The Gifts of the Masters Read online

  Jonah had finished his whiskey. It felt as though hours had passed during which he had learned too much.

  Another suited man, older, perhaps in his sixties, approached Jonah and Anya, holding Jonah’s coat and an envelope with Jonah’s name on it. He passed them to Jonah.

  “For you, sir, from the Masters. Slave Anya is to show you out now. A taxi is waiting to take you home, it is paid for by us. Have a good night.” He bowed before he turned to leave.

  Anya led Jonah to the door, her gait the smoothest, most graceful walk he had ever seen on a woman, the gossamer fabric flowing behind her. There was something surreal about her movements, and the diaphanous fabric shimmered as she walked. At the door she bowed to him, and with a darkly sensual glance said, “I sincerely hope that I see you again, Jonah MacPherson, there is so much we can give you, so much I could give you...” With a last glance of those green eyes she shut the door and he was left on the sidewalk in the cold.

  His taxi honked, and Jonah slid into the cold leather seat. As it pulled away, he exhaled hard and rubbed his temples, staring at the envelope in his lap in shock. He had never told Anya his surname was MacPherson…

  ***

  At home, Jonah paced his living room. He held the envelope in his hands, still too nervous to open it. He wished he knew how they had come by his surname, and so quickly. He put the card down on his couch, upright against a pillow, and walked over to his built in bar to pour a scotch, watching the smooth, twelve-year-old Glenfiddich flow into the crystal glass.

  He sat down next to the foreboding envelope, and with a deep breath, slipped his finger under the elaborate wax seal, which was, of course, deep purple and embedded with the symbol of a chalice. When he unfolded the card inside, he had to blink a few times.

  Dear Mr. MacPherson,

  We apologise for all the mystery, but it is better this way, should your final answer be no. My name is of no importance as yet, but how we know yours is troubling to you I am sure.

  If this, as well as what you got a glimpse of tonight, intrigues you, meet me at the Manhattan on Tuesday for lunch, 14:00, be prompt.

  I will know you by sight.

  It was unsigned, and he dropped it on his coffee table as though it were a snake. Jonah was suddenly overcome with exhaustion; it was half past three on a Saturday morning and he desperately needed to get some rest. With his head still spinning and his mind full of disturbing images, he fell into a restless sleep.

  When he woke the next morning, he turned off his cellular. He didn’t feel like speaking to anybody and had some research to do. While he stood in front of his coffee machine watching the rich, dark liquid drip into the glass jug, his nose filled with the scent of the Italian grind, he replayed the image of Laila tied to the cross, being whipped by the tall, cloaked figure. He was so distracted by his musing over whether the man could have been Blaine that he overfilled his mug when he poured in the milk. Strong dark coffee went flowing over the counter.

  “Fuck!” Jonah cursed, grabbing a dish towel and wiping up the spill.

  He took the coffee to his study and sat down behind his computer, swiping his fingers over the mousepad to activate the screen. When it came to life, he clicked on Internet Explorer. He thought for a few seconds, and then researched the word ‘dominance’. The sites and images that popped up were arousing beyond belief. He read through what he found under searches for ‘slave’, ‘BDSM’ and ‘submissive’. Jonah sat back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair. He had a hard-on so intense he could not think; he rubbed gingerly over the granite of his cock in his jeans. At least the research had helped him come to one decision: he certainly did not see himself as submissive, no way, no how.

  Jonah didn’t even realize how much of the day had passed while he sat mesmerized behind his computer. His eyes burned when he finally looked away and stared out through the window, at the setting sun. His stomach growled and he realized he hadn’t eaten.

  ***

  The apartment Jonah lived in was his own personal haven. From the outside, it was cold, steel and glass. Inside, though, he had made it comfortable. The floors throughout were a laminate wood, and a warm red rug marked his lounge. His couch was of a soft cream fabric, and the scatter cushions were in bold reds and browns. When he poured a glass of wine and strolled down the passage to his bedroom he stared at the large bed, and the first thought he had was of Olivia, lying curled in it with her glasses perched on her nose, a book in her hands.

  If he had to think about it, this apartment perhaps held too many memories of her. They had met at Kevin’s wedding, fallen into bed after the reception, and never surfaced from a convenient situation. He’d asked her to move in, they’d lived together for two years, and then things had gone wrong when she realised she wasn’t going to be Mrs. MacPherson. He had started feeling trapped, as though he should propose, but couldn’t. How do you commit to someone for an eternity when you can’t picture your future, and having children, with them?

  He never felt the electrifying chemistry with her, that he’d experienced the first time he had touched Anya. Perhaps he’d secretly known he needed more. More than sweet smiles and Sunday breakfasts in bed, more than the mundane existence they had lived in, unplanned.

  When Olivia had moved out, realising things were not going her way, it had left Jonah a bit broken for having hurt her, yet also quite relieved. It made him rethink his life thoroughly, but never would he have had the thoughts he was now having. BDSM? A club he didn’t know the name of, in a derelict old building? A slave girl called Anya, with the most captivating green eyes…

  Jonah had no idea what lay ahead for him, and he was excited. It was a feeling he had not experienced in years. His heart beat a little faster and he felt more alive. While he stood there surveying his bedroom, and had flashbacks to all the times he had spent there with Olivia, the comfortable love and the fights about the future, and in the end the indifference that had killed their bond, he thought of selling the place.

