The trees are lovely. I flit between them in shadows and shafts of sunbeam. Here and there they create cathedrals with naves and aisles in which grass will grow. Sometimes there are glades that are very lonely until I come. On the rises there will be a copse of fir or Aspen. Cedars of Lebanon are never far away. They are very old and very wise. They are the monarchs! I wonder what they think of me!
The sandals they gave me are wonderful. I could not walk yet in bare feet. I am not used to being naked: not out in the open like this. It's a strange feeling. But I'm beginning to like it. Lucian said I would. But, anyway, there's no one to see me except him and Gillian. There will be Thea, of course. But I have not met her yet. I wonder where she is. I'm sure she is here somewhere.
The Park is huge. I keep telling myself that I'm exploring, and in a way I am. But, really and truly, I'm trying to escape: or at least to see if it might be possible to escape if I knew I had to. I'm walking round the wall. It's a terribly long way: and it's so high. It sort of repulses you. There are small Gothic doors so solid that when I beat on them, even with a stick or bit of rock, they just give a thunk that tells me they must be very thick and heavy. I bet some of them have never been opened since they were put there. Perhaps they don't open...
I know the main gate. There's only one. I'll skirt it. I couldn't climb it anyway. The old gardener who lives in the gatehouse would tell Gillian if I was nosey or went poking around. Then I'd be punished. They told me the things I can be punished for. That was one of them. So I'd be silly to take a risk: the things they do to me are so terribly painful-even if Gillian is nice about it.
There are bits of wilderness, too, where the undergrowth is just a tangle, and great clumps of blackberries. Sometimes little bits of swamp with bullrushes and docks and ragwort. Of course there is the Lake. The Lake is almost too beautiful...
The marble and stone things scare me. Someone put them there, but you don't know why. It's as though a giant hand picked up a Greek temple long ago, but left little bits and pieces behind like a promise to come back: there they are, waiting. Then there's the buildings, sort of chapels but very Greek and Roman. I can't get in. The doors are locked. They aren't all that big, and they are covered in ivy and moss. The windows are too high for me to see inside. I asked what they were. But they wouldn't tell me. I had a silly thought that perhaps Thea was in one of them. Out in the Park you get these strange ideas.
I have to be punished after dinner. They always tell me, and they are frightfully sweet about it. They don't always tell me how they will punish me. Mostly, up to now, I have been whipped. It leaves beautiful scarlet stripes across my skin and hurts more than I thought possible. Lucian says I'll get used to being punished. He says it won't hurt less, but that I'll make a mental adjustment. I expect he's right. I think Lucian is probably always right. It's funny though: when he whips me it does not hurt any more than when Gillian does it. I'd have thought it would.
Being naked is like being born again. Everything looks and feels differently. I'm trying to get used to my breasts. It's as though I'm seeing them for the first time as if they blossomed when set free. They aren't huge, but when I run or jump or climb a tree they manage a little motion of their own. I think I'll name them. A different name for each. Something tremendously feminine. I wish Thea was here so that I could talk to her about things like that. I don't think I can to Gillian and Lucian.
I'm becoming proud of my pubic hair. I tried to keep one hand over it the first day until Gillian tied both my hands behind my back and told me not to be silly. Lucian never seems to notice, but Gillian does. But it has sort of flourished in the open too. I'll swear it's longer and more glossy. Nudity is turning me into a regular Narcissus.
I am looking forward to Thea. I suppose she will be naked too. I'll have to ask about that. I wish I knew about her. Gillian and Lucian share a knowledge of Thea they won't impart to me. I think it must be something bad she has done. I'll find out sometime, I suppose. Daddy mentioned her as some sort of cousin. But he had not seen her either. I gather that Thea's father and mine were both fond of Gillian's mother, so that when Gillian offered to take us it seemed a wonderful idea. But with me it had been a bit of a hurry. I can't help wondering what Daddy would think about me being naked and being whipped when I do something wrong. I don't think anything was mentioned about those things. And I'm sure Daddy didn't know about Lucian. I don't know what to think about Lucian.
Reading what I have written it does not sound a bit like me. I'd say fourteen at the most. But I'm nineteen. It's this place, or the drug they give me. I'm sure they give me something. I can't prove it, of course. But would I do the things I'm doing if something hadn't been changed! I'm going to be whipped this evening. I don't mind! I won't like it. I expect I'll cry. But it isn't spoiling my day. I'm happy. It's as though in a place as beautiful as this nothing else really matters. Just to be here. I'm a happy child in a place of ghosts. Look at me now, flitting over the grass searching for the open door that isn't there. But I'm not a child at all.
I ought to be bored. No male company: you can't count Lucian. None of the things I always did exist here. A naked girl wandering over a thousand acres of never, never land. It's so different. If I wrote and told people they wouldn't believe. But I'm not allowed to write: except Daddy, of course. I think they're censored. I'm sure Gillian reads them. She hasn't said anything. But then, I haven't said anything either. I mean, not about no clothes and being punished.
I ought to be lonely. But I'm not. That's very hard to understand. There's Gillian. She can be fun. But there's about ten years between us, and there is this sort of Tutor and pupil relationship. I sometimes think she should wear a mortarboard and gown. She really is quite something with languages. It's hard to believe. I'm sure I can get at least my French from her. But it's the thought of Thea that keeps me from being scary lonely. I hope she's a Lesbian. Men are amusing and useful when they're around. But I've built up a mental picture...
Is Lucian Gillian's lover! He's supposed to be doing some sort of research and using the Library. It's something frightfully abstruse and academic. I always feel that any time he devotes to noticing me is time he feels stolen from more deserving pursuits. He does notice me, of course. After all I am naked! Most men would drool. But he just gazes with those far away eyes in that lean sensuously lipped face as though I was just another pleasant vista in the Park or another treasured volume from the shelves. I know he enjoys whipping me. I can tell.
There's Trant. He's the butler, among other things. He puzzles me mainly because I don't seem to puzzle him. Have you ever sat down to dinner in the evening completely naked and have the butler place the soup in front of you! You'd think he'd quiver a bit. But not Trant! He's young. He ought to notice me and look a bit carnal. Maybe I'm piqued... In this place the servants and Gillian ought to be ninety years old. But none of them are. I think I'll ask Gillian why she does not undress too. Why just me! I wonder if I could seduce Trant if I needed to. I mean, if I wanted help.
Along with all the other feelings I'm a little afraid. You can tell, can't you. But I don't know what of. I tell myself it's because everything's strange and new. But that's just a part of it. There's something else. Just me, a naked me, running around in all this space! I'm sure there are eyes that watch. Ancient wicked old eyes that have seen everything before, but now have only me to look at. Maybe the trees have eyes, or those dank stone mausoleums or whatever they are. I think I have been made naked to please them: that they have waited a long time for a naked girl. Now they see me flit through the Park, and drool.
I do wonder if perhaps it's not a drug at all, but that I'm just wanton. That would explain why I'm running around with nothing on, and why I don't complain about the whip. Maybe I like to think I'm drugged as an excuse for letting Gillian and Lucian do things to me that I don't think Daddy would approve of. There's a deliciousness, a lovely savouring of myself as something female in this elemental place. They have made me so: Gillian and Lucian. I have gorgeous creepy fantasies of myself cherished as the virgin sacrifice or waiting for a visit from the horned one like in "Rosemary's baby." But anyway I look at it I have to know that something's a bit odd... I really must tackle Gillian about it, even if it means getting punished.
There's no way out. The wall holds me. I'm completing the circle. I'm tired. It's been a long way, simply miles. But the doors won't open and there's no place to climb. Whoever planted the trees kept them well away from the barrier, there's just bushes and shrubs. So if I'm to get out of here it will have to be through the main gate the way I came in. I don't think I'm scared. But it's a funny feeling.
Gillian's sweet. I really am fond of her, even if Losteigne is a bit weird. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm a brat. She's looking across the desk at me now as though I'm delightful enough to eat. I am, of course! But, after all, she's my aunt. What she's saying is really out of this world. But the way she says it makes the whole picture come out naturally so that I'm feeling like a silly schoolgirl.
"Of course you're naked, darling. It would be quite wrong to hide that lovely girl's body of yours. You don't need clothes."
"Everyone else wears clothes." I said, trying hard.
"But Fawn, they're not you."
"Well, alright then Gillian: I'm nice naked. But you'd be nice naked too. You're beautiful."
She made one of the little gestures she's so good at. This one crinkled my spine. "I'll add that to your punishment, darling. You know quite well I'm a forbidden topic."
When you are in so far, a little more doesn't matter. I could be almost sure that every question would buy me some pain. But I had to know. "Am I a prisoner, Auntie Gillian?" I asked politely.
"Don't be silly, Fawn. What a ridiculous question."
"But I am, aren't I?"
"No. Now stop this nonsense."
"But I can't leave Losteigne, not like this. Is that why you keep me naked? Besides, I can't go through the gate, and that's the only way out. That makes me a prisoner. Please don't punish me. Just tell me. I don't mind. Really I don't... "
"Fawn, darling! Don't be childish. Aren't you happy here?"
"I'm terribly happy. But I didn't ought to be. Not with the way things are... and being whipped... "
"That doesn't make sense. Being happy is what matters."
"I'm drugged, aren't I! Something to keep me placid and cheerful?"
Gillian gave me another gesture. She was really being very patient. "That's unkind. I won't punish you for being unkind." She said gently. "Come, kiss and make up." She held out her arms.
"I want to know about Lucian?" I demanded, burning all my bridges.
The silence almost hurt. Gillian was like a statue. But she was looking at me hard. Not angry, but considering. I knew I'd broken a rule.
"That makes it a very severe punishment, Fawn." She looked genuinely sorry.
I was suddenly aware of being nude. The way Eve may have felt after the apple. But it was too late to go back. I went forward. "I don't mind being punished, Auntie Gillian, but I want to know. And I want to know about Thea too. I think Daddy would want you to tell me." I was sure I was beginning to sound a bit desperate, so I added a bit more than I'd intended. "Gillian, I want some clothes."
She just smiled pleasantly, got up and held out her hand. "Come along, Fawn dear."
It was a cross between an invitation to the Savoy and a last short walk to the Headman's block. As I clasped her hand I was sure I ought to be feeling differently about this too. I trembled a little. That was all.
They made me stand before Lucian's desk. I was delinquent sq not entitled to sit. I felt very naked. It was one of those times when I just have to cover my breasts and my cunny. But it's too humiliating to be reprimanded, so I just let my hands hang limp at my sides: that's an ordeal in itself, as though you don't care or are in complicity.
Lucian's study is a beautiful room. I don't think he would tolerate anything that was not beautiful. He is beautiful himself in his gaunt hollow eyed intensity. I wondered what he would be like naked! I think of Lucifer, of course, because of the name and the eyes. Lucifer the fallen angel who had been too beautiful. Perhaps that was why my clothes had been taken. That I was more beautiful without them.
"She is asking the questions." Gillian said without preamble.
Lucian nodded and smiled at me. He made me feel precious.
"If we whip you will you stop asking?" It was more a pleasant suggestion than a question.
I still was not too much afraid. How can a girl be afraid of two people who speak to you with love. I thought of something that seemed rather clever.
"I can stop saying the words. But the questions will still be between us. I don't want things between us. I want us to like each other."
"You were thinking of the whip?" Lucian's question to Gillian ignored me completely. I was a silly child.
"You don't have to whip me!" I broke in petulantly before Gillian could speak. "If you'd both stop being mysterious I wouldn't break the rules."
"It may take more than the whip, Lucian." Gillian sounded judicial. The cold hand ran up and down my spine.
"Please don't punish me." I pleaded in my best seven year old voice.
"I'm old enough to be reasoned with, y'know."
"You must be whipped, dear." Gillian explained patiently. "You are all at sixes and sevens with yourself and with Losteigne. You'll feel better after your punishment."
I took a shot in the dark. I was pretty sure of hitting the bull's-eye. "You like whipping me, don't you, Lucian?"
"We both like whipping you, darling."
Gillian's patient voice came from somewhere in the wings. I was looking straight at Lucian. "You are exquisitely beautiful in pain." He told me in his lovely deep voice. "To fail to whip you would be quite wrong." His, seemed a more definite answer than Gillian's.
"You mean for my own good sort of thing?"
"No. The whip... and other things is a key. It unlocks doors. It will unlock doors for you."
"Will it unlock the main gate?" I asked imprudently.
"I think she should receive at least twenty." Gillian sighed.
The hand on my spine got colder. Ten had been the most so far. I'd thought I'd die with that.
"I'll say I'm sorry and that I will behave." I offered unhappily, angry with myself for cowardice.
"Let us adjourn." Said Lucian quietly.
There are two slender pillars in the stone room where they take me to be whipped. That's about all there is, except the whip, and a few ugly things round the walls that I simply guess at. I have to stand between the pillars and let them tie my wrists out and up one to each. They do this with long supple leather thongs that not only bind my wrists but also run from them to the pillar. You see, the pillars are not too close. I stand between with plenty of space for the whip to get at me. It's all very artistic and efficient. It makes me feel I'm taking part in a tableau.
Lucian stands and watches while Gillian ties me. She uses a little step affair so that she can reach the rings in the pillars to which I must be tied. When she is done she carefully removes those steps to where my feet could never reach them. It's at that moment when I know it's all done and that I just have to stand there that I begin to curl up inside. It's absolutely shrinking. I always look up at those strips of leather and tug and twist. I wish I did not have to do that. But I can't help it. They don't seem to mind. I suspect I look rather sweet in my helplessness. It's there, too, I start to cry. I can't help that either.
They stand and watch. I feel like a picture in the Louvre. I find myself unconsciously posing. I don't have much freedom, but a girl can do a lot with her legs and her hips and the way she holds her head. I want to look beautiful for them. Perhaps I hope that if I look beautiful enough they won't whip me too hard. But I'm not sure about that either. It could work in reverse.
Gillian dries my tears as they flow. They don't seem to want to start with the whip while I'm crying. It's nice of them. I don't want them to start either while I blubber. Tears are a release. I behave better under the whip after I've got rid of them. I do so want to put on a good show for Lucian. I don't want him to see me too abased. I think I worship beauty as much as he does.
They do not tie my feet. They have discussed it, but I get the feeling that's something in reserve. I think they will only tie my ankles out to the pillars when I have to be hurt very much. I can think of things they could do to me like that. It makes me grateful that my feet are free. I can use them to kick. Not at Gillian and Lucian, but as an expression of awfulness when the pain gets too bad. I don't think I'll ever be able to just stand still.
It is Lucian who will whip me. He is holding it now. A black snaky length that he can make curl around me or slash across any bit of my nakedness that pleases him. It's beautiful. It would be since it is his. Even I can see that it is beautiful. I am trembling. I do not want it to start. I want to say something to stop it, to make an avowal that could gain me forgiveness. But I have no words. I broke the rules. So there I stand, tied, ready for sacrifice. I tug at my wrists and gaze without hope at Gillian and Lucian. They smile at me with tenderness and concern. I feel more naked than I have ever felt.
Lucian is vicious with the whip. I'm sure I'm not the first girl he has practiced on. He is too knowing, too assured. He is the master of ceremonies at a ritual. Gillian is his audience. That leaves me the leading lady role. I have to play it whether I want to or not. The thongs on my wrists are a binding contract. I look to Lucian for my cue, but it is the whip that has written my lines.
If they want to whip me they can listen to my screams. They are loud enough. So loud I have feared they might gag me. But they allow me to cry my desolation, peal out my shock and outrage at a pain no girl can bear. I suspect they enjoy all the sounds I make. I surprise myself with my endless repertoire of protest, none of it words. The noises my agony evokes are far more graphic than words. In the midst of them I wonder at the passive way in which I allowed them to bind me to make me stand like this and bear the lash. Why did I walk up and stand between the pillars and offer my wrists! Why! It seems incomprehensible now as I writhe and try to get free.
In my struggles I look down at myself and see the marks. Sometimes I can even watch them form as the thong falls away from my skin and the blood races back into the bruised flesh the whip has kissed. I am proud of those marks. Even while I scream I am proud. I cannot tell you why. Perhaps it is because Lucian placed them on me. But I am still proud when it is Gillian's hand that holds the whip. I would love them both if they would let me.
It is such a terrible pain. Each time I am whipped it is as though it was the first. The incredulity is always there. The disbelief that it is really happening. That the naked girl plunging and heaving against her bonds there between the pillars is me and that I must stand there and let the whip strike me as it wills. In this role I can indeed understand my nakedness. It is valid. I can't imagine being whipped unless I was naked.
I want to describe the way it hurts. But I can't. It's a special kind of hurt. I don't think there can be anything else quite like it. It's sort of awesome to realise that most people in the world never know it. Being whipped is so terribly basic, so sort of obvious. I don't know what you could do to a girl who had to be taught some sort of lesson that would be half as effective. Gillian and Lucian could talk and talk. But the more they talked the more argumentative I'd get. Now, with the whip cutting round me, I know I'm not going to be silly about those questions. Oh sure, they'll still be there. But they'll be tucked away at the back of my mind where they probably belong in a place like Losteigne.
Sometimes I catch Lucian's eye as he whips me. Not often, because I'm ashamed of the way I'm acting. But when I do there is a little flash of understanding. I'm not sure what it is we understand. But it's there. It happens with Gillian too. But she's more clinical as though considering whether Lucian is really hurting me enough. But with both of them there shows another thing I can't quite place. It's adoration! They adore me. Without being told I know that to them at that moment as I kick and writhe and scream I am some sort of ultimate glory. I could have used the word beautiful there, but I've used it quite enough.
Is a girl most lovely when she is whipped! I would not have thought so. Except for the scarlet stripes, I wish no one was looking. I'm wet with sweat. It trickles down my flanks from my armpits. My hair is moist and tangled from the way I keep tossing my head. In spite of Gillian's help there are tear stains. I can't tell about my body. Between tugging at the thongs and kicking and twisting I'm sure I must look ridiculous. But then I see their faces... What they see is not ridiculous at all. Their faces make me proud. In between screaming I feel a strange and lovely heat.
I do wish I could stand still. Tied, of course. I'd have to be tied! But it would be nice if I could stand straight and silent in my bonds while I am whipped. I'd gasp when the lash cut me, and moan as the pain sinks deeper and deeper. But no more than that. You know, those proud Princesses in fiction who never quiver an eyebrow from their haughty disdain. I'd like to manage it just once. To show them I can. I'm sure I'll have lots of opportunities. But I don't ever expect to manage it. I'd like to laugh in Lucian's face as he whipped my nakedness. I am a silly girl-- They consider twenty is too many at one time straight off. They kiss me and run their fingertips up and down across my welts. Then go away and leave me. I am still tied. I still stand. I would like to sort of sag against my bindings, but it hurts my wrists too much, so I just droop a little and let my head rest against one raised arm. I'm still panting from the last strokes. The pain has the same effect as icy water. It leaves you breathless and trying to catch up. But you never quite do. But with this little rest they are giving me I may be able to sort myself out a bit.
It's only a rest from the whip, that's all. Even if I stand on tip-toe my wrists still hurt. There's no easing them at all. I'm truly tied. I stand on one foot and raise and rest the other. Then change around. It isn't much. But what can a girl do in the fix I'm in! There are just small silly little expedients that, in the end, leave me standing there with my arms above my head like a good little girl waiting for something to happen. It's more naked than naked.
Of course, I know what's going to happen. Knowing spoils the rest period, or should I call it the intermission! It isn't really suspense in the way you feel it before your whipping has started. It's worse. Each stroke of the ten I'd already had made me certain I couldn't stand the next: I'd faint or die or something. I count them one at a time, going from one to the next. I dare not think of them all at once. There's always the silly hope they may relent. Oh, how I clutch to that hope! But now I stand here waiting. I'm only half way through! If I could not stand what has already been done to me, how on Earth can I stand what will happen when Gillian and Lucian come back! Quite absurdly I am terribly pleased that they find me beautiful...
Now they have returned. I should plead, have one more go at forgiveness. I could easily put on an act that might touch them: it wouldn't be all simulated. It would hurt my wrists, but if I let myself hang on them, knees limp, head down, they might feel pity... But I'm scared. I think they would know I'm in enough trouble already.
They each kiss me in their own way. I kiss them back passionately. I feel safe so long as my lips are on theirs. As each withdraws I strive to follow them to prolong the bliss, but my wrists hold me back. Their kisses are measured by their own wish, not mine. I feel a great loneliness when each kiss is done. I do not want to go back to being a naked statue to be painted with strokes of agony by an artist's brush: the brush that is the whip.
Now it is Gillian! I had half expected they would give me ten each. My second ten will hurt me more than my first. Gillian will not be deceived by anything I do. She will whip me with a terrible competence. Lucian will watch with glowing eyes. I scream and leap against my wrists as Gillian slashes a neat belt of sickening awfulness round my waist. Deliberately she places her next on top of it. I become panicky in the fear that all her strokes will be on the one place so that I am cut and will not heal for ages. But she plays with my body and my limbs. I feel her everywhere. Sometimes, when I am not screaming, I raise my eyes to Lucian's...
When she is done I am not untied. I look at them hopefully and appealingly. But it seems I am to be punished further. I remembered Gillian's words: "It may take more than the whip... " What more is there! Is there anything worse than the whip! Perhaps there is... ! They tell me I must stand as I am. They turn off the light and go away. It's dark in the stone room, I hurt, I'm very tired. I cry.
I should have asked. I do not know my punishment. Perhaps I must stand like this all night! The idea has a frightening plausibility. But they wouldn't have told me. Bad girls don't ask questions. Can I stand like this all night! I don't know. I have learned that a girl can accept far more than she thinks she can. I suppose if I fainted I'd just hang and have very sore wrists for a few days. But that's frightening. I mustn't think about it. I have a sudden awful conviction that if I was given a choice right at this moment between being whipped again or standing tied like this all night I'd choose the whip. I think I would... I would not have made such a choice while the whip was cutting me. But now, in the dark with my cheeks wet with tears, and a terrible fatigue possessing every bit of me, I'd say: "Yes. Please whip me." These thoughts scare me. The whole bizarre situation scares me. But not as much as it ought to! That's the most scary thing of all... !
I wonder about Daddy. Did I ought to tell him! I know I should. But I don't want to. He's far away and would be worried. He would think I was complaining. If I told him I was not complaining, then he would have to wonder why. That wondering why bit is the bad one! I don't know. Here I am, a "nice girl" naked and hanging by her wrists, a good deal of me covered by whip marks, and I don't want to complain. Why! I'm in the grip of some tremendous fascination. And there is the drug: If I'm being drugged... It's so impossible.
Gillian is back. I blink at her in the bright light and hope this is the end. I smile brightly. But it is not the end...
"You have been tied like that several hours, dear. You must be tired." She kisses me.
I say the appropriate things.
"It's not over, y'know. Your punishment, I mean."
How can her voice be soft and firm at the same time. It is! I say meekly: "Please forgive me, auntie."
"You are forgiven, darling. You always were. But it's best that you understand things. I don't want you thinking the whip is all you have to consider in being silly."
I try and look contrite and appealing. It is not hard.
"I think standing as you are for the night would be about right for this particular bit of silliness."
"Please, I'll be good. I won't ask questions." I really mean it!
"Of course not, dear. But you have to be punished for what you have already done. You do understand that, don't you?"
"Yes auntie. But isn't that awful whipping enough? It really has made me sorry for... for what I said."
"No, darling, it is not enough. Don't quibble. Quibbling is an offence, too, y'know. Would you like ten more?"
"No, auntie, thank you." I could have bitten myself for sounding so crushingly humble. I'd been about to point out that standing where I was for as long as I had ought to be taken into consideration. But I dried that one up real quick. It was probably good for at least five.
Gillian looked at me with amusement. I am sure she could read my mind. I'm going to untie you, Fawn. Will you let me fasten you again for your next punishment, or do you feel you have to struggle?"
"I'll do what you want, Gillian." I'd end up the way she wanted me anyway, so why bother! "Promise?"
"Scout's honour! I promise." Good Gosh, what was going to happen!
I told you I had no words to describe the pain. Well, I don't have any now to tell you how good it felt to get my hands back. Gillian frankly laughed at the tremendous sigh of ecstasy I gave when she let the last thong fall. I sat down on the floor and massaged my wrists and let the relief sink in all over. It's a moment that's almost worth the whipping... But not quite!
I hate myself afterwards for being obedient, passive, docile, meek, the whole thing. But what else can I do! I follow Gillian to the wall and allow her to lock a metal collar round my neck. It's attached by a heavy chain to a ringbolt in the stone. It lets me take about two paces either way. I have to hold my hands out and watch her lock handcuffs on my wrists. I've never been fastened like this before. It's a damn funny feeling. It affects me. I'm not the same girl I was a few minutes ago. My social status has fallen. I'm in chains!
"Nothing painful, dear." Gillian cooed. "Just a hard bed for the night."
She kissed me. I tried hard to hold her. But the things on my wrists stopped me. She laughed and slipped away. Out went the light. Bang went the door. I stood there wondering, naked, hurting, and curious to see what it was like to be chained to a wall and to wear handcuffs.
This one is easy to describe. I had all sorts of lovely alternatives. I could walk a step this way or that before the chain tightened on my collar and pulled me back: I could stand still: I could kneel: I could sit, or I could lay down. A real lucky girl! Except it was all on the cold hard stone. That was dear Fawn's real punishment, the lovely brutal stone she was going to have to sleep on. The handcuffs were just bracelets, novel and rather handsome. I wasn't going to do anything anyway, so what did they matter! Same with the chain on my neck: I wasn't going anyplace. They were just a little extra reminder from Gillian about asking questions... I lay down on the stone to see if sleep was even possible. It was...
* * *
The wall is like the whip. It has a fearful fascination. I'm out in the Park a lot. They encourage it. And it's very lovely. I scarcely notice being naked any more. My nudity seems even more right in the Park than in the house. I never feel cold. I roam endlessly. I still have not explored every copse and shrubbery or seriously tried to get into those old stone places. I always end up at the wall. I'm angry at myself for doing it. I know it's the same instinct that makes an animal in the Zoo pace up and down beside the bars. I don't want to admit that I want to escape from Losteigne. In fact I don't want to. But it would be nice to know I could. I'm surprised they haven't put the wall out of bounds and made it an offense. I'm being terribly good. I still have the marks.
There are deer in the Park. That's what I thought the motion was at first as I saw the activity in the bushes. But it was not a deer. It was a girl. She backed into view dragging the length of a fallen sapling. It took all her strength to handle it. I stood behind a tree and watched.
She was as naked as I am. She was lovely. Tawny close cropped hair and a figure that showed up amazingly under the exertion she was putting it to. She was about my age. My heart jumped, of course, in a wild hopeful guess at who she was. But I kept still and watched as she dragged the bit of rotting wood up to the wall and raised one end, foot by foot, until she could get her back under and really heave it up the stone. When she was done the upper end was about five or six feet below the top of the wall. My heart was beating as hard as I was sure hers was as I watched her start to climb.
It broke half way up. It was old and rotten. The girl tumbled down, then leaped to her feet in rage and was about to kick the moldy wood in exasperation when she thought better of it. Remembered her bare toes, I expect. A naked girl has to watch things like that. She stood glaring at the broken stump, then dejectedly sat down on it, buried her face in her hands and wept. I know how she felt. There was no escape for a naked girl from Losteigne.
I was standing a few feet before her when she heard me. I saw her tense. But she did not take her hands from her face.
"Alright." She said wearily. "Whip me. I tried to get out."
I kept silent: curious. She had been terribly whipped. On her right wrist was a metal band, broad but not heavy, of some shining metal. It held a ring by which she could be chained. Her left ankle was similarly decorated. The effect was beautiful. The spoke of Lucian. She sobbed quietly within her closed fingers. Her broken voice was bitter: "Or isn't the whip enough! Do I have to go back in that rotten dungeon?" Suddenly her hands were lowered. She glared up at me fiercely.
"Hello, Thea." I said.
She gazed at me in wide eyed astonishment. Then leaped to her feet. We were welded together in a hungry embrace for minutes. I don't suppose two girls ever had a greater need of each other than we did then. I had not realized how lonely I had been until I felt all that warm live girl inside my arms. I think, for her, the sensation was even more vivid. Thea had been through a bad time. Her first words to me were: "We have to get over the wall."
It was not the happiest greeting. Here I'd been cheerfully reconciling myself to Arcady and two people who loved me and whipped me at the same time, and thinking that maybe, after all, I could fit into their pattern for me at Losteigne, especially if they whipped me sometimes to keep me from being silly. And now I held in my arms a girl who threw a wrench into all my good intentions.
"They just let me out of the dungeon." Her words were muffled against my neck. "I was supposed to go up to Gillian's room. But I ran... "
I just held her close and rubbed my dry cheek against her wet one. It felt good. If it had not been for the panic I felt in her I would have been ecstatically happy.
"Now they'll punish me again." Thea said with conviction.
"No they won't." I said comfortingly, but feeling inadequate and uncertain. "I won't let them."
Thea pulled back. We stood, hands still linked as though unwilling to part with the sustenance we found in each other. She looked at me in wonder.
"You don't want to escape?" It was as though she was confronted with a strange anomaly.
"Not now I've found you." My answer just popped out.
"But you've been whipped too!"
"Well... yes. But I suppose it was my own fault. Might say I asked for it."
She looked at me doubtfully. I could tell she was wondering whose side I was on. "You know they are up to something?" Her question was half an accusation.
"I don't know anything." I admitted. "The strangest thing about this whole place is me and the way I act."
"You think you are drugged. That's what I thought. I still don't know."
She looked at me appealingly. She was sweet. I knew it was right for her to be naked too. It suited her. I thought of happiness with her. It would be so good! But she had seen ghosts. I supposed I'd have to try and lay them.
"Gillian and Lucian are just doing their thing, aren't they?" I asked hopefully.
Thea snorted angrily. "It's Lucian who is doing his thing, whatever it is. I think he's got Gillian under his thumb. I think she's as much a prisoner as we are."
"But what do you think is wrong?" I asked. I felt a bit miffed at having my lovely happiness spoiled with suspicions.
Thea was impatient with me. Her retort was vehement: "Lucian's using Losteigne and aunty Gillian for something rotten. When I tried to find out they tossed me in that beastly dungeon for a whole month. You must have wondered why I wasn't around. Today was the end of it, but now I've messed it up. They'll put me in there again... I just know they will... "
Once more we were holding each other and I felt her tears warm upon my skin. She was genuinely frightened. She was getting me frightened too. I suddenly saw us as two lonely naked girls in a dark forest and an old wicked house full of secrets. Secrets that a girl got whipped for trying to uncover.
"But what did you do?" I asked, puzzled.
"I tried to break into the cloisters: That's the biggest of these rummy old ruins in among the trees." Thea explained petulantly. "It was just so damn lonely waiting for you. I managed this trick with an old bit of a tree. I managed to get up to where I could look into one of those small high windows. I couldn't see anything, so I broke the glass." She paused and looked at me to see if I was still on her side, 'The air that came out was warm. The place is heated. It had a familiar odor. So damn familiar I couldn't place it at first coming from an old ruin like that. It was floor polish and furniture polish. The smell you get in new offices and schools. It sort of startled me. So I hitched up another foot so as to get my head inside, when a voice down below said: "Naughty, naughty!" I looked down, and there was Trant grinning like a Cheshire cat. In that position he was getting a fine view of my slit."
Thea trailed into silence, grinning ruefully at a memory. "I offered to let him have me if he'd say nothing about it. Was that too awful...?" She gave me a pixie twinkle of the eyes. "But it did me no good. He lifted the bit of tree so it fell down, me with it. I leaped up and ran like fury. But he caught me easily. Then, when we stood, me glaring at him and panting with the exertion, he said quite casually: "You won't mind wearing these, Miss, on the way back to the house."
Thea grinned as though she was beginning to enjoy the story. I found her adorable. I wanted to eat her right there. But I was also very curious. "Go on." I prompted eagerly.
"'These', turned out to be a pair of handcuffs." Thea continued. "I'd never seen such things before except on the screen. They looked wicked and shiningly cruel. I remember I looked at them in pure horror that made Trant laugh. 'They'll look real sweet on you, love.' he assured me enjoyably. His unexpected familiarity should have warned me. But, by now, I was pretty certain Trant was going to get himself in hot water for his handling of the young Mistress. I could see him getting fired over those handcuffs. So I stuck my hand out, not very willingly I'll admit."
She looked at me perkily. "Ever been handcuffed, Fawn?"
"Good Heavens, no!"
"It's a terrible feeling, and the first time is the worst. I watched as he clicked that cold metal round my wrist, knowing I could never get it off. That only someone else with a key could remove the harsh bite that my tendons swelled against every time I moved my hand. But, guess what! Trant turned me round and locked both my wrists behind my back. When I faced him again I was suddenly more naked than I had ever been. I was a girl. I was vulnerable. He screwed me."
She enjoyed the consternation on my face. Sure, I know all about being screwed. But she really slipped me that one. Thea had been raised in America. I guessed I'd have to make allowance for a few scattered inhibitions. "The dirty swine!" I exclaimed helpfully.
"Well, actually he was pretty good at it." She admitted wryly with a slight blush. "He deliberately hurt me. That's his technique. It wasn't all that comfortable laying on my handcuffed hands. He had clipped them on me tight so they hurt anyway. Now they hurt twice as much."
She grinned, "But I could see they forced me to lay in a way that, from the man's point of view, was probably good. He took me three times and just laughed at anything I said. I don't think I said anything the third time... As I told you, he was damn good. And by then I no longer knew whether I was still the young Mistress or some sort of criminal on her way to jail. Put handcuffs on a girl and she gets all sorts of strange notions."
She looked at me so appealingly that I impulsively kissed her. For a moment she was a cute puppy wanting confirmation that she hadn't broken something. I'll admit I was a bit intrigued about Trant...
"When he had finished enjoying me I hurt everywhere except the one place I'd have thought most probably. He'd half chewed my nipples off. They were standing out like a pair of beacons. I was secretly pleased with their scarlet acknowledgement of Trant's attentions. I could use them as evidence with Gillian. He really was a knowing bastard. He helped me up and led me to the Lake. Using his handkerchief he washed me off. Gave me quite a bath actually. I blushed like a school kid as he gave particular attention to removing any traces of our little tete-a-tete. He even tried to bring down the red of my nipples by holding his cold wet rag against them. But he didn't have much luck there. The more he fussed with them the harder they got. I'd have laughed in his face if it hadn't been for the handcuffs. With them on my wrists behind my back it seemed best to be a good little girl. I even obligingly spread my legs so he could give little pussy a good wetting down. I wasn't fussy about that kind of evidence myself. But, think of it! What a Hell of a spot for a girl to be in!
"Even chained and with Trant's hand on my arm I marched back to the house confident of victory. He had gone too far! He did not talk, just kept looking at me with amusement that made me fume. When he pushed me through the door of Gillian's office he said: 'Do it again sometime, love.' and went away chuckling as though he knew a joke I did not. It was then the real fear started."
Thea looked at me as though seeking confirmation. You know, she hoped I felt the same way she did. "Gillian's sweet really. I'd loved doing the languages with her. But when I got pushed into that room I was lost. It was not until I stood before her desk that I realized my wrists were still handcuffed behind my back. Even with her I felt sort of shamed as if I'd been caught picking pockets. Not being able to use my hands made me want to use them twice as bad: to cover myself, I mean. I'd already got over that shyness. But now the handcuffs took me back to the beginning. I was a little girl who had inked her blotter.
"Gillian listened to my story. I could see she was unhappy. I realized that for some reason she saw the whole thing as far more than a broken window. Even when I told her about Trant her expression did not change much. She just kept looking at me as though she wished the whole thing had not happened.
"We'll have to go and see Lucian." That was all she had to say.
"Please take these things off my wrists." I pleaded.
"They don't matter." She said absent mindedly.
"They do to me!" I told her. "I feel terribly ashamed with them on. I don't want to go in to Lucian all chained up."
She laughed at that. "I'd hardly call it 'all chained up'. It's only a pair of handcuffs."
"Auntie, there's something wrong! Tell me. I shouldn't be like this. I'm frightened." I made it really vehement.
