The Brat

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Darise's office had the smell of fine old leather and gun oil, a legacy from its prior use as the armoury of the house's owner, enhanced by the soaps and oils he used to maintain the hanging row of punishment tools that hung from hooks on the wall above the desk. It was a surprisingly pleasant smell, one that sharpened the mind to business, and Darise took a moment to inhale it as he settled down in the simple leather seat at his desk, turning the letter over in his hands.

It could wait, he decided, and he set it down in the inbox before reaching to pull the cord for the service bell that dangled from the wall beside the desk. His journal sat there on the desk surface, moved down for him each morning by Kaia as part of her training in housekeeping. Knowing how and where each thing should be moved to, its proper place, was half the job. He flipped it open to start a fresh page, jotting the date and subject down to pass the time until the knock at the door.

"Enter."

Kaia opened it, the freshly oiled hinges quiet and smooth, and stepped inside with a small curtsy. Naevia followed, offering the same, but her form was sloppier. Elbows a little too broad, nod insufficiently deep. His pen moved automatically across the page, noting it. It wouldn't be noticed in most houses, but his buyers would certainly see it.

"Kaia, has Naevia been satisfactory in her assistance to you today?"

"No, sir." Kaia began, pausing as the door opened again and Danae joined them. A small nod from Darise saw the trainer-in-training take a seat in the corner, and she continued. "Naevia has been surly, sir, and insubordinate. She has been lazy -"

"That's not true, sir! I did everything Kaia asked!" Naevia interrupted, but quickly shrank under the glare directed at her from her trainer.

"She has been lazy, and when I told asked her to perform sexually, she refused even after being reminded of what you told her, sir." Kaia finished, her hands resting folded at the small of her back as she stood at attention, head held high.

"I had intended to offer you a chance to defend yourself, Naevia, but I can see that won't be necessary." Darise said, looking past Kaia to her, watching her closely. The little tense in her muscles, the move to start speaking. He cut her off with a firm tone. "It won't be necessary, because you have already confirmed your insubordination by speaking out of turn and interrupting Kaia's answer to your own trainer's question. Sit down."

Naevia's shock was evident. She'd never been invited to sit in this office before, and despite all her boasts of her excellence, she was appalling at masking her emotions. Darise chided himself quietly for failing to work on that as she took the only other seat, a simple wooden affair against the wall beside the door, opposite his own.

"Why do you want to be a slave, Naevia?" He kept his voice soft, but cool, staring at her as he asked.

"Sir, it's what I'm born to be." She offered, her posture tensing on the seat, heels rising lightly off the ground as she spoke. "I've always wanted to be someone's... Someone's thing."

"And that's why you sought out Eralis, persuaded her to take you on? To be a thing?"

"Yes, sir." She nodded fervently, her dark brunette hair curling down over an ear before she idly tucked it back, leaning forward in her seat.

"Then why, Naevia, did Eralis send you to me? She excels at creating the sort of thing you want to be."

"I... Because you're a better trainer, sir?" She flushed. The real reason was no secret, not to anyone in the room, and her feeble attempt at masking it might have been charming under other circumstances. But just like her beauty, and the thrilling shock of insubordination, the constant rebelliousness had long stripped any hope of charm from her.

"She sent you, Naevia, not because I am a better trainer. In fact, I send her my trainees who wish to become 'things' like you. She excels at making puppets who seem to outside eyes to be brainless except for their desire to please sexually. What she struggles with is material like you."

He paused in his writing, setting the pen down, crossing one leg elegantly over the other and displaying his high heels in the doing.

"She struggles with brats who think too highly of themselves. It isn't in her nature, you see, she can't understand the mindset of arrogance. Ordinarily, my methods work within the first week, but I have to applaud you. You're certainly... durable."

"Thank you, sir?" She ventured, voice rising, unsure of herself.

"I didn't say it was a good thing, and by now you should know enough to expect that, Naevia. My methods work because people want them to work, because they understand... Well, the essential problem we have is one of role. I am your trainer, and you should be willing clay. Instead, I am your trainer, and you are a stubborn mule that refuses to learn. You call Kaia a dyke when you think I'm not there to hear it, and you call me... What was it, Kaia?"

