Mostly I lunch at shops, and I lunch alone. It gives me a tiny oasis of isolation in a hectic day. I had been aware of the watching eyes for most of that week but a girl is accustomed to male assessment and so, while conscious of the male interest, I paid it no more heed than any other. It was not until the forth day, when he interjected himself into the second seat at my small table, that I gave him serious attention. I rated him as expensively dressed and with good features, his smile was infectious.
"We've been looking at each other long enough," he said charmingly. "It's time we did something about it." His smile enveloped me in a strange new warmth. "Since-I first saw you I'm been impelled by the damnedest compulsion to whip your bottom."
That was my introduction to Quinlan Robins.
It seemed natural he should be there the following day. He had done most of the talking and picked up with consummate ease where he had left off the previous day. I knew he was deliberately trying to please me by being cleverly amusing. When he suggested we dine that evening and then go to bed together at his apartment, it was all very much of a pattern, a pattern I did not wish to break.
I allowed his statement about the whipping of my bottom to go unchallenged. No doubt it was a clever approach to any girl and sufficiently outrageous to arouse curiosity. But I refused to be tempted, if Quinlan Robins wanted to toss such remarks into the wind he could pick them up himself, I was not going to do it for him. I acted as though the words had not been said, but they would not leave my mind, they were an intriguing presence all the time we were together and for the rest of the time while I was at work. It was an approach no man had ever used on me, why shouldn't I be intrigued. Quinlan knew damned well I was withholding comment and, very cleverly, he did the same. In his planned seduction he knew all the tricks.
Quinlan Robins was housed as expensively as he was dressed. I had no idea where he made his money and did not care. I enter his tower apartment in the full knowledge I would pay the usual price for male admiration. I wanted to, I had no qualms. His lovemaking was on a par with all the rest, exactly and perfectly right. He led me into a roseate world of wonder and brought me back again all in one piece, albeit breathless, sweating and adoring every inch of his virility. He had a delightful body and was immensely strong. I could tell his was accustomed with naked girls by his familiarity with every secret corner I possessed. With Quinlan Robins, girls withheld no treasure, he used me to the full. It was in the damp, sweet pungency of aftermath I drowsily popped the question.
"Quin, what did you that first time, that thing about whipping my bottom?"
"Oh, that." His chuckle told me my voice had sounded scared. "When would you like it? Do the thing right, you know. Nothing casual about whipping a girl's bottom."
"It's a ploy, isn't it? You use it to get us interested and the first thing we know we're in bed with you."
"Not really, although I admit it's a good one. No, I'm deadly serious, I want to whip your bottom."
I loved his effrontery and nestled closer to his damp nakedness. "You know that's not going to happen, Quin. Girls don't want men to whip their bottoms, it's a preposterous idea."
"Most natural thing in the world," his voice assured me blandly. "And you're going to do it, you know. You'll put up a bit of a fuss and pretend you'll never do such a thing. But you'll do it, don't ever doubt you'll do it. And what's more you're going to ask me."
It was right there I knew for sure I was going to get my bottom whipped by Quinlan Robins.
Neither of us spoke of it again. Quinlan knew he had planted a seed in my mind and was content to let it germinate and I nourished the damned thing with feminine curiosity. I kept telling myself it would not happen, that it was absurd and outrageous and not to be considered. But a strangely comforting voice assured me it was indelibly marked in my future as tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Days passed and our lovemaking became increasingly skillful as we adjusted to each other. He was unfailingly courteous and an amazingly good talker. He kept me endlessly amused. I supposed I recognized most of his little tricks by which he kept forever a step ahead of me even though I am not slouch when it comes to repartee. After a while I was content to let him lead the way. I was falling in love.
I thought about it a lot but found a comforting contentment in stuff I remembered reading about the caning and whipping of bottoms as a preliminary to sex. I could understand it being excitingly potent but I was envisioning the thing in childish terms and expecting to get, at the worse, a slightly pink bottom before I was rolled over on the covers and my legs spread wide. The more I thought about it the more I wanted it.
As usual, Quin was a jump ahead of me. He made specific requests about the things I would wear for the theater. He wanted me soignee and slinkily sexy in full evening dress. He directed the whole ensemble right on up to a choice of perfume and he made me dowse myself with the costly scent in the most outrageous places. As I made myself redolent and pungent as for love I thought of the effect on those close by in the warm darkness as we gazed upon the stage. Quin knew innumerable ways of making a girl aware of being female. I had been so engrossed with these sensual preparations of myself that I got the damnedest shock when I turned around to my companion to seek approval of my perfection. Quin was holding a long, lean riding crop and flexing it back and forth between his hands. He laughed at my dismay.
"Time's come, sweetheart."
"But Quin, we're going to the theater. I can't possibly undress and I've taken such trouble."
"You're absolutely perfect for the effect I want," he assured me. "We're going to do this right. I don't want you naked."
Once again he was well ahead of me. Unprotesting and eaten with curiosity, I allowed myself to be led to the room he had turned into an office. It contained a desk. When I saw its shinning uncluttered surface I knew it was the alter upon which I would pay my dues. Unhesitantly I said, "Quin, I'm not a bit sure about this. I'm scared."
"And so you should be, honeybunch. You're about to enter a remarkable experience."
I stood there feeling foolish while he flexed the crop and eyed my lower curves. I can understand Quin's cleverness in making me dress to the degree of perfection which would give his riding crop a wickedly erotic contrast. I was trembling. Stupidly, I said, "I don't think I want to go through with this."
He paid no attention, it was as though I had not said a word. He kissed my forehead gently and led me, like a bride, to the altar. I knew I should break his grasp and turn and run but set the thought aside. Somehow I knew if I did that he would never brother with me again. In my heart I knew I was were I was as much by my own choice as his. I felt delightfully mesmerized as thought from half a dozen cocktails. I had to force myself not to close my eyes.
"At'a girl. Hips against the edge and now lean forward. Stretch out your arms above your head."
Bitterly I told myself, "Candy Cosgrove, you're an absolute idiot!" But I did what I was told.
The rope should have been a shock but it wasn't. When Quin looped my wrists with it, strand after strand, and knotted them bitterly tight, I discovered only a strange content. The sight of that wicked looking crop had told me all too clearly I was about to suffer pain, and I was not at all sure of my capacity for enduring stripped skin in impassive immobility. I felt quite certain that, left to my own devices, I would leap around and disgrace myself. With my hands fastened I would have no choice but to bear this bizarre punishment. The only bright spot was my clothes. The riding crop would bit far less across the protection of skirt and panties. When Quin cinched down by bound hands to the desk leg below, I realized that for the purpose he desired I was completely helpless.
"I'm surprised you don't want me completely naked," I said with a touch of bitterness.
"That would spoil it, sweetheart. Here, let me show you what I mean."
What he meant was shame, the uncompromising shame a society beauty would feel to be held thus and have done to her what Quin was not doing to me. Carefully he raised my skirt, folding it upward as he went until it revealed my bare skin between panties and bra. He fastened it there with a safety pin he had ready. "Feel a draft, darling?"
"Quin, don't be a bastard. I'm sure you know what this is doing to me. Of course I'm ashamed but I've never felt more horny in my life. You knew that's the way I'd feel, didn't you?"
"Can you get loose, Candice?"
I struggled. I tugged and twisted, more to oblige him than from any hope of getting free. I looked up the length of my outstretched arms to my bound wrists and dutiful reported, "Of course, I can't get loose. I can't do a thing but stay bent over this damned desk and wish I was somewhere else."
"Good. You look charming. And now for the piece de resistance. I suppose you know what comes next."
I knew! I quivered like a jelly as the firm male fingers inserted themselves beneath the band and tugged my scanty panties down to my knees. Cold air flooded my thus bare skin as though from as arctic blast. "Take them all the way off," I demanded unhappily. "They feel untidy.. . Please, Quin."
"But a nice effect. I like them as they are. Besides they'll keep you from kicking too much. I haven't bothered to tie your feet."
I understood now his insistence upon garter belt and nylons. I could easily imagine what I looked like and the thrill he would get from the indecent exposure of my buttocks. I would much have preferred to be totally naked than thus exposed in a semi-Victorian salacity. Naturally he palmed my pussy and made an appropriately vulgar comment upon its condition. He didn't need to feel, I could have told him!
"And now, my pet, a touch of the risqu'. Tell me how it feels."
The son of a bitch was endlessly inventive. In anything I'd ever read no man had ever thought of using a powder puff on the bottom of a mistress he was about to whip. The fluffy object patted and spread its balm upon my shamed flesh with a lovely attention to my cheeks. Quin was a past master in the art of making a girl love she knew she was going to hate. He gave me a few final pats here and there then blew away the excess talc to make me quiver anew beneath his warm expulsion of breath.
"You are now ready, beloved girl."
"I bet I am!" I turned to glare at him as he again picked up the crop and performed the familiar flexing act. Fervently I exclaimed, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"Oh, but I am, darling. I can't possibly let you have all the gorgeous sensations. Are you ready for your first taste of erotic pain?"
"I suppose so. But, Quin, I do wish...."
Whatever it was I wished was lost and forgotten in the blaze of a pain so horrendous as to make me gasp in pure shock and to tear wildly at my bound hands. I was vaguely aware of flaying feet and legs, and was momentary irritated by the failure of my panties to tear asunder in my urgent need. I was so preoccupied with pain I forgot to scream or to say anything. It was not until Quin cut at me with his second stroke that we began our lopsided conversation, for my part agonized, for Quin amused.
"Quin, stop it! I'd no idea! I can't possibly stand this."
I might as well have saved my breath just as I might as well have saved my struggles. Both were ineffectual other than to generate male satisfaction. Beneath the impossible urgency of number three I tried a different approach. "Quin, I don't think you understand. This is too awful for any girl. You absolutely must stop and let me up. Please...."
"You're doing magnificently, dear girl. I think you're afraid you're not behaving well, but I assure you a man could ask no more. I'm going to make your next one a little harder, you're doing so well."
I was sure I'd die, no girl could stand such pain and live. I'd never imagined such pain until this moment, but now...!"
"Then have some decency, a little compassion, I simply can't stand it, Quin. You must stop, you must!"
"Getting a hot pussy, darling?"
"No I'm not! I'm in agony. Oh, Quin, be reasonable...!"
"Pity you can't see yourself, sweetheart. You're putting on the most marvelous show. Damned good thing I tied you hands. And your poor little panties...!" His hands were roving across my scolding seat. "Did you realize you're rubbing your puss against the desk? Don't stop, I like it."
By the time number five burned and seared its path across my flesh I was abject and probably hysterical. "Quin, I'll do anything you want, anything at all. But please don't whip me any more, please don't. I can't bear it."
He whipped me again instantly, perhaps the crudest cut of all. His voice was thoughtful, "You see, dear girl, you can bear it. You bear it very well. I think you just had an orgasm in your love affair with my desk, didn't you? Don't worry, I won't make them any harder."
Somewhere dimly in my mind I had supposed he would strike me five or six times. I recalled books in which it was always five or six the girl got in such punishment. But the fifth came and so did the sixth without any sign of pause or halt. In a terrible need to know I implored, "How many, Quin? How many?"
"You don't need to know, sweetheart. Must better for you if you don't. Try this one for size."
I tried it for size. I had to, I had no choice. It was as awful as any of the others. I suddenly realized this man could go on beating my bare flesh as long as he pleased. He could give me ten, twenty, a hundred strokes and there was nothing I could do about it. In this realization I bore the seventh and eighth strokes while striving for something effective to say to bring the awfulness to a close. But, with his usual cleverness, Quin was well ahead of me. Eight was a number no girl could possibly expect. In my mind it had to be five or ten or twenty but never eight. I found the lengthening pause impossible to believe until the omnipotent male voice told me cheerfully, "That's all darling. Just a teaser for your first time."
I wanted to tell him the first time would be the last. But I was still firmly bound and very, very helpless and deemed it wiser to keep silent. I'd caught sight of nothing vicious in Quinlan but a girl in my situation had best be prudent. He was now running gentle fingers across the weals he had planted on my skin, his voice warmly concerned, "Did you enjoy it, sweetheart?"
"Of course I didn't enjoy it. It was awful. Oh, Quin...!"
"Ah, yes, I can follow that. But how about now, darling. Are you enjoying it now?"
I saw the subtle distinction and became hotly ashamed by a sudden awareness of the knowledge shown by the man who just whipped me. Damn it! He was right. The heat filling by curves beneath his questing hand was a quintessence of pleasure I had never known. But grudgingly I conceded only, "Yes, I suppose you're right, it is a beautiful relief that it's over." Quickly I added, "And to save you asking I'll tell you now, sure I'm horny as all get out. Please take me to bed."
"But darling, we're going to the theater."
"Damned the theater, take me to bed. Please, Quin.. . ? "
Quinlan did not take me to bed. He did not untie me. My wrists were hurting, and I complained about them and how needless it was to keep me tied. But he was in no hurry and seemed more concerned in fingering my burning bottom than in anything else. I was feeling increasingly ashamed, and what was worse, damned untidy. I wanted to go to the little girl's room and cry. But Quinlan insisted on going through all the motions in reverse. First the gradual, slow inching up of my panties to finally envelope my demanding sex. He did this with much attention to detail and needless pantings and pullings. Then there was the lowering of my skirt, which took every bit as long. When he finally untied my hands and helped me to stand erect, I stood there, fingering my wounded seat, and feeling much abused. But I was given little time for such diversions when abruptly he led me back to the bedroom and told me to get ready for the theater.
"The theater! Oh, Quin, don't be absurd. I can't possibly go to the theater like this."
"Why not?"
"Well, because.. . I'm all hot and bothered and I don't want to sit down."
"Exactly the way I want you, my pet. I wouldn't change a thing."
It was in my mind to refuse, but I was pretty sure he'd tie me down and beat my bottom again. I could not have resisted, he was terribly strong. Quinlan Robins had mastered me and I knew my only choice was to leave him utterly or conform. I made myself as beautiful as I could and, from the expression on his face, I knew I'd done a good job. We went to the theater and all the way there in the taxi I was breathing heavily from unsatisfied sexual arousal which remained at fever heat because of my wealed flesh. Sitting on my wounds I longed for nothing more than to seduce Quin into raping me there on the back seat. He knew what I was feeling, damn him! I had never felt more at odds with everything and myself in my whole life.
The theater was worse. I sat on my inflamed rump and fumed. Quin possessed himself of one of my hands and held it, patting it gently in a soothing way which did keep me in my seat and admonished against rash acts. I realized, for him, this was probably the best part of the whole affair. Sure, he'd loved whipping me, but this damned play would go on for a couple of hours and I'd spend the whole damned hundred and twenty minutes being conscious of my hurt buttocks on which I sat. It was not exactly agony nor was it true pain, it was a mixture of pure lust and a girl's worst enemy, feeling untidy and disorganized. I felt positive, too, that the heavy libations of perfume were not enough. I was certain that some of the smell of ME in heat must be telling the immediately neighbors of my horny condition.
When we got home that night and I was told to strip naked I have never been more thankful. I was allowed to back up to a mirror and inspect my lover's work. There was a fascination with the gaudy marks. I was certain they would not fade in a month. On my back, my twin buns still protesting, I was impaled again and again, and never in our entire association had our sexuality been so impossible to appease. The next morning I was late for the office.
It was typical of Quinlan that he should not mention the incident again. For him it was over. I found myself loathed to broach the subject, I preferred to follow rather than lead. But in the week following the whipping of my skin I because aware of something within myself. If ordered to accept another such infliction, I would comply. I assured my conscious this was not a cow-like subservience to a man's lust but rather my own curiosity probing at a human relationship not previously glimpse. If, after the act itself, my bottom adored being whipped and all the subsequent sensations, then why should I deny myself! I shrugged away the question. Perhaps Quin would never ask again. We were very happy. Quinlan was always kind and tremendously amusing. He appeared to possess an unending supply of money which he spent on my pleasure and to cloth me lavishly. He frankly admitted to enjoyment in spending a vast sum of money on a gown or dress only to strip it from me when we got back home. He was not ashamed about any of his notions about sex or the things he wanted to do to girls. He saw the whole thing as what he himself described as "fun and games." It was precisely one week after my introduction to the riding crop and while we were dining, I was casually informed, "I'll whip you again this evening, sweetheart. But don't worry, we'll go to it right after dinner. No theater."
"But, Quin, it's only a week and I've still got the marks...!"
"I'll not whip your bottom this time, lover girl, you've been promoted. This time it will be a proper whip and I'll use it on your back."
What I longed for right then was the courage to rise, express disgust, and walk right out on this man. I was supposing all it took was courage, but there I was wrong. It did not take courage at all. All it took was a willingness to renounce a pleasure and a pain so exquisite I could not bring myself to cast it from my life. I choked back all the words of protest and indignation and tried to match Quinlan's nonchalance. "After the brandy, darling?"
"That's my girl!" He was staring across the table with unfeigned pleasure and a touch of surprise. He cocked an eyebrow, "No questions?"
"There is one," I admitted slowly. "Shouldn't I do something, I mean something bad or disagreeable to deserve punishment?"
"It's a good thought, sweetheart, but between us two there's no need of it. I will reserve the right to punish you as I see fit when you do something to deserve it. But mostly I'll whip you or give you pain in other ways for nothing more than the simple enhancement of sensation we both derive. Whipping a girl's bare skin is the most delicious love play ever invented."
"And you invented it."
"Gosh, no! Whipping girls is as old as time itself. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Adam didn't use a switch on Eve over that apple affair."
"But, Quin darling, I haven't got enough skin. Those eight strokes you gave me a week ago took out my whole bottom, and now if you move up to my back, what's left then?"
"That's no concern of yours, dear girl. You're in my hands, leave everything to me." He looked at me shrewdly. "Or do you want to walk out of my life forever? You can, you know."
"No, I can't! You know damned well I can't. You're a drug and I'm hooked. But I suppose if you hurt me bad enough...."
"I can't hurt you bad enough. Once you're hooked, you're hooked. But I do want you to know you have a free choice."
Quinlan probably believed what he said, but I knew better. Right then I had no choice other than to stay with him until he went beyond some unseen boundary of anguish or married me. I was deeply in love with him and I'm sure he knew this. But he never mentioned it. With all the hugs and kisses and fervent admiration of my body he avoided the one thing I wanted him most to say. If he had laid it on the line that, as his wife, I would be whipped regularly once a week, I would have said, "Yes, yes, yes!" with a truly shameful disregard of common sense.
Our lives followed a normal pattern, from breakfast to dinner we were like any married couple. Things happened to me after dinner or on weekends. But I never had a feeling of enslavement or any sense of being abject. These emotions were there but were so mixed with all the rest as to defy separation. If Quinlan Robson desired to whip my bare back, then that was what I wanted him to do. I didn't bother with analysis, the bottom line was happiness.
There are always milestones. Quinlan's use of the riding crop upon my bottom had been one, though not the first. I suppose the first milestone in my relationship with this man had been the first time in our talking when he told me of his wish to whip my flesh. It should have damned him utterly in my eyes but it did not! The second milestone was in the actual whipping of my bottom while I lay spread over his desk. The third milestone was in the whipping of my bare back. Throughout the rest of dinner and after while we sipped our brandy I was in the most shocking state of emotions, mostly fear. It is one thing to speak of hurting the bottom of a girl, but something else again when it comes to the hurting of her back. I had no previous knowledge but I had the strong feeling that my back would hurt much more than by punished buns, and there was a lot more of it to whip. In dramatic terms it removed me from the quivering little girl in the school room up to a mature woman about to be flogged.
As was customary between us we did not speak of what was soon to be done to me. We sipped our brandy and talked of other things. That we could do this successfully was a tribute to our adjustment to each other. The adjustments were mostly mine, I had come a long, long way in seven days.
There was always surprise with Quinlan. I really believe that had I known what he had in store for me I would have made the break and have done with him. But, just as with the semi-Victorian approach to my bottom, he also had a new and unexpected twist to what he now referred to as "the ritualistic whipping" of my back. He was not simply going to hang me up by my hands and bash away at me, it was to be done with finesse and keeping with my status as a young and successful businesswoman.
My anticipation, with all its quivers and qualms, was all there, all working over time to reduce me to a naked package of girl who hadn't a thing to say in her own defense but went to her martyrdom without protest or the will to fight. My new milestone began in our bedroom where Quin stripped me naked and then covered my shrinking nudity with a white sheet. It enveloped all of me including my hands and arms and was held in the safe protection of my breasts and pubic hair by a safety pin at my neck. As though I was being escorted to a Roman arena before a cheering multitude, my arm was grasped and I was led from the room to the other room where I would suffer pain.
It was only the lounge. But changes had taken place as if by magic. Furniture had been thrust to the sides and from above dangled a couple of ropes, the purpose of which I could guess all too well. But what made this event a milestone was the presence of a woman, a woman attired as a nurse, all in white, and who stood beside a tray of instruments and from whose neck there dangled a stethoscope. My first glance told me she was extremely beautiful, older than me but not by much. She did not wait for an introduction but said crisply, "You will bring the prisoner to me for examination. She cannot be whipped until I have decided her tolerance."
I turned to look at the man who held my arm but he was entranced with a scene which I now recognized had been rehearsed. This was quite probably a genuine enactment of a scene in prisons where and when girls like me had been subject to the lash. They wanted no dead bodies so took the precaution of having a paramedic in attendance. As I was led toward her I looked at this woman and beheld the gleaming in her eyes. I shivered.
"Be good enough to strip the prisoner."
It was quickly done. Only a safety pin stood between myself and total nudity, with it gone I stood nakedly for this woman's approval. She plied her stethoscope with intent concentration but I soon realized she was actually playing with my breasts. I was turned about and the same attention given to the back so soon to be stripped with weals. With his fingers firmly clutching my arm, Quinlan inquired, with unusual respect, "Your verdict, Doctor?"
"The prisoner is a healthy girl. She can well endure a whipping. I will observe her progress from close by."
Well, that was that! I could pick up the vibrations from both the man who held my arm and the woman who had plied her stethoscope upon my breasts. There was something electric, an intense bombardment of vibrations filling the air as I was led below the hanging ropes From his pocket, Quinlan produced leather wristlets and buckled them tight around my wrists. The ropes above had hooks and it was a simple matter to attach me and press the button on the wall by which I was raised. When I was taut but not suspended, the motor stopped. I was ready to be whipped.
But this was, in its way, a charade. The other two were acting a part but I was not. I stood nakedly on tiptoe, my breasts heaving above the pounding of my heart, while once again the stethoscope probed. This time there was something very personal about its contact with my flesh and I found myself eye to eye with the woman who would watch while I was whipped. Perhaps she was actually a doctor or a nurse but it did not matter. Quinlan's lust, coupled with my own, condemned me. The white starched uniform and the equipment on the tray was just trappings by which the whipping of my flesh would be made doubly erotic for them and perhaps for me. The doctor's voice was vibrant as it intoned, "You may commence the whipping of this young lady any time you choose, Mr. Robins. Do not allow her to deceive you, she is in excellent condition to receive her pain."
I suppose this must have actually happened to other girls at other times in other places. But even though it was an enactment it would be, for me, nonetheless real. I was about to be whipped, presumably in the same manner that convict girls had once been whipped in ages past. I looked from the woman who condemned me to the man who was now holding the whip he would wrap around my body. It was immensely authentic and I had no will to dispute its authenticity with Quinlan. I took one last look at the intent female eyes reading my every thought and emotion before I closed my own.
It was not a repetition of the cropping of my bottom. This was a quite new and different agony which led me to different sounds and emotions. This time I did not bother with conversational gambits, nor with pleadings. All I was concerned with now was to endure and emerge out the other side intact. Once more I did not know the number of strokes I was to endure, it might be ten or twenty or a hundred. But I must bear them in some way to gain the respect of the watching woman in white. For some reason this was important to me, I could not tell why only that it was so.
It was very different from being bound across the desk. Even under the first blows I contorted in ways I could not have done before. I had my legs and used them to express my pain in all their elegance of motion and kicking. In sudden, unexpected agonies I raised myself from the floor by my leather wristlets and held myself thus suspended from the floor, kicking and flaying with my feet in mute protest. Through all my travail my greatest fear was for the woman. If she remained a presence after the final stroke had seared my skin she might interfere with the lovemaking. Judging by the heat searing within my loins, I knew our lovemaking would be fierce and barbaric. There should be no other woman present but ME, ME, ME!
2
The Whip
I disgraced myself completely. I managed the first few strokes well enough, doing no more than moan and jerk and tug against strapped wrists. I saw the so-close female eyes gloating over my agony and I longed to kick and scream, so much in pain as in anger. I hated that woman and her stethoscope. After the first few blows had cut my shoulders and my back I actually did scream and did kick, but not at her. I was too damned scared. I was certain that if I planted a kick upon that part of her person that hurt the most, my penalty would be twice as bad as now! Now I was a punished innocent, but I would not be then. From a great distance I heard her voice, "You are a very beautiful child. I will make certain you are well and properly whipped."
I was most truly "well and properly whipped." I lost count but I got twenty or thirty strokes. I am now certain Quinlan was not whipping me as hard or as heavily as he could. But I did not know that then. Each stroke seemed an unbearable agony and I was certain I could not bear the next.. . And the one after that.. . ! Long after, when I had been whipped to the satisfaction of all concerned, except myself, it was my punished wrists that told me how I had tortured them beneath the torture of the lash. They bore a scarlet circlet for days afterwards and I was obliged to resort to all sorts of expediencies at the office to prevent comments and conclusions I did not want. In meantime Quinlan used the whip upon my skin with an immense precision and skill. When
I had received ten blows I was assured by those who watched that I bore ten perfectly spaced bars of scarlet from below my neck to above my already whipped bottom. I took their word for it but the whipping went on and on until I knew the whip marks were no longer evenly space but now made a lattice of etching on my skin. It was a very competent affair.
There were pauses for the nurse to ply her trade. I was sweating and panting and could have cared less and the rubber dingus probed and prodded at my breasts and nipples. Later I was to be ashamed at the pain sweat with which I was heavily dewed. I was slippery with sweat and smelt outrageously of all the carnal goat smells of which a girl in heat was capable. Those who punished me picked them up and smelled them appreciatively and returned their own. The room was alive with the pungency of pain.
"The prisoner is fully capable of continuing her punishment," the nurse intoned the solemn words. I could have cheerfully killed her.
For the last three I was instructed to separate my legs and push my feet far apart. Unthinkingly and unknowingly I obeyed and was rewarded by three terrible upper cuts which slashed into my crotch and expended their venomous tips upon my belly. I screamed. I like to think the prime ingredient of my screams was outrage and not of pain. It could be true.
When they were done with me and I was assured my punishment was past I was kissed by both the woman and the man, each was ardent. They left me hanging as I was, assuring me they would drink a brandy in a toast to my fortitude. I bit back the obvious retorts and bowed my head in submission and pain and weariness. I was assured I looked extremely pretty like that then left alone.
It is terrible to stand naked and be robbed of hands. I longed to search my wounds or to lay down and go to sleep. I wanted anything but what I was forced to do. Dejected I thought of their friendly conversation somewhere in another room and the potent brandy they would sip in my honor. But here I stood alone and longed to weep. For some reason the tears failed me. I could not cry. I looked down at my breasts and was thankful they remained unmarked. The tip of Quinlan's whip had bit hard into my armpits and hurt most brutally, but had left my cones untouched, and I was thankful.
When I was finally freed and taken to our bed for Quin to impale, the unnamed woman stood beside us and drank deeply at the visual fount as I paid tribute to Quinlan's loins and mine. After my first bitter glare of hatred I only hoped she was jealous of Quinlan's joy and mine.
After our first paroxysms had wrecked us into gasps and moans and I returned once more into a world in which I was going to be regularly whipped, the woman in the nurse's uniform was gone.
Later I was to learn her name was Helen Mathis.
My life resumed. But freedom had, by some intangible method, been taken from me. I was now wholly subservient to Quinlan's will, there was no demand he could make of me I would not fulfill. I did this joyfully in the discovery of a new emotion hitherto unsuspected and unknown, the quality of total submission to another's will. I had never been like that and, outside of Quinlan's home, was un-like it still. But once within his door my office image fell apart and I became as much a slavegirl to this man as I might once have been to Haroum El Raschid long ago. Most certainly I was not bored.
We now talked, at times of Quin's own choosing, of what I had become and of the things he proposed to do to me. I listened enthralled and in disbelief as he told me of suspension, of being locked inside dark closets while tightly bound, of sleeping on the floor besides his bed, chained by a collar on my neck to a ringbolt in the floor. It was all tremendously exciting and, since none of it seemed beyond my capacity to bear, something I awaited in anticipation which kept me constantly sexually aroused. True, my sexuality was appeased each night, but regenerated itself through the turgid imaginings of my mind throughout the following day. I had to be constantly alert at the office to insure the concealment of any telltale marks on any part of me visible during business hours. Quinlan loved to mark my wrists or neck so I must needs resort to expedience by which to hid the scarlet marks made by collar or wristlet or rope. It was in this first acquaintance with punishments beyond the whip that I was introduced to the novelty of handcuffs on my wrists and leg irons on my ankles. Quinlan brought the box home one day and we examined together its shinning nickel and chrome contents. Within a few minutes my wrists were joined in steel and my ankles hobbled by a chain. We did a lot of giggling, these things were fun and did no more than cement the new relationship into which Quinlan had guided me.
The new relationship was ritualistic by nature and imposed upon me a great deal of determination to be the girl of his desires. For instance, upon coming home earlier that he, I was compelled by his command to strip naked, put away my clothes, and enter into a corner of the wall within the hallway and there to stand facing the blank walls and with my hands neatly clasped behind my back. We discussed whether I should be required to handcuff myself for this subservience but decided against it on the basis of its falsity. Quinlan wanted nothing false, whatever we did it was to be real. I hate to think of the hours I spend submissively naked and facing into the limited view of my chosen comer while awaiting the arrival of my master. There was no longer any question of Quinlan being my master, that was what he was.
He purchased a safari cage. It was just big enough to hold me, not in comfort, but so I could dispose my nakedness either sitting or on all fours. It had not been constructed for girls but served the purpose most nicely. It was intended for the use of hunters to bring home the puma, the cheetah, or the baby lion. While held safely captive within its heavy mesh I often wondered how many other girls there were like me for whom the tiny metal prison satisfied a master's heart's desire. I never knew the answer but most certainly I followed my own master's instructions. Whereas once I had stood within the corner and faced the wall, it was now my duty to strip and insert myself within the cage and then click shut the heavy padlock by which my incarceration was insured. When my master came home I would be there awaiting his pleasure. It was all very satisfying and I can't claim the satisfaction was all for him, I was becoming accustomed to a constant flare of sensuality resulting from the things I had to do.
There was also Quinlan's unkind conceit about our meals. He had a special chair constructed for me in which I could be held a dozen different way by ropes or straps or chains. But the main pleasure he found in it was at dinner time, a meal previously informally enjoyed but which now compelled me to a most unnatural posture which it took me a week to get used to. The chair had a high back and from this rigid vertical hung a collar and a very tiny length of heavy chain. When this cute notion was locked upon by neck I was forced to sit upright and bring the food from plate to mouth by a steady hand. By this time it was understood I would be always naked when in the house, and therefore any spillage of food in transit was-likely to embellish my breasts or thighs or other unmentionable portions of my person. I was inspected after each meal and appropriately punished for such lack of control. I think the Victorians would have enjoyed this had it existed in that time.
By then I was besotted, as must be obvious, by this man and his carnal amusements. We had become a part of each other and I no mooned dreamily about marriage. The whip and all the other erotic devices diverted me utterly. I'm sure there were those at the office who wondered what had happened to Candy Cosgrove, but I did not care. All I wanted was Quinlan, and most certainly I was getting every bit there was of him. If the pseudo-nurse, Helen, occasionally dropped by for a cocktail, which I was compelled to serve nakedly upon my knees, so what! It was just one more piece of the pattern and as valid as anything else. There existed between Helen and me a hostile truce, I was constantly awaiting a male demand for me to serve her, it would have been quite in keeping with the role I now must play. But the command did not come, my lips and tongue remained untouched by her sex. I served her politely in normal ways and never once did she request that I be whipped.
At any time throughout this period I could have walked out on Quinlan and his games, but the thought never entered my mind. I was content and still convinced I had not yet sampled the full extent of his sexual inventiveness. I suppose I was happy, that's the way I remember it.
I often wondered if there were other girls who shared my role, I felt sure there must be. But who was to know any more than someone would know about Quinlan and myself. My office might know I was up to something but they had no clue. Throughout this time I felt certain I could not possibly be the only girl endowed with extra facilities of joy. That's the way I saw it, an extra facility for extracting from the act of love and from a man far more than the ordinary girl or wife ever glimpsed. I had to wonder if it had lain latent within me since birth and if it had taken only Quinlan's key to unlock this door to sensuality. I was willing to bet that the latent factor was deep within the feminine psyche, touching at least half of us, and requiring only the hot rapport with the proper male. I was lucky to have found Quinlan and Quinlan's fantasies. In this I knew myself more fortunate than he for a man can place his hand upon many girls whereas for the female such approaches are conventionally forbidden.
In our home I was now always naked. Immediately upon return from the office I cast aside my garments and did what needs be done awaiting the return the male who was, I suppose, my Master. Thought we never cemented our relationship in that way. Quinlan owned me by virtue of an unnamed something. I called him "Quin" and he called me "Candy" and these endearing abbreviations of our names in no way affected his domination.
I often faced up to the question as to whether I was truly as submissive as Quinlan made me. By this time I would obey any command he made of me and only a part of this obedience was due to my awareness of the whip. It was understood between us that disobedience would meet with the lash. But I obeyed Quintan because I wanted to, because it seemed the most natural thing to do. Out in the world I was no more submissive or dominant than any girl my age. Most of those I associated with knew nothing about either. But I did not bother my head much about these things, they were interesting to muse over in idle moments but that was all. I accepted Quinlan as a gift life had made to me and I was grateful. I often made invidious comparisons between my own condition and those of the young married woman of my acquaintance, laughing quietly to myself at the shocked expressions on their faces if only they knew!
There was in all of this the additional amusement of my restraints.' Since everything I did was voluntary, it seemed pointless to add the final touch of chain or cord. There had been only a single incident by which a cord and me had been valid companions. I suppose you could call it a lover's spat, and I had been prepared to flounce out of the apartment in feminine indignation when Quinlan simply picked me up, stripped me naked, and bound by hands behind my back with one of my own nylons. I had never previously known of that virtue of a woman's leg coverings, but they bit deep and held my hands as firmly as the most wicked cord. Quinlan used the second one to bind my ankles.
There I lay on the bed, fuming, and quite certain in my mind that as soon as he left me alone I would have no difficulty in freeing myself and carrying out my original intent. But I was wrong! Those two nylons held me as securely as a dozen chains or a barred cell. They laughed at all my efforts towards freedom and, when Quinlan caught me rolling across the floor towards the dresser in hopes of finding scissors, he quietly returned me to the bed, bend my feet up behind by back and attached them to my bound hands in a perfect hogtie. I was now so damned helpless that, after he had gone, I fell to weeping and was sorry for myself until the heat within my loins vanished all other sensations. I was still new to this strange life and the idea of sexual heat being generated because I was uncomfortably bound naked by a man, was a whole fresh concept of something I was learning piece by piece. Quinlan kept me tied the whole weekend. He sometimes came to jeer or attend my needs. He also read me stern lectures about the matter of behavior. But he was magnanimous in the matter of punishment, saying I would not be whipped this time, that my punishment would be the time I spent bound upon the bed, describing my condition by an amusing word-play all his own, "Nyloned Naughtiness." It taught me a lesson.
The handcuffs and leg irons, which were the first restraints Quinlan purchased for me, served much the same purpose as a wedding ring for married couples. I wore them as bracelets and anklets and gloried in their musical accompaniment to anything I did. But there principle potency lay in the knowledge of Quinlan holding the key. Only Quinlan could set me free, I would wear the shinning, pretty chrome as long as it pleased him. My own sentiments about them did not matter. The trouble was, I adored them, too. There was something about them which enhanced my femininity in a manner similar to erotic lingerie or the use of cosmetics. Quinlan assured me blandly they were made for girls and not for convicts at all. He coined a small pleasantry he often repeated to the effect that the world would be a better place if every girl wore irons. I found the word "irons" devastating. When Quinlan learned of this he used it often to my annoyance and his delight. That I was actually "ironed" was an enchanting imposition I could scarcely bear without pleading to be taken to my master's bed. It became an understood prohibition between us that when I asked for something I was never granted it. It was all exciting and erotic and utterly delightful, keeping me in a state of constant arousal and dark longings for the phallus he withheld. I was ashamedly irritated by the knowledge that Quinlan's potency was capable of far more penetrations of my sheath that he vouchsafed me. It was all beyond belief but deeply satisfying. I got so I could do almost everything while ironed. The chain swirling between my ankles and the single link between by wrists impeded little. It was not long before I realized the immense sexual gratification Quinlan was getting while watching my performance while chained thus. I was compelled to use both my hands for any task, even if only one was needed. I could not walk fast and absolutely could not run. But I could manage a graceful motion that soon became my natural gate after going through a period of tripping and falling and tangling my toes. In this, I suppose we were much like a pair of children with a new and exciting toy.
Quinlan had friends. I suspect he jettisoned most of them during my staying at his apartment. But a few filtered through, a couple of curious males who had obviously seen all this before but nonetheless enjoyed Me immensely, paying verbal and often vulgar tribute to my charms. I was required to serve them cocktails on my knees and then to lean to one side, my legs wide apart, to present my most genital view and wait fresh commands, speaking only when spoken to. On these occasions I was always completely ironed. Helen was the only female and appeared much privileged. I jealously suspected a long previous acquaintance in which things had happened to render what she now beheld in me something undeserving of comment. Her attitude was that, if Quinlan kept a slavegirl, so what! She discussed me with him at great length and often asked me a question or two which Quinlan allowed me to answer. I longed to have her alone for a while to ask questions of my own, but this was never permitted. Quinlan was always present and kept an eye on both of us as though we were equal in his possession. But I was never easy with her around, she gave me the impression of a brooding something from way outside getting ready to pounce. She never removed her clothes or, to my knowledge, indulged in anything carnal with Quinlan. From their casual talk I gathered once more the impression of being within a center core of immense wealth. They spoke of possessions and business deals that left me breathless with envy. It occurred to me I was not costing Quinlan a single penny, I was still self-supporting from my job, and apart from the gown and lingerie and chains he purchased on my behalf, he contributed nothing to my material existence. They discussed this fact, too, as if I were not there, and made it clear they were convinced it best to keep a slavegirl as close to penury as possible.
It was during one of these visits Helen slipped me pure shock. In the most mundane of conversations, and in a pleasantly polite monotone, she asked, "Quinlan, I'd like to whip Candy, May I?"
I should have been expecting it but I was not. I tensed with fright, a fear not without excitation. Here was eroticism indeed! A casual caller requesting permission to whip the mistress of her host. Wow! I knelt there, frozen and with my eyes riveted upon the man who could yield my flesh or withhold it as he choice. Quinlan showed no surprise but, offhandedly, suggested, "The poor girl hasn't done anything to deserve a whipping, my dear. Can't just whip her without a cause, you know."
"Don't be a hypocrite, of course you can. You've whipped her plenty and I'm sure she's never done a damned thing to deserve it."
"That's me, not you, Helen."
"So, OK, you're her master, she's your slave. I'm politely asking a privilege, you don't have to grant it."
I felt like a maiden martyr in a Roman theatre waiting for Caesar to turn his thumb up or turn it down. My most fervent thought was the wish to be whipped only my Quinlan and not be this intrusive female with her privileges of long acquaintance. Somehow I could not image Helen whipping my bare skin, only Quinlan did that.
"What's your thought on the subject, Candice?"