"She would not talk. I could not struggle. I ended up in front of Lucian's desk, blushing. That blush I could have done without! He frankly enjoyed it. You know the way he does... They discussed me and what I'd done. I kept interjecting about Trant. I'd felt sure Trant would win my battle for me, but they just smiled indulgently as if I was a silly kid. I got the impression that for the young mistress to be violated three times in the Park of an afternoon was no big deal. Certainly not a broken rule like my peeping through a window seemed to be. Next thing I knew I was being sentenced."
Thea paused and looked at me as though still hoping I'd believe all she was saying. Actually, y'know I was finding it a bit hard to take. If they had not whipped me I wouldn't have believed her story. But the lovely marks all over me were sort of a confirmation. Dungeons and handcuffs were damned bizarre for a couple of girls who were just trying to learn French. "You mean, as though you were in some sort of Court?" I asked doubtfully.
"That's right. Lucian was the judge. He wore his grave lovely smile, listened to Gillian's reluctant words and my own angry protests, and then sentenced me to a month in the dungeon. Said it would give me time to reflect, as though I was a lousy nun. Then went back to his writing. I let Gillian lead me out of there as though I was a really truly criminal. I didn't really believe what was happening to me."
Poor Thea! My heart went out to her. I was not doubting her any more. The whole thing was Arabian nights or William Morris. I think William Morris would have been very happy with Losteigne. He loved to have his maidens all forlorn. I suddenly felt very forlorn indeed. I no longer resented Thea's destruction of my happy mood. I was desperately wondering what little Fawn and little Thea were really up against. We had another clinch. They seemed to come very naturally.
"It isn't really a deep dark down dungeon." Thea conceded without enthusiasm. "It's got a high barred window so there's light. It's heated so a naked girl won't freeze. 'Bout all I can say for it though. A day in there is like a month. The whole month seemed longer than the rest of my life." She made a gesture of wry amusement. "I got so I looked forward to my daily whipping. It broke the monotony." Thea was suddenly angry. "D'you know what those bastards did! They just left those handcuffs on me. The only time I got rid of them was when they fastened me to be whipped. But they went right back on afterwards. Look."
She held out her hands. Sure enough, there was a red chafed circle round each wrist. That cold hand I told you about started to have a high old time on my spine again. "They whipped you every day!" I exclaimed aghast.
"Every day! Oh it wasn't a big ritualistic affair. Usually five strokes. Obviously it didn't kill me. But I'm well decorated. They all had a go. Lucian does it the most impressively, and he always talked some sort of nonsense about some kind of a new life I'm supposed to find here. I usually hurt too much to listen. He's strange. But the killer-diller was when they sent Trant in to have a go at me. If he ever whips you, you'll know about it. He hits twice as hard as he need. He loves to see you twist. I fully expected him to screw me in between the time he freed me and handcuffed my hands behind my back again. He felt me up to his heart's content. But that was all. Probably nervous about someone walking in and catching us in the act. Actually I'd have liked a bit of slap and tickle. That damn dungeon made anything welcome, and by the time Trant was through with me I was hot enough to boil water. But I'm sure that if we'd been caught I'd have got more blame than he did. I'm pretty sure that's the way their thinking went the first time. Whenever it was Gillian who came to whip me I worked on her for all I was worth with pleadings and tears to either let me out, or at least take those rotten handcuffs off. She just smiled and nodded absently as though her mind was somewhere else. Then picked up the whip and promised to double my dose if I didn't shut up... "
Thea trailed her story into silence. When our eyes locked together I had the feeling she was looking to me for some sort of guidance. I hadn't been put in the dungeon so maybe I still had a bit of influence at Court. I'd been wondering. We couldn't get over the wall. Se we'd have to try and get around Gillian. Poor Gillian! But I hadn't much hope at all of ever getting round Lucian.
"I think we'd better go back to the house." I suggested quietly, "and see if we can't patch up a truce. Surely they won't punish you for running out in the Park."
"They will, y'know." Thea affirmed dolefully.
I took her hand. Two naked maidens marching into battle.
* * *
Losteigne defeats us. I can't come to grips with whatever it is that inhabits the place. A big invisible something that no one will name and which I can't even see. It is present in the room where we talk to our aunty Gillian. I'm sure she feels it too. But, then, she may know what it is.
We are allowed to sit. In fact everything is beautifully normal. She even orders up Tea. No handcuffs, no whip and no dungeon. At least, not right now.
"I'd be happy now Thea's here." I told her honestly. Can't we have some clothes and forget about whips and things, and just concentrate on our French. We promise we won't pry... "
"No." Said Gillian, stony faced.
The cold hand was hard at work. "We will both promise to be very well behaved." I offered tentatively, feeling foolish like a silly kid. "Please, Gillian?"
"It's too late." She said wearily. "We'll go and talk to Lucian. But I'm sure it's too late."
"Too late for what?" I demanded. Thea's presence made me bold.
Gillian started to cry. She put her face in her hands. Then dabbed away with a handkerchief as the tears fell. There were a lot of them. We watched in silent consternation, not knowing the why or wherefore of anything. She owned Losteigne. Our clothes had to be around somewhere. We weren't asking much.
"Don't cry, darling." Thea said unhappily. "We can guess there's something wrong. If you tell us we'll help."
"You'll have to be punished." Gillian told her in between sniffles. "You should not have run. Lucian is angry."
"Damn Lucian!" I'd been longing to say that for a long time. "It's you that owns Losteigne! Tell him to go jump in the Lake."
Gillian looked at me and beyond, as though at some vision my anger had invoked. Instead of answering she rose to her feet, undid a button or two and let her dress fall. Thea and I gasped. Her back was criss crossed by fresh red wounds. I guessed they had been put there by that slender long riding crop Lucian loved. But why!
"I have to be obedient too." The way she said it I could have sworn she was drugged. So hopeless and resigned.
"Call the police."
"There's no phone. Lucian has one. But I can't use it unless he listens." She pulled her dress back into place.
"You mean you are a prisoner... like us?"
She shrugged distastefully. "More or less. If I don't oppose him I can stay as I am."
"But to be whipped like that! It's brutal!"
Gillian made a hopeless gesture and relapsed in her chair. "I argued with him. I tried to back out. No one argues with Lucian." She looked at us with sudden concern. "Don't ever make him really angry with you."
"How am I to be punished?" Thea asked. I could understand her concern. Her voice was tremulous.
"Oh, just an uncomfortable night in the dungeon." Gillian said listlessly as though it ranked with going without dessert.
Thea and I looked at each other questioningly. "We won't stand for it any more." I said firmly but quivering inside. "If you and us two stand up for ourselves I don't see how he can stop us walking out of the Main Gate. You want to, don't you?"
Gillian looked distraught. "Don't talk like that. Don't even think such things! I'm still hoping I can keep things as they are. I don't want you hurt."
"Two good little girls who let themselves be stripped naked and whipped and put in dungeons, and who say: "Yes sir. Thank you kindly." Who wants that! Why can't we all go back to normal?" I was getting well wound up.
Gillian shook her head unhappily. "If you obey everything I demand of you it may not hurt too much. If you won't do that it's going to hurt more than you can bear. But don't ask me questions. I don't even know most of the answers."
"Thea's not going back in any dungeon." I was still being a damn fool and playing the Iron Duke.
"You'll go with her." Gillian said tonelessly. "It's probably the best disposition for both of you until tomorrow."
"We both refuse." I almost sounded convincing.
"Oh, don't be silly!" Gillian now sounded normally irritated. "You don't want force used on you. It's ugly and humiliating. I know. I've had it used on me."
"I've had it used on me too." Thea said with resolution. She looked at me with a message in her eyes. "Come on, darlings. I know where the dungeon is. I'll even lead the way."
She took my hand. Gillian sighed thankfully. I allowed myself to be guided to where I had no wish to go.
The dungeon was as Thea had described. But it had other functions apart from being a prison. Thea was directed to a bench and told to lay down. She grimaced, because at it's head and foot were stocks to hold her neck, wrists and ankles. She did not demur, but lay on her back and was reaching for the apertures when Gillian ordered: "Over. Lay on your front."
Thea wailed. "Oh, darling, no. Oh please... "
"You are here for punishment, not pleasure." Gillian said firmly. But letting a cat out of the bag. A cat I hadn't suspected her of knowing about.
"Oh darling! Must I?"
"You know perfectly well you must. The two of you aren't here for an all night orgy. Be grateful it's nothing that hurts."
Petulantly Thea turned over. I was as disappointed as she. I watched her arrange herself in the stocks and Gillian lower the massive chunks of wood that would hold her with almost no freedom at all and defeat both of us in making the night bearable. A padlock clicked and my cousin was fastened for the night.
"You didn't run away." Gillian said to me with faint amusement. "You get off easy."
She led me a few paces away from the girl I wanted to comfort. A moment later I stood with one ankle chained to the floor with just a few links. I wouldn't go anywhere. Certainly not to the bench or the door. Otherwise what I had to bear was painless. But I guessed I would sleep on the stone.
"Please." I asked Gillian. "Don't separate us like this. Punish us but let us touch. Oh please...?" I gave the words all I had.
"If you won't be grateful I can offer you a gag each." Gillian suggested helpfully. They lock on so you can't get them off even with your hands free. But wouldn't you prefer to talk? You are going to have to learn to be grateful for small mercies." The way she talked she seemed to be feeling better.
I decided to be grateful for the small mercy.
It wasn't all that late when she locked us in. Our night in the cheerless place looked like being a long one. I stretched my chained leg as far as it would go in trying to reach the poor kid captive on her bench. But it was no go. I was foxed. It was infuriating, as I am sure it was intended to be, but I was not going anywhere. Just nowhere! I kicked angrily at my short bit of chain. Then I got down and examined the metal band round my ankle. There would be no getting out of either. I turned to the poor kid on the bench.
"Is it very bad, dear?"
Thea wriggled and tugged without moving much. "I'm going to hate it." She said with certainty. "But at least I'm laying down. There was one night in here they chained me to the wall and made me stand. It's awful when you have to sleep and can't."
"But, Gillian: why does she do this to us?"
"I told you. I'm sure she has to. Think of her back. She's as much a prisoner as we are. But I'd sooner she locked me like this than have Trant do it. I told you we have to escape somehow."
"This doesn't feel like escaping." I kicked at my chain.
"I wish you could touch me." Her voice was suddenly very warm and very sad.
I wished it too, desperately. Did Gillian really have to be so unkind!
Thea was sweet. She had changed Losteigne for me. It was such a beautiful place! If only Lucian and his black Magic, or whatever it was did not exist. He was the serpent in Eden. I thought of Gillian and Thea and me. I was filled with longing. How wonderful it might have been! Could it be still! Could Lucian go his way and we ours! But this was Lucian's way: this condition we were in right now. Me chained and Thea being punished.
I looked at her with longing. Her curves were wickedly inviting. Her bottom was so much in view! I had to wonder if there was a reason. The same idea occurred to her.
"I say, darling, am I going to be whipped! My derriere feels sort of on display."
"They wouldn't do that to you too." I said without confidence.
"This laying on my front is beastly. Since you can't touch me anyway there's no sense to it. In fact, if I was on my back it would be more tantalising for us both. I bet my poor seat is going to get it."
She relapsed into a morose silence. I watched miserably as she turned her head this way and that within it's wooden yoke in an effort to find a resting place. She ended up with her neck as far on it's side as she could get it, looking at me. She was cruelly held. We talked, without hope, of escape.
Lucian came before night. He was breathtakingly charming. If he had not carried the long slender riding crop we would have been glad to see him. I almost was anyway. Dungeons have that effect on a girl. I suspect that after a few days the Devil himself would be welcome.
"We'll do anything you want." I said resolutely before he got in the first word.
He looked surprised and amused as though he hadn't expected it of me. "In that case, Fawn, I want you to bend over and touch your toes." He ordered pleasantly.
He would never let us win. But why should he! He held all the cards and made all the rules. Yet, even so, why couldn't he just leave us with Gillian to talk our French!
"Please," I said. I'll obey you. But, first, could we talk?"
He measured me. "You can buy conversation with pain, Fawn. Do you wish to purchase?"
I plunged. Future pain is intangible. My need to know our plight seemed vital. "I'll purchase." I acknowledged, wondering what I was letting myself in for. I glimpsed Thea's eyes, imploring and concerned. She was more scared than I was.
"We want to ask if we can just learn our languages with Gillian and then be sent home after the time arranged. We don't know anything about you, and we promise not to ask questions, and we promise to obey any rules you lay down." The quaver in my voice became very real, "Can't we be friends?"
To do him justice, he did seem to consider before he inquired cynically: "Broken windows, questions, demands, efforts to scale the wall...?"
"It's the not knowing, being naked. It's all strange and frightening to a girl. Please understand. We could be happy here if we were sure what was required of us."
Lucian sighed gently. I sensed he was enjoying his mastery. Why not! Two naked girls and him with the whip. "Very well." He agreed. "I will tell you a little. It will not make you happier: quite the reverse. But it will save silliness." He looked from one to the other of us approvingly. I am sure we made an erotic enough picture for any sensualist. His dark deep eyes glowed. He flexed that beastly slender thing in his hands. "You will listen more receptively if you are in pain." He said quietly.
We locked eyes. There was no need of words. I bent over and touched my toes. The still air of the dungeon whined. Then, clutching at myself, I watched through a haze of agony as he imparted the same cruelty to the helpless Thea. She screamed and banged her hips against the hard bench. One stroke each. The prelude!
"You were allowed to come to Losteigne, "Lucian began conversationally, "because it might have aroused questions to refuse. Your parent's wish that you come to Gillian was an unavoidable family contretemps which, on mature consideration did hold an attractive advantage. You are both very beautiful girls-"
"Right age for what?" I interjected.
"Bend over, Fawn." He ignored my question.
I touched my toes. When the pain took me I was quite sure I would try and please him. I hurt so much I just barely managed to pick up the resumption of his monologue.
"Losteigne has been chosen for a purpose." Lucian continued urbanely, watching my involuntary reactions to his whip with unveiled pleasure. "That purpose is no concern of yours. Yet you shall have a part in it. Your roles will be involuntary and mostly under duress." He grinned wickedly. "Your reactions will probably cover a wide gamut of emotion. Simply stated, you have been bestowed on us by chance. We will use you." He paused. "Excuse me. I have been remiss. I came to teach this young lady a lesson." With a flow of swift motion he again cut Thea's inviting curves.
Lucian and I stood in a strange communion of interest watching the naked prisoned body surge against the yokes, and listening avidly to the hurt girl's lips proclaiming her misery. She was beautiful. I felt guilty.
"I blame myself for the hope that your schoolgirl activities could carry on without conflict. I would have been more honest to tell you that you were prisoners the day you arrived. But no harm is done. You have come to awareness without traumatic shock. We want you healthy. It is desirable that you roam the Park and continue your studies. If you see things it does not matter. You cannot possibly escape. I will increase the penalties for such attempts. My intent is to be helpful. It will discourage efforts that can only lead you to more pain than you can bear. Gillian will be kind to you. But will punish mercilessly if you transgress. She loves you. But knows what she must do." He made a gesture of reassurance. "Hold her blameless. She, too, plays a role she did not seek."
Lucian turned and, without warning, struck Thea again. When her whimperings quivered into silence I took another chance. I made my voice so humble it shamed me.
"Lucian, please punish me if I am breaking a rule. But are questions permitted?"
"Get them out of your system, Fawn. I can't be whipping you all day long." He sounded amused. Maybe humility was his thing. My humility!
"Could we know about this... thing, whatever it is. Could we play our part in it better if we knew?"
"You had to ask that, didn't you!" He laughed. "It's the easiest question to answer. I don't tell you, and I can't tell you simply because you would not believe a word of it if I did. Believe me, Fawn. This is so."
Probably he would answer nothing. But I tried a shocker. "Are we punished this cruelly only to keep us obedient or because you enjoy whipping girls?"
"Both. An unusual felicity of duty and pleasure." He was laughing at me, but I believed his answer on that one.
"Why do you whip Gillian?"
He did not hit me as I had expected. Just nodded understandingly and considered. "Your aunt Gillian is an unconscious masochist." He conceded, choosing his words with care. "She is as much subject to penalties as you. She fears them. But Gillian is making discoveries about herself that impose that dazed expression she wears half the time. You may have noticed... " Without warning he struck Thea once more. Through her moans he ended his sentence. "Gillian is whipped only when she has done something to demand it. You two will be whipped purely for pleasure at any time. A girl's loveliness is wasted in crudities such as orgasm. Under the whip she finds glory."
Not very encouraging was it! I mean, we didn't have much to look forward to except things that hurt. Thea got in ahead of my next one.
"You mean you don't want to use us as girls... ? The way Trant did me?" She sounded so bereft that if things had been different I'd have laughed.
"Both of you will be used, never fear." Lucian sounded almost prudish.
"Must we be naked?" I needed to get that one in.
"Of course!" I could tell he thought the question sort of redundant. "Surely you can define that necessity. It puts you in a proper state of mind. It impedes escape efforts. It makes all of you instantly available to punishment at any time. It also renders you spontaneously accessible for... other things." He grinned. "You are also most pleasingly and erotically decorative around the demesne. I enjoy you."
If he enjoyed us naked that was that. We'd have to stay naked. I wasn't going to argue. But if he liked a naked girl why couldn't he love one! I want him to love me instead of whip me. But I knew, for sure, that any girl Lucian loved would get whipped, plenty! I'd see it in his eyes every time he looked at me. In the dungeon at that moment I was prepared to settle on those terms if he'd wanted me. But I couldn't very well ask him. But I knew, guiltily, that I might have done if Thea hadn't been looking at us with those wide hurt eyes. The two of us were going to have to settle for getting the whip without the love: just his usual exquisite charm. It was not quite enough to enable us to enjoy the pain.
"We don't want to be punished all the time." I could really be sincere on that one. "So would you, please, list all the rules? Honest, we will try... "
"You shall have your list, Fawn. But it won't be that important now. Things will happen. Some of them will happen to you. You have both entered a stream of events."
"Please, Lucian, don't keep Thea like that all night. She can't sleep with her neck in that thing."
I thought I'd get it for sure. I was on forbidden ground. But, after a momentary furrowing of the brows, he offered lazily: "Pain could buy her release."
"Mine?" As if I didn't know.
He nodded. "You are a desirable subject."
"I owe you some now for the questions." I said doubtfully.
"Of course! And you wish to add to the score?" He was mocking.
I twisted uncomfortably, not knowing what I'd let myself in for. He laughed at my blushing indecision. "Try the first lot before you take on a second?" He suggested amiably.
It couldn't be true, this playful approach to agony. A naked girl bartering her skin for a few words. How incredible could Losteigne get! But it was true! Deadly serious. It was going to happen to me right now. I even instinctively tested the shackle on my ankle. When you are scared enough you do things like that. He caught the motion and laughed.
"Lay down on your tummy, Fawn."
Something new! It would have to be, of course. Lucian would want nothing predictable. I caught Thea's agonized stare as I sank to the cold stone.
"You have one foot free. Bend it straight up from the knee."
I obeyed. Realisation struck my mind at the same moment the crop struck the sole of my foot. My whole world exploded.
"You want a play by play of this one too! Sorry! How can a girl describe an Earthquake or a couple of planets colliding or being burned alive. It was like all those things only worse. I rolled on the floor and screamed and sobbed and tugged at my fettered ankle. I just didn't care about anything except nursing my pain. All the way through it I had a nagging fear that Lucian could not possibly know how awful it was. He'd want to do it again.
He did! "Raise it again, darling." He requested imperturbably.
"I can't!" It wasn't just my lips. My whole being said it.
He slashed me across the shoulders. I sunk down on the floor moaning. It was a mistake. The sole of my chained foot was exposed. Not as perfectly as if lifted and offered, but enough. The cut of his crop thunked into it from toe to heel. I went wild.
Try and picture it. Chained, naked, no hope of escape. If I didn't offer my foot there was all the rest of me. I had a sudden cringing horror at thought of my breasts. If I lay face down he got my feet. Face up he had all sorts of targets. All I had to defend myself was words. But they came out incoherently, babbling. I offered everything. But I had nothing to offer. He had all of me now. There wasn't any more. While I pleaded I knew I was reneging on my promise to obey. If I was to keep my part of the bargain my foot should be sticking up right now for it's next stroke.
I stuck it up the way he wanted it.
The blow was instantaneous. When the writhing and the screams were done I lay sobbing. I dared not look up at him. I did not even want to look at Thea. I wanted to curl up in a ball and die. I felt terribly small and helpless and bare.
He did not speak. Just tapped me gently on the foot with the tip of the hateful thing he'd hit me with. I got the message. I could make a lot of fuss and get hit all over me or I could raise my foot. I knew I could never raise my foot again. It just was not possible! But somehow it raised up of it's own accord. Honest, it wasn't me that stuck the sole of that foot up for Lucian to hit again. It must have been one of those conditioned reflexes they get out of animals. That's really what I was when you come to think of it. Only an animal with it's ankle chained to the stone so she couldn't get away from her master's whip.
My mind was so full of turmoil and frantic wondering what to do or say that it took several moments for me to realise the blow had not fallen. There was my little foot simply crying out to be struck, but nothing happened.
It was awful. He did it on purpose. I could imagine him smiling at me, knowing I was curling up inside with the suspense. I lay quite still, waiting, getting more and more curious, and what was worse, more and more hopeful. Maybe it was over. Maybe Lucian was satisfied with the pain he had given! I longed to look up. But that would be an admission. I had to wait for him to tell me what to do. In the meantime he would surely be pleased with my performance. I held my foot steady and began to feel proud along with the quivering. I could not help the trembling. Who wouldn't tremble waiting for what I was waiting for! I stole a look at Thea. Her face mirrored my own.
I don't know how much time passed. I wondered if I could wait him out. Just lay there with my foot up and damn what happened! But I was beginning to twitch. My feet already hurt atrociously. It got so I couldn't keep still. I looked up over my shoulder...
The crop cut into my sole at the moment my eyes were ready to focus on his. I went into my writhing contortions and did my screams and moans while he watched my agony with grave interest. No one spoke. I suppose it was a moment of fulfillment, so he had nothing to say. After a very long time when I was down to the gasping stage I heard Thea's voice come from a long way off: "Please don't hit her any more, Lucian. Hit me too. Fawn shouldn't get it all."
She was right, of course. The questions had been for her too. But to have her feet whipped fastened the way she was would be unbearable. A girl might go insane with such utter helplessness. She could not move. The crop could bite at both her feet without pause.
Lucian was ready for us both. He was having fun. His own kind of fun, all very serious and genteel. I felt so impotent and scared about that fun. Why should he stop! He did not need to. He had us. I wondered if I'd stop if I was him. I had a feeling I would not.
"That one's over." He announced cheerfully. "Pretty good show all things considered. How about it, Fawn? You had some more bargaining in mind."
"Leave me the way I am, darling." Thea implored. "Don't get cut to pieces to get me out of this fix."
"Keep quiet, child. You have nothing to say. The decision is entirely Fawn's." He gave her bottom one more stroke so that she subsided into her own small sounds of pain.
"I'll try." I said weakly. "Not good enough!"
"Alright!" I managed in a better voice. "I'll accept what I must if you will set her free."
"That's better." Lucian said approvingly. "I'll finish off the job I came to do, and then move on to your little lot."
The job he had come to do was to whip Thea. She had been right in her guess. Her bottom had been set like that for a good purpose. He laced into the poor kid in a way that made me cringe. She did her best about the noise, but made quite a lot anyway. She got ten. It was a lot on top of what she had received already. She lay whimpering while he released her.
For a moment I was surprised when he unlocked the shackle on my ankle. Free! Me! When I had a bill to pay. Was he going to be magnanimous! But then I saw his face. Once more there was no need of words. I knew what I had to do. I crawled over to the bench. I did not want to stand on my feet unless he made me. I pulled myself up to where Thea had lain, then looked at him inquiringly.
"On your back." He ordered. "Damned untidy the other way up."
So there was a little magnanimity there after all! Eagerly I arranged myself in the slots still warm and moist from Thea's agony. The yokes clamped down, the padlocks snapped. It was a rotten feeling. I wondered if I wouldn't have been better off to be whipped. I could not see much. But the noise of the door told me we had been locked in again. I wriggled experimentally and looked to each side at my hands fastened just as my neck was fastened. Little fawn was going to be a very good girl indeed. She could not be anything else.
"You shouldn't have done it, darling. But thanks a million." Thea's voice sounded very close. A moment later her lips were on mine. Her hands in my hair. She grinned and answered my unspoken question. "No, I'm not chained. Either he forgot or he's more human than we thought. "Don't suppose we'll ever know." She looked down at me, suddenly radiant. "Happy?"
I used all the ecstatic words I knew.
"You're terribly at my mercy, darling." There was mischief in her voice.
"I'm so glad." I said demurely."
"I could do terrible things to you." She teased.
"Please do." I said happily.
She did.
* * *
It's lovely in the Park. I don't care if it is a bit other worldly at times. So what if a Satyr does come along! I've always wanted to see one. Thea would adore him. But maybe not right now. Not while I can't run.
I'm chained to a tree. Of course, you don't expect much else now, do you! But, honest, things have been pretty good since that night in the dungeon. That ended up pretty good too, come to think of it. I couldn't do much. But Thea did! For the rest it's been a quite bearable mixture. We can't get free. But we don't worry any more. Lucian gave us a lovely list of don't's. You know: "The Rules". We obey them. Do we ever! Thea and I must be the most obedient damsels in all England. Not that it does us all that much good. We still get whipped and punished in other cute ways Lucian or someone else thinks up. This is one of them I'm enduring now! But we don't get whipped for being bad. Doesn't that sound childish! We get what Lucian calls "Caprice Punishments". In other words we have to put up with being whipped or something because it does something for him. He has a lot of rigmarole about aesthetics and the beauty of submission. But the girl on the receiving end isn't too thrilled. It's fine for him though.
I've been chained to this tree for quite a few hours. There's worse things. In fact, at the start, it seemed rather fun. It's only by one hand. A bolt has been fastened into the trunk about waist high. My wrist is chained to it by a shackle and a few links. I can't move away. I just stand or lean, or I can sit down with one hand held above my head. It's tantalizing but painless. But supposing they leave me here all night! I've been thinking about that. It's twilight now. They are unpredictable...
Thea will be in some similar plight. They often separate us. We can't tell if there is method in what they do. I don't think there is. I think we are sort of 'On Hold' like on some phones. They have a use for us, but not yet. So we do our bit of French and wander around the Park and watch our P's and Q's.
I'm getting cold. I wish they would come and free me. To stay here all night will be miserable, and I've done nothing to deserve it. I'm tired of twisting my shackle and tugging at the chain. I've never got loose from anything yet. But I still try. It's something to do. I even tried to count the welts on my bottom. I have some lovely ones that stand out quite distinct. But there isn't much profit in that either.
It's completely dark now. Under these trees it is doubly black. I'm sitting down with one hand above my head. It hangs from my tether and keeps me here as surely as a hundred feet of rope or ten padlocks. It is intended to be infuriating and it is! But I do have one hand free to look after the tears. There always seems to be tears sooner or later. Thea cries too. Wouldn't you! Naked and cold and hungry. We could have such a lovely life here if Lucian didn't get these ideas.
I've been asleep. I don't know how long. If it wasn't Summer I'd be frozen. I reach for covers or clothes to stop my shivering. But there are none. I am huddled against my tree and one wrist hurts. I keep my eyes closed. There is nothing to see. Or am I afraid! I am, but I dare not let it take hold. I have to think of my wrist if I got in a real panic. One slender little wrist by which I am held captive! I think of the story of the fox that gnawed it's foot off to escape the trap. I couldn't even do that!
I open my eyes. There was a sound. I know now I did not wake naturally. Something woke me. My shivering changes tempo. Slowly I rise to my feet. I am on the defensive before I have even seen an enemy. But how silly! Some little creature of the night as scared of me as I am of him. The night air is cold upon those bits of me that sitting against the trunk kept covered. I am utterly miserable. I absolutely don't deserve this. Yet if I complain tomorrow I will be whipped for complaining. That's one of the rules. Little girls at Losteigne don't complain...
It had been a part of the darkness. But now it moves. It is unconcerned with noise. Twigs break beneath it's feet, leaves rustle. It has little shape or form, But I judge it to be a human well swaddled in something black, perhaps a cloak. It has no face. I make a terrible whimpering sound. I try and scream but it won't come, just the animal noise. I am an animal with one foot in a trap awaiting the approach of the creature that will kill or take me. The trap is relentless. I must wait. I am welded against the trunk, petrified.
It comes close. It stops. I am being examined, scrutinized. We are face to face. But it's eyes are hidden. I can sense them, intent and purposeful. I can hide nothing.
I do not try. I await it's pleasure, trembling. It must surely hear the thudding of my heart. I am surprised that my chest can contain such pounding. But, at least, I have managed to stand. I am not uselessly straining at my fetter.
We do not move. Moments pass. I become desperate. "Please set me free." It seems the most rational thing to say. I wonder what my voice sounds like. To me it is the voice of someone else I am so scared.
There is no answer. But the menace is dissolving. An arm reaches out slowly. Fingers play with my hair as though curious. It lifts my free arm. I do not resist. How can I! It lets it fall and gives it's attention to the chain that holds me. I realise how silly my request must seem. He cannot free me. He has no key. Only a key can release my wrist. The shackle that holds me is heavy. Fingers trace across my skin as though testing it's texture or, more probably to see how cold I am. Those fingers can feel me shivering from both fright and cold. Illogically I plead again.
"Please set me free." It is all I can think to say. It is the thing I most want.
The night absorbs my words. It is as though I have not uttered them. I tug at my chain so that he may see how I am secured. Only his arm moves. Now his fingers trace my femaleness. But they are not prurient. Impersonally and without eagerness his touch acquaints itself with my breasts, my nipples and my pubic hair. My involuntary shrinking interests him as though he wonders why. He motions for me to turn round and face the trunk. His hand pushes me into the position he desires. The exploration continues. He follows my contours and crevices as a blind man reads Braille. He takes my free hand and leads me as far from the tree as my shackle will allow. I am circled and given a visual assessment. I stand like a bathing beauty on parade. I begin to hope I will not be killed or violated. There is a strange gentleness about the creature. A gentleness as of great strength. I do not think it is female. But I can not be sure. I try my luck again.
"Please help me." I am not asking for the Earth!
I have a feeling my request is being considered. There is a faint motion of the head beneath the hood. A hand reaches out and clasps the metal links that are my tether. Something is happening that I cannot pin-point, a strangeness that I sense. A moment later my hand is free. I raise it, unbelieving, before my face. The metal band is still locked tight about my wrist. One link of chain is still attached. The rest are gone. I stare stupidly at what must be a miracle or a trick. I can hardly believe that I am no longer attached to anything. I am free to go. Or am I... !
"Thank you, oh thank you!"
The words are inadequate. I wish to throw my arms about my shrouded savior. But I cannot. Instead, I do something not of my own volition. The act is instinctive, dictated by a will beyond my own. I kneel. I bow my head. I reach for the hand that released me. I kiss it. It is like no other hand I have ever touched... I am raised to my feet. The figure backs away. There is a slight inclination of the head. It turns and strides into the darkness. There is no thought in my mind that I should follow. My thoughts are chaotic. I look bemusedly at the torn links still hanging from the bolt in the tree. Metal that a few minutes ago held me implacably. I look again at the band tight upon my wrist. I am suddenly afraid. I long for Thea and warmth. I leap toward a path and run fiercely towards Losteigne. How good it is to run! I do not look back.
Dear Lucian's variety is limitless. We have been promoted to little slips of pure white. They drape over one hip and tie above the other. They cover our triangles, but only just! They are easily lifted. Easily removed. We are sure they bode us no good. They don't! They are a sop to convention. Gillian smiles as she leads us to the kitchens.
There had to be kitchens, and people in them. But I'd never seen either. Now I met Nancy the cook and a precocious young female answering to the name of Skilley.
Nancy should have been maternal and middle aged. She wasn't. She was late twenties and heftily built. She had a bright and cheerful eye and hearts manner. Their voices gave them away as being from the wrong end of London.
"I'll keep me eye on 'em, mum." She assured Gillian. "No tricks in my kitchen." She eyed us meaningly.
"Do we really have to?" I asked our aunt.
"Too good fer the likes of us, eh!" Nancy asked with mock indignation after Gillian had shrugged, made a helpless gesture and left us to our new fate.
"We are supposed to be learning French, not doing dishes." Thea retorted sulkily.
"Hold you 'and out, love."
Nancy's request electrified us both. For the first time I noticed a rack of canes and crops on one wall. Thea's eyes and mine met in a great big question mark.
"'Old yer paddy out, dearie." Skilley advised giggling. " 'Less yer want Trant ter 'old it out for yer."
"This is too absurd." Thea said firmly, putting her hands behind her back.
"We are not children, y'know." I butted in.
Nancy selected a cane, the mere sight of which made me wince. She put her finger on one of a row of buttons. "You can hold it out, love, or I ring for Trant." She sounded cheerfully impartial.
"Could I apologise?" Thea asked.
"That goes along with the caning, love."
"If Trant gets called 'e'll fuck you as well." Skilley informed helpfully. "Does me proper whenever 'e gets the chance."
"Quiet, you!" Nancy swiped with the cane across Skilley's leg. Skilley yelped and hopped around in pain.
"I'm sorry, Nancy." Thea said. She held out her hand.
The energetic cook delivered two well aimed slashes across two defenseless palms. Thea nursed her wounds beneath her armpits, bent double with the pain. Nancy turned a smiling countenance to me. "How about you, love?"
"I haven't done anything." I stammered, unprepared.
"Don't 'ave to, love." Nancy assured me generously. "I likes caning the likes o' you. It'll 'elp settle yer down, like."
I held out my hand. If Thea could, then why not me!
I wasn't prepared for such a sickening pain. I doubled up and moaned.
"Tickles a bit, don't it, dearie." I could tell Skilley was enjoying my poor show.
Against every instinct I straightened up and held out my other arm. My eyes met Nancy's. I could tell she was judging the force of the blow that would reduce me to the same misery as Thea.
She made no mistake. The cut was worse than the first. I didn't care about anything except that I hurt. I just let myself go and did whatever felt natural, even the noises. I knew I must look silly bent over like that hugging my hands. But they were probably enjoying the sight of the young lady from upstairs doing a bit of suffering.
"Enjoying it proper, she is." Skilley enthused. "Give 'er a couple more, Nance."
I quailed at the thought we might be delivered to a pair of sadists. Did Lucian find joy in knowing we were being savaged in the basement! This caning business could easily go on and on. Caning sounds like kid's stuff. Nancy's caning wasn't! She could have been Torquemada's star turn. My eyes filled with tears.
"Just a little warm up." Nancy confided. "Mustn't spoil little paddies for peeling them spuds, must we."
The tub of potatoes was vast. We were given knives and a bowl. Our fingers were so numb we could only fumble. We had been reduced to wretchedness.
"Bet they run 'fore that little lot gets done." Skilley opined sagely.
"Alright, yer young 'ussey. Got it in fer 'em proper, ain't yer. Put the irons on. Won't do such 'oity-toity young madams no 'arm."
Thea's eyes met mine in question. Surely no one upstairs wanted us subjected to these deliberate indignities! Yet we remembered the Rules. There are worse things than peeling potatoes and being the butt of bitter Cockney humour. For a moment, though, when I saw the things that were to be fastened on us I did feel a compulsion to flight. They had to be deliberately medieval. Wearing them would be shaming. But, of course, that was the idea. They were ankle shackles of heavy black iron. Everything about them was heavy and menacing. But the bands and their locks had to be modern. They were too well fabricated. They would serve for humour or punishment. I could not be sure of Nancy's motive for putting them on us. The two sets made a load for Skilley as she dragged them out of a cupboard.
Resignedly I stuck my feet out and watched her gleefully clasp the metal round my ankles and click the bands shut. They must have been intended for a girl. There was no slack. They fitted. When she had done with me my feet were joined by about fifteen inches of brutal links. I wrestled with a potato while I watched Thea get hers. She, too, was close to tears. There was something demeaning about what was being done to us. I thought of Daddy and longed to tell him. But no letter from me about something like this was ever going to get out of Losteigne. My weekly letter was full of fun and games. He probably thought I was happy as a bird.
