Neither the rich black leather of the limousine's interior nor the verdant French landscape sliding by relaxed Dave Holcomb. He remained edgy, uncertain, as he'd been through the long flight from the States. If a vacation without Annette was indeed the tonic he needed, it was slow working stuff, as a prescription for an ailing marriage it was, so far, a dubious cure.
Annette Arnaud Holcomb, he found himself unable, as he murmured the names, to make the last one blend with the first two. Perhaps they were discordant things that could never mesh. Dave shifted uneasily in the seat and glared straight ahead, Luckily, his brother-in-law had sent the limo for him, rather than driving to the airport himself. Armand Arnaud was a congenial host, a bon vivant. In fact, with a reputation for scandalous living, and Dave was determined to be a congenial guest. He just needed a little time to settle down. Dave was determined to enjoy his stay at the chateau.
Late night parties. Sophisticated talk. Girls. Armand was said to have many girls at his beck and call. As the limo sped through the French countryside, the possibilities began to grow real. Maybe that's why Dave couldn't relax. As Chateau Arnaud, with is promise of new pleasures drew nearer, his wife on her island vacation, and the prospect of restoring magic to the marriage, drifted farther behind.
Dave turned his attention to Henri, the chauffeur. The man's shoulders and arms stretched his uniform near to the bursting point; his head, beneath a neat cap, and his neck had the look of smooth, white boulders. Dave guessed him totally bald. As the chauffeur guided the limousine along a road where a low stone wall bordered rolling lawns on the right and virgin forest loomed on the left, Dave noticed something. A miniature gold padlock in the chauffeur's ear lobe. Odd.
Dismissing it, he gazed ahead once more, only to see Annette's image appear in the glass between him and the burly driver. Her sleek blonde hair seemed polished, then buffed; it flowed past a face that brought together the gentle innocence of a little French country girl and the sheer beauty of a high fashion Paris model. She'd been both.
But her body was neither a girl's nor a typical mannequin's. Dave didn't have to see Annette's figure in the glass partition; damn, he remembered it. Her breasts defied both belief and gravity, a couple of round treasures that suddenly tapered to pert nipples. When she strode leggy and naked about the house, they danced before her chest as if preceding her, as if not quite part of that supple model's body. Her waistline was uncommonly long, her backside the shapeliest he'd ever seen, or imagined. Just picturing Annette brought back the old ache, and, as the stone wall on the right rose to form a high arch way, Dave had to adjust the bulge in his trousers.
His wife could be a woman of profound sensuality; even when beneath him, flat on her back and compliant, she could draw his entire being into hers. Squirming and mewing, clutching at his back, at his ass, she could engulf him in her passion. She'd have him thrusting madly into her, and though she loved every minute of it, she seemed ever in need of something more, something with greater power to gratify female lust. He had searched deep within himself, trying in vain to find it.
The limousine slowed, turned, then passed beneath the arch. Stately Poplars lined a long, straight driveway that divided acres of carpet-like lawn. Ahead, Dave could see the great house.
Photographs did no justice to the Chateau Arnaud. It occurred to Dave that snapshots insulted the place; an oil painting was called for. The car halted halfway around a cobblestone circle. Armand Arnaud, tall, meticulously dressed, tanned and handsome, was outside waiting. Dave slid from the car with an outstretched hand.
"Dah veed!" Armand boomed, as he clapped the hand between his two larger ones and shook it warmly.
"Wonderful to see you again," Dave smiled. His tension was gone. "And to see the Chateau for the first time. It's magnificent."
His reaction seemed to please Armand, who shrugged as he replied, "Just an old French house."
"More like a castle," Dave said, glancing upward. Vintage 18th Century, windows framed by high relief columns and triangular pediments, limestone blocks of subtly varying hue, a copper roof tinted with aristocratic old patina. The Chateau sat the French landscape with quiet confidence. It belonged, the only building for its site. Here was no false front movie land mansion: this was a man's home, the proper place for a connoisseur of living. Dave felt the old house beckoning, as if promising lush, somehow mysterious, pleasures. Like its happy go lucky owner, the Chateau seemed to offer Dave guiltless delights, and a painless cure to whatever ailed him.
Talking of mutual friends, the two men passed through the oak framed portal; Armand was clapping his guest comfortingly on the back. Dave sensed something: his life was about to change. And he had another hunch.
Armand knew the marriage was crumbling.
Once past a high ceilinged foyer and into the Grand Salon, Dave shrugged off his misgivings. He was in another world, soothed by dark wood paneling, deep red carpets and over stuffed furniture upholstered in tufted black leather. He liked it.
While Henri took Dave's baggage to a guest suite, Armand sat with him on a sofa in the great room. Latticed glass bookshelves with cabinets below lined the side walls; a fireplace you could stand in dominated the far end.
