"My name's April." said the tow head with blue eyes. "I bet you're embarrassed. Don't be. It's surprising how quick you get used to being naked."
Jennifer looked after the retreating figures, presumably returning to the House. She looked down at the metal band weighing heavily on her left ankle, and at the trailing links of the chain padlocked to the tree. Bemused, she looked at her pert companion and uttered the first clich� that came to mind.
"This isn't really happening - is it?"
April laughed. She was aptly named: she had a freshness. "I bet they got you yesterday?"
"I applied for a job. There was a waiting room - and a cup of coffee - "
"They do it in all sorts of ways. It shocks a girl's pants off to realise how damn easy it is. I went into this little boutique ... ."
"We've been kidnapped - ?"
April chuckled. "I suppose that's the word." She lifted her foot to demonstrate the anklet, stark on naked skin, and the shining tether by which she too was padlocked. "But it never seems quite right. I keep thinking of words like `picked up' or `sequestered' ... " She giggled. "How's about 'plucked'? We've been plucked out of life and put in some sort of Zoo. I've been here about a month, and the way I get peered at and poked makes me think of anthropology."
"But, this chain, and this place! It's quite lovely - ?"
"Oh sure! Enjoy it, it's real." April sniffed. "They have us girls figured out. Stick us in some pleasant spot with another one who's been here awhile. You get the picture without throwing hysterics." She cocked an eyebrow. "I say, love, would you happen to be a Les'?"
"I - I don't think so - "
"It doesn't matter. I'm not one either, not really. But it does help to pass the time."
Jennifer was still studying fundamentals, still hoping to wake up. "Can't we scream? Isn't there some way to get these things off our ankles?" She demanded irritably.
"We can scream. Go ahead." April encouraged brightly. "Count me out though. Feels good while you're making the noise, but all you get is a sore throat. As for the chain - go crazy and try. I doubt if a bulldozer would get you loose without the key. Gee-whiz, darling, ,you've got incredible breasts! With those honeys you'll sell real quick."
"Sell!" Jennifer's every nerve was quickened by a sudden vision of plausibility. "You mean ... we're ... we're - ?"
"That's right, we're merchandise." April's giggle seemed irrepressible. "It doesn't happen all that often. But if somebody offers enough ... . Pouf, we're gone."
Jennifer kicked the chain on her ankle. It made a satisfying sound of frustration, much better than stamping a bare foot. "Is that why we're here." She surveyed the prospect in disbelief. "And we don't have a thing to say - ?"
"Darling, you and I haven't had anything to say since they took us." April admonished tolerantly. "Darling, let's see if our chains will reach ... ?"
Jennifer was surprised by her own eagerness. She had a need to touch and be touched. She stepped forward to the limit of her tether and was clasped by warm excited arms. The two girls embraced in a most urgent hunger. "They mostly make the chain too short." April explained. "They do it on purpose. It drives a girl up the wall to have to tug like crazy just to hold hands. Darling, your foot's stretched way back, isn't it. So's mine. But we can just manage - "
Jennifer was entranced, she was shocked, she was intrigued, and she was not certain what to do next. Her fellow captive had slithered to her knees, separated Jennifer's thighs with urgent hands, and was busily feeding at the fount of female love. Instinctively, the new prisoner of the chain widened her legs further apart and dropped tender hands to allow grateful fingers to play within the golden tresses thrust hard against her own pubic patch. The contrast was vivid: tow head against black bush. The effect was erotically perfect.
"Your first time?" The busy lips and tongue stopped their feasting for but a moment. "I can tell."
"Yessss ... I'm ... I'm - "
"You're gorgeous. Just stand still."
The moans soon came. Jennifer tugged longingly at her shackled foot but it would come no further. Through a rainbow, increasingly roseate, she beheld April's taut leg and thigh and their equally taut chain. They were lucky to have what they now enjoyed, they could get no more.
Those in the big House must have been wise in the ways of girls, and the emotional needs of new captives. They had made the two chains precisely long enough ... no more. Strain as they would, the two naked girls could not extract another inch from their pinioned limbs. But, using such freedom as they had, they moaned and writhed with each other through an hour in which captivity no longer mattered. Jennifer, chained, was willing to believe her ecstasy in April's tongue was greater than it could have been in freedom. Her fettered foot kept her prisoner to a welter of turgid and colourful sensations such as she had never dreamed.
"Jennifer?" April's voice was soft and dreamy. "That was wonderful, wasn't it? But I'd never done it either until they brought me here. But all we've got is girls ... and they're all naked, same as us. Those two men, the guards or flunkeys or whatever they are, aren't allowed to use us." She giggled. "I guess they don't want any babies or the expense of buying us the pill."
The young voice drifted into a lazy silence. Jennifer lay on her bed of leaves and grass, satiated and replete in a way she had never known. It was very quiet and very peaceful in the glade. The weight of metal on the ankle of her outstretched foot was slow in reasserting her captivity. Before she could ask a question, April's musings began another idle recount of the impossible.
"This is yummy, isn't it. If we were running around free it wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't be half as happy. Is that the way of it, darling, or am I nuts?"
"You're saying that being a prisoner here isn't all that bad."
"I s'pose." A youthful foot kicked at its locked band to make a rattle of pinioning links. "When I think about my month I realise I've only been punished when I've been ... difficult. The rest of the time it's sorta' fun with the girls - "
"Punished! No one said - !"
"0h, they will. Miss Harradace will give you a lecture. Mostly a girl gets whipped, or put in the cage, or chained in a dungeon. But, like she'll tell you, it's your choice."
"But that's ... medieval?"
"Sort of, darling, but it goes with the place. It's called 'Stoule House'," and a part of it is so damn old it's half a ruin. But it has an honest to goodness torture chamber in which all the instruments are new and shining and hateful, and it's got dungeons and chains. 'Bout all they've done with those is get some heat in 'em some way so a girl doesn't get pneumonia when she lays naked on the stone - "
"Oh, April ... Ugh!"
"Don't let me scare you Pet. If you're never naughty you'll never get taken through the 'Awful Door' into the old place." April giggled. "I've been in there twice, and now I'm so well behaved I could puke." She giggled again. "Course, being a good girl doesn't count when it comes to old Crumshawe."
Jennifer sat up and eased the tension on her chained foot. She looked down at April's unconcerned nudity in a new disquiet. "I've heard that name - ?"
"Sure you have. Lord Crumshawe, the Earl of Stoule. The title's as old as the house. He's frightfully rich, and in this County his word is Law, he's the Chief Magistrate and all that stuff. But, actually, he's a dirty old man who loves spanking our bottoms. He uses a cane on us too. He positively drools - "
"Oh, April, a nobleman - ?"
"Why not! The old blighter's got it made. We're a sort of harem for him, a collection of female bottoms he can whip whenever he feels like it. I've got a notion this whole deal has been going on for centuries. Caning girls' bottoms probably runs in the family."
"You mean, without us being naughty?"
"That's right. He whips us for fun, and there's not a thing we can do about it."
The two girls surveyed each other in wry amusement. It was hard to be dismal amidst this sun-drenched verdure. Their happiness in each other, this ancient Park, the absence of pain from the metal anklet ... it was all unreal. But Jennifer had a feeling of some hidden purpose, of wheels within wheels they could not yet comprehend. No doubt they were not intended to. Perhaps their future was a vista they had best not see! She returned to the one fearful question. "But, April, this being sold - ?"
The youngster's giggle was irrepressible. April herself was intrigued. "Well, it comes about because the old boy has a lot of pals with the same ideas - some of 'em worse. We have to be nice to 'em. Old Crumshawe's hospitable as hell with our rumps. We have to bend over for all sorts of twits from all over the world. Once in awhile one of them takes a shine to one of us, and that girl simply disappears. The Harradace tells us they're lucky. They become the pet of some rich guy who beats their bottom with one hand and buys 'em diamonds with the other. It's a sort of carrot they dangle: if the right guy bought us ... Wow!"
"But if old Lord whatsit enjoys beating us, why would he sell a girl? Once she's gone - ?"
"He replaces her." April laughed gaily. "You and I are replacements. You know how easily you were kidnapped, it's really no problem - and there's the money - "
"But if he's so rich?"
"The Harradace tells me he never takes less than a million for any girl. The Harradace is quite human when she's relaxed and you haven't inked your blotter. She enjoys a heart to heart." April grinned impishly. "Let's do it again?"
They did it again. There was something about this place, there was something about April, and the chain and anklet were in there somewhere. Jennifer was startled by lost inhibitions, tugging at one chained foot she returned, ardently, to feast. It was while she was lost between moist and pungent thighs that she heard the voice. It was a girl's voice, lazy and amused, but it held authority.
"I'll let you finish it if you don't take all day."
"Oh shit!" April sat up, startled and aggrieved. "Oh, it's you, Mavis! What goes now?"
"Go ahead and finish, April dear. I love to watch."
"We don't want to any more. You mean bad news, Mavis. Which of us gets it?"
Jennifer too sat up, feeling unnecessarily shamed. To be caught naked and doing ... ! She brushed a guilty hand across wet lips and blushed whilst turning an intent regard upon the intruder.
Mavis bore the title of Prefect. She was a couple of years above the average age at Stoule, and combined muscularity with a reasonable slenderness. She was definitely one of the girls but her nudity was tempered by a collar and belt. From one side of the belt hung a whip. It was short and wicked and dangled to her knee. On the other hip was coiled rope. "It's Jennifer." She said casually. "Seems like she's got an admirer."
"That means you get a scalded rump." April said with the wisdom of experience. "You have to do what she tells you, Jennifer. If you don't, you get punished. Darling Mavis can't beat us into the ground herself but they've given her authority instead. She's a good shit if you treat her kindly."
"Your hands, dear, behind your back please, wrists crossed." Mavis sounded bored.
"She does this to us all the time." April volunteered helpfully. "She's a sort of wardress or jailer or something. I bet she's tied up more girls - " She sniffed disdainfully. "And she's allowed to whip us too."
Trembling, Jennifer stood erect, her arms in back while her wrists were bound by deft feminine fingers. It was all crazy, crazy ... crazy! She should not be doing this, yet what else could she do! The weight of the anklet told her clearly she could not run. Well aware of April's interested regard, she held out her foot for Mavis to use a key.
"You can run now, sweetheart, but don't." Mavis advised firmly.
"She'll catch you and whip you if you do." April warned cheerfully. "I tried it with her once, so I know."
"You're shivering." Mavis's fingers took a tight clutch of Jennifer's hair. "You that frightened?"
"Why wouldn't I be! I'm naked and helpless and tied .. . and ... and - "
"And you've got some amusement waiting." Mavis's grip tightened in the captive hair. "Come along, poppet."
Lord Crumshawe looked exactly as a man named Crumshawe might be expected to look. Tweedy, scarlet, and with hair sprouting from nostrils and eyebrows. The captive girl was willing to consider his age anywhere between one and two hundred years. He had a craggy look of permanence. He eyed his new possession with satisfaction and intent.
Jennifer herself felt hot and ridiculous. In a space of minutes Miss Harradace and Mavis had transformed her from trembling nudity into an expensively attired Victorian Miss with bustle, chignon, high buttoned boots and long black kid gloves reaching to above her elbow. She was corseted to produce a wasp waist and to lift and protrude her breasts: magnificent spheres needing no artificial aid to attention. Their owner, now, was pinkly aware of stupendous protrusions she could not hide. But it was from her waist down that Jennifer was most heavily armoured with camisoles, petticoats and nickers. She was so heavily loaded with false modesty as to make her look back at nakedness with longing. She had also been briefed ... !
"It's a bit of play acting his Lordship enjoys." Miss Harradace said crisply. "If you disappoint him I'll make sure you wish you'd never been born."
"It's easy." Mavis encouraged kindly. "You've read about it in books. Just be shy and coy and sweet."
"But he's going to hurt me horribly!"
"Of course. And we've told you the proper exclamations."
Lord Crumshawe, the Earl of Stoule, beamed a lecherous smile. "Glad to have you with us, m'dear. What's your name'?"
"Jennifer, sir. I'm afraid I've been naughty."
"Have you, now! A naughty girl, eh! And I suppose you'd like me to punish you for your naughtiness, eh'?"
"Yes please, Sir: I deserve to be punished."
Miss Harradace had been right, the script was hackneyed. Jennifer's confidence strengthened with each trite retort. Maybe all she had to worry about was the pain - and perhaps if she was sweet enough ... . !
"Splendid girl!" Lord Crumshawe beamed approval.
"And what punishment d'you feel you've earned, m'dear?"
"My bottom should be spanked, Sir."
"Ah, yes ... ?" The Earl raised a hirsute eyebrow.
"It should be spanked on the bare, sir, to make it hurt ever so much. I've been a very naughty girl."
"Charming, charming ... .!" Lord Crumshawe was enraptured.
It was absurd, but Jennifer was identifying with the fantasy. She was quite prepared to ad lib. Surely such role playing was innocent! Demurely, she enquired: "Should I, er, prepare myself for my correction, sir?"
"Eh? Prepare ... ?" Why, of course, m'dear, of course. Bare that little arse by all means. Er, by the way, how old are you?" Lord Crumshawe's eye seemed increasingly bloodshot.
"I am twenty-one, sir."
"Hmmmmm, bit old for a spanking, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes, sir. I am old enough to know better. I'm ever so ashamed."
"D'you realise your cunt's going to stick out behind when you bend over?"
"I really couldn't say, sir. My bottom has never been spanked before - not since I grew up." Jennifer paused prettily. "And that awful word, the one you used, sir! Oh my!"
"You do have a cunt, I suppose?"
"I've always called it a pussy, sir. I didn't know it stuck out ... the way you say."
"Wonderful education for you, this." Lord radiated bonhomie. "Now, off with those knickers and things and let's have a look at your little pink arse." Jennifer was almost interested. Common sense might call this a silly charade but it was terribly real. She found herself flushed and moist and wriggling in the same manner as a Victorian maiden might have simpered her path into punishment. The last thing she wanted to do was bare her bottom. By some strange mental process the petticoats and knickers had endowed it with sanctity.
"Come along, m'gal, let's have a look at your rump. If you want to play shy we can strip you bare?"
"Oh no, sir! Oh please! I'll ... I'll do it."
Jennifer was sure she would feel less shamed if she was nude. There was something prurient about this exposure she was about to make. But, of course, that was the name of Lord Crumshawe's game. Hastily, she accepted the safety pin proffered by Miss Harradace and, fumblingly, raised her dress at the back and pinned it up below her neck. Petticoats followed, tossed aside one by one along with several skirt-like textiles she did not recognise.
"And now your knickers, m'dear. Down with 'em!" The hirsute Peer was visibly excited.
Blushing, Jennifer dealt with elastic and ruffles. When the knickers joined the rest of her modesty on the floor it was as though the Arctic had attacked her rear, she felt cruelly exposed. Anxiously, she remembered her line - "May I arrange myself across your knees, sir, for my spanking. please'"
"Er'. Why of course you may, dear child! But first, let's have a look at that little pussy effect you mentioned. Come closer and lift that skirt."
It took all the captive's will power to obey, but obey she did. Standing obediently in front of the Earl of Stoule Jennifer gathered fold after fold and raised them to below her chin. Longingly, she thought of freedom and sanity.
"That's a damn fine bush, as pretty a little thatch as I've seen. Spread your legs a bit, m'dear."
Another blush, another compliance. The captive had always been proud of her shining pubic fronds. Under this noble scrutiny she was no longer sure. Pubic hair had been a giggle between girls, now it was obscene as gnarled fingers tested its quality.
"Capital, really splendid! Now, m'dear, over you go." It was awkward, it was shaming, it was not even easy. Without help, the girl to be spanked draped her bared posterior across bony knees and wished her black stockings and boots had been discarded with the rest. She was sure they looked silly and untidy and, by contrast, enhanced the bareness of her bottom. Surprised, she discovered there was enough of her to require the support of both her feet and hands. Palms flat on the carpet, she held a posture she could think of only as obscene.
"And there it is!" Lord Crumshawe pinched the errant lips peeping up at him from bare moist thighs. "Damn remarkable! First time a plump slit popped up at me like this I thought the poor girl was malformed." He sighed lustily. "That was a long time ago. I've seen whole regiments of cunts play that trick on me since. Makes a nice extra diversion."
The sound was shocking, the blow brutal. A cupped but horny palm left a glowing imprint on the right cheek of a captive bottom. Jennifer yelped in surprise and pain.
"Got to you, eh!" The Earl chuckled knowingly. "Thought a spanking was for little girls! Just expecting a pair of pink cheeks?" He struck, heartily, again.
"Oh, sir! Oh ... please! It's too hard. I can't, I can't - it hurts so much worse than I - "
"Than you expected, eh!" Lord Crumshawe was gratified to have found a virgin rump. "Never been trounced on the bare before, I'll wager?"
"Oh no, sir, never! Please, could you forgive my naughtiness?"
The answer was one more resounding slap, a yelp, a wriggle, and a booted leg waving in distress. "Keep still, Jennifer." Miss Harradace admonished severely. "I trust you are not seeking the solace of sexual excitation at his Lordship's expense by those motions?"
"Yes, oh yes! I will try. I'm sorry."
Jennifer gritted her teeth and did her best to lay still and accept her hurt. But she was now aware of a noble knee thrust hard into her crotch and a noble hand arranging her hips to the best advantage for more than just a spanking. Along with her pain there was a glowing heat. It contrasted oddly with punishment but it was there. Remembering April, cheerfully chained to her tree in the glade, Jennifer felt like tears or the beating of her fists against the purple veined visage of the Peer who was steadily and methodically alternating his impacts from one of her scarlet cheeks to the other.
"Time to rearrange yourself, dear girl." The horny palm rested warmly on Jennifer's glowing bottom. "Got to be fair to both sides, y'know."
Shame, shame, shame, there was no end to it. Untidily and unhappily, the spanked girl struggled erect. Her pleading eyes swept from Miss Harradace to Mavis, to the perspiring Peer. The females smiled and shrugged. His Lordship patted his lap invitingly. With a silent moan, Jennifer turned about and disposed her hare bottom for the Earl of Stoule's further convenience. She had supposed her twin cheeks punished equally but this turn about in posture would certainly ensure impartiality. She flinched under a resounding slap and blushed at the readjustment of a salacious knee.
"A lovely rump." Lord Crumshawe enthused. "Marks beautifully. Damn me, I can feel the heat - !" The interruption was timid, a gentle knock at the already open door and a youthful feminine voice. "It's the gentleman you were expecting, sir. Mr ... . Mr. - "
"Why, good old Muffin, eh!" The Earl of Stoule suspended operations on Jennifer's scalding seat. "Send the dear boy up, eh. He knows the way."
Jennifer was grateful for the cessation of punishment, but was uncertain of what was required of her now. She felt supremely ridiculous, an embarrassment compounded by the swift appearance of the visitor. 'Muffin' neither matched his quaint name or Lord Crumshawe himself. A well set up youngish man in his thirties, an amused smile, impeccably business suited, and what was worst of all, decidedly handsome. Jennifer cringed and wished herself invisible. Surely hers was no predicament in which to meet attractive males! He would laugh at her and think of: 'Bottoms up !'
"Up's - a - daisy, m'dear." His Lordship had become the hearty host. "I'd like you to meet Musef El Raffah. How are you, Muffin, my boy."
Slightly foreign! Hard to tell, but there. Whilst hands were shaken Jennifer stood in confusion and was thankful her blazing bottom protruded at the rear. She longed to cover it but dared not. While greetings were exchanged, as among old friends, she found herself ignored except for flickers of interest from a foreign eye.
"And this is the girl, Muffin old chap. The new one, y'know." Lord Crumshawe was well in command. "She's got the loveliest little rump and cunt." He beamed proudly. "Turn around and bend over a bit, my dear, and let Muffin have a look."
It was the last thing the spanked girl desired but she obeyed. Under repeated adjurations of 'lower' and 'a bit more' she finally had her hands against the rug, her knees were stiff by command, and she was, heatingly, aware of double exposure, an exposure now explored by uninhibited male fingers. "Have you seen a better one than that?" Lord Crumshawe demanded with all the expansiveness of possession. "I was in the middle of spanking it when you arrived. Care to have a go?"
"Spanking! Crummy, old chap, can't you do better than that?" Musef's chuckle held derision.
"You young fellahs!" The Earl of Stoule shook his head in mock despair. "Don't know a good thing when you see it. But if you're thinking about a nice whippy cane you've come to the right place."
"You know damn well that's what I'm thinking, Crummy." The laughter in the younger man's voice held all the assurance of wealth and authority. "Has she had it before?"
"Eh? Ah yes, of course. I say, Jennifer what's your name, ever had your arse caned? Properly, I mean, not schoolgirl pats?"
"No, sir."
"Capital! Virgin flesh for you, Muffin! Oh, and you girl, straighten up. Just stand a minute while we decide how to deal with that pretty rump of yours."
It was humiliation plus. Jennifer stood erect in her Victorian wrappings, her bottom bare and pink and her stockings fallen over the tops of boots she hated. She was female. This man who had now entered the scene was more than interesting. Between them had flowed a current. But, here she was looking like a scarecrow. The fact he wished to apply a cane upon that portion of her person where His Lordship had been satisfied to spank seemed somehow, at that moment not to matter.
"Pick your own cane, my boy - over on the rack." Lord Crumshawe was expansively hearty. "I've been using a crop, myself, lately. That one with the brown stock, long and limber ... does wonders for a girl's bottom."
The girl, soon to be whipped, watched dolefully as the instrument of her punishment was selected. Musef must be old-fashioned. He chose a slender yellow length of rattan. Seeing it, Miss Harradace interposed: "This girl won't be able to hold position for a caning, Your Lordship. She will have to be tied."
"She will also have to be naked." Musef added thoughtfully.
"Naked? Eh? Oh, see what you mean." The Earl hastily caught up with events. "Really, Muffin ... to lose these subtleties ... ! But, of course, you want to have a look at her anyway, don't you! Come to think of it I've never seen the little darling myself. I'll wager she's prime though, really prime! Look at that bust!"
"For my money they're breasts." Musef El Raffah affirmed. "Let's have a look at them."
It was as though she was the denizen of a barnyard discussed by gaitered farmers. Trembling and confused, the spanked girl looked to Miss Harradace. Receiving a meaningful nod, her fingers rose to the fastenings at her throat.
"Something I always enjoy." Said Lord Crumshawe. "Look at that blush! Jennifer, my girl, aren't you used to being starkers?"
"No, sir. I was never naked in public until you had me ... until I was brought here." She paused and added, "And that was only yesterday. Please, sir, must I really be all bare?"
It was the right note: Genuine as her plea might be, it was also an authentic part of the Victorian role she was, presumably, still playing. Shrinkingly, the captive girl divested herself of both gloves, gown and bustle. She was still heavily overdressed but had never felt more naked. Hesitantly, Jennifer dealt with camisoles and corset to leave herself only in a vest and boots.
"Should have had the rest of her stuff on for you, Muffin my boy. You should have watched her take off those petticoats and knickers. `Pon my word, the girl has a gift." Lord Crumshawe sighed. "Come along now, poppet, let's have the unveiling."
Jennifer had been naked and chained for twenty - four hours, but this was far, far worse. To lift the flimsy vest over her head to reveal her breasts and pubic hair took a supreme effort of will. She was not a prude but there had been something about those Victorian laces and ruffles strangely compelling ... ! She fought back her hands in their instinctive motions to shield her sex. Instead, she gave them all their money's worth - they would make her do it anyway, so why not!
"Magnificent!"
"A real bellringer!"
The awe in two male voices was a partial compensation. A quick glance at Mavis got her an approving nod. On the basis of 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em' the naked girl widened the spread of her thighs and clasped her hands at the nape of her neck. "Dammit, she's proud!"
"And why not!"
For a minute the room was a motionless tableau. Jennifer's shame gave way to embarrassment and embarrassment to pride. These people must have seen a lot of naked girls, their intent regard of her body was tribute indeed. She recalled April's certainty about her breasts.
"I'll buy this one."
Musef El Raffah's quiet declaration was like a thunderclap to the nude girl awaiting the whip. His quiet certainty about her was both exciting and frightening. All women were to be desired. But to be sold. To be sold was the seal of reality. Lord Crumshawe might appear a doddering old idiot, but the younger man most certainly was not! Jennifer stood breathless, beside her discarded clothes.
"Damn me, Muffin my boy, I don't know about that." The Earl of Stoule was still gazing with an ancient hunger at the revealed loveliness of his latest acquisition. "This gal's a beauty. I'll wager she canes well."
"The usual million?"
"Dammit, Muffin, I almost wish I needed money; makes decision a lot easier. I'm getting old, and I've got too much money already. After awhile money doesn't seem worth much compared with this girl's breasts. Look at 'em! Worth a million apiece."
"O.K., Crummy, it's deal."
Once more the disbelief. Two million pounds! For possession of her being, for owning all of her! Jennifer looked from one to the other of the two men. Sparing a glance for Miss Harradace and Mavis, she found them unperturbed. Perhaps they had played this scene before.
"Hold it, Muffin my boy, hold it!" Lord Crumshawe stepped over and caressed the captive's pubic curls whilst patting the pink cheek of a spanked bottom. "She's got this little affair too, as neat a little cunt as a man might hope to find."
"O.K., throw that in too. I'll buy. She can't very well part with it." Musef appeared to view money as purely abstract.
"I sometimes wish they'd never discovered oil." His Lordship observed with feigned disgust. "It's getting harder and harder to keep a prime filly around this place - such a lovely little bottom! You chaps with these oil wells somewhere out in the desert! Damn!"
"A deal then? Three million?"
"Damn you, Muffin! I can't refuse that, can I! And you know it, you rascal." The Earl of Stoule stepped back and viewed his bartered maiden with a lecherous eye. "Well, anyway, we're going to cane her bottom before you package her?"
"I'm going to cane her bottom."
"Muffin, I may never see such a bottom again." The noble voice had become plaintive. "You wouldn't deprive an old man - ?"
"Alright, you ancient reprobate." Musef Raffah winked slyly at Jennifer as though they were sharing a joke. "I'll match you stroke for stroke. I'm sure you know all the good bits to plant a cane across."
"That I do! But it's only the poor gal's bottom, y'know. Or shall we give her a proper whipping, neck to knees?"
The naked girl cringed. This was like being the plaything of a couple of small boys who enjoyed pulling the wings off flies and jerking little girl's pigtails. If it satisfied their erotic notions they would thrash her without mercy. From some deep well of femininity she pleaded, "Please don't hurt me, sir. I haven't done anything naughty."
They were entranced. Jennifer could not have pleased them more. Her appeal was potently personal, tightening cocks. Standing before these omnipotent males the shivering sacrifice knew the measure of her pain was in the balance ... whipped!
"No, just the cane on her seat. For a novice that's enough." Musef was delivering a thoughtful judgement. "I'd prefer to make her first real whipping a proper occasion. It's always possible she may give cause."
"Never wait for that myself." the Earl of Stoule observed encouragingly. "The little darlings get frightfully well behaved after about their first week, so if I want to whip 'em I whip 'em." He beamed impartially. "Look at Mavis here. If I waited for her to wet the sheet she'd never get whipped at all. Isn't that right, m'dear?"
"Oh yes, sir."
"But you'd be damn disappointed if I didn't stripe your back occasionally?. You'd feel neglected, eh?" Of course, sir ... terribly."
This sanctimonious exchange left Jennifer wondering if she would ever manage to match Mavis's tongue in check subservience. Ruefully, she realised that already she would not dare to disobey. If she could possible control herself she would not be 'naughty'. The spanking had affected her strangely, and sight of the cane being limbered in her new owner's hands was daunting.
"How d'you want her tied, Muffin old chap?" Musef El Raffah laughed. "I'm sure you've got both the place and the instrument, you lecherous old rogue. Lead the way."
With Mavis's hand warm on her bare arm, the girl who was about to receive pain allowed herself to be guided to the misshapen bench. The waiting straps interpreted its design. Quivering, and acutely aware of eyes, Jennifer knelt and arranged her body and limbs within the buckles so hungry for her flesh.
"You're getting a bargain, Muffin." Lord Crumshawe mourned. "This little sweetheart's got everything. She flows ... !"
Jennifer was unimpressed by the compliment. She had never felt less like flowing than now as the straps tightened under Mavis's determined tugs. Wrists and ankles, the backs of her knees. One by one these sources of motion were denied by the bite and constriction of leather bands. Then across the small of her back to arch it down and cruelly emphasise the twin pink cheeks so soon to be caned. Two more strictures on her upper arms above each elbow completed maiden immobilization. Jennifer felt, staring at the floor, upon a bench designed for but a single purpose, the uprearing of a female rump. All she could move was her head, her vision obscured by her own falling hair. Fearfully, she turned to survey her captors. What she beheld caused her to return her gaze fixedly at the floor and tense in fearful dread.
"First honour to you, m'boy. Dammit, you bought her."
The sudden sharp incandescence of agony took the buckled girl into a realm of nerve response beyond her most apprehensive imaginings. That one cane on one girlish bottom ... .! Jennifer surged against her straps and did not move, she heaved and plunged but made no motion. The bench and the leathers creaked, that was all. Wide - eyed and gasping, she choked, "Oh no! No! No! Noooooo ... !"
"Lovely, lovely ... !" Lord Crumshawe swung heartily from the other side of the bench.
"I'm going to scream." Jennifer said in a flat voice she did not recognise. "I'm sorry, but I can't possibly stand such awful pain."
"Always interesting, these responses from the little dears the first time they realise what they're made for." The Earl of Stoule mused reflectively. "Comes as a bit of a shock to 'em. This one's doing her best. Some of 'em split the welkin first stroke."
There happened then something Jennifer was destined to always remember. The dark hand that had held the cane caressed her untidy hair with a vibrant tenderness, a tenderness matched only by the resonance of a man's voice: "You can stand it, Jennifer, and you will. I do not desire you to scream, but you have my permission to do so if you must."
The hand and the voice were withdrawn, the pain returned. A scalding sear of agony to spawn a scream which the bound girl bit back into a moan from dry and anguished lips. Then another cut, and another, and another ... ! The pinioned girl flung her head from side to side, she fought the straps ... . It helped. Jennifer was sure it helped. She had not screamed ... !
"Good plucked 'un!" His Lordship paid hearty tribute to wealed feminine flesh. "Damn fine whipping stool, that! Designed it myself. Just look at the way it rears her arse! A girl gets twice the effect with stretched skin."
"She is beyond rubies." Musef agreed reverently. "And your stool. Crummy, is the eighth wonder of the world."
"Actually seen the little dears pee at the first stroke." The Earl confided. "Spurts out of 'em in a jet you can actually hear. Shock, I suppose. But nothing so vulgar about this little daisy."
The hand that now cupped her sex was unmistakably that of the nobility. Jennifer gasped as her secretions were explored and verified. Quaintly, she reflected she would have to get used to such intrusions. No part of herself was hers anymore. Every secret crevice she possessed was the property of Musef El Raffah. Indignation or resentment were inappropriate to a damsel being whipped. She could not move. She endured, and was ashamed of a flare of heat.
"Nature's wonderful." Lord Crumshawe paid tribute. "Look at that, a wet hand." He wiped it thoughtful on a bare and pinioned feminine thigh. "A marvellous lubrication for the cock, or anything else for that matter. Shows how the little darlings enjoy - "
His cane cut across Jennifer's tautened skin with loving venom.
The strapped loveliness did not move.
"The usual container, I suppose, old boy? Or do you want me to keep her for you awhile?"
The query penetrated Jennifer's aftermath of anguish. She guessed instantly its meaning. Since no one seemed inclined to free her from the stool, she turned appealing eyes and begged,: "Please don't do that to me, not that way. I'll behave. I'll give my word. I'll go voluntarily."
Nobody answered, the men were too engrossed. "Look at her backside, just look at it!" The Earl exclaimed expansively. "Damn me, we must have tickled her up a bit. Those weals ... and they're still forming. I say, Jennifer my girl, did that hurt a bit?"
Jennifer wept. The absurd question, insensitive, arrogantly male, opened the floodgates of emotion the cruelly strictured girl had striven to keep in check. Tears trickled down captive cheeks to splat, beneath her eyes, upon the floor. Uncaring, she allowed desolation to sob out her reply, "It was awful ... awful ... awful ... !"
Heavy fingers ran, lovingly, across the ridges of the bound girl's blazing bottom, finding tactile delight in every sear of wounded flesh. The bottom's owner gasped in a recoil she could not consummate, "Ohhhhhh ... please! Leave it alone! Leave it alone! It must be cut to shreds?"
"Wealed but no blood." Musef El Raffah told her quietly. "Stop crying, you've cried enough. Mavis, dry her tears."
The feminine fingers and the white cambric were a comfort shattered by Lord Crumshawe's crass promise, "You'll wear a sunset on your arse for a week, my dear."
"Any brandy around?" Musef inquired. "I expect we can all use one. That was a damned emotional fifteen minutes."
"Can the little filly drink, the way she's fixed, Mavis?"
"Only from a full glass, sir."
"Give her the top bit off all of ours. That'll brace her."
Jennifer gulped greedily, and was braced. Fresh courage prompted a weak: "Could I please be undone?"
"We like you as you are, m'dear. Your arse is still ripening. Slip her a fresh glass, Mavis."
Everyone adjusts, everything passes. It was a lesson the captive was to learn often enough in times to come. Jennifer's attachment to the stool lasted only as long as the brandy. The Peer of the Realm then boomed: "Unstrap her, Mavis, and take her to ... " Lord Crumshawe guffawed. "To ... you know where." As a kindly afterthought, he added: "You can pretty her up a bit if the two of you want."
The bathroom was a feminine heaven. Jennifer looked into the huge mirror at her empurpled bottom and the strap marks still vivid in her skin. She once more wept, this time on Mavis's sympathetic shoulder. "They're going to put me in a box or something and take me away, aren't they?" She mourned.
"Look, pet, you could be lucky." Mavis comforted. "Musef and all his money could be better than a lifetime of getting your bottom caned by a tweedy old goat."
"But, this chap who's bought me? He'll whip me too. He said he would."
"I'm afraid that goes along with the deal either way." Mavis admitted without concern. "Would you believe it that the old boy strings me up every so often and stripes me horribly. You never really get used to it, but you do get to where you're not shocked to bits every time. Sweetheart, I'll give you a bath and do your hair? I know they won't mind."
"Would you! Oh, thank you! Mavis, why don't you escape?"
"No girl escapes, not even a prefect." The older girl chuckled. "Musef's young enough, maybe he'll fall for you. That's the best escape for any girl anywhere."
"Will he keep me in some sort of Harem?"
"Goodness, pet, I don't know. He's a bit of a mystery.
He's bought girls before. His father and old Crumshawe were friends, and they're all mixed up in some sort of oil business, that accounts for the nicknames - and they're filthy rich. I don't even know if Musef's got a Harem. I think these Arab chaps trade girls around among themselves."
"You mean, like slaves?"
