person.

“That is reassuring to hear, my sweet,” the strong male voice told her. “You are, after all, at a very delicate stage. Though do bear in mind it will serve you well to disregard your baseless concerns regarding your features. You have far, far, far, more than an appealing face in your favour – at least if the pictures you attached to me do not lie. I assure you, were I of the opposite sexual mindset in such matters, I believe I could very quickly become obsessed with the power inherent in that young body you have kept under wraps for so long.”

Despite her distrust of flattery –possibly from not having much experience of the phenomenon– Anya felt her face flush with pleasure at the compliment - even as another thought occurred to the “Sensei”:

“Tell me, Anya,” he asked, “do you ever question why you are the way you are?”

Her response was as instant as it was emphatic:

“Never.”

“Really?” he asked. “Are you not curious at least?”

“To what end? What would be achieved? Does fire burn any less brightly for our knowing how it finds its heat? These are feelings and desires I have known for as long as I can remember. Rather than question satisfaction I prefer to enjoy it. We are what we are, after all. You as much as me.”

The head on the screen could do no more than nod agreement; for though he considered her naïve in ways befitting her age, Rajiv knew also she was wise beyond those years in many others. Her articulacy -and the somewhat old-fashioned manner of speech contradicting her lack of a formal education- the result, he knew, of having been taught her second-language by a retired Professor of English language and Literature at Calcutta University, for whom she had skivvied as a very young girl.

“A good answer,” he laughed. “As Santayana insisted: for true barbarians such as us, the simple existence of our passions is reason enough for their being.”

He waited for her to respond; pleased with himself.

Giving it up when praise for his cleverness-stroke-memory remained withheld; her “Professor”, it transpired, having left the “Literature” side of things unexplored.

“But to hell with useless philosophy,” he broke his own pause. “I should like to return, if I may, to the subject of the visual. When, my dear, are you going to return my favour and set up a webcam so we can view each other as we speak? Call me old-fashioned but, when at all possible, I like to see the face of the person with whom I converse on matters so… intimate.”

Now it was her turn to laugh:

“Just my ‘Face’, Rajiv?” she teased; a certain discomfort in his on-screen reaction emboldening her further: “Or do you wish me to provide you with visual stimulation even more intimate in nature? Am I to believe the photographs I sent you of my pure young body are no longer enough for you?”

“No to the first and a resounding ‘Yes’ to both the second and the third,” he answered instantly; “Discomfort”, had she not imagined it, already on the backburner.

“As I may have mentioned before, Anya,” he reminded her; “and excepting the beasts of the field: the mind is the gateway to Nirvana. Physical pleasure becomes ecstasy only when mental stimulation is at requisite levels. As nature underpins everything natural and organic; so the cerebral underpins all things human and sexual. That said, however, it is also true that, in the same way as academic learning improves the quality of intelligence; so do pictures, in situations such as ours, take the text to higher levels.”

Had he been in reception of a signal with which to view it, he would have seen Anya was already nodding agreement - having acknowledged to herself on many occasions how limiting she found the absence of: “Learning”. 

Frustration, for both the above lack itself, and her mentor’s long windedness, making his assertion one with which she could only agree.  

“But enough of me,” he said, returning to business. “I would –again- like to hear about the welcome he extended to your new wardrobe and his response to you since. Run his initial reaction by me once again, Anya… If you would be so kind.”

Anya smiled to herself at his request, finding in it no hardship. Her “Master’s” response, after all, having been of a kind she savoured. Boding well for her future plans in his regard.

Those “Plans” involving nothing less than the complete enslavement of a handsome Englishman.

A “Handsome Englishman”, moreover; who was not only her employer but –making the scenario in prospect that much sweeter to her- almost three decades her senior.

The nature of that “Scenario” changing almost every time she closed her eyes to fantasise about it; fantasies so numerous and powerful she had actually given them numbers to be able to summon them up more readily.

Chapter Two

Fantasy-One

“You have to ask me,” she reminded him, standing in the kitchen where he had sought her out. Her raven black hair hung loose over the smooth brown skin of her shoulders and her expression as she regarded him was one she had heard described as: “Haughty”

She could tell how taken he was with the grey woollen dress and sheer nylon pantyhose as it tapered down and disappeared into black shoes with pointed toes and sharp heels.

“Please, Anya,” he began, “can I…”

“No!” she barked, enjoying the way the handsome Englishman flinched. “You should be naked and on your knees before me. Do it now!”

His haste to do as she asked would have been touching had it not been so pathetic.

“Look at you,” she sneered. “Tying yourself in knots to obey a young girl - and you so much older than she. A brown girl and your servant too, and you an Englishman; what would your friends say?”

Almost before her jeering had finished, he was kneeling at her feet on his haunches, servile and anxious; the need etched upon his features a joy to behold.

“Ask me then,” she reminded him again, as if he were little more than a half-wit rather than a mildly successful former writer some thirty years her senior.

“Please,” he begged.

“Please, what?”

“Please, Master, let me… let me masturbate for you.”

“What?” she snarled, feigning outrage; “Are you a pervert? You want to touch yourself in front of me? In your own kitchen?”

