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  Title Page

  WAGE SLAVE

  By Gail P Wright

  Kinks Books is an imprint

  of W&H Publishing LLP.

  Publisher Information

  This ebook edition published by Kink Books is an imprint of W&H Publishing LLP, Foresters Hall, 25-27 Westow Street, London, SE19 3RY.

  Digital edition converted and published by

  Andrews UK Limited 2011

  www.andrewsuk.com

  Previously published by The Olympia Press PO Box 148, Ryde, Isle of Wight, PO33 9BE.

  Copyright © Gail P Wright

  The right of Gail P Wright to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead and is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by the way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, electronically copied, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent.

  Chapter One

  Her skin is a glory of highlights. Sun blazed beneath a bleached sky, the glistening limbs and torso catch subtle reflections from the earth, tinting her luscious curves with hints of emerald, ochre and slate.

  The rock bears her weight indifferently, its hot, craggy crown searing her cringing feet. Sweat soaked skins chamois-limp, masking her belly and breasts in detail only, the full, heaving swells clearly outlined in her struggle. The wooden cross is fashioned from a blackened, petrified trunk, its precarious grip on the arid fissure weakened almost to severing point by the weight of the rough-hewn beam lashed across it. Thick frayed rope coils her ankles, forcing the tender heels harshly against the rough bark. From the bulky knot it snakes up calves and thighs to cinch her waist, before forming the cruellest loop of all, tight around her throat.

  She arches boldly against the restraint as he focuses on her arms which,, wrenched up and back to the verge of dislocation, are tied to the beam. Turning a stony face to her suffering, he puts the finishing touches to her bonds and moves back to assess the result.

  He imagines the beasts crashing through the undergrowth, their approach turning her pain to fear to paralysing terror. Pictures reptilian feet clawing toward her, lidless eyes fixing the succulent meal, fangs gaping, foetid breath quickening. Hears hr futile scream as massive weights topples dead wood and condemned flesh into waiting jaws.

  But all is not quite right. The lashings on her wrists are too precise; look out of place in a world where lives are readily sacrificed in savage appeasement of a mindless, scaly creature. So, a touch here and there, turns reef knots into prehistoric grannys - and he is done at last!

  ***

  “Ah, my back!”

  Adam Sillitto straightened up from the picture, massaging the stiffness from his lumbar muscles and fighting the temptation to add a little something more with the airbrush. The greatest effort of will an artist makes, he knew, is not to strive anonymously in a garret but to refrain from perpetually tinkering with a work that is patently finished.

  “Ahem!” came from across the studio.

  He’d been so absorbed he’d completely forgotten Debs. Deborah Sillitto, wife, helpmate and in-house model, shifted her right buttock. As her ankles were tied with Adam’s tasselled dressing gown cord and her arms clotheslined to his Bullworker pushed through the rungs of their stepladder, she could do nothing unaided.

  Debbie was a loving wife and long - in this case literally - suffering model. She put up with countless nips and niggles: “Just to give me the notion, Sweet. Must get the posture right, now,” for the sake of his work. Her reward, aside from the money they saved on professional models, was the joy of seeing his face when he sat back and beamed at yet another commission completed on time - just. If she had a complaint it was that Adam was the sort of artist who worked best under pressure. That meant waiting until the last minute before attempting anything more concrete than staring into space seeking inspiration. Which, in turn, meant long sessions of actual work broken more often for essential bowel and bladder movements than small luxuries like eating and sleeping.

  But at least Adam was able to dissociate hand and eye from the rest of his brain when working, and could talk up a storm. The rare occasions when a jocular remark jogged wiggly lines into some careful piece of draughtmanship were, in his estimation, worth it.

  “Better that than have boredom showing through the paint,” he’d say.

  An odd way to work? Perhaps. But as long as the commissions came in, neither of them were complaining - now.

  ***

  It all came about by accident, though seeming more like a disaster at the time. When they married, Adam was a twenty four-year-old go-getter. With a fellow art school graduate he had started a hopefully trendy magazine for commuting secretaries. But before a dozen issues were less sold than returned, they were in predictable trouble from the freebies dispensed at every main line terminus and London Underground station. Rescued by another young driving force - this time with a business degree - an inevitable clash of personalities left Adam and the whizz-kid to go it alone. Adam’s artistic contribution being as skilful as his new partner’s touch with advertising and distribution, an immediate improvement swiftly became a modest success, bringing them almost to the verge of solvency. Ironically, it was as the book-keeping took that all important skip into the black that Adam fell foul of market forces from a surprising direction: his artwork.

  The magazine was targeted by a feminist group objecting to his portrayal of women. Sado-Masochism! - they shrieked - was rife in his imagery, degrading women by its provocative perversion. “Eh?” said Adam when told. “Say again!”

  It signified a parting of the ways and so he sold out to the business brain, taking considerable consolation from hearing, six months later, that the leaky vessel had sunk without trace.