Before Dave could complete his survey, a saucy young maid in short skirted uniform approached with drinks. Armand called her Elise.
Practicing his si vous plaits and mercis, Dave selected a cocktail. Armand chuckled appreciatively at his guest's French, and as he took a glass for himself reached beneath the girl's skirt and gave her a friendly pinch. Giggling, the brunette curtsied and spun about. As she wiggled away, something caught Dave's eye a miniature gold padlock in her left ear. Puzzled, he started to inquire, but Armand was speaking.
"l have planned an evening of entertainment you'll not forget," the host said expansively. "But first, you'll want to rest for a time in your rooms. Afterward, I'll show you about the house and grounds, so you'll know where everything is. I want you to feel that this is as much your home as mine. Then, dinner. And after that..." he laughed, as if the evening's revelry was already amusing him, "our little performance for your enjoyment."
Dave was feeling better by the second. He sipped his drink, the liquid heat spreading through him. lt wasn't until he got to his bedroom that he found himself thinking again of Annette. Were she here, he'd be taking her in his arms, kissing her. But now, alone in the roomy bed chamber, he could only unpack in silence and drop to the king sized feather bed. Arms propped under head, he began to think. Maybe the best course was to leave his vacation in Armand's hands, just let things happen. Perhaps he and Annette weren't meant for one another.
After Dave had rested, his brother in law showed him about the estate, then treated him to a sumptuous dinner. Later, it was cognac and cigars in the Grand Salon where, for the first time, Armand turned serious before speaking.
"I promised you entertainment," he said. "Are you prepared to see something unusual?"
Dave said he was.
Armand broke into his familiar smile, picked up a gold bell from the coffee table before them and rang it.
Dave watched the maid and chauffeur enter. Henri was a study in black leather: riding boots, skin tight pants and a vest that left his muscular arms bare. He was totally bald. Elise also favored black, but wore only a low cut lace bra, silk bikini panties, garter belt, nylons and stiletto heeled shoes.
Dave straightened. She was a dish. As her body moved, shapely tits bounced enticingly in delicate bra cups, and as she stepped about to display her bum, smooth white cheeks jiggled invitingly. Dave could hear his own breathing.
"Has Elise been naughty?" Armand was asking the chauffeur.
"Mais oui," Henri replied.
"Well then," Armand responded, as if the answer were not unexpected. "She must be punished."
The girl was by then standing a few feet away, back to Dave. Henri went to a cabinet and quickly returned with a leather satchel. He set it on the coffee table and began removing a black object.
It looked like the foot of a bird, an eagle perhaps, with talons as black as its pebbly skin. lt was shiny, as if preserved and lacquered. As Henri withdrew it fully, Dave could see that a number of plaited leather lashes a couple of feet in length appeared to grow from it. What on earth, Dave wondered. The bird's claw was the handle of a heavy whip, an instrument of torture.
"Please, sir," the girl whimpered childishly. "Don't punish me."
"You've been a bad girl," Armand intoned. "Henri punish her."
Anticipation showed on the muscular servant's face, as he approached Elise and seized her upper arm with his left hand. Holding the whip, talons up, in the right its lashes dangling almost to the floor he brought it toward the girl and hooked a claw beneath the back of her bra. A flick of the whip handle and the bra broke. Elise let out a little "Oh" of surprise, and her hands jumped protectively to her bra cups.
"You must keep your arms at your sides," Armand ordered from his position on the sofa.
Dave's body responded to the girl. Her hands had dropped, and the grinning Henri was using the clawed whip handle once more. Skillfully, as if he'd done this sort of thing many times, he worked a talon beneath first one and then the other of her shoulder straps. Suddenly, the bra fell to the floor.
"Very good," Armand commented, his voice almost a cat's purr.
Dave felt his cock stiffen. The girl was lovely, her back smooth and white, her torso nipped at the waist, then flaring to marvelous hips. He longed to see her bare breasts.
Henri was lowering her panties with the clawed handle. A flawless buttock appeared, then a second; her ass was a masterpiece, firm and excitingly shaped. The garters and the dark welts of her stockings framed it like a painting. The cheeks quivered and flexed before Dave's eyes.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Armand asked, and Dave nodded. The host ordered the girl to turn about once more.
She did. Naked, her body was a vision to arouse any man. Her breasts jutted, turned upward and jiggled with each step of her high heeled shoes. Her pussy hair formed a neat triangle, dark against the whiteness of her flesh. She stood tensely, expectantly, never glancing at Dave.
"Tie her in the fireplace," Armand ordered. "C'mon," he said to Dave. "l want you to see this up close."
