The receptionist ticked busily at the sheet. "Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn. Divorced. Twenty-four... Well, the education's impressive, Mrs. Wyburn...! I suppose you might as well go on in. You do know the room?"
"Yes, I was shown."
There sped between them a secret knowledge. The girl smiled. "Mr. Hawtry did explain? You're not going to blow a fuse?"
It was Lorinda Wyburn's turn to smile. She did it grimly. "Yes, he explained. I'll try not to run out screaming."
"It's quite bizarre, y'know. Only Hawtry would dream- " The grin was one of complicity. "He lets me keep a bottle of brandy...?"
"Thanks. Why not!"
The girl poured generously. "Your dossier says you don't drink?"
"I'm frightened." The admission was ingenuously frank. Lorinda gulped brandy and choked. "Wow, this stuff's potent--I'd like to acquit myself half way decently."
"You will. If Hawtry picked you, you'll go through with it. He hardly ever misses... " Again the flash of two girls sharing. "I've been in that room myself, y'know... " She made a gesture that could have meant anything. "We don't talk about it, of course. It's not considered cricket. Er, the fourth door down...?"
Lorinda Wyburn finished the brandy. "That burns enough to be medicinal." She admitted. For a moment she allowed her eyes to lock with those behind the desk. "The fourth door down--" It was impossible. It was outrageous. It was happening! Lorinda nodded to the assembly, said a meek 'Good afternoon' and sat down. She was trembling.
It was clinical. A white room, well endowed with windows, cheerful. The bench ran the length of one wall. On it were seated five girls, herself and four more. The others were naked and studiously unconcerned. They smiled their acknowledgement of her entry and resumed their study of the man and the girl. The girl was as naked as themselves. The man had the appearance and bearing of a gym instructor. He was busily strapping the girl's wrists to each end of a short bar, a solid fixture from the ceiling above. The girl stood with her arms raised helpfully in innocent surrender. The man nodded and winked at Lorinda in a recognition of belonging.
"Sweet kid. She's always anxious to please."
Always! The word implied an old association. Lorinda scanned the ivory back. It was flawless, unmarred. But then, of course, it was only once a year...! Lorinda Wyburn watched, breathless, a cold hand clutching somewhere deep inside.
"O.K. luv'?"
The sweet kid looked up at the straps tight round her wrists. She tugged and pulled in an amused demonstration of helplessness. "Sure it's O.K., McGee. I'll stand here on my toes like a good little girl. Mmmmm, on second thoughts, my left hand: Could you tighten it a notch?"
It was done. The atmosphere remained very much that of a doctor's waiting room. From a rack on the wall McGee selected a whip, holding it up to view. "Old tried and true, eh!"
The sweet kid looked back over a pinioned shoulder and uttered a femininely expressive "Ugh!"
"Disdainful unconcern. That's the ticket, luv'."
The lash sang and cut across the sweety nudity's back. A pink but reddening striation sprang into relief. The sweet kid thrust her head hard against a bare raised arm and gasped. That was all.
Stiff upper lip! Play the Game! Pukka Memsahib! The century old cliches pounded in Lorinda's mind. Was it obligatory! Had these women evolved a code for themselves while this was done to them! Could she? The girl on the end of the bench stared in fascinated disbelief as the second stroke wrapped itself around a tautly waiting waist.
"Rosabel adores it, y'know." There was a faint snicker from the whisper against her elbow. "Wish I did! I howl like blazes."
"Adores!" It was a whisper of wonder.
"Some girls do, Y'know. It's a sexual arousal. I might get the hots out of it myself if McGee didn't lay it on so hard."
"I--I'm new. My first time--"
"Butterflies in the tummy?" The snicker surfaced again. "You may surprise yourself and find you're a member of Rosabel's Club. Watch yourself. Even this bloody awful ordeal can be interesting if you can stay away from panic."
The whispers died as eyes drank deep at the fount of incredulity. Rosabel's velvet surface was becoming latticed by the thong. The lines and crosses on her skin held a compelling beauty intensified by her unprotesting acceptance of agony. Except for an apologetic gasp at each impact, Rosabel's lips were mute: all her eloquence was in her hands and wrists as they made the straps creak in muscular revolt.
Lorinda spared a glance for her companions. Next door was being studiously cynical, no doubt her own approach to coping with what she must, her manipulation of her cigarette a shade overly dramatic. The other two watched Rosabel's whipping in a quiet detachment. But why shouldn't they! Theirs was a profession whose beginnings were far beyond the utmost limits of a normal life. About all three of them there was a quality of the immaculate. Lorinda recalled a forgotten phrase: "Pain purifies." Was that a motive--Surely not...!
"Twenty."
McGee was reassuringly and militarily British. He was The Army. He was the Law. The Special Service would make this strange afternoon entirely correct. Quite probably The Manual spared a paragraph somewhere to deal with the whipping of naked young women on behalf of The Cause. He was no hypocrite, never disguising his enjoyment of a branch of The Service shared by few.
"Carry it off a real treat, you do, ducks." His tribute was from the heart.
"Give me a minute, McGee, just a minute... " Rosabel was still panting deliciously. She raised a foot, knee bent, from the floor, then relaxed again from her strapped wrists. Changing only the angle of her head so that now her other cheek nestled against her other arm. Her nudity glistened with a faint dew of sweat... presumably from pain. The picture she made was both cruelly and sweetly erotic. Lorinda was startled by the truant welling of heat within her loins.
"Extracting every last quiver." Muttered the neighbor enviously.
"Take 'alf an hour if you want, luv." McGee was expansively paternal as with a favourite child. He winked in a jovial complicity at his waiting subjects. "Don't suppose you mind a little wait, dears?"
The next in line took a swift glance at a wrist from which the watch was gone, said an emphatic "Damn!" Then added: "I do have an appointment--"
"Do you real quick, I will." McGee promised. "Little sweetheart here won't hold you up much longer."
The girl who had not yet spoken, tittered. "Why don't you rig another bar, McGee? You could leave Rosabel the way she is all afternoon?"
The whipped nakedness tensed erect, the head with its mane of damp hair tossed disdainfully. "All right, you lot, you're just jealous 'cause you haven't learned how--" She glanced back over her shoulder. "O.K., McGee, unstrap me. Darling Felicia's got a date. Better stripe her twenty at 'the double.' " Her request was blandly without rancour.
It was deftly done. The freed loveliness stood in unconcern, rubbing her wrists. She contorted perkily in an effort to examine her wounds. "Is there any blood this time, darlings?"
"Now, Miss, you know better than that." McGee reproved. "Just because that once--"
"Oh, I don't mind one cut, or even two." Rosabel's attitude was that of a girl about to leave the cosmetician's Salon. "It's something to remember you by, McGee. Girls always fall in love with the men who whip them. Haven't you discovered that." She bestowed a butterfly kiss on a startled but grateful cheek.
"Just you wait, Miss. I'll lay a cut across that pretty back you'll not lose sight of in a twelvemonth." It was a promise born of gratitude. The glowing master of the whip turned to his next victim. "O.K. Miss Felicia, we can get you on your way."
The girl with the appointment tossed her head disdainfully but her motions were resolute. She watched, impatiently, the strapping of her wrists. Her voice was plaintive. "Take it easy on me, McGee. You know I haven't any tolerance for this idiocy."
"Fair shares for all, Miss."
"Damn that! I don't want to arrive at this Meeting a physical wreck."
"Little Flossie at the desk will give you a snifter of Three Star, Luv'--Send you on your way rejoicing."
"I don't know why I go through with this!" Felicia's tone was resentful. "You'd think a girl would get promoted out of it. I don't know how many times--" The thong cut her plaint as it cut her back. Felicia gasped and writhed, looking up at her leather circled wrists as though wondering how they could so traitorously deliver her to agony. But she did not scream.
"You really want the lot in double time, Miss?"
"Oh damn! I can't bear it, I know I can't. Space 'em a bit, will you, McGee? The Meeting can go to pot." Felicia granted sardonically. "I'd like to see their faces if I told 'em why I was late."
The whipping of Felicia was calm and methodical, nicely British. McGee laid the stripes across the white skin more rapidly than with Rosabel but with pauses to allow the twisting female nakedness to gather her resources and find such relief as she could from futile kicks and contortions. The tested beauty did not start to scream until the fourteenth stroke. The wrist straps creaked as the strong young arms fought for a freedom they could never achieve. Rosabel watched and listened with the judgement of experience. When the thirtieth cut had etched its mark upon Felicia's back and the panting and sweat bedewed girl was gathering her clothes and rubbing chafed wrists, she resumed the required stance, soft wrists in heated leather and standing on her toes.
"Finish me off, McGee. Not too damn fast, but the poor darlings must be tired of waiting, so get me over with." She beamed at all present, then said to Felicia: "I think you did really super, 'Cia. Think of me while you're having that drink."
"Miss Rosabel, you're a ruddy marvel." Sighed the Master of Ceremonies as he swung the whip.
Two down and three to go! Four if she counted herself. Lorinda watched the whipped girls depart. Each kissed the man who had punished them. Perhaps it was de rigueur, or to ingratiate! But it was not like that. The lips were affectionate, the hug from nude torsos very real. McGee was popular. Wanly, she supposed if a girl had to be whipped McGee might be the best possible choice.
"Nicely healed from last year, Miss Leander?"
"Call me Hazel, McGee, don't be formal. And, yes, I'm offering you an unblemished back and bottom. Aren't you lucky!"
A girl was expected to have style. But, of course, they would have. They were the "Chosen." They were "Hawtry's Darlings." Lorinda watched Hazel receive her whipping and express her thanks. "Should I undress now?" She whispered to her companion on the bench.
"Oh sure. Don't fuss about it. Drop your things anywhere." The voice was kind, the eyes sympathetic. "Your first time, isn't it. But don't worry, they're all about equally awful--or equally bearable according to how you look at it."
Lorinda chose the moments when McGee was busy with straps on maiden wrists to do her strip. She wasn't a prude... but still...! She was thankful for the other girl's nudity, it diluted the shock of her own. Next year she would be a veteran... next year! She was grateful for her body and its mat of pubic hair. Her concern was for the screams. Most of the girls screamed a little. She did not want to scream a lot. She gazed at the panting loveliness now receiving its first blows. It writhed exquisitely and had not yet screamed. The fire between her legs was becoming a problem. She supposed the whip would cure it... ? It would be too embarrassing...! She longed to slip a hand down into the crevice between her thighs, but would have died rather than have McGee catch her testing her own sex. She concentrated on the etching of white skin and the tug of wrists in straps. The eroticism of the punished girl quenched nothing, her flame fed greedily.
"Your name's Lorinda, isn't it. Mine's Cress,' short for Cressida." The whipped girl was massaging her wrists, she was still panting, her features drawn with pain but managing a smile, engaging and sincere. "If this is your first time, maybe you'd like me to hang around while McGee does his stuff?"
"Thinks you need a chaperone, dearie." McGee simulated offence.
If the girl dressed and went away she would be alone and naked with a man whose duty it was to whip her. Lorinda was sure McGee could be trusted... but still...! It would be a lonely fearful time. Offering their cheerful inquisitor her hands, she asked direct: "McGee, would you mind? I'm shy and I'm frightened."
"Think I don't know, luv!!" McGee was expansively genial as he raised Lorinda's arm towards the waiting strap. "Nice girl, young Cress.' If you'll feel better let her stay." He winked portentously. "But, mind you, it won't hurt any the less."
"If a girl has to be whipped, she couldn't be in better hands." Cress' admitted dryly. "Nice feeling of virtue. I'm getting it now. You will too when you've collected your thirty."
"You're awfully kind, I'd love you to stay. It--it--It's moral support, I suppose--" Lorinda's gratitude was punctuated by the buckling of her second wrist. The leather was warm and damp from the agonized struggles of the girls it had already held captive. It imparted a tight feminine intimacy, strangely potent. "I just hope I'll behave half as well as the rest of you."
"Oh, you will, darling. Noblesse oblige, and all that. Besides, we have to consider poor McGee's feelings."
"That will be the day!" McGee said happily. "Scream your heads off, so you do. And wriggle...!" He made an expressive gesture. "Puts a boa constrictor to shame, the things you do with them hips... Want me to start now, luv'?"
Lorinda did not want him to start, ever. She had an ally in Cress.' "Of course she doesn't want you to start, idiot." The whipped nudity admonished in mock severity. "Let her get adjusted to being naked and having her wrists strapped tight--helpless." She turned to the shivering Lorinda. "I know how it is, darling. You're feeling as though all the cold air in the world is circling round and round just you." She chuckled, "First time he strapped me up like that I felt about ninety percent armpits."
"Watch your language, luv'." McGee was enjoying her hugely.
"Well I did!" Cress said, aggrieved. "There I was on tip-toe with my armpits as flat as a pancake. I remember I was so thankful I'd just shaved."
"I like a bit of hair in there myself." McGee insinuated. "I notice you don't shave that pony-tail down below."
"You're a dirty old man." Cress dismissed him with a wink and gave her attention to the nude captive waiting in shivering apprehension. "I'd expected to feel all breasts, darling, you can see how that posture firms 'em up, your tits are getting as hard as mine do. And I knew I'd die when this coarse male creature took his first look at my pussy. But, for me, it was the armpits. I'm surprised nobody's thought of whipping us in our armpits... Why haven't you, McGee?"
"Too much of a gentleman, that's my trouble."
"He is, y'know! He's a perfect dear." Cress' reassured. "Tell me, McGee, why not between our thighs? That would hurt something beastly?"
"You know perfectly well why, Miss." The Master of the whip chided. "You're just getting yourself all excited with this naughty talk. You sure you wouldn't like to be strung up for another thirty?"
"That's wishful thinking, McGee."
"I'll admit that, luv'." This time, McGee's wink was one of arch complicity. "You whip a real treat, so you do--lovely action! But I know what you're wanting... " He switched attention. "Proper parcel of mischief we got here, Mrs. Wyburn. How'd you like our little ladyfingers to give you your first ten?"
"Oh yes! Oh, please...?"
The affirmative burst from Lorinda's lips like a projectile. That a girl should whip her instead of a man seemed, instinctively, a boon, a blessing to grasp with thanks. Her vehemence left her flushed with embarrassment but sure of her choice.
"He's being mean." Cress' warned unexpectedly. "Never let yourself be whipped by a woman. Something happens to us when a whip's put in our hand. I'll hurt you more than he will, darling."
"You couldn't! Oh no?"
"I could too! I get the hots terribly when I whip a girl. McGee's let me do it before."
"She's right, Luv. Proper little terror she is--she and Miss Rosabel. No girl's safe--"
"Don't listen to him." Cress' laughed gaily. "He's piqued because he won't get another go at us for a whole year. And don't think he doesn't love to watch me go to work on you. Want me to start?" There could be no mistaking the quiver of excitement in the young voice.
"Just a suggestion, that's all, luv'."
McGee was temporizing. Girls whipping girls was probably against the rules. Lorinda found herself in a dither of uncertainty from the exchange of banter, but it still did not seem possible for a girl to hurt her as much as a man. It was not in the nature of girls to hurt each other... ? Or was it... ? As she contemplated the premise it began, alarmingly, to shrink.
"That's settled then." Cressida said firmly. "Give me the whip, McGee--and stand well back. Good thing I didn't dress. Naked's best for this little exercise." Impulsively and warmly she kissed her quaking victim. "I won't cut your breasts, darling. I promise. A girl always worries about her breasts... Before Lorinda could gather a reply agony cancelled out the need. It was an agony quite different from anything she had ever known, and frighteningly different from her expectations. It was impossible that the other girls had suffered thus...! Their screams would have been louder, their contortions more violent...! But was it impossible? Lorinda suddenly realized that the awfulness of shock had left her mute after the blow, and her body's response had been a tension into rigidity before her right foot began to kick at nothing in an instinctive reflex. She was not heroic but stunned by pain.
"Good show, luv'!"
Was McGee lauding Cressida or herself? It did not matter. Pain mattered, and for the moment pain was all there was in Lorinda's world. In striving to cope with it she must cope also with the incredulity of such agony emanating from a laughing girl. A second lash, wrapping the curves between her hips evoked a sound she did not recognize and the bite of leather bands upon her wrists. Her voice, seeming from far away, was absurdly ineffectual. "No--Oh, no! This can't be! It can't...!"
"She don't like it, luv!"
"But isn't she gorgeous! Look at that writhe...!"
"She'll cut you more cunningly than I can, Mrs. Wyburn. Proper little terror is our Miss Cressida."
Warm arms were suddenly strong upon Lorinda's back, twin breasts were tight against her own, lush lips were on her mouth, woman scent enveloped her in waves. "Thank you! Oh, thank you, darling, for letting me. It's--it's--Oh, it's so yummy, and you're so--so--!"
"No lollygagging nonsense, now!" McGee warned darkly.
"He wants me to get on with it." Cress' nuzzle; in a feline friction all her own, creating sensations her captive had never before known. "He's such an old bear--but nice! And I'm going to hurt you something awful, far more than he would. D'you mind?"
"No, I don't mind."
The words could not possibly be her own! When the hot lips and arms relinquished her flesh Lorinda knew they were not even true. Cressida, and Cressida's whip, were sundered poles nestling upon opposite curves of an incandescent planet of female lust. As it revolved she was to know alternate ecstasy and anguish. The third stroke crimsoned her shoulders...
"Look at the way she lunges against the straps, McGee!"
!
"Her first time, Miss. She's a real trooper."
"Those little choking sounds she makes...! They're lovelier than screams--D'you mind if I hug her again?"
"There's twenty-seven to go, Miss. Best keep busy."
"But it's made me horny!"
"The answer's no, Miss! None of that there here."
"But it wouldn't hurt you to leave us alone a little while, McGee?"
"None of your wheedling. Get on with it."
"If I give the darling seven more I'll be simply bursting, McGee. Will you give me the cure?"
"Against regulations, Miss. And that's no way to talk--a nice girl like you!" McGee sounded genuinely shocked, but added consolingly. "If it will help you out I'll give you an extra dozen after we're done with Mrs. Wyburn?"
"Mmmmm, we'll see how I feel. Not quite the same, y'know--or maybe you don't know since you're not a girl." Lorinda could feel her blush. Such exchange of repartee was compellingly erotic on the libido of a trussed and naked girl awaiting the whip, awareness of armpits, breasts and vulva impinged vividly. She was about to speak when number four curled around her back and snapped its tip upon her ribs. It was the worst yet.
"I'm sorry, I'm no good at this." She said dully between moans. "I'll leave my resignation with the girl at the desk. Please unfasten me and let me dress."
"Oh, no! Oh, darling, you mustn't!"
"Seen it happen before." McGee said equably. "Bit of a chat and a rest and a shot of brandy, that's the ticket."
"Here, take the whip. I know something better-The poor sweetheart...!"
When the straps had tightened round her wrists Lorinda's world had changed, she had embarked upon a voyage on stormy seas. The most potent of the storms was Cress.' "Darling, I'll hold you, I'll hold you tight...!"
Once more the arms, once more the lips, nipples found each other on crushed breasts, now Venus Mound found Venus Mound and pubic hair mingled in a fierce friction of female desire.
"Now, McGee! Now!"
Five--Six--Seven...!
She lost the count. A whipped girl cannot number the heavens or keep a tally on the wind. Lorinda was awhirl in great gusts of scented emotion, inundated by anguish, consumed in lubricity, drowned in the sweetness of milk... McGee's thong sliced her flesh methodically from neck to knees, the clasp of Cressida's arms varying to accommodate its implants on her skin. Cressida's own curves, thrusting and avid, accepting the flick and snap of the lash tip as it curled around its prey.
Twenty-four.
"Want to give her the other six, luv"? I won't cheat you."
Breasts slithered on sweat, lips wrenched apart as from a weld. "Want me to, darling?"
"Yes. Oh, yes!"
"I hurt more than he does, y'know?"
"Whip me. I owe you that."
"Scream if you want, darling."
Lorinda Wyburn screamed. After each female stroke she cried out in agony. To the man who listened it sounded like a paean of joy.
She grasped her way back into the presence of a man and a girl. Her wrists remained strapped but she did not care. The thirty were past and done. Twelve months in the future was infinity. She was now a member of "The Special Service," fully accredited. She said: "Thank you," pantingly, breasts still heaving. They could share her gratitude.
"Leave me alone with her, McGee? Please?"
"No."
The lips returned, this time warm with whispers. "The poor dear's a man, they're ridiculously jealous about girls--make it sound frightfully moral."
"Don't listen to a word she says." McGee advised.
"Darling, he promised me twelve more. Want to give 'em to me?"
Fire flamed between naked thighs. The bound girl wondered if Cress' could feel. Certainly Cress' would know, she had a flame of her own. But to hurt such sweet loveliness was impossible... impossible! "No." She shook damp hair in negation. "I couldn't... I couldn't... " Then added, guiltily, "... not yet!"
"I won't have them then."
"Serve you right if I give 'em to you anyway, Miss." McGee affirmed heartily.
"You couldn't if I don't let you."
"Don't be cocky. I might surprise--You want to undo those straps?"
It was glorious to be free. Lorinda stood and savoured the glory. With one tentative hand she explored her weals while an eager Cress' massaged the other wrist. They grimaced at McGee when he played it safe. "Time you girls put your clothes on."
"Don't you like naked girls, McGee?" Cressida pouted.
"I like 'em too damn much, luv'."
The Special Service embraced them like a cloak.
CHAPTER TWO - NAUGHTY GIRLS
The girl wore panties. They were pink and made the rest of her seem more naked than naked. She surveyed them through the bars with only a casual interest. Her voice contained dry humour.
"Buying or selling?"
"It affects them in different ways." Paula Gantry explained tolerantly. "Mostly, the girl behind the bars is a different personality from the original. Some sort of defense mechanism, I expect."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn, clothed and in her right mind, was trying hard to be casual. "Why is she handcuffed?"
"She slapped someone."
No other explanation. Just that! Presumably it was enough. Lorinda struggled to maintain a polite interest. "Are all the cells the same, purposely Institutional?"
"Goodness, no!" Mrs. Paula Gantry parted with a smile. "We run the whole gamut: Dungeons, solitaries, cages, pens. Sometimes we avoid walls and doors and bars and rely on a chain and collar. Each one carries its own potency for the right girl."
It was absurd! Not nightmarish but absurd. A piece of simulated nonsense which, judging by the demeanor of this handcuffed maiden, led only to cynical boredom. Lorinda shivered and wished The Special Service had given her another assignment. Even the drive to Desmond House had been irritating. Her thoughts still seethed with memories of Scott Devonish.
"Tender bottom, sweetheart?"
Lorinda had wrenched her eyes away from the Hertfordshire scenery and looked disdainfully at the comradely grin above the steering wheel. How the devil did he know! Or perhaps everyone...! She felt the first encroachments of a blush. "None of your business." She told him with the best humour she could muster.
"It's no secret, y'know." Mr. Devonish, full face, was as well arranged as Mr. Devonish in profile. Lorinda had studied both. "It's known as the "Hawtry Test." There's a rumour the Russians have adopted it."
"I'm surprised they didn't think of it first."
"Well, don't be starchy with me about it! There's another rumour going the rounds that most of you girls enjoy it."
"That's ridiculous!" Her blush deepened.
"No it isn't! Jolly good, really. I happen to know about young Rosabel. Makes her special. In the lingo of the Club she's a 'Double Barrel.' She's a handful of mischief."
"And a bedful too, I expect." Lorinda's tender bottom on the car seat prompted acerbity.
"That's right." Scott accepted her comment at face value, ignoring the blush. "I say, are you any good in bed? We could stop off, y'know? A whipped girl's supposed to be super. I've never had the chance to find out--"
"And you don't have it now! Could we change the subject?"
"I suppose so... " His tone was absent, his mind busy. "You've got to admit though -- a chap's bound to be interested. Here's Scott Devonish sitting next a girl who's been tied up naked and given thirty of the very best... I mean, can't you get the picture... ? Intriguing.
"Can't you understand I'm embarrassed?"
"Well, yes... But still--"
"I've been whipped. I can't help it if the thought gives you an erotic thrill, Mr. Devonish. And, yes, I am sore. What else d'you expect! But could we now talk about this job you're taking me to?"
"Mmmmm, 'spose so. Look, Lorinda, there's a damn fine pub in Newton Keep. Couldn't we stop off for--?"
"No we couldn't!" She made the denial snap. "Now, if you please, brief me."
"Oh alright!" He accepted her rejection without rancour. He chuckled at a fresh prospect. "Your role's simple. Paula Gantry's quite a gal. You're just the interested innocent, playing with fire."
"And this man... Gunderson? He may never even come near-"
"Don't be negative. He'll come. Make that a conviction, otherwise the nutty exercise will get you down." His tone turned serious. "You want The Service, don't you? I can easily turn round...?"
"No don't! I'm sorry." Lorinda giggled. "It's just that it seems so like a penny dreadful or one of those absurd 'Gothic' stories--" His voice was incisive. "Take it seriously. Take me seriously. You've studied the pictures of Gunderson in his various disguises, you've read up on his background. We've established the bank account for you... He pursed his lips, thinking hard. "Nothing's ever going to be foolproof. That's why we're what we are. There's going to be times when your own initiative's going to be the only weapon you have."
* * *
It was flattering and frightening. McGee's whip began to seem less bizarre. She wished Scott Devonish did not always rub her the wrong way. No doubt he had become accustomed to Rosabel and Cressida, but she was neither of them... not yet. Determinedly she checked her cues: "You drop me off at the big gate. I'm expected. I pretend I came on the bus. I walk through the Park to the House, I ask for Mrs. Gantry, I blush as much as I can and I stutter a bit. I'm just a dam fool girl who ought to have more sense...?"
"You'll manage splendidly."
Sarcasm? With Scott Devonish she could never be sure. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn sought for a last word, but there did not seem to be one.
"We try and be all things to all girls." Said Paula Gantry equably. "You're embarrassed. How about a Sherry? Or maybe brandy...?"
"Brandy, if you don't mind."
"You'd be surprised, the stories they bring into this room." Mrs. Gantry proffered a generous snifter glass. "It boils down to a few basics--Did our mutual friend explain? I don't want to bore--?"
"No. Go on, please. We just talked about... me."
"There's the ones who want to sell themselves to a rich man, and damn what he looks like. They're honest and easy to accommodate." Paula Gantry smiled benignly. "Then there's the jaded types who just want a thrill or a rest, or goodness knows what. I sometimes think they don't know what they want themselves. They buy a period--We insist on a minimum of ten days, otherwise it's not worth our while. Most of 'em decide on two or three weeks. But we had one hardy soul who chose a full year."
"And they--? I mean, you actually--?"
Paula Gantry laughed. "Yes. Actually! They sentence themselves. But it's a contract and we make sure they serve every last minute."
"But what if-?"
"It does 'em no good to change their minds. Most of them do--Within an hour or a day. Then, after the first hysterics, they settle down."
"Sounds a bit grim."
"Not really. Not for that lot. Half of 'em get an erotic charge. But then we have the one's who voluntarily submit as an act of contrition. Some relative, usually a husband, brings them in and sets up the terms of reference. I find that group interesting."
"Their motivations?"
"Yes. They try harder. They glow with virtue. But half of 'em have agreed to something they're not prepared for and don't understand. When they realize, they become a handful."
, Lorinda sipped and pondered. "I'm wondering about Me." She admitted. "Here we are, everything normal--even us! And we're talking about something--something utterly--"
"Aberrant?"
"Well, yes. I have to wonder--" Mrs. Gantry chuckled. "That brings us to another group, and it's surprisingly large. They want to be controlled, restrained, made captive, held in bondage. They seek a sort of slavery, but for most of them it's a punished slavery as though they've done something wrong and must pay the penalty."
"I think I've read something... or seen pictures... "
"Be a marvel if you hadn't. This lot bring in their little list too and pronounce their own sentence. Like the rest of 'em they overestimate their fortitude. Fortunately, they're mostly Lesbians, so we put two of them together, pair them off, and this makes their own notions bearable. They can cry on each other's shoulders--or whatever other part of the anatomy they happen to be close to."
"They--we--have to be naked?"
"It's appropriate." Paula Gantry consulted her watch. "Look, dear, if you're interested I'll take you to look at one of the girls, just one! I think the whole lot en masse would be too much for you. Talk to Linda, if you want, then reach a decision. Could be this isn't for you at all, we don't push."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn was quite sure none of Desmond House was for her. Gazing at the handcuffed girl on the other side of the bars she had no wish to change places. But the Special Service had told her about such moments and she had accepted them. The moment she was in now was not frightening but it certainly was bizarre.
"Get out of here and run."
Paula Gantry had scarcely gone when the urgent advice was whispered from the cell. Contrarily, it left Lorinda disappointed. She had hoped for moral support, not a confirmation of her own distaste. She looked doubtfully at a prisoner who showed no visible signs of suffering, and asked: "But why? Is there danger, something I don't know?"
Linda shrugged. "Probably not. But you're not going to like it. Most of us go a bit ape before we get resigned."
"But isn't it just--imprisonment?"
Linda sneered. "That word 'just'...! Say, kid, have you any idea what this is?" She held up hands linked by metal, and made a gesture encompassing her person. "Look at me: handcuffed, naked, and locked in this cage twenty-four hours a day for nine more days--I signed up for three weeks. I must have been nuts!"
"But, didn't you--? You must have--?"
"Oh sure, free will, my own choice. I asked for it." Angrily, the naked girl grasped two bars with her joined hands and flung herself back and forth against them in a demonstration of helplessness. "See, I can't even rattle 'em! It isn't until you're fixed like this you realize what the enemy is. It's boredom. You get so bored you could scream."
"Y--e--s... I can understand." Lorinda was conscious of relief, but did not want it to show. If boredom was her only enemy for ten days she was sure she could survive. She gently patted a clenched and captive wrist. "But you're doing wonderfully, and you're more than half way through."
Linda assessed her. "I doubt if you understand at all." She pronounced gloomily. "To give you an idea of how this gets to you: I made such a fuss a couple of days ago about nothing to read and nothing to do... " She managed a wry grin. "So they made me an offer: I could exchange this captivity for any other they had to offer if I, voluntarily, asked for twenty lashes across my bare back with a whip." The disgruntled captive shrugged disgustedly. "Know what? I asked for 'em. I actually did. I asked to be whipped-- anything to break this bloody monotony."
"But you're not--marked?"
"Hell no! They just laughed, having fun. Being whipped wasn't in my contract, so dear little Linda didn't get whipped. She didn't get out of this cell either."
"But why--? I mean, in the first place--?"
"I'm ashamed of that--honest! I'd just been divorced and was at odds with the world... Then someone told me about Desmond House." She chuckled bitterly. In a way I'll get my money's worth. When I get out of here everything's going to seem wonderful."
"You had some sort of guilt feeling and wanted to punish yourself?" Lorinda asked doubtfully.
"Something like that. I've had lots of time to think about it in this damn cage." The captive glanced shrewdly through the bars. "You've got some fool thing on your mind too. I can tell. Run along to Paula and sign up. I've been wasting my breath."
"No, really, you've been kind."
"You'll be sorry!"
"Well, perhaps... Oh dear, it's so difficult...!"
"For Pete's sake, just buy the minimum. Have that much sense."
"Oh I will! And... thank you--" Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn turned away, feeling foolish, yet vaguely relieved. Ten days and a bit of boredom...
It was her first assignment!
"Linda's a sweet girl." Said Paula Gantry, pouring brandy. "She affects cynicism, but she's well balanced." She pushed forms and a pen across the desk. "You sign twice, and we'll accept a cheque. Quite sure you only want ten days with us?"
"I'm not all that sure of myself--I suppose I could extend--?"
"That's O.K. dear. Now, think a moment. Are there any extras? Something significant to just you?"
"You mean, like--?"
"No need to blush, dear. Don't spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar. Chains... rope... some sort of daily penance?"
"I--I can't think of anything."
"Bread and water or normal diet?"
"You mean I can choose?"
"Of course! Diet's quite important. I forgot to mention the plump one's who sign in for a couple of weeks of starvation."
"Normal, please."
Mrs. Gantry gathered cheque and papers into a drawer. She was at all times brisk. "No need to go to a bedroom to undress, dear. I'll have a maid put your things away safe. You can strip right here."
"Now?" Lorinda suddenly beheld a dark abyss.
"Of course, now. Off with 'em, dear. It's just between us girls."
It would have seemed more proper in a bedroom. To strip naked in an office...! The novitiate shrugged away past proprietaries. McGee's intimate acquaintance with every inch of her skin had been a big help. It was not until she was removing her bra' that she remembered.
"Well, well, why didn't you tell me, dear!" Paula Gantry was intrigued. "Nothing to be shy about, y'know. My, you have been enjoying yourself! Magnificent weals!"
"I--I--I'm hoping they'll be gone by the time I--well, by the time I'm through." Lorinda blushed in convincing confusion.
"You sure you don't want to add a few goodies to the contract, dear, there's still time?" Paula's query was gay with sympathy.
"If you don't mind I'd rather not. I've had---well, sort of enough. I got whipped terribly."
"You got whipped beautifully, dear. Look, there should be some small thing for a girl like you. How about handcuffs?"
"Like Linda? Alright."
"I think there's a pair here." Mrs. Gantry rummaged in a drawer as though handcuffs were like pencils and paper clips. "Give me your hands, Lorinda, you'll look sweet."
It was a strange but not unpleasant sensation to have a woman click snug the shining bands by which her captivity was emphasized. Lorinda's heart was thumping. Bare and bound! The silly alliteration flitted over and over in her mind. "What about my panties?" She asked, shyly. "Linda's wearing panties...?"
"Suit yourself, dear-for today."
"I'll keep them on then. I know it's silly, but--" Her sentence died in shock. The door had opened and Linda herself walked briskly in. She went immediately to the drawer and found the key, using it without preamble to unfasten the cuffs from her wrists. She unlocked herself with the deft familiarity of long practice.