"A faggy little tyrant, sir." Kaia offered helpfully, still standing to attention, staring at the wall. It was obviously taking no small effort on her part not to look as she spoke, not to enjoy the moment of Naevia's comeuppance, and he took a brief note to address that temptation later with its own instructive lesson.

"Yes, that's right. A faggy little tyrant. I'm sure you can imagine my shock, Naevia, that someone would come here... Into my house... and call me that." Darise smiled slowly as he stared at her across the room, leaning forward in his seat a little more.

"But, I thought to myself at the time that perhaps you might have a suitable enthusiasm and obedience anyway. Some buyers like sex slaves who talk in the most disrespectful ways - some instinct or other that makes them crave the raw, unrefined, and gross. Usually they aren't my buyers, as that taste eludes me much as the ability to understand raw arrogance eludes Eralis. But now I realize, Naevia, I was mistaken. Tell me though, before I go on - what do you think a sex slave is, really?"

"A slave for fucking, sir." Naevia offered, this time confident, smiling with those pretty lips that made men want to shove their cocks between them. The raw material sitting there had the allure, a certain sensuality. It was disappointing to lose it.

"Yes, Naevia, a slave for fucking. But buyers who want a sex slave are making a very big investment in an extremely limited kind of slave. Take Kaia. I fuck her, from time to time, as does Danae. She is a slave, and sometimes she's for fucking. But she also cleans, cooks, and knows how to run a household's books - isn't that right, Kaia?"

"Yes, sir."

"You see, Kaia is a slave I can task to do almost anything that doesn't require true specialized training. She may not be the very best at it, and might need a few days to get up to speed with trickier things, but that's what a general slave is for. You, on the other hand, want to be a slave solely for fucking. And when a buyer wants a slave for nothing more than to fuck, they expect two things. The first, I'm sure you could guess, is the best fuck of their lives. Do you know what the second is?"

"I... No, sir." Naevia bit her lip, and Darise cursed her again inside his head. Such potential, the poutiness in the gesture! If she just had a better attitude...

"No, I didn't think so. The second is obedience. You said you wanted to be a thing. Well, Naevia, things don't say no. Things are used. Things obey. Today, you refused to service Kaia. I told you to do whatever she said, to obey her in all things, and when you were asked to do the one thing you want to be sold to do, you refused. Why?"

"She's a slave, sir."

"And? An owner might throw you to a dozen other slaves for their amusement. I've known one who takes particular delight in having her handmaid suck the cock of every male servant brought to the house, slave or otherwise. She considers it a mark of her hospitality and sense of fairness. Are you going to tell an owner like her 'no, I won't, they're just a slave'?"

"I... No, sir, I wouldn't!"

"Then why the fuck - " Danae visibly flinched at the harsh use, the tone, and the way the word was suddenly ugly when before it had been so utilitarian, so normal " - are you saying it to me? In my house, as my trainee, I am your owner. Legally, my name will be on your indenture, and it will be that name that keeps you safe from harm in the world as an actual thing."

"I... I don't have a good answer, sir. I'm sorry." Naevia's lashes fluttered, gleaming with crocodile tears of apology, an old trick that she nearly pulled off. It might have worked, Darise thought with amusement, on someone who wasn't a 'faggy little tyrant' as she put it

"I also know from Eralis that you resisted her attempts to have you practice on women other than herself. Why is that?"

"I like men, sir."

"Eralis is not a man. You know better than to make that mistake with me."

"Fine, I like cock. Better, sir?"

"Disrespectful as ever, Naevia. Tell me, what makes you certain that your owner would have a cock? You know I don't permit any slave sold from my House or the Houses of my line to stipulate the gender of their buyer."

"I... I didn't, sir."

"Well, now you do. So we reach our present situation. I sit here, looking at you - a promising piece of meat with a tight cunt and a nice body, but the single worst attitude of any trainee I have ever had and no apparent desire to change it."

"Sir, I - "

He cut her off, hard and sharp, tone losing its softness in an instant. "Be quiet, or I will gag you. From now, you speak when asked, and not a word otherwise. There are only two options left. Either you impress me in the next two days with your willingness to change, to obey, or I send you packing and blacklist your name from the market."

