Tales of Drysdale House (2) Scaramouche

 

Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you play the fandango?

A week later, the three students from England; Derek, Nigel, and Chloe, were again in front of Drysdale House. They were not there because they had a passionate interest in it’s architecture. They were on their way to a celebratory dinner at Chef Sabatini’s Scaramouche Restaurant nearby on Mercado Street. Because they were early for their reservation, Nigel had suggested that they ‘stretch their legs’. Chloe was not surprised that they ended up in front of the gates of Drysdale House.

“You guys are just hoping to see that naked girl again.” She did not sound like she was disgusted with them, just that she knew how guys were.

Nigel and Derek just grinned at her. They had been friends for a long time, ever since they had met at thirteen when they had arrived as new students at Marlborough College, an English Public (private boarding) School. They had banded together as they were squelched by the older boys and girls, but were excited to be attending where Princess Kate had attended.
Nigel and Derek starred hard at the closed iron gates of Drysdale House as if they could open them by force of will and make the naked girl come out. Chloe was about to laugh at them, when the gates started to open,
“They must open electrically”, observed Nigel. Derek shoved him playfully.
“Obviously. This is America, everything works by machinery”
A car entered the gates and pulled up under the Porte Cochere. The three English students stared, but nothing more interesting than a middle-aged woman, dressed in black, got out. She walked to the door as the driver started taking luggage out of the trunk.
Nigel and Derek were intent on seeing what happened next. The girl that they had seen last week emerged from the house. Sadly for the English lads, she was dressed in a short tunic.
“Great legs, though,” said Derek.
“I bet she is dancer of some kind, look at those calves, strong thighs too.”
The car left the property and the doors swung shut. Chloe had said nothing but had noticed more. She had not been as focused as the boys on staring at the girl’s crotch and tits. The girl had a metal collar around her throat. Like a piece of property. She had noticed the same thing the previous week. But a nice girl doesn’t notice such things, and if she does, she says nothing. Chloe thought again of the Barbary Coast and the slave girls of Port Kar in Derek’s trashy pulp novel.
“Yoo-hoo. Hello.” Someone was hailing them from Fremont Park. Shyly they waved back. Hailing people in the streets was not at all how they had been raised to behave.
“It’s Ms Winchester, from the tour last week,” said Nigel. He had been impressed with Ms Winchester, one of the Architectural Tour leaders had trouble to learn his name.
Ms Winchester came up to them. “Back for some more architectural investigations?”
Nigel explained. “We are going to a celebratory dinner at Scaramouche. I came to San Francisco to interview for a post-graduate study position in structural metals. My friends Derek and Chloe came along for a bit of a holiday.”
“Well congratulations.” Ms Winchester sounded genuinely happy for the success of this near stranger. American Society was different to what they knew back home. The guide turned to Derek and Chloe.
“Are you looking for positions after University as well”
Derek disclaimed any such ambition. “No Chloe and I took a gap year before Uni, while Nigel plunged straight in. We are a year behind him. It will be next year before we are looking for work. What brings you here.”
“I am sure there are still tunnels underneath Drysdale House and Hathaway Building. I want to find clues before I go back to school. I thought that near sunset with the sun lower, there might be some signs.”
“You are still going to school?” Chloe was surprised, Ms Winchester looked a few years older than they were.
“No, I am a schoolteacher. High School. I help lead these tours in summer for some extra money, student loans you know. Then I got interested in tracing any remnants of the tunnels of San Francisco.”
Chloe spoke, “Mrs Salisbury was very sure they had all fallen in or been destroyed.”
“If they even existed at all.” Added the practical Derek. “We need to get going to Scaramouche, it is almost time for our reservation.”
Derek and Chloe walked side by side first, then Nigel and Ms Winchester. Ms Winchester gave Nigel her phone number, “as you are going to be alone in San Francisco.”
Nigel accepted the number, fair and handsome with a cultured English accent, Nigel was seldom alone for long.
The three of them entered Scaramouche and were seated immediately. The restaurant was decorated mostly in a commedia dell’arte style with drawing of the various stock characters from classic Italian comedy. There were also posters advertising a 1950s movie and a few of a 1920s version. The food was excellent. Better than they usually ate, especially Nigel and Derek. Chloe was sometimes taken to such restaurants by older men. She accepted the meals, but mostly rebuffed their advances, preferring the wrestling match to the ‘walk of shame’. Sometime alone at home afterwards, she regretted that the men did not try harder to overpower her; a strong man was so exciting to a girl!
Chloe was very happy for Nigel. She did not express it as enthusiastically as Ms Winchester, but he had been her friend for a long time and she was glad for him. Nigel had been so devastated when the prospective job at Steel Worlds Inc had fallen through at the last minute due to some corporate upheaval.  She had even attended one of the recruiting luncheons Nigel had had with one of the executives there. The man had given her his card. He had told Chloe that she was exactly the sort of girl Steel Worlds was looking for and was sure he could find a position for her. “It would surely involve overseas travel,” he had assured her. The prospect intrigued Chloe, but now without Nigel on the inside, she supposed it would never happen.
Near the end of the meal, Chloe excused herself to use the facilities. In a corner near the back, she saw a set of stairs going up and a sign. The Arlecchino Club (Private). When she emerged from the facilities she saw three men in their thirties, fit and ready looking mount the stairs. With them was a girl, very beautiful, dressed in little more than the girl who had emerged from Drysdale House to collect the luggage. Chloe looked, but this girl wore no collar. Beside the thin short dress, she wore only slipper like sandals, with a gold chain, delicate and intricate locked on her left ankle. Chloe returned to the table.
After the three English students had paid (separately) and returned to their hotel, Chloe began to pack for the return flight to England. Into her checked bag, where the airport security would not find it, she placed the trashy pulp novel she had swiped from Derek’s room earlier in the day. He had finished it, and she was afraid he would leave it behind. She had been sneaking moments to read it when she would not be discovered and unlike Derek, had not finished the story. She thought Raider of Gor, exciting and silly in equal measure, they derring-do of swordplay in the city and the high seas was thrilling, but surely most women did not desire to be overpowered by strong men? She was sure that that was merely an occasional fantasy that came late at night. Before bed, she stood naked in front of the full length mirror.
“I wonder if I would be judged suitable for the auction block?” she mused. “Probably not. Maybe I would just be sent to carry the luggage.”
On an impulse she climbed naked into bed. She dreamed of dancing on the sands to the applause of fists striking left shoulders, and of being forced to serve in the furs. But those were only night-time dreams; not real desires.
In the morning, before getting dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror. “Not bad, but this year, I will have to lay off the puddings.” Chloe had the idea, implanted in her by her society, that women who were rail thin and without curves were what men desired.
She did not yet know what it meant when the man from Steel Worlds Inc had set that she was exactly what they were looking for.