"Linda's a sort of bell-weather." Mrs. Gantry explained unblushingly. "She helps the girls make up their minds."
"I do it rather well, don't you think, love?" Linda asked insouciantly. "Just the right touch of big sister cynicism?"
"You mean, you swindled me--?"
"You wouldn't have wanted it any other way, dear."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn was aware of her heaving breasts, her pulse quickening under the spur of some overt intent of which she was not yet sure. The handcuffs on her wrists were suddenly alive with mischief. She could no longer effectively fight.
"Linda will look after you, Mrs. Wyburn. Do what she says."
"But-but-!"
"We both know how you feel, dear. Your ten days starts from this moment. Linda, darling, do take her away. I'm so frightfully busy."
Disposed of like dirty linen! Lorinda's angry outburst was checked by Linda's amused smile and quick shake of the head. Erect and indignant, she made for the door, her locked hands held awkwardly as though she did not know what to do with them. Once outside the portal her hair was grasped in a firm feminine hand. "This gives me control, love. Want to test it?"
"No, never mind. I'm not going to be silly. It's just the way I've been--tricked."
"You asked for it." Linda gave the captive hank of hair an admonitory tug, then loosed it. "My warning was absolutely honest."
"Well, yes, I suppose--" , "Considering those absolutely exquisite whipmarks on your back and bottom, it's me who's been tricked. You didn't get them playing little Miss Innocent."
"I suppose you want to know who did it to me?"
"No, that's your affair."
Linda's casualness was disarming. On impulse, Lorinda asked: "Have you ever been whipped?"
"Goodness, yes! What girl hasn't!"
"But you're-?"
"The Wardress?" Linda laughed. "You mean I'm on the winning side so why would I be marked! Believe me, darling, no girl wins all the time. I sometimes think the way you are right now is a female's normal expectation. It ought to be."
"Why are you still naked? I'd have thought when you changed roles you'd have dressed?"
"Mmmmm, fact is I like being naked. Desmond Housers that sort of place. D'you feel it lessens my authority?"
"Not as long as I'm handcuffed." Lorinda retorted glumly.
"Suppose I take 'em off?"
"Don't! I'm trying to get used to things--they help."
"Darling, you're sensible as well as beautiful. I may decide to fall in love with you."
"Remember, please, I'm not a lesbian."
Linda snickered. "If I got the hots for you I could have you stretched and tied so's the only way you could quiver would be from my tongue. But forget it. Could be you'll ask."
It was the same cell. When the nude wardress opened the door the two girls looked deep into each other's eyes, exchanging female knowledge, probing... Then, with an independent toss of her head, the handcuffed girl walked past her jailer into prison, the door clanged shut behind her back. She turned in time to see the key turn and to hear its devastating snap. Now there were bars between the female smiles.
"I know just how you feel, darling."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn was alone.
The newly prisoned nudity stood, irresolute, looking at the bars and the massive lock, and at the emptiness of the passage beyond. She shrugged away panic. The Special Service gave its girls preparation for moments such as these. This was according to plan, so why complain. She was not hurting and, for the moment, had nothing to be afraid of except the boredom Linda had so cynically promised. She could understand the boredom. Locked in this small space of concrete and bars she had nothing for diversion- nothing! She stood alone and silent in her cell and felt an intensity of nakedness. Anyone could look through the bars and examine her. She could not hide.
The cot was bolted to the concrete, its narrow mattress hard and sparse. There was a covered pail... At sight of both, Lorinda shuddered and turned away. Instinctively she obeyed a prisoner's first impulse, clutching two bars and peering beyond them in futile hope. But there was nothing to see--nothing! That would be the essence of her existence in the cell: a vacuum in which someone had locked a naked girl. She tried to rattle the door but it would not move.
The captive held up her hands and, for the first time, minutely examined the handcuffs by which they were joined. The shining chrome was neat and tidy on her wrists, biting only enough to be snug. Their mechanism was easy to understand. It was also implacable. There would be no getting rid of them. It was Lorinda's first personal acquaintance with an object much used in fiction and on the screen. Wearing handcuffs was quite different from what she would have supposed. Their principle effect on her, so far, had been shame: only criminals were handcuffed! But there was also the surprising discovery that they did not impose helplessness. She could still do almost anything. In some simple motions she would be obliged to use two hands instead of one, and certainly she could not hope to best Linda in a tussle. But their main effect on her was psychic, setting her apart from others, a badge of guilt, an insignia of her lowered status. Together with nudity they reduced her down to zero. As though in an assertion of will, and with an amused curiosity, Lorinda removed her panties and studiously examined her pubic hair as though conscious of it for the first time. Then, resignedly, she stepped back into the tiny protection of her sex and pulled its elasticity back into place. The familiar acts had been only slightly more difficult in handcuffs than when free.
Gunderson! The name of her quarry had been in the background of her mind throughout. Lorinda felt an unhappy conviction that the Special Service was wasting her imprisonment. Naked, handcuffed and locked in a cell, she could see no possibility of learning anything or meeting anyone. Gunderson was unlikely to come and introduce himself through the bars. But if he did--What then! For a period of ten days she had been plucked from life, placed in limbo--impotent! Irritably, she set aside thoughts of what should have been her work and gave herself over to the contemplation of ten days and ten nights alone in this uninspiring cage. Dejectedly, she, sat on the unfriendly mattress and sardonically supposed she should feel thankful for the warm air which Desmond House artificially provided. Dolefully, she wondered how many of each twenty-four hours a girl could sleep.
She could not measure time but supposed two or three hours of her captivity had passed before Linda's cheerful voice awoke her from reverie. "Thought you'd like some company, love. Her name's Marigold."
Flooded with gladness, Lorinda stood erect as the lock turned and the door swung open. Helped by Linda's thrusting hand a girl took ungrateful steps into the cell. The jailer followed.
"Just to warn you, love. Marigold's a package. Don't you dare change a thing. You could if you're foolish enough, but you mustn't. Marigold will explain."
That was all. It was a brief visit. But Lorinda scarcely noticed Linda's departure or the closing of the door. Her attention was absorbed totally by her unexpected companion.
"Your name's Lorinda." Said the newcomer with forced cheerfulness. "And don't look so shattered. For Desmond House I'm just an average exhibit." She grinned ruefully. "Sorry I can't shake hands... or something."
She could not shake hands. Marigold's hands had been placed palm to palm behind her back and tied tight. The same had been done to her elbows. Both forearms were crushed together and bound, the several bands of thin rope biting deep into helpless skin to cause what Lorinda felt sure must be bitter pain. She felt a compassionate impulse to tug at the binding knots.
"Don't you dare!" Marigold adjured, reading her intent. "Wait 'till I tell you... " But that was not all. The binding of her arms wrenched Marigold's shoulders back and thrust forward her breasts which, since she was completely naked, had become a prominent feature of her person. On each tumescent nipple a pair of small metal jaws had been clipped to brutally bite, with a pain all their own, and to stand out impudently as though daring anyone to take them off. They were highly decorative and utterly cruel.
"But surely I must...! You can't possibly want--?" Lorinda's feminine sympathy was shocked and baffled.
Marigold did her best to shrug but winced instead so that the clips on her breasts vibrated responsively. "You absolutely mustn't. And, no, I don't want to be fixed the way I am. But they want me like this, and that's what counts."
"But you must be hurting terribly?"
"Of course. That's the whole idea."
"But what have you done? You didn't sign up for-?"
"No, I didn't contract for being trussed and tortured. Mind if I sit down. It's going to be a long day."
Invitingly, Lorinda edged to one end of the cot. Gingerly, the bound maiden settled herself with the air of someone come to stay. Her breathing was faster than normal, she was in pain. Lorinda gazed in concern at the lovely features lined and drawn in suffering, and in an impulsive feminine sympathy reached out and unclipped one of the small biting monsters on an outthrust breast. Marigold yelped in shock and shrank away.
"Oh damn! Jeepers...! Holy cow...! Have you any idea how that hurts?"
Marigold's panting protest inhibited the cuffed hands already reaching for her other breast with its pert appendage still rampant on the clamped nipple. Lorinda's appeal was femininely remorseful. "I'm so sorry... I'm an idiot! I should have known."
"It's bloody awful. You've no idea--"
"I'll be more gentle with the other one. Is it better to do it slowly? Hold still--"
"No!" It was a cry of agony. "Don't touch it. Leave it alone. It's going to be bad enough getting the other back " on.
They sat on the cot in consternation. Marigold accusingly defensive, Lorinda baffled. "But--but--I can't possibly... " She gazed in fascinated pity at the turned away breast still wearing its macabre infliction.
"But Linda told you not to help me! And I thought you understood!" Marigold seemed shocked by her companion's obtuseness. "We're going to be in deep trouble if you can't get that blasted thing back on me just the way it was."
"I wouldn't dream of putting it back--"
"I know you wouldn't, but you've got to. Oh damn, damn, damn! I've been put in here to tell you things but you didn't give me a chance." Marigold looked at her fellow prisoner's relative freedom wistfully. "I've been punished the way you see me just as an object lesson to you- "
"But surely they wouldn't expect me not to help-?"
"They don't care. You're supposed to look at me and realize it could happen to you. If you disobey and get the clips off or loose my arms, or anything... They'll punish both of us equally. We'll be whipped or given some beastly female torture--they think up the damndest things--"
"They expect me to sit and let you suffer?"
"Of course! What else can you do!" The hurt young voice broke and was close to tears. "Oh, darling, you don't understand. None of it's making any sense. You must be very new...?"
"About three hours."
"Oh gollies, I should have known!" Marigold's remorse was suddenly pathetic. "I bet nobody's told you a thing. How long did you sign up for?"
"Ten days. Just imprisoned in this cell, and the handcuffs."
"It's all a swindle. None of us get out of here. They keep us and use us--until we're sold."
A coldness clutched Lorinda's spine. Her mind sought frantically for credence. "But surely there has to be some truth-?"
"Well yes, there is. I shouldn't exaggerate. They let enough contracts follow their course to keep up a screen. When they think a girl doesn't matter much on the outside they keep her. Desmond House is a cross between a brothel and a slave market, and damned expensive for the customers."
Lorinda clasped the anxious girl in her arms. It was not easy to do without imposing extra pain, but she managed a comforting intimacy of female flesh and female breasts, her lips sought a feminine cheek and kissed away tears. After a minute of silent communion she whispered: "How do they sell us? And this brothel business...?"
"It's easy to sell girls." Marigold snuggled close. "It just has to be discreet and with the right people. There's all sorts of rich men all over the world who'll pay a lot of money for a nicely bound and gagged package of girl--there's even the occasional woman who buys. As for the brothel, they make what profit they can from us while we wait. Men sort of rent us. They fuck us, of course, but there's a lot of other things... The first time I was ever fixed the way I am now was by one of the customers. He kept me like this, with variations, all evening. He paid a thousand dollars. They use U.S. dollars here because of the Arabs."
Lorinda listened in dismay, the cell and her handcuffs suddenly menacing. The Special Service was a lifeline. But they would not immediately seek her rescue, they would give her time. And in that time...!" Her fingers absently caressed the cords binding her companion's arms, they were deep in Marigold's skin. A quick glance revealed the tell-tale purple of constricted blood. In a spasm of compassion she turned the tied girl about so as to make a better examination. Her heart welled in sympathy at what she saw.
"I'm going to untie you, Marigold. I don't care what they do to me. These ropes are deep into you, they're too cruel."
"No. No, don't... You mustn't... " The denials emerged as pathetic moans. Marigold was hurting. Angrily decisive, Lorinda reached round and, as gently as she could, unclipped the remaining infliction on the anguished breast. "We can both blame this on me." She affirmed with the courage of ignorance. "They can't blame you, you're helpless."
"But they'll punish me just the same." Marigold wailed. "It makes your punishment double because you'll feel guilty about me. When I scream you'll know it's your fault--They're clever."
"We've gone half way, we may as well go the rest." Lorinda said savagely. "I can't bear to see your arms like this. Turn round a bit more." Her chained hands reached towards the torturing knots.
There are as many kinds of tears as there are inflections of a voice. Those that welled now from Marigold's eyes, and the sobs that wracked her throat were evidence of despair. Words found their way through the storm of emotion.
"You don't know them like I do, the awful things we'll have to suffer, ten times worse than the way I am now."
Such genuine distress stopped Lorinda in her tracks, her poised and pinioned arms fell back as the sad young voice wept on in impotence.
"I can't stop you untying me, I'm so helpless. But I wish you wouldn't. You'll come to understand--They'll make you... " Lorinda sat motionless, her fine fervour of indignation slowly replaced by visions conjured by Marigold's tearful sincerity. Undoubtedly naked girls could suffer worse things than bound elbows. Her noble protestations died unspoken. The hurt young voice stumbled on.
"You're not going to, are you. You're beginning to believe. Oh, thank you, Lorinda, thank you...!"
The gratitude was incongruous but all too obviously sincere. Since Marigold's concern was for both of them she must express her own. Tenderly she dried tear wet cheeks with her own captive fingers, then used them to tidy stray locks of hair, feminine gestures purely instinctive. Her voice was unhappy.
"Alright, darling, don't fret. You've convinced me." She kissed a flushed cheek. "But isn't there something I can do--anything?"
Marigold sat erect, exquisite in her suffering, her eyes large and pleading. "Yes, there's something, something you can do." She shook her head as though denying her own words. "It's something you have to do. Please put the clips back on my nipples?"
"Marigold, I can't, I just can't!"
"You only think you can't, but you can. You must! If Linda returns and finds my nipples free we'll both get the same punishments as if you'd untied me entirely. Those clips are a sort of easy trap, testing both of us."
They exchanged wan stares of desolation. Lorinda picked up one of the brightly coloured metal springs. "Now? Must it be now? Couldn't you go without the suffering a little longer?"
Marigold was urgent, frightened. "No. It must be now. Please! Linda could show up anytime, she's bound to try and catch us."
"But I'll hurt you brutally?"
"Yes, of course." Marigold was impatient. "I'll gasp and wince when you put them on, but that's all. I promise." She was breathing hard on the verge of panic. "Try and place them exactly as they were. They have to go right on the nipple. It hurts more. We can't cheat by getting them back to take a larger bite. Rub my nipple first to make it stick out and get hard."
It was a travesty of love play, the gentle fingers frictioning the hurt red bud into full blossoming erection. When Marigold's left nipple was flint hard both girls were breathless as Lorinda cautiously fitted the small cruel jaws exactly as they had been before she played angel of mercy. Hating what she did, she allowed them slowly to close upon their prey.
"Thank you, Lorinda."
There could be no doubting Marigold's thankfulness. The pretty cruelty bobbed impudently at them from its punished breast. There had been the gasp and the wince, nothing more. Bravely, Marigold turned to point her second nipple at the girl who must accept its invitation to be hurt. "You did that beautifully." She whispered. "Here's number two."
The approach was a cruelty of its own. The minute positioning of the jaws to indent them in the precise base of the pert tender feminine flesh took all the concentration Lorinda possessed. Marigold looked down in a fascination all her own. It was a strange communion between two girls, this giving and accepting of an agony desired by neither. Before the clip bit home the silence was shattered.
"Want some help, darlings?"
They faced Linda in dismay, flushed with guilt. Marigold with her right breast unadorned, Lorinda holding the gaily coloured clip in one cuffed hand. Both were silently aghast.
"Caught in the act, darlings."
"It's my fault, Linda. Marigold asked me not to but I took it off anyway. It seemed too cruel." Lorinda's voice was wooden.
"And the other one too?" Linda was amused.
They said nothing.
"And then you decided to put them back on, just to play safe?"
Marigold began to sob. It was answer enough.
"Lorinda, didn't I tell you to leave her alone, to touch nothing?"
"Yes, you did. But it was too cruel--"
"Stand up. Both of you!"
They obeyed. Lorinda relinquished the errant clip to a demanding grasp, then watched the second taken abruptly from the nipple where she had just placed it.
"Clasp your hands behind your neck. The handcuffs won't stop you. Shoulders back, tits out."
Never in her life had Lorinda been more vividly alive to sensation. Every inch of her tingled in suspense. She had no doubt as to what was about to happen. But she had no thought to disobey. She was trapped. Her breasts became arrogant as she arched her back.
"You asked for this, y'know--idiot!"
The guilty girl stood erect as her nipples were teased to full erection. Linda's admonition was severe.
"You'll stand still as you are while I clip your nips. Make a noise if you have to, but don't move. Then wear 'em. I know you can easily take them off, but don't you dare. Understood?"
"Yes. I understand."
The pain was devastating, an agony on too intimate a place to bear, a very female cruelty. Lorinda moaned and had to use every ounce of her fortitude to proffer her other breast for its nipple's torment. When both her breasts were gaily adorned and on fire with an exquisite flame, she closed her eyes and heard Linda's instruction as from afar.
"You'll wear them until I take them off, and you'll do whatever I tell you to in the meantime. If you lake them off yourself you'll be a very sorry girl."
"Do as she says. Oh, please, do as she says--!" Marigold sounded heartbroken.
"You can take your arms down now. Stand as you please. O.K.?"
Lorinda gingerly lifted the handcuffs back over her head and down. She had never experienced so sickening and frightening an agony. It was not as honest as the whip. It held a specific malice against her femaleness. In a sudden revulsion she could not control, her handcuffed fingers found the biting horrors and, pressing them free, threw them into the corner of the cell. Her nipples screamed. She was panting with pain and fear.
"Naughty, naughty!" Linda admonished, unperturbed.
"I don't care! They're too awful." Lorinda could feel the imminence of tears of her own.
"Sooner have a hundred lashes, dear? They'd make the whipping you've had seem like fun."
The delinquent maintained a sullen silence, dabbing at her eyes.
"You deserve a second chance, darling. Pick them up and put them back on yourself. Then we'll say nothing about what's happened."
"I can't."
"Do it! Oh, Lorinda, do what she says!" Marigold's plea was urgent. "You can't bear a hundred strokes, no girl can."
"You get them while suspended by your thumbs." Linda explained pleasantly. "Your feet will be tied out to either side so's the whip can get up and under. It's far the worst place for a girt."
"See, it's like I said." Marigold pleased. "Linda's being terribly kind."
"You mean, if I do that to myself you'll let us both off--those other things?"
Linda eyed her in silence. You know damn well that wasn't what I meant. But I'll be a sport. Twenty with the cane across each of your bottoms, and you'll wear the clips until further notice."
"Oh, Linda! Oh, thank you!" It was as though Marigold had received great riches.
Lorinda saw the chasm of decision yawn wide. How neatly psychological a test Linda had devised, a test of tolerance, hers not Marigold's. How great was her compassion for Marigold's distress, how strong her own fortitude against pain for her own flesh! Both girls were gazing at her in mute questioning. She knew herself lost.
"I'll try." She volunteered doubtfully.
"Do more than try, darling."
To pick the hated objects from the floor was the beginning of agony. When she had done so Linda made a fresh demand.
"I want this done prettily, dear, not as an act of desperation. You'll stick your chest out and tease your nips up hard. Then you'll clip them daintily in just the right place. I want this done as though you're loving every moment and want to share them with us. Wince, if you want, as they bite, but then wear them as you might wear jewelry, with pride."
Lorinda thought it the cruelest command of all. She was alone in what she must do. Fearful of relinquishing the clips, she thrust them between the softness of her thighs and clamped hard while she crossed her handcuffed wrists to achieve a frictioning of her nipples with her fingertips. When they were innocently erect and demanding she retrieved the small instruments of her own torture and took a deep breath, dreading what she must try to do.
"That's right, darling. Stick 'em well out. And do try a teensy weensy smile. I don't want to have to disqualify you and start all over."
No mercy anywhere! Even Marigold wanted her obedience. Lorinda arched her back and squared her shoulders, a small enigmatic smile spread from the ripeness of her lips. She cupped her left breast and began, cautiously, to position the tiny jaws. The handcuffs inhibited her task scarcely at all. The cell was breathlessly silent.
The pain was worse--if that was possible. Fearfully, she looked down to see if she had made a faulty placement. But the pretty steel wickedness stuck out pertly from her breast. Her work was perfect.
The delinquent girl could not control her breathing, the respirations came in gusts to match the waves of agony emanating from her clamped nipple. But despite their rise and fall she cradled her right breast and positioned on its nipple the same infliction as the left. The jaws beneath her fingers bit hungrily and pain lanced into every crevice of her being. In a proud defiance born of despair she tensed her stance, proudly erect, and faced the watching eyes.
Linda clapped delightedly. "Bravo, darling! Perfect!?"
There could be no mistaking Marigold's relief. She looked at Linda and asked, shyly: "May I kiss her, please? I think she did that for me."
"Sure. Nice idea."
The lips were warm. Lorinda was grateful for them. She had never needed moral support more than now. She kissed back, hard.
"Me too." Linda took the place of the girl whose bound arms forbid a caress. Cupping the punished girl's cheeks she drew the lovely face towards her to bridge the outthrust implements of torture and kissed Lorinda soundly and hungrily. "Mmmmm, you're nice! Hurt bad?"
"It's unbelievable."
"Yes, isn't it!" The jailer agreed brightly. "Having trouble keeping your hands away?"
"Yes."
"But you're doing splendidly. Are you ready for the twenty across your bottom?"
"Yes."
"My, you are becoming a model prisoner! Marigold's dying to get hers. Aren't you, dear?"
Marigold's affirmative was adequate but without joy. She could scarcely take her gaze away from the cunning twists of metal on her fellow captive's breasts. She understood the torment Lorinda was enduring. Her eyes sent messages of gratitude she dared not speak.
They followed Linda from the cell, two hurt and helpless maidens on their way to receive more pain. The things protruding from Lorinda's breasts trembled as she walked, they matched the tremors she now felt at her immediate prospect. Desmond House was moulding her to a pliant conformity. Escape was simply a roseate dream.
"We'll do a nice 'bend over,' darlings. It hurts so much more like that." Linda bubbled with enthusiasm.
Two small narrow tables, hip high. They screamed their purpose. Lorinda leaned forward on hers, a hard pad thrusting into her loins. A strap circled her narrow waist and was cinched to draw it down and down to achieve a corresponding eminence for her behind. When it was buckled she could scarcely breathe, her tummy clamped to the wood, her forearms thrusting to keep her nipple clips from too painful a distortion.
"It's a nice simple way to fasten you, dear."
The other strap snuggled into the crease at the top of her thighs. It too was drawn tighter and tighter until she gasped. Her feet had left the floor, toes reaching helplessly.
Her bottom was a strictured sphere bursting tautly within its leather bonds as her weight rested and thrust upon the pad below her sex. Lorinda's posterior cheeks were constricted to the vibrancy of a ripe melon. When Linda fluttered her fingers across the helpless flesh the sensation was magnified tenfold. The message was obvious and fearful. Lorinda gasped. "Oh please, please not like this?"
"Like what, dear?"
"It's too tight. We--we'll split."
"What a charming thought! But you won't. Your little bottoms will just hurt more than standing up, that's all. How's the clips on your nips?"
"Beastly."
"Good! You look sweet. The handcuffs will help you behave."
Lorinda looked sideways at her companion in distress. Marigold's elbows were still bound as were her wrists. She was fastened in the same way but was obliged to flatten her breasts upon the table top. Except for the clips her plight was worse than her fellow sufferers. Desmond House evidently believed that once a prisoner's wrists or arms were fastened they should remain so indefinitely. For their jailer it was a convenient arrangement.
Hurting. Lorinda watched their guardian angel select the long polished yellow implement with which their helpless bottoms would be thrashed. Every particle of her flesh screamed for mercy. But she kept an unhappy silence. What was the use! She thought, longingly, of Scott Devonish and the Special Service. Surely they could never have known she would face this...!
"I'll alternate, darlings. It will give you a moment or two in between--and you can watch each other." Linda's words were warmly affectionate.
Surely her skin had broken! There must be blood! Limber as the cane undoubtedly was, Lorinda's bottom was strapped so tightly that the whistling impact sounded as a ringing 'thunk' across its curves. She screamed under the new anguish but could not move anything that mattered. Her legs kicked wildly at nothing.
"Now watch Marigold, darling. It's like having a mirror." In horrific fascination Lorinda obeyed. Through the haze of her own agony she beheld the cruel cut across the waiting derriere and the instant rise of the tender weal... white, then scarlet, then tinged with purple. But no blood, no broken skin. It seemed miraculous. The resiliency of feminine bottoms was a thing of wonder. It was while she was still gasping from her second scream that the male voice pierced the miasma of maiden pain.
"Hope I'm not intruding?"
"Why, Mr. Gunderson!" Linda's exclamation held a wealth of deference.
"They told me I'd find you here. I understand one of these delectable tid-bits is a Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn?"
Linda tapped a twice wealed bottom with her cane. "This is Mrs. Wyburn, straight from The Special Service." She giggled. "I'm afraid the poor darling's not being much help to them."
"Sent here to do a report on me, most probably." Gunderson's tone was affably conversational with a slightly foreign inflection. "I think we must give the dear girl our full co-operation."
Lorinda was consumed by fresh agony, this time mental. Shame and chagrin spread a blush across her tenself listening features. Paula Gantry had known! Linda had known! She had deceived no one but herself. Her sufferings were futile, of no help to anyone--and they were not ended! The Special Service had unwittingly tossed her to the lions.
"A punishment, Linda, or just practicing?"
"Punishment, sir. They have both been foolish."
"The prerogative of girls, m'dear. I sometimes think they like to provide us with excuses. Delightful creatures."
Linda giggled. "I'm a girl, Mr. Gunderson."
"Indeed you are! Is that an invitation? I have long admired--"
"Well... not at the moment, sir. I'm rather busy."
"I intend to ease your burden, Linda dear girl. Could you perhaps take this other charmer elsewhere to get her bottom striped while I attend to Mrs. Wyburn?"
"Of course, sir. No problem. If you'll just give me a hand we can carry Marigold into the next room, bench and all. You and Mrs. Wyburn will then have complete privacy in here."
Lorinda watched it done. When Gunderson returned he was alone but carried the cane. His smile was proprietary. "I have exciting news for you, Mrs. Wyburn. I have just purchased you."
She gasped, lost and frightened. "No... Oh no...!" You may call me, Master."
CHAPTER THREE - OBEDIENT GIRL
"A piquancy, don't you think?" Karl Gunderson sliced the air to produce a whining wickedness from which his purchase winced. "I mean, it's not everyone who can actually possess one of Hawtry's Girls."
Lorinda felt sure it was hopeless, but she tried. "They'll ransom me -give you money...?"
"Who wouldn't!" Gunderson was complacent. "You're magnificent--marvellous figure! D'you mind...?"
She minded, but it did no good. A practiced male hand explored those portions of her person not prohibited by bonds. Mr. Gunderson was assessing his property. The property shrank within itself, it could not move.
"The Service has excelled itself." Gunderson's voice was almost awed. "I'm going to enjoy owning you. And what a resale potential!" The hand discovered a breast and the appendage thereon. "I suppose these little ornaments mean you were especially naughty?"
"Yes."
"Do they hurt much?"
"Hideously."
"Ah well, all a part of being a pretty girl."
"Mr. Gunderson, please unstrap me. I'll still be handcuffed, I won't give you any trouble?"
"Why?"
"Shouldn't we talk--come to some sort of terms?"
"Nothing to talk about. Paula Gantry's got my cheque. For you it's chains and slavery."
"Very well then, I belong to you. But please unbuckle the straps. This is a ridiculous posture for conversation."
"I intruded on your punishment, dear girl. Justice must take its course."
Lorinda's heart sank. She had cherished a small hope her caning would be forgotten in this new dispensation. "Mr. Gunderson, please--!"
The cane cut her savagely. When her scream died, the male voice demanded: "Is that how you address me?"
"I'm sorry--Master." It was bitter as gall but Lorinda swallowed it. "Master, please forgive me the punishment. It was for something Linda contrived."
"Certainly not! And the stroke I have just given you will not count. How many were you sentenced to?"
"Twenty."
"An honest answer. I had already enquired. Shall we get the matter disposed of?"
"If we must... Master."
"An ungracious reply. Try again."
She was to be spared nothing. Lorinda moaned inwardly but accepted humiliation. "Master, please cane my bottom. I must receive eighteen more strokes."
It was an intolerable pain. Outrageous on a girl! Her bottom flayed by stripe after stripe as she screamed and kicked and sought to protect her breasts from an instinctive need to struggle. Karl Gunderson caned the bunched up bottom of his purchase with care and precision. She screamed and fought exquisitely. He was more than pleased.
"Mercy--Oh, mercy--?" The plea left Lorinda's lips by its own volition. Gunderson's only response was to make the five remaining strokes doubly severe.
"Slaves accept, they do not plead." He explained pleasantly.
She lay, bent over the table, panting, exhausted by pain. Her caned bottom was ablaze, her nipples agonized without remission. In blind misery she wished Scott Devonish could see what he had let her in for.
"A little blood from the last five." Gunderson informed equably. "Next time you will remember not to plead."
When the straps fell away Lorinda was glad of her owner's help to straighten up. The bonds and the agony had welded her to the table. Gunderson used the opportunity to complete his digital exploration. She stood passively, hating herself and him while his hand grasped and manipulated her unprotected vulva. When he stood back, satisfied, he demanded: "Face me, feet apart, hands behind your neck." It was one more abasement, but the cane had made her obedient. Lorinda assumed the desired pose, exposing herself in blatant sexuality. The twin punishments on her nipples bobbed brightly.
"Mmmmm, lovely!" Gunderson was sincere. "Your pubic hair is superlative, it will not be shaved." He snickered. "I have already enjoyed the view from the rear. The twenty stripes enhance it."
She stood, a naked sacrifice to his lustful enjoyment, not daring to move. The pose increased the pain on her nipples, a pain which had blazed furiously throughout. Lorinda wondered if she dared ask for their release. She was frightened...
Gunderson read her thoughts. "You'd like to get rid of those pretty trinkets, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, Master."
"Is that all you have to say about them?"
"I am frightened to ask for their removal, Master. I don't want to be punished."
"Wear them with gladness then. Eventually I will give permission to take them off."
"Thank you, Master."
Gunderson laughed. "I bet you're finding it damn hard to be polite."
Strangely, her reply was without impulse other than simple fact: "No, Master." She struggled to be explicit. "I think it's the pain, it makes me want to be obedient. I can't bear the thought of being punished any more."
"Excellent! Lay on your back and spread your legs."
It was without shock: inevitable. It was the ultimate degradation. She recalled some story that a girl found more joy in sex after she'd been thrashed. Yet she was transfixed in distaste.
"Lay down. I'm going to fuck you."
"Yes, Master."
"Not a virgin, are you?"
"No, Master."
Both speech and motion were mechanical. She was in a dream of slow motion, there was no escape. She would be used as a convenient facility by right of purchase, a slave girl accepting her Master's sperm.
"You're a damn lovely girl."
She said no thanks, but was engrossed by her whipped bottom on the floor and puzzlement what a girl did with chained hands during the act of love. She raised them, allowing the handcuffs to nestle behind her hair. The clips became rampant on her stretched nipples.
"I'm not going to take 'em off, y'know."
Her Master settled himself in the age old dominance above her nudity, but he took the weight of his upper torso on his forearms. He was going to make sure her breasts bore their burdens unaffected by what he was about to do to her.
"Your rump hurt?"
"Yes, Master... terribly."
"Good. That's how it should be."
Suddenly he was within her sheath to vigorously consummate a contingency on which the Special Service had provided no terms of reference.
"You didn't expect to enjoy it, did you?" Gunderson was kneeling between her spread legs, looking down. The beginning of their coupling was a long time past.
"No, Master."
"What, no gratitude?"
"Thank you for fucking me, Master. You do it very well."
"A beaten bottom's better, eh?"
"Yes, Master, much better."
Gunderson flicked a nipple clip with an inquisitive finger. "What about these? They add something...?"
"Yes, Master."
He chuckled. "In other words you're a lucky girl?" Lorinda winced from the pain and knew not what to say. She was the classic beauty, ravished and without recourse. Hating her subservience she enunciated a meek, "Yes, Master." Then, assertively: "Pain does make it more exciting for a girl, tremendously better--during the act."
"But not afterwards, eh? That's what you're hinting?"
"Yes, Master."
His hands were so swift Lorinda was unprepared. She squealed in shock as both clips were loosed at the same moment. Her breasts and nipples exploded in a new agony under the merciful act before glowing under the realization their travail was past.
"Thank you, Master. Oh, thank you, thank you--!" She knew not what else to say, but let her eyes speak for her as she gazed up at his intent regard.
He flicked the hurt nipples with a fingertip. "Does something for them, girl. You've got as lovely a pair of red rosebuds as I've ever seen. They're in full blossom."
She was inordinately pleased. A girl who has been whipped, tortured and ravished within the space of a few hours can hardly remain formal or stilted. "I'm glad you like them, Master." She said without guile. "A girl is always $ad when she's pleased a man."
"You'll clip them on your nipples for me another time, won't you, Lorinda?"
"Yes, Master, gladly."
Neither moved. They were held in the aftermath of lust and a strange rapport. A belated remembrance of convention drove Lorinda to say at last. "I can't understand this, not any of it... I mean, the way I feel and act. Some of its been too awful... just too bloody awful, and here I am talking rationally to a man who's just bought me for a slave and used me as a slave is used."
"You're normal, girl. Hawtry picks only the best."
"Master, what are you going to do with me?" Lorinda held up her cuffed wrists. "I'm still helpless, I can't leak any of your secrets."
"What secrets?"
"Only about me, Master. Honest."
"I'm going to keep you on a chain, in a nice safe place." She looked up at him, her words chosen carefully. "A prisoner always, just to fuck?"
He laughed at her dolor. "Hell no, girl, you're worth more than that. I'll keep a chain on you alright, but not always the one you're thinking of."
