The Taste of Commitment

Chapter 68: Getting Acquainted

The room smelled of dust and old timber and the faint, chemical tang of cleaning fluids that had soaked into the floorboards long ago. Four naked bodies lay or knelt or sat against the walls, each bound, each gagged, each utterly still. Paul knelt in the centre of the floor where Tim had left him, his wrists still taped behind his back, his cock still hard from the strange and clinical attentions of the cleaning.

He tried not to stare. He failed.

The man was easy to ignore, a wiry middle-aged thing with grey in his chest hair, gagged with a strip of leather and looking at the floor as if he had surrendered all interest in his surroundings. The two younger women barely registered either. One was dark-haired with a runner's build, her ankles bound to her wrists behind her. The other was blonde and plump, her thighs pressed together as if even in bondage she could preserve some last shred of modesty.

But Amber. His eyes kept returning to Amber.

She lay on her side on a thin mattress against the far wall, her knees drawn up, her bound hands resting on the floor in front of her. The tape across her mouth was broad and merciless. Her breasts were enormous, heavy things the size of his head, and they rested against each other in a way that made his mouth water. Large rosy nipples, dark and erect in the cool air, capped each perfect mound.

She met his gaze. Held it. There was no fear in her eyes, only a kind of weary appraisal, as if she had been here before and knew exactly what sort of man she was looking at.

Paul tried to smile. The tape across his own mouth made it meaningless.

He looked away first. He had been here perhaps half an hour, long enough to catalogue the room, the exits, the other prisoners. Long enough to wonder what Odette had bargained for him. He had agreed to this weekend, trusted her completely, and he still trusted her. But trust did not silence the small voice in his head that pointed out he was naked and bound with strangers in a stone room in the middle of nowhere, and that no one had told him anything except that he would be used.

Amber shifted on her mattress. The movement drew his eye again, helplessly. She had noticed his erection, of course she had noticed it, it had been impossible to hide from the moment Tim had closed the door behind him. Her gaze had dropped to it once, twice, and a small amusement had crept into her eyes before she looked away again.

Paul exhaled through his nose. He could not blame his body. He had been cleaned and scrubbed and manhandled by strangers, and somehow the humiliation had translated into arousal, the way it always did now. Odette had trained him so thoroughly that surrender itself was an aphrodisiac.

He shifted his weight on his knees. His thigh muscles were beginning to ache.

The man against the far wall made a small sound behind his gag, a grunt of discomfort. Paul glanced at him. The man's eyes were closed, his face turned toward the wall, and he seemed to be trying to disappear into the stone. Paul knew the feeling.

The dark-haired woman had begun to work at her restraints. Paul watched her wrists flex against the tape, her face screwed up in concentration. It was hopeless, he knew. Suzette had bound him too tightly and too well. This one would find the same.

The door opened.

Paul's heart jumped. He heard it before he saw who had come in, the click of the latch, the creak of old hinges. Suzette stepped through first, severe in her dark suit, her blonde bob gleaming under the bare bulb. She held a woman by the arm, naked, already gagged, already bound at the wrists.

The new woman was perhaps thirty, with dark curls and a soft, curving body. Her eyes were wide and dark, darting around the room as Suzette marched her to a spot against the wall. She had not been here before, Paul thought. She was terrified in a way the others were not.

Suzette pushed the woman down. She crumpled to the floor, her bound hands going out to break her fall. Suzette ignored her, turning to survey the room.

Her gaze swept past the man, past the two women, past Amber. It settled on Paul.

"That one," she said pointing. "Come."

Paul rose on stiff legs. His knees protested. He crossed the room naked, his cock bobbing before him, and stopped in front of Suzette with his head bowed.

She looked him over with the calm detachment of someone inspecting livestock. Her hand came up, and she gripped his chin, tilting his face up to meet her eyes.

She released him. "Come with me. Let’s get it prepared."

She turned without waiting to see if he would follow. Paul stumbled after her, his bound hands making his balance awkward. As he passed through the doorway he glanced back, one last look at Amber. She was watching him go, her expression unreadable, her enormous breasts rising and falling with her slow breath.

Then the door closed, and he was alone with Suzette in a narrow corridor of stone and shadow.

"Walk faster," she said, without looking back. "I have a lot to do."

Suzette led him down the corridor without a word, her heels clicking against the stone flags in a steady, unhurried rhythm that somehow made the silence more oppressive. Paul followed as best he could, his bound wrists throwing off his balance with every step, his bare feet slapping against the cold floor. The corridor turned, narrowed, then opened into a vast, dim space that stopped him dead.

A ballroom. It had been one, once. The ceiling soared three storeys above him, dark beams crossing beneath a roof that had long since forgotten the sound of music. A chandelier hung at the centre, vast and crystal, but only a third of its candles were lit, casting weak pools of light across the parquet floor. Dust lay thick on the boards, disturbed only by a path of footprints leading from the door to the middle of the room. Sheets covered what might have been furniture along the walls. The air was cold and dead.

In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, stood a simple wooden stool. Beside it sat a table, long and low, covered with implements laid out in tidy rows. Paul did not look at them closely. What he saw in passing was enough: ropes, clips, clamps, a leather strap, things made of metal and rubber whose purpose he could not immediately grasp and did not want to guess.