“Please, Master.”

“You are a pervert, are you not? Let me hear you say it.”

“I… I’m a pervert, Master.”

She smiled.

“I just wanted you to be clear on that point;” a hand coming around from behind her then, to dangle something before his eyes. “Do you know what these are?”

His eyes sparkled hungrily:

“They… They’re your panties, Master,” he told her, lips dry.

Without a word she took a single step towards him and draped them over his head; sure to position the gusset over his nose.

“I have worn them for the past three days so they will be nice and…ripe for you.”

Below her, she watched with amusement as his tongue darted out to taste her stale secretions.

“I expect a thank you when I give you something.”

“Thwnk you Mwster,” he obeyed through the fabric covering his mouth.

Turning to her side, she hitched up her skirt to present him with her right leg, the pressure on her calf muscles from the high heels dimpling their length on the upward rise to her sleek and powerful thighs, rippling beneath the sheer black nylon containing them.

“Here, on the kitchen floor, in your own home, you are going to hump your servant’s leg like the dog you truly are,” she told him. “Then, when you know yourself for the animal that you are, you are going to clean your manjuice from her nylons with your tongue. Understand?”

“Hmmm,” came from below her, her slave too immersed in the sensations provided by her soiled underwear to find words.

“I do not think, after this, we will have any more confusion concerning just who is in charge here.”

She reached out to pinch the lobe of his ear with her free hand.

“Up!”

Instantly, he rose from his haunches to his knees.

“Do it!” she snapped.

After a moment’s hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her hips and pressed his erection against the side of her pantyhose-clad leg, the rasping of the nylon against his foreskin bringing a muffled gasp from him.

“Hurry up!” she ordered him. “I have things to do.”

He did as she asked immediately; the taste and the smell of her soiled underwear continuing to assail his senses as he thrust against her leg in an unholy imitation of a rutting canine.

It couldn’t have been more than five strokes after he began humping, so strong was his excitement, that he let out a massive gasp and exploded against her; jet after jet of white semen covering her thigh; his body sagging against her hips as she looked down with contempt.

“There,” she told him, mockery unmistakable; as was the sheer fulfilment she received from such control: “not such a cruel master after all, am I?”

Stepping from his grasp, she surveyed the semen soaked nylon at her thighs and tutted before tearing her panties from his head.

“Well?” she said, after a few seconds, tone expectant: “Don’t just kneel there like an imbecile,

His stared up at her, eyes that were more than just a little beaten showing puzzlement also.

With a huge sigh of the type one makes at the shortcomings of a half-wit, she again took him by the ear and leaned down to bore into his eyes:

“Get your filthy tongue to work and clean me up, you animal.”

Chapter-Three

Lambert

For the third time that week, Bernard Lambert found himself waking to the sound of his own screams.

The fact it was still only Tuesday hardly offering itself as a reassurance.

Nor did the fact he came awake in the surroundings of his own study. The brown leather of the comfy sofa upon which he was taking his usual afternoon catnap, clammy against the skin of his bare forearms. Neither time, place, nor sofa, doing anything to lessen his concern for experiencing such dreams at all.

By way of confirmation, his hands went to his groin; relief at what he found there joined by a frantic banging which, though startling, at least hastened a full return to the land of the living.

And, more crucially: the intact.

“Master Lambert?” came the cry. “Is everything as it should be?”

There was no mistaking the deference in the heavily accented voice and old-fashioned English usage. Both, he considered, chiming nicely with the anachronistic form of address she had only recently started using when speaking to him. It being yet more evidence of the respect in which she held him and from which he took so much pleasure.

Respect and a form of address that went a long way towards restoring his self-esteem after his recent setbacks; while, at the same time, reassuring him the status quo continued to hold sway – despite the worrying nature of this new fixation he appeared to be in the grip of.

That it was a somewhat recidivist and despised status quo –dead and buried with the British Raj some three-quarters of a century ago- not preventing his self-congratulation for having revived the tradition in his own home. The achievement of such a rebirth in a new; “Politically correct” and enlightened, millennium lessening his self-approbation not a penny piece.

“Anya?” he had asked her; shortly after she had started using the honorific. “Why are you suddenly addressing me in such an old-fashioned way?”

Still in her saris at the time –and, consequently, of no interest to him- his housekeeper had surprised him with the answer that, unbeknownst to him, she and Rajiv had pre-agreed should such a question be asked. The change that would ensure the surprisingly magnetic pull of his eyes towards the powerful and shapely legs with the pronounced calf-muscles -legs she had not seen fit to reveal until then- still some weeks in the future.

That attraction one that had demeaned him as much upon first sight as it did now -and an attraction he found increasingly troubling. As if the swapping of sari covered bare legs and sandals for pantyhose and heels; combined with his reaction to the change; made her seem a different person in his eyes.

“Because you are a man of substance and it is deserved, Master,” she had answered him, delivering the untruth without a trace of the self-consciousness normally guaranteed to betray liars with a limited talent for the ways of deceit.

There being no trace, either, of the amusement she had taken from his obvious delight in such outrageous and fraudulent flattery.

