Ashleigh and the Governess Ch. 8

"Why did you make Ashleigh do so many things with shoes?"
	Chelsea and Aleksandra were sitting down for coffee together discussing their work when Chelsea asked her this question.
	"It just seemed appropriate," Aleksandra replied,
	"I have something of a shoe fetish myself – I own more than a hundred pairs. Most of them very expensive. I enjoy the fact that it is someone's job to clean them, and care for them them, and catalogue them... Actually, one time I tried to assign cleaning my shoes to him as a chore back when Graham was alive, and he hated the idea. That was when I knew I had to make him do it."
	Chelsea laughed.
	"And your ultimate goal is to turn him into some kind of lady's maid?"
	"That is part of it," Aleksandra said,
	"But it goes a little deeper. We want Ashleigh to change the way he looks at the world in such a way that he can never imagine himself as anything other than a maid or housekeeper. And even though we abuse him, and overwork him, and take all of his money, he will continue working for us and accept our control over him."
	"That's so interesting!" Chelsea said, "I have to admit, he is the best trained domestic servant I've ever seen."
	Aleksandra smiled at the compliment.
	This was a working meeting so they both wore tailored pantsuits and designer stilettos, taking their coffee above the rose garden at the country club. The organic garden required painstaking labor to maintain, and that was part of the reason she liked sitting here. In this spot, she could look down on the country club's gardeners: brown-skinned girls in burlap A-line dresses who walked between the flowers all day misting their roots and leaves with water bottles they carried for the task. And although the balcony where she and Chelsea sat had a lot of shade and umbrellas, the girls down in the garden were exposed to the full sun all day because that was what was best for the roses. They were discouraged from wearing hats, since that might obstruct the view of the guests above, and the gardener's work was 'overseen' by a college-aged white girl who was the daughter of someone important and got paid a lot better. She didn't like it when they spoke Spanish on the job; she forbid talking among them as much as she could, actually.
	"I was very impressed by your nonprofit," Aleksandra told Chelsea, "It seems like the kind of thing I would enjoy, if I weren't so busy with Ashleigh. In fact, I still like to browse people's profiles now and read their stories even though I'm not looking for help – your design is very engaging."
	"Thank you so much! We feel that people really connect with a story, so I'm happy to hear that you could learn and appreciate all those stories from those unfortunate women... I wish I could place all of them in homes."
	Aleksandra delighted in hearing this. They really were kindred spirits! Chelsea didn't want the workers to have homes of their own. She wanted to place them into indentured servitude within a property owner's home, trapped, with no real path forward except for the pittance they would send to their families. And that money could be used against the worker too – the employer could withhold, reduce, or delay it especially if they knew the family needed it.
	And these 'profiles' that Aleksandra was praising, some of them were pretty bleak. Most of them were desperate, but her favorites were the women who were clearly raised middle- or upper class and were now reduced to begging to be a maidservant in Dubai or (hopefully) the US. Sad young women showing off their university degrees, dressing pretty for their photos, flashing their straight white teeth. They all supplicated themselves according to the instructions they got from Chelsea's nonprofit, describing themselves as 'well trained' or even 'highly obedient.'
	"I like the idea of that symbiote that Ashleigh is wearing," Chelsea said, "I think my company could implement that kind of technology. We don't deal much with men right now, but maybe we could change that if we had them wear devices like you've done with Ashleigh."
	Aleksandra couldn't get on board with the idea. Although she liked it very much, it was too risky. If the news leaked that a humanitarian NGO making men wear chastity devices, it was the sort of salacious thing that could go viral and bring a lot of unwanted attention their way.
	"We can talk with Yusra about it," the Ukrainian woman said, "But they are very expensive to manufacture. I doubt it would be worth it for a simple laborer."
	"I think some people would just like it as an aesthetic," Chelsea ventured, "Or they'd pay for it because they like that extra bit of security... I could definitely see some of my high net worth clients going for that sort of thing."
	Aleksandra couldn't say yes to this idea, no matter how much she liked it and she became embarrassed by that fact. This was yet another time she would have to defer to Yusra's judgment, and now Chelsea would see who was really in charge in the relationship.