Tears, real tears, flooded her eyes, and she even had the wherewithal to cast her gaze to the ground. The theatricality of it undercut the real emotion, drowning out that certain something there, and Darise sighed in agitation at its disappearance.

"Get up and come over here." The harshness was gone now, replaced with firmness, with command. It was one of his earliest, most important lessons. Knowing the difference was essential, and he noticed Danae's ear perking as she picked it up as well. She was getting the grasp of it herself, though her years in service had left her accustomed only to hearing it, not using it. Naevia rose smoothly enough, prettily enough, and obeyed, crossing the room in three delicate steps and coming to a halt in front of him.

"Bend over against the desk." The sensuality was returning to his wayward trainee's body as she obeyed, but it was no surprise. She was expecting punishment, and for all her flaws, she knew how to make it look sexy. The little arch of her back, pressing her ass up and out as she bent, the tighten in of her thighs to better present them even in the shapeless grey dress. Kaia's brief glimpse out of the corner of her eye betrayed her interest, and Darise quietly noted it to himself as he rose, briefly perusing the tools at his disposal.

There was the tawse, of course, a fine foot-and-a-quarter strap of chestnut-hued leather a quarter-inch thick with its end slitted six inches. The strap he used earlier dangled beside it, and further down there was the paddle. It was never his favourite, not compared to the canes that sat in their umbrella stand by the door or the strap. The birch? Perhaps. The crops and whips that dominated the right hand side had their appeal. But out of the corner of his eye, something unexpected took his notice.

It was his ruler, etched steel - a gift from one of his trainers, a dwarf. It was light, but springy, and for a matter of this severity... Well, an equally severe implement was called for. He took it in hand, testing the flex and the edge, nodding with satisfaction. Yes, not too sharp at the edge, not enough to cut deep if it bit. It was safe enough for the purpose.

If this were an erotic dalliance, there might have been words, taunts, teasing whispers about naughty little schoolgirls needing punishment. That was the kind of thing Naevia had come to this place expecting, the kind of thing that let punishment soak her panties through and turned her into a slut for spankings. But this was a punishment, correction and not play. No words to start the fire going, no warm-up slaps and strokes. When he punished, Darise punished - there was no sense making it an enjoyable experience.

He yanked the skirt of Naevia's unattractive uniform dress up over her ass, seized her panties and pulled, and as she shivered and wiggled at the cool air, let the first blow smack across her cheeks with a surprisingly quiet crack and thud combined, the metal springing against Naevia's pert ass cheeks. Her scream was deafening in the tight confines of the office, bouncing off the glass fronts of the book shelves before the sound proofing absorbed the echo, and Danae winced with empathy. As it faded, Naevia's scream turned to a sob, any semblance of self control evaporating.

Then the second came, and the third, and more and more. Danae bit her lip, riveted to the sight, to the way her trainer wove the metal ruler through the air, angling it for each blow to catch the edge of the last. Some cut down, nearly edge-on, and the screams were the worst with those. They left terrible deep red marks that looked like cuts, that rose in thin welts that through some miracle of careful calculation never quite oozed red like she expected. Others swept from beneath, and yet more landed flat and harsh. It was quick, but thorough, and Danae counted a full two dozen strikes before Darise slowed. Naevia was clutching at the wood of the desk by that point, legs shaking, tears pooling on the desktop, her entire backside and her upper thighs a livid angry red criss-crossed with furious white welts.

"What do we say, Naevia?"

"Th-..." Naevia trailed off in another sob, and Darise shook his head, bringing the ruler down again twice more across each cheek.

"What do we say, Naevia?" He repeated, tone firm, ruler pressing hard into her left cheek, threatening.

"Thank you, s-sir?" She sobbed out, raising her head to look back at him. Her eyes were puffy, and the press of her cheek down against the wood had left the side of her face red and slick with her tears. Her silky hair was a mess, and her lip trembled terribly, and Danae nearly swooned to see it. Through pretty before, the pain had made Naevia beautiful, from the humiliated glow in her cheeks to that guileless tremble that begged for a finger's press between the lips to still it. Her breath hitched in her chest, and she felt the sadist her trainer had been working to cultivate inside her stir as she stared, heat rising in her belly.

