The Mistresses Next Door - Episode 1. Emanuel J.

dark perfume. Her make-up was limited to a pale red lipstick and her jewellery consisted of a few gold bracelets and a gold earring that reminded him of a scaffold (he certainly wouldn't have told her that).

      Pleased, she smiled at him, “It's good to see you,” and immediately she had an instruction for him. “In future you will not wait to be let in. You will ring the bell and come right in. We'll leave the door open for you,” that was a nice sign of trust, he thought. But we made him a little suspicious. Did she involve Isabel?

      He followed her into the kitchen, where a whole mountain of dirty dishes was piled up on the sink, this time pots and pans as well. And it was all waiting for him. While he filled the sink, Franziska sat down at the table, apparently unwilling to help him with such menial work again. He started with the glasses, some of which were next to the sink.

      Behind him he heard the hissing of a bottle being opened a bottle hissing and mineral water gurgling into a glass. For a few moments, everything was silent, then Franziska’s voice sounded, “Did you shave?”

      “Yes.”

      She sighed, frustrated, “Could you perhaps be a little less monosyllabic and give me specifics? Or do you think I enjoy pulling every word out of you one by one? Let's try again. Did you shave?”

      For a moment he struggled to think of what to say, “Yes, I did. And everywhere, just like you said.”

      “And where is everywhere?”

      Well, everywhere, that would have been the short, but petulant answer. With difficulty, he summoned the words, “I shaved my legs, my chest, my armpits ... and my crotch.”

      “So you're as smooth as a doll now, then?” she seemed fixated on the word.

      “Yes, I am.”

      “Keep it that way. From now on you will shave regularly, at least once a week, without being instructed to. I don't always want to give you an order for every little thing, I expect you to think ahead. You got that?”

      “Yes.”

      “We’ll see about that.”

      What? He did not question her, since not even half the dishes fitted on the draining board, he first had to dry the glasses, coffee cups and plates with a fresh red chequered cloth, which he removed from the drawer Franziska showed him, before continuing to rinse the dishes.

      Outside in the hallway a door clattered and Isabel came in immediately. Today she wasn't looking for a book, but apparently just came to observe. Today she was no longer surprised, apparently in the meantime she had been initiated to the proceedings. She smiled encouragingly at him and turned to Franziska, “It really seems to be working. How convenient.”

      “Indeed, but it isn’t easy. There's still a lot to teach him.”

      “I have faith in you,” as swiftly as she had arrived, Isabel floated out again in her worn-out sandals.

      In silence, he continued to dry, inwardly delighted Franziska's statement that she still had a lot to teach him, because the images this remark triggered were immensely appealing.

      She stepped beside him and looked into the water, which had turned into a dark, foamless, greasy soup, in which he scrubbed the burned food from the bottom of the last pan with a scourer. Disgusted, she turned up her nose, “That's bad,” he scrubbed more cautiously so as not to splash her. Smiling, she put her head a little to one side, “It seems you haven't thought about how to address me?”

      “Oh. Yes... of course.”

      “Then why can't I hear it?”

      “Because... I wasn't sure if you wanted me to... I didn't know if you would like it...”

      “How am I to know whether I like it or not if I don't get to hear it?” her flat hand clapped his left cheek with a sound before he understood what was happening, and the next moment the back of her hand hit his right cheek. Slaps in the face! They drew a sob from his lips and made him helpless as a child, but they created no indignation in him, no horror either, only deep reverence. She smiled warmly at him. “Do you think I'll still get to hear it?”

      “Yes ... my mistress.”

      “There we go, that wasn’t so difficult. It's a nice form of address. I want to hear it from now on forever ... But not in connection with the inappropriate you. I want you to address me in the second person plural, as is appropriate for a mistress. Do you understand me?”

      Really? She really wanted that? She seemed to be more familiar with the role of mistress than he had thought, “Yes...”

      She looked at him in amazement, “You know? Oh, yes, you're a writer,” again, her hand smacked his glowing face and her bracelets quietly clinked against each other. “You should always remember how to address me. Now tell me if you want to be an obedient slave to me in future.”

      Oh! She called him a slave? And now he really had to address her like a monarch? As strange as it was to finally say these words, they came from the bottom of his heart. “Yes, my lady, I will be an obedient slave to you.”

      She listened, pensive, and murmured back in a tone barely audible, “I didn't think anyone would ever say something like that to me,” if she was acquainted with the role of mistress, then it was obviously more in theory than in practice. This was the beginning, for her as much as for him. She gently stroked his cheek, reddened from her blows, then her fingers lay against his lips and she watched him thoughtfully as he tenderly kissed her. Again her murmur was more to herself than to him. “I am curious to see whether such an education really works,” two of her fingers pushed themselves into his mouth, curved and spread out provocatively, fuelling his barely contained lust, and he sucked greedily on them like a toddler on a pacifier, his cock hardened while he scrubbed the last burned remains from the bottom of the pan.

      Only when he lifted the last pan from the water did she withdraw her fingers, wiping them on his glowing cheeks.. Franziska sat down again at the table to watch him dry the rest of the dishes from there. When everything was put away in the cupboards and the sink cleaned, he was expelled from the paradise that this kitchen, with its dirty dishes, had come to represent.

      She said she still had work to do and gently guided him out of the apartment. Outside in the stairwell her voice stopped him once more, “We meet tomorrow at five o'clock in front of the tax office.”

      That he had both the time and desire for this meeting, she obviously assumed as given. Smiling, she closed the door. Wistfully, he returned to his apartment on the grey stone floor, which, unlike the rumbling wooden stairs, dampened the sound of his footsteps. He found it odd that she just sent him away without enjoying him in any way, without allowing him to spoil her. If he had a slave, she would certainly not have escaped so unused...

      Lost like a fairy-tale child abandoned in the woods, he lay in his bed late at night. Everything in him yearned for his mistress, for her critical gaze, her loving smile and her austere, sometimes condescending words, which brought about the deepest reverence in him. He also longed for other things, which he preferred to keep to himself for the moment.

      The Mistress and the Lady

      The tax office was located in Krämerstraße, five minutes by tram from home, on the other side of the river on the edge of the old town, in a tall building with a repellent black glass façade that seemed designed to intimidate from afar. The surrounding area, a multi-storey car park and some shops in grey concrete buildings, was no more appealing. On the four-lane road leading to the main railway station from the motorway, countless cars crawled at a snail's pace, as usual for this time of day. What in the name of God was Franziska planning here? Torment with tax forms? He was a bit early, and strolled with his hands in the pockets of his warm dark jacket shivering in the cool autumn wind under the silky blue sky. Like an industrious stream of ants, the passers-by, none of whom had a second to lose, hurried by with their eyes lowered, and, not for the first time, Daniel felt he was not of their world. Then she appeared, Franziska, he saw her from afar. She looked beautiful. Her hair was in a ponytail and she