"Well, I 'spose. But, for that matter, aren't we all. Oh, and sweetheart, about the journey. You won't be bunged in the hold of a ship. Musef has his own private plane and some sort of diplomatic status. Smuggling girls is no trick for him at all."
It was hard to reason. Reason had fled and been replaced by Alice's Wonderland. By the standards Jennifer had known, nothing was real. It was an erotic fantasy, sometimes painful and fraught with fear. But in this perfumed feminine sanctuary she had two comforts; the first was Mavis, the second was the relative youth of the man to whom she now belonged. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps ... !
"Sorry about these, pet, they're a MUST." Jennifer felt better. The bath and Mavis had made her nakedness sleek and presentable. She presumed her breasts and pubic hair would attract their usual attention and keep her shameful bottom unobserved. But the thing Mavis was holding up for view sparked an instinctive recoil.
"But, Mavis ... ! Handcuffs?"
"That's right."
"But, I haven't done anything!"
"Yes you have, pet, you were born a girl. That's a mistake," The Prefect laughed at her charge's dismay. "You're relating these pretty things to arrests and jails and prisons and being a criminal. Forget that! Handcuffs are a lot nicer for a girl to wear than having her wrists tied with cord." Mavis shrugged deprecatingly.
"Believe me, I know!"
"But they're so ... so ... !"
"You mean you can't get out of them. Well, you're not supposed to. If you're tied tight enough so you can't get loose, it hurts. Be grateful."
"But why ... ? If I'm in a box - ?"
"Sweetheart, hold your hands out and stop quibbling."
Doubtfully, Jennifer obeyed. The cold steel on her wrists felt every bit as daunting as expected, the swift ominous clicks were even worse. She looked down at these new bright and shining bracelets locked so snugly on her wrists. She sensed they would impede her but little yet, symbolically, they were as a great weight of irons. When she followed the Prefect back to join the group she discovered, in a flushed confusion, there seemed no appropriate place for a naked girl's joined hands.
But there was more.
It occupied centre floor. Miss Harradace and the two men stood, sipping their brandies, admiring its utilitarian simplicity. Jennifer's reaction was instant. "I'm not going to get in there?"
The shocked silence was brief. It was broken by Miss Harradace opening the gothic arch providing entry to the small cage. Her directive sounded like a bored shrug. "Put her back on the stool, Mavis, she needs a few more strokes."
It was intolerable, impossible and outrageous! But Jennifer wanted no more of the cane. She blurted a humble, "I'm sorry." Then, twisting against her handcuffs, she marched to the girl-cage, fell to her knees and crawled inside.
Jennifer was viewed with interest as she sought comfort in her wire confinement. The cage was a steel frame supporting an extra heavy wire mesh against which human hands could beat in vain. But the new inmate was handcuffed and could beat at nothing. Her linked wrists made even the task of exploration shamingly difficult. After several abortive writhings Jennifer settled for sitting with her cuffed arms over her thighs and her knees tucked under her chin. To achieve even this passive pose entailed the slight bending forward of her head. Miss Harradace closed the door and reinforced the impressive click of its lock with the addition of a massive padlock. The caged girl found but one solace, the floor was padded with a tiny mattress on which her hurt bottom could rest, if not in comfort at least without the pain of her caning being unduly prolonged. Looking wistfully through the wire, the caged captive sought peace.
"I'm sorry I sounded off like that. I really will try and be obedient. It's all so difficult - "
"She is caged for transport." said Miss Harradace.
"Capital! Quite splendid!"
"She is very beautiful in there." said Musef El Raffah.
"And she can't possibly get out." from Mavis.
It was the two handymen who carried the cage and its living content to the panel truck waiting at the side door. Mantled in blushing humiliation, the purchased girl shrank from the eyes of those girls who, wraith like, passed her on the way. Yet in their commiserating regard she felt a touch of envy. She was SOLD!
At the final moment, before the gloom of the truck, Jennifer saw the smiles and the wave of two females and two males. She returned them what motion she could with cuffed hands, it was very little. As the light of England faded and the big Park faded from sight she thought, longingly, of April. No doubt April was still chained to her tree. It seemed centuries ago. In actuality it was less than an afternoon.
With the starting of the motor and the motion of the vehicle the girl inside the tiny cage was alone with her thoughts. They were mostly a welter of resentment against lost freedom and against the handcuffs on her wrists. Jennifer made tentative motions but easily satisfied herself of her captivity. She could not escape. In her circumstances the word itself seemed ludicrous. She blinked back tears.
Her seat hurt. What else could she expect! It was now impossible to rearrange herself in the cage. She would have to put up with it. The handcuffs bothered her, she was heartily ashamed of them locked so snugly on her wrists. For some, they might be a convenience, Jennifer saw them only as a stigma. If she must be restrained she would have preferred rope. But, anyway, inside this tiny cage she need not be restrained at all. She was confined and helpless. She went over the word again and again: Helpless, helpless, helpless ... ! She was riding on a tide of events far, far beyond her control. She was resentfully certain the handcuffs were intended as a constant reminder of her state.
Reaching the waiting plane the caged girl was treated to the final indignity of a blanket over the mesh. She sat in cramped gloom until the plane was in the air. When the cover was whisked away it was by a smiling and neatly uniformed stewardess. The girl was duskily attractive, her English perfect.
"Miss Jennifer Raines?" She made it sound like a pronouncement. "I have orders to release and attend you. My name is Alita. You will please behave?"
There was a play of keys. The door, which was the end section of the cage, swung open. Sore, flushed, and feeling untidy, the captive edged her way into a relative freedom. Tidied and fussed over by feminine hands, she was told: "The Master wishes you to attend him, Miss Raines." Alita patted a bare shoulder encouragingly. "Please not to be afraid. Our Master is a very nice man. You must kneel before him, you must be very respectful, you will address him as 'Master', just as I do. Is all understood?"
"I suppose so." Jennifer held up linked hands. "What about these?"
"You must wear them."
"I don't see why. I'm not going to jump out of a plane!"
"It is fitting you wear the handcuffs, Miss Raines. You have become a slave. Be grateful they do not hurt."
"But I'm not trying to escape! I won't assault anyone!"
"Then see them as symbolic, Miss Raines. I will not unlock them." Alita's soft voice firmed. "And there is something I almost forgot."
Jennifer's recoil was countered by curiosity. The half circlets of shining steel possessed a sleek and wicked beauty. Joined, they would form a collar two inches wide. From one of them hung a silver ring. Seeing them held close it seemed impossible a girl's neck could be so small.
"You're not going to try and put that on my neck?"
"I can get help, Miss Raines?"
"Oh well - !" Jennifer pouted. "And anyway, it's far too small."
"You like it, Miss Raines. I can tell. Now, if you will allow me ... ? Please to do nothing, just stand." Breasts heaving, Jennifer did as she was told. She could not deny excitation. She was being collared as a slave, but the collar was a lovely creation and must live cost much money. Her hands started to rise to help with her hair but the handcuffs made the motion awkward. With feminine inconsistency she suddenly found herself hoping the band was not too small.
"It is intended to be snug upon your neck, Miss Raines, so as not to chafe."
Deft fingers dealt with captive hair. The captive herself gasped as a half circle of steel encompassed her throat, then another. They were moved exploringly before Jennifer sensed the tensing of Alita's muscles as she compressed from each side to interlock the metal so exquisitely machined. The ensuing click bespoke finality.
"It is very beautiful. You are very beautiful, Miss Raines."
Jennifer's fingertips were busily exploring the contours of something which was now a part of her, something she could not remove. Snug was the word. But the collar was not too tight. "Will it come off?" She inquired anxiously.
"Only should your Master wish. Then, yes."
The thrill was undeniable. She was collared at the behest of a man, and only that man could grant release. A cuffed hand worked round and fingered the pendent ring. "Alita ... why - ?"
"You know why, Miss Raines. The ring is so you may be chained."
Jennifer had been thrilled. But the flare of lust, now, was devastating. Collared! Chained! Expensively and implacably and by a man! To quench the fire starting in her loins, she turned to her smiling companion. "Is it really ... ?" I mean, really beautiful?"
"You know it is." Alita. laughed mockingly. "You are a freed bird ... out of her cage ... preening her plumage." Again there was the touch of gentle fingers on bare skin. "Our Master is waiting."
It was a lounge, rich furnishings instead of seats, a deep pile rug. Out of a window, the handcuffed girl beheld clouds far, far below. A light thrust on her back from Alita told her she was on her own. It was all unreal.
"Alita will bring us coffee, Jennifer."
It seemed another girl who slipped to her knees and knelt where she could be viewed by the man sitting negligently at the ornate desk, another voice which said, "Thank you, Master."
"Does it come strange to you, to call me that?"
"I ... I ... Well yes, it does."
"I expect I too am strange ... and not quite real?"
"Nothing is real for me, Master, except that I am naked and must wear handcuffs." Captive hands stole up to the shining collar. "Thank you for this, Master. It is very beautiful."
"It is the symbol of your enslavement, Jennifer."
"I know. But it is still lovely."
Musef El Raffah surveyed his prize. He was pleased with her. Jennifer Raines had qualities he would use. She had the wisdom to kneel passively, linked hands praying between her breasts. The collar on her neck was clothing enough. Slowly, he suggested. "Let us not have a litany of humility, Jennifer. I prefer you to ask questions. Ask as you wish, you will not be punished."
The kneeling girl tensed. "I can be punished? You mean, if I say or do something you don't like - you will have me punished?"
"Of course. Why not?" Musef smiled indulgently. "But not now."
Jennifer Raines sighed. In this game she would hold no winning cards. "In that silly play with Lord Crumshawe I said I was twenty - one, that's the way the script went. But I'm not twenty - one, I'm twenty - six. I'm not a child."
"I know."
"I suppose you intend to use me sexually?" "Yes. Old Crummy would call it fucking you." She nodded. "I have to expect that. It would be silly not to. I won't get hysterical but there was something you said that frightens me ... I have to be whipped? Or were you joking?"
"I was not joking. Can you understand why you were caned this afternoon and why you will be whipped, more than once, in the future?"
Her answer came slowly. "I suppose I do understand, in a way. I mean, what you two men did to me today, the way you did it, the things you said. I'd have to be stupid not to get a message." She gazed up frankly. "It's simply that a lot of men find pleasure in whipping a naked girl. I suppose it's an endless orgasm ... ?"
" You consider us sadists?"
"Well, aren't you ... in a nice, civilised sort of way?"
"Delightful! You put it rather well, though incorrectly. We do not see ourselves as sadists. Pain is a function of girls. Some of them find their greatest ecstasy in being whipped or enticingly bound."
"I didn't! It hurt hatefully. The idea of being whipped again frightens me."
"It was only your first experience, remember."
"I don't care! It was awful. I'm still sore. Goodness knows how long it will take the marks to go away."
Jennifer found it unexpectedly easy to cope with a cup and saucer while handcuffed. She felt she was doing it prettily. The rich brew Alita placed in her hands tasted good and was vastly comforting in its touch of normalcy. But Musef improved on the occasion.
"Alita, tell Miss Raines how many times you've been whipped."
There was neither embarrassment or surprise. The tone was casual. "Oh, many, many times, Miss Raines. I'm afraid I've lost count."
Jennifer sighed. She was outnumbered and out of her depth. But Musef El Raffah was watching her intently. "When you are sentenced to be whipped, Alita, how do you feel about it?" She asked hopefully.
"I am grateful. Why should I not be grateful, to please my Master?"
"Yes but ... but ... doesn't it hurt terribly?"
"Of course. But a girl's pain is most pleasurable to her Master, and when it is done and she lays on her whipped back both she and her Master are enriched. Please, Miss Raines, do not fear to be whipped. You are a girl."
With the stewardess gone, they sipped their coffee in a loaded silence. Finishing his cup, Musef asked sardonically. "Make any sense?"
"Not really." Jennifer shrugged. "But it helps me understand. I suppose it's possible to understand something without accepting it. I don't think I'll be what you want. All I'll be able to do is scream." She gazed up into his intent regard. "I don't see why a man like you would do such a thing, it's out of the dark ages - "
"It is out of Man's psyche, Miss Raines. It has always been there." He smiled at her puzzlement. "And I am rich. I would be a foolish man to discard such joy."
"Joy for you. What about the poor girl?"
"Would you describe Alita as 'poor' or unhappy? I assure you she spoke under no threat." He chuckled. "That young lady has been known to request the caning of her bottom as an aphrodisiac. She finds it stimulating." Musef laughed and waved the subject into limbo. "Let us speak of other things. It was you who raised the subject, y'know."
She was suddenly agog with questions. Coffee and confidence helped. She returned to her pet peeve and held up her hands. "Why must I be handcuffed?"
"At the moment they are merely a badge of your estate. But there will be times when they will be locked behind your back as a prudent precaution." He smiled whimsically. "Don't tell me you have no thought of escape?"
Jennifer produced her favourite pout. "Most of the time I won't have such a thought - because it would be useless and hopeless. Couldn't you confine the handcuffs to when I might have a chance to ran away. And you've got a ring on my collar for a chain ... ? Good gosh ... ? Why didn't you offer me a job and save all that money?"
"You belonged to Crummy, remember? And would you have accepted a salaried position as a concubine?"
"Well ... no ... No, I suppose not. But did you have to put me in that little cage, and handcuffed as well?" With an affectation of weariness Musef El Raffah produced a tiny key. "Give me your hands, Jennifer." Joyfully, the naked girl obeyed, her heart quickening at her first victory. In avid curiosity she watched the key inserted and turned to release a cuff. With lightening motion she was twisted around and the handcuffs yanked painfully to where the open jaws could again captivate her wrist, this time behind her back. She stood up, panting and chagrined, tugging resentfully at steel.
"There, Jennifer. Now you've got something to complain about. You had it good."
She was furious: with herself as much as with him. She knew instantly she would hate this change. Too late, she tried to mend her fence. "I'm sorry! Oh, really I am ... Master."
"Good!"
"Please, not this, not behind my back?"
"Why not?"
"I'm so helpless. I can't do a thing. And I'm all ... well, anyway, it's not nice. I mean, I can't do things! I can't lift a cup of coffee ... let alone go to the bathroom!"
"Alita can play lady's maid. Now, if you've no more questions you can go back in your cage."
"That's just to punish me." Jennifer glared sulkily. "And I do have some more questions."
"A thousand and one?" He asked dryly.
"That's unkind. I want to know if this captivity is for the rest of my life?"
"Yes, it is."
She shrivelled at the finality of it, and knew herself on thin ice. "What work do you want me to do for you - apart from my services in bed?"
"You wouldn't understand yet. It's political."
"Will you sell me to someone else when you tire of me?"
"Yes. Unless you're a good girl and I don't tire."
"Will I wear this collar always?"
"Yes."
"And if I'm ... bad?" I'll be chained by it?"
"Yes."
"Will I ever be able to do anything to earn my freedom?"
"Not unless I fell in love with you." He bestowed a brotherly grin. "Unlikely, eh! Now, if there's no more questions - ?"
Jennifer's whole being rose in revolt against a return to the cage. She hated that little cage with a bitter hatred - and now, with her hands behind her back ... ! An anguished protest rose to her lips but was never uttered. The man who entered the cabin drove it from her mind.
He was about thirty, dirty and needed a shave. His complexion and features might be Lebanese, they might he anything ... He was dressed in the Arab equivalent of blue jeans. But the most significant feature was his gun. It was pointed directly at Musef El Raffah.
The rest was quick and shocking. Musef flung himself sideways, his hand in a pocket, firing as he fell. The hijacker's bullet struck him squarely in the chest. A careless foot kicked him tentatively a couple of times before its owner turned and scrutinised the naked girl cowering against the hull.
"Huh. Damn nice! Who the hell are you?" Jennifer was sure nightmares needed no answers. She stared, and was relieved of speech by the entry of a facsimile of number one. This armed thug had a twist of amusement about his lips. It vanished when he saw the corpse. Instantly a voluble altercation ensued in a foreign tongue. It became evident that the last arrival did not approve the demise of Musef El Raffah. The nude spectator fought her handcuffs and longed for hands. If only she had used more sense!
A dead man is a dead man. He has no value. The hijackers turned to the living girl. "I asked who the hell you are. Now tell us and make it good. Why naked and why the handcuffs?"
"This man you've killed: he and another kidnapped me. They were going to make me a slave." Jennifer looked from one to the other piteously. "Please let me go. Set me free?"
Their English was good. It enabled them to make clear to the captive girl the unlikelihood of her ever being free again. She had witnessed a murder and was valuable merchandise. "That your cage back there?"
"Of course it's not mine! But they put me in it, yes."
"Good place for you. Come along."
"Don't put me back in there! Oh please!" Jennifer turned and demonstrated the bite of handcuffs on her wrists. Look, I'm helpless. I can't do a thing. You don't have to worry - "
"Into your cage, baby."
It was hopeless. In utter misery the naked girl wriggled and squirmed her way back within the mesh, aided by harsh and helping hands. The keys were on the floor. Nothing was breaking right. The padlock snapped and she was captive.
"Birdie in a cage, eh?"
"Save your wrists, kid. You won't get outta' them cuffs."
The cage was a shield between her and them. Apart from that it was a beastly small confinement, made worse by the handcuffs behind her back. In a great need to know, she pleaded: "What are you going to do with me'?"
"We'll fuck you when we get time. Then we'll find a buyer. A body like yours is worth a mint."
"They'll do it to both of us."
Jennifer had been too concerned with her own fate to notice. Now she saw Alita against the fuselage, bound hand and foot and cruelly jack-knifed into a hogtie. A young breast protruded through a rent in what had been her uniform. She was not struggling. Jennifer guessed the stewardess had been tied before and knew when she was defeated. "Who are they?" She asked, caring little.
"Guerrillas, bandits!" Alita spat venom. "The one who gives orders is Youssef Ben Rayaddah. He has many friends. He will do what he says with us." For a moment she struggled resentfully. "I do not want to be fucked by him. But it will be done to me - and to you too. We will be forced to suck a bandit's balls. Then they will sell us both. Where we are being taken it is very easy to sell girls, especially girls like you. Even I will fetch much money."
"But won't there be police, or the army, or someone ... ?"
"Not where we go, no. Oh, damn, I cannot get loose from this way they have tied me - I know you cannot. We are two most unlucky girls."
The nude in the cage saw her future as bleak indeed. Her sex was to be violated, perhaps by more than one man, then her body sold. "But who would buy us from men like these?" She asked incredulously.
"Many men." Alita mourned. "And we will be much whipped to make us behave. I do not like being whipped like that, it does not oil my cunt and make it perk. It just hurts a great deal and I cry."
"But can't we escape'?"
"We will be given to a trader in girls. He will chain us and put us in a big cage with others. When a man points at us we must be very nice to him."
"Have you done this before, Alita?"
"Alas, yes. Our Master purchased me from such a cage. Our poor Master! Many men will die because he has died. But that will not help us."
"But, Alita, how did you get in that cage in the first. place? You didn't just go there, did you?"
The hogtied girl managed a giggle. "I was sent by my parents to be educated in a convent in Marrakech. It was there I learned good English. The nuns always took us for long walks." She giggled again. "We walk two by two in a long line. One day I fall far behind to look in a shop window. When I wake up I was in the cage. My hands and feet were chained and I had no clothes. The girls in the cage do not have clothes. That was the end of my freedom. It is a long time ago."
There might be little solace in what Alita had to tell. But it was a communion between girls, two damsels in distress facing disaster. It was better to talk of anything rather than sit silent, hunched and chained in the little cage. "You mean men just pick us out in this cage? They point and say, "I'll buy that one.' I thought they had slave auctions?" Jennifer queried. "Who bought you?"
"Auction or the pointing finger, it makes no difference. It can be either way as they think most profitable. But when a girl is sold she has no life anymore. She belongs to someone, she dare not question." Alita sighed. "They whipped me so much I would obey anything. The whip was very terrible for a young girl. I was ashamed of the marks it made on my skin and frightened I would get more. But I was very lucky in my slavery, Miss Raines. I was purchased by an old man who wanted me for a pet. He could not do anything to me, you understand? But I could do many things to him. He taught me much, and he had other slaves who helped me too. He kept my ankles chained so I could not run, but that was all. He kept me several years and only whipped me when I was really bad. But then he died, and his family sent me back to the trader and there I was back in the cage. It was then our Master bought me, our Master who is now dead."
"But, Alita, these bandits?" Suppose they like us and keep us to ... use? Wouldn't our chances of escape be better?"
"Perhaps. But we would be brutalised, and tied often as 1 am tied now. It is very painful to be tied like this with rope or strips of hide. You wish to be a 'camp follower', Miss Raines?"
"Gosh no!" A thought was germinating in Jennifer's mind. "But if they thought we were grateful for being fucked and were glad they rescued us ... ? Mightn't they just keep us around? We could watch our chance?"
"Maybe you try, Miss Raines. But I think they always have a rope or a chain on us. I think they would be bad - tempered and would beat us often."
"That one you named? Youssef something or other, he seemed human. If he washed and shaved?"
"That one is most highly educated and very clever. He would not bother with a little Arab girl like me. I would be for fucking and selling, that is all. But you, Miss Raines, who can tell! You are very beautiful and you are educated too. If you have much courage you could try to interest Youssef Ben Rayaddah."
The two girls fell silent, each absorbed by speculation and discomfort. Alita made small revolts against her ropes to seek an easement of their misery. Jennifer sat still, hunched and unhappy. Any effort hurt so she did not make them. She was hating the handcuffs on her wrists and the demeaning confinement of her cage with a bitter hatred. But she thrust her shameful condition from her mind. Her real problem was men. She was in the possession of the third of them since her original kidnap. Whether a man was kind or cruel he spelt captivity, an enslavement that could keep her in chains forever. Desperately, she considered Youssef Ben Rayaddah. He would most certainly use her body, and she had best adjust to this degradation. But if she could intrigue him with her mind, her feminine mystique ... ! He would be no less susceptible than any other man to breasts and pubic hair and adoring eyes ... ! In bitter helplessness Jennifer made her firm resolve. She had not long to wait.
"Don't expect broken English and appeals to Allah." Youssef contemptuously kicked the mesh an inch from Jennifer's bottom. "I'm Harrow and Harvard: damn odd mixture but useful." He found a wooden box and used it as a seat from which to survey his female prize. His back was to the hogtied Alita, oblivious of either her existence or her suffering. Nonchalantly, he observed: "You are Jennifer Raines. Old Crumshawe had you kidnapped as one more bottom to cane." Youssef chuckled. "I've met the old boy, he's got a lot of good ideas. But, anyway, Musef bought you from him and now I've acquired you by accident. I hope you're pleasantly uncomfortable in that cage?"
"Yes, I am."
"Good. You'll find it has a liberalising effect on your British reserve. I trust your handcuffs are too tight?"
"Yes they are, they hurt." Jennifer plunged, "Look, Mr. - sir - I want to please you, I want to be realistic. What should I call you? I mean, a title or something ... ?"
" 'Sir' will be excellent. Keeps you in your place." The small smile illuminated his lips. "You have plans for seducing me with a view to escape?"
Damn his astuteness! The tiny cage became even smaller in its occupant's chagrin. But Jennifer kept her voice as limpid as her eyes. "Any girl in this cage would wish escape, sir. But I know you will never allow me the chance ... " She knew herself on delicate ground, so added cautiously. "If I am to be a slave it is best I be a good slave an earn my Master's approval."
"Well, that's damn big of you!" Youssef was laughing at her. "First thing I know, you'll be disposing my troops and giving me a piece of ass every Tuesday." His voice hardened. "You're another haughty English bitch who needs her nose rubbed in the dirt and a whip across her back."
It happened swiftly. Jennifer would remember it always. The cage was opened, she was dragged there from and thrust on her back and shackled arms upon the floor. Her legs were viciously kicked apart to make way for the glowering male and his impalement of her sex. Youssef fucked Miss Jennifer Raines brutally and with great competence. When he had extracted the last sensation her flesh could give he returned her to her cage by scornful kicks and proddings so that, hampered as she might be, the violated girl strove to help her own incarceration just to end the violence of this man she could not control. Jennifer watched the padlocks click, then buried her face between her hunched knees and wept.
"Youssef Ben Rayaddah uses girls as he wishes, girls do not use him." Alita had allowed a time of grace for tears before making her mournful observation. "He will just give us whippings and fuckings and we will never escape. I think it is best we say only 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir' to him. He sees us only as cunts."
The caged girl rubbed her eyes and cheeks against her own skin. She was grateful for the tears, they always helped. She shifted helplessly and tried to ignore the steady burn of the handcuffs on her wrists. Being feminine, she asked: "Did I look disgusting?"
"You are always beautiful, Miss Raines. That man, ugh! He was disgusting, but not you. I think even when you are whipped you will still be beautiful."
"I loathed it."
"Yes, but you did not fight and that was wise. If we do not fight our cunts will not be hurt."
Jennifer envied Alita her simple philosophy. It was a slave-girl's rationale. Within a month it might became her own. Sadly, she realised the rape had generated fewer tears than had the loss of hope. Youssef had not bothered to free her hands, she had lain across one imprisoned arm throughout her ravishment in which Youssef s hammer thrusts within her sheath had brought no joy. Everything was hopeless and she was as helpless as she had ever been. Woefully, she sought the refuge of her knees and cried anew.
Chapter Two
Desert Discipline
Jennifer Raines wondered idly whether she was not more miserable from the flies than from the ropes cutting her flesh wherever there was a curve to cut. The village of Fayalla, the guerrilla's stronghold, was unkind to naked white girls who were tied to stakes for the delectation of the soldiers and citizenry. Youssef Ben Rayaddah was good humouredly willing to share his spoils for the amusement of his followers, the flies were incidental beneficiaries. No amount of head shaking would dislodge them from her breasts and belly, and Jennifer was tied far too tightly to shake them from any portion of her nakedness. Her hands and arms were safely bound behind the post.
She was being punished. It was a casual contemptuous punishment for a few sulky words. Youssef Ben Rayaddah demanded total humility from his slave girls, a degree of submission which often trapped Jennifer into delinquency. What she was suffering now was by no means the worst of the penalties she had by a thoughtless tongue. It was indicative of her condition that she saw it as routine.
"That white skin won't let you reconcile yourself," Youssef had sneered. "We'll see if a day tied to the whipping post will cure your sulks."
"I'm sorry, sir. Please forgive me."
"You are not sorry and I won't forgive you. And, anyway, the boys will enjoy observing your naked charms I'll have a couple of them tie you damn good and tight - and stop that kneeling and trying to look repentant."
Jennifer, shamed; stumbled to her feet. As usual, she could find no comfortable disposition of her cuffed hands. She looked at her owner in genuine appeal. "Please, sir, really ... I didn't mean - "
"Stow it, bitch." Youssef delighted in being genially brutal with his Americanised speech. "You're getting off easy and you know it."
It was true. Jennifer knew she deserved the whip or suspension by her wrists or some other guerrilla pleasantry. As she walked in her nakedness between the two grinning soldiers to the post in the centre of Fayalla she knew her fate could have been worse. But to be bound to the stake by the tight cruelty these men employed was no picnic either. The only bright spot in her immediate future was Youssef' s command that her feet and thighs be tied close to inhibit any amorous attempt to pierce her by partisans unable to contain their lust. She would be blatantly on view, but that was all.
Reaching the grim upright pole, against which she would spend her day, Jennifer proffered her hands and watched fumbling brown fingers free her wrists from steel. Obediently, she thrust her bare back against the wood. Thought of an escape attempt did not enter her mind, for her there was no escape. Passively, she stood to be bound, wincing against the shrewd tugs and the lewd intrusions of strictures within or upon her most female privacies. She had never become reconciled to nakedness and could still flinch inwardly at a knowing leer or the amused scrutiny of her pubic hair. Today there would be plenty of both.
"Nice cunt." The soldiers patted her pubic mound and went their way. One of them turned and waved but she could not wave back.
The flies found her instantly, but she could do nothing in defence. She belonged to the rope and the rope held her lovingly, its strictures indenting her flesh wherever its bite might be excused. Ankles, knees, waist, shoulders, all were circled and cinched. Rope burned above and below her breasts. There was also the punitive uselessness of the cutting cords within her crotch, her breasts were rampant against the stress of wrists and arms lashed behind the post. It was a very complete job and would hold her in utter vulnerability to lecherous inspection.
It was hard to avoid the spectators, but a girl cannot blush forever under the appreciation of children, passers-by, and soldiers. The latter were in the majority and more inclined to discuss her female attributes to the tune of sly remarks and guffaws. She was touched a great deal but never hurt, her erogenous zones were ignored by virtue of her ownership. If her nakedness provoked a need for sex it could be found elsewhere. But she was desired, she had no doubt of it. Jennifer knew herself mentally raped by every lingering male. In self defence she acquired the ability to gaze distantly above their heads to a horizon that was not there. Soon, she would hurt abominably wherever rope nestled in her skin, the flies would become a torment. But, for the moment, her mind roved into memories of Youssef's pleasure in his possession of a white girl whose spirit was a treasure to be broken gradually in ancient ways.
It had begun when the cage, with herself inside, had been carried close to where she now stood bound. Alita had been dragged there too. Forlornly, the two girls had watched Musef's plane roar away to a freedom they had lost. The four stakes, like tent pegs, had been swiftly driven into the ground by eager guerrilla hands, and Alita had been untied to enable her wrists and ankles to be bound afresh as she lay on her back without protest. In a couple of minutes the Arab maiden was tautly spread, her feet cruelly apart, a wooden bolster placed beneath the small of her back to raise her hips and expose her black-haired sex at a desirable elevation above the sand. Alita was ready.
Jennifer longed to close her eyes but could not. In fascinated horror she gazed through the mesh of her cage as her fellow captive was raped and raped again. The slenderness of the bound maiden was a tid-bit in a guerrilla feast and they made the most of her. They were an elite guard, favoured by The Leader, and when they were done with their sport they freed their prize and carried her away. Alita made neither sound or motion in protest but wept copiously beneath the sexual rams. Meeting Jennifer's anxious eyes she tried to smile.
The four stakes remained. The caged girl was picturing herself within their embrace with pelvis poised for penetration. When the cage was unlocked and she was dragged there from she entertained no doubts as to her fate. But, as in a pattern she could now discern, nothing for her was to be the obvious. Youssef Ben Rayaddah intended to enjoy her bewildered gropings for an adjustment she would never make. Jennifer was lifted to her feet, her hands remained handcuffed behind her back, rope was harshly knotted round her left ankle and anchored to one of the sinister stakes while the other three and their ropes were carried away and with them the cage. She was left standing on the sand, helpless and cringingly conscious of her nudity. She could walk a yard in any direction, that was all.
The soldiers who had raped Alita inspected Jennifer's figure, commented favourably and went their way. Her audience now was the villagers and a constantly changing contingent of soldiers who had been told to admire but not to touch. Sitting against an adjacent palm was a male urchin idly toying with a slender length of limber switch. She discovered his function when she lowered herself to sit and the switch slashed her shoulders with gleeful joy. Resentfully, she stood, not risking another blow the boy would delight to give. Everyone seemed pleased and admired the scarlet weal across her back.
It was better than the cage whose only virtue had been that it hid her pubic hair. But to stand thus with her hands behind her back was tiring and shaming and frustrating in as much that turning from one leering assembly she found herself confronted by another. There was no escape, her nakedness was for all to share and she had best get used to it. In haughty disdain, the white nude stood, and stood, and stood.
"Unless otherwise ordered, you will kneel when in my presence." Youssef directed comfortably.
Miss Jennifer Raines sank instantly to her knees. Her release from the ankle tether was still vividly recent and she wished to please. She kept silent, frightened of words.
"I find you appealing like that." Youssef said amiably. "With your hands locked behind your back it's a nice effect. Did you enjoy the raping of your little stewardess?"
"No, sir."
"You were not intended to. It was a warning. By the way tomorrow I am having you whipped. Can you comprehend that?"
"Yes, sir."
"What, no questions or complaints? You've done nothing to deserve it, y'know?"
"I am being whipped to give you pleasure, sir. Am I not?"
"Well I'm damned! I bet Musef promised you the same?"
"Yes, sir. And Alita told me how, in this land, it is the lot of girls to be whipped by those who own us."
"Huh, I'd wanted it as a surprise. You got any idea what's entailed?"
"Not really, sir. I presume I'm to be ... flogged?" He laughed at her stiff formality, guessing the turmoil within her breast. "Quite a word that ... flogged! Don't care for it. Just so you don't worry yourself silly, there's no cat with metal inserts. Only a plain old-fashioned whip of camel hide. You'll discover it hurts."
"Thank you, sir."
"What the hell are you thanking me for?" Jennifer twisted pinioned shoulders in bafflement. She feared she might easily be whipped today as well. "Because I don't know the proper things to say, sir, the things you expect of me - "
"Dammit, say what's in your mind."
"But then you'll punish me - !" She bit off her admission too late.
Youssef was delighted. "So I've got myself a slave-girl whose mind is filled with resentment and revolt, eh!"
She shrugged, resigned to stripes. It was all hopeless. "A few days ago I was a free girl in London." She said plaintively. "Now look at me! I'm trying, honestly I am. But this is all so ... so - "
"The sort of thing you expect from wogs?"
"I didn't say that. I didn't use that word."
"But it's there ... waiting?"
"Of course it isn't! You're an educated man and ought to know better - !"
Jennifer gazed up at him, stricken. Her tongue had betrayed her once again. Now she would be punished for sure.
"Got a gift for it, haven't you." Youssef was chuckling, not displeased. "I'd be crazy to muzzle you, you're too informative."
Jennifer gazed up from her posture of humility. "I'd like to say thank you, sir." She ventured. "But it sounds so - so - trite?"
"Say it anyway."
She obeyed. The humble words carried sincerity. With equal humility, she added: "Please help me to be what you want. I can't bear the thought of being constantly punished."
"Sure." The word held a sardonic edge. "Now you can ask me, in that prim and proper English way of yours, to give you a good rough fucking."
It was like a blow, a blow to hope. This man would always toy with her, defeat her purposely, turn her into a submissive drab with his endless shocks and bafflements. Desolately, she examined the hateful thing he now demanded. He left her nothing, stripping her of more than clothes.
"Well? What are you waiting for?"
"I - I - " She twisted in desperation, her words a defeat. "Please, sir, I ask you to give me a good rough fucking. I will be grateful if you will do this to me."
The ugly request faded into silence. Jennifer knelt, no longer caring, awaiting her owner's next whim. "Hmmmmm, passable but uninspired." Youssef looked down at the kneeling girl, his eyes shining. "Now, I want you to embellish that request with anatomical and clinical detail, a touch of zing with four letter words."
It was too much! In a panicky rejection of hatefulness Jennifer Raines tossed caution to the winds. "I won't do that." She said flatly. "I did what you asked. Now you want more. You're deliberately goading me and I can't fight back. Go ahead and punish me in some beastly way. That's what you want to do, isn't it?"
Youssef nodded thoughtfully. "That's one thing about the British, they're predictable. Would you care to make a suggestion as to punishment?"
