Dick Atwood held her close. Chrissy Ragan was the sweetest thing he had ever known. Tenderness and desire welled over as she unconsciously moulded her female curves against his masculinity. He buried his lips within the silken hair at a level with his chin. Her handcuffed wrists thrust hard against his chest: the metal a stern reminder of a condition be must somehow end. He whispered urgently.
"Lift them over my head so I can hold you properly."
Beneath the skimpy school uniform her breasts were firm, their nipples rigidly seeking attention. Chrissy wriggled them against the black academic gown, impatient, yearning. Her hot young hands, linked by steel, were ardent around his neck. She raised ripe lips hungrily. When the interminable kiss was over, her voice was urgent.
"We've got nearly an hour. Oh, Mr. Atwood...?" Dick Atwood laughed, both at the implication and her use of his surname. "For forty-five minutes you can call me Dick." He kissed her again, lightly. "And I'm damned if I'll lay you on a storeroom floor. I'll name you and have you for the night."
"You can't. You're not a Chevalier. Oh, Dick...!"
"Then the thing to do is get you out of this."
"You can't do that, either. They'll never let me go. It's months since I realized... " She happily snuggled closer. "Mmmmmm, you feel so good."
It was hard to equate this warm girl creature with stern reality. Chrissy seemed as indestructible as an element, her buoyant sexuality weathering any storm. The Seigneury may have taken her for its own but it had left her spirit unflawed, her rampant femaleness only barely controlled. "You mean you really are a prisoner?"
"Mmmmmm... course I am." Mischievously, she clinked her handcuffs against his ear. "Doesn't this tell you? They've got 'em on all the girls."
"But surely you can get them off... sometimes?"
"Gosh, no! None of us can. Nor can you without a key or some tools or something... " Chrissy wriggled deliciously, concerned more with his maleness than her own captivity. "Don't worry about it, this is so lovely."
She was adorable. She was heart's desire. But her own emotional involvement in the thing which meant more to him than all else might prove his greatest problem.
Bemusedly, he trod softly into the unknown.
"In the classroom... that was deliberate?" Chrissy hugged closer. "Of course."
"You wanted me to cane you?"
"Mmmmmm...!"
"Darling...?" He spoke the endearment for the first time, and with reverence.
"How much... I mean... how much of such pain can you stand?"
Another wriggle. "Don't know... " A giggle. "I never found out. Wooooo, you were marvelous."
"But... ? Has it been often?"
Chrissy's cheek was busy frictioning his shoulder. "Never like with you," she whispered vibrantly. "It's mostly old men. Or they make one of the girls do it to me.
Or Sister Amaldis."
"And Vera Manson? And that Bristow girl?" Chrissy kissed his chin.
"Well... sure they like it." She snickered apologetically. "It gets awfully boring for us girls sometimes. It's a sort of relief... and when we saw you! Oh, wow!"
"Their protests weren't...?"
Chrissy bit his ear. "You've got a lovely hardon, Mr. Atwood." She wriggled provocatively. "Shouldn't we use it... sir?"
She was too good to be true. A dream! "I'm a damn good mind to cane you past your point of tolerance," he threatened sternly.
"Mmmmmmb! We'll have to go back to the classroom. Come along."
Chrissy was halfway out of his embrace when he grasped and rearranged her to his comfort. "Quiet, you carnal kitten!," he admonished. "There's things I have to know."
"Mummmmn!"
"Those two girls...?"
"Oh, Vera and Elizabeth!" Chrissy clearly regarded her fellow captives as a waste of time. "Maybe you don't know how it is with some girls, but when someone beats our bottoms we get horny. I knew this before I came here, but I don't think they did. It's been a bit of a blessing for them... finding out! A sort of bonus. They play it for all it's worth every chance... " She kissed him again, thoughtfully. "Girls get awfully tired of girls, y'know. I mean... tonguing and nibbling is wonderful, but we'd sooner have a man. And when you walked in with Maslin... yummy!"
"And the rest of the class?"
"It's sort of bad for them," Chrissy admitted cheerfully. "They have to take it and like it... except they don't ever like it."
"Why don't they escape?"
"I told you. We can't!" Chrissy's arms tightened round him as though for reassurance. "There have been ones who tried. But they're always caught. They get punished in the most awful ways and we're made to watch. It scares us so we wouldn't dream of trying. The handcuffs stop us forgetting."
"I've just remembered. I've got a key."
"Nngh! I'm fine. I've got so used to them."
"Alright, I'll keep you handcuffed the rest of your life... after I get you out of here."
"Mmmmm...!"
"And I'll cane your saucy bottom every day."
"Mmmmmmb!!"
"That older girl...?"
"Glynis... something? She's new. I've never seen her before. But she was learning... couldn't you tell! I thought at first she was a Chatelaine... slumming!
But she was a little girl lost... like we all were the first time. The way you punished her... and what us girls did... " Chrissy giggled. "It sure gave her the hots. She got a feeling for you."
"Will you marry me, Chrissy?"
"Yes!"
"First thing when I get you freed."
He felt her tense. "Oh Dick... oh, darling, I wish you could! I wish, I wish, I wish...!"
"Well, if the worst comes to the worst, I'll go to the police."
"I don't think it would do any good. They're tremendously powerful. They have to be to get away with what they do." Chrissy frictioned herself deliciously. "The grapevine has it that one of the Chatelaines stepped out of line and helped a girl escape. They were captured and brought back and... and... "
"And what?"
Chrissy wriggled comfortably within his arms.
"I'm not sure I believe the rest of it," she admitted doubtfully. "They were both beheaded... ! You know, the headsman and the block. It was... it was done to them in one of these play things they're for ever staging... " It struck Dick Atwood like a blow. "But... but... you and I! The classroom!
That's one of the plays... "
"Yes."
"And yet it's real! I'd swear...?"
"Oh, it's real enough. All their plays Are real."
"You've seen some?"
"We all get bit parts. But it's usually the first time for the girl who plays the lead.
That way her performance is more genuine. Often we only see her the once...
maybe they don't kill her the way it seems in the play. They're awfully clever."
Dick Atwood lifted Chrissy's skimpy skirt and ran his hand thoughtfully over the sweet derriere of his beloved, his fingers tracing the ridged weals he himself had impacted upon her flesh. It was as though he needed the reassurance of their erotic presence. The girl who bore them purred softly against his gown. "Would they let me buy you... a sort of indemnity?"
"I've never heard of it. Oh, darling, please try! Are you very rich?"
Memory of Uncle Prescott's legacy was sobering.
To him it had been large. To the Siegneury it would be pennies. His fantasy, under enactment, had made a dent... ! "I'm not rich at all," he admitted ruefully. "Not the way the Chatelaines and Chevaliers are."
"Oh, darling, I'm not sure I'm worth ruin."
Chrissy wriggled distressfully, thus denying her statement. "I'm just a girl who likes getting her bottom caned and... and... and things! By you, of course!"
"You're the most desirable female in the world."
"I'm shockingly carnal, Dick. Promise you'll whip my naughtiness?"
"I shall certainly whip it. But not enough to effect a cure."
"Oh, Dick...!"
It was excruciatingly delicious! Dick Atwood knew that, for him, Chrissy was paradise. If he had to batter down the Seigneury walls he would do so in order that she should be his alone. Thoughts of her remaining captive and subject to the cruelties of others were out... out... out! "I'll give them a chance, first, to be sensible," he affirmed stoutly.
"You never know... they may just hold onto you girls for fear of having you run around, on the loose, gossiping! But married to me... that's different! We'd be sort of in their family."
"Try anything, darling." Chrissy obviously put small stock in rational negotiations. "But, y'know, I've been thinking... " Dick Atwood's arms tightened in a great hunger.
Chrissy's words came diffidently. "Vera Manson and me... we did think of a way... "
"Yes?"
"We've been too scared to try. We've agreed to not even talk... "
"What is it?"
"Oh, here you are! I thought we'd find you."
Sister Amaldis swept her vibrant presence into the storeroom, assessing the involved pair with a shrewd eye. "I'm so glad to see you like each other. I do think affection is so nice... " Chrissy demurely lifted her cuffed hands back over her Master's head and became once more the roguish schoolgirl who knew her place. The pseudo-Headmaster was irritated by the interruption, but knew himself subject to the Sister's charm. His surprised gaze focused on the cool perfection of the woman who had accompanied Sister Amaldis into his trysting place.
"Mr. Atwood, may I introduce Mrs. Diane Hetherington." The Sister's voice was cool and amused. "Mrs. Hetherington is one of our senior Chatelaines who would enjoy being a member of your class this afternoon. With your approval, of course."
Chrissy glowered within a limit she deemed prudent. Dick held out his hand, bemused! The Seigneury was beyond the reckoning of mortal man. He felt sure whatever he said would sound inane.
"Sure you don't mind, Mr. Atwood?"
Her poise was perfect. It made her intent doubly bizarre. Dick heard himself babble: "It's an honour. But a Chatelaine... ? I can't possibly...?"
"Yes you can, Mr. Atwood." The voice was as limpid as the eyes. "You can instruct me and thrash me the same as any other naughty girl" The smile she projected was for him alone. "I may be a 'Mrs.,' but I don't have a husband around at the moment. I'm just one of the girls."
Thirty! Educated! Rich! In authority! Yet meltingly teenage in her sleek slenderness.
Dick Atwood's heart pounded treacherously.
"Mrs. Hetherington seeks an experience," explained Sister Amaldis benignly. "I am sure you can glimpse what an exciting contrast this can be for her. She will place herself implicitly in your hands. She will be totally obedient until the end of class."
"Please accept me, sir?"
Diane Hetherington enacted the shy child to perfection. Quite probably anything she did would be equally perfect. Her small curtsey sent Dick Atwood's heart to racing.
But he was still puzzled.
"But, I understood that one or two Chatelaines were already... incognito... I could not be sure...?"
"Ah, but this is part of the Masque, Mr. Atwood!" The Sister's exclamation was arch. "You do not need to know. It adds a little... something! And it is their wish.
But Mrs. Hetherington has seen the amusing and challenging possibilities of thus yielding herself with your full knowledge. I am sure, you too...?"
Once more Dick Atwood mentally gave thanks to Uncle Prescott, now deceased!
Whatever the Seigneury charged, they certainly gave value far beyond... ! Chrissy!
And now this wistful beauty!
"I'll be a very naughty pupil, Mr. Atwood. I'm sure you'll love me?"
"I am sure you will... "
"Then may I go and change into my school dress, sir?"
"Of course!"
She was gone! A spring zephyr, promising storm.
"I think it would be a lot nicer with just us girls," said Chrissy with the precise degree of resentment to avoid punishment.
"I'm sure you're all going to have the most wonderful afternoon," Sister Amaldis pronounced encouragingly. She patted Chrissy's arm with evident affection. "But now I must be gone... " The school tunic must surely have been tailored.
It made a revealing effort to cover as little as possible whilst clingingly clothing Diane Hetherington with an illusion of hiding the essentials. In it, she was a blushing nineteen. With innate cunning she was already handcuffed, wearing the gleaming chrome as bracelets on slender wrists. She smiled winningly at all, but especially for the Master.
"May I sit here, sir?"
"You may."
Mrs. Diane Hetherington slithered into the small desk as though it, too, had been crafted to her curves, and smiled expectantly.
"This is a well-mannered class, Miss Hetherington. You will be required to live up to its standards." Dick made his tone suitably stern.
"Oh, of course, sir!" The words held mischief. "I wouldn't dream of doing bad things... " Her eyes roved. She picked up a pencil and, lifting it for all to see, deliberately broke it in two. "Things like that, sir."
The air of the classroom held a familiar electricity, an alert knowledge of things to come. Fourteen pairs of feminine eyes avidly searched the new pupil and the Master for clues. Unhampered by the handcuffs shining on her wrists, the newcomer extracted a book, held it for a moment in plain view, as though to heighten suspense, then tore several pages from it and let them flutter to the floor.
"And as for something like that, sir, I'd never dream... " It was beautifully and artfully done. Instant drama! Instant attention. Diane Hetherington was wasting no time. Dick Atwood took a deep ecstatic breath, but his words died unsaid.
"You're just a showoff... that's what you are!"
Chrissy's jealous indignation filled the room, hurling its barb directly at Diane's sparkling attention. "You're not one of us, you're not even a girl anymore! You're old!"
"Miaow!" With a supercilious sneer, Diane stuck out her tongue.
"You're the cat, not me! I'll scratch your...!"
"Sit down!" Dick Atwood made it a stentorian bellow.
"But, sir, she... " Reluctantly Chrissy resumed her seat. Her face was flushed, her eyes betrayed hurt.
"I suppose you know, Miss Ragan, that was unpardonable?"
"Well... well... " Chrissy wriggled in frustration. "She's just doing it to get your attention... sir."
"I am well aware... "
"And she stuck her tongue out... straight at me!"
"I am aware of that also."
Chrissy swiveled and half rose. Aiming a look of pure loathing at her amused enemy, she protruded a pink tongue to its limit. "Miaow to you too, you rotten... "
"Miss Ragan!"
"Sir? "
"Sit down and keep quiet."
Chrissy slowly obeyed, sullen and pouting. Her eyes implored his love.
"Miss Hetherington will be dealt with. Have no fear of that. It is you I am disappointed in, Miss Ragan."
"But sir, she... "
"You may step forward for your punishment." The sudden flash of joy in the eyes of his beloved was something he would always remember. The moment itself was incredible in its implications. Two females had provoked punishment. But from different motives. Even in this fit of jealousy, Chrissy would adore him for caning her bottom. But the class was well aware of her predilection! Should he, therefore, punish her in ways from which she would derive no erotic delight? He studied her, as though for guidance. Chrissy was panting, erotically aroused, vividly aware of him. Could it be that this was a matching of wits between two females? Two superb pieces of acting to earn his cane!
"Prepare yourself for punishment, Miss Ragan."
"Thank you sir." Her sincerity was patent. Watching Chrissy Ragan render herself naked was but a momentary joy. She divested herself of the school tunic with little more than a wriggle, the shoes followed. She stared up at him in innocent nudity, wearing the marks of previous punishments with careless unconcern. The Master spared a glance for his new student: Diane Hetherington was breathing rapidly, enthralled by the small drama she had provoked. Aware that she, too, must soon... !
"Miss Ragan, it is my opinion there are certain applications of the cane less attractive to you than others?"
"I expect so, sir." Chrissy eyed him uncertainly. "Therefore I should employ the imposition you least enjoy."
"Oh sir...!" The words were heavy with reproach.
He loved this girl! Loved her with a passion such as he had never before known. He might tell himself it was no more than her libidinous response to his fantasy, her carnal hunger for stripes, her blissful unconcern for chains! But Chrissy's sweetness went beyond. Her hunger was his own. Together they found surcease. Long as he might wish to thrash her cruelly in ways she would hate, he would not do so. Mrs.
Diane Hetherington could serve that need. For this beloved child there would be only the punishment she adored. If the class snickered, let them!
"However, you have borne some punishments... ! I am disposed to be lenient."
"Oh, thank you, sir!" Her gratitude melted the heart.
"It is early for thanks, Miss Ragan. You are about to suffer severe pain."
"I don't mind, sir... really!"
There were whispers of amusement from the class. Dick Atwood quelled them with a glance. "You may bend and clasp your ankles, Miss Ragan."
Chrissy did it beautifully. Having bestowed on him alone an adoring glance of coy complicity, she positioned herself to his best advantage and assumed the shaming pose by which her already striped bottom was protruded to be wealed anew.
"I've stiffened my knees and arched my back down, sir." Chrissy had become tumescently expectant.
"I am sure we are enjoying the fruits of your experience," the Headmaster responded dryly. He turned to the rapt regard of Diane Hetherington and pointed his cane. "I wish you to take note, Miss Hetherington - the pose, the implicit obedience.
I accept no less."
"Oh, sir, she's wonderful... I... I mean, it's all so...!" Diane was panting.
"I'd be too scared to disobey." Her eyes were focused on Chrissy's pink pudendum protruding pertly and bringing with it a few fronds of black hair, decidedly damp.
Diane was acting, she had to be! But her simulation of teenage archness was perfect.
Coming from her mature lips it carried an erotic punch for which Dick Atwood gave silent thanks. Regimenting his thoughts, he addressed his bent beloved. "Five strokes, Miss Ragan, for your display of temper. Should you prove obstreperous it will advance to ten."
Another shy, sly glance from a flushed face.
"You're ever so kind to me, sir."
He struck his beloved's bottom with a force and severity beyond his intent. It was as though the hand that held the cane was not his own. Chrissy's effect upon his libido was devastating. He longed to sweep her into the solitude of some lonely place and consume her utterly with ravishment after ravishment until they clung exhausted and replete. But the authority of the classroom was upon them both. In this room, before the enraptured gaze of fourteen girls, the cane was his phallus, his arm a surrogate for thrusting loins. He struck again, more viciously than the first. Chrissy moaned softly and sweetly as the purple weals formed their symmetry upon her eager skin. But Chrissy did not move.
Dick Atwood felt a brute, degenerate with lust, finding a savage satiety in the slashing of submissive female flesh. But, as the fourth and fifth blows bedded themselves in the beloved bottom he sensed her joy. Chrissy was in some Nirvana of her own, finding there extensions of sensation denied to most. Her moans were for him - a communion of joy. He ceased the thrashing with regret.
"A useful lesson, I hope, Miss Ragan?"
Chrissy straightened slowly. Her striving to reach her wounds against the denial of handcuffed wrists was pathetically sweet. Her eyes were brilliant with unshed tears.
"Oh, yes sir!" She appeared to be seeking a superlative. "Thank you ever so much.
They hurt really beautifully." She was still groping for expression. "Are you sure five was enough, sir?"
The classroom gasped. So did Dick Atwood, his loins rampant. Chrissy gazed up adoringly with a face innocent of guile.
"Five is sufficient, Miss Ragan."
"I really behaved badly, sir?"
She was one for the birds, for Ripley, for posterity! Chrissy was incredible! Chrissy was asking for more. Her meekness was a challenge demanding tears.
"Resume position." His order was curt, knowing his limitations.
As the naked girl once more bent for his approval they exchanged another flash of empathy. But, recognizing the need for prudence in his loved one's self-immolation to desire, Dick cut his cane with stern accuracy across the pouting lips so blushingly obtrusive between pink thighs. Without thought or observation, he repeated the blow, placing one wicked weal on top of another... !
"That will do. Miss Ragan. Dress and return to your desk."
"Yes, sir... oh, yes! And... and... and thank you again." Chrissy's voice was uncertain with emotion and pain. The smile she sent his way was shy and hesitant, betraying surfeit. She slipped back into the school tunic and to her seat.
There she wept silently and sweetly... a feast of tears.
Dick Atwood sighed. In seeking the Seigneury he had never hoped for such fulfillment. In this classroom fantasy and reality had joined and become one. He wished it could last forever! With Chrissy Ragan it could! Forever and always... !
Somehow he must wrest her from the Seigneury . . ! It was almost with reluctance he turned his attention to his fresh delinquent.
"I believe, Miss Hetherington, you were giving us, er, shall we say, demonstrations?" His sarcasm was cool.
Mrs. Diane Hetherington knew what she wanted. Within her breasts was a tumid excitement. Smiling sweetly, she picked up a cube of rubber eraser and flung it at a startled student five desks down. "Things like that, sir! They're not a bit nice... !
Sister Amaldis had been right. The presence of this exquisitely soignee creature in his class was a nuance of eroticism beyond that offered by the teenage girls. Every curve and scent of Diane Hetherington was a challenge. From some welling tumescence of her own she craved disciplinary pain as though she was a child. She would barter repartee for as long as her tolerance would allow, shivering deliciously as each mischief added to her tally of anguish yet to come. He must hurt her cruelly.
He must! And between them always would be the knowledge she was a Chatelaine... !
"Ah!" Dick made the exclamation as portentous as he could. "But you are doing these things! You have perpetrated them. Flagrantly."
"Ooooo, have I, sir! I was just... "
"We both know what you were doing. Miss Hetherington."
"Oh dear, do we, sir! I thought I... "
"Even for a new girl, your behaviour was an outrage."
"Thank you very much, sir."
"What the devil are you thanking me for?"
"Well, you do express things so well... sir!"
"You are deliberately provoking."
"Oh sir! As if I could...!"
"Your punishment will be severe."
Eyes sparkled. A woman had entered a fray to test herself. The battle was joined. But Diane had weapons! She would use them, not to wound but to display her prowess in an ancient art. Her voice quivered in an apprehension that might have been real.
"Oh sir, you're not going to cane me, are you!"
"I am indeed!"
"But, sir... ! Not on my... my... all bare?"
"Nudity is implicit in your punishment, Miss Hetherington. It is standard procedure in this class."
"I couldn't possibly, sir" Diane contrived a shamed wriggle and imploring eyes.
"My mother wouldn't like it if I... if I... if I uncovered the... the things under my tunic!"
"I leave it to your conscience, Miss Hetherington, as to whether you inform your parents you have been stripped for chastisement."
"Oh sir, there you go again! You put things so well."
"Thank you. Step forward and prepare yourself."
"You mean... stand out front and undress!" The thirty year-old eyes were wise, but the voice was archly coy and deeply shocked.
"Exactly! "
"Oh, I couldn't let you see me naked, sir!" The eyes screamed laughter. But the voice was demure. "Not unless you're going to marry me?"
The line won the applause of titters. Dick Atwood swiveled. He pointed with the cane: "Step forward... you! And you! And you!"
Three crestfallen maidens made their short and painful journey, returning to their desks with scalding palms.
"You've made them cry, sir. You hit them awfully hard." The eyes sparkled as the voice reproached.
"Exactly."
"You said that before, sir."
"Miss Hetherington! Enough of this badinage! Stand before the class and strip."
"You mean... show everybody my breasts... and things?"
"Immediately! "
"Perhaps you'd undress me, sir? I wouldn't feel so ashamed."
"Certainly not!"
"But I can't take my tunic off, sir. I'm hand cuffed!"
"You know perfectly well your handcuffs are no impediment."
"Oh sir! Oh dear...!"
Mrs. Diane Hetherington belonged on stage. Her performance was superb. No faltering teenager approaching corporal punishment had ever more coyly wriggled or archly implored mercy. The shedding of her school tunic would have done justice to the most practiced of strippers. Her nakedness was as breathtaking as she herself well knew.
"You are very beautiful, Diane."
"Oh, thank you, sir! I've never looked... "
"I propose to thrash your derriere."
"Oh no sir, I couldn't! Not bent over like that. The way that poor girl showed up behind! It was so... so... so rude."
"Ah! In that case, your hands? Six on each palm?"
Their eyes met. They were tremendously aware of each other. Each was excited beyond prudence. "My hands, sir!" Diane made it sound the ultimate horror. "Oh, not my poor hands! I'd never be able to use them after."
"They will be swollen for only a day or two. It will serve as a reminder of your disgrace."
"Please, sir, don't cane my hands."
How cleverly she did it! Prolonging her path to surrender. Savouring the nectar of suspense. Suddenly, Dick Atwood knew what he would do! "That rug on the shelf, Miss Hetherington... spread it on the floor."
She was off balance. Veiled eyes assessing... ! "I do not propose sexual congress, Miss Hetherington."
The handcuffs hindered. But, doubtfully, she spread the rug.
"Kindly bend one leg upward at the knee after you are comfortably disposed."
She was amusingly unsure of his intent. But slowly she obeyed, sliding her tummy and breasts upon the soft surface, resting some of her weight on her elbows, tensely expectant. As a laggard afterthought, her right leg bent upward from her knee, a languid motion by which the sole of her foot faced the ceiling. Without pause or prelude, Dick struck it shrewdly with the cane.
Mrs. Diane Hetherington did not scream. She emitted one startled yelp of shock before resorting to strange and feminine moans and gasps as she writhed upon the rug. Within a minute she was crouching on one hip and desperately clasping her wounded foot with handcuffed hands. She glared up balefully.
"Damn you...!"
She severed her angry expletive as with a knife.
Agony would not rob her of purpose. But, for the moment, her audience was forgotten. She was a woman with a man. Amusedly meeting her accusing glare, Dick easily sensed her battle with decision.
"I didn't know...!" She swallowed against chagrin and shame. "I hadn't any idea...!"
A Chatelaine. It served her right for slumming.
She had wanted an engorged sex from an inflamed bottom, but had got more than she bargained for. But she was likable. Without malice, Dick chalked up round one.
"Punishment is pain, Miss Hetherington."
"But must you strike my foot! It's excruciating!"
"You expressed distaste for the more obvious... " Diane eyed him ruefully. Dick's pulse raced. If this was her first taste of corporal anguish she would be wondering if her bottom or her hands would be any less vulnerable than her wealed sole.
"It's all so new, sir. I'm inexperienced."
She was suddenly an adult in a spot. Seeking guidance. But the Master must yield ground slowly.
"I will be prepared to discuss the... obvious! But only after your left foot has received its quota."
Her twist of frustration was exquisite. "I'd much prefer my... my bottom, sir? I'm sorry I quibbled."
"I am sure you would and you are." Dick's voice was colder than his heart. "Be so good as to rearrange yourself and raise your left leg."
Dilemma clouded the lovely face. "I would if I could, sir, but I can't... no girl could... ! Please try and understand?"
"If you prefer, I can tie you so that no act of will is required."
Diane flushed. No doubt she was seeing herself trussed in indignity before fourteen pairs of curious eyes. "I don't want to be tied, sir." She looked up in earnest appeal and spoke in the voice of Mrs. Diane Hetherington. "Surely there must be some other way to punish me?"
"If you find the discipline of this class unacceptable, Miss Hetherington, I can send you home."
He saw her flinch. She was not ready to reject this erotic adventure on which she had so blithely embarked. "But I've never heard of a girl's feet, sir... ? It's not...
not... " She put her heart into one simple plea. "Please cane my bottom instead?"
Then added, wistfully. "You could hit me extra hard because I've been... bad?"
"I can offer another alternative, one more in keeping with the iniquity of your behavior."
Diane gazed up without hope. She recognized defeat.
"I can tie you to the pillar over there and whip your breasts."
The naked loveliness on the rug caught its breath in a gasp of dismay. For tense moments of silence Diane visibly weighed the pros and cons. Then, in firm decision, she lay back on her stomach. Her left leg rose slowly from the knee...
CHAPTER TWO - Wanton and Scold
"Damn him... damn him... damn him!"
Glynis Woodhaye had uttered the silent imprecation against Rolfe Campys again and again in the four days since her return to the hated cell. As usual, nothing made sense. Wafted to paradise for a brief hour, surrendering all of herself in the ecstatic fulfillment of a dream. Giving herself totally that she might receive... ! And then... ! Rolfe must somehow have drugged one of the drinks... ! She had awakened on the hard bench behind the familiar bars, clothed scantily in the absurd prison tunic, her wrists tight handcuffed before her as they had always been... ! She had wept and beaten her joined fists upon the wood in a fury of frustration.
"Ain't you glad to be back honey?" Wardress Bulloch had not changed her gruff and caustic sympathy. "Weren't long, but we missed you."
"Look, I've just got to talk to the Seigneur!"
"Ain't acquainted with him sweetheart. You can talk to me."
"I absolutely have to get out of here."
"That's why we got bars and them there hand cuffs, honey."
Glynis held on to her temper. In the presence of the Wardress, the downstairs room with its grim post could never be quite forgotten. "Please help me, Mrs. Bulloch. Ask Mr. Campys to come and talk to me."
"Don't know him, either, love."
"Yes you do. You escorted him on the tour that day... that awful day you had me tied to the bars... and naked!"
"Oh him! Honey, you sure do get people twisted up."
"I don't! I don't! That girl... Tess Lynton, he brought her. You put her in here with me before you took her down and had her flogged. I ought to know - I was tied on the other side of the post."
"It's all routine, love. This ain't the Beverly Hilton."
"Then will you let me write a letter to Mr. Campys?"
"You can't write, dear. You're handcuffed."
"I can too! I've been handcuffed so long I can do most things. Please, Mrs.
Bulloch? Please deliver a letter for me?"
"He must have screwed you real good, eh, sweetheart! " The Wardress was as impossible to influence as were the bars of the cell. Glynis spent the first hours of her return to prison in a seething anger. Before her always was the laughing face of the man whose captive she indisputably was. Rolfe Campys owned her. He was disposing her life and freedom in ways to satisfy some bizarre concept of his own. Why, oh why had he chosen to give her that brief glance at heart's desire and then have her again incarcerated behind bars! And handcuffed!
She knew the handcuffs to be a cynical symbol of what she had become. In an urgent need to vent her emotional turmoil she used her joined hands to thrust and tug at the implacability of the metal grid behind which she was caged. But the lock mocked her efforts. The door refused to even rattle. But in this new captivity there was a diversion... !
"Make a nice change for you, love," said Wardress Bulloch.
Glynis eyed the rope with distaste. "You mean... tie me against the bars?"
"Hell no! We just got a new way for you to spend your afternoons. Don't want you getting bored."
"Mrs. Bulloch, there's no need to tie me up. It's silly. I'm already quite helpless."
"Dammit, girl, you're leading the life O' Riley. A bit of contrast... that's the ticket. Off with that tunic."
"If I take this tunic off I'll be naked!"
"I sort of got that idea myself." The Wardress' rejoinder was dryly amused. For her, the reactions of the former Miss Glynis Woodhaye provided a continuing entertainment. "Naked's a good way for a gal to be when she's tied. 'Sides, what's it matter 'tween us girls?"
"The last time you tied me naked you brought a man to look at me. It was awful!"
"You loved every moment, honey. Look, you gonna give me trouble? If you want to argue I'll go get help."
"No... no, never mind." The captive girl had long since learned the penalties of protest. "What are you going to do to me? I mean, how do you want me?"
"Naked."
Glynis, unhappily, divested herself of her only covering. Even when she was handcuffed, it was a pitifully simple task.
"With a figure like you've got, sweetheart, you shouldn't ever wear clothes.
Gimme them flippers."
The prisoner watched silently while the steel bands were unlocked from her wrists. In these brief moments of freedom between one bondage and another her pride always demanded that she fight. But what was the use... !
"Turn around, my pretty one, hands behind."
Mrs. Bulloch's zest in her work oozed from every word.
Glynis turned and crossed her wrists for the cord. The Wardress uncrossed them and placed her hands palm to palm. The rope bit savagely.
"Oh, please, Mrs. Bulloch! Not so tight?"
"Why, love, they're just nice and snug. A real neat job. Pity you can't see."
Sulkily and silently, the naked girl stood, wincing only when she must, as her elbows were circled by several strands of rope and drawn tight, tight and tighter until her forearms were welded as one.
It was a bitterly familiar memory.
"Really does something for them lovely boobs," Mrs. Bulloch said complacently.
She patted one of the taut thrusting breasts testingly. "Sure wish I had a pair of jugs like yours, honey."
"I suppose you realize this is agony?"
"Don't let's go overboard on them there words, love." the Wardress chided. "A mite uncomfortable, maybe." She chuckled grossly. "Give you something to do, trying to get loose. Tell you what. You wriggle out of them ropes and I'll promise not to tie you again. That's a fair offer, ain't it?"
Glynis ignored the offer. She tried to twist in her new bondage. But to move at all it had to be from her waist up. Tied as she was, her shoulders could swivel in a fluttering protest against their wracked immobility, but that was all. "How long have I got to stay like this?" she asked miserably.