I longed to sound out these two creatures about how much they knew or how sympathetic they might be towards ideas of escape. But I remembered something in the Rules... Something that carried some horrific penalty. I tried being cautious.
"I'm sorry we're naked. If you'd like us covered we'll willingly wear anything you have."
"You ain't naked, love. Bit overdressed if yer ask me. Them tiddly bits round yer 'ips. Yer both got lovely tits, I'll say that fer yer."
"Ow 'bout canin' them tits?" Skilley suggested thoughtfully.
"I'll cane yours if you don't get about yer business." Cook promised darkly. "Wouldn't be the just time, y'know."
A kitchen in England where a cook's helper got her breasts whipped! All of me quailed. If it happened to Skilley it could certainly happen to us. There was something macabre about Nancy's kitchen. But then, it might be simulated for our benefit. We would never know with Lucian.
We peeled potatoes morosely with numb fingers. With each fumble my thoughts more and more focused on escape. I had been dissuading Thea from the notion. But the atmosphere of this dismal place was hard to combat. There was no escape right now, that was for sure! All that blacksmith's iron locked on my ankles made even the thought just wishful thinking. It was surprising Lucian had not put chains on our feet before. I could well see it would be a handy way to keep us under control. With a little longer chain we'd be able to stumble around the Park. But we couldn't climb or run.
"Get whipped regularly, I see." Nancy volunteered pleasantly.
"Lucian enjoys it." I agreed guardedly.
"Ah! But do you enjoy it, that's the thing, love?"
"We hate it!" Thea said vehemently.
"Why don't you run away, then?" Nancy asked slyly.
"We would if we could. Or if someone would help us... " Thea left the door wide open.
"What 'ud yer pay me if I gets yer over the wall?" Skilley seemed suddenly very serious.
"Our parents would give you anything you want."
"Fine lot o' cod's wallop that is." Nancy interpolated. "Can't get over that there wall yerself yer can't. And you knows it."
"You don't know everything, Nance."
"Lippy, ain't yer, in front o' company. Off with that there dress. We'll see 'bout this 'ere wall business, so we will." Nancy sounded more like a Gestapo corporal than a cook.
Our hands were busy with a potato. But our eyes were glued on the unexpected. We'd thought it was just us that got into trouble at Losteigne!
In the space of moments Skilley turned from a brash hoyden into a frightened girl. I wondered why, if discipline was that rigid in the kitchen, she had been so free with her tongue. Showing off in front of us, maybe. If the kid's only company was the cook she might need a bit of drama. From the look on Nancy's face she was about to get it. She let her slip of a dress fall to the ground. She was naked, a sweet youthful nakedness. She cowered, not in shame, but in fear.
"I'm sorry Nance. Please don't whale me again." Her voice was suddenly piteous.
From the look of her she had been whipped as much as we had. I could almost swear it was Lucian's work, but perhaps all whip marks are alike. She did not use her hands to cover anything, but let them hang listless at her sides. I could tell from that that nakedness was nothing new in her life. What happened then was, I suspect, a bit of a ritual.
"Ain't you ashamed, bare like that, you slut?"
"Yes." Skilley's affirmative was grudging. "Ought'a cover a few bits and pieces, wouldn't yer say?"
"Yes, Nancy." The child's voice was trembling. "Well, name 'em then! So we know where we're at."
"My breasts and my cunt." Skilley knew the answers. "Go get the things then."
Skilley burst into tears. She fell to her knees before the domestic termagant. She grasped Nancy's knees in pathetic appeal. "Please not them Nance! Don't put them on me... I didn't mean no 'arm."
The stalwart cook said nothing. Just stood there smiling while the scared Skilley babbled her pleadings. Pleadings that soon died for lack of response. One had a feeling this had happened before. Slowly and dejectedly the delinquent got to her feet, sniffing, and went to the cupboard from which she had so gaily produced the shackles that now secured our ankles. When she returned she bore a strange burden. It seemed a shapeless tangle.
"Show yer pretties to the young ladies." Nancy's sarcastic voice told us she was enjoying her authority.
Sulkily and reluctantly our youthful fellow sufferer placed the leather objects in our hands. Sorting them out I was able to extract a bra'. But what a bra'! It was beautifully made, but within it's cups were a myriad of tiny sharp projections, some of them not all that small. They were not only within the cups but also in the strap. It's twin harness took a bit of imagination. But after a few pushes and pulls it was evident that whatever girl wore it was going to have an awkward time between her legs and round her tummy. I was glad it was Skilley and not me.
"Can't 'ave yer goin' round all bare like, ducks, can we." Nancy believed in beating a girl all the way down.
"Them two's bare enough." Skilley said defensively but without hope.
"Privileged, they is, real lidies. Come on, ducks. 'Old yer 'ands up."
In woebegone fashion the cockney child raised her arms. She made a pretty and pathetic picture. She had shown us no kindness, but I could not but feel sorry for her plight. At Losteigne girls seemed to be forever doing things that hurt, things they had no wish to do. But which they must...!"
Nancy took care with the bra'. Not from aesthetic concern, but in an intent preoccupation that the beautifully contrived feminine adjunct impart it's maximum agony. Skilley's breasts were firm cones over which the fashioned leather cups fitted as though tailored. Perhaps indeed they had been tailored for her! It was scarcely likely that had been designed for any of the rest of us in that miserable kitchen. Nancy pushed and adjusted to get the effect she desired, the ultimate in female shame and hurt. Skilley held herself passive and yielding to her punishment. Her breasts were lovely. They were designed for joy. I thought of all the happiness I found in my own and in Thea's. I shared Skilley's desolation in the manner in which hers were to be violated. I gasped with her as the strap was drawn beneath her raised arms and buckled at her back, then pulled tighter and tighter, notch by notch.
She screamed and pleaded for mercy long before the buckle found it's final resting place.
"Oh, Nance, don't pull it so tight! Oh please! I can't stand it so tight. Yer don't 'ave ter do it to me. I'm sorry. I'll say I'm sorry. Ain't that enough! It's stickin' in to me everywhere. Oh, not so tight...!" Her voice quavered into a cry of anguish.
"Yer ain't got half of it yet, ducks." Nancy said reassuringly. "I'll give yer somethin' ter really howl about in a jiffy."
Skilley's hand had fallen to where they embraced the leather cups that covered her breasts. She held them as though the caress of her fingers would assuage their suffering, as though she could release herself from the tight clasp of the bra' and all that it held.
The potato peeling lapsed. We were not admonished. There was something cruelly personal about the infliction taking place before pretending not to see. I knew I was supposed to see. It was intended that my breasts and my sex should vicariously share this girl's gain. The hateful things being buckled upon her could just as easily be fastened on me. Lucian was giving me a message through Nancy. Skilley was an unlucky object of a demonstration. She had done or said nothing to justify what was being done to her.
"Keep them 'ands up. Spread yer legs, love." Nancy might have been fitting a new dress.
Skilley is resigned now. I can see her fighting down the plaintive words. She does as she is told.
"Trant ain't a'goin' ter bother yer while yer wears this, ducky." Nancy chortles.
"This" begins with a belt. I watch Skilley's waist get smaller and smaller as it tightens. When the tummy stops constricting the band of leather continues right on into it so that it buries itself in the softness above the girlish hips, so slender, so designed for pain! We are all designed for pain, all three of us! I tentatively shift my feet within their shackles. I can not escape. If Nancy chooses, or has been told, to do me what she is doing to the cockney child, I will have to stand as Skilley stands. I cannot run away or fight. I flinch at the realisation that those chains are upon me for a purpose. Not solely to shame... I wish Lucian would always punish me himself. I do not like Nancy. If I must give someone joy by being hurt I would prefer it to be him.
Skilley is whimpering. With small hopeless motions of her head she tells us all what the belt is doing to her. Like the bra's things are taken from her. I expect she wonders when that will be. I know I would wonder... But she stands obedient. Nancy must have done terrible things to this girl to make her so compliant. But she does plead again. I, too, would plead.
"Nance... ! Not the one up between my legs. Oh Please! This is enough what you got on me now. I can't 'ardly breathe it 'urts so 'orrible. Please, Nance, not up in me cunt... ! Oh crikey... "
Nance is very thorough. This new belt that frightens the girl standing with feet astride to receive it is narrow but even more fiendishly studded with metal points. It is clipped, at the front, to the waist belt, tugged down forcefully, passed between the legs, but not before Nancy has obscenely used thumb and forefinger to part the lips within their triangle of pubic hair and cleave them asunder by the entry of the punishing band, an entry that instantly evokes a cry of distress.
"I can't stand it, Nance. Yer didn't orta' shove it in there... " Her words trail away into sobbing wails and a shower of tears.
Absorbed in her task, Nancy is meticulously parting the whip scarred cheeks of her victim's bottom and drawing the strap well up so that it achieves maximum penetration and contact. Now she buckles it to the belt at the back. I watch, fascinated, as she carries her task to it's ultimate potential by using a brawny forearm in the 'V of the sacrificial crotch to almost lift Skilley from the floor, at the same time heaving at the buckle. Skilley screams. The buckle is looped. The mechanics are done. The punishment starts. I quail at sight of the kid who endures.
The naked Skilley does not move. Nancy has backed away and stands enjoying the effect of her efforts. She gives no command. But watches the bitter straps do the task she desires of them. Poor Skilley does not know it. But she bears the hand of Lucian upon her. She has not moved. To do so hurts more. Her pathetic fingers rove across those parts of her person that are being punished. Their touch can do no good. But it is an instinctive seeking to comfort. I remember my own hugging of my hands after the cane. Our bodies and our limbs do the best they can when they are punished. No matter how little it may be they must now explore what freedom is left to them as though offering to their owner the surcease no one else will give. Incredibly, Skilley has achieved a strange beauty.
I am puzzled. In theory she could free herself. There are no locks upon her bonds. But she makes no motion. She is deathly scared of the older woman. She gasps as she brings her legs closer together. I can understand she does not wish to stand so wantonly spread. But I can understand, too, that part of her which is most punished by the motion. Skilley cannot move without pain. Am I witnessing a punishment or a torture! I do not know. I suppose at Losteigne it does not matter. But I have a human duty. I stand.
"Lucian would not want you to be so cruel." I say to Nancy. It is a shot in the dark, probably absurd.
The cane wraps around my thighs in a wicked slash. I scream in shock. One foot kicks against it's chain in protest. I sit down and pick up a potato. A naked girl cannot argue against a whip. The sudden hope in Skilley's eyes dies.
"I'll take 'em off 'er and put 'em on you, love, if yer says so." Nancy leers.
They share the same love of making a girl ask. Or of making her feel guilt. I feel it now. I can rescue Skilley by taking to myself the pain she bears. But I do not wish to do this. So I am lost and uncertain. If it was Thea I would accept instantly. But I do not love Skilley, this slatternly creature who wished to see my breasts whipped. But where is my compassion! There is none in this kitchen. We are lost in a motiveless cruelty. My eyes meet Thea's in a kind of shame. She mirrors my own desolation. I will gamble. Perhaps... !
"Very well, Nancy. Take them off Skilley and put them on me."
I think we have all stopped breathing. There is no sound. I have a feeling my brave and foolish words are still floating in the air about us. My heart thuds.
I have shocked Nancy. She is bothered. I do not know her terms of reference. Would Lucian wish me to wear the awful harness! I suspect she ponders the degree in which I usurp her authority by accepting the unacceptable. Strangely, it is Skilley who breaks the silence.
"don't'cha do it, Miss. You ain't no idea. It's bloody awful." Her eyes spill an immense gratitude.
I see inspiration light up Nancy's countenance. She has thought up a situation. I know myself lost. Thea gasps in anguish. I await the words that will deliver me to agony. But it is to Skilley that the burly cook directs her command.
"Take yer belts off and put it on 'er."
Skilley, now, is afflicted by nobility. "It ain't right. She ain't done nothin'. Goin' too far, you is."
The slash cuts her bottom. She sobs. Her hands strive to reach the bra' buckle at her back. She will obey.
"Not that, yer ninny!" Nancy exclaims. "I said the belt. Can't send her back upstairs with her tits all bloody."
It is victory for Nancy that two girls shall now bear her marks. We are both robbed of noble purpose. We will both weep without rescue. Authority is unassailable. Naked girls never win. Yet I feel a guilty thankfulness that my breasts will not suffer the little needles. I am cringing now at what I will see when Skilley removes the straps she is now struggling with. Thea tries to help and is rapped across her fingers with the cane. Skilley has the stage. I suspect she has small hope of giving satisfaction in her new role. At the best, her breasts are still punished. She will hurt bitterly all the time she is placing her harness upon my loins. Then what! To sit and peel potatoes clasped in that atrocity is unthinkable. Yet that is probably what I will be made to do. It is vile. But there is not too much blood. The harness marks are imprinted on Skilley's skin as though painted. They are so vivid it is as though she still wears her punishment. Soon I will be like that! I clank my chained feet forward to receive my narrow garb.
The chains are taken from my ankles. It is a small mercy, but only so that I may spread my feet. I do so. Skilley looks at me imploringly, then goes about her task.
The pain is instant. It seems impossibly cruel that the straps should be drawn so tight. But they are. I am sure I am being injured. My tummy is cut in two. The strap is so far into me I cannot see it unless I bend well forward. When we come to the piece de resistance it is Nancy who parts my lips with determined digits. She will take no chance that my suffering be less than the maximum this harness can give me. I cannot avoid a cry as I am entered. It is a cry of protest, of agony, of all the desuetude of tortured girls. .I bite it short. But it was uttered. Nancy laughs. Thea weeps. Skilley is intent upon her task. She pants with pain. Her bra' will agonize her with every motion she must make to harness me. The cook at Losteigne is an ingenious woman.
I stand as Skilley stood. My hands flutter about the leather. But I force them to my sides. I will give no happiness to Nancy that I can withhold. Clenching my teeth I inch my feet closer. I do not want to stand with my pierced sex so blatantly on display. But the pain is very great, a miserable demeaning pain. There is no glory or eroticism in it for a girl. I am glad Lucian is not here to see.
Lucian walks through the door! I become a vast blush. He surveys us amiably with his usual grave interest. When he looks at me his eyes glow. "How very charming." He says in genuine tribute. I wish I had not been forced to shed my little scrap of white. Thea still wears hers. She seems dressed. I have never felt more naked.
"You maintain a most excellent kitchen." He says to Nancy. There is laughter in his voice. I suspect he refers to three naked girls rather than the mechanics of Nancy's culinary art. "I gather there has been delinquency?" He inquires pleasantly.
I am being frankly examined by his deep searching eyes. He is interested in my pain and the strictures that impose it. "Beautiful... quite beautiful." He says to no one in particular. But I am certain he is talking to me. "Is the pain very great?" He asks as though he cared.
I know his interest is in the pain I suffer, not in me. But still I am glad. He is like a radiance in this dreary place. My hurt becomes sublimated because he notices it. "It hurts me terribly." I tell him. But I cannot make my voice mirror my pain. His enjoyment makes my pain belong to him. For me, now, it has purpose.
He takes me by the hand and leads me from the kitchen. He gives no reason . He does not have to. He is Lucian! I walk in agony. But my heart sings because my hand is in his. How absurd I am! This, I am sure, is why Gillian gave him Losteigne. He has but to touch us or deign to show interest in our anguish and we adore him. I do not even ask him to take my harness off. I would not rob him of joy!
I must stand to attention before the lovely walnut table that is his desk. It carries it's usual burden of papers and books. He has gone to some trouble to position me. He is going to enjoy me. I wonder for how long. I am made to clasp my hands behind my back as though they are bound there. I know that, like this, I am female and vulnerable. I am happy. There is adoration in his eyes. I know it is for beauty, not for me. But I do not mind. My heart goes out to poor Thea still chained in that beastly kitchen.
"Do you wish to cry?" He asks.
The tears start to my eyes because he is kind. He knew they would. But they are of happiness. "Is the pain worse than being whipped?" I can tell he is interested.
There is a delicious current of fear in me. If he judges my present pain inadequate to his mood he may whip me. I do not want to be whipped. To be whipped and wear my harness too would be very awful. If he does whip me he will tie me first. I take heart from the fact that I have not been bound.
"It is a different pain." I explain as though I have been testing a new gadget. "It is very shaming. I wish it did not cut into me where it does."
"Why?"
My blush doubles. His question is so direct I cannot evade it. I do not wish to.
"I would be happy if that part of me being punished was yours only. Not to be hurt or damaged or misused."
Had ever captive maiden shown such temerity! No slave girl could have declared herself more wantonly before her lord! The words had come from me without volition. If only I could pull them back unsaid! They were true. But surely now I will be whipped!
Lucian is not disturbed. I am piqued that he does not react. I would prefer the lash to indifference. But, for now, I get neither. He smiles and seems to consider. His eyes relish me.
"We will consider your punishment." He tells me with a glint of humour. "In the meantime you will stand." He returns to his eternal writing.
I stand. Of course I stand! Straight and erect and hurting. Naked before the man who can do anything he wants with me. What would my father say! But he does not know. I clasp my hands behind my back and stick my breasts out. I know this will please him. I wonder how long I will wear the harness.
I cannot rid myself of the blush. Lucian is not oblivious of me. From time to time he raised his eyes and sort of drinks me in. I almost feel myself being drained. I do not know whether I should meet his gaze at such times. It is hard not to. Should I smile or look hurt! I try and do both. It is not easy. He knows what I do and think. I am more than naked here before his desk. He possesses me totally.
If I must stand like this, it would be nice to dream. But I am shockingly aware of Lucian. I cannot think other than that he is aware of me. Why, oh why, won't he take me! Why this distance! I can't come closer to asking him than I have. But he is pleasant and remote. He enjoys me as he might a work of art. But, of course, when he whips me I am a work of Art: His! It would be easy to wonder if he didn't like girls. You know, the thing about little boys. But that's not Lucian! I know it isn't! Not the way he looks at me. When he whips me there is a tangible bond between us. It is more than the lash. It is a deep and wonderful eroticism.
Everything he thinks of has beauty. Me, standing like this! I am beautiful. I know I am. But think of the pose! I bet there isn't a girl in England who would stand to attention in front of a man like this, not even if they loved him. There's something... something so abandoned about it. You're given up all hope, all pride. You hold yourself for his convenience. I think that if I was married in an ordinary sort of way I'd never stand like this for my husband, even if he asked me to or wanted it very much. This attention bit is like a girl crying to the wind: "Take me... take me... take me!" I'm curling up inside right now... Good gosh! What am I! A slave girl in search of a master! I ought to be ashamed...
But I stand like this because I must. Because if I don't Lucian will whip me! I think that's the reason. I'm sure he thinks that's the reason and also to do it because I want to! I mean, there has to be a division there, but I don't know where it is. It's too silly. I suppose really I'm so much under his spell that I'm grateful for anything he does to me. Is that another way of saying I love him! What absolute nonsense! He's cruel...
The pain is pretty bad. Standing at attention doesn't help. I have to keep my legs together, and that's not good. That damn strap underneath, it's a beast. It's right inside me and never lets up. The one round my tummy sort of pulses with my breathing. I try and inhale gentle. But what's the use! I have to breathe. So it's a band of fire round my middle all the time, the blaze varying with my respiration. I wish I was standing here like this without the harness. But I know that wouldn't be right. I mean, it wouldn't be valid or real. I have to hurt! Hurting is implicit in what I am. I don't mind.
I'm always saying that, aren't I! T don't mind'. Does it seem silly. Does it make me a masochist. Well, I don't mind about that either. I'm on fire with a different kind of flame than my harness. I know what it is. I'm a big girl. It's lust, a gorgeous carnality over a man who I ought to hate. I desire Lucian. He provokes my femininity. If I stick my breasts out enough. If I hurt enough, surely he will take me. My two fires rage. Both in the same place. When he takes my harness off one will die. The other will not.
Am I allowed to speak! I don't know. The way I have been made to stand seems to demand silence. I'm sort of a bad little girl made to stand in the corner. Standing in the corner is far worse than it sounds. Have you ever tried it! I have to keep remembering to hold my hands above my bottom. This is far worse than being bound. I take a tremendous gamble.
"Please, Lucian, will you tie my hands?" I ask brightly.
I think it startled him. But he treated my request with his usual courtesy. I am afraid it sounded pert or absurd or impudent, and again feel certain he will whip me.
His face is enigmatic. But he says: "Very well, Fawn." His desk provides cord. I notice there are two lengths, and know that I have made a mistake. But, determinedly, I cross my wrists behind my back and stand waiting. Lucian quietly uncrosses them and places them palm to palm. I quiver. His touch dissolves me. He ties my wrists very tightly so that I will know not to make suggestions. I am being taught one more lesson. Now comes my real reprimand. I wince as the cord circles my elbows. I am going to hurt. How tight will he make it! He makes it very tight, drawing both elbows together so they touch. He makes several loops, for which I am thankful. A single strand is quite unbearable! Lucian ties his knot and returns to his chair.
"That is what you wanted, Fawn." It is neither a question or a statement.
"Thank you, Lucian." What else can I say! We survey each other bravely. We each know I have transgressed, and that my pinioned elbows is my reward. I could remonstrate or plead. But he wants me to do this, so I will not do it. Not now anyway. It is as though I can best him by mute acceptance. I cannot. But captives cling to their little bit of pride. Besides, I want Lucian to think well of me. I think he intends to teach me to embrace pain with joy. This is just intuition. He had never told me so.
I have tried to give him the best possible posture for my breasts. But I could never do as well as his cords are doing. My joined elbows drag back my shoulders which, in turn, thrusts my breasts into an almost indecent proclamation of themselves. They are demanding attention as though they were vocal. I hope they do not give him fresh ideas. I am hurting quite enough.
My harness has lapsed into a quiet steady burn. Not moving helps. The elbow punishment is equally unyielding. It will get worse. I ask myself why I provoked Lucian to place it upon me. I think it was because holding my hands at the back seemed invalid, as though I was cheating. If they are tied I don't have to think or remember, they look after themselves. I try and rationalise my behavior. I can't. It is too absurd. A girl who asks to be bound has to be crazy. I am sure Thea would never do it. Or is it that I am being drugged and she is not! The heat in my loins does not diminish, even with this extra pain. Perhaps that is where my answer lies...
Will Lucian keep me here until I tire or complain, un til I do something punishable! I will not think of that. I let my mind drift away. I wonder about the kitchen and what is happening to Thea. Then I remember the black figure that released me from the tree that night. It was never explained. Neither Gillian or Lucian will tell me. I was told not to ask, to remember the rules. But they know, at least Lucian knows. Was the broken metal of the links a trick! I am afraid it was not, and that is frightening! Are Thea and I kept here for Lucian's amusement while he is engaged on some strange adventure, probably criminal! Or have we some other role to play! I stand very still to attention and await my lord's pleasure.
It is dark. It is night. An urgent hand shakes me in the room I share with Thea. A finger is placed upon my lips. Startled, I sit up. It is Skilley. She thrusts a small shapeless bundle at me.
"'Ere, put this on, Miss. Gettin' out of 'ere, we are. 'Ad enough, I 'ave."
It is a dress. Bemusedly I don it. Thea already wears hers.
"Right kind ter me, you was." Skilley whispers. "Got a key, I 'ave. We're gettin' out o' this bloody place. Lot o' kooks... "
It is a reflex, this prisoner's compulsion to escape. I follow automatically without thought, through the silent house and out of the door that yields to Skilley's knowing fingers. The bit of a dress feels strange upon me. I am not sure I like it, but it wards off the chill of the night air as I follow the swift pace that Skilley sets. I sense that all three of us are desperately afraid.
"I got a key to one o' them there little doors in the wall." Skilley throws back at us over her shoulder. "Goin' ter the coppers, I am, first thing when I gets outside."
Thea and I speed obediently behind this kitchen wench. But I begin to have qualms. There has been no time to think or plan. I am not certain of Thea's feelings, but I am increasingly aware of my own. I do not want to leave Losteigne. I know guilt. I should be thankful for this chance. But I am not. There is Gillian. There is Lucian! How absurd I am! I bear the wounds of their punishments, yet I have no will to flee. Between my legs and round my belly I wear the imprints of the straps that are no longer there. Perfect scarlet wounds. Upon my elbows are the circles of Lucian's cords. Why would I not be glad to be done with punishments and captivity! I will not admit that I am in love with Lucian and willing to accept whatever he imposes because I am a girl besotted with the mating need. There is something more than that. I am bewitched.
I love the Park, even with its fears. Its spell is on me now as I run. It is good to run, to feel the ripple of my muscles without more than the tender reminders of yesterday's agony. Thea's reassuring smile flashes at me as she matches my stride. The wall is distant. I conjecture unhappily on the possibilities of pursuit or failure. I do not want to do what I am doing. But if we are caught I will have to endure the full weight of Lucian's displeasure. This thing we do is Losteigne's cardinal sin.
Perhaps it is because of my love for this place, my affinity with the Park, that it is I who become aware of the shadows. Or mayhap my night chained to the tree and the black visitation with it's mute inspection kindles my perception. They keep pace with us, one on either side, well out among the trees, very silent, curious rather than menacing. I say nothing. My companions are unaware. I myself am lost as to what to do or to say. I do not know if that hooded man was Lucian's friend or foe. I cannot be sure whether the shadows out there mean us good or ill.
Two strong men could probably capture us if they willed, but they come no closer. For all I know they may watch us go and do nothing. I do not warn Skilley. She has enough on her mind without ghosts. That is what they are. Half the time they are invisible. They are part of the enigma of Losteigne.
We are more than half way to the wall when it happens. Suddenly I am alone! Skilley and Thea have gone! I stand bewildered. I am alone in the dark. I shake my head as though to clear obscured vision. Nothing makes sense. We had not been separated. Skilley had been a few paces ahead, Thea had run beside me. They have fallen into no abyss with me left standing on the brink. I think of disintegration and ray guns and laser beams. Only one thing is concrete. They have gone. My eyes rove. There is no movement. But there are two dark shapes as silent and still as I. Frantically I scream: "Thea!"
My cry is absorbed by the trees and by the night. It dies. There is no reply. I try again. But I am alone. What has happened is impossible. But it has happened. I am desperately afraid. A chill beyond that of the night is upon me. I leap forward and run as I have never run before, towards the wall. It is the only rendezvous I have. To go back and knock at the door of Losteigne is to betray us all. My feet pound. I look only straight ahead.
The Thing is there with the same suddenness-that Skilley and Thea were not. Squarely in the path, menacing and implacable as the wall itself. I come to a skidding halt and look back. The other one is there behind me.
"What do you want?" I demand. I make it sound angry through chattering teeth.
There is no answer. Beneath the hood there may be the grinning features of Trant or Lucian. But I do not think so. I do the only thing left. I swerve and run into the trees. Almost instantly there is a hand upon the back of my neck. That is all I remember...
* * *
I do not know whether it is a dream, a nightmare or some sort of hallucination. I cannot ask you to believe what I had to believe. I had no choice. I was the leading lady.
My first awareness was an abundance of light. No glare, but an illumination that bathed the whole scene in a luminosity without shadows. It was a huge vaulted Hall or Chamber of a beautiful simplicity. Each wall had the quality of a horizon promising infinity beyond. There were things here and there that I could not understand. Nothing was recognizable. The illusion of a dream would have been complete had it not been for Me and Them!
I stood against a cross, not of wood but of a substance I did not recognize. I could not move. I was held standing with outstretched arms, secured everywhere by bands of metal that clamped me motionless. I looked down the length of my arm. A neat broad band of silver or aluminum or chrome possessed my wrist. Another held my elbow. My neck was in thrall so that all I could do was turn to either side against the compulsion of the polished metal. My tummy was held, my knees and my ankles. I could not see them. I was held too rigid. But I could not move at all. I knew that bands were upon them too. I struggled in sudden revolt but moved no whit. I felt as an animal specimen must feel strapped to the dissecting table.
My concern with myself is momentary. To be fastened so that I cannot move is no longer new to me, nor to be naked. Skilley's dress is gone. I look at the silver men and am afraid with a fear that goes beyond what I have ever known of fear, an awfulness that has space for a terrible curiosity.
It is as though they have been sprayed with silver paint. But they wear their colour so I know its part of them. This is no fancy dress. I think they are male. They have a sexless quality. But each wears a brief covering of their loins. Save for that they are as naked as I am. They are handsome in a way that makes me think of Lucian. They share his courteous gravity. Their features are less metallic than the rest of them. There are five or six of them scattered about the place. All survey me. I occupy their interest entirely. Only one stands close. He speaks. There is a strangeness in his voice. Yet I cannot say his English is not perfect.
"You will not be killed." He assures me.
It is comforting to know that I will not be killed. But hardly reassuring that it might even be considered.
"What are you going to do to me?" I ask, but do not expect a sane answer.
"We are curious." He says this as though it explains everything.
"Must I be fastened so tight?"
"We prefer it."
"Well, I don't!" I tell him hotly. "Let me loose." He watches with interest as I struggle. It is with the same curiosity that he asks: "What would you do if I freed you?"
I have no answer to that. I feel foolish. What could I do if I was free!
He acknowledges my impotence with an inclination of the head in which I think I discern humour. His logic has triumphed. "We need diversion. You will make a charming experiment." He explains.
"Who are you?" I have a desperate need to know.
"It does not matter." He tells me. "You will be examined."
I blush. His eyes are suddenly doubly intense. They drink me in, focusing upon the physical evidences of my sex as though breasts are strange and pubic hair unknown. He steps aside and the others come and use me. What else is there to call it! Their hands caress in exploratory rovings. They do not jostle, but move closer so that they may watch my reactions as they handle and probe. I have a feeling they are confirming a text book. They are interested by the hardening and erection of my nipples. The cold night air and the fear had inverted them.
But under the stimuli of their fingers I could not keep them quiescent. Always a girl's nipples will betray her. One of them bends and uses his lips. They affect me with an unusual intensity. I gasp and tense. They exclaim together in a language I do not recognize. They are pleased by this discovery of my vulnerability. Each does it in turn, then two together. I am ashamed of myself. They seem pleased.
I think I know what they are looking for. A girl always knows! Ludicrous that these austere creatures should seek the goal of the prurient fingers of grubby little boys in school. Inevitably they find the tiny thing by which a girl knows joy. I am sure their finding of my clitoris is inadvertent. They recognize it by my behavior. Again I am' ashamed. If I closed my eyes I could swear their fingers were electric vibrators. I cannot deny my responses.
I have never been more helpless or at the mercy of others. The bands have a quality of their own. They are terribly tight, but do not hurt. They are beautiful in their symmetry. There is a feminine shape and feeling to them. They enhance my nakedness. I wish I could stand back and see myself. I am sure I am held to the best advantage. But they do not allow me to truly flinch as the fingers find me. The men's eyes are intent upon my face, for it is there they can gauge the success of their efforts in the exploration of a girl. There is no doubt that is what I am, a girl whose body is being discovered. It is in my mind to again ask to be freed. To promise to obey. To offer myself. It might be less humiliating than what I suffer now. But I do not. Secured immobile as I am has a small advantage. I am less available. It is impersonal. I am only an interesting subject. I hope...
They blindfold me. I ask why. But there is no answer. Fear returns. It is terrible not to know. They intend something they do not want me to see. It will not be good. The hands have left me. There is discussion, almost animated. I feel myself glow. Quite suddenly my ankles and knees are freed. I can move my legs. I can kick. What a silly thought! I don't think I would dare kick one of these silver men. Their anger would be clinical and devastating. I think yearningly of Lucian and his whip.
Yet I have not been hurt. Subjected to indignity that puzzles. That is all yet. I do not like the implication of my freed legs. I do not think it is to give me ease. If they are going to do what I think they are they must be male. Perhaps they are human after all. I have been thinking of robots and mutations or the shining result of some experiment. I wait and refrain from protest while one of them explores my pubic hair and, testingly, plucks a few of them. I sense that my reaction to that, too, is being viewed with attention. I wish I could see.
Suddenly I am grateful for the hands that have provoked the secretions of my sex. I am entered without warning or preliminary fumbling. It is not a brutal thrust, but purposeful and with intent. It is good I am not dry. These creatures are a strange mixture of knowledge and naivete. I separate my legs instinctively. I have no thought of resistance. I am too firmly clamped with their metal bands.
If I had gasped before, I do so trembly now. The thing within me has the same quality as their fingers. I am sure they emanate vibrations. If I was not so tightly bound I would be writhing. The sensation is beyond any imagining. The fire within me soars to an inferno and is quenched only to rise again even more fiercely. My legs have a life of their own and behave outrageously so that I am shamed. The rest of me surges against the smooth metal. I tug and actually fight the clamps that hold me. I want to be free...
"Let me loose." I plead. "I will make it better. I am shameless."
They actually laugh. I sense their merriment more than hear it. He who possesses me now quivers with it and imparts to me a fresh flood of inexplicable ecstasy. I moan and twist my head from side to side. I hate my bonds. Why must I be fastened! I want to be female. I almost believe they have not known what female is. He who possesses me has no technique. He impales me again and again with measured strokes that in another man would seem mechanical and without feeling. But which galvanize me into a single core of vivid sensation so that I cry out as if in torment and moan as though in pain. Surely no girl can sustain this for long! The pain will come...
But the pain does not come, only ceaseless joy as one after another they take their turn with me. I cannot tell their reaction. I have felt no orgasm, only their steady measured usage of me. Perhaps that is why I have been made blind. They examine me. I must not examine them. It is as though they are expending within me a faculty they have never before used. But they gauge it's effect on me, not on themselves. I am sure they must find me a worthwhile subject. I am thoroughly ashamed of my behavior. I am glad Lucian is not present.
I do not count them. Some of them may take me again and again. I cannot tell. There is no variation in their rhythm. It goes on and on. I go on and on. Time has vanished, or caring, or even curiosity. I am a girl whose loins, her whole being are consumed. When the last withdrawal is made I hang palpitating. For me there is no cessation, no climax. I wonder vaguely if they have devised a new torture for a girl. It could be torture. I am not sure if it is not torture now! The blindfold is whisked away. Scarlet in my shame I try to stare them down.
They confer. They are not done with me. I am released. I stand stupidly and look about me. For me freedom has become meaningless. My cage has too many bars. I do not even know where this place is, so how can I escape! Escape to what! They take my hands and fasten them behind my back. I am not sure how it is done. I cannot believe what I think. He who loosed me took one of the bands and shaped it in his hands and clasped it so that it circles each of my wrists tightly and joins them immovably. He does this as though the metal was malleable to his fingers. But I cannot budge its close grip. So far as I am concerned it is solid steel. I twist and try to free my hands but cannot. They watch my efforts with approval. I have become a guinea pig.
The one who talks comes and traces the marks of my punishment of yesterday with a curious finger. "This was done to you?" He asks, seemingly puzzled.
"Yes. It was done to me yesterday."
"Why?"
"It is a punishment."
"It gives you pleasure?"
"No." I declaim angrily. "It gives me pain. It hurts. I do not like it."
"Who does like it?" There is a logic in his question.
"Lucian likes it. It gives him pleasure to hurt me if the hurt is done artistically." I toss the remark out to see what happens.
They confer again. I am led to a metal block. Protruding from its top is a phallus. All of it is made from the same metal of the same colour as they themselves. They point to the object. I know what to do. But it is not easy with my bound wrists. I look round at them helplessly. I am not sure whether I seek pity or help. They lift me and guide. To their fingers the thing is flexible. I know it would not be so to mine. Soon I sit upon the block, feet dangling, the monstrosity I think they have fashioned especially for me is deep within my sex. I am safely impaled. I must sit there. Without the use of my hands I cannot leave my seat. But now my ankles are clamped. A few motions and thrusts and they are fastened to the block with shining bands. I'm a fixture.
