While I was getting my ride to the precinct station in the wire enclosed back seat of the police car with my wrists firmly handcuffed behind my back, I reviewed the whole damn fool incident and cursed myself for an idiot. Miss Jill Palmer, aged twenty-six, occupation secretary, and here I was on my way to prison!
The store manager had about summed it up. "We get a lot of young women like yourself, Miss Palmer, who act on impulse. You say that had our clerk been more attentive and polite you would not have stolen the watch. But the fact remains you did do it. I will make a guess this was your first theft?"
"Yes."
"It may well be your last." The manager leaned back comfortably in his swivel chair behind his rich oak desk and did things with his fingers to make me want to spit in his face. But I wasn't doing any spiting, I was trembling. Jill Palmer was scared silly.
"We make no exceptions, Miss Palmer, whenever we apprehend a thief we impose the full weight of the law."
They must keep a policeman in the closet in this big stores. Mine arrived just at that point, a pleasant, bored younger man I might have liked elsewhere. Mechanically he did that reading my rights business and I saw his eye register the fact I was an attractive young woman.
"You don't need those," I said firmly. "I've made a silly slip, don't let's dramatize it."
No one paid attention. I was turned politely around, my arms gathered in back and the cuffs snapped clickingly upon my wrists. Right there was an all-time low in the story of my life. I burned with shame as I was led from the manager's office, and even through by a back door was observed by enough pitying smiles to make me long to die. When I slumped in the back seat of the waiting car I noted the absence of handles on the inside of the doors, I looked at the two policemen through heave wire mesh. It was as though the two uniformed men had made a sortie in the jungle and made the capture of a rare species to take home.
When I was marched up to the desk sergeant my policeman fumbled with my hands and removed the handcuffs, tucking them back into his belt I rubbed my wrists and glared in mock indignation at such police brutality. When I had provided the desired statistics and had my handbag searched, the middle aged sergeant said, "You're a damned attractive woman, Miss Palmer. And you'll also a damned fool! Now I expect you'd like to use the phone."
I used the phone and Ryan's laughing voice told me what to expect when he ransomed me. Ryan Norton is a big man with a wide open mind into which this escapade of mine would be duly filed. He promised he would be right around. In the meantime I was ushered into a very large cage containing an equally large assortment of females of all ages. In the half hour I was forced to spend with them I decided I preferred the prostitutes.
When I was led forth for delivery to ray rescuer, I was the jungle animal all over again. Ryan was busily chatting with the sergeant and I knew instantly he was disappointed by the absence of handcuffs on my wrists. He greeted my as if we had just met in the park and, since it was well after dinner time, rewarded my delinquency by taking me out to dinner. The nice thing about Ryan Norton is he always knows what I am thinking and what I want. I said nothing but walked with him to the street enveloped in one huge Mush. I am in love with Ryan Norton. It complicates my life terribly.
"I hope you got the full handcuff treatment and were locked behind bars, sweetness?"
"Yes, I did. And, yes, I know you would have loved to see the whole thing. Maybe you can bribe the policeman to do a replay."
"You suffered a temporary mental aberration, I suppose, sweetheart?"
"Yes, I did! If you're going to tease I shall either weep all over you and wet your jacket or walk rapidly away. Which do you prefer?"
Ryan clasped my arm and I knew I wasn't walking anywhere except with him.
Ryan Norton had picked me up in one of those leafy squares where people feed pigeons. With total nonchalance he possessed himself of some crumbs from my bag and shared the sport. He was a large, handsome, well-dressed man who wore always a faintly amused smile as though he was one up on the rest of mankind. When he turned it upon me it became warm and interested and gave me feminine flutters. He then took my by the arm and led me to one of those Old Tea Houses where they don't give you much to eat and, without even trying, got us the best table in the place.
In telling of Ryan and I it is best that I stand up somewhere and refute the image of a doormat or a possessor of round heels. I've done pretty well for myself at Sherwood's and have always refused to be an easy pickup. Until Ryan took my arm that day I would have firmly asserted my independence and a cool, distant treatment which kept the Male at bay. But his effect on me was like that in the department store where I slipped the watch into my bag. A temporary aberration or a latent weakness? I simply do not know.
I am not shy. I studied him as we sipped our tea and found myself approving of everything. His hair was short by today's standards but under perfect control. He surveyed the world with detached approval but crinkles around his eyes were exactly as I would have ordered them. His lips were mobile to match the easy fluency of his conversation. By the time the management was indicating their need of our table, Ryan Norton said without concern, "If you don't mind, I'll take you home with me." That was the beginning!
His apartment was in one of those towers by the park, it spelt money but I could not bracket him. I put his down as one of those men who easily find the price for what they desire. Ryan Norton got me for nothing.
The apartment was furnished in good taste but there were pictures...! I'd never seen anything like them before. One would arouse no comment, but every picture in the place depicted a more or less naked girl in some dire predicament, bound or chained, but bearing her travail in calm serenity.
"The oldest theme in romantic fiction," Ryan explained at my shoulder. "The damsel in distress."
Each picture possessed its own strange beauty, a woodland glade or the turret room of a castle, one was strictly contemporary, showing a doe-eyed maiden embracing a youngish tree and with her wrists handcuffed on the wrong side of it, and viewing me with a sardonically raised eyebrow as though to say, "I'll bet you've never tired this!"
Every picture as either in oils or pastels. I judged them costly.
"A friend of mine does them specially for me," Ryan told me easily. "Do you get a charge out of them?"
"A charge...? No, should I?"
"Quite a lot of people do, including me. Every picture tells whatever story you care to apply."
It was in my mind to coldly refute Ryan's taste in art but I looked further and realized there was nothing offensive in any of them. The damsels in distress all looked interested and gazed back at me with Ryan's own quiet smile of amusement, even though appearing in immanent danger of being devoured by a dragon. There was something classic about them like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
"Care to try?"
His question told me something. Ryan Norton used this pictures as an introduction. I had seen the magazines on the bookshelves showing the bound and naked beauties I had always turned my nose up at. Evidently my host was an aficionado. "Where would you get the dragon?" I asked flippantly. "Thanks, but no thanks."
"I'm the dragon."
"It's been very interesting," I said, a trifle nervously. "Don't you collect Ming vases or landscape etchings?"
"Sorry, no etching. Would you care to sample the dragon?"
"Sorry, no dragon. It's time I went home."
Now we come to the place of the really crazy part. Me, the self-possessed, cool and collected, Miss Jill Palmer, found myself upon the couch, face down, while a man I'd only met a couple of hours ago studiously crossed by hands behind my back and tied them tight with what I later learned was a man's tie. It was firm and authoritative but, on the premise you had to have your wrists tied, extremely comfortable.
I could have kicked, screamed and struggled but did none of them.
There was a total absence of fear. I suppose this was the key. Ryan's fingers were like his voice, refusing negatives. When he commenced to remove my clothes, I managed only the trite, "No, you mustn't! Please don't do that. Stop it!"
He had to snip some seams to get me naked without tearing things. He did it with quiet precision explaining they could be resewn. When he had me completely bare, he turned me over onto my bound arms, which sank into the soft couch without pain. I was making the tremendous discovery of being helpless, made so by the simply expedient of a piece of cord around my wrists. It did not seem possible but there it was! I soon desisted my twisting and tugging, knowing full well I could not free myself. It was an entirely new sensation. With perfect timing, Ryan left me to myself in the quiet room.
I guessed I was being managed. This man would have no patience with hysteria. I could lay as I was or get up and walk around while I caught up with my emotions or they with me. With my hands bound as they were it was difficult to do a sit up but I managed it before swinging my legs to the floor. Then, in a conviction of imminent rape, I did another tour of the pictures, ignoring the sane admonitions of the other Jill Palmer, the business-like Jill who told me I should back up against the door, open it and run like crazy. I suppose the reason I didn't was fear of failure and what might ensue. When I heard Ryan Norton's approaching steps, I fled back to the couch and settled myself as he had left me. I was panting.
"Had another look at the pictures, eh!" he said cheerily while eyeing my heaving breasts. "I suppose you know you're a beauty, I've never seen anything as good." In a easy continuing of motion Ryan Norton looped my left ankle to draw it up and over the back of the couch on which I lay, tying it somewhere I could not see. In sudden realization of awful exposure I went berserk. When I struggled myself off the couch to hang head down and bound foot up, he laughingly picked me up and put me back in place. I was hot with shame at his reproving, "Naughty, naughty!"
I've always been pleased with the coziness inside my crotch. I have a nice, neat slit and a pleasantly contoured mound. Beneath a thick pubic patch. I've always hated the names for the innocent facility through which a girl pees. I refuted them now to plead, "Please let my foot down, this is horribly indecent."
"You've nothing to be ashamed of, sweetheart." It was as though he was reassuring a child.
I am equally chagrined at the descriptions given to a successful coupling. It's something that shouldn't be talked about, something intensely private. If girls wish to state that they saw constellations and rainbows, they are quite welcome. For my own ravishing at the hands of Ryan Norton the word transcendent comes to mind. It was of a transcendent beauty and gentleness, coupled with Male skill to leave me utterly devastated and wet with sweat. After a while he left me alone. Neither of us uttered a word.
I could not leave the couch, my foot was still tied to lift my leg and bare my secret. My arms were completely lost, I did not even think of using them. It seemed completely normal to use them to arch my back and lift my hips. When Ryan returned we did it all over again.
On the following day I gave notice at my own apartment and moved in with Ryan. It was a sort of natural gravitation requiring no discussion. We had found something we desired.
Once more I must affirm that the girl I speak of here was not the girl I had known for twenty-six years prior to that meeting with the pigeons in the square. The laughing masculine who was Ryan Norton possessed for my an almost hypnotic fascination. Not a wild excitement, not the conventional falling in love but a felling of Tightness when we were together and in my case a constant sexual excitation in wondering what he would next do to me. Ryan Norton was endlessly inventive.
Ryan insisted I keep my job. He said I would be utterly bored if bound hand and foot and left alone all day in the apartment. Besides it would prevent my performing certain rituals. The first ritual was for me to strip totally naked upon arrival home. Then I was required to go stand in a corner and face the wall and stay there until he gave me leave to move. This latter one was hard to bare for I was palpation in every gland and nerve and a bundle ready to explore by the time my companion noticed me or saw fit to command me. The third was for me to address him as "Master" at all times when we were alone. Our behavior when we were out and around was beyond reproach. It was soon understood by our friends we were a young couple-likely to marry.
Ryan added a grim note to the decor by hanging a pair of handcuffs, a whip and a riding crop upon the wall. He said they were a message to me and need never be used unless...! He left the unless bit hanging in the air to nag at me constantly in wonder if he would ever use them. I shivered at the thought but that, too, had its own fatal fascination, for I am curious and I am female and Ryan assures me females are ideally designed for pain.
We spent the first Saturday on a tour of hardware stores. By evening Ryan had installed rings on every conceivable wall or floor to which he might wish to attach me with a pair of handcuffs we had acquired and a length of chain and a couple of padlocks for other portions of my person. It was tremendously exciting and I completely forgot who or what I was in this stimulation of my senses. Another rule was that I must always wear handcuffs or cord upon my wrist, they must never be free except when I went to work. I become an expert at doing things with handcuffed hands, I discovered you simply used two hands instead of one. They accompanied each other on ever task. It delighted the man I must call Master to make me wear one of his shirts on occasion and this would necessitate the unlocking of my handcuffs or the unbinding of my wrists so I could don the oversized covering, button it up and then offer my hands to be once more tied or cuffed. When Ryan discovered the shirt covered more of me than supposed, he cut it off short to reveal glimpses of my cleft and pubic patch. He also purchased the very tightest of tee shirts, which when worn along, accentuated my breasts outrageously and revealed my bottom and sex in total candor. We vied with each other to think up fresh adornments for the female body that was Me.
At night we slept naked together in his bed but I was always handcuffed front or back according to his pleasure. I drifted into deliciously slumber with two male hands clutching me tight and often with his knee thrust upward between my thighs. In all this period of my beginnings it never once occurred to me to demure about anything. I offered my hands or feet to be fastened in whatever way my master chose and often offered a sarcastic, "Thank you" when it was done. There were times he would be deliberately mean, as for instance seated in his lounge I was instructed to go to the bar and mix him a drink and deliver it on bent knees. Ordinarily this would have presented no problem but upon making the request he had bound my ankles so tight together my toes thought I was a mermaid. It was an ordeal to surmount but I managed it by constantly placing his glass on the rug while I squirmed myself around on my bottom to gain perhaps a yard or less. If I spilled the drink or complained, I must do the task all over again. But no matter how taxing the tasks might be, I never disobeyed. Some female intuition told me the day I disobeyed would be the day Ryan took down those fearful objects on the wall.
I used the handcuffs, the whip and the riding crop for balance. Sometimes I would really get angry at what Ryan required of me and had to compel myself to simmer down if I did not wish him to use the dreadful trio. I did not believe him capable of cruelty but I was equally certain he would not use it unless I touched in him some cord of humiliation or defiance he could not tolerate. As always I got sexual arousal at the thought. But my sexual arousals were no problem, they were appeased each night most gloriously.
It was during the first part of this semi-connubial bliss I got arrested.
Getting rid of the shivers and shakes attendant upon my time with the police took about half the period of our dinning. Ryan was attentive, kind and understanding to make me feel less ridiculous, less shamed and inclined to see a touch of humor here and there. He was his gravely amused self and just what I needed to get over my deplorable lapse from grace. It was not until the brandy he chose to mention the matter of discipline. Without preamble and as dispassionately as always he conveyed regret over the necessity of whipping me when we got home.
Maybe my first real test had been when he tied my hands that first time. Or perhaps it was now when I was confronted with something I truly did not want. Passion is a sedative to so much but would not protect me from those things I had seen upon the wall. Ryan must have seen me tense and knew my thoughts. "You won't die, sweetheart, some girls like it."
I tried evasion. "I can't stand anything that severe," I ventured timidly. "Surely there is something else?"
"If you're frightened of the whip, there's always the riding crop, sweetheart."
"I'm just as frightened of that. Oh, Ryan...! Please be kind to me, I've had the damnedest kind of a day."
"All your own fault, love."
"Well, yes, I suppose it is. But can't you be a little merciful, after all it is my first time."
He listened then shrugged. "A weakness to be nipped in the bud, my pet. You and I will deal with it."
It was about right there when I realized his implacability and the certainty of punishment, that the electric charges started to tingle my sex and tell me that things weren't all that bad and quite probably I'd make fresh discoveries about myself when the dread time arrived. I had a second brandy on the strength of it.
Once again I have to wonder why I didn't turn and run. But there was the undeniable fact that I had lost my apartment and my home was now with this man across the table, a man who intended to whip my bare skin that very evening. My mind flittered across the possibilities of relatives or friends or hotels but I knew I would resort to none of them. I would go home with Ryan and be an obedient though frightened little girl. I took comfort from the fact Ryan also had a second brandy.
It had been a slow, leisurely dinner. We made it ever more leisurely by lingering over the after dinner brandy. I did not know what my master was thinking but I was dwelling in disbelief over what was going to happen to me later. I knew I would not really believe it until it was happening. When a girl dispassionately considers the act of being whipped on her bare skin, it just doesn't seem possible! I looked at Ryan and I looked around the upper class restaurant in which we dined and wondered if the females present had ever received what I was going to get. But I shrugged that one off, there might have been a dozen of them who had men like Ryan. But then I was a girl in love. When we got back to the apartment I rid myself instantly of clothes and stood instantly in the corner with my nose shoved into the paint. I hoped Ryan could not see the tremors of my flesh.
He let me stand a long while awaiting his cheerful, "Okay now, sweetheart, you can turn around."
I kept thinking up pleas for mercy and rejecting them. I was already handcuffed and handcuffs inhibit thoughts of flight. What was beginning to concern me was the realization that if I could be whipped once I could be whipped twice or three time or ... In short, this was the beginning of my life with this man I loved.
Ryan had always laughed over my tentative suggestions about playrooms, punishment rooms, or maybe a small sized dungeon. When I was given permission to turn and go to the living room, I found only a single rope suspended from above and, at the end of it, a hook. The hook quickly snared my handcuffs and the rope rose with alarming swiftness to raise me almost on my toes. I was about to protest the stress and strain when Ryan lowered me down an inch or so that I might stand in comfort with my heels resting firmly on the floor.
"You can respond a lot better this way, sweetness," he assured me. "I want you to go through every contortion you can think of or can desire while I'm whipping you. Do you understand?"
I told him, yes, I understood. But it was a lie, I did not understand at all. All I understood fear, pure stark, horrible fear!
"The riding crop across your bottom and the whip for your back, my precious." The words were tender and alive with love. Ryan kissed the nape of my neck and I tried hard to drag my hands down to give him the tenderness of a touch but they would not come down, they were held above my head with the handcuffs biting unkindly at my wrists. From some distance I heard my voice saying weakly, "Must you ... oh, please...! "
"I'm afraid I must, you silly girl."
The first cut of the crop followed instantly. I was unprepared and the unexpected agony moved me to lift myself from the floor by my ironed wrists in a frustrated need to make clear to Ryan the absolute impossibility of a girl sustaining such agony. As though in reply to my unacceptable reply, he struck me a second time. Now it was the whip biting squarely across the center of my back to drive me once more berserk and leave me dragging at my tether and facing my master in disbelief in such cruelty and saying over and over, "No ... no ... no...! Oh, Ryan, don't hit me any more."
He was very wise, he allowed me to pant my way back to some sort of rationale in which I made the mental adjustment of knowing I would be whipped and the need of coping with it without undue shame. I wanted so badly to make a good showing in Ryan's eyes that when, after a long pause, he slashed number three close beside number one, exerting every ounce of will I had, I confined my protests to kicking feet and eloquent gasps. From then on understanding each other, Ryan Norton whipped Jill Palmer with studied care until I realized we were progressing in the middle of a road of anguish neither too severe nor too lenient. In the midst of agony I knew I would survive.
I got twenty strokes, ten on my bottom, ten on my back. When they were done I was sweating and my breasts heaving with the palpations of pain and there terrible apprehension of not knowing when it would be over. I was a properly punished delinquent who would think twice before stealing another watch.
"There you are, my pet. Congratulations, you did remarkably well. He laughed at the sad spectacle I must have made. "You're nicely positioned, how about ten more?"
"No! Oh, no! Oh, Ryan, please ... Not any more."
There were no more. The rope came down, my handcuffs were unhooked from it, I was lifted and carried to our bed. What took place then was of a splendor for which I have no words. It wedded me to Ryan Norton forever.
Females are carnal and that's why once awaken from pubescent modesty, we are insatiable. The male strength and the male rod subduing us not creatures filled with longing, a desperate desire that what had just been done to me could go on forever without end. My whipped skin rejoiced upon the sheet to tell me without shame I would long to be whipped and whipped once more, whipped and ravished I was fulfilled.
I suppose my escapade with the watch and the resultant punishment should have made a division in our lives. But, if one was there, I was not aware of it. I went to work the following day and my sex was wet the whole time in speculation as to what my fellow workers would say if they could behold the weals upon my flesh. I longed cry aloud the glory of my love, to display myself shamelessly in nudity. Instead, I sat sedately at my desk and dealt with clerical matters of no import. Sometimes I shifted in my chair and pulled free the garment sticking to my skin to wonder if those who watched might understand. But no on watched. I alone had Ryan Norton and he was mine!
We didn't mention my whipping. There was a sort of clean decency about avoiding the topic. It was done and we knew why it was done. It was up to me to make sure it didn't happen a second time. That sounds so simply now I could laugh.
We were not hermits, Ryan often took me out to dine, but since my punishment a fresh authority raised its painful head and I must cope with it. Fresh from the bath on the night when we would dine out I was obliged to clasp my hands behind my neck, to stand erect while Ryan draw a wire around the narrowness of my waist and pulled it tight to noose my middle with an unkind band his pliers made secure so that even in the privacy of the ladies rest room it could defeat my efforts to remove.
"Keep you on your toes, sweetheart, tell you always what you are."
"Yes, Master." I was trying to feel beneath the indentation in my flesh but could not. "It's terribly tight, I think it's going to hurt."
"Excellent reasoning, my pet, absolutely right. But it's not hurting too bad right now, is it?"
I admitted to it being presently bearably and put on my clothes. At the very best the band of wire would extract from me the most shameful and wanton walk imaginable. When I stepped out my hips swayed back and forth to do credit to a cocktail waitress seeking business after hours. Between tears and laughter I strove for mercy. "Master, you'll be ashamed of me, I can't possibly walk except like a whore."
"Nothing wrong with a good whore, sweetheart."
"But I'll be scared to eat!"
"Your figure wins either way, my pet. While we dine you can think how glorious it will be when I take it off." Pathetically, I asked, "Couldn't you take it off now, Ryan."
"I could, but I won't."
It was like being whipped, I handled it. There were moments I felt myself smiling over my predicament and wondered how many women around the room were similarly punished. I remembered stories about the old days when women were indeed punished with severe corsets of whalebone and steel. I remember reading of a girl's school where severe corsets were a recognized method of reprimand for bad behavior. I ate and drank determined to endure whatever suffering ensued. Ryan watched me from across the table with intent interest. I knew he could discern in my face every twinge and every bit of the thing he had cinched around my waist. Laughingly I said, "Ryan, you're impossible. You're enjoying every moment of this. You can tell I'm in agony and you're enjoying it."
"Go to the rest room, my pet, see if you can take it off."
I did exactly that but wished I hadn't. I had to do a lot of fumbling to reach the wire but only to discover it so deeply embedded within my waist that I could not touch it. And, anyway, what could I do without tools? I walked with my outrageous hip motion back to the table. The brandies after only helped a little and I shed a few tears.
The wire band was only one of many delights. Ryan came home one evening to announce a purchase of some beastly little metal clips with which to ensnare my nipples beneath my bra. They were cleverly made in order for this to be possible but when I obediently stood with raised arms to accept this cute male notion and the hateful little things were attached to both my nipples I could not contain myself. "Take them off! Oh, Ryan, get them off me quick! If you leave them on I'll lose my nipples. Pleaseeeee?"
Ryan picked up his opportunity. "But, sweetheart, the Code says I can whip you for such vehement protest. Are they really that bad?"
"Yes, they're awful! Take them off! You can whip me when we get home."
Ryan carefully rearranged my bra. The burning beetles beneath changed no contour of my breasts, no one would know their presence or what they did to me. My arm in Ryan's as we entered the restaurant, I met the waiter's welcoming smile as though my breasts were without agony. I was getting good at bearing pain and showing no sign. Only Ryan would know! All through the soup my eyes constantly locked with those of my master to reprove him with my anguish. But he smiled and passed the salt and the pepper and the crusty buns as though no beetles bit my breasts at all. The whole thing was so outrageous I sometimes shared his smile and even chuckled when he told a joke. In such ways are girls made into slaves. I adored him!
On the evenings when we stayed at home, it amused my master to attach me to one of the rings we had so amusingly installed around the place. There was so many it was easily possible for him to compel me to sit or stand or lay against the rug. It became a matter of intent to Ryan to secure me by a very minimum restraint. Handcuffs were obvious, they made me stay in the selected spot, without discomfort but also without hope of freedom. One cuff around my wrist and the other locked within the ring. It was infuriation and frustration but if he didn't leave me in the one spot too long, it was also amusing. Especially in as much as I never knew what came next. I was in a constant state of disbelief that I could be made so helpless by so little.
From the handcuffs Ryan graduated me to thumbcuffs which he discovered when rooting around one of those places that sells such things. Thumbcuffs are neat, small devices which treat the thumbs as handcuffs do the wrists. I never cared much for them, they seemed a bit of gadgetry. But with one of them locked to the ring and then to one of my thumbs, I stood or sat or lounged according to my master's will and in so doing discovered a fresh subtlety. These restraints were very much a part of Ryan, a part of himself he imposed upon me and which I must obey. As I disposed my nakedness in whatever posture chosen, I could never quite believe it was happening but could always bring home its reality by a swift motion in any direction. When I did this, the angry pain on thumb or wrist was like a part of my master on a part of me, a male hand from which I could not escape.
In Ryan's seeking for the tiniest denominator, he considered my nipples but after a review of possibilities he rejected the idea. Ryan adored breasts and was reluctant to change their contours. An unbreakable threat knotted around my nipple offended him as much as it hurt me. With Ryan there were always compensations.
A thing I disliked intensely but which made me as helpless any costly restraint was a piece of wire and a pair of pliers. The first time he did it to me I watched with interest his looping of the ring, the couple twists of the wire until his bland request to place my thumb within the snare thus made brought be back to the facts of life. "Ryan, darling, not wire! Wire hurts."
"Trust me, sweetheart, when you start screaming, I'll stop right there."
Needless to say, I did not scream. I was always fascinated by the things he did to me and even though I disliked the wire I watched it carefully looped around my thumb below the knuckle. The pliers were deftly used to create a perfect circle before they bit the ends to twist them into what was, as far as I was concerned, a lock. He then snipped the ends off short to leave me gazing in dismay at a neat and tidy bond my fingers could not fight. Of all the devices Ryan used to wed me to a ring, this was the most humiliating.
He loved to tease. A favorite trick was to fasten my by thumb or wrist, usually the twisted wire, adjacent to the chair in which he watched television. I watched too, but in one of the commercials he would casually ask me to fix us drinks. I, forgetting my attachment, would leap to obey and almost loose my thumb. Sometimes I was so mad I cried but was always comforted by protective male arms and ended up sharing Ryan's chuckle while he mixed the drinks I could not reach. Mostly these situations left me sexually aroused.
There can be no doubt that much of the enchantment of my relationship with Ryan arouse from my office situation each day. I left slavery each morning to return to it at five pm. I often wondered if anything was discernible to my co-workers at the office, if any of the tingling anticipations were evident upon my features. It was as though my situation with Sherwood, Inc. regenerated my spirit throughout the working day to return me each evening to a man possessing the magic by which I was transformed into a slave.
It was during one of our adventures in good dining, me with beetles beneath my bra, that Ryan introduced me to Janice Webb.
2 - Submission
I have always thought of a girl with red hair and green eyes as a witch but Janice Webb's came closer to auburn, which left me uncertain. Anyway you looked, Janice was a beauty and she knew she was a beauty. Yet, for some reason I could not yet discern she adopted a bantering tone of depreciating frankness which probably hurt either herself or the one to whom she spoke. When Ryan introduced us, she looked me up and down with deliberate insolence.
"I suppose this handsome bastard keeps you chained up and whips you daily, darling?" Then, without waiting for my answer, "Mind if i join you?"
The waiter rearranged us. The way waiters did things for Ryan Norton told me he must have Money. He said to me, "You have to take Janice with a grain of salt, sweetheart."
"And take you with a grain of arsenic, my love," Janice Webb shot at him. Then, to me, "Where did he capture you, Miss Palmer?"
She was a bit of a shock, like finding myself knee deep in family recrimination. I wondered if I could get away with playing the haughty Miss as though her references were meaningless but discarded the idea, it would be better to try and keep one jump ahead. "I'd rather you told me where he captured you, Miss Webb," I said with all the false sweetness I could muster.
"Shut up, both of you," Ryan said without heat. "Janice, if you're going to sit with us, you can damn well behave yourself. I'll to the briefing."
Janice kept silent. This told me she was still in love with Ryan. I was afire with jealousy. My master's even voice made his female audience mute. "I picked Janice up at a cocktail party, not so much different from the way I did you, Jill." His eyes flickered back and forth between the red hair and the dark brown. "She stayed my slave a couple of years before deciding I as unworthy of her submission, then she rented her own apartment and left my life. That's about it."
"That's about half true," Janice confided to me in another burst of candor. "Actually it was he who kicked me out. Said I irritated him to death and I'm sure I did! It's probably the color of my hair."
I should have felt de trop in the trio but I didn't. Janice did! Her next question was aimed to bring me down to size. ' 'Darling, I'll willing to bet anything you're in some sort of pain. What has the miserable twit fastened on you to give your eyes that far-away look?" Her own lit-up to observe my wince and the involuntary motion of my hand towards my puss where a couple of those lousy beetles were busy gnawing at its lips. She grinned. "Ahhhh, I thought so! No, don't tell me, I don't want to know, I was simply curious."
"Curious enough to get your ass whipped," Ryan asked with deadly calm.
Janice shrugged. "Sure, if you like. I haven't been marked since I last saw you. This evening okay?"
"You can come home with us. I want Jill to see what a real one's like."
"You'll be brutal, eh? Well, I asked for it."
I sat through this exchanged uncertain whether to be entertained or jealous. But I suppose I would be jealous so long as Janice was in any room containing my master. But I was being silly. Janice had possessed him and lost him. Why should I not enjoy the spectacle of a girl getting something which lay in wait for me! I told the cat in me to shut up and go to sleep.
Janice ignored The Male to give me the full confidence. "I suppose you dissolve into little bits beneath him in the bed? He always had that effect on me. It's a shame these women's Libbers don't understand what makes a girl tick. We're ashamed of it, of course, but we would go to the ends of the earth for a man who does what this son of a bitch does to a girl." Her eyes met mine in a fixed stare. "Isn't that so, darling?"
"Don't pay too much attention to her, Jill, she's fishing. She wants to come back." I detected irritation in my master's voice. His words had hurt, I could tell. Janice sat still, digesting them, then rose. "You rotten bastard!" she flung across the table. "Keep your love, maybe you'll need it sometime! She turned with a flourish to march towards the door.
I watched her go, genuinely disturbed. She had done nothing to deserve the unhappiness I knew she felt. I was about to turn an angry face to Ryan when a small miracle took place. Janice Webb was near the exit when she stopped dead and, without pause, turned around to stride back to our table and resume her seat, to meet our eyes defiantly and infuse her voice with bravado. "Sorry, I forgot. I have to be whipped, don't I?" She bestowed what I later came to call her auburn-haired smiled. "I won't renege. Now, let's talk about something else."
I didn't talk about anything else, I was too new about all this to feel anything but embarrassment as Ryan and Janice, always in her flippant mood, recalled what they called "slavery." Janice had gained a sort of ascendancy and I wondered if her return to be whipped was anything more than a cunning ploy. Any girl desiring a man would take a whipping to get him.
I almost forgot the pain within my crotch as I listened to the two of them talk, recalling an old captivity and its tribulations. I noticed Ryan tread hard on references to Janice's more exotic punishments. He didn't want me to know. I could not tell if he were pleased to have her company or only being polite. Janice was enraptured.
The angrier I got, the more the beetles bit at my pussy lips below. I could swear they were laughing and feeding busily on my secretions. Janice was busy offering herself for any agony that would amuse the Master. She didn't do it blatantly but by subtle hints to anything Ryan said. I wished she would go away but that was not going to happen. I reconciled myself to playing voyeur for the evening, at that I could not have been more wrong.
I knew Ryan enjoyed his grand exit accompanied by a pair of beauties for which other men envied his nonchalance of possession. It was not conceit but simply his own conviction in the rightness of the thing. In my master's eyes, woman was desired to pay homage to The Male.
It was just that simple!
It was not until Ryan unlocked our apartment door I realized a hurdle I had to cross. Janice had served her sentence and was thus exempt. True, she had returned with us to be whipped but apart from that isolated incident she was a guest. I was not! I paused in doubt over doing something I mostly adored but which, with Janice present, was something I longed to avoid. But I had caught Ryan's eyes and he knew that I was well aware of the unbroken ritual of my submission. He had the decency to give me a brief nod of approval before taking Janice out of sight. I quickly stripped naked to stand in my corner and face the wall.
I had never been so burned up with shame and embarrassment. No doubt Janice had done this herself before my enslavement but that would not stop her scoring points. I knew myself in for a series of outrageous blushes and even felt one starting then when I was alone.
I knew that corner in the wall like the back of my hand, I'd stared at it enough and wondered how long Ryan would make me stand her now. I knew he was forever testing my tolerance for the bizarre things he imposed and which I enacted with some amusement. My next dilemma was the biting beetles on the most tender part of me down below. They never let up but hurt me with a steady persistence not amount of shame would allay. I wondered if I dared take them off on the basis they were in the same category as clothes. But I was certain that would not met with approval. Miserably, I wondered if I would gain virtue in Ryan's eyes by leaving them where they were. I fought to keep my hands from the junction of my thighs, and got a wry amusement from the fact Ryan had forgotten to handcuff me or to give the handcuffs to me that I might do the job myself. He often does that then examines the steel circlets to make sure I had put them tight enough. Anyway, there I was, staring at that damned wall and listening to the cheerful chatter in the lounge. I could well imagine his majesty sitting in state while Janice served the drinks. I might easily have to stay like this for an hour. But with all my inward turmoil and the pain in my puss, I did not dare to break the pose, it was something so deeply-ingrained as something I could not escape come hell or high water. I settled to wait and after a while the chatter became muted and I sensed something in progress. If Ryan was inside her pants, I'd kill them both!
I sensed being watched for signs of rebellion before Ryan's cheerful command, "Okay, sweetheart, you can turn around now. Come along we need an audience."
If she had not been a competitor I would have conceded Janice the most beautiful female body I'd ever seen. Ryan had her half suspended, her wrists crossed and bound and then raised above her head enough to make her stand right there but not enough to make her inhibit motions, and the damned girl must have taken lessons because she sure knew how to pose. I wondered if Ryan had stripped her or if she had undressed at his command. Either way, she had arranged herself in an absolutely stunning posture. Viciously I wondered how long she'd hold it when the whip bit her back.
"Oh, there you are darling," she said gaily, "I'd wondered what had happened to you. Doing the naughty girl bit with your face to the wall?"
I wanted to say something catty but it wouldn't come. After all the poor girl was about to come into the whipping of her life and it was no time to bear malice. I ignored he query and addressed Ryan directly, "Do you wish me to continue to wear ... well, you know what? And where."
"Damn, I meant to tell you to take them off," his grin was almost apologetic but not quite. "Since they're still on, you may as well wear them." He can be a real SOB when he feels like it. He hadn't forgotten, he was just making me feel bad about maybe suffering them unnecessarily. But I knew for sure I would have be punished if they had not been left in place. I said a brief, sarcastic, "Thank you."
Our master now held handcuffs. He clipped one circle above the elbow of Janice's bare, raised arm then turned to me. I knew what to do, I always know what to do with Ryan, even without words. I knew he'd want my right hand so that's the one I raised and placed within the open jaws so obviously waiting. My master snapped them tight shut upon my wrist to say in a most sincere admiration, "What a couple you make! I'm not sure I've seen anything more beautiful anywhere. Just a moment, I'll get the camera."
I hastily raised sulky lips, hostile eyes. Chained as I was I had more freedom than Janice and Ryan used this freedom to pose us both to what he thought was the best advantage. I figured we'd come out looking like a pair of lesbians. But what did it matter! Janice and I were captured on film a dozen times before Ryan put the camera away and fetched the whip. I felt Janice tense and did the same. We were both shockingly bare and it was a wicked-looking snake-like instrument a girl could feel just by looking. Janice was never short of bravado.
"A ringside seat, darling, aren't you the lucky girl! Watch out you don't get bitten by the tip."
We locked eyes standing so close, each girl seeking the secrets of the other while one of us awaited the first marking of her skin. When it came Janice distended her eyes and gasped in a sort of soundless disbelief. But, in typical bravado, held her pose, her eyes on mine becoming insolent with challenge to tell me I could never bear the whip as well as she.
Along with all my other emotions I was afraid. This girl was being whipped with a terrible severity. Instinctively I shrank from the whining thong to stand in front and facing the punished nudity to which I was attached. My own whip marks, which had never been wounds, had faded away but the marks now being imprinted on Janice's back and across her hips would stay with her a long, long time. I couldn't not see them yet but caught horrified glimpses of a curling lash biting her armpit or stealing around her waist. I was sure I could never bear it with her stoicism. Little by little and stroke by stroke, her lovely pose dissolved. Her breasts heaved now with every stroke to accompany the gasping moans she could not contain. When her eyes caught mine now they were apologetic and, as blow followed awful blow, Janice Webb progressed towards her first terrible scream which told Ryan and I of her submission to his authority. Miss Janice Webb had had enough!
I shared everything, I had to! I could no move away nor hide my eyes knowing the whipped girl's need, I moved the short distance up and, from beneath my own raised arm, beheld the work of The Master. Janice was exquisitely and wickedly marked from thighs to above her shoulders, no single stroke had strayed upon her breasts or heaving belly. There was no real amount of blood, only a trifling touch where the snapping tip had bisected an already vivid mark. Her entire body glistened with sweat, her female scent invaded us wave after wave to make our nostril flare and heat us with desire.
Janice was allowed to stand. It was then I heard the fateful words I feared. "How about you, Jill, it's not a one-way street, you know?"
What the hell could I do! Ryan had seen one of his favorite moments to make a test. Suddenly trembling I managed to say, "As you wish, Master. How do you want me positioned?"
Ryan laughed and tossed the whip aside. I had never felt more grateful in my life. To have been whipped while chained to this vivid and vital creature would have been shame indeed! I stood in mute thankfulness as Ryan used the tiny key to give back my arm.
That was my first encounter with Miss Janice Webb.
As though my mutual consent we spoke no word of the girl who had come to Ryan to be whipped and who had left that evening with her smile of bravado on her lips. Between us two woman there had passed a message that we would meet again but I knew it would have to be by her conniving, it would not be my mine. I dismissed her from my thoughts as best I could, it was not easy!
The following day Ryan told me that any girl sustaining a session with Janice deserved a good dinner. We would dine at one of our favorite places, the most expensive one! As usual there would be a small embarrassment....
That evening, when I was rescued from my shameful corner, it was to be bathed by my master, an act which gave him endless pleasure, and then to have small bells suspended above my knees and within the beginning of my thighs by a couple of those plastic bands which lock themselves and must be cut away to be removed. I was then told to walk around our bedroom.
"But, Master, I can't, I simply can't." I was feeling the onset of a blush when only half way around the circuit. "The noise they make ... everyone will know...! "
"That's up to you, sweetheart. You don't have to run, you know. I want you to practice walking with gracious dignity as you will when you hold my arm. Go ahead, you don't have to blush, I'm the only bastard present."
I could not rid myself of the pretty silver bells, they would stay above my knees until Ryan chose to use a knife. I had no knife and he would make sure I did not get one. Cautiously I resumed my outrageous circling of the room and did a lot better than before. I was handcuffed as usual and held my joined hands high against my breasts.
"You see, sweetheart, all you have to do is try. Come on now, I don't want you sounding like a church on Sunday any more than you do. If you embarrass me with those little things you'll also pay for it."
Those bells were the damnedest things, I constantly wanted to giggled and I kept having visions of the dinning room wondering where the chimes were kept. But I knew I was stuck with them so I really worked at control to discover my real problem was their occasional contact with each other, a contact I could avoid by widening the distance between my thighs. Thank heavens the damned things would keep quiet when I sat down!
During these excursions out to dine I had to wear clothes. It pleased my master to insure they were expensive clothes and most cunningly augmented by what he laughingly referred to as "custom jewelry." The first of these was a collar which might well be solid silver and have a lock I could never find. The wristlets were also of silver which mocked my seeking fingers and possessed a truly embarrassing feature of a length of silver chain which Ryan could impose or remove at will. Behold me then, proud upon his arm, my neck encircled by what was most obviously not a conventional choker. My wrists glimmering and there was the muted response of small bells beneath my skirt if I took too fast a step. At our table, secured from the hoi polloi, out came the little length of chain to which I must submit with a stern admonition not to hide them beneath the table but to keep them where our waiter would have no doubt as to me condition. Failure would bring penalties when we got home.
There were always penalties to leave me erotically excited. Most were bearable and even those which were not left me, after they were over, with an absurd sense of well-being and a sense of victory in getting them over and done with even though I may have screamed while it was happening. Once more you will ask why I endured these shameful inflictions and once more I can only tell you of the heat behind my sex and my infatuation with this handsome monster I still adored. His ingenuities were endless.
"You've been getting away scot free to the office." Ryan paused to watch me tense. "What you say we give the staff a treat?"
The "treat" was the most outrageous bra I had ever seen, shinning cones of metal controlled by a chain. Needless to say there was a padlock! When it was fastened around my bust I knew I would inevitably be the cynosure of every eye, male and female both. Once more I was hot and red and certain I could not go through with it even though I found an erotic beauty in this armoring of my breasts. I heard my own protests without optimize. "Ryan, I can't, I simply can't, I'll be fired for sure."
"Yes, you can, darling. They'll think you've been hiding your best charms up to now."
"The girls will know there's something wrong, they will sneer."
"So what! You'll still be the most beautiful female in the place."
Lingeringly I fingered the most beautiful breasts in North America. Ryan had them on my truly tight, the tiny chains biting and indenting themselves within the softness of my flesh. After a while they would hurt!
"But, Ryan, how do I get them off?"
"You don't, sweetheart. There's one key and I hold it."
I knew myself lost but was genuinely perturbed. "Ryan, how can I possibly go to the office like this, even if they are covered by my dress? Look, darling, put them on me when we're out for an evening. Don't send me out for everyone to stare at and snicker."
"Stop complaining, sweetheart, you know you adore them. Any more beefs and I'll evoke penalties."
I stamped a bare foot and tried to insert a finger beneath the metal edge of the bra. "Oh, damn you and your penalties," I wailed in real distress. "Ryan, darling, you're not using any judgment. Please don't make me ashamed of myself."
"Would a whipping change your mind, sweetheart?"
"No, it wouldn't! I'd sooner be whipped than go to the office like this."
"But you do know you'll go, don't you?"
I knew! I would go and bear the shame and make such excuses as I must. Ryan's threat of the whip was always potent in helping me make up my mind. As though needing reassurance, I asked, "If I do wear these terrible things, I won't get whipped...? "
"Hmmmm ... you're bargaining, my pet. You know that's not allowed. No, I won't whip you this evening. There's something else and I won't tell you about it. Think about it while you sit in splendor."
That was how I made my acquaint with caned hands.
