Twenty-Seven
 
“The man already has his own goddamn harem, baby. What more could he possibly want from us that he doesn’t already have? But no, he ‘needed’ this…!” Isa sneered coldly at her fresh decoration.
“I’m sorry, mama. I wanted it to be a surprise.” Candace wrapped her arm around Isa’s waist, careful to avoid the sensitive patch, still bleeding beneath the medical wrap.
“A surprise. That’s why you’re sorry? Because that so-called ‘artist,’  wouldn’t let you put… THAT… on my body without my say-so?” She didn’t break free from the comforting grip of her lover, however. This obscenity, this indelible insult, had her so livid she could practically come merely from having Candace look at her; she was powerless to resist a touch. Ordinarily Isa was not one for public displays of affection, but they’d gone to the Great Oaks Mall almost an hour away so no one would recognize them. 
“Quit dragging your feet, Barbie! Do I have to get out the leash again?”
Almost no one. To their surprise, Abbie Stern had been waiting for them at the tattoo parlor. It was the first they’d seen of her since graduation a few weeks earlier. When they’d demanded to know what she was doing there, she’d replied that Mr. Canon had appointed her Isa’s babysitter for the day, since she was acting like such a big baby about getting her first tattoo. Candace had gotten hers months ago, a splash of sweetheart candies and other confections right above her slit. At Mr. Canon’s direction, naturally. 
Isa hadn’t been meant to know what they were putting on her body until it was done, but apparently even mall tattoo artists had ethical codes. Once she’d found out, she’d been so outraged it had sent her running for the nearest ladies room to furiously grope at her lower belly, where the offense was to occur. Then her hand started moving lower still.
Right up until Abbie caught up with her and affixed the leash. It wasn’t a pet leash, though that would have been as bad. No, it was one of those harnesses for wayward toddlers, except that evidently one of Canon’s craftier ladies had lengthened the straps to fit the police officer’s torso. She’d been led back to the parlor on the thing, fists clenched to keep from cold-cocking that smug teenage cunt. In the end, the Serenex decided it for her. She was a submissive little bitch, and her master wanted to decorate her as such. 
After a hard slap on the ass from Abbie that promised more humiliation to follow if she dragged her feet, she’d told the artist to get on with it. When the fellow balked, she’d had to convince him. When her sudden shift from sulking to pleading put him off, she’d had to beg. Beg even through the awkwardness of it, choking down her embarrassment at what precisely she was begging for.
By the time he’d relented, she was halfway to losing control so badly that she shifted to begging Candace to rip her clothes off and fuck her then and there. Abbie too, if she wanted. She was a submissive little bitch, and the girl was nothing if not domineering. Yeah, yeah, it was weird and creepy and a violation of them both. Hot as hell, though; Isa had always liked big tits on a woman. Vanity, probably. She hadn’t insisted that Candace get hers done yet, but the topic had come up as early as their fourth date, and Isa wasn’t ready to drop it. As for Abbie, her sister might be out of the picture, but that had only induced her to step up and assert herself as master’s new enforcer. If there was one sure way to light a fire in Isa’s pussy these days, it was master, and enforcement.
“No, ma’am,” Isa mumbled. 
“Good. Now wipe the sulk off your face. You’re pretty, for an older gal. You really oughta smile more.”
Isa hastily plastered an idiot grin on her face. She looked more deranged than happy, but it nixed a fresh excuse for Abbie to publicly humiliate her. Discounting the permanent ink job aspect, almost nothing pissed her off more than outings like these. The way Canon – through his ever-expanding harem – treated her, a grown woman with a degree in criminal justice and a position of respect and authority in law enforcement. A woman who had until very recently commanded respect. Canon, though? He treated her like a naughty child. Like a petulant brat. Like a simpleton. Thanks to that Serenex garbage of his, she endured it. 
In fact, she did her best to make sure she took all the blame for even her most depraved behaviors. She had to protect his secret. Nobody could be allowed to wonder if he was the reason why Isa now mowed their lawn in a string bikini; why she ditched a bra and wore her hair up in pigtails whenever she visited the station; or why she nixed her gym membership so she could work out at the GHS gym with the students and faculty, always in tight or skimpy shorts and a sports bra with ample cleavage oozing out. They had to believe she was nothing more than a garden variety slutbag who simply hadn’t given them their turn yet. Nothing could point back to master.