Jennifer shrugged disdainfully. "What's it matter! If you don't hurt me one way you will another. I'm only a girl and that's what girls are for ... isn't it?"
Fear would quench anger. But Jennifer was still flaming, her wrists chafing at their steel bands, her shoulders twisting. "You're having me whipped tomorrow." She retorted petulantly. "I've never worked with a torturer so I'm not familiar with the other ... things." Desperately, she added: "I suppose you could put me back in that rotten little cage?"
"Marvellous female!" Youssef professed hearty approval. "You always know the right thing to say, Miss Raines, an unerring instinct. Turn round."
It was a wonderful moment to be freed of the handcuffs. But the naked girl stood, rubbing her wrists, in an abashed certainty of worse to come. She wished she had not mentioned the cage. She hated its cruel confinement. Dejectedly, she said her trite: "Thank you, sir."
"A pleasure. Come this way, Miss Raines." Jennifer knew herself played with. His mocking politeness would keep her off guard. She was certain her present total freedom from bonds was one more goad, a temptation to run. But she knew she would not dare. Naked in Fayalla she would find no friends. She kept pace with her owner in mute misery.
The cage seemed almost a live thing, waiting for her in the centre of the bare room. Sight of its loathsome promise made Jennifer wish she had asked for something else ... anything! Youssef's thoughtful comment was one more blow. "I'd say about twenty hours before you are taken out to be whipped, Miss Raines."
"Why must you do this to me? You don't have to. Twenty hours in that thing will be torture."
"You asked for it, Miss Raines."
"I know. But twenty hours ... !"
"Be good enough to get inside, please."
It was the last thing the naked girl wished to do. She stood, in her spurious freedom, her mind racing. "You haven't handcuffed me again?" She pointed out pathetically. "Don't you want to?"
"A small refinement." Youssef chuckled. "I want to witness a free Englishwoman insert herself in that cage and ask to be locked in. You would not begrudge me this pleasure?"
Jennifer flounced to her small prison and knelt before its open end. Previously she had been a shackled bundle of girl thrust within the mesh by other hands. But now, and with hands, she must contort herself shamefully to be crouched within the metal box. She achieved it painfully and with wrigglings she was certain the watching man enjoyed.
"You can put these on yourself."
Blushing, Jennifer obeyed. Arms circling her bent up knees, she used handcuffs for the first time in her life, clicking the chrome jaws upon herself to the snugness she knew Youssef would desire.
"One notch tighter, Miss Raines."
The extra click made them hurt. But that was to be expected. "Please lock me in, sir." She requested with polite resentment. Cringing, the captive watched the snapping padlocks seal her safe. She was caged!
"Oh, and by the way, before you're whipped tomorrow I'll have you bathed. Can't have you smelling, can we."
The captive in the cage was one huge blush as her owner insouciantly sauntered from the room. Hating Youssef" Ben Rayaddah with every fibre of her being, Jennifer wept. Her strained knees received her tears.
Youssef had closed the door. It was lonely and quiet in the room whose only furnishing was the cage itself and the girl within Jennifer wriggled herself and her cuffed hands into a familiar mould and, with her chin on her knees surrendered to claustrophobia and the panic she understood but could not control. Suppose she was forgotten! Suppose something happened to Youssef - it might be days ... ! Suppose this cramped confinement drove her into hysterics as the hours passed! Twenty hours was utter cruelty ... ! Her bleak assessment went on and on. Even when she was released the whip was waiting and there would be curious and lecherous eyes to watch it etch her back. Such a delectable cruelty was scarcely likely to be wasted on her in private. Idly she wondered why Youssef had not ravished her again before locking her in. Surely he was not bored with her already! Indignantly she quashed an errant pique.
The woman who unlocked the cage in the fading light of early evening spoke no English. With grunts and prods she introduced Jennifer to a quality of plumbing unsuspected in Fayalla. Without a word, she bathed her handcuffed charge and did her best with captive hair. She used too much of a too potent perfume but Jennifer was grateful. After eight hours in the cage she was prepared to be a very good girl. When she was inserted into the bedroom by a rough female hand and the door clicked shut at her back she was confronted by a Youssef Ben Rayaddah impressively naked. Washed and shaved, he had taken on stature. The heart of the handcuffed girl began to thud.
"Get on the bed, Jennifer."
She obeyed. This was no more than she might expect.
"Spread your legs. Knees up and out."
Jennifer arranged herself. Jeering voices impinged within her mind: Rape: Ravishment: Appeasement of lust: The Act of Love ... ? What did they matter. The best word for what was about to be done to her was 'fuck'. All the others were simply a girl's justification of herself. For good measure, she raised her arms and clenched her joined hands above her head.
Youssef tossed her a pillow. "Here, you know where to put this."
Miss Jennifer Raines wriggled the shaming object beneath her hips, then resumed position. Youssef Ben Rayaddah took his prize.
The sun was high when Jennifer awoke. She was alone with scrambled coverings in the big bed. She was still handcuffed. Drowsily, she reviewed the night, and was ashamed indeed. Youssef had conquered her totally, using her again and again in any way he chose. Wryly, she asked herself if he had not himself accomplished the seduction she had planned. She was irritated and angry with her responses to her captor's sexual skills but, on the other hand, they had achieved a rapport in bed which she might promote further and further toward an eventual escape. Youssef would get used to having her around and would become careless. Jennifer was encouraged by her present condition. Youssef had left her alone. She had become so accustomed to handcuffs they scarcely counted. The door was open. In a rising hope she slipped from the bed, only to look down ruefully at her left foot, around its ankle was a shining shackle and from it a chain ran to a ringbolt in the floor. Youssef must have fastened it on her as she slept. She was not as free as she had supposed, nor was his trust as great.
But it was hard to disperse the euphoria of the night. She was not in the cage. The eight hours she had spent inside it yesterday told her of good fortune in exchanging it for Youssef's bed. Jennifer felt a very feminine triumph in her master's bath and shave in her honour, and to have her bathed before delivery to his bed. Kicking idly with her chained foot she awaited the pleasure of the man who owned her.
It was the same woman and the same bath. But this time her toilette was far more painstaking. As she was ministered to she had the feeling of being a bride, scented and glorified. It was not until the sly wise hand caressed the contours of her back that Jennifer Raines remembered ... '. Today she would be whipped! She was being readied, not for love but for pain.
The enormity of comprehension did not entirely dispel hope. Youssef had forgiven her twelve hours in the cage, it would be in keeping with his whimsy to forgive her the whip. To have her flogged seemed utterly out of keeping with the hours of their night. In faint hope she ate the proffered food and drank the coffee. But the hope died with the advent of the two grinning soldiers, their shaved features and laundered uniform matched her own immaculate and perfumed nakedness.
They marched her between them to the village square. She blushed hotly under the stare of curious eyes. Her chained hands defeated poise, no matter how she held them they seemed out of place. When the stark and sinister post came into view it took all her control to march between her guard and not to run. Running would be useless but she was trembling. Reaching the post itself her disposal was simple. One cuff was unlocked, her arms circled the pole and were again locked together before being raised to compel her to stand upon her toes. Some sort of fastening clicked on her handcuffs and Miss Jennifer Raines became a fixture. She was ready for the whip.
It was a miserable pose. Her handcuffs would hurt her wrists steadily, if she struggled they would cut her wrists. To ease them she stood upon her toes but that was tiring. Her breasts pressed hard against the wood, and to cheat lewd eyes Jennifer pressed her pubic patch against it too. The crowd could ogle her back and bottom, no doubt the whip-marks would enhance both.
It was hard not to look furtively from side to side at her appreciative audience, marshalled in a wide circle by the self important soldiery. Grimly, the captive understood the cynical preening of her beauty as a contrast to the dirty sand beneath her feet, the monolithic post, and the ragged and nondescript inhabitants. She tried to deny a longing for Youssef's hand and the sound of his voice. But the guerrilla leader was not there; Miss Jennifer Raines was very much alone. She blinked back the tears these people must not see. Her back cringed and was cold in the hot air in fearful anticipation. She could move but little.
Suddenly he was there, his voice as enigmatic as his face. "Thank you for our night, little slave."
"You are welcome, sir."
It was absurd enough to wrest a smile from each. Jennifer said, wanly: "I am a little hysterical with fear." And then: "Is there any hope you could forgive me this?"
"No. It is best you be whipped and get it done with. It is something essential in the beginning to every slave." He paused, then said gently: "You are very beautiful."
"Is it you who will whip me, sir?"
"No, the woman." His eye twinkled, "Nothing would give me greater joy than to stripe your skin. But it is more fitting the woman whip you. Even ruffians like guerrillas are bound by protocol. If it's any comfort to you, little slave, you can know you are expiating all the sins of your race here in the desert. My people see what I do to you today as right and proper."
"I'll try and remember." Her voice was bitter. "I'm sure it will help."
"That's England speaking, sarkey to the end."
"I'd abase myself in any way you wish if it would set me free."
"Yet, yesterday, you balked at a few four letter words?" He surveyed her in silence for a moment. "Do you wonder why only your wrists are fastened?"
"Isn't it because they hurt? Or because it shames me to stand naked like this, held helpless by so small a trifle?"
"Actually, it's so you can jump around. Girls usually become quite active under the lash, they kick and cavort and give great pleasure to those who watch."
"Including you."
"Why not, you're my property."
Jennifer could find no reply she dared utter. She longed to scream and scream in frustration at the helplessness of naked girls tied to posts in village squares somewhere in the desert. When she turned to wither him with reproach he had gone. Twisting, painfully, further she beheld the woman striding forward purposefully. The woman held a whip.
The punishment of Miss Jennifer Raines was unremarkable. Its absence of drama and the roll of drums was an emphasis of understatement. She was whipped most competently but to a severity less than damaging. Quite apart from the pain, it was a total humiliation.
It is a far cry from Lord Crumshawe's riding crop on a bare bottom to Youssef Ben Rayaddah's whip across a naked back. But pain is pain, and even in the first nauseating agony of the lash Jennifer was grateful for a previous introduction. Remembering the bench at Stoule, she thrust her forehead hard against the post and clenched her teeth. She had no expectation of Stoic silence, but to scream at the first blow ... !
The second cut across her skin was harder. Intuitively, Jennifer realised she was expected to respond. A stiff upper lip here was out of place. The woman would slash at her as hard as need be to provide the watchers with the spectacle they had come to see. Among them was her Master. He would be smiling as scarlet lit the lines across her back. When the third stroke bit her shoulders she screamed lustily. It was not hard to do.
Jennifer had believed she could not move, but she was wrong. As the leather licked her skin the pain of her handcuffed wrists became as nothing compared to the agony of the whip. In a purely physical response she was soon kicking at the air with her free feet and retreating against the post away from the scourge, swaying this way and that in a range of inches which moved her back but little whilst it gave her bottom an outlet for pose and posture, of which the woman took full advantage. Whenever the streaked derriere curved outward in a spasm of anguish it received such a cut of the whip as to send its feminine pelvis slamming back against the wood where it sought refuge until the blows elsewhere on its owner's nudity drove it once more to curvaceous protest.
But, no matter how she writhed, Jennifer was essentially helpless. Her bare arms were high embracing the post, her wrists immovable within the handcuff's jaws. They were bleeding but she could not see them and did not care. She screamed her tribute to each blow and let her body and her legs behave as they would. If they behaved obscenely that did not matter either. A girl fastened naked to a whipping post has little thought of pride.
It was Jennifer Raines' first formal whipping. She had no previous experience on which to buoy hope. Would she be whipped into unconsciousness? She had read of it but had never in her life felt more vividly conscious than now. Or was she already sentenced to a predetermined number of lashes: twenty, fifty, one hundred? She had lost count in this tumult of sensation. But there nagged a thought that there must be something she could do to end her travail: Faint: Plead: Promise: hang from her wrists in a simulation ... ? A whiplash caught her unaware around her waist ... Once more she lunged and pealed her paean to the desert wind.
The end of Jennifer's unearned punishment was as prosaic as its beginning. Her whipping suddenly stopped. That was all. The woman patted the wealed bottom in approval and went her way. The crowd dispersed while the soldiers released her tractioned arms and cuffed her hurt wrists behind her back. Laughing, they noosed her neck and led her back from whence she came. Youssef carried her to where they had made their love and tossed her, laughingly, on the bed. In hurt and shame she turned face down and wept.
"Hiding your cunt, or hoping I'll feel ashamed about that lovely back?" As usual, Youssef was amused. Jennifer sniffed. "You didn't have to do that to me. I bet you haven't the faintest idea how it hurt."
"I had to do it to you, you needed it." He chuckled. "You quite probably need another. As for the hurt, its the name of the game. Cheer up, you'll live."
It was in her mind to retort that she did not wish to live. But she could not ignore a welling thankfulness the whipping was over. Her back was burning but she was luxuriating in the soft comfort of the bed. She wished she had her hands but it was best not to demand. Wanly, she asked: "Can I have a bath please? I must look horrible and I'm all sweaty ... I suppose it was the pain, or shock, or something."
"You smell female. I like it. Roll over." "Oh no! Not like this! Not now?"
"Assume position, Miss Raines."
Jennifer dared not complain. This was the logic of the whip. Trembling but with quickened pulse she turned and lay across a captive arm. "I'm still handcuffed - behind my back ... ?"
"So I noticed. Did you know fucking is better with a girl who's got a, freshly whipped back?"
"The pillow ... ? I'm so helpless - "
"Don't need it. Lay on your arms and cuffed hands. That'll raise you up enough."
"I suppose you know my back's cut to ribbons?"
"No it isn't. It's just prettily welted. You can go and look in the mirror after you've been well fucked. Spread your legs and stop pretending you're not horny." Jennifer stopped pretending. Jennifer spread her legs. Youssef turned out to be absolutely correct about a girl with a whipped back. It was better than in the night.
Chapter Three
Flight
The girl bound to the whipping post raised her head wearily from memories, mostly painful. Jennifer Raines wished she could dream happily of London Parks or shopping at Selfridge's. But that portion of her life was now too distant, too unreal. Lord Crumshawe had neatly divided her existence on the day of her first kidnapping. Only a successful escape could take her back to the green and comfort of England, and t hat escape seemed as unlikely now as it had ever been. Flinching against the tight ropes, Jennifer knew she had largely expunged the past from her mind - thinking about England hurt too much. Fretfully tossing her hair against the flies, she relapsed back into reverie.
She was capriciously owned by an unpredictable man. He loved or punished her without consistency, keeping her off balance. They were good for each other in bed and she had gained privileges thereby, but none of them left her minus a handcuff, a shackle or a rope. Sometimes Youssef would free her of all restraint and mock her fear to run. He would make her kneel or service him or play housemaid. But always he would return her to one of the bondages she had come to accept as a fact of life. Girls were not supposed to run around free when they were owned.
Jennifer sensed that before he had captured her Youssef had been a lonely man. His American life was not far distant and he missed the easy camaraderie of educated females which Fayalla failed to provide. He had found a rapport with Jennifer which, even though maintained by raillery and repartee, was real enough for her to feel some small power over him and to keep alive the faint spark of hope she would not be sold in the slave market, and that one day she might escape.
Youssef's slave-girl could not deny some affection for her Master. True, he had her whipped and punished constantly and often without cause. But the age-old lure of the loins was potent, and when he was kind to her he was very kind indeed. He was also superbly masculine and, when he shaved, handsome. When his affairs took him away from Fayalla he left her chained by her ankle in their bedroom or locked in a small cell which boasted a comfortable cot. She was always handcuffed, mostly with her hands in front where she could get some use of them. They only left her wrists in times like now as punishments might dictate. They shared the joke that, should he ever free her, she would he obliged to wear her handcuffs to keep warm.
He teased, as in the manner of men with teenage girls, and his teasing could be cruel. Early in their time together she had become aware that the teasing might also be a test to goad her into an imprudence for which she might be punished, or a trap to extract from her some damaging admission. Since Youssef held all the cards, she could never win. It was one of the facts of being owned. Unblushingly, he would tell her of his sexual response to placing her in certain circumstances of restraint. He would even, obscenely, exhibit to her in private the physical proof of her influence on his potency. He had an obsession about the tiny cage in which he had first seen her.
"But, sir, it's horrible in there. I can't move, I get all cramped, and the wire marks my skin - it was only made so a girl could be carried from place to place."
"I seem to recall a matter of twelve hours ... ?"
Youssef allowed the inference to hover between them. "But, sir, you released me. I'd have been half dead by morning. That cage is a brute."
"Nonetheless a sentence is a sentence. Yours was twenty hours, of which you served eight. Twelve more remain."
Jennifer was desolated. In theory she hadn't a leg to stand on. She had missed twelve hours of a punishment. But it was so cruel, so unfair. She looked, piteously, at her Master and said: "Please don't put me back in there. Please, sir, I hate it!"
"I shall not put you back. You will crawl in yourself as you did last time." Youssef smiled at her brightly. "Cheer up, girl. Twelve hours is only one day."
Silently and sulkily she followed him to the cage. The metal square was still in the small bare room alone. It was as though it had been fabricated solely for her and was waiting for the heat of her flesh and the salt of her tears. Jennifer held up her hands: "Do you want me handcuffed like this, sir?"
"Oh sure. Be a bit difficult for the crawl but you'll manage."
She managed, edging in backwards inch by painful inch. Remembering his previous demand, she asked tonelessly: "Please lock me in, sir."
Without comment, Youssef Ben Rayaddah padlocked his slave-girl within her cage and went away. Jennifer had scarcely coped with her first tears of self pity when he returned and set he free. "Just testing." He said casually. "You came through remarkably well."
She would always be ashamed of falling to clasp his knees in a surge of gratitude, and to say over and over: "Oh, thank you, thank you ... Oh, sir ... !"
"Can always put you back in, y'know." He had said sardonically. But his hands had been more than gentle in her hair.
Jennifer had not been returned to the cage. But there were other aphrodisiacs. "Ever spend time in the pillory, Jennifer?"
She tensed, uncertain. "Of course not. They haven't used such a thing in England for a century, sir."
"Hmmmm, we use 'em here."
She had seen the ugly thing in the courtyard of his house and supposed it a relic of other days. Delivering her best smile, she pleaded: "Please don't put me in one."
"But you know I'm going to, don't you."
She went with him without demur. She had become totally obedient and, besides, there was always the hope he might be teasing. When he raised the upper yoke to bare the sinister orifices, she ventured: "But they're so small - ?"
"Made only for girls." He chuckled. "I bet this thing's taught a few serving wenches a lesson or two."
"It's - it's so ugly - so huge ... and wicked?"
"The better to hold you, my dear. In you go!"
It was like being a Queen putting her head on the block to be beheaded. Shuddering at what she must do, Jennifer gingerly fitted her neck into a slot which had seemed much too tiny but which was no more than snug. She swathed her hair and set it down beside one cheek. Then, in the fearful knowledge of irrevocability, she fitted her wrists where they should go.
"A solemn moment, this." Youssef slowly lowered the imprisoning yoke into place. "They must have made it for girls your size in those days. A perfect fit, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir. I can't move anything without chafing." She strove for lightheartedness. "I couldn't get out of this in a hundred years."
"Good, you're not supposed to," Youssef held up the handcuffs he had been compelled to remove from her a minute past. "Pity to waste these, they can go an your ankles."
Jennifer supposed it did not matter. She felt the bite of metal and the clicks, and hoped she would have no need to kick. Looking sideways past a imprisoned hand she watched herself locked in. The padlock seemed huge enough to hold a dozen girls. Tentatively, she asked: "Aren't I ... sort of bent over? I thought people stood - ?"
"It does double duty. Holds a girl nicely for a whipping."
The whip was never far from conversation! Unhappily she asked: "Am I going to be whipped too?"
"I haven't decided. See if you can guess. Give you something to think about." Youssef patted her bare bent-over bottom and returned to the house. The girl in the pillory gazed after him in longing. If only ... if only ... ! But what was the use of wishing!
Unless she chose to chafe her neck, Jennifer's view was restricted to the floor below or her two hands. Her bent-over posture had not yet begun to take its toll of cramps and weariness. Having tested the solidity of the structure into which she was yoked and the impossibility of freeing wrists or neck, there was nothing else to do but wonder if she really was going to be whipped. She was inclined to doubt it, Youssef had probably tossed it into her pot of anxiety as a tease. But, even without being whipped, her day loomed bleakly. Youssef quite probably could not guess the measure in which he had added to her travail by handcuffing her feet. To move her legs, shift her weight, to kick! All these motions would have helped but she could not make them. A three inch shuffle was all the single link would allow, and the tensioning of tendons as she stood made her ankles swell against the steel bands. Before evening she was going to hate the chrome circlets so laughingly locked above her feet. Jennifer wriggled her hips as her only means of expression, and was glad there was no one to witness her shame. She felt sure she looked ridiculous.
It was a long time before the girl came, a solemn wide-eyed Arab girl perhaps ten or eleven years old. She carefully closed the door arid advanced to stare at white nudity safely confined. Jennifer stared back. Being ogled was very much a part of female punishment.
"You are much hurting?"
"Yes." Jennifer was puzzled. "Are you sure you should be here?" Prudently, she added. "You must not touch me."
The child deliberately and playfully placed a finger on the captive's nose. "I touch very much." She announced complacently. "You see! Now I go behind."
The girl vanished from Jennifer's sight. Her self satisfied voice was replaced by hands. The prisoner gasped as her breasts were cupped, kneaded and explored by interested hands. "I am not having these." The young voice admitted. "They are very nice." Two helpless nipples were pinched playfully. "And so are these. Mine are very small. I have not seen such lovely things before."
"I told you not to touch! Go away!"
Jennifer was then subjected to a juvenile but competent 'Feeling - up'. The girlish hands left no female curve or crevice unexplored. The adult prisoner stirred in shame as the childish fingers stripped her of modesty. Ardently, she wished Youssef had not cuffed her ankles. She longed to kick. But the joining of her feet made her doubly prey to the prying hands which inserted themselves between compressed thighs and worked their will beneath dark pubic hair. Jennifer wriggled and swayed her hips to no avail. Her gasps were frantic. "Go away! Stop that! I'll tell The Leader, and you'll be punished."
"I am much enjoy."
"But I'm not! Stop it!"
The carnal caresses actually stopped. The girl in the pillory tensed for something worse. But the child reappeared, her eyes bright with mischief, and held up two keys. "Now I am letting you loose." She announced simply.
Instead of a surge of joy, Jennifer felt fear. There was something wrong, there had to be. She and this self assured moppet were headed for punishment. But, breathlessly, she asked, "Where did you get those keys?"
"Is someone sorry for you. No matter."
"But I want to know."
"You want get loose or stay there?"
Jennifer had no reply. She felt the cuffs tugged from her ankles, she watched small fingers work on the huge padlock. Their owner recited instructions. "You hide in trees or anywhere you like. In dark you steal covering. Now I give money."
It was glorious to stand, to move. It was a moment of physical freedom she would long remember. In spontaneous gratitude she kissed the small serious face. Then, dubiously, accepted a small fold of dirty currency. While she was looking at it the child suddenly turned and fled as though demons were in pursuit.
It was another moment to remember. Standing, naked, by the pillory Jennifer surveyed the impossible. She was free! But was she? She stood in a room as bare as her own body. The room was in a bandit stronghold in a far land of which she knew nothing. The child's instructions were only the bare bones of a possibility. To run and to be caught! Her whole being revolted at the thought. Yet she had this chance and if she did not try ... there would only be long years of slavery.
It came to Jennifer suddenly that this was a trap, a Youssef tease. Somewhere now the child would be giving her report and Youssef would be laughing. No doubt she would be allowed to steal away into what seemed safety, and then picked up like a stray kitten and dragged back for punishment. She shuddered in a terrible loneliness, she had never felt more naked.
Her mind in turmoil, but in increasing shame, Jennifer came to know she would not flee. The shame arose from awareness of the degree in which her feelings for her owner influenced her judgement. But, in surveying her other alternative she could not muster the foolhardy courage it demanded. She was naked! If only she had clothes and a friend somewhere waiting ... but alone! Fayalla would reward her temerity with a series of rapes or some other slavery. Most probably she would face an ignominious return to the wrath of Youssef Ben Rayaddah: She could almost feel the lashes across her back. But also there might be reproachful eyes! She could not bear that either. Decision made, Jennifer Raines returned to being female. If she could not gain freedom she should, at least, make points. In sly expediency she knew what she should do. Giving a last contemptuous glance at the hated pillory, she picked up the discarded handcuffs and their key and strode forth to a fate of her own choosing.
Except for concupiscent assessments of her female curves Jennifer was ignored. She belonged to The Leader and must not be molested. This might have aided her in escape ... but on the other hand? Blushing, she was forced to ask the way, and a finger pointed deferentially. She felt like Alice in Wonderland. Her heart was thudding painfully when she knocked at the door.
Youssef Ben Rayaddah was seated at a paper strewn desk. When he raised his head his visitor detected only the barest flicker of surprise. His voice was as bland as his face. "Well, well! Did you take lessons with Houdini?"
She told him the bare bone facts about the child. No more.
"Hmmmmm, I have a traitor in my camp." His eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you run?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Then let me tell you." His boyish grin was back. "You're scared out of your pretty little mind to run naked into the desert. I don't even need to keep a leash on you, do I?"
Jennifer shrugged. "If you say so."
"Is there more?"
She squirmed. "I think you know there is."
No. Tell me."
"I - 1 - 1 can't. You do know."
Youssef knew! They were both tremendously aware of each other. In a lonely need of expression Jennifer Raines fell to her knees beside his chair and said, simply: "I belong to you. You own me."
For a long time his fingers played idly in the hair of her bowed head. His voice was gentle. "What do I behold, fear or love?"
"I don't know. You judge." Awkwardly, she offered the handcuffs and their key and the currency. "You'd better have these."
"It would have been a nice touch of authenticity if you had handcuffed yourself. Why didn't you?"
"It never occurred to me."
"Do you want them on you now?"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter."
"Oh, but it does."
Jennifer rose, turned, and put her hands behind her back. "Then please put them on me."
"Couldn't care less, eh? But why behind?"
"Because then I'm helpless, I can't make decisions, I can't run away." She looked irritably back over her shoulder. "Can't you realise how difficult this has been for me?"
Youssef clasped the cuffs tight on her wrists. "Turn around. I want to look at you."
It seemed so natural, so secure. Naked before him, her hands in limbo out of sight. But Jennifer's retort was acid: "I still have my breasts, nipples and pubic hair. You've lost nothing."
"You also have your tongue - "
She watched her Master rummage, knowing what to expect. Why oh why could she never eschew sarcasm! Abjectly, she backtracked. "I'm sorry. I apologise." Seeing what he had chosen, she added hurriedly: "Please don't gag me, I promise I'll behave."
"Open your mouth."
Her cheeks bulging but compressed by straps, Jennifer endured the tight buckling at the nape of her neck. She supposed the gag served her right. She was indeed back to square one. She stood, blatantly exposed for her owner's enjoyment.
"You were right. I laid a trap for you." The gagged girl nodded.
"I'll never know the truth of what you've told me." Jennifer shrugged, glad she could not speak. Slowly, Youssef Ben Rayaddah rose, and clasping her strapped cheeks kissed her forehead, her eyes, the tip of her nose. "I love you too." He said in his mock Americanese. He patted her bottom. "Now run along. You have the freedom of the house. In fact, you have the freedom of all of Fayalla if you wish. You aren't going anywhere." He pushed her from the room and closed the door to leave his slave-girl startled and alone.
He had kissed her! The magnitude of the event set every nerve in Jennifer's body to tingling. Whatever she might have lost could not outweigh this gain. She refused to think of love. But they were a step closer. Perhaps she had confirmed something for him. Even though she was now back in a familiar bondage there might come times when she would be free. Guiltily, she knew her wish for a true escape was still alive. It might be conscience. or Anglican guilt, but if a certain escape came her way she would take it. If Youssef still wanted her then they could meet on equal terms in a place where girls wore clothes instead of chains. For now, she was happier than she had been for a long time. Uncaring of handcuffs or gag, she went to their room, flung herself across their bed, and went to sleep.
The post was relentless, the sun was hot, the ropes did not so much chafe as cut where they had been cinched into female flesh. Jennifer moaned and dragged herself back from the musings - that never set her free. Raising her tired head she found herself gazing into the amused regard of Youssef Ben Rayaddah. Wearily, she said: "Hello, Youssef. Enjoying me?"
Since the day of the Pillory they had fallen into an easy informality in which his title varied with their mood. It could be his name: It could be, Master: Or perhaps nothing at all: The original 'sir' usually indicated an urgent desire to please. The only other change that day had brought was a different freedom. With her hands bound behind her back or cuffed in front, Jennifer was allowed to roam at will. Fayalla was open to her but she never walked its streets. She had asked for clothes that she might do so, but Youssef had jeered her request away, saying her preferred her naked. He had been examining that same nudity now before she had become aware. "I am enjoying you like this very much." He said seriously. "Bound to a post you are the most beautiful thing in the world."
"Thank you, and I'm hurting terribly."
"You are bound to hurt. Not a bad pun, eh?"
"I apologise for being sulky, Master. Please forgive me?"
"I forgave you long since. You are now being reminded to behave."
"Haven't I been reminded enough? I sure would like to get loose."
Youssef raised her chin and patted her cheek. "You are a sly vixen. You cozen me, you are not to be trusted."
"You are quite right, Master. Please untie me ... Please?"
Abruptly Youssef Ben Rayaddah ceased to be the laughing boy who was teasing his best girl. Suddenly he was a guerrilla. "I am going away." He told her soberly. "Now, right quick. We have an action."
There was an urgency in his voice Jennifer did not like. She tensed in the bonds he had placed upon her. "Why must you?" She demanded. "You and your men ... ! You're like small boys playing cowboys and Indians."
His voice aged harshly. "You should not have said that."
"I know I shouldn't. I'm way out of line. You can have me punished while you're gone. I just don't want you to go."
"Why?"
"Because, sooner or later, you'll get killed."
"So?"
"I don't want you killed." The bound girl tried to twist in embarrassment. "I'm - I'm fond of you." He saw her tears forming, and kissed them away. "You have earned much punishment." Youssef said gently. "But all I will do to you is leave you here one more hour until we are gone. The woman will know what to do."
"Lock me in that cell?"
"I will think of something else for you."
"Youssef ... master, don't go."
"I must. You know I must."
She could not turn to watch him go. Jennifer Raines could do nothing except stand against the post to which she was so harshly bound. But her eyes still felt the heat of his lips. Youssef rarely kissed her with such warmth, nor did he ever speak of love. It was a word hovering between them but not yet used. She wanted him to use it first. In the meantime she was a slave. Jennifer willed her own tensions to subside from fighting the ropes. She had only an hour of punishment left. One hour would be easy to bear. Thinking of Youssef, she did not hurt at all.
The girl tied to the post heard the thunder of the trucks as they roared away to their silly war. Another and another and another. Youseff's army was more than a brigand band. But, even so, he would be killed one day - Jennifer was sure of it. As peace and quiet returned to the village she wondered what would happen to her if he died. Her most probable fate would be the slave dealer. She shuddered.
The woman was her usual phlegmatic self. She spared a grin and a shrug, as from one woman to another over the vagaries of men, then tugged at knots. Jennifer knew for sure that in the life she now must live this was one of the better moments. When the ropes were stripped down to her waist she was made to bend forward to allow her hands to be handcuffed behind her back. Then, a minute later and now totally free of rope, she stood obediently for whatever else might befall. But there was nothing.
"Is all," The woman patted the captive's shoulder. "We go."
Self consciously aware of rope burns Jennifer accompanied her guard back to the house. Half - way there the woman stopped and waved her arm to encompass the dusty untidiness of Fayalla. "You walk where please. Hands stay at back." For her, it was a long speech.
It was a strange and testing time. Naked and without hands, Jennifer was no more prepared to make a dash for freedom than before. Placidly, she accepted the freedom of her feet and the captivity of her hands. She mooned about the house, tried to read, and slept a great deal. She missed Youssef achingly but thrust this weakness from her mind. She supposed she should be ashamed of herself but was not. The woman performed for her such tasks as she could not manage for herself, most of them shamed her blushingly. She was bathed each day. It was boredom which drove her, at last, drove her to the adventure with the sheet.
The sheet was coloured, which made it a more acceptable garment than pure white. The task of draping it upon her nudity in such a way as to cover what she wanted covered yet not appear ludicrous was wickedly frustrating. The handcuffs were defeating. But Jennifer had an abundance of time. In wry amusement she tried one expedient after another until, using her toes instead of shackled hands, she spread her makeshift covering upon the bed and rolled herself therein. Her first efforts left her swathed like a mummy, but gradually she perfected her technique with cunning folds and angles. The final effect was Grecian, controlled at her waist by a piece of string her cuffed hands were able to tie.
Fayalla accepted her. She was The Leader's woman, inviolate. Grateful for fresh air, Jennifer explored. She felt certain the woman would take her sheet away from her when she returned, but in the meantime ... !
What happened at the blacksmith shop was something to be looked back at afterward with incredulity. It was an example of the power of suggestion and the momentum of self assurance. For Jennifer it was an act of impulse to be remembered in disbelief. Seeing the open forge, the smith and his helper, she quickened her steps as though under orders, produced her best smile and strode to the anvil. Under the astonished eyes of the man and the boy she contrived to raise her cuffed wrists so as to place her captive hands one on each side of the anvil with their linkage invitingly taut across the steel block. It was awkward and forced her to bend forward to accommodate her raised arms at her back. But it was possible. In an authoritative voice she said simple: "Cut."
The smith may not have understood the word but the girl's pose was graphic, its intent obvious. With some jocose remark to the boy, he placed a chisel on the handcuff's link and struck a mighty blow. For the first time in days Jennifer possessed hands. Demurely, she said: "Youssef Ben Rayaddah will pay." The smith nodded, highly amused. Miss Jennifer Raines walked back into the sunlight, free. It was in keeping with the momentum of her initial impulse that she found the jeep.
Jennifer refused to think. She dared not contemplate what she had done, its enormity was frightening. For the first few miles along the dusty desert road she was constantly prompted to turn around and deliver herself back to her tolerant guard and a fresh pair of handcuffs. But the woman might no longer be tolerant. The dismal little cell and heavy irons loomed as a probability in the fugitive's mind. She glanced at her hands on the steering wheel and admired her new chrome bracelets. She could not remove them but, in this land of barbaric gee-gaws they might pass unnoticed. Resolutely, she stepped on the gas, her mission was any friendly consulate she could find; the road must go somewhere.
After the first shock of their uniforms, Jennifer saw the two policemen as heaven-sent. They were The Law! They would also know where they were at. The fleeing girl had sudden visions of friendly Consuls and hot cups of tea. The two had flagged her down because sight of a white girl clad in a sheet and driving a jeep was a novelty on their patrol, a novelty of rich promise. Jennifer smiled brightly and said: "I'm English. I've been kidnapped. I want the English or United States Consul. Please help me."
