Chapter 9: The New Master
The silence after the bowl was clean stretched, thick and syrupy. Jessica stared at Ava, her foot still resting near Ava’s cheek. A strange, speculative light glinted in her eyes, something beyond the initial thrill of novelty. It was calculation, cold and bright.
Ethan watched them both, his expression unreadable. He set his coffee cup down on the glass table with a precise click.
“Class for me in an hour,” he said, breaking the spell. “Prep my bag. Polished shoes, the lecture notes from the blue folder, and the new financial analytics textbook.”
“Yes, Master,” Ava whispered, her voice hoarse from disuse and the acrid aftertaste of the bowl. She began to rise, her muscles protesting.
“Did I say you could stand?” Ethan’s voice was soft, almost conversational.
Ava froze, half-crouched. She settled back onto her heels, her head bowed.
“You may move on your knees,” he amended. “Efficiency is a form of respect. Don’t dawdle.”
Ava shuffled backwards, then turned and began to crawl towards the study, her palms slapping softly on the polished concrete floor. The journey felt miles long. She was aware of their eyes on her retreating form, the space between her shoulder blades itching with the weight of their gaze.
Behind her, she heard Jessica’s voice, a low murmur. “She just… does it.”
“Conditioning,” Ethan replied. “Like any other reflex. Pain, reward, consistency. It’s simpler than people think.”
“And the… the cage? That’s part of the conditioning?”
“A necessary tool. It’s not just punishment. It’s a psychological reset. It strips away pretense. You saw.”
“I heard,” Jessica corrected, and there was a dark, vibrating pleasure in her tone.
Ava reached the study door, a heavy slab of lacquered wood. She nudged it open with her head and knee-walked inside. The room was a monument to Ethan’s dual life. One wall held severe, modern bookshelves filled with business, law, and economics textbooks. The other was dominated by a locking steel cabinet, its doors currently open, revealing an organized array of implements whose purposes were not academic. She ignored that side. Her world was the other.
She went to the closet, retrieved his leather messenger bag, and began the methodical ritual of packing it. She brushed a microscopic speck of dust from his black oxfords, buffed them to a high shine with a soft cloth, and placed them in the dedicated shoe compartment. She found the blue folder, its contents neatly tabbed, and slotted it in. The new textbook was heavy, smelling of fresh ink and crisp paper. A world of clean logic and formulas, so violently separate from the taste currently coating her tongue.
As she worked, the sounds from the living room shifted. The murmur of conversation stopped. She heard the soft, wet sound of kissing again. A giggle from Jessica, breathy and low. The rustle of clothing.
“She’s in the study?” Jessica asked, her voice slightly muffled.
“She is. And she can hear. Sound carries beautifully in this apartment. The floors, the walls… they conduct everything.” Ethan’s voice was closer now, moving towards the hallway.
Ava kept her focus on the zipper of the bag, her fingers trembling only slightly.
“So she’ll hear this?” Jessica asked.
There was no verbal answer. Just a sharp, fleshy smack—a hand on bare skin—followed by Jessica’s sharp, surprised gasp. Then a moan. Not of pain, but of startled, ardent pleasure.
“Fuck, Ethan… do that again.”
Another smack, harder. Jessica cried out, a ragged, open-throated sound that echoed down the hall.
“You like that?” Ethan’s voice was a growl.
“Yes! God, yes…”
Ava zipped the bag closed. She placed it by the door, then assumed her position: kneeling beside it, head bowed, hands resting on her thighs. She was a piece of furniture, awaiting instruction. The sounds continued, a brutal symphony now. Smacks, interspersed with wet kisses, the thud of a body pressed against a wall, Jessica’s escalating litany of “Yes,” and “Harder,” and “Please.”
Then Ethan’s voice, thick with command. “On your knees. Right here.”
A shuffling. A soft thump—Jessica’s knees hitting the floor just outside the study door, in the hallway. Ava could see the shadow of their entangled forms stretched across the polished floor.
“Open your mouth.”
Ava heard Jessica’s hungry, open-mouthed breathing, then a low, sucking sound. Ethan’s groan vibrated through the air.
“Take it all. Deep. No, don’t use your hand. Just your mouth. Good. Just like that.”
The sucking grew louder, more frantic, punctuated by Jessica’s gags and choked moans of encouragement. “Mmmph… yes… so big…”
“You want to be good for me? You want to be better than her?”
“Yes! God, I want… I want to be everything…”
“Then swallow. Every drop.”
A pause, a strained silence, then a deep, guttural groan from Ethan and a frantic, gulping sound from Jessica. A soft cough. Then Jessica’s voice, wrecked and worshipful. “I did it. All of it.”