I think they will it. I have seen no motion. But the energy floods my being with a surge that causes me to throw my head wildly back and to tear at my bonds. I am enveloped in a furnace of sensation that makes what is past a mere tickle. I scream with joy. Is it possible to scream with pleasure! I do so. I am delirious with vivid sensation. All of me that is not rigidly fastened writhes and undulates in a fashion almost serpentine. Here and there as I contort I spare a glance for my audience. They are utterly absorbed in me. I know a strange pride that this magic evocation of all that is female in me should so enrapture. Through me these silver men watch a thousand rapes, a thousand violations, a thousand ecstasies. I hope they cannot measure shame. But they see that too. Abundantly they witness a naked girl brought to a thousand orgasms without truly having a single one. They watch my total abandonment to lust. They have converted me into one girl sized palpitation of the flesh. I long for it to stop. I hope it never will... !
I don't want to tell of it. No girl wants to try and describe an endless orgasm. I suppose that is what it was. Especially she does not wish her throes witnessed by a collection of silver creatures who may or may not be men. In my glimpses of them they seemed a jury. A grave judicial group mentally dissecting little Fawn in her paroxysm of lubricity. Inflicting on her, by some magic of their own, lush ecstasies they were too bored or blase to impart to her themselves beyond their initial experiment. So I sat on my block, secured by the metal bands just enough to ensure I would stay put, but with ample freedom to make a shameless display of seemingly wanton joy. I wondered what they deduced, and whether my writhing nakedness touched their loins with heat. There was no evidence. I wondered, briefly, about Thea and Skilley. But they were a universe away. My mind would not stay with them. It would stay with nothing but the moment that is now.
The dream should have an end. I should wake up in a cold sweat, or come to the realisation that it was not a dream at all. Something dramatic is called for. I can't deliver. I don't know if there was an end or what it was. All I know is that the furnace suddenly went out and poor little Fawn sat on that damn block of metal with that damn shaped prong up her little insides, bathed in sweat and panting as though I'd run ten miles. I looked round at them all where they stood scattered about the chamber. I struggled a bit to show them I would like to get loose. I looked as appealing and helpless as I could. It was not hard to do. The articulate one nodded at me approvingly and came forward with outstretched hand. I remember thinking how bloody silly it was with me with both mine well secured behind my back. But that was the last thing I do remember. He touched me on the shoulder, and that was the end of it for dear little Fawn.
* * *
I woke up on the front steps of the main door to Losteigne, just like an unwanted baby. I did not feel like one. I was pretty sure I would be very badly wanted indoors when they got up. It was still pretty early. The light was grey. The sun was not up. I was cold. Skilley's pathetic bit of a dress was beside me on the step. I could have put it on if my hands had not still been joined at my back. To make quite certain that I was a neatly delivered package they had joined my ankles too. Looking down at them it seemed to me the bands were solidly welded.
I remember seeing a picture once entitled "The hopeless dawn". The name suited the spot I was in at that moment. I could not see a bright spot anywhere. I was not sure what day it was. I did not know what had become of Thea and Skilley, and I wasn't certain what sort of a reception awaited me when I stood to attention in front of Lucian's desk. My plight was complicated by the fact that I couldn't move much. I would have the most awful time getting up to where I could push the bell button with my chin. The other choices were to try and beat the door with the metal bond on my feet or to sit on the steps until someone opened the door. I chose the latter. People are not in a good mood when you wake them up too early.
My mind was in a whirl. What else! I did not try and kid myself that what had happened was the result of a drug. I might have toyed with that idea if it had not been for the bands on my wrists and ankles. But no drug welded them on me, and it was going to take a damn sight more than a drug to get them off. I wondered if Gillian or Lucian knew the secret. They held me with a frightening finality.
I wriggled myself around until I was sitting upright on the top step. I could look down at my metal bound feet. That shining stuff held a fascination. But not half the fascination of my memory of the silver men and what they had done to me. I tried hard to tell myself that escape was the only thing to look forward to. If Thea had got away the police could be here at any moment. If I was lucky they might arrive before I got to stand in front of one of the desks and hear what my punishment was for trying to escape. I had tried. There was no denying it. I wondered if the metal bonds I wore might be considered a mitigating circumstance. Probably not. It seemed evident that the silver men knew who I belonged to and had obligingly returned me to my prison.
But I am lost. I know I am lost. I do not want the police. I do not want rescue. I want Lucian. I want him along with all the terrible things I know he will do to me. So there is no hope for poor little Fawn. I deserve all that I get. But I do not want the silver men or any of their works. I do not want endless orgasms from a silver penis. I would sooner be whipped. But by Lucian, no one else. As I said, I am lost. There is no hope for me. I no longer want to tell Daddy. That shows the depth of my enslavement.
I struggle against my bonds. There is a sensual enjoyment in so doing. I don't know why. But there is. I tug and twist. I am firmly held. Firmly held for Lucian and his whip. That is why I find hand upon me. I flutter my shoulders and know how enticingly my breasts' tremble with the struggle. I can see Lucian's eyes glow. He knows what my breasts are for. He knows how they ache for him. They ache for him now. Here in the cold, and after the endless fire of the silver men. My breasts and my sex still desire Lucian. I wish he would love me. But if I cannot have his love, still I will gladly have his whip. I suspect I cannot have one without the other. I think of a hypothetical wedding night. I am sure he would whip me before we coupled...
A girl sits naked upon a mansion's steps. Her hands and feet are bound. Beside her there rests a small bundle of fabric that was a dress. She cannot put it on. She cannot do anything save sit. What a subject I would make for a photographer! What a piquant adjunct to one of the stately homes of England! Even I am charmed by it's incongruity. I should be a delightful package for any man to find on his doorstep. But it will not be Lucian who finds me. It will be Trant or Nancy or Gillian. None of them will dare show me mercy. I think of Gillian and the whip marks across her back. They must have hurt her terribly. It is awful for a girl to be whipped across her back. I know! There is a part of us nature designed for the whip or the cane. It is beautifully curved and adequately soft to receive inflictions. It hurts there too, but there is a Tightness about it. A girl may be whipped there for pleasure or for punishment. It is a delightful all purpose kind of place. But her back is for punishment only. When a girl is whipped upon her back she knows she has transgressed beyond forgiveness.
I sit here on the steps and conjecture about Gillian and what she may have done to earn those lashes. I had jumped to the conclusion that she and Lucian were lovers. Did her whip scarred back deny this! Not necessarily. Lucian will whip the one he loves. I wish I knew that the marks of his whip I bear were tokens of his love. Is Gillian wishing the same thing! Are Gillian and I in competition for Lucian! We probably are. She has a great depth of feeling for him. But it could be fear. He has taken Losteigne from her by some power he holds. But, for him, this is not difficult. He could take anything he wanted from me. He can make me do anything.
The door opens. It is Gillian. I come as a shock. She is obviously perturbed about something else. She is dressed for the Park, hurriedly I suspect. She carries a big handbag and the worst of the riding crops. I do not think she is going to use it on a horse. She makes tut-tutting sounds.
"Really, Fawn, you are impossible! What on Earth are you doing sitting here?"
Before I can answer she sees the metal I wear. This displeases her too. She makes more noises of impatience and goes back indoors. I cannot follow. I sit and feel guilty. I do not want to add to Gillian's distresses. She is back with some object I cannot see. By the way she shields it within her hand I know I am not supposed to see. She sits on the step, takes my bound feet upon her lap so that I can not watch. I feel her fumblings. My feet fall free. Gillian takes my metal anklets and the other thing she used to release them back indoors and puts them away. I get awkwardly to my feet. It is good to move. But my hands are still in thrall.
"You had best come with me. This whole business is too absurd... " Gillian is distraught. My heart goes out to her. I feel sure she is caught between two loyalties.
"Where are we going?" I venture as I follow her angry strides.
"You'll see soon enough." She tells me wearily. "What ever made you do a thing so foolish! You know what to expect... "
"Aren't you curious about what happened to me?" I ask. I am piqued by her unconcern.
"I expect I know." She says irritably. "But go ahead. We have a long walk."
"Can't I have my hands free?" I ask plaintively.
"No! And don't whine."
When a girl's hands are tied behind her back she cannot walk as well as when they are free. Sounds silly, but there it is. I sort of trot to keep up with my aunt. It adds to my awareness of delinquency. I have been a bad girl. I can expect to be dealt with later. In the meantime I tell Gillian the whole story of my night. I withhold nothing. By now she knows more than I do. I long to know if Thea and Skilley escaped, but feel this is not the time to ask. Instead, I blurt out: "Darling, don't be angry with me. What is it that's gone wrong at Losteigne?"
We stop. Gillian turns and placing her hands upon my shoulders kisses me for a very long time. It is as though she has a need. She awakens a hunger within me too so that I respond avidly and long for the use of my hands. When we come up for air she shakes her head in bafflement and admits: "I can't tell you, darling. Mostly because I don't know. What I do know scares me. But it will have an end. It won't go on for life. It's just a case of holding tight. I'm doing that. I want you and Thea to do it, even when it is awful. It must surely end... "
She lapses into an unhappy silence. She has told me nothing. "Why did Lucian whip you?" I ask.
She laughs shortly. "Why does he whip you! You know the answer to that as well as I."
"You love him, don't you?"
"So do you!" She flashes back at me defensively.
There are tears in both our eyes. We stand there on the faint path beneath the trees, two girls separated by a few years in age, but linked by a chain we have no wish to break. Both of us are lost.
"Thea is not in love with him." Gillian says slowly. "So, in a way, she is safe. Not that it does her any good. But at least she knows direction. We don't. All Thea wants is to escape. But we are torn... "
We resume our walk. Again I become the trotting little girl, delinquent, anxious to please. I sense where we are going. There is one sure and certain destination at Losteigne: The Wall! But I do not know what we will find there. Gillian knows...
They sit upon the grass hugging their knees. Thea still wears her bit of cloth. It is strange not to see her naked. She and Skilley have been crying. Their eyes are red. They are afraid. I think, too, they are in pain. Each is held there by a foot in a trap that has snapped it's serrated jaws upon an ankle. They sit well apart. I wonder how many such traps there are guarding the approach to the little door for which Skilley thought she had the key. Perhaps she has the key! How heartbreaking to come so close... They look up at us wanly without hope. They instantly detect my fettered wrists.
"You absolute idiots!" Gillian says testily.
Skilley is cowed. But Thea will always fight. "These rotten things weren't here before." She says accusingly.
"They are activated only at night from the control at the Gate House." Gillian says curtly. "You have been here a long time, they tell me."
"You ain't got no right-" Skilley begins.
Gillian tears the kitchen girl's dress away to leave her naked. She uses the crop. Skilley moans and curls herself into a defensive ball. She can move but little because of the way the steel jaws hold her flesh. To stand is to deliver herself even more nakedly to the whip. Gillian slashes with a cold determination. The blows are not because of the words the girl had spoken. This is the beginning of her punishment. When Gillian is panting she pauses and turns to Thea.
Defiantly Thea rises to her feet. I can tell it hurts. She is standing on one foot. The other is held so that she cannot place her weight on it. Contemptuously she strips herself and throws aside the rag that was to herald our escape. She buries her face in her hands, her elbows shielding her breasts, and waits.
Gillian whips her, not in anger, not with joy. She whips to punish. I know she wishes the strokes would teach Thea to conform. She is doing a duty. I wonder if I am to be next. I hope not. This is not the time or place for me... And anyway, I feel sure that for all of us this is just the beginning.
I am not whipped. The other two look at me accusingly. What are they thinking! Gillian handcuffs their wrists behind their backs. She uses a tiny walkie-talkie to speak to the Gatekeeper. The metal jaws fall away from the ravaged ankles leaving the angry imprints of their teeth.
Aunt Gillian produces another pair of cuffs and joins Skilley and Thea, left elbow to right. They must walk close together. They will not run. The silver circlet bites into their soft flesh above the elbow and holds them beautifully. I feel guilty. They will see nothing beautiful in it at all.
Gillian, thoughtfully, rights a misconception. "Fawn will be punished worse than either of you." She tells them. "She should have known better than to be so foolish."
The girls look at me now with sympathy. I feel better. Somehow my feelings at Losteigne are always in reverse.
My judgement is delayed. I do not know the reason. But my suspense mounts. We have been separated. Skilley was consigned instantly to the kitchen and the untender mercies of Nancy. I have never seen a more frightened child. She was piteous. Thea and I each say a heartfelt 'thank you' to her as she is led away. She simply weeps inconsolably. My cousin and I are lodged in separate cells. The enforced loneliness tells us we are indeed 'For it... !' My hands are not released. It seems important that I wear the metal the silver men have placed upon me. I wonder nervously if only they can take it off. But it does not stop me sleeping. The new day in which I must face Lucian at least finds me more or less rested.
It is familiar enough to be trite. Here I stand before his desk waiting to be whipped. Deliberately I make myself as provocatively feminine as I can. My bound hands help. They excuse my out-thrust breasts. I search my repertoire for an appropriate expression to wear upon my face, but discard them all and show him instead the absurd joy that my heart beats time to as it thuds beneath my breasts. I know myself incorrigible. I do not care. I should be cowering on the floor at thought of what is about to happen. But my heart sings. Lucian, of course, has no trouble with his expression at all.
"Why did you run away, Fawn?" He asked gently.
I cannot tell him. I have no good answer to his question. But he listens attentively to my stumbling explanation.
"I'm not going to try and talk myself out of being punished." I say nobly.
He nods understandingly and I continue my confessional. "I tried to escape. I know I must be punished." I tell him brightly. "If there had been time to think, I would have acted differently. I hope that helps, but I won't make a big thing out of it: besides, you've only got my word."
"Your word is very good, Fawn."
I glow with gratitude. I become bold. "What happened out there in the Park, Lucian? The girls disappearing, and those weird silver men? I know I did not dream it. I still have these on." I turn and wiggle my bound hands in their silver lock.
He makes no move to free me, so I face him again and he asks: "What do you truly believe I will do with you, darling?"
"You will whip me." I try and say it without seeming to pant with lust.
I think he is baiting me now. It is part of his lovely cruelty. I must play mouse to his cat. "Is that all I will do to you?" He sounds disappointed.
I want to play his game well so that he will enjoy it and will want to play it with me again. So I flutter my captive shoulders and say hesitantly: "I expect you're right, Lucian. Whipping isn't enough. What about putting me in the dungeon?" Then I add a bit to make sure: "In chains... "
"You say that delightfully. You wear chains so well. You were made for them." Luican concedes. "In thinking of this punishment you must have, has your mind gone beyond the whip and the dungeon... and the chains?" His eyes twinkle.
I am not really a masochist. I quail a bit inside. Surely the whip and the dungeon is enough for any girl for any crime. I don't want to think of anything else.
"I could be chained to the tree in the Park at night." I offer bravely. "If you do that to me I'll be deathly scared all the time. It's an awful punishment I don't want."
As usual he devours me with his eyes. It is delightful. Frank uninhibited desire from a man kindles a girl. We have been taught to ignore it. But I won't, not with Lucian.
"Lucian, darling, before you punish me, please love me. Love me first and love me afterwards... oh, please!"
I have said it. I am horrified. But it is done. I quail.
"You expect to be whipped for that too, don't you?" He is laughing at me.
"If it pleases you."
"It pleases me very much, Fawn. You please me very much. Even your foolishness pleases, though it must be punished."
"I accept the punishment." I say it so spontaneously I fear I sound eager.
"So all we have to decide is what it is to be." He rests his chin upon clasped hands and looks at this silly girl who is in love with him. I know he has already judged me. But I do not know what he is thinking behind those deep eyes.
It is a tense moment. I find it hard to carry it off with aplomb. I am on the verge of something that once would have sent me into hysterics. I can think of nothing to say that will not sound pert. I miss my hands. Without them I cannot make motions to cover a gap of words.
He assesses me. I quail. This is it! "I am going to be completely cruel." He smiles benignly. "I will not pronounce the sentence. You will! Fawn, the floor is yours."
Lucian is not joking. He means what he has said, and he is right. It is cruel. How can a girl sentence herself! I do not want to seem gauche standing here before him. But I have no words.
"It should not be hard, darling." I could swear he looks at me with love. "After all, you are in a better position to know what you have earned than even I... "
Perhaps he is right. I do know. From what has been done to me and to Thea I can gauge the enormity of my transgression and it's reward. After all, why quibble! Do I need to bargain for my flesh! Do I even want to! This man is about to extract from my screams and from the weals that will spring upon my skin the greatest happiness he knows. I would give myself willingly that he may know this joy, even if I was without guilt. This makes it easier for what we both must do. I feel a surge of freedom, a sudden erasure of self, a sloughing off of inhibition. I am equal to my task. I will best him!
I exude femaleness. I am coy, I am demure, I am mischievous. I am woman. "I think you should start by caning my bottom." I offer modestly.
Lucian nods. He knows there is more.
"Then I should be whipped, properly with a whip. The cane on my bottom, the whip on the... the, rest of me!"
"But no guidance as to numbers?" He asks in mock puzzlement.
It is to be a game, this determining of my pain. I am thrilled by a strange excitement. Later when it is happening to me I will look back in wonder at my insouciance. I must curb this welling of exuberance. It is not an easy task to ask for more than I desire, yet less than the unbearable. I do not want to fall in Lucian's esteem by being less than brave.
I consider the cane. Twenty is terrible. But I do not think he will be satisfied with ten. "May I have fifteen strokes with the cane on my bottom to begin with, Lucian?" I ask as though seeking a small dress allowance.
He nods. "To begin with." His voice betrays no clues.
Now I face the whip. There is nothing bearable about it. It is pure awfulness. Yet I have been whipped a great deal and have survived. A number pounds in my brain, a number I do not want to contemplate. But I know it to be right. But, oh, I cannot bear so much! I do not want to ask for it. The currency with which I buy Lucain's approval is my own suffering. I desire his regard so much that I am foolish to stint my expenditure. A girl can suffer endlessly. Therefore that which I spend is limited only by my being's tolerance of that which I will receive. I have a small inspiration.
"I should be locked in the dungeon, Lucian." It is half a question. Again he nods. That is all.
"May I be given twenty-five strokes with the whip before I am imprisoned, and twenty-five more on the day of my release?"
My offering is acceptable. Lucian is pleased. I glow. "You have considered a period of time?" He sounds truly interested.
I pull at my bound wrists and sway my shoulders. I know this makes me look very helpless and very feminine. I want him to desire me. I cherish a wee small hope that I may be forgiven my transgression if I can touch him erotically enough. But I am bidding against myself. To Lucian I can never be more erotic or lovable than when I am being whipped, so my hope is indeed small. But even if he doubles all I ask, I'll still wish to be female in his eyes. Somehow, some day, I will make him take me...
I remember Thea's time in the dungeon. I can hardly expect less. It sounds awful. But I have little knowledge. "May I be imprisoned in a dungeon for thirty days, please?" I try and sound enthralled by what I ask. I have taken care to say 'a dungeon'. I know there is more than one. I think their nature runs from the mildly bearable to complete horror. I can just hope.
"I wanted your estimate of a suitable term." Lucian says, "But this is one area where you are not to know. The weight of imprisonment is doubled when the time of release is unknown. So far, this is the only thing in which I add to your own request. You are delightful. Please continue."
I feel like a Channel swimmer on the crest of a wave from which it is evident the shore is more distant than she had thought. 'Please continue'. But where! Then I remembered...
"May I please be chained during the time of my imprisonment?" I make myself pant in lustful anticipation of an infliction I am sure I will not like at all.
"Of course." He waits.
This time the female movements I make are real and instinctive. I am lost. The things I have asked to be done to me are frightening. Must I think of others! Lucian watches me gravely. I forget the punishment and wish only that he would not waste me. He possesses a naked girl who adores him and he does not use her. Why, oh why, oh why! I squirm in dual frustration and gaze at him pleadingly.
"Please, may that be enough?" I ask humbly.
Lucain circles his desk, takes me by my arms, pulls me roughly to him and kisses me, first tenderly, then very hard indeed. I melt with happiness. "It is enough." He says, then takes my lips again. I have been forgiven nothing. But I know a great happiness.
* * *
Perhaps it is not the worst dungeon beneath Losteigne. But I do not like it. I try not to think of it holding me for thirty days and nights. My euphoria is gone. It departed with Lucian after he had strapped me to this bench. I hope it will return when he returns to cane my bottom. But that is asking a lot from ebullience, isn't it! Poor little Fawn is no longer at her best.
It is only a little time since I sentenced myself. Lucian brought me here immediately. I am strapped to this bench in such a way that I feel all bottom. My twin curves are jutting up in the air in a quite shameless manner. I cannot budge them. My waist is strapped, my thighs are strapped, along with the rest of me! I don't think I will be able to even twitch my loins when the cane strikes. That bit of me will stick up pertly pleading for it's fifteen slashes with a cane. At this moment I wonder if I might have got away with ten!
I am puzzled by the metal that was on my wrists. It holds them no longer. But how did Lucian remove it! He had strapped me down, and I was supposing my hands would stay as they were, when he grasped my bond and broke it open much as strong fingers can divide an apple. He did it effortlessly. All my tugging to free myself had convinced me I was held by a monolithic something without locks. Perhaps there is a trick... But I do not think so. I shudder at memory of the silver men. They had used the bonding metal as though it was putty. Lucian knew it's secret. Are they together in some weird alliance!
I can see my wrists now. My arms are stretched out in front of my eyes, my wrists strapped tightly to the sides of this narrow bench. The bands of leather circle them neatly and with deadly competence. I have lost my hands again. They cannot aid me while I am being caned. But the brown leather is comforting after the impersonal implacability of the silver stuff Lucian had taken from me. I do not mind. I struggle, but do not move. I am ready for the cane.
Lucian explained that I must wait. He says my days in the dungeon will be long. There is no need to hurry. I will await his pleasure here upon this bench that is designed for only one purpose. When he is ready he will come and cane me. The inference is that by that time I will be glad to see him and the thing he will hold in his hand.
I had a quick glance at this place before I had to place myself on this bench. I can still turn my head from side to side. From what I see I am sure that all the functions of my punishment can be done to me in this chamber. There are obviously several possibilities for fastening me to be whipped. As for chains... There is no shortage.
I wish it was more cheerful. But it's a place of punishment! Night and morning it will be dim in here while it is still light outside. Right now the word is gloomy. I don't think it is going to be any brighter than that. Little Fawn is going to be damn good and gloomy herself chained up in here. I wish I hadn't been foolish that night with Skilley. But it's done. So that's that! Right now I have to believe that what is happening to me will deter. I will learn a lesson. I will do what I'm told after this, I'm sure I will! I won't like any of it. Surely I am going to think twice in future! Won't I! I feel the familiar sting of tears. Always tears when I have no hands to cope...
I can visualise the brutalities of Nancy upon poor Skilley. But what of Thea! I don't think I am to know. We are not to share our prisonment. I suppose that is understandable. If we merit punishment it should not be mitigated by the joy we find in each other. But I miss her! I want my Thea! I will feel no loving lips for thirty days. But suppose it's more than thirty days! Already I feel the awfulness of not knowing. Lucian was right about that, cunningly right! He is always right. He knows too much, especially about girls.
Is our guilt equal! I would agree that it was. My involvement with those silver men was not of my doing or wish. Without them I suppose I would have ended up with my foot in a trap like the others, waiting guiltily all night for discovery. I wonder about those traps! Were they planted in some foreknowledge of Skilley's attempt!
But I cannot know any of these things. I turn my speculations to myself. How am I going to behave! I am much concerned. A girl can go so terribly to pieces under what is going to be done to me. I haven't been heroic in the past. How can I expect to be now! But I want to so badly. I want to make only those motions and sounds under the whip that will induce lust in Lucian. He is quite right about a girl being more desirable while she is being flogged. That's what I want to be, so damned desirable that I'll get to him. So that, for him, my pain will be secondary to my femaleness. My moans a love song.
I don't delude myself. Good intentions vanish with the first cut. It's always so much worse than you remember from last time. You think you'll be injured, or something. But you're not! You want to curl up. But you can't do that because you are tied. If you scream it's because it just happened. You didn't do it. A scream can be a cry of outrage that your body makes. Maybe it's directed as much at you as it is against the person who is giving you the pain.
Moans are the most erotic. I must try to use them to advantage against Lucian. Moans come easily, and a girl can twist 'em around a bit to get some extra heart touching effects. You know, a half a word or a half a plea, or his name... Tears are a bit dicey, they can make you a bit of a mess, especially when you have no hands, and you can be quite sure you won't have any hands! So it's the scream I mostly have to watch. I think a really shrill blast from a girl can put a man off. I don't think a real deep down scream has any sex at all. I think it sounds about the same either from a man or a woman. So it's just no good for what I want! I'll watch my screams, but give all I've got to whatever motion he allows me and to the most female sounds I can manage with fewer decibels. It's nice to think a girl can maybe fox a man even when she is being whipped. I'm glad I'm a girl!
I've always had one eye on Lucian while he whips me. I learn a lot. Men respond to the smallest things. His eyes and expressions tell me when I score. For instance if, after I am tied and helpless, I look back fearfully over one shoulder he'll stop for a moment to savour the pure beauty of Me. I know I am beautiful when I do that, so why be modest. I can sort of analyse how my dependence on his will and my fear of what he may be up to back there does give that backward glance the power to light the same fire in his loins that burns in mine. Of course there is the good old stand-by of wiggling my hips when my bottom's on fire from his cane. It's a bit obvious and I always feel a bit corny when I do it. But half the time my bottom puts on the show without any help from me. It hurts, so it puts on some evasive action that comes instinctively. It isn't going to happen today, not with all these straps. Little Fawn's bottom is going to be heroic whether it wants to or not!
Marriage to Lucian is a delicious thought. Sort of like winning the Irish Sweep, about that remote. But good for dreams. If I was his wife would I resent being whipped! I notice a lot of girls when they get a man say: Well, thank goodness I don't have to bother with this, or that, any more. It's as though the marriage certificate is a free pass that absolves them from anything from watching their weight to putting on a good show in bed. You wouldn't think they'd be that dumb. But they are. Somehow I can't see myself saying to Lucian: 'No whipping today, darling, I'm not in the mood'. If I ever said that I'd hope he'd really lace into me. I'm sure he would!
That brings me to me and the whip. Do I like it! I don't think like is the word. It would have to be love. Any emotion as deep as that could be no less. So, do I love being whipped! A crazy question! It shows where I have gone to with Lucian that I ask it. I don't have the answer. Not yet anyway. It's sort of like that, 'It's not the heat it's the humidity' joke. I hate the whip, but I love Lucian to whip me.
But what about Gillian! There's a bond there too. I suppose it is that when you are fond of someone the whip or the cane becomes something quite different than if you were being whipped by someone you hated: I think that would be awful! I'd just scream and scream and scream and not care!
What about Gillian! What must she be thinking of her two nieces in their medieval penance. It must be difficult for her. But I am intrigued by those wounds on her back. What does she have to do to make Lucian whip her! Disobey. Talk back. Refuse her body. Try to escape! Quite a list, isn't there. But, of course, the answer is as simple as it has been with me. Lucian enjoys whipping her... and she loves him! We females are quite incredible! Daddy would never believe.
I'm really fixed. Not being able to move at all does add to the suspense. I am so terribly available, fixed so I can't run. I read once of a girl's tendons being cut so as to keep her captive. She could do everything but walk or run. I can't do either. Would Lucian cut the tendons in my feet if I gave him enough trouble! What a thought! Really, I'm ashamed of myself! Did you detect a faint longing in what I just said.
I really am ashamed of these ruminations. I'm deliberately creating erotic fantasies to make the waiting bearable. I don't want to lay here, bound so I can't move, and simply quake. If I can keep that fire burning down below, even just a little flame, it helps. Once in awhile my thoughts hit sort of a rich vein so that what I'm waiting for seems almost nice and I'm lucky to be getting it.
I wonder which cane he'll use on me!
It is long and slender and very whippy. It would be! He flexes it as he smiles down on poor little Fawn. Little Fawn quivers inside and smiles back. But I make the smile contrite. I must use my sad little weapons with much cunning.
"All ready, darling?" Lucian asks rhetorically.
"I've been ready ever since strapped me on this bench." I tell him truthfully.
He is too kind, with a kindness that is also cruelty: "How would like your fifteen, love? Fast to get it over with or well spaced out?"
It seems an easy one to answer. "Well spaced out, please, Lucian dear."
"I'll lay them on harder, of course."
I'd fallen into a trap. But serve me right. Anyway, it's too late to demur. So I simply say, thank you Lucian, very sweetly.
I think I said once before there is no use trying to take you through my whipping stroke by stroke and scream by scream. I've read those forbidden books where the girl treats you to enough exclamations and lamentations to get the author through a couple of chapters. In fact I remember one that took up half the book with the girl getting her first 'taste of the lash', delightful term that! My, my. How her tortured flesh quivered and quaked! I was always amused by the way in which they always managed to rub their sex against something rough so as to work up enough friction to ease their pain. I'll try it if I ever get the chance. I certainly do not have the possibility right now.
My poor little quim is tucked away down there all on it's own. I'm strapped so tight I couldn't rub anything against anything!
I am moaning beautifully. I'm so pleased. This is a new kind of pain. Certainly no less. It has a quality of it's own that comes from the total immobility in which my bottom is held. The cane cuts it at will with total accuracy. The flesh of my two cheeks sort of absorbs and says thank you and scalds and flames so that you just know your curves are going to burst. By the time I have had five, which is about fifteen minutes, I am sure something could be cooked on my bottom. It scorches incredibly. Sure Lucian can feel the radiation.
"You are doing very well with the screams." He tells me cheerfully.
"Do you like me to scream, or would you rather I didn't?" I ask respectfully.
"Isn't that pretty much up to you?" He asks, surprised.
"I want to please you." I say simply.
I'm sure it touched him. There was a long uncharacteristic pause. "Whatever you do pleases me, darling." His simplicity equalled mine.
I am making progress.
The cane produces a really cringe making sound when it strikes me. Sometimes a thunk, sometimes a splat. Each has it's own specific pain. They are not better or worse, just different. My ears are as much on the qui-vive as is my flesh. Every bit of me is alive with sensation. In between the nosy awful pain I have a compulsion to turn my head and watch Lucian as he canes me. I have to strain a bit. But I can. I feel a strange shyness in doing this. I think my face will betray too much of me. Too much of love and longing. Can my eyes separate my agony of the flesh and my agony of my spirit. I think a girl must always keep a little bit of herself tucked away and hidden. But strapped naked on this bench it is hard to shield anything from the man who canes me. So I do not turn my face to my executioner too often.
I do not really want to see the cruel length sweep up and slash down at me. There is a fascination in knowing that I cannot evade it's intent. My girl's bottom will patiently wait to receive it and will flatten a little under the impact, the fire knifing through my flesh instantly and then spreading it's pain to compete with that other fire it does not quench. But I will close my eyes to this fascination. Best that the strokes catch me unaware, best that I live in my own small world of limitless agony as the strokes find me. From this world of closed eyes and bated breath I will sally forth with my screams and my moans and the inarticulate sounds I make to touch Lucian's heart. I do not expect them to buy me mercy. But mercy is not the thing I most want. If I whimper well enough I may snare him.
But sadly, all my sounds and all the motions of my head are dictated far more by the thing that weals me than by me. I am a violin and Lucian's singing cane is the bow that can extract from me any obbligato Lucian desires. I respond with resonance and cadence and fortissimo. I respond beautifully. Why not! I am a naked girl!
I have lost count. My caning has been going on a long time. But the pauses, too, are long. I am glad Lucian has not made me count. Sometimes he insists. I hate counting. It is demeaning. A whipped dog would count. Sometimes in the pauses, even though I am panting and moaning and the sweat is shining on my skin, Lucian will ask some pleasant question that shows his genuine interest in my suffering.
"Does it never get more than you can bear, darling?"
"If you caned me quickly, one after another, I'd go to pieces."
"Is it erotic? Don't be ashamed to tell me."
"It is erotic. I want you."
The cane slices me with unusual viciousness. I know I have mentioned the unmentionable. I scream and toss my head. I say, 'Thank you'. What more can a girl do!
"Would you like more than fifteen?"
"No, thank you, Lucian. Fifteen will be just lovely."
"How many have you had?"
I shrivel. I do not know how many I have had. I am a coward. I confess. "I don't know, Lucian. I lost count. I hurt so much. I'm sorry."
The cut he gives me now is so awful that I try to burrow through the wood to which I am bound. I make wretched noises. I am consumed by a sudden fear that he will go back and start at number one again. He has done this to me sometimes. It is awful. I see myself getting simply hundreds of strokes because I fault a tally. I could, y'know. I only have to make one mistake in fifteen and back I go to start all over again. It is a most awful moment for a girl: for me!
"Let's say half a dozen then." My Lord and Master says casually.
"Oh, no, please!" My protest is out before I can stop it. I get a blow that causes me to screech in pure anguish of flesh and spirit. I have lost control. I am terribly afraid.
"How many was that?" Lucian's voice tells me I am lost.
I am sobbing in a sudden desolation. My fire is nearly out. "Please have mercy." I plead. Even to me it sounds trite and ineffectual.
"You have had eleven." Lucian is laughing at my distress.
I give him a sideways look of appeal. I am reassured. I want him. So what does my pain matter!
"You will now ask for each one of the remaining four. Ask nicely and with real sincerity." He commands.
He has done this before, too. It isn't easy. Not with him! Oh sure, I can put on a pretty good show. I hate asking for the most awful pain a girl can ever feel, but I can come up with words. Trouble is that Lucian knows he has me. He is going to wring out of me every female humility I myself can devise. Alone this would be bad enough without the cane.
"Darling, please give me a really hard stroke low down where it hurts the most." I ask, putting my heart into the words.
He responds to my request with instant precision. Evidently I said my piece properly. But I am too busy demonstrating my agony to feel proud. I cling to the knowledge that there are only three more. I'm far gone, aren't I, when I'm grateful only to be whipped three more times.
"Thank you, darling. That was delightful. Please make the next a little harder."
He did! Why do I have to try and be clever!. I scream and scream. I hope the noise grates on him. He can share a little of this awfulness that envelops my loins. My pussy strives achingly to find comfort. The straps deny her. The pain is all mine!
"Oh darling! You are wonderful. I am such a lucky girl. Please give me another real stinger."
It's so corny I'm almost ashamed of it. Maybe the new slicing of my flesh is no more than I deserve. If there was a genuine fire beneath the bench I could not be more aflame. This play of words has given fuel to my nearly dormant flame. The cane sings. My bottom vibrates with the impact. I leap against my straps, and remain motionless. The tears that pour down my cheeks give me a little release. I no longer care about them. Pain takes a girl to where she does not care. It is me I hear screaming. Lucian is lashing me harder than he has ever done. Is it because I tried to escape, or for that other reason! It should not matter. But it does. One hurts more than the other.
"Darling Lucian, that was gorgeous! Simply cut me in two with the next."
I could believe he has taken me literally. Right across the centre of my being. Surely I must be cut inches deep! I know for certain my flesh is sundered. I thresh about in my own private world and struggle back to be the girl strapped to the whipping bench. It is not easy. It takes time. Lucian gives it to me. I am certain that he surveys my agonies gravely and approvingly. But I do not look. I am completely occupied, getting my pain sorted out to where I could bear it. After awhile I manage something I think appropriate: "Thank you, darling. It was sweet of you to cane me like that."
"Are you really glad I caned you, Fawn?"
"Oh yes... oh yes!"
I have an absurd need to call him Master, a title that will acknowledge his dominion over me: Master, or perhaps, Lord! I long to call him that. I have a female need to give, to make myself a nothing before his splendid masculinity. Ever read the story of 'O'? That is me right now. A whipped girl who is a nothing beside his dominance.
"I will leave you bound there to enjoy your pain." Lucian says magnanimously.
He grasps my hair and, pulling back my head so that my face is raised, kisses my seeking lips. His kisses are gorgeous. While they last I am willing to be whipped forever. He goes away and leaves me strapped upon the bench.
For a little while I do not mind. I am still panting. My poor breasts are thrust against the wood and have to absorb my anguished respirations. The pain is still a live thing upon me. My hunger for Lucian competes with it. The pain wins. But this is temporary. I lie still in my bondage and allow the forces over which I have no control to have their will with me. T am naked.' I say to them contemptuously, 'Go ahead and have your sport. You can make me weep. But you cannot couple with me. You are impotent.'. I get a small comfort from my defiance of an enemy who is not there. The pain scorches my bottom.