	"We will ask, definitely!"
	A waiter brought them some peach sherbet. As they ate, Aleksandra felt a dull pain inside her left thigh, along the sciatic nerve. She would have liked to have Ashleigh there to work on her feet, which cured the pain, but he was back at home.
	"You are going to the tea house tomorrow?" Aleksandra asked.
	"Yes, definitely. I want to be SO much more involved in this!"
	They enjoyed their ice cream in comfortable silence, watching the girls work down in the rose garden. This meeting had helped Aleksandra take her mind off of certain things that were frustrating her. It also felt nice to be outside the house; to be out and doing things rather than just lounging around her mansion in a nightgown, finding ways to spoil herself. But she was going to do that presently, and she still looked forward to the fact that her step son would be waiting for her at the door to help with her shoes and wipe the dust from their soles before putting them away, as she liked.
	**
	Ash was having an annoying day at the tea house because of some obnoxious customers who really demanded white glove service, but his mood brightened when Chelsea walked in. She never made an appointment so he was happy when he looked up from wiping a table and saw it was her, sitting down in her favorite spot. She waved at him as she put her purse down and took a seat, but not before saying,
	"I'll start with the usual, please. I'm happy that you're working today!"
	'The usual' meant to bring her a pot of tea of his recommendation and a glass of room temperature water. Then he would stand by her table for a while, to talk and take her food order. Maybe he would do a tea ritual for her today, that was always nice. Although he was glad to see her, Ash was also disappointed on some level that he was wearing this cursed chastity device that would prevent even the possibility of sex.
	Ash poured the tea into a ceramic cup, and put a sugar cube in it.
	"Could we do a tea ritual today? Do you have time? I know I'm a walk-in, but my feet are killing me."
	Ash nodded his head.
	"Yes, we have time. Would you like a cupcake or a parfait or something like that, before I get started?"
	Adelaide swooped in on them – she had a habit of glad-handing each of her customers and sometimes surprising Ash by changing the plans. He didn't like that she was encroaching on his time with Chelsea, but he of course had to tolerate it.
	 "I'm so glad you came back!" Adelaide said,
	"So because you're a repeat customer, I wanted to offer you something. Ashleigh and I have been working on this new service to offer our clients here. It's like a massage, but using the slightest amount of pressure possible. Imagine, the touch of a feather or a soft-bristled brush. We spend an hour tickling your back, your legs, your feet. But it's not laugh-out-loud tickling, it's the kind that gives you little goosebumps. Like someone tracing a picture across your back with their fingertips. Am I describing that alright?"
	"That sounds amazing!" Chelsea said, "You can do that right here?"
	"Yes! Could I offer you a complimentary session? Ashleigh is really good at it!"
	Adelaide reached over and played with his hair affectionately, something she liked to do now that he had grown it out and wore it in tight curls. Ash was unsure of what to say here, so he just smiled and nodded. It was true: he had learned the cosquillearte treatment, which entailed using tickling instruments to do a massage. It turned out that there was a golden, tingly zone right beneath the threshold of being tickled, and it felt extremely good to have a prolonged session of being kept right in that zone. Ash had practiced it on Marisol extensively before being allowed to do it on Yusra, and then Elizabeth – everyone, really. In terms of labor, it was easier on his body than doing a more conventional deep-tissue or Swedish massage (which they had also trained him on extensively). But the feather massage was so erotic that he found it much more difficult to perform.
	"Sure. Let's do it!" Chelsea said, "And thank you for this offer. That's so sweet of you."
	"Ashleigh's the one doing all the work!" Adelaide said "You should thank her."
	"Ashleigh, where would I be in my life without you?" Chelsea asked him, "Oh and by the way, your makeup looks super cute today! I like what you did with the lip-liner. That must have taken forever!"
	Ash thanked her for the compliment. It DID take forever; Aleksandra sometimes insisted that he spend an hour putting on avant garde makeup that would be appropriate if he were doing fashion photography. Today it was a little more toned down: just a razor-thin line of silver that he traced around the perimeter of his lips, and pastel pink blush applied asymmetrically that made him look fresh-faced and years younger.