  A spell illustrating display ads for a weekly trade paper also came to a premature end when his work was seen by the boss of a small publishing firm. She remembered the magazine - probably the only one who did by that time - and offered him the chance to illustrate some paperback covers for her new science fiction list. Yes, she admitted, the big names in the field, like Vallejo and Achilleos were beyond her means but she was sure Adam had the talent if only he would tap it.

  His “Why me?” brought the altogether unnerving response: ‘Because your S/M imagery is perfect for the medium.”

  So Adam’s and Debbie’s savings brought more sophisticated equipment and after a day spent wandering through Charing Cross Road bookshops perusing the work of the experts, Adam made a start.

  He was too conservative to begin with, needing encouragement to overcome his embarrassment and develop his fantasies. But the stereotypical amalgam of science fiction and nubile femininity proved irresistible. And soon he was painting loin-clothed heroes and bare-breasted Amazons with the best of ‘em. In the last analysis Adam was a healthy male with a normal quota of corpuscles and platelets plus, if anything, an extra helping of testosterone. So, in a manner of speaking, one ball brushed the other, cross-fertilising artistic and sexual inspiration - to a Deb’s delight!

  An extra payoff for her modelling was the scrumptuously lustful romping which left no corner of their flat unutilised and few variations untried. Therefore, it was with almost slavering anticipation that she watched Adam’s face crease into that boyish grin of accomplishment.

  No matter how tired they might be, each completed job was enthusiastically celebrated. Occasionally even with champagne; though the
ir parties usually involved serving it up for each other’s delectation from just about every crease, crevice and orifice bar their mouths. That prospect alone was worth cramp in her buttocks and one or two other places besides.

  As he stretched, she licked her lips; savouring the ripple of his slim, taut body beneath the paint and ink-spattered T-shirt and jeans. Adam’s physique was ... sensitive. Yes, that was the word! From his slender fingers, through the spare torso and limbs, he radiated sensuality. In her baser moments she was prone to thinking of him as one big prick: though never without a prudish twinge that she was somehow denigrating a genuinely beautiful male.

  “Can I see it?” she asked.

  “Yup.” Adam moved round towards her. As he approached, his cool blue eyes returned her appreciative stare. “You can look at the picture, too,” he grinned, only to falter in mid step as the doorbell sounded, then again, and a third time. “Must be the post,” Adam said, glancing at the clock. A fourth peal made it an imperative summons, so, with a promissory gesture, he dashed out through the small hallway and bounded down the stairs two at a time.

  Living on the third floor had its compensations, but they didn’t include the long trip to the sorting office if the postman tired of waiting for a signature. Debbie sighed resignedly. It was, after all, merely a postponement, not a cancellation.

  Adam was gone for quite a while, reappearing with a fistful of correspondence and a face like a spinster in a strip club. One letter was opened.

  A chill of foreboding clutched Debbie’s stomach as she recognised the pastel sheet he pored over so closely. It cooled to permafrost when he leaned back against the desk and slowly - oh, so slowly - raised his head until their eyes met.

  “Y’know what this is?” Adam asked with cool deliberation. Wide eyed, Debbie dumbly shook her head.

  “Credit card statement,” Adam said, obviously unconvinced. He dangled it at arm’s length so she could see. “Credit card, mind. Not bank loan. Although ...” he twisted it for an emphatic glance at the bottom line: “we’ll need one to pay this lot off!”

  “Oh!”

  “Oh?” Adam feigned amazement. “What’s with ‘Oh’?”

  Despite his anger, Adam had to restrain a laugh. Debbie’s lucent green eyes were popping with the innocence of a child caught in the act, oblivious of her sticky fingers and jam-smeared mouth. Naivety was her most adorable trait and he revelled in the protective feelings it evoked. But it did have the disadvantage of insulating her from the very insecurities which still plagued his sleepless nights. She couldn’t conceive of his new found success proving ephemeral, that the last picture might not be good enough, or that the next commission wasn’t already in the hands of his Agent. Such optimism - blithely consigning all rainy days to someone else’s forecast - did boost Adam’s morale. But only for it to be undermined by her lack of financial nous. Middling success had gone to her head, leaving him with the fiscal hangover. To add insult to indignity, mirth was not the only impulse he was keeping in check. As he studied her gleaming auburn hair and golden body clad in an impromptu costume of towels - one tied sarong-style, low on her hips, the other loosely draped around her shoulders to simulate unkempt tresses cascading over her breasts, an insistent congestion in his jeans proved more than the sun to be rising that morning.

  But for once their celebration would have to wait. Adam busied himself freeing her and returning the stepladder and Bullworker to their respective cupboards, conscious of her dubious hesitancy as she limped around the studio massaging her bottom. There was no denying that the compound effect of the night spent transforming that lusciously sentient female into a pure pagan fantasy figure, would all too soon undermine his resolve. So it was with a cruelly selfish snap that he finally rounded on her: “For God’s sake, get

  dressed! We’re going to sort this out once and for all!”

  ***

  “250! Whatever possessed you?”