I knew myself under some sort of test. Perhaps the two of them had hatched this up in private. What a hell of a question to toss at me out of a clear sky! Quinlan was no doubt enjoying his role of voyeur, but Helen was for real. Her eyes upon me told all too clearly of her wish to see me writhe and hear me cry out in pain. We made an interesting trio. All I could think to say was, "If it is something you wish, Quinlan."
"I asked you, Candice. Would you like Helen to whip you."
"I'm sorry, but no, I wouldn't."
"Why, darling?"
"Because she's a woman. I've only been whipped by you, Quin, and I don't want to be whipped by any one else."
"But supposing I order you to make yourself available to the dear girl?"
"In that case, I'll obey."
"You see?" Quinlan sounded as though he had performed a miracle. "See, isn't she wonderful?"
"She's in love with you, that's all." Helen's dismissal of my being wonderful was curt. She turned to me, "Is it you who's saying she'll obey or is it those irons you're wearing?"
I lifted my chained hands as though only then aware of them. Raising them to the level of my face I drew the linkage taut so I could gaze above it through the frame of my joined hands directly at the woman who wished to give me pain. "It is not these," I said with sweet simplicity. "Quinlan wishes me to give myself to you, so I obey."
"But you don't really want me to whip you?"
I lowered my hands to give Helen my full attention. "What I want or don't want has nothing to do with it, Helen. It's what Quinlan wants. If it pleases him to watch you whip me, then you have my motive."
She nodded but was not yet satisfied. "I'd like you to ask me to whip you. Make it sincere."
There might be more to this than I first supposed. I turned a quick glance to where Quin watched us intently. I turned back to Helen's demanding beauty and said, as firmly as I could, "Helen, I want you to whip me." I paused long enough for my words to sink in then added, "Please whip me."
My unearned punishment went forward smoothly. I held out my linked hands to Quinlan and he used the tiny key. I then stood below the rope which Helen, evidently well acquainted with their use, was lowering to the proper level. She strapped the leather bands around my wrists, attached them, then used the switch to raise me taut. I was not really stretched, just made available. Helen looked over my doubly revealed nakedness, touching it here and there, then walking in a circle to make sure she missed no portion of my person in her inspection. She roughly pulled one of my legs to one side to enable her to look within my crotch and to palm the pussy I usually managed to keep discretely out of view. I sensed her growing excitation. All I felt was a creeping numbness and wished I could become unconscious for the period of this female-inspired punishment. Helen even knew where the whips were hidden and made her selection with great care. I didn't expect her to flog me in front of Quinlan but I expected to be hurt so her choice was not overly important. Much would depend upon the vigor with which she applied the beastly thing. When she returned I cringed at the sight of what she now carried, and was aware of her pleasure in beholding this tiny response of my reflexes. Her voice was no longer casual, "May I gag her, Quinlan?"
Quin avoided my eyes. He was well aware of my loathing of things bound within my mouth. His, "If you want to Helen," was studiously unconcerned.
I should have guessed. Helen reached beneath her dress and dragged down the skimpy covering of her sex. I suppose it was clean enough and not cause for complaint, but what girl wants another girl's panties in her mouth especially when freshly taken from her crotch and redolent of her juices. But, unhappily, I opened my mouth and accepted the tiny garment without complaint. Helen found a scarf and bound it tight between my teeth and over my lips. It was a most effective gag. Sarcastically she said, "Makes a bound between us, doesn't it dear? I know you'll enjoy my flavor."
She tugged the scarf once more and knotted it viciously. I was now in the posture of her choice and utterly mute. Never in all Quinlan had done to me had I felt this bare or so vividly exposed. I was turning to Quinlan when Helen grasped my chin and turned my regard upon herself. She smiled deep into my eyes and her smile was the smile of love. I was more lost than I had ever been. I longed to speak but the panties in my mouth and the scarf between my lips denied this comfort. I stood, expectant and most terribly ready.
Quinlan watched with intent interest. Quite probably he had seen Helen whip other girls and would make comparisons. I wish I understood the relationship between but had no time for such academic considerations. Helen's fingertips were playing softly up and down my back and across the curves of my bottom to make he gasp and quiver within my bounds. She chose the center of my naked back for her first stroke of the thong. I screamed but made no sound.
I don't know why we speak of someone being whipped as receiving "strokes." You strokes a cat or a dog or someone's hair, the act has no relation to the whipping of a girl's bare skin. A woman being whipped thinks the strangest thoughts, often totally illogical. Why should I think in terms of strokes when obviously cuts, or lashes, or blows would be more appropriate. But, regardless of how I thought of it, Helen's whip continued to impact its venom from my shoulders to my bottom's lowest curve. She was hurting me terribly and enjoying every sound her leather made upon my flesh, enjoying, too, the sounds I could not make but the contortions I most certainly did. The leg irons had not been taken from my ankles, and my involuntary kicks and lunges with chained feet were music to her ears. I knew these things by instinct. I am a woman.
"How many shall I give your darling, Quinlan?"
Quinlan's "darling" gazed imploringly but he would not meet my eyes. His tone was faintly amused, "Whatever you think, Helen dear girl. But don't kill the girl, I value her."
I had never felt more friendless or more in need of a friend.
Perhaps it was as well I could not speak. I was a victim between two diverse personalities, a wrong word could offend either and I was in no position to offend anyone. My one concern was to get this beastly whipping over and done with and to see Helen go home. Nothing would be normal until Quinlan and I were once more alone. Helen had resumed her slow and methodical whipping of my person and I was giving her all the motions of agonized nakedness she could possibly desire. The rattle and clink of my leg irons was incessant as was the creaking protests of the leather on my wrists. Whenever I lifted myself from the floor by my tethered hands it was never by my own free will, but rather by the spur of pain. I did it often and was well aware of the indrawn breathes of admiration by twisting helplessness displayed. Whenever she could manage it, Helen contrived to strike me an especially hard blow at that precise moment when my arms had lifted me as high as I could go. The sharp, swift lash across my bottom at such a time painted a fearful eroticism for us all. I include myself, I was as much involved as they.
Helen called a halt for cocktails. She mixed one for me and held it to my lips while I drank. It was all extremely civilized. The conversation covered all subject except that of a naked girl suspended for the whip. Helen's panties had been removed from my mouth to enable me to drink and I was given the freedom of my lips so I might participate in the matters under discussion. I will never know the degree to which this was contrived or was simply a sincere acceptance of a situation often played. But I found myself making polite responses while I stood there, glistening with sweat, my breasts heaving with the pain slowly receding from the last blow. I supposed, in my way, I was a part of a quintessence of civilized behavior. When Helen once more stuffed the now-wet panties behind by teeth above my tongue, I had to suppose we were at the half way mark but could no longer ask. The scarf once more bound my lips and insured I should not scream. I had lost count of the impacts on my skin.
As whippings go, I suppose what Helen dished out to me was no big deal. It hurt terribly while she plied the whip but my skin was not cut and even I knew she had not struck the blows as hard as she might have done. She had simply enjoyed a pleasant diversion which had given me a good deal of pain and perhaps revealed to her some facet of my character she sought. Quinlan and she kissed a goodbye and she went upon her way while I remained in semi-suspension and still sweating and panting from a punishment quite undeserved. When he had seen her to the door, Quinlan came back and cheerfully inquired, "Could have been worse, yes?"
Helen had not left without her panties, I could therefore speak. I did so with bitterness. "She enjoyed giving me pain. I wish you hadn't let her do it, Quin. I had to go along. I don't see what else I could have done."
Quinlan came and gently touched my nose and kissed my lips. The admonishment that followed was typical, "Since you wish to be temperamental, darling, you can stand where you are another hour. I had intended to let you down."
It was the only real spat we ever had and I knew it was due one hundred percent to Helen. Female intuition told me she had done it only to insert a wedge between Quinlan and myself, she was jealous of what we had and what we did. But it seemed best to keep quiet about these feelings, I was already in some sort of disgrace and faced an uncomfortably hour with my hands held up above my head while I longed for nothing more than to soothe my whip marks and be kissed. "Well, if that's the way you feel about it," I said savagely. "Why don't you make it two hours instead of one? After all I'm only a slavegirl."
"Not a bad idea," said Quinlan. "Let's make it three."
3
Female
By the time my penitence had run its painful course I was a tearful, contrite young woman, anxious only to please and placate. Three hours with your hands and arms held high above your head can be a long, long time. But, hidden within the humility Quinlan discovered when he came to set me free, was a seething resentment against Helen, my punishments had been all her fault. I dared not voice my feelings for fear of being obliged to stand for three more hours of correction. But I longed for a revenge I knew I would never get.
Helen's adventure in thrashing me appeared to have no significance, there was no aftermath and no one mentioned her taking me back to where she lived to punish me in the isolation of her own desires. I soon recovered from my snit and returned to my role as Quinlan's heart's desire. I couldn't claim it a one-way street, I was getting Quinlan!
The fact that my activities beyond the office were heavily laced with sex changed nothing of my life in the streets and corridors and cafes. Sometimes Quinlan would meet me for lunch at Sharp's and we would vividly relive our first meeting. It was during this time I discovered my love affair with rope.
I had mentioned what I always think of as "the nylon affair," that first time when I was bound and hogtied on the bed. Goodness knows I was helplessness enough and the punishment had all the earmarks of validity, but my female soul was revolted by the manner of my binding. I was a girl and did not wish to be bound with the nylon from a girl's leg. Nylon belonged in the bedroom and when I was to be tied I wanted something else, I wanted rope or cord. That is so long as I had to be bound and not ironed.
Quinlan sensed my emotional involvement and pandered to it with his usual skill. He would cross my wrist and bind them tight in front with a nylon cord I could not bite, then order me to make his supper or mix his drinks. Sometimes I remained thus bound throughout the night, since it hindered little the making of our love. There were also those times when he pretended I must be punished for an unnamed sin and would bind me spread-eagle on the bed, a naked, helplessness which often extended into the night, during which he would use me as he pleased and, in the end, fall asleep with his head upon my breast. It was all deeply satisfying.
I used to watch while I was bound, and I'd thrill to each tight stricture of the cord. Quinlan was tolerant enough to allow me a full view of each of the bindings he imposed. Thus I could see the looping of the strands, the tugging tight to indent them in my skin, and sometimes the final knotting from which I never managed to extricate myself. Since we both became more and more involved in this business of binding the naked girl who was Me, Quinlan devised strange frustrations much in the manner of a girl fastened by one handcuff to a wall, the bond was simple but absolute. I was to discover how implacable handcuffs are, a girl can never get out of them, not if they are clicked sufficiently snugly on her wrists! My master or my lover or whatever other name you might call Quinlan by, had implanted in the walls of his domicile a number of metal rings. They were unintrusive enough to the disinterested eye but they enabled him to attach me almost any where he chose and there I would stand, sit, or bend over according to the placement of my hand or ankle or neck. He laughed at a vulgar joke that said the June bride knew she was going to get something but didn't know how long it was going to be. That was the way with me. Sometimes I stood or bend or sprawled an hour, sometime two, sometimes all night. It was all tremendously exciting.
Quinlan broke me in gently. The beginning of his "quaint notions" was for me to serve the cocktails and then stand against the wall. He allowed me to hold my drink in my left hand but then bound my right wrist tight, tight, tight while I stood watching and breathless. My punished member was then raised to a ring not too far above my head and there securely bound. I never knew what the rope was, but I had no knife and my fingers were powerless against the knots. Perhaps if I had been left alone and my bound hand been at a level I could reach, I might have been able to free myself, but I had little belief in that. During my whole life with Quinlan I have never succeeded in freeing myself from any bond he placed on me. It was not for want of trying, goodness knows I tried enough. Often when he left me alone long enough for panic or desire to invade my person, I have striven desperately to defeat the frustrating bindings but I never manage it. I speak here of those case of a single wrist or a single ankle or my neck to be held immobilized in a single spot by one of those metal rings, pure aggravation to a girl. She feels positive she should be able to get loose and equally positive that if she were a man she would be able to do it easily. But it never works. I was always still there when Quinlan came smiling back to release me and usually to take me to bed and put to good use the flaming lust engendered by my captivity.
The irons, when they came, intrigued me in much the same fashion but with a quite different effect. I could fight the rope and know, in the event of a miracle, I could get free. But with the handcuffs or the leg irons, they nestled around my limbs with an implacable clutch I could never break. But yet their generation of lust within my loins no less potent, it had for its source the initial clicking around my wrist or ankle, a process I could watch breathlessly and in wonder that a bond so easily placed on could be so impossible to remove. From being made captive in the shining metal I graduated to the exasperation of having to stand where ever Quinlan chose to place me and await his return. During this time I was constantly conscious of my nickled-plated enemy, I tugged and pulled and even spit upon my wrists in an effort to lubricate their withdrawal from the cuffs. Nothing worked. When Quinlan came back I was always there awaiting his pleasure. I have often speculated on how disappointed I might have been had I gotten loose!
Quinlan had rings everywhere. I sampled all of them at one time or another. The one I hated most was where I was obliged to kneel against a wall and be attached to its ring by a collar on my neck. There was only one single link, it prevented me from hurting myself but it kept me kneeling upright and prevented me from sitting or standing or doing anything other than stare at the blank wall. I was completely controlled. If I complained I was blandly told I could always obtain release by pleading for the soles of my feet to be beaten with a rod for twenty strokes apiece. Quinlan showed me the instrument, and when I thought of it impacting across my bound and helpless soles I always cringed in horror and put up with whatever discomfort I was suffering. If, in all of this, you see me as no more than a feminine masochist, you are wrong. I endured it because I adored Quinlan, and because anything he did to me was so much a part of him I adored that, too. Maybe if he had burned me at the stake I would have gone up a flames and smoke still in adoration. It is a emotion I still cannot explain.
Between cords and cuffs I was gloriously and erotically content. The generation of my secretions kept pace with any demand Quinlan made. So great was their response I was often impatient to be punished or impaled. I suppose I was the vision of very man, a female totally insatiable and forever to be desired. If I wanted to make a pun I could say I was so happy it hurt.
The apartment was large. Quinlan had used one of the rooms as an office, it was fully equipped and very business-like. He had a habit of catching up on his business affairs on Saturday and fell into the practice of restraining me, totally naked, somewhere around the walls where he could gaze up from his paperwork and enjoy Me and any mood of frustration I might betray.
On the day I took another stepping stone into the future, he had indulged another whimsy by tying my right wrist well above my head to the inevitable ring. I don't know what the cord was but it was soft and bit at me gleefully. Quinlan stood on a chair to complete the knotting process by which I would be forced to stand like a small girl in class raising her arm for the teacher's attention. It was not the first time he had attached me thus. Frustrated as I may be, I was also conscious of concupiscence generated by his frequent pauses to admire my person. I had become accustomed to nakedness but somehow this exposure got to me. I always felt an idiot, standing there with one free hand trying to cover everything I had and finally abandoning the effort to hang limply passive at my side. If I endured a little discomfort from my bound wrist, it was quite possible for me to turn and face the wall, giving my tormentor my naked back and bottom for a change. But I never held this posture for long, the view was boring and Quinlan made vulgar remarks about what I now displayed. There was also the possibility that, if I thrust my bottom at him long enough, he would probably use the crop on it.
On the day I'm thinking of I had stood thus bound for a hour or so watching my magnificent male busy with his papers when the front doorbell rang insistently. I listened avidly from my standing position to murmur of voices, and cringed unhappily at what I heard, there should have been only two but there was three! When our visitors entered the office I beheld, to my dismay, not only Helen, but also a bright-eyed girl of fourteen or fifteen who regarded me and and nakedness with bright interest.
"This is my daughter, her name's Audry," Helen informed me. "Don't bother to cover your pubic hair with that one hand and don't cross your legs, dear, that makes you look silly." She turned to Quinlan, "You sure do think up the damndest things for her, don't you Quin? Audry's going to love her to bits."
Throughout the following silence I fought a battle. The youngster's eyes were eating every inch of me and I had to exert all my will to avoid the silly gestures of covering a breast or reaching for my crotch. I debated turning around to face the wall as an expression of my disapproval of this invasion but I felt sure this would be considered rude and I would be punished accordingly. I suspected I was treading a very thin line between good behavior and the riding crop. I wanted neither, and cursed Quinlan's contrivance of this situation. I felt pretty certain it happen only by his consent.
"She's real, Audry, you can go and touch her." Helen's voice oozed maternal affection. "She'll say whatever you want her to say, but don't pinch her nipples. Not now anyway."
I died a hundred deaths as the sparkling eyed teenager continued her inventory of the sexual attributes of a mature girl. "You're the loveliest woman I've ever seen naked," Audry assured me politely. "I hope you won't mind if I do what Mommy says."
I minded a lot but Audry did what Mommy said anyway. I looked at Quinlan and picked up the message I had best behave. I knew both he and Helen were getting a big kick out of my embarrassment. Bitterly I said, "Help yourself, Audry, if you want me to turn around, just say so."
Audry's examination of my naked body was almost clinical in its totality, she missed nothing. Inevitably the probing fingers and clasping hands ended up with one of them between my legs and taking a firm grip on my sex. I could easily have kicked her but prudence prevailed. I stood and winched with each tight little grip of curious fingers. When she was done she, giggling, wiped her palm upon my bare hip while she looked at Quinlan to exclaim, "You're so lucky, Mr. Robins, she's beautiful, I wish I owned her."
"You do own her, darling," said Helen with a sweet, motherly smile. "We'll take her home with us."
I wanted to die for sure. This was too damned much! I looked at Quinlan but all I got was his most secretive smile. This was one more situation contrived for his amusement. He said, very simply, "Don't worry, Candice. Stop looking so shocked, you and Audry will be good for each other."
"No!" My negative was a tiny explosion shattering a truce. "Quin, don't do this! I belong to you not anybody else."
"You belong to anyone to whom I either sell you or make a gift of you." His eyes were suddenly cold and left me friendless and afraid. This might well be only one more of his cute notions but I was not going to like it or make any pretense of pleasure. If I was kept in any kind of restraints, the things this child could do to me left me breathless in dismay. Audry's voice, heavy with reproach, returned me to reality. "Don't you want to belong to me, Candice. Mommy's told me you'd be ever so pleased. And she told me I shouldn't whip you too long or too hard or too often. You ought to feel grateful."
"Can you think of anything you can do about it?" Helen asked evenly. "That is your wrist corded to the ring, isn't it, Candice dear? You don't have much bargaining power."
I was close to panic, but common sense told me this might be annoying and humiliating but nothing more. We were a civilized quartet engaged in a bizarre play to please a man. I felt as though arrested and given a choice of behaving like an ass or going along quietly. The bindings bit at my wrist in mute warning. In the same rationale I played my trump card, "Quinlan, you can't possibly dispose of me, I have to go to work on Monday. I've got a job, responsibilities."
"On Monday they'll be canceled, sweetheart. I've been thinking of separating you from that damned fool job for some time. Helen and I will take care of the necessary details. We can tell them you've been called away to some distant place."
They could do it! My mind, quickly flashing over possibilities, told me how easily it could be done. By the end of Monday afternoon, Miss Candice Cosgrove could officially cease to exist. Feverishly I turned to the man I loved, "Quin, please don't, please don't.. . . ! "
Quin did not answer. The silence was picked up by young Audry, "Mommy, don't you remember, you promised Candice would serve us drinks and be a slavegirl for us. I want to watch."
Humiliation claimed me completely when the shinning chrome of my enslavement was placed in Audry's busy little fingers. She was obviously very happy and I could think of nothing to do except stand and let her clasp the leg irons on my ankles. With my wrist up high I really didn't have much choice. The moppet then got Quinlan's chair and stood upon it in order to deal with my tightly knotted cords. Immediately my hand fell free it was snapped into a metal cuff and, then while I was still uncertain what to do, the other wrists was clicked into the adjoining cuff to leave me in the shinning restraints over which Quinlan and I had so often laughed and found joy. I felt no joy now but stood uncertainly and massaged what the handcuffs allowed me to touch of my weals.
"You know what to do, Candice. I want you to do it with your usual charming pleasance. You know the penalty for disobedience."
I knew! Boy did I know!! But I was not about to give the watching eyes the pleasure of seeing me whipped. The handcuffs and leg irons were now serving the purpose intended, they were confining me to the will of others. I spared Quinlan a glance of reproach before going about my duties. Hating the whole thing I contrived to smile and perform my acts of servitude with good grace. My smile for young Audry was genuine enough, I had little doubt she was without guilt in what was taking place. When I had finished with my tiny tray, I set it aside and knelt submissively in the pose Quinlan loved so dearly. I bowed my head not so much in submission as in shame and listened while I was discussed.
"I want her treated kindly," said Quinlan. "And I don't want her to know how long her sentence is to be. You'll find you can have a lot of fun with Candice without being intentionally cruel."
"You're saying that to salve your conscious, Quinlan," Helen said firmly. "You know damned well we'll do what we want with her. If you want to make it permanent, we'll buy her. Name your price and I'll write you a check. She'll keep Audry amused for several years."
"Sorry, Helen, no sale."
I listened intently for regret in my master's voice. I was uncertain why he was doing this.
"Just return her in one piece the way you got her," was his next comment.
I had expected to serve a second round but Helen and Audry were impatient. When I had gathered their glasses and set them aside, Quinlan called me over and held up the tiny key. A moment later I was free and watching him hand my lovely silver shackles into Audry's eager grasp. Quinlan looked at me and this time I could believe there was a message in his eyes. "Go and get yourself dressed, sweetheart, can't have you walking into slavery with nothing on."
I was half way to the bedroom when I realized what Quinlan's message really was: I was totally free! If I chose not to return to the lounge and our visitors, the choice was totally mine. I stood there, frozen in indecision, facing something I had no wish to face.
I am sure Quinlan was quietly chuckling to himself over my dilemma, he would understand it perfectly. Furiously I realized he ran no risk. If I voluntary returned to Helen, he still owned me. If, on the other hand, I chose to leave the apartment and return to mine, he would feel quite certain that by evening I would come knocking on his door. In this he was quite right, there was no way I was going to easily give him up or renounce the erotic delights of his apartment. I was half dressed with the full intention of turning my back on the waiting trio when I realized I would not easily escape Helen's grasp. Inevitably I would drift back within my semi-imprisonment with Quinlan and with equal certain he would again hand me over to the waiting woman who's status in his life I could not tell. I had no doubt that if I chose that path I would be considered delinquent and punished accordingly. I didn't want to be punished. I could not win! In dumb misery I finished dressing, fixed my hair, and returned to whatever fate awaited me.
"I want her handcuffed. Please, Mr. Robins, may I?" Audry was alight with joy.
"Why not! She's yours."
"Oh, Mommy, this is so exciting!" The young voice was vibrant with pride. Audry selected the handcuffs and approached me smiling.
"You will stick your hands out, won't you Candice?"
I looked at Quinlan but the face I loved was impassive. I turned to Helen and found her absolved and curious, concerned only with what her daughter and I might do or say. I stood for a moment indecisively and in an element of disbelief that this was happening. I held out my hands for the smiling nymphet. What the hell else was there to do!
I could sense Audry's ecstatic glee as she clasp her metal around my wrist and clicked it shut. It was not until my hands were locked together that I thought to ask, "But you can't lead me through the streets like this. How can you take me out in public handcuffed like a criminal?"
"Yes me can, sweetheart," Helen's voice was smooth and feline. "But we're not going to, we're taking you home in our car. Where did you get the idea we were walking?"
"Candice can wear these lovely things for her feet, too, Mommy? Please let me put them on?" The nymphet was in full cry.
I stood still for this extra attention, feeling foolish. For Quinlan and me these constraints to my freedom had been synonymous with nakedness but here I was fully clothed, a quite normal and business-like young woman and yet ironed like a criminal. I shrugged it off, it was one more incongruity.
I guessed they were hoping that I would stumble over my shackled feet, that I would be humbled and brought low at the very commencement of my captivity. But I had learned too well how to walk with hobbled feet and denied them that satisfaction. Quinlan came with them to the car which was in the underground parking so I was not exposed to public view. Quinlan clasped me warmly in his strong and ardent arms. He kissed me and I kissed him. And again until we broke apart and I was lifted into the back seat of Helen's expensive transportation. Young Audry choose to sit beside me while her mother drove. I waved a pathetic little wave with handcuffed hands as my man disappeared from view.
"Isn't this exciting!" Audry exclaimed breathlessly. "Mommy, may I pinch Candice's nipples now?"
"No, you may not." Helen's voice was severe. "Remember what I told you, if you go overboard on nipple pinching, I'll free Candice's hands and let her pinch yours. How does that grab you?"
"Ohhhhhh, that would be simply gorgeous Mommy. Would you really?"
I could imagine that few of their conversations would include me. I had become a toy, a Barbie doll, a plaything for a child. I sat there fuming, and wondering what the hell to do with my chain hands. I never wondered this before but I do so now. I was suddenly ashamed of them. I was ashamed of this whole damned business and the subservience leading me to be possessed by this bizarre couple. Audry possessed a warmth her mother lacked, she would probably love me as a girl loves her dolls but she would probably give me pain, of that I was certain.
I had expected magnificence and was not disappointed. It was a fine old house, undoubtedly worth a vast sum. The garage door opened silence and, as we entered the gloom within, I thought of Dante's inscription above the fatal door, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." But things never turn out as you expect. With Audry's eager young fingers clutching my arm to lead me to my prison cell or whatever else she had in store, Helen's voice was incisive, "Run along, Audry, I'm going to have a talk with Candice. Have Mandy send up coffee to my room, it won't hurt you to wait an hour longer for something you've wanted all your life. Run along."
I viewed Helen with a less jaundice eye, she was human. And whatever she wanted to say to me, I was anxious to listen. As the daughter flounced indignantly away I said to the mother, "Thank you. You're making me feel better about this whole thing. I don't mind telling you I feel an absolute ass."
I followed her upstairs and along the corridor's passages. Helen guided me but her hand was gentle on my arm. Everything was contradictory, unexpected. I'd always seem Helen as something of a bitch but now I was unsure. If she was willing to act as a buffer between me and the teenager to whom I now belonged I would be grateful. I thought of Quinlan and the tears brimmed over in my eyes.
It was a pleasant room along the lines of Quinlan's office. There was a desk and a filing cabinet and the like. But there was also a couch and chairs and a deep pile rug. The coffee arrived and was remarkably good. I don't know what there is about some people's coffee, but it can be so vastly superior to one's own that it makes you wonder. I sipped my appreciatively. There is something tremendously civilized about a cup of coffee.
Helen gestured me to the couch, selecting an arm chair for herself. We held out cups, mine between chained hands, and sipped much in the manner of battles lines drawn in preparation for the fray. The maid who served us was a pert little trick who's eyes gleamed appreciatively at the sight of my irons. She did not linger even through I suspect she would have liked to.
"I'm curious as to what you're expecting, Candice?"
Helen was forwarded, I could be no less. "I'm expecting to be whipped," I admitted morosely. "And I'm expecting to be compelled to a lot of acts I'll loath. Is Audry a lesbian?"
"What you're really asking is am I a lesbian? Isn't that right, darling?" Helen's voice was dry.
"Well, I suppose so. None of this is easy for me. you know. I've been having a love affair with a man and all of a sudden I'm thrust into this atmosphere which is nine hundred percent female. Forgive me if I'm less than happy."
"Sweetheart, you're wearing clothes and that's all wrong for you. Wearing those lovely metal bands you should be nude all the time." Helen's laughter tinkled. "I set you free so you can undress. Will you allow me to put the handcuffs and leg irons back on?" She paused to give me time to consider her suggestion before adding an enticing or aggravating, "Will you?"
There might be no end to these decisions I was asked to make. Admittedly they were testing me but also they were inherent in the situation. I considered the possibility of flight from within this fortress of a house and deemed it nil. "Yes, I'll let you iron me afterwards."
I'm sure I sounded surprised. "I don't understand why you think I'd feel more comfortable without clothes."
"But it's true, isn't it darling."
"Well.. . Yes, I suppose it is."
Striving for nonchalance, I finished my coffee, put down the cup, and asked without preamble, "Now?"
It was very much "now." The tiny key worked its magic and freed from handicaps, I stripped naked without the embarrassment I might once have felt. I was given little chance to change my mind but held out hands listlessly for the inviting cuffs and extended my feet for the bite of steel on ankles. Returned to normal I accepted another cup of coffee.
"I want to tell you about young Audry," Helen said soberly. "She's a darling child but she's got this Thing about you. She thinks you're made to be whipped and that she can slash away at you to her heart's content. Apart from that she's a darling child."
"You make her sound lovable," I said bitterly. "Are there also red-hot irons?"
"Don't be bitter, darling. Audry will do only what I sanction. She'll hurt you a lot. You'll hate a great many of the things she makes you do or does to you." Helen smiled and shrugged. "But that's the nature of slavery, isn't it?"
"I don't see myself as a slave. I see myself as a young woman who has been messed around and pushed around and disorganized until she can't see where she's at. I don't see why Quinlan couldn't have gone on as we were. This affair with you and Audry is utterly bizarre."
"Perhaps." Helen swept my vehemence aside with a negligent wave. "But I'm in this too, you know. I'm curious as hell to watch young Audry go to work on you. And I'm curious about the way you'll act. In between times I'm going to enjoy you myself. I've got a few notions.. . . ! "
I loved the coffee and drank it gratefully. I wondered about the pert maid and what the servants would think of a chained and naked woman in their midst. Bluntly I posed that question.
"Oh, they'll simply adore you, Candice. It's nothing new in this house except this is the first time I've given a girl to Audry, she's still quite young. Previously I've enjoyed them for myself and the servants enjoy them, too. Just to keep an even balance I sometimes allow one of the servants to get in on the act."
"If they're so damned willing and anxious I don't see why you don't use them instead of me."
"Don't be bitter, darling. There is far more interest and excitement in you than in a servant who is paid a weekly wage. I've got you, you can't get loose even though you wish to." She busily poured more coffee. "You had you last chance at freedom. Quinlan gave you one and I gave you one a few minutes ago. Don't feel badly when I tell you that you could have gotten away in either case. You could have been on you way back home to your own place right now if you had so chosen." Helen laughed gaily.
"I'll always be an absolute bitch, darling, in reminding you of things you'd rather forget. Mostly of lost opportunities." She mused quietly for a moment. "I've told you I won't let young Audry whip you to bits, but that doesn't mean that I won't. I adore whipping girls. I'm sure you sensed it the other day when Quinlan watched the two of us in our chosen roles. That whipping I gave you wasn't half as bad as you expected, was it? Come on, be honest?"
"No, I suppose it wasn't. But I'd done nothing to deserve it and it still hurt. I don't think there is such a thing as whipping a girl with kindness. Anyway you slice it she gets pain."
" You' re sweet the way you concede to that." Helen bestowed upon me a long and lingering gaze of speculation. "Audry is immensely sexual, you know. She's a regular little sex pot and I'm sure she'll put you through all sorts of sexual indignities. She's still reaching out for fresh discoveries. I can't promise you your nipples won't be sore as well as those lips down below your pubic hair. Sometimes it's an absolute bitch to be a girl, Candice. But then I suppose you already know."
"Which comes first then, you and your whip, or young Audry with my tongue inside her crotch?" I demanded bitterly. "Or would you by some mischance have some good news for me?"
"Oh, darling, that was so sweet. You're so mixed up, aren't you? You're so confused by awful decisions and wondering whether to speak your mind or remain silent. It must be a regular bitch of a thing to be a slavegirl, I almost wish I'd had the experience."
"I'm sure Quinlan will offer it if that's what you want."
"No, dear, it's not. Once I might of been intrigued enough but now I'm satisfied with the way I am. I'll live the enslavement vicariously between you and Audry. This morning the little so-and-so asked me if it would be OK to whip your cunt."
I wanted to cry. All I said was, "Don't be beastly, that's a horrible thing to tell me. I want to like Audry, don't make me hate her."
"She's also got some cute little clips for your nipples, darling. Audry has a real Thing about nipples. She's got some lovely ones herself and has an insatiable curiosity about the nipples of other girls. She's almost certain to whip your breasts sometimes so, just to be on the safe side, I've bought her a special whip with silken thongs. Don't get too concerned darling, it won't injure you."
What a prospect! I moved uneasily within my bracelets and leg irons. Cruelty in silk and satin and lace, venom in lycra panties, and beastliness within the cups of a Maidenform bra. Helen must have read my thoughts for she came out with, "A real pair of bitches, aren't we! Quinlan's delivered you into a snake pit." She laughed at my dolor. "Forget it darling. Enjoy us both the way we're going to enjoy you. You've found a marvelous and wonderful game with Quinlan and the same things awaits you here. Of course, getting rid of your job delivered you to us full time, which is going to call for quite an adjustment from you. Think of it, Candice, a prisoner twenty-four hours a day, every day!"
I had already thinking about that twenty-four hour thing. As far as I could see I was entering an imprisonment far more severe than anything I would endure in a state or federal institution. That is was heavily laced with eroticism and lust might alleviate whatever suffering I felt, but of this I could not be sure. I looked at the vibrant woman who held my life in her hands and pleaded abjectly, "Helen, please don't let Audry go wild on me? I like the girl, I don't want to hate her, I like you, I don't want to hate you. Please.. . Please.. . Please.. . ? "
Helen laughed. "You're coming along nicely, darling."
It was my only comfort.
4
Painful Pleasures
My delivery to the nymphet named Audry was quaintly formal. She was summoned by a bell and Helen explained sweetly, "Darling, Candice and I understand each other. She knows that she will have to do what you tell her and that she will have to be an obedient companion. I've told her we will use the word companion instead of slave, I think it's so much nicer. You have my permission to hurt Candice quite a lot but, at the same time, I'm going to give you a test and see if you can make her love you. Her affection for you will be the goal. If you fall down on it badly I'll give you the whipping of your life. What do you say?"
"Of course. Mother darling. I don't except anything else. I'll do what you say, I'll hurt Candice beautifully and gorgeously but I'll make her love me, too." The nymphet laughed outrageously into her mother's stern regard. "I won't get whipped, Mother. You'll see, I won't earn a whipping. I'll make Candice love me far more than she thinks she loves Mr. Robins gosh, he's so handsome. Please ask him to fuck me, Mommy, I think it would be so wonderful." Audry turned a glowing face to mine. "He has fucked you a lot, hasn't he, Candice? I'm going to make you tell me all about it. Just thinking of Mr. Robins gets me all wet between my legs and all goosey." She returned her appeal to her mother, "Please, Mommy, do ask him, even if it's only once. I have to start some time."
The child was outrageous, but Helen simply looked at me, shrugged and smiled. It was evident I had much to learn about teenagers.
"You're going to take over Candice from this point on," she told Audry soberly. "She can't give you any trouble, handcuffed and ironed as she is, but you'll have to devise your own ways of changing her around. There will be times when you might have to give her limited freedom and she might take advantage of it. No matter how you get to love each other you must never trust each other."
She kissed me lingeringly and whispered, "Happy hurting, Candice," then left me alone with her daughter. I stood there feeling foolish and not knowing what to do with cuffed hands. The question was soon settled by Audry's unlocking the cuff from my left wrist and gathering my arms in back and relocking my hands there. She did it swiftly and I suppose I could have struggled but it never occurred to me to do so. With my ankles linked together I could never get out of the house and a tussle at the start would be a poor beginning. But now I was indeed helpless and felt quivers of delicious apprehension running up and down my spine. Audry had me, but good!
I stood without a word to say, vividly conscious of a new vulnerability, my hands twisting anxiously of their own volition behind my back. I was not yet ready to either plead or to be an insincere sycophant. Gazing at my youthful mistress I noted she had, no doubt deliberately, dressed herself to seem younger than she was, a simple woolen sweater and tartan skirt, it reduced her to somewhere around twelve years old. Quietly and with great deliberation Audry approached and, her eyes mocking, reached up and clasped my nipples between mischievous fingers and thumbs. I stood still and allowed it to happen, if she only played with them it would give me intense pleasure, but if I was to be hurt, it was useless to fight a battle I could not win.
"Want me to hurt them, Candice?"
"No. I'm sorry, but I just don't."
We stood, two females linked by avid young fingers from which flowed an electric current to set me afire. They were clever fingers and I knew this child was as old as the hills in spite of her seeming immaturity. Without warning twin fires burned my breasts to make me gasp with the pain of it and bend at the knees. Audry laughed, the pain stopped to leave behind a throbbing burn on each of my breasts. "See how mean I can be, Candice. I love having your hands behind your back, you can't do a thing. Let's experiment with something else. I'm going to pull out one of your pussy hairs."
I stood passive. I didn't want to but was still working on the premise it was best to cooperation rather than antagonize. The amount of pain Audry contrived from a slow, slow plucking of a single hair was surprising. I presumed a gasp and wince permissible and did both. As reward I got the warmest of kisses. Audry was a clever little witch and was going to keep me posed between pain and pleasure. She was intently and ardently involved.
"I think, darling, it would be so nice for us to talk but I don't want you to just stand and listen to what I have to say or the other way around. Let's do something while I chatter away, I've got the loveliest idea. Come along, it's right in this room."
It was a massive, polished mahogany box. It could have passed for anything had it not been for the two holes on its upper surface. Audry commanded me, and then helped me, to lay upon the rug. She unlocked the leg irons and then dragged me, with surprising strength, to a position she desired. She then unfastened and removed that half of the contrivance against which my knees rested. I was putting two and two together and getting something I would not relish but decided to go along. I would withhold complaint until she hurt me enough to justify an appeal to her mother over her head.
She straddled my bare shoulders and thrust me back until my knees were inside the contrivance as were my legs and with my ankles snug within the half circlets ready and waiting. When this eager girl replaced the free segment and locked it fast, I found myself laying on my breasts and tummy and with my legs lost to me within the heavy box which also imposed a firm grip upon my ankles to hold them as within a vice. It was a heavy box, solidly anchored, its wood at least two inches thick. I tentatively tested and discovered I was immobilized from my knees to my ankles, the soles of my feet pointing to the ceiling in open invitation. With my wrists handcuffed behind my back I was totally helpless and completely available to the young mischief about to work her will on my.
"It's called the Bastinado, Candice. I expect you've heard of it."
"Isn't it a way you torture people?" I asked unhappily. "Well, yes, sort of...." Audry was trying to pass a sober judgment on the horror within which my feet were solidly encased. Her voice brightened, "There's two ways of doing it, Candice dear. I can slash away at those lovely little soles right from the start and have you screaming away very nicely. Or there is the old fashion method were I just sit down and lightly rap the soles of your feet until you go crazy. I've never really tried that and I'm afraid it takes an awful long time. But that's the way we'll start out." She giggled. "That sort of makes it a conversation piece."
Her instrument was a slender, supple wand. She let me have a good look at it before she drew up a stool and made herself comfortable facing the box so we could see each other clearly. She laughed, "Gosh, darling, you do look woebegone. Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you first off. Mother would have my hide if I beat you so bad you couldn't walk. You can keep me posted as we go along. Please ask questions, Candice, if there's anything you want to know."
So there I was, flat on my tummy, hands behind by back, but able to look sideways at the teenager who was about to work her will on me. My mind was in absolute turmoil between the three individuals who had placed me was and made a gift of me to this glowing girl. Hanging in there was the frightening prospect of loosing my job and being divorced from the way of life I had made for myself. I didn't want to loose that position in society I had made for myself. What I did want was to belong to Quinlan, preferably as his wife, but if not that then as his plaything. But I wanted to go to work each day and not be totally and permanently prisoner to anyone. With this woman and this child in this house my whole fabric of existence would be rent and torn to shreds and I would be nothing but a naked female constantly restrained so she could never go back to her former life. I thought of these things as I saw Audry pick up the wand.
