For Celie, the most delicious part of coming home had always been the moment when, all else attended to, she went downstairs. It had never bothered Alastair that she should do this. She knew he got a vicarious enjoyment from her fascination with whatever she found there. Not that her enjoyment ever matched Alastair's own emotional involvement. But ever since that first time long ago when she had made her initial discovery and stood in wide-eyed wonder at what she had found, it had been understood that going downstairs was as natural for her as for Alastair himself. Only the Special People went downstairs. She and Alastair were Special. Alastair was the most Special person of all.
The years and going away to school had changed nothing of their knowledge of being Special. Celie herself had become female instead of being what Alastair had laughingly called 'A rag and a bone and a hank of hair'. Alastair never changed any more than did the Great House. To Celie, Alastair and Soniaive had been there always. Without the need of words, it had become implicit in the fabric of Celie's life that what she found downstairs was never spoken of beyond the walls of Soniaive. It was a very Special thing. To have spoken of it to her friends at school would have been like walking down Regent Street without wearing any clothes. Besides, it belonged to Alastair.
Throughout adolescence Celie had been unconcernedly aware that she would inherit Soniaive, and along with it as an integral part of growing up would be the Downstairs. It did not matter whether she inherited Alastair or Alastair inherited her. Everything was implicit and one. It was part of the knowledge of being Special. The Will had said when she was twenty-one. That was not yet. Celie rarely thought about it.
Alastair had spent a lot of money Downstairs. The original granite was as solid as the day it was laid all those centuries ago. It had been polished and refined. Additions and repairs had been done either in the monolithic concrete or with the soft yellow native stone. To Celie it was beautiful. She knew that not anyone would agree. Alastair had been clever about the lighting. Downstairs the daylight was elusive, sometimes a lot, sometimes none at all. It would have been nice to use the old flaring torch; in fact a few were kept around for appropriate occasions, but electricity had been made magic by diffusion and concealment. It added to the medieval atmosphere, it shattered no mood. Celie flipped a switch, opened the first door and went confidently down the first stone steps.
Nothing had changed. The wide vaulted passage was a vast chamber receding into distance. On either side were the doors. Some were bars so that the interior of the cell as open to view, others were a gothic arch closed by a timbered and ironed door as massive as its bolts. Silence possessed the place as something almost tangible. It would have daunted most. But, for Celie, it held magic, it always had, right back from her first memories of childish explorations and the moment of her first discovers.
Instinct and foreknowledge led Celie to the right door. Its massive key hung from a hook set in the stone, but tit was rarely used, the great bolts were more than enough, there as little need even for them. The hinges were oiled, the air was warm. It was a tremendous moment when she stepped inside.
The girl was very beautiful. She stood with her back to the door, her forearms held vertically one to either side of the stone pillar to which her wrists were clamped by metal bands at the level of her eyes. She seemed to be resting. Celie knew she was not. At the sound of entry the head had raised and turned, the naked loveliness had tensed. "Hello," said Celie brightly. "I've come to visit you." She walked to beyond the column to where she and the captive could examine each other.
The nude girl surveyed her smiling visitor with apprehensive puzzlement. She pulled uneasily at her prisoned wrists. "Do you... do you belong here?" she asked hesitantly.
"Of course I belong here. I'm Celie." After she had said it the words sounded silly, the girl would have no way of knowing. Celie examined the planes and curves of the taut nudity. They were gorgeous. Alastair got only the best, they were always gorgeous. It was a pity they were frightened.
"Let me loose," the prisoned demanded peremptorily. "That man's insane."
It did not vary all that much, Celie reflected. It was not so much the plea, that varied hardly at all, but its delivery that betrayed the temperament of Alastair's captive girls. This one was evidently a no-nonsense type, or wanted you to think she was. Celie was well aware that her own demeanour was deceptively douce. "What's your name?" she inquired in her best little girl manner.
"My name's Moira Robbins." The voice was tired and testy. "Now get me out of this absurd predicament. I can go along with a joke, but this is just too much."
Celie nodded understandingly. This girl must be very new, but that would all come out later. She walked slowly round the pillar and the nude figure of the girl clamped to it. "You haven't been whipped yet," she observed conversationally.
"Oh no! Not you too!" The tone was more impatient than before.
"Didn't Alastair mention that?"
"Look Celie, or whatever your name is, this is no time for being kittenish. Unlock these metal things round my wrists and we'll all go home." The urgent voice was honeyed with sweet reason.
"He's bound to whip you soon," Celie observed reflectively. "If I ask him, he may let me. Would you like that?"
Moira Robbins took a deep breath as though to ready herself for a battle. "Suppose you tell me what this is all about?" she asked with an evident effort at control.
"You're just one of Alastair's girls. He always has one, y'know." Celie explained the obvious.
"No, I don't know! And I'm not anybody's girl. What do I have to do or say to get out of this?" Anger was back.
Celie always felt a bit guilty at enjoying these preliminaries. They were always so hopeful: She was female, she wore clothes, she looked sweet. It gave her a most unfair advantage. They were usually quite sure she was aching to release them. They never understood. "But you're not going to get out of anything," she said brightly as though in reassurance.
There was always a shocked silence at this point. Hurt eyes looked at her reproachfully in a dawning understanding. "You mean, you're one of them?" The question held disbelief. Celie had to suppose she did not look like 'Them'. "There isn't any 'Them'," she explained patiently. "Just Alastair, and I suppose there's me... and the Special ones. Since you haven't been whipped I don't suppose you've met any of them."
"You're mad, you must be!" The naked captive turned stricken eyes to her bonds. She clenched her fists and pulled. She stretched her fingers and sought to turn her wrists within the metal bands that held them. She tried to back away from the pillar. All were instinctive motions without expectation of success. She changed her attention from one wrist to the other, as though seeking a weakness she might exploit. Her captive wrists were so close to her face that she felt surely there must be a way... With fingers, lips and tongue surely there was a way! But there was no way at all.
"It hurts if you struggle," Celie said helpfully.
"Of course it hurts! Why can't I just be locked up? Why do I have to stand like this?"
"Because you look very beautiful like that, and you're all ready to be whipped." Celie knew she had to explain the obvious over and over again. She always tried to be patient.
"But why naked?"
"You can't wear clothes while you are being whipped," Celie pointed out reasonably.
Moira Robbins looked searchingly at her bright-eyed visitor. Celie was a breath of spring in the grim dungeon.
She could not be equated with iron bands and a naked captive girl. "There's something I don't understand," she admitted carefully. "You seem to think it's quite natural and perfectly all right for me to be... the way I am. But this insane man... ! I want to know why?"
The question always came up. It was a bad one. Celie never knew quite how to deal with it. It was like asking why the sun came up every morning; it just did. There was no explaining the immutable verities. "Well, why not?" she countered cheerfully as though disposing of the obvious.
"Because you've got no bloody right to!" Moira asserted vehemently. "I've damn well been kidnapped. It's a police matter."
"Where did Alastair get you?" Celie inquired with interest.
The captive sniffed disgustedly. "You make it sound as though he bought me in a pat shop. I think he drugged something I drank. I woke up here. Where the hell am I?"
"I expect you'll understand everything after awhile," Celie said consolingly. "Alastair's bound to explain. You'll find that being whipped a couple of times will help tremendously."
"Don't be absurd! I absolutely refuse to be whipped. Being whipped never helped anybody!"
"If you've never tried it how can you know?"
"Have you ever been whipped?" Moira demanded.
Celie considered the premise. It was a cherished fantasy that always invoked delightful sensations. "Actually I haven't," she admitted. "But I have whipped a lot of you girls, and it really does help you a lot. You are always quite different when it's over."
"That's a fatuous remark!" The girl with prisoned wrists looked at her companion in exasperation. "If you'd an ounce of decency, you'd at least let me loose from this damn pillar I'm fastened to."
"I don't have the key," Celie said innocently.
"It's hanging over there on the wall," Moira informed her bitterly. "I'm sure he hung it where I could see it just to be unkind."
Celie had known perfectly well where the key was kept. "I can't set you free," she explained diffidently. "You'd create no end of fuss and commotion. It's much nicer the way you are."
"For you!" The voice was bitter.
"You have lovely breasts," Celie admired. "You are really a very beautiful girl. I can't get the best look, the way you're standing. But I'm sure Alastair will stretch your arms sometime and then I'll be able to see you properly. If Alastair lets me whip you I'll ask him to tie you like that for me."
"You can both go to prison for the rest of your lives." Moira tugged angrily at her wrists. Celie had been a deep disappointment. So sweet and seemingly na�ve a girl should surely have held some possibility of help or escape. "Won't you tell me anything? I mean, anything sensible?" she pleaded.
"I knew I'd find you here, sweetheart." Alastair's voice was as brisk as his stride. Celie saw that he carried the long slender crop he used on them first. She knew it hurt terribly, but it did not alarm them the way a whip did. "Really first class, isn't she? A beautiful thing. I'm tremendously pleased with her."
"Let me loose, you crass idiot," the beautiful thing demanded crossly.
The lovely white snickered through the air and cut a red line across the virgin skin of the captive bottom. "Still thinks she belongs to herself," Alastair observed casually.
Celie watched with tremendous interest. She rarely was present at the first stroke. It just had to be worth seeing! Moira was surprising: no scream, no contortion. Receiving the unexpected blow the naked body tensed, rose on its toes and hugged itself to the stone of the pillar by the captive hands that were now fists clenched white against their bands of iron. The lovely face, too, sought the stone as though in lonely solace for her hurt. Her breathing had become great gasps for air as though she was drowning in agony. Slowly she turned and held the gaze of the man who held the whip. "You rotten bastard," she said levelly with repressed fury. "Do that again and I'll have you hung!"
Alastair did it again.
This time Moira sobbed and stamped her bare foot in a frustration of impotence. Celie watched the second red line take its place beside the first, and sighed in deep happiness at the pure beauty Alastair had brought into being.
The three of them stood, each savouring the situation in their own way, Celie in simple delight, Alastair in silent tribute to the fortitude of his most recent possession, the captive girl, her forehead hard against the column to which she was locked, her shoulders heaving in the emotion of fear and shock, silent, waiting, tense.
"The little matter of hanging?" Alastair inquired pleasantly.
"Go to hell!"
For the third time the crop cut the air and the firm skin. Celie glowed. Moira screamed. The high keening sound held all the feminine agony of the whole world, the eternal protest of being born a girl. "Alright!" She bit the words out savagely. "What do you want?"
"I have all I want," said Alastair.
They resumed the silence that resumed their need so well. Celie knew a great content. Her Alastair! Darling Alastair! And this gorgeous curved naked creature who was theirs! The naked creature's mind was a teeming ground of infinite fertility for the lessons she must learn and the new vistas she would be made to see. The locked hands above the metal bands around their wrists were clenching and unclenching in mute testimony to the turmoil of their owner's thoughts. Celie sighed with happiness.
Moira Robbins clung to practicality with the tenacity of a drowning person clutching a lifebelt. "You must want me for something?" she said probingly. "I suppose it's sex."
"Raise your sights a bit," Alastair suggested. "Get 'em out of the gutter. There are other things, y'know."
Celie loved him like this. He was so male! Yet so insouciant! That he should sully his shining armour with the drabness of palpitating glands and obscene postures was unthinkable. Poor Moira! She was only at the beginning! Lucky, lucky Moira! Lucky that she had been chosen... If only she could understand! But she would! How fortunate she was! Celie almost envied her.
"What other things?" The voice was uncertain.
"I'm going to make you female."
"What's that supposed to mean? The way you have me fixed... naked and the rest, can anybody doubt I'm female?"
"You deny your femaleness every time you speak." Alastair was laughing.
"Undo my wrists from these damned things and I'll lay on my back for you. Is that being female enough?" The words dripped gall.
The fourth cut across the curved flesh took the girl who received it into a new wilderness. Despite the pain to her wrists she struggled and kicked in bitter helplessness. The red lines across the satin of her rump caused Celie to glow with joy. The mobility of Alastair's carved handsomeness betrayed only amusement.
"What do you want?" Moira's question trailed away into a moan. "If you don't tell me what you want I can't do it; this could go on forever."
"Yes." Alastair filled the word with affable agreement as though, at last, an understanding had been achieved. Celie knew he was being cruel.
"Yes what?"
"You could try me wit a 'Yes Sir'," Alastair suggested.
"Yes, what? Sir...!" The voice of an exasperated mother pampering a spoiled brat.
The fifth cut was quite cruel. Celie and Alastair just stood and drank in the sight of a chained and naked girl fighting a dragon she could not see. A pain dragon with raking claws. Alastair smiled at his adored Celie. "She's good stuff, Pussycat." His voice was tender.
His use of her pet name, the name he had given her years ago in her infant play, always made Celie glow with love and with a sense of her power in that love. "Please, Alastair, may I have her now?" she pleaded. She twinkled at him mischievously. "I think she needs me."
Alastair chuckled. They knew each other's thoughts. He had been waiting for the request. Placing the length of wickedness in her eager hand, he kissed her lightly. Turning to the wide-eyed captive he assured her suavely: "You're in the best of hands. Try and learn something!" A moment later he had gone, the door slammed shut.
Moira Robbins sulkily eyed the thing in Celie's hand. "I suppose you carry on where he left off?" she queried with dour certainty.
Celie kissed the unyielding cheek and patted the captive hands. What else but love could she feel for something so exquisitely provocative! "Of course! I'm going to whip you really hard, perhaps harder than Alastair. Don't you want to ask some questions?" "Alright! I'll ask questions. Why are you using that beastly thing on me? It hurts worse Than I thought anything ever could. It just curls me up. I'm not going to pretend to be a bit heroic."
"Oh this!" Celie laughed and held up the crop as though an old and dear friend had been introduced into the conversation. "Being whipped will turn you into a new girl, quite different and very nice."
"Look," Moira's voice was hesitant, on the brink of the unmentionable. "You two enjoy whipping girls... That's it, isn't it?"
Celie knew this to be difficult territory. "You're thinking of the poor Marquis de Sade?" she offered tentatively.
"Yes I am! And what was so poor about the bastard?"
Celie had always felt sorry for the ill-starred Marquis. She had read up on him. "After he whipped his first bottom, the poor dear didn't have much fun. He was very badly treated," she explained defensively.
"I'm glad to hear it," said Moira, unmollified. "Seems to me a little bad treatment would do you and that wretched man a bit of good. Knock some sense into you."
Celie's spirit soared into the ethereal as her arm flashed and the scarlet streak came into clear imprint across the ivory shoulders. "You mustn't talk like that," she said innocently.
The naked girl fought frantically at her prisoned wrists. She struggled and moaned her way through the morass of pain back to the solid ground of reason. "Not my back! Oh, not there! I can't stand it. I... I thought a girl was only struck on her... her, oh dammit! On her behind. Please...!"
Celie almost giggled. But she knew this would be unkind. What a quaint notion! Just a girl's bottom... ! She would have to tell Alastair. "There isn't any part of a girl that can't be whipped," she explained as one female to another. "Even your breasts and down there between your legs... You see, that's what it means to be a girl. You can't expect to be... well, ignored, when you have all these nice things."
Moira Robbins shifted as best she could within her bonds. Celie could see the skin whiten as it tugged at the metal clamps holding her slender wrists. The naked captive managed to get a sideways stance and look Celie in the eye. "You are sadists, aren't you?"
"That's a word Alastair won't tolerate," Celie warned. "I should whip you for it now, and I will if you use it again. No! We are not sadists."
"What name d'you use for it, then?" The words were pure sarcasm.
This time Moira could see the stroke. She turned back and hugged the pillar as it cut a second red furrow beneath the first across the width of her shoulders. Her wail of agony was deeply satisfying. Celie glowed.
"I'll try and explain," she said gently to the girl who was sobbing bitterly against the unsympathetic stone. "Soniaive is filled with lovely things, beauty created and collected from all over the world for a long, long time, generations and generations. Soniaive itself is beautiful. Those who have always lived in it, and now Alastair and I, have lived by a creed of beauty. If a thing is not lovely, we do not want it. We are not alone, of course; I spoke of the Special Ones. Around the world there are those who see order and grace in beauty, a sort of fulfilment, a purpose. Something ineffable that separates us from the copulating rabble... " Celie giggled shyly, "Do I sound like an encyclopedia?"
"You sound like Hitler's Nordics," Moira sniffed. "And anyway, what's it got to do with me?"
Celie smiled inwardly, they were so obtuse! So terribly unaware. "Because you are the most beautiful thing of all," she said softly.
Once more the hurt eyes turned from the column, seeking hers in puzzlement. "But there are more beautiful girls than I... ? Why me?"
Celie laughed at the unintentional modesty. "You are exquisite," she assured Moira definitely. "The world is full of beautiful girls, you are one of them. It's quite simple. You are not the first or the last. Try and feel honoured you have been chosen."
Ripe lips pursed in disagreement. "If I answered that the way I want to, you'd use the damn thing on me again," Moira said morosely.
Celie's eyes sparkled in recognition of a passing phase. Rising on her toes to give fluidity and weight to her arm, she wrapped the slender withe 'round the slim waist to leave a decoration that was a narrow belt of carmine agony. She stood, entranced, as the naked girl paid vocal and physical tribute to the reward of an imprudent tongue. "When you stop making all that fuss I'm going to hit you again in exactly the same place," she said pleasantly.
The diminuendo of female anguish did not die easily, but the pleas became more explicit. "Don't hit me again! Oh don't! It's too awful... you don't know no one can know! I'm... I'm sorry for what I said. I know I'm a bit of a bitch. I'll try and do better. I will! Oh please...!"
"This one will do you more good," Celie explained helpfully. "You know it's coming, there's no surprise about it, and you know why. You'll begin to relate the things you say and do to getting yourself whipped. It really does help, honest." She made a perfect stoke, of which she was immensely proud, the rubiate circle would be upon the punished skin for weeks and perhaps for months. She sighed in the purity of bliss.
The captive wrists flamed flecks of claret as the whipped nudity squirmed out its desolation of fear and impotence in conflict with the iron wristlets. Celie watched with ardent eyes as Moira moaned her way to eventual silence.
The tableau resumed its original shape and form as though sections of a jigsaw had been slipped in place. Only the heaving of naked shoulders and the gasps of sobbing breath intruded on the perfection of pose. Celie knew herself part of something ineffable. One day Moira, too, would become initiate. How wonderful was Alastair to have found such female flesh. Alastair always knew the ones to take. Celie glowed with love for him. She felt a great tenderness for this naked frightened girl who she still must whip. "It was different, wasn't it?" she asked brightly.
The affirmative was slow to come, but it came. "Yes, it was different." Moira admitted slowly, each word unwillingly spent. "It was awful... hateful! Why must you?"
The graceless protest invoked a flash of Celie's arm and Celie's whip. A thoughtless motion left vulnerable that for which Moira had felt no fear, the lash snaked up between the round softness of thighs to spend its venom on feminine innocence. "You really must learn to talk politely and stop complaining," Celie imparted with a trace of irritation.
It took a long while, but the panting respirations finally formed words. "Yes... oh yes! I'll stop being clever. I'll... I'll be humble. That is the thing, isn't it?" The whipped girl pleaded anxiously, "Just tell me."
Celie said nothing, but stood quietly drinking in the loveliness blended betwixt girl and whip, the two melding into the perfect entity of sexuality, one incomplete without the other. She felt no need for words. But Moira did.
"Please, how long must I stand against this pillar?" she asked politely.
"Not long now, dear." Celie was glad to be reassuring. "After I've whipped you properly, we're going to go and have tea with Alastair."
The scared eyes tried to look back over the striated shoulder. "Whipped me properly...?" There was a wealth of puzzlement in the question.
Celie tried hard. "You're ever so much better already." She encouraged. "Each time you felt the lash you became a little bit more reasonable. You did, didn't you?"
"I suppose so." It was a sulky admission instantly corrected. "I'm sorry." Moira affirmed hastily, "Yes. You're right. It's made me scared and careful."
"So a really proper whipping will really make an impression, sort of take you over the hump." Celie explained cheerfully as though offering candy.
The naked captive made no quick reply. She was obviously mentally sorting out a litter of emotions she would have preferred to leave undisturbed. "And after you've done that... done that to me. I'm to have tea with you...?" Bafflement was in every word. "I'll simply run away." She studied the premise in her mind. "Even with no clothes on," she added as though to clinch a certainty.
Celie giggled. "You would look funny doing the hundred yard sprint across the lawn. I'm in a good mind to ask Alastair to let you do it. Your breasts would bounce beautifully."
"You're a little pervert!" Moira exclaimed vehemently without wisdom.
The silence could be felt. "Alright!" the columns captive asserted defiantly. "I forgot. Go ahead, whip me!"
"It will be five this time." Celie's voice was very sweet.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't whip me any more: oh please...!" The captive voice was tearful and sincere.
"That's just the reason you have to whipped, dear." Celie was the wise and loving parent with the recalcitrant child. "After you've been whipped a lot you won't keep getting into trouble. I'm going to give you these five fast - I know it's terrible like that. You can tell me about it afterwards if you want."
Moira Robbins' prisonment to her pillar was such that she could do little but struggle. But, as the whip found her she flung her nudity back and forth and sideways within the strained tolerance of her immovable bonds. Celie, watching, wondered in admiration at the sinuous writhings and the determination to resist they proclaimed; even some of Moira's screams were screams of anger.
Celie knew herself the creator of something beautiful. Alastair would be proud of her. In the end, even the screaming girl would be grateful. Perhaps they would love each other. That would be nice! She whistled the limber crop across the top of the soft thighs, and then brought it swiftly between them as an angry leg kicked in futile protest. With expert knowledge of what a whipped girl might do, Celie slashed the sole of a naked foot as it was thrust out in a spasm of agony elsewhere. No one of the five swift strokes fell upon the same flesh. Each introduced Moira Robbins into a new realm of sensory terror. When they were quickly done, the girl with the whip stood back to enjoy the picture of the contorting nude, and to allow the flame within her own loins to burn and burn with an ever increasing intensity until she was sure she shared a greater and more exquisite pain than Moira had ever known. She knew great happiness.
When the bound girl's lips produced only wracked sobs, the silence lengthened. Celie was satisfied, so that finally it was the captive who must break it. "If I promise not to run... not to... to do anything at all, will you unfasten my wrists please?" It was a small and very apprehensive voice.
Celie laughed delightedly. "You don't have to promise anything, dear. At this stage you'd probably break the promise anyway. You'll be quite safe. I'm going to chain you."
It had become an involuntary reflex. Hurt eyes peered back over a hurt shoulder as though seeing a distant vista for the first time. "Chained... You'll chain me... the way they used to chain slaves...?"
"It's very practical," Celie assured brightly. "They look rather nice on a girl. Everything of Alastair's is wonderful. You'll see! I'll show you."
Unbelieving eyes followed her across the room to the big old chest. When Celie turned she held finely wrought shining shackles for a girl's feet. Moira gazed at them in wondering fascination. She did not move as Celie knelt and clasped the silver metal bands on unresisting ankles. The solid links joining them were no more than ten inches in length. A girl so hobbled would not run, even her walk would be slow and measured. "These save you an awful lot of wondering what to do next," Celie assured Moira sensibly. "Chains are awfully good for a girl. You know; she doesn't have to make awful decisions. She knows where she's at."
Moira lifted an experimental foot. It was a strange sensation; the clinking of the chain was not unmusical. She kicked and was instantly snubbed. She had never felt so helpless, or so curious. With equal fascination her gaze followed Celie, once more, to the sinister chest. This time it was handcuffs, shining silver, metallic, speaking the language of today in the same way the shackles spoke of centuries long past. Far distant in time, they were united in intent: to hold a girl captive to her Master's will. "I don't want those things on my hands," she declared with infinite distaste.
"Would you really rather stay as you are?" Celie inquired sweetly.
The captive shoulders slumped. Moira's silence was more eloquent than words. Her eyes rested on the gyves that secured her to the pillar; they held a greater loathing than she had bestowed upon the handcuffs.
Celie took the key from the wall. "I'm going to free your hands. You will then hold them out for me," she explained carefully. "If you don't, and if you want to fight, I'll whip you until you become sensible." She smiled brightly and unlocked Moira's right hand. With only a brief hesitation she freed the left.
It was a tense moment. The two girls stood surveying each other, one naked, one clothed, one free, the other fettered - one holding a whip and shining scraps of metal. For Moira a moment of fearful decision; for Celie a space of intense curiosity. She was unwilling to end whatever hopeful speculations might be whirling in Moira's mind. Yet, observing the tense readiness, the clenched fists against the naked hips, the strained features, it was she who spoke first. "You could be quite difficult," she acknowledged helpfully. "I know you're wondering if you can jump me and handcuff me instead of me handcuffing you. But why don't you walk around a bit, go around the room. I won't be too patient, but that ought to help you a lot. We want you to sort of take this all step by step." She made a cautious backward movement.
Moira relaxed and rubbed her chafed wrists. She even managed a wry grin. "It's a damn funny feeling," she admitted. "I know what you're thinking, and you know what I'm thinking, so there's no use trying to kid each other. I'd love to have you where I've just been, and I'd love to use that whip on your bare little bottom. You're just to damn sweet, I can hardly stand it. Alright! Don't get shirty!" she hastily implored, seeing a glint in Celie's eye. "I'll go for the walk. Don't hit me again... please -." She stepped manfully forward and tripped.
Celie longed to giggle, but was too polite. Moira looked ludicrously startled by the betrayal of her feet. She lounged on the stone floor and fingered the links of metal that had brought her down, then glanced up at the girl who had fastened them. "You've got me, haven't you?" she said somberly. Doubtfully she got to her feet.
It was amusing to watch. Celie made no effort to hide her enjoyment. Moira's first step was as doubtful a one as any girl ever essayed anywhere; the chain rattled as though in mockery of her effort. The cold stone floor gave full scope for metallic music from the links as they snubbed first one questing foot and then the other. Moira made five full steps before she fell again. This time she got back on her feet decisively and with determined mien hobbled dismally to her smiling mentor and proffered her wrists. She neither winced or spoke as Celie clicked the metal circlets tight.
* * *
"Suppose we declare a Pax Britannica during Tea." Alastair suggested.
Moira Robbins eyed her two companions, swept an exploring gaze up and down the length of the terrace of Soniaive, then lifted her handcuffed wrists and offered them to view. "Not much Pax about the spot I'm in," she countered.
"I was thinking of a verbal truce," Alastair explained equably. "No penalties for the indiscretions of your tongue."
Moira brightened. "Well, in that case give me my clothes and let me go home. I'll write this off as a lesson in not going out with handsome men I don't know."
Celie sighed. "We know you have to get that off your chest, darling," she chided; "now go on to the next one."
"If you refuse to release me, you may as well understand I won't play any of your rotten games." Moira was returning to normal.
"What rotten games?" Alastair was quietly attentive.
The captive chin was defiant. "Some sort of sex orgy, I suppose. You must want me for something!"
"Your breasts are admirable." Alastair looked at them frankly.
"She has the loveliest fleece down below," Celie cooed.
"See! That's what I thought! It's sex," Moira declaimed. "Haven't you the decency to let me cover anything?"
"You can use your hands, darling, they'll cover something." Celie giggled. "the handcuffs won't stop you. Just choose which bit you don't want us to see."
"And hold a cup of tea at the same time!" Their captive sounded bitter.
"You can cover your cunny with a plate," Celie said innocently.
The naked girl's retort died. A trimly attired maid had appeared with the trolley. Moira seized the chance. "I'm held prisoner," she stated firmly in a raised voice. "Call the police, please. I've been kidnapped." Her eyes implored.
The maid's motions did not pause; her smile was unaffected. "How nice for you, Miss. You're awfully lucky."
Moira's eyes widened in dismay. She took a deep breath. "You mean you won't help me?" she demanded incredulously.
"No Miss." The smile remained. The girl left them to their Tea.
"I suppose I get whipped for that?" The plaintive voice held a hopeless belligerence.
Alastair approvingly watched Celie's disposition of crockery. "Not at all. That little effort was just another hope you had to dispose of. We'll move on to the next after you've had a sandwich." He proffered a plate. "Cucumber or sardine? Damn good."
"You can do everything about Tea perfectly well," Celie reproved, "so don't sit there looking coy over your handcuffs."
"It's when a girl's tied and gagged that things get a bit awkward," Alastair hinted cheerfully.
Moira Robbins took the sandwich and the tea and managed to look completely baffled. "That girl... " She looked from one to the other of them desperately, "You mean, she's not shocked! She knows what you're up to, she won't do anything...?"
"Janice has a most whippable bottom." Alastair sighed in satisfaction.
"She stays here to get it properly looked after," Celie informed her in her most demure tone.
The captive girl determinedly ate a sandwich and drank a cup of tea as though to gain time to assimilate the incredible. The soft clink of the metal on her wrists and ankles was a pleasant sound in the afternoon. Accepting a second cup she was struck by inspiration. She glared at her host. "If you're so damn fond of this sort of nonsense, why don't you use her, she's about as lovely as they come...?"
She turned angrily too Celie, "I don't see why you aren't sitting here naked and chained up like something out of the Arabian Nights."
Celie glowed, and looked at Alastair in longing.
"Celie is none of your business." The male voice was suddenly cold and hard. "Try another sandwich and another topic."
Moira shivered. Beneath the gentility there was steel. She took the sandwich, her mind furiously active while she munched. "Suppose I... well, sort of surrender." She deliberately clinked her handcuffs, "Goodness knows, I'm helpless enough. I mean, supposing after Tea I say 'yes' and 'no' in all the right places, very politely, couldn't I be excused the, the - I don't know what you call it; punishment, I suppose." She suddenly seemed a very small girl. "I don't want to be whipped. It's too awful!"
They surveyed her with tenderness. Celie longed to offer comfort, but knew there was none. "It doesn't work that way, darling," she said gently.
Trapped eyes implored, "How does it work then?"
"You are to be changed." Alastair said. "Such a change can not be made with words and promises."
"I'm to be broken! Is that it?"
"A metamorphosis," Alastair translated gently.
She gazed at them, trapped, exasperated, a little frightened. "I'm not to be told, so I may as well stop asking. Is that what you're saying?"
"It's feeling more than words," Celie said.
"There isn't a text book." Alastair banished argument.
Moira sipped, perhaps she sought courage for the sixty-four-dollar-question she had to ask. "What... what happens when you are through with me?"
"We are never through with you, or you with us."
"All those other girls...?"
"You may meet some of them." Alastair smiled musingly. "They meet strange destinies. There's one in the harem of one of the better known Oil Sheiks, another is married to one of Europe's wealthiest industrialists, you've already met Janice."
"I end up as domestic help!" Moira was laughably indignant. She tried to share Celie's giggle. "What's to stop any of 'em from packing up and going home? Or to the police...?"
"They simply do not want to."
"But why? Where's the catch, the magic...?"