As usual I am thrown into disarray by the unexpected. I have been strapped to the bench for so long I feel welded to it, when the huge door swings open and a scared and dubious Skilley peers at me.
My heart flops. Surely not another escape attempt for which we will all be endlessly punished! Or a trap! We stare at each other in silence and dismay before she enlightens me.
"Got ter chain yer up, I 'ave, love." She moves forward with evident distrust of her surroundings.
"Mr. Lucian, 'e says it'll teach us both a lesson: me doin' it. like."
"Well, don't look so unhappy. I've known someone was going to do it." The poor child seems in need of comfort.
"Urt me somethin' awful, that bitch'as."
Skilley shakes herself out of her brief garment so that I may see her striated skin. She has been terribly whipped. She poses as does a mannequin. No part of her has escaped. I am glad Lucian will whip me, and not Nancy. But can I even be sure of that!
"I'm a goin' ter get out o' 'ere some'ow." She looks around furtively. "Ain't right us girls get treated like we do. I'm a goin' ter get it every day fer a week, cook says. Ain't sure I can take it." She slips back into her rag.
"Isn't it me that's supposed to get whipped now?" I ask uncertainly.
"Nah, that's termorrow. Goin' to 'ave all night ter think abart it. I 'ear 'em talkin'. You're in 'ere for a long time, aintcha."
"What about Thea?"
"Don't know 'bout Miss Thea. Took 'er away, they did. She'll get somethin' cruel fer sure.
How good it is to feel the straps fall away!. I have been held so tight I can scarcely move. I get up, inch by inch, savouring every gorgeous motion. I stand and wave my arms and kick my legs. Skilley watches sympathetically. "Lovely, ain't it, Miss. I knows 'ow yer feel. Don't yer bottom 'urt?"
I tell Skilley how my bottom hurts. But I do not tell her all the other things I have felt. I do not mention my cozy little fire. "Have you ever chained a girl before?" I ask helpfully.
Skilley squirmed. "Not like I got ter chain you." She eyes me in sudden apprehension, "You goin' ter let me...?"
"Of course I'll let you, dear. I'm not going to get us both into trouble." Actually I feel absurdly gay. I am not to be whipped! Tomorrow is far away. I will think of the whip then, not now. Surely chains cannot be as bad as the bench and the cane! I have Skilley to talk to for a little while. My reaction from agony is exhilarating. I do a little dance upon the stone floor. My bottom hurts. I dance all the harder. Soon there will be no dancing for poor little Fawn.
"How must you chain me?" I ask brightly.
"I got ter chain yer real nasty. But I don't know 'ow." She looks at me imploringly.
"I don't think putting me in chains calls for a lot of skill." I suggest helpfully.
"It ain't that, Miss." Skilley squirms in embarrassment. "Wot I got ter do is chain yer up out o' me 'ead, like. Wot I mean, they tole me I got ter chain yer up real dirty all on me own. Then if they think I ain't done yer proper I gets me feet whipped. I 'ate that. It 'urts crool." She looks at me piteously.
I kiss her warmly. It is good to know she does not want to hurt me or my feelings. "Not to worry." I tell her reassuringly. "I'll help. You can simply load me with bits or iron. I won't mind. I'm not getting whipped today, so I'm happy. Besides, it's only for one night. They are bound to take them off tomorrow when I get my whipping."
Skilley brightens. Then looks around questingly.
"I expect they are in that big chest." I tell her.
We both explore it's ugly contents. There is enough chains and shackles and things in there to hold six elephants, let alone one naked girl. But I notice half of them are shining new and of lovely design and craftsmanship. Losteigne provides it's lady guests with fetters both ancient and modern. We begin to spread the weighty clinking confinements out on the floor so that we can select my ensemble. My feminine instinct goes immediately to work to choose a matching symmetry in the metal I must wear.
"Cor blimey," Says my companion in awe, "Do yer up like a ruddy Christmas tree, we can.
I now feel a slight awkwardness myself. How does a girl begin to get herself chained! In the late twentieth century there is an incongruity...
"I suppose it's pretty safe to chain my ankles together. Here, try these." I try and make my voice sound as though I have picked a pair of nylons.
Skilley thankfully clicks the shackles tight upon the slenderness of my ankles. They are joined by about ten inches of links.
"Did they say anything about chaining me to a wall?" I may as well face the aspect of this thing I like least.
"No Miss, but if I'm ter do yer nasty I 'spose I oughta'."
We select the collar for my neck and the wider band for my waist. Their circlets seem pathetically small. Am I that tiny! I had never before realized how slight a naked girl actually is. We take a little time to search for the best ring-bolts to which to padlock my tethers. I place myself passively beside them and watch the Cockney girl padlock me in place. So far so good. I am already truly captive.
"I ain't got no keys fer there. They got 'em." Skilley mourns.
It does not matter, only that they exist. I know a flash of humour at thought of my predicament if they were lost...
She stands back and surveys the effect. I take the couple of paces this way and that which I am now restricted to.
"Wish I was as beautiful as wot you are." Skilley admires.
I am flattered, but suspect I owe something to the chains. A girl should always wear a chain upon herself somewhere. A chain and whipmarks! They sublimate her.
"What shall we do with my hands?" I ask.
"You mean do we just chain 'em together, or chain 'em ter the wall?"
For her sake I know what we must do. "Do both, dear. They can't complain about that."
"Makes it awful 'eavy, Miss."
I shrug. I am not going anywhere. Except for the shame of wearing them a few links more or less don't really matter to a girl in my position. I offer my wrists and watch them joined together and then tethered to the stone. I clink my chain and test my trifling freedom. I pose prettily and smile at the girl who has snapped shut these metal bands and locks that hold me so snugly. There is no other confinement I want to ask for. As far as I am concerned I am 'loaded'.
Poor Skilley is not so sure. She is thinking of the soles of her feet. I do not blame her. But surely I bear enough chains to please anyone! Who is to judge! Gillian: Lucian. Surely no one else. I find myself very much not wanting any more fetters biting at me. But I will not make the poor girl unhappy. "There isn't any more of me to chain, is there?" I temporize.
She shuffles her feet. It is a bad sign. " 'Spose there's yer knees and elbows, Miss."
I am unhappy. But try and be a good sport. "Alright, darling. Put them on me."
The one on my elbows joins them behind my back, very loosely. It serves no useful purpose in keeping me prisoner. It's function is to punish. I will be constantly aware of it, it's bands are very tight above my elbows. They will not slip. The shackles on my knees are just that. Their linkage is short. I could walk little before. I will walk less now. They make me poor sport for a rapist. I have a momentary chuckle at how apt a punishment for a rapist it would be to place me like this in the same cell with him. I tell Skilley of my thought. We share a laugh. I suspect laughs are now precious.
The parting is awkward. I do not want to be alone. She is ashamed of what she has done to me. She would like to atone by keeping me company. But this is the subtlety of making us punish ourselves. We are torn between desire and what we see as duty, a duty made potent by the whip. After a few stumbling words that tell more than they say she clasps me tightly in her arms and kisses me again and again. I cannot hold her. My hands are lost. But my lips are free. They thank her for good intentions, and find in her young eagerness a small solace. When she runs from the dungeon she is crying. My own cheeks are wet. I am surprised to find that I can raise my chained hands to them. I wince as the heavy door thuds shut. Little Fawn is really Saved.
A night chained in a dungeon deserves as graphic a description as a flogging. For a naked girl both could be traumatic. But it certainly is not an action story. The chains clink and clatter a bit when I move, but that's the extent of the dialogue. I don't even move much. Once I have tested what I can do, it's so damn little that I don't bother. My big decisions are whether to sit on my hurt bottom or over on one hip, lay on my tummy or my back, and as a real exciting treat stand up. My chains let me do all these things well enough. But it isn't much, is it.
I suppose the real punishment is that I am in a vacuum. I have been neatly plucked from life and tucked away. The world goes on but I sit here. I resent the chains. I wish they were not fastened on me. But I realise my plight would not be much different if I'd just been tossed in this dungeon and the door slammed. I couldn't get out. After pacing up and down a bit I'd end up on the floor pretty much the way I am now. I'd be able to sleep easier at night, of course, but that's all. Oh damn! If anyone talks to me again about escape I'll bop them. Thirty days, thirty days, thirty days! Each with it's own night! I weep. This tomb-like silence tells me what I'm in for. I manage to reach one chained hand round to feel the ridges across my bottom. They'll help me think of Lucian, and that's what I must cling on to...
I am to be whipped standing on my toes. I am glad. I know I look nice like that. The whip's going to hurt anyway, so what does a strained position matter! My hands are high and wide. My wrists already hurt and we haven't even started.
My whipping takes place in my dungeon. After spending a night chained in it I have a sort of proprietary feeling about the gloomy hole. Will thirty night germinate affection! But it's a marvelous facility. It holds about everything you need to hurt a girl.
I managed to sleep. I was awakened by laughter. Lucian was looking down at me and eyeing Skilley's handiwork with amusement. "Not taking chances with her feet, was she!" He chuckled.
I stood up, awkwardly and with much clinking. I think that if I'd been able I'd have thrown my arms round his neck, I was so damn glad to see him. I'd have been glad to see anybody. But he was special. He kissed me lightly, and chidingly evaded my efforts to cling. He then did the incredible. He let me loose.
At first, as the chains fell away from me, I was shocked. I could only think of the whip. Awakened to be whipped! I shuddered. But when the last shackle was loose Lucian smiled charmingly and told me: "You've been wonderful, Fawn. You deserve a reward. You have ninety minutes total freedom. Do what you like with them, including breakfast with Gillian and me."
I was not too stupefied to throw my arms round his neck. This time he let me do what I wanted. It was gorgeous! Something to remember while I'm whipped.
Breakfast was weird. Lucian charming, Gillian ill at ease and not wanting to meet my eye. Me wallowing in joy because Lucian had been kind, but also dying to ask about Thea and feeling quite sure I shouldn't. I was also desperately afraid every time I let my mind dwell beyond that ninety minutes. Trant was the perfect butler. He caught my eye from time to time and I knew what he was thinking.
I was very punctual about getting back here on the eighty-ninth minute. I had to wait for Lucian. I sat on the bench. A gesture of contempt for yesterday. I was shivering.
"Why didn't you run, darling? You could have." Lucian's eyes sparkled.
It's one of those questions to which there is no right answer. If I say 'What's the use, I couldn't get over the wall'. Then I admit I did think about the idea. If I say I did not want to escape no one will believe me. I use the contretemps to spring another block-buster on my Lord.
"Because I wanted to be whipped by you, Lucian."
He takes it in his stride. He would! "Charming thought. Charming girl! Really, darling, you are something quite precious. I shall make you scream adorably.
I am sure he will. I am trembling with fright so that I can't think of a thing to say. I don't want to spoil a mood. So I just stand where he tells me and hold out my hands the way he wants them, and now here I am on my toes waiting to be whipped while my Lord has gone away in order that I suffer a proper period of suspense. He has thoughtfully placed the whip on the floor where I can look at it. Aren't I a lucky girl!
I am very tired of standing on my toes and my wrists hurt shockingly by the time he comes back. I feel so low by then that I am almost in the mood to ask if I could please be untied for a brief rest. I don't, of course. There is something about pleading in the Rules.
I blush while he attends to my breasts. I'd wanted to ask about them, too. The whip I have been looking at won't miss them. But Lucian thinks of everything. I hope he wants to keep my breasts from being cut because he likes them: not just some humanitarian idea.
I'm quite puzzled by what goes on. He had metal cones. The same weird metal the silver men used. They seem thin. I think his fingers mold them to my curves. That's not possible. But I'm sure he is doing it. After all, I have a sort of front seat view. When he is finished to his satisfaction, and to mine! I just have to ask: "Darling, why don't they fall off? There's nothing holding them." I look down at myself and admire my twin conical silver breasts. Whatever the stuff is it had become a part of me just as when it bound my hands and feet.
"Don't bother your head about gravity, darling. Be satisfied that you look more beautiful than anything I have ever seen."
It is easy for me to be satisfied with that. I tense myself for the first stroke. I am truly curious as to where he will plant it on me.
Surprise, surprise! It slashes square across my caned bottom, over my hip and flicks it's tip upon my cunny. I scream for all I'm worth and kick madly. The pain robs my mind of all my little tricks. I revert to being a female body.
It is a little time before I realise my eyes have been tightly closed while I have been doing all the things I swore I wouldn't. I open them suddenly to find Lucian standing close, watching my face.
"We won't make this dull, darling." His voice has the vibrancy I know and fear. "I'm not going to hack away at you twenty-five times without a little finesse and a bit of culprit participation. Take more weight on your wrists for a moment and stick one leg out sideways and up like a ballet dancer does."
He disappears behind me while I obey. I am busy hoping the pose I manage with my leg way up and my wrists screaming blue murder is really charming, when my crotch is cut neatly in two with a sickening awfulness that breaks my pose and sends me into gyrations I can't even see or tell about.
I have had two strokes. My back is untouched. Suppose... !
"Original, don't you think." Lucian is very happy.
I hang, panting. I have given up worrying about my wrists. They will have to look after themselves. They even had to take all my weight those times I lifted myself from the floor entirely in a contraction of torment. My whole being shrinks from his next command.
But there is none. The thong cuts my back, under my raised arms and spends itself on one of my breasts. I go back into the dark awful world in which pain has made me a citizen. From it I hear dimly the quiet suggestion. "When you are ready, darling, hold up your other leg."
I am sobbing. That's inevitable. I brush my wet cheeks against my raised arms. My only comfort is my breast. It felt nothing. The silver metal is magic. Lucian is magic. But now I must raise my other leg. When I am ready! When will I be ready... !
I am being whipped.
It takes all my fortitude to raise that leg. I do it and gain my reward. Lucian is whipping my sex! I realise that this strained position he compels me to hold is the most advantageous for his purpose. He brings the thong up between my legs so that it beds itself in my softness there and travels on to weal my tummy. He is making the scald of his whip touch the fire burning in my loins. I swing in blind unthinking agony from my bound hands.
"Do you find it less boring like this?" I know he is teasing, being cruel. But his voice is so pleasant.
"Oh, Lucian... " It is all I can gaspingly say. The end of the sentence is to ask him to stop. But I dare not say it. He knows. So I just manage: "Thank you, darling." In a lost small grateful whisper and go back to my moaning.
"And one makes five." He makes the leather imprint a neat circle round my tunny. I give my very best attention to my performance.
Twenty more to go. I cannot live through it!
He concentrates upon my breasts as though he was punishing them. But they are safe within their silver cones. But the cones are not large and the flesh around them is tender. Lucian circles me whipping my back, beneath my arms and squarely across my breasts. It is cruelly erotic. Even to me it is erotic. While I scream I know he finds beauty. I am glad. The beauty is me. That's what matters. Angry weals spring up and end at the edge of the silver. There will be a strange effect upon the front of my body, like a bikini but more deadly.
This whipping of me certainly is not ordinary. Lucian is right. It is not a bore. He bestows my pain in surprising ways. He loves the unexpected. The way I am tied and suspended leaves all of me available to his artistic torture. Without warning the lash curls around one thigh, then the calf of one leg. You do not think of being whipped on places like that. You think of a girl's bottom or her back. You'd think it would hurt lesson a leg, but it doesn't. That has it's own brand of agony too. It is quite sickening and cringe-making.
Lucian is not going to use my cunt! See, I have used the hateful word. I just don't care! He would not whip it like this if he was going to use it. Would he... ? Or am I just a naive little girl. He whips it so terribly. Up and under from the back, crossways at my front. When he whips me from the front I have to watch. I can't help it. Our eyes lock and there passes between us something so fierce and demanding it should be visible. I even look for it. It does not matter that it can not be seen.
I am soaking wet with sweat. Why should a girl sweat like this when she is being whipped! Nature must have an intent. Perhaps to make her harder to hold if she was not bound. But I am tied. All the sweat in the world will not slip those bands off my wrists. I think it is true that a whip hurts harder on a wet skin. It certainly splats more alarmingly.
Will my whipping never, never end!
* * *
I have been chained in my dungeon for several days. I am quite sure I will lose track of these days. I think I will do it purposely. If my imprisonment is to be indefinite I don't want to creep up to the thirtieth day and find myself still chained here on the thirty-first. It would be too awful. Best I don't know. That way I'll hope a bit every day.
After I was whipped I had to hang there the rest of the day. My wrists screamed and I moaned for them. It did no good. I just hung. It is a cleverly tantalizing way to tie a girl. It's actually a form of torture that's both psychological and physical. Except for your wrists, which are high up in the air, you are completely free. But because of your wrists you just stand there on tip-toe like the good little girl you have to be. I wouldn't say boo to a goose when I'm tied like that. I'm so beautifully vulnerable: and I do mean beautiful. You can kick both legs. You can wriggle. You can raise yourself right off the floor, if you don't mind the pain! But you can't do anything that helps... nothing!
The first day I was alone in here I slept a lot. Being whipped like that tires you all to pieces. I didn't care about the chains. I just flopped and felt thankful I was not going to be whipped again for a long time. Thirty days is a long time. I suppose that's how long it will be. But I can't even be sure of that, can I! Oh it was good to have that whipping behind me.
They are being cute about the chains. They get changed often. Everyone gets in the act. The keys hang on the wall where I can see but can't reach. Gillian, Lucian, Trant, and even Skilley pop in and out after rearranging dear little Fawn in her metal costumes. They never stay and talk. My punishment says I must be alone. So no matter how absurdly they load me up I don't mind. It takes a little time and I'm so damn glad to see anyone, even Trant. Trant does not use me. I wonder why. Of course I hope it's because of Lucian.
Right now I'm only chained by my hands. My wrists are linked and from them a long chain fastens me to the wall. Gillian did this one. Gillian feels badly about me. She tries to help. But she is deathly scared. Skilley chains me easily too. But I can always bet on a full load from Trant. With Lucian, of course, I never, never know. Once he just chained my wrists and left me to walk around the dungeon. It was nice. But it did not last very long.
But when all is said and done a girl in a dungeon is a girl in a dungeon. I'm a prisoner. I have to serve a sentence. If I'd been tried at the Old Bailey and sent to Holloway I expect there might be a bit more variation in my day and, for sure, there would be no chains: just handcuffed to and from. But I suppose back in the middle ages all sorts of females got tossed into places like this, and I'm sure lots of them had tender skin. Most of them would be chained. In those days the chains were riveted on by a blacksmith. But for the whole lot of us the basic thing is that in we go and the door bangs shut. After that you just sit and wish you'd behaved yourself, and that someone will come and rescue you, which you know they won't! You also cry. I think that dungeons must see an awful lot of tears. I water this one with mine constantly. I'm not being very brave. I want to get out.
I suppose the dream or the nightmare or whatever it was came naturally enough. I didn't leave me too disturbed. After all, a girl in a dungeon needs a bit of entertainment, and the dream was certainly that. I could rationalise it well enough from all the things that Losteigne had done to me, but I didn't want to.
The place had that same abundance of light I'd noticed with the silver men before. There were lots of them about, but this time they weren't the big shots. I got the feeling they were the one's who did the work.
I couldn't tell whether we were indoors or outdoors. But it didn't seem to matter. The light was everywhere. It was a place of space, but all the space was sort of intimate. There were an awful lot of bodies around. The silver men were not even half of them. But, with one exception, the rest were girls. The exception was Lucian.
The girls were all about like me or Thea or Gillian, a few here and there were much younger. They all wore the same dress, a simple scanty belted tunic. I was quite sure there was nothing underneath. All the dresses were silver. But that was their only resemblance to the strange expressionless men. These girls were warm and human and alive.
Lucian wore exactly the same tunic, but his was gold. He sat on a sort of bench on a pyramid elevation with steps all round. Just high enough to set him apart. He was a King or a Judge or a wise man or something. In front of him a girl was being whipped. He watched her with eyes that positively glowed.
No! The girl wasn't anyone I knew. She was just a girl, lovely as they all were lovely. They might have been hand picked if there hadn't been so many. They drifted back and forth and disappeared into the surrounding light. Only a few seemed involved in what Lucian was doing.
But what was Lucian doing! He sat there watching this poor girl whipped as though it was his job, apart from enjoying the spectacle. Off to one side a line of girls stood in single file, waiting. As far as I could tell they were waiting to get whipped too. They were naked and they all had their hands behind their backs. I had to suppose they were fastened there. Seeing the naked ones told me an odd fact. Their faces and their hair were all different, but their bodies had all come out of the same mould. Whoever had made that mould must have been an artist and a genius. They were breathtaking. I could understand why they did not look particularly happy. But they were docile. There were no guards. They whispered among themselves.
But what about dear little Fawn! Seeing that girl getting whipped, I naturally became very interested in Me. It was a relief to find I had the tunic on and that I was standing a bit apart as though a privileged spectator. The reason I was standing there was quite simply that both my ankles were chained to a ring in the ground, all that funny silver metal, of course. I just had to stand. I wasn't going anywhere! But I wasn't alone. Scattered here and there other girls stood as I did. Gave me a feeling we there to watch and be taught a lesson. You know: 'Look what's happening to Emily! You don't want it to happen to you!' It was a grandstand seat, if there had been a seat! I was close enough to that girl's nakedness to get every nuance of what was done and what she felt. I could almost feel the blows... far more than I should have done. It was eerie and crinkled up my spine.
She was fastened to what was more a piece of sculpture than anything else. Silver metal came up from a base and curved gracefully over in a sort of hook shape. An inverted 'J' or the handle of an old fashioned walking stick. There was a short cross bit at the end. It was just the right height for the girl to put up her hands and have her wrists clamped to it with the silver metal. It was a position I knew all about. But the structure wasn't ugly or functional. It was simply as beautiful as the girl herself. They belonged together.
I could see her back and behind, and what I saw made me shiver. Shiver because of what it was and for the reason I seemed close enough to be a possible candidate. A girl with her ankles chained to a ring can't feel too secure about her standing in the community. Besides, I knew what Lucian enjoyed! It was a girl who used the whip, not a silver man: they didn't seem involved at all. The girl was like the others but she wore a tunic. The whip was a silver streak-it would be, wouldn't it! She swung it with a truly beautiful grace. You know: fluid motion. It cracked across the white back and cut a wound so awful I stood mesmerised... it couldn't be! But it was. The girl who received it did all the things I'd have done myself, except she didn't scream.
Corny, eh! Same old stuff. That's all that ever happens to girls, they get themselves whipped and some like it and some don't. This one didn't like it at all. But after the first few moments I stopped concentrating on her and saw only the scarlet gash across her back. It was a shocker! She should have fainted. I thought of all the stories of Sjamboks and kurbashes and cat-o-nine-tails and how the blood trickled down a girl's thighs. Her skin was cut right through. It sort of flowered with the flesh beneath welling blood... I remember kicking one ankle to assure myself I couldn't get away from there. I would have if I could. But suddenly it hit me! This whipping had been going on before I opened my eyes in the place, but this was the only wound. The white back was otherwise unmarred...
It began to happen then. Right before my eyes that awful open slice of skin and flesh started to heal. Nothing instant, actually quite gradual, but it was happening. After a few minutes the loveliness of her back was restored to pristine whiteness without a scar. A waiting girl wiped it vigorously with a sort of sponge and stepped back out of range. The silver whip sang again and the cycle repeated itself.
I didn't count. I looked at the other girls who had their feet chained the way I did. Their reactions were about like mine. One was close. "What's she done?" I whispered.
She seemed a bit scared to speak, but took a chance. "They've all lost in the lottery. You must be new."
I digested it. I was still at work on the puzzle when the girl came to the end of her punishment. All of a sudden she was free. She was handed her tunic which she got into in a fast hurry, and then knelt for a couple of moments before Lucian's steps, her head well down in some sort of homage or submission, or maybe just thanks for what she had received. She then lost no time in merging with the crowd. I saw her face as she went by. It wasn't haggard as it should have been, just relieved and happy, a sort of radiance.
Well anyway, it's only a dream! At least I think it was...
The next in line did her kneeling bit and Lucian graciously inclined his head in acknowledgement as though grateful for the sacrifice a loyal subject was about to make on his behalf. This one must really have drawn a wrong number, they hung her upside down by one ankle, her other leg waving in the air or whatever she wanted to do with it. Like all the rest of them she had a lovely bush of black pubic hair, and if it hadn't been for the awful spreading of her legs I might not ordinarily have easily seen what now more or less stared me in the face. The poor kid didn't have a cunt...
Sure, sure, I know! I don't like the word either. But I don't like any of the words, four letter or otherwise. I bet the French or the Spanish have much nicer names for the slit between a girl's legs. I instantly looked on up the line and in spite of all the dense bush I could pretty well believe none of the rest of those girls had one either. The next thing I did was instant and instinctive. I lifted my little tunic and looked down at myself and my fingers flew to make really sure. But I was O.K. Mine was there the way it always had been. Go ahead and laugh, but I've never been more relieved in my life.
I looked at the other girl chained close. She had seen me grab and guessed. She grinned and lifted her own little frill so I could see she had one too. It was strangely comforting.
The new girl who hung there as though she hadn't expected much else allowed her pubic hair to come into complete exposure so that the juncture that should have held something but didn't was well revealed to the lash. And that's where she got it, neatly in the cleft. It cut her open obscenely and terribly. I couldn't look, but watched Lucian's intent preoccupation with the girl's suffering. He was entirely concerned with her face and it's expressions. He paid scant attention to her wound. The girl did not scream. Nobody said anything. The girl close by whispered. "That place is sacred here too."
I did count. She got ten. They were all the same. Because of the healing time the punishment lasted quite a long time. But that was another thing I sensed about the place: there wasn't any time, it didn't matter...
The next lottery loser got hung the same way as the first with both her wrists firmly held by silver bands. They also put one on her ankles. It looked as though it gripped them like a vise. The Mistress of ceremonies put down her whip and picked up something else that sent the fastened girl into an absolute frenzy of protesting motion. It was a silver rod or wand. After a minute it's tip glowed a bright red. It was tested on a bit of cloth which it smoked away like a flash. I felt my tummy doing somersaults.
But a funny thing happened all of a sudden. The victim, her eyes glazed with fear, ceased to struggle. I got the feeling she had been told what to do, or that maybe there was a code of behavior expected of them. Anyway, as that damn awful glowing tip got closer she just let herself relax and hang motionless, her eyes never leaving the thing about to burn away her skin.
The M.C. did it very artistically. She burned away both her subject's nipples until there were two black pitted holes in the lovely breasts where they had been. I watched this one breathlessly, there was so much at stake and it all seemed so impossible. But sure enough that girl grew herself two of the nicest pink rosebuds you've ever seen. They were no less beautiful that those she possessed before.
Her back got it next, long streaks all the way up and down, deep and smoking and awful. When the girl with the brand stepped back to watch for the healing, the one hanging by her wrists went crazy again. Evidently an expression of agony was O.K. But keep still while it was being done.
Oh sure, I thought of robots and zombies! The silver men might be that, they were so damn impersonal. But these girls were vividly alive. Blood came out of their wounds. The only difference between them and me was our equipment down below. I'll admit the thought did cross my mind that maybe this pain business was the only way a man could get responses from them. It could explain Lucian's peculiar involvement. Perhaps they got something out of it too in ways I did not know about.
The next candidate sort of confirmed the flesh and blood idea. She was just a kid, thirteen or fourteen, a slighter, smaller edition of the rest. She was scared silly and wanted no part of any of it. Two of her fellow culprits in the line had to get hold of her and boost her morale with whisperings and hands that soothed and soothed. When she got hung up by her thumbs she seemed resigned and went through her awful ritual with the whip like a veteran.
I was eyeing the next in line when it happened. I heard Lucian's voice for the first time. "Fawn." He smiled at me so that I curled up with joy. "We don't have much time, Fawn. We can't keep you... "
When they unlocked my chains I sped to him and knelt as had the others. But I wasn't doing their dog like devotion act. I looked at him distraught with both fear and love and pleaded. "Lucian, please not me. Don't let them."
They all watched me, shocked. Lucian beckoned so that I stumbled up the two steps. He patted my cheek and smoothed my hair. "Darling little Fawn. After it is done you will be so happy... "
They hung me by my wrists and the silver whip sang... Of course, that's when I woke up in the dungeon at Losteigne...
It was about the time I was comforting myself with the thought that surely I must be about half way through by now that Gillian came. It was a real bombshell. I was chained to the wall from the collar round my neck. It was quite a long tether so I was able to move around a bit and get a full view even though I was still helpless.
It was not a visit, and she had not come to alter my chains. It had been she who had let me off easily with just the collar. Directly she walked through the door I knew there was something wrong. I was about to speak when who should follow her in but Skilley. I stood speechless and watched the impossible.
Gillian was angry and ashamed. Her face was flushed. Skilley was shockingly embarrassed and had a red face too. She was awkwardly holding a pair of shining handcuffs. They came to a halt and a pause.
"Naked, 'e said, Miss. I'm reel sorry."
Gillian made an angry gesture of impatience and stripped off her clothes. She did it in a way that told plainly her need to get the ordeal over quickly lest she fail to do it at all. Certainly she did not need to fear nakedness. She was lovely.
"Wish I looked as good as you, Miss." Skilley said miserably in an effort to show goodwill.
My youthful aunt eyed the handcuffs with loathing. But held out her hands. Skilley clasped the metal tightly round each reluctant wrist. Aunt Gillian was now a prisoner just like me!
They both looked up at the ceiling. Gillian moved over beneath the pulley. She meekly, but with flaming cheeks, allowed Skilley to attach her handcuffs. A few moments later she was standing on her toes suspended from her wrists.
"Let me down, just a little. Remember the handcuffs, they're worse than rope... " She gasped. Her voice still held authority.
The kitchen girl obeyed. Gillian's heels could reach the floor, but her nudity was still taut.
"I'm desperate sorry, Miss, 'onner bright, I am."
Without waiting for a response, Skilley burst into tears and ran from the dungeon, slamming the door. Gillian turned and faced me. "Surprised?" She managed a faint smile.
"But, darling, why...?" I'm sure I sounded ineffectual.
"I displeased His Highness."
"But how?" I felt I had a right to ask questions now.
She shrugged as best she could. "Oh, several things. I wanted to end this rotten imprisonment for you girls. He's got Thea locked in a cage and here you are in chains. He doesn't have to do that to my nieces."
"I don't mind, darling." I lied.
"We've gone into that before. But Thea minds, and I mind. I threatened him... So here I am."
She saw the agonized question in my face and gave a wry grimace. "Oh sure, I'm here to be whipped. Our loved one's favourite sport. Skilley was just for my humiliation, and very successful too! After awhile our Lord and Master will come and whip me with you watching. Surprising he doesn't whip me before all the staff. But I suppose we have to keep up appearances. I'll howl about the same either way."
"Does he whip you often?" The question pops out.
For answer Gillian wearily and disdainfully turns her back for me to see. There are whip marks, old and new, from her knees to her shoulders. Her voice is tired. I suppose I don't have to tell you I did not earn all of those any more than you have earned all of yours."
"But you still love him?"
"Of course, don't you! We are a pair of besotted idiots. When he finishes whipping me today I expect I'd kiss his feet... If he'd let me."
"Doesn't he... I mean, doesn't he-"
"No, he does not have intercourse with me any more than with you-and don't kid me you haven't tried." Gillian's voice held acid.
"But why! He isn't... you know... "
"No he definitely is not a homo'. Good Heavens, girl, the way he whips us proves that. Homo's couldn't care less about female flesh. Lucian adores us."
I could tell my aunt was close to tears. Tears of exasperation, anger and fear. My heart went out to her.
"He's up to something with those silver men, isn't he?" I had to ask.
Lucian opened the door so quietly I was caught in the act. He had heard my question. I had broken a rule. The first rule!
"Clasp your hands behind your neck, darling, and stand very straight for five. If you make me tie you it will be ten." He held the whip I knew so well.
Unhappily I obeyed. I'd walked right into it, so it served me right. Perhaps it is fitting that I suffer along with poor Gillian. I clasp my hands behind my neck and stand with my breasts stuck well out, and I pray I can hold still. I have no hope that I can. But, oh, I do not want ten! Please not ten! I grit my teeth.
Lucian does not hit me his hardest blows. My heart sings under the lash. Lucian understands. He does not want me to break. He does have a feeling for me! His whip sings and plants it's kisses and it's cuts upon my wounded flesh. But I stand straight and proud. I give him the moans and the small cries, sometimes I sway. But I take the five to his satisfaction. When I have finished my gasping after the fifth I say my, "Thank you, Lucian." in a nice little girl's voice. I wonder what my pinioned aunt thinks of my performance! If he whips her harder than he has me it will be a bitter blow. But I feel sure he will.
Ordinarily I would curl up on the floor and cry until the worst of the pain was gone. But not now! I am part of a drama. Lucian and Gillian: It means so much to me to know what is between them. I have a silly hope that the way he whips her will give me a clue. But I am sure that under the whip both Gillian and I betray far more than he ever does while he is wielding it. I stand, alert, shamed, hurt and expectant. Gillian looks at me with reproach. Then turns so that her back is placed to the best advantage of our master's whip. The way she is tied makes such movements possible.
"Please whip me, Lucian." She requests tonelessly.
"Oh come, darling." He chides, "You'll have Fawn thinking you don't mean a word of it."
A tear trickles down one cheek. Savagely Gillian brushes it against her arm. I am sure that every word she says now hurts: "Darling Lucian, I have been foolish. I want to be punished. I must be punished. Please whip me as I stand naked." She manages to put colour into the words she loathes.
"How many strokes, my dear?" He sounds so polite.
"As many as you wish. I will not presume to judge." She's just as bad.
"But surely a number suggests itself?" This is vintage Lucian.
She wriggles miserably in her bonds, knowing herself trapped. "I am sure I deserve fifteen." She offers.
He turns to me with deference. "Surely, my dear, a girl with your experience can offer her aunt some guidance?"
I repress a giggle. Lucian is loving it. Gillian is not. I won't hurt her. "Twenty strokes." I say stoutly. I am sure she will get more. She would not be fastened as she is where she is for anything less than something awful.
Gillian makes a little choking sound. "Please Lucian... "
He is instantly attentive. "Yes, love?"
"Don't involve Fawn. Oh please... Just whip me. I know I'm not going to get out of it. I'm not even trying. Please give me twenty-five lashes and make them hard." She is a gambler making a last desperate bid.
Lucian is not a sadist. He isn't! He loves this play with words, but Gillian is too scared. She is not equal to repartee. He lets the tapered thong fall sinuously. He measures distance. Gillian closes her eyes and goes tense in a way I know so well...
After he has gone and left her sobbing and piteous I am utterly frustrated. I long to comfort her. To let her feel my arms and lips. But I am chained. I am a dog with a collar round it's neck. But mine is of metal, so is my chain. I cannot get anywhere near the weeping girl whose striped body stands so strained that the handcuffs may not tear her wrists. I tug at my tether and it's ringbolt just to expend some energy. I will not speak until her choked sobs subside. I, too, have stood where Gillian stands. I know.
It is she who breaks the silence. "Sorry to make a fuss, dear. I'll never get used to it."
"Who can! I scream as loud as I can, just to make him wince." I offer consolingly.
She turns her tear stained face and looks at me with a tenderness born of agony. "He'll make me stand like this the rest of the day, won't he! He always does."
I am sure he will. But I just shrug. "Handcuffs must be terrible. I've always been tied. Do they hurt much more than cord?"
"Not if I don't tug. But if I hang they are awful. Don't know why that girl used handcuffs on me. I expect he told her to-" Her words are broken off by the opening of the door. It is Trant. He has come to be unkind to me. He grins from ear to ear at what he sees. He looks Gillian up and down as if he cannot get enough of her nakedness. I am sure she hates her blush.
Trant reaches the decision of a sudden idea... or perhaps he has his orders. He goes to Pandora's Box. I groan inwardly at what I see when he turns...
