"Yes, Ruth, you're a very lucky girl," the elderly attorney smiled at the lovely Mexican brunette as he thumbed through the will of Henry Merson, Ruth's stepfather by virtue of his marriage to her deceased mother.
Ruth Mercado shook her head wonderingly. "I just can't believe it, Senor Barnes. I do not deserve such great fortune, truly. And my stepfather has two daughters, you know this well. Is this action not to disinherit them?"
Old Mr. Barnes shook his head. "No, my dear, the will certainly can stand up in court, don't you have a concern about that. You see, my dear, your stepfather, when he knew he was dying two years ago from cancer, had my office send private investigators to learn about the way you were working and studying at night school to make something of yourself. He had lost track of your mother when the divorce took place twelve years ago and she took you back to Mexico City."
Ruth nodded sadly, remembering. "Si, I remember. Mother was so unhappy, for she really loved the Senor Merson. It was his family that objected to her because she was Mexican and caused trouble between them."
Barnes nodded. "That's very true, Ruth. And he felt he should make restitution for having given way to them and agreed to divorce. That was why, when your mother refused to answer his letters and moved away out of reach, he had my office do everything possible to locate you so that he could try to make it up to you for what you had been deprived of."
"But his daughters, his own flesh and blood by his second marriage, Senor Barnes, what of them? Do they not have a better claim than I? For you know the Senor Merson married my madrecita just a year after I was born and my poor father was killed as a torero fighting the bull."
"It's true that Marge and Edith are the daughters of his second wife who died two years ago from a heart attack. But their thoughtlessness, their selfish behavior, their utter disregard for their father led him to revise his will. That is why he left you the bulk of his estate. I should say you are now worth about half a million dollars, my dear. But don't feel sorry for Marge and Edith, I assure you. They each will receive a trust fund of fifty thousand dollars, which will be paid out to them annually in modest amounts, so they won't be tempted to squander their inheritance as they did so much of your stepfather's money."
"I still can't believe it, Senor Barnes," again Ruth shook her lovely raven head. "I have no need for such a vast fortune. I have finished my college and have my degree, and I was planning to go into home economics."
"But now you won't have to work, my dear. If you like, you can travel, go on with your studies. I understand you do watercolors, too. Well, now you'll be able to develop your creative talents."
"You... I mean, Senor Barnes, is it possible that you and your office will help me with this estate?"
"Of course, if you do so wish, we will be happy to act as your trustees."
"I do, very much."
"Meanwhile, you can give up your room in that boarding house and take a nice apartment 6r a hotel suite."
"Oh, no, not really, Senor Barnes. I need very little. I have my job�_"" He smiled benevolently. "But you needn't be a waitress now, my dear, don't you see? You did that before to keep alive and so you could go to school nights. That was what made Mr. Meson admire your character so very much.
She rose, and he emulated her gallantly. "I want to think this all over before I do anything. Meanwhile, I am due at the restaurant in an hour, and I still owe my employer loyalty, since he has been so very kind to me."
"You're a wonderful girl, my dear. Do come to see me as soon as you have made up your plans. The will has been probated and the money released to us as your stepfather's executors. All I need is your signature on this document to say that you wish us to continue in the same capacity for you."
"Oh, that I will give you gladly, Senor Barnes. And I am ever so grateful. Be very sure I shall come back soon, when I have had time to think over what I wish to do with all that money." She held out her hand with a smile, and the old attorney took it gently, smiling at her intent, lovely face. "It will be my pleasure, Ruth."
CHAPTER TWO
Outside in the bright sunlight, Ruth Mercado felt as if she had just wakened from a dream. Half a million dollars! Why, it was incredible... she would never have to work again. Oh, but she must�_" work was inspiring, it gave form and purpose to life. But she could go on with her studies, and, as Senor Barnes had said, try and become a better painter. But first she would give notice to her boss. Senor Logan was so kind, he had let her work a shift that got her off in time to go to night school, and he had given her the best tables so that her tips were the biggest in the restaurant.
Once inside the restaurant, she changed into her waitress uniform, and in so doing revealed her delicate charms to the mirror in the common dressing room all girls used. Ruth was 23, about five feet inches in height, with a warm lovely olive skin that had drawn wolf whistles from her male night school classmates, and her bewitching figure complemented her exquisitely sensitive, sweet face.
Her oval face, highset cheekbones, large eloquent brown eyes with thin brows arching above them, slightly retrousse nose with thin sensuous wings, delicately soft-curved mouth with tremulous lower lip, had an enchanting femininity to it. Her glossy black hair, of which she was very proud, and justly so, fringed her forehead, was combed back and formed into a bun at the back, from which two thick lustrous pigtails, one on each side, fell to her shoulder blades. Her body was beautifully formed, long gracefully slender legs with sinuous calves and sleek lithe thighs, pert wide-spaced round, firm breasts which needed no bra for support, and voluptuously svelte hips with highest set compactly trim oval buttocks. Her voice was soft and gentle, with the warm huskiness of the Mexican, for she had spent more than half her life in the country of her mother's birth.