"If we told you, or tried to tell, you'd only laugh. You wouldn't believe a word we said."
Seeing his captive's puzzlement, Alastair smiled and pressed a button. When the maid, Janice, appeared, he said casually, "Miss Robbins is having difficulties. Be a good girl and see if you can help."
Incongruity was nullified by the prosaic. Janice was deferential, she knew her place. She also knew what was required of her. She gave full attention to the naked chained girl who was eying her as she might examine some odd non-indigenous form of life.
"Well, Miss, it all begins because we're a girl," She smiled brightly as though imparting an original precept. "We've got two breasts and nice bodies and a lovely thatch of hair between our legs."
It was utterly too much! Outrageous! Moira felt herself blush. She was suddenly doubly female and doubly naked. But protest died within her lips as the self-possessed maid continued imperturbably.
"It's only natural, isn't it Miss, that people want to enjoy us. All sorts of people. I mean... be funny if they didn't, wouldn't it! Be sort of a waste." Having made her point the maid gathered momentum, "There's all sorts of ways of enjoying us, but there ain't that many who know the proper way. I mean the ways the Special People know. All the chaps I used to know always wanted to stick their silly thing into me and pump away like I was a bicycle tire that needed a bit of air. Beastly messy business if you ask me!"
"Much nicer to be whipped?" Moira could not gag the sarcasm.
"Of course, Miss!" Moira had obviously gained stature in the younger girl's eyes. "There's something clean about the whip and the cane, and they can go on and on... Not like that other." Her voice became solicitous, "You mustn't be afraid of being whipped, Miss. It's lovely! It gives you super orgasms."
Moira was aghast. She looked from face to face, but if they had heard vulgarity they gave no sign, only a polite interest in a tale often told, and now recounted for the instruction of their unwilling neophyte. With a perky enthusiasm Janice undressed.
She had a trim pert body, explicitly female. She stripped naked with total insouciance. Moira was angrily certain the girl was thoroughly enjoying herself. The novice in chains knew herself a captive audience. She felt humiliated and used. She yearned for freedom, but knew herself further from it than she had ever been. The chains almost burned her skin by the intensity of her awareness of them. She gasped at the nudity so happily bared.
Janice was without artifice. She displayed the marks of the whip upon her flesh as an old soldier might have shown medals. There were a myriad of them clearly delineated on the white skin. They were old and they were new. Some almost faded away, others so fresh Moira could believe them inflicted that very day. The girl took an inordinate pride in her weals as though they were wounds of love. Without striving to pose, she turned herself about in a self-examination in which she was momentarily oblivious of those for whom she had bared her body.
But there was more. In a neat circlet round the narrow waist a shining band of steel was snugly worn. Moira could see neither lock nor join. It was as though welded. At its back hung a ring in such a manner as not to disturb the symmetry of dress. It was easy to divine its purpose: Janice could be chained.
"Isn't it darling," Celie enthused. "You'd like one, wouldn't you?"
Moira sought to clutch reality, but for her, it had vanished. It needed only the advent of Alice and the white rabbit or the Mad Hatter to complete the scene. As a final touch to Wonderland, Janice began with total unselfconsciousness to tease her own nipples with saucy fingertips. "It's nice when they stick out hard," she commented musingly. "I'll do yours too, Miss, if you'd like me to."
Cucumber sandwiches and blatant sex! If it was not for the clutch of chains and the tenderness of weals, Moira could have believed herself the victim of bizarre humour. She sensed her captor's curiosity at her reaction. "You surely don't expect me to behave like this, do you?" she demanded angrily.
"You are not witnessing anything remarkable," Alastair said quietly.
"Does she have to be properly whipped, Sir?" Janice had stopped her play, and was devoting respectful attention to her master.
Alastair laughed at his maid's eagerness. "You'd like to do the job?"
"Oh yes, Sir! May I, please?"
Alastair turned to Celie. "Willing to relinquish, Cherub?" he inquired. "The dear girl deserves a bit of fun."
The Cherub pouted. "Oh, very well," she conceded, not ungraciously. "But can I go and watch?"
"I want you to. You know the drill we've planned. You can brief her." His voice was businesslike. He grinned commiseratingly at his most recent acquisition. "You are about to confirm that oldie about the female being more deadly than the male... "
"It's the preliminary lesson, Sir?" Janice was donning her brief garments. Her eyes sparkled.
Alastair nodded. "You're in good form, I take it?"
"Oh yes, Sir!" The trim maid seemed bubbling with excitement. She bestowed an adoring gaze upon the presiding masculinity. "I'm most terribly grateful."
Alastair inclined his head graciously, a god bestowing largesse. Celie adopted a magnificent pout, but her breath had quickened. The chained girl shrank inwardly; humour was being discarded like a threadbare cloak. Janice exuded a new and radiant sexuality.
"It's the maximal for five, Sir?"
"As hard as you like to lay them on, my dear."
"Spread out, Sir, or would you care to direct me?" The maid's voice was vibrant as with love.
"As you please, Janice. But leave her breasts untouched for now."
"They'll be whipped another time, Darling," Celie reassured as though fearful Moira would feel cheated.
"I hope you're only trying to frighten me with all this," the naked subject of the discussion said in a small doubtful voice.
No one appeared to have heard.
"Does she obey yet, or should I keep her under control?" Janice's query might have referred to a newly acquired pet.
"Control, Darling. The poor dear doesn't trust herself." Celie cooed.
"I have to ask you come with me, Miss." Janice addressed her prisoner as though seeing her for the first time.
Moira was close to tears. She had been reduced to a nothing, and now a snippety maid was going to hurt her more than she had ever been hurt in her life. She turned instinctively to Alastair. "Please, don't let them," she beseeched. "I don't think I can stand any more. I've had enough."
She could have sworn his eyed held love as he shook his head and, without a word, motioned for her to obey. Scornfully, she got to her feet. She did not plead again. The handcuffs on her wrists demoralized her far beyond their actual confinement of her hands. She had lost any hope of resistance she might once have had. Resentfully, but inquiringly, she looked at the two smiling girls into whose hands her nakedness had been delivered. She found there neither mercy or malice.
Celie and Janice left her little dignity. Hobbled by chain, Moira could not have walked to her fate in disdainful hauteur, but she was allowed no independent motion at all. Celie took a handful of her hair by which to guide her forcefully. Janice grasped the handcuffs and pulled. Willy-nilly the frightened girl clinked her shackled way to where she had no wish to go.
"I'm just here to watch, Darling," Celie told the captive. "But I'll help if you want to be difficult."
Moira refrained from saying that she longed to be difficult, but did not dare. Instead, she stood quietly in the centre of the dungeon where gentle loving hands had positioned her.
"I suppose I could leave her handcuffs the way they are?" Janice mused.
"No, she'll be better the other way," Celie affirmed. "Besides, we are going to have to change them anyway." She sat herself upon the big chest, an enraptured audience of one.
Quite astoundingly, Janice took her victim's face between soft fingers and kissed her lips. "I know you're terribly frightened, Miss," she murmured comfortingly. "I remember I was, so don't feel badly, we won't mind if you cry." She smiled brightly and her words became crisp, "I'm going to take the handcuffs off now, are you going to resist?"
So matter of fact! To whip a naked girl was merely a pleasant diversion at Soniaive! Moira's confused mind refused to absorb the incongruities of soft words and cold cruelty. "I won't fight, I'll let you fasten me," she promised, her voice trite.
Janice was deft and swift. While the girl to be whipped was still rubbing her freed wrists, a trapeze bar was lowered before her forlorn eyes; a minute later her wrists were once more captive, a motor whirred. Moira watched her hands rise past her face, and her arms stretch parted until she was forced to stand on her toes. Desperately, she looked from one to the other of the watching girls. The motor stopped. She stood, taut, naked, a maiden sacrifice, ready for the whip.
"You are just too lovely like that," Celie breathed.
"Oh Miss, you do look nice, you really do." Janice's tribute was more plebeian but no less sincere.
Moira wished she did not have to see the whip that would excoriate her flesh. But to see it was a must. She was made to kiss the heavy leather. "Such an old custom, Darling," Celie purred. "Isn't it beautiful?"
In its way it was. The panting girl who was to know its kiss across her back could not deny its lethal symmetry. It must have been fashioned by someone who loved to whip a girl; it was exquisitely designed for such a rite. Beside it, the riding crop was a clumsy club. Moira fought hard to keep steady a pathetically trembling lip.
"I'm sorry I mustn't touch your breasts, Miss. It means I'll have to give you all of them lower down." She sounded apologetic, and faintly cheated.
"She's got a lovely bottom," Celie consoled.
"Would you like me to start now, Miss?" Janice questioned innocently.
But there was no innocence in the snickering whirr that awaited no reply, but wrapped itself across the taut back and around the distended ribs below the inviolate breasts. It was a lash an executioner might have laid upon a felon in centuries past.
In hushed reverence Janice and Celie watched, absorbing their exquisite joy, as Moira Robbins nakedness absorbed its agony. Their eyes and their ears harvested the rich reward of the single stroke. There would be others, but they had no wish for haste. They knew their patience would be edified when the writhing nudity became articulate.
The words were slow in coming, they were slow and measured and without hope, oddly apologetic. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was so bad, I can't stand it. If you whip me like that I'm not sure I can stand up... I mean, I may not be conscious... "
"Oh, Darling, it doesn't matter!" Celie was concerned. "With this special whipping girls often faint. They can't help it. We understand. We have smelling salts... and brandy, and everything... " She wanted very much to reassure the naked girl whose body now bore the most awful striation of the lash. "We never whip a girl unless she's conscious. Would you like brandy?"
"Yes please," said Moira, "but I know I can't stand it... I know!"
They whipped her. Slowly and cruelly they marked her loveliness with wounds that would take long to heal. At the fifth she sagged and hung by her wrists. Before sinking into the blackness she had now known it was the final stroke. When they revived her with the aromatic pungency and the fiery alcohol it was their first reassurance. She heard the words dimly and believed none of them, the whip had possessed her totally... she would never escape.
Janice had gone for minutes before the tied girl focused intelligibly on Celie sitting quietly on the big chest. Their eyes met. They were sisters in something shared. "I have never been whipped," said Celie, "but I know."
Moira's wrists were on fire, protesting their burden. Their owner suddenly realized their plight and, once again, straightened herself taut upon her toes. There had been no move to free her from her positioning for the whip. She did not ask. She had learned a girl did not ask such things at Soniaive. Wryly, she recognized it as the first fruit of whatever lessons she was being taught. "We always leave girls tied after they've been whipped, they're so much lovelier," Celie explained.
To be lovely and to know pain. That, henceforth, was her destiny! Moira did not bother to analyze her fate. She was strung up naked, she was wealed; those were the things that counted. In her hopeless helplessness all else was extraneous.
"It does change a girl, doesn't it?" Celie asked curiously.
Moira nodded. She was not interested in psychological profundities. All she wanted was that her wrists be freed. But she dared not to ask.
"You're different from when I first found you standing at the pillar," Celie said with certainty.
Moira crushed the angry obvious retorts. "I have been whipped," she said simply.
"Five strokes," said Celie, "it's not many."
The captive's head reared, her nostrils flared with the panic of indrawn breath.
"We want you to ask to be properly whipped," Celie said quietly.
Moira trembled; her eyes were bright with tears. "I can't," she stated with equal simplicity.
"You will ask for a number you believe we will consider fitting," Celie continued inexorably.
Moira looked at her douce companion in disbelief. "I... I've been whipped... haven't I?"
"Five lashes." Celie waved them away with a gesture of her hand. "They were so that you would understand."
"That I have no hope; that I'd better do what I'm told." The captive's voice was strangely without bitterness.
"Yes. But you must still ask humbly to be properly whipped."
"I can't possibly. You don't know how awful it is. I fainted."
"Janice knows. She asked."
Moira shook her head as though seeking clarity. "If I could ask, what then?"
"You would go on to the beginning of a new life."
"Broken and cowed." Moira looked her desolation.
"It's not an easy time for you, Darling." Celie meditated. "We sort of pride ourselves on making it as easy for you we can. Sounds silly, I know! Your next step is to ask us for... for... well, you know what. It's terribly important."
"Why?"
"All the others... we learned... we're quite positive about it."
"So am I." The tied and naked girl shook her head hopelessly. "I'm still fastened, go ahead and whip me to death. But don't expect me to ask. That's not human... "
"You will ask, Darling. Not now - and that doesn't matter. But sometime."
Moira tugged at her pinioned wrists. "I don't understand any of it," she said dispiritedly. "I wish you'd let me down. I still can't run. I'm tired and I hurt."
Unexpectedly Celie kissed her soft hot lips as Janice had done earlier. A minute later the cut wrists were free. Moira slumped to the floor and disconsolately rubbed her wounds. "Thank you," she said without emotion. "Thank you very much." Her ankle chains made their metallic contribution as she shifted her captive feet. "Don't worry about me, I can't run, and I'm too played out to fight."
Celie sat and watched the naked girl upon the floor. She knew a great content; Moira was lovely with a beauty beyond her present comprehension. One day she would know, but it would take time. Alastair was so clever! He had made her wonderful aware.
The two girls maintained a long silence. The one with chained feet kept a wary eye on her captor; she felt certain her present easement would not last. She knew herself dedicated to pain and the purposes of others. She cringed at her impotence before this charming slip of a girl who she must obey. Her eyes rested constantly on the chain joining her feet; it seemed incredible that those bands and links of metal fastened on her ankles could change her life, making her utterly subject to the will of strangers, but it was so. She was slave.
"What happens to me now?" she asked glumly.
Celie dangled the shining steel of the handcuffs, questioning compliance by one pert lifted eyebrow.
"I told you I wouldn't fight," Moira said resignedly as she got to her feet. She stood for a moment looking at her still free hands as though in silent farewell, then held them out meekly to be chained.
"Behind your back, darling."
Moira shrugged, what did it matter? What did anything matter? Obediently she turned and put her hands behind her back, but winced at the cold touch of the metal and the click of the ratchet as the cuffs bit at her. The steel was final, relentless.
When it was done, she turned again as a prisoner awaiting sentence. Celie had resumed her seat upon the chest. "Your costume's complete, Darling," she assured her prisoner cheerfully.
"Will I never have clothes again?"
"You mustn't worry about being naked; it's much the more practical, y'know," Celie admonished. "Besides, you look scrumptious naked. Pity to cover the nice things, you've got."
Moira twisted her shoulders as she tugged at her wrists. "I suppose the handcuffs are behind my back, so I can't cover anything?"
"That's right, and you can't play with yourself either."
The prisoner tensed. "What makes you think I'd want to?" she asked miserably.
"Well, it does relieve the tedium," Celie said in the manner of discussing a good book. She sparkled at the dejected nudity. "You see, Darling, you may be alone in here quite a long time."
Moira guessed, but waited mutely for the words to make her sentence real.
"You have to ask for something," Celie continued softly. "You don't want to. So you just stay here as you are until you change your mind."
"And if I don't?" How futile the small defiance sounded!
Celie made an airy gesture to accompany her smile. "Oh, but you will, Darling. I can't tell you when. It might even be today, but tomorrow's much more likely. Sleeping on the stone in the dark really does make us girls see reason."
"It's cruel." Moira tugged again at her wrists, "Chained, and alone."
"Of course," Celie agreed brightly. "But all you have to do is kneel submissively when you hear someone pulling back the bolts on the door, and then make your request. It's awfully simple."
In a flash of prescience the captive saw the days of her incarceration in the granite chamber stretching endlessly into infinity, never to be free again, never to be allowed the use of her limbs! She squashed the panic precipitating her into making the impossible request. The whip would kill her; she could not ask! And yet...?"
"You do not have to be so cruel," she said dully.
"Actually we do." Celie's words brooked no denial. "Someone will come with food and things twice a day, so you'll have lots of chances to be kneeling when they come in." Eagerly she kissed her captive's lips, then again and again... In a flash of motion she was past the massive door. Moira saw it close and heard the bolts slide home. She stood, naked, chained, alone in a granite dungeon. But Celie's kisses remained sweet upon her lips.
Moira Robbins stood for a long time absorbing the silence of her desuetude; it was almost tangible. The aching tenderness of the five wounds left upon her by the whip was an ever present awareness. She longed to touch them with soothing fingers, but she could touch nothing. The handcuffs at her back were the most subtle of her punishments. In the end they might be the most defeating. She twisted and turned her hands within them in mute revolt.
But in the first hour of her lonely imprisonment it was the chaotic confusion within Moira's mind that disturbed her most. Two girls argued there: one declaring the stupidity of a resistance that, in the end, must crumble; the other clinging to a hope of reprieve or the wearing down of her captor's patience if she endured her solitary confinement long enough. Neither decision was tolerable; she longed only to be free. She wept, but tears do not wash away despair.
Imprisonment is the most real thing that a human being can experience, yet it is its very atmosphere of unreality that makes it so. A granite room had become Moira's world. Because of the placement of a few bits and pieces of metal she could never leave the room, never be a part of the teeming world beyond the walls save by the will of another. It was unacceptable, beyond comprehension, a thing of fantasy. But it was true. The room was neither dank nor dark, but it was frightening, for everywhere the captive looked she saw the means of causing her hurt or rendering her motionless. It was a place for the punishment of girls, and she was in it.
And nakedness! She might as well get used to being bare. It made her instantly available for hurt and punishment. It eroded her will, as did the chains upon her ankles and the handcuffs on her wrists. Locked within the stone as she was there was no real need that she be stripped and ironed, but it was all a part of some grand design. Certainly these shaming things eroded her self respect and her will to fight. Angrily and proving nothing she marched her hobbled steps around her prison and examined all it held that she must hate. When night came after centuries of loneliness, she lay upon the stone to sleep. It was then she came to hate the handcuffs most of all.
They did not speak to her. It was horrible! She drenched them in the flood of all she knew must be said. They had to listen; perhaps they did, but they gave no sign of having heard. They smiled kindly, did what there was to be done and left her alone. Sometimes it was Celie, sometimes Janice, it mattered not. She was only something to be watched and cared for until she asked for that which no girl could request.
From the first she had known it would be bad. She had no prior knowledge of such captivity by which to gauge her capacity to endure. But it was worse than her imaginings. The absence of time was a wicked deprivation. It left her adrift, fearful she had been forgotten; her mind filled with horrific imaginings of unlikely disasters by which she would be left to starve and to die with none to know. She floated in timelessness. Five minutes after the slamming of the bolts outside the door she was adrift in limbo, her mind active with awful conjecture. Crouched awkwardly against a wall she tried to sleep the hours away. But her chains and the cold stone denied her even this solace. She came to see herself as a prisoner for life.
On the morning of the fifth day when she heard the clatter of the bolts withdrawn in the door, she slipped to her knees and bent her head in submission. She knew not who had entered, nor did she care. She spoke in a firm clear voice. "I ask humbly to be whipped. I have received five strokes, I ask permission now for fifteen more to complete my flogging. Please whip me!"
Even when she had spoken she did not raise her head but it kept it bowed in shame.
* * *
"It's been a long time, Alastair."
"Too long, Ginevra, but it's your own fault. You have a key."
The ash blonde shrugged her loveliness of smooth shoulders and offered him an affectionate grimace. "It was you who fobbed me on poor Herbert, Master. Can I help it if he insists on Cannes and Monte Carlo! He's got a thing now in Marrakesh: sunsets, flies and pimps. It's good to be home."
"Your first port of call?" Alastair asked discerningly.
"I've got to have girl, Master! It's an addiction, and all your fault, you wretched pervert. Have we anything on tap? Something really nice?"
Alastair provided a comradely grin. Ginevra was one of the Special Ones. They loved each other in their own strange ways. "I'm going to whip you first," he bargained firmly.
"Of course, Master! But is she very sweet?"
"She's quite gorgeous, name's Moira Robbins. She's very new, just asked for the extreme unction."
Ginevra pouted. "I seem to remember that means a hundred pounds or so of neatly sliced girl moaning steadily. Not much fun."
"How do you know you'll be in any better condition?" Alastair asked sardonically.
She shrugged. "It's a chance I'll take, Master."
"You were always incredible, Darling," Alastair conceded. His eyes twinkled. "How would you like to do the slicing you mentioned?"
Ginevra shivered and shook her head in negation. "I'm raging with lust, but not for that. I've saved up all sorts of ideas for the first little sweetheart I lay my hands on, but whipping her raw isn't one of them."
"But I'm going to whip you."
"That's different, Master. Something of me will always belong to you. With you and me it's a case of 'Render unto Caesar... Even when I've screamed terribly I've always been glad of whatever you did to me." She laughed gaily. "I'm quite incorrigible... Poor Herbert!"
Alastair looked at her tenderly. "Because you're you, Darling, you can have the new girl before she's flogged. In fact, if you're staying awhile, you can have the 'Before and after'."
Ginevra kissed him exuberantly, and then with passion. "Beloved Master, why did you ever marry me off?" In a sudden change of mood she asked, "How's dear little Celie?"
"The darling child is here now; it's holidays." Alastair looked shrewdly at the svelte and sensuous woman gracing his drawing room. "She's very much the darling and not very little any more. I don't think she knows it, but she's sensational."
"We always knew it," Ginevra laughed. "Besides, Soniaive is not exactly a nunnery, even though you have used admirable discretion as her guardian."
"I love the child. She possesses an amazing sweetness."
"My poor Master! Will that make it difficult for you?"
"No, not with Celie." Alastair made the declaration with firm certainty. "When you see her this time, you'll understand."
"The dear girl has probably already guessed." Ginevra laughed. "She's probably at least a couple of years ahead of you. May I talk to her - seriously, I mean?"
"Of course you can, Darling."
"May I whip her?"
"No you can't! And anyway, that's damned inconsistent. You just turned down the chance of a lifetime."
Ginevra tossed him a disparaging moue. "There's a vast difference. I'll wager Celie would adore being whipped, but that other poor girl is probably scared out of her wits. I suppose you have her chained up somewhere waiting and thinking she's going to die. I know I did! I'll never forget the way you made me wait for it, knowing it was going to happen. You're an artist in female tremblings, Master."
"When would you like to be whipped this time?"
Ginevra considered. "I think after Tea would be nice. I suppose you are going to offer me Tea? It will be fun if Celie's with us."
It was fun! Celie adored Ginevra. She had long worshipped at the shrine of a loveliness almost classic save for its sensuousness. "You two are up to something," she accused.
"Alastair's going to whip me," the exotic guest told her happily. "Aren't I lucky?"
The younger girl breathed ecstasy. "Oh Darlings, may I watch? Oh please...?"
"You shouldn't have told her," Alastair chided cheerfully. "The child's rapacious where the whip's concerned."
Celie pouted. "I'm not a child, and that's an awful word to use on anyone as nice as me." Her eyes sparkled mischievously as she turned to the older girl. "May I whip you, Darling? Just a little, please say yes."
"What's that 'just a little' mean?" Ginevra asked humorously.
"It means she'll make you whelp while she's got the chance," Alastair said knowingly.
"Don't tease!" Celie implored, "I just love whipping girls; I think it's the nicest thing there is. And you're special, Ginevra, terribly special."
"How can I resist," Ginevra asked demurely. "Alright, Darling child, you can flog me while I scream for mercy. But remember, just a little. I belong to Alastair." Her eyes softened, "It's amazing the difference between male and female... being whipped by them, I mean."
"Does Uncle Herbert whip you, Darling?" Celie asked precociously.
The guest's cheeks acquired a trace of pink. "He isn't too good at it," she admitted offhandedly. "Uncle Herbert has his own quaint notions."
"He promised me something very nice when I got to be a big girl. Any idea what he's going to give me?" Celie asked innocently.
Ginevra tossed Alastair a quizzical glance. "Perhaps you could hazard a guess, Master?"
Alastair frowned. Celie laughed delightedly at the hesitation of her elders. "I'm seventeen, Darlings," she told them firmly. "I know where babies come from, and I know what Uncle Herbert had in mind. He wants to cane my bottom."
There was a deep breathing silence before Alastair said caustically, "I'm not sure that this is damn good idea."
"Looks as though you've just come of age, kid," Ginevra chuckled.
Celie glowed. "Oh Alastair Darling! Will you do it, really? I mean, cane my bottom."
"If I did, you'd be a sorry child," Alastair assured her darkly. "And anyway, you're altogether too young."
"She isn't, y'know," Ginevra told him firmly.
Celie turned to her ally. "You'll do it, won't you, Gin' Darling? Oh please! Just six lovely ones to start, right across my bottom on both cheeks."
Ginevra turned serious eyes to the master of Soniaive. "May I please? I want to. She's scrumptious."
"No."
Ginevra shrugged resignedly and offered a wry grin of consolation to the eager child. "Sorry, love. The Master has spoken. Your delightful derriere remains inviolate."
"Are you afraid of him?" Celie demanded indignantly.
The older girl nodded somberly. "Of course I'm afraid of him, it's delicious. He's my Master... always. It's why I come back."
Celie looked from one to the other. "You both know something I don't," she accused without concern. "But I'll find out, you see if I don't!"
"I'm sure you will," Alastair acknowledged dryly. "I haven't a doubt of it."
Ginevra said nothing.
Celie wanted a last word, but could not think of one.
* * *
It was an ancient ritual, perhaps one of the oldest in the world. It had no need of speech, each player knew their role and played it with the fullness of all they were and could ever be. Even the granite absorbed life from the vibrations electric in the atmosphere from the trio who were living with a vividness that belonged wholly to that hour and to that place.
Celie stood against the wall, hushed and privileged, to watch Ginevra strip. The blonde beauty readying herself for punishment kept her gaze intent upon her Master's lambent eyes as she cast aside the costly trifles that hid her intimacies from the world. Naked, she stretched in a feline enjoyment of the senses and her Lord's avidity. Tantalizingly she held the pose, provocative but dutiful. Then, with equal grace, glided to the spot whereon she would be whipped and placed her wrists daintily in position on the bar. Alastair strapped them tight.
Celie was enthralled. She watched the bar rise and carry with it the prisoned hands and lovely arms. She saw Ginevra make the small motions to ready herself for the moment when her heels would leave the floor, and she would flow taut from her captive wrists within their leather straps. Ginevra's face was radiant; her lips full and very red, her nipples impudently pointed the curve of her breasts. She lifted her face as though worshipping the sun.
"Five." Alastair handed Celie the whip, amused by her eagerness. "Five all your own. She will not hate you for whatever you do with them."
"Thanks for a kind whip, Master. I see I'm not to be skinned alive." Ginevra eyed the lash as a connoisseur.
"Only one degree less than the extreme, beloved," Alastair cautioned.
"Why didn't you marry Alastair instead of Uncle Herbert?" Celie chided. "Alastair must have been off his rocker to let you go away."
"You see! I told you she was ready," the naked girl admonished her Master. "By the way, why did you let me go?"
"Aren't you even a teeny-weenie bit afraid?" Celie asked puzzled.
The wet red lips curved in delight. "I'm scared silly," their owner admitted slowly, "but it's a lovely fear, something you still have to discover, Darling."
Celie giggled. "Oh come off it, Gin'! You know perfectly well I've got a hot little fire burning down in the same place you have. Alastair knows it too."
Adult eyes sought each other to share amusement; in the male there was also chagrin.
"What did I tell you, Master?" Ginevra's voice was jubilant, bubbling with laughter. "Two years ahead of you - " Her words were terminated by the whip. It cut her skilfully, evoking agony and a hundred memories. Her nostrils flared, her neck arched, but these were Ginevra's only acknowledgments of the travail of her flesh. "I'll try not to scream, Darling," she murmured softly.
"I want you to scream, Gin'." With all the vigour of her arm Celie cut the air and the soft skin with the whining thong.
Ginevra screamed. She screamed beautifully especially for Celie. It was a gorgeous scream. The fires burned brightly in both their loins.
While the panting captive was still shivering from the fourth kiss of the whip, Celie gave an order: "Spread your legs as far apart as you can get them, please Gin'!"
"You don't have to obey that," Alastair said sharply.
"The little Darling only has one left." Ginevra's voice was gentle. She had stilled her sounds of pain, and was contemplating this new vista of the girl who held the whip. Experimentally she edged her feet apart, further and further she stretched them until they were wide beyond what was seemly, and she was in danger of hanging from her strapped wrists. She raised her face towards her Master and said, mockingly: "What did I tell you... " It was a feminine violation of a female's secret place, delivered with all the cunning, strength and skill of a woman's arm; a woman who was still a girl, in some ways still a child. The leather bit exactly as intended and expected. The naked and the clothed understood each other perfectly. The scream by which Ginevra paid tribute to her anguish, and she whose gift it was, beat itself against the granite in contralto anguish. It was a paean and pure beauty in Celie's ears. Dazed with happiness, she handed the whip to Alastair and sat down unobtrusively to watch.
Ginevra could do nothing that was not graceful. As though on completion of an allotted task, she brought her feet together and stood once more daintily on her toes, taut, slender, and expectant. Determinedly she curbed the sounds her lips would utter. She looked impudently at the absorbed Alastair and asked sweetly and in mockery of other times long past: "Please whip me, Master!"
Alastair whipped Ginevra.
Celie sat, rapt, enchanted.
For her Master the naked girl screamed not at all. Her lips voiced sounds, but they were the poetry of love. Her nakedness accepted the carmine weals in gratitude.
When it came time to cast aside the whip, the man made no move to free his salve. He motioned Celie to the door.
"Go away, Alastair," Celie said with a new and strange authority. "Now she belongs to me."
All three of them understood. After moments of silence Alastair nodded and left the two females alone.
"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever known," Celie said simply.
Ginevra smiled.
* * *
Ginevra's pulse raced, she knew herself inordinately excited. She carried the slender riding crop and loops of cord. In one palm were nestled keys. It had been a long, long time; there had been so many dreams! "Down, you randy bitch!" she admonished herself. "Wasn't yesterday enough?" But yesterday, for all its wonder, had not been enough, there could never be enough... ever... !
Life at Soniaive was beautiful.
She paused before the door, deliberately savouring the moment and its promise. Turning the key and pulling back the heavy bolts was a magic prelude.
The girl stood against a wall. She was naked; her ankles were joined by chain. She was fastened to a metal ring by the single circle of one handcuff on one wrist; thus she was tethered. She was frightened.
They measured each other for an appreciable time. "You are very lovely," Ginevra said with sincerity.
"Thank you." The two words were a courageous striving for normalcy. Those that followed trembled, "I suppose you've come to whip me?"
"No, Sweetheart, I've got other things in mind. For today you've been reprieved."
"I don't want to be reprieved. I want to have done with it. I want to have done with it." The declaration held both fear and bitterness.
"It's bad, isn't it, this waiting." Ginevra remembered, but said nothing of the memories. "You're very new, aren't you?"
"Yes, I'm new." The lovely eyes were intelligent. "You've come to hurt me, I can tell."