  No decision made in haste is ever a good one, he said to himself as he walked out, brushing aside the thought.

  ***

  Jonah’s career was demanding, and in his office environment he was a consummate professional. The accounting firm he worked for catered to large, corporate clients, and had a small auditing department. They audited businesses to assess their compliance to the IRS tax laws, to make sure they paid their dues.

  His parents had nurtured his intellect and pushed him to work hard and achieve a degree, and because he had a very mathematical brain, Jonah had flourished in accounting, managing to gain a position as an auditor, which was considered fairly elite. He worked from eight to five every day, and was still looking for something to do over the weekends that would remind him what it felt like to live again. Currently, he was an automaton, a robot. He woke up, had his coffee, worked, went to gym, worked, had a cappuccino, and went home. On a Friday he sometimes met Kevin for drinks, and the rest of his weekend was filled with trivial activity, family visits and being alone.

  He had lost Olivia and had not dated since. Now, all he could think about was Anya. Anya and that diaphanous garment she wore last night. He thought of her collarbones, her beautiful and flawless skin. Jonah pictured her breasts, small and perky, the nipples rose-coloured. He had seen everything in the dim light. There had been not a hair on her sex, and from his guess, neither had there been any on the rest of her body. Her legs were long and slender, and she had the look of a woman who went to gym and took care of herself.

  The rest of the weekend passed without event, and on Monday he performed his standard routine of preparing for work, dressing, having coffee and toast, and skipping down the stairs to reach the lobby. The only problem was that he was more conscious of his mental boredom, his lack of joy in life, and his yearning for more, for love. He walked the block to catch a tram and jumped on the correct one, all the while cursing Anya for awakening this awareness in him.

  Monday soon
passed, and so did Tuesday morning. When Jonah stepped through the door of the Manhattan Hotel’s restaurant on Tuesday afternoon, his heart thundered in his throat and a cold sweat broke out across his forehead. A small part of him prayed it would be Anya there, but he knew better, and took a seat at the bar to order a gin and tonic.

  He had taken the afternoon off to go home and post his apartment for sale, and the agent was coming over at five. The hasty late-night idea had turned into a carefully thought out decision. It was time to move on from Olivia, and everything that constantly reminded him of her.

  When a man in his sixties sat down at the bar on the stool next to Jonah, he looked up briefly and smiled, then looked back down and disappeared into his own thoughts.

  The man spoke, in a very cultured British accent. “I’m so glad you decided to come, Jonah. Good afternoon.”

  Chapter 2

  Jonah turned slowly toward him. “Hi.” He was at a loss as to how to respond. “I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to say, so pardon me if I let you do most of the talking.” He felt as though he had lost all self-assurance in the presence of this man, who exuded calm the way normal humans excreted sweat.

  With a chuckle, the other man beckoned over a bartender. “My name is Bartholomew Black,” he said to Jonah, and then ordered a glass of red wine. “Shall we sit at a table? It might provide more privacy for discussing delicate topics.” He glanced at the patrons close-by.

  They moved to a booth, where Jonah sank down into the red velvet padded bench, quietly wondering to himself, once again, what the hell he was doing.

  With little lines of concentration between his eyes, Bartholomew answered Jonah’s unspoken question. “I’ll tell you what you are doing, Mr. MacPherson. You are bored with your life. Why, just this past weekend you were reminiscing about a past relationship, now you are on the verge of selling your apartment. You are lonely, and you cannot stop, for even one moment, thinking of Anya. What you saw and where she took you occupies your every waking thought. And now that I have brought her up, and what you saw, you are aroused…”

  “Stop!” Jonah exclaimed. “How do you… what… you… can you…” He stammered and fell over the words he could not articulate. He stared open-mouthed at the strange man who sat opposite him, and took a good look at Bartholomew. His eyes. That’s what gave away that he was different. Jonah shook his head. Surely this was not possible. He blinked and then looked again. Normal. “But I thought I saw…”

  “Sometimes we should believe what we initially see and follow our gut, Mr. MacPherson. But we repress our animal instincts. The world has killed our ability to listen to gut feelings, and even, in some cases, make use of amazing psychic and physical abilities which we are naturally endowed with. Now, I believe what Anya told me, because I can see in you what she does, and I want to offer you the opportunity to become one of us. I am not going to let you speak, not yet, because there is something you must understand before you agree.”

  Bartholomew straightened in his seat. “You need to know that our world is not without risk to your work life. For example, if somebody found out, people don’t yet accept us and our ways. But it’s also not without reward.” He smiled at Jonah. “No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to tell anyone what you learn of us, after you join and up to that point. You will not speak of it, write of it… no communication will work. The knowledge lies in your head only. We have certain... persuasive measures. This is to protect our world as well as keep it a secret. Jonah, Anya chose you for a reason. You will perhaps find out that reason later, but only when the time is right.”