I don't struggle. What's the use! He'd love me to. I let him handcuff my wrists behind my back. I look at the thing in his hand, then look him in the eye and ask: "Please don't." He just laughs. So I obediently open my mouth very wide to accept the ball gag, and then I stand still while he buckles the beastly thing firmly at the back of my neck beneath my hair which he carefully moves out of the way. Now I cannot speak. I still cannot leave the wall. I have lost my hands. The cuffs are very tight round my wrists. Trant is a real bastard!
Gillian is agonized at sight of the gag. It is so shaming, and we need to talk. I suppose that need explains the gags. We must not exchange ideas or knowledge. But she is helpless too. So, like me, she opens wide, the ball is thrust within, the buckle tightened and looped. We look at each other in mute misery. Trant enjoys the sight of us for several minutes. Then, with obvious reluctance, leaves us alone. The slamming of the door is a sort of death knell: certainly a death to speech!
I have never been gagged before. I thought they tied a handkerchief over a girl's mouth and after awhile she works it off. But this is quite different. I can't make any useful sound at all. My poor mouth is stretched. I must look awful, and I can never, never get this damn ball out of my mouth. It's strapped in tight. I look at Gillian. She is crying again. I know she feels shamed even more than I do. She is slowly turning her head from side to side testing the implacability of the device that makes her silent.
I tug at my wrists and squirm. I can get one hand quite high up. It's surprising what a girl can still do while she is chained or tied. But it's no go. I can't get anywhere near the gag. Trant knew that, of course. I just hurt my wrists, my poor wrists! I look at my ringbolt. It's the only protrusion I have to work with. I fall to my knees and work my way close. I spend a painful and humiliating half hour rubbing the back of my neck on the iron in the hope of loosening the gag's buckle. When I get back on my feet I'm hurt and hopeless. I look at Gillian and shrug my message of failure. We both of us shed a few more tears. Now that I am handcuffed I can't even do anything about mine. I'll wear the tear stains along with the gag.
I think the rest of that day with my chained, whipped aunt was the worst of my imprisonment.
* * *
It's so good to be back in the Park again. I love the Park, even with it's memories and terrors. It is a lovely place. I wish I owned it. I seem to belong under these trees. I am slowly getting back to the state in which Losteigne is beautiful and my life is beautiful. You know, the drugged feeling...
But it is not quite the same. Now my ankles are chained. The chain is not too heavy, but heavy enough. It is not too short. But, also, it is not very long. I can walk. I cannot run. For sure I cannot run! Little Fawn is not to be trusted. Or perhaps Lucian keeps me permanently punished as a helpful reminder. The chains that link my feet do not hurt. They simply tell me I am not free.
If it was not for the memory of the silver men I would be a happy slave. That's what I am, a slave, Lucian's slave. I wear his chains. But they don't matter. He holds me with a far more potent bond. After I have roamed the Park I will return to the big house and to him and to Gillian and do whatever I am told. I will hope for a kind word from him. I will plot against him to steal his love. Gillian and I are both going all out. But she is not chained. I am not sure she has an advantage. Maybe I have. I wear chains beautifully. He told me so.
I have had to recognize that I am as much a sensualist as Lucian. Everything that exists because of him is erotic. I think of him and my loins burn. I need endless orgasms to assuage my hunger for his manhood. I love my chains because he put them on me or ordered them locked upon my limbs. Everything I revere in Losteigne is of him or because of him.
The links between my legs make a constant clinking as I walk. I have come to love it. Every time I snub an ankle against a shackle my whole being glows with eroticism: or would a more honest word be lust! I have considered provoking Lucian to chain my hands too. But I still have a little common sense left. A girl with chained hands can't do much of anything... I don't want to be too damn helpless.
I am terribly wounded. He set me free after twenty days. I think I have Gillian to thank. But that meant the second twenty-five. Now I bear the marks of all fifty. Some new, the others far from faded. My punishment was sensible. It was rational. It has achieved it's purpose. I don't even think of escape other than academically, or should that be theoretical! Anyway I'm a happy prisoner. I think that's what Lucian wants. A happy girl to whip. Is that a modest ambition for a man! It seems so to me. I want him to raise his sights. Why not a happy wife to whip! Wouldn't that be gorgeous!
Sounds of motion tell me I am not alone. There are footsteps, running. I freeze. It is Skilley red faced and panting. Her face lights up when she sees me. My greeting is ungracious: "No more escape attempts." I warn flatly.
"Cor blimey, Miss, I'm glad it's you. Proper upset, I am!" She grins conspiratorially and confidingly. I sense drama.
She catches sight of my chained feet, and is momentarily abashed: "Can you walk in them there things, Miss?"
"I'm here, aren't I?" The chain rattles as I kick one foot. "What are you up to?"
"They let me walk in the Park too." She says, miffed. " 'Bout once a week. I gone and found somethin.' " She looks all around as though fearful of watching eyes. She is actually enjoying something. I am curious. "Think yer can walk a bit? Dirty rotten trick ter chain yer feet like that."
I start off up the path. My strides are not impressive. I am hobbled. For the first time I resent the shackles on my ankles. Beside Skilley's prancing exuberance my progress will seem funeral.
"It's in that there thicket over past the Cloisters." She says portentously. She matches her steps to mine. I hurry and constantly snub. But her excitement is infectious.
I'd never bothered with the thicket. It was too much of a tangle and there was too much of it. I wasn't fussy now. Brambles and blackberries... No place for a naked girl with chained feet.
But Skilley had found a path. It had been cleverly camouflaged at the entrance, but once past the shielding shrubbery was well defined. Even my clinking footsteps soon brought us to the clearing. Skilley pointed with pride: "Wotcha' think o' that, Miss!"
At first it didn't register. But then the anomalies showed. The space was not natural. Not a blade of grass! The surface was mostly burnt rubble from the growth that had been destroyed. There were indentations, a bit like the marks of tractor wheels on soft earth, but more symmetry. The growing stuff around the fringe of the sizable circle was withered, some of it was dead. In the centre of the space was a huge disc, flat, bedded in the ground, silver! My heart thumped. I recognized the metal all too well.
"Yer knows wot landed 'ere, don'cha?" Skilley asked triumphantly. One has to refute. I don't know why. But we do. "Don't be silly." I said without conviction.
"Ruddy flyin' saucer, that's wot." Skilley was enraptured.
I could have laughed it off if it hadn't been for that huge disc. I couldn't blame that on a bonfire or some sort of blight. I became extra conscious of my chained feet. I could not run...
"Have you seen it?" I ask guardedly.
"Corse not, Miss. Wouldn't be 'ere if I 'ad. But that's wot's bin' 'ere alright."
I look around. There are no other clues evident. But I think of the big mildewed Cloisters just beyond this dense shrubbery. I shudder. This is not a place where I would ever choose to come. Even without this ominous mystery it is dank and forbidding. I had previously shunned it in my rambles.
"Have you ever got inside the Cloisters?" I ask it knowing I am on forbidden ground.
Skilley is intrigued. The inference is obvious. I follow her skipping steps back the way we came. I am ashamed of my chained feet. I want to run and leap too. But I have to remain coolly aloof while she does the exploring. We discover two things: There had been normal windows once. They had been bricked in with weathered brick and the ivy carefully restored over the space. The other was the door. It was new, it was heavy, the locks were modern Yale. Above and below the main lock was a plate of the silver metal.
We looked at each other. She was excited. I was scared. I was remembering Thea's disastrous encounter with this place. "Come on." I said firmly. "I'm going back to tell Gillian: or you can tell her yourself if you'd like the glory."
"You scared, Miss?"
I tried to tell her how scared we ought to be. My ankle chain swirled and snubbed like crazy as my feet did their best. Fear is infectious. It touched my companion too.
Skilley saw them before I did. Her gasp and the clutch of her hand told me the worst. They stood around us at a distance, gravely surveying the intruders into their domain. The sheen of their silver bodies partly blending with the colours of the Park. They did not stand close, but singly at widely spaced intervals they surrounded the two of us. They did not move. Neither did we.
There is some witticism about what to do when you can neither fight nor run. That's me at this moment. I try words.
"We are going back to the House. We are sorry we disturbed you. We won't come near here again."
No move. No answer. Just the grave interested examination of two girls, one naked, one clothed.
I shake Skilley. "Walk casually." I order.
We manage it for twenty paces. But the strain is too much for the child at my side. Screaming, she leaps towards Losteigne. Daintily I continue my hobbled progress.
One of the silver men collects Skilley very much as he might a butterfly. His motion was fluid and effortless as he gathered her up. She gives an awful cry and slumps limply. I find myself subject to a strange and absurd reaction, a triggered reflex. I stand and place my hands behind my back. They can recognize this as a gesture of surrender. My wrists are ready for their metal! I am trembling violently and condemning myself for allowing this to happen. We had been told to stay away. I can join the list with Eve and Pandora and Bluebeard's wife. What happens now! A thousand orgasms... !
I am alone! I shake my head stupidly and retrieve my wrists, feeling foolish. I look everywhere... Nothing!
It is not a good feeling for a naked girl. I quiver with the expectation of a silver hand upon me, a hand that comes from nothingness. But I find nothing, not even the bent or broken stems of plants. I curse the impediment of my shackles. But I curse even more the serpents in the Eden of Losteigne... the silver men!
Poor Gillian. She listens unhappily while I tell my tale. She is not surprised, just wishful that it had not happened. She does know more than I do! She might have told me that day in the dungeon. She won't now.
"But what about Skilley?" I demand.
She shrugs and gives me a sardonic smile. "I'm sure she will be well cared for."
"Why didn't they take me too?"
"Can't you guess?" Her voice is bitter.
"Because of Lucian?" I hope fervently this is the answer.
She disposes of my question with a wave of the hand. "We will have to go and tell him, y'know."
"Please take these chains off me, darling. I feel so silly not being able to keep up with anybody."
"I won't hurry. You'll manage."
Of course I manage. If I had to hop, I'd manage. A girl always manages somehow. But now, in this mess up, I do wish I didn't have to wear the beastly things.
"You were told not to go near the damn place!" Lucian looks at me irritably.
"But aren't you concerned about poor Skilley, and who are those awful men?" The words tumble indignantly out of me.
He actually laughs. "Don't worry about Skilley. I don't know what is happening to her. But she may even be enjoying herself." He looks at me shrewdly and quizzically, "Surely you can comprehend that possibility?"
I have a mental picture of Skilley impaled upon that silver weapon... writhing...
"Why didn't they take me too?" The question bothers me. Am I piqued!
Lucian cocks a sardonic eyebrow and shakes his head. He turns to Gillian. "The girl is incorrigible." He says with mock sorrow.
I suddenly remember the Rules. I can almost agree with his judgement of me. The familiar cold hand touches my spine.
"I'll leave the two of you to your diversions." Gillian says tartly, and departs.
"I suppose I have to be punished?" I ask dejectedly.
"The thought had not occurred to you?"
"No. Honestly Lucian... I was too scared." I give him my most winning smile. "Darling, please forgive me this time. I've been terribly whipped...?"
"You will not be forgiven, poppet, and there are other things than the whip. And don't exercise your womanly wiles on me." Lucian is turning the situation to his own advantage. But then, everything's to his advantage. He enjoys my dismay with frank amusement.
"What will my punishment be?" I ask, resigned and obedient.
"You're looking forward to it."
"No! Oh please, Lucian, don't make fun. It's no laughing matter."
"I'll give it a little thought." He says cautiously. "In the meantime there's something I've been meaning to show you."
I follow submissively, chains clinking. I daren't ask him to take them off. The time is not right. I am not in favor. But I now have hopes of getting at him, at least I am with him. We are exposed to each other.
It is a most dismal dungeon. Worse than mine. If it was not for all my whip marks I'd feel privileged.
"Every picture tells a story." Lucian says cheerfully as I stand and stare in a sort of disbelief.
Thea is in a cage. A quite small cage considering it's purpose. She is naked. Her hands are chained together. The whole incredible package hangs from the ceiling by a heavy chain. It is about four feet off the floor. Thea is a bird, a beautiful exotic captive bird.
"Oh, darling...!" We both make the exclamation together. Thea grasps the bars with her chained hands and presses her face against them in a great eagerness. I look at Lucian for permission. I am not free. I have been bad.
But Lucian is busy. His hand is against the wall. A motor whirrs, Thea's cage comes to rest on the floor. He has a key with which he unlocks a narrow little aperture. Obeying the invitation of his hand I squeeze myself into the cage to be with the girl I have hungered for. I do not question Lucian's motives or my own fate. I just want Thea. We clutch. The motor whirrs again and up we go. Lucian hangs the key back on the wall so that it is tantalizingly visible, then leaves us after a cheery wave of his hand.
The cage is indeed small. It is not made to stand in. We are a tangle of arms and legs. But this is nice. We would be a tangle of arms and legs even if we were not in a cage. We clutch and cling. We have wanted each other so badly. I have almost forgotten what it is like to hold a naked girl in my arms. It is very good! Our lips and tongues are insatiable. We become contortionists. Our prowess is fabulous! Remember the chap who said: "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage... " If we ever get out of here we'll carry these special techniques with us always.
Maybe it's hours before we sort of come up for air. Thea tells me she has been in the cage all the time. She is let out twice a day for an hour each time to do the obvious things, but also for exercise. Lucian stands with the whip and puts her through her paces, whipping her for each fault, and if there are no faults whipping her anyway. She is as cruelly marked as I am, even her breasts. Lucian has not cupped her breasts as he did mine, nor has he freed her as quickly as he did me. I am privileged. I do not tell Thea this. I glow with joy. I am his favourite. He did not put the silver cones on Gillian either when he whipped her in my dungeon. He must adore my breasts. I am happy that I have always stuck them out nicely for him. Thea is desperate to get out of the cage. Like me she was denied knowledge of her sentence. Sitting in this tiny space could seem forever. Lucian is cruel to her.
She leaps to the conclusion that I have been put in with her as my new punishment. She is overjoyed. But I cannot believe we can be so lucky. Lucian is too wise about girls. If I am to be punished, he will not give me the joy of being caged with Thea. Not unless I was gagged and locked in a chastity belt... something like that would amuse him. It would be pure torture.
It is a sad little scene when he returns and unlocks the cage. I step out, obedient to his command, and stand awkwardly while he again locks Thea's small prison. She is weeping and clutching despairingly at the bars. I sense the awful silent loneliness that will soon descend on her. Perhaps it will be something like that with me too. We say our good-byes with our eyes. Her chained hands strain towards me. Her cage swings in the air. I follow my master from the dark hole. My ankles are still joined.
He takes me back to the dungeon I know so well, the one I call mine. I feel little affection as I survey it's gloom. I do not want to spend more time chained here alone. Will I never learn! But a duty nags at me demandingly. "Darling, please end Thea's punishment. She's had enough."
He looks at me with lambent eyes. The cold hand is on my spine again. I have transgressed.
"I'm sorry, Lucian. I know I broke a Rule asking. But I have to, I just have to. I know you understand... she'd do it for me."
"Won't you girls ever learn?" I feel sure his sorrow is genuine.
"It's affecting her. She's getting morbid. That tiny cage... " I look at him piteously. It is not hard to do.
"You have now earned two punishments." He shakes his head in bafflement as though not knowing what to do with me.
"I don't mind the extra punishment." I tell him humbly. "I knew I was earning it when I asked. I'll ask again: Please let Thea go free. Please end her penance."
He sighs as does a man much burdened. But his eyes twinkle. He has thought of something. I am sure I won't like it. I look down with surprise as he unlocks the shackles from my ankles. I am totally gloriously free. I flex and stretch everything with the sensuous ecstasy of a cat. It is delicious. For a moment I am happy.
"Follow me." Says Lucian. He is almost laughing.
I follow him slowly, but with long leaping steps. I cannot get my legs too widely apart. They had been chained so long... I scarcely notice where we are going, nor do I much care. Lucian will do what he wants with me.
Thea's eyes are wide with surmise when we walk back in. She instantly notes the absence of my chains. She and I watch and listen in disbelief at what takes place.
Lucian goes about it all very casually. The cage comes down, he unlocks the little door and beckons. Thea, her face one huge question mark, squeezes through the little space and stands as uncertain as I myself. He pulls her hands toward him. I watch the joy spread across her face as she watches him unlock the chains that have joined her wrists so closely for so long. She massages them gratefully.
"Go. Your sentence is finished."
She looks at him askance. She has leaped to a conclusion. Her lips form words, but he cuts them off.
"You are completely free within Losteigne. Go. Do what you please. Resume your lessons. Run. Now!" He stamps his foot to emphasise his order.
Thea's face is torn with conflict. But his voice was fearful. With one broken hearted look at me she turns and flees.
His eyebrow is lifted again. "You have your wish, Fawn."
Yes, I have my wish. But at what price! We stand for moments, our eyes locked. The strange current strong between us. There is no need of words. I know what I must do.
I hold out my hands and watch him fasten the closely linked bands upon my wrists. The metal is warm from Thea. I wonder how long it will be warm with me. I wriggle myself into the cage. It is much easier now my feet are not chained. The little door clangs, the key turns and is hung upon the wall. I will learn to hate that key. I am a prisoner, caged. I feel foolish, humiliated and scared. I look up imploringly at my lord. I long to plead. But I dare not break any more rules.
"I have done what you asked, Fawn. Are you happy?" His question is valid.
I am not happy. I know I am going to loathe this little prison and the heavy metal on my wrists. But it seems ungracious to say so. "Thank you for letting Thea go free, darling." I can say this with real sincerity. I am glad Thea is somewhere out there in the sunlight. I picture her leaping rapturously through the Park.
"But are you happy, girl?"
"No, Lucian, I am not happy. I'm scared of this cage." Truthful again!
"You are going to be even less happy, darling." He grins and goes away whistling a light hearted tune.
I sit and watch him go.. I am desolate. My cage swings gently as I move. I burst into tears and, for a little while, am glad I am alone.
When my grief has run it's course and the sniffing is done I take stock. Silly term! But a prisoner does this. You explore possibilities. They are small. They are small for any prisoner, but doubly so for a girl in a cage. I can sit or lounge or curl up. Within the cage I can never stretch all out. But I discover that two of the bars are far enough apart at the bottom to allow me to stick my feet through so that, with a bar between my thighs, I can dangle my legs and kick them to my heart's content. Things have to be really bad when a girl is overjoyed by so small a discovery. I sit like t at a long time just to use the facility. I clutch the bars with my chained hands. I don't intend to do that. But in a cage it comes so naturally. All your thoughts are outside, only your body is in.
I sit hugging my knees when Lucian returns. This pose is a natural, especially with chained hands. What he carries causes my pulse to thump.
"Stick your little tootsies out." He commands briskly.
I see now why he took the chains from my ankles. I thrust my feet through the spaces I have already used. With a man present there is something faintly obscene about my two naked legs separated by an iron bar. I suppose it's because it attracts attention to my nice silky bush. But I sit and watch him circle my ankle with the silver metal that he moulds like putty. A band of it about two inches wide becomes a part of me. He decorates my other ankle the same way. When he nods I pull back my feet and finger my new ornaments. They are firm solid metal that I cannot move or scratch. There is no join, no lock, nothing by a beautiful circle of the shining stuff. I want to ask about this miracle. But I dare not. I wait for the links that will join my ankles inside the cage. But there are none. I've had it!
"They are not quite what they seem." Lucian says pleasantly. "But there are two transgressions you are paying for, remember darling!"
"Thank you, Lucian." I look at him with my heart in my eyes. I know he sees my longing. But he nods at me approvingly and leaves. He does not even bother to close the door. I'm safe in my cage. Once more I taste the salt of tears.
I play with my ankle bands. I am rather proud of them. I suppose they have a function. But it is several minutes before I begin to realise what that function is. When I do realise I am frantic and tear at them fruitlessly.
The sensations come gradually, as from the build up of a force. One itches, the other hurts. I can't really believe what is taking place upon my ankles and try to ignore it. But it won't be ignored. It progresses steadily beyond the stage of sensation until one ankle itches beyond bearing and the other hurts like a gigantic toothache, throb, throb, throb, with piercing knife thrusts in between.
Grimly I hold on to control and go to work. I knead and massage the flesh around the bands. But this is useless. The awfulness is coming from within the metal. It is confined to that area where I cannot touch it. I cannot move the bands, up or down or even twist them. They hug my ankle as though part of it. They are a part of it! The stuff is alive. I can't insert a finger between, or even a finger nail. My circulation is not affected but the things are as tight as a tourniquet! I push one between the bars and bang it back and forth. It does not even scratch, nor does it move. I think the pain gets worse.
I writhe and twist and weep. That's my repertoire within my cage. My ankles are on fire. In the end I sit and let them burn. What the Hell else can I do!
Is it bearable? It has to be bearable. I can't stop it. I start making noises. I have to moan and gasp. It does help. I know it does! But how long can my system stand it! I give that one up: probably forever. There seems no limit to what a girl can take. Look at the whippings Thea and I have had! Our skins absorb them and we go on to the next. This thing I'm suffering now probably won't even leave a mark.
I clutch my knees and bury my face between them. I moan and gasp my small incoherent protests into the darkness there. Bits of me twitch. I'm not sure I'm a girl any more: just a Thing in pain.
So I don't hear Lucian come. I have no idea how long he has been watching and listening. When I become aware of him I flame scarlet with shame, but can't halt all my reactions. What he has done to me is so awful I am past caring. I do not have to ask him to take them off. He knows. My hurt eyes implore. I will learn! I will, I will, I will!
"Is it worse than the whip?" He inquires nonchalantly.
"Oh yes!" The words simply burst out of me. I am desperate. "Oh Lucian, please whip me instead. Please... please...!"
"Would you prefer a hundred lashes, darling?"
I nod vehemently. Anything! Anything! "Oh darling, yes... Oh, thank you! Yes, a hundred lashes as hard as you can...!"
It stops. It is over. I wear a delightful shining band on each ankle, that is all. My breasts continue to heave with my panting but subside gradually. I look through the bars at my lord with love. He had ended this most awful thing. I say "Thank you, Lucian... Thank you darling... " over and over again. I overflow with gratitude. My return from hysteria is gradual and takes a little time. Not until then do I think of the whip.
"It makes a wonderful control." Lucian observes as though pleased by a discovery.
"Are you going to take them off?" I ask hopefully. I am scared to death of the lovely things.
"Would you like me to?"
"Yes please. Oh, thank you, Lucian."
He removes them as easily as he put them on. I am afraid. I have just known something that is inexplicable. I wish he would comfort me with knowledge. But I must not ask. I watch him put the metal in his pocket. I think I would agree to anything rather than have him put it on me again.
There comes a hiatus. The very enormity of what hangs over me now defeats the inconsequential. I smile at him wanly. I am washed out. His own grin lacks conviction. I hope he is feeling sorry for me. Eventually he decides.
"You won't be whipped today. Enough is enough."
I do not ask when I will be whipped. I am overjoyed that he has been kind. "I wish I was out of this cage." I tell him. "I would try and hug you."
I know he is pleased. But he does not open my door. "Perhaps it is as well you are safely inside, darling." He laughs and goes away from me. He takes my courage with him.
I don't know how Thea stuck it so long so well. Or maybe I have claustrophobia, but I don't think so. This beastly little cage frightens me. I can't get out. I can do less than when I was chained in the other dungeon. Even when I was really loaded with chains I had more freedom than now. This is such a dark hole. My small cage hangs in the middle of eternal gloom. No sun can reach here. There's nothing but nothing to do. I just sit this way and that behind the bars. I've only been in the cage a few hours and I'm desperate. Not much of a prospect, especially when I think of time. Lucian could keep me in here for weeks. I'd go crackers.
Of course I do have something to think about. I have the whip to think about. One hundred lovely lashes all over my nakedness. I don't really believe it. It has not sunk in. It's too big. It's like planets and stars and things where the figures are so huge you just don't bother. I'm not sure I can stand it. I said yes to it eagerly enough. I'd have said yes to anything right then. Will Lucian take that into consideration. I mean, I wonder if I have the faintest hope of mercy or forgiveness... I'm not really all that bad. I wish he'd kiss me and take me out of here. Aren't I a silly girl!
I sit and sit and hope and hope, and try not to think of the whip. All of a sudden Thea stands looking at me through the bars. They are really her bars more than mine.
"I'm just one big bundle of guilt." She says reproachfully. "I'm so damn happy I could sing." She searches for words. "I'm free because you took my place, didn't you?"
"Not really. I was going to be punished anyway. I think Lucian killed two birds with one stone. Oh darling, I'm so happy you are out of this."
"But you are in it. Does it get to you?" She looks anxious.
"You'll get punished if they find you here." I whisper urgently.
"No. I have permission. Someone's in a good mood. But very short visits. They don't intend to spoil you." She looked at me intently. "I say, has Lucian got a thing about you?"
"It's me that has one about him." I admit. "Maybe he's flattered."
Thea went to the wall and took down the key. "How about I let you out?" She asks jauntily.
I panic. I wanta to get out so bad I don't trust myself. "No!" I tell her vehemently. "Please don't tempt me, I'll say yes, and then we will both be in deep trouble. Put the damn key back on its hook."
"It's lovely to handle it." She says pensively. "When I think of all the days I sat and looked and longed." She sobers suddenly. "You are going to be whipped, aren't you? I mean, whipped terribly?"
I tell her. When she is gone I cry again.
It's pretty much like being a horse for an hour. I have been fed and watered. Now I must have my run. I stand nakedly to attention before my lord who holds the whip that will ensure my best efforts. My hands are still chained. I don't suppose I will get rid of that easily. Otherwise I'm free. It is glorious to be out of the cage. I try not to think about getting back in.
"Twenty knee bends." Lucian directs.
I do them with zest. My push-ups are less acceptable. I collect two strokes, probably not his hardest. But they hurt.
"Would you like me to stand up straight to be whipped?" I ask innocently.
The day has thrust so much emotion at me that I am almost hysterically mischievous. I clasp my hands behind my neck and pose in the approved manner. I collect an extra stroke for my pains. But I also reach out and grab his attention. "Thank you kind sir." I say demurely after a few gasps and groans.
Next come some sit-ups. I am sure they are good for me, and I do try, but it's not long before I'm doing my pose again and looking back apprehensively over one shoulder. This makes my breast stick out most attractively. But Lucian produces a work of art this time and a moment later I'm curled up on the floor putting on a really shaming performance. Serves me right, of course, I never know when to stop being pert. But, oh, it hurts! I'm sure he's cut my skin. But when I look it's just one more lovely scarlet weal for me to be proud of."
"You love it, don't you!" Lucian mocks.
"I love you." I flash back at him without stopping to think.
I don't get whipped. He just ignores the baring of my heart, and that's worse. We go on with my drill until I'm all sweaty and he sends me off for a hurried shower before lock up time. Me locked in the cage, that is. When I come back he is holding open the little door. I insert myself and, kneeling in my cage, look up at my master with adoring eyes. The pixie mood is still on me.
"Darling, instead of locking me in here, why don't you take me to bed?"
I mean, what more can a girl do!
He looks down at me with his own particular charming gravity. I think I see a sadness there. But, anyway, I brace myself for the new punishment I have just purchased. Kneeling, I push my forehead against the bars and clasp them with captive hands. He bends and kisses me on the lips. It is a very long kiss that leaves me dazed. When I come back into the world my cage is gently swaying and my lord is gone.
Strangely, despite myriad emotions, I find it easy to curl up in my cage and go to sleep. I am tired out.
It is Gillian who wakes me and unlocks my cage. She also unlocks the chains on my wrists. I am sure I look surprised because she explains: "You should remember, you're going to be whipped today. No drill. Just come and have breakfast. You'll need it."
How strange it all is! I can't keep pace. But I do as I'm told. Lucian is in a gay bantering mood while we eat. He even jokes Gillian out of her doldrums. I am sort of drunk with happenings and shocks and by my closeness to Lucian. It is hard to believe that in a little while he will be whipping me half to death. I don't believe it. But Gillian does. I can see she is worried. For me or because of me! I think she thinks I am winning. I am certain she would gladly accept my hundred lashes if she knew it would put her one up with Lucian. I coin a new phrase: 'The surest way to Lucian's heart is through his whip.' But I dare not voice it. I'll whisper it to her sometime.
I am tied in the very best way, same as always. Hands high and wide and stand on my toes. Several loops of cord round each wrist. No handcuffs. I am waiting for my hundred lashes. I have been waiting for a long time, perhaps an hour. I am holding on to my pixie mood right to the first stroke. It is both a stimulant and a drug. When a sober faced Gillian shows up it enables me to say: "Don't you wish it was you, darling, instead of me?"
She looks at my plight with a concern that makes me feel guilty. Her voice is slow and thoughtful: "Actually yes." She smiles at my surprise. "There are several reasons, Fawn. The first is that you can't possibly stand a hundred strokes on top of all the other whippings you've had. It's too much. Lucian should know better, even if he did jockey you into asking for it."
I know she is right. But what can I say! There is certainly nothing I can do. I am already a lamb held for the slaughter.
"And I won't be hypocritical about another reason: the one you know about. If I could buy Lucian with a hundred lashes I'd pay it." She grins at me ruefully, "I said it before, didn't I! We are a pair of idiots." She pauses and shakes her head. "But don't let it stop us loving each other." She looks me squarely in the eye. "Do you want me to go and intercede for you? I will. I'm not subject to all the Rules."
Gillian is sweet. I wish she would escape from Losteigne. But I know she won't. I shake my head. I don't use it. I just shake it and say: "No, never mind. I have a strange feeling about today. Let it take its course. If he kills me, he kills me and that's the end of it."
We search each other's eyes looking for wisdom. Gillian kisses me and hungrily and hurries away. Her kiss tells me so much. She is lonely and lost. I twist to find a little comfort in my bonds.
Lucian kisses me too. It is an auspicious start. He runs his hands lovingly up and down my strained flanks. His fingers have to surmount a few ridged weals. I purposely wince.
"A hundred lashes could kill you." He makes it an informative statement. I nod in agreement. "Yes, they could kill me."
"Yet you accept them?"
"Of course! It is you who will place them on me."
"That makes the difference? If someone else was to use the whip you would already be screaming?" His eyes glow. The current between us is very strong.
"Yes." I hold his gaze. "I do not think about the hundred, only about you."
Lucian sighs and shakes his head. I am a most difficult girl. It is proper that I be whipped, and whipped hard! He kisses me once more and goes away. When he comes back he carries a whip.
But what a whip! My heart pounds. It is of the silver metal! Yet when he shakes it the lash ripples like oiled silk. It will cut me to pieces. The protests rise in my throat, but I swallow them. Lucian knows what he is doing. If I am to die, I am to die! I look at the silver whip in awed fascination. It is beautiful. It is the most beautiful fashioned thing I have ever seen. It has a fearful symmetry. I wish I could watch it cut my skin. But I will be screaming... I look at my lord and smile so that he shall not feel guilt. "It is very lovely." I tell him gently.
I am glad I am tied so well. I have no decisions. I smile once more at my lord, then close my eyes and wait for the first of the hundred blows. What Lucian and I do now is epic. I am about to cross an ocean of agony. But it is not I who will steer the ship. Silly phrases flit through my mind: 'To die for love'. 'The ultimate giving". The fire in my loins burns high.
Two things happen at the same time: I remember that Lucian has not put the cones upon my breasts. Before I can speak of the omission the lash snaps under one arm and curls beautifully across both the soft mounds I long to shield. I throw back my head and scream at the sun this dungeon has never seen.
But something is wrong! Did I feel pain... did I! There is sensation in abundance. I am seeped in it. Every pore seems to be budding open with an intensity of sentience. I moan in fear, fear of the silver whip.
There is no pain!
The lovely thing cuts me from the other side, and again laps across my breast. The sounds I make are strange to my ears. That which I feel is stranger still. I look down at my breasts. The fresh stroke stands out scarlet in all the cruel beauty I know so well. The first is beginning to fade, it is disappearing before my eyes. I am witnessing the impossible. I look over one shoulder, but the third lash wraps around my hips before I can find the eyes of my lord. The fire beneath the flesh it has touched leaps into a furnace roar. I writhe in an exquisiteness of feeling such as I have never known. When I look at my breasts again their skin is clear and beautiful, my nipples erect.
This time I manage to catch Lucian's glance as he wields the whip. He is absorbed, intent, the lines of his face enigmatic. Our eyes lock only briefly before the silver thong winds about my waist, and I plunge into new convolutions. But he smiles at me. He knows what he is doing. I am not going to die.
But can I be sure! I am twisting and tugging under the fifth stroke and whatever it is I feel grows and grows as though the sensations of each lash are cumulative. Inside me the fire is out of control. I am a palpitating vessel of desire. Small convulsions leap within my being and run their course. My belly, my loins, my breasts are all demanding. The lash snickers through the air and cuts and cuts and cuts, seeking every secret recess I have, stoking its fire upon my skin and burrowing its strange potency deep within my sex. It is making me female, female, female...
It is taking me into a frenzied world of lust!
I am moaning, not with pain, but from the awfulness of the need within my cunt.
There! I have used the forbidden word. It tells you of my agony. I can only bring myself to say it in extremity.
I should be thankful for this magic of the silver whip. I suppose I am. I did not want to die. But I cannot think of gratitude or anything else, the intensities within me are too great, they possess all of me. Lucian's face is there always because he is the whip and the purpose of the whip. He is the antidote. He is the very core of all that is happening to me. I manage flashes of communion with him as he whips me, which he does steadily and without pause. The current between us is stronger than it has ever been, an umbilical cord of passion. I dance and tug against my tethers, the agony of my wrists a pure joy.
The miracle of the marks fascinates me. The silver lash endows me with a chameleon gift. My scarlet stripes come and go. The lash curls about me so constantly that I am never short of them. But after they have planted their fire inside me they go away and leave me immaculate, save for one thing, a mounting shame.
I do not try and understand this magic. Lucian's slashes at my flesh give me no chance to think or to ask, that will come later. Is it magic! Is it evil! Is it something from another world! I am not sure what its eventual effect will be on me. But Lucian controls it. That is what matters to me. I belong to him.
The shame is dreadful! Lucian is witness to my writhing orgasms. He thoughtfully manages to cut me up under my legs every time I am in the throes of one. I am wanton. I even open my legs in mute invitation and gasp ecstatically when the thong cuts my cunt. The boiling turbulence within my being produced by the agony of the silver whip never lessens. One orgasm builds into another. Once more I am slick and humid with sweat. I shake my head for him to stop. But he does not stop. I do not really want him to.
I become aware gradually that Lucian shares all I feel. This quintessence of concupiscence through which I moan places its spell upon him too. He has discovered a more coloured and enduring coupling than a wild threshing on the sheets for a brief glimpse of the ineffable. In my contorting agonies he exudes a total empathy. We are one. I realise, now, that always when he whips me it is like this for him. My nakedness under the whip transports him to Nirvana, a place no other male may enter, just he and I.
The silver whip today is my reward. I am sure he prefers the other whips and the cane and the crop: I scream far more loudly and the marks stay. I suspect he has always had this magician's weapon he uses on me now. But probably he prefers me to yearn and suffer my fire so that his mastery is more total. When he stops whipping me now, if he ever does, I will be drained, all passion spent! Will I! I can't be sure. I leap against my wrist cords as a vicious slash crosses my breasts. I lift myself by my wrists clear off the floor. I raise one leg as far as I can. I am utterly lascivious. Instantly my lord rewards me with the thong. I scream in gorgeous abandon and jerk into orgasm again. I am a puppet flailing against the withes about my wrists, my head tosses wildly as I moan. My whipping goes on and on and on.
And I had thought I was going to die!
"Harder! Oh please, harder! Darling, hurt me, hurt me, hurt me! A thousand lashes... at least a thousand... " It is my own voice I hear.
I scream with a strange and awful joy.
The silver whip continues its searching of my flesh.
This will be forever.
Lucian and his silver whip have gone. It is over. The hundred lashes have left no mark upon my skin. But each of them seared me deeply within. I cherish the burn of them. I quite literally hang from my wrists, my poor cut wrists that I have treated so badly in my savage joys. Their blood stains my forearms, but I wear it with pride. Perhaps Lucian will cleanse it with his lips! If he does not, I will. If I am ever free. I can't be sure about being free. I am so tired, so very tired. But I am sure he will make me stand like this for a long time. I smell of female sweat, a feminine scent that Lucian loves. I know he does. It rises up about me in a shockingly erotic cloud that sustains my glow that never dies. Even after a hundred strokes and a shaming number of orgasms it does not die...