Ginevra carefully laid aside her burdens. She took Moira's strained face in gentle hands and kissed the chained girl warmly on the lips. Savouring their response she exclaimed "Mmmm!" and kissed again. "You're very sweet," she said breathlessly. "Try and not hate me too much."
"Will you punish me if I ask questions?"
"Yes I will!" Ginevra said firmly. "I'm no good at analysis, and you wouldn't understand anyway. We'll talk as we go along."
"I'm sorry. But with that awful... thing over my head I don't seem able to think of anything else."
"I should be good for you then, take your mind of it. Now tell me, Darling, am I going to have a fight on my hands every time I want to position you, or are you going to let me do what I like with that lovely body like a good little girl?"
Moira grinned ruefully. "I'll be a good little girl. They've broken me to that extent. I don't want you to use that riding crop on me... not more than you intend to anyway," she amended hastily.
"I only brought it to ensure good behaviour," Ginevra said thoughtfully "It need never be used." She laughed gaily. "Unless you tempt me too cruelly. You are quite luscious. I don't wonder Alastair choose you."
"You mean the prettier a girl is the more you... you people love to whip her?" Moira could not relinquish her bitterness.
"Don't be angry, love! A pretty girl gets more of everything. It's the nature of things."
Ginevra knelt and unlocked the metal bonds from the naked ankles. Holding the dangling shackles, she stood back, smiling. "Feel good, Sweetheart?"
Without inhibition the captive engaged in a variety of contortions, most of them wild and glorious kicks. "U-mm... U-mm! Oh, thank you, thank you! I can't tell you how wonderful... ! It's hateful to be chained like that."
Ginevra laughed, sharing the joy. She picked up the crop. "I'm not going to make you a free girl," she warned.
"You won't have to whip me. I'll be good." Moira's breath quickened as she watched the insertion of the tiny key and felt the metal band fall away from her wrist. Instinctively she stretched her naked arms to their limit and smiled in gratitude at the girl who had loosened her chains.
The girl with the riding crop stepped back and surveyed the miracle she had wrought. It was impossible not to be infected with her captive's delight. Yet her eye was wary, the arm that held the crop tensed. Sensing anxiety, Moira felt only gratitude and a need to express it in the only way she knew. Without hesitation she meekly held out her hands. "I'll let you handcuff me again if you want to," she offered without guile.
Ginevra felt the same surge of desire as when she had paused before the door. The girl was exquisitely designed for slavery. Alastair had come up trumps as always. Her breath quickened with both lust and love. "Feel your freedom," she suggested generously. "Turn a cart wheel or two before I tie you."
Moira exulted in motion; she wallowed in every contortion she could devise. "You are sweet!" she said ardently. "I haven't been free like this since I was brought here. Honest, you just can't know what this is like... "
"I know," said Ginevra.
For both, it was one of the good moments, Moira wished it might never end. Ginevra, for all the urgency of her desire, felt no need to bring it to a close. It was a sharing and a discovery. It was Moira who sensed the time had run its course. She raised her hands in offering, "How do you want me?" she asked with forced cheerfulness.
It was a cross, before it a step on which Moira stood, her arms extended to each side along the crossbar. Ginevra bound her thus, but not carelessly or without finesse.
The white cords were soft and strong. The naked girl, curious despite her dolour, watched the swift sure fingers take her into a captivity different from that she had known. The wrists were first, the chafed and tender wrists that epitomized her loss of freedom. Two neat tight bands held each snug against the wood. Had nothing more been done they would have rendered her helpless; she would have stood there with outspread arms, an appealing picture of a tied girl waiting for she knew not what. But more was done, equally neat, equally simple, twice as cruel.
With studied care, Ginevra slipped cord beneath each naked armpit, over and 'round the cross before it pinioned each shoulder tight back so that the breasts asserted themselves against the tug of the cords. It was beautifully conceived. The naked girl stood relaxed but firm against the stout wood. All that held her were the single strands of cord over each shoulder at the top of her arms. They were scarcely visible, so deeply were they imbedded in the virgin flesh. Moira's body was totally free, but she could move nothing above her waist. The simple cords held her like a vise. Her shoulders hurt. Ginevra took away the step.
Shock and agony! Moira formed the first words to explain the mistake, to tell that all her weight hung from the single strands above her arms; that her questing toes could not reach the floor, before she realized that no mistake was made. This was Ginevra's first gift of bondage. She was not solely to be helpless; she was tied, also, to suffer. To know herself the plaything of the hungry-eyed woman who stood in adoration of her pain. She moaned desperately at the bite of the ligatures within her skin. "This is how you want me?" she asked in forlorn hope.
Ginevra had backed away to place her creation in proper focus. She was breathing fast, her eyes shining. "Yes love, that's how I want you," she breathed. For moments she stood in rapt adoration of the naked girl tied so neatly to the cross. "Can you understand, Darling, right now you are the most beautiful thing in all the world?"
Moira's shoulders flamed, she longed to protest, but knew herself a sacrifice to an emotion beyond her ken. Ginevra's joy told her plainly there could be no reprieve. Tied like this she bestowed ecstasy, how could she complain?
"Would you like me to play with you, Darling?" Ginevra queried excitedly. "I can help so much... " How strange the bond between the torturer and the tortured! Moira felt it now in every fibre of her being. Without volition her lips formed the exclamation. "Yes! Oh yes!" She closed her eyes. She hung and did not try to move. She knew herself delivered to any use. Her breath quickened.
The fingers were cunning and cruel and beautiful! The lips were soft and wet and hot with eagerness. The small teeth teased and nipped so that their quarry cried out more in longing than in pain. Moira was transported into a new and lovely land. She hung by her cords upon the timbers, her agonies a welcome intimacy in a female world; her cries and moans a litany, almost of love.
How strange and wonderful a thing to be female!
When Moira was once again free, she had little time in which to analyze her submission to the vibrant woman who had given her both agony and joy, and to whom she had vouchsafed ecstasy. She should have fought to overpower her loving torturer and to escape from Soniaive. But she had no will. She was in the grip of a turgid lethargy, leashed to her new mistress she could not name.
"Not a single cord! You are quite free, Darling," Ginevra insinuated, flexing the riding crop.
The naked girl shook her head as though dazed.
"Don't you wish to fight; you're as strong as I am." Ginevra's eyes shrewdly assessed. "If I did not hold this lovely thing you might beat me."
Again the negative motion of the head. Moira would not be drawn. She did not want the whip; she did not want to hurt the girl who held it. She decisively ended temptation by holding out her hands in a gesture of total subjugation. "Please tie me," she asked as though drugged. "Tie me any way you want."
Ginevra tied her. Eyes glowing, breath quickening, she used her cords with verve and imagination. Her victim stood limp and passive and responsively obedient.
When Moira had first been chained in this room she had seen it different. Its purpose was other than her now familiar dungeon. Here there were posts and frames and stocks and objects she could not name. Its brooding silence proclaimed its function far louder than words. Here a naked girl could be immobilized, held, bound in a hundred ways, and hurt in half of them. It was a place in which the hours or the days might pass and the tied nudity never move.
Completely docile, the slave allowed herself to be positioned with parted feet against the bar. She looked down with no other emotion than curiosity as her ankles were bound tight to the horizontal metal. Involuntarily she managed a rueful smile at the familiarity of having her wrists crossed and tied behind her back. Ginevra performed the task with care and deliberation so that the girl being bound guessed the importance of the tie. She leaned back against a second horizontal part of the frame at a level just above her hips. But the position was not comfortable, however; when she tried to regain a vertical balance, she found her hands secured; she could lean back but not forward.
"Variety is the spice of life, Darling," Ginevra said happily. She had moved to the front of the naked girl. She leaned forward and kissed the open lips, kissed avidly and was kissed hungrily in return. "You won't like this much, love, but you'll look very sweet when it's complete."
Complete! Moira almost echoed the inward exclamation in both surprise and protest. She sought for proper balance, but her wrists held her off centre; the bar pressing against her back was hard and cold and without comfort. She could still struggle, but not effectively. She looked in mute and questioning appeal into her mistress's laughing eyes.
"It's beautifully simple," Ginevra assured her captive. "I'll show you. Mustn't keep a poor girl in suspense."
It was simple indeed" Moira felt the cord from her tied wrists tauten and begin an inexorable pull against which all her strength was powerless. Inch by inch her arms and shoulders were drawn back so that her nakedness formed a bow stretched back and down. The bar ceased to be a friend and became an enemy, a bitter relentless thing of pain from which she was powerless to move. By the time the slow compulsion of the cord had ceased she was a tight curve capable only of pain.
"This one's lovely for a female," Ginevra said brightly. "You little fanny's just screaming out loud for me to do something, and the way your breasts are stretched with the nipples standing up... ! I do wish you could see yourself."
Moira felt sure she knew exactly how she looked, but she was not sure the girl who had tied her knew exactly how she felt. "You do know this is pure torture," she gasped.
"I suppose it is," Ginevra conceded meditatively. "I think it's one of those that has to be enjoyed in solitude to get the full effect. I'll be back after awhile."
"Don't leave me like this! Oh please...!" Moira wailed.
But the steps had slipped away, the door had closed, a frightening silence took possession of the naked figure tied so neatly to the frame. Had Moira been able to move she would have panicked. She longed to beat upon the door and shout her need of a woman's hand and a woman's voice. She essayed to test the cords that held her, but she could move only her head; and that awkwardly. The ceiling was her view; her hair fell down between the rigidly fastened arms. The bar that was the pivot of her pain promised to cut her asunder.
The punishment was a live thing; it held a very personal animosity. Moira knew she was bowed back by only the pull of a single strand of cord that must be knotted out of sight. That the tension could be worse was undeniable. If the cord was pulled enough her back would break. The bar over which she was tied was merciless. As it was, she would endure, but she was panting in distress. The sweat of agony trickled down her flanks. She longed to scream, but there was none to hear, instead her lips emitted the small inarticulate sounds of a misery too great to bear. Her preoccupation with her plight prevented her hearing Ginevra's return.
"I'm not going to play with you this time, love."
The tortured girl opened her eyes and strained her neck to see the smiling features of the girl by whom she had been tied. Bravely she essayed a grin of welcome. "Don't leave me like this," she pleaded urgently. "I can't stand it, I keep wanting to scream."
"Would you like me to gag you, love? I will, y'know."
"Oh no!" The exclamation shot out of the hurt lips like a bullet. "Please let me loose. I'll do anything you want, I promise!"
"But this isn't for coercion, Sweetheart, it's for fun."
The victim moaned in anguished frustration. "Please... ! There must be something! Something you want that I can give... ? I will, oh, I will...!"
"You'll do anything, won't you, Darling? Of course you will!" Ginevra's voice cooed in reassurance to a hurt child.
Moira gasped and twisted against the bar as a gentle and unheralded finger brushed through her wiry hair and separated her lips. Knowingly it found the centre of her being; finding ample lubricant, it began the devastating massage. One anguish fled but was cunningly replaced by another of a different kind. The tenor of her moans responded. The finger was withdrawn as abruptly as it had entered her.
"You're shockingly tempting, sweet, but I mustn't spoil you," Ginevra mourned laughingly. "But I may have to handcuff myself to keep my wicked little fingers out of temptation - that means out of you! O course there'd still be my lips... I'd have to be gagged too. You're just too yummy-yummy for a poor defenceless female like me to resist. Aren't you ashamed of being such a sexpot?"
The tied girl moaned. "Please let me loose, please...!"
"No."
"Then, then... play with me. I want you...!"
"You're a spoiled little girl!"
"Please! Oh do it... ! Do it to me! I'm in agony."
Smiling wickedly, Ginevra sought the riding crop and teased the tempting with its tip. "I'll do this to you if you want," she bantered.
"Yes! Oh yes!" Moira pleaded without thought.
The blow was quite cruel. It cut its length across the exposed and defenceless sex, finding its mark with an ease and accessibility only possible in its recipient's taut and tortured bondage. Moira screamed.
"You did ask me," Ginevra reminded unkindly.
When the whipped girl could contrive coherence she almost dared indignation. "That wasn't what I thought... I didn't know!" she accused.
"Would you like another?"
"No! Please! Don't I'm sorry if I was impudent. I'm not supposed to be, am I? Honest, I forgot." The captive washed away her plaints with a flood of tears.
"I suppose I could untie you," the voice thought mocked gently.
"Oh, thank you! I'll do anything."
"I didn't say I would," Ginevra rebuked sharply, "You see! You are spoiled."
"Oh yes, yes! I'm sorry." Moira knew whatever she said would be wrong.
"I think I'll go away and leave you like that all afternoon."
Moira kept a quivering silence.
"You're just daring me to, aren't you?"
"Oh no! Oh, don't tease... I hurt so!"
"I'll tie you worse next time." Laughter bubbled through the threat.
"I don't care! Anything... And I'll behave!"
"You really are a darling." Ginevra was finding a rare delight. "I must think up something really terrible."
Moira rubbed her wounds and soaked up the exquisite easement of release. Ginevra watched with shining eyes, vicariously sharing joy. The naked girl sank to her knees and kissed the hands that had untied her cords. Kissing them and pressing them to her cheeks it was as though she could never get enough of the warm contact of their flesh. "They're the same hands that hurt you, Sweetheart," their owner reminded softly.
"I don't care about that either," Moira affirmed ardently. "You set me free. Thank you... thank you."
"You're really incredible." Ginevra laughed. "Why don't you hate me?"
"I don't know. I don't care about that either." Moira was living only in the moment that was now.
"You ought to try and escape, y'know, love. Now you're all free, I mean. You'll feel guilty about it later on if you don't. Chance of a lifetime."
Moira shrugged and prettily pouted. "That's a tease too. You'd just whip me until I behaved. Then I'd also get punished for trying. I don't know why I have to have that awful flogging. I'm already cowed. I think like a prisoner."
Smiling enigmatically, Ginevra handed the riding crop to her startled captive. "Here, love, take it! I'm not all sure the lovely thing does hold the balance of power."
They stood, one smiling and amused, the other shocked. Interpreting a sudden flicker in her companion's eyes, the older girl began to remove her clothes.
"Why?" Moira's single word held infinite puzzlement.
"To even things up, Darling. No use whipping a girl with her clothes on. That's why you're kept naked." Ginevra tossed aside her last small wisp and stood straight and unashamed.
The girl who now awkwardly held the whip gasped. "You're glorious!" she exclaimed in fascination. Her eyes widened; she enunciated slowly in horror, "But you've been whipped... terribly! Those marks on your skin are fresh...!"
"Lovely, aren't they?" Ginevra looked down at herself with pride.
"But, I don't understand. Are you a prisoner too? Is that the reason...?"
The fresh nudity chuckled. "Guess again!"
"They must have hurt you cruelly...?" Moira was groping.
"Oh, they did, Darling! I even howled."
"But now you're laughing! I can't laugh about the marks I've got - or about the ones I'm going to get."
"Why worry!" Ginevra said carelessly. "Are you going to use that whip to beat me into submission? You just might be able to, y'know."
The captive with the whip viewed the alluring prospect without enthusiasm. "I still think you're teasing," she quavered.
"If you can manage a few cuts on my breasts you'll really get me on the run," Ginevra supplied helpfully, but with sparkling eyes.
"I wouldn't do that!" The exclamation was spontaneous.
"Well, I can't promise to stand still, Sweetheart; I'm bound to jump around a bit. You'll have to take pot luck."
Moira found herself victim of the strangest tangle of emotion she had ever known. She could not be sure of her companion's motives, but on the face of it she had nothing to lose by an attempt of escape. Yet to fight, and perhaps hurt, this lovely creature who smilingly offered her nakedness was repugnant beyond her understanding. "What if I fail?" she temporized. "Will I be punished?"
"No. I promise." The words were sincere.
Again the hiatus: two girls intensely alert to impressions. "Have you forgotten, love?" Ginevra asked compassionately. "If you do not escape now, then tomorrow you will be flogged."
"I know, but I can't think, I suppose I don't want to, or I'm scared." Moira flexed the wicked thing she held. "I'm even scared of this!" She looked appealingly at the girl who was watching her so seriously, "Forgive me, but I don't believe I can escape from this place, no matter what I do. I suppose they have... well, broken me. You're sweet, wonderfully sweet... even if you do hurt me." In a rush of renunciation she once more knelt before her mistress, tossing aside the crop. She found a hand and kissed and loved it as she had done before. "Tie me; tie me tight before I change my mind."
Ginevra was satisfied. She had made her experiment and answered her curiosity. "I've been a bitch," she admitted. "I was testing you. I wanted to see... " She chuckled at some private thought. "But honestly, if you'd got the best of me... I just don't know. It's unlikely, I suppose, but you might have walked straight out of Soniaive. Everyone thinks I have you safely tied up."
"Tie me up then." Moira rose, turned and crossed her wrists. "These always get tied first, don't they?" From somewhere she had found gaiety.
Happily, Ginevra bound the slender offerings. When they were tight together and the knot tied beyond a questing finger's reach, Moira asked diffidently. "Would you mind... I know it sounds silly, but would you dress please!" She grinned apologetically. "It's quite absurd, but tit doesn't seem right for a slave to tie a slave. You're not a slave at all."
The older girl laughed delightedly. "You really are something! But I understand this. O.K. I'll dress. You should be whipped for that, but I won't. I can't tell you the answer to that one either. I ought to write all this down, it's beautiful. A head shrinker's dream."
"Hurt me all you like," Moira protested vehemently. "I don't know why I ask, but we won't worry about that either."
Simplicity was Ginevra's forte. She pushed her docile prey back to the wall. "Keep your bottom against the stone and bend forward," she ordered. She threaded the cord from the trussed wrists through a ring high in the wall and pulled. Obediently Moira's hands and arms rose up behind her back until she was forced to bend forward even further. Then the knot was tied, high and far out of reach. "I'm afraid that's all, love," she said with mock regret.
"I expect it's enough. Don't feel you've been to kind," Moira said dryly, wondering at her temerity in venturing sarcasm. She supposed a girl got used to anything and came to know the right responses. "I'll really get to hate this."
Ginevra pretended to consider. "I think you ought to wear something sweet," she said thoughtfully, "How about these?" She knelt and locked the shackles back on Moira's ankles.
Nothing was hurting enough yet that the naked girl could not laugh. "Were you expecting me to run?" she asked with dry humour.
Ginevra looked down at the bent loveliness of the nude girl and at the neat compulsive cords that were a projection of her own fantasy. Her eyes were tender. Stooping, she kissed the whip weals on the strained shoulders and walked pensively from the room. With the closing of the door the prisoner knew herself alone. It was easy to divine that she might remain alone and tied as she was for a long time. She shifted her chained feet to invoke the familiar clatter of the links, no doubt their being again locked upon her meant something too. But it did no good to know. Things happened to a girl in chains. She could do nothing to influence any of them. She knew with surety that before too long she would begin to hurt too much, and then would come the tears, always the tears! She would welcome them as old and trusted friends.
Moira was puzzled and intrigued by her instinctive docility with Ginevra. Why? It was not her nature to be docile; she had been intractable enough when first captured. She could not name the deep warmth of feeling she felt for the girl who had tied her with such skill and zest and cruelty. Pure eroticism perhaps! Certainly Ginevra had the gift to light the flame within the female cleft, a flame that still burned brightly and demandingly. Yet the captive would not dismiss it as pure lust. There was something else... ! It was a day in which nothing could be named.
Ginevra had gone from the room, but her work remained. Moira knew herself cunningly tied. After a couple of tentative attempts she knew she could never free herself or contrive even an inch of easement for her strain. Hers was an infuriating and humiliating posture about which she could do nothing; the hurt of it was as though the other girl, the strange girl who was neither slave nor mistress, still stood beside her prisoner. With all her heart Moira wished it so.
Much, much later when someone came to loosen the cords Moira's tears had made a damp spot in the stone.
* * *
"It's most frightfully decent of you to ask me," said Mr. Wilkins.
"Absolutely made to order! A pleasure to have you. After all, you are one of the Group." Alastair surveyed his guest with affection.
Mr. Wilkins was small and lean, quite ageless, pale blue eyes and a sparse dusting of wispy white hair. His manner was perky and concerned as though everything he saw or heard was of personal interest. "I do hope she has nice breasts?" he inquired politely.
"Superlative." Alastair assured him.
"Breasts are most important in photography." Mr. Wilkins peered earnestly at his host. "I'm sure the rest of the, er, the young lady is in proportion?"
"One of the best!" Alastair enthused. "Coming along remarkably well, as a matter of fact, and considering she has not yet been given her request. Poor girl's probably in a bit of a dither at this moment."
"Her big occasion is today, isn't it?"
Alastair chuckled at the little man's anxiety. "Keeping it waiting especially for you. Your stuff is being set up for you right now. Just time to offer you a drink and we can go and get the affair under way."
Mr. Wilkins sipped with relish. "I take it you're not making a full Ceremonial for this one?"
"Not convenient for most of them. It's just a routine Request affair, so I haven't actually dragged anyone in even though she's damn nice. But there's yourself, and Ginevra's here, and young Celie's home for the hol's."
Mr. Wilkins became perkier than ever. "Ginevra! The dear child! We should never have given her to that nincompoop Herbert. I'm glad she's so faithful." He peered at Alastair over his glass. "The girl's a bit in love with you, m'boy." He sighed yearningly. "But that's nothing new, is it? They all are." He offered his glass for a refill. "Not put on any weight, I hope?"
"Might even have lost a pound."
Mr. Wilkins sighed, a happy man. "The most perfect planes I've ever sighted. I shall insist on a couple of hours with her. That French chap, Lalonde's come up with a damn remarkable girl, but with Ginevra I can refute the blighter."
"Celie and I have already whipped the dear girl. Does it matter?"
Mr. Wilkins waved away so minor an intrusion with an airy motion of Alastair's best Scotch. "That girl's the best. Stand a trashing a day and never turn a hair." He fortified himself further and asked diffidently, "Young Celie - exquisite child! Must be coming along, I suppose?"
Alastair laughed. "You too! Gin' keeps at me about the girl, says she's more than just coming along. I'll have to watch these two. Ginevra wants to whip her, and Celie's quite capable of letting her do it." He grinned at a pleasant thought, "Should keep one of 'em chained."
Mr. Wilkins was intrigued. "M'dear boy, why not? Alternate days, eh! Teach 'em a lesson and I could get some wonderful shots." He savoured the thought as a rich delicacy, "Ginevra in chains! I should have dreamed it up myself."
"They're both wearing clothes," Alastair apologized.
"They can take them off." Mr. Wilkins peered up at Alastair as though anxious to dispose of so trivial a handicap.
"Wouldn't bother Ginevra, she'd probably love it."
"But not young Celie, eh!" Mr. Wilkins chuckled. "You're still keeping young Celie warm in the nest! But surely a few artistic nudes...?"
"We might consider that," Alastair conceded. "The little monkey would leap at the chance, so you can let me do the briefing. Come along you unsubtle old lecher, they're probably waiting for us."
Mr. Wilkins was very happy. It was a reunion. He bussed both girls soundly and patted their bottoms far longer than his age justified, no doubt hoping for a tell-tale wince. The small audience draped itself comfortably around the room.
"She's simply darling," said Ginevra dreamily.
"Gin's fallen in love," Celie scoffed. "She tied the poor girl up all yesterday afternoon, and now she's got a wet pussy."
"Watch your language, child." Alastair admonished.
"The new girl really is something," Celie bubbled at Mr. Wilkins. "You'll get wonderful pictures. She'll faint at least twice, getting fifteen. Just like Gin' says, 'there's something about her.'" Celie's voice took on a pedantic tone. "She causes me to experience moisture conditions in my lower regions." Grinning mischievously at Alastair she asked saucily, "How's that for not calling a spade a spade?"
"See what I mean?" Alastair grinned at Mr. Wilkins, "not only chains, but a gag as well."
Mr. Wilkins sighed in ecstasy. "Why wait, dear boy? Why delay? Let us do it now!"
Celie stuck out a pink and pointed tongue at her guardian. "What are you waiting for, Darling? Want me to undress?"
The door opened. Janice entered.
It was not on the perky maid that all eyes focused. It was the naked girl she led by a tether from a collar round a slender neck; a girl whose hands were tied behind her back and who walked daintily on fettered feet, a girl who moved erect and proud but whose eyes were deep wells of fear; a girl who surveyed the room and those in it without hope.
Mr. Wilkins sighed in fresh rapture. "Exquisite, dear boy, where do you find them?" He was deeply affected. Enraptured, he followed the hobbled progress of the tethered girl as Janice led her to the centre of the room.
The effervescent Celie took Mr. Wilkins by the arm and led him forward. "You really must meet her, she's super," she enthused. "Moira, dear, this is Mr. Wilkins. He's our pet photographer."
Moira said her 'How do you do' and felt foolish. Then added, with a faint hinge of venom: "I'm sorry I can't shake hands. I don't seem to have any."
Mr. Wilkins was unperturbed. Placing a fatherly hand upon one captive arm, he kissed its owner soundly, using his other hand to gently assess the resiliency of the slave girl's left breast, from which delicately he moved lower to pat with effusive heartiness the left cheek of her bottom. It is doubtful that Moira fully grasped the sincerity of the accolade. Mr. Wilkins was a connoisseur of female bottoms, he wasted no pats on the unworthy. "Wonderful! Wonderful!" he intoned, "I'm a most fortunate man." He was slightly breathless.
"I am to be photographed while being flogged?" Moira queried, striving to disconcert him. "Really, how nice." Her tone was tart.
Her barb missed. Mr. Wilkins was engrossed in joys beyond feminine pique. "You are being to be quite marvellous." He assured her heartily. He ran his hands up and down her flanks, then patted her bottom once more for good measure. "Perfect, quite perfect!" He sighed with the ineffable.
"Trying to make me jealous, Willie?" Ginevra inquired from the sidelines.
Mr. Wilkins turned and peered at her with affectionate disapproval. "My dear girl, if you insist on swathing yourself in unseemly bits of textile material, you cannot expect to compete with this delectable creature."
"Oh Willie! Us girls can't go around naked all the time just to keep you erotically excited."
"You can, y'know," the champion of female nudity proclaimed stoutly. "Never did see any sense in putting clothes on girls." He peered around as though affirming the obvious. "Stands to reason. I mean, it's only practical. Whether you want to whip 'em or make love to 'em, clothes are just in the way... damn silly."
"Would you like me to fasten her, Sir?" Janice asked in a voice that said she had heard it all before.
"I'll do it!" Ginevra's words were a small explosion. She turned to Alastair. "Sorry! But may I?"
"What did I tell you?" Celie observed with satisfaction.
"That maid, what's her name, she needs her bottom caned," Mr. Wilkins observed to Alastair as though having made a discovery.
To Moira, nothing but Ginevra made sense. Naked, helpless, and about to be flogged, she was the centre of a family house party. The whole atmosphere was altogether too casual for the awfulness about to happen. She took no heart from the gaiety. The little man with his cameras and his lights would not be present unless there was something dramatic for his lens! She was desperately afraid, and wondered who would flog her with the awful whip. She did not question her longing that it be Ginevra. The longing did not arise from a belief that the girl who had tied her so cruelly the day before would hurt her less. It was instinctive; one more enigma.
The two girls were very close in the process of readying the one who was naked for the whip. With hands untied, Moira stood quietly for what was to be done with her. She sought and found Ginevra's eyes. There flashed between them the strange message of affinity that links the tortured with the one who wields the scourge. But there was more than that, a communion of trust in their sharing of desire; a knowledge of joy after pain. For minutes they were oblivious of the watchers round the room, save for knowing that without them their lips would have found each other.
With Ginevra, Moira knew peace. She watched her wrists tied to the bar with a feeling of relief. When they were tight and secure she sighed as though sloughing away the fears and anxieties of the night through which she had cringed dreaming only of the whip. The die was cast, she was beyond the point of no return. No matter how much she might struggle or plead she could not escape. Decision was gone! She reflected wryly on the small incidental boons of slavery. Now it would happen! It was very close. But there was nothing she could do. When the bar had risen and stretched her arms so that she stood familiarly on tiptoe, her nudity totally exposed, she managed a last smile at the girl who had bound her thus and said, simply: "Please whip me... I want it to be you."
It was Ginevra. Alastair waved away the honour, content in the certainty that, no matter what lay between the two, she would be merciless, her emotional involvement total. He watched with a deep intensity of feeling. No matter how often the scene might be repeated in his life, its potency, its unfailing conglomerate of sensation and implication never failed to evoke wonder. It was a moment almost of reverence, the speaking of last words. He wondered, amusedly, what Moira would say if such a declamation was demanded of her. It was a delicious thought to remember for the future.
The whip was in Ginevra's hands. She stood with it before the taut and naked girl whose body she would lash. Moira's lips parted in an unspoken exclamation at what she saw. She rose another inch upon her toes, hands twisting against their cords, fingers vainly seeking knots that were not there. It was not an effort at freedom, only a declaration of helplessness against what was about to happen. She was already panting as in sexual excitation.
Mr. Wilkins busied himself happily with lights, floods were rearranged, cameras strategically spread, a light meter held beneath the captive's chin. He peered hopefully at the woman with the whip. "You really should be naked, m'dear. Altogether more natural."
"You're just a dirty old man." Ginevra pouted, not displeased.
"Oh Darling! What a super idea. Please strip," Celie implored.
"He probably peddles his pictures on the streets," Ginevra conjectured. "Just imagine poor old Herbert buying a package and finding me busy whipping bottoms."
"Nothing the old boy hasn't seen before," Alastair chuckled. "I'll second the notion."
Ginevra stuck out her tongue in a rude gesture of refutation. She turned to the enthralled Janice. "Do you want me naked, too?"
"You're ever so beautiful, Miss."
Ginevra stripped, flattered and delighted, glorying in her nudity and the caress of warm air on bare skin. Stealing an interested glance 'round a strained shoulder, Moira knew thrills at the sensuous loveliness revealed and the lithe strength of an arm uncluttered for its task. Hurriedly, she turned back and stared stonily ahead, waiting for what she could not bear. Mr. Wilkins' shutters clicked busily. "Thank you, thank you, dear girl... " His gratitude was from the heart.
Ginevra struck. Only Mr. Wilkins had not been caught by surprise. His practised artist's eyes had caught the muscle flex as her naked arm flashed upon its task. His shutters clicked in a veritable frenzy. "Wonderful! Oh, simply superb." He flitted back and forth extracting and absorbing every ounce and nuance of the flogged girl's travail. Pausing at Alastair's elbow he whispered excitedly: "If only we could get her cries! Have you thought of recording? You were right; she is quite superlative." Again he crouched with camera at the ready, this time to capture the fluid motion of Ginevra's second swing.
Moira shared with Ginevra a world of her own. Its limits were the extremes of pain to which she was being subjected. Agony was her horizon; her cries were the night winds of desolation. Throughout that which was done to her the eyes of Ginevra would find her own in a strange reassurance. Between them would flow strength. Others might find no rationale in so divergent a communion, but it was there. Moira clung to it in desperate thankfulness.