I lied, I blushed all sorts of nonsense but finally settled on the lie of having been persuaded to try something entirely new. Some accepted, some did not. I did my day's work in company with the two most outrageous breasts in all the USA. At five I fled for home but even there was forced to wear them as I stood in the familiar corner, surveying the wall. I could not get them off, they were a part of me, still tight locked over my own breasts when Ryan told me I could turn around and help him with dinner, refusing my pleas to unlock my metal bra and telling me to wear it in pride. I did so, I had to! When I felt below, I was wet!
Had I created the impression that Ryan was remote, cold, concerned only with my subjugation? If I have, that is way, way wrong! In all these awful or amusing things he did to me, his hands or enfolding arms were never far away. He hurt be bitterly one moment then took me into ecstasy the next. I came to expect being hurt but still being loved. And loving in return. The loving was the important thing between us. All of these punishments I tell you of were most assuredly coincidental to evoke my yelps, my struggles and contortions only for moments or minutes. Ryan Norton never hung me up by my thumbs all night. He often laughingly referred to it but it was something he never did. I knew I was always being tested and found wanting, I came to love the role.
On the night of the metal bra, we dined, did the dishes and then sipped our brandy as always. There was only the smallest of differences, it was the long, narrow expensive looking case which, when my master opened it, revealed the most shocking collection of riding crops, canes and straps to make any girl cringe and think of fleeing home to mother. I did all those things and added, "Oh, Ryan, don't use those awful things on me! I do try to please..."
"Indeed you do, sweetheart, and these little things in here are one of the ways in which you will undoubtedly please me very much. Were those pretty little hands of yours ever caned in school?"
"Of course not! You're thinking of Queen Victoria."
He shrugged the thought away. "Actually, I'm thinking of you. I'm going to cane your hands."
Imagine how I felt! I was half expecting some sort of punishment because of all the protests I had made over the bra which, incidentally, I still wore. But this was something new and once again the heat started to generate within my belly and I made the fatal error of being interested. "Ryan, darling, you mean you'd actually whip my poor little hand with one of those beastly canes in there?"
"Yes, don't sound so unhappy."
"But that could hurt terribly! I mean, you're not thinking of kid's stuff are you? You're going to use that long, thin yellow thing and all the strength of a man's arm. Ryan, have mercy, I don't want to loose my hands."
"You're jumping the gun, sweetheart. Sit and sip a while and we'll talk of this and that and allow the caning of you hands to sort of simmer and sink into the background."
My beloved eyed me in a friendly manner and suggested more brandies. Thankfully I complied. I was only handcuffed and thus relatively free. Both of us had long since ceased to regard the handcuffs on my wrists as true bondage, I was too adept and no longer irritated by them. I served the drinks and wondered if I could talk long enough and entertainingly enough to avoid this modern version of reviving an ancient punishment for young ladies.
I worked hard as Scheherazade must have done with her caliph. And there was certainly one blessing about Ryan, he could certainly talk. But inevitably we came to that awful pause, that awful moment in which we both knew the action would begin.
"Should we get it over with, sweetheart?"
"Must you really do it to me, Ryan? I'll be honest, I'm frightened."
"Indubitably I must."
"Am I suitably attired, I mean, do you want something Victorian?"
"I don't have anything Victorian, sweetheart. We will do the best with what we've got. Please select something from the case."
There is was, extracting from me every possible sensation my libido might provide. I knew I should no argue more, and looked down into the case and selected the long, yellow horror I knew he wanted. "I've never done this before," I said as I handed him the beastly thing. "I'm afraid my education was neglected, you'll have to tell me what to do."
"A pleasure, dear child, come let me unlock those handcuffs."
I hardly ever lost my handcuffs, except for going to work, without trepidation, loosing them meant I was going to be hurt. I held them out for my master's attention while I tried to think of words to divert his purpose. None came, but the handcuffs fell away to leave me free, an illusive freedom in which I asked, "Thank you, Master. What must I do?"
My heart was thudding like crazy.
My master took the cane and flexed its yellow venom back and forth between his hands. I wondered about the people who grew these yellow canes and sold them Singapore, did they know their end purpose! Did they know they would cut the hands of girls? White girls ready to shed their tears?
"I think it best you kneel, dear girl," my master said thoughtfully. "If you stand, the range will be all wrong."
I knelt, feeling frightened, submissive and my usual adoration of this magnificent creature who took the trouble to possess me and mold me to his wish. Imprudently, I ventured, "Please don't hurt me more than I can bear, Master. I'm scared."
"That will earn you one more stroke, you gorgeous innocent."
"Do I hold out my hand ... or something?"
"Yes, extent your arm, open the palm of your hand to make it taut. I want you to look sideways at that hand while it received what I am about to give."
I extended my arm. I looked at the tautness of my palm, assured of male approval. When the cane beat downward, my world was shattered into a thousand pieces. With a cry of utmost agony I clasped my scorched and burning hand beneath its opposite armpit and leaned forward, destroying my master's careful pose, to find what little comfort there was to find. It took all my will power to avoid rolling and screaming on the floor.
Ryan told me afterwards I made an exquisite picture of agony there as I lay upon the rug, nursing my injured hand. But at that moment I cared for nothing except the pain, and the pain was terrible. I heard my master's voice say gently, "And now your other arm, sweetheart?" It as too much, more than I could stand. I burst into tears for which I had only one uninjured hand to deal. I dabbed at my eyes and cheeks and delivered myself to the sounds of grief.
After the few moments in which my master regarded me with that intent curiosity he employs at such moments, he raised me to my feet, clasped me tight in the ardent hold only lovers know and kissed me hungrily. He patiently held me close and used one free hand to smooth my hair, to caress the nape of my neck, to friction the damp smoothness of my punished skin. After a time, which for me was all too short, he suggested quietly, "And now your other arm, my dear?"
like I said, I am in love with him. I straightened up upon my knees and dutifully extended my other arm for punishment. When it came
I did what I should have done at first, I roiled in agony upon the rug, a wounded palm clutched tight within each damp armpit and tried to moan myself into an oblivion which would not come. This time my tears flowed without attention until they dried from some shortage at their source but not from tender fingers or the attention of a male handkerchief. For a long time Miss Jill Palmer was a pained piece of female without reason.
It went on a long time. I cared for nothing except the pain, keeping my eyes closed to the world. Beside me a man stood with his cane but said no word. I knew he would return with my word soon enough. When he did, his voice held tribute.
"And now the first hand again, you brave child."
"I can't bear them. Master, but how many?"
"One more on each hand."
I held out my right arm and hand for the second time.
My hands were numb for several days thereafter, it was my first glimpse of true punishment, telling me laughingly the whipping of my back had been child's play, an introduction to the art of punishment. It told me something else too, that girls were made to be punished. It came as natural a function for us as the bearing of children and not unrelated. But the agony of my hands changed nothing between my master and myself, I still adored him and he was more loving then ever. His thrusts within me through the night more potent than before. I was utterly and totally his.
Ryan's next test of my tolerance was a public place. Not far from the apartment was a modest park, not large, not much used but heavily treed. We walked there together one evening in the twilight, me with permission to hide my joined hand if I so desired. On arrival we circled the small acreage to be confronted only with old men and old ladies walking dogs. None entered the trees, it was that time of failing light when the trees held promise of dark and convert acts. When we entered them, I needed the firm hold of my master on my arm.
When we reached the place Ryan must have previously have chosen, it was dark indeed. We saw each other only a shadows and I beheld the selected tree with misgivings.
"Off with your clothes, sweetheart, you know the drill."
Undressing in an apartment was one thing, stripping myself in a public place was something else. But I did it without demure, I had promised myself I would do whatever Ryan wished, I was as ashamed of pleadings as he was tired of them. I took off my clothes and shoes and stood there, bare, to await instruction.
Ryan unlocked the handcuffs from my wrists. "Back up against the tree, sweetheart, the small one. Put yodr hands behind the trunk."
I knew it had been coming. My bare back felt the rough texture of the bark. I put my hands behind the slender trunk, knowing how I would spend the night. Ryan clasped the padlocks back upon my wrists, "You can sit down if you wish, dear girl, nothing to stop you. You can lean back against the trunk and sleep."
No suggestion could have sounded more absurd, I was as far from sleep as a girl could get. I was alert and frightened and the darkness held a hundred eyes. I twisted against my handcuffed hands in the full knowledge of lost freedom. Determined not to plead I still managed, "Oh, Ryan! Ryan...? Oh, pleaseeeee..."
Ryan Norton kissed me and left me alone.
From the moment of entering the park I had guessed my fate. And that fate was so terrible that he heated my sex, making it moist although I could not touch it, my hands were secure behind the trunk, the familiar bit of cuffs upon each wrist. For Miss Jill Palmer this was square one in an entirely new adventure, and adventure I wished my master had not devised. I wondered if he realized the predators inherent in any park and what they might do to me! I set such thoughts aside, if I allowed them to accumulate I would panic and become hysterical and the only results of that would be chafed wrists and a fresh and terrible fear. I settled down to wait for morning, after a while I would lower myself to the ground and hope for sleep.
It was a lousy feeling ... or was it! I was fastened naked to a tree in a public place, no friend was near. The hours of the night were still ahead and my master would think of me often through them as he awoke from sleep. It seemed unlikely I would sleep much at all. As usual I must test the quality of my imprisonment. I tugged and twisted at the familiar handcuffs and decided it was a waste of time. And what girl wanted chafed and red wrists, anyway! I well understood the subtle impotence of my master leaving me here like this, feet free, no ropes around my belly, no collar on my neck, just my hands behind the trunk! I wanted to jump up and down and scream, but it was not practical. I could not jump up an down, no way. And if I screamed, goodness knows what attention I might attract! A naked girl has to be extremely cautious in a public place.
My nemesis took long enough to come. Premonition had warned me he would be certain to arrive. He was about my own age, decently dressed and without long hair. There was not much light but the eyes adjust and in the darkness of the night we assessed each other. I was sure it was a purely sexual assessment.
"I saw the two of you come in here," my potential rapist said. "Then when that chap came out alone I was pretty sure I'd find something. Do you do this often?"
"I'm afraid not, this is my first time. My name's Jill Palmer. How do you do?"
"My name's Henry. I'm a pervert."
There is nothing more disconcerting than honesty. I looked at Henry the pervert and all I could think to say was "I'm pleased to meet you. We're all perverts in one way or another."
"No we aren't," said Henry. "I'm going to fuck you."
I had taken that for granted from the first. I mean, what else! What do men do with naked girls? Certainly they don't fill out forms and ask silly questions. If rape was all Henry had in mind I was indeed a lucky girl. Striving for the correct tone, I inquired, "How nice. Do you find many girls among these trees to rape?"
"It isn't rape, you know." Henry sounded earnestly concerned. "No, I ain't had that much luck. You're the first." Anxiously he added, "I hope you don't mind."
A man this innocent had to be a kook. It behooved caution.
"Of course I don't mind," I assured him. "I'll bet you're wonderful in bed."
"We ain't got no bed," said Henry. "I'm going to do it to you standing up." Then, as though I might not understand he added, "It's what they call a knee trembler."
"And you're good at those?"
"Just know about it, ain't never had the chance before. I'm glad that guy fixed you this way, you can't get loose, can you?"
It told a lot about Henry, that he hadn't bothered to examine the bonds. Fearful that he might be one of these fellows who slit a throat as a pleasant diversion from the mundane, I assured him that I could not get loose, I was entirely at his disposal. He did not bother to confirm my helplessness but slowly removed his pants as though savoring his good fortunate in having the entire night for the consummation of desire. I watched the proceeding without having much to say.
I have always believed that rape was inherent in every male and female contact. Both parties thought about it though they did not act. When you considered it the bride at the alter was not that much different to myself. It is always presupposed she is hot with desire, but this is not always true. I was hot with desire but found it hard to name the response which made me so. Henry was one of those innocents for whom all women had a truly ridiculous sympathy. I longed to pat his cheek, to kiss him and send him on his way. As it was, he had me dead to rights.
"Have you ever done this before?" he inquired anxiously. "It's not as easy as the ordinary way, you know."
"No I haven't," I assured him earnestly. "Do you think we need bother?"
Henry walked around back and examined the handcuffs on my wrists. "You can't get loose, no way!" was his comment upon returning to view. "I gotcha."
I could not dispute his conclusion. I was wondering if it would do my any good to scream but I feared that Henry was one of those types who could become violent and I was so damned helpless! In the same conversational tone I agreed, "Yes, I'm terrible helpless and, yes, you've got me. What happens now, Henry?" Optimistically I added, "I suppose you wouldn't like to get me loose and let me go home?"
"How'd I do that? No one undoes handcuffs except cops."
We were both defeated. In the spirit of throwing my bread upon the waters, I offered everything I had to offer. "There's nothing else for it, is there Henry, you'll have to rape me. Please be gentle."
Within the limits of his understanding, Henry was gentle. His plan of action, which he explained as we progressed, was to lift me up to be impaled upon his male organ. I told him to go right ahead with the project, explaining that I couldn't do much to help. But when it came to grabbing my hips to lift, Henry discovered that I weighted more than he had expected a girl to. I expect he had been filled with romantic notions and fiction in which the male simply threw the female around easily and casually. All he accomplished was to friction my bottom against the bark. Finally he said, "I see now why they call it a knee trembler. I've got to get down lower than you and then push up."
I agreed with his analysis and said that I was sorry about all the trouble I was putting him to. I also added that he might consider going home now.
"What, and leave you here, chained to his tree!" He seemed genuinely concerned.
"My Master will pick me up before morning, don't worry."
"Your 'master'! What's you mean, 'your master'? I'm your master and don't you forget it."
"Of course you are," I agreed hardily. "Please carry on with raping me, I wouldn't want to miss anything."
Pathetic! But deadly if rubbed the wrong way. That was how I saw Henry. He was obviously simple but a simpleton with a purpose. I watched him shuck down his briefs and wondered how he expected to impale any girl on what I now beheld. "It will come right on up once it touches you ... yours, you know what," he assured me earnestly. "I used to do it with little girls, so I know."
I wondered what Henry's story was. He was clean and well dressed and didn't belong in that little park in the middle of the night any more than I did. But my time for conjecture was passed. Henry took my by the middle and leaned close against me as he heaved. I was by no means safe from his miniature exhibit but I wanted to get the thing over so I contrived to grip him around the waist with my legs while he took my weight. Strangely we made connection and his sigh of fulfillment blew Listerine breath hot upon my face. Henry was evidently hygienic and this was a comforting thing for a girl to know who is about to be raped. I was waiting to be entered when the damnedest thing happened, Henry began to pant and slammed away at me like a buck rabbit. I was not pierced, he had nothing to pierce me with. But he gasped his way to orgasm and expelled his semen on the ground. He did some more gasping but when I felt his grip loosening, I allowed my feet to fall and arranged myself as best a chained up girl can do.
Still playing it safe, I tried to sound grateful, "Thank you, Henry, you're quite a man."
"Do you really think so?" He sounded so damned pleased I felt sorry for the poor twit but I as still in his power, a fact which he demonstrated by his use of his shorts to wipe me off and to pat my venus mound as thought assuring it of protection. "Of course, I think so," I said earnestly. "The way you lifted me up you're so terribly strong!"
The poor idiot had got his shorts tangled up and it was while he groped with them that rescue arrived. It was in the form of a lean and acid woman of middle age who put into one word just about everything worth saying, "HENRY!"
Henry dropped his shorts. Standings in his shirt tails, he ejaculated painfully, "Yes, Mother?"
"Don't you 'yes, mother' me, I'm ashamed of you. Wipe up that mess between the girl's legs and get dressed. To think that any son of mine..." She made a brief circle of the tree and me and was confounded by further outrage. "Henry, where did you get these handcuffs?"
I suppose I should have let Henry take the blame, she would had felt more-likely she owed me help but all I wanted to do was get rid of them. "They're not Henry's handcuffs," I explained, "they belong to a friend of mine. Fixing me like this was his idea of a joke. If you can get them off, I'd be grateful."
Mother love was vindicated. This unattractive woman not turned her spleen on me. "Ah, ha! I might have known! I know you kind, proper little harlots you are, standing there bare naked and not a bit of shame!"
"But what else can I do!? "
"Could never have happened to a decent girl, you probably asked for it. Henry, don't just stand there with your bare ass hanging out, get covered."
"My shorts is tangled up, Ma."
"Throw them away, there's no telling what this little whore may be infected with."
I almost choked with indignation but bit back my words. I was still naked and handcuffed to the tree and in no condition to make enemies. I stood, as helpless as ever and watched Henry make himself decent. Satisfied, his mother took him by the arm and turned one last glare at me, "There ought to be a law about girls like you." They marched away through the trees and out of the park. I shivered but not with cold. Henry had frightened me and his mother left a bad taste in my mouth. The night was not half through and here I was still against the tree with my wrists still handcuffed behind it. I wondered what Ryan was doing. He was going to get a piece of my mind once I was safe away from this tree. My concern was obvious, if there was one Henry running around loose, there could be two. It was easy to envision by being possessed by a series of Henry's through the night. But I told myself not to be silly, Ryan might show up at any time.
Ryan did not show. But heavy footsteps, heavy breathing and an unconcern with silence heralded the appearance in the gloom of a uniformed policeman. He was elderly and failed to be surprised at anything, failing to even make an exclamation at the sight of me. The impression I got was one of deep suspicion which I did my best to counter.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come, officer. Someone did this to me as a joke. I'd be every so grateful if you could get me off."
He snorted without bothering to answer. He then made the same tour in inspection Ma had done. When he saw my handcuffed wrists he was on firm ground. "Stolen handcuffs, eh?" I could hear him writing in a notebook. "Indecent exposure and soliciting. That will do for starters. You'd better come along with me."
I was about to tell him I couldn't go with him anywhere when he fumbled with my wrists and I realized that all handcuffs can be opened with similar keys. My policeman freed one wrist, turned me around, then snapped the empty circle back where it had been. I was still handcuffed but minus a tree, but scared as much by this ancient minion of the law as I had been by Henry. I managed only a, "Thank you very much. May I go now?"
"You're under arrest, young lady. The only place you're going is the station with me. I'll think up a couple more charges along the way."
"Please take me home. My husband will reward you. I expect you have tickets to policeman's balls..."
Out came the notebook. "Bribing an officer in the conduct of his duty." The stub of pencil sped. "The reference to male genitals I'll have to look up, there's something in the book about it in the book somewhere."
I wanted to laugh but there was something in the book about that, too. I allowed my Keystone Kop to lead me from the park and to the nearest call box. While he fumbled with the lock, I kicked him in the groin and ran. Boy! did I run.
In the middle the night a naked girl with chained hands only can run unhindered. The streets were empty and, when I saw signs of life, I used back alleys. But my greatest hazard was our apartment. True, the security guard knew me, but did I want him to know what went on up in our apartment! I did not have a convincing enough story and, probably with the best of intentions, he would call the police. And, after that kick that landed on the law, I was probably on the ten most wanted list already. My dilemma by a member of the oldest profession, making a late call. I took a chance and I guess she must have seen everything at least once before and showed no surprise. She was, in fact, amused and donated her own quarter at the phone box. She told Ryan in no uncertain tone that he should pay more attention to his girls and forget the kooky stuff, there wasn't any money in handcuffs. I gathered she'd tried that, too. She stayed with me at the phone box until Ryan came with my raincoat and the key. He showed me the key but put it back in his pocket before draping my in my raincoat and giving my lady of the night a hundred dollar bill. Men like my master always know the correct amount to tip. He had also brought shoes so I would not have to walk barefoot through the lobby. Security gave us a polite good night on our way to the elevator. He must have seen something odd about me but gave no sign. Ryan could have walked into that lobby with a pink elephant if he'd wanted to.
In the elevator I took a deep breath before my blast. But something went wrong and I was suddenly weeping my heart out against his jacket and nestling myself gloriously in his arms. The way the two of together again made everything worth while.
It was two AM on a Saturday morning, we didn't have to worry about the office. Ryan changed my handcuffs from back to front and told me to make coffee, which I did almost singing songs of joy. When we drank it, he made me tell him every last detail of my narrow escapes. He loved it all in a way to make me realize the many faceted sources of pleasure he saw in me, listening with quiet intensity and making me repeat over and over whatever seemed to him to have significance until I wanted to pout and tell him that was all I was, a piece of female material to be risked, endangered and exposed to give him a thrill. But I never got anywhere with that sort of talk with Ryan. He would listen with that faintly amused smile of his and at the end ask if I wasn't being a little silly. And the way he said it I always did feel a little silly. So I laughed when he laughed. A little voice inside was telling me that in Ryan Norton I was getting exactly what I deserved. We were a beautiful foil for each other.
Saturday was a day for lounging around. After the night Ryan had given me, it was understandable we both slept late then breakfast. He had to go to his office for two or three hours on one of the mysterious missions I never understood. He refused me permission to go shopping alone but kissed me instead and motioned me to a ring, one of those damned rings from which there was never escape. He had become much enamored of the wire and pliers and I stood there like a dummy until he was ready for me to place my thumb where I least wanted it. But I was always fascinated. I was fascinated now as he shaped the heavy metal into a circle and twisted it tight to deny escape. When the loose ends were clipped off, I felt as helpless as in a dungeon. But I also felt horny and suggested there were better ways for us to spend the afternoon then with me wired to a ring and he in his lousy old office. This lament earned me a kiss and a few pats on my bottom. I wondered why I allowed myself to be thus used. I hadn't put up a fight and he hadn't asked my permission. With Ryan a girl got no chance to talk about what might or might not be done to her. My punishments and tribulations and captivities just sort of flowed one into the other, the whole thing heavily lace with the sexuality of our time in bed. I shrugged it off and roughly examined my new wiring job. As usual it was perfect, I could hurt myself all I liked but could never get loose. The ring which I was wired was one of those cunning ones at the level of my waist. If I sat on the floor I would have to hold my hand over my head. I could kneel but who wants to kneel for an hour at a time! In the end I simply stood there, keeping my hand as still as possible. The hand I still had free wondered what to do with itself. A girl discovered the strangest subtleties and nuances in these impositions of another's will. I would stand here like this because Ryan wanted me to. He would think of me from time to time as his safe and secure possession. I would think of him as the man who was my master. It excited me tremendously.
3 Defeated Dominant
I had not been standing with my wired thumb all that long before Janice Webb walked in. I learned later that she possessed a key. That was the how, now I learned the why!
"Hello, darling, having fun?" The tone was catty.
My search for a suitable retort was interrupted by two men in white coats carrying a sizable wicker laundry basket. I knew instantly I was going in that basket, I can't tell you how I knew but I did and my stomach curled up in knots over Janice's glory. "Going nice bye-byes, baby girl," he mimicked child talk with sinister overtones. "Nice ride for good little girl, all tied up."
I didn't have a chance. Every time I got ready to say something or kick someone something happened to change my mind. First off I lost my speech. The two men had put the wicker basket down and opened it invitingly. One now held my free arm while Janice gagged me. It was my first experience with being gagged and long afterwards I realized that it had some merit as well as keeping me quiet. It stopped me humiliatingly myself with pleadings or threats I could not carry out, it stopped me screaming when none were there to hear. It was a pretty and expensive device against which I clenched my teeth until Ryan's former girlfriend pinch my nipple to make me open my mouth. I had been tugging like crazy at my wired thumb and hurting myself atrociously. When my mouth did what it was told it got filled with sponge rubber and a bitter strap to keep it there, a strap which buckled tight at the nape of my neck, and over this went a broad strip of tape sealed my rebellious lips. It was an immensely competent work which Janice patted approvingly when she was done.
"There, there, darling, I know just how you fell. So much to say and no way to get it out. Never mind, you can tell me in due time."
I longed to kill her.
While the man still held my arm, Janice knelt and using some thin, cruel cord tied my ankles so damned tight that all I wanted to do was get my weight off my feet which had become immovable. Next she did the same for my knees, which I thought ridiculous for how can a girl's knees go anywhere unless she goes too. Then they turned me to place my hands palm to palm behind my back and, using some more of that hateful cord, Janice did a neat tying job on them also. Every time she drew a strand of it to encircle my wrists, it embedded deeply in my skin to become a band of fire. When the job was neatly knotted I had no more chance of doing anything with those hands than if they had been embedded in concrete.
Janice had the decency to use a strap on my elbows, and it was a good thing she did for she made my forearms meet from my fingertips right on up to where the leather band compressed my arms in a manner to pull back my bare shoulders and protrude my breasts. She and her male helper chuckled over what they chose to call a "nice effect." I realized I was tressed like a turkey for the oven. Everything hurt and I could neither move nor speak.
My oven was the wicker basket. I was gently placed therein, my knees drawn up beneath my chin and corded behind by neck to keep me doubled up and even more helpless (as if that were possible). The gag prevented me mentioning that all this did was hurt, it in no way rendered me more the captive. But I couldn't speak, I couldn't do anything at all! The lip closed down, it did not even have a lock.
As I was carried from the room and to the elevator I realized how easy this had been for Janice. Her helpers were probably illegitimate warehousemen who believed the whole thing a joke. She had thought of everything and had left nothing in the apartment to tell Ryan where I had been taken. I wanted to cry in frustration but I hurt too much and was far too angry. After a while I could tell I was in a van and after fifteen minutes or so I was carried up some stairs. I was never so thankful as when Janice raised the lid, cut the rope from my neck and knees as she said brightly, "Welcome home, darling. You and I are going to have the most wonderful time. At least I'm sure I am. I'll leave you gagged a minute, dear, you do interrupt so."
I hated that gag, it made me a nothing, a naked bit of female with apprehensive eyes and a longing to be rid of cord. While I sat in the basket, still gagged, Janice explained. "Ryan always goes to the office about this time so it was a perfect opportunity. Nothing clever about it, I just knew what to do." She smiled at me, much as the cat smiles at the canary. "The dear boy will think of me, of course, but I'll be just one of a number who might have taken you. He'll probably go roaring to my apartment. But we're not in my apartment. I've borrowed this little house just for you, darling, it has the nicest little basement all fixed so I can whip you to my heart's desire." She smiled as with the deepest love. "Aren't we lucky!"
The gag stayed in my mouth while Janice gloated. My skin crawled at the thought of what she could do to me. Her voice confirmed, "I'm an absolute bitch, my sweet, quite merciless in love and war. If I thought you'd go away if I released you, I'd let you go pronto. But I know you'd run right back to lover boy's arms. Even if I wanted to, I can't trust you, you're female.
I had never felt less female or less anything else right then. I hurt and hurt and couldn't say a word. I looked up at Janice with all the appeal I could muster and shook my head from side to side to tell her of the agony of the gag. "Yes, I know," she said, "I've suffered a little of this sort of thing myself. I'm sure you'll extremely uncomfortable. Consider it as a prelude, I'm going to make you much more uncomfortable than this." She smiled sweetly. "You may as well understand, darling, I've covered my tracks pretty well. It will take darling Ryan a long time to find you and there's a chance he never will." She sighed ecstatically. "Just think of it, sweetheart, a lifetime as the slave of Janice Webb."
All the time I had been gagged I wanted to speak in the worse way but when she loosened the buckles and dragged the hateful thing from my mouth, I had nothing to say, she had said it all. I didn't have a single illusion left, I was in deep, deep trouble!
"Don't you want to tell me about kidnapping and the police and all that stuff, darling?" Janice sounded concerned.
"Why are you doing this, Janice?"
"As if you didn't know, darling! You've got my man, this is my revenge. Maybe a revenge that will last for years and years and years." Her voice hardened. "I'll tell you this, Miss Jill Palmer, you're going to pay a high, high price for every hour you spent in bed with a man who belongs to me."
I knew it was useless, knew I was lost! My one hope was Ryan. But unless he was a magician, I didn't see how he could find me, the city swallows kidnapped girls. Janice could secure me in this house she borrowed or bought or whatever and then go about her affairs in her apartment with all the airs of normalcy. I was lost to the world!
"When I cut the cords, I suggest you don't try anything. Understand?"
"Yes, I understand. But, Janice, I've never knowingly done you harm, please don't be cruel to me. I don't deserve it."
Her answer was direct, two savage slaps directly on my cheeks. There is something about slapped cheeks that humiliates and demeans beyond words. I felt like about five cents and quite beyond hope. If I could not make this girl feel warmth for me, I was lost.
"That was a slap from the palm of my hand, sweetheart. I've got straps and riding crops and whips. Maybe I'll paddle your bottom to show you which of us is boss. Would you like that?"
"No." I said with total honesty.
"Good! We do understand each other, don't we?"
Janice first cut the cords away from my ankles and my knees so I could stand up with a little help from her. I had little hope for my wrists and elbows, they were her safeguard, they told her she possessed a naked girl to play with as she pleased. She pinched my nipples. "Stick out gorgeously, don't they? Have you ever had them whipped?"
I did not answer, I hoped I was being played with. But Janice was feline and I'd never been quite sure. I stepped out of the wicker basket and stood before her in unintentional submission and agony.
She stroked me lovingly as one might stroke a favorite pet, a kitten or a puppy, her fingers loving and soft on my skin, roving up and own my nakedness but not concentrating on my erotic parts any more than any other part. I could not believe that a girl with such a touch could be so cruel as she professed to be. Before long she had my fire burning bright and my hopes reassessed. It was then Janice Webb removed her clothes.
The marks of Ryan's whip were still vivid on her skin, he had whipped her with male force as promised, as she had agreed to. It now appeared I was to be his surrogate. '
"Aren't they gorgeous, darling," she preened as before a mirror. "Think how proud you'll be when you look just like this."
So that was to be the beginning! I was to receive what Ryan had given her. Janice's vengeance would be for the man who no longer gave her love but she would be looking at me when she held the whip. I refused to be devious or coy. "You're going to whip me to match, is that it?"
"For starters, darling. Can you think of anything more appropriate?"
Most of Janice's questions answered themselves. A terrible submission was forced upon me by her dominance over communication. All I could do was plead and beg but something told me that would waste my breath. Abjectly I retorted, "I'm sorry if I'm dull company, Janice, but you hold all the cards, I can't think of anything worth while to say."
"Isn't it lovely, darling, no decisions. I make them for you now. Are you sure you don't want to beg?"
"Of course I want to beg! I want to plead with you to show me mercy. I've never hurt you. Surely I can't be much of a threat, you've demonstrated how easily I can be dealt with and eliminated. I'm not an Amazon, I'm just a girl who a man took unto himself." I put all my pleading in my eyes. "My elbows hurt terribly. Would you mind...? "
Janice took me on a tour, at the end of it I was truly scared. There were rings and hooks and cages, even a tiny cell with bars. There was a hoist were I could be lifted from the ground. She told me this had been a house were the owner had made a living from this sort of thing but had failed to be kind to the right policeman. She had bought it cheap.
Janice choose the hoist, I had nothing to say about anything any more. She positioned me beneath the bar to the ends of which my wrists would be fastened. But first she bound my ankles and put a noose around my neck before freeing my elbows and wrists. While I was still rubbing terribly indented skin, she fastened wristlets tightly so all she had to do was lower the bar, place the wristlet's rings over the waiting hooks and then raise it up again. Before I had finished comforting my flesh
I found myself standing on tip toe with hands and arms taut stretched above my head. As Janice untied my ankles she explained that it was only to give me a better opportunity to kick and cavort as she whipped me. That was just more of the same so I made no comment. But, oh boy, was I ever exquisitely exposed to whatever she wanted to do!
She showed me the whip and made me kiss it. Janice really knew how to make a girl curl up inside. If she had given me the chance I would have sympathized with her in knowing what she had suffered once, and I would suffer now. Some way there had to be a means of getting to this girl. But as the first flaming stroke cut across my back I knew the time was not yet.
"Please scream, darling, I want to know you're hurting." Her voice was almost kind.
I wasn't trying to prove anything, so I screamed. I screamed every time her whip burned my back and sometimes in between. This was far worse then being whipped by Ryan, but, of course, it was intended to be. I had nothing to complain about except, why me? Why me!
I screamed with everything I had.
I had never been whipped by a girl before. In fact, that one time with Ryan was my only experience with a thong cutting my skin. Now I was at the mercy of a girl who seemed to have none to give. She was, moreover, feline and experienced enough to make me spread my legs so she could whip between in that most tender place most men forget. I knew myself possessed by a girl who could break me utterly if so disposed. In frantic panic I struggled against the straps to make the bar and the hoist creak with my frantic twistings. It was me against a female will that would run its course no matter what.
"I bet Ryan never whipped you up in there, darling."
"No, oh no! You shouldn't, you mustn't! Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h...! "
Janice paid not heed. She could whip me between my legs either from the back or standing facing me so that, in a sense, I saw my own whipping taking place. I could close my legs or even lift myself from the floor by my strapped wrists but this was always defeated by the vibrant voice of she who held the whip. "Don't forget your breasts, Jill darling. Open up those legs again."
The vengeful punishment went on and on.
Being whipped in these secret places has a quality of horror all its own. It is utterly different, the skin far more tender and responsive.
But when my thighs and loins were a blazing mass of anguish, Janice resumed her attentions on my back and the twin curves of my bottom. She whipped these latter one at a time with a riding crop which, when it lapped my hip, drew from me an even louder scream. Miss Janice Webb had Miss Jill Palmer utterly in her power.
When Janice made me turn to face her so I could see the swing of her arm and sweep of the thong, I realized with dismay she was not using all her strength. To me the whipping was pure terror, beyond endurance but my mind registered the knowledge it could be much worse. Janice was hitting me hard but not nearly as hard as she might have done. But there was little comfort in what might have been or might still come, my agony was now!
All things end. When the cuts of crop and whip ceased to weal my skin, I let myself hang, panting and sweating from the bar. And it was not until she grasped my hair, dragged back my head to kiss my lips, that instinct told me what to say. "Thank you, Janice." It was about as far down the ladder of self respect as I could go.
"For future reference, darling, I want you to always remember I have not whipped them." The soft fingers of Janice Webb were upon my breasts and teasing my nipples. I would have never supposed I could respond with the instant flare she now evoked from my whipped skin. I truly wanted to express some gratitude for her having left my breasts alone. She could have easily whipped them, too, but I realized she was keeping them in reserve as a means by which I could be subdued and made pliant at another time. She would only need to threaten them and I would obey. Her voice was husky with an emotion I could not name but wondered how often she had used it on Ryan to seek her own advantage.
"A glorious beginning, darling, let's both go and stand before the big mirror and compare our marks."
First she hobbled my feet so I could neither kick nor run, a rope tied around each ankle and not much between. She noosed my neck and tugged it warningly. When she unstrapped my wrists I had no will to fight but watched miserably as she crossed them once again before my eyes and corded them brutally tight. She held my lease and tugged it from time to time. I was lead to stand beside her for our reflected images in the glass. My loins and thighs were scarlet, I noticed this first of all, hating it and its wicked ass most of all. It was a punishment given by a woman, Ryan would never whip me there, but Ryan would never whip me with such severity, not ever. After my first gasp of shock at the crisscross markings of my back and bottom, I was made to turn attention to the fading weals etched cleverly upon her own white skin. No one could doubt she had been well and truly whipped but her markings were not as numerous as mine nor did her loins flare as scarlet as mine, which would soon be purple.
"I sort of got carried away, darling, you were such a glorious subject I could have gone on whipping all day. Let's say the cuts inside your thighs and up into your crotch were a bonus just from me."
I felt utterly disheveled and disgraced, longing to do something about my hair but finding my crossed, bound hands far less useful that handcuffs had ever been. Janice was feminine, too.
"Don't worry about your hair, my pet, I'll pretty you up from time to time but I want you to see yourself as you are right now. It's a pity Ryan can't have a look."
Before I was led away, my mind registered an image of a sweat-streaked nakedness, hands bound for strict utility with no concern aesthetics, roped ankles and untidy damp hair. I felt myself a mess!
Janice was a girl of infinite inventiveness. When we adjourned to the bathroom she made a quite presentable job of my hair and some modest makeup. She then produced a belt, a strap and a dildo, at the sight of which I recoiled and pleaded, "Janice, not that. It's a kid stuff, it's demeaning to us both."
As usually I was ignored and the dildo turned out not to be a dildo at all. It was inserted within me in the usual way and strapped hard and fast at waist and crotch and then a pair of thin wires with tiny clips were lifted up beneath my bound hands to snare the nipples. The clips were not severe, they were not a punishment, their function was as a terminal for the wire. From this arrangement another wire with a thumb button control was available for Janice's pleasure. I could make half a guess as to what I was in for and instinctively reached a bound hand towards one of my breasts.
"Naughty, naughty!" Janice reproved then pressed the button.
It was not like anything I'd ever known, it was a total disorganization of mind and limb against which I had not defense. Whenever my bound hands reached for the wires or their terminals there came a jolt of electricity so powerful and so malignant I was reduced to a quivering bundle. When the current stopped and my consciousness again faced reality, Janice helpfully explained, "It has various intensities, darling. Let's call them good, bad and indifferent according to your behavior. Stand still, we're going to do a little drill. I want you to take the wires off your nipples. Or unbuckle the belt. Or anything you like that you think will get you free. Let's see how it works."
I had already sampled how it worked and wanted no more. But knowing the compulsion Janice could use, I once more reached...! The results staggered me against the wall which, even when the current was cut off, supported my quivering nudity as I thrust against it in throbbing agony.
"Come now, darling, it's over now. We'll move on to test number two. I want you to snatch the control away from me."
It was the same only worse. Reason told me I could do it but the jolt of electricity I received from beneath Janice's thumb, disorganized and disoriented me to a degree beyond my own control of my own limbs. I was a groping, mindless recipient of pain while her thumb held that button down.
"It's all I hoped it would be, darling," Janice assured me glowingly. "I had to try it to be sure and you reacted beautifully. Now we're going for a little walk."
I was in a sort of whimpering daze as Janice dressed my as though I were a doll. The straps under the wires and the whole horrible outfit became invisible beneath the clothes she added. I no longer cared what I looked like but was assured I looked lush and desirable but a trifle preoccupied. My stunned mind suddenly got the import of what was taking place. "Janice, you can't take me out in public with that thing sticking way up inside me!"
"I can and I will, darling."
"But that thing you have to hold to control me, people will see it. I'll grab it away from you."
Once more the awfulness. I screamed for it to stop and promised to be good.
"You see, darling? Now just don't make any sudden moves. There are things you can try to do for rescue, but I'll know them, too, and I'll punish every one of them."
What did it matter! Nothing mattered. I obediently held out my hands and watched them untied. I massaged the cord marks. I was led out into the streets.
We had walked only a block before I gaspingly informed, "Janice, this is crazy, a girl can't walk with monster strapped inside. You know what it's going to do...! "
"You're so lucky, Jill dear. No, don't thank me, I'm glad to give you so much pleasure."
The rotten bitch with her sarcasms. I walked obediently at her side, fearful of every move until the orgasm claimed me and tore me apart while I still walked in a humiliating awareness of the red button beneath Janice's thumb. "That was number one, darling," said Janice approvingly. "I'm sure there'll be others, we'll count them."
Perhaps I was a coward or perhaps the deadly thing within my sheath was indeed powerful enough to give me no choice. I walked a mindless path, conscious only of the eminence of unbearable agony if I did anything I was not suppose to. In vivid anxiety I was careful with my hands, I looked at no one as they passed, I walked very close to Janice and kept my hands were she could see them. I might as well have been blindfolded for all I saw.
"Recognize anything, Jill, my pet?"
I opened my eyes and looked around. Then my heart leapt. We were standing across the street from the apartment where Ryan and I lived, the apartment from which I had been stolen only the very same morning. There it was in all its normalcy, a huge building of steel and concrete and glass at the top of which was the place I call my home.
"Take a good look, darling. It might well be your last," Janice suggested with warm sincerity. "Just think, Jill, so near and yet so far!"
The lovely girl who had me so totally under control extracted every possible degradation of humiliation and yearning she could devise. From time to time she gave me the very briefest flash of agony to keep my predicament firmly in my mind. How incredible it would seem to Ryan that I should stand submissive across the street yet make no sound or motion to go to him. No one, not wired as I was wired, could possibility the totality by which the red button controlled my impulses. Brokenly, as last, I begged, "Take me away, please, please take me away...! "
During the time Janice Webb possessed me, she kept me constantly wondering if the next hour would be pleasurable or beyond bearing. After leading me away from my last, long look at Ryan's apartment, the afternoon had slipped away to make her suggestion of an early dinner out, if not attractive, at least a period in which I need not hurt.
The restaurant knew Janice, she got her choice of tables, not in a secluded corner but out where the crowd could be seen and ourselves be seen. Immediately we were seated, I implored, "Please, Janice, don't give me any more of those quickies. You've got me, I'll behave myself."
I behaved myself. Observers saw us as two expensively dressed young women with much to talk about. Under the stimulus of food and wine I contrived to not constantly think of the bizarre control resting in Janice's lab beneath the table cloth as she ate. As the courses drifted by, she told me quite frankly, and with her usual bravado, of her varying love affairs and of the things Ryan had done to her. In a burst of honesty she admitted, "I don't suppose I would want him back half so bad if I hadn't seen him possessing you. Now, I'm going to get him back for sure."
"What about me?"
"You'll be out in the cold, sweetheart, same place I've been all these months. You'll survive, I'll lend you this dildo if the going gets too rough."
It was an argument I could not so did not try. To keep me aware of vulnerability, Janice fished around inside her handbag and produced a clipping from a magazine, a sizable picture on fine paper with arty colorings to show a svelte and utterly naked young Miss flaunting at the camera four things to take away my breath. A sizable ring pendent from her nose, two more on her nipples and the largest of all nestling within the softness of her crotch to completely capture her sex. I stared in fascination at something I'd only vaguely heard about but never seen. I knew what was coming.
"They'd look beautiful on you, Jill dear." Janice's voice had become a soft, feline purr. "I could have you ringed like that tomorrow if I chose. You'd be a proud little girl."
