"As she will be the oldest girl in the school," Miss Lilly mused thoughtfully, "is not twenty-two a bit old for Maiden Hall?"
"The emolument is commensurate with whatever problems her age may involve," Miss Alice chided gently.
"I cannot but feel the regiment of punishments selected by the mother unduly severe." Miss Lilly consulted a list. "The poor child will chastened indeed."
"We must stop referring to Lacey as a child. As for the punishments, they are no more than a healthy young woman can endure. The mother did inform us of the girl's willingness to submit. I judge the situation healthy."
"The mother indicated Lacey would be delivered to us under restraint. It is rare our girls arrive bound or strapped in a straight jacket." A portentous pause widened. "Do you not find this strange?"
"I questioned that, too. Apparently it is by the girl's own wish. She is fearful of second thoughts at the last moment. I take this to indicate a sensible and determined character."
In a communion peculiarly their own, the Courtnidge sisters gazed from the sun drenched room out into the Mediterranean blue. In the time they had occupied the old house standing a mile back from the French Rivera's vulgarity, they had perfected themselves in two accomplishments. One was to master the French language and the other was to have raised Maiden Hall to an international prominence to which young woman flowed in a modest but persistent stream. The sisters had chuckled over the proposition that whereas the young ladies described by parents and guardians as "difficult" it was usually a case of the parents themselves being less tractable than the dewy-eyed young maidens the Courtnidge fold. Restraints and punishments were only discretely hinted unless specific details were demanded by a parent out of patience with her child. The finished product returned to the grateful parent was both amenable and obedient and parental gratitude often took the form of sizeable checks and glowing references. Maiden Hall was a success.
"I have arranged for Madam Chalfont to act as escort for dear Lacey," Miss Alice continued. "Emily Chalfont can deal with the matter of whatever restraints are decided upon and should physical force.. . " She shrugged expressively. "Well, I have always said we made a good investment in having good Emily in the oriental arts of physical control. I have watched her handle our girls with such incredible ease I am constantly amazed."
"Madam Chalfont is a treasure. We owe much of Maiden Hall's success to her stern severity."
"Yet, with those who obey, she bestows a sweet affection. She is a treasure."
Miss Alice and Miss Lily Courtnidge sighed happily in the best of all possible worlds.
The three women stood awkwardly in Mrs. Emila Evans' living room. There was an air of tension, mother and daughter exuding vibrations of anxiety as opposed to Emily Chalfont's calm self-possession. The French woman had he right things to say.
"You are to be complimented on your decision Madam and Mademoiselle, one understands it was not easy." She turned her full attention upon Lacey Evans. "You do this of your own free will Mademoiselle? You are reconciled?"
There was only the faintest of hesitations before a resolute young feminine voice affirmed, "Yes, of my own free will. It is my mother's wish." Emily Chalfont smiled inwardly. It was a unique situation, one she might long remember. Mrs. Emily Evans was obviously a trifle fey, vague and probably misguided in the decision she was following.
Emily's voice was soothing, "We need go no further, Madam, should you change your mind?"
Mrs. Evans looked disturbed, her tone was irritated. "Why should I changed my mind, I've provided your superiors with a full regiment to be imposed upon my daughter Lacey. I am certain she will benefit. Do you not agree, my dear?"
"Yes, Mother."
"You see, the dear child is wiser than us both Madam Chalfont. I have allowed Lacey to see the list of punishments I have selected. She is confident of her capacity to accept them."
Emily Chalfont was a practical woman. She seized the obvious opportunity to felicity. Her tone was brief, "Since we are all in agreement, perhaps we should now commence? Miss Lacey Evans, you are ready?"
"Yes, I am ready."
"You see! The dear child is wondering why we need to discuss the matter. All is settled!"
"In that case I will ask you to remove your clothes, Mademoiselle." Emily's voice was brisk.
Watchful eyes saw the younger woman brace herself as for a blow. Her voice was toneless. "Is that really necessary, Madam?"
"Do as you are told, dear, don't quibble."
"Yes, Mother."
Madam Chalfont smiled as she watched reluctant fingers remove their owner's coverings. Once started there were no more hesitations. Lacey Evans did not speed her stripping but made herself nude as though it was routine act. She queried but one thing. "My shoes and nylons, Madam?"
"You may wear them, dear, it is a practical thought. There is now the matter of your restraint." Lacey visibly flinched. Madam Chalfont's bag had to be much in evidence throughout, it now disgorged supple and shinning brown leather fabricated into shapes the daughter dimly recognized. "May I compliment you on a superb figure, Mademoiselle. And now, if you will be so kind as to stand quite still and clasp your hands at the back of your neck."
The daughter looked briefly at the mother as though hoping for a last moment reprieve, she eyed the waiting leather in Madam Chalfont's hands askance. But her jaw tightened and she stood tensely erect in full nakedness, breasts heaving, encouraged my her mother's fatuity. "You see, Madam Chalfont, she's such a good girl but do be sure to make the straps very tight indeed. You will hold still, won't you, Lacey darling?"
"Yes, Mother." It was the thing Lacey feared most, this moment of no return, this yielding of her person to the mercies of a stranger, to leave her mother's home tight bound or strapped as might a felon. She gasped in shock as the broad leather band imposed the coolness of its surface around her narrow waist and was drawn tight by lacings at the back. In obedience to the French woman's request, she exhaled to the full to feel the laces outrageously tight as Madam thrust with her knee at the passive bottom while at the same time tugging hard upon the threads of leather obedient to her will. Satisfied, she knotted the laces in a couple of pretty bows.
"And now your hands, Mademoiselle?"
This was without doubt her last chance to assert herself. The naked girl hesitated to place her wrists within the waiting straps at either side of the broad belt. It was a simple, and no doubt humane, method of rendering a naked girl helpless. With a deep sigh, she placed her hands for Emily Chalfont's convenience. Strong French fingers positioned them and straps were drawn tight and then tighter still. When the last strap end was neatly inserted out of sight, Miss Lacey Evans stood with forearms parallel with her strictured waist, her imprisoned fingers spayed out and reaching fruitlessly upon the shinning leather surface. She was exquisitely helpless.
"Should not her elbows be strapped, also?" the loving mother asked anxiously.
"There is no need, Madam. The ensemble is complete as you behold it now. Your daughter is well confined."
Lacey Evans was in complete agreement, she was indeed well confined. The straps had her for sure and her questing fingers could find nothing beyond the leather surface of the waist band. She could reach nothing, touch nothing, do nothing! Sadly she reassured, "I'm quite helpless, Mama, I can't possibly free myself. Please not to worry, Madam Chalfont is quite correct, I am well confined." Her last words were tinged with bitterness.
The bag now provided an ambiguous robe which skillful French fingers draped upon the captive girl to cover both her nakedness and the leather of the restraint.
"Mademoiselle can sit beside me in the car, Madam, I am sure she will give no trouble."
"But she could scream and her feet are free.. . ? "
"Rest assured your daughter will do nothing stupid, Mrs. Evans. Once in the car I will secure her ankles. Have no fear."
"I am returning to England this evening," the pre-maturely old voice advised crisply. "Are you sure you will have no further need of my advise, Madam Chalfont?"
"You may leave with an easy mind, Madam Evans, all details have been dealt with. And now ma cherie, we'll enjoy our first ride together.
It was a moment Lacey Evans would always remember, an end and a beginning.
Her hands were busy twisting against the leather straps beneath the clock in a last minute need for freedom. Emily Chalfont patted her captive's back and assured, "It is useless to strive for escape, ma cherie. It would be best if you quietly relax. You and I have much to talk about."
With a choked sob, Mrs. Evans clasped her daughter in arms and feverishly kissed the lips she would touch no more for the six month sentence to which she had condemned the strapped and naked girl. Then, with a disorganized "Thank you.. . Thank you," to Madam Chalfont, she fled the room to leave her tightly strapped offspring to the tender mercies of a woman then hardly knew. Unexpectedly, Madam Chalfont added a chased salute of her own to startled lips to whisper, "Fear not little one, you are in good hands."
In dull misery, Lacey allowed herself to the led to the awaiting car. There was much fussing in the matter of her comfort, the arranging of her robe, and then the doubly humiliating strapping of her ankles in the tightly buckled grip of one more leather band. To the casual observer she would just appear one more girl seated in a car. It was all very civilized.
"We take not the main road, cherie. The fewer prying eyes, the better." Madam Chalfont turned to stare at the girl beside her on the seat. "I expect you are frightened, be not ashamed."
"Of course I'm frightened." Lacey stirred in rebellion against the leather that made her prisoner. "This is all so new to me. I have never been what you call 'restrained." I'm finding it difficult to adjust to.
Forgive me if I seem less than happy."
"The restraints are necessary, dear girl, most young ladies do not have your character or your purpose. They come to us flapping their poor little wings so we are compelled to bind them tight. We have chosen leather because it is least painful of all."
"Why couldn't you have accepted my promise to cooperate?"
"Of course, cherie!" Emily Chalfont was warmly sympathetic. "But sometimes good intentions and resolution break down. Supposing that, at this moment you decided to rebel, think what a contretemps you could create!"
"I suppose you're right," Lacey said wearily as though she had been bound for hours. I expect you're being kind to me and I'm acting like a bore. Tell me of Maiden Hall."
"It is a school in which our pupils made the best of a bad job."
"But I'm twenty-two, I don't need to go to school. From what Mama told me I'm going there to be punished. Is that true?"
"Ah, yes, that is right. It grieves me to tell you this but you and I are both aware of your mother's aberration, she thinks you have sinned and must be purified by pain."
"Pain?" Lacey rolled the word over on her tongue as though hearing it for the first time. "From that list I read I gather the pain comes in the form of whips and pillories and stocks and being bound in solitude?"
"Of course, dear girl. I will not try and deceive you. But there are pleasures with the pain. Our little mademoiselles will be told to obey you as they obey me. There are several young woman only slightly younger than yourself. You can be a member of a family that can be happy or sad according to their will."
"I find it hard to believe," Lacey admitted slowly. "But will I really and truly be whipped? I mean the real thing, not just paddled or caned?"
"Yes, dear, you will be whipped."
Lacey turned her thoughts to less painful subjects. Her strapped wrists never ceased their seeking of freedom denied but she was no longer conscious of them. She was thinking more of her mother and herself and her mother's sentencing her to a six month's imprisonment in what promised to be a painful confinement. She knew that without this promise of a release in half a year, she would be alarmed indeed. But girls like to have something to look forward to and she had that promise. Almost automatically her hands ceased to twist and tug and remained still within the leather. She had told of her strange pledge to no one, she had said nothing even to her closest female friends, they would think her crazy. Perhaps she was insane to thus yield herself to the whim of a woman mentally deranged. Once more her hands and wrists resumed their hopeless quest for release from the strangest compulsion of her life.
"You are thinking hard, Mademoiselle?" Emily Chalfont's question was shrewdly wise. "I, too, would think hard were I in your shoes."
"You are telling me I have made a mistake, aren't you?" Lacey's own voice was no less possessed of wisdom. "I suppose this is the place where my friends would laugh at me and say 'you'll be sorry!'"
"I could make this journey pleasanter for you, cherie, if I told you lies but this I will not do."
Lacey sighed heavily in exasperation with herself, with Emily Chalfont, with this whole bizarre situation she had allowed to come to pass. Great as might be her love for her mother, the image of Mrs. Evans was fading fast, to be replaced by visions of Maiden Hall and what she would find therein. "This whole business of punishment, of me personally being punished.. . I just can't make it seem real." Lacey's voice was troubled. "How do other girls cope?"
Madam Chalfont was pleased with her new prisoner, the girl was mature, a pleasant relief from the other youthful moppets with their tears and tantrums. It would be a pleasure to whip Lacey Evans, there was substance to the girl and the whip would mark her exquisitely.
Madam Chalfont knew there would be worthwhile discussions between them as the punishments selected by Mrs. Emily Evans were imposed. Her voice was kind. "It is silly that I say not to worry, of course you worry. You feel the whip and you wear the chains. But it is for six months only, and for the first of these you will be making the adjustments, bearing the shock and coming to understand the validity of Maiden Hall. I assure you the five months to follow will be bearable as you relinquish all wish to escape, rebelliousness, disobedience, you will come by a wish to be as your mother desires you. Then, voila, it is over and we kiss good-bye. By that time some girls are sorry to go."
"Thank you for telling me these things, Madam. Possibly I have no right to ask. But one more question can a girl's sentence be extended, prolonged, on and on? A girl has no say in such things, has she? And she is given no chance to escape?"
"Y'ou are thinking of your mother, little one. Alas, I must tell you that indeed the worthy Mrs. Evans could add to your sentence or even extent it for the duration of her life. Should she decide this after you have returned home at the end of six months I can only suggest you refuse to return. You mother cannot use force on you and in a case such as that Maiden Hall would not use force to bring you back within its fold."
"But the police.. . ? Surely they don't allow you to imprison a girl for life!"
"Miss Lilly and Miss Alice Courtnidge have an understanding with the authorities. Maiden Hall is considered an international convenience."
It would sink in with time. Lacey Evans was still finding the clutch of leather bands hard to believe. For minutes she seriously considered the steps she could take to achieve freedom at this moment should she so desire, but could think of nothing. To scream at passing cars or the occasional pedestrian would be futile. Even if a policeman stopped the car, Lacey was positive Madam Chalfont would have the right answer. The point of no return was now behind her. She was a well-secured captive on her way to the strangest of prisons a girl might enter. She thrust escape from her mind as a dirty word, she felt certain she would never be granted the faintest opportunity.
It was with palpitation pulse Mavis Morley surmounted the last few stairs and approached the awful door behind which Miss Alice would be waiting with the cane. Mavis had been at Maiden Hall only a short time but was already expert at the computation of possible punishments to fit her crimes. These crimes were innocent enough but in Maiden Hall nothing was too innocent to escape the awful cut of cane or smart of strap. Mavis knocked respectively upon the massive panels behind which lay her fate.
"You have a nice, trim little figure. Mavis, it's filling out nicely." Miss Alice always tried to relieve tension by the irrelevant. "How old are you now?"
"I'm twelve. Miss Alice. Here's the note I was told to give you." The headmistress read the short note with a frown. Mavis quaked and revived her estimate of probable strokes upward. "Really, my dear, I'm disappointed in you." Miss Alice gazed sternly above her bifocals. "The most modest punishment I can inflict for this misdemeanor is two strokes with the cane on each of your hands. I'm sure you agree."
"Yes, Miss Alice." Mavis had expected at least four and was much relieved. "Thank you very much. I'm sorry I was naughty."
"And we will not proceed to make you even sorrier, dear." Miss Alice had produced a thin and wicked length of yellow cane. "And now, if you will just stand so.. . Ah, that's exactly right. And now dear expend your arm and be sure not to curl your fingers."
Mavis did as she was told, she was traversing a familiar road, but a road no less terrible for having passed that way before. It was understood any girl who's hand was to be caned must unflinchingly look down the length of her bare arm to the small and tight stretched palm held upon as though to clasp the pain it was about to suffer. Miss Alice said the politest of "Thanks you's" and struck with deadly accuracy to drive Mavis to her knees and her punished palm into the warm hollow of a sympathetic armpit. For some moments the child was totally absorbed with pain, oblivious to all else than the burn she could not stop.
Miss Alice Courtnidge gazed down in sincere approval. The naked child was an absolute darling and always pleasurable to punish. Mavis was always obedient and never argued or made excuses. Whenever her punishment was done she always appeared grateful for having received it. "Back up on you feet, dear, we mustn't take all day."
Mavis was dry eyed but obviously under the stress of emotion. Unsteadily she stood erect and extended the as-yet uninjured hand, once more gazing steadfastly down the bare arm to where the cane would cut. There was the familiar but terrible swish as the air was sliced as the limber length impacted across a taut palm. This time Mavis did not fall to her knees but bent forward with a burning hand beneath each armpit. Her breathing was labored as she twisted back and forth as though to find easement for an infliction too great to bear. It was at that moment the phone rang.
Mavis listened hopefully but her hope was quickly dissolved as Miss Alice said, in her most courteous tone, "Of course, Emily, bring the dear girl up, I am anxious to meet Lacey Evans. I am just punishing Mavis Morley and it will be a lesson to observe how punishments are dealt with here at Maiden Hall."
Curiosity got the best of prudence. Mavis straightened up and inquired, "Is that a new girl coming, Miss Alice?"
"Yes, dear, but you should not have asked that question," Miss Alice said then frowned. "I fear your curiosity has earned you one extra stroke. You can bend down and touch your toes in Miss Evans presence. Madam Chalfont is escorting her at this moment."
Maiden Hall greeted Lacey Evans with a strange mixture of affection and dismay. The affection came from Miss Alice who enfolded her in the warmest embrace and kissed her soundly on the lips. The dismay arouse from sight of an intrigued moppet, totally naked, who was obviously entranced by the arrival of a new girl, especially a new girl of the advanced maturity Mavis herself lacked. Miss Alice was fully equal to what might have been an awkward moment. "I am just dealing with dear little Mavis," she informed the newcomer sweetly. "I will finish the dear child's punishment and then you and I can have a chat." She turned her attention once more to the quaking twelve year old to demand, "You first hand again, dear, you know what to do."
Lacey stared in fascinated horror as the cane cut again at an already wounded palm but, inspired by an audience. Mavis outdid herself. With only a choking yelp of pain she allowed her injured arm to fall and extended the other hand to receive its due. After cut number four she wasted no time but turned to conveniently posture herself and bend forward to touch her toes. Miss Alice nodded approvingly, took a firm stance, and swished the cane with a resounding Thwack upon the tight little round bottom. Lacey could almost feel the pain herself but Mavis was determined to make a good impression and said a sweetly controlled, "Thank you, Miss Alice," and remained bend over awaiting further instructions.
"You may stand up now, dear. I'm more than pleased with your performance. I'm sure Miss Evans is impressed. You may return to your class."
Mavis took a dewy-eyed glance from one to the other of those presence. Despite admirable control a couple of tears were in evidence and the whipped child bestowed a damp smile upon the new young woman as she scampered from the room, the scarlet weal upon her twins buns proclaimed itself vividly as she made her thankful exit.
With the punished twelve year old safely out of sight, Miss Alice now bestowed her full attention upon the naked girl tightly strapped beneath the cloak. As though by an unseen signal, Emily Chalfont reached up for the clasp at the neck and threw the concealing and shapeless garment aside in a dramatic gesture of a triumphant disclosure of a naked girl. Lacey Evans stood in loveliness to be examined by the woman who now held her live in control. Miss Alice made no reference to the tight strapped waist or wrists but turned the naked girl this way and that before exclaiming, "My dear girl, you are a beauty, you are quite superb."
"Thank you. I'm glad you like me." Lacey could think of nothing sensible to say. "Could I be unfastened now that I'm.. . safely delivered?"
"You are referring to the hobbles, dear? That is their proper name, hobbles. No, they will not be taken from you immediately. I find them intriguing. They were made for you, you wear them charmingly."
"But I'm not dangerous, really I'm not."
"Of course not, dear. What we are dealing with now is pure aesthetics. After you have been with us a while you will understand the significant way in which bonds enhance a maiden's natural beauty." Miss Alice turn to the waiting French woman. "Than you so much, Emily my dear, you have handled this matter admirably. We will speak of it more another time. But for now, perhaps you will leave Lacey and I alone. No doubt she is securely strapped and I want her left that way while we talk."
It was the first chagrin thrust upon Miss Lacey Evans in her new imprisonment. She was to remain strapped during this first interview with the headmistress. This could only mean she was not trusted. If she was not trusted now, perhaps she never would be! She moved her hands fretfully to cause the straps to creak but not to give her freedom. Her motion of revolt did not escape unnoticed.
"You cannot possibly free your hands, Lacey dear," Miss Alice said. "You must not take this helplessness to heart, it is a natural consequence of your new circumstances. Please do sit down."
Lacey sat. The leather strictures around waist and wrists made it difficult. Her elbows reached the chair back first so she was obliged to sit at a awkward attention. Ruefully, she reflected this was probably the posture desired. Once more she strove for humility.
"Miss Alice, I do promise to behave and do what I'm told. You do understand the circumstances of my coming here?"
"Indeed I do, dear girl. Emily and I are immensely pleased with your attitude. There are just a few questions."
Lacey strove hard to be attentive and to forget the denial of her hands. If it was the custom at Maiden Hall to keep new pupils constrained and helpless during their initial interview, what matter did it make to her? She tried to forget strapped wrists, to give the headmistress her full attention.
"Have you ever been whipped, dear?" Miss Alice made it sound like a query about a meal.
"No, never." There was a brief, awkward pause, "Should I say I'm sorry?"
"Not at all, it does not matter. What about the other punishments? I believe your mother showed you a list?"
"There are all strange to me, and frightening. I will try and not make too much fuss when you impose them on me."
"Charming, charming! I'm sure we are going to get along famously." Miss Alice beamed. "You mustn't worry about your lack of experience with pain, Maiden Hall will look after everything. You need be concerned with nothing."
"I'm concerned about my present condition." Lacey boldly tugged and twisted at her strapped wrists to demonstrate their helplessness. "Is this truly necessary, I think we could talk so much better if I were free."
"The hobbles are necessary to this occasion, my dear, take my word for it. Try and forget them, they really are of no importance to you."
"And I don't understand about being naked. I suppose it's all right so long as we're all females, but it doesn't feel all right. It feels.. . Well, it feels horrible. Can't I please have some covering?"
"A girl with your breasts and tummy and pubic hair should not be wanting covering, Lacey dear. Covering is the very last thing you need. You will get none whatsoever at Maiden Hall, I assure you."
Lacey had nothing more to say. Frustrated, she gazed at this middle-aged woman who would have an answer to anything. Miss Alice was undoubted a lady, from family and good breeding. She ventured another question, "Mother was a bit vague about Maiden Hall. But I'm no longer a child, I'm supposing this place provides a service in which a girl may be sent to be punished and imprisoned if someone wanted me out of the way they could send me here for a month or a year, and you would make sure I didn't escape. Is that right, Miss Courtnidge."
"Basically, yes."
"And to be punished I wouldn't have to do anything. I mean, all the girls here are punished regularly, aren't they. Even though they're innocent of.. . Well, simply innocent."
"That is correct, dear. It is so nice to talk to a mature young woman like yourself. It takes some of the younger ones so long to understand. The punishments are, of course, intended as penalties for sins performed outside these walls and before we even meet you." Miss Alice smiled benignly. "But I'm sure you do understand we have rules here and if those rules are broken, punishment follows."
Lacey stirred restlessly and wished herself back home. She was still remembering the proud young flesh of that child being punished upon her arrival. Mavis had seemed so innocent and yet.. . !
Lacey's thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Miss Lilly. The Courtnidge sisters were alike in all things except looks. Miss Alice was dark. Miss Lilly was decidedly fair and fluffy. Lacey guessed them as around fifty. Miss Lilly wasted no time in embracing the newcomer but went a step further than had her sister. Miss Lilly was carnally curious enough to handle the young, firm breasts and lovingly grasp the damp, moist spot at the junction of Lacey's thighs.
"I expect it's terribly frustrating for you to have your hands strapped while an old lady does these things to you?" she inquired cheerfully. "You must remember that at Maiden Hall your body has been delivered to us to use in whatever way we see fit." Once more she kissed the unresponsive lips. "You must learn to look upon yourself, dear, as not being yourself at all but as a beautiful living thing Alice and I and Emily will train. Mrs. Evans, your mother, will be so proud of you by the time we send you home. Perhaps we can persuade her to extend the period of your sentence. Six months is such a little time."
"I want to go home right now, please let me."
"Don't worry, dear, you're just trying to assert yourself." Miss Lilly turned the lovely nude around for inspection. "Alice, my love, I see you have not yet used the cane on this delightful young bottom."
"No, I was waiting for you. Would you like to explain?"
"We subject every new girl to some degree of corporal punishment upon arrival, my dear," Miss Lilly explained sweetly. "You're a big girl, Lacey, so we will give you more strokes than one of the dear children sent for our attention. What would you say, Alice, a dozen."
"I had been thinking in terms of ten."
Lacey had been listening in dismay. Protest flooded her lips but she choked it back. It had been explained that innocence would save her nothing and innocence was all she had to offer. But she came up with a point of view.
"I'm twenty-two, I'm a woman. It's hardly fitting for a woman to be caned on her bare skin as might a child." She looked from one to the other in earnest appeal. "Please I ask you, don't whip me unless I've done something to deserve it."
The Courtnidge sisters appeared not to have heard. Miss Alice was once more flexing the long, yellow cane in forceful hands while Miss Lilly led her captive girl to the center of the floor to inquire in a friendly manner, "You will received the strokes on your bare bottom. May we depend on you to bend over and hold the pose until your punishment is complete?"
It was crazy! It was insane! Lacey could now understand why her hands had been left tightly strapped at her sides. Once more, in futility, she heard her own exclamation, "But I'm twenty-two.. . I'm twenty-two.. . ! "
"Of course, dear, you said that before. Such a lovely age, we do envy you. Now, if you'll just bend down and keep your knees straight. Come, I will assist you into position."
The hands were gentle, not to be gainsaid. As though by magic they arranged Lacey's nakedness into a forward bend and stiffened knees to protrude the twin rounds. Their owner had never felt more awkward and untidy in her life.
Had Miss Lilly's firm hands not been upon the young shoulders it would have been difficult for Lacey to have held the shameful pose through what she supposed was a ritual prelude to pain. Miss Alice stroked and patted and wrapped the firm, tight flesh to gage it properties and measure its stance. This foreplay went on long enough to bring breathlessness to the naked girl who was wondering if she should take a chance and butt Miss Lilly in the midriff and leap for the door. She reached no conclusion. Agony suddenly explored in an intensity she had never previously known. Lacey was glad of the supposing hands as her hips weaved back and forth and her knees bent and straightened up and down in the seeking of a relief they could not find. The awful pain now spread throughout Lacey's loins to impose a scolding fire in every crevasse of her femaleness.
The guiding hands became more firm as Miss Alice explained, "We always make the first stroke extremely hard, dear. We explain it is the worse the young lady will received on this occasion. We believe this ads her in maintaining posture and relieves anxiety. I will now continue with the rest of your punishment."
Lacey thrust her head hard against Miss Lilly's thighs and bit her lips as the second cut, every bit as hard as the first, bit her skin. When number three screeched into impact the bent over girl uttered a cry of genuine distress and relapsed on the rug.
"I can't take it, I'm sorry but I simply can't accept such pain." Her voice was piteous.
The Courtnidge sisters appeared once more to have lost their hearing. Each too a imprisoned arm to lead a feminine package of emotions to a waiting ottoman attached to the massive vertical of a guillotine. But in this case there was no blade, only a slotted segment which was now raised and Lacey's head thrust into the waiting circlet before it was closed hard down to clamp her neck firmly as though waiting for the wicked blade. Lacey moaned in realization of a fresh helplessness and a fresh indignation as the wooden yoke held her neck in an embrace to compel her to lean upon the ottoman and protrude her bottom for the continuation of its punishment. Still dried-eyed and in control of her emotions, she pleaded, "Please don't.. . Please don't.. . Please don't.. . ! "
It was a fearsome thing to lay thus secured and know for sure the succession of strokes would fall upon her rounded flesh. As first one stroke and then another cut savagely on innocent curves, their owner leaped, twisted and kicked in a mute and futile display of anguish. The burn and scold was more than she could believe. But it was happening! Soon the sisters exclaimed, "Number ten," in unison and the blows ceased, the girl who's neck was yoked found herself shamefully ready for the question.
"Do you promise obedience, dear?"
"I promise! Yes.. . Oh, yes, I'll be obedient!"
Maiden Hall had claimed her.
2
The Punished Puss
Maiden Hall enfolded and embraced the twenty-two year old Lacey with the same competent affection bestowed upon a child. Within a week the mind of Lacey Evans was filled to overflowing with impressions of a plush and benevolent imprisonment. She found it had to explain the benevolence for there was no day which failed to bring pain, sometimes a great deal of pain. But this was the gift of the Courtnidge sisters that everyone loved and respected them in the same degree to which they themselves were loved. The only variation in the treatment of the girl lay in the directives imposed by the parents or guardians. Some must be severely punished daily. Some lightly as a matter of authority. Another division lay in the matter of sleeping. The youngsters shared a dormitory but the older girl were segregated in pairs and allocated a pleasant bedroom which contrived a blend of boudoir and dungeon. Lacey's roommate was a mine of information.
When Emily had made the introduction Jane Brigon had been sitting nakedly upon her bed and languidly playing with the smooth metal anklet and the shinning heavy links by which her foot was attached to the frame. She grinned and shrugged as Lacey's ankle was similarly treated. She was probably nineteen but had cultivated a protective sarcasm.
"My name's Jane Brigon and I know yours, it's Lacey Evans. Welcome to the penitentiary."
"Miss Brigon is pleased to jest." Emily Chalfont exuded disapproval.
She fixed a stern eye upon the younger girl. "Perhaps mademoiselle would like me to take her downstairs behind bars and concrete?"
"Sorry I was flip, I'll try and watch myself. Madam. I apologize." The humility scarcely matched the shinning eyes but Emily Chalfont had been satisfied. Ritual had been properly met.
"We can't do anything, Lacey," the young voice was bitter after the French woman had closed and locked the door. "The beds are fastened to the floor and our ankles are fastened on the wrong side. We can stretch and maybe hold hands or maybe even kiss each other's lips the top lips, I mean. But they don't let us play fun and games. They're clever."
Lacey examined her own tether. In its way it was beautiful, smooth, shinning metal but implacable. It was only a couple of feet long, just enough to give her comfort underneath the covers of the bed. Her first thoughts were practical. "But we can't get to the bathroom and we can't get to the dressers. How are we suppose to.. . "
"There's pail under the bed and in the morning we'll have leg irons locked on us and given the run of the whole room and the bathroom. They always lock one thing on first before unfastening another. It's all done very politely and lovingly but don't you complain."
The naked Lacey experimented instantly, tugging at the chained ankle and stretching across the bed to support herself with hands on the floor on the other side. It was actually just barely possible for the two girls to kiss. They could hold hands easily but that was all!
"You see what I mean?" Jane said ruefully. "We're always fastened someway, there's never any real freedom in Maiden Hall. Mostly they use straps on us, Alice and Lilly consider rope vulgar and beneath the social status of us girls. I'm just as glad they do."
"I know," Lacey admitted. "They brought me here in some things they called 'hobbles,' the made me helpless, I couldn't do a thing."
"And I'll bet they caned you bottom? May I see?"
Lacey contorted to present a view of her punished posture. She received a tribute rather than sympathy. "My, my, you do mark splendidly, darling. Did you think you were going to die?"
"Yes, it seems silly now but the pain was so awful I couldn't possibly believe I'd survive."
"We get used to it, darling, this idea of whipping us on arrival isn't as cruel as it seems. It gets us adjusted. Next time we get our little ass caned, we know right at the start it's not the end of the world. My sentence is exactly a year and I've done four months of it. What about you?"
"Six months and this is just my first day."
"Gosh, you're lucky! Six months is a breeze. But don't get your hopes up, they'll probably think up some excuse for keeping you longer. They nearly always do. My guardian would be just as happy if I never got out at all."
The surprisingly cheerful Jane had one more admonition before sleep. "We're forbidden to play with ourselves. They told me to tell you. They can't always catch us but if they do they punish us terribly. It's a risk each girl takes on her own. They like to make the punishment fit the crime, so maybe you can guess what they do to the pussy of a girl caught playing with it. She either gets whipped or sat upon that awful horse thing. They've got different kinds but they all hurt."
In the morning the leg irons were a surprised. Lacey had envisioned some sort of metal devices designed for criminal feet but that was not the way of it at Maiden Hall. Conforming to a principle, the girls were hobbles made of the heaviest of leathers and joined by similar links what attached them to their beds at night. The locks were ingenious and once again conformed to the sister's concept of what was proper for young ladies. The two ends of the anklet were thrust together so one entered the other, there came a click and, as Jane explained, only dynamite would get them off. Scissors and ordinary kitchen knives made no impression on the leather but did sometimes leave scratches which drew punishments of their own. When Emily Chalfont has thus restrained Lacey's feet on this, her first day, she looked down with fascinated interest upon wide, thick but very neat black bands around each of her ankles. Only the shining metal of the locks broke the black bands. They were tight upon each ankle and reminded their wearer of their presence as she walked. The joining chain was only long enough for a slow walk. Lacey ruefully guessed her own pedestrian progress would be tediously slow until such time as she adjusted her stride. Jane Brigon walked with an assurance born of long confinement.
The girls all ate their meals together in one large dinning room. Lacey had a chance to view her fellow captives with interest just as they found interest in surveying her. She found herself blushing when she realized her naked body held interest for the younger girls who's breasts were not yet developed and who's pubic patch was not yet as thick. However there was a good enough teenagers to bridge the gap between one generation and another. But it did not take Lacey long to realize herself the possessor of the largest, firmest pair of breasts and mostly hairy triangle of pubic hair. Judging by such whispers as she overheard she was obliged to consider herself fortunate in such matters.
During breakfast, Emily Chalfont leaned over a bare shoulder to advise, "Miss Lilly required your presence when the meal is done. You will attend her. You may wander as you please. You will find the windows and doors locked. The penalty for escape attempts is severe."
It would be wrong to say Lacey hurried to keep her appointment, she could not hurry and even with the most conservative steps often stumbled. The chain between her feet made a cheerful clatter as she moved. In fact the clink and clatter of the chains was the singular most prominent sound as the girls went about their affairs, each pair of feet having been treated exactly as Jane and Lacey's. The new girl shrugged in recognition of such control. With bared windows and locked doors there would be no possibility of escape. She wandered here and there to assure herself of the barred windows before knocking at Miss Lilly's door.
"I am hearing the most glowing reports about you dear," Miss Lilly said. "I am sure you are glad we caned your bottom yesterday. You must have found the pain most helpful."
Lacey allowed it to pass, there was no use trying to keep pace with Maiden Hall. "You sent for me, Miss Lilly?" Lacey asked innocently. "I'm sorry it takes me so long to walk."
"The foot restraints look adorable on you, Lacey dear, and I'm sure you're adjusting splendidly. And, yes, I did send for you, to discuss your age."
"But I've already told you, Miss Lilly, I'm twenty-two," Lacey said brightly. "I understand I am the oldest girl in the school but I'll soon get used to it. Please don't worry about me."
"Well, yes, of course." Miss Lilly was unaccustomed to girls who spoke so forthrightly in agreement. "If wasn't exactly your age but Alice and I wanted to explain how pleased we would be if you and ourselves could met and talk as equals. And, by the way, we do not mind how you address us. It can be as Miss or, if you prefer, even
Madam. But we do not deem it proper to have you calling us by our given names."
"Yes, of course, I understand, Miss Lilly. I'll stay with the Miss Lilly and Miss Alice for now, if you don't mind."
Miss Lilly beamed goodwill. "That will do nicely. Now, tell me how you're finding the leg restraints? I could call them leg irons, it's the accepted term but seems to me inappropriate."
"They're very beautiful, thank you. I can't walk very fast, but then, I'm not suppose to, am I!"
"That's right, dear, you do put things so well. But let us take another step forward. I wish to explain to you a hazard in our relationship which has led to many of the older or bigger girls making a grave mistake. I don't want this to happen to you."
"Yes, Miss Lilly?" Lacey did her best to look interested and attentive.
"You are already aware you will be constantly punished." Miss Lilly continued as though discussing the weather, "In the course of these punishments you will often find yourself without restraint. You are a strong and vigorous young woman. It would be difficult to physically subdue without a degree of brutality."
"I suppose so, Miss Lilly, I hadn't even thought of it."
Miss Lilly smiled reassuringly. It was evident she had a message to impart and Lacey wished she would get on with it, she did not expect it to be good news. "I have already promised to be obedient. Is there some other assurance you would ask of me?"
"In a way there is, Lacey dear girl. For instance, and quite recently, I had occasion to face one of the older girl upon 'the horse.' You know what that is?"
"I've heard of it. I understand it to be extremely painful."
"Well, yes, that is true. But the point I wish to make now is that in the course of this young woman's placement for her punishment, it was convenient to remove her restraints, even the ankles you yourself now wear." Miss Lilly sighed and her eyes became dreamy. "This young woman was sentenced to a period astride the horse and well knew the painful nature of her ordeal. Rather than call for help I asked her in a civilized fashion to place herself upon the seat of punishment while I fastened her beyond decision. I'm happy to say she has been with us long enough to give us total obedience, and in this case she lived up to her reputation and placed herself in a posture resulting in considerable pain. I give her every tribute. May I expect as much from you?"
Lacey realized this sweetly put question of typical of Maiden Hall. A girl was not only punished but was expected to plead for and even to help in her own torture. As she felt back on an ancient platitude, "It would be a case of my spirit being willing but my flesh being weak."
"With a girl like you, that is, of course, the crux of the situation, dear," Miss Lilly said earnestly. "I assure you, your flesh will be far from willing. Your spirit will have a tremendous obstacle to surmount."
Lacey Evans realized some sort of declaration was expected. Miss Lilly was probably trying to be kind in her own rather vague manner. Lacey became equally earnest. "I think what you're telling me, Miss Lilly, is the use of force is implicit in the act you have described. If the flesh of the girl rebels, you will be forced to call upon Emily or some other members of your staff. I think you would prefer not to do this."
Miss Lilly sighed ecstatically. "Dear girl, you've hit the nail on the head. Do you see what Alice and I mean about your maturity? It is so refreshing. No teenager would ever have come back to me with so explicit an understanding. Yes, you are right, I do most earnestly bid you yield yourself on such occasions and avoid the use of physical force. Physical force is neither feminine nor lady-like. I do think that avoiding it is worth some comfort."
Absurd as it might seem, Lacey could now glimpse some logic in the caning of her bottom the previous day. She could now greet pain as an old friend or old enemy which ever way she choose. Her heart warmed to Lilly Courtnidge, this fluffy, middle aged woman was doing her best to make Maiden Hall understandable.
Quietly, Lacey tried to explain a thesis of her own. "Yesterday, when you caned me, my flesh was weak, you found it necessary to fasten my neck in the yoke and hold me so I could not escape the lashes I could not endure." She grinned wryly and shrugged. "If on such occasions you are compelled to use force with me I will bear no animosity. I will understand." She gave a small, bitter chuckle. "I will simply blame myself."
Goodwill echoed across the room. Two women understood each other, and from this understanding came the affection which led the older one to clasp the youthful face and plant an ardent kiss on startled lips. Lacey remembered her hobbled hands of yesterday and, as though in retaliation, put her arms around Miss Lilly Courtnidge to hug her tight in a feminine embrace. She was similarly held until a wise and older hand slid across her belly to test the plump, ripe lips of her captive sex. The result of this exploration caused them both to laugh and Miss Lilly to wipe her glistening palm upon a punished bottom.
"You are exquisitely responsive, my dear," she said with reverence. "My I ask you now to accept your first test?"
It was easy to whisper, "Yes." Female love can be most demanding and if Miss Lilly had commanded Lacey to kneel between the legs of authority she would have done so without thought. Instead her bare arm was grasped by affectionate but firm fingers and she was led, with due consideration for her hobbled ankles, to her next introduction to Maiden Hall.
"It's a bit ornate," Miss Lilly said almost with apology. "Baroque is probably the word. We previously used a somewhat vulgar structure of just plain wood but the edges were too sharp and several of our girls could not be punished for several days after using it. This one will be quite unkind to your pussy but will do it no harm." Miss Lilly squeezed the bare arm reassuringly. "I do so love to refer to our pussy's as though they had a life of their own. I expect you're going to think the same thing in a little while."
Lacey examined the object which would demand so much. It could easily be described as a Victorian torture device. But it had no period, it was of the ages, she could well imagine such an object being used in ancient Babylon or Greece or Rome. And most certainly in Victorian England. It was primarily a pedestal at the top of which a wicked, tiny little saddle awaited the wet and palpitating piece of delinquency sentenced to punishment. It would cunningly and wickedly embed itself deep within the cleft designed for love. She wondered, bitterly, how much it was-likely to hurt.
"I'm afraid it's a trifle hackneyed, dear," Miss Lilly's voice was again faintly apologetic. "I would not inflict it upon you were it not for its demand upon your spirit we've already discussed. It will make a most interesting test. I'm so glad we got rid of the old one. It was frightfully vulgar."
Lacey Evans was in no mood to consider the old beast, her first true ordeal was upon her and this beast was the one facing her. Her mood was one of do or die. Bravely she said, "Please tell me what you want me to do, Miss Lilly. I'll try and be sensible."