“Good girl. Now stay there. On your knees.”
His footsteps approached the study. He appeared in the doorway, adjusting the fly of his jeans. He looked disheveled, powerful, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. He gazed down at Ava, who hadn’t moved a muscle.
“Bag.”
She lifted it, holding it up to him with both hands, her eyes fixed on the floor. He took it, slung it over his shoulder.
“Jessica is in the hall,” he said, his voice even, as if discussing the weather. “You are to attend to her. Clean her. See to her pleasure. Whatever she asks. Her word is an extension of mine until I return. Understood?”
“Understood, Master.”
He leaned down, his fingers gripping her chin, forcing her head up. His eyes were flat, assessing. “This is a test. For both of you. Do not disappoint me.” He released her and walked out. She heard the front door open and click shut, the lock engaging with a definitive thud.
Silence flooded back, deeper now. Ava remained kneeling. From the hallway, she could hear Jessica’s shaky exhale.
Then, the sound of Jessica standing. Footsteps, soft on the concrete, coming closer. She stopped in the doorway. Ava kept her eyes down, on Jessica’s bare feet. They were delicate, with pale pink polish on the toes. One foot still bore a faint, shimmering slickness from Ava’s earlier ministrations.
“Look at me.”
Ava raised her eyes. Jessica stood there, her blouse unbuttoned, her hair messy. Her lips were swollen, her mascara slightly smudged. There was a new authority in her stance, a vibration in the air around her. The bubbly college girl was gone, stripped away by the morning’s revelations, leaving something raw and hungry in her wake.
“He said you attend to me,” Jessica said, her voice exploring its own power. “He said my word is his.”
“Yes, Miss Jessica.”
A faint smile touched Jessica’s lips at the title. “Stand up.”
Ava stood, her body stiff. Jessica walked a slow circle around her, inspecting her like livestock. She reached out and touched the cold steel of the chastity belt, tracing its lines. “He keeps you locked in this. All the time?”
“Yes, Miss Jessica.”
“Do you want to come?”
The question was so direct, so baldly cruel, it stole the air from Ava’s lungs. She knew the correct answer, the conditioned answer. “Only if it pleases Master.”
Jessica completed her circle, standing in front of Ava again. Her gaze was intense. “It would please me to see what you look like. When you’re… undone.”
Ava said nothing.
“Follow me,” Jessica commanded, turning and walking back towards the living room. She didn’t look back, assuming obedience.
Ava followed.
Jessica went to the large, high-backed leather sofa. She sat in the center, spreading her legs, her skirt hiking up her thighs. The damp patch at the apex of her thighs was visible, a darker shadow on the fabric.
“Take off your dress.”
Ava pulled the shift over her head, folded it, and placed it on the floor. She stood naked except for the intricate metal cage.
“Come here. Kneel between my legs.”
Ava obeyed, sinking to the floor on the soft rug. Jessica’s scent, musky and potent, filled her nostrils.
“Use your mouth. Like you did in the bathroom. But slower. Make it last.”
Ava leaned forward. This was ritual, procedure. She parted Jessica’s folds with her tongue, finding the swollen, sensitive flesh beneath. She licked a slow, flat stripe. Jessica jolted, a sharp intake of breath.
“Oh… God…” Her hands came down, tangling in Ava’s dark hair, not guiding, just clutching. “Yes. Like that.”
Ava worked with a detached, clinical precision, a technician performing a task. She applied pressure, changed rhythm, mapped the topography of Jessica’s arousal with her tongue. Jessica’s hips began to roll, meeting each stroke. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps.
“Faster,” Jessica demanded, her voice taut.
Ava complied. She focused on the bud of Jessica’s clit, flicking it rapidly with the tip of her tongue. Jessica’s thighs tightened around Ava’s head. The clutching hands in her hair became painful, pulling.
“Don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop…”
Ava didn’t. The command was absolute. She felt Jessica’s body tighten, coiling like a spring. Jessica’s back arched off the sofa, a silent scream on her lips, then a torrent of filth poured out. “Yes you bitch, make me come, make me come on your fucking slave tongue, you cunt, lick it, LICK IT!”
The orgasm ripped through Jessica, violent and shuddering. She ground herself against Ava’s face, her cries raw and guttural. When it finally subsided, she collapsed back into the leather, panting.
Ava stayed in place, her face wet, tasting the sharp, salty evidence of Jessica’s climax.
After a moment, Jessica pushed Ava’s head away weakly. “Okay. Enough.” She looked down at Ava, her eyes glazed, satiated. Then a new thought seemed to strike her. “You’ve… you’ve been with him for years.”