Lorinda digested the statement. Then, with feminine irrelevance, asked: "Master, Have I been wanton?"
He laughed at her seriousness. "Hell no, girl. All you've done is revert. You've managed to sluff off about nine centuries of mores."
"It wasn't me. It was the whip."
Gunderson nodded soberly. "It's good you can see that. A whipped girl is a very different female from one who's never felt the lash. If she lacks intelligence she'll attribute the change to a brutality she dare not resist. But that's not you. Is it?"
"No." She glinted up at him in candour. "I won't try and be profound, Master. I'm not that sure of myself. Maybe the change comes from you?"
"You'd be just as docile if Linda whipped you."
It was probably true. Lorinda thought of Marigold. Marigold wanted only to obey. She nodded absently and asked again: "What are you going to do with me?"
Gunderson gave her question serious attention. "I haven't much time for play these next few days, so I'm going to make an arrangement with Paula to keep you safe. She'll do it for me."
"You mean I'll be locked in that rotten little cell?" Gunderson was flattered. "Sooner come with me and be on a chain?"
"Yes."
"Is a cell at Desmond House that bad?"
"No. I expect it's a nice cell, as cells go. But can't you imagine the boredom? Twenty-four hours a day behind bars."
"Linda can easily make it dramatic for you. Chains, rope, daily punishments...?"
"But the punishments aren't valid unless I've done something to earn them!"
"I'm sure you'll think of something."
"You're laughing at me. Master, take me with you. I don't care how you have to chain me or tie me." She looked at him wistfully. "I don't suppose you'd accept my parole? I'll promise obedience?"
"That's taxing temptation too much, Lorinda. No. You'll stay here until I can take care of you. Believe me, you'll be taken care of."
She dared not push. They had found a rapport she had best cherish. Meekly, she said: "Yes, Master." Then, dolefully, "Must it be the cell?"
He found delight in his new possession. "Come." He ordered amusedly. "Let's see what the Lady of the House has to offer." He stretched out a chivalrous hand.
Paula Gantry eyed her client and the girl she had kidnapped and sold with complete aplomb. Her pencil was poised above the slip of paper. "There's no need for Lorinda to be lonely in the cell. We can always put another girl in with her?"
"Mmmmm, yes. What else?"
She smiled sardonically. "If we keep her in pain she'll have other things to think about than boredom?"
"No. When she has to have pain I'll inflict it."
"There's a cage with several girls inside. They come and go?" Paula chuckled. "We have the dungeon. Chain her in there and she'll think the cell was paradise. Or she can be tied to a post all day, girls tell me it's less of a bore than just sitting...?"
No one spoke. Lorinda felt embarrassed at the trouble she was causing. She was about to say: 'never mind, I'll take the cell' when Paula Gantry shot a shrewd question.
"You've fallen in love with the girl, haven't you?"
Karl Gunderson was unruffled. "Yes, in my own way I have." He admitted. Then laughed. "I made a good buy."
"Very well then, suppose we give her the run of the House? But she'll absolutely have to be chained."
"How chained?" Gunderson was interested.
"Her ankles. I'd suggest about seven or eight links. We can't possibly let her have her hands, but there's a belt arrangement in which she can use one or the other at a time?"
Master and slave exchanged glances. "I think that would be very nice." Lorinda said demurely.
"Good." Paula was forever brisk. "How long will we be having her?"
"Can I leave it indefinite?"
"Of course. For life if you wish."
The slave girl shivered. She wished her Master would take her away. She shivered again at Mrs. Gantry's next edict.
"There's the matter of Lorinda's behavior, of course.. If she gives trouble I reserve the right to punish her in any way I see fit."
"Very well. I suspect she'll behave." Gunderson faced his naked property. "Will you?"
"I'll be obedient, Master--and thank you both."
"A little darling, isn't she." Paula mused. "But don't forget the Special Service. You own her as long as she wears your chains. But let her once wiggle free and she belongs to them."
* * *
It was impossible to dislike Linda. In time she might become a second Paula Gantry, but she was still a girl, vibrant, her sap running strong, and able to relate to girls. She fitted the shackles to Lorinda's ankles with the chatty intimacy of a clerk selling shoes.
"I think seven links is about right, darling. But you'll have to learn to walk, and you can forget about running."
"But they're beautiful!" Lorinda exclaimed, puzzled. "The lovely anklets, and so heavy!"
"What I'm locking on you now cost a lot of money, dear. Only the best for Desmond House. Try walking."
The captive could not stifle a feminine thrill in her new adornment. By any standard the shining bands and links controlling her ankles were exquisite. She essayed dainty hobbled steps and shared Linda's giggle. "I'm curious about the rest of what I have to wear." She admitted. "Let me learn it all at once."
The belt locked round her waist was heavy chain. At its back a ring. Passing through the ring were eighteen inches of chain, at each end a shining shackle for her wrists. It was very simple.
"If you put one hand behind your back it gives enough slack for you to do things with the other." Linda explained.
The ingrigued captive experimented. The chain between her wrists slipped easily back and forth inside its ring. She could choose her hand, but only one. the other was held at her back by her own tug on the chain. Curiously, she brought both to where she could examine the beautifully fashioned wristlets by which she was made helpless. She could not raise them above her waist together, but she could admire their shining quality.
"I bet Gunderson buys the whole ensemble for you." Linda predicted, laughing. "Keeps you beautiful and helpless while he's at the office."
Lorinda knew she should be in hysterics, or raging with anger, or dissolved in tears. But Linda and Paula, Desmond House and Karl Gunderson had, between them, created a rationale which bestowed normalcy upon her thrashed derriere and the shackles in which she was finding an absurd pride. The impact of the conglomerate made escape abstract and not worth agonizing over. If the Special Service wanted her back, the initiative obviously lay with them.
"You'll have to sleep somewhere." Linda reflected thoughtfully.
"Oh alright, I won't keep beefing about the cell." Lorinda volunteered with un-slavelike generosity.
"Come with me, darling."
The sly amusement on the jailer's face caused the captive to forget her shackles. On the second hobbled step she fell heavily, her chained hands impotent.
"Lorinda! Oh, darling, are you hurt?" Linda was kneeling beside the squirming nudity instantly.
"Never mind the ambulance." Lorinda giggled. "Just help me back up. Jeepers, you've really got me, haven't you! I mean, there's no way I'm going to escape in this costume."
They shared the giggles of the captive girl's maiden journey with chained feet and her rapid adaptation to tiny steps. The chains clinked their cheerful assertion of authority.
"But, Linda, this is--?" The captive eyes were wide in question.
"My bedroom, darling. Just step over here."
Lorinda knew instantly. The small heap of chain, the heavy ring in the floor, the open collar... Quivering with a new emotion she knelt beside the ring, an act surprisingly difficult with joined ankles.
"You're a privileged girl. D'you realize...?"
She moved her head back and forth to aid in the fitting of the collar. The motions were instinctive, between girls. A lock clicked within the snugly nestling metal, affectionate feminine fingers gathered the rich mane of captive hair and rearranged it for its new constraint. Its owner quivered in the intimacy of touching.
"The chain tethers you, Lorinda. But it's quite long. You can reach the bathroom and you can reach my bed... " There was a meaningful pause. "You can even get in my bed and lay down beside me...
The captive's pulse quickened. She knew not what to say. The weight of the chain was heavy on the shining metal round her throat, yet she could liken it to the compulsion of Linda's hand, a feminine awareness to cherish.
"From time to time I've had other prisoners wear that collar, dear. D'you mind?"
"No, I don't mind."
"Do you understand about the chain and why you're collared in this room?"
"Yes, I understand."
Lorinda understood perfectly, as a knowledge born of Eve. A week ago her answer would have been negative. She did not pretend to understand why it was not negative now. She supposed it was the chains, and her caned bottom, and the metal band heating round her neck.
"And you're going to be a good girl?"
The girl who had previously been Lorinda Wyburn was about to retort: 'What the Hell else can I be!', but the words did not come. Instead, she heard her own tremulous complicity: "Yes, Linda, I'll be a good girl."
She wanted to add: "I'll be the best girl you've ever had!" But was too shy.
It was pure discovery, all of it. About Desmond House and about herself. The prisoner found herself the most surprising of the two. Linda was not surprised, but Linda was omniscient in her world of feminine captivity. Paula Gantry ruled in a remote omnipotence all her own. Karl Gunderson's slave girl flitted her chained way through rooms and passages by privilege of purchase, closing her mind to the growing compulsion by which she nightly returned to the collar and the ring far earlier than need be. She was strangely happy in a constant excitation.
The other prisoners kept her constantly guilty. Linda laughingly sanctioned visual and verbal contact. In her exquisitely chained nakedness Lorinda returned to them again and again in an endless fascination, partly arising from awareness of how easily she might have been one of them and partly for the comfort of sharing her own captivity with other girls in a less enviable imprisonment. She found them chained or bound, caged or locked in a pillory. The pillory was rarely without a tenant. As Linda insouciantly exclaimed: "It's so beautifully convenient, darling, and once they're in it the poor dears can't do a thing, not a thing. I don't have to bother with them the whole day."
It was a world of breasts and nipples, vulvas, pubic hair and pussies. The concavities of slender waists and swelling curves of girlish bottoms. The captives were kept forever naked, it was a simple matter of convenience. Despite dolor, there was a pungent sexuality clinging to each girl, no matter her condition. It was one of Lorinda's discoveries that when a female was whipped she radiated sensuality in waves. It was as though the whip or cane opened a secret store of heat and scented emanations to attract The Male--or Female, as the case might be. Within the radius of these pungent perfumes she herself flamed in desire, kindling a premature longing for The Ring.
In all her cruelties Linda remained pure mischief. She reveled in her power and its varying expressions. She never injured a girl but she often gave them grievous pain, sometimes she teased. A favourite diversion was to render a maiden stretched and helpless or to have her stand apprehensively in the stocks, and then to use her hand, her fingers, her lips or her tongue to ravish them into a tumescent apex of heat. She then left them at their peak of nerve screaming need and went away laughing at their heartrendering pleas. On one such occasion Lorinda's sympathy had overcome her judgement. She had used her one hand to bestow relief upon a grateful sex, but had been caught in the act and soundly whipped as a reminder she was not so much an honoured guest as a privileged slave.
Her greatest guilt came from watching punishments. Linda encouraged her presence, perhaps as an added shame to the suffering delinquent, but more likely to covertly watch the spectrum of expressions on her slave girl's face. At first, Lorinda asked herself in dismay if her fascination with the sight of writhing pleading maidens stemmed from some dark depth of sadism within herself or the certainty that all the inflictions would probably happen to her too in their own good time. But she gave up worrying, sensing that where Linda was she wished to be also. Not long after the locking of her shackles she was ordered to closely observe the whipping of a girl's breasts.
"None of them like it, darling." Linda said pertly. "Watch poor Jennifer, she'll make the most awful fuss."
The naked girl, suspended by her wrists, had obligingly confirmed the promise. She kept looking down at her tautly stretched breasts, exposed and vulnerable, as though seeing them for the last time and bidding farewell to her most prized possessions. Her fervent pleas touched Lorinda's heart.
"Please don't whip my breasts, not my breasts!"
No one answered.
"You'll cut them. You'll cut my nipples... Oh no?"
"Shouldn't you have thought of that before you were naughty, darling?" Linda enquired sweetly.
"Yes--Oh yes! I promise I'll never be bad again--Never!"
"Promises--promises...?"
"I know! I know! Oh please!" The lovely legs kicked in an anticipation of agony to come. The mane of hair was tossed wildly back and forth. "Oh, Linda, can't you whip me somewhere else? Please?"
" 'Fraid not, Jennifer."
"Please don't whip my breasts. Whip me somewhere else--anywhere--oh anywhere at all...!"
"How about your cunt, darling?"
There was a shocked pause, followed by abject surrender. "Yes, my cunt! Yes. Oh please whip my cunt instead?"
"Spread your legs as far apart as you can, sweetheart. Show me little pussy."
Lorinda's heart thumped in sympathy as the sacrificial legs obeyed. Spread wide they revealed all Jennifer's pubic hair and the swollen fig she was willing to deliver into punishment.
"Sorry, dear, it's far too young a little cunt to be whipped. Close your legs again, but thanks anyway."
It was pure feminine cruelty. Jennifer wailed in anguish.
"It isn't young at all, I'm twenty-two. And, anyway, my breasts are the same age. Please, Linda, please--"
"We use a special whip for breasts." Linda remarked pleasantly as though the suspended girl had uttered no word. "Isn't it a lovely thing, designed specifically." She held it up to be admired, evoking another wail of anguish from Jennifer and a sympathetic shiver from the girl in chains. "I always whip one breast at a time. It's much more efficient."
With studious attention Linda proceeded to demonstrate. The multilashed small horror splatted viciously across Jennifer's right breast. It left evidence of its kiss in faint red lines. Jennifer yelped and writhed, moaning incoherencies which betrayed her abandonment of hope. In the beauty of the moment Lorinda's erotic flame blazed hungrily.
The splats continued in measured cadence. "I'm going to do one breast at a time." Linda confided. "I think we'll get a really super effect in a little while: one white and one red."
The watcher could not avert her gaze. She knew deep shame when the eyes of the suffering Jennifer met her own in pleading or in hope. The girl whose breast was being whipped saw the pity in her eyes, but pity was all Lorinda had to give. Her costume of shackles left her powerless to intervene. Yet, somehow, the two prisoners shared something in that time.
"There, isn't that gorgeously vivid!" Linda was genuinely proud of the scarlet she had etched upon the panting breast. The many thongs had crossed and criss-crossed to impose a uniform crimson on the innocent curves from which a tumescent nipple pointed in a defiance of its own. "I'm a good mind to leave one white and one red overnight and whip the left one tomorrow. If a customer showed, with you like that, he'd buy you on the spot."
Jennifer moaned and sobbed, uncaring. Lorinda hoped she herself would not visibly burst into an orgasm for Linda to laugh at or to punish. She was forbidden to have orgasms beyond the confines of her Mistress's bed.
"But I suppose I may as well finish the job." Linda delighted in goading her delinquents with suspenseful hope. "I'll do a few in your armpits too, Jennifer dear. I always think a girl's armpits are apt to be ignored."
Jennifer sobbed heartbrokenly. But Lorinda could not but realize the whipping of a girl's breasts with the 'special whip' was by no means the worst thing Desmond House could impose. The mental shock of such an infliction on her female treasures was half the girl's punishment. But just the same, she was glad it was Jennifer's breasts and not her own.
"I've forgotten how many strokes." Linda mused mischievously. "But, not to worry, I'll carry on until the darling's nicely 'done.' She plied her lashes in measured time, ignoring her victim's frantic contortions and repeated pleas for forgiveness. When the second breast was as incarnadined as the first and each flattened armpit similarly blushing from the whip the two girls went away and left Jennifer on her toes to contemplate her sins.
The Mistress and Gunderson's slave girl were lovers through the night and, often enough, companions through the day. The latter involvement was largely determined by Lorinda's fettered feet being able to keep pace with the duties of Desmond House. When they could not and she roamed by herself, she sought what communion she could with whatever of the other captives she had access to. It was in one such instance she met the girl on the horse.
It was not a horse, and the girl was not astride it by choice. It was a simple structure in the centre of a cheerless room by which a girl was enabled to sit on the narrow edge of a plank, her nakedness compelled to its macabre ride by the tethering of her bare feet in a taut stretch to either side to ensure the solid implant of her sex upon the timber's edge. As a further immobilization the maiden's wrists had been crossed and tied behind her back and then drawn high to enforce a forward bend, she could neither fall or lean in any direction but must sit motionless upon her unkind perch. To raise her head would impose a strain, she thus gazed sadly at the floor in hopeless resignation. Sight of the cleavage between the punished thighs crushed beneath the girl's own weight set Lorinda's heart to racing in quick sympathy. The sight of the punished nudity was strangely beautiful, but the intruder was about to make as silent a withdrawal as her chains would allow when the sundered girl spoke.
"Stay and talk to me a little."
So small a plea! So broken and hurt the young voice! Only the bend head had moved, turning in greeting. Lorinda clinked her metallic steps to where the two girls could hold closer communion. Her exclamation was shocked.
"What have you done... ? Why--?"
"My pussy's being punished because I wouldn't offer it to one of their S.O.B.'s to be fucked." The declaration was a mixture of wry humour and acid bitterness.
"But is it worth--! Oh, you poor darling...!"
"No it isn't worth this." The voice, weakened by pain, became vehement. "I'm not sure anything's worth this...! But he was such a bastard--" There were stains of tears on the wan cheeks, the wracked breasts rose and fell in intermittent spasms of agony. To Lorinda's horrified inspection the sharp edged wood appeared to have eaten itself high into the pubic bush, the punished pudendum was crushed out of sight. "You can't help me, not chained like that. Don't try--"
"I can use one hand--see! I could untie your feet."
"It wouldn't do any good." The denial came gaspingly. "I'd still be sitting here--and they'd find out. Then they'd perch you up here with me." The hurt eyes became curious. "You're the spy they caught. I heard about you. And you've been sold...?"
"Yes. I've been sold. I'm sort of being 'boarded' right now--like they do with dogs and cats."
"They sold me yesterday. But the creep was some weird colour from some outlandish place and all he could think of was getting into me. That's when--Oh damn!"
"We have to, don't we. I mean, spread our legs... We can't fight about it... " Lorinda felt a traitor to her sex.
"Mostly they give the guy a whip and he slices away at the girl until she does it the way he wants." The red lips twisted sadly. "I wish they'd done that with me. They're going to make me sit here all day. Right now a whip would seem kind."
Eventually, Lorinda knew it time to retrace her hobbled steps. She left the horse and its rider, helpless and frustrated. Like all such contacts with the kidnapped girls it told her to walk warily. Desmond House was not kind to dissidents. But its next surprise left her more unsure of herself than ever.
The chain ensemble had become so much a part of her being that life without its compulsions and its sounds seemed scarcely worth considering. Probably Karl Gunderson would leave her locked in it when he took delivery. Linda's bright announcement was shattering. "Lunch, darling, and at The Tripoli. Hold still."
It was a fresh strip, a new nakedness. The weight of metal fell away from ankle, wrist and waist in a mocking clatter. Lorinda stretched her arms and did gymnastics in pure animal joy.
"Not going to assault me, darling, you're not even handcuffed?"
"Oh, Linda, of course not!"
"Sorry about this one, dear. There's always something, y'know."
The something was a flat band of silver. It bent to a circlet that told her how tiny her waist really was. It was an inch too tight and closed with a foreboding click. "Watch the lunch, sweetheart. It will really pinch on the dessert." Linda was sparking with mischief.
"It pinches now--Oh, darling...!" The happy slave walked wickedly round the room. Her hips were whores in their swinging provocation from constriction. "And I can't walk--respectably."
"Probably make a fortune in one afternoon, love."
"Oh, Linda, P--L--E--A--S--E--! You're not really going to take me out in public like this, are you?"
"Why not?"
"I'll escape. I don't know what my hips will look like when I run, but I'll run."
"No you won't, darling."
The impudent slave was suddenly on the rug, writhing, her lips emitting a keening wail of desolation, her free hands clutching at the lovely restriction round her middle. She was being scorched and tom apart--endlessly. When the admonition suddenly ceased she sat up slowly, bedewed with perspiration and very humble.
"I'm sorry, Linda. I should have known."
The Mistress put the small box back in her bag, helped her to her feet and kissed her soundly. "You weren't to know. But now you do. Let's forget it happened."
"But it will be there--waiting for me." Lorinda was still panting from shock, her fingers busy exploring the metal belt from which she could not escape.
"Of course, darling. Just like the whip and all the other lovely things. Here's your dress."
"But--but--!" The naked slave looked at the handful of exquisite eroticism in a mixture of yearning and dismay.
"And... there's no--?"
"No undies, sweetheart. You'll be naked except for the belt, the dress and the shoes."
"Oh, Linda!"
"Don't be a prude. Unless you deliberately stand in the light you won't show through. It fits like a glove and covers all your pretties."
The Tripoli accorded Lorinda that hushed reverence reserved only for the loveliest of Eve's daughters. It took her to its heart so warmly as to make her blush regal and her carriage proud. She glowed, a slave set free in a scented female paradise.
"You could have any man in the room, darling. Think what I could get for you.
Lorinda knew it true. Male desire was beating at her in waves. She had tried hard to defeat the belt in her passage to the table, but with only a minor modification of its influence. Women had glared hatred with sweet smiles. "Why don't you bring all your girls here--to advertise?" She asked diffidently.
"Dammit', you little minx, I can't hang a price tag on you, or a 'Special today' sign. And most of 'em don't have your savvy. For me, the risk would be too great. Order the cocktails and then I'll show you something."
It was spine tinglingly exciting. Her adoration of Linda glowed. The slavegirl sipped her whiskey sour and bestowed half her attention on the envelope Linda produced. When the pictures emerged they claimed it all. Her exclamation held heartbroken disillusion. "But... Linda... darling... That's You!"
"It is, isn't it!" Linda agreed brightly. "That's what happened to me the last time a girl simply got up and walked away."
"But the belt! You could have used--?"
"In public? Don't be silly. The whole place would descend on us--on me, like a ton of bricks."
"Then...?"
"Yes, you could get up and leave, or find a policeman. That's why I'm showing you these." The Mistress grinned apologetically. "This is what will happen to me if I don't take you home with me."
It was the most cunning deterrent of all. Lorinda gulped her cocktail and examined, with the guilt of lesemajeste, six clear colour prints of her Mistress, naked, and being tortured."
"I don't show to good advantage, darling... " It was all there: Linda being whipped. Linda with her nipples savagely clipped. Linda sitting astride the wooden horse. Linda suspended by her thumbs. Linda with neck and wrists clamped in the pillory... The photographs were a beautiful pictorial proof of what Desmond House did to a Mistress who mislaid a slave.
"The whole repertoire, darling, if I make a boob." Lorinda was horrified. She leaped instantly to the obvious. "If that's how they treat you, then let's go right now to Hawtry and put an end to the whole thing?"
"No. There's more to Desmond House than you've seen. When these pictures were taken there were five men watching me scream and make promises. They're my real bosses--and Paula's."
"But you're always so happy...?"
"Why not! It's my nature. If I defect I die. They'd get me within a week, despite your Special Service, so I don't really have any decision. I like my work, I expect I'm fifty percent bitch or sadist or something."
"You're beautiful. I love you."
"You're not going to run?" Linda gathered her photos. "Sorry about these, but I sure don't want to get that lot again."
"You know I'll go back with you. There's no need of the belt."
"Regulation, darling. Paula wouldn't approve--And you never know: temptation might make you glad of a reminder."
Lorinda had an uncomplicated femininity. "Why couldn't the two of us go far away, drop this silly spy and counterspy nonsense, and just be two girls together?" She added, with unmistakable longing: "We could still be as we are. I mean, you could chain me... I could wear this belt...?"
Linda smiled tenderly, exuding musk. Whatever her answer might have been it was killed by the male voice.
"Linda, you work miracles."
But it was the slavegirl's hand that was lifted first and kissed.
It was Karl Gunderson.
CHAPTER FOUR - THE PAINFUL FANTASIES
"Had to punish her?"
"No, sir. She's exemplary." Linda's deference became professional. She added, hastily: "Of course, if you'd like us to...?"
Gunderson sighed, his eyes adoring his demure slave. "No, only if she earns it. The fun bit I'll do myself." He grinned. "Linda, is she as naked as I think she is?"
"Yes, sir."
"Delightful! Is the belt round her tummy?"
"Yes, sir."
"I wouldn't like it if she got lost."
"That's understood, sir-"
"I'm not going to get lost, Master."
Lorinda had sat, douce and tingling, as her person was discussed. Being a slave, disposed as other's desired was surprisingly erotic. The belt constricted, below it her heat was smoldering. Needing a rationale, she affirmed firmly: "The belt won't let me escape. I won't even try."
Charmed by innocence, Gunderson asked, slyly: "You showed her the pictures, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Hmmmm... tells a story." He shot a quick question at his slave. "Want me to take you with me when I leave?"
The pause was long enough for the Mistress to break it with a quick assurance: "Of course she does, sir."
"I didn't ask you, I asked Lorinda. Well? Answer me?"
"Y-E-S-Master."
"You dragged your feet too long there, little girl." He turned to Linda. "I'd suggest about twenty lashes."
"Yes sir." The affirmative was clothed in misery. "Darling, don't sound like that! It was my own fault--" Karl Gunderson laughed at the havoc he had wrought: femininity made abject by the power of the male! "You both should get your bottoms warmed." He assured them jovially. "I've known about that chain and collar by your bed, Linda, for a long time. Couldn't expect you not to use it on this bundle of sex."
"Oh, Master, am I really--?"
"You're an erotic bomb, girl. More than a man can--"
"The chains, and being punished, and what she's been seeing... It's all terribly potent, sir-"
"You left out the getting into bed with you, that's what makes her blossom and vibrate." Gunderson was enjoying his cynical amusement at their consternation. "Don't look so damn woebegone--"
"Please, Master, don't have Linda punished. Whip me--" He looked at his slavegirl in pure adoration. "Dammit, girl, I'm glad I bought you. You're quite something." His admiration encompassed both. "You can forget about punishment. I was just testing. There's no twenty for either of you. Oh, and you can nibble all you like--nice sterile pastime... " He chuckled at their obvious relief. "Best contraceptive I know for frustrated females."
"Thank you. Master. Oh, thank you--!"
Gunderson patted his slavegirl's hand. "Look, sweetheart, I'm going to have to run. But there's a chap I want a favour from and he's been watching with a bulge in his pants. You know the drill, Linda."
"Of course, sir. Full verbal here--Or will he be coming to Desmond House to use her?"
"Verbal for now. It may do the trick. We'll see."
"Has he any particular 'Thing,' sir?"
"As far as I know it's just the usual hackneyed stuff--and I'd suspect, intercourse--the four letter word. I'm to see him later so get him well heated. Name's Bellamy. He's an ass.
Again, Lorinda felt the stirring in her loins. She was being discussed and disposed, she was a slave. But, implicit in this discussion, was the concept of her as a vibrant entity, she was not being treated as an inanimate object. The belt cinching her waist acknowledged her as a living force to be contained. She sat demurely in her near nudity in the Tripoli and absorbed their love. Gunderson's next words were startling.
"Oh, by the way, slavegirl. Your precious Special Service will probably manage to contact you somehow." He grinned reassuringly at her wide eyed dismay. "You can tell 'em Karl Gunderson will be in Jordan until the nineteenth, and for the week following it'll be Baghdad."
Lorinda flushed and felt like Mata Hari. Semi nudity in The Tripoli was just right for such antics. But her attention was diverted by Mr. Bellamy. Gunderson's introduction was crisp: "Linda is Desmond House. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn is my slave--Remember that, Marty, she's a slave and she's Mine!"
The slave girl viewed her Master's retreating back with regret. Martin Bellamy seemed likely to be a poor substitute. Turning to her Mistress she received only a sly wink and a resigned shrug.
"Sure is nice to meet you girls." Mr. Bellamy enthused. "Come from Canada myself--nothing like you there. Lousy climate."
"What are we, Mr. Bellamy?" Linda's voice was sugar.
"Well, like Karl said--" Mr. Bellamy floundered amidst elusive superlatives. "What I mean is you're both a lot of girl, aren't you!"
"You're thinking of breasts and suchlike?" The soft feminine tease was relentless.
Mr. Bellamy blushed. "You'd never hear a thing like that in Canada." He said in hushed reverence. His gaze flashed from one pair of scarcely concealed mammaries to the other. "Don't take this wrong, now. But do you ever sort of--unwrap 'em--for a guy like me?"
"You wish to see us naked, Mr. Bellamy?"
Perspiration was profuse. "Well--I mean--what guy wouldn't!"
"Mr. Bellamy!" Reproof was soft toned. "You forget I am a Mistress."
He dissolved into anxious contrition. "Oh, I didn't mean--what I should have said--I don't want you to think--!"
"You wish to view our breasts and pubic hair." Linda turned on the acid.
"Well yes--I mean no--Not you... although... Oh damn!" Martin Bellamy was wallowing in an unfamiliar sea of scented female. It was as though both girls were exuding musk for his confusion. He surface and pointed a finger at Lorinda. "I mean her."
"Ah, you desire the slave." The Mistress was prepared to be forgiving. "That is as it should be. Mrs. Wyburn is quite luscious."
"Mrs...! Has she got a husband?"
"Lorinda is a widow."
"But she's-?"
"Yes, she is quite young. Younger than me, in fact. Do you not have a slavegirl of your own, Mr. Bellamy?"
"Good heavens, no!"
"It is very convenient to have a slavegirl, Mr. Bellamy. Her breasts, her cunt and her bottom are available to you at all times."
Their visitor gasped like a gaffed fish. His suffering was acute. His explanation was succinct: "In Canada there's nothing--!"
"We have a charming inventory of slave girls at Desmond House, Mr. Bellamy. Lorinda was one of them, but she's been sold."
"You mean, you sell--girls!"
"We prefer to refer to them as 'Slavegirls.' " Lorinda knew herself seething with lust, not for this absurd man, but for the sly Mistress who was goading him into the most acute throes of concupiscence. But Mr. Bellamy was an amusing example of frustrated male. She added her own douce contribution: "I really truly am a slavegirl, Mr. Bellamy. Mr. Gunderson purchased me from Desmond House, and now Linda, My Mistress, is looking after me for him while he's away."
He saw the flaw and pounced. "Why don't you just walk away? Nothing's stopping you?"
Linda's voice was velvet. "The little darling's been whipped sufficiently to know her place in the scheme of things."
"Whipped...!"
"Lorinda dear, explain to Mr. Bellamy."
"They strip me naked, Mr. Bellamy. Then they tie me all stretched and whip every part of me until I become obedient."
"N-0-0-0...?"
Martin Bellamy contrived to endow this exclamation with a wealth of disbelief, tempered by hope. His response was predictable.
"You mean, it's possible... ? A guy could watch...?"
"You wish to see a naked girl whipped, Mr. Bellamy?"
"Could I?" The two words held infinite longing.
"Of course."
He was staggered by the sudden vista of delight: speechless. Linda filled the gap.
"Tell Mr. Bellamy how you are whipped, dear."
"Oh, always very hard, Mr. Bellamy, and always on my bare skin." Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn infused her words with a breathless gratitude for benefits received. "And, of course, I have to be fastened. A girl couldn't possibly stand still for so much pain. Linda's so clever, she whips me beautifully. So does my Master... " The Canadian export used a massive handkerchief to dry his heated features from the dew engendered by erotic lubricity. He was breathing heavily and ordered more cocktails as a drowning man might demand another lifebelt. But Lorinda was in a Pixie heaven and merciless.
"It's all done very properly, Mr. Bellamy. My back is flogged, my bottom is caned--and there's the loveliest whip 'specially for my breasts and cunt. Linda whips my breasts one at a time. I've learned to scream in the nicest ways--" There could be no doubting Mr. Bellamy had orgasmed within the confines of his beautifully creased trousers. Both maidens watched his agony with polite attention. He gasped his way out of the contretemps in scarlet awareness of their regard. He downed the three drinks he had thoughtfully ordered in rapid succession. Shaking his head, he muttered: "I'll never go back to that ice and snow."
"Most men don't realize a girl can be whipped on her pussy, Mr. Bellamy." The demure slavegirl continued with feminine implacability. "It's very easy, really. There's several ways a girl can be tied to make it convenient, and it scorches something awful when it splats right across her lips or maybe stripes her belly--" An agonized male arm motioned in distress. An agonized male voice demanded of Linda. "Can I whip--her?"
"Lorinda! Oh dear, you'd have to ask her Master. Mr. Gunderson might consider some lease arrangement."
"I must. I simply must. You've no idea--"
"Oh, but we do! You really should buy a girl of your own."
"Her... Mrs. Wyburn! I want her." He groped his way deeper into male frailty. "Surely--I mean, a man wants--the way I feel... You can't tell me Gunderson doesn't--"
"You wish to fuck Lorinda, Mr. Bellamy?"
"Well, now you mention it--"
"Lorinda dear, perhaps you wouldn't mind?"
The slavegirl breathed ecstatically. "Slavegirls are always fucked by their Masters, Mr. Bellamy. Immediately my Master tells me, I lay down and open my thighs ever so wide...! Of course, there's ever so many ways... " She sighed in tumescent memory. "It's so wonderful when he ties me down, and I can't move, and I know it's going to happen, I'm going to be pierced... " Mr. Bellamy ate his dessert in preoccupied abstraction.
The girls watched brightly and spoke of things no girl should mention. When he staggered away, no doubt to sell his Canadian holdings, he carried with him the business card of Desmond House.
* * *
Paula Gantry was delighted. She even kissed the returned slave in perfunctory fashion before complaining to Linda. "Old Rempson's in there. The old goat wants to spank my bottom--mine! You know how he is, but we've got to please him. Since Lorinda's being sensible, use her."
"But she's sold!"
"Gunderson won't know, and she won't tell him."
"But if it's you old Rempson wants -?"
"You mean he THINKS he wants. Fix up little sweetheart here. You can think of something to give him an erection. Stay away from the 'Pirate's Prize' and the 'Ravished Nun,' he's had those."
"But couldn't I--if it's only a spanking?"
"No, we've got to draw the line somewhere with the ancient idiot. We'll keep you and I as a last resort."
Lorinda's flame flared in delight as the belt was unlocked and taken from her waist. She stretched and examined the scarlet imprint it had left upon her skin. She was still tingling from Paula's casual disposition of her person. Being a slave set her apart, she was not as other girls. She was beginning to recognize that a slavegirl was the most feminine flesh in the world. Unperturbed, she listened to her Mistress.