"I wouldn't! I'd hate them. Oh, Janice, please don't keep me scared like this."
"That isn't just ornamental, darling, they also make you delightfully easy to control. One of my fingers through any of them would make you marvelously anxious to please."
"So does this awful thing you've got fastened inside me now, why would you want anything more? And anyway, you'll keep me handcuffed or tied up someway, I just know you will."
"It's the aesthetics, darling. You'll have to admit they have eye appeal. To me they are warming to our cats."
I thrust the picture back at her. I dare not be rude, I was still wired. Glumly I inquired, "What else are you going to do to me?"
"Remember the cage I showed you, Jill, I think you should spend some time in it. There's nothing like time in a cage to give a girl a sense of being confined, much better than being in prison."
"I don't want to go in that cage and I've never been in prison."
Janice smiled at me in that way she has of making you think she loves you and you alone. Her voice was a purr. "I've come by a sort of little fantasy, darling. It would make a glorious little grand finale if I ever decided to part with you. I'd arrange a crime and all the evidence to prove you were the guilty girl." Her eyes were shinning. "It's a marvelous scenario where I'd weep and kiss you goodbye when they handcuffed you and took you down to the wagon. I'd devise something to get you several years behind bars, even with time off for good behavior. I'd come on visiting days and talk to you through the wire mesh you see in the movies. Would you like that?"
I shivered. "It's horrible!"
"Just a thought, dear. There's so many things an easily disposed girl like me can do to a girl like you. It's a strange situation when you come to think of it, I've got you under control by a battery and a few pieces of wire. I can keep you under control with handcuffs and bits of rope and such and you'd never, never have a chance to get free. But, if you did by chance or miracle, get free and reverse our roles, you could keep me just as helpless as I've kept you." She grinned confidingly across the table. ' 'Think of it, dear, it's a solemn thought."
If Janice was busy talking then I wasn't hurting. I consoled myself with this somewhat specious reasoning. I was pretty sure she'd do something horrible to me when she got me back to her house but I couldn't be certain about that. She would always keep me guessing, it was part of her fun.
In my turn I said, "Well, I've got a fantasy, too. It's somebody I know walking up to us right here and now and saying they knew how I was fixed and would I like some help. How would that grab you?"
Being seated at the table helped. I was torn asunder by the current to make me lean on my elbows and bury my face in my hands in the easiest gesture of defense I could make. Janice's finger on the button lasted only two or three seconds but it was enough to carry its message. "That's how it would grab me, sweetheart," she told me seriously. "I can also press the button and push it forward to keep it in operation even without my finger on it. If I was forced to drop it or it was taken from me, you'd be a very sorry girl." Janice had covered all the bases.
It turned out to be the cage. On our arrival home I was told to strip and then turn around. The handcuffs bit my wrists to join them in a small but bitter bondage while Janice continued to hold the control. When my hands were safely disposed of, she removed what she laughingly described as the "electric treatment" and massaged my nipples to reassure me they were still there.
"How many was it, darling, seven lovely orgasms...? " He laugh was almost infectious. It felt so good to be only handcuffed that I managed to grin right along with her, a grin I could not continue when she opened the door of the cage invitingly.
"Hope in, darling, there's lots of room."
"I can't. There isn't lot's of room and I'm handcuffed."
"Would you like me to get the riding crop, Jill?"
Hating myself I stepped inside. The small opening was in the top and when I had sat down inside and doubled my knees up under my chin, Janice snapped it shut and padlocked it. I said the first thing on my mind, "You don't need me handcuffed in her, Janice, I can't possibly get out."
"If you aren't the best little beefer in the world!" she chided severely. "I'm going to have to institute a system of demerits for each beef you come up with. You get so many you earn something you won't like. How's that?"
Dismally, I did my best. "Oh, all right, I'll try and shut up. And I'll try and say thankful every time I don't want to. Honest, Janice, I don't want punishments, I hate punishments."
Maybe Janice was wise. The cage was an experience, it spelt confinement with a capital "C." I couldn't stretch out in it, I couldn't even kneel. I might have been able to turn myself around in it to get on all four if I'd had my hands but with them handcuffed behind my back I couldn't even do that. I could only sit with my head bowed down on my knees and think incredibly about getting out of bed with Ryan that same morning. It didn't seem possible that it had been so few hours.
I thought about the office and me and that didn't seem possible either. This whole abduction and what I was subjected to because of Janice's jealousy was something no one except Ryan would believe. I thought longingly of Ryan, in fiction he would come charging through the door and rescue me. As things were, he'd be hunting in frustration to find me. I hope he'd tear Janice's apartment to bits in his quest. But Ryan wasn't like that, there was nothing petty about Ryan. But Ryan, in wishful thinking, I enjoyed delightful fantasies of what he would do to Janice if he ever discovered me and straightened this whole thing out. But they were fantasies, nothing more! There was something else I had to consider as I tried to shift this way and that to ease my bottom on the wire and to twist my hands helplessly inside their metal circles. Janice had possessed me less than a day but had subjected me to bitter and bizarre punishments and a tremendous amounts of pain. Had Ryan done these things, he and I would have spent a long time in bed after I'd been whipped, with me glorying in the agony of the back and buttocks on which I lay. If it had been Ryan who held the control of that beastly little gadget, he would have pressed the button only once and we would have spent the rest of the time in chuckles and giggles and a lot of "let's pretend." I would have been horny as hell all the way through. But I wasn't a lesbian and well Janice had tested my, what she called "Cat," repeatedly the palm of her hand had not come up as wet as presumably she desired. It might have been better for me if it had!
I was told I had been in the cage three hours when it was unlocked for the girl who now owned me to escort me to her bedroom, a huge room dominated by a massive four poster with equally massive head and tail boards. It was soon evident the tail board had a special meaning for me. It was not a single tail board but several, all massive. Low down there were two holes, well apart and about the level of my eyes when I sat on the rug. A couple more were similarly spaced. I guessed their purpose.
"I want you to sleep with me, darling, but not in bed, you haven't earned that privilege yet. So I'll keep you nice and close and nice and helpless. How's that?"
I didn't beef but I didn't say thank you either. I obeyed her order to sit on the floor and then watch while she lifted heavy timbers to assure me an uncomfortably night. When she had opened up the bottom yoke she motioned invitingly and, since I was still handcuffed, I placed my ankles in the half circles then winced as the other segment was thrust down to clutch my skin tight and hold my feet in immobility. Only then did she unlock the handcuffs on my wrists, she was a very cautious girl.
"And now your hands, darling, you know where to put them."
"I knew all right but right then it was the last thing I wanted to do! When that waiting wood closed upon my wrists I'd be so helpless and uncomfortable I'd spend my night in tears. But there are for all of us times when we find our hands needing employment or a place in which to hide. I hesitated as long as I dared but then, in utter despair, fitted my wrists exactly as Janice desired then winced again as the wood fell and I knew them prisoner. Janice dealt with locks I could not reach then stepped back to admire the view. "Something to sit on," she suggested thoughtfully. "You look out of balance the way you are, darling. Just a minute."
I knew I would hate the stool after I'd sat on it an hour but it was welcome now. Fastened as I was it took the concerted efforts of us both to get it positioned under my hind end. But once it was there it did improve my posture to where I could sit upright. It looked like another situation where I would not hurt if I did not struggle.
"Helpless, Jill?"
"Yes, I am. Is it necessary to lock me in this awful posture, wouldn't my feet have been enough?"
"They would have kept you anchored, darling," Janice agreed. "But you do understand the principles of punishment, don't you, dear. It is not always just to keep you in one place. The idea is to keep you uncomfortably in that one place ... like now!"
"I can't possibly sleep like this. I have bend forward to give you my hands and now I can't get them back. It's an awful position."
"But don't harp on it, darling. I'd admit it's a position I wouldn't like myself, but it's you who are the prisoner, darling." She giggled archly. "I expect you're thinking your legs are so wide apart just to be obscene. But that's not true, we have to have them way out like that or you'd never be able to reach your hands into their proper place. See what I mean?"
I understood perfectly, I'd been well aware of my pussy staring the bed in the face but had supposed it only to put me to shame, shame and I would be bedfellows for sure this night!
I looked up at Janice pleadingly. "Please don't leave me like this? Please let me sleep in bed with you. You can keep me tied or chained, I won't complain."
"You won't complain now, darting."
Janice was right. I would not complain, I would not dare. I looked along the long columns of my arms to where my hands vanished into the wood and did the same for my legs. Since Janice had laughed in languorous content I stared at the heavy timber which held my wrists. After a long, dismal time I lay my head upon a imprisoned arm and tried to sleep. In the morning I wore the very latest in fashions for incarcerated young ladies. Handcuffs bit my ankles close together to make me about as helpless as anything else. When I left my chair I was obliged to either bop or crawl. Either way my ankles hurt so I didn't do either, not unless I was told! For sure, Jim languorous content I stared at the heavy timber which held my wrists. After a long, dismal time I lay my head upon a imprisoned arm and tried to sleep.
During breakfast the next morning I wore the very latest in fashions for incarcerated young ladies. Handcuffs bit my ankles close together to make me about as helpless as anything else. When I left my chair I was obliged to either hop or crawl. Either way my ankles hurt so I didn't do either, not unless I was told! For sure, Jill Palmer was never going to escape.
Janice sat across from me and glowed in pride of possession. She made me hop to the counter a few times to make me fetch a few things she wanted but was, for the most part, a gracious hostess. I constantly felt like shaking my head to see if I would wake up. I didn't ask what we were going to do today, I didn't want to know.
"I have a kid sister," said Janice out of the blue. "I'm sure you'd like to meet her?"
"No thank you," I said automatically.
"She'll have so much fun with you, you'll simply adore you."
My tummy was already beginning to curl up. Janice would not leave me alone with a child unless she were sure I was good and secure. And, goodness knows what a child might do to a naked adult I was already imagining things!
"Her name's Pip which is short for something which doesn't matter, Janice continued. "I've already told her you mustn't be whipped, you had that yesterday. You'll find her an interesting child."
"Good gosh, how old is this ... child?"
"Twelve, just the right age to be curious. I remember I was very curious about big girls when I was twelve. You'll be able to teach the child all sorts of things."
"Janice, pleaseeeee. I don't want to be left alone with some kid who doesn't know what she's doing."
Janice laughed at such innocence. "I would have thought that damn sight better than having one who did. Teenagers can be beastly cruel."
There was something inevitable about Pip. I knew she'd come and I knew I'd be left alone with her and at her mercy. I cherished the faint hope she might be agreeable to reason and set me free but that was wishful thinking. When she arrived, she wore a sweater far too small to display a pair of small, cone-shaped breasts of which she was inordinately proud. There was also a slit skirt, bobby socks and sneakers. Pip was the product of an age that probably knew more about sex than Janice and I put together. She took one look at me and then ejaculated, "Oh, goodie! Janice, dear, tell me what I can do to her."
"I've written you a list."
I was made to hobble to the center of the Irving room floor. There my wrists were handcuffed behind my back and Pip was made custodian of the key. As they said a hardy goodbye, I had a feeling she was laughing up her sleeve.
"You can't get loose, can you?" said Pip in greeting. "What game would you like to play?"
"I'd like to play that you are the knight in shinning armor who rescues the maiden in distress, I'm the maiden in distress. You let me loose."
"Ha, ha, very funny." Pip had just told me all about herself. "How would it be I burn you with a hot iron? Sis is being mean, she says I can't whip you."
My heart was thudding. I saw this seemingly innocent child as a greater menace than her sister. Quickly I said, "You mustn't whip me and you mustn't brand me. Those things aren't are that list you've got." I had scored a point but Pip was busy reading.
"It says here I can cause you discomfort but I mustn't be cruel. I have to make you speak to me with respect." She mused quietly for a moment. "Would sticking needles in your breasts be a discomfort?"
"Janice would be mad as all get out if you did that to me. Look, Pip, I'll be respectful and all that but please don't be too cruel to me. We can have fun without being cruel."
"I don't see how. I read about those needles in girl's breasts in some history book. Roman women used to do it to their slavegirls. How would it be I call you a slavegirl?"
"If you wish. I don't mind."
"Show me your pussy. I've never had a good look at a grown girl's pussy. You've got such a wonderful patch of hair."
I rolled over on my captive arms, I drew up my captive feet and spread my knees wide. What more could the little demon want!
She made a close examination of my most intimate part and nodded thoughtfully. "It's bigger than mine, of course, and you've got a nice sort of mound there. How would it be if I push a dildo up inside and switch on the vibrator? The list says I'm allowed to do that and I'd love to see you pop."
Dutifully I said my mechanical, "Thank you, that would be nice." Then I lay still while Pip found the instrument in question and inserted it within me with unexpected skill and expertise. I expected to be hurt but she got about ten inches of the beastly thing up inside me without pain. She strapped it tight before asking, "Are you ready, Miss Palmer?"
I said, yes, I was ready, almost adding let's get it over with. But I remembered in time. Even with this nymphet I had best not be flip. I lay on my side to get off my handcuffed arms while the thing buzzed busily away within my sheath. Little bright-eyes had got herself a chair and sat close to watch my shame. It was a truly marvelous dildo against which I had no chance. It caused me to quickly moan and groan and make some motions of which I was ashamed before I blossomed and burst into orgasm in what I hoped was a satisfying grand finale to satisfy the little witch for who's pleasure I had been rendered helpless.
"That was really something," Pip approved. "If I leave it inside you, turned on full strength, would you go off again?"
"I don't know. Couldn't we do something else?"
It appeared we could not do something else. The vibrator was moved up one more notch and little Miss Innocent resumed her seat, her eyes eager to behold me in that never-never land we girls enter when approaching climax. It was all shameful and beastly and I longed for
Ryan. At the end of it all the object was withdrawn from between my thighs and we returned to normal. Normal for me was handcuffed wrists and ankles. For Pip it was simply, "What do we do next?"
"If you wouldn't mind unlocking my hands...? " I tried tentatively.
"You're not suppose to ask that, it says so here," Pip said severely. "It also says that if you ask me to let you loose too many times I can actually whip you. Go on asking, I'd love to use a whip on a real, live, fully grown up girl. Geepers!"
"Please don't whip me." I knew how trite I sounded but I had to say it. "I don't think Janice would like you to whip me. Haven't you seen all the marks she put on me yesterday?"
"Well, yes, but that only makes me want to put a few more on you, too. Those marks really are gorgeous. I really do envy you."
"Well, I expect Janice would love to put a few on you, too, Pip. Why don't you ask?"
"She wouldn't, on account of Mommy. Mommy wouldn't approve. Mommy doesn't see Janice naked anymore but she sees me. Sorry, no dice!"
I wracked my small brain seeking something I could suggest that wouldn't hurt more than I can bear. Pip saved me the trouble. "She's got clothespins down here. Would you like clothespins on your nips?"
I was keeping a tight hold on my senses, it would be all to easy to say the wrong thing or say yes when I should have said no. The hurt of clothespins depended on the skill with which they were clipped on the nipple, and anyway, it wasn't practical to leave them on too long. I explained all this but little Miss Innocent said she knew it already and why didn't I shut up? She went and fetched the clothespins while I wiggled aimlessly on the rug. I couldn't possibly get loose but it's nice to try.
It's one thing to have your nipples clipped and they're there for the taking. It's quite another to have the ability to roll over and struggle the way I was with only joined hands and joined feet and nothing fastened to anything solid. I gazed at the little domestic demons Pip was examining and wondered if it was worth while to roll on the rug and put up a defense for the sake of two of my most private and tender places. My nipples are beautifully pink and I wouldn't want them purple ... no way!
"I think I'd like this better if you were kneeling, Jill," the nymphet said thoughtfully. "Here, let me help you." She giggled. "You really are helpless."
I knelt. I spread my knees wide as Pip directed. I wondered if perhaps she had done this before. Then I had to take a deep breath and stick out my breasts as far as I possibly could, arching my back and holding the pose. I was told that as each pin was clipped upon my nipple I must say a heartfelt thank you. If I could have killed the little so-and-so I would have done so gladly.
"Thank you, Pip ... thank you, Pip." My thanks held all the sincerity I could manage. I looked down to behold the little wooden pegs bobbing happily as though a part of my breasts themselves. Each was firmly clipped upon a nipple and burning me hot and hard. Striving to keep my tone reasonable against the pain, I told the shinning eyed girl, "They mustn't be left on me too long. You can kill a girl's nipples if you leave them clipped too long."
"That's for me to decide, Miss Palmer." Pip was suddenly very much adult.
I endured the pain, trying not to whimper. It's a beastly sort of pain because it seems to have no end. You are dependent upon someone else to take them off but you are not sure she will or when. In the meantime you have to be careful what you say or she will, for sure, leave them biting happily at your tender spots. I knelt, I bowed my head in deep submission, I bore the pain. Little Miss Pip palmed my sex, easily accessible between spread thighs and said, "You're enjoying it, I can tell!"
"I'm not, really I'm not. I can't help it if you get a wet hand."
"It's not really our mouths that tell the truth, it's our pussy," she said most sagely.
I knelt with the pins biting my breasts and bowed my head in what ! hoped was enough shame and submission to evoke sympathy in a twelve year old heart. All I got was, "You look very beautiful like that, Miss Palmer. But I expect you know. You're just doing it to make me feel sympathetic."
I knew now there would be no mercy for me beyond what the list of rules imposed. But I would not get to read them, they were for Pip alone. I knelt there, longing to scream, while the little wooden things with their spring clip bit at me savagely as though alive. If I moved they bobbed jauntily as though alive. I longed to tear them from myself and grind them into shreds. I did not move.
"You said ten minutes," Pip accused. "But I just looked on the list and it says I can leave them on you half an hour. What have you got to say to that?"
"Whatever you wish, Pip, I have nothing to say about anything."
For a terrible interval I feared she had picked up my words as sarcasm. A girl in the predicament can hardly ever say anything right. But suddenly a pair of youthful hands freed my breasts of wooden clips and young lips were busy laving and comforting my twin agonies. I gasped shockingly at the sudden release and flood of pain. I said a quiet and sincere, "Thank you, Pip." That was all. I was lost.
There I was, naked, hands behind my back, getting glorious sensations from the young mouth and eager tongue which continued working on my hurt nipples well beyond actual need. I could well believe Pip found an older girl's breasts much to her liking. But she suddenly ceased to gaily declare, "I'm suppose to be doing things to you, aren't I, Jill? Let me look at the list."
She ran her finger down the writing I could not see, then brightly inquired, "It says here, 'wire thumbs.' What's wired thumbs mean?"
I explained about the pliers and the wire, keeping hope and relief out of my voice. Standing or sitting with my thumb wired to something would be a lot better than most things she was-likely to come up with. With a girl Pip's age I'd been deathly scared of those pins and needles and things. Pip cocked an eager young head and I could see an idea was taking hold.
"But you're already helpless, darling. Those pairs of handcuffs...?"
"Yes, the handcuffs make me helpless for you. But if you wanted to attach me to something so I couldn't hobble or crawl away, you could use that wire idea. It's one way of tantalizing a girl to bits."
The word tantalize did the trick. The list told the nymphet where to find the wires and pliers. I didn't go hopping around while she was gone, what would be the use. When she returned, she faced a problem. "But, gee whiz, Miss Palmer, what do I wire you to?"
She picked on the couch, it was out in the room away from a wall and its cushioned back terminated in heavy, ornamental woodwork with holes as part of the carving. Feeling not too unhappy about what I was about to get I watched her busily inserting wire and twisting it tight until the two ends which would hold my thumb stuck out invitingly from a solid wooden framework.
"Golly, Miss Palmer, this is really going to be something! Please hop over here."
I felt an idiot doing what this child told me but I wanted to stay from the sexual stuff Pip might easily have chosen. My thumbs might not like the wire but they were a lot more durable than my nipples or those lips down below. I hopped, hopped and hopped until I could back up into the desired position.
"I'm just going to wire one of your thumbs, Miss Palmer, I can't be bothered with both. You'll hate it, won't you'll? Please say you'll hate it and that a single thumb was all she need bother with. It would hold me as well as all my thumbs and all my fingers. Carefully not to appear too pleased, I lowered my thumb into waiting jaws then winced as Miss Innocent twisted the bright metal into a circle and used the pliers to tighten it down. She was almost adept as Ryan. When she snipped off the loose ends I said, "There, you've got me! This is the most infuriating way of keeping a girl in one place."
Pip was enraptured. She felt that she had made a discovery and that no one else had ever thought to fasten a real, live girl by her thumb to a couch. When her ecstasies subsided she remembered the list and once more consulted it. "It says here thumbcuffs. What's a thumbcuff?"
I further enhanced the little darling's education but pointed out that she couldn't use the thumbcuffs and the wire at the same time. She considered this with serious concern before coming up with, "But couldn't I use them on your big toes?"
I hadn't thought of my big toes and didn't want to. But the possibility was so obvious it was beyond denial. In a flurry of excitement she dashed off to get the miserable little things I knew all too well. This time, on her return, she went direct to a ring in the wall, no doubt intended for me, and practiced on it, inserting a single jaw and closing it tight. Surveying it approvingly, she opened the other jaw and slipped her thumb inside. Before I could utter a horrified warning she closed the small circle tight upon herself and became a prisoner. I stood there breathless.
"It's almost as good as the wire on you and it's a lot easier," Pip said. She played happily with her now imprisoned hand for perhaps a minute before a startled look appeared upon her face. She made frantic motions then turned to me, "How do you undo the thing, Miss Palmer?"
"You use the key. Pip, don't tell me you didn't bring the key?"
"Of course I didn't, nobody said anything about a key. I thought there was a catch or something." In a frenzy of panic she tugged and pulled and rattled but remained as much of a prisoner as before. When she had hurt her thumb enough, she once more looked at me accusingly. "I bet you knew all the time, I'll bet you were hoping I'd make this mistake."
"No, Pip, no! Why would I do that! Don't you understand, I've got to stand here like you've got to stand there until your big sister comes home and let's us loose. It's not my fault."
Pip tried hard to digest the bad news but then went into another spasm of revolt, and when her thumb hurt bad enough resorted to tears of frustration and a tinge of fear. For a twelve year old the prospect of being chained to a wall all day is-likely to be daunting. I worked hard at hiding my amusement.
No matter how amused I might be over Pip's predicament I knew there would be no laughter from either of us, we would be tired and bored stiff long before freedom came. And even then I would just go from this captivity to another. Even with only a wired thumb to keep me in a love affair with the couch, I was still handcuffed wrist and ankle and had less to be happy about than Pip who, if she wanted to hold her arm up in the air, could at least sit down. Comfortingly I advised, "You'll love this experience of being a prisoner, Pip, make the most of it. It will be very real for you while it lasts."
"I don't want to be a prisoner, Miss Palmer." Pip stamped her foot in a temper. "You should have told me about the key, I'm real mad at you. I'm going to ask my sister to whip you real good when she comes back." She jeepers at me. "And, what's more, I'm going to get to watch, you see if I don't."
"But, Pip, how was I to know you'd stick your thumb in there and then close the snap. Try the ring in the wall, see if it will move."
The ring would not move any more than my couch. I had to look sideways and bent over to get a good view of my companion who, if she kept twisting her thumb as she was doing would have no thumb to twist. I told her not to bother about trying to get loose because nobody every got loose the way they do in books and movies. She stuck her tongue out at me before resuming the futile fight.
"I don't see why you can't break that wire. I'll bet you could if you really tried."
I longed for little bright eyes to have the wire and give me the thumbcuffs. It hurts too much to even try, I told her sharply. "You should know, it was you who fixed my like this." We bickered back and forth. Pip provided tears in which I almost thought I would like to join her. The child found it impossible to reconcile herself to her condition and I suppose this was understandable. I wasn't much enjoying my own prospects for the rest of the day either. I wondered if Janice would laugh the whole thing off or be angry with both of us. My future looked grim.
There came upon us in the stillness of the house the small noise that caused us both to stand alert. It came again, this time the unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock. Then there were heavy male footsteps and Ryan walked through our open door to survey us with grim amusement.
"Are you two playing games or did I walk in on something?" he inquired.
I could think of nothing but deliverance. Birds sang, rainbows filled the air, and I was instantly horny. Ryan took me by the shoulders and moved me so he could get a good look at the way I was fastened. He laughed when he saw the wire. Then he kissed me long and hard but then accused: "You must have told them about the wire, you like it so."
"I hate it. Oh, Ryan, please cut it off. I've got so much to tell you."
"Better make it good, sweetheart, if you weren't so well bound I'd wonder why you hadn't phoned." He kissed me again to make my pulse leap and feed my fire. "Damn it girl, I had a hell of a tune finding this place." He turned to Pip. "What's with you, young lady?"
"Don't 'young lady' me, you big oaf," said dear, little Pip charmingly. "You were real mean to my sister. I hate you. Go away."
"What? And leave you like that?"
"I don't care, I don't want your help. Neither does Miss Palmer. Miss Palmer is a real nice girl and doesn't deserve you."
Poor Pip! She was playing with fire and hadn't a clue. My master digested her juvenile tirade before producing the handcuff key he always carried and unlocking her from the ring. He then turned her around and locked both her thumbs behind her back the same way I was fastened with handcuffs. Without preamble he selected a suitable chair, seated himself, and pulled the young woman across his knees. When he lifted up her dress and thumbed down her panties, he got an instant response.
"Don't you do that! Don't you dare. I'll tell Janice!"
"Please do," Ryan agreed easily. "I suppose you know what I'm going to do to you. I'm going to spank your bottom."
Pip's struggles did her credit but she was no more than a child and no doubt the thumbcuffs hurt. Ryan bared her pert little bottom and, holding her firm with one hand, proceeded to beat her bottom with the other. I watched in fascinated joy.
Listening to Pip's wails and threats was deeply satisfying. I loved it and wished I was not still wired to the couch. I would have liked to get in real close and watch the pink and red rise up. Pip was a real precocious child who deserved what she was getting. But I'm a ridiculous female and it wasn't long before I was making a tentative suggestion, "Not too hard, Ryan, please not too hard. Pip wasn't all that cruel..."
I might as well have spoken to the wind but I had given heart to the struggling maiden who now declaimed, "You heard what she says, you big lunk, she says I'm nice and you should stop hurting me. Ow-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!"
Ryan must have tired of the slaps or perhaps realized the bottom across his knees was not all that mature. He used the key again and a few moments later Pip was again standing against the wall with her thumb firmly secured to the ring, her other hand busy searching for the wounds. Her discarded panties lay upon the floor. With an outstretched foot she managed to snare them and drag them to where her one free hand could struggle to put them on again. She was evidently a modest child or perhaps believed the feel of fabric would be a comfort to her wounds. She considered silence the better part of valor but came up with a lot of hurt, accusing sniffs. My master came back to me.
"You don't expect me to unwire you, do you girl?" His tone was sarcastic.
"Please, Ryan, don't tease, I'm tired and my thumb hurts. You can see how tight the wire is, please let me loose."
"Why all the handcuffs?"
I told him all the whys and the hows to an accompaniment of disdainful sniffs from the wall. I made my story good, longing for his sympathy. I knew he was quite capable of leaving me as I was and going out to lunch. I overflowed with happiness when he cut the wire and unlocked both sets of handcuffs. I massaged my wrists and looked down at my red-ringed ankles in astonishment. "I'm free ... I mean I really am, I'm free," I said in a disbelieving daze.
"I'm taking you to lunch. We'll dispense with hardware."
"What about me?" demanded bright-eyes.
"You stay where you are." My master took my by the arm and led me from the room. Behind us came a terrible wail of discontent but Ryan pretended not to hear. He can be terribly deaf when he wants.
I directed him to the bedroom and the clothes closet. My master said he'd paid for most everything in it so I could help myself. I did. I was so damned excited I could hardly handle the zippers or get the panties right way round. When we were seated in the restaurant he captured my leg in both of his and played footsies with me all during the dinner. I was so overflowing with happiness I considered the absurd notion of intercourse in one of the restrooms.
"Janice is an idiot," Ryan said soberly. "I know her habits and resources and where her apartment is and it wasn't too hard to trace things from there. Sorry I took so long but I phoned your office and they said you'd be back tomorrow."
He was so gorgeously assured, so dramatically male without even trying. I was suddenly hungry and ate with relish but forgot everything I ate in my absorption with the male playing with my leg. I had no illusions, I was free for the moment but when lunch was over Ryan would reposes me in the strangest of captivities, a bondage of infatuation I could not break and had no wish to.
We lingered long over lunch and returned to Janice's prison house instead of to our apartment. I didn't have to ask why, I knew! Ryan had been humane enough to bring back a hamburger and milk for the young lady still captive to the ring. Pip actually said thank you. Before we left her to go upstairs to the bedroom, her childish wisdom said it all. "I know why you're sticking around, you're waiting for my sister. Oh, damn, if I could only get to that phone!"
I don't have to tell you what we did in the bedroom. When you consider I was doubtful I would ever have a man again all my life, it can be understood how I gave myself again and again and again. I could never give enough of myself to Ryan and he had so much to give. He whispered that this was just a beginning. More would follow in our own bed later on. But for now we had a job to do, and the beginning of it was to go down and gag Pip and then to bind her slender wrists with one of her sister's nylons. I sensed her fury and frustration.
We stayed in the lounge and watched the youngster's furious efforts to free herself. It was something to do while we waited. Janice was on time, and hearing the lock, Ryan look up a position to cut off flight if she turned to run. But when Janice beheld her kid sister bound and gagged against the wall her first instinct was a sisterly rescue. But by that time Ryan had moved to fill the doorway. Turning in disarray Janice beheld me. She looked frantically around like a trapped animal, then slumped to moan bitterly to moan, "You son of a bitch ... you son of a bitch."
The fact that she put up no fight but yielded herself passively was discredit to Janice Webb. She knew she hadn't a chance and would reserve her strength for when it might count. Eyes wide and voice hesitant, she said, "I suppose you want me naked. What's it going to be, the whip?"
"Of course," Ryan nodded as though to whip this defeated woman was the most natural act in the world. "It will do for starters, you're pretty well marked already. Come on, off with everything."
Janice looked around wearily. "Ryan, not before the girl, not in front of Pip."
Ryan turned to me, "Did the youngster hurt you?"
"Not really, just clothespins."
"Then put them on her now." His verdict was final.
The young buds were neither mature nor erect and their owner rebelled vigorously against Ryan's order. I was compelled to use all my strength to push her back against the wall in order to do to her what she had done to me. I could only guess if it hurt her more or less. I was thankful Pip was gagged. I remembered how the pins had seemed to me when on my own nipples, bobby jauntily. Young Pip was thrusting and churning against bound wrists in frantic efforts to dislodge intruders on her budding breasts. I turned away, I did not want to see.
"Show us what you've got, Janice, my girl." Ryan's demand was harsh. Janice Webb shrugged hopelessly. She took a final look at her younger sister who would be busy with her clothespins for a long time to come. At her age, Pip would never believe there was no way to get them off. We left the child to fight the battle along.
I had seen it once but it was new to Ryan. Listlessly, as though deep in thought, Janice disclosed her treasures, each one hurting a girl in a different way, none fatal. When we reached the hoist with bar Janice asked, as though knowing the answer, "Will this do?"
At Ryan's curt nod, Miss Janice Webb began to remove her clothes. She did it with a sulkiness I understood all too well, no girl undresses rapidly when the whip is waiting for the final disclosure of herself. Totally bare, she reached up to the waiting bar and grasped it as though for support. She turned to look back at us across the bareness of her shoulder. "I suppose it's no use asking for mercy?"
"Did you show mercy to Jill?"
Janice turned away as Ryan strapped her wrists and used the hoist. Raised and taut, the fading evidence of her previous whipping was graphic on her skin. Despite what she had done to me, I felt sorry for the poor girl and was thankful Pip was not witness to her sister's shame.
No girl is listless beneath the thong. Once again Janice displayed a determination not to scream. As the first lash marked her skin, she gasped, tugged at her wrists and flung her head in a motion of negation. A bare foot raised and lowered itself. Ryan knew what he was doing. I stood to one side, terribly conscious of being totally free without a bond of any kind. It made me feel a bitch to just stand there like that and have no part in either pain or punishment. But when Ryan paused after the tenth stroke had snapped across the bare white back I clasp the sweating nudity in my arms to weld our nakedness in the sympathy of understanding. When Ryan told me to get back out of the way I obeyed. Disobedience was something I didn't even think of.
Previously Janice had screamed when her defenses broke. This time they did not break. She went through the same defensive motions with every blow, making the hoist creak with her struggled against the strap and filling the silence with her panting. On this occasion her feet became the most expressive part of her as they danced on the air. At the end of twenty strokes Ryan called a halt to ask, "Thinking of any more kidnapping, Janice?"
The whipped girl failed to answer and earned another brutal stroke for her silence. It evoked another, "Yes, oh, yes! I won't do anything so silly again." He head bowed forward in defeat.
Hearing this abject submission from a girl who had to believe herself more than nicely started on a series of punishments told me Janice a Trojan and my heart bled for her. I too believed this was only beginning. It was not until Ryan ordered me to follow him from the room that I had a glimpse of what followed.
"Look, sweetheart, we're going to search the house and take every handcuff key or any other similar key we can find. Don't fail me now, look properly." We found them all. I was fond of the feminine instinct which lead to handbag and bra, there was one in each. Janice was a cautious young woman who believed in avenues of escape. There was boyish grin on my master's face when he led us back to waiting prisoners. He snapped thumbcuffs tight upon each pair of waiting toes, the big toe is the only one you can use, then freed the sisters to make their own discoveries. Janice probably guessed, Pip was the most vocal once the gag had been taken from her mouth.
"What have you done with my sister!" Her demand was insistent. We told her where her sister was then left the house, locking the door behind us and everything in good order except two pairs of female toes. "But how will they ever get loose?" I asked, envisioning their plight. "Goodness knows," Ryan admitted cheerfully. "If a girl works on thumbcuffs long enough with a bobby pin, she can often get them off. And anyway they can hop around the house and feed themselves."
"But they might be like that for days and days."
"Let's hope so," said my master cheerfully as he took me home. I remembered to divest myself of Janice's clothes and go to stand in my corner and gaze at the wall paper. I was glad I did because we had agreed that my punishment for forgetting this rite was most outrageous. While my nose was glued to the crevice of the wall, Ryan used the opportunity to bind my hands behind my back with one of is neckties. He loved to changed the nature of my restraints and always complained that handcuffs and leg irons were too mechanical for love. I did not disagree. I had seen Janice whipped and wanted none of that myself. When I got permission to turn around we had our little time together in the lounge while I told him what she had really done to me and how he had rescued me from lifetime bondage. Ryan was much interested in the set of stocks at the bottom of Janice's bed. He took me to the bedroom and, using rope instead of heavy timbers, sat me on a low stool and carefully bound each of my ankles far apart and then my wrists to compel me to bend uncomfortably as with Janice.
I immediately agreed this was the way it had been but added hopefully, "Please untie me now, darling, it's an awful way to leave a girl all night. Besides, if you leave me like this, you can't enjoy me."
My master left me alone, bound tightly and hopelessly. But strangely I did not mind, it had been my master who tied the knots, not a jealous, frustrated woman. The ropes I could see around my wrists and ankles were of him, his hands upon my flesh, his will over mind. When he freed me at bedtime, I was as horny as all get out and offered my wrists for the handcuffs without being asked. We spoke briefly of Janice and Pip, envisioning them struggling with bound toes and hopping from draw to draw hoping for a key that was no longer there. But we did not waste much time in such pleasant fantasy. We had things to do!
The office was a relief. Too much carnality and too many punishments make a girl jaded. I had sat all night in Janice's stocks, she had whipped me terribly, and in my turn I had watched her terribly whipped. The bondage and punishment to which my master subjected me in our apartment palled before such intensities of sensation. We hid nothing from each other, discussing this facet of our lives in total honesty. The result was something I did not expect.
4 Outward Bound
"I'm an absolute bastard," my master admitted blandly as he unlocked my ankle from the bed where it had been secure through the night. "Aren't there times when you absolutely hate me?"
"Of course not. I've adored the whole thing. Ryan, for Pete's sake don't get maudlin."
"This Janice affair made me think of it. I as a real bastard to her, too. But I didn't find in her what I've found in you. I was forever wanting to whip Janice but with you I'm quite happy to handcuff you or tie your wrists with one of my ties. Is this a sign of old age?"
I loved him so much. His groping with his own conscious were a part of the makeup of Ryan Norton. Where ever his mental probing went I would follow. He had opened for me so many doors and widened so many horizons I could only feel an intense gratitude along with the worship I bestowed. You would have thought we would have had enough sense to leave things alone, for me to return to sweet captivity at five pm each day and to suffer whatever impositions gave him an erotic thrill. The erotic thrills were not all for Ryan, I felt them, too!
Quietly, my lord and master continued. "Janice was the first. I discovered her and myself at the same time. But she wasn't with it like you are. She was hungry for marriage and quickly scented the smell of money in my presence. Never ceased to hound me about going to the altar. I could whip her to a frazzle but when she got back to normal she would start right in again telling me I only whipped her because I loved her and shouldn't we get married so we could live happily forever." Ryan laughed. "It was the typical suburban dream. I couldn't open her mind an inch beyond the wedding ceremony and being whipped every Friday night. I don't know why she picked on Friday. Suppose it was because we didn't have to get up early on Saturday morning. Am I boring you?"
I was far from bored, I was enraptured. What girl would not be by such confessions from the man she loved? He had practiced on poor Janice but made his dreams come true with me. I was lucky, lucky, lucky ... I jingled my handcuffs and said with a fervor not strictly true, "I'm never even worried about getting married, darling. I know how girls are about this wedding business and I know how you feel about it. Keep me as we are, don't every let me go."
My master stroked my hair, he kissed me before giving me a slice of biography. "Sweetheart, you've just seen me as a guy who goes to the office, but there's a bit more to it than that. I actually am deeply involved in a great many things and this apartment is only a modest expression of whatever it is that's truly ME. There's something come up I can't very well ignore. It's in one of the new republics in Africa and I can either go there alone or take you with me. If I go alone, I can't very well leave you chained up in this apartment every day. If I leave you free to go to your office everyday, there'll be a dozen fellows wanting to take you to dinner and bed you afterwards. I want you with me. Will you come?"
"Don't ask me if I'll come, darling. Tell me I have no choice."
"Very well, you have no choice. I'll take you with me to Bottsvelt and Abu Hakim. Hakim is the only problem."
"Why?"
"Hakim was one of that breed who grew up under the British. He joined their army and rose to the rank of Sergeant. There's a couple more of these bastards who did the same. He speaks English perfectly and knows his power. He's understood to have a gigantic harem with a preference for white young ladies. He imported a troop of dancers from London not that long ago. They haven't been seen or heard of since. No one knows if they've had a chance to say yes or no to whatever he's offered. These black johnnies are sticklers for marriage. It makes them eligible for foreign aid and cloaks in respectability what is actually nothing more than kidnapping. I'm going to have to hold on to you night and day."
It should have deterred me. It did not! I was thrilled by this glimpse of another world and the interchange of power between white and black. That Ryan was a power on our side left me quivering. I had thought he simply bought and sold things like a brokerage connection. But this was something else again! Danger was the spice. And, anyway, I knew Ryan would look after me. Very simply I asked, "When do we go?"
"Tomorrow."
I forgot all about poor Janice and poor little Pip mourning over their big toes. I wondered how long it would take them to use the telephone and endure the embarrassment of asking for help. But it was only a fleeting splash of amusement before asking Ryan, "What about the office, darling?"
"Give them your resignation or ask for a leave of absence. I can always get you a dozen jobs, sweetheart, but I've more and more toyed with the idea of keeping you a prisoner around the apartment all day. But I haven't done it because I thought you'd get bored." He wrinkled his nose at my rapt attention. ' 'I suppose we could get over the boredom bit by importing Janice and chaining the two of you together. Think of how you could gossip!"
"Don't you dare."
We went upstairs to pack our things.
Abu Hakim was too large and too handsome for anybody's good. He radiated power. But, sitting across the desk from Ryan and me, he exuded waves of good will and bonhomie. His English was indeed perfect but with a touch of strange accent that I could not place. His dark eyes lingered on me constantly with the broadest and frankest of smiles behind which I knew was speculation. My master knew his Hakim. The ruler of Bottsvelt enjoyed women.
"You will be my guests, I have set an apartment aside for you? Treat it as your own." I guessed that was a royal command. Ryan treated it as such also. The apartment was splendid, matching anything in New York. When we were unpacked, I demanded, "I want to see his harem."
Ryan chuckled. "You better pray you never do. I don't know where it is, this palace of his is a town in itself. There'll probably be a walled courtyard but the doors will be locked. Look out the window at the one we have access to, they spend foreign aid like water on these refinements."
My chin was lifted by a male finger and I was kissed before a stern voice admonished, "Haven't you forgotten something?"
I had forgotten! Sure, it was the excitement and the strangeness of everything. But I had still forgotten. Whimsically, I wheeled, "I'm sorry, Ryan, may I do it now and make things right?"
"At a cost of raising your skirt and lowering your panties, dear girl, if you choose not to the account will accumulate interest."
I positively threw my clothes on the bed, I couldn't undress quick enough. I was ashamed of forgetting the sweet ritual by which we reminded each other of what we are. In one continuing flow of motion I bent and touched my toes and straightened my knees to offer my bottom for whatever Ryan chose to bestow. I got two of the most awful strokes Ryan had ever given me. But I was so grateful for it being only two that I hugged my man in ecstasy before fleeing to the corner I had over looked. I stood there trembling, my nose almost glued to the crevasse of the wall. It was not really what I wanted to do, I wanted to drink in everything there was to see in Bottsvelt, but I had a burning bottom for company as well as intriguing visions of a very large black man and a very large white one. I am never allowed to play with myself when standing in the corner but it was hard to keep my arms hanging limply at my sides. I hoped I looked sweetly penitent enough to earn mercy.