Just the afternoon dear. Orders from above."
"Did he say why I have to be tied like this?"
"He?" Mrs. Bulloch affected a vast ignorance.
"Sweetheart, you want to be thankful you ain't getting your ankles tied as well."
"Gee, thanks!"
"And I wouldn't make too many cute remarks like that," the Wardress warned darkly. "Don't ever think things can't get worse."
That had been four days past. Each noon the hateful ritual had been repeated, and for five hours Glynis bore the pain of the ropes deep in her flesh, and the shame of a nakedness she could not hide. She was on exhibit for anyone who chose to look through the bars.
"Damn pretty picture you make." From the cheerful Myrtle.
"I'd untie you if I dared... but they'd half kill me." From a frightened but sympathetic Clare.
Neither the assistant Wardress nor the hesitant trusty had been able to answer questions. Glynis suspected they did not know answers. Their visits were no more than brief breaks in the monotony.
Four days! They had been hard to bear. Their only joy was when the ropes were peeled from her bruised flesh at five Or six o'clock each evening. It was a sad small happiness. But for an hour she reveled in the glorious relief of handcuffs, and wryly examining the weals in her elbows which, if she was tied each day, might never go away.
The fiery pain was a companion. She sat on the hard bench and looked down bitterly at Mrs. Bulloch's unkind attempt at humour. It was a glossy woman's magazine. The Wardress brought it each noon and took it away each evening. During the hours in which she was bound it lay there and mocked her impotence. No matter how she tried, Glynis could not turn a page. The best she could do was use her feet awkwardly, but the effort was demeaning and a tax on her vision. She allowed the gaudy thing to lay, wondering if it, too, was a reminder of a laughing man named Rolfe.
Ermie was a tribulation she could have done without.
In the sudden breaking of a reverie, Glynis looked up and beheld the child, silent and absorbed, examining her through the bars.
"Ma got yer tied real good."
Ermie Bulloch was a lost cause, but on the other side of the bars, she was someone to spar with. The loneliness of the cell had made almost any human contact welcome... even this lewd and grubby moppet of thirteen! "She sure has," the captive agreed amiably. "How'd you like to untie me?"
"You know I ain't going to do that."
The child's reproach was to be expected. Glynis tried again: "Are you just visiting, Ermie?"
"S'pose so... Say, what's it like to sit there naked all the time?"
"It's painful... and makes me feel ashamed."
"Guess that's the idea, ain't it?" Ermie offered reasonably. "Want I should come in and whip your ass?"
Glynis was startled. "Have you got the key?"
"Hell no! Ma wouldn't give it to me. If I could get in there I'd really make you dance." The grubby features broke into a promising smile. "But don't you fret none.
I'll get another go at you sometime."
"Couldn't you think of something nice to do for me?"
Ermie examined the improbable premise. "You putting me on?" she demanded.
"You're here to be punished, aincha?"
"I don't know what for," Glynis retorted bitterly. "I haven't done anything."
"I bet I know what," Ermie affirmed wisely.
"You got a cunt some guy wants to get into."
It was the quick perception of a child. Glynis blushed at its truth. On impulse, she blurted: "Look, Ermie, I can't write the way I'm tied, but would you write a message and send it for me?"
"You're goin' ter tell him you're ready to let him shove it in," Ermie chortled. "A fuck for freedom! How's that for a message?" She sobered suddenly. "But, shit, I ain't that anxious to get my ass skinned. I do something like that... Ma 'ud cut my little ass off."
"Won't you do anything to help me, Ermie?" Ermie considered this unprofitable suggestion.
"Tell you what," she offered. "Come and shove yourself up against the bars and I'll make you come?"
"Oh, Ermie, please!"
"What's wrong with that!" Ermie was aggrieved. "If you push your tits through I can nibble one and tickle the other while I work on your clit down below. Pretty good offer, I'd say."
The naked captive knew it a gauge of her desolation that she was tempted. The touch of hands not hostile! It was shockingly appealing. But she shook her head. "I'm scared of your mother," she said politely. It was as good an excuse as any.
"Pity 'bout the bars," Ermie said thoughtfully.
"I wouldn't mind eatin' you. You're so damn pretty. I bet you taste good...
Say, how's 'bout me gettin' up close and you fingering mine?"
"Ermie, I'm tied so tight I can't do anything!"
"Yes you can. Look, I'll lift my own dress, and you sort of hunker down...?"
"It's not possible... and I hurt so bad."
"Well then, you kneel down and I'll hang onto the bars and shove my legs through over your shoulders? That way you can tongue me."
It was preposterous! Outrageous! That Miss Glynis Woodhaye should be bandying such obscenities with a child! She longed to dismiss the brat with words caustic and scathing. But she was captive and she was bound... ! If ever female needed friends!
Glynis was absolved from her quandary of seeking an acceptably inoffensive negative... there were sounds! Ermie disappeared as silently as she had come. An intermittent murmur of words was drowned by the unmistakable clatter of chain on concrete...
"Don't never say we ain't good to you, Miss Woodhaye," said Myrtle, the assistant Wardress, brightly. "Here's company."
The girl was naked. She was beautiful, but her face was lined with grief, her cheeks tear stained. She was also very naked and very helpless. Her chained feet stumbled into the cell under the impetus of Myrtle's hand at her back. She stood in uncertain assessment as the door clanged, the key turned, and the Wardress' footsteps receded.
"You too." she said bitterly, her eyes on the ropes deep in her companion's flesh.
"Me, too," Glynis acknowledged as cheerfully as she could, her own gaze shocked and curious.
They stared at each other in a strange hope and a strange despair. Two girls, cruel y captive. The newcomer wore around her narrow waist a broad leather belt, its fastenings padlocked at her back. Her wrists were cuffed to each side of it by lesser bands with smaller locks. The leather bit deep wherever it embraced. She was tantalizingly helpless. Her fingers clenched and searched impotently.
"My name's Sabina Miles... " She made a brave attempt at humour. "I'm afraid we can't shake hands."
Glynis was angry. She longed to touch, to reach out, to hold. This girl had been hurt and needed help. But all she could offer was words. "What have they done to you?"
she asked pityingly. "We've never seen each other, have we...?"
For answer, Sabina sank to her knees beside the girl seated on the bench and laid her cheek against a naked breast. Quietly, she began to cry. "They killed her." she muttered brokenly. "They killed Candice. I saw it happen. I was there... " Neither of them had hands or arms. Glynis bent and kissed the silken hair. Finding the simple act infinitely comforting, she spent her lips again and again. "Do you want to tell me?" she whispered.
"It was one of their beastly Masque things... " Sabina's cheek frictioned the soft flesh wet with her tears. "They made a big production out of it. At the end they took Candice and me up on a platform where there was a headsman and a block. They made her kneel down and place her head... " Glynis maintained her contact with the bent figure while the spasm of weeping passed. She longed to clasp this girl in her arms... No doubt there was an intentional cruelty in their helplessness. She listened in shocked horror for what she knew must come.
"He had this huge axe... he actually did it! We didn't know! We expected the thing to stop... in time! But it didn't! He was hooded and... and so... so strong.
And there was a basket for the... the...!"
"Never mind," Glynis said urgently, but added: "Are you quite sure? They do fake things cleverly... like in the movies."
"Yes, I'm sure." Sabina's voice was husky with tears. "I saw the... but never mind! It was my turn next. They were pushing me to the block when I passed out. I was tied helplessly like you are now, and everything went black. I don't know what happened or why. When I woke up I was in some sort of a dungeon, chained...
People came and looked at me the way they always do... I'm not new here. Then they fixed me like this and brought me here. I was getting hysterical. They probably feared I'd go completely crazy if they left me alone in that place long enough. I don't know if you want me, but I'm so glad for someone. I'm so glad for you... even if we can't hold each other.
"When I was first captured they made me watch while a girl was tortured to death." Glynis said thoughtfully. "I've wondered about it a lot, and I've tried to tell myself that it was faked in order to scare me. I still don't know... "
"The rotten things they do to us aren't faked," Sabina testified vehemently. "And the stories they tell about the money we're going to get... ? I'm sure now it's all lies.
And they don't give us back our freedom, not ever! I don't believe they'll ever set us free!"
"I don't know," said Glynis miserably. "I just don't know. In this beastly little cell it's easy to believe it's for life." Her voice sank to a whisper. "You're here because of Rolfe Campys, aren't you?"
The chained nudity tensed. "How did you know?"
"It's the same with me... that's how I know."
"Is Campys the Seigneur?"
"I can't find out. I can't find out anything."
"He acts in the plays. He whipped me in one of them... the first after I...
came."
"To get you here they offered you money?"
"Five thousand." The kneeling captive sneered.
"I thought I was so lucky! Maybe if they'd let me go after that awful business of being tied, naked, to the tail of a cart and whipped through the town I'd still have felt lucky. But they didn't. They kept me a prisoner... and there were other girls...!"
Glynis remembered Tess Lynton and the pupils of "the classroom."
"Doesn't anybody ever escape?" she asked wonderingly.
"I did!" Sabina was suddenly alive. "It was a Chatelaine, a gorgeous creature named Candice. She got me out of here... we were so happy! And then they came... "
"You were lovers?"
"Oh, yes." The voice of the weeping girl took on a new life. "But much more than that. Candice kept me a prisoner... I was her own slavegirl... and I loved it."
Angrily and with shame, Glynis recalled her own willing subservience to a grinning Rolfe Campys, naked and wanton and meek. "It's this damn place, the Seigneury," she muttered bleakly. "It does something to girls. It changes us. I'm not a bit like I was... "
"But which of us is!" Sabina's was a pathetic cry in a wilderness of frustration.
"Maybe we all crawl like whipped bitches when it actually happens to us."
"Whip us enough and we'll do anything? Is that it?"
"Sort of. But it's more... there's something inside a girl she doesn't know about until... until... " Sabina wriggled helplessly against her bonds. "Well, look at us now! Al breasts and pussies and marked skin, and helpless. We used to be...
people. But now we're neat packages of sex in safe storage until someone wants to use us, part of an inventory."
Glynis rubbed her chin thoughtfully into the softness of captive hair. "And you've glimpsed how we come to accept... ! Not that we can do a damn thing about it!
But after awhile there's an inevitability "
"Mmmm... a slave mentality. No hope."
Sabina, absently, licked the nipple against which her cheek had rested. "Did you know we're in for , something... they've got roles for us?"
"What sort of roles? Something beastly?"
"I don't know. I just heard them talking and laughing about it. But we might be like this for a week before anything happens."
"But when it does, we won't like it?"
"That's for sure." Sabina gently bit the nipple she had made captive.
"Glynis... ? Glynis... do you want to... ? Do you want to do it...?"
Glynis was suddenly hungry for female lips... anywhere! "But can we?" she asked wistfully. "We're so rotten helpless."
"We can try."
They managed their first laugh together, a wry acknowledgement of a helplessness few lovers ever know. "We'll have to experiment a bit," Sabina suggested shyly.
"Yes... oh yes!" Glynis Woodhaye tossed away the reticence of years. "How should I...?"
They managed with surprising ease.
The Seigneury was doing itself proud. From the costumes, Glynis judged the date as close to 1600 A.D. The place, an English village green. A pond. Off to one side a set of stocks in which drooped the nude figure of a girl with neck and wrists firmly prisoned. Close by, the grim starkness of a whip ping post awaited its victim.
The two girls exchanged rueful grimaces of dismay. The wrists and elbows of both Glynis and Sabina were harshly tied behind their backs, the ropes tight enough to quell revolt. Above their breasts, a drawstring held firmly in place a penitent's shroud of white. Beneath it and above they were nude. The clutch of the Bailiff and his helper were harsh on bare and helpless arms.
"Best not to fight, my pretties. It will but add more to thy guilt."
"Of what are we guilty?" Glynis had asked as the ropes bit tighter into her flesh.
"An ye know not, ye'll soon be told, lass." The Bailiff's chuckle had been good-naturedly menacing. Verging on despair, Sabine had demanded. "Are we to be executed?"
Her fearful question was treated as high humour. "Nay, nay, my pretty doxie," the Bailiff guffawed. "Not if ye be blest wi' a good pair O' lungs and the will to use 'em."
It was then they saw and recognized their fate. The long swiveled plank with its crude chair... beside the pond. Waiting!
"I've let no doxie die yet, miss. I knows when to pull, so I do... and there's allus help enow."
The crowd milled about them, denying retorts or pleas or questions. The two captives were jostled by male and female alike, avid to behold a girl's wealed skin beneath the hemp, and to assay the contours only sparsely hidden beneath the shroud, a prudery contradicted by a rope girdle at the waist, telling of curved delights to be punished. There were comments: "A love some pair, I see no shrewishness."
A woman's voice, venomous: "Oh aye, ye'll see naught O' what they be where thy eyes be searching."
"A fine pair O' trollops, I'll be bound."
"A lusty pair O' tearsheets, I've nae doot."
"They'd make 'ee hemp thy back. Roger me boy."
"They'll nae be so bonny come nightfall."
None of it was comforting. No pity. No compassion. They were already condemned - a pair of guilty girls being led to their just desserts. The crowd's fervid conviction in the rightness of what was taking place was frightening. Glynis longed to shout at them, to rail against the hypocrisy of the Masque - the enacted falsehood! But was it a false hood!
It was real! It was happening! Now!
The circle formed, individuals, groups and pairs.
Surrounding the guiltless penitents and their guards within a ring of anticipation.
The inevitable scribe appeared with his scroll and his seal and his sober mien.
Portentously he intoned his proclamation.
"The woman, Woodhaye, forward."
A rough thrust left Glynis standing alone, facing the man who would read her sentence, the ropes bitter in her flesh, her heart pounding against the injustice of this farce which was so cruelly authentic.
"Glynis Woodhaye, thou hast been judged of a shrewish and vixenish tongue.
Thy sentence be to wear the bridle of a common scold until thy heart be softened and thy spirit contrite. Hast aught to say?"
"You know I am innocent and that this playacting is cruelly wrong." Her eyes roved, seeking compassion. "Won't any of you help... "
"Bailiff, do thy duty."
It appeared from nowhere. A cage thing, a grid of iron, hinged and padlocked.
There was an orifice... too big for her wrist, her arm, her ankle... ! But too small... ! Surely too small... ? Glynis cried silently: "Not my neck, please not my neck!"
It was for her neck.
A girl's throat is tiny, of a circumference unbelievably small when metal is fashioned into a collar to be locked snugly about it in a band of iron.
"Hold still, lass, lest I hurt thee. And open wide thy mouth."
The iron spatula on the inside of the grille pointed at her like a derisive finger. Heavy and flat to compress her tongue. On each surface points, not long or sharp enough to pierce, but punitive in intent. A most grievous horror to thrust within a maiden mouth. Glynis gulped and, for moments of panic, felt certain she must choke or suffer wounds. But the torturing gag had been cunningly wrought for a girl's discomfort so that when it was safe within the refuge she unwillingly provided she was able to close her distended lips around its ugly base.
Her metal punishment was heavy and would be hard to bear. But it embraced the contours of her head with a shrewd intimacy sufficient to accept enough of the load so that its constriction round her neck would not impair her breathing. The Bailiff carefully impelled both hinged sections fast together and snapped firmly the brutal lock with an ominous sound of finality. Glynis Woodhaye was bridled.
"Let no man render succor to a scold."
The dry old morbid voice relinquished its punished penitent with a final adjuration.
Peering in shame through the iron lattice of her portable prison, Glynis wondered angrily how she could be helped. Only the Bailiff with his key to the iron misery locked safely round her neck could give release. With her arms so cruelly bound she could not touch or explore its implacability. Her mouth and her tongue were working frantically to cope with the muting prong they could not eject which rendered her more silent than a mouthful of wool, its vicious points a constant reminder of her nonexistent delinquency.
"Thou art free to walk, lass. But let thy steps lead thee from this green, and ye'll regret it." The Bailiff winked and patted her bound arm before he turned his attention to his other prisoner.
Free to walk! It was a cruelty. She could mingle with the crowd, or stand and let them jostle her. She knew herself the focus of every eye. She had never known a greater shame or felt a more demeaning humiliation. There were titters. She was being laughed at. She was a nagging female who was being taught a proper lesson.
The women stared at her with malicious satisfaction, the men with lust.
"Stand forth the woman, Miles."
Now there were two of them. Sabina was shoved forward to stand close by. Her stricken gaze flashed sympathy for her bridled companion in punishment, and apprehension... for herself!
"Sabina Miles, thou hast been judged a wanton, disposing thy flesh carnally in lust. Have ye aught to say?"
"It's nonsense! Let us go. I... "
"Ye be sentenced to be fastened in the ducking stool and to be most rigorously immersed for as many times as may seem fitting to thy temper."
"No! Oh no...!"
"Bailiff, see to it."
Suddenly, Glynis was a spectator like the rest.
Jostled and sneered at in her disgrace, she allowed herself to follow with the rest as they converged upon the pond. Both of Sabina's arms were held as she was propelled towards the ugly contrivance awaiting her with its terrible promise.
"Tie the wench tightly, Bailiff. Secure her well."
"Oh aye, sir. She'll no be taking a walk."
To Sabina it was another nightmare. She supposed she would not die. But her life would be in the balance again and again. At the best this punishment was a flirtation with death. And she was so helpless! The ropes were more cruel and compelling than the hands. As she neared her fate she assessed it fearfully.
The timber was stout and long across its pivot.
The stool was prosaically a chair much like any other, but rigidly functional. She was lifted bodily and placed between its arms, her own were lowered behind its back and tied down hard without their bindings being disturbed. Tight bands around her belly clamped her back against the frame. Her legs were separated, an ankle tied brutal y to each of the chair's front legs. Held fast, she could barely make the slightest move.
"We'll not gag thee, lass. Ye'll need to spit a bit."
It was too awful. It could not happen. Searching her mind for protest, Sabina could cry out only. "No! No... no!" uselessly as she felt the thing to which she was tied begin to lift and to swing. She surged instinctively against her bindings...
Suddenly, beneath her, there was water where there had been grass. Looking down in despair she sensed its depth, deeper and deeper as willing hands swung her out to the limit of the stool's arc. She had never been more frightened in her life.
It was a play. A dramatic show in which the audience must be cheated of nothing.
Every nuance of the victim's anguish would be savoured to the full. Sabina had expected to be quickly ducked, a sudden breathless immersion into the cold, cold depth. When her bare bound feet entered the water, water of a shocking frigidity, she screamed and screamed again.
But it was to be made more awful for her and more pleasurable for those who watched. She was delivered into the black maw of the pond an inch at a time so that the cold crept up to claim her as she was allowed to sink slowly into the dark blackness which her fevered imagination filled with hungry waiting monsters and with death.
After her first screams, the cold and the fear took Sabina's breath. She struggled in a terrible frenzy to be free. Only her head could move. It tossed wildly in an abandon of despair. When the water possessed her loins, then her belly, then her breasts, she screamed again... Only when it wet her chin did she have the saving instinct of one last deep breath.
For the first few moments of total immersion, Sabina knew a strange relief. The cold was no colder, and beneath the surface, she was hidden from the hateful eyes. Her lungs held air. Unconsciously, she strained incessantly against the ropes by which she was rendered immobile. But she could not move. Her hands, tied back and down, wrenched at her shoulders, thrusting forth her breasts, breasts soon to become frenzied in a need to breathe.
It was worse than being whipped, worse than anything Sabina could think of. It had a quality of helplessness surpassing all others. She was being carefully drowned and could not move a limb. She could look up and behold the opaque sunlight on the water above her head, but she was well below the surface, and must impotently struggle in her chair awaiting the whim of others that she live or die, other hands and other faces she could not even see.
For the bound Sabina, the moment when she was first compelled to jettison the air bursting from her lungs was one she would relive forever. A miserly spending of the stuff of life, a treasure she could not replace. In an agony of longing she watched the precious bubbles rise up and break the now placid surface above her head. Surely it would tell them it was time! Surely... ? Surely... ? Despairingly she allowed her lungs to empty. Fervently she longed to scream.
The water embraced her lovingly. Sabina now belonged to the water. In entered and caressed every crevice of her being except her tight closed lips and the nostrils which still grudgingly expelled enough of the last of life to keep it at bay. Almost tenderly, and with gentle patience, the water waited for her to surrender so it could enter and possess her utterly.
The bound penitent's return to life was relief ineffable but without joy. The Bailiff's judgment had told him the exact moment the water had breached his prisoner's defense. It had taken slow heavings to lift her above the surface of the pond. Thus, Sabrina came back into view gasping and retching, struggling to expel the trespassing fluid that had sought her death. She coughed and spat shamelessly. The thought of being again lowered was a tormenting terror she could not face.
"That will teach 'ee not to spread thy legs, girl." The woman's voice evoked amusement. Sabina scarcely heard it. But others followed.
"Thy skin be cleaner than thy conscience, lass."
" 'Tis holy water for thy sins."
"Dids't find aught to pleasure thee below?"
It seemed that she must pant for hours. Her strained lungs were like a bellows, her breasts heaving frantically. But she could not move. The chair held her. Sabina was fearful she would be ducked again before she had gained breath to meet the ordeal.
Pitifully, as soon as she had regained speech, she cried: "No more! Oh not again!
Please... not again! You'll kill me. Oh please, let me do anything else for you...
anything... anything!"
They ducked her again.
Glynis watched in frantic concern. Gagged with iron, she could add no plea of her own. Detestable as was her punishment, it paled to insignificance beside the cruelty she must now witness. In sympathy she shared each of Sabina's gasping breaths, seeing the lovely breasts heave beneath the thin white stuff now plastered to the contours of her body so as to make her nude before the villager's avid gaze. When the stool once more plunged its occupant beneath the surface she moaned in a silent agony of apprehension. The plunge this time was instant and without warning.
Surely no girl could endure... !
The Bailiff had a keen and experienced eye for feminine distress. In aided him in extracting the ultimate agony without losing a life. Standing at ease, he directed Sabina's torture with curt commands. His helpers were both brawny and willing.
Each time they raised the drenched and gasping girl above the surface he gauged her condition, assessing her readiness for the next immersion and her endurance against the torture. After the fifth raising and lowering of the chair and its helpless and innocent occupant he called a halt.
"Let her catch her breath, lads," he guffawed coarsely. "If she were on her back for ye, you'd gi' her a pause betwixt humpings."
They held her steady, looking hungrily at the dripping loveliness they were punishing, pleased with their work.
"Make it fast, me lads. While the wench dries and gets a fresh thirst get thy selves a mug of ale."
It was done. Sabina sat high above the water, too preoccupied with the distresses of clinging to life to pay much attention to her audience. But as she gradually gained strength and poise her eyes sought out Glynis and offered a wan smile which the bridled girl could return only by the nod of her head. Never were two maidens more sorely helpless or delivered to their enemies.
"Trust the Seigneury, poppet. They never let you down."
"But, Rolfe, it's so cruel! How on earth do they get the girls! But it's beautiful, so beautiful I'm wet between my legs."
Glynis froze. She knew the male voice all too well. The female did not matter. She turned in anger.
"Examine the one in the bridle, beloved. She's mad enough to pop."
He was hard to recognize. The clothes... and a wig. As though magnetized they walked toward each other.
"Oh, Rolfe... " The girl's hand was on his arm. "The way they've got her fixed... ! Wowie!"
"Want to try it, pet? I can arrange...?"
"She can't do a thing, can she! And that awful thing on her face... it's locked round her neck! Even if her hands were free...?"
"A bridled beauty, poppet. Do you a world of good, too."
"Oh, Rolfe...!"
Standing close, they eyed each other. The girl should be warned to flee for her life.
But Glynis knew herself unable to warn... even with head motions she could convey no intelligible message. Instead, she gazed steadily at Rolfe Campys, hoping to stare him down.
"The maid be passing sweet to be a scold," he observed jauntily in the vernacular. "'Tis well to cure her while still young."
"Could'st not whip the wench?" His companion aped his mood.
"Strip off her shift, poppet. You'll find her well marked. I've no doubt."
"Rolfe, could I?"
"She's bare beneath. Lift it enough for thy need" Glynis stepped back from the reaching hand. She would hide her shame in flight. But she was halted by Campys' stern command. "Stand still, girl. Let the lady have her pleasure. Move, and I'll have thee taken to the whipping post anon."
The threat was enough. Glynis stood miserably while the enraptured girl sought and found the shameful weals upon her flesh. Other passersby stopped to also enjoy the fleshly evidences of her transgressions.
"Rolfe, could you order her whipped... really?"
"Tell you what, pet. I'll have her whipped for as many lashes as you care to name, providing you match her stroke for stroke on your own pretty hide."
"Oh Rolfe... what an idea! As if any girl... " The feminine protest trailed into silence, a silence breathlessly broken. "Rolfe, could you? I mean, would you...? Would you really make that happen if I wanted?"
"I may make it happen if you don't want, sweet-heart. " Rolfe was dryly amused.
"You're all together too foxy for your own good."
They ambled away. But before they left Rolfe Campys returned the captive's stare for stare. He winked in a frank acknowledgement of his awareness of her plight and the words she could not speak. Mingling with the rest of the make-believe villagers, they left behind a tied and bridled maiden who was close to tears.
After half an hour, the Bailiff returned. Sabina screamed steadily as he and his men slowly lowered her into the pond.
CHAPTER THREE - The Price of a Slave
Miss Margaret Connors was well aware of her mood. She supposed all attractive secretaries got such moods sometimes. A pixie mood... dangerous! Her voice reflected it. "Rolfe, make me a Chatelaine?"
"No can do, poppet. Sorry."
"Yes, you can. I know you can, I'm not frightened of you anymore." She wrinkled her nose at the imperturbable idol on the other side of her desk. "You can do anything at the Seigneury. I think you're the Seigneur himself."
"And if I were - membership costs more than you'll ever own."
"Pay it for me. You'd never miss it."
"Beloved, are you offering your charms for cash?" Rolfe raised a sardonic eyebrow. "I've been offering to seduce you for years. Free!"
"No you haven't, not really." Margaret retorted pertly. "It's a game you play. It amuses you to flutter the heart of the poor little secretary who does all the mundane chores for a sort of Arabian Nights Kingdom she's never allowed to see. You probably practice on all the girls... the ones who don't matter."
"Probably even worse. Rolfe, what happens to all those girls I sweet talk into taking the five thousand dollars?"
"Take it yourself and find out, poppet."
"But they never come back for a second round."
"It's a one-night stand. They are told that. So are you."
"But for that money... it's funny they don't try, I've been at this desk several years, and none of them... ! Rolfe, what happened to Chrissy Ragan?"
"Do I know the lady?"
"You've probably forgotten her among the multitude of breasts and buttocks and... other things you wallow in daily," Margaret said tartly, "but my record shows she took the job over a year ago... "
"And hasn't been seen since!" Campys was amused.
"Oh, alright, make fun of me. But there was a fellow in here yesterday, his name's Atwood. He wants to buy her."
She had caught his interest. "And what's the market on Chrissy Ragan? Did he give you a quote?"
"He says he knows she's kept a prisoner."
"The plot thickens."
"Rolfe, I think you fob everybody off with silly remarks like that. Because you're Rolfe Campys you get away with it. But Atwood claims there's girls all over the place... out there. And that they're all prisoners."
"Why come to you?"
"Because he bought a sequence. He arranged it with me in this office. That's how he came to fall in love with Chrissy."
"Never met him. I can ask Sister Amaldis. She or Maslin will have set it up. But this purchase thing...?"
"He said we could call it an indemnity."
Rolfe waved a negligent hand. "You can deal with it, sweetheart. You and this office are our public relations. You're a real treasure at it."
"I'm not sure about this one. Atwood's nice. I like him. He's a good type...
and he's in love. That's the kicker."
"Offer to sleep with him."
"Rolfe, be sensible. Look, I'm a girl and a romantic, I don't see why Dick Atwood and Chrissy Ragan can't have each other. If they can't, then there's something wrong."
"Take your clothes off, poppet."
Margaret Conners' voice took on a tinge of the maternal. "Rolfe, you're a spoiled brat. Half the girls in the world would take their clothes off for you, and so would I... under the right circumstances."
"Don't tell me about the right circumstances."
Rolfe deliberately made his voice weary. "I don't want to hear. And I'm not all that concerned with looking at your bush, I want to see if your figure rates."
"You know it does. You mentally undress me every time you come."
"Alright then. Trade yourself for this Chrissy Ragan wench."
In the ensuing silence Miss Margaret Conners became aware of traitorous emotions.
The pixie was telling her of high adventure and romance, of thrills and eroticisms she had always firmly repressed. There were other voices but they were muted by the momentum of the moment. Her own was breathless. "Chrissy is out there...?"
Campys shrugged. He was glimpsing the development of an amusing situation. "If she is, beloved, I can make sure you meet her before she flees into her lover's arms... her liberty or yours?"
She was unsure of him, and of herself. Of late she had wryly recognized her value to the Seigneury as a wholesome American female, proper, respectable, intelligent. A type to inspire confidence in the ebb and flow of seekers for whom the office was maintained. Recognized, too, that she guessed then what she hesitantly guessed now she would never have become the Seigneury's downtown representative. And yet... !
Her pixie was persistent... "If I said yes, you'd be shocked out of your socks." It was a challenge.
"Hmmmm, not really. You're bored. You're reaching for the fire to see if it's hot."
"What would happen to me, Rolfe?"
"You'd be burned."
"Then all those girls I've sent out there, so neatly documented, they've all been... burned?"
"Dammit, Margaret, the sales pitch you give 'em says that. Five thousand dollars for... well, for discomfort."
"I've salved my conscience with that five thousand," Margaret admitted slowly, "but I never guessed I was selling them into slavery. Rolfe, is that what I've been doing?"
"It's possible to be a happy slave, y'know."
"That doesn't answer my question."
He sighed. "Lurid imaginings have given you hot pants, love."
"If I went out there... ? Would I never return?"
"Hungry for drama, aren't you, sweetheart?"
Campys grinned at her quizzically. "So, okay, take a chance. Exchange your freedom for Chrissy's. Find out for yourself what happens."
"But you could tell me. Here. Now?"
"Mmmm, honeypot, it's not quite like that. The Seigneury is a world of its own.
Things happen there. And people react... not always the way they'd expect."
"I have to know. It bothers me. Oh Rolfe...!"
"Hmmmm, I was afraid of that. I'd sooner you stayed right at this desk, Margaret... " He was suddenly decisive. "Tell you what, I'll draw you a map. It will show young Atwood exactly how to rescue his Chrissy. I'll make sure his path is saved for him to find her."
She was alight with pleasure. "And they can live happily ever after?"
"I didn't promise that. I said he could find her. If he's clever and shrewd and resourceful he can get her out... " She slumped. "Oh, Rolfe, you're going to use them to make a production. A cat and mouse...?"
"What's wrong with that, pet? I'll make sure he's got a sporting chance."
"It's cruel. Why can't you just let her go?"
"I suppose that could be arranged. I've made you an offer."
Margaret Connors could not deny the thrill that tingled her being. Here were all the ingredients of romance. And Campys would surely never allow her to be harmed!
"I accept it."
Campys regarded her with affection. He nodded sagely. "Very well, poppet. Maybe it's something you have to do. I'll draw you the map. Do what you like with it. But, two days from now a packet will be delivered to you here. It will contain pills. Go home after lunch and take them. They will put you into a deep, deep sleep. When you wake up you'll be in another world."