"He doesn't want you naked, not at the start. He doesn't know what he wants, so the thing is to catch his fancy. You're going to be a naughty little schoolgirl. I've got a St. Cynthia's uniform, it's just the usual but they're damned exciting to men: mostly bare legs and thighs and hints higher up."
"But will it fit?"
. Linda giggled. "No. It will be damn tight."
"But what must I do?"
"You'll have to improvise, darling. You've been bad and you want to confess and be punished. If he seems interested make the confession really sultry."
"Spanked?" Lorinda spoke the word with distaste. "That's childish."
"You're going to be a little girl, a big little girl. And don't sneer at spanking. Most men love it. You'll probably end up with a red bottom."
"But won't my Master-?"
"It will have cleared by the time he sees it."
They both adored the school tunic and its effort to cope with Lorinda's maturity. A large bow adorned her hair. Lorinda was excited. "But suppose he doesn't like me?" She wailed. "Will I be punished?"
"He'll like you. Go in there and get the old boy out of our hair."
It was intoxicating to be without chains. The euphoria helped. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn minced shyly into the lounge, her features as woebegone as she could contrive but her lips a luscious red.
"Good afternoon, sir. I'm sorry I've been a bad girl."
Mr. Rempson shed thirty years. Enchantment was instant. He picked up his cue. "And you have come to me to be punished, m'dear?"
"Yes, sir. I'm terribly ashamed."
"And so you should be." Mr. Rempson agreed heartily. "Did you have a particular punishment in mind?"
"My Mistress thought you'd know best, sir."
"Perhaps a sound spanking?"
"Perhaps, sir."
"On the bare, of course?"
"Oh, of course, sir."
"Now, tell me just what naughtiness brings you here."
"Oh, sir, must I, I'm so ashamed!"
"Of course you must. Don't be shy. No doubt some boy...?"
"You're so clever, sir. How did you know?"
"Oh, I know these matters. What did he want you to do?"
"Take off my panties, sir. He said he'd never seen a girl's panties."
"And did you?"
"Yes, sir, I did. And now I'm so terribly mortified. He wasn't a bit--nice."
"What did he do with them?"
"After he'd admired them a lot he--smelt them. I thought that so rude that if I could have got them back I'd have run away."
"Of course. And where were you both when this happened?"
"In the big storeroom, sir, out behind the school. It was awfully lonely. When he kept sniffing my panties I was scared. I was afraid he might want to sniff Me."
"Continue."
"He put my panties in his pocket, sir, and said we'd play cowboys and Indians. I had to be the captured maiden who was tied up."
"Surely you didn't...?"
"Yes, sir." Lorinda contrived a maiden blush and the shuffling of maiden feet. "I sort of like playing cowboys and Indians. When he told me to lay in the big crate, and then tied my wrists way out on either side it seemed like fun."
"You are indeed a naughty girl. What happened?"
"He took all my clothes off, sir." The delinquent actress gave her role everything she had. "He made me--naked."
"You didn't fight?"
"I couldn't, sir, he'd tied me so tight. I did kick with my feet, but it didn't do any good. He said if I didn't stop kicking he'd tie them too but it would be better if they were loose."
"Better?"
"Yes, sir. He said he could fuck me better if my legs were free."
"Girl! How dare you! That word--?"
"I'm sorry, sir. What word should I have used?"
"You could have thought of something. I intend to punish you severely for such vulgarity."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Then he took his clothes off too and showed me that huge thing boys have between their legs--it's up about the same spot as where my pussy--"
"I am aware of the placement of male genitals, young lady. Did it not occur to you, at this point, to remind him of his mother?"
"His father is a widower, sir."
"You mean to tell me you lay there speechless, you tried nothing to divert him from his foul purpose?"
"I struggled ever so hard, sir. I even promised I'd suck that great big thing in my mouth if he promised not to push it into my pussy."
"You filthy girl! Your spanking will be rigorous."
"Yes, sir. You're very kind. Then he just laughed and said he was going to make me do that any way--afterwards. I couldn't think of anything else to offer."
"You could have sung the school song, or reproached him with "God save the Queen."
"I couldn't, sir. He gagged me. He used his own panties with the nasty bit in my mouth and tied it in with a bit of string. That's when he straddled me on all fours and I could see his enormous thing pointing straight at my poor little pussy. I made what sounds I could, quite a lot of sounds when he was actually pushing it up inside me."
"Did you enjoy what happened then?"
"Yes, sir, it was very nice."
"You are an abandoned Jezebel."
"Yes, sir. That's why I've been sent to you to be punished. He untied me so I could suck his thing properly. He seemed to like it and made me keep swallowing. I'd never done it before--I was really surprised--"
"You enjoyed that too?"
"Oh yes, sir! Would you like me to--?"
"Remove your panties, girl. The time has come."
Lorinda obeyed. She hoped her Mistress was listening outside the door. She felt she had done full justice to her role. In docile submission she draped herself across the ancient knees and flipped up her scanty skirt to expose her pert derriere for Mr. Rempson's palm.
"Please spank me severely, sir."
It was a request to be regretted. Without previous experience Lorinda had not guessed the resounding impact of human hand on human haunch. Her firm young cheeks juddered and cringed beneath Mr. Rempson's pounding palm. Along with unexpected pain came an awareness of something rising rigidly beneath her sex. When the palm and the pain had reached an unbearable crescendo they suddenly ceased. "You may change sides, young woman, so I may do full justice to both your bottoms." Mr. Rempson was panting.
"Of course, sir. You are most thoughtful."
Lorinda hastened to obey, glad of even a brief respite. Her bottom was blazing and she had formulated a terrible premonition which was suddenly confirmed.
"You may kneel between my knees, unzip my pants, and properly service what is entirely your own fault. You will have no difficulty in finding it."
Rempson was right. It was there. Lorinda hated the sight and the smell of woman's punishment. She was quite prepared to believe that from such objects sprung most of the troubles of the world. She engulfed it quickly in her mouth and hated the taste of it too.
"I want you to understand this as part of your penance, girl. I endure the indignity only that you be chastened. Do not stop."
The old bastard! Lorinda could have smitten him, hard! Hypercritical old lecher! She longed to say something but dared not. Her mouth worked overtime to end the intermission. When her tongue had finally cleansed and the zipper back in place she paid her humble dues.
"Thank you very much, sir. You are awfully kind to me."
"Get back in position, girl- and ask for it."
Once more her pubic hair was positioned upon honey knees. The words she must say had come to sound natural. "Please spank my other bottom, sir, and most severely."
Mr. Rempson was very happy.
There was a beautiful symmetry about the naked girl and the manner in which she was bound. There was a tight efficiency in the neat band compressing her lips, rendering her mute. Above the stricture her eyes returned Lorinda's surprised regard with serene unconcern. Lorinda herself felt guilty of intrusion, and was inclined to leave the bound beauty to her own contemplation of infinity, but she remembered her Mistress's laughter.
"Really, darling, you must have a look. They're not what you think. You've been passing them up as kooks, but they're not. They're mostly top stuff and tremendously likeable. There's one came in yesterday, she's mmm-m-m!"
"But that term, B&D! It sounds like a brand of tobacco or a new line of underwear."
"It's apt enough. Bondage and discipline is the most meaningful things in their lives. There's a little bit of it in most of us. If you trace it back you come face to face with the reality of what men and women truly are to each other."
Lorinda giggled, her fingers toyed with the collar locked on her neck and its chain snaking across their bed to the ringbolt in the floor. "I don't notice any men around here." She suggested coyly, rubbing her left nipple against Linda's right.
"Didn't you get enough men yesterday?"
"Those idiots! I don't mean my Master, but those others." Unhindered by chains, the slave changed breasts and frictioned gently. "Linda, what about Gunderson?
What will he do with me?"
"He'll take you in a few weeks and thrash you into being exactly what he desires."
"I don't want to leave you."
"He'll whip the lesbian part of you into the shadows, darling. There's nothing I can do about it. In some ways I'm as much of a slave as you."
"I like Karl Gunderson." Lorinda's voice was sullenly resigned. "I know he'll break me and I'll be very well behaved for him. But I don't want to belong totally to a man."
"You're a slave. Gunderson's bought and paid for you. You've no choice. That's what slavery means."
Lorinda saw the truth of it. She was slave! Nakedly in the love embrace in her Mistress's bed she was still tethered by the circlet on her neck. "I'll never see you again." She mourned miserably.
"Yes you will. Gunderson flits so much he'll leave you with me from time to time. If you make a fuss and start me crying too I'll whip you so much you'll be glad to go to him."
"I wouldn't mind. I don't care."
"You know what's wrong with you." Linda opined sagely. "You're not chained, just your collar. If you give a slavegirl freedom she starts to worry."
Lorinda ruefully recognized truth. Chains on a slavegirl were less to inhibit movement than to keep stable her awareness of what she was. The shackles they had laughingly called her ensemble had not been locked back on her after The Tripoli. The Mistress and her maid had enjoyed an uninhibited romp. "Are you going to chain me again?" She asked without concern.
"Of course. Remind me if I forget." The Mistress adored her slave, musingly. "Darling, have you forgotten your Special Service?"
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn had not forgotten. A small nagging guilt was ever present in her slavery. She wondered if the fine fervour with which she had accepted McGee's flogging had faded with its marks upon her skin, dissolved by other whips in other hands, the assured masculinity of Karl Gunderson, and her heated absorption with Linda's flesh. "No, I haven't forgotten." She admitted slowly. "I wish there was some way to ask them to forget me. But I swore an oath of fealty and signed all sorts of things." She grinned ruefully. "If they ever get their hands on me they'll probably lock me up in the Tower as a traitress."
"Another reason to keep you chained, sweetheart. I'll make sure you never escape."
"But if, somehow, there was a confrontation and they demanded something of me I'd have to obey."
Thoughts drifted, memories fell away. Lorinda envied the peaceful serenity of the girl against the post. Or was she a turmoil of emotions beneath the biting ropes so safely indented in her flesh! Lorinda did not think so. The girl seemed happy. Her dark eyes glinted approvingly at Lorinda's chains.
The chains were heavy, their bands on wrist and ankle wide. But that was all, a beautiful Gothic simplicity. Not many links. Lorinda the slavegirl was well confined. But, except for the weight of metal she must counter, they permitted a greater latitude than the ensemble. She was still erotically aware of them as of her Mistress's hand. She held them out to be admired, and smiled back at the lovely eyes above the gag. "I'm sort of on loan." She explained. "They keep me from running away."
The eyes glowed. There were small sounds from beneath the constricting band.
"Would you like me to untie you? I could?"
The negative shake of the captive head was vehement. "How about the gag? I'll put it back on after?" Lorinda rattled the links between her wrists. "I can do quite a lot of things, even if I am chained."
The response was less positive. The eyes flickered. Impulsively, the girl in chains reached for the fastenings and removed the neat impediment to speech. "Honest, I'll put it back on any time you say." She assured, anxious not to deprive the tied girl of strange ecstasy.
"Thanks, that was sweet of you." The voice was warm. "Linda told me." The slavegirl's voice was shy. "You really enjoy being tied like that, don't you."
"You enjoy your chains."
It was an amused reminder of fact. "I suppose I do." Lorinda admitted slowly. "But it's because of the girl who locked them on me."
"I like Linda too, she's a darling." The sleek nudity seemed to ripple within the stricturing ropes which made it helpless. "I'd love you to tie me too. Would they let you?"
"Probably. But with my hands chained I couldn't possibly tie you up as gorgeously as you're tied now."
"Is it really that good." The girl was inordinately pleased. "I can't see all of me. I can't move much at all."
"But that's what you want--?"
"Of course it is. But it also has to be tidy and inventive. Be a sweetheart and describe the way I'm roped. Please... I'm not being silly... I'd love to hear the way you say it." The rapport of girls! It laid its finger lightly on Lorinda's heart. Happily, she recited: "They've got several bands of rope round your tummy, quite tight. It's a good thing you haven't much waist. Then Linda's contrived a sort of halter effect round your breasts and over your shoulders to either side. Your breasts are quite super the way they stick out, the ropes aren't on them but they sort of constrict--I bet that's why your nipples are so hard."
"They're hard because I'm tied and helpless. Pinch them, just to show me how helpless I am."
"I wouldn't dream of hurting "
"Do it to me! Oh please...!" The plea was husky with longing.
The configuration was hypnotic, the young voice compelling. The musk scent of girls reached out from the bound nakedness like a demanding hand. Seemingly without volition Lorinda's wrist chain rose, her thumbs and fingers took possession of their vulnerable prey.
"Harder! Much harder...!"
She increased her digital clamp, slowly exerting pressure, longing for the scream that would excuse the lowering of her manacled hands. But no scream came. The lovely head was thrown from side to side in agony, eyes closed, the lips moaning steadily but not from pain. Their gasping communion was the most erotic sound the slave had ever heard.
"Oh... O- H-H-H-H-. Oh, thank you!"
The chain fell back to rest above Lorinda's belly, held there in taut concern by small clenched fists. "I didn't want to--Really, I don't know why--" The apology was contrite.
"You were wonderful...! Wonderful...!"
The slavegirl stepped back, sensing deep water. The husky excitation moaned softly.
"They're so vulnerable... my lovely nipples--and my breasts. I can't shield anything. I can't move them-- Nothing. Tell me how my hands are tied--Please!"
"They've been crossed behind the post, there's two strands of rope round each of your wrists... and it's criss-crossed." Lorinda began to share the girl's urgency of need. "It's so tight, and there's other ropes round your elbows, pulling them back... And there's other ropes going round and round the ropes between. It's beautifully efficient and skillful, but it must hurt, I'm sure it does?"
"The hurt's part of it: like your fingers. I can still feel Linda's hands tugging... " Lorinda knew the feeling. Was there, after all, so much difference between this girl and herself... or between any girls! She walked back to where she could exchange smiles and observe the nipples, enriched in scarlet by her clasp. "D'you want the rest of it?" She asked good naturedly.
"Yes, oh yes!"
"She's separated your ankles and tied them, one on each side of the post. They've been individually sort of cinched!
so the bands go all the way round. It's the same with your knees. They look really sweet: and of course with the separation your pussy shows... The recitation paused doubtfully: "I don't see why Linda thought she had to tie that up."
"Oh, but she must! It's part of--!"
"Well, she certainly has. Your poor puss isn't going anywhere, for sure." Lorinda could not disguise amusement. "There's two ropes coming down front from your tummy, one goes each side of your pussy lips then on and under. They're tied way up real tight behind the post. Doesn't it hurt?"
"Of course."
"It's real cute the way they make your puss stick out, as though it's real plump. They sort of frame--"
"Is it--open?"
"No, it's quite respectable. But don't ask me to torture it: 'cause I won't."
"No... alright. I'm sorry to be so--so--Well, whatever you want to call it. I get so involved."
"I almost envy you."
"Oh, you'll find yourself like this one of these days. I know my Linda! But on that torture thing... there's another way of doing this tie: just one rope down front but it's threaded between your pussy lips and cinched in, hard. It's a brute."
"For all day...?"
"Oh sure. It frustrates a girl to death. You're quite sure it's going to feel good after awhile--or you can wiggle a bit and make it. You'd think your clit just has to get something out of it, it doesn't. It just hurts and goes right on hurting. If the rope's cinched in tight enough the lips can close over it. It's the damndest thing--You have to see it on another girl to know. You can't see it on yourself."
Lorinda marvelled. Tentatively she voiced a nagging curiosity: "You do know what's going to happen to you, don't you?"
A moment's bafflement, then gay laughter. "Oh that! No, it doesn't happen to us B &D's."
"You mean they'll actually let you go at the end of your ten days, or whatever?"
"Yes. Most of us B &D's are special. We've got some sort of influence: not kidnap material. We sign in and out and pay our money." The girl giggled. "But I suspect if some little nobody walked in and wanted to be tied up she'd soon find herself popped in the cage with a price tag."
"
"You know this, and don't go to the police?"
The bound nudity tried to twist in shame but could not move. "We daren't. And there's associations... You know, wheels within wheels."
"You've got an uncle on the Board?"
"Something like that--Darling, you're gorgeous and I'm terribly grateful, but I wonder if you shouldn't gag me again? We could both be punished, y'know, if we were found like this."
"Wouldn't you like that?"
"Not really. Linda's a demon when she punishes, and I'm strictly a 'B' girl. I'm not too keen on the 'D' part."
It was strange to fit and fasten the gag back over the ripe lips. Eyes mocked her as she worked, they spoke of complicity, of feminine wisdom slyly shared. Lorinda kissed a captive cheek, then minced clinkingly away. She had a feeling she had been dismissed.
Collared and content in Linda's bed that night she was offered a sequel.
"This one's utterly precious, darling. She's just too sweet." The Mistress bit a slave ear and whispered. If I take your wrist chains off but put your belt back on, just to appease Paula, d'you want to have a go at her?"
"You mean tie her up--and things?"
"Tie her up for sure. If the little sweetheart wants 'Things,' that's up to you."
In the soft warm magic of Linda's flesh anything to do with girls seemed fun. "You mean, you'd really let me have my hands free all day, Mistress?"
"Why not! You can't escape."
Why not indeed! Although recently quenched, Lorinda's fire again ravaged her loins at the memory of a bound pudendum and strictured breasts. "You mean, I could tie her any way I wanted?"
"Of course."
The decision had been easy.
Now, belted to walk like a whore, a breathless slavegirl with chained feet clinked her way to the appointed room. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn knew herself absurdly excited. A naked girl, as breathless as herself was waiting for the cords she would tie deep in girl flesh. Desmond House was forever astonishing. The belt bit and admonished round her waist but she did not care. Today was hers!
Resolutely, Lorinda pushed open the door, her hobbled steps short but assured. The lovely nudity lolling against the wall came instantly, erect, its smile devastating, its voice dulcet: "Hello, darling."
It was Rosabel.
CHAPTER FIVE - FEMALES IN TROUBLE
"Hawtry must be getting old. Of all the idiotic--!"
Paula Gantry was puzzled, amused, and only slightly angry. The victor in a war has no need of anger. Her feminine audience of three eyed her in varying degrees of dismay.
"To send one damn girl here after another! We'll soon be able to lock his whole Special Service in a cage."
Lorinda wanted to weep. Rosabel was already doing so, her tears falling direct to the floor beneath her wracked shoulders and bent head. Her nakedness was cruelly strained by her bound crossed wrists raised high behind her back by a rope to a pulley above. She managed to take small tentative sideways glances at those who would decide her fate. Linda stood, displeased and uncertain, surveying a contretemps threatening her love.
"You've got that damn girl's hands free again. Tie 'em up!" Mrs. Gantry was on the warpath. "There's rope there. Use the discipline tie: keep the little baggage tractable."
"But Lorinda's innocent! She couldn't possibly--"
"Do as I say. Nibble her all you like, but keep her helpless."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn stood still for a new experience. Her Mistress's fingers on her bare arms were magic. She shivered deliciously, but not from cold, as her fists were opened and placed palm to palm. Rope bit at her wrists, making them one. Linda kissed the nape of the captive neck as the only consolation she could offer.
Lorinda was aware of a perverse satisfaction in being bound. She could not help Rosabel anyway, and helplessness relieved her of any decision about the Special Service and any duty she might owe thereto. She had a fictional feeling she should do something heroic before Rosabel's limpid gaze, but knew not what.
"Sorry, darling, you won't like this."
She remembered Marigold as the ropes were carefully positioned round her elbows by loving fingers, suddenly relentless. The ropes tightened and tightened to wrench her shoulders back and extend her breasts. She was in pain before Linda had tied the final knot. Mrs. Gantry's definition of helplessness was total and explicit. Lorinda could do nothing but flutter her shoulders.
"Good!" Paula nodded approval. "That's the proper way to keep a girl, tells her where she's at."
"It hurts horribly." Lorinda ventured.
"That'll teach you to join the Special Service, dear." Paula Gantry turned her attention to the tearful Rosabel. "And as for you--! Linda, get me that thin riding crop."
"Oh nooooo--oh!" Rosabel emitted a wail of anguish. "Don't hurt me." She struggled in a wild and futile protest, her young nudity fluid and sweet to behold. "Don't whip me! Don't W-h-i-p-meeeeee!"
"The little dear doesn't want to be whipped." Mrs. Gantry observed equably, then struck the bent over curves of Rosabel's shuddering bottom with a whistling cut to span both cheeks.
"Oh wow! Ouch! Ohhhhh--Uhugh!" Rosabel danced on her tether in maiden agony.
"What, no stoic silence!" Paula's exclamation was one huge sneer.
"But what d'you want! What am I supposed to say? I'm not a member of the cabinet, I don't know any State Secrets." The whipped girl complained sulkily as she kicked in futile protest and twisted her scarlet lined bottom from side to side. "If you whip me I'll howl... and it won't do any of us any good."
"You're wrong there, love. I enjoy striping that little butt of yours, it does me no end of good." She struck again in hearty cruelty to raise a second engorged weal on virgin skin.
"Oh alright, I'm sorry! You shouldn't hurt me so much."
"Linda, grab one of her ankles and heave it out sideways." Paula's command throbbed with punitive justification.
"No! No! Don't do that--You'll dislocate my arms...! Oh no, not so high, I'm splitting--" Swinging on the ball of one foot, Paula snickered the crop between the sundered thighs, a slashing upward stroke to cut the innocent cunt and weal the girlish belly. Lorinda moaned in shared anguish as Rosabel screamed and danced a saraband of pain on the end of her rope.
"You said something about a bitch, dear?"
"I'm sorry! I said I'm sorry! Oh please... Oh... Oh!"
"Perhaps we should make sure, dear."
Lorinda watched, her nerve ends raw, as Linda dragged Rosabel's other foot up and to the side. The thin crop sang its song of joy and cut with deadly accuracy into maiden flesh. When the foot fell back to the floor its owner sagged, moaning, her skin bedewed by agony.
"You girls aren't what I'd expect." Paula observed sagely. "Something fishy here somewhere, if we can put our finger on it.
"She's only a girl. She hasn't done you any harm. Let her go. Please let her go." Lorinda begged distractedly.
A smile of amused comprehension dissolved Paula's severity. "You realize what you just said?" She chuckled. "Let little Trixie here go free... What about you?"
Lorinda's blush was answer enough. She dared not look at her Mistress. "You'll do whatever you want with me anyway." She said defensively.
Paula was relentless. "If I set you totally free and give you a choice--right now! What would you do: walk out the front door or go upstairs and lock Linda's collar round your neck?"
An anguished girl sped an anguished glance at the moaning Rosabel. The Special Service was a demanding presence in the room. She longed to keep silent. The question was one she had fought over in her mind again and again.
"Go on!" Paula's voice was peremptory. "Tell us. In front of her."
"I'd go upstairs."
"I'll be damned!" Mrs. Gantry's exclamation was delighted. "You girls...! I never cease to wonder."
From behind, fingers came to rest on Lorinda's throbbing arm. It was a touch of love, a touch to fan her flame to incandescence.
"You see, Paula." The Mistress pointed out, reasonably. "There's no need to keep the darling tied up like this."
"Keep her tied anyway." Paula sniffed. She was not going to be told what to do. "The thing now is, what do we do with this other little trick." She sniffed again, indignantly. "Imagine! I went through her bag: A gun, a beeper, and enough assorted nick-knacks to incriminate her six times over. I don't like it."
"If we keep her they have to do something--they have to!" Linda mused. They'll raid us, that's what."
"Thought of that myself." Paula agreed. "We'll have to take their little sweethearts somewhere safe. I'd thought of Gunderson's hideaway, but not while he's away. I don't see why we can't sell little Trixie here to that ridiculous Bellamy: he's rented a sizable house. Might rent him Lorinda too. He'd have the time of his life and get us off the hook. We could always repossess later."
"You're going to an awful lot of trouble over us." Rosabel mourned, still twisting at her bonds. If only you'd just send us both home we'd all be safely back at square one."
"She's right, y'know." Linda agreed thoughtfully.
"Maybe she is. But I'm not going to have a pair of little snippets walk in here and get away with it. And anyway, Hawtry needs a lesson." She chuckled grimly. "Don't let's forget we're in business. Bellamy will pay a pretty price for these two. Chain Lorinda's neck to the wall and we'll go and phone."
It was quickly done. Hurting and helpless the girl members of the Special Service eyed each other in dolor. Rosabel fighting her tether and Lorinda shaking an angry head to make the foot of chain from her collar to the wall rattle admonishingly.
"Careful what you say." Rosabel warned. "The room will be bugged." Her voice was incisive, the erotic sexpot had retreated out of sight.
"I'm so terribly sorry." Lorinda wailed. "Nothing goes the way it was supposed to. I feel so useless. Look at me!"
"I'm looking. If I wasn't in the same boat I'd think you looked cute--the way they've got you fixed!"
"But you're in agony--You must be!"
"I sure am." Rosabel agreed heartily. "I expect I'm supposed to be." Her tone sobered. "Look here, Lorinda, you and I don't really know each other. Being together in McGee's back room isn't much of an introduction. What I've just heard leaves me wondering...?"
"I'm in love with Linda."
"Hmmmmmm, you sure are." Rosabel shifted helplessly, trying to face her companion. "Actually we're just a couple of girls in a jackpot." Her struggles visibly became mental as well as physical. "We can't talk, but still...! What I want to tell you is, don't panic. We're in a spot. But everything's going to be alright. Keep that in your mind--We'll be alright. Understand?"
Lorinda said, yes, she understood.
But she didn't believe it.
* * *
"Canada was never like this." Martin Bellamy surveyed the two naked girls with hungry zest. Advancing to the bent and wracked nudity of Rosabel he tilted her chin. "I got papers on you, honey."
Rosabel commenced to weep. She did it well. "She'll stop crying when you whip her." Mrs. Gantry advised sagely.
He turned to Lorinda, still collared to the wall. "Bit different to The Tripoli, eh, sweetheart!" He chucked her cheek with insensitive fingers. "I got a receipt for you too. I'm going to fuck you to a fare ye well."
"Thank you, Mr. Bellamy, that will be nice."
He turned in astonishment to a smiling Paula. "Is this one for real? I mean, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth!"
"Lorinda's as real as you wish to make her, Mr. Bellamy."
"Oh, I'm going to make her, you can be sure of that!" His wit was not brilliant but he enjoyed himself. He eyed his leased slave and returned to his favourite topic. "Think of it, honey, there's your cunt, right out in plain view, and I can do what I like with it for a couple of weeks."
"I have a nice pussy, Mr. Bellamy. I'm sure you'll enjoy her."
He stood enraptured until Paula touched his arm. "We'd like you to take delivery, if you don't mind. We're a bit pressed--"
"No problem, no problem!" He became masculinity personified. "I'd say Lorinda here's all ready if you'll just unlock that collar round her neck. Then we'll tie the other little sweetheart the same way."
It was soon done. Paula thoughtfully added gags. Two nude members of the Special Service stood with elbows on fire and pointing breasts, looking at each other doubtfully above tight muting bands across their lips.
Mr. Bellamy had provided a panel delivery. The bartered girls were sat on its inhospitable floor. Lorinda's lovely chains were taken from her ankles and replaced with rope which cinched them tight together. When this had also been done to Rosabel the two sets of bound feet were crossed, one on top of the other, and thus tied to join them in utter impotence. They exchanged commiserating glances, acknowledging the impossibility of escape. Before the door was slammed upon their flesh captivity Lorinda managed a wary smile for her Mistress's unhappy parting shrug and hopeless wave of hand. When the motion of their vehicle imposed fresh searing pain to their strictured elbows she comforted herself with the fact it partially countered the small death of parting from her love.
Martin Bellamy's opening gambit was predictable. Rubbing his hands together in a Shylock gesture of satisfaction be beamed upon his prey and asked jovially: "Now, which one of you gets it first?"
The question was rhetorical, his bound and muted maidens gazed up from the rug without enthusiasm. They hurt and were helpless. Lorinda wondered if she either could or should continue her coy complaisance. The risque naughtiness of The Tripoli had become daunting in reality, and this fatuous male would undoubtedly wish to extract his money's worth from their lubricity. Rosabel turned to her companion in distress, gave a sly wink, and burst into tears. Lorinda, with only a slightly lesser gift for the lachrymose, did the same.
The new slave master viewed his purchases with alarm. "Look, don't get me wrong." He implored. "All I meant was which one of you should I fuck first."
The tears and muffled sobs reached new highs. Irritated and cornered, their new owner fumbled with their gags. "If you must turn on the salt water," He said, aggrieved, "You might as well do it properly."
Both bound beauties sobbed heartbroken thanks but resumed their weeping. Martin Bellamy viewed their damp distress with a sense of having been cheated. "What the hell's wrong?" He demanded.
"We don't want to be fucked, Mr. Bellamy."
"Very well then, I'll whip you instead."
"We don't want to be whipped, Mr. Bellamy."
"Ah! Well, I suppose--!" He gazed down in male puzzlement. "Just what the devil do you want?"
"We'd like to go home, Mr. Bellamy."
"And where's home?"
"Twenty-seven Chestnut Crescent, Wimbledon, Mr. Bellamy." Rosabel appeared to be a girl with ready answers. "But, dammit', I've just paid good money--!"
"If you'd untie us, Mr. Bellamy, we'd be awfully nice to you before we left."
"Left!" Martin Bellamy's exclamation rang with righteous outrage. "Let me tell you two young ladies you're not leaving, now or later. And, for Pete's sake, stop that blubbering."
"But we hurt so, Mr. Bellamy. If you'd just untie?"
"I'll untie nothing--except maybe your ankles. And you know damn well why I'd untie them!"
"Yes, Mr. Bellamy, we know. It's so's you can stick something awful in our poor pussies. Mr. Bellamy, my mother would be ever so grateful if you took me home."
"I don't wish to fuck your mother, I intend to fuck you."
Rosabel's wail of anguish was superb. Lorinda longed to giggle. "Couldn't you spank my bottom instead, Mr. Bellamy?" Rosabel's wheedle was dulcet. "Its a very nice bottom--and you wouldn't have to untie me at all."
Bellamy considered. "That's the first sensible thing you've said." He conceded gruffly. "Never spanked a girl. I'll try it as an appetizer."
"Oh, Mr. Bellamy, an appetizer...?"
"That's right, Rosabel. You get screwed for the main dish."
"But you can't, Mr. Bellamy! Not with me all tied up so tight!"
"You'll be surprised." Said Martin Bellamy with a return to his usual cheerfulness. "Honey, you'll be surprised...!"
Had it not been for Rosabel's wink, which clearly said a girl should be proud to give her all for the Special Service, Lorinda's distress at her companion's immediate prospects would have been hard to bear in silence. But, even with the wink, it would have been difficult without Rosabel's repertoire of maiden lament. The giggle hovered persistently.
"Across your knee, Mr. Bellamy! That's terribly old fashioned."
"That's the way you're getting it, honey. I'll lift you--"
"Your knee's digging in my pussy, Mr. Bellamy--"
"Good, we'll keep it that way. Raise your hands."
"I can't, Mr. Bellamy. Not with my elbows tied so tight."
"Are we back there again!" Bellamy viewed the mechanics of the situation in perplexity. "Oh, very well. I suppose you've got a point... " Lorinda watched in envy as Rosabel's ropes were peeled from her elbow's skin. The weals revealed were horrific, but she wished she dared ask for a similar release. The spanking was an abasement for an adult girl but she could feel sure it would happen to her too. What she witnessed now was a prelude to her own travail.
"My wrists still hurt, Mr. Bellamy, when I raise them so you can get at my bottom."
"You can damn well put up with it." Martin Bellamy was harbouring suspicions as to his slavegirls sincerity. "Get 'em up a bit higher, or I'll tie 'em up for you."
"Oooooo, Mr. Bellamy, are you really going to hurt me?"
"You mean you've never had your bottom spanked before! And stop wriggling that little cunt of yours. I know what you're up to."
"I've always been a good girl, Mr. Bellamy, nobody's ever wanted to spank me. Can't I wriggle just a little?"
"No, it'll stain my pants. Keep still."
"You've got an erection, Mr. Bellamy. I can feel "
"And you'll feel it a lot more...!" Bellamy's arm rose, his open palm flashed...
It was a resounding slap. Lorinda flinched. Rosabel said a heartfelt "Ouch!" and wriggled lustily. To stabilize his victim's plight the slave-owner clamped her nether limbs with the vise of his own heavy thigh. From where her hair cascaded to the floor the punished girl sent a smile of sly complicity to her fellow captive.
"Oooooo, Mr. Bellamy, you're so masterful! And my poor little bottom feels lovely and warm... And, oh my, what I can feel in your trousers!"
"You're putting me on. How does this one feel?"
"Oh wow! Oh jeepers... Not quite so hard, Mr. Bellamy, please!"
"You got nothin' to say about it, honey. I'm going to blister your pretty little ass to a fare-ye-well."
Lorinda quailed. Her turn next! It looked uncomfortable and undignified to be draped across male knees, with her hands and feet tied a girl was cringingly helpless. The male palm rose and fell in measured rhythm, beneath its impact Rosabel's dimpled curves passed from pink to red and from red to scarlet. She remembered the whispered cynicism in McGee's whipping room: "Rosabel adores it, y'know." Was it true now! Was this glowing childlike female obtaining sexual arousal beneath the relentless sting of the blows beating at her flesh! Would Bellamy's trousers show a dark wet stain from maiden prurience! It was hard to judge. The maiden herself was indulging in colorful exclamations of dolor interspersed by pathetic plaints, the sincerity of which were open to doubt.
"I'll be ever so good, Mr. Bellamy, if you'll just stop." The poised palm failed to pause. Its impact was impressive.
"Mr. Bellamy, that's not at all polite to pull my pussy back that way. Ohhhhh--wow!"
"You'll make a nice piece of ass by the time I'm finished scorching your butt."
"Oooooo, oh Mr. Bellamy...! So vulgar!" Rosabel tried, without success, to look back and up at her owner. "Please don't spank me any more... Please, please, please?"