They regarded her gravely as though she was an odd new exhibit in a zoo. Their verdict was terse. "Is no Consul here. We think you bad girl."
Impatiently, Jennifer considered stepping on the gas, but her jeep was old and theirs was new. It would be useless. Instead she demanded irritably: "What's bad about me?"
The senior of the two carried a swagger stick. Importantly, he placed its tip upon the severed cuff on her right wrist. "Good girls do not wear such."
She cursed the sheet and its absence of sleeves. Her handcuffs were as damaging as if still joined. She sighed heavily and played her only card. "Youssef Ben Rayaddah kidnapped me. He kept me handcuffed. I've just. escaped - "
It was enough. An official hand rose. "Stop. We wish not to know."
"But I've been kidnapped!"
"By Youssef Ben Rayaddah. Is not our affair."
"But it's wrong to kidnap girls. You have to help - "
"You are for fucking?"
Stunned, Jennifer realised she had just been asked if she was a prostitute. Indignantly she refuted the aspersion: "No, I'm not! I absolutely am not! I've been kept a prisoner."
It was the wrong word. Her inquisitor perked. "Ah yes, in prison. For bad girl who do wrong things."
Jennifer Raines was desperate, her courage ebbing. She could smell defeat. "No, it wasn't that at all. Youssef stole me. He ... he ... well, I suppose he just wanted me."
"Ah yes. Is woman of Ben Rayaddah. Bad, bad girl to run away."
"You refuse to understand." Jennifer said angrily. "It's your duty to help me. I demand you take me to your commanding officer."
"I am commanding officer." The swagger stick was pompous. "You step down. You take off sheet." Jennifer Raines was smitten by awareness. These two intended to rape her. She was alone on a remote desert track in a country whose name she did not even know. Probably they would tie or handcuff her and everything would be over. In pure panic she whirred the starter. But the motor did not catch. Hopelessly, she guiltily surrendered the keys and stepped down to the sand.
"Is now resist arrest."
"Please ... oh, no I wasn't! You've got to believe - !" Jennifer looked around in desperation, knowing herself condemned.
"Is very bad young woman. Please to remove that, that what you wear."
"But I can't! There's nothing underneath. It's a sheet."
"No doubt stolen."
"Look, if I can get you a lot of money - ?"
"Ah yes, is bribery of officer. Please to make yourself bare."
"But I'll be naked! Why do you want - ?"
"We wish to see your cunt."
Jennifer wondered if, in years to come, she could tell this story and laugh. There was something comic about the lecherous dishonesty of this pair who regarded her so solemnly. She could think of no words to counter their stolid assurance, nothing that did not sound silly and ineffectual. "But you mustn't see it! That's not - not decent."
"Is routine inspect."
She wanted to laugh. She pictured an English Bobby or an officer of the Highway Patrol in the U.S. making such a statement. Defiantly, she demanded: "Do you intend to rape me?"
"Is not rape." The swagger stick was obviously searching for a suitable synonym. "Is official privilege."
"Well then, if I make myself naked will you let me go - after you've had a good look, of course?"
"You are doing the quibble."
"Alright, alright! If I lay down and I'm nice to you, will you allow me to go then?"
"If not take off covering, we take for you." Dismally, Jennifer divested herself of her friendly sheet. Holding it and the piece of string in one hand she posed as they wished. She had never felt more disgustingly naked in all her captivity. When it came time for her to lay upon the sand she made one more try: "If you rape me Youssef Ben Rayaddah will kill you both." She spat the threat at them with venomous assurance. Sensing the impact upon them of Youssef's name, she added proudly: "I am his woman."
The Law paused and conferred in a vehement exchange. Prudently, and with greater artistry, Jennifer wound the sheet and tied the string. "It is an honoured name." Said the swagger stick with decision. "You will return."
It was the end of freedom, the end of everything. What could she possibly tell the woman, and then Youssef! Her guilt was horrendous. Dismally, she watched the Law produce rope. "You don't have to tie me." She said miserably. "I'll go quietly, I won't make a fuss."
"If Leader handcuff you, you dangerous."
Their logic was irrefutable. "Alright then, handcuff me." She capitulated.
"Is Police issue. We cannot spare."
"You can take them with you when you've delivered me?"
They did not bother to argue. Leaving the cuffs locked on her wrists they tied her hands behind her back, they bound her elbows tight against her vehement protests, they bound her ankles. Then they deposited her in the back of her stolen jeep and roped her feet up to her arms to make sure she stayed there. It was a brutal tie. The bound girl wept.
Jennifer's return to the house in Fayalla was an anti climax. She had not been missed. The woman gazed at her and her pompous escort stupidly and without comprehension. Jennifer, still bound but no longer hogtied, teetered on tied feet while her escapade was discussed volubly and with many glances in her direction. The officers produced forms and filled them out against the patio wall. They presented the gratified guardian with a copy, saluted and departed. Goodwill was rampant. The woman turned and surveyed her captive with a more animated amusement than she had ever previously shown.
"You look much silly."
"I feel much silly. Please untie me. I won't run away."
The rope was removed from the escapee's ankles. It was only a partial relief. Her elbows hurt viciously. "What I do with you now." The woman mused rhetorically. "You bad, bad girl."
Jennifer supposed Youssef had left no terms of reference by which she could be judged. Cringingly, the guilty girl remembered it had been this same woman who had whipped her previously, she could do so again! It was a time for fast talking ... if only she was understood. "I was only stealing a ride." She said mendaciously. "Those men thought I was running away."
"You are not telling the truth." The woman produced the fatal key and unlocked a bracelet from a tied wrist; she held it up disapprovingly before her captive's eyes. "How come?"
Lying was hateful and would probably do no good anyway. In the bitterness of total defeat Jennifer told the truth. Her guardian listened, lips pursed. "The Master treat you kind. You betray."
"I know. I am bad. Punish me."
The two women looked at each other in perplexity, one holding an authority she did not want, the other dishevelled and helpless. As though to fill an awkward moment the woman unfastened the sheet from the captive body. Slowly folding it she said: "I wash. Now you stay naked."
"I really am sorry. I really am."
"You be more sorry when Master come."
"Yes, I know I will." Jennifer admitted. "But, until then, will you please keep me handcuffed the way I was?"
"So you walk away? Steal jeep?"
Condemned by her own stupidity! Guilty because of a thoughtless impulse! The tied girl looked back at the last few days, seeing them as a halcyon freedom forever lost. "What are you going to do with me?" She asked humbly. "I'll give you my word not to even try and escape. But I don't suppose you'll believe me?"
The woman nodded, as though at some conclusion of her own, her features held no malice. Methodically she untied the rest of Jennifer's bonds, then unlocked the remaining cuff from its captive wrist. With an amused and shrewdly appraising smile, she handed both bracelets to the surprised girl: "You go. You have fix. You bring back."
"But I'll be free! I could run away?"
"You not run." The smile broadened. "I punish you. You walk naked."
Jennifer took her bracelets back to the blacksmith in an absurd euphoria. She was free, free, free! She was also naked, naked, naked! Somehow she discovered ecstasy in both conditions. Even the smith's guffaw and lewd appraisal could not dampen her happiness. She watched him weld the sundered link, admiring his skill. Then she retraced her steps, carrying the chrome circlets as though they were a woman's purse. It was good to be Youseff's woman, her nakedness was admired but never touched. When she handed the shining steel back for its new link to be admired, Jennifer slipped to the floor and clasped surprised knees in an agony of relief. She was suddenly crying. "I've been bad." She sobbed. "I know I've been bad - and you're so kind to me. Thank you, oh, thank you."
The tableau lasted a couple of minutes before the guardian said: "Give me your hands."
Jennifer rose, turned, placed willing hands behind her back. But she was turned again and her wrists cuffed together above her pubic hair. The woman produced irons and locked them on slender ankles. "Is all I do." She stated simply.
"You mean, I can walk around like this?" Jennifer kicked a swirl of heavy chain. "You're so kind to me ... !"
"Is for Master to punish you, not for me." The statement was simple. They left it at that.
Chapter Four
Ironed
The irons joining her ankles slowed Jennifer's walk. There was no way she could run. They were removed when she was bathed, then replaced. Because her hands were now in front she could do most things for herself. These were happy days without thought of escape but overshadowed by Youssef's inevitable return. The chained maiden longed for his arms but cringed in anticipation of the ways in which he would punish her. If he imposed no more than a terrible whipping she would by lucky. She clattered about the house, she read, but she did not walk the streets of the village, she was too ashamed of her fettered feet.
Youssef Ben Rayaddah came on the fifth day. Jennifer lay asprawl upon their bed, reading a book, when intuition told her she was watched. Turning, she saw him regarding her from inside the door. Uncaring that he did not smile, Jennifer Raines flung aside the volume and leaped to greet her lord, at the second step her leg irons sent her tumbling to the rug to compel her to finish her joyous welcome on all fours. Clasping his dusty knees she moaned happily: "Oh, Master ... Master! Ohhhhhhh ... Youssef!" She hugged him hungrily and sobbed.
The guerrilla stood unmoving. Youssef Ben Rayaddah was dirty, unshaven, implacably male, a warrior returned from war. In a familiar motion his fingers played idly in the hair of the weeping slave. His voice, when it came, was toneless.
"The woman has told me."
In the limbs to which she clung Jennifer could feel her own guilt and Youssef's rage. The cold hand of a terrible fear touched her spine. "I'm no good." She sobbed. "I must have been crazy."
"You betrayed me."
"I didn't! Oh, I did not! No man touched me - and if I could have reached a Consulate I'd have come back to you."
"Horseshit!"
"I would have! I would! Don't you understand, I don't want to just disappear, there's my family ... !"
"I'd have given you anything."
"Then forgive me now."
"Stow it. I don't want to hear."
"But, Youssef, I love you! Punish me. I deserve to be punished ... I want to be punished - "
"Shut up, Jennifer. It's done. You did it! Don't tell me that meant nothing." He picked her up and tossed her on the bed. "The woman should have put you in the cell, ironed so you couldn't move."
"Alright, do that to me. I won't mind."
"Don't be ridiculous! Of course you'd mind. Stop being so damn humble, it's only because you've been caught. You think if you crawl enough I'll forgive you - I won't!"
"Youssef, I want you so bad." Jennifer turned to lay on her back and raise her knees. "Take me! Even if you hate me take me anyway. The irons won't matter, I'll manage."
"Put your feet down. You're disgusting."
It was a blow. Not physical but shrivelling her soul. Youssef could at least have used her as a warrior uses his prize. His rejection of her body told her more than words. All she could think to say was: "Punish me. You'll feel better if you punish me." Dubiously, she added: "I expect I will too."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Youssef waved away her protestations in distaste. "I didn't know you were a masochist."
"I'm not. I just want to suffer and then be forgiven."
"I bet you do!" His tone was savage. "Nice and simple."
"Alright then!" The chained girl had reached desperation. "What is it you do want to do to me?"
"I'd have thought you'd have guessed. There's a proper place for you. It's where I'd intended before ... before ... Oh, never mind."
Jennifer guessed instantly, and was desolated. To be handed to the slave trader to be sold! It seemed impossible. That her life with Youssef should end like this was something she could now allow. Stumbling against her ironed feet, the chained girl threw herself on her knees once more at the feet of the man whose property she had been for so long. But Youssef brushed away her reaching hands and moved to a chair, to leave his weeping slave-girl as a pathetic bundle of rejected nudity in the centre of the floor. He looked at Jennifer without love.
"Stop crying. Whoever buys you may be kinder than I."
"I don't want someone else. I want you."
"You had me. You chose the desert."
"But I don't deserve to be sold. You ought to punish me. And, anyway, I'll never run away again."
"No you won't." His voice became doubly bitter. "Not with ironed feet."
"Even if I was free I wouldn't." Jennifer sniffed reproachfully. "The woman let me go into the village on an errand: I wasn't tied or handcuffed or anything. I came back. I was obedient."
"Bully for you."
"Keep me as a servant or something. Leave these things on my feet, I'll wear them all my life."
"You have to trust a servant."
It was hopeless. She had damned herself utterly: Jennifer was never going to admit it but she could see his point. Perhaps, in his place, she would feel the same. That sudden impulse at the Blacksmith's had ruined her life. But a woman always got around a man, didn't she! There had to be a way to touch Youssef s heart. But, remembering his rejection of her on the bed and at his feet, she could think of nothing. A woman was so terribly dependent on her breasts and cunt ... ! It seemed unfair that anger and hurt pride should blind a man to all else that made a female lovable. Tonelessly, she said: "I've hurt your pride. I know. I've no way to make amends except to love you and ask to be punished."
Youssef waved the suggestion into oblivion. "Your screams cannot make up for what you were to me. I don't need them."
"If you sell me to another man and he beats me it will prove nothing. Oh, Youssef ... !"
"It's unlikely you will be bought by an uncouth savage, they don't have the huge sum others will bid for you. He will probably be an educated man who won't put more stripes on you than your skin can tolerate."
"It sounds hateful either way." Pathetically coping with tears with cuffed hands, she asked: "Aren't you going to have me whipped before sending me away?"
"There is a saying in this land that, with women, we whip only those we love."
Her tears spilled afresh. It was like being adrift on a tide carrying her out to sea and being helpless to step it. Soon the land she loved would vanish and she would die ... "I will be anything you want." She said abjectly.
"Good! In that case you will be a slave going to the Market to be sold."
The man went away. The girl sobbed quietly on the rug.
The two men came for Jennifer after it was dark. It was best the village had no more to gossip about than need be. They divested her of irons and handcuffs and took her, naked, through the streets. Each kept a firm grip on one bare arm.
The blacksmith was waiting for them. Across his anvil were draped metal links, at the sight of which Jennifer Raines quailed. It was evident she was not to be trusted. She was thrust this way and that for the convenience of the hammer and the metal block. When they were done both her wrists and her ankles were heavily shackled and made secure, not by locks, but by rivets pounded down by hammer blows to make her flinch. Watching the wristlets and anklets fitted and fastened the chained delinquent realised they had been fashioned for her alone, and as she beheld the rivets splat under the ringing steel she knew none could make her free again without these same tools. There was no key! The knowledge was frightening.
As though her chains were wounds, she was picked up and carried to a house, bigger than average and set alone. Traversing an office, they entered a sizable stone chamber along one wall of which were barred cells. But in the centre was the huge cage Alita had described, and in the cage were girls. They were naked, they were chained, they were asleep. When Jennifer was deposited within and the door relocked, none bothered to wake. Examining her chains as quietly as she could, the new arrival shrugged hopelessly and joined the others on the floor. All she could think of was Youssef's bed and his shackle on her ankle. It seemed a million miles away.
There were five girls in the cage, one of them a white American. "My name's Dulcie." She said with a rueful grin. "I bought one of those African tours, and boy am I getting one!" She raised fettered hands. "There's no way we're going to get out of this. Doesn't seem possible a month ago I was teaching school in Wisconsin. By the way, you'd better behave, they beat us if we don't."
The story on all of them were much the same. They had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and consequently lost their freedom. The one who had been caged the longest had been behind the bars only nine days. Business was good. They assured Jennifer that, considering her physical attributes, she would not last the week.
The links between their ankles were short, it cut their walk to a shuffle. "It's so we can't be taken out and fucked." Dulcie explained. "Seems like it used to happen a lot, and customers came back with complaints about getting pregnant merchandise." She giggled. "This chain is a hell of a lot more comfortable than a chastity belt. And we're not going anyplace except to the bath house every day to get hosed down. They like girl-smell but not too much of it."
Each girl was confronted by an earthy basic femaleness. That was what they were: females! They possessed, in good working order, those bits of anatomy essential to male pleasure. Their colour and curvature determined their price. None were cheap. What sensible trader would bother with a homely girl! "You've been a slave before, I can tell." Dulcie said wisely. "They haven't whipped you. If a girl's brand new and fresh they give her a sort of welcome whipping so she knows where she's at. And these chains, they keep us humble. What girl's going to think of escape with all this iron tacked on ...
Clients enlivened their day. Each girl had been instructed to show eagerness under the pointing finger of a male. She must rise and approach the bars, there to pose prettily in all the postures she could devise and any he might demand. Their chains hampered nothing and added a shrewd touch of eroticism to the display. The two white girls were often examined but rarely pointed at. "It's because they've got our price way out of sight." Dulcie surmised. "White costs more."
Girls were sold and replaced, confidences exchanged, the tears of novices were dried by sympathetic feminine fingers. The slave cage followed a predictable routine. It was a relief from boredom to kiss and soothe the wealed backs of raw recruits and to counsel obedience as the better part of valour. Dulcie explained about the cells. "If a girl's been punished so she's a bit of a mess they bung her in one until she's presentable. But these guys have got the damndest sideline. If some bozo's going off on a trip he can have his girls boarded here like a dog in a kennel. She'll be safe and well cared for until he picks her up again." She giggled. "I expect they quote weekly rates. But there's also the poor bitches some bastard sends here to be punished or branded because he doesn't want to do it himself. They keep her in a cell nights but during the day she's taken someplace I haven't been so they can do to her whatever it is he wants done." She snorted angrily. "It's a very complete service."
The two white girls were not sold from the cage, they were auctioned. It was a simple affair without fanfare. The room in which the auction was held was not large, nor was the assembly. But those who were there had about them an air of purpose, they were there to buy a girl. The girls themselves had been bathed and groomed to a svelte immaculate perfection in the hours before the sale. They wore nothing but their chains, there would be no dramatic unveiling on the block. These men were sophisticates.
Dulcie was first. She posed on the block with female pride. The bidding was incisive. She was sold for one million seven hundred thousand dollars. She was a very pretty girl.
Mounting the steps to her own fate, Jennifer hoped none could hear the thumping of her heart. She was glad she was accustomed to nudity. For any girl recently stripped this would be intolerably shaming. She stood erect and tried to stare down the avid eyes.
He did not belong. The word for him was crisp. He was Bond Street and Savile Row, his barber was skilled. He was handsomely middle - aged. The naked girl to be sold guessed him as English. As though dealing in a distasteful task he opened the bidding at one million dollars. Three minutes later she was knocked down to him for two million seven hundred and fifty thousand. Miss Jennifer Raines was sold.
They took her to the office where her purchaser sat formally at a desk. He looked only at her face, his order was sharp: "Cover her."
They used a sheet and a safety pin to drape her for his approval. Jennifer stood like a white ghost to await his pleasure.
"Miss Jennifer Raines, I believe'?" His tone was impersonal but not unkind. "My name is Blessington. I am a solicitor, acting for others. I am not your purchaser."
Jennifer knew disappointment. He was so correct., so beautifully 'right'. Timidly, she asked: "May I know who is?"
"No. Not now." Mr. Blessington coughed gently. "The only point in my talking to you now is to reassure you in what, I am sure, must be a trying situation."
"Thank you, sir." She hoped it was the right note. "Er, there is no need to be unduly deferential with me. I am an agent, nothing more. Personally, I deplore this traffic in young women, but I am aware of powers and policies ..." He made a vague gesture. "You have simply been unfortunate in being ... sequestered."
"You're very kind - "
Again the wave of the hand. "I'm not sure that I am." Blessington said gruffly. "I would like to help you. But ... well, never mind. What I can tell you is that you will not be abused. Please worry about your future as little as possible." His voice died awkwardly. He looked at her sheet with distaste. "I suppose that is all I have to tell you - except to wish you well. At least, your lot has been cast amidst great wealth." He smiled dourly. "I have always found it beneficial."
Someone picked Jennifer up and removed her and the sheet from Mr. Blessington's life.
The Auction room was now bare. The men had gone, even the block had been pushed into a corner. But what Jennifer beheld next was a shock. In the centre of the floor, like an unyielding coincidence, stood the cage. Its door was invitingly open. Her heart leaping in surmise, she turned to her escort. "Youssef? Youssef has sent for me?"
There were snickers. "Youssef lend cage for bad girl."
It made sense. The Leader of a guerrilla band would have no need of a wire cage for the punishment for delinquent darlings. But the cage was bad news from any angle. Jennifer hated it. She wilted. "You aren't going to make me get in there?" She asked incredulously.
They assured her that such indeed was her fate. Beaming, they made reference to the whip should she prove contentious. Mention was also made of the beating of the soles of her feet with light rods. She had fetched a fine price, they oozed goodwill.
As usual, it was hopeless. The merchandise lifted her chained hands and made the links clatter. "Like this?" She asked in feigned disbelief. "Chained ... ?"
"Is no matter. You can do."
It was true. In the cage she could not move anyway, chains on her wrists and ankles became symbolic. Jennifer shrugged in despair and demanded: "Now? You want me in there now?"
"Not now. Tomorrow. But we want you to get in. See if fit."
"It fits. I've been in there."
"Get in!"
There was no mistaking command. Puzzled but resigned, the merchandise sank down and wriggled herself and her chains backwards into the familiar square of wire. Hunched and unhappy she looked up at the two men as they walked round and round, enamoured by this novel confinement of a girl. Satisfied, they barked: "Now out."
Jennifer had been relieved of the sheet immediately on leaving Mr. Blessington's presence. Now, in her nude contortions, her audience were able to appreciate the finer nuances of her figure. When she again stood before them in her chained nakedness, she pleaded: "Please tell me who I've been sold to?"
"Not to know."
"Is it Youssef? Is Youssef taking me back?" This was funny. They laughed.
"Please tell Youssef I want him to take me back. I want to be his slave. Will you tell him?"
"Maybe tell."
Jennifer's next try was cut short. She was picked up and carried to the big room. The girls in the slave cage watched in curiosity as the door of a cell was opened and their former companion thrust inside. The door clanged shut, a key turned. The traders laughed and went away.
She was not alone, kneeling beside the cot and its sparse mattress was a girl. She had been crying but dabbed at her cheeks and raised up to sit and stare. Jennifer gazed back in sympathy. The pretty but shrinking nakedness evidenced all the shyness of the novitiate. She was even covering her breasts and crossing her legs.
"My name's Jennifer. Don't be frightened."
"But I'm - I'm all ... I've got no clothes on."
"So I notice. I haven't any either."
The legs slowly returned to normal to reveal a close curled pubic patch. Its owner stated, in a quaintly defensive tone: "I'm Mrs. Lyle Tremain."
"Hello, Mrs. Lyle Tremain. But what should I call you?"
"Oh that! My name's Priscilla. I get called just the `Cilla bit."
"Well, Cilla, stop looking at me as though I'm a dragon. And you don't need to keep your hands over your breasts -"
"But ... those things! You're all chained?"
"All the girls are chained in this place. It's done to make us obedient. I expect they'll chain you."
The hands fell to clasp the mattress, their owner's voice held a touch of hauteur: "I don't think they're allowed to. I'm not a - a - a slave. I'm Mrs. Lyle Tremain - "
"Yes, you said that. Am I supposed to be impressed?"
"Oh ... Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that - those girls out there in the cage, they're coloured and they're going to be sold. I didn't want you to think - !"
"I've just been sold. I'm being delivered tomorrow. And there's nothing wrong with those girls out there. I'm beginning to wish they'd put me back with them."
"Oh ... Oh dear, I didn't mean - Oh, this is impossible! I mean, you sound educated ... and just look at you!"
"What's wrong with me?" Jennifer was not amused.
"You're all naked, and those awful chain things, and you seem so ... composed?"
"I've been naked and chained for a long time. You get used to it."
"I wouldn't! I just know I wouldn't. It's not decent." Jennifer eyed her cellmate, puzzled. She was uncertain whether to slap, cuddle or cajole. Mrs. Lyle Tremain was not a child in age, but in attitudes was about eleven years old.
Patiently, she explained. "All the girls here, we've all been kidnapped and made slaves. We accept it because there's nothing we can do about it. We can't escape. If we don't tow the line we're punished." Gently, she added: "Now, tell me about you?"
"It's Lyle! He's so mean to me!" The girl sounded grateful for a vent to pent up emotion. As though about to make a momentous disclosure, she demanded: "Can you imagine what he wanted me to do?"
"Get into bed with him?" Jennifer could not forbear the caustic.
"Well, that of course: I really can't understand - But no, It was much, much worse."
"Well, what was it?"
"I can't tell you. It was too awful."
"Look here, young woman." Jennifer was beginning to feel maternal. "I've been kidnapped, I've been chained, I've been put in a cage. What's more, I've been raped and I've been whipped. What's so awful about this husband of yours?"
Cilla tensed, wide-eyed. "That awful word you used ... ? Oh, I can't say it! Does it. hurt a lot?"
For a moment Jennifer was baffled, then light dawned. "Whipped? Is that what you mean? Of course it hurts, it hurts something awful!"
"I knew it! I was sure it would." The wide eyes beseeched. "That's what Lyle wants to do to me."
"Probably do you a world of good." The words slipped off Jennifer's unguarded tongue. She let them ride.
"I'm sure you're joking. When he first told me I went straight back to mother."
Jennifer was beginning to be amused. This was better than sitting in the cell alone. "And what did mother say?"
Cilla sniffed. Her plaint became shadowed by disillusion. "I think mothers are all glad to get rid of their daughters and they don't want them back - it's the thing about us having babies, it's not a bit fair. Mother said she didn't want to listen to such stuff. Then she patted me a lot and said I should go back because she knew dear Lyle loved me very much, and was I pregnant."
"How old is this Lyle of yours?"
"Oh, he's middle-aged, but he's got all this money! Mummy made sure about the money before she told me to marry him."
Jennifer sighed. A mature man would quickly become bored with Priscilla. Whipping her bottom might easily seem a plausible alternative to communion. Ruefully, she counselled: "I'm afraid a lot of men like to whip us. Sometimes, if the girl loves the man, she doesn't mind."
"It's depraved, it's horrible!"
"But it's a fact of life."
"Not with me it isn't!" Priscilla snorted indignation. "Lyle had a strap - he said it was starting me in easy, I'd just get a pink bottom ... ?"
"Well, yes. I suppose he was right."
"But that wasn't all. He wanted to tie me up too, Really!"
"If they don't tie us up we can't stand still. So that explains that."
"I don't know how you can talk about it like that." Priscilla sulked. "Lyle wanted to tie me up all sorts of ways that had nothing to do with this silly whipping business. He wanted to see me tied up. He wanted to stand there and look - and me all naked!"
"He is your husband, y'know."
"Well, there wasn't anything in the wedding service that said I had to be tied up - and all those other things too!"
"Such as?"
"He called them erotic stimulants. They mostly had to do with my - my - with between my legs. I told him I wouldn't dream of doing such things. We argued for weeks. Then he sent me here."
"You mean, he's going to sell you?"
"No, of course not! I've been sent here to be punished. Lyle says I should regard it as a period of training. The people who own this awful place do it for a living, they get paid."
Jennifer wanted to laugh. It was not a laughing matter but this girl was absurd. "You might be wise to tell your Lyle you'll play along." She suggested diffidently. "I expect his training would be a lot kinder than what they do here."
"Don't think I didn't!" Priscilla's admission was obviously shaming. "I told him Okay, if you have to. But he'd made this deal and said I'd have to go through with it. He expects me to go home a sweet obedient little slave. He actually told me not to bother to come home until I was ready to ask him to whip me."
"Then I'd do it right now."
"I can't right now. I have to be trained a bit first." Priscilla fingered away tears. She sniffed. "I'm sorry. It's being naked - no clothes, no handkerchiefs, no nothing. Is it true a girl can be whipped up between her legs?"
"It's true. It's painful,"
"I bet it is! But what I mean is - I mean on her - ?"
"On her pussy? Yes, they whip that too. But we do live through it."
There was a further cascade of tears. "That's what has to be done to me. Lyle ordered it specially. He said it was all - all my ... He said that was all it was good for. I'm so frightened."
Jennifer sat beside the sentenced wife. She arranged her chains so as to offer a comforting arm. "You'll come through it." She said soberly. "That's all any of us girls can do while it's happening: keep telling ourselves we're going to come out the other side."
"And that isn't all." Priscilla let herself go with abandon. "There's another place girls have. They're - they're - "
"You mean our breasts? I wish I could tell you they don't touch our breasts, but they do. They get whipped along with the rest of us - "
"Lyle said there was a special light whip." The sobs were subsiding only lightly. "I heard him talking about it. I have to have that too. I'll die."
Jennifer was beginning to dislike Lyle. Priscilla was probably a royal pain in the ass for a robust man, but the Auction Market would show no mercy. The wife he got back would be well marked.
"And as if that wasn't enough - " Priscilla voice rose to a wail. "What's a bastinado?"
"Hush, don't talk about these things."
"But I have to know? Please?"
"It's having the soles of your feet whipped. I think they do it with a light cane. Don't tell me?"
"Yes, he told them that too."
There were more sniffles. "When they were putting me in here I explained how I couldn't possibly stand all these things. But they laughed."
Jennifer cursed the impotence of slavery. There was nothing she could do for Priscilla except murmur comforting lies. The two girls clutched each other through the night on the narrow cot. In the morning she was taken from the cell. Priscilla looked after her mournfully through the bars.
Events moved quickly. Jennifer was hosed, fed, and taken to the smith to have her irons stricken from her limbs. There was a quiet purpose in what was then done. Compelled to again hunch herself into the cage she was made to place her hands below her bent knees between calf and thigh. There they were handcuffed to make her more helpless in the tiny confinement than she had ever been. Then the top half of the cage was hooded. Air could circulate but she had been made effectively blind. The cage was picked up and carried, she knew not where.
The journey lasted hours, many hours. She guessed a truck and then a plane. She spoke, she called out, but none answered. Outside the cage she might have stepped over the handcuffs and regained her hands. But the cage forbad, it was too cramped. In isolated gloom Jennifer endured the hours, the bumps, the slidings, the heavy breathing of those who carried her small prison. After an eternity there was silence, she sensed isolation, her world was motionless. Then, when she was fighting a rising hysteria of claustrophobia, there came the unmistakable opening of a door and decisive footsteps. The hood was whisked from the cage and she stared up at a florid craggy face and bloodshot eyes.
It was Lord Crumshawe, the Earl of Stoule.
Chapter Five
Bottom Line
"He probably won't be too rough on you." April said cheerfully. "I think he's glad to get you back. You made an impression." She kissed Jennifer's bare shoulder. "I'm glad to get you back too."
"I wouldn't call this damn dungeon a royal welcome." Jennifer looked at the stone walls with disdain. "I've been used to something better."
"But I'm here, darling, and these chains aren't the heaviest, and we're not fastened to opposite walls." She kissed her companion's right breast. "And, after all, they do have to put us somewhere."
April was wonderful, an eternal Spring. Jennifer supposed she had much to be thankful for in being granted this happy communion. April's young nudity was well whip-marked but she bore the weals with pride. "Old Crumshawe's a bit of an old pet, actually." She confided without resentment. "If only he wasn't so fond of whipping us." She sighed without dolour. "Ah, well, there's always something, isn't there!"
They had made love until exhausted. April was pure refreshment. The older girl sought to bury the memory of Youssef Ben Rayaddah in the youngster's scented flesh. April secreted her own youthful perfume which, for the returned captive, was heady stuff indeed after the redundant maleness of Fayalla.
"Remember our first meeting out in the park when you told me you'd never done it'?" April giggled. "You do it beautifully now. I sure hope neither one of us gets sold."
"Don't you ever want a man, April?"
"Well, I'm not going to get one, am I! Not unless His Lordship takes vitamins or something. So I just refuse to think about it. Now, if I've got you ... !"
Jennifer stood up. She had not yet overcome the restlessness of change. Petulantly she made a clatter of her chains, examining the metal bands by which her wrists were imprisoned. "Don't you ever weary of these things, of never being free?"
"It's like the Man thing, darling, I refuse to worry about it. A lot of the handcuffs and things they lock on us are quite attractive if you wear them prettily. I mean, it's like sticking your breasts out and tucking your tummy in; it does so much for a girl. You can get the same effects with chains if you wiggle around in them and hold them at the proper angles. I'd almost swear some of my poses give His Nibs an erection."
"April, you're marvellous."
"It's you who's out of this world, darling. Just think, all those Arab Sheiks in the desert, and being taken captive, and falling in love ... !"
"Youssef wasn't a Sheik, he was a soldier, a Guerrilla. And anyway, he doesn't love me any more now."
"Darling, I bet, he had the most gorgeous prick?"
Jennifer blushed. "I'd go back to him tomorrow if I could."
"Is that his collar an your neck? It's so beautiful on, you. You weren't wearing it when you left." Jennifer's chained hand rose to the shining band she could never remove. About it had arisen an intriguing mystery. Youssef had taken it from her throat, contemptuously as the symbol of an enemy. But yesterday, not long after she had been extracted from the cage, Mavis had once more locked the relentless band and its pendant ring snug on her neck and refused to answer questions. "I don't know, I just don't." She said thoughtfully. "Maybe Lord Crumshawe has them made by the dozen."
"Nunnuh, or he'd have put one on me or Mavis. But after he's whipped me sometime I'm going to ask. I'd love to wear one, even if I couldn't ever take it off." April grinned knowingly. "Whenever he's whipped me a lot he feels guilty: That's the time to ask for things while you're still crying. You know, sort of accidental hints."
Jennifer grinned. If anyone could wheedle benefits from Lord Crumshawe it would certainly be April. But even her bright effervescence would not buy freedom. She herself was awed by his craggy nobility and goatish eye. But the Earl of Stoule was not easy to judge. He contrived to merge an erotic cruelty with a grandfatherly benevolence. His technique in the patting or caning of a feminine bottom demonstrated a divergent manifestation of his appreciation of a girl. He separated the two with an easy conscience as having no connection. On releasing her from the cage he had been heart-warmingly solicitous.
"My dear girl, I'm so pleased, really I am. Here now, let me give you a little pull ... Ah, yes. Damn clever way to tie your hands, eh." He guffawed. "Couldn't touch a thing except yourself."
"They're not tied, sir, they're handcuffed."
"Well, well, and so they are! No key, no key ... But Mavis will be along. Can you just sort of step over? I'm sure you're stiff?"
The caged girl was stiff indeed. But painfully and one at a time she managed to tug the handcuffs over her feet to enable her hands to rise normally in front. Fervently she hoped never to see the cage again.
"Splendid, splendid! Let me help you up. Damn me, you are the most remarkably beautiful girl!" Unblushingly, the Earl cupped the pubic patch and pouting lips below, then tested the resiliency of each firm breast. "Marvellous! All present and accounted for, eh!"
"Thank you, sir."
Ruefully, Jennifer supposed those three humble words would form the bulk of her responses from now on. She would have to use them even after being whipped.
"Terrible thing about poor old Muffin." His Lordship's sincerity was patent. "I was damn fond of that boy. Knew his father, y'know." He mused sadly. "Should never have sold you to him. Might never have happened ... " He patted her bottom affectionately. "But jolly glad to have you back."
"Thank you, sir. I'm glad too."
"Never lost sight of you, y'know. Got a bit of influence here and there round the world. Difficult to get you away from that Ben Rayaddah chappie. But once he sent you to that auction place we were on firm ground." He chuckled cheerfully. "Came out a quarter million Yankee dollars ahead on the deal. You're a damn expensive bit of property."
