It is a very beautiful Rolls Royce, sleek as Amethyst herself. I am sleek too. I preen before the guest room mirror before going to the car. "Don't you want to handcuff me or something?" I ask.
"In the car, Cherie. I will fix you then so that you are not tempted. But I can trust you that far, can't I?"
"Can you ever trust a slave girl?" I ask demurely. "After all, I have only just been sold."
I am tremendously excited. I am being taken from Losteigne. For a little while from the car window I will see the world. What awaits me at the end of the journey I do not know. Amethyst likes her surprises. I follow her down and settle myself happily in the expensive scents and perfumes of the front seat. It is a rich feeling. For a few moments I have the illusion of freedom.
"The other way is to gag you and tie you hand and foot and toss you in the boot. Or else knock you out with a drug, Cherie," Amethyst smiles at me tenderly. "But my number one slave girl rates better than that. I want you with me. Incidentally it does not matter what you learn from this ride. You know who I am anyway. The thing to remember is that you will never escape." She surveys me with deep serious eyes, "Does that frighten you, darling? You can never escape. I will make quite certain you never escape: never, never, never... "
I kiss my mistress. I do not care about escapes.
The Rolls is delightfully equipped. I wonder if the unusual appointments are for my benefit alone, or have there been others!
"A nice belt for your little tummy," my Mistress says as she causes it to pull tight. I cannot see how this is done. Under her amused attention I strive to get free of it. I cannot. There is nothing to work on. It holds me tight and secure to the seat.
"And one little ankle, darling."
She pulls one willing foot back against the seat. There are some lovely clicks as a ring of steel bites my ankle above the band of silver metal I still wear.
"And one little wrist, the right one, please darling."
I am not to be very free after all! I do not mind. I want no chance of escape lest I be tempted. I cannot tell the effect on me of being close to people, of traversing highways and streets. I am only human. Nostalgia might impel... There is always my duty to Thea... I am almost pleased to have my right wrist handcuffed down at my side. Its chain, too, is hidden where I cannot find it. I will have no use from that hand. It will rest down there well hidden from sight. I am suddenly a well secured little slave girl. I will go nowhere my Mistress does not want me to go. I struggle to test the freedom I do not have. I move very little. I turn. My Mistress and I smile at each other with our own wisdom. We are both very happy.
It is a delightful experience to purr smoothly through my Park of memories. Yet there is the chill of fear. I remember The Cloisters. The gravel drive will pass within sight. I strain to see, and sure enough it is there just as I remember it. I take a sideways glance at my companion, but her own eyes are busy among the trees. Suddenly I see why.
They are scattered here and there in their usual loose grouping. The grave silver men standing bidding us farewell. Their hands are raised in a Hitler salute. Their immobility makes me think of the stone men of Easter Island. They know what they see. But no one else does. Amethyst Lady Chatham acknowledges their attention. The car slows to a crawl. She inclines her head, her hand too is raised. It is a brief interlude before the car gathers speed.
In silence I watch her face. For a few moments she is far away from me. Then she turns. Her smile tells of gladness that I am there.
"There is no questions and no answers, little one," she says somberly. "What you saw will never touch you. I will make sure of it."
Never touch me! How strange a thought! But I want none of it. Today is mine.
There are a thousand thrills, a hundred erotic conjectures. Each time a face turns towards us from the street or from a passing car I glow with a mischievous wish that they could see my bonds. What a montage of expressions there would be: Shock: Horror, incredulity: Curiosity. How many would wish to free me! How many would envy my Mistress her girl in chains!
"Did you truly buy me from Lucian?" I have been longing to know.
"Of course, darling. You are mine by virtue of services rendered," she winked in complicity. "Each of us believe we got the best of the bargain."
"Will you chain me in a dungeon?"
"A more pertinent question, Cherie, is do you want to be chained in a dungeon?"
"If it was you who chained me, and if you came and whipped me twice a day, and if you chained me to your bed each night."
"So many 'If's' little slave."
I am still learning. Being a slave is new to me. It is like nothing I have known or even dreamed of. To be owned! To be always subject to another. To be whipped and punished when I err! It is wonderful. It is glorious! My fire burns bright within my cunt. It is a steady flame.
Amethyst is still part mystery. I expect she always will be. But already I know myself privileged. We are lovers as well as Mistress and slave. I can take some liberties. I am not sure how many. I suppose I can take comfort in the knowledge that if I keep prodding the whip will always draw the line and tell me where my slavery begins.
"Darling," I say hesitantly, "Am I bad? You have made me a slave and I revel in it. I can't get enough of you or your chains or your whip. What is wrong with me?"
She laughs delightedly. I feel like a small girl. "It is not you who are odd, Cherie. It is all the rest. To be a happy slave is to own the Earth. You have come by a great wisdom at Losteigne."
"Will you give me girls to whip?"
"Of course, little one. Be very cruel to them."
"Will they love it?"
Again I evoke amusement. "Some do. But only some." She vouchsafes me a sideways grin. "I will whip you wickedly, far more than I have. You may wish yourself back at Losteigne."
I probe a bit further. "Dear Mistress, I am in a sort of dither of lust. If I was not chained and strapped as I am I think my hands would be busy with you. Would you like that?"
"You need a good thrashing, Fawn darling. I've been too loving."
I am sure she is right. I must be thrashed regularly or I will be impossible, even to myself. I go back to savouring my bonds. They are tremendously effective. I can't do much at all. I do my tugs and pulls. Amethyst smiles quietly.
"What would you do if I screamed and waved at everyone who comes close?"
My Mistress shrugs. "Just what I told you. You can't stop me tying and gagging you. I'd put you in the boot. I can easily drive down a quiet lane for the job. What's more I'd tie your feet to your hands in back. You wouldn't enjoy it a bit."
I spend a lustful minute thinking of myself bound and gagged like a movie queen. I am tempted to provoke Amethyst into doing it. I could! But she is too sweet to me, and anyway I am well confined. I pull at my handcuff. It holds. I look at the people who come close. I smile at them. If only they knew! How adorable it all is!
It is a real castle. I have seen pictures. It is even more grim in reality. I am sure the Baron who built it in ancient days must have had whole bevies of chained maidens. I am freed from the car. But I am handcuffed. We both know I will not run. It is simply a reminder. I lift my linked wrists and admire the effect. Every girl should be handcuffed part of each day. It would do wonders for us.
A girl attends us. She eyes me with tremendous curiosity and some patronage. I am chagrined when I am given to her. My Mistress departs. I am left standing with chained hands. I look at my companion. Our curiosity is equal.
"I'm so glad you came," she says sincerely. "I've been wanting a girl to whip all day."
I profess unconcern. "I thought this place was full of them?"
"Oh, it is! But they are mostly pretty well marked. Mustn't overdo it, y'know."
I cannot be sure of her. But I play the game. "Are you going to whip me right away?"
"Might give you tea first," she considers judicially. "Be nice to talk awhile before I make you scream. Screaming's much nicer when you know each other."
I am intrigued. Her nonchalance is exciting. This is a place of females. I sense it. I perk into mischief. "I hope you have a torture chamber?"
Her quick glance is sharp but understanding. "You prefer your pain that way?"
"Oh no!" I hasten to correct. "I am strictly for the whip."
"How about the cane?"
"Oh, of course, the cane!"
"Good! I thought I'd cane you first. Makes a nice introduction. You know: taking down your pants and having you bend over." She looked at me helpfully. "Or do you prefer being strapped down? I sometimes think it's best."
I like her. My first jealousy is over. In a castle full of girls I can scarcely expect to be the focus of attention.
"Are you a sort of wardress?" I ask shyly. .
"Good Heavens, no! Just happens to be my day. We take turns at being prefect. Tomorrow I'll be whipped right beside you."
I get right down to the nitty gritty. "How about escape?" I inquire languidly.
The answer is mocking laughter. "You must be joking. With all these walls and doors... And anyway mostly we are chained. In the end there is always this." She sticks out a leg innocent of nylon. Round her ankle is the silver metal band. "Nothing can get this off. Just try and escape with it on!"
I look, and see the answer in her stricken eyes. Amethyst has not told me. But the things on my ankles are still potent. Once again fear creeps into the atmosphere. The silver men will not be forgotten.
I probe again. "Which do you like best?" I ask conversationally, "Whipping or being whipped?"
"Oh whipping! I'm going to enjoy you. I sense you. I may even whip your cunt. You'd like that."
I am making great progress. I become intoxicated with success. "Are you all lesbians?"
She laughs as at an old, old pleasantry. "If we aren't when we come, we soon join the Guild." She grins in comradely fashion. "When a girl whips your cunt it becomes so easy to accept membership." She loses herself pensively for moments, then grins at me again. "That's the way it was with me. Wasn't it with you?"
"I'll eat yours," I offer.
"Of course you will, darling. When I cane you, you'll do anything."
How delightful she is! I follow her to Tea.
Her name is Trudy. I am not compelled to call her Mistress. Tomorrow we will be equal. Another girl will be prefect. My turn will come. Prefects can whip to their heart's desire. Their first act is to even scores. I can imagine myself whipping deliriously with erotic joy.
We linger over Tea. I am longing to be caned. Trudy is looking forward to caning me. How delightful it is! Tea is an aperitif. We discuss the woman who owns us. There is no pretense that we are anything but slaves. "Her cunt is gorgeous, isn't it!" Trudy says dreamily.
I am jealous. But this is not the time. I will not provoke this lovely creature who owns me for a day. "So is mine," I say brazenly. "Why don't you use it instead of caning me?"
"Come along, slave girl," Trudy orders happily. "I'm going to do both."
It is always the same. Confronted with our desire we renege. Suddenly the last thing I wanted was that cane. I followed in trepidation. But my fire flamed. I longed for the distant day when I would cane this vivid girl.
"Let's shame you all I can, darling," she enthused when we were in her room. "This always gave me hot pants when I got it. Get centre and bend down. Touch your toes or better." Naked it would have been natural. Clothed I felt a fool. I bent.
"I like this bit where I pull your panties down to your knees or your ankles, darling. I expect you read those books. The girl's cunt was always wet like yours is now."
Here was a girl who was past Mistress. I endured the tugging down of my briefs. It was cringingly shaming. I was sure the world was eying my rectum.
"This is the bit I always enjoyed," Trudy continued. "I tuck back out of sight the pubic hair that shows up at the back. It has to be wet, of course, but yours is. It's a positively cunt exploding thing to do."
I felt her deft fingers pushing my hair back to my quim. I knew I was scarlet. What did it matter! She was a girl. But she was right. The shame was so intense I longed to curl up. The clothes covering the rest of me made my bare taut bottom utterly obscene. It screamed of every four letter word in the book. My cunt was so inflamed I thought of asking Trudy to cane it first. But, after all, I was a new girl and it was my first day. I touched my toes and looked back to see what was going on.
It was a magnificent cane. But that was to be expected. I knew now that I would make a fuss.
It felt so good to scream! A tremendous release. Her cut across my flesh justified the noise, besides I scream very charmingly. I have that on the best authority. Trudy must have thought so too. Her second followed without a pause. While I was still curling up with the agony she, thoughtfully, ran a finger along the weals she had put on me. Her touch was electric, a caress and a torture. I squirmed. I was determined to stay bent. If I was naked I might roll on the floor. But I cringe from standing now and clutching my bottom, my pants down round my ankles. Trudy knew how to get to me, perhaps to any girl. But I might have known Amethyst would have only the best.
But Trudy makes me stand. I have no thought to disobey. She kneads my sex under my skirt and laughs at the result. I blush. "I'm going to hurt you terribly," she assures me. "I'll cane the lust out of you. It's not that I disapprove of good old lust, but it's an objective. When I have hurt you enough so that you think only of the pain and not of that nice little fire between your legs, then we'll both know I've done a good job. You'll be in a proper state of mind, too. That's important."
"You mean I'll feel like a slave?" I ask timidly. I really hurt!
"Well, you are one, y'know. I'm one too. But it mustn't stop us being people. The whip just stops us being uppity. You know: too big for our britches. You can bend over again, pet, if you like."
I don't like, but I bend over. Trudy lifts up my short skirt and folds it back. She playfully pats one .of my bottom cheeks. I feel about nine years old. She slashes the cane into me in a quick succession of blows that put my fire out entirely. I lose count. But about the seventh or eighth I relapse on the floor and put on a really shame making performance. My noises shock even me.
"I'm sorry," I say, raising myself up on my hands.
I look up pitifully. All my bounce is gone. Is it only Amethyst who can sustain me in agony! How quickly pain has reduced me. I am a pathetic female with wounds that flame. Trudy is nice, but she is a torture mistress. She knows too much. I think of the injunction that 'Pride cometh before a fall'. Losteigne seems very far and very dear. I reach round and rub my bottom. I don't care if I am a picture of a naughty little girl.
"Don't be sorry, pet. Just part of the welcome. You can take your clothes off now."
I do not have to ask the question. She sees it in my stricken look, and laughs.
"Had enough already?"
To cringe from nudity. Why! I am so damn tender where I have been caned. I must take hold of myself. I wanted to come to Amethyst's Castle. Am I to be defeated by a few cane stripes across my bottom! I stand out and hold out my handcuffed wrists. A girl cannot strip when she is handcuffed. Trudy goes "Tch, tch!", produces a key and holds the shining metal while I return to nature. When I am bare as a billiard ball she locks them back on. Either I am not to be trusted, or I require a reminder. I don't mind. Handcuffs in front are almost fun.
"I'd love to whip your cunt."
The way Trudy says this I am unsure whether it is a request or a declaration. So I ask: "Are you going to?"
"May I?"
She is playing with me! Or is she! I don't know. "You can do anything you like with me," I point out as though she did not know.
She twinkles, and once more I like her even if she hurts. "Of course I can, darling. You are really quite cunt warming the way you obey: the sweet way you let me put those handcuffs back on. You never even thought of telling me where to put them, did you?"
I hadn't thought of it like that. "Why do you want to whip my cunt?" I ask trying to find my way in the maze.
"To make mine twitch, of course, silly. Haven't you tried it?"
"Want to?"
It is all absurd. But I eagerly say yes. In my new slavery I must never be ungrateful. Besides, I am intrigued.
She strips in a flash. I guess that with her, too, naked is best. She is lovely. The thing she has invited me to whip is sweet and beautifully furry. My fire is kindled. I would do more than whip it. She fumbles in her clothes and produces my key. This time my handcuffs are set aside. I am free to run or fight. She reads my mind. "Aren't you going to?" she taunts.
"I would sooner whip your cunt," I assure her gaily. My fire is nicely under way and I am tremendously curious.
"You'll get it too, y'know, afterwards."
I am almost glad. We are girls dealing in girl's things. The scent of female is strong about us. There is a female world men never know. We are in it. Trudy has an infinite variety. We hunger for each other and my fear is gone. I inhale deeply the scent of my fellow slave, or is it mine! We blend.
"Two strokes," she promises. "No more. I won't be bound."
It is a hallowed gift. I am suddenly humbled. From a writhing nothing on the floor I have been exalted to a kingdom. I accept the whip Trudy places in my hand. Our eyes meet. Suddenly she is in my arms and I am clutched by hungry hands. The melding of our bodies is so very good. I needed it. Whatever happens between us now we have found our solace and will find it always. We have a mating of the mind. Soon we will have a welding of the flesh.
Trudy laughs gaily as though I am a 'fraidy cat. She leans over backwards in a graceful arc. She must have trained for Ballet! She becomes a half circle, backwards her hands and feet support her, but her torso is curved tautly upwards so that all that is female is provocatively displayed. Little by little she inches her feet apart until her sex screams aloud for my attention. Her vulva is demanding. In that moment there is nothing in the room but me, the whip and those two pouting pleading lips in their bush of shining hair. I am transmogrified. I slash the whip in a plethora of fulfillment. It is a homecoming.
It is so gorgeous, so wonderful! So female! This is the centre of the Earth and I possess it! The fine thongs that are Trudy's gift to me flicker in the air and sweep down to claim their prey. They splat beautifully and bury themselves gratefully within their warm wet welcome. I am sure one thong has entered her. The lovely scarlet acknowledgements of agony spring up upon her belly where the tips spend themselves under the impetus of my hand. For those moments when the thongs bite Trudy's sex I own a girl, and because I own a girl I own the world! Our slavery becomes understandable with a great clarity.
Trudy does not move. It is incredible! She is an ivory statue graven there by the hand of a master. The master is the whip. But there must be more than that! What she is doing is beyond the strength of a girl. It is heroic. It is of the stuff of martyrs and saints. Her cunt stares at me. In it is all the mystery of the world, all the dreams and wonder of mankind. A million men, nay, a hundred million men would give their all to stand as I stand now. I inherit all their longings, Trudy's moist wounded vulva stares up at me. It shares my knowledge. I could swear it winks in an obscene laughter at all we possess. I swing back my whip in a determination that this beneficence be not lost.
She was right! My cunt leaps and throbs. It is alive with fire. It has beheld the ultimate beauty and has heard the wet kiss of the whip in its final tribute to a woman's need. I have placed the thongs where I wish myself to be: the Valhalla of all men's wish! Trudy's cunt beckons me.
She has not moved. Flinched, yes! Her features and her lips reach out to me with their communication of agony and of ecstasy. But her thighs are stretched and welcoming. I sink between them seeking with my lips that which she so beseechingly longs to give. She slumps to the floor moaning. I feast.
Once more Trudy locks the handcuffs on my wrists. It is a holy rite. Our eyes laugh in tribute to its significance. My joy has been fulfilled. Now I give myself. The steel upon my wrists is a wedding band, a pledge. Unexpectedly I am blindfolded. Trudy is thrilled at something she will do. Her excitement reaches out and encompasses me too. I am led to the next act of our Play by my chained hands. I allow myself to be led. I am tumescent.
"I arranged a welcoming committee for you, pet." The voice of she who leads me has elements of a giggle, but it is hushed so that I am more than ever quivering. "We've kept the poor dears waiting."
I am enjoined to silence. When the pattering of my bare feet is ended I am carefully positioned by firm hands. I stand, blind, fearful and expectant. My cuffed hands have been dropped. They hang limp. For all I know a hundred eyes are watching me, enjoying my trembling.
"Voila!" Trudy has a showman's instinct. My blindfold is whisked away.
What I behold fails to register. It cannot be true. I shake my head and pull against my handcuffs. Trudy laughs delightedly.
There are four benches. Upon her back, on each, is strapped a naked girl. Two Caucasian, one Oriental, one dark. I can tell no more for their faces are masked. They have sensed our entry. I can see them tense. But they cannot move. My welcoming committee will not tire of waiting and leave. They are as firmly secured as I once was.
But this is the bare backbone of the picture before my eyes. What I stare at is not four bound girls naked on their narrow bench. It is scarcely I who stare at all. I am confronted by the uncompromising gaze of four diversely haired cunts. So expertly have they been raised into prominence that they seem to regard me assessingly. One has been shaved. Is it my fancy, or did it give me a small sly wink! I gasp and turn to Trudy, she is grinning with a keen enjoyment of my shock.
It is beautifully done. I see, now, that each of these female figures offered for my delectation is gagged. But it is the manner in which they are strapped that imparts significance. Each round bottom rests upon a pad, beyond it is nothing. The lovely legs would flail the air if each foot had not been dragged back on each side of the bench, raised and bent-harshly at the knee and the ankles strapped tight. Thus the thighs are opened wide in yawning invitation and the centre of each girl's being is laid utterly bare. So tautly bowed are these four maidens that I know they must be far from comfortable. We are greeted by small movements of their heads, that is all.
I look to my lovely companion for guidance. She holds the whip but does not offer it. Instead, her lips are curved in pixie joy. She nods encouragingly so that I am left in no doubt as to my duty. My welcoming committee must be rewarded. I have been given the key to four Citadels, but it is I who must turn them in their locks.
My poor tongue! Oh, let me be no hypocrite! I am gloriously intrigued, Trudy will have no need to whip me to my task. But my mouth has already been much employed. It will tire before I am done. Perhaps then I will be whipped to give it strength! Again the female perfume is heady in the room.
From left to right! Well, why not. I sink to my knees before the first offering, the shaven one. I can understand why it has been denuded, her mound and lips are beautifully formed: a curved slit, pleading... I look at my handcuffs. I can do so much better without them. I turn and raise my hands. My youthful Mistress shakes her head. I shake my joining link and plead humorously with my eyes. This time she responds. She turns the key in one cuff, pulls my hands behind me and locks them there. I have been taught a lesson. When I grin at her wryly now there is perfect understanding. I am a slave.
I look hungrily at the moist labia so very close. It would have been nice to have hands. It will be less easy now. But her lips and her tongue are all a girl really needs to love. I send mine to their labour with a tremendous excitation. Dear little Fawn has entered another world.
I am highly skilled. I get an instant reaction. My prey cannot move, but within her bonds she surges and thrusts, small sounds escape her gag. The least I can do to repay her for her strained vigil is to give her joy. I bury myself within her and work hard.
But, oh, I wish I had my hands! They do help a girl in this most lovesome task. The small fingers can part the lips, they can stray in agonizing tracings upon the skin! They can sustain the working girl in her kneeling posture so that she does not tire. I am denied all of these. Instinctively, therefore, I am constantly tugging and twisting at the steel circles that keep my hands behind my back. Each time my lips and my tongue strain to perfection, my hands seek liberty. I am sure Trudy is enjoying their impotence. It makes my strivings so much more amusing to watch.
What must this girl think! Or has she been told! I suppose that if she has been a slave for long she is accustomed to sudden demands and impositions. To be bound as she is bound will not be new. Is she curious whose lips possess her. Probably she is simply grateful for pleasure. A slave girl's horizon is limited in everything but pain. Beautiful pain... I think of Lucian. My pain gave him such exquisite joy. Why did he sell me! Why did he never use my sex! Why? Why? Why? Losteigne remains a nostalgic question mark. Will darling Lucian now whip Gillian or Thea with that same studious attention with which he whipped me!
A streak of scalding fire across my bent back recalls me to my task. My daydream had brought my lips to a halt. Trudy will brook no negligence. I press my face into the soft warm flesh, my tongue laps slowly in its searching for that most rewarding bud. But my pain does not extinguish Lucian from my mind. Why did he sell me!
Is Amethyst better for me than Lucian, actually she is for she will do that for me which he would not: give herself. We lose ourselves utterly within each other. We complement each other's curves. When she is done with me I am replete with all the wounds of love. Perhaps Trudy, too, may have this gift. I am in a house of women. My lips plow the warm furrow avidly. I do not want another stroke across my back. The whip hurts terribly across a girl's bent back. Try it sometime!
My subject explodes. I carry her to that last familiar sigh and sit back on my haunches. I barely repress a scream as the whip cuts me and curls upon my flank. I look back in puzzlement: what have I done wrong! I strain against the handcuff link.
I must return to my work. Trudy's amused admonitory shake of the head tells me clearly to get back on the job. I have given pleasure, now I must punish. A girl needs a pause after orgasm. It can be torture to continue. For this girl whose vulva stares me in the face it is going to be torture. It is decreed. Hurting but mischievous I send my tongue upon its task. I will see what agonized response I can evoke. I am a bitch, aren't I! But aren't we all... girls, I mean.
My knowing skill gets instant results. The girl cannot move, but flesh and sinew, muscle and tendon all rebel as best they can against this superabundance of sensation. I know what is taking place within her cunt. She is curling up and screaming. The need to close her thighs will be adamantly compulsive. But she cannot move. Poor girl! Lucky, lucky, lucky, girl... I give her my best attention. I keep on giving it until she explodes again.
I am allowed to go to number two. I am going to be terribly tired before I finish number four. But Trudy and her whip will keep me from falling by the wayside. How can a world possibly function without whips! I exchange amused grins with she who controls me. I return to work.
I can almost believe Orientals are different, or maybe it is the hair. This one has a lovely mat that tickles my nose and gets in my mouth. I wet it down first with my tongue so that I can better keep it in its place and effect a neater parting to each side of the sweet little slit that, I suspect, no man has ever used. She smells nice and is very soft. She also fights quite savagely to move. I have instantly excited an unsuspected voluptuousness. This little girl is a corked volcano. I make her erupt again and again. I wish that I could see her face.
"My, we are busy, aren't we!"
It is Amethyst. It is the woman to whom I am slave. She purchased me with money. I wear her chains. I will always wear her shackles and feel her cords. I look back in a great gladness. There is a Tightness about my condition when she is near. Truly I belong.
I am not admonished by the whip. Trudy steps back. An invisible authority has changed hands. My Mistress takes in the scene with amused approval. She wipes gently from my lips whatever evidence of their employment they may show. I probably looked a bit like the proverbial kitten...
"Hands behind your back, Cherie?" She is curious. She, too, knows how much better it is with hands.
"She asked for her handcuffs to be taken from her. She is punished." Trudy's voice is not defensive. She tells it as it is.
"I do not have to have my hands," I say modestly.
Amethyst surveys the whole scene with approval. She twinkles benignly at her junior. "A marvellous introduction, darling. I knew I could rely on you."
She walks up and down the line, plays with my hair, places a curious hand upon the shaven cunt to test its heat. She smiles charmingly at Trudy whose masterpiece it is. "Perfect, perfect! But, now that I am here, perhaps one last exquisite addition...?" Her eyebrow raises in the question mark I know so well.
Trudy is fully attuned. It is miraculous how little need we females have of words. I see her slight start of dismay, but she instantly corrects it with a pleased smile. She may not be pleased at all, but her smile proclaims pleasure. She knows what to do, and goes about her task in a workman-like way. She heaves one more bench into the line. She strips naked and disposes herself on the hard wood, taking much care to place her bottom to ensure the maximum desired effect.
"Delightful child, isn't she?" asks Lady C. of no one in particular.
She is indeed a delightful creature. I watch entranced as my Mistress straps her tight. Trudy lays passive and without demur as she is made helpless. When her thighs are opened and stretched apart and her ankles strapped she turns her shining eyes to me and grins commiseratively. We are now in our natural condition: equal.
"You look sweet as you are, Cherie." Amethyst will not counter her prefect's decision about my hands. They stay behind my back. "You may return to your feast, darling. I will watch while you eat." She picked up the whip and played with it. Intrigued, and grateful for the respite, I turn my attentions upon number three.
This is the dark one. I sense her readiness. She will extract, gratefully, whatever I can give. I make her happy, I know I do. I suck away at her happily and dream about myself and what it will be like to be Amethyst's slave. Will I, too, one day be strapped like this to provide some new girl with an introduction...
Lady Chatham does not prolong my stay with three and four. Each gets her wild explosion that makes me proud, but there is no post orgasmic punishment. They relapse in their sweat and I progress to number five.
Trudy had not been blindfolded or gagged. She has the privilege of watching my approach. From her manner I realize that silence is expected of her. I am filled with mischief, even if I have to use my teeth I will draw sounds from those pouting lips that match in loveliness the hairy one's beneath which I am about to find ambrosia.
But I do not need my teeth. Perhaps because she is not gagged, Trudy is the most excitingly sensitive of them all. She gasps and moans from the first moment of my entry. It is a wonder the straps prevail against her agonized thrusts. I had eaten of her but a short time past and had not elicited from her sounds like these. But I recall the potency of bonds. To be tied is to enhance. To be bound immovably doubles the demand on nerve and sinew. Fear is a demanding stimulant. It adds its own piquancy. I find the treasured bud and massage it cruelly with my tongue. Her eruption puts Vesuvius to shame.
I am not done! I had half expected this. Lady. C. will not overlook so obvious a refinement. The whip flicks lightly across my back to tell me the time of abatement is not yet. I share a half glance and a wink with her but dare no more. Vigorously I return to feast and feast at a banquet which, for a little while, will no longer welcome me.
Trudy does not bother to hide her distress. She even breaks silence with an agonized, "Oh no!" and is rewarded with a snapping lash across one breast. It cures her of words but not of sounds. She squeals delightfully again and again, then relapses into moans as the awful knots of a super intensity of feeling unravel themselves and free her back into pleasure. Our mistress makes me complete this cycle many times until both my victim and myself are exhausted. That is what slave girls are for: the recreation of their mistress... or her master!
I had a master once, but he sold me.
I remain handcuffed. I suppose it is neat and I look nice. Amethyst again carefully wipes my lips then kisses me. With a few deft tugs she frees number five. Trudy sits up and shakes her head bemusedly. Her cheerful grin returns. "Thanks very much." She says to both of us. And then, with great feeling: "Wow!" The other girls remain bound to their benches. I would love to know their thoughts.
"The three of us to dinner this evening," Amethyst announces. She looks meaningly at Trudy. "Make sure of it." She kisses me again and is gone.
"Holy cow!" my companion exclaims, "I'm too bushed to stand! Do you realize, pet, you have a great gift! An hour or two with you and any girl's had it." She grins at me confidingly. "I think it's time you met the class. These poor kids have been shoving their cunts up in the air a long time. They'll probably murder me tomorrow. They daren't today because I'm the prefect."
I watch with tremendous curiosity while she frees buckles. It is a strange sensation as the mute motionless figures rise from their hard resting place and, themselves, remove their masks and unbuckle their gags. They exclaim unhappily about their discomfort which is past and massage themselves and each other. They are all exquisitely lovely. Only the best for Amethyst!
But it is only a very short time before all four pairs of eyes are focused on me. They are peculiarly enigmatic. I am introduced. I forget the names as soon as I hear them, I am so embarrassed. I cannot shake hands. It is not a time for kissing. My handcuffs do not help me. I feel awkward and am thankful for Trudy.
"It was her, wasn't it?" demanded the shaven one.
"Well, it wasn't me," Trudy declared sarcastically.
Number one turns to two, three, and four. "What do you say kids?"
Her question is rhetorical. They pounce upon me as one. I am held while the key is found. Trudy shrugs helplessly at me, but winks so that I may understand I am not about to be murdered. A few moments later I am strapped exactly as they had been. I am sure it is tighter. I cannot even twitch. My cunny feels frozen in all this open air.
"Nice cunt!" number four praises.
"Good stuff all over," the negress agrees. She has an astonishingly soft and cultivated voice.
"Let's bite her tits off," suggests three. It evokes no response.
"Bunny is an amateur sadist," Trudy explains to me.
"Can we whip her first, darling?" the sweet little Japanese inquires of the prefect of the day.
"No whip and no tit biting," Trudy announces firmly. "You know perfectly well our lovely hides are reserved for Mistress."
"She's just been purchased, then?"
"At a very high price," the prefect acknowledges.
"Oh well," shaven hair sighs, "what we are going to do won't leave a single mark... "
I lay trembling, my hearing intensely acute. I realize my welcoming committee is just warming to their task. It is not hard to guess my fate. There ensues a discussion as to whether I should be gagged or blindfolded. But it is quickly decided that I will produce more entertaining reactions if these refinements are dispensed with. I am not sure whether to be glad or sorry.
"You are quite welcome to plead all you like, sweetheart," number four assures me: quite obviously hoping I will.
"And please scream," begs the amateur sadist.
"If you can't make her scream, I will," the dark girl affirms stoutly.
Without warning one of them is on her knees. She has the freedom of her hands. They clutch my hips as she attacks the vulva I cannot move. A quick survey tells me it is the little Japanese. She is immensely proficient. I close my eyes. I may as well wallow in my small Nirvana while it is vouchsafed me. I will not cheat them. I moan with pleasure.
But there are four of them. They are not willing to stand idle. Suddenly there are lips on each of my nipples: clever, loving, expert lips. My moans change into small cries of ecstasy. I surge against the straps, but do not move.
"Remember, no serious biting," Trudy's voice warns.
Serious biting! I suppose that must mean to draw blood. There is plenty of the other kind! I writhe in glorious torment. I am being eaten alive!
In summer we think not of winter. After the broken leg has healed we forget the pain. During the exquisiteness of sensation those three pairs of lips evoke from me I give no thought to what must soon follow. I know it awaits. But, oh, the joy, the wonderful glory of this moment that is now! I give myself to it utterly and am glad.
It is so wonderful, so intense, it cannot last. It defeats itself. I am taken into paradise and ejected in an all too short a space of time. I surface, gasping, to face the confrontation with what I have refused to think about. There is no diminution in the tempo of what is being done to me. I sense that the lips upon my cunt have been replaced by other lips equally willing. My nipples are avidly sucked.
I can't remain silent while my whole being is tied in a knot of something too wonderful for my flesh to bear. I want to keep quiet. These girls may measure my quality by my ability to suffer. I gasp at them: "Oh, just a few moments, give me just a few moments to recover, oh please... " No one pays any attention. My nipples and my cunt scream silently. My mouth willingly does it for them.
"Do it again please. That was lovely," the sadist pleads.
I oblige her again and again until, once more, I see the portal to paradise looming ahead. Three pairs of eager lips hurry me forward. I enter and am astonished by the radiance... my moans should be music to all ears.
It goes on and on and on. Cycle after cycle. I am dying. It will never, never end.
Sometimes I open shamed eyes. Trudy beams at me reassuringly. But she cannot resist, why should she. Her turn comes and her teeth find my nipple so that I scream and open my eyes in dismay. Hers are very close. She smiles, but does not stop her feeding on my flesh.
"Finally they leave me and go away. I suspect that when slave girls torture each other they must always remember they are property that should not be damaged. Trudy remains. She is seated on the next bench watching my panting and moaning recovery with amused interest. She makes no move to free me.
"Why did you let them?" I ask accusingly.
"Well, why not! If I stopped them today they'd do it tomorrow when I was not prefect."
"Don't they like me?"
"It's not that, pet," my companion was suddenly serious. "But one thing we soon come to know about being a slave is that, no matter how kindly we are treated, there's a good deal of boredom. Sort of like a harem. The mistress usually has one of us at a time. She's our drama. She's our only link with the outside. So we long ago made a pact that we would none of us individually complain if the others make us a plaything for an hour or a day. It gives a bit of extra color to imprisonment. That's what we are, y'know, prisoners."
"Do you like being sucked dry?"
She laughed delightedly. "That how you feel! But don't fret. There are all sorts of other things we do to each other. We can tie each other up to our heart's content, just so long as the marks don't last over a day. We mustn't use the whip unless she tells us to. I had permission today. You see, quite often she instructs us to punish each other. She's often busy or absent. She knows what we enjoy and what we need. She is very wise."
"You love her?"
"I suppose we all do in our own way. She's a sort of goddess. She's all we've got."
"Did she buy you? How did you get here?"
"She kidnapped me. There's no one close enough to me outside to worry too much. I simply disappeared. It's frighteningly easy, y'know." She grinned pensively. "Trouble with being kidnapped is you put up such a battle afterwards. You have to be broken, or trained, or whatever word you want to use. It boils down to being obedient. I was striped like a zebra and ached and hurt all over before I could adjust to what had happened to me."
"But it's so sad. You must think of freedom constantly?" My companion shrugged. "I suppose I do. But slavery is so damn final. It's a world of its own. The chains and things that are put on us dissolve everything that happened before."
We fall silent, each thinking of our lost freedom. Assessing our present joys against it.
"Aren't you going to let me loose from this thing?"
Trudy looks up absentmindedly. "Give me one good reason," she teases.
"It's shamingly uncomfortable."
"Not good enough. I like to see you strapped tight. I like to know I own you for a little while. I'm savoring the authority I'll lose tomorrow."
"I suppose I've been in worse spots," I admit.
"I might even have another go at you."
My tender nipples and aching crotch cry out in protest. I view this girl who holds dominion over me with a raised eyebrow. She could well be teasing. But I can't be sure. I take a shot in the dark.
"What about those silver men?"
She tenses, then looks at me with fresh interest. "It's a good thing they don't like fucking us," she says. "Why don't they like it?" I ask innocently.
"Damned if I know!" Trudy sounds piqued. "Only thing I can figure is they have to have a silver girl. Maybe she's equipped with something they need. We don't seem to have it. One half-killed me going up and down for an hour. Some of it was wonderful for me. But I think he was bored." She looked at me earnestly. "You ever see a silver girl?"
"No. Maybe there isn't such a thing."
"Know what I think?" Trudy whispered solemnly. "I think they're a lot of kooks from another planet who've got stranded here without a girl. Our mistress and your Lucian are involved with 'em. There's some sort of mutual benefit. These weird creatures know all sorts of tricks."
"Are they here in this castle?"
"They were at that estate you came from , weren't they! But they can come and go in a flash. Oh sure, they have been here. I think they have some sort of a workshop going here: a lab or something." She stuck out a delightful foot and surveyed the silver band round the ankle with distaste. "I inherited these things on my ankles from them. Mistress put them on me, there's some sort of trick. But I'd bet she did not know it until they showed up. I suppose you've had the power turned on?"
"You mean that awful pain and the itch?"
"Of course! That makes us more slave than any girl's ever been!" She played idly and angrily with the silver ornament. "Lovely, isn't it! And nothing, but nothing can get the blasted things off us."
Savagely, as though at the destruction of a mood. Trudy freed me from the straps.
"We'd cut a wide swath if there were any males around," Trudy affirmed.
I turned about in front of the mirror. I was back in clothes, and such clothes! I peered at my companion. If I looked only half as good as she did... !
"Nice of her to include us both to dinner. Got something up her sleeve, no doubt," Trudy suggested thoughtfully. "Us slave girls don't get formal dinners every night y'know. End up with one or both of us getting whipped I don't doubt."