Miss Lilly knelt and unlocked the beautiful restraint from the lovely ankles, setting it aside for future use. "There, you see what I mean, dear," she said, almost challengingly. "You are absolutely free. If you wished to fight, you could do so."
It was the strangest of feelings. like being offered a glowing coal you could hold but briefly in your hand. She stretched, extending her now freed feet this way and that, before quietly saying, "Do you want me to sit myself up on that thing of my own free will, Miss Lilly?"
"If you please, Lacey dear. It will hurt terribly. I have left your hands free to help you make the first adjustment. After that the punishment calls for them to be bound behind your back."
Feeling like an actress in an absurd horror film, Lacey tested her weight by lifting herself up to the saddle. Everything was firm. With a quick small jump she swung a bare leg across the pedestal and lifted herself astride so as to easy her crotch into the desired posture of pain. With Miss Lilly's eyes avidly watching she eased herself slowly down into the wickedly contoured little saddle, her feet now hung well above the floor and could offer no support. When she let go her whole weight would rest squarely on her sex. Tentatively she asked, "Do you want to tie my hands now, Miss Lilly?"
Miss Lilly was breathing fast. She held another of the exquisitely wrought leather restraints so favored by Maiden Hall and so extremely practical in limiting the motions of a maiden. "I don't think you've been fastened with one of these before, dear, you'll find it remarkably effective and without pain. It simply holds you helpless." Miss Lilly sighed. "I suppose I need not tell you of this moment. It is the one in which you will be obliged to exert all the power of your will."
Lacey refused to think, closing her mind to apprehension, as she gazed at the fascinating loops of leather and shinning metal in Miss Lilly's hand. She would be held in beauty. The phrase repeated itself over and over in her mind, "Held in Beauty!" It fitted the inmates of Maiden Hall to perfection. Slowly she allowed her sex to absorb the rest of her weight as she obediently placed her hands behind her back.
Once more Miss Lilly had hit a nail upon its head in telling of this moment. The lovingly way in which this situation had been described had flooded Lacey's mind in gratitude for the warning. Her every instinct was to lift a leg and allow herself to slide back onto the floor, it could be done so easily, it flouted nature to remain as she was. But Miss Lilly worked swiftly, the leather clutched and tightened on Lacey's wrists and, while she was still testing the feel of these new bonds, other circlets were clasp upon her ankles. They were attached to the pedestal by a very short chain. Their function was to foil the very act Lacey had considered. It was now too late. Miss Lilly, having tightened the wristlets and extra notch was standing back to survey Miss Lacey Evans and her horse with approval.
"You did marvelously, dear." Her voice was reverent. "I am proud of you. It is hurting nicely?"
For Lacey, nothing was "nice." She had expected a pain on a portion of herself where agony was not customarily inflicted on a girl but this pain beyond pain, a burrowing into her vitals with a sickening insistence growing steadily worse. Her bonds allowed little movement but movement hurt. Lacey sat stiffly erect, her fact lined and drawn in an anguish she was trying hard to understand her mother had sentenced her to this! It was incredible but true.
"There is a small refinement, dear.. . " Miss Lilly's fingers deftly drew a strap from Lacey's wrists to the curved back of the tiny saddle. Everything was made exactly to fit. Buckled tight, the strap drew captive arms straight down and held them thus to accentuate out-thrust breasts and strained shoulders. The naked girl was now a living statue of a mounted maiden, an observer might have wondered why she hurt.
"I don't have time to stay with you during this punishment, Lacey dear," Miss Lilly apologized. "So I'll leave you now. Someone will drop in from time to time so you won't be entirely lonely. Goodbye, dear, you really are quite splendid."
The naked girl in the saddle did not feel splendid at all, she felt only a steady nagging burn upon and within her most private place. The pedestal was cunning and the anklets bitterly frustrating, her feet could aid her not at all. They could not touch the floor below and even though allowed motion within their few links of chain, could give no ease of their owner's pain. Lacey only kicked with them once and it hurt too much to try a second time. She allowed them to hang, limp and useless and the designer of the pedestal had planned. It was the same with her strapped wrists, they were held tight down and to move her hands or tug at the restraint of leather only pushed her flesh more deeply into the saddle. Miss Lacey Evans sat in misery and did not move.
There is no adequate way of describing the pain of "horsed" girl, it is a particular agony all her own, not resembling other punishments but unique in itself. Part of the anguish generated was due to a terrible immobility, the knowledge you must sit still while a fire burned more and more fiercely within your loins and spread pain into every feminine curve. The "horse" was, in short, a nagging horror made doubly hard to bear because it was the girl s own weight which punished her. Lacey shed a few tears of self pity before allowing her head to bow forward in resignation. Maiden Hall was earning its fees.
Miss Alice was the first to visit. She was brisk and business-like, examining the straps for fear they might be slack and paying no heed whatsoever to the flood of pleading Lacey could not contain The punished girl pulled out all the stops and did her best to evoke pity from the middle aged woman would could so easily release her. As usual the sister was infuriating cheerful.
"I'm so glad to see you are hurting so beautifully and looking so sweet. I can't improve on your situation at all, dear Lilly looks after you so well. Just thought I would drop in and say hello."
Lacey looked at the close door in disbelief. It seemed impossible that any woman could be unaffected by her outpouring of anguish. But Miss Alice had obviously heard it all before and had come prepared to hear it again. The naked young woman on the horse tossed her head in angry discontent before allowing it to bow once more to a condition she must suffer and could not change.
The next visitor was a surprise. It was Mavis. "I'm not suppose to be here," she whispered in confidence. "But the whole class knows they've got you on the horse and I just had to come and have a look. You're so terribly beautiful, and the way they've got you fastened there makes you more beautiful than ever. I hope you don't mind?"
Mavis was as typical of Maiden Hall as Miss Alice herself. "Hope you won't mind," it was a fatuous courtesy as nothing compared to unbuckling a few straps and letting the prisoner go free. But, of course, a girl of twelve was not going to take that risk or responsibility. Lacey contented herself with saying, "Thank you, Mavis, you're terribly sweet. But let me advise you, don't ever let yourself be put on this thing if you can avoid it. It's too awful for words."
"Oh, I've been on it already!" Mavis seemed surprised that Lacey did not know. "I had to sit on it a whole half day once. I was absolutely certain I could never play with my pussy again. But don't worry, they don't get squashed flat the way you think, you walk sort of funny the first day and the girls laugh at you and want to hold you where it hurts. Oh, golly. Miss Evans, I wish I had those breasts of yours!"
Lacey sat out her punishment as hour by hour tickled away. It was Emily Chalfont who finally loosened the straps and lifted her from the painful seat. Lacey could not return the woman's embrace, her hands were still strapped fast behind her back but gratitude flowed and the punished girl knew for certain she and Emily would make love together before her sentence at Maiden Hall was finished. Lacey stood quietly, hands behind her back, while the hobbles were again locked upon her ankles. She had completed a cycle of punishment and was back to where she had started.
"You hands can stay were they are for the time being," Emily said offhandedly. "You don't need them, the girls will look after you, and you'll find it frustrating to be unable to nurse yourself down there where it hurts. Don't worry about thinking me a bitch, I am."
Lacey had been taken from the horse in time for afternoon tea. Thick slices of buttered bread and steaming mugs of brew. Girlish hands fed her and lifted the mug to her willing lips, if there mischievous hands also felt her down between her thighs, what did it matter!
"Dear, you're being very much honored by having your hands fastened behind your back the way they are," one of the helpful nymphets informed in a whisper. "They don't do that with a girl's hands unless they're fond of her. I expect it's because a girl looks so much more beautiful the way you are now. They only did it to me once. During the night I had three orgasms and then got extra punishment because of the stains on the sheets. This place is for the birds but I expect you're finding that out."
The next day it was Miss Alice who indulged herself in an informative new lecture with the new girl. Lacey was shown a place before the august desk were she was expected to stand in full view and say whatever was expected of her. The headmistress' first injunction was to command silence about hands strapped behind a bare back. "You look quite ravishing like that, my dear. Those straps don't hurt and they keep you from covering your breasts and pubic hair. Here is nothing I detest more than a girl who doesn't know what to do with her hands. We relieved you of that problem but do please stand at ease, you're as tense as a ram rod."
Lacey sighed and relaxed. Nothing would ever make sense at Maiden Hall. Her sex had ceased to be a constant torment and settled itself down to a small, steady burn she could not touch. Miss Lacey Evans stood where she was told and tried hard to look politely attentive to whatever she was about to hear.
"I wouldn't have put you on the horse so soon, my dear," Miss Alice said. "But I expect Lilly had her reasons, I expect she had given you one of her lectures."
"Yes, Miss Alice, she had. She was very helpful."
"Was she indeed! Well, she and I both have our own methods. But I would have left that little slit of yours off the saddle for a few weeks yet. It's a difficult punishment for a girl and I can imagine it was a bit of a shock." Miss Alice pondered silently while her eyes roved up and down and across obedient nudity. She chuckled. "You're a big girl, Lacey, and I expect the horse hurt you a lot more than it would one of our little moppets. I noticed they tend to take it pretty much in stride. Oh, dear, that was a pun, wasn't it?"
But Lacey figured Miss Alice had not called her to the study to discuss the effect of a girl's weight upon a punishment. Lacey seized upon a pause to inquire, "Will I always have my hands and feet restrained the way they are now? I mean, is it because I'm a bit older than the others? Do you think I'll be prone to escape?"
Miss Alice laughed her pupil's earnestness. "You hands are strapped behind your back because we like them that way. As to the hobbles upon your ankles, well, all the girls wear them. They're to keep you from running away or being silly. Someone will free your hands but I can't tell you when."
Lacey knew it would be useless to protest. Instead she said a polite, "Thank you, Miss Alice, I just wanted to know."
Lilly and I have given a lot of thought to the punishments you girls must suffer here," Miss Alice continued. "We try to avoid the more obvious trite and hackneyed stuff like pillories and stocks and whipping posts, their medieval and there's lots of other things you can do to girl. The whip itself is in a class by itself. It is very hard to divorce a whip from a girl's education. There is nothing like a whip to gain a girl's attention. Would you agree?"
"Yes, I suppose so." Lacey flushed in embarrassment. "I'm terribly sorry if I seem naive but nobody's ever punished me for anything, so it's hard for me to make comparisons. But I think what you've just said is probably true. Talking about some of those other things makes me shutter."
"We do possess them and we use them when me must," Miss Alice was obviously about to move on to her next subject. "We'll try everything out on you, of course, while you're with us, dear. We wouldn't want you to go a way wondering. Have you ever been ravished?"
Lacey tensed, scarce believing she had heard right. She stammered, "You mean.. . That word.. . ? "
"I find the commonly used terms offensive, dear girl," Miss Alice informed without embarrassment. "I'll well aware of the four letter words beginning with 'F,' it is apt. Perhaps we should use it. There is an implication of violence or force in the word ravish but I was sure you would understand my use of the word."
"You're asking me if I've ever had sexual intercourse?"
"That's right, dear, but I can't say I care for that term either. Anyway, you know what I mean."
"But isn't that a terribly private thing?" Lacey wished she were not blushing and awkwardly ashamed. "I don't see what it has to do with my being punished or being kept prisoner at Maiden Hall. I am sure that mother.. . "
"It has a great deal to do with punishment, dear," Miss Alice said gently. "And you're quite right, it is something we did not discuss with your mother. It is something between you and Maiden Hall."
"Would you punish me if I asked to be excused that question?"
"Yes, we would, dear. You must not withhold any information we ask for."
"May I ask what my punishment would be?"
"I suppose so, it's a bit irregular." Miss Alice was obviously somewhat out of her depth. "I would wish to confer with Miss Lilly. But I suppose you would probably be whipped until you decided to give us the information desired. I don't suppose it would take too many strokes but I also don't see where it would you should want to protect your privacy to that extent. Come, dear, answer the question."
Lacey knew herself defended. Her hands strained against soft leather and her breathing quickened. Defensively she said, "I think it's pretty much the same with most girls. We get tired of being pawed and pleaded with so we finally say yes. And they it's usually a messy disaster. I've checked with other girls. Only the really promiscuous ones seem to ever achieve this glory you read about in books. But, yes, I've been ravished. Several times. Quite a number of times. I was curious."
"Thank you, dear, you're so sensible. It's a pleasure to have a girl like you to punish. We must try and remain good friends after your sentence has expired and gone home. May I assume you find ravishment unattractive?"
"Well, yes, that's the way it's been. If a good-looking man tried to talk me into bed right now, I'd try to evade the subject."
"Why not simply say no?"
"Because if a girl says no like that all the time she had almost no social life at all. She'll probably end up being called a lesbian."
Miss Alice seemed pleased. Her voice once hearty. "You confirm a study we made. You see, Lacey dear, in our determination to innovate, we have sought punishments beyond the norm. Where we think it serves a purpose we fasten a girl down upon a bed and allow a chosen male to have his way with her. We give them a couple hours in this situation before asking him to leave. It is a punishment our girls abhor."
"You have to be kidding!" Lacey stared aghast.
"No, dear, I am quite serious. We extend this sexual punishment to all ages, we have found very young girls imbued with a curiosity to outweigh their fear. Only a very few young women enjoy it, these we whip instead."
The strapped young nudity and the middle-aged mistress stared at each other, one in shock, the other awaiting comment. Almost a minute passed before Lacey demanded, "You're not thinking of doing this to me, are you?"
"Yes, dear, you are an admirable subject. I get the distinct impression you would find ravishment a dirty word."
"You're going to do it, aren't you!" Lacey said slowly, her hurt eyes scanning Miss Alice's granite features. "But don't you understand, you're violating my rights as a.. . as a person, as a human being, as a girl. You have no right to have my body violated."
"Yes, we have, dear, you body belongs to us during your sentence at Maiden Hall. Surely you time upon the horse yesterday should have convinced you of a total absence of rights and privileges. Maiden Hall owns your body, Lacey dear, and we all love it very much. But we have made a solemn agreement about your punishments and this is one of them."
"When will it happen?"
"We never tell a girl that. It could be tomorrow or months away. It could be done to you more than a single time. We have Roger Bascombe report to us after each encounter. He is a delightful young man and extremely sensitive to the moods of girls. If a girl loathes the act, he will be aware of this and report accordingly. We may therefore use that punishment on her again and again or until she begins to feel some enjoyment. We then desist."
"This man, this Bascombe, he must be a beast?"
"On the contrary, dear girl, he is an extremely pleasant person and extremely virile. He comes from one of our better families and I do indeed fear he may become attracted to one of our girls and may seek to marry her before the completion of her sentence. But this has not happened yet and we must hope it will not."
Lacey twisted against pinioned arms, her voice held all the pleading she could muster, "Please don't have this done to me, I find the thought of it horrible. It's a beastly punishment. Please, Miss Alice.. . ? "
Miss Alice slipped a note into Lacey's file then inquired, "How would you like to hang by your wrists for the afternoon or at least two or three hours? We have to do something with you today."
Lacey said, bitterly, "Thank you, I'm sure that would be nice. Much better than Mr. Bascombe."
"Very well, dear, if you will just come with me."
Maiden Hall smiled.
3
Strapped Wrists
The only good thing about suspension was that it got a girl's hands out from behind her back, Lacey considered ruefully as she toes stretched down to seek a floor they could not reach. Miss Alice had done her work all too well and had departed with earnest assurances of the benefits Lacey would absorb in her new condition. So far as Lacey could tell the only recognizable feature was simple pain. She was by no means sure that as time went on her present plight might not become as drastic as when in the tiny saddle of the horse. Lacey looked up her strained, bare arms to were her hands were fastened at each end of a stout wooden bar of about eighteen inches long.
"Just the right length, dear," Miss Alice had informed helpfully as she strapped tight the broad leather bands by which Lacey now hung suspended. "You'll find this a remarkable experience, dear, and we won't leave you hanging too long." She had failed, however, to tell the punished girl the length of her present endurance test. Miss Alice had kissed the punished lips and gone away.
It was a strange new helplessness which would become worse and worse as time passed. Lacey's toes were tantalizingly close to the floor but no matter how she struggled she could not make contact. Miss Alice had helpfully explained this closeness to a solid footing, "I could suspend you way up close to the ceiling, dear. But a girl looks so funny up there and we all think it looks much better to have her down at eye level where we can examine all the stresses she suffers as she hangs." Miss Alice had. suddenly and forcefully, plucked firm but tight stretched and a still tender pair of vaginal lips. She had also patted a well marked bottom. "You see what I mean, Lacey dear. You big toe is only about an inch from the floor so we can enjoy a nice sort of togetherness which we couldn't if you were way up in the air." As though offering comfort she added, "You might think it would hurt a lot more up there but that's not so. You'll have just as much pain down here. So much about these situations is mental."
Lacey was not sure whether it was better to hang thus in solitude or to have a companion to witness your shame. It was shameful to hang like this, she was so wickedly exposed and so cruelly frustrated by the compulsion of suspension between ceiling and floor by two leather bands around her wrists. It just didn't seem possible! But the pain assured Miss Lacey Evans it was very possible indeed.
Lacey thought longingly of such mundane inflictions as the pillory or the stocks. She had never been in either but was sure they were easier to bear than her present plight. In the foot stocks a girl even got to sit down while enduring their imposed immobility. Even in the pillory her feet where on the ground and she had something to lean against. Her sentence of six months translated into something more than one hundred and eighty days, Miss Lacey Evans was suddenly appalled at having given away to her mother's authority. One hundred and eighty days like this! It as impossible.
The suspended girl supposed having visitors helped a little. None would end her punishment but they did exchange well intended remarks and Miss Lilly did inquire as to the degree of pain the enforced hanging by strapped wrists imposed. It was a quite clinical inquire without intent to help or aid but simply to store data away for future reference. The sisters Courtnidge took Maiden Hall very seriously indeed, no anguished cry or punished moan went unrecorded. If a girl had to be punished she could find no better place.
It was well into the afternoon before the door opened and a man walked in.
The man and the naked girl stared, one in shock and horror, the other in polite curiosity. The man was totally undismayed, evidently finding exactly what he had expected. His voice was definitely upper crust and delightfully natural in its casualness. "I've been at Maiden Hall on business. My name is Roger Bascombe. Miss Lilly suggested I drop in and make myself acquainted." He smiled winningly, "Soherelam."
Lacey was completely disorganized by her nakedness. It seemed to her that hanging as she was stressed every plane and curve she possessed and presented herself to this man as blatantly as any girl could. It sent the blush once more to cover her face and spread downward. Timidly she demanded, "Go away, please go away! You shouldn't be in here, seeing me like this!"
"That's why I came, to see you like this. May I say how beautiful you are."
Lacey eyed him doubtfully. She was trying hard not to cross her legs, that would be too absurd since he could see everything he wanted to, there was no point in hiding anything. Instead, she requested politely, "Well, since you're here perhaps you'd be kind enough to let my feet down to the floor and set me free."
"You know I'm not going to do that, Miss Evans."
"Then go away and leave me alone.. . "
Lacey was suddenly smitten by an appalling possibility. "You're not going to.. . I mean, you haven't come to.. . ? " She was unable to finish.
Roger Bascombe laughed easily. "Oh, that! Yes, I can see what you're thinking. My fame has preceded me. Perhaps I should have asked permission.. . ?
It was hateful to be so at the mercy of a man, even though that man was attractive and well-dressed and obviously without intent to hurt. Clutching at her own straw, Lacey retorted belligerently, "Well, at least you can't possibly do it the way I am!" She immediately regretted what she had said.
"Want to bet? I could, you know, and there's not a damned thing you could do about it."
Breasts heaving, Lacey realized the truth of his assertion. She had read book and there had been whispered confidences among girl. She also remembered the scene in the Story of O.. . There appeared to be plenty of precedents. Roger Bascombe's easy laugh came again. "Don't worry, Miss Evans, I'm by appointment only. And I've completed my day's assignment and was on my way home when I ran into Miss Lilly."
This man had come to her directly from the rape of a some innocent inmate of Maiden Hall! If Lacey had been able to recoil from anything, she would have recoiled now. It was disgusting and dirty. Despite that, she realized her gaze had focused on Roger Bascombe's crotch, where his genital tool was safely tucked away after doing it's day's work. He must have read her thoughts, certainly he could easily interpret the meaning of her gaze. His tone was pure banter. "You think me to go and ask Miss Lilly or Miss Alice, I could. I am not a one-girl man, there have been occasions when I stayed to tea at Maiden Hall and knocked off several delinquent damsels. You could be a case of 'me thinks the lady doth protest too much,' " Roger said thoughtfully. "I can't believe a girl as beautiful as you finds sex so repugnant. Here, let me test."
"Don't you touch me, stay away! I don't want to be pawed. I can tell you now it's wet and it doesn't mean a thing!" Lacey panted indignation.
Roger Bascombe had her as his mercy. There was not a thing she could do to stop him. Lacey Evans maintained a tight-lipped silence of disapproval as a male hand grasped her still tender Venus Mons in an inquiring palm. He cupped and squeezed, cupped and squeezed far more times that was necessary for his stated purpose. It became increasingly difficult to remain tight lipped and mute in disapproval. When he raised for her inspection the wet and glistening palm she tried to look away. But his hand followed her eyes, there was no escape. Lacey's indignation knew no bounds when he demanded, "Lick it dry."
"Lick it yourself, you cad! It was your idea."
Her anger pleased him. Roger Bascombe had become a connoisseur of feminine anger in the course of his work, he gently possessed himself of Lacey's right nipple between thumb and finger to demand, "Would you like me to pinch this harder and harder or do you think the cat will release your tongue for this simple task?"
Lacey made a shameful admission to herself, she wanted no more pain, she already had enough and to have a man use force on her nipple was just one ordeal too many. In the most bitter humility of all, she said, tonelessly, "Very well, you win. Hold your hand were I can get at it."
Miss Lacey Evans tried hard not to stare eye to eye with the man who's palm held her own wet secretions she licked dry. They were face to face and very close. When she was done to his satisfaction, he kissed her wet lips and patted her suspended bottom with the hand her tongue had just finished licking. He then went to the control and allowed her feet to find a firm anchorage upon the carpet, even to her heels. Standing naturally but with hands still high above her head, Lacey gasped, "Why did you do that?"
"I wanted to see you in a more natural pose. I'm a bit of an artist," Roger told her briefly. "A girl in suspension is taunt and stretched our of proportion. You are absolutely exquisite as you are, I wouldn't change a thing. But when you're hanging up your breasts flatten and your belly becomes so damned concave I can count your ribs." This time he kissed her nipples instead of her lips.
"Thank you for letting me down. You've no idea how glorious this is to have my feet on the rug. Please don't suspend me again."
"You know I have to, don't make things hard on me. Be grateful for small blessings." He lifted her chin with a masculine finger and kissed her once more. "I'm going to raise you now. Let's hope next time we meet I'll be scheduled as your punishment. You're nice!"
When Lacey's searching toes could no longer find a resting place Roger Bascombe pressed the switch to leave her as she had been when he entered the room. Lacey watched him leave until she was looking at the panels of the closed door. She wondered how long he had been with her and knew, to her own disgust, she wished he had stayed longer or would come back. She assured herself the sexual act had nothing to do with these feelings. Roger Bascombe was simply a nice guy and fun to be with. If any man was competent in the impalement of a bound girl, it should most certainly be him!
Maiden Hall had a system of prefects who performed half of the tasks of the establishment. They were girls who had been there a long time and saw the prospect of release ahead. They would be silly indeed to impartial their imminent release by any rash act. They most definitely worked on behalf of Maiden Hall and not the most comfortable interest of the girls over whom they were given authority. Once of these was Patsy. When it was close to dinner time she came in to take an approving inventory of Lacey Evans' condition.
"Very nice!" she exclaimed in approval. "A lot of us girls get ourselves hung up but I've never seen one look better than you."
"Oh, Patsy, I'm so glad! Please let my feet back on the floor."
"In a minute, sweetheart, don't rush me. I'm enjoying the view.
You're the view. If I let you down, I loose the whole effect."
"Patsy, don't tease. I've been here hours and hours and hours. I've even had a man come in and look at me. Please let me loose."
"I'll bet that was Roger Bascombe," Patsy suggested without concern for Lacey's situation. "I suppose he copped a feel and made you lick him dry?"
"Yes, he did. How did you know?! '
"He does it with all the girls. It's one of his stock in trade ideas. Most of the girls hate it and he knows he's suppose to be a punishment for us. Did he fuck you?"
"Of course not! How could he?"
"You know perfectly well how he could do it, Lacey darling. He lifts you up then impales you on the way down. If you put your legs around his shoulders it means you're enjoying it. That's were he stops and leaves you hanging on the cliff."
Lacey realized she was witnessing the effect Maiden Hall eventually had upon its inmates. Patsy was a sweet girl but nonchalantly unaware of any particular urgency in letting Lacey's feet back on firm ground. She would perform the act only in her own good time. Desperately she pleaded. "Look, Patsy, I'm hurting real bad, I'm been hurting worse and worse for hours. Don't leave me hanging her any longer. Please.. . ! "
"Roger Bascombe has fucked me several times," the girl continued as if Lacey hadn't said a thing. "If he did the job properly, he'd be marvelous but he carefully avoids all those things a guys suppose to do to a girl before he fucks her and then right on while he's doing it. He's got a real monster of a rod and he plows it into you as though it were a battering ram. Then he thrusts and thrusts away until you're ready to scream, and then he stops cold on you after he himself is finished. He's a bastard."
Lacey was almost ready to cry in frustration and hurt and Patsy's unconcern. What Patsy was saying about Roger Bascombe didn't help, either. Lacey couldn't think Roger would treat her in the callous way described when it came her turn. But Patsy read her thoughts. "Heaven knows he's a punishment for us. The sister's have got an arrangement with him absolutely no pleasure for the girls, plow away until they hurt. That's his term of reference."
"Patsy.. . Please.. . ! "
"The last time Roger Bascombe fucked me I was real honored,"
Patsy continued in blissful memories. "He played with me long enough to do it three times. That's his privilege. Each time I hated it worse than the time before, he guys got a positive gift for ruining a good piece of ass. And you have to realize you're fastened down to a bed, spread-eagled, wide open the whole time. There's not a damned thing you can do except take it. The SOB even shoves a pillow under your rump for what he calls 'the extra inch.' Just you wait until it's your turn!"
"Couldn't we take about this with my feet back on the rug, Patsy, please? I'm hurting terribly."
"Oh, all right, all right. I'll let you down but stop bugging me. You'll see what I mean about getting a girl into an interesting position. You don't want to do anything but leave her just as she is and enjoy. You're being an absolute spoilsport." Patsy went to the control but stopped short. "Look, Lacey, before I let you loose you've got to make me a couple of promises. I'm been given the job of looking after you until bedtime."
"Anything, oh Patsy, please hurry!"
"The first is you've got to promise me you'll let me strap your hands behind your back first thing when I free them. How about that?"
It as a disappointment but not enough of a disappointment to cause the suspended nudity to change her mind. She affirmed, "Yes, yes, I'll do it. Honest I will."
"Then the second thing is when you and I go to bed you've got to let me shackle your ankle the same way I'll have to shackle mine." She got a surprised but pleased look on her face. "Oh, I didn't tell you. You're my new roommate. The sisters have moved you out from that Jane girl and put you with me so I can keep a closer eye on you. Anyway, I don't dare disobey, so the shackles will go on both of us."
"You can shackle both my ankles but please let my feet back on the floor, Patsy." Lacey was becoming desperate.
"Okay, okay, just half a minute."
It was glorious to be down and free. To lower her arms and flex her fingers and be restrained only by the anklets on her feet. Lacey did a few twists and turns in pure ecstasy of motion then, guiltily, turned her back and put her arms for Patsy's convenience. There came the cool feel of smooth leather, the constriction, and then the fatal click as the lode bit to hold her helpless. Bitterly she said, "Thank you, Patsy, I'll do the same for you sometime." Patsy led her captive down to dinner.
Lacey had not expected to encounter Roger Bascombe again for a long while. There would be an anticlimactic quality about delivering her to his mercy anyway. She knew she could and would be kept in suspense. Perhaps if she watched her behavior carefully, she might not be impaled by him at all. But this was not to be. The medium by which they came face to face was a thirteen year old nymphet named Midge. During a period of freedom between punishments, Lacey had occasion to go to the bedroom she shared with Patsy. But Patsy was not there, someone else was there instead. It was the girl called Midge who was fastened spread-eagle upon Patsy's bed, totally naked to display a sweet immaturity of infinite promise, pink nipples, and with a truly magnificent patch of pubic hair for one so young. She surveyed Lacey with immense interest, apparently obvious to her own condition.
"You're the new girl, aren't you? I hope you don't mind finding me like this, I'm being punished."
It was a plausible punishment for a girl of Midge's age to spread-eagle her upon a bed for an entire day. By nightfall the maiden would probably be contrite, obedient, and anxious to please. This reasonable thought was shattered by Midge's next bit of information. "I'm going to be fucked, Lacey. Roger Bascombe's going to do it. He does all us girls, I expect he'll do you sometime. I sort of like it but please don't tell anyone. I expect you've been fucked ever so often and by all sorts of men?"
Lacey's first instinct was to let the girl free but her own hands were still strapped tight behind her back and such charity had been cunningly guarded against by having the nymphet to be punished fastened with a regular handcuff at the end of a chain, with just enough slack to give a slight sense of freedom. A girl immovably bound offers less delight than one with a restricted use of her limbs. Reluctantly relinquishing the role of savior, Lacey asked, "How many times has this been done to you?"
"I'm afraid I've forgotten," Midge said apologetically. "I always make such a fuss they're convinced I hate it real bad so that way they do it quite often. I expect I've been chained like this more than a dozen times."
Obviously Midge did not desire release. Shrugging off this understanding, Lacey was about to ask further questions when Roger Bascombe walked into the bedroom and took command.
"Well, well!" he said in rapture. "How lucky can I get, a little one and a big one all in one day. Hello, Midge, sorry to keep you waiting, I know how bad you want it." He turned his attention to a flushed and nervous Lacey. "You can lay on the other bed and I'll look after you, too. But I'll have to look after Midge first. You can watch."
"Don't be disgusting!"
"You could become a bore, Lacey, my pet." He turned to Midge, "She really wants it, doesn't she?"
"Of course she does!" said Midge, wisely. "She's bursting at the seams for what you could do to her. She wants you in the worse way, I can tell. But please, now, come and do me."
Roger's shrewd eyes were on Lacey, his tone persuasive. "You don't have to be chained like our little sweetheart here. It doesn't matter about your hands being strapped behind your back, either, that raises you ass a little bit and makes it better. Look, if you want to hang around, I've told you, you can watch."
Flushed and angry, Lacey was making for the door when a male hand gasped her arm. "Not so fast, my pretty one. Let's see if I can't break down an inhibition or two. Come on, over here." He dragged the reluctant pupil of Maiden Hall to the wall, produced handcuffs and a moment later Miss Lacey Evans was standing with metal jaws clasping one arm above the elbow and its other circlet firmly locked around a ring in the wall. She did not need Roger's dulcet tone to tell her she would watch the proceedings for as long as he chose. For the moment she belonged to this man, Miss Alice and Miss Lilly seemed very far away. She looked down at Midge but saw only happiness. She leaned against the wall and refused to speak.
Roger Bascombe denied his youthful victim the honor of stripping himself naked. He simply unzipped, produced a magnificent rod, robbed Lacey's bed of pillow which he thrust beneath teenage loins which thrust the pubic area higher, and then simply took possession of a young body he probably knew was more than willing. If he technique was to thrust and thrust again brutally within the young sheath, it was all too evident here was a case in which it brought no pain, only joy. Girls come in all kinds and no doubt Roger Bascombe knew how to deal with all of them. In the case of Midge, he could, with clear conscious, combine business with pleasure. He thrust with great long withdrawals and thudding impacts to bring concern to the naked girl handcuffed to the wall. Lacey could do nothing except watch and this she did, totally fascinated, totally repelled. The triumph of final orgasm found in her no sympathy and no desire.
One of the troubles with Maiden Hall was there was never an end. Punishments repeated themselves endlessly and inmate came and went according to their sentence. It was so now with Roger Bascombe and young Midge. As though one violent impalement was not enough, Roger Bascombe rested briefly before bringing again his cannon against the wet and palpitating orifice awaiting his regeneration. Watching, Lacey was amazed, for here indeed was a man of infinite virility. Midge orgasmed again and again but the plowing went on and on until the child cried out for surcease. Strangely and unexpectedly Roger paid heed. He rose from the bed of punishment and pleasure, and presented his wet and glistening organ to the girl who's secretions were heavy upon its length. Midge gulped and licked and sucked with vivid sincerity. This, too, she had done previously, perhaps all too often!
Lacey longed to turn against the wall and refuse to look but fear and a strange fascination compelled her attention. Handcuffed elbow and strapped wrists, and hobbled feet, gave her little choice. When it became evident a replay was about to begin she forthrightly demanded, "You've made me watch once, isn't that enough! Please free my elbow from this handcuff and let me go."
No one heard a word. Roger had busied himself with the excitation of his youthful delinquent. Midge was moaning and struggling in pure ecstasy, Roger's hands were skilled. The naked girl chained to the wall watched another performance of masculine virility and feminine submission. No doubt these constant penetrations had made Midge old or at least sophisticated for her years. Perhaps the child was making the best of a bad job. She was securely chained and had no hope of avoiding Roger's attentions. When Lacey was at last unlocked, she left the room with great thankfulness. Roger's farewell of, "Be seeing you," was not reassuring.
Maiden Hall absorbed Lacey Evans as a sponge does water. Between the sisters Courtnidge, Emily Chalfont, and the prefects, there was no shortage of willing hands to buckle straps or click a padlock home.
Hobbled ankles converted the inmates to a sisterhood without hope. Expectation of escape rarely lasted beyond the first few weeks, by which time Maiden Hall had put its stamp upon maiden flesh. By the end of thirty days each youthful nudity was well whip marked, some like Lacey, having their wrists permanently strapped behind their backs. Lacey cynically realized this selected group were those with large, firm breasts which responded favorably to pinioned arms. Lacey had almost forgotten what it was like to have her hands.
One of the first disillusionments about escape was the leather by which they were bound. Every new girl maintained the believe that very soon she would gain possession of some sharp instrument by which she would be able to cut the leather and make her free. But none every did. Ordinary table knives were in free circulation but their edges were not sharp enough to make any impression in this thick yet supple leather To all intents and purposes the wristlets and anklets might have been of metal.
Lacey was not punished every day. The Courtnidge sisters were cautious in keeping at bay the morbidity engendered by an excess of pain or solitude. Girls were rarely chained alone in the lower dungeons. Another girl was usually chained with them to keep them company and help dissolve the ghosts haunting the dark corners of the fearsome stone chambers. But threat of punishment was always there. As the maidens of Maiden Hall went about their daily affairs, there was always an apprehension of the dread summons to stand before authority and hear the fateful words of sentence and there were so many things to be sentenced to!
Maiden Hall maintained the pretense of education. The sisters and Emily Chalfont often took time to direct a class. Experiments have been made with the prefects, but since these girls are as naked as those youngsters in their care and their feet as securely hobbled, they lacked the proper authority to maintain order. Such abortive efforts had always ended in punishments for the mischievous little girls and stern retribution for the unfortunate prefect. The gap had been filled by a pair of accredited Teachers with the proper papers and a strong tendency to cane pert young bottoms. They were women in their thirties, frustrated and apt to be irritable, and were too embarrassed to ask the sisters' permission to obtain the attentions of Roger Bascombe. They were still new to Maiden Hall and feeling their way. Their names were Miss
Peach and Miss Apple, only the Courtnidge knew how valid these names might be.
It was Molly Peach who first asked Lacey to come to her private room. Lacey obeyed the summons but not without some fear. She had never grown accustomed to standing at attention, naked and restrained, to be surveyed across a desk by authority. It was pretty near as far down the ladder as a girl could get.
Molly Peach wasted no time. "I absolutely have to get your story," she said without preamble. "I've heard this business about your mother, it's nuts."
"I'm afraid it's true."
"Damn it, girl, you have to be out of your tree to voluntarily submit yourself to what Maiden Hall does to its girls. Look at you now! You're naked and strapped up so you couldn't say boo to a goose. What's with you?"
"I'm afraid what you've heard is the true story. I could just as reasonably ask what's with you?"
"So, okay, I'm as crazy as you are. My reason for coming here is deplorable. My reason is very simple: I adore whipping girls. I intend to whip you."
In spite of Maiden Hall's explorations into new modes of punishment, the whip still appeared to be the good old standby, the tried and true. Lacey supposed it was the easiest instrument to use upon the bare flesh of a girl who dared not complain. Woodenly she said, "Thank you for telling me. Is there any use in asking for your mercy? I'm scared to death of being whipped."
Molly Peach walked around her desk to clasp her visitor in ardent female arms. Her kiss was warm and sweet as was the tone of her voice. I'm not a lesbian, I may compel you to service me sometime, but it is not my prime interest. You stand way out ahead of every other girl in this place. You're not really a girl at all, you're a young woman. You've got a body like mine and I want to whip a body like mine. Catch on?"
Lacey caught on. She could even understand and sympathize. Miss Peach and Miss Apple had to cope within their own solitudes within a mansion filled with females. Miss Peach probably felt guilt when she whipped a child or a teenager, but she would not feel it with a mature adult. Molly Peach apparently read her mind.
"There's more of you to whip, if you see what I mean. Then, what you have to whip is of superb quality. I'm sorry, darling, I expect I'll be an absolute bitch about this."
"What about Miss Apple? Will she want to whip me, too?"
"She's nuts. But you can take that matter up with her yourself. Right now you've got me to worry about."
Worry about! Lacey felt it was not any single individual who caused her trouble but Maiden Hall itself. She felt a rapport with Molly, their circumstances were vastly different yet the same. With Molly's forthrightness she demanded, "You've guessed my state of mind. Yes, I want to go home. Yes, I know I've made a terrible mistake and I'll never escape from it without help. After you've whipped me as much as you intend, will you help me escape?"
' 'My, my, we have got to know each other and covered a lot of ground in a little time." Molly laughed without humor. "You're trying to strike a hard bargain. One little whipping and then escape.. . ? "
"How little will my whipping be? You speak as though you'll whip me unconscious."
Once more Molly came around the desk. Her arms were as warm as her lips. She pinched a naked nipple. "Sweetheart, we're getting altogether too solemn about this. Maybe it's too soon to get this way. Give me time to think about this escape idea. I can't see how it can be done without my being convicted, punished and fired. I may thing of something, give me time."
It was better than Lacey had dared supposed but this woman could promise anything and not follow through. On the other hand, Molly Peach had the authority to whip Lacey Evans as much as she might wish, it would be best not to set hopes too high. She looked at Molly shrewdly. "You wouldn't be teasing, would you? I mean about this whipping business? It seems unreal for us to talk about it like this, as though you were buying me a new pair of shoes. I haven't been in Maiden Hall too long and already I've been tortured twice I don't know what else to call it."
"The horse and suspension, wasn't it? They certainly did not break you in easily."
"And now you want to whip me." Lacey's tone was bitter. "Whip me horribly, I wager. Can you blame me for wanting to escape? You're right, I should never have come in the first place. Please help me."
Maiden Hall was not short of room equipped with all the equipment of pain. Molly Peach led her to one now, and it was not long before she stood, taut, and properly stretched with her hands tied high above her head but her feet still on the floor. To Lacey it seemed a posture she had known many times. Regretfully she conceded the practicality of it in whipping a naked girl. It was Molly who laughed.
"I'm curious, why didn't you fight when you had your hands? Your hands were free for the time it took me to change them to the way you are."
"I've been trained and warned, that's why. My feet are still hobbled and if I fought you would have gotten the best of me and then had an excuse to punish me even more. I think everyone-likes an excuse, don't they?"
"You're too beautiful for words, darling, your body, your mind, they are both beautiful. And all your thinking is straight and to the point. Yes, in a fight I would have got the best of you and then beat you extra for having fought. It's outrageously unfair but that's Maiden Hall!"
Lacey was suddenly prey to all the emotions attendant upon a naked girl, tied as she was tied, who was about to be whipped. The fact of being whipped by a woman only a decade older than herself and of similar stature was un-likely to lessen the pain. The whip had been talked about a great deal at Maiden Hall but it had not been used on her as it was-likely to be used now. In complete honesty she admitted, "I'm all curled up inside with apprehension. You've got me scared to death. Please forgive me if I scream, it will be because I can't help it."
"Of course, I'll forgive you, darling. I've never been whipped myself, but I'm certain I'd scream if it happened. Would you mind if I removed my clothes?"
It was a silly question, revealing so sort of weakness in Molly Peach. At this moment Molly Peach held all the cards and had no need to ask permission for anything. Almost hopefully the girl about to be whipped exclaimed, "Oh, yes, please do, it would be ever so nice."
