The curious young eyes were bright with interest. The moppet stood and surveyed her dis covery. It was evident that she was relishing each moment. Her gaze became even more intent as Eve writhed and tugged at the cords holding her to the tree. "You can't get loose, can you!" She said with satisfaction.
"Untie me, please." In her distress it seemed inconceivable that any passer-by could do other than produce a knife or fumble at the knots.
"Why should I?"
Eve groaned inwardly. Contrary humor was something she could do without. She had been tied for hours. Time would be getting short. This irritating child was her first hope of rescue.
"Because I'm in danger. If you leave me like this something terrible will happen."
"Like what?"
How say that she herself did not know! "The people who tied me here will come back." She said lamely.
"Haven't they raped you already?"
"Of course not. That isn't...."
"Then why are you naked?"
It was a good question. One on which Eve herself was unsure of the answer. She did her best. "To shame me. They are horrible. I've been tied like this all day. Let me loose. I'll tell you all I can."
"I've never seen a naked girl your age before. I want to look."
Desolation gripped Eve in a realization that this teen age hoyden might refuse to help. It was infuriating to feel the compulsion of the cords holding her tight against her tree and to endure the almost avid scrutiny of her nudity.
"You'll have lots of time to look at me while you are getting me loose." She pointed out hopefully. Then added, as a sort of bonus: "They took my clothes away. You'll have plenty of chances to examine me. I haven't a stitch to wear."
"Not much sense me untying you then, is there!" Was there a hint of humor beneath the reasonable voice! "Might as well leave you where you are now. You can't go running around the country with nothing on."
In frustration Eve strained against the biting thongs. She knew it was hopeless, but it might impress this girl with some sense of urgency. The watching eyes lit up. Interestedly but as casually as could be contrived the enigmatic child circled the tree, pausing here and there to finger a taut cord or test the strain upon bruised flesh.
"Your wrists and ankles are bleeding." Again the faint tone of approval. "They tied you beautifully tight. First off I thought it was a come-on. But whoever it was really foxed you."
"Of course I'm bleeding. I've been struggling all day." Eve retorted plaintively. "But it's hopeless! I can never get free. Please help me."
"It's better than they do on the movies." The girl observed, quite oblivious of the plea. "I mean, it's so lovely and tight. Real neat! Your tummy tied in like that, your wrists tied behind the tree and your ankles tied one each side. Gives a lovely view of your cunny. And I can see now you never would get loose. What's it feel like? I mean, to just have to stand like that?"
"But I don't have to stand like this. Not when you are here to get rid of these damn ropes."
"That's not what I mean." The young voice was earnest but unhurried. "Doesn't it give you a nice warm tingling sensation to be tied naked like that and know you have to stand there with your legs apart and wait for a man to come and rape you?"
"If you'd been a man I'd probably be free by now. They aren't all rapists."
"Oh come on now!" The youthful voice had acquired authority. "Don't you find it a lot more ... well natural, to be in the spot you are than to have to go through a lot of social motions? You know what's going to happen to you. You can't do a thing to stop it. Isn't it lovely you don't have to worry about your conscience or what mother told you not to do. Be honest, now. Tell me."
The child had perception. Perhaps she was older than she seemed. The captive was grudgingly aware that during the long day, when not governed by panic, such thoughts had entered her mind and such sensations mounted within her loins. She had been curious with herself, and angry. Now she was simply angry.
"Yes." She admitted reluctantly. "I suppose I did feel like that at odd moments. It's being a girl and being naked. You can't help thinking----"
Again the irritatingly rational retort: "Well, if it felt that good I don't see why you want me to untie you."
Anger triumphed. Eve let it brim over. "You are being deliberately mean! Why won't you untie me? You wouldn't want to be in the spot I'm in! Are you going to untie me or aren't you?" She tossed her head in frustration and, once more, surged against her bonds. She was tired, and very much afraid, and close to tears.
The younger girl grinned amusedly watching the ineffectual struggle. "I'd have to be out of my mind to let you loose." She confided. "Can't you see, this is a sort of once in a lifetime thing for me. I'm the kingpin. I can do what I like with you. I'm going to play."
"Play!" Eve exclaimed outraged. Then blushed into perplexed silence as understanding seeped into her mind.
"Sure. You have lovely breasts and nipples and some nice pouting lips down in that thatch. 'Bout all I get from girls like you is sneers and wisecracks. You won't sneer when I get busy on you."
"I'm not sneering." Eve wailed. "Oh, can't you understand! I'm in danger-perhaps we both are. Help me get away before they come back. I don't care about clothes. If we can just get to a house and a phone...."
Her companion laughed. "Know what I think! I think someone tied you like that for a joke. Maybe you helped 'em....Now you're scared because you have been there a long time."
Eve knew a terrible fascination as the girl approached. It was true, of course! She was bound and naked and this child was about to use her body and compel it to respond in ways both entrancing and detestable. She could struggle against the tree. It would not matter. What was to be done to her would be done. She knew an irrational reaction of happiness that it was a girl who would do this thing and not a man. Relax and enjoy it! If fear had not been implicit in her state she might have conceded wisdom in the cynicism.
She gasped as the lips found her nipple. Then the shrewd teeth with sufficient of a nip to cause her to test her bonds again and to look down in wonder at the small head so busily engaged below her chin. When the deft knowing fingers inserted themselves gently upon their task she knew herself lost, but fought the rising tide of ecstasy by thoughts of yesterday.
Was this naked bit of female flesh tied so firmly to a tree in an abandoned wood the sauve and composed Miss Trevor who had seemed almost to run Colby & Associates from her desk that guarded entry to the President himself. No one would believe it! She scarce believed it herself. How, in the space of thirty hours, could authority, poise, volition and clothing vanish, to be replaced by fear and shame and the trespass of hungry lips and hands upon her nakedness! If Winston Colby could see her now! Shame and anger engulfed her at the thought.
She was not naive, not without knowledge or experience. She knew that what was being done to her could follow but one course. Colby & Associates vanished into limbo. She surrendered to the role in which she had been cast. So expert were the lips and fingers that used her, that when the explosion came her moans and writhings must surely be of an intensity and abandon to appease whatever intent this contrary moppet might have with her. When lassitude had passed she opened her eyes to meet the mocking, satisfied gaze she longed to slap.
"Well, what now?" She asked tiredly. Then, impetuously and with sincerity, "You're damn clever at it."
"Enjoy?"
"Yes." It was a simple admission. "Aren't you going to ask me to untie you?"
"Would it do any good?"
"'Spose you could say I've worked my wicKed female lust on you, so why not. There's nothing else I could do to you, is there? If there is I want to know. I'd like to make you give me some fun. But can't do it tied to a tree."
"You could untie me."
"And not see you for dust! Don't kid me you'd hang around to pleasure poor little Lynn."
"I'd do anything you want if you'd free me. Honest I would!" Eve felt like a schoolgirl making impossible promises to a schoolmate. She had small hope from this inexplicable creature. But she had to try.
"Anything?" There was a quality of slyness in the single word.
"I mean it." Eve urged vehemently. She was scared. Time must now surely be short. She had no wish to discover what they would do to her if they came back. But there was no if. They were bound to return.
"I could easily leave you tied there."
"I know."
"What would you give me?"
"Pleasure. Money. What do you want?"
"I want you to tie me in exactly the way you are tied. Then you go away and leave me here."
The silence was charged, electric. Eve resisted exclamations. She had heard alright. But, in the end, she could not contain the single query.
"Why?"
"It doesn't matter, not to you. Will you do it?"
The negative was involuntary. "You don't understand what you're asking. I can't tie you like this and leave you for them to find."
"Why not?"
"I just couldn't. It would be a rotten thing to do."
"You can stay the way you are then. I told you that you enjoyed it. You don't really want to be set free at all."
"Oh, I do! I do! Where do you get this enjoy thing? I'm hurt, I'm bleeding, I'm tied and I'm scared. Why won't you help me?"
"I've offered you help. You turn me down."
"But don't you see," Eve's voice was pitious, "I can't decently put you in the spot I'm in. They might treat you horribly."
The younger girl laughed. "Suppose I want to be treated horribly?" She grinned confidingly, "I know Calvin had you tied like this. What I want to see is his face when he finds me tied here instead of you. I've sort of cheated on you up to now. I've known right along how you got in this jackpot. I didn't happen by just by accident."
"You ... you mean you're one of them?" Eve asked incredulously.
"Sort of. That make you feel better? 'Bout tying me up, I mean."
Eve had not time to fight the unequal battle. She felt as lost as though on the moon and this girl a little green man with horns. The whole day had made no sense. But she hurt wherever the cords cut into her flesh. She was overwhelmed by the panicky need to get away from the tree. "Very well," She capitulated, "Untie me."
"And you'll tie me exactly as you are, just as hard so I bleed too if I struggle?" The young voice was excited exultant.
"Yes, yes, if that's what you want." Eve agreed tiredly. "Just tell me what to do. Then I'll go."
How good it felt! Even the agony as the deeply imbedded cords were peeled from their grooves within her flesh. She chafed her wrists gratefully and licked away the bloodstains with her tongue. When she finally stepped away from the trunk, totally free, it seemed a small miracle. She savored freedom as though she had never previously possessed it. It was a glorious sensation.
So engrossed was she in the blessed relief of motion that the petulant young voice brought her back from a dream.
"Come on. It was you that said we had to hurry."
Eve started in shock at what she beheld. The child was beyond belief. Her clothes were scattered on the ground. Her youthful nakedness was backed hard against the tree, her arms stretched back. An open invitation to the cords. Her eyes were shining in some strange anticipation of her own that Eve could not fathom. Without clothes she seemed older than when dressed. Hers was not the unformed figure of a child. In this remarkable role she had chosen for herself she dis played poise.
Why argue! Why seek answers for which she did not know the questions! Here was opportunity. Take it and be thankful. The teen-ager knew what she wanted. For her the reasons must be good. Why dispute them! Eve picked up the cord still warm from her flesh, still stained with her blood. She became resolute.
Yet it is not easy to tie a girl to a tree. Not if it is the first time and done under duress and the spur of urgency. It was hard to believe that so little cord had held her so helpless. That these few strands could weld her to the tree! She found need to concentrate that they be made to perform their task this second time. She felt compunction in the belief that Lynn could have little understanding of the ordeal to which she so vehemently submitted.
Eve got both help and encouragement. As she looped and tentatively tugged the demanding voice chided and directed, "Harder. Pull it tight. Tighter than that! There were two circlets round each of your wrists. Remember...."
Eve remembered! She set squeamishness aside and became brutal. The new captive winced and squealed as the cords possessed her, but instantly adjured: "Don't pay attention if I hurt. Make it good so I can't even wiggle." Urgently now she found the slack and pulled it tight. Sought the most slender place on wrist and ankle. Cinched in the narrow waist and concave tummy as her own had been held but minutes previously. When she stepped back to view her work she felt an absurd pride.
Their roles reversed the two girls eyed each other speculatively. Cautiously, and with evident curiosity, Lynn tested her bonds. With vivid memories of her own impotence Eve watched as the slender figure against the trunk tugged and strained against the cords. Relapsing into acceptance Lynn grinned cheerfully and acknowledged:
"O.K. You kept your bargain. I can't get loose. Gosh it's a funny feeling! Maybe I'll get scared just like you. It does hurt-like you said. I'd like to struggle just to see if I could get loose. But I'll stand quiet like a good little captive and wait for them to find me." She giggled, "That's going to be a panic." Again she fluttered her shoulders in a useless effort to move her bound hands. Her failure obviously pleased her. Generously she suggested:
"Why don't you take my clothes? They'll stretch a bit. We aren't all that far apart even if you do think I'm just a bratty kid." The idea seemed to amuse her, "I'm not goin' to need 'em. I've got my tree to keep me warm."
Eve was touched. "But what about when they untie you?"
"I'll worry about that. No big thing. You take 'em. Hurry."
They were only a size too small. Both girls giggled as she pulled the flimsy bits and pieces around her and, after a brief try, discarded the bra. Suddenly there was a rapport between them.
"You sure you'll be alright?" Eve felt guilt.
"I'll be more alright then you will if you don't hurry."
"Would you care if they caught me?" Suddenly this seemed to matter.
"Oh, don't be silly." Lynn almost wailed. "I want me to occupy the stage, not you. If you're around Calvin won't look at me. Get going!"
Calvin and this child! It seemed impossible. Eve shrugged. Anything was possible now. Involuntarily she kissed the pinioned girl. Their lips found a warmth beyond that of a hasty parting. When she reached the bushes and the path she turned and raised her arm in salute. The naked Lynn tied to the tree seemed a contradiction of the joyous and the forlorn. Determinedly now Eve turned and ran.
* * *
It was in keeping with the whole absurd phantasmagoria that Beth and Cora should be waiting. They must have been traversing the path, heard her approach and taken positions so that they could confront her as she drew level. Eve stopped aghast, her way to freedom barred. The three eyed each other, two of them with amused astonishment, Eve with a sickening dis may. It was these two who had tied her to the tree.
The runaway fought savagely without hope. Soon she stood panting, her crossed wrists bound viciously behind her back. Lynn's scanty garb had not withstood the tussle. She was once more near-ly naked. She glared at her grinning captors. How far away Colby & Associates seemed! And where was the svelt Miss Trevor! This was a nightmare! Stubbornly she choked back the angry words. Let them talk and provide a clue. Beth was never chary with words.
"My, my, Cora girl. How'd you think our little chickadee got out'n her cage! Must'a had help, I'd say."
Cora grinned hugely. "Ain't hard to figger. Look at them bits and pieces she's wearin'. You know who they came from donch'a." She turned and demanded cheerfully, "What you do with that little gal?"
Eve saw no point in dissembling. "She's tied to the tree now." She said bluntly.
She saw no humor in her words. But Cora and Beth dissolved into merriment that was obviously genuine. Beth slapped her leg and laughingly exclaimed, "Wouldn't you know! We should'a thought of young Lynn! It's right down her alley."
"What's so damn funny?" Eve demanded testily.
"You wouldn't know, Honey." Cora assured her, still chortling. "But it'll come to you. All in good time...."
Eve leaped back down the path. Perhaps she could outrun them. They had not pinioned her feet. But within fifty paces strong hands grasped her arms and put an end to flight. Beth and Cora were women in their thirties, heavier than she, but lithe and frighteningly powerful. A girl does not run her swiftest with her hands tied. Now her hair was knotted in the firm grip of Cora's hand.
"I'll hold on to this, Honey. Just sort'a guide you back to the house. We was on our ways to fetch you. It's worked out just fine."
The captive girl was turned about and propelled back up the bath. "But what about the girl ... about Lynn? You can't leave her."
There was more merriment. "We sure as Hell can, Honey. That little Miss know-it-all's liable to feed them mosquitos real generous all night. Bet she forgot 'bout them. It was her idea, wasn't it for you to tie her the way you was...?"
Eve longed to plant her feet and make a stand. But the tug on her prisoned hair forbid. Stumbling between her captors she felt ineffectual in both words and action. But she tried.
"Look." She pleaded. "What's this all about? Don't you realize I don't know. I just don't know...."
"You mean you don't know Mr. Calvin?" Beth sounded surprised.
"Not that well. He's a customer of the company I work for. I've met him a few times. He took me out to lunch and invited me to a week-end party. Said I could come down with Marge. It all seemed so normal-and now look at me."
"They don't all get briefed remember." Cora reminded Beth. She tugged the captive hair in a firm but friendly fashion, "Honey, if you ain't gettin' paid, and you ain't gettin' kicks, then I'd say you was in for a peck of trouble." She giggled, "You must be one of them special ones."
"What's a 'special one'?" Eve felt the chill of fear. The cord round her wrists hurt brutally. They would be bleeding again.
"Look, Honey," Beth admonished. "We ain't tellin' you nothin'. Something's happened to you that don't happen to most gals. You must'a cut the cards wrong. You're a prisoner and you ain't goin' to get free. Try all you like. But we got you fixed all ways. And you can forget that bit 'bout givin' us money and calling the cops. There ain't goin' to be no deals and there ain't goin' to be no cops. Mr. Calvin he fixes everything real neat and tidy."
"But if I don't get back to the office Monday morning...."
"Don't you fret none. Mr. Calvin he'll have that fixed too."
"But Mr. Colby...!"
A knowing look passed between the two women. "Just forget your Mr. Colby, Honey." Cora advised. "He and Calvin's real buddies."
It sounded improbable. But her plight was real. Eve made another try, "I won't fight. The two of you can handle me easily. Please untie my wrists. They hurt horribly...."
"No." Beth was firm. "It's best you be tied. It's supposed to hurt. Keeps you in a proper frame of mind. You best get used to bein' hurt. You ain't hardly started...."
A faint tinge of sympathy in the woman's voice held more menace than a brutal threat. Eve shivered.
It was good to see Marge again. At least it returned her part way to normalcy after the shaming walk back to the house and an even more humiliating passage through the halls and rooms to where she now stood uncertainly on the lush carpet of the small lounge, distastefully aware of her scant and torn attire and her bound hands. The wardresses had discreetly withdrawn and closed the door. Eve stood in the center of the room overwhelmed by incongruity. Nothing made sense!
Looking at Marge the captive realized she knew no more of her than she did of Calvin. Probably one of his mistresses of times past. Now a housekeeper ... a secretary ... a social director...? One title was as good as another. But was she friend or foe!
It felt good to be kissed. The lips were genuine. The smile unforced. She had always liked this girl, somewhat older than herself, who had often accompanied Calvin and in whose company she felt no qualms. A weekend of fun at the country estate....She tugged at her bound hands. Was this fun! Marge made no move to release her.
The older girl poured two drinks. She held one to the captive's lips. Eve gulped avidly. She needed it!
Marge sipped quietly. "Sit down." She said. "Your hands won't be untied. I'll tell you what you are supposed to know at this point." Again she offered the drink, tilting the glass as Eve emptied it. Then, herself, lounged comfortably in a chair. Eve felt silly. It was all too impossible.
"Calvin and I are quite genuine. All you have seen of us was quite real." Marge's voice sounded a little tired as though she had told this tale too many times before. "But he is not an ordinary man. He is ... well, uninhibited, let's say. He does pretty much what he likes. He has his own ideas about women. He likes us. But I sometimes think he doesn't regard us as people. For sure he isn't a woman's libber. He uses us, sometimes for fun, sometimes for profit. Often there's no sex in it....He has his own odd sense of humor."
"Untie my hands." Eve was in no mood for a sermon.
"Oh come, don't be uppity. If you can't keep quiet for a few minutes I'm quite willing to tie your ankles so they hurt and your elbows so that they hurt a great deal more. Would you like that?"
Eve sniffed as eloquently as she could. But relapsed into silence.
"I don't always know the whole story." Marge continued. "You know ... 'mine not to reason why ... ', I have a job to do. I do it. Mostly I like it. I like seeing you sitting there half naked, your hands tied behind your back, your lips pouting sullenly. You're a damn pretty picture. Don't you forget it! It'll be about your only stock in trade for awhile.
"Calvin's got a little Kingdom here with this Estate. And believe me he's King and he knows it and you'd better know it. There's nearly always a girl around-apart from the usual guests, I mean. Sometimes there are several. He pays some of 'em. A lot just get sweet talked into being here. Some he simply kidnaps...."
"But the police! He can't...!"
"Oh yes he can, Sweetheart! Remember, he's got all the money there is. But the real thing is that things happen. The girl that walks out of here isn't always the girl that walked in. She's had an experience. She can't ever be quite the same afterwards. She does not go to the police because she has her own good reasons by then for not going. You'd run right to 'em at this moment, wouldn't you! That's one of the reasons your hands stay tied."
"Alright! So I can't call the police. But when I'm missing Colby will."
Marge grinned commiseratingly. "He won't, Eve. Believe me he won't. I know. Best forget that."
"But you ... I thought you were a friend?"
Marge poured another drink and held it to the eager lips. "I am a friend. There's nothing personal from me to you in what's happening. There may be odd times when you'll find me nice to have around."
"But why the mystery?" Eve wailed. "What does Calvin want of me? It can't be just to get me in bed, I'm sure. Why was I tied to that damn tree this morning?"
Marge laughed. "That was a bit of his quaint humor. Probably nothing more than a whimsical notion. He did it to me once." Suddenly she frowned. "Say, you were supposed to be naked. You were, weren't you? Where'd you get those clothes you're bursting out of?" Eve told her.
Again the story evoked laughter. Marge found it as hilarious as had Cora and Beth. "You mean young Lynn's tied down there naked?"
"Someone ought to go and set her free." Eve said accusingly. "I don't see what's so funny about it. Where does she fit in the picture anyway?"
"She's my kid sister, and she's a brat." Marge was immensely entertained. "She's outsmarted herself. She jumped to the conclusion that it was Calvin who'd go and set you free. But he isn't even here right now. The little puss is going to have a long bare wait."
"You're not going to leave your own sister like that...?"
"Why not! She's a little baggage. She has a crush on Calvin. Wants him to see her pubic hair I expect. Thinks he may notice her a bit more. A night alone against that tree will do her good."
"No don't!" Eve pleaded. "She'll get hysterical when it gets dark. It's an awful feeling being tied like that. I wanted to scream myself. Being naked makes it twice as bad."
"Hysterical! You don't know young Lynn."
"Well, if someone's got to be tied there take me back and tie me the way I was. I feel guilty about that kid. I shouldn't have let her persuade me."
"Don't be ridiculous." Marge gave her bound guest an earnest look. "I have to suggest to you that try and digest the fact that what you want or feel has ceased to matter for the time being, Sweetheart. I know it's a hard one to take. But for the moment your opinions just don't rate. You are just a beautiful female body that things will happen to."
"You mean I'm going to be mauled and ... used?"
"Don't be dramatic, darling. We are both past the fate worse than death bit. It's going to be both better and worse than you think." Marge held up an admonitory hand, "Look darling, today is an awkward one to get over. I'd love to spend the rest of it with you. But you'd never stop pestering me with questions. Better you sit and think all on your own. Tomorrow will be full of surprises and as time goes by you'll get your answers. What happens to you now is orders. Not my idea."
It was a prison cell. Beautifully functional. Painted white like a hospital ward. Three blank walls. The front and the door heavily barred. It held a cot and a mattress, one pillow and a blanket. A washbowl and a toilet starkly stated their permanent intent. One could be locked in this small room forever. Eve cringingly recalled movies of such places. Except for one incongruity she might have seen the place before. The exception was the grim ringbolts set here and there in the walls. They screamed aloud their purpose.
Cora and Beth had been irritatingly cheerful as they installed their captive in her prison. They had untied her hands, then taken from her the remnants of Lynn's clothes. "Little gals don't wear no clothes in this room." Beth had assured her. "Boss man wants to see what he's got for himself. And remember, Honey, that blanket ain't to wear. It's just for when you sleep. You start draping it round yourself and we take it away. That goes for no matter who looks through them bars. Understand?"
Eve had understood. It was evident that she was to be shamed. She had not argued. She was suddenly tired. The cot had looked inviting. She had not even resisted when they had produced the chain and the collar. It was no more incredible than any of the rest. She had sat passive on the mattress as they had locked the metal band round her neck and padlocked the end of the chain to a ringbolt. When they had gone, laughing as usual as though at some vastly amusing private joke, and slamming shut the bared door with a demonstrative snapping of locks and metallic clang of bolts she took stock of her plight.
First the chain. Its mediaeval hold upon her clearly indicated some intent beyond keeping her captive. A wish to humiliate, to throw her off balance. The door alone would have been enough. Only dynamite or blow torches would open it without the key. The collar round her neck and the links that attached it to the wall were heavy. It could not be ignored. Experiment proved it long enough that she could do what she must. But she could not reach the door or the bars. She would make no charming picture of a maid forlorn clutching and peering through their lattice. But she could lay down in comfort, the weight of her metal tether resting with her on the mattress.
What of Calvin! It was to him she owed this prisonment. Yet he was not even present. Was he simply one of a group of oddballs who did this sort of thing for kicks and got away with it because of money. If she was offered some round sum now would she go home and say nothing! Would she! It was a question she could not answer. She had been scared but not hurt.
Or was it outrage! If sex was to enter the picture now she would feel outrage. Her nudity screamed of sex. It was like the chain, an intent to condition the mind. A girl kept naked long enough would accept some violation of her flesh more readily than if clothed. For the first time she recognized the almost impregnable citadel of even the scantiest feminine garb.
She was neither a prude or promiscuous. She examined her possible tolerance of nastiness. She would be given no choice, of course, but how deeply would she be wounded! Could she shrug off the clutch of lewd hands upon her breasts and the probings of male fingers within her vagina. Or teeth biting at her nipples....Did this ugliness await! Was it for that she sat here chained! She doubted it. There was something else.
How well could she cope! Pride demanded that she cope. Was pride the key to herself! The immaculate Miss Trevor of Colby & Associates had formed a poor opinion of men. Most were schoolboys playing their chosen role. Those with whom she had shared love were few and carefully chosen. Calvin could have been one. He possessed her requisites of charm and decision. There had been sufficient emphathy between them that he would have known he need not kidnap her. But her naked state spoke of the male. What else would a male want her for! It had to be Sex! It had to be! But her logic failed to satisfy. There was a missing factor. Wearily she turned to the hope, faint but there, that the whole thing was a bad joke. Something to laugh about afterwards. She might be released at any moment. There would be much laughter and drinks all round. It was as likely a premise as any. It even lulled her to sleep without the blanket.
She felt certain that much time had passed when the commotion awakened her. The cacophony of laughter and vehement protest sorted itself out into voices she recognized. The cell door was unlocked and an angry and naked Lynn was speedily deposited on the floor. Cora sat on the struggling victim while Beth grabbed a wildly kicking ankle and locked it to a ring and anklet. The widely grinning wardresses then withdrew quite unperturbed by the rude sounds, the grimaces and the obloquy levelled at them by their panting burden.
Eve found it hard not to be amused. The furious teen-ager had worked herself into such a state of frustration that she seemed likely to explode. It was obvious that she would have committed violence had she been able. But her crossed wrists were tied behind her back and her ankle firmly held in the grip of metal. Her hair was in wild disarray. Shaking it to clear her vision she turned her attention to her cell mate.
"So you let 'em catch you!" Her voice was irritated and accusing. "Damn and blast! I botched the whole thing, didn't I! I'd like to kick that Cora in the twat...!"
"What's the time?" Eve ventured.
"If I had a watch I couldn't look at it." Retorted the victim ungraciously. "But I saw a clock as they dragged me down. It's past one in the morning. Those bastards left me there in the dark. Big joke! I must have been nuts to get myself in that jackpot. You told 'em I was there, didn't you?"
"Of course. I even offered to go back and take your place. But everyone seemed to think it a wonderful idea to leave you alone. I got the impression they might leave you tied there all night. I'm sorry I got you into it. Here, let me untie your hands."