Suzette walked to the stool and stopped. She turned, folded her arms, and waited.

Paul crossed the ballroom on unsteady legs. The dust swirled around his ankles. He reached the stool and stood before it, unsure whether he was permitted to sit.

"Sit," Suzette said.

He sat. The stool was hard and cold beneath him. His cock had softened on the walk, but not by much, and it rested against his thigh, an obscene weight he could not hide.

Suzette came around behind him. He heard her footsteps circle, felt her gaze travel over his shoulders, his back, his bare arse on the stool. She circled him once, twice, a third time, like a buyer examining a horse she was not yet certain she wanted.

At last she stopped in front of him. Her hand came up, and without ceremony she seized the corner of the tape across his mouth and ripped it off in one motion.

Paul gasped. The sting burned across his cheeks, sharp and bright. The tape dangled from her fingers for a moment before she dropped it to the floor.

"Spit it out," she said.

He worked his jaw, spat. The dildo, wet and slick, landed on the parquet with a soft sound and lay there, glistening in the candlelight. He swallowed, worked his tongue around his dry mouth. He straightened. His hands, still taped behind him, made him hunch slightly. He could not help it.

Suzette studied him. Then, without warning, she shoved him in the chest.

Paul had no arms to throw out, no balance to recover. He toppled backwards off the stool and hit the floor hard, the back of his head cracking against the boards. White light burst behind his eyes. He lay there, stunned, staring up at the distant ceiling, at the chandelier and its weak glowing candles.

Suzette laughed. It was a short, sharp sound, utterly without warmth.

"It puts itself back on the stool," she said.

Paul pushed himself up with his shoulders, dragged himself to his knees, got his feet under him with difficulty. He scrambled onto the stool, breathing hard, his arse throbbing from the impact.

Suzette waited until he was settled. Then she shoved him again, harder.

This time he went over backwards with a grunt, his shoulder blades smacking the boards. The impact drove the breath from him. He lay there gasping, staring up at her. She was looking down at him with her head tilted, a thin smile on her lips.

"That," Paul said, his voice rough, "is completely unnecessary. I have been brought here willingly, I agreed to this weekend, there is no need for—"

The taser appeared in her hand as if from nowhere. He saw it, a compact black shape, and had time to flinch before she pressed it against his ribs and pulled the trigger.

Lightning tore through him. His body convulsed, bucking on the floor, his teeth clacking together as every muscle locked and spasmed. A high, thin whine escaped his throat. The world dissolved into crackling white agony and then, mercifully, she released.

Paul lay trembling, his limbs shaking beyond his control, a thin strand of saliva connecting his chin to the floor. His heart hammered so hard he thought it might burst. Tears had sprung to his eyes, unbidden, and they rolled down his cheeks as he gasped for air.

Suzette crouched beside him. She did not touch him. She simply waited until his breathing slowed, until his shaking subsided enough that he could focus on her face.

"Things don't speak," she said. Her voice was calm, almost gentle, entirely implacable. "Does it understand?"

He nodded frantically, his head bobbing against the floor.

"Then return to the stool."

He did. Every movement was agony. His muscles still twitched and jumped from the shock, his ribs ached where she had pressed the taser, his head throbbed from where it had hit the boards. He crawled rather than walked, too unsteady to trust his legs, and hauled himself onto the stool with his shoulder and his back and his heels. He sat there, hunched, trembling, his cock soft and small against his thigh for the first time in weeks, and he did not look at her.

The door at the far end of the ballroom opened.

Paul heard it first, a heavy sound of old wood and iron hinges. He looked up, his heart lurching.

Clarissa came in first. She was in her early fifties, stocky and formidable, dressed in a pencil skirt and a silk blouse that strained across her heavy bust. Her long brunette hair was loose around her shoulders. She moved through the ballroom like she owned it, because she did, her heels clicking on the parquet with the easy authority of someone who would never be challenged here.

Behind her came Tim. He moved softly, in a flowing silk tunic that caught the candlelight. His delicate hands were clasped before him and his pretty face was composed in careful neutrality. He avoided Paul's gaze.

Clarissa stopped a few feet from the stool. She looked him over, slow and thorough, from his bare feet to the top of his head and back down again. Her eyes lingered on his limp cock for a moment, and the corner of her mouth twitched.

"Good evening, Paul," she said. Her voice was warm and cultured and utterly without mercy. "I am so glad Odette let me borrow you. It’s just a shame her terms were so restrictive.”

Paul opened his mouth to answer, remembered the taser, and closed it again.

Clarissa's smile widened. "Oh, you have been meeting Suzette. Then you already understand the rules of my house. You may not speak unless I ask you a direct question. You may not move unless I tell you to. And you will do everything I ask of you, without hesitation and without complaint."

She stepped closer, until she stood directly in front of him, looking down at his trembling form.

"You are willing to be here, Paul. So eager to please your mistress. I wish I could teach you the error of your ways. Slaves usually only come here once, willingly. Their subsequent visits tend to require more coercion… not that that stops us you can appreciate.” She added after a sardonic pause.