The tingle persisted. "Drugged and kidnapped?" He sauntered round the desk and kissed her.
"Remember Pandora's Box, poppet?"
"Oh, Rolfe, that bad!"
He kissed her again. "Open the lid and find out." Breathless, she watched him leave.
Rolfe Campys, the idol of a thousand screens had kissed her... Rolfe Campys... !
The tingle was definitely stronger.
"Miss Connors, are you alright... ? Miss Connors...?"
It was a girl's voice, sweetly anxious. A long way off but getting closer, stirring a memory.
"Miss Connors... you're waking up... " There was a cool wetness on her forehead. But something was wrong. Or at least, not right. Something odd... !
"Miss Connors... don't be frightened. Please don't be frightened... I'm Chrissy Ragan. Remember me?"
It was a delightful voice, offsetting a strange discomfort. And the name! Of course she remembered! Miss Margaret Connors opened her eyes.
It was a strange and limited view. A broad metal band! It circled a girl's slender wrist... No doubt it was the hand which now sponged her forehead dry. There was a clinking of chain...
"Oh, I'm so glad! You were in such a deep sleep. Please do try and not be frightened. Remember I'm right here."
Frightened! Why frightened! There was something tremendously comforting about the girlish voice. Chrissy wasn't frightened. Margaret managed to focus on a pair of concerned blue eyes and wide generous lips. She reached out her hand... !
Margaret sat up. It was a hazy, wobbly sort of return to a world seemingly boxed in by elbows. The elbows were her own. Without awareness of cliche, she asked: "Where am I?"
"Oh dear, don't you know?" Chrissy's concern remained urgent. "You mean, you aren't doing this for the money?"
It was beginning to fall into place. But Margaret was primarily concerned with a strange instability. She had no hands and no arms but a surfeit of elbows. "Why are my elbows sticking out there?" she asked bemusedly.
"Oh, I knew that would bother you. It's so silly really... just the collar and the handcuffs."
A collar! A collar went round a girl's neck... ?
Margaret found the association helpful. It explained the odd sensation of discomfort.
And handcuffs! They went on a girl's wrists... ? Yes of course... ! And the two together... !
"They're just being unkind," said Chrissy gently. "It amuses them. The collar's locked on your neck and the handcuffs are locked to the collar. You have to keep your hands behind your head."
Margaret gingerly verified the information. It was correct. If she struggled, even just a little, the discomfort got worse. "I'm helpless," she said with an air of vast discovery.
"But I'll look after you." Chrissy rearranged some locks of captive hair. "Just don't worry about a thing."
"Not worry!" Margaret felt indignant. "Why wouldn't I worry!"
"Well I suppose... if you weren't told or warned, or anything... " Chrissy was perplexed. "But, honest, you don't need to be alarmed."
By an effort of will she cleared her head. Clarity of mind and vision replaced the drug. Ruefully, she recalled Pandora's Box. Without conscious volition she had raised the lid. She looked down...
"I'm naked!"
"So am I," Chrissy volunteered apologetically. "Seems like whenever something's sort of special, or when we've been bad, we always lose our clothes."
The shock of nudity dissipated the last of the mists. In a most urgent need to cover herself, Margaret fought...
"Oh please! Don't do that. Oh, Miss Connors, please don't struggle. You can't possibly get loose, and you'll only hurt yourself."
"Cover me with something... anything!"
"There isn't anything," Chrissy mourned. "Don't take on so. There's only me here." She paused doubtfully. "I expect they've fixed you like that to tell you what you are. I mean, so's you'll get the feel of being defenseless... I remember my first time... " She giggled cheerfully. "I thought I'd die."
"What do you mean? What am I?"
"I suppose we're slaves, Miss Connors, I don't know what else to call it."
Digesting this confirmation of her worst suspicions, Margaret widened her comprehension and was suddenly guilt-stricken. "Oh, Chrissy! You're naked, too!
And you're all chained...!"
Chrissy chuckled. "Well, sort of."
Margaret was shocked, her own plight momentarily forgotten. She understood now her first sight of the metal band and the wrist. Metal circlets were around Chrissy's wrists, her ankles and her neck. From each of them a chain trailed its length to rings in the concrete wall.
"But that's terrible! You're chained everywhere!"
"It's not so bad, Miss Connors, not really. I can do most everything we need.
But I can't get out of this cell. That's for sure."
"Cell!" Margaret took a further survey. "Good heavens, it is a cell! Those bars!
And that great lock! We're actually locked in a cell!"
Chrissy was amused. "Well, yes, but don't feel so bad about it. I suppose if we weren't locked up some way we'd both go home."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing. But there's no way they're going to let us do that."
Chrissy's logic was indisputable. It obviously sustained her in adversity. She was a remarkably cheerful prisoner. Margaret recalled Campys' assertion that the Seigneury's impact was not always predictable. She looked up and down the lengths of chain by which her companion was irrevocably attached to the wall, puzzled and curious.
"But, Chrissy, your neck, your hands, your feet? It's crazy. Even without any chains at all we couldn't open the door."
Chrissy giggled. "I think it's not so much to stop me getting out as to stop someone from taking me out."
"What's the difference?"
"They think someone is going to try and help me escape. But they'd be foxed and so would I." She struggled ruefully. "There's five chains fixed on me. Each takes a different key. Without five keys Sir Gallahad would need a cutting torch or something. I'll feel awfully embarrassed if someone did come and found me sort of like a permanent fixture."
"But you're so cheerful about it all!"
Chrissy grinned amiably. "Well, a girl sort of has to roll with the punches, Miss Connors... and I've been here such a long time."
"But your bottom! It's all marked! You've been... " With a rattle of chain, Chrissy twisted to view her wounds. "Lovely, aren't they?" she agreed brightly.
"Chrissy, they're terrible!"
"Well, for a minute while you're getting 'em."
Chrissy conceded. "But otherwise, they're yummy. Don't you love getting your bottom caned?"
Margaret was aware of chasms. Nothing was quite as it should be, including herself.
She looked down at her extravagantly exposed nudity and tugged fretfully at the metal bands so tight upon her wrists. She had a shrinking vision of a man laughing at her through the bars, and debated the practicability of squeezing her nakedness into a corner and exposing only her back. It was frightening. But about it, too, was a distinct flavour of farce. Campys would certainly be chuckling.
"I've never had my bottom caned, and I don't intend to start," she said tartly.
"They'll do it for you, Miss Connors," Chrissy explained innocently. "You're almost certain to get your bottom caned, or whipped, or something. It's a sort of...
well, it happens all the time."
The chasm widened and deepened. Margaret resolutely quashed nostalgia for her desk in the plush office. "Is it Mr. Atwood, Chrissy? He came to see me. He's sweet."
"Mmmmmuh, and he canes so beautifully."
Chrissy was suddenly ecstatic. "But he can't possibly get me out of here. I told him so." She was suddenly a young frightened girl. "He's not going to try something foolish, is he?"
"Yes, he is."
Chrissy held forth a steel-encircled wrist and pendant chain. "That explains these, then. They don't usually keep me chained like this." She indulged in a dismal reflection. "And they know! Oh, damn!"
"Chrissy, if he comes... ? Do exactly as he says. Or as I tell you. Don't argue."
"Miss Connors... ! You know something."
Margaret pondered. Did she know anything? She was naked and helpless, locked in a cell with a chained girl. By rights, Chrissy should now be free, but she was not free!
Now they were both captive. Out there somewhere Campys would be weaving a web!
And Dick Atwood! But suppose... suppose... suppose... ! The collar about her neck was tight, tight, tight! "I thought I knew something," she admitted wanly.
"Now, like this, I'm not sure."
"Dick? Is he coming... really? Is he?" Chrissy was radiant.
Margaret Connors found herself fervently hoping that Atwood would indeed use the map Campys may, or may not, have given him. For she and Chrissy to be abandoned like this would be too, too cruel. But the tiny cell and the shackles were not conducive to confidence. "Yes, he's coming," she said with a certainty she did not feel. "Chrissy, you're going to escape."
She was enveloped in a metallic embrace, a whirlwind of links, all cold on her bare skin. She was being kissed and kissed again. "Oh, Miss Connors... Miss Connors...!" Chrissy's head nestled between the strained handcuffed arms. The girl's happiness filled the cell with a warm glow, her loins were instinctively thrusting... And you're coming with us," she whispered anxiously. "You are, aren't you?"
"I will if I can."
"But of course you can! You must!" Margaret kissed back. But made no promise.
Sleep does not come easily to a collared girl whose hands are cuffed behind her neck.
Lying beside a sleeping Chrissy on the hard bench, fitfully dozing between angry remorse at what she had got herself into, Margaret became aware of Dick Atwood's presence with a thrill of utter relief. Campys had kept his word... !
"Chrissy, it's me, Dick. You there! You alright?"
The male voice was anxious but without panic.
With the flood of light, Margaret sat up, blinking, then edged herself from the bench and stood erect. Because of her captive elbows, she was obliged to turn full face to peer through the bars at the man beyond. Not until she had done so did she remember her condition! But what did nakedness matter now! And Chrissy was naked too! She stood, tense and hopeful while a man rummaged in the passage and swore.
"All these instructions... ! And lousy keys! Keys! Holy cow!"
Enviously, Margaret stood discreetly by while Atwood embraced his darling. There was something wickedly stirring about young love, it was so movingly potent.
Chrissy's chains clinked relentlessly. Obviously the Seigneury was turning a blind eye and deaf ear.
"Good gosh... Miss Connors!"
"Yes, it's me, Mr. Atwood. Excuse my blush... and I won't try and cross my legs or anything silly."
"But to fasten you like that! You...!"
"It's for the good of my soul... or something."
"Darling, the keys?"
"I've got 'em! But I don't understand... Quick, give me your hands."
The irrepressible Chrissy giggled as the first and second keys failed to unlock her fetter. "Dick, give 'em to me," she insisted, "while you look after Miss Connors."
Embarrassed. Dick Atwood waved a sheet of paper at the blushing nude he had known only as the Seigneury's city representative. "Do you know what this says, Miss Connors?"
"Only vaguely."
"It's a map, and it's a good map. It got me in here. It told me where to find the keys... But it's crazy! This whole thing... I can't believe... "
"I'm afraid it's by special arrangement, Mr. Atwood."
"I figured that. Don't tell me you...?"
Chrissy made ecstatic sounds of joy as a chain clattered to the floor. "She's going to come with us, Dick. She absolutely must. They gave you her keys, too, didn't they?"
"Yes, but...!"
Another shackle fell from a slender wrist. "But what, darling?"
"Here, you read it." Atwood thrust Campys' instructions at Margaret's breasts.
"I'm afraid I haven't any hands."
"Oh damn! What an ass! Up with the fingers... " For whole moments Margaret wanted only to savour the wonder of getting back her hands. She massaged her wrists and neck with a satisfaction purely sensual. Then, realizing urgency, she grabbed the map. As she read, she could visualize Campys' sardonic features... laughing! It was as though he spoke the words: "There exists the choice. Take both girls at the risk of almost certain apprehension. Or chain Miss Connors as you found Miss Ragan. Leave her thus chained. Lock door, replace keys. Your exit with Miss Ragan is then guaranteed."
Cruel, cruel, cruel! Margaret's heart thumped painfully. For her, no freedom! She might have guessed. Ruefully she handed back the map. "Simple, isn't it!" Her bright smile was false.
"You knew?"
"I'd known there'd be something." She hesitated, toying with hope. "I'm staying, of course. I absolutely must. I'll let you chain me. Please hurry."
Atwood was distressed. "We can't possibly. It's just not... "
"You can and you will." Margaret turned herself into the decisive woman of the office and the desk. "Chain me." Hurt by the two stricken faces, she added: "It's part of a plan... something you don't need to worry about... honest!"
How strange it was! Whimsically, Margaret saw herself as a maiden offering herself for sacrifice as she extended hands and feet and bent her neck for the heavy shackles still warm from Chrissy's flesh. There was something sensual in their embrace. "Let Chrissy put them on me," she ordered, as though shunning a male hand upon her nakedness. "Chrissy, don't feel badly. Do it."
"I can't. It's wrong! You're so lovely... " How strange a thing to say at such a time!
Margaret Connors had never thought of herself as "lovely," and yet... ! With a hand still free, she clasped the silken head and drew it close. Chrissy's lips were trembling as they were kissed. "You must do it," Margaret said gently. "I want you to do it. There's no other way."
"But, to leave you... helpless... and naked...!"
"It's the way I found you, Chrissy."
"But the things they'll do to you! You're too beautiful... "
"I know, Chrissy, I know."
Each circlet latched upon her flesh with its own decisive click. Snug, inescapable.
Margaret gasped at their finality. Her quiet smile had become serene. She bestowed it equally upon the man and the girl as the fetters possessed her one by one under Chrissy's nimble fingers.
"Miss Connors...?" Dick Atwood had glimpsed truth. His face was concerned. "You're not doing this... for us? I mean... you're not the price of Chrissy's freedom...?"
From a well of untapped courage Margaret Connors trilled laughter. "What a delightful thought!" She raised newly chained hands to cover her breasts, then let them fall. Bravely she lied: "No, this is a thing between someone and me... it doesn't matter. Chrissy, hurry! My neck."
They were uncertain. But she had convinced them enough that they would go. They parted from her grudgingly and with kisses. It felt strange to possess hands free to embrace yet weighted with metal she could not escape. She stood, nakedly, and watched them slip away. Watched the locking of the door she could not even reach within the compass of her chains. She heard the shuffling and the disposal of the keys. Then raised a shackled hand in one last good-bye.
The departing lovebirds even remembered to turn out the light.
Standing in the dark cell, Miss Margaret Connors refused to panic. She considered Chrissy with joy, and Campys with hope. She was an actress in a well-staged play.
For the moment, hers was the leading role. She sighed, as from a vast effort now past, then seated herself upon the bench and began, whimsically, to play with her fetters, testing their grip upon her flesh, tracing their con tours, gauging the weight of them as she moved. She found a small diversion in rising and exploring the radius of the tether they imposed before they snapped taut and held her fast. Ashamed, she thought of a dog and its leash to the kennel.
Suddenly tired, Margaret sank back down upon the wood. The chains might be heavy but they prohibited nothing save escape. She lay back and found herself more comfortable than in the time before. Thinking of Rolfe Campys, she drifted into sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR - The Lusting Lash
"You can take my place if you like," said the girl ahead. "Some girls like to get in there and get it over with instead of this suspense." She grinned ruefully. "I'm a coward, I'll put it off for as long as I can every time."
Sabina was tempted. It would be good to get rid of the disgusting humiliation beyond the fretwork of the grille. But she needed to learn, and she was learning.
"Oh well, if it's your first time, you may as well pick up what hints you can," the girl accepted matter-of-factly. She kicked at the chain linking her ankles. "At least I can't run away."
"It's a turn-on for the guy who plays the priest?"
Sabina ventured. "He sits there with an erection while we blab out all this sexy fiction?"
"Right. And we'd better make it good. He's the one who dishes out the penances. The fewer our sins, the rougher our punishments." The girl bestowed a comradely grin. "Confess a lot about your nipples and down between your legs. Most of 'em like that."
The murmur of lurid details and stern admonitions had been indecently percolating into Sabina's ears for some time. She was wondering if repetition was acceptable.
She could not imagine herself spewing out original filth. She, too, kicked fretfully at her foot fetters and held up her handcuffed wrists. "With us like this, the guy's safe enough from assault, isn't he?" she mourned.
The girl waved away handcuffs as too mundane for comment. "There's the one good thing about this deal," she continued earnestly. "One of us is going to get home free."
Sabina had been told the rules. The penitent who pleased the pseudo-father confessor most did no penance. "What do the rest of us get?" she inquired without enthusiasm.
"The best 'we' can hope for is a beast of a whipping," the girl vouchsafed glumly. "It gets worse from there."
"How much worse?" Sabina had need of encouragement.
"I got hung up by my thumbs once," the girl admitted listlessly. "Another time I had to stand in the pillory all day. Of course, that's in addition to getting whipped."
Sabina shrank inwardly. She could feel the weals leaping into searing life upon her skin. "But don't you get to know what pleases him?" she asked hopefully.
"It's never the same one twice," the girl imparted morosely. "And they're all different... that's how they keep us foxed. You have to try and judge each one, but you don't even get a good look at him in that lousy box," She sighed resignedly.
"There's some who don't like four-letter words... it's so damn difficult." She mused unhappily, then asked brightly. "Say, how'd you like our little white sheets?"
"Oh, our penitent's gown! I wore one before when they ducked me."
"Did you get that!" The girl evinced interest. "I've missed it so far. They don't do it all that often on account of the risk. They killed a girl once. While they were arguing about how long to leave her under, she drowned."
The prosaic account of death at the Seigneury was frightening in its simplicity. For a moment Sabina relived her agony beneath the pond. "We've seen each other around," she said after the shudder. "How long have you been here?"
"Over three years. I gave up trying to escape after the first six months, it's too damn painful when you're caught." She shrugged diffidently. "I'm not 'all that beautiful, that's why I last. They just make me do bits like today. The beauties get the big stellar roles but they're not always around the day after."
"You are, too, beautiful."
"Well, there's types who just seem made to die a tragic and noble death. Guess I'm not one of 'em."
Memories of Candice and the headsman were all too vivid. "Have you actually been there and seen a girl executed?" Sabina asked. "It happened to me. I can't forget it.
They made me think I was going to die, too."
"Oh, sure I've seen it... and I still don't know. A month later you run into the girl you saw killed. I suppose they do it with mirrors or something. But there's some you never do see again, and if you ask too many questions you get punished."
The ornate door opened and a girl emerged. She grinned and shrugged as she went by. Sabina's informant winked and went to take her place. The door closed.
Alone on the bench, Sabina listened. The voice drifting out from the booth had become warm and sparkling, fervid with a desire to please. Evidently her former companion had no desire to be whipped. The waiting girl shrank from the heated disclosures of feminine turpitude. This was one more of the hated compulsions, basically absurd yet frighteningly real. Suppose she defied them and refused to play!
Dismally, she knew she did not have the courage to find out. When the door again opened, she went forward to the mock confessional, trembling.
"Father, I have sinned, I seek absolution."
"The whip absolves thee, child."
It seemed a poor beginning. Nothing about the stuffy little cubicle was encouraging.
Sabina's knees hurt. She suspected the floor on which she knelt had been deliberately pebbled. The shadowy figure of the man seated beyond the fretwork of the partition was smoking a cigar. It was the final insult. The air was close and stale. In disgusted revolt she followed a wild impulse.
"I have nothing to confess, father. I am kept a prisoner and am not allowed to sin."
The heavens did not fall. Cigar smoke continued to drift. No doubt he had heard this one before, too. Sabina shivered.
"You have sinned in your mind. All do. Tell me of it."
Was he being kind, or was he seeking a new thrill? The unhappy captive twisted in indecision, then threw caution to the winds, her plaint rising almost to a wail.
"I thought I could do this, sir, I wanted to try. But I can't. I've been listening... I couldn't say those things... I suppose I could blurt them out but they'd sound phony. I expect I'll be punished for not being able to do what you want.
I'm sorry... " Sabina was breathless. She awaited sentence. "Tell me what punishment you think your insolence deserves." His voice was without emotion. "I don't know, sir."
"Tell me."
"I expect to be whipped."
She heard him sigh. "You may go, child."
They waited in an anteroom. Six apprehensive girls. One would be lucky. Sabina knew it would not be her. It was Myrtle, the assistant Wardress from the prison who bustled in with the five sheets of paper. "This way, kids," she ordered cheerfully.
"Looks like being quite a day."
Half the captives had been there before and knew what to do. Sabina looked at the bare functional place with its array of low tables in an orderly line, and could easily guess their purpose.
"Sabina, stand against the wall and stay there." She was singled out. She knew why. She would get hers last. It would be the worst of all. Stirred by a morbid curiosity, she obeyed Myrtle's command.
"Up on the tables. You can see how to kneel." The five girls watched each other.
It was simple.
They knelt on the tables, their hips against the centre crosspiece. They glanced back to position their ankles wide apart in the half circles open and waiting. Gathering their scraps of flimsy white, they raised them to below their breasts, then bent over the centre frame so that it nestled and dug into their loins as they placed their hands into other half circlets that now would share their wrists with the handcuffs. Each girl was on all fours, supported and bisected by the crossbar beneath her tummy.
"Don't look so startled, love." Myrtle patted her arm before starting a rapid progression down the row of tables with their postured delinquents. As she went she flipped the upper yoke over the positioned ankles. It snapped shut with a click, prisoning the five pairs of feet. She made a return journey down the other side, similarly securing the splayed out hands by which each victim was forced to sustain half her weight.
"Five ripe rumps all in a row," Myrtle chortled.
"Look at 'em. Did you ever see the like?"
It was indeed startling. Five female bottoms proclaimed themselves in exquisite symmetry, each offered its own specific claim to distinction. Al were curved and wickedly vulnerable.
"Fixed like that, those girls are ready for any thing," Myrtle mused aloud.
"Man, what a real horny guy could do with that assortment!"
The fastened females were turning doeful faces from side to side, exchanging commiseration with their neighbor. None could look back to behold a single buttock, but each must be woefully conscious of the exposure of her own. Pudendums peeped in serried array.
"Two ways I can do this," Myrtle explained as though Sabina was a visting V,I,P. "I can go up and down the line or I can finish off one at a time. The darlings aren't sure which they like best. Working the line gives 'em lots of suspense, concentrating on one is worse while it lasts. I just stand there and slice away, they can't move their little butts enough to matter. They mostly make a helluva noise with a quick fifty, and the rest have to listen and wonder what they'll sound like when their time comes."
"It's cruel."
"Oh, I dunno." Myrtle surveyed her waiting task with pleasure. "I'll use the single thong on 'em. It's not too long, won't wrap around. It just nicely laps their little cheeks and leaves the darndest marks. Besides, I can get it up and under for a few...
breaks the monotony for the little dears. "
"It's so unkind. They haven't done anything."
"Bottoms like these are always guilty, love," Myrtle vouchsafed complacently.
"So is yours. They positively plead...!"
Sabina eyed the whip. Its thong was heavy and unkind and shockingly supple. "You shouldn't hit a girl fifty times with a thing like that," she expostulated.
"There's a vacant table, dear. If you want to climb up and ask me real nice to give you fifty good ones I'll take ten apiece off the rest."
Sabina twisted unhappily. It was a favorite Seigneury trick to make a girl feel a bitch if she didn't share a punishment. "I've got enough coming already," she excused dismally.
Myrtle winked confidingly. "You'll be surprised honey. My, my, what a lucky girl...!"
Sabina had little wish to discuss her own punishment. She would sooner not know. At the moment she felt only pity for the uncomfortable maiden! helplessly awaiting pain.
"It's terribly uncomfortable for them," she pointed out "They're going to get awful tired... "
"That ain't their main worry," Myrtle retorted. "Watch this."
Sabina had no choice. She saw the bright weal flame upon the virgin skin and heard the padded thunk of the leather's impact. Heard, too, the gasp of pure agony.
"Myrtle, oh please... not so hard!"
"They always say that," Myrtle explained. "It's cute. At the start they really believe they can't take fifty. They think they'll die or something. Don't do to pay no attention. But you listen, they'll all come up with something."
It was graphically true. Sabina shrank under each blow as Myrtle cut her way from derriere to derriere down the line of defenseless damsels. She could well imagine her own vocal response under the obviously excruciating pain. At each moment of impact there was a startled yelp.
"Oh no! No, oh please...!"
"I can't stand it! Oh, I can't... I can't!"
"Myrtle, not that hard! You don't have to hit us like that!"
"Not again... oh not again... oh, Myrtle!"
"See what I mean, love?" Myrtle was pleased with her prowess. "Right now's a difficult time for 'em. They've had a taste and they're quite sure it's more than they can bear. But there ain't nothin' they can do 'bout it, 'cept beef. Don't matter how they heave, those little bottoms stay put." Myrtle flicked a peeping pussy for practice.
"Now, I'll just concentrate on this little sweet heart here."
The little sweetheart looked round in dismay but could see little that mattered. She had become a quivering package of helplessly expectant girl. When the lash wealed her again, she screamed.
There was no bravado, and pitifully little heroism. Tearing uselessly at her captive limbs, the girl being whipped found what relief she could, first in her struggles, then in her screams. She pealed them out, in varying pitch and crescendo, while Myrtle phlegmatically whistled her whip into every crevice of buttock, thigh and belly. At the halfway mark she paused.
"How'd you like to finish her off, honey? I'll take them handcuffs off so's you can get a good swing."
'Honey' recoiled in horror. "I couldn't! Not possibly...!"
"Damn right you can. I need a rest."
"Please, Myrtle, don't make me?"
"Well, realize I could, eh?"
"You can make me do anything," Sabina said levelly. "I'm safely chained."
"Well then...?"
Suppose she administered twenty-five light strokes! She'd be doing the girl a favor.
"Hard," said Myrtle.
At the Seigneury there was never mercy. "I'll try, but I'll make a mess of it," Sabina mourned. "No you won't. Because if you do she'll get the whole lot over a second time, and you'll get it too."
The voice of the whipped girl drifted back dolefully. "You'd better do it, Sabina...
and hard, like Myrtle says. I won't hate you."
"Real sensible," Myrtle approved. "Honey, give me them hands."
Sabina watched the steel slip away from her wrists - so easy if you had the key! Her hand closed on the stock of the whip. It was like holding a dangling serpent, and about as welcome.
"You don't need no lessons, love. Just whale her."
Sabina wanly turned her attention to her target. It was already criss-crossed with scarlet and purple. It offered no virgin skin. She would be compelled to pile weal on weal. True, they were not real wounds. But still... !
"You can stripe her thighs a bit, dear, and get some up between her legs."
Myrtle's kindness knew no bounds.
Sabina swung vigorously to snap the thong across the roundness of a separate thigh.
The wail thus evoked was piteous.
"Not there! Not another there! My bottom... hit my bottom."
"She didn't like it," said Myrtle cheerfully.
It was like whipping herself. Sabina knew what it felt like to be whipped. She suffered with the girl under the lash, but she dared not hold her hand. Her victim tried to muffle her screams but was only partly successful.
"Don't forget her cunt," Myrtle advised thoughtfully.
Sabina was well aware that to whip a girl gave joy - to others! Now she discovered sensations... Ashamed of such a response, she faced the fact of an engorged and flowing pussy. As she impacted heavy leather across feminine flesh she experienced simple lust, as though she had been aroused by the aggression of a male or the searching of a female tongue. It became no longer difficult to lay stripe on stripe across the blazing cheeks that were suddenly hers to flog.
"Enjoyed that, didn't you!" Myrtle insinuated knowingly when the last count had been called. "Ain't nothin' quite like it."
Sabina stood, panting. Panting more with desire than exertion. Her penitent's shift was plastered to her body by sweat. Throughout her wielding of the whip she had observed the same beads form and trickle across the flesh of the fastened girl. Pain and lust! Perhaps... !
"May as well take that slip off, honey. You'll get a better cut at 'em naked."
Dazed, Sabina peeled away the sopping rag of white. For once, nakedness felt good.
"You mean I have to...?"
"Don't kid me you don't want to, honey!"
"I'm so ashamed... "
"That's okay. Don't affect your arm none."
"There's something wrong with me. I shouldn't feel like this."
"I'll make you a bet, honey. Before you're through you'll have the damndest best come of your life."
It crossed Sabina's mind to angrily deny, to hurl away the whip. But the heat between her thighs was like a tangible presence, a laughing demon between her legs. "Which one do I whip now?" she asked, and found it hard to suppress the longing in her voice.
"Take your pick. They all get it," Myrtle offered airily.
The first cuts on the fresh girl were pure beauty.
Sabina watched each clean stripe ridge the skin and suffuse with crimson the lovely ivory curves that were hers to weal. She gasped in exultation with each blow, sharing with ecstasy her captive's pain. The screams and the pleadings were madrigals of tribute. Sabina burst into orgasm on the thirty-first stroke. Her cry matched that of the girl who received it.
"It catches me that way, too," said Myrtle consolingly.
When the final fifty had blazoned itself upon the fifth girl's bottom. Sabina stood panting, her nudity glistening, her breasts rising and falling under demands as tumultuous as those storming her mind. They were all there: exultation and guilt, joy and shame, a savage lust for more and a terrible sorrow at what she had done.
Myrtle summed it up neatly.
"Now you know how the other half lives."
The remark was not wholly facetious. It was an unconscious summation of the Seigneury and all that went on therein. For a moment Sabina knew herself a Chatelaine - and remembered Candice and her joyous slavery.
But then she remembered something else. Bewildered, she turned to Myrtle: "But me... ? What about me?"
"What about you, love?"
"I have to be punished."
"Do you? What for?" Myrtle was being deliberately obtuse.
"I... I lost. I refused to confess... "
"Ain't the way the paper says, honey. Seems like you came out top girl.
Anyways, you don't get punished. Want I should show you?"
"No... oh, no." The reprieved slave could imagine the Seigneury quietly chuckling over her bafflement. "But, I don't understand...?"
"D'you need to?" Myrtle asked practically. "Your little ass is home free. Better be happy about it."
"I am... oh, I am! But...!"
"'Course, if you want to climb up on that there table I don't mind working you over, love. The full fifty if you want. I'm well rested."
"Oh, Myrtle... ! I feel so guilty. They all tried so hard to please him, and I didn't try at all."
"No telling about a man's cock, honey. They get hard over the damndest fool things. You musta said or done some thin'."
"But these poor girls!" Sabina scanned the line of immobilized posteriors, all branded and throbbing from the work of her own hand. "Is that their punishment? I mean, is there something else?"
"Yeah, they all get a little something," Myrtle chortled. "Some get quite a lot.
But it don't concern you none. You're free to go."
"Go where?"
"Around," Myrtle shrugged. "Maybe go to the lounge or take a walk in the courtyard. Them chains on your feet won't hold you up too bad."
"I walk awful slow."
"Well, you ain't going far, honey. Look, put your shift back on and give me them pretty hands."
Her mind awhirl, Sabina suspended the penitent's gown above her breasts. When Myrtle closed the chrome bands upon her wrists, clicking them snug, it seemed only right that once again her hands be thus joined. She was a Seigneury girl for whom freedom was as abstract as a distant star.
"That door over there, honey."
"But doesn't it lead outside?"
"A bit O' sunshine will do you good."
The absolved penitent clinked her way doubtfully to the exit. With her hand on the handle, she turned uncertainly. Five flushed and captive faces gazed back at her, as puzzled as she herself. None bore malice. Myrtle smiled and nodded.
Sabina opened the door.
The Ku Klux Klan! Sabina would have laughed at the white shrouded figures if their grip on her arms had not been so painful and so resolute. Instead, her heart dropped like lead. This was the Seigneury. She should have guessed.
"This the right one, Abe?"
"Damn right! Little bitch needs a lesson."
"Well, she ain't likely to forget what she's 'bout to get."
It did not occur to Sabina to protest. Since she could not struggle effectively she did not struggle at all. When her hobbled steps failed to keep pace, one of her captors tossed her over one shoulder and carried her like a sack of potatoes.
"Keep a good hold of her cunt, Simon. Wouldn't want it runnin' off."
"Long as I got a handful of her ass, Abe, we ain't a'goin' to lose her."
A small clearing among the trees, a gaggle of white figures, all busy. A post and a girl. The girl was attached to the post by a single tight stricture of rope round her middle. She was clawing at it in futile terror. She was nude.