She was a favorite at the Champlain Restaurant, near the downtown bus terminal, where she had worked for three years while going to night school to get her B.A. in home economics. Many of the male customers had tried to date her, but she had gently and courteously refused, explaining that she was going to college and just didn't have time for pleasure, and her sweet nature and candor gave them no offense, for she made it sound as if she regretted being deprived of their company but obligations came first.
She told her boss about the windfall into which she had just come, but explained that she didn't want to leave him shorthanded and would work the next two weeks till her plans were formulated.
At four-thirty that afternoon, the trade being light, her shift ended. She went back into the dressing room to change into her street clothes, and then bade her boss goodbye and walked out. She usually took a bus to the inexpensive boarding house on Chelton Street, three miles from the restaurant.
But as she approached the curb where the stop-sign stood, a green Dodge sedan pulled up beside her the window was rolled down, and a pretty brown-haired girl called, "Hey, Ruth, hop in, we'll drive you home."
Startled, she looked and saw a slim light-brown-haired girl with blue eyes, straight nose, firm determined chin and aggressive, insolent mouth, smiling at her. At the wheel beside her sat a pretty, sulky-faced dark-brown-haired girl who was perhaps a year or two younger, with snug slanted nose, petulant small mouth, thick lashes and grey-green eyes.
"Come on, get in you're Ruth Mercado, aren't you?" the older girl called out.
"Yes all right," she opened the back door and climbed in.
"Fine, we know where you live, .on Chelton isn't it?"
Ruth nodded, puzzled... she didn't recognize the girls. The younger girl speeded up the car, and then directed it due north, .in the opposite direction from her boarding house.
By then, Ruth looked out of the sedan window, and as the car kept going at a clip of thirty-five miles per hour in the direction exactly opposite to that of her boarding house, she mildly remonstrated, "Oh... er... excuse me, but you're going the wrong way."
"Oh, no, we're not, Ruth honey," remarked the slim girl who had first accosted her as she turned to regard the lovely Mexican girl, "We are going just right. Don't you know who we are?"
"Why, no, not really, .but it was very kind of you to give me a ride�_"only, as I said, Chelton is south, and you're going north."
"My, my," drawled the girl at the wheel, "she notices things, doesn't she, Edie?"
Ruth frowned... Edie... it reminded her of something Senor Barnes had said...
"Well then, I'll tell you who we are, dear. Your stepsisters. I'm Edith Merson, and the girl that is driving is Marge."
"Oh! I... I'm glad to meet you... I... I've heard so much about you, "Ruth said uneasily, not liking the smirking look on the face of Edith, who had turned around in her seat to look back at her.
"I'll just bet you have, honey. In Mr. Barnes' office, hm?"
"Why, yes, I did see him this morning. But... please, you're going miles out of the way, and I'll miss supper�_"" Ruth protested as Marge turned the car westward now and headed onto the entry to the freeway going out of town.
"At the boarding house? Oh, Pooh, we'll see that you get fed. And you'll get more attention than you'd ever get at that cheap old boarding house," Edith giggled, winking at Marge, who winked back as she deftly steered onto the fast lane and speeded up.
"I... I don't understand," Ruth Mercado stammered, a foreboding premonition beginning to creep into her gentle, sweet mind.
"Don't you, darling?" drawled Marge from the wheel, without looking back, but Ruth caught sight of her narrowed greygreen eyes in the rear-view mirror, and the hostile look Marge was giving her did not add to Ruth's sense of security and composure.
"Didn't Mr. Barnes read Daddy's will to you today?" Marge took up the conversation al cue.
"Why, yes, he did, but�_""
"But what, you little half-breed," jeered Marge angrily, and this time she did glance back, the car now speeding at 65 miles an hour. "Don't tell me you're so dumb, with all that night school work you've been doing, to pretend you don't realize Daddy's own flesh and blood was cut out of the will and that he left everything that belongs to us, to you instead, you�_"you Mex you, you greaser!"
"Ohhh!" Ruth's face flamed at the insult.
"But I had nothing to do with it, till he got in touch with me last week through the principal of my college, I didn't know my stepfather had left me a penny."
"Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't honey, but one thing is for sure�_"and that is, you're going to turn over just about all that dough to Marge and me," Edith responded bitterly, her lips set in a thin cruel line as she stared inimically at the lovely brunette.
"Mr. Barnes told me each of you was to get a trust fund, and there is a lot of dinero in it. I haven't robbed you", Ruth again protested against the unjust accusation.
"Hasn't robbed us, she says! Listen to the greaser! Conniving and tricky, just like all the Mex breed," sneered Edith.
"Now see here," Ruth exclaimed indignantly, "you've no right to say such things about my mother. And I'm a citizen, with a college degree, and I'm not conniving!"
"Well, we won't go into that, honey," Edith said with a nasty smile, "but before we're finished with you, you're going to deed over the money that's rightfully ours. We're Daddy's flesh and blood, like I said, and you're not, so you don't deserve to get the lion's share, see? Turn off the next exit, Margie.
