Free Marketplace by Laura Antoniou Page B

delicate little thing like
you.”
    Claudia squirmed, just a
little bit, and lowered her head, blushing.
    She does that very well,
Alexandra thought. The mistress of the house took a step closer to
the girl. “In other words, Claudia, you have been spoiled rotten,
haven’t you? You did practically no labor, performed no meaningful
task other than to carry a tray every once in a while and manage to
do it with some grace. Your other skills, if we can call them that,
are blushing, simpering, being obsequious to the point of
saccharinicity, and looking cute in an erotically designed maid’s
costume. Is that an accurate evaluation?”
    Claudia lifted her head a
little. “If... if Ma’am says so,” she said softly.
    “Well, you can be voice
trained,” Alexandra mused. Voice training was valuable in a
property. It meant that the slave would never answer a question or
voice a comment which would indicate a personal desire. Some owners
liked that, it could add to the value of an otherwise uninteresting
or limited offering. Alexandra realized that she was already
assuming that they would have to sell Claudia. That wasn’t fair,
not to Claudia, not to Madeleine, and certainly not to the
house.
    “Tell me, Claudia, did it
ever occur to you to ask for more duties or
responsibilities?“
    Claudia shook her head.
“No, ma’am. I did what my Mistress told me to do.”
    Alexandra smiled at that.
“Oh really? That’s not exactly true, is it?” She stepped in closer
and ran one light, gentle finger along Claudia’s shoulder. It
produced a shudder, a nice, rippling response. “You did have
trouble obeying her whenever she tried to take you out of these
limited areas, didn’t you? For example, when she wanted to see you
play with yourself?”
    “Oh!” Claudia lowered her
head again, so fast her hair flew around her head. “Mistress...
told you?”
    “Yes, of course she told
me,” Alexandra replied. “Pick up your chin, I don’t like talking to
the top of your head.” Claudia did so, her cheeks red with
humiliation.
    Alexandra walked back to
the table and pulled a sheet of paper from the folder, scanned it
and read from it. “You couldn’t perform when she commanded you to,
instead you burst into tears. On a later occasion, when she honored
you by taking you to bed, you did the same thing when she gave you
a dildo and told you to use it on yourself.” Alexandra looked up
for a moment. “Did you end up staying with her that night, or did
she send you away?”
    “I stayed, ma’am,” Claudia
whispered.
    “Spoiled rotten,” Alexandra
muttered again. “In fact, any time your Mistress decided that you
should be more interesting sexually, you rebelled, didn’t you? You
used your tears and your whimpering and your charm to manipulate
your Mistress into letting you dig yourself this rut of a role,
where you expected to stay for as long as you continued to like
it.”
    “No!” Claudia gasped as the
word escaped her lips. “I mean, please, ma’am, it wasn’t like that.
I loved... I love my Mistress! But some things are so very hard for
me!” Tears had started welling up in her eyes.
    “That’s not going to work
here,” Alexandra commented, indicating the tears. “Grendel loves it
when slaves cry, and it doesn’t affect me in the slightest. Not
from you or from Robert.”
    “I’m sorry,
ma’am.”
    “Don’t be sorry. Stop it.
Your first charge is to stop crying every time something unpleasant
happens. Learn to express your emotions with your posture, your
attitude, and your mouth. For the rest of the week, whenever you
cry, you will be given additional work to do.” Alexandra beckoned
and Claudia came to her, frantically blinking away
tears.
    Alexandra ran her finger
along Claudia’s body again, this time over her throat and along her
arm. Her skin was soft, and a little pale. “You’ll also start
spending some time in my solarium. I’ll tell Chris to put some
sunblock on your shelf tomorrow. You’ll