"On your knees, girl."
Apathetically, Sabina obeyed. She felt cruelly cheated. One cuff was unlocked, passed around her ankle chain, then snapped back on. Her two guards strode jauntily away.
She was economically and effectively anchored. A captive audience of one. Testing her bondage and recognizing defeat, she sank back upon her heels and made herself as comfortable as she could. Perhaps she was not so much an audience as a captive awaiting her turn.
"Bettina Rennet. You are judged guilty of coupling with men of colour. You are sentenced to a Klan ravishment."
"No! No... ! Let me loose. Oh, please don't do that. Cover me, cover me...!" The girl bent forward against her bond, gazing at the leader with anguished shame.
"Guilty or innocent?"
She did not answer. Instead, she flung every ounce of strength against the rope. It did not move. The Grand Master motioned...
Sabina quailed. It was so brutally efficient. The weeping girl was taken from the post and spread-eagled on the ground. Coats and jackets were wadded beneath her hips until she was stretched too tautly to permit more. Her sex gaped in teenage innocence.
"Whip it first. Loosen her up."
"She'll be loose enough when we're through."
"Next coloured boy's liable to fall on in."
They whipped the young pubic hair. Not savagely or with much brutality, but with shrewdly administered snaps of a willow switch across the distended vulva. One man each side. The honour was passed around. The provoked loins became inflamed, the lips engorged. The girl moaned and wept, pleading pitifully and heaving with all her young strength against the rawhides with which she was bound.
Sabina watched the rape of Bettina Rennet with an interest almost clinical. She shrank in disgust from the thought, but she could expect no kinder justice than this youngster who was probably guilty of nothing. It would happen to her, so she had best prepare. With bitter hatred she pulled against her cuffs and anklets. They mocked her with pain. She would kneel as she was for as long as these men desired.
At its best, copulation lacks elegance. In this leisurely raping of a bound girl by men who hoisted a white sheet before unfastening their pants it lost all semblance of dignity. Obscene comment blended farce and horror.
"Watch out it don't come out her ass, boss."
"Good long strokes... that's what gets to 'em."
"Ram her hard enough, Abner, and she'll get a taste for white meat."
"Stop, oh stop, you're hurting!"
"Oil her up, Simon. Little gal ain't happy." Sabina had never believed that rape spelt death.
That was a somber legend. It brought hurt and shame and disgust, and as man after man mounted the slender loveliness, it brought orgasms as natural provisions responded to friction. Bettina Rennet cried out again and again, not always in fear.
Instead of death, it generated a demeaning but vibrant life. A girl could take a dozen men! Perhaps a hundred... !
When it was over they loosed Bettina's arms so that she was able to sit up, but with legs widely tied. In this position she was made to service her masters further by laving each phallus clean and dry with lips and tongue as the male stood, straddling her hips and raising his robe for her attention. She whimpered a little, but after a couple of unkind cuffs, did what she must with reasonable competence. She was then pushed down upon her back, her arms stretched wide and retied, the wadding stuffed firmly beneath her raised hips.
Sabina had seen the fire. For a moment she was puzzled by the pan of hot water and the mug. But intent became all too clear from the jibes.
"Allus wanted to see a naked cunt."
"Damn shame that coloured boy had to push through all that hair."
"She'll miss it come winter."
They lathered with zest. Sabina could not fail to realize their concern that she should see. No robe ever completely obtruded on her vision of the piled white foam upon the teenage loins. The foreign purity had an obscenity all its own.
"Hold still, girl, or you'll get a second slit." The admonition was needless.
Bettina was too tautly stretched. Her wildest struggles produced no more than quivers against the denuding blade. Her one agonized protest had been drowned in laughter.
"It's not decent! It's wrong... ! You mustn't...!"
They performed their task with loving care. No female flesh had ever been more tenderly laved. Male hands were ardent to test the quality of shaven skin. Sabina pictured herself in similar disgrace.
"Can you still pee through it, gal?"
"Feel cold?"
"We can warm it up for you."
Bettina said nothing. She shed her tears in a semi-silence of feminine sniffles and sobs, flinging her head from side to side to rid her cheeks of the salt drops, lost in misery and shame.
It was not over. There was still an air of expectancy. Sabina suspected what she had witnessed was no more than a prelude for worse to come. Bettina had not been injured, she was still eminently suitable for suffering.
Once again her hands were freed. But this time the ropes were transferred to the stakes to which her ankles were firmly bound. Careful tensioning forced her to sit up, then lean slightly forward with arms helplessly outstretched so she could not retreat, and could bend further forward only with difficulty. To make such motion impossible a noose was placed upon the slender neck and pulled back so that the girl's face stared wildly, immobilized.
"Make a fuss, kid, and we'll yank your neck back."
Sabina wept as the lovely head was shaved. It was a wicked thing to do to a girl.
Cruel, cruel, cruel! And it would be done also to her! She was sure of it. She watched in loathing as a female was shaven into something that had no sex at all.
The rinsing and the fingering were the same as before. The small bald head received the same curious attention. What happened then was the worst of all. A hand under her chin thrust back Bettina's head while her eyebrows were lathered.
"You mustn't... you mustn't! Don't, don't, don't...!"
Sabina's instinctive outrage received only amused attention.
"Don't you worry none, kid. We ain't forgot you."
"Free haircut and shave, lady."
They shaved away Bettina's eyebrows, then washed her face and set her free. She stood, naked. Pitifully fingering her fresh nudities, exploring skin she had never previously touched. Her tears were constant, a slight slip of a girl who had lost hope.
"Well, that's the appetizer, kid. Now we move on to the main course." The male voice was hungrily jovial.
Both girls tensed. The Seigneury was sometimes remarkably predictable. When Sabina saw the whip she sensed the inevitable.
Two men lifted Bettina against the post, big hands clutching curved buttocks. Two others took her hands to either side and pulled so as to flatten the young breasts against the wood. Thus they tied her. As the final act of bondage they gathered her hanging feet and wrapped them as far round the post as they would go before tying them. Embracing the timber to which she was tied, Bettina's nakedness took on the semblance of a butterfly spread and pinned on neat display.
"What say to a hundred?"
"Shit, Abe, we don't want to kill her. We can use her over."
"Lace her 'til she's unconscious?"
"She'll fake."
"We got cold water, ain't we!"
Sabina had known much of whippings. This one was different only in the manner by which the girl was tied. Within her loins fear battled lust. She guessed, wryly, that the men who took turns at whipping Bettina would have demanding erections. Rampant potencies they would expend within her own sheath as she lay bound. The thought dampened the rising fire of which she was ashamed.
Bettina Rennet screamed throughout her flogging. The screams were intermittent and varied as to intensity and expression, Sabina listened to them and wondered if she would sound the same. Was it possible for a girl to remain silent under the lash?
Was it! She longed to keep silent so as to cheat them of some of their reaction. But she would scream just as all girls screamed. The weals painted their traceries from Bettina's thighs to her shoulders. Until they began to criss-cross and blend they were exquisitely beautiful. .
"Let her hang there while we do the other one."
"She'll get a good enough view."
"You are judged a whore, girl. And sentenced." Sabina looked up at the leader and his scroll. She was ashamed of the awful fear closing in upon her whole being.
She whimpered desolately: "Don't shave me. Please don't shave me."
"Sooner be fucked than bald," a voice mocked. "Not that either... oh, not that!"
"Dammit, gal, we gotta do somethin'!"
"Please don't shave my head! Please please...!"
Someone bent and unlocked her shackles.
CHAPTER FIVE - The Silver Gags
For Glynis Woodhaye, her grooming was a happiness to be pleasurably embraced.
After the abasements of her cell the boudoir was joy. She had been born and lived in a scented luxury. The Seigneury's theft of her former life and of her person had reduced her to no more than a naked girl in a cage. Now, for some whim she could not fathom, she was being perfumed, manicured, creamed and bejeweled in ways to quicken her female heart. That she was not also clothed was an omission of little moment. The prison smock had robbed her of a wish to be covered. Miss Glynis Woodhaye's slavery was now neatly docketed in her mind.
"Gosh, you look lovely, Miss Woodhaye." Glynis was amused by the deference.
It surfaced here and there among the girls and wardresses. A slave addressed as "Miss" was perhaps an intentional cruelty to remind her of a status now past. It smacked of Rolfe Campys. She could believe his influence was behind her present transference into the simulation of a costly hetaera.
"Thanks, Elizabeth. I wish I could stay looking like this." she said wistfully, staring at the two faces in the huge mirror. "I wish we all could. How the devil did you get this job of turning me into a bird of paradise?"
"I used to work in a beauty salon... before I got wind of that lousy five thousand dollars. Serves me right for being greedy." She giggled. "This would really grab them at the salon - a beautician with her feet chained together so she couldn't run."
"Elizabeth, is it going to be bad? This I'm being readied for?"
"I don't know, Miss Woodhaye, honest! I'm just a slave, same as you. It's rotten the way they treat you. It's not as though you were like the rest of us."
"Past tense, Elizabeth?"
"I don't think they'll ever let any of us go, Miss. Everything's past tense for the girls of the Seigneury."
"Do I get any clothes this time round?"
"'Fraid not, Miss Woodhaye. I have to brush your bush and load it with perfume." She giggled again. "Did you know perfume on a girl's pussy is twice as potent? I expect it's the heat or something. Do you want your nipples red or scarlet or purple?"
"Whatever matches. You can tell. Elizabeth, tell me. Do you really get an erotic thrill out of having your bottom caned? That day in the school-room...?"
"'Course I do." Elizabeth Bristowe's affirmative left no room for doubt. "Gee whiz, it would be awful if I didn't! I draw the classroom most of the time. It's a big favourite with the members. There's me and Vera Manson... We feel sorry for the others... " She paused reflectively. "But we think they're silly not to try and like it.
Their pussies would respond if they gave 'em half a chance."
"I'm trying to cultivate a taste. But I was terribly ashamed that day with Mr.
Atwood... he was nice."
"Miss Woodhaye...?" Elizabeth was apologetic. "There's two more things before I'm through with you. For one I have to take off your handcuffs. Do you want to promise me not to make a fuss?"
"Oh sure! I'm getting used to it," Glynis said resignedly. "What comes now?"
"I have to gag you."
"Gag me! But that's absurd! I can remove it."
"Not when I'm finished, you won't be able to."
Glynis sighed. "Don't look so anxious, darling. I'll be good."
"It's much the best. I gave up bucking the system long ago. Look. Miss Woodhaye, this gag is unusual. It has to be as beautiful as the rest of you."
"You mean, will I cooperate?"
"S'pose so... gee, I'm sorry! Is there anything you want to say first?"
"Not a thing! Go ahead, darling. Here, I'll open my mouth."
Glynis was amused by her own compliance. The Seigneury was astute in compelling the girls to attend to each other. You didn't fight a friend... not if you could help!
She closed her mouth upon the ping-pong ball Elizabeth Bristowe had deftly inserted.
"It's a silver adhesive. I know it's crazy, but it looks terribly smart."
Glynis compressed her lips as though anxious her silencing should be efficient.
Strong young fingers positioned the tape and smoothed it down hard.
It was true! Instead of flawed loveliness, the gag, so carefully cut and applied, lent its own touch of beauty. The silver tape had quality. It belonged. Glynis tried to say thank you but discovered she could no longer speak. Her eyes performed the task for her.
"I'm so pleased with it, Miss Woodhaye. You're still just as beautiful. And now, I'm afraid we've got to go... " Sudden splendor! Glynis felt only a clashing of cymbals could do it justice. With the opening of a huge door, the Seigneury absorbed her into Imperial Rome.
"I think they're just sort of getting things ready." Elizabeth too was awed.
The throne was dominant. It awaited Caesar - or at least one of his regents. Their way to it was sparsely lined by pillars, to some of which girls were chained. Girls who eyed them curiously, or hopefully, or in despair as they walked towards the spacious dais and the wide alcove.
Glynis was piqued. To one side of Caesar's chair was a girl, a girl bejeweled and made gorgeous in the same manner as herself, a girl who stood with her back to the wall and raised her arms to where silver chains locked her wrists loosely to the stone.
Her pose was languid as though she had stood thus for a long time.
"I'm afraid you're on the other side," Elizabeth whispered.
The silver wristlets hung from the wall, waiting.
As though hypnotized, Glynis mounted the dais, positioning herself against the stone and raised her arms. Standing on a stool, Elizabeth locked each wrist within its gleaming cuff.
"That's all I've been told to do," Elizabeth informed doubtfully. "I'm afraid I have to leave you like this... " There was nothing to say. With a ball in her mouth and taped lips, a girl cannot talk.
Glynis stood in her new captivity while the stool was cautiously removed and Elizabeth affectionately kissed her cheek.
"Goodbye, Miss Woodhaye. I do hope... " With a stricken look, Elizabeth Bristowe turned and fled.
Glynis looked up at her hands. They were chained well apart. But there were enough links to permit motion, nor were they taut to compel tiptoe. She could stand normally. She suspected she would be required to stand a long time. She turned her attention to her companion.
She saw herself. The same adornments, the jeweled collar, nipples painted purple, brushed pubic hair and biceps within the coils of silver serpents. There was more.
But her gaze focused in wonder on the silver tape. This girl was gagged exactly as herself! Her exclamation of discovery remained silent in her mouth. She could swear they had both tried to speak at the same time. Instead, their eyes consoled each other for the loss of speech.
The girl was beautiful; that was to be expected. But there was something hauntingly familiar... ! Perhaps if clothed or without the gag... ? Glynis had the feeling nakedness was unfamiliar to her companion. There was the faint pinkness of a blush.
The long and slender legs would close or cross, then determinedly separate in an assertion to reject shame.
But the posture itself was shaming. A perfect pose for an artist's model but wickedly revealing. Chained thus, a girl could hide nothing. It was best not to try. There was also the problem of what to do. Stand on this leg or that! Look hopefully here or there! Close your eyes and droop against the pull of the chains! The choice was narrow. The two girls looked longingly at each other in silence. If only they could speak... !
Eight columns. For each one a girl. Glynis watched their chaining with sympathy.
Naked but groomed, they were fastened in revealing poses. None struggled or protested. Their fellow slaves snapped shut the shackles on wrist and ankle and went their way. One girl was bound with silver cord, tightly so she must hurt. Her attendant took much time and care that she be attractively and helplessly exposed.
White-robed patricians drifted in and chatted in small groups or inspected the captive girls. Expectancy was alive.
It was Campys. He wore the Roman General's accoutrements he had worn in Imperator, the picture that had made him millions. He strode from door to throne, a conqueror amused to accept tribute and dispense justice. Glynis was angry with her heart. It was racing. She stole a glance at her companion in chains. The girl was shrinking back against the wall as though longing to hide her nakedness. But she was glowing, her eyes shining in adoration. A flaming jealousy caused Glynis to clench her fists against her fetters.
De Mille would have been pleased. Rome lived.
No promptings, no rehearsal, but everything fell into place. The whisperings, the sudden silences, the rapt attention to the golden figure now seated on the throne. The girls against the pillars tautened their chains in anxious apprehension. Caesar was holding court.
Caesar was also enjoying himself. He bestowed studious attention upon the female adornments of the alcove wherein he sat. With frank lechery his gaze roved from bare toes to hands held high by chains. With deliberate effrontery he gave particular attention to breasts and pubic bush. Glynis glared back at him in fury, the other girl squirmed and blushed. It was obvious she was in an agony of embarrassment.
It came suddenly. Glynis realized nakedness was sometimes a girl's best disguise. She knew now the name of her companion. That Margaret Connors should stand, chained and naked, beside Caesar's throne was not too incredible for the Seigneury.
But it was remarkable enough to be food for thought. Was she, too, kidnapped! Or was this how she spent her days off from the office! Glynis sought the telltale whip marks such as were visible on her own skin, but there were none to see. Once more she flamed in, jealousy, her eyes feeling the burn of tears. Anger flared, too. How smug he was, sitting there while they must stand naked for his delectation. How understandable the gags! Both girls explosive with their need of words, longed to plead, to denounce, to declare love! Yet compelled to silence. Glynis knew herself flushed from chagrin. Margaret Connors frankly blushed.
Guards dragged in the first delinquent, a lovely but wild-eyed girl whose frantic struggles might be simulated or all too real. They tossed her to the marble at Caesar's feet. Resting on her arms, she looked up in agonized appeal.
"Mercy, Lord! Have mercy... "
"Thy crime, girl?"
She could only sob. The inevitable scribe appeared with his scroll and read the charge... Art thou guilty, child?"
She bowed her head and wept.
"Dos't want thy breasts cut off?"
Her denial was a wail of fear. "Not that, lord! Not that...!"
"Scourge her."
It was then Glynis saw the post. The pillars and the immensity of the Great Hall had dwarfed it, but it was there. It bespoke its purpose with the stark eloquence of all whipping posts anywhere. Below the dais, slightly to one side. The view from the alcove was excellent. Margaret Connors was panting.
They snared a single wrist and drew it high, the thong biting its slenderness, raising the delinquent to her toes so that she stood as though reaching... Then, most casually, they stripped her to stand naked for her punishment before a myriad eyes.
Her one free hand fluttered pathetically.
They whipped her with great competence.
Campys watched with intent absorption as she turned and twisted, the cruelty of her semi-freedom far worse than if she had been held motionless by both arms. As she struggled in anguish, she revealed. The whip cut snappingly into the breach. It mattered little where the leather bit. The guards were impartial. Realizing, at last, her terrible vulnerability she thrust wealed breasts against the wood and embraced it with her arm, offering in maiden sacrifice that part of herself which the whip could injure least. When she was cut down, striped and sweating, she made obeisance before the throne, gathered her poor garments and fled.
Caesar sardonically cocked an eyebrow at Miss Glynis Woodhaye and asked humorously: "You next?" He laughed at her silence and made the same demand of Miss Margaret Connors. "Cat got your tongues," he commented briefly before turning his attention to more important matters.
The Seigneury acknowledged man's eternal search for change. Its girls came in varied packages: tall, petite. Blonde, brunette, raven, platinum and red. Heavy-breasted or pert cones. Type after type was hurled before the dais, their guilt proclaimed.
"I should have thy hand cut off, girl."
"Please, lord, not my hand... please not my hand!"
"Would'st prefer the flagellum?"
"If it please thee, lord."
"It does not please me. You girls take thy whipping and dance back to sin anew."
"Make me thy slave, lord. I will serve thee well."
"And steal me blind?"
"Nay, lord. Keep me chained."
"'Tis best ye learn a lesson. Guards, the thorns."
Glynis longed to batter his complacency with her fists. He was a sadist to sit there smugly while a girl was tortured. How strange he was! That he could love so tenderly... The girl's screams riveted attention.
It was terrible. It was beautiful. It was cruel.
They bound her to the post to face the throne. With arms and waist made fast, they lifted her feet and drew them back and up to bind them widely stretched. Her maiden bush was a tribute to the throne. From somewhere a guard had found a rose.
"Not that! Please, mercy, mercy...!"
Heavy male fingers found the vulva and drew apart its lips.
"Not inside me! No... oh please... no inside...!"
She screamed steadily as the thorned stem was pushed within her sheath. When the guard withdrew, the rose nestled, brightly red, between the sundered legs. A cruel beauty.
"Let her go."
There was little mercy in the command. Upon being freed, she stood stricken, hands clasping groins, bent forward with legs apart.
"Get thee gone, girl."
"It hurts. I cannot move." The words were moans.
"You'll move. You've an afternoon's amusement ahead of you. Pull it out gently."
A guard thoughtfully picked up the flagellum.
The other tossed the cringing maid her clothes. She moaned again and made an obscene straddlelegged exit. There were cheers.
"Damn nice effect," Rolfe Campys observed, focusing his gaze between Glynis' legs. "Nod if you'd like to try it."
Glynis did not nod. She stared stonily. But from the opposite side of the throne Margaret Connors contrived sounds of disapproval through her nostrils. Caesar turned attentively.
"You girls have two possibilities," he drawled.
"That ever occur to you? Back and front... different coloured roses, of course."
Glynis wondered if he would actually do such a brutal thing to either of them... or have it done! She doubted it. From the beginning he had spoken of having her flogged. But it had not yet happened. The two girls exchanged desolation with their eyes. Neither had ever longed more for the gift of speech.
The next was a golden girl, blue-eyed, lovesome.
Her sin was slight, but enough. She returned Caesar's regard levelly.
"Should I have thee flayed, child?"
"No, Master."
Campys' interest was aroused. "And why not?"
"Why spoil me? I can give thee much pleasure."
"Upon thy back?"
"If that please thee, Caesar."
"And if it please me not?"
She shrugged disdainfully. "I scream most lustily beneath a whip, Master."
Campys surveyed his treasure and sighed contentedly. Each girl had something.
"Fifty with the flagellum," he said casually. "Thank you, sire."
The sentence was death. No girl could live beyond half the number, Caesar nodded, satisfied. "Has thy saucy bottom felt the rod, child?"
She turned so that the faded wounds upon her curves could be plainly seen. "It has, Master."
"Then I'll make thee an offer. Bend for twenty with the slender rod. But bear no bond save thine own will, and I'll rescind the flogging."
"I will do it, lord."
Glynis was breathless. This girl was fighting for her life. But her task was horrific.
Glynis, from her brief experience, did not believe she could bend motionless for so severe a lashing. But perhaps... if the stake was death! Margaret Connors stared at the tableau as though hypnotized.
"See that you do. Ye can weave thy hips beneath the rod but that is all. The flagellum waits. Guard, make the rod slender. She is not to be driven to the floor."
The golden girl was superb. She posed. Glynis sensed the burning of bridges and a wild determination to get what glory could be salvaged from the pain. She bent forward, spread her legs and touched her toes.
"Twenty stripes, lord Caesar."
There was an element of mercy in the instrument. No doubt there were worse. The blows might have been heavier - not much perhaps, but a little. The Seigneury evidently did not regard Goldenhair as expendable.
The sound of the impacts could be heard throughout the hall. Livid lines marked their landing. Moans and gasps acknowledged their pain. Slender hips swayed...
Glynis looked at Margaret Connors. The girl was in the grip of a fascination of disbelief. She flinched at each blow, her breathing was spasmodic and heavy. Her wrists strained against their metal bands. Her breasts were heaving hillocks of distress.
"Twenty."
The golden girl slowly and stiffly stood erect.
Her total nakedness glistened with the sweat of agony, her face was lined by pain.
But she knelt before the dais and bowed her head.
"My thanks, Great Caesar."
It was beautiful and earned its reward. "You have pleased me," Campys said slowly.
"You shall stay with us. Guard, chain her. She can share a pillar. " It was done. As she was led away, her bottom showed its blazoned panoply of pain, lined and ridged and welted! She was chained by one wrist to share prisonment with a black-haired beauty to make a vivid contrast. She examined her fettered wrist, then stood meekly for all to see.
The chained and naked Glynis Woodhaye strived to come to grips with an anomaly.
Seated on his throne. Campys was a sadist. Why did she love him? Why did so many girls love him? In between these fleeting horrors they were witnessing, the eyes of Margaret Connors above the silver taped lips were adoring... ! And Margaret Connors was an anomaly, too. What was she doing here and why? Glynis frankly acknowledged jealousy. Why not indeed! Campys possessed her, why must he forever seek!
"I am innocent, lord. I am... I am!"
"You all are, child."
"Please don't punish me?"
She was sweet and young and pretty. Wide-eyed, she beheld Caesar. Her lips were moist but she was close to tears.
"The bastinado, child?"
She was uncertain. "To beat my feet, Master?"
"Aye. Ye'll limp awhile."
"I cannot bear it, lord."
"We will help thee with bindings?' "Please, lord, cripple me not. Oh, please?"
The post was versatile. They stripped her and laid her on her back. One leg each side they bound, the small feet protruding fifteen inches above the floor. Each guard took a rod. Caesar nodded consent.
She screamed terribly and soon fainted. Glynis wondered if it was pain or shock - or was it feigned? A guard pinched a nipple without result. They brought wine.
It was cruel for her. Her arms were free. She could flail them, she could twist and turn as the rods beat steadily upon her defenseless soles. But she could not get free.
She could reach nothing. Moaning, she looked up at Caesar on the throne and pleaded mercy, When none was granted she screamed and screamed again.
They made her walk from the hall. It was a final cruelty.
Drama was of the essence. The Seigneury stocked it. There was never a shortage.
She walked magnificently from the audience and stood regally before the throne.
Glynis knew her for a Chatelaine.
"Hail Caesar." The bare arm rose in a salute to crinkle Hitler's toes.
"Beloved Constance. Ye crave audience?"
"Caesar, I have sinned. I beg correction."
"Patricians seek not the lash, Constance."
"They do, Caesar, when they break our code. I have broken the code. Punish me."
She was glorious. Glynis could sense her quality.
Campys was breathing heavily, his eyes intent and vastly interested. Was she another of these who craved the whip? Or was she real? Glynis realized, ruefully, that at the Seigneury it did not matter.
"Ye desire not expulsion, Constance?"
"Nay, Great Caesar. I pray chastisement and forgiveness."
"Patrician women who break our code know a dungeon... and chains, for life."
Caesar's words were fearsome.
"That I know, lord. But I have confessed, and my transgression is but small."
They did it beautifully, this play of words.
Glynis could well believe it was a play for she and Margaret Connors alone. But the hall was hushed and breathless.
"Aye, I believe." He eyed her hungrily. "There are many punishments. What seek ye?"
"I would be lashed, Caesar."
"'Tis most terrible."
"That I know." She paused and shrugged. "But I have asked for it." She paused again. "These other things that can be done to me... They are for slaves."
"Perhaps a brand? A well-placed S?"
"A brand would shame me, lord... before the husband I may one day have. It would shame him too... ! And S could stand for slave."
"And yet it pleases me, this thought of the symbol of our code upon thy skin?"
"An' if it please thee, Caesar, I must bear it. But I beg the scourge instead."
"It is most humbling... the whip." Campys smiled benignly. "It does not always fall upon a woman's back."
Did she flinch? Perhaps. Glynis guessed what was to come. But the Chatelaine was equal to her task.
"If I must receive it betwixt my legs and across my breasts, so be it." She gazed up levelly. "If it be the will of Caesar?"
"It is my will. Guards, prepare the Lady Constance."
Surely it must have been rehearsed! Each cue was perfect. Each wheel was oiled.
Even the guard's apology.
"It grieves me, madam. But thy clothes...?"
"Entirely naked, I suppose?" Her nonchalance was exquisite.
"If it please thee, my lady."
Smiling her own secret thoughts, the woman, Constance, stripped. Leisurely and with grace. Meeting any eye that sought to meet her own. She wore little. That which had covered her was soon draped across a guard's arm, her sandals in his hand.
"I am to be bound?"
"'Tis best, my lady."
"I am sure it is." Her smile was undisturbed. "I would not spoil thy aim with foolish moves."
Her ankles were pulled apart and tied down to rings in the marble. From above came ropes... ! Within minutes the delinquent Chatelaine stood tautly in a perfect X. For a woman about to be whipped, it was the cruelest exposure of all. The whip could possess any part of her at will. She faced the throne. Her eyes were brilliant.
"You are most beautiful. Constance."
"I am grateful to please thee, Caesar."
Glynis thought of the classroom, of Chrissy Ragan and those others... Thought also of herself and the betrayal of her flesh. Did all women carry a fire within their loins! A fire to be kindled by a man... or a whip! She knew herself glowing now with heat... a barnyard term - a woman or a mare in heat! Was that all it was?
It was not all! It could not be all. But if the caning of a schoolgirl's bare bottom evoked lust, it was but the prelude to the symphony of pain for which the naked Constance now stood stretched and bound. Was it progressive? Once a girl had felt the fire did she forever seek a hotter flame? Today the cane, tomorrow the whip... ?
The flagellum - the dreaded "cat," the Russian knout! Glynis permitted a jealous vision of Margaret Connors writhing beneath striped flesh.
"Art thou ready, Constance?"
"I am most ready, Caesar." Glynis did not believe what she saw. Neither did the girl chained to the opposite wall. The whip shrieked. It curled beneath a raised arm so that, even from where they were, they could behold the scarlet line across a breast.
Constance the Chatelaine closed her eyes and bowed her head. She made no other move or cry, but somehow bestowed upon them all a submissive's acknowledgement of earned agony.
"I allow thee still to choose the brand, Constance," Caesar's voice was hoarse.
She raised her eyes to his. They were limpid and without guile. "I thank thee, Caesar. I have made my choice." Once more she bowed her head.
It is the bottoms of children that are caned, or of schoolgirls that are whipped. A patrician posterior could surely not be granted so plebian a punishment. But now it was! The curves of Constance undulated beneath the cunning sear. The soft smile on her wide lips slightly deepened as the impact snapped upon her skin.
It went on and on beneath a hundred eyes until the ivory nude was striped from thigh to neck. The guard was clever. None crossed. Each was a wound of its own. Each a symbol of a woman's submission to a code. There was a line in Shakespeare: "To be worn as rubies...!" Constance had not moved nor cried aloud. Constance knew magic.
"Thou art sorely punished, woman." Caesar held up a halting hand.
The lovely features raised. They were lined by pain but still serene. The whipped girl smiled. "Thank you, Caesar."
Was it a duel? Was there between them a contest of wills? There was no such sign.
Caesar's voice was humble.
"We pay thee tribute, Constance. I give thee mercy."
"I do not seek it, lord."
Glynis realized she had heard a statement of faith. Constance was doing something she believed in and desired.
"I would spare thee the rest?"
"Spare me nothing. Caesar."
"The rest be most grievous."
"That I know. It is to be between my legs, is it not?"
"Aye."
"I wish it, Caesar."
Rolfe Campys sighed and motioned to the guard. There was motion as her sex was lashed. Each blow rising up between her thighs brought a quick small tossing of Constance's head. Her eyes remained closed, she did not leave her mental sanctuary, nor did her lips lose their tiny smile. But her whipping was severe and without pause.
But even as the patrician cunt became swollen and engorged and the belly streaked with purple there was no fighting of her bonds. It was as though Constance the Chatelaine was grateful for the bands around her wrists and ankles. Perhaps indeed she was!
"Thou art forgiven, lady."
Constance accepted freedom with the same grace as she had yielded it. Divested of strictures, she touched nothing of herself. But knelt once more below the dais. Her eyes as she looked up were clear and shining.
"I am most grateful, Caesar."
"Seek ye to join the company? Or would'st prefer a pillar?"
"The pillar, lord. I wish to do my penance." Glynis breathed in envy. If only she herself had such command of her flesh! A woman so armed could own the world. She was piqued by the intensity of Campys' regard. If he could be won by stripes upon a girl's skin she had best steel her courage. She watched Constance's regal pace to the pillar to which she would be fastened, saw the proffered hand and the shackle close upon the slender wrist. Constance the Chatelaine would stand naked and whipped beside a chained slave girl for the edification of her peers.
Margaret Connors was panting. The sound, magnified through flared nostrils, attracted Campys' bored attention. He surveyed his onetime secretary with amusement. "Could you do as well, Margaret?" It was as though he offered her largesse.
It was not possible! It could not be! Margaret Connors was nodding vigorously.
None could doubt her purpose. Glynis was furious.
"You wish correction, Margaret?"
How absurd the term! But the chained beauty produced an undeniable affirmative.
She worked her lips against a raised bare arm in an effort to rid herself of the gag.