"Where are you taking me? What are you going to do?" Ruth demanded anxiously.
"There's a summer cottage near Elkan Lake Daddy owns, hasn't used it for a couple of years. Nobody'll think of looking for you there, Ruthie baby. And we're going to make you sign that paper, like I just said, that's what! If you won't�_"well, Margie'n me'll know what to do, won't we, Margie?"
"You said it, Edie, "and Marge's laugh did not make Ruth feel any more comfortable about the future.
CHAPTER THREE
Marge turned the sedan off at the next freeway exit, and then drove about three miles along a paved road till she came to a crossroads. She took the dirt road to the left, and for about ten more minutes drove steadily, till at last, shrouded in a glen of trees and luxuriant, rampant hedges and bushes, she stopped before a small cottage. Dust on the windowpanes and the general look of the place showed it had not been in use for several years, as Edith had said.
"You go ahead and get the car parked where it can't be seen from the road, Margie, I'll handle Ruthie here," Edith commanded.
Then, getting out of the car, she opened the back door and said curtly, "Get out. And don't think you can run away. You don't know your way, and we do. Besides, I've got a gun in my jacket pocket and I know how to use it."
"Do you realize you have kidnapped me?" Ruth asked in a strained voice as she slowly got out of the car. "You can both go to prison for this, and maybe even they will send you to the gas chamber."
"Never mind that nonsense," Edith laughed grimly. "After you sign the paper�_"and you will, make no bones about it!-you'll be glad to go away and forget all about this, you hear? Now go on ahead. I'll... tell you what to do�_"and you better do it, see?"
Ruth glanced back, wide-eyed, at her brown-haired captor. Edith wore a tweed skirt and leather jacket; she had her right hand in the pocket of the jacket and was gripping something that might be a gun, the way it stuck out the leather into a round straight bulge aiming at her. She decided she had better do what Edith said, and she told herself she had it been very foolish to have accepted a ride, especially when she didn't know these girls. But they didn't dare harm her, not really; they were just trying to scare her, and it wouldn't work. The Senor Barnes had told her the will would be accepted and the money was to be hers; that was all that mattered. She didn't want to rob these stepsisters of hers, but the way they had tricked her and had talked against her mother had made her angry and she wouldn't do what they wanted.
No matter what!
The door was open, and Ruth was ordered to go on in. Edith followed closely behind her, and instructed her to walk through the living room and on down the hallway. There was a closet to the left side, and Edith opened the door. Marge came in to join her, holding several lengths of rope, and while Edith held her hand in her jacket pocket and warned Ruth not to try to escape, Marge made Ruth put her hands behind her back, then roped them tightly. Then she squatted down and tied Ruth's ankles.
Finally, she took a dirty towel and wrapped it round Ruth's mouth and knotted it at the back of her neck, then pushed her roughly into the closet and slammed the door and turned the key.
"After we've had our supper, we'll have a nice long chat, dear," Edith called sarcastic ally through the door.
Ruth twisted her wrists vainly; they had tied them far too tightly for her to get loose; and her ankles had started to throb from the constriction of the rope Marge had bound round them. She began to be a little afraid, because of the absolutely ruthless way her two stepsisters had treated her, just like a helpless prisoner. What were they going to do? How would they force her to sign away the money Papacita Merson had left her in the will? She didn't know, but she felt they were unscrupulous enough to do anything, .maybe even kill her., no, they wouldn't dare. The closet was stuffy and narrow; she finally eased herself to sit down on the floor, and she waited in suspense. That was all she could do now.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was well over an hour before the closet door was unlocked and Marge and Edith stared down gloatingly at their captive. Ruth was sitting on the dusty floor, still tugging uselessly at her aching wrists.
"What a shame we have to treat an heiress like this the first day she comes into our money," Edith jibed ironically, "but that's life. All right, stand up. Marge is going to untie your ankles, and then you'll have a nice long chat with us about all the plans. Come on!"
Ruth slowly rose, gasping at the throbbing pangs that flooded her cramped limbs from the lack of circulation produced by the tightly knotted ropes. Marge squatted down with a pocket knife in her hand and carefully cut the rope around Ruth's ankles.
"Come into the living room, honey, you'll be lots more comfy there," said Edith. She and Marge had made themselves quite at their ease. They wore bras and panties and pumps. Marge was barelegged, but Edith wore charcoal brown silk hose and a narrow garterbelt under her panties to hold the sheer hose up snugly on her slim legs.
Slowly Ruth walked back into the living room, her wrists still bound behind her.
When she entered it, her eyes widened in tabouret near the couch in the far alarm; on a tabouret near the couch in the far corner of the rather spacious room, she saw ropes, a hairbrush, a rattan cane, a coiled long braided whip, a rectangular wooden paddle, and a long old-fashioned hatpin with a pearl at one end and its point very sharp-looking.
On the floor beside the tabouret there was a plate on which the girls had put some baked beans and scraps of rye bread.