There were sounds: Celie's irrepressible comments, the deeper notes of Alastair's responses, Mr. Wilkins incessant motions and sighs of approval. After the third wounding of her flesh he gave their naked victim a brief respite by insisting on the removal of the chains that inhibited the movement of her feet.
"Much better, Alastair, old boy. I've got some good shots of her with them on. Now if we take them off she'll give us an unconstrained movement of the torso; you'll find she'll kick out quite delightfully."
It was done. To Moira it meant little that her ankles be relieved of chains, she had been unaware of them. If her foot was snubbed in a motion of protest or of pain, what did it matter? She could not go from where she was. Her enemy was the cord that bound her wrists, because of it she must stand and be flogged. The neat bands tugged tightly by fingers that also gave love were her nemesis. In unrelenting pain they held her on her toes, held her even when, in the zenith of anguish, her writhings lifted her from contact with the floor. Her wrists, the poor darling slender wrists, became antagonists she could not beat; where her wrists were fastened so was she.
"You're not going to be too cautious about her breasts, I hope?" Mr. Wilkins inquired.
"I'm not going to touch her breasts with this whip," Ginevra affirmed stoutly. "If I let it wrap around her there, it will cut them."
"Too much caution robs us of a considerable area of her back that should be properly marked if we are to get a good overall effect," Mr. Wilkins argued earnestly. "I would suggest a couple of slanting strokes to end over or under the breast. Properly done you could get a really exciting 'X' effect. I am sure, dear girl, with your skill... " It was skill indeed! Ginevra cut the naked girl swiftly and vigorously as though anxious to be done with Mr. Wilkins' photographic requirements. The strained white back proclaimed her accuracy with a livid cross marking that ended above an arm or below the curve it could destroy. The shutters clicked in the urgency of capturing the naked frenzies the whip had spawned. The girl tethered by her wrists longed for an insensibility that would not come. She knew that, sentenced to more than she was to receive, she would long for death. Perhaps even with fifteen... ! Her voice pealed and pealed again.
The eight stroke brought unconsciousness. The naked loveliness hung from her punished wrists, head fallen forward as though in despair. Yet, so high upon her toes had she been suspended to be flogged that the loss of consciousness affected her pose but little. Her arms were still straight, her body taut. All of her was still offered to the lash.
"Isn't she simply super!" Celie demanded.
"I'm not too sure about seven more," Ginevra said thoughtfully. She ran the awful leather through her fingers so that they were flecked with blood. "Look!" She held up her hand.
"All of them," Celie said firmly.
"All of them," Alastair pronounced.
Mr. Wilkins was busily and happily recording Moira's most recent reaction to torture. He made no comment, perhaps he had not heard.
Ginevra nodded in understanding of the edict. "They won't be any lighter," she assured them solemnly. "Shall we bring her round with the smelling salts and brandy, or let her come back in her own time?"
"Bit hard on her wrists like this. Give her some brandy," Alastair ordered.
Chokingly, Moira protestingly came back from the shadows in which there was no pain. Her toes instantly sought the floor and took her weight, but even then her wrists screamed at their loathing of the cords, all of her was pain. She sought to return to the dream place where it did not hurt, where there was only blissful nothingness. But the brandy denied peace. It had brought her back for a purpose, a purpose that must be served. Her whole being revolted, her fortitude dissolved; she did that which she had forsworn while Ginevra held the whip: "No more," she pleaded. "Not again. Don't whip me any more!"
"Seven!" Alastair's voice was without emotion.
"I'll be anything you want... anything!"
"You are already everything we want. You are magnificent."
"Why whip me then... ? Oh, please!"
"You know why. We do not have to tell you."
"To break me... to make me humble? I'm humble now. I'll do or say anything."
"Ask for seven strokes that complete your request!" Alastair was inflexible.
"I can't! You know I can't! They kill me!"
"Then you are not humble."
The tied and naked girl moaned in utter hopelessness. For the whip to start again its striation of her flesh was unthinkable. She sobbed heartbrokenly, "It's not fair! It's too awful... I can't, I can't! Oh please, forgive me...!"
"You may ask for the seven and add that you want them hard, or you will receive fourteen," Alastair said unemotionally. "You are a bit vulnerable, y'know."
"You'll kill me. No girl can stand this...!" Moira abandoned concern for shame or for pride; she knew herself lost.
"Please darling... don't fight." Celie was alarmed.
"We all obey Alastair." Ginevra's heart was in her voice.
"If I faint... must you revive me?" The flogged girl clutched at straws.
"You must be conscious, you know that." There was an edge to Alastair's voice.
Moira sobbed in a rising hysteria, intermingled with her moans were small inarticulate cries of pure fear. She swayed back and forth against her tethered wrists, tugging at them in an expression of anger not voice.
Ginevra's memory went back to a time when she, too, had cried aloud in lonely desolation. Even though she would punish this naked girl cruelly and to Alastair's total satisfaction, her heart was torn in sympathy. Without a word she took the trembling nudity in her arms and caressed it and held it tight until the trembling stopped. Moira strove instinctively to respond and to throw her arms around her executioner in love and gratitude, but she swung helpless unable to do more than trust cheek to cheek and shed her tears upon a shoulder naked as her own.
Those watching remained silent, content to share a rare emotion, satisfied with Ginevra's mastery of the moment. Only Mr. Wilkins sighed and clicked in reverent gratitude for a feast beyond superlatives. The moments drifted on and on as Ginevra's warm nakedness brought the slave back to life. When she who held the whip finally stepped back, cheeks flushed, breasts heaving, it had become both natural and simple for Moira to plead.
"Ginevra... Darling. Please flog me, seven more blows. Please lash me very, very hard."
The watchers saw the smile exchanged between the naked girls, and knew it possible Moira had not heard a word of what she said.
Ginevra lashed her seven times. Moira fainted only once. Before they left they kissed her. Janice in unaffected worship; Celie with love, Alastair with male approval; Mr. Wilkins in awed awareness of privilege. At the last moment Ginevra whispered in Alastair's ear, and received a grin and a nod and a pat on her bottom in response. The two girls who shared nakedness were left alone.
Ginevra sat and looked, drinking in ecstasy. The wealed body of the tied girl was wet with sweat; her hair was damp and limp; her head rested against a strained arm, eyes closed. Her heaving breaths were slowly subsiding, but on her face was peace: a radiance. Silence filled their need. After a long time it was Moira who spoke.
"I have to stand like this, don't I? After being whipped, I mean. It's sort of a rule?" Her words held no tinge of complaint.
"Yes, Darling, you have to stand. I think it's done to let a girl know that nothing's ever quite finished."
"I don't mind." The tired voice spoke in the wonder of discovery. "It's just my wrists... but I don't care, honest I don't."
Ginevra kissed her captive, ardently and long. When they paused for breath she whispered: "I'm going to cheat, just a tiny little bit." Going to the wall she lowered the bar until the heels of the whipped girl rested comfortably on the floor.
Moira was still helpless, but was suffused by joy. Her arms flexed, her fingers worked frantically. Every bit of her savoured the couple of inches of freedom. Her wounded wrists made their own separate tribute of gratitude. By such small margins does a captive measure bliss. "Oh thank you! Thank you... " Her voice trembled in pathetic sincerity.
"For half killing you?" Ginevra laughed gaily. "Sweetheart, I'd take you off the bar completely, but someone might come. I expect someone will."
Moira suddenly glimpsed truth. "You were like this once, weren't you? I should have known. You're not really what they call one of 'The Special People'."
Ginevra waved a deprecating arm. "Oh, I was a slave girl alright. Tell you about it sometime. But I'm guilty of the other too. I'm one of The Special Ones. I sort of graduated, or maybe I simply married into the hierarchy. Anyway, I belong. Poor old Herbert makes me one of the top brass."
"But you obey Alastair?"
"I suppose I always will. The treatment sticks, y'know. I wouldn't dare disobey him."
"You mean, he'd still punish you?"
"Of course he would! Look at the marks on me now. Not that they're punishment. He whipped me for fun the first afternoon."
"You like it, don't you?"
Moira considered the question. It was one she had often asked herself. She was not sure of the answer. "It's gorgeous before and after," she admitted.
"Will I get to like it?" Moira's voice held no conviction.
"I think you may. You can't believe it now, but you have the earmarks." Ginevra laughed amusedly. "Young Celie's the one. I don't think she's ever been whipped, but she seethes with longing."
"No girl could want what's just happened to me."
"Perhaps not a flogging, love. But Celie can hardly wait for the whip and the cane. I'd love to be the first."
Moira desperately needed to learn. "Did you enjoy whipping me... or any girl?"
"I adore it," her companion admitted simply. "It's a gate you walk through into Paradise." She laughed guiltily. "It also lights a fire in a girl's cunny."
"What will they do with me now I've been flogged?"
Ginevra eyed the captive quizzically. "Depends on how well the flogging took, Darling. Feel any different... apart from hurting, that is?"
"They are right about it," Moira admitted thoughtfully. "I got twenty lashes. I suppose each one of them whittled me down a little. From being a rather arrogant wench, I've gone down the ladder to being a small girl who won't contradict anyone... certainly not Alastair."
"He has that effect," Ginevra conceded thoughtfully. "Suppose he demanded of you to ask nicely for twenty more, what would you do?"
"I would ask, expecting that I would die," Moira admitted slowly. Her head suddenly reared. "Is it possible...?"
"No, I was teasing. He might if you were still bitchy, but you're not." Ginevra came close and ran her fingertips over weal after weal on the soft skin. "They're lovely, only a little blood."
Moira winced. "Will they... will they heal? Or am I marked for life?"
Ginevra swivelled 'round her toes. "Look at me. See any scars?"
Moira gasped. "You mean... you?"
"Yes, love, me! I got it every bit as bad. Alastair whipped me himself. I've been a good girl ever since."
It was their greatest sharing. They stood, drinking in the message in each other's eyes, a female wisdom born of pain.
"It does... it does, change us...?" Moira sought help in her puzzlement.
Ginevra nodded soberly. "We hate to face it, but yes, the flogging, the request, the whole awfulness of it does change us." She gave her captive a quick kiss to stem protest. "I suppose it hurts our pride to know we've been mastered, made to see ourselves as simply female instead of the almighty Miss So-and-so from number forty-one Belgrave Square."
"We've been broken. That's the word, isn't it?" Moira asked dispiritedly.
Ginevra laughed consolingly and stretched her feline grace in feminine provocation. "Am I broken?"
Despite pain and puzzlement, Moira joined the laughter. "Well, no I suppose you aren't, but if Alastair was to walk in this moment and order you to your knees you'd obey."
"Because I'd want to. My wanting would be stronger than my fear of being flogged. Be honest, now, if you got the same order, you'd obey with a willingness you could not have managed a week ago."
Moira was becoming infected with the analysis. "What we are really saying is that Alastair has rolled back the centuries, stripped us of pretence along with our clothes."
"You know what Janice says: 'Isn't it lovely, Miss!' "Ginevra mocked. "It is lovely. It's what Celie calls super." She pondered seriously for moments, then added almost shyly, "There's something coming out of it, a sort of bonus, another of those things you can't find words for. We come to love each love each other... " She grinned wryly, "Am I making any sense?"
The captive girl's incredulity began to melt before she could frame it into words. "I love you," she whispered in discovery.
"Do you hate Celie?"
"Of course not! She's sweet."
"Or dear old Mr. Wilkins, or Alastair...?"
"Nooo!" Moira was treading on strange ground. "But I'm afraid of Alastair, he's... he's - "
"He's male." Ginevra laughed. "I love him ridiculously, but I'm scared out of my wits at his displeasure."
Moira delved into her endless store of bafflement. "There's something else about myself that doesn't make sense: in a way I'm glad, but it scares me. For the last couple of days, and right now, I haven't thought about escape. I haven't wanted to ask you or Janice to help me get away. I'd have done anything to avoid the flogging, but escape never entered my head. Is that good or bad?"
Ginevra airily waved away the profundity. "It's neither, Sweetheart. You've simply entered reality. Those first few days after a girl is captured aren't real at all. They're awful! We're in such a dither of offended dignity about having to show our breasts and nipples and hairy places, and we're still quite sure that if we pour on enough contemptuous hauteur, they'll let us go scurrying back to Laburnum Terrace or wherever we came from." She laughed gaily. "I'm ashamed to think of the performance I put on before I was flogged. Alastair still makes fun of me."
"You're glad you were flogged, aren't you?"
"Of course I am! So are you!"
Again their glances locked, all inhibitions cast aside. This time their laughter held no shadows.
"If I could my hands untied from that bar, I'd be happy," Moira confessed.
"That wouldn't be a hint, would it? First you get the chains back on your feet, Miss Docile." Ginevra knelt and locked the metal bands upon the slim ankles.
"You don't need to chain me anymore; I'll behave," the captive pouted.
"You know better than that, love. The chains and handcuffs and things you'll wear are only about ten percent to keep you from running; the other ninety is to instill a proper attitude in your pretty little head so you won't be earning yourself a whipping every day."
"But I'll probably get one anyway?" There was mischief in Moira's voice.
"If you use that tone often your bottom will be on fire at all times," Ginevra assured her cheerfully.
"How's the invalid?" The male voice of Alastair came to them from the doorway. He sauntered a couple of turns 'round the figure of the whipped and naked girl who watched him bright-eyed apprehension. "You are very beautiful," he told her with tremendous sincerity.
"I chained her ankles," said Ginevra.
"It doesn't matter, I'll carry her." He was decisive.
The return of her hands was, to Moira, a gift beyond rubies. Joyfully, she watched the bar and felt the release of strain. Slowly it lowered; her bound hands with it. In immense gratitude she saw the cords peeled from her cut wrists; her shoulders hurt screamingly against a return to normal, but she felt only gladness. She knew this to be a milestone in her life. When Alastair picked her up she sensed something of what Ginevra has preached.
It was a simple dungeon, a place in which to punish or to prison. A place in which a naked girl would have much opportunity to reflect. Moira's chains matched its mood, but the handcuffs were at variance with its medieval grimness. She made no motion or word of protest as they locked her hands behind her back. If she did not struggle they would not hurt. She was content with that. But the thing which next was done left her agape.
Alastair chained Ginevra's feet. The older girl stood passive while it was done, a quiet smile upon her lips, the vibrations of her sexuality reaching out to touch her companions. The chains were similar to those on the younger captive. When they were locked tight Ginevra kicked at them with the pleasure of a child with an new toy, exploring their possibilities, sampling the confinement of her feet. Seeing Moira's disbelief, she explained cheerfully: "I've been a bad girl."
But when Alastair produced a second pair of handcuffs the new prisoner almost stumbled against her hobbles in stepping away from the shining steel offered for her wrists. "Oh Alastair!" her protest held more pleasure than distress. "Not my hands... ! Please Darling!"
"You don't need hands for what you have in mind," said Alastair grimly.
"But, Darling, how can we... well, eat, if one of us doesn't have hands?"
"You'll manage. Come on... behind your back. Quick!"
"Oh Alastair, I didn't mean that." She made a little girl gesture of appeal, her eyes archly wicked. "Well, if you must be brutal at least let me have my hands in front." She held out her wrists in hopeful invitation.
Alastair wasted no words; taking her by the arm he led her to the wall and locked around her slender neck a metal collar from which an adequate length of chain tethered her to a massive iron ring in the stone. While it was done to her, Ginevra made rueful and deprecating grimaces at the wondering girl who watched.
"There you are, Darling, both hands completely free." Alastair's sarcasm was also an admonition.
"Thank you, Master." Ginevra's eyes were bright.
The male turned to Moira. "She questioned and complained. A slave girl does neither."
"No, Master." It was as though she had called men 'master' all her life. Moira felt herself blushing under his scrutiny. She fought back an instinct to fall to her knees before him. Ginevra's submissiveness most surely hold a message. Ginevra was not by nature meek.
Both girls kept a silence that was more cautious than respectful. They were aware of being vulnerably nude. Pert remarks might produce a whip or more chains. "I should chain you to opposite walls," Alastair told them thoughtfully. "But I have a kind heart."
He was still chuckling when he left and slammed the door. "You asked, didn't you?" Moira accused delightedly.
"I didn't ask for this damn thing 'round my neck," Ginevra conceded disgustedly. "I hate being chained by my neck." She made some tentative steps to explore the limited range of her tether. Reaching it, she held up her hands. "At least we got these out of it." She bit her lip in sudden apprehension, "Unless the blighter comes back and fixes me the same as you. I've got an awful feeling he might."
"It was terribly sweet of you, Darling, to want to be with me. Did you know he'd chain you?"
Ginevra shrugged resignedly. "You never know. But I did expect him satisfied with my feet. That makes it awkward enough. He's jealous about girls." She fingered her collar angrily. "He knows I hate being tethered like a puppy dog. Anyway, we can be thankful you can move around." She laughed at the younger girl's dubious expression. "Don't worry, Darling. Even with our ankles chained like this we can still do it, y'know. Our beloved Master has simply made it a bit more difficult."
"I do love you being here through. I'd hug you if I had any hands," Moira said wistfully.
"I may not be such a little heroine tomorrow or the day after if his Lordship just leaves us here," Ginevra observed thoughtfully. "I forgot about that when I asked. I've no idea whether we get out in an hour, a day or a month. It would amuse him to keep me chained like this indefinitely. He could fob Herbert off with some cock and bull story; not that Herbert would mind; he might even approve." She chuckled ruefully, "I asked for it, so here I am." She gazed with love at her doubly chained companion, "Darling, be quite sure I'm glad. I'm terribly glad... " The following day brought visitors. The first was Celie, a whirlwind child who kissed and hugged the naked captives as though fearful the dungeon had swallowed them.
"Alastair's awful," she wailed angrily. "I asked to be chained in here with you with no clothes on, and he wouldn't. Said I was too young and I didn't know what I was getting into! I say, Gin' Darling, you do look sweet in that collar."
"Stay with us anyway," Ginevra suggested, blushing.
"I can't! Oh, I could kick him, he's so smug! I can only stay five minutes. He told me to tell you, Gin' that if I make a fuss or try and stay with you he'll handcuff your wrists behind your back. He would think of something!"
"How long is he going to keep us here?" Moira asked timidly.
Celie sniffed irritably. "He won't tell me. But I know he's amused about putting Ginevra in here; it might be for simply ages. He'd call it teaching her a lesson... Darling, which is the worst; the handcuffs or that thing 'round your neck? You look gorgeous, both of you."
"If he'd handcuff me in front, the collar and chain would be the worst," Ginevra admitted, "but I sure don't want my hands behind my back."
"I'll run off in time then." Celie looked bereft. "I'll try and persuade his Majesty to let you out, but if he won't I'll have to get permission to whip you or something, just to get a visit. Good-bye Darlings... "
"Like a breath of spring," Ginevra mourned. "I could eat her up. She'd love to be chained in here with us, I know she would. But Alastair would never go for it."
"How strong is his hold on her?" Moira was curious.
"He's her legal guardian and administrator of her estate. But, regardless of that, she adores him. She might disobey him out of mischief, but I doubt she would over anything serious. She might steal a little time with us, but she'd never set us free."
Moira sighed. "I'll never be free again, will I?" She made it sound like an epitaph.
Their next visitor was Mr. Wilkins. He arrived with Janice; both bore burdens. "When I heard about the collar and chain, wild horses would not have kept me from you," he announced genially.
"Oh Willie! I don't want to be photographed like this!" Ginevra wailed.
"You have never looked more lovely," Mr. Wilkins sighed. He turned to Moira, "Your marks are exquisite, dear child. You don't mind, do you?"
He was an endearing puppy. One could not be angry with him. Moira shared his enthusiasm. "Go ahead." She clinked her handcuffs. "I couldn't stop you if I tried." Mr. Wilkins went ahead with gusto. A dungeon is not the most lively place in which to spend a day, thus the captives threw themselves into the task with equal verve. Janice produced feminine oddments the girls greeted with joy. But when Mr. Wilkins brought into view a small oval brush, Ginevra blushed scarlet and backed against her ringbolt in the wall. "No Willie! Absolutely no!" she protested vehemently.
"My dear girl, you know perfectly well it's the final touch, the jewel in your crown, so to speak." Mr. Wilkins did not pause.
"Willie! Have you no shame?"
To the watching Moira it was obvious that Ginevra was not too distressed by what was about to happen, her plaint verged on laughter. Wide-eyed she beheld the incredible; Mr. Wilkins with studied care began to brush the black and wiry fleece of pubic hair so invitingly open to his attention.
"I ought to turn my back on you, Willie." Ginevra pouted, trying hard not to squirm. "I could, y'know."
"Please do, dear girl. Janice brought a can." Mr. Wilkins was absorbed in his task.
"You're just a dirty old man."
Mr. Wilkins sighed happily. "An admirable profession," he agreed.
The job of brushing a girl's pubic hair can not be prolonged beyond a certain point without arousing suspicions of ulterior intent. Sighing gently, Mr. Wilkins stopped just barely short of that demarcation. He stood back and surveyed his work with satisfaction. Ginevra herself bent forward to have a look. Moira, stifling giggles, wondered if it was purely imagination that caused Ginevra's feminine triangle to seem freshly lush and shining. The photographer's skills and dedication were not to be denied.
"Paint the nipples a bright scarlet and touch up the areoles with stain," Mr. Wilkins directed an intrigued Janice.
The happy little man now turned his attention to Moira. "And now, my dear, if you will part your feet the length of their chain." He beamed pinkly, brush a t ready.
Moira told herself it was quite absurd and that she should certainly make a fuss. But Janice had placed a willowy cane where it might be prominently observed by interested parties. I did seem silly to get whipped for this! Besides, in a flash of honesty, she could scarcely wait for it to happen. Ginevra, after her protests, had obviously enjoyed the attention, just as she was now enjoying having her nipples painted by an intent and snickering lady's maid. Moira, blushing, stretched her feet apart to the limit of their chain. She was duly brushed. It tickled delightfully.
"You have a most lovely cunt, dear child." Mr. Wilkins sighed in heartfelt tribute.
It was very quite after the cameras had clicked themselves into silence and the visitors had gone. If it was not for the horrific threats implicit in their structure, dungeons would be peaceful places. The naked girls sat on the stone and laughed in retrospect. It was not until Ginevra's questing mind turned to more serious intents that she burst out with a sudden "Oh damn and blast!"
Moira tugged at her handcuffs, startled. "What's the matter, Darling?"
"I've only just realized," her fellow captive said irritably. "We're both painted."
In a flash of understanding, Moira was inclined to giggle. Anything to do with Mr. Wilkins was ludicrous. On the other hand... ! She cursed her handcuffs. If only she could moisten a finger and find out... !
Ginevra was already testing. "Oh fiddle! It won't come off. I bet the old bastard's fixed us on purpose. Alastair probably put him up to it. Darling, come close so I can taste!"
Moira eagerly shuffled to within the radius of her companion's tether. Her moist lips enveloped her right nipple. A wet tongue tentatively tested.
"Ugh!" Ginevra spat disgustedly. "We taste awful. I bet Willie and his Majesty are laughing their heads off. Here, Sweetheart, you try me."
Moira employed her lips with the same result. Ginevra's nipples were as tainted as her own. The impervious bright scarlet mocked them with its loveliness.
"If I could get my hands on his little scrawny neck!" Ginevra exclaimed vehemently. She looked around in frustration, "Not a rag or a glass of water... nothing! We'll have to wait 'till they feed us."
"Wash our breasts in tea?" Moira tittered.
"If we have to," Ginevra affirmed. "But I've had this trick played on me before, it takes a solvent and soap and water. Oh damn...!"
"Feeling sorry for yourselves?" Celie's laughing face peered at them from the door. She kicked it open and came towards the prisoners. She carried a tray. "Janice told me." She was all giggles. "They did it on purpose, big joke! But here, use this! And for goodness sake hurry! I'm not supposed to be playing good Samaritan."
Never had solvent been more liberally applied on four breasts more vigorously soaped and watered and rubbed. Celie helped with an enthusiasm that evoked unprotesting yelps. When the first nipple was deemed cleansed, it was her lips that made the initial test. "You taste gorgeous! Oh, I wish I could stay!"
They adored her. She looked at them with infinite longing. "Darlings! In case they're suspicious I brought this." She gave them a small bottle and a brush. "In between times you can paint yourselves as red as you like. It's harmless and tastes lovely; I tried it on Janice. My two are a lovely crimson right now. I'll make her suck them clean. Alastair will never know; serves him right."
She loaded her tray, kissed them lingeringly, and made for the door. Half way there she turned. "I think one of you won't be here too long now," she said hesitantly. Her eyes rested in speculation on Moira; they held a hint of sadness, but it was to Ginevra she imparted the news. "Alastair tells me Justin is due here tomorrow."
When the thud of the bolts had once more imparted their message of the hopelessness of escape, Moira looked at the naked girl chained to the wall. "Who's Justin?" she asked, sensing implications.
Ginevra shook her head as though ridding it of memories. "Justin is someone who should have stayed away, she said heavily.
To Moira, the dungeon suddenly felt cold.
* * *
"Alastair left his apologies. He should be back tomorrow. But I'll look after you," Celie said brightly.
Justin gave her his best boyish smile. It was a smile that had stood him in good stead, unless, of course, its recipient looked into the eyes. Justin's eyes rarely smiled along with the rest of his features. "I'd much sooner have you," he said with complete sincerity.
"You've come to torture Ginevra, haven't you?" Celie said flatly, stating fact.
"She screams so beautifully." There was no hint of denial in the charming admission. "I heard she was here only yesterday. Herbert let it drop with some friends in Antibes. I lost no time."
"You're in love with her, aren't you?" Celie probed. "Is that why you enjoy hurting her more than you do any of the others?"
"You're wise little girl."
"I'm not a little girl. Are you going to hurt her because of Herbert?"
"Revenge!" He considered the premise. "Yes, I suppose you're right." He imparted a comradely grin. "But I'm in love with you too."
"When can I expect to be tortured?" Her tone was half impish, half frigid.
"Immediately Alastair gives the word," Justin assured her without banter. "We all think he's keeping you cloistered far too long."
"You just called me a little girl." Celie's voice had become sulky. "And besides, I don't much like the things you do. I'd sooner be whipped."
"There you are! You're ready!" Justin's voice held all the cynicism of the world. "By the way, I suppose you've got Ginevra chained somewhere, or is she just a house guest?"
"She's safely chained. But I think you should wait until Alastair comes home."
"Only if you let me practice on you, Darling."
Celie examined the youthful face; it was so assured, so confident in the rightness of his desires. Justin was one of The Special Ones. Justin belonged. He was Public School. He was an athlete. At twenty-eight he still pulled the wings off flies. He would watch in adoration while she writhed in agony. She shivered, but retorted gaily. "You know I'm out of bounds. Won't Janice do?"
Justin considered; one quizzical eye cocked at her in mockery. Celie knew he was stripping her naked. "Oh, Janice would do alright." He made the 'do' a total denigration. "But it's damn funny, these social distinctions; snobbery I suppose, but a housemaid's cries could never be as exquisite as yours."
"Or Ginevra's?"
He sighed in longing. "That woman destroys me."
"She's already been whipped."
"It does not matter. I will give her other ecstasies."
"There is a new girl," Celie admitted hesitantly. "She's scrumptious. But she's only just had her Request Flogging - hardly ready for you."
"You make me sound like Caligula." He laughed, flattered.
"You are really hard on the poor girls," Celie complained. "If one of those ancient rotters could watch you at work with us he'd go green with envy."
"I notice you're including yourself," Justin chuckled.
Celie flushed. "I can't help it, I'm doing it all the time. I shouldn't. I'm Alastair's. He wouldn't give me to you - not the first time, for sure."
"But eventually."
Celie had wondered. It was something she had not wanted to talk about with Alastair. She did not see herself as one of the girls. She wasn't! She would be Special, Special! She was sure.
"You'd better ask him," she suggested offhandedly. "Maybe you can book me for a year ahead." She caught the flash of his eyes. She knew that, if she was willing, he would take her now and be more cruel than she could bear. She wondered what he would do; the infliction of her agony. He was such a fine looking chap! Strange that The Special Ones were so diverse. "You just like to hurt us." Her accusation was direct. "You don't care about making us the least bit goosey."
"I'll make you moan with ecstasy first, if that's what you want." He was laughing at her, without subterfuge.
It had gone far enough. Alastair had gone, Mr. Wilkins had gone, there were only the servants. True, she could unchain Ginevra and gain a raging champion, but Justin had come specially for Ginevra and the Code gave him that right. If Ginevra, or any other, was in Soniaive, she must be delivered to him chained and without recourse. Celie wondered what would happen if she broke the Code. She wondered, too, if it would be right to try and persuade him to torture Moira instead.
"What have you got in that wooden case you won't part with?" she asked irrelevantly with a deliberate infusion of mischief.
"Look for yourself, Cherub," he invited with a wave of his hand. "It belonged to girl named Pandora."
Far more curious than nervous, Celie did as bidden. It was disappointing but scary. She looked up at Justin. "A box full of electric gadgets," she complained in distaste.
"The better to shock you with, my dear."
"You mean shock poor Gin'. I bet you'll tie her up and make her scream with a lot of lousy electric current." Celie strove to keep the mischief alive in her voice, "Why can't you torture a girl in a nice sensible humane fashion: you know, a thumbscrew or splinters under the fingernails, or something!"
"You don't like me much, Cherub."
"You frighten me. You make a girl feel she's made of nuts and bolts."
Justin gave her a lopsided grin. "You underrate me, you gorgeous child. With that wooden box I could make you daughter of the skies, the wind, the lightening and the ocean spray. I can take you out among the stars and down to the blackest canyons of the deep. I can give you wings or the unending convulsions of the act of love." He paused in mock histrionics. "I can even give you the utmost quintessence of pain."
"Minus my clothes and suitably bound, I suppose?"
He waved assent. "The costume's de rigeur, Cherub."
Celie was troubled. She wished Alastair present. Justin's hunger for her alone meant Ginevra would suffer cruelly. Celie wished it was some other girl; she did not wish Gin' hurt by pain in which a girl would find no ecstasy. But she was hostess, and in that role most perform a duty. "Just what do you have in mind, Justin?" she asked primly.
* * *
To Moira the aloneness was frightening. Ginevra was a radiance; a warm and vibrant force. To be suddenly bereft of her was like midnight at noon. The grimness of the granite made her prison doubly a dungeon: her chains were heavier; the helplessness of her handcuffed wrists behind her back was now alarming; Ginevra's hands had been hers; now they were gone! Together, the two of them had been able to laugh away the rigors of their captivity. Alone, laughter became only legend.