"Will I ever be given my freedom, sir?"
"Eh?" The Earl sounded profoundly shocked. "Freedom! You? Good heaven's, what nonsense! Don't be silly. A girl who's sold for three million - and those breasts of yours ... !" He banished the absurdity of such a thought into limbo.
The arrival of Mavis, English tea, and watercress sandwiches dissolved the rest of the world to leave the three of them sipping and munching in a serene and halcyon security. To lift a teacup with handcuffed hands was almost happiness.
"It's understood about you and that Youssef fellow." Lord Crumshawe conceded gruffly. "Not your fault." He snorted cheerfully. "Damn good thing they don't wear out, eh! Marvellous little thingummies. He whipped you from time to time, I hope?"
"Yes, sir."
"Glad to hear it. Must be some good in the fellah." He regarded Jennifer earnestly from under shaggy brows. "Girl gets out of training if she goes too long without a few stripes. Take Mavis here, she gets a refresher every so often. By the way, she'll be looking after you. I expect you'd like a bath and so on."
"I wish he'd stop whipping me," Mavis complained when they were alone. "He makes me a Prefect, and I really don't want to escape, but suddenly and without warning I have to be tied up and flogged." She sighed. "It's not all that often, so I don't complain. For some reason he never has me do the delinquent maiden act for six on my bottom. I suppose he thinks that would impair my authority." She paused. "But, Jennifer, what about you? Was it very awful?"
"Most of it was heaven. I fell in love." The story fell out in a torrent of mourning for Youssef. It was good to have Mavis to talk to. "I want to go back." She almost wailed. "I could make him love me again, I know I could if I had the chance. But now I'm going to be chained or tied up here at Stoule for the rest of my life. I am, aren't I?"
"'Fraid so, love. And don't ever ask me to let you loose. I'm loyal to him. I want you to understand that." She shrugged. "But otherwise I'll be as kind as I can. His Lordship adored your Victorian act, so you can expect to have a scarlet bottom most of the time."
"But to keep me prisoner here always, just for that?"
"It's not that simple, love. Stoule is a sort of headquarters for a world-wide group of wealthy men who are into about every money-making act there is. Old Lord Crumshawe is the titular head, and he's by no means a nonentity. But his principle function is to oil the wheels by keeping a lot of men happy. They meet here to make their deals, but it's also for rest and recreation. And Pet, that's us. I've been a good girl for more V.I.P.'s than I can remember."
"They use us?"
"For everything from bed to torture."
Jennifer thought yearningly of Youssef. The desert would have been kinder than this ancient place of privilege. Thoughtlessly, she burst out: "But it must be possible to escape? Surely some girls manage? I don't want to be a - a - a sort of captive whore."
It was then Mavis had decided on the dungeon. "It will get you back in the mood." She explained. "I'll put April in with you. She won't mind, and she'll cheer you up a bit."
"Chained, I suppose?"
"Don't be bitter. You know damn well Stoule will always keep you restrained some way. There's two reasons; to keep you from escaping, and because the men mostly think we're a lot prettier that way. I'm not going to load you with heavy irons. But if you prefer I can hogtie you for the night?"
"Alright, alright! I'm sorry! I'll be grateful." Thinking about the whole thing, Jennifer kicked her ankle links and paced the dungeon stone in sulky revolt, making a fine metallic clatter and snubbing her ankle with each step in a deliberate venting of frustration. She longed to kick, to run, to beat her fists. But she was attired in metal and the links and circlets laughed at her need of physical expression. They owned her, she was theirs. In wry sympathy April joined the parade.
"We look beautifully sexy doing this, darling. What a shame there's no audience. I've got real good at walking with fettered feet."
"April, have you been tortured by these men who come here?"
"Mmmmmm ... only in a nice sort of way, dear."
"There is no nice way of being tortured. What did they do to you?"
"Well, there are ways that hurt less than others." April pointed out reasonably. "I've always found that if you give them a good look at your pussy and wriggle your tits in the right way they're never too unkind. Mostly they like to hang me up some way and then talk to me. They get an erection out of a girl making polite conversation while she's suspended by one wrist or an ankle."
"Is that the worst they do?"
"They're not allowed to burn us or brand us or stretch us on the Rack." April giggled. "There is a Rack down there, and they do put me on it. But they can only get me just so tight. When they've done that they stand there with a hand on my puss and breathe heavily. Men really are ridiculous."
"Aren't there any who only want plain sex?"
"Oh sure. But they plough away and are a bit of a bore and I never climax. There's the ones who try and do it different ways. Or whip me and fuck me alternately. They're more fun. Mostly, men like to whip me or cane my bottom. But I've checked with the other girls and we're all different. I mean we affect men in different ways. The guy who'd want to whip me might only want to fuck you."
Jennifer angrily twisted the metal hand around her wrist. It. was snug and without mercy. It would hold her captive forever. "Oh, damn, damn, damn!" She clenched her teeth. "I want out of here so bad it hurts."
April encircled her with chained arms. "Forget it, sweetness. Be like me. I'm coping. So are the others. Look on the pain we get in the same way you'd look at commuting every day to a lousy job if you were free. Okay I'd choose freedom if I could, but freedom wasn't all that hot when 1 had it."
"April, we've got to escape somehow. We've got to get out of here."
"I don't think I want to, darling."
Jennifer stopped her pacing, shocked. "You're joking, April, you have to be!"
"No I'm not. I've talked to Mavis and she sees it the same way. Look at us when we were ... outside. All our thoughts were about sex, the sex we couldn't have. Everything we wanted was forbidden, either because Society didn't approve or because we never had the money. Well, look at you and I right now. We're naked and can play all the games we want. We get fucked without guilt. You've just come back from the most marvellous adventure any girl could ask for. Darling, we've got it good. What's a little pain now and then! Even the way they give us the pain is erotic."
Jennifer almost reeled under the fusillade of April's vehemence. She could not doubt its sincerity. Nor could she counter it. She realised she would be ecstatically happy now in the Dungeon with this delectable nymphet if it was not for her aching memory of Youssef Ben Rayaddah. The sardonic guerrilla owned her body and soul, making all else trivial or to be loathed. If she was to be whipped she wanted it to be by him. Lamely, she said: "I'm in love. Sorry. It puts a girl out of gear."
April's shackles mingled with her own. They were on the floor again, the younger girl feverishly disposing links to make way for her seeking mouth. It was not long before Stoule and Fayalla were dispersed by a rainbow in which she and April travelled to the stars.
"See what I mean?" April said complacently an hour later. "Dungeons aren't all that bad. If Mavis took off these chains I'd put 'em right back on."
Stoule repossessed her. Jennifer attended Class and did what Miss Harradace told. She got her hands caned sometimes, but never severely. Her bottom and back were allowed to become virgin, no doubt for a good reason. The skin of Miss Jennifer Raines was in fallow. Whenever she met Lord Crumshawe he patted her bottom with genuine affection and told her how beautiful she was. From time to time she played his game with him until it became only an amusing interlude. No doubt her bottom toughened under his cane.
"I am shocked, dear child. Such wicked innocence!"
"I'll never do it again, sir. I promise."
"Ah, how often have I heard that!" Lord Crumshawe looked to heaven for succour, then returned his attention to the shrinking maidenhood whose bottom waited coyly beneath the bustle's folds. "I must ask you, Jennifer, to bare your bottom and assume the punishment position. I will select a cane."
"But, please sir, I'll be ever so good."
"Alas, too late, child. I want your rump well stretched."
"Please, sir, don't strap me to that awful bench."
"How else would you suggest, dear girl?"
"Couldn't you fuck me instead, sir?"
"Ah, if I but could!" No Shakespearean actor had ever infused an exclamation with deeper feeling. At this point Jennifer always felt like clapping.
"Please remove your knickers."
"There's my camisole and my drawers, sir."
"Lower them too, my dear."
"But, sir, my bottom will be all bare!"
"Excellent! Your pussy must protrude rearwards so the cane may elicit that pleasant wet sound as it impacts."
"Of course, sir. Thank you, sir. 1t is kind of you to remind me. Please, sir, could I say I'm sorry and be forgiven? The cane hurts my bottom so terribly, sir!"
"Will you bare your bottom now, girl, or must I assist you?"
"Oh, I will, sir, I will!"
Then the shameful and shrinking removal of the voluminous coverings of her loins, the maiden motions to nourish His Lordship's lechery. One by one, Jennifer peeled away the white purity shielding her sex. By the time the last of her drawers had been withdrawn from beneath her skirt, to be joined moments later by the holy, holy 'knickers' the Earl of Stoule was panting.
"Feeling a bit penitent, m'dear?"
"Of course, sir. I've been such a foolish girl. I'm sure I'll be ever so grateful for this correction you are about to give me."
"Now, that's the proper spirit." The noble approval was hearty. "I've always said the surest way to a girl's obedience is her sweet little arse. I hope you agree?"
"Oh, yes sir! You are so clever." Jennifer delivered her most coy simper. "Am I to be spanked or caned, sir?"
"Hmmmmm, any preference, m'dear?"
"It is not for me to say, sir. I am only a foolish girl."
"Champion, champion!" The Earl was delighted. He fed his favourite line: "Come to think of it, how old are you?"
"I'm seventeen, sir. I'm a bit old to be spanked."
"Never too old to be spanked, never!" it was as though he treasured senility. "Seventeen, eh. Then you've never been fucked?"
"Oh, sir ... !"
"Well, have you or haven't you? Don't just blush."
"That awful word! My mother would never allow - "
"Good! But we'll get to that later. You're here to be punished. Seventeen, eh. Ripe enough for the cane."
"Thank you, sir. How would you like me to be positioned for my strokes?"
"Strokes, eh!" Lord Crumshawe chuckled obscenely. "I'll certainly stroke you, m'gal. Think you can take this one bending over?"
"I would prefer to be fastened, sir. I would not want my unseemly motions to interfere with your correction of my faults. You are being very kind in taking all this trouble. I feel so naughty."
"In a good cause, m'dear. Think I prefer the `touch your toes' this time. Character, y'know, that's what counts. Over you go."
The pain would be sickening, it always was. Now she would have to endure it without the comfort of straps. Trembling inwardly, the make believe delinquent leaned forward, flipped up her skirt, then bent all the way to touch her toes.
Lord Crumshawe never tired of this moment. For him it was a supreme delight, a carnal feast. He raised the tent - like skirt higher still and pinned it up to reveal the thighs, bottom and waist of the girl he was about to cane. His gnarled hands dwelt lovingly on the two curves he intended to welt, his palm intruded between tight clenched flesh.
"Feet well apart, m'dear, knees tight."
It was hateful but Jennifer obeyed. Her fingertips now touched the floor instead of her widespread toes. The noble palm now had free access to the plump dampness of her lipped mound. She flinched as a playful thumb and finger plucked a pubic hair, then obediently arched down her back under the imperious tapping of the cane. All was ready.
The stroke blazed and flared in familiar agony. Gritting her teeth she braced against number two and number three, counting in anguish the welting impacts by which she progressed to number six and cessation. She no longer believed in blood and open wounds but it still felt like it.
"Hold position a minute, dear girl, let the pain burn in. You did splendidly, splendidly. I'm proud of you."
It was hard to do. Jennifer longed to clasp her weals and dance. When permission was graciously granted she stood erect and allowed the Victorian skirt to demurely fall to her ankles. "Thank you, sir. That was a most excellent correction." She could almost believe she meant every word.
There were enough girls captive in Stoule to provide its owner with an endless rotation of diverse and delinquent derrieres. True, he might cane the same girl three days running, but that was the luck of the draw, and girlish bottoms and girlish breasts faced other hazards for them to think about. Their daily 'Class' under the humourless eye of Miss Harradace usually trapped its victim of the erotic authority of what the girls facetiously referred to in private as the 'Pussy Palace' or 'Cunt Castle'. There was also the 'Derriere Demesne'. The punishments the Mistress imposed were often surprisingly inventive, some of them employing wood or metal contraptions no doubt blueprinted from His Lordship's fertile imaginings of writhing maidens. Entrapment followed a familiar course.
"Veronica. I would like you to tell the Class what you know of the Punic Wars."
Veronica rose to her shackled feet, obviously apprehensive. "But we haven't taken anything about the Punic Wars, Miss Harradace." She quivered."
"Come dear, don't be difficult. We are waiting."
"I don't know anything about the Punic wars, Miss Harradace."
"Really, Veronica, I'm disappointed. But give us a brief account of the campaigns of Germannicus."
"I never heard of him either, Miss Harradace." The Class was breathless. It knew! So did Veronica. Jennifer was disgusted by the cruel singling out of an innocent prey, but she was as breathless as the rest. The martinet took them a step further to the kill. "Perhaps a lesson is indicated, dear?"
"I expect so, Miss Harradace."
The way in which the prey was forced to accept its goading and its sentencing was infuriating. But each girl in the Class wore chains on her ankles and had come to recognise the inevitable. Each day one of them would suffer pain and indignity in a make believe punishment they had done nothing to deserve. The Class was actually a cleverly devised way of keeping the captive girls alert instead of possible morbidity in the idleness of bonds.
"I would like you to step before the Class, Veronica. Some of you girls go and carry in here the "Barbar's Bench."
There was a shocked silence, commiserating glances for Veronica, then a scurry of activity to the metallic music of a chain. The girl selected for punishment clinked her sad path to the Mistress. She was beginning to cry. Veronica evidently knew what was in store and wanted no part of it.
"Please, Miss Harradace, don't punish me with that. It's awful."
"Don't be silly, dear, you know you must be disciplined. There are worse things, y'know."
"I don't know what they are then." Veronica sobbed imprudently. She dropped nakedly to her knees, imploring: "Please don't have that done to me. Please, Miss Harradace, please."
"Get up and stop being silly. You will now receive the second phase of the bench as well."
Jennifer was at a loss. They all knew something she did not. In pity she watched Veronica hastily rise and heard her wail: "I can't bear that, Miss Harradace, I just can't. I'll die."
The unhappy plaint was lost in the commotion of the arrival of as strange a bench as Jennifer had ever seen. When the Class was all seated once again the voice of the Mistress made its suave demand. "Arrange yourself, Veronica. Stop snivelling."
"I can't, Miss Harradace, my feet are chained." Lips pursed, the Mistress used a key. With obvious loathing, Veronica climbed aboard the frame and settled her slim nudity into its clasp. Passively, she lay on her back, limbs extended to enable Miss Harradace to buckle tight a number of straps by which she was held motionless, and which exposed to the expectant Class the stretched and distorted mound of Veronica's pussy with its black patch of pubic curls staring back at them like a shameless eye.
The frame was ingenious. It strapped Veronica's waist like a vice. It drew her ankles far, far apart in an obscene spread, accentuated by other straps biting at each knee. Her bottom and her loins were held rigidly but without the trammels of support so that every crevice of her secret place was tautly flat and cruelly available as if in readiness for rape.
"Phase one." Intoned Miss Harradace pleasantly. "Amy, go and get the things we require." Her gaze swept the class. "This is a humane punishment, girls. But traumatic for some. I want you to watch it carefully. It could happen to you."
Jennifer watched the mug, the soap and the brush. When a mound of white lather hid every frond of sexual hair and a razor appeared in the Mistress's hand she was a breathless as the rest. She quivered with each stroke of the blade as it robbed the helpless girl of her most female treasure. Miss Harradace was evidently well familiar with the contours she must scrape, she pushed, pulled and pinched up the acquiescent flesh its owner was unable to move. The shrewd strokes, one by one, laid bare the ultimate quintessence of a girl's nakedness. The young lips and the young mound emerged in a nude purity of innocence. When the last hair had been sliced away and the pubic planes and curves laved with a wet sponge there was not a girl in the Class who did not see herself thus shamed and feel the cold wet shrinking of denuded loins. Veronica herself made no sound. She was resigned.
"We now move forward to phase two of this naughty girl's correction." Miss Harradace explained blithely. "Amy, the tape please."
It seemed impossible, This should not be done to any girl. Jennifer's eyes widened in disbelief as she watched the firm wide bands of white adhesive moulded to the contours of the youthful sex, closing and sealing Veronica's neat slit to make her as sexless as a washed photo of a Victorian nude. Miss Harradace spared no tape, the long strips ensuring anchorage, then angled and criss-crossed to rob the punished girl of a vital need. Sight of the shining white patch, and a knowledge of what lay hidden beneath its grasp sent erotic pulsations into every crevice of every watching girl. The white adhesive mocked them from between the white stretched legs.
"The bench. Amy. I want the class to get a proper view."
Once more the impossible. The bench now displayed a side view of the strapped down girl. Veronica had been able to move her head, but this faculty was now taken from her by the insertion into her mouth of a funnel, part of a strap device by which it was held rigid between her teeth and which was buckled down to the bench to clamp her head as immovably as the rest of her. Jennifer had swift visions of medieval torture chambers. The plastic funnel stuck up absurdly from Veronica's mouth.
"Only one quart, dear. I am being kind." Miss Harradace's voice was mellifluous with affection. "Refrain from panic, Veronica. Drink slowly as I pour. You will only drown if you refuse to swallow."
An urgent hand was suddenly on Jennifer's arm as she started to rise, a hushed whisper from the adjoining desk warned: "Keep still. If we say a word we get the same." She nodded, the voice was correct, her shackled feet confirmed the fact. Stoule had them. There was no escape from anything.
It was agonizingly slow. Veronica's eyes were wide with terror as she swallowed steadily, sometimes gulping under the steady trickle of water from the quart measure the Mistress held plainly in view and tilted with care. But, slowly, the gulps became more frequent and more painful. It was possible to see the tremors of muscular revolt, the panic of terror as the tortured girl fought the straps. She did not move, nor did the bench, but the watchers beheld the surge of flesh and sinew against the leather of her bonds.
It was suddenly over. Within Veronica was a quart of fluid she had not desired. She panted gratefully when the strap and funnel were taken from their evil clutch. Miss Harradace's firm strong fingers tugged at buckles to make the shamed nudity free, but they gave no help to the girl who struggled with difficulty from the clutches of the bench. Veronica was being punished and must fend for herself. When she stood in stiff shamed misery the shackles were once more locked upon her ankles.
"Turn round. Hands in back, dear."
It seemed too cruel. Shackled feet, sealed loins, and now her wrists were to be crossed and tied with cord. As the strands were criss-crossed above the young hands and drawn tight it was easy to see that Miss Harradace was a Mistress at this too. Her explanation was lucid.
"You will understand, girls, Veronica must not have her hands. She would inevitably use them to remove the sealing tape. She could not forbear to do that - I am sure you know why." The Mistress bestowed her most benign smile. "It would seem more practical therefore to restrain her by the use of handcuffs. But I want you all to share her travail. Any one of you could free her hands from my knots, but the punishment for so doing is to suffer as she suffers, plus twenty strokes. I would counsel prudence when she pleads, as plead she will. This is your sharing of her travail. Veronica will remain sealed until tomorrow morning."
So simple, so cruel. The passing hours would impose an increasing torment between the taped thighs. Each girl would know a nagging guilt in withholding succour. Veronica would drag her chained feet along with the rest, but she would look at them hopefully with anguished eyes as her punishment erased the youth from her features and replaced it with lines of pain and apprehension. "Tomorrow morning ... !" It was an eternity away.
Within Jennifer Raines the taped loins triggered a resolve. She was older than the rest, except for Mavis, and Mavis was a prefect. She possessed perspectives they lacked. She had viewed, in cynical resignation, the manner in which Stoule imposed its will upon each captive girl until she came to see her enslavement as a fact of life and to adjust to it until it took on the mantle of normalcy. April had come to enjoy it, Mavis had come to acceptable terms. But as the day progressed the continuing sight of Veronica's taped misery, her slim wrists twisting at the rope, her constant seeking of a posture of easement unattainable, were unbearable to a degree of resolution strong enough to send her in search of The Prefect.
"Mavis, I've got to get out of this place. I've got to escape."
"We all have to, Jennifer. But none of us will. Stop talking about it or you'll be in trouble."
"I can't stand the sight of Veronica suffering the way she is. It's senseless."
"It gives His Lordship a hard-on. She has to report to him every hour and stand to attention while he asks her how bad she needs to pee."
"He's a childish old goat. I'm sick of the silly game I have to play with him, baring my bottom to get it caned. Mavis, I'm serious!"
"I ought to report this, y'know. Jennifer, you're being rebellious and emotional."
"I know. But I don't believe you will. You and I aren't kids. We're two women who've had their lives mucked up by a silly old fool."
"He's more than that, Jennifer, you know he is. And I didn't notice those Arabian chaps setting you free either. You've always ended up in chains."
"But, Mavis, they were men, not desiccated relics. Youssef is so damn good in bed I'd walk half-way round the world - "
"Stoppit Jennifer, cool it off. D'you think I don't know - "
"Let's both escape? Come with me?"
"You talk as though I've got a key and can just walk away - "
"You could, I know you could! Please, Mavis ... help me?"
"Darling, if I helped you they'd half kill me and I wouldn't be a Prefect any more! Would you ask that?"
"Well ... no. But there must be ways - ?"
"Jennifer, you make me feel a bitch. It's bad enough the way Veronica keeps looking at me."
"I can't leave her like that all night, I'm not going to." Jennifer came to an impulsive decision. "At bedtime I'm going to untie her hands. She can do the rest herself."
"You're crazy!"
"Maybe. But I have to do it."
"You don't. Veronica isn't going to die. Don't be stupid."
"Help me get out of here, then - "
"Jennifer, they'll give you her punishment and they'll whip you as well. Then they'll tape Veronica up again and make her start over. You'll each have a taped up cunt and tied hands."
"But ... but - !"
"They'll punish Veronica worse too. She'll get whipped same as you." Mavis sighed and shook her head. "Don't you understand the rules? Immediately you untie her, Veronica is supposed to leave her pussy safely sealed and go straight to someone and spill the beans. She won't do it, she'll want to pee too bad. But that's the way of it. Stoule always has us foxed."
Mavis was not an enemy, nor were her feet chained. To the distraught girl she represented a forlorn hope. Disjointedly, Jennifer tried to voice the depths of her emotion. "Mavis, I've just got to make you understand. I'm desperate. I've been robbed of my life and I want it back. I'll _risk punishments. I'll - I'll - "
"You'll get yourself into a lot of trouble, dear." Mavis counselled. You'll be put in the dungeon and well loaded with irons. You'll get your bread and water once a day, and that's all you'll see of anyone. The girl who does that won't be allowed to speak, she'll flit in and out and slam the door. Inside a couple of days and nights you'll he broken, you'll do anything." The Prefect sighed. "I know ... I've been there."
They stood and looked at each other dolorously. Two women, wrested from the world and placed in an imprisonment more stringent than any to which The Law might have sentenced them. A captivity offering only occasional erotic rewards for the surrender of their lives. As she often did at such times, Jennifer petulantly kicked her shackle to make its chain rattle and snub her ankle. It was a useless motion but served as a harmless rebellion and a reminder of helplessness. If a girl sought the comfort of resignation, the shackle helped. But it did not help now. All she wanted was to tear the metal bondage from her feet and hurl it into oblivion. Jennifer Raines wanted OUT. Tonelessly, she said: "I'm going to do whatever I must. If they kill me ... Well, so what!"
"The trouble is they won't kill you, dear. They'll keep you very much alive, and hurting all the way." They kissed and clung. There was even a mingling of tears.
That night Jennifer went to Veronica's cot. Seated beside the punished nudity that had found no sleep, she asked forthrightly: "How bad is it?"
"Awful. I want to die. If only they hadn't made me drink -"
"If I untie you, can you manage?"
The naked slenderness tensed. "You mustn't, you mustn't!" The denial was muffled in the pillow. "Nobody's allowed to untie me."
Jennifer leaned down and whispered into a captive ear. "Look, dear, I'm no hero. But I can't stand the thought of leaving you like this all night - "
"I might have made it if it hadn't been for that whole quart."
"Sure, Okay. But, Veronica, only you know how bad it is for you. If you can make it to morning I'll creep back to bed. If you can't, then say so and I'll untie you. It's something I want to do ... "
The bloated girl sobbed heartbrokenly into the pillow. She did not speak. But as Veronica's silence lengthened it became doubly eloquent. Without another word, Jennifer dragged at the tied hands and tugged at knots. In rueful amusement she accepted a swift kiss, then watched its donor clink urgently to the bathroom. Jennifer returned to her bed and slept. She had not expected to sleep but she did.
In the morning it was Mavis who voiced the inevitable. "It was you, wasn't it, Jennifer?"
"Yes."
"I haven't split on you, and I won't. But Veronica is being questioned. She says she wriggled loose all by herself. But they won't buy that. Soon they'll torture her until she names names."
"Okay. I'll go and rescue her. I figured on it."
"You had to do it, didn't you!" The Prefect's regard was pensive. "I won't nag, but I wish you hadn't. You'd best run and wallow in masochism for The Harradace. Oh, damn ... !"
"I'm not surprised, dear," Miss Harradace nodded confidingly. "I'd half suspected ... There's been something about you. Fact is, you're sick to death of us all?"
"I'm sorry, I really am! I mean, about you and Mavis. You're both kind. I suppose I've let you down?"
The Mistress shrugged. "I won't say that. You let Veronica loose, not because she wanted to pee, but you wanted her as a Cause. She's your Manifesto? Am I right?"
"I suppose so." Jennifer stared fixedly at the woman behind the desk. "I asked Mavis to help me escape. She refused. Now I ask you. Please, Miss Harradace, set me free?'
"Jennifer, are you doing a Joan of Are on me?"
"Probably. But simply, as one woman to another, I ask you to let me go. If I am kept here I'll compel you to punish me so much I'll be useless for the things you want me for."
"My, my!" Miss Harradace shook her head sadly. "Jennifer, do you know what happens to most martyrdom directly it starts to hurt?"
"Yes, it falls apart. Maybe mine will. But I have to try."
Miss Harradace tossed handcuffs. "Here, catch! You're self convicted, you may as well snap these on yourself too. Behind your back please, and tight." It was as though the many centuries of Stoule had their eyes on her as Jennifer wriggled and twisted to obey. She was careful of the clicks, she would make them snug but that was enough. Handcuffs could hurt. She was aware of the Mistress's amused regard.
"That's right, dear, you're an old hand. But, just the same ... back up."
Her ironed wrists passed inspection. Helpless, now, in her loss of hands and feet, the naked delinquent stood to receive her sentence. But the Mistress was thoughtful.
"I do a job, Jennifer, mostly I enjoy it. I'm tough because I deal mainly with little snippets who've needed a good thrashing long before they came here. Men like slim hips, flat tummies and perky tits. That means nineteen or thereabouts, so that's what I get. I enjoy whipping 'em into obedience but there is precious little communion with their minds. But you're different, you're adult. You can blame that marvellous figure of yours for being here. You're lucky. You've had it this long, you'll probably take it the rest of the way."
"And I'll never be set free!" Jennifer said bitterly.
"If we notice a tendency to put on weight we starve the girl, then sell her quick." She chuckled. "Their purchaser probably does the same, so there's no escape for them either." Miss Harradace viewed the nude loveliness so passively in her power. "I'd like to do something for you, Jennifer. Dammit, I really would."
"Then set me free. Oh, please ... ?"
"If you were one of the little dumbbells I might get away with it, dear, but you're known - and His Lordship's in love with your bottom."
"So I have to lose the years of my youth so he can get an erection by caning it?"
"That's about the size of it. I agree it's not fair."
"Then let me go? Concoct some story? Or come with me?"
"Hey, hold it! You're pushing your luck. You've decided to toss caution to the winds because you think you don't care any more and everything's hopeless anyway ... Right?"
"You've read my mind. I'm being silly. Maybe I'm hysterical because I'm scared about the punishment I'm going to get. May I ask what it's going to be?"
"The worst part of it, love, is for you to watch Veronica start her punishment all over again."
"But isn't it my fault? Shouldn't I be punished instead of Veronica?"
"Not instead of, but along with. If you'd kept your nose and your Cause out of Veronica's punishment she'd have been untied by now and in the bathroom peeing to her heart's content."
Jennifer slumped and said, sadly: "You see why I have to escape. This is all hopeless and impossible and utterly unjust.."
"That's right, dear. Now, go back to the girls. Have them do what you can't do for yourself. Tell them all to be in Class by ten and to have the barber's frame ready for dear little Veronica - Amy knows about what's needed. Oh, and you'd better be there too."
"But my punishment? What about - ?'
"You and I will both think about that, dear." Miss Harradace said blandly, "Now run along."
"You're going to be punished because you untied me." Veronica mourned. "I can tell by the way you're handcuffed. Oh, Jennifer, I'm so grateful to you, and so sorry."
"It was something I had to do. Don't worry."
"They're going to do it to me all over again, Jennifer, and they'll do it to you too, and they'll whip you as well. Oh darling, I'm so scared!"
"I'm scared too, Veronica. But I'm not sorry." The arrival of the Barber's Frame and Miss Harradace ended talk. The clink of chains was strident in the room.
Chapter Six
Sealed Girl
The disposal of Veronica was swift. She placed herself on the frame and was strapped. The Class enjoyed another view of her hairless and denuded sex before the tapes sealed it from its function and from view. Then the shifting of the bench and the strapping of the funnel in the delinquent mouth. Miss Harradace held up a sizable cup.
"This amount is extra today, dear. We are aware you have refrained from fluid intake." The extra water entered Veronica in a series of rapid gulps. The straps creaked. "And now the regular quart, Veronica love. Drink it slowly and steadily. Try and avoid swallowing air."
The quart was tilted. The Class watched its slow disappearance, each girl sharing the same horror that one day they too ... ! Jennifer was flinchingly aware of the handcuffs on her wrists. She was helpless.
"There! A nice little tummy full to keep you company until tomorrow, Veronica." Miss Harradace set aside the empty container and busied herself with the straps.
Gingerly, Veronica stepped out of the hateful device and, whilst she still had her hands, fingered and explored the tapes and the sealing of her sex. The smooth white surface adhered so tightly as to become a part of her. For as long as it was there she was neutered between her legs.
"Could call it a 'Chastity Seal,' dear. Why not think of it that way, or see yourself as a cuntless cherub." Miss Harradace radiated goodwill. "Now I'll just chain your feet and tie those pretty hands behind your back again. Cross your wrists, darling." The hands of authority dealt competently with a familiar task, then patted one cheek of a delinquent bottom. "Run along, Veronica. Have a nice day."
The cynicism hovered momentarily as a woeful maiden clinked her way to her seat. It was followed by the stern admonition: "Her hands are tied, girls. I strongly suggest that none of you untie them. If Veronica's tapes are tampered with the entire Class will be punished."
It should have been over but it was not. The expectant silence was almost painful before Miss Harradace ended suspense. "Jennifer, dear, please come to the front of the Class."
So it had come! She would be forgiven nothing. There was no good reason for forgiveness. Jennifer shrugged. Erect, and hating every step, she did as she was told:
"Ah yes, shackles and handcuffs ... " The Mistress fingered keys. "You will not be needing them for a little while."
Jennifer stood, breasts outthrust, head high, gazing at a nonexistent horizon beyond which lay freedom. The absence of restraints upon her limbs was brief.
"I am sure you can position yourself, Jennifer. Take your time."
It was like a fly deliberately placing itself upon the spider's web. Instinctively, Jennifer's hand sought her pubic bush and fingered it sadly before arranging her nakedness upon the contraption by which she would be totally shamed. She stretched her arms, she stretched her legs to offer the class sight of a triangle of pubic fronds none of them could match. The Mistress fingered them as she herself had done, her tone equally sad. "A pity ... such a pity!"
She could not move. The immobility imposed by the straps and the frame was frightening as the Mistress tugged and buckled. But, despite herself, the victim of Stoule's disciple felt a surge of heat within her loins as the loins themselves were clothed in white foam under the relentless frictioning of the brush. Jennifer could not see her sex, but she knew, she knew ... ! When the blade garnered its first swath of lather the air seemed arctic on her flesh, but her heat within was fuelled by the erotic knowledge of what was being done. Jennifer lay in mute wonderment as the firm fingers and the sharp steel denuded her crotch and robbed her of the shining curls she had secretly adored. This was one more of the impossible things ... ! But the scrape of the razor on her private place was excruciatingly real. When the wet sponge laved her bare lips and denuded mound she blinked back tears.
When the frame was shifted to provide the Class with its view of Jennifer's final humiliation the Mistress's voice was soft: "You will open your mouth, won't you, dear? You won't be silly?"
The nude girl strapped to the frame opened her mouth. She was helpless, and this was all her own fault anyway. Jennifer blinked unhappily as the ugly harness tightened, removing her last trifle of liberty and holding the funnel in her mouth as though she was blowing a horn. Jennifer felt cringingly ridiculous.
It was one thing to watch another, but this was too close and far too personal. Jennifer surged in protesting horror, making the straps and buckles creak but moving nothing. The funnel loomed huge before her wide eyes. The water now pouring slowly was a Niagra in which she might easily drown. She fought for composure and swallowed in a grim determination not to choke on the punishing stream. Miss Jennifer Raines swallowed and swallowed ... and swallowed again.
"You're coping wonderfully, love. I knew you would." Jennifer did not think she was doing wonderfully at all. Her gulping intake of the wicked water was slowing, she was fighting the fullness within her belly with each swallow. Constantly she did battle with the straps so that surely someone must see and understand her anguish and the impossibility of drinking on and on ... ! But the hovering quart continued its flow until she knew it was not a quart at all but a gallon and she was going to die.
"I'm proud of you, Jennifer." Miss Harradace upturned the quart container above the funnel to demonstrate its emptiness. "I'll let you loose now. Lord Crumshawe is anxious to get your personal report on this experience."
Jennifer knew the pain and the need would not be instant, but her motions were cautious as she savoured the brief freedom of extricating herself from the frame and standing erect. She felt bloated but nothing was visible, the discomfort of over surfeit was not actually hurting. She looked clown past her taut tummy and watched the irons once again locked on her ankles. Without a query she turned and crossed her wrists behind her back, and bit her lip at the shrewd cruelty of the cords.
"Run along, dear. Report to his Lordship every hour, otherwise do as you please. If you come to me before breakfast tomorrow I'll unseal you."
'Unseal'. Absurd but frightening. Tomorrow would never come, it was eons away. But she would wait for it, suspensefully and in longing, tied and chained and taped. Fighting the strange sensation of the adhesive bands, Jennifer Raines clattered her way to pay homage to Lord Crumshawe's lechery.
"I am so glad you've come, m'dear. What a charming effect those tapes have on you. Stand just there please, erect, legs a bit apart. Ah, that's excellent. Have you any need to pee yet?"
If Lord Crumshawe had inhibitions they were not sexual. Lovingly, he caressed the smooth surface of what had been a female mound and labia. He inspected Jennifer's bound wrists. "Remarkable woman, Miss Harradace." He boomed heartily. "She's got you tight and trim and shipshape."