Lynn struggled to her feet. Then stood irresolute. "No. Better not. They told me not to let you. I'm supposed to have an uncomfortable night."
"You mean you are being punished?"
"I suppose you could call it that. They call it teasing. Marge was mad at me about Calvin so here I am like this. It's not the first time." The pert face looked amusedly at Eve, "You got us all figured out yet? Did Marge tell you anything?"
"Nothing that makes any sense."
"Well, I can't help you. I have an idea why you are here. But I'm not sure. Anyway they told me to keep quiet. So don't ask me questions please. I don't want to stay in here a week."
Eve was shocked. The girl's last words had sounded pathetic. "You don't mean....Your own sister...?"
"Well, they have only threatened me with a week so far. But there's been the odd couple of days and nights." Lynn seemed to find nothing remarkable about her statement. "Funny they never thought of tying me to that damn tree before. Don't know how you came to draw that one. Say, that's bloody awful, having to just stand there while it gets dark...! Damn that Calvin...!"
"If you'd known he was leaving would you have set me free?" Eve asked mischievously.
"Yes. Honest I would! After I'd had my bit of fun, that is. It would have been safe enough. They couldn't have known it was me. There is the occasional local who uses that path." Lynn's eyes lit up. "Say! Here's your chance to pay me back. You owe me y'know."
She took an eager step forward and then uttered an emphatic "Damn!" as she kicked at the chain that snubbed her ankle. "Those bastards! Those two dirty bastards! They must have guessed. They have us chained so we can't get close enough for that. What I'll do to them if I ever get the chance!
Eve laughingly tested her own tether. The girl was right. They could come close. But not close enough to give this nymphet what she so avidly longed for. But with her hands free she could reach the bound wrists. "Let me untie you." She urged. "I can see it's tight. It will be hard to sleep with your hands tied behind you like that. I'll tie you again in the morning so they won't know-if it matters all that much."
"They'd know." Lynn said with certainty. She looked at her companion confidingly, "There's a lot I can get away with here. Actually I have a ball. But here and there I have to be a good girl. I think this is one of those times. Marge wasn't too pleased about that tree deal. This is her way of telling dear little Lynn to smarten up. Best thing you and me can do right now is go to sleep. I'm bushed! Even the floor looks good." Eve gave her the blanket.
* * *
Miss Trevor, attired in her own clothes without vestige of cord or shackle, sat at her own desk in her own office. Before her lay the day's correspondence and a couple of current files she recognized. A reassuring normalcy pervaded the compartment....
So it had all been just a dream. "Like Hell it's a dream!" She vehemently muttered to herself. She had heard the lock click in the door as her jailers had left her alone. But it had the unreality of a dream. An hour ago chained naked in a cell. Now a business woman of consequence. Would Colby open his door and come in with a sheaf of papers!
It was not Colby! Miss Trevor recognized the man who did enter, and for the first time in this absurd adventure knew fear. Intuition thrust at her a possible answer to the questions others had evaded. "Good afternoon Mr. Ennerson." She said evenly without a tremor.
"Call me Jed." Suggested the newcomer. "Remember last time? I suggested it then." Lazily he draped his considerable bulk over the corner of her desk.
Miss Trevor hated men who did that. She gave them short shrift. "There is a chair." She said icily, "Use it."
He did not move. "Nice office you have here."
She sensed the taunt in his voice. "Somebody's peculiar sense of humor, I suppose." She conceded.
"Damn near perfect." He looked at her musing-ly. "You are perfect."
"Thank you. Will you please take a chair."
"No."
The word hung between them like a fused bomb. "In that case I will." She moved to an arm chair. She hated him.
With the same indolence he took the seat she had vacated. "Move over in front." He laughed, "Different sides of the desk. That ought to please you."
Pride forbid a scuffle at a locked door. Dignity was hanging in the balance. She changed seats and managed to make the act seem of her own volition.
"You remembering?" He asked quietly.
"Yes. I remember." Said Miss Trevor. "I slapped your face. You were a boor then. You are a boor now."
Ennerson sighed gently. "You know how to make words hurt. But I'm glad you said 'em. You haven't changed. I'd have been disappointed if you had."
"If you approve why stay around?" It was pushing her luck. But she wanted answers.
"Can't you guess?" He smiled.
Eve could guess. But she would not countenance that guess. Not yet!
"I suppose you find yourself in a position to thrust your presence upon me. I may have to endure it. I shall abhor every moment."
Miss Trevor saw Ennerson's expression change to that of an adult considering knowledge of which the child was not even aware: A melancholy omnipotence.
"Anybody ever whip your ass?" He inquired conversationally.
It could be only a coarse colloquialism. She let it rest. She hoped he could not sense the chill that clutched her spine.
"Knew a chap once, bit a girl's tits off."
Striding to the door was an act almost involuntary. She knew it would be locked. It was. She tried the other by which he had entered. That, too, was firm. The view of Parkland from the window was excellent. It told her she was too high to jump. She resumed her seat facing him. "What do you want?" She demanded.
"Your hide." He made it sound a very natural wish.
"You propose to flay me?"
He surveyed her earnestly with a half smile. "Look," He said, "Let's stop being clever with words. It's not my forte. I expect you have a fair idea of why you are here. I sort of like things cut and dried myself, so I'll put it into simple words. You are here to be humbled. I'm going to make the snooty Miss Trevor crawl and beg. You really got under my skin. Now I'm going to get under yours."
"Beat me?"
"That's a corny expression that gets misused a lot. No, I'm not going to beat you. No black eyes. No puffed lips or broken nose. Nothing that makes an animal out of me and a heroine out of you. I'm going to make sure you are as beautiful at the finish as you are at the start. I'm going to break you with pain. Pain that will never mark your face save with emotion. Pain that goes on and on in more ways than you can guess. Ways that, if you will bear with the expression, will have a certain aesthetic quality in their infliction."
Miss Trevor considered the proposition and delt it the coldest blow she could devise.
"Mr. Ennerson, I can accept the melodramatic outline and intent." She eyed him with a bitter distaste. "Supposing I concede that you can do as you say. Your plan has a flaw. An army surrounded and outnumbered surrenders. That is what I will do. There is no other sensible course. I will do whatever I must, passive, docile....Will you have a victory?"
He laughed with genuine pleasure. "We should have taped that bit." He chuckled. "I'd have liked to play it back to you a month from now. It's right out of one of those pulp magazines an old aunt of mine used to read." He eyed her with a changed mood. "It's your reasoning that's flawed. You overlook a bit about retribution."
"You'll hurt me out of vindictiveness?"
He considered her question. "No." He said slowly. "What I'm going to do is train you. I think that's the best word for it. You are going to come out of this a wiser and better girl."
"And pregnant too?"
Ennerson made a gesture of resignation. "O.K. Have the last word. Use that flip tongue. Play Lady Vere de Vere. I don't mind. In fact I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm hoping that this haughty act you play stems from courage and that this courage will last you a long, long time. I'm not really in a hurry...."
He pressed a button on the desk.
Neither of them were aware. But it was at this point that the immaculate Miss Trevor left the scene. Her place in the chair was taken by a frightened girl named Eve.
It all happened very quickly. Cora and Beth were as cheerful and expert as ever. They refused her offer to come quietly. Each held one of her ars, "Just in case, Honey." Beth chided as they led her to The Room. Within a few minutes she was alone, hanging by her widely separated wrists, her toes an inch off the floor that her strained taut limbs could never reach. Her wrists were on fire. She was panting more from shock than exertion. She struggled wildly and angrily. But soon desisted. It hurt too much. She was not quite alone. Her companion was fear.
The coming of Marge flared a brief hope that died as soon as it was born. "I can tell you now, Sweetheart." The older woman said briefly, "Ennerson has an 'In' with Calvin. It's been O.K.'d that he can do as he wants with you. You must really have laid it on him to make him feel the way he does. I wish I could tell you how to act so as to make it as easy and as short as possible. But I don't know the guy and I'm not supposed to interfere. It could be bad and it could last. Sex is mixed up in it so that it's all unpredictable. I've had a bit of it myself. It never turns out the way you expect." She pondered, "The littlest things change it sometimes...." A moment later she was gone.
To simply hang. A steady attrition of pain. Eve supposed that to hang thus would probably be considered by professionals as a very mild torture. Probably not torture at all: a softening up process. Certainly it gave time to think. But she could not think. She hurt! It seemed impossible that her toes could find no resting place. Surely she was stretched enough! But by no strain could she achieve contact. She realized miserably that this was part of her punishment.
She surveyed the word. Her use of it was a discovery. Ennerson had used the term retribution. It was a sickening thought. Suspended like this, not to extract a promise or compel an act, but only as punishment. The infliction of pain for the sake of pain. It robbed one of hope. She could not bargain. She could only endure.
Eve found herself forced to a re-examination of the man who seemed now to possess her, and her own reaction to what was taking place. Men and women play a game: thrust and parry, upmanship. The witty retort, the wise crack, the dissembling. In love or in hate they would show themselves briefly. Was the facade of Jed Ennerson masking an Inquisitor! Had the polish of Colby & Associates sheathed Miss Trevor in an armor of consequence behind which trembled a female naked and untouched. When he came to gloat, as she supposed he would, what weapon would serve her best. Tears! Pleas! An icy silence. She was forced to realize that she held no initiative. She would respond to the exigencies of her flesh.
When he finally came he was carrying a long slender cane. He surveyed her suspended figure briefly, nodded in approval. Then, casually without a word, removed her clothes.
As his deft fingers stripped away the last vestiges of a Corporate Secretary named Miss Trevor, Eve fought down the angry words that would add to his pleasure. Nudity would be implicit in her condition. She closed her eyes whilst she was stripped, retiring into the sole privacy left, flinching only when he tore away the shoulder straps that her bonds would not accommodate.
She was to be whipped! When he had made her naked he would lash her with the limber thing he had brought for the purpose. Behind her closed eyelids her mind seethed with the knowledge. Her only knowledge of agony was from books. Would she bear it with fortitude simply as an indignity. The British stiff upper lip thing! Or would the flesh betray her as her bare skin absorbed the blows!
When she was naked she opened her eyes. To have kept them closed would be childish. Jed Ennerson was frankly appraising her body. He circled it slowly, nodding in satisfaction. "If you had not been beautiful I would not have wanted to do this." He said simply. Then, half savagely, half playfully, he did a thing that crumbled her defenses. With thumb and forefinger he gripped a small tuft of her pubic hair and tore it out by the roots.
The suspended girl cried out in anger, shock and pain. Her legs threshed. The swift tug caused her to swing in her bonds intensifying the infliction to her wrists, arms and shoulders. She threw her head back in distress. Then brought her eyes to bear direct into his. She uttered no word. Nor did he. Silent they took each other's measure.
Finally it was Jed Ennerson who spoke. Picking up the cane he flexed it back and forth and cut the air with it so as to make his victim flinch. "I'm going to use this on you." He said pleasantly. "It will probably be the best thing that ever happened."
It was not hard for Eve to stay silent. His statement of intent had said all that need be said. Her behavior under the whip would probably demean her enough. Why preface her punishment with useless pleas. Every nerve and sinew tensed as he took up his position at her back.
There was a sickening penetrating quality in the pain far different from anything she had expected or ever known. It seared. It cut. It bruised. It violated every part of her. She sensed and could see in her mind's eye the puffed raised ridge of flesh that marked its path across her bottom. She raised one leg and let it fall, then the other. Her head tossed. She never knew if she had uttered sound. Shock had obliterated everything but the impact. Her being cringed and pulsed under what had been done to it.
Time had given way to pain. In it she had but one thought. One stroke ... one! There would be others. The next likely to fall at any moment. How many cuts upon her flesh would Jed Ennerson inflict! Five, ten, twenty! Numbers like a hundred or even fifty had become unthinkable. Yet one had read of it....Eve knew with certainty that she could not bear another.
He would keep her constantly off balance. She watched wonderingly as he set the cane against the wall.
"You have had number one." He said tolerantly. "It has to be a milestone in a girl's life." He grinned, "Them that's lucky enough to get it. It's an introduction, a whole new world. You glimpse possibilities you never dreamed of. You see men and yourself from a new angle. It's something to think about, to ponder and let seep in. I'm going to leave you hang like that for an hour. Then I'll return and give you twenty strokes just like you've had across that cute butt of yours."
He turned to leave. But was halted by Eve's quavering voice. "I'll do anything you want." She said with finality.
He surveyed her, nodding in understanding. "Yes, you will, won't you." He agreed pleasantly.
He turned and left the room and slammed the door.
Hanging alone almost bereft of hope, Eve gained what comfort she could from the premise that she was being cleverly conditioned. To what end she did not know. But much of the indignity heaped upon her thus far had been psychological.
The single awful stroke of the cane stood out as a sort of punctuation. A period marking an end and a beginning. It was quite different from the dreary misery of hanging by her wrists. Without the cane she would still be shamed by her nakedness and the brutal theft of pubic hair. Now to be naked was obvious and natural. A girl is not whipped through her clothes! She glanced pathetically at the small scraps of expensive materials scattered on the floor. Were they
THE ENDof Miss Trevor! Was that all Miss Trevor had ever been!
She nurtured her courage for the cane. But the sight of its wicked length placed where she could best see it offered little sustenance. It was to cut into her softest flesh twenty times. She would hang naked as she was now without defense. In an hour Jed Ennerson would return and, probably without a single word, would whip her savagely. She found herself suddenly in panic at the realization that because the first stroke had fallen across her bottom it did not follow that the other twenty would wound her there also. Shudderingly she thought of her breasts. Looking down she saw them stretched taut, nipples inverted, yet still curved and wickedly vulnerable. She had read of that too....
Time passed. Ennerson did not come. No one came. Eve hung by her wrists, her shoulders wracked and strained. She could not measure time by pain. There was too much of it. In the end she longed for the whip. No matter how it might break her spirit it might end the torment of her corded wrists. Fears and longings merged into a single wish for the peace of her prison cell. She wept and could not dry her tears.
When the two women came to set her free Eve was but half conscious. The pain as her arms were lowered and the cords peeled from her wrists revived her. Strangely there was but one thought in her mind: Ennerson had not come back. The utter bastard! He had never intended to return. She had not been whipped. The twenty strokes were but one more ploy in the game they played with her. Why, oh why! Almost she wished she had been whipped. It would have been definite. Now she was still uncertain....Feminine curiosity compelled her question.
"He said he was going to whip me. Why didn't he?" Her voice sounded lifeless.
"Can't tell about 'em, Honey." Beth assured her jovially. "They do what they damn please. Don't you worry none. Lots of time to get that cute ass of yours sliced. You got one Hell of a good start on there already."
She lay sprawled limply on her cot as Cora locked the metal collar round her neck. She did not move or even look when the wardresses left and clashed the door shut. She wanted to savor the cessation of pain, the miracle of being able to move as she wished. She let the afternoon recede away from her as a tidal wave of bitter memory.
She had no way of knowing how long she slept. She was awakened by fingers fumbling at her collar. Alarm changed to gladness as she found herself face to face with the earnest features of Lynn as the younger girl grappled with key and lock.
"Oh damn!" The youngster exclaimed. "They leave the key to the cell outside in the passage. I thought I'd stolen the right one for your collar but it won't fit. Marge must have it or else it's hidden somewhere. I was going to stage the Great Escape. Bloody infuriating to be foxed by that damn thing around your neck-"
Eve clasped the angry child. How good it felt to hold some human flesh that meant you well! They kissed lingeringly, the stubborn circlet of metal forgotten.
"Could you really have got me out of the house and away?" Eve asked wonderingly.
"With a bit of luck, yes. I'd go and look again if I had the faintest idea where."
How bitter the knowledge that she remained captive because of a metal band round her neck and a length of chain locked to the wall. Thus dogs were held! She had supposed her collar and chain were to shame her only. The knowledge that they had a more practical use made Eve feel more a prisoner than ever. Yet it was she who comforted a disconsolate Lynn. The child was furious over her failure.
It was inevitable that they seek each other in love. Lynn hurled her clothes from her in a sudden ecstasy of a passion beyond her years. Eve found something in this eager child she had never known. They reached for each other hungrily. It was thus that Marge found them.
The older woman stood and surveyed the oblivious pair with a mixture of sadness and amusement. She was neither shocked or surprised. "Enjoying yourselves?" She asked casually.
Lynn sat up. Directing a hostile stare at her sister she said accusingly: "You were supposed to be out for the evening."
"Just to test you, Darling. I had suspicions."
"Damn!" Lynn said morosely as though the one word said everything.
Eve was aware of flaming cheeks. She could feel the blush suffusing her features and creeping lower. She wished she had the younger girl's aplomb. She found herself a spectator in what followed.
"Naughty, naughty!" Marge shook an admonitory finger at her youthful sister.
"You know what you can do with your naughty, naughty, don't you." Lynn retorted belligerently. "You tricked me."
"The key, darling, where is it?" Marge held out her hand.
"In my clothes somewhere."
Marge gathered up the scattered trifles and found the key in one of them. She made a small bundle of the clothes and placed them outside the door. Her eyes roved the cell and found the key that had not fit. She picked it up off the floor where Lynn had dropped it in disgust. Laughing she said: "It fits one of the padlocks on the park gates. But you had to get into my desk drawer to find it, didn't you, Sweetie. That's another black mark."
"So now I'm in for something beastly, I suppose." The quality of resignation in the child's voice surprised the watching Eve.
"I wouldn't call it beastly. But you won't like it." Marge left the cell and returned in a few minutes with two objects, the sight of which triggered a wail of protest from the teenager.
"Oh Marge, that's a lousy thing to do to me. It's mean!"
"Keep you out of trouble, Darling. Come on. Don't give me any static."
Eve watched puzzled. What authority existed in this place that caused the normally rebellious and effervescent Lynn to accept discipline with no more than verbal plaints. The girl maintained a steady accusing stream of complaint, but obediently and sulkily stepped into a pair of heavy but beautifully fashioned leather panties that were secured by a tightly strapped band about her waist. It was provided with a hasp through which Marge snapped a padlock. Eve found herself blushing again as she divined the intent behind the cruelly efficient chastity belt. The second quaint contrivance was a gag. Lynn's pleading became noticeably more sincere.
"Oh Marge, please! Don't put that thing on me. I hate it: It's awful not being able to talk. Punish me some other way-you've got enough chains and things...."
"Open up, darling. Don't fuss."
Dejectedly the younger girl opened her mouth and accepted the rubber plug that rested on her tongue and filled her cheeks. Eve could see that it was a good mouthful. Marge fitted the sinister harness with deft adjustments. It was joined at the back of the slender neck, the hair lifted away to ensure the tight buckling of the band that compressed the prisoned cheeks and mouth. Another padlock ensured its permanence. Again Eve realized that this infliction, too held a dual intent. There was humor in the look and the wink Marge sent her way as she completed her task. "Punishment fits the crime, darlings." She said cheerfully. "You can share the cot tonight. Dear Little Sis won't have a chain on her. See how kind I am."
When she was gone, with the door loudly locked behind her, the harnessed moppet tore and tugged at the confinements imposed upon her loins and her mouth. Her most frantic struggles moved them no particle of an inch. It was an expression of frustration rather than an effort at escape. When she tried to sparkle of good nature returned to her eyes. She planted herself before Eve and turned her back.
The invitation was obvious. Eve took her turn at tugging at the buckles and the locks. It was hopeless! Playfully she also fingered the tight leather about the slender hips, giving particular attention to the band that separated the softness of the thighs and completely hid the pubic hair. It was contoured. It was very tight. It was amply broad of its purpose so that walking would not be comfortable. It was impregnable! When the examination was over the victim turned and crinkled her eyes in a grin and shrugged her shoulders in resignation.
That night they shared the cot and the blanket. But they did not make love.
* * *
Eve was angry at her own compliance. It was all too absurd! But Marge had persuaded her. It was Marge now who sat across the desk in the same office and considered the immaculately attired Miss Trevor.
"You have nothing to lose, darling. It's not painful. You even have clothes on. This charade pleases somebody. Why not roll with the punch. It's better than a brawl with Beth and Cora."
"If you are going to usher in every lout that I ever cut down to size and invite them to whip me we have a life's work. What happened to that Ennerson gorilla?"
Marge laughed delightedly. "He got cold feet. Or his better instincts triumphed. Or you reminded him of his kid sister or something. After he'd given you that really super stripe across your bum he came back to me, downed three huge drinks one after the other, said it had been a damned interesting experience, then drove back to town. Fini. What feminine wile did you practice on him? Maybe I could use it sometime."
"You mean you get strung up by the wrists sometimes?"
"It's happened." Marge held up a warning hand. "No questions. Remember? You take things as they come."
"What maladjusted creep do I get today? I suppose there is one?"
Marge waved a placating hand. "Don't get too hostile. You don't have to like what happens. But don't provoke. Sounds silly, but it could be Jed Ennerson didn't do you a kindness yesterday. If he'd given you those twenty lashes you'd be a very different girl today. Believe me. I know."
"You mean I have to be whipped into total submission and the sooner we get the job done with the better?"
"There's a bit more purpose behind it all than that. But yes, I can't imagine you won't be whipped, probably quite terribly. Those twenty promised you yesterday were for sure if our boy hadn't chickened out."
"Calvin's got his own way of doing things. There's nothing ordinary about him."
"Why isn't he here? Why doesn't he come and whip me if that's his thing. Or why don't you whip me or have Beth or Cora do it? They'd think it hilarious...."
Marge looked soberly across the desk. "Look Sweetheart, a silly question: "If Calvin set you free this minute, then asked you to marry him, what would you do?"
"I'd go straight to the police."
Marge shrugged and smiled as at some secret knowledge. "I'm sure you would, darling." Quietly she left the room.
The questions that surged to Eve's tongue were bitten back. Why ask them! They would not be answered. Even clothed and in surroundings of simuated familiarity she was aware of the stirrings of fear within her being.
From habit she began to examine the correspondence upon her desk.
The woman who entered was handsome. Dark. Somewhere in the thirties. A clothes horse figure. She was money. Looking at her one thought of Vogue.
"Good morning Mrs. Galbraith. May I help you." The greeting was as much a habit as the correspondence.
Mrs. Galbraith did not immediately answer. Instead she looked searchingly and speculatively at Miss Trevor, then made an amused tour of the room and its appointments. This completed she settled herself comfortably in the client's chair.
"Clever bastard, isn't he!" She said amiably.
"I'm not sure who you mean." Eve suddenly felt tired.
"Calvin, of course!" The dark eyes lit up with interest. "Am I the first?"
Eve wanted no verbal sparring. She had always hated this woman's arrogant assurance. "No. There was a Mr. Ennerson yesterday."
"What did he do to you?"
"Does it matter?" Eve felt herself floundering out of her depth.
"Not really, Honey. You seem in good condition today. That's what counts." It was as though she spoke of a horse before a race. Then added as an afterthought: "You know I dislike you intensely?"
"I had understood this." Eve acknowledged formally. "Understandably it's mutual."
"Women are bitches." Mrs. Galbraith said agreeably. "Did he whip you?"
"He reconsidered."
The newcomer laughed in genuine enjoyment. "That's a man for you! Marge told me about it. What did you do? Turn on the tears?"
"Honestly I don't know. I think it just wasn't his cup of Tea."
"Well, it's mine! I'm going to whip you, but good."
Eve kept silent. She could not match the quiet conversational tone. The fear inside her grew.
"I always wanted to hurt you." Mrs. Galbraith continued pleasantly. "You were so damn snooty and precise sitting there on your furry twat that the men all wanted to get into and you rationed out like it was scarce. Are you looking forward to the whip curling round all the good places that men never think of?"
Miss Trevor was furious with herself. But she could not control the tears that suddenly welled from brimming eyes. It was all too much.
Mrs. Galbraith was unperturbed. "Here, Honey, dry your eyes with this." She tossed an ample handkerchief across the desk. "But have a good cry first. A girl has to cry somewhere along the way. I sort of like it. I'll be making you cry later on too." The beautiful modulated voice was matter-of-fact as though all was normal.
It was a good long cry. Eve gave it all she had. She felt lost. Nothing mattered. When it was over and she returned the handkerchief to its owner, she put and end to suspense.
"I think it would be nice if you started to whip me now, Mrs. Galbraith. If you'll be kind enough to lead the way to whatever room we use I'll be a good little girl and come quietly."
Mrs. Galbraith's lips were warm and vibrant. "There's more to you than I thought, darling." She enthused. "Look, dear, don't get any wrong ideas because I'm feminine and sympathetic. I'm going to be terribly cruel to you. The fact that you dislike me and I have disliked you doesn't really matter. Here we are, compliments of Calvin. It's going to be a real fun day."
What had she to lose! Eve knew she could not escape. There was an inevitability about it all. By being difficult she could provoke the force of Beth and Cora. She did not wish to. Strangely, in spite of her fear, she found this woman easier to take than Jed Ennerson. Was she wholly a lesbian! Had Lynn opened a closed door!
More surprises. Mrs. Galbraith's chuckle was almost lost as she beheld them. This room was not bare. It had fixtures and a presence. The presence was starling. It was a beautifully rounded feminine posterior.
The pinioning of the girl was both ingenious, artistic and efficient. Her ankles and knees were tightly strapped to a pedestal. She was bent over it. Her loins draped across and tightly held on a 'T' bar at its top. The rest of her leaned forward at a ninety degree angle upon an attached narrow table effect. A leather belt had been ruthlessly cinched to bring the slender waist down and down so that the girl's bottom was thrust out and up into a delectable prominence from which it would be impossible for its owner to move it. The rest of the girl was untrammeled by bonds. She leaned forward on the boards her spine wondrously curved as she propped up her chin on her elbows and looked expectantly at her visitors. It was a naked Lynn.
"Welcome to the whipping room." She greeted saucily.
Once again Eve was off balance. She turned angrily to Mrs. Galbraith and demanded: "Isn't it me that's to be hurt. Why Lynn?"
"They are having fun with you, Eve." Lynn explained apologetically. I seem to have got mixed up in it somehow. I sort'a asked for it I 'spose. Mrs. Galbraith's going to tell you to hold certain positions and do certain things. If you disobey she'll whip me intead of you. Sort of puts you between a rock and a hard place. Look Sweetheart, please. Don't panic. If I get a few swats, I'll survive. It won't be the first time. And incidentally I can't get loose from this contraption. My hands are free but I can't reach a damn thing. I feel about ninety percent bottom."
"Take your clothes off, dear Miss Trevor." Mrs. Galbraith requested.
Naked, Eve looked for instructions. She was not really surprised to see Mrs. Galbraith as naked as she was herself. An onlooker might have said sincerely of all three present that nudity became them all. From somewhere the older woman had produced the cane, the bite of which Eve had felt the day previous.
