The Compound Read Free Page A

determined to prove she was obedient, though she couldn’t stop her gasp when Mistress Miriam slipped a finger into her panties.
    “If we accept you, this will have to go.” Mistress Miriam tugged lightly at Alexis’s pubic hair. “We have a specialist in full body waxing. All our trainees must be smooth and completely accessible at all times. Is that a problem?”
    “No, Mistress,” Alexis replied.
    Mistress Miriam returned to the desk, though she didn’t sit down. “Which do you prefer, the flogger or the cane?”
    “The flogger,” Alexis said immediately. It was no contest—she hated to be caned. It held none of the sweet, thuddy sensuousness of a flogging. It just plain fucking hurt.
    “Ah. Then we’ll use the cane.” One side of Mistress Miriam’s mouth lifted in a cruel smile.
    If she had said the cane, would Mistress Miriam have picked the flogger? Probably. Though then again, probably not. Somehow Alexis sensed she would have known she was lying. How had Mistress Miriam managed to hone in on the one thing Alexis had a hard time with? Was it some kind of sadist’s sixth sense? She could take a single tail, she could even handle a bull whip. But the cane—with its stingy bite, and that scary whooshing sound just before it struck the skin—sent a chill down her back just thinking about it.
    You got this far, she admonished herself. Don’t screw it up now.
    “Face the chair, bend over and grab the arms. Legs wide, ass out. Oh, and take off those panties.”
    Alexis pulled her panties down and stepped out of them, adding them to the folded pile of her clothing. Taking a breath, she turned toward the chair. She bent forward and gripped the smooth wooden arms, steadying herself as she spread her legs. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, but she was determined. She could do this. She would do this.
    She could hear Mistress Miriam moving behind her. When she felt the light tap of the cane against her ass, she stiffened, but managed to remain still. By turning her head, she could just see Mistress Miriam out of the corner of her eye, standing back and to the side.
    “Eyes straight ahead,” Mistress Miriam snapped, punctuating her words with the first real strike of the cane. Alexis gasped in pain, gripping the chair arms hard as she struggled to maintain her composure. Several more hard whacks followed in quick succession, each one landing just below the last. As the cane moved lower, covering the fleshier part of Alexis’s ass, she found herself better able to tolerate the stinging blows.
    Until the one that struck just where her ass met her thighs. It was harder than the others, preceded by that sudden, terrifying whoosh and then a searing, biting flash of pain that pushed a cry from Alexis’s lips.
    She lifted her head, her eyes momentarily blinded by tears. Stop fighting it. Flow with the pain. Become one with it. She could almost hear Arthur admonishing her, and she tried to do just that, though she’d never really understood the concept, not on a gut level. Another blow caught her on the hip and she gritted her teeth, not sure she could take much more of this.
    She looked out the window, thinking maybe she could distract herself enough with the view to at least get through this caning without making a fool of herself by screaming, or worse, turning around and grabbing the fucking thing from Mistress Miriam’s hands and breaking it clean in two.
    And then she saw him.
    The pool had been empty when she’d first entered the office, but now someone was swimming in it— muscular back and powerful shoulders moving through the water and then a head lifting, shaking the water from long auburn hair that glittered like dark, wet gold in the sunlight.
    The man moved to the opposite side of the pool and lifted his arms on either side, leaning back against the edge of the pool, revealing his smooth, bronzed chest. His jaw was square, his nose prominent.
    He seemed to be staring directly at her.
    The cane