Clarissa paused, letting her words hang in the dusty air of the ballroom. She was watching him with those knowing, appraising eyes, seeing exactly what the taser had done to him, and what it had not.

"Can you imagine how much I would make it scream?" Suzette purred, stepping up beside Clarissa. Her grey eyes were fixed on Paul's soft, shrinking cock, and her voice had taken on a quality that made his skin crawl, not with fear alone. She reached out, and her slender fingers closed around his limp shaft. "Look at its little dicky. I don't think it's ever even been properly sounded."

Her touch was light, almost clinical, a woman examining an object she was considering for purchase. She rolled his cock between her fingers, stroking the soft, wrinkled skin of his balls with her thumb. Paul sat rigid on the stool, his bound hands behind him, his arse still throbbing from the impact with the floor, his ribs still tingling from the taser. He should have stayed soft. Every instinct screamed at him to curl in on himself, to shrink away from her grasp.

Instead, his cock stirred.

It was a betrayal of every rational thought in his head. Suzette had thrown him to the floor, tasered him, called him a thing. She was beautiful in that severe, unsmiling way, her blonde bob sharp as a blade, her grey eyes flat and cold, and she was touching him, handling him, her fingers warm and confident around his flesh. Odette had spent months conditioning him to respond to exactly this kind of touch, to the casual possession of a woman who expected his body to obey before his mind had even caught up. His cock thickened in Suzette's hand, rising against his belly, growing hard and red and eager despite the fear still trembling through his muscles.

Suzette felt it happen. Her fingers tightened, and she let out a low growl, a sound of satisfaction and frustration tangled together. "You see?" she said, not to Paul, but to Clarissa, her eyes never leaving his hardening shaft. "It wants it. Look at this, I give it a small shock and it trembles, I touch it and it stands up like a soldier. It clearly wants to be hurt."

"It responds to touch," Clarissa corrected mildly. "And besides, what it wants is irrelevant. What its owner wants is all that matters.”

Suzette squeezed his cock, harder now, her grip almost punitive. Paul gasped, his hips twitching forward involuntarily. "It leaks," she observed. "Look, pre-cum already, and I've barely done anything. Odette didn't leave it with us for us to ignore?”

"No," Clarissa agreed. "But Odette did not send it here to be damaged. That was the point of our little negotiations. She was very specific, Suzette. No marks that will not fade within the week. Nothing that will interfere with its professional duties. It is here to lick pussy, as much pussy as possible, and nothing more."

Suzette made a small sound of disgust. She released Paul's cock, and it bobbed against his belly, slick with the fluid that had beaded at its tip. "A weekend wasted on a simple tongue servant."

"Not wasted," Clarissa said. She stepped closer to Paul, and he had to fight the urge to flinch back. She did not touch him. She only looked, her gaze travelling over his bound, naked body with the slow appreciation of a collector. "This one is a prize, Suzette. it has to eat anyone who asks. It’s licked out more than twenty different women in the last couple of months, it licks pussy every single day.”

"It will not need its eyes for that," Tim said. It was not a question, it was addressed to Suzette, an amelioration of her concerns about Paul getting away with too little suffering.

"Or its ears," Clarissa agreed. "In fact, I think it would be better without them. A creature that is only a mouth, a tongue, a jaw. My guests can use it without having to look at its face or hear its little noises."

Paul's heart hammered. He sat still as stone, not daring to move, not daring to speak. The taser's sting was still fresh in his ribs.

Clarissa reached out and patted his cheek, a gesture of casual dismissal. "Tim, bring it up to the playroom at nine. Explain what is expected to Suzette before then, I want it ready to use as soon as possible please. I am going back to the party; Nadia is only just getting started with Puddles, and I want to watch."

She turned and strode away across the ballroom, her heels clicking on the parquet, her long hair swinging against her back. The door closed behind her with a heavy sound, and Paul was left alone with Suzette and Tim.

The silence stretched. Paul could hear his own breathing, too fast and too shallow. His cock was still half hard, a fact that shamed him more than anything Suzette had done.

Tim moved first. He crossed the ballroom to stand beside Paul, his silk tunic whispering against the dust. His pretty face was troubled, but his voice, when he spoke, was gentle.

"It's all right," he said softly. "She's gone. It's just me and Suzette now." He glanced at the severe blonde, who was watching Paul with that flat, evaluating stare. "And we have about an hour before you're needed. Nadia likes to draw things out with Puddles."

Suzette smiled. It was not a kind smile. "An hour," she repeated. "That is plenty of time to prepare it properly."

She walked to the long table at the side of the ballroom, where the implements lay in their tidy rows. Her fingers drifted over them, selecting, rejecting, selecting again. Paul watched her, barely breathing.

Suzette's fingers paused over a leather case, her head tilting slightly as if weighing some internal decision. She turned, the implement still in her hand, and looked at Tim.

"It may just be a tongue slave," she said, "but if we've got an hour, we may as well get the value out of it."

Tim's pretty face flickered, a brief uncertainty crossing his features before he smoothed it away. He glanced at Paul, who sat rigid on the stool, his bound hands white-knuckled behind his back.