"Now, here's the drill." Mrs. Galbraith explained briskly. "I'm really going to mark that lovely skin of yours. I'll start out with this cane. The whip comes later. I'll tie you for that. It's going to be a wonderful experience for you and little Popsy here-she's bound to pick up a few along the way. You must obey each order or she gets a good one across that bit of her that's sticking up for the purpose. First of all you will bend over and touch your toes keeping your knees stiff and straight. You'll take three without moving. After each you'll say 'thank you' in a proper appreciative voice. Muff it and little Popsy gets one."
It was cleverly cruel. Eve understood the psychological trap. The sight of the insouciant Lynn so helpless and so exposed was unnerving. Without hope she explained her fear.
"I'll do what you tell me. But the pain is so awful I'm not sure I can manage just what you want. I'm ... I'm not experienced. If I slip up because I can't help it, please don't whip Lynn for that...."
"Bend over, darling." Said Mrs. Galbraith equably.
Eve bent. Fingers on toes. Knees firm. But she was trembling.
"That's nice, Honey. I can see your skin crawling." Mrs. Galbraith sounded genuinely pleased. "This is really going to be a fun day for all of us. My! Ennerson may have shot his bolt too soon. But he left one lovely mark. I've never seen anything lovelier." She ran her finger along the wound. "Feel that raised ridge! Never mind, Honey, I can do just as well as he can."
The whirr and the impact came together. Eve felt that the cane had actually imbedded itself deep within her flesh. Her tautly bent bottom radiated twice the agony that she had known yesterday when hanging limply from her wrists. Her response was involuntary. Instructions forgotten she started upright as she screamed, her hands sought her wound, thank-yous had vanished from her mind.
Mrs. Galbraith allowed a minute to pass enjoyably watching her victim react. "Not a very good show." She said judicially. "Young Poppy gets into the act as of now."
"No!" Eve did a thing she would not previous-ly have believed possible. She knelt before her tormentor, head bowed, "Please give me another chance. Don't count that stroke. Give it to me again. I'll try and do better."
"I'm bound to collect a few." Lynn pointed out resignedly. "Don't take on so."
"You two are really something!" Mrs. Galbraith observed. "I've got nothing against young Popsy so O.K. Bend over again."
The human animal is adaptable. Eve did as bid. The cane sliced into her. She managed a quiet 'thank you' before the full horror of her pain was manifest. Some part of her mind listened as she said over and over that it would hurt no less if she leaped about and clutched at her wounded skin. Three times she held still and took the cane, her bottom a fiery agony. Then she fell to the floor writhing and sobbing.
"Thank's Sweetheart." Said Lynn reverently.
Mrs. Galbraith said nothing. But watched with glowing eyes.
There was not much respite. When the writhing was done Eve sent a glance of empathy to the bound girl. Then looked up, shame faced, at the woman who held the cane.
"That was damn good." Mrs. Galbraith said. The tribute sounded sincere. "If things were different I'd probably call it quits and we'd all go and have a drink, even Popsy. But we've just got nicely started. Feel up to it?"
"No."
"A good honest statement. I'll make one just as honest. I'm simply aching to lace into that lovely bottom of young Popsy's. That's a damn cute rig they have her strapped to. I've never seen a bottom better displayed. Except maybe yours." She added thoughtfully.
"You do this just for enjoyment?" Eve asked hopelessly. "I thought it was that you had a grudge against me. I mean, there's nothing I can do or say to change anything, is there?"
"No darling, nothing. What I want you to do now is lay on your back. That's right. Flat on the floor. Now I want you to raise your legs and bring them down, feet in front of your face, so you can hold on to your ankles. Get the idea?"
Eve got the idea. The posture was not hard to achieve. Its possibilities were obvious. She felt defenseless. "I don't think I'll behave too well in this one." She admitted sadly, sending a sideways glance of regret toward the firmly buckled Lynn.
"Six with thank you's," Mrs. Galbraith said firmly.
Eve managed the first and the second. They lapped the full span of her thighs below the previous cuts. Their pain was atrocious. But she did what she must. The third stroke fell short and the tip of the cane bit into her quim. She screamed and lost control. Letting go of her ankles she fell sideways and hugged herself in pure torment.
She was oblivious to all about her as the pain blossomed and flared. Nothing mattered save that she clutch her bruised flesh. She sobbed in an abandon of grief. When she again knelt before the woman who possessed her she raised a face lined and drawn with pain and pleaded in a wan small voice, "Please tie me so I can't move. I won't ask not to be whipped. I know you want to whip me. So whip me all you want. But don't whip Lynn. No matter how much you whip her I still couldn't keep still. I just can't. I don't think anybody could."
The surprising Mrs. Galbraith knelt beside her and dried her tears. "Told you I'd make you cry again." She said comfortingly. "Got to admit you have a point about Popsy. I'll make you a proposition: Sure I'll tie you from now on. You'll wish you'd never thought of the idea. But that's beside the point. My price is ten good hard strokes across the Popsy's cheeks. Is it a deal?"
"No." Said Eve with finality.
"Hold it!" Lynn demanded. "Look, Sweetheart, we've only just got started. Ten is cheap. It's a bargain. Take it. Please. I'll howl and make a fuss. But if we go on like we are going I'll end up with twenty or fifty or goodness knows what."
"She's a sensible girl." Said Mrs. Galbraith. "I won't give them to her all at once."
"But why must I decide?" Wailed Eve.
"Because when the cane cuts into her and you hear her howl I want you to know it was you that made it happen. I want to see if she still speaks to you afterwards."
"Say yes." Lynn demanded. She turned a youthful glare upon Mrs. Galbraith. "Come on. Whip me ten times you sadist bitch!"
"See, she wants you to." Said the older woman, unperturbed.
"But why does Marge allow it?" Nothing made sense to Eve.
"It was Marge who strapped me here like this." Lynn interposed. "I thought I might help so I asked her to. I always make a botch of things, don't I...."
"Please tie me so I have to obey." Eve asked miserably.
"Ask properly. You know how."
Eve knew. She tried again: "Please tie me in whatever ways please you so that I can be whipped at your pleasure. As a penalty for my weakness please cane Lynn's bare bottom ten times. I ask you to do this."
"You are pretty good material." Said Mrs. Galbraith.
It then happened quickly. Another pedestal was assembled. She was invited to bend over it. Straps were drawn cruelly tight about her ankles, knees, her thighs and her waist. When it was done she was the twin of the younger girl who surveyed her with troubled eyes. Both of them rested on their elbows. Both were helpless to release themselves. Both their bottoms were offered in a blatant invitation to the cane.
There was still an alternative. The psychological kink was still present. Eve could beat her hands upon the hard boards. She could raise and lower her head and shoulders. Or she could lay supine, her breasts taking her weight upon the table. Either way she could scream.
She did all these things. What did it matter! The wicked cane cut and cut at a bottom she could not move. Bit at thighs held immovably. Below her waist was another girl on whose flesh the strokes fell pitilessly. But the pain belonged to Eve. She savored all of it. She heaved and thrust with all her strength. But the straps held firm. They were a part of her. Willing her to bend thus and receive the stripes. She screamed and screamed and heard her own voice as from a distance. She faced shame and tossed it aside. What matter that she was naked and bound and beaten. All that mattered was the pain and the wish, the hope, the wonder that it might stop. Surely it must stop sometime before her flesh dissolved beneath its bite.
When it did stop she lay unbelieving. Then, in a sudden and shocking remembering, turned her gaze to where her sister in torment was bound as she was bound. She cringed at what she beheld.
Mrs. Galbraith was thoughtfully tapping Lynn's out-thrust bottom cheeks with the cane, measuring for the slash to follow. Lynn herself was striving to look back over her shoulder at what was taking place. Her face a study between fascination and fear. Eve wondered if the girl had ever truly been whipped. Surely someone who had felt the awful cane could not contrive so interested an expression.
Satisfied with the trajectory Mrs. Galbraith made the backswing. Eve saw the taut muscles of the exquisite nudity ripple and flow, the round breasts bounce, the stomach become more than ever concave as the cane cut the air with its fatal whirr and then kissed itself into the two rotundities that offered themselves as in a sacrifice.
Lynn went berserk. Below the waist she was held immobile. But above the prisoning strap that cinched her down she became a wild exhibition of motion chained. Her scream cut through the room and made Eve wonder if she, too, had screamed like that. Lynn's eyes lost focus. They stared. Her head flung itself from side to side. Then a weak small girl's voice that said: "Oh no. I didn't know it would be like this...."
It did no good, of course. The naked Mrs. Galbraith heard the plea and treated it much as a mother treats the plaints of children. No doubt she had heard many such. She smiled benignly and once again tapped the taut bottom with her cane.
Lynn knew what was taking place. She managed to twist enough to meet Mrs. Galbraith's amused gaze. "Don't whip me any more." She pleaded. "Or if you must whip me don't do it so hard. There's not need to do it so hard, is there. Marge and the girls never whip me like that. I can almost bear it the way they whip me. I thought I could bear this. But I can't."
"What are you going to do about it, darling?" Mrs. Galbraith asked in an interested voice.
Lynn, tensed on her elbows, considered. She began to cry. "You're mean." She said. "You don't have to hurt me like that."
"Would you like me to thrash the soles of your feet instead, darling?" Mrs. Galbraith made the suggestion sound like a motherly concession."
Lynn continued to sob. She did not answer.
"Or how about your breasts? I'd use a whip on them, of course. You are quite young. But you have lovely breasts. It would be delightful to whip them."
The tormented child beat the table with her fists. She turned an agonized smile of reassurance to Eve. "Alright, damn you. You are just teasing me. Those things would hurt worse than anything. I made a deal. 'Spose I'd better stick with it."
She yelped and buried her face in her hands when the next stroke bit into her helplessness. When the third took its toll of her maiden flesh she bit into her hands as they pressed against her lips. Her struggles continued long after the blow had fallen.
"Just three for now." Mrs. Galbraith said comfortingly. "Only seven to go."
Lynn did not answer. Eve tensed herself for what must come.
As a preliminary to resumption Mrs. Galbraith ran her hands over the helpless girl's ridged and wealed skin. "How's the bottom, darling? Sore?"
"Yes." Eve thought it diplomatic to answer civilly.
The searching hands strayed and sought the cleft within the triangle. But it was too tightly clamped down against the pedestal by the bonds for the fingers to gain satisfaction. "Never mind," Said Mrs. Galbraith cheerfully, "Another time." Her fingers followed the contours of the bent bottom lovingly. "You are a very lovely girl, Eve."
It was typical that the stroke should follow closely on the words. The gentle words that belied the cruelty. Eve howled in misery and thrust against the table with her hands. To no purpose. Her bottom was now so well striped that successive strokes must of necessity lap one on the other. A new dimension of pain seeped through the captive girl. How long would this woman torture the one part of her. Must her bottom absorb all the fury that was finding vent! Yet she shrunk from the thought of the rest of her being subject to the whip....
She never knew how many strokes she received bent thus. Later when she sought to count the ridges with her own fingers there were too many of them to detect. Finally her wrists were handcuffed behind her back and she was released from the pedestal so that she could stand ineffectually and watch whilst Lynn was given another three vicious cuts which sent the girlish body into a paroxysm of muscular revolt, but through which her voice was raised in neither scream or protest. Eve's heart went out to the child whose torture was in some measure her own.
"Want to make love, Honey?"
The casual inquiry struck Eve like a blow. Looking at this older woman who held her and Lynn in thrall she saw her as she was, naked, feline, potent, altogether desirable. How much pleasanter to make love with her than to bear the strokes of her whip. Yet to do so in front of the pinioned and helpless Lynn was too unkind, an affront she could not inflict.
Mrs. Galbraith divined her quandary with pleasure. "Quite a poser, eh? Better than being whipped. A whole lot better! But dear little Lynn would be heartbroken because she thinks you belong to her, and anyway she loves it and doesn't have to watch. Tell you what! I'll blindfold her. Then we won't have those reproachful eyes. Have to tie her hands behind her back too. The child's a problem. What do you say?"
Standing naked with her hands securely cuffed behind her back Eve had no wish to say anything. Whatever she said had to be wrong. She felt shame within herself at the knowledge that she would gladly love this woman physically rather than endure more of the cane. Marge had said the whip changed you. It did. Having your hands fastened behind your back turned you into a nonentity. Despite herself her eyes sought and found the agonized gaze of the child bound to the pedestal. The child who, sometime later in the day would receive four more strokes with the cane and goodness knew what else besides.
Mrs. Galbraith wasted no time. She deftly and cruelly bound Lynn's wrists behind her back and tied a kerchief upon the reproachful eyes. The child was rendered totally impotent. Then, turning to the girl she had made slave, she asked, "I am beautiful, aren't I. I taste much better than the whip I'm going to use on you."
Eve twisted her pinioned shoulders and tugged questioningly at the handcuffs.
Her companion laughed. "Why, darling. Don't be silly. You don't have to have your hands. If I was sure of you I'd free them. But I like it like this. You can do all you have to do perfectly well with your hands behind your back."
Eve shrugged. Why not! She lowered herself to the floor.
The handcuffs remained on afterwards. Eve's feet were pulled wide apart and raised so that she lay on the floor, her weight on her shoulders, her cuffed arms uncomfortable beneath her. She watched unhappily as Lynn's blindfold was removed and the small wrists freed of cords. But then her attention focused on the thing Mrs. Galbraith now held in her hand. It was a truly beautiful whip. An exquisite black horror that tapered from its handle to its split tip.
"The inside of the girl's thighs, darling and her dear little cunt. Men never whip those places. But I do." Mrs. Galbraith stood and looked down at the helpless girl, framed in the spread legs. "Ask me to whip your cunt, darling. I want to hear your voice say it. Make it good." Seeing the hesitation and distaste in Eve's face she added hastily, "Just to help you over the hump, Sweetheart, it will be twenty if you do as you are told or forty if you don't. I always think a girl has to have some incentive."
"Don't do it, Eve!" Lynn turned her youthful indignation on Mrs. Galbraith, "Marge wouldn't let you do that. We are supposed to get it on the bum, not ... not, these other places. Who the Hell d'you think you are!"
Smiling gently the older woman moved toward the pedestal and the girl strapped to it. Her arm swung in a wide arc. The black whip sang its song. Lynn saw the intent in time to bury her face in her hands and flatten her breasts against the board. The lash spent its force upon her naked back etching first a line of white, then red, then scarlet. An exquisite picture of a weal rampant upon a field of white.
"There are places besides your bottom, child." The woman with the whip said quietly.
Eve choked back her anger. Neither she or the girl whose back now bore the wound of the whip were in a position to argue or antagonize. For the moment the naked Mistress who held the whip possessed them utterly.
"I will obey you." She said evenly, striving to keep her voice from breaking. "But must you hurt us like this? I think I'll lose all control when you do ... what you say you'll do to me. Couldn't you hurt me less and ... and ... maybe make it last longer?"
Mrs. Galbraith laughed delightedly. "How gorgeously naive you sound, darling. Don't worry your pretty head about whether you can bear it or not. Of course you can't bear it-in one sense, that is. In another sense you can bear it perfectly well. You won't die. You won't be injured. Your health won't suffer. You'll just be wonderfully marked. At the worst slightly wounded. I'm fairly expert at this sort of thing y'know."
Lynn had raised a flushed hurt face from the refuge of her hands and looked in bafflement from one to the other of her companions. But she did not utter a word. The child's silence carried a message from the whip. Eve groaned inwardly and produced her brightest smile.
"Dear Mrs. Galbraith, you have me beautifully tied like this with my legs stretched so wide and raised up so I can't move. It exposes my cunt marvellously. It sort of sticks out, doesn't it. And the insides of my thighs are turned at just the right angle, so will you please whip my cunt and up and down each thigh. I won't be able to struggle much the way I'm fastened. You'll be glad to know that the handcuffs hurt a lot the way I'm laying on them."
Eve loathed herself for saying it. She hated the woman who had made her say it. She was shamed that Lynn had heard her voice so debase her pride. Yet, in saying it well, she had used the only weapon she possessed.
Mrs. Galbraith knelt beside her tractioned prey. There was a look almost of reverence on her face. Leaning down she found the raised lips with her own. The kiss was long. Eve's lips became warm and moist. She could not help herself. She kissed back hungrily longing that this female communion should go on and on....When it ended she lay dazed with a depth of feeling she did not even try to fathom. She watched, as in a dream, the naked beauty resume her pose beyond the frame of her obscenely spread legs, saw the whip flicker back then follow the curvature of the swift arm....
The stroke was exquisite. So was the agony. The lash precisely parted the lips of Eve's cunt and penetrated the inviolate sanctuary of woman. Its length streaked up and cut a weal over the stomach and navel.
Eve screamed and screamed and screamed....
She was still screaming when the door opened and Marge came into the room. She surveyed the startling tableau with a faintly bored expression and drawled, "What a shocking amount of noise! Why doesn't somebody use a gag."
* * *
Eve accepted the sandwich and asked herself if the situation should be described as farce, light comedy or pure lunacy. The petite maid who served appeared to see nothing unusual in the fact that one of the guests wore nothing but whip marks and had her ankles chained together by a sufficient linkage that she could walk slowly but not run. Faint sounds of revelry found their way from the pool through the summer air and in the open window. Obviously the hospitality of The Estate was unaffected by what might take place in certain areas of the Big House.
Mrs. Galbraith had dressed. She and Marge were chatting animatedly in a manner that made Eve wish once more to scream. Young Lynn had been dismissed and told to 'go way and play'. The child had made a subdued exit. Now they were 'having coffee'...." I wouldn't have bothered with the wretched girl," Mrs. Galbraith was saying reminiscently, "Except that she was such a classic example of what the British refer to as 'The lower orders'. She actually liked being whipped. But she felt she had to be ashamed of liking it. The good old guilt complex! But in her case it came not so much from a strict upbringing as from simple poverty. An environment in which anything a girl did for more than a five dollar bill just had to be immoral."
Pausing to sip coffee she turned an amused eye toward the chained girl. "Still mad at me?"
Eve wished she could answer with a resounding 'Yes!'. Instead she said with an honest simplicity: "I'm lost. I just don't know about any of this...."
"Miss Trevor didn't get around much, eh?"
"If being stripped and chained and whipped is getting around, then I suppose she didn't." It was hard to keep the caustic from her voice.
"You don't enjoy any of it?"
"Good Heavens! Am I supposed to?"
"A lot do. Young Lynn does. Haven't you figured that out?"
"She didn't enjoy what you did to her today!" Eve affirmed hotly.
Mrs. Galbraith shrugged. Her eyes twinkled. A glance passed between her and Marge. "Ask the child next time you see her. She's delightfully honest."
Eve let it drop. "Can I be told yet why I'm here and what's going to happen to me?"
"You are here because we like you. What's going to happen is I'm going to whip you some more. I really love whipping you. You're perfect."
The naked prisoner turned desperately to Marge. "Look. I don't hate her, but she's a pervert. If you hadn't come in...."
"She won't kill you. Tell her about it, Lil."
Eve remembered the Lillian. She had seen it on papers....
"You see, Honey," Lil explained kindly, "You fall into the usual trap. You expect monsters. You have a preconceived notion of cruelty. I'll let you in on a secret. Every day when you move about the City you will have met or passed by several people who love to whip girls or who love to be whipped and chained themselves. Could be the bus driver, the teller in the Bank, the girl who does your hair or even dear old Colby." Her eyes twinkled. "I won't tell you whether he's that way or not. But just to give you an idea...."
Lil paused and clapped her hands. The petite maid hastened forward with the trolley. When she had served she pushed the trolley aside, lifted her skimpy skirt and bent over so as to present Eve with a perfect view of a pert and naked bottom criss crossed with scarlet and purple raised welts.
"Going to the police with those nice marks, Susan?" Marge inquired.
The maid straightened up. "Of course not, Madam!" She sounded faintly shocked.
"Tell you what, girls," Lillian Galbraith suggested, "Let's go join 'em in the pool."
"O.K." Marge assented. "Should have thought of it myself." She turned to Eve and casually asked: "Can you swim with your feet chained?"
It was too absurd! Once more Eve choked back anger and a caustic retort. To Marge or Lil the question was normal, not absurd at all. "I've never tried." She admitted. Then, in a sudden realization: "You're not going to take me down there like this...?"
"Why not, Honey?" Lil was enjoying her consternation.
"But I'm naked ... and the whip marks ... and I'm chained! There's people there."
Marge laughed. "O.K. Sweetheart, we'll make a concession or two. You can have a nice tight one piece to cover Lil's etchings and I'll unlock your feet. Here, I've got the key." Deftly she removed Eve's shackles and put them away. Then shook an admonitary finger. "Don't get ideas. You'll be watched all the time. Act naturally and do what you like. But head towards the Park or the cars or a phone and you'll really be in trouble. That's a threat. But I'm also going to say please. Pretty please. Don't get hauled back from anywhere by the hair."
"Enjoy yourself, darling. I mean it. Enjoy!" Eve could not doubt the sincerity in either voice. Yet to be free like that, yet not free at all ...!
"And if you're worrying about whip marks," Lil laughed, "I know at least one you'll have a good look at!"
It was a magnificent whip mark indeed. It graced Lynn's delightful back as though it belonged. Her Bikini hid the rest of Lil's handiwork. There were quite a lot of guests in the pool. But the cheerful nymphet disported herself among them unconscious of her brand. No one else seemed conscious of it either.
There were casual introductions. Then Lil said: "You are on your own, darling. Marge and I won't ride herd on you. Amuse yourself. Some of these people are fun." Lazily they swam away.
It was too incredible that they could be so stupid! Eve's heart leaped. Freedom was as close as one of these people around her. Nice decent people who would help.
"You're a damn pretty girl." It was a pleasant male voice. Its owner was a rotund gentleman sipping a Scotch on the rocks. He looked like a Stockbroker. He possessed a benign aura that was reassuring.
Eve plunged. Why waste time!
"I'm being kept a prisoner here." She told him in a clear undertone. "Please phone the police when you leave. My name is Eve Trevor."
He held out his hand cordially. "A delightful name for a delightful young woman. I'm Jim Ball. You can get the pun about the cannon off your chest first thing. Everyone else does."
Eve felt that even shaking the proffered hand was using up time she could ill afford. "I'm being kept a prisoner...."
"How lucky can you get!" Her companion interjected. "Heard you the first time. Let me get you a drink."
"I've been whipped...!"
"On the bottom, I suppose?" Mr. Ball showed a polite interest. I'll get you a highball." He wandered off.
Eve's eye caught that of a domestic looking young woman whose smile was friendly. She used the same gambit. A little breathless this time.
"I'm Nora Reeves." The girl introduced herself. "I'm glad you told me. Do they keep you chained at night?"
"The police...." Eve urged in desperation. "You will, won't you?"
"I can only afford one girl to help with the house." Nora Reeves explained earnestly. "I chain her every night after supper. That way she gets her proper sleep. I let her loose week-ends. I make the chain a condition of employment. Costs a bit extra though."
Eve left her abruptly. Why bother! Her searching eye rested on an open faced young man who had the appearance of seeking some chivalrous opportunity. He turned out to be English.
"I say!" He enthused. "That's most frightfully interesting! America really is the place to be, y'know. No girl at home would walk up to me like this and tell me what you have without first being properly introduced. I suppose they keep you locked up and all that?"
"Today I was whipped." Eve felt she had used her heavy artillery.
"I say, that really puts you in the scene." He sounded as breathless as she herself. He blushed. "I wonder....I mean, would you mind....Could I whip you please? I'd love to, no end!"
Eve Trevor did not need to be hit with a hammer to recognize a condition. It was at this point that she became aware that Lil and Marge were laughing at her from the other end of the pool. Flushing furiously she rejoined them. "You could have told me...."
"You wouldn't have believed us, darling. Much better you find out for yourself." Marge said placatingly. "Don't let it throw you. If you find a rapport with anyone don't let the fact that they won't dash off and phone the cops deter you from enjoying their company."
"You were just talking to Wally Armitage." Lil observed. "He's cute. You should see the way he blushes when he whips you. Want us to arrange something for you with him?"
"If it wasn't that my bottom's sore I'd believe that I'd wake up and know this was a dream." Eve affirmed savagely. "The whole lot of you must be nuts!"
"Oh there you are." It was Jim Ball. He handed Eve the highball. "She was telling me about her remarkable experiences." He confided to Marge and Lil. "Lucky girl, I'd say."
"Telling tales used to be a punishable offence." Marge explained to Eve.
"Perhaps I could administer half a dozen with the cane?" Mr. Ball inquired diffidently.
"She's reserved." Marge told him crisply. "But it's nice of you to offer." She turned to Eve: "You ought to be flattered. Jim doesn't make that offer to every girl. He's very selective."
Eve turned her full attention on Mr. Ball. She would try and shame him. "You mean you would lash my bare skin six times and enjoy doing it?" She demanded.
He gave a small old fashioned bow. His voice was reverent. "I would value the privilege beyond rubies." He stated simply.
The sincerity and respect in his voice dis armed. Eve felt boorish in what she had thought of him. Then chided herself for being a softie. There was an insidious quality in these people that she must guard herself against.
"I was talking to Mr. Armitage." She said sweetly. "Would you excuse me. I shouldn't have left him like that." Slowly she retraced her steps.
Perhaps this rather vapid young man might be susceptible ... a weapon she might use. He was watching her return with a beaming smile.
"You can whip me now if you wish." She told him nonchalantly.
"How simply ripping!"
Eve suddenly realized she had made this quaint boy ineffably happy.
"I say y'know. That's frightfully generous of Mrs. Galbraith! Thank's awfully for asking. You're a doll." He grinned infectiously. "That's American." He confided.
Eve felt deflated. Mrs. Galbraith indeed! "Can't we go somewhere else?" She asked wistfully.
Wally looked puzzled. "Well hardly. I mean ... where would we go?"
"Your place?"
He blushed and looked uncomfortable. "You make it awfully difficult, dear girl. Must you?"
"You want to whip me, don't you?" She felt as though she spoke a foreign tongue that no one-not even herself, could understand.
"More than anything in the World. But there are decencies y'know. Some things just aren't done."
Eve flared in anger. "You bloody fool! You'd whip the skin off my back and talk about decency in the same breath. What decency are you talking about! What you really mean is that I'm a prisoner and you are going to make damn good and sure I stay that way!"
She turned and left him. Half way back down the pool a soft hand touched her arm. Turning she was face to face with a girl: a quite beautiful girl in whose eyes there was an infinite sympathy. "You're new, aren't you." The voice was as lovely as the lips. "My name is Alison. I can't talk to you long. I can't even tell you anything. But I know what's happening to you and I want to tell you one thing, maybe it will help. Don't panic. Don't ever think you are lost. Even when it's very bad you come out on the other side...."