In my impatience it seemed like hours in that damned corner but I dared not break the pose. We both understood that breaking the pose was unforgivable and merited the most terrible of penalties. I had never broken it yet so I didn't know what the penalties were but I guess. When Ryan finally told me I could turn around he also told me I had been facing the corner for exactly thirty minutes. I took his word for it and asked him if he would like me naked or clothed.
"Naked, of course, but there's going to be people knocking at the door, people we can't control. Make it something simple like a sarong, no panties underneath."
All these black republics could not get rid of the British fast enough but after they were gone they retained all the British institutions so it was very hard to tell the before from the after what they called their
"freedom." One of the institutions still revered was the British Tea. Ours was brought to us by an exquisitely nubile wench who was well ahead of me with the sarong. She was so fair of face and figure, even though dark black, I had to wonder if she were an inmate of the harem given temporary release to attend the VIP's. When I sat to be served the two strips across my bottom told me clearly to watch my P's and Q's. When the tea and cucumber sandwiches were dealt with, we went shopping. That night I was made to wear handcuffs in the making of our love. It was good to be with my master all alone and without benefit of clothes. Bottsvelt seemed utterly innocent.
The next day it appeared Ryan was to take a short journey to inspect whatever it was he was making a million dollars out of. In deference to our exalted condition, I was invited to formal Tea with The Presence. I was delighted but got a word of warning from Ryan. "Look, sweetheart, I have to think everything is a hundred percent or I wouldn't have brought you here. But none this place is too far from the jungle. It's sort of a royal command for you to go to tea but don't give Hakim an inch, don't be charmed by a man who has got too damned much of it. I can feel his charm so I know you can. If you have the slightest reason to feel uneasy when I'm not around, go straight to the American consulate."
"But, Ryan, why can't you take me on this trip?"
"I'm told it's damn good and rough. And anyway you've got this invitation which, as I said, is a command."
"It wouldn't be Hakim's way of separating us, of getting us apart?"
Ryan shrugged. "It could well be. But it's more-likely his enjoyment of the female and the fact that you're new in town. You might even be able to see a wife or two but I doubt it."
I felt deliciously scared after saying goodbye and watching Ryan's jeep disappear into the dust. I was Pandora and her box, Eve and her apple, or one of those maiden's Indian Rajah's had tethered to a tree as tiger bait. I knew my presence with my master enhanced his image with his black host, but that had been a function of the female throughout the ages, the better looking we were the more respect was tendered to our spouse. Ryan and I weren't married but I couldn't imagine anyone in Bottsvelt cared.
Along I made a further and more minuet examination of our apartment. In doing so I found something to intrigue. It was a smallish picture but done in oils, an immensely competent piece of work which showed a huge yellow stone wall and against it, in stark relief, a naked white girl who stood submissively in chains which secured her by wrists and collar to the stone wall. The expression on her face was one of deep reverie in which she was forgetting her sad condition and seeing something far, far away. The effect was beautiful but Gothic. I would draw Ryan's attention to it on his return.
There was a great deal of tea but very little party. This last British rite was for a trio only. Hakim, a magnificent black creature introduced as his wife, and Me. Hakim's lady spoke English as well as Hakim himself. I gather she had attended Girten and been the daughter of a prominent merchant, now deceased. She was without animation but pleasantly placid. When I spoke of the picture in the apartment, she looked at her husband but not at me.
"It still hangs there because of nostalgia. Slavery once flourish in this land, but flourish no longer. There were many white woman bought and sold as slaves in Bottsvelt before the British came and even while they were in occupation. The British conquered by bending with the wind."
I didn't believe a word but it was a story I could not find a point to contest. There was something about the girl in the picture and the way her hair had been styled that spoke of today and not of Queen Victoria. Hakim made a joke of it. "We men regret the passing of slavery. It was an institution working well for all." His eyes twinkled affectionately. "Once I would have purchased this delightful wife of mine but today was forced to court her and waste a lot of my valuable time. But I have no regrets."
"He is a good man," said Mrs. Hakim with sweet simplicity. "I am told you also have a good man. We are both lucky."
"But they are not married," said Abu Hakim indulgently as he sipped his tea. "Before they leave Bottsvelt I intend to make Mr. Norton an offer for her." He turned the full broadside of his personality in my direction. It had the effect of facing a very large camera. "Do you think him susceptible to an offer, Miss Palmer?"
"But you've just told me slavery is at an end," I pointed out reasonably. "But, anyway, I'm not that kind of a slave, I'm terribly sorry but I'm not for sale." By the time I had delivered the last words I was trembling. I gulped scolding tea and wished it was scotch. Hakim was nothing if not direct. But the tone and our sitting there and drinking tea was so normal I could feel no menace.
The two of them gazed at me with the curiosity accorded foreigners. Hakim's voice was teasing. "Ah ha, I have caught you in a contradiction. You have said there are no slave but then you add that you are not that kind of a slave. I have to suppose you are Mr. Norton's personal property, not his wife but something far stronger. You are his slave."
I wondered how much he knew or if he was guessing. There was no use being impossibly prim. "We sometimes play with handcuffs, it's a pretty game we have but I'm afraid that's as far as my enslavement goes." I twinkled my own personality at him. "But you've got me really curious. You've spoken of purchasing me. How much would you pay?"
"A million dollars. With both the Russians and the Americans giving us foreign aid we are not short of cash. And to what better purpose could it be put?" His smile was utterly benign.
I was so shocked I came out with, "You've got to be kidding!"
Hakim consigned my exclamation to the four winds with a simple wave of a large hand. ' 'No, believe me, I am not what you call 'kidding.' I would gladly pay one million dollars for your person. But what does it matter, one million or two, three million ... they are only credits in a bank whereas you are flesh and blood."
It was while I was in a dither at discovering my intrinsic value that Mrs. Hakim entered the fray. "You have embarrassed Miss Palmer," she reproved gently. "Really, Abu, you've got all the young ladies you desire. There is no reason to make Miss Palmer feel like a piece of merchandise." She turned to me. "Perhaps Miss Palmer would like to come with me to visit our harem?" She laughed delightedly at the term. "We don't call it that now, it's known as the woman's quarters. We could enjoy ourselves and allow this great big man of mine to go about his affairs. Men are so terribly important with themselves."
It was the term "woman's quarters" that did the trick. I was feeling overpowered by Abu Hakim's power and wealth. Three million dollars...! It left me shattered. I found myself saying thank you for the tea, of shaking a very large dark hand, and of smiling up into large dark eyes. And then being guided from the room by a gentle female hand in mine. I don't have much recollection of the passages and courtyards we passed but it eventually occurred to me we were in the holy sanctum of the harem protected by Islamic Law and the dictates of The Prophet. The first thing I saw was a young woman who might have been me.
"This is Miss Jill Palmer, Jasmine," Mrs. Hakim's voice had somehow changed. "You know what to do."
Other women came, enough of them to handle me easily while I was stripped naked, great care being taken with my clothes. I was left with nothing, not even shoes. Mrs. Hakim was still the great maternal figure but with a new aura of authority. "Jasmine will dress in your clothes, my dear. We have a wig to match your hair and she will be seen leaving this part of the palace and returning to your apartment. She will be seen to enter your apartment and shortly thereafter leave it again and head toward the center of the town. She will be observed there, too, but will gradually disappear. Your own disappearance will, of course, be final."
Neat and tidy! They had thought of everything. Jill Palmer was going to vanish as though the earth had swallowed me. Hakim would be helpful and full of regrets and Ryan would be wondering and a stranger in a strange land. I wondered if Ryan had enough money to get the best of a man who would pay three million dollars for a girl.
Mrs. Hakim stood back to let the younger women do the work, there were plenty of them. Hands gripped my arms while someone bound my wrists with a silken cord there was nothing cheap about Hakim! My arms were then raised above my head so I had no choice but to stand, totally naked, to let everybody have a good look. The rest of the women present all wore a good deal, I saw nothing of the diaphanous, gossamer harem costumes beloved by fiction. All of them made me feel very bare indeed.
There was a big mirror and there was a girl helping Jasmine with my clothes. I was on display for reference. By the time they were finished Jasmine was indeed most remarkably Me. My heart sank dismally as I looked at her. There plan was going to work, I could not see how it could fail. My arms were lowered and suddenly a black enveloped my head, a black bag of some sort and was knotted around my neck. There were holes in it for air so I would not suffocate but I could not see a damned thing. It was the awfulest feeling! My hands were untied but only to be tied again behind my back, palm to palm, and very firmly. More silken rope looped my elbows and drew them close. I was bound carefully and cautiously and when they were done with my elbows I felt as helpless as I had ever felt. I knew the feeling, shoulders strained and stressed and breasts prominent, way out in front. My legs were kicked away and I was suddenly on the rug while more rope bound my ankles which were then drawn up and fastened to my wrists. I was hogtied!
Four pairs of hands picked me up and carried my, an unresisting package of girl. After a while I was dumped into something smelling of oil. A canvass was thrown over my nakedness and the jeep departed with a flurry of gravel for parts unknown.
I felt sure that I had let Ryan down, that I had been stupid and without caution, and that now I would pay for it. I lay there dismally in the darkness and felt terrible. Being hogtied is horrible. The silken cords may have helped a bit but very little. I was clamped and stressed and bounced around by the jolting vehicle in which I lay. I heard voices which meant at least two men. When I judged we were out of the city, the jeep slowed enough for a male hand to reach back and free my head from the black hood, an act for which I was immensely grateful. An African voice told me I was being taken to a safe place and had nothing to worry about. I was the property of The Ruler and would be respected by all. In the process of loosing the hood I caught a glimpse of the landscape. It was a sad, sad view, a little scrub brush and a lot of sand. A great deal of sand, indeed. I slumped back down, my face only partly covered by the tarp. It is very hard to raise yourself when you are hogtied. I lay in complete misery while the miles rolled by to separate me forever from the man I loved. I had no hope of rescue, Ryan was gone! This kidnapping made all other kidnappings seem mere play.
There were a lot of miles and a lot of hours, each one an agony of discomfort and suspense. My facilities had become so numb from being cruelly bound and mental turmoil that I did not hear the truck until it was along side. Even as the two vehicles touched I could not raise myself enough for a good view and perhaps it was as well not. A youthful brown body leaped to stand astride my nakedness and shoot my escorts with a revolver, thrusting them out to either side. He then grasped the wheel and fought the jeep to a halt. When the canvass was dragged from me, I evoked a good many gasps of admiration and surprise from about a dozen young men who's uniform was nothing more than a similar color and style in shirts and pants. They were so heavily armed as to make me shrink at the sight of all that firepower. Someone had told me of guerrilla forces in the way out parts of Bottsvelt. I could see myself changing ownership right quick.
They untied my ankles and elbows and detached my feet from my hands, standing me erect on the sand. I gloried in a fresh release but had to stare in horror at two dead soldiers and then, in wide-eyed questioning at the thirty year old man who led this youth group. I got the impression they had that blood-lust men get when they've shed the blood of another man and were looking for someone else to kill. Down below someone was thoughtfully hobbling my feet by tight bands around each ankle and a linking rope to snub each step I made.
"We are the Army of Liberation," the leader informed me. "We make the search."
They certainly did! They almost tore the jeep apart, looking for something they did not find. Then they looked at me questioningly. "You have no message? No paper? No cassette?" Suspicion brooded heavily.
Considering I was stark naked and bound the question seemed silly. "Of course I haven't," I said tonelessly. "If you don't believe that you can search me."
I should have keep my mouth shut. Their search was thorough. My hair and body orifices, front and back. For good measure I was compelled to bend down for the probing finger. They were disappointed. I couldn't understand all that was said but I think they debated torturing me for what I knew. There leader negated the suggestion and my heart warmed to him. But it was he who motioned his men back into the truck. They also loaded the contents of the jeep and the uniforms and arms of the two dead men. I was getting ready to be hoisted up also when I was told I could walk, that someone would find me, that I would not die. In pure panic at the ghastly prospect I blurted out the first inducement I could think of, "Don't leave me here in the desert, take me back to the city. Abu Hakim will pay three million American dollars for me."
It was as though no one heard a word. The leader turned me around to examine the silken rope and seemed well satisfied with it. Without another greeting or fare-thee-well he got into the cap and the truck roared back in the direction from which it came. I stood there stupefied in disbelief.
The disappearing truck was replaced by pure panic. I looked around to behold nothing but sand and two dead men. I turned to stride away from the gruesome remains of the killings and immediately tripped on my hobbled feet and fell. I was not hurt but I was more than ever scared. The leader's reference to walking must have been pure sarcasm. I couldn't walk, all I could do was hobble like a cripple. But this I did to get away from frightening reminders and seek whatever road we were following. It was there, all right, but nothing more than a vestige of the tracks of wheels. But where one vehicle went there might be two! In a terrible urgency I hobbled barefoot, following the tire tracks back the way I had been carried.
The absurdity of what I was doing was soon apparent. My ankles soon chafed beneath the rope and, because of that rope, I made almost no progress. In any case how could I walk back a distance of tens, maybe a hundred, miles? I stood in indecision, a lonely, isolated, naked white girl in the middle of an African desert the name of which I did not even know. It would have been drastic enough if I had not been bound. With free hands and feet I could have at least tried to walk but I was totally defeated by the brutal humor of leaving my hands bound behind my back and then, with the same strange idea of fun, joining my feet with a twelve inch span between. It now occurred to me what I should have thought of in the first place. If I knelt down and leaned back, my fingers might the knots by which my feet were tied. I took a last, hopeless circle around and then, with a little sob of fear and frustration, knelt and sat back upon my heels, my fingers searching.
I might have known it would be helpless. The knots were hidden within several bands on each ankles and secured there were my fingers could not dislodge them. It was wickedly frustration and had my plight been less awful and had the desert been less awesome I might have wept. But what I was fighting for was my life, this was no time for tears. I wondered why the guerrillas had not taken me. My body would have afforded them much sport. I could have been truly enslaved to be of value to their Cause. I got back to stand erect and this time to fight the silken bondage on my wrists. It laughed at my efforts. In desperation I turned and resumed the snubbed misery of what only the most light-hearted could have called a walk. I felt pretty certain I was going to die.
This time I heard the truck in the distance, I turned to await its arrival, there was no use trying to run. I knew that whatever these men did with me I would be grateful for being saved from death. I could not imagine being a slavegirl to a band of guerrilla, they would have me on my back all the time. But so long as there was life within my body there was hope of rescue or perhaps purchase or barter in the customs of this strange land. The truck drew to a halt besides me and once again the leader and I stood facing each other in an unreasoning hostility. My feminine instinct was to fling myself upon his sweat-stained shirt and sob out my relief at what was at best a semi-rescue. I felt pretty certain they had come back for me and no other reason.
His voice was a strange mixture of doubt and avarice. "You said three million dollars, American ... that Abu Hakim would pay?"
"Yes."
"How you know?"
"Because he told me so. When he discovered I was not for sale he had me kidnapped. I suppose I was in the jeep because he was sending me to some safe place far from the city. But I don't know, I simply do not know."
There was much chattering in the local language. I stood there nakedly with bound hands and joined feet and listened to what was probably the debating of my fate. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity and the jeep was brought forward. It's tank was filled with fuel from jeep cans from the truck while their leader once more started to bind my elbows.
"Please don't tie me any more," I pleaded earnestly. "It doesn't do any good, I can't get loose, I can't run away, you've got me. That was torture being left the way I was."
He actually listened, he shrugged and set the silken rope aside but within the jeep. Instead he picked me up and placed me besides the driver's seat then wedged himself in behind the driver's wheel. He stared fixedly at me. "Three millions dollars, American?"
"Three millions dollars, American," I stated firmly.
The man who, that day, became my third owner started the motor.
We drove into night. The darkness explained why I sat exposed beside the driver. When we reached the city, he would cover me, it was easy.
I think he sensed my eagerness to be sold. Little by little he extracted from me the full story. I considered promising Ryan would pay more than three million for me but believed this unwise. To these people The Ruler was supreme in power and wealth, none could or would out bid him. My fate was sealed. I was driven to a run-down warehouse in the slums and a thin mattress on the floor beside a post. To the post I was chained by neck, wrist and ankle, all fastened on me with padlocks. My dark companion assured me they were all subject to a single key. He gave me water and a pail and went away. After a short, sharp testing of my new bonds replacing my silken cords, I realized my helplessness so lay down on the mattress and went to sleep. It had been an exhausting day but, despite my terrible predicament, I felt relief.
By the time the woman came I was in a panic. It had been twenty-four hours since my being chained to the post, I had drunk all the water and had no food. But she carried a basket and from it I fed ravenously and well. I drank hot coffee from a thermos. When it was done she stuck a needle in my arm and pressed the plunger home. As I drifted into darkness I was positive I had seen her somewhere before.
I awoke to a pleasant sensation of warmth and was loath to move. I was in sunlight which meant I had slept through a night, possibly more. Besides me was a pail of water but when I reached for it my hand drew a length of chain. Startled and suddenly awake I gazed at my wrists, each was circled with heavy metal from which a chain ran back to the wall at my back. Weight upon my neck led me to reach up to feel the iron collar about my throat, boasting a chain of its own. My feet were free but when I scrambled awkwardly erect I discovered my hands and neck were fast chained to a heavy ring set deep within the stone of a high wall. That explained why I had been propped up in sleep, there was not enough slack in any of the chains to permit laying down. I was suddenly smitten by memory and backed as far from the wall as my chains allowed. With a gasp of dismay I realized the truth.
I had become the chained maiden of the picture in the apartment.
The wall was huge and massive enclosing a verdant courtyard, lush with greenery. From somewhere I could hear the sound of running water which reminded me to lift the pail and drink deep. When I put it back down I ruefully realized it was better to be chained as I now was then to have my hands bound behind my back as I had been.
Compared to the day of my kidnapping, I was delightfully free. Curiously I leaned against the wall, standing erect and naked and arranged myself in the pose of despondency I had seen on the vivid canvass. Everything matched perfectly. The chains falling away from my nudity to the wall had the same loops in a similar confinement. I was that girl! I wondered if some artist had had a flash of premonition or if he had seen a girl as I was now. It did not matter, I was certain this was no more than a pleasantry of Abu Hakim's. Soon I would know.
When Hakim came, he was not the smooth diplomat I had met at Tea. This was a near naked giant of a man clad only in a breech cloth. His skin glistening its ebony sheen, muscles rippling beneath to tell of latent power. He stood and surveyed his handiwork, obviously pleased. The size and nakedness of him was frightening.
"And so my little bird has returned to her cage." His voice was different, more sonorous, colored by imagery.
"Where is Ryan Norton?"
His chuckled was deep throated. "Looking for you, of course, what else!" He surveyed me pensively. "He will not find you."
We had said the essentials but there was more. Hakim squatted on his hunches as do most of the natives. "Sit down, Miss Palmer, I believe your chains permit."
I had no thought but to obey. I arranged myself as I had been when asleep and realized I faced this man in full frontal nakedness. I did not cross my legs, such coyness would have made him laugh.
"You think I want you to violate the sheath between your legs," he began slowly. "You are wrong, that is only a part of why I desire you." He paused as though to gather thoughts. "I desire white girls for a simple matter of revenge. You are not the first, you may not be the last, though of that I am not yet sure. You are an extremely beautiful girl, unusually beautiful."
"Thank you."
"My parents were black Africans, extremely poor. When the British came we licked their boots for bread. They gave us bread but only as one gives to beggars. I joined their army and made myself most humble for their approval. I hated them but they did not see my hate. They promoted me and taught me to speak the English you now hear. They also taught me of class distinctions, of what they call the 'lower orders,' and of how one was scarcely human unless attending one of their public schools. I learned. When they were gone I became what I am today. But I have forgotten nothing. It is my turn to rub noses in the dust. Have you ever have your nose rubbed in the dirt, Miss Palmer?"
He needed no answer, he knew! Abjectly I asked, "What are you going to do to me?"
"I think you know, Miss Palmer. You will be humiliated and degraded. Sometimes you will be punished, but there will be no hot irons or leaded whips. I will make you last a long, long time."
I motioned with a chained hand. "The girl in the picture? She was real?"
"You recognize the-likeness, I am sure. Yes, she was real. Her name was Mary Bestwick, typically English. I found her a delightful subject, she had been so pampered that she found any of my little amusements doubly and triply abhorrent. She's still alive. When I tired of her I sold her to a brothel. I understand she has made the owner a lot of money, I did not destroy her beauty, she was only in my possession for one year. I cannot yet tell how long I will keep you."
The chains locked on me felt a ton, holding me forever. This African Prince would never let me go until I was a bedraggled hag and even then. ...
"If I promise to be a pleasing slave to you, would you spare me ... the rest."
"Love does not cancel out revenge."
"It could, if you'd let me try. I suppose I'm a coward but I don't want those other ... things."
"Good, that makes it more certain you will get them." He was no longer a colored potentate sipping tea. This man was black Africa in all its glory, filled with contempt for a white race which offered only bribes. I had nothing to say.
"A girl of my own choosing will tend you and punish you. She is dark and powerful. She could subdue you with one hand. Her name is Chouala." Suddenly he turned and walked away.
Chouala, when she came, was a relief. She wore only a white square, fastened attractively above one hip. I could well understand that against her lithe muscularity I would stand no chance. She spoke with husky resonance and we sensed a bond in the similarity of age.
"I'm Chouala, will you obey me?"
"I will obey you," I said slowly, knowing the admission the first of my humiliations. "What are the things you have been told to do to me?"
She laughed with a touch of gaiety. "They are the things no girl desires. Think of everything you least want and you will have your answer." Her eyes have been assessing my nakedness. "You are as beautiful as me. I will not punish you with joy."
It was a frank admission. I liked Chouala and wondered why Hakim had not placed me beneath the heel of a hard-faced harridan. But perhaps the harridan would have been too obvious. About Chouala there was a subtly. If she gave me pain I would be less prepared for it. I suppose I was already trying to please by asking, "When do we start? Right now or later on today?"
"We do not start today at all. It is Abu's wish that you make a better acquaintance with the wall." She paused as though in memory. "I, too, was once chained where you are chained. I had done a bad thing and so must pay for it. I did not like standing and then sitting there with the wall possessing me, and the chains becoming heavier each hours. I, too, was stripped naked and was much ashamed to be thus seen by those I knew. By night the garden ghosts all came alive and I hid my face in fear. It is so simply a thing but a girl is not happy chained as you are chained. I know! Tomorrow I begin to inflict on you the beginnings of our ruler's wrath."
In blithe freedom Chouala went away and left me to the mercy of the wall. I began to feel it as a living thing, a thing which would chuckle quietly at my back over any effort I made to rid myself of the chains and the collar. I wept in a terrible loneliness and made my chains sing a metallic accompaniment to the drying of my tears. I got up and stood a while, testing my linkage, but it became pointless and anyone watching would be amused. I sat down again without much comfort and began the telling of the links as with a rosary. Always they led my fingers to the iron collar around my neck, its weight a constant remainder of what I had become. Over and over it sang its gleeful song of my new captivity, forever, forever, forever! I rattled my wrist chains angrily in futile rebellion.
Night brought me no ghosts, the garden was utterly serene in the moonlight, a thing of beauty compared to me, a pitifully female thing anchored to the stone walls. By the silver shadows of the desert moon
I fell asleep.
It was a strange and terrible isolation as though the rest of the world had gone on and left me. From time to time I woke up, stiff and cramped, to rearrange myself and my chains for another try at sleep. When Chouala showed up in the morning, I was so damned glad to see her that I would have welcomed the hot irons and pincers. The wall had damn near got the best of me.
Laughing, she forestalled my hungry questions, "Do not tell me, Miss Palmer, you are pleased to see me, I know. I was pleased to see anyone when I was chained like that. Come, our day begins."
"Yes, I am terribly glad to see you. But what's that collection of iron you're carrying?"
"It is for your feet, Miss Palmer, busy little feet that must not run. I lock your ankles."
I watched her do it then asked her why the long span, it was long enough to allow me a full stride. "It is so you may start your work today, Miss Palmer. You will need freedom to move. If you chose to run, this chain will trip you more easily than a shorter one. You will see."
It was like changing clothes, shackles on, shackles off. I did not loose the iron collar on my neck but I lost its chain, the harsh bands fell from my wrists with a clatter. I felt like spitting on the wall before we turned away. Chouala was right, my ankles had lots of chain but it was continually hindering, and endless irritation. I kept treading on it with my bare feet and it was easy to trip and fall. I was a source of amusement to anyone we met, servants and I presume wives or consorts or whatever Hakim chose to call them. They were of all ages and I noticed they showed my jailer, Chouala, an unusual degree of respect.
"It is because I sometimes whip them," she explained blandly. "When any female within the harem displeases the ruler she is sent to me. There are no men within the harem walls so my strong right arm must do this work alone."
"But don't they hate you?"
"Of course not! They know it is the ruler's hand, not my own that marks their skin." Chouala chuckled. "The poor things are also very bored. Our ruler has so many wives that to be one of them is most frustrating. They are bored. When I whip them, it breaks monotony."
No matter how I tried I could not handle the swirl of chain around my feet, it defeated me as badly as if they were tight together.
"It is here you appease our ruler's memories," Chouala informed my brightly. "See, it is a very large chamber with a floor of stone which is very dirty. It needs to be scrubbed and washed."
So that was it! I could well imagine Hakim chuckling at the thought of me on hands and knees trying to cope with this immense surface. A pail of water, a scrubbing brush and a bundle of rags was waiting. I knew they were waiting for me.
"But Chouala, I can't possibly clean all of this!" I was appalled.
"Yes, you can, Miss Palmer. I knew the exact time it takes to do this work, I have tested on many similar occasions. If you have not completed your task in the allotted time, you will be punished. It is very simple and very just."
"It isn't just at all, it's horrible! Look, I've never done this sort of thing before, I'll be no good at it."
"So now you learn, you are a lucky girl."
Chouala and I looked at each other in perfect understanding. We liked each other but I knew with a terrible certainty she would punish me if I failed to conform. Dismally I looked around for help, my eyes coming to rest on the domestic items with which I was condemned to labor.
This time I heard the truck in the distance, I turned to await its arrival, there was no use trying to run. I knew that whatever these men did with me I would be grateful for being saved from death. I could not imagine being a slavegirl to a band of guerrilla, they would have me on my back all the time. But so long as there was life within my body there was hope of rescue or perhaps purchase or barter in the customs of this strange land. The truck drew to a halt besides me and once again the leader and I stood facing each other in an unreasoning hostility. My feminine instinct was to fling myself upon his sweat-stained shirt and sob out my relief at what was at best a semi-rescue. I felt pretty certain they had come back for me and no other reason.
His voice was a strange mixture of doubt and avarice. "You said three million dollars, American ... that Abu Hakim would pay?"
"Yes."
"How you know?"
"Because he told me so. When he discovered I was not for sale he bad me kidnapped. I suppose I was in the jeep because he was sending me to some safe place far from the city. But I don't know, I simply do not know."
There was much chattering in the local language. I stood there nakedly with bound hands and joined feet and listened to what was probably the debating of my fate. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity and the jeep was brought forward. It's tank was filled with fuel from jeep cans from the truck while their leader once more started to bind my elbows.
"Please don't tie me any more," I pleaded earnestly. "It doesn't do any good, I can't get loose, I can't run away, you've got me. That was torture being left the way I was."
He actually listened, he shrugged and set the silken rope aside but within the jeep. Instead he picked me up and placed me besides the driver's seat then wedged himself in behind the driver's wheel. He stared fixedly at me. "Three millions dollars, American?"
"Three millions dollars, American," I stated firmly.
The man who, that day, became my third owner started the motor.
We drove into night. The darkness explained why I sat exposed beside the driver. When we reached the city, he would cover me, it was easy. I think he sensed my eagerness to be sold. Little by little he extracted from me the full story. I considered promising Ryan would pay more than three million for me but believed this unwise. To these people The Ruler was supreme in power and wealth, none could or would out bid him. My fate was sealed. I was driven to a run-down warehouse in the slums and a thin mattress on the floor beside a post. To the post I was chained by neck, wrist and ankle, all fastened on me with padlocks. My dark companion assured me they were all subject to a single key. He gave me water and a pail and went away. After a short, sharp testing of my new bonds replacing my silken cords, I realized my helplessness so lay down on the mattress and went to sleep. It had been an exhausting day but, despite my terrible predicament, I felt relief.
By the time the woman came I was in a panic. It had been twenty-four hours since my being chained to the post, I had drunk all the water and had no food. But she carried a basket and from it I fed ravenously and well. I drank hot coffee from a thermos. When it was done she stuck a needle in my arm and pressed the plunger home. As I drifted into darkness I was positive I had seen her somewhere before.
I awoke to a pleasant sensation of warmth and was loath to move. I was in sunlight which meant I had slept through a night, possibly more. Besides me was a pail of water but when I reached for it my hand drew a length of chain. Startled and suddenly awake I gazed at my wrists, each was circled with heavy metal from which a chain ran back to the wall at my back. Weight upon my neck led me to reach up to feel the iron collar about my throat, boasting a chain of its own. My feet were free but when I scrambled awkwardly erect I discovered my hands and neck were fast chained to a heavy ring set deep within the stone of a high wall. That explained why I had been propped up in sleep, there was not enough slack in any of the chains to permit laying down. I was suddenly smitten by memory and backed as far from the wall as my chains allowed. With a gasp of dismay I realized the truth.
I had become the chained maiden of the picture in the apartment.
The wall was huge and massive enclosing a verdant courtyard, lush with greenery. From somewhere I could hear the sound of running water which reminded me to lift the pail and drink deep. When I put it back down I ruefully realized it was better to be chained as I now was then to have my hands bound behind my back as I had been. Compared to the day of my kidnapping, I was delightfully free. Curiously I leaned against the wall, standing erect and naked and arranged myself in the pose of despondency I had seen on the vivid canvass. Everything matched perfectly. The chains falling away from my nudity to the wall had the same loops in a similar confinement. I was that girl! I wondered if some artist had had a flash of premonition or if he had seen a girl as I was now. It did not matter, I was to drag myself and my chain from this devastating imposition, but that was silly. I could not run. I could not walk well. No friends, even Chouala would not be my friend if I rejected the ruler's wish. I kicked a chained foot and watched the chain links clatter on the stone. With a sob of fury and despair I sank to my knees and dumped the scrubbing brush into the water. Abu Hakim's revenge was underway, for goodness knows how long I would bear the brunt of the animosities he could not forget.
My first realization was my hands. I'd looked after my hands but now they would become rough and calloused. I wept for them. Next was my knees. This was a hands and knees infliction and nothing was provided to kneel on. I made a few tentative swipes with the brush but its passage over the floor left only a ugly wet mess a rag would not cope with. I realized my total inexperience in this type of work. I don't suppose this sort of work was done anymore by anybody in civilized lands. Probably it was not done here in Bottsvelt. This huge expanse of floor might have been specially prepared for me. Or other punished girl like me. At that moment, if I'd been offered a choice of continuing with the brush and pail and rags or being whipped, I think I would have chosen the latter. I could not imagine Chouala being too cruel in her inflictions. I wet the brush and tried again but knew for sure I had been given an impossible task. Angrily I flung the brush aside and sat with my hands upon my chin to gaze down dismally at the abundant links awaiting their next opportunity to send me sprawling. It was at that moment Chouala jauntily reappeared, this time carrying a slim and wicked riding crop.
"It is always the same, Miss Palmer. All you white girls think it impossible so you sit and don't even try. Now I show you."
Chouala was nearly naked. She was instantly on her knees and the brush was swirling in its pool of water over wide, sweeping arcs of filthy floor. Pushing the muddy water ahead of her with constant strokes of the brush, she dried the surface with the rags as she went. Soon she had dealt with a considerable space, I would not have believed it possible.
"You see, come, Miss Palmer, show me you can do it."
I consoled myself with the thought that I would not have done it for anyone but Chouala. Hating every motion I followed her lead and pushed the wet brush with only slightly more conviction. Without warning my bent over bottom was suddenly aflame from her crop. I turned in dismay, sitting on my wounded cheeks but was given no time. The crop wrapped around my shoulders and waist and thighs. It found we where ever I twisted and turned. In an almost mindless anxiety to escape I plunged forward with the brush and rags and water and suffered the cuts and scorches of the riding crop until my performance was deemed sufficient.
"You see, Miss Palmer, you did not realize how well you could do it. On my next visit I will bring a whip instead of the riding crop. Should you deserve it, it will make a pleasant diversion for you, will it not?" Her sarcasm curled me up.
I was shamed by Chouala's easy competence and the rippling strength of sinew and muscle her nearly naked body disclosed. I was angry at my own ineptitude and drove myself with a fierce pride to win the admiration of a girl I could not hate. Over all was the shadow of the whip. I did not want to be whipped again! Chouala had things beautifully figured.
As I worked I reflected on the incongruity of my jailer always calling me Miss Palmer. I knew it was done on purpose to emphasis the menial and degrading tasks of which I supposed this was the first. It was when I had completed half the floor and was wet and bedraggled with sweat and the splashes from my work that Abu Hakim chose to honor me, approaching silently until I heard his voice.
"I say, that Chouala has given you some encouragement, Miss Palmer. You seem to have taken it to heart. Congratulations!"
I turned to give him my attention but he motioned me not to stop. Burning with all the shame he could possibly desire, I continued with the swirling brush, the slither and rattle of my chains, and was shockingly aware that he was enjoying a full rear view of my femaleness. I could not believe I was anything but ugly from where he stood. I was positive my sex was peeping coyly at him and probably a few fronds of pubic hair. And that was not all showing!
"I hope I give you pleasure," I said bitterly over my shoulder as I tossed dank hair from my face. "May I have you permission to rest?"
"By all means, Miss Palmer. You may even stand erect, that, too, will give me pleasure."
The black son of a bitch! I could have killed him. He had seen me naked but this was a doubly naked state. I stood there dejectedly, not knowing what to do with my hands until he instructed me to clasp them at the back of my neck and stick my breasts out for his attention. Apparently no filthy a girl might be, she still offers some males sex appeal. I obeyed, standing in the full mortification of a total frontal exposure until I could contain it no longer.
"Perhaps you would like me to turn slowly for you?" I spat out the final humiliation, Sir!"
Abu Hakim had brought his own riding crop. It cut me without warning to make me scream and turn my back which then received the next stroke and the next. Howling, my chains responding metallically, I turned again to face him as he had desired. I saw him eye my breasts and closed my eyes. But his voice was without anger. "You will now work diligently, Miss Palmer."
"Yes."
"No more sarcasms."
"No."
Abu Hakim, the ruler of Bottsvelt left me alone with my work and with my tears.
Despite my innermost feelings I could not quench a thrill of pride when Chouala told me I had equaled the performance of the number two girl on her list. Chouala counted the hours and the strips. Most had been tardy and been well whipped. She did a thorough inspection and made me do several places over a second time. For this I was compelled to touch my toes and to say thank you for the burning received. Standing there with my pain, the only thing I could think to ask was, "Can I have a bath, please?"
"I will hose you down. Miss Palmer, it is a service I always provide."
"Please, there's no need. I can wash myself."
"I said I will hose you down, Miss Palmer. Come, this way."
It was a concrete wash house with drains in the floor and a vicious looking hose. It had the additional refinement of a chain hanging from above and at the end of it a wristlet, which, when it imprisoned my right hand, compelled me to stand well exposed and with one arm high in the air. The water, when it came, was of a force to hurt and trust me hard against my tether. No matter how I turned and twisted it followed me, and my ankle chains were bright and clean when it was done. The towel was rough, but what else could I expect! We were half way back on a familiar path when I stopped the swirl of my chain in sudden consternation, turning to my companion, I pleaded, "No the wall, not chained to the wall again tonight!"
"And, why not, Miss Palmer?"
"It's ... it's, well, it's so awful, the isolation and the weight of those chains and the long night. Please..."
Chouala laughed at my earnestness. "There are worse things than being chained to the wall," she said, "Miss Palmer.
There was something in Chouala's voice that told me of being an idiot. There were indeed worse things than bearing the weight of chains connected to a wall, a wall that surrounds a beautiful garden. I kept a sulky silence, then longed to have made no complaint as my arm was grasped and I was turned around.
It was not in instrument of torture, just an old fashion pillory to imprison a maiden's neck and wrists, while the maiden stood and wished to be elsewhere. It was barely evening and the prospect of standing there until dark and then all through all the hours of the night without sleep, how could a girl sleep standing up, was more than I could bear. "Chouala, I'm sorry, I should not have spoken. Please don't punishment me with this. If I am to work again tomorrow, I must surely sleep."
"Persuade me, Miss Palmer, humble yourself. Plead."
Why did I not hate this vibrant authority, this lovely creature endowed by Hakim with such power? I did not know but surely somewhere within Chouala's makeup was the quality of mercy. As ordered, I sank to my knees, clasp her thighs to mumble into her sarong, "Forgive me, please forgive me. I should have known better. Please chain me to the wall."
"You're upset, Miss Palmer, and all I've shown you is a little, simple pillory. There are other things which through the night would make you long for the wall and its chains." Chouala laughed down at my bowed head. "There is an anthill, or perhaps to hang by one ankle throughout the darkness. There are certain ladies of the harem who would welcome being serviced by you between their legs. They are most demanding and their flavor is not as sweet as mine. Shall I continue...? "
"Please, no! I am a silly girl who wants to obey you. Please give me one more chance."
Chouala raised me erect to turn me back the way we had come. I kicked my chain in eagerness as she laughed at my defeat. "You are right, you are a silly girl, Miss Palmer. But I have a weakness for silly girls so you will again spend the night against your beloved wall. Come."
I felt emotionally soiled, diminished and despairing, wondering if Hakim had seen us through a window or would receive a full report from my jailer certainly the latter! The revenge of Abu Hakim was cleverly designed.
5 Punished
I suppose everything is comparative. The punishment which today seems beyond bearing will be tolerable tomorrow. A girl enduring punishments for the misdeeds of her race is forever adrift in a welter of shame, uncertainty and resentment. Since I had committed no sin against Abu Hakim, I could be neither grateful for his whips and chains nor for their remission. I was a feminine package designed for a bizarre abnegation of the spirit. The only mercy shown me was Chouala, my jailer. The heat of sexuality we exchanged was the only spiritual comfort Bottsvelt vouchsafed me.
I shuffled my difficult chained steps beside my jailer to the wall. The chains and the collar were waiting for me like old friends.
"I'm being kind to you, Miss Palmer," Chouala whispered gently. "But a girl suffering your punishments must be allowed no victory, all you must ever know is defeat. Turn around."
To prove myself, I obeyed, then stood erect while Chouala gathered my arms, crossed my wrists and tied them very tight behind my back. "You need not have had these tied hands had you not complained," she admonished severely. "Tomorrow you will be more sensible."
"Yes, I will be more sensible." I positioned myself for the collar which she put on me. To either side lay the wrist chains which might have worn but which were now replace by bitter cord upon my wrists. Now the wall would offer less comfort than on the night before. Chouala kissed me and left me to the gathering dusk.
Nightfall brought Abu Hakim, suddenly he stood before me as of the night itself. His voice was deep with satisfaction. "Your day. Miss Palmer. I trust you feel adequately debased?"
"Yes, Sir." Boy, how I hated that "Sir."
"My beloved Chouala gives me a good report. She has many deli in store. You will hate them all!"
I had enough fight left in me to struggled awkwardly to my feet stand facing The Ruler, by hands behind my back, my neck collar in iron and my feet standing amid a swirl of chain. "I am glad hav' me as you see me know gives you pleasure. There is none in it for me.
Hakim deep-throated chuckle dissolved my pretense. I was a naked girl he could whip or kill as he chose, it was that simple. My whole existence hung upon his whim.
"In English there is a four letter word to describe the coupling a woman with a man. When you wish to plead with me, and it to be now, to penetrate you and plant my seed within, you will use word in making your request. You understand?"
"I understand." I stood there silent.
Abu Hakim turned and went away.
It's beastly having your hands tied behind your back. A girl can do much of anything except constantly try to free her wrists. I v still struggling when I fell asleep against the wall. In the morning Chouala had no trouble making me do what she wished. I was the m obedient, bound maiden in Africa.
In one of the wide hallways of the palace there stood a well-ex statue of the Ruler, cast in bronze and without the western dress. A Hakim stood in the fierce pride of his Race. It would seem apropos that he be naked and his phallus thrusting forward in triumph, instead he wore the breech cloth of his tribe and was thus a cons reminder of his presence and his work for Bottsvelt for all who I don't know why he desired this monstrosity in his harem but pe it infused awe in the younger wives. When I saw it, I shivered.
My tribute to racial prejudice was simple and waiting. My feet w still chained, my wrists still bound behind my back. Chouala told to kneel and to face the statue. Her strong hands positioned me the convenience of a hinged wooden bar which was then brought and over to clasp me within the hallows of my knees. It was then p down hard to product a resounding click of locks. And there I was, once more captive, once more ashamed to kneel in obeisance to what might well be the biggest male ego in the world.
Left alone, I sought the relief of sitting back on my heels. If a girl must kneel, that is by far her most comfortable posture. But the bar pinning down my knees then bit savagely in the bottom of my thighs with a pain that I did not wish to long continue. Once more I knelt erect, my hands unable to help me in the least, my knees already telling me of hurt to come. The statue leered down at me in African triumph.
Within thirty minutes the pail and brush of yesterday seemed a holiday to what I must now endure. Everything was wrong, I could do nothing right. To kneel erect was my most practical option but my knees soon screamed in protest and my back hurt. In a repetitive ritual I fought the cords upon my wrists and sometimes, defiantly sat back upon my heels in the position by which my day might have been made tolerable. But the hurt of the cross bar soon urged me to kneel erect once more as Abu Hakim wished. Any thought I might have had of allowing myself to fall forward on my breasts and belly was negated by a series of small pointed blades thrusting upward from the stone. Miss Jill Palmer was neatly foxed.
"Ah-h-h-h-h-h, my dear Miss Palmer, I am happy to see you on your knees. We make progress, do we not?"