It was a strange, silly sort of sensation as she rhythmically began to beat the bottoms of my helpless feet in a manner not exactly painful but certainly not pleasurable. She could take her choice of placing her blow across both of my waiting soles or she could apply the wand to one or the other. She could go straight across or, by shifting position, apply the instrument from my toes to my heels. I was frighteningly conscious of the agony she could inflect but did not ask about it, deciding to wait until I was hurt before I screamed. The gentle impacts became a menacing counterpoint to what Audry had to say.
"Just think, Candice, a few hours ago you were being happily fucked by that beautiful Mr. Robins. I'll bet you never even dreamed of this."
"We did do other things beside that four letter word," I informed her primly.
"Mommy tells me you often got whipped. Was it nice, I mean having a man whip your bare skin?"
"It's nice if you love the man."
"And he bought those lovely chain things for you?"
"Yes, it made the things we did together more authentic."
Audry grinned down at me while keeping up her steady application upon my soles. "This is going to be a big change for you, isn't it?" she said sagely. "I mean, what you did with Mr. Robins was just a five to bedtime thing and weekends, but now you're going to be a prisoner all day long and all night, too. And, like Mommy said, I'm going to have to keep you fastened so you can't ever get free." Her grin widened. "How does that grab you, Candice?"
"What grabs me most right now is what you're doing to me feet. Do you really have to work at it so steadily? Couldn't you stop for a rest sometimes?"
"It's not hurting, is it?"
"It's a queer sort of feeling, not a bit nice."
"Well, that's the way the book said," Audry said brightly. "Now I want you to tell me what it's like to have that great big thing pushed up inside you."
"I don't want to talk about that."
Her response was instant. The rhythm was shattered by a sharp blow across both my feet. I yelped with the pain and struggled uselessly there upon the rug. So far as moving my feet was concerned, they might as well have been encased in cement.
"That hurt, didn't it, Candice dear?" The young voice was interested. "I'll hurt you like that every time you don't cooperate. Now tell me what it's like to have Mr. Robins way up inside you."
I was close to tears of exasperation. I was so damn helpless! The rug was rough against my nipples and whatever part of my face rested on it. It was an outrageous indignity to be so totally robbed of hands but, while the wand busily tapped and rapped at my feet, I concocted some horribly pornographic descriptions of something I should not have had to speak of except to Quinlan himself. But since I was committed to the carnal tale, I made it as good as I could, a mouth-watering descriptive for Audry's edification. In spite of her attention she never for a moment paused in the incessant punishment which was now beginning to make itself evident in ways far from pleasant. I moaned and stirred restlessly.
"You're beginning to feel it, aren't you Candice?" She sounded so damned pleased.
"Of course I am. You've been doing it to me for five minutes or so and I can't move. Audry, please, haven't I had enough?"
"But darling, we've scarcely started." Her surprise was genuine.
As usual the things I wished to say were forbidden. I remained silent. But I could not refrain from the fretful motions of discomfort and reproachful glances at the child who held the wand. It was becoming evident that, if Audry kept up her impacting the wand against my flesh, I would undoubtedly reach a point of pain and then agony. Anxiously I inquired, "Have you done this to a girl before?"
"No, but Mommy has. That's why she got this lovely thing you're fixed into."
"But where does she get the girls and why do they allow themselves to be treated this way?"
"Mostly she pays them," Audry informed wisely. "She says you can get a girl to say yes to anything if you give her enough money. But there were a couple who were genuinely kidnapped and didn't like this at all. When Mommy was through with them she had to sell them to a brothel. Would you like to be sold to a brothel, Candice?"
"No, I wouldn't. What girl would! Audry, I think you're hitting me harder all the time, it's beginning to hurt. Please go easy."
"No I'm not, darling. It's just the effect we have to expect. The book said that if you do it long enough each teeny-weeny stroke feels like a hammer blow."
"How do you know so much about it?"
Audry giggled. "Mommy punishes me sometimes for things she thinks I've done. One of the things she does is to lock me in the cell with one of her girls. You're the only girl we have right now so maybe I'll get locked in with you. She chains our necks together and makes me be all naked the same as the slavegirl. Then, just to be real mean, she tied our hands behind our backs so we can't play with each other." She laughed cheerfully at the thought. "It wasn't much fun at the time, but it did give me a chance to ask a bunch of questions. Boy, were those girls mad at Mommy! By the time morning came I wasn't very pleased with her myself."
"I don't see why she has to get me this way when she can get other girls so easily. And I don't see why Quinlan made a gift of me, or whatever he's done. I'm sure I'm not a bit like those other girls."
"But you've got too lovely nipples on two lovely breasts and you've got a wonderful patch of pubic hair and a cute pussy and a nice slim waist, darling. You're grade A material. I hope I get to keep you for the longest time, perhaps for life."
Audry was not fantasizing, the wand told me that with authority. I was starting to jerk and gasp in the same rhythm as the beating of my feet. But through the growing pain I glimpsed the true awfulness of what Audry had just said. It was so damned plausible, I was already captive and could be kept thus indefinitely. I had less hope of escape than a girl in a prison. How the devil had my love play with Quinlan gotten me into a mess like this? I was feeling the beginning of hysteria when Helen came back into my view. She watched her busy daughter for the space of a minute before asking, "Everything going OK?"
"Oh, yes, Mommy. She's a perfect darling and she's just beginning to jerk with the pain. We've had the nicest time talking."
Uncompromisingly I said my piece. "Helen, get me out of this. Put a stop to it immediately. Quinlan doesn't want me tortured."
"You're not being tortured, darling. Audry's just playing with you. I expect she'll stop after an hour or two."
"I can't stand an hour or two. It's getting worse all the time."
"Yes, that's the way it's suppose to me, Candice. I expect you to hang tough and give me a report on your experiences. If you suffer a little real pain later on, well it's all in a good cause. Don't be less of a heroine than I've judged you."
It went on and on, steadily getting worse. After a while Audry had to admonish me to get answers to whatever she was talking about. I had become oblivious to her chattering and could only think of the increasing pain on my soles. I was beginning to comprehend this punishment as the fraying of the nerves, the rhythmic blows becoming more than the system could cope with. I was fearfully anticipating the next stroke while the last was still burning on my flesh. I remembered it as an Arabic punishment, and that's where it should have stayed. The soles of girls who walked besides camel trains would be tougher than mine. I was feeling sorry for myself and much abused.
I don't know how long it lasted, but I do know I had been making shameful sounds for a long time before the bitter little strokes ceased to cut my feet. I don't know how to describe those sounds, I've made them often and am always shocking ashamed in thinking of them. I think them represent the nadir of consciousness, the point at which sensation compounds into nothing more than bitter pain which promises to go on endlessly. It is this vista of unending suffering which defeats a girl. But throughout my acquaintance with this horrible device, I could never discover the extent of what eventually would become pure torture. I suppose it is the not knowing which is the most potent part of the punishment. When the wooden block was divided to release my feet I continued to lay as I was in the blissful halting of the pain. I didn't want to move or do anything, most certainly not to walk. When Audry replaced the leg irons on my ankles, I said no word. "Darling, aren't you making a big thing out of this?" Audry asked sweetly. "You think you can't walk but you can, you know. In fact that's what we're going to do next, I'm going to give you the grand tour."
I did not want the grand tour, but what I wanted no longer counted. A loving young hand helped me to my feet and I was shocked and a bit chagrined to find them only tender and not agonized. I clinked musically beside Audry, a dismally unenthusiastic tourist in a land she did not want to see.
It was a truly beautiful mansion. When we encountered staff they nodded and smiled to tell me wordlessly how many other girls like me must have trod where I was now led in captivity. Having her hands chained behind her back makes a girl so shockingly helpless it's almost frightening, emphasizing as it does the protrusion of her breasts and availability of what lies between her legs.
"The downstairs is not a bit dank or dismal, Candice. It's cleverly heated and there's a couple of cells and a couple of dungeons. Yes, honest! And they're the real thing," she giggled as she remembered times past. "And I should know, I'm been in them enough."
"Your mother locks you in a dungeon!"
"Well, not too often, dear, but sometimes when I've really messed something up.. . I do my damnedest never to get locked in a dungeon. Dungeons are the absolute pits. But if you do get locked in one, I'll try to get locked in with you. We can rattle our chains at each other and tell ghost stories. I was always sure there were ghost in there after dark, lurking in the shadows and waiting to do terrible things to me. I think that's the worst thing about dungeons, the things you can't see over there in the dark places. Do you notice the lovely rings Mommy has in the walls everywhere, just like Mr. Robins. They're ever so handy when you want to 'park' a girl."
I saw everything. A prisoner's eyesight is acute in observing things by which she will be hurt or held. Everywhere beneath the normalcy of this lovely dwelling the conveniences of bondage lay in wait for unwilling wrists and ankles and necks. Helen could have made captive twenty girls at a time without crowding.
The cells were authentic enough to crinkle the spine. They made me remember a trip to Alcatraz and the shivers I had found in the tiny concrete cubicles behind the bars. It was not so much that they were dark or gloomy, but instead it was their implacable threat of something inescapable. This and the ugly utilitarian plumbing. But any shivering I had failed to provide in the cells, I more than made up for in the dungeons. Audry, giggling happily, pointed out all their disagreeable features and I could well understand what she said about their ghosts. When she closed the door the sound of the thud sent my heart plummeting.
It was about evening and time for dinner. The meal was glitteringly conventional and in all ways normal except for the guest. I remained naked and chained and by way of dressing for dinner I was given a gem-studded collar around my neck. I did not placed it there myself, it was put there for me and closed with a formidable sound, almost as horrible as the thud of the dungeon door. The servants did their smiling and nodding and Helen carried the conversation with such skill I found myself almost forgetting where I was and what I was. Audry maintained strict decorum. Evidently her latitudes of outrageous conduct and speech did not extend to dinner.
I will never know if Audry asked or if the idea was purely Helen's. But after I had done my waitress act and served the brandy after dinner, it seemed no more than right and to be expected when Helen said, "You'll spend the night in one of the cells Audry showed you, Candice. It's one of the experiences you must not miss. We're much better equipped here than Quinlan in that department."
Audry discretely disappeared. I was to find out why later, but for the time Helen and I were alone. The handcuffs had been taken from back to front for the serving of the drinks. They were now completely discarded and my hands bound behind my back with twine. Helen crossed my wrists with severe competence and wound strand after strand of the thin stuff deep into my skin, crossing and crisscrossing and then knotting it tightly in a place my fingers could never reach.
"A bit more sporting, Candice dear. Handcuffs are so.. . Well, they're no use fighting against, are they? But tied with twine the way I've tied you now, you can always hope. I know you can't get free but you can't be sure. If you struggle too hard that thin stuff will cut your skin."
She was right on all counts. The twine made me more captive than the handcuffs ever could. If it did indeed hold the possibility of an un-likely freedom, well that was something I would have to find out about. I was taken downstairs, safely leg-ironed, tightly bound, and thrust within a cell and the door slammed shut. It seemed to have a great many bolts and locks which Helen took pleasure in noisily fastening. She blew me a kiss through the bars then left me alone.
It was pure desolation. A desuetude of lonely misery. I stood there looking at the concrete and the bars, the toilet and the washbowl, and the bench. I wanted to cry but no tears came. I looked out into the passage between the bars but only concrete and brick were visible. I went to the door and thrust at it with my hip in an absurd hope but all I accomplished was a bruised hip. The jeweled collar around my neck must have seemed an incongruity in this forbidding place. I wish I could reach it but could not.
I was sitting on the bench an hour later, idly kicking at the chain between my ankles and wondering how I could possibly sleep in this stark loneliness when I heard the sounds, they were unmistakable. Audry was on her way.
This was not the Audry I had seen before. This one was as naked as I and on her neck was exactly the same collar, every bit as tight. Her complaints echoed to me down the corridor, "But, Mommy darling, I haven't done anything. Why must I be punished?"
"Because you're a impertinent little snippet who says the wrong things at the wrong times. Those remarks of yours about Mr. Robins are unforgivable. You can spend the night with dear Candice." Helen chuckled. "You'll keep her from going stir-crazy."
"Oh, Mommy, is this were she is, is this what you've done with her? Oh, jeepers!" The young voice was suddenly vibrant with pleasure. "Mommy, darling, please don't tie our hands behind our backs like you did last time."
They came to a halt outside my cell door, the nymphet sparkly-eyed, the mother grim. Audry maintained a steady flow of complaint while her arms were gathered in back and her wrists crossed and bound as were my own. She obviously expected this treatment but felt compelled to protest. But the most remarkable thing about Audry was her nakedness. She might lack the luscious curves of maturity but she certainly had their beginnings together with a large, black triangle above her crotch. She stood, chin up, while her hands were immobilized by twine, and winked slyly at me through the bars. My ankles bore the leg irons but hers were join by the simple expedient of a length of chain fastened around each ankle by a padlock. When she was propelled within my cell, she was pushed close and we were locked together by another two foot length of chain and a padlock to each of our collars. It became most evident the collar was more than just decoration. But it was difficult for either Audry or me to move without snubbing our neck. It was a remarkable togetherness.
"Make her behave herself, Candice. If she becomes too impossible, you can bit her nipples or her ear or something. She's a bit smaller than you so you've got the advantage this time, use it. The little vixen will twist you terribly if you let her." Helen kissed me and patted her daughter's bare bottom before she went away and once again through the ritual of the clanging door.
"She's so mean!" Audry said angrily when her mother was out of ear shot. "I mean I do want to be in here with you, Candice, but the way she's tied our hands and the way she's chained our necks, we simply can't reach each other. Except to lick each other's tits and that'll simply drive us crazy. Were you scared when she left you here alone?"
"It was horrible," I told her with deep sincerity. "You don't know how glad I am to see you even if we are fixed the way we are. You've got the loveliest body."
"Well, yours isn't all that bad, is it Candice? I hope I swell out in all the nice places like you but keep that taut tummy. I suppose you know we're both going to get our bottoms caned tomorrow? She told me on the way down."
"Well, don't let's think about it," I enjoined solemnly. "We've got enough troubles the way we are. I don't suppose there's any use our trying to untie each other's hands?"
"No way! Mommy's got a deal on that, too. If we did by some mischance get free, we'd be punished by being whipped twice as hard and maybe in twice as many places," she snorted angrily. "That's the frustrating thing about being tied with cord, you really do want to try and free yourself. But then, if you succeed, all you get out of it is another punishment. This whole thing's a real pussy pucker. Are you horny?"
"Of course, I am. Having you chained to me like this is erotic as hell. Can't you smell?"
"I wasn't sure if it was you or me. I don't know yet if we have different scents. Oh, damned this chain on our necks. It's worst than having our hands tied."
"Look, Audry, this has got me all mixed up. I thought I was your slave, that I belong to you. But here you are being punished right along with me."
"Well, darling, it's a bit of a mixed up affair all around. I'm not sure I can explain it. It may not seem like it but I think Mommy's being very practical this evening. She was nervous about leaving you chained and tied and alone down in this cell. She was worried about you getting hysterical. And she did promise Mr. Robins not to let you get hurt. So I think that's why we're chained together, not that I mind a bit, I think it's real groovy. Do you think you could get your knee up inside my crotch? And I'll do yours?"
Audry was irrepressible and impossible but delightful. This was indeed a new experience for me, I'd never been chained or bound to another female in my life. I could imagine Quinlan laughing his head off back in the apartment. But what I was concerned about was how the two of us were going to sleep on the hardwood, narrow bench.
"Why, one on top of the other, of course darling!" Audry assured me without seeming to find anything wrong with the idea. "I'll sleep on top of you if you like because I'm much the lightest. But I don't mind being on the bottom if you like."
"But isn't there any other way.. . ? "
"Only on the floor and I've tried that and it's bloody awful. But don't worry, we'll sleep on the bench and we can turn ourselves over in the middle of the night like a pancake. But now darling, about what I was saying.. . You know, getting you knee up inside?"
I did my best at it and Audry was almost professionally competent with her youthful knee. It was a quaint introduction to Lesbos.
5
Perennial Prisoner
The familiar streets would never, for me, be the same again. Walking them in freedom on my way to the office, my mind was still carrying the image of the cell, of the concrete and the bars and the chains. I was still intoxicated by Audry's female scent and all her wiggling sensuality. Audry was an immature Houri to drive any man or woman insane with lust for that very same immaturity which would later flower into something totally devastating. I was still tasting her salty skin.
I was gloriously happy for once that in all this strange mixture of emotions I was free of awful decisions. I was going to my usual place and my usual office. I had not lost my job and was not a prisoner for life. Yet it had seemed so real!
It was Helen who had freed me from the cell, leaving her indignant daughter chained to one of the bars by the small chain that had linked our necks. Her hands and feet had remained bound as they were. We were allowed to kiss and say goodbye before I was taken away. Audry was as thunder-stuck as I.
"This may be unkind, sweetheart," Helen told me as she untied the bitter twine from my wrists, "but it was something Quinlan wanted, so why not! You got something out of it, and I want to tell you in all sincerity you could just as easily be chained in this house for life. I wasn't fooling about that possibility. It was very real and still a possibility. But if that becomes something you desire, you'll have to come here and ask for it of your own free will."
"I'm hardly-likely to do that, am I?"
"I don't know, dear, only time will tell us that. You're still not sure of me and what I could or would do to you. I find you exquisitely delicious."
I gazed down to watch my feet unlocked. I then lifted my head to allow the collar to be removed. I was nakedly free! My bare bottom was patted and I was laughingly told to run along and get myself dressed. I would be driven to within walking distance of my office. In terrible excitement and fear that someone might change their mind, I obeyed everything. Now, here I was back to square one. The only question mark remaining was of Quinlan. Was he at square one, too?
It felt so good to be back in the apartment, nothing was changed even though it seemed I had been gone a century. I did my daily act of removing my clothes and going through the ritual Quinlan had devised, I handcuffed myself and locked the leg irons on my feet. When Quinlan returned I was kneeling submissively in the accustomed place, my tray ready for the expected drinks. But I could not wait, I wanted him too much for any rituals to stand between. I got to my feet and, snubbing my chain at ever step, went to him and, lifting my cuffed hands over his head, embraced him with a fervor as though I had thought he lost forever and all of a sudden my world was well again. Whatever Quinlan did to me would not matter I belonged to him utterly. If he choice to make any experiments at my expense, I would obey. I whispered a strange mixture of adoration, explanations and excitement in his ear, until he lifted my hands back over his head, swatted my bottom, and told me to get busy mixing the cocktails. No girl ever obeyed more fervently than I.
"Why did you come back her this evening, Candice? Why didn't you go back to you own place and wash your hands of me?"
My answers was prompt, "Because I'm in love with you."
"You're in love with love, Candice, my pet. Or maybe all these lovely amusements we share. I was a bastard to you Saturday. For all you knew you belonged to Helen and would a whipping girl for her little daughter for the rest of your life."
"It was what you wanted so I did it, it was that simple." I reconsidered to add, "Or maybe it isn't simple at all. Maybe you've unearthed in me some latent submissiveness I never knew about. But even it that's so, it would be only with you."
"You want to marry me, don't you.? "
"Of course I do, it would solve everything if there is anything to solve."
"No it wouldn't." Quinlan laughed at my little girlishness. "If we were married, you'd want to do over the apartment and you'd resent the time and pain you'd have to devote to my erotic amusements."
"I won't! You know I wouldn't. I couldn't possibly give up the things we do together, they've become a part of me. I think they always were. Quinlan, don't underrate me."
"OK, OK!" Quinlan waved an airy hand. "I never have underrated you, sweetheart, I think you've overrated me. I really am a bit of a bastard, you know."
I fetched the second drinks. As I leaned forward to present his I picked up his man smell in pungent waves. Kneeling between his knees I was close to the weapon by which I was impaled. It exuded Quinlan's pungency to make me long for bed and to hope he was picking up my woman smell in return. Fiercely I said, "You remember the story of O, and how she told her beloved how he could put her to any test and she promised to come through. Well, OK, do that with me. I passed some sort of test with Helen and that outrageous child. Well, give me another. If I come through then marry me."
"Marriage would spoil the whole thing, sweetheart, believe me it would." Quin's eyes, looking down at me, were tender and a little sad as though performing an onerous task. He said, "Marriage isn't the answer to everything, it's not the answer to me. You want to be put to a test, well OK, I'll go along with you. Instead of going to bed we'll go to that room you can't possibly love. If you wish to ask for it, I'll make absolutely sure you do not love me when we come out."
"I can't ask for... What you said. But I'll accept the rest gladly."
It was one of those halcyon moments. Something had been settled and would follow a course. We were content with each other as we were and, if this man who was my master thought I needed some kind of lesson, well then, why not! Outrageously I plied us both with cocktails to make our "happy hour" longer than was our wont. Heedless of dinner, the man I adored picked me up bodily and carried me to where he would try to kill my love.
Instruments and engines of torture are a bore. They are rarely aesthetic and mostly look like what they are. To be placed in the embrace of any of them I must be relieved of irons. And this Quinlan did with a preoccupied air, setting them aside for future use. I stood quietly aside, awaiting his convenience. I had never felt more enslaved.
"First you bottom and the cane, sweetheart."
It was a simple device, fastened solidly to the wall, not un-like the wooden box Audry had used to imprison my feet. This one imprisoned both my feet and my hands to leave me standing well bent down with my bottom beautifully available. It was a frightening experience. My "cure" was to be a yellow length of whippy cane my master flexed back and forth for my regard.
"It hurts like hell when you're bent over and stretched, Honey."
"I'm sure it does. You won't mind if I do some screaming?"
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't. I'm not going to gag you."
Quinlan's fingers on my skin were gentle and strong and altogether to be desired. I hated the position I was in, not because of what it was and the pain I would suffer therein, but because I felt untidily exposed and was blushingly aware my pussy had chosen this moment to explore the possibilities of peeking out behind. Some pussies do this when you least want them to. Mine is one.
"Remember, Candice darling, you'll be able to stop this anytime by saying yes, I am a brute and you want nothing to do with me. I'm not actually going to work on you with that end in mind but it just could happen."
"Oh, shut up, Quin. I've got enough to think about without a decision like that. The only sounds I'll promise to make are screams. Or do you want to gag me?"
"No gag, beloved girl, you look exquisite as you are, beautifully bent."
Quinlan was right about that. I was in the ancient "touch your toes" position of childhood in other days. But within the firm and solid box which held my feet and hands most firmly but out of sight, my fingers could not find my toes. Not that it mattered, they were in there somewhere. I felt at least ninety percent bottom.
Always when I had been whipped or caned or strapped there had been pauses, they had been deliberate for their mental effect as well as to let the agony of each stroke expend itself to the full before being followed by the next. Perhaps in need of some diversion, or just wishing to break the trend, Quinlan now swished away with his cane with a swift series of blows which paused only long enough for him to change sides and treat both sides of my bottom to their fair share of anguish. The shock as each blow piled upon top of blow was such as to drive me to screaming instantly. I didn't care a bit about dignity or how I looked. I was simply a naked female thing who's bottom was wickedly being caned and who was making sounds appropriate to the occasion. I did not apologize then nor do I now. The beating of my bottom was cruel and unenduringly painful. It was not until I bend at the knees and began to sway dangerously that Quinlan let up. By then I must have received twenty or thirty strokes.
"A wonderful performance, Candice. Want some more?"
I could not match his flippancy. The best I could manage was, "Oh, Quinlan, ohhhhhhh...!"
"Ah, well, perhaps you've been in that quaint device long enough. I'll tell you honestly, sweetheart, I hate to release you, you've the prettiest picture ever. Quite sure you wouldn't like a few more?"
"Quite sure, darling. I'm on fire back there still. Jeepers, you've never done it to me like that before."
"Variety is the spice of life, my pet. Unfortunately I have to break the news that what you've just had is only the first installment. Sure you don't hate me yet?"
"Yes, I'm quite sure, Quinlan. If you want to leave mc standing here because I look pretty, I won't complain. This device doesn't really hurt."
Playfully, Quinlan took the pouting lips of my rearward, exposed pussy and pinched them. "What's this little item doing sticking up behind? It's suppose to stay discretely hidden."
"I don't really know, but that's the nature of it," I admitted in that absurdly polite conversation. "You hit it several times with that cane and I expect it serves it right. Is it badly swollen?"
"Still serviceable, my lover, we'll put it to good use later For the moment I'm thinking of graduating you to some treatment of your back."
"What you're saying is you intend to whip my back, is that right."
"Alas, yes, I am insufferably cruel. Don't hesitate to say you don't love me any more."
When my hands were freed and I stood erect with fingers feeling my wounded bottom, I inquired, still in the same vein, "You could have whipped my back the way I was. Why didn't you?"
"Just a sense of what's proper, my pet. You bend over for your bottom, you stand up for your back. Do you mind?"
That "do you mind" was pure satire and we both knew it. I had just come through one of the most terrible bouts with pain I had ever endured and I was wondering about this stupid exchange, but I realized it was a form or repartee designed to boaster my morale and keep me on an even keel. It was not everyday a girl got her bottom caned and then, for desert, got her back whipped. I was going to be outrageously marked and I hoped I would not faint beneath the lash. There was moments under the cane when things had been getting a bit hazy. I was getting the severest of punishments and wondering why I was so calmly resigned. I suppose it could have been that I had no choice. My feet were still firmly locked, and I could easily be whipped the way I stood if Quinlan so desired. I tried hard not to think of anything except how good it would be when it was all over.
I suppose, theoretically, I had one more chance to make a break for freedom when Quinlan freed my feet and I stood nakedly without bonds, still massaging my burning rump. It was strange to move my fingertips across my flesh and feel it ridged and scolding. I remembered the corrugated washboards my grandmother had once used. But soon, and very gently, Quinlan possessed himself of my reaching arms, crossed my wrists in front and began binding them together with cord. I watched without much interest. I took it for granted I would be made helpless and it did not matter much by what means this would be achieved. Watching Quinlan's work I supposed I was to be hung up by my arms, maybe with my feet off the floor, and thus whipped to his pleasure. I underrated him.
When my wrists were securely bound, my master gathered me in his arms and laid me on the floor. He bandaged my ankles tight together an entire roll of soft, wide bandages, which felt good but held me as securely as rope. The rope came next, it was threaded between my legs and knotted around the bandages. It was one of those that went up to the ceiling and which had held me previously. For a moment or two I did not realize what was about to happen but when Quinlan touched the switch and the motor whirled, my feet started to raise towards the ceiling. After half a minute I was totally suspended by my ankles. It was the strangest feeling in the world, everything was upside down and once more I knew how vulnerable I was. Once more my hands were a problem, I knew not what to do with them. They could reach nothing that mattered and anyway I held them, they seemed to interfere with something that did. I comprised by holding them tight against my concave tummy. "Get the idea, sweetheart?"
"You're going to whip me while I'm upside down. Ohhhhhhh, Quin...!"
"I won't keep you upside down too long, darling. I think the record is two or three hours but we're not trying to break a record. If you're worrying then please stop. The whipping of your beautiful back is going to be just as fast as the canning of your beautiful bottom. Do what you like with your hands, they can't bother anything."
Quinlan was right. It was the same only different and much, much worse. Bottoms are made to be whipped or caned but backs are different. Backs hurt like crazy. Quinlan slashed away at mine with stroke after bitter stroke, building to a crescendo of pain in which I heard myself screaming and screaming. He turned my nakedness to make it revolve as might a puppet on a string. Each time my back passed by, he cut at it with first one whip and then another. I suppose none were too savage or cruel but they hurt bitterly and I was curling up inside with the increasing pain when my whipping ceased and my love held out his hand to stop me turning.
"Guess how many you've had, darling?" he asked in a voice vibrant with feeling.
"Thirty?"
"Close enough. Actually twenty-eight. You screamed beautifully."
Quinlan let me down. I suppose neither of us was experienced in the matter of upside down ladies. I remember reading once that the period of survival was only a matter of minutes but this must have been false. It had not taken Quinlan longer than ten minutes to whip me the twenty-eight times and I was still, as far as I could tell, normal. That is, except for the searing scold of agony upon my skin. I was able to help my return to the carpet by using my bound hands but once there I lay supine and breathless and bathed in sweat, the smell of me was both beautiful and awful according to the point of view.
"I could whip the soles of your feet, darling," Quinlan suggested conversationally.
I started to cry. I just couldn't help it. I had been punished so much and now he wanted to whip my feet! I allowed my tears to flow without concern for what I looked like. I somehow knew I could not endure the whipping of my feet without going overboard into a mental unbalance. A moment later I was picked and comforted within male arms. Quinlan's voice held urgency. "I told you I was a bastard. Do you still wish to love me?"
"Yes."
There wasn't much else to say.
We were extraordinarily happy with each other. I contented myself with the thought that my most awful punishment had exorcised a devil from Quinlan's mind. I could have no doubt of his love. The hurts I received in this time seemed playful things and most needful in the role I played. I kept thinking of it as a role but I knew it was not that at all, I was simply being ME. I was grateful Quinlan loved me as I was. Every evening after five and every Saturday afternoon I gave myself to him in totality. I was rarely free of marks. The weals left by my caning and the whip took almost a month to disappear. We checked on them daily and lavished praise upon their cycles of recovery. A girl's skin is a constant joy to herself and anyone who owns her.
By now I thought I knew Quinlan very well. There would be other tests and my only concern with them was my ability to survive with my love for my master undiminished. It was during this time I received a promotion at the office and realized, with an element of wonder, I owed my increased ability to cope with problems and remain alert to Quinlan's treatments in the apartment. A whipped girl becomes exquisitely sentient, a caned bottom is most vividly alert. I took my promotion home and boasted of it with joy but Quinlan was unimpressed, saying it was only woman stuff and didn't amount to much. He dealt with millions! I felt more enslaved than ever.
It was at the end of this happy time the "awful thing" happened.
It was Saturday. Quinlan had gotten up early for a quick trip to the office in order to be back by noon. I was lazy and still in bed when the doorbell rang. The doorbell never got answered when Quinlan was not here. I obviously could not perform the function while handcuffed, leg-ironed and minus clothing. I had got used to it ringing and people going away. I thought that had happened now when I heard an unfamiliar sound within the apartment itself. I sat up, startled, then hastily wrapped the coverlet around my nudity and clinked my way out into the hall. Two men were there, we stared at each other in surprise and shock. They looked tough and middle aged and their clothes didn't look right. Neither was their speech, "Damn it, Luke, a lousy broad!"
"What the hell else can you expect, a guy with all that dough?"
"Damn it, Vincent," the first man replied, "lookit them chains she's wearing. And I'll bet ya she ain't got a thing on under that there cover."
Vincent gave me his full attention. "Say, lady, you been arrested for something?"
I still didn't know they were burglars and said the wrong thing. "Mr. Robins is still at his office. You can phone him there until noon."
"We know. We seen him go. You may as well go back to bed, we're only going to pick up a few things. We'll soon be gone."
"Shit, Vincent, we can't leave her loose. First thing she'll do is go to a phone. Best things we take her with us and keep an eye on her."
"Maybe Robins has to keep an eye on her, she's chained up real good. C'mon lady, show us his office."
I stood in disgusted helplessness and watched them make a shambles of Quinlan's desk and break open his filing cabinets. Here was helplessness indeed! But even without the handcuffs or leg irons I could have done little. They could have easily controlled me anyway. It was not until they had gathered up a pile of documents and stuffed them into briefcases that my real agony began.
"Damn it, Luke, the broad's had a good look at us. We can't leave her running around."
"What's it matter! She ain't gonna see us again and Robins ain't gonna know who's messed his office up. After we're out the door she can make all the phone calls she wants."
"Yeah, Vincent, I know. But ain't you noticed something the girl's a looker."
My heart beats slowed then raced. The two of them were looking at me in a way I knew all too well, every girl knows it. But I was naked and chained and totally aware of helplessness. Vincent was looking at me and nodding as though suddenly noticing something.
"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'? " he asked his friend.
"You want we should take her along? This ass-hole Robins might pay a million to get her back." He looked me up and down, "How come he got you chained up that way, lady?"
I racked my brain to try to come up with an answer to deter them. But there was none. Lamely I offered, "It's a game we play. It's none of your business. Just leave me alone and go away. Mr. Robins will unlocked them things when he gets home."
They shrugged. It did not matter. But they were practical men. "You got a key to get yourself loose or can you tell us where there's around this place?"
"I don't know of one. There'd be no sense in Mr. Robins' locking these things on me then leaving the key around. Please go away."
"We ain't so sure 'bout that. Could be you's worth more than this stuff in this case."
"Don't be silly, I'm just a girl he picked up overnight. He put these chains on me just so I can't leave until he comes home and pays me. Look, if you're frightened about me phoning, you can easily tear the phones out of the wall."
"Don't matter much what her story is, we gotta get her outta here." There was a course guffaw. "For sure, we can't walk her out the way she is."
"Best way is we use the freight elevator. We tie her to a chain, damned good and tight, and we gags her so's she can't do any yapping, then we carries her out draped with a rug over the whole thing. Ain't-likely no one is asking no questions, seein' how it's early Saturday morning we ain't-likely to see anyone."
"Shit! It's taking one awful big chance."
"Hell! If things go sour on the job we just drop her and leave. By the time someone's got her so she can talk, we gone." I listened to this exchange, my heart in my boots. I didn't have any boots, I didn't have anything. And what was worse I couldn't think of anything to say that they would pay attention to. When they started tearing a curtain into strips I knew I had the course.
The first thing they did was gag me. I suppose that's that most practical thing to do with a girl who's-likely to scream. I went through all the motions of struggling and trying to scream, none of which did me a particle of good, they handled me as if I were a child. And being handcuffed and chained didn't help either. My mouth filled with rag and my lips tightly bound with several strips of cloth, I was mute during the indignity of being bound to the chair. First off I lost my covering but these men seemed little interested in female charms other than for commercial value. They bound me to that damned chair quite firmly, taking their time to do a good job and insure I would be completely immobilized. I was! When the last band was tugged and knotted tight upon my nakedness I could do nothing more than twitch. They draped the coverlet over me and my chair. In darkness I was carried from my home.
I could not follow whatever breathless moments they had while carrying me to their car. I could follow only the general sounds of the elevator and then the traffic. I struggled for I realized this was my only hope of attracting help and attention. I persistently tried to scream but that was a lost cause. In fact the whole thing was a lost cause. Vincent and his friend Luke got me and my chair into whatever vehicle they drove and the sound of the motor told me I was on my way to whatever, perhaps even the famous fate worse than death. Or maybe even death itself, but most certainly away from Quinlan and our love.
It was the neatest of kidnappings and no doubt owed much to their taking advantage of a golden opportunity.
Throughout this whole time I was in a fine dither with the realization that all around me there were people but I could do nothing to attract their attention and get their help. Never had ropes and gag made a girl more helpless. Never had I been so denied freedom. The awfulness of not being able to move or speak during this period dwarfed all previous restrictions imposed by Quinlan. From the depths of my immobility I was willing to recognize the degree in which Quinlan and I had played a precious game. This was real!
When the car stopped I sensed an underground garage but could see nothing. I was left alone. It was a terrible darkness for I knew not what it contained. Once again I fought the ropes and gag. It was a useless but better than thinking. I knew if I could get one strand free.. . ! But Luke and Vincent had made a masterly job of my binding, I was as secure as ever when they returned. I recognized them only by their grumbling voices while they carried me. Once more we were in an elevator. Doors opened and closed and voices murmured until I was dumped firmly on a floor and the coverlet whisked away to leave me blinking in the light.
He was smooth and heavy with a caustic eye. He was expensively dressed and was the typical concept of the owner of a casino or the leader of a labor union. He eyed me, my nakedness arousing no interest. He continued what must have been a previous diatribe. "I need another broad like I need a hole in the head. She'll just be a pain in the ass!"
"But, Lucio, think of the ransom! That guy Robins has got dough." Vincent was aggrieved. "Shit, we could ask a million!"
"You think Robins will pay money for a broad he keeps handcuffed and legironed?" Lucio sounded derisive. "Hell, if he was in love with the dame he wouldn't keep her in that kind of a fix."
"She told us it's some damned fool game they play, it don't mean nothing."
"Take her gag off, let's here what she has to say," said Lucio. "At least you did a good snatch job."
I was scared to death. I said just about what a scared girl would say under those circumstances, "Mr. Robins will give you money to get me back. Please don't hurt me."
I might as well have kept quiet.
"Tells us about them irons you got on and why you're naked. You working on your own or do you belong to a house?"
I did my best but they listened in a predetermined disbelief. I never felt more naked in my life and less a girl than a piece of merchandise. I pleaded hard, "Just phone Mr. Robins, let me speak to him. This whole thing can be disposed very easily."
Lucio cocked an amused eyebrow. "Don't kid yourself, honey, anything to do with kidnapping a broad gets the FBI, the CIA, the Army, and the Boy Scouts down on us. I got other things to do than play pretty games about picking up a ransom." Once more he was derisive. "So I get a million for you! What the hell's a million? Who needs one these days! Money starts higher than that."
The ropes were hurting. Unhappily I tried to shift and twist and ended by asking meekly, "Please could I be untied? You don't have to worry about me giving you trouble, I'll still be handcuffed and legironed."
"Untie her, Luke, ain't no sense having her hands and feet fall off. You done a real good ropin' job."
I said a meek but sincere thank you, then added, "Please let me phone Mr. Robins. I know everything will be all right."
"Yeh, I bet it would be," Lucio agreed with caustic disbelief, "sounds like a trap to me. The way them Feds have been bothering everyone lately you could easy be one of them." He laughed sardonically. "How would that grab you boys? Supposing you've brought home a federal agent to have a good look at us all. Shit, I'm not sure we shouldn't dump her in the garbage right now."
I had never felt more redundant. Even to a racketeer I had no value, I was not negotiable. By this time Luke had gotten me untied and I was moving my numb fingers to get the circulation going again, and feeling foolish over being naked before these hoodlums not that the premises or Lucio fell into the hoodlum class, but I doubted if any male present had ever heard of Oxford or Harvard or gotten beyond the sixth grade. I was certain I couldn't win this one. I was beginning to expect I was in for a gang bang and then be tossed into a brothel or the Bay. I sat there being leered at while I toyed nervously with my handcuffed wrists. This kind of nakedness before these eyes was different to any other kind of nakedness I had ever known. This was foul, this was ugly. But it was frightening principally because of it's evident lack of interest for these men. That meant they saw me as a write-off or else were so used to the kidnapping and ravishment of maidens that I was no big deal. I thought of Quinlan and longed to cry.
"I ain't making up my mind in no hurry," Lucio decided. "Fix this broad up someway safe while I think things out." He waved me out of existence with a careless hand.
I was no longer tied to the chair, but I suppose it was a handy way to transport a hobbled maiden. Vince and Luke picked the both me and my chair up and carried us from the room as though I was the victim of an accident and they were a couple of paramedics. Lucio had picked up the phone before I was out of sight.
"How'bout the big storeroom? We can hogtie her real good."
"Shit, we can't leave her hogtied all the time. I been thinkin' about them walk-in clothes closets but she'd go hairy in the dark," Vince snorted disgustedly. "Way I see it, we got something here worth a lot of money. Ain't no sense ruinin' it right at the start. She's a good looking bit of stuff."
I was glad I met with approval. It is not every girl who had two gorillas worrying over her. They had again set the chair upright while debating Me, and I sat there dejectedly, too scared to run, and knowing it would be hopeless anyway. It was heartbreaking to think of Quinlan's lovely chains being used to hold me in this frightening captivity. Once more I pleaded, "Please let me call Mr. Robins, everything can be fixed so easily."
They appeared not to hear. But Luke was suddenly filled with inspiration. "Damn it, Vince, got me the very thing! It ain't a good idea to keep the silly bitch kickin' round this apartment. Robins might be doing a bit of figuring and have the Feds nosing around. What's you say we take her out to that little place of mine in the sticks? That woman of mine, Gertie, can look after her better than we can and she'll keep her good and safe. Gertie's a good girl. Ain't none of us don't have faith in Gertie."