But desuetude was not all. Moira remembered the stricken look on Ginevra's face when Janice dangled the handcuffs. The maid herself had worn the look of painful duty when, with a gesture of distaste, she had locked the unresisting wrists and replaced the metal collar with one of leather and a leash by which she led the now helpless captive from the dungeon and from her love. At the door Ginevra had turned and done her best to smile in reassurance. Then shrugging in resignation, she allowed the leash to lead her out of sight. Never had the closing of the door left greater desolation.
Moira wept. Within her was both fear and disappointment. The granite had become claustrophobic. Disappointment in the knowledge of the implacability of Soniaive was bitter. If Ginevra, one of The Special Ones, could be delivered to torture at the whim of another of the Cult, what hope had she? The warmth of Celie or the love of the older girl could neither sustain or protect, they were subject as she herself. Even Celie faced some strange and anguished destiny. That she did so with insouciance changed nothing.
Her condition was typified by her tears. She could not dry them; she had no hands; they flowed as they pleased; the angry tossing of her head appeased them not at all. She thought of her flogging; it had been an end to nothing, only a beginning, an instrument by which she be made pliant to the wishes of The Special Ones. Thought of the un-numbered group was unnerving. She knew that if Ginevra alone possessed and tortured her she would live in a vividly coloured land of female eroticism in which she would find more pleasure than pain. Given a choice between freedom or slavery to the girl who had stayed beside her in her chains, she would choose the latter. But there was no choice; she was thrall to Soniaive.
She scorned to seek comfort; there was none! Miserably, she paced back and forth as though daring the chains upon her feet to stop her. The tears had long since dried; an hour may have passed before the sudden opening of the door caught her in mid-stride in the centre of the floor. Startled, she looked askance at the smiling features of a handsome young man. "Good afternoon, Moira," he said with engaging innocence, "I would like to torture you."
She guessed instantly; this was Justin. His incredible greeting was on a par with all the rest. There was that in his eyes which drove her wrists against the confining metal in an instinctive need to cover what she could. She could find no words, either of assent or of protest, so remained silent, her eyes wide with appeal, whishing he was the charming young man he seemed to be.
Having made his premature denouement, Justin sauntered through the portal and stood surveying her nakedness with frank approval. He was obviously enjoying her dismay and her small revolt against her chains. He nodded as though in confirmation. "Sweet little Celie underrated you," he said with the thoughtful air of a man confronted with a bargain. "You're as special as Darling Gin'" The ready bitter words were on Moira's lips, words to annihilate his self-assurance, his crass maleness, but she did not utter them. Her flogging was too recent; it had deeply ingrained in her a constant awareness of what she could or could not do or say. In any case, she was quite helpless; she would have to obey. That was her function now, to yield her nakedness to The Special Ones. She remembered Ginevra's unquestioning surrender.
Justin produced a satyr's grin, too wise and too knowing. "Done a bit of nibbling, 'eh! That's a versatile female you've been locked up with. Alastair's too easy with her, let's her do whatever she likes."
"Why do you hate her?"
"Hate her! Good Heaven's girl, I love the beautiful creature until it hurts."
"So you want to make her scream!"
"You're new." He gazed at Moira, almost with kindness. "You don't understand. The flogging knocked the stuffing out of you, I expect. You probably think I'm 'round the bend. Alastair should have done a bit of briefing with you on the aesthetics instead of chaining you up to the most female thing that ever was."
"We weren't chained to each other! I've been chained like this ever since I was put in here."
"And very nice too!" Justin cheerfully approved.
Without preamble he picked her up and carried her from the room.
It was the place where girls were tied, the chamber in which Ginevra and Moira had spent their first time together. Ginevra was a perfect 'X', gloriously naked, spread and bound upon the frame that held her. She did not see them enter; her head moved slowly from side to side in an anguish all of her own. The rest of her could not move; she was strapped to the frame at wrist and ankle and round her waist. Only her fingers and her toes could join the mute expression of something unbearable that the motions of her head so eloquently portrayed.
"The dear girl is enjoying a symphony that only she can hear," Justin explained with satisfaction.
He sat Moira on her feet, her back a yard from the wall. Quickly he removed the shackles from her feet; instantly replacing them on her slim ankles by simple bands of metal that seemed to have no function beyond feminine adornment. She was still looking down at them in puzzlement when a collar was fitted 'round her throat and snapped fast; the weight that hung from it told her she was now chained to the wall as Ginevra had been in the dungeon. A moment later the handcuffs fell away from her wrists. She stood, mentally groping, in an unaccustomed liberty.
It was strange to have her hands; she had been robbed of them so long. It was delightful to hold them before her eyes and to massage the red skin chafed by their prisonment. For the moment she wanted nothing more of life; it was bliss enough. But then the collar! She fingered it experimentally and knew it implacable. Turning, she measured the chain that tethered her to the stone; there was enough of it to allow her to move toward the centre of the room. She bent and twisted at the bands upon her ankles; they were tight and would not respond. They had no visible join, but they did not matter. She was captive only by the tether which linked her to the ringbolt in the wall. Perhaps Justin was not as black as he was painted.
The sensation had possessed her before she became aware of it. At first she supposed it a thing within herself born of shock and fear, and now relief. It was very pleasant. A thing of delayed reactions and slow, slow motion. A spreading warmth. It was like the enjoyable prelude to sleep, or the radiance of hot sun on naked flesh in summertime. It was also a little like the more pleasurable aspects of intoxication; everything was beautiful.
Ginevra was the most beautiful thing of all! There is beauty so poignant that those who see must know a strange anguish of the soul. Moira felt it. Quickly scanning the male who held them captive, she saw that he, too, was held in thrall. Justin stood in rapture, his right hand resting within the wooden box. Whatever his quest might be, he had found in the loveliness strapped upon the frame.
Moira felt both happy and free. She knew the freedom to be a delusion. Whatever was inducing euphoria was not potent enough to lift the weight of chain from her neck. She did not mind; compared to yesterday she was gloriously free. She stretched her arms to either side and made them do motions as though in dancing, a purely sensuous satisfaction in possessing them again. Justin spared her a quick glance and smiled in some secret knowledge of his own.
But it was Ginevra who held the stage. Groping through her own incomprehensible maze, Moira stood entranced. Justin had been right: here was a symphony without sound. Standing close, Moira could now observe the immense surges of motion restrained by the tight straps that secured her naked companion to the sturdy 'X'. Muscular contractions came and went in a repetitive rhythm of pain. They leaped against the leather and were repulsed. They flowed up an arm or down a leg and spent themselves in frustration within the buckled bands. It was obvious the firmly fastened girl was in great pain. Apart from the wracked torso the features alone told their story of an awfulness too great to bear, yet there were no screams: gasps and heaving breaths, eyes half closed in a vision all their own, but none of the cries of agony that should have accompanied the thrusting of the flesh against the straps. The lips formed the sounds, again and again, but did not utter them. Above Ginevra's elbows deeply imbedded to the softness of her arms were metal circlets similar to those on Moira's ankles.
In a bemused fashion Moira understood herself robbed of perspective by whatever electrical chicanery to which she was subject. But, try as she would, she could not fight her way back to clarity; her reasoning processes had been slipped out of gear by an influence becoming increasingly pleasurable. She did not, in fact, desire lucidity. She was happy. She drank in the loveliness that was Ginevra on the frame with the same intent preoccupation as Justin himself. What more could be asked of life? The anguished nudity was all the wonder of the World.
Without conscious volition, Moira found herself straining against her collar and its chain. In seeking to approach and to touch the suffering nudity she adored, she had reached the limit of her freedom. With eyes still fascinated and fastened upon the nude source of the joy she shared with Justin; her hand went to the metal by which she herself was captive. Defeated by the circle of steel, she stepped back enough to release the tug of the chain upon her throat. Her motions were purely instinctive; she was scarcely aware of them. She stood in ecstasy before the shrine. The tortured lips mutely moaned.
Moira sensed the imminence of her orgasm well before it blossomed. She tried to feel guilt and horror that her loved one's torment should generate lust. She strove to fight back the mounting waves of ecstasy, but the power controlling her rolled them forward irresistibly so that she clutched her vulva with admonishing hands as though to stem the tide of concupiscence. But the touch of the fingers was the key to loosen the flood. Moaning in complete surrender to her senses she clutched herself in wild abandon and cried aloud her joy. But never for a moment did her eyes leave the tortured girl upon the frame. Justin smiled his secret satyr's smile that no one saw.
There were moments of conscience in which Moira tore at the smooth anklets that nestled so tightly within her skin. She was certain they were the instruments by which Justin imposed his will and turned her into a constantly burgeoning nucleus of sentience. But, even as she touched them, she knew the hopelessness of their removal. They were a part of her and would work their will; her own was not strong enough to counter them. Uncaring and glad, she turned once more to worship at the pain bedewed altar of her love.
Justin was so wonderful, so male! In a few deft motions he had unstrapped Ginevra from her frame and snapped the collar and chain upon her neck. Dazed, the tortured girl stood in her new freedom, shaking her head as though bemusedly seeking to reorient herself within a world in which was as it ought to be. Moira, watching, knew that for the other naked girl the pain had stopped and was replaced by something else: a sensory morass in which there was no sure or certain path. She stepped forward and held out her hand.
The metamorphosis was rapid. Ginevra's loveliness lost tits tension, her lips softened, her eyes glowed. Like a compass needle seeking its magnet her gaze sought Moira's and locked. Joyfully, she stepped forward and held out her arms. At that moment, for the two girls, neither Justin or their chains existed, they saw only each other.
The snub of the chain and collar upon her neck halted Ginevra in mid-stride. In puzzlement her hands explored the circlet and its links as though she had been unaware of them and was still uncertain of their effect upon her. She stepped forward cautiously, once more as did Moira, until each of them was at the limit of their confining chain, their hands lifting to each other in an infinite hunger...
Justin had contrived it cleverly. He stood watching with pleased amusement as the realization of their sundering filtered into the bemused awareness of the naked girls. They could come close, but they could not embrace, flesh could not find flesh, nor lips enjoin. In bafflement their fingers rose to the thing upon their throat. They could associate it with the bafflement of their desire, but the reasoning process by which their limitation could be accepted had been taken from them. They knew only their love and a great hunger of the flesh. They were utterly oblivious of the watching male. Theirs arms reached out, their fingers touched.
There was no flash of fire, but Moira knew there should have been; such an intensity of sensation demanded it. She went into instant incredible orgasm. Clutching herself, as though in agony, she saw that Ginevra, too, was similarly engulfed. The two girls gasped and moaned their way back to where their eyes sought each other in mute wonder at this new power. Hesitantly, with a delicious prolonged suspense, they advanced their seeking lips as though certain that a need such as theirs could not be denied. But their chains were the arbiter; no matter how they strained and twisted a space of eighteen inches remained to confound their consummation. Desperately, they entwined arms and gripped.
It happened as before! They were consumed. The fire within their loins encompassed them. But now they would not let go. Fingers white, the clutched and gripped, sharing their bodies' bursting crescendos and the final moaning cataclysm. But this time they clutched and held, unwilling to part with the small contact Justin had vouchsafed them. They looked and yearned, eyes aflame with their need of actuality inflamed. As though in a sudden communion of assent and anger they turned back and fought their chains.
Justin avidly drank in the erotic scene created by his fingers busy within the wooden box. Here was his wildest fantasy come true. He possessed the bodies and the minds of the two girls in a way no other man ever had or ever could. His breathing became heavy and fast as he beheld the embattled nakedness of the females fighting the denial of their most urgent. It was a picture beautiful and poignant. Without the enchantment of the power possessing them neither girl would have essayed her hopeless task. But now, in an unreasoning compulsion to follow their natural instinct Moira and Ginevra tore in futile fury at the bands about their necks and, frustrated in that quarter, turned their strength upon the chain that coupled them to the wall. In a final determination to be free, Moira placed a bare foot against the stone for leverage and tugged and tugged at the implacable links as though she might actually possess the force to sunder them. By the time the girls turned back to each other in defeat, they were wet with sweat, and the fire consuming them from within burned with an even greater intensity. With a glad cry, as though of discovers, they once more joined their hands and exploded their world.
Moira was not certain just how or when she came to be strapped in the 'X' frame, or how the same fate again befell Ginevra. They faced each other at a distance of ten or twelve feet, helpless, able to move only their heads, their fingers and their toes. The straps were very tight indeed. Moira became increasingly aware of the clutch of the strictures upon her limbs and at her waist, as the erotic haze lifted, and she found herself able to assess her condition and that which she could observe with a normal perception. The metal bands were still deep within her ankles, but for the moment their influence had been allowed to die. She was herself.
"Welcome back," said Justin.
She examined his smiling face, feeling shame at the memories of what he had seen. From him, her eyes sought Ginevra. They were both helpless; he could do what he wished with them. There could be no delusion that their travail had ended.
"You will address me as 'Master'," Justin ordered equably. "Each of you will thank me for your pleasure." He nodded at Ginevra.
"Thank you, Master, for the pleasure you have given me." Ginevra spoke the words flatly but without hesitation.
The lord of their bodies turned to Moira.
"Let us go," she pleaded. "What you're doing is rotten - " Her sentence left was annihilated by the flash of agony that, momentary as it was, left her wide-eyed and gasping, and without courage. "Thank you for the pleasure you have given me, Master," she enunciated clearly as soon as she could speak. She could not get the shaming words out fast enough. Ginevra smiled at her in sorrow.
Justin beamed. His boyish grin belonged on a tennis court rather than in a torture chamber. "There's a reverse to pleasure, y'know," he reminded them amiably as he fingered a control.
They screamed for a long time. At least the time seemed very long to Moira. When the awfulness stopped as suddenly as it had begun, Justin's voice was unperturbed.
"It really is much better when you can scream, isn't it?" It was as though he sincerely valued their opinions.
They said their abject 'Thank you's' and faced death; Justin was mad.
They were delicate shining little clips. After they had been clamped upon her nipples, Moira could see that quivering erect from each was a sliver of metal or wire that was probably some sort of antenna. The effect was pleasing though frightening. The clips bit and hurt. She watched while Ginevra was similarly adorned. Neither girl dared protest; they looked at each other in woeful resignation. Justin stepped back and admired the effect. Nodding in satisfaction he returned to his wooden box.
They burned! It began very gradually with an almost imperceptible warmth that increased to where it ceased to be bearable and entered the realm of torment. Feminine heads began to twist and turn; breathing became gasps, eyes implored. Looking down at her nipples Moira was unable to see any evidence of what she felt; the clips shone brightly and the tiny antenna reared itself perkily with each heaving breath. In panic against terror of the unknown, she struggled frantically against the straps; they held her as firmly as Ginevra was held. She could do nothing but endure.
The evil magic of the box had not been imposed upon their lips, they could speak and they could scream. Words formed themselves on Moira's tongue; those same sad words that maidens had always used to purchase their lives, their beauty, or the well-being of someone they loved. "Don't do this to us," she implored. "I'll do anything... anything at all. Let us loose and I'll crawl... I'll give you pleasure... " Ginevra moaned an accompaniment to the pathetic plea, then screamed. She screamed without cessation. Justin smiled in the rapture of fulfilment.
Moira screamed too. Why not? What else could a naked girl do when tied and tortured? If Justin wanted screams, he should have them. If he wanted them not, then perhaps the pealing crescendos of agony would touch something of decency, if it was there. Her nipples burned and scorched; yet there was no smoke, no smell of burning flesh. The little clips bit jauntily; the nipples themselves showed no change, but it was as though a glowing iron had been applied to each. Moira flung herself against the straps; her whole being convulsed against restraint. Without thought of shame her mouth stretched wide to hurl into the cruel chamber the decibels of anguish.
"Someone's making a shocking lot of noise." Celie's voice made an obvious effort to sound jauntily composed.
Everything stopped. Justin's hand withdrew from the controls; four nipples ceased incineration; the screams died to whimpers.
"I really don't think you like us girls, Justin," Celie observed judicially.
The single male turned in cheerful greeting. "Darling Celie! Just in time! Off with your clothes. There's a frame waiting for you. I always did think a trio better than a duet."
"Down, boy, down!" Celie admonished flippantly. "You're too absurd, Justin. Why don't you grow up? This is no way to treat these delightful creatures."
"Come off it, Celie!" Justin was in the defensive. "You wouldn't have a qualm about whipping them black and blue." He managed to sound righteous.
"That doesn't count!" Celie retorted with feminine illogic. "But this thing you're doing... ! It isn't... well, natural."
"They sound delightful and look! There's not a mark on them."
"What about these horrid things?" Celie advanced determinedly and plucked the metal clips from four grateful breasts.
"You would look delectable wearing a pair, Darling."
"Oh, do shut up, Justin! You're not going to get me strapped up like that." For a moment Celie looked uncertainly at the two naked girls who were surveying her with undisguised adoration. "But if I knew dear Alastair wouldn't grind his gears, I'd offer you a swap: let them go and I'd take their place. I can't bear to hear them scream like that."
"It's a deal, Darling. I agree unreservedly."
The youthful Celie examined Justin shrewdly. "You really have it in for me, don't you? What goes, the immaculate virgin thing?"
"I suppose so." He nodded thoughtfully. "That, and the fact you badly need some of your sauciness dealt with."
"I wouldn't be much fun without it, Justin, Darling, you just don't understand girls.
"Take of your clothes and back up against that empty frame."
"You want me all blushing maiden modesty, you lecher! I know! I'd have to be out my tree to let you do that."
"Just five minutes screaming, Celie Darling. It's not much to ask."
"And then you'd let them go?" She eyed him dubiously.
He was suddenly eager. "The moment you're safely strapped I'll free them," he promised.
"Oh Justin! Don't be an absolute twerp. The moment you had me strapped tight and naked to that thing, there'd be three nice girls all screaming their heads off."
"Alright! Let 'em free yourself. I'll take your word you'll live up to your end. But remember the code. You can't just let 'em wander; you'll have to chain 'em some way."
"Celie don't!" Ginevra's voice held its old authority. "He's a twister."
The words had scarcely left her mouth before she screamed. Justin's fingers were once more busy in the box. The screams rose higher for several seconds before Celie beat at Justin's smiling face with futile fists and made him end the torment of the girl upon the frame.
"Thank you, Master, thank you... " Ginevra's voice was broken.
"You see, marvellous training in manners." Justin grinned at the angry teenager. "Do you a world of good."
"Oh, stop it!" Celie stamped a small foot in frustration. "You know I can't! I just can't let Alastair down. He trusts me. And look, this isn't what I came here for anyway. Stop being a beast to these girls and lend me a hand."
"You may have all of me, beloved." Justin was studiously gallant.
"I'm sure I could," Celie agreed dryly. "But it's my little MG. It won't start. Be a dear and go and twiddle that thing on the battery or whatever it is. You did it once before... "
"A priceless privilege, dear heart." Justin eyed her searchingly. "Are you coming along?"
"I thought I'd stay with the girls." Celie flushed. "I say, Justin, is there a whip in this room? Be a nice change for the poor dears after your box of tricks. I haven't whipped them for simply ages."
"Ah ha! Our little sadist sheds her mask of innocence!" Justin jibed. "You are a little hypocrite, y'know." He looked around, "I haven't seen a cat-o-nine-tails, not even a cane."
"Well, I can get one in a couple of shakes. I'll have given them some lovely marks by the time you get back to that silly box of yours. In the meantime, be a noble fellow and go and fix that thingummy." Celie danced delightedly from the room. Justin cocked an eyes and gave his victims a deprecating shrug before he followed.
The punishment room remained charged with a portent both captives could feel. The silence was total for a space of thirty seconds before a wild tornado of youthful feminine indignation erupted through the doorway and furiously tore at straps and buckles. "I can't stand hearing you scream... I hate Justin and his rotten way of hurting. Run to my room!... Quick! Your clothes are there."
It was a miracle! Moira knew it was a miracle!! "Please let it be true," she prayed. "Please, please, please!" Her legs flashed as she leaped behind the stairs behind Ginevra. Of the two naked captives, hers was the most ardent joy. Moira had never expected to be free again, yet here at the least likely moment of all she was confronted by liberty! Glorious incredible liberty...
"Alastair may disown me, and I suppose I'll be expelled from being one of The Special Ones, but I don' care!" Celie exclaimed savagely. "No girl should be given to Justin. He's nuts!" Frantically she tossed feminine things from drawers and counted out money and keys. "Here's everything you need. You can get back home, Gin', and take care of Moira...!" She looked at the hurriedly dressing girls wistfully. "I suppose it would be asking a lot for you come back after Justin has gone...?" She grinned at her own absurdity. "No, never mind, I'm just trying to absolve myself with Alastair... Don't worry."
"I'll come back, Darling," Ginevra promised. "I'll get Alastair to expel that electrical manic from Soniaive for good. But we can't expect Moira to come too... She'd be nuts!"
"My car's out front. Take it! Watch for his nibs as you go. I'm going to go back to that punishment room and let him argue with me while you get away. He daren't touch me. I'll kid him I have you chained in another place. It'll work fine."
With an exuberant affection Celie hugged and kissed them both, then fled on her mission. Two fashionably attired and excited young women gathered up bags and purses, scarves and keys and cash, and stealthily followed.
It was surprisingly easy. The servants were elsewhere. Justin was their only hazard. He was nowhere to be seen. They did not discover him until they reached the car. Ginevra with the keys had circled it to reach the driver's seat, when she gasped and stood in frozen horror. Joining her, Moira gazed in wide-eyed incredulity at the dead body of Justin laying so close beside the car that he had not been visible. A small stain of blood marked the gravel. So great was the shock, that the men who soundlessly approached were upon them before their presence had been sensed. Two rugs were dragged down over two female heads and firmly tied. Strong hands locked handcuffs upon protesting wrists behind squirming backs. Harsh cord ruined new nylons as kicking ankles were laced together. A car's motor purred into life; there was the sibilance of tires on gravel...
Moira and Ginevra had escaped from Soniaive.
After their first exclamations the captives spoke little during the long ride. It was desperately uncomfortable packed together in the boot. They could not move. Had holes not thoughtfully been cut in the rugs over their heads they might have suffocated. Even so, it was hot and stuffy. They could speak, but there was no knowledge in the words they exchanged. Reasoning could bring them to but a single conclusion. Justin's seemingly dead body precluded practical jokes or any individual act by one of The Special People. Thus they must have been kidnapped. It was that simple. But neither girl knew why.
* * *
"What is it, the P.L.O. or the I.R.A.?" Moira demanded hopelessly. She felt beyond caring, nothing mattered any more.
The man behind the desk was not amused. "There will be the usual letter for you to write," he told her curtly.
"With my hands fastened behind my back!" She gave the bitter words all the sarcasm she could infuse.
"You are a prisoner," he explained gravely. "You need not be hurt. You could be returned home in two or three days."
"Why am I a prisoner? What have you done with Ginevra?"
"The other girl is safe, just as you are." He spoke as though tired, striving for patience. "You must have guessed why you are here, Miss Landseer. Quite simple, ransom."
Moira looked at him: Approaching forty, roughly dressed but an educated voice, a face disillusioned and cynical, intelligent. But he had made an error; he thought her Celie. She was about to disclaim the identity, when she suddenly realized Celie's vulnerability. Until Alastair's return she would be alone without knowledge of their kidnapping. She would suppose them escaped. Even if Justin was not as dead as he had seemed, he would be no help. Best therefore her mistaken identity be maintained. "Alastair won't pay ransom," she said with finality.
The man behind the desk conceded a brief smile. "We will torture you until he does," he confided pleasantly. "From what we know of Soniaive it should be diverting experience for you to receive pain rather than to dispense it." He looked at her humorously. "That is your hobby, isn't it?"
Moira tried to play Celie. "It's none of your business," she said pertly.
He ignored her self-assertion. "Will you write the letter, or must we take steps?"
Moira shrugged. "Why shouldn't I write it?"
Another quick assessment. The woman who responded to the ring was early thirties, could have been attractive had she tried; for the rest she was much more as the man; the same casual description could fit either. She looked at her colleague questioningly. "What is it, Joel?"
He inclined his head toward the captive girl. "She'll write the letter, Cherry."
So inappropriate a name! Moira viewed its owner without cordiality. "These handcuffs... " she ventured tentatively.
"When I was younger I used to stick pins in my kid sister," Cherry said with bland irrelevance.
Joel chuckled and winked. "Her way of telling you to toe the line, kid. I'd do it if I were you."
"Of course I'll do it!" Their captive wailed petulantly. "Let me write the damn letter! Let's get this whole miserable business over and done with."
"I like that," Joel approved. "The kid's got sense." He swivelled on to the waiting woman. "Remember that. And take that hungry look of your face. You probably won't have to touch her." He roved his eyes up and down his captive. "For a girl of this quality the silly bastard will pay alright."
Cherry sullenly produced the tiny key. A moment later Moira was gratefully rubbing her chaffed wrists; an act with which she was becoming increasingly familiar. She sat down in the chair thrust at her knees and reached for the pen. "Tell me what to say," she requested helpfully.
Ransom letters are of little consequence. Their main function is to provide authentic handwriting. Writing the dictated words, Moira wondered what was going to happen when her falsity was revealed. At the end she signed 'Celie' with a flourish and remembered what Cherry had said about her kid sister and the pins.
"Hands behind you back," said Cherry with relish.
Moira quailed. Again! Always to have hands locked is such shaming limbo! She had come to loathe the impotence. She looked at Joel imploringly. "Please don't handcuff me. There's no need. I'll behave. I'll do whatever you say."
"Look, kid," the woman's voice lacked tolerance, "I've got to look after a pair of you. I'm not taking any chances and I'm not loosing any sleep. Hands behind you, fast!"
Joel surveyed the peremptory woman amusedly. "Dammit, Cherry, cuff the girl in front! She can't fight."
"Might just as well not cuff her at all," Cherry proclaimed sullenly.
"Well... aren't there things she has to do for herself?" The male asked awkwardly.
"I can do them. It's safer. I'll take both their step-ins. That solves half the problem.
"A bare bottom won't help 'em to eat."
"I'll feed the bitches, or fix 'em another way. But I want their hands behind their backs. They'll be more polite."
Joel shrugged and gave Moira a deprecating wink. "Women are the very devil, kid," he said tolerantly. "You should know, you're one of 'em. Better say good-bye to those little flippers."
Moira felt a new fear. She was being given to Cherry. She suspected that Cherry knew neither mercy or pity. Looking reproachfully at the smiling man behind the desk she resignedly put her hands behind her back.
"At least they haven't stripped us," said Ginevra in wry consolation. "But if they do, they'll see the whip marks on you. Celie's never been whipped." She tugged angrily at her handcuffs. "Blast these things! I'm sick to death of having no hands." She examined their prison. "I'd imagine this is an empty house with just enough stuff moved in to serve the purpose. Anyway there's a bathroom, that's something to be thankful for." She tossed her head angrily. "I could have kicked that dreary creature when she tugged my pants off, but we'd have a hell of a struggle getting them off and on ourselves."
Moira looked at the boarded windows and the heavy door, stoutly locked. She pulled at her handcuffed wrists defensively. "Oh Darling," she said brokenly, "whatever happens we're in trouble."
Ginevra could think of no denial.
Cherry dealt with breakfast resourcefully. She seemed well supplied with handcuffs. She used them now to shackle a captive ankle to a water pipe, then freed the captive wrists. She pointed to the tray of food. "Enjoy yourselves," she advised caustically, and left them to fend for themselves.
Ginevra kicked disgustedly at her fettered foot. "That bitch thinks of everything," she said angrily. "But maybe we ought to be grateful. I'd sooner have it this way than have her feed us."
They sat on the floor, one foot awkwardly outthrust, obeying the compulsion of the handcuff. But they ate in relative comfort. It was when Cherry came for the empties that contention returned.
"Do you really have to take our hands away?" Ginevra pleaded.
"You don't think I'm going to walk in here with you two ready and able to jump me, do you?" Cherry sneered.
"Couldn't you leave our feet fastened instead?"
"How you are going to go to the John, kid?"
They could not win. They turned their backs and offered passive wrists. The metal clicked the message they knew too well. Their ankles were freed.
"To think I could have been on the Riviera with Herbert!" Ginevra exclaimed disgustedly. "That damn Alastair, he's a magnet. I almost deserve even Justin." She mused, puzzled. "I wonder if they know about me! Poor dear Herbert would pay."
Lunch was a repeat of breakfast. They submitted to their change of shackles, knowing hopelessly that girls adjust to anything. "Shouldn't be long now," Cherry said over her shoulder as she left with the tray. But it was mid-afternoon before Joel entered their prison. With him were two younger men who surveyed the captive girls with unfeigned interest. The leader pushed Moira against the wall and unlocked her handcuffs. "What's your name?" he demanded.
The freed captive knew she need protect Celie no longer. "Moira Robbins," she admitted.
"You deliberately fooled us!"
"I'm fond of Celie," Moira said in full justification.
The three men exchanged glances. "Take your clothes off!"
It was no more than Moira expected. The removal of her handcuffs had been the clue. She considered a scuffle or pleading, but rejected both. She stripped. Before the three pairs of male eyes it was as though she had never been naked in her life.
There were three simultaneous gasps, "Just look at those whip marks!" It was a younger man named Lew.
"How'd you get 'em?" Joel demanded.
"I expect you know," Moira said innocently.
"You were one of the slaves at that place... at Soniaive?"
"Yes."
"What were you shielding that little rich bitch for?"
It was a good question. They could never believe the answer. "She was kind to me."
"Oh, for Pete's sake! You've been whipped half to death!" Joel went to the door and called. "Cherry, you'd better have a look at this."
Cherry joined the audience. Her eyes flamed at what she saw. "Someone knew what they were doing," she breathed reverently "Did it hurt much, kid?"
"Leave her alone. You don't understand," Ginevra interjected.
"I screamed terribly," Moira said simply.
Three pairs of eyes turned to Ginevra. It was inevitable that a key was produced and used. "Let's have a look at you," Cherry invited.
It was useless to protest. Ginevra stripped naked. The three men and the woman beheld the marks upon her skin and gasped in relish at the sight. "I wish it had been me," said Cherry fervently. Then, in sudden curiosity: "But she's not been whipped half as bad as the young one. I wonder why?"
"I'm very well behaved," Ginevra said demurely, hoping for humour.
"I bet you're one of those that like it," Cherry said knowingly.
"No girl likes being whipped as hard as we've been!" Ginevra affirmed positively.
"Gives 'em a twitching twat, so I've heard," ejaculated the second youth. He smirked at the naked girls. "M'name's plain old Bill, ladies, but I'd be happy to warm up your little cunts with a cane anytime. Brought up on a cane, I was."
"I'll do the caning here," Cherry said decisively. She looked at Ginevra. "You may as well dress again. It'll save these fools drooling every time they see you." Then, to Moira, "Stay as you are! Don't touch your clothes!"
It was a declaration. The captive eyes locked and understood. Moira had transgressed; she was expendable.
Watching Ginevra dress, Joel said thoughtfully, "Doesn't bother either of you much to be naked?"