"Yes, sir, I can't touch the tape on my - on my - Well, anyway, my hands are tied too tight, and the girls have been warned not to help me."
"Capital, capital, a marvellous punishment. It took young Veronica several hours yesterday to reach actual distress. This waiting period now ... ? Quite tantalizing, I'd suppose?"
"It's horrible, sir."
"Do I detect sulkiness?"
"I'm unhappy, sir. I want my freedom. I'm sorry but I can't help it." Jennifer gave her owner a pitiful glance. "Please don't punish me for that too."
"Hmmmmm, see your point! Damn sensible girl. Honest." Lord Crumshawe glared from beneath shaggy brows. "Not expecting me to let you loose, are you?"
"No, sir. I expect this punishment's making me morbid. I haven't much to look forward to."
"Hmmmmm. Help any if I caned your bottom? Counter irritant, y'know! Often does wonders for a girl."
Lord Crumshawe was entirely serious, his regard bent on her now was sympathetic. His suggestion might well be helpful to some girls at some times. Perhaps even to her. Jennifer supposed the fact of considering such an outrageous cure for dolour showed how deeply she was imbued in slavery. But, still in the mood which had earned her taped loins and tied wrists, she continued tremulously: "I'm a girl, sir, and I'm losing my youth in this imprisonment." She made her ankle chain swirl and clatter. "I'm always shackled, I'm constantly punished, I can never escape ... " She took a deep breath, plunging: "It's not fair, it's not a bit fair ... always naked ... bought and sold ... humiliated and shamed - "
"My, my, what have we here! Insubordination, eh?"
"Not really, sir. I'm helpless, I can't do anything and I'm still obedient. If you ordered me to kneel and kiss your feet I'd do it as best I can." Jennifer twisted against her corded wrists in impotent frustration. "I suppose I just needed to - to confide in someone. Please don't punish me."
"Damn remarkable!" Lord Crumshawe was impressed. "The girls don't talk to me like this. It's usually yes's and no's and three bags full." He paused, musing. "Want me to sell you again?"
"No, sir."
"Better the Devil you know, eh? Well, run along. But don't forget: Every hour, eh?"
Wondering at her own temerity and supposing his Lordship in a good mood. Jennifer thankfully went in search of her companion in distress. Veronica forestalled questions: "Oh, there you are, darling. I'm already wanting to pee terribly, though maybe it's nervousness. How about you?"
"I've never drank a quart of anything before, Veronica. How long did it take yesterday before you just couldn't bear it anymore?"
"About four hours. If it wasn't for all that water I could last all day." The younger girl twisted against her bound hands. "Jennifer; the Harradace has forgotten something. D'you realise we can stand back to back and untie each other?''
"But what good would it do: We'd only he punished extra."
"But if we waited until we just can't bear it anymore, then both go to the bathroom and get untied, we can have our pee and tape each other up again." Veronica's eyes were sparkling. "Then I tie your hands back the way they were all tight and proper, then between us we get the rope back around mine as best we can so I can run off and confess about my hands coming loose and I want them tied properly so no one will think I've misbehaved."
"Veronica, don't be idiotic. She'd know."
Veronica managed a giggle. "Just wait 'till you start hurting, Jennifer, you'll think it's a marvellous idea." The two of them talked and even managed to laugh. Each knew they were in a vacuum before the storm. In a few hours they would be exchanging moans, their cheeks tear-stained, their wrists chafed. Jennifer realised how easily they could aid each other, they had their teeth as we'll as their hands and could defeat both rope and tape. But the fact only served to illustrate the implacable utility of their shackle. The metal on their ankles was the relentless hand of Stoule denying their freedom, mocking hands and teeth and hope. When her hour was up she. returned to Lord Crumshawe's study and fresh shame.
"Need to pee yet, m'dear?"
"Yes, sir. It's starting."
"Going to ask me to get that tape off?"
"No, sir. I'll try not to."
"That's the spirit. Suffer in silence, eh! Y'know, I've been thinking about you and that sealed cunt between your legs. It's made me want to swish your bottom. Would you mind, dear girl"
"Not if it would give you pleasure to cane me, sir."
"The perfect answer. Really, m'dear, you're a treasure."
"I won't enjoy it. But being caned is one of the reasons I'm kept prisoner here isn't it?"
She had omitted the `sir' deliberately and infused her response in faint sarcasm. Inwardly, she shivered. Lord Crumshawe nodded. He was thinking. Slowly, he selected the cane with which he would mark the curves of the helpless girl standing at attention for his pleasure. Flexing the limber length, he reflected casually: "Bit of a novelty for me, Jennifer, rn'girl. Makes a nice change from the Victorian simper and blush."
"Yes, sir. Is there any particular way you want me to behave?"
"Mmmmmm' no, I think not. Could call this one the basic naked, eh."
"Yes, sir. Is it just my bottom?"
"Of course. You're not getting a whipping, y'know. At least, not today. How are you feeling?"
"Frightened."
"Well, why not? You've got a belly full of water, and now you're going to bend over and get your seat swished. You're right, Jennifer, m'gal, it's not fair, not a bit! But I dearly love to cane your bottom."
"I understand, sir, Really, I do."
"I'd marry you if I was a century younger." Lord Crumshawe declared fervently.
"Marvellous bottom and you don't argue. And that figure you've got ... ! Stunning ... simply stunning."
"Thank you, sir. Should I bend over?"
"Eh, what for? Oh, of course, of course! Thought for a moment you had something else in mind." His Lordship flexed the cane as he eyed his prey. "Damn me, if this isn't the first time I've cut a girl's bottom when she's naked. Always seemed as though the little dear should have something to take off. But you - like this! You could become habit forming, m'dear. Yes, bend forward a bit. I won't bother to untie your hands."
The blow bit, scalded and burned. Its force snapped the wealed nudity erect, staggering to keep her feet. Her drum tight tummy was not conducive to sharp bends, but Jennifer, alive with pain, once more placed her bottom for her owner's convenience.
"That's all, m'gal. Just the one. Gad. I needed that!" Jennifer, thankfully, resumed her pose of polite attention. "I'm very grateful, sir. Thank you."
"Hurt, eh?"
"Shockingly."
"I'm am old reprobate." Lord Crumshawe admitted complacently, "But I feel better for that stroke, its set me up. Better than a brandy. Damned if I know why girls wear clothes, or why they, all of 'em, don't get their little bottoms caned at least once a week. It would be a better world. You feel better too, don't you?" Strangely, she did. But it was because the blow had already marked her and was past. In docile acceptance of her lot she awaited His Lordship's next aberration. "I've been thinking about you in the past hour, m'dear, and I've been thinking of something else too. Have you thought much about the potency of contrast?"
"Not really, sir."
"Well, I have. Implicit in this hobby of mine, y'know. Contrast is what makes the Victorian theme so cock hardening. The bare shy little bottom unveiled from all those voluminous textiles. Then again, caning you just now: there you are, a very adult female, made naked and having to offer her rump for the cane. Damned erotic. Then, when I think of that quart of water in your belly and how you can't pee ... !" Lord Crumshawe sighed rapturously. "Add to that your plastered cunt - those white tapes criss-crossing your crotch - Mmm!"
"I am glad I give you pleasure, sir."
"You do more than that. You give me ideas." Lord Crumshawe sighed, beholding visions. "I suppose I'm a world authority of female bottoms and the erotic potential locked up in girls. All girls should be slaves between the ages of fifteen and thirty or thirty-five. No doubt about that at all. They just mess themselves up running around loose." He bent an earnest regard upon his captive audience. "But a slave-girl needs to be kept on her toes. Innovation's the word. Imaginative captivity ... Situations!"
"Such as me with my tummy full of water and not able to pee?"
"Exactly! Then put a cane welt across your bottom! You become unbelievably erotic. Did that cut across your rump make you want to pee?"
"I'm afraid it did, sir. In another hour I won't be very good company."
Jennifer's impending agony was waved away by a noble gesture. "Must be a remarkable thing to realise what's going on inside you and how tight your little cunt is. Sealed, that's a lovely word for it. But, in the meantime, there's something I want to talk about. If I set you free tomorrow, what would you do?"
The naked girl could not control her sudden surge of hope. This ancient satyr was surely playing with her but still ... ! In sudden shock Jennifer Raines confronted a world for which she was unprepared. "I ... I don't know, sir. Please don't tease me."
"You're in love with that guerrilla chap, eh?" "Yeeees ... I'm afraid I am."
"Don't apologise. It's just your glands. Would you go to him?"
"I couldn't, sir. I'd have no money. And anyway, he doesn't want me. I hurt him terribly."
"Hmmmmm, young idiot. Had you and let you go. Probably sorry by now. He'll be thinking of all that pubic hair you don't have any more."
"I'd like to think so, sir."
"Oh, he'll want you alright! Don't worry about that. But that isn't what I wanted to talk to you about. Envision this: You have been freed of all restraints, you are naked, you have just been pushed out the back door of Stoule, all on your own. What would you do?"
Jennifer could understand his curiosity. She was curious herself: Free but naked! What would she do? "I expect I'd run for the main road and try and find a policeman." She ventured. "They'd look after me and see I got home ... I mean, back to my parents."
"Yes. Sounds practical if you didn't get raped on the way. Carry on."
The bound and naked slave-girl found herself without anywhere to carry on to. The vacuum was startling. Tentatively, she mused aloud: "I suppose I'd try and get my old job back, and there'd be my friends ... "
"Sounds a crushing bore."
Lord Crumshawe was right. Her simple summation of her world from which she had been kidnapped revealed vacuity. No Youssef, no April, no Miss Harradace, and most certainly no Lord Crumshawe. Striving for equilibrium, she asked: "Wouldn't you be afraid of my going to the police? The things I could tell ... ?"
"Best not to do that, m'dear." He laughed, highly amused. "Stoule isn't just what you've seen of it, neither am I. Stoule's a small Empire doing the things VVestminster can't. I'm a big help to Whitehall. If you told tales at a police station they'd pat your bottom and give you a cup of tea. English policemen believe tea cures all ills."
"But if I made enough fuss - and showing up naked and with whip-marks ... ?"
"Enough fuss might get you put in a cage, m'dear, or escorted back here. Try it by all means, of course, just for your own satisfaction."
Jennifer looked piteously at her owner. "I'm sure you're right, sir. And I'm sure I wouldn't know what to do with myself. But it doesn't matter, does it! You're not going to let me go." She allowed a silence to become pregnant, then added in a fearful hope: "Are you?"
Lord Crumshawe was pursuing his own train of thought, he did not bother to answer. "I'm something of a connoisseur in the art of extracting pleasure from the female of our species." He said thoughtfully. "A man is an idiot who does not realise the rich rewards hidden in the feminine mind. They are an enticing as her body but far more difficult to touch - I hope you follow me?"
"I think so, sir." Jennifer was prepared to follow anything to gain sight of freedom.
"Good! Now, when a man like myself has played all the gambits it is easy to become blas�: jaded if you prefer. He may then employ more and more pain to extract stimulating reactions. Or he may place his female subject in situations to tax her intelligence, her courage, or even her affections. Still with me, m'dear?"
"Yes I am. But where does a man get the right - ?"
"He doesn't. It's money and power that get the right, Jennifer. I have both. Can't say my conscience bothers me about the little poppets I bring to Stoule. Most of 'em are better off here than trotting around fornicating with vapid bank clerks and truck drivers. I rescue them from penury, diapers and the stink of excrement."
"I don't think they want to be rescued, sir."
"And they'd agree with you." Lord Crumshawe conceded heartily. "But females should never be allowed decision. Feminine decision inevitably leads to babies." He guffawed. "Think of yourself with a yowling little Youssef and a box of Pampers."
It was hard not to smile. Jennifer had little to smile about, but His Lordship was never a bore. Sooner or later he was going to make a point. She arranged her features in polite interest.
"We've already discussed the premise of you walking, naked, into freedom, m'dear. Didn't seem to me to lead you anywhere a girl of your quality would want to go. So here's another angle for the sly female mind: I set you free; I place you in a pleasant well-located flat; I give you an adequate income; once a week you would have an obligation."
The Earl of Stoule paused to enjoy the rise and fall of his captive's breasts, the growing brightness of her eyes. Jennifer was stamping on hope with both feet but could not prevent it welling into every crevice of her being. Breathless, she absorbed the bizarre impact of her owner's next words.
"Once a week you would make yourself as sleek and lovely as you know how. You would come to Stoule. You would be shown, with the deference due an honoured visitor, to my study. You would greet me with the gay informality of warm affection, and what you say would go something like this:
"Why darling Crummy, it's so good to see you. Give me a kiss. Mmmmmm, you really are a dear. I've come for my weekly whipping. Please whip me really hard today. Keep me tied and make it last until evening."
His Lordship blushed and looked awkward. "Something or other along those lines, m'dear." Jennifer's world was revolving far too rapidly, she could not keep pace. Her first reaction was a resounding yes, yes, yes! But prudence touched its finger to her lips. "I'd like to say 'yes', sir."
"Don't tell me you're not going to?"
"Of course I'm going to." Jennifer shook her head in bewilderment, then grinned ruefully. "You're getting reactions out of me. I suppose you're picking them up?"
"No. Tell me."
"Well, I'll do it. I suppose after I've asked you to whip me you'll want me to take my clothes off?"
"Of course."
"I expect I'd survive that first time. But then I'd go back to your lovely apartment and for six days I'd be thinking and shrinking about a repeat of all that pain ... Suppose I didn't have the will power to bring me back here to ask for second dose?"
Lord Crumshawe shrugged amiably. "As I told you, young lady, this is an interesting exploration of your female mind." He smiled charmingly. "So! We have got to where you cannot bring yourself to return. Please continue."
Jennifer heard her words as though thinking aloud: "If I renege you'd cut off the money and the apartment. But then I could go home to my parents." In a sudden flash of fear she demanded: "Or would you have me kidnapped again?"
"Never mind what I might or might not do, Jennifer. We are looking at you, both of us."
"For how many weeks or years would you expect me to come and ask to be whipped?"
Lord Crumshawe waved a vague arm. "Indefinite. We might say for the balance of my life. Dammit, I'm so bloody old I have to go sometime. If you lived up to the contract you'd be mentioned in my will."
"Thank you, sir. It's myself I'm scared of. It would be so easy to agree to everything and then, in a week or a month, to blow it all by running away and hiding."
"Very well. One more option then: If you find yourself weakening you can knock at the door here at any time and ask to be returned to slavery. No penalties."
The bound girl with a quart of water within her tummy knew she was being played with. But this was more than a game. Lord Crumshawe would honour any bargain they might strike. She could not control the roseate visions of freedom flooding her mind. What did the pain matter! Surely it was a price her back and bottom could afford - !"
"You are, of course, considering flight to Youssef Ben Rayaddah." His Lordship continued suavely. "Forget him. All paths to that young nuisance are closed."
"Thank you, Lord Crumshawe. I accept your offer gladly." She heard her words as absurdly formal, and laughingly promised. "I honestly will try and live up to my half of the bargain." She motioned helplessly. "I'm so terribly grateful ... I want you to know how grateful I am, but everything comes out stilted and formal and ... and - oh damn!"
Lord Crumshawe was delighted. With a hand on each of her bare shoulders, he kissed his captive with surprising ardour. He was enjoying himself and finding pleasure in starry eyes and ripe red lips. He was well aware of hazards in their pact. But they were mostly hers, and he was curious to see how she would cope with them. Blandly, with a return to goatiness, he enquired: "And now, my dear, how badly do you need to pee?"
"I need to, sir. Bad!"
Excitement had not driven from Jennifer's mind the nag between her legs. Any motion at all told her of her taped crotch. Her bladder reminded her indignantly of her sealed pussy. The cords round her wrists were a mocking reminder of helplessness. Intuitively, she guessed there would be no remission of her sentence. The Pact just concluded would not be allowed to erase the erotic feast of her sufferings which, as yet, were only starting. Ahead of her lay tears and writhings And despair. Prospect of freedom might ease the pain, but it was more likely to be obliterated by the pain itself. Pain always won. Sooner or later you conceded it the victory.
"You've a lot to occupy your thoughts, m'dear," Lord Crumshawe patted her bare bottom indulgently. "Glad to hear about your pee. Keep checking with me on that, eh. Damned interesting punishment. I'll start the ball rolling on that other thing but, for now, run along and amuse yourself."
Ankles shackled, hands tied behind her back? Amusement seemed unlikely. Her mind chaotic with impulse. Jennifer took hobbled steps to join the other girls where they awaited disposition in the big Lounge; their nudity and chained feet went oddly with the opulence of the decor. She knew they would all take quick and embarrassed glances at her sealed cunt then turn away and speak of other things. They would not dare to help, they would ignore. Veronica, however, was without inhibition.
"Gosh I want to pee, Jennifer! Was the old boy very goatish?"
Veronica deserved a smile, she got it. "I want to pee too." The older girl confessed. "You were right: If only we hadn't had that quart poured into us ... !" She was on the verge of speaking of freedom but thought better of it. As yet it was too impossible to comprehend. Instead, she said casually: "His Nibs was normal, pawing, probing and peering."
"But, darling, you've got a fresh purple on your bottom! It positively screams!"
"I was lucky. Just one. He said he wanted to cane a girl who had a quart of water inside her tummy."
"He's so quaint!" Veronica giggled. "But he's not the only one. There's a V.I.P. coming later today who wants both of us. I think he's hoping for bulging bellies. We have to stand naked and answer his questions about how it hurts and where. Miss Harradace says we have to use the word 'pee' a lot when answering. Pee and pussy and how we're broken hearted about having our cunts shaved bald."
"I can do that easy enough. I loved my hair." Jennifer mourned. "Does the V.I.P. want to whip or spank?"
"Miss Harradace says she'll tell him no spanking across his knees. She thinks something might pop. What a hell of a jackpot. It's worse than being pregnant."
That night in the dark while she was crying and fighting the raging demon in her belly, a shrouded figure came and cut the rope on Jennifer's wrists. She never knew who it was. In the morning no word was said of it.
Chapter Seven
A Whip To Whiptime
The exquisite symmetry of the girl's body was a silhouette on the covers of the bed, her face was buried in a rumpled pillow to absorb her tears, her naked back and buttocks were latticed by the scarlet of a whip. The weals were fresh; none had yet turned purple. Jennifer's nudity was sprawled in the total abandon of a female who knows herself alone.
It was Jennifer Raine's first week of liberty and her first rendezvous with Lord Crumshawe's whip. Desperately, the whipped girl burrowed into her bed as though seeking to immolate herself in its soft comfort, like a girl child flinging herself within the refuge of a mother's breast. Quietly sobbing in the desolation of scalded skin and chaotic emotions Miss Jennifer Raines took a rueful inventory of her new world.
It had begun in a joy beyond comprehension. It had continued in an ecstasy of days in which every hour was a discovery of herself or of the magic luxury conjured for her by the wealth of Stoule. The flat and its appointments was every woman's dream. The credit at the bank placed her in a social strata of which, previously, she had only dreamed. The good-byes at Stoule had been tearfully heart-warming. The girls had been allowed to think what they chose. Most believed she'd been sold. Only in the Harradace smile and Lord Crumshawe's final pat and wink had a secret been shared ... and then the glory of freedom, freedom, freedom ... !
But her Eden was not without its serpent. Jennifer could imagine Lord Crumshawe chuckling gleefully in the wings. The first shock of the liberated slave was to discover she dared not visit her parents or phone a friend. Naked before her mirror, she was amused to realise she had forgotten her collar. In stark contrast to her nudity it circled her neck as an implacable reminder of what she was, nor could she get it off. She must wear it now until she went back to Stoule to be whipped. Someone there had the key. Whether they would use it or not was a matter for conjecture. She herself had forgotten it was on her neck but she suspected they had not.
Musef's beautiful steel collar had been locked on Jennifer's neck so long she took it for granted. In wry amusement, tinged by more than a little eroticism, she decided London would have to take it for granted too. Had it not been for the pendant ring by which she could be chained it would have presented no problem. A silver metal choker would raise few more eyebrows than a velvet band. But the ring spoke volumes. Jennifer shrugged and decided it was costume jewellery, just a trifle more avant-garde than most. In public, when her collar was stared at she stared right back.
His name was Basil Vernon. They were not formally introduced, the collar did it for them. Passing her table at Luigi's he did a double take and wasted no words. "My name's Basil, Basil Vernon. That collar ... it's quite unique."
Jennifer raised a haughty eyebrow. Let him flounder!
Basil Vernon did not flounder. "It's very beautiful. May I sit down?"
"Why?"
"I want to talk to you about that collar."
"There's nothing to talk about. It's simply an unusual piece of costume jewellery."
"But you can't take it off!"
Jennifer's blush was his answer, it spread to the d�colletage of her evening attire. Luigi's was expensively plush. While she was searching for an acid retort he pushed harder.
"You can't, can you?"
"That's none of your business."
She had injected insufficient acid. Basil Vernon sat down. His eyes were hungry on the metal round her throat. "That collar has to mean something to some people. He affirmed demandingly. "Care to tell me about it?"
"Please go away: Leave me alone."
"Haughty, haughty!" He was laughing at her blush. "There's no visible lock or keyhole. But I'll get it off some way if you say the word."
"In your apartment, no doubt."
The eyes of Basil Vernon were wise. "You're frightened. That's a clue. Remember that novel where the girls wore an iron ring and must yield herself to any man who knew its meaning? You're into something like that?"
"So I submit myself to you under the table? Is that it?"
He shrugged, beckoned a waiter, ordered cocktails. Basil Vernon was a highly personable escort. Jennifer found herself suffused with the female heat of knowing herself desired. It was accompanied by a surprised awareness of having been lonely. This man was exciting.
"I'd like to see you naked."
It was a wish. It was a command. It was intent. Amused, Jennifer parried the male thrust. "Surely you are not short of naked girls, Mr. Vernon? A man of your enterprise?"
"Nakedness is the seal of approval, Miss Raines. Until it's happened a man and a woman are strangers."
She knew she played with fire, but liked its warmth. The intent regard was flattering. "Where do you propose I strip?" She enquired demurely. "Same place as the tools to cut my collar?"
"You're accustomed to being naked. I can tell." Jennifer acknowledged the male perception by one more blush. "But, Mr. Vernon, supposing all your surmise correct; what do you want of me? Or are you making a pass?"
"I want what your collar promises."
Jennifer was amused. His persistence was generating heat where, a week ago, she had been sealed by tape. "As I recall that book and that girl." She said impishly. "Her iron ring made her available to only a small and privileged group."
"You're a slave."
Basil Vernon's assertion was a flat statement. Above his cocktail glass he was stripping her of pretence. Jennifer felt herself already naked. Mockingly, she retorted: "So, I'm a slave. But I am not your slave. Shouldn't you respect the property of others?"
He nodded: "I like you. We're making progress." He grinned. "Slowly, and you fighting all the way. Now I'll hazard one more guess. If I saw you naked, I'd see whip-marks?"
Jennifer shrugged. "Why not! I expect my owner beats me."
Basil Vernon nodded slowly, lips pursed. "You're a cool one. You could come close to talking me out of my interest on the basis of you're too good to be true. But you're for real. I'm damn sure you're for real."
"Slaves are bought and sold, Mr. Vernon. Go and buy yourself a slave."
He matched her mood. "No way! Buying is for sissies. I'm a predator. I'd see you as spoils of war." He waved a deprecatory hand, "Sure, sure, there's no war. But I'm willing to bet your enslavement was not for cash."
"Really! Then tell me how it was."
"You either asked for it, or someone grabbed you."
"You mean, there's other ... options?"
"Sure, you could sell yourself into it. It's been done."
"Oh, yes ... like the girl who's heart belonged to Daddy?"
Jennifer's companion gestured impatiently. "Enough repartee. You're too good at it. I can understand why your skin might be marked. Look, I want to buy you."
"I'm not for sale."
Vernon waved her retort away as being too obvious. "You had to say that: Just as I'm not supposed to say everything's for sale if the price is right. I'm going to leave you my card. Will you do me the courtesy of asking your owner to give me a quote?"
"I'll do that. He'll be amused." She twinkled impishly across the table. "But perhaps I should tell you something, something I'm sure will kill your interest. The last time I changed hands was for the sum of two million, seven hundred and fifty thousand U.S. Dollars."
If Jennifer had expected derision she was disappointed. Only a tightening of the lips and the single word: "Oil?"
"No. In this case it was an Englishman."
"Hmmmmm ... ! Most wouldn't believe you." Basil Vernon gazed at her steadily for moments. "But I'm inclined to think you're not stringing me a line. Not that I haven't asked for it."
"Cure your predatory instincts, Mr. Vernon?"
He shook his head. "I have three million. Let's deal in round sums." With studied deliberation he placed an expensive card beside her glass, "Give it to him, eh?"
Jennifer Raines watched him go. She had never felt more flattered in her life. There was also a trace of fear, as of forces unwittingly unleashed. Both reactions were swamped in pure female excitation. Carefully, she put the card inside her bag.
Jennifer dismissed Basil Vernon from her mind. Dark, compelling, handsome, possibly rich. What did it matter! Her life was already complicated by slavery enough. She suspected Basil Vernon would be a hard master and probably cruel. His raillery had masked something enigmatic. But she saw her present state as privileged and lucky. The encounter at Luigi's had pinpointed loneliness. But if tomorrow, when she would go to Stoule to be whipped, she could persuade Lord Crumshawe to free her from the collar, that loneliness could be assuaged. She shrugged off doubts. This was still her first week of freedom. Whatever clouds might hover over liberty, at least her feet bore no shackles, nor were her hands tied behind her back.
"My dear, how good to see you?" Lord Crumshawe grasped Jennifer's hands in genuine warmth and bestowed a kiss somewhat more than grandfatherly. "I've so looked forward to this moment."
"Oh, Crummy, it's so good to be back!" The freed slave bestowed her own kiss on an ancient cheek. "I've been thinking of you all week.
"I've come back to be whipped, Crummy. You will whip me, won't you! Please?" Jennifer sighed ecstatically. "I want you to whip me really hard."
"Splendid, splendid? Of course I'll whip you. You're the most whippable female I've ever known. Cane on your bottom first, eh. The appetiser before the feast." Lord Crumshawe beamed benevolence.
Jennifer refused to think, allowing the momentum of her search for freedom to carry her into the impossible. It was all unreal. But she understood the old nobleman's entrancement with the situation he had created and which she must enact. It was piquant enough to generate erotic stirrings within herself. Best of all was this informality of speech, the quaint aura of affection enveloping them both. Properly used, it could be a lubricant into pain. Demurely, she started to undress. "I expect you'd like me naked, Crummy?"
"Of course, of course. Marvellous girl!"
Miss Jennifer Raines stripped herself before the hungry eyes of a Peer of the Realm. It was as though he had never before beheld a naked girl. Slowly, she bared herself in enticing provocation. Nude, she offered a shy apology. "My pussy's bald, Crummy. I'm terribly sorry, but it got shaved."
"Lovely effect though. Neat. Any bristles yet?" The naked girl archly spread her legs. "Tell me what you can feel, Crummy."
A horny hand cupped the pristine puss. "Delicious, dear girl. Glad I've seen you like this. There's some nice bristles starting, so I want you to let it grow. No more shaving. We can chart your progress back to curls from week to week."
"Crummy, you're so sweet. I'm glad you like me. But now, about my whipping ... ?"
"Can't wait, can you, m'dear. Well, I'm in fine fettle. Are you in good voice for screams?"
"It's so kind of you to ask. Are you sure my screams won't bother you? I know I'm going to."
"A maiden's screams are her own love song." Lord Crumshawe quoted poetically. Cheerfully, he added: "If you find yourself embarrassed, dear, ask to be gagged. I've got a nice assortment of gags."
"You think of everything, Crummy. It's so good to be whipped by you. I know I'm in good hands."
The saccharine exchange could easily become nauseating and spoil the chemistry. With an air of bright expectancy, Jennifer Raines took up position beneath the waiting bar. With thudding heart but a smile amusedly blas� she watched the careful strapping of her wrists, saw them rise, tensioning her arms. It was indeed like coming home, wickedly familiar. "Brandy, m'dear?"
Jennifer gulped gratefully from the glass held to her lips. Her next words an admission. "Can I have another please?"
"Nervous, eh! Well, so you should be, m'dear. And, of course, you can have another."
Throat and belly burning, Jennifer watched his Lordship select the cane with which her bottom would soon be striped. It was a strangely sensual feeling to stand, nude and helpless, waiting for it to happen. She was now well past any point of no return, but the spreading warmth of the brandy sparked her last sugared utterance.
"Oh, Crummy, I'm so excited. My pussy's throbbing ... and I'm trembling - "
The cane snapped her sentence into a shocked gasp. It lapped her cheeks from side to side to lance the helpless girl with an agony the brandy could not match. Frenziedly, Jennifer raised herself by her strapped wrists and kicked the air as though pedalling an unseen bike. While she was thus still engaged Lord Crumshawe's second blow implanted itself upon the first. Jennifer screamed and continued to scream until His Lordship paused.
"You're in fine voice, Jennifer, m'dear - and those kicking contortions you do ... Superlative! The Earl of Stoule's exclamation was reverent. "You're a magnificent subject."
"Thank you, sir - Crummy. I'm sorry about Me. I mean the noise: it hurts so terribly."
"You've had six of the best, m'dear. You're beautifully striped."
"I'm sure I am ... Oh ... Oh!" By an effort of will, the caned girl managed to stop kicking and to stand still. "You caned me hard, Crummy. You're so clever."
"Can't get your wrists out of those straps, eh?"
"Gosh no! You saw me lift myself. I'm helpless."
"Must be the best way though?"
"Oh yes.. - but all that kicking and screaming ... ! I feel so silly. Am I being silly, Crummy?"
"Of course not. Here, another brandy - "
Jennifer was startled. A noose snared her ankle, dragged it to the side and tied it there. When her other foot was similarly served she stood taut with widespread legs. Panting, from pain past and in anticipation of pain to come. Still determined to please, she innocently asked: "Are you going to whip the inside of my thighs, Crummy?"
"Would you like me to, dear?"
"Of course I would, Crummy, if it would give you pleasure."
"I'd thought of cracking a few under and up across your cunt, actually. D'you mind?"
"Not at all." This absurdly polite exchange was demeaning. Wistfully, Jennifer asked: "How many more strokes on my bottom, Crummy?"
"Your bottom? Oh, we're finished with your bottom, m'dear. You came to be whipped. The cane on your rump is just an hors d'oeuvre."
"Thank you, Crummy. It was gorgeously awful." The nude girl was a bowstring waiting for the stroke to elicit sound. Her bottom was on fire, her virgin back tingling in a terrible anticipation. When the first lash had marked her shoulders and she had screamed, Jennifer surrendered all pride: "Crummy, I think you'd better gag me. I hate the noise I make. I'm ashamed."
"Why, to be sure! Any preference, dear girl?"
"Whatever will shut me up, Crummy. Those ball things are okay if the ball goes right inside." Jennifer Raines stood, quivering. She was going to be whipped. There would be no delay, the lash would be scoring her skin within moments. She accepted the rubber sphere within her mouth, compressing her tongue, filling her cheeks. Its straps bit and tugged at her face as they were buckled by the eager fingers of the aged nobleman whose property she undoubtedly was. She tried to speak but could not. She managed sounds but they were hateful small sounds, demeaning ... She tensed.
Lord Crumshawe whipped Jennifer with artistry. She was unsure of the severity of his strokes, their pain was beyond her capacity to measure. She well knew its deceptiveness, and gave all her attention to writhing against her bonds and flinging her head from side to side against the gag. The motions were undeniably comforting, just as the screams had been. The whip cut its slow cadence across her shoulders, around her waist, her back ... When it varied its gambit by a slash between her legs she went frantic in her surges against the straps and ropes, a wild thing held helplessly to be marked by a satyr's whip.
"I am a very lucky man." Said Lord Crumshawe, almost in awe. "You are the quintessence, the ultimate female beneath the whip. I must get a mirror installed so you can see yourself. You are pure beauty."
Jennifer groped her way back out of pain. Her skin seemed scorched everywhere. She had lost count of the blows. "I am being terribly whipped." She said solemnly. "Thank you, Crummy."
"Bearing up okay?"
"I - I - I don't know ... I'm not sure. Oh, Crummy!"
"Tell me, m'dear. Was it difficult to come here today?"
"No. I'd wondered ... but it was easy. I don't really understand myself."
"No nightmares about it during the week?"
"No. Nothing. I thought about it a lot, but always as something inevitable."
Lord Crumshawe chuckled. "How disappointing was your freedom?"
"How did you know - ?" Jennifer broke off in confusion, and was shamingly aware of the sweat of pain trickling from her taut underarm down her flanks. "It's been lonely. I miss - I suppose I miss everyone in Stoule. If I could have had April with me it would have been perfect."
"Hinting"'
"Yes. You'd better whip me some more, Crummy." His Lordship obliged. The triced up naked girl went back into her realm of pain, screaming ... until Lord Crumshawe buckled back into her mouth the gag he had thoughtfully removed for converse. The lash alternated between her thighs and her back, swift sure cuts of perfect accuracy. Her flesh recorded each with its own scarlet line until her crotch was a mass of protesting red.
"I can understand your wish for the girl." Lord Crumshawe once again tugged the rubber from a grateful mouth. "I've always envied girls their female alternative, and that youngster, April, has the gift of happiness. She's not as satisfying to whip as you, but she's still very young. Undoubtedly in time ... . Are you in much pain, Jennifer?"
"Yes ... Oh ,yes! Oh, Crummy ... !"
"I'm curious as to your coming week. It will be quite different, y'know." He suddenly delivered an unexpected cut of the whip across a relaxed bottom. You'll be very conscious that in seven more days you'll come here and we'll do this again."
Jennifer stopped panting and writhing long enough to agree. "I know. I've thought of it. What will you do with me if my courage fails?"
"No problem, dear. The decisions are all yours. But I'm enjoying holding you on an invisible chain. I want you to continue."
"You'll tire of me, Crummy. I'll become routine."
"Hmmmmm ... Never! We can always vary things a bit. Don't be shy. If you have any suggestions ... ?"
"I'll be whipped for as long as I can, Crummy. Maybe forever." She made a wry grimace. "As long as I've got enough skin. Or do you want to put whip-marks on whip-marks'?"
"We'll feel our way along, m'dear." He patted her bottom.
"Now, open your mouth."
Jennifer obeyed, straps tightened, once more the lash snickered through the air to scald her skin. The whipping of Miss Jennifer Raines continued. When, much, much later, she opened her eyes and realised the blows had stopped she was alone.
It was an aftermath taxed by question marks. Jennifer found what easement she could within her tight bindings. She longed to close her legs but could not. She stood, on and on, in the same readiness for the whip as if the whip was there. She supposed her whipping was over. But perhaps ... ?
Aching from the lash, Jennifer asked herself if she could return next week to be whipped again! In her present condition she knew she could not. But seven days might work miracles with her flesh and her spirit. She had been whipped before ... ! She knew the resilience of girls.