The gentle hand slid the length of Eve's arm and fell free. The breathtaking figure sought the water and swam slowly away. Eve felt a strange sense of loss. She looked for Wally Armitage. But he too had disappeared. Disconsolately she made her way back to Marge and Mrs. Galbraith. It was ridiculous, but she felt safer with them.
Several times Lynn saw her and waved gaily. But she did not come to talk.
It was a cozy dinner. Lillian Galbraith and Jim Ball were the only guests. Eve was given clothes and encouraged to look her best. Strangely her ensemble was not ruined by the chains Marge locked upon her ankles. The conversation, by its studious avoidance of the most obvious subject, emphasized her condition in Eve's mind. Yet she enjoyed the evening. Lil sparkled brilliantly, almost as if under the influence of some private excitement. Jim Ball proved himself a most charming raconteur. Lynn provocatively wore a backless gown so that the scarlet welt across her back stood out like a lantern in a dark night. Mr. Ball was visibly moved by the sight. A vision that the nymphet lost no opportunity to thrust within his range of vision.
Lillian Galbraith left them early. She gave no excuses, just sparkled her presence out of the room. When Ball had gone and it was time for bed Cora and Beth appeared. Eve's heart sank. They stripped her and led her away. Her ankle chains clinking busily to keep up with them.
It was different. It was down deep within the bowels of the big house. It was a dungeon. It had been created as such. Perfect in all its grim detail. The only light came from a couple of candles set on jutting stones in the walls.
It was a trick of vision. But all the light seemed to center on the white back of a naked girl. She knelt with her back to the room in a posture of prayer, head berit, her features buried in her hands. About her neck was a metal collar. From it the chain looped up to the ugly ring set in the stone. Her ankles were chained together as were Eve's. She was silent, motionless as a statue. It was as though she had not heard their entry. Perhaps she was at prayer.
The place was hushed, divorced from the world. It laid its spell of silence upon each. Eve stood as the two women positioned her, their hands both gentle and strong. When the collar was locked about her neck it was as though the dungeon had reached out its hand and claimed her. The shackle was removed from her ankles. But immediately replaced by others much heavier from which chains rose to bands that were locked upon her wrists which also were joined by only a single link so that her hands were lost to her since she could no longer separate them or raise them above the level of her waist. A heavy blanket lay upon the stone of the floor. There was no other comfort. Beth and Cora hurried as though glad to be gone. The solid door thudded behind them with the finality of a mausoleum. Eve shivered and was close to tears.
She stood, uncertain what best to do. Any movement she made would be accompanied by the metallic rattle of her chains. They could not be muted. Such clatter would seem a sacrilege to the girl who prayed.
Eve turned her full attention upon the bowed nudity. It was very beautiful in the candlelight. It had the quality of a Renaissance painting. A beauty timeless and elemental. She saw now why the figure was bowed so low. The girl's hands were chained as were her own. To reach her face she must kneel and bring the chain up through her legs and bend her shoulders down to meet them. Whatever kinship she might have with this companion at least they shared equal bonds of helplessness. Eve shrugged. She could not stand forever. Making as little noise as possible she sank down upon her blanket.
"It's hard on the rump, darling." Said a familiar voice.
It was Lillian Galbraith.
She had straightened, sitting back upon her heels, her chained hands resting in her lap. In the candlelight her nudity showed a perfection of line and curve beyond Eve's remembering. Her firm breasts were exquisite. How slender she still was. No wonder she wore clothes so well. At the moment she wore the metal collar and her chains with a peculiar distinction.
"Surprised, darling?"
"Why on Earth! Are you...?" Eve shook her head as though to clear a dream.
"For the good of my soul, dear girl. It keeps perspective."
"But, you are not like me?"
"A prisoner, you mean?" Lil shook her chains. "What would you call this?"
"Yes, but they'll set you free in a minute, won't they?"
"When I've had my little joke, you're thinking. The only little joke I played was to pretend I was praying. I wanted to surprise you. You should see your face, even now. It's gorgeous. But no, darling. This is for real. I can't get free any more than you can."
The two chained captives surveyed each other in silence. Lil with frank amusement, Eve puzzled and lost.
"Then tell me why." She pleaded. "Nothing makes sense."
Mrs. Galbraith struggled for a metaphor. "You know all those Generals and things," She said brightly, "who refuse to ask their men to do anything they don't do themselves? I'm one of them."
But you can end it at any time. So it's not valid."
"Can I!" Lil's eyes turned somber. "Can't you?"
"No! Right now I can no more stop what will happen to me than you can. Look!"
With feline grace Lil was on her feet fighting her chains. Tugging and clashing them, bracing her splendid torso and limbs this way and that, to no avail. "Now my hair's a mess." She accused petulantly. "And I can't reach it. Go on. Try and get loose yourself."
Eve shook the chain that linked her to the wall. She looked down at her heavily fettered wrists and ankles. To fight them was absurd. But how could she know. Perhaps it was some sort of trick! So she, too, fought with all her strength and ingenuity. When she had tired and hurt herself she crouched down with her head between her knees and managed to use her fingers to smooth back her hair damp from the exertion.
"Amazing what a girl in chains can do." Lil had copied her.
When that task was done Lillian Galbraith tested the range of her tether by taking short fettered steps toward her companion. "Damn those two bitches!" She exclaimed with feeling. "There's one thing us two girls aren't going to do. Now I know what they were snickering about."
She stood statuesque and superb, the chain from her collar almost taut to its ring in the wall, her closely linked clenched fists tugging at their chain which held them at the level of her loins. Her shackled walk had taken her less than half way across the dungeon.
Eve was both amused and bereft by Lil's anger. It would have been good to hold each other through the night. Without much hope she did as the other girl had done. When her neck tether, too, was taut the naked pair faced each other across a space they could never bridge.
"Foxed!" Lil said disgustedly. "I should have thought. I'll get even with 'em!
"Look darling," She continued musingly as they each resumed their mermaid crouch on their respective blankets, "I know you are up in the air about this whole thing. But there's no mystery about me. I like it. It's my scene. I just love to whip girls."
"You aren't whipping one now."
Lillian Galbraith rattled her chains in an effort at an airy wave of the hand. "I know, darling. But a girl has to keep perspective in anything she does." She paused and frowned in an effort at remembering. "I suffered agonies of guilt when I whipped my first girl. I was eleven years old. Her name was Mildred-I've always thought a girl with a name like Mildred deserves to be whipped. We went for a walk in the woods. I persuaded her to do the cowboy and indian bit with her as the captive maiden. When I had her tied nice and tight to a tree I lifted her skirt, took down her panties and whipped her with a willow withe." Lillian smiled reflectively. "I loved it. I just couldn't stop. I kept her like that all afternoon. It was sort of like a girl being given her engagement ring....The last thing she's about to do is part with it.
"Poor Mildred was as much at sea as you are now. At first she thought I was just being mean the way kids are to each other. When I stroked her little bum, and it wasn't all that hard at first, she would yelp, turn a red indignant face and say: "Careful, that hurts." We were both pretty innocent. I remember I sentenced her to 'A hundred lashes'. I expect I'd got the term out of a book. Mildred tried to live up to her role and said 'Oh alright. But not so hard.' Poor kid. She didn't know what she was in for. I didn't myself really....
"When that limber switch I used bit into her bottom it was as though the world exploded for me. The red stripes were the most beautiful thing I'd ever known. I wanted more and more of them! There was Mildred's delightful bottom cinched tight and sticking out in invitation. Each lash I planted there was harder than the one before so that it wasn't long before she was screaming, threatening and pleading. I loved it all. I didn't stop until I was breathless and her bottom was a gorgeous red."
Lillian Galbraith paused and grinned across at her fellow prisoner. "I was a little bitch, eh? Well, I suppose I was. But when you whip a girl you are quite sure that whatever discomfort she suffers is quite infinitesimal compared to the supreme ecstasy that suffuses every part of your being. Honest, there's been times when I felt the girl was being unreasonably selfish with all the fuss. They were giving me Heaven, why howl! But, of course, that's where the perspective thing comes in.
"But whipping a girl is the same as all human joys. It has limitations. You can only eat so much caviar or wear just so many diamonds. You can't whip a girl steadily all afternoon. Not and keep her usable for next time. I've always thought those ancient Romans who whipped a girl to death were simply wasting a lot of perfectly useful females....
"So I gave poor Mildred a rest and sort of surfaced enough myself to realize that I'd crossed some sort of line between what our parents might judge fun and games and what might get me into hot water. While Mildred noisily sobbed and sniffed I figured out that the water was pretty hot already. I didn't have that much to lose....
"But I used a bit of finesse now, stopped going at her baldheaded. As I tucked her skirt up a bit more and gave the panties another tug down so as to get some nice fresh skin to work on I talked to her and headed off the hysterics. I gave her time between strokes. I listened to her trying to talk me out of it and let her go. I made some noncommittal noises to keep her hopes up. But I whipped her intermittently until it was time for us to go home to supper.
"When I untied her and we started home I'll admit I was scared. She was full of threats and tears. I had visions of two sets of angry parents all looking at little Lillian. Mildred hadn't forgotten to mention the police....But it was a long walk. About half way Mildred stopped sobbing and rubbing her bottom and began to dry her eyes and look at me with furtive sideways glances that meant she was thinking hard. It's simple for us to figure it out now, of course. She had begun to realize she might not get off scot free herself. She was female and she was both curious and vindictive. As the price of her silence and the concealment of her hind end from her mother I had to swap roles with her the next afternoon.
"With those lovely marks she had me over a barrel. So the next afternoon, she called for me real early, I found myself tied the way she had been, but with a bit more skin showing. It was an unintentional first experience with getting perspective. I didn't like it a bit. It was awful being unable to move and knowing what was going to happen. I remember how cold my bare skin felt! But not for long! Mildred laced into me with everything she had. I howled and pleaded just as she had done. Nothing original, mostly the same words. I watered it all with plenty of tears. I remember the shock and surprise when I discovered it hurt so much. In that position it was hard to equate the pain with the joy. Childlike I accused her of hitting me harder than I had hit her. Actually I think she did.
"Mildred was followed by Phyllis and Sally and I've forgotten how many more. It's easy for kids. In my teens it got more difficult because sex was there now. I either had to bribe or find a girl who felt the same way I did. When I found such a girl, and there were several, the orgasms followed naturally. Getting married didn't change me at all. Long before I was thirty I'd lost the guilt thing and gave up wondering about the whys and wherefores. I simply enjoyed. When Clint died and left me the pulp Mills I made it a life's work. Girls come and go. You seduce 'em or buy 'em or you love them. But you always whip them. For me that's happiness."
The dungeon silence claimed them. Miss Trevor was not too horrified by what she had been told. Oddly enough she felt a new warmth toward this uninhibited female who shared her chains.
"I suppose tomorrow you'll whip me some more?" She asked curiously.
Lil stood erect and spread the open palms of her hands tugging at their chains uselessly. "What could I do with a whip if I had one?" She asked with mock plaintiveness.
Eve's answer to that was quenched with the light. Their last candle had burned itself out. The tomb-like darkness of the dungeon could almost be felt.
"Damn those two girls! They'll be cackling their fool heads off. They have fixed us, but good." Lillian Galbraith sounded exasperated rather than angry. "Look honey, this dark gets to you if you let it. Best thing is sleep. Roll yourself in the blanket if you can. Damn near impossible chained like this. But if you use your teeth a bit you can make it. I know."
Eve dropped off to sleep wondering how her companion knew.
It was not a comfortable seat. It was not intended to be. It was a pedestal again. Now its top was bisected firmly by a length of hardwood two inches wide and two feet long. Its upper edge was serrated. Eve was sitting firmly astride the narrow indented surface. Her ankles were clamped to a bar, one on each side of the post so that they were separated by a distance of two feet and held so that she was unable to place her weight on them. They simply held her so that she must sit immovably as she had been placed. Her hands were bound tight behind her back and the cord pulled down and fastened to the back of the bar on which she was perched. It had been drawn tight enough that she was compelled to sit very upright her shoulders drawn back. She was crying.
It hurt so wickedly, a pain intimate and unrelenting. She could not move, could not shift position as she longed to do. She sat on the brutal edge, her weight pressing down upon it in such a way as to thrust it deeper and deeper within her being. It was cruelly designed for a girl. Beth and Cora had fastened her there. Then departed with their usual laughter and the admonition: "Just sit tight, Honey. Don't move." She could not even clench her bottom. She was naked.
Was it worse to be alone like this! Would it help if someone witnessed her agony! Would she be shamed to be seen so brutally impaled! Her tears were from frustration and hopelessness as well as pain. To suffer like this all day was unthinkable. She had screamed many times. But no one had come.
When the door finally opened shock and surprise countered her pain so that she watched Cora and Beth lead in the still fettered nudity of Mrs. Lillian Galbraith. Each held her by one arm. In her chains they controlled her with the greatest of ease. But the watcher got an impression of recent struggle. Lil was panting. "I'll get your hides for this!" She promised her two wardresses passionately.
"There, there, Mrs. Galbraith, don't take on so. You been goin' to take our hides a long time now. We're gonna' let you off real easy.
They propelled their captive to where a wide heavy plank jutted from one of the pillars supporting the roof. It was in two sections. Each contained a half circle. The angry woman was backed so that her neck neatly fitted one of them, the other was then joined so that she stood in a simple pillory. A padlock clicked shut. Once more the cheerful pair departed laughing, paying no attention to the tortured Eve other than a friend-ly wave as they passed.
"Oh darling! I didn't think they'd do that to you. It's beastly!"
Lillian Galbraith sent a look of genuine concern to the punished girl she had so happily whipped the day before. "I'm afraid we're in trouble, Sweetheart. I know the signs."
Eve watched disconsolately as the beauty in the pillory tested her bonds. She still wore the set of chains in which she had spent the night. Thus she was robbed of her hands. She twisted her neck within its wooden prison. It was snug. But there was enough latitude that she could turn, even to making a complete circle if she wished.
The two captives faced each other twenty feet apart. Each could visually share the other's predicament.
"I know what's in store for me." Lillian said dolorously, "I'll be whipped. I'll just have to stand here and take it with these damn chains chiming like church bells. It's a rotten way to have to stand. I'd much sooner be tied so I can't moveat least you keep your dignity. I say, darling, is that pretty bad...?"
"It's cutting me in two down there where I want to be left alone. I screamed before you came. If you weren't here I'd be screaming now."
"You look gorgeous, darling. The way they have tied you your tits stick out wonderfully. You have the nicest thighs. That bar you are sitting on sort of vanishes right up between them. You are not actually right on your cunny, y'know. I can still see it."
The opening of the door cut short whatever Eve had intended to say. Wally Armitage walked in, his open feature one large beaming smile. "I say, how absolutely ripping!" He enthused.
"Who the devil let you in!" Lil demanded furiously. Eve was amused to note her companion managed to cover her hairy triangle with her chained hands. Evidently her lack of inhibitions did not extend to males.
"Well, I'm here." Wally said cheerfully. "And jolly glad too. I say, y'know, I've never seen anything like this before." He blushed a fine pink, but bestowed a fascinated scrutiny on the feminine nudity displayed helpless for his delectation. He came close to Eve and studied the details of her torture. "Does that hurt awfully, Miss Trevor?" He inquired politely.
Eve longed to kick him. "Try it and see." She suggested coldly.
"How about a bit of that British Gentleman stuff and let us both free?" Lil asked brightly.
"Oh I couldn't do that." He protested, getting slightly redder. "I'm on my honor y'know. Frightfully sorry, Mrs. Galbraith."
"Forget me and let her loose. She's in agony."
"She is, isn't she." Wally agreed in an interested voice. "Absolutely corking idea though." He gave his full attention to Eve. "You do look pretty."
"No use, Sweetheart." Lil said resignedly. "He's a beetroot with heart of stone." Turning her attention to the newcomer she demanded acidly: "O.K. Buster, what's the program?"
"Oh please...! Not Buster!" The young man's features portrayed a genuine nausea. "I thought actually I'd like to whip you. D'you mind?"
"Don't be so damn British. You're going to do it whether I mind or not. And I do mind in case you are interested. I'll even put it to you straight. Please Wally don't whip me. How's that!"
"Splendid! Simply splendid. You are a wonderful woman, Mrs. Galbraith."
"Well, do I get let off the whipping or don't I?"
"Of course not dear Mrs. Galbraith. I wouldn't cheat you like that."
Eve remembered her frustrations at the swimming pool.
"Oh Wally, you are absurd! I could like you if you weren't such a bastard. What whip are you going to use?"
"You actually do like me y'know, Lillian-May I call you that? I thought we'd start out with the cane and then use something nice and snaky."
It would not be true to say that Eve's torment was forgotten as she watched the small drama unfold. Agony bit at her steadily. But she was enthralled. These two, each in their own way, were quite something.
It was the same cane. There could not be another more wicked. "I'll start with your bottom, Lillian." Wally suggested thoughtfully. "But I do want times like these to be memorable, eschewing the mundane and all that sort of thing. So I'm going to ask you to stick your bottom out nicely as though asking for it. You can y'know. You have quite a lot of freedom in that delightful arrangement you are fastened in."
"Damn you!" Said Lillian Galbraith with feeling. But she obediently protruded her bottom as far as it would go. She was still clutching her pubic hair.
Wally was incredibly swift. The cane snickered through the air and bedded itself deep. The victim gasped, but said in an even unemotional voice: "You are an absolute little beast...." Then, as an afterthought, she added the unforgivable, " ... Buster!"
I'm sorry you said that, Mrs. Galbraith." Wally sounded truly regretful: "Please protrude again."
The cane sang and thunked incessantly for five vicious strokes. Lillian straightened up unable to hold the posture he demanded. Her lovely figure twisted and swayed. Her chains clashed. But she was held fast. There was no escape for the slender naked woman whose neck was so strangely and shamingly held. She gasped and cried out in pain as the last strokes bedded themselves in her flesh. "Im sorry, Wally." She said in a small humble voice. "Please forgive me."
Lillian Galbraith was not ordinary. Eve found it hard to know if her humility under the cane was real or simulated. Wally Armitage treated it in his own way. "You will call me Sir and you will ask me to give you six more strokes."
Lillian Galbraith froze. Wally's command struck her into immobility. She turned her large hurt eyes full upon him. A red mantle of shame settled upon her head and shoulders. Her expression was enigmatic. But before she could frame her words there was an interruption.
Lynn looked remarkably cheerful as she bounced into the room that should have held painful memories. She took several swift paces before the significance of what she beheld stopped her in her tracks. "Ooops! Sorry!" She looked from one to the other, obviously startled. "I say, what's going on here?"
No one answered.
The teen-ager looked at the chained Lillian in obvious embarrassment. "Lil, I came to get my bottom caned. I owe you four from yesterday, remember? I didn't know...."
"Darling, I'd love to cane your bottom, but I'm all tangled up in chains and things. But it's sweet of you to ask."
Lynn examined the tableau with swift appraising glances. Then started as though remembering. "Sorry Wally. Marge sent me. She wants you down on the balcony. I don't know what it's about. There's some people with her."
The door had no more than closed behind Wally Armitage before a cursing young woman was tearing at Eve's bonds and clamps. Within a minute the tortured girl was free, her weight supported on the youngster's shoulders as she slid sideways from her wicked perch and to the floor where she reclined gasping and panting with the agonies of release.
"That was a fib I told him." Lynn admitted as she hurriedly diverted her attention to Lil. "Want me to let you loose too?"
"Can you, darling? I'd be so grateful. I hate being whipped by men."
The key was hanging on the pillar beside the pillory. In no time Lillian Galbraith's neck was released from its servitude. But the key to the chains that locked her wrists and ankles was not in the room. The victim took the disappointment philosophically.
"Well at least I can sit down until someone comes and makes me stand up again." She gingerly let herself sink to the floor on one hip. One chained hand tenderly exploring her wealed bottom. Suddenly she tensed, "But child, aren't you going to be in deep trouble over this?"
Lynn shrugged. " 'Spose so. But I couldn't leave Eve on that damn bar. I know what it's like. Maybe the girls overstepped themselves, in that case Marge won't mind."
"Let's all say that Wally did it." Lil suggested happily. Puts the little bastard on the spot. Call me Sir, indeed...!"
"Oh, she'll know it was me." Lynn said resignedly.
Lil considered briefly. "Look, you two. Don't let's natter. I'm chained too heavily, I'll just sit this one out and see what happens. But you two run like blazes. Maybe you can get a few clothes and get Eve out of here for good. Go with her, Kid. I'll look after you both if I ever get this blasted metal off and get to go home. Go on, run!"
They ran. Marge's bedroom provided the clothes. Eve tugged them on herself with frantic haste. Lynn rummaged through drawers looking for money, finding it they dived for the door. It was closed and locked. The room was on the third floor.
Lynn slumped down on the bed. The youthful face was white. "Oh golly." She said in a small weak voice. "I've boobed again. Next time don't listen to me. I never do anything right."
Eve was conscience stricken. "But, darling, on my account! What will they do to you? Marge is your sister...."
"Marge has to do what she's told." The teenager said morosely. "There are rules. You know: things that good little girls just don't do...."
Marge took her time. When she came her eye lit on the clothed Eve. "You are wearing my things. Take them off." She said curtly.
Next she turned to her kid sister. "You little pest," She chided good humoredly. "You can strip too."
Marge examined the two naked girls. "You make a beautiful pair." She conceded. "You both have a good dark bush. Pubic hair is important. It shouldn't be skimpy."
"Why, gee thanks! Sis." Lynn said impertinent-ly. "Is having a nice twat going to help my bottom?"
"Not a bit! But seeing you like this makes me wish I was a lesbian." She looked at Eve, "The little so-and-so has a Thing about you. I suppose you know."
"Marge, let me go. Please! Surely you can? Let Lynn come with me if she wants to."
"No."
"But why? What have I done to be treated like this? Am I being softened up for a brothel or to be sold to a rich Arab?"
Marge laughed. "That could be more easily arranged than you think. In fact it's not a bad idea. I'll mention it. Actually it's not a bad life if you behave." She winked at her younger sister, "Want to be sold into slavery, kitten?"
"She's not kidding, y'know." Lynn looked at Eve with large knowing eyes. Then turning to Marge shrugged and grimaced. "For Pete's sake whip me and get it over with. I know I've been a bad girl."
"But why, why, why?" Eve pleaded.
"Don't put the poor woman on the spot." Lynn counselled sagely. "If you keep harping on that she'll have to whip you just to shut you up."
"Isn't there anything to life here except whips?"
"You should know, Honey. You were sitting on something just a little while ago. Want to sit there again?"
Eve unhappily confronted the knowledge of how easy it was to guide a naked girl where you wanted her to go. All you had to do was hurt her enough. "Well, anyway, it was me who was escaping. Lynn shouldn't be punished for it."
"Oh, come off it! How noble can you get!" Marge laughed. "You'll both be punished. But little Miss Muffet gets it the worst. She knew better."
"Let's jump her, tie her up and run." Lynn exclaimed gleefully edging round between her sister and the open door.
Marge sighed. "Not a rough and tumble, please. I just don't feel up to it."
"You grab her from that side. This will be a cinch." Lynn giggled.
"Alright. Have your fun." Marge agreed amiably. "But I'm not going to fight. You can use those old nylons over the chair there to tie me with. If you have to gag me use a clean handkerchief and wet it first."
It was all in keeping with the rest of the lunacy. Lynn was unperturbed by her sister's suspicious compliance. But why not! What had she to lose! She untangled nylons while the younger girl zestfully bound her submissive sister spreadeagled on the bed. A new handkerchief was moistened and poked into the mouth which, without further protest, opened to receive it. Another stocking held it there. The older woman watched sardonically as her former captives dressed.
"Fifty dollars, Sis. I'll get it back to you."
Before they closed and locked the door and pocketed the key, the escapees turned for a farewell gance at the helpless figure on the bed.
As usual, Eve felt guilty.
Only Lynn's knowledge of the house and Park made it possible. Even so it was not easy. A series of brief sorties interspersed with trembling concealments. The girl even knew where there were broken boughs to help them surmount the wall. Over it the sight of a paved road and traffic was like the promised Land. At the kerb a middle aged man stared at them with open mouth. He held a jack in one hand and a dirty rag in the other. The wheel leaning against his back bumper told of the flat tire he must have just finished changing. A pretty girl leaned against the car impatiently.
"Going into Town?" Lynn asked brashly.
He looked at them dubiously. But they passed inspection. "Yes. Back seat if you don't mind. Four crowds the front." He threw the wheel and tools in the trunk as though glad to be rid of them. He wiped a pair of dirty hands on the rag which then followed the tools. The lid slammed down. "O.K. He opened a car door politely. The girl opened the other. The fugitives lost no time. Lynn's eyes were sparkling with excitement. Eve felt a rising tide of elation.
"Don't bother. Lots of leg room." she said politely as their hosts bent in and fumbled with mats and adjustments.
A moment later her world dissolved.
The hard bite of metal on her ankles was instantaneous. Her cry of shock matched Lynn's. Handcuffs held their feet fast to the floor of the car. They were too startled and disorganized to effectively resist other cuffs finding their wrists. Within the space of seconds they found themselves seeming to sit normally, but with feet locked and hands held below their laps by a chain that also was snubbed to the floor. It was neat and effective. They had never had a chance.
The man started the car. The girl looked back over the front seat smiling in an absurdly friend-ly fashion, her voice pleasantly conversational.
"Please scream if you would like to. I'm sure you feel like it. Yes, you are being kidnapped. Yes, you will be hurt if you fight. No, you can't offer us bribes. And no, no one will rescue you. You look perfectly normal sitting there, you can't move enough to attract anyone's attention. Neat arrangement, isn't it."
"Use it often?" The irrepressible Lynn asked bitterly.
"I suppose you operate a brothel?" Eve asked wearily. Her disappointment was devastating. Out of the frying pan into the fire....
"No."
"May we know why we are being kidnapped?" It sounded a familiar refrain.
"No." The pert girl twinkled at them, "But yes, we do use the handcuffs. More often than you'd suppose. It's far the cheapest way to get girls."
"What do you do with them?" The pert girl's eyes twinkled gaily. "Ever hear of a Harem?" She asked.
* * *
It was a long ride. Towards the end of it they were blindfolded. Then handled by strong male hands with a frightening efficiency. When they were given back their sight they stood in an informal lounge facing the pert girl, the man in the car and two jacketed smoky eyed Eurasians.
"Look well at these men." The girl ordered.
It was hard not to.
The girl nodded briefly and said thank you.
The men left. The door closed.
"My name is Vida. You will obey me. If you disobey the men will return and use force. It is best to obey."
Eve found herself dolefully in agreement. "Both of you strip."