"Should I be handcuffed?" Such a query now seemed natural to me.
"Not as far as I'm concerned. But I'll take 'em along. You never know about mistresses."
We made a very grand entry. I was enjoying the clothes. The way the afternoon had gone I was glad to cover up my tender red nipples. I'd had enough of nakedness for the day. I looked glowingly at the table and our gracious mistress. She was there alright. But I was suddenly face to face with Lucian.
"I think you've met," Lady C. said archly.
Grave and sober as ever, Lucian kissed my hand. He did the same for Trudy. She sparkled and my hackles rose.
"Lucian wants you back, Cherie," Amethyst informs offhandedly. "I've told him no."
I found nothing to say.
"I don't know what you want a girl for, Lucian," Lady Chatham used the familiarity of an old friendship. "You never use any of us. I'm not that young anymore, I know. But Fawn and Thea are perfect, really gorgeous creatures. You never touched 'em with anything but a whip. Serves you right to lose 'em. Very least you can do for a girl is offer her an orgasm or two now and then."
Lucian used his gift for appearing to have heard no word. Lady C's vulgarity passed him by. He was surveying Trudy with interest. "Dear Lady Chatham has been generous enough to offer me you for the evening," he tells her pleasantly.
"He's going to whip you, child. Don't look so pleased." Lady Chatham was mincing no words. I had a feeling she was out of patience with her visitor. It was understandable. They were dissimilar types. I was out of patience with Lucian myself.
Poor Trudy was in a quandary. She knew she should look pleased. But, so far, had been given little incentive. She said: "Thank you very much," with the voice of a child who has been offered bread and butter only for tea.
"Lucian whips a girl very beautifully. I offered. I was suddenly aware that this was the only testimonial I could give. He'd never done anything else with me. How strange he was!
"Bit of a bastard, if you ask me," Lady C. observed caustically.
"Our hostess is delightfully perceptive," Lucian acknowledged without blinking an eye.
"Tell you what!" Lady C. suggests balefully. "We'll hold Dinner a half hour while you take one of these little dears up to your room and fuck her."
"I would not delay Dinner for the world."
"Well, let's hold back an hour and you screw both of 'em."
"You are more than kind," Lucian sighed gently.
"Does that mean you will or you won't?"
"I will not deprive them of their dinner," Lucian says firmly.
"Girls don't feel hungry while they are being fornicated."
"Fornication is a mortal sin," Lucian says triumphantly. We sit down at table.
"You girls are privileged," Amethyst tells us. "You are supposed to be naked on the floor and we throw you the odd bit of gristle. But anyway you're damn decorative. I wouldn't sell either of you." She turns to Lucian: "Trudy has a lovely cunt," she adds without relevance.
Lucian is spurred to response. "Do you prefer the whip or the cane?" he inquires politely of his gift of the evening.
"I think it would be nice if you would use both on me," Trudy suggests without joy, but playing it safe.
"A charming girl!" Lucian comments warmly. We all start munching.
"Where are Fawn's handcuffs?" Lady C. has noticed at last.
"I have them here, Mistress."
"Put them on. She is indecently clad. Front, of course. Unless you want to feed her."
I meekly offer my wrists. The steel bands circle them and click tight. They do not matter. I can eat as well with them as without. Indeed it is true! I feel naked without them. They flash and catch the light beautifully as I move.
Lucian and Trudy exchange a lot of glances as they eat. I know she is intrigued and frightened. She has never been whipped by a man. She will be picturing ineffable agonies.
After the coffee they leave. Lucian glows. He has new white female skin to stripe. Trudy follows behind her master as a slave girl should. I envy her. But, strangely, I am not jealous.
Amethyst and I sip brandy from the huge snifters. I am rich. I am a millionaire. We do not miss the two who are gone. Trudy will lead him to a dungeon where he will make her scream. At least one of them will be happy.
"I wish it was just you and me," I tell my mistress.
I am not immediately caned for my temerity.
"I have thought the same, Cherie. I have too many girls. They become a bevy of clucking pullets. I wish Lucian was more male. He could fuck them all and give them something to fight over."
"He can whip them," I offer tentatively.
"I've offered to trade him this place for Losteigne. But, of course, it belongs to Gillian."
"He could take the girls there."
She sparkles at me. "You'd like to be rid of them. Imagine them waltzing through The Park."
I do imagine it. I imagine, too, the silver men contemplating the gambols of so much nakedness.
Amethyst looks at me shrewdly, "There's more than five of 'em... Had you realized?"
I show surprise. She puts down the Brantly and beckons.
It is a long tour. It is frightening. The castle is so very huge, and we descend at times into the bowels of the earth.
My Mistress opens doors. Huge ugly doors. Often she switches on the incongruity of electric light, for some of the dungeons and the cells are pitch dark.
Girls blink at us with white strained faces and naked bodies held in strange ways. They blink with sudden hope or with despair. No doubt they have good reason for either. I am glad I am not one of them.
The suffer with great diversity. Some stand or sit in stocks. Some are simply chained. Others hang by their wrists. One by her thumbs. Another is tightly bound to a pillar, the cords almost cutting her in two. None cavail. Even those who plead display an immense, almost formal, respect. We take our look and go away and leave them as they are. We return to the lounge and our brandy. It does not seem possible we all inhabit the same planet. I lift the snifter with my chained hands. My handcuffs are a mere bauble compared to what I have seen.
"I collected them sort of absent mindedly," says Amethyst pensively.
"Are they being punished for something or only just...?" I don't know quite how to put it.
She laughed reflectively. "Good question. To tell the truth I've forgotten. I expect I put the poor dears in a sort of absentminded moment too. I really am a bit of a bitch."
"We could go and set them free," I suggest, greatly daring.
"Bad for morale, Cherie. Otherwise I'd let you talk me into it. You can't be kind to girls, y'know. They twist you." She looked at me reflectively again. "I would not want to put you in one of those fixes. But it's so much a habit I might forget."
"You can't set them free, I suppose?"
"No. They'd create no end of a stink. But it's not long before I can. After the Day, of course. After The Day things will be very simple. I don't suppose Lucian told you?"
"He never told me anything except to bend down or hold my hands out."
"I won't either. Just alarm you. Alarms me sometimes. Are you sure you wouldn't like to go into one of those dungeons for the night?"
I cringe. She can be frightening. The spell of those dark and pain filled places is still upon me. She sees my fear.
"I had a husband once."
Amethyst sees my puzzlement at the change of subject and laughs enjoyably. "I'm trying to tell you how I come to be a sadist. Not sure I know, but here's what I can trace. Stop worrying, darling, you are not going to be whipped, at least not much.
"He was a right bastard. Got me young and whipped me regularly for fun. I thought it was part of my marriage duties to let him tie me and cut me to pieces. How I used to howl and plead. I used to beg him to fuck me instead. He was good at that too. But he wouldn't. Preferred to hear me scream. Told me I could take it out on the servants."
Amethyst grinned and took another sip of brandy. "That went over my head at first. I was only a kid. The idea of me whipping the butler or the laundry maid just did not register as even a possibility. But one day a little country girl showed up on staff. She made the beds and such like so that I saw a lot of her. I loved her from the start. But she was scared to death of The Young Mistress. If only she could have seen my back and my bottom! Anyway, one day she dropped and broke the hand mirror from my dresser. I was in the room at the time. I remember the shock on her sweet young face and her stricken turning to me for the words of censure I had no wish to utter.
"I expect her family believed in Hell Fire and all the rest. I could see she expected prison or instant dismissal: I think the dismissal would be the worst. Her father would thrash her half to death. The tear stained face she turned to me was more beautiful than anything in my life up to that point. She pleaded with me, even getting down on her knees, not to tell, but to punish her myself. Punish her terribly.
"I was quite nonplussed. Remember, I was only a year or two older than she. The mirror meant nothing to me. But this depth of emotion did. To this child I was a Goddess. Me, with my striped back and wealed bottom. I held her life in my hands. At least, what she saw as her life. I was suddenly aware of a world and a power I had never glimpsed. I remember how breathlessly I asked what she wanted for her punishment."
Amethyst laughed bitterly. "You have nothing, and suddenly the world puts itself in your hands. It's all yours: infinite riches! That's the way it was with me and young Prue. The child seemed shocked by my question, or more probably my naivete. For her all retribution began with a thrashing. She considered herself lucky if it ended there. I was catching sight of a dark world I had not known was there. I so well remember her sobbing request.
"'Please, Missus, whip me good. I'll try not to howl."
"'Is that enough?' I was thinking more of her own state of mind than any wish of which I was then conscious.
"'Oh no, Missus. Whip me every day for a week, you should. But please don't tell Pa nor his Lordship."
"A new vista opened in my life. I think my cunt took over from that point. Without really knowing what I was saying my mouth uttered the words. 'Take your clothes off, Prue.' I was on fire.
"She took her clothes off with what was obviously a tremendous relief. It was going to be between the two of us. That was the important thing. I could tell she was ashamed of nudity. I learned afterwards I was the first to see her naked. It was positively cunt tearing to watch her hesitancies and then her hands trying to cover the interesting parts. I remember telling her, in a very Milady'ish voice to let her hands fall by her sides and leave them there."
Lady Chatham laughed. "We are absurd when we are young. I had her naked and we had both forgotten the whip or the cane or whatever it was I was supposed to use on her. But I remembered where my beloved husband kept the things he used on me. I left Prue shivering in shame and went and got a lovely cane and a beautiful whip. I recall the absurd look of gratitude on the child's face when I returned with these instruments of torture. She was still so damn thankful it was just between the two of us.
"'Want me to bend down, Missus?' she asked humbly.
"I supposed that was the conventional drill. My husband made me do it often enough. So I said, yes, and to be sure and touch her toes.
"She did it beautifully. I hadn't seen any naked girls myself, so my cunt practically burned itself out when I beheld a tuft of her pubic hair coming up under her bottom. It was just too erotic for words. Prue had a beautiful rich swollen vulva. When she obediently touched her toes it sort of came back between her legs and told you it was there. Quite a revelation for me. I wondered if mine did that with my husband. I was beginning to glimpse the versatility of girls. Prue peered back at me apprehensively from between her legs. She had spread them wide, no doubt from much instruction.
"I was suddenly very much at sea. But I was resolute. This country wench should not find me at a loss. I flexed the cane. I knew it was the approved instrument for bottoms, and a bottom was certainly what I was confronted with. It glowed: or perhaps that was my inflamed imagination. I put all I had into the blow. The cane sang as it sliced the air. It then sunk itself, with a shocking intimacy, into the flesh that Prue provided so entrancingly.
"The dear child did not exactly scream. The noise she did make was inarticulate and pitiful. She leaped upright and rubbed like fury. I knew this was not approved behavior. My husband never tolerated it with me. I had to stay bent or take the stroke over again.
"My poor victim was bathed in tears. A runnel of sweat coursed down one flank from her armpit. She turned to me in appeal.
"'Oh, please, Missus. I ain't very brave. Please tie me.' "This was a new idea. I had been tied when he came back drunk, so I was not entirely unaware. But to tie another girl..'.!
"It took us a long time to come up with some corset laces.
We searched feverishly as though our lives depended on it. When we found them Prue placed her hands, one on each side of the bedpost, and I tied them tight. She instructed me as I went along. I'd never tied a human being. It was a strange sensation. But with her experienced help I had her trussed so that the sweet small wrists had no hope of escape. She seemed pleased and satisfied. This way she had no decisions and no temptations. 'Oh, thank you. Missus,' she said as though I'd done her a favour. I noticed her cunt was wet like mine. No doubt it was perspiration!
"I laced into that poor girl as though I was her father. The glory of it took over from the first slash. The sound of the cane thunking into this nice sweet little girl made me almost delirious with sensations I had never known. Her cries and her pleadings, which were mostly for me to stop or hit her less hard, passed me by unheard. I revelled in power, and in lust, and in a quite new and untested joy.
"Prue got scared. I don't blame her. She tugged and tugged at those little wrists she had helped me tie. She was held firm. I had never seen anything so beautiful as her writhing girl's body. She was magic! Prue was an infinity of wealth such as I had never dreamed of. I saw a whole new life opening up for me... and for little Prue too! Oh, yes! Very much for little Prue... !
"I don't remember what caused me to stop caning that lovely wealed scarlet bottom. It wasn't lack of wanting. I could have caned it forever. Probably I got a bit tired and, after all, I'd had a nice upbringing. Or maybe it was the hurt reproachful looks I was getting from the frantic girl tied to my bedpost. I recalled I was supposed to be doing her a kindness...
"Anyway, I stopped and drank in the loveliness I had created. Prue's bottom was gorgeous! Too beautiful for words! She was twitching and sobbing and saying, thank you all at the same time. She was at full sail on a sea of lust just as I was. In an instinctive primal knowledge I tore at her bonds. When she was free we sank together on the bed in a wonder. We panted and tongued ourselves into Paradise.
After Prue had dressed and gone about her duties I lay upon the bed exhausted, but in the grip of a wonderful dream. A dream that has never died."
Amethyst grinned at me quizzically. "Don't suppose that excuses all those poor girls we've just had a look at, but it does explain 'em." She paused and thought back down the years.
"Poor Prue! I'll never know if it was fear, guilt, or lust. But faithfully every day she presented herself for punishment. We insisted on maintaining the justification of penance. We neither of us dared face the fact that we were enjoying ourselves. Girls were not supposed to enjoy their bodies or each other. So we treated that part of our afternoons as though they did not happen. Prue stole away while I was still laying replete upon the bed.
"But her punishment! I gloried in it, even if it did get a bit much for her. I soon gravitated from the cane to the whip. I had her cunt from neck to heel. There was no part of that delightful child I did not whip. It was easy and so natural to turn her round and tie her facing me. Thus I whipped her breasts and her cunt in a frenzy of concupiscence. She screamed wondrously, and kicked her feet and legs so that I became adept at bringing the thong up to the top of the 'V of her thighs. She loved and feared it. Prue became the perfect medium of a young woman's lascivious hunger.
"It had to end, of course. My husband got word of what was going on. He caught us in the act. It made him very happy. He whipped poor Prue within an inch of her life, discharged her on the spot. Then turned his attentions to me. He tied me to the bedpost as he had found her. I discovered how terribly helpless a girl was bound like that. I pulled and screamed while he stood gloating. Then he whipped me. I lost consciousness after awhile. It's the only time in my life. But I haven't forgotten. I never will. But the funny thing is: it's Prue I remember, not him."
Amethyst looked at me engagingly. "Make any sense? Or am I just rationalizing? From that day on it's been girls for me. Girls and more girls, all screaming. It's so easy and so gorgeous to make a girl scream. Can you understand that?"
"I can understand," my admission was heartfelt. I understood!
My owner looked at me wryly. "So what do I do?"
"That's easy." I felt quite sure of what I was saying. "Make me Prue. Whip me and love me every day. Make me supply your every wish. Get rid of all the others. It might even be a good idea to change my name. Call me Prue. That way I'll be the beginning and the end."
We sat and let it sink in. My cunt was on fire. I was Prue, the little country maid frightened yet in love with the Lady of the Manor, anxious for her pain in the sure knowledge that there are worse things than a striped back or bottom. Secure in the certainty that there is no greater joy than love. My cunt pleading for the surcease of the loved one's tongue, or for her whip. It is so possible to know an orgasm beneath the thong. While your skin is striped you flower and blossom into ultimate joy.
Amethyst was watching me. She knew my thoughts, but not my judgement. "Am I simply a sadist bitch with those girls you saw? For that matter, with Trudy? She's probably getting well striped at this moment without deserving a single one."
I rose to her defense. It was instinctive. I managed a bit of spontaneous comfort: "If we love someone to the point of obsession it can be called lust, prurience, lechery, all sorts of ugly words. You have a great hunger for girls. Why give it bad names?"
"I don't just love 'em, darling. I whip 'em!"
"But some of us have to be whipped. It is a need." I looked at my Mistress and gestured ineffectually with my chained hands. "I'm trying to think of all the words that could be used on me. I'm worse than you. I'd love to have my hands free and be given a whip and to use it again and again on all those girls until I was exhausted. Then I'd be so on fire I'd provoke you into tying and whipping me. I'm impossible, aren't I!"
"You are adorable, Cherie. I will not part with you."
We sat and sipped, glowing with the nearness of each other, savouring our delightful contretemps.
"Pity to waste those girls," Amethyst mused. "Let's keep 'em! You can have your wish. Think of it: heart's desire!"
I did think of it. A wave of sweet concupiscence fired every crevice of my being. My fire flamed. All those naked girls to do what I liked with! Yet strangely and significantly I knew that at the finish of whatever orgy I wallowed in I would return to this woman who was my Mistress and offer my wrists to be chained. I would find my true security chained naked beside her bed each night. I was a slave. Conscience prompted a question: "Those girls in the dungeons and the cells... Is it cruel? Is it more than they should have to bear?"
Amethyst laughed without inhibition. "I always feel a bit of a bitch about 'em," she admitted. "But put a dozen or more girls together the way mine are and there's just no other way. Girls have to be constantly hurt to make 'em possible to live with. I started out with a good whipping for any bit of nonsense they got up to. Some of them learned to like it. The rest got thick skins. So I tried public humiliation: You know, the stocks all day, or spreadeagled in full view, all sorts of things. But then they'd be cruel to each other. So eventually I said 'To Hell with it!' and designed their punishments to please myself and no one else. Most of 'em actually earn it, y'know. Girls are little shockers. I think that's the reason they don't bear me animosity."
It is morning. Breakfast is done. I am dressed. My covering is scanty. Amethyst laughed as we put it on me. It ties above one hip and slants down to the other, barely concealing my fur. For the rest I am naked. It is a small distinction setting me apart. It amuses my Mistress so it amuses me. But I fear the girls may resent it. They wear nothing but their chains and the ankle bands. At least I can match them in that. I wear my handcuffs.
It is a small ceremony Lady C. has designed for Lucian and, I suspect, for me. She calls it "An Inspection". It is held in the Great Hall, a huge vaulted stone chamber that reeks of dark doings in the past. But it has a bit of daylight. It's not too much like a dungeon.
It is quaint and, as always, incongruous. The two dignitaries and I, surely a girl with chained hands can not bear a title, stand in a small isolated group. Before us in the centre of the huge floor stand fifteen naked girls. They are in a neat well spaced line and stand rigidly to attention. But it is a feminine attention: legs well apart, hands clasped at the back of their necks. The 'chests well out' bit follows naturally when a girl stands like that. The chests are very fine. What the Hell! Let's say breasts and be sensible. They are, in fact, superb. I can hear Lucian breathing, so they must be good!
They are all well decorated with the marks of whip and cane, even from this front view. Poor Trudy is in the line. She does not look too cheerful. Her flanks and hips are striated scarlet and purple where the lash curled. Lucian must have enjoyed her. I must remember to ask how she was tied. To one side a single girl stands alone. She is the Prefect for the day. I have not seen her previously. All the girls wear chains, but they are varied. Some it is their wrists, others their ankles. Ankle chains are long so that they may walk. I remember wearing ankle chains. They are horribly frustrating. Even the Prefect's wrists bear chains, but the joining links are many. They are a sort of badge of office. She carries them gracefully with unconcern.
Lady C. steps forward. She has a clipboard and a list. I suspect this Roll Call is for effect only. Drill is a wonderful way to impose the will of one on many. She calls a name. The girl steps smartly forward one pace, ankle chain swirling. Everyone knows the right moves. Other names follow until the line is once more complete, a step closer to us. Poses remain intact. All faces show the same polite interest in the proceedings. I glimpse that this charade may indeed be a bit of drama for them in a dull day.
"About turn."
The chained ankles have to be careful with this one. The others manage it smartly enough. I take a quick look at Lucian to see if he is ashamed of what he has done to Trudy. He is not! Her back and bottom must still be hurting. He need not have been so cruel. She is a nice girl. I expect she would have loved him beautifully had he let her. Hers are the freshest wounds in the line, all scarlet and purple. I am an expert on whip marks. I judge some of what I see to be two weeks old. None past that. Half of the backs and bottoms offered for our attention display recent inflictions. The prefect is one of these. Lady C.'s girls are not unloved! I wonder how many of them are like me. The carefully composed features give no clue. In response to another order they turn again and face us. Fifteen variegated cunts twinkle seductively in line. Thirty breasts and thirty nipples provoke attention, their curves and aureoles demanding. How privileged we are!
"We will have a control drill today, darlings," Lady Chatham announces in a clear voice.
The naked torsos tense. I sense disquiet.
"We will use either the soles of the feet or the breasts," Amethyst continues pleasantry. "I would like a show of hands as to preference. The majority carries. First the feet?"
I'm so damn thankful I'm not in that line! I curl up in sympathy anyway. The poor girls flash their eyes back and forth. They want to seek counsel, but dare not move their heads. Each is alone in her decision. I wonder how many of them have had their feet whipped. Probably all. They are not leaping at the chance. About the time the silence is becoming desperate two of them lift hesitant hands in the air. Both are handcuffed. It looks quaint.
"And now your breasts, darlings." Amethyst is happy. She makes it sound like a draw for a diamond necklace.
Chained or free, thirteen female entities vow by their hands a preference for having their breasts whipped. One girl already weeps. But she dare not touch her tears.
"The appropriate whip, Mavis." Lady C. inclines her head to the Prefect who wastes no time in producing a light but many thonged horror at which I flinch. What girl wants her breast whipped with anything at all! Mavis shakes the lashes out and runs them through her fingers. All eyes focus on the cruel slender thongs.
Lady C. has the clipboard. She briskly outlines the drill. I hear only that each breast is to get two strokes, four to each girl. She must not move. If she moves she will be triced up and flogged. This is the control bit. At least the penalty should help!
A name is called. A girl steps forth. She is beautifully ready. They all are. The pose might have been designed for the drill. All she has to do is stand still while the thin lashes score her breasts. Talk about control... !
Mavis the prefect takes over. I don't envy her. She will hardly be popular. Nice work, of course, but not when you have to live with all those smarting breasts. She takes her job seriously, making sure about stance and distance, and positioning the victim correctly so that we, the privileged, will get an unimpeded view. She swings beautifully and with great accuracy. The delicate cruel thongs splay across the soft cone...
This is an honest case of watching with bated breath. We do. The girl is exquisite. She had thrown back her head to get it out of the way of the whip and to give mamimal exposure of her breast. She keeps it there, but her nostrils flare and her lips emit a small despairing moan. Her knees flex, but she steadies them. The second stroke falls on the same place in the same way... where else! Her nipple is hard and erect. I could almost believe nipples love the whip.
She is half way through. I am sure she comforts herself with this thought. Mavis changes sides. We are faced with a delightful contrast: one scarlet breast, one white. The discrepancy is about to be corrected. The girl is made to turn slightly so that the whip will find her to better advantage and hurt her more. She is obedient, she wants to please. She does not look down at herself. At this stage she probably thinks it best not to know.
She takes her other two equally well, swaying and wincing under each impact, but instantly returning her breast to the angle desired. She has proven her control and her docility. She steps back into the line. Amethyst claps. She is nothing if not a good sport. Lucian, a bit startled, joins in. I go to do the same and blush at the discovery that a handcuffed girl cannot clap. I feel foolish.
The second girl botches it. She does everything wrong. I feel sorry for her, but also a little out of patience. Hers was a poor show. She is taken to one side and made to resume her stance, but she is isolated and alone. She has earned a flogging. She sobs quietly and tears stream down her cheeks. I know how bitter this moment is for her.
One by one the girls exhibit their 'Control'. Most do it well, some proudly. Others manage only a barely acceptable standard. It is easy to keep the tally: the breasts of those yet to be whipped are still white! I notice the eyes of those who have received the lash constantly lower so that they may see the extent of their damage. I guess what is foremost in their minds: their nipples. This that has been done to them is partly psychological. Their fear of injury to their most treasured flesh is an agony greater than the whip.
Toward the end there is a pathetic incident. The weeping girl who has been stood to one side to be flogged breaks down under the strain. She pleads for another chance to prove herself. This time they may whip her breasts and she will not move! She promises. Oh, how she promises! She is in panic. She breaks drill and comes and kneels at the feet of the woman who owns her. Her chains clatter, her tears flow, her broken voice pleads... Amethyst raises her to her feet and kisses her with genuine affection, they must have loved together often enough. She dries the tears, but says no words. Gently she delivers the distraught girl into the hands of the waiting Mavis who leads her purposefully from the room. I can almost feel the cords drawn around the slender wrists and pulled tight. Mavis will take no chances.
I am told Amethyst and Lucian have urgent affairs of state to deal with. I may amuse myself and mingle with the girls. I suppose I am one of them. But there is an uncertainty. I am sure they feel it. I only know Trudy, but I don't want to hang around her neck like a lost child. I wear my friendliest smile and look hopefully around. I am ignored.
Well, why not! They are all sore and hurt and probably ashamed. There is something shaming about getting your breasts whipped. I can't explain it. But it's so. A girl's bottom, yes! She may even respond with wry humour, but not her breasts! Never, never, never. It's a very private female thing.
They are all so busy nursing their wounds that I wander away on my own. I'd been given the freedom of the place just as, once, I had been given the freedom of Losteigne. I might as well use it to the same purpose: escape. Just to see if it was possible. It gives an exciting purpose to an exploration. I'd love to show Amethyst the secret passage I'd found and then offer myself to be whipped. Dreamer!
It is huge and grim and unrelenting stone. We are in a sort of Keep. Around us is the main wall and the battlements. Within is a courtyard. I find my way out into it. The sun is shining. I make the circle. This wall makes Losteigne seem like a pasture fence. Not even with a ladder! After looking at some old cannon balls and a weathered pair of stocks and a whipping post, the apertures in which are obviously intended for female use only, I drift back indoors. I may get lost. But I have a morbid curiosity about the various types of compartment in which Lady C. confines her girls. Last night had whetted my curiosity.
It was quite amazing. There were two floors. I think there was another deeper down, but I didn't have the courage. The upper floor had a couple of corridors flanked by a row of modern cells such as you see pictured on the T.V. Clean, functional, neat little cot and wash basin and all the rest. You could see everything. No privacy. The front was just heavy bars of which the door was a part. If a girl wanted privacy she went down flight. There was plenty of it there. These were the dungeons. Not all that different from Losteigne, I suppose. But so well furnished with all the things that would make a girl scream, or at least shed a few tears. They were intensely depressing. In one I made a discovery.
She was sitting on a bench with her feet stretched out and held in a pair of stocks. She looked like a Puritan girl who had laughed on Sunday, except she was naked. "Hello," she greeted me cheerfully. "You new?"
"Shouldn't you have been upstairs?" I asked stupidly.
She cocked an eyebrow. "Something doing? No, I'm off the list for a week. I've only done four days."
It took a moment to sink in. "You mean you've been sitting there like that four days...?"
"Not much else I can do, is there!"
Always something new. Something to throw me off balance. The damn girl seemed quite resigned, almost cheerful. Four days with my feet in those things and I'd have been trying to climb the wall.
"Nice of you to come and visit," she acknowledged. "Please do sit down. I say," she was suddenly alarmed, "you won't get whipped for this, will you? I mean, being down here with me?"
"What on Earth did you do to get fixed like this for a week?" I was eaten with curiosity.
She chuckled as at a happy memory. "One day when I was Prefect I whipped a girl I didn't like. I knew I shouldn't, but I could not resist." She smiled ingenuously. "I love whipping girls, don't you."
She was sweet, she was delightful, but she loved whipping girls! I suppose the same exclamation could be made about me... or Amethyst. But my curiosity was still at work.
"Seven days and seven nights! I mean, don't you have to...?"
She laughed delightedly and managed a small blush. Her hands were not chained so she used them to lift herself off what I'd thought was a box-like bench. Beneath her bottom was a round self explanatory orifice which she plumped herself back upon. "There is water coming down all the time." She explains. "I suppose I could be left locked in these damn things for life."
"What about sleeping?"
"I cat nap. It's bad: part of the punishment, I suppose. I sit forward with my head in my hands. I manage to sleep and drowse a lot. It's awful lonely. But sometimes Mistress or the prefect allows a girl to come down and talk. It's gorgeous when they do. You notice the door is wide open. They can't free me. Mistress has the only key to that awful padlock that controls the stocks and holds my feet. I'm here to stay."
I wander back up among the girls. They are having Tea in their Lounge. Their chains clink along with the china, but they are in a better mood. I suppose their breasts don't hurt so much. I am civilly treated and offered a cup. They are discussing the various releases from the dungeons and the cells. I do not tell them I may have been a part of it. They would not believe me. One girl makes a pointed remark about my unblemished breasts. I decide to squash it.
"I'll stand still for you to whip mine," I offer.
I get a very shrewd look. She turns to Mavis. "Can I?"
"Don't be silly. You know you can't."
"Mistress won't notice."
"With this one she will. Forget it."
I finish the day with them. I think it is the most boring day I have ever spent among girls. They have nothing to talk about. I am also suspect even though handcuffed. I feel a great sorrow for these prisoners. I long to whip them into animation. I expect they can scream. But, apart from freeing them, I can think of nothing else that might make them interesting. I am glad when Mistress summons me to bed.
It is deep night when the hand shakes me and a finger is placed on my lips. It is Trudy. I look fearfully at the bed beside which I am chained. It is empty. Trudy whispers while she unlocks the cuff that holds me.
"I stole a key. I've had it a long time. It's useful. No escape, sweetheart. You'll be chained back here in a little while so we don't get punished. But there's something you have to see. I think you're the only girl I can trust."
I am uneasy. But I like this girl. If it is just a prank and not some futile escape nonsense that will make Amethyst hate me I will go along. We speed like white wraiths in the darkness. I wear no chains at all.
Our destination is the big Hall. We creep in through a small door hidden by a pile of empty boxes. We are in the gloom of a far corner, well hidden.
How different from the day! Yellow light provides a pleasant warmth for the centre of the vast place. Standing in the light is a girl. Save for her we are alone.
But what a girl! I gasp in amazement. The old faithful icy hand touches my spine. She is a girl of silver. Even her hair is silver. She is totally naked so that we can see her pubic hair, too, shines. She is exquisitely lovely. She stands waiting. Every curve and plane of her tells of something to happen. Something of which she seems content. She looks into a far horizon we cannot share. But there is a contradiction. Her feet are chained. They are not joined, each is held by a heavy shackle and heavy links that, separately, lead to equally heavy ringbolts in the stone floor. They are all of the silver metal we wear upon our own ankles.
Trudy's hand is upon my arm. The stage is set. The curtain rises. Amethyst and Lucian enter and go instantly to two consoles set at opposite sides of the Hall. They busy themselves with control panels and charts. They have become technicians. They do not even glance at the silver girl.
The silver men materialize in their familiar fashion. Well apart they stand, one after the other coming out of nothingness. I shake my head. Did they file in and take their places! They must have done! They are there. I see them. They turn their grave visages toward the girl. It is for her they have come. It is for them she has waited. Lucian and Lady C. remain vastly preoccupied.
One of them stands before the female figure. He holds a whip of silver and something else I recognize all too well. The girl offers her hands to be joined by the silver metal. Then places them behind her neck. Surely she is not here to have her breasts whipped! The pose is too familiar.
I remember that whip and what it did to me so I do not gasp as Trudy does when the lash sings and wraps itself around the silver statue, a statue that comes slowly to life in gentle sinuous writhings. She does it very well. If it were not for those heavy chains I would say she acted her part with infinite skill. But those chains are out of character with her, or she with them. I whisper my knowledge of the silver whip to my companion.
I feel the heat within myself as I watch. The lash finds her most secret places as though in torture. But can I be sure it is not! She is moving now with jerky contortions that could be anything. A shrill high keening is coming from her throat. It rises and makes a silvery cadence of tinkling sound within the vault. She stretches her legs wider, her chains are long enough for anything, and then with a motion purely serpentine raises her joined hands in a salute to the sky or to some deity that only she can comprehend. Her face is rapt. But with what emotion I cannot tell.
Now the lash accepts her invitation. It curls around her breasts and snakes upward to slice the silver cunt from front and rear. The shining creature that wields it circles her slowly, plying his skill with the serene blank features that never change. The girl goes into a surge of passion in which she now desperately drags and pulls at the shackles on her ankles. She does not sink to the floor as Trudy or I would do, but finds her outlet for this intensity of feeling by flailing her erect body this way and that in a frenzy of seeming desperation. Through it all she remains one of the loveliest things I have ever seen.
It comes to an end quite suddenly. The man with the whip is no longer there. I did not see him go. But he is gone. We watch, incredulous, as the shackles open of themselves and fall away from her ankles. Her wrists are similarly freed. The metal bond falls with a thud to the floor. She raises her hands as far as they will go and stretches her nudity in silver glory as though seeping in all the good feelings flesh and blood can provide. Or is she flesh and blood! I spare a glance for the two human figures at the consoles. They are intent now upon the girl. It occurs to me that there may be some sort of connection. Their hands are busy, but their eyes are on her. It is they who are in control.
She knows what to do with her freedom. She is told or it has been rehearsed. With head high like some queen of old she goes to the first of the silent figures and takes from him his only covering, a brief skirt that she casts aside to reveal the silver phallus that, presumably, is now her fate. Slowly and with a great dignity she lowers herself to her knees, takes the silver prong in gentle but firm hands and inserts it into her mouth. She keeps it there long enough for some sort of ritual or salutation, then rises and walks determinedly to the next of the waiting males.
She services them all. But this is only a prelude to some wider intent. Two of the silver men place in centre stage what I can only call an altar. With assurance she lays herself upon it. Her legs are obscenely spread. Silver metal bands appear upon her flesh. In a few moments it is easy to know that she cannot move. She is held fast as I was once so held.
There comes a sound, a whirring, a susurration in the air. Nothing is visible. It is not a comforting sound. It speaks of things we cannot see. Trudy and I clutch each other to hold on to reality. A silver man mounts the metal bound offering and impales her. His motions almost prove him real. It is a brutal and vigorous coupling in which she can take no part save as a receptacle for his seed, if seed there be. When he is done with her he takes his bit of cloth and goes away, vanishing into a strange darkness where once there was a wall. His place is taken by another. The girl makes no sound. Perhaps she is giving them something they cannot give her. I can well believe they take but do not give. That is their atmosphere. They seek.
They take their turn. It is orderly and very quiet save for the strange sound. The girl accepts violation after violation without even the movement of her head. When the last silver man is gone the sound stops. Suddenly there is no one in the Hall but us and the calm sacrifice upon the altar. Lucian and Amethyst have disappeared too. There is a determined grip on my wrist. "Come," Trudy whispers, "This is what you must see." I am tugged into the open and dragged towards her purpose. Moments later we gaze down into the serene face of the bound girl. She is even lovelier than I had thought. She opens her eyes as she senses our presence. They take us in languidly, then focus on me in pure amazement.
"Cor blimey. Miss. Didn't expect ter see you 'ere!" The silver girl is Skilley!
But suddenly she is gone. The thing on which she lay is gone. It is more of their frightening magic. Trudy and I are alone. We turn and flee. She goes her way, I go mine. Thankfully I find the bed still empty. I fling myself upon the rug and snap the handcuff's cuff tight upon my wrist. In spite of fear I am asleep before my Mistress returns.
* * *
I am glad the girls are accepting me. Trudy and I share our awful knowledge. We tell no others. I think each of us feel something is coming to a head, something will happen. It hangs in the air. We seek gaiety and laughter and the touch and feel of other girls who are not of silver.
I have forgotten whose idea the tying up was. It does not matter. A silly game. But a gay game in which we could forget our boredom or our fear. We drew lots. The loser to be tied with all the ingenuity the others could command. I lost.
As I stand naked in obedience to their giggling command I realise I have never been tied as I am about to be tied now. Perhaps this may be fun. Perhaps I can best them, though this I doubt. In my captivity I have mostly been chained. My handcuffs are a part of me. They all know about Trudy's key, so my wrists are unlocked. I stand docile and anxious to give them pleasure in their boredom. I too will be amused. I have had my wrists tied when I am to be whipped. But I have never known the embrace of cords as soon I will. I sparkle at my companions. They sparkle back. I am glad we are friends. They tie my hands, palm to palm. Then my elbows. I almost protest. I had not thought they would be so rough: or perhaps I should say so efficient. The elbows hurt like fury. But it is a small price to pay for friendship. Trudy looks at me and winks. I expect this has happened to her too.
They use what I think must be a foolproof technique. They tie me with their loops. But then they take a separate piece of lighter cord and join the loops in the centre, pulling the new slender thongs between my flesh twice and then knotting them as tightly as they dare without stopping the circulation. It is very tight indeed. There is no slack, no give. I test what has been done to me and manage only to twist my shoulders. They all laugh.
There is a tremendous intimacy about this. A new experience. Girl to girl, one passive, the other intent upon her task. It is exciting to feel the busy fingers and know their purpose with me. They are going to make me helpless. I wonder what then! I can think of things... I hope these girls have a spark of mischief. My fire burns brightly. I am beginning to forget last night.