"What do you suggest?" Tim asked carefully. "Use it before or after it's been prepared?"

Suzette smiled, a thin, cold thing. "There's no point in waiting. I want it to know I've used it before I spend effort making it presentable. It will behave better once it understands its place here."

Tim nodded slowly. "That's fair."

Paul's heart slammed against his ribs. His stomach churned, a sour, acidic dread rising in his throat. He knew what was coming. He was duty bound, Odette had made that absolutely clear, he went down on any woman who asked. That had been the arrangement from the beginning. But Tim was not a woman, and the thought of that delicate, androgynous face and those soft hands pushing his head down between a man's thighs made his skin crawl with a revulsion he could not fully articulate.

But to Paul's surprise, it was Tim who stepped forward first, not Suzette.

"I'll start," Tim said quietly. He moved around the stool until he stood directly before Paul, his silk tunic brushing Paul's bare knees. "Suzette, would you give us a moment? He'll be less... difficult with an audience of one."

Suzette made a sound of amusement. "Afraid of a little thing like that?" She gestured dismissively at Paul's half-hard cock. "Fine. I'll go check on the new arrival. But I want it ready when I return, Tim. Properly used."

She walked away, her heels clicking across the parquet, and the heavy door swung shut behind her with a sound that echoed through the empty ballroom.

Paul and Tim were alone. The chandelier's weak candles flickered overhead, casting dancing shadows across the dusty floor.

Tim's hand came to rest on the top of Paul's head, light but insistent. His body was directly before Paul's face now, inches away. The silk of his tunic brushed against Paul's lips with every slight movement.

"Please," Paul said, his voice rough and cracked. "I've never... I don't do this. I can't do this. I'm not gay.”

Tim smiled, a gentle, knowing curve of his lips that softened his androgynous face into something almost bashful. His hand remained on top of Paul's head, fingers idly stroking through his hair with a tenderness that felt wildly out of place in this cold, dusty ballroom.

"Don't worry, baby boy," he said softly. "Neither am I."

Paul blinked up at him, confusion cutting through the fear. "What?"

Tim stepped back. His delicate hands found the tie of his silk trousers, and he worked the knot loose with unhurried grace. The fabric whispered as it slid down his thighs, pooling at his feet. He stepped out of them and stood before Paul, naked from the waist down.

Paul's breath caught.

Tim's body was not what he had expected. The silk had hidden a lean, athletic physique, a man's body, with sparse dark hair dusting his thighs and trailing up over a flat, well-muscled belly. There was no mistaking the masculine cut of his hips, the strength in his legs. But between them, where a man's cock should have hung, there was instead a firm, fleshy vulva, the outer lips swollen and dark with arousal. And at its front, protruding a full centimetre beyond the lips, stood a solid, bulging clitoris, erect and glistening, the size and shape of a small thumb.

"Get stuck in, pussy licker," Tim purred, and his voice had dropped, grown husky and warm. He parted his thighs, pushing his hips forward to open himself to Paul's gaze. The vulva spread slightly, revealing the pink, wet flesh within. "And don't neglect my little cock."

Paul stared. His mind, already reeling from the taser and the terror and the sheer strangeness of the last few hours, struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. A man. A man with a cunt. A man who stood before him with his legs spread and his hand gentle on Paul's head, waiting.

"Please," Paul whispered. "I don't understand."

"You don't have to understand," Tim said. His voice was patient, kind even. "You only have to lick. That's what you're for, isn't it? Odette said you'd eat anyone who asked."

The mention of Odette's name sent a jolt through Paul's chest. She had said that. She had said it to him directly, in the quiet of her flat, her fingers tracing patterns on his chest. 'You do what you're told, when you're told, by whom you're told. No exceptions, no conditions.'

This was an exception. This was a condition he had never considered.

But Tim was still waiting. His hand on Paul's head was patient, undemanding, but there was expectation in it, a quiet certainty that Paul would obey. And beneath the confusion, beneath the revulsion Paul had expected to feel, there was something else. A stirring of interest. A curiosity that had nothing to do with his conscious mind.

He lowered his head.

The first touch of his tongue against Tim's flesh was tentative, exploratory. Paul had eaten out more than twenty women in the past months. He knew the landscape of a vulva intimately, the folds and the textures, the way to find a clitoris and work it. But this was different. The proportions were off, the angles unfamiliar. Tim's outer lips were thicker than any woman's he had tasted, firmer, more substantial. When Paul parted them with his tongue, the flesh inside was hot and slick, but the channel beyond was shallower, and the textures were strange.

And the clitoris. Paul's tongue found it immediately, drawn by its prominence, and it was unlike anything he had encountered before. It was thick and solid, a shaft of erectile tissue that filled his mouth when he took it in, that pressed against his tongue with a firm, insistent weight. It tasted of musk and salt and something faintly sweet, and when Paul sucked on it, Tim let out a low, shuddering groan.

"That's it," Tim breathed. "That's it, baby. Suck it like that. Just like that."

Paul's mind went blank with shock. He was giving a man a blowjob. In every way that mattered, that was exactly what he was doing. Tim's clitoris was thick enough to be a small cock, long enough to reach into his mouth, and Paul found himself sucking on it with a rhythm he had learned on his own cock, learned on his knees before women who demanded he worship them with his mouth.