Two women, each naked, one bound. The nudity Molly revealed had not escaped the years but they had been kind to her, men would still find her desirable. Lacey's comment was honest, "You don't have a thing to apologize for, you're beautiful. That's a lovely body you've got."
"I haven't made much use of it," Molly said bitterly. "Here let me hold you and rub against you. I want to feel your heat. I want to know you're entirely mine for the time in this room. I expect you could get me into a lot of trouble by telling of our conversation and my stripping myself. I'm sure Maiden Hall would not approve."
"I won't tell." The assurance was without thought. "Molly, you're the first person here who's offered me even the faintest hope of escape. Will you really.. . ? "
"I meant what I said," Molly assured soberly as she selected her whip. "Don't worry, darling, I really do feel sorry for the jackpot you've got yourself into. You don't deserve it. Most of the girls here have been little bitches at one time or another but that doesn't apply to you. I think I'll use this one. I suspect it will make a nice sound without half killing you."
Sight of the whip brought Lacey back to the moment that was now. She had determined to try and be a good sport about this thing that Molly Peach was quite obviously under a compulsion to do. A short time ago she would have scoffed at such an alleged compulsion but now she didn't. It was absurd and ridiculous, Miss Peach was about to whip her horribly, yet she felt only an affection for this lonely woman who had come to Maiden Hall only to work out the frustrations of a forbidden fantasy. On the spur of the moment, and with her eye upon the whip, Lacey suggested, "If you freed me from Maiden Hall you could take me anywhere you wished and do anything you wanted to me. I would welcome being owned by one girl instead of enslavement by an institution."
Molly was breathing heavily. Here was heart's desire, the fulfillment of a dream. She gazed, almost in awe, at the mature curves and planes she was about to whip. She sighed heavily. Had any woman every been thus blessed!
Lacey had been educated in shock. She remembered Miss Lilly and Miss Alice and felt grateful. Since Molly Peach was evidently determined to whip her for an unknown number of strokes, she could simply be thankful for previous guidance into pain. Ruefully she remembered that this was a pain her mother had not prescribed or even envisioned. This was a thing between two girls. Supposing she had been free and Molly Peach had asked her to submit.. . ! Would she have done so? Lacey Evans did not know.
The advise of Molly Peach was heavy with emotion as she stood gazing in awe at the scarlet line generated by her first stroke across Lacey's back. It was almost a virgin back and the whip weal stood out vividly in singular beauty. Breathlessly Molly asked, "Spread your legs, darling.. . I'm sorry but I have to."
Lacey screamed. Fire burned brightly as the whip sliced her sex. Girls should never be whipped in this private place but it had happened to her. The burn spread and spread and spread.. .
Suddenly it was over, two bare feminine arms clasp Lacey in a fervid embrace as remorseful tears were hot and salty on her flesh. "I can't do it, I just can't, Lacey. It's no good." The arms tightened as the tears came. "I was so looking forward to this and now I can't do it." Another storm of sobs. "I feel a perfect bitch about what I've done to you. I'm going to get dressed and get back to normal."
Maiden Hall again! Always baffling. Lacey forgot the agony of the stroke on her back, its twin burned into her crotch as she watched the speed with which Molly Peach dressed, covering her sturdy woman figure in a futile attempt to cover up the inward yearning she would carry all her life.
Lacey did not ask for freedom, she was content to stand as she was all day so long as she was not whipped. She was in the grip of a tremendous relief and a growing warmth of affection for this unfulfilled woman who denied herself her greatest wish even when she held it in her hand. Preoccupied, Molly Peach freedom the naked girl she had intended to whip, fastened Lacey's hands again behind her back, and the two of them went back to the private study in thoughtful meditation. The mind of Molly Peach was in chaos while Lacey Evans felt only sympathy for this woman for whom Maiden Hall should have meant so much. When they parted, Molly again clasped the helpless girl in a tight embrace to whisper urgently into a startled ear, "If I ever find a chance, I'll get you out of here. I don't know a way now, but I'll find one. I'll go with you, we'll go together." She thrust Lacey from her room as though in need of solitude.
Miss Apple was something else again, her opening salvo was disconcerting. "You've been with that Peach female, haven't you? What did you do, hold hands?"
"She wanted to make an experiment with a whip. She stroked me twice. I found her a very pleasant woman."
"Did you indeed!" Miss Apple tossed papers around on her desk as she asked, "Expecting to be punished? Do you figure I got you in here to beat hell out of you?"
"I don't know," Lacey confessed. "I never know. I'm not told anything, but things just happen to me."
"Good. That's the way it should be. I'm going to give you a mild punishment for the day. Anyone tell you about my box?"
"Box.. . ? No, I'm afraid not. Should they have?"
"It's an idea of mine own but the sister's approved and put it on the regular list. I'll have to unlock your hands to put you in it, are you going to be sensible?"
"Yes, I'll be sensible," Lacey said wearily, sick of the recurrent question.
It was a nicely finished piece of cabinet making, safely anchored to the wall of Miss Apple's study. Unless you knew differently you might consider it a book case except that it was open at the top and at the bottom. Miss Apple opened it to disclose absolutely nothing. She unlocked Lacey's hands and suggested pleasantly. "Please step inside."
It was simply and somewhat trite. Miss Apple arranged Lacey's startled head, hands and feet to suit herself. She then closed the door. Lacey found herself standing erect, her neck within the clasp of polished wood and her wrists the same. She looked from side to side at her hands which was all she could see of herself, the rest was safely hidden inside the box where her ankles remained inside the clutch of leather bands.
"Neat, eh?" Miss Apple surveyed the helpless head and hands with approval. She arranged captive hair around a captive face and made the usual comment. "You're so damned beautiful, Lacey. If I were a man, I'd carry you away, box and all."
It had happened quickly. It seemed innocent. But Lacey Evans had doubts about anything Maiden Hall produced. After Miss Apple surveyed her work for more than a minute, Lacey asked politely, "Is there something else to this? I mean, do I just have to stand like I am all day?"
"Don't ask questions," Miss Apple said sharply. "Of course you have to stand like that, you look sweet. The other possibilities of my box are to put some mice inside with you. Or perhaps a rat. Or to gag your inquisitive mouth. Don't worry, I'm not doing either today. This is simply a get-acquainted visit. I expect you'll hate me by evening."
"This is a hell of a lot better than hanging up by my wrists or sitting on that horrible horse thing," Lacey conceded honestly. Then, after a pause, "Thank you, Miss Apple."
Miss Apple was startled by sincerity, casting a swift, shrewd glance to assess possible sarcasm. "I have been told your story, Lacey, I'd suppose by now nobility wears a bit thin. Would you escape if you could?"
The girl in the box twisted awkwardly. Lacey looked from side to side at her pinioned hands as though for advise. Miss Apple's question could be loaded. She took a chance. "Yes, I'm afraid you're right. I didn't know the punishments here would be anywhere near as severe as they are. Why do you ask? Would you help me?"
"Yes, I'd help you." Miss Apple was evidently a woman of decision. "But you may not like my terms. I give you a choice between your six months here and an indefinite captivity to me outside. When I took you from Maiden Hall you would be strapped and helpless but here would be no more sitting on a horse or hanging by your wrists. That box you're fastened in will give you an idea of my taste in punishments."
"Indefinite? How long could that be?"
"You're in no position to haggle, girl. Indefinite could be anything up to life. If our flavors were compatible we might, neither of us, see any point in terminating your enslavement." Miss Apple contrived a doubtful sort of grin. "But you'd always be fastened, you'd have to forget freedom with me just as you've had to forget it here. I'd keep a bit of you always strapped or tied or chained." Miss Apple became dreamy eyed. "There are so many ways to keep a girl captive. Once you've got her the way I've got you, she hasn't got a hope of escape. I guarantee you won't be thinking of escape after the first thirty days."
Lacey had listened both shocked and puzzled. But her main impression was of feeling no pain. If Miss Apple kept her locked as she was, she would become tired and irritable and long for release but she would not hurt. Forgetting her six month sentence and the word "indefinite," Miss Lacey Evans felt she had nothing to loose by taking a chance.
"Very well. Take me and keep me as your pet slave. That's what I'd be, isn't it? I'd judge you'd treat me more kindly than Maiden Hall."
"Sensible girl. I won't tell you how or when, it will simply happen.
In case you're wondering, I'm not just a school teacher, I inherited a bit of money. You'll be my only extravagance." Miss Apple laughed. "You've got a box seat so you might as well observe how I look after my girls."
Lacey Evans had her doubts about Miss Apple, it sounded too good to be true. She had little doubt she would be able to escape from this women far more easily than she could from Maiden Hall. She could probably phone her mother. The girl in the box had but a single fear, that this was a hoax, that Miss Alice would stalk in at any time and punisher her. But naked prisoners had little hope anyway. Lacey settled down to a tiring but instructive day.
The child would not be a day over fourteen but her breasts were pert as were her features. She winked broadly at the captive in the box before turning her full attention to the woman behind the desk. "I'm very sorry, Miss Apple, I didn't mean to tear that book." There was a brief, uncertain pause. "Or is this my weekly punishment, I'm never quite sure."
"There is no need for you to know, Susan," Miss Apple said severely. "The small cupboard will look after you today, there's no need to be unkind."
"But, Miss Apple, the small cupboard is unkind!" Susan looked askance at the dark space revealed by Miss Apple opening a small door. "Please don't put me in there, I'm scared to death of the dark."
"You won't be in the dark, you little idiot. You will have as good a view of this room as Lacey Evans. Come along now, back yourself in, rear end first."
It was laughable yet sad. Lacey could see the apprehension on the young face as the nymphet lowered herself to all fours and began a cautious backward crawl into the dark. When most of Susan was hidden from view. Miss Apple went through a series of motions to bring about the effect of the youngster's head and hands protruding in the same helplessness as Lacey's. There were the usual snaps and clicks then, when Miss Apple returned to her desk, a teenaged head and a pair of teenaged hands were all that remained of the pert and pretty teenager who had walked so innocently into the room.
"No complaints now, Susan, I don't wish to be disturbed." Miss Apple's tone indicated disposal of Susan person for the day. It held finality.
"But I'm all uncomfortable back inside the cupboard, I can't seem to sort myself out. Couldn't I be punished some other way?"
"Do you wish to be gagged, dear? One more word!"
The head and hands were mute. Tears flowed from the lovely young eyes and were absorbed by the rug at which Susan was compelled to look. Lacey suddenly realized this room was unusual in the number of doors, mostly small doors, with which it was equipped. She was almost breathlessly ready for number three who, surprisingly, turned out to be a prefect who was prepared to argue in her own defense.
"I shouldn't be punished, not with these two girls looking," she said forcefully. "In fact, I shouldn't be punished at all, I'm a prefect."
"I am aware of your authority, dear," Miss Apple calmly stated. "But there is not a girl in Maiden Hall who does not need occasional discipline. What I have in mind for you is for your own good."
"For Pete's sake, Miss Apple, I've heard that one before! Look, I'm a prefect. Can't you lock me up for the afternoon and call it quits? You can write out your report to say I've had one of your beastly punishments."
"I could but I won't." Miss Apple was firm as she used her key to open one more door then say curtly, "In you go, on your back."
The prefect shrugged. Lacey guessed she had been fighting only a rear guard action at best. The young girl said, "That's a rotten thing to do to me, to put me in there in the dark." But she nonetheless took short, hobbled steps to where she would spend the rest of the day then crawled inside the waiting gloom and turned upon her naked back. Miss Apple kicked the still protruding feet to bend them at their knees to enable the closing of the door. But Lacey now watched as Miss Apple went through the same motions as with her other prisoners. A door became sectional and when she was finished with adjustment and command a pretty pair of prefect feet were snuggled secured at the ankles to protrude through the wall as though finding root within. Lacey could easily imagine the posture required to make this possible. The girl would be on her back, knees raised, feet out thrust. As the sections clasped the ankles above and below, there flashed across the mind thoughts of what might be done to the innocent soles held in total convenience to rod or cane or whip. Their owner, inside in the dark, would be in constant suspense, awaiting something that might not happen. In its way, it was a terrible punishment.
"I know what you're thinking, Lacey," Miss Apple said conversationally. "Thank your lucky stars you're not in there and its not your pretty little feet sticking out, just asking to be caned. You can't be too kind to these older girls, they need firm discipline and constant reminders of their status. I'm against the prefect principle, it gives them notions."
Lacey found herself with second thoughts about Miss Apple. True, she was not hurting, but on the other hand she was not sure she wanted to spend the rest of her life immobilized in punishments such as she was viewing. She found herself in constant apprehension at the sight of the protruding feet and the almost certainty of their being caned. It would be the most terrible of punishments to have that happen when you were in the dark and helpless to get out and helpless to move the innocent soles so cruelly exposed. She shrank in sympathy at the thought.
It came as no surprise when a fourth moppet timidly knocked, timidly entered and timidly stood before the desk to pass Miss Apple a note. She then timidly proclaimed it was not her fault and please don't cane her. Miss Apple read the note, taking her time, then fixed the squirming delinquent with a stern and forbidding eye.
"Effie, you were in this room last week, now here you are again. What am I to do with you!"
"Please let me go, Miss Apple, I promise I'll behave wonderfully for you."
"But you do not appear to have behaved wonderfully, you have behaved deplorably. Do you realize, Effie, you are becoming a big girl. Your breasts are forming and can soon be punished. Your pubic hair is also gaining density and may soon be whipped. However, for the moment, you have one of the most delightful little bottoms in the school. It is tight and round and most suitable for the cane. I do hope you agree?"
Effie simply wept. She made some tearful sounds from within the shelter of her hands and wiggled her pert bottom as if it were already burning from the cane. With sniffles she promised, "I'll be ever so good but, oh geepers, I've been punished enough."
The door was small and not at ground level, when opened it disclosed an empty cupboard. With a wail of dismay, Effie advanced to her fate, evidently not a new experience, and thrust the upper and most tearful part of her person within the tiny compartment. Once more Miss Apple was busy with sections and when finished there was nothing visible of Effie except a cute little bottom, feet and legs. The rest of Effie was securely imprisoned in the dark interior by wooden yokes firmly embedded above and below her tiny tummy. The effect was to rear her delightful bottom in invitation to whatever instrument of punishment Miss Apple choice. Effie was no doubt weeping within the darkness but no sound emerged. Effie would be resting on her elbows and awaiting the scold and burn of punishment.
If Miss Apple intended to chastise any of the female parts so vividly offered, she made no sign, but instead sat down at her desk and resumed read papers. If any of her palpitating victims were uttering sounds, none were audible. The next knock on the door seemed no more than might be expected.
The girl who entered now was a typical product of Maiden Hall, cautious, obedient, and very polite. She took her hobbled steps to stand before the desk and stood there, naked and resigned, while her missive was read as though expecting nothing less than the death penalty or a cat-o-nine-tails flogging.
Looking up from the note, Miss Apple said, "Ruby, I'm ashamed of you."
"Yes, Miss Apple, I'm ashamed, too."
"You do not wish to plead for mercy or a modest sentence, dear."
"No, Miss Apple, I'm guilty, I did just what the note tells you I did. I know I have to be punished."
"Do you wish to be punished, dear?"
"Gosh no!" Ruby became animated for the first time. "I'll willing to do anything you want, Miss Apple so long as you don't hurt me too bad."
Miss Apple sighed. It was a sigh of pure pleasure. This time the door was indeed a tiny one at hip level from the floor and, when opened disclosed only space. "Have you been punished with this before, Ruby?"
"Gosh, no, Miss Apple, I don't even know what it is."
"You soon will, dear. I promise you a remarkable afternoon. But I'm going to have to remove you leg irons. Do you intend to be awkward?"
"Oh no, Miss Apple, I'm ever so obedient." Ruby looked down to watch the removal of her leather anklets then watched with ever-mounting interest the opening of the little door.
"Put your foot inside, dear."
Lacey shared Ruby's obvious doubts. The girl had stood there, quiet and obedient and now proved it by obeying the sharp command. Once more Miss Apple performed her magic and at the end of it Ruby stood on one leg, the other out thrust to end within the tight clutch of the yoke, her bare foot within the darkness and out of sight.
It would be a wicked punishment if continued for long. The punished foot was held high enough to insure stress and the punishment would be double frustrating because of the total freedom of the victim's hands. Yet the hands were free, yet able to do nothing. Ruby was obviously wondering what to do with them as she surveyed her position.
Ruby's punishment was not yet complete. Miss Apple apologized for the need of using it but nonetheless strapped the gag tightly over Ruby's lips after filling her mouth with the rubber wad to render her silent. The strap buckled and was locked in back with a tiny lock. Even with her hands free, Ruby would not be able to remove the silencer. Only Ruby's eyes could register the mounting apprehension of her plight.
Scarcely noticeable beside the tiny door was a lever which Miss Apple now fingered lovingly before asking, "Do you know what happens when I push this lever down, my dear?"
Ruby shook her head and motioned negatively.
Miss Apple pushed the lever all the way down and sweetly announced. "I have now released a number of mice into the same cupboard as your bare foot, Ruby, dear, it is to be hoped you enjoy each other."
Lacey Evans shivered. It was a punishment to drive some girls insane. Ruby was standing, transfixed, her eyes staring in disbelief upon her ankle imprisoned in the wood. She grasped her knees and tugged and heaved as though hoping to wrench it from the company of small rodents who might not be carnivorous but would certainly have sport with a helpless bare foot and five toes. As the unseen tensions commenced their play, Ruby hopped on the single foot and flung her head frantically from side to side against the gag and made what snorting sounds she could through flaring nostrils. Her punishment had begun. The eyes of the girl permitted to witness Ruby's punishment were riveted upon her twistings and frantic gestures, guessing only too well what was happening within the tiny space containing her foot and the creatures. But Miss Apple, after a first approving glance, resumed her desk work and ignored the pleading eyes and pitiful moans of the gagged maiden who's foot was out of sight but not out of mind. After a while Ruby clasp her face in her free hands and held them there as though to shut out the shame of being seen while enduring a penalty unbearable to any girl. Miss Apple's afternoon appeared to have gotten nicely underway.
This time the knock was authoritative and followed instantly by the opening of the door. Miss Alice swept into the room and surveyed its several punishments with approval, but her voice was cold. "Miss Apple, if I may, I would exchange seats with you. I will sit at your desk and you will stand before me to listen to what I have to say to you."
The air was electric with shock. Miss Apple, obviously puzzled, rose to relinquished the seat of authority and walked around the desk to face the cold Miss Alice now seated.
"We have business to transact," Miss Alice said icily, "I will be obliged if you will release the young women undergoing penitence, except Lacey that is. Lacey may stay where she is for the moment."
The naked girl locked solidly within the shameful box foreboding. Something was about to happen, some change un-likely to be good. But as she watched with interest and amusement, not untinged with envy as each thankful maiden was released from Miss Apple's quaint bondage to make their way passed the desk, adding a sincere "Thank you, Miss Alice," before exiting from the room. With the last punished girl gone, the three women were alone, Lacey tight clasped within her box, Miss Alice and Miss Apple facing each other across the desk.
"Modern inventions are truly remarkable," said Miss Alice, thoughtfully. "I do hope you agree." No one spoke. Miss Apple was as puzzled as the captive girl. "We now have spaced travel, we have satellites, ultrasound and laser beams." Miss Alice continued dreamily. "There is also a small electric device commonly called a 'bug' which is used to transmit sound from an unwitting source to where interested ears may listen." Miss Alice beamed from one to the other of her audience. "I trust you are following the logic here?"
"Are you trying to tell me you've got this private study of mine bugged? That there's a listening device.. . ? " Miss Apple demanded angrily.
"There is and that is what I mean, dear Miss Apple." Miss Alice's smile imparted benevolence to both who stood at her mercy. "Miss Lilly and I listened with great interest to your plans to remove Miss Lacey Evans from our care, Miss Apple. May I commend your enterprise?"
"I don't have to stand for this," Miss Apple said angrily. "If fact, I don't have to stand at all. If you will be good enough to leave my seat, I will pick up where I left off. I presume one week's notice is sufficient? You can't expect me to stay there longer." Miss Apple's breasts were heaving angrily, her cheeks were flushed. Watching, Lacey sensed fear along with righteous indignation.
4
Flight
"You do not expect to walk out of her in seven days a free woman, do you Miss Apple? May I remind you of our contract, there were certain provisions.. . ! "
"You know what you can do with that absurd contract," Miss Apple snorted. "It would not hold up in a court of law. I will pack my things and be out of here by this afternoon. I would advise you to allow Miss Lacey Evans to go with me."
Miss Alice sat and smiled, it was the cat and the mouse play in which she unmistakably held all the cards. Her voice was sharp yet soft, "Madam Chalfont and Miss Lilly will attend us shortly. May I assume you wish force used upon you or are you prepared to accept you just punishment without any more of these ridiculous declarations?"
Lacey saw her would-be rescuer wilt. Miss Apple visibly shrank, looking around her in a desperate need, her eye lingering upon the girl locked in the box as though in hope she would come to her aid. In a voice very different from that of every day she demanded, "Very well, what is it you want of me?"
"For one week you will become one of our girls, subject to their nakedness, their punishments, their restraints. You age does not matter. At the end of the week you will be free to leave. Lacey Evans will not be free to accompany you."
The cold dictum had been concise and merciless. It was evident the one time teacher was well aware of Madam Chalfont's prowess, her physical abilities to subdue. Almost defiantly, Miss Apple spat out, "Very well, I accept a week's imprisonment and the seven punishments inherent. I would ask you not to punish Lacey Evans, the guilt is wholly mine."
"You can make no terms, Miss Apple. I do appreciate you sensible acceptance of something you can't change." Miss Alice's smile was still benign. "And, by the way, along with you various punishments I will have inflected upon you something I know repugnant to your spinster soul. I will have Madam Chalfont turn you into a beautiful woman. You are not as old as Miss Lilly or myself, you figure is presentable, your features released from lesbian severity are good. We may all of us look forward to an interesting seven days.
"And, now Miss Apple, if you will remove Miss Lacey Evans from that ridiculous box.. . ? "
It was a wonderful moment to step out of the clasp of wood into the open room. Hobbled feet hindered the small journey not at all. There had been a brief moment while captor and captive had been eye to eye in the unlocking of the coffin-like prison and Lacey had seen in Miss Apple's eyes a glimmering of affection and desire quite foreign to the face Miss Apple usually turned upon the world. Miss Apple had strange and hidden depths, Lacey's first thought was hope of rescue when this woman had served her seven days of penance. She might be unable to take Lacey with her as her slave but she knew where Lacey was and might find ways.. . !
"You'll be called by your given name. Miss Apple. From now on you'll be Elizabeth and bear no title," Miss Alice informed. "Be so kind as to remove the hobbles from Lacey's ankles."
For Lacey the moment was tense as the lovely leather anklets fell away and she was totally free. Quite obviously she and Miss Apple were two to one and would prevail in physical violence, she looked at her fellow prisoner inquiringly but found no sign or intent of resistance. For reasons best known to her Elizabeth Apple was resigned to her sentencing and whatever it entailed in shame and pain. The first shame was instant.
"Please to undress, Elizabeth. Everything, now!"
The older captive did as she was told without demure, stripped herself of every particle of clothing and stood before Miss Alice as did Lacey, naked. Miss Alice's voice was dry, "There, you see, you absurd creature, you're face and figure are not at all bad, nothing to be ashamed of." Miss Alice turned to Lacey Evans to request, "Lacey, you will now put the hobbles on Elizabeth. I will get you another set in due course."
It was the strangest of feelings, something she had never done or expected to ever do. Lacey knelt to recover the shinning restraints and to lock each anklet upon the bare female feet that had made no motion of protest. It left herself totally free in a degree she had rarely enjoyed since coming to Maiden Hall. But she had no thought of escape or of asserting herself. Lacey Evans had become a living part of a drama she would not have missed for worlds.
Miss Alice opened draws. In one of them she discovered what she sought and tossed the shinning wristlets to Lacey. Her order was abrupt, "You know what to do with them, do it."
Trembling, Lacey obeyed, gathering two limp arms and fitting the wristlets she had never previously used upon unresisting wrists, locking the metal tight in the most satisfying of clicks to render Miss Elizabeth Apple completely helpless with hands behind her back and feet hobbled to make only short, snubbed steps. Elizabeth was now one of the girls.
"Thank you, my dear." Miss Alice nodded approval, her smile was warm. "I suppose, Lacey dear, you're wondering about your own punishment in this absurd affair?"
"Yes, Miss Alice."
"Of course, you are. And rest assured you will indeed be punished but for the time being you will not know how or when or in what degree. I will confer with Miss Lilly and we will decide what to do with you, in the meantime carry on about your normal affairs. The prefect and Miss Peach can easily handle what Miss Apple has been doing for us. Now I want you to run along to Miss Lilly and ask her to hobble your ankles. We can't have you running around loose, can we now? In the meantime I want to have a few words with Elizabeth here. Run along."
Lacey Evans ran.
5
The Price of Liberty
A dozen times during the brief freedom of the journey to the headmistress' study, Lacey paused to kick unfettered feet in the pure joy of freedom and to consider the wisdom of seeking escape. To be thus free was glorious and she had no wish to request Miss Lilly to again iron her feet, to hobble her steps and make her doubly prisoner to Maiden Hall. She now felt an exciting involvement in events and had little expectation of finding an exit in the walls. Lacey Evans shrugged and knocked on Miss Lacey's door.
The headmistress was enraptured as she urged the story out of the unwilling captive girl the full account of Elizabeth's shame and of Lacey's coming punishment. "Since it was Elizabeth's idea I don't suppose Miss Alice and I will be too hard on you. But you must be punished for being so willing to give in to her idea. You do understand?"
"Yes, Miss Lilly, I understand. I'm sorry."
"Of course, you are dear. Now you would like me to iron your legs.. . ? "
"If you please. I'm not suppose to run around loose."
It was all very friendly and quite ridiculous. Affection flowed between them like a river of approval. Miss Lilly found a set of shinning irons and locked the beautiful leather anklets upon each foot as it was extended. Lacey could not hate this woman, Miss Lilly was a sweetheart. Lacey kicked to snub her ankles against the chain and shared laughter with the headmistress who watched and found pleasure in the motion. "Do that again, Lacey, kick against the chain. It's so sweet to see you so delightfully confined and so adoring it."
Lacey was uncertain about the adoration but she obligingly kicked and snubbed her ankle again and again to please the watching eyes. She supposed that in some strange way she gained satisfaction herself in what was really an act of submission. Demurely she inquired, "Miss Apple was punishing me when Miss Alice came along. Is my punishment over for the day or should I be punished more?"
"What do you think would be best, dear? Should you be punished more?"
Lacey had learned to be suspicious of too much honey on her bread. It would be too easy now to say she had been punished enough and more than enough but she knew this answer would be wrong. Miss Lilly would be hurt and offended by her failure to pay Maiden Hall the respect due from a repentant girl. Casting her bread upon the waters, Lacey said, "I expect you should punish me some more, Miss Lilly, I'm sure I deserve it."
This ridiculous between a woman of twenty-two and one of fifty engendered nothing but good will, affection flowed. Lacey had said nothing but the right thing, Miss Lilly now held the ball.
"We should have something specially painful, don't you think, dear, considering it's such a short time before dinner?"
"I expect we should Miss Lilly. What would you like to do to me?"
"Darling Lacey, would you mind too terribly if I whipped you up between your legs?"
The question was as absurd as all the rest. Surely no girl could answer in the affirmative. Lacey had not the faintest wish to be whipped in her private place on her most tender flesh. But she did her best to live up to the finest traditions of Maiden Hall. "I think it's a lovely idea, Miss Lilly, you always think up the loveliest things. How would you like to fasten me?"
"Fasten you?" Miss Lilly demanded absently. "Ah, yes, I suppose I should fasten you, shouldn't I? Can't ask a naked girl to stand still for that, can we?"
As far as Lacey was concerned, Miss Lilly could take an hour to decide how to fasten her. Or two. Slyly, Lacey interposed, "The whip between my legs hurts terribly. I've been thinking that's probably what you should do to Miss Apple. It really hurts a lot."
"Yes, I suppose it does. I've been thinking more of the artistic angle, dear. A girl squirms so delightfully. And those red marks that form so rapidly after the impact. You must forgive me for being selfish but I really do want to do this now. Perhaps I can persuade Miss Alice to let you be punished in the same way later on for you mistake with poor Elizabeth. Perhaps we should go down to one of the rooms so we can do this properly."
Doing it properly in Maiden Hall was no problem. Inside ten minutes Lacey lay on her back, the recently locked hobbles discarded, and her feet spread wide apart to separate both legs and thighs almost to their limit by the frame she was strapped to. Straps at ankle, knees and junction of thigh, together with a cinch around her waist insured immobility during the punishment she was about to received.
"I will leave your hands free, dear, you will find it most frustration," Miss Lilly said gently. "You won't be able to reach anything that really matters yet you will be witness to all that happens. I find this a most delightful situation for a girl, she can see the whip or cane or strap and watch it cut the air to impact on her flesh but she can do nothing to stop it. You do see what I mean?"
The insistence of Miss Lilly's upon understand and agreement was comforting in one way and infuriation in another. A captive girl simply had to accept Miss Lilly as she was and comfort herself with thoughts of benefits along the way. It was nice to be loved and Miss Lilly assuredly did love Lacey Evans but that would not stop the punishment about to begin.
Pathetically, Lacey said, "Please forgive me if I scream, I'm afraid I will."
It was in the atmosphere of good will the whipping of Miss Lacey took place. It was only an hour until the dinner gong but that would be more than enough time to reduce Lacey to tears, to pleadings, and to screams. Thrusting with free forearms she managed to raise herself enough to view those portions of her body to be whipped. They seemed cruelly exposed and no matter how she tried she could not move them a single inch. They no longer belonged to a girl named Miss Lacey Evans, they belonged to Miss Lilly who was about to select a suitable whip for what she would describe as a "little correction."
For Lacey this was something new. To lay upon the low bench with feet and legs thus widely separated and spread for punishment had not been done to her before. There seemed no need for doing it now for most certainly there where many portions of a girl's body for suitable for the impact of a cane or strap than between her thighs. She watched Miss Lilly make her selection from the collection hanging on the wall and quailed at sight of the familiar thong.
"I think we're all ready now, dear. I'll be sure and step back a pace so as to get just the tip of this lovely whip across the satin of your lovely thighs. That frame really does make you beautifully available. We must use it again."
Lacey was forbidden to close her eyes, she must watch each stroke and painful cut. As stroke snickered to burn its snapping impact within her crotch, she whimpered and her hands instinctively sought the wound. But the cinch ropes held her tight down upon her back and all she could do was reach pathetically for that portion of herself which had been, before coming to Maiden Hall, private and inviolate and completely her own. Now it was the possession of the woman with the whip.
The punishment was hard for Lacey to bear. She did not bear it in silence but her screams were choked and muted by her desire to please Miss Lilly and to show up well in the older woman's eyes. She was well aware of the incongruity of liking a woman who was busily whipping her most private place. She was also aware of the terrible spread and exposure to which Miss Lilly applied the tip of her whip. It was cleverly done, there were no swinging arcs of impact to cut or bruise. But each snapping contact between the tip of the whip and maiden flesh was erotically agonizing and made deliciously fearful by the strapped down girl's ignorance of how many such lashes she would have to endure. Studying Miss Lilly's intent features between strokes, Lacey Evans judged this whipping might well go on and on until dinner. Lacey envisioned herself, hobbled feet once more confining her feet, her loins swollen and angry and flecked with red as she followed the painful path to the dinning hall and the curious and sympathetic stares of her classmates.
But the naked girl's concerns were of this moment. Again and again her fearful eyes watched the backward swing of the thong and heard its joyous song as it sped forward to cut at that which her opened legs revealed. She could move nothing of herself below her waist and her free hands and arms served only as expression of her anguish. Here and there throughout her punishment she could not contain shameful sounds and shameful words of pleading. Even as she uttered them she was well aware how trite they sounded to the headmistress and herself.
"Oh, please, Miss Lilly, not so hard. Please, Miss Lilly, not in there. Oh, ouch! Oh, Miss Lilly, I just can't bear it!" There were the only things to say but they had been heard before but it was doubtful if Miss Lilly really even heard them. She was busy enjoying herself as she skillfully snapped the thong tip again and again upon the tenderness of smooth skin between knee and crotch and upon the even more sensitive area between. Miss Lilly noted the anguished hands seeking to give comfort and protection to pained skin, and, playfully when they got close, she flicked them with an admonishing cut to sent them swiftly back to Lacey's comforting mouth. Miss Lilly was pleased with the interlude and felt she had put it to good purpose.
Had Lacey Evans sought sympathy in the dinning hall she would have been disappointed. True, there were sympathetic glances at the scarlet skin she so blatantly displayed and at the caution of her movements. Every girl understood what she had endured for a punishment. But the focus of every eye was on the incredible shape of Miss Elizabeth Apple. Lacey forgot her pain in her astonished at what she now beheld. Miss Apple was not Miss Apple any more!
It is useless to speculate upon the motives of lesbians, they are probably as diverse and varied as any group. We cannot tell the purpose or compulsions Miss Elizabeth Apple had labored under in making herself deliberately unattractive. Any woman can do miracles with hair and a skill cosmetician can do anything with any face. What Lacey beheld now was a minor miracle wrought by Emily Chalfont upon the ungrateful person of a captive lesbian. Elizabeth Apple was transformed.
Eager young eyes were quick to catalog the skillful work employed by a woman who more often inflected corporal punishment upon their persons, but in this case, Emily Chalfont had surpassed herself. From the dull and uninteresting dross of a school teacher named Miss Apple she had created an ravishing creature who was positively exquisite. The change was not only hair and eyebrows and perfectly painted lips but rouged nipples and blushing breasts, even Miss Apples pubic patch had been neatly shaved to make a provocative heart above the delights hidden immediately below. Miss Apple must have taken good care of herself for even her waist did her credit, needing no constriction of corset or belt. However it had been deemed prudent to hobble Miss Apple's ankles and to strap her hands behind her back. She was fed and attended by a young teenager obviously in a seventh heaven of delight at the honor, and attention for which the strapped woman showed little gratitude.
Catching the eye of her former pupil, Elizabeth Apple blushed. Sparkling earrings were pendent upon the lobes of ears that had never previously held them. Around the captive throat was a scarlet choker of plush velvet to doubly enhance the rest of Elizabeth Apple's nakedness. Lacey experienced eye could detect the motions indicating Elizabeth's continuing battle with the bondage on her hands. Elizabeth was working like crazy behind her back to free her hands from the straps she could never displace. Miss Elizabeth Apple was hoist by her own petard. The lesbian features were undeniably attractive but shadowed now by anger and chagrin. It was not difficult to imagine the intense mortification attendant upon Elizabeth's present condition. In her absorption in what she beheld, Lacey Evans quite forgot to wince every time she moved or to gasp whenever she shifted on her seat. The flesh of girls betrays them easily. It was one more subtly of punishment to banish Lacey's former bedroom mate and replace her with the former teacher. Thus the temptress and the tempted would perforce share the same room and the same regrets, both had made a terrible mistake and were now paying the price of Maiden Hall justice.
When Lacey was in the bed room and her ankle shackled as was customary, she found Elizabeth Apple already in possession. The onetime teacher was sitting solemnly upon her bed and kicking in irritation at the metal links connecting her thereto. When the two females were left alone, Elizabeth lost no time in stating her feelings.
"The absolute bitches, they needn't have done this to me. I've never been so ashamed!"
Lacey offered words of comfort and displayed her wounds but they merited only scant attention from a woman in full stream of indignation upon a captive audience.
"They made me look like a whore and stripped me naked and paraded me in front of every girl in the place! Gr-r-r-r-r-r! What I'd like to do to them!"
"Well, we did break the rules," Lacey ventured timidly.
"Rules, my ass! I'm an adult woman and not subject to their stupid rules, you're too old for them yourself. Look, since they've had the decency to imprison us together, come over here and service me. And don't look at my pubic hair, it's a disgrace."
"I'm terribly sorry, Elizabeth, but I can't. The chain on my ankle won't let me. Your's is chained too, isn't it?"
"Nonsense! We can surely manage it somehow. Come along, don't just sit there."
There began then a series of contortions purely ludicrous. To demonstrate her point, Lacey gave Elizabeth's project everything she could, possessing hands, she was able to make a good account of herself but still fell short of the objective. Elizabeth Apple was utterly defeated, she had no hands and her ankle chained to the bed was a new experience. She floundered and heaved and tried to turn herself around to present the heart-shaped pubic patch for Lacey's attention. But it was useless, it was a case of so near yet so far. The distance between Lacey's lips and those others below and within Elizabeth Apple's pubic patch was no more than twelve inches when both of them strained their utmost against the unkind chain. But twelve inches is twelve inches, which Lacey was thankful for but which angered her companion beyond words. Elizabeth Apple was furious.
"The rotten bitches, I'll bet they measured every thing with a tape. They made is possible for us to get so close but not close enough." She sniffed disdainfully. "I suppose this is part of our punishment." Unexpected she asked, "Do you like my body?"
Lacey admired the taut figure and gave it unhesitating praise. For a forty year old woman it was superlative. , "I've always tried to keep it nice underneath my clothes," Elizabeth moaned. "I've worked at keeping myself in shape and tight and trim the way you see. But I never wanted to show any of myself, even my features, to the world. What I am is mine and strictly ME. I'll be damned if I wanted to be beautiful in this place or out in the streets. But I wanted to be beautiful for you." There was a short, bitter laugh. "That's a joke now, isn't it? I'll never get you out of this place, will I? They'll kick me out of this place at the end of this week but they'll probably iron you twice as heavily to keep you safe."
"But we have each other here in this room," Lacey ventured. "You're beautiful and I'm seeing your beauty. While the two of us were struggling a minute ago I had a chance to see every bit of you and you should be proud of your body. I'm proud of my body and I make no bones about it."
"You're so damned beautiful and I've lost you forever," Elizabeth moaned. "Oh, damn, it's so hard to believe I screwed everything up. Now they're going to torture me for seven days oh, shit, Lacey, isn't there any way we can get these damned things off our feet?"
"Of course there isn't, you should know that, Elizabeth, you've been a teacher."
"I don't know what all they're going to do to me," the delinquent mistress mourned afresh. "But they've told me that on my last day here I'll get a ceremonial whipping, a sort of flogging affair like the army or navy days. I'll be fixed up some way, naked and exposed, and whipped so every girl in the place can see the marks appearing on my skin and hear me howl. That's a bitch of a thing to look forward to. Damn it, Lacey, I've got to escape!"
Lacey gazed soberly upon her companion, remembering how often she had made the same vow and how escape seemed increasingly impossible. Her tone was as one girl to another, "We'll never escape Maiden Hall, Elizabeth, it's no use thinking about it, it just bothers us and worries us. I've got six months to endure here and you've got seven days.. . I wish I was within seven days of freedom!"
"That's easy to say," Elizabeth said scornfully. "Oh damn, I wish I had a mirror to see how awful I look!"
"You don't look awful at all, you look beautiful. I mean, you may not look as good as a movie star but you're a very good looking woman," Lacey told her forcibly. "If you don't stay that way after you get out of here, you're crazy!"
Elizabeth Apple could not stand or sit, she was in such a dither of anger and apprehension she tried one posture after another, abandoning them all. She stood now on shackled foot, her other leg raised upon the bed as if deliberately exposing herself. With an air of importance she demanded, "Do you know what they're going to do to me tomorrow?"
"They don't tell me things like that. What is it?"
"They're going to give me to Roger Bascombee! That's what! Except for being flogged, I can't think of anything worse. Being entered by a man.. . Ugh!"
Lacey could not avoid amusement. Being penetrated by Roger . Bascombe would no doubt be distasteful to a lesbian but the girls of Maiden Hall seem to have survived his attentions without trauma. Hesitant in offering comfort, Lacey pointed out reasonably, "It's quite soon over and it doesn't hurt all that bad unless it's a girl's first time.. . "
"It is my first time, you idiot!"
"Well, the pain doesn't last all that long anyway." Lacey contrived a mischievous grin. "The nice thing about it is they spread-eagle a girl on the bed and tie her down so she can't do a thing. They don't know how kind they are in absolving our conscious of complicity. We can be raped as much as any one wants to rape us and not bear any stigma of guilt."
"Damn the stigma of guilt! Damn being spread-eagled! What bothers I me is having that male thing, that rod, that beastly weapon, shoved into me. It's so beautiful with girls. I can understand why they tie us down here to have him do it to us. Lacey, are you positive there's no way I can get this shackle off my foot?"