They do my ankles and my knees. The same method. It is cruelly effective. Already I know I will not manage to get loose. I have been dealt with by master hands. My knees must be for effect. But they add to the impotence. My ankles just plain hurt. I wish they were not quite so thorough. But I keep quiet. It is in a good cause. I feel a small dismay when I remember I have not asked how long I will be kept bound. I do not want to be like this all day. The ankles are plain bad. Standing, my tendons fight the cords. I am no longer stable upon my feet. They seem to want me to stand. But a small push would topple me to the floor. I don't want to fall. Tied like this I could be hurt.
They all walk round and round admiringly. I have to concede that I probably make a very neat and attractive package. I am as helpless as I have ever been in my life. They debate what else they can do. I almost regret I have no more limbs to offer them. I hurt steadily. I smile brightly. I pray I do not fall.
The next thing they do is sadistic. They insert their cord under each of my armpits, over my shoulders and join them in the back with a slipknot that they draw tighter and tighter. I gasp and look appealingly from side to side. But the cords own me. My shoulders are wrenched back even beyond what my joined elbows imposed. The cords are deep in my flesh so that I am, at last, moved to expostulate. They profess not to hear me and continue with their task. When they are done my breasts stick out shamefully and I am in constant pain. They delightedly tweak my nipples.
So there I am! I suppose I asked for it! I played their childish game. Now I cannot move. Oh sure, my head. But a girl's head sometimes seems no more than an instrument to express agony. I cannot move anything that matters. I think of that poor girl in the stocks downstairs. There she sits, hour after hour. These girls could do the same with me. Perhaps only Amethyst will end my suffering this day. I am no longer sure the girls like me. I am beginning to doubt that I like them. I wriggle and try to smile. But it hurts too much. I know I am close to tears. They are tears of disappointment as much as anything. I have not been tied like this for fun.
Lucian saunters in with the utmost casualness. He scrutinizes my plight with a shrewd and knowing eye. He says: "Thank you, darlings." To the girls in general. I look at Trudy. She seems as astonished as I. I say the only thing appropriate. It is trite and absurd: "Hello, Lucian."
He kisses me. He does it very well. My spirits rise. Am I fickle! Well, blame it on my fire. It flames high. It is in my mind to ask him to fuck me right in front of all these drooling girls. What have I to lose! But I realise the mechanics are against me. My thighs are welded together by the cords. It would take a deft and probing finger to enter my small slit. At the moment I am not a promising subject for either intercourse or rape. I wish I was!
He takes something from his pocket that I recognize. For the first time I am truly alarmed. This was not what I bargained for. The girls stand around enjoying my panic. The thing Lucian holds is a gag.
In those last moments before a girl is forced to open her mouth and accept the rubber ball she can think of a hundred things to say and knows, for sure, that after the damn thing is strapped upon her she will think of a hundred more. But you are so busy trying to think of priorities that you never say anything. Then, first thing you know, you can't. It's bloody awful. Take my word for it.
"Open little mouth," Lucian says as though to a baby.
I want to tell him of the awful pain of the cords round my shoulders. That's number one. I open my mouth to do so and he obligingly pops that damn ball in there and then straps it in real tight with the buckle at the back of my neck. He lifts my hair to place it to the best advantage. I have never felt or been so damn helpless.
I am about to go into a lot of motions with my chin to tell him about my shoulders when he himself has a good look. Realising those particular cords are just an expression of ill will from the dear girls he does a couple of "Tch, tch" and pulls them loose and throws them away. I could have kissed him, and a lot more too. I still hurt. But there is a difference about being hurt from animosity and being hurt because you have to be made helpless. I am now the latter.
I am just a spectator. I cannot say a word. The easiest thing I do now is drool. I hope my saliva spoils his jacket. It serves him right. He picks me up and carries me from the room.
It seems impossible. But he knows what he is doing. His car is in the courtyard. He unlocks the boot and deposits me in there with the spare tire. There is a blanket. But that's all. Maybe it's all I deserve. The lid slams shut and dear little Fawn knows she is in for a bad time. I weep. Fat lot of good it does!
It wasn't a happy journey. The idea of escape never entered my head. I hurt so bad from all those cinched cords the last thing I wanted to do was struggle. I would just lay still and endure. Lucian had me. I spend most of the painful time wondering what he was going to do with me. I thought of Amethyst too. I couldn't imagine she and Lucian hitting it off too well after this. I'd been kidnapped. Stolen was probably closer to the truth. No girl had ever felt more wanted, or known more pain over it. I'd still have been helpless without those blasted cords on my elbows.
You know all about coming home, don't you! Well, that's the way it was with me and Losteigne. When Lucian opened the boot I was overwhelmed with thankfulness. I wanted to get down on my knees and put my arms round him. But I couldn't do anything, not even speak. Golly, I hate gags!
He carried me up to Gillian's study. Poor Gillian, she was not surprised. But she was pleased. She tried to kiss me. But the gag was still there, so she settled for one eye. "I'm so glad," she breathed softly.
He sat me in a chair. No move to untie anything, so I realized maybe I'd hurt his Highness's feelings. I managed to look hurt enough that Gillian wanted to untie a knot or two. But Lucian stopped her. Little Fawn was going to learn her lesson. It wasn't until the tears trickled down my cheeks that I was relieved of the gag and that rotten cord round my elbows. Instantly I felt better. My tears, now, were those of joy. Aren't girls ridiculous! Talk about April showers... !
"We just go on with the French and Spanish?" Gillian asked doubtfully.
"Of course. Perfectly normal."
"But you are forever punishing them."
"They deserve it. Thea's only been hanging by her wrists for a few hours now. You can let her down. I want them both to be happy."
"Selling them as though they are a few pounds of potatoes isn't likely to do that."
I longed to clap, or to say 'Hear hear!' But I could not do one, and discretion forbid the other. Lucian loved whipping girls. He delighted in an excuse. Absolved his conscience, I suppose. Why ask for it!
"You can take care of them. I have work to do."
"You always have and, yes, I'll take care of them."
"Don't untie Fawn. Leave her as she is for awhile."
"Good gracious, why?"
Lucian shrugged. "It pleases some erotic sense in me. Do as I say."
"Of course, dear Lord." There was infinite bitterness in Gillian's voice.
He paused and looked at her. His face softened. He took her head and kissed her cheeks, her eyes and then her lips. I heard her sigh. She said with a pathetic simplicity: "Thank you, darling." I realized what a lonely lost woman my aunt was. Lucian went away content.
"I'd love to untie you, darling," Gillian said after he had gone.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter. He's taken away the things that hurt most."
"I'll run down and free Thea," Gillian said brightly, as though glad of a concrete task, "we can talk and have tea."
I refrained from the obvious "I'll be here when you come back." I'd be here alright. But I was not going to be bitter. It was good to be with Gillian and Thea. But Lucian... ! I struggled hopelessly in my bonds. It wouldn't have hurt him to untie me. I hurt and I so much wanted to be free. Right now I was just a package. Neatly tied!
It was a one sided greeting with Thea. She did all the work. All I had was my lips.
"Can't we untie her?" she demanded.
"His Lordship's orders," Gillian told her caustically.
"Nice to see you again, miss," Trant offered with the tea.
I was almost glad to see him. I was glad about everything except the cords. But they'd come off in time. How good it would be to get back the way we were. Damn their silver nonsense! I'd stay away from that part of the park. If Lucian whipped me now it would have to be without an excuse. Damn him!
They fed me my tea. We made a joke of it. I told them about Lady C, her castle and the big 'Do' during the night. I told Gillian straight she should go to the police. For answer she stuck out her foot. Sure enough, there was the silver band on each of her ankles. She was a member of the Club. We did not have a hope.
Lucian was deliberately mean. I don't know what I have done, but I'm being punished for something. Or maybe he enjoys thinking of me tied like this and knowing I'm hurting. Could be! The girls have to look after me. I can't do a damn thing. He has sentenced me to stay like this the rest of today and all night. The girls debate whether they can untie me and then do me up again for inspection in the morning. But the risk is too great. I won't let them. Not that I could stop 'em. But they understand we could all get whipped if we aren't careful. I suppose it won't hurt me too much to stay tied all night.
Thea is gorgeous! I love her and love her when we go to bed. Just imagine, they have to carry me. But when Gillian is gone we fall on each other like wolves. This time I have to do most of the work because I'm a lost cause, except for her finger. But it's a sort of a thrill wriggling around the way I have to do. I manage everything, but I sure do have to work. I suppose I'd adjust to being tied like this same way I did with the handcuffs.
The park is beautiful, it's wonderful, it's eerie, and I love it. I feel at home. It is a part of me. I think Daddy pictures me and Thea walking through glades and beside the lake: not naked, of course. Pan should be here with his pipes, and satyrs should be busily mating with nymphs or maybe lady goats. I wish Lucian had not come and messed things up for us all. Him and Lady C. Dear Amethyst! I wish it was just me and Thea and Gillian. Gillian whips beautifully. We don't need anyone else. What a lovely dream that is. Just the three of us.
Thea and I are both doing the same thing. We are playing with our chains. It had pleased His Highness to decree that our ankles must be chained at all times and also our wrists. No handcuffs! But real fetters. Losteigne has quite a stock of such goodies, so Gillian has no problem. And we are good little girls. We hold out our hands and stick out our feet while she locks the damn things on us. I'd like to see Lucian walk around with them on the way we do! There is quite a lot of chain, of course. There has to be or we wouldn't be so far from the house. In fact there is so much chain it becomes a bit of a nuisance. It's forever getting in the way. But it's gorgeously decorative. We admire each other and wish there was someone else to admire us too. We'd accept male or female, or even a satyr. I think of those poor girls in Lady C's castle with all their boredom. Thea and I have it good, even with these chains.
"Could we batter them with rocks?" Thea wonders.
"We are going to wear them and love it," I tell her firmly.
"They are hard to love when we keep tripping," she reminds me. "Besides we haven't had 'em off in two weeks."
Two weeks! I am surprised Lady C. has not done something about me. Maybe she has. "They don't stop us making love," I point out consolingly.
"We haven't been whipped either."
This last is a poser. Lucian does not have to have an excuse. He likes one but he does not need it. He can whip us anytime the fancy takes him. He used to. I speculate as to whether he is whipping Gillian instead. But there is nothing to indicate this. She would never tell us, and it's hard to ask her to take her clothes off just to oblige the curiosity of two girls. After all, she is our aunt.
"Isn't it lovely," says Thea.
I turn and study her. She is in the grip of the female thing. The thing that possessed me with Amethyst. She sees herself and me and Gillian, the way it's been these last weeks, and it is indeed good. It is a world of our own full of lovely breasts and nipples and moist vulvas. Laughingly I reach a chained hand and cup it about her fur, sure enough it comes away wet. "You actually need whipping," I tell her with laughter.
Thea is much more female than she was. Much more concerned with physical awareness. She used to hate the whip. She does not love it now. But she speaks of it and thinks about it, and admits to the existence of a small fire. We are tremendously fulfilled in each other. More than before. We would like to involve Gillian. But she is inhibited by being both our aunt and our tutor. We cannot tell the depth of her involvement with Lucian. We feel he owes her more than he owes us. But I often think of my father's face if he could see Thea and I in class with our French and our Spanish, and our chained hands and shackled ankles! What a long way we have come... how impossible to retrace our steps!
"Why doesn't Lucian whip us anymore?" Thea asks.
"You want to be whipped?"
"Not really. But it's so different. We scarcely see him. Why did he bring you back if he does not want to use you?" She considers. "It's nicer this way, of course." She eyes me seriously. "Have you been fucked much?"
Thea is indeed coming along! I tell her of my fornications. She listens with sober face. Then tells me of her own. How sadly little we girls have to cherish. We glimpse glory, but find it not. Perhaps the whip is better. For most I can believe it is. There is something trustworthy about the whip. A girl can rely on its agony. It will not betray her trust. She will scream under it. But in the end her fire will burn more brightly, and there is always another girl...
Thea rattles a chain playfully. "This isn't real, y'know," she meditates. "I mean, if we went home tomorrow and told our friends, they wouldn't believe a word. Two young ladies doing a tutorial! And look at us! Naked, chained, whipped, wandering around this bit of the fourteenth century as though the rest of the world doesn't exist. It doesn't exist for us." She grins at me ruefully. "But, darling, the real thing, the thing that matters is we've come to accept it. For us, now, it's the reality. The world's a dream. Outside the wall there's something we'd be strangers to. We'd be lost out there. Am I crazy, or would it all seem colorless?"
She is right, of course. I suppose she has put into words my reasons for not wanting to escape. I don't want to. It is not just that I cling to Gillian and Lucian and Amethyst because of several kinds of love. But I picture myself out there where I came from utterly alone with silly little adventures of dances and office intrigue and tea with Aunt Amy and old Mrs. Hesselton and a bit of shopping. There would be males with their endless fumblings toward my cunt. But who wants 'em!
There is a really cringe-making hypocrisy going on out there between males and females. Actually we have a lot to give each other. But because we wear clothes and because sex is sin we spend most of our time thinking of the two entrancing objects between our legs. Because it is also considered sinful for a male to use his strength we females have ended up with a considerable advantage. We have something to sell or to give away or lend lease. By the time a girl is sixteen she knows she is walking around with a real treasure house in her pubic hair. For that matter our breasts are just as much off limits as our cunts. Oh sure, there's the rapes and the Don Juans. But mostly the male plays it by the rules. He could take us by force. But he doesn't. He must not! So, of course, because the law forbids, we end up wishing he would. All the fumblings and rationalizings and bribes we do indulge in demean us both.
Thea and I discuss this as our eyes rove over the beauty of Losteigne. We finger out chains constantly. They have become to us much what a Catholic's Rosary may be to them. I find myself paraphrasing the lovely verse: Each hour a link, Each link a prayer...
Our play with them is not a seeking for escape. It may have been once, but not now. We find in their shining metal a strange comfort. How very long this road that we have travelled...
"It comes back to the whip, doesn't it," Thea mused. "Don't let's kid ourselves. We are the way we are because of the whip. It's taken you further than it's taken me." She gestured deprecatingly with her chained hands, "I can't get over the strangeness of talking about it like this. Someone from outside would think we were nuts. But I've found myself with quaint visions of us trying to fit in out there, especially you. Supposing we were tossed back where we came from I'd almost bet that before long you'd present me with a lovely gift and a bit of cord. I can just see you watching as I unwrap the whip and the cane, and then throwing your clothes in every direction and holding out your hands... "
I laugh delightedly. "Would you use them?"
She gave this one a good deal of thought. "I expect I'd have said, no, a month ago. But so much happens. Watching you with that woman who took you away made me understand you had found something I had not. It was awful with you gone. Gillian and I both cried. We worked like blazes with my French just to fill the gap." She looks at me fondly. "Yes, Fawn. I'd use them on you. I'd want to."
We make love, giggling about the disposition of our chains. A musical clinking accompanies our search for each other. I thrust from my mind a nagging query as to what I would do and feel if I was owned totally and exclusively by a male. The idea has become almost incomprehensible. But there's Lucian: he's an unknown. I blank it out and enter the scented garden that belongs to Thea and to me.
After the silent communion that follows joy, Thea again pursues her quest of answers. "Supposing there was just you and me and Losteigne: no Gillian or anything. What then?"
"You mean whether we'd need a whip around the house?" I ask mischievously.
"Well, sort of. I'm trying to think of justifying it's use. I mean, darling, we don't actually love being whipped: not even you. It's become sort of necessary because, mostly, it's been used on us for a reason. It's taught us lessons, shown us things about ourselves we did not know. I've resented being whipped by Lucian purely for his amusement. But even that... " She trailed into a questioning silence.
"Wouldn't two girls sometimes be catty to each other, or get the sulks, or use the time of the month for some excuse! There's your justification."
"But would we admit our guilt and yield our bottoms for the cane?"
"We wouldn't have done once. But we've been conditioned. We've learned all sorts of lessons. It's the whip that's taught us, of course. But quite a number of different hands have used it on us. The hands change, but the whip does not. I don't think we'd want to give up such lovely simplicity. It settles everything with such finality. The gorgeous eroticism that comes before and after is an extra gift."
Thea laughs at me. "Sure that isn't the whole thing?"
"Supposing it was. Isn't that enough?"
"It is not enough. There must also be communion," says a stern male voice.
Shocked, we turn and stare. It is Lucian.
It was on my lips to demand: 'Where did you spring from?' But I choked it back. I had an awful fear I knew. Sure, there were bushes and a few trees, but no real cover. Lucian had just appeared. It was a too familiar act. So he, too, held this eerie power! My spine felt the cold, cold finger that never left me alone very long. Instead, we both said: "Hello Lucian!", and quaked.
"A delightfully academic discussion," he says conversationally.
How much had he heard! Probably all.
"Trying to sort things out," Thea offers tentatively.
I say nothing. I am thinking of my flame. Does it burn more brightly now that he is here! Of course it does! I am still a silly girl.
"Perhaps I can be of assistance?"
There is that in his voice that tells us his assistance may not be to our liking. I feel sure, now, he has heard all we have said and will furbish up his own approach to humor at our expense.
"Do we have to wear all these chains, Lucian?" I am deliberately irrelevant.
He ignores me. "You were speaking of the influence of the whip upon the female psyche," he comments with interest. "It is a subject that concerns me."
"We thought it did," Thea comments dryly, then bites her lips.
"I fear your academic approach needs a leavening of reality," he frowns at Thea. "When were you last whipped, darling?"
She has to think. "It's nearly three weeks," she concludes dolefully. It is easy to see what she is thinking.
I try and shock Lucian out of his urbane approach to our pain. "Please don't whip us, Lucian." I make it a tremendously little girlish appeal.
He looks at me tenderly. "You do that very well, Fawn."
Dear little Fawn is trembling. I am quite sure I will be whipped now. He is very much the Lord and Master. "Couldn't Thea and I just be whipped when we've done something?" I plead inadequately.
Lucian has begun to enjoy himself. Of a certainty we will be whipped. It is now just a case of when and how much. He treats us to a bit of pontificating.
"But, darling," he expostulates, "Your mere act of being, your physical existence itself is justification. Just as the bow is useless without the violin, so the whip has no significance without you. A naked girl under the whip expresses all the music and all the beauty and all the wonder of our lives."
"That sounds good," Thea says imprudently, "but it doesn't stop it hurting. Why don't you whip a male sometimes? How about Trant?"
I stifle an impulse to giggle. Trant with his trousers down... how gorgeous!
"Nature has endowed the female with beauty, or the potential for beauty. The male has none." Lucian is too glib to argue with.
"I say, Lucian," Thea asks cautiously, "are we breaking a lot of rules in this pleasant discussion? I don't want to pile up a whole list of punishments."
Lucian laughs at her obvious apprehension. "The rules are suspended for the moment. Say what you like."
"But you'll punish us."
"Perhaps," he grins at us both. "I have neglected you. Both of you need it."
"But the word punishment implies wrongdoing," I argue. "We haven't done anything wrong."
"You break the rules constantly. You are breaking them now."
"But they are rules you have made. They aren't the law."
"In Losteigne I am the law. Outside the wall you would feel abused if you got a summons for illegal parking or running a red light."
He should have been a lawyer. I lose patience. "O.K. darling. Are you going to whip me?"
"Do you want me to?"
"You heard our talk. We were trying to analyze that very thing when you did your appearing act. You do the judging. Honestly, I'm not sure I know."
"I will whip you, Fawn. You need it. Every word you utter pleads. Surely you know you are provoking me."
I know he is right. I am absurd. I feel guilt at involving Thea. "Please don't punish Thea because I'm... the way I am."
"Thea!" His voice is firm. "Do you want to be whipped?"
"Yes please, darling." My cousin sounds demure enough to melt ice.
I am furious. I am eaten with jealousy. I am angry with myself for playing a silly game. I think Thea is trying to push him off balance. But I can't be sure of that or his reaction. I suddenly have nowhere to go and nothing to say.
Lucian is intrigued. He has a new acolyte. He squeezes for more juice. "Do you have a preference, Thea?" he asks solicitously. "Front or back?"
It is an awful question to ask a naked girl. Thea gives her all. "I am more interesting to you in the front, so I think you would enjoy me best there." She looks up at him archly. I could tear her hair.
I am ridiculously angry. Gillian loves him: I love him: Now Thea seems to have joined the club. Perhaps all a man needs to do to engender feminine affection is to refuse to fuck us. Certainly he has a formula. It must be more than the whip... I think!
He tires of the game. After all, he knows he will win, so why bother! He captures me with his deep dark eyes. "You will come with me, Fawn."
My heart leaps. Whatever awful thing I must bear, at least he has chosen me. I know he can see my joy. Perhaps it only amuses him. But I get to my feet. I give myself away by my eagerness. Thea looks at me pityingly. "What about me?" she asks without emotion.
"Do what you like," Lucian tells her grandly.
"You're going to hurt her, aren't you?" She does love me. I can tell from her voice.
"Of course."
Thea is suddenly bereft. She feels the immensity of the park closing in on her. "Oh please, I don't want to be alone! Don't take Fawn away from me. What am I going to do...?"
"You can mourn for her."
Lucian takes me by. the arm and leads me towards the house.
I stumble over my chain in my eagerness.
I am a puppy dog? I am a female felon: I am a delinquent child: I am a fractious wife led to the ducking stool! I am all the females of the world who have followed their masters to their punishment. I am sure we all have felt the same: the way I now feel. Oh, woman, woman, woman, thou art immune from logic. I am utterly happy. I am also absurd. Lucian is happy too. He has bested me in logic and will enjoy my screams. I wonder about the male thing: the erection. Does he have one? Always the female will be curious about the phallus. I think we would prefer to be impaled upon a pointed stake than not impaled at all. I need Lucian or Amethyst... one or the other!
I have been happily swirling my ankle chains to keep pace with my lord, when he calls a halt and produces a key. "I'll take those things off you," he says gruffly, as though laying the blame on someone else for putting them on.
He does so. I really don't care. They are his chains so he can put up with them. But he surprises me. He also unlocks one band from my wrist, passes it behind my back and locks it on again. Now my legs are free, but my hands are more confined. The chain between them is long, and I can still do some things, but nowhere near as many as before.
"You are making sure I can't attack you," I accuse. I am hurt.
He shrugs. He does not care what I think. "It pleases me," he says in an offhanded manner. He forces my ankle chains into my hand. "Carry these," he orders. "There is no reason why I should."
I obey and am surprised by their weight. They hang behind one leg as I walk. I am really quite helpless. I can't do much. I look at my lord and wonder what my fate will be. "You need a thrashing, Fawn."
I had supposed this a foregone conclusion. Why need he harp on it! "Yes, master."
The fatal word, the awful admission had slipped past my lips all too naturally. Lucian did not fail to catch it.
"You think of me in that term?"
"Yes, master."
He sighed. "I suppose I am weak and human, but it pleases me. You may use it."
"Thank you, master." My fire roars to a crescendo. Why kid ourselves! A girl wants a master! "I have neglected you."
"I have waited. When you sold me you made me a slave. It is not for a slave to complain, master."
He gives me a sideways glance of curiosity. "You loved it, didn't you?"
"Yes, master. Until then I had not known... "
"You were born to it. You know that now?"
"Yes, master."
I used his title over and over. I could not utter it enough. Each time I called him master my fire flared.
"I adore you, Fawn. I will be very cruel."
Had any girl known such joy? I doubted it.
"Aren't you going to punish Thea?"
He laughed at me. "Is that jealousy or simply concern for her welfare?"
How could I be unbiased? "She will be lonely, master."
"I will make her scream, then," Lucian promised. "She is changing. I can tell."
We walked in silence a little while. I was busy getting used to the freedom of my feet. I was not concerned about what he would do to me.
"I am going to hurt you, Fawn. Aren't you afraid?"
"A little. Will you whip me a great deal?"
"The whip is but a prelude, darling girl."
I perked up at that and forced myself into becoming a naked girl with a lot of vulnerable places. "Have I been that bad, master?"
Again he laughed at me. "You analyzed that. Being bad need have nothing to do with it."
Remember that song: 'Smoke gets in your eyes'? At that moment my flame sent up a lot of smoke. I couldn't pretend to see through it. I didn't try. I simply said: "Yes, master," in my most docile manner and hoped it would provoke him into some sort of declaration.
"I'm going to stretch you on the rack."
It was the sort of remark that takes a while to register. I thought of every rack but the right one. When it clicked I felt all the alarm he intended. "You mean pulling all my joints out of their sockets?" I asked in a pleased conversational tone.
"There are gradations, dear girl."
"This is after my whipping?" I was just getting it straight. "Yes."
I just had to ask the next one. "Did you... show up back there with a bit of discipline in mind, master, or was it our conversation that made you feel we needed a bit of attention?"
"Isn't that probing a bit far for a slave girl, Fawn?"
"Yes, master." It was the only thing I had left today.
We stepped out smartly towards my punishment.
I didn't start to cry and make a fuss until after his fourth slash across my skin. Both of us knew I was doing well. But then I let out a Lulu of a scream.
"Did you like it more when Amethyst whipped you?" Was there jealousy in his voice?
It wasn't too easy to answer through my sobbings. I hurt so much. The thong had cut right into me. Surely there was blood!
"It's different with girls. I don't think I can explain... "
He cut me again. I screamed blue murder. Amethyst had been the last to whip me. It seemed a long time ago. I hadn't remembered it hurting like this. What a question to ask a girl at such a time! Men never understand. I wasn't even sure what the silly ass wanted me to say.
"I don't like it when anybody whips me. It hurts too much to think," I tell him truthfully. I tug at my poor wrists. They, are back in traction, I am a naked girl whose every crevice is open to the thong.
He slices me again. I lift myself from the floor in a spasm of unbearable agony. The pain of my wrists vanishes against the awfulness around my flanks. Oh! where the allure of the whip! It does not exist while it is happening. Perhaps afterwards my fire will flare. But not now, not now, not now... ! If only I could tear loose my pinioned wrists and flee. But my master has made sure of that. My wrists are hostage to his desire of me. They will hold me while I writhe. I am held naked for his happiness.
Can I equate beauty with my hurt! I don't know. I can recognize the two in coexistence. I am beautiful when I am in pain: beautiful to my master. I cannot see myself as I twist and tear, other than as a reflection in his eyes. The way his eyes devour me tells me that, in my pain, I am enhanced. The whip evokes from me qualities and appeals otherwise quiescent. Lucian's next cut which curls around my breast elicits my full repertoire of sounds and motion. For a full minute I shed all else other than that I am a naked girl in agony.
My master stands and enjoys. Why not! An admirer of a canvas in a gallery does not flit on to the next exhibit. He savors. My master savors me. I want him to. I am shamed by my contortions and my moans, but I want him to enjoy me. His enjoyment makes my suffering valid. It gives it purpose. I can wait for my next cut with the knowledge that my suffering has virtue.
He catches me unaware with a cunning upswing between my legs. I had parted them in the agony of the previous stroke. He seizes his chance. He could order me to part my legs. But it would not be as good. There is a naturalness about this slash. It divides me and I scream wonderfully and in dismay that here is a fresh kind of pain my master requires of me.
I am cut and cut. Slashed and slashed. My holiday in the park with darling Thea is over. I think in quick flashes of that discussion that seems so trivial now, but which, at the time, was a genuine exploration of what makes a girl a girl. At this moment there is but one thing that makes me a girl or anything else: the whip! Lucian wraps it around my nudity again and again until I plead and plead for mercy, for forgiveness, for surcease. Why, oh why, was I ever so silly as to believe that anything a girl might analyze could matter! For a girl there is only one thing that matters. It is happening to me now. I am being whipped! For a girl this is the very quintessence of her existence. I am giving joy to a man. But remember: if it was Amethyst who holds the whip I would be giving joy to a woman! There is no division. A naked whipped girl is, quite simply, an instrument of joy for whoever wields the whip. A naked girl offers an immense versatility. In the end all men and all women are her subjects. The thong slices my flesh and I scream and scream... I am female.
I whimper softly when he sets me free. I do not think to disobey. I am back where I was before Amethyst. My thoughts do not go beyond this moment and the knowledge that my punishment has only begun. I offer Lucian a pale smile to show my understanding, and spare a glance at my own striped skin. I have used the word, punishment, again. Why! I am punished because I am a girl.
"It will widen your horizon," Lucian says blandly.
I am sure it will! Thea and I had peeped in here once and crept away, satisfied not to know! It is the torture chamber of Losteigne. Dramatic! Absurd! Oh sure. But it is real and I stand in it, Lucian's hand firm upon my arm. I am about to be tortured.
Why don't we call the whip torture! What separates the whip's pain from the agony I will suffer here. There is a separation in the minds of all, including mine. I suppose I will soon find out. What an improbable ending to a talk between two girls in a park! I look around brightly. As always, I want to put on a good show for Lucian.
"The rack is the most easily understood," he says pleasantly.
I let him buckle the broad padded leather bands upon my wrists and ankles. They are the inevitable incongruity. The ugly apparatus on which I will be hurt appears infinitely ancient save for oiled bearings and new rope. But these things strapped upon me are very much of today. Each bears a ring. I guess its purpose.
I lay on my back upon a plank that is on a level with the two windlasses round which the ropes are coiled. With care and gentleness as though it was our wedding couch Lucian snaps the ropes into my waiting rings. So very simple. I am ready!
I tell myself this is an interesting demonstration. A chance to savor the state of mind of other girls who, long ago, lay where I lay now. It is a devastating moment when the wheels turn and the ropes tighten. My hands go up and up and back and back until I am very straight and very taut and frighteningly naked. Both hands and feet are separated by about two feet. I am all cunt and armpits. Lucian locks the wheels and backs down to where we can look at each other. His eyes glow.
"We are at the beginning, darling."
"Yes, master."
Surely I could say more. But what! No matter what I say or how I plead Lucian will do this thing to me. He deems that I should know of other things besides the whip and the dungeon. Perhaps I should. But I feel no gratitude. He bends and kisses me. Then returns to his windlass. How many girls have been kissed thus! It is an errant thought.
At first I tell myself the fear is because of what I have read. This thing that holds me has a fearful name and cruel history. The ratchet clicks a notch, then another. I catch my breath and discover I cannot move. I am stretched out as much as I ever want to be. Lucian comes into view again and casually pulls away the plank that has been my support. I rest in air, but scarcely sag. My wrists and ankles protest beseechingly. Surely he feels pity for what he sees upon my face. I know not if this is a time to plead.
The ratchet's click this time tells a cruel certainty of torture. I gasp and moan despairingly, fighting back panic as every bit of me is put under a pressure it has never known or was ever intended to know. My head has no resting place. I lift it in a sort of reflex and am shocked to note the flattening out of my breasts under the strain. I am almost a boy. I let it fall again so that my hair brushes the floor beneath this thing to which I am bound. I look backward into the grave intent features of my master who is now a torturer. How horrible a word. I will not call him that. Yet what am I if not the tortured?
The next notch brings my screams. Not one but many. I only stop from lack of breath. I cannot even breathe properly as I am held. I feel sure I am beginning to tear. Little Fawn is no match for this monstrosity that holds her. I plead. My frantic eyes seek his calm face.
Lucian leaves his wheel with its huge spokes, and stands at the level of my navel looking down at his creation. His hands stray upon my skin. I cannot tell if he seeks the warmth of a girl's flesh or if he tests the tension of my torture. Even as I am, his hands inflame me. I know he will not cup them where I want him to. But to be touched anywhere upon my nakedness by this man is a benediction. He kisses me and goes away.
This is the worst of all. I don't know what is to happen to me. I have never known anything like this. It is frightening, degrading and without love. This is utter desuetude. I am so intensely alone. Perhaps I will hang like this all day. The pain is unceasing. It is a soulless agony that holds no relation to the whip at all. No relation to anything I have ever known.
I am stretched here for hours, for days, for months and eternities. I suppose time passes. But I fear its passing to be slower than I wish. I hear the clinking of Thea's chains long before she comes to stand beside me and view with horror the thing I have become.
"Oh, darling... " she cradles my head in her hands and kisses my dry lips frantically. Our tears mingle. Soon she sees the question in my eyes.
"I mustn't," she says with despair. "Lucian has warned me. I must not free you, even if I knew how to work this thing or had a knife. A knife would be best. He has promised things too awful if I do not leave you as you are."
I can tell there is more. I demand to know. Thea breaks into her most bitter sobbing. "He's a beast, an absolute beast! I thought being whipped was bad enough. But when we concede him that, he moves on to this," she sobs uncontrollably for a little time. I cannot comfort her. At last she tells me: "Dear charming Lucian gives me a choice. I can have my feet whipped, or I can take your place."
Admonitions rose easily to my lips. But I did not utter them. Instead, we gazed at each other in mute misery. Lucian's generous choices were both impossible. How could a girl ask for either!
"I told him I'd take your place," Thea said listlessly.
"You must not!" I say it with what vehemence I can muster. It is not much. "Look at me: look at me, darling! You don't want to be like this."
Thea looks. She has been studying the stretched length of me since she came. "I know," she says miserably. "You're... all funny... not like a girl at all. It's brutal and awful. But what else can I do! At least it will set you free. I expect that's what he wants. I always told you, he's got a thing where you're concerned."
"But you'll be left like this," I protest. "Did he say for how long?"
Poor Thea shrugs hopelessly. "All day."
"Don't do it!"
Once more she lifts my head and we kiss. "I have to," she whispers. "I can't bear the other, not my feet."
She is telling me she is not just being noble on my account. I moan in misery. What can I say! I watched Gillian's feet whipped. But it has not been done to me. It is easy for me to tell her that what I am suffering racked like this is the most terrible punishment. But who knows what the most terrible is! Lucian could tighten this beastly contraption two or three more notches and destroy me utterly. Perhaps he has been merciful in his way. Perhaps I am a lucky girl that I am stretched like a bow string and no more. Perhaps Thea has made a wise choice.
"Gillian could not walk for a week after that woman whipped the soles of her feet," Thea recalls slowly. "That frightens me. I don't think I can stand it."
There is nothing more to say. His Lordship has his two maidens neatly foxed. We will do what we must. Thea's fingers trail up and down my taut skin in wonder and in love. She cups her hand where Lucian refused to go. But nothing about me is right, nothing fits or feels as it should. The rack has made me a hermaphrodite.
"How does he want you to go about it?" I whisper. Talking hurts. "He said I could visit you so that I'd know what I was choosing. Now I go to him and ask that it be done to me. The sooner I go, darling, the quicker you'll be free." She kisses me ardently and goes clinking on her thankless journey through which I am to become the beneficiary. But I know that all the anguish Thea will suffer when she is tied as I am tied will be a mental anguish for me too. But that, of course, is as our Master desires. Lucian is so clever.
The business of my freedom and Thea's martyrdom is gone about without much joy. The decisions have been made. We flinch from trivial comment as His Lordship busies himself with our discomfort. He is not given to facetiousness. Thea is angry with him and very much afraid. I wish he would love me instead of indulging in all this pain. I do not know his thoughts, but his face tells me they are far away with his silver men or Lady Chatham or some abstruse thing I know not of. I become angry with him too. We could give him so much, and all he wants of us is our pain.
The plank is slipped beneath me. The ratchets click loose. I moan and make small cries from something that is neither pain or pleasure. I try and sit up, but my arms, to which the ropes are still tethered, do not want to obey my commands. My shoulders hurt so much I am sure the rack has injured me. Lucian unsnaps the ropes and lifts me bodily from the torture plank. He stands me on my feet and steadies me while all the things I am made of sort themselves out and start to work again. I will hurt for a long time but that is all. He pats my bottom approvingly, and I totter to a bench and sit. I harbor no heroic notions.
Poor darling Thea! She has watched it all with grief for me and disquiet for us both. Her chains are gone so as to ready her for the choice she has made. She has stood awkwardly, waiting. But now, at a nod from my Master, she climbs willingly upon the rack and disposes her body as she knows she must. There is something tremendously erotic and appealing in her obedience to something she dreads. I know that she has closed her mind. She will do what she is told. She will refuse to think. Thus she will carry through beyond the point of no return. After that she can scream.
It is so good just to sit and to make small movements to test my pain. I am not chained, there is no need. I hurt too much to be difficult. My Master will find me a very docile creature while I am like this. I share a wan smile with Thea before she lets her head fall back and raises her arms. Her wrists are buckled in the same cuffs that are still warm with my agony.
I am ashamed of myself. I want to sit and relax back into being a girl. But the scene before me is demanding. Beauty and terror and cruelty. I must behold that which was done to me. Slowly and quietly I find a vantage point and stand. Lucian smiles at me sardonically. Thea's eyes are closed. I wonder if she wants me thus, if she will see my act as only idle curiosity. Yet I cannot sit comfortably on a bench while she is tortured.
The moves follow their progression to where she screams. Lucian considers her torment, tests her with his fingers as he did me, then locks the wheel in place. Fascinated, I move to her side and behold the nakedness of a girl who is no longer as I knew her. I cringe at the knowledge I too was like this. I cannot resist looking down at myself and am reassured. I seem to be a girl again, so Thea will be too. Lucian interprets my hasty assessment and frankly laughs. He takes my wrist and leads me from the room.