Narrative of the slave Juli, formerly Miss Juliet Chen of San Francisco.
For the first week after Master Patrick returned from his work in Pittsburgh we lived in a kind of Eden. It was a form a paradise. Master returned home from work every day at lunch time. After he ate the meal I prepared for him, he  would feed me from his own plate with his own hands. I was so grateful to be with him after being separated for so long while he was away. In the afternoon we would sit in the garden, looking down the terraced levels of the grass, with trees providing shade from the sun. It was so idyllic. At night he would demand from me perfect service forcing me to testify with my body to his dominance and ownership. Then I would be chained by my left ankle in my basket at the foot of my master’s bed. Often he would demand service from me in the middle of the night, and again in the morning. It was a sort of heaven.
But after that wonderful week things changed. She came. She was Mrs Magruder, the new housekeeper.  One evening I heard the gates of the vehicle entrance open. We were sitting by the fireside in the Grand Salon on the Main Floor in perfect harmony. Master Patrick sitting in a comfortable wingchair, I curled up on the floor at his feet, in his custom made boots.
Master looked up from his book. He put a bookmark in the book he was reading, A Tale of Two Cities.
“Ah yes. Here she is. When she enters, remember that she is a free woman and you are a slave. When you kneel keep your knees together.”
“Who is ‘she’, Master” Am I to know.?”
“How curious are slaves! Mrs Magruder is to be the new Housekeeper here. She is used to dealing with slaves, with beasts like you. She was the Housekeeper at Frick House. A new Ubar of the Fricks means a new housekeeper there and she will now look after this house. Now, to your knees.”
We had moved through one of the arches that separated the Grand Salon from the long hall. We moved towards the door of the Porte Cochere. I knelt as the Master opened the door. On the other side of the heavy oaken portal stood a tall thin middle-aged woman in a long black dress with a grey top with long sleeves.
She strode in, standing in front of the Master and inclining her head in respect.
“Mister Masters, thank you for this opportunity. I will not forget this kindness, and will serve you with dedication as I served Mister Willard Frick.”
“Welcome to Drysdale House, Mrs Magruder. This is the kajira Juli. She will fetch your luggage from the car.”
“Thank you, Mr Masters.”
Master indicated with a nod that I should go outside and fetch the luggage. I brought in two large cases and one smaller carryon piece of luggage and shut the door. I heard the car pull away and then the sound of the great gates closing.
Master spoke to Mrs Magruder.
“Juli will take you upstairs to the third floor, above us is the Free Woman’s Wing. When you are settled, when can talk in the Library.” He nodded and strode away down the long corridor towards his sanctum.
Mrs Magruder nodded at the grand staircase where the main halls crossed.
“Is that the way upstairs?”
“I am not allowed on those stairs Mistress. There is a service stair behind you, between the Dining Room and the outside wall.”
I showed her the service pantry that connected to the dining room. Inside there were stairs leading down to the kitchens, and up to the bedrooms above. I picked up the luggage, struggling with the burden. If we were both free, I would have expected her to help, but I was a branded slave and she was a free woman. I led her up the two flights of staircases to the third floor, where behind a lockable door, was the suite where Mistress Magruder was to live. I had cleaned that room the day before at Master’s orders. He did not tell me then who was to live there and I had not asked more than once.
Mistress Magruder looked around the suite. She sniffed.
“This place will have to be cleaned thoroughly. I do not understand why it was not done before I arrived.”
“Master had me clean here yesterday, Mistress.”