Hakim beamed down at my enforced submission. He expected the courtesy of an answer. I gave him one.
"Sir, this is torture. It destroys my knees."
"Scarcely torture, Miss Palmer. Discomfort perhaps. Do not those who pass pause to give you cheer?"
"They dare not comfort me, they fear your anger."
Hakim was pleased, his pleasure sweeping over me in waves I could feel. I suppose he was seeing in my kneeling nakedness the real or fancied slights he had suffered as a child. But a girl's suffering would never pay the bill he totaled forever in his mind. I wondered how many white maidens knelt as I knelt now. I wanted to expostulate upon the torture of the bar across my knees, but yesterday had taught me much. I keep silence and bowed my head as in shame. I know I made a picture to prompt erections in most men, if I could prompt one in The Ruler, he might incline to mercy.
"You are exceedingly beautiful, Miss Palmer. I expect you know it and hope to touch my heart. Leaving you in beauty I will bid you farewell."
Defeat and despair! My urgency caused my captor to halt and turn. "But, Sir, tell me of Ryan Norton. Will you not treat with him for my release. He could give you much."
"Your Mr. Norton is being a nuisance to all. At the moment he is in Washington with your State Department, hoping to persuade them to curtail my foreign aid. He is what you would call a big pain in the place whereupon we sit. If he returns to Bottsvelt, I will have him killed."
Black power strode from me in contempt, his power dwarfed a naked maiden doing penitence for imagined sins. But he had left me hope. If Ryan was pounding Washington, it meant he knew I was alive. As long as he knew that, he would not stop his efforts at rescue, seeking an Achilles Heel this black egomaniac might not know he possessed. For at least five minutes my spirits soared to dull the aching pain I could not ease.
With the ending of my ordeal for the day, Chouala untied my hands that they might aid me in support with the lifting of the bar. When she unlocked the wicked pressure on my knee hollows, I felt sideways in an untidy sprawl on my breasts, utterly exhausted and wanting nothing more than to lay as I was forever. But soon the firm, strong finger kneaded at my wounded flesh in a gentle message to bring ease and gentle words replaced the bombastic declarations of pomposity the Ruler that spat at me.
There was no fight left in me and Chouala had no need to bind my wrists again. She held my bare arm in loving authority as she led me to the wall. We no longer commented upon the swirling metal upon my feet, once more I leaned against the wall, collared and with shackled wrists. I dared not think nor ask about tomorrow.
It began in curiosity and ended in horror. Several moments of the hour or so involved me will remain indelibly etched upon my mind forever. Chouala usually took my arm to lead me to where ever I must go but today he clasp my hand in sisterly communion, she evidently knew something I did not. The chain and irons were still upon my ankles but otherwise I was without restraint. Laughing and refusing information, she led me into nightmare.
The palace was not short of walls. This one was of a different stone but still solid. It had been used as the backdrop for the erection of a platform reached by several steps. Massive and stark upon this small stage was a square block which I recognized instantly while my tummy turned somersaults. I turned to Chouala in despite appeal, "I don't want to die, Chouala! Why should I die, what have I done?"
She placed a saucy finger upon my lips. "Hush, Miss Palmer." She beckoned to one side. "Look, behold what comes."
It was a squad of eight soldiers and an officer. Behind it a van. Reaching the platform they surrounded it in military order and the van disgorged a large man wearing a black hood that hid his head. Next came a considerable amount of motion picture camera equipment. Cables were laid, lights were aligned. There were a couple of technicians, earnest young men, and a good deal of equipment I did not recognize. To me the most significant fact of all was the whole crew was neither black nor white. No native of Bottsvelt was present nor were the uniforms those of Abu Hakim's army. These were men from another place playing a role. After much waving of arms and much shouting I did not understand, the hooded man took his place besides the block to stand there in menacing immobility, his hands resting comfortably upon the shaft of an immense axe. The block, the axe, the man made a small tableau to chill my bones. The director pointed and Chouala gripped my arm and led me into the spot lights where I would play the stellar role. Centered to the camera's satisfaction, she turned me this way and that so the hungry lens may drink of my nakedness and my chains, then sat me in profile while she took my arms in the familiar gesture, crossed my wrists and bound them savagely tight. She took her time, thrusting me here and there to the best advantage of the camera's eye, which occasionally zoomed in to pinpoint one or the other of the restraints by which I was to be controlled in presumably the last hour of my life.
A pair of the soldiers now took me from Chouala's loving hands. It was military and precise. In addition, one more of the soldiers stood forward from the ranks with a drum on which he proceeded to beat a tattoo of sharp sound to accelerate the pulse. My escort grasped my bound arms, one on either side and led me to the steps and then propelled me up to the platform with insistent hands, one even aiding the operation by lifting my unwieldy chain over the last steps I was to take. On the platform I was led to the block and a second camera which was hungry for the emotions of my face and for my bound nudity. At this point there was a pause in the proceeding while the young men ran to and froth while cameras were moved in close and lights reset to get a better view of a chained young about to die. I could neither run nor fight, I was beautifully immobilized for what would soon be done. But I was frantically twisting at the cutting cords and looking hopefully from left to right as if there might actually be a chance of rescue. I could not believe any of this, it could not possibly be true!
The expressions on my face and the motions of the rest of me appeared to please. Quite probably the Ruler would have this film converted to video and marketed throughout the world for a profit. Since everything I did now was instinctive in dismay, the camera's whirled busily to garner the pathetic reactions of a naked girl about to lose her head. When the tattoo of the drum rose to a crescendo, one of the guards grasped a handful of my hair while the other thrust my shoulders downward so I must kneel, my bound hands showing awkwardly in view, and my ankle chain making a snake-like presence on the platform. I was suddenly lifted forward, my head drawn down into the hallow of the block and held tight so I could not move, nor could I see, my face being buried within the wood which soon would feel the hot drench of my blood. I struggled in revolt but scarcely moved.
I suppose I made a pretty bizarre picture kneeling there with my head held down upon the block, my bare neck exposed for the sharpened steel, its slender nakedness enhanced by the dragging pull upon my hair as the uniformed man pulled as though to pull it from its roots. I heard the heave steps and thud of the axe moved from one place to another. The time must now be short but the cameras must be appeased and the young men were insistent in whatever they were shouting about. I knew surely now I was very close to death.
Quite suddenly my head was freed and I was dragged back from the massive block to blink my eyes in the glare of lights. At a distance of two feet I was told to hold my pose, to kneel, head bowed as though awaiting the fall of the blade, bringing my head almost to the top of the block. The drum rolled in final frenzy and from the corner of my eye I knew the headsman had begun the horrific swing. When the blade of the axe buried itself into the wood where my neck had been but moments previously, I came close to oblivion.
When Chouala repossessed me, her whisper was anxious, "It is over, Miss Palmer, try and relax."
My mine was a jumble of relief and fear and indignation. "Why did you let me think I was to die? Why was I so brutally used?"
She stroked my hair, rearranging it after the military grip. "It is for the cameras, Miss Palmer. The camera's needed your fear and conviction. I was instructed to tell you nothing."
"But it was so cruel, I was so frightened!"
"It was cruel, Miss Palmer, I'm sorry."
With life still coursing through my veins I was not anxious to argue, especially not with Chouala. Everything seemed very good and wonderful compared to a few minutes ago. But I noted the camera had not been reloaded in the van. Everything was moved to another location near the wall. Chouala disclosed the bad news. "It is not over, Miss Palmer. While the crew is here, it is desired for you to die just once more. Please forgive us."
"You mean really to die? This time they'll kill me?"
"No, Miss Palmer, you will not die, you will live."
Once more my pulse quickened in relief and a hazy sort of joy. Under this euphoria I said, under a sudden impulse, "Why don't you call me Jill, Chouala. Jill is my name, why don't you use it?"
Chouala kissed me gently. "You know why I call you Miss Palmer and why I must not call you Jill. Best you be satisfied."
Unexpectedly I was pushed inside the van and accompanied by one of the crew. Our journey was short. Waiting me was a man upon a horse, once more he was not a black, possibly an Arab. My hands were untied. A noose of rope now circled my neck at the end of a fifteen foot length leading to the saddle. I was told not to clutch the tethering rope but to walk in docile obedience where it might lead. If I tripped on my chain it would be part of authenticity.
The song of the camera became ecstatic as I stumbled and tripped upon my chain at the end of the tether from the horse. What greater ignominy could there be then this! If my hands had not been free I would have sustained injuries, even a broken neck before I reached the gallows. But, using my hands, I managed to keep pace with the deliberately slow pace of the horse and rider, who's hands were heavy on the reins as he looked back to watch the frantic movements of my fettered feet. Before my shameful inarch was done, I realized the realism of my trips and falls were meat and drink to the busy lens. I was playing a part far better than had I tried.
The horse and rider dragged me to stand beneath the bough and dangling hangman's knot. Then my neck was freed from the tether but my wrists once more crossed and bound behind my back in motions so familiar I scarce noticed them. There now ensued a tremendous turmoil of measurements and adjustments which I realized were designed to show me well and truly hung but not to kill! The soldiers stood at attention as would befitting the hanging of any lady of quality. The officer was stern, the drummer anxious to begin. The hooded man was once again in evidence.
It was simple in its disillusion. A couple of heavily constructed boxes were kicked beneath the hanging noose and I was picked up to stand on one while the former headsman, now the hangman, stood on the other at my side. The camera focused until satisfied with a view which showed no sign of the boxes but concentrated on the upper half of the hangman and myself. When the drum once more rolled out its song of death, the heavy rope was adjusted around my neck, a heavy, brutal winding to make the perfect hangman's knot which lay heavy upon my shoulder, ready to string to life and break my neck during the drop still to come. The hangman and I gazed for moments at each other but I felt no wish to laugh. If someone made a mistake, I could still die horribly.
Suddenly I stood alone, the hateful noose snug upon my neck and its attendant knot almost like a live thing, pulling at me with its weight. The cameras went around and around, carefully avoiding the box but catching every part of me, including a close up beaver shot of my pubic hair. Without warning the box was jerked from beneath my feet by unseen hangs. I fell.
Someone must have taken precise measurements. But the time my feet struck the ground, the hangman's knot was tight against my ear and the noose very tight around my neck. The cameras got every bit of it, whirling frantically to record a maiden's death. But I do have to admit the waiting hands were ready to lift me once more on the box and take the noose from around my neck while I stood there panting and scarlet faced. The cameras were silent. I was actually given a swig of brandy before Chouala led me from the scene. I'm not sure anyone even saw us go. I had been a useful female body which had served its purpose. Chouala explained, "They will send which ever one turns out the best to your lover, Mr. Ryan Norton, to prove to him your death. Our Ruler wishes Mr. Norton to cease his agitations against our State."
"But my head wasn't cut off!"
"That will be faked, Miss Palmer. The young men with the cameras are very clever."
I had very little room for optimism, my hands were tied, my feet her chained, and I was scared half to death, and presumably now faced another day of degrading labor. Thinking of what lay ahead, I could have used another shot of brandy. Innocently I asked, "What lays ahead now, Chouala? Another scrub brush?"
Her hand squeezed my arm as though to reassure. "Today it is the stables, Miss Palmer. The palace has horses for state occasions. Today they will be put out to pasture while you clean what they have left behind."
"You mean shoved manure!"
"Alas, yes, it is the way with animals."
Stable are stables all around the world, they smell disgustingly and their walls are decorated with assorted leathers. The five open stalls to which I was introduced were well littered with straw and animal deposits in such volume to lead me to suppose this ordeal had been laying in wait for me for several days. Chouala untied my hands but took a shackle from the wall to join them again with a twelve inch span of links and a heavy pair of wristlets of black iron as might befit a stable maid.
"These are by order, Miss Palmer, they will annoy you constantly but not impede the work you have to do." She handed me a pitchfork, reminiscent of common concept of Satan. "This is a manure fork, Miss Palmer. You will use it and the broom to leave each of these stalls neat and tidy. The cart backed up to the far door is for you to fill."
She gazed at me with some sorrow. "Oh, Miss Palmer, I'm am so terribly sorry."
Chouala made a swift escape, not doubt not wishing to embarrass me by her presence while I made my first pathetic attempts to obey the orders of the day. The fork was a heavy, awkward, beastly thing and I had never done such work before, never even thought of it. It was a task for men, for strong and able men, not for a naked girl who's feet and hands are chained as though to handicap her in a race. Had it been truly needful for me to do this work, I should have been stripped of irons and allowed the simple nakedness. I was unconcerned with nakedness and never expected to be clothed again so long as Abu Hakim held me. I thrust angrily with the tines against a pile of horse shit.
As the day progressed I delivered a labor's techniques and got my second wind. But when I started my efforts were pitiful and I was glad there was none to see. The most disgusting part of being a barefoot stable maid was the horse shit waiting for my tread. It was wet and slimy and penetrated up between my toes. The chain I must forever drag up and down between my feet was soon filthy, and I soon found the dislodging of these equine droppings doubled the first affront to my nose. I had to determinedly thrust from my mind the delectable vision of hurling the fork to the floor and going in search of Chouala to accept whatever punishment might result. Somehow I had to come to terms with this ordeal and see it out to the end. I was pretty sure Ryan would not be deceived by the pictures. There was something all together too artistic about them, more inspired by Hollywood than a harsh reality. Ryan would find me! I repeated the assurance over and over in my mind while I carried the load forkfuls of horse shit to the cart.
"May I commend you industry, Miss Palmer, you are an industrious young woman." Hakim's huge form filled the doorway and I wondered how long he might have been watching me.
I said an automatic thank you while continuing with my task.
"You may cease work while I speak with you, Miss Palmer. Your labors seems to have disturbed a fine, fresh odor."
"It's filthy. Those beastly horses...! "
"You do not enjoy horses, Miss Palmer? That is a great pity. I am considering having you bound naked and well spread upon the back of a horse while the animal is turned loose in our pasture. I'm sure you are familiar with Lord Byron's famous poem with 'Mazeppa'? "
Damn Lord Byron. Damn all horse. Damn everything in Bottsvelt. I looked at it's ruler despondently. "Does you revenge know no end? Does it go on forever?"
Hakim's laugh was genuine. "But you have been making your payments for only a few days, Miss Palmer...."
"Do you know what was done to me this morning with those damn fool movies?"
"Ah, yes, I wrote the scenario for each. I was not present for I am only concerned with the end product which I am sure will encourage your Mr. Ryan Norton to seek solace with some other young lady who is still living."
I passed it by. The less this bombastic potentate knew about Ryan the better. But dismally I said. "Is not this humiliation enough? Look at me. Am I not degraded enough to your taste? Have I not earned freedom?"
"The horse shit oozes up between your toes, dear lady. How very charming! No, you will not be given freedom."
I went back to work. No doubt I would pay a penalty if the cart was not filled by evening. I was cruelly tired, by back ached, and my skin was chafed by the needless irons. But it was as though I could hear Ryan's voice, "Hang in there girl, stick it out. I'll find you someday
The only good thing about my day was the way I slept that night. I was dead tired and could care less about the collar on my neck or the shackles on my wrists. The wall had become my friend, my only privacy. Before drifting into sleep I wondered about the girl in the painting and what message the wall had for her. In the morning I was to find out.
When I woke I knew instantly it was late. The sun was hot and I felt the instinctive tardiness of one who overslept. Then I blinked in pure amazement. Ten feet distant stood a naked girl, fastened to the wall as I was fastened. Unaware of her chains she was eyeing me with an amused smile. It was the girl of the oil painting in the apartment.
"Hello, Miss Palmer. My name's Diana, I come from California. I am the prisoner of Abu Hakim. I've spent a lot of time against this wall and I'm told you admired the oil painting that artist made of me." She laughed without much amusement. "Well, here I am."
"But where's Chouala?" I blurted out stupidly.
"She left you to sleep." Another small trill of laughter. "I understand yesterday was a trying day."
We could not reach each other, they had made sure of that! But we could talk. Diana told me, in a self-deprecating manner all her own, that she had been a slave to Abu Hakim for two years, having kidnapped from a tourist with the usual simply finality by which girls disappear. She told me frankly Hakim had broken her completely, wearing her down with ordeals such as I endured now. She had long since abandoned hope of escape or rescue and was reconciled to be what she laughingly described as "Hakim's whore." She did whatever she was told and accepted whatever punishments she must. Reflectively she said she had no future so never thought of one. She was a lovely female body to be used and she was white. It was as though she now fulfilled her destiny.
It was strange and incredible, especially the careless manner in which she bore her bondage to the wall. About Diana was a lack of rebelliousness such as I was sure I still held. At the end of a long story which left me wondering as to the motives in placing her near me, she told me with utter simplicity of her errant. Abu Hakim required the ultimate abasement. If I refused to comply, Diana would be strung up and whipped while I watched. Her delivery of this message was as though it did not matter.
"That's why you're here! You're to suffer that because of me?" I was aghast.
"Our Master tells me you are reluctant to use a word." Diana grinned in a sort of comradely admission, her eyes suddenly mischievous. She patted her patch of pubic hair and explained, "I am told you are reluctant to use the vulgar word men love so much to describe what they do to girl down her beneath my hand." She spread her legs to reveal the tender lips and say regretfully, "I've often thought these things the curse of Eve. They're the cause of almost all females' troubles. I envy men that beastly cannon they carry in their crotch."
Whatever else this lovely and strangely unreal girl might have said was terminated by the arrival of Chouala with my food. I ate it while Diana was taken from my sight, unbound, careless, docile in obedience. When Chouala returned she said simply, "You have the message, Miss Palmer. And now we begin another day."
I had expected the horse. It was not the horse! Instead, I was led to the great hall with its ugly bronze of The Leader. But today we were unconcerned with him or the bar for a maiden's knees. Beyond the statue was a truncated column, its flattened surface thirty inches above the floor. I was invited to sit upon its top and to be careful to position myself for maximum comfort. This told me I would sit there for a long time. My now frankly beloved Chouala placed my hands, palm to palm, behind by back and tied them there with the thin cord which spoke of vengeance. But today that was not enough. Chouala's strength compressed my arms to make my elbows meet then bound them with strand after strand of soft bandage.
"Not to restrict the circulation," she said with practical competence. "Your breasts are desired to protrude. You shoulders to be stressed and hurt. But your arms are precious, they must not be hurt."
From this I got what comfort I could and waited disclosure of what my real punishment would be. I was accustomed to being bound, I was sure it would not be that. What happened then was, at first, a vast relief. She unlocked the irons from my ankles and set the pile of links aside. My feet swung free to make me long to leap and cavort with a freedom I had lost for a long time. But by the time I edged my bound nakedness from the column, Chouala would have grasped me and I would have earned a punishment. I sat in the docile submission to my slavery while I watched my jailer in a mounting curiosity.
Two upright stanchions of metal, two or three inches in diameter, were thrust down into waiting holes in the stone floor. Had I not been seated on the column I would have seen little purpose but was was seated there and I knew they had a purpose. That purpose was ME! When they were screwed down, Chouala whispered, "Have you not guessed, Miss Palmer? I now bind the little feet."
Even that would not have been way out or scary had it not suddenly dawned upon my that these vertical posts were far apart in relationship to myself. But someone had been careful in their measurements. When my left leg was lifted and thrust against the top of one of them, and my ankle firmly bound there, I realized I was about to be outrageously stretched in an exposure to humiliate me enough for a dozen of Abu Hakim's hang-ups. Chouala looked at me sorrowfully and said, "I'm sorry, Miss Palmer," as she dragged my right foot to its post and bound it there. Both bindings were very, very tight and beautifully symmetrical. My ankles were now fixed just a little higher than the level of my crotch. Bound as I was, it was awkward for me to pear down but I did my best and was shocked by what I saw. My sex was a blatant indecency, proclaiming its presence as though the pubic patch above was flying flag. The lips were not open but were separate enough to make me cringe in shame. Coming within the compass of my taut, stretched thighs, Chouala kissed me tenderly and played for brief moments with my nipples. She told me, "There are worse things than this, Miss Palmer. Try to remember: there is always something worse." She turned and left me to my day.
When I had knelt in this same hole to page homage to the Ruler, I had attracted only passing interest, simply one more naked girl upon her knees. People smiled saw no reason to pause. I was offering nothing they had not seen before. But this was different! My sexual facility so blatantly exposed is a member of an international currency of flesh. It was also a part of a white girl painfully bound to expose herself in shame. I was examined and discussed. I expect I was compared to others. The sexual orifice of a girl has many shapes and placements according to its owner. Some are well within her crotch and show to best advantage when she bends to touch her toes to received the cane. Others hid coyly within a small forest of pubic hair while others flaunt themselves in full frontal exposure inviting penetration. Some have lips and some have none, some are plump while others are lean. In some the Venus mound would do honor to Venus herself but in others it was flat. I was not sure where mine belonged in these groupings. All I knew now was it was indecently exposed for all to see and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.
I want to be dramatic and say I longed to die. But I had never more longed to live! But not like this with breasts pointing at all who stood nearby and my sex so stretched as to tell me of a fly who fed thereon, a fly I could not see but could mostly surely feel! Abu Hakim was in great form when he made an early visit.
"Ah, Miss Palmer, I see you are like other girls, you have all the attributes by which a man finds joy."
"Yes, Sir."
"You are making discoveries of yourself, Miss Palmer, I am sure you have not previously realized how precious are your possessions."
"No, Sir."
"It seems to me," Hakim said thoughtfully, "what I am looking at and which you are offering so blatantly was the subject of a recent discussion between us. Am I correct?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Ah, yes, the matter of a word as I recall. A very simple word. Would you care to employ it now in a simple request."
"No, Sir."
The Ruler sighed. I was being difficult. His banter became more down to earth. "Perhaps you would like to be whipped, Miss Palmer."
"No, Sir."
"If I wished to be sarcastic I could remark that you may have swallowed a recording device," he suggested. "Are you sure, Miss Palmer, the whip might not loosen your tongue?"
I broke down. I gave the ruler of Bottsvelt all his heart desires. I pleaded, I begged. I did everything he wanted of me except that single thing to name the disgusting act he wanted me to ask for. Why this act should disgust me with Abu Hakim but enthrall and delight me with Ryan Norton is something I cannot explain. Both were magnificent males. But I was just a girl, a naked girl who, at that moment, was hurting and intensely unhappy. Desperately I pleaded, "I cannot please you, Sir. I say the right things. I do not want the whip but if you wish to whip me I will try to mute my scream." I looked up at him, almost in rapport. "I'm sorry, Sir, I wish it wasn't like this. I wish I could talk to you as a girl in freedom."
Abu Hakim, the Ruler, nodded and considered me in silence for almost a minute before he went away.
It might not be torture but it was a beastly way for a girl to spend the day. I elbows protested more and more and my wracked shoulders pleaded for mercy. But my breasts projected jauntily out in front as though enjoying the whole affair. There was even an ache in my outrageously displayed crotch upon which my wide-spread legs imposed an unnatural strain. My feet, so firmly bound to the twin posts, had troubles of their own. I gave up trying to move, it was simply too painful. The binding of my arms prevented slumping on my pedestal but forced me to sit up straight as if blatantly proclaiming the arrogance of my breasts. It was a bad day indeed for Miss Jill Palmer.
From time to time I closed my eyes, not to sleep but to close away the world. In the darkness I could hear the comings and goings and swear I could feel the intensity of their interest in my openly displayed sex. I think that no matter how many of these female facilities a man or woman may see they are always curious about one more. In my heart I was proud of mine, but not like this, not like this...! It had always given me comfort to reach down and clasp my small, warm mound, an intensely private act for private thoughts, having nothing whatever to do with inserting my finger to find my clit. I have no idea how many girls find this communion with themselves. That's the trouble with us all, we do not talk about ourselves or share our secrets. The whispered confidences of puberty, exchanged in the John, leave us only with an avid curiosity.
Opening my eyes after one of these excursions into darkness, I beheld Diana.
Diana was leaning against one of the posts against which my feet were bound. Her manner was as carelessly free as previously. There was only one changed, this time she was handcuffed. She laughed softly to see me blink my way back into her world.
"You were deliberately dreaming, I know, I've done it often. I think I've sat on that damn pedestal the way you are at least four times. Everyone knows the shape and size of my pussy."
There was so much to say, but fixed the way I was, nothing seemed appropriate. Stupidly, I asked, "You're handcuffed, why?"
Diana laughed and jingled the chain on her joined hands. "I offended one of the wives. All the wives outrank me and can punish me at will. I suppose I'm simply a sort of sex slave, always available." Her voice tensed. "There is something I must tell you."
"Not about Hakim again?"
"No, about you." Diana held up her cuffed wrists as though to show me we had something in common. "They're going to play a dirty, rotten trick on you. Sometime soon you'll discover your chains are not locked properly and you can remove them probably at night against the wall. Naturally you're going to run like crazy and feel so grateful for the mistake someone seems to have made. They'll probably let you get quite a long way from where you started before they pick you up and return you to the justice of Abu Hakim. I expect he'll rape you as punishment. Goodness knows what he'll do."
I was not as glad as I should have been. It was one more thing to worry about: terrible decisions, terrible punishments. I almost wished Diana hadn't told me. "How do you know about this, Diana, who told you?"
"I pick up all the gossip, Jill. I'm considered safe. I'm as much a prisoner here as you are, perhaps more. Hakim's secrets are safe with me because I can't tell them to anyone. Sometimes Hakim makes a confident of me, knowing I can't pass it on. Such things amuse him, they keep us on the hook, always hoping."
"But how will I know about. . . about this ... escape? They keep my feet ironed all the time, what about that?" My doubts became a plaintive wail.
Diana was unperturbed. "You're leg irons are off you now, they'll be off you then, you can be sure of that. In fact, that may be your way of knowing, the time they take your chains from your feet."
"What should I do when that happens? Diana, can you tell me what to do?"
"Play it dumb but honest, darling. Don't get far from the palace, try and find someone to whom you will surrender. You can explain about the chains falling off and would they please put them on you properly."
"They'll smell a rat."
"Maybe, but they can't prove it. At least you won't have earned a punishment."
"But they'll suspect you. Maybe they're watching us right now?"
For answer the handcuffed beauty took my face in her joined hands and kissed my eyes, my nose and my lips. On my lips she lingered a long, long time until I was kissing her back with the same girl-hunger. Her voice was soft and very close to my ear, "I've giving up caring, Jill, but you need now. I've been broken and punished and trained so I'm simply a part of this place. My life is here, the only life I have. I get punished from time to time not these silly handcuffs, there's an absolute nothing. But I do get whipped sometimes or have to spend a few hours like you are now. The rest of the time it's pretty good. I've got a lot of freedom and this is really a pretty good place to live.
"As far as my love life goes, Abu Hakim looks after that. Or delegates one of his men to look after me. I accept that, too. You'll eventually accept that, too, if you can't escape." She gave me one final kiss before flitting from sight. She left me hot and bothered and scared.
Being freed was the worst torture of my day. I had been on that pedestal for so long without moving it had become painful to move. But Chouala knew what to expect and her firm, strong hands kneed my body until I could actually stand up without falling down. This has to be crazy, but I was actually relieved when she locked those damned leg irons back on my ankles. Remembering what Diana had told me, I took this return to chained feet as indicating the bogus escape would not be today nor tonight. I would have told Chouala of what I knew, but dared not. Chouala was Hakim's girl and might see no good reason why Diana should not be punished for her indiscretion. It's a damn funny spot for a girl to be in when you sort of love someone but can't trust them.
Chouala and I made my metallic walk back to the wall where she chained my neck and wrists and told me she would bring me food later.
I sat against my wall in that exquisite relief that comes after a day of being strictly bound. Joyously I pressed my legs and thighs tight together in a glorious contrast to their wide-spread day. It was the same with my hands and arms, I deliberately kept them from my back but stretched them gleefully sideways and up and down. While I was reveling in this uninhabited freedom the shackle fell away from my right wrist and clattered to the ground.
I sat stunned. It was as though Diana had told me nothing and this failure of a lock to property hold its circle had come as a total surprise out of the blue. I looked at it and at my wrist. I picked it up and closed it as an empty circle but it would not latch, it came open again when I released it. Doubting the possibility, I tested the metal band around my left wrist. It only took a single tug for it to fall free in the same way. My suddenly freed fingers flew to my neck and the collar behaved the same way. I held its open half circles in stupid disbelief. I closed and opened it several times but it did not latch. I put it down and reached for the heavier band around my left ankles. It refused to open. I tried my right foot and mat, too, was still securely held. After fighting both AarHri a couple of minutes, I ceased the hopeless task and rested my chin in my hands to think this out.
Everything was wrong. I felt the play thing of an invisible power. My hands and neck confirmed, my feet denied. Thinking ahead into the darkness, I wondered what chance a naked girl would have if she found a way out of the garden then shuffled her way towards a nebulous freedom with her feet solidly ironed. I could not imagine freedom with my ankles firmly anchored to their chain. I would make a lot of noise and from time to time I would trip and fall. If I found freedom thus, it would be a miracle. I did not bother to fasten myself again but left the collar and shackles were they fell. When Chouala brought my food and the pail of water for the night she laughed delightedly at the expression on my face. I'm sure it was something to behold, I was as baffled as any girl can be.
I picked up the open collar as an exhibited. "It sort of ... well, it just fell off," I said shame faced.
Chouala's voice was laughing as she asked, "And you did not run away, Miss Palmer? How very silly."
"How could I run away with my feet still shackled?"
"But you would have if you could?"
I was being played with.
"I ... I, well, I simply don't know. I'd be crazy to run away in daylight, I'd be caught and punished."
"But after dark, Miss Paliner?"
I knew my retort was testy and ungracious but that was too bad. "I simply don't know, Chouala, I simply don't know what I would do. Or how I'd feel. Except that I'd be frightened silly"
For answer she knelt, produced a key, and unlocked the leg irons on my ankles. She removed one to open and close it several times to demonstrate its lose of potency then clasp it once again around my leg. She cocked an amused eye in my direction.
"Now do the same with the collar and wristlets, Miss Palmer. I want to see."
Wonderingly I obeyed to once more show myself as a helpless prisoner to the wall. But, inside, my heart was singing, "You can be free anytime you want, anytime you want!" I looked up at my amused jailer.
"Okay, Chouala, what now?"
"You eat you supper like a good girl. You wait as you are now, a model prisoner, until the dark. Then you run, you run very hard indeed."
"Straight into a trap. Then I'll be punished horribly," I said flatly. I could never be sure of Chouala. She now did what Diana had done earlier when I was helpless, clasp my face in loving hands and kissed me earnestly.
"Do you really believe I'd lead you into a trap," she whispered softly in my ear.
"Chouala, I don't know or believe anything. Tell me what goes."
"You go, Jill. You see, I drop the so formal 'Miss Palmer.' I now call you Jill, perhaps it is for the last time. Tomorrow you will be gone."
The concept was so stupendous I could not comprehend. Diana had given me warning of exactly what was now taking place. But I knew that between this black girl and I was an affection, a growing love.
And it was she who unlocked my chains and urged me to run into what another girl had called a trap. I was about to confront Chouala with the story of Diana but bit the impulse back. I could not betray the white girl from my own land, gradually I beheld only a single course of action. I would run, I would be caught, I would be punished. Then everyone would be happy but me.
Bitterly I accused, "Chouala, it's crazy. Even if I'm free, how on earth do you expect me to escape from Bottsvelt? There's just no way."
But I was talking to the wind. Chouala had gone.
I hated everybody, most of all myself. I wore the chains while eating my supper. It was a relief to do something not requiring the searching of my soul. I was also hungry. When I set the supper things aside the African night was beginning shroud the garden in shadows and dark places and I knew I could not long delay decision. Supinely I could sit and sleep to await the morning and some fresh indignity or I could run into the unknown, into a hostile land in which I was no more than a naked white girl who had cash value. It wasn't much of a choice but I knew which one I would take.
First of all it was glorious to stand, to walk away from the wall and look back at it in the darkness. For me to be totally free seemed strange, demanding correction. But common sense told me to get on with it! I turned and ran.
Getting out of the harem gardens confirmed Diana. There was a door but it yielded to my touch. Outside, in the African night, was Bottsvelt, and I could not read the stars enough to know where I should run. Right there I wanted to go back. But when I turned to the door it had in some way latched against me and I was on my own. With a great sigh, born from the feeling of utter freedom so strange to me, I turned and ran.
It was better than making love, better than orgasms, better than anything else in life to leap and speed nakedly through the night. I would skirt the village adjacent to the palace and hope to find the major city with ocean port and airport and perhaps passport to freedom. Perhaps I could bribe someone to take me to the US Consulate and wondered, even with a touch of humor, how many times I must be raped to lead me to that objective. It was all suddenly a glorious adventure.
I had run a long way before the two horsemen converged upon me in the gloom. I saw them in agonized disgust but kept on running, just in case they had no interest in a naked girl speeding across the sand.
But that was silly, they had an interest and that was ME. I cannot outrun a horse. I stopped, panting and, when they were close enough, demanded, "What do you want of me? If you will take me to the American Consul in the city, I will get you a lot of money."
They either did not hear or did not speak English. One held me while the other crossed my wrists behind my back and tied them with the now-familiar agony I knew well. They then noosed my neck and tethered me with twenty feet of rope to one of the saddles. They mounted and headed back the way I had come. I had no choice but to follow. If I stopped or if I fell I got a broken neck.
I cannot tell you the agony of spirit I suffered in that walk. Naked and bound I was marching back to punishment. I could envision Abu Hakim towering above my bound nakedness before falling upon my naked body and piercing me with a cry of triumph. That was the least and best I could hope for. If that was all I got, I'd be a lucky girl.
I was not taking much stock in anything. I simply plodded one step after another and twisted my bound hands, displaying enough willingness to keep the tether from snapping taut upon my neck. Thus are slavegirls delivered to their Lords.
I would guess we were half way back to the palace when the jeeps came swiftly out of the night. Two shots sent one horsemen slumping to the sand and the other jerking backwards out of his saddle. But both lay still on the sand and I was sure they were dead. But the gunshots and the jeep's noise frightened the horse and I was about to be dragged across the desert sands by my neck when one jeep cut off my horse. Someone leaped from the jeep and caught the horse's reins before it could begin its panic flight through the night. As it was I tripped and fell but was now helped erect by strong arms to find myself gazing in amazement at the guerrilla leader who had sold me to Hakim days ago.
His voice was heavy with sarcasm, "Welcome to The Cause, Miss Jill Palmer. My name is Wesuto. You are my prisoner."
6 The Pill and the Ravishment
The tent had none of the functional trappings of fiction. It was pitched with others in the sand. But there were no gorgeous rugs or cushions or divans. Everything was very western and of a strict utility. In this I supposed I could conclude the whip laying coiled like a snake at me feet while I stood erect, very bare with my back against the tent pole, was an item to be used. I felt as if I might never use my hands again, they had been gathered in behind and locked in handcuffs. Across the desk sat Wesuto.
"Consider yourself the spoils of war. Miss Palmer." He had said when I was fastened thus. I had nothing to say about anything. Once more he spoke, "I can hardly expect to sell you back to Hakim a second time. Miss Jill Palmer. There are hazards to such transactions." I sensed decision in his desert eyes. "I have decide to keep you in the role of what is called a 'camp follower.' You understand its meaning?"
"Doesn't it mean you've taken me as your mistress, your ... slave?"
"You are technically correct, Miss Palmer." Wesuto toyed with a pencil, his gaze never leaving my eyes. "However I have in mind a somewhat wider use for your superlative qualities. I had a squad of stalwarts I call my Guard. I intend to share you with them. I will introduce you to them personally so you will not bestow your favors on the unworthy. I trust you see the logic in this arrangement."
I could see logic from his point of view but not from mine. I said so forcibly, "You're not going to get any girl to say she wants to be ravished by a dozen or so men. I suppose I can put up with you, but not half your army." I lapsed into a sulky silence.
Wesuto looked vaguely flattered but retorted, "You love me, you love my men. It is that simply, Miss Palmer. Be prepared to spread your legs upon demand."
"You're being disgusting. I hope you don't mean what you say." I was scared witless. Here I was in a desert, the name of which I didn't even know, captured by a guerrilla, who was admittedly an attractive man, and being asked to say "Yes, I'd loved to be ravished by the members of your Guard." What it amounted to was that I had not yet made the mental adjustment by which such an acceptance of debasement would come within the realm of possibility. I shuffled the handcuffs behind the pole and said dejectedly, "Can I make an offer? Me for you alone?"
"No."
It was easy to see why Wesuto had obtained his present stature of being eligible for foreign aid in the same way as other African leaders. This man was truly democratic, sharing everything, even the body of a woman to whom he was attracted. He was attracted to me, I could tell. Damn it all, I was attracted to him. I was ashamed of myself.
"Your answer, Miss Palmer?"
"I don't see why you need an answer," I said bitterly. "All you have to do is spread-eagle me, tightly bound, and your Guard can use me at will. What more do you want?"
"Much more, Miss Palmer. You will have the run of the camp but you will lay down and spread your legs upon request. Failure to do so with good will earns the whip."
"Drop dead."
Wesuto sighed. Men always seem to have something to sigh about in my presence. Without haste he came around the desk, unlocked my handcuffs, then turned me around to lock them where I could see them on the other side of the tent pole. I realized instantly what he had done. All my back was now available and cruelly vulnerable. I could shield nothing! True, I could sink to the floor and lay upon the sand but his whip would follow me even there. For Miss Jill Palmer there was no escape. Forlornly I pleaded.
"Please don't whip me. I'm offering myself to you and I'll try to make you happy. I'll try to always have a smile. Can't you be satisfied?"
My answer was the whip. It curled across my bare shoulders with the scorching fire I knew all too well. I did not scream, I would scream later. Perhaps Wesuto might feel mercy for a naked girl who took her punishment in silence. Who could tell! The next blow cut squarely across the twin cheeks of my bottom, lapping a hip to make me squeal at the bitter pain. After a while, when silence had bought me nothing, I screamed in angry and hatred and pain each time the thong found my flesh as Wesuto whipped me with a calm but terrible intensity. Soon I was upon the ground, spread out in agony against my chained wrists. But that was hateful and I scrambled back to my feet and ended up by clutching the pole with my handcuffed hands and thrusting my naked waist against it in a forlorn seeking of a shield that was not there. After quite a long while I heard my own voice saying, "Stop! Please stop. I will do what you want. I will lay down for your men. But don't whip me any more."
All I had done was salve my conscious with pain. If I had agreed to become his army's whore on the first request, I would be diminished in Wesuto's eyes and my own. I had not counted the lashes on my skin but supposed that count was the tally of my virtue. From the burning pain I was certain they were numerous. I wept in a storm of freed emotion, my forehead against the pole, my chained hands clutching it in desperation, to catch my tears and acknowledge what I had become. I sensed Wesuto sitting back on the edge of his desk, surveying the nakedness he had conquered. I longed to scream at him in fierce denial, but he had conquered me. I could no longer bear the impacts of his whip. Tomorrow I would be docile in obedience.
My new master thoughtfully unlocked my hands and drew me back away from the tent pole. With the same serious air, his intent bright eyes never leaving my face, he locked the cuffs back once more on my wrists in front, not behind my back. He led me, unresisting, to his couch to lay my whipped back upon the rough covers as though to tell me of the potency of lashed female skin in a approach to orgasm. Wesuto did his part, he was immensely virile. When he was done with me, I was limp and without will to fight, floating in an euphoria of sensations.
Quietly he unlocked one of my wrists and closed the vacant cuff on the bed rail. Thus fastened, Miss Jill Palmer spent the night.
In the morning I was fed, cleansed and watered for the day by a youngish male no older than eighteen. The boy was shy and fell instantly in love with my nakedness. The intensity of his desire was evident beneath the covering of his loins. But he was gentle and undemanding and I was grateful. He kept me handcuffed, but if that was all I had to contend with, I could care less. He cuffed me in front not in back and that makes all the difference in the world. I was then led back to my new master. Then began the unbelievable.
There they were, twenty stalwart soldiers, standing erectly to attention to be inspected by the autocrat who ruled our lives. Wesuto, as he had promised, introduced me personally to each, giving them names and instructions to use me with great care. I gathered I had become an asset to The Cause and should be cherished as a continuing facility by which they might be ennobled, encouraged, and satiated. I clinked my handcuffs and said, "How do you do?" to each. I knew they longed to laugh but were too well disciplined. Looking at their immense virility, I had no wish to laugh at all.
Wesuto wished to make the moment have a lasting impression. Since I could not possibly service all twenty of his guard at once, I was instructed to kneel individually before each man, working through the troop, and to bring out into the sunlight his throbbing phallus and to seal my dedication to its appetite with a kiss, a simple kiss from virgin lips. Obediently I knelt and obeyed, thankful it was no worse. I had expected to be laid or staked out upon the ground and entered by the entire force. But in deep humility I knelt and kissed each member. The Guard, having been given a taste of heaven, were then dismissed, each man striving to catch my eye in a male promise of virility.
It had not been the defeat I had supposed. Strangely I sensed female victory in the adoration of these men and their need of me. When they had gone about their duties, Wesuto took me once more to the tent and once more ravished me upon the couch. I tried to please him, hoping he would regret his largesse in making me available, of not to all, at least to twenty potent men who he could cheat only by keeping me fastened in his tent, or riding beside him, chained, in his jeep. I found myself with feminine curiosity about the whole damned silly situation.
There was no move to shift the encampment. The tent which had become my home along with Wesuto remained intact with me as its principle interior adornment. My hands had been taken around back before being cuffed, I suppose to enhance the view, and I was left to my thoughts. No mention was made of the Guard and Wesuto wrote letters and figured accounts at his desk with me in full view. I could have edged around the pole and shown him my back but my female isolation among a small army of males was lonely enough without restricting my own view. I noticed when Wesuto raised his head to look at me now, there was a small smile upon his face. I suppose I could have asked him what he was going to do with me but I suspected he didn't know himself. Frankly, he had picked me up purely by accident in a reconnaissance in enemy territory.