He is preoccupied. I have a feeling he is bored with us or that some priority has robbed him of enjoyment in our pain. The amused twist is gone from his lips. But his voice is cool and pleasant as he springs his usual surprise. We are to have a nice English Tea with dear Gillian in the Lounge. Thea's racked loveliness will know only loneliness and pain down there in the awful chamber. But we will enjoy a pleasant interlude. I am to serve. Absentmindedly he takes handcuffs from his pocket and fastens them to me. Evidently he considers that in serving the Tea I should enjoy some small handicap as a reminder of my condition. I am thankful it is only handcuffs. He tells me I can go upstairs and make myself feminine and beautiful and hurry back.
Looking in the mirror I am grateful for this respite. I have been whipped, and I have been stretched upon a rack. Both show. Hastily I wash and make what repairs I can. The whip marks I will have to wear as I have worn all the others. I do my face and brush my hair. For a girl all this is a good, good feeling. I trot downstairs brightly expectant.
The shock leaves me standing like a fool with open mouth. Lucian's gaze is on infinity, Gillian as usual looks distressed. It is the visitor who defeats me.
"How are you, darling!" Amethyst exclaims warmly as she clasps me in her arms.
The handcuffs inhibit my instinctive response. I am suddenly immensely conscious that this vibrant woman owns me. I am her slave. Yet I wear the handcuffs of another, and I have Tea to serve.
Trant leaves the trolley, and I do very well with what is on it. I wear handcuffs well. I do my duty. How strange to sit and sip and balance my anchovy sandwich on my cunt. When you wear clothes you never think of it like that. You call it a lap. But naked there's no doubt where that sandwich nestles on its little plate.
"I whipped the whole bloomin' lot of 'em, then bunged 'em in a dungeon for a week," Lady Chatham imparted the info with satisfaction. "Lot of little baggages!" she gave me a small private smile.
"They were only enjoying a parlor game," Lucian proffered absently.
"Parlor game, my eye," Lady C. retorted with spirit. "I left 'em well chained too. You know perfectly well what they were up to."
"I'm so glad you were able to come," Gillian said without enthusiasm.
Amethyst swivelled on her as though with a broadside. "How's the little tootsies, darling?"
My aunt visibly winced. "I was in bed for a week," she said coldly. "But I can walk again now."
"Only a week!" Lady C. obviously feared she had done a poor job. "Ah, well. Do better next time, eh."
I could almost see Gillian swallow the words she longed to utter.
"The feet are very sensitive," Lucian contributed without interest.
"Bit sensitive myself," Lady Chatham was getting ready to bring up her heavy artillery. She fixed Lucian with a stern and accusing eye. "Look here, old chap, Fawn's my property. I bought and paid for her."
I can see his Lordship wishes himself elsewhere. "I will refund the money," he says stiffly.
"In a pig's eye!" Amethyst, Lady Chatham says inelegantly. "That girl belongs to me and that's an end to it... Lugging her back here tied up like a bundle of faggots...!"
"Couldn't you concede my making an error in judgement?" Lucian was not enjoying his Tea.
"A deal's a deal. A man's word is his bond." Lady C. was having no nonsense.
"Fawn belongs at Losteigne."
"Not any more."
"Surely she cannot mean that much to you. A woman... "
"Dammit, man. At least I use her cunt! You don't."
Lucian sighs. He feels afflicted. I replenish cups and push the anchovy. Gillian has given the whole thing up as hopeless. I expect she is remembering what happened to her feet last time she joined in one of these affairs. I would like to retire from the scene of battle myself. I can envision both of them whipping me in sheer exasperation with each other. Gilbert and Sullivan might well have said: 'A slave's life is not a happy one!' Everyone looks at me. It's not that they want me to say something. It's simply that I am The Prize or the bone of contention or something. I'd have thought they'd be wondering if I am worth all this fuss. But quite evidently they do. I am thankful for the trolley. It gives me something to do and enables me to avoid showing favourites. I determine to play the innocent slave girl bit for all it's worth.
"Tell you what I'll do," Lady C. says in a determined effort to keep the peace. "You want female flesh, young and silly and in good health. I'll give you all my sixteen little fillies in exchange, and we won't talk about cash refunds." She sits back, already triumphant.
I almost giggle. I think of the sixteen naked little fillies romping through The Park. Trant would love it. But poor Gillian! I look at Lucian: how can he refuse! He could whip to his heart's content. His rotten torture chamber would be full to the brim. I'd feel sorry about Trudy. But perhaps as far as a girl's skin goes there's not much to choose between the two places. Then, too, there's Thea. I long to speak, but dare not.
My Lord and Master comes up with an even heavier sigh. He is a man much put upon. "Very well," he concedes. "You leave me no room to refuse. Take her."
I am suddenly very happy. The Rack had made this strange man different to me. My fire burns brightly for Amethyst. We exchange sly glances. But I have a hurdle I must try to cross. "What about Thea?" I ask hesitantly.
"That's the other little Moppet, isn't it?" Lady C. demands. She looks at me knowingly. "You going to pine without her?"
"I'm worried about her. At this moment she is being tortured on a rack down in the torture chamber."
It creates an awkward silence. I know I have exceeded my latitude. But I can't get rid of my last sight of the lovely taut body in its pain.
"Take her along too." Lucian's tone is that of a man wiping his hands of a sorry mess.
Lady C. has visibly perked up. "Dammit, let's have a look at this, d'you mind?"
We trail down the bleak stone stairs. Lucian has the strained air of a decayed nobleman showing the plebians through his castle for half crowns every second Tuesday. I follow, hoping I won't get into trouble. I want to see what happens. Thank Goodness my feet aren't chained.
"You really are a bit of a bastard, Lucian," Lady C. comments pleasantly as she surveys my tortured cousin. "Damn fine effect, I'll admit. But a bit too Gothic for me." She leans over the bound girl. "How bad's the pain, sweetheart?"
Thea only moans. She does not know what is going on. I don't suppose she cares. "The pain is very terrible," I say flatly. "It's a kind of pain all its own, purely beastly. It scared me."
Amethyst turns, uncertain if I am being precocious. I hold up my wrists and stick out one foot. In spite of the paddling the marks of the bands are still vivid. Gillian gasps.
"I probably showed up at the right time," Lady C. says to no one in particular. She looks around the grim chamber in which we stand. "Got a couple of these places myself," she admits. "Tried 'em out from time to time on particularly obstinate little tricks. But can't say I enjoyed it. Wrong atmosphere, wrong motives. Scares 'em witless." She gazed down cheerfully at my tractioned cousin. "What are you going to do about Trixie here?"
"Her name is Thea," said Lucian coldly. "Feel free to do what you wish with her." For a moment I thought he was going to be vulgar.
"Well, take her out of that thing. It gives me the willies. I'll whip her rump until she howls, but this isn't my cup of tea."
Lucian does the mechanics. The rest of us cluster round with help and sympathy. My handcuffs prevent me being much use. No one offers to take them off. Supporting a softly moaning Thea we sort of stagger our way back to the lounge.
* * *
They stand in a long line against the wall. Sixteen naked girls, hands chained to rings above their heads. Anxious features turn and scared eyes look at me in mute question. I hold a very wicked whip. They have easily deduced the why and wherefore.
"It's the last chance," Amethyst had told me. "Exhaust yourself. Get it out of your system. From now on if you whip anybody it will have to be dear little Thea. If you don't like that there's always me, but I'm not often in the mood. The little fillies owe you something, collect it with the whip. It's the way they understand best. Don't let their feelings bother you. They'll be gone in an hour."
Alright! I feel guilty. I'm a bitch, etc, etc. But this is something I must do. I hold the world in my hands. No one will thank me for letting it drop. I thrash the first girl soundly, loving every one of her howls and the way she twists and turns. Her chain gives her enough slack that she can actually face me and collect a few across her front. In her anxiety to plead and show me how sorry she is, she turns a lot. She collects some lovely marks in the nicest places. I don't want to stop. But there are fifteen more.
It's beautiful! Gorgeous! Wonderful! I realise how damn lucky I am. I don't suppose anything else quite like this is happening anywhere else in the world. I savour every blow. The nice thing about it is that I behold a long line of apprehensive faces waiting their turn. I work my way closer and closer to each. The girl next to the one I am whipping is in pure agony even before she is touched. She has to stand there and see what her neighbor gets and know it's her turn next.
They are all different. Some bite hard and manage to keep quiet for a long time. They always scream in the end, of course, a girl always does. I know! They have my sympathy. Oh sure! Honest. My sympathy does not stop my hunger for the lovely scarlet stripes that spring up as the blood flows back into their wound. That is always fascinating, to see the flesh depress under the lash and then proclaim its hurt with the scarlet line, sort of like waving a flag to say it got the message. I flog scarlet stripe after scarlet stripe to my heart's content. Many plead, but none condemn. lean see in their thin lips some would love to. But they dare not. I hold a whip and they are chained!
How beautifully they are chained! I have Amethyst to thank for that as for all else. Both their hands joined to a ring. Not so high they must stand on tiptoe, but low enough to give the illusion of some freedom, a freedom only sufficient to get them hurt the more. They are wise who stand themselves tight against the stone and flatten their breasts against the wall. They dare me to do my worst to their backs and bottoms, but preserve their fronts from my attentions. I deal with these in two ways, either more strokes or by a command to turn and face me. They turn and show me their breasts with a reluctance delightful to behold. Some I make back up and spread their legs. I feel that in so great a work I should not establish a pattern they can expect.
About halfway through it occurs to me that those who have been whipped must now be feeling a great relief, a slight superiority. I know how this is since I have felt it myself. So I defeat them by a firm announcement that I will be starting afresh after reaching the end of the line. It is a most successful ploy. Several start to cry. I feel no fatigue. I can go on and on.
The face that turns to me now is Trudy. It is her turn. She smiles wistfully without malice. She was kind to me. We had shared something. I cannot be cruel to her. I smile back and shake my head. I go on to the next who views my unexpected advance with horror.
"Fawn!" Trudy has turned to speak to me. Her hands are drawn back over her head by the chains. She leans against them and pleads, "You must whip me, Fawn. I must not be the only girl unmarked, I'll get in trouble."
She is desirable. "I will fix it with mistress," I assure her with infinite superiority. What power I hold!
She shakes her head sadly. "It's not that. You must understand. It's not fair to the others. I did nothing to stop you being tied. I could have done. But I did not. I have to be whipped too."
I understand all too well. Poor Trudy. If I spare her she will be hated and suspect. These girls can be cruel to one of their own. The trouble is that now there is an awareness among them of my tenderness for her. I cannot whip her lightly. I must whip her more cruelly than I whip them. Thus her honor will remain intact. I show her the sorrow in my face, then do what I must. "Back to the wall and face me," I say brutally and watch while she obeys. She is trembling, but she smiles her gratitude. I do not whip her breasts too much before telling her to turn round and open up her legs. The little fillies shall have no cause to point a finger. She stays quiet for only a little while, then starts to scream.
I think often reality falls far short of the dream. When I walked in this huge chamber and saw my dream neatly arranged for me by a beneficent Amethyst I was quite prepared to have my joy dissolved by some reaction of my own that would defeat me. But it has not happened. There is within me now a surging wave of joyous fulfillment. I stand upon a peak from which I view an endless vista, a far horizon I have no wish to reach, the valleys and the hills between are far too lush with happiness. I will whip and I will whip. The little fillies will twist and scream and tug at the chains that hold them for my pleasure. Some of them have tugged frantically already. I will make them all test their bonds. It is a gorgeous sight to see a naked girl tearing at her chains. I know, for I have done it too. It is gorgeous, in its way, for them also. In the implacability of the chains they cannot break they find that they are desired, that someone treasures them.
I reach the end of the line. The sixteenth girl is trembling herself to pieces. She has watched all the others. All of them have feared me in their belief that I must wish them ill and carry a vindictive whip. But I do not suppose I have punished them a particle worse than Amethyst often does. I am an unknown quantity. That is what they fear. I turn my attention to number sixteen. She is the shaven one I remember from a previous experience. She obviously expects the worst.
"I'll do anything you want if you'll leave me alone," she promises.
"How will you explain your clear skin?" I ask gaily. "Maybe no one will notice." Even for her it is a feeble hope. "The others will notice," I jibe.
She weeps. There is nothing left for her. She is face to face with what she has watched all down the line. Miserably she turns to the wall and offers me her back and her behind. She has tried and failed. She did not hope to succeed. She has lost nothing.
She flinches and gasps nicely. I give her beautifully measured strokes to raise the red welts I love so much. The girls who now feel a bit better give us some of their attention. One may subtract another's misery from one's own. Or there is the old saw that 'Misery loves company.' I flog and flog, wallowing in the self-indulgent beauty of the whip. She is quite piteous in her appeals and her promises. Now I should make them all service me. But they are not chained for it. Casually and very slowly I retrace my steps to the beginning of the line. I am watched fearfully by every pair of eyes I pass. Only Trudy's touch me with more than fuel to feed my flame. It is burning high and hot. I do not have the key, so I cannot compel one of them to assuage it.
The first girl is quite pitiful. She does not wish to be whipped again. I can sympathize. She has been whipped once. It should be enough. My casual return must be a desolating blow. For all she knows I can spend the day at this glorious pastime. She, too, tries the "anything, anything" appeal. But what have they to offer me except themselves, and owning them what more do I want! I slice her neatly across her breasts. She turns, sobbing, to press her head against the wall and accept my stripes, on top of the others, across her back. She is really a very satisfying subject. I whip her longer than I had intended to.
This return down the line is doubly interesting. We know each other and have taken each other's measure. Or, at least, they have glimpsed my technique and the responses that turn me on. They are in a delightful quandary: to do all that pleases me most or to press stolidly against the wall. For the first I may whip them more because they give me joy. For the second I may whip them more because I wish to break down their hostility. They cannot win. How often I have said that of myself! A slave girl cannot win: that is the essence of her slavery.
Truly I wish I did not have to whip Trudy. She is so brave and so understanding. I wrack my brains for some argument to keep her here with Thea and me. But I fear Amethyst thinks Thea is enough. She had wanted only me. Now she also has Thea. How can I ask for one more. But I hate to think of Trudy wandering the park at Losteigne and being summoned by Lucian to be whipped or taken to that awful room. I whip her hard and carefully. If I can leave bad marks perhaps it will satisfy the other girls. I try and leave her breasts and her cunt alone. But whipping her is shockingly erotic. She has that quality. She is more satisfying than all the rest. I have to check my lust. Whipping Trudy is all too beautiful. I am punishing her too much, far more than is needful to maintain her status with the girls. With fire raging in my loins and affection in my heart I go on to the next girl who has been watching and waiting for her second round. She whimpers even before I start.
The transfer is, for me, hilarious. I know Amethyst also is much amused. There is a big truck, well enclosed. The girls come one by one, the prefect for the day regulating the flow. Lady C. and I tie them. She insists on both wrists and elbows. They are not to escape or even have hope of escape. I have never tied female flesh like this. It is as cunt-tingling as the whip. The cords are sweet as they circle the cringing flesh and then respond to my steady pull. I watch the protesting elbows draw closer and closer together and then press each other in the final joining. I hear the gasps and see the turned heads that would have me stop, that want to tell of the pain and the discomfort lest I don't know: I who have been so often thus tied! And then the final knot that will keep them prisoned until they reach Losteigne. Perhaps even then they will not be freed. It is good for captive girls to wait. It makes them humble and grateful. Each girl who comes to me implores with her eyes: Not too tight, Oh, please, not too tight! They all hope for a little while then, resignedly, accept the strictures they cannot deny. They wriggle their fingers after their wrists are bound, and flutter their shoulders after their elbows are cinched tight. Helpless, they turn and look at me with envy. I am free while they are bound. How wonderful to be me!
It is my own feeling. How wonderful to be dear little Fawn, the protege and love of Amethyst, Lady Chatham. What power she wields! But they do not know the state of my back or of my bottom. I am privileged and I am loved. But I am also whipped. I am more a slave girl than they will ever be.
The last of them mount the steps. I am sure they fear. They expect an African brothel. But Losteigne should be a relief. They will all love Lucian and accept his whippings with a perennial hope. They will be jealous of each other. Poor Gillian will have to walk forever with a cane to keep them attentive to what they are. I suspect, too, they will be kept well chained. It will be a new adventure for them in a dull life, a break in boredom. The truck is locked with its precious burden, and roars away. I turn to my mistress and sink to my knees and clasp her hand. I cover it with kisses, then stand and offer her my wrists. She locks the handcuffs upon them very tightly and kisses me on the lips. We turn and go back into the Castle Keep.
Amethyst is delighted with us. She sits regally in the big chair and gazes down benevolently at Thea and I as we recline upon the rug, the glinting circlets upon our wrists the only hint of our condition, that and our nudity. We look up at her almost with adoration. We are all very pleased with each other.
"Well, that got rid of that little lot," Amethyst says complacently. "Wonder what the dear boy will do with 'em all." She chuckled. "Might be a query as to what they'll do to him. But that's his worry. Important thing is what I'm going to do with you."
She addresses herself to Thea. "I know what I'm going to do with Fawn, so do you. Point is, where do you fit in! Actually you don't. No problem, of course. I'm quite ruthless. I have all sorts of nice stone compartments I can lock you in, there's various names for 'em and the discomforts vary a bit. Or I can decorate you with chains and let you clank around the castle. It's a bit lonely either way. How would you like to be a prefect?"
Poor Thea! This is a bad bit for her. She does not fit. Amethyst bought me, she did not bargain for two. Thea is scared. Lady C. is a force, an immensely positive force. I smile at her with love. But I am only a slave. Whatever her imprisonment, it will not be of my devising. I am as puzzled as she is about the prefect thing.
Amethyst laughs at the sheep's eyes we bestow on each other. "What I should do is trice you both up and whip you soundly while I talk. Your bottoms may be too comfortable for this to sink in properly. First, I'm cruel. You are here because I want to make you squeal, Fawn most of all. You both know this. Fawn is special to me, tremendously special. So, to avoid an awkward triangle I'm going to give Thea a job. It can be a glorious job or a miserable one according to how she approaches it. You should both be very happy. Thea: you are now prefect in charge of my own special slave girl. Her name is Fawn. Your duties will be to ensure her total captivity and to punish her as may be necessary. As a little reward for your troubles you may have the privilege of also punishing her for your own diversion. Want the job, or does a nice clean little cell sound better?"
Thea and I looked at each other. For the first time I feel the current strong, there is mischief in her eyes. She, too, has changed. I remember our talk in the park. At this moment she thinks not of escape, but of a new and different slavery than we have known. My heart swells with joy and gratitude as she rises gleefully to the occasion.
"I will make Fawn the best behaved girl in the United Kingdom," she affirms with certainty.
Lady C. claps her hands and laughs at me. "Two mistresses; you're in for a bad time, child."
I glow. Was ever there such happiness for a girl!
"But will I wear no chains?" Thea asks wonderingly. "Surely I am not free?"
"You are not free and, yes, you will wear chains. You will also be whipped by me as much as may please my fancy and to keep your proper perspective. Your only freedom will be with Fawn when I consign her to your care. I will probably be more cruel to you than Lucian was." Thea does not care. Her mind is busy with thoughts of me. "You will address me as mistress," she orders jauntily.
"Yes, mistress," I acknowledge demurely with downcast eyes. I will play the role I have been given for all I am worth.
"You may kiss my hand."
How positively cunt-tingling to obey! Our handcuffs clink. "Whip her."
We freeze. But we might have known. This is a test. "Take her where the girls were. The chains are still in the rings."
Amethyst locks chains upon Thea's ankles and removes her handcuffs. "Run along. It's between the two of you. See if you can't erase that smug look from Fawn's face."
Suddenly it is not easy for either of us. It is hard to adjust to what we are about to do. I can walk better than Thea. But I follow passively. I lift my hands to the ring that had held Trudy, and even feel a trace of fear as they are fastened. "Isn't this fun." I look back over one shoulder just as the girls had done.
"It isn't fun at all, and you know it, you eternal child," Thea says determinedly. "I'm going to make you howl. I'm not sure you don't deserve it, or that I'm not going to enjoy it."
I stick my tongue out at her. I am in good hands. I may as well earn my whipping. "Thank you, darling mistress." I make the words as saucy as I can. If I can tease her into being even a little provoked it will make her duty easier.
She knows what I am doing, of course, but loves it. "Ten extra," she says firmly.
"B.C.?" I ask brightly.
She knows it's a catch, but goes along.
"B stands for bottom," I explain coyly. "The C is for-"
"Never mind the C," my new mistress breaks in firmly. "You now get ten on each."
"I'm such a lucky girl!" I sigh with a gorgeous tremolo effect.
"You forgot to call me mistress, that's five more."
"Don't let's overdo this, darling." My voice has slipped back to normal. It is faintly apprehensive.
"You have nothing to say about anything. You can't get free, can you?"
"Of course not!" I tug and twist at my chains. "You can do what you like with me, mistress."
Thea turns me round to face her. It puts a bit more strain on my arms, but is easily done. She cups my face with her hands and kisses me for a long time. I try to rub against her, but can't.
"The past is gone, little slave girl," she whispers softly. "I am going to learn to love what I must do to you. I must! And you must know that I love. Agreed?"
I kissed her back, hard. I was too choked to speak.
"Turn a little sideways, slave girl, so that I can get a good stroke across your cunt," Thea requests in the most matter-of-fact voice in the world.
I turn a little sideways, trembling with love.
"Magnificent!" Amethyst enthused. "Really, I'm proud of you both."
I pirouetted my striped nudity for their delectation. I still hurt and I am still ashamed of the noise I made. But this is past. Now I display my wounds, Thea's wounds, with immense pride. I wiggle my bottom and click my handcuffs as castanets.
Thea is proud too. I can tell. Amethyst's magic has worked on her. She sees a condition in which she has a place. She has me, and has discovered an unsuspected quality in herself that will deal with what I am. Thus she will not mind that Amethyst possesses her. She will not always like what our mistress does with her. But, after all, she is a slave. Not as I am, but still a slave.
We both obey, jolted out of our complacency. Once more we are equal, our eyes flickering a faint dismay.
"Stretch, and tuck in your tummy, Cherie."
I flinch and almost cry out as the thin band circles me. I do not want it, but I am intrigued. I am afraid of the silver stuff. But I have long since ceased to be aware of the bands that clutch my ankles. If my Mistress wishes one round my waist, why should I complain. I stand very straight and very firm. She tilts my chin up so that I cannot look. I am told to stay like that even while she rings Thea.
When it is done and we are allowed to relax we examine each other in fascination. I can see Thea's circlet better than my own. They are tight upon us and have melded with our flesh as have the anklets. They are round and of no great dimension. They have no beginning and no end. They seemed malleable in Amethyst's hands. But now they are as firmly contoured as steel. We will never be unaware of them. They are tight and impose an erotic swinging motion to our hips as we walk. Our Mistress is delighted with their effect. I think we are too, but there must be dubiety in the way we look at them, for she laughs and assures us: "Yes, darlings, they have the same wicked property as have those upon your feet. But I will never use it unless you compel me to. It is a thing of Lucian's and... and, those others. I think it unsporting, a mean advantage even of a slave girl. But you look adorable."
"They are very tight." Thea and I say it together. We are wondering if we are to wear them for life. We have long been resigned to the anklets.
"It is for a purpose, darlings. It is very necessary that you both must keep in mind a constant knowledge that you are mine. These will help. Especially when you walk." She laughed gaily. "It is for but a little while... unless I become addicted to the sexy swing of your bottoms! You will utterly devastate any male who comes within view. Now run upstairs and dress in your finest, and pack a suitcase. We are going to London. Come, I will unlock your other bits of steel."
It was like being hit by a hammer. Thea and I froze, incredulous. Our Mistress enjoyed our shock. "Come, darlings." She held up the small keys to our fetters as though they were an enticement.
We dare not deluge Amethyst with questions. We move and stand in a sort of daze while our handcuffs and shackles are taken from us. She is quite incredible, a Goddess who can take us to the heights or to the depths. We know that she will tell us in her own way and in her own time. We stumble, with a restrained eagerness, to do her bidding.
"I don't believe it," Thea says as she fits her breasts into a new bra'.
"Amethyst means it," I affirm fervently as I slip panties over my pubic hair. They are of an exquisite sheerness so that I can still see my whip marks through the gossamer stuff. The band about my middle nudges me like a living hand. Perhaps it does have some strange life of its own. I am scared of it. But I will not let my fear mar my joy.
"She must be crazy." Thea's eyes seek mine in puzzlement. "Once outside a wall, with no chains on us we can run."
It is instant! One moment darling Thea was telling me of escape, the next she is writhing on the floor in an extremity of agony, her hands striving uselessly to tear away the silver metal from her waist. I stand, helpless, knowing her awful pain. Guessing how easily it could be mine. We are slave girls. We had best not forget!
It ends as quickly as it came. Thea twists and curls upon the carpet, then sheepishly rises to her feet. She is hurt, she is chagrined and humiliated. She has been taught a lesson. Even though I felt no pain I have been taught a lesson too. We are slaves.
I kiss her and hold her tight. We share our slavery. We are held as few slave girls have ever been, yet an immense excitement sends our blood racing. We are going back into the world... !
The Rolls purrs, the countryside slips by. We bear no fetter, no chain, no cord. It has not sunk in yet. My hands tend to join themselves of their own accord, my feet snub at a shackle that is not there. We are free, free, free!
In our room at the Dorchester Thea strives to come to grips with the impossible. "You don't even want to escape, do you?" Her voice holds more sorrow than censure.
"No." The single word says it all. But I feel I owe her more. "I'm in love with Amethyst. She has become my life."
"But you wear these same metal compulsions that I do."
"I love them! They kill temptation. I don't want to be tempted to escape!"
I feel a great tenderness for Thea. She is torn. I know how she is torn! She has only to pick up the phone and call the police.
"I daren't!" She reads my thoughts. "That pain is too awful: it might take them hours to get these bands off me. I'd die." She looks at me and grins wryly. "We're lost, y'know. Here I have escape within my hand and I don't really want it. I can't leave you. Where would I go! I'm absolutely ashamed of myself. My mind is full of the vision of owning you and doing whatever I like with you...
"Not minding what Amethyst will do to you?"
"No. I don't care any more. In my own way I'm the same as you. We are both lost. Or maybe I've found the same as you... something that once was not there." Thea holds me close for a long time. "Come, darling, let's go and take our Mistress down to dinner."
Every male in the Dorchester admired our hips.
It was an ecstatic week. At the end of it Amethyst owned us both utterly. Thea surrendered. I had never fought. It was a test. I do not need the silver bands, but I am glad I wear them. I would weep if they were taken from me, they are of Amethyst. In a different degree it is the same with Thea. She is happy. I wonder what the liveried doorman would think if he knew what was about our waists! Thea tells me I need to be whipped, I am altogether too impudent! Our Mistress smiles indulgently. Everything is gorgeous!
The ride home in the Rolls has more surprises: not of chain or cord, but of words. "We are not going back to the Castle," Amethyst tells us casually. "We are going to one of my other places: Broule. Ever hear of it?"
Who has not! Amethyst is very, very rich.
She gives us a sideways sparkle of the eyes. "It's quite old, and it has all the proper facilities."
"To whip me?" I ask demurely.
"Of course, Cherie. We can return to normal."
"I didn't try to escape." Thea is irrelevant. It is a statement and a question.
"Why would you, Cherie! You would not lose Fawn any more than I would." Again the sideways sparkle. "Confess now, you long to whip her, don't you? You can't wait to get her nicely fastened and make her scream?"
Thea visibly squirms. I reach under her skirt and take liberties. "Oh alright...!" It is as though our darling has forsworn a principle. "I do long to whip her. I think she needs it! But I won't be hypocritical, I'm as bad as she is."
"I will whip you, too, Cherie."
"Please do, and make me howl."
I sit and squirm in lust for both of them. I am a bad girl!
"This Lucian thing: I can't tell you much. But I will tell you something." We sense our Mistress's words have been carefully rehearsed. "I have relinquished the Castle to him and to those absurd creatures he has conjured out of nowhere. I have tired of the whole silly business. I simply wish him well in his dream. I want Fawn more than I want those sad silver creatures who are quite lost and who depend on him so utterly." She grins in satisfaction. "As far as I'm concerned their only worthwhile contribution to the brave new world is that metal that's fastened on you both. I owe 'em that."
"Isn't Lucian at Losteigne any more?" I venture.
"He comes and goes. You've probably noticed: now you see him, now you don't. Actually those silver oddities have given him his money's worth. Or, to be more accurate, my money's worth. Lucian needed me badly. I don't think he does any more."
"Can I whip Fawn first thing on arrival?" Thea pleaded.
Lucian's involvements held little interest for her.
"Of course, darling. You are quite right, she is spoiling for a whipping. But only after I have whipped you."
Always the little twist! I chuckle inwardly as I watch darling Thea squirm. But what can she do: "Thank you, Mistress," she manages, a bit doubtfully. I suddenly realise I am to be whipped too. If Thea is hurting and a bit resentful she may really make me squeal. I think I would sooner be whipped by Amethyst. But, one way or another, dear little Fawn seems in for a bad time. I glow. How gorgeous it is to be loved!
"Wouldn't it be a nice change if I whipped one of you?" I ask, deliberately provocative. "I'm sure you'd enjoy it."
"We will both whip you." Amethyst says with decision.
I suppose I asked for it. I must want it! Broule is Ducal. Every bit the way the Sunday supplements have always pictured it. Hosts of servants and flunkeys. Thea and I blush a bit. But they can't see our rings. Amethyst sweeps us through them and to the dungeons as though she is putting away the groceries. They are all scared to death of her...
I have been tied a long time. I am tired and my wrists hurt. But that is an old story. I am waiting to be whipped. The delay is for dual reasons. Good old suspense, and Thea has to be whipped first. If she has to have the suspense bit I may be here a couple of centuries. It is really cringe making, but my fire flames brightly. I am very hungry for Amethyst. But even though she wants me just as much it won't make any difference to the whipping I'm going to get. I tug at the thongs that hold my wrists and arms up high, but Hell what's the use! I can't get loose, so I might as well be a good girl and wait quietly. But it's against nature: I twist and turn and tug. My wrists scald and protest, but I've done my duty, I've tried. I hang and think of the lovely marks I'm going to get and how they'll hurt. I wonder if Thea is like this somewhere... screaming. I wish I could watch.
They both come. Thea is hurting and beautifully marked. But when she sees me her eyes light and her pain vanishes.
Amethyst glows. They both select whips. My wrists pull at their thongs. I wish I could quietly disappear. I gaze at them both with love, but without hope. This is the most awful moment.
Mistress is ambidextrous, so they stand one each side and discuss just how they will go about whipping dear little Fawn. Being their main concern I glow, but wish they avoided such specific detail as to how to hurt me best. "Oh alright!" I say, piqued by their mutuality. "You don't have to tell me." I lift one leg and sideways. "This is what you want, isn't it!"
The two thongs find me at the same moment. My rash invitation earns me my reward. I should have kept quiet. I don't now. I make the most awful racket. They stand back and enjoy my vocalizing. I put on my best show. What have I to lose! And, anyway, it will make Thea feel better. I wonder how many strokes she got. I can't count them on her skin, I'm far too busy screaming and proclaiming how good a girl I long to be if only they'll stop.
They don't stop, of course, but fall into a measured rhythm that results in a continuous stream of lashes under which I leap and tug and kick and do all the things I will be ashamed of afterwards. The infuriating thing is that they keep up a commentary on their intentions in the way of hurting me, and also on the way I am behaving. I long to scream at them to shut up. I know they just do it to provoke me. But I simply scream and take what comfort I can from my fire. This is a very difficult time for a slave girl. I will be heroic afterwards as I was before, but not now. I have a delightful dream of whipping Thea, but I don't believe in it.
When our Mistress believes I have been brought to a proper state of mind they stop, and Thea is tied as I am tied. She stands facing me about ten feet distant. It is a little like seeing myself in a mirror even to the scarlet stripes. I can see she is surprised.
"It is I who will make you a Prefect or a slave," Amethyst admonishes her. "Never forget you are both."
Our Mistress backs away and surveys us with satisfaction.
"You can admire each other to your heart's content, darlings. A little period of meditation while you hold the most beautiful pose a girl can be given. Au Revoir." She sweeps from the room, leaving us with our burning wrists.
"So, I mustn't get ideas above my station!" Thea says ruefully. "Are you angry with me? For whipping you, I mean?"
"Don't be silly. You'll be doing it often. I'll love it afterwards."
"I'm sure we look beautiful, but this isn't the most comfortable way to be tied." Thea wriggles against her cords. "Can you get your heels on the floor? I can't."
I laugh at her. "I'm on tip-toe. You know I am. It's part of the punishment. It keeps us squirming. We'll get awfully tired and hurt if Amethyst leaves us like this long."
I grope with something dear to me while I watch my cousin kick and strain to find the slack that is not there. "I say, Thea, are you happy?"
She stops her lovely writhings to fix me with an admonitory eye. "You out of your tree?"
"Oh, I don't mean about being tied like this!" I try to stamp my foot and fall. "You know what I mean... "
Thea sticks her tongue out at me playfully. "You want it all, don't you little slave girl. Alright! I'm happy. It's crazy and I ought to be ashamed of myself, but yes I'm happy." She looks at me with mock annoyance, "It's all your fault. You're a menace. You're so damn... so damn... whippable, and you make love so gorgeously you've got Amethyst and me chasing you like a couple of tomcats. When either one of us looks at you we yearn for the whip and start slavering... " She gives me a little smile of love, and continues more seriously. "I've thought about it all so much: I've had to. There are really only two things that matter to me: escape and you. Since the London trip I sort of see escape as something real, something I might make happen or that Amethyst might allow to happen. Probably that's just a dream. If it came to a crunch I'd renege. It would hurt too much and I'm too hungry for you! I suspect I'm getting hungry for Amethyst too, she's habit forming. So, yes darling, I'm happy. Any girl who gets her choice has to be."
The door opened and Skilley entered, eyes wide in pleased surprise. "Cor lummie, miss, fixed up a proper treat, aincha'."
Thea and I looked at each other in blank disbelief. Skilley was not a silver girl any more, she was Skilley right out of the kitchen at Losteigne. "How did you get here?" Thea demanded.
Our visitor seemed pleased with herself and with the plight she found us in. Grinning like a Cheshire cat she circled us a couple of times, her sharp cockney eyes noting the effectiveness of our bonds and the marks upon our skins. " 'er Ladyship done yer proud, I'd say," she offered approvingly.
"We're so glad to see you." I say sincerely. "Now you're here, please untie us. We can talk."
"We can talk with yer tied up. Yer look real nice."
"Please untie us, Skilley," Thea coaxed.
"Can't very well do that, miss, seein' as 'ow you're me reward."
My heart sank. I was getting bad vibrations from this odd girl. But I smiled brightly. "How do we come to be a reward, love?"
"'er Ladyship takes kindly ter me, she do. Says I can 'ave yer fer a few hours. 'Ope yer don't mind, miss."
"What do you mean, 'have us'?" Thea asked irritably. "And yes, we do mind! Be a good girl and untie us."
Skilley knew her way around. Instead of answering, she went to a shelf and picked up some of the ornamented spring clips I remembered so well. Casually, as though her act required no explanation, she snapped one on each of our nipples.
"Oh, Skilley, what have we done...?" I gasped through the pain.
"Ain't done nothin', miss. But I got a present, like: see! You ain't goin' ter begrudge me a bit o' fun, are you now?"
"But, Skilley, we're friends. Why are you hurting us?"
"Oh, we're friends alright, miss. But I ain't goin' ter let that stand in the way o' me bit o' fun."
While she talked she had found the whip and was now eyeing our suspended nudity with relish. I began to get a bad feeling about Skilley. The clips on my nipples were hurting like fury. I didn't want to get whipped now, not by her!
"Please don't whip us, Skilley," I pleaded with all the sincerity I could muster. "Both of us have just been whipped, you can see the marks."
"Lovely, ain't they, miss."
"Take these things off my breasts, you idiot." Thea was angry.
With care and deliberation Skilley brought the whip slashing round my cousin's hips. Thea tugged at her tethers and gasped in anguish, but did not scream.
"Ort ter be careful 'ow yer talks ter me, miss. Would yer like ter tell me 'ow sorry yer are?"
"I'm sorry, Skilley. Really I am. But please don't whip us. These clips hurt terribly, won't they do?"
"Don't think yer sorry at all, I don't. So 'ere's another."
Poor Thea! This time she screams. Skilley nods approvingly and turns to me. "Gotta' be fair, ain't I, miss."
It is an awful slash. The pain is beastly. It makes no sense. I start to cry. It all seems wrong. I sob desperately: "Oh Skilley don't be unkind. What's happened to you? What about that silver business...?"
"You 'avin' me on, miss? What silver yer talkin' about?"
She is getting ready to slash me again, so I burst into speech: "Those silver men in the big hall, and what they did to you! Remember? You spoke to us just before you disappeared."
She gives me a penetrating scrutiny, gauging my motive. She has not understood a word. "You pullin' me leg, miss?" She slashes me again, but half heartedly. "Last I seen you was out in the park... that time I got took all queer. Showed yer summat' in the trees... but I forgotten what."
"But where have you been since then?"
"Yer just talkin' so I won't whip yer. 'Ere try this little lot...!"