The rape of Miss Elizabeth Apple was not easily accomplished, it was evidently an element of awfulness she had not considered when I agreeing to be seven travail. It took the combined strength and skill of Emily Chalfont, Miss Alice, Miss Lilly, plus a frightened prefect to secure her to the bed with wristlets, anklets and chains. Previously she had been resigned but when she came into sight of the bed, leather restraint and chains, she went berserk! She had but one thing to say, "You rotten bitches! You're not going to strap me down to any damned bed and you're not having any damned male shove his beastly thing into my pussy. Just no way.. . "
The authority of Maiden Hall proved Miss Elizabeth Apple wrong. The scuffle was drastic, entailing some of Emily Chalfont's most brutal skills. Everyone in the room was panting by the time they had the forty year old nudity safely spread-eagled, unable to do more than glare and I proclaim dire retributions at some future date. Even Lacey was panting, not from the effort, but in the excitement of following every move and discovering that authority had decided to chain her wrist to the fateful bed as once before to provide Elizabeth Apple with an audience to her shame. And what was worse, an audience she had planned to love and keep forever. Miss Alice and Miss Lilly had presumed that to be raped or to witness a rape by a male should be an unthinkable ordeal for any lesbian. The four females who had won the fight departed laughing and assuring the two remaining of the eminent arrival of Roger Bascombe, who, so they said, had their full permission to spend the entire day in copulation with either Lacey or Elizabeth as he saw fit.
Alone, Lacey looked down in sober sympathy upon the naked woman so suggestively spread and fastened to the bed. Being spread-eagled left a girl no doubt as to her fate, Elizabeth Apple had none about hers! Her wrists and ankles were strapped tight in the leather bands that were so much a symbol of Maiden Hall. But she had been granted a small slack in the chains that she might twist and struggle, evading nothing but able to adept herself for the convenience of the male.
"If he comes near me, I'll bit him!" she vowed. "I'll bite whatever part of him I can get my teeth into and I won't let go. Oh, Lacey, this is awful!"
"I wouldn't bite him if I were you, Elizabeth," Lacey advised urgently. "He can slap you around and there's not a thing you can do about it. And he's permitted to whip girls who give him too much trouble. Honest, Elizabeth, you're dealing with an irresistible force. The best you can do is close you eyes."
"Darling.. . Please hold my hand.. . I mean, while he's doing it to me?"
Lacey used her one free hand to reach in sympathy and possess one of Elizabeth's chained members, their fingers squeezed and Elizabeth signed. "To think I almost had you. Oh, Lacey, darling, this is just too cruel."
Lacey sat awkwardly with a raised arm held captive to the top of the bed rail. Wistfully she bend down to plant a kiss upon the lips of the changed woman she might have called Mistress. He free hand disengaged and was creeping slyly down towards the gapping crease between spread thighs when a heavy male footstep became clear above the rattle of Elizabeth's chain. A cheerful male voice added, "Well, well, nice and ready I see. I'll bet you're looking forward to this, Elizabeth."
"Drop dead, you bastard, go away."
Roger chucked Lacey beneath the chin and kissed her lingeringly until she put an arm around his neck and kissed him back.
"Cheerful sole, isn't she?" he suggested casually with only the barest attention to the woman he was employed to rape. All his concern appeared to be fixed upon Lacey Evans. Without preamble he produced a key and unlocked the band upon Lacey's wrist then knelt to free her feet. "Drape yourself with a sheet or something," he said urgently, "we don't have a moment to loose."
It was like a dream, totally unreal and unexpected. There was no thought in Lacey's mind of disobeying this suddenly dominant male creature who it appeared intended to take her away with him. From the bed came a plaintive wail.
"What about me! You can't take Lacey and leave me fastened her like this. If you do, I'll scream the house down and attract attention."
"Got something to gag her with, Lacey?" Roger inquired.
"Look, you, whatever your name is, don't leave me here, please don't leave me here. They're going to torture me for seven whole days. Tell him, Lacey, tell him he must take me, too."
"Had some sort of face lift or something hasn't she?" Roger inquired carelessly. "Can't say I think much of the change, once a shrew always a shrew is my motto."
"I'll do anything, I promise I will. I'll be your slave.. . ? " Elizabeth was in an urgency of terror. "You can stick that male thing into me as much as you like when we're out of here but please get me out of Maiden Hall, please!"
"They are going to punish her terribly," Lacey said from the depths of her own elation at the hope of freedom. "They're going to do simply terrible things to her.. . Would you mind?"
Once more the tiny key. Freed, Elizabeth snatched another sheet to join Lacey in only semi-nudity. Two grateful woman scampered after Roger Bascombe's rapid exit from the room of rape, the hearts of both were high with hope.
It was surprisingly easy. Roger Bascombe knew his way, Maiden Hall was otherwise engaged, his car was waiting. He opened the lid of the trunk and motioned invitingly. With scarcely a pause both females climbed into the close association with a spare tire and assorted tools. The lid slammed, the motor started and Miss Lacey Evans and Miss Elizabeth Apple were on their way to a fate they could never have guessed at and knew nothing about.
"I suppose this jackass isn't going to sell us to white slavers, is he?" Miss Apple asked with sarcasm.
"Of course he isn't," Lacey protested loyally. "He's every so nice if you get to know him. I don't know what he's going to do with us but at least we're out of Maiden Hall and away from all those punishments. If Roger Bascombe wants to get inside me or whip my bottom, I'm not going to complain."
"Rescued by a male!" Elizabeth said bitterly. "He'll fuck me for sure!" It was a cry of lesbian agony.
6
Escape
The trunk of Roger Bascombe's car contained a jumbled contortion of feminine limbs and female breasts. Lacey longed to giggle and did so to Elizabeth's annoyance. Elizabeth's gratitude for rescue was tempered by fear of what Roger Bascombe would do with her. She was very conscious of being naked and without defense.
"I suppose you'll fly into his male arms and live happily every after," she accused sourly. Do you think there's a chance he'll simply let me go?"
"Of course he will, what else can he do with you."
"You don't even want to be free." Elizabeth accused in the muffed darkness.
"Yes, I do want to be free but I'm a realist. We have to be grateful to this man for what he's done, Elizabeth, this is exactly what you wanted, isn't it?"
The girls senses the difference in the surface of the road and the speed of the car. Soon the vehicle came to a halt and the lid of the trunk opened to reveal a pleasant stretch of woodland. Roger aided them from their cramped quarters with every a helping hand. He handed Miss Apple a hundred dollar bill and said, "Here, you're on your own. Tilson Village is a little down the road on your right."
"But you can't leave me like this, I'm naked!"
"No you're not, you're tastefully attired in a sheet. You look well in it." He turned his attention to a bewildered Lacey. "Get in the front seat with me or back in the mink, whichever you prefer, darling. It's mostly a matter of modesty."
Lacey made no demur but instantly took her place in the front seat, her breasts were heaving and her eye bright with excitement and relief. She knew she could not fight Elizabeth Apple's battles for her, but Elizabeth had all she could possibly expect in a path to freedom. The last Lacey saw of the one-time school teacher was a white figure clutching a sheet about her curves. But Lacey wasn't too worried, Elizabeth would make out, she was that kind!
So far, so good. Roger Bascombe reached sideways to clasp a rescued hand. "Look, sweetheart, I hope this is what you wanted, isn't it? You did want to get out of Maiden Hall, didn't you?"
"More than anything on earth."
"That's good. That's what I figured. Stop worrying about that creature we left behind, she'll do just find for herself. What we have to think of now is You."
"What about me?" Lacey asked slyly. "I'm just Me."
"And a very nice Me you are, too. Sweetheart, I'm going to stop at the next small town, park the car, and go and buy you some coverings for that lovely nakedness of yours. Then I'll give you a choice, get out of this car with enough money to see you safely hope or stay with me wrapped up in just a sheet. I had to advise you to take the money and run, if you decide to slay with me, you'll certainly be sorry."
"Why?"
"I'm simply take you home and enslave you. It will be a case of out of the frying pan into the fire. Except, of course, that I'll rape you constantly. That is the word for it, I believe."
Lacey was about to ask what would happen if she decided to run away. She was totally free of bonds and would be difficult to subdue in a public place. But she realized there was no need of such heroics. Roger was offering her freedom on one hand or enslavement on the other, enslavement to a man which would undoubtedly be a very different thing than to Maiden Hall. She grinned at him sideways. "That too awful a decision on short notice. You shouldn't tax a girl that way. I don't even know you."
"That's right, I'm giving you a chance."
"This is silly, Roger, but will you keep me fastened up like they did at Maiden Hall?"
"Naturally. I prefer rope, far more personal."
"Thank you. In that case I'll ask you to stop at the next town and buy me what you've just mentioned. I'll go home to mother but be eternally grateful to you and repay everything I've cost."
They drove on in silence. There didn't seem to be much more to say.
Lacey Evans knew something was wrong. This adventure should not end so devoid of emotion. Much as she longed to go back to her mother's house, her own home, she realized she owed much to this man behind the wheel. Tentatively she suggested, "Look, Roger, I'm terribly indebted to you and there's one coin a woman can always pay her debts with, may I offer it?"
"If I wanted it, I would have taken it by force. And there's enough of it waiting for me back at Maiden Hall."
"But how can you go back to Maiden Hall after what you've done?"
"I'll think of something. I'm by way of being the sister's favorite nephew, it's hard for me to do wrong." He laughed at Lacey's frown. "Look, sweetheart, it's not impossible you may decide you want to go back there. If you do, I suggest you surrender yourself to me and let me take you back as though I captured you, that way we'll both come through with flying colors."
"But why on earth would I want to go back to that place?" Lacey waxed indignant. "I'd need my head examined."
"Just a thought, just a thought." Roger waved his hand airily to dismiss a silly idea. "I may as well add that if you need any help of any kind or decide you've made a mistake, just give me a call. I'll write my phone number on one of the bills I'm going to give you."
Lacey felt a let down, things were not going right at all. She liked Roger Bascombe, yet she was parting with him. She felt guilt in the knowledge of had he bargained with her to exchange the slavery of Maiden Hall to enslavement by and with him she would had chosen the latter course without hesitation. Yet now she was abandoning both and going back to a maternal association which, at best, would prove difficult. But she held steadfast for the rest of the ride and, blushingly, shed the sheet and donned the few new garments and shoes he had bought for her and tossed in the back seat. At the bus depot she clung hard and kissed fervently. Roger Bascombe seemed a lonely stranger as he stood watching the bus recede.
The girl wearing his clothes, clutching his handbag containing his money longed to cry and a few tears did escape before she got them under control. Miss Lacey Evans knew she was on her way to a fresh start in which the lessons learned at Maiden Hall must never be forgotten. Miss Evans senior loomed larger and heavy in her mind but mother would have to be dealt with as she would deal with all else. Lacey swore she was through with slavery forever. The insidious, affectionate enslavement of mother was the worst enslavement of all.
Miss Emily Evans surprised her errant daughter by being overjoyed. She accepted Lacey's fabrication of a short holiday to be repaid at the end of the allotted six months. Mrs. Evans had obviously missed the presence of her loved one around the house and Lacey strongly suspected her mother had been on the edge of contracting the Courtnidge sisters with a view to ending her sentence. But she did not inquire or push too hard, she fell easily into the simple existence she left behind before heading into imprisonment. Lacey would willingly have spoken no word of Maiden Hall but her mother was intensely curious, bottling up her curiosity only so long as the following morning at breakfast. It was then the questions started.
"But, Mother, it's a terrible place, I don't want to go back."
"Even if it's good for you, dear, even if it rids you of guilts and regrets of things you've done?"
"Yes, Mother, even then. I'm going to have a bath today and you can see the marks on me then if you're curious."
"But, Lacey dear, we both understood you would suffer some pain in retribution." Mrs. Evans stared affectionately at her difficult daughter. "When you went to Maiden Hall we both knew you would suffer some.. . Well, let's call them discomforts, shall we?"
"Mother! Some of those punishments were positively medieval. There was one time they fastened me to a thing they called a 'horse.' It was pure torture, right out of the dark ages."
"But, did it leave marks, dear? I do think marks on a girl's skin tell the story." Mrs. Evans gazed in a cheerfully manner.
"Well, no it didn't leave marks," Lacey admitted reluctantly. "But it punished me in a terribly private place Mother, you've simply no idea!"
"Yes I have, dear, I distinctly remember including the 'horse' thing on the list of punishments you were to receive. I remember Miss
Courtnidge recommended it highly. I left it to their discretion as to how many times you would have to sit on it. I got the feeling it was very effective."
Lacey sighed, there was no coping with her mother, but without her mother's income, she was without funds. In any case, there was a very real affection between the two of them and Mrs. Evans affliction would have to be looked at as a job or an obstacle to be surmounted. Wearily, the daughter sought for chinks in mother's armor.
"But, Mother, do you understand they kept me chained all the time. And they kept me naked all the time, I never had clothes, never. If it wasn't chains it was all sorts of other quaint notions to hold a girl so she couldn't move."
"I think that's wonderful, Lacey." Mrs. Evans beamed approvingly across the toast and coffee. "Miss Courtnidge told me that's what they were going to do with you, but she assured me the restraints would not hurt. I do hope she was right?"
Lacey sighed. This was going to be a more difficult task than even she supposed. "No, they didn't hurt," she agreed in a faintly exasperated tone. "But can you imagine what it's like never to be free, to be always restrained in some way, and to be always naked so everybody can see everything you've got?"
Miss Emily Evans was excited and pleased by what she had heard. "My dear girl, don't you realize this is what the whole world needs? We need more Maiden Halls, if every girl was sent to such an institution, the world would be a much better place. I wish you could understand this. If you did understand it wouldn't matter so much for you to go back again and finish your curriculum of punishments."
Lacey let the subject drop. The more she spoke of Maiden Hall the more excited her mother became and more certain Maiden Hall was the answer to any maiden's pray or need. Laced decided to return to the fray in short bursts of what she hoped would be enlightenment for her mother. Perhaps, too, Mrs. Evans would like having her around again and be reluctant to loose her a second time. The infuriating thing was that in all other ways her mother was normal, Mrs. Evans was not certifiably insane and there were those who would agreed with her precepts about her daughter and about Maiden Hall.. . Maiden Hall was always full!
Lacey resumed the pleasant thread of suburban life. Her mind remained full of vivid impressions of the house of corrections she left behind. There was always the smiling features of Roger Bascombe hovering always within mental range. He had been kind to her, she owed him this new freedom and would have phoned and gone to visit had it not been for his adamant insistence on enslaving her should she enter his home. It annoyed Lacey that though of such enslavement was no longer as absurd or as unthinkable before she heard the name of Maiden Hall. It was now simply one of those facts of life which affected others but not yourself. But she was honest enough to admit to a titillating excitation of her senses at the thought of being Roger Bascombe's slave. She longed to speak of these things and share confidences with her circle of friends and relatives but there were none who would understand or could be trusted. Probably they would not even believe. Lacey carried her suburban solitude around with her and saw no escape from it. Her mother was far from old and would life many years to place a bond upon her daughter as strong as any Maiden Hall could produce. But how would a husband react upon Mrs. Evans' constant insistence upon her daughter being disciplined? Lacey could not believe that marriage would in any way alter her mother's attitude. Mrs. Evans saw the continued punishment of her only child as something of a sacred trust. As time passed it became evident Mrs. Evans was becoming anxious about her daughter's continued absence from the attentions of Miss Alice and Miss Lilly and Madam Chalfont. Lacey's euphoria at release faded to become a dreary speculation about what to do with mother!
It took ten days of quiet desperation before Lacey phoned Roger Bascombe. Exasperated by one more maternal battlement, she went to the instrument and dialed on impulse. After greetings and explanations, she demanded, "I want to come and visit you, I need to talk to someone."
"Of course, sweetheart, come right now. I've been hoping you'd call."
Roger was so unfailingly cheerful it was hard to broach the subject which now she must. Lacey wanted to visit him in the worst way but held tight to a reservation. "Roger, please, I want to talk, I want to get something out of my system, I need to talk to someone who knows what you know but I absolutely don't want to be enslaved." She paused and was thankful that he could not see her blush. "That sounds silly, doesn't it? But it's what you promised me last time we met. Please don't insist."
"I do insist. Absolutely! The first thing I will do when you enter ray home is tie your hands behind your back. We'll take it from there."
Lacey was not as disappointed as she should have been, she had expected what she heard. But with her mother in the picture, Roger could hardly carry his fantasy to extremes. If he desired her hands bound while they talked, she would have to accept it as a similar aberration to her mother's own quaint notions. And, anyway, she could probably talk her out of it. In a remarkably short space of time she was knocking at his door.
He was exactly as she remembered, but why not? It had been only a short time since he had rescued her. Lacey wished there were other terms by which she could speak of their previous association but 'rescue' was the word and implied an obligation. A maiden rescued from the dragon is suppose to feel some gratitude.
Roger Bascombe opened his door to implant a brotherly kiss on a flushed feminine forehead. What he said next was unexpected, "There's hardware store a couple of blocks around the corner right. I want you to go and buy some sisal rope, nothing heavy, you'll know what's required. I thought I had some but I can't find it. Do you mind?"
Lacey minded. She knew this was a test, it was also a rubbing of her pretty nose in the dirt of humiliation and surrender. Roger could have got the rope himself, he probably had plenty around the place but chose this means of compelling a pledge from her right at the start. She snatched the ten dollar bill from his hand and said, briefly, "Roger, you're an absolute bastard," before striding away on her shameful errand.
By the time she returned, Roger Bascombe had brewed coffee and was arranging cups and saucers. He accepted the package and his change, unraveled a skein of harsh sisal cord to say abruptly, "You know what to do next, sweetheart. Be a good girl."
If it had not been for the admonition of "be a good girl," Lacey knew she would probably have turned around and crossed her wrists. But the combination of implication of her own delinquency and his male omnipotence was too much. She stepped back defensively and said, "I see you've made coffee. Let's be sensible and drink it while we talk. If you tie my hands I can't even lift a cup."
He sensed her inward turmoil and conceded the point with good grace, laughing at the attention so evident in every part of her. His action was wise as they sipped the hot brew and spoke of those they knew. They became simply a man and a girl again, an attractive and amusing man and a beautiful, even though baffled, young woman. Over their final sips, Lacey congratulated the matter of the rope to her advantage but she was quickly disillusioned.
"Time, sweetheart, stand up and put your hands behind your back."
Lacey refused to see it as a test of wills, she would look upon it as a price she had to pay in return for a favor she had received. Pouting, she demanded, "Do you have to?"
"Of course!"
Miss Lacey Evans turned sulkily and crossed her wrists for his attention. But even that was not enough. Roger's voice was brightly cheerful, "Sweetheart, I intend to strip you after you're tied but wouldn't it be a lot more sensible if you took you clothes off yourself right now? You might wish to wear them again and if I tear them off you by force they're going to be in rags and tatters."
As she turned, pink cheeked and close to tears, she said, "Can't you give me any break? You push and push and don't leave a girl any respect for herself at all. You don't need me naked."
"Indeed I do." Roger bestowed his best satyr grin on her. "No girl need her clothes, least of all you. Clothes are an encumbrance on a woman, they inhibit. Come along now, be sensible, strip yourself nude."
Lacey realized the principle of gradual coercion, as she conceded one thing, he would demand another, and because she had already made a capitulation she would shrug and think to herself, "Well, what's it matter!" She did so now.
"You needn't think I'm going to do a strip tease while you stand there and ogle me," she said angrily as she kicked off her shoes and bent to lower the garter belt and nylons she knew she should not have worn. She added, "I don't know why I'm doing this, I must have holes in my head."
When she was totally bare she stood and faced him defiantly to say, "You've seen it all before. Here, I'll put my hands behind my neck so you're sure you're not being cheated." She suited action to the word and stood there, totally exposed, and trying hard not to laugh the way
Roger was laughing at her.
After that it was easy. Lacey stood erect, chin up, eyes on a distance horizon, while male fingers crossed her wrists and bound them tight with the harsh, thin sisal rope. Harsh and unkind to feminine skin, it was a further mark of humiliation for Lacey. He could have used softer cotton clothesline or even, probably, some leather restraints such as they had at Maiden Hall. But this painful rope was a symbol of male domination. By the time Roger had finished his final knot, Miss Lacey Evans knew indeed that she was bound!
Roger was not yet through, he had a vision still to complete. Reverently he arranged the naked girl with bound hands to kneel before the chair he would occupy. Lacey caught the symbolize of the new posture and flushed. But when she looked up at the seated male, she shared his grin, sat back on her heels, and admonished, "You sure do know how to handle us girls, don't you? I've never been managed this way in my whole life."
"But think what they did to you at Maiden Hall."
"They didn't do this. They punished me and kept me prisoner but they didn't make me kneel to a Master. I suppose that's how you see yourself, as a Master?"
"Of course. All men are masters. If they fail to make it stick, it's their own fault. Consider yourself it wasn't all that much of a task to bring you to heel, was it?"
"Brought to heel"! It was a term used for dogs but Lacey knew it suited their present relationship, Roger was wining hands down all the way. Sharply she brought them both back to the purpose of her visit. "We were going to talk, weren't we? Isn't that why I'm here?"
"You know damn well it isn't, you little humbug. You know I'm going to fuck you."
Lacey hung her head but the weakness was momentary, she was a big girl who must face facts and stop kidding herself. She raised her eyes to gaze steadfastly back at the amused male to retort, "I didn't really expect you'd have the chivalry not to do that. I'll consider it the price I have to pay for the talk you promised me. When do you do it?"
"Later. Keep it as something nice to look forward to. Now, shall we roast Miss Alice, Miss Lilly or the noble Frenchwoman?" Lacey's need to talk was real. She told the watching man about her mother, about Elizabeth and about Miss Peach. She admitted with a charming frankness her inability to arrive at a conclusion to her dilemma. To fight maternal concern, to run away, to return to Maiden Hall or such other possibilities as came to mind. In her absorption, Lacey forgot tied hands and nakedness and the way in which she was virtually a possession a this quiet man who sat and listened. When she became animated they shared a smile, it was all very pleasant and comfortable. When Lacey had exhausted speech, she was picked up bodily, carried to a bedroom, and there most competently loved upon the bed and upon the pain of bound wrists. She scarcely noticed the pain. There was none of the harsh thrusts or brutal impalements by which this man's attentions had been made punitive. Miss Lacey Evans was impaled by the sword of love.
Long after the two of them had found drowsy contentment on the bed, Roger Bascombe asked abruptly, "Let's you and me go out to dinner."
It was an order, it was a request, it was everything Lacey needed most. Her affirmative was almost breathless. She wondered what he would do about her hands but did not ask.
"I'm afraid I'm a bit of a Don Juan," her captor admitted ruefully when it was time to dress. "You'll find a closet full of woman's stuff and a feminine bedroom, help yourself sweetheart."
"My hands are tied behind my back."
"Why, so they are! Here, turn around." He freed her wrists as easily as he had bound them.
Everything was suddenly a delight, a girl's dream come true. Lacey went about the task of making herself even more beautiful than nature intended, at the same time hugging herself in jubilation over the freedom of her hands. She had seen Roger's willingness to untie her wrists as a sign things were going in her favor. Neither of them spoke of the course rope or of the chaffed skin. Lacey phoned her mother, made excuses, and she and Roger embarked upon their evening like a pair who had known each other a long, long time.
Euphoria held Lacey in its grip throughout their time in the restaurant and until she stood, suddenly awkward, in the hall of Roger Bascombe's house upon their return. Roger had talked entertainingly of many things but not of what was now uppermost in her mind. She said, "I'll give Mother a call and tell her I'll be back inside thirty minutes. Or should
I make it an hour?"
"Don't be ridiculous, lacey, you know what to do, do it."
Lacey knew! She took it as a sign of favor that he had not spelt it out for her. She had known all through their evening that it would be waiting here for her but had done nothing to make up her mind as to a course of action. Perhaps Roger was right and she was a truly ridiculous girl trying to reconcile impossibilities. But the thought of trying to return to her mother's home left her suddenly smitten with a terrible loneliness she had no wish to face. She would have liked to discuss this discovery but this was not the time, perhaps the time would never come. Matching Roger's casualness, she asked, "Do you want me to undress here or in the bedroom?"
They slept only intermittently throughout the night. It was the most prolonged and vivid lovemaking Lacey had ever known or ever dreamed of. Roger had insisted upon once more tying her crossed wrists behind her back, telling her frankly of the course rope's purpose in chaffing her skin and inhibiting escape attempts. To be bound thus was a punishment. But Lacey happily arranged her helpless arms this way and that to match and to accommodate their frantic lovemaking. If, half way through the night, Roger had asked if she wanted to be untied she would have delivered an firm "NO." There was something about the coarsely bound wrists that enormously enhanced everything they did. Lacey knew not why.
In the morning, after Roger had deftly thrust food into her mouth and raised coffee to the lips through breakfast. Lacey Evans said the obvious. "I'll have to phone Mother, she'll be worrying."
"I'll phone her for you, Lacey. I'll tell her I'm a part of the Maiden Hall organization and have escorted you back to finish your sentence. Sweetheart, fact it, I've got you good."
Lacey was suddenly frightened of what she had done. Everything had happened because she had placed herself in the way of it happening. This was the first step Roger had taken on his own, more or less. Previously he had granted choices, now there were none. The sisal cord felt brutal on her wrists as she twisted against it in a sudden, vital desire to be free. But, strangely, she felt no need to speak. She was once more a prisoner and would wait to see what happened. She might be more of a nuance to Roger Bascombe than he would want to be bothered with, he might easily let her go inside a few days and she would have little trouble making up a story for Mrs. Evans. In the meantime, Lacey knew she could expect for sexual gratification than she had ever known existed or dreamed was possible. She stopped twisting chaffed wrists to brightly exclaim, "I'd love to do the dishes if you'd let me."
Lacey did not do the dishes. Instead, her master blithely announced, "No dishes for you, sweetheart, you're going to get your bottom caned. A little touch-up job is long over due."
Lacey sat stricken. Her voice lacked conviction, "I suppose you're joking?"
"You know I'm not. You know it will be the best thing in the world for you. Best thing there is for fuzzy minds and indecision."
"But I don't want my bottom caned. I didn't come here to suffer pain. Roger, don't be unkind."
"You have had nothing but pleasure since I tied your hands. A little pain will balance the ledger."
"Damn your ledger!" Lacey flared in anger and disappointment. "If all you want me for is to whip my bare skin, you can untie me now and I'll go back to Mother."
Roger did not bother to answer, instead he rose and grasped Lacey's bare arm, his voice soothing, "Come along, sweetheart. In the time you've spent dithering with mother, I've been busy. Never had a torture chamber but managed to slap together a pretty fair punishment parlor. You'll love it."
Despite an instinct to shake them loose, Roger's fingers felt good on Lacey's bare skin. She possessed the feminine gift for disbelief in distress until it actually happened. Her curiosity about "The Torture Chamber" was of that mesmerizing quality which lures small creatures into the mouths of larger ones. Miss Lacey Evans was annoyed with herself for being flattered at having a special room built for her discomfort. Roger Bascombe must have been very sure of her to take the trouble.
It was large and bright and cheerful, it would be with Roger, he was definitely not the dungeon type. The instruments by which she would be held for pain were mostly recognizable and smelled of paint or varnish. It was all rather cute and Lacey would have laughed had it not been for the yellow cane displayed across a small stool in the center of the room. Lacey flinched at the sight of it while her companion casually suggested, "I think the little pedestal with the cross piece, my pet. It will hold you against embarrassing motions while I warm your seat."
"Don't be horrible." Lacey was busily working against corded wrists. "What's you want me to do, bend across it?"
"No, sweetheart, just stand hard against it, knees stiff, you'll find the cross piece comes just about where it's right for you to bend over. I'll do all the work."
How could she fight! All a naked girl who's hands are bound can do is cause annoyance and get herself manhandled. Giving her cheerful master a glare of pure venom, Lacey marched to where she could follow instructions. Roger was right, the cross piece was exactly where she would need it as a support for the bending over indignity. She looked down to watch her ankles bound tight to the vertical stump and then her knees, using the same harsh, unfeminine rope with which her wrists were tightly bound. Automatically she tried to bend forward across the short horizontal but was interrupted by Roger. "Just stand still, I told you I'll do the rest."
Lacey's tied wrists were snared by a hanging rope already in place above. When pulled, this had the effect of raising her arms behind her back and bending her forward into the bend-over posture. By the time she yelped in dismay at the stress on her shoulders, the upward pull came to an end and a leather collar was buckled around her throat. From it a leash ran down to a ring in the floor. As this was tightened her head was drawn down and down. When an additional adjustment had been made on her raised arms, Lacey realized the small cross piece was digging hard into the softness beneath her belly. She could not move.
"I like it," Roger assured. "Never can tell about a thing until you've tried it out. How's it feel."
"I want to go home."
"You don't really. You're just embarrassed by the prominence of this delightful item here." He ran exploring hands intimately over the stretched, round surface of her bottom. His male contact told her all too clearly how vulnerable that part of herself had become. The stretch by which she was thus held was rapidly becoming hard to bare. She told her master so in no uncertain terms.
"No to worry, dear girl. Five strokes does not take very long."
The bent and stretched nudity sniffed disdainfully but was secretly thankful for a limit of five, she had expected more but no doubt they would be laid across her seat with full masculine vigor.
"Please get on with it, I can't stand this much longer." She pleaded through clenched teeth.
"Five is your basic punishment, sweetheart. But you can easily add to it by being sulky, by too much pleading, by calling me unkind things like a brute or a cad, and then there's the matter of screaming. For so innocent a punishment screaming is forbidden. You can make a few sounds but screaming is out."
"Never mind the speech making." Lacey's voice was bitter. "Cane me and get it over with."
"You made a mistake, old girl, you've given me an order and you've turned sulky. So now the ante is up to six. You should pay attention to what I say."
No girl had ever been more silent as the cane thrummed and bit savagely at her rump. Lacey longed to scream but choked all sound back down an indignant throat. If she could be silent, she would. She hoped she could bear her six strokes in mute contempt of male abandonment of chivalry. It was not until the fourth cut burnt and seared her skin that she broke silence with a grunt and for the remaining two made sounds for which she was bitterly ashamed. But pain is pain and a girl can only stand so much.
It was doubly terrible for a maiden to be caned, then freed, then kissed and then have her hands untied and given permission to wash the dishes. But thus it was. Lacey was uncertain whether to laugh or scream or cry. She did none of these things but seriously assured the watching man seated at the breakfast table that now she had the use of all her limbs she would put up an angry defense against being once more tied. She slammed dishes as though daring one of them to break. She was too well aware of displaying to the watching male a girlish bottom well marked by scarlet and purple lines for which she often dried one hand to feel back lovingly and tenderly her place of punishment.
Neither felt the need to discuss the punishment. It was accepted as implicit in male ownership of the body of the girl. Now, being free, there was much Lacey would like to say but since the saying might result in getting six more in the same place, she held her tongue. But the pain of the cane upon her skin had cemented her determination to return to her own home and abandon these erotic exploits as self-defeating and getting her nowhere. Lacey Evans simply did not believe that getting her bottom caned had done her any good at all.
Roger Bascombe was full of surprises. When, after the dishes, Lacey dried her hands and announced casually she was going to the bedroom, he made no move to stop her nor did he utter a word of warning or complaint. He said simply, "You'll find me in the study," and let her go. Mounting the stairs, Lacey was once more a very baffled girl.
But her bafflement didn't let her stop from enjoying a soothing bath, soothing not only to her spirits but to her sore bottom. A bit confused by the lack of restraints (pain and helplessness seemed to go together), she took her time, luxuriating in the hot, soapy water, then slowly dressed, expecting to see Roger come into the bedroom at any time, perhaps nonchalantly waving a pair of handcuffs or more of that damned sisal rope. But he didn't and Lacey obtained a state of complete covering with the clothes she had come in. Finally she decided his casual remark about being available in the study had actually been a command and she descended the stairs.
Roger was siting behind an oak desk, looking every part the lord of his manor. "Well?" he said.
Lacey was again baffled. What did he expect. Then it dawned on her. There was a reason why there had been no restraints on her when she went upstairs. He was offering her a choice! She knew she could walk out the door. But the other side of the choice was not so easy to dismiss. To stay with Roger Bascombe! Lacey sucked in her breath. If it had just been the loving, incredibly skilled male, but it was the punishing, brutal male as well.
"You wish to stay here," he said, "you will be my slave. Nothing else. I will use or abuse you as I wish. That was the terms I offered you originally and they still are the terms."
"Couldn't we.. . "
"No," he cut her off. "Your beauty was meant to be loved but even more to be bound and caned and whipped and.. . Well, you get the idea. And I know you know it, too." He leaned back in his chair, smug and sure of himself. "If you wish to stay you will shed those clothes and kneel before me to await orders. That or walk out."
There now the question as to whether she should attend her former lord and master in his study or make her escape while offer the chance.
But Lacey could not bring herself to do this. True, Roger and she had shared something and the something was not yet dead. But what she needed was more time and one more chance to talk her mother back to sanity. Confronting the man behind the desk she said simply, "Roger, you're being very kind."
"I'm being damned foolish."
"No, you're not. You're giving me another chance. Thank you for caning my bottom. I don't know what good it did but I'm willing to believe in some sort of benefit, it certainly helped me make the decision I'm now making."
"You're not making a decision, you're making a mistake. But it's one you can easily rectify, I'll be around. I may do a bit more construction while you're gone."
Their kiss was obvious, it came to them naturally and they made the most of it. Lacey wished she had met this man long ago before being influenced by screwball mothers and being consigned to Maiden Hall. Perhaps the wheels would continue to turn and they'd get a fresh start. As she walked home she felt something in her pocket that had not been there before, it was a quantity of money. When Lacey used her key to open the door of the home she and her mother had long shared, the first person she beheld was Molly Peach.
7
Perversity of Punishments
Three women sharing only good will but no unity of purpose. Mrs. Emily Evans was the most cheerful. She was, in fact, bubbling over with what her daughter suspected was "I told you so" enthusiasm.
"You know each other, don't you? Isn't that nice! Lacey dear, I'm been talking to Miss Peach and she's convinced me of what I've always known that the sooner you get back to Maiden Hall the better. I'm so relieved."
The younger women shared a glance and Molly Peach contrived the broadest of winks which could mean only that she was correctly assessing Mrs. Evans, or a warning to Lacey to watch her tongue. The voice of Molly Peach was sweet as honey. "I thought it would be so much nicer for you, Lacey dear, if I came to take you back. There's something frightening institutional about Madam Chalfont. I hope you don't mind."
It was on Lacey's tongue to respond with a hot denial, but sight of her mother so raptly engrossed in good deeds and her own convictions touched the daughter's heart. A mother is a mother, and perhaps six months of her life was not too high a price to pay for possessing one or for making one happy. There could be no doubt that if she departed for Maiden Hall with Molly Peach her mother would be in a seventh heaven of delight.
Remorsefully Lacey said, "But, Mother, I don't want to go there.
I don't want to go back to Maiden Hall. If you knew the things they did to a girl you wouldn't even want me to go."
"Don't be silly, Lacey dear, Miss Peach has been telling me about your life there and about all the lovely things they have planned for you." Mrs. Evans beamed and added the clincher, "Lacey dear, please do it for me, please do it for your mother."
Lacey sighed, she looked at her mother's earnest and radiant features, then at Molly Peach who had already taken from her bag the leather hobbles for waist and hands. What she now said added weight to the mother's plea.
"She's right, you know, Lacey dear. And the time's not all that long, six months will be gone before you know it." She held up the shinning leather harness. "This will be much less of a shock for you this time than it was before. It will reassure your mother, who you've worried more than you realized. When I strap this on you, it will be a symbol of good faith, you will be back on the right track."
It was like a bad dream. The soft voice of Molly Peach and her mother's anxiety for her welfare were potent forces she had no will to fight. Perhaps, after all. Maiden Hall was the best answer to a situation utterly unique. Lacey unhappily realized there could never be a good solution for herself, she was the sacrifice upon the altar of a mother's love, if the altar fired burned she'll have to put up with it! Miss Lacey Evans stood rigidly still while Molly Peach came close to put an affectionate hand upon her arm.
"That nice French lady removed all of Lacey's clothes last time," Mrs. Evans suggested helpfully. "Have you forgotten?"
"It won't be necessary this time," Molly Peach assured gently as she fitted the leather around Lacey's unresisting waist. "It's not as if your daughter and I weren't old friends. The straps are just a formality but it's one we'll use anyway."
Lacey was suddenly grateful for retaining her clothes. It would have been embarrassing explaining her caned bottom and the vivid marks placed there by Roger Bascombe. This feeling of relief extended to the relaxing of rigid muscles and the ritual of being rendered helpless by a cinched tummy and tight circled wrists. Molly's whisper in her ear was reassuring.
It was like the running of a tape played many times. The same dazed indecision, the same drifting with an inevitable tide, and, most forcibly of all, the tight, tight tugging of Lacey's straps and buckling of them to make her helpless and subject to another's will. When it was done, Lacey simply wanted to cry. But since she could not dry her tears with hands so well confined, she delayed the tears for another time and place. Instead, she said, "Well, there you are, mother, are you happy now? I'm am completely helpless and Miss Peach will take me to Maiden Hall and they II punish me for running away." , "I couldn't be happier," Miss Emily Evans was obviously ecstatic. She clasp her tight strapped daughter in loving arms and kissed the dry, sad lips of a girl condemned to prison.
"We all love Lacey and she's going to be very happy," Miss Peach added primly to the touching scene. "And now, Lacey, let's get going."
"Goodness gracious, girl, I thought you were going to blow it," Molly Peach admonished as she thrust her captive into the front seat, then strapped the captive ankles tight. "I thought you'd guessed this was a put up job I'm not taking you back to Maiden Hall, I'll taking you to my home."
The once more captive victim of maternal love thrust her head hard against Molly's shoulder and loosed the torrent of her tears, between the mechanics of weeping she told what had transpired since Roger Bascombe had freed herself and Elizabeth Apple from the bed of rape. Before starting the motor, Molly Peach gently stroked her captive's hair and held her close. Gently she said, "Poor, darling Lacey, you do understand, don't you? I'm not taking you back to Maiden Hall, I'm taking you to my own home where you'll be my" slave and I can do whatever I like with you. At the end of six months I'll set you free."
The strapped nakedness tensed. Molly could feel the tightening of muscles and the faster heartbeat. For Lacey the news was not unexpected but she suddenly knew for sure she wanted no one to own her or use her for their own pleasure. Molly adored whipping girls and would no doubt whip her frequently, whereas at Maiden Hall she would have the benefit of a diversity of personalities of mistresses. Maiden Hall would absorb her, and while it would undoubtedly punish, it would do so with love and affection and an assurance it was all for her own good.
Wearily she said. "I don't want to be anybody's slave, Molly. Thanks a million but I really don't. Please take me back to Maiden Hall or let me go."
It was Molly's turn to tense. Her temperament was sweet but now her voice was sharp. "I thought we had an understanding, dear, I was to get you free and take you for my own. Now you want to go back to Maiden Hall, are you crazy!"
"I'm sorry, Molly, but I've been pushed around so much.. . "
"Well, dear girl, hasn't it occurred to you that you haven't much to say about anything right now. I've got you."
"Yes, I know, I'm so damned confused Mother was probably right I do belong at Maiden Hall. They'll probably whip some sense into me."
"I intend to do that." The honeyed voice was firm.
"Oh shit!" Lacey was disgusted with herself and with the world. Angrily she said, "Oh, do what you like with me, Molly. One is as good as the other or which ever you look at it. You're sweet but I know the things you're going to do to me and I wish you wouldn't."
Molly Peach started the motor.
Lacey Evans wondered idly why people did things in threes. It cropped up so often and was actually meaningless, three was really not much different from any other number. Molly Peach had waited three days before bringing herself to a confrontation. Molly had spoken so often of intentions while enjoying the company and conversation of her captive girl who she now kept with hobbled feet and nakedness to make the cinch belt that much more tight and demanding of the flesh. Lacey had expected to be kept helpless and made no demure.
Now, on this third day, Lacey Evans was about to be whipped. Molly Peach had been angry over the wealed bottom from Roger's cane. But the rest of Lacey was virgin and ready for what Molly had chosen to call a 'ritual whipping.' In the book of Molly Peach and Elizabeth Apple and lash was dominant. Hating the bitter strokes to come, Lacey wished herself back in Maiden Hall, at least Maiden Hall had innovative notions and was far less reliant on the screaming thong.