By the standard governing my life during the past week, the tent pole was almost pleasure, nothing hurt. I was obliged to stand with my back against it but if I hadn't been fastened to the pole I would have been fastened to something else. Being fastened had become a fact of my existence. If often bitterly wondered how girls survived when not attached to something.
Weighing them in balance, I decided there was not much to choose; being captive to Wesuto or being captive to Abu Hakim. Wesuto would have won hands down in such a choice had it not been for those twenty enormous men who I had paid homage and who were probably joking about the best way to spread my legs in their own tent. I suppose I had been shamed and humiliated so much that I was now not hysterical over my impending fate. Wesuto had a supply of the little red pills which had changed the face of humanity. He made very certain I swallowed one every night. This simply act, by some magic of its own, made the whole affair take on the resemblance of normalcy. I would become a sterile facility like most suburban wives.
I moaned Chouala, missing her feminine presence and female consul. She may have been the instrument of my punishments but not the originator. I remained puzzled by her part in my escape and by Diana's warning. There was something wrong there but I couldn't figure out what. The horsemen who had captured me first might or might not have been Hakim's men. But they were dead. Wesuto was very much his own man and I wished most ardently he would keep me as his personal concubine and forget about his stalwart Guard. Since I had not yet been ordered to lay down for any of them I cherished a small hope that such events would never happen.
Wesuto got up and refreshed himself with water, holding the same cup to my lips that I might drink. We were very close and face to face. "You are very beautiful, Miss Jill Palmer," Wesuto said in the very serious way he had about such things. "Why has no man married you?"
There, chained to his tent pole, I told this leader of guerrillas the story of my life, taking the opportunity to explain how he could certainly sell me to Ryan Norton provided my sheath had not been penetrated by no others than himself. I explained how a white man might accept the ravishment of his woman by a single male but not by twenty-one. Gazing at him forlornly, I finished up with, "Why don't you sell me? You need the money and you don't need me. If you need a girl prisoner all the time, I am sure there are others who will give you less trouble than I."
"I prefer you." Wesuto's simple declaration was the prelude to him unlocking the handcuffs and leading me to the cot. In what ensued I lost all sense of time but a great deal of it passed by while we were preoccupied with each other. With Ryan so remote, he had faded almost to a fantasy. I could almost contemplate becoming the possession of this dark virility who followed a Cause about which I knew nothing. In the quiet of satiety of aftermath I gently said, "Please don't give me to your guard. Master, keep me for your own."
Wesuto did not reply but led me back to my pole and tethered me to it once more. I knew our union had been deeply satisfying to us both and my small flame of hope was fueled thereby. Wesuto returned to his desk and I fell silent in my dreams.
Two days later the incredible befell.
Wesuto and I had become almost domestic. He worked at his desk, I stood chained to the tent pole. Sometimes he unlocked me and took me to the cot. It was a peace too good to last. In response to a soldier's urgent summons, Wesuto went out into the sunlight and, straining to see what was taking place, I managed a fleeting glimpse of an approaching jeep with a large white flag. The jeep was making its way slowly and cautiously. I beheld it briefly and, since it was no concern of mine, lost interest and relapsed against my pole. I could hear an considerable exchange of talk in the local language but that was of no concern to me either. I became suddenly alive only when Wesuto returned and with him was an officer of Abu Hakim's army who held die arm of a bound and naked girl. It was Diana.
Shocked in disbelief, I dared not speak. Diana, too, must have been enjoined to silence. She sent messages of anxiety with her eyes but spoke no word. The two men held the stage and surprisingly spoke in English. I soon realized the English was for our benefit. We were considered interested parties to an outrageous proposition at which no one laughed.
Diana was naked but roped and corded in what I thought of in my own mind as "the traveling costume." Her wrists were bound, her elbows were bound, a rope tether was upon her neck, the other end of it held by the officer who was having much to say. I wanted most to talk to Diana but almost immediately the English being exchanged captured my attention. Everything said boiled down to one single proposition. Abu Hakim offered Wesuto Diana and several million dollars in exchange for me. I tensed against the pole and saw the white skin indented by the cords on Diana's wrists and the rope circling her elbows. She, too, was holding her breath. As though at a slave market, the officer took Diana by her arms and thrust her forward for Wesuto's attention, slowly turning her to display the entire female figure which surely needed no pointing finger, it was exquisite. With a flood of pity I realized she was trembling.
The absurdity of enemy trading with enemy seemed lost upon us all. Perhaps that's how they do things in Africa. Wesuto heard his visitor out to the point where the officer paused for breath then, with equal politeness refused what was probably a generous offer. When Wesuto looked thoughtfully upon Diana's bound nakedness my jealously flared. But when he looked at me, I understood the motive for his refusal. Wesuto was in love with me or whatever passed among his type of guerrilla band for love. When I caught his eyes, they sent me messages.
Hakim's officer was undaunted. He poured forth a fresh stream of reasons as to why the deal was good and Diana the finest of woman. In an excess of zeal he led the poor girl to the cot and was about to thrust her down to prove to Wesuto of her carnal ability. But Wesuto waved him away, even though his eyes did linger on the lovely nakedness offered for his pleasure.
"Please tell you ruler I am most flattered by the offer. I find the girl most worthy. But my affections lie elsewhere and either Hakim nor myself have need of money so long as there is American and Russian across the seas. If you ruler cares to discuss our territorial differences, I will be glad to listen."
Hakim's officer was doing a damn fine job and I expect was being defeated only by this strange rapport between Wesuto and myself. If I were a man I might easily chose Diana instead of me. Her blonde loveliness should have appealed to any black man. But Wesuto stood firm and told Hakim's officer that he should inform Hakim that Wesuto had satiated himself upon me shortly before their arrival, he was in no mood to sample Diana's undoubted charms. Wesuto suggested that, since Diana and I had a previous acquaintance, it would be kind to remove her bonds and fasten her to the tent pole the same way I was fastened to give us a chance to visit before she was taken back to the palace, a rejected bride.
There was quite a silence after this, eyes meeting eyes and traveling beyond. It was broken by Diana's escort who very simply informed us all that in the event of Diana's rejection and return to Hakim's palace, she would be immediately executed. Males and females stood transfixed by the announcement. A swift glance told me that Diana had known all along, in part it may have accounted for her silence. I could see her swallow hard and a tear drop form and trickled from her eye.
Wesuto must have seen it too for he now announced the he would consider it over night and give his answer in the morning. We two girls were to spend time together, safely fastened, but able to discuss freely and in private whatever course of action we preferred-not that any wish of ours would decide the outcome. I think he was simply being kind and giving us a last chance to have time together. The officer motioned in the air but there was not much he could do about it. He carefully supervised Diana's freedom from rope and cord and her attachment to the pole same as I. Satisfied, he consented to accompany Wesuto to where, presumably, male refreshment might be dispensed.
Diana and I managed to kiss. It put a strain on our arms and wrists but we were accustomed to such handicaps. We kissed for a long time and mingled our tears on our cheeks. Diana whispered, "It may not be true. I don't see why Hakim would kill me. There's always the brothel for the unwanted girl." She laughed bitterly. "Quite-likely it's a ploy, he knows how it's going to make you feel and it puts Wesuto on the spot. Don't look at me as dead, I may not die at all."
I envied her courage. I don't think I would have been so calm under such a threat. I told her so and told her further I would make Wesuto sanction the exchange. I told her of my brief time with the guerrilla leader and of his quality. She had no need to tell me of Hakim, my fate there was already known. Diana's whisper was suddenly urgent, "Isn't there any way we could escape, Jill? Haven't you seen a chance?"
"No girl escapes from anyone anywhere," I told her bitterly. "You should know that best of all, Diana."
When the sun went down so it would not burn our nakedness, Wesuto repossessed his tent and Diana and I were escorted to one of the jeeps sitting around the camp. Obediently we climbed into the only seat then Diana's right ankle was handcuffed to my left. Above the back of the seat was solid iron rail, my arm was thrust and under this useful anchorage and my right wrist cuffed to Diana's left. This gave us freedom of motion and reasonable comfort but made sure we would not leave our seat. We were given a single blanket to aid us during the night.
The jeep had no key. It had probably been chosen because the desert offered no better location where we might be chained. Everyone seemed happy with our disposal. Hurting only at wrist or arm, the two of us managed to cuddle cozily to find as much comfort as there can ever be for girls safely chained. In unreasoning anger I affirmed, "I won't let you go, Diana, I simply won't!"
"Darling, you're as helpless as I am. The men will make the decisions and we'll obey them, safely bound, of course."
"It's ridiculous sitting here in this damned jeep. I'll bet they're laughing."
"Suppose we drive away, darling? Can you handle the steering wheel with your left hand while I shift gears with my right?"
For a moment I thought she was joking but she was not. Her voice was once more insistent. "A boy I knew once showed me how to cross the wires. If there's a pair of pliers in this tool box-"
There were pliers. Diana slipped down off the seat in the darkness and fumbled awkwardly with her only free hand. We both cursed the handcuff joining our ankles which was as great a handicap as the one joining our wrists. But the two of us together managed a left and a right hand completely free, we also had two free legs but, since we could not leave the jeep, they were of little value. After fumbling a while and several "damns" Diana looked up at me in wide-eyed triumph. "I've managed it," she said anxiously. "Step on the clutch and I'll move the gear shift. Then I join the wires and the motor starts.
Ready?"
I nodded and clutched the wheel feverishly. Everything happened the way Diana promised. As I wheeled the jeep around she shifted gears for me once again as I wondered about the stupidly of men who left two young women unguarded in the night. As far as I could tell our departure went unnoticed. The guerrilla camp was in isolated desert. There were no roads but an endless number of tracks. Diana, who knew everything, pointed out a star I should follow and explained, "I never expected to be this free again. Oh, Jill, we're so damned lucky!"
I trod more heavily on the gas.
We figured we should reach the city before morning. The plan was to trade the jeep to any honest rogue we could discover who would give us enough to purchase clothes and hire a taxi to take us to the consulate. If we had to pay woman's oldest price, then so be it. Our pussy's were a treasure we would hang on to as a last resort. It seemed inappropriate to sing but the urge was there.
It was really a shocking bit of country side. The desert is never really dark so we could see the inhospitable sand and stubby growths here and there in the low spots. We must have been running for a couple of hours when we saw the settlement, a scattered cluster of nondescript dwellings and some animal pens. By the time we saw it we were closer than I felt safe, so I swung our course away and it was at that moment the motor of our jeep died. In the fearful silence Diana calmly stated the obvious, "We are out of gas."
It was the children who discovered us in the early morning, ragged urchins proclaiming poverty. They were accompanied by several men as nondescript as their shanties. They were obviously interested and walked around and around our jeep as though suspecting a trap. They gabbed a lot, their eyes constantly upon our breasts. It was when they elected a spokesman who knew a few words of English, we realized they were not blacks, they were some sort of Arab.
"Ladies, you please step down from jeep."
"We can't, don't you see we're handcuffed to it?"
There preoccupation with our breasts and pubic hair had made them miss the obvious. They now beheld our chained wrists and burst into laughter at the sight. Diana and I sat motionless while wave after wave of desert laughter reduced us to an Arabic funny story. But these men were nothing if not resourceful. An urchin was dispatched to fetch a flat bobby pin, something I would have never dreamed existed in such a place. The linguist climbed up behind us in the jeep and devoted his attention to the handcuffs which made us prisoner. It was very close range so we were able to follow his every movement in breathless wonder as he thrust the sliver of steel up inside the narrowest of entries and a few moments later the notched cuff fell loose and my hand was free. He left the other cuff hanging untidily from Diana's wrist. He suggested that there was now no reason why we couldn't leave our once mobile sanctuary. Awkwardly we disembarked to stand there in close together with our ankles still joined. The dangling cuff was once more locked on me. We must have looked like naked contestants for the three-legged race at some school sports day. Impotently I tested, "You take us US Consul. We give you plenty money."
"You naked, you have no money," the leader pointed out reasonably.
"We will give you jeep for taking us to consul."
"We have jeep. We take it from you. Jeep not yours to give."
International communication died. Diana and I appeared at a dead end. We shuffled our prison feet and clinked metallically with imprisoned hands then shrank as from a blow when we heard, "We got you too." The leader wanted us to understand our plight fully. "You nice ladies, you worth much money. We keep!"
They searched the jeep. They searched us as though disbelieving the obvious. Joined by others from the village they held a conference from which a decision emerged. "You belong Abu Hakim. We take you to him. He pay much money. Then he whip you good." This concise summation of our plight once more evoked the roars of merriment no doubt engendered by visions of well-whipped girl. There was much back-slapping and no doubt some calculations of possible profit. We were invited to walk with them to the huts.
Girls can do anything they set their heart on. After the first few stumbles, Diana and I made pretty good time. It was a case of rhythm and coordination. Between us we had three feet and two hands. Apart from chafed ankles they got us to the huts in good order, there we were thrust within a small pen, obviously a temporary and easily moved and probably designed for two or three goats. We were told to behave but a twelve year old urchin was left on guard in case we decided to break free from our prison, an improbable act considering our condition. Before we were left along we asked how it was known we belonged to Abu Hakim. The answer we got was a shrug and a wave of a careless hand. "All things known in desert. We travel. We talk." There was lewd chuckle. "Where ever you go there is talk of Hakim, the Ruler, he get you for sure. No one take you to consul. We scared of consul. We take you to Abu Hakim-is much best."
Alone, Diana and I looked at each other in dismay. For sure we were not going to escape these people whoever they might be. We kicked our joined ankles in a sharing of despair. Our joined hands didn't bother us that much but the joined feet condemned us to a jerky and stumbling walk. Under the stern eye of the urchin we sat ourselves down and leaned back against the walls of our enclosure. Food and water were provided us by other wide-eyed urchins. We were evidently too valuable to starve.
After the food we were visited by the bobby pin expert who made an examination of a handcuff. "I make keys," he assured us earnestly. "Is best we have keys then handcuff very good."
It took our nomadic locksmith quite a few visits back and forth between us and his tools and it took quite a lot of time but eventually and with great triumph he insert a crude looking handcuff key into the cuff on Diana's wrist and the cuff obediently opened when he turned it. We looked at him with increased respect.
We spent the afternoon in deep dejection while the boy with the tools ran back and forth and apparently made several keys to ensure our handcuffs being available for a variety of uses. The watch was kept upon us through the night. Goodness knows, Diana and I could have easily broken through the flimsy fence. But what was the use? Instead, we went to sleep. It was the following morning that our real troubles started.
We had been fed and watered early. There was now an air of expectancy in the way they looked at us. No time was lost in the opening of the fence and we were led to once again perform our three-legged act. We did not have far to go to where the horses and riders were waiting. There were two of them and our tummies did a flip-flop in awful premonition. We were invited to stand still while the handcuffs were taken from our ankles and handed to a rider. This left us handcuffed together and more than a little puzzled. Next was a length of rawhide rope, rough, tough, miserable looking stuff on which a girl's fingers would make no impression. One end of it was tight knotted around the link in the handcuff on our wrists, the other end snaking away to be fastened to the saddle of one of the horses. It was easy to figure what lay ahead.
"We take you Abu Hakim," we were informed. "He know what to do with nice ladies. We get much cash. Is very good."
"But we can't possibly walk that far!" I looked at him puzzled. "It would take days and..."
"Long walk very good for nice ladies. Make very lean and slender for Abu Hakim."
"But we're not fat! Look if you'll just take us to the American Consul, he'll give you more money than the Hakim every would. Please?"
"No consul!" The negative was fiercely stated. "Nice American ladies proud now with handcuff and rope and fine, long walk."
We surveyed him in disgust. More hang-ups! These people lived on revenge but, admittedly, had little else. I was marshaling words for a more forceful presentation of our case when hands were waved in farewell salutes and the horses started. We forgot our attachment and were jerked almost off our feet when the rawhide sprang taut to cause steel to bite our wrists. Disgustedly and without choice we took our first steps back to slavery.
Things could have been worse. If we did not fight the tether, it did not hurt. Diana and I could walk side by side almost as if free. We got only an occasional glance and a big grin from our two jailers. Diana's whisper said the obvious, "We're not locked. If we could undo the knot around the handcuff, we could run."
"We could if they weren't watching. And I'll bet that knot isn't easy."
"We almost have to wait for night. Let's see what they do with us then."
The "nice American ladies" walked and talked and planned. We could not conceive less than a hundred miles between us and the palace. At the rate we were going that meant at least three days of trudging behind a horse. If we were not in athletic condition now, we certainly would be. We gazed up the dismal landscape with disfavor. It's principle disadvantage from our point of view was the flat vista of sand and scrub upon which a fleeing girl would be visible for a mile or more. We really had little hope of escape but dreamed and spoke of it to keep up our spirits as each step took us closer to a fate we didn't wish to think about.
"We'd best not be too gloomy about Hakim," Diana said soberly. "After all, it was him who sent me to be traded and if I'm rejected it's not really my fault-although it would give him an excuse to whip me if he's in a bad mood. I sort of figure the worse I'm-likely to get is a single punishment and then being sent back to the way I was, a palace slavegirl."
"We absolutely have to escape," I said fatuously.
Diana eyed me sympathetically. "You're scared about what he's going to do with you, I can tell. Don't let this rape thing prey on your mind. Hakim isn't any bigger down there than any other man of his size, though goodness knows that's big enough! It's silly to get all bent out of shape about a man piercing us. It's not that big a deal."
"So, okay, I get impaled on a weapon as big as a fence post. But I actually did try and escape, I'll be punished for sure. Will he be satisfied with just whipping me? I can imagine horrible things."
Diana reached over and patted my arm reassuringly. "That what a slavegirl's life is, sweetheart. We're forever wondering about this and that. And we don't have anything to say about it. Talking about rape, I don't see how these two bozos who are leading us on a string can possibly run the course without using us. Best not to fight."
Had we been in a happier mood we would have laughed and gotten a kick out of being joined wrist to wrist by the handcuff but now it was a constant reminder of what we were, asserting its authority should we slow down or trailing on the sand for us to trip over if we accelerated our pace. Sometimes, I think just to be mean, the two riders prompted their horses to a gentle trot and Diana and I were forced to run. They never over did it but certainly kept us aware of being under control. Night brought the trap we had not foreseen.
Diana and I should have known better. At night we got to sleep on the sand, still joined by one handcuff and still tethered by the same rope as in the day. It seemed remarkable that men would place that much faith on knots their fingers had contrived but so it was. Admittedly it took the two of us over an hour of tugging and biting to free our handcuff of the rawhide but eventually we succeeded and looked at each other in bright-eyed excitement. From where the two men slept male snore offended the desert night. We turned and ran.
In joy we ran a couple of hours until, panting and weary, we called a halt. There was no sign of pursuit so we decided to hide in the sparse scrub our strategy in the morning. We were aware of the terrible vulnerability of two naked girls, their wrists joined with steel, alone in the desert with far to go. We agreed to think only of the positive. We went to sleep.
I awoke to an awareness of something wrong. Within my limited vision I saw a pair of roughly shod male feet, following them up I discovered one of our escorts beaming down at me in seeming benevolence. His companion was there, too, holding the horses. "Nice American ladies have fine sleep. All ready for march?"
Unhappily we rose and were told to perform our feminine toilet beneath the keen enjoyment of male regard. We were given a little water and very little food. The handcuff was then taken from us and stored away for future use. Each man then took a slender length of hide and eyed us purposefully. We had no fight, what was the use! Passively, we turned to allow them to cross our wrists and bind them tight behind our backs. It was so familiar, so hopeless. No doubt to teach us a lesson they also tied our elbows and paid no heed to our complaints. We then stood before them, a pair of well-tressed naked girl expecting rape. But no rape came, and we never knew why. But most-likely they considered enough time had been wasted in our delivery. They joined us now in a diverting touch of humor to cause them much laughter as they went about their agreeable task of gathering our hair and, in some clever manner of their own, cording it tight and joining these bizarre hairdos with three or four feet of tether we could never break. Then they tied the main lead rope from the horse in a tight band around my naked waist. Our shameful trek began its second day.
It was tough going, between the pain of bound elbows and the tug of tethered scalps, this was vastly different from our almost carefree walk of yesterday. We would never know if we had been trapped into flight, but mostly-likely we had and thus provided our jailers with amusement during a boring ride. Our running away had given them an excuse for punishment, an excuse for which we now suffered dearly. Before the morning was half through Diana whispered urgently, "Look, darling, we can't endure this all day. If you're game to be raped, I sure am. Let's offer ourselves in return for getting rid of these bloody awful ropes and tied topknots. What do you say?"
We called out to bring our procession to a halt. Then, by shaming words and shameful gestures we made our intent clear. I suspect the two guards had planned the whole thing, knowing the trap we must inevitably fall into. Our offer was graciously accepted. We were laid, side by side, upon the sand to the limit of the tether in our hair, and then most competently ravished by as scrubby a pair of rogues as we were every-likely to meet. When they were done with us our march resumed. No knot had been untied, no part of us freed. It was the ancient story, we had bartered something we did not own. Our bodies were already the property of our captors. We had simply been used and no doubt would be used again. The furious anger we felt dried up the tears we might have shed.
We survived the day, slavegirls always survive, we are indestructible. Before dealing with the horses and making camp, our two jailers, under goodness know what compulsion, freed us totally. Diana and I were completely without bindings. We did not run, we did not even think of running. Instead, we sank down upon the sand, clutching at each other in unbelievable freedom and sobbing in wave after wave of emotions we could not name. But at the end of it we felt better and massaged at the chaff the rawhide had left within our wrists. Pathetically we implored the two men not to be so cruel to us again. We promised obedience and the use of our flesh. When darkness came we slept with my right wrists handcuffed to Diana's right ankle, a most ingenious coupling we could not defeat.
In the morning our flesh was used again. Diana and I didn't much care, it had become a fact of life. We even got some enjoyment from our captors obvious enjoyment of us. Our techniques met with approval. "You nice American ladies give good fuck. We not be unkind today."
Handcuffs clicked on Diana's left wrist and my right. Again we were tethered by bound hair which we could now feel with free hands but dared not search the knots. As though for emphasis the main tether to the horse was fastened to the center of the tether between our scalps but only after being brought down and under our cuffed wrists to make a constant admonition of behave yourselves or else! Hating ourselves we gave our captors complete submission.
It took us one or two hundred paces in the resumption of the march for Diana and I to realize that if we wanted to keep our hair we had best control the tether with our cuffed hands. We gathered it up and held it tightly against the horse's pull. But having done that, walked in reasonable comfort, not even speaking of escape. Escape had become a dirty word.
By night fall the country was changing, here and there were small trees. When we camped our captors took advantage of one of these to lay us on our backs, our feet out to each side of the trunk, and there our ankles were neatly handcuffed to allow us almost complete freedom to do anything but run away. I pulled on my right foot, the joining handcuff tugged on Diana's left. It was the same with her. Our guards got a good deal of amusement from this and our unhappy expressions. While they did the simple chores required, Diana and I pulled at each other and were inclined to share our captor's laughter at so ludicrous a tethering. From their point of view it was perfect, we would lay down to sleep comfortably and we would not get free. We were beautifully available for any carnal intent they might have and were all together a pair of well foxed girls.
"This is for the birds," Diana ejaculated, half laughing. "Do you realize, darling, we have to sleep on our backs, we can't turn over."
We slept on our backs. The following day we reached the palace of Abu Hakim.
A mile distant there was a hollow and in that hollow trees. Diana and I were neatly disposed of by placing our backs against a trunk and now cuffing our wrists in the manner in which our ankles had been cuffed the night before. The slender tree was a perfect guard between our tethered arms. If we tugged, we tugged only against ourselves and against each other. We soon agreed it would be best just to stand still and wait while our two guards negotiated our return to prison. With flashing smiles they mounted but, before leaving, told us to be use and not to run away. They laughed at this as though hearing it for the first time. Diana and I glowered. When the men had departed Diana and I dismally discussed the many possibilities by which Abu Hakim might punish us. We had no hope whatsoever of forgiveness.
With our backs against the tree and each of us looking in an opposite direction we-likened ourselves to prisoners of ancient Rome about to enter the arena and face the hungry lions. Diana and I tried humor but it just would not jell. About the only good thing on our horizons was the certainty that before punishment we would be bathed and fed. We sure did need a bath.
The sound of the approaching jeep reached us before the vehicle became visible. Since our tree was below the general level our view was limited but the sound of the approaching motor grew in volume as it topped the rise. There it stopped to allow its driver to get out and track the soil in search of tire treads or whatever else the dusty surface might disclose. Whoever it was, was still too far distant to recognize, but as we dismally agreed, even if it was a rescuer, it would mean that Abu Hakim was once more' cheated and we would enter a new captivity elsewhere. The two pairs of handcuffs on our wrists made us a neatly packaged pair of girls for immediate delivery. We would get no chance to either fight or run. Even supposing it was a rescuer, he would not be likely to have a handcuff key. So where would that leave Diana and I? We were as owned girls as a man might own.
I don't know exactly when I recognized Ryan Norton, perhaps it was when he swung athletically back into the jeep and started the motor. I couldn't really be sure and I couldn't believe it true but the jeep made steadily towards our tree and there was no doubt the driver had observed the white nakedness draped against its trunk. He stopped the jeep quite close and vaulted out of it with the same easy grace I had first recognized. It was the same Ryan I had always adored. He stood now, looking at my nude impotence with the amused grin I knew so well. His first remark was typical, "Haven't we met someplace?"
I tired to talk but between being hugged and kissed and tears I managed to blurt out only bare facts, taking every thing for granted. Ryan patted my bare shoulder and moved around to look at Diana. They must have looked at each other for a minute in silence before he said, with feeling, "My, my, grade A quality. Hakim selling you, young lady?"
Diana was far more reconciled to slavery than I, expecting nothing more beneficial than The Male, she shared only a small part of my excitement. But she was far more lucid and gave Ryan a brief synopsis of our plight, ending on the cynical note that if he desired to take possession he had best hurry up before the palace guard arrived to take us to their master.
Ryan shrugged as though it did not matter then busied himself with the key he always carried. A few moments later two flushed and ecstatic girls stood in total freedom and I used mine to fling myself upon his glorious maleness and embrace him in a way I had been unable to embrace anyone since Hakim kidnapped me. Ryan's smell was exciting my senses to a point where, had Diana not been present, I would have demanded he take me were we stood. When I paused for breath Diana did the strangest and sweetest thing I had ever seen her do. Falling to her knees, she took Ryan's hand, kissed it and said simply, "I belong to you, Master, I will not run away."
Diana's simple declaration affected me in a sudden understanding of how truly a slave Diana had become. Even from Ryan she did not expect freedom. He would take her and use her as all the others had done. I knew she was happy at our rescue but not half as happy as I. We piled into Ryan's jeep to enable me to get my next shock.
"But, darling, you're going the wrong way, you're heading for the palace!" I must have sounded frantic with fear.
"Sure we're going to the palace," he assured me. "I'm going to settle things with our black friend, don't worry, my presence here is known. Hakim is skating on thin ice these days and won't want an incident."
Ryan was marvelous. I thrilled at my ownership of him and of having him own me. Diana gazed upon my ecstasies with an indulgent eye as though hugging a secret she would not tell. If she was scared of Hakim she showed no sign. I think some of Ryan's strength flowed into her as it did to me.
When we reached our destination Ryan surprised me once again by linking me to Diana, wrist to wrist. It was a small and amusing bond which would bother neither of us, but it was still a bond and therefore held significance. Boldly, we marched towards the entrance and the guard, a large handsome man escorting a pair of trembling, naked and handcuffed young women, one of which must have looked half scared to death.
My admiration for my master knew no bounds. Ryan Norton had what is best described as a "presence." People instantly knew he was someone who matter. We cut an easy path to where a black dictator was about to get the surprise of his life. I had to hand it to Abu Hakim, he took it in stride. He shook Ryan warmly by the hand, after all they were old business associates. He also kissed the free hand of each of us captive girls, his eyes appraising and approving the four breasts so recently his own property.
"I was expecting you," he told us simply. "Not you, Mr. Norton, but these two young women. A pair of rogues were in her a few minutes ago seeking to sell them back to me, their owner. After I learned the whereabouts of these two charming maidens, I consigned this refuse of the desert to the gallows. By now they will be safely and well and truly hung. Allow me to send for coffee."
I felt sorry for our escort but the coffee was miraculous. Coffee is probably the most potent symbol of our civilization. Diana and I gulped ours eagerly and asked for more while Ryan and Hakim sipped and enjoyed this tableau. The apposing sides were now face to face with each other but the war had not yet started. Abu Hakim smiled on us all.
"I am indebted to you Mr. Norton for returning my property in such good order, you are a true and good friend." The old hypocrite! At that moment I could have almost loved his black majesty. But Ryan now took over.
"Seems to me I own title to one of them, or have you forgotten?"
Hakim was unperturbed. "Of course, of course, how silly of me! There are so many young women around my palace I do tend to forget. Had I possessed Miss Palmer somewhat longer I would have returned her to you far better trained than I fear she is now. I'm sure the servants can find the garments Miss Palmer was wearing when she first became our guest. I noticed you have the young ladies joined. If you will be good enough to separate them, I will send Diana to Chouala to be whipped."
"She has misbehaved in some fashion?" Ryan's tone was bland.
"Yes, I sent her on a mission. She failed me badly and disgracefully. Had she carried it out successfully, well ... never mind! When she has been punished, she will be reinstated as before."
Diana and I gazed at each other dolefully. But she shrugged in resignation and extended her cuffed hand toward Ryan for release. Outraged, I dragged it back, and declared, "Ryan, you mustn't! We have to take her with us, you absolutely must! We can't leave her here to be whipped and tortured." I stopped, breathless, realizing I had dropped something of a bomb.
Ryan was still quietly sipping coffee while Abu Hakim proceeded to mow me down by turning to Diana to inquire softly, "Am I in the habit of whipping and torturing you, dear child?"
"No, Master, not since I was trained."
"And the whipping to which I have now sentenced you?"
"I failed in a mission, Sir. I deserve punishment."
It was another world out of space and time. We had gone far, far back into human history and were witnessing the power of a potentate and the helplessness of a slavegirl who would be ready for punishment if she deemed she must. Ryan finished his coffee and placed the cup beside him on the table. He sounded unconcerned."
"We seem overburdened with nobility," he suggested in an amused drawl. He looked directly at The Ruler. "Perhaps I might solve this small problem. I suggest, Sir, you allow me the privilege of purchasing the girt named Diana. I would value her as a slavegirl to the woman I intend to marry."
Oh, wow! Confusion reigned supreme. The Ruler raised a quizzical eyebrow. Diana clutched my hand and squeezed it tight. I gulped more coffee and burned my tongue.
"And what price would you suggest, Mr. Norton?" Hakim inquired softly. ' 'As you can see, she is of a superlative quality beyond rubies."
"I would prefer you named the figure, Sir. I trust your judgment."
I could have hugged Ryan to bits. But Abu Hakim was not slouch when it came to squeezing the last ounce of advantage from a situation. He needed money like a hole in the head, and he needed Diana about as much as any man with a few hundred slaves and wives needs another girl. Goodwill was so thick in the room, it seem revenge would be the only hurdle. I listened breathlessly and clutched back at Diana's grip.
Abu Hakim took the stage. There was no other way of describing it. He seemed actually to swell in a manner to dwarf us all. His words took on power and portent. "How easy it would be for us to bicker, Mr. Norton. You could drop subtle hints about your State Department and foreign aid and I could retaliate by saying your State Department is impotent in Bottsvelt and to state my belief that foreign aid would continue even though I had all three of you executed within the hour." He beamed on us with deep love. "But such quibbling does us no justice. We are men of stature, you and I, Mr. Norton. As recognition of an old friendship and mutual profit, please allow me to make you a gift of the young woman known as Diana, the one presently so prettily handcuffed to your future wife.
"And now some more coffee..."
I sat breathless and overwhelmed. How easy it was to see how Hakim had carved his pathway to the top, there was nothing small about this man across the desk from us and his coffee was superb. I longed to hug him. I longed to hug everyone but Diana and I were still attached. As though by mutual, unspoken agreement, she and I clasped each other in a fervent hug, after which she stood erect to say to the beaming Ruler, "Thank you, Master, you have given me back my life."
7 Jealous Slave
Diana is so sensible, she puts me to shame. At the hotel, waiting for a flight back to the good old USA and still a bit stunned by The Ruler's magnanimity, we sat and sort of caught up on ourselves. Neither Diana nor I were disposed to argue about anything my master desired. Ryan told us, without apology, to strip ourselves naked and wear the handcuffs he regarded as spoils of war. We threw our clothes aside in gay abandon and held out our wrists. The hotel suit had a bar and it was so good to once again serve my master his cocktail on my knees.
Ryan told how he had traced me from here to there across the desert always finding me already gone. He expressed the opinion that Abu Hakim was a wily old fox whose gracious hospitality might be of short duration. It behooved us to go home. It was them that Diana started to be sensible.
Diana knelt besides be, not to serve a drink, but in natural homage to a man she insisted on calling "Master." I knew she was getting something off her mind, something bothersome, so I went back to my chair and tinkled my handcuffs while I sipped. There was always a beautiful simplicity about anything Diana did or said.
"What are you going to do about me, Master?"
She was a new experience of Ryan but one he was going to explore. I knew he sensed something below the service but his voice was casual, "Take you home to the US, of course, what else?"
"Do you intend to set me free?"
"You're free now, young lady, what's on your mind?"
I felt sorry for the poor darling, whatever she had to say was obviously not easy. She came out with it in direct and simple words. "I have been the prisoner of Abu Hakim for two years, Master. I was broken and I was trained. When that time was over I became a palace slavegirl." She paused and shifted awkwardly. "I found myself living a strange life of wealth and privilege on one hand and the pains and punishments of a prisoner on the other. As my punishments grew less I valued the palace more and more. That was my condition when I first met Jill."
"You're trying to tell me something, sweetheart, don't be embarrassed." I saw Diana brace herself, she looked up with calm and steady eyes.
"When you took me back to Hakim who was my Master and when we sat drinking coffee in his office it was in my mind to accept the whipping he decreed and to tell you all I preferred to remain Hakim's girl slave in his palace rather than to return to the mediocrity of my life in the USA. But with all the good will and affection showered upon me, I felt a frightful bitch at the mere thought of rejecting freedom that I couldn't do it, I couldn't say a word. I sort of drifted with the tide." Diana looked distressed. "Forgive me for feeling I have to say this, but you should know."
Ryan looked judge-like. "Had you stayed you would, about now, be getting the whipping of your life."
Diana motioned helplessly with handcuffed hands. "It would not have been the first time. Abu Hakim has had me whipped often. But it might have been months before I was whipped again."
"Are you telling Jill and I you want us to send you back to Hakim?" It was as though Ryan saw reason in the wish.
Diana's voice became urgent. Kneeling there before the master she possessed a tremendous audio and visual appeal. "I have no family. Before I was kidnapped I got up every morning and went to work and at five went home and went to bed. On weekends I would do the washing and clean the apartment. There were boyfriends, of course, and most of them managed to insert themselves within my sheath. None were even fractionally as potent or as skilled as Abu Hakim or those others into who's possession I have fallen. I wasn't going anywhere."
"You hadn't met the right guy."
' "There are no right guys for us nine to five girls. I watched my friends get married and did not want what I beheld in their changed lives. Am I crazy or ungrateful in preferring Hakim's palace to suburban and dirty dippers?"
The three of us looked at each other and suddenly laughed in understanding. I knew what Diana was talking about but I was lucky. I'd gone up the ladder to make it worth while. Ryan was intelligent enough to guess. As usual he was amused. "You ridiculous child, you don't really want me to send you back to Hakim, don't tell me that. You've still got something on your mind. If you don't come out with it, I'll take a whip to you myself."
"Yes, I know I shouldn't go back to the palace," Diana agreed slowly. "It destroys everything I was brought up to believe in. But I don't want to go back to the nine to five deal. We will you allow Jill to keep me as her personal slave?"
Wow! I was breathless. Instantly my mind revolved about where to put Diana in the apartment. But Ryan was way ahead of me. "I have made arrangement to take possession of a sizable house instead of living in the modest apartment Jill and I had used." It was as though he were thinking aloud and seeing visions we could not see. "I've had changes made in this building by which a slave would be well housed." He raised a finger to the kneeling girl. "But you speak of slavery and that is what it would be. There are all the bars, the cages, the accouterments of slavery intended for the slave I love. If you were in that house they would be used on you. I won't accept you into slavery, you must ask Jill. I'm afraid she will say yes."
"Of course, I'll say yes, what's wrong with that," I demanded in the blind acceptance of a great gift. "Of course, I want you Diana. Oh, Master, these things you've just said ... it's all so wonderful."
"Sweetheart, you really want a slavegirl cluttering up our lives?"
"Yes, I want Diana. Please, Master, let me have her?"
Ryan laughed at my eagerness. I realized I sounded like a little girl but I was go damned happy and in these past few days had come to love the slavegirl who now knelt nakedly before the man I worshiped.
"She's your, Jill, my pet. But if we get her, we'll keep her. You realize she's a beauty. What if I fall in love with her?"
"If you fall in love with her I'll put her in a dungeon or a cage or whatever this new house has for such a purpose," I said vehemently and actually believed every word.
"Supposing I fall in love with him." Diana's inquire was half amused.
"I told you, you'll get yourself locked in a cell."
Once more the three of us had reached accord and at the same time shared a chuckle at what me now beheld. It would be the strangest menage a trois any two girls had every entered. But once more Diana surfaced with Bottsvelt logic. "I don't want to be privileged. I want to be punished when I deserve to be punished. The rest of the time I will serve and make you happy." Diana's eyes roved back and forth between Ryan and myself but rested finally on Ryan. "Master, you and I must make a pact right now never to fall in love. If you use me, it will be because I have a beautiful body and you will use it with Jill's permission."
"It's a deal, sweetheart. You'll have to educate your mistress in the frailties of slavegirls. I'm not sure she believes in them." He leaned forward to rumble the lovely hair of the kneeling girl. "Go fix me a drink."
I didn't feel a bit jealous ... not really!
The lovely house Ryan factiously referred to as "the prison" was a really honest to goodness thrill. Compared to our old, beloved apartment, it was palatial, not in any flashy sense but in immensity. And certainly in beauty, in location, and certainly in seclusion, which some houses contrive even in the middle of a big city. There was enough ground around it and enough trees to spark vagrant fancies. I was ecstatic but Diana was a trifle awed. It did not reek of dungeons or prison bars but both of us were sure they were there. We had the happiest of house warmings with just the three of us. Diana and I, for a change, leg-ironed instead of handcuffed. We got a little tipsy and kidded the poor girl about her duties in keeping the "prison" shinned and polished. For obviously reasons there would be no servants. I did suggest sending for Chouala but my master said we had imposed upon Hakim enough and should not push our luck.
Whenever Diana and I were alone we spend our time in disbelieving reminiscing of the desert and Wesuto and all the men and women who had bound our hands or whipped our skin. Again and again we relived that hopeful two or three hours in the jeep when we were certain freedom was near. I even managed a bit of a laugh over that time I had sat upon the column with my feet so far apart. It seems that in retrospect most things become amusing.
Our master refused to give us the grand tour of the new hour. He, laughingly, told us we would be all too well acquainted with its many attractions without rushing it, we would become familiar with everything which lay in wait for us but only in the context of punishment or the dire need of keeping us closely imprisoned. We didn't much care but the three of us face the first night in our new home with some embarrassment. Not so far as Ryan and I were concerned, we knew what we were going to do! But this was our first disposition of a girl who was not so much "our" slave as she was "my" slave. This suited me fine. I didn't want Ryan fooling around with her too much. But how could I possibly be mean to a girl I loved and who loved me. After dinner We had drinks and talked and talked until Diana laughingly told me I would have to make up my mind as to how she would spend her night. We had guest rooms in abundance. But did slavegirls sleep in bedrooms? I knew Ryan was enjoying my embarrassment. I comprised on one of the nicer guest rooms and took my slavegirl there alone with some assorted lengths of rope. This was to be a new dimension in our relationship.
We had been naked all evening so there was no problem there. I pulled back the coverlet invitingly then fingered a length of cord with some misgiving. Never in my long experience with slavery had I bound a girl. Diana helped by turning her back and crossing her wrists behind then looking mischievously over one shoulder. "There you are, Mistress, what more could you ask?"
I tied the slender wrists. Any one who had been bound as much as I would have to be a dummy not to make a fair job of it. I found my heart pounding in glee at this possession of a beautiful woman who I loved. Until, that is, Diana said, "Ouch. Not so tight, Mistress, if you're going to keep me tied all night."
Her exclamation was actually one of approval and told me I was on the right track. I loosened nothing and knotted the cords severely where she could not reach. Since Diana would be in a position where she could view her bound ankles, I took much care to make sure the succession of loops were attractively close and tight. I knew about how tight to make them by the indentations in her skin. When I had her safely helpless she said a most demure, "Thank you, Mistress," and
I helped her wiggle her nakedness between the sheets. I kissed her good night, feeling guilty over being so mean. But when I was half way to the door her voice mocked me.
"I can get out of bed and hop around, you know. Supposing I got out of bed and found scissors or a knife?" Diana was laughing at me.
Fortunately there was more rope, I used it to make a couple of circles around her neck which I tied so they could not tighten more. I slipped a long length around and through a bedpost but took its terminal and knotted it beyond where Diana could either see or reach. I felt pleased with myself. This time my slavegirl allowed me to go to my master who, if he was only half as impatient as I, would be about ready to explode. It was a sacred moment and Ryan and I treated it as such.
In the morning I went to free my slave but found upon her bed only some lengths of rope and a brief note: "My hands could reach my feet so I untied them. Then I could find were you had knotted the tether to my neck. I untied that, too. Then I went downstairs and found a knife with which I cut the cord around my wrists. I'm terribly sorry, darling, I expect I should be punished."