Everyone was pleased, including me. If I was to be kept prisoner, I would damn sight rather have a woman as jailer than these two thugs. I suppose Vince and Luke weren't really thugs but they looked like some to me. I kept a cautious silence.
In their own territory Vincent and Luke had no trouble finding a handcuff key. I learned later that Lucio kept a pair of handcuffs around for reasons of his own. I was quickly freed of metal, tripped so I fell forward on my face, eased down my male arms and then Luke bound my wrists while Vince tied my ankles. The way they went about it, they must have done this before. When I was dismally prepared for my hands to be joined to my feet behind me, Vince suddenly came out with, "Tie her elbows. Get'em good'n' tight. Get'em tied together so it hurts, ain't no better way to make a broad behave."
Vince was right. I moaned silently as my elbows were looped with rope and drawn tight. About all I can say on Luke's behalf is that he used quite a few strands to spread the stress. But by the time he was through with me my elbows were tressed so firmly behind my back that, had it not been for the pain, I would have believed I had no arms. They completed the hogtie with rough, swift competence. This time my gag was a wet wad of cloth to fill my mouth and extend my cheeks plus a wide band of adhesive tape. The boys must have used adhesive tape on a girl before because they were insistent on my clenching my lips before adjusting it into place and molding it firmly over my mouth and cheeks. It was a truly terrible silence. Seeing myself as a girl totally sealed, I snorted to make sure I could. But the resultant sound was small. My companions took it as some kind of greeting and nodded approvingly down at my appealing eyes.
"She's a good kid, Vince. We can throw a good screw into her when she's back at my place. Gertie won't mind."
Our vehicle turned out to be one of those anonymous sort of vans people favor so much these days. I was treated as freight and dumped in the back while Lucio's cohorts settled themselves comfortably in front. The motor started and I knew myself on my way to the cruelest period of my life.
Being hogtied is awful anyway you look at it for a girl. If she rolls around she hurts her breasts and chaffs her wrists. But to be hogtied and to have your elbows bound the way mine were behind my back is pure hell. I wondered if the boys had any idea how awful it was for me. Quite probably they didn't, but then they wouldn't care! I can easily understand why a man feels safe once he's got a girl's elbows tied, she's had the biscuit for sure!
I waited on the floor of that damned van, wetting the hard wood floor with my tears, realizing the fact that they had all happened in the space of two or three hours. I wondered what Quinlan would do!
Gertie was one of those good natured, plumpish types with a jocund eye. Somewhere between thirty and forty. She stood gazing down at me when the boys opened the van door, "Well, look what we've got here!"
I suspected she was one of those people who's voice would always sound cheerful and pleasantly surprised. "A little birdie already trussed for the oven. Now, with some sage and onion dressing...!" She laughed hilariously at her own humor. They boys kept silent. "Well, lug the little beauty in and I'll make sure she doesn't get away. Damn it, Luke, we can call this place the chicken coop."
I was dumped just as I was on the kitchen floor while Gertie made coffee and provided a plate of Danish for the boys. I did not rate either. I remained hogtied on the kitchen floor to watch their coffee klatch, and wondered if Vince and Luke would actually rape me when they were done. It just didn't seem possible.
Gertie must have read my thought, she spared me a sideways grin as she said, "Don't worry, honey, about that. The boys ain't screwing you in my house. I put the kibosh on that first thing."
She chuckled and added, "Not unless you'd like them to, that is?"
Her question might have be made in sarcasm but I took no chances.
I shook my head. My negative drew a chuckled from all three. Fifteen minutes later I was alone with a woman. I thought of Helen and her precious daughter. This would be different.
Gertie dealt with me leisurely. She obviously enjoyed my cruelly bound nakedness. Before pouring herself another cup of coffee she tore the gag from me and extracted the wet gag from my mouth, saying as she did, "Look, honey, I don't want no complaints, I don't want no bribes, I don't want to hear 'bout how bad you've been treated or how much dough you're sure someone will pay for you. There's just you and me here, you understand? Let's try and get along. All I want from you is to do what I say."
It sounded like a second Declaration of Independence. I said, "All right, I'll try and do what you want. But don't get mad at me if I slip." As an urgent afterthought I added, "Would you please untie my elbow?"
"Not right now, honey. Them ropes around your arms do you good, they make you stick out way in front. And if there's one thing I like, it's a girl's tits. You've got a pair of beauties!"
"Do you know about Mr. Robins.. . ? "
"No more than I need, and I don't want to hear no more. Remember what I told you."
I had lost the first two rounds real quick. I tried again, "Do you have to keep me prisoner by keeping me tied all the time or do you have someplace to put me?"
"Nosy little trick, aren't you? I ought to slap your face but I won't. And I shouldn't answer your questions but I will just in case you start going hysterical on me. No, you ain't gonna be hogtied twenty-four hours a day. I got a few real neat places for a gal like you. Don't you worry, honey, you and me's gonna get along real good."
I was not sure of Gertie. But the ropes binding my elbows in what had become real agony influenced my judgment. It was a real killer-diller knowing I must await her convenience in getting untied and that I dare not ask. I felt sure she hadn't the faintest idea how I felt and my suffering. But on this question she instantly informed, "Don't you think I don't know what's it like to have a girl's elbows tied together behind her back? It's a regular bitch of a deal and I've been tied that way more than once." She sipped coffee and winked in my direction. "I've a rough life, kid, and I've had to be tied down more than once. Ain't no one knows more 'bout being bound in the bare than me. I know you're in pain. I'm enjoying you. Don't worry, I'll get them ropes off you before your arms go bad. I'm trying to figure out where I'll get the most kick out of keeping you safe."
Gertie had not pinched my nipples, she had not mentioned a whip or a cane. I lay there, hogtied on her kitchen floor, and tried to feel some gratitude for small mercies. "I'd like us to be friends," I assured earnestly. "And, believe me, I'll be obedient, I'll be real obedient."
"You sure will, honey, you sure will!"
And that was that!
Candice's Dilemma
Luke's "little place in the sticks" appeared to be well out on the city's fringe among those widely spaced little wooden shanties in which people just manage to get by, an area of the destitute and dispossessed. I could see nothing of it through the heavy mesh and steel struts of my cage, but Gertie had put me wise. It appeared that a former owner of the "little place in the sticks" had been one of those optimists who tried to eke an existence out of an improbably enterprise, in this case kennels, of which I was now the sole inhabitant. It no longer even smelt of dogs. This sturdy cage was an addition to the back of the dwelling in the enclosed yard, now a lush jungle of bushes and weeds with a couple of trees tossed in for good measure. This was my view. I found comfort in assuring myself it was better than a dark basement or a stuffy storeroom. I had spent my first day in the cage, exploring the wire, the metal, and the concrete for weaknesses. This exploration assured me that I could be kept in this cage for life, I would never get free.
The most degrading feature of my imprisonment was a shaped aperture in the back wall into which I could crawl with difficulty and find a bit of straw on which to sleep. It was barely big enough for me to stretch out. Gertie assured me it would also provide shelter in the event of storm. For some reason the whole damned thing tickled her immensely. But in imprisoning me thus she had taken no chances. On the day of my delivery she had untied me piece by piece, handcuffing my wrists behind my back in snug security. She had done the same for my ankles. Once more Quinlan's lovely gifts to me had been put to a use of which we had never dreamed.
I had stood in Gertie's kitchen, testing this new captivity and rediscovering how vulnerable I was with my hands cuffed behind my back. My feet didn't matter so much, not unless I figured on running and that was an improbable dream. Clutching a handful of my hair, Gertie had propelled me out the back door and around the corner to the awaiting cage. From somewhere she had gotten three padlocks and, when I was safe inside, invited me to watch her click them shut upon the door, pointing out that one would have done the job just as well. It was not until that moment that I realized that I have been locked inside a cage while entirely helpless and without the use of my hands. When I pointed this out, Gertie laughed delightedly and demanded, "What the hell you want hands for, honey, you're a puppy dog now. I'll shove your food through that little slit beneath the wire and you can eat it any way you want. You can lay flat on your tummy or maybe do it on all fours, even though you've only got two. It's gonna be a real fun thing watching you eat. As for the rest, you don't need no hands. I'll hose you down once in a while and maybe led you around the yard for a walk. I'll put a noose on your neck so you won't give me no trouble. How's that for looking after a naked girl?"
I had nothing to say. Gertie had said everything. When she had gone I tested my hobbled feet to discover I could take six short steps in one direction and five in another. This was my home. The heavy mesh was just above my head, I was much taller than a dog! If it rained, I would crawl inside the arched opening into gloom and waiting straw. For something to do and to discover the limits of my confinement I did it immediately. It would have been easy with hands, but with mine locked behind my back, I was like a seal inserting itself into a small hole. I did manage it finally but felt an absolute fool and hoped Gertie had not returned to watch. When I stuck my head back out of the hole the effect was as of a gopher surveying an unfriendly world.
That had been yesterday. In the time since then I had confirmed Gertie's opinion of the absolute inescapability of this prison. It was made to order for a naked girl who must never, never escape. Around dinner time she had thrust a couple dishes beneath my wire and I eat supper. She watched while I went through the humiliating performance of eating while crotched in my knees and with no hands. I managed in a disgraceful sort of way. It appears a girl can do anything if she tried. I sucked up water from the second dish. Gertie was delighted. I crawled into the confinement of the straw and weep myself to sleep.
My imprisonment was a bore. My helplessness total. I simply enjoyed the view or crept into the semi-darkness to sleep. It seems boredom is conducive to slumber, I slept a lot. The only bright spot in my day was Gertie and I suspect I was the bright spot in hers. It must have been lonely living out here in semi-isolation. Anyway she visited me often and talked of most anything except what I wanted to hear. She refused to tell me if my release was being negotiated or if I was to be what she called "sold down the river" to a brothel. Everything is comparative and I found myself thankful I would not be killed and disposed of as dangerous evidence. She assured me that Lucio was a "real ass-hole" and left it at that. When I pleaded for my hands she laughed and told me she liked me as I was. "Makes your tits stick out, honey, and like I told you, I'm a real tit girl. So is Luke. Lucky he ain't here, but if he figures on screwing you, he'll have to take you off my place, he ain't doing it here."
In the interests of hygiene I was to be hosed down every other day. I had nothing to say about this, but when I learned how it was to be done, it seemed more like a punishment than a way of keeping me clean. Gertie unlocked the three massive padlocks, put a noose around my neck, and led me to one of the three trees. There I was tethered to await her attentions. While she went for the hose I stood dejectedly, realizing I was out of the cage but as helpless as ever. Gertie had handled me with the greatest of ease, there had never been a moment when I had a chance to fight or run or anything else. I longed for a hot bath or a good shower or anything civilized. When I saw her dragging the hose, I positively quailed.
I don't know how Gertie managed it but the water was luke warm. She explained that to have it stone cold wouldn't wash me as well and, anyway, she wasn't mad at me. When I received the first wicked jet, I supposed I should feel grateful and after a while I did. I guess a girl can get used to anything. I was twisting and turning and suggesting it would be nice to get the water here, and here, and here.. . I even did an act of cocking up my leg and then bending over to make sure the water did me the most possible good. When I was taken around the other side of the tree where the dirt was still dry and roughly toweled down and my hair given a quick drying, I was assured, "It's a real test of a girl, honey, when you can hose her down and she still looks as screwable as before. I ain't sure you don't look better. I got you nice and pink all over. I'll bet that guy you keep telling me about is crazy over loosing you."
I couldn't have agreed more. I could almost feel Quinlan's vibrations of frustration. He had evidently not been inactive. "He got the Feds in on Lucio, sweetheart. Happened a few hours after the boys brought you down here. Damned good Luke thought of here. Ain't no way your boyfriend is gonna to learn about this little dump." She cackled with real enjoyment. "Hell, they could search my little house and not even find you unless they knew about the dog kennel. Even then a quick look around the place wouldn't show nothing."
It was more of the same hopeless helplessness. More or less dry, I was led back to my cage and turned loose within. That is, the noose was taken from my neck but my hands and feet remained constrained in steel. The door clanked, the locks clicked. I looked through the wire at Gertie dolefully and asked, "How long is this going to last? How long is it going to take Lucio to make up his mind what to do with me?"
"Don't know, sweetheart. And, if I were you, I wouldn't worry my pretty little head about it. Isn't my dog cage better than some lousy little cat house where the madam whips the ass off you when you fail to please the customer?"
"But I get so bored, Gertie, I can't even play with myself the way you've got me fixed."
"Tell you what, sweetheart, how 'bout tomorrow morning I take you out of that cage and tie you to a tree for the day? Don't seem like a good deal to me, but if you want a change...."
I supposed it showed the measure of my desperation that I utter an eager, "Yes, Please." I deliberately refused to think of what I might be letting myself in for, I was so damned glad to be ending my pacing of the tiny wire mesh cage like an animal in the zoo. In fact, that's the way I say myself an animal caged. Maybe a day standing out in the sunlight.. . ?
It was as easily done as everything else done relative to me. The unlocking of the padlocks and the placing of the noose on my neck to control me. Gertie also armed herself with a newly cut willow switch which she assured me was only in case I chose not to behave and "got damned fool notions." Demurely I allowed myself to be led from my prison out into the open to where the tree awaited for me as if it had been planted there only for my benefit. Gertie tugged at my neck to demand, "You're gonna back up against that there tree while I change your hands from where they is to back 'round the trunk. You aim to do anything stupid?"
I would certainly have done something stupid if I could but the noose on my neck, the willow switch, and my still hobbled feet all deterred. Gertie could cut me to pieces with that switch while all I could do was engage in a futile struggle with a chocking noose around my neck. Hating every word, I said with an appearance of good will, "No, Gertie, honest, you only have to unlock one cuff and I promise I'll back against the tree and you can lock them again. I promise I'll be obedient."
That was exactly how it happened. There is something intensely frustration about performing an act over which you know you have no choice. I guess it is the "so near yet so far" syndrome. It was no more than a minute before I stood with my back against the trunk and my hands once more handcuffed behind my back and also behind the tree. I was well and truly foxed. When Gertie produced rope I eyed it with disfavor. "But you don't need to tie me as well! I'm quite helpless. If you use that rope on me, I'll be hurting before night comes. Please.. . ? "
"That's the idea, honey. You said you was bored so I'm making sure you ain't bored, not for today anyway. A girl what's hurting won't ever be properly bored, now can she?"
I did not so much submit as endure. Any protest I made had to be verbal and might earn me the switch. With Gertie I was to learn often enough that it was wise to make a virtue of necessity. I stood against the tree and said not a single word while I was bound tight to its trunk. Gertie, for reasons of her own, was obviously enjoying the exercise. She took a lot of time and care in the placement of the cords and I soon realized she knew where and how to make the cords hurt a maiden the most. She even did that horrible cinch thing to the ropes around my tummy and brought the harsh stands down to bisect and enter my pouting pussy then back behind the tree to clamp my loins in a manner to deny motion.
"I tied up a few gals in my time, honey" she said as she knotted the rope. "And me and the other kids used to do a lot of it in school. This rope cutting your twat is real mean, a girl figures on getting something out of it but she don't hardly manage anything but a rope burn."
Gertie assured me I made a pretty picture. Probably I did. I was the conventional damsel in distress and needed a hero to come along and cut me free. He would also need a handcuff key rescuing distressed damsels is not as easy as it used to be. I contented my humility by observation, "You've made a wonderful job of tying me, Gertie, I'll never get loose."
"That's right, honey, you sure won't." Gertie surveyed her work with immense approval. For the first time since I had come into her possession she became carnal. First she kissed me long. It was a warm and hardy kiss, just the kind you'd expect from Gertie's ripe womanhood. Then her fingers found my nipples and I gasped in a need more desperate than I've known. From there her lips took over one nipple while the free hand traced it's pathway down over the ropes to cup my corded cunt within a firm and female hand. This time I moaned out loud.
I suppose the events of my strange captivity and enforced living in more or less open air, to say nothing of the hosing down, had held latent my hot desires of the flesh. I reserved such ecstasies for Quinlan and if I thought of Gertie lustfully it was only to suppose she was concerned with doubly securing my imprisonment. But now my deprived flesh was finding an almost intolerable ecstasy in what she was doing. She was immensely skilled and would occasionally look at me above one breast while she continued her excitations. It was not long before I was making the most outrageous noises and surging against the binding ropes in a way to indent them even further into my skin. My body demanded more, more, more.. . ! My climax suddenly flowered and blossomed into an incandescence probably aided by the cord within my scolded pussy lips. But it was not until my last throes and spasms that Gertie stepped back to view my sweating nakedness with amused but hungry eyes which feed most greedily on every part of I had once possessed but which now belonged to her.
"Damn it, honey, you must have needed that! I ain't never seen a girl pop so quick or make a fuss over it. Hell, if I didn't have you tied so good, I'll make you attend to me. I'll bet you'd do that real good. Golly, the way you heaved, I thought you'd bust a rope!"
I watched Gertie's return to the house not knowing whether to be grateful for what I had received or to be resentful for the way I felt. Sure, she hadn't left me on the brink, in fact she'd been with me right to the very end. But I must have really lunged against the ropes, some of which were now hurting, especially that one down below that I don't needed to describe right now. That bastard of a stricture would be with and within me for as long as I was bound to the tree, that meant all day. I signed and consoled myself that my gain out-weighted my loss. I relapsed within my bonds. There's one good thing about being tied the way Gertie tied me, you can't struggle and you can't fall down. You could probably go to sleep if you wanted to bad enough. I simply gazed back at my reversed view to where my cage with its open door awaited me come night.
It was not long before I decided I had made a mistake. I kept looking longingly back at my cage, remembering the relative freedom I enjoyed therein. I scolded myself for failing to know when I was well off. But it was the hands behind back helplessness that smoldered my discontent. If I ever got back in that cage I would keep my mouth closed. Maybe Gertie was teaching me a lesson. From time to time I struggled. I only did it in the belief I'd feel guilty if I didn't. In the heat of the afternoon I must have dozed and in that semi-asleep state became aware of watching eyes. I came awake in a state of pure fright to stare in disbelief at wide, innocent female eyes.
It was little Audry.
I stared at her sparkling innocent eyes while she turned and cheerfully called out, "She's here, Mommy! I've found her!"
"I don't believe this," I said in fervent thankfulness. "How the devil did you find me, Audry?"
Audry came close and began to tease my nipples. It was an attention I didn't need right then but it was nice. It didn't stop her talking, "Pure luck, darling. Mommy and I were coming to visit when we saw the men take you away. The police took ever so long to get to some guy named Lucio something but you weren't there. When Mommy realized the police weren't getting any place, she decided to do something on her own. It took us a long time to find this place. Oh, Candice, I'm so glad we've got you back."
"You'd better stop what you're doing, Audry, you know how it always ends."
"Don't be silly, darling, you know you love every minute of it. And besides, you can't do anything about it. That woman really tied you good, didn't she?"
The fingertips became more demanding of my flesh. "I can't wait to ask you, Candice dear, but did those men who grabbed you stick their great big things in your pussy?"
"No, they didn't." I had now started to moan, oblivious to everything except the wicked little fingers so busy on my breasts. When Helen joined her daughter I treated theip both to an explosive orgasm of which I felt thoroughly ashamed. In the midst of it I was making the same sounds I would have made if they were whipping me. The only motions I could make were with my head and I was tossing it from side to side as if to make up for the inability of the rest of my body to move.
Helen's voice was approving, "My, my, Candice, Audry really is good for you, isn't she? Are you pleased to see us."
"Oh, jeepers yes! Where's Quinlan?"
"Hounding the police and giving Lucio whats-his-name a bad time. You've beautifully disappeared, darling. Audry and I can keep you forever, no one will ever know."
I stood there against the damned tree trunk, my breasts still wet from Audry's lips, my heart pounding over news which wasn't all that good. I asked, "What have you done with Gertie?"
"I brought a pair of handcuffs along, darling. I've got her nicely attached to some plumbing. Audry and I could never have handled her if I hadn't brought a gun along. She couldn't be sure I wouldn't fire it. Really, darling, I think Audry and I have hit the Mother Lode."
"Helen, I so glad to see you both. Would you please untie me?"
"That's a question you're going to have to learn to keep from asking. I seem to have heard it a lot from you," Helen admonished severely. "You're the most tie-up-able girl I've ever seen and you'll have to expect a certain amount of it in your life. Right now I'm enjoying watching you, so stop asking to be untied. I'll untie you when I'm damned good and ready."
"My wrists are handcuffed behind the trunk, in case you don't know."
"Don't worry, sweetheart, I have a key. Anyone who comes within a mile of you, Candice, has to have a key ready. Do you realize I've hardly ever seen you without you being handcuffed?"
"Well, that's not my fault. I really do wish you'd untie me. I hurt."
"Well, I'm sure you do. I expect it's mainly that lovely strand so prettily tugged up into your crotch. Darling, wouldn't that make a simple marvelous title for a book,'The Girl With The Corded Cunt?'"
"That's not a bit funny."
"I think it's funny. So does Audry. It's what we think that counts, you know dear."
I cursed my luck that Quinlan hadn't found me first. These two were all right in their own way, and I preferred being rescued by Helen and Audry over remaining bound to this tree or being locked in that dog cage. But I was uncertain of them and it was all too evident they were not going to give me true freedom. My was the case of being out of very hot frying pan into a cool fire.
Wearily I said, "Helen, please, I've really so glad you rescued me. But I'm entitled to a life, I don't want to spend mine tied up and chained up by you and Audry. Even though I like you both it's not what any girl would want. Please give me back to Quinlan."
"You recognized something important there, dear," Helen said, making herself rather feline. "You asked me to 'give' you back to Quinlan. That implies ownership, a right and ability to dispose of you as I see fit. Honey, you're a natural-born prisoner, you're nicely designed for ropes and cords and handcuffs and things. Against that tree you look a hell of a lot more natural than you do walking down a city street."
"I don't! I bet I look awful. Helen, stop being mean to me and teasing me like this. I want to be untied so damn bad...." I looked at mother and daughter in urgent appeal, they gazed back at me with glowing approval. If they wanted a captive girl they certainly had one. I wondered what Gertie was thinking of this whole thing, back in the house, handcuffed to a "bit of the plumbing."
It dawned on me that I might as well shut up and be a obedient little girl, I wasn't really going to be freed at all. Absurdly I was ready for Quinlan to come galloping over the hill. I was tired of the Helens, the Gerties, and the Audrys, I wanted a man! Glumly I acknowledged, "Forgive me if I seem disappointed. I thought I was being rescued but now I see that just isn't the case."
"Well, you are an ungrateful wretch!" Helen said without rancor. "If that's the way you feel about us maybe you'd like I should let Gertie loose and Audry and I will leave you to her tender mercies?"
"You know that's not what I want! If I have to be a prisoner, I'd sooner be your prisoner. The point I'm trying to make I that I don't see why I have to be a prisoner at all. I'm damned sure I don't look any prettier naked and tied than Audry would. Or maybe you yourself, Helen. If you want a tied up girl, why don't you practice on each other? And let me go back to Quinlan."
"I'm the one who gives the orders, dear."
"Very well, I now belong to you. How about you and Audry amusing yourselves with me overnight and tomorrow whipping me then sending me back to Quinlan? Isn't the pain I'm asking for enough to square our account?"
"Silly girl, what you're offering is not yours to give, I already have it. Your skin belongs to me," Helen tenderly informed. "Darling, you really must get used to the idea of not having a say in anything. A beautiful slave who's going to do what she's told or I'll know the reason why."
It is hard for a naked girl, bound stoutly to a tree, to shrug. But I tried. I didn't move much against Gertie's bonds but at the same time I made up my mind to just keep quiet and take whatever came, I really didn't have any choice in the matter. But it was so damned hard to relinquish my life and Quinlan and whatever else I was or would ever be to this charming woman and her mischievous daughter. They were a hell of a lot better than Lucio's brothel. But the imprisonment they offered might be every bit as complete and inescapable. I fell silent, absorbing my pain.
"You really do look too sweet for words, darling. Audry and I are enjoying you immensely. Don't look so dismal, you're giving us a lot of pleasure, isn't that enough?"
I refused to be drawn. By such facial contortions as I could make, I managed to convey a sort of resigned disgust. The two of them truly did enjoy me immensely, they were still walking around and around and taking an occasional prod at some part of me and then testing the firmness of the strictures binding me to the tree. I was some sort of sacrificial offering which they accepted gleefully, no doubt planning ways to make me squeal. After quite a long while this diversion paled and they started to work on my knots.
Even though they were two to one they took no chances. First they untied the bindings above and below my breasts, the loosed the cinched waist but did not free me there. Their aim was to then unlock the handcuffs, bring my hands around to where they could relock them again behind my back. This meant they had me helpless as always. They then finished the job and offered an arm as I stumbled from the tree, commenting pleasurably on the pink, red and scarlet indentations of the rope within my skin. If a girl stays bound long enough these marks are very much like whip marks. They led me towards the house, chattering gaily but with me uncertain whether to be sorry or sad. I need not have bothered.
When my hobbled steps reached where they had left Gertie in confinement, Gertie was gone.
Gertie was either damned clever or damned lucky. Her noose slipped easily around Helen's neck and was drawn wickedly tight to make my would-be rescuer stand upon her toes clutching wildly at something she could not cope with. Audry yelped and started to run but it was too late. Another noose captured her and Gertie had no trouble raising both mother and daughter in positions threatening to strangle them if they did not stand still. I was already helpless and could do nothing to aid them. I couldn't ever run, my hobbled feet made sure of that. I simply stood back to survey Gertie's triumph and Gertie herself.
"I had a handcuff key, you must have been damned dumb not to know that," Gertie taunted her captives. "Hell, I was loose in no time! I've been waiting here for you to come back, I knew you would."
"How much money do you want?" Helen demanded in a strangled gasp. "Name your price."
"Wish I could," Gertie mourned. "You and me would easy come to terms, we'd understand each other. But my life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel if I let you go. You walked into this, remember? Can't blame anyone but yourself. You and your little flossy here. Probably does what you tell her to, a chip off the old block. Thing is, what the hell am I going to do with you now that I've got you?" Gertie pondered for a few moments before inspiration prompted, "Guess the first thing is to get rid of them clothes. You two undress yourselves. You can, don't give me no lip."
"What do you want us naked for?"
I could see Helen was having a hard time against the strangling rope her fingers could do nothing about. "Look," she managed to say, "leave Audry out of this. If you want to be mean, be mean to me."
"like I said. Both of you. Strip!" Gertie's demand was firm.
It was something to watch, I almost felt privileged. What Gertie demanded of her captives was certainly practical. They could not removed the strangling noose but they could certainly remove their clothing, their hands and arms were free. I watched Helen's sour disgust at what she was forced to do, along with her daughter's excited interest in anything erotic. Both easily stripped themselves to the waist but when it came to their panties and nylons, the task became more difficult. They coped by using one hand to avoid strangulation or a broken neck, and the other to thrust down unwanted garments. When they kicked off their shoes they were in grave danger from the lost elevation of their heels. Not wishing to do her victims serious injury, Gertie quickly retrieved the handcuffs used on her wrists and fastened them upon the unresisting hands behind Helen's back. All she could find was a piece of rope for Audry but that was enough. But that was enough. She bound the crossed young wrists with a savage intent that made the youngster squeal in protest, a protest entirely ignored. Next she tied both pairs of ankles before removing the ropes above by which she had gained so easy a victory. The woman and the girl who had possessed me so briefly stood there in all their glorious nudity, sharing glances of shock and dismay. My heart went out to them. I knew what it was like.
Gertie still had a problem. She had two naked bodies, but what was she to do with them! All either could do was hop and inevitably fall. She solved her problem with another piece of rope. That one went from Helen's chafed neck to the neck of her daughter. Gertie compelled them to hop close enough together to give them only a three foot link between their necks. Her method of compulsion was a firm thumb and finger on a nipple. Again, from previous experience, I knew how such a grip could easily change a girl's mind. She then untied their feet. Armed with the willow switch, she marshaled all three of us into a group and more or less drove all of us into the back yard. I guessed what was coming. The kennel cage door was still open and, one by one, we were forced to enter. And then the door clanged shut and the padlocks clicked closed. For me it was much like coming home.
"You can catch up on your gossip," Gertie said agreeably. "Have a nice day."
"The rotten bitch, she damned near killed me," said Helen vehemently. She stood there, twisting uselessly against her handcuffed wrists. "If I ever get my hands on her...!"
"But, Mommy, this is so exciting!" Audry was aglow with a new emotion. No doubt she was seeing herself as the captive maiden of classic fiction.
Bitterly I added my comment to the group, "You asked for this, you know. It serves you both right."
We were a pretty cage full. Drawn by curiosity, and probably some carnal urge, Gertie came to view us often. She would stand and toss verbal jibes through the mesh and watch their impact. Helen was bursting with semi-restrained fury while her daughter was still viewing the whole thing as an erotic adventure, certain to turn out well.
During one of our periods without surveillance, Helen turned her anger to me. "The least you can do, Candice, is untie this beastly rope from our necks. Look, we'll both kneel down and you can do it easily."
They knelt, hopefully, gazing up at me with expectant eyes. It was in my mind to refuse the service, I was by no means sure Gertie wouldn't use that switch on me if I did, but damsels in distress should stick together so I backed up to Helen's neck and went to work. It wasn't half as easy as she said it would be but after ten minutes of fumbling the rope fell free and I turned my chained attentions to the mischievous teenager who's bottom I would most happily spank. When both of them had necks free of bonds, they rose to their feet and I got warmly kissed in gratitude. As one kissed my lips, the other sought the lips lower down, and I was forced to wiggle from their grasp. I had had enough of unwanted climaxes and their damp and untidy aftermath.
"Now you can untie my hands, Candice dear," Audry piped up brightly. Audry was placing her bound hands conveniently for me but I was scared, remembering Gertie's willow switch. She might go for the removal of the neck tethers but take a dim view of the removal of binding on the wrists. "Sorry but I'm scared. You mother can do it just as well as I can but I wouldn't advise her to. Sorry."
Audry couldn't have cared less. For her this was a wonderful adventure. She wiggled happily her cross-bound wrists, more in their sensuous enjoyment than in any expectation of getting loose.
"That's all right, Mommy. Perhaps it's best as Candice says for us all three to be in the same fix. I can't get you two loose because you're handcuffed. And I don't mind the way I am, it's fun."
The cage held all three of us comfortably. I pointed out its meager benefits and the two of them did a bit of prowling up and down against the straw before Audry gleefully inserted herself within the sleeping area. She could slip in and out without trouble but I could guess that Helen might scrape a bit of skin.
Helen was not taking kindly to captivity within a cage. "We got to get out of this place," she informed us decisively. "Candice, there just must be some way?"
They listened with disdain to my assurances that escape was impossible. They had not been in the cage as long as I had. I knew how they felt but was secretly amused by their reactions. This was not the role they were accustomed to. I leaned against the wall and watched them fume and prowl. When Gertie showed up, she watched us with keen approval and mocked, "Three pretty little birdies in a cage! My you look sweet. I've a good mind to feed you bird seed instead of water."
"Drop dead," snapped Helen.
"Up your ass, Gertie," added Audry.
"Anything come through about a ransom?" I asked politely.
"Sure is, honey." Gertie looked squarely at Helen. "Seems like you're a rich bitch. Lucio knew all about you. Makes things damned good and easy." Gertie beamed around at the now expectant trio. "What I do is take you to town and we make a visit to the bank and then we come back her loaded with dough. Nobody's goin' to interfere, nobody dare say a boo because I'm goin' to leave your little quail in such a damned uncomfortably situation that you'll be damned glad to get back and set her free. Lucio says we may as well include Candice in the deal. You can get hold of that guy of hers on the phone and he can add to the loot. Lucio ain't being greedy, I think it's just a million or two. How's that grab you?"
It was Audry who reacted first. "Oh, Mommy, that's wonderful. Don't worry about me, I'll be all right here with Candice. And then when you come back we can take Candice with us. Please, Mommy, don't ever let Candice go. I want her."
There was a lot of distrust in the air. Helen wasn't a bit sure about the deal or a bit pleased at the prospect of parting with a million dollars. Can't say I blame her. For Helen and Audry their captivity was still too new to have sunk in. Audry's exuberance lent an atmosphere of farce to what was actually a grime and dangerous situation. The general air was that I was securely chained enough that no one had to brother about me. I couldn't get loose. And, anyway, I didn't have any money. It was finally decided the trip to the city and the bank would take place the next morning. We spent a dejected night within the sleeping straw with Helen bitterly resentful about her abrasions. It was not until the sun was well up in the morning that we got the full impact of the iron hand within the velvet glove.
Gertie was almost apologetic about what she had to do and blamed it all on Lucio. Because all three of us were so hopelessly bound or chained, Gertie had no hesitation in entering the cage. She first of all looped Helen's neck with the previously discarded rope and tethered her to the wire while she rummaged through a box of chains and padlocks. After a few minutes it was evident the picture Helen was to carry of her daughter's plight would not be a happy one. It was very simple, a chain and padlock around the youngster's bound wrists, its other end padlocked to the wire above her head, not only to the wire but to one of the supporting steel struts that could bare all the teenager's weight. To achieve this, Gertie had raised the young arms high and then higher and secured them fast to leave Audry gazing at the ground and bent almost double. There was nothing new about it, but it was a brutal position to have to hold for any length of time. Helen was outraged.
"You can't possibly do that to my daughter," Helen stormed angrily. "That's torture and we'll be gone hours. You could have left her as she was, she couldn't possibly have gotten free."
"Lucio's instructions, dear." Gertie spoke gently but firmly. "I simply do what I'm told. Don't blame me. And, anyway, probably won't do your little girl any harm."
"I'll be all right, Mommy." Audry's tone was brave but not as cheerful as before.
We argued, but Gertie held all the cards. I was helpless and it was useless for Helen to fight with the only woman who could offer her release and Audry's release as well. I suppose it was a neatly devised situation. Audry and I watched her mother being led away at the end of a rope and sighed in unison when they disappeared. Three padlocks were firmly snapped on the door. We were on the wrong side of it, even without bonds we could not escape.
"You're tied with rope, Audry," I said hopefully. "If I can get my teeth at it, maybe I can get you loose."
It was a cruelly frustrating experience. Perhaps it had been designed intentionally to that end. My hands could reach the rope not at all. And when I tried to reach the binding with my teeth, I discovered they were inched beyond my reach. If Audry had been tethered with rope she might have been able to tug and pull enough to get her hands down within my reach but with chain.. . ! I stood looking up and the crossed and bound young hands and their circling chain and tried every trick I could devise to get my teeth to the ropes. But it was hopeless. There was no box I could stand on, nothing! If finally admitted defeat.
"Don't worry, darling, I'll make out."
I'll say this for Audry, she had courage. This was still an erotic adventure for her, the pain had not yet reached a point of distress. I knew it would. Poor Audry, in an hour she would know. I retreated to where we could get a good view of each other before saying, "I feel such a useless bitch, Audry, but there's nothing I can do. I'm just going to have to stand around this cage and look at you.. . . Well, shall we call it discomfort?"
It was at least ai hour before Audry cried.
7
Wire and Chain and Change
It was a bad, bad day. I was by no means sure about Gertie and Helen, it all seemed far too easy. But I did not tell Audry about that, the poor kid had enough problems of her own. She was a real good sport about my inability to help. I know that in her place I would have thought that surely there was something she could do to help.
My thoughts were divided between the suffering girl before me and the two woman in the bank. If everything went as Gertie wanted and if Quinlan failed to locate me in time, I would simply be transferred from one slavery to another, no doubt imprisoned in these same handcuffs and leg irons. It seemed I was to always be an available package for anyone who wanted to take me. I held my hands for Audry to see and assure herself as to the tightness of the cuffs about my wrists. I didn't want the poor girl to think I was falling down on any rescue operation. She agreed tearfully I was as helpless as she.
It was a good thing Audry was a limber girl, an adult woman would have found the posture far less bearable.
I ended up sitting as I always did with my back and chained arms leaning against the wall, my knees hunched. It wasn't all that comfortable but it enabled me to doze in the heat of the day. Audry and I exchanged frustrated glances as from time to time she fought against the wicked chain. She could twist and kick and punish her shoulders all she wished in fits of anger which found vent in motion. It's a funny thing about a girl tied that way, if she's willing to hurt her shoulders enough, she can straighten up. Not fully and not for very long, only a few moments, but it relieves the strain of the bent over position. Audry did it with increasing regularity as time marched on.
Long after we were left alone and long after the cruel bondage became very painful to the teenager, I heard her whisper, "Darling, please make me happy for a little while. I'd do it for you."
I was not a lesbian then or now, but there was something so simple and direct in her plea I knew I had a duty. We were two damsels in distress, one more than the other, but in very similar predicaments. The kennel cage held us as effectively as it had held the dogs of long ago. I knelt between Audry's legs which she spread as-wide as she could, the action causing her body to lower and even more pain on her shoulders, wrists, and arms. She was bitterly sweet.
It was when I had completed my task I had the bright idea of laying myself flat upon my tummy on the floor and inviting her to step up where ever she could upon my back or bottom. It showed my desperation that I was willing to experiment with such a demeaning posture. At first Audry refused. I was getting to like Audry more and more. Or perhaps I was just feeling more and more sorry for the poor kid. Anyway she did finally take a tentative step with one foot on my back and then another to stand between my chained arms near my shoulders. Her weight was not excessive, but enough to grind my breasts and nipples hard upon the floor. After five minutes of this she got off and I moved enough to enable her to tread my bottom. I could not get a good view of the effect but Audry assured me the relief was tremendous. It did not help her get loose but gave her a small recess. Naked female prisoners are grateful for anything.
We were two naked girls bored with captivity, one of us was hurting. From time to time I experimented with fresh positions in an effort to give Audry another inch or two advantage and some more relief. I was doing a crotched down position and Audry was experiments with short hops to reach this new position when a sardonic male voice invaded upon our world.
"Training for the Olympics? You look like a pair of chickens doing a breeding exercise." Quinlan's mockery was unmistakable.
Audry resumed her punishment. I got up sheepishly but, once erect, flew to the wire in wild excitement. All I could say was, "Oh, Quinlan. Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h, are we glad to see you."
"Could you use a bit of help?"
"Oh, Quin, please don't joke. Audry's in agony and I'm so damned sick of being in this cage."
"Figured I'd find you in some sort of jackpot so I brought these along." Quinlan held up a huge pair of some sort of cutting device with wicked looking jaws. "They call them bolt cutters. I'll have you out of there in no time."
Audry and I watched breathlessly. At that moment we were both prepared to yield male superiority in all things, Quinlan was an omnipotent presence, a male answer to our maiden's pray. My heart leapt with joy as the jaws found the padlocks, one after the other, and bit them asunder. When the third lock fell away and Quin opened the cage door, he made me the happiest of girls by taking me in his arms and kissing me as hungrily as I kissed him. When we came up for air, I held out my hands for those hungry steel jaws. But Quinlan was Quinlan. "No way, sweetheart, I paid good money for those irons, they belong to me, remember? Don't worry, I've got the keys."
"Please use them then. I'm so tired of being chained."
"All in good time, sweetheart. Shouldn't we look after dear little Audry?" He patted the wide-eyed nymphet on the bottom and asked, "Or are you enjoying the way you are? You look so damned cute."
"Oh, please Mr. Robins, I'll be ever so grateful if you'll get my arms down. I'll be so grateful I'll let you do that lovely thing to me. You know what I mean, that lovely thing you do to dear Candice."
Quinlan looked at me and grinned. "Is the little darling offering me a piece of tail?"
I had to laugh. Audry was irrepressible. She was offering as a reward the very thing she herself desired. "Cut her down, Quin," I pleaded. "She's been like that for so long. We can talk about the other thing when she's comfortable."