"See?" Marge giggled, pointing to the plate, "we didn't forget you. Here's your supper. But first you have to get comfy like us. "I'm going to untie your hands and you're going to take off your things. After all, you'll be staying a while."
"I'm... not h... hungry, thank you, "Ruth quavered uneasily, glancing again at the ominously laden tabouret. At the other end of the couch, there stood a high footstool, the kind they used to use in rural schools for the class dunces to sit on. Its rough wooden top was covered with pebbles, gravel and chips of splintered wood, and several lengths of cord lay on the floor beside it.
Marge came over to the lovely brunette and, gripping her bound wrists with her left hand, gave Ruth a wicked little pinch on the top of her right hip which made the olive skinned captive jump convulsively and emit a startled squeal of pain. Then she untied Ruth's wrists, while Edith, bending to the couch, picked up a shiny automatic and leveled it at the victim.
"Start peeling, sister," she commanded arrogantly.
What Ruth didn't know was the gun was a toy gun, but it was so cleverly fabricated that it could fool even a burglar.
"And hurry it up, your supper's getting cold," Marge added, with another pinch, this time to Ruth's other hip, that drew another pained gasp and startled jump which made both sisters giggle heartlessly at their victim's discomfiture.
"You'll be sorry for all this," Ruth promised as she slowly pulled the hem of her dress up and drew it off her head, let it fall to the floor at Edith's command.
"Now the slip�_"or you'll be the one who's sorry, not us," was Edith's next order.
Marge, meanwhile, had walked over to a closet near the door, opened it, and came back with a pair of silver cloth spike-heeled thong sandals. "Take your shoes and stockings off and put these on right now," she ordered, and Edith waved the automatic. Ruth grudgingly obeyed. Her beautiful sleek olive sheened bare legs flexed and quivered as she stood in just black silk panties and matching bra and garter-belt.
"Take off the garterbelt," Edith ordered and was obeyed. Ruth was blushing furiously at the immodest dishabille she was forced to assume. The spike heeled sandals made her long sleek legs ripple deliciously from the muscular tension this unnatural and exaggerated footgear produced in her ankles, calves and thighs.
"Now then, get down on your hands and knees and eat up your supper. Then we'll have our talk," Edith demanded. But Ruth's pride flared up at this ignominious order, and she cried, "I won't do such a silly thing!" and she tried to run. Marge and Edith seized her and dragged her back; in the struggle, her bra was ripped off, and while Marge held her by one ankle, Edith grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and forced her down on the floor.
"Ouch�_"you're hurting me�_"let me go!" Ruth cried as she struggled. But the two sisters were more than a match for her, and soon they had her lying on her stomach on the floor, with Edith forcing down her neck with one hand and tugging one of her pigtails with the other, while Marge seated herself on Ruth's calves and began to pinch her jouncy bottom.
Ruth found her face inches away from the unappetizing plate of baked beans and bread-scraps.
"Now, are you going to eat your supper like a good girl, or shall I have Marge spank you? I'll just bet you've never been spanked�_"and you're older 'n we are, too," Edith giggled triumphantly, as she gave Ruth's pigtail an extra-hard tug that brought tears to Ruth's big brown eyes and a stifled gasp of pain.
Ruth tried to seize Edith with her hands, but Edith was waiting for this and immediately grasped the victim's wrists while Marge took a length of rope lying nearby on the floor�_"the same one that had been used to bind Ruth's wrists before�_"and swiftly fettered them again, cruelly tight. Then, shifting herself so that all her weight was bearing down on Ruth's olive satiny kneehollows, and gripping the captive's wrists with her left hand, she raised her right hand and aimed a violent spank at Ruth's resilient, defenseless right bottom cheek which rang out like a pistol shot.
"Oohhhhh!" Ruth called out, more from the humiliation than the pain, though it stung her furiously. Her bottom jumped spasmodically as Marge, with gusto, landed a second spank on the other jouncily contoured firm hemisphere. It was true; Ruth had never been spanked, but already two hard swats had taught her the discomfort that can be produced in a tender virgin bottom, even if its owner is a mature 23 years of age!
"Stop that!" she cried angrily, trying to get loose, but she couldn't. And Marge had hold of her neck with her left hand, squatting down beside her, and was tugging her pigtail with her right hand, ordering, "Now get your face over the plate and start eating, because Sis is going to spank your big bottom till you finish every last bite, you hear, you cheating greaser, you? Give it to her good, Marge. Maybe it'll soften her up so she'll be ready to sign the paper and we won't have to spend so much time with her!"
Marge was more than willing. And at once her vigorous young palm cracked down on Ruth's scantily protected right bottomcheek at the base then dealt the other cheek a similar sonorous crack. Ruth squirmed, tried to jackknife herself up, but was pinned effectively, and all she earned for her effort was a few cruel tugs of her pigtail and then Marge began to spank her hard. Landing the spanks at intervals of about ten seconds, alternating on the lovely brunette's upturned, unprotected bottom�_"the thin panties did not in the least lessen the stinging reiteration of the smacks�_"the younger girl went to work with a will, her eyes gleaming, her lips curved in a gloating smile at the joy of humiliating this nature and older captive.
