Discipline of the Private House by Esme Ombreux Page B

seemed to find it difficult to reply. 'It is your fault,' he said, 'for failing to abide by our customs. You must try harder to be dutiful. But don't stop,' he added. 'The firmer you make me, the firmer is my resolve to guide you and guard you.'
    'Thank you, Barat,' Olena said, and she cuddled him, pressing her breasts against his chest and continuing to let her hand stray against the bulge in his shorts. 'I feel safe now you're with me.'
    The Chatelaine rebuttoned her dress and moved away from the screen. She pressed a button on the wall next to her desk. It was time to separate the two newcomers. And time to make Barat aware of the realities of life in the Chateau.
    Barat's awakening after his abduction in the city had been similar to Olena's. He had found himself locked in £ small but comfortable bedroom, with food, drink and a well-equipped bathroom, but with nothing to wear except his undershorts. After what had seemed an endless wait he had been escorted from his room by a wordless, leather-clad man who had led him along lamplit corridors and then pushed him through a doorway - beyond which, in a mirrored chamber, he had found Olena.
    And now he found himself stumbling in the man's wake again, along more dim corridors. His progress was impeded because his erection was slow to subside, and because his hands had been tied behind his back. He could only imagine what might befall him next; his sense of helplessness, being bound and almost naked, served only to make his imaginings more lurid and fearsome. He had almost convinced himself that he was to be executed, and that he had been allowed to see Olena one final time before his doom was sealed. He couldn't forget the hard-tipped warmth of her breasts pressing against his bare chest.
    The leather-clad man came to a halt in front of a pair of ornately carved wooden doors. Lost in his fears and fantasies, Barat almost collided with him. The man knocked on the door, and a woman's voice replied in a strange language. Barat had suspected that he and Olena had been taken to a land distant from their own, and now he was sure of it. However, the man now addressed him in words he understood.
    'Kneel in front of her. Keep your eyes lowered. Don't speak unless you're spoken to. And if you do speak, address her as "madame".'
    With that, the man opened one of the doors and thrust Barat through the doorway.
    Barat staggered into a large room and almost tripped on the edge of a rug. He heard the door close behind him. He took a few steps forwards and lowered himself to his knees. During this stumbling entrance he did his best to gain an impression of the room and its occupants.
    To judge from the shelves of books and the heavy furniture, he was in a study or library. The windows were concealed behind heavy curtains; inadequate illumination was provided by lamps set in the walls. A circle of yellow light radiated from a lamp on the corner of the monumental desk that dominated the room. In the shadows beyond the circle sat a tall figure; Barat thought it was a woman. The only other person in the room was definitely female: a dark-haired young woman, wearing a scanty parody of a maid's uniform, who was standing beside the desk. Barat would have liked to spend more time looking at her, but he remembered the instructions he had been given and lowered his head.
    He stared at the dark red carpet and waited. He could sense that he was being examined by both women. The thought was unnerving and yet somehow exciting. In the silence he could hear his own breathing; the sound of a stiletto heel on the floor as the maid shifted her stance; from somewhere, the rustle of silk. He was aware that his manhood, which had not entirely unstiffened, was beginning to throb again. The fact that he could not hide the shameful swelling, because his hands were tied behind him, seemed only to exacerbate the problem.
    'Your name is Barat?' It was a woman's voice: heavily accented, but crisp and clear. The voice came