Molly had excelled herself, probably she had excelled anything Maiden Hall might have offered. Certainly she had left Roger Bascombe far behind in the matter of originality. The naked captive girl stood against a truncated column reaching only to her waist but there it was cinched tight with a leather band as were Lacey's knees and Lacey's ankles. Normally the rest of Lacey would have been a free girl but it was very far from free! Facing the strapped girl at a distance of ten feet was a massive post upon which, at eye level, had been bolted the mechanism of a simply pulley which at the moment was pulled away from its anchorage because of the attention of a rope which ran over its wheel to Lacey's strapped wrists at one end and to a thirty pound weight at the other, thus providing a constant pull at Lacey's arms and shoulders which she could vary only by dragging the weight higher to enable her to stand erect, lean back or scratch her nose. But no matter what Lacey did the weight would remain a constant demand upon her strength, the simplest posture was simply to allow the chunk of metal to drag upon her helpless arms and to simply stand, slightly bent forward, in a posture most obviously suited for the whip. Lacey's back was bare.
"I agree with you, darling, it's wickedly frustrating for you," Molly sighed happily. "Aren't I the luckiest girl?"
"But, Molly, this will drive me crazy, trying to cope with that awful weight. Are you sure it's not more than thirty pounds?"
"It just seems more, dear. Just think how, when I'm whipping you, you'll be able to wiggle your back all you want. You'll be able to pull the weight up to give yourself freedom of your hands or you can let it fall so you just simply stand still with your arms nicely stretched out Lacey dear, you look positively ravishing like that."
There had been no argument when Molly had kissed her captive, both girls knew the inevitability of what would happen. Lacey's main concern was how long she would be compelled to stand, fighting the weight and waiting for the whip. She dare not ask.
"I thought this one up by myself," Molly confided. "I didn't steal it from Maiden Hall and, if I ever go back there, I'll show them how to do this, its a wonderful punishment for a girl and I'm enjoying every moment of watching you trying to figure out what you're going to do with that weight. It has to be better than being bound so you can't move, isn't it?"
"No. It's worse! Oh, Molly.. . "
Molly had left her captive alone and, from the manner of Molly's going, Lacey deduced she would be there for a long time. Molly evidently desired a very humble girl when she got ready to use the whip. Lacey wept from time to time and dragged on her weighted wrists to dry her tears. Below her breasts she could move not at all. The short pedestal and straps held her immobile. She thought longingly of the Roger Bascombe. The caning of her bottom would probably fade into insignificance compared to what she was about to receive. Molly had been brutally honest.
"You see, darling, like I told you back at Maiden Hall, I simply adore whipping girls. That's why I went there in the first place and that's why I wanted you, I wanted your mature figure to whip and whip again until you plead and become humble and anxious to please. You haven't quite got there yet, have you darling?"
Lacey knew she had not reached that point but had little doubt she soon would. There were certain attitudes in a girl that she could not change but the whip could change them. She knew that and wished she could impart it to this charming woman who held her. But to try and tell Molly of these things was to flog the obvious, Molly knew everything and regarded the pleas and wails of her captive with a knowing and indulgent eye. It was like being a little girl in front of an omnipotent parent. So far as Lacey was concerned, Molly was omnipotent indeed!
The strapped girl had raised the weight many times since being fastened thus. Sure, it was an exercise in futility but it was the only thing to do. It hurt more than being bound immovably but it offered the privilege of using her arms or bringing her strapped hands as far as her face before letting them fall back into tension. That and wondering how long it would be before Molly came with the whip. Lacey passionately longed to be whipped and get it over with.
"I'm going to whip you now, darling." Molly was at last fingering the leather thong while eyeing the satin smoothness of the girlish back which was about to be marked. "But before I start I'm anxious for you to tell me your sensations. They must be acute."
"I'm just frightened," Lacey admitted wearily. "I guess you don't understand, but a girl like me who knows she's got to be whipped is just a bundle of nerves, a bundle of sensations that aren't rationale and don't mean anything. When you whip me, you'll be whipping a screaming mechanism program to wiggled and twist and howl. I'm afraid there's nothing significant in a whipped girl accept the act of whipping her."
Molly was sweet, Molly was everything you'd want in a girl except for one thing, her adoration of the thong's song as it swished and impacted on girlish skin. Molly was not interested in the immature contours of the twelve and sixteen year olds at Maiden Hall. What she had hungered for was exactly what she now possessed, a girl in full maturity with all the curves of a woman to match the gleeful song of thongs and respond thereto with blossoming weals and the scarlet by which girl flesh acknowledges the lash. Here and there would be purple, it was the icing on the cake.
The pulley was well oiled, its rope and weight slid easily up and down in response to the frantic, uncontrolled heavings and surgings of the lovely nudity who's arms and wrists it possessed. Sometimes Molly paused in the business of marking Lacey's back to admire and wonder at the gymnastic performance of a girl driven to extremes. After the fifteenth stroke had etched the maiden skin, she said brightly, "That fifteen, darling. You've really done awfully well."
"Thank you, oh, thank you!" Lacey was panting and bedewed with sweat. She expressed her gratitude with, "Oh, Molly, I'm so glad it isn't any more. I couldn't bare it, I just couldn't."
"But, darling, there is more. You're only half way through." Molly's voice was honeyed as befits the comforting of one in agony.
There was only silence as Lacey Evans drank the dregs of slavery. If Molly wished to give her fifteen more strokes upon an already anguished back, she could. Molly owned her, Lacey could do nothing. The whipped girl dragged aimlessly at the weight and considered the blow by blow repetition of what Molly had already done to her. She wished she could faint but fainting was far away. There was such a rapport between these two women, the naked and the clothed, that pleas need not be said, they would be taken for granted and understood, just as the lashes would be understood by she who received them. It was all too wonderful but now, as the leather bit at her, Lacey screamed and screamed again. Lacey screamed and screamed again. The metal weight danced a macabre jig all its own. Above, and over all else, Lacey knew the defeating certainty that she could never, never escape. Perhaps Molly would whip her everyday.
Molly Peach was not a lesbian. However, contradictorily she demanded to be served by her girl slave every night. Lacey saw the act as with no more significance as the whipping of her skin, both were for the gratification of the girl who owned her. She sucked and licked and tongued, Lacey Evans condemned herself for that fatal moment when she had yielded herself for the belt and straps. She should have fought! But it was too late now, she might never be a free girl again. Molly Peach might become too addicted to her punishments to every let her go, six month promise or no. Freedom had become an abstract term not applicable to herself. Thus Lacey Evans began thinking like a slave.
After her first and other whipping, Lacey found it surprisingly easy to be subservient to her mistress, it became easy and natural to kneel or bow her head in recognition of Molly's presence. The whip did strange things to Lacey and she recognized their strangeness and the manner in which it influenced her acts and attitudes. She had never in freedom given thought to dominance or submission or seen herself as belonging to either group. But she now thought of herself only as a submissive. Rebellion or fighting authority became absurd. With it all she never came to revere or love the lash, Lacey never wanted to be whipped and was only against her pitiful protests and her fighting of her bonds. This, too, was considered natural by both of them and accepted as human behavior implicit to what was taking place. Lacey's back and bottom were always marked and she took a strange pride in the wicked lines as they became purple before commencing to fade. Molly adored the whip marks and the girl who bore them.
There were innovations. A slavegirl's fortitude and loyalty must be constantly tested. Thus it was that Molly thought up perverse ways in which to cause her slavegirl pain and a longing for more conventional forms of punishment. One of these was the ball and chain. The ball and chain used for her slavegirl's discomfort was by no means the standard item long renowned in the annuals of punishment. First of all, the naked maiden to be punished was made to stand in the center of a room or any confined space and there to have her neck collared and tethered to a ring above where she could never reach. She must stand and stand and stand endlessly. But Lacey's real punishment was the ball itself, a forty pound sphere of metal to which a short chain was welded. But first, along with the collar on her neck, had come a chain belt and the wicked length of small links falling from the front of the belt, bisecting her helpless sex, and going up between the cheeks of her bottom to threat itself through a ring in the belt and from there to be padlocked to the chain to the punishment ball. Lacey found herself confronted with an awful choice. She could allow the ball to hang and suffer the agonies of waist and crotch or she could reach down to retrieve it and hold it in her hands. It was a prettily designed frustration.
The captive of Molly Peach had learned never to complain too soon. Often her punishments were mild and she could be thankful for them. Thus it was several minutes before the true enormity of her present infliction became apparent. She had reached down cheerfully enough to lift the ball and hold it against a naked hip to relieve the stress upon her more tender places to which it was attached. But the surface of the ball was entirely smooth, it was hard to hold and apt to slip from her fingers. Should it do so the pain would be intense. She met Molly's interested regard with anguished eyes and voice. "But, Molly, you don't understand. This is awful. I have to hold this lousy ball or it will cut me in two. You must have made a mistake.. . "
"No mistake, sweetheart, you just hold the ball. Simple!"
"But I can't hold it all the time, it's bound to slip."
"Then let it slip, dear. It will hang from the back of that lovely chain belt I've locked on you. You're so lucky."
Lacey fought the ball and chain for three hours, by which time Molly took pity on her and used her magic key to leave her slavegirl tethered by her neck but otherwise completely free. There had been a lot of grateful kissing and hugging and vows of obedience. But at the end of these endearments Lacey still stood upright, the collar on her neck with it's chain still holding her prisoner. When, two hours later, Molly reappeared, she affected surprise.
"What, you still here, Lacey?"
"You know I'm still here, you know I can't get away. You know I have to stand like a dummy because of this chain around my neck."
"It's not a chain, it's a collar. But it's only a short chain."
"Molly, you're being real mean."
"How about a short whipping and it's all over."
"No thanks."
"In that case, you may as well stay as you are, dear, you look so sweet. I'll be seeing you."
Indignantly Lacey looked at the closing door. For the hundredth time her fingers sought the metal circlet on her neck. She could never escape, never! The seemingly innocent punishment was becoming frightening. Prolonged on and on it could become a torture. Again she cursed the moment she had submitted to the hobbles before her mother's enraptured gaze. It was so damned unfair, all this diversity of people concerned with her captivity and having but one thing in common, her virgin skin and a whip.
Lacey made herself as comfortable as possible to await her mistress' caprice. It was always the same, a girl never knew how long she had to endure or what came next, and at the end was the bitter humiliation of being so damned glad to see who ever would set you free that you became so humble and willing to please that it became positively nauseating. Lacey sniffed and longed to sleep the hours of hope and despair away.
In bed at night, after Lacey had paid what Molly had laughingly described as "lip service," the woman and the girl discussed their lives. Lacey's hands were always strapped behind her back and she was shackled to the bed by her ankle chain and metal band. These restraints were no more than she had suffered at Maiden Hall, she was accustomed to them. Her weapon was her tongue.
"It's not fair, Molly, I play with you but you never play with me. You don't even tease my nipples."
"It would just get you all excited, dear, and slavegirls are not allowed orgasms. They are maintained at an erotic peak as so to be always affectionate to their mistress," Molly sagely informed.
Lacey could never win. Molly made the rules as they went along. It was the same with bondage. "You don't need to strap my hands behind my back. I can't possibly fight the shackle on my ankle, that ought to be enough," pleaded Lacey. "But, darling, you don't understand," Molly replied. "Everything I do to you or with you is some form of punishment, be it ever so small. Sure, I don't need to strap your wrists behind your back but I love doing so and that's the last I want to hear about it."
"You're punishing me much worse and much longer than Maiden Hall ever did, Molly. Please take me back there."
"What are you beefing about, sweetheart? You're getting my full individual attention all day long and you wouldn't be able to talk as freely at Maiden Hall. The way you complain would make certain you'd earn punishments. But here I'm letting you blow your top and not even caning your bottom."
"There's another thing, Molly, if you keep me prisoner for six months and then let me go, I'll simply be back at square one. Maiden Hall is bound to be in touch with mother and she'll know there's something wrong. There'll be no use telling her about you and she'll simply want me to go back to Maiden Hall and do it properly. Molly, please, I don't want to be a professional prisoner!"
But a prisoner was what Lacey was. She was strapped and chained with the same relentless severity as Maiden Hall itself. She was whipped so often that Molly reluctantly had to call an end and give her slavegirl a rest for the regeneration of her skin, not that her skin was ever broken by the lash, but it had become a lattice work of weals which needed time to fade. Into this rainbow hued paradise contrived by Molly Peach there stalked the grim, stern figure of Emily Chalfont.
The reentry of the French woman into Lacey's life came at a moment when Lacey was angrily involved in one of Molly's favorite inflictions. Her hands were strapped behind her back, her feet were hobbled, and, for what Molly described as "icing on the cake," each of her nipples had been aroused to its full rigid excitation and then neatly clipped with a pair of one of the many devices Molly kept in a little wooden box which never failed to yield pain to Lacey's rosebuds. A pair of tiny metal monsters had been clipped on each of Lacey's nipples when there came the fatal ringing at the door.
Molly had laughingly admonished, "Be sure and don't take them off, dear," and gone to answer the summons. It was while Lacey was struggling vainly to rid herself of the cheerfully bouncing little monsters on her breasts that she became aware something was wrong. There were sounds, sounds that did not belong.. . !
For the moment the pain of clipped nipples was set aside in Lacey's mind to give way to curiosity. She strove to listen and at the same time make her hobbled way to the stairway without much clatter of the chain between her ankles. It was not easy but, reaching the stairway, Lacey realized the two women she beheld were far too occupied to hear any noise from her. Molly Peach was face down upon the floor and Emily Chalfont was deftly and firmly strapping two wrists which had never previously known such an indignity. There was then a collar and a leash and the stern threat of a gag if Molly chose to scream.
Pain and helplessness forgotten, Lacey took her cautious, hobbled steps down to meet whatever fate held for her below. But whatever that fate might she was aware of a warm sense of old friendship in confronting Madam Chalfont, even confronted with a less than cordial greeting, "Ah, so you are here, ma petite. We guesses as much. I have come to take you home."
Emily Chalfont had risen to her feet. Beside her Molly Peach rolled herself into a position where she could raise up to one hip to exclaim, "No, you don't. You mustn't take Lacey away, Lacey belongs to me." She snorted viciously. "And now you can take these damn things off my wrists. You've no right to fasten me like this or to enter my house." The Peach statement went by without comment. Lacey had resumed her slow and cautious descent and, as she and Madam Chalfont drew closer, the biting punishments on her nipples became visible to arouse the French woman's amusement.
"Oh my, you do play the games. They are pretty little ornaments you wear, Lacey."
"Well, maybe they are but they hurt something awful. Oh, Emily, please take them off?"
"I'm sure you did something to deserve wearing, dear. I must not interfere."
"You're interfering in everything else," Molly declared bitterly as she tugged at joined hands behind her back. "Take them off the poor girl, she's worn them quite long enough."
"So?" Emily Chalfont took a clip in each hand and gently teased with them to cause their wearer to gasp in protest. Her voice was filled with mischief. "Perhaps I should just pull them off. Would you like that, little one?"
"Oh, no! Oh, no."
The pain was bitter. Both clips were released at once and Madam Chalfont laughed to behold the mixture of agony and ecstasy so graphically portrayed on Lacey's features.
"Perhaps I will save these to use upon the so noble Miss Peach." She put the clips in her pocket and turned her attention to the struggling woman on the floor. "You realize, you stupid woman, you are now a prisoner and will be returned to Maiden Hall. You are pleased, hein?"
Molly simply moaned and fought her strapped wrists harder than ever. Lacey knew the struggle was simply an outlet for overtaxed emotion without hope. She felt sorry for what lay ahead for Molly Peach but her sympathy was modified by memory of the many times beneath Molly's whip. Strangely, Lacey had little concern about herself, for her there was an inevitability about the whole affair.
It was very different for Miss Molly Peach, the straps tight around her wrists told her all too plainly what she might expect. Even though she was not actually an escapee from Maiden Hall, she would be dragged back there with the same disgrace and shame. She had little doubt but that she would be punished terribly. Considering her maturity and formal status, Molly knew herself in the most dire predicament of her life. Her pleadings were sincere enough to bring tears to Lacey's eyes.
"Please, Emily, please let me go. You know you could, no one would ever know the difference. If you take me back to Maiden Hall, I'll be punished far worse than I deserve, you know I will. Oh, please let me go!"
"I do my duty," Emily Chalfont said stiffly. "I was sent to retrieve both you and Miss Evans. I have got you both, it remains now only to put you helplessly within my car. Have no fear, it will be done!"
Lacey might have been resigned but Molly Peach was not. She was a vigor woman who now leapt erect and aimed a vicious kick at Emily's groin. It missed its mark but landed painfully on the French woman's hip, hurting her enough to evoke a startled cry. A moment later a panting, distraught teacher was once more face down upon the floor and a second strap being buckled around her ankles. When that was tight as strength could make it, the same attention was then given to her elbows, another strap drew the struggling forearms tight together and was buckled in triumph.
"There is now the matter of the gag," said Madam Chalfont.
"This is blatant kidnapping. It is an outrage," the securely strapped woman gasped out in panting breaths. Then she added, "Please don't gag me. Oh, please, Emily, it is so debasing."
The last word had hardly left Miss Peach's lips when it was replaced by entry of the gag which Madam Chalfont buckled tightly and almost viciously behind the protesting neck. Without further ado she picked up the prisoner of Maiden Hall and carried her to the waiting car. Lacey did not bother to run, it was useless, being far too handicapped by bonds. When her turn came, Madam Chalfont was in better humor.
"No gag for you, little one. I know the guilt you feel, you will behave. The so nice strap upon your wrists and the chain between your ankles is enough."
In the darkness of the trunk with the lid firmly closed, a woman and a naked girl shared helplessness and silence as their French escort took them into slavery. It was useless to try and talk but the girl who's lips were free sought those that were not and gently kissed the eyes instead. The eyes were wet. Maiden Hall was waiting.
8
Lashed Lady
For Miss Lilly and Miss Alice, the return of the truants was no more than a confirmation of their comfortable conviction of all being for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Maiden Hall would accept the return of its legitimate captives with love and affection. But there was also the matter of suitable punishments for a sin so grievous as escape.
"It is quite shocking to think of dear Miss Peach, a mature teacher, falling so far from grace," said Miss Lilly.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to punish both our delinquents together so they may witness each's travail," Miss Alice said thoughtfully. "Much as I dislike the instruments of chastisement, I cannot but feel that dear Miss Peach has earned herself a severe flogging. But I do not see dear Lacey meriting such severity."
"Molly Peach offers us a pleasurable and instructive approach to correction. The dear girl has reached early middle age without a mark on her skin or a memory of pain. We can supply both under interesting circumstances. "The Courtnidge sisters almost purred in the contemplation of mature female flesh flinching beneath a suitable sentence. Lacey, at her younger age, had been an entertaining and highly instructive interlude at Maiden Hall. Undoubtedly Miss Molly Peach would plead and make a fuss with an emphasis most inmates of Maiden Hall were too frightened to employ.
"We could perhaps profitably leave the whole matter in the hands of our dear Emily. I seem to recall dear Emily mentioning the beating of the soles of a girl's feet as being one of the ultimate punishments. I am sure Emily would not disappoint us or the dear girls she must attend."
"An excellent thought. And I'm going to suggest we be in no hurry to commence the series of punishments they merit, allowing the poor things to stew a while and come to repentance."
The return of Lacey Evans to Maiden Hall might well have been that of a beloved daughter long absent from her home. Lacey was kissed and exclaimed over and only gentle chided for indiscretion. She was lovingly escorted to a downstairs cell and locked therein to await events, the Courtnidge sisters returning upstairs. It all looked terribly familiar and her wristlets and anklets were as tight as ever. Lacey sat down on the hard bench, she sighed, she stretched out her ironed feet and surveyed them ruefully. She might be deeply loved but she had been a naughty girl and Miss Alice and Miss Lilly had left no doubt of the eventual retribution they would exact. Lacey looked at the barred door, the barred walls, and the concrete backdrops, all of them mocked her. She wanted to cry.
Miss Molly Peach was finding her return to Maiden Hall far from comfortable. She had been sadly kissed and sadly patted. Tightly strapped as Emily Chalfont had fastened her, she was relieved of all her garments by the simply process of cutting them away with a pair of scissors, a task the sisters engaged in with obvious relish.
"You mustn't be afraid of being naked, dear, you have a very nice female figure."
"It is useless to protest about nudity, Molly dear. Nudity is implicit in the sort of punishments you have earned yourself. We expect you to carry off this baring of your breasts and pubic hair with a fortitude due your station. Remember, you have been a teacher here and may be that again."
Molly could not protest about anything, she was still tightly gagged. Madam Chalfont had carried her to the sister's study and stood her erect before the sister's desk. So tightly was she strapped that she tended to teeter uncertainly on feet clamped as though welded together. The strapping of her elbows caused her breasts to jut forward in a manner she had never before beheld. Miss Peach looked down at her mammary development in astonishment and at her nipples which were surprisingly hard and protuberant. Without high probability of falling she could not bend forward enough to look at her pubic patch but she was certain it was blatantly as obvious as the rest of her body. She sighed unhappily, the sister's were no doubt right, nakedness was the beginning of punishment.
Miss Alice and Miss Lilly preferred an articulate subject. Miss Peach, in her present condition, was far too silent for their pleasure. Miss Lilly unbuckled the strap behind the delinquent neck and gently withdrew the cruel gag. Miss Molly Peach drew deep breathes. In real gratitude she exclaimed, "Thank you, oh, thank you. Please don't ever gag me again." .-
"We have dear Lacey downstairs in a cell," Miss Lilly informed. "We felt we would first like a discussion with you with regard to suitable punishments before taking the matter up with a young woman less mature."
"I don't want to talk about punishments and I'm not going to," Miss Peach said steadfastly. "In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you'd take this strap off my elbows, it's cutting them in two. And my feet are strapped so tightly I'm in danger of falling down."
"All in good time, dear. You look far too charming for us to change anything at this moment."
"You realize what you're doing to me is kidnapping and you could go to jail for years and years for it?"
The bold assertion appeared to miss the target entirely, they picked up where they left off. "You will not be punished immediately, we want you to think about it a while first. But what my sister and I are considering is a sound flogging, something quite painful which will leave you well marked. We are thinking of doing it ritualistically before the assembled school. It will do the dear children no harm to witness the flogging of a delinquent mistress. It demonstrates our impartiality."
"But, look here.. . " The rise and fall of Miss Peach's stressed breasts was noticeably increasing. "I don't want to be flogged at all and you have no right to do it. That's an awful thing. And if you allow the pupils to see it done to me, I can never hold up my head again in Maiden Hall."
"We do understand your sentiments, Molly dear, but it is possible you fail to recognize the seriousness of your offense."
The naked teacher recognized her offense all too well, nor did she have any hope for mercy. Bravely she volunteered, "You mustn't blame Lacey for anything. I used a trick and kidnapped her. She hardly had a chance to make any choice. She shouldn't have listened to that mother of hers. that woman's nuts."
"Don't say things like that about such a nice women, dear. Mrs. Evans knows what is best for her daughter. And we are going to make sure dear Lacey received all that she deserves."
"I don't want to be punished and if you know what's good for you, you'll set me free this instant."
Both sisters looked gravely shocked. Their tone was hurt, "You must not talk like that, dear. Remember, we are your superiors, we are the headmistresses who employ you and to whom you are answerable." Both sisters frowned. "We are wondering whether you would prefer to be punished by Alice and I or by would prefer to be handed over to Madam Chalfont? Dear Emily is most adept in the matter of correction. We are inclined to favor placing you in her hands."
Throughout this discourse the unhappy nudity had been twisting and turning as much as she dared without fear of falling on her face. Molly considered lowering herself to the floor but was certain that would not meet with approval. The strictures around her arms would, cause increasing distress and her hands were numb beneath the straps. She longed to convince the sisters of her innocence but knew herself convicted many times over. She wished she had kept her front door on the chain and then slammed it when she saw Madam Chalfont's face. She had never been so bitterly chagrined in her life as when the French woman so easily mastered her futile struggles and strapped her tight as though she were a pupil to be punished.
"Don't hand me over to Emily," Molly begged, "she does painful things to girl to punish them. I don't want her doing things like that to me. Please, I'd much rather be punished by you two if I have to be punished at all."
"Of course, you must be punished, dear Miss Peach. But while you are waiting and thinking you must be kept imprisoned. We can't have you walking around Maiden Hall even with ironed feet. Which would you prefer, to be locked in the same cell with dear Lacey or in a dungeon and suitably chained and all by yourself?"
"The cell with Lacey, of course!"
"In that ease, Molly dear, you will receive the dungeon. The two of us will escort you down stairs and get you properly chained."
Molly Peach stiffened in shock then realized she could expect little else than some disagreeable incarceration while her superiors made up their minds how first to punish her. She went limp within the straps and stood mute while the leather anklets were taken from her feet.
"We want you to be able to walk down stairs, dear." Miss Lilly's voice radiated affection. "You have seen Maiden Hall's dungeon before so it will be no shock."
Molly Peach bitterly remembered the original training they gave her. The dungeon and its chains had been one of the features most admired. She had shuttered then and she shuttered now at the gloomy stone chamber with its barred windows too high for a view or overly much light. She stood, seething with anger, yet at the same time apathetic as the sisters dealt with her in the approved fashion. The approved fashion being that you never completely freed a girl about to be chain. In this case Molly's feet first of all were shackled because she had no longer a need to walk. But her hands remained tight strapped behind her. She was helpless to stop or hinder anything being done to her now. Next was the metal belt, then the collar, each bearing its own weight of chain to the cold stone of the wall. It was not until them Molly's hands were freed but only briefly. She longed to use them but dared not.
"And now your hands, dear." Miss Alice sounded as though about to bestow a gift. "You see these lovely chains we have for you? No leather bands in the dungeon, of course, it would be inappropriate. Please don't make a fuss."
Molly made no fuss but looked down to watch her own wrists encircled with cold steel. She felt a strange detachment as though it was being done to another girl and not to one of Maiden Hall's most respected teachers. When and additional chain was padlocked between her ankles and brought up to be padlocked between her hands, thus preventing them from being brought up above her waist, she wanted to cry. The total weight of metal attached to her nakedness was now considerable and constituted a considerable drag upon limbs and neck, the iron bands above her hips was a punishment in itself.
"You look very sweet, Molly dear. You can't move much, can you?"
"No."
"We know you feel badly, dear, but please try and remember the sin you have committed. We love you dearly but must punish you terribly. The rest of today and the night to come here in the dungeon will give you time for reflection and to get things in proper perspective. Do try to pass the time with pleasant thoughts."
"This is not a pleasant place and my thoughts won't be pleasant either," Molly affirmed. "Please let me loose, let me go home. You really don't have to punish me, you just think you have to because of some silly rules on paper.. . Please?"
"You see, dear, you're not in the proper frame of mind at all. It will be good for you to think after we close the door."
Miss Molly Peach, a junior teacher at Maiden Hall, watched the headmistresses depart, then winched at the slam of the door and the thud of bolts on the other side. She knew herself far more than adequately confined. No one and nothing could break through the stone walls and chains by which she was fastened to the wall. It was a bitter reflection that she was not even allowed freedom of the chamber itself, but must stay within the foot or two tolerance of her chains. She took tentative steps and snubbed herself to test the limits of her chains but it was no use, she could move no more than a foot or two. Wearily she sat against the wall and leaned back to relieve herself of some of the weight of bondage. Thinking of the night to come and the punishments to come, Molly Peach wept.
Miss Elizabeth Apple was a woman of purpose. She was, moreover, smarting beneath the indignities she had suffered when cast adrift almost naked upon a public highway by a most disrespectful young man who had also kidnapped the delightful prey she had planned to make captive for herself. She resolutely now closed her mind to the embarrassments she had overcome in reinstating her position in the community and getting access to her bank account. Amount other travails she had been obliged to spend an hour in a cell in the country police station which was so heavily male in its atmosphere as to leave her nauseated and only too happy to be sent on her way with a cup of tea and cynical assumptions the police force did not put into words.
Strangely, one of the compulsions she now felt was the effect of Emily Chalfont's work upon her person. Elizabeth Apple found it difficult to revert to her former school teacher severity of dress and posture, instead she went to one of the most expensive boutiques and there had herself rejuvenated and improved beyond even Emily's skill. It was a matter of days over which she debated her course of action and it was a tribute to her courage when she decided to confront Miss Alice and Miss Lilly within the confines of Maiden Hall. Elizabeth Apple felt certain that after this amount of time she would have no trouble in reinstating herself and persuading the Courtnidge sisters to give her carte blanche in the recovery of the maiden for whom she felt an increasing desire.
Miss Apple was, on the surface, still a teacher in good standing at Maiden Hall. Entering its portal was, therefore, not difficult. She learned from a servant that the two woman she sought were downstairs administering punishment to a fifteen year old maiden named Betty Myers, who's violation of certain rules merited headmistress attention. The room was easily found and, since the door was open, Miss Elizabeth Apple became in interested spectator.
Betty Myers was upside down. The slender youthfulness was suspended by her heels from above. The only part of her making contact with the floor below was a cascade of dark hair and two angry fists which beat a tattoo upon the rug as small whips were applied within the area opened by her wide-spread thighs. Betty Myer's pussy and the surrounding tenderness was beautifully scarlet as the two small whips sang their song of discipline.
The sisters had positioned themselves one in front and one behind the upended nudity. With measured cadence they were applying silk thonged whips to the tenderest place of a naughty girl. Betty Myers was interspersing vocal protest and with wails and songs of anguish. The splat of thongs within the damn and wide-spread crevasse made a pleasant accompaniment to whatever sounds the punished girl chose to make. The young, bare body with its immature curves stretched almost to distortion by the suspension, wiggled and contorted, its handcuffed hands seeking to shield the place of punishment but constantly beaten back by sharp blows of the whips to leave her no recourse but to beat her agony and anger upon the floor. The whipping suddenly stopped.
"Why, it's dear Elizabeth Apple," Miss Lilly exclaimed in pleased surprised. It was echoed by Miss Alice's, "Why, Elizabeth dear, how pleased we are to see you."
Miss Apple tore her attention away from the striated scarlet sex of the suspended girl with reluctance. She would dearly have loved to join in on the punishment. Her fingers itched for one of the darling little whips the sisters now set aside. As the three left the room of punishment a girlish wail of concern followed them, "But I'm still upside, I'm still hanging by my feet and I can't do anything. Please don't leave me like this.. . "
"Be silent, you naughty girl," Miss Alice admonished. "You'll stay as you are until we return to complete your punishment. In the meantime reflect upon your delinquencies."
So far so good. Elizabeth Apple's spirit soared. She could not have asked for a kinder reception. But her euphoria ran into resistance in the headmistress' study.
"You cannot possibly expect not to be punished," Miss Alice inquired. "We do want you back, dear Elizabeth, but we do have our rules."
Miss Lilly was visibly impressed by the results of the boutique's work. "I must say, you look simply ravishing. It will be a pleasure to punish you."
"I have no intent of being punished." Miss Apple was well aware of standing before the two desks as though being a culprit about to be judged. "If you insist on talking about punishing me, I'll turn around and go home."
"Why?" said Miss Alice abruptly.
"We're sorry to loose you, Elizabeth dear, but since you wish to leave.. . " Miss Lilly added wistfully.
Elizabeth Apple bit her lip in vexation. These two women were impossible, you could never get the best of them. She realized she had no wish to leave Maiden Hall, the school held far too many lures and advantages to a woman such as herself. Cautiously she inquired, "Well, if that's how you feel about it, what punishment did you have in mind?"
"That sounds so much better." Miss Lilly was visibly relieved.
"How about a flogging in front of the assembled school." Miss Alice wasted few words.
"But, Alice dear, we had almost decided on a ritual flogging for Molly Peach," Miss Lilly interjected gently. "If we have dear Elizabeth flogged also, would it not be anticlimactic?"
Elizabeth Apple as tempted to turn and leave the room and the school itself. Thought of being flogged was intolerable. The entire school would laugh at her for ever thereafter. And the pain, it would probably be terrible. Defensively she said, "I would like you to remember I am trying to cooperate. I don't deserve anything as medieval as flogging. In my opinion I deserve nothing in the way of punishment at all."
"You're a lesbian, I believe, Elizabeth?" The query came icily from Miss Alice's lips. "I think the ideal punishment for you would be "The Cure.'"
For Elizabeth Apple everything happened swiftly. Emily Chalfont appeared as if by magic to strap her wrists while the sisters held her arms. Protesting that lesbian or no, her private affairs were no business of Maiden Hall and if there was indeed a cure for lesbianism, she did not want it.
It was all of no avail. Ten minutes later Elizabeth Apple stood, stark naked, in the center of a punishment room, hands tight strapped behind her back, leather bands equally tight upon her ankles and tethered out to each side to be padlocked to a ring in either floor. The pubic patch of Miss Elizabeth Apple screamed for attention. Her breasts stood out proudly, also awaiting attention.
"This is an outrage," she loudly protested. "All of you will pay dearly for this."
"Perhaps a little more tinting of the nipples," Emily Chalfont's voice added gently as her fingers busied themselves with the erotic task. Beneath her touch the nipples rose and hardened upon heaving breasts, helpless to do ought save heave beneath the stress of fear.
It was a strange and bitter moment when the three free women stood back to survey their work. Elizabeth Apple stood panting but not in disarray, the French woman had taken pains to assure her perfect appearance. Had it not been for the grotesque spread of legs and feet, opening the area to be punished, the picture would have been one of a beautiful bound nude. As it was, she stood uncertainly upon feet spread too wide for comfort while tugging and twisting at the strapped wrists she knew she could not free. Miss Elizabeth Apple was strictly fastened for a punishment at which she could only guess.
She suddenly realized there were three girls standing in the same room, three girls enraptured with the sight before them. In horror, Miss Apple recognized them as familiar faces from classes she had taught. They had arrived promptly after summons from Miss Lilly and now gazed upon their naked teacher with an atmosphere of rare authority.
"You may go to work as directed, girl," Miss Alice ordered crisply. "You know what to do. I will stand for no nonsense."
The helpless nudity was cloaked in shame as she suddenly realized what her punishment would be. The three youngsters could not leap at her, their feet were hobbled in Maiden Hall regulation restraints. But it seemed to the helpless woman that they did indeed leap and in seconds two young mouths were busy upon her breasts while another feed eagerly from a kneel position between the spread legs. Miss Apple gazed distressfully at her three executioners to exclaim, "No, you must not do this to me, it is too shaming."
"The dear children will be relieved every thirty minutes. You will receive their constant and enthusiast attentions as one team after another takes their turns throughout your day. We will leave you to your lesbian joys."
Under the circumstances it was not easy for Miss Apple to collect her wits. Her response was understandable. "Girls, desist this instant. I forbid you to carry this outrage further. Return to your class room."
There was no answer beyond three pairs of youthful lips continuing their avid work in an ancient art. A pair of strong maiden hands clasped the one time teacher's bare bottom to hold the crotch hard against the thrusting tongue. Shrewd fingers clasp Miss Apple's arms to counter her defensive motions while their owner's lips were busily employed upon her nipples. It was a good arrangement and, most important, effective.
There were no more protests. Under such skilled and concentrated attention even the most frigid of females must surely respond! Elizabeth Apple was my no means frigid. Within the first minutes she was panting and by the second she was moaning and small cries of pleasure. Her climax, when it came, was a positive explosion of excitation, taking the helpless girl into realms of sensation never before known.
The young mouths continued to feed hungrily.
Miss Apple now saw the wickedness of the punishment to which she was sentenced. At first it had seemed only an intensification of pleasure, but as her sensory system rebelled against the continuance of friction on and on during and after the orgasm, she wanted nothing more than for the trio's attentions to cease. But they did not cease! The helpless teacher could swear the application of tongues and lips upon her erogenous zones intensified. She was on the verge of uttering distraught pleadings when she was once more betrayed by the weakness of her flesh. The arousal once more delivered her to the world of moans and gasps and the cries of ecstasy she could not quench. Thirty of such unremitting arousal can seem a long, long time as orgasm succeeds orgasm and nerves become strained beyond limits.
When Madam Chalfont came to observe "The Cure," Miss Apple saw her in the role of deliverance. "Take them from me, they're little monsters. They're killing me."
"Such talk from a lesbian," Emily mocked. "It is time we used the gag"
Miss Apple, with the lips still busy upon her sexual parts, pleaded to no avail, then stared in pure horror at the instrument of silence approaching her mouth. When she started to open her mouth for another protest, a wicked wad was thrust within and the supple leather band covered her lips to bind them tight as the buckle was tugged hard behind her neck. The awfulness of the moment was multiplied tenfold by the appearance team of young, fresh lips and tongues to take the place of the trio now spend. They scampered from the room, their task complete. Madam Chalfont followed them after satisfying herself the fresh contingent of lesbian aids were vigorously pursuing their objective. Miss Apple gazed down upon fresh heads who's name she knew but who's efforts upon her secret places she could do nothing to deny. Behind her gag she moaned in dire dismay when she realized that if this interchange of girl continued she might well be driven crazy with lust.
For Lacy Evans in the cell the time passed slowly. She was told nothing and saw no one other than those who brought her food and tended her needs. She was told if she asked too many questions she would be gagged. Everyone, prefects and teachers alike seemed happy to have her back at Maiden Hall. But Lacey had learned to distrust affection and sweet words, they often accompanied pain and anguish.
On the third day the door was opened by a prefect who told her, as a message from above, she was free to roam the school but that her punishment had not yet started. Hands strapped behind her back, leg irons on her ankles, Lacey Evans passed through the open door and accompanied the prefect up the stairs. She was a puzzled young woman.
It was nice to be out of the cell, but from the attitude of all she met Lacey realized she was by no means out of disgrace. Little by little Lacey came to understand the reason for her present condition, she and everyone else in Maiden Hall would, that afternoon, witness the flogging of Molly Peach.
Immediately Lacey got the news she hurried hobbled steps to Miss Lilly but met there only gentle reproof. '"Miss Peach deliberately left this school for the sole purpose of kidnapping you for her own use. Her act was terribly wrong. You, yourself, know how terribly wrong it was. By her own desire, she wishes to resume her duties here with us and is willing to pay the penalty she earned. Miss Molly Peach will be flogged this afternoon and I don't want you dithering about it in sympathy." Miss Lilly looked shrewdly at the naked girl. "I should remind you Lacey of a punishment hanging over your own head, you are by no means without guilt."
It was no use! Lacey did not ask what her own punishment was to be, she had not wish to know, it would be bad enough when it happened. With heart tore between sympathy and apprehension, Lacey joined the trickled of girls who were going to watch a junior teacher flogged. It was all wonderfully civilized and typically Maiden Hall.
The wooden frame was by no means new, girls had been fastened within and been flogged before. It must have taken the combined strength of several people to push it into the prominence it now commanded. To all who gazed upon it, it seemed to fill the hall.
The Courtnidge sisters did well by their errant teacher. The wooden frame was elevated upon a low platform and a blushing youngster had been recruited from the school band to provide a military roll of drums at crucial moments in the proceedings. Molly Peach, escorted by two of the older prefects, appeared at the other end of the huge chamber, attired only in a white slip which hinted innocently at nakedness beneath. Unnecessarily the prefects held Molly's bare arms in firm grips as the walked the length of the ancient hallway towards the menace of the frame. When she saw the sinister object which would help in her punishment, Molly Peach visibly paused in dismay. But she was helpless, she could do nothing, the march continued to terminate only when the prefects had aided their prisoner to mount the platform. Lacey could almost feel the turmoil in the prisoner's mind as her hands were unstrapped and, for a brief second, were free. But her feet were still ironed and Molly was sensible enough not to add to whatever punishment she was already condemned to. Obediently she raised bare arms to watch her wrists secured by other straps and other chains. The school gasped with her as the white sheet was stripped away to reveal her in total nudity and ready for the lash. It was then the leg irons were removed and her feet spread wide apart and fastened to rings in the frame. There was only reason why a girl about to be whipped had her legs widely separated.. . The watchers sighed in sympathy.
Miss Alice stood to one side of the platform. Miss Lilly to the other. It was Emily Chalfont who was to wield the whip. The stretched and strapped nudity gazed upon all three in piteous but silent hope of reprieve. When none was forthcoming she looked back over a bare shoulder at the woman with the whip to plead, "Please, Emily, not too hard, not too hard.. . "
The drum rolled out its wicked song of joy.
Poor Molly tried hard not to scream. She twisted and turned and went berserk within her bonds to no avail, as the forth stroke sliced across her back she emitted a full-throated scream of agony. The massive frame did not even quiver against the anguish of a girl.