"We aren't simpering children," Ginevra said testily. She turned to accept the handcuffs where she least wanted them.
"O.K. boys, that's it for now." Joel's tone held authority. The younger men slouched away bestowing a last lascivious leer at the still naked Moira. Seeing it she caught in their shifting eyes a trace of sympathy that was frightening.
"And now, Miss Moira Robbins, what have you got to say for yourself?" Joel asked conversationally.
The naked girl gestured in frustration. "I haven't any money, if that's what you want," she said flatly.
"Not much good to us then, eh?"
"Let her go," Ginevra suggested firmly. "There's no profit in her for you. The poor kid's been kidnapped once already. You were right she was a slave at Soniaive and that's all. You can drop her off somewhere blindfolded and she can't possibly cause you any trouble. You can be kind to her without costing yourselves a penny."
Joel laughed bitterly. "Got a hot spot for her, haven't you! Dammit girl, within an hour she'd have that Soniaive place of yours crawling with police. We don't want that. Much better we let her amuse Cherry for a day or two while we either grab the Landseer wench or make something out of you." He grinned perceptively, "There's more to you than meets the eye, I suspect. You weren't just one of their little slave girls, were you? Want to tell us?"
Ginevra had been playing for time in the hope that, having made an error, the kidnappers would let them go. But she was dressed while Moira was naked. It meant division. Rather than allow Moira to be delivered to the untender mercies of Cherry, she had best play such cards as she held. "If I can get you money will you let us stay together until you release us. No... cruelty?"
"Lesbians for sure!" Cherry commented dourly.
Joel chuckled. "It's amazing what pops out of people when we speak of leaving someone with Cherry for awhile. I've had a feeling we ought to know that lovely face of yours, but it won't click. Don't tell me we've been sitting on a gold mine?"
"I'm Herbert Harcourt's wife."
A silence lengthened while they grappled with the name. It was Cherry who finally exclaimed: "The shipping line... and the bank?"
"I'm afraid so," Ginevra admitted modestly.
"He's a ruddy millionaire!"
Ginevra made a gesture of admission. "Yes, he does have a lot of money. But I can't promise you Herbert will part with any of it to get me back." She gave her abductors a rueful grin. "I'm afraid I've been a bit of a disappointment to poor dear Herbert."
"But he'd pay, wouldn't he, rather than have you spend time with me?" Cherry suggested as though affirming a certainty.
"What exactly would you do to me... and Moira?" Ginevra demanded in a voice that plainly said she did not wish to know.
"Everything! I'm very versatile."
"I think your poor dear Herbert would cough-up alright," Joel mused. "We'll give the blighter a bit of encouragement. That nice skin of yours can stay untouched for the nonce, but Miss Pennyless can go to Cherry. We'll send dear Herbert a few pictures... Maybe we'll let you watch Cherry at work, just so your voice will carry sincerity if you have to talk on the phone."
"No! No!" Ginevra was frantic. "Don't touch her! I'll work on Herbert. Get him on the phone right now."
"They could trace the call."
"I'll do anything! But not if you hurt her. If you torture her I won't help at all."
Cherry laughed sourly. "Oh yes you will, ducky! Don't forget, I can hurt you too."
Ginevra watched miserably as Cherry wound a hand in Moira's hair and pushed her naked captive from the room.
"Do you want to fight?" Cherry asked amiably.
Moira looked doubtfully at her jailer and at the room. The latter was sparsely furnished, almost bare. Its most prominent feature a centre pole from floor to ceiling; she guessed the purpose to which it would serve if she did not somehow escape.
"You almost have to try, it's only natural," Cherry continued as though anxious to understand.
Moira knew how easy it must be to read her mind. Surely she should not submit to horror without at least some effort! Yet what were her chances?!
"Don't forget you're naked, kid. I can hurt you easy in a tussle. Or I can call the boys and have them fix you for me," Cherry chuckled confidently. "Or if you're a nice sensible girl you can just behave and do what I tell you and save yourself a lot of embarrassment. If the boys look after you, you know where their hands are going to go! What'll it be? I'll let you choose."
"You're going to torture me, aren't you?"
"Of course I am."
"But... but, don't you see... how hard that makes it...?"
"Sure I see it, kid. That's why I'm giving you options."
Moira looked at the hard, cold eyes and abandoned pleas; they would earn only contempt. With three men waiting beyond the door resistance would be painful and pathetic. Her tense nudity slumped. With something like a sob in her voice she surrendered. "Alright, tell me what I have to do."
It was one of the most shaming of all her times of shame.
Moira wondered why she had to kneel. Probably just to hurt her knees. The boards were hard as she positioned herself back to the pole, one leg on either side; her feet well back out of sight. It was something new; she had no hope it would be good.
First her waist. With that painfully tight she could not contest the rest. Cherry crossed the ankles, one on top of the other. It was more helpless, more shaming and more uncomfortable. Moira was open.
"What are these things on your ankles?" Cherry asked as she pulled and knotted cord.
The naked captive remembered Justin's metal bands as from another world. They had become a part of her. She saw no reason to dissemble. Bitterly, she described their use. "Could you take them off, please?" she requested humbly.
"Not without a damn good pair of pliers. Even then it would hurt." Cherry fingered the circlets. "They're right into you. Leave 'em. They won't bother me."
Moira did not care. In a little while the pain Cherry would inflict on her flesh would drive Justin and his evil works from her mind. Perhaps Cherry would make him seem a kindly boy!
The victim's hands were quickly dealt with; they were pulled back and handcuffed behind the pole. She was now entirely helpless, but sensed the piece de resistance was still to come. It was quite simply, single bands of cord biting into her shoulders on either side, almost welding her back to the pole. They hurt. When they were knotted she could move no part of herself from her neck to her knees. Her breasts were cruelly but beautifully outthrust.
Moira sensed it was to be her breasts. The way she was bound and the look in Cherry's eyes told her so. She knew a panic constriction in her throat, when the woman who had tied her stepped 'round and fingered the soft firm cones and curves and toyed with the two responsive nipples. "I bet you're proud of these," she said softly.
To the naked and helpless girl the simple words sounded like a declaration of war.
Left alone, Moira found herself shamed that she had not fought when she had the chance. Now, she could barely move. It was too late for anything. There seemed something immoral in her meek acceptance of being bound. If she had scratched and screamed she would be bearing marks of her resistance and she would inevitably be bound as she was, but her pride would be less in ruins, her ego more intact. In this lonely instance cold reason demoralized more than the impetuosity of instinct. She tugged fretfully at her bindings, then resigned herself to the prelude of torture.
Cherry had left with no more than a glance of approval at her handiwork. Moira, tied and naked looked pathetic enough to evoke sympathy in any heart. But in Cherry's there beat only a savage anticipatory joy. Fate had bestowed a gift of pulsing femininity; she would use it with all the cunning of her skills. She knew, with her own certainty, that it was only at such times pretty girls flowered into a justification of their existence. To let them be used by men was waste. When she returned to the room where torture was to be done, she thrust ahead of her at the resentful figure of Ginevra.
The two who loved spoke no words. What was there to say?! Moira watched as the older girl was rendered almost laughingly impotent. Cherry slipped a noose around Ginevra's neck and tied the other end to a coat hook in the wall; a hook that could not be reached by straining handcuffed fingers. Ginevra would have to stand, tethered like a dog.
Her captives dealt with, Cherry proceeded in leisurely fashion to the more serious aspect of torture. She placed a box and a chair beside the kneeling girl, taking care that nothing should obscure the view of she who would be forced to watch. Next, a cup placed on the box, a cup she carefully filled with a leading brand of sterilant. Smiling in deep fulfilment she set beside the cup a pincushion that bristled and shone with the shining steel of a hundred of the slenderest of slender needles. She sat comfortably upon the chair and gazed in consummate satisfaction from one pair of imploring eyes to the other.
"Any sum of money you want... I'll get it!" Ginevra pleaded, twisting at her chained hands and tossing her head angrily at the cord upon her neck.
"You'll get it anyway, Mrs. Harcourt," Cherry said absently. "Don't interfere! Just watch, you've got a front seat."
"But you can't do that to her! It's too awful. It's barbarous!"
"I can and I will. The reason you're here is to let you know what's waiting for you if you don't put a rocket under that Herbert of yours. Do you want to be kneeling where this pretty little piece is?"
"Yes! Let me take her place. She's innocent of anything. It's not fair."
"She's not innocent of being sweet and female and young. That's a crime in my book." Cherry was relishing the argument.
"She's going to do it to me regardless, Darling," Moira said with love. "We can't stop her. Don't pay any attention to the noise I make." She was desperately afraid that Ginevra would goad Cherry into punishing her as she herself was to be tortured. She looked at the needles and knew herself lost.
"The kid doesn't want needles through your tits," Cherry told Ginevra conversationally.
Ginevra was frantic. She was as disturbed at what was about to happen as Moira herself. The needles shocked, they undermined courage, they went far beyond mere punishment. They were sadism pure and simple. The woman who would use them could not be touched.
"Would you like me to gag you, dear?" Cherry unexpectedly asked.
"Yes! I'd like to be gagged. You won't listen... " Ginevra heard the incredible words in her own voice.
"This is much the best way, dear." Cherry had become almost human now in gratification of her dearest need. She popped a ping pong ball into Ginevra's unprotesting mouth. "Now clench and pull your lips in tight while I spread the tape," she directed as though in merciful first aid.
Moira watched in disbelief as her beloved Ginevra was rendered mute. She saw the scissors cut a generous length of the wide band, saw the ruthless fingers place it carefully across the clenched lips and press it down with thrust after thrust of determined thumbs, until it was moulded to the contour of the jaw, saw Ginevra strive to utter sound and fail, saw the older woman's omnipotent smile of power. She was close to tears.
"Would you like me to gag you too, kid?" Cherry asked obligingly.
Moira shook her head. It was instinctive. Somehow she knew it better that she scream.
"I may gag you anyway if you make too much noise," Cherry assured her cheerfully. "Got to think of the men, y'know. Female screams disturb the silly bastards." She sat down and selected a needle.
"Please, not my breasts," Moira pleaded brokenly. "Somewhere else, but not my breasts!"
"Prefer it through your lips, love?" Cherry's tone was conversationally.
The kneeling girl moaned negatively.
"How about your lips lower down?" The voice almost coaxed.
Again the inarticulate denial.
"Your breast are really perfect for it, kid. You watch and see." Cherry dipped the needle in the antiseptic.
Moira watched, she saw! She saw the sliver of steel approach the breast she could not move, felt the contact of the tip, felt it pierce her skin. Then, in awed fascination, watched the silver trifle sink lower and lower into her breast until only the eye of the needle was left to proclaim the alien presence within her most cherished flesh.
She had forgotten to scream.
It was pure nightmare, a phantasmagoria of something that could not happen, but did. A needle in her breast! Others to follow! Impossible! She watched Cherry slowly select a second.
So did Ginevra! She fought her handcuffs, she fought the cord upon her throat, she fought the gag upon her lips. She sought o gain Cherry's attention, but failed. She was there for one purpose only, to watch! And watch she must!
"I think the nipples next, they're really de rigueur, child, don't you think?" Cherry revelled in beauty.
"NO! No! You mustn't!" The shocked realization burst from Moira's lips.
"You're thinking you may wish to suckle a child?" Cherry inquired pleasantly.
"Yes! Oh yes! It's so wrong." The victim forgot pain.
"These sweet little needles won't injure you permanently." Cherry assured her captive. "Just enjoy them."
Enjoy! In desolation Moira watched while a teasing fingertip roused her nipple into questing prominence. It was like luring a rodent from its hole in order to kill it, or a duck call to bring the mallard within range of the gun. When the owner of the finger was satisfied with the erection, she brought the needle into contact. Moira fought with all her strength, but moved nothing. Her nipple, about to be pierced, had not even trembled. She watched, in unique fascination, as the steel pierced her and burrowed through her teat to emerge on the opposite side and halt its progress only when it was perfectly centered.
Moira sought the eyes of her torturer. Finding them she said: "I'll do anything! I'll be your slave. I'll suck you. Oh please!"
Cherry listened and looked in puzzlement. Then she smirked. "But child," she said, almost with tenderness, "You are doing everything now. There isn't anything else... " Her nimble fingers sought the third needle.
Moira screamed; she screamed until she could scream no more. Not until then did her torturer begin to tease her second nipple.
It was all done in slow motion. Cherry was savouring each precious second. She had treasure to be counted slowly. Moira watched her second nipple pierced, felt the agony of the passage of the steel through her most precious rosebud flesh, then saw the point emerge and continue on its way until it reached the point of approval. The slivers of shining metal through the points of her breasts possessed a wickedly erotic charm of adornment. The nipples burned fiercely as though consumed by fire. Tears streamed unnoticed down her cheeks. She sobbed and moaned without cessation.
"You should wear them all the time, child." The torturer's voice held reverence.
"Take them out! Take them out! You've hurt me, isn't that enough?"
Cherry looked shocked. "But child, we've only just started. There's simply oceans of space on your breasts."
Moira began, once more, to scream. Inarticulate peals of desolation without meaning. An outlet in sound for an agony her flesh could not contain.
"Watch carefully," Cherry suggested. "It's interesting the way they sink into you. Your breasts are really much the best place. See! Now you have one through each nipple and one in each breast. Aren't you proud?"
It was not believable. It bordered on fantasy. Yet, looking down at her own breasts, Moira beheld the evidence; each was pierced, each of her nipples was impaled. The awfulness of pain was countered by shock and disbelief. She screamed and could not stop. Cherry sighed regretfully and produced another ping pong ball. "I love your screams," she admitted. "But the men don't. Sorry!"
It was just another horror piled on horror. Moira scarcely cared. When her lips were securely sealed so that she was mute she watched the next needle sink within her breast, and was almost glad she could not scream. Screams can bring relief in torture, but they regenerate terror. The screams of a girl in pain are very terribly to hear. Moira screamed no more. She watched needle after needle slowly impale her breasts. Her only sounds came from her scorching breaths through flaring nostrils. She was delivered into hell.
Moira had come to know that girls can adjust to anything. No doubt Ginevra had learned such a lesson long ago. It seemed in keeping with their lot that the two girls should be locked in their room, one naked, one dressed, the needles still lodged in the flesh of the sobbing girl's breasts; the wrists of both handcuffed behind their back. The one who had been tortured sank down upon the mattress and cried her agony.
Ginevra was chained fury. She had reviled the complacent Cherry. But threat of replacement of the gag had reduced her to quiet pleading. "Take the needles out. Don't leave them in her... Oh please!"
"I want you to get a good look, Mrs. Harcourt. Your own breasts will be pincushions tomorrow if dear Herbert doesn't come across."
"But to leave them in her... ! It's too cruel!"
"An object lesson for both of you, Mrs. Harcourt."
"Then cuff my hands in front, so I can help her."
"How do you propose to help her?"
"I could... I could pull the beastly things out."
"I want them in," Cherry said equably. "So far as your hands go, they are better at you backs. Removes temptation."
"Those horrible pictures you took... when will my husband get them?"
"This evening. He's now in England."
Ginevra looked in desperation at the woman who controlled her. "While we're waiting... you know, negotiations and the rest... are you going to torture Moira again?"
"Of course. Chance of a lifetime."
"But not me? Not me so long as Herbert bargains?"
"Think of it! The safety of your lovely body is measured by your husband's love." Cherry smirked. "Touching isn't it."
Ginevra tugged at her locked wrists. "Look, if you have to torture someone, make it me next. Give Moira a rest!"
"We went through the noble heroine bit before, Mrs. Harcourt. I'll do exactly as I please with both of you. Now shut up or I'll tie your little lovebird back on her pole and string you up by your thumbs to watch."
Ginevra had never felt such impotence. Cherry had all she asked of life, her ultimate desire. Moira's nakedness was, for her, a treasure beyond price. How then could she be bribed or coerced! She was impregnable. The helpless girl watched, puzzled, as their jailer placed the bottle of sterilant on a window ledge.
"You can use this on her after you get the needles out - if you can!" Cherry laughed and left and locked them in.
"The rotten bitch! We're both helpless," Ginevra stormed.
Moira looked down in misery at the steel slivers protruding from her flesh. She longed from her hands with an infinite need, but they had been taken from her. If only she had her fingers to pluck these shining foreign things from her breasts! To have to wear these instruments of her torture as feminine adornments was an ultimate cruelty. They bit at her with every moment; a cruel fascination drew her eyes back to them again and again as though in macabre pride. She gazed up at her angry companion, her face softening with desire. "Darling I know it will hurt, but... but, use your teeth."
Ginevra was startled. She looked down at the lovely breasts; the needles mocked her, their eyelets inviting thread rather than teeth. And yet... ! "I'll try if you want me to," she agreed cautiously, "But I'm scared. It's a terrible thing to do. I'll hurt you."
"Hurt me then, I want them out of me." Moira was decisive. "It's as though she'd managed to enter and I can't thrust her away. Hurt me!" She arched up an inviting breast.
They planned carefully for what they must do, experimenting with angles and approach. Moira positioning her breasts to the best advantage, Ginevra gauging how to achieve a quick clean withdrawal. "I won't howl," the tortured girl promised. "I won't, I won't!"
It was surprisingly possible. Never easy, always with agony. But, one by one, the needles were taken from the yielding flesh. Once started, both girls were driven by a need to have it done. After the first frightening tugs, the nimble teeth flew to their work with amazing surety. At the finish, only the pierced nipples remained to be freed; they presented insufficient resistance to enable the teeth to tug.
The two captives looked at each other, Moira in pained gratitude, Ginevra in angry bafflement. Their eyes fell to the impaled nipples from which the needles protruded mockingly. "No hands!" Ginevra exclaimed furiously, "Never any hands. Oh damn and blast!"
"Stand up straight," Moira said quietly. "Then I'll bend down to where my breast touches your fingers. The link on the handcuff will give just enough play so that you can hold and pull."
When it was done, Moira knelt, her face white, her body wet with the sweat of pain and fear. Upon her breasts were tiny flecks of scarlet. Ginevra awkwardly handled the bottle of antiseptic. The hurt girl lay back on the mattress and watched her breasts receive the small cascades of fluid that the blindly questing chained hands managed to pour where it had to go. The task complete they lay side by side in emotional exhaustion. Moira wept in thankfulness in pain.
The Tea and the method of its serving was an incongruity, but nonetheless welcome. A sardonically cheerful Cherry carried the loaded tray. "The three T's" She proclaimed proudly, "Tea and toast and torture." Her gaze flitted to the pile of needles. She laughed. "I knew you could do it. Actually there's a trick to pushing them into a girl's breast. I haven't injured you."
She placed the tray on a box and produced handcuffs. "Get over by the pipe," she ordered Ginevra briskly.
Moira watched while her fellow captive's ankle was secured to the plumbing and her cuffed hands switched from back to front. "You can feed your hurt little lovebird," Cherry said acidly. "I can't be bothered to attend to both of you. I'll pour, I'm going to join you. Isn't that nice?"
How strange a trio! A still helpless Ginevra sat on a small box to accommodate her chained ankle. Beside her knelt Moira to be fed by loving handcuffed hands. Cherry was comfortable on a chair. She surveyed her captives with an air almost benign; she was prepared to enjoy a social interlude. "I ought to have you naked too," she said reflectively to Ginevra.
"Why don't you!" Ginevra shrugged carelessly. "But won't you please take these off during Tea?" She held up her linked hands. "I am grateful to have them in front, but they're not necessary. You've got my ankle fixed so I can't possibly cause you any trouble."
"Of course you can't dear," Cherry agreed amiably. "But I just like to see those cuffs on you and watch how you fumble the cups and saucers. You wouldn't deny an underprivileged girl like me a spot of diversion, would you?" She turned to Moira. "Your breasts hurt, kid?"
"Yes." To Moira the question seemed silly.
"What do you say having me whip them after Tea?"
The question froze all motion for several seconds. The chained girls gazed at their interlocutor beseechingly.
"I can tie you the same way. Rather a good position, don't you think?"
Moira swallowed toast. "Must you... ? Again? So soon."
"It's sweet of you to bring us Tea." Ginevra strove for normalcy of tone. "But couldn't we enjoy it without... well, torture?"
"Want to change the subject, eh!" Cherry laughed. "O.K. But you won't like the news. That Herbert of yours is acting up."
"You mean he's refused...?" Ginevra asked slowly.
"Not a downright refusal, but he's arguing. You're probably right; he's not all that keen on you." Cherry sniffed. "We should have got the Landseer girl; we'd have the cash by now."
"Can you arrange it for me to speak to him on the phone? I could persuade him," Ginevra pleaded.
Cherry sneered. "Seeing yourself with two breasts full of needles, I suppose!" She mused happily. "Just think! Pushing a needle through Mrs. Herbert Harcourt's tit! Dammit I hope the old bastard doesn't cough up."
"That's alright for you, but the men want the money. Let me phone."
"Going to bribe the old boy with a spot of fellatio or some other tasty tid-bit?"
"What I have to do doesn't matter so long as Herbert pays." Ginevra looked testily at her captor. "I seem more interested in promoting this kidnapping than you are. Let me talk to Joel."
Cherry poured more tea and pushed plates. There was about her a disquieting air of assurance. "Ever occur to you getting us the loot doesn't necessarily mean I let you go. If Joel will let me I can keep the two of you... maybe a month."
She chuckled at some inward vision. "Imagine Herbie's face when I send you home full of needles and nicely decorated here and there by a hot iron."
Betrayal is implicit to the kidnap scene. Ginevra knew it. Cherry could easily make good her threat. Yet she doubted the men would wish to be so burdened. If only she could talk to Herbert and assess from his voice what their chances were. "If you held on to us it would be the men who'd use us," she affirmed defensively. "Think I couldn't read in their faces!"
"Sure, ducky, they'd fuck you, maybe ten times a day. I couldn't care less so long as I get you the rest of the time. Adds a bit of spice, I'd say. I think copulation's a waste in itself, but I'm half a mind to tie little Moira here nicely stretched out and invite Lew and Bill to have a go at her. Not my thing, but I bet she'd hate it."
Moira squirmed. It was too plausible. Ravished by men or tortured by a woman! She wondered if it would come to a choice.
"Which d'you want, kid, a good fucking by the hired help or a good whipping across those nice tender breasts?" Cherry had discerned the situations piquancy.
It was a serious question. Moira knew she would not be allowed to evade it, much as she longed to. For her own physical good she knew the carnal act the less injurious, but to ask for it! She could not bring herself to do so. "Whip me," she said tonelessly, then lifted her face to the chained girl at her side who was holding a cup to her lips. It was all insane!
"If you whip her breasts after those needles you'll do her an injury," Ginevra exclaimed angrily.
"So what!" Cherry munched toast. "I'll do the same for you when your turn comes."
Desperately, Ginevra sought to reason. Moira knew herself lost and would not plead. "But why her breasts? There's more than those two things to a girl. If you must torture her again, can't it be on some other place?"
Cherry eyed them quizzically over her raised cup. "You do give me ideas," she admitted thoughtfully. "Either of you ever had the soles of your feet caned?" She sipped quietly, enjoying their consternation.
"It's been done to me a couple of times," Ginevra confessed hesitantly. "It's never been done to Mira. It's too awful to think about... I was positive I'd never walk again. I didn't for a week."
"If it wasn't for that walking bit, I could do it to you again. Herbie wouldn't see a mark on you. It's good that way." Cherry looked at Moira speculatively. "Want your soles caned, kid?"
"Instead of my breasts?" Moira guessed one to be as bad as the other.
"Well, it's what old fuss-budget here seems to want," Cherry said with an attempt of good humour.
"Couldn't you just whip me normally; it hurts like fury, y'know?" Moira asked without much hope.
Cherry dismissed the trivial with a wave of the hand. "Good old whipping! It's been so terribly overdone. I used to love it, but I've been lucky; I've had my fill. There's so many nice things you can do to girls... I love 'em. I'm pure bitch. I don't expect you to like me. I've just thought of the damndest thing...!"
"Let me talk to Herbert, please!"
"No. It can be traced. We told you."
"Let me write him then!"
Cherry laughed. "Want o get out of here, don't you? Well. O.K. Joel might approve. I'll get paper."
The handcuffs impeded scarcely at all as their wearer scrawled the few words she believed to be enough to buy freedom. Cherry chuckled coarsely as she read: "Darling, I'm sorry I was bad. I'll do anything you want, even the awful thing. Please ransom us. Your Gin'" Joel approved. He was too polite to laugh.
"Quite a little time until supper," Cherry said meditatively.
The girls said nothing. They knew.
It was Moira who first was taken to The Room. The ubiquitous handcuffs snapped 'round her slender ankles. "Keep you from wondering about escape," Cherry said as she busied herself with preparations. "You can probably guess what I'm going to do, just a little pleasantry to wile away the time. Our serious work comes after supper."
Moira found it infuriating to have to stand and do what she was told, but her ankles were too closely joined to do aught else. She looked at the proffered trapeze bar with a drawing apprehension. "Is it really possible?" she asked in disbelief. "I thought it was just fiction, a figure of speech. Can a girl really hang from her thumbs?"
Her answer was in the bar itself and the small loops at each end, but it was not until she felt the strictures below her knuckles tighten, as she saw the trapeze, her hands with it, rise up before her eyes, until her arms were stretched high, that she knew for sure it was going to happen. She was going to hang by her thumbs; the medieval torture she had never quite believed in. Her breasts hurt more as they were stretched; her heels left the floor; she teetered on her toes before they, too, were lifted into space. Moira gasped in acceptance of a new and different pain.
"Toes just off the floor, ducky. Much more tantalizing. You'll keep trying to reach. By the way, does it hurt much?"
Moira sobbed. She did not want to talk. But when Ginevra was brought in she could not help but watch.
"I'd sooner have you naked," Cherry said testily. "Look damn silly hanging up with your clothes on."
Ginevra shrugged. "I'll take them off if you'll let me."
It was done in two stages. Cherry was taking no chances. Wrists and ankles were cuffed and un-cuffed until the girl to be tortured stood nude with ankles locked.
"I can see why you don't mind being naked," said Cherry in grudging tribute to beauty.
"I thought I wasn't to be tortured?" Ginevra queried uncomplainingly.
"Oh, this is just a bit of fun between us girls. Joel has got a bit soured on your Herbert. He's given me a half a green light. You know: just a bit of kid's stuff."
"Do kids hang each other by their thumbs?"
"Don't do this Mrs. Herbert Harcourt act with me, love."
Ginevra sighed. The Special People were inventive; she was not na�ve. So much had happened before... Obligingly she inserted her thumbs within their loops. She would not enjoy what was to be done to her, but it was better than the needles. She knew herself most attractive when suspended.
"You're really a damn gorgeous pair!" Cherry spoke as though deserving credit for the quality of her captives. "Too damn good to waste. I'm going to get Joel. He deserves a stonker."
"Can we stand this?" Moira gasped when they were alone.
"What the hell else can we do, Darling!" Her companion exclaimed dryly. "We can't either of us walk away. Being suspended is the very devil. It goes on and on and on. I know! I've had some."
"You're an absolute bitch, Cherry," Joel said in the tone of compliment. "But you're right! They're exquisite. I'll take pictures in case we need 'em. Whether we need 'em or not, they'll be worth having." He went away chuckling.
When the strobe had flashed, the cameras clicked, and their captors gone, the two girls hanging by their thumbs were terribly alone. Their own gasping breathing was the only sound in the torture room. To do anything meant pain. They did nothing but hanging limply from their tortured thumbs, enduring. Eternities slowly passed.
"Darling...?" Ginevra's voice was little more than a whisper. "I'm sorry about The Special People. I'm one of 'em, y'know. We've messed up your life."
"It's not their fault we're hanging like this," Moira comforted.
" 'Spose not. But if you hadn't been taken to Soniaive you wouldn't be here. It's rotten, rotten... "
"There isn't much hope, is there?" Moira saw none.
"Oh Darling! At the worst they'll tire of hurting us, and dump us somewhere."
"Alive?" Again the awful doubt.
"Of course alive!" Ginevra did not believe it either.
"Why just hang us like this and go away?"
"Darling, you're still innocent. Thinking about us like this will keep a nice little fire burning in Cherry's cunt, and the look Joel got of us naked and... like this will keep him in erections all day. Maybe the two of them will get together, but I'd guess not. They'll cherish their lust. They'll be like misers, not wanting to spend it."
"I thought I couldn't talk; it seemed to hurt. But it does help. Is it so with you, Gin?"
"It's the only thing we can do, best we do it."
"Darling, don't be angry. But your note... What was the 'Awful Thing'?"
"In some other situation I'd giggle," Ginevra admitted. "It isn't awful at all, just silly. Herbert likes to tie me tight, spread treacle all over me, except my hair and face, and have his friends lick me off."
"Was it so bad?"
"Not half as bad as this! I should have been kinder to the old boy. But all his tricks were like that. Imagine yourself in a Mayfair drawing room, naked and getting your bottom dark green! He sort of wore me down with trivialities. If he'd whipped me I'd have loved him. We sort of drifted apart. He could always get a bottom to paint."
"Why did you marry him?"
Ginevra managed a wry and fleeting grin. "Funny you should ask that. Darling Herbert proposed to me when I was hanging the same way I am now, except I was fastened by my wrists instead of my thumbs. But I'd been that way for six hours when he ambled in and popped the question. What would you do right now if an elderly millionaire who was rather a dear walked in and asked you to marry him? I said 'yes' so fast I was ashamed of myself."
"I'd settle for a postman," Moira said lugubriously.
"Herbert has said since, he should have left me to hang another hour for my unseemly haste."
"He must have loved you... didn't he? Why did he ask?"
"Because I'm beautiful." Ginevra said the words without modesty or pride. "The dear boy still insists I'm the best Alastair ever... They use the word, acquired. But he hasn't seen you."
"I don't suppose he ever will," Moira mourned.
"I wish he'd walk in right now with his tin of treacle," Ginevra admitted without hope.
They fell into the silence of pain and yearning.
Cherry visited, admittedly to feast her eyes on their suffering. "Wonderful chance to do something to your armpits," she observed thoughtfully. "A hot iron or a needle, or maybe the right whip. I've never whipped a girl on her armpits, right now yours are stretched flat. Perfect really... " She unlooked the handcuffs and took them from the unresisting ankles. Holding the gleaming metal, she stepped back and admired what she saw. "It's a better effect without them." She explained as though they cared. "There you are, naked and helpless, and not a bit of bondage in sight. You're quite lovely! You should be a little bit grateful; a few ounces less weight and now you can kick all you want."
"Please... We'll do anything, anything at all," Ginevra wailed.
"Indeed you will, ducky!" Cherry agreed as she made for the door. "Indeed you will."
It was very much the last word.