"Perhaps you should leave it as it is, Miss Connors?" Campys was now well involved in a fresh diversion. It held all his favourite elements.
She was a stupid girl. Glynis was angry with her.
It would serve her right if Campys took her at her word. If only she could talk she would enter the field. But the silver gag kept her mute. She watched miserably as her rival shook her head.
"I take it you wish to scream?"
The damn woman was positively eloquent with her shakes and nods! Glynis longed to scream. Momentarily, she considered rattling her chains to gain attention. But it was too childish... ! Margaret Connors' vehement nodding spelt defeat. Damn, damn, damn!
Caesar raised his omnipotent hand.
The guard whisked away the silver strip and accepted the ejection of Margaret's ping-pong ball, then moved aside.
"Oh, thank you, Rolfe!" Margaret was wasting no time. "Yes, oh yes! Let me do it... please?"
"Rolfe...?" The query was sardonic.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean... " The suddenly vocal captive looked around in dismay, then turned appealingly to the amused Caesar.
"Please, lord, let me do... what she did?"
"You could not possibly."
"I could, I could! It's what you like, isn't it? Let me... please?"
"I can have you whipped, girl?"
"I'll show you that I can, I will, I will!"
Margaret had become childishly anxious. "I'll make you proud of me."
"I won't be proud of you in a hospital."
"I won't be in a hospital. Look at her now! If she wasn't chained to that pillar she'd be strutting like a peacock.' Glynis could stand no more. She rattled her chains.
There was a moment of intense silence before Caesar swiveled to examine his impatient slave. His eyes were wise and glinting.
"No."
How could he! How could Rolfe Campys dismiss her with a single contemptuous word! Glynis shook her head furiously and stamped a bare foot on the marble, hurting herself. She saw the flicker of amusement as he saw her wince.
"I know what you wish to say, poppet. But no, you cannot add your name to the list. You will be adequately flogged at a time of my choosing." He turned back to Margaret.
Insufferable! Outrageous! The conceited idiot to imagine she wanted to offer herself to be whipped in the way that ridiculous lovesick female on the other wall was cheapening herself! Longing to weep in vexation, Glynis beheld her own femininity and realized that pleading to be whipped in competition to Margaret Connors was precisely what she wished. Only the gag had stopped her from the declaration.
Campys had read her mind perfectly. She allowed a few salt drops to trickle down her cheeks, then wiped them angrily against a bare arm. In the face of such rivalry there was no sense in smudging her make-up.
"Miss Connors, I suggest a sound caning of your bottom instead."
"No." Margaret was sulky. "You fear a loss of face?"
"Rolfe, don't be so unkind."
"A flogging? A kindness...?"
"It's not a flogging. She just got whipped."
"She suffered greater pain than you have ever dreamed of."
"I don't care."
"Perhaps I should give Glynis her proper flogging so you may examine a normal reaction?"
"Don't you dare!"
"Compassion or competition, poppet?"
"You're being terribly unkind." Margaret was sulky as a child. "All I'm doing is trying to please you."
"You consider me a sadist?"
"Well, aren't you?"
Caesar raised his hand. Within two minutes Miss Margaret Connors was bound in the same spread X in which Constance had suffered. She was shocked, startled and scared. But, spread naked beneath Caesar's amused regard, she knew a terrible excitation, a roiling turmoil of tumescence beyond her wildest imaginings.
Glynis was uncertain of her own feelings. She was quaintly thankful for her silver gag. Speech would have got her into trouble. She had experienced a naughty eroticism under pain, but had no illusions that she could ever emulate the performance of the whipped Chatelaine. She was certain Margaret Connors could not. Margaret had got herself into something beyond her strength. Margaret was being obstinate and stupid. She would find herself unable to gracefully offer the tribute she had rashly promised. Glynis felt an unworthy satisfaction. Serve the silly creature right!
"Whip her."
The command itself was the first blow. The spread girl tensed against her bonds.
Caesar's gaze mantled her in pink. She was very lovely in the gleaming adornments the Chatelaine had lacked.
There was a barbaric splendor about the tautly tied beauty. Weals would enhance it when they came.
They came! The first circling her waist, the second spanning the virgin back. When the brawny arm swung for the third time, Miss Margaret Connors said, primly: "I'm terribly sorry. I'm afraid I can't manage it after all."
Anticlimax! Farce. A moment for jeers and derision. For the first time, Glynis felt a twinge of sympathy for the helpless girl so exquisitely marked. "You are managing it remarkably well."
Caesar's voice was vintage Campys.
"I tried not to scream." Margaret looked around apologetically. "I'd... I'd...
no idea... "
"It hurt?"
"Impossibly! May I be untied please?"
"No."
It was a slow comprehension. The plush office, her desk, all the former associations... Al dictated compliance with a reasonable request. Margaret looked from the guards to the crowd. She spared an embarrassed glance at Glynis, still safely chained and mutely gagged, then searched the stern features of the man upon the throne. In none was pity. At the best only an amused tolerance of her naivete.
"I have to apologize, I've been silly. I can't possibly endure such pain. It's...
it's... well, I just can't." She looked around brightly.
"Between her legs." Caesar's hand made the required motion.
Miss Margaret Connors screamed lustily as the leather scored her loins. Her frantic heavings indented the ropes deep in her flesh. The whip marks sprang up vividly. Six searching strokes before it stopped.
No one spoke. Margaret herself looked dazedly from side to side as though fearful of words. Her body gleamed with sweat. She moaned steadily, a small trickle of agony from lovely lips. For the moment, she ceased to surge against the ropes, but hung passively against tied wrists, her breasts spasmodically heaving.
"Have ye naught to say, woman?"
The answer was slow to come. But when spoken it told much.
"Nothing, Lord Caesar."
"Loose her."
It all happened quickly. When it was done, Glynis stood naked against a dungeon wall. Her wrists were crossed and tied behind her back. Opposite her was Margaret Connors, similarly bound. Upon the neck of each a collar, and from the collar a chain... The silver gags compressed indignant lips. When they stepped forward to seek the comfort of communion, their tethers snapped taut, snubbing their necks a yard short of each other. They stood and gazed, askance and desolate. Two surging floods of words dammed by a silver tape. They shrugged unhappily and, retreating to their walls, slumped down upon the stone.
Both wept.
CHAPTER SIX - The Silver Cage
"You're not Sister Amaldis at all," Margaret Connors declared forthrightly.
"You're Astrid Allard, and this role you play is from your last picture before you disappeared. The Nun. I went to see it three times."
Sister Amaldis smiled benignly across the desk.
"You were bound to catch on sooner or later, Margaret. It doesn't matter."
"I don't like that: 'It doesn't matter!' Why doesn't it matter?"
"It doesn't. You won't be telling anyone, dear."
"What you really mean is I can't tell anyone."
Margaret Connors held up joined hands. "Must I be handcuffed while talking to you?
And these things on my feet... I can only hobble. I feel idiotic... and I'm more than half naked... " Sister Amaldis sighed. She was accustomed to plaintive femininity. "Is it really that bad, dear?" she asked gently.
"And that's another thing, sister. You're so maternal with me. Dammit, you can't be more than four years older. It's all very well for the others... "
"The restraints aren't to keep you from assaulting me, Margaret. Al the girls wear them. I don't know how else we can keep you all one big happy family."
"You mean keep us from escaping."
Sister Amaldis sighed again. "Are you quite sure you want to escape, Margaret?"
"And those sighs! You do 'em so well. If I was a bit more naive they'd crinkle me up. I don't know what this place would do without you." Margaret Connors grinned good-humouredly. "It's Rolfe Campys, isn't it? I mean, that's why you're here... why you disappeared. You're in love with him."
"So are you."
"Touche! But what fool girl isn't?"
"I do admire what you're doing, dear. It took courage."
"Thanks! But I'm not even sure what it is I'm doing. I say, sister, are you shaved bald under that coif? I'm curious."
"What lies under this habit is my own affair, Margaret." Sister Amaldis was slightly reproving.
"I bet you sleep with Rolfe? And I wouldn't be surprised if you've got whip marks? I bet that's his idea of love play?"
"Margaret!" The black-habited woman was suddenly severe. "That was insolence. Don't you realize, dear, I can have you punished?"
"I've just been punished," Margaret reflected ruefully. "Just a few days ago.
Were you in the big hall for that Hail Caesar act when His Majesty had me whipped?"
"I was not present. But I received a report."
Sister Amaldis smiled tolerantly. "It was to the effect you made a request...?"
"Okay, I was an idiot! You're right. Rolfe Campys affects me between my legs.
I got myself into something." Margaret offered a wry grin. "Gosh, I'd no idea! I mean the pain... it's bloody awful! "
"So I'm sure you don't want anymore?" The sister's tone slyly implied a possibility.
"Oh alright, I'll be a good little girl, and wear my nice pretty chains without beefing. When can I go home?"
There was an awkward silence, as at an impropriety. Sister Amaldis dispersed it brightly. "That's what I wanted you for, dear."
Margaret was aware of tension within her being, and was annoyed. The Seigneury was getting to her. It packed an endless supply of shocks. But it was her own reactions she found most startling. If Sister Amaldis now told her to leave, she would depart in sorrow as at a mission unfulfilled. But what was her mission! Rolfe Campys... ! Was that all? "You mean I'll be back at my desk tomorrow?"
The woman who had been Astrid Allard raised a warning hand. "Slowly, slowly, dear," she chided. "It's not quite like that."
"Life imprisonment?"
"Oh come, now! You've been listening to some of the darling girls."
"Okay. Let me have it." The sister produced one of those smiles best described as busy, busy. "Do you remember a girl named Sabina Miles?"
"I ought to, I hired her."
"Of course. All the darlings speak of you affectionately."
"I played Judas goat."
"Not really, dear. But if you do have guilt feelings the Seigneur's suggestion may help you assuage them."
"You mean I get whipped again?"
"Really, dear, I have warned you about punishment. You absolutely must watch this exclamatory impudence."
"Was that impudent? You wouldn't think so if you had the whip marks I've got," Margaret said indignantly.
"Sabina Miles," the sister reminded gently. "We were speaking of her."
Margaret stifled sarcasm. Sister Amaldis was sweet. In their separate ways they were probably both prisoners. "Okay, what can I do for her?" she responded perkily.
"How would you like to send her home? Complete with cheque, of course?"
It was the Seigneury! Rolfe Campys would be chuckling in the wings! Margaret held up her joined hands. "I couldn't send a pussycat home," she pointed out ruefully.
"Indeed you can! Sabina can be free tomorrow if you so choose."
"What do I have to do? I bet it's some of Rolfe's quaint humour."
"The idea is the Seigneur's, dear."
"Don't tell me they're not one and the same."
"Margaret dear, would a few strokes of a cane bring you down to earth? I have only to ring... " Sister Amaldis smiled sweetly.
"You would, wouldn't you?" Margaret looked down at her cuffed wrists and chained feet, then smiled back at her earnest companion. "Sorry, darling. I've been presuming on old acquaintance. I'll try not to. Tell me about the... Seigneur?"
"As I was saying, dear... " Sister Amaldis was back on comfortable ground. "I did so admire what you did for Chrissy Ragan, such a sweet child."
Margaret's mind raced. She glimpsed a chasm.
"Well, I sort of killed two birds with one stone, y'know, I s'pose my motives weren't all that pure."
"But you are here, dear girl... and Chnssy is free! "
"It's for sure I'm here."
"The fact that you were, shall we say, curious, does not entirely detract from your sacrifice, Margaret. I think you did something very brave and generous."
"And now I'm serving a life sentence."
"Are you truly sorry?"
Margaret felt the scald of tears. She had been asked a question she could not answer.
But she needed the answer badly. "I'm glad I came," she said slowly. "Considering what's been done to me, that has to be crazy! But I'm glad... "
"It's not just seeing how the other half lives?"
"No, it's more than that. In the Seigneury nothing's trivial. You and me talking now... it's not casual. We're going round and round something that's going to matter. And in that dungeon with Glynis... after they took our gags away... I never talked to another girl the way I talked to her... not in my whole life."
Margaret eyed the interested sister doubtfully. "Glynis and I are in the same boat, aren't we? Neither of us knows if we're ever going to be released."
"You may go home today, dear."
The simple statement was a thunderclap, breaching all Margaret's defenses. She looked up in astonishment, speechless.
"I was telling you about Sabina," the sister continued imperturbably. "She has proved a most excellent subject. She has a quality. She had played more than one leading role, and this is unusual. She has been in such demand... in all ways... It has sadly taxed the poor child. She is tired."
"Why not send her home?"
"The Seigneur is considering this... alternative."
Margaret forgot prudence. "This 'alternative'... ? It means she won't survive one of her leading lady roles... ? If you keep her here she'll die."
Sister Amaldis sighed. It was one of her more eloquent suspirations. It swept Margaret's stark suspicion under the carpet. "We are all fond of the dear girl," she explained gently. "Miss Woodhaye has formed an attachment... and the Seigneur himself... "
"How nice for Sabina! When does she leave?"
"I detect sarcasm," Sister Amaldis chided. "Shall I press the button?"
"Sorry, sorry! It pops out... We'd got to where everybody loves Sabina. I liked her, too."
"So would you like to buy her freedom, dear? In the same way you purchased Chrissy's?"
Margaret had seen it coming. But the shock of actual confrontation was brutal. She instantly detected a flaw .
"How can I buy her freedom?" she demanded. "I can't give myself. You've already got me. It's like paying you with your own money."
"You are forgetting, dear, that you can be back in your own office tomorrow.
Absolutely free."
A glimmer of something frightening began to nag in Margaret's mind. To gain time, she lifted her arms and clinked her handcuffs. "In these?"
"Don't be silly."
"I'm not silly, I'm scared." Margaret gazed at the lovely cameo within the coif in womanly appeal. "Sister... We know each other. We were... friends? Tell me, am I being put to some sort of test?"
"Almost everything that happens within the Seigneury is some sort of test, dear."
It was Margaret's turn to sigh. She did it with total deflation. She was about to ask what came next, when Sister Amaldis rose .
"Shall we take a walk, Margaret?"
The captive girl shrugged apologetically. "I walk very slowly."
"I will remove the impediment, dear. There is something you should see."
Margaret watched the fetters taken from her ankles. "You're going to slip me a shock, aren't you?" she mused knowingly.
"Don't be negative, dear. Silence is desirable in the little visit we are about to make. May I have your word that you'll refrain from your usual exclamations?"
"Oh sure! Why not gag me?"
Sister Amaldis ignored the indiscretion, Smiling cheerfully, she led her captive by the arm.
A room. Glynis, Sabina. One other thing! That was all.
The two girls hung nakedly from leather-cuffed wrists, their toes six inches from the floor. They were blindfolded and gagged. The tensioning of bowed heads betrayed their sudden awareness of a presence. Margaret caught her breath at the cruel beauty of the scene.
The suspended nudities faced each other, ten feet apart. Between them was a stool.
On the stool a whip, a wicked snakelike thing of shining black. The visitors surveyed the tableau of helplessness until the hanging figures began to twist in fear... legs raised in impotent anxiety. Then fingers tightened on a bare arm and Margaret was led back to the incongruous normalcy of Sister Amaldis' office.
"You don't need to tell me," Margaret said dejectedly. "If I elect to go home you'll whip them."
"Not me, dear - the Seigneury."
"Alright. The Seigneury! The Seigneury excuses itself for everything. It's like the Inquisition crediting their tortures to Holy Church. Someone's created a clever impersonality."
"The Seigneury is a continuing; a revolving flow of human responses, dear.
One act leads to another... and another. Nothing terminates. When Chrissy went, you came."
"But girls die...?"
"Death is a part of life, Margaret."
Amaldis was quick-silver. She could not be held.
Margaret Connors savagely faced brutal fact. "Rolfe has designed a cruel little play for me - what he'd see as a delightful dilemma, and he's off somewhere laughing his head off. That's it?" she demanded.
Sister Amaldis eyed her charge sadly in silence "It's a rotten cruel beastly thing to do to us." Sister Amaldis pressed the button.
The two men who came picked Margaret Connors up and carried her to a small and private place. It was a room without character, holding only the trestle. They stripped her, they raped her competently and at great length, they tied her bent across the trestle and thrashed her taut bottom with a cane, She screamed a lot until she fainted.
"Brandy is such a blessing," said Sister Amaldis, dispensing it liberally.
Margaret gulped, and gulped again. She sat on her wounded seat, defiant of pain.
Emptying the glass, she held it out in cuffed hands and asked, wanly: "May I have another, please?"
She sipped the refill more slowly, and asked: "Did I deserve that?"
"You deserved it and you needed it, dear."
"Punishment and perspective, I suppose?"
"You are basically a sensible girl, Margaret."
"Do you know what those men did to me?"
"Yes."
"I fainted... me!"
Sister Amaldis smiled amusedly. "Girls do, y'know. I am supposing that now you will have no difficulty in making up your mind to go home?"
"Is that why you had that done to me?"
"It was one reason."
In a welter of pain and demanding emotions, Margaret glimpsed an anomaly. "Why Sabina and not Glynis? Why not both?"
"Two into one won't go, dear."
"Glynis Woodhaye alone then... don't be angry, I'm just puzzled."
"Glynis Woodhaye is already home, dear. The Seigneury is her home." The soft words gently disposed of the years of a girl's life.
"And it would become mine...?"
"But surely you have decided, dear? We can go and get you dressed?"
"But I haven't! I can't decide... I can't... I can't...!" Margaret splayed her cuffed hands across the shining surface of the desk and, burying her face between her joined arms, wept tumultuously.
Sister Amaldis watched quietly until the crest of the storm had passed, then walked to where she could caress the heaving shoulders with a tender hand. Her voice held an infinity of understanding and a trace of wry amusement. "But you have decided, dear... ! I have never seen a more certain decision in my life."
"We probably owe Sister Amaldis." Glynis Woodhaye mused reflectively. "I suppose you think being locked in a cage and having our hands tied the way they are is pretty bad. But we're not really hurting and we are together."
Margaret Connors was working hard at perspective. It was two days since her rape and thrashing and her sobbing acceptance of slavery. The decision had given her a measure of relief. Imprisonment with Glynis was something for which she was deeply thankful. But it was still imprisonment. The cage was small. Some puckish humour had designed it as for a couple of canaries-moulded, shaped, ornate and of shining silver, but its bars implacable.
"Those people who come and look at us - they're Chevaliers and Chatelaines, aren't they?"
Glynis shrugged ruefully. "I suppose that's the way we pay our room and board," she admitted, "but don't let's be fussy. I guess you can't know how glad I am you're in here with me. I've had a bellyful of being locked in a cell alone."
"Of course it is. That's what adds so enormously to the enjoyment of those so-and-sos who come and ogle us." Glynis managed laughter. "I've had to realize I'm a pet. I'm kept in a cage or a cell or chained up somewhere for the diversion of whoever it is who owns me."
"Rolfe Campys."
"Damn him! He's the reason you're here, too. But don't let's weep over that anymore. We're infatuated with the bastard and that's an end to it."
Margaret broached a hope ever present in her mind. "He'll tire of us, won't he? Or show a streak of decency... ? I mean, we're not really like this for life, are we?"
"I don't know, darling, any more than you. I cling to that, too."
"I think that... that when... I couldn't go home it was because of him... of not being able to believe...!"
"You're still a little heroine in my book. Leave it at that. I'd like to know if they told Sabina how she got her freedom. I bet you they did, and made it lurid so's the poor sweetheart goes away with her cheque and a guilty conscience. The Seigneury never misses a trick."
Margaret wriggled tentatively. "This rope on our wrists, it's sort of primitive. Why not hand cuffs?"
Glynis felt an absurd pride in the seniority of her captivity. She giggled. "These gooks who come and stare, they get an extra erection or a wetter cat out of rope.
They come in all kinds."
"Are you sure we can't untie ourselves? I'm willing to bite."
"Stop thinking about it. It just bothers a girl. Like I told you - when they tied us they used pliers to twist wire round the knots. There's just no way!"
"But if I kept chewing... on yours?"
"It's nylon, sweets. Forget it!"
Margaret shivered her shoulders rebelliously. "I feel so... well... so sort of 'little girl helpless'!"
Glynis laughed. "That's exactly what we are, and it's the way they want us to feel.
Accept and enjoy."
"But always naked...?"
"Nakedness has one great virtue for a girl," Glynis proclaimed sagely. "After you get used to it, it doesn't hurt."
Margaret grimaced. "Grateful for negatives! Glynis, we've been in here a couple of days?"
Could it go on and on... ? I mean, no hands...?"
"Well, you have to admit, darling, it is sort of amusing flopping around like a pair of seals when we make love... eating our food like puppy dogs... using our lips on each other... we don't really need hands."
"Darling, you're brainwashed!" Margaret eyed her fellow captive lovingly.
"They've got you conditioned to make the best of things... to look on the bright side...?"
"What's wrong with that, pet? You'll do it, too. A girl has to if she's to survive."
"But it's such a... such a... oh damn, I don't know what it is!"
"It's a comedown, that's what it is. You and I used to amount to something, now we don't." Glynis chuckled, beholding past glory. "Gosh, when I think back on Miss Glynis Woodhaye and all my airs and graces... ! Damn that girl, maybe she's the reason I'm here like this!"
"I'm here because of a damn fool curiosity... " Margaret's declaration was interrupted by a visitor, unmistakably a Chatelaine. The woman trailed across the room, gathering a chair along the way. Seated, she surveyed the caged girls with placid enjoyment. "Tell me what it's like in there?" she requested.
Margaret made the obvious retort. "Join us and find out."
"I'd think, with a bottom like you've got, you'd be more polite," the Chatelaine suggested amiably.
Margaret flushed. Naked, her derriere proclaimed her disgrace in vivid colour.
Meekly, she informed: "It makes us feel ashamed and about ten times naked."
"Don't you try and get out?"
"Our hands are tied behind our backs. We're helpless. We can't do anything."
"Make love, can't you?"
Both girls blushed and kept silent.
"You answered that one," their visitor laughed. "Look, you little minks, if I want to I can have you taken out of there and your cute little asses cut to shreds before you're put back in. Try and be reasonably polite. No sarcasm."
"We apologize." said Glynis hastily. "And we will try."
"Burns your butts though, eh?"
"It's so difficult. Whatever we say comes out wrong. I mean, a moment ago I nearly called you ma'am. But then I thought it would sound sarcastic... coming from me. I suppose you know who I used to be?"
"Sure I know. Miss Glynis Woodhaye. Makes you worth ten times as much behind those bars." The Chatelaine laughed lightly. "Rolfe does create the most delicious situations."
"Thank you for understanding."
"Don't overdo it, Glynis. Just be meekly responsive."
"Did you bring any nice things to feed us through the bars?" Margaret inquired demurely.
The Chatelaine turned a somber eye. "You don't learn, do you, Margaret! Too long at that desk in the office, I suppose. Come here and push your breasts through the bars."
Instinctively seeking guidance, Margaret looked at Glynis but found only shocked dismay and impotent compassion. Cursing her truant tongue, she went to the bars.
"They're very lovely, Margaret. You should take better care of them." The Chatelaine rose and came to where her fingers could idly tease the nipples obediently exposed. "You know what I'm going to do to these, don't you?"
"Yes." It was a very sullen affirmative.
"What, no cute little goodies!"
"I've said too much already," Margaret pouted. "May I please say I'm sorry?"
"Not with that look on your face, If you can erase it you might try an apology."
Margaret fumed inwardly but composed her features. Her voice was tense and uncertain. "I'm a smartass, I apologize, I haven't been here very long but I'm trying to learn."
"Allow me to help you, Miss Connors."
Two firm fingers and two strong thumbs found tumescent nipples and squeezed cruelly. Their owner moaned, pressing her forehead against the bars in agony, her arms tugged against bound wrists. When the biting pressure continued, she screamed.
"That should be a big help, Margaret." The Chatelaine languidly resumed her seat. "You need not stand there any longer. Oh, and you can thank me nicely."
Glynis' heart was in her mouth, but pain had blunted her companion's pixie spirit.
"Thank you very much for punishing me. I deserved it." Margaret managed to actually sound grateful. "Now I want the two of you to do a sixty-nine." The two girls looked at each other in dismay. Left to their own devices they could give each other joy easily without their hands. But the sixty nine position meant one of them must suffer.
Resolutely, Glynis positioned herself upon her bound arms. Her hips would be arched and her wrists would hurt... but what did it matter!
"Amazing what a tied girl can wriggle herself into." Their audience studied them with an amused scrutiny as they struggled, seal-like, toward their lesbian coupling. "I believe you girls enjoy your selves more without hands. I'll mention it... " Their task completed, the caged girls knelt, shamefaced, beside each other to await their next ordeal. But the Chatelaine was satisfied. "I'll visit you again in a year or two," she said casually, and went away.
The captives in the cage developed the art of catnapping. It passed the time. On the fourth day they awoke to find Campys studying them thoughtfully through the bars.
"You make a pair of the most delicious poppets any man could ask for," he said lazily. "Go back to sleep. You look so heartbreakingly innocent like that."
"Rolfe, please let us out of here?" Glynis modulated her request to a most sensible normalcy. "Mr. Campys, please send me back to the office," said Margaret.
He laughed delightedly. "Selfish little felines. Always thinking of yourselves!"
"We're all we've got to think of," said Glynis. "Our hands have been tied behind our backs for four days," said Margaret, then added: "And nights."
"You should be deliriously happy, darlings. A lesbian paradise."
"Oh, Rolfe...!"
"You made that sound like a big sister, Glynis my love."
"Why not! Half the time you act like a little boy, a rather dirty little boy."
"Honest filth or prurience, beloved?"
"Oh, never mind the repartee, Rolfe. Just unlock the door and untie our hands.
I'm forgetting what it's like to have any."
"Quite out of the question, sweetness. We are engaged in a noble experiment.
You two will be the first girls to have their hands tied behind their backs for three hundred and sixty-five days straight, "
"Oh, Rolfe!"
"You said that before, honeybunch."
"Mr. Campys. I want to go home." Dramatically he clutched his brow. "Thank heavens... ! For a moment I thought you were going to say bathroom."
Margaret Connors blushed. "That would be nice, too," she said primly.
"Rolfe, try and be serious for once." Glynis was still the big sister.
"I am never more serious than when whipping a girl," he assured her gravely.
"But girls offer you so much. And all you do is punish us!" Margaret looked up at him with wide, appealing eyes. Her shoulders wrenched against her bound wrists.
"Do you like seeing us tied this way?"
"It affords me the most exquisite happiness," he admitted without raillery.
Then, laughing: "I told you the experiment is in a noble cause."
Glynis wondered if she could ever pin him down to serious attention. She could not remember ever having done so. Campys became intent and absorbed only in the enactment of the roles he chose to play. Forthrightly, she pleaded: "Rolfe, take us for a walk... like this, tied. You can lead us on a leash. That ought to satisfy any male ego." Then, pathetically: "It sure would be nice to see the sky and breathe fresh air again."
For a moment she thought she had touched him.
But when he spoke it was in the old familiar tone. "Funny you mentioned that. We've got a little thing coming up for the two of you... get all the fresh air you want."
"Don't put us in one of those masque things, please!"
"Simple little production. You're escaping from some unnamed menace, or maybe you're stripped nuns pursued by Protestant pricks. The camera picks you up as you slip from the small door in the wall. You flee across the park, your goal the big wall... "
"You just said we were tied up for three hundred and sixty-five days...?"
"And so you are, poppet. Your hands stay as is, nothing is wasted."
"How can we get over the wall with our hands tied behind our backs?"
"Don't be picky. Dammit, you've got to show a bit of enterprise somewhere...
try and think of something."
"You're actually going to let us loose in the park!"
"Well, there is the small matter of the bloodhounds... " Campys bestowed upon them his most apologetically charming grin" And the panting Protestant posse in pursuit of pussies, mounted, that is... "
"Never mind the alliteration... "
"But it does give these descriptive passages a certain zing." Campys was amused by the evident feminine distaste. "The point to remember is that we let you run well into the trees before we start the chase. We'll make it truly sporting... "
"You know damn well we won't have a chance," Glynis said bitterly. "We'll be chewed to pieces."
"That's negative thinking, sweets," Campys reproved. "To show good faith there's an incentive. Get over or through that wall and you're home free... and I do mean free! You can go."
"Rolfe, you're just being cruel. You know we can't make it. I don't see why we should even try, not naked and helpless with a pack of hounds snapping at us."
"There are, of course, penalties for failure to compete... " Campys' tone was dryly thoughtful.
"Oh sure, there would be!"
"But here and there the wall is in poor repair... and there's doors and gates... Who knows, one might be unlocked!"
"Alright, that's the carrot. What happens when you catch us?"
"Runaways are usually... reprimanded...!"
"I can imagine! Will there be any skin left on our backs?"
"Dear girl, don't be like that!" Campys affected hurt reproof. "No one mentioned a whip. The Seigneury strives for imaginative effects. Versatility!"
"Torture chambers?"
"There you go again! It would serve you right if I took you to one. You almost invite it. Do you realize how this snotty attitude tempts a man?"
Glynis squirmed. She knew she was playing with fire, but the stakes were high. She believed she could gauge the limits of his tolerance. She looked up at him, openly female. "I could be the best woman a man ever had if you'd let me, " she offered level y.
"Not quite the way I recall, poppet."
"So alright. I played hard to get!" she admitted passionately. "Now you've broken me... or punished me or whatever you want to call it. What more do you want?"
"You forget our experiment, sweetheart."
"Oh, that! Tied up in a damn cage! It's a living death."
"And that's horseshit, honeybunch." Campys wagged a finger in humourous reproof. "Be honest. Since you came here you've lived more intensely than ever in your life. You both have."
"We hurt more. If that's what you mean... "
"It's not what I mean. Take this cage - you only think you're unhappy in it.
Actually you're enjoying yourselves. You feed on each other to your heart's content, and you've got me to talk about."
Pink mantled feminine cheeks in recognition of partial truth. In the Seigneury, girls were never allowed to win. Their own natures and temperaments were rarely an ally.
Glynis tried, lamely, to regain lost ground. "But Rolfe, there's no comparison... !
Our former lives and this... this caged helplessness!"
Rolfe sneered. "What were your lives? Blase boredom! The four walls of an office!
And now you complain!" He laughed openly at their woebegone expressions. "You're not bored in that cage. Every moment of the day and night you sparkle with emotion, with curiosity, and wonder, and surmise. Every time someone enters you flame vividly with hope... "
"No! Oh, no, no, no... "
"I say yes, yes, yes. You're both twice as female as before you came. I've taken you from something you were not and turned you into something you most sentiently are."
"Slaves!"
Rolfe Campys did not answer.
They were still kneeling in silence when he left.
CHAPTER SEVEN - Suburban Strokes
Sabina groped her way back into the world through a maze of wonder. Normalcy had become as remarkable as the Seigneury. Unreality haunted the old familiar places and things with the same bewilderment in which she had spent the first weeks of her imprisonment. In a daily ritual she stood naked before the mirror and confirmed the gradual fading of whip marks and the burns of rope. Under a compulsive feminine caprice she purchased handcuffs and wore them gaily while she prepared and ate a meal. When she used the key to free herself, then hid the shining things safely in a scented drawer, she knew it as a moment to remember.
Without a raised eyebrow, the bank had honoured the Seigneury's ten thousand dollar cheque. The money nestled now in her account, minus the thousand she was using to live on and to place her mark upon the apartment the Seigneury had thoughtfully provided. She felt cared for and nurtured by an unseen presence in a manner both comforting and frightening. She was back in the world but not yet a part of it.