The magic shears did their work. Audry's arms fell back to normal and from the ceiling a piece of chain dangled. The padlock was next to go and it left Audry with her crossed wrists simply bound with rope. She was done with the brutal chain and locks. Buoyantly she tripped to her rescuer and kissed him soundly on the cheek. I was pleased he did not take her in his arms as he had me. What Quinlan did have was two naked girls with their hands securely fastened. He remained very much the dominant male. When Audry backed up to him and suggestively wiggled her tied wrists, he ignored the invitation but slapped her soundly across one of the equally inviting cheeks of her smooth bottom.
"Do you want to stay here, Audry, and wait for your mother or do you want to come with Candice and me! Decide either way, we don't have time to waste."
"Do you know about Mommy and the ransom and all that?"
"I know the whole bit, sweetheart. But I'm not taking time to explain the whole thing. I'm taking Candice and, if you want to be taken along, just say the word."
It was like inviting a starving person to eat. Audry's eyes sparkled. She jumped at this wonderful opportunity. "Oh. Mr. Robins, of course I'll come with you. Will you keep me prisoner like you do Candice?"
He took my arm, and when my hobbled steps could not keep pace, picked me up bodily and carried me to the car. Audry, dancing in delight, followed were we led and, without demur, allowed herself to be lifted into the trunk where she sat with the spare tire and the jack and hopefully inquired, "Shouldn't my feet be tied, Mr. Robins? And maybe I should be gagged.. . ? "
Audry's request was denied but Quinlan took the precaution of examining her bound hands, finding them secure. He gently pushed down the lovely young head and slammed the trunk lid. "I don't know what we'll do with her," he admitted. "But she's safer with us that running around loose. Come along my proud and shackled beauty."
There was a blanket in the car, it was draped over my shoulders. It no longer seemed to matter whether I was ironed or not, my instinct for freedom was appeased. Quinlan now had me and that was freedom enough for any girl!
Smitten by conscious I suddenly inquired, "But what about Helen?"
"The police are looking into the Helen affair. Sorry I took so long in discovering where you were and who had you. But I had some leads and some help and they paid off. I've got my captive maiden once more. Are you happy?"
"I'd show you how happy I am, Quin, if you'd let me have my hands."
"I like your hands the way they are. You know that." He spared me a sly, sideways grin. "You'll probably never have your hands again, or you feet either. But if you're tired of those chains, I'll tie you with rope when we get home. How's that for generosity."
"Don't bother."
A small, blissful silence held us both until he asked, "How'd you like to have young Audry for your personal slave? The kid never need be free again. I can fix it."
"Good gosh no! I don't want any competition for your affections from that little bundle of mischief. She'd have you in bed with her within an hour of getting home."
"No she wouldn't. Remember, I said your personal slave, not mine. You can lock the little so-and-so safely away before you and I make love. You can do anything you like with her. Think about it, Candice. It's not a bad offer."
"No! The answer is a firm negative," I told him decisively. "like I said, the last thing I need around is teenage competition. Teenagers are deadly, they get their man every time."
"Oh, all right, just thought I'd ask." He gave me another wicked sideways glance. "I'm working on something, something big. I can probably work Audry into the picture."
There came another blissful silence that I had no desire to break. I was basking in a tremendous relief and was longing to make love to Quinlan with every fiber of my being. The details of his rescue of Audry and me did not seem to matter, I was not the lest bit curious. I knew there was something on his mind, something he would get around to telling me in his own way and his own time. In his failure to remove my irons he had given me a hint of things to come.
I felt snug and cozy sitting there beside Quinlan, the man I always thought of in my mind as my Man. By now I knew him so well I could easily detect his preoccupation with something beyond me and the teenager in the trunk. His refusal to remove my irons had made them doubly heavy, not so much in the true sense of weight, but in the unspoken. For reasons of his own Quinlan wanted me in that degree of helplessness they imposed. From past experience I realized that often meant he wanted the advantage in an argument. A girl handcuffed and legironed is at a disadvantage in presenting a point of view contrary to the man who held the key. But I could care less. I clutched the blanket tight over my shoulders and wiggled as close to the man smell as the car allowed. All was well in my own beautiful world. I thought of Audry and her hands bound behind her back beneath the lid of the trunk, and how she would be very happy in discomfort.
They were waiting for us in the underground garage. Quinlan had gotten out of the car to release Audry from her prison when the five shadowy shapes left the gloom of the poorly lit portions of the garage. Confronting four of them, Quinlan had put one down with a swift karate kick but was struck down by a fifth from behind, the pistol butt crashing against his skull. He crumpled to the concrete to lay there inert. I was plucked from the front seat, a bag tied over my face, my irons unlocked so they fell with a loud metallic clank. They were instantly replaced with a thin piece of rope, applied with vicious intent. It was all over in a couple of minutes and I was carried away to one more unnamed fate.
It was the same Lucio. I was dumped against his desk to stand tottering in tight tied ankles and terribly aware of being bare naked. He waved away those who had carried me and said carelessly, "'No need to untie her, she'll be going right out again. She's perfect the way she is. Stick around outside while I talk to her a minute."
My mind was frightened with conjecture but I kept silent. In his own sardonic way Lucio provided half an answer to what I needed to know. "I don't have to waste time telling you things, Candice, or whatever your name is. But you're not a bad kid and I want you to know the time you spent in the chicken coop was only because I was trying to place you to your advantage and mine. I think you'll be pleased, it's better than a brothel."
Damned the brothel, damn everything. I spoke my most urgent need. "What's being done with Quinlan Robins?"
Lucio appeared surprised at my concern. He waved Quinlan into limbo with a careless hand. "Oh, him. He's dead. I thought you'd know. Bosco hit him too damned hard. Bosco's got a heavy hand. It doesn't matter. The damned guy would have been a bloody nuisance if he'd lived. He's caused me enough trouble already looking for you."
My world was shattered. I stood there, naked, bound, and staring at the smooth talker behind the desk with wide, fearful eyes. I heard my voice saying, "He can't be dead. He can't possibly be dead. I love him."
"He sure is, babe, whether you love him or not," Lucio assured me cheerfully. "But don't you worry none, I've got a real dandy of a deal fixed up for you. It's taken a bit of time but it's worth it. A month from now you'll be thanking me."
"But Helen.. . And the ransom.. . ? "
Lucio was enjoying his mastery of the situation and of me. He was getting a huge kick out of my bewilderment. "That Helen deal didn't work out just the way you and Quinlan and Helen wanted it. The police just make a social call. The police and me are real good friends. I've got a place to put this Helen woman, too. Not as profitable as you maybe but still a nice piece of chance." He gave me a smile, "Honey, you're about to start on the biggest and best adventure of your life."
I was about to ask him what he had done with Audry but I bit the question back. Perhaps he did not know about Audry. Perhaps the bound teenager was still in the trunk of the car. And since the car would be stolen they might ditch it somewhere and she might find rescue, even without her hands. Certainly she would find no kindness here. Miserably I kept my knowledge of the girl to myself. Instead, I asked, "Why the mystery about me? Why can't you tell me where I'm going?"
Lucio grinned and shrugged. He had a fine, large way of disposing of people and questions he had no intention of answering. He struck a bell and almost instantly the man came with the hypodermic needle. Seeing it, I went into a frantic panic. He was doing that professional bit of pressing the plunger to expel air bubbles and having the needle ready for the plunge, the plunge into my veins that would surely bring unconsciousness at least.
"Give it to her and get it over with," Lucio ordered gruffly.
I twisted. I struggled. But once more the bell summoned the hired help and I was firmly held while the needle found its target. It acted almost instantly and I sank down into oblivion. For all I knew it might be forever.
When I came back into this world it was with the knowledge of a great distance and a strange place. The air was warm and the smell flowers drifted in through the huge glass doors that led onto a balcony. I sensed rather than saw these things, my attention, when it started once more to focus, was upon the aquiline features of a man working at a desk. I knew instantly he was Castillan. I thought of Quinlan and blinked back tears. I thought of poor Audry bound in the trunk of the car. I thought of Helen's possible fate. My mind was a turmoil of drugged memories. But as awareness returned I felt the pain of cords on wrists and ankles. I was still bound with the same cords and just as tight as when I had stood uneasily before Lucio. I did not move, I was certain motion would give me pain. In my newly awakened state of mind my feeling was: why bother? Nothing mattered anymore.
"I trust your journey did not harm you, Miss Cosgrove?" The voice was as aristocratic as the finely chiseled features. "You have been unconscious a long time. Please accept my apologies."
I did not come up with the conventional, "Where am I?" I didn't care where I was. With Quinlan dead, I didn't care about anything. I spoke only because pain motivated me. "Please untie me. I've been tied for so long. I hurt."
I was not untied. My aristocratic companion, who was as far removed from Lucio as the two poles, raised me into a sitting position on the couch and fetched water. I drank greedily as he held it up to my lips.
"I am the Don Felipe Avildar." He introduced himself with grave courtesy. "You are on my estate in San Beueno. You are very far from what you used to call your home."
"Could I be covered please? I'm.. . I'm naked."
"So I noticed, my dear." This time there was dry humor in his thin voice. "You have no need of clothes. You have become my personal slave. I have purchased and paid for you." He gazed down at me with a strange benevolence. "I ask you now to accept a status quo you cannot change. Everything has happened. It is done."
"Could I have more water please?"
Instead of water he gave me wine which I gulped just as hungrily. My mouth was dry and the heaviness of the drug was still upon me. It took my wits a time to gather themselves, then I said very simply, "There are no such things as slaves any more, you can't buy me and own me."
"I have done both, my dear. Let us not split hairs. Let me say that I am more than pleased at my purchase."
It occurred to me that, if I must belong to some man, then this courteous old man might be the perfect man. I remembered Lucio's assurance I would be happy with my lot. But I thrust these traitorous thoughts away and demanded, "I don't see why you don't untie me. I'm only a girl and I'm naked, you don't need to keep me helpless."
"Ah, but I do! I have no doubt you would assure me of humility and compliance but the moment my back was turned you would run for what you see as freedom. Is this not so?"
I could not deny the truth. I shrugged and retorted, "Every prisoner has a right to escape. And you have no right to hold me prisoner. The condition you hold me in right now should make you ashamed. You seem a cultured man, I cannot understand what you would want with a bound and naked girl from another land."
"I do not want a bound and naked girl. I want a companion and an affectionate and obedient slave." He smiled and nodded at me benignly. "Since I am not prepared to whip you into submission or to break your spirit myself, I am passing you into the hands of some more skilled in such matters than I. This first acquaintance of ours is therefore brief. It explains why you remain bound."
His thin parchment smile embraced me once again. Beneath this man's polished and kindly exterior were iron bars and steel. "I could have sent you to your destination directly from the plane. But I wished this meeting and to assure you of a future you will find more than desirable, a future such as few girls ever obtain. I want you to remember this in the trials and tribulations into which I am about to thrust you. Remember there is a purpose in what both you and I now do. You will emerge a far more desirable and costly piece of merchandise than now."
I looked at Don Felipe askance, "You mean you're sending me somewhere to be.. . tortured?"
"You dramatize with that terrible word, and there may be moments when you believe it true. But no, I am not sending you to the torture chamber. I prefer to look upon what you are about to endure as simply basic and practical education. When it is over you will agree with me."
Don Felipe Avildar was easy to talk to. I might have gone on asking questions a long time but he clapped his hands and almost instantly a burly indio woman answered the call. At a nod from her master she smiled into my eyes as she enveloped my head in a hood to make me blind. She then knelt and untied my bound ankles. Evidently I would be required to walk. Her firm grip upon my bare arm led me from the room and from the presence of a man in whom I sensed a tremendous latent power.
For the first few days the iron collar riveted on my neck chafed horribly but a girl's skin is as adaptable as the rest of her and it was not long before I wore my collar and chain as I might have a pendent. It was very much a part of me and controlled my life utterly as, naked and sweating, I heaved on the pole to which it was firmly bolted. There were six poles, like spokes of a great wheel, and six girls. I never learned much of the other five because we were forbidden to talk and, in any case, had little breath to spare from our exertions. When, with the coming of night, the wheel we propelled was allowed to come to a stop and we sank to the floor and were instantly asleep. We were not unchained but remained tethered by the iron links until work started again the next morning.
I suppose by the standards of San Beueno the mill was modern. Its retention of girl prisoners with which to turn one of the big wheels was a punitive thing which not doubt some official had instituted with tongue in cheek. Our labors were doubly infuriating because within sight of our wheel was another shaft motivated by electricity. It revolved briskly day and night without a drop of female sweat. We eyed it longingly and with much bitterness. The floor of our work place or prison or whatever they chose to call it was of smooth concrete. In it was the grating of a drain. The management was much concern with feminine hygiene and made certain the overseer, a woman, hosed us down twice a day with cold water. These jet streams funneled themselves into the drain and carried away the normal waste products we toilers passed in our endless rounds. It would not have surprised me to be told I was working in this slavery to turn the shaft against a hidden brake. But instead I was informed there actually was a mill above and we were grinding something useful. This knowledge did not help much but it did help. When we lagged in our attention to your labors we were whipped. The chain to our collar was just long enough to allow us to stretch out at night. There was no escape.
A loyal application of hard labor to our efforts was assured by the pleasant custom of making each of us a stool pigeon. If any of us fell short in what our fellow prisoners considered her fair share of the load, the overseer was immediately informed and the culprit was whipped whether she was guilty or not. These whippings were not of long duration, just a stroke or two upon our naked flesh, but they were enough!
It was a bitter and frustrating captivity. Its labors were punitive and wearying. There was about the collars on our necks and the chains a terrible mocking implication of freedom. We could all work easily at our labors but the chains and collars kept us prisoners. There was always the feeling that there should have been something we could have done. Surely six pairs of hands and six pairs of feet should be been able to get the better of the woman with the whip or break one of the poles. In fact, we could not do anything at all except put our shoulder to the spoke and thrust with every muscle we possessed. We were utterly condemned, a tiny lost legion of sweating girl who had probably committed no sin. My status had been made clear to me by the woman who led me to my fate.
"You be good girl. You work very hard. You please Don Felipe and then he take you back and be very kind."
It was useless to ask questions, they were not answered. I was taken to the blacksmith to have the collar fashioned to fit then have it riveted on my neck. There would be no escape from it, it had no key. It did, however, have a single link at the nap of my neck and to this the chain from the pole was padlock. The five girls who were to be my companions and fellow prisoners eyed the procedure apathetically as they leaned against the poles, panting and without hope. The overseer was, in her own way, kind. I was not as toughened or hardened as my companions by their constant thrusting against their poles. At the start I was constantly sweating and being hosed down by the icy jet from hose as I passed it by. I tired easily and, if I devoted all my strength to my tasks, I would have been falling had the overseer not correctly gaged what I could take and whipped me only sparingly. The other girls soon tired of complaining of my failure to carry my weight. A new girl was evidently valuable merchandise and not to be killed the first day. I toughened up more than I ever dreamed possible and learned the tricks of thrusting at my pole and the art of sleeping on the concrete floor. Sometimes the overseer nodded at me knowingly as if we shared a secret.
It was not until I had been chained thus for five days that Don Felipe visited the mill with its captive maidens. He was attended by a male supervisor and the two of them exchanged Spanish with our wardress and her symbol of authority, the whip. Don Felipe viewed us with his usual grave courtesy. If he asked questions about us, we did not hear them above the grind of the machine we turned. He did not appear to single me out for attention any more than any other of the six of us. I was bitterly piqued but dared make no complaint or draw attention to myself. Had I done so I would have been whipped, it was the rule. But as we slowly revolved I felt his eyes burn my skin each time we passed him by. It seemed each one of us chained girls sought his approval by straining and thrusting with extra vigor beneath his quiet regard. I hated myself for doing this but I was as bad as the rest of them. When you consider the situation you will see there was not much else we could do.
By the time I had been chained to my pole a week I was thrusting with the best of the rest and took a strange pride in my ability to keep up my end. I think each one of the girls felt the same. Our labors ensured our perfect physical condition, and our sparse diet defeated any tendency to a tummy we might possess. I had never had much, now I had none at all, only a concavity which hardened day by day. I was absurdly proud of this and silently vowed it must never change. I do not know what my mental condition might have been had not the Don made me a promise and the overseer given me an occasional nod of approval and conspiracy. Not that she failed to give me the whip, I got the bitter strokes along with the rest of them when I absent-mindedly slacked in my efforts.
On the eleventh morning, before we started work, my hands were once more crossed and bound behind my back, the padlock was taken from the collar on my neck, and I was led away, my place being instantly taken by a quaking and obviously frightened new woman who was still distraught by unaccustomed nakedness. My hope of freedom was short lived. I was being led to one more manifestation of male omnipotence in the punishing of female flesh.
The ten days had taught me much and I was well aware of the lessons I learned. I beheld in the quiet gaze of the woman with the whip her increasing satisfaction with my humility and submission. Her keen eye noted the improved contours of my flesh as I strained at my daily work. I could look down at my own breasts and watch them tighten and take on lives and motions of their own under the stress of the pole. I had time enough to think in the deadly round under the constant treat of pain. But what was there to think about? Quinlan was dead, Helen was probably enslaved else where as was I. I could only guess at Audry's fate. All of us had been taken from our lives and I, at least, was being remolded to someone else's heart's desire. Sometimes I wept as I pushed at the pole but at night I too utterly tired for tears. As I became increasingly capable of coping with my punishment I became more and more curious where it might lead. The eleventh day revealed my fate.
It was a strip of ditch, dry, arid and without purpose. Beside it was the earth excavated to bring it into being. I was guided to one end of it where my punishment mocked me with it futility. It was a huge iron ball and chain which was quickly snapped to an anklet around my ankle. My hands were untied and I was presented with a spade and it was made clear to me that, if I failed to fill the ditch by evening, I could expect the whip. My mentor went away chuckling.
I stood there in a desolation of loneliness and bitter disappointment. We had approached this fresh punishment along a narrow dirt path and the woman with the whip was disappearing back along that path. She had assured me that there would be others coming along to view my labors and nakedness. I looked down at the three feet of chain by which I was fastened to the ball, I bent and tugged but the weight of it was beyond my strength. I could move it only by a sort of sideways roll. Well away, beyond shouting distance I could see another naked female figure hard at work. I looked at the spade I held and at the pile of dirt. It did not seem possible.. . !
I could not fool myself. The threat of the whip in the evening time was as potent now as it had been when chained to the pole. It would always be potent, always compelling me to some task I hated. I sensed in my present predicament a fresh subtlety in what was being done to me. Here I had a choice, a choice I had not enjoyed upon the pole. I could shovel fast or shovel slowly. In fact, I need not shovel at all, there was no one to spur my ambition. But my skin was already well whip marked from my pauses on the pole. I shuddered to think what would await me come evening if I failed this task. Hating every motion I threw a spade full of dirt into the ditch and then another and then another.. . .
There were not many passersby. I came to realize that I must be on some kind of prison farm and those who used the path were beholding a familiar figure in a naked girl struggling with a spade. But there were both men and women who eyed me with avid curiosity and sometimes dropped a word of English to caution me about the whip and Don Felipe and what might await me at day's end. One woman laughingly assured me I would be violated by every man on the place before I was allowed to sleep. She lied, but I did not know it then. The ball and chain kept me were I was. In spite of its utilitarian purpose it was wickedly shaming. I hated to be seen thus shackled to the ball. I hated the thing, it was forever snubbing my foot as I worked. I had little need to move it for my pile of dirt receded slowly. When I did wish to advance it a few inches I discovered I could use my spade as leverage. A girl thus chained was prisoner for sure. Early afternoon brought the unkindest shame of all in the presence of Don Felipe. My labors had raised dust which clung to my sweat-stained nakedness to turn me into a mockery of feminine allure. I was positive I looked disgusting and smelled terribly of sweat. Don Felipe had driven out to visit me in a tiny car from which he descended and addressed me with courtesy, "You are gaining much benefit from the exercise, dear child. You are very beautiful."
"I do not feel beautiful, I feel loathsome. May I sit down?"
"No, you may not." His voice was sharp. ' 'You may however kneel. You may sit back upon your heels with your knees well apart with you hands upon your thighs. Do you understand?"
I understood. I did as I was told, hating every movement. I felt a great deal of fresh shame and humiliation but I realized, too, that these emotions were not as deep or devastating as they would have been ten days ago. I was learning fast. For something to do I said, "I am glad I please you. Sir. How long must I go on being punished?"
"That is not for you to know, my dear. But let us not call this punishment, it is simply a form of toil to which you were unaccustomed. It is turning you into something quite magnificent."
We stared. Me with the chain trailing from one ankle to the ball and the iron collar still about my neck. I felt quit certain Don Felipe was gaining tremendous erotic satisfactions from me, who was, after all, his own creation in the condition I now was. Wanly I said, "I am ready to obey you in everything. There is no need to punish me further."
Don Felipe eyed my pile of dirt and said, thoughtfully, "It is probable you will be whipped this evening, dear child. I doubt your work will produce results to satisfy those who must judge your efforts."
"Please don't let them?" I begged in a passionate humility. "I'm not used to work like this, it's not my fault, whipping me won't do a particle of good."
"Ah, but indeed it will. Pain is a refining influence on a girl, especially a girl such as you from a distant place and with white skin." His eyes roved up and down the immense mound. "But I suppose if you exerted yourself vigorously.. . . " He let the inference hang between us in the hot afternoon air. He had come only to look, to confirm some opinion of his own, perhaps also to gauge the quality of my body under the "refinement" of my labors and his lash. He bowed and wished me well, got in his little car and drove away.
After he had gone I knelt there and wept. When I once again rose wearily to my task it was with a deliberate fury to determine if it was actually possible to do the work allotted to me in a single day. I discovered it was not.
That evening I was whipped.
8
Maiden Skin
It was a man who came to get me. He looked over the remaining quarter of the huge mound I had been unable to cope with and then, in surprisingly good English, consoled, "Well I guess you did your best, girl. But it wasn't good enough. It's the high jump for your this evening. But tomorrow you'll do better. Mark my words."
He tied my hands behind my back. This act was becoming automatic. Even if I hadn't been ordered to do so I think I would have turned and crossed my wrists for his convenience and waited patiently for them to be bound. The factors governing my present life were so implacable, so impossible to combat, that I was resigned to anything. I could well understand the convenience of binding my hands, a girl about to be whipped or flogged or whatever they wanted to call it is apt to become hysterical. I could become as hysterical as I wished but it would do me no good. My new jailer took me by the arm, having first unlocked my ankle from the ball, and led me to my punishment. I was a naughty girl who had failed to complete her task.
It was pretty much routine for this man who grasp my bare skin. I learned later that most of the girls who passed through his hands were simply there to be punished. Some to make them amenable to a man's will. Others, like myself, being molded and taught the lessons of submission by which they would walk their future paths. There were also girls who were legitimate inmates of the prison farm for some criminal act. I never found out the tasks these girls were allotted, but one of them was ahead of me in her payment of penalty for delinquency.
The place was pretty much like an ordinary farm yard, well separated from the big house on the hill. Everything was wide and spacious but starkly in the center of the whole compound was a whipping post, a pillory, a set of stocks, and a gibbet sort of affair by which a girl could be suspended. The maiden to be punished ahead of me stood as submissively as I, hands bound, eyes wide in dismay, her arm clutched by the fingers of authority. An official who look very much like an army officer read out her crime and allocated a sentence. She was to receive ten strokes with a cane across her bottom and twenty more across her back with a whip. Upon hearing her sentence she wept in great bursts of grief and fear she could not assuage. Her hands being firmly bound at her back necessitated her guard doing the chivalrous thing and providing a bit of dirty rag which, to wipe away the salty evidence of her grief. Still sobbing she was led below the outrageous arm and then suspended by her wrists, the bindings of which were changed from her back to front. When her toes were searching for the ground they had lost and she was swaying gently in total suspension and total nakedness her punishment began. Seeing her dealt with before it was my turn made my own punishment twice as bad. I listened to her screams, I watched her dance as a puppet on a string. I watched her twist and jerk and seek to evade the seeking cane and the leather thong. When her feet were once more allowed upon the ground the poor girl was hysterical and was led away while still choking and gasping to regain the breath driven from her by pure pain and agony. It was then my turn.
I had never felt more lost, more lonely, more alone. I did not even know if I was to receive the same punishment or more or less. I was led before the magnificently uniformed and beribboned officer to learn the fate this place dealt out to girls who failed to fill their quota.
My sentence was read to me in somber tones of wicked potent. I had failed in an assignment and there was the suspicion of deliberate action on my part contributing to that failure. I would therefore receive twenty strokes with a riding crop across my bottom and thirty more with a whip across my back. It was a cruel punishment which left me gasping and inarticulate with fear. I had expected pain but this would be pain in a degree which may well render me unfit for the labor expected of me. The military had even provided a couple of drummers who did a magnificent drum roll as I was led to where my nakedness would be hung and made fully vulnerable to the whip and crop. I was just a little innocent girl faced with pure terror.
I remember standing, quivering, as my bound hands were freed from my back and changed over to the front. A lot of cord was used and I could easily deduce the purpose was to do as little damage as possible to my wrists and circulation. That was damn little comfort. I was then led to the beastly gibbet with its damned outstretched arm, from which there dangled the inevitable rope awaiting my presence. There I was bound and then suspended with my feet above the soil, my toes reaching helplessly. But that, in my case, was not enough. A rope looped my left ankle and another was threaded to the metal ankle on my right ankle. They were then pulled towards rings in the sides of the gibbet, forcing my legs wide apart, obscenely spread and cruelly exposed. There was no part or crease of my femininity not open to the whip and the gaze. This was a one of the worst moments of my life. Over to one side I beheld the car of Don Felipe and his noble features appearing hungrily, his eyes burning into my nakedness. The roll of the drums rose then suddenly stopped. The silence was devastating. In that silence I received the first of fifty strokes. I heard myself scream but did not care.
I suppose there are worst things that can happen to a girl than for her to be stripped, hung naked, and have her bare skin whipped, but I have not experienced them. There is a awfulness about the whip for it goes on and on and on, and a girl looses count as the weals mount on her skin and she feels as distant from her last reprieving stroke as when the first one cut so bitterly at her unsuspecting flesh. It was so now. The careful cruel strokes went on and on until the punishment of my twin cheeks below was discontinued in favor of the relative virginity of my back. The wicked, limber riding crop was cast aside and the whip took its place and, without pause, resumed my punishment. I was a girl who had failed to fill a hole with soil and must be punished.
Within his car, Don Felipe had a clear view of my punishment, he probably I achieve fresh virtue from each stroke. I looked down at my naked breasts and beheld a thong mark where the lash had kissed. No part of me was safe, nothing!
I remembered the term "hung out to dry," and wondered if that was why I was left to hang in total isolated loneliness after the final stroke had cut my skin. The staff disbanded and Don Felipe's car cheerfully disappeared, those who had whipped me gathered up their instruments of pain and went elsewhere. I was left to hang. And, no doubt, to reflect upon my sins. It was completely dark when I was let down, and then without ceremony hoisted into a truck and taken back to the ditch and the awaiting ball. There once more my shackled ankles was padlocked to the immovable sphere and I was left there to spend the night in company with my wealed back and bottom. I slept the deep sleep of exhaustion and agony, waking only intermittently to test my shackle and find it firm around my ankle. For me there would never be escape.
I suppose they had to pay some attention to common sense. In the morning I was well and hardily fed, there was even a thermos of hot coffee but it was evident I was not considered I was invalid or even convalescent. I was expected to do a day's work and that work was to fill the ditch. Stiff and sore and wanting to cry I picked up the hateful spade, once more tested the shackle on my ankle, fingered the metal band around my neck, and went to work. I had no courage with which to resist or do aught else. I simply could not face another whipping in the coming evening. I had had enough. If I had had someone to make a vow to I would have pledged to do my master's will.
It lasted a week. Only once more was I whipped and that time the sentence was relatively light ten strokes upon my back and bottom. Everything is relative, I felt glad at so light a sentence. The next day I was fastened and harnessed to the cart. I remember men who, laughingly, referred to young woman as fillies, well that's what I became. I was fitted with a bridle which exercised a savage control between my lips and above my tongue. It strapped above and around my face and from it there were reins. There was a belt for my middle and wristlets for my hands. The cart was equipped with shafts between which I was harnessed, fastened and bound. None of my binding inhibited anything, they left me free to run and stand and, above all, work. I was driven by a cheerful young indio who's English was limited to whoa and giddy up or "you want your ass whipped?" To get me started he yanked unkindly at the reins and flicked the buggy whip in a sharp snap across my skin. Longing to revolt but frightened to death I pulled and tugged and got the two wheeled cart into motion. Thereafter we spent the day on the prison farm, fetching and carrying and sweating even more than I had when chained to the pole.
His name was Jose and I suppose he was no more cruel to me than any other teenager might have been. This punishment between the shafts and secured without any hope of relief or any hope of argument was not purely punitive but served some useful purposes around the farm. The whole thing was designed to precisely fit the physical limits of a girl. When we stopped for Jose to load and unload, I stood naked and panting, tethered by one of the reins, my forearms strapped tight to the shafts at either side, and traces from strapped shoulders and belted waist helping in my task of pulling a quite sizable delivery cart. To keep me enthused in this task, Jose had a whip and used it with gusto and total indiscretion. None of his blows were hard but most were intensely sexual. Once more I abandoned thought of protest.
As a punishment it was not so bad, my main concern had to be Jose's whip. There were enough starts and stops to give me brief rest between the heaving and pulling. Jose did not walk beside me but sat jauntily upon the seat and flicked the reins and gave the strange English commands while cutting happily at me with his whip. like everything else done to me at this place, it was damned hard work. When night came I was as exhausted as I had been on the pole. To make this punishment appropriate I was housed in a barn with horses and cows, my right ankle shackled firmly to a ring bolt in the floor. I slept on straw and I slept stark naked. I fully expected Jose to violate me during the night but he did not. No doubt there was protective rules and the magic of Don Felipe.
I was viewed and discussed and driven as a prize horse might well have been. I was not myself allowed to speak and, in any case, the bridle and bit prohibited even attempts. Mine was a stern purpose and, under the watchful eye of young Jose, I got more red strips upon my skin that I truly earned. But his weapon was not the crop or cane or the awful whipping of the formal flogging. I accepted it with grateful thankfulness. If hard labor cultured virtue, I was gaining heavily.
Once again it was seven days before my hands were bound behind my back and I was taken from the ring bolt. I was even allowed to speak and since it was the woman jailer who tended me I lost no time in asking, "How many more of these punishments do I have to bear?"
"They ain't punishments, you ain't had real punishment yet. What you've had is fun things. Don Felipe is very kind to you. Pretty soon I guess he take you to his bed."
As we traversed what I thought of as the barnyard, I thought unhappily that I was probably to spend time in the pillory, stocks, and even the whipping post. Not that they needed the whipping post when they desired to whip me, they did it anywhere convenient. But something new had been added, my eye picked it out instantly. It might be called a table or a bench. Bits of rope were on the ground beside its legs but I could not figure out its purpose at first. When we reached it I could see that it was divided into sections at the middle. My hands were untied and I was told to lay upon my back and keep quiet.
I loved that brief moment of freedom but dared not use it. Obediently I edged my nakedness up on to the hardwood surface and lay down as ordered. If I was to lay there long the wood would become increasingly hard. The bench was narrow enough to enable my jailer to tug my arms down to either side and bind my hand tight to the frame. This alone made me completely helpless but it was only the beginning. She now fitted stanchions vertically to either side of my waist, looped my ankles with rope, each one separate, then drew them up and back to tie them fast against the stout uprights securely anchored. Having completed this task to her satisfaction, she removed from beneath my hips the support from the lower half of the bench so as to protrude my bottom and hips suspended in air and cruelly exposed and lifted by these new bindings. I was held fast in a posture of total obscenity.
"Pity not to let folks take a look at that pretty cunt you got." He who had bound me thus now patted, in a surprisingly male manner, the object of her four letter word to make sure it was tautly exposed and fully available to view. Without humor she said, "Be seeing you," and went away.
I could not move, my hands were corded tight below, and my feet similarly bound but raised and spread unnaturally high to reveal that portion of me they usually hid. I had an excellent view of my own pubic hair.
The day was different, it held no hard labor. It was purely sexual and cruelly shaming. Everyone on the huge estate came to look at my private parts and pass their own judgment upon their quality. And making jokes, most of which I could only guess at. I lay upon by back upon the bench, unable to move, totally naked and bitterly ashamed. For the first few hours my face was a continual pink, red or scarlet according to the interest of my audience. They were allowed to pat or to feel, but evidently there was a rule against penetration or insertion, none did. I had not been bound thus an hour before I realized to my own horror that the series of pats and probes could have but one results. To have so public an orgasm as these attentions might generate was humiliation indeed. I didn't struggle much, I knew from the beginning I could not free myself.
Don Felipe delayed his visit until the afternoon. By that time I was willing to believe my vulva had been viewed and touched by half of South American. It had also been the resting place for innumerable flies and other insects I could not move enough to dislodge. It was a hateful and shameful way for a girl to be viewed by a man as cultured as the Don. But the Don had caused me to be fastened thus so his polite observations were enough.
"As usual you look charming, dear child." His eyes approved everything they saw. "It is good that you be thus exposed and made to feel the shame of outraged modesty. When you are through this course of conditioning you will be an exceedingly whole young woman."
"Please.. . ? " I pleaded urgently. "Don't keep me like this any longer. Even children have come to look at me and view what no child should ever see. I must appear disgusting. It's terrible that I should be so open and bare before your eyes."
"You would prefer the ball and chain and shovel?"
"Yes, I would! Please, I know you can break me but where is the profit in a broken girl?"
"A shrewd observation, my dear. But have no fear, you will not be broken. You are making steady progress towards the final perfection I demand in you. Are you not pleased?"
Secretly I was pleased with the end result. I might not enjoy the methods employed to bring it about but they were effective. The young woman Don Felipe would honor with his bed would be in superb physical condition. But I would not want to go to his bed, I did not want any part of what was being done to me, I did not desire perfection. I simply wanted to go home and cuddle in Quinlan's arms. But Quinlan was dead! Perhaps, since I had already sunk so deep into slavery, the Don Felipe might be a blessing for a girl so far from home that is if he ever stopped this damned conditioning process.
His bland voice was accompanied by an equally arid smile, "I have received good reports of you, my dear. You are becoming increasingly humble and most desirably obedient. Congratulations! You are following a path and benefiting hereby far more than beneath an endless scoring of the lash."
I wanted to assure this older gentleman of my conversion to slavery. I would obey and be as humble as he wished if only he would free me from these terrible tortures. I told him this things anxiously and brokenly in the distress of this punishment. He listened in a nodding attention but told me what I should have expected before I spoke. My course was not yet run. It would be he who decided when I reached the standard of excellence he desired. He walked away and the flies and insect reposed themselves of that portion of my person from which he had removed them with his riding crop. Some children also drifted up from nowhere and surveyed me with wide, brown eyes. My Spanish is poor but I could figure that the little boys were teasing the little girls that one day they, too, would lay bound upon the bench with legs spread wide for male approval.
I suffered the bench only one day. I suppose its purpose to was to pinpoint the inherent sexuality of all I suffered. I was a sexual object being conditioned and made prime for the final penetration of the master's phallus.
The next step in my progress towards perfection was a return to honest toil. I suppose the fact that the labor was to no useful end simply increased its punitive quality. I was take to a walled yard, peopled solely by the same five maidens with whom I had shared the poles and chains on that grinding wheel. They were attached to widely distance walls, two to one side, three to the other. There was a wheelbarrow and, when I saw the shackles hanging from its handles, my heart sank. When they were locked upon my wrists and I beheld the piles of gravel by which the maidens stood expectantly with shovels at ready, I knew how my day was to be spent.
It was beautifully simple. I stood beside the empty barrow to which my hands had been chained and watched my companions in misfortune go to work shoving the gravel into my barrow's waiting maw, I then heaved with all my might to raise its legs from the ground and trust it forward across the yard to the other side and those who waited with their spades. Staggering against the load I thankfully tipped the barrow on its side to dislodge the useless cargo and then I stood passively but panting while by fellow delinquents shoved it back in again ready for my next journey. My jailer stayed for only the one round trip to give me instructions and warning. When he left us alone, the yard held five naked and chained young woman, anxious only to please.
They shoved and I pushed. The smell of female sweat was heavy in the hot air.
It lasted the usual week. The days were long, and if we paused to pant and seek a breathing space for too long a time, the door would open and the male warden above would shout an order that sent us hurrying back to work. But the nights were better than they might have been. We could not escape the courtyard with its high walls and locked door so we were granted a limited freedom controlled by shackled feet. Metal anklets joined by short spans of chain kept us aware of our condition and inhibited any gymnastics by which some might have scaled the walls. There were pails of water and we could roam the enclosure at will. But mostly we slept, but in our brief verbal exchanges, I gathered my five companions were in the same predicament as myself for similar reasons. They were either owned by, or had insulted an omnipotent male and were working towards redemption by this horrible, sweating labor and loss of pride. We were six unhappy girls with nowhere to go. The most defeating thing about my punishments was that they worked. I could not disguise from myself my increasing anxiety to conform, to be what Don Felipe desired. My paramount wish was to gain this perfection as soon as possible and reach some sort of comfort in the sun of his approval. As day passed into day I had to wonder how many days and months it might take to refine me to his heart's desire. I was never told.
We were only whipped enough to keep us alert and anxious to do our work. But the strips we received kept us aware of hovering pain, of punishment ready to pounce. The whip and cane were never far from our conscious. They were vividly in mind now as I was led again into the wide sunlit barnyard towards the place of punishment. I hated the barnyard, it was so brutally public and a girl punished therein could be sure of a constant, interested audience and shame. My hands were, as usual, crossed behind my back and tightly bound. It was a precaution they no longer needed to take but it was religiously performed on each occasion when I was freed of chain or shackle. As we approached the stark and forbidding center piece of the several acres, I beheld a change, something had been taken away and something added.
It was of stout timbers, wickedly bolted together and anchored firmly at either end to hold it immovably upright. What it amounted to was a heavy wooden panel, three feet high and five feet long. Dead center there was a hole, a hole far too big for either my hands, ankles or neck. I soon realized what it was for. As I stood there, naked and bound, my guard flipped back a lock and lifted the upper half to set it back upon its hinge, leaving an exposed half circle to invite my trembling flesh. When my hands were untied I was invited to insert myself in the obvious posture. Unhappily I obeyed, feeling nothing but silly and ineffectual in the posture to which I was now forced. Half of me knelt on one side and half of me was supported on the other by my hands and arms so as to leave me, in effect, on all fours, with my bottom well exposed back out of sight and presumably waiting to be caned or whipped as someone might desire. The top half of the panel was then lowered upon the small of my back to leave me tightly embraced in a circle made to fit most snugly and unable to do anything about anything.
I was a naked, helpless body, pinched neatly at its center to divide it more or less equally into to two half, the lower of which was hidden from my view by the panel. I supported my frontal section with hands, well able to conjecture the appearance of the part of me behind and out of view. It was not long before my presence was discovered by a group of children who availed themselves eagerly of the chance to prod and feel that portion of myself I could not shield. Evidently I was to be fair game for any interested person. I could only suppose I would be whipped or caned sometime later in the day. Why else would I be thus held?
I kicked back blindly at inquisitive hands but hurt only myself. I soon ceased that useless action and bore what I must in silence. It was wickedly tiring on my arms and shoulders, but the only way to ease this strain was to allow my breasts to fall towards the ground and fold my arms beneath my cheek. I suspected this made my appearance more absurd than ever and I resorted to it as seldom as possible. Most of my thinking was of the sounds I was going to hear and the pain I was going to feel as the chosen instruments impacted upon my curves.
"Good gosh, Candice, you have a positive genius for disaster!"
I froze in disbelief. The male voice from behind the panel addressing my protruding ass was that of Quinlan Robins. But Quin was dead!
It must be the sun playing tricks with my tired mind.