Ryan was delighted by Diana's escape act. I knew he regarded me as incapable of keeping a slave girl properly in her place. He believed, too, that I would tire of the responsibility and wish to be rid of this girl I loved. I also knew he was seeing what Diana and I did now as a glorious experiment between a couple of girls, each beneath the iron hand of his own authority. Diana might be mine but I knew she was his, too, and would obey him more readily than she might obey me. I glimpsed complexities. From the bathroom, bathed and beautiful, Diana shyly came to help me dress and to ask what punishment I thought proper for her disrespect.
Ryan is a positive genius for such things. He told us we would not overdo anything but would maintain a happy balance in the authorities by which we lived. He endeared himself to us both by taking us shopping and spending so much money on us I realized more than ever the power and position of this man with whom I had lived in a modest apartment as though he were no more than the manager of a bank. On our first arrival at Bottsvelt long ago I had seen him as a "force" and felt the same thing about him now. Ryan did everything with that quiet assurance which only the very rich can use.
When Diana and I were left alone, which was often, we explored the forbidden places of the house and were particularly intrigued by a small, neat barred cell which presented the atmosphere of waiting for an occupant. It was a cell to be lived in-this is if a girl had to be a prisoner. We laughed about it and filed it in our memories. But most of our time was spent in outrageous leisure, around the town and in the cocktail bars of the best hotels away from torn cats on the make. We wanted no men. For Diana I made up this deficiency in contact with the male by loving her constantly as girls can do, but would not allow her to love me in return. I belonged to Ryan, every bit of me!
I laid down the law about that delicious standing in a corner on arrival home. Whether Diana wanted to or not, she was compelled to obey. Sometimes when the darling girl was thus cornered, I would hear Ryan's key in the lock and myself run like crazy to a corner of my own. Thus he would find two naked female backs and bottoms as his only greeting. But as he solemnly confided, did not feel cheated in the least. I was just so damned happy....!
When Ryan and I spoke of marriage it was something in our future. I was still subject to his every whim and there was no moment of our time together in the house when I was not in some way controlled, even though it might be no more than handcuffs on my wrists or leg irons on my ankles. Sometimes he discarded them altogether and bound me with straps and cords and webbing in a hundred ways, but did this only Diana's absence. She would have to be bound or imprisoned in some other part of the house before he would subject me to the same slaveries I used on her. It worked perfectly because Ryan and I were alone together throughout the night, in late evening or early morning. Sometimes he would stay at home for a day and tell me to dispose of my slavegirl any way I would like so long as she was out of sight. It was then he imposed on me the more erotic pains and penalties of slavery. I adored him outrageously. Diana guessed what was going on but never said a word.
Diana was the perfect slavegirl who knew her place and never said a word that strayed outside her limits. In those days when it was considered our house needed cleaning, I would leave in the morning along with Ryan when he went to the office, but first fasten Diana with leg irons on her ankles and handcuffs on her wrists. They were sort of an old story and could be called mundane. But it was hard to think of restraints which would allow her the freedom she required to do her work. It was understood that, when we came home in the evening, if we found her labors inadequate or shoddy, her bottom would be caned. Diana agreed to this with a small, shy smile and made quite certain her bottom remained virgin. At the end of the first thirty days we had not punished her even once.
Learning my lesson from that first disaster binding of a girl, I developed techniques with rope and cord, not wanting to fall into the convenient rut of handcuffing her on every pretext. I now contrived to repeat that binding of the first night by securing her bound ankles to the foot of the bed where her groping fingers could not reach.
After my first few fumbles Diana never got herself loose from anything I tied or anyway I tied her. She began to view me with respect. I also knew I would have to punish my darling but that was not so easy. Ryan had to whip me long before I got around to having to whip Diana. Somehow she learned of this and got around to use her knowledge to slyly point out how far too kind I was to be the owner of a slave. She insisted slaves have to be punished from time to time or they got out of hand, like now when she was telling me what to do. Since we were both always naked in the house I could not hide my whip marks from her interested eye and she badgered me until I confessed the sin by which I earned them and the pain I felt while they were applied. It was all a beautiful and wonderful miracle but underlining it always was the threat of whip and cord and chain. It was delicious!
When my master punished me he had one unfailing recourse. It was simply to fasten me in whatever embarrassing position he devised and then threaten to bring Diana to view my shame. I think he did this to spark my pleadings and my frantic strivings against whatever of his fastenings held me helpless. But he never carried out his threats and I loved and respected him the more. When I envisioned Ryan marrying me, I wondered if a wife would lend herself to punishments so willingly.
I adored the little cell and locked my slavegirl in it often all night. To keep her amused, I would use my new-found skill to bind her wrists behind her back and dare her to get loose. She never did but was always bright and cheerful in the morning when I came to set her free. The three of us always ate together unless some punishment of my slavegirl or myself stood in the way. When this happened, the unpunished girl could scarcely contain her curiosity to discover the fate of her beloved.
We exchanged this information breathlessly and in full detail but never laughed over each other's sufferings. Thus it was that when I was obliged to spend the entire night in the pillory, Diana spent the day in town, allowing me to sleep. This freedom to get out and around keep us finely attuned to those days when we could not.
Sometimes it was me who ended up in the little cell. I did not enjoy it the way my slavegirl did. If I was locked in there for the night, it was because my master was tired and needed sleep. If I was locked within during the day it was because I had given offense and must be punished. At such times Diana was given free run of the city and would not stand and mourn with me through the bars. I did my mourning all alone.
To keep me properly tormented day or night, my master played the same trick on my as I did on Diana. He bound my hands behind my back and left me to get free as best I could. I never did get free and it was understood I probably never would, but the day long struggle filled the time and kept me from feeling too ill-used. His other trick, and this he used only as an extreme measure, was to put me in the cell, thrust my hands outside beyond the bars, and then click the handcuffs tight upon my wrists. Since there was a bar between, I could not withdraw but must stand there throughout the day or night, without hurting, but in an infuriating immobility. At other times he played the same trick but with me sitting on the floor but with my ankles sitting out beyond the bars. This last one was bad because he tickled the soles of my feet and I am ticklish.
I often asked Diana about her feelings. I could not imagine how she could be happy as our prisoner even though a much loved captive. But as usual she was sensible and pointed out the pleasure she derived when we went downtown together, which was often, the joy she found in me and the pleasure she derived from association with Ryan, even though he took no part in her captivity. She insisted that what she had with us was so much better than the 9 to 5 she had previously known that there was no way that she wanted to go back or would go back. She assured me that if I ever set her free and thrust her outside our door, she would sit on our doorstep until I took her back in and punished her adequately for such disobedience. The darling girl was an endless miracle.
The morning came when, after I had disposed of Diana, Ryan ordered, "Hold out your hands, sweetheart." It was such an ordinary request I thought little of it, preoccupied, I did as I was told and watched my wrists firmly handcuffed in the same way I'd watched them a hundred times before. If I'd noticed that Ryan, too, seemed preoccupied and absent minded, well, so what! He was a busy man, he had all sorts of deals under way and I knew a man never made millions without worry.
"How about the little cell, sweetheart." Ryan called me sweetheart half the time and I was well acquainted with the little cell. Once more I did not even raise an eyebrow but followed him downstairs. When he unlocked the cell door and held it open for me, I did not even shrug in resignation but stepped unconcerned behind the bars, chuckling inwardly at memories of screen and stage in which the female lead did this same thing without doing a cut and run. I'd always wondered why they didn't turn and run, it seemed so inconsistent to walk so blithely into prison but they always did. And here I was doing the same thing. Had I thought about it, I'm sure I would have simply said that I was in love with Ryan and that was all there was to it.
I was no more than curious when, having locked the cell door on me, he produced a bit of chain and a padlock. He fixed these tight upon the bars as an additional precaution. I was standing there inside my little prison, playing with my handcuffs and waiting to be told why I was there and what would happen to me. What I heard was a shock.
"Jill, I have a deal under way. It could take a week or a month and I can't take you with me. I want to find out how a month's imprisonment affects you. You can tell me when I get back."
"But, darling..."
"Yes, I know, Jill, my pet, but you'll be well looked after..."
I still had my feet so I almost leapt to the bars which I clutched urgently in the way prisoner's do to demand, "Who's going to look after me, Master? I don't want to be locked up inside this cage for thirty days, I absolutely don't. You're just trying to scare me, aren't you?"
Ryan pulled one of my cuffed hands out between two bars and kissed it gently. "Diana will look after you. I'll set her free from where you've got her chained right now but I'll make her wear leg irons just so she won't get ideas. She'll look after you and the house very well and you'll probably enjoy yourselves."
"We won't, you know we won't! Not with these bars between us. I won't be able to get out and she won't be able to get in. Oh, Master, please don't be mean."
Ryan kissed my hand some more and rubbed it against his cheek until I begin to feel silly and maybe I was making too much fuss. Maybe it was an interesting experiment and when it was over and done with I might find instructive to look back upon.
"But, Master, it's not right ... I mean, it shouldn't be me that locked in this cell with Diana running around free outside. It ought to be the other way around. I'm going to loose face."
"Add a touch of piquancy to both your lives, sweetheart. Stop beefing."
I stopped beefing while my hand being practically eaten outside the bars. Being told to stop beefing was always a signal to shut up and be quiet if I didn't want punishment.
"But, Ryan, darling, are you sure it's safe to leave two girls along in this house, me completely helpless and Diana sort of half and half. I mean ... burglars and kidnappers and such?"
"Bars on all the windows, locks on all the doors. Food and drink for a lifetime." Ryan intoned laughingly. "You don't have a thing to worry about, especially with Diana looking after you, she's in love with you. You're her mistress."
"I'm nobodies mistress handcuffed and locked in a cell."
"Didn't I say something about stopping your beefing?" My master's tone was suddenly ominous.
"Oh, all right then, I'll shut up. If I'm stir-crazy when you get back, it will be your own fault." My voice was close to breaking. Its a rotten thing looking through bars at a retreating back. Previously I'd have a warm feeling about the little cell but now, standing in it alone, I felt ill-used and tearful and terribly naked. If Ryan allowed Diana to wear clothes, I'd die of jealousy. I rattled my handcuffs irritably. I sat on the little cot and wondered what on earth I'd do with myself locked in this small space for thirty days.
Diana was inclined to giggle. I suppose from her point of view there were elements of humor I had not glimpsed. That I was obvious furious with the whole deal no doubt added to her mirth. "Stop cackling like a chicken," I ordered sharply. "Get me out of here somehow. I'm sure you must be able to find a key or something."
"Something won't unlock anything, Mistress." More giggles. "Our Master gathered up all the keys and took them with him."
"Get a hack saw or something and cut the bars."
Darling Diana kicked her leg irons. "What, like this!" she demanded with complete reason. "I'd have to go to a hardware store to buy tools and I don't know anything about tools anyway."
I was a shamed to say I wept. It was a little scary and wickedly humiliating but I came to the bars to be comforted. Bits of me were kissed and bits of me were patted with the same inadequacy I would have run into in trying to do the same for her. I would never keep a canary in a cage again. When my silly tears were dealt with, Diana held up her hands for my inspection. She was handcuffed the same as me.
"Your Master put these on me last thing," she informed. "He said he didn't want you to be jealous and I could do the house work with them on as well as with them off. That isn't true but I didn't complain. We're a couple of girls in a fine old jackpot when you figure it out."
"What about bobby pins or that trick the Arabs showed us?"
"Oh, sure, I've searched the whole damn place and the only ones we've got are the round ones that won't go in. We must have been out of our minds not to buy some. Oh, shit! We could use the phone to get things delivered," she said thoughtfully. "But his Royal Highness gathered up all the cash and either took it with him or locked it in the safe." She giggled some more. "I can't imagine a delivery boy accepting me as payment, the chains would scare him out of his wits." She kicked a fettered foot thoughtfully. "I think we're stuck, darling."
I was sure we were foxed, when Ryan does something, he does it right. Faced with the impossible, we surrendered to each other as sisters in distress and Diana came up with the American cure for all ills. She would go and make coffee.
While my slavegirl departed on this simple errant I, the Mistress, paced up and down my cell with bare feet and a libido beginning to adjust. Diana's presence just beyond the bars had done wonders, I felt loved again. And with the love came the familiar heat. I no longer hated the handcuffs, they were once more pretty bracelets on my wrists. The flame between my legs declared itself and made me wonder how two chained girls could do anything about it when separated by prison bars. Every time I had an inspiration, I realized a chain or a bar would either wholly or partly deny. But maybe Diana would think of something...! I realized how totally dependent on my slavegirl I now was.
I thought of Ryan. He would be thinking of me, too, and chuckling over my impotence. But I had to thrust his image from my mind or my fire would get out of control and I would have to use a finger, something I try hard to never do, a manually induced orgasm seems a terrible waste. But if I got through these thirty days without touching myself, I'd be lucky.
Coffee cheered us up the way it always does. A girl holds a cup and talks and arrives at solutions which turn out not all that good when the coffee's cold. But anyway, it's nice while it lasts and Diana and I became almost cozy with her outside the bars and me inside. She brought down a chair and a TV table but I had to stand or kneel against the bars to be properly close.
"Think of it, darling Mistress, thirty days without punishments!" Diana made her exclamation artificially ecstatic.
I retorted with various sounds of disgust. "I'll willingly take a hundred lashes to get out of here," I affirmed vehemently, really believing I meant every word.
"I've found a screw driver, some bits of wire, and a pair of pliers," Diana announced triumphantly. "They were in a draw and I brought a knife along as well. It won't do any harm to try."
It passed time. Time would be my enemy from now on. We prodded and turned and twisted anything we could insert inside the big lock on the door and the smaller padlock on the chain. Both laughed at our efforts and after a while we both tired of hurting our fingers. No chained maiden in the darkest of dungeons was ever more secure than I! The trouble with all these attempts was their failure infuriated me further and brought tears I could not quench. Diana had thoughtfully brought one of Ryan's big, square white handkerchief which I used with an air of defiance and with satisfaction. I asked for books but my wicked master had locked the library and his office, there was nothing to read. Once more I could hear him chuckling.
When night came I told my ex-slave she might just as well be comfortable even if I could not. Diana wanted to bring some blankets down so she could sleep by the cell down but I ordered her upstairs to her bedroom before nakedly disposing myself on a hard little mattress and counting sheep. I'd been sleeping naked for a long while but never got used to the idea which seemed always just a little bit naughty and had a tendency to heat the junction of my thighs. After the last cheep had jumped its fence I slept soundly until morning.
There's not much to tell about being in prison. The bars laugh at you and tell of the vivid, colorful life out there where you cannot go. Being locked in a cage is a subtraction from existence. If Diana had been locked in with me things would be much different but she was outside the bars and our attempts at fleshly intimacy were so unsatisfactory we decided not to bother. Diana made us nice things to eat and each day we religiously did physical exercises with sit-ups and all those uncomfortable contortions which are suppose to keep a girl in top shape. I think we did them mainly for something to do rather than from any conviction of benefit. I found it hard to believe but eventually the time came when I had been locked in the little cell for seven whole days. My first week was behind me, I had only three more to go. It is amazing how a girl can reason herself into tolerance. But I suspected that if Diana had not been with me everyday, even though separated by the iron, I would have gone stark, raving nuts. It would have been solitary confinement.
Disaster struck Diana and I on the eighth day.
Breakfast was late. When I heard footsteps I went eagerly to the bars to be confronted not by Diana but by Janice Webb. My heart did a flip-flop while I stared in disbelief.
"Hello, darling," she greeted me with bright assurance. "I had a locksmith get me into the back door and make me a key. You are now my prisoner."
I just stood there, clutching the bars. Not that I could do much else and all I could think to say was, "Ryan will kill you for this!"
"If you and I are still here in three weeks, darling." Her tone was sarcastic. "I keep in touch with events, we have mutual friends. I found out about him buying this house at the same time I discovered he was away on this business trip. I figured there would be no problem having a look. I expected to find you kicking around somewhere but who is that delightful creature upstairs? Oh, by the way, I attached her to a ring in the wall, no sense having her clutter up our cozy little chat."
I was engulfed in the bitterness of defeat, knowing that anything I said or did would just be sound and motion. My master had thoughtless deduced me to a zero for this girl's amusement. Just the same I voiced my protest. "You have no right to do whatever it is you're going to do, Janice. You've no right to interfere with Ryan's life or mine. You don't even have keys to this cell, it won't do you much good looking at me through the bars."
"Want to bet?"
"Well, do you have keys, I'll bet you haven't."
"Patience, darling, my locksmith friend is out in the car, I'll go and get him."
It was a rotten few minutes while I waited. Whatever happened it was not going to be good. I longed for Ryan to appear and teach the silly bitch a lesson. But instead of that Janice was accompanied by an embarrassed male from whom I longed to hide my nakedness. About all I could do was lay on my belly and breasts on the mattress and watch proceedings. I don't know what magic locksmiths have but this one made short work of both the padlock and the cell door. He had a whole bunch of keys and funny shaped bits of metal. From his collection he was actually able to present keys to the padlock and cell door into Janice Webb's eager little hand. He paid not the slightest attention to my assurances that he would go to prison for what he was doing. He and Janice departed for the car. The short chain and padlock dangled inoffensively, holding nothing. But when I tried the door of my little cell, it was as solid as ever, firmly locked. I hated to admit it but Janice was right, I was her prisoner!
Janice took her time. She was probably upstairs, making Diana unhappy. I knew she would gloat over us, having us in her power, the possession of girl who had to do anything she commanded and would get whipped anyway. I never longed to get out of that cell as badly as now!
When she finally showed she was in no hurry, savoring every act and word to the full! Unable to bear silence, I demanded, "Well, are you going to let me out?"
"For a price, darling, nothing is going to be free."
"How much?"
"Oh, come, Jill dear, you know I don't accept money. What I want is you. And you know what I'm going to do to you, don't you."
"Whip me."
"You're so perceptive, darling, but first there is a little matter of restraint..."
"You're not going to get me any more helpless than I am! I retreated back into my cage where she could not reach. The act was instinctive.
"Good heavens, girl, I'm not going to kill you!" Janice laughed at my defense. "There's no use your resisting, darling. If you choose to be difficult, I'll bring your little friend down her and whip her until you agree to be a good girl. How's that?"
I groaned inwardly. It was so beautifully simple for Janice, neither Diana nor I could fight without getting the other punished. "All right," I said miserably. "What do I have to do?"
What I had to do was give her my hands and loose one of the cuffs on one wrist for a moment while I turned around and she locked both behind my back. It was elementary, something a girl had to expect. I was told to stay the way I was with my back to the bars while Janice reached through and between to lock leg irons on my ankles. I now had the course for sure. I could argue about nothing. I was given permission to turn and watch her open the door.
Poor Diana! When she saw the way Janice had me her face fell a mile. I saw her fist clench and pull against the ring which held her to the wall. I've never bothered to tell her about Janice, there seemed to be no need, not that it would have changed a thing. Bluntly, I explained, "I'm sorry, Diana, this girl's the family jinx and she's got us where she wants us."
"She stole my man," Janice explained more simply. "I punish the poor darling whenever I get a chance. One day she'll be tired of being punished and move out. That's the time I move back in. My problem right now is what to do with you."
"Let me loose and send me on my way, I don't like being a prisoner, either." Diana was doing her best.
"Oh, come, I wasn't born yesterday-You're name's Diana, eh? Well get this, Diana, my little pretty, if one is good, two is better. If I enjoy whipping darling Jill, think how much pleasure I'll derive from whipping you, too."
"Is that all you think about, whipping girls?"
"Oh, no, Diana, but the whip is so nice to talk about. It has a beautiful menace, don't you think? But there's all sorts of other things I'm going to do to both of you. Let your minds run a bit, you'll be able to come up with ideas."
"I don't know what there is between you and Jill but if you keep me a prisoner like this, it's simply kidnapping. If it takes five years, I'll put you in prison."
Janice turned to me. "Spunky bit, isn't she? I'm sure she means what she says. Sometime you can explain the facts of life to her. And now, which of you shall I whip first?"
"You leave my Mistress alone ... don't you dare touch...! "
Diana bit her lip in confusion but Janice was sharp. "So that's the way of it, eh? Slavegirl to a slave. Well, I'll be damned, I didn't expect to unearth an treasure this rich. Oh, wow! What I'm going to do to you."
Diana and I exchanged glances of desolation. It was not so much that Janice carried an aura of menace, she was gaiety itself but her whip would hurt and so would the other things she would probably think up.
"Diana's never done you any harm, Janice," I said as reasonably as I could. "If you punish her, you're just being a bitch. I can understand your being mad at me but you shouldn't let it overlap onto an innocent girl. It's not fair to her."
"But, darling, you're so wrong. It is a slavegirl's duty to share her mistress' anguish. I wouldn't rob the sweet thing of a single stroke."
That about said it. There was no use arguing with Janice, not when she held all the cards. She had evidently done a complete tour for she now took us to one of the rooms that seems to hold a single purpose. It was furnished with a few ropes and pulleys and a whipping post and a strangely designed bench which, when a naked girl was strapped upon it, reared her rump up to heaven.
"You'll be first, darling," Janice patted my cheek lovingly. "I think the whipping post. That hands up in the air bit has been over done. That exquisite slavegirl of yours gets the bench."
For purposes of walking around, Janice had attached a chain between Diana's leg irons and her handcuffs to keep her hands at no greater level than her waist. It was evident Janice intended her to stand and watch my punishment. She would see her mistress and would know me fallible, sharing my shame. When it came time to fasten me, Janice sweetly inquired, "I'll have to take your handcuffs, darling, but your feet will stay leg-ironed. Are you going to fight?"
I knew she could subdue me and I knew she would take it out on Diana. Abjectly, I muttered, "I won't fight. Tell me what to do."
The whipping post was beautifully simple. It was stark and frightening and the strength of ten naked girls could not even make it quiver. On each side, at the level of my eye, there was a strap and buckle. When the handcuffs left my wrists I did not pause but positioned my hands within the leather loops and winched as Janice tugged them tight, so damned tight I realized how helpless I was going to be. When she had contrived the last notch into the last whole, she tucked the ends neatly in their loops and stood back to admire.
"My, my, Jill, aren't you glorious! So beautifully vulnerable and naked and nothing more than just your wrists!"
She'd described it well. Just my wrists! So simple, so innocent. I stood there with arms outstretch so I could look along the while columns of my own flesh to where they disappeared within the twice leathers by which I was held subject to her will. I wanted to scream in anger but that would come soon enough, with the pain. I looked at Diana's horrified stare and said, hopelessly, "I'm sorry, darling, I'm so damned sorry..."
Why do I tell of being whipped by Janice Webb! I'm not sure I knew except for it being very much a part of my story. Whippings can be described as all alike. But they are not all alike. Each licks at a girl's skin with its own particular venom. The first slash Janice gave me was across my shoulders. I had been expecting it far lower down so it caught me unawares to make me leap against the straps and utter a shocked yelp. I longed to embrace the whipping post but that was forbidden by the straps. They were wide straps and compelled my arms to remain fully extended and thus expose all my nakedness for the pleasure of a girl who might have but little mercy. I felt terribly frightened and alone.
"Tell me how that hurt, Jill dear." Janice wanted it all. She knew damned well how it hurt. There would also be a growing scarlet wound on my back as proof. While I was hesitating and trying to gather my thoughts against the pain, she delivered the second stroke of my punishment squarely across my twin cheeks and lapping both hips. It was a brutal blow against which I squealed and kicked my fettered feet in useless frustration, but I muttered shameful mouthing of humility in trying to tell of pain and anguish when all I wanted to was close my eyes and strain against the straps. I must have done fairly well for Janice accepted my humility and stroke number three wrapped around my waist only as part of what I might normally expect. But it was bad enough, a fiery scold to make me catch breath and then to scream. After that I screamed promptly after all of the fifteen strokes. I am sure I struggled and contorted to Janice's delight in an effort to withhold my scream but never quite succeeding. The whipping post allowed quite a bit of freedom, freedom to squirm and jerk and struggle, none of which did any good. Nothing helped until the final stroke and the ending of the blows.
"Do you feel you have been well whipped, Jill, darling?"
"Yes, I have been well whipped." My voice was a controlled monotone.
"Don't I have a title?"
"Yes, Mistress, I have been well whipped."
"And I'm sure you don't mind telling us your innermost emotions while the whipping was going one? I'm sure your lovely slavegirl would love to hear such a confession from you." Her tone was silken and velvet.
"I did my best with words, they didn't matter much, all Janice wanted was the shame and humiliation and I gave her enough of both to satisfy a sadist. I was trembling and bathed in sweat.
Janice kissed and fondled me as I stood there with arms outstretched and wrists tight strapped. If I had wanted to respond I could not have done much, but the ardor of her touch told me she was close to ordering me to service her. But she had work to do, or at least what she would see as a stern obligation. She must now whip Diana so she gave me girl slave her full attention.
"Are you going to be sensible, Diana, you saw how sensible your mistress was. I need the same from you. For a few moments your wrists will be unlocked and your hands quite free. Are you going to position yourself and let me strap you down?"
Any girl could be excused from a hesitant affirmative to such a question. Diana was searching for evasions when our new mistress snap. "If you don't instantly agree, I'll thrash your beloved Jill to a fare-thee-well and you can't either of you stop me. Well, what do you say?"
"I will do as you tell me." An agony of impotency hung heavy in those words. I saw my slavegirl's hands unlocked, the chain discarded, and her fettered feet grope for their position on the bench. Fitting her glorious contours to the bench, Diana reached to where her wrists were placed in the straps, one to each side. I watched the darling girl being cinched and buckled tight into a horrible position, hands and arms extended downward and forward, her waist unkindly cinched with a cruel strap, her knees hallows thrust forward to be secured by waiting clamps. And then the wicked strap exactly below the crease where her bottom joined her thighs, Janice tightened and tightened this again before pumping the lever which, like the jack of an automobile, lifted the pinioned bottom to extrude itself in utter innocent of waiting anguish. She was so erotically beautiful I longed to shed tears for us both.
8 Whipped Duo
I wanted to hide my eyes. I longed for a miracle to grab my slavegirl and me and take us far from the venom of this jealous woman. But Janice's star was in the ascendancy, she was riding high. Having strapped Diana into the wicked curvatures which were a punishment themselves, she went to the rack on the wall and pretended to deliberate upon the weapon she would use to inflict pain upon the helpless Diana. She returned to us with a heavy, supple length of strap which she kneaded with her fingers in pure sensory joy. I noticed unhappily she also retrained the single thong who's weals I now wore! Janice was tremendously female and joyfully frictioned herself against the strapped beauty on the bench, fondling and kissing those available portions of Diana which took her imagine and were not strapped out of sight. Janice was in the cat-bird seat and whatever pleasure she must now forgo could be easily achieved after the lashing of the luscious curves now awaiting for her whip. Miss Janice Webb now had the two of us for sure!
To anyone who has never been made helpless by bondage it must be difficult to understand the total compliance of a bound or strapped maiden to the demands of whatever circles her wrists, her ankles or her neck. In my case it was simple straps on my wrists. True, my feet were fettered but I could kick them to rattle the shackles and the chain but they were not immobilized, by hands and arms were. No matter what I said or did I would have to stand there to watch the whipping of my love. It would be like one of those nightmares in which you can see and hear everything but do nothing. I bit my bare arm as though to assure myself this was not a nightmare.
Diana was compelled to kiss the strap and the thong, and to tell her mistress most earnestly how grateful she was for the pain she was about to received. Janice was glorying in power and sensuality, and I suppose you couldn't blame her, she had two naked girl exactly as she desired. One had already screamed and the second was soon to start.
"This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will hurt me, Diana, my dear," she told the strapped nakedness upon the bench before she swung her arm in the first blow. Janice had chosen Diana's bottom for starters and it was the limber leather which cracked most horribly across the bare and tender spheres. But Diana was a veteran. She had never told me how many times she had been whipped but it had been many and of a diversity of intensity. She could not move, she could not flinch but she gasped and her head turned in revolt from one side to another. That was all!
Janice was like a gourmet with his favorite dish, partaking of it slowly and with relish. Slowly she massaged the mark across the stretched skin, watching the scarlet form, but stealing glances at Diana's head, which was her prisoner's only form of expression. Delicately, Janice moved to a fresh position and a fresh stance, and this time the strap impacted with an almost frightening splat across the girlish back. Unexpected Janice turned to me. "You can take her place if you want to, darling. Would you like to volunteer?"
It was a cunning question, designed to put both Diana and me on the spot. Diana would declaim her, "No, no, no!, " while I would see no decent reply save to agree. Happily I embraced nobility. "Yes, I'll take Diana's place. But only if you promise not to hurt her in any other way. Diana's innocent."
It appeared I had set something in motion no one could stop. Poor Diana looked at me and shook her head again and again in negation while Janice freed her from the bench, being careful to lock the handcuffs once more upon her wrists before freeing her feet. She chained the poor girl as she had been before to play the role of spectator while her mistress suffered on the bench. Forlornly, and giving Janice every reproachful glance I could, I draped my curves upon the wood still warm from Diana's flesh. The clamps bit behind my knees, the waist band cinched me down and the straps around my wrist were secure. To strap my ankles was an unneeded extra but Janice did it anyway. When she was through fastening me I could see why Diana could only move her head. Even that required an effort. Then came the lever, which thrust a pad hard into my pussy to raise and stretched my already whipped bottom to its required exposure. At this point I caught Diana's grief-stricken eyes and managed a pathetic smile. I wanted to tell the poor girl that Janice hadn't killed anyone yet but didn't want to push my luck. When the strap cracked wickedly across my curves I knew for sure I'd bitten off more than I could chew.
There is a strange comfort in being bound. I don't mean the erotic thrill that sometimes goes along with rope. I mean being divorced from decision, knowing that what is being done to you is impossible and beyond bearing but all you can do is scream. Whatever you are suffering will continue to happen regardless how you tug and surge against the straps. Straps are perfect for holding a girl while someone gives her what she knows she cannot possibly endure. The burn, the scorch, the scold, all urgently scream at you to move you bottom elsewhere, anywhere so long as it is out of range of the infliction. At times like this it is actually beneficial to be bound.
Again and again I caught sight of Diana's face but I was too busy hurting to send messages of love or reassurance. The fact was I had nothing to reassure her about. Janice was punishing me horribly and all I was feeling was the burning, burning, burning, and all I was seeing was my lovely curves turning purple and black. I wouldn't sit down for a month!
When Janice was through with me and unbuckled the straps, I tried to rise but nothing seemed worthwhile and I said to myself, "To hell with it," and relapsed back to the way I had been fastened. She arranged my arms to ready them for the handcuffs, it was as though she were handling a corpse, I just didn't care. I heard them do their click, click, click but could only do a mental "so what!" After she locked the leg irons on my ankles, she had to force me to stand erect and even had to give me a helping hand. A girl's bottom is a sort of hinge to all of her. It is close to being dead center and mine wasn't working all that good, it didn't want to do anything except hide away and die.
For the rest of the day Diana and I were locked away in one of the bedroom and the two of us settled ourselves in a hot tub, forgetting we had no hands with which to dry. But we stayed in the water a long, long time and when we were finished we spread towels on the bedroom rug and rolled back and forth on them until reasonably dry. Taking turns we held a towel behind our backs to enable the other to rub against it. It was almost fun. And the hot suds had got my bottom to where it was only a steady burn instead of a screaming scold. But our day was not yet done.
Later Janice performed an act of kindness, changing our hands from back to front. But I discovered it was so we wouldn't have to be fed. I was surprised she missed the opportunity to make us lap up our food from a plate on the floor. Anyway, we had a quite decent meal while Janice kept up a constant flood of conversation to which we suspiciously responded. We also had to listen to her graphic accounts of punishments still to come. Some were so terrible we had to hope she simply frightening us for fun. Poor Diana and I did a lot of looking back and forth across the table. I also thought about the chance to escape, but there weren't any. Every time I moved a chain bit at me and told me to be sensible. I couldn't even reach for the salt without knowing that I was a prisoner. We even had brandy in the lounge after Diana and I had been made to do the dishes. Oh, sure, a girl can do the dishes when she's handcuffed. If we had not also been leg-ironed we could have attempted an escape but Janice had us neatly under control, and in the lounge we administered to her needs and knelt before her like good little girls. I deliberately gulped down all the brandy I could contrive in my visits to the bar. I was pretty sure what was coming.
Janice had chosen my master's bedroom and I hated her for it. But, of course, it had all the special equipment she desired for our further subjection. Diana and I each got an iron collar locked around our necks. The end of the long tethers were locked to ringbolts in the floor besides the bed, one on each side. Our hands were then once more changed from front to back so that when the time came for us to perform our task we were like a couple of seals flopping around on dry land. Janice was riding high on the euphoria of possession and brandy.
"You will now service me, darlings. There is enough of me to keep both of you fully occupied. You can take turns with my pussy and I'll expect the rest of me to be competently dealt with. If either of you shirk, I'll whip you."
Diana and I exchanged woeful looks while our mistress tossed aside her clothes and positioned herself in beautiful nakedness on the bed. She looked up at us from the bed and demanded, "Well, what are you waiting for?"
I am sorry no one recorded our attentions to our mistress upon film. While we were busy doing our enforced duty, Diana and I must have appeared primarily as a couple of feminine bottoms, vivid marked and colored by that beastly strap. I knew my own ass was disgustingly black but the two exquisite imprints on Diana's curves were pure beauty. I almost envied her their possession. If someone's view of them had been solely from my bottom, they would have judged me a native of darkest Africa.
I am sure Janice believed herself more than kind in allowing us to sleep in whatever posture exhaustion had caught us in. She had fallen into slumber in the small hours of the morning. Diana and I gave each other an understanding glance, shrugged, and then settled ourselves down right there. I'm sure if anyone had been there to see, we would have made a pretty picture of three naked girls in innocent repose.
"I don't think I should whip you any more today, darlings," Janice mused at breakfast. "I'd love to, of course, but I must tempter justice with mercy-did I get that quotation right?" She gave us each her brightest smile. "I do want you two girls to come up with ideas. I don't want to hear you say you want your freedom, that out! But if there are any delightful little tortures you think I'd enjoy, don't hold back." She managed to make it sound a real concession.
"I'm sure you'll know what to do with us, Janice," I told her dismally. "I'm not good at that sort of thing."
"But if I decide, darling, it will hurt a lot more." The words held deliberate menace.
"Very well then," I agreed wearily. "My I sit with my feet locked in the stocks? Is that an acceptable suggestion?" She pretended to make notes on paper then turned to Diana.
"And what do you chose, dear?"
"Could I stand with my hands above my head? It's very tiring and I hate it."
Diana and I had apparently hit the right note. An hour later we were both fastened as we, ourselves, had requested. I sat on a hard little bench and looked up and down the length of my widely spread legs to where they disappeared into a bulk of timber. At any rate, my ankles were locked tight and there I sat. I felt silly and surprisingly helpless and was annoyed with the exposure of my sex. True, I could cover my pubic patch with my hands but Janice made this a no-no and promised dire punishments if she caught me doing it. I was also forbidden to cover my breasts in her presence. Poor Diana stood close by in a naked exposure, her handcuffed wrists roped well above her head but with sufficient kindness to leave her heels upon the floor. We were both kissed and assured of undying love before being left alone with a promise of frequent visits to make sure we were behaving ourselves.
"I suppose it will be for all day," Diana suggested dismally.
"I expect so," I replied. "Oh, darling, you're going to get so terribly tired, standing there like that."
Diana managed a laugh. "And you're going to get damned good and sick of having your feet go off in different directions. I'm surprised she didn't fasten your hands behind your back, that would be real bad!"
I suppose I have to say about Janice that she knows where to draw the line. I had been terribly whipped with that awful strap but Diana's innocence had been recognized and she had gotten off with just those two wicked weals. Tying Diana up by her hands in semi-suspension and locking my feet in the stocks probably appealed to Janice as a real kindness for which we should be grateful. I think Janice was always torn between wanting our love and delighting in torturing us. If the poor girl could have jumped into bed with Ryan, she would have had little interest in Diana or myself. True, she adored whipping a girl but it was not her number one priority.
I had not been locked in the stocks an hour before I realized my mistake. It seems an innocent sort of punishment but I had forgotten my bruised, wealed bottom upon the hard wood bench. It was far from happy and prompted me to frequently raise it from the surface for a rest. This I was able to do by using my hands to lift myself up. But I found myself catering to my bruised behind at the expense of all the rest of me. Finally, in disgust, I let it know that it would have to damn well deal with the pain itself. Diana had watched my strivings sympathetically. But neither of us could help the other nor feel any the less used ourselves. We were a pair of slavegirls being punished and that was the simple fact of it. Our morning wore on, broken only occasionally by visits from our mistress who gave us water to drink and helpful hints on behavior becoming to slavegirls, to which we listened with seeming gratitude but with mental reservations. My own was of darling Janice tight strapped to that beastly bench and me busy upon her ass with that resounding strap! Where would prisoners be without their dreams!
Prisoners are alert to sounds. I saw Diana tense and felt my own tummy tighten as there filtered through the open door the sound of angry voices, or should I say a voice! It was Janice. Our mistress came into view propelled forward by a large male hand grasping almost every hair of her head while five male fingers were firm upon her arm. Ryan Norton handled Miss Janice Webb with easy and obvious pleasure, a pleasure Diana and I instantly shared. It was one of those moments when a girl says she was never so happy in her life!
"Let go my hair, you big lug!" Janice was pink faced and in a full flood of protest. "Who the hell do you think you are, pushing me around like this. If you don't let me go this instant, I'll kick you shins."
For answer Ryan picked her up bodily, placed her face down on the floor, then put his knee in her back while searching around for something with which to tie her hands. A rope was nearby and a couple of minutes later Miss Janice Webb was beautifully immobilized with her wrists bound behind her back. He then stood her up and methodically stripped her bare, being careful to first remove her shoes as her most-likely weapon. His captive twisted and struggled in disbelief at near-helplessness, a disbelief I'd often felt myself. She continued verbally to get herself into deeper disfavor. "You son of a bitch, untie me this instant. You're a rotten cheat, you weren't suppose to come home for three more weeks."
"You fell into my trap, I knew you would, sweetheart." Ryan was almost smirking.
"You rotten bastard, you don't know how to treat a lady. Do you realize you've left me naked, not wearing a single thing!"
"The better to whip your bottom, dear." Ryan patted one of her cheeks affectionately. He again grasped her hair. "If you can't stand still, I'll pull this out by the roots, you ridiculous female."
Diana and I were starry eyed as we watched our rescuer march our dethroned mistress around until he discovered handcuffs. He then locked a single wrist to one of the rings in the wall and stood back to enjoy the spectacle of an angry young woman striving to tear the ringbolt from the concrete. When Janice had hurt her wrists sufficiently she desisted, she stood there glaring at us, pink cheeked and panting.
"I'll have you all in prison for this, it's kidnapping." Then to Ryan alone, "Unlock my wrist and give me something to wear. I'll go home and never speak to you again."
"It that a promise, sweetheart?"
"Oh, you...! " Janice stamped hard with a bare foot then winced. "Ryan, you're impossible. You're cruel, you're unkind..." She burst into tears of frustration and buried her face against the wall.
I got beautifully kissed and Diana got kissed, too, although just a bit more than her status called for. My feet got unlocked and I stood up, most gloriously free. I flung my arms around my knight in shinning armor and hugged and hugged and hugged. The kissing can be taken for granted. We then unlocked Diana and the three of us went up stairs, me feeling a bitch for leaving Janice face to the wall and crying her heart out. I suppose that since we both loved Ryan, I understood how she felt. I would have cried, too, in the spot she had made for herself.
None of us needed the stimulus of alcohol. Ryan sent Diana to the kitchen to make coffee. She winked at me before she went. I'm sure she figured we'd do it right there on the rug. But Ryan sat down and I knelt before him so we could catch up on ourselves. My first thought was of my seven days imprisonment.
"Did you leave me in that cell knowing that you'd be back in just over a week?" I demanded, but not too severely. "Gosh, I've never missed you so much."
"I had heard Janice had been snooping around so I laid a trap I knew she'd fall for. Gives me a good excuse to cure her infatuation once and for all."
"Don't punish her too terribly, Ryan, she loves you. A girl can't help loving."
"A girl can most certainly help breaking and entering and whipping my slaves. I've a good mind to make her bottom as black as your's. Or would you like the job?"
Apart from pique over being the bait in a trap, I was go gorgeously happy I didn't want to whip anyone, all I wanted was to go to bed with Ryan. I told him so but he insisted we should have coffee first. When Diana had served it and told my master how grateful she was for being rescued, Ryan Norton laid down the law.
"Look, I don't want you girls feeling sorry for Janice. I'm going to punish her and punish her good. You'll find her in all sorts of situations around the house and none of them comfortable. I don't want either of you feeling sorry for her or letting her loose. Do you understand?"
Our "Yes, Master" was in perfect unison.
Ryan turned to Diana. "Run alone, sweetheart, and find a couple of pairs of handcuffs. Can't have you two running around the way you are now, you're a disgrace to slavery."
I loved him so terribly. We fitted like hand and glove, not needing to talk much but satisfied to be together. Despite the condition the poor girl was in, I was still afraid of Janice, I didn't want her around. I let my feelings show. "Ryan, darling, must we have that woman in this house, even to be punished? She'll only cause trouble between us, she wants you so damned bad. Couldn't you just send her packing?"
"Without a mark on her!" He grimaced at me. "And after what she's done to you! Come on, girl, have more sense."
"Well, whip her bottom then, she certainly deserves that. And used that awful strap on her, she certainly deserves that too."
"That's better, darling. We have to temper mercy with justice." Ryan had turned it backwards from the way Janice had quoted. But it appeared I had achieved no more than get her a whipped bottom. In thinking of Janice we have to remember she was a very beautiful girl with the loveliest figure ... and men are so terribly susceptible!