“Yes, Miss Jessica.”
“He must have marks on you. Permanent ones.”
Ava hesitated. “Some, Miss Jessica.”
Jessica’s eyes gleamed. “Show me.”
Ava turned, presenting her back. Across her shoulder blades, a series of small, precise scars formed a pattern—a stylized chain. Below the small of her back, on the curve of her right buttock, was a burn scar in the shape of an ‘E’, silvery and smooth.
Jessica traced the chain marks with a finger, then the burn. Her touch was neither gentle nor cruel, but inquisitive. “He did this?”
“He authorized it, Miss Jessica.”
“What does it feel like? To be marked?”
Ava closed her eyes. “It is… a reminder.”
“Of your place.”
“Yes.”
Jessica was silent for a long time. Her finger still rested on the ‘E’. “I want one,” she said finally, her voice quiet but firm.
Ava turned her head, confused.
“Not a brand,” Jessica clarified, her gaze distant, lit from within by a fierce, possessive fire. “But something. Something he’s given only to me. Something she,” she nodded towards the hallway, towards the imagined presence of the other life, “will never have.” She looked at Ava, her expression hardening into something decided. “When he gets back. I’ll ask him.”
She stood, smoothing her skirt. “Clean yourself up. Then clean the bathroom. There’s… a mess.”
Jessica walked towards the guest room, her steps light, almost dancing. She paused at the threshold, looking back at Ava, who still knelt on the rug.
“He was right, you know,” Jessica said, her voice softer now, almost confidential. “It is simpler than people think.”
The guest room door closed softly.
Alone in the vast, silent living room, Ava finally let the full, cold weight of the morning settle onto her shoulders. The taste of Jessica was in her mouth, the ghost of her commands in her ears. But it was the look in Jessica’s eyes, that dawning, hungry understanding, that chilled her most deeply.
The student was learning. And she was proving to be a natural.
The afternoon light through the tinted windows stretched long and pale across the concrete floor. Silence pooled in the apartment, a heavy liquid quiet broken only by the low hum of the refrigerator. Ava polished the steel faucet in the kitchen for the third time, her mind a careful blank, each breath measured to avoid stirring the sediment of feeling underneath.
Jessica emerged from the guest room two hours later, dressed in loose sweatpants and a tight tank top, her laptop tucked under her arm. She looked refreshed, energized, her eyes bright with a focus that hadn’t been there before. She set her computer down on Ethan’s desk in the living area, the one with the severe lines and the hidden cabinet behind it.
“Ava.”
Ava put the polishing cloth down immediately and knelt on the kitchen floor, facing the living room. “Yes, Miss Jessica.”
“I have a paper to write. Due tonight.” Jessica said it casually, powering on the laptop. “But I’m not really in the mood to sit on this hard chair. It’s uncomfortable.”
Ava waited. The instruction was coming. She could feel it in the deliberate, theatrical pause Jessica took.
“Come here. On your hands and knees next to the desk. Right here.” Jessica pointed to a spot on the rug beside the leather desk chair.
Ava crossed the room and assumed the position, her back level, her head down. The rug fibers prickled against her palms.
“No. Arch your back more. Like a… like an ottoman. Or a footstool. But lower.”
Ava adjusted, lifting her hips, curving her spine until it formed a gentle, stable slope. The muscles in her lower back began to complain immediately.
Jessica studied her for a moment, then sat. Not on the chair, but directly onto the small of Ava’s back. Her weight was sudden, crushing the air from Ava’s lungs in a soft gasp. Jessica wiggled her hips, settling in, using Ava’s spine and shoulder blades as a seat. She was slight, but the pressure was immense, compressing Ava’s ribs against the floor.
“Better,” Jessica sighed, pulling the desk chair closer for her feet. She rested her heels on it, opening her laptop. Her sweatpants were thin cotton. Ava could feel every seam, the warmth of her body, the hard points of her sitting bones digging into muscle.
The tapping of keys began. A scholarly article opened with a soft digital rustle. Jessica hummed tunelessly, shifting her weight occasionally to type. Each movement sent jolts of pain through Ava’s frame. She focused on the weave of the rug beneath her face, counting the fibers in a single beige thread.
Twenty minutes passed. The only sounds were typing, the click of the trackpad, and Ava’s own strained breathing. A cramp ignited in her left thigh, a sharp, electric knot. She dared not move.
“Ugh, this source is dry as fuck,” Jessica muttered, more to herself than anyone. She shifted again, grinding down harder. A low, internal gurgle sounded from her abdomen, amplified through the point of contact on Ava’s back.