"You're hardly decent, Candice, my sweet, the way your bottom sticks out behind...!" Quinlan Robins strolled into my range of vision and stood looking down at me with the casualness I so well remember. His voice was tender, "Sweetheart, it appears I've found you."
"But Quin.. . You're dead!" The stupid words escaped my lips without thought. I stared at Quin in a tremendous surge of happiness, not even concerned with how I must appear. Forlornly I added, "I love you so much."
Quinlan knelt, and taking my chin in his hand, kissed my squarely on my lips. I kissed him back and even spared one tired arm to clutch at him in support and affection. Between kisses I muttered, "Take me away with you, Quin. Take me away from this awful place."
Nothing is ever as we expect. I listened, panting with excitement, while my master explained he had no key with which to effect my release. It appeared, however, he did have an acquaintance with Don Felipe, assuring me with absolute certainty that, after a conversation with the Don, my release would immediately follow. Apparently the two of them belonged to that international fraternity of the intensely wealthy who scratched each other's backs. He told me that he had been stunned but not killed by Bosco's blow. Chuckling he related the total defeat of Lucio's minions and Lucio's power. Lucio was in jail and-likely to stay there. In seeking to best Quinlan Robins, Lucio had bitten off more than he could chew. I listened to the glorious sage with baited breath and with a resurgence of joy such as I had not felt since I had been with this man before. After we had kissed again and again, he got to his feet and told me to "hang tough" while he bearded Don Felipe in his den. I heard the car drive away and felt myself once more alone except for the occasional passerby. Time passed.
I gauged the hours only by fatigue. I wish somehow Quinlan had an ax to hack me free from this wooden bondage. But I could understand the civilized transfer of my person was much to be desired. I looked forward to a flood of Castilian apologies.
As time dragged and I was forced to resume the cycle of being on all fours or crouched in the effort to ease my arms, I most ardently yearning for the sound of an approaching car.
It was not a car. it was the same man who had locked me with the timber grip. He walked within my view to survey me with approval.
I am sure he would have been shocked to death had I not still be pinched within the wooden grip. But it was now I who was shocked. Dangling from his right hand was a length of limber leather which could have but a single purpose. My bottom cringed as did my voice, "You mustn't use that on me! I'm going to be set free, you mustn't whip me!"
"Hell, girl, what you beefing about?" he demanded pleasantly. "I ain't using no whip and no cane. I got me a strap, it's nice and supple and will wrap around that ass of yours real smart. Where you get this silly notion about getting free?"
I could have wept in frustration. This man and his length of leather was a hazard unforeseen. He would know nothing of Quinlan or of Don Felipe's visit from abroad. Moreover he would not believe a word I said, a girl in my position would make any lie to delay the impact of that terrible object he held with such carelessness. Desperately I pleaded, "Wouldn't you go to Don Felipe before you whip me? Please.. . ? "
"You think I'm nuts, girl? A guy don't bother the Don with stuff like this. What's a whipped ass more or less? You've been a good girl up to now. Don't break your good record by being trouble now over a few marks on your rump."
It would hurt terribly, I knew it would! Just looking at the beastly, limp length told me of bitter pain to come. Never was any maiden in greater need of rescue than I! If that rescue did not come at once I would be a sadly welted girl. As though to signify his contempt for my protests, my jailer swung his leather weapon and brought it smacking down across the center of my bare back. The blow and its resultant pain bent my elbows to cause me to thrust my face against my bare arms. Contemptuously he gave me a lighter blow across my shoulders, bringing tears of bitter frustration to my cheeks. He bent and raised me up to cause me to resume the all fours position and to tell me, not unkindly, "Is best you stay like this, kid. Getting your head down on the ground raises your rump and stretches it real good for the leather. I ain't aiming to break no skin."
I knew I was trapped. It was a bitter refection that I would received this punishment perhaps only a few minutes before rescue and release. Even now Don Felipe and Quin might be on their way here, but by the time they arrived I would be a well-whipped young woman with a burnt and scolded bottom. I turned to watch my jailer disappear from view behind the panel. I waited in a tense and awful anticipation.
Fire lanced my loins as the first blow fell. I could see nothing of what was being done to me but I certainly could feel. The leather flagellum was living up to my worst fears, it was a vicious instrument of pain and had about it a personal quality of venom. I beat a clenched fist upon the ground and kicked wildly with one foot, an exercise instantly inhibited by a shrewd stroke upon my upraised sole. The agony was so intense that thereafter I knelt submissively to endure whatever punishment I was given. Bitterly I reflected that obedience was the word for Candice.
The jailer must have changed sides, no doubt with a view to strict impartiality upon my flesh. The second blow struck resoundingly across what I could neither shield or hide. Its pain was merciless. I was tautly motionless in expectation of number three when I heard the car. I received the awful impact of the blow with tears, but they were tears of joy.
I was rescued in the nick of time.
9
Wealed Joy
"No stroke upon a girl's skin is ever wasted," said Don Felipe. "She profits from all." His eye twinkled. "It is not impossible a seeming rescue of a damsel in distress might be ill-timed. A few more strokes might have made your Candice even more glad to see you."
"How do you feel about that, sweetheart?" Quinlan inquired humorously. "But don't answer that one. If you deserve any more, I'll give them to you myself."
"She's a young woman of extreme virtue and has benefited much from her stay here as my guest, Mr. Robins." The Don nodded sagely, "I will not pretend other than deep loss. But I am indebted to you for reimbursement for my costs. You are an honorable man, Mr. Robins."
They were enjoying themselves hugely at my expense. I am female so my joy was tempered by the delay in returning me to citizen status. I was still naked. My hands were still tied behind my back. I was being discussed as though I were a domestic animal changing hands. Politely I inquired, "Wouldn't one of you two gentlemen like to cover me up?"
"No, we would not!" My master's voice was stern. I was too close to the whip to demur and so tried another approach. "My hands are tied behind my back, in case you haven't noticed.. . . "
"And very nice, too," said Quinlan with approval.
"A bound maiden is forever virtuous," intoned Don Felipe.
So, OK, let them have their sport. I was kneeling and resting back upon my heels. I bowed my head to show how deep was my submission to their will but kept one eye cocked hopefully. My bottom burned terribly. I was thankful my punishment had been limited to three, but I would not have put it past these two gentlemen who had found such a rapport to send me back to the panel and the remainder of whatever strokes I failed to get. Within it all I was gloriously and wonderfully happy.
The hospitality of Don Felipe's house knew no bounds. We were to stay as guests for the night. I was not consulted about the invitation and would have much preferred whatever other accommodation San Beueno had to offer. But since that first moment of hearing Quinlan's voice and knowing him alive I had been consumed with pure lust, I desired Quin deep within me with an intensity of which I was almost ashamed. The stripes upon my flesh did no more than fuel my fire. By the time we reached our bedroom I could have cared less where I spent the night. Quin and I were fortified by a good conversation and the fine wine from our host. I could, with feminine intuition, pick up the Don's disappointment over this failure on his part to consummate his enslavement of me. I will admit I was curious as to what I would have received at his hands. He was an elderly man beyond the age of ordinary potency. But then, a girl could never be sure.. . !
Perhaps my consummation as his consort for a night might have been the benediction of my lips and tongue, a tribute I would have gladly paid and would be content to pay now in return for freedom. But Quinlan picked me up and carried me to where we were to spend the night. When he stood me upright beside our bed I asked, testily, "Darling, aren't you going to untie my hands?"
There was no immediate response. Quin eyed me up and down in a manner to crinkle my spine but then did something to curl it up for quite another reason. He unhooked the belt from his waist and drew it free, running it thoughtfully through one hand and looking meaningfully at my already marked bottom. "You seem to have forgotten something, sweetheart. Being freed enslavement to Don Felipe does not free you from enslavement to me. You belonged to me before this happened, you still do. Do you want me to use this belt on you to prove my point?"
Quin was right! I had completely forgotten. My mind had been filled with joyous ecstasy at being freed from the frightening captivity, but
I realized this freedom released me from nothing previously enforced. From the moment of the assault in the garage in which I had believed Quin had been killed. I had been handcuffed and legironed and bound and very much his property. Nothing had happened to change this. Abjectly I said, "I'm sorry, I forgot. If you give me a little time, I'll get back into the grove. But if you want to whip me, please do. I won't mind. I expect I deserve it. But after you've whipped me, please give it to me good." I looked him in the eye. "I want you terribly."
I'll admit to a sigh of relief when he treated the belt back in his pants. I wanted to be loved, not whipped. Sensing my needs, my master laid me on the bed and, with my hands still bound behind my back, subjected me to the roughest ravishment of our lives. It was wonderful. It was pure ecstasy. It sent me into an orgasm way up among the stars. When my last gasps were over and I was breathing more or less normally, he started in on me again. I lay with crossed wrists firmly bound behind my back, uncaring of the pain. All I wanted was his pounding thrusts and his gentle strokes in and out of my sheath to last forever.
In the morning it was Quinlan who bathed me but a woman was provided to fix my hair. My master and I presented ourselves for breakfast in immaculate condition. Other than being still naked and with hands tied behind my back, all my master had done with the cords denying me freedom was to tighten their knots. When I considered it in the light of day I realized I was indeed back to normal. For me this was normal, and thinking along these lines set the smoldering fire within my sex to burning brightly. Drugged with sex I would have welcomed anything so long as it was my master who gave me pain or took away my freedom.
The female servant stood beside my chair and fed me while Quin and Don Felipe carried on an animated conversation, ignoring my existence. The woman did not speak as she lifted the food to my lips. I sat and smoldered. The outcome of this delightful threesome was Don Felipe's suggestion, instantly accepted, for us to stay upon the estate one more day and to observe and participate in certain San Beueno customs I would gladly have foregone. But the offer was kind and Quinlan accepted it because he was genuinely interested in the place and he was truly grateful for an easy repossession of my person. What I wanted did not matter.
The iron around my neck had gone unnoticed. I had become so accustomed to it I had forgotten about this symbol of my slavery. Thinking about it while the two men talked, I resolved to bring up the subject of its removal while Don Felipe's blacksmith shop was still available to us. I felt that my request would be refused and that Quinlan would take me home wearing it for all to see. I blushed to think of that, yet at the same time my fire flamed. Towards the end of breakfast they actually deigned to speak of me.
"Your beloved Candice will, of course, accompany us today, and will enjoy sufficient freedom that I suggest a further restraint, Mr. Robins."
I saw Quinlan hesitate but he was trapped just as I was trapped.
"Of course," he agreed hardily. "Shackled feet perhaps?"
"I have found a binding, not too tight, of a girl's elbows a most inhibiting restraint," the Don suggested gently. "If you concur I will instruct the servant according and he will make a proper job of it with some soft bands I use on such occasions." Don Felipe bestowed his thin smile upon us both, "Such a binding is not only an admirable restraint but it does a great deal for a girl's posture. You understand, her breasts.. . . ? "
Everybody understood. I was going to get my elbows tied behind my back the same as my hands and this was going to cause my breasts to flaunt themselves even more than usual. It would also make quite sure that throughout the day I would forever be reminded of what I was. These two men were not going to give me the faintest chance of self-assertion. Once more I said nothing, it would have done me no good. But I did spare a reproving glance which elicited only a cheerful smile and a meaningful fingering of the belt around his waist. I sighed, this was normalcy indeed!
The Avilidar Estate was vast, we could not see it all. But what we did behold was a measure of Don Felipe's power, he possessed a kingdom in which he reigned supreme. I even forgot the ache in my arms and became as interested as my two male companions. In the afternoon he suggested we attend a local function which took place only rarely and offered a unique opportunity to observe a facet of San Beueno life. We did not question, we went along.
It was a dusty little village fighting an eternal battle against the encroaching jungle. On the bare outskirts was a dilapidated structure which might once have been a barracks or a fort or perhaps an ornate warehouse. Don Felipe's car drew up at the impressive portal. We were greeted in a manner we were now used to. Floods of Spanish flew back and forth and our new host, a man almost as distinguished looking as Don Felipe himself, turned his attention to me. I had become inured to stares and rarely blushed but as my nakedness was examined and I was turned around to ascertain the tightness of my bounds, I felt a familiar pinkness raising to my cheeks and then down to the collar on my neck. This collar was also a subject of comment. A question was asked and the Don answered. Then everyone but me had a good, hardy laugh. I began to put two and two together, I had been examined as available merchandise.
The place inspired in me a nagging disquiet, there was something forbidding about it and I entered its cool gloom with misgivings. Quinlan was involved in another animated conversation with the Don and our new host. I had possessed a small store of Spanish before being kidnapped to this place, a store which was increasing by leaps and bounds. Ears alert, I picked up words and threads of a topic I found hard to believe. But disbelief was made a positive when Quinlan patted my bare bottom and whispered, "Think of it, darling, a real honest-to-goodness slave market." He laughed delightedly. "But dealing only in girls, of course. The owner thought we'd brought you here to be sold. That's what all the talk was about."
I gazed up at Quinlan Robins in some panic. "You won't.. . ? I mean, you're not going to let them.. . . ? "
"Don't be silly, of course not. These people understand about slaves so you're nothing remarkable to them. They asked a question and it was answered, that's all there is to it."
He kissed me lightly, patted my closest curve. "But this is too good to miss. I'm damned interested. Damn it, Candice, don't you have a bit of curiosity?"
What I had was a blush, an iron collar riveted on my neck, my hands and arms tied tight behind my back. I was now in a fortress devoted to the buying and selling of girls like me. There was no way I could fail to feel goose pimples. I was kissed again and assured everything would be all right.
If this was fiction it would be about now Quinlan would get knocked on the head again and I would be whisked off to the auction block and sold and long gone before my hero regained consciousness. But it wasn't like that. It was beautifully civilized and, despite my fears, I began to become interested in both the place and those who occupied it. The old building must once have been a prison or else someone had recently spent a lot of money on iron bars. Cells and cages were all over the place and in at least half of them were girls, girls like me. Although most of them had a touch of coffee color to their skins, there were some actual blacks. Each wore the same thing, an iron collar around their necks, as did I, and each of them had her wrists crossed and bound behind her back. They were also beautifully naked. They viewed us through the bars with varying degrees of apathy or hope. The whip marks on their skin told me they had been told not to be impolite to visitors. They gazed upon me with sympathy as one of themselves.
It was explained to us that the merchandise came to this place from all over the world, mostly because it was desirable to remove it from where it had been. The reason for a girl's enslavement could fall into many categories. The political, a jealous lover, a genuine need of cash by the girl's family or whoever had kidnapped her, perhaps simply a punitive wish to punish. All this was best done far from home and thus the slave market in the half deserted village within San Beueno. It appeared San Beueno had a tolerant eye for such activities and was content to pretend it did not exist.
There were about fifteen men, most of them dealers. Those who purchased the girls had no wish to be seen, they delegated the role to others and paid commission. Most of the men held a few slips of paper to which they constantly referred, no doubt listings of the physical characteristics desired by the purchasers. There was a raised platform, the "block," and below it a desk at which a clerk would collect the bids and hand over a bill of sale. Don Felipe spoke of it with pride. I gathered he had purchased those other five girls I had shared the wheel and wheelbarrow with. He gravely explained he kept a small inventory both for his own amusement and as gifts for those who rated an honor. Perhaps he would buy another girl today to take my place.
The girls varied, some obviously glad of a chance of escape, others fearful. There was also the small minority of proud and haughty beauties who's spirit was not yet broken and who might require the whip before they were properly trained. There were ten girls to be sold that day and we watched them go one by one to an undetermined fate. It would have been hard to believe had it not been for the iron around their necks and hands so tightly bound behind their back. The bidding was orderly but rapid, as though everyone wanted to get it over and done with. Breathlessly I watched nine naked girls sold into a life slavery, knowing how easily I might have stood upon that block myself and fetched a sum of money as huge as all the rest. It appeared that girls were worth more than precious metal. The atmosphere was such that I could understand the whole thing. Of course, I was conditioned and deeply impressed by Don Felipe and his power. He did not bid on any of the first nine, they went to others. He told me he was waiting for number ten. Number ten was special. Number ten was Audry.
I was shocked, my breathing quickening as I gazed at Quinlan in mute question. But he shrugged and was as shocked as I. Seeing the interplay, the Don inquired, "You know this girl?"
In a rapid exchange Quinlan and I told him of our knowledge of number ten and our concern for her. "Am I allowed to bit on her?" Quinlan demanded. "I can't just abandon the poor kid."
"You forget it is I who will buy her," Don Felipe gently reminded. "No, your bid would not be acceptable here. They are wry of strangers here. I will buy as I first intended. She is quite beautiful, is she not?"
Audry was indeed beautiful. Her spirit was unbroken and she was flashing insolence around the room as though her back was unmarked by the whip. She twisted against her bound wrists as though refusing acceptance of this helplessness. She had obviously been prepared for this sale, her nakedness enhanced by cosmetic arts, her hair a crowing glory. Judging by the rest, Audry was going to cost Don Felipe a pretty penny. The bidding started immediately, and Audry's absorption with those who sought to possess her was such she failed to notice our little group well to one side and uninvolved. But the auctioneer was aware of us and from time to time caught Don Felipe's eye to receive a confirming nod. At the end of the bidding Audry had fetched the highest price of the day and it was Don Felipe who was her new owner.
Dinner was the same as the previous evening except that now a cloud hung above the three of us while my master and Don Felipe ate and I was fed. But the conversation was in English and came too swiftly to its inevitable conclusion. "I would not have inflected this contretemps upon you for the world. Believe me I regret this deeply." Don Felipe's voice was troubled.
"She is the daughter of a personal friend, she is little more than a child. We cannot possibly go away and simply leave her in San Beueno." Quinlan was obviously as troubled as our host. Reflecting on my observations of Audry on the auction block I was positive Quinlan could not make good his objection about the child status. Audry had thrived on whatever they had fed her, or maybe the prison had just gone to work on improving her for sale. She was gloriously beautiful, I had to admit this fact. She was sparkling and buoyant and a challenge to the virility of any man. For those who provoked her. Audry would fight them. Her breasts were simply gorgeous and her nipples had been tinted deep scarlet. I wondered, fearfully, if Quinlan was realizing it was the Don who now owned her and would value her charms as he had mine. It was asking a lot of him to part with both of us.
"I must ask you, dear friend, to take your beloved back to whence you came but leave me mine, this young houri I have purchased before you eyes. Surely I do not ask too much?"
"You will keep her? You will not sell her elsewhere?" Quinlan was fighting in retreat.
"She will remain with me. She will be trained."
"You mean she'll suffer everything I suffered?" I asked without thinking.
"Indeed, yes. I suggest you owe me thanks and not reproof." The Don's reprimand was faintly acid.
I knew him right. He was stating no more than the truth. I may have hated what he described as "training" but I can not deny its effect on the person of Candice Cosgrove. I was constantly aware, since our reunion, of Quinlan's increased interest in my body. We had been constantly absorbed with other things but I caught him gazing at my figure from time to time. Whenever we got away from the influences now surrounding us, we would wallow in concupiscence and dissolve our love in sex. But now was now. I felt the hand of Don Felipe cold upon my flesh.
Our trouble was we were too damned civilized. Even the enslavement of girls in San Beueno gathered into itself a culture lacking elsewhere, this place was on the right path, all else was out of step. Don Felipe had sold me back to Quinlan for a horrendous amount of money, but he was prepared to be offended if we pressed our demands for Audry's release too hard. He would understand but he would n forgive. By his standards we were imposing on his generosity an hospitality. He told us so in his own quiet, dignified fashion and at the end of it there was nothing for Quin and I to do but agree. I suppose that in the back of our minds there was the awareness that, if Don Felipe chose to use force, he could put me back on his chain gang and send Quinlan Robins packing. I could well imagine him doing this and returning my price to my former master with his usual bitter courtesy. Quin and I understood. We shrugged and exchanged glances of hopelessness. But I could not leave well enough alone. I had a vision of Audry engaged in some dull and futile labor under the constant threat of the whip. It seemed so wrong for her to enter this servitude when I was there to help.
"Then please let me spend a day or two with her at the start so she won't be too devastated by what her 'training' really is," I pleaded.
Quinlan was disgusted, "Don't be ridiculous, Candice, that little girl is hard as nails, she'll survive anything. Don Felipe did not torture you, he won't torture her. She'll probably be flattered to belong to an aristocrat."
"I'll bet she's crying her eyes out right now."
"What Candice suggests is not without merit," Don Felipe interposed quietly. "Its principle benefit would be to allay your sense of guilt. And I'm sure its effect on the girl you call Audry would be beneficial, a helping hand at the beginning of her new life. If Candice is willing.. . ? "
I had got myself into something. I was suddenly trembling and afraid but had set a ball to rolling in a way I could not stop. Later on, while we were in bed, Quin was heavy with reproof, irritated at an unexpected delay, uncertain of the wisdom of my choice. But Don Felipe had shrewdly placed his finger on the pulse, the male pulse which so easily responds with guilt to frustration it cannot cope with. Even with all his money, Quinlan could not rid himself of San Beueno or the man who's word was authority here. It was decided that in the morning I would become his slave again. Quinlan would leave to do business in the coastal city but would keep in touch by phone and return to pick me up and take me home. It was a beautifully conceived plan by which everyone benefited, even me, I was not without guilt of my own when it came to leaving Audry here in chains. The lovemaking between
Quinlan and me suffered from mutual irritation. But did not suffer long and the irritation gave way to a splendor we had never previously achieved. I went to my fate with a reasonably light heart.
The "estate" was endlessly inventive. My reunion with Audry took place as my guide led me to a bit of woodland beside which a slender, nude female figure was busy sawing logs. There was a trestle upon which the branch or segment of tree was laid and a bucksaw in the hands of a young woman who obviously knew little of its use. I guessed that Audry had been busy at this task for some time but only a couple sawn-off chunks were visible. The trestle was of heavy timbers, well anchored in the ground. To it was bolted the chain which trailed to the shackle on Audry's ankle. On its other side was another shackle, invitingly open. My heart sank. When we drew close we stared at each other, Audry in wide-eyed disbelief, me in pink embarrassment.
"Candice.. . ! Oh, darling...."
"Audry! Oh, Audry, I'm so terribly sorry...."
We embraced. My hands had been untied on arrival and I was free. Never had two girls held or kissed each other with such fervent ardor or thankfulness. While we were still close and nakedly together I felt the inevitable shackle close about my ankles and hear the harsh male voice, "You be done this job by night or you get whipped." The voice departed. We did not see him go.
There was so much to tell. Audry was unconscious of impending punishment but I was not. After breathless minutes of endearments and the tale of Audry's coming to this place and my own misadventures told, I reminded that sparkling companion that if we did not get the logs sawn as directed we would both be soundly whipped that evening. I might as well have been speaking to the wind.
"Oh, that. Don't pay attention to that stuff, Candice. Look, I simply have to tell you...."
I listened to how Audry had lain quietly bound within the trunk of our car while I was taken and then had been driven to where the stolen car would be made over, repainted, and resold. There she had been discovered and returned to Lucio. By that time I was gone and she was conveniently purchased by a representative of the slave market which had transported and trained her in its own way until yesterday. I could fill in as many blanks for her as she for me.
The logs were solid. There were costive. They would not go away.
When I came to try the saw on them I found I was not much more adept than Audry. The bucksaw was well named, it bucked. But gradually I mastered it and developed a somewhat successful technique. Audry sat and watched, playing with the anklet and chain which held her to the trestle until I threw the saw at her in disgust and told her to pull her weight. Little by little she got the feel of the saw and a pile of sawn logs began to grow. They had to be cast aside to make room for others and we shared that task as we shared the labor of the saw. Soon we were sweating and all the cosmetic art bestowed upon dear Audry disappeared, to be replace by the determined anger of a naked girl determined to beat the system. I consoled her as best I could, warning that I would be her companion for only a couple days.
"Darling, you mean you're enduring this just to help me?" she demanded. "Oh, Candice, I hadn't dreamed...."
"Well, I thought it would save you heartache and fear of what's going to happen," I admitted guiltily. "Nothing is going to happen to you except a lot of hard work and some punishments when you don't make your quota. At the end of it is Don Felipe, the aristocratic old gentleman who purchased you."
Audry stood, digesting my information. I was then embraced in a storm of young gratitude which ended when she broke away, her features heavy with expectancy. "Darling, you mean he'll fuck me? Isn't he a bit old?"
"He'll make you service him in a sexual way, you can be sure of that, Audry. Now let's get on with this job."
"Oh, damn the job." She stamped a shackled foot to make it rattle in protest. "You have Mr. Robins around to fuck you all the time. All I get is some old fart."
"You'd best stop thinking about sex, Audry." I advised. "Even if you love the guy, you can't do it day and night. There has to be other things."
"What other things!" she demanded with a pout. "There isn't anything else. Oh, Candice, you know there isn't anything else. These chains on our ankles are only there because some man wants to fuck us."
"Audry, stop using that horrible word. If you have to keep saying it then use the first letter, I'll know what you mean."
"Well, OK then. You know, Candice, we're both were we are, naked and chained and working like crazy, because a couple of guys want to.. . F us. The whole world revolves around F'ing. You can't tell me different. I want it and so do you and so do the men who tie us and chain us and strip us naked. Isn't it fun!"
It was an argument I could not win, I gave up trying. I devoted my energies to persuading Audry to do enough work to save us from getting whipped. Neither one of us could have sawn enough logs to escape punishment. But I was hopeful that the two of us could combine our efforts might actually win out. We sawed busily. We tossed the logs into an ever-growing pile from which I took heart. But then the fading day brought the man to tie our hands behind our backs. There remained a pile of untouched wood to condemn us utterly. Thoughtfully the jailer joined our necks with a loop of rope and a three foot span. He winked at me as though we were old friends but obviously distrusted Audry. I could understand his sentiments.
I was sure it was simply a sense of what was proper that caused me to be punished by the same, unfinished punishment I was just starting when Quinlan had rescued me. It was the same panel and the same waist-wide hole in the center. The flagellum was thoughtfully hung from a nail driven into the heavy timber. When my hands were untied, I had no thought of running away. I knew escape was impossible and why screw things up when freedom was only a day away or the day after. I knelt obediently and inserted my middle into the hole then cringed as the lock clicked shut. Audry stood by, her hands still bound and watched the proceedings with wide-eyed dismay. It would be about now she would be wishing she had exerted herself more at the woodpile.
Unexpected and for reasons I could not name, it was the woman who came and took the flagellum from its nail. Helpless on all fours I watched her test and turn the wicked, supple leather in her hands as though in affectionate memory of other girls she had punished. The limber leather had a life of its own, or so it seemed to me, who was about to feel its bite. But she smoothed and measured it as though with love, and then, in a surprising burst of humor, held it to my lips to be kissed before it cut my skin. I kissed it dutifully and avoided Audry's eyes.
I suppose it could have been worse. The blows were not as cruel as I had taken from the man that previous time but they were placed shrewdly on my unprotected rear and beat at me steadily in a rhythm I found impossible to bare. The steady beat of strokes, one after the other, led me to the humiliation of the age old plea, "Oh please, not so hard! Please can't you do it slower! Please, I can't bare it, I just can't...."
The slap of leather on my skin went on and on. The flagellum seemed to burrow deep within my being to dissolve me in a well of agony. I know it was not the most severe of punishments but while it was happening it hurt like hell. It was made no easier to bare by the realization that I should not be getting it, that the deal was for me to keep Audry company, not to share her punishments. It was a bitter thing to know that Don Felipe had failed to leave instructions to protect me. Or had he forgotten.. . ? Perhaps I would never know. I knew it would be useless to try to persuade the woman to stop using that leather on my bottom. She would continue until convinced I had had enough and that was simply that! Glances I stole at Audry while I pleaded and kicked and cried told me that my punishment was having an effect on her teenage ebullience even though it had none on me. When the leather stopped its rhythm and I was released from the panel, I was weeping and bitterly ashamed. I was left in freedom for a few moments and tenderly rubbed my wounded rear. The weals were easy to feel with my fingertips. Then my wrists were once more crossed and corded and I stood aside obediently to watch Audry get her share.
Audry did not yield passively, the had to be manhandled into position until the hinged upper half was firmly locked on her waist. She was only then resigned to what she could not evade. She looked at me with a mixture of pleading and fear on her face until the leather made its first cut at her unprotected rear. After that Audry's behavior followed about the same course as my own. A girl simply can't help but to plead while so being tortured!
We were a pair of subdued and tearful slavegirls as we were led back to the trestle. We could not dry our tears for our hands, as usual, were tied behind our backs. We stood forlorn as the shackles bit our ankle and locked tight. When our escort turned to leave I exclaimed, "But we're still tied and our necks are roped!"
He paused and looked back, enjoying his own quiet humor, "You untie yourselves. Will be no punishment. You be loose in ten minute." He resumed his march back to the buildings.
"Rotten ass-hole!" said Audry.
"He could be right," I ventured optimistically. "It would take us longer than ten minutes to untie each other. Do you want to try or are you too tired?" I asked.
"Tired my foot!" Audry sniffed angrily. "I'm not tired, I'm mad. Fancy beating us with that leather thing just because of a few lousy damned logs. Darling, this isn't going to happen every night, is it?"
"Not if we make our quota."
"Piss on their quota!" Audry wiggled to try and touch her wounds. "I've never been whipped like that to hurt so much before. And that beastly thing they locked us into. I could have died. Darling, will you work on me or will I work on you?"
We were cleverly tied. It took longer than half an hour before we stood free and took the tethering rope from our necks. If we hadn't wanted each other so badly, I don't suppose we would have taken the trouble. But we did want each other and our first act after tossed the final rope aside was to clutch and hug and kiss. Before taking our lovemaking farther, we stood apart and kicked despondently at the metal locked on our ankles. It responded with its usual clink in a derisive, metallic taunt. "Oh, shit, this is for the birds, Candice. We're almost free and we have to stand here like a couple of dummies!"
I shared Audry's irritation. I was sure we were two of the most frustrated females in the world, but certainly not the most frustrated in the matter of sex at least not for long! We gave up bemoaning our chained feet and dried our eyes and cheeks with fingers suddenly free. We then treated the pile of logs against which we must spend the night to a vision of lesbian love, I am sure they failed to appreciate. After that we slept, we were terribly tired.
In the middle of the night we awoke and made our love all over again. If the logs laughed silently to see us, we could not tell. All we knew was we were two naked girls, chained and very far from home. A pair with wealed bottoms who were-likely to have wealed backs on the morrow if they did not smarten up!
Slavery is sad.
10
The Links of Longing
We were awakened in the morning by a cart unloading a further supply of wood, rough stuff from the trees on which we would have to labor through the day. But is was not us who would do this particular grind. Tethered behind the cart were a pair of girls I had not previously seen. Their necks were roped, their hands were bound as ours had been the night before. Audry and I were routed out of slumber and our shackles unlocked and left open. We were taken to the back of the cart and there exchanged with the two newcomers who appeared apprehensive. Within a minute their ankles were chained within the still-warm shackles. Our hands were tied behind our backs and our necks noosed and tethered behind the cart. It was a business-like exchange and I heard the girls given the same warning we had received the morning before, with the same threat of the whip for failure. The poor dears flew instantly to the task in a fumbling, feminine futility reminding me of Audry's first efforts. The sawn logs were then loaded in the cart and I was surprised Audry and I were not commanded to perform this task. Perhaps it was not worth the bother of untying us and then tying us up again. In wan dejection Audry and I trudged behind the departing wagon and glanced back at a new pair of nude beauties laboring at a task with which we were well acquainted. I think we would both have preferred to stay with the logs, we had become used to them. But what we wanted didn't count. Obediently and trying not to trip and break our necks we strode dutifully behind the cart to whatever was next on our list of "training." It was an isolated trough, the sort of system to which animals came to drink, besides which was an old-fashioned water pump with large, curving metal handle. Running from the pump into the huge trough was a spout. It was a very big trough, seeming to us poor girls like a small swimming pool. When I realized what we were to do that day I resigned myself to the whip once more that evening. I could tell Audry did the same.
But it appeared we were not yet ready for our day's work. While we were still tethered to the back of the cart the two male servants in charge proceeded to fill pails with water from the pump and douse us down. We could not get away from the icy water and they refused to listen to our assurances we would sooner be dirty than frozen. Our hairdos and cosmetic work disappeared under that deluge we could not avoid. Because our hands were tied behind us we could not even shield our faces from buckets of water thrown at us. When they had finished with this sport, they varied our tethers by removing the ropes tying your necks to the cart and padlocking the bands around our ankles with a length of chain the other end of which was padlocked to the platform of the pump. There was a chain and padlock on each side so we wouldn't tangle as we worked. We were then tossed a couple packets of food for our breakfast and laughingly told we would not be short of water. They freed our hands and, still laughing, drove away. The system looked dauntingly empty.
There are times when labors of life seem too overwhelming to even try to cope. It was so now. Audry looked at the empty trough and expressed my own point of view, "Piss on it, we'll never fill that damned thing. Come on, let's sit down on the platform and eat what they've given us. I don't suppose there's any chance of freeing our feet, is there?"
There was no chance! We tried for a while but gave it up. It was pleasant to sit on the small platform and consume the food. When it was over we looked at each other in conjecture. "It's hopeless," said Audry, "I'm not even going to try."
I stood up, fingering my wealed rump with its ridged reminders of my delinquency the day before. Some how I couldn't face that panel and the agony of what was done to me back where I could not see. "We have to try," I said dolefully, "I'll go first. Your bottom may be tougher than mine. Audry, but I simply can't stand another whipping this evening."
"Neither can I. But we're going to get it."
I leaned on the handle with gloriously free hands, the effort needed to work the handle up and down was neither hard or easy. The water came after the fifth stroke and thereafter ran in a continuous stream so long as we worked the handle. It was hard work, not the sort of stuff for girls or children. I was soon short of breath and yielded the curved metal handle to a sulky Audry who soon desisted and announced revolt, "Piss on them! They don't give a girl a break. We can't fill that lousy system if we pump for a week."
"We haven't tried yet, Audry."
I felt sorry for Audry even as she stood there pouting while I worked. Chained as we were we had nothing else to do all day and it seemed to me we might as well gauge the capacity of the system to defeat us. The water splashed out the spout and down the trough. It took a long while to get the bottom surface totally covered and that was a far ways from filling the damned thing. We had thirty inches to go and a rough calculation told me (based on how long it had taken to cover the first inch) the task was actually possible if we applied ourselves. I broke this news to our companion who's retort left me with little doubt that if she ever reached Don Felipe at all she would by that time be a well whip-marked girl. But there was something lovable about Audry and I continued to work until she caught the rhythm and took over from me when I needed rest.
I stood the labor best for I had been conditioned in all the previous punishments I had borne. But we both sweated profusely and exchanged each other's girl smell while we pushed the plunger up and down endlessly and kicked our chained ankles in discontent. Watching Audry at work I saw how exquisitely beautiful she was. Such beauty made her price beyond rubies and I stood close by to watch the play of her breasts and the concavity of her almost nonexistent stomach with a narcissistic wave of pleasure. I could not behold myself as I worked but Audry and I were a mirror for each other as we worked.
"How long do we have to go on doing these beastly jobs, Candice?"
Audry listened to my disclaimer of knowledge, retorting, "What I expected, what I hoped for was the Odealesque thing, you remember the painting, Candice, I'm sure you do. That beautiful painting of the harem girl reclining on the divan waiting for the master to come and fuck her. I'll bet she never had to pump water."
Probably Audry was right, yet thinking over the spectrum of female slavery and the privileged status of the harems, I could not but wonder how many masters might have got wise to the wisdom of a bit of manual labor for a girl who was beginning to put on weight! I could well believe Audry and I were not the first. Consolingly I said, "You'll be proud of yourself when this is all over and done with. I'm already proud of myself, and I didn't finish the course."
"Well, Candice, you were beautiful to begin with. You must feel damned good about going back to Mr. Robins today or tomorrow." She paused a moment and added, doubtfully, "That is if they really let you go. Making you work this way and whipping you last night seems damned odd to me if you're the mistress of a millionaire who's a friend of his nibs who owns me. Jeepers, Candice, what a hell of a mess!"
When the cart returned at end of day, the system was still five inches short of being full. Actually I thought we'd performed wonders, a small miracle for a couple of girls, one of whom was untrained and not inclined to toil. But the other half of me bitterly reflected that if Audry had really put her back into the task, and had I worked just a little harder, we might now be going home to a peaceful place instead of to a punishment. Glumly we watched our guards measure the deficiency before they unlocked our shackles and took us to the tailgate of the cart. There were rings. Our arms were extended and our wrists bound tight to the metal eyelets. Audry and I would walk behind the cart when it was in motion and stop when it stopped. All the time our arms would be stuck out straight in front of us and our hands firmly secured to its tail. It was one more humiliation I supposed I could endure.
But is was far, far more than that. Our punishment must have been a foregone conclusion, for the villagers stood at points of vantage to watch our progress around and around a predetermined course. Our punishment became all too evident when the cart stopped, one of our guards dismounted and retrieved a whip from beneath the seat, then took up position behind our backs, our naked backs. "You walk, I whip," he informed us briefly. "You hop around all you like, I whip you just the same."
He was as good as his word. Audry and I yelped and hopped around evasively after each stroke had wound itself somewhere around our nudity. Our whipper moved from side to side so as to cause us to cringe in anticipation of his return to us. The cycle was brief, and gave us little breathing space between the blows. It was a thin and tapering whip biting at us with pure venom. And neither Audry or I was stoic enough to bare its bite impassively. Instead we jumped, we kicked, we danced a dance of pain to the gratification of all viewers. The driver of our cart looked back as he slowed the single horse to the barest of walks that we might enjoy our travail to the fullest. His act was applauded by those along the way, it gave them a longer time to enjoy the rise and fall of the whip and to hear the impact of the thin thong upon our skin. Our bottoms were ignored, they had had it yesterday. Today our backs were delivered to receive their weals. Audry and I tugged frantically to free our bound hands, it was a waste of time but the only satisfaction we were granted. Our wrists were soon chafed and red, but the ropes as tight as ever. When we kicked back in anger and pain, we were apt to receive a cut of the lash across the sole of our foot. We were soon cured of that one. He was a clever bastard and good at snaking the thong up between our legs and biting our crotch. This specialty of his really got results, each time he did it we went berserk, not only from the pain but in outraged femininity at so needless a violation of our secret place. I don't know how many times we followed our cart around the circle, it seemed forever.
At the end of the final lap, Don Felipe was waiting. The cart came to a halt for his convenience and he stood examining a pair of sweating maidens who were, by any standards, far from attractive. His eyes measured Audry with approval but it was to me he spoke. "Candice, I have a message from your owner. His business delays him but he asks I give you a choice. Tomorrow morning you may enter my hacienda and there be my honored guest, clothed and tended as the princess you are. On the other hand you may prefer to stay with this youngster who is mine. Please feel no obligation either way."
"I'll stay with Audry," I said decisively.
"It is the answer I expected." Don Felipe bowed to me in his quaint, courtly fashion and added, "You are a young woman of great quality."
Audry had been weeping and drying the tears on her bare, pinioned arm. She cocked a chastened eye at her owner. "Don't I have any quality, too?" she asked, almost humbly.
"Of course, child. You are responding admirably. I am proud of you. But you must forgive me if I express regret at loosing Candice. I must leave you now but wish you luck on your third day."
"You're an absolute idiot, Candice, you could have gone home free. You didn't have to stay with me," Audry accused. "Gosh, I feel lousy getting you into all this. Look at the way we've been whipped now, we don't deserve it, either."
"I got into it myself, Audry," I told her severely. "I'm still glad I got into it. I'm glad to be with you for this brief time. After I'm gone do try not to get too angry and get yourself punished too much."
"Well, I suppose his nibs is right," Audry conceded defensively. "You are a bit older than me and you do handle things pretty good. In fact, I'll never handle this slavery thing the way you do. My ass is going to get cut to bits the first month, I can see it coming. Why the hell don't they untie us from this lousy cart and put us to bed?"
