Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Coraline came to consciousness from a familiar, pleasant, sensation between her legs. She groaned, eyes fluttering open as she rose up on her elbows to take stock of what this morning’s starlet was doing beneath the sheets.
“Goooood morn—” she started to say, when her eyes finally caught up with her brain. The room was not her own. She didn’t own a four poster bed, she didn’t decorate in… fuckin’ fading oligarch chic.
What the fuck did I do last night?
“Hey, hey, quit that,” she said, scooching back and shooing the young woman away from her crotch.
“Mistress?” she asked, sitting back on her haunches, a look of abject terror on her face. “I, I am sorry! You had ordered—”
“Okay, there’s been some miscommunication here. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I’m not really into that kind of play,” Cora explained, giving the girl what she hoped came across as a reassuring smile. Difficult, with the confusion raging inside her own head this morning. “Where, uh, sorry, shit must have gotten out of hand last night, where am I? Is this a special room in the King Club or something?”
Yeah, that’s probably it. Got absolutely off my tits and tried out something new at that club Lana liked. That makes sense.
The look on the girl’s face wasn’t getting any less terrified, but it was gradually being tainted by confusion.
“Mistress? This is... this is your bedroom of many years….”
A flash of anger shot into Cora’s mind. She knew the girl didn’t deserve it, she was probably just a professional who knew not to break kayfabe, but Cora was starting to get extremely weirded out.
“Hey, cut that mistress shit the fuck out. Makes my skin crawl.”
“Yes Mist-, yes Miss.. Miss Light, I’m sorry! Please, this humble slave was only trying to follow your explicit instructions!”
Cora was really starting to get annoyed. Mostly with herself. Slave play was pretty fucked, and she wondered what she’d been on to sign up for this experience. Again, not the girl’s fault, but… yeah, she was going to have to remove herself from the situation before she took it out on her.
Also, Miss Light? Did I make a whole-ass character for myself? I’m gonna bet on some combo of coke and psilocybin, because this looks exhausting and apparently I was feeling creative.
Cora sighed, and scrambled across the bed, making for an ornate wardrobe by the wall. She threw it open, and groaned. Nothing but old-timey dresses and pant suits. She shuffled through the hanging garments, noting a lot of these had cut-outs or fits that would make them a hell of a lot sluttier than anything Jane Austen’s characters ever wore. Yet more evidence she was at the King Club.
“Hey,” she called over her shoulder, “where did y’all put my clothes? Guarantee I didn’t come here dressed like the Quee—”
It was weird how long it took for her brain to catch up with what had felt so wrong the second she looked over her shoulder. To her left, on the door of the wardrobe, hung a mirror. And in that mirror, was an entirely different woman than Coraline Casanova.
Cora had built her entire brand on looking like a 50’s pinup girl, all blonde curls and generous curves, but still being a badass bitch who did all her own stunts and subscribed to the Keanu school of training for roles. The lean, tanned, whiplike form in the mirror could hardly be further from that image.
Thought I was moving around a little easier, was the non-sequitur that popped into her head as she pawed at the empty air where one of her F-cups should be. The woman in the mirror mimicked her motions, expressions forming on a face entirely foreign, save for Cora Casanova’s famous ice-blue eyes.
Those eyes weren’t the same shape as hers, and set in this face, they looked cruel, but they were hers. The most famous set of peepers in Hollywood were hard to mistake, even framed by a distinctly non-bouncy, brunette bobcut.
Okay. I must still be high. This is a bad trip, or a dream. Her eyes scanned the lines of the toned body in the mirror, abs she’d never quite been able to get, thighs lined with lean muscle instead of soft padding.
“M-mistress?” the girl asked, probably wondering what the hell Cora was on.
Welcome to the fucking club sister.
She wanted to scold the girl for calling her mistress again, but something in her tone sent a cold shock down Cora’s spine. It sounded like genuine fear. She shook it off. This was impossible. So it had to be part of whatever fucked up experience she’d signed up for.
Maybe VR? I am hot, in a totally different way than I am IRL, could’ve thought it’d be fun to try being a little more Masc. A lot more Masc.
“Okay, I get that you have to do what you’re doing,” she said, turning back to the wardrobe, and ignoring the stranger in the mirror. “but I am done with it. So I’m gonna get dressed, find a manager, and get… my body back? Man this is fuckin’ weird.”
Probably expensive too. Jane Thick 8, oh most profitable of sequels, here I come.
She pulled on a sharp pantsuit that fit this body like a glove, and had to admit, she looked good.
Fuck it.
She strode out of the door, into a hallway that was ornate in its decrepitude. It was also windowed, widely so, and the scene it looked out on was not anywhere near LA.
Don’t think about that, she thought, turning away from the mash-up of sci-fi and period piece urban sprawl. Part of the game.
Cora picked a direction and started walking. She’d nearly reached the end of the hallway when she realized her footsteps weren’t alone. She spun on her heel, coming face to bowed head of a tall, mustachioed, middle aged man in threadworn butler’s garb. He’d been following in such perfect step with her she hadn’t noticed him three feet behind her.
“Oh! Uh, shit, hey man, are you the attendant or something?” she asked, the man raising his head to face her but pointedly averting his eyes. He looked impassive, but as she spoke, she’d swear she saw that moustache twitch in confusion.