Worse was the fact the man knew perfectly well how goddamn horny it all made her. Every annoying, degrading, whorish depravity was a fresh thrill for her. She’d just spent her Saturday afternoon allowing the man to, in effect, brand her as his property. In fact, she’d begged to be allowed to be branded for him. Once it healed up well enough, surely she’d be parading it around wherever and whenever she could. It would be often indeed if he went through with those school reform measures he and Candace had been discussing – which Isa had roundly condemned, as any decent person would – except Candace, who didn’t have a choice but to help him plan, which was infuriating, which was so fucking hot. Soon the whole school would see it on her.
S L B
The acronym might not make sense to most people who saw it emblazoned on her stomach. They would speculate, though, and she’d wager most students would get at least one or two letters right even with a joke guess. In fact, the taunts would likely be more accurate than good faith efforts to decipher the barbour codex. Stupid Little Bitch? She knew plenty of kids who’d go right to that guess. Taylor Stern, for instance. And that tyrannical cunt would be one third right. 
God, how it made her want to sit on Candace’s face for a day. 
And master knew it.
That was bad, knowing she’d soon become a popular topic of giggly teenage speculation. It wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst was that that evil, rotten, controlling, slaving asshole Canon was doing it all, on some level, as a kindness. He knew full well how much, deep down, she fucking loved it. Isa couldn’t even get turned on any more unless she was pissed off about something, or better yet dying of shame. 
He’d invited (“invited”) her over last weekend to wash his car. In a bikini. A skimpy one. And her best heels, which she’d ruined in the process. Meanwhile he and Candace sat inside, enjoying the show, much as every leering perv in his neighborhood did. (It had been a gorgeous day. Lots of people had been out.) When she finished, his shitbox of a car gleamed. She’d gone right inside and dropped to all fours, where she begged him to fuck her while she ate out Candace. That was one of his favorite arrangements. Being penetrated by a man still creeped her out, but it was the deepest violation of her will he could muster. Nothing came close to making her come as hard. Sometimes she hoped she’d never get used to it so it would always make her cunt pop so fucking hard.
That ink seared into her belly was a favor from her master. She would be getting off to it for the rest of her life. Or until the Serenex wore off. Though Shantel had assured her that the imprinting pattern ought to be indelible. Until she started to have dementia, she’d be covering for Canon’s secrets. Then she’d forget what they were.
“Well? You coming, or are you just saying you’re coming? ‘Cause it’s a fine-ass summer day out there, and I mean to avail myself to my people. They need theyselves some Abbie.” The girl jerked on the lead again, causing Isa to stumble a few steps forward. Once she was moving, being towed through the mall like a dimwitted child, it was easier to keep moving, to wade through the stares and whispers, than to stop. 
“I can’t believe this,” she grumbled, rubbing the aching spot again. “This is a new low, even for him.”
“If you’re going to keep sulking back there, Barbiekins, I’ll give you something to sulk about.” 
Isa cocked a fist behind the girl’s back, but quickly dropped it. If she was caught in an act of defiance, the girl really might spank her in the parking lot. Or maybe even right here in the mall. 
Still, she was master’s little demon, not master. “You know I don’t actually have to do a single thing you say, you little felon in training.”
Isa was wincing before the words were even out. That was not the tactic to take with Abbie Stern. “This bullshit again? Do you not remember what happened last time you threw yourself a one-dyke pride parade?”
“Right, because you would never do anything intimate with another woman,” muttered Candace peevishly. She’d been the one to break the girl in, while that pig Canon sat on what had once been Isa’s favorite chair, right up until Taylor Stern stained it with all of his cum leaking out of her pussy from when he fucked her while they watched the show. Since then, she’d fucked her own sister more times than Isa could count. 
“That’s different. Where Canon’s concerned? I’m tits and ass. A sex object.” A passing gentleman choked on a sip of his slurpee. “Objects don’t bitch about what drawer you put ‘em in, do they? As for you–”
Isa held up her hands. “I remember, OK? Sorry. Forget that I–”
“Hey. HEY. Let me finish. I fucking hate it when people talk over me. You get me?”