And Tim responded like a man receiving a blowjob. His hips twitched forward, fucking Paul's mouth in small, shallow thrusts. His hands came to rest on Paul's head, not forcing, just holding, grounding himself as the pleasure built. The sounds he made were low and masculine, grunts and groans that vibrated through his body and into Paul's mouth.

But there was more. Paul's tongue, working instinctively, found the entrance to Tim's vagina, and he pushed inside. The channel was different, shorter, tighter, with a ridged texture that slid against his tongue in a way that was alien and fascinating. He laved it, probing deeper, and Tim cried out, his hips bucking.

"Fuck," Tim gasped. "Fuck, yes, lick my cunt, lick it, baby, use that tongue."

Paul obeyed. He buried his face between Tim's thighs, licking and sucking, alternating between the firm shaft of Tim's clitoris and the slick, ridged interior of his vagina. He was hard again, achingly hard, his cock straining against his belly as he worked. The strangeness was still there, the wrongness he had expected to feel, but it was drowned now beneath something more primal. He was a pussy licker. That was what he was. It did not matter what body the pussy belonged to.

"Close," Tim panted. "So close, baby, don't stop, don't stop."

Paul sucked harder on Tim's clitoris, drawing it deep into his mouth, tonguing the underside in a rhythm he knew would drive any woman over the edge. Tim's hips began to buck in earnest, his hands fisting in Paul's hair, his thighs trembling on either side of Paul's head.

Then Tim came. His body convulsed, his vaginal walls clamping down around nothing as a gush of hot fluid spilled from his cunt, flooding Paul's mouth. Paul swallowed greedily, lapping at the source, licking up every drop of the thick, sweet-tart juices that coated his lips and chin. Tim's clitoris was still swollen in his mouth, pulsing with the aftershocks, and Paul sucked it gently, drawing out the final tremors.

Tim slumped against the stool, breathing hard. His hand found Paul's hair again, stroking it with a tenderness that made Paul's eyes sting.

"Well," Tim said, his voice rough and pleased. "I see what Odette was so proud of."

The door at the far end of the ballroom opened, and Suzette's heels clicked across the parquet. Paul heard her approach but did not lift his face from between Tim's thighs. Tim's fist tightened in his hair, holding him there, his mouth still pressed against the slick, swollen flesh he had just brought to orgasm.

Suzette stopped a few feet away. When she spoke, her voice held a dry amusement Paul had not heard from her before. "Well. It did not require the taser again, I see. Progress."

Tim chuckled, a low, contented sound. His fingers stroked through Paul's hair, slow and possessive, keeping Paul's face pressed against his crotch. "He's adequate," Tim said. "More than adequate, actually. Odette has trained him well. He knows how to use that tongue of his."

"Adequate," Suzette repeated. "That is high praise from you, Tim. You are usually so particular about who gets to put their mouth on that swollen hairy clit of yours."

Tim laughed, a warm, genuine sound. "You're just jealous because I can corrupt straight men while you’ve got nothing they can’t get on any other middle aged blonde?"

Paul felt Tim's clitoris pulse against his lips at the words, and he realised with a distant, floating clarity that Tim was not done with him. The taste of Tim's release was still on his tongue, but the flesh was stirring again, plumping against his mouth.

"Everyone knows blondes have more fun," Suzette said, "I can have any boy I want" But there was warmth in her dry delivery, the easy familiarity of old friends teasing each other. "Still. It’s rare to find one who is quite so... unbridled about the act itself."

"No," Tim agreed. His hand tightened in Paul's hair, tilting his head back. Paul looked up at him, at that pretty, androgynous face, at the soft smile playing on his lips. "He's a rare find, this one. A man who genuinely loves to lick. You can taste it in the way he works."

Tim leaned down, his face close to Paul's. His voice dropped, becoming intimate and conspiratorial. "One day, baby boy, I'm going to have this cunt of mine spread wide open, and I'm going to have your pretty cock buried inside me. And I won't let you pull out until you've filled me with every last drop from you dainty little balls. Poor, confused thing. You won't know whether to be horrified or grateful."

Paul's cock, which had softened slightly after the taser and the shock of Tim's body, stirred again. The thought should have repelled him. A man's body, a man's voice, a man's hands in his hair. But Tim's cunt had been hot and slick around his tongue, and Tim's clitoris had tasted sweet on his lips, and the words, filthy and possessive, had somehow found a place in him that responded without his permission.

Suzette laughed, a short, sharp sound. "You will have to wait your turn. I have plans for it first." She stepped closer, and her hand closed in Paul's hair, yanking his head back from Tim's crotch with brutal efficiency. "On the floor. Face up."

Paul scrambled to obey, his bound hands making the movement clumsy. He lowered himself onto the dusty boards, his shoulders pressing into the parquet, his cock standing rigid against his belly. He looked up at Suzette, his chest heaving, his lips still slick with Tim's juices.