Ruth ground her teeth and tried to endure this unjust and shameful treatment, but the growing heat of her tensing, weaving bottom began to become intolerable, and after about twenty such spanks, when it became apparent that Marge wasn't going to stop, she gasped, "Ouch�_"Dios mio, have her stop and I'll do it!"
"Oh no, Ruthie honey," giggled Edith tauntingly, "she doesn't stop till you've cleaned your plate. So you better begin, or you won't be able to sit down for a week!"
Smack�_"crack�_"another pair of vehement and vindictive spanks landed on the right summit of her already smarting bottom, and Ruth uttered a wail and squirmed her contorted face over the plate. Edith "helped" her by tugging her pigtail and shoving the plate a little closer. And while Ruth gulped the beans and bits of bread as hurriedly as she could, the characteristic smack smack-smack of a spanking rang out in the deserted cottage as Marge, face flushed, eyes sparkling, her young bosom swelling exuberantly, dug her nails into the captive's bound wrists and raised and lowered her right hand like a plummet, concentrating now on those, parts of Ruth's bottom which seemed the most sensitive as indicated by the victim's groans and frantic weavings and squirmings after a particularly well applied spank.
Tears ran down Ruth's cheeks by the time the plate was cleaned, and she could not control the plunging, weaving, twisting of her burning bottom, which felt swollen to twice its normal size when at last Edith said grudgingly, "Okay, that's enough for now, Margie. Well, stepsister dear, how did you like that, hmm?"
CHAPTER FIVE
Shuddering and trying to suppress her groans and tears, Ruth retorted, "You won't ever get me to turn over all that money to you, so you might as well give up the idea."
"Huh!" Marge laughed cynically, "you talk mighty big for a big grownup girl who's just had her bottom spanked like a baby! And that was only the start, honey. Make up your mind you're going to do what we say and what we want before you get out of this cottage. If you sign it now, you'll save yourself lots of uncomfortable moments. Because you know what, stepsister dear�_"I just love spanking that big bottom you've got!"
Ruth's face flamed a fiery red at this unjustified insult, but she held her tongue. However, this didn't please the sisters either. They dragged her onto her feet, then pushed her on her back onto the couch, and while Marge tied her ankles, Edith proceeded to gag her thoroughly. Then they tied her wrists in front of her.
"Now we're going to let you get some sleep so you can think things over and be ready to do what we say in the morning," Edith threatened. "I don't think you'll catch cold�_"not after that nice paddling Sis gave you! 'Course, if you think you will, I can always have her give you a second dose!"
Then Edith tied a rope around Ruth's waist and under the couch so she couldn't escape, and they bade her an ironic good night, turning out the light and going into another part of the cottage. In this immodestly undressed condition, her bottom burning annoyingly, her limbs aching from the ropes, her waist compressed by the tight fetter Edith had just applied, Ruth Mercado was left in the darkness to contemplate with no little anxiety the possible events of the morrow..
They were even more strenuous than she had imagined. Because the next morning, after Marge and Edith had had their breakfast-they had renovated the deserted cottage two weeks before and furnished it with provisions to be ready for their abduction of their stepsister-heiress�_"they confronted her grimly, staring down at her as she lay bound and gagged and squirming uncomfortably from an arduous night during which she had only been able to drowse fitfully, due to the irritation of her bonds and of her spanked posterior.
"Well, now, did you sleep well, honey?" Edith asked as she reached down and untied the gag.
"You'd better let me go. Mr. Barnes will look for me and�_"" Ruth began.
"Let him look. He'd never think of looking here. And anyhow, before he finds you, you'll have deeded over all that money to us. Oh, we won't be greedy. You can keep a few thousand�_"and go back to Mexico where you belong."
"I won't do it, no matter what you do to me, do you hear?" Ruth retorted bravely.
Edith shrugged. "Suit yourself. It won't make Margie unhappy. Want to start in, or shall I, Sis?"
"You go first with her," Margie replied gloatingly, "then she'll feel it all the more when it's my turn. I'm going to make her cry and beg for mercy, so help me!"
Immediately, without a word, Edith, after untying the waist rope, rolled Ruth over onto her stomach, while Marge bent over the far end of the couch and put both palms on Ruth's shoulders to pin her down.; Then Edith sat down on Ruth's sinuous bare calves, and began to slap the lovely, jouncy bottom before her with her right hand, starting slowly and leisurely then increasing the vigor of her blows till by the tenth spank, she had covered all that enticingly contoured target area and Ruth was beginning to squirm and gasp from the rekindled fires that had begun to incendiarize her defenseless hindquarters.
She plunged her face into the couch and closed her eyes, compressing her lips so as not giving her executioner any satisfaction. Edith smiled, and resumed the spanking; now first on left cheek, then right, her right hand descended crisply and emphatically, spacing the whacks about fifteen seconds apart, and after about twenty more, Ruth was gasping and uttering muffled little groans, while her bottom was twisting about in a desperate effort to evade the inexorable chastisement. "There�_"and there,!" Edith exclaimed, punctuating each "there" with a furiously hard blow of her palm, one on each curvaceously tempting bottom summit, "that'll do for a starter. Okay, Margie, your turn now."
