“Slowly,” Gio said loudly. “And move your hips from side to side as you do it. I want to watch your tight little ass as we go up.”
Carla obeyed him, sashaying her hips back and forth with each step like the swinging pendulum of a clock. It wasn't the first time she'd been able to feel his eyes on her ass, but now his gaze was so intense that it almost seemed to burn into her.
She reached the second floor and stopped at the landing. As she did, she tried to sneak a look around her, to see if she could see into any rooms or observe any details that might give her an advantage over Gio. But all the doors were closed, except for one with another set of stairs beyond it.
Carla felt Gio's hand smack against the other side of her bottom this time, and she gasped again. Thin red lines of pain branched across her buttocks like creeping ivy.
“I didn't say you could stop,” Gio snarled. “Up those steps. Now.”
And if I had just gone for that second set of steps, he'd punish me for doing it before he told me to, Carla thought to herself grimly. He's going to find reasons to hurt me no matter what I do or how much I try to follow his rules.
She shuddered, again contemplating the possibility that she might die in this place.
“Yes, Master,” Carla said, walking up the second set of stairs.
When she got to the top and stole a glance around, she saw that she was in a dimly-lit attic. Many pieces of mysterious-looking furniture stood around her, and there were wall-mounted racks and standing glass cases filled with sex toys. She recognized a few of the implements from her research online earlier, but others were unfamiliar, and she could only imagine their sinister purposes.
What scared her the most, though, was the thick gray corrugated padding on the walls. It looked like a series of egg boxes, and with a sinking feeling, she realized the room was soundproofed.
She heard Gio approaching the top of the steps behind her and she stepped forward so he'd be able to enter the room.
“You can scream as loud as you want in here,” Gio sneered, as though he'd noticed her looking at the walls. “No one's going to hear you.”
As she listened to Gio's voice, Carla realized that ever since she'd arrived at his house, he'd been speaking in a tone that was quite different from his usual one. In the normal context of their relationship—a young mobster and his lawyer—he tended to affect a more traditional Italian-American patter like tough guys in gangster movies, littered with “gonnas,” “ain'ts,” and double-negatives. But now that he was in his own private space, his speech patterns were more clipped and precise. She wondered if this was subconscious on his part, or if he knew that he had to show different personas based on who he was around and what was expected of him.
She thought about how many versions of himself Gio felt he had to show the world, and whether any of them even came close to resembling his true self, or if he even knew what that was. If she hadn't been so immediately fearful for her own life, Carla thought she might have pitied him again in this moment.
“There are rules that have to be followed in this room,” Gio said. “First, no woman is allowed to be clothed in here, so strip down. Take everything off.”
Carla unbuttoned her jacket and took it off. As she did, she was careful to keep her movements slow and deliberate, knowing that Gio wanted to savor the show. She dropped the jacket and undid the buttons on her white silk blouse, letting it slide down her arms and onto the floor behind her. She reached behind her back, unclasped her white bra, and likewise let it slip down her arms and onto the floor in front of her feet.
She felt the embarrassment of sudden exposure breeze over her like a chill, and even though the room was warm, her nipples hardened until they hurt.
Carla stepped out of her high heels, then undid her pants. She hooked her thumbs into the sides and slid them all the way down her legs, along with her white cotton panties. Now she stood before him fully nude, her eyes on the floorboards as she listened to his slow and steady breathing behind her.
She heard Gio step forward, taking something from a peg on the wall just out of her peripheral line of vision. His hands lifted over her head and lowered something long and thin in front of her face, and for a terrible moment, she was sure he was going to strangle her to death right then.
But his hands held a black leather collar decorated with small metal studs. He put it around her neck, fastening it at the back and clipping a chain leash to it. It was snug, but Carla was still able to breathe normally.
For now.
“The second rule is that no women are allowed in here without a collar and leash.” When he spoke again, Carla could hear the smug gangster tone creeping back into his voice. “Otherwise, the dogcatcher might come by an' haul you off to the pound, heh.