"Thank you, master," I said with genuine gratitude. "I am happy if I have been pleasing."

"Yes," he said. "I can see that you are happy." He turned to an intercom by the head of the bed and pushed a button. "Marie!" he called. "Come fetch the slave!" Then he rose from the bed and went into the bathroom to take a shower and begin his day, seemingly without a thought for the slave girl he had so thoroughly dominated and used.

The same servant woman soon entered the room and, without a word, led me by my leash out and down the stairs. I remembered to crawl behind her on hands and knees, not daring to lift my head for fear of being struck. The two guards from the club were waiting for me. "Were you well used, little slut?" one of them asked.

I could not lie to a master. "Yes, master," I said. "I was used as what I am, a slave girl."

Then I was gagged, blindfolded, and bound as I had been on entering the house, and escorted back out to the waiting van. Now that I had served the customer, there were of course no prohibitions on what the guards might do with me during the ride back, and I spent it on my knees before them, still blindfolded, but with my gag conveniently removed, so that my mouth might be put to its most appropriate use.

The guards talked among themselves in French during the trip back to the club. I had studied French in middle school and high school, and could make out some of their conversation - a talent I had never revealed to my masters. I gathered they were familiar with the client who had rented me for the night, and that he was a prominent and powerful individual, one who often enjoyed the services of the club's slave girls, in exchange for some service that he provided to the club. The nature of those services had something to do with police protection for its business operations. I became more interested in the conversation, but took care to hide my interest with the contented moans of a sex slave being permitted to practice her arts on a master. But soon the topic shifted instead to me, and the qualities and shortcomings of my body and my sexual techniques, as they observed my efforts to please them. I blushed to hear myself described as a hot, juicy slave slut, a girl who loved nothing more than being thrown to her back and raped, or having her mouth occupied with pleasing a master.

As the van turned into the courtyard of the club, they finally allowed me to desist in my services. The man I had most recently been occupied with patted me on the head and said, "Hopefully she'll be the one we take to M. Roget's next time. Her mouth almost makes the trip worthwhile."

M. Roget. That was his name.

The next time my external contact paid me a visit, I dutifully informed him of everything that I had learned. He had changed his method of interrogation; instead of taking my statement and then rewarding himself with my body, he now forced me to give my report as he made use of me. But this time, when I told him about M. Roget, he abruptly stopped and, while remaining inside me, asked me a number of pointed questions. I answered as I could, pinned helplessly under him, my wrists bound to the corners of the bed where he had tied them. I described M. Roget as well as I could remember. Finally he seemed contented and, seeming only then to remember what I was good for, finished with me and withdrew.

"You did a good job, Jenny," he said as he was getting dressed. "And not just with your body this time."

As it turned out, the guards did get to escort me to M. Roget's several times over the next several weeks. Each time I left the house completely devastated, utterly ravished, dominated, and conquered, my body sore from the night's exertions but also glowing with the lingering ecstasy of a slave girl who has found fulfillment in her absolute sexual servitude. It was in this state of arousal and contentment that I invariably served the guards on the way back to the club, seeking in my service to them to prolong the feeling of blissful submission that was all a slave girl could aspire to.

It was late in November when, during one of his periodic visits, my contact let slip that the investigation was close to a major breakthrough. I did not dare ask what that might mean for my personal situation, but it did give me a glimmer of hope that I might soon be released from the enforced servitude to which I was growing ever more accustomed. Yes, hope. For although I was learning more and more about the helpless raptures of the pleasure slave, forced to experience both the depths of submission and the heights of ecstasy, I still held the belief - though less and less often - that being a slave was somehow an accident of fate, a cruel detour on my life's path, an injustice that had torn from me a bright future. In a man's arms, overpowered and ravished, I knew that no life suited me better than that of a naked, collared slave; but curled up on my bed late at night, trying to put aside the memories of the evening's abuses so that I might sleep, there were still times my eyes filled with tears on thinking of the degradations and humiliations to which I had been reduced. And I still remembered the promise Cristina had made to me, that someday I might be free once again, no longer available to any man at the snap of his fingers, no longer a casual convenience for his primitive lusts.

From that day I awaited with eager anticipation - and with a sense of inexplicable dread - the moment of my liberation.

But that was not what lay in store for me.

Instead, one morning I was summoned to M. Arnaud's office. I had rarely seen him since the first day I had been summarily beaten, a fortune I ascribed to my generally exemplary level of service and submissiveness. However, when I knelt before him, his eyes were hard. I swallowed in fear. I was a naked slave girl at the feet of her master, and he did not seem pleased with me.

"What are you?" he began.

"A slave girl, master," I whispered.

"Who is your master?"

"You are, master." I squirmed, uncomfortably. I hoped he would allow me to placate him with my body.

"Are you absolutely obedient?"

"Yes, master," I answered. "I beg to be able to demonstrate my obedience and submission to you, master."

"We shall see," he said.

He made a motion, and a guard appeared from behind me and pulled me to my feet by my arms. He pushed me, stumbling, toward the corner where I had been so cruelly whipped on my first day in Paris. Soon I was bound as I had been before, my wrists chained high above my head, my feet barely reaching the floor. I was terrified.

M. Arnaud approached me, casually swinging a long, heavy whip. He held it to my lips, where I frantically licked and kissed it. I hoped he would not be too harsh with me.

Then, as he looked into my eyes, he drew back the whip and cracked it across my stomach, lighting up my body with pain. Before I finished letting out my first scream, the second blow landed across my thighs. Three more blows fell, leaving me sobbing and begging for mercy. He paused.

"Seven times in the last two months, you have been escorted outside the city to serve a particular client," he said. "Is this true?"

"Yes, master," I said wildly, not sure where this was leading.

"And did you serve him perfectly, giving everything he demanded of you?"

"Yes, master," I said. Had I not been sufficiently pleasing?

"Did he ever tell you who he is, or what position he holds?"

"No, master," I said. "I am only a slave. I served only to give him pleasure, as a slave girl can."

"Did you tell anyone else about your trips to serve this man?"

I was terrified, but I sensed that if I wanted to live, I would have to conceal the truth. "No, master," I said.

He drew back the whip and I closed my eyes in anticipation of the coming blow. The whip cut into my body five more times, across my back and thighs as well as my belly and breasts.