Property of the Marquis

Chapter 3

CHAPTER ONE

With her arms loaded with packages, Laney awkwardly reached for the door knocker and let if fall, announcing her presence at 23 Arbor St., Elise and Matthew’s brown Victorian row house. A moment later, Elise answered, looking like a vision of loveliness, as usual. Her mane of chestnut hair spread across her shoulders and her smile was gentle, although there was that fire in her eyes that Laney associated with the often high strung pianist. She was barefoot, dressed in a long, diaphanous, plum-colored skirt and a small t-shirt that rode up high enough to display her small white belly and a pierced navel. Jutting from her small breasts, Elise’s bud-shaped n*****s poked right through the pale yellow fabric, and might have easily diverted Laney’s attention, however, those sweet buds were nothing unusual to Laney’s eyes.

Instead, Laney stared at the navel ring in amazement. “Woah! Is that new?”

Elise blushed. “You like it?”

“Humm. Don’t know… but I think it’s…it’s very you. I mean the whole outfit… you have me aghast,” she laughed.

“Really?”

“You suppose you could help me,” Laney asked, as she juggled the packages in her arms.

From behind Elise, the voluptuous Sandra reached out to take the packages spilling from Laney arms. “What in god’s name did you bring?” she asked.

“Presents.”

“Presents?” Sandra’s blue eyes lit with interest.

“And wine, some cheese I bought at the deli, and Greek olives.”

“Oh, I see, you’re trying to make me fat. I’m on a diet, you know,” Sandra said

“You can diet tomorrow,” Laney crossed the threshold into the foyer. “How often is it that we get together?” She hugged Elise first, feeling the tickle of erotic excitement she brought with her bloom, then went on to melt into Sandra’s soft body. She stroked her long blonde hair and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

“You both look so lovely…” Laney said, on backing off. She had to fight back tears.

“Laney, it’s just the three of us, you can cry if you want,” Elise said.

Laney took a deep breath, and shook her head. “No, not tonight. Tonight I’m not going to cry. Life moves on and mine will, too,” she breezed by them both on the way to the kitchen. “Tonight I plan to drink some wine and laugh with my friends.” She turned back as she reached the kitchen door. “Now it’s time to open your presents.”

***

The fire in the grate had turned into glowing embers. Three empty bottles of wine stood like small sentinels on the coffee table. The cheese and the olives, along with Elise’s salad and Sandra’s cold-cuts had been devoured an hour before. Now nourished, happy and just a little drunk, the trio sat on the floor before the hearth, their backs resting against the sofa and two facing leather chairs, the table between them. The warm air was like a liquid bath around them, sensuous, but alarming, because it signaled an erotic mood they might all have reason to fear. They were best friends, but they’d been keeping secrets—several months of secrets. Maybe it was Erik Priestly’s death that made them close in on themselves. Laney had been their rock, their leader, and she’d crumbled like an ancient ruin when her husband died. The three became islands of their own making, afraid to talk, to touch, to laugh as they had before, driven into their private worlds where no one could disturb them.

After having opened Laney’s presents—music boxes from Denmark she’d picked up on a recent business trip—an unsettling silence gathered around them like a heavily laden cloud. The music from the prettily decorated boxes had been haunting, not the gay melodies Laney remembered when she chose them. Clair de Lune had never sounded quite so sad. But it was more than just the sad notes that quashed their merry reunion. Not since the funeral had they been together like this. Yet, it wasn’t just the recollection of that last meeting that colored their mood, but something that reached even further back.

“Do you ever think about the island?” Laney interrupted the quiet. She words slipped in, almost unbeknownst to her, as if she’d hadn’t really spoken them and they were still dancing in her mind. But with just the tiniest ripple of discomfort sweeping their intimate conclave, she knew that she had voiced her question and it had hit a nerve.

“No, I never think about the island,” Elise jumped in. She grabbed her wine glass and took another long drink of her Chablis, fidgeting nervously with her funky skirt.

“Really? I wonder why,” Laney mused. She wasn’t really asking for an answer.

Elise looked troubled, while Sandra’s gleaming eyes surveyed them both. “I don’t believe that,” she chimed in with an accusation aimed directly at Elise.

She backed up instinctively. Elise could look prim and proud—something her new casual wardrobe tried to contradict, and now woefully failed to do. The modest, self-effacing Elise reemerged.

“Elise, I don’t believe you,” Sandra said bluntly, her eyes lit strangely now. “Things have happened…I sense they have for you, too. I don’t think you can rid yourself from its influence any more than Laney and I have been able to do.”

“Well, this is a switch,” Laney looked at Sandra a bit surprised. She could feel her friend’s fear as a layer of goosebumps spread like a rash across her arm.

At that moment, a flame burst from the fire, its flickering light dancing across Sandra’s face. Something eerie, something wicked seemed to sweep through the room. Sandra hugged her arms as if she were shivering cold while Elise looked on with alarm and Laney’s vibrant expression pressed her friend for answers.

“I’m not sure the island has influenced me at all,” Elise said, defensively, as her gaze moved from one to the other.

“You don’t you remember what happened on Marquis Island?” Laney tried again.

“Of course, I do,” she shot out, as if she was trying hard to forget. “What good is it to talk about…”

“We get stranded in a storm,” Sandra cut her off, “the boat won’t start, and suddenly we’re captive to Jason, Matthew and Erik, imprisoned in a strange house with that strange caretaker Archibald Devane and his vile book.” Suddenly she’s a little dreamy, staring trace-like into the fire. “Chapter by chapter we followed the path of some mysterious Marquis, and were turned into s*x slaves…stripped, bound, beaten…used …” Each word and her voice softened a little more.