It now seemed normal. Eve found herself constructing a parody: 'Naked becomes you ... ' as she shed her clothes. What youthful loveliness Lynn possessed! Watching the nymphet embrace nudity she remembered the words of The Song of Solomon....
"Turn your backs. Hands behind you."
Almost like the army! The handcuffs bit, a notch tighter than they need have been. It was the point of no return.
Eve was led to a desk and turned with her back to it. A small jawed clamp bit into her left nipple. Another was more carefully positioned to sink its teeth into one lip of her vulva. They hurt abominably. But were as nothing to the surge of awfulness that leaped into her being through the attached wires. It was a whole new conception of pain. Something unknown and sinister and totally wicked. She screamed and bent double tearing at her ironed wrists. Twisting and squirming to escape from a horror from which escape was impossible. It went on and on. Why oh why! She heard herself screaming promises and pleas.
When it stopped she stood there panting. Lost in a sea of pure fear. But when she was thrust aside and Lynn positioned for the torture she pleaded with agony and love. "No. Don't do it to her. There is no need. She has watched. We'll both obey you."
"It is needful that she know." Vida did not pause. Eve watched miserably and helplessly as the clamps found their resting places on Lynn's nipple and labia and the girl she had come to love danced the same dance of pain that had debased herself. When it was done after what seemed a very long time, the two captives sought each other's eyes in a mutual acceptance of defeat.
"It is best that we understand each other." Vida explained. "This is always waiting for you should you prefer it to other privileges."
Was there laughter in her voice!
It was a vast and expensive bathroom. The serving girl who obeyed Vida's every word was Asiatic, though her English was perfect. The handcuffs were not removed. The captives did not need their hands. Everything was done for them and to them. They were required to be passive and from time to time thrust various portions of themselves in to prominence as directed. Had they been free it would have been a pleasurable experience.
The girl worked upon their bodies with studied and tender care. Vida supervised. Sometimes she helped. There were baths and perfumes, creams and hair-do's. Much care was given to their toenails. Eve's ended up green, Lynn's blue. By some magic of her own the girl contrived to securely set a huge sparkling stone in each navel. Nipples and lower lips were turned vivid scarlet. Vida plucked and rubbed at the lovely faces to obtain a desired result. Finally what appeared to be a great deal of costly metal and stones found resting places in their ears, their hair, about their upper arms, their neck and ankles, even their toes. By looking at each other they saw themselves. Eve knew she had never beheld anything more female or more beautiful.
It was not hard to sense The Presence. Vida exuded awareness of The Male! In this house Women's Lib was not credible. The captives were guided by gentle fingers on their prisoned arms. Obediance was implicit in their condition.
He wore a turban. The rest of him was Western. But he was of the East. His finely boned face was handsome, his eyes dark, his skin was warmed by knowledge of the sun. To Eve he was anonymous. His accent was faintly British.
He studied the chained and naked girls in a silence that went on and on. Eve was angry with herself in the realization that she was standing proud and tall, breasts out-thrust to her best possible advantage. But was amused to note Lynn doing precisely the same. Were all women slaves under their skin!
"Their origin?"
"The car, Sir." Vida's voice held assurance and deep respect. Eve conjectured that youth must surely make Vida one of the man's concumbines.
"They are superb!" The tribute seemed aimed more at Vida than her captives.
"They have had the introduction?"
"Yes sir. They are amenable."
He studied his new possessions searchingly. "I am your Master. You will address me as such....Now!!"
"Yes Master." They made her subservience in unison. Good Heavens! Could an electric current change Miss Trevor into this! What magic had dissolved Lynn's impertinence! This turbaned brigand would probably violate them both before the day was done.
He motioned and nodded. From a drawer Vida produced quite the slenderest and longest riding crop Eve had ever seen.
"You will stand before me, my dears. I will question you. Vida will deal instantly with impudence or sulkiness."
The naked girls obeyed. Sight of the whip stole away a bit more of Eve's courage. Lynn had eyed it with more curiosity than concern.
"You first." The jewelled finger pointed at Eve. "There are few years between you and your sister. But she is young enough to be imprudent and earn stripes. It is the American way in adolescence. Comport yourself well and think before you answer. What are you?"
It seemed hardly a fair question. There could be many answers. Desperately Eve played it as safe as she knew how.
"I am your possession, Master."
The whip did not find her. He seemed pleased.
"The word possession: Are there not others...?"
"I am your slave girl, Master."
"And...?"
"Master, I am your concubine." It was the last admission Eve wished to make. But she had run out of similes.
It earned her the flicker of a smile.
"Are you aware of your body, girl?"
Had he sensed what lay between she and Lynn! There would be more to such a question than simple query. She had better make it good.
"I adore my body, Master. And the body of she you call my sister."
"Describe it."
Again she remembered the Song of Solomon. If only she could improvise a variant! But it was too flamboyant.
"It is wholly female, Master. It has curves and planes to delight an artist. It has hair to provide mystery. It is warm and it is soft for My Master's slumber. My breasts are firm and proud that they are yours. My nipples stand at your behest. All of it is beautiful only if you desire it."
He nodded thoughtfully. "You have a quality. Yet I detect hesitation. The reservation in the mind. You will repeat these sentences after me.
An almost mystic brooding veiled his eyes. His voice became sonorous:
"Master, my hair is for your fingers to entwine."
It was innocent. Eve put feeling in her voice.
"Master, my ears are for your whispers and your teeth."
"Master, my lips are for your lips and your body. None other."
"Master, my breasts are for you to hold so that I may know you Lord."
Eve felt that enough was enough. It went against the grain. But she got it out.
The whip sliced round her waist so that for a scalding minute she believed herself cut and wounded. It was the worst of all the whips that had been used on her. It inflicted a demoralizing soul sickening agony all its own. Vida had used it with force and precision.
Eve longed to writhe upon the floor. Her hands were lost to her. But the compulsion to go through the contortions of a whipped girl was almost more than she could combat. But by some vast effort of will she held control. Her head went back, her nostrils flared, a shuddering exhalation of breath was audible to all. But she remained upright, even to the point of stretching her nakedness an inch higher as a thrust against the bite of the whip. Instinctively she believed her best weapon would be to touch his admiration and to cling to her own pride. She could do neither grovelling on the carpet.
"I am unworthy, Master. I failed. Thank you for the whip."
"You may try again, child."
This time she blotted out the thought of male hands kneading her breasts. But remembered only the words. She said them well.
"My waist is slight for whips to curl around."
"My navel is a dimple you may kiss."
Eve was getting apprehensive. The bad one had to come soon. It did come. But not as she had feared.
He smiled almost in sympathy. "You of the West have been singularly inept in finding names for the greatest treasure of all. Whether it be clinical or colloquial it emerges obscene or absurd." He paused thoughtfully, "I will do my best with an extempore translation of a verse from my own tongue. It is infinitely preferable:
Eve groaned inwardly. Poetry!
Memory of the whip kept her features composed. The grave deep voice intoned:
"I'm nothing in my Master's sight. I am not whole 'less he be there.
I save for him each scented night, The wet lips waiting in my hair."
Eve dare not seek Lynn's eyes. If their glances locked the result would get them whipped half to death. She herself fought an almost irresistible need to titter. But thought of the whip helped. She delivered the verse with rhythm and a touch of emotion. She waited for the whip. It did not come.
The litany continued. From it Eve became aware of an inventory of physical attributes previously ignored. She supposed the man in the turban must have devoted much time and interest to the study. Obviously no female need sell herself too short. If one bit of a girl failed to please some other portion of her anatomy might ring the bell.
The single stroke was her total tally. It was not so with Lynn.
The teenager had taken in the proceedings wide eyed. Avid curiosity had battled disbelief. When her turn came it was a shock. She had thought Eve spokesman for them both. She had contained her giggles valiantly. Could such fortitude endure! Taking her appointed position she smiled brightly at her new owner.
The giggles won. The whip curled about the slender body twice in succession. The awfulness of the second stroke defeated courage. The vivid red stripes circling the tiny waist made a belt of suffering she would wear for many days. Lynn slithered to the floor twisting and curling in a hopeless effort to ease her penalty. When her thoughts became coherent again she stumbled to her knees and turned a tear streaked piteous face to the man who owned her.
"I will do better, Master. Please forgive me."
In the chaotic confusion of Eve's mind one thought was uppermost. She examined it with loathing and with fear. The whip reduced a girl to a nothing. A couple of hard strokes to cut around her nakedness made an excision of courage, of breeding, of education, of dignity. They transformed her into a writhing mass of grovelling flesh that would agree to do or say anything required. How simple it was to possess a girl! You simply whipped her. The number of strokes required would vary. But in the end she would do as she was told. Why had man ever bothered with chivalry or with courtship. The whip was so much simpler-perhaps even for the girl!
The man who owned them motioned for Lynn to rise.
"You are forgiven, child." He said gently. "You are young. You cannot understand that you sought that which you have just received. You needed to satisfy yourself that it could happen. It is done. Truly you will do better." He paused, surveying the three girls benignly, his eyes flickering from one to the other so that they became an audience.
"You of the West have sadly misused your women. You have imposed upon her roles and compulsions that have made her devious. You have elevated her above the male and sometimes you have debased her below the beast. The result is a confused creature emotionally insecure who nurtures no nobility in he who possesses her and is forever in unconscious revolt against her own natural destiny...."
His voice trailed away as though following some half forgotten pathway in his mind. Then, abruptly, he turned to Vida.
"They are superb material. You will train them adequately before shipment. They will obey you in all things."
A moment later he was gone.
Eve knew anger: "Trained before shipment". It was both infuriating and absurd. Yet she could do nothing! She was naked. Her wrists were firmly handcuffed behind her back. She had been given a taste of the punishments she could easily earn by disobedience. This pert slip of a girl into whose care they had been relegated could control them utterly. Savagely she admitted to herself that she and Lynn had been reduced to nonentities. They had become good quality female flesh that would be whipped into some unknown mold of conformity.
Vida had viewed the proceedings and now her two charges with amusement. "Hard to take at first, isn't it?" She commented pleasantly. "I musta' collected twenty swats with that damn whip the first day. I sassed everyone and kicked whatever came near. Come bedtime I looked like a zebra. Not that I got any bed. They chained me to a wall so I had to stand up all night." She laughed reminiscently. "Changed my whole outlook on life. 'Specially 'bout men!"
Eve stared at this girl, younger than herself who held such frightening power. She felt she could have liked her under different circumstances. "I'm scared." She told her frankly. "We don't want to be whipped or get that electric thing. Please tell us how we should behave. I mean, what we should say and what we shouldn't."
Vida laughed. "Yes. I know. Do I ever know! I admit it's scarey, like the first day at school. I don't look like I'd whip you-except maybe for mischief or just to be bratty. But whipping you for the proper reasons is part of my job. I'll whip you unmercifully if I think I should. But look," Her eyes became very human, "When you are with me act naturally. We are stuck with each other so let's enjoy as much as we can."
"What are we supposed to call you?" Asked Lynn morosely. She still hurt.
"That's sort of bad, I'm afraid." Vida twinkled at them. "You have to call me 'Mistress'. The title goes with the job."
"Whipmistress?" The word escaped before Lynn could bite it back.
The youthful Mistress looked at the teenager sadly. Going to the crestfallen Lynn she placed her hands on the pinioned shoulders and drawing the younger girl forward kissed her lingeringly on the lips. "I'm sure I shall love you. But you are so damn impudent. Turn round and raise your hands as high as you can."
It was an electric moment. Eve sensed Lynn's revolt. The three girls stood in silence. The two who wore handcuffs powerless against the other. It was easy to see the struggle taking place within the younger girl. She said in a small but determined voice: "Please can I say I'm sorry. I am, y'know. Honest."
"It doesn't work that way." Vida said gently.
Lynn reached a decision. "Alright then," She conceded. "I have to get it. So let's make it good. Let's deal with little Lynn's impudence. Give me two with the whip instead of one, just to show you I do mean to try." She turned her already wealed back and raised her chained hands above her waist.
The result was the same as before. Two more bands of fire above the hips. A choked cry of bitterness against the invading pain violating the maiden flesh. Then the abject contortions upon the carpet and the slow sobbing return to her condition as slave.
Strangely, the watching Eve knew again, as she had known with the man who had catechized her, an enhanced awareness of being female. Upon a man the whip would have been simply brutal. Upon the soft skin of this girl she loved its cruelty had an aesthetic quality she could not deny. She recalled Mrs. Lillian Galbraith's honest avowal: T love whipping girls'. Almost unthinkable! But could there be more involved than cruelty! Was there some kinship between the whipper and the whipped! Was a whipped girl a spiritually different creature to a whipped man! She could believe that this latter could be so. In the act of love a girl is made to writhe and cry out in passion and ecstasy. Was there a link there somewhere!
Vida watched the punished child with a kindred fascination. The Mistress held the wicked black length of whalebone almost as a sword, a scepre, a wand. A whip was whatever you saw it as in its relation to yourself. Eve remembered her sundered legs and Lil's whip dividing her loins and slicing her belly. Its mark was still vivid upon her. Surprising that no one had commented....But what was a whip mark on a slave girl! But strange just the same. The anomaly nagged....
A man to be flogged would know where and how. But never a girl. This was the feminine thing that the past days had taught. She thought of the resilient softness of her breasts. How beautifully Vida's instrument could seek them out, each stroke biting deep and causing them to bounce up or down, then wait throbbing for the next. Or the soles of her feet. How awful that would be! The bastinado, wasn't it. Afterwards you could not walk. An amused memory of the Master's catechism reminded of the many 'Places' whereupon a girl might be loved. The whip could find all of them. It would deliver its individual message to each. In this new life it was a terrible and wonderful thing to be female.
It was a poignant moment when Lynn struggled to her feet. Tossing the damp hair from her face she stood uncertain tentatively looking at the girl, little older than herself, who had whipped her. Again her youthful features told of inward stress. Then, simply and with sincerity, she said quietly, "Thank you, Mistress."
This time the kiss was warm enough that it evoked in the watching Eve a spark of jealousy. Lynn was hers! Yet how can you hold a girl when your hands are cuffed behind your back! An awful knowledge of impotence gripped her. She was naked. She was chained. Her tongue could be muted by the whip. She could observe events. But she could not influence them. She was a slave under a more rigid duress than most slaves had ever been.
They were taken to a clinical compartment that was 'Their room'. It was a place of white enamel, barred windows, a stout door with no handle on the inside, two cots, two chairs and an adjoining bathroom.
"Could be a lot worse." Vida offered the thought diffidently. "We have a cell and we have a dungeon. When a girl gets too many whip marks we put her in one of those. We try not to injure valuable merchandise. If I accidently injured one of you I'd wind up in the dungeon myself, well striped to boot...."
"Are we really merchandise?" Eve faltered. She would almost prefer not to know. "Will we be ... sold? He spoke of 'shipment' Who is he?"
Vida laughed confidingly. "He tells me little of himself. I have to guess. His name is Rasuli Khan. He wants you for his own enjoyment. But if you turned out a couple of lemons he would sell you. There's quite a trade in girls here and there around the world."
"And the 'Training'?"
"To teach you how to be relaxed when you are naked. To teach you how to be beautiful in his eyes. To teach you the erotic skills of sex as per where he conies from. Above all to teach you how to be unreservedly obedient. The whip is what mostly does the last one."
"Does he screw us?" Lynn inquired without enthusiasm.
"With infinite skill."
"The erotic skills I suppose are all the variations?" Eve asked bitterly.
"He doesn't miss a trick."
"The whole thirty six positions as well, I suppose?" Lynn asked sarcastically.
She was suddenly contrite and scared. "Oh, Mistress! Was that smartass remark whipable? I mean...."
"Yes. You should be whipped for it. But not this time."
"Could we have our handcuffs removed so we could have a bath?" Eve asked cautiously.
Vida's shrug and short laugh were deprecatory. "I've got bad news for you. Those handcuffs are staying right where they are."
"But how...?"
"Oh, you'll be surprised. You think you can't. But you can. You can do all you have to do with your hands behind your back. There is one bright spot. That bell push on the wall will summon Reeta. She is your servant. So you see you are not really the bottom of the ladder after all. I doubt that you will want her. The two of you will make out. But call her if you wish. If you call her foolishly or for some hostile intent you will be punished."
"I'm so damn helpless." Lynn wailed.
"That's the idea, darling. Stripped naked with your hands cuffed behind your back a girl is totally vulnerable. Totally unable to contest the will of others. It engenders in her a proper frame of mind. You'll see."
"But how long...?"
Vida considered. "I think I must have gone a month before anyone thought to take mine off. I felt lost without them."
"You have to be kidding." Lynn almost wailed.
"Not really. With the whip and the electrodes and a few other things we girls adjust surprisingly quickly.
Quaintly enough Eve and Lynn discovered Vida was correct. A girl adjusted. They even had their bath, drying themselves with the utmost difficulty in a rough and tumble that ended in laughter. To get into bed was easy. But to draw the covers up to their chin almost impossible. They had to use their teeth. In making love they sorely missed the tenderness that only loving fingers can impart. But in that, too, they adjusted and found joy in each other.
For a little while they forgot that they were slaves.
In the days and weeks that followed Eve came to know the bitterness of total subjugation. The rapport that had so easily come into being with the three girls never stood in the way of two of them being whipped for even the slightest infraction of rules that were established one by one and which were welded into their consciousness by pain. Yet, oddly enough, she recognized a strange content that emanated in a large degree from her handcuffs. Divorced from her hands she was also absolved from decision. Between the twin factors of her chained wrists and the ever present whip the path she must follow was always clear. Mostly she followed it with a docility of which she was secretly ashamed. But there was one facet of their training that earned her more lashes, and two agonies of re-acquaintance with the electrodes than even Lynn with all her ebullience chalked up. It was sex.
Eve discovered the gulf that separates mutuality from compulsion. For her it was wide: far wider than for the avidly curious and miscievous Lynn. In contemplating what would be required of her she had supposed a grin and bear it approach would see her through. But the instruction was not all theoretical. The manservants were enlisted to ensure totality. Previously she had done or known of many things. But never a list such as Vida imposed. Often she echoed one of woman's oldest protests: 'Do I have to! What does he want that for! I just don't want to! Why can't he be like other men!' It was hard to equate some of the items with Rasuli. He had seemed so impeccable. But she was forced to do them. She was forced to do them with happiness upon her face even though her heart was cold.
The electrodes were always the final arbiter. Vida cheerfully explained that too many whip marks went beyond the aesthetic. Then the aid of electricity was enlisted. Eve never forgot the day she spent bound to a post with the hated clamps upon nipple and lip where she could see, but not touch. She just stood in her bonds unable to move. At widely separated intervals through the long day contact was made, she did not know how or when, and the frightful surge of unseen horror sent her thrusting against the cords and her voice crying out in lonely desolation. The following day she did everything she was told to do with perfect precision. A girl adjusted.
The evening came when she thought herself the butt of some cruel joke or of Vida's own humor. She was taken to the Mistress's own room, her handcuffs unlocked so that she felt lost and naked without the familiar grip of steel upon her wrists, then gowned in the most expensive clothes she had ever worn. When the serving girl had exhausted her skills the total effect was breathtaking. Eve knew herself beautiful beyond the ordinary. Only a couple of hours separated her from a naked chained slave girl striated by the whip. Now she could be the consort of an Ambassador or a Duke.
Rasuli Khan was pure story book. His bow, the raising of her hand to lips that barely brushed her skin yet left it branded with sensation, his appraising eyes glowing with approval, his compelling blend of deference and authority. Eve adored it. She was back in the world again. But a world she had never previously entered. She trembled with happiness and fear.
The great dining hall had been left in gloom. A small table in a corner welcomed them with the warmth of candlelight. The man servants came and went like shadows. They were served as Princes. Perhaps Rasuli was a Prince. He acted like one.
"You have come to terms with the whip, my dear. Vida is pleased."
"It is very strange for me, Master."
He nodded understandingly. "What is strangest of all?"
"To be without will. To belong to someone else."
"What has accentuated this knowledge for you?"
Eve considered. "It would be easy to say the whip and the electrodes." She conceded. "When I suffer them I forget all else. They have a tremendously dramatic impact. But I may remember most the handcuffs locking my hands behind my back for days and weeks without release. Vida notches them tightly. I am never unaware of them. They tell me I am open, to be used, that I must obey."
"And this obedience, is it abhorrent?"
"Master, all my former life tells me to say yes. But it would not be true. In obedience, even under the whip, I have found a special kind of peace. I do not fully understand why. Lynn says it is because women are mentally lazy and like someone to make up their mind for them."
Rasuli's laugh came from genuine enjoyment. "The young one is a delight. Given time she may match your quality." He shot a keen glance across the table. "She enjoys the whip, does she not?"
The texture of the silence told Eve his question could not be sluffed. She so visibly grappled with her answer that he laughed amusedly and supplied it for her.
"You are trying to say that she loves the whip but not as hard as her Mistress applies it to her delectable curves. You would probably add that she would like the thongs confined to her little girl's bottom."
"Yes Master."
"I would suppose the dear child remembers spankings and light whippings from childhood that aroused erotic responses from her glands. But did not hurt enough to be unbearable. I take it you had no such memories?"
"No Master."
"Have you felt only pain, nothing more?"
"Afterwards, Master, there is a good feeling. Even when I weep there is a gladness. I had supposed it only because the punishment was done."
Rasuli broke open a roll. The hovering servant refilled their glasses. Her owner gazed across the table with more than laughter in his eyes. "I will tell you now, my dear, that later you will use your skills and that lovely body for my delight. Inevitably you must wonder. I prefer the privilege be clearly understood."
"I am honored, Master." Eve supposed it was the thing to say. But it sounded stiff, right out of a novel. Anyway that was that! She knew what was going to happen to her. Lynn would have used a term explicitly vulgar. Meeting his eyes they shared laughter.
"The fate worse than death." He said. "Let us drink a toast to it!"
Eve was scared. But it was a bridge she would cross when she came to it. In the meantime she was happy. Brief as the moment might be she cherished it. It must not be spoilt. A traitorous thought flickered in her mind that perhaps later she might be happy too....
It was at this point that Eve realized they were less alone than she had supposed. Whether subdued lights had come into being or whether her eyes were now accustomed to the gloom beyond their table she could not be sure. It did not matter. It was probably that Rasuli's presence was such that it excluded the extraneous. There were shallow alcoves in the walls. In the two closest to their table there were naked girls, the exquisite curvature of their silhouette diffused by the uncertain light. Each girl stood posed within her recess as within a frame. Her weight on one leg, the other negligently bent, her wrists chained above her head, one on each side where the walls curved into the arch. Their heads were slightly bowed as in submission or in dreams. They were more exquisite than any painting could ever be.
Eve knew Rasuli had observed her awareness. But he did not speak of what she had seen. The man was a sensualist. To him the chained girls might be un-remarkable. She wondered if some night she herself might be chained there for someone's delectation.
"In spite of our laughter, dear girl, you will be punished if you fail to please."
"If I fail to please, Master, I myself will ask for the whip."
Had she been presumptious, too cocksure! For one awful moment she sensed him considering the same point. Then, once more, their eyes met in laughter. "I will admit that I am a very frightened girl, Master." This time there was a shyness in her voice that pleased him. She could have sworn that one of the fettered maidens raised her face slightly and smiled.
"You and the younger one are lesbians. I know."
Eve froze. What Eastern tabu might she and her love have violated! But Rasuli's voice remained soft and meditative. Thankfully she emptied her glass.
"In my country it is not recognized. It is done. But those who do it had best not be seen. I remember my uncle caught his two favorite slave girls slaking their thirst on each other. I have always recalled his being very cruel to them. I have wondered if I would do the same. Times change. We change...." Rasuli, too, emptied his glass.
"He had them spreadeagled very tightly, taut like a bow-string. Quite naked. I was privileged to watch and to hear their pleas and explanations. They were not gagged. Their screams would be heard throughout the Harem as was intended. I was quite young and much aroused by what I saw. I have since wondered what I would have chosen for them at that moment had the choice been mine. They were beautiful, so easy to forgive: so pleasant to forgive and enjoy their gratitude-I am sure it would have been of a superlative excellence, that gratitude! Or to work upon that wondrous femininity the equally erotic penalty my uncle considered as befitting their transgression. Surely it would have been no easy decision for a boy whose manhood was rampant and demanding."
He thoughtfully ate an olive and assessed Eve's reaction to what she saw and heard. She suspected he was trying to shock her.
"They are delightful, are they not, those statues in their alcoves. It is an occasion for them. They may listen to our conversation and perhaps find amusement. They have been promised a whipping if they move beyond a certain tolerance. It is not too cruel. As they tire they will hang more and more of their weight upon their chains. The effect is most appealing, a very feminine pose."
"Will I stand like that?" She demanded boldly.
He shrugged. "It does not matter. You would fulfill the role with distinction."
"But I was telling you, wasn't I of my uncle and his lesbians." From the look he gave her Eve guessed he divined her wish to know what happened. It might be awful. It might happen to she and Lynn. But she had to know. She was a woman.
"It was very simple. There was not much blood. My uncle employed a woman expert in such things to perform the task. First she neatly cut out from inside their lips of love that small bud of flesh from which blossoms a woman's ecstasy. They cried out pitieously. No one paid heed. When that was done she took strong fine linen thread and knotted a single strand round the base of each nipple which she had previously teased into a hard erection by means of her own which I watched with interest. She pulled the loop of thread tighter and tighter so that no blood could enter these small prominences of a girl's loveliness. Then she knotted them fast and clipped off the loose ends. Her task was done."
Again Rasuli gazed at her as though daring her to ask him to continue. Eve was having frightened visions of herself and Lynn tautly spread....But without prompting he resumed the chronicle.
"The two girls were then locked in a cage where all the inmates of the Harem could watch their lovely nudity diminish daily. Flesh robbed of blood dies. But it dies slowly. All their waking hours the two lesbians could look down at their own two shrinking nipples and at the nipples of the one they loved and know that they were going to lose them. The girls were not bound. They did not need to be. Neither fingers or teeth could reach the deeply bedded thread. No one dare give them a knife. After about two weeks their nipples fell off one by one. There was no wound. No great agony of the flesh. Only the absence of something that had once been there to delight the eye and the spirit. When that day came they were released and sent to the kitchens. Men were free to use them. But since they could not receive they could not give. It was a barren union that none repeated."
"I think I would have accepted any punishment rather than that!" Eve was genuinely moved and horrified by what had happened to two slave girls long ago.
Rasuli nodded. "You are a woman." He said approvingly. "Other girls so taken in their shame were often given choices-I speak of the community, not just my uncle's house, and they felt as you. I remember one who chose a hundred strokes with the hide whip. It marked her for life. But her stripped body could still love. Another elected to be branded with her Master's initials, and considered herself fortunate."
"Are you telling me something, Master?"