Bellamy was flattered and pleased, his arm relaxed. He looked down at Rosabel's glowing bottoms with satisfaction, his investment had begun to pay dividends. "You ripe to be fucked, honey?" He inquired genially.
"Oh yes--Oh, thank you...! Yes please!"
"See, that spanking done you good, I can feel the heat a foot away. What I want now is for you to ask me nicely for a good screw."
The delinquent damsel was ready for any occasion. Her request was polite and sweet. "I'd be honored if you'd have sexual intercourse with me, Mr. Bellamy."
Lorinda's giggle returned. So formal and invitation to rape had obviously left the dominant male unsatisfied. "Try passing that before me again, Honey." He demanded ominously. "And put a bit of zing in it."
"Please fuck me, dear Mr. Bellamy. You insert that lovely thing of yours in my little do-da--"
"I know the mechanics, honey." The master was partly mollified. He laid his lovely burden on the floor and untied the slender ankles. "Now, let's see how good you can spread them pretty legs."
Rosabel spread, she kicked, she pedaled an imaginary bicycle, she revelled in every motion of freedom from the rope. Without pause, she knelt with her back to her conqueror and proffered her bound hands.
"No way!" Bellamy affirmed decisively. "They stay tied."
She looked round, pleadingly. "But I have to lay on my back--Don't I?"
"You sure do, kid. Get with it."
"But with my wrists tied like this... ? My arms... "
"Lay on 'em any way you like, honey. But you're not getting free."
The naked girl about to be ravished made a petulant grimace. "It will raise my pussy up--That's what you want, isn't it." She complained. "But I could give you ever so much nicer a time if I had my hands... ? Pretty please?"
"No."
"But I could play with you. I'm ever so clever."
"I just bet you are! You're a fox. Lay down."
Lorinda marvelled. Did the Special Service offer a course for courtesans! Had Rosabel graduated with honors! Did such training lay in wait for her, with McGee or Scott Devonish as her instructor! She watched, breathless and with distaste as the lovely nudity disposed itself upon its arms and spread wide its raised knees. "Don't you think I've got the nicest pubic hair, Mr. Bellamy...?" Rosabel seemed unperturbed by what was about to be done to her.
Stripped, their owner shed the ineffectual with his clothes. He showed as a muscular masculinity with a purpose. No girl could best him in a struggle. The bound Lorinda shivered at thought of fighting so much thew and sinew. She viewed its ready rigidity with fascinated disbelief that it could enter a girl without injury... bestowing joy! Poor daring Rosabel, poor helpless child...!
"Do they all grow that big in Canada, Mr. Bellamy?" The helpless child inquired with polite interest.
The coupling of the sexes falls short of esthetic value. In animals it is often ludicrous, in birds absurd, even humans fail to endow it with dignity. Of all living things only the fish, with their separate detachment, emerge without vulgarity. Mr. Bellamy was no fish, and Lorinda watched his piercing of her insouciant colleague with dismay. His piston thrusts evoked a giggle she suppressed. Decency dictated the averting of her gaze, but her eyes remained riveted of Rosabel's rape in the rapt realization that she herself had been partner to such scenes and was undoubtedly going to take Rosabel's place beneath the sweating masculinity once it had regenerated its power after the imminent orgasm. She twisted fretfully against her ropes, a naked maiden bound for sacrifice.
The watching girl, ready with sympathy and feminine indignation, was piqued by Rosabel's smile. It demanded no sympathy. It reflected, in fact, an enthusiastic enjoyment of her owner's carnality. At the climax of their coupling she lent her gasps and moans to blend a duet with Mr. Bellamy's base vocals. Lorinda discounted the possibility of a histrionic simulation, and was annoyed to discover she herself had been erotically affected.
"Damn good." Bellamy approved when he rose to his feet. "We'll do this again." Thoughtfully, he re-tied the ankles between which he had found ecstasy, blandly ignoring their owner's displeasure. "I want you safe, honey, while I attend to little Trixie over there." He said comfortingly. "I ain't quite ready for her yet, but while she's waiting she can do a clean up job on John Willie."
Lorinda froze. For a moment she rejected the implication. But Bellamy's leer as he turned towards her helplessness was confirmation. When his hands positioned her upon her knees to face his genitals she gasped in loathing: "I won't, I won't! That's horrible!"
"Yes you will, Honey."
She had never done such a thing. She had known of girls taking a male phallus in their mouth in an act of love, but not like this! A 'clean up job', she shuddered. Fighting her bonds she managed to fall sideways back to the floor. It was the only motion she could make.
Bellamy was amused. A magnanimous conqueror, he heaved her nudity once again into position for its task. His hand was in her hair, shaking her head in admonition. "You'll not only clean it off, but you'll keep at it until you get him back into shape." He assured her genially. "Open up those pretty lips."
Bereft of coyness, of laughter, of the ready retort, Lorinda faced the object within inches of her mouth. It was still formidable, glazed with the secretions of a girl, still providing emissions of the male. It smelt strongly of goat. Hating herself and him she accepted it between her lips, her tongue seeking... Then, in an involuntary revulsion, bit hard.
Bellamy's hand struck her cheek as his howl of anguish shattered silence. It knocked her sideways back to the floor. She spit again and again in loathing, scarcely caring for the male antics by which her wounded owner sought to assuage the pain from her teeth. She sobbed in helpless fury at her rope enforced impotence.
"Oh gollies, you've torn it, darling!" Rosabel was scared.
Bellamy said nothing. He had become a man of action. Breathing heavily he used his slavegirls as his hurt and anger dictated. At the end of a few minutes of impotent struggles and imprecations two naked girls hung by their wrists from pulleys in the ceiling, Lorinda with her arms spread wide and her toes above the floor, Rosabel with her crossed wrists tied and tugged above her head but her feet still able to find a footing. Breasts heaving, they viewed each other in dismay.
"Bit different from The Tripoli, I'd say." Bellamy viewed them with disfavor. "Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth then--You and your sweet submissions! The first time I give you a chance to earn your cost--" He glowered righteously. "You're going to be a mighty sorry little girl!"
"Could I please say I'm sorry?"
Even to her own ears it sounded too little and too late. Lorinda shrank from his scorn: "Say it if you want, it'll do you no good. I'm going to stripe that sweet little girl skin of yours to a fare-ye-well."
"But please, Mr. Bellamy, Rosabel didn't bite you--?"
"So O.K.! Big deal! She's part of your punishment. You kick over the traces: she gets it too! And anyway, I've left her feet on the floor. That gal's a fine piece of ass, so she won't hurt the way you will."
Mr. Bellamy, I truly am sorry I bit your-your--. Well, I'm sorry. It's just that I've never done such a thing. Please give me another chance? I'll do it ever so nicely...?"
"Damn right you will--after you've been whipped!"
It was always hopeless--always! Hopeless because of rope and chain and handcuffs. The simplicity of bonds wafted a girl into a total subservience to the will of others. When the cords bit her flesh she had only words. This time they were Rosabel's.
"Mr. Bellamy, please whip me instead. I'm very nice to whip."
"The noble gesture, eh!" The master sneered. "I'm touched."
"Not really." Tied as she was Rosabel had freedom to wriggle. She did so now, enticingly. She also blushed. "Fact is, I rather like being whipped... She eyed him anxiously. "Up to a point--?"
"I'll be damned!" Bellamy was interested. "I've heard 'bout it. Hots up your cunt?"
"Well... yes." Rosabel giggled shyly and donated devastating motions with her hips. "You could whip me nicely now, and then we could do whatever you want after... ? Lorinda could watch. She'd find it ever so helpful."
"No!" The negative burst from Bellamy in exasperation. He eyed Rosabel with benign admiration. "You'd sweet talk a man into anything--damn near had me going." He took a deep breath, as for a proclamation. "You two have got to get it into your pretty little heads that I'm the boss, I own you, you do what I say and you like it. Anytime I catch you suckering me it's going to cost you both."
"Yes, sir! Thank you, Mr. Bellamy... sir!" Rosabel turned on the witchery. Her limpid gaze reflected only admiration for the male. "We'll be very good girls. But, please, don't whip poor dear Lorinda too hard. She's not used to it." Sweetly, she brought up her heavy artillery. "We'd both love you to pieces if you'd just whip her a little and then whip me a lot. I'm told I do the most erotic wiggles when I'm whipped."
Lorinda almost felt sorry for the man by whom she was about to be punished. Martin Bellamy was susceptible to female charm. The fresh prominence of his male appendage bore evidence to the potency of Rosabel's suggestion. But he had an image to maintain and an ego to nourish. Virtuously, he reproved: "I've got to be fair about these punishments. Lorinda bit my cock, now I whip Lorinda. It's that simple, kid."
Lorinda shook her head at the girl who was trying to give her succor. It was useless for them both to suffer. Her own whipping had become inevitable the moment her teeth had sunk into engorged male flesh. She was resigned to it, there was no way out. She was a slave. She was about to be taught her lesson, and next time would meekly swallow her master's sperm.
"First time I've properly whipped a girl." Bellamy admitted pensively. "It's a cane or a crop on your bottom, and a whip for the rest of you--isn't that it?"
"Yes, Mr. Bellamy, that's right. Now, if you'd only whip me-?"
"Stow it, Rosabel. You ask me to cane your can once more and you get gagged. Understand?"
"Yes, Mr. Bellamy, thank you." Rosabel retired into poignant silence, recognizing defeat.
Lorinda sought the floor with her toes and failed to find it. Her wrenched shoulders screamed for mercy and her wrists blazed within the biting straps by which she was suspended. She had never felt more vulnerable or more naked. Her breasts, her thighs, her belly and her bottom cringed in awareness of their prominence. She was a bound girl readied for punishment. The whippings she had endured since that first time with the Special Service had in no way inured her to the lash, she was as frightened of it as ever. She watched Martin Bellamy's preparations in flinching apprehension.
"I'm going to start on your bottom, honey." At the prospect of a girl's pain the master's cheerfulness had returned. "There's a lovely thin crop here somewhere, adds a touch of class... " Her bottom was to be cut as a prelude to the welting of her back! Unhappily, Lorinda wondered if she would ever acquire Rosabel's tolerance, an erotic delight in the scorching of her skin. She was sad and unsure of anything. Irritably she was aware of heat within her loins. She wished it would flame comfortingly beneath the scourge. But the first awful impact of crop or thong would dissolve it into oblivion. Or would it... ?
"Ah, here we are! A thing of beauty is a joy--" Bellamy finished his quotation by slashing his exquisite instrument across Lorinda's inviting bottom. She screamed in outrage and flung her nakedness in wild gyrations against its tether. Her legs flailed. Her bitter plea was as involuntary as had been the fatal bite. "It's too hard! I don't deserve it so hard. It's--it's--unbearable."
Bellamy hit her again: two scarlet striations an inch apart across both cheeks, a fleck of blood where the tip had curled to bite an innocent hip. Lorinda was shocked by the sound of her own scream.
"Please, Mr. Bellamy, that's terribly hard with a crop like that. I know. I've had experience. It will cut her skin." Rosabel uttered her warning with polite respect.
Bellamy was impressed by logic and its visible proof. "You think a cane would be better for her little rump, honey?"
"Oh yes, sir! I know it would. We're just girls, y'know, not horses."
Lorinda was in a welter of pain and fear of more to come. But when the cane added its own particular agony to her bottom, leaving her uncertain of its clemency, she chocked back enough of her scream to gasp: "Thank you, Mr. Bellamy... oh, thank you!"
"While I space 'em out nice and slow, I want you to think 'bout that sweet talk, that pretty little girlie shy stuff you've both been feeding me." Bellamy said grimly. "Mind you, I love it. But it had better be real...! Dammit', bitten like a banana!"
The cane bit the fourth impact. Lorinda recognized it as less of an enemy than the crop. The first frightful shock was over. She would now suffer each fresh blaze of pain as a merited punishment from which she might eventually emerge. She longed vehemently not to scream. Rosabel would not have screamed, and Rosabel was there, forced to watch this punishment. When the cane implanted number five upon her unprotected curves she contrived only to moan. She kicked and cavorted on her tethers... but surely that might be excused... ?
"Making me horny as all-get-out!" The master paused after the eighth stroke. I'd no idea...!"
"Oh, but it does, Mr. Bellamy." Rosabel assured helpfully. "If you whip a girl sort of lightly you can get ever so many erections."
"You mean--really?" Bellamy glimpsed Nirvana.
"Oh yes, Mr. Bellamy, it's wonderful. You can unfasten the girl and make her lay on her back every time you're ready, then tie her again and whip her some more." Rosabel made an apologetic grimace. "The reason you have to just whip her lightly is the poor dear couldn't possibly last out if you flog her hard the way you're doing now."
To plant her feet firmly on the floor seemed the greatest boon of Lorinda's life. That she was almost immediately on her back with legs spread wide seemed, now, of little moment. She suffered her ravishment with a detached awareness of something going on, and a cynical thankfulness for the lubricant of heated loins by which her master's entry within her sheath was rendered painless. When she was once more tied and suspended and the relentless striping of her back resumed she smiled her thanks to the watching maiden who had lightened her travail. Lorinda closed her eyes and allowed her had to droop as she kept company with her pain. She did not bother to count her successive piercings, nor did she struggle or protest at the repeated bindings and suspensions. She moaned less and less as the lightly wielded lash became an old acquaintance.
"Are you alright, darling? Are you conscious?"
Rosabel's anxious query brought the punished delinquent back from a hazy realm of conflicting sensations in which she had hung, limply and passively and very, very quiet since Bellamy had tossed aside his whip and left them alone. She had not even known he had gone.
"I--I--think so." The whipped nudity raised its head and smiled wanly at her fellow captive's concern. "Sorry, I sort of slipped away... " The voice tensed. "Is it--Is it over?"
"I guess so." Rosabel tittered. "He screwed me once and you six times... I think he just plain got tired. He sort of tottered out of here--He's probably asleep."
"And we're left hanging...?"
"It's an old trick, darling. It tells a girl how little she amounts to. But my feet are on the floor, it's just you. Is it pretty rough, darling?"
"Yes, it's pretty rough." Lorinda's acknowledgement was listless, then her voice quickened: "Rosabel, what can we do, what's going to happen to us? We can't--live--like this?"
"Not to worry, pet. The Service won't let us down."
"They won't look for us here. We'll be whipped to death before they find us."
"No we won't. Leave Bellamy to me. We may get whipped, but not enough to damage."
"I don't want to be a slave. It wasn't what I joined up for. I've been naked and punished ever since. I've even lost Linda. This idiot who's got us now will get us both pregnant." The hurt voice dwindled to silence, then burst out anew. "Rosabel, I can't stand this--This bestial-- hanging! I'm so helpless. It hurts even to kick, or breathe, or anything. I'm all stretched--It could go on for hours."
"Hold it, sweetheart, don't panic. I promise you, Hawtry or Scott or someone will find us--"
"Someone mention my name?" The query was cheerfully male. Two bound and ravished maidens turned, startled to the door.
It was Scott Devonish.
CHAPTER SIX - WHIPS
Paula Gantry uttered another heartfelt 'damn' and once again changed position in an ineffectual search for dignity. She tugged angrily at the handcuffs and the ringbolt in the stone as though challenging the small circlets of chrome to contain so magnificent a package of female: Naked, she was more regal than when clothed.
"Paula dear, don't take on so. We both know we can't get out of these handcuffs, there's no use trying." Linda's advice was born of both sympathy and amusement. Paula Gantry's fall from Grand Dame of Desmond House to her present plight had been a devastating drop, her impressive curves radiated outrage.
"They've locked us this way on purpose. It's impossible to look anything but ridiculous standing here naked with both hands stuck against the wall at shoulder level. Anyway we turn--" Linda giggled. "It's the sort of thing we'd think of ourselves, y'know. We'll be lucky if we don't get our bottoms canned."
"They wouldn't dare! What I could do to them in Court if I'm covered in stripes!"- "But, darling, it isn't the police. It's that Special Service thing that's taken Desmond House, and us! They've got a sort of carte blanche. They can do anything they like with us." Linda giggled again. "The good old Police wouldn't think of chaining us to a wall like this."
"I'll have their hides!" Paula rattled a cuffed wrist. "At least I was right to get rid of those girls." She sniffed disdainfully. "I hope that idiot Bellamy gives 'em a bad time. Damn...! If I ever get out of this I'll flay 'em alive!"
"Have you noticed, they haven't asked us about them."
Linda mused thoughtfully. "That means something."
"What it means is they've stripped us both naked and fixed us like this so's some bastard can come and whip us into telling where they are. Think I don't recognize this technique! Hell, we've used this naked suspense ourselves."
"Let's tell 'em. Bellamy can afford the loss."
"You want your sweet little tongue and groove out of his hands, don't you!" Paula snorted. "Like hell well tell 'em! So long as those little pullets are safe out of sight we've got a leverage."
"And we'll probably have sore bottoms--and worse!"
"Huh, they won't get a word out of me!"
"But being caned and whipped hurts terribly. I bet you don't even know. Fastened the way they've got us they can easily have us both howling. Lorinda told me about a guy they've got: his name's McGee."
"I don't care what his name is. I still say they won't have the nerve--they're a Government agency."
"Paula, I don't want a man coming in here and seeing me like this."
"There's a couple already had a good look. Dammit', they made me feel ninety percent breasts and pubic hair."
"Well, you are beautifully endowed, darling. I'm glad I don't have your bottom--mine's going to hurt bad enough."
"Stop being superior--Just because you've had your behind tanned a few times...! No man's ever laid a hand on me!"
Linda shrugged. She had glimpsed hopelessness in the prisoners she had tended. She felt it now. With the instinct of the caged she twisted and stepped this way and that to the limit of her shackled arms. She could hide nothing, nor could she display any part of herself to advantage, except her bottom! That was invitingly available. The whole posture was infuriatingly frustrating to a female. And to be naked...! She surveyed her immediate prospects bleakly-- "Linda! Oh, darling...!"
Lorinda swept into the room on a wave of joy. She gathered her beloved in eager arms and kissed and kissed. After a long time of small female sounds and searching lips Paula Gantry's voice was tart.
"I'm here too, y'know. Or didn't you notice?"
"Oh, Mrs. Gantry, I'm terribly sorry... " Lorinda was unsure of protocol. "This must be awfully upsetting for you."
"Unlock these handcuffs, Lorinda. I've had enough." Mrs. Gantry was once more the Grand Dame.
-Lorinda giggled. "They told me I couldn't have a key. I think you're supposed to stay like this."
"Then get me some clothes, a kimono or something. And how come you're dressed?"
"They said you mustn't have any covering at all--and as for me, well I do belong to the Special Service, y'know, and I'm not a prisoner any more. I don't think they like their employees to go around naked."
"The world's gone to the dogs." Said Mrs. Gantry with deep feeling. "You running around fully dressed, and me like this! If you're not going to help us what are you here for?"
Lorinda giggled and blushed. "I'm supposed to get some information from you: the names of the men who own Desmond House."
"Drop dead!"
"I'm supposed to cane your bottom until you tell."
"Stop being ridiculous. Go and get the key to these things on my wrists. Tell them I sent you."
"They thought you'd appreciate my being a girl." Lorinda shuffled awkwardly. "You see, if you tell me the names the men won't come and be cruel to you both."
"What d'you mean, both? You telling me you're ready to whale my rump and not Linda's?"
"Well... yes."
"That's rank favoritism."
"Well, after all, you are the senior. Darling Linda may not even know."
"Darling Linda my ass! She's your little lovebird. It's damned unfair."
"Do you really want me to hurt Linda?"
"No, I suppose I don't." Mrs. Gantry was surly. "But if I'm going to get it--"
"You'll have to do me too, darling." Linda interposed practically. "Give me enough marks so you don't get into trouble. I'll admit I know the names, but I absolutely can't tell--Sorry, love."
Lorinda was dismayed. The task was not of her choosing. Rosabel had been dispatched to London when they left a sweating and apologetic Bellamy to his apprehensions. Hawtry had been insistent in his belief she would extract the information more easily from the two captives than would a man. Her plaint had fallen on deaf ears.
"But, sir, I've never whipped anyone!"
"You'll enjoy it once you get started."
"Mrs. Wyburn has formed an affection for the girl, Linda, sir." Scott Devonish had interposed.
"Huh, one of those affairs, eh! Makes no difference." He guffawed at some obscure recollection. "Maybe they'll enjoy it."
"Perhaps Mr. McGee, sir?" She had quavered.
"He's on an assignment. No, you're the one. Be a good test."
Lorinda fingered the cane. It was an instrument of bitter memories. Yet Linda had flexed and fingered and used it often enough, why could not she! The wicked length seemed to pulse with life--or was it the beating of her own heart! "I wish you'd tell me the names?" She implored wistfully. "I'm sure I won't be very good at this."
"We'll soon find out, won't we, dear." Said Mrs. Gantry grimly. "Heavens above! What I'm going to do to the Special Service once I get out of this mess!"
It was surprisingly easy. The limber length thunked most satisfyingly into the Gantry gluteal globes. The wielder of the cane sighed in relief that the unthinkable had become possible. The rising line of red upon the Gantry skin seemed a seal of approval.
"Dammit, girl, that hurt!"
"I think it's supposed to, Mrs. Gantry. I'm awfully sorry."
"You're not sorry at all, you little bitch--Oh wow! Oh blast! What the devil are you doing to me?"
. "You lapped over on her hip, darling." Linda explained helpfully. "It hurts a lot more when that happens."
"Well, if you'd only keep still, Mrs. Gantry, instead of--"
"You expect me to stick my bum out and say thank you?" Mrs. Gantry's plaint seethed with outrage.
"It would be awfully helpful, if you wouldn't mind."
"Wahhhhh! Arrrragh...! You've done it again."
"Well, if you will insist on dancing a jig--?"
"Stick your bottom out, Paula, and take it like a lady." Linda advised sagely. "It's much the best in the long run."
"There's not going to be a long run." Paula Gantry was panting. "When I set my lawyer loose on his lot-- Wowwwwwwwwow! Ugggggggh...!"
The stripes were exquisite. Lorinda's confidence mounted. Mrs. Gantry's responses were a tribute to a skill hitherto dormant. She struck again with zest, and watched entranced as her subject kicked, twisted and tugged. When her louder vocals subsided, Mrs. Gantry demanded belligerently: "You're half killing me, but you haven't touched Linda."
"I thought I'd do you first." Lorinda said sweetly. "I'm sure you'll tell me the names before we reach a hundred."
"What! Girl, you're crazy! A hundred will kill me."
"You don't need to get them all, y'know. Anyway, here's another."
"Oh, damn and blast! This is impossible. Stoppit, you rotten little lesbian--Ow... Wahhhhh!"
Lorinda caned Mrs. Gantry's ample bottom with thoughtful care and a dedication only Hawtry had discerned. The carmine weals rose one by one in angry evidence of outraged flesh. When the pain lines began to cross and lattice upon the lovely skin, its owner's gasping and writhing told that Mrs. Gantry was at last taking the caning of her bottom seriously. Her exclamations now were more of anguish and less of reprimand. When the thirtieth blow had cut into the swollen flesh Lorinda paused and said admiringly: "Just a breather, Mrs. Gantry. You really are doing splendidly."
Paula Gantry did not reply. She was wallowing in a suffering she scarcely believed. Breathlessly, Linda spoke instead.
"Darling, I don't think it's any good. I know Paula, she won't break under the cane. They'll have to use real torture: and even then... " She paused unhappily. "You see, if we give the names those men or their organization will kill us--they'll get us sometime. They're immensely powerful. It puts poor Paula in a spot--and me!"
"A rock and a hard place--? Oh, darling, you mean...?"
"Yes, we have to try and not tell. All you can do is beat our bottoms purple and then tell your superiors it's hopeless and they'll have to torture us some other way." Linda shrugged, twisting within her handcuffs as though to reassure herself of helplessness. "I just hope they don't compel you to watch... Oh, Lorinda, try and not watch us tortured."
"I won't let them! Surely they won't?" Lorinda was aghast. t "Yes they will, they have to. The whole thing's a silly vicious game both sides play. Paula and I thought we were comfortably on the sidelines " She paused, then added with false cheerfulness. "Now cane my bottom the same way you've beaten Paula's. I'll stick it out for you, and when they see it they may be satisfied you've done your best."
"I won't! I just won't!"
"You have to."
Lorinda's mind whirled around a certainty she could not deny. She could cane Paula Gantry's bottom with mischievous relish, but she could never bring herself to place a weal on Linda's skin. Suddenly the solution was surprisingly simple. "I know what I'm going to do." She exclaimed triumphantly. "I should have thought before-" Two pairs of captive eyes sought hers in hope.
"I'm going to give them five names and five addresses." She said with innocent conviction. "While they're finding out they'r false something may happen... " She dropped the cane and ran from the room to escape expostulation.
"Dammit, the silly little idiot loves you." Paula exclaimed in wonder. "Good gosh, Linda, we're all in trouble now, her too."
Linda wept silently, drying her tears against her chained hands. Paula kept silent too, respecting grief. She was not far from crying herself. When Lorinda was marched back between two stem and stalwart males she was not surprised to see her returned to nudity and with arms and wrists roped behind her back in the familiar punishment tie.
"I'm afraid this room is bugged." The new prisoner explained with mock cheerfulness. "They heard every word I said." She treated Paula and Linda to wan smiles. "I've just been discharged from the Service--Dishonorably. I've inked by blotter."
The two gentlemen of the Special Service attached Lorinda to the opposite wall by means of a very short chain and a very beautiful collar which circled her neck and was made permanent by the snap of a pendent padlock. She did not fight, the familiar agony of bound elbows was like coming home.
"You'll have to stand, love. Sorry."
They smiled their way charmingly from the room to make way for Scott Devonish. He surveyed the three delinquents with unfeigned amusement. "The things you girls get into!" He exclaimed in mock amaze.
"Unlock these handcuffs." Paula Gantry demanded.
"Please don't hurt them." Lorinda pleaded.
"Alright, go ahead and whip me, it's my turn." Linda invited in stony faced resignation.
"Patience, patience." He raised an admonitory finger. "You three are too much for one man." The finger moved toward Paula: "You stay handcuffed, Mrs. Gantry." He grinned happily. "I say, y'know, you girls have got the most smashing figures... talk about curves...!"
It was suddenly important to Lorinda that she be not naked. There are degrees of nakedness. Scott Devonish's presence had the effect of trebling her bare exposure, her pointing breasts, wracked forward by bound elbows, trebeled it again. She felt herself one huge blush under his admiring scrutiny. She blurted out a fear engendered by the binding of her arms. "Am I going to be punished, Scott?"
"Possibly."
"The kid doesn't deserve it." Paula was indignant. "Don't include her in whatever torture Linda and I have to endure over those names."
"Oh, didn't you know!" Scott's features were blandly innocent. "We've known their names for a long time. All we were doing was testing little heart-throb here. She didn't pass."
"Don't punish her... Please? Linda was distraught.
"Scott, don't be mean." Lorinda demanded. "Tell us what's going to happen to us? Why can't we all go home?"
"Security risk, sweetheart. The three of you are going to be what we call 'sequestered'."
"Put in prison? Oh, Scott...!"
"The Special Service has a nice little Castle in the country, its dungeons are specially adapted to feminine occupancy." He laughed at their blank dismay. "Don't worry, your chains will be light and well polished."
"How long is our sentence?" Mrs. Gantry demanded bluntly.
"Oh, just until the Gunderson affair reaches a conclusion. Maybe a few months."
"A few months in a rotten dungeon?"
"As I told you, they've been adapted to feminine tenancy. The three of you can share. We'll attach the two lesbians to opposite walls."
"Scott, don't be horrible!" Lorinda knew herself blushing again. "How long are you really going to keep us?"
"Depends on Gunderson, really. We've got one sweet young thing languishing in the castle, going on her third year: a most long drawn out chase her man is giving us. Oh, and by the way, we know where Gunderson is now."
Lorinda sagged, her ropes hurt and she felt disgraced. Nobody owned or needed her any more, she was adrift. Being unemployed seemed abstract compared to all the rest. She was going to be robbed of a piece of her life, 'sequestered'! It was just a polite name for prison. "You're not really going to chain us?" She asked hopelessly. "Are you?"
"Not me, sweetheart. There'll be a jailer of sorts."
He was probably joking, no doubt displeased with her failure. Lorinda supposed it served her right, but could no longer feel sure about anything. She was almost glad of Paula's belligerence.
"You can't hold us legally."
"Can't we! What about the kidnap victims we found here? Enough of 'em will testify to get you two a lifetime behind bars."
All three of the naked women fell silent. Each, in their own way, felt guilt and glimpsed retribution. They were glad when Scott Devonish went away. Paula Gantry summed it up angrily, tugging at the handcuffs securing her to the wall. "We're really in for it this time, girls, all of us. Oh, damn, damn, damn!"
The two male stalwarts were less stem but very competent. They handled Paula's struggles with ease as they bound her as Lorinda was bound. Linda yielded herself to their ropes and cords, passively and in defeat. Lorinda was already helpless in what she had come to recognize as 'the travelling tie'. They were going to be 'taken' to their new prison. When the collar fell from her neck she stepped away from the wall without enthusiasm. When she was gagged it was no more than she expected, but the blindfold was a fearsome thing against which she could not protest. In the dark she felt her ankles roped, tight so they hurt. Then she was picked up and carried, she knew not where.
It is a fearful thing to become suddenly blind. Lorinda found herself more frightened and more helpless than she had ever been. Her tightly corded nakedness denied any motion, she lay supine in strong male arms. She could not speak, she could not see. She used her ears to reassure herself of life. They told of a vehicle, the hard floor of which was cold on her bottom. She swung her bound legs and found others that pressed back in confined communion. She was not alone. But that was all she could tell or do. She sat in hurt immobility as the miles, and then the hours, passed. There were stops and the slamming of doors, but they meant nothing in the dark. In silent desolation Lorinda wept, the blindfold obligingly soaked up her tears.
* * *
"We've had a bellyful of you, Mrs. Gantry." Hawtry tapped the file folder on his desk with a forceful finger. "Got your dossier here. Seems your career didn't just start at Desmond House. Damned impressive record."
The three nude females standing at a chest-out attention enforced by strictured elbows eyed his exhibit without favor. Paula Gantry was breathing heavily, it was her first acquaintance with the agony of cord. But pain had failed to soften her sentiments towards the Special Service. "You can shove it up your ass." She said cordially. "And when you've done that you can untie these damn ropes on my arms."
Hawtry appeared not to have heard a word. "You're an arrogant bitch." He said evenly. "Even if convicted, the Courts couldn't give you what you need." He eyed her up and down with dour approval. "But we can. You're going to be thrashed and humbled--may take a long time, but when you leave you're going to be a better woman."
Paula sniffed. "D'you have to stare at my cunt like that." She retorted. "And those two things above are breasts, in case you're wondering. The girls have got a pair apiece as well."
"Damned impressive." Hawtry approved. "We'll find a use for the whole ensemble." He pressed a bell.
Paula Gantry tensed. "What are you going to do with me?"
Hawtry ignored her, but to the man who entered said tersely. "Take her as she is. Gag her and chain her in the big Hall so she has to stand where the traffic gets a good look." He waved an outraged Gantry into oblivion.
"Don't seem to have much on you." The head of the Special Service fixed Linda with a stern regard. "Desmond House your first adventure?"
"Yes, sir." Linda was trembling.
"Just another job, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Hmmmmm, but of your own free will, wasn't it? No one twisting your arm?"
"Yes, I suppose so, sir."
"Had yourself a time whipping bottoms, so I'm told?" Linda twisted unhappily, knowing herself condemned. "Alright, punish me." She said listlessly. "But it wasn't the way you think, some of the girls loved it."
"We know about that lot." Hawtry conceded. "But most of 'em didn't love it at all." He eyed her paternally. "You're maybe not a bad girl, but you're tarred with the Gantry brush and we're going to clean you up a bit." Once more his finger found the bell. "For a start I'll give you a choice: A routine flogging, or sit on the horse for a day, or hang by your wrists. Pick one."
"I'll sit on the horse." Linda's voice had lost all emotion.
"Good girl! Spoken like a Trojan. I'll talk to you again." Once more the Hawtry arm consigned a girl to anguish.
Alone, they assessed each other through moments of silence, the caustic bulk of Hawtry behind his desk, the bound and naked girl thrusting her breasts at him as though in defiance. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn wondered if he shared her sense of incongruity. She was prepared for the worst, her imagination vivid with pictures of her beloved astride the cutting plank. Miserably, she asked: "Must I be punished, sir?"
"You're a damn lovely girl."
"Thank you, sir." She hesitated, then plunged: "Will I ever be untied and allowed to wear clothes?"
Hawtry ignored her question, his own was abrupt. "You in love with Karl Gunderson?"
"I don't think so, master--" She stopped in stammering confusion, scarlet at her gaffe. "I'm--I'm sorry... how silly!" Lorinda sought his eyes imploringly. Suddenly they were both laughing. Hawtry was amused and looked at her with fresh interest. "Got you well trained, eh! Affection or the whip?"
"The whip, sir. At least, I think so."
"Not sure where you're at, are you, Mrs. Wyburn?"
If he turned kind she would cry. Lorinda was sure of it. "I'm not me any more." She mourned. "I'm a tightly tied up package that anyone can do what they like with. I just don't belong any more." She glared defiantly. "Karl Gunderson bought me. I'd sooner be delivered to him than be kept--like this, always on the verge of being punished."
"D'you think you deserve punishment?"
"Yes."
Hawtry glinted at her desolation. "That affirmative sounded doubtful. Aren't you certain?"
She twisted her wracked shoulders, nakedly delinquent--lost! "I haven't done anything criminal." She said defensively. "Things happened to me, things were done to me. They made me realize I wasn't the girl I thought I was... " She paused reflectively. "I suppose we could say I consorted with the enemy."