“Sandra, dear, do you think we could forget?” Elise tried again to stop her, speaking plainly, but maybe a little too curt.

“I want to talk about it,” she declared, but her declaration was met with silence. Sandra looked up. “I have to talk about it. It’s impossible to forget—you’d think by now…. If I mention it to Jason, he just shrugs it off and when the three of us have been together—which has hardly happened—it sits like an elephant in the room that no one sees.”

“As I recall, Sandra,” Laney said, “you and Elise were both quick to write the experience off when I brought it up a few months after we got back.”

“Well, that was a stupid thing to do,” Sandra said flatly. “Although maybe that day, it wasn’t stampeding through my mind. But it has often enough since.”

“Really? Like how often?” Laney asked.

“Often enough that we shouldn’t be sweeping it under the rug like that vacation from hell didn’t exist.”

“You thought it was hell?” Laney probed.

Sandra waited to answer, then shrugged. “Depends on my mood.”

“And what has made your mood so dour today?” Elise asked.

Sandra’s tone changed. Her blue eyes danced with amusement and her lips formed a pouty smirk. She made them wait, their anticipation turning the thick, fragrant air electric.

“I saw Essex yesterday.”

“What!” Laney leaned forward, while Elise’s eyes shot open.

Sandra sat back and smiled smugly, her fleshy body seemed to jiggle with satisfaction. Now she had their attention. She stared directly at Elise, whose eyes still shone with agitated fear.

“You remember, don’t you?” Sandra said. “He enslaved you, Elise, the way Darius enslaved me and that nasty Mistress Gina turned Laney’s world on end.”

Elise appeared to shake off her alarm. “Of course, I remember him, Sandra,” Elise spoke ardently in an attempt to placate her troubled friend. Of course, she remembered Essex, the proper gentleman, the sadist, the master who bound her to a rack, beat her body raw and fist-f****d her ass to an orgasm she could never drive from her thoughts. Essex, who with Master Darius had branded all three women as properties, as slaves forever in the world of Marquis Island. “And you’ve seen him?”

“Yes.”

“How did that happen?” Elise was now all ears. Her heart was feverishly thumping, and her p***y clenched and moistened…just the sound of Essex’ name…

Laney seemed hardly surprised at all that the man would reappear in the world of their real lives. In fact, she was surprised that this hadn’t happened sooner.

“You remember, Elise,” Sandra spoke, “when you said you wanted to have a tattoo added to your brand, something to disguise it?”

“I never did,” Elise said.

“Well, I tried to. I went to three tattoo artists. The first acted like he was scared of it, the second man just shook his head and said he didn’t do that kind of work, the third recognized the style of brand. He touched it admiringly and said something like, ‘This is a slave brand, isn’t it?’ The look in my eyes must have given me away because I know I didn’t answer him. Then he said, ‘You don’t tamper with a brand like this.’ I was spooked. I finally blurted out something stupid like, ‘How do you know that?’ His twisted smile made me want to run for cover. Like any minute I’d have whips and floggers raining terror down on me. I was so horny, I could hardly stand myself. In fact, I m*********d as soon as I got back in my car. Right in the parking lot behind the tattoo parlor, next to that old surplus store on 8th St.. I didn’t care if the neighborhood drunks were staring at me.”

“My god,” Laney gasped quietly. “When did this happen?”

“Year and a half ago, after we had that little get-together.”

“And Essex?” Elise’s questioning brought their attention back to the man. She had to know more, as the memory of this master emerged from the sanctuary of her deepest memories where it lay lurking like a haunting dream.

“He came to me about six, maybe eight months, after I tried to have the brand altered. I have no idea if the two incidents were somehow connected; I never asked. I was sitting at that little sidewalk café by the new city center building, you know the one that changed hands a couple of months ago… Boogey’s, Bogarts… something like that…” Sandra looked at Elise’ and Laney’s shining faces, sensing their curiosity and feeling the intense passion behind their interest. The fire kept roaring back to life, then dying away to embers. It seemed like a night for ghost stories and spine-chilling memories; and they were only just getting started. “I was drinking coffee, thinking about the customer I’d just interviewed for a remodel of her kitchen, suddenly a man sits down beside me. I turn and see Essex, as straight as an arrow, as straight and formal as I remember him.” Sandra stared at Elise. “I couldn’t help but think of you.”

“Did he mention me?” Elise asked.

“No. He said he thought I might need him. That he was in town from time to time. By then, my eyes were bugged out and my heart had jumped into my throat and was banging about like a raging bear. I was almost sick to my stomach. But I sat perfectly still as if he’d ordered me to. He reached for my hand and covered it for a moment, then he ran one finger along the back, tracing a line up my arm. I was weak from trembling. I had this really strange feeling that what had happened on the island had not ended there, but had just gone on and I was trapped, a trapped slave, caught in the web of those men and women.” Sandra’s voice was terrified and very quiet, and her eyes had a faraway look as she dwelt on her recollection. Then she suddenly snapped-to, locking on to Laney first, who jumped back a bit, then Elise, who simply stared remotely.

“You’ve been seeing him, haven’t you?” Laney said.

“Four times now. I went home that first day and told Jason. I thought sure he would think I was nuts and tell me no way was his wife going to submit to another man, even if it was Essex. Instead, he looked at me really strangely and said, that yeah, maybe I should see him. I should let him have his way with me. ‘Are you serious,’ I exploded on him. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You can’t deny what happened, Sandra. You were hot, really f*****g hot. You go see him, and you bring that heat home to me.’”

“Jason actually said that?” the dumbfounded Elise gasped.