Suzette stood over him. She unzipped her skirt, a sharp, efficient movement, and the fabric fell to the floor. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her knickers and slid them down her thighs, stepping out of them with the casual grace of a woman undressing in her own bedroom.

Paul stared. Her vulva was shaved bare, smooth as marble, the lips perfectly proportioned and closed in a neat, vertical seam. She was by no means girlish, but her flesh was firm and taut, and there was a sheen of moisture at the base of the seam that made his mouth water.

Suzette did not crouch. She simply dropped, lowering herself onto his face with the casual weight of a woman sitting down in a chair. Her thighs closed around his head, her cunt pressing against his mouth, and she settled her weight onto him until his nose was buried in the cleft of her arse and her labia were spread against his lips.

"Lick," she said.

Paul licked.

He parted her with his tongue, tasting her, and she was clean and musky and faintly metallic with arousal. He worked his tongue along the length of her slit, from the roughness of her perineum to the firm bud of her clitoris, which was already swollen and protruding from its hood, it felt so tiny compared to Tim’s but was no less firm. He circled it, lapping at it, and felt her thighs tremble against his ears.

"Faster," she said. Her voice was coming from somewhere above him, distant and calm. "Deeper."

Paul buried his tongue inside her. She was tight, hotter than Tim had been, her walls clenching around his probing muscle with an almost greedy hunger. He fucked her with his tongue, driving it in and out, and she ground her hips against his face, riding him with a slow, deliberate rhythm.

"That's better," Suzette breathed. "Now my clit. Suck it."

Paul found the bud with his lips and sucked. She gasped, a sharp, involuntary sound, and her hips bucked against his face. He sucked harder, drawing the swollen nub deep into his mouth, lashing it with his tongue in the rhythm he had perfected on Odette, on Martha, on Hayley, on a dozen other women who had used his mouth and found it good.

Suzette's hand came down, not to his head, but to her own cunt. Her fingers spread herself open for him, exposing her pink, glistening flesh to his tongue with a shamelessness that made him groan against her. He licked deeper, lapping at her inner walls, dragging his tongue along every ridge and fold until she was shuddering above him.

"Tim," she said, her voice strained. "Its’s good."

There was amusement in his voice. "It’s as good as I said."

Paul worked harder. He sealed his mouth over her clitoris and sucked, pressing his tongue flat against the underside, vibrating it with a technique he had learned from Odette's careful instruction. Suzette's thighs clamped around his head, her hips grinding against his face in small, frantic circles, and then she came with a muted aggressive grunt her cunt flooding against his tongue.

Paul lapped at her greedily, drinking her down, not stopping until her thighs relaxed and her weight settled more fully onto his face. She sat there for a long moment, breathing hard, her cunt still pressed against his lips.

Suzette's weight shifted on his face, not rising, just settling more comfortably as she addressed Tim over his prone body. Her cunt was still slick against his lips, her thighs relaxed now in the aftermath of her orgasm, and Paul could taste her release still coating his tongue.

"That was adequate," she said, and the grudging quality in her voice was almost a compliment. "We'll make use of it before the party. Clarissa's guests will appreciate a tongue that knows what it's doing."

"Mmm," Tim agreed. Paul heard movement, the soft rustle of silk, and then Tim's voice again, closer now. "I've been thinking about the setup. We'll need the cunnilingus seat from the playroom, the one with the adjustable frame."

Suzette shifted, and Paul felt her fingers toy absently with his hair. "The one with the stirrups?"

"That's the one. Clarissa wants it attached to the frame in the corner, the heavy one with the chains. We'll lock it in position, with its face under the seat so it can't move its head away."

Paul's heart hammered. He could picture it, the image forming unbidden in his mind: a frame of dark wood and iron, chains hanging from the crossbar, and himself beneath some kind of seat, his face pressed up into whatever cunt the guests chose to lower onto him.

"But that's not all," Tim continued, and there was a note of relish in his voice that made Paul's skin prickle. "Clarissa was quite specific. She wants total sensory deprivation. No sight. No sound. Nothing to distract it from its work."

"Interesting," Suzette said slowly. "How do you plan to achieve that?"

Paul heard Tim's footsteps cross the parquet, then the click of a case being opened. From his position beneath Suzette's crotch, he could see nothing, only the pale skin of her inner thighs framing his vision.

Tim lifted a small glass vial from the case, holding it up to the weak candlelight. The liquid inside was viscous, almost syrupy, with a faint amber tint. He swirled it gently, watching it cling to the glass.

"This," he said, "is the compromise. Clarissa made it clear our tongue slave's looks are part of its appeal. The guests want to see that handsome face while they use it. Blindfolds and ear muffs would ruin the effect."

Suzette shifted her weight on Paul's face. Her fingers continued to play through his hair with an absent, proprietorial air.

"So instead," Tim continued, "we fill its ears with this. It's a polyurethane compound. It sets into a soft, rubbery foam once it's inside, expanding gently until it fills the whole canal almost down to the eardrum. Painless, but the hearing loss is profound. Almost total. And it stays in until we decide to remove it, which means our boy gets to experience precisely what we choose for him to experience, nothing more. The penetration inside his body, the lack of control, is part of the effect."