Mistress sniffed again. “It is well that I have come. It takes a woman, a free woman to demand proper standards. Immediately after supper, I will supervise as you clean this place properly. I know, as a man does not, how clean and polished a house should be. You will not be allowed to slack off any more. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mistress, I am sorry Mistress. I will do better, Mistress.”
“Indeed you will. I will not tolerate anything less than perfection for Master Patrick. He deserves nothing less than the best.”
Drysdale House is a huge place. It is really impossible for one slave to keep it up to the standard demanded by Mistress, Magruder. I did my best. I did more than I thought it was possible for me to do. On my knees I struggled to wash floors. Mistress had me polish woodwork; she had me polish silver and iron linens. Despite all that I could to do, I fell behind to meet the expectations of Mistress Magruder. Locked in my pen at night I cried, feeling that I was a failure as a slave. I felt my failure to perfectly serve Master Patrick as he deserved to be served. He deserved only the best, and I could not even properly maintain his House.
After ten days, as I knelt in front of Master Patrick and Mistress Magruder in the Grand Salon. My knees were together as Mistress Magruder showed Master Patrick dust on the polished wood of the side table. I was naked. Mistress Magruder had taken my clothes away on the third day after her arrival saying I was not worthy to wear them as I could not keep my Master’s House clean.
“Don’t worry about your nudity offending me. It is your failure that offends me,” she had told me. “I am the housekeeper in a Slaver’s House; working for Master Willard Frick, I was the housekeeper in a Slaver’s House. You are under discipline and will serve perfectly.”
Mistress Magruder spoke to Master Patrick. “She is willing, Mr Masters, but she cannot do it all herself. The switch cannot make her do more than she can do, and she must have some strength and time left for her other duties. I think it is time to do what we spoke of a few days earlier. Once the house is completely cleansed it will easier to keep up.”
I wondered what Mistress Magruder had in mind. But I knew better than to ask.
**
The answer came two days later. A van with Kampus Kleaners on the side pulled up to the door. I saw it because I was washing the windows in the Grand Salon.
“Excuse me, Mistress, the cleaners are here.”
“Good, they will be in as soon as they undress.”
“Mistress?”
Mistress Magruder passed me her iPad. I read, Kampus Kleaners. A new frontier in erotic hygiene. Kampus Kleaners will klean your home or apartment without tracking in any extra dirt! They do this by Kleanin in the NUDE!
A Kampus Kleaner will come to your home and klean. Vacuum, polish (hint hint) and all manner of kleaning tasks. Discretion guaranteed.
I handed the iPad back to Mistress, kneeling and lifting the device towards her with both hands.
Mistress spoke as the doorbell rang. “I have ordered a dozen of these ‘kleaners’ to provide services here. Doubtless they will be surprised to have to do actual cleaning. I ordered them because it is desirable that a Master like yours be served by naked beauties. Unfortunately, at this time, they will have to be Free Women.”
Mistress Magruder sniffed. She sniffed a lot when she was displeased. I had learned to fear her sniffs.
“However, as they will be naked, it is appropriate that you, a slave be distinguished in some way from these free women. Therefore, to mark you out from these free women it is proper that you wear your tunic. The first room that they will deep clean is this, the Grand Salon. They will finish with the windows, wash and wax the floor. Polish all the fixtures and the furniture. Wash the walls. Everything. Now let them in, while I prepare your Master’s lunch. He will be home soon and will spend the afternoon beholding these women (sniff) clean his house.
Mistress Magruder turned away while I went to let in the Kampus Kleaners. I smiled. Master’s house would be cleaned and polished, while he would have a choice of girls to add to his collar. I was not sure how I felt about adding more collared slaves to the household. I liked being Master’s only slave. But it was not my choice.