Is a bride, on her wedding night, ashamed of being wanton! I am sure many are. But I won't! Not after the show I've just put on. Actually the show just happened. It was not on purpose. My flesh and bones staged the whole outrageous affair. The things I did, the sounds I made... I'm still blushing. Lucian saw it all, every bit of all I did. Considering I'm safely and beautifully tied it's incredible all the action I can manage. But I know I was beautiful and I know Lucian loved every last twitch of my skin, so damn the being ashamed bit!
I can't get free. I would if I could. I hurt and I'm tired. Goodness knows when Lucian will untie the knots that hold me. But he's a great believer in making a girl stand before and after. He's right too. It does something to us, keeps us in a proper frame of mind. Right now I know for sure I'll stand like this until he chooses to set me free. That's the point: his choice, not mine. I don't count. If I counted he would only be half as happy and I probably would not be happy at all. Let the Womens Libbers make what they can out of that!
For a captive all things are comparative. Yesterday I hated my cage. I was scared of it. But now, as darling Lucian holds open the door, I wriggle inside as though I was going home. I'll be so damn glad to curl up and go to sleep. Surely there won't be any drill... I remind him he has not chained my hands. He laughs and says he is going to leave another reminder on me. He fishes the silver metal out of his pocket. I give him my best little girl pout and ask: "Haven't I suffered enough for one day?"
"Of course you have, dear little Fawn. For now these are just lovely shining ornaments to remind you to be a good girl."
I stick my feet through the bars and pluck up enough courage to ask: "How do you do that? It doesn't seem possible."
I watch as he finishes the job of moulding the lovely bands upon my ankles. "It isn't possible." He tells me. Then winks: "Unless you know how." She hangs the key on it's hook and leaves me alone.
I am a perverse child. I can't keep my fingers from my anklets. They are exquisite and they hold a secret. I pull and tug. But they are a part of me. Two potent wedding bands. Lucian owns me. I curl up in my cage and go to sleep.
* * *
"I'm sure he's in love with you." Thea said enviously. "He treats you much better than he does me. He only left you in the cage for five days, and he found all sorts of excuses to go and drill you and give you punishments."
"Are punishments loving?" I teased. I have not told her about the silver whip.
"With you they are. You adore being whipped by him." She sounds a bit miffed.
"We haven't either of us been whipped for a week." I point out.
"We are so damn well behaved it's pitiful, Fawn. Just proves to them our punishments did us good. I feel like a well trained puppy dog." She looks at me doubtfully, "We do have to get out of here, y'know."
"I won't even try to escape." I say firmly.
"Fawn, show me that place in the trees. You know, that Skilley found."
"I won't go near there. It's off limits."
"It's not. It's The Cloisters and the other buildings that we must not be nosey about."
"You want to be back in the cage?"
Thea squirmed. "He really has got you under his thumb, darling. But don't you see! We have to try. I think there's something awful going on... what about poor Skilley! Vanished and no one seems to care." She looked at me accusingly, "After all we owe something to our fathers. How's your Dad going to feel if you quietly disappear?"
Poor Daddy! He had begun to seem very far away. Maybe I wasn't being too sensible...
We gave the Cloisters a wide berth. I still wore my anklets. I had silly visions of their metal giving signals. You know those 'beep, beep,' things on the screen. Those anklets were me. They were Lucian's hand every time I stepped. My tendons swelled against them when I walked. But there was no pain. I could not get rid of the thought that the pain and the itch were something in reserve to control me if I misbehaved.
We made such a wide circle that I found it hard to locate the path into the thicket. Thea was pleasantly excited as we made our way through the dense growth. I don't know how long it took me to realise that something was wrong. But it was too long. The path petered out before I had to face the fact that the clearing was not there. Suddenly I was afraid. Something was terribly wrong. We were dabbling in things best left alone. Thea felt it too. An atmosphere had fallen. I was not sure if we were in the Park, or even in this century. You know all the stuff you read... ! My anklets felt cold within my skin. They belonged here, I did not.
We made our way back, using whispers only for speech. I think we both felt guilty and were thinking of cages and dungeons. We were silly to be taking these risks only for curiosity. The Park was huge. We never needed to come near where the silver men were: if we believed in them... They were of the stuff of nightmares. Whatever they were, Lucian was not afraid of them!
Nothing was quite right, nothing in it's proper place. It was as though we viewed our surroundings from an out of focus lens. Thea clutched at me.
"We're getting awful close to the Cloisters, aren't we?" She whispered.
I wasn't sure. I had that drunken feeling you get when your tummy doesn't match up with your vision. We trudged on. By the time we knew we were too far, we had guessed, also, at what we were going to have to face. But we made circles and went back and forth before we were willing to look at each other and admit that the Cloisters was not there any more than the clearing had been.
We did not exactly run back to see if Losteigne was still there, but it was a damn quick walk. I know it sounds silly, but that was the state we were in. When it came into view in all it's reassuring bulk we heaved great sighs of relief and sank down on the grass. We had things to talk about.
"It's the Russians or the Chinese or a mad scientist." Thea said without conviction.
"Whatever it is it wouldn't affect us if we just stay away from that bit of the Park."
We looked at each other with scared eyes.
"Are we going to tell Gillian?" I asked.
"What's the use. She either knows or can't do anything about it."
"Lucian?" I ventured.
"You can if you like." Thea said firmly. "You're his darling. He'd just whip me."
"He'd whip me too." I declared with certainty. "We'd better keep quiet."
"But you enjoy it." Thea was getting as acid on the subject as Gillian.
My blush gave me away. But I retorted: "Alright, so I'm a masochist in love. It's gorgeous!" We both laughed a little, but it didn't help very much.
She looked at me uncertainly. Her voice was hesitant. "Darling... "
"Yes?" I could see she was troubled.
"I haven't seen the silver men-Oh I believe in 'em alright! Gillian does too. But, I mean, it's evident Lucian knows what's going on. He's part of it. Maybe he's all of it. A thought did strike me... "She looked at me beseechingly, "Have any of us seen him without his clothes?"
I was furious! Remember those old Kings who used to kill the bearer of bad tidings: that's how I felt. But I thought a minute before being catty. I could see how the notion could easily rise in her mind. So I just said "No." In a dispirited voice.
"It's possible then!" She exclaimed triumphantly.
"I'm sure he's not... not, one of them. I think I'd know."
"Has he fucked you?" Thea demanded coarsely and shrewdly.
"No... or Gillian either." I admitted.
"You've been wiggling your sex at him for the last month or more. The way he ignores your little twat isn't human."
I wasn't going to tell her of the whip and the electric current. She'd laugh that to scorn. I realized I hadn't much to argue with. I looked at her hopelessly, then started to cry.
Girls are kind to each other sometimes. The best times are when they are both angry at men. We had one of those times now. She made me feel better. She was sweet. We ended up making love. It was very peaceful there on the grass in a world all our own, a space that was neither Losteigne or the Park.
We went back to the big house and our French. But we were not happy.
* * *
It was easy for Gillian to get me into the study. We sat and looked awkwardly at each other. Poor Gillian! She daily came to look more and more like a harassed housewife. Our French had been getting more and more absent minded. She obviously had something of import.
"Lucian wants me to ask something of you."
"Why doesn't he ask me then?" I didn't mean to sound catty.
"From him you would take it as a command. He wants you to do something quite difficult, but to approach it as a sort of fun thing."
"I'll do it." I said to save her agony.
"But you don't know what it is."
If he wants me to do it, and if you think I can, that's all that matters."
Gillian sighed. I expect I am a very difficult girl. I am sure she often longs to whip me.
"Really, Fawn, you're impossible. You'd let him wipe his boots on you.
"Anytime, darling." It was one of my Pixie days.
My aunt visibly took the bit between her teeth and plunged. "I this... this, work that he is doing Lucien is not alone. There are influences and... well, powers that share his purpose... " She paused.
"Should I clap?" I ask innocently.
"If I whip you it will hurt a lot more than when he does it." Gillian says pointedly.
I agree. It does. I shut up and look attentive.
"Most of the people concerned are of some consequence. Actually they are a pretty impressive lot. One of 'em's a woman. She's going to visit Losteigne."
I kept quiet by superhuman effort. I was tingling.
"Ordinarily you would have no occasion to see her, or she you. But she will be here several days. She has unusual tastes in entertainment."
"She wants to whip my bottom?" Pure intuition. But I score!
"Really, Fawn?"
I am honestly contrite. It is just one of those days. "Sorry, darling. Put me in the picture."
She sighs. I am tempted to go over and touch my toes so that she may rid herself of frustrations.
"We would like you to devote your time and energies to pleasing Lady Chatham."
The name is quite a shock. Why not the Queen! There's not much difference. Lady Chatham is a widow with more castles and money that I have pubic hairs. She is also not that old. The pictures show her as something rather special. She is referred to as being ultra Right.
It will be a privilege to lick her clit.
"You are asking for it, aren't you!" My aunt says wearily. Please stop being facetious."
"I'm offering my all, darling. Will she bring her own cane?"
"Alright, Fawn, bend over."
Goodness knows I've asked for it! I am ridiculous. I deserve this. I bend over and touch my toes. Gillian's cane laces into me three times and I relapse on the carpet, not at all heroic.
"Feel better now?" She asks pleasantly.
It's quite absurd. I'm ashamed at how I respond to the cane. But, yes, I am now anxious to be a good girl.
"Tell me what to do, please." I ask humbly.
Gillian shrugged. "That's the trouble, I don't really know. We are almost sure she will want to whip you. What other delights she may have in mind only she knows. Are you sure you want to take this on?"
"I don't really have a choice, do I?"
"Yes." Her affirmative vehement. "If your sense of mischief does not carry you into it, we will send Thea. With her it will be pure compulsion."
"You have just caned my sense of mischief." I point out.
"Oh, Fawn! Do you want me to do it again?"
"Yes please."
"I'll simply take that as acceptance of the assignment." My aunt says good humouredly. "I can't be forever caning your seat. Besides, from now on the space on your pretty hide is strictly reserved for the nobility."
I felt quite important.
Amethyst, lady Chatham, was really special. I was awed and fascinated. I was also feeling hot and bothered. I hadn't worn clothes for months. They felt oddly indecent clinging to all my favourite places. Gillian had explained that clothes were strictly de rigueur for Lady Chatham's playthings. She might choose to remove them. But it was her prerogative. Definitely fifteenth century.
She was most charming. She spent a lot of time with Lucian. But at meals and at Tea I go close, particularly at Tea. I served it in a sort of combination slave and little French maid role. It was after Tea that I was officially delivered into her care: or should I say clutches. She took me up to her room.
"You are quite lovely." She said, first thing. "Lucian is sweet."
So far we were in complete agreement. "Our world needs more men like him. He is dedicated." I made sincere appropriate sounds. "Have you ever been whipped, Fawn?"
"I am whipped constantly." If she chose to see my skin she'd know.
"How delightful. A girl who has never been whipped has charm, but is usually a bit of a bore. She makes such a commotion."
"I can't exactly keep quiet, Lady Chatham."
"I like you. I will whip you terribly, aren't I awful! By the way, call me Mistress. It does something for my ego. The ego of the nobility needs a bit of bolstering these days."
"With pleasure, Mistress."
"It won't really be with pleasure, y'know. You'll probably howl. You do howl, I hope?"
"Yes Mistress. I howl delightfully."
I could feel between us that same current that joined me to Lucian. She was a gorgeous creature.
"Bend over, darling, and go through that middle class business of shoving down your panties and lifting your skirts."
I obeyed. It was fifty times as obscene as if I'd been naked. It was also beautifully erotic. My fire burned.
"You have an exquisite bottom, child. It seems to have been much loved."
She was a true devotee. Bearing her pain might be fun.
"Go and get me a nice cane or a riding crop, or something." She made it sound regally casual.
I pulled up my pants, let my skirt fall and went on the errand. My clothes felt like a suit of armour. I wondered if I would have them long. I presented her with quite the most wicked crop and cane Losteigne had to offer. Without coaching I did the middle class thing all over again. She was right. It was vulgar. It also made my bottom seem to fill the room.
"I love to cane a girl's bottom." Lady Chatham said conversationally. "I cane my maids regularly. It is a term of their employment. I find it much superior to orgasms, whilst at the same time much conducive to find in both the whipper and the whipped. Do you find this so?"
Here was authority! No messing about with Lady Chatham! I admired her insouciance. I took a shot in the dark. "Do you care for an occasional caning, Mistress?"
I had rung a bell. The silence was pregnant. She sighed with pleasure. "Darling Lucian, he is quite incredible. How exquisite you are."
The cane burrowed deeply into me. She was strong. A girl caned by Lady Chatham would know she was caned. I had to fight hard not to disgrace Lucian. I gave her every erotic trick I knew. She absorbed my agony in silence.
"You are remarkably talented, Fawn."
I'd never thought of it in just that way.
"Have you considered taking it up as a serious work?"
She was a woman of decision. I would be no less.
"Would you employ me, Mistress?"
"Like a shot. I know a thoroughbred when I cane one."
"Please accept me. I will accompany you when you go."
There was a deep pregnant silence. My Heart thumped.
"I will forget you said that, Fawn."
Once more the cane almost brought me to my knees. She was an athlete. I made quite a fuss with this second stroke. I could feel the burn of tears.
"That hurt you, didn't it?"
"Yes Mistress." My voice trembled.
"Good." You may stand erect. But at attention."
She knew the tricks. I obeyed them. I pulled up my pants. They look untidily degenerate down around a girl's ankles. Besides, there are stains...
"Lucian whips you often?"
"Very often, Mistress."
"You adore him?"
How the Hell did she know! She was not ordinary. "Yes Mistress."
"Let me whip one of your breasts. Take it out."
It was hard to keep up with her. I didn't even like Lucian to whip my breasts! But I want to put up a good show, so I fumble away. It is surprisingly awkward to produce a lonely breast from an everyday dress. I had to undo all sorts of things. But finally it popped out. I smoothed back the fabric so that it would show to good advantage. I am proud of my breasts. They don't droop.
She examined my mammary exhibit with approval. She even played with the nipple until it was really hard.
"You are a beautiful girl, Fawn. I am not sure a man deserves you."
"Thank you, Mistress. How will you whip my breast?"
"With the crop. It's more supple than the cane. Would you like to be tied?"
"Only if I am to have more than one stroke, Mistress."
"Delightful child. No, one will suffice for the moment. Stick it well out."
I am curling up with fear. The crop on my naked breast! I'll go berserk. I should have let her tie me. I stick it way out, take a deep breath and close my eyes.
"Open your eyes, darling. I want you to watch."
She is a connoisseur. I can deny her nothing. She will use all of me. Obediently I lower my eyes to my naked breast.
The impact is suddenly there. I see it before I feel the pain. First the white, then the pink and then he scarlet. But by then I am clutching my wound and making a complete spectacle of myself. Lady Chatham watches with interest. "You are beautifully responsive, Fawn."
"Thank you, Mistress."
I spare her a glance of gratitude before continuing with my agonies. "I think just one More."
She is clever. She knows how to evoke respect. It is the last thing I want to do. But I straighten up and wantonly protrude my wounded breast once more. Demurely I watch it for it's new stripe.
It is quite beautiful. It misses my nipple. I discover that my breast is beautifully receptive under the whip. It has a delightful bounce and resiliency. The scarlet weal is worthy of an Old Master. I am becoming a work of art under Lady Chatham's rod.
"You may put it away, child."
I tuck my wounded breast into my clothes and do things up. It throbs shockingly. But I am used to pain. I smile gratefully and say thank you."
She studies me intently. "You've been trained."
"I am often whipped, Mistress."
"Strip."
I resume my natural state. I stand with hands clasped behind my neck as I have been taught. I feel secure. I am beautiful.
Lady Chatham examines my body. She is entranced. I can tell from her breathing. She is sexually excited.
"Let me give you pleasure." I ask. It is best to get it over. In the heat of excitation she may whip me.
She gives herself to me utterly. She is gorgeous. I feast. Then I stand submissive while she comes back to this world.
"Who taught you?" She asks.
"I was born to adore females." For this moment I forget Lucian.
"Your adoration is out of this world, Fawn."
She eyes me in speculation. "Will Lucian sell you?"
My heart leaps. If only Thea was here instead of me.
She would leap at this chance. But even I know what I must do. "If he will sell me, Mistress, I will obey you. I will give you joy."
She looks at me and through me. She is sprawled naked on the bed. Her feet are wide in the manner in which I left them. Her vulva stares at me demandingly. It will absorb all I have to give. My tongue will need fresh strength to send it into all the spasms it will demand. I can be quite sure of being well whipped if I fail to please.
"I will keep you chained." It is neither a threat or a promise.
"Please never give me a chance to escape." In this, too, I am sincere. I know the agony of hope.
"I have a castle full of girls, all captive." She is taunting me.
"I do not mind, Mistress. I am sure your castle has many dungeons and many chains."
"Dammit, girl. Where did you learn these tricks?"
I ask myself the same question. Lucian and Gillian did not teach me. I am naturally wanton. I long to be desired.
"The whip taught me, Mistress."
She laughed delightedly. "Put your clothes back on."
I am beautifully obedient. She has become my delight. When we go down to dinner we are as one. We outrage the others with our frank and unabashed eyes that feed on a word or a glance or a motion. Lady Chatham and I can do nothing that does not carry it's message. I should be ashamed of myself. Lucian should be overjoyed. But he is not. Serve him right. He should have fucked me when he could!
"What will you sell her to me for?" My new Mistress inquires.
"Fawn is not for sale." He sounds absurdly stuffy.
"Oh come, darling, everything has a price. After all I am being quite generous about... other things."
Lucian is concerned. I am amused. I am a treasure. Thea and Gillian watch the play entranced.
"I will keep her well chained. She will never get free."
Amethyst coaxes.
"It will take a hundred pounds of chains to make her behave." For the first time Lucian sounds ungracious.
"I have them, darling. She will never escape."
I have been amused. It has all been fun. But there is now an undercurrent of hard purpose. I am a prize. But I do not want to be a prize of war.
"You may whip her to your heart's content while you are with us." Lucian says noncommittally.
I cringe. It is the most likely thing to happen. Lady Chatham's whip hurts. I foresee days of howling. I look across the table. Amethyst is looking at me with lechery. I take hope. Perhaps my tongue will save me. I stick it out a little way so that she may see. She becomes radiant.
"Please sell me to Lady Chatham, Lucian." My words are a bomb. Lucian glares at me. "Why?"
"You never use me. She will."
There is a shocked silence. I am sure Gillian could kill me. But she should be my ally. She wants Lucian all to herself.
"Carnal little bitch, isn't she?" Lady Chatham approves.
"She needs a good whipping." Gillian explodes.
"She'll get it, never fear." Amethyst promises. I feel like the Kohinoor, or at least the Cullinan.
"Lady Chatham whips beautifully." I observe to no one in particular.
I can feel Lucian's eyes. He would love to whip me now. "Where did you find her?" Amethyst inquires pleasantly.
"Fawn is my niece." Gillian makes the admission as though I was Cholera.
Amethyst fixes Lucian with a determined eye. "Sell me Fawn, then wallow in the adoration of her aunt. You are a lucky man." She attacks her soup. Trant's eyes never leave her. He is captivated. I hope he has wet dreams.
I am a slave girl upon the block. But I may speak. I can affect the bidding. "Lady Chatham tastes delicious." I proclaim. Such a remark should earn me a sound whipping. But I am betting it won't: not this time.
Everybody looks at me askance. I am sure Lucian is thinking of gags. Even Amethyst is faintly flushed.
"Ten thousand pounds." She bids offhandedly.
"You enjoy a flapping tongue?" Gillian asks acidly.
"Oh, I'll cure her of that." Lady Chatham says with assurance.
I begin to realise I am building up an impressive number of lashes regardless of how the bidding goes. But this is my Pixie day. "Couldn't you toss for me?" I ask sweetly.
"We may toss you into a dungeon." Lucian says pointedly.
I catch his eye and am ashamed. I have hurt him. Lady Chatham may be enraptured, but he is not. I have allowed this euphoria from a breath of outside air to get the better of me. I had best soft pedal my enfant terrible role: not that it isn't a part of me, but Lucian's voice tells me I am on thin ice.
"I am very sorry." I look around at all present contritely. "I'm afraid sometimes I'm a very bad girl." It's my ten year old special.
"She doesn't mean a word of it, y'know." Amethyst chuckles and looks at me with a proprietary air.
"She is delightfully incorrigible." Lucian concedes.
"If you thrash her twice daily." Says poor Gillian.
Thea signals me with her eyes. For her, Lady Chatham spells out one thing: escape.
"I may prolong my visit here." Amethyst says thoughtfully as Trant serves the fish.
I actually keep quiet.
Lady Chatham is my first real knowledge of slavery. I have used the word here and there. But this is different. I have been given to her. I am a gift. I have become merchandise. The bidding at the dinner table last night was not entirely in fun. A woman is willing to pay ten thousand pounds for me. She means it. I suspect it is only the first offer. I am desired. She also makes it very clear that I am a slave and that she will stand no nonsense. After she was finished with me last night she handcuffed one of my wrists to the bedpost leg and made me sleep on the floor beside her. If that isn't being a slave girl, I don't know what is.
I adore her, of course. I think everybody does. Either that or they're scared to death of her. The thing that we have discovered between us will allow me a lot of lovely privileges. But I am sure she will be ruthless if I cross her. The way she has me fixed right now tells me she doesn't play kid's games.
I wish I could simply enjoy. I wished that with Lucian. But all the enigmas of Losteigne are still there, and hovering over my head always is the spectre of escape. Even if I don't want to go away I suppose I owe it to Thea and Daddy... I have a duty. Looking at this new development it's hard not to see Amethyst as a possible open door., A very nice door. I like her too much!
She is laughing at me now, enjoying my discomfort. That's a polite word for it. But when a girl had fun with a girl the pain she gives you doesn't hurt so much. Nuts! But there it is. Her joyous sadism is the same as Lucian's: I feel humble that I can give so much.
She has tied me spreadeagled on her bed, terribly tight. I think I might twang like a bow string. There is the familiar fire at wrists and ankles. When she was tying me she took a tremendous interest in the silver anklets. She tested them, much as I have done myself. But she knows... I am sure she knows. She looked at me and smiled in a sort of complicity.
She gave me three orgasms in a row. Then gently patted my fur and said: "Enough for now, little Fawn. You need some pain too, y'know."
I said, yes please. But I wasn't really thinking.
My pain is some little clips she must have had made specially. They are in all sorts of sweet designs, butterflies, flowers, twists and whorls. But they each have a shockingly strong spring and serrated jaws. When she pinches up a fold of my skin and snaps one on I wish very much that she hadn't.
"Makes a nice change from whipping, Cherie."
I suppose it does. The dubiety in my eyes makes her laugh. "Not too sure, are you darling!"
She clips on another and another. I try and struggle when she pulls up the lips of my cunt and bites one of them into each. I can't see. But lean imagine what it looks like. They hurt like fury. She listens approvingly to my panting.
I realise, of course, that I am getting the hors d'oeuvres. The piece de resistance will be my nipples! I wait cringing. But the cruel lovely things are fastened on me everywhere but there.
"Never the obvious, Cherie." She leans over and tenderly bites them with her own teeth. I moan.
Now she is sitting on the bed beside me, looking down at my pain and savouring every last gasp of it. lama bit preoccupied with it myself. But my Mistress wishes to talk. I lay stretched and palpitating, but very anxious to please. The little jaws bite at me like small vicious animals.
"And so, our good Gillian is jealous of you, my dear?"
I nod and twist my lips in a small grin.
"And the holy noble Lucian is in love with you and does not know it?"
"Do you really think so?" I gasp in eager gratitude.
Amethyst is delighted. "We need not question your feelings, Fawn. You have just expressed them. But what of that nice girl your cousin? She is sad."
"She longs to escape. It's all she thinks about."
Lady Chatham quietly considers while she looks at her ornaments biting my nakedness. I have worn no clothes since last night.
"Are you truly prisoners?"
"Good Heavens, yes!" I tug at my bonds in surprise.
"All the marks you see on us are from punishments for escape attempts or for curiosity?"
'You have seen things?"
I tell her.
She nods understandingly and looks at me with a whimsical eye. "Hardly a good idea to have you blabbing that all over England. Looks as though you are stuck with us, Fawn."
"Let Thea go. She'd promise not to tell."
"Don't be a silly girl." Her face became suddenly somber. "Surely you understand something quite tremendous is taking place at Losteigne."
"Couldn't we be told? If we knew we might behave better."
Playfully she tweaked my nipples and clamped another set of jaws on my tummy. She shook her head decisively. "No. If you knew you would have to be killed or else kept in such utter captivity your lives would be a burden. This is best."
"Is Lucian a silver man?"
Her amusement was tremendously genuine. "Poor kid, you're head over heels, aren't you! It's a disease. I've had it."
"It was terrible until you came. Am I fickle?"
"All girls are latent lesbians, darling. Don't give it a thought. I'll whip it out of you if you like?"
"Lucian never managed to."
My Mistress considered me. "You'd be a bit of a problem." She admitted. "If Lucian couldn't cure you, probably I couldn't and for the same reason."
"Because I love you." The words came from my lips with a great naturalness.
Amethyst leaned down and kissed me. "Females are absurd." She agreed. "In love we toss our lives away without a qualm. I think I've grown out of it, but I wouldn't make a bet... It's not love at all, of course! I don't know what it is, but it's damn potent. Want me to whip you?"
"As a cure or for fun?" She is so easy to talk to.
"For fun. Mine! It will have to be quick. I have work with Lucian."
She instantly catches the flicker of a question in my eyes. "Yes, darling child. You are going to stay like that all day. lean make my juices flow whenever I wish to think of you tied to my bed and hurting. It will be delicious. Will you love it too?" She gazes at me tenderly.
"I will think of you, Mistress."
Amethyst took some of the clips off me so as to let the whip have a clear field. I knew instantly where I was going to get it. Two terrible awful slashes across my hips and tummy. By changing position each time she easily managed to have the tip of the thong bury itself in my pubic hair. I could not move, even for that. But while I was still making her favourite sounds she clipped the jaws back on the same places. I made quite a loud noise when she snapped them in my lips. I was sort of convalescing from the whip while I watched my Mistress dress. I even felt a little sorry for myself.
Lady Chatham is still beautiful. I have no idea how old she is. Such women have no age. I suppose from some points of view the word handsome could be used for her. She has the body of a girl. But she has a force... She dressed rapidly as though pressed for time. I wondered what she and Lucian were up to, and how many more there were in it. Her presence gave Lucian's role credibility. She had not answered my question about him. I expect that's my cue to shut up on the subject. I bet if Amethyst got angry she'd be frightening.
The final effect of her toilette is stunning. She is like some sleek powerful animal. An immense vitality... She comes smiling to my bed: her bed really. She kisses me with lipstick that does not come off. The kiss lasts so long that I know it means something to her. My fire burns brightly. It is not dampened when she clips the two missing jaws on my nipples. She does it craftily, neatly and quickly so that I am caught unaware. I am still gasping and trying to laugh back at her as she disappears through the door.
The radiance of my Mistress lingers in the room. It sustains my fire even though my plight is really not all that happy. I hurt. She ties exquisitely, I could tell even when she was tightening and looping the cords on me. She is indeed a Mistress! I have struggled. I really tug and pull and twist while I am being whipped. But my spread nakedness is still bow-string taut. I won't waste my pain trying to get free. I have a lot to look forward to. All day...
It is going to get terrible. I mean, worse and worse. I have not been tied just like this before. But the ways in which I have been tied all tell me what to expect. Little Fawn is going to cry.
The designs on my nipples are rose petals, two to each clip. The awful spring is hidden. Most of the jaws are hidden too, they are safely invisible in my skin. They burn like fury. I could swear they are alive. They are the only one's I can get a good look at. They stand out tantalizingly before my eyes. The nibbling of all the others is constant and atrocious, but it hurts too much to try and raise my head to have a look. Besides, why bother with a look! Well, I'm female and I'm curious and I hope they all look as lovely on me as do these on my breasts. But, oh, oh, oh, what I'd give to be able to take them off!
Lady Chatham's choice for my day is cruel. If it was not for that which has sprung into being between us I would be hating the woman who tied me like this and then added the torture of the jaws. Either one would be hard to endure. The two together make a vivid introduction to her use of slave girls. I wonder if it's true she does have a castle full of us! Will they all be hurting the way I am! Does she just go away and leave them, or is there a jailer. If there's a jailer I'll just bet it's a woman.
I know there is something I must think about. So I set my pain aside and consider how I'm going to feel and act if Lucian sells me. Even if this selling bit is just a joke between them he might still let her take me. The way I spent the night handcuffed to her bed, and the way I'm tied now tells me very clearly that I'm not likely to escape from her any easier than I can from Losteigne. If she does take me I bet I'll be a bound and gagged bundle in the boot of her car. Poor Thea! Hopes dashed again. I feel ashamed that I'm not thinking poor Fawn too.
Do I want to go! Will I have anything to say about it! Will pleading one way or the other do me any good when the crunch comes! I supply myself with three negative answers. I'm no problem to them really. They can simply whip me until I say yes to anything. Surely they won't be so cruel as to make me choose between them! I'm not sure I can cope with that confrontation. Right now Amethyst has me: I don't mean being tied like this, but she has made a real slave of me emotionally. Her aura is strong about me now. She gives me something Lucian withholds. She gives it with tremendous joy, it enhances her power. She is habit forming. I have already fallen...
If she does take me, what about Daddy! I can't write and tell him I am now a slave girl. Incredibly it has become plausible to me, but certainly not to him! I can't imagine him saying to a colleague: "I say, old chap, young Fawn's got herself into the slave business. Been purchased by that extraordinary Chatham woman... " He'd phone the police. Will I be allowed to write him. Or am I just going to disappear! Put's poor Gillian in a bit of a spot. She's been hoping all this nonsense at Losteigne will be over my the time my Dad and Thea's return to England. But enslavement to Amethyst is something else again. Though I wouldn't put it past her to lay the whole thing before Daddy as a fait accompli with me saying yes I was very happy. I have a feeling she could carry it off. Poor Daddy!
Am I going to be in her castle or Lucian's dungeon the rest of my life, do I really know too much! Or am I that desirable to torture and enchain! If enslavement is for always, what about when I get middle aged or old! No one will want to whip me then! It's all nonsense and I toss it out of my mind. A girl in the spot I'm in wastes her time thinking of the future. All of me is in this moment that is now.
"Serves you jolly well right!" It is Gillian's voice. She stands looking down at me with wry amusement.
I am immensely glad to see her. "Loosen me up a bit, darling please?" It is my first thought.
"You mean untie you?" She sounds incredulous.
I am not sure if she is joking. "Why not?" I ask innocently, "Lady Chatham is busy. She won't know. Besides, I hurt something awful."
"I told you, it serves you right. Your behavior is shocking. And she will know when I tell her... about your asking, I mean."
"Oh darling... " I feel hurt and let down. "Well then, take these damn clips off me while we talk."
"I won't do that either, it would hurt you twice as bad when I put them back on."
"Oh, Gillian, you didn't just come to gloat...?"
Poor Gillian is embarrassed. She bends and kisses me, but does not touch a single clip. "I want to ask you something." She looks around as though seeking help, then plunges: "I think Lady Chatham is serious about wanting you. How do you feel about it?"
"I hurt." I say pointedly.
Gillian makes an impatient gesture, but takes the two clips from my nipples. For a moment losing them hurts worse than getting them. "You know perfectly well what I mean." She says unhappily.
We stare at each other, both knowing.
"If you truly wanted to get out of Losteigne I'd help. But I won't do it to get rid of competition for Lucian."
I know it has cost her much to say this. My heart goes out to her. "If I become Amethyst's slave, is it for life?"
There are tears in her eyes. She nods. "I asked Lucian that. He tells me it's true about that castle. She has women and girls there who have been captive for years and years. He says most of them seem very happy. But they are always chained. They can't escape."
"But what about Daddy?"
"You are of age. The choice is yours."
"He'd go straight to the police."
"Probably. But Lady Chatham is a match for any parent. She is the most powerful woman in England."
"I can't go willingly, not for life... " My voice sounds broken. I look up at her, scared. "Will Lucian send me willing or no?"
"For him there is so much at stake. He values her support. I think he needs it. She seems determined to have you. It puts him in a dilemma." She gives me her hurt dog look. "I really believe it offends his sense of what is right to sell you into slavery. Besides... " She says these last words fiercely, "The damn fool's in love with you!"
"I won't go then."
"But, don't you see, you may have to. Oh darling... "
"You really came here to tell me to be noble and be a good slave girl for Amethyst, didn't you?"
Gillian nods dejectedly. "Yes, Women are bitches. But that's about the size of it."
"So then you'd have Lucian all to yourself."
She gestured defeatedly. "I can't win this one. But yes. It would seem to be all to my advantage. But if we both forget ourselves and think only of Lucian, what's the best thing to do then."
"Appease Lady Chatham with a gift of me", I said bitterly.
"You are a bit of a problem, darling." Gillian absent mindedly unclipped one more metal ornament from my protesting skin. "You go so overboard. Last night at supper no one could doubt you wanted to be sold to your new girl friend. The two of you were making calf s eyes at each other like a pair of teenagers. Lucian was pleased and grateful for the job you were doing, but he was also hurt by your attitude."
"Alright, so I'm a mess."
"You're an immensely attractive young woman, and you know it. I can't compete with you in anything."
She sounds so down. I'm on the verge of saying 'Poor Gillian' again. Inspiration dawns. "Tell you what." I say, "Don't let's either of us do or say anything. Let our Lord and Master and my Lady Mistress do the worrying. I love you, Gillian."
And thus it was decided.
Before she left, my aunt absent mindedly replaced the clips. The two of my nipples hurt worse than before. But I didn't say a word.
Lunch is a delightful surprise. My esteem for Amethyst grows. She did not keep me spread all day with the little jaws. She has her own quaint sense of humour. I know I am looking quite something in the clothes she has given me. Even Lucian notices, and Gillian looks dowdy. Lady C. and I look ready for Ascot. Poor Thea is naked in the kitchen. She has done something to be punished for, so she is taking the absent Skilley's place. I am told Nancy has already whipped her twice. I begin to feel guilty all round at my own ebullience.
"I notice you haven't whipped the soles of her feet." Lady C. observes in about the same tone you'd remark on the wallpaper.
I cringe. My hors d'oeuvres lose appeal. What a subject for lunch!
"We try not to be cruel." Gillian drips acid. "Not aesthetic." Lucian says decisively. I keep quiet.
"It gets the most astonishing responses." Our visitor says informatively.
"On what occasions do you use it?" Lucian inquires politely.
"Special occasions. Can't do it too often. Little dears wouldn't be able to walk."
"You enjoy torturing your girls?" Gillian seems bent on suicide.
My Mistress puts down her knife and fork. She gives my aunt her full attention. "I'd enjoy torturing you, darling."
Gillian flushes. She nibbles daintily in silence. Lady C. swivels on to Lucian. "I want to amuse myself with Gillian this afternoon. Have I your permission?"
Trant and I watch thunderstruck.
Lucian is not easily rattled. He looks benignly on his angry guest. "No problem." He says easily. "Punish Fawn instead. That will hurt Gillian twice as much."
"Like hell it will, old boy." Lady C. says crushingly. "I want this snippy bitch naked, and I want her howling."
"I think that's my function." I interject timidly. "I scream beautifully when I'm naked."
My Mistress gives me a brief kind glance. "Don't worry, Cherie, you won't be neglected."
"I can offer you Thea." Lucian suggests offhandedly.
"I want your precious Gillian. It's time she had a trimming." Lady C. sounds ferocious. I surmise I have not heard all Gillian's indiscretions.
"Don't fret, darling." Gillian's hand is on Lucian's arm. Her voice is tender. She turns to Amethyst and continues in the same soft tones. "I will deliver myself into your hands at two. P.M. sharp. Will that be satisfactory?"