The cart was simply a convenience, they drove it to where ever they wanted us and we followed along, our bound wrists telling us to be good girls and not act silly.
They took us first to be washed down with a hose, a distinct refinement from the buckets. Next it creaked out beyond the village and into the surrounding fields, one of which was planted with potatoes, ready for harvesting. We knew our fate. There were the two huge metal balls, the chains, the shackles. Our hands were untied from the tailgate and our ankles safely shackled. We were tossed a couple of garden forks and told of authority's expectations for us on the following day. We scarcely cared, tomorrow was a long way off. We accepted with thanks the pail of water, the two bags of indifferent food, and stood there as the whipping cart made its protesting way back to the town. Audry and I looked at each others and our weals, twisting and turning for a full view at what they had done to us, we were a colorful sights for anyone who liked colorful sights, that is the pink and red and scarlet of whip burns on maiden skin. We stood there in loneliness as dark descended upon the land, a pair of punished girls who could be sure of being punished tomorrow, too. But there was food. And there was each other, and if this should be our last night together.. . ?
Audry and I made love beneath the stars. There is a cathedral quality about the night and the light of open places never entirely dark. This pair of naked shackled girl could barely see each other in the dim starlight, but that was enough. We could have made our love by touch only.
I think that in our touching, our lapping of tongues, our excitement in that lonely field, Audry and I may have found all the happiness we could ever want. I suppose the whip marks on my skin had something to do with this, being whipped makes me terribly submissive. I just don't want to be whipped and I'll do anything to avoid it. But girls also easily forget and the fertile soil was hot beneath our backs as we took turns in the oldest position in the world. When Audry anxiously whispered in my ear that I would never be freed and would have to share her life-time slavery, I was almost in the mood to agree. It was a distinct possibility. I could well see how foolish Don Felipe must feel at parting with me. I know I am beautiful, I know I am seductive, I know I am better than good beneath a man. But, as I said before, we were only two girls chained to two great spheres of metal and condemned to labor with the coming of the dawn.
Labor can be summed up in a single or it can be divided into the many facets by which man earns his bread. When Audry and I started to use the garden forks we discovered an entirely new dimension of effort. The first thing we discovered was the bareness of our feet, we had no shoes with which to push down on the tines. It was possible to do this with our bare feet but it hurt. We hadn't dug a bag full of potatoes before we got our breakfast. It was a girl who brought our food and water for the day. No doubt we were deemed harmless. Even had we chosen to overcome this visiting maiden, it would have served no purpose. We were securely anchored to this dirty field by those iron balls. To treat her unkindly would be folly. It was the old case of "not going anywhere." When she had gone we resumed our labors, tugging and rolling our iron appendages as needed, the range of our chain tether allowed only the digging of five or six hills of potatoes before moving on. The one certain thing the girl had told us was our allotment. It seemed an impossible number of bag full of potatoes, that early in the day it seemed for sure we could not possibly make it. But we had been whipped two nights running and wanted no more. We worked as best we could. By evening our passage across the field was marked by an array of a sufficient number of bags to absolve us of punishment, beside these bags was an even line most clearly marked where we had dragged our metal balls. The same girl brought us food and more water but no message for either of us.
Alone for the night, Audry dismally predicted, "See what I told you, they're not going to let you loose, they're going to make you work here with me. Oh, darling, I'm so terribly sorry!"
We slept in each other arms, satiated with work and with each other. But no matter how deep my slumber it was interspersed with a succession of dream images of slavery.
Dinner was late on our second day with the potatoes, a day in which for the second time we evaded the whipping. This dinner was vastly different. Don Felipe had provided me with both a wardrobe and a maiden who skillfully made me something to be proud of. I wore my unaccustomed clothes with pride but an uncomfortable feeling of stuffiness. Don Felipe approved my choice of gowns, my owner did not. Quinlan made no bones about his preference for having me naked and somehow restrained. I was not restrained at all at dinner time and I gloried in an unaccustomed freedom of movement and speech. It appears that I was almost human and privileged to converse with the omnipotent males. This was heavy, heady stuff and I was a little drunk with it. Tomorrow we were going home.
Don Felipe was in a playful mood but his questions were shrewd. "My estate here is the ideal situation for the enslavement of a girl, her slavery is real she will never have doubts of it." His eyes twinkled back and forth between us. "But with you it is so different. You seek to achieve the same results within a urban community in North America. I don't believe this possible. What part of it are you forced to simulate?"
Quinlan and I had often asked ourselves the same question, answering it by affirming our dependence upon our moods. Fortunately these moods were always mutual and if they dictated I be ravished or put in a dungeon or taken out to dine, they were completely real. I had always borne the pleasure and the pain without thought of evading either. From the first Quinlan had made certain that whenever I was in anyway restrained there would be no hope whatsoever of my achieving escape through my own efforts. He was right, never once had I ever freed my hands or my feet or my neck from any restraint he had imposed.
"But this going out to dine? It seems irrational for a girl to yield her freedom every time she is exposed to a civilized amenity. I suppose there were times where a return to the whip and the cord might be intolerable. Tell me about it, I'm most curious."
We told him what we could of our life together but he exposed chinks in our amour with ruthless accuracy. "There are often times when Candice could run away or assert her independence or set herself up in a separate home and return to the job you tell me was discarded in her name. I would not dare trust one of my slaves thus, I will not trust your little Audry to so severe a test. But what of you?"
"What about it, sweetheart," my owner demanded, not much caring.
"It's easy," I told them flatly. "I'm in love with you. You'd have to keep me chained in the deepest dungeon if I weren't." I looked from one to the other. For the moment mistress of the situation. "And that's the simple truth of it. You men are ridiculous, you don't understand girls at all."
I got a round of applause. They were delighted with me and I basked in their approval. It was a lovely feeling to have the attention of two distinguished men. And Quinlan and Don Felipe were nothing if not that. I thought of poor Audry somewhere on a chain, contemplating her labor of another day. Outrageously I asked Don Felipe, "Is there any use my asking you to set Audry free? I'm sure Quin would pay for her."
"I didn't put Candice up to that," Quinlan informed our host instantly. "If you wish to whip Candice for impertinence, I will not complain."
There is was! The steel hand beneath the velvet glove. These two men would happily accept from me all sort of mischief but always there would be a limit, always a demarcation between the freedoms I was granted by caprice and the slavery that held me in a permanent thralldom. I waited quivering.
"I want no more of the whip for this delightful girl," the Don assured my master without hesitation. "She is a treasure and I envy you. But I will mold her successor to my heart's desire and to my will. Audry is young and I have plenty of time. The young absorb whip marks as the soil the dew. How do you propose to take your slavegirl home, Mr. Robins."
"Please, Quin, not the needle," I pleaded instantly. "I'll wear the handcuffs or this collar around my neck or anything you like but please don't knock me out and put me in a box. I promise I won't complain about the way people stare."
"I'll take her on the regular plane," said Quinlan with decision. "By the way, Don Felipe, could I enlist your aid in the matter of that riveted collar? Could I use your blacksmith for its removal?"
"I don't want it removed, it's beautiful," I said without thinking. "I've gotten used to it, I don't notice it any more."
"You see!" the Don was laughing at my master. "She is as I told you, the perfect woman. Oh, how I envy you!"
"But I can't have her walking around in public with that thing around her neck! It's a bit much."
"If she does not complain, why should you, Mr. Robins? I had that riveted around her neck for life."
I should have shut up, my objection simply led to a decision I would wear my collar, perhaps forever! My flame burned strong beneath my clothes. I looked at Don Felipe Availdar. "You see, Don Felipe, this is one more case of my ability to escape but my failure to do so. I will go with my master where he wishes in public places were I could easily ask for help and find it. Or where I could easily go to the restroom and fail to return. But I will not do these things, I will return to my master as surely as if he held the end of a chain. I think some wise man once said a woman who truly loves will perform any act for the object of her adoration. I'm afraid that's true, it is for me."
Farewells to Audry were forbidden. I was told they were would only disturb her and I expect that was true. Don Felipe drove Quinlan and I to the airport and the most civilized of leave-taking. There was a degree of respect between the three of us, especially since I choose to flaunt the collar around my neck for all to see. I cared less about it than did Quinlan, who was embarrassed about it. We said a difficult goodbye. The plane claimed us.
"The first thing I'm going to do when I get home," I said snuggling closer to my love, "is to provoke you into whip me. I want us to get off to a good start."
"Shut up, for Pete's sake! People will hear!" Quinlan was outraged.
"So what!" I retorted. "If they don't like it, I'll tell them I do and it's good for my health."
"You've had a drink too many."
"I haven't had a drink at all and you know it. It's early morning. You only said that in case someone's listening." We were soon sparing delightedly in a return to a rapport none but us could understand. If those about us picked up threads of conversation, it mattered little. I was fully prepared to tell authority that I wore the collar around my neck to counter arthritis, should any uniform ask. The plane hummed happily and it was not until we were halfway home we both remembered Helen.
"That son of a bitch, Lucio, sold her before I got on his tail," Quinlan said bitterly. "I couldn't trace hide or hair of her. Or of Audry either. It was only chance that we ran into Audry." He laughed with bitterness. "Not that it did the poor girl any good. She's had the course and that's the end to it. At least Don Felipe won't be cruel."
"But he'd do'you know what' with her, won't he?"
"That's a quaint way of describing a piece of tail, darling. But, yes, he will. I would, too, if I had her kicking around. She's a menace."
Well, Quinlan and I were on the same wavelength about that. I was glad my master would not be continually subjected to temptation of Audry's parted thighs and ripe lips. Don Felipe could enjoy those to the full. I was beginning to feel that all was well in this best possible of all worlds. Abruptly I changed the subject. "But, darling, suppose when we get back I return to my old job. I'm sure they'd give it back to me."
"Why?"
"What Don Felipe said has stuck in my mind. I don't want there to be anything artificial between us."
"okay then, sweetheart, if you want reality then you'll get it. I won't tell you how or why, but you'll get it. So if you find yourself chained in that dungeon you so often refer to, don't blame me."
"That wasn't what I meant."
"It's what I mean, sweetheart."
"You're just exercising the male Derogative of demanding the woman stay home and cook his meals. Men don't want woman out and around, they want them right at home." I made my voice disdainful. "If that isn't imprisonment, then what is!"
Quinlan eyed my quizzically. "There's no use us getting involved in that stuff, sweetheart. That's the old woman's lib thing. Neither of us can win when it comes to woman's lib. But I'll tell you this straight, if you want your job back and the physical freedom that goes with it, if you think some of what Don Felipe said makes sense, then the best thing for you to do is to enlist the aid of the first policeman you see and have him rescue you from the Big, Bad Wolf. Better than that, you don't need the policeman, I'll simply let you go. We'll kiss and you can be back on the job tomorrow morning."
I was put back. I turned stricken eyes on the man who owned me. "You're messing it all up, Quin, honest you are. I don't want to be away from you. All I want is to avoid false situations which leave us uncertain of each other and cause others to jeer. OK, since you can't see it my way, make me a proper prisoner when we get home. I won't complain about whatever you do be it chains or straps or ropes or bars. Does that convince you I'm in love?"
"Yes."
We left it at that.
ll
Irons Unsought
Damn it, it's working. San Beueno is a week away and I had never been happier. I thought I knew myself but I need Quinlan's hand in my affairs. Immediately we entered the penthouse Quinlan grabbed me and carried me, kicking and not knowing whether to laugh or protest, up to our bedroom. There he tossed me on the bed and, being utterly brutal against my now serious struggles to assert myself, stripped me naked to reveal the whip marks I had earned myself at the tail of Don Felipe's cart. This prelude to my new captivity cost us the lovely new dress Don Felipe had provided, it was torn to shreds by the man I loved. There was no pretense about his determination to subdue me or about my own equally strong determination to struggle. I suppose there are strange contradictions and compulsions in here somewhere I can not explain. But by bother!
It was the iron collar of Don Felipe that signaled my first defeat. A padlocked snapped and there I was standing against our bedroom, tethered only by my neck, and glaring indignantly at the man I loved.
"That's not fair," I accused. "You never told me, you never gave me a chance."
"The results would have been the same, sweetheart."
I did indeed know, and my fire was building nicely in the knowledge I was a prisoner in the possession of a man who owned me in more ways that one. I was vividly and expectantly alive.
"Remember these?" Quinlan tossed the shining handcuffs and legirons at my feet. "Those bastards of Lucio's left them in the basement and I knew we'd need them sometime. Hold out your hands."
There is something absolutely spine-tingling; "hold out your hands!" It always shivers me to bits. It is an order I always get when I'm too helpless to do anything else. There are times when I would like to hold out my hands to have them chained and there are times it's the last thing I desire. In this reassertion of Quinlan's authority over me the least I could do was be a little uncooperative. Defiantly I put my hands behind my back and leaned heavily against the wall.
We stared, uncertain whether to act mad or to laugh. But Quin nodded thoughtfully and found a whip. Standing there naked and in full possession of hands and feet I felt that awful frustration that comes from being tethered only by my neck. I knew damned well why I was tethered that way. It was so I would have to offer my hands and feet for the old familiar chains. Quin was going to extract from me an act of submission to herald the new order. I knew I must not yield too easily. So, in mock heroics, I stuck out my tongue to invite something I did not in the least desire. I fielded the first two strokes with hands and arms, they hurt badly enough even at that. But the third cut the slope of my breast and the forth bit savagely across my hip. I knew my surrender was convincingly abject.
"OK, OK! That's enough, I'll hold out my hands."
This could have been Quinlan's cute to tell me blandly I had made a mistake and would pay for it with a certain number of strokes but neither of us was pushing it too far. This was a delicious game that was not a game at all. Pouting, I stuck out my hands to have them joined and almost burst at the seams with lust as the familiar clicks made the metal bands snug upon my wrists.
"And now the legirons? If you kick you know what will happen."
I did not kick. I held out first one leg and then the other in meek obedience. The clasp of chrome felt good. I was indeed back to square one with a vengeance!
"So, OK, you've got me." I crinkled my nose at my lord and master. "You'd better make sure you keep me. If you give me half a chance I'll get loose and you won't easily get me back."
Quinlan shrugged. "I guess you had to say that, sweetheart, get it off your chest. You've never got free from anything I've put you in before, I don't see why you think you'll manage it now. Hell, girl, you've asked for it, I'm going to be a real mean SOB." Quinlan kissed me and made me hobble under my own steam to our bed. It wasn't exactly a honeymoon but it might have been.
After breakfast, which I had been compelled to prepare under the handicap of my lovely irons, we discussed to what degree I might enjoy the run of the penthouse as before. We conceded my chains would prevent me walking out the door, we dismissed the phone as being too impractical and too shockingly embarrassing for all concerned.
"Should have got one of those ball and chain things from Felipe," Quinlan suggested thoughtfully. "Looks good and keeps you in your place."
"I'm sure you could get one made for me somewhere in the city," I suggested demurely. "Or would you feel embarrassed?"
"I'm contacting a contractor and having him build an addition to this penthouse. I own the building so that's no problem there. I'll have him make it of good, heavy stone and we can call it Cell With a View. You'll be able to look through the bars at freedom. Romantic enough for you?"
I felt the familiar shiver. It was gorgeously romantic and I told Quin so. I could also imagine the new room the way he spoke of it. But he wasn't finished yet.
"I'll have heavy, sliding panels for each window. They'll be on one side or other of the bars and be controlled from outside the dungeon door."
"Dungeon?"
"Sure, why not! When I press the button outside they'll close and shut out every particle of light. Or I'll have them so as to achieve gradations of gloom. How's that hit you?"
"I don't like that one, Quin. Please, not the shutters?"
"Well, we'll see about that, sweetheart. Anyway we'll have rings installed around the walls in the granite and maybe a few in the floor. I'll arrange things to come down from above, electrically. You ought to be flattered at all this expense I'll willing to go to on your behalf."
"It's not on my behalf, it's on yours. You'll love being able to hold it over my head," I said. "How soon can they have it ready?"
We laughed together, it was a very happy time. Before he went to his damned office, Quin announced an innovation. I knew approximately when he'd be home and the instruction was that prior to that time, and so he would behold me first thing on his return, I was to snap a padlock on myself in such a way as to hold a hand or both hands above my head, or to use my collar and fasten it so I must stand to await his pleasure. It was a delightful conceit but I did not tell him so.
"But suppose you get run over or have to leave town or something.. . ? " I inquired doubtfully.
"In that case you'll have a long wait, won't you, darling?"
Life was wonderful.
I spent a housewifely sort of day clinking around in my irons. I spent an hour searching around for the key. It was something to do but the key was not to be found. So I went to domestic tasks and thought about how the devil I was to fix myself for my master's pleasure come five o'clock. I looked around the hallway, that being the place he would see me on entering, and sure enough there were rings aplenty. I had to choice between locking my already handcuffed wrists above my head or padlocking my collar to force me to stand erect. I decided upon a ring which would hold my hands just above my head without stretching. There was no use imposing discomfort upon myself, there was no telling about Quin's humor. I wouldn't have put it past him to delay homecoming an hour just for the hell of it.
Masters have things good!
It was a good simple little conceit of Quin's but I prepared for it with care and caution. Once I had snapped the padlock I would be there to stay so I had best leave nothing to boil over on the stove or burn in the oven. There was also the unknown factor of precise time. Quin could either be late or early. And, if he was early and I was not chained for his approval, I would certainly be punished. I had had enough of punishments with Don Felipe so decided I had best lock myself in position at four-thirty. If that meant I had to stand a long while in anxious waiting, well, that was the name of the game. It would be just like Quin to come home real early and catch me napping. I began to realize there was more to this return of the warrior that at first supposed. It would get to be a real pain in the neck, although at the moment all it was doing was fueling my fire. I found the bit of chain and the padlock, I threaded the links through the ring and left it hanging on the wall, ready for me. It looked shockingly sinister and sent another shiver down my spine. It was a gorgeous shiver, I wish there were more of them.
I puttered happily, knowing the man I loved held the key to the hobbles on my feet. Hobbles are beautifully heat-generating, they remind a girl at every step of what she has become. Each snub on my ankle was like a voice whispering, "So far but no further." I thought of all the criminals who must have been legironed in the past centuries and I wondered if any of them had, in desperation, made a dash for it and fallen on their face. They limited me far more than the handcuffs on my wrists, although if the cuffs had been on my hands behind my back, that would have evened things up.
In the penthouse quiet I thought a lot of Don Felipe, the events of his possession of my body were vivid in my mind. Frequently I posed in front of the big mirror to admire the marks on my back and the weals on my bottom. It was hard to believe they were so new and would not be gone for two or three weeks. It was as though Don Felipe was out there waiting!
I was bothered about Audry. I could picture the darling nymphet chained somewhere beside a fearsome task and whipped each evening to subdue her impertinence or spur her work. It hurts about the same either way.
My next thoughts were of Helen. Audry's condition in life might be dire by American standards but Helen's could be infinitely worse. She could be in a brothel or owned by some brute who beat and ravished her alternately. Somehow I just couldn't believe a man who bid in the girl auction could possibly treat the purchase with affection. Quinlan had told me he was continuing the search for clues as to her whereabouts. But supposing we located her, what could we do? Even Quinlan could not declare war on a banana republic or a sheikdom. I had always associated those places with slavery. Which is silly when you think of it because her I am in the good, old USA and as much a slave as you could care for.
At four-thirty I went to do my penitence in the hall. I had made a ridiculous round of the penthouse to make sure everything was in good order and there wasn't anything to worry about while I stood helpless under my own duress. I'd admit I got the maximum possible thrills out of the whole exercise. I stood looking up at the chain which would soon hold me and the padlock which would mock my efforts to escape. They were there, they waited as though daring me to take the final step. I dashed to a mirror to make sure my hair was in order and my makeup in place. I even smoothed my pubic bush to assure its sheen. Then, as though fearing to change my mind I went swiftly to the wall, raised my hands, slipped the waiting chain around the links by which my wrists were joined, then snapped the lock shut with a decisive purpose. I was a prisoner.
As usual, I suddenly needed to scratch my nose. I defeated this absurdity by turning around and rubbing it against the wall. The distinct advantage about the way I had locked myself was this ability to face either the wall or the hall. The wall was an uninteresting view and need be faced only if Quin desired to whip me. My inch relieved, I turned around and leaned my back against the solid surface. I tugged at my fastened hands to make sure they would not betray me by getting loose at the last moment. But the were as firm as the Golden Gate Bridge. I sighed happily and settled back to wait.
It was not the easiest possible position for waiting, it kept me alert and awake and thinking of all the things I should have done or didn't do or wanted to do. It was silly, I had been in similar states of helplessness before but now, because I had clicked the padlock shut on myself, I was heir to a hundred alarms. I contented myself with a speculation as to how beautiful I might appear in this, my first penitence. I even debated whether I should turn and face the wall and thus offer a more innocent but vividly marked area of bare skin. I decided the goodies were mostly in the front so that's what I put forward, sticking out my breasts for a nice effect and hoped I wouldn't get too tired to keep them in arrogant protrusion.
If this were fiction, if would be about this time the villain would walk in and whisk me away from under my master's nose, or maybe one of his girl friends would show up unexpectedly and amuse herself by whipping me. There were all sorts of possibilities to keep my fire weHfueled and at fever heat. It was a good thing I could not reach my pussy for relief. Nothing happened. Quinlan came home punctually at five-thirty. He kissed me warmly, complimented me on my choice of posture, then went on into our penthouse and left me standing.
A girl who is loved must expect to be teased, we don't always like it but put up with it on that basis. I wanted to mix Quinlan's drink and share one with him. I was prepared to do the most delightfully submissive kneel. I was, in fact, a well trained slavegirl anxious to demonstrate prowess in an ancient art.
Quin prolonged the agony by dropping in from time to time to seemingly search for something on the hall stand, affecting not to notice the naked, chained beauty on the wall. After being ignored three times I said, with acid in my voice, "I hope you're enjoying yourself. I think you're mean."
He leaned against the wall with hands to either side of me and kissed me hard upon the lips. I kissed him back but was helpless to hold him, I had no arms. I had started something and had to finish it. "I'd be very grateful, Quin, if you would unlock me. I did everything right, didn't I?"
"Indeed you did, beloved child. Can't you guess. I'm simply being mean by ignoring you. You expect to be released immediately upon my coming through the door, so I ignore you and simply go about my work, leaving you in that delightful pose you chose for yourself. I commend you highly." He kissed me again but added, "No matter how I adore you I don't have to set you free. You can stand a while and stew."
Outraged. I watched him go, then tugged at my locked hands in fury. A tease was a tease, but this was going a bit far. I wasn't even being punished, he was just having fun and at my expense. Females get awful cheesed off about things like this and I was in the midst of composing some bitter sentences and curses when he walked back in and, without a single word, unlocked the padlock, picked me up, and carried me to the lounge. Standing me on my feet he said the single word, "Drinks."
Everything was suddenly wonderful. I could kick myself about this but it's true. I suppose it's part of being in love with a guy but the more he outrages you the more submissive you become. I mixed our drinks and carefully carried them to serve on my knees. I then knelt before him to sip my own and to gaze up at him in adoration. What the hell more can a girl do!
I was happy.
I was still handcuffed and legironed. I was willing to believe these would be a permanent part of me for now on with the possible variation of putting my hands behind me when I've been a bad girl. I listened, more or less breathlessly, to the chronicle of my master's day. I understood only a little of it but got a comforting impression of millions of dollars passing back and forth and some percentage of each clinching to Quinlan's outstretched palm. It was a fanciful fiction, probably not all that far from being true. Towards the end of it, without warning, he said, "I've purchased a title, a small holding that belonged to Luke and Gertie. Luke's in jail along with Lucio and the rest of them. But I sort of got Gertie along with the rest of it. You'll be interested to know she's in the dog cage now."
I stared, thinking he was kidding, but he was not. He was deadly serious, looking down at me in amusement. Without warning we were both giggling together at a single thought. Gertie in the cage was just too much to keep a straight face over. Breathlessly I asked, "But how.. . ? "
"Well, she didn't exactly appear on the title deed, sweetheart, but she was present when the deal was finalized and I had no trouble having her picked up and locked safely away. I got a guard, a fellow who I trust and his wife, looking after the place now and giving Gertie regular meals through the wire. Did I mention, she is very much sans clothes. She is now the same way she had you."
"But, Quin darling, you can't possibly.. . ? "
"Yes, I can. No trick at all. Gertie has lived on the wrong side of the law too long and no one will be rescue her nor will she try to rescue herself. Wonderful chance for you to get you own back."
"But, Quin, Gertie was never cruel to me. I sort of like Gertie."
"OK, then, so she wasn't cruel. We won't be cruel either. She'll just have to stay in the cage the same way Luke is staying behind bars in the state prison. If he ever gets out we may let her go, too. In the meantime she's being well fed from the couple in charge. What say we drive out and you can feed her peanuts through the mesh?"
I did some more giggling. It was just too, too delicious. I forgot my peeve in this new diversion. Quin was still thinking aloud, "I suppose we don't have to keep her in the dog cage forever. We could bring her here for a change. You would like to whip her bottom, wouldn't you?"
I am still ashamed at the wave of hot desire which flooded over me at this suggestion. Gertie's flesh was undoubtedly well designed for the rod. I suspected Gertie was a woman who would take her beating philosophically as part of the price of being a woman. I could just bet the first few strokes would make her horny as hell, in fact, what a glorious adventure it would be to explore Gertie. Her reactions would never be dull! Eyes sparkling, I asked, "Are you giving Gertie to me as a gift, a gift to play with?"
"Sure, under supervision, I don't want you letting her get free. But first off we'll visit her in the cage. She should be right at home about now."
As a topic of conversation Gertie lasted us through dinner then I tucked her away in the back of my mind as a treasure for future enjoyment. In bed, and firmly within my master's arms, and after our first explosive lust, I whispered in his ear, "What about Audry, Quin? I can't forget Audry."
"You have to forget her, precious child, you know you do."
"But it seems so unkind, all the awful things she's going through."
"They won't last long, she'll soon be in Don Felipe's bed. and that was what she wanted, wasn't it?"
It was true. Even when she was being whipped with Don Felipe's whip she had expressed that wish above all others. His aristocratic charm and wealth had fascinated her but. apart from that, it wasn't much of a life for a girl of her age. I forgot realities to once more whisper, "But to be a slave.. . All the rest of her life?"
"What's the difference between that and you. Gosh, Candice, you just entered an enslavement far more severe than that little nymphet will ever have to endure."
I was about to say that she and I were different but then I realized we were not different at all. We wore the same chains and were bound with the same rope and whipped with the same whip. Don Felipe would ravish Audry just as Quinlan ravished me or if the Don was a bit old I am sure the two of them could find adequate substitute with a "blow job." Still trying, I whispered again, "But she's so young, probably too young...."
My master bit both my ears hard. I liked getting my ears nipped by a male but this was hard enough to hurt. I liked that, too!
"I'll tell you what, sweetness, I'll keep in touch with things over in San Beueno. The Don and I have some mutual interests so it won't seem like prying into his affairs. If I get any hint he's tiring of your little nymphet, I'll make him an offer of her and give her to your for your birthday. Damn it, Candice, we're going to have more pussy hair around here.. . . "
"Oh, darling, would you? For me? I adore you!"
"The vast discrepancy in their ages is a hope, my pet," Quinlan mused thoughtfully. "On the other hand, quite often these old men really fall in love with a teenager. And, if that happens, I wouldn't put it past the old boy to marry the girl. Damn it, Candice, stop worrying about the little so-and-so, she can handle herself. And I have a suspicion she'll have things damned good on Don Felipe's estate."
"But, Quin, that awful training.. . ? "
"It will do her good, it did you good. Don Felipe has the right idea about females. A month of hard labor and a month of whippings will mold that delicious little teenager into any man's heart's desire. Stop worrying."
I stopped worrying.
The next day Quin reminded me to be in the desired position at five. I assured him I would be and that he had nothing to fear. Casually, and with a twinkle in his eye, he said that he was afraid I would be bored and with that in mind he brought home with him in his briefcase a small purchase. I was instantly alarmed. Small purchases of this sort are almost always certain to hurt. I was envisioning sharp clips for my nipples or a giant dildo when the briefcase opened to reveal Quinlan's surprise. It was a gag. I didn't recognize it at first but when he held it up for my inspection, its intent was all too clear. There was a wicked looking rubber wad for inside my mouth but lovely, soft leather to seal my lips. I was still alarmed. "That looks a bit odd," I said, "back where you bucket it."
"It's simply, my poppet. This is no ordinary gag. This one locks."
"Oh, Quin, you're not going to lock that over my mouth for all day, are you? Jeepers...!"
I was made to drink a lot of water because I wouldn't be getting any from then on. I was very ardently kissed before the rubber wad was inserted and jiggled into place until I knew for sure I'd hate the damned thing before evening. Then came the supple leather over my lips, lips I had been instructed to clench tight. After that the most deadly thing of all, the ensemble was buckled tight behind my neck and, after the straps were adjusted to my master's satisfaction, there came the ominous snap of the lock. I could feel its weight and, if I shook my head, it made tinkling sounds in contact with the iron collar I was still forced to wear. Quinlan patted my bottom, tweaked one of my nipples, and went away to make a few more millions.
The first thing I did was find a mirror. I suppose this was typically feminine and I can't pretend to be displeased with what I saw. If a girl had to be gagged she had best be gagged as I was now. The effect was not as displeasing as it might have been. I turned from side to side, shook my head, and tried to speak. I even tried to scream. The only sounds I could make were unintelligible snortings through my nose. The whole damn think was particularly punitive because there was no one in the penthouse to talk to anyway. I wondered if I dared phone Quin at his office and make snorting sounds he would probably recognized. But all I'd get would be his secretary and she wouldn't be in the know. It is truthful to say that I went about my affairs without a another word.
By four-thirty I had become accustomed to my new companion. The rubber wad in my mouth was kinder that a dry rag or a ball. I could live with it. I wondered how long I'd have to! If I could have chained the damn thing to a ring someway, I would have done so. But, as a variation from yesterday, I chose to chain my neck to a ring at exactly its own level. I wouldn't enjoy it much, not standing the way it compelled, but felt sure I should seek a variety and wondered how many ways I could contrive if this notion went on and on. There are an awful lot of four-thirties in twelve months.
It is a sobering experience for a girl to have her neck padlocked to a ring behind her neck. I had reduced my travail by finding several links of chain to give me the freedom of movement I would need to shift from foot to foot to ease the boredom of waiting. I figured these few inches of links would not give Quinlan cause to criticize my choice of what I now thought of as the "waiting penitence."
Clicking the first padlock to the chain and the ring was easy. I stood and regarded it for several moments before turning around and fumbling with cuffed hands to insert the second padlock through the link of chain and the ring in my collar. It wasn't all that easy but I was finally rewarded by a loud snap and knew for sure I'd had the course. I stood rigidly through the moment of panic which comes when a girl wonders if she has made a terrible mistake. But I fought it down and leaned back against he wall to await the return the head of the house. At least I had my joined hands.
A chained girl has time to think. I allowed my mind to rove and inevitably returned to the subject of Quinlan and me and just how real this game we played truly was. Certainly my present condition was real enough but self-contrived. I entered the penthouse of my own free will. True, once I delivered myself to the chains I then had no choice. But there remained the nagging thought of picking up the telephone and calling for help. Yet I knew I would not do this, there would be no point in it. But I had to ask myself to what degree these possibilities of escape mocked the validity of my imprisonment. After going around in circles a few times I simply shrugged it off with the conclusion my fears of something artfully contrived arouse simply from my love for Quin and whatever emotion he felt for me. I was different from other kidnapped girls in that they hated it and I loved the clutch of steel around my limbs. I wondered how many girls there were like me!
I was almost enjoying this brief captivity. But then my thoughts turned to Gertie out there in her cage in the country. The validity of her captivity could be questioned, too. It was made possible only because of her being on the wrong side of the law. She was no doubt consoling herself with the thought of the heavy wire mesh circling her was better than the iron bars and concrete circling Luke. I wondered what on earth I would do with her if Quinlan brought her here and presented her as a naked, chained gift to his mistress. She would probably be highly indignant and, considering her muscles, would have to be kept well ironed. I would never dare trust rope on Gertie. What was more, I knew I did not have whatever it took to whip her into submission. In my custody Gertie was-likely to remain very much Gertie.
Next came Audry, she was never far from my thoughts. I suppose being whipped at the cart's tail with another naked, bound girl at my side forms a bond. I could look back now at the days with the potatoes and the water system with nostalgia. There is something about hard labor a girl does not easily forget. Don Felipe had been right in his assessment of its effect upon the female psyche. Just as a raped girl feels herself isolated and apart, so might the tiny minority of females who were force to labor in the fields and drag an iron ball from a shackled ankle. We were a small sisterhood, forever looking with scorn on those who had not thus toiled.
It was about this moment I wondered what the time was.
I kicked myself for not leaving a clock around where I could see. I well knew the deceptiveness of isolation in chains. Time is your enemy and you cannot even see it. By the time I had worked myself into a fine dither, I knew it was well after five o'clock. When I heard the phone ringing in another room, I knew damned well it was Quinlan. But I could not answer it and Quin would know the reason. It was a beastly feeling of frustration which caused me to laugh bitterly at my fears about my captivity being valid. How the hell could it be more valid than this! Anyway I sweated and stewed for what turned out to be nearly an hour before I heard Quin's key turn in the lock. It was a good, good sound. Quinlan nodded with approval at the way I had fixed myself. He tilted my chin and I got gorgeously kissed. When I came up for air I tried to keep the accusation out of my voice, "You're late."
Quin nodded in an absent-minded sort of way and produced the holy key by which I might gain freedom. He actually used it without even the smallest tease. "I sure am," he admitted soberly. "I got a phone call. In fact I got several." He kissed me again and, drawing me from the wall, held me close for satisfying moments during which my curiosity grew without enthusiasm he broke the news, "My boys have discovered where Helen is."
The time I had spent as Helen's prisoner had simply got us acquainted, it had not developed into a love affair. But it was good news anyway you looked at it, so I mused, "Darling, how marvelous! Where is she?"
"She's just being delivered to that damned slave trading place where we found Audry. She missed Audry there by less than a week. First thing I did was phone Don Felipe. But all he's prepared to do is be sure she'll be held as a slave awaiting sale until one of us gets there." My master's laugh was sardonic. "He says he doesn't want to own a mother and daughter, it never works. He would prefer we dealt with Helen ourselves. These damned old aristocrats have got damned stupid ideas. They're back in feudal times."
"Oh, Quin, you mean you and I have to go and collect her?"
Quin did not answer immediately. After a few seconds he said, "How about I chain you and we go out to supper. I'm a bit cheesed off, I need bright lights and chatter."
What girl was going to refuse that! I held out my hands and then I held out my feet. In a few moments I was a free girl. I used the freedom to throw my arms around Quinlan's neck and thrust my pubic patch at him hard. For a moment I absolutely forgot about Helen as I dashed upstairs to make myself beautiful for my lord and master. Looking at myself in the mirror I could now wish the iron collar had been taken from my neck, but I did the best I could with it. It was not until we were settled at our favorite table and the waiter had pretended not to notice my iron collar that Quin returned to Helen. He made it short and sweet.
"Sweetheart, this couldn't have come at a worse time. I can't possibly leave town. There's so many deals hanging fire and there's a few hundred million dollars involved." He shrugged. "If San Beueno was a truly civilized place I could handle the thing over the wire. But not the way it is. Yet I can't let Helen down. Oh, shit.. . !
"Don't worry, Quin darling, I'll go."
I had said the asinine words without thinking. I was remembering San Beueno as its airport, its one big city, and Don Felipe's hospitality. My recollection of the slave market was tinged with curiosity about a relic from the past. Audry had gone in and out of it without a single whip mark. Quinlan's face was study.
"Candice, don't be silly. That's no place for a pretty girl."
"Call me a pretty woman, then. I wouldn't have to do much, would I? Just give the slave trader you check or whatever and bring Helen home. If Don Felipe doesn't want Helen, I'm sure we can get along without him. And I think it best not to tell Helen about Audry until we get back here. If I did tell her, I can see her getting me into trouble."
Quinlan had listened with a heavily raised eyebrow. His retort was instant, "Candice, grow up!" He gazed at me searchingly. "Would you really do that."
From then on it was easy. I don't know what fool impulse was prompting me. But if it had been Audry I would have gone like a shot so why not for Audry's mother? After all she had never been cruel to me. San Beueno was not that uncivilized that I would be anything but safe under the protection of Quinlan Robins and Don Felipe. I saw it only as a three day trip there and back and wondered mischievously if Helen would be subdued enough for me to bring her home in handcuffs. I tingled at the idea and immediately saw other vistas of pleasure with a mature woman who, for a little while, would be entirely in my power. I looked at my master earnestly and pleaded, "Darling, please make the arrangements right away. I can be there and back in no time. If I'm being presumptuous, you can whip me on my return. How's that for a deal?"
"Why not before and after?"
Quin was entering into the spirit of the adventure. It took most of dinner for me to get him talked into letting me go. But I actually managed it and when he took me home he didn't even whip me or anything a slavegirl might expect other than to take me to bed and love me so savagely that I might have been leaving him for a year.
I had sobered up a bit by the time I was kissed goodbye and was on the plane. I could not fail to remember my first trip, drugged and bound and naked. This was delightful. I could even have cocktails. An occasional hard stare from a passenger reminded me of the metal circlet around my neck. Somehow there hadn't been time to get it off and. in any case I had become sort of attached to it. Or would it be better to say it had become attached to me!
The hotel was reassuringly ordinary as was the car and driver provided me the following morning. With his broken English and my broken Spanish we discussed the scenery. He raised only the slightest eyebrow at the sight of my collar.
There were no open gates and I did not get the run of the place but it looked just the same, a grim relic of other days without hint of the naked girls chained within. I told myself defiantly I could not possibly be mistaken for a recruit or an addition to their inventory. I had made a point of being exceedingly smartly attired. The iron band around my throat was the only fault to note. There could be no doubt this grim stone pile would recognize it for what it was.
With courtesy and ceremony I was escorted to the office of the Commandant. like the hotel, it was very ordinary and reassuring. The Commandant himself was a paunchy man who could have used some exercise. But he greeted me politely, ordered coffee, and graciously offered me a seat. He also graciously accepted Quinlan's check. I was not a bit sure if he was in the army or a private citizen. Maybe the uniform was to impress the girls. His attention left me flattered and I sat down opposite him and sipped my coffee in a glow of the satisfaction and magic of Quinlan's money and Quinlan's name.
"The woman named Helen, Miss Cosgrove," the Commandant eyed Quinlan's check, "we will have her made ready for you. I presume she will cause you no trouble? There will be no need of restraints?"
"She ought to be overjoyed."
"Ah.. . Yes, of course." The Commandant sighed. "She was sold to us very cheaply by a man who had been far from kind. You will discover she is well whip-marked." He shrugged to show what a really small matter that was but added, "She was not whipped here. We do not whip our girls if we can possibly avoid it. Only the most rebellious...."
It was not until the Commandant and I had talked for five minutes over two cups of coffee, I realized he had been asking all the questions and I had been giving all the answers. But then, I could understand his curiosity about a woman performing a task such as I was, San Beueno was not a woman's land. In an almost somnolent voice he inquired, "Has it ever occurred to you, Miss Cosgrove, how very easily a girl may disappear?" He smiled engagingly, "For instance, you?"
My heart skipped, my pulse raced and my beloved penthouse was suddenly far away.
"I suppose every girl considers that possibility," I agreed crisply, in a business-like tone. "But I'm afraid I do not belong to the class of young woman who makes herself vulnerable."
"An educated young woman of good breeding fetches a large price. Miss Cosgrove."