"And formed a female infatuation with the girl, Linda?"
"I'm in love with her."
"Carnally, I presume? You use your tongues and lips on each other's erogenous zones?"
She felt bare, exposed, soiled by the cruelty of his cynicism. She thought of Linda's sex now crushed upon the narrow wood. "There's more to it than that." She flared. "Sure, we use our tongues. A slave girl takes her pleasure where she can.
He nodded, pleased. "Pity to waste all this emotion. How'd you like to be put back on strength?"
"No. I've had enough of the Special Service. I'm no good at it. I'm sorry."
Hawtry affected not to hear. "Your first assignment is Gunderson." He said evenly. "You and your precious Linda are going to be placed back with him--" He waved a hand at her startled eyes. "Don't worry, we'll manage. Gunderson is a mine of information for us. You'll report what you see and hear. Chance of a lifetime for you both."
"I don't want to. I'll just mess it up. Please untie me."
"You'll want to, m'dear. So will Linda."
"We won't, not either of us."
"You just need a bit of help, love." His eyes were wise, almost paternal. "The Special Service always knows what to do--and you mustn't take this as anything personal." His fingers reached for the fatal buzzer.
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn could not resist the male hands. Her elbows and wrists were demandingly afire, to fight would be childish. She felt certain of what was about to happen, walking towards it in a welter of misery.
Linda raised a weary head at their entry. Her cheeks were tear stained, her bound arms were tractioned high at her back, her legs spread wickedly wide from tethered ankles. All her weight rested on her sex, the cleft between her thighs crushed and penetrated by the sharp edge of the plank on which she was perched. The punishment of the so called horse came close to impalement. Gaspingly, she adjured her love: "If you've got any choice, darling, take it. Don't let them put you up here."
There was no choice. Male hands lifted, tied and tugged. In two minutes the guilty lesbians shared the punishment of the plank. Lorinda discovered she could move nothing but her head, her fingers, her toes. In taut torture she sat facing the girl she loved. The men went cheerfully away. Her loins screamed. No doubt Hawtry would see something appropriate in the location of her agony.
"It gets worse, it never stops getting worse. Oh, darling...!" Linda gazed at her beloved in desolation. "And we're just being punished, there's no way we can bring it to an end."
"How long...?"
"They never tell, that's part of the awfulness. I expect the rest of the day."
"But that's hours and hours! I'm splitting--"
"We just think we split, actually we don't." Linda's gasps were bitter. "We can't believe this agony won't kill us, but it never does." She paused pantingly, then asked with faint hope. "Did he make an offer? Does he want something?"
"Yes, to send us to Gunderson, to spy."
"Grab it. Get yourself off this horror."
"He wants you to go too."
"I can't. I have to play along and suffer with Paula. And anyway, Gunderson doesn't want me."
"Darling, if I go you must. He'll want you, any man would want you, you're so lovely."
"Damn good advice." Hawtry had entered unseen, his manner was fatherly as ever. "You two can be off there in no time."
"I can't. You know I can't. Go away!"
"Thought I'd let the two of you get nicely settled." Hawtry was unperturbed. "Get a proper feel of the situation."
"We've got the feel of it. Go away."
"Better for you than going to prison, isn't it?"
"You mean I don't have to go to prison as well?" Linda evinced a faint new interest in her fate. "I thought this was just a Special Service preliminary?"
"Needn't be. Little lovebird's told you the terms."
"If I accept them the organization will have me killed. Sorry."
"D'you want you and your little sweetheart to sit there with crushed cunts indefinitely?"
"No I don't! Let Lorinda go. Please...?"
Hawtry eyed Linda's sweet drenched nakedness shrewdly. "You take your punishment as though you're used to it. You must be in considerable discomfort?"
"I'm in agony. But I know about all the--things...! I had Paula give me a little time with each--just so I'd know."
"You're a damn remarkable girl. Want a job?"
"No thanks, I'll sit it out."
"We do play for keeps, y'know." His tone was casual. "You could be like that a long time. So could lovebird." Lorinda tensed, and knew her love tensed too. It was unthinkable such awfulness could go on and on and on... But it could. Why not! She longed for movement, anything rather than sit like a stuffed bird on a make believe perch before the cool eyes of this man who knew too much and had too much power. The punishment was obscene, a misery to be borne in private if it must be borne at all. They were caricatures of girls, wracked, twisted and exposed: their pain a thing for male amusement.
"I'm playing the old trick." Hawtry continued casually. "It takes two of you to make a bargain. One of you isn't going to leave that little sit-me-down without the other." Lorinda quailed. Her love was faced with an impossible decision in which she herself was powerless. She wanted to cry out against male injustice, to scream at Hawtry because of her corded arms, her distended legs gaping wide to the ropes relentlessly tugging her ankles, but above all to scream at the outrage of her sex, the implacable thrust of the sharp perch into her loins, the sweet thing she had always laughingly referred to as her pussy cruelly crushed by her own weight. It was a punishment originally designed for men, but far more ideally suited to the pain and shame of girls. She made the old plea of maiden surrender: "I'll do anything, sir... anything! Please don't leave us here...?"
"Not much you can do, love." He sounded genuinely regretful. "Better see if you can't persuade the other little lovebird to see the light." He sauntered from the room.
"No, don't go! Mr. Hawtry, please...!" Linda's cry went unheeded, The Head of The Special Service did not reappear.
' The two sufferers gazed at each other in despair: four anguished eyes, two pairs of red and trembling lips, four tautly stretched breasts. The room was redolent with girls, but neither could touch the other, they could not move. "The son of a bitch!" Linda gasped savagely. "He heard me. He's just going to leave us sit awhile: teach us a lesson--"
"Don't give in, Linda. You mustn't--just for me."
"I have to, darling. We both can't sit like this for hours or days. I'll take my chances. Next time someone comes I'll say yes and be a good little spy."
But it was a long time before anyone came.
CHAPTER SEVEN - THE NAUGHTY NAIADS
It was pleasant to sit at Karl Gunderson's feet. The deep pile of the rug was soft and lush, the scented Mediterranean air was warm, the Moorish mezzanine open to the garden and "the ocean beyond was designed for love or the silver tinkling of a slavegirl's chains. But, best of all, Lorinda's arms had lost the bite of cord. The weals were still indented in her skin, but they had become symbols to flaunt with pride as of a travail now past.
"We will drink to our reunion, my dear. Mix two. Your chains will impede but little."
Lorinda shivered deliciously. Her owner's masculinity, his radiation of power was a haven of security, his chains locked upon her wrists and ankles were costly jewellery she wore with joy, the sound of their links as she obeyed her lord's command was music. They would make it difficult for her to flee his house but in the mixing of the drinks they scarcely hindered.
Karl Gunderson's eyes had followed her every moment. -She was fluid beauty. "I am glad I purchased you." He said as they clinked glasses. "Let us toast our faithful Hawtry: without his Special Service we would never have met."
She was back at his feet, looking up at his amused regard. She was slave and did not care. Here was magnificence, one of the pinnacles to which man aspired, and she was part of it. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn glowed with a sense of wellbeing such as she had rarely known. Impulsively, she demanded: "How did you know about me, master?"
"That you were sculptured for chains and nakedness?" Karl Gunderson laughed at her naivete. "It was there in your eyes and in the movements you unconsciously made.
Most men would be unaware, but you reached out and touched me--and here you are."
"I am tremendously happy." Lorinda made a small moue of bafflement. "And I have a feeling I shouldn't be."
"Ah, your beloved Linda." He smiled down benevolently. "Hawtry is absurdly tactless in the disposition of his spies. I welcomed you with joy, but your darling lesbian is decidedly de trop."
"Where is she, master?"
"Quite safe. There are several maidens who are part of this estate. They get bored. I have given them your beloved to play with. At the moment they probably have her tautly bound and are beating the soles of her feet lightly with small wands. It is one of their favorite diversions."
"But, master, isn't that the--the bastinado--a torture?"
"In a very mild form. She will limp for no more than an hour after it is done. Then they will think of something else, perhaps with one of themselves as subject. They are highly imaginative. Delicious amoral children."
"But to punish her! Why?"
"She is a good girl. She insisted on carrying through with Hawtry's cloak and dagger. Even when we removed the beeper hidden in her hair she professed surprise. So--she learns a lesson."
"She's always learning lessons." Lorinda mourned. Everybody punishes her for what's not her fault." She looked up imploringly. "I gave you my beeper myself. I suppose that makes me some sort of traitor?"
"Hardly. Had you not accepted this assignment you might both still be sitting on Hawtry's plank."
Lorinda shivered and asked, hesitantly: "Master, would you do something beastly like that to me?"
"Yes."
"I don't seem to mind you saying that." The slavegirl took a reassuring swallow. "Master: the beepers and Linda and I? Won't the Special Service raid this place?"
They don't know of this place. You were delivered, drugged, to a house far distant. As for the beepers: we attached them to furniture moving vans, one going East, one traveling North. Poor Hawtry will be embarrassed. "Master, stop them punishing Linda... Please?"
"You wish to take her place, dear child?"
"Yes, oh yes! Let me--please!"
Karl Gunderson sighed. "There are certain African tribes who take the teen-age female and remove her clitoris with a knife. A messy and painful affair which they excuse with some religious mumbo-jumbo." He smiled paternally. "But there are indisputable benefits, even to the mutilated maiden, she is spared much decision and much guilt."
"It's horrible! Would you do that to me?"
"No, I would not, nor to your beloved. But it would cure you both of a bad habit."
"It's not a habit, master, it's--it's--"
Karl Gunderson laughed and held up a hand. "Don't ennoble your vice with sweet names." He admonished. "The very least it deserves for both of you is a thrashing."
"Yes, Master." Lorinda found she could acquiesce without concern. Linda was worth much, much more than a whipping. She longed to reconcile her feelings for the girl and for this magnetic man. But the computation was too complex, she let it pass. Once more she pleaded: "Please, master, stop them punishing Linda...?"
"You can stop them yourself in a little while." His eyes twinkled. "Or join the party. For now, replenish our drinks. I have something to discuss."
She did it lovingly, trying hard to forget the girl whose feet were being beaten with small wands. Karl Gunderson was something special and in her slavery she owed him loyalty. She knelt, eyes sparkling, her fettered hand firm as she proffered his glass. Shyly, she offered a toast. "To my Master--?"
They drank, the rapport between them almost tangible. His words, when they came, were tinged by amusement. "I was thinking of a small pleasantry to inflict on our poor Hawtry. Touch his conscience up a bit. Might also have some more practical use." He looked down into her upturned face. "Would you mind very much being tortured, briefly, but more than once?"
"No, master, I won't mind. May I scream?"
His eyes adored. "I don't know what I've done to deserve you--"
"But, master, why ask me? You could compel--?"
"I don't know." He admitted frankly. "I only know I want you to agree. Dammit, girl, I suppose you know your compliance is devastatingly erotic?"
I expect it is, master. Do you wish to use me now?"
"If you get any more coy I'll whip your bottom."
"Thank you, master. But the tortures...?"
"They'll be real. Pictures will be taken of your agony. They'll be sent to Hawtry as a lesson not to meddle."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn giggled. "They'll bother him." She conceded thoughtfully. "He's really a good sort. I think he overplays a role." She mused in silence. "What will my tortures be, master?"
"They'll be as brief as photography can make 'em." Gunderson said emphatically. "But never as brief as you'd like. I'd thought of the Rack: Suspension, maybe upside down: then there's the thing they used to call the Cord--you're hung by your wrists after they've been tied behind your back. There's also a very small cage... "
"I don't mind--honest!" Lorinda felt a great need of sincerity. "But the hands behind my back thing... ? Won't it dislocate my arms?"
"You're not heavy enough, and you won't be dropped against the rope the way the real thing demands."
Linda contemplated the incredible. She supposed her lack of fear must arise from a strength she drew from this man whose chains she wore. Gunderson's descriptions of what lay in wait spurred her need to speak of things latent in the air since their first meeting. Stumblingly, she did her best.
"Master... I know the pain of girls... or our nakedness... or our binding and captivities... give pleasure to men." She took a deep breath. "To behold me whipped can make an impotent male vigorously potent. To make me stand chained to a wall could fill others with desire... Master, I have supposed my being slave will lead me to punishments designed to give you joy... " She gazed up wistfully. "Master, I do not mind. But tell me, is it so? Will I be made to bear great pain so that our love afterwards will be more intense?"
"Yes--sometimes."
"And if I transgress, I will be punished in such ways but for a different reason?"
"Yes."
"Thank you for telling me, master."
"It has not affected your happiness, dear child?"
"No, master, it has made it more secure." Lorinda shook her head in mock despair. "I am absurd, but that's the way it is." She bestowed a wicked invitation with her eyes. "Use me now, master. I know your need."
Karl Gunderson used his slavegirl.
It was a happiness they relinquished much later to return to their world. They were infinitely content with each other. Quietly he described the steps she must take to find Linda.
"I am free to go, master? Alone?"
"Of course! I cannot see you running into the road naked and chained. And anyway, there are those who would stop you."
"But to walk, unguarded... ? The servants, your staff...?"
"They will admire your nudity and respect your chains. Those links and bands cost more than some of them earn in years. They will show you courtesy in everything except escape."
"But I could escape, couldn't I? You're testing me?"
Gunderson shrugged. "The eternal feminine curiosity!
Try it. Go ahead. Escape."
She knew she would not, but still persisted. "I'd be terribly punished, wouldn't I? When they brought me back?"
He chuckled at her need. "It is you, my dear, now who is toying with deliciously erotic fantasies. I suspect your curiosity about escape springs from a carnal base?"
Lorinda flushed, he knew her well: better even than she herself. They shared laughter at her chagrin before she asked: "And when I get to--to--these girls... ? What then?"
"My three naiads?" He shrugged. "They are unpredictable. You must do the best you can with them. Oh, by the way, you will note their feet are chained. It is the symbol of their status, as are yours."
"Can I tell them you order Linda's punishment to cease?"
"Certainly not. But you may be able to divert their attention to yourself, or effect an exchange, or perhaps share your darling's discomfort. You must do the best you can. You will not be bored."
It was a Palace. Lorinda's chained feet led her through splendor. When she emerged into the closed patio she was breathless with awe. Within such walls slavery might well be an honored estate.
Linda was tied to four stakes, flat on her back but her feet raised and firmly bound to enable their castigation. She was naked. Her eyes, when she caught sight of her love, were frantic as her voice.
"If you can run in those things, run! Oh darling...!"
"It's the master's new girl!"
"Isn't she sweet!"
"Let's whip her right away."
Three young and eager pairs of eyes regarded the newcomer with sparkling approval. Each wore erotic straps to enhance exquisite curves. None had reached twenty. Their names were tattooed above their left breast, their ankles were chained. It was easy to see they had worn the shackle long enough to render them unaware of their impediment.
"I've come to ask you to untie Linda."
There was a peal of girlish merriment. "Is that the Master's order?"
"Well... no."
"Then we won't do it. We're having such fun tapping the soles of her feet. The poor dear winces beautifully and swears like a trooper. Come on, we'll let you have a go at her. Here's a switch."
"But I don't want to...!" Lorinda's voice rose to a wail. "I want you to stop being so unkind. She's never hurt you."
"Neither have you, sweetpea. But we'd love to be unkind to you. And anyway, what's that got to do with it?"
Amoral! Linda shivered, remembering Gunderson's word. Three of them and only one of her. Their hands free, hers chained. She was uncertain of their status, their chained ankles contrasted oddly with their obvious privilege.
"Run, darling, run! Don't let them get their hands on you--" Linda's command ended in a scream as one of the trio slashed a defenseless sole with full vigour. She writhed in futile terror against the four stakes by which she was spread in total exposure. The bands around her wrists and ankles held her fast, deeply indented, tied to hurt. The naiad trio watched her pain with interest before returning their attention to Lorinda.
"That was to teach her a lesson."
"We're going to teach her ever so many lessons. We like her."
"Of course, if you'd like to take her place...?"
"Oh yes, yes please!"
They surveyed her with fresh interest. Lorinda felt she had sounded silly. The voice of the spreadeagled girl was despairing.
"Darling, go, go, go while you can. The little devils are merciless--" Once more the cry of agony, this time elicited by savage strokes across each of the taut breasts. "We have to teach the poor dear to keep quiet when we're talking." One of the trio explained seriously. "And you mustn't pay attention to what she says, she's a bit put out with us. We're really only tickling her feet, but she makes such a fuss."
It was macabre and bizarre, but the vivid red lines rising visibly across the tied girl's breasts tore Lorinda's heart and removed all doubt. "Let Linda go, and you can do anything you want with me." She declared with forthright determination.
"Oh goody! You'll love the bastinado."
"Let's whip her back. We haven't whipped a back for quite awhile."
"No...! They're in love with each other... " The third voice was meditative. "Let's make Sweetpea eat while we carry on with Linda's feet. Shove something under her bottom so's to raise her pussy."
Desolation filled captive eyes. It was a mockery of their love, a desecration of something precious. Before the avid young faces the act would be obscene. "That's something I won't do." Lorinda said unhappily.
"Then we'll whip her breasts until you change your mind."
It was hopeless. With a small moan of misery Lorinda lowered herself between the widely spread bound legs of her beloved. She was thankful for Linda's closed eyes as her lips began their tryst within the black pubic triangle she had come to love. The chains were awkward but they stopped nothing. The watching trio shared Linda's gasp.
"See, Sweetpea's done it before. You can tell."
"And she does it beautifully. She can do us later."
"Let's whip her bottom while she works."
"No! Careful with this one, she's special. The Master may not want her striped."
Lorinda heard the words from far away. So she must not be marked! It was a small comfort. But of course the soles of her feet would not show. The girls could whip her there to their heart's content. With lips and tongue in their familiar place and her nostrils flaring within the sweetness of Linda's pubic bush she thrust aside ail thought. For brief moments she was re-united with her love. Nothing else mattered.
The resumption of the wands came as a shock. A Naiad on each side had resumed her task. Beneath the loving lips Linda tensed and moaned. The small cruel splats beat a measured tattoo on the helpless soles, each of them evoking a physical response from the owner of the bound feet. The chained girl used all her skill and all her love. Perhaps ecstasy would blot out the pain. When Linda orgasmed the trio might allow her to take her place tied to the stakes. But how long... ? Revulsion to this blatant exposure of their love, coupled with the pain of the wands might prolong her climax indefinitely. With tongue and lips Lorinda fought hard against the bastinado's cruelty.
"If you can make her have a beautiful come we may let you take her place, Sweetpea." The lovely girlish voice was honeyed.
"Think of it, darlings, one explosive orgasm and she. gets untied."
"Just look at Sweetpea work! I wonder if she's ever got all of herself inside."
They adored their power. Three Naiads lusting happily over two naked captives delivered to their whims. With the pungent scent of tumescent girl potent in her nostrils Lorinda realized Linda's plight. The beating of naked soles with the light wands was no insufferable cruelty. The first blows must have seemed inconsequential. It was the endless repetition, the steady beat that would finally wear a girl down into screaming hysterics. She wondered how her own courage would challenge the drum beats on her naked soles. Thrusting the thought aside she plied her tongue in an urgent need to bring a chapter to a close.
"She's coming--watch!"
"Beat her soles a little harder. It may help the poor dear go over the brink."
"Isn't she gorgeous! See her writhe!"
They were so happy! Their happiness made everything seem right--for them! Although she could not see, Lorinda was conscious of their joyous gaze as her tongue made it's final conquest. Linda exploded in waves of writhing ecstasy enough for any girl. The tattoo of the wands rose in a crescendo of shared joy, the naked flesh beneath her lips was vibrant with sensation. At that moment Linda was a vessel into which had been poured a greater cornucopia of rapture than it was designed to hold. The excess poured from her lips in moan after moan, and from her flesh in spasm after spasm she could not control.
"I think we can stop now, girls." The young voice held awe.
"Wasn't she gorgeous, they're both gorgeous."
"Can't we do it all over again?"
Young hands took Lorinda from her ravished love. She stood in uncertain despondency while the same hands loosed the cords from stakes and limbs, then prudently used them anew to bind Linda's hands behind her back and rope her ankles. They set her aside as finished business and turned a freshly avid attention upon their next victim.
"Oh damn, she's chained!"
"We can't stretch her out properly."
"We can move the stakes closer, she's got quite a few links."
They were so exuberantly lovely it was hard not to share their ebullience, harder still to believe evil of them. They were innocent, believing that all things between girls must be good and preordained. Lorinda watched them prepare her torture in a strange detachment as though she would be no more than a spectator in what was about to happen. She fingered her chains in a passive acceptance of the helplessness they imposed. The chains had been placed upon her by her Master, whatever compulsions they implied must thus be by his will. The trio happily hammered and measured and pounded again. Catching Linda's reproving eyes the self appointed martyr could only shrug and return a small sad smile of love.
-Lorinda's breasts burrowed into the grass. Her wrists were tightly strictured to two stakes, their connecting chain taut to its limit. She was breathing heavily in dismay as the naiads heaved enthusiastically at ropes on her ankles to stretch her nudity to the limit of their strength. It was almost a relief when they bound each foot high upon its stake, its bare sole a high and open invitation to the rod. "Shouldn't she be the other way up--her breasts--?"
"We've done it that way. Look at the bottom this one's got!"
"But if we mustn't mark it, what's the use!"
"We can spank it. Let's take turns: one spanking her cheeks and two with the rods on her feet. Spanking won't leave any marks Master will punish us for."
The taut nude sacrifice dared not turn to where Linda sprawled bound upon the ground, nor did she wish to see the preparations for her own pain. She waited, tense and quivering, looking only at the stems of grass at the level of her eyes, expectant of a degree of agony she could not judge.
They spanked her bottom. Giggling, and taking turns, their small palms bit and stung the resiliency of her flesh, delighting in any percussive impact that rewarded them with resonance and flinch.
"See that! It sort of vibrates."
"And the way the pink springs up and spreads!"
"Does it hurt you much, darling?"
Lorinda did not answer. Instead, she gasped in dismay as they thrust a cushion beneath her loins, then another, to raise the blushing curves for their convenience. Stretched as she was the cushions demanded a further stress on the bindings of wrist and ankle.
"Look at her pussy, its peeping back."
"Full some of its hairs. She'll squeal."
"We'll attend to her pussy later."
The first strokes were almost a caress. The wands flicked Lorinda's soles with love. She winced in nervous reaction, waiting for the pain as the light impacts fell into the rhythm of a metronome, a steady beat that could continue for hours. She tested her bondage but could not move. The cushions remained a pressure against her sex, soon a naiad sat astride her naked back and resumed the spanking of her bottom.
"Aren't you lucky, Lorinda! Three girls--all at once!"
"Don't have an orgasm without telling us it's coming."
"The rods on your feet don't hurt much now, but just you wait."
It was hard to relate her predicament to Karl Gunderson. He was not even watching. He had delivered his purchase and his captive to the three naiads in the manner of expensive gifts to children much beloved. Lorinda unhappily wondered how or where he had acquired the youthful trio and what his relationship with them might be. She could imagine him viewing them as three kittens whose antics were endlessly diverting. In her present plight her only comfort was the chains upon their ankles. The heavy links and metal bands meant they too shared her slavery. But did they share Karl Gunderson's love! She found the possibility disquieting.
"The Master fucks you, doesn't he, darling? You're so lucky."
"You know you two can never escape, don't you? Not ever! We can't either but we don't want to. We're terribly happy."
"Don't ever ask us to help you get away. But we'll let you punish us sometimes so you'll have some fun. We're ever so much fun to punish: you'll see!"
Promises and pain! Cheerful converse while the wands thunked upon her feet and the deft palm stung her rose tinted curves, a finger or two sometimes impacting between the cleft of thighs. Lorinda wanted to scream, but it would be a scream of frustration, she was not yet ready for the peals of anguish she supposed would come, and surely they would not continue to spank her bottom for hour after hour! It was already aflame with response to the slowly measured slaps. The cushions were an added hazard, they nestled far too snugly against her vulva and each slap above was now triggering a response below. If the punishing palm continued its ministrations she would flower into orgasm and be doubly shamed.
"Watch her feet, they're starting to twitch."
"She's beginning to realize we're not going to stop. She'll soon be pleading. She's just being brave right now."
"Remember the way Linda carried on after the first hour!"
"Gee, we tied her beautifully! The darling can't move."
"I think I'd better stop spanking her bottom though. It's beautifully red. If I slap it any more it's going to bruise, and the Master will have me punished."
"O.K. It looks lovely. Here, you can have a go with one of the switches, we mustn't stop beating her feet."
So matter of fact! A routine naiad day. Pain and pleasure were the Trio's spiritual sustenance. They would thrive on pleas for mercy: so why make them! Lorinda clenched her teeth, now the palm had ceased to burn her bottom the sensations of the wands upon the soles of her feet were taking on an awfulness of their own. She wanted to cry, but her tears would bring interested comment. She blinked them back.
"She's a darling Sweetpea! Can't you see how she's fighting not to show a thing."
"We'd love you to ask for mercy, Sweetpea. We wouldn't stop, of course, but it would be groovy if you'd ask."
"We do love you, y'know. We're only doing this for fun. The Master likes us to be happy."
The thrummm of wands was incessant. Lorinda was sure her feet were swelling and becoming more sensitive. Each blow would have made her jerk or writhe had she not been so tightly tied. But the tremors were within her flesh, confined by the cut of cord and the taut tractioning of her nakedness. Her mind searched desperately for words to penetrate the trio's absorption with their playful torture.
"Don't you think you've got the wrong girl?"
Gunderson's voice was heavy with disapproval. In thankfulness Lorinda turned her gaze to where he stood, the enigmatic master of them all. His smile, solely to her, spelt deliverance. The beating of the wands upon her feet gave way to a breathless hush.
"Who told you to punish this one?"
He was standing beside her now, looking down at her blazing bottom. Its scarlet curves would be gazing back in mute testimony. Lorinda wished she was not so tightly stretched and bound, it would have been nice to witness the whole tableau.
"Nobody told us, Master." The Naiad Trio made their dolorous admission in unison. Stress made them one.
"You will each spend a day in the pillory."
"Oh, thank you, Master!" It was as though their sentence spelt joy, their young voices blending in dulcet sweetness.
"Untie her."
Maiden fingers were deft and swift upon the ropes. Solicitously they aided their captive to her feet, brushing away grass and specks of dirt from a nudity suddenly precious.
"We're terribly sorry!"
"You will have time for sorrow in the pillory,'."
"Of course, Master. Thank you." A hesitant pause, and then: "Is it neck and wrists, Master? And will we be whipped?"
In Gunderson's laugh Lorinda detected the delight these maidens might provoke in a male. Each was the eternal little girl, forever an Alice in wonderland. "Neck and wrists." He informed firmly. "None of this sitting on a bench with your ankles in the stocks--I think you like it." He chuckled. "You do hate the whip, don't you! I hadn't thought of it, but perhaps a few strokes...?"
"You're so kind to us, Master." A pause, "We do love you so much."
Their sincerity was patent. For brief moments Lorinda shared their Wonderland in which female eroticism governed all response beneath the iron rule of a Master who cherished their libidos. But, before the regard of her owner, she felt silly and soiled, a chained slavegirl whose bottom was a Turner Sunset and whose hair was much awry. She was sure her pubic hair was damp and matted but was too ashamed to look.
"Your punishments will begin tomorrow. But did you not have a task today?"
They sped to it with relish. Lorinda watched in desolation as her darling was untied and then bound once more to freshly pounded stakes. The Naiads wanted to please the watching male and resume their play. Lorinda's protestations died unspoken, she was afraid to utter them. Beholding her dolor, Linda smiled in reassurance as she was stretched again and tied. Male fingers were suddenly on Lorinda's arm, gently leading her away. As she and the man who owned her left the patio she heard the splat of wands and a giggle of feminine delight.
"They are children." Gunderson said without apology. "Forgive them."
Lorinda was ashamed of herself. She should be pleading vehemently for Linda, but was aware of a silent admonition from her scalded bottom and the tender soles of feet on which she was fearful to tread. Pain made a girl cautious, and respectful of authority. Gunderson read her mind.
"She will not be damaged." He assured her cheerfully, his fingers making play upon her arm. "They are clever little witches. Let them have their games. Your darling Linda will survive without injury." He looked down at her wan features with paternal amusement. "Don't forget she deserves a punishment--she's getting it."
"Yes, Master."
Gunderson laughed outright. "That was a poor pale little humility." He chuckled. "Don't tell me a scarlet bottom tames the tigress."
"I never was a tigress, Master." Lorinda's voice gained confidence. "And I've been surprised myself. Whenever I've been whipped or caned or--or-like now, it does bring me down off that lovely feminine pedestal I was on when I was free."
They were back in the lounge, the soft air a delight, her fingers untangling her hair. Lorinda chose to kneel before her lord rather than compromise her bottom on the rug. "Are you not free now?" Karl Gunderson asked gently.
The slavegirl clinked her chained steps to the bar. She blotted out thoughts of Linda, concentrating on the moment that was now and the rapport reborn between herself and this man. As she used shackled hands to create cocktails she equated the complexities of freedoms.
"I know what you mean." She admitted. "My slavery to you is less than the burdens you have taken from me. You have released more of me than you have enslaved. I do not want to go back." Puzzled, she raised her shackled wrists. "But, Master, am I truly free?"
He laughed at her dubiety. "If I unlock your chains, will you be free than?"
"No." Lorinda's negative was instant.
"Tell me why?"
She shrugged. "I suppose it's a woman's reason. You're safe. I feel good with you. I was at odds with life that time I first went to Hawtry, I should have known myself better."
She knelt and gave him his drink, settling back on her heels. "And there's Linda. You purchased me and captured her. Don't we both belong to you?"
"She is in the patio being punished, you are here with me. There is a difference."
They sipped, each glad of the other. It seemed only right she should be nude before this man. She remembered her marriage, it had never been like this. Whimsically, she supposed her husband should have whipped her regularly to make her a woman. "What of my future, Master?" She asked, more for something to say than actual curiosity.
Karl Gunderson handed her a key. "Use it." He said softly.
Lorinda did so. It was easy. She could not deny a thrill as the costly links and bands fell from her flesh to the rug. Shyly, she handed back the key and flexed her limbs in the luxuriance of total freedom. She saw herself as a purring cat, stretching in sensual pleasure on the rug.
"You are free, Lorinda. Free also to leave this house. Clothes and money will be provided."
Setting her glass aside she clutched his knees and looked up imploringly. "I've told you, Master, I don't want to go. You're testing me. I belong to you, a slave. Let it be." Gunderson's voice was toneless. "If you stay, tomorrow you will be given fifty lashes, a flogging... " He held up a hand to still her protest. "Yes, you are without guilt. You will be whipped solely to give me pleasure beholding you beneath the lash."
"I don't care. I won't go."
"One hundred strokes."
Her indrawn breath was the only sound until she whispered. "No, it's no use. I won't go. I can't."
"For the second fifty you will be suspended upside down with legs far apart. The whip will find you in the cleft between your thighs."
"Very well. I accept." Her voice was as toneless as his own. "Have that done to me. I'll scream but I won't complain."
There fell a silence. In it Lorinda blotted out tomorrow as she had blotted out memory of the patio and what was taking place therein. She supposed it a defensive mechanism of the mind. She should have been fearful or in hysterics but was not. She was thankful for her Master's quiet command.
"Give me your feet, my dear."
She watched her ankles once more locked and joined. Then her wrists. She held out her hands for the shackles as though receiving gifts. When they were fast and snug upon her skin she knew a strange content. They were very beautiful. She was a lucky girl.
"Forgive me, Master."
"Forgive you for what, beloved child?"
"For making you see me as abject. I don't seek abasement. I'm--I'm lost--I'm always lost."
"You are glorious."
"I'm not, I'm silly... " Lorinda held up gyved wrists. "Thank you for my chains. They feel good on me. Perhaps--because of the freedom you offered--they're just symbolic. But they make me feel the way I did when I got my wedding ring. Is that too absurd?"
"Chains become you. Seeing you chained pleases me. I will keep a chain on you somewhere always."
Lorinda picked up her glass and drained it in two gulps. She had something to say, something outrageous. She felt an idiot and was thoroughly ashamed. She was also determined.
"Master...?" Her courage quailed as she sought his amused attention. "Master...! Oh, damn, I should have asked you this when I was free." She flushed delightfully.
"I mean it's better without chains, at least I think it is.
" Her eyes implored help. "I'm trying to say that this time it's me. I want--I mean I need... Oh, damn again! I thought this would be easy--!"
"It is easy, child." Her Master said softly. "And with chains it's better...!"
The slavegirl sank back upon the rug and arranged her chains and herself for her owner's convenience.
Long after they returned from their journey, and from a deep content, Lorinda mused: "It must have been from the promise of whipping me--or from what those girls did--or from the chains. I'm so mixed up. I don't usually--"
"Don't usually what?" Gunderson was amused.
"I don't usually ask for it." She could not keep the laughter from her own voice.
"If you can figure out what causes it you can let me know." He teased. "We'll do it often."
"That's twice today already."
"You're forgetting to call me Master. Smarten up. And you're sleeping with me in my own bed: in case you didn't guess. I'll give you pencil and paper if you want to keep a tally."
"Oh, M-A-S-T-E-R...!" The coy exclamation exhausted repartee. As though it was a thing of small moment, Lorinda asked carelessly: "About tomorrow, Master, and the whipping you've sentenced me to... Will I--I mean after! Will I be a stretcher case?"
"Tomorrow!" Gunderson echoed vaguely. "Oh, that! Look, go and fill the glasses. There isn't any tomorrow... Understand?"
Lorinda understood. Her feet had wings.
CHAPTER EIGHT - PAULA'S PAIN
"Voluptuous is the word." Said Scott Devonish placidly. "Anyone ever tell you what a fine figure of a woman you are, Mrs. Gantry?"