"This little lot' set me to leaping and tugging and sobbing. It was a terrible slice across my back with the tip curling under one arm. Skilley was pleased with my performance.
"You oughta' know where I bin'. Mr. Lucian 'e lends me ter 'er Ladyship after I 'ave that illness wot' leaves me all blank like. Proper Tartar she is too. Makes old Nancy seem like the Salvation Army. Got me down ter this place fer a week-end or summat'. Going back ter 'er Castle agin' termorrer. I'd like ter whip yer cunt, miss. Mind liftin' yer left foot out of the way."
She is impossible! But what can I do. I am beautifully tied to be whipped. Skilley can make me do anything. Miserably I lift my leg to expose my triangle and wait for the scalding agony. It is so terrible that I can spare little attention as Thea screams too as the thong bites her the same place. She makes each of us repeat the same horror again and again until we are just two pleading sobbing bits of femininity reduced to being utterly abject before this kitchen slut who now stands drinking in our contortions and our screams with relish.
"'urts real bad on yer little quim, don't it, miss. 'Er Ladyship 'as a go at mine regular. Must o' treated it real crool that time I don't remember. When I come to I 'ardly recognized me own 'ole. 'urt so bad and all stretched and swollen like."
She gives us a concerned look. We are a sad pair. "No 'ard feelins' is there, miss... 'bout this bit o' fun I'm 'avin'. Thought I'd 'ave a go at yer breast next."
She is absurd. She is frightening in her naivete. She can whip us to death while she chats gaily. Never have the bands round my wrist seemed more implacable. I do not care about their pain. I tug and tug and tug. "Silly girl," says Skilley, "made yerself bleed, you 'ave. Why don't cha stand still. You can't never get loose, y'know."
I know I can't, and it is frightening. The clamps on my nipples tell me how helpless I am. "Darling Skilly," I plead, "untie us and we'll love you to bits, I promise. We'll do anything you want."
For a moment I think I have touched her, the eyes soften. But then she laughs coarsely. "A right Charlie I'd be ter let you two loose. Wot I'm goin' ter do no is 'ave a proper do with them nice breasts you got. 'urts 'orrible that!"
Enjoying these moments and our hurt she takes her time unclipping the brutal jaws from our nipples and affixing them lower down on the lips of our sex. Our fresh moans are spurred by the new pain and the thought of what is to come... To have to stand while she whips our breasts, it is too awful! It is also shockingly demeaning to plead. But I do: "Skilley, dear, please don't whip our breasts. Cane our bottoms, that will make us howl. We haven't been caned for a long while. It will hurt terribly."
She snickers, in full command she has us. "I'll cane you after I done yer tits," she promises.
It is no use. Tied like this we can do nothing but kick and scream. She enjoys both. We have nothing to bribe her with. In knowing cruelty she now uses her finger on us with crude skill. It is easy for her to bring us to gasping orgasms. "Alius thinks it 'urts more after yer 'ad a gasper," she comments cheerfully. She is quite right. It does hurt more, much more. I am ashamed of my tears. But I do not check them. They are all the comfort I have. I let them go full force along with my cries and moans as she starts on my right breast. A girl can only stand so much...
Suddenly my torture stops. There are muffled sounds I faintly recognize. I open my eyes to behold Skilley writhing on the floor and grasping her ankles, her face contorted. It is then I see she, too, bears the silver bands. "What the devil d'you think you're up to, you little bitch!" says Amethyst Lady Chatham.
It feels so good. I want the moment to last forever. Amethyst holds me tight. Our lips are glued. I care not for my wrists. They can stay tied forever if it is my mistress who holds me. Skilley writhes upon the floor, her cries and pleas frantic. But no one listens. After a long while we find time for words. Amethyst does not untie us, nor do I want her to. I am happy. She is here. We are safe. Even if she whipped me now I would feel safe. Skilley is something awful that just happened. She is ugly there upon the floor.
After awhile the force is released. Skilley gets to her feet abashed and awkward. Her glances in my direction, now, are imploring.
"Where did you get the idea you could whip these girls?" Tears and the shuffling of feet.
"Strip. Take those things from their lips and put two on your own and two on your nipples. Sharp now!"
Thea and I watch, entranced. It is pure joy to see her hesitancy in setting the small bitter jaws upon her own flesh. She dare not falter or evade. Her tears come easily when all four of them have her in their teeth. Had she not been so cruel to us she would seem quite sweet in her youthful nakedness with the lovely ornaments as firmly entrenched upon her most secret spots. She looks to Lady Chatham without hope.
She is very soon tied as we are tied. Perhaps her heels are an inch higher off the floor. Amethyst has three naked girls tied on their toes. Her focus is on one. I suspect Amethyst has left us tied so that we may more easily identify with the shivering culprit in what she is about to receive.
"Any reason why I shouldn't flog your breasts?" Amethyst asks pleasantly.
Skilley just wails.
"You had them lift their legs I see. Please oblige me now."
The cockney wench obeys with alacrity. I could swear the thong buries itself between her clamped lips. She goes berserk.
"And now the other," Amethyst is relentless.
Skilley is flogged within an inch of her life. When Amethyst is gone the three of us still hang from our wrists; Skilley in the last throes of agony and guilt, Thea hurting but safe. I am very happy that I am so much loved. I look up at the blood upon my wrists and smile.
I do not count the days. When Amethyst brings me to Lucian in the lounge my whip marks do not too brazenly proclaim themselves. I am shocked that we should be brought together, but more by his dark hollow eyes. They are the eyes of a man who has seen too much. He has lost weight. He seems infinitely sad. Amethyst smiles benignly upon us both and gives me a small signal of reassurance and consent.
"I have given dear Lucian permission to whip you, Cherie."
His eyes search and devour me. "I have a great need," he tells me simply.
With these two it is so natural and so right. I am glad that Lucian wants to whip me again and that Amethyst approves. How wonderful to be so loved! My smile is all gladness as I lead him to the room where he will flog me. When I am tied I let him know, in female ways, that I am pleased and happy. I no longer belong to him. But I can bestow a gift of pain to one I have loved. "Darling Lucian, how are you going to whip me?" I ask innocently.
"Very hard and very simply," he tells me soberly. "You are so beautiful it is a boon to whip you in the most simple ways. I will even cane your sweet bottom. There will be no deviations, no seeking to hurt that which is solely your own.
Lucian whips me exquisitely and canes my bottom quite savagely. I scream when I must, but for the most part need only moan and look at him with eyes that tell this strange lost man that I give with love that which he is taking with the cane and with the whip. For him they are the touch of lips and the penetration of the phallus. When he takes me back to a discreet and understanding Amethyst she gives us tea, and he goes away after he has held us for a very long time.
"Poor Lucian," my mistress says pensively as his car disappears down the drive.
I know, with a strange certainty, that I will never see Lucian again.
My mistress handcuffs me, then laughingly hands me over to Thea. "There are things I must do, Cherie." She pats my cheek and gives me a little push. Thea accepts me gratefully. There is a glint in her eye, a glint I have come to know. "Are you going to whip me too, darling?" I ask as I am led down the hall.
"None of your business, impudence," Thea assures me. "Think of it, slave girl, I can do what I please with you."
She can. It is a nice thought. I resign myself to more whipping. There seems no end to the whip marks a girl's skin has room for. I resolve to scream very loud. But she fools me. "You are too fond of being whipped, you darling creature," she says mischievously. "There are other things, y'know."
Dear Thea stands me back against a post and ties me tighter than I have ever been tied. I squeal and she laughs as each cord is tugged and tugged before it is knotted. Ankles, waist, shoulders and wrists. When she is done very little cord has been used, yet I cannot move, and I hurt, oh how I hurt! My breasts stick out. I wonder if she has something planned for them. "Please put the lovely clips on my nipples," I ask puckishly.
I had not thought she would do it, but she does. Our eyes are very close as the little jaws sink into my buds. Hers are mocking, mine acknowledge that I am only getting what I asked for. "A nice change for you, little slave girl," Thea says nonchalantly.
I know she wants me to struggle, so I do. Only my head wiggles. The bands she has drawn deep into my flesh hurt like fury and allow me no movement at all. "In an hour I'll be moaning and making a fuss," I tell her soberly.
"And why not! If I was whipping you now you'd be making some interesting sounds. I could whip your breasts. Skilley only got at one of them. Would you like me to make the other a nice crimson?"
"Oh, darling, don't tease."
Thea whips my other breast until it is indeed a bright crimson. Before she starts she removes the clip, then afterwards carefully replaces it on my protesting nipple. I make a lot of noise and shed a few tears, but I smile at her through them when it is done.
"Still a bit uneven, darling." Thea makes a great show of examining and comparing my breasts. "I absolutely must bring the one on the left up to standard."
I cringe and beg while she removes the clip. I would far sooner wear it, with all its pain, than have what is about to happen. The darling girl whips my left breast vigorously while I howl. When it has been made the requisite shade of crimson and scarlet the butterfly clip is tenderly snapped on my poor nipple. I try and evade the bite. But I can't move. It is a terrible thing for a girl to stand and look down at herself being tortured. "Haven't you forgotten the two on my cunt?" I demand angrily.
Am I a masochist, or is it simply that I glory in all that my loved ones do to me! If it was Skilley I would hate it. I hate it now. I would shake them loose if I could. But I do not hate the fingers that put these metal things upon me. There is a world of difference... I cannot explain. But I try and look down as my youthful mistress takes great care in pulling out my lips and letting the jaws bite into them in the most painful manner possible. I cannot lean forward enough to watch. But there is no need. My flesh itself has eyes as well as nerves.
"Do you think I could get one of these on your clit?" Thea asks.
It is an awful thought, a threat I have sensed hovering. I am quite absurd in my puckish moods when I am driven to immerse myself in these delicious females who own me. "Every clit needs one," I assure my cousin with mock solemnity.
Thea does it very carefully, and I am in an agony of suspense. I lose my courage and beg. But it is too late. Thea is intent upon her interesting task. I am sure she is curious as to the result. There are false starts and fumbles, all painful. I am constantly yelping. When the center of my being is finally squarely clasped in the metal jaws and the tension fully released from my mistress's fingers I truly scream. She steps back, finds a seat and calmly watches my suffering. "You're putting a lot of that on for my benefit," she tells me calmly.
She is quite right. But I deny. "I'm not! It's awful, simply awful. Please, please, please...!" It does hurt bitterly in a strange sort of way. I am prey to all sorts of emotions. But I want those jaws off my clit. Off, off, off... I moan and scream and make a fuss.
It is quite useless, of course. Thea knows me too well. She lets me suffer and listens to all the sounds I can think up. Then she saunters back and unclips the awful thing and replaces it with a searching finger. I let out a howl of vivid sensation and have orgasm after orgasm as she plies her busy digit. My mistress owns me. She can possess me with one finger. In the end we both laugh at my chagrin.
That night Thea is summoned to our bedchamber. I am told she is assistant mistress and entitled to privilege. Joyfully I service them both again and again. My hints that perhaps I deserve relief are studiously ignored, I am only a slave girl. My fire almost scorches me as I devour them. I am immensely happy. When it is time to sleep my handcuff is fastened on my wrist. But I have company on the ring, Thea is cuffed to it also. She must sleep on the floor beside me, beside the bed on which our mistress sleeps in comfort. I always fall asleep instantly. My chained hand does not bother me even when I move in sleep. Handcuffs are my life. I adore them. Thea is not so accustomed. We cling with our free hands and adore each other a long time before sleep claims her. We belong to Amethyst.
We are inured to surprises. But this one shatters us. Thea and I are to go to London alone for several days while our mistress deals with Lucian's takeover of the grim castle to the north. We are to be alone, we are given money, we can do what we like. Amethyst will phone us when to return. We sit and let it soak in.
"Don't send us, please. You don't need to worry about Fawn, but I'll be tempted."
Amethyst enjoys her candor. "Of course you will, Cherie. Be tempted all you like. You will both return when I call. You will see. Go and be happy."
We go. A chauffeur drives us and leaves us at the hotel. We are free. We wear about out tummies the silver band, others are on our ankles. Perhaps we are not free at all. But nothing has been said. We do not ask. We can stop any policeman or phone the Yard. Instead we go gaily in to lunch and wiggle our bottoms shamelessly at all the men.
Two girls in London, and with money to spend. It is so wonderful! Even Thea ruefully acknowledges that as the day progresses her notions of escape dissolve. By dinner she is as glad she is a slave as I am. We both know we are slaves, and we are glad of the constriction round our tummies. I have a laughing fantasy of a man taking me to bed and finding the band there, and what he would make of it. We get a little tipsy and I behave so outrageously that when we go to our room Thea produces cord she had thoughtfully packed, and ties my wrists to the bed and whips me soundly. I giggle through the first strokes. But when I reach the higher notes she gags me that the holy silence of the Dorchester be not violated. As a small reminder of her prefecture she produces handcuffs at bedtime and locks my right wrist to her left. I tell her that is not a punishment, but a reward. With an air of long suffering she unlocks her wrist and cuffs both mine behind my back. But I cry and make such a fuss that she, once more, chains us both together. We go to sleep, the happiest girls in London.
We shop, we go to theatres, we eat delicious foods, all because we are the slaves of Amethyst. We come to know how privileged we are. Her title hovers over us like a protective cloud. We could ask for the Earth and someone would dash off and get it for us. We wallow in luxury.
"Think we should let one of these good looking boys fuck us?" Thea asks.
I had considered the idea myself. It is a long time since I was fucked. But it has no appeal. I would be amused by his antics, that is all. Thea makes the experiment, but comes to bed frustrated. She has to have a bath first, and because I sense her disappointment I ask her to whip me before we make love. Later the handcuff joins us and cements our union. I am glad I did not bother. I glow and my fire burns bright.
"He sure was curious about the silver bands," Thea admits the next morning. "He tried every way he knew to get them off or even to get his finger in between. I'm sure he was strong, but he could do nothing with them. He looked at me a bit oddly, and I'm sure he thought he was up against black magic," she giggled. "Maybe that's why he didn't put on much of a performance. Men are absurd! Serves me right. But it got it out of my mind. Sure you don't want to try one?"
"I'd sooner be whipped, please Mistress," I say demurely.
So I am whipped, and then we go down to breakfast.
He is what everyone would call 'A nice young man'. He beams down at us through large spectacles and says, "Do you mind?" as though he is quite sure we will.
"Go away," Thea says firmly.
He is shy and distressed, but persistent. "I have a message... Could I sit down a moment?"
"We are lesbians, we don't need you," Thea says unkindly.
"Please sit down," I tell him. He is rather sweet.
He sits down at our breakfast table, gulps and waves an envelope, diffident and uncertain.
"Which one of us are you going to give that to?" Thea asks brutally.
He gives it to her. I expect people can tell I'm the slave. She reads it, then gives it to me. She is perplexed. After I have read it I am perplexed too.
"Dear Aunt Amethyst is most impetuous," says Cyril. He is a perfect Cyril. I often wonder if we bring our names with us from where we come from. You know: predestination.
"Why didn't she tell us?" Thea asks resentfully. "Or be along for the introduction?"
"It was the middle of the night. Trant brought the letter when he came for the box Aunt Amethyst wanted. He woke us up."
"Us?"
"I live with my sister. Her name's Bridie."
"Sure she's your sister?"
His answer to that one was a lovely blush. "I'm sure you'll like Bridie. She's terribly excited about you staying with us for a week or so."
"Just a nice social visit?" I ask, feeling lost.
"Of course! We can have a wonderful time. Bridie and I sort of need someone like you to get us out of a rut. I think it's simply ripping."
The same thought struck Thea as it hit me. Was this freedom! Was this a chance to rid ourselves of the silver bands and pick up our old lives! Our eyes locked questioningly.
The pain from my anklets begins quite gently but mounts and mounts until I am on the verge of rolling on the floor of the Dorchester dining room. Then it stops. I find I have been biting my hand to keep from howling. I look at Thea and know she has been warned too.
"I'm frightfully sorry, y'know," Cyril peers back and forth at us anxiously. "I say, you really are awfully pretty girls."
"Did you do that?" Thea demands indignantly.
"The, er... the... well, yes. I'm afraid so."
"How the Devil d'you do it!"
Cyril is embarrassed, he comes out with a quaint little whinny. "Sort of a family secret, I'm afraid."
"Did Lady Chatham give it to you just to keep us well behaved?"
"Well, no. I wouldn't really say that."
We look at Cyril with a fresh respect. I say to Thea: "Do be polite to him, darling."
But my darling is incorrigible. "Would you like me to lick your boots now or later?" she asks angrily.
He's really quite nice in a puppy dog sort of way. The knowledge that he has the power over our silver bands is frightening but it doesn't change much, the bands are a part of us and we have grown accustomed to the hazard. To me it's a link with Amethyst, so I don't mind. Cyril blushes again and says: "Oh, please, don't be angry with me. Bridie and I do want you to enjoy... "
"No doubt you have a dungeon ready for us!"
Poor Cyril gives her caustic remark a whinny and lets it go at that.
If there is a dungeon nobody shows it to us. We check out of the Dorchester and taxi to number forty-three Belvington Square. It's not as big as Buckingham Palace but it's handsome. Cyril and Bridie don't make a dent in it. I had a feeling that even living all your life there would be only the barest intrusion on the centuries. Our room is quite splendid. The whole place is splendid, they show us around with a diffident pride. Most of it needs dusting.
"What about downstairs?" Thea asks pointedly. She is still suspicious of the dungeon.
Bridie is nice. She's pretty and could be a lot prettier if she tried. She's nervous and I get a feeling of envy for whatever we represent in her mind. But her pleasure in having us is genuine. I'd be glad to have company too if I lived there.
"Oh just the servants and the kitchens and things... "she says vaguely. "We won't bore you with downstairs yet." I feel positive Bridie would like to retract that last word. Thea gives me a sinister wink.
They are tremendously kind. They spend money like water and give us a wonderful day. We do London. But Thea is miffed. She wanted us to be alone together. She is offhand with them. Forty-three Belvington Square is not what we were used to. In the evening she has a nasty little row with poor distressed Cyril, she is actually rude. I feel ashamed. Bridie looks on, wondering what it's all about. She has a delightful innocence and turns wide appealing eyes to me as though I have influence with Thea and Cyril. I like Bridie, there's nothing to dislike.
In bed Thea is petulant. She loves me very hard and passionately. "Let's go home, Fawn."
I am suddenly nostalgic for Losteigne. But I point out that a week at 43 Belvington Square is not exactly the end of the world.
"But it's so blah. Besides, there's something we don't know. Cyril and Bridie aren't quite real."
I'd like to go home too. The magic Thea and I had found at the Dorchester is gone. But I remind her of the obvious.
"What happens with our silver bands if we run?" I have visions of us writhing on the dirty platform of King's Cross.
Thea turns on the light. As though in a council of war we examine the lovely metal that encircles our ankles and our waist. I could adore it were it not for knowledge of its power. We run our fingers back and forth over its surface and ourselves. We have done this so often we should be tired of it, there is no lock or join. But we are like the tiger in his cage going forever up and down seeking the freedom that isn't there. We look at each other ruefully and shrug. We could run to the police and see what they could do, but I am not going to do that. Thea knows this. I belong to Amethyst. In her heart Thea knows she won't do it either. But she is restless. She giggles at a notion: "Let's creep down and slip into bed with Cyril."
I am intrigued. I can imagine that if he did anything with us it would be apologetically and blushing. It would be like sleeping with Alice's white rabbit. We don't dress, but go as we are.
It's a bit scary, everything's so big and loaded with the damndest things, it's a museum. But we find the door and peep in. Sure enough the big bed contains a single figure. We are a bit disappointed because I think we'd both hoped to find dear Cyril in bed with dear Bridie, we were aching for something scandalous. But if Bridie was absent, we weren't! We tiptoed across the rug, a pair of naked damsels bent on mischief. One on each side of the bed we gently pull back the covers. What we uncover leaves us aghast. It is not Cyril.
It is one of the silver men!
We flee back to our room, lock the door, dive into bed and clasp each other with arms and legs. We can't get close enough we're so frightened. Suddenly everything is wrong.
"Tomorrow night," Thea whispers fervently. "If we get out of here an hour after bedtime we'll have all night before anyone will think about our bands. We'll be back at Losteigne."
I'm all for it, so it's decided. We manage some sleep and in the morning go down to breakfast, a pair of bright and expectant guests. We make a point of teasing Cyril to reassure ourselves that underneath his expensive clothes he isn't silver. But he isn't! And Bridie isn't either. They blush too easily. I couldn't imagine a silver man being embarrassed. The banter makes us feel a bit better. I think nothing of it when Bridie uses some trivial excuse to get me to go up to her room with her. It's a lovely room, and while I'm admiring it she drops her little bomb.
"I say, Fawn, are you and Thea prisoners?"
I sort of freeze. I haven't the faintest idea what to answer.
"What makes you ask a question like that?" I evade.
She sticks out her foot and I now see what I should have noticed before. Beneath the nylon she wears a silver band. She looks at me anxiously. "You and Thea have got them on both ankles... " She contrives to look piteous. "I know what they do to a girl... It's awful."
"Have you got one anywhere else?" I ask, startled.
This really gets to her. She looks at me aghast. "You mean we can have them on us other places... all over?"
It only took me a minute to show her the one on my tummy. She was quite fascinated. "D'you mind?" she asked. And proceeded to do her best to get it off, having a good look at it in the process. "It's beautiful!" she breathed. "But you can't get rid of it, can you! Doesn't it make you scared?"
I tried to explain, but there was too much. When she began to look incredulous I thought I'd better shut up. "Yes, I suppose I am a prisoner," I admitted lamely. I wondered if or how I could tell the poor girl what Amethyst and I were to each other.
"I'm a prisoner too," said Bridie.
I don't know where the conversation might have gone if there hadn't been a hail from below. Hastily we gathered ourselves together and departed for a day of gaiety that dear little Fawn was no longer in the mood for. It wasn't until we were leaving the house that I missed Thea.
"She's not coming with us today," Cyril said cheerfully.
"Why?"
He wasn't as embarrassed as he should have been. "She's busy," he told me without blinking an eye. "Please not to worry."
"I want to see her."
"Not possible, dear girl. Come on, we've a full schedule."
I was scared. I was also angry. I stood firm on the front steps. "I won't go without her. Where is she?"
It was then Bridie put her hand on my arm and gave me such a look of heartrending appeal that I relented a bit and took a couple of hesitant steps down.
Cyril was still anxious to please. "You really mustn't worry about... well, about anything. I thought that being used to Aunt Amethyst... " He trailed off into silence as though mention of Lady Chatham could make all things understandable.
"She really is quite extraordinary," was Bridie's contribution.
We moved on down to the waiting taxi as though going to a funeral.
When you consider it, there wasn't much I could do. I wracked my brains, but ended up tagging along like a good girl. I won't try and say I didn't enjoy myself either. Cyril went all out, so what with theatres and restaurants and shops it was all very hectic and quite wonderful. I never forgot Thea wasn't there, but I'm feminine and human. I was pretty sure making a big stink wasn't going to help. Anyway, it was late when we got back to number 43 Belvington Square and I went straight to my room. When I switched on the light I got another shock. There was a girl in the bed, but it wasn't Thea.
I'd never seen this one before.
She was pretty, she was cute, she was about fourteen. She sat up and gave me a pixie grin. She was naked. "Hello," she said brightly. "My name's Permilia," then added, "please don't laugh."
I nearly came out with: "And what are you doing in my bed?" But I wasn't Goldilocks and she wasn't a bear. I just stared.
"Cyril and Bridie don't know I'm back. I wanted to talk to you, so here I am."
"But who are you?"
"I'm the kid sister: the brat. You know: Mummy and Daddy's accident. I say, you're awfully pretty, y'know!"
Her name suited Belvington Square but she didn't. My heart went out to the kid. Don't ask me why: one of those things that just happen. As though seeking her bona-fides I asked stupidly: "Have you got a band on your ankle?"
She laughed. "No, but I bet you have. I say is it very bad when... you know...?"
"You're not a bit like Cyril and Bridie."
"No, I'm not, am I! They had a very stuffy life before all these things started."
"What things?"
"Aunt Amethyst, of course... and the girls." She giggled, "and the odd job men."
It was all a bit much. The kid took everything for granted. She was way ahead of me, and right then I was too tired of shocks to want to try and catch up. She had slipped out from under the covers and was sitting on the bed staring at me with interest. I had a feeling the naked bit was either an attempt to shock me or test my sophistication or perhaps to show off a body as delightful as her face. Permilia, what a name! was very nicely put together. But I had something else on my mind.
"I've got a friend, a girl who came with me. She's-"
"I know," Permilia said casually. "You lick each other's cunts."
She was sweet, but after all... ! "I'll lick yours if you don't start talking sense," I told her without thinking.
"Oh, how lovely!" Her exclamation sounded utterly genuine. She opened her legs and presented herself for my attentions. She had a far heavier bush than most girls that age. It sort of twinkled at me.
Worried as I was about Thea, this child made me feel almost middle aged. "Behave yourself," I told her irritably. "What do you know about this girl?"
"Her name's Thea, and I know where she is. You don't, do you?" She sounded puzzled, as though I ought to have known.
"Of course I don't know! Where is she?"
Permilia gave me a pixie grin, savoring her importance.
"I'll take you to look at her if you want."
"Look?"
"Well, you can't eat her, can you! But you've got to promise me you'll be quiet and do it my way."
"Alright, I'll promise. But take me. I've got to talk to her."
"Talk! You can't do that." She looked at me pityingly. "You really don't know anything about this place, do you. Come along." She headed for the door.
"But what about clothes?" I gasped. I just couldn't believe 43 Belvington Square had ever seen a naked girl.
"Thea doesn't need any."
"No. I mean you!"
Permilia giggled delightedly. "I don't need any either. This way, and keep as quiet as you can."
We went downstairs. And then we really went downstairs! Down where Bridie had said she wouldn't want to bore us. There were kitchens and storerooms and such that I got a quick glimpse of. But then we went down another flight yet, Permilia doing the light switches as we progressed. There was a passage and doors. We stopped at the one at the end. She pulled down my head and whispered.
"Remember! Just to look. If you make a fuss I'll never speak to you again, and I'll go right up and tell Cyril."
I nodded and whispered my yes. What else could I do. Permilia gently eased upon a square panel in the door, the aperture was barred. She motioned for me to look. Her eyes were shining with what could have been amusement.
It was the dungeon we'd joked about and not really believed in. I don't suppose that had been the original intention, but I don't know what else you could call it now. All grim stone without a window, a subdued glow of light came from some indirect source, just enough to emphasize the gloom and make Thea's white nudity stand out like a beacon.
It was an eerily beautiful scene. I felt guilty over that being my first thought. The poor darling was standing in the center of the big square chamber. Her hands were above her head and well apart, they were chained to the low ceiling. She wasn't stretched or on her toes or anything: she just had to stand there. I could see she was leaning as much of her weight as possible against her chained wrists, every line and curve of her spoke of exhaustion. You know all the things that went through my mind, all the angry, indignant impulses that slapped hard against Permilia's injunction to silence and the realization that I could no more free Thea than she could free herself, the bonds that punished her were all metal heavily locked. Besides, I couldn't even get in that door. I allowed Permilia to tug me away and close the panel.
"See, you don't have to worry about her," she whispered, eyes sparkling. "Doesn't she look simply scrumptious standing like that?"
We had retreated down the passage a little way. "But it's awful! She's been standing like that all day, and now all night. It's terribly cruel," I protested.
"Well, there's lots of worse things." The child sounded blase.
"But I love her! I can't just go away and leave her."
"What else can you do?" the child asked reasonably. "If you make a fuss you'll get us both into trouble." She examined me with her pixie grin, then suddenly her eyes lit with mischief. Once more she motioned me to silence and slid back another panel in another door.
Again it is pure beauty, the right artist would be enchanted, I am enchanted. A similar chamber and a similar glow of light from places unseen. The five naked girls have been given blankets on which to lay. They are sprawled in the abandon of sleep, their chains are serpentine where they swirled in their last motion. Some are chained by their wrists, other by their ankles, one by her neck. All the chains run to heavy ringbolts in the stone floor. They are very, very captive and very, very gorgeous. I feel sure Amethyst must have a hand in this somewhere. I become breathless and hot between my legs. The sleeping girls are so lovely I resist Permilia's tugging at my arm. I want to look and look and let my fire burn bright.
"They are really Aunt Amethyst's." The moppet giggles when we are back in my room. "I don't really know why they're here, except to lend them to Cyril. Poor Cyril, auntie tries so hard with him... and Bridie's so difficult."
Evidently I'm supposed to know the family affairs. But I am interested in this gay child I cannot understand. I prod a bit. "Don't you think it's awful to leave poor Thea standing like that and to keep those girls naked and prisoners the way they are?"
"Oh pouf!" She dismisses my words with a wave of her arm. "Of course I don't think it's awful, and neither do you. Don't be a humbug. You thought they were beautiful... I can tell."
"Well, how'd you like it to happen to you!"
"I'd love it. I'm sure I'd get all damp down you know where. But Cyril won't do that to me, and darling Aunt Amethyst lets me do what I like with them: I mean these girls you saw and that simply wonderful collection she keeps up at Broule. I adore whipping girls. Auntie got me started. I think she felt she ought to make me a chip off the old block. You know: follow in Auntie's footsteps. I expect if I ever annoyed her I might end up with those girls we looked at, but I adore her so I don't suppose that'll happen. I'll ask her to let me whip you sometime. Would you like that?"
"I'd sooner whip you."
The little minx sighed and twinkled her eyes at me. "Let's see if we can arrange it while you're here. We might, y'know."
"I'd suppose any one of those five girls would be glad to oblige you," I suggested tartly. She really was a bit much.
"I'm sure they would." She giggled at the thought. "But Cyril and Bridie wouldn't allow it. They'd have kittens. But don't feel sorry for me, I'm quite happy the way things are."
I couldn't possibly call Permilia a little monster. She isn't. She's delightful, a really darling child. Thought of her tying my hands and whipping me really stoked my fire. I could well see she was a creation of Amethyst's. I suppose I'm a creation of hers, too. Or Lucian's... I wonder what daddy would think of it all!
I'd been standing there, undecided and looking at this erotic adolescent in a sort of fascination when she started something so naturally I didn't say a word. I may as well admit, I was thrilled to pieces as she went about the business of undressing me. I did nothing to stop her, but listened happily to her breathless exclamations.
"Oh, Fawn, what lovely breasts! I do hate floppers. Yours are simply gorgeous. Do you do exercises or something to keep them so firm? I'm going to nip your tits."
She nipped them, then started in with her tongue. I could tell right away Permilia was magic. A minute more of that treatment and I'd be moaning and frantic.
"See!" she exulted. "You're a bad girl too. Isn't it lovely?"
It doesn't take a girl long to strip a girl. When she got down to uncovering my pubic hair she did some more breathless gasps and cupped my cunny with her hand-I almost jumped out of my skin. That child was charged with about a million volts.
"Mmmmm! All wet! I knew you would be."
I had lost all will of my own. I let her push me over on the bed and do whatever she wanted.
Permilia was incredible!
We didn't get much sleep. When I got down to breakfast Bridie was doing a clucking hen act with Thea. Cyril was hovering in the background, flushed and apologetic.
"Really, I'm most frightfully sorry."
"So you should be." Bridie and I said it together.
Thea managed a pale smile. "I'll live." She looked up from the couch on which she lay. "And I'll stop being so bitchy."
Cyril didn't exactly wring his hands, but he gave that impression. "I'm no good at this... no good at all... "
"No you're not," said Bridie, "and neither am I."
"Aunt Amethyst... " He fluttered his hands. "She's just called. I'm afraid we have to leave immediately."
"Just Cyril and I," Bridie amended. "We're going to let you go."
"We'll have a nice breakfast," gulped Cyril, "and then we'll dash. No hurry for you, of course. I'd suggest you get some sleep. Really, I feel most frightfully guilty."
Thea was asleep already. We carried her up and put her to bed. Then Cyril did something that left me shocked. As though it was the easiest thing in the world he removed the anklets from Thea's feet. In response to his inviting glance I stuck my feet out too. It was a strange sensation to lose the intimacy of the silver bands. I wasn't a bit sure I was pleased.
"They both have 'em round their tummies, too," Permilia volunteered.
Poor Cyril! His blush did my heart good. I pushed a few bits and pieces around to help and in no time at all the constriction round my waist joined the anklets on a chair. I have to admit it felt good, a sense of freedom as though I could fly. I helped him with Thea and then we went down to breakfast.
"Whenever you feel like it you can just trot along," Bridie said gently. "Do whatever you like. Permilia will look after things and there's the people... downstairs to do the work."
"I shall confess to Aunt Amethyst what I have done," said Cyril as though facing the headsman's block.
"We are off to Broule. I suppose you'll go back to Losteigne?" Bridie asked diffidently.
Faced with a freedom such as I hadn't know for a long, long time I didn't have an answer. It was all too sudden. I said so.
I got the impression then that they had problems of their own and were not too concerned about Thea and I. They didn't eat much and left right away, flushed, apologetic and preoccupied.
"Poor darlings, Aunt Amethyst is too much for them," Permilia cooed.
It was all too much for me. I tottered upstairs and slipped into bed beside Thea. I was instantly as dead to the world as she was.
* * *
I slept for a long, long time. When I woke up it was with that lovely drowsy feeling you get when you've slept yourself out. I was aware of something strange, of something not quite as it should be, but then I remembered losing the silver bands, and wondered hazily how long the red indentations in my skin would take to go away. From there I drifted into considering what Thea and I should do. But Thea would have ideas. I turned over to see if she was still fast asleep. It was then I discovered what was really wrong.
My wrists were handcuffed behind my back!
Even then it didn't quite register. I'd become so used to being tied or chained that I had to think for a moment before realizing this was something out of context. I did the usual tug and pull, but they were snugly locked, I wouldn't get free of them. I had to do quite a bit of wriggling to enable me to sit up and look down at the girl beside me: you're terribly helpless with your hands behind your back. In the course of doing this I discovered one of my ankles was cuffed to the bed. Little Fawn was well and truly fixed.
I'd made enough commotion to wake Thea, so now I enjoyed the amusement of watching her go through the same process. She was fixed as securely as I. When she'd caught up with me she asked dazedly, "How the devil...!"
I was willing to make a guess. We'd slept as though dead. I could just picture Permilia giggling to herself as she carefully clicked the handcuffs on our wrists and ankles.
"Oh damn!" Thea said disgustedly. "I'll whip that little biddy's hind end until she can't sit down."
"How?"
Thea struggled. "Well, not right now for sure," she admitted resignedly. She cocked an apprehensive eye. "It's only a joke, isn't it! I don't know the kid."
"I know her. Even if it is her idea of a joke we're still in trouble. She's dynamite! If it was just a joke I don't think our ankles would be fixed. She's really got us."
"Fawn darling-" Thea looked at me unhappily. "Standing in that damn dungeon all that time with my hands up in the air... it scared me. It was doubly frightening because I got the feeling they didn't really know what they were doing to me. When they unchained me I was half dead and ready to do anything to please them. I must have stood there eighteen hours... "
"If only we'd gone back to the Dorchester before breakfast this wouldn't have happened," I mourned.
"Are you sure Permilia, or whatever her silly name is, won't just have a big giggle and let us loose?"
Knowing Permilia I doubted it. At that moment she entered the room. Her eyes were shining, she was obviously immensely pleased with herself. She met our accusing gaze with insouciant aplomb.
"Good morning, darlings," she trilled happily.
"Did you do this to us?" I asked sternly.
"What? Oh those handcuffs! You don't mind, do you?"
"Of course we mind. Take them off."
She demurely pretended to consider. "Oh, I couldn't possibly do that."
"And why not?" Thea's humility did not extend to Permilia.
"If I let you loose you'd pack up and leave," the moppet pointed out reasonably.
"If you let us loose now we won't say a word to your Aunt Amethyst."
"That's sweet of you, darlings. But I'm sure you can understand. This is the chance of a lifetime. Put yourself in my place. I've got two real live full-sized girls with gorgeous breasts and slits and whippable bottoms. You couldn't be so cruel as to even ask me to let you go!"
"We certainly could! And anyway, you can't keep us chained to this bed. Or have you forgotten the bathroom bit?"
She giggled delightedly. "You see! You're already thinking of ways and means. I'll let you out of the bed, but your hands stay the way they are. I'll make sure that the things you can't do for yourselves are done for you. It would be nice to handcuff you in front, but then the two of you could grab me," she twinkled mischievously. "After all, I'm only a little girl."
That was the infuriating part of our plight. We were helpless! Try getting your wrists handcuffed behind your back sometime and you'll know what I mean. We were captives of an adolescent moppet who was going to play with us like a couple of dolls, and there wasn't a thing we could do. She might even make us be polite to her.
"Oh alright," I said, striving for nonchalance. "Have your fun with us today and let us go."
"Good try, darling," Permilia chuckled. "You know perfectly well I'm never going to let you go until someone makes me."
It could be a day or a week or a month! I felt the ground slipping away from under Thea and I. The last place anyone would look for us was here. This twinkling eyed little baggage had us foxed. Passionately I longed to have my hands free. "Well, whip my bottom as much as you like and then let us go," I pleaded desperately. "I promise I won't struggle."