	"Are you ready to begin the massage now?" Ash asked her, both looking forward to and dreading the fact that he would get to intimately pamper her nude body.
	"I am!" she replied, and they went to the massage room together. She walked in to get situated, and Ash gave her the instructions:
	"Just take off as much of your clothes as you feel comfortable with, and I will be back in five minutes to start the massage."
	Between his doll-like hair and makeup, the soft intonations he used when speaking, and the submissive body language that Yusra had drilled him into taking all the time, Ash was painfully aware of how he came across. He knew he couldn't date or fall in love like this but he still fantasized about it and about Chelsea specifically. So when she gave him a coy grin as he shut the door, he spent the next five minutes obsessing over its meaning. It wasn't an idle 5 minutes: he had to clear her table (what a waste of tea!) and do other side work before re-entering the massage room to begin her service.
	"Are you ready?"
	"Yes."
	She was lying on the massage table, draped beneath a white sheet. As Ash went to collect the tools he would use to begin the massage, he saw that Chelsea had neatly folded her clothes and set them on the table. Her panties were sitting on top of the pile: royal blue La Perlas. He couldn't take his eyes off of them due to the fascination he was developing with women's undergarments. His cock hardened instantaneously at the sight of Chelsea's worn underwear, and he lamented how far he had fallen that he used to be the kind of guy who would bed the young professional, and now he was reduced to drooling over a pair of her panties. He couldn't deny the powerful conditioning he had undergone; he could barely resist it anymore.
	Besides Chelsea's clothes were feathers, and dusters, and scalp massagers laid out on a black satin mat. He started on her graceful back, gently tracing its length with two wide-bristled feather brushes. He did this rhythmically, back and forth in a circuitous motion for a while as an introduction to the experience.
	"That feels so good," Chelsea said, and Ash felt a rush of happiness that she was pleased with him.
	Even looking at her nude back was enough to trigger an arousal response within Ash, and his symbiote immediately took action to stop any erections. Yet again, he was put in a situation where he was bringing enormous pleasure to someone else, while being put through excruciating pain himself. Ash placed the feathers aside and drummed his fingertips along either side of her spine, moving up towards her narrow shoulders. He had to constantly be switching up his tactics because otherwise she could get desensitized to the tickling and the massage would be much less pleasant. After a while, he finished with her back and moved down towards her feet.
	"I wish we could spend more time together," Chelsea said at one point.
	"That would be nice, I'd like that too," Ash agreed.
	He was staring intently at the soles of her feet, cradling her toes with the palm of one hand while he traced a feather on the undersides of her toes, just above the ball of the foot. She let out a happy sigh while he did quick little criss-cross motions beneath each individual toe. Then he spread her toes for her, and dragged the feather between each of them, flicking it back and forth to make it a more dynamic sensation.
	"Are you allowed to have visitors at home?"
	"I'm not sure," Ash replied. Then, with total disappointment in himself he added: "You would need to check with my step mother or Yusra. They haven't allowed me to see any of my old friends, so far."
	"That's so mean!"
	Ash agreed but he couldn't say so. He was being recorded all the time because of the fact that his ankle and wrist monitors had powerful microphones built in. Even Chelsea's minor criticism could be enough for them to forbid him from seeing her again. He really didn't want that to happen, so her comments put him in the position of arguing to defend Aleksandra's actions.
	"She means well," Ash said, "And I can do really self-destructive things when I'm left unsupervised."
	"Do you think this house arrest thing is actually helpful to you? In the long run?" Chelsea asked.
	 Ash had been through a lot of unpleasant things over the past few months, but this particular moment stood out. It was just so frustrating! A girl he liked was trying to get to know him but all of her questions just made him react with lies – the narrative that Yusra forced him to provide for anyone who asked. He was covering up the painful reality of his domestic situation, to someone who appeared to be concerned about his wellbeing. It made him feel absolutely powerless: a traitor to himself, lower than low.
	"I think it's helping me see the world a new way," Ash answered, "And that if I had continued the way I was going, it would have been bad... I need to work."