This was too close to home. I shot him a swift glance but he was still smiling, his voice the purr of a tiger. "The man who drove you here-likes cash. For a small sum he could forget anything. When you left your hotel this morning, you disappeared."
"So what! Perhaps I should phone Don Felipe?"
"I regret our phones are out of order. In any case Don Felipe has requested that there be no contact. He has recently purchased a young woman who's conduct might be affected."
I was now well and truly alarmed. The battle lines were drawn. With uttermost hauteur I complained, "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. I find the subject offensive."
"You are the subject, Miss Cosgrove."
I got up as though to leave but instantly a male figure blocked the doorway. I turned angrily to the Commandant but he was way ahead of me, his voice rich with satisfaction.
"Welcome to slavery, Miss Cosgrove."
12
Slave
It is the tiniest of cells, but with the heaviest of bars. I was told I was in here alone to "cool off." If the climate was other than San Beueno's the cool off might have been easy for I no longer had my clothes. I had also lost the use of my hands and arms and the cords circling my wrists are twice as tight as need be. I stood panting and indignant and terribly scared as I watched my jailer disappear. The door would have held a dozen elephants. I didn't even try it.
That rotten, son of a bitch of a Commandant won every move. "Be kind enough to remove your clothes, Miss Cosgrove. You will have no further need of them."
I ignored his unctuous politeness, but looked from one to the other in dismay, cursing myself for every kind of a fool. I didn't have much weaponry but I used what I had. "What Don Felipe hears of this...."
"Don Felipe will not be bothered with such trifles, Miss Cosgrove. At least not yet."
I could tell the Commandant was enjoying himself immensely. "Very well then, but you forget Mr. Robins. He'll have the consulate and your authorities around your neck in no time."
"You don't know San Beueno. You will have left the hotel this morning and disappeared. Everyone will apologize profusely." He gave me full benefit of his oily grin. "In about a month, when you are forgotten, we here will send a card of condolence."
The bastards, the rotten bastards, they had me! I couldn't pick a flaw in the Commandant's reasoning. Again his voice dripped with honey, "Your clothes, Miss Cosgrove. Or would you prefer my man...."
I've been naked a lot but never wanted it less than now. Both these crooks were eying me in pleasurable anticipation. I would have thought that with all the naked girls they traded in, one more or less would not have made much difference. But I was white, I suppose it made a difference. As forcefully as I could I said, "I'm not doing a striptease for you or anyone else. You must be crazy to get yourself into trouble over me. I'm not worth anywhere near what it will cost you in grief."
"Undress, Miss Cosgrove." There was now a touch of steel in the oily voice. "We are waiting."
From somewhere, presumably down the passage, the man in the doorway produced the most awful looking whip I've ever seen. It was a knout or a sjambok, or something of that sort. The Commandant's voice followed my gaze.
"You may undress of your own free will. Miss Cosgrove. Or, if you force us to do the job for you, you will then receive ten strokes on your bare skin with that delightful whip you are looking at."
I undressed. What the hell else could I do?
They watched me like hawks. It was a beastly ordeal but I told myself not to make a big thing of it. I'd spent most of my recent life naked so what the hell was the big deal? What I was really mad about was the way Quinlan had been tricked. He should have known better and so should I. When I came down to bra and panties I wiped away a tear or two before showing them my treasures. Good gosh, the way men desire us makes me sick!
"You would prefer to strip for Mr. Robins, no doubt?"
"Yes, I would! I'm not a floosie. I hope you're satisfied. Take a good look at me."
They did just that. And took their time. I kept my hands from trying to shield bits of me but stood there thrusting my nudity at them as though in challenge. They accepted it. After a wave of the Commandant's careless hand, his helper bound my wrists behind my back. It was such a familiar helplessness I wanted to scream.
Being naked didn't bother me all that much. I'd been naked more often than clothed in all the time since Quinlan had first come into possession of me. What I did hate was the helper's hand grasping my hair and using it to lead me to the tiny cell were I was suppose to "cool off." I shook my head angrily but I had had the treatment, there was absolutely nothing I could do.
I paced the confines of my tiny cage. I was cooling off, all right, but it was the cold clutch of fear. This slave market worked with a cool precision with which I could not cope. I filled the hour or so in which I was left alone by working against the cords around my wrists. They mocked my efforts and, when the jailer reappeared, I was in no mood for his genial, "Now I fuck you. Lay down on bench."
I did not hesitate. I kicked as hard as I could and connected my heel brutely within his groin. He want through the male motions associated with such successful kicks but I had not got more than half way down the passage when he caught up with me and dragged me back. I fully expected a brutal ravishment but I must have hurt his pride or something, for instead he raised my arms high behind my back and inserted the bindings between my wrists into a waiting hook suspended from above. It was a motion easily achieved in the space of seconds but it left me bent over with racked shoulders and stretched arms. I gasped with the pain, the humiliation, and a fresh realization of being in for a bad time. He went out and slammed the door.
I wept in solemn fury at my stupidity. I also realized what a wonderful way this was to punish a girl about to be sold, it would leave no marks and an hour of it would leave me in deep distress. A day of it would have me hanging senseless. I watched my tears splash on the concrete below, the space of floor filling my view. By the time the Commandant opened the door to survey my misery with pleasure, I was a very humble girl. If he, too, had announce his intention to rape me I would not have said "Boo." But he was nothing if not a conversationalist.
"You have enjoyed the benefits of quiet reflection. Miss Cosgrove?"
I didn't dare say what I wanted to. All I could come up with was, "Yes, thank you." I was taking no chances.
"Ah!" He made it sound a small cry of triumph, a confirmation of the lightness of things. "I was sure you would be sensible. May I expect the same degree of judgment between now and the time of your sale?"
"Yes. I'll do what I'm told."
"I am about to place you among the others who will be sold at the same time." The Commandant's eyes were busily drinking in all the unusual strains and stress on and of my body in that semi-torture. "May I hope you will refrain from, you American's have a word for it, inciting to riot? Or was that a carry over from the British. It does not matter."
"I promise I will not plot escape. I'll be a good girl." Gosh, how humble could I get?
"Among the group awaiting sale you will enjoy the company of the woman you call Helen. I am sure you'll have much to talk about."
"Thank you, that will be nice."
I was laying it on thick but, if I was to do it at all, I might as well do it right. It was not until that moment that I realized the obvious. "Sir, if you would contact Mr. Robins he would purchase both Helen and me. Wouldn't that be the easiest?"
"You're thinking of the matter in terms of ransom?"
"Please don't be offended, Sir. Either way, Quinlan will certainly buy me back."
"I am sure he would, Miss Cosgrove. Your friend, Helen, has given me the same assurance. But such disposal of your lovely bodies does not conform to the plans of this house. We have regular cliental, it would be unfair to them to sell to anyone else our most choice merchandise." He sighed as though in grief. "You will be retained to look after our home market. While I am not attracted to your white skin, there are those for whom it holds enchantment."
This polite interchange while I hung with stretched arms and pained shoulders was a farce. But it informed me of my fate and Helen's, too. I wondered what life in a harem would be like. "Do you know who will buy me, Sir? These matters are often prearranged, are they not?"
"It would be only a guess, Miss Cosgrove. But it narrows down to two or three extremely wealthy men. But only one of them is what you'd in American call 'whip happy.' The other two will punish you only when you pout."
Well, that was that. Quinlan was receding fast, so was the twentieth century. I approached what, at the moment, was my first concern. "Could I be untied, Sir? I promise not to give you any trouble?"
"Yes, of course," the Commandant purred slowly. "But you are all together too delicious. You must forgive an urge I cannot contain." He went back out into the passage but returned quite soon with a long and limber yellow cane. "The strokes will be few. Let us both enjoy them."
The Commandant hit me four times. I suppose that comes within the context of "few." I just had to stand there and take them. I was bent beautifully to enable him to cut away at my exposed bottom. By this time the rest of me was hurting so bad I didn't want to move. And what good would it have done me anyway? The pain from his beastly yellow thing was unbearable, if he had been giving me a greater number I would have screamed all the way through. A cane used on girl's flesh is cruel. As though to cement our acquaintance he used the cane to rap my legs wide apart, then swiftly cut upwards into my pussy. I screamed for that one. I was still sobbing in agony when he raised my arms in a way I could not do myself to lift then from the hook. When he let my tied hands return to normal, that hurt, too. Dully I wondered if I would have been better off to let the jailer have his will with me and to say a polite thank you afterwards. Such thoughts are futile. A slavegirl can never win.
Once more a handful of my hair was used to guide me through a labyrinth of passages and rooms. When the final door, requiring a massive key, was unlocked and thrown open I beheld a large stone room, a round the walls of which stood or reclined young, naked women in various poses of bored dejection. Each was fastened to the wall by a chain connecting with some part of her person, an ankle, a wrist, her neck, or in one case, her waist.
"It is to prevent them from laying in wait for the girl who tends their needs." The Commandant's soft voice read my thoughts. You will notice the space beside Helen has a vacant chain."
It was not vacant long. I was marched across the room, the focus of every eye, and the end of the empty chain padlocked to the iron collar on my neck. More than ever I wished we had got rid of that collar, but it would hold me now for the purpose originally intended. The Commandant untied my hands and went away. Every girl present heard the turning of the lock.
Helen was chained by her right wrist, impeding nothing. With a heartfelt cry of "Oh, darling," she threw her arms around my neck and we rattled our chains happily together while we breathlessly kissed and told our tales. Mine was the most heartbreaking, I need not have been there at all. But Helen had had no choice either.
"They're going to sell us in a couple of days," she wailed. "Can't someone do something in two days."
"They won't even discover where we are in that time," I volunteered unhappily. "They'll find out eventually, of course. But by that time we'll be save away and I don't suppose we'll ever be free again."
The other naked merchandise soon lost interest in me. Every female in that room faced a similar fate. Another white girl linked to the opposite wall waved a greeting and shrugged to denote the uselessness of trying to converse. I tugged at my collar chain and Helen did the same with her shackled wrist. I suppose it did something for us, but it did not get us free. We slept in each other's arm in a terrible hunger for our own kind. Had the chains been a foot longer we could not have done so. Had the chains been two feet longer we might have been able to comfort each other in a different, more loving way. I don't think the other girl's presence would have made any difference, we saw other lesbian acts performed in that cell and thought nothing of it.
In the days of waiting we had nothing to do except lounge in whatever posture our chains permitted and talk. But I found myself talking to a very different woman than the one who had made me captive and given me to her daughter as a gift. I told her of Audry's fate and offered what comfort I could, the main theme of which was "it could have been worse." Helen summed it up, "I suppose that's the best possible fate any of us could hope for. Do you think he'll buy me, too?"
"He's already stated a refusal. He thinks mothers and daughters just spell trouble."
"Then the best we can hope for is for you and me to be bought by the same man. Does that happen often?"
"Don't ask me, darling, I don't know," I answered dejectedly. "You've been a slave as long as I have and all I've got out of it is whip marks, same as you," I sneered bitterly. "I expect the buyers pay extra for whip marks."
We relaxed to examine our chains. Helen obviously hated the shackle on her wrist and its chain training mockingly to the wall. But with me the extra weight from my collar was nothing new. I fingered the links and padlock just from habit as though expecting the padlock to spring open. Silly, but a girl can always hope.
There existed between Helen and me now only the comradeship of females in distress. Slavery had fined her down to where she was truly magnificent piece of womanhood. She would stir some buyer's pulse and fetch a good price. Bitterly, and as though reading my mind, she exclaimed, "I hate myself for what I am. The bastards have made me so obediently and submissive that I'm ashamed. Even if I escaped and got back to the USA, I'm not sure I'd be the same Helen I used to be. Damned! You and I are a pair of idiots when it comes to dealing with these people who seem to own us." She looked at me wanly, "Is it the same with you, darling? They reduce you to a mere nothing on the end of a chain. Even when they use rope I can't untie myself. I'm so damned useless...!"
"Have they.. . I mean, have you had done to you that.. . you know what?"
"Of course they did. Haven't they done it to you, too? I've been fucked enough to be pregnant twenty times over I think they put something in their food."
I dropped the subject with its visions of chained girls yielding their loins in obedience to the whip. I would yield as ready as the others if confronted with enough pain. This cynical knowledge was reinforced in all of us by a daily occurrence.
We never knew her sin, all we knew was her punishment. She had been sentenced to be whipped daily for a period of time which we were also ignorant. She was not one of our group awaiting sale, hence the marking of her skin did not matter. On the basis of making the most of a subject, our captors whipped the unfortunate maiden in such a way and in such a place as to give us the best possible view. She was brought in from somewhere else, bound spread eagle upright against the bars of our cage so we might see all her agony, and at the same time hear her moans and screams. It was not a real flogging, the girl would have been dead long since if it had been that severe. It was simply a fierce, barbaric arrangement intended solely to achieve maximum results on the girl who's flesh was to be marked yet again. She was usually bound to the bars for about an hour and whipped intermittently throughout. Then she was taken away and we fell once more into waiting a fate we did not desire. But most certainly this daily reminder of what could happen to us was potent. Helen and I bitterly conceded that we would be as obedient as our owners might demand. Enslavement is simply if you do everything the way you are told. Obedience is the word for being owned. Slave trading was evidently a serious business with its own techniques. Every time there was a auction there would be one or two of us from the group taken in to watch. We stood along side those to be sold, perhaps to peek the curiosity of clients when we were marched away after the final bid, unsold. No doubt we would be doubly attractive when actually offered. But our owners were extremely concerned with our behavior on the fatal day still to come. Our presence during an auction was in a sense a rehearsal. We observed and were admonished to copy and follow suit. We were witness to one or two incidents of rebellion. But these were swiftly punished by the suspension of the girl who was then ruthlessly whipped without mercy. She was told calmly and dispassionately she would be whipped until she vowed her obedience to whoever was to be her new owner. Sometimes it took a great many strokes.
Most of the group with whom we were imprisoned spoke English, one actually was English and another American. But our stories were remarkably similar, all of us had been kidnapped in one way or another. There must have been thousands of us per year. Between us there grew a tremendous warmth of feeling in shared fear and a sense of being cheated out of life. Only a couple of the girls looked forward to being sold. Helen and I, having been sold before, viewed the forthcoming auction without enthusiasm. What it amounted to was being neatly extracted from our own lives and to henceforth live under the control of a stranger.
No doubt we would have been an enticement to any male viewing us through the prison bars. Such a mouth-watering collection of breasts of all the varying contours of youth and grades of color from different origins. Breasts were everywhere you looked. To us girls who must gaze upon them constantly, they seemed the most prominent part of our landscape. But there were also our patched of pubic hair, and this, too, varied greatly in shade and size and nature. We were, in short, saturated in sensuality. Ordinarily a group of females would have been at odds with each other but our common fate grew us together in a degree often demonstrated by an embrace or the simple holding of each other's hands in silent communion. Helen and I did this often. In freedom we might have been in opposite camps but not now! One by one these days of our imprisonment sped their course to bring us closer to the block.
Even we who were to be sold were infected by the excitation of the auction block and all its implications. The day began for us with the curt instruction to work upon each other with the cosmetics, the combs, the brushes, etc. passed to us through the bars. We had already been hosed down and, despite our knowledge of what lay ahead, could not avoid pleasure in the feminine things we were now allowed to use. It did not occur to any of us to rebel, our preconditioning had made this sale of our bodies inevitable. The door was unlocked and a woman entered to inspect our work, correcting it here and there, improving it where she could. Despite myself, I felt the common excitement as did Helen. We worked on each other with all our skills and grinned wryly at the success of our endeavors. When our temporary owners considered us in saleable condition our hands were crossed and bound behind our back, I expect as much to improve posture and exposure as to prevent us performing some act of rebellion. We spent an hour thus, robbed of our hands and able only to look at painted nipples and rouged contours. We were then marshaled along the wall in the fatal room to await the coming of the cash to buy our chains.
Helen was sold first of all. I watched her mount the block to be turned this way and that for her nakedness to be even more total than needed. I watched the bound hands twist and fight the cords but she was obedient to what she had been told to do. After her exposure she stood proud and erect to face the those who would bid. I had to suppose she had been chosen as the first in order to separate us. I watched the final act of her disposal in a desolation of loneliness as she stepped back down the stairs to stand while her elbows were bound behind her back as were her hands. And she was covered by a white sheath fastening around her neck. The clerk at his desk beside the dais busied himself with wads of currency and the preparation of a certificate of sale. We knew about these certificates of sale they legalized, in this strange land, the disposal of a human being. No matter how questionable the girl's status may have been before the sale, the bidding and this document cemented her fate. From then on she was a slave. It was happening to Helen and would soon be happening to me.
All of us watched her removed from the room, none of us knowing if the man who held her arm was her new owner or a lackey. We had been told that those who bided were mostly agents for someone else. No doubt I should have felt pride and honor in being kept to last, but all I did feel was a dull ache of despair. Quinlan and the penthouse were disappearing in the mists of distance. I would never now own Gertie or see her in the wire cage awaiting my pleasure. My life was over, had I been rescued before this auction I might have been returned to the living. But after the final certificate was signed and stamped. I would be lost forever. I blinked back tears and twisted my bound hands just as Helen had done as I took deliberate steps up to where my nakedness would be in its best display. It would have been nice if I had understood the language but the jokes and patter and bidding was unintelligible. I stood there and boldly and brazenly examined each face by whom I might be owned but recognized none. When it was over I stepped down and stood in the familiar pose of submission, erect, chin up, while my elbows were tightly tied and the cords around my wrists doubly checked. I could not even read the certificate as it was ceremoniously handed to the man in who's charge I was now placed, a man I guessed to be a servant even though he was treated with difference. With me there was an innovation, I was blindfolded before being picked up and carried from the place where I had been made a slave. I did not struggle, I did not speak. What the hell was the use?
I was dumped into a vehicle and sat uncomfortably straining at my ropes for a journey into darkness. The process was then reversed, I was carried a greater distance, presumably through the corridors and passages of a house, until I was stood erect upon my unbound feet and told firmly to stay as I was, an order easy enough to obey in my condition. I stood there breathless, not knowing if I were alone or the focal point of a hundred eyes.
Soon I sensed a presence. I had heard nothing but I was picking up vibrations and turned my bound eyes this way and that. I did not have to stand proud or enhance my posture, my bound arms did that for me. I knew my breasts were pointing in an unintentional arrogance at who ever was viewing my helplessness. It was only moments before fingertips explored them and teased my nipples before imposing a tracery of acute sensation as one hand was lowed to clasp the inevitable handful of my sex. Where ever a male hand may start, a girl can be assured it will always end in that hot, moist place, which for most of mankind is heart's desire. I obediently widened the spacing of my feet to accommodate the questing palm. I did not flinch when an impatient hand tore away the clasp of the shift and tossed it aside to reveal in full and vivid nakedness the contours the fingers had explored through fabric. I hoped I was not to be given the degradation of an orgasm. But the fingers ceased their excitation of my senses and rose to the fastenings of my blindfold. In moments the bands were unwound and I was blinking at a familiar face. It was Don Felipe.
13
Tight Bound
"Welcome back to slavery, dear child." The aristocratic features bestowed the smile I knew so well. "Fate appears to inevitably lead you to the auction block."
"Oh, thank goodness it's you. Have you really bought me, do I belong to you now?"
"You belong to me, Candice. After a while I will have you whipped so you may properly understand you condition." His thin smile noted my wrenched shoulders. "I expect you would like your elbows untied?"
"Oh, would you please! They hurt horribly, and there's really no need...."
"No, I will not, dear child. They will remain bound as they are now while we talk. Come, knell before this chair where I will sit so we may converse. I will order a stimulant, I am sure you feel the need for one."
I knelt, knees well apart. I was hurting and helpless enough to do anything I was told. My first wave of happiness at seeing Don Felipe's face was now fading with doubts. True, he had sold me back to Quinlan, but would he do so a second time! I gulped gratefully at the glass held to my lips by a serving wench. Never for a moment did the eyes of Don Felipe leave his new possession. I would not ask to be untied again, I would suffer the pain of joined elbows and chafed wrists at this man's pleasure. Instead I asked, "Do you still own Audry, Don Felipe?"
"Indeed. Candice. You will see her but not now. There are things I must explain to you. No doubt you are puzzled."
"I am puzzled and I'm frightened and I don't know what you're going to do with me."
Don Felipe held up a hand to still the flood of words he knew I longed to release. He said quietly something he had said often in times past. "You are a beautiful girl, Candice, a man would be a fool to part with you."
"Thank you."
"Your breasts are even more perfect than I recall."
"It's because of my tied arms...."
His raised hand stopped me once again. "No, it is not you roped elbows, my dear, it is you. You are absolutely superb, I am looking forward to having you whipped."
I knelt there utterly forlorn, already feeling the thong cut at my skin. Without assertion, I affirmed, "I belong to Quinlan Robins. You sold me to him. Will you inform him I am here?"
"There is something you should know, Candice. You believe yourself the possession of Mr. Robins, but that possession was canceled out by your foolishness in returning to San Beueno as you have done. Your excursion back to his land is an affront, a deliberate provocation to all our institutions."
"I came back for Helen. Quinlan was prepared to buy and pay for her, I was simply a messenger and a companion to take her home."
"This is not a female's land, Candice. Mr. Robins should have performed this task."
"He was heavily involved with business. Does San Beueno kidnap and enslave any female from a foreign land? I cannot believe any of this."
"That disbelief is why you must be whipped, Candice dear child. But allow me to make your present status clear. You are once again a slave. I own you. I have bought and paid for you. The freedom Mr. Robins purchased for you some time ago and which you have so blatantly abused by returning here in the manner you have, is now canceled out. You have been imprisoned and made merchandise and you have been officially sold at auction, the transaction being officially noted on a certificate I now hold. You are not the property of Mr. Robins, you are mine."
That clarified what I had guess. I knelt before the ancient man and beheld my life vanish into the channels he prescribed. I would disappear and only official shrugs and raised eyebrows would reward Quinlan in his efforts to locate me. I said, "Very well, I am your slave, I belong to you. What now, what of my life?"
"Your life is mine."
"Yes, I know. But what will you do with it, do with me? In little while you'll have me whipped. But after my whipping, what then? Am I to be kept forever naked, forever bound? I expect to give you pleasure, and this I will obediently do." I smiled a weak, desolate smile. "I am not new to slavery. I will render unto Caesar...."
"There still remains your training, Candice. Have you forgotten? It improved you considerably back then, it will do so now."
"Must I endure more of that slave gang labor you have said I am beautiful?"
"Beautiful, but tainted by the freedom your Quinlan Robins purchased for you. Freedom does not become a girl like you."
I could think of nothing to say, Don Felipe had said it all. In bitter anger and anguish of spirit I retorted, "Very well, there's nothing more to say. You certainly do let a girl know exactly where she's at. If you don't mind, I think I'll like to be whipped now, the whipping you promised me. I don't want it hanging over my head all the time." I looked up at him pleadingly. "I don't suppose you understand how the knowledge she is going to be whipped fills a girl's mind and excludes everything else."
I saw compassion in the ancient eyes gazing down at me with tenderness. I felt a small, pathetic female bundle, deserving only punishment. I knew I was being viewed as a rebel strayed from the fold who must be brought back with the tried and true methods of centuries of slavery. I would be whipped with compassion but the pain would be no less.
"You will be whipped at a time of my own choosing, Candice. You have indeed wallowed too deep in freedom with deplorable results. But let's forget your coming punishment. I am sure you're curious about the child Audry. Come, I will introduce you to her once again." I am sure he thought he was kind but his kindness was frightening, behind it was the promise of the whip which would now probably be twice as hard for insolence in asking for it. I accepted Don Felipe's helping hand to stand erect, a hand which did not leave my bare are but guided me.
Audry was naked in a cage, a pretty bird bound spread-eagle to the bars, roped at wrist and ankle, waist and above and below her breasts. Don Felipe said simply, "She is not a well behaved girl, she suffers often."
Audry and I were alone, the cage door slammed and Don Felipe went his way. Audry stared at me in disbelief, a disbelief which grew as I told her the sad story I had. We could not touch, both of us were helpless, but we could kiss and this we did to our heart's content. And I found fresh courage in the hot, young lips so ardent on my own.
When Audry was done kissing she whispered urgently, "We can't escape, there's just no way. I've tried and tired but all I get is more punishment."
There was surprisingly little to talk about, all we wanted was each other and we had that to a limited degree as our bondage allowed. As if by mutual consent we ignored the possibility I might knell and give her pleasure with my lips. The act seemed inappropriate to our mood. Instead I snuggled close and we rubbed breast against breast and nipple against nipple, frictioning our bodies in terrible longing. After we had done this a long, long time there was an interruption.
It was a woman, one of the house servants to whom we were obviously just another chore. Dispassionately she said to me, "You having too much fun," then slipped a noose over my head and tightened it around my neck. She did the same for Audry but warned. "You play tricks, I break you neck. You follow where I say." Then she untied Audry from the bars and quickly, efficiently bound her hands behind her back.
I obeyed. I had no choice. Audry also was obedient, she had learned her lessons well. We were a pair of docile lambs led to the slaughter.
Our journey was only out into the garden and to a pair of slender trees. My noose was made permanent by being snubbed and bound against the trunk of one while the woman's main attention was devoted to Audry. She was backed against another trunk and her hands rebound behind the trunk very tightly. Then her waist was brutally cinched tight in a belt of many strands. The woman then turned her attention to a small pot waiting for us on the ground. In it was a brush and with the brush she painted Audry's nipples with a sticky substance. She then turned her attention to my own. Without another word we watched her go away with an uncomfortably feeling in our stomachs. I looked at Audry in mute questioning.
"I'm not sure about this, darling, but I think this stuff she's painted on our tips attracts some kind of lousy insect," my fellow captive said dejectedly. "Anyway, it won't be long before we find out. I say. darling, can you get loose? I can't, she's got me tied but good!"
I was tied more painfully than she but I made no mention of the fact. Only my noose tethered me to the tree but it was enough. I would stand forever there unless my master said otherwise. But at the moment I was stingingly aware of my painted breasts, the stuff on my nipples did not hurt and no doubt my sensations were mental but there were there. I felt as though I had stepped naked from a bath and had no towel.
"I knew it!" Audry exclaimed in dismay. "If there's one there'll be a dozen. And we can't get away. Oh, damn!"
They were beetles, some big. some small. First there was one centering in upon Audry's left nipple which she could not shield. Both of us gazed at the beastly thing in a terrible fascination as it took the nipple of the bound teenager and fed avidly upon whatever substance it was that anointed our breasts. Soon it was joined by others. Her right breasts were next seized by a couple of smaller members of the beetles then it was my turn. And quite soon each of our nipples was a busy center of excited insects, seeming to feed upon our flesh but as yet only concerned upon the substance from the jar. The same thoughts were upon our minds when they finished that sticky stuff?
Audry was tied more tightly to her tree than I to mine, her struggles were frantic but strictly limited. The tight ropes around her tummy and her pinioned arms prevented much movement of her torso and the beetle-covered breasts. I could struggle and twist more freely but the pain from my bound elbows was bitter and my tethering to the tree short. To a watching eye we must have made an amusing pair of nudes in our fruitless protests against the living things feeding on our nipples. It was not until we realized we, ourselves, were not to be eaten that we relaxed within our bonds and surveyed the numerous black beetles crawling around our breasts.
"He thinks up the damnedest things," Audry said. "I've been waiting for the snake pit but I suppose he's keeping that for last."
"I doubt if the Don ordered this," I told her. "He probably consigned us to the servants and this is their idea of an amusing afternoon for a couple of girls who can't fight back. I think the Don is satisfied to just own things. He's collected us the way he might have collected a couple Ming vases or an oil painting or two. He knows a daily dose of some misery like this is going to keep us well behaved.
Soon enough the beetles finished their free lunch and began leaving, our nippies licked and sucked clean, more or less. When we were about to congratulate each other and relax in our bonds to wait, we were forced to groan in unison at the sight of the woman and her jar making her way towards us with a purpose all too evident.
"You like the beetles, huh? Pretty beetles like you." She stirred the contents of the jar with the brush. Once again my breast of the target of that brush and its sticky stuff but this time not the nipple alone, but the entire firm cone I was secretly proud of. Round and round went the brush, returning to the pot for fresh supplies of the fluid. Audry was horrified.
"Darling, she's doing both your breasts, all of them, I mean the whole breast. We'll have an absolute beehive."
I watched the poor kid struggle helplessly against the ropes when her turn came. The beetle bait was thicker on her than on me, dripping slightly from the nipples when the painting was finished.
"You feed plenty of devils now," our tormentor gloated. "This time I make much better." She had plenty of the stuff left and was looking at our pubic brushes.
We could have kicked. I suppose it was a tribute to our training we did not. But instead we obediently spread our legs and cringe as the brush applied the now-hated stuff to our private parts. From the feel of it we were being heavily plastered, I could not observe my own pussy but I could certainly see poor Audry get her dose of beetle bait.
"You now have much fun, you most luck girls," our jailer informed before she walked away without a backward glance.
It was hateful, a misery cleverly designed to break down a girl's pride and regret her sex. If being a slave meant the continual torturing of her breasts and the slit at the junction of her thighs, then indeed it would have been better to be born a man. I had never felt this way before. But as I struggled vainly at enemies I could not touch, I preyed most ardently for a return to a place were girls were girls and not naked merchandise to be tied to trees and be tortured. I suppose it was not really torture but it seemed that at the time. Our breasts were soon crawling with a multitude of tiny legs. We kicked and squirmed and did dislodge a few of the unwelcome visitors below but it was a futile effort. After a while we gave it up and let them feed to their heart's content. I had never felt so female and so ineffectual in my life.
"I'm being to feel horny," said Audry without enthusiasm, echoing a awareness within my own flesh. I wondered if Don Felipe would be amused at the thought of two maidens thrusting their orgasm as surges against his ropes while beetles fed upon their private parts.
On her next visit with brush and pot, our jailer rearranged me. I was fearing my bound elbows might fall off if left too long. Leaving my neck securely noosed, she freed my elbows and hands only to rebind the wrists behind the trunk. She then cinched my waist with strand after strand as she had with Audry. She then took the rope noose from my neck to leave me in the same position as my teenage fellow-sufferer. Then it was another application of the hated stuff, this time enlarging the scope to work the stuff well into our pubic patches and even painting our asses.
A prisoner has to enjoy small compensations and I had to admit I felt very grateful for the freeing of my elbows, a relief which partly assuaged my anguish over the shinning black bodies which so happily fed upon my flesh.
"A most charming sight, I see you are accustoming yourselves to acting as hostess to the insects of San Beueno," said Don Felipe in a pleasant conversational tone. He had come upon us unawares, we had been too busy with our guests to notice his approach. He bestowed his thin smile. "I am informed by those who have enjoyed what you now enjoy that it is not without its own compensation."
"What you've just said is true enough but just makes it doubly horrible," I told him frankly. "I'd sooner be whipped."
"Ah, and so you shall be, my dear. This is simply a pleasant diversion for your afternoon. Perhaps I will have you whipped tomorrow, there is not hurry."
Audry and I said nothing. What were there to say! We stood, tight in our bonds and were bitterly ashamed that this man should behold the feeding things upon our breasts and pubs. To be seen thus by an aristocrat was humiliation upon humiliation. It took a conscious determination of will to stop our struggled but both Audry and I achieved it and stood, tense and breathing heavily. Don Felipe nodded approvingly but did not linger. We were glad when he was gone for then we could resume our futile twisting with our legs. That dislodged an occasional beetle and was the only weapon we possessed.
The two trees held us until evening then we were freed from them and taken to a dungeon which, I have to admit, was not too dismal. There our collars were joined by a two foot length of chain, our hands untied from behind our backs and then my left hand was handcuffed to Audry's right and vice versa on the other side. Had we not been so miserable we might have laughed at the quaint situation we found ourselves in. We could do a number of things but all only with difficulty. As for instance the raising for food and drink to our lips. At first we kissed most ardently and would have made our female love had it not been for the fresh memories of the crawling army of beetles. No doubt our flesh would again become desirable as time passed but not right now.
By mutual consent we ignored our nipples and our sex, we even managed a chuckle of two in the difficulties of arranging ourselves for sleep. We have been cunningly chained. Someone, somewhere would be laughing.
In the morning our wrists were crossed and bound behind our backs, the handcuffs and neck chain discarded. For some reason it pleased our captors to have rope upon our wrists instead of metal. We were then thrust against a washroom wall and subjected to the icy jet as a hose played against our naked bodies. For once this was a welcome attention. We need that jet, it made us feel whole again.
"A thousands apologies, this intrusion is an imposition upon a valued friend, Don Felipe." Quinlan's voice was dry. "I would ask your forgiveness but probably you were expecting me."
It was insane, it was outrageous and impossible! But it was happening. Audry and I gazed upon my beloved master in pure disbelief. We had readied ourselves for a Castilian lecture and then punishments.. . But not for this! We dared say no word but our hearts were in our eyes.
We made a perfect tableau of submissive maidens before their owner. We had been delivered to Don Felipe's lounge and there told to kneel separately before the chair in which he carelessly disposed himself to gaze upon our kneeling nakedness with unusual benevolence. He had scarcely began io speak when a servant interrupted his thoughts with a flood of Spanish indicating an urgent visitor. Don Felipe smiled his thin and secret smile and nodded. Quinlan's entry followed, and there we were, the four of us with but a single thought. But we were not alone, there was also a fifth. Behind my darling master was the nakedness of Helen, prettily handcuffed, a noose around her neck by which, as with a leash, Quinlan had led her into the The Presence. Quinlan explained her presence in a few brief words, "Bought her at the auction, you know. Figured I'd have a use for her. Not bad material, huh?"
There was a handshake. These two men, even though on opposite sides of the fence, respected and liked each other. Don Felipe clapped his hand and ordered refreshments all around. When the arrived, he directed the serving girls to hold them to the lips of bound maidens who's hands were useless. Audry and I knelt, Helen stood, her head bowed submissively we were females, we did not count. What counted were the men!
"You are indeed most welcome, Mr. Robins." The Don's dry tone matched that of his visitor. "You are correct, your visit is not unexpected." Tiny droplets of humor moistened his words. "No doubt you have come to witness the whipping of Candice Cosgrove, it is to take place this afternoon. I am sure she will be honored."
The old bastard was actually enjoying himself! But then, why not when he held all the cards. I stole a glance at Audry and saw she was trembling as was I. Behind the pleasantries was the cold steel of purpose. And we were well aware of it. I would have loved to kick Quinlan for what he said next.
"I will observe Miss Cosgrove's punishment with pleasure, Don. You are most kind. I am sure the dear girl merits whatever it is you intend to give her. In fact I would be obliged if you would add several strokes on my behalf. I am annoyed with a slavegirl so susceptible to kidnapping. It must denote some weakness in the dear girl's character."
"A weakness San Beueno will correct with hard labor and the lash," added Don Felipe, pleasantly. "It has worked with the two you behold kneeling in sweet submission as we have taught Them." There was a dry little cough. "I do hope you have not entered my house with any intent of disrupting or terminating Miss Cosgrove's servitude?"
"I did have that in mind," Quinlan admitted, unperturbed. "I did not bid on the lady in question at the auction knowing your prerogative as senior of this district, but I brought along a bank draft or two and feel we can discuss possibilities."
"Alas, no, dear friend." Don Felipe's voice held all the sadness of the world. "It would be quite wrong to interrupt the lady's education at this point. I could not dream of selling so imperfect a piece of merchandise to a dear friend." There was a dry chuckle, "But perhaps, since you posses the mother, you might wish to also avail yourself of the daughter. Audry is well trained and a credit to my house. Her price is quite high, but what is money between friends."
They really were a prime pair of bastards, busy shafting each other. I listened breathlessly, my life at stake at this polite exchange of insincerities. I adored Quinlan to distraction and knelt there quivering as he indicated a further source of ammunition, "If I may be excused one moment, Sir. I left something outside the door, something in which I'm am sure you will find an interest."
Quinlan tossed Helen's leash careless to the rug, commanded her to kneel, then went to the door. When he returned in a matter of moments he was leading another woman similarly leashed and bound. She was also gagged.
It was Gertie from the wire cage down on the farm.
Don Felipe was impressed, there could be no doubt of it! I was impressed, too. Gertie had been most adequately whipped, which no doubt accounted for her good behavior and tractability upon the leash. But she had also obviously been dieting and exercising to refine her ample muscularity and female curves into a new perfection. Gertie had always been abundantly female, she was now feminine as an additional bonus. I sensed rather than heard my owner's indrawn breath. For Don Felipe, Gertie was a new dimension in slavegirls.
"I've had this one kicking around at home for quite a while, Don Felipe," Quinlan said affably. "I felt sure you'd be interested."
The Don was interested indeed but, of course, he was not going to say so. He capitalized on Gertie's gag. "I note the necessity to silence the woman forcibly, Mr. Robins?"
"Only on the basis of silence being golden. Sir. If you wish I will release her lips so she may demonstrate her good behavior."
"Prompted by those whip marks, no doubt," Don Felipe suggested dryly. "No, never mind, I'll take you word for her virtues. She is most certainly a most impressive package of female. Not in the class of Candice or Audry, but nonetheless attractive. She has a figure well designed to absorb the whip."
I hoped no one would hear the thudding of my heart. Don Felipe held Audry and me. My beloved Quin held only Helen and Gertie. Was a trade possible? I doubted it sadly. But a slavegirl can never be quite sure about the vagaries of the sensuous male. I had to admit Gertie was quite something as she stood there nakedly bound, awaiting a fate all too easy to guess. She radiated a female musk in the warm room and a glow from both her whipped and unmarked skin. Don Felipe weakened his bargaining position by rising and turning her this way and that for an inspection. When he knelt and thrust her legs apart to examine her treasure, I felt hope and allowed my eyes to rise and meet Quinlan's. Once the masculine superiority I saw there would have irritated me but now I adored it.
It was a remarkable tableau worthy of one of the better masters of the arts; two naked girls kneeling, a naked woman kneeling with head bowed in dejection, Don Felipe busy with Gertie's curves and planes, particularly the massive portions of her solidly jutting breasts. In his chair, Quinlan surveying the entire scene in seeming quiet amusement. When Don Felipe returned to be once more seated, he said without preamble, "For the two I possess, the two you hold, Mr. Robins, plus the sum of one million dollars American."
"You are a gentleman and a scholar, Sir. I have here a draft...."
The Don graciously accepted our outrageous price. When he was locking Quinlan's check in a draw the silence was broken for the first time by a female voice, Helen's. "Audry, don't worry about me. I want your freedom most of all. What Mr. Robins is doing is with my consent. Look after things at home and perhaps one day I will be set free to return to you."
"An un-likely event," said Don Felipe icily. He turned to Quinlan, "And now, Mr. Robins, the matter of the whipping of Candice, who is now your property. Would you wish this to proceed as planned?"
"Indubitably." The emphasis Quin placed upon the single word made it seem a failure to whip me would be a moral deficiency. "I would rob you of nothing, Sir. Please lead the way and get the matter dealt with."
I should have hated Quin and Don Felipe, I should have been bitterly resentful. But I was none of these things. My heart was beating in a joyous rhythm and my mind a whirl of utter thankfulness. I was going home with my master to the USA and Audry was coming, too. What did it matter if my back and bottom bore fresh strips! In obedience to Don Felipe's nod. I stood erect and walked proudly to the place of execution. There my audience disposed themselves or were placed where the Don directed while my hands were bound to the overhead beam and my ankles pulled wide apart to be tied to the vertical posts. I was utterly delivered to the whip and should have been close to screaming hysterics but was not.
When Quinlan came and took my stretched nakedness in his arms and kissed me lovingly I whispered urgently, "It won't hurt, darling, it won't hurt at all. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Don Felipe clapped his hands to summon the inevitable servant and the inevitable whip. I looked over my bare shoulder and stretched arm and smiled. The whip whined and snickered through the air to meet my waiting flesh. I screamed deliciously.