Ava froze.
Another shift. Then a warm, dense pressure bloomed against the base of Ava’s spine, followed by a low, protracted vibration. The smell reached her first: a pungent, organic burst that cut through the cedar polish of the apartment. Jessica had farted, openly, comfortably, seated on her body.
Jessica didn’t pause typing. She let out a contented little sigh. “Damn, needed that. Taco Tuesday leftovers.” She read a line on her screen, clicked her tongue. “Anyway. You’re probably bored down there.”
Ava said nothing. The smell clung to the air around her head.
“I’m feeling a bit… messy. From earlier. And now.” Jessica’s voice was conversational, academically detached. “Lick me clean. Right where you are. Don’t disrupt my seating.”
One of Jessica’s hands left the keyboard and tugged at the waistband of her sweatpants and underwear, pulling them down just a few inches in the back. Cool air washed over the exposed curve of Ava’s back, followed immediately by the hotter, intimate exposure of Jessica’s body.
“Go on.”
Ava turned her head sideways, craning her neck at a brutal angle. The pale skin of Jessica’s lower buttocks was inches from her face. The earlier musk from the living room sofa had deepened, mixed now with the sharp, sour trace of intestinal gas. She extended her tongue, a flat, wet stroke across the skin.
Jessica flinched, then chuckled. “Cold tongue. Keep going. Get it all.”
Ava obeyed. The act was a vile geometry of strain and submission. Her neck screamed. The taste was brutally intimate, salty and musky with a tang of bitter digestion. She worked methodically, her world narrowing to the patch of skin, the rhythmic tapping of keys above her, and the relentless, grounding pain in her back and thighs.
Another soft fart escaped, this one wetter, a hot puff directly against Ava’s working mouth and nose. Jessica didn’t apologize. She muttered, “Christ, that one’s on you,” and kept typing.
Ava closed her eyes and continued licking, swallowing the taste, her jaw aching. The professor’s voice on Jessica’s recorded lecture droned about sociological paradigms in the distance. The LED strips in the ceiling hummed. Time lost all meaning, measured only in the completion of a task that renewed itself with every slight shift and fresh humiliation.
The light in the room changed, deepening to the blue of early evening. Ava’s entire body was a constellation of pain, a locked, trembling monument to endurance.
Jessica finally stopped typing, saving her document with a decisive click. She stretched her arms overhead, her body lifting slightly on Ava’s spine, then settling back with full weight. “Hmm. Should probably start thinking about dinner. Ethan will be home soon. He’ll be hungry.”
Ava’s mind, dulled by pain and focus, snapped into sharp, cold dread. Dinner. The master’s dinner. It was past the time she should have started preparation. The miso-glazed sea bass needed forty minutes. The rice had to be perfectly washed and rested.
“What does he like on Thursdays?” Jessica asked, idly scrolling through her phone now, still seated on Ava’s broken arch.
“Thursdays…” Ava’s voice was a crushed whisper, her mouth still foul. “Miso-glazed sea bass. Seasonal vegetables. Red quinoa rice.”
“That sounds complicated.” Jessica sounded unimpressed. She shifted, triggering another wave of cramps in Ava’s legs. “You’d better get on it.”
Ava didn’t move. She couldn’t. The command was impossible. “Miss Jessica… you are sitting on me.”
“Oh. Right.” Jessica didn’t get up. She looked at the time on her phone. “Yeah, you’re kinda stuck, aren’t you? And I’m really comfortable.” She laughed, a light, breezy sound. “Well, I guess dinner will be late. Or not happen. His word is my word, right? And I haven’t told you to get up.”
The finality of it iced Ava’s veins. This was the real test, the cruel, elegant trap. Obedience to Jessica directly meant failure for Ethan. Failure carried precise, remembered consequences—the cold steel table, the isolation cage, the calculated, withholding silence that was worse than any blow.
The front door lock disengaged with a soft, metallic scrape.
Jessica’s body went still above her. The casual authority bled from her posture, replaced by a quick, nervous tension. She hastily pulled her sweatpants up and swung her legs off Ava’s back, settling into the actual desk chair just as Ethan walked in.
He stood in the entryway, dropping his messenger bag, his gaze sweeping the scene: the laptop open on his desk, Jessica in his chair trying to look casual, and Ava, still frozen on her hands and knees beside her, trembling visibly, her face flushed and damp, the familiar scent of sex and base human filth hanging in the air between them.
He inhaled slowly, his eyes narrowing as they locked onto Ava. “The apartment smells like takeout and cunt,” he stated, his voice dangerously quiet. “My dinner is not started. Explain this discrepancy.”