"Good! I can hardly wait�_"now, Ruthie dear, you're going to beg me to stop, and I will when you're ready to sign the paper we want you to sign."
Ruth didn't answer; her poor bottom throbbed violently and she could hardly suppress her groans of discomfort, nor control the muscular spasms that visited her burning nether hemispheres. She asked herself worriedly how she could find the stamina to withstand a prolonged seance with these two heartless girls, and how she could escape; she must, now, there was no length to which they wouldn't go to force her to give in.
But this time it was much worse; there was a short pause, and when Ruth, her suspense augmented by this seeming reprieve, turned her congested face to look at Marge, she saw that the younger girl had taken up a big black wooden old-fashioned hairbrush and was flourishing it energetically in the air. She winced just at the sight of it, what would it be like when it landed on her sore, smarting seat, which had already had two hard hand spankings in the short space of half a day?
"Yes, dear," Marge saw her victim's eyes fix on the implement of chastisement, "your big bottom's so hard I don't propose to wear out my soft little hand. I'm going to give you the second part of your breakfast paddling with this nice hairbrush. Tell me what you think of it. I'm in a generous mood too, stepsister dear, or else I'd insist Edie take your parities down, you don't deserve to have any protection at all!"
So saying, she seated herself on the edge of the couch, leaned towards the quivering, really apprehensive brunette captive, pinned Ruth's bound wrists with her left hand again, and raised the hairbrush high, .then brought it down straight across both bottomcheeks' inner curves, fairly over their plumpest salient.
"Owww! Ohh, Dios, Dios," Ruth wailed shrilly, jerking up her bottom frantically and weaving it from side to side, while Edith forced her back down with both palms pressed against her shoulder blades.
"My, how sensitive your big seat is, dear. I rather think you ought to sign the paper before I blister you good-I'll just bet you're red as a tomato under those cute panties," Marge taunted as she swung the hairbrush down once more, landing it on the base of Ruth's left buttock. A stifled cry of pain resounded as poor Ruth again buried her face in the couch and tried to suppress the outcry that told her younger stepsister what fiery anguish that awful brush was producing in her inflamed and much abused behind. But she couldn't prevent her backside from leaping and twisting wildly under the blow.
Marge didn't hurry. She administered a spanking of thirty hard spanks, spacing them about fifteen seconds apart, alternating on the cheeks, but the last five she inflicted in diagonal swipes that really hurt dreadfully and drew cries and tears from the frantically wriggling brunette captive.
Then the two sisters dragged Ruth up from the couch and forced her over to the tall footstool, made her sit down, and while Edith held her down by the shoulders, Marge quickly crouched down and tied Ruth's ankles tightly to the rungs. Then Edith roped Ruth's upper thighs snugly, making the ends of the rope fast to the rungs behind her.
They left her there till late afternoon, tears streaming down her cheeks, groaning in agony as the swollen contours of her thrice spanked posterior bore down exacerbatingly on the pebbles, gravel and rough bits of wood with which the hard wooden seat was covered.
Once again Marge bore in a plate of food, this time chili out of a can, and put it on the floor. Edith tied Ruth's wrists behind her back, then untied her ankles and thighs and forced her to kneel down and bow her head over the plate. Marge squatted across from the tearful, groaning victim, and grasped both thick silky raven pigtails in her hands, while Edith went to the tabouret and picked up the rectangular paddle.
"Now eat your good supper, baby," she sneered and "encouraged" poor Ruth with a sonorous whack across the plumpest, most jutting curves of both Ruth's inflamed bottomglobes that drew a yelp of agony and an immediate descent of poor Ruth's tear stained face down onto the plate, where she began to lap up the concoction.
CHAPTER SIX
Despite her frantic haste to down the unappetizing plateful of canned chili which was lukewarm, Ruth nonetheless received no fewer than fifteen sharp stinging paddle whacks across her upreared, proffered bottomcheeks, and her cries and sobs interspersed the very unladylike sounds of gulping and swallowing of her meal.
They blindfolded and gagged her and led her back to the couch, laid her down on her stomach, and tied her ankles securely, leaving her wrists bound behind her back.
At bedtime, Edith and Marge returned to the living room and again Edith asked whether Ruth was ready to capitulate. Ruth shook her head. Her bottom was so swollen and throbbing with pain from the four spankings that she wondered why she didn't faint. But she was equally determined not to give in and let these heartless girls have their criminal way. If ever she got free, she'd get her revenge�_"and it wouldn't be just by sending them to jail where they belonged.
"All right, Ruthie," Edith hissed angrily when she saw the victim's sign of refusal. "You're asking for it, and we can dish it out as long as you can take it�_"longer, even. I'm going to give you your nighty-night spanking, dear little stepsister."