She wished her owner had removed the gag before leaving her to the pained meditation of the whipped. Jennifer had no wish to talk or to cry out for help. But the rubber ball was hateful in her mouth and its straps irksome across her cheeks. But it was as rigidly a part of her as the straps buckled round her wrists. Soon, she abandoned the irritable motions of revolt, and resigned herself to the gag which would stay immutably where it was until His Lordship decided to give her back her mouth. She was owned. Miss Jennifer Raines was a slave.
She would always be a slave! Jennifer surveyed this premise in a bleak realisation nurtured by the scorch of weals. Each week she had six days of glorious freedom which must be paid for in agony on the seventh. She could run away but would inevitably be recaptured. She had no illusions about the power of Stoule. She knew it would be wise to gratefully accept the blessings she now had. But her stretched limbs, her gagged tongue, her burning flesh made gratitude abstract. In rueful self knowledge she saw herself knocking at the front door of Stoule and humbly asking for re-entry as the slave she had become.
Nakedly helpless, Jennifer Raines stood in the whipping pose through the rest of the day. Towards evening Miss Harradace released her and sent her on the way. She left the ancestral Mansion of the Earl of Stoule, clothed, expensive, svelte. The driver of the limousine was deferentially attentive. Jennifer wondered if he knew she had just been whipped. Servants gossiped. But what did it matter! Back in the flat, she threw aside her clothes and pirouetted naked before the big mirror. She was well marked, but not as badly as she had supposed. No single stroke had cut her skin. Perhaps in seven days ... ? It was then she made another discovery. She had forgotten to ask, and the metal collar was still locked upon her neck. It was very beautiful but it was one last straw. In a storm of tears she threw herself upon the bed.
It was anger at her own forgetfulness that dried Jennifer's tears and terminated her recap of her day. She had grown so accustomed to the collar and was, in fact, so in love with it she might forget it in all her visits to Stoule. Irritably she shrugged her carelessness into limbo and went to have a bath. She was half-way to the bathroom when she heard the sound.
April was not only most competently trussed but also implacably gagged. The ball and strap had been supplemented by adhesive tape contoured over rubber and leather and ripe lips to ensure silence. In the half light of the closet she was a pathetic feminine package, unable to move, unable to speak, but beaming up joyously at the older girl she adored. "I thought you'd never come." She mourned when the tape and gag were removed. "Oh, darling, darling, darling ... !"
Ropes fell away under urgent fingers, the female package stretched. But at the end April's hands were still behind her back, handcuffed. "They said they'd leave the key on the mantle." She giggled. "I expect it's there. But His Nibs told me to tell you I'm your slave. You own me for a week. He wants you to keep me handcuffed, anyway you like - and I want that too, I want it terribly. I've always wanted to belong to you, Jennifer. You will keep me handcuffed, won't you? Promise?"
It was an easy promise to make. The key was there and Jennifer, in a maze of happiness, used it to change April's hands from back to front. In between were hugs. Embracing the younger girl's nakedness, Jennifer was startled by her own need of breasts and pubic hair and April's musk. It was as though, in freedom, she had been away from them for years. Clasping steel on eager wrists, she fed on female flesh in an unsuspected hunger.
"I told you he was an old sweetheart." April bubbled as they laved each other in the tub. "He sure did whip you today, but look what else he's done for us! Gosh, I wish he'd give me all this for getting myself whipped once a week."
"You've got it now, you little idiot, and without being whipped. He really let me have it today. Is my back real bad?"
"It's gorgeous, darling. Those stripes will all be gone in five days. You're so lucky he likes you. He thinks I'm just a kid. And I have to go back to Stoule with you next week. I'm just loaned."
"I'll take the handcuffs off so you can go home, April."
"You know that wouldn't be any good. They'd get me back and punish us both." The youngster's hands rose to her throat. "They put this on me so I'd remember. Isn't it gorgeous! Just like yours! These collars make us twins."
In the shock of surprise, Jennifer had failed to notice the shining band on April's neck. But there it was, a facsimile of her own and just as impossible to remove. Mischievously, she told of the hazards of being collared in public. Now, the two of them would be even more conspicuous. April was entranced.
"But, darling, such a gorgeous hunk of man! You must ask him round." April's eyes glowed. "I'll be your slave girl for the evening, all naked and handcuffed. It will drive him up the wall."
Even as she negated April's inspiration, Jennifer's loins smouldered at the thought. Basil Vernon had been so damned assured, it would be pleasant to see him at a loss. She felt certain a chained and naked April would tax his aplomb. The thought would not go away, so she tucked it in the back of her mind for future reference. In bed, happily satiated, Jennifer acceded to April's demand and cuffed her own left wrist to April's right. The youngster went instantly to sleep. But, deliberately laying on her whipped back, Jennifer reviewed her day. Ruefully, she knew that without April she would now be sobbing out her heart in loneliness and fear. Instead, she was happier than she had been for a long, long time and the burn of her whip-marks had become only a minor discomfort. That she would return to be whipped again in seven days now seemed an entirely plausible premise. She would think of it when she was again tied for the first lash. Until then she would thrust it from her mind. April was a miracle. In considering her day she could not fail to know Lord Crumshawe was a very wise old man.
With feminine delight and His Lordship's money the two girls shopped for female treasure. Jennifer was now doubly conscious of the band around her throat, but April was quite uninhibited. Whenever she became aware of curious eyes she would blandly explain: "I'm her slave, y'know. She whips me terribly."
"If you keep saying that I'll actually do it." She promised after one of the embarrassments. "Half of them believe you."
"But, darling, the expression on their face, it's priceless!"
"The expression on your face will be priceless too after about the tenth stroke. April, I mean it!"
"Will you really truly whip me, darling! Oh, how gorgeous! You absolutely must. I've always wanted to be whipped by you - In fact, I asked Mavis about it once, but she said to forget it. If you don't whip me I'll behave outrageously. I promise."
"In that case there's no point in my doing it. If you enjoy it that much it wouldn't be a punishment."
"But, Jennifer darling, you know how it is about being whipped. A girl gets all tied and strapped and her pussy's thumping like crazy, and with the first few strokes you nearly climax! But after that it starts to hurt and hurts and hurts worse all the time. You will whip me, won't you?"
"I'll think about it."
"You will, I know you will! So let's go buy a lovely riding crop, one of those wicked thin ones? Please ... ?" April was pure delight, she was magic. She also got her whipping by casually exhibiting a nude breast while buying a bra. The sales girl was shocked but entranced. Jennifer was perturbed. The last thing they needed was to be escorted to a Police Station. The Law would eye their collars without sympathy. Back at the flat she hooked April's handcuffed wrists over a closet door, stripped the wriggling lubricity, then administered more than enough scarlet streaks across ivory skin to ensure a plenitude of tears and earnest assurances of repentance, probably insincere. They were ecstatically happy.
Time was their enemy. The appeasement they found in each other demanded a century. Lord Crumshawe had granted it seven days. April and Jennifer journeyed to Stoule, certain of only one thing. They had no wish to be parted.
"So our little darling earned herself a whipping, eh." His Lordship inspected April's nudity with pleased attention. "Nice marks, very nice marks."
"I had to whip her, Crummy, she's quite incorrigible."
"Incorrigible, eh! Good word, that. And what about your lovely self?"
"I'll get myself naked, Crummy dear. I want your opinion." Jennifer stripped as erotically as she could under April's amused stare. She turned her back. "There, what do you think of my lovely marks? You put every one of them on me yourself, Crummy."
His Lordship chuckled. "Thought you were cut to bits, didn't you! I knew what you were thinking. But, damn me, there's nothing much to worry about left on your pretty pelt. Are you ready for this week's instalment?"
"Oh, Crummy, are you going to whip me again! You're so sweet. I'd have been terribly disappointed - "
"Humph ... Deserve it, don't you?"
"Of course I deserve to be whipped, Crummy dear!" Jennifer gave of her best, all too conscious of April's grin. "Are you going to whip me between my legs again? That was awful."
"Hmmmmm, we'll see. Come over here, young woman, and give me your right wrist."
Jennifer supposed there would always be variations. Her esteem for her owner rose at this evidence of innovation. She proffered her hand and watched it shackled to the wall by less than a foot of chain.
"Oh, Crummy darling, is this all! You're going to be beautifully cruel. You'll whip me while I'm chained in this simple way and watch me go crazy. I'll never be able to stand still?"
Lord Crumshawe was in his element. Two slave-girls utterly subservient to his will. He pointed at the naked April. "Kneel!"
April knelt with alacrity. She was, as yet, unrestrained. Jennifer stood against the wall, equally naked, but with one shackled wrist. She hoped she was not going to look silly while April watched.
"Any new ideas about today's - punishment, m'dear?"
"No. Just so long as you give me a good whipping, Crummy."
"Fifty strokes about right, d'you think?"
"Gorgeous! Oh, Crummy, I'm so grateful - !"
His Lordship bestowed his hawk - eyed attention on the girl tethered by one wrist. "You've got it all wrong, Jennifer dear girl. It's not you who gets whipped. It's little Springtime here."
Two nude girls froze in tense expectancy. His Lordship beamed. Jennifer broke the silence of shock. "But, Crummy, please, no! Oh, it's not fair to whip April on my account. I want you to whip me." If there had ever been doubt as to Jennifer's sincerity in asking for the whip, there could be none now. Her right hand tugged at its shackle as she pleaded: "The darling's done nothing wrong ... nothing!"
"Oh, I've no doubt. But she's had a nice holiday. Only fair she pays something, don't you agree?"
"Well ... I don't know - " Jennifer knew they were both lost, they were being played with. Lord Crumshawe had created another 'situation'. Brokenly, she stumbled "Please whip me, not April - I love her."
"Ahhhh ... !" His Lordship exhaled joyfully. "Now we're getting to the bottom of it, no pun intended. I gather it would cause you pain to watch your little darling get her bottom welted?"
"Jennifer, be careful! Keep quiet!" April was suddenly agog with concern. "I don't mind getting my bottom caned. I'd a lot sooner get my bottom caned than watch you being whipped."
"Total honesty!" Lord Crumshawe was delighted by the responses. "I've always known the strength of lesbian affection. I've stumbled on a fine example of it, by gad!"
The girls were silent, aware of pitfalls. Lord Crumshawe surveyed them both with a fine proprietary air. Watching them wilt under its intensity, he suggested: "And now, April m'dear, if you'll put your pretty self into position - ?"
It was swiftly done. Too swift! Hating her helplessness, Jennifer watched April as she was strapped and bound as she herself had been fastened the week before. Hands high, feet apart, taut. Catching her horrified glance, April grinned. "I'm only going to be whipped, darling. It's not the end of the world."
"I must pursue this lesbian emotion more deeply." said Lord Crumshawe as he cut a vicious stroke of his cane across April's innocent derriere. "Brings out some damned unusual reactions."
There were reactions aplenty now. April yelped and writhed in tight lipped agony. Jennifer tugged uselessly at her chain and hysterically pleaded. "Not April, Crummy ... Me, me, me!"
"Shut up, darling." April admonished tersely. Then, to her owner: "Please cane my bottom, sir. Jennifer's just upset."
The Earl of Stoule was exhilarated. The dual feminine pleas were an aphrodisiac, tightening his reins and his resolve. He looked at the two nudities so utterly his, the taut bound girl and her love so frustratingly chained to the wall. Jennifer, even though she could never free herself, tugged constantly at the links which compelled her to stand and watch the striping of the young bottom. In frustration she stamped a bare foot. It hurt. Pouting sulkily, she leaned back against the wall. She was helpless.
Undoubtedly influenced by tradition, Lord Crumshawe delivered 'six of the best' upon April's ripe curves. It was a bottom superbly designed to receive them. Its owner made sundry sounds of pain and dismay but did not plead. Instead, she writhed with all her youthful vigour against her strapped wrists and roped ankles. They held her tight. The room was filled with April's panting gasps, interspersed by the spine shivering splat of the cane upon the glowing blush of the resilient cheeks.
"Oh, thank you, sir!"
In the pause after number six the caned girl managed to catch up with her breathing and control. April cast a smile at Jennifer's anxious face and a look of wide-eyed worship at the enpurpled Peer.
"Splendid show, young woman. Magnificent!" Lord Crumshawe was never sparing in his appreciation of merit. He bent and smoothed the six welts with a worshipful hand. He was obviously greatly moved. An erection made itself evident beneath his tweeds. "Think you can manage another half dozen?"
"No, she can't!" said Jennifer firmly.
"Of course I can!" April affirmed with dignity. "I have a lovely bottom for being caned."
The Earl's breathing became noticeably heavier. He knew himself the luckiest of men. He could do whatever he chose with these two delectable parcels of womanhood. Around the premises of Stoule there were fifteen more. Not of this quality, perhaps. But, none the less, superlative. He was suddenly inspired.
"Damned obvious." He affirmed brightly. "How'd you like to buy yourself another week, m'girl?"
"Ohhhhh ... could I!" April could move but little. Instead she writhed enticingly. "I'd be ever so grateful, sir, and I'd be a good girl and come back with Jennifer next week." She paused briefly for arithmetic. "Would you cane me now and then again when I came back, sir, or just this once?" Her inquiry was sweetly innocent.
"Payment in advance, m'dear. The six you've just had can count. That's fair enough, eh?"
"Oh, thank you, sir!"
"What d'you say to three strokes a day? That would leave you fifteen to go?"
"No, Crummy, no! That's too much for any girl's bottom." Jennifer's heart was torn for her beloved's youthful skin. "Give me half of them ... please?"
Lord Crumshawe sighed. Jennifer bit her lip and eyed the gag with loathing. But, obediently, she opened her mouth for the rubber prong and braced against the tug of the buckle which tightened the soft leather band across her lips. "Much the best, m'dear." His Lordship patted her bare shoulder in paternal admonition. "Saves you wondering what to say, or maybe saying the wrong thing." His pat turned to a forceful grip. "You've got one free hand, young lady, but don't you dare try and get this off. Understand?"
Jennifer nodded. She understood all too well. Freedom was insidious, it made a girl forget she was a slave. April would be caned and there was nothing she could do about it.
"Mmmmmm - Mmmmmm! You look so sweet, darling!" April bubbled. "Please, sir, can I have a gag too. I'm afraid fifteen more on my bottom will make me scream. I mean, I'm not complaining - "
Breathing more heavily still, His Lordship fitted the muting straps to the ardent young mouth. As though to reaffirm authority he sliced April's bottom with five shrewd blows. When he paused for effect, no single word was said, the maiden lips were sealed. With care and precision he delivered five more. The bound girl who received them was frantic with motion within her bonds but her surges of pain achieved no more than the weaving of hips and the tossing of damp curls. As if performing a sacred rite the Lord of Stoule now pinpointed each cut to zero in on the few remnants of unbruised skin still available between April's waist and thighs. One by one he eliminated them, replacing ivory with crimson as April vainly flung herself against the straps.
"Twenty - one'."
It was hard to say who was breathing the heaviest in the room of punishments. Reverently, Lord Crumshawe took the gag from April's mouth and kissed her hot dry lips. In slow motion he did the same for Jennifer. Neither girl spoke. Quietly he left them alone. It was a long while before April made her wry admission. "It was a lot worse than I thought it would be.
"Oh ... darling!" Ruefully she added: "It was having them all on my bottom, y'know ... Jeepers!"
"April, you shouldn't have! Not just to be with me for a week."
"You and freedom too!" April declared fiercely. "I'd ask for twice as many stripes if I had to. Darling, think, we've got seven more gorgeous days."
Chapter Eight
The Cruel Cut
"But, darling, he'll be good for us both." April pointed out brightly. "It's not as though we're going to hop into bed with him. Ugh! I couldn't stand that. But if we play this right ... ?"
"If your bottom wasn't already every colour there is I'd be inclined to make it so right now." Jennifer viewed her effervescent prot�g� with a mixture of irritation and affection. "I think you deliberately provoke - "
"Oh, I do! Want me to bend over, darling?"
"Don't be absurd. Your bottom's a disaster area."
"I've got some other nice parts ... ?"
She adored the child. April was habit forming. Jennifer dared not think of the time she would return from Stoule alone. But in this present moment she was cross and more excited than she cared to admit. "You were snooping in my bag." She accused. "What for?"
April giggled. "The keys to my handcuffs. I was going to play a joke. But there it was, such a lovely card! His name and address and phone number and everything. I couldn't resist."
"I don't keep your key in my bag. If you're going to snoop I'll cuff your hands behind your back all the time," Jennifer's mind raced. "What did he say?"
"Surprised and pleased, darling. I explained I was your slave and was making the appointment just like a secretary."
"We're playing with fire, April. Basil Vernon's a powerful handsome chunk of man. He could overpower us both. You'd better not be handcuffed."
"Oh, but I must be! Handcuffed in front and naked. I'm your slave, remember?"
"The idea's cute. But how can I pretend to be your Mistress when my neck is collared same as yours'?" April's handcuffed fingers played with the metal band in which she never ceased to find delight. "That's sort of bad." She admitted. "But if it gets around to that you can tell him you've graduated and have your own slave-girl now. But the collar stays on for life - darling, my cunt curls up every time I think of it."
"Well, mine did that too, at first. It still does if I deliberately think about what it means round my neck - Look, April, what have you invited this man to? What are we all supposed to do?"
"Cocktails, darling. Served by the sweet little slave-girl - That's me! Cultured conversation while I display my tits and pubic hair. What more can he want!" April glanced at the clock. "He's almost due now."
"What! April, you little idiot, I'm naked!"
"And very beautiful - "
"I can't let him see me like this. It's outrageous enough just you. Damn, I'll have to run ... !" Jennifer would have preferred it not to happen. Her yearning for Youssef Ben Rayaddah, her enslavement to Stoule, Lord Crumshawe's refusal to remove her collar, her whipped back, the ecstasies of a strange freedom, all these things filled her mind. She was besotted with April and wanted only to feed upon her darling for the brief days of their allotted time. They were slaves and must take what was vouchsafed them when the taking was good. Basil Vernon might be an amusing diversion, but he could also be one diversion too many. It was with a thumping heart she answered the door to his ring.
The roses were right, a part of him. He entered her home without formality. The apartment might have been his. He was annoyingly casual to a point of provoking Jennifer to accept the role as April had thrust it on her.
April was in her element. Her slender nudity knelt submissively in the centre of the big room, her linked hands splayed her fingers across her thighs, her head was bowed. She was in one of the most beautiful poses Jennifer had ever seen. She heard her visitor's indrawn breath ... Perhaps this game might have its own rewards!
"See to these, April." Imperiously she proffered the sheaf of blooms. "They're lovely. Arrange them properly."
She watched his face. Basil Vernon was frankly enjoying the young nakedness now tripping on her errand. He lounged in the arm chair indicated, crooking one knee over an arm. His voice was without pretence. "She's exquisite. Thank you."
"Oh, April'? She's a dear. She's a slave, y'know."
"I got that, impression." His tone was dryly amused. "What are you?"
"She calls me he - Mistress."
"I'm sure she does. But what are you?"
Jennifer was saved from answering by April's return. The slender handcuffed hands arranged the flowers to best advantage. Their owner then knelt before the male. "Scotch, Master, or a cocktail?" Jennifer recognised the youngster's voice as vibrant with mischief.
"Scotch." It was a male order. Then, his tone turning to mockery: "Where did you get those colours on your ... seat?"
The slave-girl paused prettily. "My bottom, sir? I was a naughty girl."
"You must have been damn good and naughty?"
"Oh, I was, sir! I was given a severe correction." Appreciatively, Vernon watched the handcuffed dexterity at the bur. Then, taking his glass from a kneeling nude, he sipped and laughed delightedly. "I don't believe a word of this. You're putting me on?"
The two girls regarded him in a silence to put his laughter in poor taste. In male assertion he emptied the glass in one single toss and handed it to the kneeling girl. "Fill it."
"You were invited because of your curiosity, Mr. Vernon."
Jennifer was piqued into saying something. "I hope you approve of April?"
"Hell, yes! Who wouldn't! Now I'm twice as curious."
"April, a Martini for me." Jennifer made the order as peremptory as she dared. "Then you will kneel in the centre of the rug. Mr. Vernon does not want you cluttering his feet.
"What the devil did the kid do to earn herself a caning like that?"
"What she did does not matter." Jennifer motioned awkwardly. "I have to admit that, having invited you over for a drink, I don't know what to do for you. I'm afraid you'll be bored."
"Bored! With you two?" He made the idea sound preposterous. "Why don't you take your clothes off, Miss Raines? I still want to see you naked."
He was dangerous. Too direct. Jennifer waved his suggestion into limbo. "I'd have thought April provided nudity enough. Mr. Vernon, you're privileged."
"Your hind end as gaily coloured as hers?"
The Hostess flushed. "If it was I wouldn't tell you. Don't you think you're a bit crass?"
"I want something. You two have it. How much time do we have to waste before you get honest?"
"I think you're presuming April and I are commercial - ?"
"Hell no! I'm presuming you've got marked skin too, and it was a man who marked it. If he can, I can. I want to."
"You wish to whip me, Mr. Vernon?"
He stared down Jennifer's cool glance. "You knew that the first time I looked at you. Yes I do. When can it happen?"
Jennifer sighed. "You're an irresistible force, aren't you? I'm not going to even try to cope with you. You've seen me clothed and April naked. You have seen April's bottom. That will have to suffice. That's all there is."
"If I overcame the two of you now and did as I pleased with you, you'd be in no position to lay a charge'?"
Jennifer cursed the collars. With the shining steel on their necks neither she nor April would find credence. She parried his question with one of her own. "You wish to rape us, Mr. Vernon?"
"Rape's for kids." Basil Vernon waved it aside impatiently. "I want you to beg for it, then I want you to moan with pleasure at what I do to you. If you want to be earthy, and goodness knows this conversation is stilted enough, let's call it a good fuck."
"You'd better go, Mr. Vernon. April and I have nothing to offer you."
"I will when I'm ready." He proffered his glass. "Here, slave-girl, another Scotch."
The Mistress was frightened but the slave was not. Delivering the potation, April gave Basil Vernon her most innocent na�vet�, her voice dulcet: "I am a slave-girl, Master. What would you most like to do to me?"
"Nothing. You said it all, you're a slave." Vernon pointed his glass at Jennifer. "I want her."
"But you said I was a slave too, Mr. Vernon. You think my collar proves it?"
"You possess a quality. That's enough. I want you." He sipped, eyeing his prey. "This repartee we've been indulging in is a pain in my ass, I've no time for it. Can you take the brutal truth?"
"Probably I'd better."
"Okay. I'm a sadist."
"I can well believe it."
"Like most men, I'm bugged by a notion. It's rough enough I'm prepared to part with a lot of money. The right girl might do it for love. But, then I wouldn't want to do it to her."
"You can shock us, Mr. Vernon. Maybe you'd better and get it done with."
"I'll have you naked. I'll tie your hands behind your back. I'll hoist your feet up enough and far enough apart to make your cunt the most available asset you're showing. Then I'll whip it, right down between your spread legs, as hard as I can. That's hard."
"Thank you for telling us, Mr. Vernon."
"For you, fifty thousand?"
"Please, it's out of the question. And anyway, I'd be too frightened."
"Seventy-five?"
"My Mistress doesn't have any need of money, Mr. Vernon. Neither do I" April was perturbed. "Why wouldn't you want to do that to me'?"
His laugh was in self deprecation. "Damned if I know, kid. Men are nuts."
"You should do it to me instead of to my Mistress. If she'd let me do it, I would."
"April!" Jennifer was outraged. She swivelled on Basil Vernon. "Neither of us will do anything for you." She declared vehemently. "But if you want to buy a slave I can tell you where to go."
"Really?"
"It's a place called Fayalla, out in the desert. There's a trader there ... they hold an auction - "
"It would have given me pleasure to see you an the block."
"Oh, stop this jumping to conclusions, putting words in my mouth." Jennifer glared at his cynical amusement. You were amusing at Luigi's, you are not amusing here, you're offensive. Please go."
Surprisingly Basil Vernon went. Debonair, amused, a glint in his eye, but his latent strength unused. "I don't think we've seen the last of him." April opinioned, shivering. "Ugh, he's scary!"
"Yet you'd have let him cut your cunt."
"Well, for all that money! My family could use it." April giggled. "I expect my little dooey would still have been in working order after a couple of days."
"I should do that to you myself. April, I'm mad!"
"It was all my fault, making that call. I'm sorry, darling." April contrived to look infinitely pathetic. "Maybe you'd better punish me right away before we start making love or something."
"I'm not in the mood for either. That damn man scares me. He makes me feel he could take us anytime. But, for some reason, he's waiting. April, take his roses and dump them in the waste disposal."
When the younger girl returned from her errand she said, tentatively. "Jennifer darling, you could tie me stretched out on the ottoman? I can't think of any way of hanging me up in this apartment."
"Forget it."
"Darling, I think you do want to punish me, and I want to be punished, and that lovely crop we bought ... it's just right for a girl's pussy, and I'll hate it - that's what's important, it mustn't be something I like."
"April, you're impossible."
"Or you could tie me on the coffee table or the one in the kitchen?, 'April's eyes implored attention. "If it was just one awful slash I could hold a position for it myself." She giggled. "I'd look a bit naughty, and after I'd had it I'd roll on the floor like crazy ... Would you be satisfied with one truly awful splat on my cunt, darling?"
Without any more words, Jennifer grasped April's handcuffs and dragged her to their bed. She had never felt a greater hunger for the surcease of scented flesh than now. April could cure anything, she would erase Vernon's cynical features from her mind. With a terrible urgency she propelled the youngster onto the bed. April had the good sense not to say a word.
It could never be said Lord Crumshawe was a bore or that Stoule was dull. Jennifer knew she should expect the unexpected. But the Barber Frame was a shock. Strapped tightly upon its exposure, she had again and again exerted all her strength against the fastenings and relapsed, defeated. She could not move. The strap had not yet been buckled across her mouth, that was the only mercy. Resentfully, she reviewed the events of visit number three.
"Bit of a change for you today, Jennifer." Mavis had explained an hour ago. "His Nibs will be with you but not right now. In the meantime - "
"I'm supposed to come here to be whipped." Jennifer spoke as though affirming her rights and privileges. "I get bound for it in the punishment room. Lord Crumshawe whips me."
"I know, I know, darling!" Mavis chuckled. "I think the whole Class knows. They really envy you. I'm not sure I don't envy you myself." She sighed ecstatically. "Think of it ... freedom in luxury for only one whipping a week!"
"It takes me a week to recover from it."
"Don't be silly. We both know how lucky you are." Mavis paused. "You're not going to be awkward about today, are you, dear?"
"I'm supposed to be whipped. What's happening?"
"I don't really know, dear. I've just been told to fix you up, and to explain His Lordship won't be long."
"Fix me how?" Anxiety had Jennifer in its grip. "And where's April? You sent her - "
"April's been returned to stock - Jennifer dear, stop worrying. You'll be amused about the fixing up." Jennifer was not amused. Beholding the sinister frame she stopped, rooted in dismay. "Mavis, I don't want to be strapped on that thing again, I just don't."
"Please ... ?"
It was hopeless, and there was no sense in being difficult with Mavis. Jennifer shrugged. "Naked, I suppose?"
"Of course, dear. This is Stoule, remember." Jennifer busied herself with fastenings. "So I'm going to get my bristles shaved off," She exclaimed sulkily. "Just when they were getting so they didn't prick. Who's doing it?"
"Honest, I don't know." Mavis was busy with straps. "I wouldn't pout like that if I was you. There's worse things than having your pussy shaved bald."
No doubt Mavis was right, and to miss the awfulness of being whipped was surely to the good! Resignedly, Jennifer disposed herself for immobility. The straps caressed her flesh, then bit. One by one, they made her captive to the frame. Soon, she could move only her head. It felt distastefully familiar. Her loins cringed in their blatant exposure. It was as though her pussy was alive and quailing. "Do I have to be this tight and so damn stretched, Mavis?"
"Yes, dear, you know you do. You may have a little wait for Lord Crumshawe but you're not hurting." Mavis kissed her and was gone.
The naked girl strapped to the frame supposed being shaved again was hardly cruelty. For her it was a loss, she wanted her curls. But His Lordship had probably come by some male urge by which the play of a blade upon her lathered cunt seemed much to be desired. Her pubic hair would revert to square one. Ruefully, she realised it might never again be allowed to regain its former glory. Restlessly, Jennifer strained against the straps.
"How good it is to see you looking so well, my dear." Lord Crumshawe bestowed his usual damp kiss on helpless lips. "I expect you're puzzled?"
The effect of the frame and its attendant shame almost caused the strapped beauty to address her owner as `sir' and to forget her role. But she remembered in time. It was not hard to play. "Oh, Crummy dear, why have you got me strapped to this thing? Are you going to shave my pussy?"
"Would you like me to?"
"Oh, Crummy, of course I wouldn't. l love my hair."
"Then you shall have it." Lord Crumshawe declared magnanimously. "Fact is, I like a good pubic bush on a girl's belly myself. Your bristles are coming along nicely, I notice. Let me feel - "
The familiar cupping of the palm upon her sex. How strange a man he was! Such a mixture of grandfatherly affection and noble cruelty. The strapped girl wanted to close her eyes against the shame of her bald and blatant crotch. Instead, she asked: "If I'm not going to be shaved, Crummy, what then?"
"Ah, I was coming to that, m'dear. Feel a bit awkward; actually - "
It could be only one thing! She should have known. "Not that funnel and the quart of water!"
"Good gracious, no!" Lord Crumshawe managed to sound shocked. "Fact is I'm asking a sort of' favour."
"Oh, Crummy, thank you, thank you." All that water inside me was awful. But how can I do you a favour strapped down like this?"
"You've been kind to me, Crummy dear. I want to please you. Aren't you going to whip me today?"
"I'm not. Fact is, someone else wants to - "
She guessed instantly, shrinking in cold fear as her owner stumbled into disclosure. "There's this damn fellah, don't care for him much, too damn handsome. He's in a position to do the Group a favour. He's big business, same as us. I'm none too pleased ... " Lord Crumshawe gazed down in honest concern for his palpitating possession. "But there's been a lot of pressure - "
"His name's Basil Vernon and he wants to cut my cunt to shreds." Jennifer made the statement in flat misery. "And you're going to let him?"
"Well ... I wouldn't have used those exact words, m'dear." His Lordship was obviously unhappy. "The fellah told us about meeting you. Seems you have an effect. - "
"He's simply a sadist, and I've sparked something. I didn't even try, but that's probably the trouble." Jennifer's eyes widened piteously. "Crummy, do you want me with my pussy all cut up ... I don't even have any hair?"
"Nothing that bad, m'dear, nothing!" Lord Crumshawe assured heartily. "The fellah wanted you strung up by your toes so he could cut down into your crotch but we scotched that right off. The way you're fixed here now is exposure enough. Then he had a crop severe enough to slice you from rump to navel. I vetoed that myself. Not that I'm going to pretend you'll enjoy it even with those reservations."
They gazed at each other in a strange communion. There was a power and a sympathy in this old man. Lord Crumshawe was complex. "I'm frightened." Jennifer quavered. "But the way you've helped ... stopping him from the worst ... Maybe I'll be okay." She managed a grin. "The way I'm strapped, there's nothing I can do about it, anyway."
"Damned unsporting of me." His Lordship admitted morosely.
"Are there any instructions, Crummy? Do I have to play some sort of part, be nice to him?"
"Hell, no! Do as you like."
"I'd like to run instead of being like this, offering him my pussy on a plate. I'll scream my head off. Or is he allowed to gag me?"
"Which would you prefer?"
"I want to scream. Oh, Crummy ... ! I'm going to scream until he hates the sound of it."
"That's the spirit." Lord Crumshawe agreed heartily. "And now, m'dear, I must be going ... and you've got a little wait."
The strapped girl waited. The suspense would be all too long and all too short. During every moment of it she would know Basil Vernon was going to come and work his will with her. He was going to slash her obscenely exposed cunt, her vagina, her pussy ... What did the name matter! It was spread and fastened as a delicacy for his attention. She could not move it, or hide it, she could do nothing.
Would she go back to the flat? Would she be able to walk after being whipped on that place in that way? How would she then endure the seven days of waiting for the whipping she had not received today? The questions pounded but she had no answers. Worst of all was the loss of April. She could not bear to be alone. She would talk to Crummy - but perhaps she would not see Crummy again - ! It would have been easy to cry.
"Am I several sorts of bastard?" Basil Vernon inquired pleasantly.
"Yes, you are. I hope you're satisfied."
He was circling, examining every facet of her nakedness, approving. "Probably the most beautiful woman extant." He judged thoughtfully. "Making allowances, of course, for the isolation of your cunt."
"Its isolation appears to be specifically for you." Jennifer accused bitterly. "How did you find out about me and Stoule?"
"Simple deduction. Putting two and two together. And your collar. It all added up. I see you're still wearing it?"
"You guessed right. I can't get it off."
"Mind if I feel you up a bit? Make sure you're real'?"
"I can't move. Help yourself." She knew she was blushing, and resented him the more. "But when you cup my cunt please don't make a big thing about it being damp. Any secretions its made are no tribute to you."
"Perhaps a tribute to the whip you're waiting for?"
"Perhaps."
The hand of Basil Vernon roved, leaving none of her female secrets unexplored. The girl on the frame was glad she could not move. It would have been hateful to squirm. His voice held the same infuriatingly casual assurance. "Damned erotic effect, these bristles. Want me to shave 'em off for you?"
"No ..."
"In that case I'll do it. Pure revenge, I expect. But I want to shame you."
"Do you think I'm not shamed enough, strapped down like this for you to paw!"
"Hmmmmm, a little chagrin, I expect. But if you've been one of Stoule's girls you'll be partly inured to anything - Even to getting your cunt whipped, and that's a pity."
"Sorry you feel cheated." Desperately, Jennifer added: "Look, if it will give you pleasure to hear me humiliate myself I'll beg you not to shave my pubic hair. I don't want it done?"
"By all means, Miss Raines. I'm listening." Hating every word, the naked girl contrived: "Mr. Vernon, I concede your superiority over me. I can forbid you nothing. But I plead with you not to shave my pubic hair. Please ... I beg ... ?"
"Hmmmmm, a far cry from Luigi's, eh! Or the snotty hitch I met in your flat. You did moderately well with rubbing your nose in the dirt, but, maybe you've had practice with that too?"
"You're still going to shave me?"
"Naturally, I told you, I'm a bastard." Vernon was delighting in every moment, a sensualist in his use of girls. "Have you noticed how formal we still are?" He chuckled. "Stilted as hell. Maybe we can snap out of it while you're being shaved or when I begin to hurt you."
Jennifer did not care. She knew she would be a bubbling cauldron of emotions while he did what he pleased with her. Screams would serve her better than speech. But, laying helpless in her straps while Basil Vernon soaped her sex, she longed to die.
"Never done this before." Jennifer could feel him fingering her labia, giving studious attention to every crevice and the blade. "Really exquisite the way the razor slicks you clean. Not a bristle left, nothing! I'd suppose the whip will hurt your cunt a little more because it's bare?"