He chuckled. "That because you love the young one I should have these things done to you. No! It has pleased me to make you fearful. A woman is never more feminine than when she faces a man's judgement and the punishment which she knows he will impose. I am of this age, little one, and therefore tolerant. Tolerance may destroy us all...."
Rasuli mused quietly with some secret thought. Eve suddenly had nothing to say. The story just told had shaken her. In slavery a girl would never be far from the abyss. The temper of a Master or a Mistress would never be constant. She must always tread with care. She sensed that she was being watched by the chained girls from beneath their docile submission. The light was too faint for Eve to discern whether their nudity bore the etchings of the whip.
Her companion broke a silence that had become charged with portent. "Come, little one, you have heard enough of reminiscence. We have kept those curvaceous beauties standing in their chains long enough. Let us away before they earn the lash. We have work to do."
Unexpectedly he took her in his arms. She could not resist, but flung her own about his neck and rose upon her toes, for he was tall. "You are very dear to me." He said quietly. "Perhaps tonight we may teach other much...!"
Eve had no need to answer. But the following day she did not tell the expectant Lynn all that she had learned.
* * *
On return of her slave girl the first thing Vida did was handcuff the hands that had gloried in their brief freedom once again behind their owner's back. They were tightened a notch more then they need have been. Eve did not complain.
"Reeta is your hands. You are better off without your own." The Mistress assured both girls. "If I give them to you they will only get you into trouble. You will get big ideas. Then you would get big stripes. So be thankful."
"If I took five strokes-voluntarily, I mean. Could I have my hands free for an hour?" Lynn asked wistfully.
"You can have the five strokes...."
"Couldn't you get His Worship to make love to me? Then I'd get my hands free like Eve did?"
"You're getting yourself on very thin ice, honey." Vida chided. "Don't push!" She chuckled at a delicious thought. "If I didn't think I'd get myself soundly whipped I'd ask our Master to have you up for the night with the handcuffs still on. I can't really think of anything that handcuffs could prevent happening to a girl. How'd you like that?"
"Oh yes! Oh please, Mistress! Ask him." Lynn was entranced.
"Turn round and lift your hands, honey." Vida ordered with mock weariness. "You sure do love this whip."
"My friend in time of need." The irrepressible nymphet intoned solemnly as she positioned herself. As an unspoken provocation she stuck her bottom out pertly and received two strokes instead of one.
It was true. The whip fascinated Lynn. It held an erotic appeal for her that no number of strokes could eradicate. When she received them she howled and contorted in a quite sincere agony. But the effect was never permanent. The other two girls were never quite sure whether she was a masochist or a child prodding to test authority. Eve had long realized that Vida often withheld the whip when she should have used it.
Another realization was that Lynn was better attuned to slavery than she herself. Despite her seemingly rebellious nature the younger girl possessed a resiliency, a curiosity and a sense of mischief that stood her in good stead. She cherished little sense of injustice. She had been handcuffed for over a month. But the fact did not truly disturb her. The slavery itself: its curtailment, its loss of liberty never dampened her optimistic conviction that each day would bring its own excitement or drama. She had become genuinely fond of the girl who, almost daily, whipped her. She bore no resentment. She shed tears and dried them with equal facility. Eve envied her.
The older girl recognized that she had been deeply affected by the night with Rasuli. She had not wanted it to end. She had not wanted to return to the chains and the whip. It was a bitter thing to know that she had pleased her lord for an evening and that he had a dozen others to make sport with. Perhaps he had a hundred! This was slavery indeed when she faced a knowledge like that.
Was she simply man starved! Had her defenses been down! But what matter that. He would have destroyed them! Was it loneliness. But no! She had found an intimacy, a warmth that she would never forget. She had found strength. Rasuli Khan would own a portion of her heart always. He had owned her body now for some time. She tried to shake off a dog-like abnegation that she could wear his whip marks with pride, but failed. What had Shakespeare said in measure for measure: "To wear the marks of whips like rubies". How beautiful that was! Like rubies....She chided herself angrily. She was getting to be as bad as Lynn.
The days and weeks trailed by. Save for their handcuffs they were granted much freedom by an indulgent Vida. Pretence of further training trailed away also. Lynn proclaimed that she had learned enough of the sexual act to charm a Catholic Bishop into bed. They were whipped less and less. Mostly whenever Eve found herself writhing on the floor she had to angrily acknowledge that she had invited the infliction by probing just as Lynn probed to fathom how much their Mistress would endure. She ascribed the childish act to a degree of boredom. They were given to understand that Rasuli Khan was away. They were waiting.
Their next milestone was the advent of the funny little man with the satchel.
He came late one night after they had been locked in their room. Vida had maintained small talk to lubricate his evident embarrassment. Two naked girls with their hands chained behind their backs. He could not take his eyes off them. His responses to Vida's chatter were absent minded.
"Oh do shake hands." Lynn had enthused when he had been introduced as Mr. Willows. Absurdly the poor chap had tried to oblige. Lynn had puckishly turned, presented him with a splendid view of her bottom, and wiggled her fingers. "We are all wearing handcuffs this year." She had said demurely. Eve's heart had melted for his chagrin.
They did not know why he had come. His stay was brief. He looked back at them over his shoulder to the last. It was evident they had affected him deeply. "He has come to measure us for coffins." Lynn surmised. "Couldn't you feel him looking!"
"More probably some connection with this place who'd never seen a couple of naked girls like us, so Vida did him a favor while The Master is away." Eve amended. "I felt sorry for him. He didn't get much of a look."
Hot milk at bedtime was a must for Vida. A carryover from childhood. The girls accepted it gratefully enough. It had become a pleasant habit that entailed a visit from their Mistress as she held the glass to their lips, an act they could never contrive for themselves.
"That little cutsie-pie act will earn you five." She told Lynn crossly. "You shocked Mr. Willows. He's a nice little man. You didn't have to stick your bottom out at him. Impudence to me costs you one. But to guests gets you five. I'll give 'em to you tomorrow. It's late now. Give you something nice to dream about."
"Jeepers," Lynn complained. "Five! Darling Mistress, couldn't you settle for three?"
"Complaining gets you double. You are now up to ten."
Both girls looked at their Mistress askance. Neither had ever received ten of the awful lashes at one time. A girl could never stand still to yield her body to so many. She would have to be tied. Something must have upset Vida. Perhaps by morning she would relent. "I'm sorry, Mistress." Lynn managed in a small abject voice as she wriggled herself into bed.
"You will be indeed." Vida agreed in an absent minded voice as she made for the door.
But the ten lashes were never delivered.
It was a strange sensation. Reminiscent of something a long time ago. Eve could not remember. One of those dreams where you are awake while still asleep, both actress and audience. There was no action. A pleasant floating on clouds, a ship that has pulled its anchor and drifts. Suddenly she remembered where it had happened before: in the hospital!
Recollection coincided with the knowledge of something amiss. She was receiving messages from her nerves. There was a feeling, a difference. Something had happened! Some instinct told her to keep drifting. Don't wake, don't wake, don't wake! It was like a voice. But there was no voice save her own. Every morning she tried, on waking, to use a hand. She never remembered the handcuffs until then. The frustration was the start of a slave's day. She did it now. Sure enough, she was handcuffed. One arm had gone to sleep while she lay on it. Drowsily she considered. Everything was normal that far, just as usual. She should not be laying on her arm. Was that the discomfort she sensed rather than felt. She did not think so. But why was she laying on her arm! Since being wedded to a pair of handcuffs she had slept on her tummy or on one side or the other. Never on her back.
One must rise sometime. Often the act seems involuntary. Thus the day begins. When she sat upright Eve became aware of pain. A dull nagging disquiet that was not localized. It was diffused. She shook her head and took stock of herself. Something was different: wrong! What was bothering her! It wasn't the whip. She had not been whipped for several days.
It came suddenly accompanied by disbelief. She must be still dreaming.
They were frightening. They were horrifying. They were beautiful!! Golden rings hung from her ears. Another pierced her nostril and nestled above her lip. Each of her nipples had been pierced and now proudly carried their own golden circlet. Twin bands of gold were set, one in each lip of her vagina.
The last of her drugged sleep vanished. This was real! Slipping cautiously out of bed she went to the mirror. Conformation of what had been done to her stared back from the polished surface. Her handcuffs prevented her from touching any of the rings as she longed most urgently to do. But she could study them, and this she did from every angle and in every pose. Her feminine psyche was torn between outrage and a strange joy. She considered her pain. It was bearable, probably dulled by drugs. She took a step back and forth tentatively testing. Only the rings in her lower lips proclaimed their presence. But not insistently enough as to impede walking.
Shock had centered attention on her own body. Now she turned guiltily and hastily to the cot where her loved one slept. She was met by two roguish eyes and an excited exclamation:
"Aren't they gorgeous, darling!"
How typically Lynn!
"Vida must have drugged us. I bet that was why the little man was here last night. I expect he did it. I say, darling, do you hurt much?"
"Not terribly." Eve admitted. "But what are you so happy about? You don't really want a ring through your nose, do you?"
"But they're beautiful!"
With a mixture of relief and reluctance the older girl recognized that this indeed was true. The exuberant nymphet shone and glowed as though the rings were magic endowing her with some even more vividly feminine quality. Eve thought she had never seen a girl more lovely.
"I bet we can never get them off!"
This obvious probability had occurred to Eve. In examining them she had discerned no flaw or break in the metal. The little Craftsman must have been highly skilled.
"They could be cut by the proper tools." She said reassuringly.
It was as though she had uttered sacrilege.
"Cut them!" Lynn wailed, "Oh darling, no! Who'd want to cut off anything as beautiful as these. I'll wear them always."
"Look a bit odd walking down the street with a ring through your nose, won't you?"
The caustic remark sparked the same thought in both. She had no sooner uttered it than she realized how irrelevant it might be.
"Now that they've done this to us...." Lynn's eyes were stricken, "Do you ... do you really think we'll ever get to walk down a street again?"
The rings possessed them. They were more final than chains. Less easy to escape from. The rings marked them as definitely as a brand.
"I wish I had my hands. I'd love to play with them." Lynn was a small girl with a delicious plaything.
"They'd hurt." Eve cautioned. "Probably just as well we can't touch them. They need time to heal."
At breakfast they bombarded their Mistress with questions. But Vida was noncommittal. She was even more distrait than the night before. There was something on her mind.
"When do I get my ten strokes?" Lynn asked brashly.
"I won't give them to you while these wounds with the rings are still fresh." Vida explained. "You'll get pain for a few days. I have to lubricate and turn them constantly so that the holes will stay formed and not close in on them. It's bound to hurt."
"But why have we been pierced and ringed like this?" Eve demanded insistently.
Their youthful Mistress eyed her with compassion. "Because you are slaves. Isn't that reason enough!"
"You mean we have gone over some sort of a hump-some point of no return?"
She looked at them bleakly. "You could say that."
"I saw two girls the other evening....They had no rings. Why us?"
"I will whip you. Hard! If I must."
Eve knew it was time to stop.
It was but a short span of days until the wounds had healed sufficiently so that the rings could be turned without pain and without sticking. Vida had given them much care and attention. When she was satisfied with their condition she unlocked the handcuffs and gave her charges back the use of their hands. It was a gala occasion for which she provided a bottle of champagne. Lynn spent her first hour of unfettered freedom playing with the lovely circlets that were now a part of her. She was utterly fascinated by the bonds welded within her flesh.
"Well, here's to your hands!" Their Mistress toasted, raising her glass. "Don't let them get you into trouble. If you think a moment you'll realize you are worse off now than when you were handcuffed. Now you can't put up any kind of struggle. You daren't! A six year old kid could control you with the greatest of ease. Anyone can. Let anyone get hold of a single ring and you'd have to stop fighting and do what they told you. It's not that they are erotic ornamentations only, and they sure are that! I almost envy you. But they make you totally slave."
She spoke truth. Never for a moment could Eve lose awareness. There was a terrible compulsion to finger them. To turn them round and round as though seeking some magic motion by which they would leave her person in the same way in which a child's puzzle miraculously comes apart. But they were flawless. She found herself contemplating a possible condition in which they would remain fastened upon her all the days of her life.
If only she knew why! But Vida remained of uncertain temper and must not be questioned. The youthful Mistress had on one occasion savagely whipped her because of persistence. The severity of it had shocked Eve into mute acceptance. Even Lynn was cautious. She had no wish to add to the punishment already hanging over her head. Vida seemed to find amusement in constantly reminding the younger girl of what awaited her. Her whipping was to be a ceremonial affair. Lynn would be rigidly bound and Eve would have to watch.
Eve admitted to herself that had it been Rasuli who had placed the rings upon her she would have worn them with pride. But he had vanished. Had he ordered the infliction from afar! Eve did not know. Perhaps he was not even aware of what had been done to the two girls. Perhaps he did not care. What were a couple of youthful females among so many! Yet she could not forget him.
With it all she could not doubt that she and Lynn had entered some new dimension of servitude. Ordinarily, freed of the handcuffs, they would have sensed relief and sought possibilities of escape. Since they walked around with a good deal of freedom during the day it would have been normal to explore. But not now! The metal circlets imposed an inhibition partly psychic and partly physical. The thought of someone clutching one during flight was devastating. From time to time The Mistress or Reeta would hold one by finger and thumb, look their victim in the eyes and gently pull. Twice Eve had held still to discover what latitude she had in such a contest. They had been only momentary testings. She discovered she had no latitude at all. Thereafter she meekly followed wherever she was led. One ring was as potent as the other. The thought of tearing flesh could not be faced. Obedience was implicit in a finger on a nipple ring. Could a girl be more a slave!
The summons came unexpectedly.
It was the day before Lynn was to be whipped. Without warning their Mistress produced the familiar handcuffs. "I don't think you'll have to wear these long." She told them as she notched the metal tight upon their wrists. But we are taking a walk. Best not lead you into temptation."
Indeed the walk was short. But it was through a part of the house they had not known. It ended before a desk in a heavily furnished Library. Behind it was a woman.
Differently clothed it might have been Rasuli Khan himself. Interpreting Eve's eager interest she said easily. "Yes. I am his sister. It was as though she had said everything.
Forty perhaps. Handsome. Complexion more heavily shaded than Rasuli's. Educated. Expensively clad. Eve summarized it in a quick glance.
"My brother is following the sometimes foolish pursuits of men." The woman said pleasantly. "While he is gone I will be obeyed. You will address me as Madam. My name is meaningless to you."
A woman of business. Eve pictured her competently directing affairs. Probably faintly contemptuous of men! Had Miss Trevor been like that! Eve could not remember.
"And now, children, let me have a look at you."
It was a comprehensive look. Complete! They were told to stand, to sit, to turn, to pose. When it was done she said simply: "You are very beautiful. I should not tell you that. But you know. It shows in the way you hold yourselves."
Madam turned to Vida. "All is in good order?"
"Yes Madam."
"You may report as ordered. Tell Sharon to delay your whipping until we arrive."
"Yes Madam."
Vida placed the small keys into the handcuffs on the desk. Gave her two slavegirls a stricken glance and departed.
"My brother loved you, did he not?" The sharp eyes rested on Eve, stripping her.
Even without the bombshell of Vida's dis missal the question would have dazed her by its suddenness.
"Perhaps it was I who loved him." She faltered. She could almost feel the thongs curling around her back.
"A good answer. I like you. You will not be whipped for amusement. Only for cause." It was as matter-of-fact as the approval of a dinner menu.
"The rings: They are quite recent. Would you wish them cut from you?"
"No Madam!" Lynn's exclamation was almost involuntary.
Eve smiled affectionately and added her: "No Madam." in a quieter voice. Then added: "If I were to be allowed in public places I would hope that the one through my nose might be taken from me."
"Has Vida competently controlled you?"
"Yes Madam. She has taught us obedience. She has whipped us often." Eve felt the latter testimonial the greatest tribute.
"What effect do the rings have upon you?"
Eve wondered if the rapid questions were intended to disconcert. Or did they stem from a need to know?
"They make a girl vulnerable, Madam. She dare not risk any physical imposition. But they strangely make us docile so that we have no wish to struggle. Essentially they are beautiful. So we are proud of them. We are female."
"Have you been happy in my brother's house?"
On the face of it an absurd question. But perhaps born of discernment.
"Part of the time, Madam. More than we expected to be when we were kidnapped."
"What punishments have been used on you?"
"The whip and the electrodes, Madam."
"Which do you prefer?"
As though choosing between coffee and tea! But the answer was simple. "The whip, Madam."
"If you were given a choice between the Electrodes, the whip, or some form of painful bondage for a day, which would you choose?"
Eve remembered well the day she had hung from her wrists. "The whip, Madam."
"You are lesbians, aren't you?"
"We love each other, Madam."
"You can reconcile that with regard for Rasuli Khan?"
"Yes madam." Eve had a quick horrific vision of the electrodes being clipped upon her.
"You do not see it as a form of betrayal?"
"No Madam. Your brother was aware of it."
"Why are you handcuffed?"
"Our Mistress wished to ensure our good behavior in your presence. This situation is new to us, Madam." Eve hoped it was a plug for Vida.
Rasuli's sister looked them over meditatively. The questions had been brusk. But she seemed not displeased. She was startlingly abrupt as though whittling away at a mountain of tasks awaiting her attention. She picked up the keys. "Come with me."
Vida was naked. Save for her loveliness the large room was bare. She hung from widespread wrists. Her ankles were tugged apart and corded to rings in the floor. She was suspended as a perfect 'X', her limbs and torso taut with strain. She was very much afraid. She had eyes only for the woman who had sent her here. Beside her stood a girl holding a whip in one hand and some loose cord in the other. Like all of Rasuli's woman she was lovely. She was attired in brief garments and many bangles.
Madam spoke directly to the two chained girls. "You will witness what takes place here. I want it to be an object lesson. Your former Mistress has committed no recent fault. She is being whipped to enable her to make a proper transference within her mind from one female condition to another. I know of no better way. Sharon will whip her. Sharon is your new Mistress. You will obey her. She will punish you at will."
Madam turned to Sharon. "The older girl is absolved from caprice punishment. For cause she must receive full penalty. You will use the whip as medium. For them it will be less traumatic. The young girl you may whip as you please."
Swivelling her attention she said to Lynn and Eve: "The directive does not mean you will be constantly whipped."
"And now," Madam declaimed as though laying the corner stone of a new White House, "We will deal with a matter long overdue. Commence, Sharon. Her waist, her buttocks and down the inside of each thigh. Not above her waist. I do not want her breasts cut."
Vida did not plead. She evidently accepted her cause as lost. Her pert features were strained and resigned, without hope. She gave her two former charges wan smiles of recognition. Then allowed her head to sink forward, her gaze upon the floor. She had not looked at Madam or at Sharon. She studiously avoided looking at the whip.
She did not scream until the fourth stroke. From then on she made no effort to be silent. She could not struggle. But her breasts heaved as she panted or sobbed. Her head went wildly from side to side. Sometimes her wide eyes raised in mute appeal to Madam. But finding no succor there fell hopelessly away. Sharon whipped the taut white flesh slowly but viciously. Frightful weals sprung, as if by magic, across the lips, the buttocks and the waist. The slight girl's waist was ideally fashioned for the lash. The thong curled around it with a snapping crack as though the slim nudity had been cut in two. Soon the wounds there merged so that Vida was circled at her narrowest point by a belt of scarlet and purple. The sounds that emerged from her parted lips were pitious.
Eve and Lynn looked at each other distraught. True, this girl had whipped them often. But never like this. For a long time now her use of the whip upon them had been born of mischief or a mutuality only understandable through some alchemy of the female psyche. They found no joy in the torture of their former Mistress. They felt only shock and an infinite compassion. They longed to protest or to help. Eve sent a negative message to the teen-ager whose mounting anger was becoming all too obvious. She felt certain that one wrong word could place either of them beside the suspended victim. As usual the handcuffs defeated them. They were physically impotent. Eve never ceased to marvel at the control the narrow bands of metal upon their wrists imposed. They could do only what Madam desired: stand and watch and visualize themselves in a similar predicament.
The most heartrending gasps and cries came when Sharon started on the softness of the inside thighs. Stretched and fastened as the feet were from any angle most effective for the girl who wielded the whip. She could send her lash flickering into the inverted 'V from front or back or side. The results were devastating. The triangle of pubic hair made a target of its own which she did not ignore, she struck it vertically from above and from below. The punished girl screamed her loudest. Eve remembered the single such stroke that had bisected her own loins. Its mark had not yet faded. Slowly the punishment continued to its awful finale. What could Vida have done to earn it!
Eve watched Sharon. Since this beautiful creature now held dominion over them it would be wise to assess her. It was evident that she enjoyed using the whip, not in a sadistic sense but with curiosity and a pride in skill. She was visibly gratified when she achieved a snapping crack with the thong and elicited a responsive cry from her victim. In a more mundane setting it might be said that she enjoyed her work. She was methodical. Without haste she had cut stripe after stripe down that portion of the suspended girl's body as Madam had directed. She would do what she was told and compel others to do the same. She was very much Madam's girl. Yet when their eyes met there was humor in them.
This humor surfaced when she locked them in their room. "Glad you watched, kids. Do the same for you sometime. It's fun."
She seemed genuinely sorry about their handcuffs. "I don't have the key. I expect Madam forgot. I'm not going to chase her. Use Reeta all you want. Guess you'll survive one night."
"Good gosh. We wore 'em like this for a month once." Lynn boasted.
Sharon looked at them shrewdly. "Damned odd effect. Or didn't it hit you that way? I mean ... when they fixed me I found myself actually tickled by the way it sticks your tits out. You two look quite something with your hands behind your backs. Want I should leave 'em on steady?"
"Why was Vida whipped like that?" Lynn had been dying to ask.
"I'm supposed to whip you for questions like that, sugar. Don't you know that by now?"
"Oh alright, if you must. I know I'm a brat. But we like Vida."
Their new Mistress smiled tolerantly. "I like you too. So no whip this time. I'll let you in on a little secret about me. I'll whip you lots. I'll love to make you dance. But mostly it will be for fun-my fun, that is. I think that between girls like us it should be a fun thing. Not solemn and penal the way Madam does it.
"You mean we don't get whipped when we misbehave. But we do when we don't?" Lynn seemed to find the anomaly entrancing.
"Well ... sort of, sugar. But you let Madam even glimpse an infraction and I'll have the skin off you. If I allow you to get too foxy it wouldn't be long before you'd both be standing with your cute little hands chained behind your backs watching me get cut into strips. I've had some of that. I don't want any more.
"Have you and Vida gone through the same ... training, that is being done to us?" Eve felt it safe to ask.
"Up to a point, sugar." Sharon smiled knowingly. Coming close she toyed with the rings pendant from Eve's nipples. "The difference is these delightful bits of jewelry. Don't see any on me, do you?"
"Why are they on us?"
"I don't know, sugar. In lots of things I'm as lost as you are. But to be ringed is to be something special. You've been chosen." She gave the metal circlet a small tentative tug. "Hurt?"
Eve nodded soberly. "Yes. It hurts. We haven't been pierced all that long so they are still tender. But I expect they always will be. With that grip you have on just one ring you can compel me to do anything. Honest! I'd do anything rather than have you pull hard....But I suppose you know that."
"That's the reason I know you'll be good little girls and only get your bottoms tanned for fun....To be ringed like that must be wonderful."
"Wonderful!"
"Of course." Sharon's voice became wistful.
"I wish those rings were on me. You're not going to pretend you don't love them."
"I suppose you are right." Eve conceded. "They make us so terribly manageable. That's the slavegirl part of them. As a female, yes, I adore them."
"They make me real horny if I let 'em." Lynn contributed informatively.
It was evening before they were joined by Vida. A subdued and naked Vida with her hands cuffed behind her back who looked at them dubiously as though unsure of her welcome. She was ushered in by an efficient Sharon.
"Madam gave me the keys." She said cheerfully as she unlocked the metal from the wrists so well accustomed to its bite. "Vida has to wear hers. It's part of the deal. But you two can look after her now you're free."
Alone, the three girls looked at each other searching for the right thing to say. Then, with a small moan of desolation, the whipped girl flung herself upon a cot and buried her face in the pillow. The two who watched beheld the cruelty of her wickedly marked flesh. From waist to knees their former Mistress was striated by weals in a multitude of colors and gradations. But they sensed she was suffering from more than the pain of her wounds. To be debased from Mistress to the veriest slave of all would be her bitterest hurt.
They comforted her. Doing with tender fingers those things her chained hands could not. When her sobbing slowed they bathed and dried her, shocked at how cowed she had become.
"You aren't mad at me too?" She seemed to think it a possibility.
They reassured her. Soon the reslience of youth worked its magic. Perched on a cot she tugged at her fettered hands petulantly and voiced her anger and despair.
"The rotten bitch! She's an absolute cow. I sassed her once a long time ago when it was safe. Since then she's always claimed Rasuli gave me too much authority. He slept with me often. That made her mad too. Said I was too big for my britches, or whatever the equivalent is in her lousy language...!"
"But why has Rasuli allowed her to do this to you?" The question seemed obvious.
"He doesn't know. He didn't 'let her' in the way you mean. She's in the cat-bird seat so she just did it for spite. If he ever beefs the thing is over and done. She had her revenge. He can't very well punish his sister. Not Mrs. Sammy Cohen!"
She saw their incredulity and laughed. "Oh sure. She married a jew. Rich, of course. Very old so he died and left her the lot. Probably murdered him. Her real name's Rahbinda."
Vida pondered awhile. The girls waited mute and curious. "Hell of it is I can't be sure she's through with me. I'm demoted, of course. You don't have to call me Mistress any more. Better be careful and let Sharon have the title, she's unpredictable, and the Madam 'ud blow her top if she heard you address her any other way. She's nuts about etiquette-her own brand, that is."
"But what will they do with you?"
Vida shrugged resignedly. "I don't know any better than you two know about yourselves. I always figured we'd all end up out in the East somewhere in Rasuli's Harem or the Harem of some other rich guy he'd sell us to. But when he gave me the job I had it figured I had it made. I was free and well paid. Now I'm back where I was when they first kidnapped me. I'm a slave for sure." Her pixie face lit up. "Wonder what sort of price I'll fetch!"
"But Rasuli won't let you be poorly treated. He's not that kind."
Vida eyed them somberly. "He won't if he's around. But the way this bitch acts I'm not sure he is around. He is into politics out in that lousy place he comes from. I have an awful feeling Rasuli is dead."
In the morning Vida was taken away. When she was returned to them the following day her flesh was pierced with rings as was their own.
* * *
It must be said that Rahbinda was kind. She made a point of seeking Eve and talking of many things. She treated Lynn as an amusing child. Vida she ignored. When, after a couple of weeks, she summoned Eve to the library again the slavegirl went without trepidation.