They made their chained way through supper knowing it to be but a temporary respite; never for a moment were they granted freedom. They compared sore thumbs and wracked shoulders, and spoke of Herbert. In the brief time they were secured only by their ankles they clutched each other in a passionate embrace they did not wish to end. To have their hands was glorious, it enabled them to share their flesh, to regenerate their spirit by the sensuous magic of touch. Loving fingers explores whilst lips met.
"I suppose licking each other's clits helps through the night?" Cherry hinted conversationally.
"Jealous?" Ginevra asked tartly.
"Look, ducky, I could have you on your knees right now, and with the busiest little tongue in the kingdom," their jailer snapped.
Drearily, the trio made their way to the fatal room. Only Cherry was cheerful. Handcuffs compelled her captives. Four boxes stood on end; spanning them like two bridges were sturdy planks. The stage was set.
There began, then, the tiresome switching of chains so that escape was never a possibility. At the end of all the motion the naked girls lay on their backs upon the planks, their wrists tightly handcuffed beneath the timber on which they reclined.
Suddenly Cherry's motions became more purposeful and more vicious. Ankles were looped with cord and drawn down and back on each side of the span. Waists were cinched tight to the unyielding wood. Then, once more, the pull of the cords until the ankles and feet were as far back and beneath as strength could get them, the thighs obscenely spread, the vulvas vulnerably exposed. Neither girl could move below the level of her shoulders. Each was held fast for a purpose they did not know.
"Would that be good for a fuck?" Cherry asked with a curiosity seemingly genuine. "Maybe I should get young Bill, but I think your little quims are stretched a bit tight. A girl has to wiggle a bit to make it good."
"I thought you regarded it as a waste." Ginevra was caustic.
"Nothing I could do for Mrs. Herbert Harcourt's cunt could possibly be a waste!" Cherry savoured her own sarcasm. "How'd you like to smoke a cigar in yours? Gets real exciting as it burns on down."
"What are you going to do to us?" Moira pleaded.
Their tormentor pretended to consider. "Have you ever had your cunt hairs pulled out one by one?"
The naked girls refused to be drawn.
"Of course it's much better if I burn them off... Gets the damnedest results," Cherry snickered. "You can always put out the fire. Just turn on the tap."
"Couldn't you just whip us and send us to bed?" Ginevra asked wearily.
"For a night of cunt licking! Come, come, ducky! You know better."
Moira turned appealing eyes, but had no words.
"There's all sorts of stuff I can slip inside those pouting twats," Cherry mused aloud. "Some of it would drive you out of your mind. Just think. You can't move, and it starts to burn, and goes on getting worse and worse. Much easier to have a baby. Want to try?"
The kind offer was treated with silence. But captive minds were a turmoil of conjecture. They were going to hurt! These preliminaries were but the prelude to the symphony. But how they were to be hurt? How, how, how... ?
"Some of the chaps back in Rome used to get a nice thorny rose stem and push it in and out," Cherry continued informatively. "Did it with snooty slave girls. Supposed to have made them wish they'd spread their legs and said 'yes'. There's some rose bushes in the garden... " For a moment Moira believed the thorny stems were it. But the satirical female voice continued.
"I suppose one of the easiest and most effective notions with a girl spread the way you two are is a glowing cigarette stubbed out on your clit. I could do it a dozen times. I've no idea if the little treasure would grow again. I haven't any statistics on sprouting clits. Want to try that one?"
Silence! A tear trickled down Moira's cheek.
"I really am a bitch," Cherry admitted cheerfully. "Offering you all these lovely treats and giving you none of them. Suppose I should get down to business."
No one spoke. Cherry produced something that gained the bound girl's instant attention. It was a needle, larger than those used previously. It was threaded.
"It's a new nylon thread," Cherry told them pensively. "It's supposed to resist everything but earthquakes. You know: stronger than steel and all that." She pulled out the textile to its full length and anointed it with Vaseline, drawing it between oiled thumb and finger. She wiped her hand, put away the jar and turned to her tied victims. "Want to be gagged?" she asked pleasantly.
Moira, even though she guessed what was about to be done, shook her head. She wanted to scream now, before the needle pierced her.
"Don't do it," Ginevra warned. "You do that to us and the whole of Europe will be on your neck. You'll be the most wanted woman in the world. You've scared us half to death. Be satisfied. Hurt us some other way."
Cherry gave her a lacklustre look. "That's all you can think of... some other way. Well, it's going to be this way. My way. Stop turning on the panic. It won't be as half as bad as you think. You'll even be able to pee. So far as the threats go, forget 'em,. I'd spend all my life in prison willingly in return for this time I'm having with you. Now, which of you wants to be sewn up first?"
How incredible a question! How absurd! "Do it to me," Moira said. "Ginevra's too beautiful. Leave her alone. You're going to kill me anyway, so it doesn't matter."
It might have been some small domestic task involving needle and thread, utterly mundane. Moira fought her bonds, then lay quiescent. Cherry pushed the needle through one of the lips of the vulva and drew on the thread. Moira screamed. "I think I would like to be gagged after all," she gasped politely.
Cherry showed no irritation. She produced the ball and the tape. Moira opened her mouth, accepted the ball and disposed her lips. The tape sealed the screams within her being. Cherry bent and thrust the needle through the opposite lip, drew the thread, looped it and tied a knot so tight that the thin structure bedded itself out of sight in the softness of Moira's vulva. The labia were joined, sewn and tied together. Her screams echoed soundlessly, her flesh bulged against its binding cords.
It could have been enough, but for Cherry it was not. With the consummate neatness of a seamstress she fingered the moist lips, selecting the exact spot her needle would pierce, pinching the already welded labia together she impaled both with a single thrust of steel, carefully threading through the following nylon. Once more she looped, tugged and knotted; once more Moira's sexual orifice was tied shut by a strand not visible to the eye. Loose ends were snipped away, Cherry patted her finished work with complacent satisfaction. Moira continued to scream, but no one heard.
"What about you, ducky?"
"Gag me," Ginevra asked tersely. The thing to be done to her was bad enough; she wanted no screams as well. Thought of terms or of reprieve never entered her mind. She accepted the ball and made her lips available to the tape. She supposed she would not die. Her mind drifted to Herbert and what he would think of a wife rendered so neatly unavailable. She heaved and screamed as the needle entered her.
Twice! Two neat firm loops and knots. Ginevra's vulva was sewn shut as was her love's. Two girls with sex denied. Strictures that could not be found by searching fingers. She could not raise herself enough to see, but she was certain that, shielded by her pubic thatch, there would be nothing to see at all of Cherry's evil work.
It was painful to walk. It was painful to do anything. The centre of their beings had been violated; the threads nagged viciously at the wounds. When their handcuffs were removed they sat up gingerly supported by their arms and unhappily watched Cherry sort out two long lengths of leather lacing. "Some sort of rawhide," she busily explained. "Supposed to have special properties. Be a nice change for you to get those bits of chrome off your wrists." She loosened the bands that had constricted their waists. "Hands behind, ducky."
"Oh please, untie our feet. This... this, thing you've done to us, it hurts shockingly," Ginevra protested.
"Back with those hands, love! When they're tied we'll talk about your tootsies."
Ginevra obeyed. The incessant burning pain of her sewn vulva demoralized. She had lost the will to fight or to argue. That which had been done to her touched her more than her flesh; the very citadel of her femininity had been ravished. She believed at that moment she could not be further shamed or further hurt. She clenched her teeth and crossed her wrists behind her back. Her sex flamed.
She was further discouraged by the feel of the stuff with which her hands were being bound. There was a tough and supple intimacy in the way it found and clung to her flesh. Cherry worked slowly and carefully at the task of rubbing her captive of the use of her arms. It was easy to sense it as a labour of love. "I know what the two of you get up to in a night," Cherry observed as she thrust and tugged. "So tonight I'll make it a bit of a sporting chance for you both." She chuckled at a picture in her mind. "I can't say for sure that you can't get those threads through your cunts bitten off if you work at it. You might! It'll be the same with your hands. I'm going to tie them tight; I'm good at it. I don't think you can get free, but you can use your teeth and fingers on each other. Who knows!"
"We'd still be locked in the room," Ginevra said dispiritedly.
"Well, you don't expect the key to the city, do you, love?"
Watching the brisk competent disposition of her fellow captive, Moira had known a fleeting ray of hope: handcuffs were implacable; there was no getting out of them, except for instinctive motions of revolt a girl did not try, but being tied was different; there was room for error or for ingenuity. But seeing the strong busy fingers complete the binding of Ginevra's wrists, and watching the bound girl cautiously helped from the plank and stand painfully and submissively erect, diminished that hope. Cherry's 'sporting chance' would offer little sport and less chance. She would ensure their continued bondage to her pleasure. But still... !
Without a word, Moira crossed her wrists and submitted herself to being bound. It was as though Cherry imposed a bit of herself in the winding of the strictures above the small hands. The helpless girl could hear the quickened breathing and feel the vibrancy of a tremendous controlled excitation. The woman who was rendering her impotent was in her glory. Cherry was as happy as she could ever be!
"Struggle! Try and get loose." The order was sharp.
Any motion made the stitches hurt more. But, obediently, Moira fought the leather bands, achieving a modicum of slack and a minimum of comfort. Both were instantly taken from her with a decisiveness that said very clearly her hands were no longer her own, and that her chance of freedom from her own efforts was indeed slight. She sat quietly while her ankles were untied, then painfully managed to stand beside her companion in distress. Her vulva screamed its outrage.
Cherry surveyed her woebegone charges with amusement. "Surely a couple of stitches in your cunts can't be all that bad!" she jibed. "I could have done the job right, y'know, and really given you something to look glum over."
The captives found no humour in their plight. "How long must we endure this... what you've done to us?" Ginevra asked.
"Ah, that would be telling, ducky! Don't see any reason why you shouldn't just stay like that, you're not going to have any babies." Cherry snickered at the thought. "I must say I've never run into anything to make a couple of girls more tractable than you two. The way you droop I could handle the pair of you with one finger. I never tried this trick before, but looking at you now I can tell you this isn't going to be the first time. You wouldn't say boo to a goose, would you?"
"No." They said it in unison. There seemed no point in denial.
"Well, bed time for the lovebirds. I really do wish you luck! I'm curious to see what I'll find come morning." Cherry shooed them ahead of her from the room.
It hurt to walk. Their feet were free but their steps were short and measured. When the heavy lock snapped shut behind them in the closed door, they stood for a moment looking at each other woefully as though seeking decision. Then, in empathy, leaned against a wall and loved each other with their lips. They had no hands with which to hold, nor arms by which to embrace their yearning nakedness.
When they had fed upon each other to the extent of their immediate hunger, they stood and examined the mattress on which they shared their nights. "That woman's a perfect bitch," Ginevra proclaimed, twisting her prisoned arms.
"What she's done to our cunts is bad enough, but this tying our hands... ! It's twice as bad as the handcuffs, and goodness knows they were bad enough! If our hands weren't tied we could slip down easily, now it's going to hurt... hurt like blazes!
How wounded and helpless they were! Moira wanted to cry, but anger and frustration dried the tears. Her wrists felt welded together by the rawhide; her hands could not soften her descent to the bed. To fall forward on to it, as she was going to have to do, would tug at the stitches and hurt. "Why did she do this to us?" She wailed. "Is there some purpose, something I don't know. Does it mean something worse?"
"Not a thing, Darling. Don't panic," Ginevra soothed. "It's so bloody bizarre, that's why we're extra upset. And the hurt being where it is doesn't help. There's something indecent and beastly about it. I could sit down in the chair and weep. I would, but I'd feel silly. And anyway, our little stitched slits don't like being sat on." She considered for a moment in bitter silence. "Of course she's laughing her head off right now. These damn stitches are more effective than any chastity belt... Pained purity, that's going to be us!"
"We are going to try and get loose though, Darling?" Moira's voice was laden with longing. "I want you so much."
Ginevra looked at her with love. "Tooth or claw, Darling?" she asked sardonically.
They considered mechanics. Tied as they were their fingers had little play. "We're going to have to nibble." Moira flushed. "Who starts and where?"
"If my cunt looks as tightly tied as yours does, we won't start there," Ginevra said decisively. "She's pulled the threads into us right out of sight. Whatever we do there is going to hurt damn bad. Let's start on her super-dooper rawhide. I'll knell, you back up to my mouth."
Ginevra knelt. The act invoked a moan of distress she could not stifle. For moments she remained crouched with bent head and shaking shoulders, but then straightened up and managed a smile for the anxious Moira. "Sorry, Darling. We'll neither of us do much without a few yelps. Wait until I show Herbert my stitch marks!" She grinned with forced gaiety. "Come on, sweet, give me your hands."
Moira stood passively while the white teeth bit at the leather with which her wrists were bound. She reflected wretchedly on their condition. Two adult healthy females reduced to impotent nipping and biting at each other's bonds, tied primitively with leather in which their teeth could make no dent. Hoping for a partial freedom to permit them sleeping in each other's arms. The stitches in their labia and the rawhide on their wrists shrank them into the impotence of infancy with constant pain a reminder of their state.
"I can't reach a single knot," Ginevra confessed, sinking wearily on her heels. "The clever bitch has tied 'em down at the inside somewhere so I can't even seen them." She sighed despondently. "I've gnawed away at one strand and haven't even scratched it."
Moira turned. She bent and kissed the flushed upraised face so petulant with failure. "Darling," she pleaded with a quiver in her voice, "try my front!" She moved forward.
"I'll hurt you terribly. I'm sure I will... "
"Of course you will. I'll try not to howl. I can always back away if it's too bad."
Ginevra studied the beloved fleece so close before her eyes. The indentations of the threads were plain to see where they clenched and joined the fragrant lips, but of themselves there was nothing visible, even the knots so closely snipped had sunk out of sight. Leaning forward, she tentatively probed a wet searching tongue up and down the interdicted flesh. Moira drew a startled breath of anguish but stood firm. Lips followed the tongue, and then the small sharp teeth...
"It's no good! It's no good at all! Oh, Darling, I'm so useless!" Ginevra cried out her helplessness. In frustration she tugged wildly at her tied hands, her shoulders weaving and straining hopelessly. She was close to tears.
"Let me. Oh, Darling, let me try." Moira sank to her knees, uncaring of her pain in her need to share her loved one's travail. "Up you get, Gin'. I've got to try. I must."
But Cherry's cunning defeated them. The threads nestling snugly within the flesh of their pudendum where teeth could not penetrate. The sparse strands of cruelly knotted leather laughed at their strivings and repelled them; the wrists remained crossed and bound tight behind their backs. Finally, in utter despair, they ignored their pain and slumped together on their mattress, weeping. Exhausted they slept.
Moira supposed it a dream. How strange to wake to joy and absence of agony. She could not tell the hour of the night; she knew only that Ginevra was kissing her with pure lust; a seeking and appeasing of hot wet lips such as she had rarely known. They roused her to a ferment of erotic hunger in which her own lips sought the scented flesh of the panting girl at her side. Both were still tied; both knew their vulva tight sewn. Moira supposed that by some strange chemistry of sex the hated threads had sparked within them these wild responses they could not control. They welded themselves together with twining legs and indented breasts on which the nipples were tumescent and very hard.
It was a strange dream indeed. When the agony returned, they stopped their writhings and fell back into slumber. In the morning they did not speak of it.
Cherry was jubilant. That her knots were triumphant over the defeated girls gave her an inordinate joy. She cuffed their ankles to the pipe, untied their wrists, gave them a laden tray, and went away chuckling at some private joke of her own.
The fingers of each girl instantly flew to her crotch and gingerly explored. Their eyes flew to the tray, but there was no knife, only forks and spoons. "Looks as though we're going to have to get used to living without a cunt." Ginevra inelegantly expressed her disgust.
Yet, so resilient is the nature of a girl, they managed laughter at their bizarre plight. Gaiety was fed by the absence of bonds. To have the use of their hands was a small miracle. For a little while they were complete. They kicked at their shackled ankles but did not care. They massaged their welted wrists with deep sensuous pleasure. They also ate. Had it not been for the threads within their flesh the occasion would have been almost gala.
It was not until they ate the last slice of toast that they found the razor blade. It nestled beneath the small plate on the tray like a thing of magic awaiting discovery. They gazed at it in unbelieving rapture. "That's what she was laughing about," Moira guessed. "We've got to go prodding about inside ourselves. Saves her having to do it."
"I have never spread my legs in a better cause," Ginevra affirmed with coarse humour. She handed the blade to Moira. "Here, Darling, you try first. You can experiment on me." She giggled exuberantly. "Do try and not make my slit any longer than it is." Then added demurely: "After all, it does belong to Herbert."
Moira had never approached anything she loved with such trepidation. The girl, into whose sex she inserted the blade, tried her best to stay mute in agony. But sounds escaped the lovely lips and breathing rasped and heaved as the steel searched within the tightly tied lips. When her own turn came she realized the control Ginevra had exercised. The thing that must be done was inescapably agonizing as the threads threatened to tear themselves from her flesh before the sliver of metal found and severed them. But at the finish, two panting and sweat bedewed girls stood nursing their pubic hair and eyeing with relieved distaste the small scraps of thread they placed upon the tray. It seemed incredible that the sad small trifles could destroy their womanhood.
"I'll sew you up every evening," Cherry promised cheerfully as she produced the inevitable handcuffs and locked their hands behind their backs. "Break you of these nasty lesbian habits."
They were afraid of her. Even when she was cheerful they found it difficult to respond. The promise she had just made might actually be carried out. Ahead of them stretched a day of torture. "What about Herbert, my husband?" Ginevra asked fearfully. "Surely there's some sort of news?"
"Doesn't look as though the old bastard wants you, ducky." Cherry looked with sparkling eyes at her dejected captive. "But don't you worry, love. I want you! I've thought up some special treats. How about standing you both face to face and sewing your nipples to each other? You could canoodle all day long." She carried away the tray in triumph.
They looked at each other in desolation; two naked captive girls helpless with ironed wrists, their brief moment of freedom past, and with it hope. "She'll do it, I know she will!" Moira affirmed in misery.
Ginevra said nothing.
"Time for fun and games, children," Cherry announced briskly on her return. "This way, duckies."
Hating their own submission they followed, hands behind their backs, eyes bereft of hope.
It was Moira who got the best view of what happened. It left her with the same feeling the dream had done in the night; something beautiful but unreal. She was following meekly behind their captor and had reached the fatal door of the room that was their torture chamber when she beheld the impossible. Throwing open the door, Cherry walked confidently within and disappeared.
Grown women do not vanish without cause. Had Moira been less dejected and more alert, the sudden absence of a body where one had been might have mystified less. There had been a swift vision of a flash of something dark, and then the portal open and waiting and somehow menacing. She stopped dead so that Ginevra collided. They looked ahead into a room they had no wish to enter; a room from which now emerged ambiguous but muted sound. They looked nervously at each other in frightened surmise. Moira had turned to seek her loved one's reaction, so it was on Ginevra's face she saw mirrored the shock and disbelief of catastrophe. Shrinking from what she might now behold, she once more faced the door.
"Good morning, Darlings," Justin greeted with immense panache. He stood, laughing at their consternation, more boyishly handsome than ever.
"Oh no, not you!" Ginevra ejaculated with tactless candour.
"Ingratitude, thy name is woman!" Justin reproved.
"You're supposed to be dead."
"Don't sound so disappointed. A mere knock on the head. I'll show you the wound later."
"We don't want to see. How on Earth did you get here?"
"Can't you infuse a spot of warmth in this repartee," Justin complained.
"Not after what you did to us. I suppose you've brought your rotten box of tricks!"
He gave them a full measure of Justin charm. "I was the box of tricks that brought me, my lovelies. Do try and simulate a modicum of appreciation for genius."
It suddenly clicked in Moira's mind: The erotic moments in the night and now this cruel smiling young man! She held out an unfettered ankle. "You mean this... these bands you fastened on us?"
"Couldn't you smile when recognizing inventive intellect?" Justin sounded hurt.
"You mean you could track our whereabouts by your electrical contraptions, that lousy box, and these things we can't get off?"
"How else could I be the rescuing hero? Didn't you feel some... well, sensations during the night?"
Moira flushed. "We thought we were dreaming."
"When we picked up the first signals I sent that little present back to you as a bit of encouragement. Thought you'd recognize it."
"We thought you were dead."
"I really believe you hoped I was. I'm hurt."
"Have you joined up with these lousy kidnappers?" Ginevra demanded.
"Oh come, dear girl...!"
"Well then, get these damn handcuffs off our wrists."
Justin looked faintly embarrasses. "Not just at this moment, dear heart, perhaps later."
Ginevra shrugged disgustedly at her companion in bondage. "We're out of the frying pan into the fire," she said bitterly.
"At least look at my handiwork before you insult me," Justin invited as he backed further into the torture room to give them entry.
They followed and took heart. Cherry lay on the floor making very small motions and very small sounds. She was well trussed; the sack over her head was firmly tied. She would not be using any needles.
"There's three men around somewhere," Moira warned.
"Use the past tense, dear child," Justin announced happily. "Follow me!"
It was a small bare room. The three male kidnappers sat on the floor, linked wrist to wrist by their own handcuffs to primitive but massive plumbing.
"I'll scupper you!" Bill promised with deep feeling.
"Took an unfair advantage, you did." From Lew.
"Couldn't we com to terms on this?" Joel asked cautiously.
Justin declined to negotiate. He ushered his naked charges on down the passage and closed the door firmly on the indignant trio.
Moira was suddenly aware of voices, quiet cultivated civilized sounds of converse. They were suddenly in a large pleasant room alive with sunlight. Its only furnishing was a table and some kitchen chairs. On the table stood two bottles of brandy and glasses. Two men rose at their entry and came forward to meet them: distinguished appearing men on whose lips were smiles of controlled merriment. With immense thankfulness Moira recognized Alastair.
"Oh Darling...!" Ginevra's voice was a mixture of tears and joy. "Oh, Darling, I'm so happy! Oh Herbert...!"
* * *
For a little while Moira felt neglected. A radiant Ginevra was soundly kissed and had her bottom affectionately patted by two adoring males while she stood and was forced to share Justin's faintly cynical amusement. But then Alastair came and placed his hands upon her shoulders and gave her a not too brotherly salute. "You've had a bad time," he said gravely. "We must make it up to you."
"Let Moira go," said Ginevra from around her husband's shoulder. "Set the Darling free and give her a lovely big cheque."
There was a small pregnant silence. Ginevra's gaffe was bridged over by an ungallant chortle from Justin. Its quality had the effect of making the metal on Moira's wrists suddenly tight and heavy. But a male palm petted her gently on the proper place and a male voice said gently, "We will think of something... "
"Twenty lashes," suggested Justin with heavy sarcasm.
They sat around the table and drank a toast with Joel's brandy. "A nice civilized conclusion to the matter," said Herbert Harcourt, who was himself the very epitome or the better life, pin stripe trousers, a bowler hat and an umbrella. "We can let one of the blighters loose when we go. No use bothering the police." He was a patrician disposing of some incidental plebeians. He possessed a faintly chuffing delivery as though his authority generated a small head of steam that was vented with his speech, a benign but imposing emblem of vast wealth. Moira wondered if he was likely to paint her bottom.
Solicitous male fingers lifted brandy snifters to feminine lips. "Darling, we are still handcuffed, y'know!" Ginevra said brightly.
"I'd noticed it," Herbert Harcourt admitted absently. "Corking idea."
No one else said a word.
Moira could not fail to notice that much of Ginevra's natural assurance seemed to be absorbed by her husband's presence. They conversed endearingly, but Herbert Harcourt was most definitely in command. His adoring wife had somehow acquired a little girl quality much at variance with Moira's previous impressions. Yet it became her well, or perhaps she played it as a role. It made her a delightfully precocious child.
"But, Darling, can't dear little Ginevra have her hands please?"
"No, you may not. You don't deserve them."
"But, Herbert sweet, have I been bad?"
"Your behaviour has been deplorable, my dear," Herbert chuffed gently. "You abandon me in that appalling place, Antibes. You come and make a nuisance of yourself with Alastair. You incite an electric prodigy to torture both yourself and this charming young woman I hope to know better. Then, to cap it all, get yourself kidnapped. As a side issue caused that delightful child, Celie, to be severely reprimanded by her guardian. I am giving serious thought as to what to do with you."
"Don't be absurd, dear girl. Something definitely not nice."
"Oh Herbert Darling! Don't punish me!"
"You know perfectly well you are going to be punished."
"Yes, of course, Herbert dear." Ginevra made a small moue of repentance. "But not much... I mean, you wouldn't would you?"
"I most certainly will."
"Yes, Herbert, you're so sweet." Ginevra was a child anxious to please.
"Can I have her for a couple of days?" Justin asked optimistically. "Do her a world of good. She'll be eating out of your hand."
"Oh Herbert, please...!" Ginevra was scared.
Herbert Harcourt eyed Justin sternly. "Young man, we may be indebted to you, but I disapprove of your methods of seeking pleasure. My wife is not at your disposal." He chuffed firmly.
"The least you can do is give me one of 'em." Justin was aggrieved. "After all, if it hadn't been for me... " By the simple process of elimination all eyes drifted to Moira. She herself was painfully aware of the plausibility of her selection as the electrical genius's reward.
"Leave her alone!" Ginevra exclaimed angrily. "Herbert, don't let them - "
"I'm not going to kill the girl," Justin complained sulkily.
"If he has to have someone, then give me to him," Ginevra demanded with a matching petulance.
"No!" Moira's voice was very firm. She looked Justin squarely in the eye. "If you have to be paid with a girl, take me!"
"It's a deal," said Justin instantly.
Herbert Harcourt chuffed. "Really, dear boy, I don't approve of these volts and amperes and things. Couldn't you amuse yourself in, well, more conventional ways?"
"Treacle!" Justin sneered.
Herbert Harcourt ignored the low blow. "If it was not that I went to school with your father I would move for your expulsion of our group," he said stiffly. "But you are an accredited member and, as such, are entitled to use any available material in residence. Since my wife chose of her own free will to incarcerate herself in Soniaive I intend to fulfill her wish; she will be available. But I forbid you to use her for more than an hour. The same applies to the young woman for whom Ginevra seems to have formed a warm attachment."
"You mean they nibble each other's cunts," said Justin, the iconoclast.
"You are gratuitously vulgar."
"Oh, Darling, don't give us back to that monster!" Ginevra wailed. She looked appealingly at her lord and master, "I'll be ever so good. So will Moira."
"I'll settle for an hour each," Justin stated eagerly.
"We'll be dead in an hour with that twerp," Ginevra said glumly. She nestled her head into Herbert's shirt. "Darling, can we have our handcuffs off please?"
"No."
"You're so sweet, Herbert. I do love you." Ginevra was working hard. "Can Darling Moira have her handcuffs off?"
"No."
"Darling, you're so masterful, so masculine!" Ginevra rubbed hard against the Harcourt millions. They seemed impervious to friction.
"Dear Herbert, you're not really going to give us to Justin, even for an hour, are you?" Ginevra's motions would have caused a lesser man pleasurable distress.
Herbert was still chuffing up a head of steam when a new voice interjected, "It occurs to me we have overlooked a neat solution to the matter of Justin's reward." Alastair grinned back at the diverse expressions suddenly focused on him.
"You are a tower of strength, dear boy," approved the Harcourt Empire through the tangle of Ginevra's hair.
"It is only fair to recognize Justin's claim," Alastair continued equably. "But Celie would never forgive me if I did not suggest he tone down the more extreme applications; especially if the beneficiaries are the two delightful creatures present with us now. I do indeed endorse the feeling that Ginevra's stay with us should be prolonged. Moira's is, in any case, permanent, so there is no decision called for there." He paused deliberately for effect. "But is it not possible we may enjoy the presence of a third initiate?"
"Janice doesn't have a good scream," Justin said without interest.
"You mean another of our past guests shares my wife's inclination to return to the scene of her, er, triumphs?" Herbert was interested.
Alastair frankly laughed at the mixture of doubt and hope on the faces of the naked girls. "I'm surprised you haven't thought of it. Why don't we take home a memento? Justin's just tied up some sort of female upstairs. It's absolutely maid to order. Her colleagues are in no position to say a word. For her it's just the fortunes of war. What's she like, girls?"
"Pure sadist," said Ginevra tersely.
"She's a bitch," Moira agreed.
"Be a pleasant change for her," Justin said sarcastically. "What's she look like? I didn't get a decent view."
"She'll qualify," Ginevra adjudged. "Not as good as Moira and me, of course, but she's so sullen and angry and bitchy that whipping her into being human ought to be really good. Justin will adore her," she added mendaciously.
It was Justin who had the privilege of exhibiting his captive. Relieved of the gunny sack, Cherry insolently scanned those present. "You're that lot of kooks from the big house with the rummy name," she said suspiciously. "Don't expect me to do any talking. Where's the boys?"
"We would like you to remove your clothes," Alastair said pleasantly.
Cherry eyed him with disfavour. "Up your arse!" she said firmly.
"You wish to be persuaded?"
Cherry assessed her audience, her mind active. Looking at her former prisoners, she asked sardonically, "Lost the key?"
"The dear boys are afraid that if they remove our handcuffs we'll seduce them," Ginevra giggled demurely as though it was the truth.
"The matter of your clothes...?" Alastair prodded gently.
Cherry sobered. "Don't push! Tell me the deal. I might be glad to take 'em off. I'm not bad naked."
"We'd like you to be our guest."
"What's being naked got to do with that? As if I didn't know!"
"It will determine your eligibility."
Cherry divined instantly. She looked sneeringly at the nestling Ginevra and at Moira standing apart, both chained. "You want to add me to that stable of kooky screwballs you keep," she accused. Then, struck by the obvious, "Do I have anything to say about it?"
"No."
"It's for life, isn't it? Joel learned a lot about you." She looked from one to the other defensively, "I'm damned if I'm going to say 'yes' to life imprisonment... to say nothing of your fun and games."
"Any different to yours?" Justin asked succinctly.
"I give. I don't take." She tossed her head at him.
"You'd learn to love it." Justin's eyes were discerning.
"If you think you're going to whip me, you've got another thing coming!" Cherry surveyed the intent scrutiny of her audience. "I suppose I sound a bit silly... " she ended lamely.
"Should I ask once more?" Alastair hinted.
Cherry swivelled on him testily. "How in hell d'you expect me to strip when I'm tied up?"
Justin removed the cords.
She stood, rubbing her wrists and eying them with hostility. Without warning, she leaped for the door. Justin tripped her and dragged her back by the hair. Without a word, she removed her skirt. "Can't blame me for trying!" She glared at them resentfully and resumed her task.
"You have nothing to be ashamed of, m'dear," Herbert approved gallantly.
"We'll accept your membership." Alastair was amused.
"Lovely bottom for the cane," enthused Ginevra. "I can hardly wait."
"Do you scream well, Darling?" Justin inquired nonchalantly.
"Clever lot of bastards, aren't you?" Cherry stood naked and scowled at her interested audience. She raised her arms and pivoted. "Have a good look. I don't care about your lousy opinions, I like it."