Lacey found it terrible to watch but there was no way she could turn and fail to look. The agony upon the platform was hers also as it was also the agony of every other girl in the great hall. Few put in their time at Maiden Hall without being flogged at least once. Breathlessly the girl who's punishment was still to come watched the naked woman who had owned her briefly contort and quiver in every imaginable motion within the confines of her bonds. It was truly amazing how much evasive action Molly could contrive while strapped so. But she did contrive, and as the strokes fell one by one to leave their vivid striations upon her skin, Molly Peach managed to impart an intensity of anguish to all who watched, her screams echoing in the normally silent chamber.
When Madam Chalfont solemnly intoned the number of thirty for the final stroke and the drum once more rolled out its peal of approval, the prefect touched Lacey's arm. Obediently she took her hobbled paces to her cell.
The metallic clang of a cell door is at all time awful to the one within the bars. Lacey stood dejected and helpless, her mind repeating vision after vision of struggling nudity, limbs jerking against the leather bands.
The terrible sound of a whip's impact against a woman's flesh repeated again and again within Lacey's mind. She was convinced that, if she too was flogged, she would be unable to bare the awful punishment, she would die. She sat miserably upon the bench and wept in an awful anticipation.
But it Lacey's turn was not long delayed. The same prefect came for her again to escort her to the joint study of the august sisters. "How nice to see you, you dear, you look so well. A little time in the cell has obviously done you well."
Lacey would have liked to say much but said nothing as the matter now in hand became evident. "There remains the question of your punishment, Lacey dear. Would you enjoy the same punishment you saw dear Molly Peach receive earlier today?"
The sisters chose such strange words, "Enjoy," where else save Maiden Hall would such a word be used to describe anguish. Without much hope Lacey said very simply, "I couldn't bear to be flogged like that. I think I'd die."
"No, you wouldn't dear. Girl's never die when their flogged, they just think they're going to." Miss Alice smiled in understanding at her sister. "But you're such a sweet girl and we believe you have been more sinned against then sinning. We have decided to employ against you a punishment that is an old tired and true institution of Maiden Hall. You will be tightly bound and naked to a tree on the Grounds for a period of twenty-four hours. There now, I do hope you feel better."
"Yes, oh yes! Thank you." Lacey felt a vast relief, a lot of fear lifted from her mind. At that moment the idea of being bound naked to a tree among other trees of the small woodland seemed a trivial punishment to undergo, if indeed it was a punishment at all. It seemed more like one of those silly games children played with each other. The cowboy and Indians theme. She glowed her gratitude towards the sisters Courtnidge who were watching her with amusement.
The gentle hand of the prefect upon her arm told Lacey Evans the interview was over. She had been formally sentenced and would spend twenty-four hours in close communion with a tree. In her jubilation at escaping the formal flogging, it almost seemed like no punishment at all. She allowed herself to be led to it without demure. Since the prefect's feet were hobbled in the same manner as her own, they were able to walk in unison. When they were out of Maiden Hall and walking across the grass to the trees, the prefect warned, "It isn't all that much fun, you know. It's all right for an hour or two but after that it's for the birds." She shrugged in unconcern. "I get the job of tying you girls up because I'm good at it. This bag I'm carrying is full of the damndest things."
"Have you ever been punished like this?"
"Oh, sure, I'm a two year girl and my sentence is only half through. I guess I've had every punishment in the book."
"But if they let you loose in the grounds like this, why haven't you escaped?"
"Honey, no girl can escape from Maiden Hall. There's a wall all around the damned place and our feet are never freed, the anklets locked so we can't get them off and I don't think there's a knife in the whole school that can cut this leather the damn things are made of. It's just no good. I tried a few times and just got terribly punished so now I don't bother. I suspect I'll survive the next few months and being a prefect helps."
The tree had obviously been used before, its bark worn smooth by many maiden skins. The prefect displayed it as a showpiece and seemed proud of previous acquaintance. Lacey stood and gazed upon it without favor.
"Your hands are going behind it," her escort informed. "I'll have to free them first. Please don't give me static."
Lacey had heard it before, she simply shrugged and turned her back for the Maiden Hall wristlets to be removed. When this was done she showed good will by backing against the narrow trunk and placing her arms and hands behind its eight inch diameter.
"I'm resigned, too," she said in mock apology.
The punishment of Miss Lacey Evans had begun.
Tied
Standing of her own volition against the object of her punishment, Lacey watched with interest the opening of the bag. The shining handcuffs were unexpected and caused an exclamation.
"They think of everything, Lacey girl," the prefect said. "The idea is to lock your hands behind the trunk so none of us in the school can get you free. If someone should happen by, which isn't too probably, they couldn't get you free either. It's damn frustrating for the girl to know she could be freed from all the ropes and still remain a prisoner. But that's the way it is. Hold still."
Lacey felt the metal circlets click snug. She shivered at the sound and the realization of what wrists thus locked implied. When the second clicking adjustment had been made she felt as hopelessly a prison as would a maiden behind a hundred bars in a deep dungeon. She tested the new and unfamiliar bond as though to reassure herself of its bite. Coolly, she asked, "You don't have to bother with rope, I'm fixed, I can't get loose, why take the trouble?"
The prefect laughed as she selected rope. "You know perfectly well why, Miss Lacey Evans. The rope is your punishment. You'll probably hate me for what I'm about to do."
The girl about to be punished felt both honored and loved by the attention and caution with which Susan, the prefect, preceded to immobilized the naked girl. Cords bit at ankle and knee, and then within the tender crotch where Susan professed to find the secretions of excitation when she parted the tender lips to introduce a cord therein. Lacey made no complaint, what was the use. She definitely didn't want a cord within her pussy but it was there and she knew she would have to put up with it. The harness of cords was most skillfully woven from a constricted waist down between tight bound thighs.
"They call this bit a cunt nipper," Susan informed as she tugged and cinched to make her naked subject part of the tree itself. "So far, so good," she said as she stepped back to view a naked girl already helpless from the breasts down. "Sorry, dear, there's more to come."
It was like going back to diaper days or the play of children. Constricted rope penetrated her breasts above and below her breasts to artistically crisscross Lacey's shoulders and drag her top half as rigidly against the tree as was the part below. This time, when Susan stepped back, Miss Lacey Evans knew for sure she was totally and helplessly bound, there would be no escape for her without help.
"We both know it's soon going to start hurting," Susan said cheerfully. "So don't bother to thank me. Can you move, darling?"
"Only my head."
"I could fix that too but I don't want to leave you alone with ropes around your neck, it's dangerous. Miss Alice will be pleased with you when she comes to look. They will, you know. They love seeing a girl like this and they check the ropes to make sure I've done my work. If I left you with a bit of slack, I'd be whipped real good for it."
Lacey could still wiggle her fingers, she did so. "You haven't tied my arms or elbows?" It was a question born of curiosity.
"Circulation, Lacey dear, you're going to be here a long time, you know. That another reason for the handcuffs. Gosh, darling, you look gorgeous like that!"
"Thank you. Most of the credit is due to you. But you're right, I'm going to hate this after a while, you've tied me so I can't even twitch."
A gentle feminine hand placed itself upon the bisected cleft within the captive crotch. Its owner's voice was tantalizing. "Want me to, darling? I will if you say yes."
"Gosh, no! Oh, Susan, I couldn't bare it. To be hot and excited while I'm tied like this. I'll bet it would be absolute to have an orgasm inside all this rope and cord."
The two girls were sensing each other's erotic status and Susan was in a playful mood. From the wicked bag she extracted and now played with in front of Lacey's agonized gaze, a pair of clothespins not actually designed for the hanging out of a girl's wash. These were of plastic, gaily colored, and wicked in their bit.
"How about a bit of these, Lacey dear. They'll be company until someone comes along and takes them off. Someone will come along, you know, you won't be left entirely along."
The last thing Lacey wanted was to stand helplessly as she was and to bear in addition the pain of clipped nipples. She said so pleadingly.
"Oh, very well then," Susan made a mock show of disappointment and motioned to replace the wicked little objects in her bag. Half way there she stopped to ejaculate, "But on second thought, why not? They'll look lovely bobbing up and down on your breasts and the pain of them will take you mind off your troubles. Let me show you."
Lacey tensed, speechless in horror as the gaily colored jaws opened then closed upon her already erect rosebuds. Susan fixed them cleverly as from long practice, they did indeed bob enticingly as she breathed, but Lacey's denial was tense. "Take them off! Oh, please Susan, I can't stand it. They're absolute little beasts. If you leave them on me for a couple hours, my nipples will drop off."
Susan flicked the clothespins experimentally to make them hurt even more. "Are you sure you're not being a cry baby, Lacey," she asked soberly, "I've known girl to wear these the longest time."
"That's because they had to," Lacey affirmed bitterly. "If you leave them on me now I won't be able to do a thing about it. But, oh, they hurt! Susan, please.. . "
"But, darling, they look so attractive."
"Yes, I know they do, they look simply gorgeous on my breasts. But please take them off, don't be mean."
The bound girl gasped with the agony of the removal of the twin beasties from her breasts. She was almost sorry to see them go for they did enhance the twin mounts they held onto so tightly. But to stand, with them biting steadily, was an ordeal she could not face. Humbly and very simply she said, "Thank you, Susan. Oh, geepers, thank you so much!"
They kissed, a lovely girl-girl kiss, before Susan went away. Alone, Lacey surveyed her punishment and found it less merciful than at first supposed. Night would come and during the evening she would be prey to very insect which fed on human blood. They would settle on her skin and she would have to suffer them for there was no way to protect herself. She gazed at her nipples where the clips had bit, almost wishing here were still there as evidence of someone's interest. Being bound naked to a tree deprived her of identity and mocked her every thought with the bitter assurance there was nothing she could do, she was at the mercy of every living thing.
Though not intended to be merciful, the handcuffs were nice, a small part of herself she could still control and move as she pleased. It was a bitter reflection that she could have been kept against the tree as securely as she was now without the agony of ropes, the cuffs would have kept her safe anywhere and would not hurt. But hurting was the name of the game, wasn't it! Angrily Lacey stripped her mind of speculation. None of it would help and she did not need a bitterness of the spirit along with the bitter protest of her flesh. Pain was creeping in now at every curve and crevasse where cords bit tight. Breathing was becoming painful as it thrust against strictures it could not expand. Her breasts seemed to have gained enormously in size against the bondage they could not break. Miss Lacey Evans settled down to endure the miserable afternoon. And then would come the night!
She refused to think about the night perhaps a flogging would have been best.
"Well, I'll be damned! You actually are here and I thought the kid was probably pulling my leg." The male voice was cheerful as ever as Roger continued, "Young Trixie told me while I was 'punishing' her that you were here for the night?"
"Oh, Roger, am I glad to see you! Please cut me loose."
"What! And offend both my aunts! They'd never let me 'punish' a girl at Maiden Hall again." Roger Bascombe showed shock. "Never did hear from you. Thought you'd at least call."
"Roger, please don't tease, I'm in pain. Cut me loose, you know you can if you want to."
"Seems to me I haven't heard from you in a long time." The male voice sounded hurt. "Couldn't be bothered with me when you weren't tied to a tree, could you?"
"But I've always been somebody's prisoner, surely you know that! I haven't been free to do anything. Please cut these ropes."
"I'm sure your mother didn't keep you prisoner. It appears I was forgotten."
"Roger, don't just stand there, don't be so unkind. You're positively gloating."
The bound girl flung her head from side to side as the only motion she could make to indicate distress. "I can't believe you'd go away and leave me here like this "
"You're forgetting the aunts, sweetheart! I wouldn't offend those two aunts of mine for the world! I understand all they ask of you is to stay as you are over night. You can do it in a breeze."
"I can't! You're being mean, Roger. You're not even thinking how terrible it would be for a naked girl to stand tied to this tree in the dark. And as for those aunts of yours, all you're thinking about is how you might loose your privileges of doing what you're doing to the girls. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"Oh, I am, I am! Have you ever thought of getting married?"
"Every girl thinks of getting married. Please untie me."
"I mean, married to me?"
Lacey stared in disbelief at her unwilling rescuer but second thoughts told her his words were sincere. She made her equally so. "Don't be ridiculously, Roger, you'd whip me every day and keep me chained every night. I'd be better off in Maiden Hall."
"I've got a nice little secured income," Roger continued as if she had not spoken. "Then I'll be inheriting from the aunts and they've got a nice little bit going to, along with Maiden Hall. I'm really extremely eligible."
"You're a spoil member of the ideal rich," Lacey flared. "Can't you do something else besides stand here and stare at my breasts?"
"I could but why bother? Your breasts are superb, sweetheart, a man would be a fool not to stare at them. Or would you like me to focus lower down?"
"Never mind, you needn't focus at all. And if you think I enjoy being exposed naked like this, you've got another think coming."
Roger Bascombe was enjoying himself, both knew it. He held ever card in the deck while Lacey held none. "Lovely job of tying you to that tree," he mused thoughtfully. "Let's have a good look at it."
The bound girl stood stiffly mute while being inspected. Roger took his time, circling the tree and its prisoner more than once. His summation was obvious, "I can't let you loose, sweetheart, whoever fixed you this way handcuffed your wrists behind the trunk. You're there to slay."
"I don't expect you to have a key in your pocket, you idiot. You can, you know."
"Hmmrnrn.. . Not without raising suspicion. Everyone would know damned well what I wanted a handcuff key for. By the way, my pet, don't you think it would be nice if I had you handcuffed during the wedding ceremony. Or perhaps fasten them on you at that point where somebody or the other says 'with this ring I thee wed.'"
"Don't be horrible. I'd be so ashamed, I'd die."
"I do believe you're contemplating the prospect. But we're making progress."
"No I'm not! What I'm contemplating is the fact you refused to help me. If you refuse to untie me, you might as well go away. You'd make a rotten husband anyway."
Roger Bascombe nodded thoughtfully then began another circle of the tree. Without warning the ropes and cords binding the naked Lacey to the trunk began to fall away under the attack of what must have been a very sharp pocket knife. Some of the biting strands had to be peeled from deep in her skin. And there was the most shameful one of all which had to be tugged out from within the warm, wet crevasse of the sex. Roger performed the task deftly and without comment. When the last rope had been cut he gathered the severed pieces into a small pile and chuckled. "Should left you as you are, but take these bits and pieces away. Be a bit of a mystery to my dear aunts."
It felt good, good, good! Her spirits soared. True, she was still captive but surely this outrageous young man would find a key and give her total freedom. Whatever came after was something she would worry about after it happened. She poured out awkward thanks for what Roger had already done.
"Don't thank me, pal, all I've done is make your situation a little easier. You're still a prisoner."
"But you can get a key, surely you can!"
"Tell me where?"
Unhappily, Lacey understood his point. He could not ask a teacher without an explanation. She, herself, had no idea where he could look for a handcuff key in Maiden Hall. "Could you get a prefect to help you? Surely they know?"
"Sweetheart, just imagine what would happen if prefects had keys. The whole damned school would be running free within an hour. The only way I can get a key is to go to some urban center where nobody is going to ask questions or care what I'm going to do with it. That would take time, I might not get back here until the middle of the night."
"I don't care, just so long as you do get back, so long as I've got something to look forward to. Please, Roger, hurry and get a key from where ever you think is best. There's plenty of time, I don't think I've done even a tenth of this twenty-four hours punishment."
His kiss was warm, she longed for hands but did well without their aid. As Roger kissed he used a hand to pat gently that part of her most people clutched or grabbed if they got the chance. Lacey was grateful for his restrain. The excitation of penetration would have been embarrassing and disagreeable in her present plight. Her mind was chaotic in its yearning for the freedom of her hands. Roger's talk of marriage was probably no more than his idea of teasing. Urgently she whispered, "Hurry, oh please do hurry."
Roger Bascombe was in the act of tilting a captive chin for one final joining of their lips when both he and the handcuffed girl tensed in horror at a gruff male voice.
"You can't do that there 'er. Respectable girls school, this is. You're committing an offense under the Immodest Behavior Act and also the violation of public decency."
Roger stood back, cursing whatever chance had brought this minion of the law so far off his beat. Lacey blushed and longed to be invisible.
"A private matter, Constable." Roger brought the full force of a Cambridge accent into play. "Just carry on, the young lady and I will sort this out."
"I ain't-likely to do that, Sir. Committing an offense so you are. I'd best take the young lady back to the station house with me to answer a few questions."
"She can answer you questions here," Roger said severely and with an even heavier university tone. "I say man, you wouldn't happen to have a handcuff key, now would you?"
"It's the inspector who'll ask the questions, Sir. But you're right, I do 'ave a key."
"Good. Give it here."
"I'd best use it myself, Sir, if you don't mind." The official accent on the last words was heavy on censure.
The man and the girl exchanged looks of frustration and dismay as the burly constable fumbled around behind the tree. When her hand fell away free, Lacey was about to message its chaffed wrist when, with a swift and competent motion, the uniformed officer gathered both her hands behind her back and snapped the shinning band once more around her wrist. Indignantly she faced him to demand, "Why the devil did you do that?"
"You're under arrest, Miss."
"But you don't need to handcuff me, you idiot!" Lacey's voice was a wail of dismay. "I'm not going to run away."
"No, Miss, not now." The constable had evidently decided to stand for no nonsense. "Gonna to be a bit awkward, it is, going to take you to the station the way you are." He turned to the fuming Roger. ' 'Would you 'appen to have a car, Sir. I'm on foot myself."
"But I don't want to be handcuffed!" Lacey was tugging at the metal restraints as though wearing them for the first time. "I'm forever being handcuffed and I'm sick to death of it. Oh, Roger, do make him take them off."
Official ears perked. "Wear 'em a lot, do you Miss? Are you telling me you get arrested often?"
Stubbornly Lacey clenched her lips, looking only at Roger while the police took notes in a black pocket book. She was trapped, not knowing how much to tell so relaying on Roger's greater experience to guide her. Roger had no jacket with which to cover her nakedness. She wondered bitterly if the Law would divest itself of a heavily buckled uniform on the score of decency. It seemed un-likely. Horrible visions of being led naked through a village and of being questioned, equally naked, by an inspector flooded her mind. She knew herself already condemned for a girl can be no more naked than naked and she was certainly that. Lacey Evans knew herself doomed to a new and different imprisonment.
"Why, Constable Higgs, how nice to see you. I rather imagine you have caught my niece and nephew in one of their psychological experiments."
The constable visibly brightened, he had an ally, a woman of impeccable character with whom he could deal with an easy mind. "Naked she was, Ma'am.' Still is. Two offenses again' her."
"Of course, of course, I could not agree with you more," Miss Alice's tone would have soothed a tiger. "These psychological studies are extremely complex and often involve sexual matters and the removal of clothes. Dominance and submission both enter the picture. I suppose you are familiar with the works of F. E. Campbell and Victor Bruno on this esoteric subject?"
"Never 'erd of 'em, Ma'am. Never went in much for them there things." The constable scratched a doubtful head. "You mean this 'ere's quite respectable?"
"Of course it is, man. It is an experiment taking place upon school property. Should anyone intrude they would be trespassing."
"Ah, yes, Ma'am." Constable Higgs was on uncertain ground. "Never dealt with this stuff much. Not sure I 'old with it."
"There will be the matter of your expenses, Constable Higgs," Miss Alice's voice was firm and understanding. A bank not changed hands and The Law commenced its homeward trek. Three pairs of eyes followed it thankfully.
Miss Alice went into instant action. "Really, Roger, I would think you could keep your hands out of school affairs. Was it you or the constable cut up all that rope?"
"He did it because I pleaded with him to do it," Lacey interjected quickly.
"Which shows the wisdom on my insisting upon your hands being chained behind the trunk. I take it the constable freed them then fastened them as they are now. I notice they are school property."
"But look here, Aunt Alice.. . "
"I am well aware of your virility, Roger dear," Miss Alice said icily. "But I would have thought the privilege we extend you within the walls of Maiden Hall would have appeased your libido without the necessity of your interfering with Miss Evans punishment." Miss Alice snorted. "In the normal course of things you would have dealt with Miss Evans as you deal with all the others. I suppose its her age that makes you impatient. She's indeed a beautiful woman."
"Look here, Auntie, Miss Evans and I are going to be married."
"Ridiculous!"
"It's not ridiculous at all. I'm an eligible bachelor and she's an eligible miss."
"Lacey Evans is by no means eligible. She has been sentenced to six months of incarceration under Maiden Hall's guidance. If you wish to marry her after she has served her sentence, that's your affair. I'm sure either Miss Lilly nor myself would hinder such a happy union."
"But that's wonderful," Roger said in relief. "Now, if you have a key to her handcuffs.. . ? "
"It is not wonderful at all. Miss Evans will complete her sentence in the normal way before you will be allowed to see her again. I am displeased with this incident just concluded. It puts our school in a bad light."
"But I'm going to marry her.. . ! "
"You said that before, Roger." Miss Alice turned the full force of her majesty on the naked, handcuffed girl. "Is this true, Miss Evans? Have you agreed to marry Roger?"
"No, I haven't.. . Well, in a way." Lacey was torn in indecision as to whether her feelings were prompted more by desire to escape Maiden Hall and her mother's sentence than by any really deep affection. Searching for the proper answer, she came out lamely, "I never promised to marry him. He never really asked me, he just sort of took me for granted. But I do like him, honest I do!"
Miss Alice's snort was devastating. "A typical male attitude. The idea!" She turned to her waiting nephew who was obviously at a disadvantage. "I would suggest you return to the house. Miss Lilly and I will have a chat with you. This whole silly business can be easily dealt with."
Lacey, twisting her hands against the steel circlets on her wrists, watched Roger disappear into the trees aware of two conflicting emotions, regret and relief. Why on earth do me have to ask girls to marry them in such appalling circumstances! Tired of the whole silly business, she said simply, "I've got no guilt in any of this, Miss Alice. Please don't punish me any more."
"Of course, dear, I can guess what took place. One of our young ladies, who will be severely dealt with, informed my nephew of your punishment and curiosity took its course. The policeman was an accident."
"That's exactly it. Thank you."
Miss Alice fumbled to produce a key. Lacey was breathless as one cuff fell away but her worst fears were confirmed when she was backed once more against the tree, her arms gathered back behind the trunk and the handcuff once again closed on the wrist which had known brief freedom twice in the last few minutes. She looked down at the pile of severed rope and wondered.. . !
"I can see by the rope marks on your skin that dear Susan did a very good job of binding you, Lacey. I will not add to that punishment. You penalty stands exactly as when you were first sentenced. You have many hours yet to go." Miss Alice kissed her gently. "Since it appears handcuffs cannot be depended on entirely I will send someone out to secure you here with greater surety. Rest assured, dear Lacey, Miss Lilly and I hold you in deep affection."
Once more held against her tree, Miss Lacey Evans tried to sort out her jumbled impressions of the events, foremost of which was an offer of marriage from a man she did not dislike. The trouble with Roger was that you were never sure when he was serious or engaged in his favorite sport of teasing he opposite sex. She knew his two aunts loved him but she was equally certain he could not secure her release from Maiden Hall before her sentence was served. But, at least, for now she was bathed in summer air instead of a musty prison cell. She had come within an ace of discovering what the true convict felt like when the prison doors slammed behind her back.
It was Emily Chalfont who came to secure the captive girl more rigidly to her tree. The manner of doing so was simple, a length of heavy chain to encircle her narrow waist firmly to the trunk and be locked with a large padlock.
"No passerby will free you from this, cheri. You will make love to your tree until I return."
Lacey was in no mood to quibble over what was being done to her now. Somehow she would endure the twenty-four hours and go on to whatever was next. Anxiously she inquired, "Thank you. Do you know what is to come next? Am I to be punished for that escape?"
"Of a certainty, little one, but it is not for me to tell." The French woman inspected links and tightened one cuff. The single click held for the captive girl significance beyond reason. Pressing the advantage of goodwill, she pleaded, "Oh, Emily, please tell me will I get chained in a dungeon or whipped the way poor Molly was?"
The lips that brushed her own in swift affection were also mocking as they teased,' Perhaps both, cheri. Why not, you were a very naughty girl."
"Emily, I'm going to be frightened standing here in the dark. I'm going to be frightened to death."
"Of a certainty, and why not! You will see the ghosts, you will hear the footsteps. You will know yourself delivered to a dozen terrible fates. But in the morning you will still be here and you will still be beautiful."
It was not until Emily Chalfont faded into the gloom beneath the trees that the girl chained to the tree truly became aware of night. It was deepening all around and would be doubly dark beneath the trees. First the first time Lacey fingered the new chain deeply indenting her waist, and followed its links back to where the solid padlock acted as a guard, a sentry, and, above all, the executioner of the will of Maiden Hall. Lacy exhaled unhappily in the thought of being more helpless and isolated than ever before. She braced her bare feet against the turf and her back against the truck. It was all she could do. If sleep failed to come she would be a tired captive by tomorrow.
Trixie Malloy in serving a year of her sentence had absorbed Maiden Hall rather than Maiden Hall absorbing her. Trixie was an optimist, believing each whipping to be the last and each period chained in the dungeon was something that would never happen again. In all the other innovative punishment Maiden Hall inflicted, she found an element of humor but was careful never to giggled at the wrong time. She adored Roger Bascombe and what Roger Bascombe did to her but was careful to always look apprehensive and worried when she was due for his "punishment." The fact of having yet another year to serve bothered her not at all. She knelt humbly before the headmistress' desk and tried hard to look respectfully attentive.
Miss Lilly thought Trixie Malloy was sweet. She adored the downy patch of pubic silk and the cones of the breasts that in five years would be magnificent. In the light from the window the sheen of fine hairs along Trixie's spine were just one more or Trixie's attributes to be treasured, girls did not stay fifteen forever. Trixie wore nakedness like the costliest of gowns, flaunting her nudity with pride. The teenager had long since mastered he leg irons by which her movements were restrained. She walked the short steps they permitted with unusual grace, never stumbling or saying naughty words. The only thing wrong with Trixie, from Miss Lilly's point of view, was her insatiable appetite for punishment. She did everything wrong as thought by some sort of natural selection.
"Trixie, my dear, I hope you are properly ashamed of telling Mr. Bascombe what you did."
She was always ashamed or willing to say she was sorry and guilty as the sisters demanded. It saved so much argument and trouble. And sometimes you were punished only half as much if you confessed.
"Yes, Miss Lilly, I should have known better."
"You have earned punishment, dear child."
Trixie not only had a natural aptitude for accepting guilt but also punishment. She was a sensible moppet who realized you cannot have one without the other. But she was no masochist who occasionally defended herself. "I just told him an ordinary conversation, Miss Lilly. I hadn't the faintest idea he would go out and cut her loose. I'd bet Miss Lacey was pleased to see him."
"It was a thoughtless act, causing some people embarrassment. You must be punished."
"Yes, Miss Lilly," the teenager agreed cheerfully. But she added, "But is it true Mr. Bascombe asked Lacey to marry him?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Really! The way gossip gets around this school! It would serve you right, Trixie, if your punishment was another session with Mr. Bascombe."
"Yes, it would, Miss Lilly." Trixie tried to look sad. "May I have that punishment, please?"
Miss Lilly looked sharply at the seemingly innocent teenager. She had become aware that the Bascombe punishment was finding more and more favor among those it was intended to punish. Girls were impossible creatures. A headmistress was hard put to keep one step ahead of them!
"Has he ever insisted upon you giving him what I have heard referred to as a 'blow job?"
"Oh, yes, Miss Lilly. He's ever so.. . " Trixie caught herself in time and substituted the proper word. "It's ever so awful. Every girl hates to be punished that way. But we have to do it because you let him whip us if we don't."
Miss Lilly sighed, she had other things to do that act as foil to teenage foolishness. If half of what young Trixie said was true, she would be well satisfied. "You will rise and follow me, Trixie." She swept imperiously from the room.
Trixie knew that she had obviously been sentenced to something terrible but did not know what. It was exciting and adventurous to have to follow one of the mistress to a punishment room and whatever it was they would do to her there. Her hobbled feet flashed furiously in an effort to keep up with Miss Lilly's stride.
It was a metal phallus thrusting its length from the bare wall of a bare little room. Trixie eyed it with interest and tried not to giggle. Anything sexual was always welcome. In mocking innocence she said, "Gee whiz, Miss Lilly, what's that?"
"You know perfectly well what it is, my dear, it is your punishment."
"But Mr. Bascombe's ever so much better than that!"
"You will kneel, child, and take the beastly thing in your mouth. I have no further time for discussion."
Trixie knew when to keep quiet. She knelt. Grasping the thrusting male object at its base, she absorbed its head and most of its base in her hungry little mouth. Miss Lilly immediately snapped a collar around the youthful neck, a collar attached to the wall beneath the phallus by a very short chain. Next she produced the Maiden Hall restraints and strapped Trixie's hands behind her back to make the kneeling youngster very helpless indeed. Trixie made glugging sounds and tried without success to look back across a bare shoulder. The phallus in her mouth and the collar around her neck held her very firmly.
"The male object in you mouth is electrically wired. You will notice a small switch to one side where you cannot reach it. When I flick it to the on position, it will become necessary for you to suck and tongue the hateful thing in whatever steady rhythm you can contrive. The moment you cease doing so it will eject into your mouth a jet of fluid of objectionable taste and origin which you will be forced to swallow or choke. Do I make myself clear?"
The kneeling delinquent made more glugging sounds and tried her best to nod. Miss Lilly flipped the switch and the bizarre punishment began.
Trixie Malloy made a shrewd guess as to the nature of the fluid which would jet into her mouth if her efforts failed to meet the machine's approval. She sucked and tongued busily while trying to reach the switch. It was altogether too far away. Miss Lilly's voice was gently soothing from somewhere at the rear.
"Your busy little tongue got you into this trouble. It can now get you out of it if you employ it assiduously. I am leaving you now but advise you to apply yourself vigorously to this task. I will drop in from time to time to watch your progress." Miss Lilly headed towards the door but paused. "Oh, by the way, if you decide to stop your work, it will trigger a signal elsewhere and someone will come and give you five strokes across your back." Miss Lilly laughed jovially. "We absolutely must have incentives. Mustn't we, dear?" Trixie sucked busily.
10
Penance
Maiden Hall welcomed Lacey back to its classes and routines with a kindly but vice-like grip. She was compelled to wear the Maiden Hall straps to keep her hands tight behind her back while her ankles bore leather and chain. A broad leather collar was locked around her neck, serving no useful purpose other than to remind her she was a prisoner and subject to discipline. Surveying her condition, she had but one idea that to serve her sentence and get out of this place of breasts and pubic hair and punishment. She was shocked to realize how small a part of her six month sentence had passed. She had far to go!
Lacey Evans most trying moment came when confronted by Miss Apple and Miss Peach. Both dressed and unrestrained while she remained bond and shamed. Their first confrontation was as trying to one as to the other, each made a shamefaced greeting and continued on her way. It was only when all three of them realized the permanency of the status quo that communion became inevitable. Both Elizabeth and Molly had he authority to summons any girl she choose. It was Miss Molly Peach who summoned Lacey first.
The message came by a younger girl and Lacey considered disregarding it. There was no use going back to square one with all its penalties and punishments. The two junior teachers had been taught their lessons and should have been willing to carry on within the rules of this place, which for one of them, was a prison. Curiosity defeated them.
"I couldn't bear not to talk to you, darling. I simply had to send for you so we could tell each other the awful things we've had to suffer," Molly Peach said earnestly as her eyes devoured Lacey's nakedness.
"There's nothing to tell, Molly, we all know what's been done to us. If we start loving each other again, we'll have it to suffer all over again. Can I go now?"
"No, you may not go! I'm still a teacher here, Lacey, and can punish you at will. Remember that," Molly flared angrily.
"Very well then, punish me but then send me away. Please send me away, I don't want any more of the things they do to us girls."
"You're helpless, Lacey. I could give you more pain right here in this room now than you've ever dreamed of. Don't try to toss me overboard."
"So, okay! Give me the pain, it's what you want, isn't it? Whip me. You love whipping me, I know it."
"Damn it, Lacey, I can't whip you. You're right, I want to in the worse way but I can't send you out of this office covered in strips. They'd see and force you to tell you put the marks on you and their I'd be up the creek for sure."
"Well, haven't you a thumb screw or something?" Lacey asked sulkily. "Gosh, Molly, we should be in here talking this way."
"If you're thinking this room is bugged, it's not. I've made certain of that. Lacey, darling, I simply must have you."
"All right then, Molly." Lacey's tone was resigned. "Spread your legs out and lift your dress. I can kneel between your feet. If someone catches us.. . Well, it won't be my fault."
The helpless girl was suddenly enfolded in a warm embrace she could not return. But Molly's lips were warm and ardent and her own were free. The strapped girl used them in an unexpected, unrealized hunger. A gentle cough in the doorway caused both girls to turn in alarm.
"I was certain this would happen," Miss Alice said crisply. "What am I to do with you!"
Neither Miss Peach nor Lacey Evans were inspired to make a suggestion. They stood abashed and shame-faced. There were, after all, adults.
"I should have both of you whipped, you know," Miss Alice continued.
The delinquent silence was intent, broken only be the chain between Lacey's feet.
"Or perhaps a night or two chained in the dungeon?" Miss Alice asked pleasantly.
"Okay! I deserve to be punished, I know I do. I let myself in for this. Please punish me, Miss Alice." Lacey flared in anger at her own stupidity. She secretly hoped Molly Peach would be forced to serve whatever punishment she was forced into. Both females relaxed at the sound of Miss Alice's laugh and then her cheerful voice.
"You're a sorry looking pair, I'm ashamed of you both." She chuckled. "I'm not going to punish you both. I'm sure you deserve punishment but this first meeting carries emotional hazards Lilly and I recognize." Her voice hardened. "Is it any use me telling you to go sin no more?"
The delinquents were chastened. Memory of punishments still vivid in their minds, they went their separate ways, each knowing the matter was not ended and would recur. But they were grateful to Miss Alice and tried hard to live up to her admonition.
Elizabeth Apple's approach was more forceful. Meeting in a passage she grasp a handful of Lacey's hair and hissed, "You're coming with me, you little so and so. I simply can't bear it any longer."
There was no reason to ask what it was Elizabeth fail to bear, they knew! When the helpless nakedness was thrust roughly to the floor and the hiss of the whip made its terrible promise, Lacey found herself unable to resist, perhaps she had no wish to. But when the thong lapped her bottom from hip to hip, the agony was so great she was compelled to thrust her mouth against the rug to stifle her scream. A scream would bring Miss Alice and shame-faced guilt. She waited in terrible attention for the second stroke to cut her skin but it did not come. Instead, the hand again grasped her hair and forced her erect to where Elizabeth's lips could hungrily feed upon her own. Burning with pain, Lacey saw it as an endless drama, forever repeated to her own dismay.
She tore her lips away to plead, "Elizabeth, please don't. You'll only get us into trouble."
Elizabeth paid no heed. She used the helpless nudity as a lovely doll for her own pleasure. She whipped and kissed and then whipped again until she had her lovely victim in such a dither of emotion Lacey lost count of what was taking place. Scorching lips and scorching whip merged into one, and a hungry hand clasped and knead her sexual lips to inflict unwanted orgasm. The encounter went on and on until Elizabeth was exhausted. The teacher then thrust her stripped pupil into the passage and bid goodbye with an assurance it would happen again and again until another opportunity arose to take Lacey captive from the walls of Maiden Hall. It was a pitiful boast.
"We know perfectly well how you got those gorgeous strips on your pretty skin, Lacey." The sisters surveyed the naked maiden standing abjectly before them for judgment. "Really, Lacey, you appear incorrigible. Miss Apple most certainly is and will spend at least a week chained in the dungeon to reflect on her imprudence."
"But none of these troubles I get into are my fault," Lacey complained bitterly. "The ladies are teachers and I'm just a pupil and have to do what I'm told. In any case, you've got me strapped and chained helplessly so they can do what they please. I can't even defend myself."
"We tend to agree with that, Lacey dear, that is on general principles only. But we are well aware of the potency of girls and the fact that none of them are guiltless in any encounter. Even though they may only radiate their sexuality, they must surely bear part of the blame."
Lacey kept a sulky silence. It was terribly unfair. She felt sure she was going to be punished drastically once again while Miss Peach went free and Elizabeth was obliged to cool her heels in the dungeon. But she looked at the sisters and found them adamant, something would be done to her, something she would not like!
"There is no need to delay your punishment, Lacey dear," Miss Lilly said kindly as though making a promise of great benefit. "Susan, the prefect who has looked after you previously, will be contacting you during the day. Now please run along. My sister and I are both very busy."
Departing, Lacey reflected bitterly that no girl runs when her feet are hobbled, and in any case she had no where to run to. She felt at odds with everyone and everything as she went to join a class.
It was not long after lunch that a feminine hand imposed itself lightly on her bare arm. Hands still strapped behind her back, Lacey turned to the smiling features of Susan, the prefect, and said, without thought, "What, come already!"
"Sure, it's me," the younger girl admitted brightly. "They did tell you, didn't they?"
"Only that you'd be punishing me or taking me to punishment. I don't know what the punishment it."
"I'm not sure either but I'll show you what I've been told to do."
Any pleasantly appointed bedroom immediately spoke of Roger Bascombe. Roger was Lacey's first thought when they entered the room from which Roger had abducted her previously. But that could hardly be, Roger was the man who asked her to marry him. He hardly came within the category of punishment. Susan's voice at her side was apologetic, "I'm terrible sorry, Lacey, I wish they wouldn't make me do these things to you."
They were two girls with a job to do, they went about it an air almost of boredom. It was not until Lacey's legs were stretched wide apart to the lower corners of the bed and there bound that she realized there was something wrong. "I'm wrong side up, Susan, you've got me face down. We'll have to do it over."
Susan giggled. "That's the way they want it, dear. Their beloved Roger is either going to beat your bottom or give it to you in the wrong place. I'm just sort of an altar girl getting you ready."
It was too late to make a fuss, Susan could handle her easily. Lacey was surprised to discover how helpless she remained even when the straps were taken from her wrists. She could push herself up on the bed but that was all. Disgustedly she lay flat and allowed her wrists to be strapped and tethered to the corners of the headboard by short chains. Spread-eagled face down, she asked dismally, "When does Roger come? Are you sure it's him who's going to do things to me?"
Susan kicked her own chained feet cheerfully as she sat behind the bound girl on the bed and ran a mischievous finger all the way down Lacey's spine and playfully tease the two round mounds of her perfect ass. Without a word she recovered a discarded pillow and, lifting her victim's hips, inserted it beneath before continuing her love play. Between her playful fingers and the friction of her nipples on the blanket, Lacey was forced to ask, "Are you trying to get me excited?"
Susan paused. "I've been thinking," she mused. "I like the things Roger Bascombe does to us girls, I suppose that's the reason I never get on his list. Suppose I offer myself to him instead of you. I don't suppose anyone will miss me if I stick around until he comes. I can scratch your back, that's better than your laying her alone."
"Oh, Susan, you're a darling! But suppose his job is not to do the obvious thing. I'm sort of upside down for that. Maybe the sisters have got something else in mind. I'm not going to ask you to get your bottom beaten on my account."
"Well, okay. But how about I stick around anyway. Roger can always tell me to get lost if he doesn't want me around."
How strange the manifold motives of Maiden Hall! Lacey moved restlessly against her bonds, trying to sit up but failing the attempt. Her elevated bottom was suddenly doubly vulnerable. Quite probably the only person to show would be Emily Chalfont carrying a whip or riding crop or even the hated yellow cane. Lacey refused to consider any thought of Roger penetrating her in the obvious entry for which she appear ideally bound. True, it would be a punishment, and might be one way the sisters might believe they could break up any feeling they thought existed between Roger Bascombe and herself.. . ! But it was all guesswork. Bitterly she reflected this wondering should be punishment in itself and a punishment fully adequate for her trifling sin. The hand of Susan was once more busy on her skin, it was tremendously comforting knowing the girl was there and as much a prison of Maiden Hall as she herself. It was useless to wonder about something that might never happen. Her eyelids became heavy and she drowsed contentedly beneath the comforting attention of a female hand.
"Well, well, look what we've got here. Hi ya, Susan, long time no see."
"I haven't earned punishment lately, Sir, I'm sorry."
"And you, Lacey? I gather you're in your usual disgrace?" Roger's inquiries were as cheerful as ever. "You want to get punished, too?"
"If you please, Sir. I want to offer myself instead of Lacey. Lacey's had sort of a bad time and I'm been getting it easy." Susan's tone became faintly anxious. "If you like the idea, Sir, I can let Lacey loose and she can tie me to the bed any way you like. You do prefer having a girl tied down, don't you?"
Roger tilted the maiden chin and gently kissed two maiden lips. "You're a sweet girl, Susan, and I hope the sisters ask me to punish you real soon, we'll have a ball. But for now I've got another assignment and I think you'd do well to run along. Sorry and all that."