She discovered a need for the irrational, and satisfied it by acts of defiance against nothing in particular. For moments at a time she would stand naked on her balcony, daring the world to look and to complain. She toured the department stores clad in the lightest of summer dresses with nothing beneath. One evening she accosted a middle-aged man in a hotel lobby and slept with him for a hundred dollar bill She did not feel soiled. She did not feel anything.
She confirmed her registry at the casting offices and the agency. But she had little expectancy of offers and found she did not care. Bit parts or routine jobs seemed trivial and without promise. When she visited and examined the lives of others she discovered boredom. After the fierce exultations of the first days of freedom she was lonely.
It was not to be expected she forget the Seigneury, or that life could ever be the same as before she had become its prisoner. Examining and seeking to reconstitute her previous existence, she found it pale and without promise. She could see clearly why it had led her, all that time ago, to the Seigneury's office and the interview with Margaret Connors. Sometimes she forgot the screaming agonies into which she had delivered herself, and saw only the munificence and monolithic solidarity of the edifice in which girls were still held captive - girls she had come to love. She thought often of Candice Rempel.
She knew herself in limbo. A rudderless ship, becalmed. She took to standing naked in front of the mirror, seeing herself as costly merchandise, unused. She understood her beauty and her body in ways she had never done before. The Seigneury had valued her. Every trial it had inflicted on her flesh had been its own strange tribute to what stared back challengingly from the glass. She considered the wisdom of becoming an expensive whore, and thoughtfully tucked the idea away for future reference.
Through it all ran a thread of guilt. She shrewdly suspected it had been woven for her undoing. Through the first exuberance of freedom it had been easy to thrust into the background of her mind, reasonable to suppose it would dissipate with time, something to shrug off as beyond her power to change. But it did not go away. In the Seigneury a girl languished in captivity because she herself was free. Sabina examined Margaret Connors' strange sacrifice, as it had been gently explained by Sister Amaldis, but it was beyond comprehension. There were factors she had not been told! There had to be... ! She had been told she could refuse. But she had not refused... ! One day, vexed with herself, but with a wistful need to talk, she phoned Chrissy Ragan.
It was a cute little house in a cute little suburb. On the front door was a cute little note: "Sabina, come round back." The kitchen door was opened by a giggling Chrissy whose only attire was a chain and padlock which snubbed her left ankle behind her at the limit of its taut span. "Look how he keeps me!" she burbled happily as she threw a pair of delighted bare arms around her visitor's neck.
It was a lovely warm feeling of being wanted and being in a place where things were happening. Chrissy was in the midst of cooking. The kitchen was redolent of scents to delight the hearts of hungry men.
"I can't leave the kitchen, darling. Dick's got the key. Take your clothes off and we'll have coffee."
Their knowledge of each other was small, vividly shared experience not easily forgotten. Sabina was uncertain of what they might have in common, but the exuberant sex kitten would never be dull.
"But I'm not wearing a coat, Chrissy. It's summer."
"I didn't mean that, Sabina. I meant your clothes."
"You mean be like... the way you are?"
"Of course, darling! You don't want me to feel all naked!"
"But... when Dick comes home...?"
"He won't mind a bit."
"I don't suppose he will," Sabina acknowledged dryly. "But I'll mind."
"But, darling, he's seen you naked! In the classroom. He simply raves about your bottom."
"I'd have thought with yours... he wouldn't remember any other girl had one."
In complete mastery of her tether. Chrissy did a slow turn. Her eyes shone with pride. "I can't claim he doesn't use me... " Sabina found herself laughing. Chrissy was incredible. There was no broken skin, but the girl's bottom was a scarlet and purple tribute to Richard Atwood's dedication. It had been most competently caned: Sabina found herself breathless. "Chrissy...
it's... it's... "
"It is, isn't it!" Chrissy glowed happily. "The trouble is I've only got one and we run out of space."
"Look, I hope you're not thinking...?"
"You're so sweet. I knew you would!" The eager young arms once more embraced. Sabina was sexily kissed.
"Hold it! I never said... "
"But we knew you would, darling! Dick was so pleased when he heard you were coming. How did you escape?"
"The same way you did... Look here, you little sexpot, I'm not bending over for your boyfriend. I don't have to anymore."
"But it's so lovely!"
"It is for you, you outrageous kitten, but for most girls it simply hurts."
"Oh, gee...!" Chrissy looked reproachful. "You can't tell me it doesn't make your pussy perk?"
"Well... "
"I'll put your clothes in a drawer, darling. Then we'll have coffee... " In spite of carrying a chain and padlock on one ankle; Chrissy Ragan was happily assured, exuberantly in command. She glowed with a female certainty in the rightness of her world. In the face of such conviction. Sabina meekly removed her clothes. "I have to be nuts... " She grinned wryly. "Chrissy, you're out of this world."
"But doesn't it feel better, darling! Mmmmmb, I never want to wear clothes again... ! We won't have cakes now because of supper... " It did feel better! In the warmth of the cozy kitchen, and in company with Chrissy's nubile femininity, it felt entirely proper. The visitor was aware that through the medium of this affectionate child, the Seigneury had reached out and touched her.
"You weren't actually unhappy there... in that place, Chrissy?" she asked, puzzled.
"Mmmmmm, some of it was bad," the nude hostess admitted absently. "But that classroom was gorgeous. I just got put in there enough so's my bottom could heal up in between."
"Chrissy, this mania for getting your bottom whipped... ? Did you have it before you went to the Seigneury?"
Chrissy considered carefully. "Mmmmmuh, sort of in my mind... and reading books and things." She cocked a roguish eye at her guest. "Y'know, there aren't all that many chances for a girl to get her seat striped, so it wasn't 'til I got in that schoolroom... and then... oh, wow!"
"But that chain on your leg? You like that, too?"
"Of course!" Chrissy looked reproachful, as at an indelicate suggestion. "It's because of Dick... I mean, he's so super. When he puts a lock on me every morning before he goes to work, I simply melt." She giggled confidingly. "Sometimes we have to have a quickie."
"But you wouldn't run away?"
"Oh, darling, that isn't the idea. I belong to him. I'm owned. He wants me to be reminded of it every moment... and so do I. Every girl who's loved ought to be locked up some way."
Sabina remembered Candice, and was disarmed.
She supposed that in her slavery to Candice Rempel she may have been as abject as this radiant creature across the table. "I'd have thought you'd be reminded enough every time you sat down," she said dryly.
"Mmmmm, it's so lovely! I sit down gently and let it sort of sink in... Or run my fingers across the ridges... I get so horny I can hardly wait 'til he gets home."
The child was impossible! But delightfully and infectiously outrageous. Sabina felt like a spinster aunt. "But you can't make a life's work out of getting your bottom caned?" she suggested doubtfully.
"But, darling, that's only a part of it! I still get my hands caned... and if I've been really bad, the soles of my feet. But that hurts something awful... "
"But haven't you other interests?"
"Of course we have! Dick's marvelous in bed... and other places! And on weekends... wowie!"
"Okay, what do you do weekends?"
"We go on a picnic and he ties me to a tree. Or if we take a trip in the car he ties me in there, too. Once he tied me in the trunk for the longest time... gosh, that was a real crinkle for my cunt! But I usually sit beside him with my wrists and ankles handcuffed. I do think handcuffs are so convenient, don't you?"
"For policemen." Sabina was shocked to hear envy in her own voice.
There was a startled silence. Then, with a clatter of chain, a small feminine whirlwind enveloped Sabina in compassionate arms. Somehow the two of them slipped to the floor where the chained girl hugged and kissed a weeping Sabina, holding her as a mother might a child.
"Poor darling, you're unhappy. What's the matter?"
"I... I don't know," Sabina sniffed, ashamed of herself.
"Of course you know." Chrissy was suddenly the elder of the two and very wise.
"You're lonely, that's what's wrong with you."
"Why would I be lonely... and. I'm free?" Chrissy's lips occupied themselves steadily.
"Mmmmm, you haven't got Dick. Poor dear, you've come from a place where absolutely every thing happens to a girl, and you're sitting in an apartment all alone... " Was it that simple? For the moment, Sabina ceased to care. She sobbed quietly, wetting Chrissy's bare shoulder with her tears. She had an immense hunger for feminine understanding, and Chrissy was providing it abundantly. After minutes of maternal comfort she allowed herself to be stood erect, her head still upon a wise shoulder. There came some fumbling sounds, followed by something mistily familiar from the past...
"Chrissy, what on earth...!"
"Hush. Leave them alone." Chrissy was still the little mother.
Sabina left them alone. Wryly, she wondered if realization had come too late to prevent the handcuffs closing on her wrists... ! It did not matter. If it amused Chrissy... ! Strangely, their snug clasp was oddly comforting.
"We've got time for a second cup," said the hostess briskly.
Sabina sipped and felt better. Putting down her cup, she raised her linked hands.
"Why?"
"You need an anchor. They'll make you feel wanted."
"But you would take them off if I asked?"
"No, I won't."
They looked at each other and were suddenly laughing. Sabina fingered the familiar chrome upon her wrists. "This is purely ridiculous," she protested with patent insincerity.
"No, it's not. They're a sort of medicine," Chrissy said firmly. "Think I don't know!"
Chrissy knew everything. Sabina felt a small child, possessed and managed. But at peace. The girl's frank sexuality was both maternal and comforting. "Since you know everything, what's my trouble?" she asked ruefully. Then, hastily: "And don't you offer to put me in bed with your Dick!"
"But, darling, I would and he would and it would be so lovely for you!" Chrissy beamed. "You mustn't be unhappy, you just mustn't!"
"Absolutely no!"
"Well alright, if he gives you a good caning it will probably do you just as much good, I always think... "
"No, Chrissy, no!"
"It's yes, Sabina, yes!" Chrissy stated firmly. "You know damn well it's going to happen, and you want it to happen... "
"I don't...!"
"Yes you do."
"Why on earth would I?"
"I don't know," Chrissy admitted frankly.
"Same reason as me, I guess." She reached and patted a captive arm. "Stop worrying, Sabina. Now you're handcuffed you're all set... it's going to be so lovely... " Sabina was vexed. More with herself than with Chrissy. Vexed that she was not alarmed, that from her loins there was a rising tide of heat.
Flustered, she demanded: "Chrissy, unlock these handcuffs! "
"You're just saying that because you think you should," Chrissy admonished sagely. "Who d'you think you're kidding! I know all about you and that Candice Rempel... I picked it up from the Seigneury gossip. She kept you as a slave, and you loved every minute."
Sabina sighed, deflated. She cocked an amused eye across the table. Chrissy was a force, an element, like electricity. As impossible to counter as were the handcuffs.
Why fight? Why resist kindness and affection? She was adrift, and here was a safe harbour... Resignedly, she proffered her empty cup. Chrissy replenished it with both coffee and love.
Dick Atwood approved Sabina's nakedness, examining it with frank enjoyment. He lifted her locked hands and kissed both with a pleasing chivalry. "Bit different from the classroom eh!"
"Domestic discipline?" She sparkled back at him, suddenly at ease. His happy scrutiny of her breasts and pubic hair bad taken her safely over the hurdle of nakedness before the male.
"Did my sweetheart show you her bottom?" He turned Chrissy around and patted the item in question. "Lovely, eh!"
"Lovely."
"She gets unlocked now." He knelt and used a key. With an insouciant wave of a blithe hand, Chrissy flitted from the kitchen.
"Me, too." Sabina held out her hands.
"Not you, Miss Miles. You should know better than to ask." He reverted instantly to the schoolmaster.
She dropped a curtsey. "Thank you, kind sir."
He winked and became a boy. "Isn't she marvelous!" he asked rapturously.
"Quite incredible." Sabina held up her hands.
"No one but she could have got them on me. She's pure magic."
"You are going to stay with us?" He was the anxious host.
"Have I a choice?" She was the timid ingenue. "Not for today." He grinned disarmingly.
"You'll have to resign yourself to us today. I suppose if you made enough fuss we might let you go home tomorrow."
Sabina was not quite sure of him, or of herself.
He was tremendously likeable. "Chrissy's not really serious about you caning my bottom, is she... I mean, you're not?" she asked, conscious of the invasion of a blush.
"All three of us are serious about it. Very serious."
"I'm not." She returned his grin. "I have the most terrible compulsion to call you 'Mr. Atwood.' "
"Okay. From you it sounds cute." He eyed her quizzically. "Do you want to stay with us always? You can, y'know."
Sabina looked at him with amused concern. "But you've got Chrissy. What do you need me for?"
"You'd belong to us both, jointly."
"A slavegirl...?"
"Permanent position with full benefits."
"And a flayed bottom?"
Dick Atwood became intense. Sabina could feel his regard. "We both want you," he said slowly. "You'd lack for nothing and, once you'd said yes, we'd never, never set you free."
She was tempted. Absurd but true. It was the kitchen, and the little house, and the being wanted, and out beyond, the loneliness was waiting to claim her... How easy it would be! What a simple answer to desuetude. She was on the verge of laying her cheek upon a male shoulder and moistening it with tears when Chrissy returned. As a concession to her status as hostess she was wearing panties... or perhaps she wished to relieve her guest of the anxiety of an inflamed posterior!
"You won't be using it this evening, Dick, so I've covered it up," she informed brightly. She looked ecstatically at Sabina. "Oh, darling, just think...!"
Supper was as insidious as the rest. Warmth, chatter, belonging. Dick Atwood admired her breasts. She coped with her handcuffs with Seigneury skill. Chrissy's cooking was matched only by her concupiscence. How sustaining to be a part of it!
But surely she did not belong! Two girls and a man! It was a fatal triangle.
"I've told Sabina you'll fuck her whenever she wants, darling," Chrissy explained over the mashed potatoes. "We don't want her to ever feel left out."
It was as though her mind had been shrewdly read. Sabina wished the Seigneury had cured her of blushing, but it had not. "You two haven't the faintest need of me," she said forthrightly. "I'm not going to intrude."
"Slaves don't intrude, darling," Chrissy pointed out patiently. "Look at me. I'm a slave."
"If you were a slave you'd have put on a dress and walked out of this house after you were unlocked. While Dick and I were talking you could have disappeared."
"But, darling, I'm a happy slave! You will be, too."
In mock exasperation, Sabina inquired of an enraptured Dick: "Why don't you take this overheated creature somewhere private and give her a good thrashing? She says she loves them. I notice there's still space on her back."
"What a sweet thought," Chrissy cooed. "But we don't get our backs whipped here. Dick doesn't like the effect, and it doesn't perk my puss half as good as the other places."
"Well, one of the other places, then?"
Chrissy busily pushed dishes back and forth.
"But, darling, no! Not me! This is your evening. You'll be curling up inside.
Mmmm. I'm so happy for you. Dick's gorgeous. You can call him 'Master' if you want to."
Sabina was resigned. By some quaint, Chrissy inspired progression, she herself was now accepting that her bottom should be caned. It would probably hurt a great deal, and she would make noises and struggle and complain. But it was going to happen.
There was an inevitability... She glimpsed, too, the remarkable possibility of being thrust into bed with her host as a sort of coup de grace on top of a blazing behind. An evening against which loneliness could not prevail.
"She's prepared a room for you, Sabina."
"It's super. And it's got rings to be chained to. I know, 'cos Dick's fixed me in there sometimes."
Sabina looked at their happiness with each other and with herself. Was it such an impossible situation... ? Was it... ? She closed her mind upon tomorrow.
Chrissy's dessert was pure delight.
After the dishes they went to the room where it would happen.
Aware of butterflies in her tummy, the girl about to be caned made a practical appeal. "I'm no little heroine. Would you mind tying me, please?"
"Surely you can bend over for six, Miss Miles?" Sabina followed his lead. "I can try, Mr. Atwood, sir. But if I blow it do I get extra?"
"Naturally, I am sure you would expect to?"
"I suppose so, sir. Must I really try first... I mean try the bending over and keeping still?"
"With knees at all times rigid, Miss Miles."
"Poor darling, she's nervous," Chrissy exclaimed. "Tell you what, Sabina, I'll take a couple on each hand just to get things started. Dick dear, would you like to cane my hands?"
"It would give me exquisite delight, Miss Ragan."
"May I please squirm and make a fuss... sir?"
"In view of your humanitarian motives I will agree to that small concession, dear girl." Dick had become very much Mr. Atwood.
"Oh, thank you, sir!" Chrissy held out a brave small hand. The cut of the cane was as vicious as Sabina remembered. The Seigneury once more laid its cold touch upon her flesh.
"Oh, wow! Waaaaah... jeepers!" Chrissy hugged her hurt hand and did a small dance upon the rug. She was both pathetic and funny. She looked up apologetically from her bent-over anguish. "Gee-whiz, Dick... I mean, sir, you really are in form!"
"Some discomfort is implicit, Miss Ragan."
"Nnnnuh, are you going to hit me that hard next time?"
"Possibly harder."
Chrissy straightened slowly. She turned a bright eye on her audience. "See what I mean, Sabina, isn't he gorgeous!" Quickly she extended her other arm.
The handcuffed girl winced. She could believe it actually was a more severe blow.
Chrissy herself refused to cry out. But two pairs of sympathetically interested eyes followed her hand hugging contortions with rapt attention.
"That's enough, Chrissy," Sabina said with decision. "I'll take mine now.
There's no need for you to break any more ice. You've been sweet enough... " Chrissy wriggled and shivered, but there could be no doubting the sincerity of her tribute. "He's so wonderful! Mmmmmmb. Sabina, we're so lucky!"
It was a statement Sabina felt prepared to dispute. True, she was aware of life between her legs. But she was trembling. She was by no means sure this prelude was bolstering her courage... perhaps quite the reverse. These impacts of cane on flesh were wickedly evocative. Soon the blows would fall upon her own bare skin! Most certainly she did not wish to watch Chrissy writhe again. Even her voice trembled.
"Please, Mr. Atwood, don't cane Chrissy any more. I've seen enough."
"That is for me to judge, Miss Miles."
"Yes, sir, but... but... well sir, it's me who's being punished."
"You wish to offer your hands instead?"
"No, she doesn't!" Chrissy's comprehension was instant.
To offer her hands to be caned was the last thing Sabina desired. But she knew herself trapped. She made the best of a bad job. "If you please, sir?"
"No... look, that isn't the idea!" Chrissy was perturbed.
"Quiet, girl! You may retire."
"Oh, Dick, don't be so mean! I bet she hates having her hands caned. You do, don't you, darling?"
"In this case I'd like to have them caned."
Sabina felt idiotic.
"She has made up her mind, Miss Ragan. Kindly step aside."
"I won't! Dick, she's our guest. She sort of half likes having her bottom caned, but her hands are something else again. She's not me, y'know!"
Dick Atwood took a deep ecstatic breath. How superb they both were! And how different! And this was for real... "You have earned a correction, Miss Ragan," he said forbiddingly. "You will position yourself for the caning of your feet. When that small matter is attended to, Miss Miles' hands will receive the punishment that she has re quested. Let this be a lesson to you."
"Yes, sir." Chrissy was suddenly crestfallen and deflated.
This is happening, happening, happening... !
Sabina breathlessly turned the admission over and over in her mind as she watched a cowed but shining-eyed girl lay nakedly face down upon the rug and raise a leg bent upward from the knee.
"Please, sir, not too hard?"
"Do I detect humility, Miss Ragan?"
"Yes, sir."
The cane cut the small sole from toes to heel.
Chrissy yelped in agony, turned over and nursed her wound, crooning soft moans as though it was alive. Before a minute had passed, she looked up adoringly and breathed: "Thank you ever so much, sir."
Sabina longed to intervene, but knew herself in the presence of a dedication far beyond her own capacity. This man and this girl had something she could not hope to share. She was caught up in the web of their erotic hungers. In a little while her own pain would leave her no surplus sympathy. She watched, fascinated, when the lovely nudity turned back and raised its other leg...
"And now, Miss Miles?"
"I am ready, sir." Sabina looked down, embarrassed at her handcuffs.
"Miss Ragan will unlock them."
Chrissy limped to obey. As she inserted the key her eyes implored Sabina not to run.
Sabina nodded and smiled, knowing herself involved beyond withdrawal. The caned girl's hands were swollen so that she fumbled with the key. The cuffed guest wished she had bent over at the start. By now she would have received her six and been done. But now... ! When the second cuff fell free she walked forward and extended an arm.
"I wish you to watch your punishment, Miss Miles."
Sabina was afraid to watch. It took so much courage to turn and behold the punishment of your own hand! But she obeyed and managed to endure the preliminary taps and the swift arc of agony. Fighting every instinct, she allowed her arm to fall limp and to hold up and flatten out her other palm.
"Thank you, Miss Miles. And again... " It was every bit as bad as she remembered the Seigneury. She stood passively and fought down the waves of nausea and revolt. She closed her eyes to be alone with her pain. When certain of control she opened them and held out her wounded hands for Chrissy to once more join in steel.
"Darling, I'm so proud of you, you were wonderful! " Having clicked home the shining bracelets.
Chrissy enfolded her captive in loving arms. "Oh, Dick, she's really something...!"
"Miss Miles is to be commended."
Dick Atwood's stilted concession was sufficiently awed to give its recipient a tiny thrill. Hurting like fury, Sabina was proud.
"We must keep her, Dick! Always... always!" Over Chrissy's shoulder, Sabina's eyes locked with those of the man who held the cane. The man who would soon use it to weal and ridge her seat in a punishment she had not earned. She saw a great yearning, a great cruelty, and a great tenderness... Al strangely mixed and jumbled in her mind. Perhaps in what was now taking place lay the answer to the question mark of two females to a single male! Neither she nor Chrissy need ever be unassuaged. There would always be the cane... ! And if there were doubts, a metal band on wrist, ankle or neck would keep them safe. They exchanged a smile of knowledge and were comforted.
"At your convenience, Miss Miles."
"Yes, of course, sir."
Blushing. Sabina pushed away the small hand busy with her vulva. It was wet. She kissed a child's flushed face and gently edged away from clutching hands.
"Miss Ragan, behave yourself! Do you want another punishment?"
"Ooops, sorry! No, sir. Thank you, sir." Chrissy stepped back from temptation.
"Knees stiff, back arched well down please, Miss Miles."
The command took Sabina back to the place of fear and dread. It sounded so incongruously normal. Yet in the Seigneury she had met these two, and those others with whom she had loved and suffered. Nothing made sense, nothing was easy.
Decision was... ? She thrust the thought aside and posed her nudity tautly for the cane.
"Ah. Thank you. Quite perfect."
The blow followed instantly, It, too, was a familiar flaming agony. Sabina told herself to remember pride and use it to goad herself to a reasonable immobility for the six strokes. When the agony of one dissolved the taut offering of her flesh, she instantly stiffened her body and limbs back into their sacrificial pose in time for the stripe to follow. She did this six times, then straightened up stiffly, careful to keep her fingers from her weals. Her nakedness glistened with the dew of pain.
"Did anyone tell you to stand, Miss Miles?" Silently she cried in agony: "Oh, not again!"
Audibly she pronounced her own sentence. "No, sir."
"Ah, I thought not! You will take your punishment over again, Miss Miles."
Sabina saw Chrissy's glowing eyes, absorbed Dick Atwood's burning gaze. She was panting with pain, and now with apprehension. But she found herself desperately wanting to play their game, to give them joy. Mechanically she said: "Thank you, sir," then shiveringly added: "But I'm afraid I can't possibly stand still."
"Nonsense. You have superb control."
"You're an absolute miracle, darling." From Chrissy.
"Could you hit me... less hard, sir?"
"Certainly not. You are a big girl, Miss Miles."
"If you would help me a little, sir, I'll try real hard."
"Bend over before I increase your punishment."
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
Sabina bent down and found her toes. She tensioned, and it began all over again.
When the second blow thunked into her flesh she fell forward, wailing.
A silence lengthened while she writhed and sobbed. It held static long enough for the paroxysm to pass. Sabina looked up fearfully, her features wan.
"You have permission to try again, Miss Miles. On this single occasion there will be no penalty."
Was it worth it? Was anything worth such pain?
Sabina was considering revolt when she remembered her hands - they were handcuffed! She was not free to make decisions. In any scuffle she would lose. Why, oh why, oh why... ? Why did girls get themselves into such predicaments? It was not her first time... "Couldn't I be tied... sir?" Her voice was pale and anxious.
"For twelve."
How easy it was to defeat a naked girl! You said a few words or made a few motions and she would do what you wanted. Sabina, unhappily, got back on her feet and postured her person submissively. She looked at no one. The blow came, and another, and another. Her screams were silent.
There was much kissing and the heat of female skin. Chrissy was adoring. "He hits you harder than he usually does me, darling. Oh, you're so perfect, and so lucky."
"What's so damn lucky...?"
"Miss Miles!"
"Oh... sir!" Sabina was frightened. "I didn't know I was still... in school. I'm sorry."
"Indeed you should be. You are in school until such time as I release you."
"Please, sir, don't punish me again... for what I said."
"Please give me a reason why not, Miss Miles?"
"I hurt so terribly... and I'm going to cry."
"Both factors are irrelevant."
The tears came, and with them an indignant Chrissy. "Leave her alone, Dick. She's been gorgeous. I'm flowing like a river and you've got an erection. We ought to be grateful. I know she has to be caned some more... or something. Give her a rest first?"
"Hmmmm...!"
"Please... please... please. We can have drinks!"
It was so good to stop, and to be kissed by both of them, and told she was the best ever, and to sit down on something soft and feel the fire burn hot within her sex.
Sabina was not a bit sure about more punishments. But she sipped the brandy gratefully. The big snifter seemed designed for chained hands.
"We both love you terribly," said Chrissy. "You've no idea how good you are," Dick Atwood said reflectively. "We won't want to let you go."
Again the good feeling of belonging. Save for the handcuffs and the nudity, Sabina was warmly entrenched in the normalcy of suburbia. Her bottom throbbed, but with a treacherous pain. She was not Chrissy but she could understand... Over the rim of her glass she looked at her host: "Take off these handcuffs, please?"
"In the morning. Sabina."
"I don't want to be whipped anymore. It hurt something fierce."
"But you will be. No hurry, of course. We'll spread it through the evening."
Chrissy came and kissed her. "You know that's how it has to be, darling, don't you?
And you're so brave."
"Yes, I know." Sabina held out the snifter. "More?"
Dick served her, the perfect host. His eyes glowed as he bent close. "Thank you," he said reverently.
"Actually I'm a prisoner?" Sabrina asked. "If I tried to leave you'd stop me?"
"You'd look awfully funny out in the street like that, darling," Chrissy giggled.
"But of course! We'd have to stop you. A girl can't put up a good fight when she's handcuffed. I know - I've tried."
"I'm trying to put this all straight in my mind," Sabina admitted. "First the Seigneury, now this." She grinned companionably. "Is there something about me, some vibration people pick up? I don't think I want to be kept captive or have my bottom caned... or anything. But I'm always ending up like this."
"Most girls don't know what they want," Chrissy declared firmly. " 'Cept me, of course. And Dick knows what he wants. Sabina darling. I'll tell you this - you'll never be ordinary again."
The brandy was helping. Sabina nodded thoughtfully. "For a girl like me," she mused, "there's a need to make sense. I have a feeling that what the three of us are doing right now wouldn't make any sense at all to most people... "
"Most people don't matter. Just us."
"Alright. Let's reduce it to just us. Here we are in the loveliest situation, comfortable and happy. But in a little while you're going to punish me for something I haven't done and I'll be screaming with pain... that's the one I want to straighten out."
"You let me handcuff you, darling. You didn't fight."
"I know. That puzzles me, too."
Chrissy's voice became coaxingly serious. "Sabina, darling, how many times in the last week have you thought of going to the office... you know, where it all started.
Miss Connors...?"
Sabina was startled. "Good gosh, does it show... ? Chrissy, how did you guess?"
"Easy. If it hadn't been for Dick, that's what I'd have done."
"Go back to the Seigneury and the risk of dying!"
"I'm not sure about the dying," Chrissy said slowly. "I think it's fakes and stories, and a girl getting scared. I mean, I saw one happen one time, and it wasn't true."
"It's one of the reasons we want to keep you, Sabina," Dick said earnestly.
"Chrissy's positive that if you just wander around you'll end up going back for another five thousand."
"But I'd have to be nuts! It's for life!"
"It wasn't for you or for Chrissy. You're both out and around."
It was true. Sabina gazed ruefully into her brandy. Whatever these two dear people did to her she would bear as cheerfully as she could. She wondered if she would ever become like Chrissy - vibrant with a vital need. Or was she already more than halfway there... ?
"You must have your pussy whipped now, darling," Chrissy proclaimed matter-of-factly "You're doing too much thinking, and it's no good Let's just feel lucky... "
"I think the coffee table, Sabina," Dick suggested gently.
"Of course, darling," Chrissy gushed with excitement. "It's too unkind to ask a girl to stand still. I mean, I have tried, and Dick's so clever... But the way he's going to fix you...!"
Chrissy made it sound like an inestimable privilege. Perhaps it was! Sabina eyed the coffee table and the rope, and tried not to notice the slender whip that had appeared from nowhere. "How do you want me?" she asked brightly.
Sabina wanted to giggle. It was so much like being taken to hospital. Dick Atwood and Chrissy Ragan busied themselves with her nakedness with the same intent purpose displayed by interns and nurses readying a patient for an operation.
"Up with your hips, darling." From Chrissy. "We can leave the handcuffs, Sabina. Hands back over your head." From Dick.
"Two of these cushions are just right."
Sabina was sure they were. Her pudendum reared. "Then, when we cinch your waist like this... "
"And pull your feet back and back... My, look at that Venus Mound!"
It was all so flattering, so vibrant with feeling, such a human warmth. It seemed impossible that in a few minutes she would scream. Sabina lay on her back, eyes half closed, immensely content. Even as her body and limbs stretched and tautened under the pull of rope to the point where she could no longer move and the bands of steel on her wrists hurt... even then it was still good. Good because of these two who cherished her.
"You're so lovely, darling."
"Play with her nipples, Chrissy. See if you can get them harder."
"Oh, Dick, you're not going to whip her nips...?"
"Just for effect, sugar pie. Her breasts are so stretched... and look at her ribcage... Mmmmm...!"
"She's too gorgeous for words. Mmmmmn... ! Darling, do you want me to gag you?"
"No, thank you, Chrissy. I'm going to try not to scream. I don't suppose I'll manage it, but I want to try."
"You're so sweet. I'm going to kiss you and kiss you when the pain gets bad. I'll gag you with my lips and tongue... oh, darling, what a wonderful idea. You can moan into my mouth. Would you like that?"
"Yes, please. Oh, Chrissy...!"
The first cut of Dick Atwood's whip was pure ecstasy. Sabina felt her sex leap out to meet the lash. The pain was a distillation of every emotion she had ever known, an intensity of sensation akin to orgasm. She could not move.
"Mmmmmum!" Chrissy's sibilance was from her inmost being. The younger girl's fingertips were busy on the two nipples delivered to her care. The bound girl moaned. But it was not the sound of pain.
The slender whip was plied from side to side and between Sabina's tautly sundered thighs. Her vulva became engorged, her belly streaked with the painted lines of pain.
Within her loins a fire raged madly. She forgot all else but that she was possessed.
When her cries mounted, they were eaten from her mouth by red and lush and loving lips so that her pantings were shared, scented with girl scent...