Paul's heart hammered against his ribs. He lay rigid beneath Suzette, his bound hands numb behind his back, his cock still standing proud against his belly. The words sank into him slowly, images forming behind his eyes: darkness, silence, his body alone in some unseen room, his mouth the only tool he had left.

"For the eyes," Tim said, and Paul heard the smile in his voice, "we have these. Large opaque contact lenses. They cover the whole visible surface, sclera and all. Painless to insert, comfortable once they're in, and utterly black. The wearer sees nothing. But the face remains fully visible, unobstructed, beautiful. The guests get to look at those handsome features while they sit on them, and our tongue slave gets to exist in a little world of pure sensation. Taste. Touch. Smell. Nothing else."

Paul heard a soft click as Tim set the vial down, then another, the delicate sound of a contact lens case opening.

Suzette shifted, lifting her hips just enough to let Paul draw breath. Her voice came from above, calm and deliberate. "And a gag? I assume Clarissa plans to keep it silent while guests use it."

"Clarissa was adamant. No gag. None at all." Tim's voice was warm, almost gentle. "It's here to eat pussy. That's its entire function, its only purpose. A gag would be pointless. Restrictive. Unhelpful." A pause. Then, directly addressing him, "Isn't that right, Paul?"

Paul's bound hands clenched behind his back. The question hung in the air, and he knew what was expected. Tim had spoken his name, not called him it. A small kindness, perhaps, or a deliberate cruelty. He cleared his throat, his voice rough from disuse.

"Yes. I'm here to eat pussy. It's... it's what I want. To be made to eat pussy until it's my entire world."

He meant it. He heard the words leave his mouth and knew, with a strange, dizzying clarity, that they were true. Odette had made him this. She had shaped him, trained him, turned him into exactly what he was now admitting he wanted to be. The thought terrified him. It also made his cock throb against his belly.

The slap came without warning. Suzette's hand cracked across his face with brutal efficiency, snapping his head to the side, leaving his cheek stinging and hot.

"You may answer direct questions," Suzette said, her voice flat as slate. "You may answer when you are spoken to. Otherwise, you do not speak. You are not generally allowed to talk. Understand?"

"Yes," Paul said quickly. "Yes, mistress. I understand."

"Good." She shifted her weight off him, rising to her feet in one fluid movement. Paul lay on the dusty boards, his cheek smarting, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Tim moved to his side. He knelt, and his delicate hands cupped Paul's face, turning it gently toward him. His eyes were warm, sympathetic, as he studied Paul's flushed features.

"I'll do your sight first," he said softly. "Then I'll lead you through to the frame. I like the idea of you never having seen the room. The frame where you'll spend the next part of your life. Everything will be new when they take the lenses out, and you'll see it for the first time through a haze of exhaustion and come."

Paul shivered. Tim's hands were gentle as they tilted his head back, but there was no give in his tone. This was happening. Now.

"Look up," Tim instructed. "Try not to blink."

Paul obeyed. The first lens was cold, so cold it made him gasp, a smooth dome of glass and polymer that slid over his cornea with eerie precision. His vision blurred, then blackened, a wash of nothing replacing the candlelit ballroom. Tim's second hand worked the other lens in, and then there was only darkness.

Complete. Utter. Absolute.

Paul blinked, and felt the lenses shift against his eyes. He could feel his own eyelids moving, but there was no flash of light, no hint of shape or shadow. He was blind.

"Can you see anything at all?" Tim asked.

"No," Paul whispered. "Nothing."

Paul felt the pressure of Tim's hands leave his face, heard the rustle of movement somewhere in the darkness. Then fingers found his wrists, and he felt the tight coils of tape begin to peel away. The sensation was exquisite agony. Blood rushed back into his hands and arms with a thousand tiny pins, and he gasped, flexing his fingers, working the stiffness out of his shoulders.

"There," Tim said softly. "You won't need those anymore. You're not going anywhere."

Paul's hands were free, but his arms felt hollow and weak. He brought them forward, rubbing his wrists where the tape had bitten, the skin raw and tender. His eyes moved uselessly behind the black lenses, seeking shapes that would not come.

Hands took his elbow. Tim's touch was gentle, guiding him to his feet. "Careful. Step forward. There's a door here."

Paul shuffled forward, one hand extended, the other held by Tim. His cock still bobbed against his belly, a fact he was acutely aware of but could not see. The darkness was total. He had never known darkness like this.

"Left a little," Tim said. "Now straight. There's a step down."

Paul's bare foot found the edge and he stepped down, his balance wavering. Tim steadied him with a hand on his chest.

The fingers withdrew. A brief silence. Then Suzette's voice, sharp and impatient, cut the air.

"For God's sake, Tim. We'll be here all night at this pace. I'll show you how it's done."

Paul felt hands on his hips. Firm, proprietorial, turning him slightly. Then Suzette's palms cupped his buttocks, spreading them with confident fingers. He felt the cool air on his arsehole a moment before her fingertip found it.

The digit pressed against him. He clenched instinctively, but she had no patience for resistance. Her finger pushed, sliding past the tight ring of muscle with a slick efficiency that spoke of oil applied beforehand, and suddenly she was inside him to the second knuckle, hooked and pulling.