The two men rose and followed, as Henri hauled the girl by one arm to the immense stone fireplace and stood her in it, bare back to the men. Dave saw four large brass rings within the fireplace, one low and one high on each inner wall. With rope from the satchel, Henri quickly tied the girl, feet widespread and arms drawn out. She stood spread eagle, immobile, at their mercy.
Dave tingled with excitement. Annette's absence, the buildup of tension, his sense of power over this sexy young creature all combined to bring his passion to fever pitch.
At Armand's orders, Henri went to work. First, he scratched the girl's back and ass with the talons. Then he turned the whip around and began to lash her. He struck her repeatedly across the back. Careful not to hit a spot more than once, the powerful man striped her white skin with fine red lines.
At first Elise gasped with the blows, but soon she was moaning with a combination of passion and pain. Henri lowered his aim, then whacked her ass again and again. Diagonal lines soon marked the satiny flesh.
"She's ready to fuck." Armand said, and Henri tossed the whip aside.
He undid the four ropes, leaving them trailing from wrists and ankles as he led her to a high table, Dave watched breathlessly. The chauffeur lifted Elise and sat her on the table's edge, then eased her onto her back. Moving fast he tied the rope from her ankles to the wooden legs, moved around the table, drew her out and tied the other lines.
With a gesture, Henri indicated that the girl was at Armand's disposal.
"Tres bien." Armard murmured, then pointed to the girl's pussy and addressed Dave, "Would you like to make use of that delightful little nook?"
"It's tempting," Dave admitted. I"'d like to think about it."
Armand did not seem put off. Instead, he moved toward the bound girl, bent as if bowing gallantly and bestowed a kiss on the moist lips of her quim. Elise sighed; her master straightened and stepped closer. Unzipping his fly Armand brought out a stiff organ. He nudged it in, braced his hands or both sides of the girl's body and thrust gently.
"Oh," she sighed. "Love that. Oh. Oh. Ohhh."
In heavy silence the other two watched. Armand was a patient lover, and the girl released her passion several times before he did. lt was Henri's turn. The bull like servant was less patient, but strong, and the girl liked it. She giggled now and then, and encouraged Henri in their native French. When he'd spent himself and when Dave had rejected a last offer Elise was untied.
"You did well tonight, Elise," Armand said, as she rose. He rewarded the girl with a kiss, then turned to Dave and added, "She's one of my very ablest slave girls. And well trained."
Watching her dress, Dave was aware how deeply aroused he was. What held him back? Perhaps force of habit, he thought; he'd been true to Annette for so long. Or maybe he wasn't ready just yet to sever the ties that bound them. The pleasure of another girl's body would surely do it. Dave needed time to decide.
"Tomorrow," Armand was saying, as he clapped Dave on the shoulder. "l've got a girl you won't be able to resist."
"You're too kind," Dave said.
Both servants turned and left. Armand showed Dave to the sofa where they again sat sipping brandy.
"I think you've learned something tonight," the host said. "About women. What they like. And about yourself what excites a man and fulfills his needs. I can understand your reluctance to just wade into Elise in front of us. And it's all new to you. Here's what I suggest, get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, after dinner, try a little session with the whips and rope yourself. In private, with just a girl. And if the spirit moves you use her body as we did... well"
Dave thanked his host and, after some small talk, returned to his rooms.
He was exhausted, and dropped off the moment his head touched the pillow. The morning sunlight awakened him as if time hadn't passed; after showering and dressing, he went downstairs.
A day of various pleasures awaited him. Horseback riding, lunch with Armand on the terrace, cards and billiards in the game room. Dinner was another feast to remember, and afterward inevitably Dave found himself and his brother in law sharing cognac in the Grand Salon.
Throughout the day, uneasiness had built within Dave, and now in that room a sense of impending crisis weighed upon him.
"Would you like to meet the lady I've selected for you?" Armand asked, after a time.
Dave was silent. He wanted a girl badly. And he wanted to try his hand with the whip.
He glanced at the black satchel, which had been left conveniently on the coffee table before him, then at the great fireplace and the high table; he turned to Armand and said, "I'd like to see her."
A smile creased Armand's face; he rose.
"I'll send her in," he said. "Enjoy her. She's your slave."
As Armand left, Dave edged forward. His eyes remained fixed on the doorway through which his brother in law had passed. He waited, throat dry, ill at ease. And then he saw the new girl. Framed by the doorway was a vision of white, a tall, ravishingly beautiful blonde. She wore a snowy negligee, through which he could see her perfect figure, her large round breasts. Her face was the most beautiful he'd ever seen.
Heart pounding, Dave jumped up. Their steps brought them close. Speech was unnecessary.
Yes, this was his slave girl. There was no hesitation on his part or hers. He was her master.
Picking up the satchel and taking her hand, Dave Holcomb led Annette to the fireplace. The magic was back.