	There was a pause as Ash moved away from the soles of Chelsea's feet, switching to long brushstrokes up on the backsides her ankles and calves, towards her thighs. He paused on the backsides of her knees, since most the ladies he had done this for enjoyed it when he paid attention to that particular spot. Once he stopped touching her feet, though, the symbiote detected it and started making his balls ache horrendously.
	"Well, you seem very mature about it," Chelsea said, "And if you hadn't been arrested, we probably would have never met!"
	"That's true," Ash replied.
	He had so many conflicting thoughts as he caressed her body. So many unmet needs, boiling over with no hope of fulfillment.
	"I think I have an idea that can help you."
	She said this to him as he was drumming his fingertips on the top and inside of her thigh as he moved his hands down, palms together like a big spider was padding down her leg.
	"How do you mean?"
	"Well, I think I could arrange for us to spend more time together. If you are working as a house cleaner, then you could possibly work for some of my clients. Or even for me! That way, at least you get away from your stepmother for a while."
	Ash didn't reply at once.
	"Obviously, I would rather you not have to work. But I saw this as the most reliable way to make it happen."
	"I think it would be nice to work for you," Ash said, "But again, I think you would need to contact my stepmother, to arrange it. I could put you in contact with her."
	"I figured as much. Yes, let's do that. I can be really persuasive! I definitely need this treatment at home."
	Ash found that comment to be a little back-handed. Why was Chelsea making it sound like she was just only helping him out of here so that he could work for her instead? Or was he just being overly sensitive?
	"Let's try it!" Ash said.
	It was a glimmer of hope that he would be working someone new, especially for Chelsea. Even if he was doing exactly the same work for her as he was doing for his stepmother (minus the tongue-polishing shoes thing, certainly) it would be so much better.
	"But we need to do it properly," Chelsea murmured a while later. She sounded like she was dozing off.
	"How do you mean?"
	"You'll have to do my house, exactly the same way as you do hers. Otherwise, she could accuse me of showing bias. Will that be alright?"
	"That's fine."
	Ash was disappointed but he still looked forward to any sort of reprieve from his home prison situation. 'And even if this job doesn't pan out, I'll get a break on the car ride over to her house, at least,' Ash thought to himself, with a wry smile.
	The warmth of her body, and the taut muscles in her legs aroused his desire; and the chastity device made his cock burn and sting to match his arousal. Imaginary flames licked his balls while he focused on the task at hand, wishing he could stuff a sock in his mouth to make the pain go away. Sometimes it felt like the symbiote was toying with him: finding a way to make the flames as hot they could possibly be, without causing him to cry out in pain. That had been another dimension of his training, increasing his pain tolerance. Or rather, since the device could bypass any sort of pain tolerance, they were training him to suffer pain silently, without interrupting the peace of his mistress' home.
	She drifted off to sleep and Ash continued the massage.
	So Chelsea was a good thing in his life but another thing brought him comfort too, and it was the fact that Aleksandra was struggling as well. He noticed the strain in her relationship with Yusra, although they hid it from him. But the mistreated boy had become so accustomed to reading the emotions of his abusers that he could pick up on the changes that were happening. Aleksandra had become significantly less social, for one thing. Ash knew her well enough to know that she probably didn't like being away from her friends that much. But on a deeper level, the Ukrainian woman was acting more and more like a neurotic housewife rather than the social butterfly that Ash had known her to be, before all of this. She had spent so long obsessing over her marble floors that it became a part of her identity – she was becoming way too fixated on certain things and she was visibly investing more and more of herself into this. And most of the disagreements she had with Yusra, ended with her backing down.
	If he had to guess, he would say that Yusra was influencing Aleksandra, too. The heavy-set governess enjoyed seeing his stepmother lay about the house, looking all done up, making a fuss about keeping a beautiful home for her (albeit with the use of Ash's labor). That had been part of her personality all along, but now she seemed to spend more time indulging herself by acting like a brat. It was cold comfort when compared to the enormity of his problems, but it at least showed him that Aleksandra might get screwed over too – and the thought of that happening definitely gave him something to look forward to.