Paul gasped. The sensation was invasive, deeply strange, a pressure that occupied his body. His arsehole gripped at her finger, trying to expel it, but she held firm, tugging him forward with a sharp little pull.

"There," Suzette said, satisfaction plain in her voice. "That's how you guide a slave. Keep ahold of its arsehole and it will follow you anywhere, believe me. Much more reliable than its hands."

Tim laughed, a soft, appreciative sound. "Where did you learn that?"

"Experience. Now walk, thing, before I decide to add a second finger."

Paul walked. He had no choice. Every step forward was directed by the finger hooked inside his arse, pulling him along like a dog on a leash. His cheeks burned with humiliation, but his cock, traitor that it was, had hardened to full erection again, bobbing ahead of him in the darkness as if seeking the source of the pressure behind it.

Suzette led him through a doorway, down a short corridor. The air changed, grew warmer, richer with the scent of leather and old wood. Paul's bare feet crossed from stone to timber, then to something smooth and polished.

"Stop."

He stopped. The finger withdrew from his arse with a wet pop, and he felt suddenly empty, exposed. He stood trembling in the darkness, waiting.

Hands on his shoulders. Tim again, gentle, turning him, guiding him backwards. Paul felt the edge of something at the back of his knees, and he sat, then reclined as Tim eased him back.

The frame was like a dental chair but softer, more yielding. Leather, he thought, worn smooth and warm against his bare skin. Tim arranged him carefully, lifting his legs onto rests, adjusting the angle of the back, positioning his arms on broad armrests that held them slightly out from his body. The frame moulded to him, supporting him in a relaxed, open posture.

"Is that comfortable?" Tim asked. "Be honest. You'll be here for some time."

Paul shifted, testing the fit. The frame held him in a reclined position, his head slightly raised, his body completely supported. "Yes," he said. "Comfortable."

"Good." Tim's voice moved closer. "Now listen carefully, Paul. This is important. You understand you'll be here for many hours, yes? With your body immobilised by this frame, your eyes covered?"

"Yes."

"Good. We’ll need to communicate , so we've agreed on a simple system." Tim's fingers found Paul's right elbow, resting on the armrest. "If I twist the skin of your right elbow, like this, you open your mouth. Wide. We'll use it to give you water, or to brush your teeth between bouts of service. Understood?"

"Yes."

Tim's fingers moved to Paul's left elbow. "If I twist here, it means we're ready to deal with your bodily functions. You can relieve yourself, piss or shit, when you need to. Don't hold it. The left elbow tells you the toilet is available, and we'll bring the pan. You won't have to ask, or speak. You'll just have to wait for the signal and let go. Understand?"

Paul swallowed. The casual practicality of it, the matter-of-fact way Tim described his fluids being managed like a farm animal's, made his head spin. "Yes. I understand."

"Good boy." Tim's hand touched his cheek briefly. "One more thing. You won't be able to hear us when I'm done. That's the point. But the signals will still work. You'll feel them, and you'll know what they mean. Trust the system."

Paul heard the click of a cap being removed. He felt Tim step closer, and then a hand tilted his head to the side.

“Stay still.” Suzette said blankly.

The nozzle entered Paul's ear. It was cool, smooth, sliding deep into the canal with a professional ease that made him realise Tim had done this many times before. Then the slurry came, a thick, firm substance forcing its way past the nozzle, filling his ear from the depths outward.

Paul gasped. The sensation was like water flooding his skull, pressure building deep inside, and he instinctively tried to pull away. But Tim held his head firm, and the substance kept coming, packing his ear canal until he felt it pressing against the threshold of his eardrum itself.

"There." Tim's voice was muffled now, distant, like a sound heard through a wall. "One down."

The nozzle withdrew. The other ear received the same treatment, and as the second flood of slurry filled him, the world went quiet.

It was not silence. It was more profound than silence. Paul could feel the vibrations of his own body, his heart beating in his chest, his breath moving through his lungs, but external sound had vanished entirely. No voice. No footsteps. No rustle of cloth.

He was blind. He was deaf. He was bound to a frame in an unknown room in an unknown house, and the only parts of him that remained connected to the world were his skin, his nose, and his mouth.

Paul's breath quickened. Panic clawed at his chest, a rising tide of terror at the absolute isolation. He opened his mouth to speak, to beg, to ask what was happening, and no sound came out that he could hear. He could feel his own voice vibrating in his throat, but it was like screaming into a void.

Then he felt it. A hand on his right elbow. A twist of skin, sharp and unmistakable.

He opened his mouth. Wide enough to be clear it was deliberate.

Something touched his lips. A cup, or a spout. Water, cool and clean, flooded his mouth, and he swallowed greedily, drinking until the spout withdrew.

The hand left his elbow.

Paul closed his mouth. His heart was still hammering, but the terror had eased, replaced by something stranger. A settling. A surrender. He was here, in this room, on this frame, reduced by silk and foam and polymer to nothing but a mouth, a tongue, an arse that could be invaded, a cock that could be stroked.

He was, he realised with a strange, floating clarity, exactly what Odette had made him.

A pussy licker. Nothing more. Nothing less.