  With a heavy sigh, Bartholomew stood and pressed a card into Jonah’s hand, holding tightly onto his fist. “When you make your decision, phone this number and simply speak the word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without a name or any form of address.”

  Jonah left the Manhattan at four o’clock, confused and ill at ease. When he finished with the agent at home, he could finally sit down and let his thoughts take over. Bartholomew had, at first, calmed him. By the time he had stood to leave, Jonah held him in awe.

  The man had read his mind.

  ***

  Anya slipped quietly back into the chamber where she slept after Jonah had left. It was getting late and she was tired, mentally exhausted. As she turned to lean against the door she had just shut, Alexander’s voice startled her from the dark.

  “What do you make of him pet?”

  She turned to where he leaned casually against the frame of the large four-poster bed, shirtless and dangerous, his strong arms crossed over his muscular chest and washboard stomach. With the respect she had always held for him, and the love she always would, Anya moved slowly toward him and dropped into a kneeling pose at his bare feet.

  “I think he is a lost man, Master. There is someone who has hurt him in his past that he needs to get over. He is missing something from his life, he reminds me of myself when I met you... As far as abilities go, there is something in his touch, in his hands.”

  When she finished her report, she bent forward and laid her face sideways at his feet.

  Alexander sank to his haunches, squatting over her, and stroked her face, hair and back. “You did very well. Now come with me, let’s bathe you, you smell of the club. I want you smelling only like yourself.”

  He lifted her to her feet and removed the ornamental wrist cuffs and collar, dropping the diaphanous fabric shift carelessly to the floor. A hot bath stood prepared, and he lifted her into the steamy water, proceeding to wash her hair and her whole body. Anya relaxed into his touch, she valued these special times, and loved it when he bathed her.

  When she stood, dry, beside the bed, she watched him pick up the heavy leather collar of ownership and approach her. He buckled the soft and well-worn collar around her neck, kissed her forehead, and lifted the blankets to let her crawl into the massive bed, under soft sheets. He stripped naked and joined her, pulling her into the cradle of his arms tightly.

  Just before they fell asleep he whispered, “Tonight you are tired, little one, and it is late, I can see it. But tomorrow you are mine, my plaything.”

  ***

  Anya knew she was spiralling steadily down, heading for a dark pit, when Alexander found her one night. Her friends had left, and she was sitting on the curb, barely in a fit state to know her own name, her knees together and her fingers tracing the ladders in her stocking as she stared at a cockroach running past her stiletto. A hand came to rest on her shoulder, and it was then that she noticed the thumping music had all but stopped.

  “Hey, are you okay?” a deep voice asked from behind her.

  Damn, some hot one, this is.

  She heard footsteps, and then he knelt down in front of her as she swayed, her head spinning.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” she mumbled, closing her eyes. She turned away from him, nervous of throwing up on Mr. Hottie-Mc-Hotness.

  He was a persistent one. “What did you take?” His voice faded into background static, and the world went grey around the edges.

  “Lots.” Her lips were numb. Anya felt the steel bands of his arms as he caught her, and then she felt nothing.

  ***

  “Something for the pain,” Eloise had screamed in her ear earlier, as they gyrated together on the floor. She’d pressed two bottles into Anya’s hand and smiled, watching Anya empty pills into her palm.

  “Hey, go easy!” Eloise had cautioned, but Anya had swatted her away, downing the pills with her vodka and cranberry. If it made the heartache go away, good. If it made her consciousness of the heartache and memory of what had happened go away, even better. Vicodin and Xanax. She’d read the bottle briefly when she went to the toilets later, as she stood staring at her gaunt reflection in the badly lit mirror. She was familiar with them both. Her own prescriptions had long run out, and the fucking psychiatrist refused to give her more.

  They’d danced and drank, and she’d waved the others off, refusing to leave with them, s
waying and moving with the music, finding a random guy at every turn to cling to for a while. She was a pretty girl and it was easy. They eventually left, because she wouldn’t blow them or fuck them; just dance, no sex, no groping, no making out. That’s how she ended up on the curb of the club alone, and high off her head, at four in the morning.

  That’s also how Alexander ended up finding her on his way home from a rare night out with buddies he didn’t see often. He hated clubbing. He disliked the noise, the drugs that were so prevalent, not to mention the underage drinking. It was repulsive.

  ***

  When Anya regained consciousness she was in a soft, comfortable bed. The bedroom was dimly lit, and when she opened her eyes and rubbed the sleep from them, she saw the walls were a soft grey. The bed, over-sized enough to make her feel like a midget, was plush, covered with different textures of white linen, and when she folded back the covers in a blind panic, she wore a black T-shirt and men’s boxer briefs. Who in the hell’s name had stripped her?

  She didn’t feel hung over at all, but had no recollection of anything after getting dressed to go out with her friends. This was not Eloise’s place, and not Drew’s. Panic set in when it hit home that she had no idea where she was. On the table beside the bed lay her purse, and when she rifled through it, it held a lot of cash, two almost-empty pill bottles, and her mobile, with a dead battery. All her stuff, nothing stolen.