"Drop dead." Said Paula Gantry heartily. "But before the funeral you can unlock this damn collar round my neck and untie my hands. I've stood like this long enough for any leering bunch of perverts."
"Couldn't possibly. Out of the question."
"Then buzz off. I don't want you assessing my public hair with all the rest."
"You've only been here an hour, Mrs. Gantry. Some of the staff haven't even had a peep."
"Some twit relieved me of the gag, but d'you realize that blasted rope in back is cutting my elbows in two?"
"Makes a nice effect in front, Mrs. Gantry. Well worth the sacrifice." Scott Devonish's appraisal was insouciantly flattering.
"Alright then, if I make you homy screw me and let me go."
"Alas, I cannot."
"Stop imitating Bertie Wooster. Tell me what I have to do to put an end to this offensive exposure."
"The names... ? Remember... ? The names...?"
"Don't be a bastard. Y'know I can't give 'em to you.
And look, these ropes are hurting like crazy and the collar chafes my neck."
"The better to keep you safe, my dear." Scott Devonish surveyed the naked captive with bland assurance. "You've got quite awhile to stand the way you are. Do some thinking. If the thinking doesn't work I'm going to whip those naked charms--all of 'em until you communicate. 'Bye for now."
Paula Gantry watched his receding back. She felt far less assured than her speech implied. At the best there was prison. At the worst the Special Service might unleash upon her nakedness horrors as yet unglimpsed. She had so illusions about fighting for keeps. It was hard slugging.
The past hour had not been easy. She was a woman who had cherished dignity. In Desmond House she was Authority. Now, naked and painfully tied, ignominiously chained by the neck so as to compel an erect and standing posture, she had been the butt of coarse comment and cultured innuendo. Men had inspected her sexual attributes and passed judgement thereon. Irritably, yet subtly flattered, she became aware of possessing breasts, a vulva, and pubic hair worthy of male attention. When she had turned about to present her back and bound arms to interested passers by it had been her bottom which had evoked amused or worshipful response. She had never felt so female in her life.
Paula Gantry saw herself as neither good nor bad. Of lowly origins, she had done what she believed she must. Achieving the eminence of the Chatelaine of Desmond House she had enjoyed her status. She had treated the girls who came her way with whatever kindness or cruelty she considered best. She and Linda had made a competent team and were rewarded accordingly by the mysterious names she refused to divulge. Their work had acquainted them with female response. The punishments they had learned to dispense had caused their clientele to leave Desmond House erotically replenished, and their captives to emerge well trained. Now, she herself stood naked, painfully tied, and chained in a public place for all to see. Her temperament refused to concede poetic justice in her plight. Paula Gantry was mad.
She was angry about her tied elbows. It was a favorite persuasion of Linda's, resulting in early tears and unsuspected humilities. Girls hated the nagging pain and the shame of outthrust breasts, cords and capitulation went hand in hand. Furious with herself, Paula recognized symptoms. To get her arms freed she would make concessions, setting aside her role of Grand Dame and becoming simply a woman in pain. But what concessions! And to whom! She could not move a yard from the wall. Breasts heaving in frustration she was close to tears.
"Lovely pair of tits, lady."
The male voice had crept upon her unaware. Its owner was nondescript, one of the lesser staff of The Special Service. He was viewing Paula Gantry's lubricity with an approving eye. Swallowing anger, she essayed a smile. "I'm glad you like them." She responded cordially.
"Always was a tit man." He made it sound a declaration of policy. "Not but what that black bush isn't worth a glance. Finest thatch of pubic hair I've ever seen."
"Perhaps you'd be kind enough to untie me." Paula suggested sweetly. "I seem to have got into a bit of a fix."
"And that you have! Perhaps if you turn round I can have a look?"
Paula obeyed with alacrity. Surely her wealed flesh must evoke pity!
"Damn fine ass you got, real champion."
It was not the response for which she had hoped. Gently she prompted: "My elbows hurt the worst. Perhaps you'd untie them first?"
"Can't do that, lady. You ought to know better than ask."
"Why not?" Paula quenched sarcasms. "Surely any gentleman would have the decency--?"
"Name's Higgs." The nondescript one volunteered. "Can't claim to being a gentleman."
"Please untie me. I'm in great pain."
"'Spose that's the idea, eh. You must have been a real bad girl."
"I am scarcely a girl. I owe my predicament to someone's perverted idea of humor."
"Ah." Mr. Higgs clothed the monosyllable with portent. "Perhaps you have a pocket knife? You could cut the cords?"
"I could. But I ain't goin' to, lady. You done somethin' naughty or you wouldn't be like that."
"A thousand pounds." Paula said firmly.
"You mean to untie them ropes?" Mr. Higgs was interested. "Wouldn't do no good--that collar... I ain't got the key."
"Get it, man." Paula was desperate. "Look, set me completely free and there's a couple of thousand for you."
"Where you got it? Up your--?"
"Don't be disgusting. Drive me to where I must go. It will be there waiting."
"And a free piece of crumpet?"
"Very well, if it means that much to you."
"Can't do it right now, lady. Have to bide me time."
"How much time are you biding?"
"An hour or two. They'll all be in a meeting 'bout then."
Paula's heart leaped. He had bought it! Desmond House might once again be hers. "It's a deal." She said thankfully. "You won't be sorry. I'll make sure you're not sorry."
"Reckon I won't be." Mr. Higgs agreed. "You've got the plumpest cunt in the British Isles."
"You're too, too flattering."
"Sarcasm, that was. But HI be seeing you inside a couple of hours."
Mrs. Paula Gantry watched him go, and was well content.
"Never trust a man with a name like Higgs."
The nude woman with hands tied far above her head ignored Scott Devonish's jibe. She was in no mood for pleasantries. "That was a dirty lousy trick to play on a woman." Paula Gantry's indignation was righteous.
"By such means are the mighty brought low." Scott observed sententiously. "We thought it a way of emphasising your position."
"My position is I'm naked and standing on my toes, and my wrists hurt."
"But we did untie your elbows."
"Only because you had to in order to fix me like this. Not that I'm not grateful--Look, put that infernal whip away. I know damn well you daren't use it."
Scott sighed. "We're trying hard not to. Sort of hoped your, ahem, exposure might modify your stand a bit."
"No agency of the government is going to whip a woman."
"May I remind you of Mrs. Wyburn's back when you acquired her."
Paula's heart beat heavily. She had a sense of doors closing and locks snapping shut. "No use offering you the use of my person, I suppose?" She inquired without optimism.
"Alas, no. Not on my terms of reference."
"Too old for you, eh?"
"Oh, come! You're a magnificently preserved female. Positively at your prime. And that bottom...! Ideally designed for cane or crop." Scott tinged his words with reverence. "Come to think of it I can use your facilities without your permission-a perquisite of Office... "
"You're a rotten bastard. So is Hawtry. Look here, if you're not going to untie me the least you can do is loosen these ropes on my wrists a bit. I'm stretched like a bowstring."
"The effect is exquisite."
"I'm only a woman. It's no way to treat me. And for Pete's sake, can't you stare somewhere else besides my boobs and crotch!"
"They do tend to dominate the scene, dear lady--"
"Oh, for goodness sake, shut up with that claptrap. Look, I'm a grown woman. I've been around. I'm in a spot and I know it. But I'm not a nervous frightened kid, there's no need of all this tying up. I can take what I must. Untie me and let's act like adults. I--I'll-- "Chivalry forbids--"
"Piss on chivalry!"
"It would not be kind. The pain is, I assure you, more than you could bear."
"I'll stand still for it. I promise."
"You would writhe on the floor. Damned undignified for both of us."
"You mean it, don't you!" Paula recognized defeat. They stared at each other without subterfuge, seeing only pain. "Oh, to hell with it." The delinquent woman said disgustedly. "Let's get on with the lousy business. You should feel ashamed--" The leather thong snapped sharply across the Gantry rump. Paula gasped, her eyes widened in shock. "Did that cut me? I mean, is there blood?" She asked in startled curiosity.
"Negative to both." Scott Devonish eyed the strained mature nudity with admiration. "You took that remarkably well."
"Untie me. I'll stand--" The second stroke, across the ivory back, cut short her sentence. This time Paula Gantry conceded agony. Her head thrust against a taut arm and one leg kicked ineffectually at air. Breath quivering under control, she said no word. She responded thus to the third and then the fourth.
"The marks on your skin are superb, Mrs. Gantry. Pity you can't see them."
"Take your word for it. D'you really have to hit me this hard?"
"Yes, you're not a child."
"I can see now, you're right. I'm not going to be able to stand it."
"Consider those poor girls you disciplined and-- trained!"
"Oh sure, I'm thinking of 'em. I'm still more sorry for myself. Mostly it did those little pigeons a world of good."
"A touch of humility would do you no harm."
"Alright! Granted. How do I humble myself to get you to stop hitting me with that whip?"
"Why not try names?"
Paula Gantry sighed. "I said you were a bastard: you are! You may as well carry on whipping me. Let's hope by the time you cut the skin off my back I'll pass out."
"There is also your front, Mrs. Gantry. Those breasts...!"
"You wouldn't! A woman--" The leather snapped across both nippled globes before their owner finished her sentence. Paula Gantry lifted herself from the floor by her tethered wrists, writhing frantically. She screamed.
With cold accuracy Scott planted a second slash an inch below the first. Paula's breasts flattened under the impact, then leaped shudderingly as she contorted from' her tractioned arms. When her anguished dismay allowed her to pause, she muttered brokenly.
"So alright, you whip my breasts. I suppose you'll whip my cunt too. You've made your point: I haven't a hope. But, dammit man, can't you realize if I was going to blab I'd do it by now! I love my breasts. I'd do almost anything to save having them in tatters. Can't you see reason, or are you going to whip a helpless naked woman to death?"
"A well reasoned case." Scott agreed amiably. "The Special Service considered it before you did. Ever hear of St. Swithens?"
Paula tensed, her eyes focused on him with a new intensity. She made her voice casual. "Girl's School, isn't it? What about it?"
"For young ladies, no hoi-polloi. They turn out nice English types, so I'm told."
"I wouldn't know."
"There's a girl there... Fifteen. Name's Patricia. Mostly she answers to 'Trish'."
As Scott's voice trailed into silence Paula Gantry sagged. "Alright." She said dully. "Out with it."
"The dear child happens to be visiting here at the moment."
"You sons of bitches...!" The exclamation held despair.
"She's dying to greet you."
"Look, you rotten bastard." Mrs. Paula Gantry said heavily. "That girl is all I've got, my only child. I've done everything right for her. She knows nothing about Desmond House--or anything else."
"Exactly! A piquant situation. Much more humane than spoiling that lovely body of yours with a whip."
"It would kill Patricia to see me like this."
"No it won't. She's of this generation, and St. Swithen's isn't entirely a convent."
"You'll ruin the kid's life, and still not get those names."
Scott Devonish shrugged. "Don't try and make me out as too much of a bastard. It is you who's on the wrong side of the law, y'know."
"Balls!" Paula Gantry put her heart into the one word.
"I'm going to walk slowly out of this room to get your daughter. You know how you can stop me... " Scott turned away.
Paula Gantry watched him go. She was panting, furious at her dilemma. Her nakedness was suddenly a thing of shame. For Patricia to see her thus was unthinkable, but it was going to happen. She was helpless. Her mind raced through expedients, there were none. The five grave implacable men filled her horizon. If she became traitress to them her penalties would be far more deadly than those of the Special Service. Their perverted justice would touch her daughter too. She and Patricia faced two channels of retribution. The choice was easy. Hawtry would kill neither of them. But the five...!
"Mumsie...!"
The curves of the brunette child halted in dismay. Half way across the room Patricia Gantry paused, stricken. Her girlish features a study in incredulity. Scott Devonish had tried to prepare her, but reality went far beyond the boundaries of St. Swithens. Her mother, tautly naked, was not the woman she had previously known, seeing her thus was like the mischievous improbabilities of dreams.
"Oh, Mumsie...!"
Paula had no words. Enveloped in a hug she could not return she was shockingly conscious of her wealed breasts, which to a teen-ager must seem immense when robbed of bra' and dress. She kissed the top of the young head clamped in affection above their cleavage. "Don't panic, 'Tricia," She counseled distractedly. "We're going to come through... This is all a crazy piece of nonsense."
"But, Mumsie, you're tied! Your poor wrists...?"
"Don't worry about my wrists, dear. I'll try and explain--"
"The first thing is to get you untied. Oh, Mumsie, this is awful... I'll get something to stand on--"
"Out of bounds, dear girl. Your mother stays just as she is." Scott Devonish sauntered back to his task, his eyes intent upon Paula's reaction. "Remember what I've explained."
Patricia Gantry stepped back, and beheld her mother for the first time. It was a moment of discovery, a premonition of herself in twenty years. The two breasts, marked but magnificent, and down below the pubic forest from beneath which she had once emerged into the world. The youngster caught her breath in awe. "Oh, Mumsie... Mumsie... oh... "
"Don't worry, darling. This is the way little girls grow up." Paula Gantry said, not without humor. "Has that damn man told you anything?"
"They've all been nice but very stern. They say you've been sort of... naughty. That you won't tell them something."
"What they want of me is impossible, dear."
"They've really been awfully kind, Mumsie. But it seems we both have to be punished... or something?"
"If they lay a hand on you I'll kill them!"
"Well, they had to lay a hand on me to bring me here... " Patricia was obviously trying to fit pieces together. "And they say they're really the Law, sort of super policemen who can do anything... anything at all so long as it's for what they call the public interest."
"Scott, let the child go!"
"Patricia's not really a child any more, Mrs. Gantry. Take a good look at her."
The mother examined her child. The man was right. Patricia was neither child nor woman. Fifteen is very young. But the girl in the skimpy school Uniform radiated an unconscious aura of sex. Patricia Gantry might still be something of a tomboy but she was breathlessly young and female. She gazed back at her tied parent in anxious concern.
"Mumsie, I don't mind, honest I don't. I don't understand it all, but I can tell it's serious. They've whipped you, haven't they... ? "Well, if that's what I have to have--"
"Patricia, stop that! You don't have to be polite to them."
"But Mr. Hawtry and Mr. Devonish have been polite to me, Mumsie dear! It'll be ever so much nicer for us all if I sort of keep a stiff upper lip. I don't want you worrying about me, or ashamed of the way I act. I'm going to be ever so brave."
"Scott, listen to the little darling. Will you really...?"
"Yes I will. But not willingly. It's really your ball game, y'know."
"Tricia, I'm helpless. I'd blab right now and put an end to this nonsense if it wasn't that then we'd both suffer far worse than anything Mr. Devonish dare do."
"It's all right, mother. It will help having you here. I know we don't want to see each other shamed, but I'm not going to let it bother me."
In a second onrush of affection the teen-ager threw her arms around the taut nudity again, hugging and tensing, striving to re-assure. Then she turned to the waiting man.
"Mr. Devonish, do you want me to bend over and bare my bottom, or something? I'll try and not cry."
Scott had never known such a wave of sexual urgency as smote him then. This girl thing was exquisite, hiding her fear, being charmingly British about a terror she only vaguely understood. He supposed the poor kid was innocently expecting a public schoolboy's 'six of the best' across her bare bottom. Her uncontrived eroticism was excruciating. His response was awkwardly lame.
"Er, well... not at the moment."
"Or must I be tied like Mumsie is?" A tremor of fear had entered the young voice. "Must I undress?"
"Yes please, Patricia. That is the beginning of what we are going to do." He feverently hoped neither female could note or sense his outrageous erection.
"I suppose it's alright?" The daughter looked at her mother as though for approval. "I mean, no man's ever seen me naked."
"I'm afraid you have to 'Tricia. If we don't do things voluntarily men come and force--"
"It's not good enough for me to bare whatever bit of me is going to be hurt?"
"No, dear. It hurts so much we have to be tied. Then we can't do anything to help. Being naked's far the most practical."
"But when a girl's naked ? Doesn't that mean she's going to be.
? You know, that thing men do to girls...?"
"Forget it." Scott said tersely. "That's not in our book."
"You see, Mumsie, it's like I said. Mr. Devonish is terribly polite. I'm sure he's not doing this because he likes it." Patricia was groping her youthful way through the irreconcilable. "I won't mind too much being naked--after all those magazines... " Pubescence took the stage. Flushing, but being politely helpful, the teen-ager began to remove the innocence of St. Swithen's. With the school tunic gone the girlish slenderness seemed cruelly vulnerable. Uncertainly, Patricia glanced from the man to the woman as she searched the fastenings of her bra'. "Do I really have to take this off?"
"Please."
"Do as he says, dear."
The young breasts were a delight, firm cones of promise, generously nippled. 'Tricia did not question the briefs but slipped out of them with studied unconcern. Her stockings and shoes completed a neat small bundle against the far wall. The girl stepped back to face what she must, determinedly fighting down the impulse to try and cover what her small hands might hide. Her pubic bush was from her mother, a shining mass of black fronds.
"I feel ever so funny. I'm sorry about blushing."
"Let him tie your hands, dear."
In sweet trust the fifteen year old girl held out her arms to Scott, her small hands close together. Her apologetic laugh was a tinkle of silver. "It's like in books--this tying up...! I've never been tied up, not even in fun."
The girl was magic. Scott felt only disgust for his own concupiscence, his rigidity diminished slightly in shame at what he must do. 'Tricia was a naiad, a sylph, an elfin sprite. But she was also Eve! Undoubtedly she was less innocent than her mother would suppose, but about her was a shining freshness of the immaculate. Patricia Gantry was a product of the playing field and an Arcadian concept of the sanctity of young girls. Her small rounded bottom was a thing here might be more appropriate."
The woman and the girl looked at his choice. Paula shivered, but the daughter clapped her hands in surprised amusement. "It's--it's a pillory, an old fashioned pillory." Her eyes sparkled. "But it's not old at all. Its just been made: and so cleverly!" She beamed at her companions. "Is that the right name for it? Or should I call it The Stocks?"
"Broad as it is long, dear girl."
"And you're going to lock me in it?"
"Look, child, aren't you frightened?" Scott was finding his young hostage hard to keep up with.
"Oh, of course!" Teen-age excitement radiated in waves. "But think of what I'm going to be able to tell the girls! I'll be the most envied kid in St. Swithen's."
"Envied?"
"Well, yes. It isn't every girl who gets stripped naked and put in The Stocks by a good looking man."
"Patricia!" Paula Gantry was outraged.
"No, honest, Mumsie! It's a sort of a once in a lifetime thing. I know I won't like some of it, but I want to make the most of all the rest. Will that yolk thing fit me very tight, Mr. Devonish?"
"Try it for size, my dear."
The sweet nudity shivered deliciously. 'Tricia approached the stark timbers in rapt fascination. Scott Devonish raised the upper hinged half invitingly. He was entranced by this maiden who should have been in hysterics but was not.
"When you lower that on me, I've had it, haven't I?"
"Yes, there's a handsome padlock. Try a wrist first." 'Tricia inserted one small wrist within the waiting half circle. It was a motion tentative and absorbed. "Mmmmm, it must have been tailored for me." She sparkled at the watching man. "I say, Mr. Devonish, can I put the--the--rest of me in?"
"Please do."
The girl was a delight to watch. After trying various combinations she cautiously placed her throat within its appointed orifice, gathered her hair into a swathe to fall beside a prisoned cheek, then, one by one, fitted her wrists within the waiting bondage. Aware of a moment infinitely precious Scott lowered the second half of Patricia's prisonment gently, gently... Then the padlock.
"Wooooo, listen to that snap! Oh wow! I say, Mr. Devonish, I'm really foxed. I can't move."
"You look charming."
"Alright, she looks charming." Paula Gantry said fretfully. "Leave it at that, Scott. That's enough."
"Oh, Mumsie dear, this is thrilling." The pilloried maiden wriggled her hips and experimented cautiously with one bare foot. "I'm sort of in two halves, and one can't see the other. I can't ever escape, I just know I can't."
Scott Devonish fervently wished he had left the whole case well enough alone. Looking at 'Tricia's impudent rump he had thoughts of asking Hawtry to assign someone else, but it was a bit late for that, and duty was duty. He had little care for the regard of Mrs. Paula Gantry, but Mrs. Gantry's daughter was something else again. Looking at the bare pert pixie in the stocks he had no wish to mark its youthful femaleness with a cane. He wanted Patricia to like him. He also wanted something else in a demanding urgency, but he angrily thrust the thought aside, 'Tricia was much too young...! He said damn, damn, damn, over and over in his mind, but could not dismiss a truant curiosity as to how the teen-ager would respond to the act of love. A heated vision of Patricia Gantry spread wide and bound fast for his delight refused to dissolve. The precocious moppet might well revel in such exposure.
"Just don't struggle, dear, then it may not hurt." The mother hen was anxious for her chick.
"It's not hurting, Mumsie. It's the loveliest sort of feeling. Oh, Mr. Devonish, this is such fun."
The tied Paula was able to view her daughter's plight in profile. The intrigued teen features and hands on one side of the machine, the two saucy breasts and slender nubility on the other. The young head was able to turn and view parental concern. "Don't worry, mummy, you're worse off then I am." The captive neck turned in its yoke. "I say, Mr. Devonish, couldn't you untie Mumsie now that I'm so safely fixed?"
"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, Patricia."
"Be brave, darling. I think Mr. Devonish is about to do something nasty to both of us."
Disgustedly, Scott selected his cane. He deliberately flexed and tested it in full view of the girl whose bottom was to receive its kiss. It was altogether too unsporting to cut at her unexpectedly from behind. All his willpower had to be mustered to meet her limpid eyes and to offer a lame: "Sorry, 'Tricia."
"That's alright, Mr. Devonish. I'm sure if you have to cane me there must be a good reason." The girl in the stocks was being sportingly British. St. Swithen's would have cheered.
"For heaven's sake, man, don't cut her too hard. She's only a kid--"
"Oh please, Mumsie, I'm fifteen!"
He could have sworn the sweet buns bounced beneath the impact. Dazedly, Scott watched the thin line flash white, then red, then slowly turn scarlet. The owner of the bottom did not move. It was as though the naked 'Tricia and the pillory were one.
No one spoke. There was nothing to say. Scott struck again.
"It hurts my bottom terribly, Mr. Devonish." The young voice held a hint of tears. "But I expect it's supposed to?"
The man with the cane damned the lust with which the young lubricity inundated his being. If she had screamed or pleaded it would have been bad enough, but this eager compliance, this determination to live up to a code...! It was hard to bear. A demon of desire hammered at him to slash and slash the courageous derriere until the pleas and the writhings of its owner satisfied his male mastery. But he must maintain a cold perspective on this duty to the Special Service. With careful accuracy he cut Patricia Gantry's round cheeks once again.
Tm afraid I may have to make a noise, Mr. Devonish. Tm terribly sorry." The educated young voice trembled.
"Scream all you want, dear."
. Scott ignored the mother's bitter outburst. He himself was trembling with an intensity of feeling engendered by the supple curves and helpless exposure of the cane marked torso so cruelly prisoned in the stocks. This nubile child was in such vivid contrast to the stout timbers which locked her firmly in its grip, the pillory would have held a giant, for the dewy freshness of Patricia Gantry it was overkill. Why couldn't the damn Gantry woman have the sense to speak.' He had a terrible suspicion he could cut mother and daughter to shreds with the cane without Paula uttering a word. He understood her dilemma. In her plight he might be as mute. Irritably he struck again, savagely venting anger on innocence. Patricia made girl sounds, her hips gyrated, a bare leg waved itself at nothing, outraged by pain. Scott found himself examining the soft down rising from the bottom deft to make a feminine sheen where it met the spine. Below, the bottom flared anew with a fresh wound.
"You absolute bastard!"
Instead of attending the angry woman's concern Scott moved round to where he and the girl he was caning could see each other. In the wooden vise 'Tricia could move but little, but she managed to turn her head in recognition of his presence. Her smile was wan but it was there. A single tear plopped on the ground beneath her bent head.
"I--I--I really am sorry, Mr. Devonish... It's awfully difficult."
With a clean white cambric he dried her eyes, tenderly he rearranged strands of hair. The small hands had become whitely clenched fists sprouting from the wood, the slender neck was snug so that motion would chafe. By standing back he was able to glimpse the black triangle of her sex which the pillory made entirely his. He thrust aside ignoble visions...! "Patricia, there's no need for this." He said gently. "I'll leave the room for a few minutes: try and persuade your mother to put an end to it."
"No, don't go!"
"'Tricia's plea was vehement. "Mumsie and I won't try and influence each other, it wouldn't be cricket... and I might cry. I don't want to cry, Mr. Devonish."
The child was superb. Was every product of St. Swithen's thus imbued with nobility! Dazed, the man with the cane walked out of sight of the sad small head and resumed his address to the waiting cheeks of 'Tricia's bottom. From some courageous belief of what was required of her, the child hostage curved her spine to thrust the flesh to be wealed into a breathtaking prominence. The small striped rump assumed a personality all its own: pathetically anxious to please. Scott struck it, low, with vicious expertise. Then, in fury, he cast the cane aside, used the key, and took a grateful and sobbing maiden in his arms.
"You promised--You bastard you promised not - to...?"
To Paula Gantry his act had but one motive. Scott smiled reassuringly over the daughter's bare shoulder and shook his head. Gently, he patted and soothed away the child's distress. 'Tricia was strangely warm and trusting in his arms. When the sobbing passed she was once more apologetic. "I didn't do very well, did I?" It was as though she had come in fourth in the hundred yard sprint.
"You're a Trojan."
"It's the pillory, y'know. It was fun at first... and then... Oh, it's so-so implacable... And I couldn't see. Thank you for taking me out, Mr. Devonish."
"You're welcome."
"I think I can do what you need on my own, or with my hands or my feet tied... See?" She flitted from his arms, bent and touched her toes, arching down her back. Pinkly, she looked up for approval.
It was too much! Bleakly, Scott cut Paula Gantry free. "You can both dress and go home." He said disgustedly. "Good-bye."
"He was such a nice man." Said Patricia in disappointment.
Paula took her daughter firmly by the hand.
CHAPTER NINE - MASTER AND MISTRESS
"This is all your fault, Linda."
It was as though the three Naiads spoke their disaffection with a single tongue. Linda spared an unsympathetic glance at the lovely trio of suspended nudities. She was hurting and in no mood for guilt. "Can't you see I'm hanging here with you." She pointed out irritably. "If you want to cut me loose and show me the gate I'll willingly leave."
"We would if we could." Three Naiads sniffed piteously. "There's getting to be too many girls around here. We wish the Master would sell a couple, particularly you--"
"I've never done you any harm. It was you who whipped my feet. It was Lorinda your Master was angry about, not me."
"W-E-L-L-... perhaps. I say, Linda, have you ever been hung up by your wrists before?"
"Of course not."
"Don't be smug. Master punishes us like this often. We're sort of used to it but we don't like it. This is a bad one: All night, and now it's daylight and nobody's come. Do you hurt?"
"Of course I hurt! My arms are coming out of my shoulders."
The Naiads giggled. "And your wrists will have a red bracelet for days."
Linda looked up the outstretched columns of her strained arms to where soft leather bands circled her wrists, from them went the ropes by which she was lifted from the floor. There was no escape. To struggle was absurd and made everything hurt more. But she cherished a hope her hands would not mortify and fall off. No doubt she was in the hands of experts who knew how to preserve valuable female assets. She longed only to close her eyes and moan. Instead, she asked: "What will he have done to Lorinda?" More giggles. "She isn't being punished, not yet. Master likes her in that silly way men do like girls. She'll be in his bed with a chain on just one ankle or a wrist or round her neck or something, and he'll have been fucking her all night. She's so lucky."
"What if she fights?"
- "She won't, silly! You wouldn't! Neither would we." There came three maiden sighs. "Trouble is there's three of "Couldn't he do you one at a time?"
"Oh no! We always go together. That's why nobody's bought us yet. But Master does like us a little... We amuse him."
Linda wished her probings could be under less painful circumstances, but this was opportunity. Looking at her companions in punishment she tried hard not to envision the simile of what hung in a butcher's cold storage refrigerator. Mostly the four naked maidens hung passively in a seemingly frozen posture like sides of beef. "Will I really be sold?" She asked listlessly.
"If he keeps you it will just be because he wants to be unkind. He doesn't like those people you work for."
"Why aren't we whipped, instead of this--this--inhumane misery?"
"Oh, we get whipped too! Hard for special occasions, and light for a reward. So will you."
"Reward...?"
"Of course! It's lovely to get flicked all over and then fucked."
Linda abandoned explorations of the flesh and turned to the mundane. "Does your master own Desmond House?"
"He's your Master too, and don't you forget it! Don't ask us bad questions or we'll tell on you. Then you'll really howl."
Linda wondered if she seemed as lovely to them as they to her. The three Naiads hung limply in meek acceptance of their Master's displeasure. Their black triangles and taut breasts would be a mirror of her own. She had never ceased to marvel at the power of suspension to emphasize rib cages and tauten tummies. How strange a picture they must make as they hung awaiting their owner's pleasure. Slavery' robbed a girl of hope and of despair. But she was not yet slave...! "You said you'd help me escape?" She suggested tentatively.
"No we didn't! But it's an idea. We don't really want to escape ourselves, we like it here. But if you're very nice to us we'll keep an eye open."
"What's being 'very nice'?"
"Don't be silly. You've already nibbled our pussies. We made you do it--remember?"
"Oh that--well, I suppose...
"You almost have to be nice to us, darling, 'cause if you don't we'll tell awful things to Master and he'll punish you."
"But they won't be true--!"
"He won't know that... and there's three of us...
Linda sighed. She was doubly and trebly captive. The service demanded by these lovely creatures was not onerous but, because they were a trio, became fatiguing to her tongue. She longed for her Lorinda and for freedom. "I'll do what you want." She promised meekly. "You're very beautiful."
"And we smell nice, don't we. Our pussies have the loveliest scents--we know!"
Amoral and delightful! Linda could understand Gunderson's tolerance for these girls. Somehow she must mould them to her need. "I'll make you very happy." She assured brightly. "Please try and help me soon."
"We're not a bit happy right now." The trio mourned. "We're going to have a good cry because we've hung like this such a long time and we're tired of it. We're cheesed off." They wept.
The Naiads were incredible.
Linda wept too.
* * *
"All things are possible from Allah." Said the Sheik Haarami piously. "A docile maiden is his greatest gift to man."
"He tossed in a few oil wells too." Gunderson pointed out dryly. "By all means let us praise him."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn wanted to giggle. But she was not sure about the sheik, he seemed a grave and serious man. There was also Linda. She felt sure Linda had no giggles left. Her gaze swept the lovely nakedness and the bitter ropes.
"Between wise men a bargain bestows two victories." The sheik continued. He eyed both ladies present with interest.
Lorinda had served the drinks, proud of her dexterity in chains. She knelt now beside her Master's chair, her mind busy with the travail of her love, and of an hour past...
"The bastard's going to sell me, I know he is." Conviction had come to Linda amidst the suds and foam of the bath. "This is heavenly but I can guess--"
"It may not happen, darling... " Lorinda's hands had laved her love with infinite tenderness, the chains between her wrists wet and foam flecked. "I don't know much more than you--except that you absolutely must behave. It's a case of be nice even if it kills."
"Oh, don't worry. That hanging by my wrists the other night cured me of standing up for my rights. What must I do?"
"Smile as though you adore him and be very polite."
The cords had come after the bath: wrists and elbows, tied tightly and prettily by an enraptured Naiad. Linda had stood meekly as her shoulders wracked and her breasts stood forth. Pain was now taken for granted. She did not complain.
They had both, loved the dresser and the cosmetics and the gentle hands of female affection. The big mirror had reflected their rapt faces and the magic of skilled fingers. Chains are no handicap to lipstick and rouge. Hair was brushed and folded, its sheen an enticement to the senses. Perfume filled the room. Not all of it was from a vial. Linda was helpless in her bonds but her love was adept in her chains. They had come to the balcony lounge, glowing, aware of themselves as desirable. Linda to stand submissive to be viewed, her beloved to resume her plush slavery.
"I find her doubly alluring." Karl Gunderson observed suavely. "Observe those bound arms as surrogate to Hawtry. Her origin adds piquancy. Flog her and you flog the Special Service."
"Depends on how you like 'em. Whip a girl daily and she'll be anxious to bend the knee. On the other hand I enjoy a girl who's occasionally delinquent. Adds a bit of spice."
It was hard to kneel and watch her love fingered. The sheik was thorough and left no flesh unfolded. Linda stood stonily while her breasts and vulva were kneaded and weighed. She was determined never to hang by her wrists again if she could help it. She smiled up into eagle eyes while her nipples were testingly pinched. If the old fool wanted subservience it cost her nothing.
"I will obey you, Master."
"Would you care to use her?" Gunderson asked casually.
"There is a time and place " Sheik Haarami sighed.
"I sense in her a touch of the vixen."
"Whip it out of her a pleasurable task."
"Hmmmmm... she lacks the quality of she who kneels by your chair."
"Lorinda is not for sale."
"All things have their price." The sheik's gaze roved the deserts of his mind. His voice was gentle. "There is a matter of the Bahranwa Concession."
Lorinda felt her Master tense, his voice was curt. "We're talking about a girl, not an oilfield."
"I speak of both, dear friend. I have less need of oil than of female flesh."
"It is the captive girl only who is to be sold, Haarami."
"I value the breasts of which Solomon so lushly sang. But in that one beside you there is also a mind. An aging man finds much comfort in the mind."
"You underrate the girl standing there bound for your pleasure."
"I value both. It is for both I bargain."
The girls exchanged anxious glances. Lorinda, kneeling beside her Master, suddenly felt the weight of chains heavy upon her limbs. She sensed an undercurrent in which she and her love might be flotsam in the stream. Gunderson's next words did nothing to help.