Jennifer was certain she was one huge blush. She knew he was aware of the creeping pink and was loving it. Dully, she said "I'd beg you not to whip it if I thought you'd pay any attention."
"I'm all attention right now, Miss Raines."
"Yes, I'm sure. But you'd whip me just the same. I know there's nothing I can do or say to escape. But can't you feel sympathy? Can't you realise how bloody awful it's going to be for me?"
"You mean getting your cunt whipped? My dear girl, I realise it fully. But, as I told you I'm a sadist, remember?"
She fell silent, letting him scrape away at her crotch, denuding her most secret place to make a fleshy welcome to his whip. Words only demeaned. It was all hopeless. Soon, there came the water and the sponge, laving her baldness, mocking secrecy. The air was briefly cold on her wet skin.
"I'm going to whip you now, Jennifer. Are You ready?"
She would never be ready. She closed her eyes. "Nooooo ... Oh ... stop! Don't hit her! Mr. VERNON! I've got a message." It was April's voice.
Jennifer opened her eyes. She refused to hope. Such an interruption could come about through Lord Crumshawe. It would be one of his 'situations'. Probably he was listening. She wished she was being whipped and getting the horror over with.
"I want you to whip me, Mr. Vernon, not darling Jennifer." April was breathless.
"Go away, kid." Basil Vernon sounded bored and irritated. "Unless you want to watch."
"Please?"
"No. I turned you down before. Beat it."
Jennifer was thankful not to be gagged. She added her own plea: "Do as he says, April dear. You can't stop me being punished. It's going to happen."
"I can do something, I can!" April was vehement. "Lord Crumshawe told me to tell you he'll make a present of me: I'd be your slave-girl for always, Mr. Vernon. Wouldn't you like that? I'd belong to you instead of you whipping Jennifer's cunt the way you want to."
"Tell His Lordship, thank you and no. Now run along."
"You could put me in the trunk of your car when you leave, Mr. Vernon. All bound and gagged so I can't be a nuisance. Or there's a real small cage that's made for girls when we're being moved ... ?" April's voice was piteously pleading, selling herself. As if for bait, she added: "You can whip me any way you want when you get me home. You could do anything you wanted with me?"
"If you don't run along I'll whip you here and now." Vernon promised caustically, "And it won't save your girlfriend a single stroke of what she's going to get. In fact, if you don't go away and leave me alone I'll whip your darling's breasts as well as her cunt. How's that grab you'?"
"But - but - "
"Do as he says, dear." Jennifer pleaded wanly. "For my sake. I don't want my breasts whipped."
They watched April go, weeping. The door closed softly. "Wish a girl loved me like that." The man said cynically. "Now, whereabouts were we!"
"I don't suppose you've done anything to make her love you." Jennifer said with equal candour. Once more she closed her eyes.
Thinking of it afterwards the whipped girl tried to recreate her agony, to located the explosive nucleus of her pain and know that this blow or that of Vernon's whip had cut her here or there. But it all merged into a kaleidoscope of suffering in which the face of Basil Vernon again and again reappeared as he made his whip sing into Jennifer's female loins. Her thighs, her pussy, her belly ... he scored them all. No great number of strokes, perhaps, but all of them hard and with intent to make them as close as the single bisecting stroke of his fantasy. Somewhere, in his punishment of her sex, she drifted into unconsciousness.
"I'm on a ticket of leave." Mavis said without emphasis. "You're better off without April's clucking right now, so I've got the job. Gee, this flat is really something! I wouldn't want your pussy right this minute, but I'm not sure it isn't worth it."
Miss Jennifer Raines, also, was uncertain about her pussy. She lay on her own bed in the flat provided by Stoule. Her sex was discreetly covered by a towel. It throbbed like the beat of her heart. Ruefully, she looked up at the girl who sat beside her on the covers. "Mavis, you're sweet, and I'm so grateful. But how come they trust you? You're free?"
Mavis laughed. "We'll never be free, Jennifer. I'm trusted for the same reason you are. If I ran I'd he picked up the way you'd be." She grinned. "I'm a Prefect, remember, I've got a lot to lose, and I told you long ago Stoule is where I belong. I'm a lesbian and I've got fifteen little pigeons, to choose from - to say nothing of you!"
"I'll service you, Mavis. I'd love to." Jennifer was in a euphoric glow of thankfulness for an ordeal past. She held up her hands. "But why am I handcuffed'?"
"My idea, pet. Nobody else's. With those on your wrists you'll treat me like a Prefect. It's mental, I know, but it's there. Oh, by the way, I've taken your key. You get it back tomorrow when I go home."
Jennifer lay in soft content. "Nothing changed for me, Mavis?"
"Nothing! You're the favourite of His Nibs. He's tremendously grateful about Vernon and your pussy. A lot was hanging on that little cunt of yours. These guys deal in vast sums of money."
"Mavis, how bad am I? My - my - ?"
"Actually, it's how good you are. You'd be surprised. Maybe you'd better look, so you'll stop thinking of yourself as the pussyless prisoner or the slitless captive or whatever. C'mon."
Undeniably, it hurt. But the pain was bearable. Stiffly, and with caution, the whipped nudity allowed Mavis to help her to the mirror. "Why ... why ... It's - It's - !"
"Yes, it's still there, pet. Bruised and swollen but intact. I don't suppose you're the first girl to have a purple puss. I had one myself once." Mavis chuckled. "Pussies are more resilient than bottoms, and you know what our little bottoms can take. What bothers us beforehand is the same as our fear of the mouse. We're thinking about our slit between the lips and what might get inside and what it might do when it got there."
It was absurdly comforting to be handcuffed. Jennifer did not say so but she nurtured the thought in her mind. If Mavis had offered to unlock them she would have said an emphatic 'no'! In handcuffs there was a strange security. It meant someone had an eye on her, she was desired.
For the two of them the flat bestowed a languorous content, a hiatus in their slavery. They revelled in a delightful inertia on the bed, feeding as it pleased them. When Mavis first stripped she posed her nakedness in a full turn around for Jennifer's eyes only.
"Like me?"
"Mmmmmm ... ! Oh, Mavis, you're super. But but - you're whip-marked ... and they're not that old?"
"I still get whipped, Jennifer. I thought I told you long ago. Being a Prefect let's me wear a few clothes and no collar. But whenever I catch His Nib's fancy I'm for it, same as any other girl."
"Then what's the use of being - ?"
"It has its privileges, darling. Look at me now: I don't get whipped that often." Mavis grinned confidingly. "Surely you've noticed how ridiculous men are, they respond to the littlest things. If we wiggle our bottom or toss our hair or look sideways it triggers their genitals and they want to fuck us or whip us or whatever their Thing may be. It's been happening to me for years."
Jennifer understood all too well. Her scalding sex throbbed confirmation. Puzzled, she asked: "How on Earth did you ever get to Stoule?"
"There's only one answer when a girl meets disaster, pet: a man. It's always a man who gives us our misery, and damn little joy in return. Look at the bruised and swollen thing between your legs right now: A man did it. My whip-marks: A man. The collar round your neck: A man. If we were free girls and busy diapering a baby in a suburb, that would be a man too."
"A man kidnapped you?"
"Hell no, I fell in love. But that's par for the course too."
"Mavis, I was just plain kidnapped. Tell me about yours?"
Mavis shrugged. "Most things seem silly when you look back. But I was eighteen and just ripe for some bastard to exploit. You know how, around that age, girls get dewy-eyed and become blindly positive about love and sex and nobility and immolation and giving her all for a man. It's a disease. Our parents ought to keep us on a leash, or beat us or put us in a cage. Instead, they try and be frightfully understanding and screw us up a bit more ... "
The Prefect grinned ruefully and flicked Jennifer's left nipple with a playful finger. "His name was Ralph. He was six years older than me and in some sort of business where he always needed money. We met at a bookstall where we both reached for a magazine which showed a tied-up girl on the cover. We instantly knew about each other and I went back to his apartment and let him tie me up the same way as the girl on the cover. It was fun. We both knew we'd found something. I'd never felt so horny in my life. When he screwed me while I was helpless it all seemed a part of one big gorgeous rosy picture. When I went home I walked on air."
"It sounds wonderful, Mavis. Nothing like that ever happened to me."
"Yes it did. But in a different way - your Youssef." Mavis sighed. "I suppose it was wonderful at the start. I spent every moment I could with him and was the most tied-up girl in the U.S.A. My pussy could probably have won a prize as the most used. Ralph fed me a pill a day so I didn't get pregnant, and I had to tell all sorts of lies about the rope burns and weals on my skin. Finally I defied my folks and went to live with Ralph full time. That's when my real bondage started. Wow!"
"Did he keep you a real prisoner?"
"I suppose he did. Not that I noticed the difference. He left me tied all day when he went to work. In the evening he tied me a different way while he watched T.V. At night I was tied to the bed. After he'd had enough of' screwing me he just went to sleep and lay there sprawled all over me. If I complained I got gagged."
"Weren't you frightened, tied up and left alone?"
"Hell no. That's where the nobility came in. I was sure I was in love with Ralph. I wanted to do things for him, to give and give. He assured me that tying me up was the best thing in his life, it liberated him for his work, he was bigger and better - Oh shit!"
"We played it too hard, of course. Not for me, I was still in a dither of making My Man finer and more fulfilled. I didn't mind about Me. I was his Girl! But Ralph was starting to get bored. Instead of tying me up for the evening we'd go someplace or do something. That was okay by me too. Then we started to take weekend drives and admire the scenery. He bought a pair of handcuffs for me to wear in the car. Can't you guess the rest?"
"Mavis, surely he didn't - !"
"He sure did. Stoule's one of the Stately Homes of England. When Ralph told me it was Visitor's Day I didn't know the difference. When I found myself in Lord Crumshawe's office alone with Ralph and the Earl of Stoule I was thrilled to bits. I hadn't the faintest idea I was merchandise being viewed. I was pink and flustered and flattered at all this attention from a real live Earl. When Ralph handcuffed my hands behind my back I thought it was a joke, and since the Earl seemed amused I was amused too. When Ralph kissed me and Miss Harradace led me away 'for a nice talk' I was still in an eighteen year-old daze of shy embarrassment. I suppose after I'd been taken away, that was where Ralph got his cheque. I never have found out what price I fetched. I've never seen Ralph since."
On the bed, Mavis and Jennifer shared their wry chuckle over the fate of girls. "But how were you treated?" Jennifer insisted. "I want to know - ."
"We have to be broken, pet. You know that as well as I do. So they broke me. But my most traumatic shock came from Miss Harradace as she gently explained what had really happened. I still feel silly and ashamed over our 'nice little talk'. I was so damn young and innocent. I remember my first exclamation. "But that's kidnapping!"
"Yes, dear, you are now a prisoner. You will be kept naked and taught how to behave."
"I want to go home. Please call Ralph - "
"This is your home now, dear. Ralph has just sold you to - "
"He can't! It isn't possible!" I found myself tugging like crazy at my handcuffs. "Please take these things off my wrists. I thought they were a joke."
"They are most convenient, Mavis dear. I'll tighten them one notch and we can then commence your training."
"I don't want to be trained. You've no right - Oh! Ouch, you've made them terribly tight."
"This way, dear. Please don't struggle. It's so demeaning for us both."
Mavis grinned at the memory. "When I saw the stocks I was scared to death. When the Harradace started to cut away my clothes I went berserk. When I stood there, horrified, without a stitch and without hands I remember her saying: "Go and sit on the bench, dear. Put your feet where you can see they go."
"And I bet you refused'!"
"Did I ever! Gosh, such indignation! No way! So she got a whip, and after about fifteen licks while I leaped and cowered I sat on the bench with a sore ass and put my feet where they belonged. It was the most shameful moment of my life, especially since my feet were a long way apart. When she clamped them tight under the top bar and snapped the lock I burst into tears which turned to anger and shock when the Harradace snatched a square board from under my behind and I found myself sitting on a hole. It was just the right size."
"A hygienic facility, dear. You'll come to appreciate it. Now I must go. I want you to think about what you've been told."
Jennifer could not forbear a giggle. "Was there a flush?"
"Oh sure: you know Stoule. But I got no comfort, it simply meant I could sit there forever. They had no need or reason ever to release my feet, and with them stretched that way I felt like one big patch of pubic hair. I was a very sorry little eighteen year-old. It was no use crying. I couldn't dry my tears."
Jennifer nodded. She could feel herself in a similar predicament. Captive sisters find an empathy. "Oh, Mavis ... how long ... ?"
"Four days and nights. I thought I'd die. My hands stayed handcuffed behind my back. They fed and washed me. All I had to do was sit. My bottom got to hurting and hating that hole, and my feet wanted out so bad I could have screamed. I slept in short cat-naps. There was no way I could lay down." The Prefect shook her head disdainfully. "I think my worst moment was when Lord Crumshawe visited me to inspect his purchase. I'd never felt so embarrassed or shamed. There I sat, with my breasts and my pubic hair, and my hands fastened behind my back. That was one time I wanted to die."
"Nicely settled in, eh, m'dear?"
"You mustn't look at me, sir! You mustn't it's wrong!"
"Eh, why not! Something wrong with you?"
"I'm naked!"
"So I noticed. The reason I dropped in actually. Can't judge a gal with her clothes on."
"I don't want to be judged. 1 wart to go home! The Police - "
"Fine pair of breasts. Probably develop a bit more at your age. I suppose that young rascal fucked you regularly?"
"Please, sir, that's a terrible thing to say. I mustn't use that word. But I'd let you do it if you'd set me free?"
"Damn kind of you, I'm sure!" I remember his sarcasm. "Ever had your little rump whipped?"
"Oh, sir, as if I would! That's - that's - "
"Girls get their little asses caned here, y'know. Does 'em a world of good. Ever been put in irons?"
"Did you even know what he meant ? ?"
"Only vaguely. But I was sure I wouldn't like it.. I said "Of course not, sir!" Real indignant. Then added my usual: 'Please send me home. Please, sir, get my feet out of these stocks. Please, sir, I'll be ever so nice.' But His Nibs paid no attention. He walked round me a few times, felt my breasts and my pussy, and said, 'Lovely, lovely. Excellent material, well up to our standards." Then he went away and left me sitting. Gosh. I hated that bench and the contraption holding my feet."
"And were there lessons?"
"Miss Harradace whipped me on the third day. I suppose that was a lesson. She assured me I'd feel a lot different when it was done, and I sure did. I was so damn shocked before and after I didn't put up much of a fight when she changed my hands from back to front and hoisted them high enough so I was stretched and in danger of leaving that damn seat. This left all of my back nicely available. She told me my bottom would get attended to another time. This was to be a sort of get acquainted whipping so I'd know where I was at."
Mavis smiled in memory. "I was so damn indignant. I kept telling her I hadn't. done anything. I was innocent. I didn't deserve any punishment. It wasn't until she cracked the leather round me the first lash that I realised a girl didn't have to misbehave to get whipped. It was a shattering discovery. I don't think any of us really get to think it's a good idea. Anyway, she gave me fifteen strokes and I howled and said all sorts of nonsense, especially when one of them lapped under my arm and snapped my breast. After she'd gone I wept for an hour until I realised I wasn't hurting any more. They took me out of the stocks the next day, and the rest of it's the same as you. After a few weeks I got docile. After awhile they discovered I adored being tied or handcuffed. That sort of made me one of them. Certainly His Nibs and I had a lot in common. A year after that they made me a Prefect."
After Mavis returned to Stoule there was a fresh loneliness. Jennifer kept the returned key on the mantle but wore the handcuffs in the same sentiment as she discarded clothes. Nudity and linked wrists were company, they spoke of April and Mavis and Stoule and the ancient Earl who ruled the kingdom of which she was a part. To a stranger it would appear preposterous, to Jennifer it had become normal. She had lost all wish to look beyond its horizons.
Except for Youssef Ben Rayaddah!
Jennifer could not forget the Guerrilla who had owned and then sold her into slavery. In loneliness, she relived their days together and their nights. Sometimes she desired Youssef with a fierce intensity which left her in yearning and unease. She mulled over plans to return to Fayalla and throw herself at Youssef's feet and on his mercy. He might, contemptuously, return her to the auction block. But, womanlike, she did not believe he would. Her love would conquer him. Her return would be an earnest of its sincerity. Ruefully, she likened her dream to a television scenario. But there it was.
She roamed London. She did the theatres and the restaurants but stayed away from Luigi's. She assured herself she had looked into the window of the travel agency purely by chance. When, an hour later, she walked out of the place with sundry tickets and vouchers to place her within easy reach of Fayalla she had set her mind in neutral and refused to think of anything but the journey and what lay at the end of it. She had never felt more vividly alive.
But Jennifer Raines was not a child. Alone in the flat, naked and handcuffed in a manner she would not deny herself, there fell upon her the full weight of Stoule. Stoule owned her home, it had paid for her clothes. Stoule's monty had paid for the tickets in her purse. His Lordship's craggy features and April's winsomeness kept intruding in her thoughts. Besides she was still a slave and the arm of Stoule was long! It had once already stretched into the desert to retrieve its property. Possibly it could again? Jennifer shuddered. If that happened she would have no right to plead for mercy. She would deserve the dungeon and the chains ... !
Returning from a lonely dinner she saw the headline, and bought the paper which told her of the death of Youssef the Guerrilla at the hands of Government forces in a skirmish in a neighbouring state. She hurried home to weep. But in returning the tickets on the following day she did not weep at all.
Miss Jennifer Raines would be an obedient slave.
Chapter Nine
Lovemark
"My dear, this is quite unprecedented, never happened. Wrong day too, y'know. You don't get whipped 'till tomorrow. And why are you kneeling like that?"
"Because I feel like kneeling. Crummy, please take me back?"
The Earl of Stoule, heavy in tweeds, and Miss Jennifer Raines were alone in His Lordship's study, their vibrations making the air electric. The venerable Peer was gazing down at the kneeling nudity with pleased puzzlement. "Of course you can come back." He said grandly. "In fact, you're back right now. Why don't you stay the night with April: tomorrow I'll whip you and you trot off back to the flat?"
"I don't mind which day I'm whipped, Crummy. But I don't want to go back to the flat."
"Humph! Something wrong?"
"Only me. I'm being a ridiculous female."
"Well, I've nothing against that." Said the Earl meditatively. "But what about our 'situation'? Only been three weeks, eh?"
"I'm sorry, Crummy. I've let you down. That's why I'm kneeling: to be punished."
"Horseballs!"
"No. It's true. Just because I was so damn lonely. I don't deserve freedom, Crummy. All I do with it is get into trouble."
"You're thinking of that Vernon bloke. Don't! He's gone." Lord Crumshawe brightened. "By the way, how's your cunt?"
"It's very well, thank you."
"Surprising things, cunts! Just as well, I suppose. They have a lot to put up with. Jennifer, m'dear, you don't have to kneel - "
"I want to kneel, Crummy. I'm in that kind of a mood. If I stood up I wouldn't know what to do. I'd feel silly."
"Well, alright. You look damn appealing like that." His Lordship chuckled. "What you need is a hair shirt for whatever you feel guilty about. I say. I've, remembered - in the news last night - !"'
"Yes. He's dead. They've killed him." She started to cry.
Lord Crumshawe was a gentleman. He raised the weeping girl to her feet and cradled her close with a tweedy arm while he fished out a vast white cambric square. "Here, use this, m'girl." He ordered gruffly. "Damn sight more sensible than those things you girls carry - when you're dressed,, of course."
Jennifer sobbed against His Lordship's Harris Tweed until her desolation passed, the cambric square did yeoman service. "I'm being an awful nuisance." She sniffed. "Would you like me to mix you a drink, Crummy?"
"Splendid idea! You too. Do you good."
Jennifer poured the drinks. She felt herself in full retreat but uncaring. She gulped the Scotch and poured another. "I'm afraid it's me who needs the drink, Crummy. I've got a confession to make."
"Keep it, dear girl." Lord Crumshawe waved her dolour into limbo. "If you indulge in any more of this penitence you'll have me whipping you this afternoon."
"So you should." Jennifer applied the cambric vigorously. I'm outrageous. I've done something terrible. You'll never forgive me."
"Let's have it then, if you must."
"I was going to run away to Youssef. I bought the tickets."
"I'll be damned!" His Lordship exploded. "And with my money!"
"I told you it was awful. I can't ask you to forgive me."
"You could, y'know. Not sure how I'd react though." The Earl of Stoule surveyed her bleakly. "That 'situation' of ours turned up some surprises, eh, for both of us." He dwelt on the problem for several moments. "Half my own fault, I expect I shouldn't have left you alone. Should have given you young April, that child's a treasure."
"That's more than I am."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You passed the big test. You always showed up to be whipped on time. Never asked to be let off anything." He guffawed. "Now, young April for instance, she'd have blarneyed me down to half the strokes, and they'd probably have been light."
"You mustn't feel sorry for me, sir. I need to be whipped."
"How'd you manage to pick up that 'sir' again?"
"Because I've ruined everything. I've gone back to square one. I've spoilt that nice way we were able to talk."
"And now you've lost the flat and freedom and only being whipped once a week, eh?"
"I - I - I expect so." Jennifer dived once more into the white square. From it her voice was muffled. "Are you going to chain me in the dungeon, sir?"
His Lordship burst into genuine laughter. "If you could only hear yourself and see yourself, Jennifer, you'd have to laugh. Damned if I've ever seen so much penitence in one pile. Alright, I'll whip you. Come along."
Jennifer supposed it typical of being female that the last thing she now desired was to be whipped. But what had she wanted? Was it to be safe in the tweedy arms and to be undeservedly forgiven! Or did she seek the pain as a panacea against memories of Youssef and the shock of coming face to face with herself in the opulence of the flat! She did not know. Mind a' whirl she followed Lord Crumshawe to the whip.
"Now, no more of this formality nonsense, eh?" Lord Crumshawe eyed his slave-girl ferociously. "And now I want you to try and get loose."
"No more formality, Crummy dear." Jennifer struggled violently against strapped wrists and ankles. "And I can't get loose, not even a little. You've fixed me beautifully, I can wriggle but that's all."
"And your feelings - emotions I mean?"
"I'm frightened and cringing just like the first time. Oh, Crummy, I'm so silly."
"Like me to let you loose, eh?"
"Yes please."
"Splendid, splendid! Good honest fear is a lot healthier than that penitence lark. I'm going to whip that nonsense out. of you." His Lordship's gaze roved down Jennifer's spread nakedness. "By Jove, I almost forgot! Here I've got your legs spread wide but I wouldn't dream of whipping your little thingummy today, not after what that fellah Vernon did to it last week. Let it lay fallow, eh."
"Thank you, Crummy, you're so sweet to me."
"Ah, you're feeling better. I can tell. You'll soon be screaming like a fifteen year-old." The noble gaze roved further. "So if I'm not going to whip you between your legs I'll loose your ankles. Give you a chance to keep your thighs together so I'm not tempted, and after each stroke you can do a bit of kicking."
"I promise, I'll kick, Crummy. I want to make my whippings enjoyable for you." Thankfully, the tractioned nude kicked off the last of the rope and welded her thighs close in readiness for the first lash. Her wrists were still strapped tight to the bar above her head. They were well apart. Miss Jennifer Raines knew herself well postured for her weekly whipping. Or was it that! Perhaps this one was extra! She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
The crack of the leather across her back was like a pistol shot. Its agony spurred Jennifer to raise herself from the floor in mute protest against so much pain. Remembering His Lordship's prerogative she kicked lustily as she danced in air. She was indeed back to square one. This first lash was her homecoming.
"Splendid, splendid! Jennifer, my girl, if only you could see yourself. You're marvellous!" Lord Crumshawe caught the bouncing bottom a solid thwack.
After the tenth stroke Jennifer requested the gag. "I can't help it, Crummy. It hurts so much I want to scream. The noises I've been making are worse than screaming, I'm ashamed of them."
She opened her mouth in a strange eagerness for the wad, then compressed her lips for the straps. She knew the gag was tremendously efficient. Her eyes managed a mute thanks into the bloodshot orbs of the panting Peer. Thereafter the whip cut and cut again Jennifer Raines reviewed the sad shambles of her life. Everything, had gone wrong, everything! Quite probably she would receive another whipping like this tomorrow. By the standards of Stoule she had it coming. Her screams beat against the fullness in her mouth and her strapped lips. She was being punished. But whether it was because she had been a naughty girl or because of a nobleman's caprice she could not tell.
"Feel any better, m'dear? Take your mind off things?"
It was a brief pause. Her owner was surveying his nude property solicitously. Jennifer could feel the sweat of pain trickling down her skin, she was sure her hair was damp and looked a mess, she was dribbling from beside the gag. Quite possibly her pussy was showing signs! She wanted to cry, she wanted to smile at the man who whipped her. But she couldn't do anything ... nothing but writhe and kick. When the whip started to snap at her once again she did both. Lord Crumshawe admired her writhing torso and flailing feet with worshipful eyes, his arm swung again and again, he knew himself the most fortunate of men.
After a long time Jennifer, in her otherworld of pain, knew the whipping had stopped, knew she had been kissed and patted, knew she was alone with her strapped wrists. In the sensuous delight of cessation she stretched and weaved her whipped torso to the limits her bonds allowed. It was not much. HYPERLINK http://but.it .. but it felt good. One after the other she exercised her legs, not in writhing or kicking but as though to reassure herself of continuing faculties after pain. Her mind exulted: It's done, it's all over, I've been whipped ... "
But was it over? Was it done? She had messed things up and thrust at Lord Crumshawe behaviour he could scarce ignore. Youssef was gone. He had been tucked away in her life as a hope. That hope had died. She belonged more than ever to Stoule. Doubtfully, she supposed the best she deserved was another punishment for her abortive defection and a return to the flat. The flat now seemed a glorious privilege compared to the dungeon and the chains she could sense as hovering in her immediate future.
"Hello, 'allo, 'allo." Greeted His Lordship briskly as he made a swift appreciative scan of Jennifer's wealed back. "My dear, you positively bloom under the whip. You emerge from each whipping I've given you more lovely than ever. You exude something, a fragrance, quality .. damn remarkable! Now, how d'you feel?"
"Whipped! But better. Thank you, Crummy."
"Good. D'you want to go back to the flat?"
"Could I please have April with me, Crummy?"
"Think you deserve that'?"
"No."
"That's honesty!" Lord Crumshawe beamed. "And you're right, you don't deserve it. But damned if I want to be cheated out of our little 'situation'. We haven't milked it dry. It's been damn productive. For instance now: you want April? Very well, but she comes here with you every week and she gets whipped the same way you do? How's that?"
"It's fair. But oh, Crummy, I can't ask the darling. It's too - "
"Nonsense! She'll love it. That's settled."
His Lordship frowned portentously. "But that leaves you?" He chuckled. "I've got a runaway slave on my hands. Remember what they used to do to runaways?"
Memory struck the strapped girl like a blow. She looked at her owner, stricken. "Yeeeees ... ! Oh ... Crummy - "
"Right. They branded 'em. I've decided on the left flank of your left rump cheek, m'dear. That suit you?"
"Yes, thank you, that will do fine." Jennifer could scarce believe she had uttered the words. Wanly, she asked: "Will being branded put me back ... where I was?"
"It will do more than that, m'dear. I have something in mind. Our little 'situation' is vital. Your reactions ... Believe me."
Jennifer's whipped back screamed negatives, her strapped wrists mocked. She knew herself in the grip of a tide she, strangely, had no wish to stem. Stoule imposed its magic in the impossible and made it real. Miss Jennifer Raines adjusted her mind and her voice. "What day will I be branded, Crummy, Crummy dear?"
"A day or two. Bit of suspense, eh! You can think about it in the dungeon. Appropriate, don't you think?"
"I hate the dungeon, Crummy. But, yes, it's appropriate." The prisoner managed a pale smile. "What is it I'm going to have on me for the rest of my life?"
"The letter 'S', what else dear girl!" Lord Crumshawe guffawed. "They'll know where to return you next time you run."
It was the English way. Laugh at it. Make horror seem absurd. It oiled the wheels of life. Jennifer played the game: "Do I have to get my weekly whipping in seven days too, Crummy?"
"Hmmmmm, don't see why not. Leaving your bottom alone that day there'd be no conflict of interest."
"I just wondered ... " Jennifer felt lost, alone, adrift, as might a girl who is suddenly told she is going to have a baby. In a flash of bravado she ventured: "Thanks for wanting to put your 'S' on me, Crummy. I'll be proud of it - really I will."
The Earl of Stoule kissed his slave-girl. He had whipped her well. Soon she would hear his initial in her flesh. He was well content.
"You have to be out of your mind, Jennifer" Miss Harradace made a great profession of being cross. "You have a genius for mucking things up. His Lordship gives you the world on a plate, and now look at you?"
"I know. You're absolutely right." Jennifer agreed amiably. "Do I really look that bad?"
"You never look 'that bad'." Miss Harradace conceded irritably. "I wish I was as beautiful as you and half as resilient. You've just been whipped. You're naked in a really miserable little dungeon. You're loaded with enough chain to sink a battleship. And, as if that wasn't enough, you're going to be branded ... really!"
"Well, it was all my fault, so I can't complain, can I?"
"You're not supposed to be so cheerful about it. Jennifer, have you any idea how being branded hurts?"
"Not really, and I don't want to know. I'm sure I'll find out."
"I expected to find you in tears. Poor April's all upset."
"I seem to be a disappointment all round. But really, Miss Harradace, I cried a lot during the night, this stone floor's so hard and cold, and the chain and padlock locked on my collar is a brute, but I expect I'll get used to it."
"I hope you won't be in here that long, dear. His Lordship's chuckling about something, so maybe he'll get the whole thing over with quite soon. I'm sure he likes the idea of having his mark on you permanently. You know what men are!"
"Miss Harradace, could I please have April in with me?"
"Absolutely not!"
Jennifer sighed and looked wistful. "For just one hour?"
"No!"
"Oh well, alright." Jennifer arranged chains as a woman arranges a ruffled skirt, even the iron wristlets were a load. "But, about my being branded ... ? I will be fastened, won't I? I don't think I could - "
"Immovably, dear. On a bench."
After her well intentioned visitor had departed and thudded shut the door, Jennifer repeated what she had done many times before. She raised herself and her chains to her feet and took the two steps in each direction their links allowed. It was not a long walk but it told her she was still a girl and very much alive. To relieve the pull on her throat she held the chain pendant from her collar in a chained hand. This was the first time her lovely collar had been linked and locked to stone. It made the expensive circlet double personal around her neck.
Two days later Miss Harradace brought the gag. "It's best, dear. Anything to say first?"
"You're going to brand me now, I know you are." The chained girl kept her voice at a safe monotone. "No, there's nothing I want to say. I'm glad, really. I'm sick of these chains." She grinned: I'll open my mouth like a good girl."
For Miss Jennifer Raines, then, everything became clinical, doubly spine shrinking because of its simplicity. The room held two benches. On one a blow torch blared its flame upon the shaped metal by which she would be marked for life. Beside it was a square of wood on which tests had already etched several black and ornate 'S's. The condemned girl turned away in pure fear, but arranged her nakedness as Miss Harradace guided on the second bench which would hold her for the iron.
"I'll handcuff your hands, dear. In front. There! Your ankles are strapped down, your knees, your thighs and your waist. You won't be able to even twitch your bottom, but I think it's best you can have your arms to do ... well, anything you want. The handcuffs will prevent your hands being a nuisance."
It was so well thought out! The leather bands bit and compressed until her nudity was one with the bench on which she lay face down, her linked hands in front of her face. The girl who could not speak knew herself ready for the brand. She prayed for speed.
"Just a test, dear."
The sharp unkind prods at her bottom caused Jennifer to strive to look back in dismay. But she was held. The strap round her waist was a vice. She was rewarded by a rear view of Miss Harradace as the Mistress approved. "You didn't move, dear, not a tremor. It's so important."
Jennifer refused to look at the iron. She wished she could not hear the roar of the torch. But she supposed it better than the glowing brazier she had expected. Miss Harradace patted her bare shoulder and consoled: It won't be long, Jennifer. His Lordship wants to brand you himself. He's done it before, y'know. It will be a perfect job."
Jennifer nodded. She was glad she could not speak. "I'm going to hold a glass of brandy for you, dear. You can suck it through a straw. Drink as much as you can. Neat like this it takes effect quickly. I'm sorry it's all I can offer - "
Jennifer sucked urgently. Brandy was supposed to help. The straw was awkward through the hole in her gag. But perseverance emptied the glass. It was then that Lord Crumshawe appeared. Without a word he went directly to the iron.
There was something wrong! There was no pain! Only an awareness and the smell of her own burning flesh. In shock, Jennifer remembered the several jabs. The area of her bottom now bearing the 'S' of Stoule had been frozen. Her whole being overflowed with gratitude and love.
"I wanted my 'S' on you, m'dear." Lord Crumshawe said complacently as he handed his slave-girl another filled glass. "But the pain would have been unsporting. Absolutely. Miss Harradace knows about these things, she'll keep you comfortable."
Jennifer had been released, except for her handcuffs. The gag was gone, Miss Harradace was gone. She had been soundly kissed. She had not yet plucked up the courage to look at her brand, but was sitting gingerly on the bench to which she had been strapped. She sank to her knees, drained the glass, and said brokenly: "Thank you, Crummy ... thank you!" She looked up piteously: "I'm glad your 'S' is on me for always. I'm glad."
"Hrrrrumph ... ! Well, that's good." Lord Crumshawe's hand came out of his pocket. "There's this little matter here." He handed her a small square box.
"Crummy, it's a diamond ring?" Jennifer was awed.
"Engagement, actually. Will you marry me?"
Her heart pounded, her world bounced. Jennifer could not speak.
"I'm damned ancient. Can't last more than five years. But they'd be good. When I bite the bullet you'll be one of the richest women in the world. You'd still be just a pullet. What d'you say to that, m'girl?'
"Oh ... Oh, Crummy!"
"Take that as a 'Yes', eh? Sounds like it. By the way, you'd he the Countess of Stoule. An Earl's wife gets that title. How's it sound?"
"Oh ... Crummy ... !"
"You said that before, m'dear. Now, there's one little thing: You still get whipped once a week, eh?"
"Yes, Crummy."
"I'll make you a wedding present of April." His Lordship coughed diffidently. "Not as young as I was, y'know ... !"
"Oh, Crummy, it's all ... all - It's all so wonderful I'm going to cry."
The Earl of Stoule raised his slave-girl to her feet and placed his cambric square once more in her handcuffed hands. "Here, use this, m'dear. Know how you feel. Could shed a tear or two myself, y'know. Dammit, Jennifer, I'm very fond of you." From Lord Crumshawe this was undoubtedly a fervid declaration of love.
"I love you too, Crummy. Oh, and please, will you keep me handcuffed?"
"Absolutely! Can't have you naked, y'know." The Countess of Stoule sighed in ecstasy. Jennifer's cup was full.