“Mistress Light, are you feeling yourself?” He asked with a vaguely British accent, comfortingly familiar, because it sounded exactly like every butler character she’d ever acted with. “Shall I call for the doctor?”
“What? No, just… end the simulation? That’s what’s going on right? This is all way too lucid to be a dream.”
“Of course, Mistress. Unfortunately, I don’t follow, but I am certain that is my own failing.” He said, still never having met her eyes. She remembered that behavior from movies where she’d played a particularly cruel Mistress of the house. She’d thought it was a little much, as it made the conversations feel just as awkward for her as it must have for the actors opposite her, but it did serve to illustrate a certain uncomfortable dynamic.
“Aaaaagh!” she groaned, frustration coming to a head inside of her. She began waving her hands in the air, mimicking the motions she’d made to manipulate holographic displays in some of the sci-fi flicks she’d done. “End simulation! Quit! Open task manager? Menu? Please?”
She heard her voice crack like a teenage boy on the last word, some of the building panic finally slipping past her guard.
“What the fuck is happening,” she whispered. Her mind latched onto the butler. “Hey. Hey, please look at me.”
Immediately, his eyes met hers. There was a kind of downtrodden kindness to them, like a father who had grown to realize his children were disappointing, but still held them dear. Eyes less adept at critiquing other actors would have missed the undercurrent of rage, boiling beneath the surface.
“Okay. Pretend I have amnesia. Don’t know shit. Who are you? Where are we? Who am I?” she pleaded. Despite the strangeness of the request, the man seemed much more comfortable now that a request had been made.
“Certainly Mistress,” he began, clearing his throat with a cough and standing somehow even straighter. “To begin, you are Linnea Light, First Mistress of the House of Light since your brother’s tragic passing last week, to the sorrow of all the household and Tyrinno’s gentry inclusive.”
He bowed his head at that, and if Cora (Linnea?) hadn’t spent her entire life around actors, she might have actually believed this man was sad her ‘brother’ was dead. After a moment of respectful silence, the man continued; “To that end, you stand in Luxholme, seat of your family for generations, and the very soil from which some of the finest slaves in Tyrinno’s history have been grown, a legacy I have no doubt you will raise to even greater heights during your auspicious tenure, my Mistress.”
Cora’s blood ran cold. Her mind ran through yet another myriad explanations for what was happening, an anime she’d turned down the Live Action adaptation for sticking in her head specifically.
Nope. Not entertaining the idea that I got isekai’d into the body of a slave lord. That’s stupid.
“A-and yourself?” Cora asked, dreading the answer.
“Ah, of course. I am but your servant in humble bondage, Micheal Wonik. It has been my lot and my honor to serve your family these 50 years, and it is to my great pride that my Bond of Ownership falls to you.”
“Uh, right, Bond of Ownership,” Cora said, the words feeling like acid in her mouth. “Can I see that?”
“I believe it is in your brother’s study, excuse me, your study, my lady,” he said, then seemed to wait for her to move. After a moment, he snapped his white gloved fingers. “Ah! Right, you wish me to demonstrate my knowledge of your great house. Please, follow me, if you would.”
He set off at a steady clip back along the hallway, and Cora hustled to keep up. The house proved to be enormous. Not quite as big as her house, but to be honest she’d really overdone it on that purchase. Size, however, was really the only similarity to her humble abode. Her interior designer, and Cora thought she was right about this, had always said that light+space=luxury, and Cora had been happy to let her arrange her space to fit that philosophy. Walls of glass and wide open rooms were what Cora was used to.
Luxholme did not have these things. Instead, it looked more like Downton Abbey had fallen on hard times, with hints of Roman Architecture, like someone had left set pieces laying around from the wrong film. Stranger, there were odd splashes of sci-fi. Thin, pulsing gold wires ran along floors, windows had projected readouts about the day, all the lights appeared to be LEDs, and while subtle, all the clothes were clearly made with modern machining.
The people wearing those clothes, though, were the strangest of all. Obviously, Cora had staff back home. But not live-in, not many, and certainly not wearing French maid uniforms straight out of a porno. It seemed like every other room they walked into, there was a comely young woman rushing to place their face against the wall, short skirts displaying at least half of their backsides.
Jesus Christ, if I’m pretending this is real, dear brother was a fuckin’ perv.
Finally, Mike pushed through a pair of oaken double doors to a well appointed office, in considerably better condition than the rest of the house. A massive desk dominated one wall, a roaring fireplace the other.
“Your study, my lady,” Mike announced, bowing, then gesturing widely to the room. Cora walked in, and had to admit, this at least was pretty tasteful.
“So, that Bond of Ownership… the desk, probably?” she asked, half to Mike, half to herself.
“I should think the safe, Mistress Light, which your brother had built into the desk,” Mike answered gravely, a touch of the heat she’d noticed behind his eyes earlier creeping into his voice. “Mine should be with the others of this house, and while I would not think to overestimate my value, 13 souls are not cheaply bought in Tyrinno.”
It took a moment for that to sink in.
“Wait. Everyone we just passed…”
“Is proudly the property of the House of Light.” Mike declared with a broad smile that so very nearly reached his eyes.
Oh my god. I don’t care how high I was, no way I asked for this.
Cora staggered to the desk, clinging with both hands to the hope that this was all a fucked up dream. She sat down in the plush leather chair, and began looking for this built-in safe.
Then she promptly screamed and jumped back up as a pair of small hands began to scrabble at the latch of her pants.