She would never go away. Never! They must get much heavier chains and lock them on her tight. Or, better still, riveted on her forever! She would tell them... !
"She's loving it, Dick. Harder! Harder!" Sabina wanted to moan more deeply, her nipples were screaming demandingly. She could not move. Strive as she might she could not move... The whip added flame after flame to her fire.
"She's wonderful, Dick. Not a scream, not one."
"Feel it, Chrissy."
"Mmmmmb, it's soaking! And it's hot... so hot!" Chrissy moaned - an elemental sound of joy. "Oh, Dick. I love her so... I love her."
When they had whipped her to a point of erotic delirium they left her tied, panting out her myriad sensations in breast-heaving gusts, eyes closed in a land of joyous agony. Quietly, they sat and watched, their eyes glowing, savouring with the whipped girl every nuance of her pain. When, finally, she lay exhausted, they bound her, spread but relaxed, upon their bed. Throughout the night they fed upon her, each in their preferred way.
Sabina lost count of her orgasms. She could never leave them now.
CHAPTER EIGHT - The Torture of Margaret
"Are the defendant's hands secure, Bailiff?"
"They are that. Your Honour. They've been tied at her back for many a day now."
"Good! These recalcitrant wenches... ! Bailiff, you may retire. My colleague and I will discuss the disposition of our good Mistress Margaret Connors."
"Would'st wish me to iron her feet, sir?"
"Nay, 'tis not needful. If she be rash enough to flee the court, she'll not get far, and there'll be a whipping for her nigh the end."
Margaret shivered. The courtroom was cold and austere compared to the warmth and wonder of the cage. Glynis' lips had left her own but minutes past. They had exchanged a last fond look as she had been led away.
"Thy name, girl?"
She started, uncertain of her plight. But a Seigneury play would demand compliance.
She had best play her role passively and discover where it led. "I am called Margaret Connors," she stated in a clear and even voice. Pleas could wait.
"You will address the bench properly, woman. Now, tell us of thy crime?"
"There is no crime. Your Honour. I am innocent."
The black clad man sighed and shook his head.
"Always innocent. Butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. What say ye, Fotheringay, a trifle of torture while we lunch?"
It was truly chilling. The cage that had seemed so cruel was now a haven desperately to be desired... and Glynis! These two dry and fusty men in their black gown and frills... Her spirit revolted against their impersonal regard of her shameful nakedness. And her hands... ! Was she never to have hands again? Was Campys' threat of three hundred and sixty-five days with them tied behind her back to be her fate... and the fate of Glynis too? She had lost count of the days and nights during which they had been thus bound - fifteen... twenty... !
"My lords, might I be covered?"
They turned and surveyed her, staring reprovingly as at an intrusion. She was nothing... a nothing... a nothing!
"Nakedness is guilt, girl. With thy torture imminent, what serves it to cover thee."
"I am innocent, and denied hands. This is not... decent."
They reverted to themselves, bored with her importunities. No doubt she was but one of many a maid to stand thus for sentencing. Margaret found her thoughts following their sixteenth century usage of words. She longed for Glynis and the familiar bars.
Standing alone before the bench she felt a hundred times naked.
"The wench will confess, M'Lord Denton," Fotheringay mused. "They all do. I have been wondering of late if we should credit their torture to their punishment?
Consider whatever pain she's had when we sentence her?"
"Nay, nay! This is the new tolerance. I'll have naught of it. Whatever pain she gets is invited by her silence. She need have none."
"Save what we bestow in justice." Fotheringay's tone was dry.
"Aye and let us make sure of it."
Margaret cringed. She guessed that, for all intents and purposes, she might as well indeed be the unhappy female whose role she played. She did not know these men, and wondered what price they paid for the privilege of having her stand before them thus.
"The girl's done crimes enough on the Writ. Mayhap under torture she'll blurt out more. There will be accomplices."
"Yet she be most sweet to gaze upon. I'd fain show her mercy."
"Then ye be too young for this job, man," Denton chuckled, "or I'm too old.
'Twill please me mightily to see her dance 'neath the whip."
"Must we be forever lashing these wenches through the streets or at the pillory?
Surely they may find repentance in other ways?"
"Mayhap. But a good flogging's something they remember... and it gives the townsfolk a bit O' cheap pleasure. And a warning!"
"I like it not that children will watch this maiden scourged naked." Fotheringay sounded weary. "'Tis not an edifying sight for the very young. But they are always there, drooling."
"Ye need a tonic, man. Take the lass and use her. It's our privilege. Promise her a pardon and she'll hump her rump for thee."
It was cleverly done. Margaret admired the acting, even though the promise of agony was frightening. But perhaps that was an act, too... perhaps! She could be sure of nothing. But that was how they wanted her, in a sweat of apprehension, humble and anxious to obey, But it was tiring standing there with bound hands while they pontificated. She eyed the benches longingly, but dared not ask.
"I suspect her of being a lady." Fotheringay's response to Denton's coarse suggestion was cold.
"Damme, Fotheringay, you're a queer fish! She'll have the same hair and the same hole! Take a good look. She's making you an offer."
"There's no need to shame her more than we must." Fotheringay's voice became testy. "Nor do I want to see her broken on the rack."
"I'm with ye there," Denton unexpectedly agreed. "The rack makes a sorry shape of female flesh and bone. I prefer the iron. Often the mere sight of it glowing red will loosen a doxy's tongue. But if she stays silent it can leave a mark most pleasing to the eye."
"After it has healed. It takes months."
"Oh, aye, 'tis a good reminder. Burn one buttock and she'll sing before ye brand the other."
Fotheringay turned and gazed down upon the naked girl. "I will listen to anything ye wish to say," he said gently.
He was gravely handsome. Not as old as she had at first supposed. His regard possessed a personal quality to which the helpless girl responded impetuously. "I cannot play your game," she said dejectedly. "You know who and what I am... or was! In honesty I have to tell you I am genuinely frightened and want to go home.
Please help me."
The silence that followed was, in itself, frightening. It was as though the dark walls glared down at her in disapproval. Denton broke it.
"A presumptuous baggage, if ever I saw one. Don't tolerate it, man. I'll call the Bailiff and have him give her a thrashing. It will teach her enough manners to get us through this hearing."
"No." Fotheringay held out a restraining hand.
"I believe her sincere. Misguided, of course, but without guile." He turned a stern eye on the quaking culprit. "No more such outbursts, girl. Remember! None!"
Margaret wilted, close to tears. In those few moments hope had been kindled and destroyed.
"The trollop will get no mercy from me," Lord Denton interjected gruffly. "Why not have her sent to your chambers?" he sneered. "We can adjourn this affair until morning."
Again the hope. What did the act of sex mean compared with her life! The bound girl prayed her eagerness did not show upon her face. Fotheringay stood. He was obviously pondering.
But his voice, when it came, was decisive.
"Adjourn, yes. My chambers, no. The Bailiff must keep her safe."
Denton grunted sardonically and sat, huffily, while his colleague exchanged a prolonged scrutiny with the prisoner. His features were enigmatic but not hostile.
Abruptly, he uttered the single word: "Tomorrow," then turned and strode away. Denton belched, and the Bailiff entered with a jingle of keys...
It was a filthy little cell, furnished with a hard bench and a pail. Margaret sat on the bench and quietly cried. She no longer expected hands, and hers were still lost to her.
When she wanted to dry her cheeks she raised a bent knee and bent to brush away her tears upon its surface. It was not an easy task, for her ankles were chained.
"Wouldn't want ye running off now, would we, me pretty?" he had said when he locked the heavy irons upon her slenderness. "Them magistrates be a crotchety pair, and if I h'aint got thee come morning I'm in a heap O' trouble."
She had not complained. The weight of metal locked upon her mattered little. The cell was small and she would not be leaving it. But she was curious.
"My wrists?" she asked politely. "Will ye not iron them, too?"
The Bailiff scratched his head in honest perplexity. "'Tis summat I should do," he admitted slowly, "but there's orders. Leave 'er 'ands tied, it says. On no account loose 'er wrists." He had winked genially. "Don't understand it meself... " He winked again as though they were conspirators. "Ye probably know more the rights of it nor me. So I'll bid 'ee pleasant dreams."
"But clothes? A blanket?"
He shrugged and shook his head. "That's orders too, love. Stark naked is what it said... Ain't nothing I can do."
Alone, she pondered. It was Campys who gave the order. That was certain. That meant he was aware of her and what was happening. She was not forgotten as she had feared. She sought comfort in the knowledge. But Rolfe Campys was an unknown quantity always... His sponsorship might mean no more than that she must indeed stay bound as she was for a full year. It was a whimsy typical of his caprice... Hands tied behind her back were unlikely to unduly handicap a competent torturer. Her tears diminished slowly.
The gloom of evening brought Fotheringay.
As had happened previously, their eyes assessed, searching each other for something they hoped to find. "My name is Vincent Fotheringay," he said simply and without preamble. "I am a Chevalier."
There was a power and decisiveness in him that Margaret needed badly. Male to her female. "This is a poor, sad place for what you... for what... you want of me," she said wanly. "And my feet are chained."
His eyes possessed her, focused on her bonds, scanned the cell. His lips were amused.
"You're right," he agreed, "but had I that in mind you'd not be here."
Margaret kept silent, gazing up in a hungry need of tenderness.
"We can drop the vernacular," he conceded. "I have come to meet a Miss Margaret Connors. I am curious about her. She attracts me. I probably know her story, but tell me, anyway."
Ashamed and urgent, Margaret poured it out, hiding nothing. At the end of it he was smiling in quiet amusement. "A lovesick idiot," he agreed amiably. "But not the first.
Campys is an element like the wind. There's no coping with him. Are you still infatuated?"
Demonstratively, she fought her bonds for him, then grinned wistfully. "These have cured me."
"They have not cured Glynis Woodhaye." For thoughtful moments he was content to enjoy her helpless nudity. "But it is not her I am concerned with.
Supposing I obtained your freedom, what then?"
Her heart raced. This was it! Margaret found her eagerness hard to control. "You mean you would want... me?"
"I am a Chevalier."
The title said so much. She put it into a question.
"I would exchange one slavery for another?"
He nodded without apology. "But a free choice."
"What would you do to me? Why do you want just me?"
"You know what I would do to you. As to why... " He shrugged. "I don't profess to know the chemistry of these attractions." He was impatient of words.
"Then I can never be truly free, as I once was?"
"No. The Seigneury is satisfied to keep you." The captive girl's pulse still raced.
The unemotional exchange had brought no deflation. Vincent Fotheringay's defense of her in the court room was still paramount in her mind. "I want you to free me," she said simply.
"You will be less than free."
"Alright then!" Margaret's voice became as decisive as his. "Take me! Is that a better word? You need not even bother to untie my hands. Leave them as they are.
They've been tied like this for days and weeks. They may as well stay behind my back forever." She twisted disdainfully. "I don't suppose they'll discommode anything you want to do to me."
Fotheringay bestowed a twist of amused lips. "They haven't broken you."
"Yes, they have," Margaret assured him earnestly. "If you want me to. I'll grovel."
"We have made a decision," Vincent Fotheringay said soberly. "It now rests with me to make it real. I have to tell you it will not be easy."
"But you're a Chevalier!"
He smiled at her faith. "It helps," he admitted, "but the Seigneury will not relinquish you easily. I know what I am going to do. I know I will succeed. But it will take time."
"I'll wait."
"But you won't wait in comfort, that's the rub. You've been chosen for a role...
and this I can't stop."
"So what! I'll do my screaming... " She smiled up at him ruefully. "That's the one easy thing about this place - a girl doesn't have to quibble. Things just happen to her. If they hurt... well, it's just too bad."
His eyes paid tribute. "You have a tremendous courage," he said admiringly. "But there's Denton. He wants you tortured. I'll have a battle on my hands... "
"He was willing enough to put me in your bed."
"The thought amused him. In the days we recreate men sought to lay with a woman the night before her torture... or the night after. She was believed to be more passionate."
"I've never tried it laying on a flogged back. I think, for some, it might be true," Margaret admitted ruefully.
"I do not want to leave you like this." His eyes swept her dismal imprisonment with distaste. "But the moment I leave, the two of us must revert to the demands of the play... as in the court today. We will betray no other knowledge of each other."
"I agree. And... thank you."
"No matter what is done to you? I will mitigate it as best I can... "
"I find it easy to trust you."
It was his turn for thanks. The words were sheepish: "I suppose you've been told...
your hands! They are not to be untied. Some conceit of Campys', I suspect."
"It does not matter. He has promised Glynis and I three hundred and sixty-five days of it. Don't be concerned, Mr. Fotheringay, you are dealing with conditioned captives."
"My name is Vincent."
"Vincent... " Margaret Connors gazed pensively at the broad metal band riveted around her right ankle, and at its chain, trailing its length to the huge ring set in the massive concrete at the level of the ground. It was an exercise she indulged in often. Sometimes, and with difficulty, she contrived to finger the iron exploringly with the fingers of her bound hands. But mostly, she sat and looked ruefully at the medium of her captivity.
She likened it to the pacing of a caged animal behind bars... Surely there had to be a way... !
But there was no way.
She was little concerned by helplessness or the passersby who refused aid. It had become a fact of life in the eight days she had sat thus, a captive of the ring. It was not even possible for them to set her free, not without the tools of a smith. There were no locks or keys in this new thralldom. A blacksmith had riveted her thus, and until his return she must perforce endure the tether of the heavy chain. It was long enough for what was required of her.
Her wrists, crossed and bound behind her back, seemed a source of amusement.
Campys' edict was public knowledge. No doubt it made her more interesting, a chuckling speculation as to whether she would indeed stay so constrained for so long a time. Margaret shrugged it off as another facet of a captivity sardonically total.
Campys, as always, would be caustically amused.
To the right of her, and at some distance, stood the weathered threat of a pillory. At her left a whipping post stood starkly waiting. Scarcely a day passed in which one or both did not receive its weeping victim. By striding to the limit of her chain, Margaret could converse with either occupant. But there was so little to say! So few utterances safe from punishment. Mostly, the punished maidens exchanged sad glances of commiseration and left it at that.
At night they gave her a blanket. In the morning it was taken away. Her nudity was a gift from the Seigneury to anyone who cared to linger. There were many of both sexes who availed themselves of the privilege. Some were willing to talk, usually avid questions as to her sexuality or wish to escape. Others stood silently in pleasurable contemplation of the benefit. Among the more garrulous was Wardress Bulloch's detestable child.
Ermie.
"They'll keep you chained up like that 'til you die," she vouchsafed amiably.
The naked prisoner deemed it prudent to be friendly. "How do you know?" she inquired politely.
"That's what they did with the last one."
Ermie's eyes sparkled pleasurably. "'Course, after the first few months, they didn't give her much to eat." Her next question was hopeful: "You gettin' much?"
"Not very much," Margaret admitted. "I don't think they want me to put on weight. Besides, I don't get much exercise."
Ermie giggled. "You enjoy having your hands tied like that?"
"No. Am I supposed to?"
"Could be. Someone told me you gotta stay like that a whole year... your hands, I mean."
"I heard that story, too."
They had reached a conversational impasse, until Ermie remembered another tidbit.
"You're supposed to be lucky, just havin' to sit there with a chair. Seems like there's an old guy wants to crack your bones on the rack. But some other chap wants to fuck you and don't want you hurt. So they fixed you thisaway until someone else says what to do with you. Sounds cute, don't it... screwed or stretched."
Margaret was disliking Ermie more by the minute. But gossips were informative.
"Who's that someone, Ermie? The one who decides?"
"G'wan, you know who!" The child was derisive. "It's him!"
"Who's him?"
"You havin' me on! I ain't sayin' his name."
"You mean Rolfe Campys."
"Ma says I ain't s'posed to talk 'bout him. She says he's liable to latch onto me when I get bigger tits. I sure do hope he does."
"Ermie, don't be silly. D'you want to end up like me?"
"Well, you girls ain't never bored." Ermie giggled again. "The things they think up to do to you."
"You think it's fun being helpless and having to sleep out in the open on the ground!" Margaret was indignant. "I have to pull the blanket around with my teeth."
"I think you're damn lucky. I know I... "
"Go peddle your papers, Ermie. You're a disgusting little chatterbox. Run along now."
The captive looked up gratefully at Mrs. Diane Hetherington. The Chatelaine was smiling in amusement. "Got yourself into a fine old fix, didn't you, Miss Margaret Connors!"
"Oh, Mrs. Hetherington, I'm so glad... " Margaret remembered this beautiful woman from those other days in the office. "It's sweet of you to come and... well, look at me. And to get rid of Ermie."
"Not really sweet, Margaret. Mostly curious. What the devil did you do it for?
Hot pants for Campys?"
"Diane, I need help. I've got to get out of here."
"You won't get help from me, pet. I don't want to die young as the leading lady in a spectacular."
"I've been chained like this for eight days and nights."
"You're looking damn good at it, Margaret. Prim and proper behind that desk, no one would have known. You had me fooled. What's your thing, the cane or the whip? I'm an absolute idiot over getting my bottom caned."
Margaret was disappointed. This lovely creature... caned! It seemed incredible.
But Mrs. Hetherington was a Chatelaine... ! Irritably, she retorted. "I don't have a 'thing.' I was just nosy and I suppose this serves me right. But I want out. I want to go home."
"I suppose you've guessed you're here for life?"
"I've... I've... is that really true?"
"You must know by now it's true. If they can keep Glynis Woodhaye they can certainly keep a poor little secretary." Diane eyed her whimsically. "You sure walked into the lion's den."
"I suppose you've heard the funny, funny about my hands?"
"Oh sure," Diane chuckled. "You've got to admit there's humour in it. It's vintage Campys. Rolfe has a genius... "
"I thought I'd be able to appeal to him. But I can't."
"Oh, he probably loves you a little. The same way he does any lovely female.
There's times I've thought he had the hots for me. But it's just an instinctive appreciation of the sex. He loves us all. But he'll never let you go any more than he will Glynis." Diane paused and cocked a quizzical eye. "But I did hear you're not without a friend?"
Margaret looked up, startled. Vincent Fotheringay was never far from her thoughts.
Did Diane know", ?
"This place seethes with gossip, pet. You must have realized that with young Ermie." Diane looked down at the naked prisoner with compassion. "I picked up a signal. For your sake I hope there's something to it."
Margaret looked her agony. She dared not voice a name.
"Look pet, let's not talk about this but I want to give you a tip." Diane's voice was both gentle and urgent. "The guy's okay. Trust him. I like him myself, If anyone can do... what you want, it's him."
The captive heart leaped. The captive eyes pleaded for hope. "Will he be kind to me...?"
"Yes, he will. In fact, you'll be a most privileged female. He's rich as all get-out.
But he's often stern... and you can expect to get whipped. Not often maybe, but sometimes. He does it beautifully."
"Beautifully! "
"Yes. I let him whip me once."
"Diane... no!"
Diane Hetherington chuckled. "I'm afraid it was: Diane... yes! He frankly told me he'd come by an obsession about doing it... to me, I know how these things can be.
So I said yes. He was gorgeous."
"Gorgeous...?"
"Why, pet, I think you're shocked. But that's the word for what he did to me and the way he did it. I was sorry it satisfied his hunger for me. I'd have let him do it again. But this damn place is so loaded with girls...!"
"He tired of you... the one time...?"
"Margaret, stop worrying! I know men. I know the difference between what he wanted of me and what he'll demand of you. I've told you it's okay. Believe it!"
Margaret believed. She knew that if she did not believe Diane's passionate assurance she would wish to die.
"And obey him. Understand that, Margaret, obey him implicitly. Go along with whatever he contrives, no matter how bizarre or frightening. Remember, he may be fighting the Seigneury and using their rules."
"I will... oh, Diane, thank you...!"
She watched the retreating figure of the Chatelaine, then looked down at the band upon her ankle. Would the implacability of the iron outlast her courage? Was Diane's message anything more than the arousal of a hope born only to die? A vivid mental picture of Vincent Fotheringay hovered...
"And what did our lovely Chatelaine have to say, poppet?"
Startled out of her reverie, Margaret turned to behold the amused regard of the man who had accepted her life and now refused to return it. As usual, she was irritated by the instant fire between her legs. Rolfe Campys was an incurable distress. "Rolfe, please let me go?" The plea was an instant reflex on her tongue.
"Girl talk or sedition?"
A cold hand clutched. Did he know? Could anything be said within the demesne that did not reach his ears! "She was just curious. Wanted to have a look at me... Oh, Rolfe, don't keep me prisoner any longer. Please... I've had enough."
"Enough what, sweets?"
"Punishment. That's what this is."
"Come, come, poppet. It's simply a remarkable experience. In years to come you'll look back... "
"I won't! I won't! Rolfe. I've been chained to this beastly ring for eight days...
everyone gawking at me. And my hands tied behind my back... How long is it now? It must be weeks!"
"I'm proud of you, sweetheart. First thing you know you'll only have three hundred days to go to get your hands back."
"Everyone's laughing about me and Glynis being tied like this. You must have told the world. Rolfe, don't be so mean."
"Will you marry me, poppet?"
"Yes!"
Their eyes locked until he laughed. "Just asking, love. I was curious. Instant acceptance! I'd say that was the quickest yes I've ever been given."
"You know I've always adored you, Rolfe, take me away from here. Whether you marry me or not. I'll be whatever you want."
"You can be that here. In fact, I find your present pose immensely satisfying."
"Chained in the dirt like a dog!"
"No, no, no! Dear girl, you do run off so! In your present circumstances you are more than beautiful, an exquisite blend of pathos and passion. Would you enjoy a spot of sexual congress?"
"Don't be unkind."
"How about a good thrashing?"
"No thanks! I know there's females here who enjoy it, but I don't! Why don't you just recruit or kidnap pretty little perverts?"
"Too predictable, poppet. No shocked responses. No spontaneity."
He was only amusing himself, enjoying her impotent chagrin, Margaret searched for words with which to pierce the armour of his perpetual amusement.
"There's a man named Denton. He wants to have me tortured?"
"So I've heard. Good man, Denton. Favours the rack, I believe?"
"Don't let it happen, Rolfe... no!"
"Due process of law, poppet. Fair trial and all that."
"There's nothing fair about it. He's just an elderly sadist. Oh, Rolfe, my bones broken... a cripple?"
He laughed delightedly. "That's just for really bad girls, love. You're simply naughty.
I'd say a mild stretching, with a few hours' quiet contemplation. Might come and take a gander at you myself. Quite amazing what the rack does for a girl's figure."
"Don't let him have me. Please... please... please?"
"It's only the prelude, dear girl. After you've confessed you'll be sentenced. I hear the magistrates are divided... " Again the cold hand! But she responded vehemently. "He talked of branding me...?"
He kissed her lightly. She could not lift her arms to him. "Marvelous idea, poppet.
We'll use my initials." He strode blithely away. He did not look back.
"They'll brand her and transport her, most likely," said the woman.
"And she'll be marked and bruised, but will heal on the voyage," said the man.
Husband and wife! Middle-aged. Almost certainly of the Seigneury, but in seventeenth century garb. Not fashionable. Arm in arm. Something solid about them.
"The Virginia colony, lass. You'll be indentured. Would ye like us to buy thy papers?" The man beamed genially.
"We'll stripe thy pretty back no more than most," the woman offered comfortably.
Another game! Another mockery! Margaret Connors was sick of both. But she was also bored with her shackle...
"Oh, please, kind sir, buy me. Buy me?"
"Ye'll do thy stint in the cotton fields, girl."
"And a fine nigger I'll breed 'ee to. Comes out a nice color."
"Could'st not breed me thyself, sir. I be mighty good on me back." She looked up roguishly. "Just one night, Missus?"
"A proper tearsheet, Giles." The woman was incensed. "A hot-cunted trollop... and she looked so sweet! Come, man, come."
The man lingered, eyeing Margaret's pubic hair.
"A few good whippings would cure her tongue. Bess. She's good stuff... "
"Come!"
They drifted away.
It was not the rack.
There had been controversy. Lord Denton had been annoyed and had said so angrily. "A childish whimsy! The man's unreasonable."
She had stood, meekly, while her torture was discussed.
"Can't rack the gal, M'Lord. Not with her hands where they be," the Bailiff had pointed out reasonably. "Mayhap the branding?"
"That's for later. I want her to be in fear of it through the day, knowing it awaits."
"Best keep her conscious, then, M'Lord."
"Of course she must be conscious. Don't talk like a fool; man. I don't want the boot or the thumbscrew. They're crude things designed for men. Does that reduce us to something childish?"
"We've a fine collection O' whips, sir. She'll scream."
"Humph! And how d'you propose to slice the doxy's back with her arms where they are?"
"Aye, that be a poser, M'Lord. But there be the cord. Her hands is just right for the cord, so they are."
"The cord's not effective without dislocation, and that's forbidden. Damn the man and his favourites."
While Denton raged, Margaret found what comfort she could in this evidence of Campys' concern for her limbs.
"The cord gives her little ease, M'Lord. And it lays bare her arse. I can flay it handily... " Margaret sighed wearily and shifted from one foot to another in an endless and futile attempt to defeat Denton's purpose. She had stood in bent-over misery for what seemed a long time. Her shoulders screamed against the elevation of her bound wrists. She stood on tiptoe. She had little hope that what she was suffering would be counted torture. True, it gave her time to contemplate the brazier and the iron, but their burning of her flesh was for later. Soon she would be beaten. She was certain the anguished curves of her derriere would soon be striped. Denton had said so.
When he and the Bailiff had left her thus they had departed busily debating the instrument by which she would be marked.
Hope was cruel. It had dangled before her eyes the thought of Fotheringay's intervention to save her from the promised torture. In all her days and nights shackled to the ring she had thought of him and of Campys. Surely one or the other... ! But here she was! Naked in the awful chamber, fastened cruelly to await the things to be done to her to make her scream.
It was ironic, but she supposed herself lucky.
The grim frame of the rack stood there for her to see. There were other things she could not name. Her lot was to be pain, probably a lot of pain, but not injury. After that, her sentence... ! She moaned and twisted in desolation.
"You have a positive gift for appealing poses, Margaret. I wish you could see yourself."
Diane Hetherington's cheerful comment was fully up to Seigneury standards. Forever the unexpected. Forever thrust off balance. By accepting a little more pain, Margaret was able to look up woefully at a pair of laughing eyes.
"Don't look so apprehensive, darling. I'm here by special dispensation."
"Oh, thank heavens! Diane, let me down... quick!"
"A bit trying, dear? Beautiful poses often are."
"Yes, I'm sure. Oh golly, I'm so thankful... please hurry."
"Don't you want to know what happened to your friend, Denton?"
"Not really. Oh... oh... what did happen to him."
"I'm taking his place... and the Bailiff's."
"Oh Diane, please don't joke. This is an awful spot I'm in. Just let my arms down."
"Of course I'll let your arms down, Margaret. But not right now."
"Why not right now?"
Diane Hetherington smiled winningly. "Because I'm going to whip your lovely bottom."
"Diane!"
"Yes, dear?"
"You're not... are you? You wouldn't...?"
"Why wouldn't I, pet? I'm a Chatelaine. Besides, I've made a rather interesting little deal" Margaret Connors twisted unhappily. "What sort of a deal?"
"Your bottom for my influence. Don't ask any more questions."
"But, Diane, you're nice!" Margaret was bewildered. "Why d'you want to be cruel to me? We... we're friends!"
"We are, indeed, darling. I'm being cruel to you because it will give me great happiness."
"Don't my feelings count?"
" 'Fraid not, pet. I'm just a lustful Chatelaine, cruel and sadistic. I quiver in ecstasy at maiden screams."
"You're not any of those things, Diane. I know you're not. You're having some sort of joke. So, okay, I'll stop asking to be let loose."
"There's a sweet girl!" Diane bent and kissed the captive lips, then knelt so that captive eyes could find her own. "There's no mystery about me. Surely you've been here long enough to know what turns us on. Think a bit - there you used to be, svelte, immaculate, demure and decisive all rolled into one. A gorgeous wool-sweatered package, efficient, desirable and utterly chaste. Why the hell wouldn't I want to whip your bottom? Behind that desk of yours you were an agonizing challenge. I used to look at you and see you in spots like this one here. Many a time I've walked out of your office soaking wet."
"But why didn't you tell me? Give me a chance...?"
"Never play around with the hired help, darling It's a good old American precept. But when you walked in here... ! Darling, you were an absolute idiot."
"I know that now."
"But I'm so grateful! You make an entrancing contrast. Darling, can you glimpse what I'm talking about?"
"Oh sure!" Margaret's acknowledgement was ruefully amused. "As you said - I've been here a long time. And I'm a big girl now. Go ahead and have your fun. I'll only scream when I have to."
"You're delicious. Someone is going to be very lucky." Diane kissed the nude helplessness hungrily with red lips, lush and moist. Thoughtfully, she selected a single thong. Short lash, short stock. "One little cheek at a time, darling. It's better that way... and this sweet thing is so accurate."
It did not seem better. Nothing was ever better.
At the Seigneury everything got worse. Margaret was startled that so innocent an instrument could inflict so much pain. One of her bottoms flared into agony. She kicked at nothing and twisted against the compulsion of the suspending rope.
"Simply gorgeous, Margaret, gorgeous! I wish you could see."
Before the captive could speak, the other cheek flamed to match the first. She moaned gaspingly: "Diane... oh no! Diane." oh please, not so hard!"
"No good unless it's hard, pet."
"I can't bear it! Oh, go easy... please!"
"You're bearing it beautifully."
"No I'm not! I'm... ouch! Arrragh! Diane, stop! That little beast of a whip...!"
"Darling, I'm so lucky! I know I am. Getting you like this." Diane Hetherington frictioned a fingertip along the surface of the angry weals she had placed on the helpless curves. She paused to sensually enjoy what she had done. "Whipping your sweet bottom is an experience... even for a Chatelaine.
"Diane . . please! No more." Margaret was panting.
"Of course there's more, pet. Don't get so het up. You're better off with me than with the Bailiff."
"I know! I know. I'm sorry. Oh, Diane...!"
"It's just that you haven't been whipped for so long, dear. First the cage, then the chain. Your little bottom's had a holiday. Do you realize there wasn't a mark on it?"
"It's a lovely one, dear. Here, let me feel... Oh sure, you're drenched...
same as me. Wow, I'm thankful I didn't miss out on you. The next couple are going to splat into that delightful crease where it meets your thighs."
Margaret moaned and yelped her way through the twin blows. She was fiercely determined not to scream. Everything was upside down... absurd... incredible!
But Diane was a friend. Diane had been kind... to scream under her whip seemed a disloyalty, a strange ingratitude.
"Darling, what about between your legs? Would you like a couple in there?"
Margaret moaned. She longed to say the right thing but knew whatever she said would come out wrong. "Diane, I'm not like that! Please understand... I'm not! I don't want to be whipped anywhere, certainly not there."
"But you do like it, pet." Diane was a mother comforting a child. "You just don't know yet. I'm sure the Seigneury must be terribly difficult for you." She stepped back and delivered another swift cut upon an unprepared cheek. "There. A beauty!
Mustn't lose the rhythm, y'know."
"How... how many?" It was the query uppermost in the naked girl's mind.
"Oh, Diane, how many of these awful... things?"
"You took that one much better, sweet. It's the first shock that gets to a girl."
"Diane, I think it would help if you told me. Please... ? How many strokes must I have?"