"The girl you value is a lesbian, Haarami. Does not your faith-?"
"They are both lesbians, dear friend. You harbour vipers."
"Then why-?"
"I will purify both. Have no fear for them. They can still be heart's desire and give me comfort. Simply name a price."
The silence was heavy. Lorinda cringed. The bound girl tossed hair from her eyes but otherwise was still. When Gunderson's voice broke the spell it came as a troubled edict. "There can be no mutilation or torture, Haarami. Even the captive one must not suffer beyond reasonable punishment. The other remains with me."
"There is more at stake than slaves. The Bahranwa Concession is a matter of concern to many."
"You control it, Haarami. Need you juggle billions for a single girl?"
"You found magic in your Lorinda, so do I." The old eyes glinted. "There are your associates in the Consortium, you owe them loyalty."
"I owe Lorinda loyalty."
"She is a slave."
To the chained girl, the Sheik's simple statement was like a blow, the tearing of a veil, a deluge of icy water. She was a slave! Never had awareness of her new condition been so acute. She had seen herself as Karl Gunderson's mistress, his companion, his captive. Both of them had laughed at her enslavement: she seeing it as purely symbolic, the prerogative of a rich and powerful man. But now...! Lorinda looked down at the metal on her wrists. There was no escape--none! She was owned and could be bartered but would never know freedom again.
"True, but a slave much loved."
Haarami sighed. "They complicate our lives, these creatures with their breasts, their pubic hair, their eyes which are wells in which we wash away our wounds. But they are not as men, they must never be given that status. Allah gave them to us as a gift, and gifts are for the giving." In the ensuing stillness Lorinda trembled. She dared meet no eyes save Linda's, and there she found no hope, only a helplessness of rope and chain and nakedness. She thought of Women's Lib'. It was a mockery, far removed from reality, a pretty deception in the boredom of a spurious freedom.
"Haarami, forgive me, but no. Lorinda stays."
The sheik's sigh was more than eloquent. "The Concession...! It is dissolved."
"Dammit, man, don't hit me with Bahranwa as a club." Gunderson's voice held neither anger or defeat. "We've shared a lot. Let us now share the toss of a coin. Heads she's yours, tails she's mine?"
He had struck the right chord. Haarami was pleased with a solution honorable to both. "Let the girl make the toss herself." He said grandly. "She has more at stake than either of us."
With a silver coin placed in her chained hand, Lorinda looked fearfully at her masters. Their eyes were intent. She wished there was laughter. Between herself and Karl Gunderson there would have been, but here there was an empire in the toss. She looked levelly at the Sheik Haarami. "Heads I am yours, master." She turned to Gunderson. "Master, if it be tails I remain your slave." She flipped the coin to fall upon the rug.
It turned up heads.
There was no emotion, simply an acceptance of fact. The usual servants unlocked her lovely chains and bound her wrists and arms as Linda's were already tied. The two gags seemed inevitable. Lorinda tried not to choke on the wad behind her teeth while the wide strip of adhesive sealed her rebellious lips to render her mute. Inevitable, too, was the Cadillac with its soft black seat into which the bound girls slouched and sank while their ankles were bound and secured to a ring in the floor. They were two scared naked packages belonging to an elderly gentleman who possessed many wells of oil. Their final impotence was the blindfold. But when hers was tight across her eyes Lorinda heard the whisper in Gunderson's voice. "Ill get you out of this. I promise." In the darkness it was all she had. She clung to it.
The rest was shock, the numbness of disbelief. Gunderson had sold her, not willingly. But she was bound with Linda in a car taking them away from the man in whose arms she had found security and a strange content. Gunderson was gone. The Special Service receded into limbo. Desmond House was a quaint interlude long past. Reality now was the darkness, the clutch of cord, and the presence of Linda bound beside her on the seat. She struggled in the hope of some communion of touch, but she could not effectively move.
Had she loved Karl Gunderson! Lorinda plumbed her loss. Certainly between them there had existed a tremendous rapport, a sense of belonging. But there was Linda! She and Linda had found love and embraced it fervently. Their flesh had been separate in bondage these past days, but her hunger for the pungent musk of her beloved's loins remained an ache of longing. She was tom. Could a girl love a woman and a man! It would appear she did. It appeared, too, with an abundant clarity, that as the slave of Sheik Haarami she was to lose them both. It was not the first time she had wept behind blinding folds of cloth.
* * *
Linda shifted for the hundredth time, but there was small easement to be found. The four stakes were firm and the slender strips of leather from her wrists and ankles by which she was tied to them had been cunningly knotted. Her nudity was not tautly stretched, but it was frustratingly spread wide to allow her little leeway for motion. She suspected the two women who had bound her thus were experts at a familiar task. Probably many a recalcitrant maiden had been spreadeagled in the shade of the huge tree so that her costly skin be not scorched by the sun. Punishment was one thing, but the damage of costly merchandise was something else.
But was she being punished! Unhappily, she reflected that 'conditioned' might be a better word. She was a Lesbian being taught the error of her ways. Considering her Moslem ownership she was being treated kindly. She supposed the thing between her legs symbolic.
"Lorinda!"
"Yes, darling?" The instant response was comforting, it kept panic at bay. By painfully raising her head against the tug of tied arms she could see her naked partner in distress. Lorinda was tied as she was tied, sharing her sin and its penalty.
"You having any luck?"
"No. I don't think it's possible to get loose. We just hurt our wrists trying. How 'bout you?"
"Hopeless!" The single word held all of Linda's disgust. "I just try and get comfortable, but that's hopeless too--we've been here so long. Oh damn, I'd give a lot to be back at Desmond House."
"Linda darling... these damn things they've stuck in us... ? Why? I mean, what's the use?"
"Hell, that one's easy! Male superiority! We're never going to be allowed to forget our principle function."
"But they don't hurt! They're just enormous!"
"They don't need to hurt. They're getting their point across. I've orgasmed twice. I've heard you gasp it out three times."
"I couldn't help it--Oh, Linda...!"
"I'd have expected some horrible chunk of wood, but I suppose we're valuable. I damn near flipped when I saw these plastic monsters... In a way it's laughable. The sheik of the desert subduing his captives with a dink from mail order."
"Well, I'm subdued." Lorinda admitted morosely. "We might as well both surrender, or pretend to. But how do we convince the old boy it's genuine?"
"Oh, he'll know. He's wise. And anyway, all he has to do is chain us apart. Look at us right now! Gollies, darling, I sure need you."
"D'you think these huge cocks are inside us for life, maybe getting taken out when a man wants to use the slit?"
"Darting, how do I know! We may be tortured or loved. We've had that sweet introductory whipping to let us know where we stand--and now this! We must have been spread for fourteen hours." Linda giggled. "Damn good thing we're laying on sand and those girls have a shovel. Hell, they could keep us spread out here forever."
"That whip was awful! Maybe only five but we'll never heal."
"Got sand in the wounds? I have. 'Spose it's part of the deal."
"You talk too much." It was one of the women who had bound them thus. She surveyed their helplessness dispassionately. "I take you." She pointed at Lorinda. The finger swivelled to Linda. "You stay."
There was no arguing. When her wrists were untied Lorinda stretched her wracked arms and shoulders with joy. Then, in obedience to a curt order, she crossed her wrists behind her back and allowed them to be tied tight. Ruefully she looked at her feet, still stretched wide and tied to the stakes: her jailer was taking no chances. When they were freed she was still helpless and was led away by a strong hand grasping her hair. She managed a forlorn glance at her still tied beloved. The lot of lesbians seemed likely to be harsh.
The perfumed bath and the cosmetics told their own story. The woman was surprisingly competent with hair. Lorinda sat before the mirror, her hands still tied behind her back and watched herself beautified. Her covering was no more than a transparent scarf, draped cunningly to expose rather than cover.
"I make you pretty for the whip." Her companion explained comfortably. Bad girl must look pretty at start--she not look pretty at finish."
"But I haven't done anything!"
"You beautiful girl with naughty cunt."
"But I haven't touched a girl since I was brought here! I haven't been able to, I'm always tied."
"But would if you could! Very bad."
"Is it you who's going to whip me?"
"Not me. Is very fine show with everyone look. Is very fine lesson for hot girls."
' But I was whipped when I first came!"
"Pouf, just five on back. Now get many, many whips across naughty cunt."
Lorinda cringed at the cheerful assurance of agony. If her sex was flogged it would be because she was a woman, a female who must keep herself available only for the male. Wantonly and pleadingly available without reservations. "I couldn't possibly stand still for that." She said practically. "It's too damn awful."
"Not stand. Tied with feet in air and much stretch."
There was a gloating chuckle. "You look up and see your belly get the stripes."
It was a profitless subject. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn sat miserably and watched her nipples painted black. The effect was striking. She did not complain. This time she was led away by a firm grip on her arm, her hair had become too precious for disarray.
"I suspect our good Serenna has been teasing you." The Sheik Haarami chuckled. "You look most bereft."
"She says I am to have my sex thrashed, Master?"
"Ah well... perhaps. But not now. We must forgive her a small pleasantry, her life is dull." He surveyed his purchase benignly. "You are very beautiful, my child. I am pleased you call me Master."
"You are my master, sir. You bought me. I have no illusions as to what I am."
He nodded, pleased. "You will join me for coffee?" Lorinda twisted her bound arms. "I cannot, Master. I am tied."
"Ah, yes. And I will not free your hands. The effect is too exquisite as you are. Kneel close. I will be your hands." It was absurd yet strangely natural to kneel before this aging man and sip from the cup he held to her lips. He did it well, perhaps from much practice. Bound maidens would always be in need of help.
"You prefer your slavegirls bound, Master, to the use of chains?" It was a polite enquiry, something to say.
"Each has its virtue, my dear. You have not said farewell to silver links."
"And my friend, Linda, Master? She is still staked out upon the ground?"
"You could rejoin her, child. Take care."
"Yes, Master." Lorinda blushed. "Was it by my master's orders that we were--! That those things were used between our legs?"
Haarami laughed at her shyness. "There is a course of training Serenna inflicts. I leave the details to her. She is a woman." The humor in his voice became tender. "I suppose you realize you are chosen?"
"Yes, Master. Do you want me to--should I dispose myself...?"
His eyes twinkled. "But I am male?"
Lorinda sparkled back. "My former owner was also male, Master. I arranged myself for his pleasure most frequently."
"But with your hands tied behind your back...?"
"I have learned to manage, Master. My owner said it was better thus... " She flushed. "Some motion I must make... "
"Are you wanton, child?"
"No, Master. But I am a slave and must obey." She sparkled up at his grave regard. "I am also a slavegirl who does not want to be whipped."
"You obey only because you fear pain?"
"Not entirely, master. I am fortunate to be able to respect my owners. With them alone am I wanton."
"What of the old values, child?"
"They vanished with my freedom, master. When I was enslaved I was able to realize the absurdity of the old ways. When my Master uses me I am not soiled, I am enriched." She smiled in memory. "I admit the whip helped me much, but I need its help no longer."
He gave her more coffee. Haarami was pleased. "You have quality, child. I sensed it. You are honest. Tell me now, if I lock you and your lesbian Linda in a cell and forbid the entry of your sex, what would result?"
"We would disobey you, Master."
He was not displeased. "That piece of frankness will not earn you stripes, girl." Haarami sighed heavily, then chuckled. "Come child, you glimpse my problem. Tell me what I must do with the two of you?"
Lorinda was flattered and relieved, but still wary. "I suppose if you whipped or tortured us enough... But it would be very terrible. Why not simply keep us apart?"
"And have you both pining like does in heat! No. Can there be no termination arrived at between yourselves?"
"I do not know, Master. I have thought of it often--knowing we will never be free. Master, I do not know... If you have us whipped enough we will agree to anything and mean it--then! But I do not ask that we be whipped."
Again the old man held the cup to Lorinda's lips, nodding in a cynical sympathy for her dilemma. When the coffee was drained he clapped his hands. When Serenna came he instructed sadly. "You know what to do." To his wondering slave he intoned gently. "There are many roads to Mecca, my child. Tread one of them now."
The fingers on her arm, the stone chamber designed for the pain of girls was all too familiar. Lorinda stood apathetically while her feet were tied together, tightly and viciously. "You no touch knots." Serenna warned. She sounded amused.
"How can I with my hands tied behind my back."
"I untie." Strong fingers tugged and pulled. "You need your hands. Is best when you have hands. Now you kneel." Lorinda knelt. The stone was hard, her ankles hurt from the cut of cord. She found herself looking at her freed hands as at an anomaly. "Are you going to whip me, Serenna?" She asked dully.
"No whip. For you, this much better...
The woman was negroid. A wide smile, a knowing glance at Serenne and the long slender withe she now held. She wore a skimpy cotton sheath which she blatantly lifted to expose her belly. When she moved forward her redolent black thatch of pubic hair brushed the kneeling girl's face. Understanding flooded Lorinda in a wave of nausea.
"You girl who like cunt. Now you eat."
To these two women it was simple. Lorinda glimpsed an insurmountable barrier of misconception. Despairingly she wailed: "But I love Linda. It's not this at all. We're two girls who love each other, we don't love everyone."
"You love Hannah. She nice and plump with fat cunt. Hurry!"
"But I can't! It's not the same--" The whip sliced her back, a searing blaze of reprimand. Lorinda's instinctive lunge for the door died stillborn. Her bound ankles made her surprisingly helpless. She had hands but there seemed little she could do with them. Dismayed, she looked at the dark sex thrust at her attention, its musky aroma enveloped her in a cloud of female secretions. "I can't--oh please don't make--Oh please...!"
This time the thin length cut the exposed soles of her feet. The pain was so unexpected and so severe she screamed in shock and anger. But almost instantly embraced the ample thighs and buried her face in Hannah's pubic forest.
"You suck well. You push good with tongue. If Hannah say no good you get whip."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn remembered a schoolroom precept that what was worth doing was worth doing well. With strictured ankles and the whip at her back there was incentive enough. It was useless to plead innocence or lack of skill, she knew herself talented at this most female task. In blind misery, and fighting down thoughts of vomit, she paid lusty tribute with her mouth to the vulva and clitoris of a coloured woman she had never before seen. Her performance was watched with avid and critical attention.
"She any good, Hannah?"
"She very damn good! I come tomorrow?"
They discussed her as they might any novel facility. Lorinda knelt and let their vulgarities pass. She was thankful for her hands, they plucked Hannah's hairs from her lips and enabled her to ease the pain of knees on stone. She blushed at thought of how she had just used them to facilitate the thrusting of her tongue. Bitterly, she wiped her lips again and again as though to expunge dishonour. She knew herself pathetic kneeling in soiled and tarnished beauty in the centre of the big room. When Hannah left and was replaced by another leering face and a second pair of bare thighs the bound girl beheld the approaching loins and the curly triangle with a terrible surmise.
"This one taste very good."
The punished lesbian gave Serenna's whip no excuse to weal her more. She worked hard to please. Her lips, her hands, her tongue in no way dilatory. Buried in sexual scents she marvelled at the varying flavours of what she was compelled to eat. When the fifth woman replaced the fourth she cried in urgency. "Please, Serenna, no more! Oh, please...!"
The whip marked her viciously, but she persevered. "Please then--let me rest, please let me rest--My tongue...!"
They allowed her a respite, laughing. Lorinda rolled on one hip to ease her hurt knees. She looked up at the grinning faces and asked humbly. "How many--?"
"Much, much more. We hardly start. Your tongue grow strong."
"My tongue's tired out. Oh, Serenna, please don't whip me because I'm tired. That thing hurts terribly."
"Hurt much more if you bad."
The slavegirl resumed her task. The whip pinpointed the need of an explosive climax for each endeavour. It was demanded and desired. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn used all her expertise on each expectant clitoris. Her back was the beneficiary. Its weals were few but what there were hurt bitterly.
It became a marathon of feminine lasciviousness. There was no end to the discarded panties or the slyly raised skirts. They passed before Mrs. Wyburn's waiting mouth in slow succession, pausing only long enough to receive the homage of her lips and gain surcease from stimulated glands. Serenna herself, unable to withstand the heat of concupiscence, took her place at the altar of Lorinda's shame and was competently rewarded.
She scarcely saw the faces. Lorinda had no wish to meet the eyes of those she served. She savoured their flavour and tried not to absorb too deeply their pungent scents. For some, her lips and saliva must perform the function of the soap and water they had not used. Each went their way cleansed and satiated. Lorinda's gulping swallows were a punishment in themselves. Sometimes her tears wet the shine of pubic hair. Her tongue had achieved its second wind and worked steadily.
The child was rebellious. She was probably eleven or twelve, wide eyed and fearful, almost certainly under duress. Her steps were tentative, her manner shy as she advanced to behold the last gasping spasms of the woman currently being served by the vigorous mouth of a girl whose feet were tightly bound. The successful climax was accompanied by such moans as to give the pubescent candidate a false impression of agony.
Wiping her lips, Lorinda was audience to an urgent verbal exchange between the child and Serenna. She did not understand a word, but it was easy to discern the little girl's shocked aversion of what she was asked to do. Her denials were emphatic. She had probably been well brought up. Her doe-like eyes constantly focused on the kneeling girl's breasts and pubic hair as though astounded that females possessed such appendages.
There took place then a cruelty to touch the captive heart. After a staccato exchange the youngster stood abjectly and "extended a small frightened hand. Serenna struck the open palm with her slender instrument of agony, a shrewd cruel cut, merciless. For several moments the hurt child doubled over in pain. Then stood, lips trembling, and held out her other arm.
It took four blows. Four small cameos of agony which left the tied spectator breathless as the child writhed, hugged her hurt hands and wept. Unable to face the fifth the slim youthfulness turned towards the waiting mouth and shyly and tearfully raised the front of her dress to display her neat small slit and pubic floss.
"Serenna, please don't make her--she doesn't--" The whip neatly excised Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn's humanity. She clutched her nakedness and moaned against the burning scald across her back. The child watched the reprimand without surprise.
"You suck Gisells real good." Serenna admonished. "Never mind she don't want. You both get good whip."
The hurt woman locked eyes with the hurt child. They viewed each other with compassion. In a wave of feminine sympathy Lorinda held out welcoming arms. "I won't hurt you, I promise." She said simply.
The young loins came closer. The clefts, the hollows, the soft mounds were infinitely sweet and innocent. The silken sheen of a girl's first floss proclaimed their promise. Gently, Lorinda clasped the nubile hips and drew the appealing small vulva to her punished mouth.
But good intentions went awry. At the first entry of Lorinda's tongue Giselle yelped in shock and sped towards the door. Serenna neatly captured a flying wrist and dragged her back. Without a word she handcuffed the wrist to a ring in the wall and flounced from the room. The two captives surveyed each other dolorously.
Giselle's mother was young, she was pretty, she was unwilling and sullenly frightened. She kissed her handcuffed daughter tenderly, muttering words of endearment, then stepped back and stripped herself naked. She did so challengingly, no doubt previously instructed. Without preamble she thrust her sex against Lorinda's mouth and stood stoically while she was excited into response and the inevitable orgasm. The handcuffed child watched in disbelief.
There were no words. All was understood. Stepping back from the seeking mouth and tongue, the mother offered her hands to a highly amused Serenna who crossed the feminine wrists and tied them in such a way as to make their owner wince. In a couple of minutes the mother stood erect, taut arms held high, tethered by rope. Parent and child eyed each other glumly, bereft of hope.
Seremma whipped the maternal bottom with relish, cruel ringing cuts against which the dusky flesh had no defense. The tractioned torso writhed lasciviously in tune to the wealing blows. Lorinda likened the moans of anguish to the same sounds elicited by her lips. The handcuffed girl wept loudly and pleaded vociferously, tugging at her metal bond in disbelief she could be thus rendered helpless.
The pulley simplified Serenna's task of suspending the writhing jerking woman far above the floor. When Lorinda found herself hoisted to her bound feet and carried to where a pair of female legs protested their loss of support she knew what she must do. But when she sought to clasp the scented thighs a frantic foot lashed out to send her tripping from bound ankles. Crouching on the floor she watched Serenna's whip exact a terrible toll for her rejection. When next her lips sought the wet expectant sex the thighs hung limp and pliant to her hands. With mouth and tongue she sought to impart the sympathy her lips were not allowed to speak.
In the small cruel drama Giselle's handcuff next clasped the mother's wrist whilst the fragile young hands were crossed and tied then hoisted high. When Giselle hung taut at the required height there came a barrage of words before Lorinda, with ankles hurting bitterly, was allowed to encompass the helpless hips with tender arms and bury her face in the youngest flesh she had ever known.
It was wickedly erotic. Giselle made sounds, small frightened sounds that gradually changed to kittenish pleasure, her legs opened, one of them lifted across Lorinda's shoulder... Giselle twitched and jerked, her moans incredulous. Lorinda was obliged to clutch hard and tug the tight small bottom in to where she could work her magic with her mouth. But, even so, it took a long, long time before the youngster screamed her way through a portal she had never entered. The naked mother stood, fingering her handcuff, hating everything.
The rope, warm from mother and daughter, bit hard into Lorinda's wrists. To have them crossed and tied behind her back seemed only natural. Yet she was curious. "Why don't you handcuff me, Serenna?"
"Rope hurt, is more helpless, reminds you of Serenna." That was that! But she was getting rid of the brutal strands round her ankles. Thankfully, Lorinda let herself be led back to where her owner's amused regard told her of disarray. She met his gaze frankly. "I have been obedient, Master,-but I am soiled."
"You have also felt the whip?"
"I was slow, I argued... "
"Such honesty! But are you shamed?"
"Yes, Master."
"You want no more of female cunts?"
"I never wanted them, Master. Only Linda's. I want hers still. What you have had done to me has not changed love." The Sheik Haarami sighed. He went to the bar and mixed drinks. Falling to her knees his slave watched fearfully. She gulped and gasped at the potency of what he forced down her throat. Yet it was good, it was warm, the hand that held the glass until it was empty was kind.
"I am sorry, Master. I have disappointed you. Please have me whipped."
"You liked what Serenna provided?"
"I hated it, Master. It was horrible."
He nodded absently. "I do not understand. Perhaps it's our different faiths. Can you believe that?"
"Yes, Master. I hate myself for doing this to you. Have me whipped."
"Do not tempt me, child. I do not want to see your loveliness a mass of weals. Since, by your own admission, I cannot cure you I will concede defeat. Linda will be sold." Lorinda's voice trembled. She was close to tears. Yet she could not hate this man who did what he saw as just. Twisting against her tied hands she said meekly. "Yes, Master, I understand... " She looked up in abject misery.
"Will I never see her again... Master...?"
The Sheik Haarami clapped his hands.
"You much foolish girl." Said Serenna as she led her to her fate.
Linda was already waiting. She stood, a slight and lonely figure in the big stone chamber. Her hands were tied as were Lorinda's. She was just as naked. Dejection turned to joy at sight of Serenna's captive. Impulsively, she started 'o meet them but was snubbed short by the collar on her neck and the chain tethering her to the stone.
"Darling...!"
They spoke the endearment in unison, gazing hungrily and in trepidation as Lorinda was similarly collared and locked. Realization was slow to dawn.
"You have much fun eating... " Serenna laughed as she went away. The dungeon door slammed, there came the sound of bolts.
At the limits of their tethers two tied and naked girls stood and looked at each other in desolation. Between them was seven feet of space they could not bridge. The Sheik's mercy was limited by practicality.
"I don't think he ever really purchased me." Linda mourned. "I'm being shipped back to Gunderson. It was you Haarami wanted, just you."
"He's got me." The beloved slave fought the collar round her throat and tugged fretfully at her bound hands. "Oh, darling... Oh, Mistress, we'll never... never... "
"We had such a short time." Linda mused wistfully. "But look at us! I've never wanted anything in life the way I want you." She shrugged and added bitterly. "I wonder if the old bastard really knows what torture this is to be chained apart!"
"He knows!" Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn told of her sexual servicings. "Oh, Linda darling, he'll never let me touch you again... never!" In anger she shook the links holding her to the wall. Their clatter mocked. "I'm chained for life aren't I. I'll never, never get free. I'm a slave and I'll never escape."
"Go easy on those 'nevers' dear." Linda counseled. "If Gunderson allows me to speak to him I'll make him want you so bad he'll do something."
"What can he do!" Lorinda was disconsolate.
"Trouble is the old boy's in love with you--in his own ancient way. That means he'll be kind--unless you cross him too badly. Then he'll half kill you. Watch out. Better be nice to the old twit."
"He's kind to us now." Lorinda admitted. "If he wasn't we'd both be in his torture chamber. I expect he has one."
"Darling, think a bit. You're in for a life of soft pampered luxury. Sure there'll be a few chains but it's going to be damn plush."
"So what?"
"Think a bit more. If Fate gave me freedom and you I'd keep you tied and chained and well whipped. You wouldn't dare say 'Boo!' "
"Of course!" Lorinda's exclamation was an eager affirmative. "Of course you would! And I wouldn't say 'Boo,' not ever!"
"Sweetheart, d'you know what you're saying?"
"Yes. I'm your slavegirl. And that's all I want of life."
"Either way you're a slave."
Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn shrugged. "Seems I can't help it."
"You're quite incredible, y'know." Linda sat on the stone, tired of standing and the chain tugging heavily at her throat. "I've tried to get adjusted to the idea of being a slave myself. That's really what I am now. But I'm still not exactly a man's desire. Being staked out and violated the way we were made me meek and humble for awhile but it doesn't last. I'll probably get whipped half to death. I expect Gunderson will hand me back to that giggling trio of little bitches."
They remained chained in the dungeon through the night. The stone was hard but sometimes they slept. In the morning Linda was taken away, her elbows tied in the tell-tale strictures. Lorinda wept alone.
She wept through the day and through the night before Serenna took her once more to be made sweet and scented for her lord. Her wrists chafed against the cords she fought and could not loosen. They were not untied. When she knelt in familiar humility she asked. "My hands, Master, does it please you to keep them tied behind my back?"
"It pleases me and it is good for you, child." He bent and kissed her forehead. "Tell me your thoughts while you were alone with the chain."
"I thought of Linda, Master. I cried through the hours."
"Almost you provoke me." His eyes belied his words. "Do you truly want the whip? Cannot you save face for both of us with lies?"
"No, Master." She looked up at him and became a woman with a man. Forsaking stilted slave speech she admitted dejectedly. "I'm not... cured. Maybe if you give me time, but I don't think you want to give me time? You see me as a slave. Slaves don't bargain. Slaves aren't allowed temperament."
"You tell me I ask too much, I am importunate?"
"Sort of--and I know that's punishable--I'll have to put up with the punishment."
"There is more?"
"It's mostly to say how rotten I feel about you. You've been terribly kind, I know you have. I'm grateful, yet all I do is aggravate." Lorinda fluttered her strained shoulders. "Don't think I'm not mad at myself. I know I'm a slave, and I want to be a good slave for you. I'll be as obedient as you want."
"Yet cherish Linda in your heart?"
"I suppose so. Or in my mind. If I thought being whipped or having some sort of torture could cure me I'd ask you for it. But I sound like a lousy masochist."
They exchanged wry smiles of understanding. Haarami poured snifters of brandy. Lorinda choked and gasped but drank it all before Serenna was summoned.
"Have something very nice for you."
Lorinda was sure it would not be 'very nice.' She was half bound upon it before the odd structure began to convey its message. "What are you going to do to me, Serenna?" She ventured anxiously.
"Make ready. Make so cannot move."
A timber from above ended at the small of her back. Her waist was strapped to it. A crosspiece behind her shoulders held her arms. Straps at wrist, elbow and armpit welded her fast and protruded her breasts. When her feet were lifted from the floor the straps held. She did not sag. Then, each leg was dragged far to the side and slightly raised to strap each ankle to its appointed place upon the frame.
"You sit most pretty." Serenna approved. "Little cunt in air."
It was appropriate that it should be the same women. They filed in, smirking, laughing with Serenna, examining Lorinda's tautly strapped nakedness with curious eyes. They knelt and brought her to orgasms that caused the straps to creak against the heaving responses of feminine lubricity. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn gasped and moaned and, after the fifth mouth had had its way with her, pleaded for mercy.
"Serenna, please... please...! Not any more! Not now!"
"You much enjoy. No stop."
"I don't! Oh, Serenna, I can't stand--Oh please...!"
But they did stop their avid suckings between her sundered thighs. Instead, two of her tormentors stationed themselves on either side of the structure to which she was strapped and proceeded to apply their mouths to her extended nipples. Under Serenna's pleased scrutiny they sucked and tongued and used their teeth on the sensitive buds until the owner of the helpless breasts found herself in a turmoil of tumescence against which she had no defense. She looked imploringly at Serenna and received only a smile and a nod. Once more she wailed into an orgasm she did not want.
But there was no escape. The lips and the tongues continued their frictioning of her nipples. Pleadings and protests met only laughter. Lorinda's glands screamed in an agony of stress. She fought the straps but could not move. Her sex and her femaleness was delivered to the enemy. When a third mouth bit at her wet vulva and a third tongue entered her sheath it seemed no more than was to be expected. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn closed her eyes and resigned herself to the strangest agony a girl can ever know.
She supposed her overtaxed emotions had sought relief in unconsciousness. When Lorinda opened her eyes she was alone. She felt utterly drained. Flexing muscles, she found herself still totally helpless. Her loins ached from the incessant tug of her obscenely spread legs. Her nipples were sore, her sex still was wet. She wondered if her punishment was over or had just begun. Before night came the women returned. Serenna was merciless. This time there was a fourth tongue betwist the cleavage of the captive cheeks... Later, in the darkness, Lorinda remained strapped and helpless. With laughter, a pail had been placed beneath her pendent loins. She could stay as she was forever, Serenna had explained. They would return to bestow more orgasms in the morning. In the loneliness of night she wept and wept again.
The hood both gagged and blinded. The fingers tugging at the buckle behind her neck were brutal. Wrenched from sleep by the rubber prong within her mouth, Lorinda had seen nothing. When the straps fell away she was too stiff to fight. Handcuffs had clicked their locking of her wrists behind her back. A harsh hand in her hair guided her steps. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn stumbled into the darkness of an even more frightening night. She wondered what Serenna had in store for her now.
* * *
"The Special Service and the Minister concede our function." Paula Gantry announced comfortably.
"Desmond House continues. Hawtry has been told to lay off."
"You've done a damn good job, Paula." It was one of the five men. "We'll not forget you."
Mrs. Gantry watched four of them go, then gave her attention to the fifth. "You pull strings damned effectively, Gunderson."
The fifth man chuckled. "The Government even dropped a hint to Haarami. He gets his money back, that's all. And he's stymied on the Concession. But he's a decent chap. Ask him round sometime." He turned to where a naked girl stood quietly with hands bound behind her back and a tight hood prisoning her head. He grinned at a smiling Paula. "Shouldn't we have an unveiling?"
It was swiftly done. Blinking in the light, Lorinda emerged from limbo. The first and only sight she saw was Karl Gunderson. Helpless to throw her arms around his neck, she knelt instead and thrust her cheek against his thigh. "Oh, Master...! Oh, Master...!" It was all she could think to say.
"Been a bad girl, eh?" A male finger traced a weal across her back.
"Yes--oh yes! Oh, I'm so happy!"
"Give you a bad time?"
"Not really. He's a nice old man. Just Serenna... Please, Master, can I have my hands untied, I want to hug you both?"
"We like you tied." Paula said crisply. "But we love you anyway."
"Oh alright, I don't mind. Oh, Master, take me home."
"You are home, sweetheart. I've got travels for ten days. Paula will keep you safe for me. This is Desmond House--Remember?"
The slavegirl giggled. "The place where I'm 'boarded.' Do I have to be punished or anything?"
"Gosh no! Unless you misbehave. Why?"
"Well, I never know any more. Everybody punishes me.
It's habit forming... Lorinda looked around with sparkling eyes. "This is so good, so wonderful...! I just wish my hands were untied."
"That little hint earns you ten." Paula advised gently. Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn giggled. "That doesn't scare me any more. Fifty might, but not ten. Do I get them now?"
"Immediately! Put the hood back on her, Karl. I'll have one of the men attend to her."
Before the blackness descended again Lorinda was soundly kissed. Then the buckle. After that another hand... She was led away to her first punishment in the new Era. She was strangely happy.
"You are really too gullible for words, darling." Linda said as she removed her slave's impediments to speech and sight. "And you've hurt my feelings. I was listening outside the door--You never asked about me once."
"I knew! Oh, darling, I knew--I guessed."
"Don't be absurd. I should give you ten more."
"Yes! Oh yes--Please? I say, darling, please untie my hands so's I can hug you."
"That makes ten more. You know the rules."
"Oh alright. Hurry up and give them to me so I can be untied and we can go upstairs."
"That makes still another ten. Darling, you really must consider your poor little bottom. You're up to forty. And even when I take you upstairs I won't untie you. You'll never be untied again."
Lorinda considered her sentence. It refused to impinge on her consciousness. She glowed with joy. "That's lovely, darling. Since I can't have arms, please put yours round me.
Linda held her slavegirl close. Their kiss was forever. Lorinda's nipples were rampant against the fabric of Linda's dress. When the Mistress moved her slave protested. "No! Oh no, don't take your arms--"
"But I've got to whip you, you silly girl."
"Couldn't we go upstairs first?"
"You know what will happen if we go up there."
"Why can't you whip me tomorrow? It will hurt me just as much then."
"Because I want to whip you now. You make love beautifully after you've been whipped."
"Well, O.K. Pull my arms way up behind me so's I'm bent over and can't get away. Forty's a lot. I've just remembered. I say, Linda, what about me and Gunderson?"
"Next week is my birthday. He's giving you to me as my gift." - Mrs. Lorinda Wyburn sighed in ecstasy. Her cup indeed runneth over. "Pull my arms up a bit higher." She pleaded. "And kiss me before you start in with the whip. Oh, darling, I'm so happy...!"