"You can't struggle, darling!"
I looked at Thea. We were sunk and we both knew it. "Oh, very well then, Permilia, what do we do now?" I asked resignedly.
She did not answer. With eyes aglow she tossed her clothes aside and leaped into bed between us. Positioning herself carefully she gave us our orders. "Both together now. If you don't do a really super job I'll whip you terribly."
Considering the night she and I had enjoyed you'd have thought she should have had enough. But she was quite insatiable and had the gift of infecting others. In a couple of minutes we were panting as hard as she was. In an hour all three of us were exhausted, my wrists and ankle chafed where I had striven against them in an anxiety to please.
"Good thing you sleep naked," said the cherub. "I'd have had to cut your clothes off. I'll keep you naked, of course, it's much nicer.
Against this vital slip of femaleness Thea and I were a pair of kittens. In bitter chagrin we watched her produce the wicked black length of the willowy riding crop. "It hurts wonderfully," she assured us calmly. "I am going to loose your feet so you can go to the bathroom. If you don't behave you'll be sorry."
I didn't behave. Immediately the cuff fell away from my ankle I kicked her shin and made for the door. It was locked. I backed against it and tried desperately with my chained hands while darling Permilia picked herself up and came slowly towards me smiling in sheer delight.
It was too absurd! And hurt like blazes. I felt an absolute idiot having to try and run away from this slip of a kid and her whip. But I did try, it was instinctive. It just didn't seem possible that I had to knuckle down and submit. It was quite useless, the darling child loved every moment of my revolt and every stripe she cut upon my skin. She whipped me savagely whenever I came within range as I dashed this way and that. The slashes caught me wherever they happened to land and I was yelping and howling at her to stop. Poor Thea just sat chained to the bed and watched dear little Fawn reduced to the status of a naughty little girl getting her just desserts. I gave up running finally and stood cowering in a corner.
"Come out of there, darling. I can't whip you properly in a corner."
"Oh please, Permilia, I've had enough. I'll behave."
"Of course you will, darling. But come out in the middle of the room where I can get at your bottom."
"Not any more! Please, haven't I had enough!"
"No! Come on out or I'll start to whip your breasts."
So out I go and try and stand still while she slashes away at me. It hurts so bad and I'm so damn helpless I start to cry. I can't help it. I don't do a very good job of the standing still. Who could!
"Stop it!" Thea demands furiously. "You're killing the poor kid. Leave her alone. She doesn't deserve what you're giving her."
Permilia actually pauses and diverts her attention. "Lay down with your bottom stuck up, darling," she directs my angry champion.
Thea glares helplessly. The darling child grins in cheerful omnipotence and flexes the beastly thing she whips us with.
They fight a duel with their eyes. Inevitably Permilia must win. With a baleful look and a resigned shrug Thea lays on her tummy, sticks out her bottom, and pulls up her chained hands out of the way. She gets six perfectly frightful stingers across her round behind so that she lays there moaning and twisting: we are a sad pair.
I stand waiting for the pain to start again. I can't escape. Neither of us can escape. The moppet can do what she likes with us. But for the moment she seems content with our sorry condition.
"Going to behave now?"
"Yes," Thea and I say it in unison.
"Good! I'm glad you gave me an excuse to whip you," Permilia beams. "It's much nicer like that. But you'd never have taken me seriously until I did whip you. I'm sure you agree?"
Neither of us answered. So she started in on us again. First one across my hips, and then one for Thea.
"We agree. We're sorry!" I couldn't get it out soon enough.
"I'll be very strict with you, darlings. No pouting, no arguments, and absolute instant obedience. Think you can manage that."
"We'll manage it."
"Good! You can run along to the bathroom now."
Thea and I run. Little girls being put through their paces. I cringe with shame. It doesn't seem possible. I catch Thea's eye and know she is thinking the same as me. If only we'd had the sense to go when we could! This need not have happened. We tug at our handcuffs in angry frustration. They make slaves of us, little circlets of metal that change our lives. When we go back out, shamefaced and hesitant, the door is still locked and our new owner is rummaging in a drawer. She looks up and grins.
"Darlings, have you any thoughts about your feet? I mean, should I chain them?"
"Aren't we helpless enough like this?" I ask dolefully. "We can't do anything."
"You can run if you get the chance, and you can kick."
Thea and I both knew this, but we are reluctant to lose what bit of freedom we possess. "Can't we give you a promise, some sort of parole thing. You know: scout's honor?" Thea offers sadly.
"Don't be silly. You know perfectly well you'll escape if you can."
We do know and long for the chance, but the little vixen has something in mind. I still hurt enough to wish to placate her. "I suppose you could chain our feet," I say miserably. I don't want my feet chained, not along with the handcuffs.
"What a sweet thought!" the little monkey says, just as though she hadn't considered it herself. She pretended to ponder. "I did have an idea that I'd put collars on you and let a leash hang down so I could grab it and tug if you got randy."
I look at Thea. We both preferred the collar to the chains, at least we'd be able to walk properly. We said so.
The little cherub nodded wisely. "I thought you'd like that, so I won't do it. Look what I found in the drawer." She threw two sets of ankle chains clattering on the rug.
Thea and I are not happy. But we understand. If this little so and so is to control us completely there is little else she can do but make us completely safe. We look at each other in mutual frustration and stand still while Permilia locks the metal bands round our ankles. It is nothing new. Surely we must be used to chains by now! We long ago learned to walk daintily with joined feet. But to be chained by a child! I could have screamed.
"There, darlings, you do look sweet." The girl who controls us backs away and admires her work. We kick testingly at our tethers. I could weep in vexation.
"Alright, you've got us. What are you going to do with us?" Thea asks despondently.
"Cheer up, darling. Don't look so sad." The minx is surveying her chained playthings with shining eyes. "I shall whip you lots and lots. Aren't you lucky!"
I am not certain of the wisdom of sarcasm, but I am bitterly resentful of our plight. "If you think we're so damn lucky, how about letting us do this to you!" I exclaim savagely.
"I didn't explain, did I! No smartass remarks. Do try and be polite at all times, darlings. Bend over, Fawn dear, I'll let you off with only three this time. But you'll have to keep quite still and say thank you nicely," she tittered. "It's what we might call a bare three, isn't it!"
I knew I'd asked for it. But that didn't make it a bit easier to bend over. I knew I'd have to, there was no way to wiggle out of what I'd got myself into. I just hoped I'd be able to hold still. It's nearly impossible not to move when that damn thing slices into you. But I kept quiet and did as I'd been told. I felt foolish with Thea watching. Dear Permilia just about cut me in two with each swipe. But at the end I got a strange satisfaction from being able to quietly say, "Thank you, darling. That was sweet of you."
"Who said anything about sweet!" the little vixen was pretending to glare. Her pointing finger told me what to do. Sighing unhappily I once more bent over and got two quite sickeningly painful cuts to which I responded with a very sedate, 'Thank you, Permilia."
"That's better! We're going to get along famously," the little baggage enthused. "I'll have you so well trained! I'll dress now and we'll go to dinner. You slept most of the day."
Dinner sounds wonderful. But Thea and I are ill equipped. "You mean... like this?" I ask doubtfully while I wriggle to demonstrate helplessness.
"Oh pouf! I have everything arranged," says little brighteyes. "I can run this place a lot better than Cyril and Bridie."
She can! There is no doubt of it. The dinner table is superlative, the odors delicious. I have visions of lapping up my meal the way a cat does. We sit down. Thea and I feel ridiculous.
The girl is sweet. She is as naked as we are and her feet are chained. But that is all, evidently she is a 'trusty'. She pushes in the trolley as though she has done it often before. She looks at us with wide eyed interest.
"Their names are Fawn and Thea," Permilia tells her offhandedly. "They've come to get their bottoms whipped." She grins at us. "She answers to the name of Tess and she's very well behaved. You are, aren't you darling?"
"Yes ma'am."
It sounded odd. Tess was at least as old as Thea and I, but she was obviously scared to death of our hostess. Her skin was well striped. I thought I recognized her as one of the five chained in the dungeon that night.
"Tell them how well behaved you are, Tess dear, and why," the darling child was determined to rub it in.
Tess did not hesitate. "I try very hard to be obedient," she told us ingenuously. "If I'm not, then my dear mistress is always kind enough to whip me until I learn. She's terribly sweet to us girls."
Out of this world, of course. But I had a feeling the poor kid was trying to give us a message that we'd better behave too if we valued our skins. Tess disposed of the dishes, then seated herself between Thea and I and proceeded to feed us: a forkful to Thea and then a forkful for dear little Fawn. The effect of this attention was to make me realize how practical it would be to keep us helpless like this for life.
It was not long before we caught a glimpse of Tess's incentive to be a good girl. Loading a fork she got it halfway to my mouth when it flipped. It didn't matter, there were no clothes to be soiled, only me. Hastily the poor girl used a napkin to get me back to normal and then said politely: "Please excuse me just one moment," and went and positioned herself. Not the touch your toes bit but something I could believe hurt a lot worse. She crouched on her knees with her elbows down on the carpet against her knees. This reared her lovely bottom well up high in a way that made me cringe just to see, it was so utterly delivered up to punishment. Affecting boredom, Permilia produced a limber cane and delivered a blow squarely across the summit of Tess's derriere. The caned girl held her position long enough for us to behold the scarlet weal spring to life, but then said a bright 'Thank you' and resumed her chair, wincing as she sat, and continued to feed us.
"Isn't she a darling!" Permilia enthused. "I always whip her right on the spot the minute she makes a mistake."
I felt absolutely abject I did not have the courage to say all the things that rose to my lips. But I was scared. I could well see how easily I could be like the girl at my side and make discretion the better part of valor. Once chained as we were chained, and the little vixen had us. There was no escape. It would take a bit of getting used to, but for all we knew there was plenty of time.
But we do not hate this child who holds us. We can't. For her it is a glorious game and we are glorious playthings. She is the disciple of Lady Amethyst Chatham so what else is to be expected! Thea and I are going to have to smile and take it. I remember last night, even without bonds I had been her slave. I wondered about the night that lay ahead.
I need not have wondered. We sat over dinner a long time and then Permilia twinkled at us and said: "Tess will look after you, darlings. Be good girls and do what she says."
When we descend the final flight of steps we feel foolish that we do not fight, but clatter our chains passively on the stone. We also know fear at the nature of the place where we are led. Tess says: "I'm terribly sorry," and opens the door.
The other four are there, expectant, waiting, chained as I remember seeing them. They are gorgeous girls and survey us with varying expressions of curiosity. Tess again expresses sorrow at what she must do. "I don't want to do this," she says apologetically as she locks the metal collars round our necks. From them runs a chain to the ring in the floor. Thea and I are now far more helpless than any of them. The collar and its chain are heavy. It tells us with a fearful clarity how captive we really are. There is no need to chain us so for the night. We have to suppose we are being punished or taught a lesson or something. Our companions look at us with compassion. Once they were new girls too. "Welcome to the club," says a red headed beauty bitterly.
Then comes the clincher. Tess picks up a chain and fits a collar round her own neck and thrusts it shut and locked. She also is now tethered. She grimaces at us as though ashamed of what she has done. But we know she is trained as we will be. It is only a matter of time. I pray Amethyst will come in search of us.
We burst into animated chatter, but learn nothing we do not already know. The girls are all slaves of Amethyst, they have been brought here from Broule and expect to return there. They are not kept in the dungeon all day, but are given tasks such as the one Tess had just performed. They are far more frightened of Permilia than of Cyril or Bridie. They have given up thinking of escape, they have lost hope.
Our perky mistress inspects us. She has her whip and makes each girl stand and tug at her tether to demonstrate her impotence. The girls are nauseatingly respectful, but so are we! I could kick myself.
But, for me, the night in the dungeon is not yet. I stand breathless and the focus of all eyes as Permilia unlocks my tether at the ring and uses the chain as a leash. When she pulls I follow. I wish my ankle chains did not make such a racket on the stone. I follow this douce child as she leads me up the stairs and along the passageways and halls to the room where we had spent the previous night. When she turns and smiles at me I know my function. I won't be hypocritical about my fate, I was glowingly happy.
How beautiful girls are! How great a wonder is simply us! I stand still in my chains as this lovely child throws her clothing to the winds. She is exquisite! I gasp in ecstasy that she had chosen me. Tomorrow I may be angry once again, but in this moment in which I exist I have been given heart's desire.
"I'm going to be really sweet to you, darling." Permilia exults.
I look down, entranced, as she unlocks the shackles that have joined my feet. I let myself be pushed back upon the bed, and watch as she uses a handcuff to fasten me by one ankle to the bed rail. Within me is a fire, a mounting excitement that this sleek nymphet may eventually quench. But not now... not now! When she unlocks the handcuffs at my back I stretch my arms in glorious relief at their freedom. How strange it feels to be without impediment! Only the shining metal on one ankle! It is nothing... nothing at all! I tug at it and know myself still captive.
"You can't get away, darling," the cherub coos. She steps back and looks at me with large serious eyes. "I want you to think a bit. You won't be able to escape, but you'll want to try. You'll think you have to. I'm going to put the key to the handcuffs over on the dresser. Even if you get a Masonic grip on me it still won't help, I can't get the key unless you let me go. Then, when I want to chain you again you'll have to let me or I'll just stand out of your reach and whip you until you get sensible." Her smile is radiant. "Understand?"
I understand. The minx is quite right. There is nothing I can do that will get me free to run away. But there is much that I can do now that I have my hands and one foot... so very much!
I hold out my arms and she comes into them.
When morning comes I am still there. My ankle hurts!
Permilia is all surprises. We cannot leave each other-or at least she cannot leave me. I'm a fixture. Her eyes are aflame from the kindling of our love. We have fed all night and are not yet replete. "If I free you, darling, will you share this fun with me?" she asks softly. "Think, dearest Fawn, there are six girls chained downstairs, they can belong to both of us." She gently possesses one of my nipples with her mouth while I contemplate a new world.
Temptation floods over me in a giant wave of lubricity. How perfectly gorgeous to share what I have been offered! I look down at my poor handcuffed ankle that hurts from all the chafing of the night, and wonder about how good it would feel to be free of the steel band. I am on fire from what Permilia is doing to me but I would not stop her if I could, it is a fire whose flames I worship. But I am a silly girl, I blurt out an obvious thought that, I suppose, shows how my mind is working. Maybe it is not my mind at all, but just a wish.
"Darling, if you free me I can fight. Maybe you'd end up in the handcuffs. I'm stronger than you."
In the time it takes her to divert her attentions from my left nipple to my right she says cheerfully: "I'll trust you."
I am a girl, I am weak and human, and what is being done to me dissolves my wish ever to be free, even my ankle ceases to hurt. So, again, I try and rid myself of decision. "But I'd have a sort of duty, I'd owe it to Thea. I'd truly believe I ought to take charge." My voice is almost a wail.
Little Sweetheart pauses only long enough to cock an amused eye at my distress. "Not to worry," she says confidently. "I have all the help I need. You've forgotten downstairs... "
I have not forgotten downstairs! I just haven't wanted to think about downstairs or to look at downstairs. "Those... those... things obey you?" I query.
"Mmmmm!" Her mouth is too busy for conversation, but she takes time off to say: "Yes, they obey me. Want me to give a signal?"
I do not want the signal. Dear little Fawn wants but one thing! I moan and fall back upon the bed, once more my steel cuffed ankle gets a wrench, I scarcely notice. Permilia and I set forth upon a journey...
There is always the afterwards. In its peaceful glow I lay still and examine myself. I will not be allowed to evade decision, my thoughts linger deliciously with temptation. I cane and whip those five luscious damsels in their dungeon. How beautifully they will yelp and scream! How wide their eyes with pleading and with promise! They will obey me utterly. I have only to stand and hold the whip and they will listen attentively, hoping for favor or for privilege. I can toss them anything and they will scramble for it. I will stripe them with delicate traceries of the lash and make them thank me for their pain. Already I am on fire again with only thoughts.
But there is always conscience. Sometimes I would love to take a good hard kick at conscience, it spoils, it robs. I suddenly see my darling Thea as she is right now, chained with the rest of them, wondering what has happened to me and what will happen to her, terribly captive. But the vision does not stop. It delectably takes me to a room in which I have my darling on her toes with her arms stretched high and I am teasing her. I walk slowly around her taut nudity and examine it. Her eyes follow me in an agonized question she will not ask. Am I going to whip her or am I not! Poor dear, she does not know. What power I possess! I am shivering with lust. I must whip her, I must! Her quivering nakedness is altogether too splendid not to use. No matter how terrible her pain, it is a small price for her to pay for the glory I will find in it.
"I can't do it," I say desolately.
"Because of Thea?"
"Yes, we love each other."
"You have loved me all night. You'll love me all day if I decide to leave your ankle locked."
The moppet is right, of course. What is wrong with me! I am too female, girls enrapture me, I love them all. I cannot get enough of their scented skins and honeyed mouths. I hunger for all of them and want them to possess me utterly in an endless sensory fulfilment. When I see or feel or think of them I become completely wanton. Perhaps it is good for me that I be whipped every day! I need Lucian, or Amethyst, or both of them. I am overwhelmed with an intensity of feeling I cannot understand, and start to cry. Since my head is resting on Permilia's tummy my tears fall there too and trickle down her flank as warm wet confessionals of female fallibility. "I don't know," I sob. "I just don't know, darling. Do whatever you want with me."
I hear her sigh, her fingers play gently and lovingly in my hair. But she will not absolve me. "You must decide, darling, or I will whip you until you do." Her voice is as gentle as her touch. For this moment our ages are forgotten, each one of us is Eve. I tug at my ankle to deliberately make it hurt.
"Then you must chain me back with Thea-" I want to say more but the tears choke me.
Permilia sighs again. It is a very wise and very sad sigh for so young a girl, her fingers pat my hair as though I am a child. "Poor dear little Fawn." She suddenly the adult and I the child. She laughs gaily to dispel the dolor. "Of course you shall join your Thea in her chains and I will whip you both. I can do what I want with you anyway so I should not tease you with decisions." She paused and chuckled. "Don't you realize, darling little Fawn, I can punish you by whipping her. She won't know why, she'll be suspicious."
How helpless I am! Look at me, naked and chained and weeping, in the power of a child. When she calls me little Fawn the diminutive is so right for me. That is what I am: little Fawn! I go on weeping and longing to be loved. Permilia is tremendously patient, her wisdom is much, much older than mine. When at last her fingertips cease to caress and she moves from beneath my head and tells me to dry my eyes I know the decisions are past. Dear little Fawn had better be a good girl.
"Hands behind your back you silly and adorable creature."
Obediently I put them there. I am getting what I asked for so why complain. The ratchets click busily and I am enslaved. I watch the cuff unlocked from my ankle and feel loss. The angry red chafe upon my skin is the measure of my ecstasy of the night. I want to wear it always. I see the shackles fastened on my feet, and care little for the shortness of my steps. I could have walked free but I have chosen this.
Tess appears. I think Permilia does things by telepathy. My lady's maid and I clink our way to the bath. Her hands are free so that she can minister to all my needs, only her feet are chained. As she laves my skin I ask her why. She thinks my question funny.
"We have all of us tried to escape, mistress, again and again until we have been punished so much we cease to try or even to think of trying." She grins cheerfully enough, "It just hurts too much."
"Why do you call me mistress? I am not a mistress."
"But you are privileged, mistress." This time the grin is knowing and very wise. "You have been chosen. Even though she chains you helplessly so that I must do these things for you, it is because she loves. Because she feels for you, you must be tormented and teased. It is the way she is."
"But aren't any of you ever chosen?"
"Of course! Almost every night she will take one of us and chain us to her bed." Her mouth twists wryly, "but never two nights in a row... mistress!"
So! I am a mistress! Some agility of my tongue or tactility of my flesh has made me so in these girls' eyes. "Do you seek to be... chosen?" I ask with curiosity.
"It is much nicer than the dungeon, mistress," she giggles, "but we have our own loves there. She only chains us apart when she is angry, it is not often. She would be very sweet if it was not for her whip."
"How else can she control us?"
The eyes twinkle. "That is so, mistress. But you know and we know she adores to use it on us. We are completely obedient but we get whipped constantly, we have come to expect it. We are always marked. Look at me now."
I have already looked and noted. Tess has been whipped hard and often, some of her weals are new. "But surely this child does not always have charge of you!" I protest.
"We are laughing about that, mistress. We think when Lady Chatham comes here next our young mistress will be in hot water." She giggles. "I'm afraid we all hope so."
"But Lady Chatham whips you. That's why she keeps you prisoners, isn't it? She whips me."
The lovely naked shoulders shrug. "We came to expect it of her, she's rich and powerful and a woman... It's different being punished by a child. It hurts more... "
I am curious about one thing: "If Lady Chatham freed you, would you go straight to the police?"
Tess wriggles as though in evasion. "I have wondered, mistress. We all have, we talk about it and can't understand ourselves. Right after we have been whipped we long to rush to the nearest policeman, but an hour later we would not do so. I can't tell you why."
"But you've been kidnapped! What else can you call it."
"I know. It's crazy. We've tried to analyze each other. We got the notion we might all be naturally submissive; but we don't think we are. There's all the rest of us up at Broule, you've seen them."
Tess seems so happy. She makes no more sense than I do myself. "You're resigned to life imprisonment, aren't you?" I accuse.
Her lovely features shadow, but only for a moment. She looks at me whimsically, she laughs. "So are you," she says. She is right. I am!
At breakfast I am fed like a baby. Tess manages it without earning herself a single stroke. Then, with absurd inconsistency, my wrists are released from the handcuffs. "Bad little girls have to work, darling," Permilia coos. "Take her away, Tess."
My thought is instant. I can't help it. We are two adult females, our hands are free. Between us we can subdue this demanding minx and free the others. In such a tussle our chained feet will not decide the issue. Instinctively I glance at Tess, seeking empathy. Tess will not meet my eyes. She has guessed my thought and wants none of it. But Permilia has tuned in on my wavelength and read it correctly. In such things I am as transparent as a child.
"Darling...!" Her voice has a terrible sibilance.
I am lost, I know I am lost. I stand convicted by my face.
"Naughty, naughty!" Permilia's eyes are bright.
I have become pure instinct. I know exactly what to do. I make a resigned motion with one free arm, it acknowledges all, I need not plead or deny. I crouch upon the rug as Tess had done the day before and rear my bottom in the air for my punishment, my punishment for an errant thought. Permilia chooses her cane and proceeds to hurt me with pain so sickening it is frightening. One, two, three, four times it licks into my flesh. My stretched skin is so taut the cane thuds upon it solidly with a new sound of impact I have not heard before. I hold still for the four cuts more from the paralysis of shock than the power of my will. When I am bidden to rise I stand there before them clutching at my cheeks and the wounds that blaze and burn. I don't care how silly I look. I hurt!
"Why were you caned, Fawn dear?"
I tell her, abjectly. I say I'm sorry. I mean it. If a hundred escapes were offered me right now I would take none of them. I long only to be a good girl and not be hurt. The pain is atrocious. After all, I am only a girl. I am dear little Fawn. Right at this minute I am poor little Fawn... ! The tears come. I transfer my hands from my bottom to my face: How vulnerable are naked girls... !
Tess and I hold hands, she does it to comfort and to guide. Our chains sound almost festive as we tinkle our way downstairs. I am almost glad my bottom has been caned, the pain has taken away my fear of what I am about to see. I have no reason to suppose the silver man will hurt me more than I have been hurt by a teenage child upstairs. Tess is amused and unconcerned, for her it is routine.
The silver man is there alright. There is also a silver girl. I remember Skilley, but they are not the same. Strangely, whilst the men are all impassively similar, the girls are as varied as though they were not silver at all. The single feature they do share is beauty, they are lovely creatures with a grace and serenity all their own. A silly science fiction notion crosses my mind that perhaps this is the destiny of all these chained maidens Lady Chatham has collected. That at Broule or in the Cloisters some magic has been hatched. I shudder, for I too have worn the silver bands and am a captive.
But this surprise is not all, there is another. It verges on both farce and anticlimax. The silver creatures are not working all that hard, but five naked girls are very busily employed indeed. Their tasks are so mundane I have to stifle an impulse to giggle. Thea is peeling potatoes. She is relieved to see me but also shamed, she does not stop, no one stops.
The silver girl presides over the slaves. What else are we! She views me with seeming pleasure and waves her hand in a gesture that conveys a message to my companion. It is like a maestro pointing his baton at the brass or the woodwinds, it commands response. Tess leads me to a large space of bare floor which is occupied only by a bucket, a brush and a rag. I divine it all, I am to be taught a lesson.
Tess wants to giggle at my distaste, but nobly stifles it. "You'll have to do it, Fawn. I'm sorry. And don't slack, she punishes terribly."
I have never scrubbed floors. I don't recall doing anything on hands and knees. I don't want to now. "But it's perfectly clean already!" I expostulate.
"We do it every day." Tess explains. "It's sort of a punishment and it's exercise. They're fussy about exercise."
"But why not a proper mop! Why the hands and knees...?" I feel degraded.
Slave eyes turn in our direction. The silver girl glides over, she carries a sliver of silver-it would be silver of course! Her sweetly inviting smile and motion of a hand is unmistakable. I bend over and touch my toes.
"I'm afraid you have to do the full crouch thing the way Permilia wants it," Tess whispers. "We aren't allowed to argue or hesitate. Best to show willing."
I am not a bit willing. I am sure it will be awful. But I do as I am told. The silver girl smiles at me now with affectionate approval. I peer up at her from my hunched up humility on the floor, you'd think she was about to bestow some blessing, when she swings that scary thing she holds I close my eyes. Everything is insane.
The pain is such that I know for sure I will never disobey or be slow or argue ever again. I won't, I won't, I won't! I am glad the floor is already clean, for now I roll on it uncaring of shame or dignity or who sees me. Once more my hands seek my seat to give what comfort they can to my ridged and scalding flesh. I am sure I look childishly absurd. When I can spare a glance at the creature who has punished me she still bestows the same benevolence so that I sense, thankfully, I am not to be hit again. Hastily I get to my knees and commence to scrub.
Tess leaves me for her own work, she sits and polishes the cutlery, I am alone. I scrub and mop and scrub and mop quite uselessly. It is hard and miserable and I am close to tears, my bottom smarts and burns its admonitory warning to behave. From time to time I manage a glimpse of Thea. She sees me and smiles in sympathy and in so doing drops a potato. Hastily she retrieves it and drops it in the pot. But her fault has been noted, the silver wand gently pats her shoulder, she receives the serene smile that tells her what to do. With woebegone expression she positions herself and receives what is evidently her just desserts. Immediately she can control her agony she returns to her potatoes. She weeps silently as now do I.
The man comes and goes, presumably there is work upstairs. Certainly his lovely companion can control us, not a girl in the room would say boo to her. When I have gone over my bit of the floor I start again at the beginning. This useless effort is a cruelty both physical and mental. By the time I have scrubbed and mopped twice I am certain I would sooner be whipped by Permilia than spend the day as I am. the hours are endless and without hope. My back hurts, my knees hurt, my poor hands are red and wrinkled. Dear little Fawn feels very sorry for herself.
The hand of the silver man is gentle as he touches my bent shoulder. I look up in surprise, as does Thea when he does the same to her. We are given a towel to dry our hands before we follow him meekly and hopefully upstairs. No two maidens ever left a dungeon more thankfully than the two of us leave that kitchen. He guides us to a door and ushers us within, but does not follow. The first thing we see is an unusually forlorn Permilia who stands upon the lush rug of a book lined study and eyes our entry with nothing less than apprehension. Behind a magnificently ornate desk sits Amethyst Lady Chatham.
Joy encompasses me completely. My shameful slavery is done. Surely nothing Amethyst will do to me will be as miserable and defeating as the past two days. I would leap forward in gladness, but my feet are shackled and my beloved mistress's face is stern. We come to a hesitant stop beside Permilia.
"I am ashamed of you both!"
Amethyst sounds as though she may be truly angry, so we do not reply. We try and look properly repentant.
"You allow this saucy little baggage to make you prisoners!"
We shuffle our feet and look pathetic.
"You expect to be punished, I hope? Such stupidity!"
We nod guiltily and say, yes we expect to be punished. I long to get these preliminaries over and be whipped or hugged or whatever.
Amethyst turns her attention to her chapfallen niece with whom she has quite obviously already exchanged words. "As for you, you little wretch, are you expecting to get off scot free as usual?"
Permilia perceptibly brightens. "Oh no, Auntie!"
"Humph! You're dying to be whipped, aren't you? But I'll think of something."
It is now Thea's turn, she is fixed by a steely eye. "I left you in charge of Fawn. You were the prefect-"
"I tricked them both. It wasn't their fault," the nymphet volunteered nobly.
"Of course it was their fault. Any girls who would trust you in that degree are reprehensible."
"But they didn't know me very well, Auntie. Please don't punish them."
"Bless my soul, such nobility! You wish to bear enough stripes for all three of you, I suppose?"
"Yes, please, Aunt Amethyst." The moppet eyes are alight again.
"I have thought of something to do to you, you impossible child," Amethyst says with satisfaction. "So you can remove that pert smile and consider a bit of old-fashioned repentance for a change. I am now taking you all back to Losteigne, you are not to be trusted."
Permilia is ill at ease, she has sown the wind and is about to reap the whirlwind. I feel a little sorry for the child. I am sure she had expected to possess us for a much longer time, she never even contrived to give us formal whippings. I have to snicker at her dolor, she probably feels cheated. But Thea and I are overjoyed to return to Losteigne, punishment or no. We are ready to leap into the Bentley without prompting or bonds. But, of course, Amethyst is having no nonsense! "You needn't expect to be comfortable," she tells us grimly.
She ties our wrists behind our backs with cord. Happily we turn our backs, stand passive and cross our wrists. Amethyst very firmly uncrosses them and places them palm to palm. Thea and I know what this means and realize that indeed we are not going to be comfortable at all. Our wrists are neatly and tightly tied like that with a bare couple of loops. We are now helpless but it is only the beginning.
We wonder if the delinquent Permilia is to share our pain. She is standing and watching, she wonders too. But she is still clothed while we are naked. We sign in recognition of an old punishment when the cords circle our elbows several times and begin to tighten. We are very good girls and clench our shoulders back to bring our arms as close together as we can manage. Permilia gazes at our taut out-thrust breasts with much interest. She will be either thinking it will happen to her or is perhaps memorizing the tie for use at another time. I hope Amethyst will tie the little minx, it would seem unfair that she should not. It is high time Miss Smartypants learned a lesson or two.
It is hard not to gasp when the bands tighten, they always pinch the bare skin they are to hold. Amethyst is very expert, it takes her a very little while to make my arms meet from wrist to elbow and to meld them tight together with the cord. It is easier and less hurtful with a strap, but she is not using one, we are to suffer. When I am safely knotted I am set aside like a neat package and Thea's arms are similarly joined. We grimace at each other when no one sees.
The pain is instant. It will get worse and worse, but there is no gradual beginning. From the moment our elbows join it starts. We are going to feel very sorry for ourselves and will make all sorts of good resolutions, but for the moment are somewhat diverted by our interest in what we now behold. Amethyst has more cord and is looking at her apprehensive niece with firm determination.
Poor Permilia, she will not enjoy her ride with us. She is not made to strip, her arms are bare, bare skin is all the cords need to perform their task. She obediently presents her aunt with her back and arms and emulates the motions she has watched. In a little while she is as helpless and hurt as we. It is delightful to watch her face, to see the sudden disbelief that having a girl's arms tied can give such pain. She flutters her wrenched shoulders and looks down at her thrusting breasts in mute surprise at what has been done to her.
We are ushered into the back seat of the Bentley. There is lots of room for the three of us, we are not bulky. The darling novice to captivity sits between Thea and myself and has to have her ankles tied as tightly as ours are cinched together. There is no real need to tie our feet, the strictures on our arms render us more than helpless, but having our ankles tied together so they hurt is just a part of being what we are. I have a feeling Amethyst thinks we have gone astray and need bringing back into the fold. I shall be very thankful when we reach Losteigne. I hurt! Amethyst pulls down the rear blinds so that the plebians cannot observe her naked thralls. She herself gets behind the wheel.
There is no real comfort for us but we do our best. Thea and I back into the corners with our bound arms and stretch out our bound feet, we are old hands. But poor little Permilia is on unfamiliar ground, she hunches forward on her seat and finds no comfort at all, she seems to think her laced elbows are too tender to lean back upon, she looks back and forth between us with eyes that query if this is real and likely to continue or just a joke that Amethyst will soon end. We smile reassuringly. "Relax and enjoy, sweetheart," Thea suggests sarcastically. Amethyst smiles.
Our ride will last a couple of hours. At the end of about thirty minutes the child between us is face to face with the awful solitude of helplessness, the realization that she has become just a pretty piece of painful flesh that will go on hurting and hurting until someone else decides it is time for the agony to stop. In a wan small voice she blurts out: "I can't stand it, Auntie. I thought I could, but I can't! Please untie me. I'll be ever so good."
It would melt the heart of one of Landseer's lions in Trafalgar Square, but has no effect on Amethyst at all. "Don't be a silly girl," she chides. "Look at Fawn and Thea, they don't complain."
"They'd like to, but they're scared," the nymphet says with truth. She turns to us angrily. "You do want to, don't you? You're hurting something awful, I can tell."
"I'm afraid we're supposed to," I tell her gently and with some satisfaction.
Permilia digests this premise, for her it is new. The idea that a girl must suffer pain because another wills it so has seemed to her a delightful exercise when the screams were not her own. When she has thought of being punished herself she has envisioned the exquisite eroticism of the whip etching its kisses upon her skin, she has never considered or understood the steady and spirit-breaking attrition of the sort of misery we now endure. She continually wriggles and twists in instinctive rejection of the strands now deeply embedded in her flesh. The cords within our elbows are a living enemy we cannot reach.
"Please, auntie, let me loose. It's perfectly beastly, I'm going to cry."
"You can't dry your tears," Auntie warned unsympathetically.
Little sweetheart wept and contrived to rub her cheeks against the upholstery. We would try and comfort her with words, but Amethyst is listening and we must be careful. In any case we to are hurting like blazes and feeling sorry for ourselves, we huddle in our corners and long for the journey to end. Our arms are on fire.
"But, auntie, I'm your niece!"
"Why, so you are, darling!"
"Must I... must I... be tied like... them?"
"You are tied like them, dear. Pain builds character."
"Auntie dear, I'm terribly sorry I was bad."
"Of course, darling, I'm so glad."
The despondent moppet looks appealingly at Thea and I as though for moral support. We smile and try to shrug, but cannot. She is impelled to keep trying.
"Auntie dear, could I be whipped instead, please?"
"Certainly not. I might consider whipping you as well, but not as an alternative. Do you want both?"
The child squirms, she is learning what we have learned that there is no escape. Her mind is busy but her tongue is mute.
"Well, Permie darling, do you want both?" Amethyst is relentless.
"No thank you, auntie." The moppet's enthusiasm for the whip has evaporated.
"You do understand, dear, that our arrival at Losteigne doesn't mean you will be untied."
Little sweetheart had not realized this, neither had we. But our shock does not match hers. Thea and I know our punishments can never be taken for granted. Bitter hazards against which we have no defense are very much a part of a girl's penalties. Sometimes we may plead or protest, but I do not remember when such appeals have borne fruit. Dear little Fawn now tries to avoid indulging in them. But poor Permilia is at the beginning, she beholds vistas we have traversed long since.
"But, auntie, I'll die!"
"Don't be unoriginal, sweet."
"Oh auntie, please! Do something awful to me but untie my elbows."
Amethyst slows and stops at the next lay-by. Thea and I perk up in curiosity. The darling child's face is irradiated by joy.
Our mistress is swift and decisive, her lips betray the laughter she denies. She flips Permilia over on the commodious seat so that the darling child lies face down, she then uses a bit of cord to join the tied ankles to the tied wrists so that the youngster is now trussed like a chicken for the oven. Amethyst returns to the wheel and we resume our drive. The victim seems stunned in disbelief at what has so swiftly taken place.
"For a girl being punished, things can always get worse, darling," Amethyst points out equably. "But, auntie, this is awful!"
"There is still the possibility of a gag, dear child, and a blindfold."
Permilia is face to face with the realities of punishment. She surveys them in cautious silence. She is also face to face with the expensive upholstery of the Bentley, her nose rests on it, she anoints it with her tears. We know how she feels, we are not happy either. The car rolls gently on towards Losteigne.
Amethyst whisks me up to her room, the room where, at night, I am chained beside her bed. Thea and Permilia are left in the car for Gillian or Trant or Trudy to look after. It is so good to be back and to know myself chosen by this gorgeous creature who owns us all. Spontaneously I do what is, for me, the most natural thing. I fall to my knees and rest my cheek against the sleek thighs of my beloved; deliberately I thrust my hair against the soft junction, now covered by clothes, but which I know will be given to me before too long. I am still bound. I have no hands or arms with which to clasp my mistress, but it does not seem to matter, for this moment we are one and I forget my pain.