"Mmmmmm, I could go on forever," Diane mused quietly. "Gosh, your wrists are having a bad time up there. You shouldn't tug on them the way you do."
"I can't help it... Diane, don't tease. How many?"
"I suppose I mustn't impose. How does twenty sound?"
"Terrible."
"A girl hardly ever gets less than twenty. I thought you'd be pleased."
"I'm sorry. I'll try and be pleased then."
"You're absolutely adorable, Margaret. I wish I could own you. And now...
open up your pretty legs, please."
The girl about to have her sex whipped made a discovery. "Ow... oh damn' It's worse for my shoulders. "
"It won't be for long, darling. You're so brave."
"I'm not brave at all. I simply can't doooooo... ahhhhhgh... oh... oh... oh!"
It took every ounce of will the tied girl possessed to absorb the agony of the upward cut within her loins and to remain with thighs apart to invite the next. She quivered and kicked against the feminine anguish, her wrists and shoulders adding their own protest. "May I close my legs now?" she panted meekly.
"You may. Darling, you were superb." Diane, too, was breathless.
"Thank you. I'm afraid I'm going to cry."
"Poor pet! Let's have real tears. Open up for one more."
Dazed with shame and pain, Margaret obeyed, shuffling her feet far apart, absorbing the added stress on her shoulders. Fighting back a poised scream, she waited.
Like all else, it was not to be believed. It was not credible. It was not happening to her but to some other girl. As her hands and arms slowly returned to normal and her heels once more discovered the floor, the whipped girl looked about in dismay for whatever agony must surely come next. Instead of pain, she was enveloped by strong arms and heatedly kissed.
"Rough on your shoulders, pet?"
"Awful and beautiful together... " The naked captive wept unashamedly on a sympathetic shoulder.
"Forgive me, Margaret? I really was a bitch."
"You weren't! Oh no! Thank you, thank you...!"
A suctioning palm cupped the whipped sex.
"Hmmmmm, well maybe you should thank me, pet. I've never got a wetter hand. Look, precious, I'm not allowed to untie your hands... sorry!"
"I don't mind. I... I understand." Margaret was prepared to be very happy.
"But I don't understand anything else," she added lamely.
"You don't need to, love. Remember - like I said. No questions?"
"Alright, I'll behave. Oh, Diane, thank you for not whipping me any more!"
"You're welcome sweetness. And thank you!"
"What's going to happen?"
"Shut up, darling."
Darling shut up. Darling was not hurting.
Thankfully, but in utter bewilderment, she allowed herself to be led away.
"You can use a bath," Diane conceded, plying soap and sponge. "Just be a baby and let mother do everything."
It was beautiful and wonderful. Margaret sighed in ecstasy and allowed herself to be pushed and pulled and patted. The hot perfumed water and the loving hands made the cage and the chain and the whip no more than a bad dream. The bound wrists did not matter. Their cords had become a part of her consciousness.
"And your hair. I'm rather good at hair, pet. I hope you realize how lucky you are? A Chatelaine for lady's maid?"
"Diane, oh Diane...!" Margaret could realize almost nothing except a vast and welling thankfulness. If she was being made immaculate as a prelude to torture, she would enjoy this luxury to the fullest extent permitted. She closed her mind to everything except the sensory enjoyment of Diane's hands and the Seigneury's perfume. She reveled in this reaction into happiness.
The mirror and the gown! Both were ecstatically shocking. The mirror revealed a beautiful woman she had never met. The gown transformed her into something she could never be. "Shut up and stand still," Diane warned, good-humouredly. "You've been cast in a role. Play it."
How could a bridal gown and the scent of flowers lead her to torture or to death! In the Seigneury it could be possible... And yet! Margaret Connors let herself be led along the passages and the halls... Her bound hands denied the ultimate hope.
It was the great hall. It was now a Cathedral.
The congregation was large. An unseen organ rolled out majestically the paeans of Wagner's imagery. Heads turned.
Suddenly Campys was at her side. An immaculate and solemn Campys with twinkling eyes. With a hand gently beneath her arm he paced her down the aisle to the altar where Vincent Fotheringay stood in grave expectancy, his eyes alight for her alone. Beside him a man, to one side Diane. In the centre, the surpliced minister with his book. The organ thundered out the triumph of the bride.
Campys was suddenly gone. Only the minister and the words, the words that could have meant so much had they not been false. "Do you, Vincent... ? Do you, Margaret...?" And the hushed responses, her own a fearful whisper of longing...
Even the placement of the ring was not impossible. She was gently turned. She spread the fingers of her left hand wide against its cord. The golden band was set firmly beneath her knuckle by fingers that sent a shock throughout her being. It had not mattered at all that she was bound. She was kissed and kissed back hard. She was kissed and patted by others she did not even know... it seemed by everyone. At the end... Campys! His eyes were fierce as he pressed his lips hard enough to bruise. His fingers gripped possessively as he whispered: "Thank me!" Without volition she said, huskily: "Thank you, Rolfe."
The confetti, the limousine... and Vincent Fotheringay... ! By the time they were halfway through the park, the girl who was no longer Margaret Connors began to believe the signature she had so laboriously and painfully scrawled upon the parchment was a trothe.
"It's real, y'know." Vincent Fotheringay kissed her properly as a new wife should be kissed. When they drove through the huge gate and headed down the open road, his wife believed him.
Later, in their bedroom, when he had stripped her of the satin and the lace and she stood in shivering happiness to await his pleasure, Vincent Fotheringay made his confession.
"Margaret, you've guessed?" She nodded, uncaring.
"The Seigneury demands... " His eyes glowed.
"I married you because I want you. It was also their price."
"I am happy."
"And I had to make a vow-a gentleman's agreement with Campys... " She laughed at his chagrin. "I guessed. I do not mind."
"Your hands... not to be untied."
"Never untie them, Vincent. Not even when the year is done."
He carried her to the freedom of their bed.
CHAPTER NINE - The Corded Wrists
Glynis Woodhaye surveyed the Moroccan patio and the upturned faces, bright-eyed and eager, with a cynicism born of being too long nakedly exhibited for male inspection. The cage had inured her to the contemplatively curious. She had ceased to look back at their regard. Now, upon the auction block, her shame was only slightly enhanced. The same cynicism enabled her to recognize the convenience of hands tied behind her back. She could not use them to cover anything these men might wish to buy. She was pretty merchandise neatly constrained.
Yet, with the cynicism, there was a welling thankfulness to be released from her horizon of bars. After Margaret Connors had been taken away she had ceased to count the days... or the weeks. She had begun to remember the historical precedents of people kept in a cage until they died. When the door had been opened and she had stepped out, it had been one of the good moments, a moment vouchsafed by the Seigneury without conscious intent but much to be treasured by its slaves.
She supposed she was left standing on the block to increase the cringing apprehension she should feel at a fate she could easily guess. One of these men would buy her. The kindest treatment she could expect was sexual ravishment. But the scenario might call for other diversions, or the caprice of her new master make more painful demands. Glumly, she glimpsed the possibility of looking back at the cage as a safe haven to be desired.
The Seigneury had conditioned Glynis Woodhaye to shock. Standing naked before a hundred eyes, she considered her own response to what was about to be done to her.
She knew it would be less, painful if she followed the leads... meekly obeyed. Her whole temperament revolted at the compulsion, but it revolted also against a striped skin. She sighed in resignation, knowing she would play Scheherazade.
The bidding was brisk and very flattering. "Well?" It was a brisk, no-nonsense voice.
After her purchase she had been carried far, her eyes covered, then tossed contemptuously upon a rug. Glynis made ineffectual attempts to remove the bandage. Suddenly, it was done for her. She blinked up at the man in the haik. "I am your new slave, lord." Her admission came with mechanical ease.
"What do you expect in my house, girl?"
"To serve you, lord."
"Humph, thought you'd put up more of a battle for your outraged virginity."
His disappointment was real.
"No, lord, I have been caged and punished. I am not virgin."
"I like your style, girl. Keep it. But when we're alone, I'll revert to plain old American."
"As you wish, lord."
"Hate me?"
"Slave girls are not allowed to hate, lord. If you see hate in my eyes, then punish me."
"Dammit, you're good! Or am I being suckered?"
"You know the answer, lord. I have been broken."
"It won't do you a lick of good. I'll hurt you anyway."
"I have guessed that, Master."
Lips twisted in wry amusement, he looked down at her tied nudity. "You're deadly," he said slowly. "I suppose you know you're about ten times as erotic with your submission than... some other way?"
"Yes, Master. I know this. I will plead and shame myself if you so wish. But I do not choose... "
"And you're Glynis Woodhaye...?"
"I was Glynis Woodhaye, lord. I am not now. I am a slave."
"And me to fuck you."
"Master, please fuck me." Her gaze met his own steadily. "Shall I arrange myself for your pleasure?"
"You're real! Hard to believe, but you are! I will not hold congress with you now. That's for later." He glowed at her with an assessing satisfaction. "Would you like me to whip you?"
"No, Master."
"And honest to boot! Suppose I make you beg for it?"
"I would do so, Master. But not with joy."
He nodded, pleased. "You defeat yourself. I cannot resist." he admitted with amusement. "Ask."
"Please, Master, whip your slave girl. I do not desire it, but I plead with you to stripe me."
Glynis was trembling inwardly. She was kneeling, a supplicant, playing with fire.
Soon she would be burned. The Master was savouring his possession and her humility. There would be no escaping unscathed from this one.
"To do it properly I would need to untie your hands."
Glynis looked up, startled, in time to see him laugh. "I see you are aware of the edict. Do you find comfort in the interdiction?"
"No, lord. My hands have been tied thus for many weeks. I would wish them free."
"Even at a cost of stripes?"
"Yes, lord."
He chuckled. "Well, you're safe enough and I expect you know it. But there is plenty more of you besides your back."
"Of course. Master. It is all yours."
"Stand up." He found himself a chair and lounged comfortably. "Stand straight and erect, about ten feet distant. Face me. Point your breasts. Your feet just slightly apart."
Glynis did as she was told. She wondered if a woman could be more ashamed. She took a deep breath and thrust out her chest. Her pubic hair would be a beacon beneath her belly.
"Move, and I'll use a riding crop across your rump."
"Thank you, Master."
"Dammit, we should use you more! You're perfect. You already know you'll tire and move, don't you?"
"Of course, lord. Then I will be punished."
"To stand and tire again."
"If it pleases you, Master."
"You please me very much."
"I wish to, Master." Glynis smiled frankly. "I am only a slave girl who hopes to please her master enough that he will not whip her too severely."
"But you regard a whipping as inevitable?"
"Yes, master."
"Tell me why?"
"To whip a naked girl gives great happiness to a male, lord. I think it stimulates an orgasm on and on for as long as he may desire. To be marked by your lash is part of my duty as a slave."
He sighed wearily, his eyes devouring. "Tell me of Miss Glynis Woodhaye."
"She was rich and spoiled, Master. She was pampered and selfish and a coquette. She was made captive and humbled."
"What did it take to make you as you now are?"
"The whip, lord. I am desperately afraid of the whip. I think the whip will make most girls do whatever their master desires."
"Is that all?"
"I was imprisoned, Master. It is very terrible for a girl to be locked alone in a small cell, handcuffed."
"Nothing more?"
"No, Master, those things will condition a girl as desired."
"And you are not one of those who find pleasure in the thong close or upon her sex?"
It was hard to stand still. Glynis had come close to twisting in shame at the question, and the answer she must give. "I have known it, Master. But mostly the pain is so great I simply scream." She wondered if his curiosity was real or only a goad to whip up eroticism in them both. He was a handsome creature who had not yet hurt her.
His regard had already sparked a response within her libido. "I do not pretend to understand it." she added lamely.
"I am finding an arousal in the knowledge of what you were," he said frankly.
"It is like the power to fuck the president's wife or the queen of England."
"It is contrast, Master. A thought to stimulate."
"You're holding that pose damn well, Glynis."
"I am being obedient, Master. But would you not prefer me to assume a position to be whipped?"
"Even when you haven't earned it?"
"Being a slave girl earns it, Master."
He nodded slowly, chin in hand, surveying his treasure. "You are far too beautiful for the commonplace," he said soberly. "Beating you where you sit, or even streaking that lovely back does you no justice."
Glynis' heart raced, but she said, demurely: "Thank you, lord."
"I'll not do either. Ever been a defendant in an Arab court?"
"No, Master."
"Do you know the sentence on runaway slave girls?"
A glimmer of memory flickered in her mind.
"They are branded, Master."
He nodded at her forthrightness. "That is often done. In your case, no." His eyes twinkled at her perturbation. "Not that I don't like a good clean brand upon a girl. But it takes a year to form. In the meantime she's got an unattractive wound. It's erotically potent for the first hour after the iron. But after that...!"
"I am grateful, lord. I do not want to be branded." She eyed him wistfully. "I like you, Master. Please keep me as your slave?"
"This is the Seigneury, Glynis."
The captive's heart thumped in a different pattern. She had thought the play needed only a cast of two. But if she was now taken from this room it would be for the worse... ! She was sure of it.
She stood meekly to be blinded by the scarf. Glynis Woodhaye was willing to believe the Seigneury's simulation of an Arab courtroom was authentic. It was noisy. It smelt. Al the men in it looked at her with unashamed lust, including the judge. They were kind enough to read her the charge in English.
Runaway slave.
The rest was gibberish. But everyone enjoyed it, except herself. Standing, naked and bound, before the hawk-nosed Arab who would sentence her. Glynis wondered if she could ever be concerned about nudity again. Her skin felt scorched by male approval.
They took their time. After all, why not! The set must have been expensive, so why not get their money's worth? She was their reward. It would be a pity to send her to her fate too soon. Let her twist and turn and savour apprehension.
The proclamation of her sentence, her unearned punishment, was done with verve and solemnity. There was a flood of words, she took them to be stern admonitions from the ascetic lips and disapproving eyes. Glynis Woodhaye understood none of it except the one last word.
Bastinado.
She looked about her in bewildered dismay. Everyone was very happy.
They had the decency to throw a sheepskin on the ground. Four hands picked her up bodily and laid her upon it on her face. Behind her was some sort of rigid bracket to which they strapped her ankles, each leg bent back and up from the knee. Testing, she could not move her feet at all. She could not move much of anything. She lay upon her breasts, her bound hands making her like a turtle tipped upon its back. She was cruelly helpless.
It was not to be quickly over and done with.
That, too, would have been a waste. She was left to lay awkwardly, feet pointing to the sky, while avid faces peered and made comment. She was surprised she was not gagged. Her screams would be horrific. It was another surety.
Glynis had read of the nature of her punishment.
It surfaced in fiction. A fanatical ruler in the Middle East had got attention in the press for sentencing a woman to the bastinado in a public place as her punishment for infidelity. Such things belonged in places far, far away. Not here. Never here!
The soles of Miss Glynis Woodhaye's feet were to be beaten by supple wands...
How absurd! But it was about to happen. She supposed such punishment appropriate enough for runaways, and wondered if she would ever run again... or even walk!
She abandoned heroism with the first stroke.
Her scream came from her inmost being, her writhings went beyond anything she had imagined possible. The awfulness of the pain went beyond the comprehension of the mind.
When she lost consciousness they revived her with brandy and continued. She did not count the strokes or know the time. Glynis Woodhaye was in a land apart, a world of pain too great for any girl. When the last stroke fell, they left her unconscious, her ankles still strapped to the bar which had held them immovable through all her struggles.
She returned to the reality of the Seigneury as from a drugged sleep. Her feet had taken on a life of their own, hurting steadily, a throbbing agony she could not ease.
As before the punishment started, Glynis found herself unable to move. Her options were to turn her face left or right or to rest her chin upon the sheepskin. The manner in which her hands and feet were bound precluded all else. She viewed her world from the level of the soil.
The naked beauty searched her mind for reasons and purpose. Why had she been thus brutally used? She had seen naught of Campys. If he had been present he was well disguised. Rolfe Campys was the answer to every question in her now limited world. If he was not visibly in it, then why, why, why... ?
Pleasure! That was the answer. The auction block and all that followed had given a lot of men a lot of happiness. The Seigneury brooded over their joy and her pain like a benign and approving Buddha. Glynis Woodhaye moaned in the realization her suffering was an incident, no more, for both her audience and for herself. She would now be allowed to heal to be ready for the next time. There would always be a next time. She had a hateful vision of the cell or of the cage. In either she became a vessel to be regenerated.
"Now take a look at that, Ermie. It's what I oughta do ter you."
Wardress Bulloch's maternal rasp broke the captive reverie, Glynis turned to behold a dolorous Ermie held firmly by the ear by a grim-visaged parent, Ermie was distressed.
"Get them clothes off, yer little trollop. I'll learn yer! " It was gratifying to see retribution fall upon the obscene child. Startled, the bound and naked victim of the bastinado watched Ermie shed her garments with celerity.
They were scanty and they were few.
"Aw, Ma, please! I don't want none of them things," Ermie wailed whilst clutching her pubes. "She didn't oughta see my... things."
"You seen hers, you flighty little bitch. Get yer hands away. I'll have 'em fixed proper in a minute. While yer still loose come and have a look at little Miss Tenderfeet." She guffawed throatily at her cruelly apt pun. "Got yourself a proper going over this time, didn't you, honey!" She winked lewdly at the supine nudity upon the ground.
"Please. Mrs. Bulloch, unstrap my ankles?"
"Now, don't you start that. Ain't no way I'm lettin' yer loose, honey, and yer know it. I'm just goin' ter give young Ermie here a bit O' time to think about behaving."
It was then Glynis saw the pillory and the whipping post, and beyond them a chain... She had been preoccupied, but now they came into focus. The pillory was close to her own travail. She could have wished Ermie more distant.
"My hands, then, Mrs. Bulloch? Even with my hands untied I won't be able to get away... Please?"
"Honey, you want I should find a gag?" The Wardress was amiably severe. She shook her offspring's head to elicit a howl of anguish. "You two girls can have a real heart-to-heart talk while Ermie cools her butt."
"She whipped my ass, and now she's goin' ter put me in that thing there," Ermie complained as though Glynis was an impartial referee.
It was quickly done. Ermie was prompt and cowed in what was required of her. A minute later she stood dismally with neck and wrists firmly held within the timber's clutch. "Oh, Ma, supposin' I die?"
"You won't!"
"Or a man comes?"
"I'll leave the whip hanging on the post. You can ask him to give you a few swats."
Mrs. Bulloch stepped over to the girl with wounded feet. "Want I should give you a few across that cute little ass O' yours, love?" she inquired helpfully.
"No. Oh, please. Mrs. Bulloch, don't!"
"Take yer mind off yer tootsies."
"Please. Mrs. Bulloch, haven't I been hurt enough?"
"How should I know, honey? Just making you a kind offer. If you don't want 'em I'll give 'em to young Ermie."
"Ma, I'll be good! I promise. Don't whup me no more!"
Glynis watched while a vociferously plaintive nude teenager lunged and twisted within the pillory's grip while her weaving bottom was further striped by a parent intent upon her moral betterment. It was hard to feel sympathy for Ermie. The youngster's face was pink with effort and indignation, her hands clawed at nothing.
"Ma, stoppit! Oh, stoppit!" In futile hope, Ermie turned to her naked companion in captivity. "Miss Woodhaye, make her stop... ! Oh please make her stop."
"I'll come back in an hour and liven her up again," the Wardress promised. She guffawed heartily. "You might as well stay around."
"Thinks she's smart," said Ermie, sniffing. She wriggled tentatively. "Say, how do you get out of this thing?"
"You don't!"
"You sound real pleased," Ermie complained, aggrieved. "I hope Ma beats your ass. Look, you real sure you can't get loose?"
"Quite sure."
"If you could get loose you could get me out of this damn thing."
"I wouldn't if I could. It's where you belong." Ermie sniffed again, but was impervious to opinion. "With them there feet you won't never be able to walk again," she observed with satisfaction. "Hurt much?"
"You'll know how it hurts after you've stood in that thing all night."
"Ma wouldn't...!" The young voice was uncertain.
"She can and I expect she will."
"Someone will let me loose. Everyone likes me."
"Nobody likes you, Ermie. You're a pain."
"You just wait 'til I get outta here," Ermie promised darkly. "I'll find out where they've got you and I'll make you squeal. Mebbe they'll put yer back in a cell for Ma to tend. Oh, boy...!"
Glynis quailed. To be locked back in the little cell! It would be the end. And Ermie, mocking through the bars. Her spirit shriveled at the thought. She twisted uneasily.
"Damned if it isn't the precocious Ermie," said a male voice with amusement.
"Didn't recognize you, child, with your clothes off. I take it that whip's there to be used?"
Glynis recognized him as one of the faces, a Chevalier. He was standing to survey the scarlet small behind of the moppet who was unable to return his scrutiny. To Ermie, he was a voice somewhere at her rear. He took the whip from its hook and swished it testingly.
"Oh, sir, please not me. It's that one on the ground the whip's for. Look at her ass. She ain't had none yet."
"Her feet have been whipped. That's enough for now. I prefer to whip you, Ermie. In fact, I've wanted to whip you for some time. To what noble soul am I indebted for this privilege?"
"It's me Ma, sir. Oh please, no... "
"A few across that pretty little back, too."
"Oh, please, sir, can't you fuck me instead? I don't mind."
"How do you propose we perform the act, you odious creature?"
"Can't yer do it up me behind, sir?"
"I have no intention of emulating a dog, Ermie."
"If you stood on a box or something, sir, I could give you a blow job, I'm real good at it."
"I am sure you are! Fortunately there is no box."
"Wouldn't you like to feel me up, sir? Please don't whale me no more with that whip."
Ermie contrived to sound pathetic. Her further plaint was cut short by the whip itself.
It snaked up between her thighs where she least expected it. Her response was loud and indignant. "You hit my cunt, you lousy rotten bastard!"
The visitor hit it again. "You respond charmingly, child," he observed genially.
"This is something I've wanted to do for months."
A whipped Ermie was a pleasure to watch. In spite of her own pain, Glynis glowed with righteousness. The visitor cut a solid thwack across both pert and scarlet bottoms. Ermie screamed lustily and terminated her vocals by a hurt accusation.
"Bet you ain't got a prick to shove up. If you had, you'd use it. Oh gollies, I'm burnin' up."
The Chevalier thrashed the young bottom and back with vigor and a most evident enjoyment. When he returned the whip to its hook Ermie was sobbing and repentant and urgently promising to do anything. "Anything you want, sir... anything...?"
The omnipotent male turned his attention to Glynis. "That did me good," he confided. "I'd enjoy marking you now, and I would if you weren't already tagged, Your feet pretty bad?"
"Yes sir."
"They've made a lovely job of 'em. Pity you can't see."
"Please, sir, how long must I stay like this?"
"Tired of it, eh!" He laughed. "Bit hard on your tits, I expect. I'd let you loose if it was permissible. Be damned amusing to watch you take your first steps."
"Thank you, sir. But how long...?"
"What's it matter, kid? If you're not tied this way you'll be tied another. I'd be surprised if they unstrap those little ankles before tomorrow morning."
"All night! Like this!" Her exclamation was involuntary.
"Right! You won't be walking, will you?"
"Won't I be able to...?" Glynis' heart was in the question.
"It will hurt. I can tell you that." His masculine assurance was infuriating. "But you've got the best of this deal right now. That shocking little creature in the pillory isn't going to enjoy the dark."
It was true. She was at least supine, and there was the sheepskin! Ermie was going to have to stand and stand and stand. "What will be done to me next?" Glynis asked morosely, then added a quick. "Sir?"
"Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you." The Chevalier laughed and walked away.
"Rotten son of a bitch!" Ermie said with feeling. Glynis was inclined, for once, to agree.
The girls did not talk much through the twilight. When night came they sobbed intermittently, sleeping with nature vouchsafed them that grace, twisting and turning to find an ease denied. In the darkest hour the straps fell from Glynis' ankles, strong arms scooped up her nudity and carried it away. She did not care, not care, not care... ! When she was dropped into the softness of a bed she went instantly to sleep. Whatever he did to her she would not mind.
Bright sunlight told her it was Campys' room and that she was in Campys' bed. He had slept beside her through the night but touched her not, respecting her exhaustion. Now he was gone. When she sought to leave the resting place, Glynis discovered her ankle was chained to the frame. The number of links was generous but she could not leave. Thankfully she flopped back upon the pillow and returned to slumber.
"He actually asked me as a favour," Diane Hetherington said cheerfully as she unlocked the shackle. "Rolfe has a gift for making me feel privileged... the most gorgeous S.O.B. I know. I'd change places with you like a shot, tied hands and the whole bit."
"But you're a Chatelaine! Not that I'm not grateful... "
"I'm good at fixing hair, and giving girls a bath... and advice." Diane kissed her charge lightly on the lips. "My advice to you is to be the most obedient slavegirl ever."
"But, Diane, what else can I be?"
"You've got a point. Sorry I can't untie your hands. But if I could you wouldn't need my loving care. Come on... " Glynis yelped and fell to the floor on her knees.
"I... I... oh, Diane, I can't...!"
"Damn, I forgot! Your feet... "
"Help me back on the bed." Glynis was shocked. "Maybe if I get up easy and you give me a hand?"
The journey to the bath was the most painful Glynis had ever made. Her whipped feet screamed silently at every step. She refused to look at them, fearful of what she would see. But the heated scented water was a balm... and Diane's fingers were magic. Seated before the mirror, with deft fingers busy with her hair, the punished girl asked timidly: "What is it? What will he do with me?"
"Fuck you."
"Oh, Diane... not like that!"
"I could call it your bridal night, lovebird. But I doubt if you'll get a certificate."
"Am I going to be tortured or whipped... or something?"
"Frankly, I don't know," Diane Hetherington admitted. "But when that potent so and so pinched my bottom and kissed my cheek he said he wanted you clean and beautiful and smelling like a whore."
"Do you know what a whore smells like?"
Rolfe Campys was lounging in the doorway, laughing. "Diane, beloved, you have turned the gorgeous into the ineffable. Dammit, she's lovely. Put fishnet stockings on her and a velvet collar. That's all."
It was done. Glynis sat, meek and silent, inwardly volcanic. Diane's quick glance as she was dismissed told her she was lovely as men count loveliness. She was a silent bundle of sensitivity as Campys carried her to the lounge, throbbing.
"Fix us drinks, sweetheart."
"Rolfe, I can't... my hands!"
"Don't be feminine. Of course you can. Go to the bar."
"I'm not sure if I can walk."
"You can at least try."
Glynis sighed. She had the feeling there was a reward for her somewhere if she could please him. Her feet were going to have to take their chances. She rose from the rug and promptly subsided to her knees.
"If at first you don't succeed... "
"Rolfe, you're being unkind, and you're getting a big charge out of my bastinadoed feet... were you there?"
Rolfe Campys produced the inevitable riding crop. "Drinks, poppet...?"
She wanted a drink desperately. Inspired, she hobbled forward on her knees.
"Walk properly!" His voice was suddenly fierce.
"I want you hurting. Do it." Doing it, Glynis Woodhaye knew for certain a girl could do anything. Girls were designed for pain. They thrived on it. She eyed the bar askance. But perhaps...
perhaps... ! She turned her back to her task and groped with bound hands...
It was surprisingly possible. The requisite items had been placed in readiness by a thoughtful hand. Glowing with victory, she half filled two large glasses. Awkwardly and anxiously she held them at her back and stepped forward' into pain.
"You see, nothing to it!" Campys relieved her of her burden. "First time I've been served from a girl's rear," he chuckled. "Kneel in front of me and I'll feed you your drink."
The tied girl was grateful for the posture and the potion. She sucked up the latter greedily.
"Refill them." His command held portent. It was not as difficult this time. She could even appreciate the humour of her back-up delivery before she once more knelt.
"Another swallow, and then let me have those plaints about going home and being untied, and so forth. May as well get them over with," Campys suggested jauntily.
"I don't expect to go home anymore, and I don't expect to be untied," Glynis said comfortably. "Do you want me to call you Master or Sir?"
"Just let it come out... whatever it may be, poppet."
"Have I been cleaned and perfumed to be loved or whipped, Rolfe?"
"I like the idea of both," he suggested gravely.
"I can do them to you alternately through the day. How's that grab you?"
She wriggled her shoulders. "I haven't anything to say about it."
"I asked you a question." His words snapped like the whip itself.
Glynis looked up, making her face serene. "I think it would be very nice if you love me and whip me by turns."
Campys laughed. "Very nice usually means bloody awful."
"Yes, Rolfe darling, you're so right."
"You're being cute. Asking for it. Have you come by a taste for the whip?"
"If it was you, yes." Her eyes challenged him. "The bastinado did not cure you?"
"I don't understand the bastinado," Glynis admitted. "It's a beastly awful thing to do to a girl."
"Doesn't leave any marks that show." He cocked an inquiring eye. "Want Diane to help you with your wedding dress... and stuff?"
"Rolfe, you're not going to marry me. You know you're not."
"Lay back and spread your legs then."
She took him at his word. It was one more challenge. When he returned to his chair and she struggled to her knees, he said casually: "We were speaking of your wedding."
"Haven't I just had it?" Her words were bitter. Campys picked up the quivering length of whalebone. "Turn any way you want to get it." he said brusquely.
Glynis wriggled to protrude her bottom. It was the best place. She received the five searing blows in stoic silence, then said: "Thank you, Rolfe. I expect I had it coming. Yes, please. I would like Diane. I would like to marry you tomorrow."
"Well, you're not going to."
Her heart sank, bitterness welled anew. She quenched it with slave talk. "As you wish, Master. I am happy to be only your slave."
"You're still being cute." He retrieved the crop.
"Back into position."
With the five fresh weals she did not scream. But she was crying. "I'm sorry, Rolfe, but it just hurts so damn M-U-C-H!"
"Then behave yourself, idiot."
She looked up, eyes bright with tears. "I'm sorry, Rolfe, I forget. It's because I love you. Tell me when you want to marry me?"
"That's better!" Ostentatiously, he produced a slip of paper. "It says here we can get married in two hundred and thirty-nine days."
Glynis Woodhaye knelt silent before her lord. "Can't possibly marry a girl without hands," he said insouciantly.
"You could untie the girl's hands, lord?"
He waved her suggestion into limbo. "Couldn't possibly, poppet. Made a vow and all that. Two hundred and thirty-nine days to go. You wouldn't want me to break an oath?"
Glynis tested her eternal bond. The cords seemed tighter on her wrists. Clear-eyed, she looked up and said the thing she did not wish to say. "No, lord. I would not wish that."
"The time will soon pass, beloved."
"Where will it pass, lord?"
He shrugged indifferently. "The cage... the cell... plenty of diversions, of course...!"
"The whip and torture, lord?"
"They will refine your character, my darling." Glynis Woodhaye looked down the vista of the days. She could not change him. He had already changed her. Oddly, she trusted him. She wondered if there was purpose or caprice behind his insistence on the binding of her hands. Once more she twisted her wrists against their strictures. They were as firm as always. They had become a part of her. "Am I not broken enough?" she asked pitifully. "Must I be humbled more?"
"Yes."
"Please, Rolfe, not the cell? I hate the cell."
"Very well, the cage."
"Thank you, lord. Handcuffed and naked?" Rolfe Campys inclined his head.
"Handcuffed and naked."
"Thank you, lord." Her eyes sparkled. "I love you."
"I love you, too, little slave." His eyes adored. Glynis Woodhaye rose to mix more drinks.