"It'll do." Darise gave a swift tap with the ruler one more time before putting it back down on the desk, taking his seat again. The creeping wetness of Naevia's tears was threatening his journal, and he idly picked it up, placing it to the side. "Now stand up, apologize to Kaia, and then clean my desk off. I don't want your salt harming the varnish."

There was a long, pregnant pause as Naevia struggled with her instincts, with the words that wanted to rise and scream out at him. But obediently, she slowly pushed herself up, resting forward against the desk until she was sure her aching ass and thighs wouldn't give out on her, that she could support her own weight. The brush of her dress back down over her crimson behind made her wince and gasp with pain, every nerve ending there alive and on fire, desperate to avoid the slightest touch. Swallowing loudly, she turned to face the senior slave, bowing her head.

"I'm sorry for... being a bitch, Kaia. Please forgive me." She offered in a trembling voice, wincing when Darise snorted a laugh at her choice of words and quickly turning to clean the old, battered surface of his desk with the sleeve of her dress. She recalled something about dabbing, not wiping, and desperately hoped it would pass enough muster to spare her a fresh thrashing. The strap was bad, the cane was worse, but the ruler? It was an all new level of pain, one she couldn't even hope to eroticize, to rob of its potential as a tool of agony.

"Much better, Naevia." Darise quietly offered, placing his journal back in its proper place and plucking his pen up to resume writing. "If you keep this up, I may not have to take the dire action I was afraid of... I don't believe I told you what it was yet."

"Blacklisting, sir?" She mumbled, staring at the ground.

"That, I did mention... But not the alternative to it." He glanced up, nodding to Kaia to dismiss her, waiting for her to leave the room and for the door to click shut before continuing.

"The alternative to sex slavery for you, Naevia, is a type of training I have no real aptitude for. It goes against almost every sense of propriety I have, but there is a small, growing demand for it, especially in the Western market."

"What type is that? I mean, sir?"

"Brats, Naevia, to beat and fuck while they bitch and moan and cry. Some people like a possession that gives them enough lip to justify all kinds of torturous punishment. Too much of a masochist spoils the fun for them, you see, so they need your particular mixture. Too stubborn to learn to behave, not weak-willed enough to withdraw emotionally, and just masochistic enough to stay even if they hate it."

"I... You mean, they'd buy me just to... To beat me?"

"Yes, to beat and rape you night after night. As you might imagine, Naevia, buyers like that are even more demanding than the clients for sex slaves. Sex slaves they can at least lend to friends, show off around the place. Slaves covered in bruises and cuts and burn marks? Not many people like to see that, and pain slaves cost more - and as you might imagine, their buyers do like to get their money's worth."

"Please, sir - " Naevia pleaded, choking up, terror seizing her body, a chill that spread through her muscles and made her lungs suddenly ache for air " - please, please. Please don't sell me as one of those, I'll learn, I promise, I promise!"

"Prove it, Naevia. Behave yourself, apply yourself. Show me you can be good, because so far you've shown me everything but."

"Yes, sir, I promise."

Darise glanced up at her, at her trembling lip, the lack of guile. Either the fear or the beating had kept it out of her for now, and there was a hint there. Secretly, he had been doubting Eralis's judgment since she sent the wilful creature to him, but if this was hidden there - if it could be drawn out - then she might have spotted a gem.

"You are now at Kaia's disposal daily, until I instruct otherwise. Obey her, like I told you to this morning. You may appeal if you feel she is being unreasonable, but think carefully before you do. You may go."

Naevia nodded, bowed, and awkwardly left without turning. No doubt it was something she'd read in some tawdry novel, and it was exactly the sort of amateur theatrics that annoyed him as a rule, but it was a genuine display, and in a spirit of mercy he nodded in satisfaction before looking up to Danae.

"As for you, what did you learn watching that?"

"Two things, sir." Danae smiled from her seat, unfolding her legs and stretching stiff muscles. "First, that fear needs to be personalized. Naevia likes pain, but she doesn't like it more than sex, and never without it. The prospect of her only path to service being one so intolerable to her, well, I don't know if it'll stick but it's a chink we can exploit, a gap to see what we can draw out of her through."

"And the second, Danae?"

"You're even scarier with office supplies than with a cane."