Isa trembled. Or quivered. There wasn’t really a difference any more. “Yes.”
“You know that’s not what I want to hear, Barbie…”
Isa’s smile made her look more and more like a lunatic by the moment. Eyes of fire, teeth of ice. “I get you, ma’am.”
“Atta girl. Now, as I was saying, last time you started dragging those size twenty super-boots of yours on doing something I told you to–”
“She wears a size ten, Abbie.” Candace gave her a reproving look. She always acted like Canon and his girls ought to be more civil about their enslavement, even if the lack of civility was the part they each liked best. The woman was a paradox.
“Size seventy-thousand gargundo clod-hoppers,” Abbie continued with a harrumph, “I had to call Taylor. Do you remember what Boss Bitch said when I told her how you were misbehaving? Why don’t you tell me what she said, because I know your fat ass remembers.”
Candace didn’t bother sticking up for her this time; all of them knew that of the women present, Isa was by far the most fit, and Abbie the least. The girl liked her curves, she insisted, never mind that Isa’s tits were very nearly her equals in size, and far perkier.
“Taylor said to do whatever you tell me to do as long as it doesn’t contravene any of my other orders.” She expanded in a less defeated, more passive aggressive tone. “And then, if my fat ass memory serves, she instructed me to tell her what all you had me do afterwards. Seems like there are some trust issues there. I wonder why that is.”
Taylor was a sensitive subject in all kinds of ways. After the falling out between her and Canon around graduation – not that the lazy bitch had achieved that feat herself – she’d not been seen by any of the harem since. Except for Abbie, who’d kept quiet on the girl’s activities. To quell Isa’s paranoia, master insisted he was keeping an eye on her, considering the volume of Serenex she had at one time possessed. Isa was no help to him on that score. Taylor was the one whose Serenex-enforced identity crisis had inspired today’s tattoo. It left no room for her to interfere in the girl’s business.
“Excuse me, young ladies.” The three of them turned as one to find a pasty, pudgy mall cop approaching them in a go-cart. He put it in park nearby, then strode over.
“Something wrong, sir?” Candace asked innocently. The dickhead probably thought the three of them were friends. Candace had a good five or six years on Abbie, and Isa more than that, but this fellow had to be closing in on twice Isa’s years. It wasn’t a distinction he’d find meaningful. Candace had trouble convincing people she was a teacher as it was.
“You can’t have your little friend wearing… that.” He pointed to the harness.
Before Isa could defend herself (was there a defense for this?) Abbie was already up in the man’s face. “I’m sorry, my ‘little friend?’ This is my Aunt Barbie.”
He put his hands on his hips, though clearly didn’t like the proximity to her. “Well, still.”
“Still what? Not that it’s any of your business, but Aunt Barbie is hella retarded. If we don’t keep her leashed up she could wander into one of the fountains, or chase a strand of her own drool and fall over the ledge to her death. Isn’t that right, Aunt Barbie?”
Isa redoubled the dopey grin she’d been wearing and waved at the man spastically. Her tits bobbled around like crazy. The man noticed. What a fucking pig.
“Oh. I didn’t…” He pried his eyes off her boobs at last.
“Yeah. You didn’t. We don’t let her out too often. These little trips out in the real world like a normal girl mean the world to her. Right?”
Isa nodded so hard it almost kinked her neck. Back down went the man’s eyes.
“I… see. Well, all right then. I didn’t mean anything by it. You all have a nice day. And be nice to your aunt, young lady. She seems sweet. Aren’t you, sweetie?”
“I’m a sweetie,” Isa repeated, mouth still beaming, eyes still scowling. She must look insane. Aptly.
Abbie watched him go. So did Isa, though not because she was worried he’d do something to her. She was a real cop, after all. He had about as much authority as that mulletted horse-face leering at her from behind the counter at the Cinnabon.
Suddenly her tether was being jerked on again. “What the fuck, Abbie!” she snapped.
Abbie grinned. It was the provocation she’d been seeking before they were interrupted. A moment of self-respect was all it took. “All right, fine, I’m calling Tay. See what she has to say about this. She was in a bad fucking mood this morning, too,” Abbie muttered at full volume.
