She jumped at the sound of glass touching glass on the table next to her and looked over to find Shannon had brought her lunch outside—some sort of sandwich and a lemonade.
“Where were you?” Shannon asked, taking the chair a couple of feet away. She’d been at the house for three days now, and already she was like a fish in water. This girl had clearly known who she was and what she wanted.
“I was just thinking,” Annette said.
“You’re lucky you belong to Anton. I really hope I end up with someone like that.”
Annette laughed. “Which part? The accent? The hotness?”
Obviously, whoever bought Shannon would have to have wealth. It was kind of the whole deal of this place. But he could still be some evil troll. Anton had reassured her the partners had a system in place to screen buyers for both security concerns for the house as well as safety concerns for the girls. Annette still worried about it, but it wasn’t like it was something she could control, so she mostly ignored it. There was no benefit to rocking the boat.
“Nah, just… the way he is with you,” Shannon said.
When the guys had started bringing girls here, Annette had been sure she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Not because Anton might show them attention—she’d moved past that—but because she thought they would be terrified victims. But that wasn’t what had happened. The girls here knew why they were here; they were total pervs and completely into it.
It was actually nice having female companions who didn’t judge her. She could barely stand the judgment she still felt from Phyllis. When the older woman had thought her a helpless prisoner, she’d had pity for her, but now it was just a barely veiled contempt. Annette was tempted to be catty and think Phyllis was jealous, but she was just different. It wouldn’t have mattered if the former realtor was twenty and gorgeous; she was the type of person Annette had been trying to convince herself she was.
It had taken the contrast of Phyllis to fully understand that lack of experience in kink wasn’t the same thing as lack of a kink.
Annette glanced over at Shannon’s sandwich again. “God, I’m fucking hungry.”
As if by magic, Gabe showed up with a plate of food and a lemonade and put it on the table beside her.
“Anton is coming home early. He wanted to make sure you’d had lunch,” Gabe said.
Annette tried not to ogle him. But he made it impossible not to. He was sporting reflective sunglasses that she could see herself in—not that she would bother looking at herself when she could look at him. He had a perfect golden tan and wore a pair of off-white swim trunks that only made the tan seem darker. His hair had become even more streaked by the sun.
She thought she might be falling in love with Anton, but it didn’t mean she was immune to other eye candy. All the guys at the house were incredibly good looking. Even Lindsay, despite being a bit older, was fit and had a certain kind of power that older, more confident wealthy men often had—men who had settled into their power and money and wore it like a finely tailored suit without apology.
Gabe had already turned around and wandered off to tease a couple of girls in the pool. Annette lowered her sunglasses slightly to ogle for another minute or so.
Shannon laughed. “Have you slept with him?”
“Who, Gabe? Only under direct supervision from my master.”
“He doesn’t let you out of his sight?”
Annette turned back to Shannon, a suspicion forming in her mind. She didn’t yet know Shannon well enough to know much of anything about her except that she’d enjoyed the other girl’s company in the short time she’d been at the house.
“What do you mean?” Annette asked.
“Nothing,” Shannon said, suddenly flustered.
Annette was sure she knew what Shannon was getting at, but was just too shy to say it. “Anton lets me play with other girls without him here, though he really, really likes to watch.”
Shannon blushed. “I think I’m going to get in the pool. Come with me?”
“Let me eat first, then I will.”
Shannon nodded and got up.
“You’d better take your plate and glass back to the kitchen. They don’t like it if you don’t clean up after yourself,” Annette said.
When Shannon had gone, Annette focused on her own lunch. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t eaten yet. It was pretty rare for her not to obey the call of the kitchen.
Gabe had brought her a hot grilled sandwich with turkey and artichoke and spinach and tomatoes and some sort of dressing that Phyllis had made. Beside the sandwich was an apple that Annette knew had come off an apple tree on the property.
She finished her lunch and took the plate and glass back in to the kitchen.
“How’s your fantasy enslavement?” Phyllis said with some derision when Annette set the plate and glass in the sink.
Annette had had about enough of this shit. She turned an icy glare on the other woman. “Look. I’m the queen bee around here. You know it, and I know it. Anton has become quite attached to me. If I told him the way you’re treating me, I’m sure there would be consequences, so why don’t you back off?”
Phyllis snorted. “Sure. Queen bee. Such a stately position on your knees.” But despite the bravado, there was a touch of fear in her eyes.
It felt good to finally confront the other woman. The judgmental looks and snide comments had gotten old three weeks ago.
“Keep pushing,” Annette said. “We don’t have to be enemies, but we could be. You aren’t my only source of conversation in this house.”
She didn’t wait for a reply; instead, she went back outside to join Shannon in the pool.
When she got out there, an argument was in full swing between Brian and Shannon.
Shit. She tried to think if anyone had bothered to warn Shannon about Brian—that Brian was different. Of course no one had. The house had been too busy. Some of the guys put up with a little attitude as long as it was very limited. Not Brian.
Annette had noticed a trend in the girls. Even though they didn’t act like traumatized hostages, they very often pushed buttons in their early days—like they were trying to feel out the boundaries to see what they could get away with. It almost seemed like they were testing the bars of their cage to make sure it was solid.
One would think that upon learning that, yes, the bars were in fact solid, and there was no getting out that they’d panic and freak out and start crying or spiraling into depression, but without exception, they’d each become more serene in the face of confirmation of their lack of power.
It was kind of nutty. Yet, at the same time, even with her own more fucked-up story, she understood. When Anton had made all the rules firm and rewards for obedience and punishments for disobedience, there had been a sort of comfort in knowing there was real consistency in his behavior. He wasn’t actually some abusive nutjob who would turn on you in a blink. She’d found herself feeling safe inside his twisted system of rules and protocols.
And now, Shannon seemed to be having her run at this behavior. Except nobody bothered to tell Shannon that if she absolutely felt she must try this shit, that it needed to be with Gabe or Anton or Lindsay. Or one of the new trainers. Never ever with Brian.
But it was too late, now. Annette hadn’t even caught any of the content of the conversation, just the anger.