Lady C. nodded graciously. "Thank you, my dear. Yes, two will be most excellent. You will be released at five."
"You would like me naked, I expect?" Gillian asked pleasantly.
"Indeed, you are very thoughtful. Nudity is most suitable." Our visitor's eyes twinkled. "Especially the soles of your feet."
I could hear Trant's indrawn breath. Gillian managed a parody of a smile. Lucian had the detached look of a man in a far away place at some distant time. We all eat busily.
"Would you like the cane or the riding crop, my dear?" Lady C. inquired solicitously.
Gillian blushed scarlet. "Need we discuss the matter at lunch?" She asked hopelessly.
"What better time! It is after lunch your feet will be thrashed." Lady C. wanted her pound of flesh.
"Could I not receive a more... more, er, normal thrashing?" Gillian was working for Lucian as hard as she could. I wondered if he even knew.
"What's more normal than having the soles of your feet whipped?" Lady C. obviously felt she was belaboring the obvious.
"Very well, Lady Chatham. I prefer to leave the choice of, er, weapons to you. I am sure I shall scream well with either."
I had to hand it to my aunt. Lady C. was looking at her with a fresh respect. Lucian continued to treat the whole discussion as of feminine inconsequence. I could have kicked him.
"They usually use a cane for the bastinado." Amethyst was determined to milk the subject dry and spoil Gillian's appetite. "But I prefer the crop. More whippy. Moulds itself better to the contours of the foot, don't you agree?"
"I have not moved in circles where the bastinado was employed on the hostess, so I can't venture an opinion." Said Gillian running true to form.
Lady C. had the bit between her teeth. She was enjoying herself. "Oh dear, what a pity." She comes out with as though deploring burnt toast. "Perhaps in that case I might venture the suggestion that you cancel active participation in anything for this evening and tomorrow. Our little fun thing makes walking difficult." She sparkles at poor Gillian with deep affection. I almost feel jealous.
Gillian is out of her depth. I don't think we are quite sure how serious Lady C. is. The way she tells it the fun thing does sound a bit much. After all, Gillian does have a menage to superintend. There are servants. One of which, Trant, is enjoying every minute of the little drama. I can imagine Nancy and Thea getting a graphic report.
"I am willing to offer you an apology." Gillian in her best hostess voice.
"Instead of the whip!" Lady C. sounds shocked.
"I'm not really used to this sort of thing... " Gillian trails away awkwardly.
"My dear, we will give you every aid in what, I fear, you regard as your ordeal. Dear Fawn is exquisite under torture. She will be present as a bit of moral support."
Gillian shifted uneasily. No one was helping her at all. "We had hoped that Fawn's undoubted gifts would provide you with adequate diversion while at Losteigne." She offered in her best drawing Room British.
"Come, my dear, I intend to purchase Fawn. She does not enter into this situation between you and I."
Lucian had the remote look of a man deeply involved in the higher mathematics. Lady C. surveyed us all benignly. The way her eyes rested on me stoked up my little fire so that I actually shifted in my chair. I longed to help my aunt. But I had been neatly disposed of. Focusing her attention again on her hostess Lady C. came up with a real killer.
"Or was it your thought, Gillian, that you offer Fawn's feet for my attention in place of your own?"
My youthful aunt flamed scarlet. "No it was not!" She exclaimed emphatically. "Could we please drop this subject. I will attend you as required at two. P.M."
I had a feeling she'd scored a point. But what the H... ! She'd lost the other ninety-nine. And, anyway, Lady C. wasn't quite finished.
"Of course, Gillian. Forgive me. But there is the matter of suitable premises. My guest room is hardly equipped... "
"Fawn will escort you to an appropriate place. She is quite familiar with it. It is well appointed."
"Charming, really charming!" My Mistress exclaimed approvingly in a rich warm voice. "I'm really looking forward to this. You have no idea... "
No matter how I tried to dampen my little fire with pure thoughts, I didn't have much luck. All in all it was a damned odd lunch.
"Do you want me naked, too, Mistress?" I ask.
Amethyst is sitting before a mirror in the guest room brushing her hair. I am on the bed with one wrist handcuffed to the frame to let me know I belong to someone.
Lunch is done with. My mind is full of the Gillian affair and what part I may be called upon to play in it. I also think about poor Gillian's state of mind right now.
"Certainly not at the start, Cherie." There is laughter in Lady C's voice. "Our snippety miss will feel doubly naked if we are clothed."
"Are you really going to whip the soles of her feet?" I shiver as I ask.
"Of course, dear. Why not?"
"I wondered if she deserved it. She's under a bit of a strain." I offer diffidently.
"Does it matter?" Amethyst twinkled at me mischievously. "You don't deserve it. But I whip you."
I was about to say that I was a bit more inured. But I wasn't sure what Gillian's naked back might disclose. She might be as marked as me. But there is another thing on my mind.
"Are you really going to buy me, Mistress?" I ask breathlessly.
"Of course. I find you adorable."
I am pleased. But I am female. "Were you joking about that castle full of girls?"
Amethyst looks at me in the glass. I rattle my handcuff to show I know my place. She grins appreciatively. "It is not a joke, Cherie. I am not yet certain of your place in it. But you will find it a wonderland. You need never know the slamming of a dungeon door unless you desire." She turned and gave me her full attention. "Have you ever whipped a girl?"
"No."
"Wouldn't you like to?"
"Never thought about it. It's always me who gets it."
She laughed. "It's because you're too beautiful. But seriously, think about it." Her eyes sparkled. "Wouldn't you like to whip Thea?"
I was shocked by the sudden surging of my flame. Shocked by the sudden fierce desire. If anyone other than this woman or Lucian had asked the question I would have been repelled. But now I had a swift vision of Thea twisting and weeping while I whipped her nakedness. The surge of passion that rose within me at the thought overwhelmed me with guilty shame. But my Mistress had watched my face and read my mind.
"Gorgeous, isn't it?" She taunted.
I flushed and pulled at my fetter, not knowing what to say. I looked at her appealingly. She had so much power. Possessed by her I would enter a new world.
"I will arrange it for you."
So easy! She would give her order and in a little while a girl I loved would be tied in readiness for my whip.
"I can't." I said unhappily. "It's all so... " I looked at her beseechingly. "It's not long since Thea and I came to Losteigne. Until then a whip did not exist for us. I can't whip someone I love."
"There is no joy in whipping anyone else, Cherie." She looked at me searchingly, gauging my discovery. "We will cover her eyes so that she will not know who whips her."
It was like a physical hand wrenching at my sex. This unexpected evocation by Amethyst has become the most powerful compulsion of my nineteen years. It has gone beyond temptation. I want. If I was not handcuffed to the bed I would run to my Mistress and cling to her.
Divining my need she uses her little key and frees my wrist. I throw my arms about her and sob, seeking comfort from something of which I am afraid.
"You long to whip Thea, don't you?"
"Yes, oh yes!"
"And you did not know...?"
My tears are a deluge. I will do whatever she tells me. But she must tell me. I will not seek. "I do not know." I tell her with total sincerity. I cling to her in my desolate need of femininity. At this moment I am wholly female. The male does not exist. It is so good to feel her breasts and her lips. Her lips are so hungry for me... !
"It shall be arranged." Lady Chatham says matter-of-factly. "I am glad it is me who has made you a woman."
She laughs at my shamed confusion. "Come, little one. It is you who must guide me to our appointment."
It was my old dungeon, of course. She toured it with delight, knowing far more of it's accessories than I had learned in all the time it had prisoned me. I found myself wishing we were not involved with Gillian. I said no.
"But, darling, you miss the subtlety. "When we whip your poor Gillian it is the feet of a housewife we belabour. She is the petite-bourgeoisie for whom all we do to her will be fraught with implications that do not exist. For you and for me it would be painful and erotic. For her it will be a searching of the soul. I pity her the dilemma in which she lives. But I cannot forego her flesh. Savour it with me."
Gillian was very punctual and very determined. She arrived in a house coat which she instantly discarded to reveal her total nakedness. It was very total indeed.
Amethyst is right. With us soigne and expensively clad, Gillian looks doubly nude. She obviously feels it. She looks at Lady Chatham for guidance.
"A drink, darling?"
Gillian is caught off guard by kindness. "To dull the pain?" She asks without enthusiasm.
"Come, come, darling." Amethyst bubbles with bonhomie, "Just to approach this delightful adventure in a suitable spirit of joie de vivre. It will be quite remarkable for you, y'know."
"It will hurt me cruelly." Gillian says firmly. "Come on, let's get on with it. How do you want me?"
"Hands behind your back." Amethyst responds to Gillian's forthright approach. "I'm surprised Lucian's never bastinadoed you, darling."
Gillian does not answer, but offers herself to be bound in woman's most flattering pose.
"You are quite lovely, dear." Lady Chatham praises as she tugs her cords tight enough that I know they will hurt. Gillian winces but says nothing.
"You have to lay on your tummy for this one." Lady C. says briskly. She has laid a rug on the floor so that the woman to be punished can bend her knees with her legs against one end of the bench to which I had once been strapped. We watch as Gillian understandingly lowers herself and wriggles into position.
"You do this wonderfully, Gillian. One would think you did it often."
"I know how you have to fasten my feet for what's going to happen." Gillian says despondently. "No use me making a fuss."
Straps circle her ankles. Lady Chatham pulls them tight. Aunt Gillian's feet are ready for the rod. The soles point invitingly skyward. I am glad it is not me! I'm not sure I could put on a good show even if I loved whoever was doing it to me.
"Is it any use me asking for mercy or forgiveness?" Gillian tries. "I will accept any humiliation you impose."
Gillian begins to cry. She must feel the tears terribly demeaning. They fall upon the rug on which she lays. Her hands cannot deal with them. They are neatly crossed at the small of her back and cunningly tied. I have never lain as she now is. I can see how helpless a girl would be. It's a really truly bad spot.
"Please get on with it." Gillian sobs, "And get it over with."
"But, darling!" Lady Chatham expostulates. "We are going to whip those nice little feet all afternoon. Surely you can't be in a hurry for us to start?"
Gillian stiffens, head reared, body bowed. She cannot move her feet. "I can't possibly take that." she says in a small voice.
"But you have to, don't you, dear. Not much you can do about it now. I must say you look charming. It's always a pleasure to whip a good looking girl. I never bother with the others."
"Isn't there something sexual I can do to get out of this mess?"
"You're thinking of being nice to my clit, I expect. Sorry, Fawn's too good at it. You could never compete.
Gillian sobbed noisily. It was while she was thus engaged that the first blow fell. Amethyst had timed it perfectly for the unexpected. The limber crop bedded itself the full length of the upraised sole.
The things that Gillian did then were more than I could watch. I turned away and hid my face in my hands. It was as though her lovely body was electrified, shocked into great spasms of agony. Her scream was devastating. When, after a long while, I brought myself to look she was still writhing, tossing her head and moaning. Lady C. watched, totally absorbed. After what seemed a very long time Gillian looked up as best she could and declared: "I'm sorry. I did not know it would be this awful. I can't stand it. You can tell, can't you... it's too much! Please, I'll do anything."
Amethyst dealt the second blow before her victim had stopped pleading. This time I watched. I could so easily picture myself bound there on the floor. If my Mistress was as fond of this way of caning a girl as she seemed to be, I could almost certainly look forward to the time... ! I wouldn't behave a bit better either.
Lady Chatham put down her riding crop. "A little whip, a little conversation... The afternoon will soon pass. We'll even have Tea."
My aunt's head reared. "Don't let Trant see me like this, please."
"You see, you're getting adjusted already." Lady C. enthused. "We girls are an amazing lot. I never let the first screams put me off."
Gillian rested, panting. I could tell she was busy thinking of some way to extricate herself from an awfulness she had not comprehended. She allowed her head to slump. Her heavy breathing flattened her breasts against the rug. How helpless she must feel! I have known helplessness. I feel certain, too, that for her there is not even the smallest fire burning within her sex. I can scarcely imagine how awful it must be without the fire.
"Has Lucian told either of you anything at all?" The unexpected question catches both Gillian and I by surprise.
Lady C. laughs at our blank expressions. "I can understand you being a bit miffed over the whole thing. You must wonder what the devil's going on. If an apology is in order, I make it now."
"I own Losteigne. Or at least I did before Lucian came." Gillian says with a touch of spirit. Puzzled, she tries to raise her head.
"Since I'm going to give you both a good deal of pain, I'll at least be a good sport and set your mind at rest over one thing. You have not lost your Estate. We are only using it. The time of our accomplishment is close now. I don't want you to feel hopeless. Girls who feel hopeless don't take pain well. But remember this: you will benefit from what we are doing. All the good material will."
"Good material...?" Gillian is lost.
"When the day comes there will be no other kind." Lady C. says with a tremendous panache. She is looking at me and sparkling. "There is a loss you may have to explain away, darling: my adorable slave girl. I'm going to have her."
The crop makes it's swift arc. Gillian relapses into her world of pain. "Delightful, isn't she?" Amethyst asks me the question.
I realise I have not turned away. I watch the squirming tortured loveliness just as Amethyst watches. In pain Gillian becomes exquisite. She is sublimated. Am I thus when tortured!
"If you will let her go free I will take her place." I hear the words in my voice, yet they were not uttered by my own volition. My fire rages. I am lost in lust. I am looking at my Mistress with an infinite longing. She hungers for me. I can tell.
Amethyst examines me with amusement. All female emotion is grist to her will. She asks with curiosity: "What is it, Cherie, lust for her pain, or sorrow for her that she is not as we?"
"I do not know." I tell her frankly. Suddenly I am on my knees and clasping her silken thighs. I weep. I am absurd, a girl lost in a sea of femaleness in which she longs to drown. I should be naked. I am a slave. Clothes do not become me. I want to be whipped. But I cannot say so. I most vividly do not want to be whipped on the soles of my feet, yet I have asked...
The riding crop is in my hand. I am raised to my feet by loving hands. I am kissed, and lose myself in the turgidity of belonging. Amethyst guides me so that I straddle the naked female with bound hands and raised feet. She no longer has a name or an identity. She is all the femaleness for which I lust. Both she and I are perfectly positioned for our roles. Joyously I raise the crop and strike.
I have created beauty. I have made a wound the full span of the female foot strapped tight for my pleasure. Whilst the gorgeous flesh still writhes and the lips cry I let my arm and the whip lead me to a greater ecstasy on the other pathetic sole that offers itself for my love. So exciting are the motions and the screams of the woman between my feet that I would whip, and whip, forever. But Amethyst gently takes the crop from my trembling hands and leads me aside. We stand and allow Gillian to regale us with an infinite glory of anguish. Her feet are beautifully cut. I am proud and happy.
"Do you still want pain, my love?" Amethyst is holding me tight.
I shake my head. I am drunk with a new radiance of wonder.
"You asked to take her place." Amethyst is testing me. Her voice becomes firm: "Strip."
Even with the implications of her order I obey with joy. Clothes do not belong on me. I do not feel right with them. Clothed, I am not the Fawn of Losteigne. I owe Losteigne all my nakedness. When I am bare I raise my arms and invite my love to work her will upon me. My nipples betray me utterly.
"Gillian." My Mistress asks very seriously, "I have a naked girl who will take your place."
"I know the cruelty. If I was where Gillian is, what would I say! My anguished aunt turns an unbelieving eye to see that truly I am naked as is she: naked for her punishment. I smile to show that I am not being coerced. I will bear her pain.
It takes her a long time. Lady C. flexes the crop back and forth to aid her decision. Remembering pain I believe that, in her place, I would accept. She looks at her naked niece and says an emphatic no. I look questioningly at my Mistress, then dress. I am immensely grateful to Gillian. I do not want my feet whipped! The rest of me, yes. But please not my feet, oh not my feet! The crop sings it's paean of fulfillment and slashes across the waiting flesh. The right foot and then the left. They are strapped so beautifully tight they do not move, but all the rest of that of which they are a part flows into a paroxysm of female agony. Female, female, female! Amethyst and I are utterly absorbed, utterly content. Both our cunts are an agony of fire which know their promise of relief. We own all the beauty of the world.
"Would you like to whip Fawn?" Amethyst asks the panting naked girl.
"I would like to whip you." Gillian says it as though expressing a preference for dessert.
"Would it make you happy, darling?"
Gillian does not believe a word of it, but she raises herself enough to show a dubious hope.
"Fawn will bring us Tea. See: I absolve you from Trant. Then, if you can remain silent and contain your screams while I whip your feet twenty times, you can whip my nakedness to your heart's content. Is it a deal?"
I go and get the Tea trolley. I do not believe that either one of them can possibly live up to her contract. But I am not involved! The flesh that will be cut will not be mine! This is a strange sensation in which I revel. I am a lucky girl.
"You are a much better subject than I thought you would be." Amethyst assures the naked girl upon the rug as she manages to lift the cup to Gillian's eager lips. The cup is followed by a sandwich. We are at Tea.
"I'll try and keep silent." Gillian says doubtfully. "I don't think it possible. But I'll try."
"You must want to whip me very much?" Lady C's voice is pensive.
"You'll never let me." Gillian says with sad conviction.
"Oh yes I will, darling." Amethyst's voice positively drips honey. "Think of me, naked and firmly tied and you with the whip. Isn't it worth what you are going to try and do?"
"Why can't we call it a day and just whip me?" I ask plaintively.
No one replies. Each is intent with their own obsession. I sip my tea and munch. I feel lost in these clothes. I like the effect but not the feel. Dungeons frown on clothes, there is no need of them in this shadowed chamber. Dungeons and clothing are inimical. I can almost believe that without clothing there could be no obscenity.
Gillian is thinking hard. I would, too, in her place. She gains my admiration with a thought that is very practical, yet oddly pathetic. "Could I have something to bite on?"
Tea stops. She looks from one to the other of us with a kind of desperation. "I don't mean a sandwich. I mean a bit of wood or something. I've read about it somewhere... "
Lady C. wrinkles her brows. "Wouldn't that be cheating?"
Gillian does one of those small ineffectual struggles I know so well. "I think I'm trying the impossible." She says anxiously. "Am I asking all that much?"
"We could get the same effect by gagging you."
"Yes, but with the bit of wood I could spit out. If I open my mouth to scream it will fall out of it's own." She turns her head to the woman whose chattel she now is. "A little something for my morale, I suppose... Sorry to be a nuisance."
My Mistress looks in my direction. "Think you can find something, Cherie?"
I go and search. I try out the bits of wood I find, biting into them hard and thinking of the crop across my feet. I return with my choice. Gillian looks at me gratefully and opens her mouth for me to place it between her teeth. My fingers help her get it settled to where her jaws clench upon it, she is so helpless. She nods to show that she is ready. The face I turn to Amethyst must be a very mixed up picture of emotions. It is hard to believe what is taking place.
"I can easily defeat you, darling." Lady C. says with assurance. "If I just give you stroke after stroke you'll either faint or scream. So we'll stretch it out a bit. Fawn will look after your bit of wood for you in the inbetweens."
She straddles the tied girl upon the rug. The slash of the crop is a graceful fluidity. I watch the crimson wound spring to life upon the once white skin. I watch it four times. The fighting teeth retain the wood. Save for the strapped feet which cannot move, the rest of the punished body is in frantic revolt. The nostrils flare, saliva falls upon the rug. But there is no scream.
Obedient to Lady C's motion I bend and retrieve the plug. Gillian's teeth relinquish it gratefully. Her head slumps, her nakedness goes slack, panting, she rests. I wonder if these brief periods can enable her to win. I cannot believe it.
We try and talk. But there is an inhibition. Even Lady C. finds gaiety no match for the accusing feet that stay motionless and waiting. The dungeon and all three of us within is tense. The enormity of the pain in which we deal awes us. It is a presence. Quite soon I replace her only weapon in Gillian's mouth. This time it is I who must straddle the tortured figure and wield the crop. No words are spoken. Amethyst instructs me with a smile. I plunge into cruelty with a shameless zest as though I hunger for it. Perhaps I always have, but have not known it 'till now. Losteigne has worked it's will upon me: a most terrible will! I cut and bruise the feet of some one who I love. Gillian wins!
I cannot tell you how or why or anything else. She endures. Incredibly she endures the whole twenty. When she lets the wooden bit fall from her mouth at the end, she lays motionless, utterly weary, exhausted. But when we go to loose the straps she shakes her head and says: "No. Leave me a little while. I want to savour that it is done."
Amethyst and I meet each other's eyes across the supine loveliness with it's wounded feet. In desperation to fill a vacuum for which no one has planned we pour ourselves a cup of cold tea. Sipping it we stand like acolytes before a shrine. I can almost believe my companion feels reverence.
As the harsh panting upon the floor gives way to normal respirations we come to a fresh act in this impossible Play. Lady C. gives me a wry grin, points to that which she had chosen, then strips. Her body is as handsome as her face. She exudes vitality.
I perform the strange duty she has thrust upon me. Amethyst will not renege. She will deliver the pound of flesh that she has pledged. I tie her with arms high in the manner in which I have been so often flogged. I am expert. Absurdly, when we have need of words, we whisper as though not to disturb the woman still strapped by her ankles. She is not asleep. She is aware. But she remains silent. Now when I free her feet and untie her wrists she does not demur. Vicariously I enjoy the exquisite relief her every motion and sigh proclaim. My aunt is suddenly endowed with sensuousness.
Amethyst looks back across one of her raised arms. We both watch Gillian's return to a world without pain. It is almost exploratory in the tender manner in which she essays every move. Finally, upon her knees, she reaches back and gingerly lifts one foot. Without comment she looks and looks at her shocking wounds. Considering that the rest of her is untouched, the appalling condition of the two small areas that the crop had scored again and again emphasises the awfulness of what has been done to her. She manages a little smile for me. But does not spare a glance for the naked woman awaiting the whip. There is an emanation: Gillian has come through. Her star is ascendant.
We have watched the preliminaries. If Gillian is to leave the rug on which she was tortured she has but two choices, her knees or her feet. None of the three of us know what is possible. We hold our breath as she raises herself to sit upon the bench, from there to find the courage to test her feet. She does it tenderly and very cautiously. Not standing, but placing a little weight. Each time she winces and gasps. Without warning, she buries her face in her hands and weeps. It is the hopeless sobbing of one to whom the irreparable has happened. I go and sit beside her and place my arm about her shoulders.
Amethyst watches us. Upon her lips there is a smile. I could believe it a smile of affection for both of us. What Gillian has endured will earn regard from Lady C. I suspect she is now very willing to pay her forfeit, she will accept the whip with absolute surrender. She will pay tribute to the girl with whipped feet by a gift of her nakedness and her pain. She will do it with tremendous panache.
We are a silent lot. Things which might be said are too obvious to say. My companion on the bench lets me dry her tears with the little square of cambric that I have almost forgotten. With resolution she places her arm across my shoulders. "I'll try. I'll lean on you."
I take all her weight I can. But she falls back on the bench with a moan of desolation. I fear she will cry again, but she looks up at me reassuringly, she will try again.
It must be bad. I can tell by the weight she imposes. Her breathing is an incessant quiver. But she stands. I do not dissuade her. She has purpose. Perhaps against that purpose pain does not matter. Amethyst watches our approach with lambent eyes. She is dragging back against her bound wrists just as I do. She is on tip-toe. How classic is her pose! She is calm and at peace. She feels neither fear or suspense. To whip her is a tremendous privilege.
Each step exacts a terrible price in pain. Gillian pays it. I sense her steeling herself against infirmity or the sounds her lips would make. She is looking at her bound prize, the tied and naked tribute she had earned. Reaching our vantage point behind the while columnar back, I pick up the whip, the one I chose myself. The whip best suited to the flogging of a naked girl. The lash I have so often felt upon my flesh. She accepts it without comment. Carefully I disengage. Her face is drawn with pain. But she stands alone. Lady C. turns from trying to look back. She faces ahead, suddenly tense, waiting. I step away.
It is easy to know that what Gillian now does is not spontaneous, not from any sudden whim. This is the moment for which she has endured a special purgatory. Cautiously, without my help, she minces round the naked figure of the woman I have tied until she comes face to face with she who flogged her feet. Face to face with the aristocrat now bound and delivered for her delectation. Amethyst loses poise as Gillian is about to do she does not hurry. She sees the utter distaste in Lady C.'s face. She pauses and takes time, her eyes alight with a joy all her own. For the last time her tongue and lips generate all the saliva her mouth can hold. With unerring aim she spits it all in Lady Chatham's eye.
I will always remember that moment. I do not think that three women have ever been more attuned to each other than we were then. We have no need of words. Silences are more eloquent than our lips. Amethyst gasps and shakes her head in an effort to rid it of its gift of spittle, then lets it sink upon her chest as though in shame. She has no need to hang from the cords upon her wrists. She has not been whipped, she is not exhausted. But she allows her figure to droop as though seeking the fiery agony of the traction on her wrists for some penance of her own. As with all females who are tied like that she is very beautiful.
Gillian looks at me piteously. Her task is done. The agony of her wounded feet will be worse now that purpose is gone. I help her from the dungeon. My naked Mistress does not complain that I leave her tied and helpless. I have a feeling she wishes to be alone like that for a little while. But if she is angry and whips me, what does it matter! The strange silence still envelops us all.
Amethyst has the grace of humility. When I return she is smiling, a quiet reflective softness of the lips and of the eyes. She glows at me as I use my cambric again to remove the last of Gillian's wet epithet. She shakes her head amusedly when I reach up to free her. "Leave me tied for a little while." She orders in a gentle voice. "This is a moment that will never come again. Let us both enjoy it." She twinkles gaily. "What is it like to have me at your mercy?"
"I am still your slave girl." I have no wish to be aught else.
"Why not whip me while you have the chance? If I scream there is no one to hear, and I will try not to scream." She becomes deliberately provocatively female. She is teasing me... I think!
"A slave girl does not whip her Mistress." I say demurely.
"She does if she is told to."
Was there steel now in the lovely voice! I do not want to whip her. I want to love her. How unpredictable she is! But I love mischief too. I pick up Gillian's discarded whip. It is wicked and very beautiful. I let it run through my fingers feeling it's sensuous serpent suppleness. I let my eyes rise to lock with those of this woman who, while she is still tied, is utterly mine. "One hundred lashes?" I suggest innocently.
I could never best her. She considers me. We play a wicked game of bluff. Or is it bluff! I do not know. For a slave girl I am on very dangerous ground. I suspect that, whatever happens, it is I who will be whipped. She is probably testing me. It is a useful test. She is completely in my power. How much can she trust me! Perhaps she needs to know. Or perhaps the same fire burns in her loins that burns so fiercely now in mine. If I whip my glorious mistress it will become a raging furnace.
"Will you make them all very hard, Cherie?" She asks sweetly.
"With all my strength, darling mistress."
"You are a delightful slave girl, Fawn." She says pensively. "You arouse my lust as none other. To be whipped by you will utterly dissolve me." She laughs frankly and uninhibitedly into my eyes. "One hundred very hard lashes, dearest one."
I raise the whip to swing. How wonderful to hear her moan, to see her sweat, her body shining with the moisture of the pain I place upon it, her eyes seeking mine in supplication. But it is out of character. Our roles are not reversible. With others, yes. But not with her. She owns me. I am her slave! The crux of my dilemma is that I want to be her slave. It is the wanting that undoes me. Not daring to seek her face I untie her wrists. I sink to my knees before her and clasp her warm thighs. My tears wet her skin. I will be terribly punished, but I do not care. For her I am a slave... only a slave!
"You disobeyed me." Her fingers play through my hair.
"Yes, Mistress, punish me."
She laughs softly. "I love you too much."
"Whip me, mistress." My fire is flaming.
"Darling one: I will whip you when it pleases me, not when it pleases you. You want to be whipped, don't you?"
"Terribly, terribly, mistress!"
"You are an incorrigible child. Never fear, you will be whipped and you will scream. But now you are a palpitating concupiscence that I must deal with. I am a bit warm down there myself. Come, we go to bed... "
We walked upstairs hand in hand, just a couple of kids.
But, oh, her taste is infinitely sweet!
Gillian and my Mistress now love each other. It is the amalgam of the whip. I do not understand. But there it is. They respect each other immensely. I am far more considerate of my young aunt than I was. My adoration of Lady C. knows no bounds. I cannot get enough of her. I need to be well whipped to quench my fire a little. The more I feed on her the more it flames! I am so lucky.
Her nature is to be adamant and inflexible. She is gorgeously lax with me, tremendously indulgent. But this is because of our love and because our cunts are nectar to each other. We are insatiable. We are almost ashamed of our great need of each other. When I think of her moist fragrance I become a tigress on the prowl. We attack each other. Gillian and Lucian must think us shameless. We are!
We are saturated in eroticism. Amethyst is intrigued by the thought of a naked Thea delivered to my far from tender mercies. She does not forget, and there are none in Losteigne to say her nay. So it is not long before I am led to the dungeon by a mistress vibrant with excitation, and find there my naked Thea securely tied and waiting to be whipped. My poor darling is firmly blindfolded. She must be in an agony of apprehension.
Lady C. holds a finger to her lips to enjoin silence, a silence I am only too willing to maintain. Not for the world would I have Thea know who wields the whip. Her pain will be neither less or more because it is anonymous. My mistress seats herself comfortably upon the bench to watch.
I am glad she is there. If I was alone with Thea I would free her. Not because I do not want to whip her, but because of duty and love and all the other things... What a battleground are our emotions!
The whip is alive in my hand. Holding it I vibrate. The lovely feel of it feeds my flame. Poor Thea does not have a chance! She will be beautifully whipped! She is herself so beautiful! I study the tense nakedness. She knows we are around her. She can hear or she can sense our presence. The manner in which she is tied tells her she is to be whipped. Uneasily she curves her nudity and inclines her head to try and hear what she cannot see. She does not speak. She has no hope of mercy or reprieve. She is to be whipped and that's the end of it.
Nancy has done well by her. The marks are savage and angry. Now I will add to them. Poor darling Thea, peeling potatoes in that dingy kitchen while I lust with Amethyst. It is not fair. But what is fair! I run the whip through my fingers and know a munificence of happiness. She will never know, she will never know... ! I slice the air in a wide circle and crack the thong across the white and waiting back...
She is such a darling girl! She wants to be brave and to show she is not defeated. She starts to scream, but bites it off into gasps and whimperings. She tugs at her wrists, then stands erect and ready for the next blow.
I place it squarely across her bottom. There is enough of this whip that it will circle her hip and the tip will come to rest upon the furry mound that has often been my delight. This time she unashamedly screams and heaves frenziedly against her wrists. We naked girls do this, not to get free, but as the only expression of our pain and outrage our bonds allow. To tug at an implacably tied wrist is like the pleading of a child to a heedless parent. I think of her soft breasts, I love Thea's breasts, they are beautifully conical. But I want to whip them! I know it to be an aberrant fancy, but still the thought of them jouncing beneath the impact of my thong is more than I can bear. Thea will have to put up with it. Perhaps the sum of my joy is greater than the total of her pain! How easy and justifiable to rationalize! I sweep back the snaky length...
I stand and absorb my joy. Thea is generous in her gifts of writhings and moans. Her scream was superlative, all of it entered my cunt in a scorching flow of scalding ecstasy. Quietly I circle her and look closely at her breasts.
One of them is exquisitely marked. Her nipple escaped by only an inch. But the soft curve bears my brand. I am inordinately proud and happy. I long to bend and kiss what I have whipped. But she would know my lips. She must never know!
"Darling Fawn," She says throbbingly, "You do whip so beautifully. I'm glad it's you. I'm so tired of Nancy."
We cannot hide from those we love, or from those who love us. Love needs no eyes or lips or anything. It knows! Amethyst laughs delightedly at the denouement. She understands it. If she or I were to be blind yet whip the other we would know. I clasp my wounded Thea in my arms and kiss her again and again. But I do not untie her wrists, nor does she ask me to.
But now I am lost. I will not whip Thea now that she knows. I quench my urgent fire. Thea hates being whipped. There is nothing between she and Lady C. No bond of eroticism to assuage her pain. I have gone into realms she has not trod. I will not even try to take her there. I peer round her pinioned arm at Amethyst.
"How nice for you both." Lady C. enthuses. "Two dear girls together. Carry on, Cherie."
"I can't. Not now."
"Of course you can. She is safely tied. She can't get away."
I break away from my still blindfolded cousin and look at Amethyst with all the appeal I can muster. "Please, darling, don't make me. I just can't! It wouldn't be right."
"Don't be silly. You were loving it."
I remain silent and look devastated.
"If you don't, I'll tie you and whip you both. You'll get twice as many twice as hard."
That has to evoke the obvious response from our blind and naked victim.
"You are being silly, Fawn darling. I know you have to whip me. So get on with the job. I won't like it, but I won't mind."
This is a situation delightfully designed for Amethyst.
She is enjoying every moment of my dilemma and Thea's response. She will not relinquish so choice a morsel of entertainment. She taunts me gaily: "You see, Cherie, our sweet Thea will endure your whip with complete goodwill. She is a most understanding young woman. Enjoy yourself."
I make a fine dramatic gesture. I am playing games, but let me do it well. I find a couple of lengths of cord and hand them to my Mistress. I also give her the whip. I hold out my hands to be tied.
She accepts what I proffer, but laughs mockingly at my martyrdom. "With all your clothes on?" She lifts a quizzical eyebrow.
I have not yet got used to clothes. I have lived naked and ready for punishment so long that I forget. I strip determinedly. My eyes are locked with those of my Mistress as I discard each trifle. We are teasing. Or perhaps we are testing. But beneath the sparkle is the knowledge that a girl will be whipped. Perhaps two of us... Again I hold out my wrists and watch unhappily as Amethyst circles each separately with cord and knots them tight. I am ready to be suspended for my whipping. A whipping I can so easily evade... If it happens it will be terrible. I do not want it.
"Your noble cousin is now naked and partly tied." Lady C. tells Thea. "Do you want to have another try at giving her the joy of whipping you?"
The blindfolded figure twists helplessly in frustration. "Fawn?" She says liltingly so that I know she speaks only to me, "Do you truly love whipping me?"
Ridiculously I find myself twisting in my own confusion. But there is really only one answer I can give. "I've become a bitch." I tell her forthrightly, "I adore it."
She sways, pulling gently at her wrist cords. I can tell she is digesting what I have said. Her words, when they come, are slow and well considered. "I do understand this, y'know. You and I have been whipped a lot, and most of it was for someone's pure erotic pleasure. Nancy, down in the kitchen, enjoys whipping me. She doesn't really care about the potatoes or the onions I haven't done quite right. She loves to hear me squeal. If so many others love it why shouldn't you! I'm supposing I have got to be whipped regardless. Well, it won't hurt me any more if you do it... someone else might hurt me more. I don't think there is anything else either of us can do, there's not really any choice. Don't get yourself whipped as well. That's silly! It really is. I'd feel terrible listening to you scream, and I'd hurt just as bad anyway."
"A beautifully reasoned sentiment." Lady C. pronounces. "Really, Thea, I must applaud your logic."
I look down at the cords upon my wrists. They are there of my own choice. I look up at the amused contemplation of Lady C. She is immensely involved in my quandary. I finally say, without conviction and without courage: "I can't whip you, Thea. It's no good, I just can't."
Again I make my motions of surrender. But before I speak Amethyst is holding my head and kissing my mouth. I forget all else. Shocking, I know. But her lips erase everything. After a long time she holds me at arm's length and comes up with a Solomon's judgement. Her voice is very clear. It is not to be gainsayed.
"Thea, you cannot see. Fawn and I will whip you. There will be no pattern, no alternation. We will make it difficult for you to guess who. I venture the belief that after the first strokes you will be lost. Perhaps Fawn will not whip you at all. Perhaps I will not. You can make your guess. But you will not be sure. Nor in the end will it matter. You are going to be whipped, that is all that need fill your mind. Surely it is enough... It would be for me."
There are tears in my eyes, tears from overtaxed emotions and of love. Amethyst places the whip back in my hand. I do not protest or demur. Forgetting the cords upon my wrists I tread silently. My lovely prey does not even hear me approach. I swing the lash with savage joy. Again and again and again... ! I hunger, oh how I hunger... Thea screams exquisitely.