The thought of Janice chained upstairs stuck in my mind. Why shouldn't it? Every time I sat down I remembered the terrible strapping she had given me on the bench. On the spur pf the moment but purely for fun I explained, "Darling, don't you realize the best thing for Janice would be an experience such as Diana and I have had in Bottsvelt with Abu Hakim." I simply had to giggle at the thought. "Why don't you make a fine gesture and send her as a gift to The Rule? It would compensate for Diana."
I had no sooner got the words out than I regretted them but Ryan did not. I saw instantly they tickled his imagine. He, too, was seeing delicious visions of the irritating Janice beating chained fists against the stone wall and the solid chest of the huge Hakim. We could guess what he would do with her.
"Marvelous idea, sweetheart, I'll give you points for it. Let me think a while. It can be handled more easily than you suppose." He chuckled at a thought. ' 'What say you and I go up to the bedroom now and enjoy ourselves a while with her compelled to watch. She's cuffed to the wall and nicely out of the way."
"Oh, Ryan, no! That's all together too cruel, I couldn't bear it!"
"Not half as cruel as sending her to Hakim."
"Well, maybe we shouldn't do either. All I want is to get her out of this house." For the moment we left it at that. Having Ryan to adore and make a fuss over drove all else from my mind. But that night, while we occupied the huge four poster bed, it was Janice who slept on the carpet at the side, her neck collared and its chain locked to the ringbolt in the floor. I could sense her shame and did not blame her for curling up in a ball and hiding her face. But after an hour or two the sounds of our lovemaking proved just too much and Ryan and I found ourselves with an angry girl rattling her chain beside our bed and being cautiously articulate.
"You think it's clever, humiliating me like this, well it isn't. It just shows what a rotten, brutal son of a bitch you really are, Ryan Norton. Now let me loose."
We let the first volley pass. After all, we couldn't expect the poor dear to be pleased. But she used the time to prepare another broadside. "Arid as for you, you pretty bitch, you needn't laugh at me. He'll toss you over board like this, too, when he tires of those lovely boobs. Wait and see, you'll come crying on my shoulder."
I lay in silence, wishing the damned girl any where but where she was. Ryan was exasperated but not yet angry. "For Pete's sake, Janice, will you shut up!"
Janice must have detected a certain tone in his voice for she actually did stop her tirade and fell miserably to her knees to sit back on bare heels and consider the injustice of life. She deliberately made a lot of noise with the chain. She suddenly burst into a flood of tears.
"Nobody loves me, you all hate me," she delivered with loud moans of woe. ' 'I know what you're going to do, you're going to torture me. You're going to put me on some of those things downstairs. And I haven't really done anything, at least not much." Sniffs and sobs reach our ears in considerable volume. "Why don't you take me down there and stretch me on the rack or something so you two can have fun. I'd rather be stretched on the rack that have to listen to you two."
"Careful what you ask for, sweetheart," Ryan advised. "Could be I'll do exactly what you ask." Softly be whispered in my ear, "It's an act, she's real good at it."
"I heard that!" Janice was instantly up in arms. "You rotten bastard, telling her I'm a fake. I'm heartbroken and you know it. Ruining my life. Go ahead and torture me, I don't care."
Ryan's humor is devastatingly male. I was melting in sympathy for the girl who wept so convincingly but his only response was a caustic, "Oh, dry up, Janice. If you make me get out of this bed, I'll whip you."
The response was instant. In a pretty fair contralto, Janice dived right into the National Anthem which, when you consider it, is pretty fair competition for either erotica or sleep. My master allowed her to get through the first verse but then sighed and kissed my nipples before rising. I don't know where he kept the whip but it didn't take him long to find it and even less time to put it into use. Seeing his intent, Janice backed away the full length of her tether and weaved around from side to side in a ridiculously hopeless effort to avoid her punish. She squealed and contorted deliciously as each stroke marked her skin. But when her first scream filled the room with anguish, she once more curled up into a tight ball to offer as little of herself to the thong as possible. Ryan did not pause. I was still handcuffed on the bed and too scared to intervene. All I hoped was that he would consider the punishment he delivered now would be the one promised in return for my bruised bottom. At the end of the twentieth stroke he threw the whip aside and was about to join me on the bed when I could contain myself no longer and threw myself beside the weeping girl to comfort her as best I could. But my sympathy was short lived. I was picked up and threw back on the bed and the moaning Janice was unlocked and led from the room. I lay, nakedly shivering, to await my master's return.
When Ryan returned he said nothing and I was too scared to ask. I knew my sympathy was an offense. With the greatest of ease he picked up where we had left off and I soon forgot everything else except him and how lucky I had been that first day he had kidnapped me.
"Well, girls, I've got a bit of a work load today, but I want the two of you around. What you say I lock you in the cell." Ryan surveyed Diana and I across the breakfast table. "I think you'll be amused at what I have planned. Sorry about making you prisoners again but I don't suppose you'll mind too much."
Diana impotently held up handcuffed wrists to chirp, "Wouldn't do us any good if we did ... Master?"
Ryan let it pass, he was preoccupied. He allowed Diana to get away with murder, saying it was because she belonged to me and not to him. They were not in love but liked each other. Liking is the safest emotion of the lot.
My slavegirl and I had intended to go shopping in the city but these interruptions in our lives by the man who owned us were common enough parts of our enslavement. If we had rebelled or been unhappy, Ryan would have had to keep us behind bars all the time. There was a real knocker of a dungeon way downstairs which none of us had sampled and had no wish to. Ryan said he was keeping it in reserve. If we thought he was serious about something, we were unfailingly obedient.
We did our chores then followed Ryan downstairs. The little cells looked the same as ever. When, after we were safely inside, he turned the lock, we could almost hear it chuckle. We asked no questions and Ryan volunteered nothing. When he left us we both agreed that even if nothing happened at all the worse we were-likely to be in for was a boring day. But then we had each other...!
Janice was not long in arriving. Diana and I heard her approach by way of intermittent protests and exclamations. They gained in volume as she approached our cell.
"You didn't need to whip me like that, you rotten bastard." There came a paused filled with scuffling sounds. "Look, Ryan, don't be so damn mean. Why don't we call it quits and you send me home. I'll promise not to come back if that's what you want."
Diana and I exchanged glances. Boredom fled. If Janice was to share our prison, we'd be in for a lively day. Feminine protest grew louder. "I can't help loving you, you great big lug, and all you ever do is be mean-so what if you have got them in the cell, the little bitches are probably eating each other. Why don't you let me look after them, I'd keep them in line."
Janice was handcuffed and naked, angry upon her skin were the marks of Ryan's whip from the night before. Where ever she had spent the night it had left her spirit undiminished, her indignation at full flame. Ryan held her by her hair, controlling her easily, propelling her to the bars of our cage. She looked at us balefully.
"So here's our little love birds. Gosh, some girls really have it good. Gosh, Ryan, I wish you'd turn me loose."
What happen then left three girls very much surprised. Ryan thrust the protesting nakedness hard against the bars, raised her arms out of the way, then cinched her waist to a crosspiece with rope to compel her to face inward to our cage.
"Look, Ryan, don't you tie me here where this little bitches can get at me, they'll pinch me to pieces."
"Fortunes of war, sweetheart."
"It isn't war, it's ... it's ... well, I don't know what it is but I don't want to be helpless where these two minks can get their hands on me. Ryan, have a heart."
The poor girl couldn't struggled much. Diana and I watched with interest as her feet were spread apart and bound to the bars the same as her waist. Ryan then unlocked a cuff from Janice's wrist, raised her arms to slip the chain around a bar just above a crosspiece so it could neither fall nor be pulled any lower. It was then clicked back around the slender wrists. Miss Janice Webb was hard and fast against the bars of our cell, her breasts striving to protrude through to point at us as though in indignation, her belly indented by the vertical round iron. She was well and truly fixed and could only find comfort by thrusting her face between two of the bars which framed it prettily. She rattled her handcuffs in disbelief at they were there to stay, that her hands and arms could come no lower. She couldn't move the rest of her enough to matter but that didn't prevent her trying before she gave up and became articulate again.
"Ryan, why don't you send these harem girls back to the desert where they belong. Keep me, I was so good to you. Honest, I'll bust my ass to keep you happy." She changed her tone. "See here, I didn't do any damage getting in here. I didn't do a break and enter, well at least not the break bit. I had a real expert look after the locks. There's not a bit of damage, and if there is you can send me a bill. If I ever get out of here!"
Poor Janice, she was talking to thin air, Ryan had gone.
Three girls, all prisoners. The little cell held us and accepted Janice on its guest list without a qualm. We stared at each other with varying emotions. I knew Diana was trying not to smile.
"Go ahead and laugh! Big deal! I'm hung up like a picture on the wall just for you two." There was much tossing of untidy hair. "Oh, damn, I don't deserve this."
Diana and I beheld sympathy in each other's eyes. Janice thought we were mad at her. But girls, imprisoned and punished, share a bond. We are sisters in distress. Our whip marks are the badge we carry of a club we did not wish to join. Without a word we went to the bound beauty against the bars and tried to comfort her. It was physically possible for us to untie her waist and feet but we explained we dared not do this. When Ryan returned she would just be retied and we would probably be whipped. Janice probably saw our point but only sniffed in disdain over the whole affair. It was only when Diana cupped her captive puss in a tender hand that our guest became prepared to view us with a more friendly eye.
But she was still Janice and her voice was sharp. "You don't have to do that. The last thing I need right now is an orgasm."
"Just enough to make you feel happier?" Diana coaxed.
"Well, all right then. But don't take me too far. Good gosh, what a jackpot that bastard's got me into, I can hardly move." She did some more sniffing before asking, in a quite different tone, "Do you think I've got nice breasts?"
We assured her of the superb loveliness of her twin curves. I added my efforts to Diana's by using my fingertips on the nipples of the breasts under discussion. But if I'd been in the same spot as Janice I would not have wanted an orgasm either, so we only took her far enough along the glory road to get her realizing things might not be so bad after all. She was probably uncomfortable but that was the common lot of prison girls. She had the most diverting way of switching subjects.
"Look, Jill, I'm sorry about what I did to your bottom. That strap made such a wonderful sound I over did it a bit. Please ask Ryan to forgive me."
"Isn't it me who should forgive you?"
"Well, yes, but you're so sweet I know you will. What I'm worried about is Ryan, he's promised to whip me terribly for making your bottom black and blue, and I'm wondering if that isn't why he's got me fixed like this. I'm terribly available."
"He whipped you last night, Janice, I expect that's it."
"That was because he was mad at me, not the real thing." Janice paused. "I know I haven't treated you girls all that well but would you please put in a good word for me. Jill, you can tell him that your bottom doesn't really hurt and that it was all in fun?"
"Janice, you know he'd laugh at me. Maybe fixing you this way is all the punishment you'll have."
Janice was not to be consoled. I expect it was a guilty conscious which served her right. But still I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor girl. Her worst fears were confirmed when Ryan came back. He was carrying that awful, noisy strap. Janice, looking awkwardly back over a bare raised arm, wailed, "You're not going to hit me with that thing! Ryan, you absolutely mustn't, I'm sure it hurts more than I can bear."
"You mean you don't know how much it hurts?"
"Of course, I don't! I don't let people whip me. You're the only one who's been that mean."
"Wonderful!" Ryan's exclamation was fervent. "Now you're going to find out."
The whole place resounded with the awful slap. Once more it was like a pistol shot in the confined space. Janice's eyes widened in shock and if she had been able to get any closer to the bars she would have done so in her frantic desire to get away from that leather strap. She didn't scream, she was conscious of our watching eyes, the poor dear was in one hell of a spot. Her voice was a whimper, "I can't bear it, I just can't! Ryan, that thing will kill me if you hit me again."
Ryan hit her again. The strap crashed in complete contact with the available bottom. The sound was horrific and I knew just how it felt. When I was getting ready to plead on Janice's behalf, Ryan thrust the leather beneath the cords which bound her waist to the bars, patted the bottom curves he had just strapped, said he'd be back for some more after a while, then left all three of us to our own devices. Janice was busy moaning.
Diana and I looked at each other and shrugged. Without words we resumed our erotic play with a lovely body against the bars. We could reach almost all of her and used whatever skills we had towards arousal. This time she did not demur, we soon had her panting and her moans changed from distress to desire. When she exploded against the bars, she was quite something to behold. I thought her head would go completely wild as her only form of physical expression. Her hair whipped back and forth in a mock imitation of a leather whip slashing at a girl. Diana and I felt proud.
None of the three of us could kid ourselves that that was all Janice would get. The strap tucked against her skin told its own story. Twisting against the ropes and cuff, Janice became coherent.
"See, I told you, he's going to do it to me and with that awful strap. Damn it, Jill, I'm sorry-I'd not idea...! "
"You could have told my the noise and the marks," I said severely.
"So, okay, I'm a bitch and I deserve what I'm getting. Look, I didn't scream with those first two but I'm sure I'm going to. Ryan's going to make me scream. Oh, shit!"
I wondered if Ryan was doing this for me because of the terrible markings Janice had put on my bottom, or was he just irritated with her on general principles. I hoped it was because of me and not just because he enjoyed those pistol-shot cracks and the spreading stain of scarlet and purple on her skin. I dare not plead on her behalf, I was pretty sure that if I did I would end up in the same fix without doing her a bit of good. The fact is slavegirls can't do much about anything. We have to watch and wait and hope it won't hurt as much the next time.
Throughout the day Janice kept her promise and screamed lustily with each impact, but Ryan never gave her more than two at a time so the poor dear was able to compose herself before the next visit. She was getting a pink mark on her forehead as she thrust it hard against a bar, went ever we tested she was very wet below. But we gave her no more orgasms, a girl need all her strength. She indulged in bouts of weeping and we dried her cheeks with our fingers, our nakedness being so complete we had nothing else.
Somewhere around noon, Ryan unlocked the door and beckoned. When I went outside he unlocked my handcuffs and handed me the strap. "Your turn now, sweetheart."
I held the beastly thing as though it were a snake. I had never held it before. It was heavy and supple and seemed almost alive. I shivered. "Oh, Ryan, I can't. I simply can't use this awful thing on a girl."
Ryan is never short of answers, a girl doesn't stand a chance with him. "You can either use it on Janice, and use it hard, Jill my pet, or I'll hang Diana up and give her ten without stopping...? "
I knew when I was beaten. I took a practice swing or two, still shivering and then let the vividly colored bottom Janice could not move have it hard and square across the curves. The noise was shocking, it seemed to me by far the loudest yet. Fascinated I watched the changing colors on the quivering skin. The owner of the bottom had screamed her scream and was now moaning pitifully. I looked at my master, hopeful of reprieve, but his grin and motion left me in no doubt about my duty. I swung again and Janice screamed and fought against the bars. My left wrist was then handcuffed to a crosspiece to leave me standing out in the passage with Ryan's punished former mistress. The cell door was locked again and there we were, all three of us in a diversity of distress which I am sure Ryan was chuckling about upstairs. I hate standing like I had to then, a girl feels so silly with only a single wrists in bondage and the rest of her free.
But Janice had now caught her breath to indignantly proclaim, "You didn't have to hit me that hard, Jill. I think you're beastly unkind."
I didn't bother to answer and I couldn't reach out far enough to touch. Janice didn't have much of a hand but she played it for all it was worth. "I'll bet he'll make you strap me again. Please, Jill, not so hard, give me a break."
That was not the way of it. When he came back, he extracted Diana from the cell, unlocked her cuffs and told her it was now her turn to exact retribution. I guess Hakim must have been really mean to the poor girl before I first meet her. She's hard and cynical about punishments and laid a couple of really awful swats across Janice's hind end before she, too, was cuffed as I was cuffed and the door of the empty cell left open. Diana grinned.
"I've been wanting to do that every since she did it to me."
Through the afternoon Ryan compelled Diana and I to take over the punishment of Janice. We did as we were told, we had no choice. There was one time I tried to go easy on the already well beaten bottom. But my kindness was rewarded by my being hooked to the bars again and getting the strap cracked across my own rump. I was Ryan's slave and that was the end of it. I had best do what he said and pay no attention to Janice's reproachful looks and tongue. The afternoon wore on until Ryan wanted his cocktail before dinner at which point Diana and I were taken up stairs, normally handcuffed, and told to serve the master. I was to stay kneeling on the rug to sip with him and converse while my own slavegirl was sent to the kitchen. Nobody mentioned Janice.
The next day I had one of those indefinable sensations of something wrong, something had changed or was about to change. I knew Ryan had Diana locked in the little cell, so when he hurried off on what he called a short, swift errand, I went downstairs and let her out. I was permitted to do this because she belonged to me. I asked if she'd seen Janice and then the two of us made an exploration of the house without finding even a trace of the girl who's bottom would be every bit as purple as mine. We could not find her and, when Ryan returned, I put it to him straight.
"Darling, what have you done with Janice?"
He consulted his watch and pretended to think. I can always tell when Ryan is having me one. "About now, sweetheart, that girl is probably kneeling at someone's feet at Hakim's palace, could be Hakim himself. She'll be safely ironed and wishing she had never made a nuisance of herself." He winked at me. "You don't have to worry about Janice anymore, she's gone."
Guilt clutched me like a cold hand, telling me I had condemned a girl to life time slavery by a facetious remark. I had a mental picture of the tortures Hakim might inflict on a girl who's only fault was to love a man I also loved. And who loved me. Breathlessly I exclaimed, "You didn't!"
"I sure did. She was shipped out last night, nicely tressed and strapped down in a wooden box. We had to gag her, too, she wouldn't stop talking."
"Oh, Ryan...! " I was aghast.
"Yes, my pet, something wrong?" Ryan was enjoying himself.
"You know what's wrong," I said vehemently. "I know I suggested it but I didn't really think you ever would and I didn't really want you to. Oh, Ryan, that poor girl...! "
"He won't treat her any worse than he did you, sweetheart, you came home in great shape."
"Yes, but what about her life, her friends, her family?"
"She did mention that stuff while we were strapping her down in the box," Ryan recalled reflectively. "I expect she'll soon be forgotten, anyway she's gone now and safe in Hakim's harem. I did suggest he keep her properly chained."
"You didn't! Ryan, tell me you're just kidding."
"Dead serious, sweetheart. Now let's stop talking about Janice. With any luck you will never seen her again."
Sitting there, handcuffed on the rug, I was bursting to speak but I got the warning finger signal and swallowed my indignation.
"I know how you're feeling, Jill." Ryan took my hand and drew me to himself.' 'It does you credit, but if you hadn't thought of sending her to Hakim, I would. It is so obviously the perfect solution." He kissed me gently before saying, "Had a few of her things gathered up and brought over here. Maybe you can use them."
"Please don't make me." We argued back and forth and I soon picked up the fact that Ryan was having fun with me and probably had a surprise for me. The surprise manifested itself via a moving van and two white overalled men carrying into the room a large, square, heavy cardboard packing case. They evidently had their instructions, they nodded to Ryan and departed as quickly as them came. My omnipotent master stood there in lordly fashion to enjoy my curiosity.
"Open it up, sweetheart, it's all your."
Ryan had to help me do the opening job but when we tore away the last segment of the lid there rose up before my startled eyes the pert and smiling features of a girl, a young girl...!
It was Janice's little sister Pip.
9 Punished Pip
When we had both said our "good gracious, Pip, how did you get in there," and the more demure "Hello, Miss Palmer, isn't this lovely," I looked around for Ryan. But Ryan had quietly disappeared leaving me to cope with the most outrageous young nymphet I had ever met.
"Isn't Mr. Norton wonderful?" she said girlishly. "The box was his idea. Shall I take my clothes off right away?"
"No, you can't take your clothes off," I retorted, "What are you doing here anyway? And why did Mr. Norton put you in that box?"
"To please you, of course! He's wanted this to be a surprise just for you. I don't think you're being a bit nice about it! We both thought you'd be delighted. Mr. Norton tells me Janice is going to be queen of a harem, isn't she lucky!"
I began to see light. Ryan was clever. He was going to make an asset of this youngster. I found myself glad he had not included Pip as part of the consignment for Abu Hakim. In our previous encounter the child had held the whip and cord, but now it was my turn.
"What do you know about Janice and Ryan and me, Pip? How do you suppose your sister came to make that journey over to Africa? Aren't you scared for her?"
"Scared for her! Janice can look after herself, and I'll bet she got you in a bind before Mr. Norton rescued you. I'm not so that dumb."
"Tell me, what was going on?"
"I'll bet you were teaching my big sister a few lessons. I'll bet she got caned and whipped and all sorts of lovely things before she was shipped off. She'll get her bottom whipped there if she doesn't behave-I sure hope she does."
"And you don't mind?"
"Of course not. Janice deserves every stroke. I know she's terribly in love with Mr. Norton. He was just tired of having her messing around in his life, so he sent her away. She will have a marvelous time in a harem. I'll bet that oil sheik, or whatever he is, takes her to bed every night." Pip sighed. "Nobody's taken me to bed yet, but I'll bet that guy would."
"Abu Hakim is an enormous black man. You'd be scared of him."
"Do you think Mr. Norton would take me to bed if I asked him?"
"Perhaps-if you ask him nicely."
"Do I really have to ask him? I thought a girl got spread out and tied down to a bed before it was done to her?"
Feigning reluctance, I said in my best school-mistress style, "Very well then, take off your clothes, Pip-let me have a look at you. If you've got a nice enough figure, I may be able to get Mr. Norton to ship you out with your sister."
Pip daintily drew her sweater over her curls. The skirt followed. "Don't you think I've got lovely young breasts?"
The nymphet was exquisite from head to toe, but I was not going to tell her so. My concession was grudging: "You'll do. Now turn around and let me see your bottom." Pip obeyed. "I see you've been caned-was it Janice?"
"It wasn't a cane-it was a riding crop. She used it on me every so often whether I did anything or not."
I made the lovely nymphet fetch the necessary cords. I could tell Pip was shivering in eagerness. 'Turn your back. Cross your wrists. Hold still." Pip was perfect, a dream of delight to make me wish Ryan was here to see.
And it was then, as if on cue, that the master arrived.
"I think we could do with something ... worse, my dear," he said, nodding sagely.
"Yes, please. Something worse."
Without a word, Mr. Ryan Norton took Miss Jill Palmer by the arm and led her from his office. Five minutes later I was suspended upside down, in all my nakedness.
"But, Ryan, if I stay like this I'll die."
"No, you won't. And stop worrying. A girl has been proven to stand at least an hour and a half of hanging by her heels. You're getting just one bare hour. At the end of it I'm going to whip that cute little bottom waiting in the other room-understand?"
I didn't have time to answer before I was alone. Hanging upside down is awful! A girl is quite sure she is going to die. I pushed against the floor with handcuffed hands, then used them vaguely to see what I could reach, discovering I could bend double and reach quite a lot if it did me any good. But it didn't.
Ryan left me alone the whole time. After I had been hanging there for five minutes, I most devoudy Ryan had whipped me. But he has suggested "something worse," and this was certainly it!
I looked up at my unnatural nakedness. Nothing was right or where is should be. I felt awkward and less than female. In despair I bent up frantically to reach, with handcuffed hands, the moist lips which my spread legs made so wickedly accessible. My reaching finger momentarily finding its target but relinquishing it as I moaned in despair and my back cried out at unnatural stress. Allowing myself to fall limply back not my upside down punishment was worse than ever. I pressed my joined hands against my naked belly and tried not to move.
All things pass. The door finally opens and I behold Ryan's expensive shoes before my eyes, so close to the floor, travel upwards to where his smile hovers above me. When I see the riding crop he carries, my heart sinks. Or should I say raises up towards my fastened feet! My master's cheerful greeting is typically Ryan, "Not dead yet, sweetheart, you're doing fine."
"It's no fault of yours. I'm surprised I'm not dead. Please let me down. What are you going to do with that beastly thing?" Ryan's arm is swift, his aim is sure. I emit a startled cry as my bottom flames beneath the crop. I gasped, "Oh, please, you don't have to whip me as well. It's just not fair!"
"It's the brute in me," Ryan said as his fingers traced the weals he had applied while his other hand cupped my lips so exposed for such attention. An upside down girl does not have a single secret left. "Want to do some more of those twists and bends, sweetheart? Adds a nice, sporting touch to whipping a girl's bottom."
"No, I don't! Look, Ryan, do I have to beg and plead for you to let me down? I will if you insist."
"You've been upside down forty minutes, dear girl. Twenty more to go and I think I'll slice you just one more. You're positively delightful in that position."
"You called my Ryan. Any reason why I've fallen in your affections?"
"You don't expect to hang me upside down and naked and whip me to boot and still have me call you darling, do you?" I asked bitterly.
"Of course I do, dear heart. These aches and pains are for the good of your character. They strengthen and sustain your good behavior. To show contrition, I want you to address me properly and formally request me to whip your bottom and then keep still while I'm doing it. You can contort all you wish afterwards."
"Darling Master, please whip my bottom, please whip it hard." They were the hardest words I'd ever spoken.
While I had made my plea for punishment Ryan's hands had been upon my most intimate places. Suddenly they were gone and my flesh felt cold as I close my eyes to await the searing cut. I acknowledged its agony when it came by going utterly berserk in twistings and jerking, partly involuntary and partly to impress upon my master the cruelty of his crop. But in the midst of it all I opened my eyes to find myself alone. After thatT lost interest in my demonstration and hung limp and passive to await the pleasure of the man I loved. My flesh was screaming from the unkind cuts and I knew the twenty minutes I had yet to serve would seem like twenty hours. Tears trickled not down across my cheeks but across my forehead. I brushed them away with handcuffed hands.
Hanging in my disgraceful penitence I refused to think of Ryan. I was angry with him and felt ill-used. There was something disgraceful and demoralizing about my present condition-and then the crop! Even if it had been only a few cruel strokes he had had no need to whip me at all. Deliberately I forced my thoughts elsewhere to the two other females now present in my life. Pip, I hoped, would be frustrated to bits and less starry-eyed when and if I finally got to her. I realized I did not even know where Ryan had got Diana imprisoned or what he was doing with her. Jealousy flared as I realized how easily available the teenager and lovely slavegirl were for my master's pleasure. For the first time I found myself wishing they were gone and far away.
My master robbed my release of much of its drama by adopting a casually conversational gambit. As he was lowering me to the floor he mused, "I suppose you have a job to do on little bright-eyes, eh, sweetheart. The little so-and-so is ripe to be whipped, she wants it and needs it. Think you can handle her after a brandy or two?"
My answer was a stark admission. "Maybe after some brandy, right now all I want is to turn them loose and send them home. And go home along with them." I cocked an inquiring eye. "I don't suppose you'd sanction that?"
The man who held my future in his hands refrained from answering so absurd a question. He now had me laying limp and thankful on the floor while he unbuckled the straps from my ankles. I was then as free as he ever allowed me to be, simply handcuffed. I did not want to move but longed only to lay there in my sprawled out nakedness to pant my want back into the world. I was not allowed even that small mercy. Ryan picked me up and carried my to the lounge.
Ryan has a marvelous empathy with girls, he knew I had enough so laid me upon the rug in the familiar spot from which I could look up to admire his nobility but went to mix the drinks himself and knelt to hand me a brimming glass. I gulped greedily to light a fire within my belly which told me I was still his slave. After a while I knelt humbly as a slavegirl should kneel, my brandy sniffer held within chained hands. It was probably nature, ridding me of needless problems which prompted me to say, "I'm sorry. Master, but I don't want to deal with. I don't mean right now but in the future. She'll be an endless nuisance and I'll feel jealous every time I looked at her."
"I sent her sister to Abu Hakim. Can't cast the poor girl out on the street." I shifted unhappily on my wealed bottom and gulped some more brandy before saying, "I know I have to do whatever you want, Master, but I'm just telling you the way I feel. Please don't punish me again."
I was not punished but my glass was refilled. My master was pleased with a new idea. "You're jealous of young, that means you're insecure. Look, Jill, my sweet. I didn't entirely plan this present situation but I find myself possessing three females, diverse, one of them almost juvenile-except mentally and sexually, that is." Ryan paused to sip, surveying me with an indulgent eye. "Let's drop bright-eyes for the moment and talk about you and I. We've been considering ourselves as good as married, haven't we, Mrs. Ryan Norton? But now you're not so sure ... am I right?"
"I've just been hung upside down and whipped, I'm not sure about anything."
My master nodded in agreement. "Now, since I possess the three of you, why shouldn't I add a touch of spice, a sporting possibility. How would it be, sweetheart, I tell each one of you to see how well you can please me in the next thirty days, the winner getting the trip to the altar?"
"There would be no contest. That little mink I have to whip sometime today would win hands down. She's a bundle of untapped sexuality who can't wait to get you inside. She can outdistance Diana or I anytime even though we're both as good as I know we are. She'd be overjoyed if you married her tomorrow and set Diana and I free."
"What's with this freedom business! I seem to have heard a lot about freedom lately."
"Oh darling, I wish we could start again at the old apartment. We were so happy there, and I've never been that happy since. You've got three girls in your possession and that's two more than you need. Let me go, turn me loose, give me freedom."
"You don't need freedom, you need your ass whipped."
I choked back anger with disgusting humility. "I'm sorry, Master, I expect you're right." I gulped heavily of brandy. "I expect it's the punishment I've just had, it sort of left me upside down. But if you wish, I won't complain."
"Thai's better! That's my girl. All you need is a bit more brandy." Ryan consulted his watch. "Tell you what, when we've finished our drinks, you attend to little bright-eyes, then at dinner I'll make the announcement about the contest and I don't want you worrying about teenage competition."
Fortified by brandy, I went in search of. Ryan had evidently not gone near her and she greeted my appearance predictably.
"Gosh, am I glad to see you. Miss Palmer. I'm bored stiff standing here like this." She visibly brightened. "I really think you should whip me now if you're not too busy."
I ignored the implied sarcasm and turned her around to examine her tied wrists, which were still tied as I had left them but her wrists were red from her struggles. I grunted satisfaction but then remembered my own hands were still joined and it's very hard to use a whip with two hands instead of one. Making a hasty excuse I went in search of Ryan and was greeted by a preoccupied, "What's your problem, sweetheart?"
I fluttered my shinning chrome at him. "I can't whip a girl while I'm handcuffed. Master. May I have free hands?"
"Okay, but go and get me your ankle shackles. Not those silly police things but the real ones."
"Couldn't you trust me just this once? I'll whip the girl and then come right back to be handcuffed. Pretty please?"
"Not in the mood you're in," Ryan said sourly. "All this silly talk about freedom. Go get your shackles."
I wished Ryan had trusted me. It would have been a good thing for young to see me completely free, she would have held me in greater respect. But I saw his point and lost no time in returning to him with the heavy anklets and larger links which left no one in any doubt about my status and effectively killed my inclination to attempt escape. Ryan locked them on me, patted my bottom, freed me from the handcuffs and told me to run along. I did not run! I clattered indignant, snubbed steps from The Presence.
Release from the collar and chain, became her sparkling self. I was in a mood to untie her hands and tell her to run along home but I was also in a mood to whip her pretty bottom. Duty won. I took to the room containing only the heavy stocks designed to hold a girl's wrists at shoulder lever and compel her to stand at arm's length for whatever infliction she might be unlucky enough to get. When I stroked her naked young back she was quivering but agog with anticipation.
"Gee whiz, Miss Palmer, I've never seen these before. I just have to stand, don't I! I mean, there isn't anything else I can do. Oh, wow, have I got butterflies."
She looked sweet and innocent and very desirable standing there in slender nudity, her arms straight out in front and disappearing into the heavy yokes of the stocks. I went behind her. was not trying to get loose, she knew it was useless, she was really just feeling her helplessness. Her bright-eyed curiosity remained unabashed as she watched me approach with the cane. I had chosen the whippy yellow one and was holding it purposefully. She was silent and I had nothing to say. I was wondering if she had the courage to play stoic or would vent the pain I was about to bestow by such struggles and motions as clamped wrists might permit. I resolved not to be cruel but Ryan would expect adequate markings on the young skin. I took my stance and swung.
Pip absorbed the first stroke by pedaling with one bare leg. It's strange how much comfort a girl gets by pedaling thin air. Apart from that conceded no more than a sharp inhalation. I struck her again with the same result except this time she used the other leg. I had given the nymphet eight strokes before realizing she was silently weeping. In revulsion I threw aside the came and clasp the naked girl in tender arms, kissing away the tears and uttering such endearments as maidens use in times like these.
After a while she sobbed, "I'm so terribly ashamed, Miss Palmer. I didn't know it would hurt nearly so bad. Are you mad at me?"
"I told you it would hurt more than you can bear," I said, cross with myself and the whole damn business of "welcome."
"You don't deserve it,, I'm not going to whip you anymore."
"Oh, but you must, Miss Palmer." I felt her stiffen in dismay. "It's sweet of you not wanting to but Mr. Norton expects me to be properly whipped, he'll be angry with you if you don't."
Pip was right. I was trapped and without much choice. But in a way I was glad to see's tears, they said she was young and female and not the brassy little bitch she sometimes seemed. I retrieved the cane but kissed her hard before putting another scarlet weal across her rump.
It seemed to me a dozen was enough for the tenderness of's twin curves so it was there I stopped and asked anxiously, "You all right?"
"Yes, I'm all right, Miss Palmer. I'm sorry about crying but those hurt so terribly. And I'm sorry, too, about all that being a smart-ass. You were right, it hurts!"
I wanted to use the kindest whip I could find, but that would not do, it had to mark's skin with the graphic evidence of pain. I comprised on a short single thong which would not wrap over and around the narrow youthfulness of her slender, naked back. Telling her of my choice, I received the humblest reply yet.
"That's okay, Miss Palmer. I'm not going to be brave and silent and keep still any longer. That's kid's stuff. Please forgive me if I go a bit hairy."
I could have forgiven anything right then. My mind was much preoccupied with Ryan's contest and a sudden realization of being in competition with Diana. Ryan would, in pure amusement, take full advantage of his sexual nature while withholding from her the prize we would all covet. My heart was not in my work but the work still confronted me and was emphasized by an anxious young eye stealing a quick glance back over a bare shoulder. I struck.
Pip was not heavily fleshed, what she had was obliged to absorbed the leather which Diana or I would have found less painful. I knew each stroke was hurting as I struck and struck again while my courageous nymphet kicked and contorted to her heart's content. If anyone wished to whip a girl those stocks were certainly an excellent facility to fastening her in. I'd started out with thoughts of giving her twenty on her back but as the marks I placed upon her skin glared back at me, I reduced the figure to fifteen. She'd be well marked and maybe Ryan wouldn't bother to count.
By the end of the first week was unquestionably the winner. She was a seething, palpitating package of sex. From somewhere she had learned the thirty-six positions and used them without shame. She had it made!
Diana and I had shrugged the whole thing off, agreeing to let the best girl win. I knew she had pity for my reduced status from the prospective Mrs. Ryan Norton down to a naked girl trying hard to please a difficult master. If I could have thrown the whole thing overboard, I would have done so gladly. But Ryan kept me chained or bound and with a stem warning to enter into the spirit of the contest if I didn't want something a whole lot worse. As usual I was trapped. Diana was trapped, too, as she had unhappily confessed.
"Darling, I ought to tell you that yesterday I asked your Master to give you back your freedom and return me to Abu Hakim." She paused to grin at my visible shock. "Yes, I know you think it's crazy but I saw a side of life in his palace you never did catch a glimpse of. like I told you that first time we talked, I pretty much had the run of the place and a pretty plush life, getting called to Hakim's bed only enough to tell me I was female. Darling, don't be mad at me. It's so much better for me over there than it could ever be here."
"Well, what did Ryan say?"
"He refused, of course. He also sentenced me to be whipped sometime in the future but I don't know when. Seems like I shouldn't have asked."
Thoughtfully she kicked at her leg irons and clinked at the handcuffs on her wrists. "If it wasn't for these I'd be long gone. I'm just out of place here, I have been since the start."
We kissed and hugged and consoled each other lavishly the way girls do. Her wish to return to Hakim didn't seem to matter since it wasn't going to happen anyway. It was then she planned the thought I hadn't even seen. "Jill dear, we're going to lose the contest for sure. So, OK, pretty little gets her man. But what's going to happen to you and me then? Do you want to put in your own plug for a return to Hakim along with me? If the two of us return there voluntarily, we'll get a warm welcome."
I expect sour grapes were in there somewhere, but I popped the question the next time I was summoned to The Master. "Ryan darling, why don't you send Diana and I back to Abu Hakim? You don't love me any more, and little bright-eyes can give you more fun in bed than Diana and I can ever know how. Why don't you send us both back and get some business concession for the gift?"
"No time like the present, sweetheart. An hour hanging by your ankles will tell you I love you for sure. Come along."
It's hateful to be so abject and humble. But that's the way I get when I'm scared of Ryan. I sat on the floor without a word while he strapped my ankles to the bar and then hoisted me so high my hair brushed the floor. He then unlocked a single cuff and relocked my arms behind my back to make this punishment a little worse than the time before.
"Thank you, Master," I mumbled, then added, for total humility, "I'm terribly sorry I was so stupid." Ryan nodded curtly and left me to my regrets.
My cuffed hands and arms were a problem. Gravity was against any comfortable position. For starters I held them against the small of my back as though they were fastened there. I was wondering if my hour would seem as long as last time when the door opened and Diana came in, whispering urgently, "I can't help you, darling, we both know that. His Majesty has gone out on business and has got fastened some way in the bedroom and locked the door so I can't go in and look. Darling, I'm going to escape, I just have to tell you. I'm going to get out of here some way or other. Ryan scared the wits out of me this afternoon by taking me down stairs and showing me that dungeon he's always talked about. Seems like that's where he's going to keep the two losers in the contest. They'll be sitting there, chained, in dark isolation forever. I simply couldn't bear it."
"He'd never do that!"
"Don't be so sure. It would please that sardonic sense of humor of his to have a couple of naked girls in chains down there, knowing he could have a look at us any time and use us when he wished."
I was in no position to offer guidance or consul. The poor darling contented herself by frictioning me between my legs and kissing me a lot, sitting beneath the rest of me but holding my head in her lap. She left as quickly as she came, explaining she had been forbidden to give me comfort.
My punishment wasn't as horrible as the time before, I suppose it was because I knew I would not die. When Ryan let me loose I managed a weak, "Thank you, Master," and allowed him to help me to my feet.
"You'll need another brandy, sweetheart. And while we sip you can examine something that should surely please your jealous little heart."
Things happened swiftly. I was placed to kneel right up against my master's chair so he could hold a glass to my lips, my own hands still being locked behind my back. While he poured drinks at the bar I stared in amazement at a naked who's hands and elbows were tied as tight as anyone could get them behind her back. Her ankles were similarly bound, cord cutting cruelly into flesh. She was standing but holding her balance only with difficulty.
"Isn't it wonderful. Miss Palmer? Mr. Norton says I'm too good to be wasted on what we do here. He's sending me out to join my sister with that big black man you told me about. I can hardly wait!" She bubbled away while trying to keep from falling flat on her face. "I'm going to be gagged in a minute and put in a box and shipped over there by plane-I'm so lucky!"
"Well, do you feel any better now, sweetheart?"
It was a question I did not get to answer and while I was still swallowing the delicious heat, Janice Webb walked in on us.
We stared in disbelief. Even Ryan was shocked. "I'm not a ghost," Janice assured us cheerfully. "His black Majesty said I didn't have enough spring in my ass to keep my dofunny off the floor. So he's sent me back to you with his compliments and I can't say I'm sorry. I've never been reamed by such a monster in my life."
Janice dominated the stage. Her eye fixed upon her startled younger sister. "Ah, there she is. I knew I'd find her here. That's a nice arrangement you've got her fixed in. I'll free her feet and if you can loan me a blanket to warp her in, I'll take her down to the car and warm her little ass properly when we get home." Janice turned her attention from the open-mouthed youngster to Ryan and me. "I won't bother you any more. I loved you terribly, Ryan, and that's my excuse for everything I've done. Please don't hold me here, it's far the best for and I to go home." Her voice was breaking but her chin was high. If I had had my hands I would have used them to comfort the poor girl but I couldn't even touch the brandy I so badly needed, all I could do was watch Ryan free's slender ankles and, in his own masterful way, escort the two sisters from the room. When he returned he held the brandy for my lips and finished the rest of the glass for himself.
"Holly cow!" he said. "That's one for the book. That big black goat is going to wonder what goes-I shipped Diana back to him thirty minutes ago." He want for more brandy then kissed me hard before holding it to my lips. "And now, ye of little faith, I've a score to settle with you. Drink this down quick."
I was in a trance of happiness, speechless and in the grip of events I could not control. When Ryan bandaged my eyes it seemed only in keeping with all the rest. And when he led me from the room and to the car I said no word, even at our destination I asked no questions but breathlessly awaited my master's pleasure. There was an elevator and steps and a passage and the unlocking of a door. The handcuffs were taken from my wrists, and I was told to stand still while Ryan fumbled with my right hand in a manner to make me more breathless still.
"You'll hear me leave and close the door, sweetheart. Count to fifty then removed the blindfold." I was kissed and left alone.
I was sure I knew! But I would not be certain until I got my eyes. Counting to fifty was one of the hardest tasks I'd ever performed. But when I dragged the bandage from my eyes I knew my guess correct. I was standing in the old apartment, the magic apartment were Ryan had first made me prisoner and we had explored our love. Everything I saw was gloriously familiar and spoke its own welcome to a slavegirl who had come home.
I looked down at my right hand, the thumb of which securely wired to our favorite wall ring. It hurt deliciously, and I knew I would make it hurt even more in an escape attempt I knew would not succeed. I would stand naked where I was, dreaming my dreams until the man I was going to marry came to set me free.
Janice and Diana were gone, seeking their own happiness in their own ways. Ryan's contest had never reached conclusion, but perhaps he had never intended it to. Only I was left! The heat in my loins was almost more than I could bear. As though to reassure myself of ecstasy, I tugged savagely at my wired thumb.