So saying, she sat down on the couch, dragged Ruth over her lap, and inflicted a sharp, rapid hand spanking of about twenty-five slaps that had Ruth wildly sobbing and kicking her bound ankles and trying to throw herself off Edith's lap. No sooner had she finished, then Marge sat down, and Edith helpfully pushed Ruth across her younger sister's lap for a continuation. Marge applied twenty more slaps, more slowly and harder, and Ruth was crying like a baby, just as Marge had predicted. Even through her black silk panties, the violently dark red tinting of her bottomcheeks could be glimpsed. But she ground her teeth and through her uncontrollable sobs gasped a tremulous "No... n... no, I'd die first�_"" when asked again to sign.
"Tomorrow, Ruthie, we're going to get really tough with you. Rest that big tender backside of yours tonight, then�_"-you'll need all the rest you can get. I promise," Edith grimly forecast as they left the victim gagged and blindfolded, waist roped to the couch for the night.
Once again poor Ruth spent a most uncomfortable night. Tied down with her bottom pressing against the couch, she was kept reminded through the harassing hours of the many spankings she had received. To try to shift or twist about was almost impossible because of the ropes fastened round her limbs and waist, and such efforts only aggravated the soreness of her bottomcheeks. The gag added to her discomfort.
Towards dawn, she managed to doze a little but, she was rudely wakened with a muffled cry of alarm and shock when a bucket of cold water was doused onto her blindfolded face by Marge, who giggled, "Wake up, sleeping beauty and greet the new day�_"the day you're going to sign the paper!"
Edith then removed gag and blindfold, gripped one of her victim's pigtails and bent down to menace Ruth. "That's right, stepsister mine, today's the day. Either you sign, or we're going to get really tough with you! Well, what's your answer?"
Ruth groaned but shook her head.
"Boy, you're sure a glutton for punishment�_"and punishment is exactly what you're going to get. Let's see, are those wrists still tied securely behind your back? Fine... And your ankles too. All right, oopsy, daisy, honey!"
And she rudely shoved Ruth off the couch.
The almost nude victim uttered a yell of pain at the bruising shock as she thudded against the floor, landing squarely on her swollen bottom. Tears ran down her cheeks at the ignominy and the suffering she was undergoing.
"Show her what we're going to use on her after lunch if she doesn't give in," Marge giggled eagerly.
She squatted down now, seizing hold of one of Ruth's pigtails and with her other hand clutched the captive's bound wrists, giving Ruth's head a sadistic jerk by pulling several times on the thick raven sheaf of hair, while her sharp tined fingernails dug cruelly into Ruth's sore wrists.
Edith walked over to the tabouret, picked up the coiled braided whip, and walked slowly back. Standing astride Ruth's legs, she uncoiled the whip and let it serpentine down; Marge meanwhile swiftly gagged the victim. Ruth's eyes were wide with horror.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Yes, dear, a good whipping," Edith gloated, wriggling the whip in her hand so that it slithered over Ruth's quivering, voluptuously-exposed body. "And from now on in, you'll get it three times a day till you agree to sign that paper. Marge honey, tie her up to the closet door for her first dose. I think she'll find it a little more painful than the paddle or the hairbrush or the hand."
Ruth wailed in apprehension and struggled uselessly as Marge squatted down, lifted her up by the armpits. Then Edith, coiling the whip and tossing it over to the armchair till she was ready to use it, assisted her younger sister in trundling the struggling brunette over to the closet door. They stood her up with her back to the door; Marge put separate cords on each wrist, then removed the other fetters and quickly tied each wrist up to a heavy metal spike driven into the moulding at the top of the door.
As Ruth's ankles were still bound, she faced her tormentresses, arms spread high above her head, clad only in her brief black silk panties and her high-heeled thong sandals, gagged so that her cries couldn't move her executioners to pity�_"not that they would have shown it anyway.
Marge went back to the chair, took up the whip and approached the shuddering wide-eyed victim, while Marge stood watching from her left side. "Now then, you stubborn greaser," Edith jeered, for the first taste. When you're ready to sign, just nod your head." So saying, she raised the whip and flicked it down lightly so that it swept over Ruth's bare left shoulder and swung down along the edge of her bare back, the plaited tip flicking her lower left thigh. Ruth threw back her head, started convulsively, a stifled moan of pain escaping through the gag, and her brows furrowed as evidence of the stinging anguish of the whip's first kiss.
"How was that?" Edith demanded gloatingly, "we've got all day to spank you good, and it won't be just on your big hard bottom. Try this�_"" and again she raised the lash and flicked it expertly so that, this time, it bit over the other shoulder and the tip whisked wickedly against the top of Ruth's bare right thigh. The victim uttered a wail of sobbing pain, lunged to one side, twisting violently and tugging at her wrists.
"That'll do it, Edith, whip her good," Marge hissed vindictively, "we'll teach her to steal our money from us! Cut her to ribbons!"