I can feel her vibrations, Amethyst, Lady Chatham is vividly alive, her hand caresses my head which I am trying to burrow deeper and deeper into her femininity. I cannot get close enough. I want more, more, more! Her whispered voice holds her own subtlety of wicked amusement. "I am not going to untie you, darling."
I tense. I can't help it. She will feel it and laugh at me. I am about to ask why I must be kept in pain and robbed of the hands with which I would give her joy, but I understand. She is reaffirming authority, I have been away from the fold and have been silly. The pain of my penitence will give Amethyst a glowing happiness. I am dear little Fawn: it is only right my elbows should be tied and flare in agony.
We laugh as we make love. I am so terribly helpless. She coins a new name for me, I am her 'package'. Between the actual ties that are upon my flesh and the pain of any movement I make I have to wriggle and flounder like a creature of the sea washed up upon the sand. I use my lips upon her everywhere to make her as excited as I am myself, and I try and look penitent and petulant at the same time in the hope she will relent and untie the scalding cord, but she knows my game, she knows her little Fawn all too well, and retaliates by using her mouth on me in ways that drive me wild and send me into fresh paroxysms of struggles to reach my cornucopia.
How strange a thing is agony! I explode again and again as the bitter pain of my arms mingles with the skill of Amethyst upon my flesh. I cry out in joy and protest as the two extremes rend and convulse my being. Never have I been carried to such a latitude of love and sentience. Amethyst's radiance envelops me as she transforms her slave girl into a palpitating moaning package of sexuality.
When we lay sweating and pungent and, as far as little Fawn is concerned helpless, Amethyst meditatively smooths the cheeks of my bottoms with a tingling hand. I know she would prefer my breasts, but tied the way I am I must lay upon my front. "I am very cruel, am I not?" she whispers.
"Yes, you are very cruel. I adore you," I tell her simply.
"I could untie you so easily... " Her fingers flit from the cords upon my elbows to those upon my wrists, but they do not touch a knot.
I cock a bright eye at her. "I won't ask you, darling."
"Oh, but I want you to. You plead exquisitely."
Amethyst is feeling kittenish, her mood infects me. "Please untie me, darling mistress."
"No."
That was starters. I tried again. "If you untie me I can use my hands to make you squirm."
"Use my hands to make you squirm."
"Your mere existence in the room makes me squirm. So much sensuality shouldn't be allowed in one girl, little Fawn. You are a menace. What should I do with you!"
"Untie me." I look pathetic. "I hurt."
"You see! An honest woman is not safe in bed with you. I think I will whip you instead. Would you like that, Cherie?"
"No, mistress, please untie me." I demonstrate an impotent wriggle.
"I am trying to think of a way to fasten you to be properly whipped without untying your elbows. Come, help me child. What do you suggest?"
"I don't think it's possible, dear mistress. Please untie me."
Amethyst pretends to give the matter of my whipping deep thought. "I can always whip your back and your neat little bottom, Cherie, but as you are now lends itself well to the caning of the bottom of your feet."
My mistress achieve instantly the effect she sought, I freeze in horror. We are playing a teasing game, but... ! With Amethyst a girl will never be quite sure!
"Poor darling Fawn! You do not like the thought, do you! Already you feel the thin cane slash across the little unprotected soles. I am very cruel to you. It is I who deserves to have her feet whipped. Would you like to cane the soles of my feet, darling?"
Of course I would like to! But the negative that bursts from my lips is spontaneous: "No!"
"There! I have frightened you. I am unconscionably wicked. Your darling feet are safe, Cherie, but you shall have a nice sensible whipping to welcome you back to Losteigne. Feel better?"
I feel better, a million times better. Absurd! Oh sure! I know I am absurd, I know it's all upside down. But I love this incredible female whose thrall I am. I am about to be whipped, but I am grateful. "Oh yes, yes, yes!" I breathe in thankfulness. "Thank you, thank you... ! I forget to ask to be untied.
Amethyst unties me.
I moan with the pain as she peels the cords from within my skin: But, Oh, it is so good! For a little time I cannot move my arms or my fingers, they are numb and lost to me as surely as though I was still bound. We smile quietly and knowingly at each other as I lay and await the return of my limbs. Both of us know I am now to be whipped, both of us is happy. With the first muscular response within my arms we resume our love.
Amethyst chooses the simplest of all the ties by which a naked girl is held to be whipped. I stand facing the post, one of my wrists is tied firmly on each side of it at the level of my chin, the rest of me is free to twist and kick. I feel very bare. A nail has been driven in the wood between my bound arms, on it hangs the whip with which I will be beaten. It is not really a wicked whip, there are many worse. It is a leather thong, heavy enough but without split ends of flicking tips. It will hurt me bitterly, but I may not bleed. I cannot complain. It hangs there mocking me. It is next to impossible not to keep looking at it.
"A little suspense, darling, is good for the soul." Amethyst kisses me, pats my bottom, ostentatiously turns the whip to better advantage, and leaves me to stand there and contemplate my fate. I can almost swear the whip winks at me in an evil complicity.
I am used to this. Unless a girl is whipped in the heat of sudden anger this period of suspense is almost de rigueur. It is indeed good for her soul! Her mind is at first chaotically concerned with her plight and the pain to come, but if she is left long enough she will begin to reason and to think and may discover emotional treasures, certainly she will come by a terrible clarity about herself. She will not be bored!
I suspected Amethyst had a mission. Thea, but more particularly Permilia, would be a part of it. I had to suppose Thea would be whipped as I was about to be, she would expect it. But it was the fate of the exuberant Permilia that intrigued me. Even if it was no more than a whipping I wished I might be allowed to witness her astonishment at how a whip can hurt, I am sure it will come as a surprise.
From there I return to the contemplation of the whip which will soon wound me. It has the power to make me squirm and tug at my tied wrists, but not in panic: a conditioned reflex, I suppose. I do not dwell too ponderously on Losteigne and Broule. I spare only a wry surmise over my father's concern for me. I belong to Amethyst, with her I am swept along in a tide of events I cannot control. In my love for her and for Thea and for those other lovely female creatures who have possessed me I know myself wanton. This puzzles and bothers me, but I refuse to dwell on it. The mere thought of any of them causes my fire to flare anew and for now and for a while to come I cannot dampen it. Deliberately I examine the leering whip, for me as I am it is reality.
Amethyst whips me moderately hard. I am becoming expert in gauging the force of blows. The leather thong hurts no less than I had feared, perhaps more, I can feel the marks will be delicious. I do not scream, I have made up my mind I will not scream this time. Surely I am a big enough girl I need not make that awful noise... ! I would feel so proud before my mistress if just once I did not scream. I clench my teeth and wish I had something to bite on. My body weaves against its tether, my legs kick. When I have absorbed four strokes with incredible silence the woman who is whipping me hugs me tight, her hands cupping my breasts, the whip dangling down over my tummy. She kisses the back of my neck again and again, she knows its effect on me. When she returns to her work the blow is so awful I know it is a message of her need. I scream and scream again... The blows fall back to the tempo of their beginning and go on and on...
The door is opened just enough that I may be inserted into the room, it closes gently behind me. I am naked, my wrists are handcuffed behind me, my back and bottom are still smarting and tender from the whip. I am immensely curious.
The huge chamber is full of naked girls. I recognize them, they are Amethyst's slaves. Trudy is among them, she waves so that I now observe the hands of all of them are free. Their feet are chained but that is all. There is an air of expectancy. My feet are free, so I join the loose circle clustered around Thea.
Thea has been whipped. When I stand beside her our weals are much alike. The girls admire them and offer sympathy. They know we are privileged and are puzzled by our punishment. She has been handcuffed the same as me. Somewhere in our chaining there is a significance. Thea and I have been robbed of hands, all the rest have theirs. For them it must seem strange, usually some or all of them wear shackles on their wrists. "You kids been demoted?" Trudy queries with amusement.
Our reply is lost. Once more the door has come ajar. This time the entrant requires a solid push of encouragement before the door once more closes and is locked. Permilia stands naked and surveying all of us with dismay. Her crossed wrists are tied with cord. She is trying to cover her pubic hair, evidently the little darling is not accustomed to nudity. She comes towards us hesitantly, her face a question mark. She catches sight of Thea and I and for a moment her features brighten, but then she sees how we have been cuffed and the fresh wounds upon our skin and her smile fades. The sad nymphet senses trouble, she is not on friendly ground.
To us, the nude Permilia is delightful. I think of all the usual words for moppets: cute: pert: pretty: sweet: mischievous: a little sweetheart... She is all of these plus a quality all her own. I remember our nights of love. Poor Permilia! Here are lips and tongues aplenty and knowing hands! It is easy to discern she sees no hope in them, nor in Thea or I, we cannot even help ourselves.
"It's little Miss Consequence," says a girlish voice from somewhere.
"Hello everybody," says the delinquent without enthusiasm.
"Doing a spot of slumming?"
"Seeing how the other half lives?"
The female voices are not friendly. I suddenly realize that Permilia has taken much pleasure in whipping all present. Her credentials are not the best. Looking from face to face in search of a friend she thoughtfully begins to explore the bindings on her wrists with her teeth. I could tell her she is wasting her time, the knots will not be where she can reach them. In between nibbles and tugs she says to no one in particular: "I don't know why I've been put in here."
"We know," says Trudy.
I am sure Permilia knows too. She continues to bite uselessly at the unyielding strands and cast dubious eyes at those who watch. I begin to suspect the girls have been briefed and are enjoying a pleasant anticipation of something. Since Thea and I have been made helpless it is evident our role is to observe, and perhaps to learn a lesson. Heaven help us if the girls decide to be unkind, we can't raise a finger.
"Why do you all look at me like that?" Permilia demands resentfully.
"We're wondering just what to do with you," says a voice.
"We're going to make you howl," says another.
Permilia stops her biting, she looks at her tightly tied hands in disgust and perplexity. "What are you all so mad about?" she demands.
"Don't you remember whipping us?" there is no shortage of voices.
The tied and naked nymphet now cherishes no illusions. She brings up her big guns. "If you hurt me I'll tell my aunt."
"It was your aunt who put you in here."
The step back that Permilia takes is a total admission. The loose group of naked girls take a step forward, their shackles making a musical accompaniment. Thea and I, whose feet are free, step nimbly aside. The atmosphere is tense, the girls wear happily excited smiles and fan out gently to surround this delectable prey their owner has delivered into their hands.
I can imagine Amethyst laughing. I would laugh if I was not so sorry for the darling child. Her punishment has been artfully designed. First the stalking chase in which she has the single advantage of freedom to run, but even though her pursuers ankles are chained they must inevitably corner her by sheer numbers, and their hands are free where hers are bound. It is cruel. She cannot win, but then she is not supposed to! Permilia's crowning humiliation will be that whatever her punishment is to be she will receive it at the hands of slaves instead of the erotic intimacy of being whipped by Amethyst or Thea or myself as she has so much desired. I watch.
The delightful child does all that is expected of her. She looks this way and that, assessing the ground and her chances. She makes continuous angry motions with her bound hands wishing they were not tied. She surveys the line of approaching girls, computing her chances of a breakthrough in a sudden frantic dash. She is heart clutchingly lovely in her delicious dilemma.
But it is indeed cruel. She cannot win. The girls will enjoy a tussle from which she will emerge scratched, helpless and in tears. Suddenly the young figure loses its tension. Permilia droops and stands still, she chooses to cling to dignity.
"Oh alright!" she exclaims angrily. "You're going to be mean to me, I can tell. And I can't stop you. I know I can't, so I'm not going to be a silly ass and try. Go ahead and have your fun. I won't fight, but I'll make you sorry afterwards, you see if I don't."
She has won a small victory. The girls are disappointed. They wanted to rough her up and enjoy the chase. For them this is a rare event to be milked of every particle of thrill. But it is indeed small, the main event seems inescapable. Poor sweet little feline! I have an urgent wish to be back in bed with her, my ankle tugging at its cuff in frantic ecstasy.
Two of the girls take her by the arms. I can see her wince as their fingers whiten in a grip as brutal as they can make, a third unties her hands. Permilia stands sullenly avoiding their curious and avid eyes. She contrives to be furious and passive at the same time. She allows herself to be positioned and used as though she is a doll.
They must have rehearsed it, everything flows with clockwork precision. In this grim chamber there is no shortage of the things they need, nor are they themselves unskilled. What their youthful victim is about to suffer has happened to each of them often enough. They see their work as retribution as well as fun, the air is carnival. In a very few minutes our mischievous moppet is a naked X, her feet well spread and tied to bolts in the floor, her wrists high and apart strapped to the bar. Her pubic hair glistens in its unaccustomed exposure, I can tell she is shamed by her gaping thighs. My heart goes out in sympathy for I know why they are so sundered.
I wonder if the girls have been given carte blanche. The tautly tied girl wonders too, her eyes are vividly aware. When the whip makes its appearance it is no more than she expects. Another girl has found a fine limber cane and makes great play with it.
"If you use those beastly things auntie will be terribly angry." The poor girl wrests much hope from the name of Lady Chatham.
"But we're not going to use them on her, darling."
Permilia twists within the fractional latitude her bonds allow. "Well, you'd jolly well better not use 'em on me."
"Why not! You used them on us."
It is unanswerable. Permilia sniffs and makes a futile threat: "If you hit me, I'll howl."
"We want you to, darling." There is laughter.
It is a terrible moment for the child. "I've never been whipped," she protests as though proclaiming a virtue. "I won't be able to stand it, I know I won't!" She delivers herself of a tremendous sigh and crosses a point of no return. "Please don't hit me too hard."
She has touched some of us, but not all. I can see the two with whip and cane remain dedicated in firm purpose. Permilia sees it too and does not plead again. She bows her head and looks down at the floor, she has abandoned hope.
They commence by caning Permilia's bottom. But there is much time and I can see they are going to extract the utmost response with each minute and each stroke. They purposely demoralize her utterly at the beginning, for our little nymphet there is to be no gentle introduction to the wealing of her skin. I suppose the girl with the cane could have made a harder stroke, but not much. It made a wicked sound through the air and a worse one when it buried itself in Permilia's virgin bottom. I cringed, little Fawn knew what it would feel like.
The slender delinquent tensed in that first blinding moment of disbelief, she gasped and her head went back. She stayed like that for a couple of moments and then went as wild as her tethers would allow. In fact little Permilia performed miracles of motion considering the way she was tied, she must have squirmed her bottom back and forth at least two inches. I looked up at her wrists, they were having the worst time of their lives. But she did not scream. Permilia made sounds, but she was going to try and withhold the joy of screams from those intent on her punishment. She made the cords creak with her struggle and sent her hair flying in all directions as she flung herself back and forth in negation of what had been done to her.
"Just a tickler to start with," said the voice from the ranks.
They let her get the full benefit. When she began to focus again she looked in pure desperation from face to watching face. "You mustn't hit me like that," she tells them with a hushed solemnity. "You don't understand. It's too awful, no girl could bear it. You'll kill me. I must be terribly cut." She tried to look down at herself but couldn't manage it, they really had the poor kid tied tight.
"Not even a spot of blood," says a voice cheerfully.
"That's a gorgeous mark though," someone breathes.
"You mustn't, y'know. You really mustn't. It's wrong, to hit me like that. It's far too cruel." She tried earnestly to impart a message.
"You hit us like that."
I watch the refutation on her lips die away. The poor child is asking herself if it is true: Is this the pain she has given others! Surely not! Nothing this shocking has ever happened to anyone. She must make them understand before they injure her, but how! "You'll make me faint," she says hesitantly. "Auntie would never let you hurt me like this. You ought to be careful... "
There are some titters and outright laughter. "I'm going to hit you again now, darling," the girl with the cane says pleasantly. She does so. The blow is as cruel as number one.
Our little girl is terribly brave. She screams this time, but it is a scream of outrage and protest. She is sure there is a mistake. What is being done to her should not be done! If only her aunt was here! But Amethyst is not here, so she screams and screams her indignation and her fear. The audience listens as to a symphony.
The cane is passed to fresh hands. "We're all going to have a go at you, dear," the new girl says encouragingly. "Only fair, y'know. Where would you like me to hit you this time?"
They are playing with her, of course. I know this, but Permilia is not quite sure. "How many of those beastly strokes are you going to give me?" she asks plaintively as though the number will influence her choice of places to be hit. Perhaps it will...
"Oh, you mustn't know that, darling! You never used to tell us. But it'll be simply heaps and heaps, so don't be afraid to ask."
"I'm not going to ask to be hit by that horrid thing. You'd better stop now. You just wait 'till I tell aunt Amethyst."
"I think you should ask, darling." The voice is gently persuasive. "If you refuse to ask I'll cane one of your breasts."
The sad nymphet again is forced to examine the impossible. It is easy to see she is appalled by this new vista of her plight. She even strains to look down at one of her firm young breasts as though to reassure it of her protection. She swallows pride and angry protest and says sullenly: "Very well then, hit my bottom again."
The new girl lays number three squarely on top of number one. It is intentionally cruel and I'm glad it's not my bottom that got the cut. Permilia does everything natural to a girl whose bare behind is being so unkindly treated. After the screams and the moans there are sobbing tears which manage a wan: "Please, not any more."
They all admire the effect. Thea and I admire it too. Permilia is very beautiful in her punishment. "But we've only just started on you, dear," a sweet feminine voice assures.
In one way they are being kind. The blows are widely spaced. This does not help the pain, but it reduces that awful shock of a succession of agonies against which a girl cannot catch her breath or her courage. But, after all, these are old hands. They knew it all. None of them have an unmarked skin. Our little darling will be whipped with a most cunning cruelty.
"You're a rotten lot of sadists. You're being simply beastly to me. I'll end up in the hospital." Permilia is really scared.
Ten of the girls cane her bottom leisurely with one stroke each. All are expert as though they had been used to giving rather than receiving. Quite probably Amethyst has them practice on each other. Dear little Fawn is most thankful she is not tied for their attention.
The next girl carries the whip. "Have you wondered why your legs are stretched so far apart, darling?" she enquires in a bright conversational voice.
"No! Don't do that... not to me!" Permilia knows what is implied. She has possibly surprised herself by bearing the strokes she has been given so far. She is thus able to take a horrified look at a brand new vision of anguish.
"And why not to you, darling?"
"Because!" the nymphet twists in search of a good reason that is not there. "It's wrong! You shouldn't whip a girl's cunt."
"But we're girls, darling! You whipped our cunts. I remember you whipping mine, it hurt horribly. Try this first one and see if you enjoy it."
Everyone was having a wonderful time except Permilia. Thea and I would have liked to comfort her. I consoled myself with the knowledge that she was getting no more than any of us had received. It was bad, and she was just a kid. But she had earned punishment which was a damn sight more than most of us had done. The whip snaked up between the soft young thighs and found its target. When the fuss was over the next girl with the whip flicked away her victim's tears with her fingers, naked girls don't carry handkerchiefs, and said firmly: "You'll have to ask for the next. You can have it anywhere, but ask nicely or you'll have a sore nipple."
It's really terrible when you are made to ask, it tears a girl in two. You have to sound so eager you're sure they'll lay it on extra hard. Poor darling! She thinks she sees a chance for a bargain so pleads. "Please whip my back, then."
"My name's Marjorie. I'm sure you can ask better than that."
Permilia sighs deeply. I know she longs to kill the girl. "Please, dear Marjorie, give me a lovely stroke with the whip across my back." It's a small gem and sounds as though she really wants her back cut in two. She is about to discover that backs are as tender as anywhere else, mine is.
Dear Marjorie does her best. It is a very good best, and cleverly aimed so that the tip of the lash snakes round under a raised arm and snaps against the curve of a breast. The crimson that springs to life across the white slenderness is exquisite. My fire flames. Permilia explores fresh decibels of desolation.
"You shouldn't whip her breasts," I expostulate.
Eyes turn in my direction. They are interested eyes. I am naked and helpless, and thus fair game. They are never lacking for a cheerful voice. "Let's whip her breasts," this one says.
Dear little Fawn wishes she had kept quiet. I have done no good, and I most desperately do not want them to do this awful thing to me. I step back a pace just as Permilia had done.
"Leave her alone!" It is Thea's angry voice. "You whip Fawn's breasts and you'll really be for the high jump. She belongs to Lady Chatham."
"We all belong to Lady C."
"Not the way Fawn does. If you have to whip a girl's breasts, whip mine."
My heart dissolves with love. What Thea has offered is not an easy thing to ask. The darling must love me very much. I am saved from making an ass of myself by Trudy.
"We'd better leave their breasts alone," she councils wisely. "Thea's right, we could really get it in the neck. We don't have to whip either of them at all."
"Be fun though! Let's... "
I cringe. I have whipped these girls at Amethyst's behest. This seems to be their day. I can see myself hanging beside Permilia. But I take heart when I remember how I am handcuffed.
"We don't have a key to their handcuffs," Trudy points out.
"We can pull their arms up behind them," says a resourceful damsel. 'That'll bend 'em over beautifully. We can slice their seats."
Trudy is on our side, she is also prudent. "They have both been whipped today, look at them! If Lady C. had wanted them whipped any more she'd have told us."
Permilia perks up indignantly. "You mean auntie actually told you to whip me like this!"
"We wouldn't dare do it otherwise," Trudy explained reasonably. It is a shocking thought. The darling child digests it and sees its logic. But there is no comfort in the discovery. If what is being done to her has the approval of authority she is indeed lost. Her tears now are quite pitiful. I wish I had my hands.
"If we promise not to tell, would you whip us instead of the kid?" I ask. I cannot bear to see such tears.
"It's no good, Fawn," Trudy says good naturedly. "I'd love to whip you, but Amethyst would see the extra marks on you and wouldn't be able to count the proper number on little Popsy here. We'd all end up in the dungeon."
Little Fawn's conscience now feels much relieved. I am also grateful to Trudy that I will not be whipped. I am all over tender from darling Amethyst's attentions, the thought of these girls in their present mood slashing away at me was frightening. We girls are very resilient, but it is possible to whip us too much. At least I think it's possible...
Permilia's tears have touched several tender hearts. It is probably felt she needs a rest anyway. So a pair of amused slave girls fasten their lips upon her nipples and busily apply themselves upon her breasts while their hands seek mischief down below. They soon have her moaning and tugging at her bonds as though she was being whipped, the similarity is rather shocking and opens up sobering comparisons. Happily they extract a couple of orgasms from the poor child and walk away, leaving her confronted once more by the whip. I am not sure they have been kind, I dread being whipped after orgasm. It is a time for dreams, not pain.
Permilia eyed the new girl and the whip. "Please don't start whipping me again," she pleads.
"But you've only got a single stroke across your back, dear. We have to mark you with a real criss-cross."
"Please don't. It's too awful. I never knew it was like this. Honest! I'm terribly sorry. I'll never whip you again."
"You will if Lady C. tells you to."
It cannot be denied. More tears... !
"And you've only had one over that dear little cunt. You should have at least a dozen."
Permilia does a quick addition and wails: "But that's more than I've had already. It's not fair."
"Whipping a naked girl's never fair, darling. Why should it be! Is your nice little slit ready?"
I have discovered that for a girl being whipped there is a sort of second wind just as there is in running a race. It comes as quite a surprise to her, at least it did to me, because she has already decided she is going to die and cannot possibly survive another ten strokes, or five, or even one. Yet the strokes fall and cut her skin and find her most tender secrets and you still live. The first shock has passed, the mind is forced to accept the premise that a naked girl can be flogged as men are flogged and that she will endure it as well as they endure it, and that sooner or later the blows will cease and that through the screams and the tears you will look at a world that has not changed. A girl has been whipped. It is no big deal.
I judge Permilia to have reached that state. The lash that now curls up upon her pubic hair is as cruel as before, but she knows its measure, she does not panic. Scream, for sure! But not the panicy conviction you are going to die. She works her way through blow after blow. Watching and listening I realise I am seeing myself. I don't suppose any girl is all that original under the whip.
I watch the slim panting nakedness as it writhes and moans. There is a lesson in it somewhere. I am not seeing only a group of maidens whip another slightly younger than themselves. I do not see simply their joy, their lust or their revenge. In this moment I have an Eve like wisdom that delineates Permilia, not as a naked moppet being punished for her faults, but as the eternal agony of women of which I too am a part. It becomes plausible that we cannot join the sisterhood until we have made our own bargain with the whip, until we have felt its bite upon our skin not once but many times and come to know that in our acceptance of the thong we have gained a victory over all else. It is like childbirth: you emerge triumphant!
They whip Permilia busily and with tremendous zest.
* * *
It's lovely in the Park. Losteigne is so beautiful it brings a lump in the throat and misty eyes. It is its own Eden and it is ours. Thea and I have the day off, a rest, a bit of freedom, call it what you will. This morning Amethyst handcuffed us both with our hands in front so that we may do many things, we are only half helpless, our feet are free. She had patted our tender bottoms, kissed us lingeringly and told us to begone and search for satyrs or for Peter Pan. Joyously we have run out into the dappled sunlight and the scent of ferns.
Poor darling Amethyst! This is another of the days in which she disappears upon that strange mission she shares with Lucian. She seems increasingly preoccupied and not always happy. But our love has gained an added fierceness, an ardour that feeds upon itself and by which I am utterly devoured. I am happy, I love her terribly. I lay beside her, chained by an ankle or a wrist, every night. Thea understands. She is so sweet about it I feel guilty.
Losteigne has absorbed Amethyst, her girls, Cyril and Bridie and Permilia, without visible change. The great house and the Park brood drowsily and sleepily, viewing with an omniscient indulgence the antics of those who for their little time have found refuge within the great wall that surrounds us all. Gillian surveys it all and is quite lost. Sometimes she locks me away or whips me out of sheer irritability. I am not much available to her, so it is mostly Thea or one of the other girls on whom she has to work out her frustrations. I feel sorry for Gillian, she is in love with Lucian and that is reason enough to feel sorry for anyone. I could give her more of myself, or of my flesh, but I belong to Amethyst and Amethyst is a most jealous mistress.
It is, oh, so good to be with darling Thea in the Park. We are together a great deal within our captivity, but then we are chained or locked or tied, and sometimes punished, so as to be on our best behavior or, and this is closer to the truth, no behavior at all. Laughing at the sheer absurdity of what we do we leap and prance and run a race, flinging our chained hands high as though reaching for the moon in sheer defiance of the shining steel upon our wrists.
"Let's try and climb over the wall," Thea suggests puckishly.
We know we can't. We've tried often enough, but the idea is exciting and gives us an objective. We titter over the thought of dropping down on the other side and walking naked and handcuffed down the road. What a time the 'News of the World' would have with that one on the following Sunday!
We are delightfully alone. Even over the birdsong and the rustle of leaves we can hear the stillness, the absence of extraneous sound. It is easy to believe Losteigne is within its own dimension in some lost fold of space. We laugh over Amethyst's well intentioned gift or partial freedom to her slave girls when first she brought them here. She sent them out into the verdant loveliness with the hands of each cuffed behind her back. They could run and walk and make their love, but not much else. She had robbed them of their hands for fear so large a group might have found some way to bridge the wall. But the experiment had not been a success. Naked and chained they had felt the ghosts touching their flesh, they had heard strange sounds and cringed at the changing coolness of the soft air upon their skins. One had trodden on a field mouse and run shrieking up the path, another had gone too close to the treachery of the bog and seen the tussock fall away beneath her foot and the bluish slime reach up, she too had fled. All had been ill at ease, pulling at the metal on their wrists and wholly conscious of the exposure of their breasts and their femaleness as though there was indeed a satyr watching in the trees. Disconsolately they had trailed back to the refuge of the house. Amethyst had been annoyed with them and promised punishment. She has told me what she intends to do, it intrigues me immensely.
We are happy with our togetherness beneath the cathedral of the trees when we behold Cyril up ahead. He is aimlessly wandering, in need of purpose in his walk. Our first instinct is to evade and leave him alone with whatever troubles him. Our bare feet make little sound, we could vanish as easily as we had appeared. But there is about the lonely figure some quality of dejection that touches us. He is lost and seeking and far from home. Of all of us who are the captives of Losteigne he is the most pathetic, he does not belong. We wonder why Bridie is not with him.
Hearing us he turns. We have to be flattered by the sudden irradiation of his solemn face, he is pleased to see us. Why not! I think irritably. We are naked. A lot of men would pay a lot of money to have a good look at Thea and I as we are at this moment. But his pleasure is not that, I glimpse it as relief that he is not alone. He beams and says, "Why, hello girls," with diffident enthusiasm.
"Bird watching, Cyril?" I have to ask him something!
He thinks I am being vulgar, his blush is delicious.
"She means the ones with feathers," Thea volunteers dryly. "You can watch us anytime."
That doesn't help either, his pink gets pinker and he is scared to look below our chins. "I say, this is simply corking! Have you two escaped or something?"
We hold up our chained hands to show we are still members in good standing. "Where's Bridie?" we chirp cheerfully.
He wishes we had not asked. "Are you girls happy here?" he inquires with earnest irrelevance.
Poor Cyril! He is lost and groping. "We're terribly happy," I tell him truthfully.
His spectacled gaze now focuses on our handcuffs, they are anomalous to my declaration. I lift them and make them clink and glitter in a shaft of sunlight. "We belong to Amethyst," I explain inadequately.
But it is enough. He nods and blinks and says: "Ah yes," as though all was revealed. Then adds: "You don't mind being whipped, do you?"
"She adores it," Thea says as though in commendation. I can tell she is in one of her moods. Poor Cyril is probably in for a bad time.
"I say," he tries again, "I'd like awfully to talk. Would you mind if we sat down?"
Thea has infected me. It is such a gorgeous day I effervesce. Cyril sits on a stump, the two of us slide down on the leaves and lean against convenient saplings. We spread our legs and clasp our linked hands behind our heads as though for comfort. Our most intimate foliage is joined with that of the surrounding scene. Cyril is a lucky man.
He is not so sure. We long to giggle. I dare not look at Thea. Cyril dare not look anywhere at all. I am quite sure our pubic hair fills his entire horizon. "Would you like us to cover these things we have between our legs?" Thea asks innocently.
"That's awfully sporting of you," the silly ass says as though we were offering him a favor. "Perhaps, if you don't mind... I, I do find dear Aunt Amethyst most awfully difficult... "
He has a thought in there somewhere, but it's hard to discern. Thea tries, wickedly: "You mean because she owns our cunts you find it awkward to look at them?"
"I say, really, y'know!" Cyril is shocked to the very roots of Belvington Square. "I mean... must you...?"
"Call a cunt a cunt, you mean?" She is without mercy.
Cyril closes his eyes. If we had been sitting in the desert I am sure he would have put his head in the sand. "I think you're angry at me for being so unkind to you that night," he accused.
"Well, why the hell were you so damn mean to me?"
He shuffled his feet and studied my breasts for a minute as though hoping they'd come up with an answer. "It's terribly hard to explain. She's altogether too much for me... not my cup of tea at all."
"You mean you didn't enjoy chaining my hands up in the air and leaving me to stand there all night... and naked too!"
"Oh please... ! I'm frightfully ashamed. So silly...!" He is actually distressed. "I'd hoped to make amends by setting you free. Really... ! the effect of Aunt Amethyst on young Permilia... ! Bridie and I were mortified when we heard."
"So were we when we woke up in the morning! Look, if you don't like the way Lady C. does things, why put up with it?"
"Well, she's... she's... so... "
"You mean you're scared to death of her!"
"I suppose that's it." He studied the premise as though at first awareness of its truth. He did another gulp and confided earnestly. "You see, we hadn't known much about her until she descended on us a few months ago. Different branches of the family and all that... Then all of a sudden she walked into our lives and took over. She was fun at first, but when we caught sight of her... well, eccentricities we were horrified. She wanted to involve me in some weird undertaking with Lucian, and she wanted Bridie to be like... like... " He floundered.
"Like us," I prompted.
He perked up gratefully. "I'm afraid so." He flushed. "Not that I imply... "
"Don't be embarrassed. We give her pleasure with out tongues. Fawn's is seven inches long," said Thea mendaciously.
"Really!" For a moment curiosity got the better of him before he relapsed into confusion. "Bridie was outraged... and about the... the way you are now... "
"Chained and naked."
"Er, yes. She actually became quite insistent. It was then we were weak, we allowed her to take Permilia on visits to Broule. I'm afraid we were glad it diverted her interest, but the dear child took to aunt Amethyst's notions like a duck to water. She's become a problem." He paused as though seeking reinforcements. "Quite recently the little mischief tried to inveigle me into removing Bridie's clothes, trying her up and whipping her."
"Sounds like a marvelous idea." Thea said blandly. "Why didn't you?"
"Oh, come now! Our own sister!"
"What's that got to do with it! Fawn's my cousin, I whip her."
"My dear girl, you don't expect me to believe that!"
"If you like to cut a switch from a bush I'll whip her right now. You'd let me, wouldn't you, darling?"
"I'd love it," I said untruthfully. "Please, Cyril, cut us a switch."
He refused to play. "I think you're teasing me," he said stiffly. "I'm afraid you are both terrible examples of the effect Aunt Amethyst has on people. You are both quite... "
"Depraved?"
I think it was the word he sought, but he shied away from it. "Absolutely not! You are charming... delightful."
"Cyril... darling! How sweet of you! We'll let you whip us, won't we Fawn!"
"Oh yes!" I breathed ecstatically. "Cyril, be a pet and cut that switch. Cut several please, they sort of wear out on a girl."
"But your behavior is exemplary. You have done nothing to warrant... "
"What's that got to do with it!"
"But it's punishment! You don't merit... "
"We're girls, aren't we! What more do you want!"
Cyril examined the idea dubiously. "You mean that being girls you are automatically guilty... " He floundered.
"We're guilty of being female. You don't have to have a reason for whipping females, you do it for fun."
"Fun!" Cyril was intrigued, but gawped like a gaffed fish.
"Of course! If you want to understand about girls just look at the three of us now. Fawn and I are naked and our hands are chained. You have your clothes on and not a chain in sight."
He knew her reasoning specious, but could not pick a hole in it. "Well, I know that's what Aunt Amethyst thinks," he admitted, "but I'm afraid Bridie would never approve."
"Where is Bridie?" I asked. I sensed mystery.
"To tell the truth I don't know. It's bothering me. I haven't seen her since yesterday."
"Ask Amethyst. She's your aunt."
"I did. She simply laughed and told me Bridie was 'In seclusion'. That's all she'd say. I suppose it means the poor girl's locked up somewhere."
He had captured our interest. Bridie in chains was too good to be true. "What a chance for you to play knight errant," I suggest.
"I can't very well impale my aunt on the end of a spear," he retorted testily. "I wonder if you'd mind keeping your eyes open."
Thea felt the conversation had taken too serious a turn. The disappearance of any female within the walls of Losteigne was not a matter for concern. Dungeon doors opened and closed with amazing regularity. "You're really rather sweet, Cyril," she said dreamily.
It hit him like a broadside. If I was a man I'd watch out for Thea! He did another prodigious swallow and glowed with self esteem.
"You were awfully kind in taking those metal things off us, those silver bands... No one's put them back on either." Another swallow. Cyril was beaming. "Would you like to fuck me? You can, y'know."
This time there was no swallow, there was no anything. Cyril had been ejected into space.
"It's really awfully good fun." She cocked a wicked eye at him. "You have fucked a girl, haven't you?"
"Really! As a matter-of-fact... " He had forgotten to swallow, it got in the way and he was lost.
"Why Cyril, I think you're a virgin! I'd love to cure you."
"You are... Really I-"
"Just take your clothes off, darling. It's easy."
Thea is quite wicked. If ever a girl deserved to be whipped, she did right then. Poor Cyril! I felt sorry for him. "Don't let her tease you into something." I told him kindly.
But I had misjudged our boy. "No, really I'm most honored... more than kind. I'd like to avail myself... " He gawped at me in dire distress.
You know the one about being knocked over with a feather: that was dear little Fawn at that moment. I suppose really I don't know all that much about men... Not as much as Thea does. "I'll be happy to leave you alone for awhile," I say stiffly, a bit miffed.
"Run along, darling," Thea says decisively.
"Oh, I say... I wouldn't want to break up... "
"Do you want her to stay and watch? Some men love that!"
His blush is devastating. I turn my back and walk off into the trees.
I know it's silly, but as I saunter in no particular direction I have a vision. It's of one of those old style whore houses you see on telly. The madam has the girls line up, the customer makes his choice, and the rest of them return to whatever whores do when not actively employed. That's how I felt! I hadn't been chosen. Thea was gorging herself on a man and I was taking a maiden stroll.
Jealousy is a terrible thing. You recognize it but won't acknowledge you've even seen it. The quaint twist to the way I feel is that it's Cyril I'm jealous of: he's got my Thea, my beautiful, glorious, panting, palpitating Thea! Thea's mine, but right now he's enjoying her. I'm hot with resentment. I'd like to go back and beat him with anything handy. It's not that I'm such a pure little girl, but if I wasn't a lesbian when I came to Losteigne I most certainly am now. Girls are for me, or I for them. I had wanted Lucian, but he is gone. Amethyst has erased him. But what belongs to Thea and I is something particularly our own, I don't want to share it. I know I am unkind, for Amethyst chains me away from Thea about half the time. But there it is, lesbian love is wickedly possessive.