“Wait wait wait!” With a strength of will that surprised even her, Isa forced her crazy woman smile to spread to her eyes. Abbie always enjoyed seeing contrition in action. The punk had an oppositional defiant streak so wide it amazed both women that even Serenex had been able to suppress it, albeit only in the cases of Canon and Taylor.
“I’m sorry, Abbie. I promise, I’ll behave from now on. All right? No more attitude, I swear. No need to stress out Taylor, right? We’re having such a fun girls’ day out, the three of us. Aren’t we, baby?”
“We sure are, mama.”
“Which reminds me, did you get a haircut? It looks like it has more volume than usual. I was saying to Ms. Salata that I really liked your new look earlier, at the tattoo parlor. Wasn’t I?” Sometimes when talking to the kids, she slipped and called her lover by her professional name like they did when they were at school. Once upon a time in a world that made far more sense, it had been a fun opportunity for roleplay. Back before their sex life had been completely subsumed by GHS staff and students.
Candace nodded far too seriously. “She sure was. And I agree, totally.”
“Oh quit buttering my muffin already. But good, glad to see you getting with the program, recognizing whose tushy get besmooched. Now do you think you can keep up with me without your harness, Barbie?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She almost saluted by reflex, some buried instinct to respond to perceived authority. She would salute, if that was what it took to get this humiliating, unbelievably sexy harness off of her. 
Abbie gestured for Candace to help her unbuckle it. “All right then. Come on. We got one more stop to go before you’re all set up for his big day, and I don’t want to have to make a second trip all the way out here because you two are worried kids from school will see you being trampy back home. Les’goes, lesbos.”
Abbie’s pace was brisk. She was, as always, eager when it came to opportunities to enact Mr. Canon’s fantasies. Isa allowed her enough of a lead that she felt safe murmuring to her girlfriend, “I can’t believe I got myself a tattoo for someone else’s birthday. A man’s birthday.”
“Welcome to the club, mama. Don’t get all huffy about it. I think it’s actually kinda cute, myself. Besides, he and I were talking when I was helping him plan this out–”
“And I can’t believe my girlfriend had a hand in planning it!”
“–and I think it’s gonna grow on you if you give it a chance. He even, um, had an idea for a cover story for it.”
“Cover story? For why I have ‘Submissive Little Bitch’ tattooed on my stomach? This is gonna have to be a hell of a tale.”
Candace gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “The SLB is all anyone will see. The rest of the letters are super tiny and all safely beneath your swimsuit parts.”
Parts which stung like someone had stuffed a shovel load of fire ants down her panties at present. Her stomach hurt, but her mons pubis fucking burned, even though the letters there were a tiny fraction of the size of the acronym on her belly. “All right, let’s hear this story then. Convince me.”
“You told me you could keep up!” Abbie snapped from where she’d been forced to wait for them a short ways ahead. “I hate being lied to. I fucking hate it, Barbie. Get it on, and from now in, it stays on. Keep wasting my time, and I’ll get him to weld the damn thing on.”
“Abbie, please…” Isa whimpered. On again, off again, at the whim of a teenage bully. 
Candace shook her head. Not the time to seek mercy. Bite the bullet and get it over with. The teacher helped her girlfriend, the police officer, get her arms through the holes of the ninja turtle toddler harness. When Isa collapsed forward into her arms, she helped her stay on her feet. “God, you’re such a pathetic little slut,” she whispered, but it was pure affection. 
Later on, she’d tell master all about it, hopefully while he gave his lesbian personal security chief the rough, merciless fuck she so desperately needed. She’d tell him what an asshole he was to demand that tattoo, to send his meanest goon to chaperone her, to conspire with Isa’s own girlfriend to find the thing that would make her rage, and her cunt, burn hardest, longest, and hottest. Master would probably want to come on it, healing process be damned. If he didn’t suggest it, she imagined herself, bucking her hips plaintively against his cock, inviting him to.
Then Abbie was tugging on her lead again to go fetch the final piece of her slutty ensemble for master’s big party. With her head lowered, Officer Isa Barbour followed on to the scene of her next degradation, lest she be dragged. She wasn’t sure she could handle that.