"I have a task for you." Madam said pleasantly. "It will not be easy, but it will break the monotony." She looked appraisingly at the naked figure standing submisively before her. "I am going to trust you. Possibly you may be tempted to be foolish. But I do not think so. May I trust you?"
"Yes Madam." Eve was sincere.
"Good! Sharon, take her. Prepare her. Instruct her. That is all."
The preparation was the same as on a previous occasion. Eve was made as lovely as human ingenuity could contrive. But this time she wore nothing but her rings. Her heart sang. Could it be possible....
It was the same room, the same table, the same candles, the same alcoves. In one of them a chained girl stood nakedly and watched with interest, not yet under the compulsion of a pose. Sight of the other alcove empty sent Eve's heart plummeting. So it was not Rasuli after all. She was to be a living statue. Part of the furnishings.
Sharon chained her wrists above her head. It was a beautiful pose, flattering to any girl. But Eve knew it would be tiring. Sharon explained how to stand to get the best effect and sustain the least fatigue. As she adjusted the unseen light so that the chained girl would show only as an entrancing shape, she chuckled and asked, "Would it shock you to know I stood right here that evening you're remembering?"
"Chained, like this?" Eve was aghast. There was no stability anywhere.
"Just the way you are, sugar. Us girls have to be versatile y'know...."
During the waiting time Eve would have loved to ask questions of her companion in chains. But neither girl spoke. Horrific punishments had been mentioned. Even the servants who came and went ignored them. Eve wondered grimly if this was a step up or a demotion.
This time there was cutlery for four. They materialized as Rahbinda, two men and a woman. The conversation was intimate. Evidently they were not total strangers. The small talk flowed easily with the wine. But as the dinner progressed the tone deepened. This was a business meeting. The things discussed were not trivial. Eve supposed that ordinarily the girls chained in their alcoves listened to what they could hear to pass the time. She had begun to do this, alert to some vibration in the sound that nagged at memory. She dared not lift her face but managed to raise an eyelid from time to time. These brief glimpses told her that without doubt the woman and one of the men were fully aware of the alcoves and what they held. She felt a growing excitement. The candles were poorly placed for her at this distance. But an occasion arose that caused two of them to be moved upon the table. Features previously shadowed became clear and distinct. Eve knew without doubt that she was posing for Mrs. Rahbinda Cohen, an unknown male. Mrs. Lillian Galbraith and the enigma whose only name she knew was Calvin.
It was startling. One more thing to throw her off balance! Fury glowed within her. Coincidence? Hardly! Was she being played with, or was she only an accidental pawn in a larger game! The talk gave no clue. It was strictly business. Large sums of money were being mentioned. Now she understood the warnings: Rahbinda's mention of trust and Sharon's promise of a skinned bottom if she 'Acted up'.
But what a dilemma! Lil or Calvin could rescue her. She had only to cry out to get their attention. Yet it suddenly occurred to her that Mrs. Galbraith's whip had hurt as much as Sharon's did. Had they known she was here, or was she as much a surprise to them! Either way she was seen but ignored. She blinked away tears of frustration. They would certainly earn her the whip. Steadfastly she held her pose.
Would they see her rings in the diffused light. Almost certainly they would. Strangely she felt ashamed that Calvin should behold her thus. Under his scrutiny the rings made her doubly nude. She did not want him to share her loveliness. He deserved nothing of this feast of female flesh so cunningly presented. He had treated her despicably. She groaned inwardly. The evening would bring her only humiliation and fatigue. Calvin had nothing she wanted.
The dinner dragged on. At its end the guests, of their own volition, turned their frank attention to the tableaus provided for their delectation. They moved closer for a perfect view. Rahbinda deprecated the effusive compliments and answered questions matter-of-factly. Eve knew herself the cynosure of all eyes. Regardless of who the guests might be, they were enthralled by her rings to the point of discussing them as though she had no ears. She would have blushed had she not been so furious. She had never fought so hard for composure. Madam was very close and Madam was watching.
Safely locked in her room by a casual Sharon quite oblivious of anything untoward, Eve spoke nothing to Lynn of what she had seen. Why inflict upon the happy child the conundrum that plagued her. Instead, she contrived an amusing report on the evening. Lynn chuckled. But Vida knew the play by heart.
In the morning Eve was blindfolded and taken away.
Sharon parried the questions. But Eve, doing a simple computation of her own, arrived at a conclusion in which she found no joy. Blindfolded, hands again cuffed behind her back, the lengthy journey in the car. But why not Lynn too!
When the blindfold was whisked away Eve knew she had stood naked and chained facing this desk before. It was too, too familiar. She cringed disgustedly, longing for clothes and the freedom of her hands.
Across the desk sat Calvin.
"Welcome home Miss Trevor." He said cheerfully.
Spit in his eye! Freeze him with haughty silence! Eve longed to vent her fury at this last humiliation. Incongruously she was most concerned by the ring through her nose. This small facet of her abasement was something she did not wish him to see. But Calvin was seeing it and more! She refused to cringe. She stood erect and proud. But inside she shuddered, a prey to conflict: was this man friend or enemy!
"Please unlock the handcuffs." She asked humbly.
"Why?" He made it sound like genuine curiosity.
The one single word told her everything. He was no friend. She kept silent. She loathed the knowledge that under this steady scrutiny she would blush.
Calvin was in no hurry to speak. He was obviously enjoying the situation immensely. Why not! The cool Miss Trevor naked and chained, standing, waiting his pleasure. Had she unwittingly hurt this man, too, along with others by what she once had been!
It was an unequal contest. He held all the cards. The silence lengthened. Calvin quietly enjoyed the picture that she made standing thus. Eve knew that any motion of hers would only add to that enjoyment. It was not easy to stand still staring at him stonily as the moments ticked by. In the end she was betrayed by a tear that trickled down her cheek.
Did he see it as her flag of surrender! Perhaps. Or a signal for which he had waited. Producing a clean handkerchief he dried the moisture from her eyes. Then, with seeming inconsistence, unlocked the handcuffs and placed the cambric in her own hands before he drew up a chair for her and resumed his own.
"Look sweetheart," he was suddenly earnest. "I'll iron out some tangles. If you can gather up some loose ends you'll be in a better frame of mind to consider a proposition I'm going to make."
He was an attractive man. There was a force about him. Why oh why had he spoiled something good! Eve listened avidly as he used his fingers to enumerate:
"One. I was not in love with you. I was one of several whose skin you managed to get under." He grinned confidingly, "Honey, you really did have a gift for doing that. Most of 'em were plain mad. For me it was erotic as Hell. I longed to whip your ass.
"Two: I got you down here to have fun. I was going to have my little session with you same as Lillian and Ennerson. We were going to send you home a sadder and wiser girl with a tender butt to sit on outside Colby's office." He waved his hand airily, "Oh sure ... the cops! You think you'd have called 'em. You wouldn't!
"Three: I got called away. I had to either tell Marge to let you go or else think up something entertaining for you. Lillian would happily have whipped you for a month. But it would have got to be a bore. I suddenly had ideas about you. I wanted to toss you into something exotic and see what emerged. We all knew you were good material. It was just a case of how that material shaped up. So I thought of Rasuli.
"Four: Marge engineered your escape. She knows just how young Lynn's mind works. Rasuli's car had been waiting quite a while before you two climbed over the wall.
"Five: Why did I bother? Why the mystery? Why the devious course?" Calvin shrugged and gestured. "I wanted to see what it all did to you: how you'd react. Maybe I wondered if Miss Trevor had anything under the ice.
"Six: The rings. Incidentally they make you incredibly beautifully erotic. By that time I'd had an inspiration. They were part of it."
"Now I'm to be your personal Persian Houri?" Eve asked tiredly. Calvin now seemed an inconsequential small boy who needed his face slapped.
"No," He said brightly, "It's better than that. I'm going to keep you here on tap as a nice gesture to any V.I.P. who's proving difficult. You know: the ultimate bribe."
Eve considered the outrage. It figured. "A prisoner for as long as my charms entice?"
"Needn't look beyond that now. You'll knock 'em dead for years."
"How nice for me!" In Calvin's company she unconsciously reverted to Miss Trevor.
"Thought they'd knocked that out of you...?" He seemed genuinely disappointed.
"They did. You put it back."
Calvin leaned forward to emphasize his words. "Don't be like that, Honey. Out of uniform and with those rings and a few whipmarks you're an absolute knockout. A night with you and I'll be able to wring 'em dry. Tell you what: you'll retire eventually when your boobs droop. But I'll cut you in. By then you'll be rich."
"Isn't it more conventional to sell me to a crib in a South American Port?"
"I can do that too, and right now!" Calvin said with acerbity, striking the desk with his open hand so that she flinched. "Dammit girl, I'm trying to get to you."
Eve looked down at herself and gestured: "Naked, rings thrust into my flesh, whip marks.
"That's your stock-in-trade, kid! Can't you see that. The boys won't ever have seen anything like you. You're out of their world." His face glowed with enthusiasm. Eve longed to slap it. How crass and insensitive could a man of the world be!
"But why me? Why don't you hire a prostitute, a call girl? I understand the more expensive kind are extremely versatile."
He shook his head in mock bafflement. "Honey I just don't believe you can't see the gap 'tween you and them. It's nine miles wide."
Eve suddenly remembered. Guilt added indignation to her demand. "Why Lynn? She's ... you've made her, like me?"
His guffaw was spontaneous. "Do the little so-and-so good. Marge let Rasuli take her along. Figured that with her yapping away the effect on you would be less traumatic. Far as I know the kid cut herself in on the deal anyway. That's Marge's trouble; tender hearted."
"Tender hearted! To have me whipped and send her kid sister into slavery to have a ring in her nose and ... and everywhere else!"
Calvin laughed with genuine amusement. "Seems like it did get a bit out of hand." He admitted without concern. Chuckles almost got the best of him, "Young Lynn got the rings by accident. Someone got the instructions horsed up ... could even have been Marge. Nothing to weep about. Bet the kid's happy as Hell with 'em!"
The fact that he was right disarmed her. She changed course. "What's to become of her?" His eyes glinted malice. "You eat each other don't you! I'd thought of teaming you up. Marge agrees. The kid's a natural."
Eve was incredulous. "You don't tell me Marge wants that child balled by every old lecher you can't sell?"
Calvin became genuinely placating. "Honey, there's damn little tail involved in your job. The old bastards can buy all the tail they want. Any man can. It's the whip and all the other little tricks you've learned that sell the package." It was as though he had airily disposed of all objections.
"Have you ever been whipped?" She flung at him angrily.
"What would it matter if I had! You have: that's what counts. You know all about it. By now you must be damn good and used to it." He looked at her searchingly, "You are, aren't you?"
"A girl never gets used to it." She told him simply but with fervor. Seeing his look of dis belief she added. "Oh alright! I suppose I could say that after I'd been whipped a few times the initial shock-the sort of traumatic shocklessens. But the fear and the pain don't. It hurts as much the tenth time as it does the first time." She paused, considering what she should say. "Part of our training was to compel us to accept the whip gracefully: I suppose that's as good a word as any. If the person using it gives us a bit of a break we don't howl and carry on the way we did at first. It hurts just as much but we know that a lot of noise earns us extra strokes, so we do try and look as though we are having a wonderful time. Actually having to do that makes it worse than ever. Try smiling brightly when you want to curl up in agony...."
Again he made the gesture of groping for the right approach. "Honey," He said at last, "You hold only one card, and I wouldn't call it a trump. But we both know what it is. The act will only sell if you walk on stage smiling happily as though your audience was the only man you ever played to. Will you play? Dammit girl, half the time you'll probably be enjoying yourself!"
"No."
"Will you play if the alternative is to be hung up by the thumbs?"
"I suppose so." She admitted wearily. "I'm no Joan of Arc."
"Will you play it with feeling if you know young Lynn gets flogged every time you blow it?"
"Yes." She looked at him evenly. "You are a bastard!"
"Gets results, baby!"
Calvin recovered his bonhomie. "Sort of sprung it on you." He admitted. "But it will all fall into place. You'll sort it out." He looked at his watch. "A bit short on time. Busy, busy, busy. But I can spare an hour. Can't have Lil and old Joe Ennerson way out in front and me not even a runner up." He went to a cupboard and returned swishing the black and wicked wand Eve remembered all too well. "Put you through your paces, eh!" He grinned at her in a comradely sort of way. "See what Rasuli and his team put you wise to."
Eve knew a great weariness. Forever the whip! It haunted her. She longed to weep. She longed for the comfort of Lynn's arms. She was terribly alone. This crass idiot was going about the business of torturing her with the same approach as to a game of pool.
"I'll have you bend over and touch your toes, baby."
Eve looked at his pink face in genuine wonder. "Are you going to whip me because you are a sadist or something, like Lil and your good old Joe, or because the chance is laying around available and you never pass anything up?"
Calvin considered. "Dammit, honey, you got me stymied. But get into position. Time's a'wasting."
Eve stood. She was neither chained or bound. But the rings would compel her to obey. The thought of his hand clutching at them made her cringe. She moved toward him. "Must I bend over like a child?" She asked humbly.
"You are a child." He said good humoredly. "So you'll have to bend over and touch your toes, arch your back and stick your pretty butt out so I can really wrap this tickler around it." He guffawed happily at the desolation on her face, and added expansively, "Tell you what, Honey child: You put up a real good show and I'll give you a reward: The best damn reaming your little ass-hole ever had...."
Her response was basic, instinctive, elemental. Achieved in a single flash of motion. Her hand found the goose necked vase and swung it crashing against Calvin's head. Totally unprepared for resistance he fell like a log. She did not care if he was dead. Without pause she leaped to the door. It was unlocked. Silently she sped down the corridor to the stairs and the main Hall, every sense alert.
An escapee is in much the position of a child engrossed in one of those games in which a toss of the dice is used to circumvent a board bearing a variety of hazards or rewards. Always there exists the threat of a "return to square one." The escapee throws no dice, their hazards lie in a creaking board, the opening of a door better left closed, the dark passage that is not what it seems....
It was perhaps no more than five minutes before a panting and quaking Eve was dragged into Mrs. Galbraith's favorite room. The room of painful memories. Cora, Beth and Sharon had all got involved in what Sharon cheerfully called "The Great Round-up". A witticism gleefully acclaimed by the two jailers. At the end of it Eve stood in the hated room, once more handcuffed, once more fighting tears of bitter disappointment, tears that her chained hands could not reach. She had been left alone with Sharon who now produced a bit of cambric and rendered feminine first aid.
"Sugar, what on Earth are you into now?"
Eve sobbed out the ugly confrontation and its end. Sharon was aghast.
"Holy cow! You've hit the jackpot this time!" Her concerned face showed commiseration. "Look sugar, no one but you knows. I'll have to leave you and go and see what's cooking. Don't suppose even you want the silly bastard dead."
Hurriedly she unlocked one cuff from a wrist and snapped its jaws into a ring in the wall, then sped on her mission. Unhappily Eve stood, one hand firmly chained so that she could not leave the spot, the other doing its best to cope with fresh tears. Sharon almost seemed a friend. But in this place, now, she would have no friends. She was desperately afraid. There had been no mercy before. What could she expect now!
Sharon's face was grave when she returned. "Well, he isn't dead, sugar. I suppose that's good? He was just sitting up when we got there. Marge has him on the couch now. Wet towels and all the rest. He's wobbly and he's mad! First thing he asked for was you."
"Let me go." Eve pleaded. "Unlock this damn thing and let me have another try. I'm scared.
"Sugar, if I thought you had one chance in a hundred I'd do it. Honest I would. What's going to happen to you shouldn't happen to any girl. But you wouldn't have a chance. Even I couldn't get out of here. This place has more snoops than you can shake a stick at."
Eventually Marge came. She looked distraught. She avoided Eve's eyes, but addressed Sharon. "Yes it's what we thought. He wants you to do it. I'll send the girls to help. But then you'll have to wait until he shows up. He wants to watch." She gave one stricken look at the chained girl and disappeared.
Eve did not fight. She allowed Sharon to direct Beth and Cora so that she was quickly suspended as Vida had been that awful day with Rahbinda. A female 'X', toes off the floor, taut as a bow string.
"Wasn't my idea, sugar." Sharon said miserably. "But I'm going to have to do a job on you. I won't like it. But I'll do it."
It was a long wait. The 'X' position was a punishment in itself. Mostly the two girls were silent. What was there to say! Time went on and on. "Making you wait on purpose." Sharon offered disgustedly.
When the door opened again it disclosed the unexpected.
Beth and Cora carried in a long narrow pine box. It was solidly constructed. When the lid was raised it disclosed blankets. A mutual recognition caused a flash of consternation to pass between Sharon and her suspended victim. The object screamed aloud its purpose. There was no sign of Calvin. After the two women had gone it was some time before Marge appeared carrying a small tray. Conspicuous among the items on it was a hypodermic syringe.
"Calvin's changed his mind." Marge told Sharon. "You can guess, can't you? I expect you know more about it than I do. So at least you don't have to give her that damn awful whipping. He thinks it's best she arrive with all her skin intact."
Her voice trailed away. Both looked up at the tortured Eve. "It's not us. None of this is our idea. But I wan't talk him out of it. There's nothing we can do...."
"You could set me free. Please, oh please, don't put me in that box."
They paid no heed. They could not meet her eyes. Marge got a chair and stood beside the tractioned girl. "Believe me, darling, I don't want to do this." She inserted the needle in a raised arm and pushed the stem slowly down.
Eve believed her. But it did not help at all.
Soon she slept.
* * *
In waking from an anesthetic the patient has little judgement of the lapse of time. The waking process itself is apt to be fitful and prolonged. For Eve some inward mechanism of the mind told her that much time had passed. Her other senses registered messages that, little by little, told her of change. Some deep fundamental awful change. In hazy moments she wondered about death. Perhaps this was it: that nothing you had ever known was there any more. As consciousness returned it became a very lonely feeling.
The smell came first. Then the heat. The two seemed synonymous. After that the sounds, none of them specific. They blended. She was sure they were meaningful as are the notes of music when arranged and understood. But they were not music. They possessed no reassuring warmth to waken to. Then the bed, if that was what it was. It was hard. She lay flat on her back so that when her eyes opened and vision added its own quota of the inexplicable she could see only the greyness of stone, a very dirty grey interspersed with an equally dirty yellow that could have been mortar or brick. That was all.
When she finally sat up and looked about her it all fell into place. She was in what appeared to be a mediaeval prison.
The compartment might be fifteen feet square. Three walls, in one of which a high barred window provided light. The fourth side was a massive lattice work of metal fronting on a wide hall or courtyard. In it was the door. The furnishings were sparse: The bench on which she sat, a pail of water, another pail with a lid, the use for which she could grimly guess, a bowl. That was all.
The dizziness left by the drug took its time. She absorbed things without comprehension. When the mists drifted away she stood, slowly and tentatively, searching for impressions. Her first shock was to discover she was no longer nude. A faint humor likened it to a sack with a hole for the head and two smaller ones for the arms. The second shock came with the realization that it actually was a sack she was wearing, barely long enough to cover what females were supposed to hide, a touch of dressiness provided by a bit of string tied round her waist. Fortunately it was a narrow sack without undue bulk upon her slenderness. A third shock hit her with a jolt: every one of the rings had been taken from her.
Eve shook and tugged at the jute fiber with a feminine instinct to make what she could of it. In so doing she became aware of a missive thrust beneath the string that served as belt. Her name was neatly typed on the envelope. Opening it she scanned the half sheet with its brief message scawled with pencil in a thrusting heavy longhand:
"You icy bitch! Try this for size!"
It was signed by a big capital 'C.
Calvin's revenge! She had yet to discover what it was. There would be more to it than sitting in this cell. Unless, of course, she was locked in here for life!
She made an unsteady passage to the door. It was locked. At least she could find no way to open it. Holding on to the bars as she had often seen prisoners do in the movies she peered out at a limited and uninspiring scene.
It was some sort of prison. Across the wide court she could see other cells like her own. Figures were in them, presumably female. The belted sack was standard. Some of them stood as she was standing, listlessly looking through the bars. They were too far away to communicate. It was logical to suppose there were similar cells and similar occupants to each side of her. There was an Institutional odor of disinfectant fighting a losing battle with less agreeable smells. There were sounds of activity. But she was unable to see far enough to either side to know what they were.
Eve went back and sat on the bench. She was in some definitely foreign place where the climate was hot, very hot. Her skin was damp with the heat. She was in prison. A primitive place, but having about it some semblance of method and design. Calvin had put her here. It began to seem that Calvin had power to put a girl anywhere he chose. Suddenly she knew a desolation of loneliness and fear. She longed poignantly for Lynn....Burying her face in her hands she wept bitterly.
The Wardress, when she came, was as to be expected large, middle aged, swarthy, bored. She brought food. But Eve's hunger was for information.
"Where am I?"
The question obviously puzzled. From under a brow creased by conjecture dark eyes studied the prisoner.
"Jedrah."
It struck some chord of memory. A tiny Oil State tucked away in the desert. Eve tried again.
"This is a prison, isn't it? What is it called?"
"Ismaul prison." As though with reluctance the woman added a few more words: "Women. Is far from town." She left hurriedly.
The prisoner examined the small bowl and its contents. Stew! Bits of meat and vegetable floated here and there. No spoon. You drank from the bowl and used your fingers for the solids. When it was gone she was surprised to feel better. But why not! They would hardly bring her this far to poison her.
Her second visitor was male. He manifested himself silently so that she sensed his presence with shock. Her first impression was of a wide smile and two very bright eyes.
His total effect was quaint. He wore a frayed and faded uniform without insignia. It bespoke a desired effect cheaply provided. His feet were bare. He peered at her with evident interest. His English was as quaint as his garb.
"Is nice to see American girl. How do you do."
She had nothing to lose by being polite. She was.
"You are enjoy Ismaul Prison?"
"No."
His sigh was of a volume that denoted infinite understanding.
"Is not much nice for pretty girl in here. I am Caleb. Am Assistant." He did not say who or what he was assisting.
"Why am I in here?"
"You do not know!" He cocked his head and winked knowingly. "Most girls are knowing. Most girls have slapped a face. Some even have kicked where it is bad. You know ... not nice at all for man! So they are here. Sometimes for very long. Always they wish they had been more kind."
It was too incredible! A Prison for girls who had injured the holy ego of some influential male! Yet she was here. Calvin had sent her.
"You-you mean, your Government maintains a prison just for girls like, like me?"
"Ah yes. Is much money now with Oil. Is easy. Ismaul is very far in-" Caleb paused, groping. "Ah yes! Americans have word just right: Very far in brush. No one sees. No one cares."
"I care!"
Again the cocked head, the bright eye. "You slap, or you kick? Which is yours please?"
"I hit him with a bottle."
The eyes became even brighter, the smile more wide. Caleb's gesture with his hands probably invited Allah to view this phenomenon. He was intrigued. "You are hot stuff, eh! Holy dog! With bottle...! I am thinking you will be hurting very much."
"Hurting? How?"
He shrugged off the foolish question. "To begin maybe bastinado on nice feet or whip on pretty back."
"I wish to see the American Consul. Can you help me?"
"Is no such person here. Best you forget him."
"Can I be kept in here without a trial?" Eve made a futile gesture. "Doesn't someone in authority have to ... have to do something...?"
Caleb became vastly reassuring. "Oh you are having trial, very fine trial. Is why I am here. Is no hurry. But you like to come now?"
He produced a gargantuan key and unlocked the door. Eve was not surprised when the handcuffs appeared.
"You don't need those." She assured him. "I won't run."
He paid no attention, but snapped a cuff tightly round her right wrist, the other round his own left. "Is nice for Caleb to be handcuffed to pretty American girl. I much enjoy." He beamed his approval. "Is like American movie. You feel much at home."
Eve had never felt less at home than she did right then.
The Court was pure Scheherezade. Haroun El Raschid should have been around somewhere. Yet it had the semblance and trappings of judicature. The Judge was a venerable gentleman in robes and turban. A Clerk was busy with papers.
The case ahead of them was a frightened girl whose wrists were tied with cord and who was led before the bench by a rope round her neck.
She would have been comely had she not been weeping. She was young. In an extremity of emotion she knelt before the Judge. But was roughly pulled to her feet.
It did not take long. Two beared gentlemen, also in robes and turban, presumably the Prosecutor and the Defence each said a few words very loudly and with much waving of hands. Each sat down abruptly. The Judge pronounced sentence and signed a paper already prepared. The girl cried out in anguish and protest, but was dragged away, pleading, like a steer to slaughter.
"Two years with whip." Caleb translated helpfully.
It was Eve's turn.
She had never felt more ineffectual. She could not understand a word that was said. No one paid any attention to her. The procedure was identical. The ancient Judge said his few words, signed the paper, closed the book and rose. Business was over for the day.
"Five years with full punishments." Said Caleb cheerfully. "You are much lucky girl."
"Lucky!" She looked at her jailer in consternation.
"Oh, very much!" Was there sympathy in his glance! "For what you do girl has right hand cut off. Is in public on scaffold with big axe. Is not nice for her to have no hand. Judge most merciful for you."
Eve longed to ask him what 'full punishments' meant. But they were on the move. Perhaps anyway, it was best not to know.
"We now have first job." Said Caleb.
He led her to a place of smoke and tools and noise. Unlocking the cuff from his own wrist he fastened it to a ring set in one of the roof supports. "Caleb has duties." He explained. "Here they will attend to you. I will return." General McArthur could not have said it more portentiously. Caleb and the smith exchanged questions and answers. The smith and his helper examined her and laughed.
Eve stood. Chained to the pillar.
The Blacksmith shop was an incongruous blend of the archaic and Black & Decker. Eve stood, as others have done through the centuries, and watched with pure enjoyment the emergence of shape and form from shapeless glowing metal under the skilled hammer. She did not wonder long why she was there. The objects fashioned on the anvil and the repeated measuring of her bare ankle were more explicit than words. She was to be ironed.
The first horror of realization became tempered by a feminine satisfaction in the observance that she would not be confined in ugly shapeless chunks of metal. This man was an artist who sought perfection. As each anklet was shaped it was handed to the helper who then worked upon it with electric power tools to smooth and to polish and to grind to the exacting demands of the calipers. Eve might have extolled the final result as exquisite had it been designed for other than herself. She wondered at the number of links that joined the anklets. There were more than she would have supposed. She would be able to walk but not run. Perhaps that was the idea. Or was it that she must wear them as a badge of shame!
When Caleb returned to release her she was then seated on a high stool before the anvil. Knowing what was required of her, but without enthusiasm, she lifted one ankle and rested it within the shining band that awaited it. A huge vise was brought into play. She watched, fascinated, as the shackle slowly closed upon her flesh. Rivets were inserted in the holes already drilled. The hammer sung its song once more causing her to pray that his skill would not miss its target. She saw the metal flatten into round heads. When the vise was removed her ankle was at its narrowest point circled by shining metal so snug that, when the smith tested the fit, it would move neither up or down.