Susan patted Lacey's outstretched arm. "Sorry, darling, I tried." She giggled wickedly. "You can tell me what he does to you sometime tomorrow." A moment later she was gone and Lacey and Roger Bascombe were alone.
"Seems like you've been a naughty girl again, Lacey my love." The punishing male sat where Susan had sat and idly played with the hair at the nape of Lacey's neck. She adored the sensation but would not tell him so. She looked back at him angrily.
"I haven't done a thing," she asserted. "If they've got something against me, it's because of you. Look, Roger, I'm scared. Why am I tied like this?"
"It makes you more available, you outrageous charmer. I blush to mention them but there are several ways you can be given pleasure or punishment, it's all in the point of view. That cute bottom of yours can be caned to a fair-the-well, a male so inclined would find you convenient to penetrate in the forbidden tunnel, that's a matter of taste, of course. And if I fiddle around a bit with the ropes and chains, I'm quite sure I can get you into a quite nice posture in which we can do it dog fashion. My aunts may be virgin but they are not dumb."
Lacey could feel her skin begin to crawl, butterflies were busy in her tummy. The cane hurt so damn much! And she did not want to think Roger could consider anal penetration as an acceptable alternative. She could care less about him posturing her for penetration in the normal place, she hoped he would. But the way she was bound left her suspicious of what was to be done.
"Roger, please don't tease," she pleaded. "Tell me what you're going to do to me. Please-e-e-e-e-e!"
"I'm going to cane your bottom, give you a good thrashing."
He had to be joking, it was too terrible to be true. But the manner of her fastenings told her that she had best pay heed. Suddenly Lacey Evans felt ninety percent bottom.
"Taking you a long time to think that over," Roger jibed. "Bet you think I won't do it."
"I don't think anything, I'm so damned confused and helpless. Do you have any idea, Roger, what it's like to be stretched out naked and helpless the way I am under a threat such as you've just made?"
"I'll bet your wet? Mind if I feel?"
She could not stop him feeling, she was in a good position for it. When he made her lick his hand dry, she did so humbly. Lacey was scared.
"I won't thrash you without an explanation, of course, sweetheart. My aunt's wicked little plot will be unfolded forthwith. It seems this caning of your bottom, which I really am about to do, is a test. They know my suggestion about marriage is absolutely serious so they want you thrashed and then see if you feel like marrying me afterwards. On the other hand, they're probably banking on the hope a well thrashed girl is not-likely to walk to the altar with the guy who held the cane. See what I mean?"
Lacey saw what he meant. She saw something worse beyond. "But don't you see how this traps me, Roger. I could easy say yes I'll marry you and obey you and be whipped everyday right now. But they'll then say that it was not sincere because all I was trying to do was avoid getting my bottom caned right now. So then, after I've endured the agony, they'll consider my 'yes' as entirely dependent on being whipped." She gazed back earnestly as best she could. "About the only sensible thing I can do after you've beaten me half to death is say 'no.'" Lacey laughed bitterly. "Maybe that's the way I'll feel."
"That's too damned complicated for me, old girl. I suspect you're right but you forgot one thing. I'm going to thoroughly enjoy caning your pert little posterior. I'm a beast, I'm sadistic, I'm not safe to be left alone with a girl, let alone marry her. But that's the way it is, darling. I'm going to adore swishing this lovely cane through the air to plant it squarely on your bottom." He paused long enough for his words to sink in. "Hate me?"
"You know I don't."
"Think your love and affection is going to survive what I'm going to do to you?"
"Oh, Roger, for Pete's sake, stop chattering and start my torture. I'm not going to call it anything else because that's what it is, torture. I haven't the faintest idea how I'm going to feel about you after it's over that is if I'm still alive!"
The yellow cane planted squarely across her bottom was the worst of all the things they did to girls at Maiden Hall. Lacey made that instant decision as the burning agony of the swift cut possessed her being. She did well for the first infliction, only one ankle tugging at its tether testified to anguish.
The second stroke proved her female, she went completely berserk within her bonds and screamed outrageously her anger and anguish.
Susan had given her enough slack to enable her to express whatever emotions the cane might generate within her flesh. Her mind was filled with a single vision of the limber yellow horror slicing the air above her nakedness to implant its scorching kiss on girlish skin. Propped up by the pillow, her bottom invited blow after blow, which Roger dealt her slowly, pausing now and then to watch the effect and to see the raising marks and to hear the rattle of her chains. It was during one such pause that Lacey forced herself to speech. True she was panting and gasping but her message was clear.
"Please stop, I've had enough. You don't know how horrible this hurts. Look, I'll do anything anybody wants but please stop caning my bottom."
"I wish I could darling."
"Why the hell can't you, you've got me!"
"Because, at this moment, I am the most privileged man in the world. I have you, a beauty, fastened tight at wrist and ankles. If your screams bother me, I can gag you." He leaned down as though to convince her by such closeness. "Don't you understand, I've got you and I'll whip you to my heart's content. It's something I've always longed for. Are you going to tell me to stop.. . Are you?"
Lacey was mute. Words would not come. The terrible caning resumed.
The awful impact of the cuts suddenly stopped. Lacey did not believe they had stopped, she was bracing herself for the next and the next. But when they did not come, she dared to steal a backward glance at the man who held the cane. He was standing beside the bed, looking down at her with an expression she could not understand.
Savagely he said, "You think you're the only one who's mixed up in their mind, sweetheart? You're crazy. I just realized the only reason I'm caning you like this is because I love it. And that's not reason enough. If you'd been caught setting the house on fire or with your hand in the tilt, I could do it with joy. But you're innocent of anything but being beautiful.. . Oh, shit!"
Lacey did not speak, uttering only moans and sounds of pain. She did not see this as a time for analysis or soul searching. All she knew was she was in agony and a man could stop that agony if he choice. But she would give him no help. He could cane her 'til she died or marry her that afternoon. The cane had divorced her from rationality and decision. It was with an almost bitter joy she realized the burden was on Roger, he could cane her to death or stop right now.
"Oh, damn!" he said savagely as he threw himself upon the bed and covered her back and neck with kisses. The bound girl's heart sang as she heard his next words.
"This is an ass-hole of a way to cure anything. It proves nothing. Oh, sweetheart.. . I'm a bastard. Look, I'm going to talk to my aunts, there has to be another way than this."
Roger Bascombe left Miss Lacey Evans securely fastened to the bed, her bottom reared for punishment, and departed rapidly. The girl he left behind could only hope!
Hope! It was a frail flower but its roots went deep. Lacey would once have told herself that none of the absurd and outrageous situation was worth considering, that Roger's proposal of marriage was a farce, and the sister's method of dealing with it only a little short of cruelty. The twin cheeks of her bottom, seared by the cane, should be no more than a reminder to have nothing more to do with anything of Maiden Hall or Roger Bascombe. A month ago this might have been true, it was not so now. Miss Lacey Evans was bound securely, wrong way round, upon a bed in the ancient mansion and could say nothing in her own defense or express desire. He function was to bear pain and to say the right thing at the right time. But she remembered Roger's promise to whip her daily as his wife. Never had a girl approached marriage with so many negatives she could not ignore, she moaned in dismay as the tears began to fall.
' 'Did that son of a bitch do that to your bottom, darling?" Elizabeth Apple's voice broke the pain-induced thoughts of the bound girl.
"Go away Elizabeth," she said wearily, "leave me alone. I don't know what's happening but you don't have a place in it."
"like hell I don't!" Elizabeth was busy with Lacey's bonds but took time to bend and kiss the wounded flesh welted by the cane. It was little more than moments before Lacey Evans was free.
"Come on, darling, I'm getting you out of here. If anyone's going to beat you like this it's going to be me. That bastard! That absolute SOB! Here, take my hand, the car's all ready."
"But I don't want.. . " Lacey's voice was uncertain. "Oh, please Elizabeth, not you on top of everything else."
Experienced fingers used the Maiden Hall strap on unresisting arms and a moment later Lacey's hands were firmly joined behind her back, it almost seemed the most natural way to have them. In a daze of pain and uncertainty she was dragged from the bedroom to a waiting car and away from Maiden Hall. She bore the dark, discomfort of the trunk, it was like coming home.
"But Roger Bascombe wants to marry me. He went to his aunts to talk about it." Lacey's voice rose to a wail of discontent as she paced back and forth upon Elizabeth Apple's living room carpet. Her arms were still strapped behind her back but otherwise she was still free. But what was freedom and how did it matter! Elizabeth could be as unkind with the cane as Roger Bascombe. Of the two, the preferred the man. Miss Lacey Evans was no lesbian but knew she would be obliged to pay lip service as a member of Elizabeth's home. She twisted savagely against strapped wrists.. . It was all so damned hopeless.
"I don't want to hear any more about Roger Bascombe. Understand?" Elizabeth's voice was steel.
"I know you don't want to hear but you have to understand, Roger Bascombe wants to marry me. He's just trying to make it clear with his aunts."
Lacey never knew were the yellow cane came from, perhaps from under the cushions of the couch. It sliced her bottom savagely to drive her to the floor with a scream of protest. The pain was every bit as bad as Roger's. The beaten girl longed to scream in frustration.
"That stroke should make sense to you. Do you want another?"
"No. No, not any more. Please.. . ! " And then an abject, "I'm sorry."
"Good! Understand this Lacey, men are not mentioned in my house. Roger Bascombe doesn't exist. If you want pain you have only to break that rule."
"But Elizabeth, don't you see, they'll come here looking for me. They'll put two and two together."
"No they won't. I'm going to fasten you securely now and I'll be back in Maiden Hall in no time. I'll carry on as if nothing happened. They can damned well blame someone else for your disappearance. I'd think, with all the trouble you've caused them, the sisters would be glad to be rid of you."
"But Roger Bascombe won't.. . "
The cane flashed, it was automatic to the mention of the male. Once again Lacey sank to the floor in moaning desperation. When she could think again she realized how plausible Elizabeth's plan was. She could probably get away with stealing Miss Lacey Evans for the second time. The realization was bitter gall.
It was a functional little room and Lacey realized how a girl could be hidden with as they approached the end of the hall and the bookcase moved aside to reveal the tiny room. Not only was it small and perhaps soundproof, it was well hidden. But the room did not depend upon stealth along, the door had two massive hasps and bolts, fitted with large padlocks. Inside there was a narrow cot, the bare essentials for a girl's toilet, the toilet itself, and then the window, heavy with bars. When she looked out there was only the back garden and country side to see. She could be kept, properly restrained, in this little room forever!
"You're going to have to do a lot for yourself, Lacey, so I can't leave your hands the way they are. Which is a pity, they look so sweet the way they are strapped behind your back. I've purchased an absolutely ravishing ensemble from a place in Scotland. I had it made and sent over just for you. Just a moment."
Lacey had all the moments there were, she could not have cared less. Desolately she looked down at the jumble of chain and metal bands to where Elizabeth was busily locking her ankles in wide iron bands with links between. Without running the risk of freeing enslaved hands, Miss Apple lifted the exquisitely fabricated contraption to where she could place the collar around an unresisting neck. There was no fight left in Lacey, she was sick to death of the whole thing. And if it was Elizabeth who ended up owning her, it seemed no more than a normal progression into lifetime enslavement. When her hands were unstrapped, she allowed them to be clasp in the wide iron bands at waist level. They clutched her wrists as if measurements had been taken and allowed her only a limited freedom in which she could manage a few essentials but not too many. Bitterly, she said, "Is this my life from now on? Chained wrist and ankle with the whole thing connected up as if I were the most violent felon. Oh, Elizabeth.. . "
"I've got to hurry back to Maiden Hall, darling. I'm leaving you some books and magazines on the bed and I know you'll be too angry to read them but there they are. I want to be careful about my alibi, I'd like to get back there before your holy, holy Roger stops arguing with his equally holy aunts. It's going to be amusing to see who gets blamed for your vanishing."
"But it's so unjust, so unkind."
There was no answer. Lacey watched the closing of the door, heard the turning of the latch and thudding of the bolts and then the rumble of the bookcase covering the door once again. She thought of the nuns who had been entombed because of human frailty. There was not much difference except for the window. She clinked her ironed way to the window in time to watch Miss Apple's car as it circled the house and departed for Maiden Hall. Lacey wished devoutly she was there.
Seated dismally upon the cot the prisoner looked down on the lovely leather of what she had come to call the Maiden Hall restraint. It locked her hands in front of her with an implacable snugness. She expected it made little difference whether her hands were behind her back or in her lap. There was nothing she could do with them anyway. And her leg irons had become as much a part of her as her feet themselves. The thing to do, she told herself, is to stop daydreaming and escape.
Considering the bars on the window and the massive locked door, to say nothing of the helplessness of bonds, plans to escape were absurd. But Elizabeth would have to take her from this tiny prison and then Lacey must do what she must. She shrugged in desolation and turned her thoughts to Roger Bascombe. Surely Roger would realize what had happened and rescue her. They could then get married and his maleness would shield her from mother and Maiden Hall. It was a pretty dream. She supposed that had she never be imprisoned in Maiden Hall she would have never met Roger and never considered him as a suitor. But he had become the only man in her life and could be certain that in Maiden Hall there would not be others. Lacey leaned over to enable herself to feel the ridged skin where his cane had dealt her blow after blow as if to reassure herself of his unsuitability as a husband. Or did she enjoy it! Girls whisper about each other in Maiden Hall and it was firmly believed that certain of the pupils would deliberately misbehave to get themselves spanked or caned or cropped. It was amazing the diversity of instruments by which girls could be punished.
She ironed woman in the little room turned her thoughts this way and that to no avail, there was no comfort anywhere. She could almost describe herself as kidnap-prone and if Maiden Hall did not possess her then someone else did. Either way she was kept securely bound or chained. There was, in short, no future in it.
It was then Lacey heard the sound.
It was uncanny, she had seen Elizabeth Apple drive away and knew herself alone in the house but Lacey unmistakably heard the sounds of entry to her prison. The hairs at the nape of her neck bristled and her breathing quickened. She could neither run nor fight so she did no more than stand erect as the bolts in the big door thudded back and it crept open to reveal, not a monster, not Elizabeth, not Roger, but the smiling features of a girl, or rather of a woman, a homely woman.
It was Molly Peach.
ll
No Hiding Place
"I've retired from the kidnap business," Molly admitted ruefully as she unlocked the leathers from Lacey's wrists. "When I get you out of this house, you're as free as air. I've got the key to your leg irons, hold still."
"But I'm lost, I don't understand." Lacey's mind was a maze of confusion.
"It's simple, love. I saw Elizabeth acting oddly and I saw her car parked outside the school where it shouldn't be parked. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't half a dozen of the girls who know damned well where your are. Elizabeth is banking on this little room that's so well hidden away. She might have gotten away with it if I hadn't known about it. In a way I feel a bit of a bitch for betraying the confidence she placed in me when she had this house built. That was back a few years when she got the legacy. But I hate the thought of you here with her. Elizabeth can be hell. She will give you the same kind of whipping that I got after I tried to kidnap you." She laughed bitterly. "But I'll admit that if I thought I could get away with it, I might try it again. But no way, absolutely no way!"
"But how can I ever repay.. . ? "
"You don't owe me a thing, love." Molly Peach kissed her lovingly. "It's been no trick to run over here and release you. The trick now is what do you want? I've brought a little tunic and a pair of shoes and some money. But it's quite a decision you've got ahead of you and I don't know what to tell you. If you want I can take you back to Maiden Hall and strap you back to that bed the way you were before. Elizabeth went over board. You can claim that you don't remember every leaving the bed and they'll have a real mystery on their hands."
Lacey giggled. The thought was indeed intriguing. "The sisters would whip the truth out of me," she said. "Look, Molly, why don't we both go back to Maiden Hall and you get all the credit for what you've done, you deserve it. And I won't get punished because I didn't do anything. But I don't know how we can avoid tattling on Elizabeth, she's about the only explanation of how this thing could have come about. The sisters will punish her terribly or toss her out in the street. I think Elizabeth would die if she didn't have Maiden Hall."
"You're painting yourself into a corner, Lacey, Molly warned. "Are you forgetting Roger Bascombe? He's on your side, isn't he?"
"He was caning my bottom when the whole thing happened." Lacey turned to exhibit the marks on her bottom. "Look at that! I'd be crazy to invite more of the same."
"So, where does that leave you, honey?"
"I go back to mother again. Mother is a sort of neutral ground where I'll be safe for a while."
"But isn't your mother a bit.. . what should I call it? 'Bats in the belfry?"
"Where I'm concerned, she is," Lacey admitted. "Apart from me she's normal. Look, darling, this freedom you're giving me is so wonderful I'm not going to think about a thing. I'll simply go back home and revel in having no straps on my wrists and irons on my ankles and no collar on my neck."
The girl who had been captive jumped up, flung her limbs this way and that in joyous freedom, then she enfolded her rescuer in her arms.
Lacey Evans' heart beat almost painfully as she walked down the street to her mother's house. The home that had been hers too before Maiden Hall. She was vowing fiercely it would be her home again. She opened the gate and walked up the front walk with that feeling of expectation and joy we all know at returning home. Eyes shining, Lacey Evans pressed the bell and braced herself for the lies she would be compelled to devise to explain this unexpected appearance. But when the door opened she said not a word. Instead she stood there in shocked amazement at the welcoming features of a man. Her mother was nowhere in sight. It was Roger Bascombe.
Euphoria had departed, leaving only a dull ache as Lacey prepared the tea tray, the small English cakes, the small English watercress sandwiches and her mother's finest china. Mrs. Emily Evans was altogether busily happy with the male visitor to bother much with her daughter. Mrs. Evans obviously approved of Roger Bascombe. The older woman basked in his regard very much like a schoolgirl. Lacey longed to kick them both.
Roger Bascombe was enjoying himself. Rarely in his life had he been so admired. He had quietly watched the reunion of mother and daughter. Lacey was obviously baffled and uncertain of her welcome. After the kisses and hugs he had done his best.
"I took a chance, Lacey, guessing you'd come here. In case you're interested, my aunts have got Elizabeth in the dungeon."
"Roger, I hope you haven't any silly ideas about me going back to Maiden Hall with you."
"We'll talk about that later, love. In the meantime you mother suggests you make us a really nice Tea. I'm hungry."
Lacey supposed she still had much to be thankful for but Roger's appearance shattered all her plans, she doubted now she would have y plans that were not also his. Sulkily she prepared the Tea and played 'stess, her mother far too absorbed in adoration to help. In one way s was a thousand miles for Maiden Hall but in another way Maiden I was present in the room. Miss Lacey Evans drank a cup of tea felt better.
The battle lines were swiftly drawn. While Lacey was clearing away cups and saucers and empty plates, her mother could contain herself longer. "I think it's so wonderful, Lacey. I'm so glad I persuaded you to go to that lovely place. Mr. Bascombe tells me you have consented to be his wife."
Lacey dropped a plate. It seemed a fitting punctuation for the subject at hand. Picking up the plate, the fugitive from a girl's school declared, "Mother, you've got it all wrong. I haven't promised to marry anyone. Roger's oh so nice but that doesn't mean I have to marry him."
"She's a trifle shy, Mrs. Evans," Roger assured cheerfully. "Give her time, she'll come around."
"Of course, dear Mr. Bascombe, I remember how I was myself at her age. This is all so sweet and wonderful and Lacey will have the loveliest wedding."
Lacey swallowed hard. Her mind was busy with computations as to how much money she could put her finger on to flee both her mother's home and Maiden Hall and, in addition, Roger Bascombe. Failing to reach satisfactory addition, she took a desperate gamble. "Mother, you don't know anything about Mr. Bascombe. Mr. Bascombe is employed by Miss Alice and Miss Lilly to rape, ravish and punish the inmates of Maiden Hall. If a girl fails to follow the rules, she is tied spread-eagle on a bed and this man here drinking your tea uses his male organ to ravish her painfully." She glared at both of them in defiance. "There, I've said it. I didn't want to say it but you compel me to. Mother, please ask Mr. Bascombe to leave."
"You don't really want me to leave, Lacey," Roger said quietly. "Sit down and cool off."
"What an extraordinary thing to say about you!" Mrs. Evans was still gazing adoringly at her visitor. "Really, I must apologize for Lacey, such language. It's lies like this that led me to suggest her going to Maiden Hall in the first place. I would be sorry to think Miss Alice and Miss Lilly would hear the terrible thing my daughter has just said."
"No word will leave my lips," Roger assured solemnly.
"It is such a pleasure to deal with a gentleman. You are of a county family, I believe?" Mrs. Evans was playing the heavy mother to perfection.
"The Bascombes have been around a few centuries," Roger admitted modesty. "I have an estate of my own and Maiden Hall will come to me when my aunts pass on." He grinned at his enraptured hostess. "I do assure you I am very eligible."
Lacey took the tea things to the kitchen and dealt with them to give herself time to think. And Roger to expound his family tree. Listening to the two of them in the lounge told her how much she had become a package of prisoned girl, loosing so much of her identity in Maiden Hall. Roger and her mother were discussing her much as if she were six years old. In a flash of anger she whisked back to interrupt the account of family fortune by standing half sideways in her mother's immediate view and lifting and sweeping back the meager skirt. The act revealed her caned bottom in all its glory. Vehemently she almost hissed, "Have a good look at that, mother. This man you're talking to did that to me this morning."
Mrs. Evans clasped her hands in admiration, her face glowing in a knowledge of blessedness. She surveyed the smiling Roger Bascombe with more approval than ever. Her voice was almost hushed, "You did that to my daughter?"
"A touch of discipline, Mrs. Evans. Tell you about it another time, it's quite a story."
"But it's magnificent! It's exactly what I send dear Lacey to Maiden Hall to receive. How can we ever repay you!"
' 'You can tell him to leave this house and never come back," Lacey snapped, allowing her dress to fall back into place. "I'm ashamed of you, mother. If I went to a police station and showed those marks, they'd arrest Roger on the stop."
It was quite hopeless. Mrs. Evans rose to every occasion and defeated every logic. Her voice now was apologetic. "You do see my problem, Mr. Bascombe, dear Lacey is irrational to say the least of it, all this talk of policemen and those lovely marks you've seen on her bottom. I do hope you can bring yourself to forgive what she said."
"Maiden Hall is undoubtedly the place for Lacey," Roger affirmed while refusing to meet Lacey's eye. "She is a dear girl and we all love her there. But these things she says.. . ! " He laughed reassuringly. "Don't you worry, Mrs. Evans, I can assure you my two aunts will return Lacey to you a model maiden at the end of that six months it was a six month sentence, I believe?"
"Yes, but perhaps it should be longer?" Mrs. Evans looked up anxiously for male guidance. "She seems to spend so much time running away."
"Lacey's just getting adjusted, she'll settle down."
Mrs. Evans sighed ecstatically. "I'm so impressed by your caning Lacey's bottom in the way she so crudely demonstrated. It's something I could never bring myself to do. Tell me, dear Mr. Bascombe, are you convinced you can continue this discipline after you and Lacey are married? I cannot believe she submits willingly."
"Mother!" Lacey tossed her head angrily. "Don't you realize how this embarrasses me. You're not being a bit kind. Since neither of you want to talk sense, I'll say goodbye."
Mrs. Evans gentle voice caught her daughter half way to the door, "What are you going to do for money, dear, you don't have any?"
"I'll walk the street! And now I'm going to pack." Lacey had no more than flung a bag upon her bed when she was clasp by two male hands and told by an amused male voice, "You little idiot, you haven't the faintest idea of how to deal with your mother. You mother is a sweetheart, she's no problem if you talk sensibly." Roger laughed. "Or, at any rate, what she thinks is sensible."
"I don't want to hear. I'll be obliged if you'll let go my arms."
Mr. Roger Bascombe did not free Miss Lacey Evans' arms, his grip tightened, one hand slipping down to clutch her wrists in a message Lacey was too slow to counter. She struggled furiously but was pushed face down upon the bed, a knee in her back and her wrists tightly strapped with a Maiden Hall strap which Roger blithely told her had been brought for her benefit. When the knee was gone, the strong fingers gripped her arm again and pulled her erect then turned her around to face the conquering male so he could view her flushed and furious features. Hands twisting savagely against the leather restraints, Lacey took a deep, deep breath to enable her to spell out a torrent of invectives. But no words came, instead and without her known how it happened, Miss Lacey Evans nestled her head upon Mr. Roger Bascombe's shoulder and wept in uncontrolled despair.
Roger was unperturbed. Perhaps he had expected what was happening. He used one hand to grasp the captive maiden even more tightly to him, using the other hand to gently smooth her hair and stroke the nape of her neck while he kissed her forehead gently. He let her cry out the frustrations.
When the bitter sobbing ceased they sat together on the bed, he drying her tears as they both said nothing until Lacey damply muttered, "You've strapped my wrists again, you've made me a prisoner. Oh, Roger!"
"Much the best. You've had about all the decision making you can handle. Those Maiden Hall straps are telling you there won't be any more."
"But it's so unfair, and just when I thought I was free! I'd still be free if it wasn't for you. Roger, please give me back my freedom."
"You're not safe with freedom, love, you get into trouble. Look, Elizabeth's on the shit list already, so to keep you in the clear we'll tell the sisters your surrender was voluntary."
Lacey was thinking deeply as she leaned sideways against the omnipotent male and demanded irritably, "Don't you see, Roger, I want to hold you, I want to be close, but I can't the way you've got my wrists strapped. Please free them so we can do things properly."
"We're not doing a damn thing in your mother's house, sweetheart. Here, let me put my arm around you again."
"You're always talking about marrying me, now's your chance. Marry me right quick. You'll make mother happy."
Roger cupped one of Lacey's breasts and squeezed it lovingly. "Most negative proposal I've ever heard," he chuckled. "You realize that if I took you up on it your hands would stay strapped the way they are?"
"I don't care about being strapped or anything else," Lacey said fretfully. "After a while my arms are going to grow together anyway and they I hope you'll all be happy. In the meantime you can marry me and take me home. Oh, and by the way, you might strap my ankles together, I wouldn't want you to forget anything."
"Oh, all right! I can accept a little bitterness, you've had the lousiest luck since coming to Maiden Hall. And that's all it is, luck, bad luck. If you do what I tell you to we can change it."
"I have to do what you tell me, I'm not free any more. Oh, damn you and your rotten straps!"
To Mrs. Evans everything was now absolutely right. She approved of her daughter's wrists being strapped behind her back to keep her out of mischief and from doing silly things. In a last, long parting kiss she told Lacey to stand still while she herself now lifted the small skirt to better see the caned bottom put in its present condition by that nice Mr. Bascombe. She tentatively ran her fingertips across ridged flesh and purple lines and knew for sure her daughter was being well cared for. They kissed again, Mrs. Evans with feeling and Lacey Evans absent-mindedly which told that she was thinking of something else.
When she was safely placed in Roger's car, she reminded him bitterly, "You forgot to bind my ankles. And my waist. And my neck. Remember, I'm dangerous."
"Gosh, you're bitter!" Roger said as he started the car. "Damn it, girl, don't you realize I could have you trust like a turkey and in the trunk with the lid down? What are you beefing about?"
"I've lost track of how many times this has happened to me. I'm sick of it."
"Why don't you stop trying to break out of those straps, you can't you know."
"It's the only independent act left to me," Lacey said angrily. "Look, Roger, don't take me back to Maiden Hall. Take me to you place. Damn it, I'm paying you a compliment! I'm asking to be either your wife or your slave. There's not enough difference between the two conditions for me to worry about."
Roger Bascombe could understand his prisoner's feelings. On the fact of it Miss Lacey Evans did not seem to have much to look forward to. Her sentence was still to serve and contained a long list of items he would rather not discuss. Soberly he advanced his point of view.
"Look, sweetheart, if I take you home and marry you right now, nothing is settled, not even that blazing bottom of yours. Your mother will suddenly remember you haven't served your sentence and it won't take my two aunts long to remember the same thing. They're all going to feel the decent thing is for you and me to both serve in our own ways. You to finish your sentence and I'll go on punishing delinquents. Damn it, it's less than six months."
"What you're really saying is that I should resign myself to half a year of semi-torture and imprisonment while you carry on with that disgusting activity your aunts so approve of."
"It's not disgusting, it's mutually beneficial. I can work you in here and there someplace on the score of teaching you your manners. Would you like me to teach you a lesson before we get to Maiden Hall? There's a few convenient side roads." .
"What I'd like is for you to take me back home and take these straps off my wrists so I can be Lacey Evans again instead of a bundle of female everyone gets to use and abuse."
Roger Bascombe bestowed a sideways grin and reached to pinch his captive's nipple beneath the thin dress. At this male intimacy Lacey was flooded by such a wave of sensuality and desire as to leave her, momentary, unconcerned about her fate.
"I'll do that to you every few miles," Roger promised. "Help pass the time." He chuckled. "I know you're anxious to get to Maiden Hall."
"We are all greatly indebted to dear Roger," said Miss Alice warmly.
"The dear boy tells us you didn't struggle, Lacey, that you just quietly surrendered. I think that's so nice," added Miss Lilly.
Lacey had been prepared for the interview by Emily Chalfont, all coverings removed, her hair attended, her hands left strapped behind her back. She stood before the twin desks as so often before, seething with the injustice of innocence about to be punished. Lacey Evans had nothing to say. Maiden Hall once more owned her.
"We intend to punish Elizabeth severely. We cannot tolerate these constant kidnappings," said Miss Alice.
"We will let you look at what we are doing with her now," promised Miss Lilly as though offering candy to a child.
"I haven't done anything to be punished for. Please don't punished me." It seemed to Lacey as though she had said the same thing before. But what was there to say?
"I have just rung for dear Madam Chalfont," Miss Alice informed. "She is so competent, she will know exactly the right thing to do with you."
Lacey swallowed the words bursting to be expressed. What was the use! What was the use of anything?
"It was a cistern but no longer used," Emily Chalfont explained patiently, her hand firmly grasping Lacey's pinioned arm. "It was the sisters who conceived it's present use. Voila! Is it not magnificent? So knowing a concept."
Miss Elizabeth Apple stared hopelessly at Miss Lacey Evans. Her plight was dire. Lacey remembered the box in which Elizabeth had once locked her with her head and hands protruding from the top. It was so now with cistern, most of Elizabeth was somewhere inside and only her agitated features and clenched hands were visible as they strove against the tiny holes by which they were held. Dramatically, Elizabeth added, "I am being eaten alive."
"It pleases her to extravagate," Emily explained in the same patient voice. "Most of the cistern holds Elizabeth but there is also a little room for a few fish, some lampreys, a small moray eel, and a couple of quite large crabs. I've forgotten what other items there were but I was assured they would be of interest to Miss Elizabeth as she whiles away the period of her sentence in the tank."
Lacey longed to laugh but held back. Elizabeth was obviously being devoured by whatever live things were in the tank with her but it was a terrible punishment and thoughts of lampreys and moral eels caused Lacey to shiver. There was one thing to say about the punishments of Maiden Hall, they were never dull.
Elizabeth no doubt had much to say, but her attention was so taken by whatever was going on below the surface of the tank as to render her a poor conversationalist. She constantly grimaced or uttered tiny yelps of dismay as another creature of the deep found a hiding or feeding place with the person of Miss Elizabeth Apple. She watched Lacey led from the room and managed only the choking assurances, "They're killing me, they're killing me! Lacey, do something, do something!"
"Madam Elizabeth will not be kidnapping you again, my dear." Emily suggested as she led her quaking victim along the passage. "We give her now the prelude, there is more to come."
It was a quite small oblong hole in the center of the bare floor, perhaps a foot long. It conveyed absolutely nothing. "You will sit your bare bottom on the bare floor beside the hole," Madam Chalfont ordered and then chuckled. "Who knows what interesting thing my pop up from below to claim your attention. You are so lucky."
Without faith in fortune, Lacey did as she was told. Bare boards on bare bottoms are never comfortable. While arranging herself she got the expected command, "Please to place one little foot within the hole."
The missing bit of board had become loaded with portent. Lacey looked at the black cavity with disfavor. It was innocent enough and she was helpless. Without enthusiasm she obeyed. With swift moves Madam Chalfont encased the immured ankle within two shaped blocks of wood which precisely filled the cavity and found some lodgment below. There were clicks from out of sight and when Lacey tried to twist or turn or pull back the foot she could do none of these things. The wooden grip on her ankle was firm and total. With her foot thus in limbo and one knee bent high it was uncomfortable to sit. Questioningly she looked up at the woman who stood close by.
"You are thinking many things, my dear. Snakes, mice.. . All the things to hurt the little foot you no longer possess." Emily Chalfont laughed. "I will not tell you what to expect. I will leave you for a little while to do the guessing game. But first.. . " She knelt and took possession of Lacey's strapped wrists and a moment later they were free. "Viola! There, you see, you have lost only one foot but you have gained two hands. You are the luckiest of girls."
In the first flush of once more possessing hands, Lacey allowed Madam Chalfont to depart without demure. It was not until she had tried every posture she could think of that she realized how insidiously irritating the loss of one foot could be. In all her twistings she could And but one position without discomfort. It was simply to lay flat on her back with her captive foot raised and bent at the knee. Even to stand erect with one foot below and out of sight was unbalanced and insecure. In disgust she lay down and waited for the pain she was sure would come.
It was a strange bondage. Her foot delivered to the grip of wood around her ankle. The rest of Miss Lacey Evans was totally free. She found both surprise and irritation in the uselessness of hands, she possessed them but there was nothing they could do to aid her plight. She was almost free but they could not take her the rest of the short distance. But Lacey was award of defeatism within herself. She was little concerned with leaving the room. She would still be within Maiden Hall and soon recaptured even if she could get her foot free. Then she would be punished afresh. At least, if she were punished for a misdeed she could not also be punished at the caprice of the institute. It as a small wry comfort but all the captive girl could find.
A yellow length of cane Emily carried on her return told all. Lacey looked at it dismally to ask, very simply, "What part of me?"
"Why not a little bit of all of you?"
In bitter resignation, Lacey sat up, supporting herself by free hands that might not be free for long. "You sure do think up the damndest positions for a girl when she is whipped," she said disgustedly. "You want me to roll around and you take a cut at whatever's convenient?"
"How delightful a thought, Mademoiselle. I think first I will ask you to sit as you are and hold out your pretty little hand."
Lacey moaned inwardly. The caning of the palm of a girl's hand was bitterly painful as she knew all too well. There was something demeaning about it, a childish punishment adjusted to adult tolerance. And the act of extending an arm in innocent and spreading the fingers.. . ! It was utterly shaming and called for so much self control. Bitterly she pleaded, "Please don't cane my hands, it hurt too damn much. Isn't there some other part of me.. . ? "
"Your breasts, perhaps?"
Miss Lacey Evans extended her right arm to its full length and flattened out the palm of her hand to receive the cut of the cane.
It seemed worse than Lacey remembered. The same wanting to curl up and die. The same sickness at the stomach and the searing pain going on and on to envelope every part of her. Now there was the awkward posture, the leaning against a raised, bent leg and the unexpectedly swift command, "And now your other hand?"
A pair of seared and burning palms found what solace they could within the damp confines of maiden armpits as their owner rocked back and forth upon a bare bottom not yet whipped. Madam Chalfont's voice came as might an angel's from heaven. "That is all, Mademoiselle, only one upon each little hand. It is a small punishment to meet a small delinquency. Maiden Hall can be merciful."
By the time the caned girl gathered her wits and looked around, Madam Chalfont had gone and with her the yellow cane. But Lacey's ankle was still in the wooden vice. And there it stayed all day. The lovely leather wristlets were forgotten.
In the days that followed Lacey fell back into Maiden Hall routines. Each day brought mild punishments, mostly bindings with some times a few cuts of the cane to remind her who she was and where she was. She saw nothing of Roger Bascombe and was glad. At night now she slept in one of the dorms which was scarcely a promotion but which gave no privacy for anyone to molest her. Each night she and all the other inmates in the room suffered the shameful chaining of bare ankles to the bed and the beds were firmly fixed to the floor. There was never any doubt of being prisoner.
On completion of Lacey's first month of sentence she was made a prefect. This elevation excused her none of the pains of punishment or changed her status other than to give her authority over the youngest or newest pupils. The lovely wristlets had not stayed with her the full month, she now enjoyed free hands but her feet remained in leg irons as did every other girl's in the place.
Young girls sought Lacey out for confidences and comfort. Lacey possessed that unique quality of empathy which, in her efforts to aid the youngsters, brought her only pain, for to dabble in the affairs of a girl already sentenced is to invite trouble. The most persistent of these young maidens was Tandy Enright, a bright twelve year old who was sentenced to two years of Maiden Hall. About the child was none of the shrinking adolescent of that age. Tandy had the courage to contemplate her plight and learn all she could of it. Lacey dealt with her questions laughingly as best she could.
"Will I be whipped often, Miss Evans?"
It was not an easy question. Considering her own nakedness bore the marks of whips and cane, it was useless to deny the possibility of Tandy being similarly decorated.
"Some times they just whip certain parts of a girl, don't they, Miss Evans. I mean, like her pussy, or the inside of her legs?"
Lacey was as reassuring as honesty permitted but she soon realized much of Tandy's curiosity was prompted by desire. The child wanted to experience these punishments at least once. She probably had an adolescent dream about returning home to boast of her exploits and display the weals.
"My breasts are a lot bigger than most girls my age, Miss Evans. They' re really every so big for a girl of twelve .Will they be whipped?"
"I'm afraid so, Tandy, but not too often. Your breasts are lovely, Tandy, look after them."
' 'One of the prefects total me they whip a girl's breasts one at a time."
Lacey dealt with the questions as best she could, mostly she was honest and watched with interest the excitation the replies generated in the youthful features she would have expected to dissolve in tears.
"And I was told they'll strap wristlets on me and pick me up by my arms. Gollys, Miss Evans, will they really?"
"You're actually looking forward to these things, aren't you, Tandy, I can tell." Lacey tried to sound severe but realized she was privileged in these youthful confidences. She listened almost breathlessly to a twelve year old's summation of her prospects.
"I know about Mr. Bascombe," the child explained. "He fucks the girls because the teachers think the girls don't like it. And I guess some don't. He's already done me and I pretended I hated it just to be sure I'll get it again. He's the nicest man and he's got the biggest thing. But a girl wants it a lot more often than I can get it from Mr. Bascombe. And I've sort of figured out that being punished can sort of fill the gap." The young girl looked up with innocent eyes. "I mean being whipped is pretty much like an orgasm, isn't it? I think it would be the same with every punishment because it's somebody doing something to you." The childish voice put heavy emphasis upon the word "doing." Lacey knew exactly what she meant.
"To have other girls and Madam Chalfont punish me is terribly exciting. Even if I don't like all of it, I should like some."
There was another girl, this time a sophisticated fourteen who was more difficult to appease, and who posed Lacey a question she could not easily answer. The girl's name was Cynthe and her demand abrupt. "Will you let me cane your bottom, Miss Evans? I'm going to get mine caned a great deal. But while I'm in this place it's about my only opportunity to experience the other side of things. If you'll allow me to give you ten real swishes across your bare bottom, I'll ask Daddy to put a hundred pounds in your bank account for you. Daddy will do anything I ask. It was Mommy who had me sent here."
Lacey started to refuse. No girl of twenty-two wants her bottom stripped by a youth of fourteen but she suddenly remembered her lack of funds during her previous escape. To have a reserve fund somewhere might be the difference between success and failure. On the spur of the moment and trying to sound disinterested, she said, "Okay, Cynthe, you do that. When do you want to cane me?"
"Gosh, I never thought you'd agree!" Young eyes shone in brilliant delight. "Let's do it now while no one's around. Do you want me to go fetch a cane?"
Waiting for Cynthe's return was one of the most difficult times Lacey had ever endured. She had to fight hard against common sense and stand her ground and await the coming of the cane and the girt who would use it. It showed how Maiden Hall inflicted boredom upon its inmates to a point of desperation. Lacey suddenly realized the daily punishments were not entirely punitive but also had the therapeutic effect of keeping morbidity at bay. When the shinning eyed girl return with the limber length, Lacey was grateful she did not have to undress. She simply bent over and touched her toes and said, "Well, here I am. But ten strokes, no more."
Cynthe's first stroke was enough. Lacey sprung erect, clutching her bottom and glaring at the enraptured young moppet with the cane. "You little bitch, you didn't have to hit me that hard," she glared angrily. "You'll have to go easier than that if you're going to give me ten."
"No I won't. It's ten like that or nothing. Do you want the hundred pounds?"
"Well, if you have to give me ten like that you'll have to tie me. I can't possibly stand still for so much pain. Damn it, girl, you should know."
Lacey directed the binding of herself over the desk with mixed feelings, calling herself an idiot on one hand and remembering the hundred pounds on the other. The tying was swift and awkward but would hold her firmly while the blows fell on her exposed bottom. She closed her eyes and said, "Go ahead, Cynthe, get it over with. Damn it, I dare not scream."