But Ruth had suddenly had an inspiration�_" a pity she hadn't thought of it before and saved herself all this misery. Any document signed under duress will not stand up in court, she remembered from her civics class. But she had to get out of here to tell the authorities about the duress inflicted, and the only way was to pretend to do what they wanted. So, as Edith raised the whip slowly for the third time, Ruth sighed and nodded her head vigorously.
"Well, what do you know," Edith cried jubilantly, "she's giving in!"
"We ought to thrash her within an inch of her life anyhow," Marge sulkily declared.
"Me, I want the money, I don't care what happens to the greaser," Edith said with practicality. "Cut her down, and bring her the paper and a pen. Remember, Ruthie, I've still got the whip ready if you try any tricks."
But Ruth didn't. She was remarkably docile and humble as Marge took off the gag, then cut away her wrist bonds, then her ankle ropes, and pushed her over to the desk where typed paper was waiting. Ruth signed her name, "Now... c... can I go back home?" she asked piteously.
Edith scanned the paper, eyes glowing with triumph. "Sure," she said generously, "And we'll even deliver you right to your boarding house this time!"
CHAPTER EIGHT
That evening Ruth telephoned Attorney Barnes and told him what had happened to her. "And I signed the paper, but I didn't write it the way you have it in the will... Ruth Juanita Dolores Mercado known as Merson. I just signed Ruth Mercado."
"Smart girl! Of course it won't mean a thing legally. I'm amazed they didn't know that, even if you had signed your right name under the terms of the will. And of course you can bring charges against them for kidnapping and bodily assault."
"No, Senor Barnes, I don't want to send them to prison�_"though they deserve it. All I want is my revenge." And she added a few scant sentences which made the elderly attorney chuckle.
"I think it could be arranged my dear. I'll have my secretary pose as a police matron and deliver them to you at the cottage tomorrow... how will that be?"
Marge and Edith Merson were astonished the next noon when a handsome blonde woman in her thirties rang the bell of their apartment on Fleetwood Drive and showed a police badge in her palm to them. "I've a warrant for your arrest, girls," she said, "you're to come with me."
"Oh my gosh," Marge gulped, "I was afraid of that�_""
"Shut your trap, you stupid little fool," hissed Edith angrily, turning on her, "Nothing's going to happen, she can't prove a thing, I told you. All right, we'll go with you."
They followed the woman out to her Ford sedan and got in sullenly.
But when the car drove out on the freeway and took the turnoff towards the cottage, Marge and Edith protested in dismay, "Where are you taking us?"
"I have to pick up the person who made the charge against you," the woman explained. Marge and Edith were more uneasy than ever when the car at last pulled up before the cottage. They knew they had taken Ruth back that afternoon to her boarding house... what was this all about?
"Okay, you two, inside," the woman directed coldly. Reluctantly, Marge and Edith entered the cottage and both uttered a cry of consternation. Ruth was there, smoking a cigarette, seated in the armchair, holding the paddle and tapping it into her left palm, a smile on anticipation on her lovely mouth. "Thanks so much, Miss Vinson," she welcomed the woman who followed the two sisters.
"Hey, what is all this?" Edith demanded angrily.
"It's nice to see you two again," Ruth said sweetly. "Tell them, Miss Vinson."
"I'll be glad to, Ruth dear," said Mr. Barnes' secretary, "now then, you two girls could be sent to prison for a good many years, and maybe even to the gas chamber, since that's the law in this state, if Miss Mercado wanted to press charges. But you see, the paper you made her sign is worthless; to begin with, it was obtained under duress�_""
"Nobody can prove that, it's two against one," Edith interrupted.
"Possibly," said the unruffled Miss Vinson, "but the heart of the matter it that it's worthless anyway... Ruth has to sign her name the way it appears prescribed in your father's will, and she didn't. So all your effort was in vain."
"Why, you tricky greaser you, I'll... " Ruth began.
"You'll do nothing," Edith," said Miss Vinson coldly, "or else Ruth will press charges. But she's generous, and she's agreed to forget the entire incident and make no claim to your trust funds as compensation�_"which also she could do legally�_"in return for your both submitting to the same kind of punishment you gave her."
"What????" Edith's voice shrilled.
"You understand me, I think. You can choose, either submit to a good sound spanking, the two of you, which you've got coming many times over, or Ruth and I will go down to Criminal Court and swear out a complaint. Mr. Barnes, your attorney and Ruth's is ready to take it into court�_"all I have to do is phone them. Well?"
"Oh Lord," Edith groaned, hanging her head, "I guess we've got to."
"All right, then," Ruth spoke up firmly, "Take your clothes off, everything but your panties. Marge, you're first over my lap."
And under Miss Vinson's baleful, vigilant eye, both sisters grudgingly undressed. When they were ready, Miss Vinson tied their wrists behind their backs, and pushed Edith over to Ruth, who pulled her down over her lap, clamped her right leg over her stepsister's bare calves, and palming down her tormentress' neck with her left hand, pronounced, "Each of you is going to get a taste of all you gave me. First, with my hand. And before I'm done with both of you nasty, spiteful girls, you'll know how it is to get it in THE END...