  “I ... er. Um. Darling ...” Debbie mumbled blushingly under his vociferous interrogation. “I am sorry.”

  “That isn’t the point, is it? Sorry is too late! We’ve exceeded our credit limit now! Oh, don’t worry, I’ve sorted it out all right. I phoned them and they have increased the credit limit, but - and it is still a big one - THAT DOESN’T MEAN WE OWE ANY BLOODY LESS! But we can forget the amount: even forget the interest. What we can’t, either of us, forget, is that if happened! WHATEVER POSSESSED YOU?” Adam was beside himself with fury and frustration.

  Debbie’s face crumpled. Tears welled as she sagged beneath the burden of guilt. He was right. She just hadn’t thought. And there had been no safeguard which his obsession with work left her free to follow her whims: or more accurately, free to become another victim of the dreaded plastic peril.

  “It was only a dress. Just one. And some things for the flat,” she sobbed. “Your paints, too.

  “That last lot of acrylics?”

  She nodded.

  “But why didn’t you pay by cheque? The money was in the bank!”

  “I forgot my chequebook. It would have meant putting everything back on the shelves and coming all the way home and back again. I didn’t think it would matter as we had the money.”

  “Well, it did. I took the bank statement as gospel when I re-insured the van. If I’d known, I would have paid in instalments, or at least gone for temporary third party cover instead of comprehensive.” Adam’s volubility suddenly subsided. It was clear that he was himself somewhat culpable. Yet here he was, berating the poor girl for doing her best to protect him from trivial distractions. No! It wasn’t that simple! Every month he juggled their accounts to cover her excesses. Not because the purchases were extravagant or unnecessary, merely that she never told him what she had done. If it didn’t stop, they really would finish up starving in a garret.

  So ...

  “Desperate remedies, Deb. I’m sorry, too. There is no choice. Where’s your card?”

  “In my bag.

  “Get it for me, please.

  Debbie sensed his intentions. Opening her wallet, she flashed the card at him then made to fold it back. Swiftly, Adam thwarted her. Removing the card, he tossed the wallet into her lap and ritually scissored the rectangle into useless plastic slivers. With a sullen truculence, Debbie asked: “Do you want my cheque-book, too? Might as well do a thorough job.”

  Standing amidst the litter, Adam became indignant. “Obviously you didn’t listen. Neither of us can afford to go on like this. It wouldn’t be so bad if only you would tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t lie to you.”

  “It’s lying by omission. Deb.” His tone softened as he took her hand and knelt beside her: “Don’t cry. I know you do your best and I appreciate it. But how can I allow for what I don’t know about? We haven’t so much money we can afford not to think about it; to plan.”

  The tears flowed freely Her defences crumbled and the little girl showed through.

  “I want to help, Adam. So you don’t have to worry about bills. Small ones, anyway. Shopping is my job,” she sobbed.

  “Nonsense,” Adam asserted. “Our shopping is our job. If you aren’t careful you’ll make me too lazy for my own good. I’ll end up vegetating in this Formica tower.”

  Wrenching free, Debbie rushed from the room. The bedroom door slammed, leaving Adam open mouthed and undecided which hair to tear - Debbie’s or his own!

  Typically final words resounded scathingly through the wall. If this is what I get for doing my best, then - then ... then ... Well, I won’t! SO THERE!”

  ***

  “How is she now?” Peter Vardle`s voice boomed Irom the

  telephone, matching in volume and timbre the hulking size of his body “Sulking, presumably,” Adam said, picturing Peter’s heavy-boned face with its discordantly thin-lipped mouth.

  “Do I detect
a note of dismay?”

  “I do have some responsibility in the matter, Peter. Her intentions were good.”

  “Frankly, old boy, if you don’t control the situation, her intentions, sublime as they may be, will lead you rapidly down the left hand path. Take it from an old campaigner: firmness pays!”

  “It isn’t that bad.”

  “Really? At the moment you are happily working for yourself - less my agent’s commission, of course. It will be a lot less fun when every penny - less said commission - goes to Carey Street. I’ve fought that battle too, in my time.”

  “But what more can I do?”

  “Well, old lad, your choices are two. Keep your darling wife cloistered out of temptation’s way, or ... and this is what sorts the mutineers from the Mounties ... lay down the law and enforce it - or else!”

  “Or else what?”

  “Or else you make her regret it.

  “Make her? How?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t believe I’m hearing this!” Peter bawled, driving Adam back with a pronounced itch of the eardrum. “What do you think? The application of palm to posterior! Knuckle to nate! Whatever appeals to your vapid masculinity!”

  “Hit her?” Adam yelled back, flabbergasted at the thought. “No. Definitely not. Don’t hold with hitting women.”

  “Chastisement is what I mean. All the difference is the world, Adam. Bullies hit you in the playground. The Head chastises you with a cane. Bullying promotes fear. Caning creates a sense of security that someone cares. See?”

  “Well ... I couldn’t. Cane Deb? Seriously?” Adam spoke quietly now.