"Is best when tight." Caleb assured her comfortingly. "Less rub...."
When her other ankle had been similarly confined she stood and, at Caleb's invitation, essayed to walk.
It was not until she had taken her first testing steps that the full nature of what had been done to her made its impact. She could never get these things off. No one could! She was chained so that the fetters were a part of her. There was no key. Only a smith could set her free. It was frightening.
She doubted that she could ever become adept in chains. Her toes snagged a link or she trod on the chain or took too long a step and was in danger of tripping. Caleb snapped the cuff on his wrist again and ordered: "Come, we have intervew. Walk is practice. You do well."
Oddly her chained wrist gave confidence. By the time they reached the Official looking door she was walking well, but with a humiliating clatter of chain. Caleb then chained both her wrists behind her back, rapped at the panels, opened the door and thrust her within.
Had it not been for the color of the skin and the dark eyes Eve would have thought him British. He wore a uniform reminiscent of Aldershot. How absurd these people were: aping those they affected to despise! His voice was a shock. It was British-or at least a good imitation. He was middle aged and tired and bored. He had been perusing a file folder when she had entered. He looked over it now in a manner that made his prisoner feel an additional burden he was forced to bear.
"Miss Eve Trevor." He read aloud. "You have a most impressive sponsorship."
"I wish to see the American Consul, please." Eve made it firm and polite.
"My name is Perkins: a cause for much laughter." He waved a deprecatory hand. "My father was half English. I am Commandant here. You will address me as 'Sir'. I would offer you a chair, but it is against regulations. You will stand respectfully before the desk."
"What am I charged with? Why am I here?"
Eve had the feeling that he would happily have terminated the interview. Her questions were obviously an additional blow from an unkind fate. He consulted the file.
"The smuggling of Heroin and assault upon a Police officer."
"That's absurd!"
"Quite so." He sounded like a clerk in an English Bank.
"But isn't there some authority I can appeal to?" She added the title, "Sir" as a flustered afterthought.
"There is me." He did not even sound pompous. Just bored.
"You mentioned sponsorship. Somebody put me here ... sir. And why can't I have a proper trial?"
"You have had a proper trial. I have the executed court order and committal papers." He lifted them from the file. "All is in order by the laws of the state of Jedrah. You have been sentenced to five years of solitary confinement with full punishments. Those who witnessed your trial feel the judge was merciful." He smiled thinly, "This is not Chicago where the wicked go free." He examined her quizzically. "As to your other questions, you are here for the same reason that sixty-two other females are here." Again the thin tired smile. "Shall we call it a feminine lack of good judgement...."
Eve felt trapped. There was no succor here. He would evade all issues. He held all the cards. The best she could extract from this 'interview' would be a few scraps of knowledge. Thank Heavens he was human and spoke English.
"If one wished to ... to reverse that 'lack of judgement', can it be done?" She was desperate.
Perkins's smile became almost warm. Was there sympathy beneath the boredom! But his voice was cynical.
"The wish to, as you say, 'reverse the lack of judgement' is surprisingly common." He acknowledged. "This wish is always properly recorded. I have known cases wherein the sincerity was such as to warrant a parole." He raised a hand in admonition. "But such a parole is never granted until after the prisoner has been here long enough to benefit from the correctional amenities which is the main function of Ismaul."
So that was it! Actually a blatant admission. Break her spirit and let her come crawling home. She probed again. What had she to lose!
"Are these chains that have just been riveted on my ankles one of the ... amenities...?"
Their eyes met in understanding. "Yes." He vouchsafed. Then added: "They are obligatory in sentences of five years or longer. Desire to escape increases proportionately with the term."
"What does the judgement of 'Full punishments' mean, sir?"
The Commandant's saturnine features became even more dolorous. "The term is self explanatory, Miss Trevor. The figure of speech is comprehensive." He sighed wearily. "I fear I do not have the complete roster ... there is a certain fluidity in our approach, a humane flexibility. Really, I think you might be wise not to inquire too specifically. There is a rotation throughout your time here. It will take a considerable period for you to work your way through your first ... er, cycle."
"You are saying, sir, that I am to be punished constantly?" How Calvin must be gloating!
"I would not express it in just that way. But here will always be something ... pending."
Perhaps it would be better not to know. But Eve was female and prompted by an increasing fear.
"I would like to know, sir. To become mentally adjusted...."
There was pity in his glance. It was unmistakable. Once more his sigh was eloquent. "We begin always with a Ceremonial whipping. I think perhaps we can wedge this in for you tomorrow." He made it sound like a doctor's appointment.
Perkins paused as though visualizing. "We believe in Ceremony in the first instance. It has a salutary effect on all." He paused, then added quaintly, "Ismaul is isolated. There is little entertainment available....The event takes place in the main Courtyard: there is a platform. All prisoners and staff are present and are marshalled in military order." For the first time he grinned. "We even provide a drum roll at the appropriate moments. I find it most effective! Caleb does an excellent Drum Roll. He was once in the British Colonial Army as a bandsman. You will be appropriately restrained. You will be relieved of covering. You will receive fifty strokes with the whip...." Seeing her horror he added, "The whip is not such as to cause you injury, just pain."
Perkins quiet unemotional outline made it all seem plausible. In America it would have meant protests, howls from the Press, angry Congressmen. A National scandal. At Ismaul it would take place and none beyond the wall would know, or care. Shocked as Eve was at the picture of what was going to happen to her she felt little urge to hostile protest with this unconcerned man. He was part of a system that she had been made prey to. She was here because of Calvin. But Perkins would never have heard of Calvin, only the powerful intermediaries who Calvin had used his influence upon.
Again the awful loneliness descended. She had no one to turn to. Her only weapons would be whatever emotions she could touch in these foreign men and women whose captive she had become. She could be thankful that Perkins was not the brute that might have been expected. But he was saturated with the pleas of girls like herself, inured to feminine distress. To him she was one of many.
"There are other American girls here?" She asked.
"Yes. But you will not be cell mates, as I am sure you are about to ask. You will meet them in the exercise yard. They are not privileged."
Eve knew herself defeated. She offered the only capitulation she knew: "Please sir, can I....Is it permitted for me to say that I will abandon whatever attitude brought me here. I will....I will do whatever is required of me."
He nodded understandingly. "Of course. However your decision is too late. I notice in your file that there is also the matter of injury you have inflicted. It is felt by all concerned that you will benefit from the influences Ismaul is able to provide."
He was as evasive as jelly, as adamant as steel. He might terminate this exchange at any moment while there was still so much she longed to say or know.
"The whipping, sir. I am not experienced. It seems very terrible. I don't suppose I will behave well. Are all the ... the things equally severe?"
"The girls always scream." He conceded. "It does not matter." Again his shadow of a smile. "In fact I believe it is preferred. It eases the emotional stress for the culprit and provides the audience with a touch of the dramatic. So far as your other query is concerned I will say only that your first whipping and the bastinado are the most spectacular of the experiences awaiting you. The others ... well, it is a matter of temperament as to how you react. I will admit to having found some interest: almost a matter of study in the diversity of effect...."
"The bastinado!" It was becoming a nightmare.
"I am sure you are familiar with it. You are secured so that the soles of your feet may be whipped with a cane. It was a favorite form of discipline in the Harem. It achieved its purpose without marring the more visible assets of the delinquent."
Eve cringed. What was the use! She thought of Calvin's joy in her condition. Few men could achieve such revenge on a girl. What else could she say or ask! She had lost inclination to learn of the 'Full Punishments'. Enough was enough! A silence lengthened.
"Once a month I will interview you to assess your, er, progress. You may at other times request an interview. But if you bother me with trivia you will be punished." Perkins paused and gave her his most searching look. "One last thing: You have no rights here at Ismaul. You may as well understand that all the inmates are available to the staff. They will use you as they wish. You have no recourse. I will listen to no complaints. You are female! Should the mood strike me I may myself summon you to serve me. You would find the evening not unrewarding." He smiled and shook his head. "It is ironic that for many of you the outraged defense of chastity has led you directly to its loss."
* * *
It was indeed Ceremonial! Quaking in fear Eve could not but think of all the movies she had seen. The Commandant must have been a disciple of Cecil B. DeMille! It was impressive. If only she could have been among the audience instead of being the Leading Lady!
Caleb had escorted her from her cell. Hands cuffed behind her back, his firm grip upon her arm. They had traversed the straight lines of eager faces and mounted the steps of the central platform, a sizable structure that gave evidence of frequent and varied use. From this vantage point the victim could admire the truly military precision of the lines of girls whose faces peered up at her with a mosaic of expressions. The staff were equally at attention. They were surprisingly numerous. Probably even the cook was there. Small huddles of quaintly attired men and women stood on the outer perimeter, no doubt members of whatever public might inhabit the area. Commandant Perkins was seated in state in the front row.
But Eve's interest was more immediate. The main feature of the platform on which she stood was a scaffold, ideal for a hanging, an inverted 'L' of solid beams, its horizontal top bar protruding beyond the customary length: no doubt to accommodate more than one victim. Beside it, in snug black tights, stood the lithe and muscular figure of one of the female wardresses. She held the whip. A sinister silhouette obviously enjoying her role as executioner. Eve knew a flash of thankfulness that she was to be whipped by a woman and not a man. But a second look left her uncertain of the benefit.
As Caleb unlocked her handcuffs he wispered: "Much best to do as told. If fight will be much more hurting. You are now taking off dress, throwing it to one side and standing still. I am having to leave now." Pride deepened his voice, "Caleb is drummer."
The bit of sacking was not much. But to cast it aside in the face of this multitude was an act that took all her fortitude. Eve had grown accustomed to nakedness before. But never a nudity as stark as this! She stood straight, clothed only in her leg irons, for perhaps a minute. She knew the pause deliberate. Part of the Show. Then the black clad whipmistress came to her with cord and bound her hands in front, threw the coil over the end of the overhanging beam and tugged until the naked girl stood on tip toe, taut and straight. The rope was snubbed. Eve found herself isolated, the lone figure of a naked girl who was open to view from any angle. The immensity of the scaffold divorced her, remote from it.
That was all! It was so simple. Yet every inch of her was there for the avid eyes and offered defenselessly to the whip. Eve knew that her leg irons would not stop her from kicking and writhing. No doubt that was to be part of her repertoire. The pain on her wrists from her semisuspension took her mind from the faces. All her senses had become attuned to the movement of the woman who shared the spotlight with her.
When the roll of the drum beat its tattoo upon the still air, Eve's first instinct was to laugh. How absurd Caleb was! What Comic Opera was she victim to! But then her whole being tightened in a spasm of pure fear. This was it! This was the signal! Miss Eve Trevor was about to be publicly whipped. In some unknown or forgotten desert corner of a distant land a naked girl, hanging by her wrists, was about to be lashed fifty times. No one would care.
It was always worse than expected. Eve knew that to be free of the whip for days made its next first kiss as devastating as any first stroke could ever be. Her spirit cried, no, no, no against such awfulness. No one could know how awful it was, or they would not do it. She knew her legs were lifting and curling so that she hung. She did not care. Her body was no longer her own. It belonged to all the watching faces down below. The staccato of the drum died away as did the first searing flash of agony. Gasping she absorbed the pain. The woman who had imposed it moved forward and studied her, assessing the effect. Her eyes were bright with her own happiness. When she went back out of sight the drum again beat forward into its crescendo to hammer out its message as the lash cut the taut back and curled round beneath a breast.
Eve screamed. She did not want to scream. She particularly did not want to scream with Commandant Perkins sitting so close below the platform and watching so intently. But the scream, like the writhings and the jerking was not hers. It too was the product of an entity she did not control.
There were no more drum salutes to her pain. They had served their purpose. Now she who used the whip made it sing its own tune to suit herself. Each was a savage slash placed on the tortured body as she wished it placed, sometimes slowly with long pauses and sometimes in cruel and rapid succession so that the naked girl was driven to a frenzy of motion in which her ankle chains clashed like cymbals to accompany her screams.
In Eve's previous acquaintance with the whip her bottom had usually been the target. But not now. The whip sought her from her knees to her neck. She lost track of the strokes. But somewhere about half way through her punishment she realized an agony of thankfulness that her breasts were inviolate. The whipper's skill was amazing. The twin spheres were absolved. The tip of the lash often licked at them but reached no more than to their base. Eve thought bitterly between her screams; 'Calvin wants them intact, Calvin wants them, Calvin wants them ...!'. But no other part of her nakedness was spared. Neither back or front. The whip found it all.
The final tattoo of Caleb's drum gave a message Eve missed. She was too far gone in the land of pain. It signalled the fiftieth stroke. The last wonderful lash that spelt the end. But into which the wardress hurled her last ounce of strength so that it bit and curled in a way to almost spin its nude recipient from side to side as her struggles had grown weaker with each stroke. So deep was she in suffering that she did not notice her audience file away or hear the whipmistress leave the platform. When she blinked her way back to awareness that her ordeal was done she was alone.
They let her hang there. Teetering on her toes she tried to ease her pain. But her wrists were on fire to match the rest of her. Eve guessed that to stand upon the platform thus in nakedness and loneliness was part of her punishment. So utterly alone, hurting and fearful, prey to imagings: Perhaps it was not over! Just an intermission. Soon they would all file back, take thenplaces and the lash seek her out again. Or perhaps she would hang for hours or days as an object lesson to any who might see. Or, now that the Ceremony was over, she might be left for the amusement of anyone who cared to find sport with her body. A naked girl who has been whipped can believe anything. Hope and a flogging are incompatible.
Her pure joy in the sound of Caleb's voice told her how destitute she was.
"Is much hurting." He said comfortingly. "Caleb knows."
Did he know! How could he!
He took his time. Eve realized she was a perquisite of his office, whatever it was! What had Perkins said: she was 'available'. In honesty she could understand that, fastened as she was, she must be an erotic tid-bit for any man. An American might hasten to release her. But in his heart would have wished to feast his eyes. Caleb was not an American. He examined her flesh thoroughly feeling her raised weals with his fingertips, caressing her unmarked breasts, testing her vagina for secretions. He had an almost clinical interest.
"You are very beautiful. I think I have not seen a girl so beautiful with whip marks. Our Natcha is most clever with the whip. I would much like to whip you. But is not permitted in public."
Eve had not the energy to respond. But she managed a wan smile of acknowledgement. When he released her she would have left the platform without the sack and string had he not reminded her, so inured to nudity had she become. She let herself be handcuffed. It pleased him, so why protest. He might be absurd. But he was as close to a friend as she possessed in this place.
"Would you like me to fuck you?" He inquired helpfully.
Eve stifled hysteria and made negative sounds. He did not seem offended, but said grandly: "Another time! Caleb asks because some girls get most horny when whipped. It is much kindness to fuck them."
Locked in her cell again, Eve realized wryly that in her journey to and from the place of punishment she had been unaware of the shackles on her ankles. She had become used to them in so short a time. Her feet adapted. The anklets were now a part of her. Was anything any more than an adjustment in her mind! Would being whipped ever become commonplace!
Sitting upon her bench she considered the whipping. She had survived it. She had not fainted. She was not prostrate. This surprised! While the lashes were curling around her she was certain they would cut and incapacitate. Yet here she sat: hurt and sore, but whole and able to view her condition. Looking at all she could see of herself she beheld the livid marks with awe, and with a certain pride that she could sustain them. If only they were an end and not a beginning! Was there comfort in the knowledge that no matter how she hurt or in what manner the pain was given to her Ismaul would cherish her female flesh without serious injury.
In the days that followed she confirmed this surmise with the other American girls she met in the exercise period. Each was marked terribly. But they were healthy. Their stories were all the same so were hardly worth recounting. Each lived on the hope that the one who had sent her to Ismaul would relent. Some of them had been there over a year. But Eve was the only one of them whose ankles were chained. It earned her respect and sympathy in their eyes.
The fetters on her ankles placed her daily with a small group all similarly ironed and thus unable to participate in the compulsory jogging round the Courtyard. At Ismaul exercise meant just that. There must be no shirking. So she and the other chained girls were rigorously drilled by a cheerful Caleb and then sent to the washhouse to have cold water sloshed on them by a wardress who sometimes gave them soap or used a scrub brush on them herself in such a way as to make it a form of punishment. In all that she saw Eve concluded that escape from this place was next to impossible.
In this period, too, she found herself confronted by 'availability'. Thinking of what the Commandant had told her she had wondered how she could adjust to the indiscriminate use of her body by any male who fancied her. How maddening to have taken the stand she had against Calvin and his V.I.P.'s only to find herself now a female receptacle for all and sundry. Calvin's revenge! How sweet it must be for him!
Could she calmly lay down and spread her legs as far as their chain would allow! Could she! Was she expected to show goodwill in the act, or would a cold hostility pass. She had a strong belief that her behavior in this might easily lead to the whip or worse. She asked the other girls and discovered a surprise. A well whipped red head from Albany summed it up:
"Most of them will try you once. But they are all teamed up with one girl. They find her by trial and error: there's more of us than there are of them so they have a wonderful choice. The nutty thing is with men-and they're all the same everywhere, they expect you to love 'em." She laughed bitterly. "I expected rape, but the poor bastards are all screwed to a frazzle. With all this snatch laying around they are satiated. So then they go looking for some little broad who'll snuggle up and tell 'em how handsome and virile they are. It's the only way they can get a hard on." She chuckled, "Most of the poor twits have a wife to look after as well. So it's not as bad for us girls as you might think. Not in that way...."
Caleb made reference to the conversation. "She of the flaming hair, she is most angry. No man is fucking her. So she gets no small privileges. Is much pity. Caleb would help, but a man can not do everything." He made a mock gesture of apology. "I have most good prick. But for sixty two cunts...." He looked innocently at Eve and added hurriedly, "Your pardon dear lady: sixty three cunts, he cannot oblige."
"These girls who shack up with a guard: they get privileges?" Eve was curious.
"Shack up? Ah yes. We do nice things for them as well as fuck them and let them suck our cocks. They do not get whipped quite so hard and other punishments do not last so long. Sometimes when we are tired we allow two of them to sleep together."
"Share a cell?"
"Yes." Caleb looked awkward, "You see there are some girls who much enjoy to tongue each other's cunts. They search for what you Americans call their clit. It gives much joy. You know about?" Caleb looked embarrassed.
"Yes. I know."
"You have done this thing?" Caleb was shocked. "Once. With a girl I loved." How far away Lynn seemed!
"I am supposed to whip you for this."
"But I haven't done it here!"
"Ah, no...." He looked at her oddly. "You are most strange girl." He walked slowly away. She watched him through the bars. What had she done!
The following morning when he produced the handcuffs Eve knew her time had come. She had been told, and she herself realized afterwards, that a girl's true imprisonment at Ismaul did not begin until after the bastinado. She offered her hands meekly and let him lead her away. "Is this because of what I said yesterday?" She asked softly.
"Oh very much no!" Caleb disclaimed. His glance was almost pleading. "Caleb would not do such. The rules say you be bastinadoed. Today is your bastinado day. Little feet will be much hurt."
It was the same as before. Another ceremonial. Perkins had the same seat of honor. He seemed more animated, his eyes brighter. Perhaps he found her stimulating under torture. Again she was stripped and made to stand. She was angry at this calculated humiliation and refused to cower. Instead she displayed an insolence that she knew would soon crumble. Taking a deep breath she extended her chest and nipples to their utmost. Standing with feet apart she did the same for the junction of her thighs. Let them look! She could hide nothing. Why try!
There were two differences. This time the whipmistress held a limber yellow cane. This time Eve's feet were firmly attached to a small solid frame. She lay on her belly and forearms, the handcuffs gone. But the soles of her feet pointed flatly at the sky. She could not move them. They were a twin invitation.
Caleb did very well with his drum.
Eve remembered most the fiendish ingenuity of allowing her so much freedom. Save for her feet she was untrammelled by bonds. Yet she could do nothing. She could not reach back to her feet. She tried, only to meet the laughing eyes of her executioner. She raised herself in a push up. But it was futile motion. She had been competently prepared for sacrifice.
It was as no other pain she had ever known. Scarcely sister to the whip at all. With this there could be no heroics. The first slash along the length of one upturned sole sent her into frenzy, her screams pealing out one after another across the courtyard. The same true hard stroke on the other foot sent her nudity into a paroxysm of wild motion. As she screamed and screamed her fists beat upon the boards, her back arched, she raised herself as though to drag her body and the frame to which her feet were bound from the platform, her tear wet face turned piteously and imploringly to the woman who was caning her. But only in time to see the cane rise once more and witness its downward curve before she buried her face in her hands as though seeking to crawl into oblivion.
A sudden awfulness dawned. How many strokes! She had not been told. Was there some standard number. Or did they slash at her feet until she lost consciousness. She was enveloped in such a blaze of agony that the loss of consciousness had never seemed more desirable or less likely to happen. Every nerve of her was vivid with pain. The terrible frustration of lying like this, free and in possession of her faculties, yet unable to give succor to the two small feet delivered to the torturer. Two feet that had been sundered from her in all but pain.
It went on and on. She lost count. Her strength ebbed. Her struggles weakened. Her mind became hazy and she uttered incoherencies. When her head and body rested limp and mute the cane was set aside. She was left alone to come back to the world in her own way.
It was a world of pain. Less than that of the actual blows. But not much less. How vastly different from the whip. Her nerves were twitching. Every nerve in her body was at war. Cessation should have brought bliss. It brought only mental relief. The bound girl continued to moan and to writhe. She knew nothing of what went on around her. She did not care.
They came to fetch her after what seemed a very short time. Eve wanted only to rest. But they unbound her feet, a wardress and Caleb lifted her and tried to help her to walk. But her punished feet rebelled. She folded to the floor moaning. They lifted her again. Taking one of her arms round each of their shoulders they part walked and part carried her from the scene of her torture. The word was fixed in Eve's mind, torture!
She tried to walk. She wanted to walk. But she could not. There was opportunity for trial, for they did not return to the blessed vacuum of her cell. But led her into distant recesses of the huge building that had been closed to her. When they reached the door she guessed. Caleb knocked gent-ly. They allowed her to sink to her knees. They went away. It was Commandant Perkins who opened the door.
Eve crawled in on hands and knees.
"I will freely admit," Said The Commandant, "That a girl with whipped feet has a powerfully erotic effect for me. I anticipate a delightfully carnal evening."
The naked girl upon the rug rested on one hip and looked about. It was luxurious. It was of The East. It was an infinitely pleasanter place than her cell. But she longed for her prison and solitude. A solitude denied. Not only did Perkins look down benignly upon her hurt loveliness. But the woman Natcha stood with her cane at the fringe of the rug. She held the supple length tenderly. Her smile, too, was tender as though the evening held anticipation for her also. Natcha was naked. Natcha was magnificent!
Eve was perplexed. Had she been brought here for punishment or for love! Desperately she wanted no more of the cane upon her feet.
"Would you like me to make myself available, sir?" She prayed her use of his own word would not sound like sarcasm.
But Commandant Perkins was pleased by her servility. Perhaps that was why he preferred a girl fresh from the bastinado. They would be anxious to please. Eve was so broken by the pain that she could not imagine protest.
He graciously accepted the offer of her availability.
Perhaps it was just loneliness and a need for human contact. But the girl in chains was pleased too!
Life is incredible. Eve had never expected to be grateful for Vida's training or the erotic lore she had garnered in Rasuli's house. But now it was invaluable. She shrewdly suspected that without it she might have learned painfully under Natcha's cane. The Commandant was determined to test her versatility. No sooner had he gathered his forces after his first attack upon her nakedness than he ordered her to employ lips and tongue to cleanse and stimulate. He was obviously surprised by her casual competence. The chained girl suspected that at this point most girls got the cane. There was faint chagrin visible on Natcha's face.
But the turn of the woman with the whip was still to come. When Eve's lips and tongue had done their task with a finesse she tried hard to make notable, she was directed to offer her 'availability' to Natcha.
Eve knew it her most demanding test. Women are cruel to women. Her feet were wounded now from this creature's cane. She would have preferred to minister to the male. She had given up revulsion, dignity and squeamishness. What Ismaul had done to her made chastity only a dream. Something for others far away: not her here! Pride was a luxury her feet and her flesh could not afford. She would give this all she had if it would absolve her from more pain.
She crawled to Natcha's feet and knelt prettily and submissively. "Mistress, please instruct your slave."
"You will tongue me, bitch. Here where I stand. I will make it easy for you. But first I want you in pain. Lay flat and raise your legs."
"I am in pain, Mistress. Your cane did its work well upon my feet. I cannot walk."
Out of the corner of an eye Eve saw the entranced features of The Commandant. If only she could charm this woman as she had him! He was breathing heavily and would no doubt be ready for further ministrations when Natcha was appeased.
"I want fresh pain, bitch, so that you squeal and pant as you serve me."
"Do you wish to bind me, Mistress?"
"No. There is no need. You can endure one stroke on each sole. I will make them terrible so that you will adore me." Natcha herself was panting with a burning lust.
"Thank you, Mistress." It was an impossible task. But Eve could see no way out of it. Perkins was enjoying the spectacle too much to intervene.
Smiling. But with heart heavy as lead, her stomach knotted by fear of the pain to be placed afresh on her wounded feet, Eve gracefully draped her loveliness upon the costly rug and bent her legs up from the knee so that their swollen soles again invited the cane. By holding tight and closing her eyes she could hold the pose for one stroke, but how she could hold it for two she did not know.
Natcha played with her. Kittenish taps upon the bruised flesh. The cane brushing heavily across the ridges. Small raps upon the ankle. Eve could not contain her gasps of apprehension. With every contact she expected her world to explode.
When the explosion came she shrieked and writhed without control. Natcha had hit hard and accurately. Eve feared she was going to faint with the agony. Yet as she curled and twisted one thought sustained her. One more ... only one more. Make it good and you'll have Perkins in your hand. Maybe even the woman....
Through mists of pain she heard her own voice say softly: "Thank you, dear Mistress." and knew that she was once again positioned for torture.
When the second explosion had tumbled her through a maze of sickening searing sensation she clutched her way back from insensibility. Certain that she would never walk again she still managed to say in a low and pleasant voice: "Thank you, again Mistress. You are strong. I am your slave. I will serve you well." Kneeling, she raised her eyes to behold Natcha's furred sex before her face. The woman had parted her legs to lower it and to thrust it into a demanding prominence. Sliding her hands upward at the back of the gleaming thighs Eve buried her mouth in the wiry hair and sought the moist warmth of the entry which it hid. She was very highly skilled.
Now it was Natcha for whom the world exploded. Again and again. The cane fell to the floor unnoticed. Her fingers found Eve's hair and drew the slave girl's face close within her loins in a flaming ecstasy of fulfillment.