"You don't think I'm going to do this in a hell of a rush, do you? My dad's paying for it so you can bloody well let me gloat a bit between strokes. I wonder when the weal will come up and change color. If you can't put up with that, just say so and I'll let you go and the whole deal's off."
Lacey said nothing. She realized she was punishing herself or accepting needless pain as a counterirritant to the disaffection she felt for Maiden Hall. As Cynthe delivered blow after blow and waited tantalizingly between each for the maximum agony to her willing victim, the willing victim condemned herself silently for being stupid. The younger girl was hitting her with the force of a more experienced person, the blows were vicious. Lacey was thankful now for the pause between, for had they fallen in rapid succession she would have been screaming hysterically. At the end of ten blows, Cynthe brightly inquired, "How about ten more same price?"
Lacey said a fervent, "No, thank you." She then waited for release. But when no release came she turned her attention to the girl who had given her such pain. Cynthe was sitting cheerfully beside her on the desk and bending the pliant cane back and forth between strong young hands. What she said now had about it something of the inevitable.
"You can't really say no to anything, Lacey dear. Not unless you can get those ropes loose."
Lacey went berserk, using all her strength to make the desk move and creak but it was not enough to buy her freedom. At the end of it she was panting and breathless, her nipples chaffed against the bare wood and her wrists burning with the same torment as her bottom. Bleakly she said, "Let me loose, Cynthe, don't forget I'm a prefect."
"I didn't forget you were a prefect, darling, it was you," Cynthe said cheerfully. "You accepted by business proposition and let yourself be tied. You can't possibly complain if I extend our agreement beyond what you thought you wanted. It was another one of those situations in which a girl wants to cry, because there was nothing she could do and because of dealing with a mind not sympathetic. Worse of all it was so unfair, so damned unfair!
Cynthe was taking advantage of a bound prefect who could not defend herself. It was obvious the nymphet could care less about whatever came afterwards. The tied girl looked up in dawning despair to say, "I didn't think you'll be this unkind. But if you are, go ahead, there's nothing I can do."
The second ten came in a sharp, swift crescendo of agony against which the tied girl had no defense. At Lacey's first scream, the younger girl produced the makings of a gag and stuffed her victim's mouth tight and tied it hard in. She then picked up with number two.. . three.. . four.. . "
"Twenty lovely strokes, darling, I'm having so much fun." The young voice was ecstatic. Cynthe was breathless from exertion and excitement. When she placed the cane lovingly across the small of Lacey's back the vibrations were so intense as to be almost visible between the two. Lacey as almost glad she was gagged, speech would only demean her further. She was owned by a nymphet who appeared to have no mercy.
"That's twenty, darling, are you ready to go for thirty." Cynthe's voice was blithe and most persuasive. She ideally ran the surface of the cane back and forth across that area of the bound girl she had punished with it. Lacey's gasps and wincing were in complete accord with the mood. "I should take out the gag to hear you plead some more, darling," Cynthe said amusingly. "You plead so nicely and I get all horny listening to you. Anyway I'm going to take it for granted you don't want the next ten but I'm going to give them to you anyway. But I am going to put a few bits of higher up and a few lower down to spread out the lovely marks you're getting. By this time tomorrow you'll probably thank me."
Lacey did not lay inert. She fought furiously but to no avail. She remained bent over the desk with her bottom sticking up as if begging for more punishment. At the second stroke of the third series the door opened and Miss Alice and Miss Lilly walked in upon the graphic scene.
Exclamations of thankfulness died behind Lacey's gag. With bright boldness, Cynthe explained, "Miss Evans was just giving me some lessons and has been ever so kind about letting me cane her bottom."
It was a bitter reflection for the bound girl that here again she would be considered delinquent. The more she thought about it the more she realized how wrong she had been in allowing Cynthe to bind her in the first place or in failing to scream lustily enough to bring help. Now she could do nothing except eye the sisters imploringly. Questions and answers flew back and forth between the sisters and the teenager with the cane. At the end of it, Miss Alice and Miss Lilly had a full understanding of the situation. Their verdict was swift and instant.
"Since you have been so extremely foolish, Lacey, we are going to allow this ridiculous young woman to complete her intended punishment. You have eight more strokes to come." She turned a stern eye upon the now quaking young Cynthe. "You will deliver these strokes with all your strength, we want no shirking. It is too late for you to try and win favor. You must whip Miss Evans as hard as you possibly can. You will then put down the cane and wait your own sentence."
Everything just happened. Lacey had not part in anything except to bear the pain, the twin cheeks of her bottom were a convenience for all concerned. As her caning continued so did her reactions. The sisters gravely watched her twist, struggle, and heave as Cynthe ardently strove for approval by giving each blow the maximum force her young arm could contrive. When the punishment was completed and Cynthe placed the cane beside its victim, Lacey was weeping and distraught with pain and little concerned with anything except a longing to be untied. But no one untied her, she remained exactly as she was.
The sister's amiably discussed the penalty for the fourteen year old girl now shivering in fright. The merits of floggings, the horse, and suspension were gravely considered with such solemnness that Cynthe herself began to quietly sob, covering her face with hands yet unbound.
"I prefer to make Cynthe's punishment fit her crime," Miss Alice said firmly. "She has given our beloved but ridiculous Lacey thirty strokes with the cane there upon the desk, a most suitable instrument for a girl's bottom. An appropriate punishment would be double the number upon her own bottom. What do you say, Lilly?"
"Of course, Alice, you're always so right. Let us position ourselves and deliver the strokes alternatively from each side."
Lacey was appalled. Sixty with the cane on any girl's bottom was a truly horrendous punishment. She longed to tell the sisters it was way too much, more than any girl could bear, that Cynthe would be unconscious before the final stroke. But even through her agitation was visible to the sisters, they ignored her and simply nodded kindly at what they believed was her concern for a girl undeserving of such mercy.
There was the usual rope hanging from above and the rings in the rug below. It was only minutes before the youthful Cynthe stood with her hands held high and her feet wide spread and taut. Her pretty young bottom was entirely at the disposal of the sisters. From somewhere they had discovered a second cane. "Perhaps a gag, Alice?"
"Not immediately, Lilly dear, we will give our little darling time to exercise her vocal cords before making her mute. I would hope that during the first ten or fifteen strokes we would hear some most encouraging vows of repentance and regret for past misdeeds. Are you ready?"
Lacey winced with every stroke. She had a full view of the punishment taking place and, while unable to influence its course, could vicariously share with the punished maiden this agony of atonement. She watched the sisters position themselves to either side then breathlessly watched the first stroke imprint the helpless flesh of a girl who should have known better.
"One, two, three.. . The strokes and the count were relentless. The blows must have seemed to Cynthe to be a single prolongation of the same agony, so swiftly did one follow the other with two women working in coordination. The thwack, thwack, thwack of the yellow cane was almost continuous and produced not only the vows of repentance but also, by the time the ninth stroke had landed, screams so violent as to warrant a gag in the youngster's mouth. During the pause in which a gag was procured, the stretched and well secured maiden panted and pleaded with her last free breath. Cynthe's pleas for mercy fell upon deaf ears, they made Lacey cringe but affected the sisters not at all.
"Open your mouth, dear," Miss Lilly requested sweetly as she made the cruel insertion of a wad into the youthful mouth and buckled the straps across rebellious lips. When it was done the strokes resumed their full cadence and the lovely stretched nude fought in berserk helplessness as if to demonstrate the potency of the chosen punishment. The impacts when on and on. To Cynthe they seemed forever.
The sisters untied the two girls, strapped their wrists behind their backs with the Maiden Hall straps, assured both of undying affection and went their way to leave a pair of weeping nudities finding comfort on each's bare shoulders. Lacey felt sure she should feel animosity but none was there. What had been done to them was by the will of Maiden Hall, and thus impersonal.
For two days hands remained strapped above the purple weals but then were freed for their owners to reenter the hazards of life in Maiden Hall. Cynthe and Lacey spoke but little after that, the cane had said it all for both of them. It was then Elizabeth Apple came into Lacey's view.
"Dear Elizabeth has spent a lot of time chained in the dungeon," Miss Alice explained to the wondering Lacey. "We are determined to cure Elizabeth of this desire to kidnap you. We will also retain her services, she is a good teacher." Majestically the two sisters led the way to a spectacle Lacey would long remember.
Elizabeth Apple was hard at work. The greatly improved contours of her figure suggested she had been hard at work for much more than a single day. She performed a simple task. It was a small room with walls of stone. Into one of them a metal shaft disappeared but terminated at this end in Elizabeth Apple's hands in the form of a handle bent and twisted to enable her to turn the shaft at will. It was evidently no easy task, Elizabeth was breathing heavily and damp with perspiration. She spared but a single glance at her visitors and continued without pause to turn the handle, which in its overall dimension caused her to labor at a sweep of at least two feet or more in diameter.
"The beauty of this punishment," Miss Alice explained gently, "is that on the other side of the wall the shaft is braked. It is an adjustable arrangement, making it easier or harder to turn as desired. There is also a meter that registers the number of turns. Dear Miss Apple has been allocated a number, which should she fail to each, condemns her to an even more interesting penalty. Needless to say, Miss Apple's endeavors must be continuous. She may not pause or rest without special permission. This permission is provided at intervals only my Dear Emily Chalfont."
It was one more of Maiden Halls absurdities a stranger would not have believed. But Lacey Evans believed it, she could tell the taut lines of endurance in Miss Apple's nakedness, a nakedness well decorated with weals and lines. This woman had not spent all her time at the shaft or chained in a dungeon. Lacey's heart went out to her in sympathy.
"We're going to leave the two of you together," Miss Lilly said. "You will have much to say to each other but we must warn you against doing or saying anything that might stop the revolution of the shaft, that is not permitted. And now, Lacey dear, if you will give me your hands behind you back?"
Lacey turned and delivered her hands once more to the Maiden Hall strap. No doubt its purpose was to stop her from spelling the laboring woman by turning the handle herself. With hands safe strapped behind her back, this would not be possible. She watched the sisters depart and close the door.
"The bitches, the rotten bitches! They never give me a break, I've been continuously punished every since they got wise to my last try at keeping you for myself." The shaft turned under a vicious turn of venom. "I don't know when they'll stop punishing me but I'm broken, honestly I'm broken. I'll do whatever they tell me and I'll never try to kidnap you again. Oh, Lacey, I'm so sorry."
The lament came out gasping, accompanied by a rattle of chain which was continuous because Elizabeth Apple was collared by a chain which was padlocked to the wall. She could, presumably stop turning the shaft but she could not leave the place. If she stopped the revolutions she would have to stand as she was to await punishment.
"But I'm not worth this!" was Lacey's first reaction. "I'd give myself willing as a slave to you if it would have stopped this happening. Elizabeth, what can I do to help?"
"Plead my cause with the sisters. I can't think of anything else you can do. And they probably won't listen. Oh, Lacey, they've got this thing adjusted so tight. I can just barely turn it and keep it turning so the meter doesn't betray me into more punishment. When Emily comes in to give me a rest I simply sit on the floor and lean against the wall and pant and pant and sweat and sweat. Elizabeth emitted a bitter laugh. "There's only one dividend I'm getting out of this and that's a much improved figure. In fact I'm damned proud of my figure. But what's the use of it, I don't have you."
,Lacey felt a tremendous pity for this woman who's only crime had been to love her and desire her to the point of possession. That she had been whipped by Elizabeth seemed a small thing now, her own instinct was to help.
"But, darling, I know the things you want to do to me and that they won't happen in Maiden Hall. But try to remember my sentence is only six months and I've already done quite a bit of it, that is if you can call a month quite a bit." As she laughed bitterly at her own humor, "But don't you see Elizabeth, what you're suffering her is really because of me, because you wanted me, because you wanted to whip me, because I was a Thing in your mind." Lacey took a deep breath.
"Elizabeth, if it's any help to you in what you're doing now I promise I'll deliver myself to you for a week after I'm released. You can have me for a week and do whatever you want to me. Maybe it's crazy but I feel I owe you that."
"Oh, darling," Elizabeth's words were choked with emotion. "Will you really do that of me! Oh, Lacey, I love you so much. Thinking about that week will help me get through whatever remains of my punishment. Darling, can you hold me while I turn the shaft?"
They had forgotten strapped hands but Lacey did her best, planting her breasts firmly against the back of the straining girl and planting kiss after kiss on the sweat-drenched skin. They were like this when Emily Chalfont made her rounds.
"The so lovely skin tastes salt, does it not?" Emily laughed. "If our dear Miss Apple spreads wide her legs and you, dear Lacey, kneel down between, you could service your mistress while she works. Have you not thought of this?"
Neither girl had conceived so grotesque an orgasm. Even if they did it the cycle of the metering would be interrupted and here would be punishment. Lacey stood back while the shaft made its cruel revolutions under the hand of a woman longing for release.
"You have my permission to stop, Elizabeth," Emily said grandly. Elizabeth stopped. She sank to the floor in utter weariness and leaned back against the wall. She was a picture of strained loveliness and wicked helplessness. The chain from her neck emphasized her status and the shaft with its handle awaited her return as if it were a living entity. Emily Chalfont was in rare good humor.
"Yes, yes, I know of the nobility, dear Lacey," she jibed. "You are distressed to see your one-time mistress brought so low and fatigued with honest sweat. How well I understand your noble intent to plead with me to allow you to take her place. The situation it is classic, is it now?"
Lacey was uncertain of motives. She wore leg irons as did Elizabeth so both of them were relatively helpless. She was faintly ashamed that the thought of taking Elizabeth's place had not actually entered her mind. Even now it seemed trite and very much of a cliche. She stood still while her wrists were freed and then heard the fateful words, "You will please to turn the handle, dear Lacey. The quicker you turn it the more you help your darling Elizabeth. Am I not kind?"
It was not a time to bandy words. Lacey resolutely gripped the handle and started to turn against the drag. It took all her strength and she would understand the need of maintaining whatever momentum was possible. She turned and turned again and was soon breathing heavily while Elizabeth remained crotched and chained upon the floor at her side. No one was saying anything, the only sounds in this room of punishment was her own labored breathing as she turned and turned.
' 'Remember, there is a meter on the other side, registering all." Emily Chalfont said sternly. "Now I leave you both, you, dear Lacey, to turn and turn the shaft, and you, beloved Elizabeth, to make your apologies for getting both of you into this deplorable situation."
"You do this all day long?" Lacey asked in wonder and disbelief.
"Sure I do, there's the rest periods, like I'm getting now. That's all. They tell me they'll enter my in a beauty contest when I'm down another fifteen pounds. Oh, Lacey darling, drop that damn handled and let go the consequences. They can't kill us. Let's love each other while we have the chance, the collar on my neck won't stop anything."
They were two girls with flesh afire and loins hot with desire. Impulsively Lacey released her hold on the handle and stood back. Elizabeth Apple stood up and they were facing each other, one legironed and one collared about the neck, then clutched hungrily and sank entwined upon the floor. For a long time nothing mattered.
"You showed lamentable weakness, Lacey dear." Miss Alice's voice held only regret.
"We feel sure that Elizabeth persuaded you," Miss Lilly was equally sympathetic.
"I did what I did because.. . Well, I suppose because I wanted to," Lacey said forthrightly. "I expect I have to be punished."
"Alas, yes, dear. We seem to be constantly punishing you for faults that are primarily those of other girls. But you are never entirely without guilt. Do you agree?"
"Yes, I agree, I'm guilty."
Lacey knew it must sound like a rehearsed Russian court of "justice" but she could think of nothing to say, she was being guided more and more by the rules of Maiden Hall. She had made love to a prisoner and was drawing punishment. It was a punishable offense, it was that simple.
"We could place you with Miss Elizabeth in a small room where each of you turned a shaft endlessly on and one," Miss Lilly explained carefully. "But this is so trite and predictable. We prefer to punish you in other ways. To give you a little gleam of hope by telling you the punishment you and Elizabeth must endure will be the last. After that we will consider all debts paid. Elizabeth will return to teacher status and you to your prefect job. But, alas, in the meantime.. . "
The only sounds in the small closed room were the inhalations of the two punished girls. Sometimes Elizabeth and Lacey exchanged a few words but the need of words grew less and less as their punishment proceeded. It was a simple punishment. Both were naked, both were leg ironed, the wrists of both were firmly strapped behind their backs. This was the being. The real punishment began from the ropes descending from above to be hooked into the Maiden Hall straps and then hoisted high. As the pinioned arms rose, the head leaned forward, lower and lower until a medium was struck between tensioned arms and feet still touching the floor. To raise the arms higher would mean suspension. The girls could weave and twist and turn to their own desire but in the end they simply stood and suffered the punishment. It was most effective!
But the sisters had not been content to rest entirely with this punishment, they had added something of their own. Elizabeth and Lacey possessed between them four nipples and now on each of these there gleamed a small metal clip which bit relentlessly and without regard to wrecked arms and shoulders and scorched wrists. Lacey was inclined to agree with Elizabeth's verdict, "The rotten bitches didn't need to clip our tits as well. They just don't know when to stop. Oh, Lacey, is it as bad for you as for me? I simply want to die."
Neither girl died. The two naughty girls suffered and became most penitent but there would be no need of doctors or nurses, the punishment fell short of that.
By the end of thirty minutes the punished girls had said everything there was to say. They had also perfected a collection of small animal sounds by which they communicated their distress by and forth until they finally fell silent except for labored breathing. Their bend over heads and faces were at the same level and they could twist and turn from the tethering rope above to their heart's content. But there was no content, there was nothing but the ever-increasing agony from the arms and shoulders and nipples. The back, too, bespoke its own distress. After what seemed a terribly long time they had their first visitor.
"You look exceeding droll, ladies." Madam Chalfont's cheerfulness seemed to increase as the punished girls pain increased. The French woman listened patiently to their flood of pent up pleading. "Emily, let our arms down a couple of inches. Pleas-s-s-s-e!"
"Madam, please, oh please unclip our nipples."
"Emily, surely we've worn these hateful things on our breasts long enough."
Emily Chalfont did nothing except circle the suffering pair and examine their condition with evident approval. All three of the females in the room knew their pleas and demands were clich's frayed from long and futile use. The girls with arms held high and breasts gaily decorated with tiny metal monsters they could not touch pleaded and promised most sincerity which soon faded away to pained silence as Emily did not answer.
"You suffer so sweetly, my little pigeons. You have so much more to bear it would be wrong of me to do any of these things you ask. Should you not remember the bareness of your bottoms and the cane which hangs on the wall, imprudent speech can easily be turned to pain."
"But we're hurting horribly now!"
"Surely Mademoiselle, you should know how it is always possible to hurt a little more. Or perhaps a great deal more. I will be most willing to demonstrate?"
They could not win. They dared not make uncomplimentary remarks for fear the French woman lingered beyond the door. But Madam Chalfont's next visit was long delayed. An unexpected affiliation.
"Miss Alice and Miss Lilly told us we could come and visit you," said the first of the two bright-eyed moppets who came in. They were perhaps thirteen and stood regarding, with bright eyed interest, this new manifestations of Maiden Hall's genius in the punishment of girls. As though by previous agreement, each possessed themselves of a bend over center of each captive person and then thrust an inquiring hand between thighs to capture the sex in eager young hands. The captives were too stressed to make much more than a token protest with their hips.
"Miss Alice and Miss Lilly have given us permission to play with you. We can play with you all we like just so long as we don't bring you to climax. We're going to have such fun with you."
"Go away and leave us alone. Stop doing what you're doing. Get away, you little demon."
The protests were useless. The captive girls realized their visitors probably actually had permission to do just what they were doing. The young hands roamed at will and the half suspended girls made few motions to prohibit, it hurt too much.
' 'We're not suppose to take these off, either." Delighted fingers found the clips on anguished nipples, flicking and teasing them to give more pain, and evoking gasps and moans to which they paid no heed. Punished breasts which had settled to a slow steady burn now flared anew to start their cycle of bitter pain. Lacey guessed she and Elizabeth would be a sorry pair by the time an adult came to stop the children's fun.
It was Emily who came but she stopped nothing. Her cheerful voice put a stop to moans and groans and pleadings to rid the captives of their unwanted guests. "You are very silly girl," she admonished severely. "Your little friends here will provide you with interesting sensations and remove boredom. I'm sure you were becoming bored before them came but you're not bored now."
There was no answer to it, it was typically Maiden Hall but Lacey did score a single point she was later to regret. "Please, Emily, take these things off our nipples. Pleas-s-s-s-e-e, we don't deserve them all day long."
Firm fingers freed the punished buds and waves of agony took the place of the little metal clips, an agony accented by the teasing and rubbing of teenage fingers. When Emily left the results was four burning breasts, but breasts that would slowly return to normal now that the nipples were free.
Elizabeth said, "Thank heavens for that, I didn't think she'll ever do it."
"You're still with your arms in the air," piped an English voice. "And now we can do something to you we couldn't do before. Just think, you beautiful prisoners, four tits.. . "
"Don't you dare touch them, they're still hurting. Leave them alone!"
"But, darlings, we're not going to hurt them. We're going to make them feel all glorious."
This was what made the task of the young girl difficult, but by the careful use of available material she soon contrived to kneel and glue their hungry little mouths on naked and helpless breasts. There ensued for the stressed, wracked captives a series of gasps and moans in which the clips were entirely forgotten, having been replace by eager little tongues with an occasional mischievous nip from small teeth. Each bound girl soon knew her nipples hard and demanding when a hand left each to seek fresh pastures lower down. For several minutes the captive sex became the focal point of industry, an industry carried to such forgetful lengths as to cause the helpless girls with arms tethered high to burst and flower into orgasm, an act forbidden by authority. The moppets lips and tongues followed them hungrily to the last gasping breath.
"That will be quite enough, girls. You appear to have forgotten or ignored my orders." Miss Alice's voice was as the crack of doom.
The sucking and tonguing of nipples stopped instantly. Two pairs of young eyes turned in apprehension. Elizabeth's heart sang. Lacey longed to tell their tormentors it served them right and she hoped they got a good thrashing. But prisoners are prisoners and had best watch their tongues.
Quietly Miss Lilly stated, "The two of you will await us in our study. Alice and I will consider you sentence. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Run along."
"You have had an orgasm, have you not?"
Lacey muttered affirmative. The familiar pattern of guilt forming before her eyes. Humbly she said, "It wasn't our fault, Miss Alice. We couldn't stop them doing a thing. We're terribly sorry."
"You are suppose to be. Considering you are a prefect, I would have supposed you were capable of preventing yourself from being brought to a climax. There will be a suitable penitence."
The tractioned girls kept silent, they had no expectation of wining anything. Punishments seemed implicit in anything to do with Maiden Hall.
"I think we should put both those outrageous children into one of the small cages," suggested Miss Lilly. "With two in a cage they will aggravate each other and provided their own punishment. What do you suggest of dear Lacey and Miss Elizabeth?"
"It occurs to me that dear Roger is with us today. He is attending to some of the girls. He can attend to Miss Elizabeth, too. And Lacey."
"But I fear Lacey would welcome his attention."
"We will give the dear boy a carte blanche. I am sure he will thing of things neither of these young women will like." The sisters sighed in a unison of accord.
Lacey felt only relief. Elizabeth felt pure horror.
"Our nephew's prowess is not limited to things sexual, dear girls," Miss Lilly explained. "I see a cane hanging from one the walls and dear Roger has access to all of Maiden Hall's treasures. He will make a most fitting climax to your punishments. We will now go and acquaint him with your need."
The two girls, still bound with upraised arms, still hurting, looked to each other in dismay.
"If I get half a chance," said Elizabeth bitterly, "I'll bite the damned thing off for him. Every man should have the damn thing bitten off at birth."
Lacey did not agree but said nothing. She realized the possibility of hating Roger's visit every bit as much as Elizabeth. If he caned her bottom any more, she was sure she would die. And she was so beautifully postured for caning of the bottom!
"Try and be nice to Roger," Lacey consoled wisely. "You're a lesbian so I know it's hard but he's really a nice guy and we mustn't blame him for keeping on the right side of the sisters. He's going to inherit Maiden Hall eventually."
"And I suppose you see yourself as Mrs. Roger and inheriting right along with him," Elizabeth said bitterly. "I refuse to kiss his male ass. I suppose we both know what he's going to do to us?"
"If you did kiss his male ass just a little, it might save your own a lot of pain," Lacey continued gently. "Darling, we're so damned helpless, I've never been so helpless. On top of that we're hurting. Roger could untie us, you know, if he wanted to."
"A fat lot of good that would do us," Elizabeth said scornfully. "We'll both be so damned stiff we couldn't say boo to a goose. The damned bastard could do anything he wanted to us and I suspect he will." There came a pause of heavy breathing in obvious thought before Elizabeth asked more humbly, "Well, okay, what should I say to the bastard? Something like 'all hail to the Master'? Or do I just ask him very humbly to fuck me because I want him to. Boy! that would be the lie of the century."
Lacey found it something to reflect upon. Two females, utterly helpless, both charged with guilt, awaiting the arrival of the omnipotent Male on whom their bottom and their sex would then depend. Elizabeth was blissfully supposing Lacey had the advantage but Lacey was by no means certain of this. Roger would consider Maiden Hall first of all. If he ever married her, it would be different but it was not different now. Her bottom, her breasts, her sex were all vulnerable to this man would possess the power of agony of ecstasy as he saw fit. Elizabeth might well be treated more kindly than she!
"Well, well! Dear little Lacey and beloved Elizabeth! Really, you two girls have an amazing aptitude for getting into trouble." Roger's male voice was, as always, cheerful and bright. "The aunts did tell me something of your sins but they don't really matter. What matters is I've been given a carte blanche to deal with you. What have you to say to that?"
"Hello, Roger, it's nice to see you again," Lacey ventured timidly. "Please hick me, Master," said Elizabeth, aiming for the heart of the matter.
"Well, well, well, what a diversity of greeting! Indeed, Lacey, my pet, it has been far too long a time. And Elizabeth, why, of course, I will grant your request. If someone told you I wouldn't do it because you asked for it, you got a ass steer. You will be well and truly fucked as becomes every lesbian. I wish I had the whole silly bunch of them laid out in a row, I'll fuck 'til doomsday."
The two girls found little to say. They shuffled around in their bondage a bit and tried to catch the male eye in sympathy. But the male eye was elusive, it centered more upon their female attributes than on their inquiring eyes.
"I suppose the sisters told you they were giving me carte blanche? This, of course, includes the betting of your bottoms, the insertion of dildos or placing you upon the horsy for a nice horsy ride. Maiden Hall has many ways of punishing a girl."
Elizabeth cringed. Since they could not capture the male regard, they turned to each other with expressions of dismay and performed another shuffle against the tether from above. Roger observed their struggles, their tugging and twistings with keen interest. Helpfully, he inquired, "I'm a great believer in the cane, myself, would it help if I gave you each a number of strokes, let us say ten or perhaps fifteen?"
"Drop dead, you bastard!" Elizabeth said as she lost what little control she had been forcing upon herself.
"Oh, Roger, please don't punish her for that. We've had such a bad day and it goes on and on and on," Lacey pleaded, praying she had influence at Court.
"My, my, you have an ardent champion, Miss Apple. Lacey is a jewel of a girl. I am reserving her punishment for later. In the meantime it is my intention to try and modify your lesbian instincts. Both of you are superbly postured for any sexual activity, pussy, ass or mouth. Which would you prefer to start?"
"Drop dead." Elizabeth was beyond caring. The zing of the zipper had become the herald of many a maiden's undoing. Lacey was already acquainted with Roger's male organ but Elizabeth eyed it in pure horror. Suavely the male suggested, "You can turn as you wish. I order you to present me with whatever part of yourself you intend to use for my pleasure."
For Elizabeth Apple it was the ultimate outrage, beyond such a male demand there was nothing further, no other depth to which she might sink. Lacey's advise was completely forgotten in her exclamation, "If you bring that near me, I'll bite it off."
Roger wasted no time, he was, after all, a master at this particular art. Maiden Hall had provided him with an endless number of unwilling and hostile maidens. He captured the unwilling hips and, with a single thrust, impaled the exposed sex Elizabeth could not hide. Lacey heard the wail of protest from female lips and the moan of anguish paying tribute to the conquering male.
But the conquering male had a vast experience with lesbians. He thrust brutally again and again and then suddenly withdrew, letting go of the captive hips, then turning her around to suit a new convenience. Elizabeth Apple found herself staring eye to eye with a wet male phallus and hearing the male command, "Cleanse it, lick it dry, take it in your mouth."
"I'll bite it off!" Elizabeth promised. "I told you I would and I will. Take it away."
Surprisingly Roger obeyed. He then did something which caught Lacey off guard. Bending down he grasped a handful of her hair to drag her head back so he could kiss her on the lips, a kiss he prolonged. Then, allowing her head to fall, he wound a bandage again and again around her eyes. Whatever might happen now, Lacey would be no witness. But she could hear the sounds.
"So you're going to bite if off, eh?" Roger's voice came cheerfully to the girl in darkness. "Haven't you forgotten this?" Roger took the cane from the wall and swished it in the air with cruel effect on female nerves. "You can stop me any time you decide to take me in your mouth."
The sounds were stomach-curling. Lacey could tell Roger was giving each blow everything he had and the sound of Elizabeth gasping and moaning told all too clearly of a female bottom being wealed and colored by a master's cane. The strokes were slow, giving time for reflection between each. After number seven Elizabeth's voice came in choked surrender, "I'll do it, I'll do it. You rotten.. . Never mind, I'll do it."
"I would not advise you to bite it off, Miss Apple."
"I was being silly, I couldn't do it if I tried. Let me get it over with."
Lacey recognized the sound and was glad she could not see. Perhaps the bandage on her eyes were Roger's admission of affection. Roger had treated his duties with the moppets of Maiden Hall lightheartedly. But there had never been anything casual about his use of her body when he possessed her. Lacey twisted against the tethering rope above and added her own gasping sounds to those of the woman bound at her side. Roger's voice came crisply.
"That will do, Miss Apple. We've established a principle here and you're excused the customary emission. You may thank me."
"Thank you, Sir." Elizabeth's voice was heartfelt in relief.
"But I'm somewhat bothered by the number seven, it offends me," Roger continued. "In the caning of lesbian's bottom's one should deal only in round numbers. I hope you agree?"
Lacey cringed in sympathy, she knew what was coming. It took Elizabeth longer to adjust to the male requirement, but she eventually managed a pale, "Yes, Sir, I expect you're right." The admission ended in what sounded like a sob.
"Let us say these three are reprimand for your lesbian tendencies, shall we?"
Elizabeth was silent. Lacey could imagine the woman's inner turmoil. The arts of Sappho cannot be cured by the cane. All the cane can do is extract lip service of denial. Slowly Elizabeth Apple made that denial. It was bitter gall. "I apologize for being lesbian, Sir. I understand why you give me pain. Thank you."
Lacey was amazed at Elizabeth's surrender, it was far more humble and complete than she would have ever guessed it could be. But she remembered her own encounter with the yellow cane and understood. There came then the swift whirling slashes across female flesh, the choked responses and then only the sobbing. After a while the sobbing ceased. There were sounds hard to identify but within a few minutes Lacey believed herself alone. Roger had taken Elizabeth elsewhere. Bitterly she wondered why.
The bandage made the punishment worse. The bound girl could be sure of nothing. Perhaps Roger was standing behind her, awaiting a favorable opportunity to strike, either with his male weapon or the cane. Lacey knew herself wickedly vulnerable to both. But quite probably she was simply serving the last part of her sentence. She would be left in the present strained and wracked posture until whatever time the sisters or Emily deemed proper. From time to time she moaned in a loneliness of spirit she could not control. Her leg irons mocked as she moved her feet. Her wrists and shoulders burned terribly.
Miss Lacey Evans was being punished.
12
Life Sentence
"Miss Apple is displaying most gratifying humility," Miss Lilly mused reflectively. "Our series of punishments inflicted on her over a long period, and ending in ravishment by dear Roger, have had the desired effect. I feel optimistic about dear Elizabeth."
"Behavior, yes. Her lesbianism I am not so sure about," Miss Alice responded. "I thought of testing her by placing her and Lacey together in a locked room. But I'm not so sure such a test is valid. It is in the nature of entrapment. Let us wait and watch. After those punishments she may revert to normal." Miss Alice sighed, she was seeing visions. "Lacey is such a charming girl. I would be sorry to every see her leaving Maiden Hall. She comes close to being the perfect prisoner." . "We are thinking along the same lines, dear," Miss Lilly admitted frankly. "By what expedient would you strive to prolong the dear girl's sentence? Six months slips by in no time."
"I suppose we could contrive a phony escape for dear Lacey. She would return to her mother and her home bearing the stigma of disgrace and would easily be retrieved from there." There was a brief chuckle. "It would not be the first time."
Miss Alice and Miss Lilly were sipping tea, the ritual Tea of the British, a time for quiet reflection and good conversation. Miss Lilly was inspired, "Why don't we ask the dear child up to share a sandwich with us? Perhaps we may learn something."
No maiden ever approached the privacy of the sister's Courtnidge in anything but trepidation, it was so with Lacey now. But the greetings were warm, the tea hot and zesty and the cucumber sandwiches a luxury the commoner did not enjoy. When the stock question came around, she gave the stock answer.
"Yes, of course, I'm happy here at Maiden Hall, you're so kind." She munched her sandwich quickly for fear there might not be time for another.
"We fear most of you girls give us that reply for fear of our displeasure," Miss Alice said. "Come now, dear, do be completely honest with us. Have not the many punishments inflicted upon you led to thoughts of escape?"
"Well.. . Yes, I suppose they have." Lacey smiled at both sisters brightly and added, "But we're not punished all the time, are we? When we're not being punished, it's very nice here. Even the leg irons and the straps."
"You are so sweet. We are wondering if you would not like to have your sentence prolonged beyond its original six months."
Lacey stopped eating and moaned inwardly. This was dangerous ground. How could she possibly tell these two how urgent was her desire to leave Maiden Hall forever. They would not only be hurt, but would punish her severely. Lacey had long ago recognized that whatever a girl did or said in Maiden Hall led inevitable to punishment. Lacey swallowed hard and did her best, "I think six months will be just about right for me. You've punished me so much I know I'm a far more sensible girl than when I first came." She failed to advance the thought that punishments still waiting would effect further benefits. She did add, "I do have mother to look after, you know. I mustn't forget my duty there."
"We would not dream of keeping you with us, dear, without your mother's consent."
Lacey had no wish to test her mother's affection. She was convinced Mrs. Evans would cheerfully agree to an additional six months or even six years. Forthrightly she said, "I want to go home at the end of six months. I think that is long enough. I will have been adequately punished by then."
Another sandwich was offered but in an atmosphere distinctly cool. "I should remind you, dear, of your status with us," Miss Alice chided.
"You are our prisoner, you cannot escape. You have become so accustomed to those leg irons you don't even know you're wearing them. Am I right?"
Lacey brought up her heavy artillery. "Aren't we forgetting Roger Bascombe? Roger wishes to marry me at the end of my sentence. I don't think he would want to wait any longer."
"If he will wait six months, he will wait twelve. We will have a talk with the dear boy about you."
The straps on Lacey's wrists and ankles seemed tightening in response. "But I don't think I'd like to wait that long, if you don't mind. Don't my wishes count for something?"
"Of course not, dear, don't be silly. Girls who are prisoners in Maiden Hall have no will of their own whatsoever, they do as they are told. Please, dear, don't earn a punishment while eating your sandwich."
Lacey longed to laugh, it was all too absurd. But she knew for certain that if she could leave this place at that moment she would do so. Tentatively she inquired, "Could I be allowed to talk to Roger about this?"
"We will talk to Roger, there is no need for you to say another word. You have made your position clear. We are disappointed."
Lacey drank tea quickly, she had little doubt her time was short. Conscious of whip and cane and crop, she said in desolation, "I suppose if twelve months meant that much to you, I would have to say yes." She amended hastily, "I would want to say yes, I would be your prisoner for a full year."
The sisters were miffed. They rang the bell. To Madam Chalfont they said curtly, "Please take Lacey away and punish her."
Lacey was close to tears as she was led away by firm female fingers on her bare arm. Outside the door resentment choked her voice, "I tried so hard to please, to say the right thing but they're impossible. Oh, Emily, what are you going to do to me?"
"Punish you, of course, you heard the order."
"Yes, yes, I know. But what sort of punishment? I'm so damned sick of being punished."
"In that case you must be punished all the more, hein!" Madam Chalfont said cheerfully. "I'd give it thought. No doubt something in the punishment room will suggest itself."
Lacey felt desperation. Anxiously she pleaded, "Emily, if you see Mr. Bascombe around today, please ask him to come and speak to me. Please?"
"It is something I suspect I should not do."
"Well, do it for me anyway. That's not asking much. Just tell him where you've got me tied or chained or whatever, that's all."
"I am thinking you may not wish Mr. Bascombe to behold you in the punishment I now devise." Emily's tone held sardonic humor as she took the leg irons and replaced them on Lacey's ankles with a spreader bar. "And now the little hands from front to back and you are ready for the hoist."
"Emily, you can't, this isn't possible, I'll die! You mustn't hang me upside down with my feet so wide apart, you mustn't."
"You will not die, you will hang sweetly and your furry little pussy will proclaim itself to all."
"But I don't want it to! It's horrible! A girl could die.. . "
"But you will not, cheri. I have suspended girls like this for far longer than you will be. Have no fear of death."
"But I look so awful.. . "
"Exactly."
It did not good to protest, this was her punishment and she would . suffer it. Mischievously, Madam Chalfont bent and kissed the exposed lips of Lacey's sex. She patted them gently in approval then went her way to leave the punished girl more disorganized and exposed then she had ever been before.
Lacey twisted at strapped wrists and gazed up at strapped ankles. By exerting her young body to its limit, she could raise her head enough to behold the focal point of her shame in its wide spread exposure. She relapsed in misery to await what she expected was would soon happen.
The view of a girl suspended upside down is limited and distorted. By struggling, Lacey could contrive to revolve but found it better to stay still. She devoutly hoped Roger Bascombe would not see her thus but was certain he would. No doubt Emily would inform him of her wish and had fastened her thus to increase her shame in punishment. If she wept her tears crossed her forehead towards the floor instead of her cheeks.
"I hear you wish to propose marriage to me, sweetheart." Roger's voice came from somewhere in the rear. "I am open to offers?"
"Oh, Roger, darling, get me out of this. Let me loose. And while you're doing it don't look."
"Of course I shall look." Roger repeated exactly the motions of Madam Chalfont, first the kiss then the pat. "Delightful little thing, isn't it. Every home should have one. By the way, I like this arrangement she's got you in with your hair falling down to the floor. Nicely feminine."
"Roger, it's awful, I'll die if you don't set me free. Look, darling, I'll do whatever you say if only you'll take me away and marry me. You can hang me up like this once a week and flog me once a week and use the cane on my bottom every day if you want. Is there anything else I can offer?"
"Well, there's your love and affection, of course. Should I add, obedience?"
"Yes, I'll be obedient, too. Oh, Roger, get me out of this. You have no idea how awful it is being upside down."
"Perhaps ten strokes with the cane first, dear heart?"
"Yes, oh yes.. . Anything you want! But please take me away from Maiden Hall and marry me. You did say you would."
There was no cane. Nor whip, nor strap. Instead there were males lips and fingertips exploring every crevasse of her body. "Very well, on those terms I accept you. You'll probably be sorry but that's your problem, darling. The aunts aren't going to like this one bit, but for once I'm going to have to be firm with them." He kissed her again in several interesting places. "A girl who offers so much is not easily refused."
"And you can tie me on the horse and hang me by my hands. And.. . and.. . and.. . "
"Of course, dear heart, but haven't you forgotten the fucking?"
"That, too! Oh, Roger, I'm so sorry for forgetting it. It's this upside down business. Please unfasten me."
"Don't let us be hasty now. Perhaps you should go over all your suggestions of what I should do to you again."
"Please don't make me, Roger, please untie me. I promise I'll do everything and then whatever else we can think up together. If there's ever a day when you forget to whip me, I'll be sure to remind you. Please let me down."
"Damndest proposal of marriage I've ever had," Roger mused thoughtfully.
Lacey suddenly knew everything was going to be all right, she could tell from Roger's voice and from the feel of Roger's fingertips. Miss Alice and Miss Lilly would come around and see things Roger's way. She had promised many things and offered much of her nakedness. But no doubt she could talk Roger out of at least half the punishments she had used as lure. But if she failed.. . Well, it would be no worse than Maiden Hall. And Roger was so wonderful in bed. Lacey wondered if her husband would chain her ankle every night!