I want to whip Thea for her infidelity. But by the nature of our condition it is usually she who is given the privilege of whipping me. I suppose it's our natural roles. Amethyst sees Thea as the prefect and, of course, I am dear little Fawn. I indulge in a relaxing daydream in which I have my darling tied to a tree and am beating her twisting bottom cruelly with a lovely cane. I reach down and feel: sure enough I am wet. It isn't likely to happen, but it's a nice thought. I walk determinedly away from the scene of the crime, no longer enjoying the scenery. I look at nothing. Thus it is the voice from nowhere comes as a total shock.
"Oh, please don't look... "
Bridie is as naked as I am. Moreover, she has been fastened against the tree so as to give maximum exposure. Her feet have been drawn back on each side, a shiny mass of pubic curls implore attention. She has a really very nice girl's body. Above it her scarlet features vividly protest her shame. She repeats herself.
"Oh, please don't look at me! I'm so terribly ashamed."
"Hush, hush!" I tell her, half amused. "I'm a girl, remember!"
"No one has ever seen me... like this...!"
"Someone's bound to sooner or later," I offer for comfort. "Oh Fawn, this is terrible!"
Actually she could be a lot worse off. I am inclined to tell her so, but it seems unkind. There is no doubting her misery over being naked. To me it's laughable. I try not to giggle. But I suppose for the first time... I wonder how she reached the age of twenty-two or three without taking her clothes off. "You have lovely nipples," I tell her cheerfully. I am as bad as Thea.
She looks down at them as at a new acquisition. They are sticking out nicely which tells me something. I wonder if there is moisture within those shining curls below. It is a quick shamed look, her face is flushed anew when she lifts it to me appealingly. "It isn't right. She shouldn't have made me naked like this."
"I'm naked."
"But you're different!" Bridie's mouth opened in dismay, her gaffe was obvious even to her. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
"What didn't you mean?" Once more I am miffed. "Well, you're used to it. I mean you're always naked, aren't you!"
"I'm a scarlet woman?"
"Oh really, I didn't mean that at all. You're sweet."
"What you really mean is that I'm a slave girl. Isn't that it?"
"I suppose so, yes. Well, you are, aren't you?"
"Oh, I'm a slave girl alright," I admit with a touch of dolor I do not feel. Bridie is difficult to come to grips with. "But whether I am or not I don't feel ashamed at being naked. I like it."
I am damned utterly. I can see it in her eye. She tries to struggle, but cannot. She allows the subject of my dubious morality to lapse and returns to her own tribulations. "Can't you possibly find something to cover me with?"
The request is absurd. "I might find a large leaf, but I couldn't pin it on," I say helpfully. Then Thea prompts and I add: "With that lovely black fleece you don't really need anything."
Her voice is a bit acid. "There are also my... my... "
"The vulgar terms today are 'boobs and tits'," I explain innocently. "I told you, yours are nice."
"It's all Aunt Amethyst's fault," Bridie affirms stoutly. She is probably right. I am absolved from turpitude.
"I'll have you free in a jiffy," I promise rashly.
Poor Bridie is not free in a jiffy. From my efforts she may never be free again! She is not tied to her tree, she is chained.
The chains are tight upon her and the trunk, they are locked with heavy and severe modern padlocks. The naked Bridie is a fixture. I break the news as gently as I can.
"You mean you can't get me loose?" She is aghast.
"Not without the keys. Who fixed you like this?"
"It was Gillian, and two girls. They wore handcuffs the way you are now. But the three of them were able to compel me. I struggled and explained how very wrong they were, but it did no good. The two girls in handcuffs had the effrontery to laugh." She mused angrily for a moment. "But I know perfectly well it's all Aunt Amethyst's doing!"
I wonder if I should tell the poor girl what her brother was up to at the moment. There was something about Bridie that demanded shocks and outrage. But I do not have the heart. I think of something that will amuse me more. But first I really explore her bonds. They are well thought out, separate chains for each bit of Bridie. The one round her middle really tucks into her tummy, its padlock is magnificent. There is another single one that circles the tree trunk and also uses a padlock to loop each of her ankles and hold them well back to enhance the frontal view-that must surely have been by Amethyst's express instruction! Her wrists were linked behind the trunk, but not with handcuffs as you'd suppose, they'd used a chain with a padlock on each wrist. It would take no less than five keys to get the poor girl loose. Someone somewhere was chuckling. Bridie was outraged when I explained her plight.
"As though I was a wild animal," she complained indignantly.
"It's just to make sure no one like me can set you free," I assured her. "I sort of suspect Amethyst wants to get you accustomed to doing without clothes. You are getting a bit used to it, aren't you? You haven't asked me to cover anything for several minutes. I could, y'know."
"How?" She fell neatly into the trap.
"Like this." I covered her furry mound with my hand. Sure enough, it was damp.
I'll swear Bridie jumped a foot, even with all those chains.
"Get your hand off that!"
"My hand off what?" I asked innocently, doing a little kneading with my fingers and cupping with the palm.
"What you're doing... ! Stop!"
"Doing to your what, darling?"
"I refuse to use that filthy word."
"Are you talking about your lovely cunt?" I asked, shocked.
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Get your hand away."
"Doesn't it feel good?"
"That has nothing to do with it... no."
"I'll try harder. Most cunts respond when I do this to them."
"You're being unfair. I can't defend myself. You wouldn't treat me like this if Cyril was here."
"Cyril is busy fucking Thea. That's why she isn't here with me." I'm sure I'm wicked, but I couldn't resist!
My captive maiden froze. She didn't believe me, but the vulgarity alone was traumatic. While she was gathering her forces for a rebuttal I slid a moist finger inside and began to really communicate. Before she could wither me with words her eyes began to see visions. "You really must stop," she said without conviction.
"Lovely, isn't it!" I suggested brightly.
"I had no idea... Really, I'm surprised...!" The last came out as a gasp.
I wasn't sure whether she was surprised at me or herself, but I now went to work on her nipples with my lips as well. She made the oddest sounds. As near as I could figure she was, quite incredibly, apologizing for one of the healthiest responses I've ever run into.
"Unforgivable... so ashamed... never... never." Moan, moan.
I felt a bit guilty, but not much. I was taking an unfair advantage, but I was also helping the poor girl to grow up by about seven years. Her orgasm was positively volcanic, I almost expect lava. I go and sit down to give her time to recover. When she does she looks over my head at a vista without hope.
"Where did you learn an awful thing like that?"
"It comes naturally, darling. All the girls do it. Those five in your dungeon in Belvington Square do it whenever their chains let them."
"Impossible! They deserve to be whipped."
"Do I deserve to be whipped, darling?"
Bridie is cautious, she is very helpless. "You should be ashamed... a nice girl like you!"
"I'm not. I think it's delicious. I'm going to do it to you again in a minute."
Bridie was in the position of someone with moral scruples against gambling winning the Irish Sweep. "If you touch me again I shall scream."
"You'll scare the birds. Isn't this nice?"
I began to use my fingertips on her nipples. She heaved like fury but couldn't move an inch in her chains. "I suppose it's no use asking you to stop?" she inquired hopefully.
"None at all, darling. Just relax."
Bridie bore her fresh martyrdom with commendable fortitude. She refrained from complaint and condemnation. Somewhere between her assorted sounds she managed to mutter that she didn't believe such a thing possible: and this I could well believe! I'm not sure her Vesuvius act did not surpass number one. You've heard about people sagging against their bonds: well, that was Bridie when the last post was sounded.
I began to realise that if I didn't go back to the happy couple they'd come looking for me. I thought it only kind to give my warm moist virgin a choice. "Do you want me to leave you alone?" I asked. "Or shall I go and get Cyril and Thea?"
Bridie bucked at the chains like a trapped horse. "Oh no, not Cyril! He mustn't see me like this."
"He's seen Thea and me naked. It hasn't affected his health."
"It's me, not him! He mustn't see his sister in the nude!"
"Don't be selfish, he might enjoy."
"No, no! Go away, please. Leave me alone. I expect they'll let me loose sometime."
I expected they would too. So I kissed her gently to show no hard feelings and went away and left her. I could understand it might be the kindest thing.
"We thought you'd got lost," said Cyril, anxious to forestall any awkward silence.
"The boy's damn good, Fawn darling." Thea was unexpectedly animated. "You ought to try him."
The pixies were still at work on me, so I gave Cyril my brightest company smile and asked: "Would you like to fuck me too, you gorgeous male creature?"
It was easy to see the idea of two girls more or less at once was as new to Cyril as the prospect of a single had been in the first place. But pioneers who have crossed one horizon are undaunted by the next. I'll cut out all the verbiage and repartee and admit that it was not very long before dear little Fern was looking up from her bed of leaves and glimpsing Thea's white back disappearing among the trunks and bushes. There was no doubt at all that dear little Fawn was about to meet what Bridie would undoubtedly describe as a fate worse than death!
My fate turned out to be very nice indeed. Cyril was a dark horse with unsuspected staying power. Being what I am I don't suppose I'm ever going to go overboard about a male, but he was immensely enjoyable. I wouldn't have made my crude offer if I hadn't felt sorry for him and also grateful about those silver bands. I owed him. From the way he perspired I'm sure I've paid my debt. The first thing he said afterwards was typical.
"I say, Fawn, I'm frightfully sorry."
"What are you sorry about! Thea was right, you're damn good."
"But really... ! Two of you... I would never have dreamed...!"
"It was nice, wasn't it!"
"I'm afraid so. What can I tell Bridie!" They were both impossible. I began to have a faint wish that Amethyst could put a dent in them somewhere. I decided to have another try myself. "Would you like to do it to me again, darling?" I ask sweetly.
He does his swallowing act. "I'm afraid... actually I don't think... "
The poor dear's trouble is obvious. "If you whip me it will come right up again," I prompt.
"You are quite remarkable. Where did you learn...?" He gazes at me with a mixture of worship and censure.
"I'm just a girl," I tell him confidingly. "We learn these things quite young. Now, if you whip me for a little while you'll find you can have another lovely time with me. Want to?"
Cyril studied my startling thesis with a laughable incredulity. "You mean that if I...?"
"Yes. Use your belt to fasten my hands to a tree so I can't change my mind when it starts to hurt-you're not wearing your trousers anyway. Then get a couple of nice switches and go to work."
"But it will hurt you... Auntie has already whipped you terribly."
"Yes she has, but I'm sure you can wedge in a few more here and there."
"But I find it hard to believe...?"
I laughed and pointed. "You have to believe. Look! Just talking about it has done the trick."
I'll swear he hadn't known! He looked down at himself almost with dismay as though his rigid member was guilty of a vulgar impertinence. I began to wish I'd kept quiet, I really didn't want to be whipped with a scratchy willow switch.
"But... but, how long can this go on?" he was clinically interested.
"As long as you have a girl to whip. We're wonderful aphrodisiacs."
Cyril winced at the word. "I am quite ashamed at the effect you have on me. Never in my life-"
"Oh, Cyril, cheer up. You mustn't feel guilty. It works on females too, just look at your aunt Amethyst."
The poor chap recoiled under another shock. "But Auntie... girls, that is... you, don't have a... "
He was as scarlet as if he'd said the awful word. He was marvelous material to tease. "Of course we don't have a penis!" I laughed at him. "But we do have something a lot better," I parted my black muff with my chained hands and showed him. "There's a little fire burning inside there. With a bit of stimulus it gets gorgeously hot."
Cyril stared in fascinated horror. He was obviously expecting smoke and flames to appear at any moment. I felt I'd let him down.
"I cannot believe that Aunt Amethyst...?"
"Of course she has, silly! She's terrifically female. When her fire burns low she whips one of her girls, or me, and away we go... "
Cyril was beginning to glimpse answers to conundrums. "Is that why she wants to whip poor Bridie?"
"Of course... and to wake Bridie up a bit. Amethyst thinks you're both half asleep. Actually you are, y'know."
He almost reared and snorted. "You mean she wants to whip me!"
"Not really, though I'm sure she would if you asked. Why don't you whip her. She'd probably let you."
It was about like asking him to envisage the Queen playing hopscotch naked on the pavements of Stepney. I was about to continue Cyril's adult education when Thea showed up. I was a bit relieved, as I said, I really didn't want to be whipped again on top of the lovely marks Amethyst had given me. The first thing Thea observes is Cyril's erection. "Haven't you even started yet?" she demands in disgust.
"Oh, quite, quite!" he sounds like a duck quacking.
"Well, what's that thing sticking up for then?"
"It's my bawdy conversation," I explain. "I've been talking about whips and girls."
"Oh that!" Thea understands instantly.
"I am chagrined... mortified...!"
"Oh, shut up you silly ass," Thea admonishes testily. She cocks an eye at me. "We can't possibly send him home like this. Maybe you'd better take another walk or, better still, sit down and watch the fun."
Cyril is bereft of words, his erection stands.
Thea competently takes charge of everything.
I decide to sit and watch. It is the first time I have ever done so.
I am immensely grateful I prefer girls!
* * *
"There is a family obligation I have been delaying far too long."
We all sense Amethyst is making a pronouncement. We mute our play with knives and forks. The family is complete: Gillian, Bridie and Cyril, Thea and I, and perky Permilia. Only Thea and I are naked, our ankles are chained, that's all. Trant hovers over the luncheon table, all is normal.
"Kindness and patience often defeat their own ends," says Amethyst.
Thea catches my eye. Someone is going to get whipped. We look at Permilia. She eats busily, pretending unconcern.
"I find my methods with my girls bring unfailingly good results." Our Mistress is enjoying whatever denouement she is working up to. A polite and faintly apprehensive curiosity hovers in the air.
"A girl who has never been whipped, or who is not regularly whipped from time to time becomes a quite impossible creature." Amethyst's scrutiny sweeps up and down the table embracing us all. Permilia's cheeks become faintly pink.
"Excessive virtue becomes a vice."
Bridie tenses, her fork half way to her mouth. She returns the morsel to her plate.
"Both require the exorcism of the whip."
Thea and I believe ourselves without guilt. But with Amethyst a girl never knows! An air of unease pervades the gathering. Cyril is really the only one present who can feel quite safe, but it is he who speaks.
"Bridie and I are thinking of returning to Belvington Square," he announces conversationally. "We have enjoyed our stay... "
"Don't be ridiculous!" reprimands his Aunt Amethyst. "You know perfectly well it is Bridie I am speaking of."
Her small bomb splits the table into two camps. Cyril and his sister are one, the rest of us have indeed found an excess of virtue irritating. The cure is drastic but our interest quickens, not the least is Permilia's. She even stops eating.
Bridie fights her own battle. "Please, auntie, you mustn't make fun of me like this."
"I am not making fun, child. After lunch I propose fastening you in some suitable posture, stripping you naked and giving you a good thrashing. You will be astounded at how much better you feel afterwards."
Bridie was astounded now. She tries again. "I wouldn't dream of making such an exhibition of myself," she retorts primly.
"I cannot sanction it," says Cyril sounding like the Lord Chamberlain.
Amethyst does not hear them. "I intend to get rid of your prurient concern over your female attributes," she informs the red faced Bridie. "If need be I will whip them until such time as you recognize their existence and name them to me in a clear and lucid voice."
It is cruel: to shame Bridie so in front of all of us, and with Trant taking it all in. But this is Amethyst! I am quite sure she is venting much pent up irritation. Bridie, and for that matter Cyril as well, is hard to take. What surprises me is that the two of them don't pack and go this instant. They are adult. There must be things I do not know. And anyway, who of us dare gainsay Amethyst! I know I wouldn't! I shiver at the mere thought.
"I am sorry, auntie, but I have to refuse," Bridie begins to eat as though she was hungry.
"You have nothing to say about it, child. So enjoy your lunch. We can discuss the matter of your whipping while we eat."
Permilia is an opportunist. "Can I have a go at her, auntie?"
I would suggest you employ your, er, corrections on my sister rather than myself," Bridie says with heavy dignity.
"I see no reason why Permilia should not, as she says, have a got at you, my dear. A bit of honest humiliation may be beneficial. You really are a frightful prig, y'know."
Bridie has to take a lot of deep breaths to keep up to the conventional standard of luncheon behavior. "We will leave immediately after lunch," she announces primly.
"Just you try, young lady," Amethyst says darkly. "I intend to arrange you in a quite indecent exposure so that the fact you are a girl may be evident to you as well as others. You may expect to be very beautifully marked by dinnertime which, by the way, you will eat with us here in the nude so that we may all enjoy your decorations."
"We should be back at Belvington Square by two-thirty, Cyril." Bridie is holding on to her status quo for all she's worth.
"At two-thirty you will be a well-striped little girl, dear child," Amethyst announces firmly. "You never have been whipped, have you?"
"Of course not! No respectable girl has!"
"All the females present at this table have been whipped. Would you consider them less than respectable?"
"I refuse to consider at all-If the hat fits they can wear it." Bridie manages to score a point.
"I intend to give particular attention to the inside of your thighs."
"Auntie, you are being offensive. Trant is present."
"Ah, I thought I recognized him." Amethyst lays on the sarcasm. "I also have a dear little whip specially designed for a girl's breasts."
"Can I use it on her left tit, auntie, please?" Permilia implores.
"Kindly refer to it as a nipple, dear child, or a breast. We must not offend your sister with vulgarities."
"Permilia, how dare you!" Bridie is scarlet and furious.
"She is just trying to be helpful." Amethyst covers her stretching of the truth with a broad smile. "I do feel the young should be encouraged to participate in any worthwhile endeavor."
I suffer with Bridie. I am not sure myself if I would contemplate the whipping of my left breast as a commendable enterprise.
"I am sure we can all see this is just jolly good fun and that Bridie's being a cracking good sport about it." Cyril tries to pick up some lost ground he never had in the first place.
Amethyst smiles benignly. Gillian refuses to meet anyone's eye... and I suppose the rest of us are just children and don't count!
To Thea and I the room is all too familiar, but not to Bridie! She stands panting in the grip of Trudy and another girl enlisted as escort. She looks about her in the full desolation of knowing what she sees, what she does not understand she can guess.
"Cyril is driving up to Broule. Bridie can follow on the evening train," Amethyst announces regally. "The dear girl has a full agenda this afternoon." She smiles sweetly at her prisoner. "You didn't want your brother present, did you dear?"
Bridie ignores the rhetorical question. "These... these girls dragged me here by force," she protests in outrage.
There is no argument. Trudy and her cohort start to propel her to the place where it will happen. They are immensely amused and are not prepared for Bridie's sudden lunge. She breaks free and heads for the door, but they tackle her and drag her back fighting all the way. She puts up a really tremendous resistance, her face pink and indignant and without hope. I am sure it is the thought of losing her clothes that inspires her strength, she probably does not yet really believe in the whip. To Bridie the whip is still something for Thea and for me, but not for her, a bogey for bad girls...
Amethyst assists, she is terribly strong. Thea and I might have been pressed into service, but our wrists have, prudently, been handcuffed behind our backs. Our ankles are chained. We are neutral member of an audience whether we wish to be or not. We will have front row seats but we won't participate in the performance. I admit I am grateful.
It is a wicked pose, but it is beautiful. I know it well. Bridie is utterly shocked and continues to use all her strength, but now it is against the straps on her wrists and ankles that she expends it to no profit to herself. She does, however, exert such a fury of striving to be free that she contrives some small slack in her tethers so that the enraptured girls can now, giggling, tug the straps tighter still and rob their captive of even this last small advantage of motion.
Bridie is a perfect X. But her hands are shockingly wide above her head and her feet even more shockingly stretched asunder to the implacable rings against which she cannot prevail. She is not suspended, her feet are on the floor. But suspension might be kinder than the tug of these cords that stretch her in four directions at once. Her eyes widen as comprehension dawns. She looks from face to face, she sees no animosity, she may behold pity, but she will glimpse no hope. I know the feeling well.
She looks levelly at Amethyst and, with no judgment at all, says: "You're going to be sorry for this, auntie. I'll make sure you are."
Auntie has a pair of scissors. She snips away Bridie's dress.
"That's enough. Don't take any more off!" Bridie is still Bridie.
Bridie wears a slip. Bridie would! "You don't need this on, do you?" Amethyst asks innocently.
"Leave it alone, auntie! You are carrying this whole thing too far. And please let me loose. I hurt terribly, I can't move."
Amethyst thoughtfully cuts away the slip.
"I can't whip you with clothes on, darling." She manages to sound solicitous for her niece's welfare.
"You mustn't whip me at all. It's preposterous! I forbid it. Cyril forbid it before he left."
Bridie wears heavy nylons. She has nice legs and I am almost sorry to have to watch our mistress cut and tear them from the rigidly bound legs. The shoes had been lost in the battle, so Amethyst strips the silky stuff down to the strapped ankles and lets it go at that. Bridie quaintly wears sheer nylon slippers. I wonder if she shares my knowledge that soon it will be all she does wear.
"This is a case of 'Auntie knows best', darling."
The tormented girl tries one more physical revolt on behalf of her convictions, but this time she can't even quiver. She tosses her head in bitter frustration and contrives to look delightfully sexy. My fire glows, I am sure it is not alone. I wonder if Bridie has a fire! In her spot I'd be more scared than she seems to be, but I'd be glowing between my legs.
"That's absolutely enough, auntie! Don't strip me further. Remember, Permilia is only a child."
"Permilia is getting a liberal education, my dear, just as you are. Don't carry on so! You are a ridiculous prude, I'm ashamed of you."
"She should not be allowed to see me... my... "
"Your pubic hair, darling, and your mammaries! Which would you like me to uncover first?"
I am sure Bridie would have preferred to be Lady Godiva sustaining a noble cause with her nakedness. While she is thinking up a suitable declamation, Amethyst snips away her bra. The two breasts revealed are quite scrumptious. My fire is behaving outrageously. Bridie closes her eyes: no doubt to set a good example.
"But darling, you have lovely breasts! It's nonsense not to enjoy them." Amethyst is sincere in her tribute. "Look at your nipples! They're quite hard! Are you sure you're not a bit of a humbug."
"Please cover them." Bridie really means it.
"Have you any last words before I remove the last bastion of your virtue?" Amethyst inquires maliciously.
It is a measure of the depth of Bridie's agony that she remains mute while Amethyst's scissors deal with her ample and heavy-duty panties. Her eyes are wide and fixed on infinity, no doubt hopeful of a bit of knight errantry or for Cyril to effect a last-minute rescue. We all sigh with pleasure at her lovely muff.
"Why, you're beautifully thatched, darling," Amethyst trills. "You must have to part it to pee."
"Don't be vulgar, auntie. You've all had a look and shamed me. Please cover me again and let me loose. It's the least you can do." Bridie's eyes are still on the horizon.
"But, darling, you are going to be whipped...!"
"Oh that! You cannot possibly be serious."
The poor girl believes it! When Trudy hands our mistress the lovely strip of supple leather extruding from its braided stock Bridie forgets the horizon and views the new exhibit with about the same degree of shock she would accord a five-foot rattlesnake.
"Surely you don't intend to use that thing on me!"
Amethyst's arm flashes, a neat circle of scarlet springs to life round Bridie's waist.
There is complete silence. Even Bridie is mute in her discovery of pain, but her cheeks are white and her fingers clench into small tight fists. She makes no sound but the exhalation of breath. She has courage.
"Did that carry any conviction, dear?" Amethyst asks genially.
Bridie is silly only in some things. She knows herself lost. But she will clothe herself in the armor of dignity and will strike back by robbing her vibrant aunt of the pleasure of her pleas and a rejection of repartee. She remains silent in a way I would have found hard to do, perhaps impossible.
Amethyst crumbles the defenses with five swift and awful lashes, two circle each soft thigh, the fifth bites upward into the spread loins. The last one does the trick. Bridie responds as I would have done myself. A girl is foolish not to scream.
"Kindly tell us where that last stroke pierced you, darling," Amethyst requests when the worst of the sounds of female agony have subsided.
The whipped girl does not answer. Amethyst whirrs the leather back into the breach.
It is some time before Bridie manages enough composure to say: "It's too cruel... it's wicked!"
"I asked you to perform a small task, Bridie. Remember, clear and lucid and colloquially specific." Amethyst was sarcastically formal.
Bridie made it an accusation. "You whipped my private parts!" she affirms vehemently.
Permilia explodes into giggles. Trudy and her companion are having a hard time not to do the same. For a moment I suspect Amethyst is on the verge of mirth. As a period to levity she returns the biting thong to its task on a now familiar ground. "I expect you'd like to try that again, dear?"
"You're whipping me between my legs," Bridie wails. "You shouldn't, you shouldn't!"
Another stroke weakens inhibition. "You are whipping my vagina, auntie." The voice is wooden.
"There is a more commonly used name for it, Bridie."
"I... I... refuse to use it. It's horrible."
It actually takes five more of the best to change the poor dear's mind. For Bridie, the four letters spell heresy. "You are whipping my cunt, auntie," she now affirms with complete lucidity.
"Splendid progress!" Amethyst enthuses. She kisses her victim warmly, an act that leaves the whipped martyr in disarray. "And now, darling, we move up. Would you care to make the pronouncement now?"
"Not my breasts, auntie, oh please! No girl should be whipped on her breasts."
"Ah! Do I sense your recognition that girls actually are and should be whipped?"
Bridie is indeed far from home. "Oh yes, auntie, of course we should be whipped! But not... not my breasts."
Bridie is really doing very well. She has had a long way to travel. I hope Amethyst will give her credit. What Amethyst does give her naked niece is an exquisitely aimed slash across both breasts so that they bounce upward and proclaim their anguish with vivid lines beneath each nipple.
Between her scream and her moans Bridie is actually trying to impart something, but when it comes I know it won't do: "You are whipping my breasts and nipples, auntie," she offers without a trace of censure.
"How perceptive of you, dear, but there are more plebian terms."
"They're beastly. I can't say them, not for a girl's breasts! Oh please don't make me."
I sympathize. I have often cringed at the vulgarities used on the two things we girls love most about ourselves. None seem even funny.
"There are a number to choose from, dear. You may make your own choice."
"I can't."
This time the blow is above the nipples. We can see the soft stretched flesh compress beneath the impact and spring back with its red tribute to the thong. I'm glad it's not me.
"You are whipping my tits and boobs, auntie."
I'd have thought that was it. But no!
"Wonderful, darling, I'm so proud of you!" Amethyst kisses her startled niece again with much warmth. When she relinquishes the grateful lips she drops the bomb: "We can now begin your proper whipping."
Bridie did not say a word. I suppose she was conscious that her back and bottom did not bear a mark. After all, it is there a girl expects to be whipped: and Bridie is a most conventional girl. I can imagine, too, that after the awfulness of what has already been done to her the virgin flesh she still has to offer may seem a small sacrifice to her aunt's convictions.
We watch breathless and listen in shrinking empathy as the weals mount from thigh to shoulder on the whiteness of the maiden skin. We have seen it, we have felt it. It is simple. Bridie is being flogged. The reason does not matter much. She is a girl, that is what counts. She is female and naked and screams tremendously.
Bridie sags, but is not unconscious. Amethyst stands, the whip dangling from a lowered arm, her eyes drinking in the magic she has wrought. For a few moments the striped femininity gathers to itself all the beauty of the world. We worship it in awe.
"Is there something you want to say, darling?"
"Thank you for whipping me, auntie."
One wonders if she was coached, it is so perfect. Trudy and her helper set her free and make certain she can stand before they discreetly retire. Aunt and niece confront each other with questing eyes.
"I am sorry, auntie."
The four simple words say everything. Bridie has journeyed to a land once far remote. She likes it here and is grateful. Amethyst takes her by the hand and leads her from the room.
Losteigne absorbs us within its magic. Our visit to London and our disastrous stay at Belvington Square are long past. They told Thea and I plainly of our belonging here, it is where we wish to be. If we could climb the wall we would not do so, it remains a tantalizing possibility but that is all. A strangely changed Bridie said her good-byes and actually shed tears when she left for Broule, taking with her a bubbling Permilia who was not sure she wished to go. We are not sorry, they were not of this place. Amethyst would have loved to chain them both forever among her girls, but the blood bond is an awkwardness hard to circumvent.
Thea and I walk beside the Lake, the lovely Lake of Losteigne. Amethyst likes us to exercise. She has dismissed us to the Park in a manner that tells me she has something up her sleeve and is quietly laughing. She has removed the chains from our feet, but has handcuffed our wrists behind our backs. That always means something, usually that we are being made immune to temptation. The chaining of our limbs is not always purely whimsical.
We do not mind the loss of our hands. We have learned to make love very well without them. There is even an added piquancy, for we must wriggle all the more to attain that which we seek. There is much giggling and warm breath upon the skin.
THE END of the Lake takes us well beyond contact with The Cloisters. We enter the trees laughing, and are amazed.
It is one of the five girls from the dungeon at Belvington Square. Her eyes light in gladness and then dim when she sees the nature of our bondage. She is tied naked to a tree. "Gosh, am I glad to see you!" she avers thankfully.
I expect she is. To stand alone beneath the trees and be unable to move is eerie, I know. Besides, she is very tightly tied and no doubt hopes for help. "They brought us out here early this morning," she tells us. "I think it's to teach us some sort of lesson about liking the Park. It's creepy. Can you untie me?"
She is tied to her tree with heavy cord. We circle her and find the knots are higher than we can reach. The same length has been used to cinch her ankles, her waist and her shoulders. It is up there that the final knot has been tied. The bands on her shoulders and beneath her armpits are so tight they bury themselves in her skin. She is a good sport. "Forget about the untying, you'd get whipped half to death if you did. I shouldn't have asked."
She is quite right. We might try with our teeth, but she would be whipped along with us, or chained in the dungeon or something! None of the three of us would go unpunished.
"All the girls are here, there's quite a bevy of us, and I'm pretty sure they're all tied up the way I am. What is it, a specialty of The House?"
We tell her what we can. She is one more captive among us all. We now go searching. Amethyst has sent us to the Park for some bizarre amusement of her own. We too are amused and faintly excited.
It becomes evident there are gradations of punishment, or perhaps variations in delinquency. The naked damsel we look at now is far from happy. They have found her a quaint perch on a bough which the tree has thrust out four feet from the ground. She sits astride, her back to the trunk, her wrists bound behind, that is all. It's beautifully simple. "It's cutting my cunt in two," she greets us with a moan. "Get me off of here quick... please."
Her feet dangle, all her weight rests just where she says. The bough is not that big, it thrusts into her with a terrible intimacy. We turn and display our handcuffs. She moans in acceptance. We continue on our way feeling guilty.
The next one shatters us. It is Gillian. We wonder how on Earth... and why! Hers is the most cruel of all. She greets us with a grimace of pain that should have been a smile. We run forward in horrified concern.
The trunk is not large. Her hands are tied behind it as were the others. A band of rope has been drawn tight about her middle as a belt, so tight that her hips are protuberant below. It is knotted in the centre of her tummy and continues down between her legs to be brought up between the cheeks of her poor bottom. It has been lifted and lifted until her feet have entirely left the ground, in achieving this it becomes deeply embedded within her, her cunt has been separated and opened to admit it as it follows its course between her loins. It ends in a solidly knotted encirclement of the tree. Gillian's weight is supported solely by the single strand of rope, she is kept from falling by her bound hands, but they can do nothing to minimize her agony. She hangs splayed against the tree, her legs free but helpless. She is very lovely and she hurts.
"Don't touch me," she says. "You'll only be punished."
We do not ask why she is there. We are too busy with our teeth. "You mustn't, you mustn't... ! I can stand it. Oh darlings... " She is crying in her relief that we love her and are here.
It is so frustrating we could scream. We alternate between scrambling blindly with our fingers and biting desperately with our teeth. I am positive Amethyst is quietly chuckling, and wonder what our punishment will be. But we will not leave Gillian like this!
"Leave me. Run away. Get far away where the sight of me won't bother you," she pleads. It is almost an order, but not quite. The poor darling is in agony. We bite and tug steadily.
When she falls to the ground we spit the fibers from our mouth and lower ourselves upon her avidly. We have only our lips and tongues, but there are two of us. Her moans now are of joy, a joy we share. After a long while the three of us walk together back to Losteigne. We ask no questions. Our beloved Gillian is shamed enough. Trant opens the door to us and raises no eyebrow, but tells me I must immediately attend Lady Chatham. I shrug resignedly at my companions and go alone to meet my fate. Losteigne is never a bore.
Amethyst unlocks my handcuffs. "I want to whip you terribly. Do you mind, darling little Fawn?" she smooths my hair tenderly. I realise this has nothing to do with Gillian or the Park or my transgression. It is to assuage a deep and urgent need. My eyes brim with tears and I shake my head in gladness that I am so loved.
She straps my wrists to the wooden post. For a little time I had been totally free and had not considered it. I place my wrists where they must go, smile at my darling, and watch as she pulls the buckles very tight indeed. My heart is thumping.
It is the strangest of our times together. Amethyst whips my nakedness with a slow deliberation that is almost rhythmic, a dedicated ritual. She is in the grip of some emotion that affects me too. I do not scream, I absorb my agony in sinuous writhings that will excite her more but which I cannot control. I know what they are. They are the convolutions of coitus. What we do together is an act of love. She whips me steadily and very terribly, but I do not scream. I moan in varying crescendos, but they are not the moans of pain... While the whip sings and cuts my flesh the world holds only the two of us.
When my mistress unbuckles the straps from my wrists I am close to the darkness, so that she half carries me to our room and to our bed. When her lips begin their feast I am strangely conscious of a lack of bonds. Impelled by some emotional need of my own I demur. Smiling, my beloved finds the handcuffs and locks my left ankle to the bed. Glowing in an ineffable happiness I throw my arms and legs open in wide abandon. I am gloriously wanton, my back and bottom are tender on the sheets... there will be blood. I am possessed.
Throughout all the day we make love with a passion beyond all our passions. By the end of the afternoon I am drained by orgasms and the fatigue of my whipping, I fall asleep sprawled lewdly on the bed, my ankle still chained to it. The night has fled before I wake.
The note is in Amethyst's magnificent scrawl: 'Have gone to Broule. Just two days. Give Thea a sound thrashing for me. But she then reverts to prefect. You are my beloved Fawn, I will never part with you'.
I have slept myself out. With Amethyst gone I would like to go in search of Thea. But my ankle is still locked to the bed, so I have to wait until Thea comes looking for me. She then has to go and get a key from Gillian. I show her the note. She shrugs good naturedly. I will whip her cruelly but she will not mind. We decide her punishment shall be after breakfast. We make love before we bathe and go downstairs. We do not complain when Gillian puts chains upon our ankles before we sit down for breakfast. In Losteigne, total freedom seems an impropriety. It is a most happy meal. Gillian laughs over Amethyst's note. If sometimes Thea is a bit distrait we understand.
I have Thea strapped to the post and am teasing her when Gillian appears. "Let her loose," she says, her face tragic. "There is something awful... "
Trant had found the black empty place where The Cloisters had stood. It is gone. The phone reveals that Broule too, and all who were there, has gone in the same way. The wireless blares the news of strange powers and sinister forces. The telly takes up the chant, and in the evening the papers have black headlines. Lucian's kingdom is dead, and with it Amethyst...
It is very quiet and very peaceful at Losteigne. So much has happened that we are still a little dazed. But there is joy mixed in with the sorrow. I have Thea and Thea has me. And there is Gillian. To her, we are a pair of playful kittens, soft and to be loved. But she plays our games and steeps herself in a great relief. Her captivity had been more demeaning than ours had ever been. It is over. She is once more the Lady of Losteigne.
We avoid the sterile gash within the trees where The Cloisters once stood. The experts studied it and went away shaking their heads as with the castle in the North. The silver men are gone, and with them Amethyst and Lucian and Skilley. The manner of their going we do not know. But they are gone. I can believe that Lucian is gone. But it is hard not to believe that Amethyst's flame still burns. I want to believe it, of course, terribly... terribly!
Lawyers tell me I am the principal beneficiary of Amethyst's will and that I am very rich indeed. This is nice. The money will help Gillian with Losteigne. We will keep it just as it is always. The scar within the trees will soon heal, as will the scars that Lucian made. But he has changed our lives. We are not as we were, nor do we want to be.
The money was good for the girls. They were fun to watch when we unlocked the chains and the doors and the stocks and cast aside the cords and gave them each their cheque. Some went with hostility, others were dazed and walked back into a world they had forgotten. Some did not want to go at all. Among these last was Trudy. We love Trudy so could not part with her. She is here now. Wearing only her handcuffs she is out in the Park, loving it as I love it. She will not be searching for a break in the wall or an open door.
Gillian, Thea and I are intrigued by the nearness of our parents' return. Will Daddy recognize dear little Fawn! Or sweet little Thea! We will have to wear clothes for them. We giggle about this. They will visit Losteigne, and we will send them away happy that we are happy. Gillian makes everything respectable. They will never know.
We have our own delightful hierarchy. When Thea is bad Gillian whips her. Thea whips dear little Fawn whether dear little Fawn is bad or not. We all whip Trudy. We keep her whippings strictly as a penalty, of course. We seem to feel some quaint morality about it. She neatly circumvents our nobility by deliberate provocations to which we thankfully respond. We are all terribly, terribly happy.
Amethyst had replaced a single silver band upon our right ankle, that is all. We suppose now they will stay there forever. Certainly we cannot get them off. Thea and I do not mind. We finger them often and remember...