Going on to flatter him still further when she saw her initial success:

“I have been here almost six months now,” she continued, “and you have proved yourself thoroughly deserving of your position in the world. Firm but fair. In my country there is no shame in acknowledging such a worthy man as ‘Master’.”

Then, as the script she had devised with her mentor demanded, her look had become troubled.

“However,” she said, expression still thoughtful; “if by addressing you in such a way I cause you embarrassment, I will use a different…”

“No, no!” he had disabused her. Swiftly. “I’m all for tradition. If that’s how you wish to address me then so be it.”

And so it was. As Rajiv had assured her it would go; so had it gone. Her “Master’s” already inflated ego -puffed up further every time she addressed him in such a way- setting him up for what would come later.

Back in the moment, though, the man himself wondered what his servant would think of her: “Worthy” Master, were she to divine, somehow, the contents of his dreams. Acknowledging thanks as he did so -to whomever atheists acknowledged such things- that mind reading was not included in her seemingly endless array of domestic talents.

“Master Lambert?” came the cry a second time; a double reassurance he was back with the living as the door flew open and she stepped inside; expression a mixture of curiosity for a room she was entering for the first time, and feigned concern for the man inside it. 

“I’m fine, thank you, Anya,” he told her, clearing his throat mid-sentence as the unlikely leading-lady of his recent dreams came towards him – clad, coincidentally, in the self same outfit he had pictured her in as went about destroying his testicles.

Adopting a critical expression intended to let his servant he wasn’t happy she had entered his “inner-sanctum” at all, Lambert pushed the imagery to one side. It was a domestic incursion –despite the mitigating circumstances- he found extremely annoying. He had, after all, explained at length, from the commencement of her employment with him, that his study was “Off-limits”.

And at all times.

He could only hope the boldness of her intrusion was not some statement of emancipation to go with the English fashions replacing the discarded saris and traditional Indian costume she had worn on first taking up employment in his home.  

An adoption of anglicised dress that had disturbed him for some reason.

A change -though her attitude towards him was no less deferential- that made her seem, somehow, less…

Submissive.

The above being a quality in a woman he had always found extremely pleasing.

“I heard you scream out, she told him,” aware of his discomfort – even if that discomfort was not acute enough to prevent him stealing glances at her hosed legs and full breasts. Nor her from noticing that -though the interest he seemed to take in her body below the neck was, if anything, growing more pronounced- her face, as per usual, remained neglected.

“Nothing to worry about,” he assured her, a little tetchily; irritated at her persistence and drawing himself up authoritatively; snatching an eyeful of her, somewhat: “School-teacherly”, legs as he did so - that they were ever so slightly bandy making them seem, somehow, more… powerful. These being, he recalled, the same legs and feet he had seen above him not seconds before as they went about supplying his dream the element of terror.

“I was just acting out a scene from the new book,” he lied, unable to prevent the catch in his voice her presence inspired. His growing preoccupation one he was at a loss to explain to himself; an interest in his horse-faced housekeeper stemming from the very moment she had decided to shed the costume native to her homeland and wear the more familiar designs and fabrics of his.

Not to mention the absence of a woman in his life for the first period of any real duration he could recall.

“You can continue with whatever you were doing, and allow me to get on now,” he told her, manner made terse by recent memory. Eyes, even as he dismissed her, wandering down to the full breasts he could see straining against her shirt and imagining them unfettered. 

In truth, the nature, frequency and intensity of his thoughts in her regard were becoming a real worry. No matter that sexual fantasies were as everyday and run of the mill to him as they were to any other man. After all, the odd dream concerning the same person was certainly nothing to be concerned about.

But this was different.

Not only were the dreams and unbidden images becoming more vivid; but their capacity to disturb seemed to be multiplying exponentially also.

“Dreams”, that left him mystified as to their source; as well as mortified to admit –given his horror at their content- the excitement he took from them.

Though by far his biggest concern in their regard was the identity of the girl taking centre stage as they played out. 

Being totally candid, and without wishing to sound harsh, he had told himself -and as good as she had proved herself at the menial chores for which he had hired her- she was, when it came down to it, no more than an ugly and badly educated Indian girl from a low caste background. What she was now, he had assured himself, was all she would ever be. Single or married –especially the latter- what she did for him now was what she would do for others throughout the remainder of her life.

“I am making tea, Master,” she informed him, making no impression on his preoccupation.

So why,” he told himself, if she was so easily dismissed, was the girl having such an effect upon him – her image popping into his head at any time or place? Why, at any moment, would he picture the two of them in situations revealing her in any number of positions and poses as they interacted with each other?

And why, more worryingly, were these “Interactions” becoming so… weird.

Though he had always enjoyed being top-dog, both physically and domestically, in his relationships with women it had always been more a case of vanilla-with-edge; rather than the more blatant BDSM scenes of strong masters and subservient women depicted on his computer, Scenes he knew –no matter how… appealing he found them- he would never indulge in.

So; yet to be indulged tastes running in this direction; why was it that every time she invaded his sleep it was he, Bernard Lambert, her employer and “Master”, who was designated the unenviable role of second-class citizen?

And why, if these “Scenes” were reserved for his sleep, was he picturing one now?