"A well endowed pudendum," Herbert mused.
"If you mean a cunt, say so," Cherry said amiably.
"I shall torture you with infinite joy," said Justin.
The naked woman looked at him with eyes that knew too much. "You mean that," she said quietly. "I can tell." Her eyes roved and settled on Alastair. "I don't want to be tortured." She made a gesture of frustration. "Isn't there something I can do or say or offer...?"
"Nothing."
"You've had it, kid!" Ginevra was deliberately malicious.
Justin produced handcuffs, approaching the woman at bay, he held them out invitingly.
Cherry took a backward step. She examined the shining metal without illusion. "If I let you put those handcuffs on me; that's the end." She said the words simply; then turned to Alastair. "Please, surely there's another way! I must have some other value except to hurt?"
"I know of none." His voice was neither kind nor brutal.
She stood alone, uncertain, defiant, and pathetic, the cynosure of five pairs of eyes, each with their own knowledge. She sought out the two girls, "Poetic justice, I suppose... ," she mused bitterly.
They did not answer.
Cherry turned to an amused Justin. "Do I wear them back or front?"
"If you were putting them on a girl, how would you do it?" he jibed.
Cherry shrugged, turned, and put her hands behind her back. The handcuffs sang their small cruel song. For moments she sagged in the dejection of helplessness, then suddenly tensed and looked around questioningly. "Hey, what about clothes?"
"You may never wear clothes again, Darling," said Ginevra happily.
The new captive did not speak again. It was as though the handcuffs on her wrists had told her all she wished to know. Even when she was deposited in the boot of one of the cars she remained silent.
In the midst of a joyous reunion Moira felt alone. She stood, naked and handcuffed while Cherry was taken to the car and Ginevra worked her wiles on an enchanted Alastair and proud Herbert. The fact that she was in disgrace bothered Ginevra not at all; she sparkled provocatively and to good effect. Alastair was obviously in love. If Ginevra was to be punished, it would not be he who performed the task. But Herbert was an unknown quantity. Undoubtedly there must be more to such a man than to be simply a benign elderly gentleman. It was significant that, despite all her wheedling, Ginevra remained handcuffed. Moira was certain that here and there in Mrs. Herbert Harcourt's gaiety could be detected tiny threads of anxiety.
But whatever Ginevra might suffer for her indiscretions would be only temporary. Herbert Harcourt's sense of what was proper would be appeased and he and his chastened spouse would move on to other things, while Moira remained captive. The firm denial of Ginevra's plea for her freedom left the lonely girl in no doubt as to her fate. The kidnapping had been a horrible interlude, but she was still a slave. Once back in Soniaive she might never leave it again. She tested the handcuffs on her wrists; they were always there, always implacable, always snug. She would never, never be free!
How strange to be so thankful for rescue, yet still captive and still afraid. Today courtesy, tomorrow the whip. And after the whip, what? If it was not Justin's box it would be something else. She was going to lose Ginevra! Of this she was sure. The other girl's punishment would separate them, and then her beloved would be taken from Soniaive. Moira knew that with the vibrancy of her love she could endure and survive; without her, she was desolate. Her sundering was emphasized when the two naked girls were placed in the rear seat of Herbert's limousine, where blinds could be discreetly drawn. They sat back fairly comfortably against their pinioned arms, but Alastair thoughtfully tied Moira's ankles whilst Ginevra's were left unbound. He tied them tightly as an unspoken message she should behave. The girls exchanged shrugs of resignation, but neither dared complain. After all, what did it matter? Neither one cherished any notion of escape. Ginevra had no wish; Moira was reduced to the status of a neatly tied package. They leant toward each other and kissed. It was all they could do. Perhaps it was their last!
With Herbert driving and Alastair beside him in the front seat, Ginevra had a captive audience for her puckish mood. Moira suspected she was also seeking amnesty. "Oh, Darlings, you've forgotten to tie my feet!" Ginevra wailed as though disclosing a major disaster.
"We know you would never leave us," said Alastair, enjoying the game.
"Well, in that case you don't need to keep me handcuffed," Ginevra pointed out with some logic.
"The handcuffs are for being a bad girl. You know that perfectly well," her husband pointed out blandly.
"I'd be awfully good if you'd take them off."
"You are going to be awfully good for a little while anyway."
Moira could not avoid amusement at her companion's quandary. Ginevra was determined to play with fire until she got burned. "What does that 'little while' stand for, Darling?" the loving wife required.
Herbert pretended to consider. "I thought about a week in quite a small area."
"Not in the cage! Oh Herbert... " Ginevra contrived an exquisitely shocked gasp of agony. Moira longed to laugh.
"That, or perhaps attached to the wall in one of the smaller compartments."
"Don't be so unkind." The culprit infused deep hurt into her exclamation. "I say, Herbert, I'm not going to be all alone, am I?"
"Of course! The young lady you contemplate, er, nibbling will be otherwise engaged."
"I think you're being stuffy and horrid. It wasn't my fault we got kidnapped."
"If you feel my thoughts on your welfare are unkind, I am sure Justin would be only too glad to have you. I do not like the boy, but he is certainly innovative."
"Oh him!" Ginevra sniffed disdainfully. "I thought he was being appeased with that bitch we've just snaffled. I say, Alastair, after my sadistic husband has wreaked his vengeance on me, can I have a go at Cherry? We owe her one. You should let Moira have a go too."
"This is not time to concern yourself with such ideas," Herbert Harcourt said stiffly. "As a matter of fact and in consideration of this infatuation you are cherishing, I am wondering if it might not be a good idea to have the charming object of your affections give you a sound trashing, perhaps thirty or forty of the best."
"Oh Darling...!" Ginevra sighed ecstatically. "Oh please, and thank you! Can she do it directly we got home?"
"You missed on that one, Herbert," Alastair chuckled. "I could lend you a book about women...?"
"Suppose we reverse the give and take?" Herbert suggested craftily.
"Oh no!" Ginevra's negative overflowed with reproach. "The poor Darling's borne too much already. You ought to be kind to her."
Moira's heart and sympathy was with her love. "I wouldn't mind a bit," she interjected fervently. "Honestly I wouldn't!"
Alastair laughed delightedly. "Herbert, we have treasures here. Let us cherish them to the full."
Herbert Harcourt grunted noncommittally. "I seem to recall a note you recently wrote, my dear."
Ginevra pouted. Moira suspected she had been awaiting this small bomb. "But it was written under coercion. They might have killed us."
"It sounded most sincere."
Again, Moira longed to laugh. The trapped wife gave her a quick glance and grimaced at her own dilemma. Ginevra sighed and, without enthusiasm, accepted defeat. "Very well, you insatiable monster, you may as well stop off at one of the villages and buy the treacle." She managed a giggle, "You'd better get a large tin; it's cheaper." She stuck out a pink tongue at her companion and, to Moira's dismay, added: "You'll probably want to do Moira too. Might as well pick up the paint as well. I say, Darling, could I have a change of colour, that green's terribly bilious."
Herbert Harcourt sighed happily.
* * *
Celie was filled with joy. Soniaive was alive with those she loved. Moira had been re-captured, and there was a new and most difficult prisoner to subdue. The great old house abounded in a delightful plethora of tortures to keep her fully plenished. She grieved that Moira could not share her bliss.
"You're pining for Darling Gin', aren't you, love?" she asked softly as she circled the cord 'round a submissive wrist.
"Where is she; what are they doing to her?" Moira flared into animation.
Celie giggled reprovingly. "Oh Darling, don't take on so. I'll show her to you another time. You're sort of occupied right now. I'm afraid you have to lay on this awfully narrow bit of wood.
"It would be better if my feet weren't chained," Moira said without complaint. She could never be irritated by Celie.
"I've been wondering about you and the chains," Celie admitted reflectively. "I'm supposed to keep you under control at all times. You know: not to let you have any clever ideas about doing a scoot. But you're sort of one of the family now. I don't have to chain or handcuff Gin' like that; not unless she wants it or Alastair thinks it's part of her punishment. The rest of the time she's quite free and gorgeously obedient. Want me to ask Alastair if you can be like that?"
Moira grinned woefully at her youthful captor. "I'd love it. But it means I'd given up hope: that I never wanted or expected to be free again."
"You'll never be free anyway. Oh, Sweetheart, is it so bad?" Celie's eyes were pools of compassion.
Moira knew it absurd that she should shrink from hurting this child who adored the pain of others. But she felt a deep affection for Celie; she was still grateful for the release from Justin's torture. Had it not been for the kidnapping she would now be totally free, and it would have been by Celie's hand. She looked into the limpid eyes that searched her thoughts, and said with complete simplicity. "I'll always obey you, Celie. Do what you like about the chains, but if you can get permission to let me walk without them I'll give you my promise to be a good girl." Her eyes sparkled mischievously, "But just you and Gin'. No one else."
Celie kissed her with delight. "You're nice, I've always known you were nice!" She knelt down and unlocked the fetters from the captive ankles. "There! You're absolutely free except for this bit of cord round one wrist, and you can have that. Do you want to fight, or try and tie me up, or make a dash for it?"
"How do I lay on this quaint contraption?" Moira asked softly. She knew herself lost once more in affection for a girl.
It was indeed quaint. A narrow strip on which to lay the spine. The willing captive was obliged to clutch at Celie's garment to steady her precarious balance while cords were positioned to cinch her middle. When they had been ruthlessly tightened she managed to maintain a horizontal length on its perch, while her arms were pulled out and back to be tethered to rings in the wall on one side and to upright stanchions on the other. When her feet had been similarly bound she lay taut with arms and legs outthrust; cords from ankle and wrist holding her rigid; but the only stricture on her body was the one about her middle. To stand back and look at her as Celie now did was to discover the effect of levitation. The lovely nudity seemed suspended as by magic.
"That's really super!" Celie's eyes were wide with excitement. "Herbert will be ever so pleased."
The teenager had giggled so much that Moira had guessed her fate. There was an inevitability about it. With Herbert Harcourt in residence, what was about to happen to her was much like the raising of the Standard of visiting Royalty on the flagpole. She supposed it better than being whipped; certainly better than being given to Justin. "Has it been done to Gin' yet?" she asked shyly.
"No. Poor Gin's having rather a bad time, I'm afraid. Dear Herbert seems to have made up his mind to be very strict with her from now on. Alastair says it's a good thing. Anyway, when it is done to her I'll try and get them to let you be there. It's really something to watch."
"Is that the only way I'll get to see her again?"
Celie laughingly tweaked her captive's left nipple. "You are sad about her, aren't you?" Her features softened. "I'd like you to be sad like that over me. It's sweet. But if mourning her really puts you in the dumps I'll give you Alastair's universal cure." She chuckled with elfin wisdom. "It really works. I'll whip you until you feel better."
Bound helplessly and utterly exposed, Moira considered the anomaly of the two of them and the thing just said: on the face of it an absurdity, yet true. Celie's whip would cleanse her mind; it could put a period to a condition. While she was being whipped she would forget all else; it was a catharsis. She had learned this herself in Soniaive. Celie must have come by the knowledge from her mentor and from observation. Celie's beauty was inviolate from the whip by Alastair's decree. Lazily, Moira wondered why; she was so ripe for it. "Are you going to whip me?" she asked, not caring.
"You'd like me to, I know." Shrewd fingertips found the bound girl's nipples so that she gasped and flung back her head. "You would, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, oh yes!" Moira knew not from what deep wall of sensuality her panting affirmative had sprung.
Celie bent and kissed the hot wide lips. "I will whip you, Darling... more than you want, always more than you want."
The girl about to be tortured moaned. She could not speak. The teen-fingers were magic driving coherence from her mind. She was lost in sensation.
Celie smiled in recognition of her own power over the nudity delivered to her hands. "Ginevra was like this," she said softly. "You are so much like her. Some of the others too... you will come to wish never to leave Soniaive."
Moira knew herself drunk with the eroticism of this pagan child, knew her reasoning impaired by her love for Gin', and by this new and powerful emanation from the girl who had bound her. She knew she was confronted by strange fresh values and desires. All that had happened, both here and in her kidnapping, had swept away the used perspectives. At the moment she could speak only in moans, but she made them articulate. "I don't mind the chains... Keep them on me! Even if I want to go, don't let me... " Celie smiled; her fingers traced patterns of joy. She was no longer child. She was Astarte, she was Aphrodite, she was Ashtoreth. Ishtar may have known less... Moira's moans were worship.
"Excellent, excellent!" Herbert Harcourt chuffed satisfaction and patted Celie's bottom approvingly. "One can always trust you, my dear. Doesn't she look exquisite?"
Moira gazed up at the beaming aristocratic features slightly pink with excitement. She supposed it politic to smile. Why a girl about to be tortured should be expected to smile was beyond reason, but she was sure that in Soniaive it was so. The arrival of an amused Alastair and cynical Justin made it even more imperative. Herbert Harcourt's favourite diversion was evidently a popular event. She wished someone else was playing her role. She felt supremely silly and more than a little apprehensive. But it was the arrival of a smirking Janice that confirmed her worst suspicions. The pretty maid carried a tray, and on it in solitary splendour was a sizeable new and unopened can; its green and gold colouring was a familiar domestic sight, as was the caption so easily read: "Lyle's Golden Syrup." The great moment had come! The watching girl knew that the awful and the absurd were about to mingle on her skin.
Justin snickered.
Janice deposited her burden, opened the can and handed it to an ecstatic Herbert, now slightly moist with perspiration. She then spread newspaper beneath the length of the bound and naked girl and retired to the sidelines. Moira, watching, guessed the maid was trying hard not to laugh.
Celie left the room.
The stuff was cold. As the first blob fell upon her stomach Moira gasped and tensed within the unrelenting tug of the strictures by which she was bound. The intent millionaire chuffed confidingly that the medium of his pleasure had been refrigerated to enhance its viscosity. So that it would adhere to her person rather than flow too easily from her contours to the newspaper below. Herbert Harcourt poured intently with a skill born of long practice.
Moira's heart went out to the wife, so notable by her absence. If what was happening to her now was an essential part of connubial bliss, it would be better never to marry - not even a millionaire! She was thankful to be so tightly tied. Celie had understood her task. The temptation to evasive wiggles was irresistible. But she could not move; the glutinous stream encompassed her from neck to toes; her navel was full of the hateful sticky stuff; care was taken to lave her armpits. Her breasts and nipples received an oversupply that might run as the heat of her body affected it. Her pubic hair became a viscid mass; nimble fingers parted the sore and tender labia to ensure the entry within her of the product of the Lyle factory. By the time the can was empty, Moira's nudity was clothed in treacle. She knew that, had she been able to move, each motion would have been a sticky misery. Hopelessly, she surveyed her audience; each face was rapt in its own interpretation of her condition. How strange to be tortured yet feel no pain! To lay quiescent within her bonds and know herself the most intriguing entity within the room. She wondered unhappily how long she would be made to wear so shameful a covering. Fearfully, she queried if it would come off, and how!
Quite suddenly Moira's role as leading lady evaporated. An amazing new duo claimed the spotlight. Celie walked triumphantly into the room. She led, by a tether from the neck, the glowering angry naked figure of the erstwhile kidnapper. In her other hand she flaunted the slenderest and wickedest of the riding crops. Across Cherry's flanks were two wounds, livid and blood flecked, where it had already been used. It was all too obvious the prisoner was not yet adjusted to the demands of Soniaive; she was a seething package of resentment.
Cherry well deserved the attention she evoked. The tension of her muscles, as she fought the lead, set off her nudity to the fullest advantage. She was good female material, vital and tough. She would be a handful to subdue. But subdued she was! The very totality of her subjugation added to her fury.
Celie had taken no chances. Cherry's wrists were handcuffed behind her back; her ankles were chained together with few enough links so that her temperament found little outlet in her feet. The collar round her neck was spiked; already she had fought enough that drops of blood were visible. She was a tigress caged, an Amazon chained, a virago bound. Moira judged that, had the woman been tethered by a man, she would have been more tractable. It was submission to the insouciant Celie that was the last straw to Cherry's temper. She stood now, at bay, glaring at the half circle of faces; some of which were frankly admiring.
"Do I have to be led around like a puppy by a lousy kid?" she demanded.
The crop cut a neat wound across one hip. Cherry made inarticulate sounds striving to bear the pain without a show of weakness.
"Stop the little bitch!" she gasped. "She'll kill me."
Alastair took the crop. "She called you a bitch," he said in his gentlest voice, then struck the rebellious Cherry three times, as hard as his arm could flash. The blows fell at random as she fought the leash. Satisfied, he handed Celie back the whip.
The only sounds were Cherry's. She had fallen to her knees under the lash. She showed no wish to rise, but twisted, unable to touch or soothe her wounds. Her eyes, stricken, looked up at Celie in disbelief that she was truly subject to the lovely child, then roved and settled upon Alastair. "All right, I'll behave," she gasped brokenly. "I suppose there's something I have to do."
It was, as Justin later said, worth the money to see Cherry's face when her task was brought to her attention, and she beheld Moira's treacled nakedness. She surprised everyone by producing a hearty guffaw. "Why didn't you tell me?" she gasped. "You wouldn't have had to drag me." She looked at the bound girl, "Feeling a bit sticky, love?"
Moira's only satisfaction of the day was in her reply. "I think you have to lick it all off," she advised demurely.
It was a very pregnant silence indeed. It lasted quite a long while. At the end, Cherry looked to Alastair and asked, "Do I?"
"You do."
"I don't think it's possible, but I'll try." Cherry looked at the crop. "Don't use that thing on me again! I can't stand it. If I fail to do what you want, it won't be because I don't try." Still on her knees she shuffled over to where she could reach the bound girl with her lips. Moira saw the strange sight mirrored only in the eyes of those who watched. But it was her skin that felt the suction of the seeking lips and the warm play of the female tongue; an unwanted caress that was often sensuous to the point where she longed to thrust it away. She wanted nothing of Cherry save to be cleansed of Herbert Harcourt's libation. She doubted it could be done.
It is to be supposed that, in common with slaves everywhere, Cherry's life had become vacuous enough that any diversion was welcome. She had been sucking and licking for very long before she realized the situation's potential for her own entertainment. True, she was almost entirely hopeless, but beneath her lips was a naked girl even more helpless than herself. Her tongue sought and captured Moira's nipple; lips and teeth sped to their task.
The victim gasped and tried to shrink away, but was held firm. For a little while she endured the assault upon her breast, withholding the vocal accompaniments to her arousal. But when the avid lips sought her other breast, she turned to those who watched and pleaded, "Please... Please stop her! She's... oh, you know what she's doing."
"Hazard of the game, old girl. Sorry!" Alastair explained.
"They're both doing remarkably well." Herbert paid due tribute.
Celie tried for the middle of the road. "I won't let her stay in one place all the time," she assured the shamed girl she had bound such a little time ago. She gave a small vicious tug on the leash to remind Cherry of a watchful control. The woman in the spiked collar glanced back over her shoulder at the child and at the whip. She gave a brief nod to indicate her understanding of her need to behave, then abandoned the taut breasts which were now licked and sucked as free of treacle as they would ever be and turned her attention to the cleft within the bound girl's separated legs.
But Celie was alert. The leash tightened. "Clean her armpits and her arms," she demanded. The crop flicked lightly at the naked back.
With only a toss of her head to indicate annoyance, Cherry sped to her task. Cautiously, she tongued and cleansed the whole shoulder before she attempted the arm hollows. Those watching understood her concern. To get syrup on her face, even on the tip of her nose, would be to share the punishment of the girl on whom she worked. Handcuffed as she was she could not wipe it away. To get it in her hair would make her plight pure misery. A fresh distress for both captives was becoming increasingly evident. The heat of Moira's flesh was causing the sticky horror to liquefy and find its way beneath the surfaces on which it had been originally poured; from thence it dripped to the paper waiting to receive it. This action reduced the bulk Cherry would have to swallow, but chained as she was the cleansing of the under surfaces was well nigh impossible. Looking back appealingly, her only encouragement was to behold the threatening raising of the crop. Determinedly, she sent her lips back to the sticky sweetness of Moira's skin. But now her face and hair could no longer escape. Whatever pleasure her compulsion may once have held was now gone.
When they saw she was beginning to tire from the cramped and twisted postures her chains compelled, the watchers no longer demurred when Cherry positioned herself for the piece de resistance of Herbert's play. Moira could raise her head enough to observe what was about to happen. Miserably, she let it fall again; she had no wish to watch herself gamahuched. Already she was blushing in anticipation of a shame she had little hope of evading. She was young and very female, and Cherry's tongue was infinitely wise...
Cherry's preliminary work had been lightened by delay. Much of the glob of treacle so thoughtfully poured on the dark triangle of hair at the apex of the bound legs had responded to the warmth of its nesting place and flowed away, but, even so, the worker's face and hair were no longer without stain. Little by little Cherry had come to accept the inevitable; she saw it now as part of a punishment she must share with the girl on whose nakedness she intended to inflict as many orgasms as the holder of her leash would allow. Careless of consequence, her lips sought the hairy mound and the warm lips within whose cleft was the small treasure she would ravish.
Moira endured. Tied fast, she could not resist; she was open and available, delivered to her enemy. She was not na�ve enough to care about an orgasm, or two, or three. But to be compelled to manifest them beneath Celie's hand, and in full view of a considerable audience, mostly male, was torture. She closed her eyes and tensed herself to betray nothing of what her inmost being might feel. Thus it became a duel between herself and Cherry, a duel she soon knew she would not win.
Those watching knew her agony. Herbert Harcourt beamed in pleasure and in pride of his creation. The abasement of the tied girl by the lips and tongue of she who was chained was the grand finale that came to him forever new in all its splendour every time he brought it into being. It was a subtlety to which his girls responded in different ways, some in gay abandon, others in a deep agony of spirit. It had been a great sorrow to him that Ginevra had refused to allow herself to be bound that her own reaction might be betrayed. He loved her. To see her as he saw Moira now was his greatest wish. It was a wish soon to be fulfilled. That his wife would place her nakedness willingly to be bound made him a happy man.
With her first moan, Moira knew herself lost. She had tried hard to choke it back in silence, but the piercing joy of a sudden thrust of Cherry's tongue breached her defence. The moans came fast; she could not keep her head from motions better expressed by an arching back and trashing legs. But the cords inhibited her libido as they bound her limbs. Her head and her hair and her ripe lips were her only outlet for the crescendo of sensation Cherry invoked. When the orgasm came, its intensity was so great, even bound as it was, some portions of her anatomy cried out her shame by convulsions of muscle and flesh visible to the watching eye. Celie looked down in love and curiosity.
Moira's final reprieve came more from Cherry's exhaustion than any wish or consent from the audience. They had watched the explosions of four orgasms and seemed content to watch four more, when the tongue that sparked them, and the woman who owned the tongue, slipped back from the wet triangle and tumescent vulva to slump wearily in a crouching kneel within the triangle of the pinioned legs. Cherry had had enough.
They filed out, speaking with expressions rather than words, even Justin forbore his sneer. Herbert Harcourt's smile told clearly the success of Moira's ordeal. She supposed, wryly, that at Soniaive their satiety justified all. The last to go was Cherry who walked now willingly enough at the end of her leash. She was marked by sweat and smeared with syrup. The still bound captive wondered what would be done with her.
Suddenly it was lonely. Moira thought, quaintly, of empty bottles and discarded wrappings after a party. She had no relief that she was forgotten, but from being the focal point in a vivid tableau she had now become only one of the trappings of the grim room, something used and left to serve another purpose another time. It was a little frightening to know the degree in which she was possessed and taken for granted. She raised her head to survey the ruin of Herbert Harcourt's masterpiece that was herself. Her nakedness was a battlefield strewn with the debris of action. Despite Cherry's best efforts beneath the spur of Celie's whip, there remained patches and streaks of syrup over most of her person. The only places that had been truly licked clean were the erogenous zones, through which she had been stimulated to provide the high points of the entertainment. Disgustedly, she told herself she was a dirty sticky mess; she felt outrageously soiled. From time to time the silence was faintly broken by the fall of one more blob of treacle to the paper below.
She strained against the cords. It was less a struggle than a reassurance that she was indeed accepting the inevitable. Ruefully, she conceded that the instinct for freedom would always compel her to these testings of her bonds. It was a small act of rebellion that would not be punished, an outlet for frustrations. She was still tied tightly as ever; no strand had eased. She looked sideways up the column of her stretched arm to where the two neat circles of cord anchored her wrist. She pulled and saw it fail to move. She wriggled her fingers in a small pathetic liberty that changed nothing. Frantically, for a moment or two, she surged with all her strength. The resultant tensions of muscle and flesh confirmed her suspicion that real movement would be a miser; her skin was a sticky disagreeable, adhesive inhibiting motion.
Her mind drifted to the ever present speculation on her condition. Soniaive held her and seemed likely to hold her the rest of her life. She wondered how weak or how deviant she might be in that her feelings for Ginevra and for Celie made her captivity bearable and sometimes happy. Did all prisoners everywhere find consolations? Certainly not consolations such as had fallen to her lot! What consolations might Cherry be finding? Any at all seemed improbable. But behind the good things there lurked always the sinister and the fearful. Pure torture was never bearable; Justin was always to be feared. She was a plaything of people who adored her screams; even Celie, who loved her, would give her agony. For a brief time she was possessed by a panic longing to escape.
"I should sprinkle you with feathers." Celie giggled as she tugged at knots. "I think that's a nice idea. One day I'll tar and feather you and make you walk around like a moulting hen. I'd hate to have a man see me like that."
"I'm sorry about all those orgasms," Moira apologized as she flexed a freed arm. "I tried not to, but I couldn't help it."
Celie giggled. "Well, I knew what they were, Darling. Don't be ashamed; I loved it."
The captive was now flexing both arms. "I feel horrible," she mourned. "Ugh! This beastly stuff! How often will that old idiot expect poor Ginevra to submit to this?"
"Probably a couple of times a month; he does have other interests."
Moira found it hard to picture Ginevra in so submissive a role. "Who will he got to do the licking-off bit with his wife, or does he do it himself?"
"Oh the poor dear will end up right here where you are now. He'll likely make Cherry do that one too, or Janice." Celie chuckled. "Or it could be you, Darling. You are a very likely candidate. Now, how about a bath?"
Moira thankfully edged herself out of the treacle zone and stepped into the sandals that would prevent her adhering to the floor with every step. She leaned forward and kissed her jailor, but dared not touch, she felt contaminated. Celie looked embarrassed.
"Darling, you know that thing we were talking about... that... that control business?" She flushed awkwardly. "I asked Alastair, but he stepped on it hard, says I have to keep you fastened some way all the time. He was a real pig about it. He's still angry at me over that affair with Justin and my letting you and Gin' loose. He gave me a frightful talking to at the time and I got another one just now." Celie laughed undismayed. "I'm quite sure that if he didn't have this 'thing' about me being too young, I'd have got the whipping of a lifetime. Am I really too young, Darling?"
"No you're not!" Moira assured her with conviction. "But as long as he thinks you are, you'd better leave well enough alone. Being whipped isn't the fun you think it is."
"But there's a lovely feeling afterwards?" Celie insisted hopefully.
Moira blushed, "Well, sometimes."
"I think I'll tie your hands," Celie decided. "It has to be that or the handcuffs; just in case his nibs catches us on the way to the bath. I think just between the two of us that tying is nicest; it' sort of intimate. I'll try and keep the chains off your ankles as much as he'll let me. They make walking so difficult and they clank terribly in the tub."
"I don't care," Moira said, truly meaning it. "Remember, I told you. I'll always let you tie me. If you're going to use cord it'll have to be behind my back, won't it? If you tie me in front I can get at it with my teeth." She turned and crossed her wrists.
"I'm going to make this hurt," Celie said firmly. "I'm very good at tying. If the cord really cuts you'll be remembering me all the time you're tied. I want you to think of me."
It did hurt! The strands joined Moira's wrists with an authoritative firmness. Celie's fingers were very wise and surprisingly strong. Yet they were also gentle with love. It was another of the anomalies of Soniaive that left Moira forever in wonder at herself. No thought of complaint entered her mind. A welling surge of desire for the child who was tying her almost prompted a tender plea to tie them tighter still. Impatiently, she dismissed her silliness and was content with the biting intimacy Celie had promised. How strange to feel comfort in being bound!
Celie bathed her. Moira could do nothing for herself. The tying of her crossed wrists made her far more helpless than the handcuffs ever did. Handcuffs gave a little tolerance. Celie's cords gave none. Herbert Harcourt's sticky libation dissolved beneath Celie's deft and loving ministrations. It was afterwards, while the passive nudity was vigorously towelled, that the youthful mistress asked: "You're still worrying about poor Gin', aren't you?"
"Of course I am! What is it that idiot husband's done to her?" Ginevra was never far from Moira's mind.
"I'll take you to see her if you really want," Celie promised hesitantly. "No one's told me not to. But I'm not sure you should. It will only bother you."
"I'm bothered now! Oh, Celie, please...?"
Celie smiled.
To Moira it seemed that Soniaive had an endless supply of the stone chambers that were never quite a dungeon, yet never quite an ordinary room. Punishment was implicit in all, even when they were bare of the fixtures and devices designed for the pain of naked girls. This one was very bare indeed, save for the girl... !
Relieved of the rattle of Moira's ankle shackles, the progress of the two girls, one tied, one free, was silent. Celie held a finger to pursed lips and slid aside the cover to the peephole. Breathless, Moira peered within.
Ginevra was naked on the floor. She lay on her back as though in careless slumber, arms thrown wide. Beneath her shoulders and her hips was a scanty strip of blanket, save for this she lay upon the stone. It was not until Moira looked more closely that she saw the chains. Each wrist bore its metal band from which a few links connected to the ringbolt in the floor. Ginevra could not move from where she lay. She was not stretched, but she was captive.
At the sound of their entry the lovely nudity tensed and instinctively tried to sit erect, but the chains allowed Ginevra to do no more than raise her shoulders. When she saw her visitors she gasped with a thankfulness that sent a lump to Moira's throat and glowed with the radiance peculiarly her own. "Oh, darlings...!" For the moment she could say no more. She slumped back within the tolerance of her chains and smiled up at them with a great happiness that they were there.
There was much kissing, but no embraces save for Celie. The other girls did not own their arms. Getting control of her voice, Ginevra said with her own wry humour, "Sorry I can't get up, but dear Herbert thinks I mustn't. He has some quaint idea this is good for my soul." She grimaced. "It isn't a bit good for my back and bottom."
"Herbert ought to be kicked!" Celie affirmed with vehemence.
The naked girl on the stone wriggled herself into whatever sparse comfort her plight allowed and grinned ruefully up at the concerned faces of her visitors. "I ought to second that motion," she said musingly. "But the fact is, this punishment or whatever Herb wants to call it, has made me think a bit. I suppose that's the idea, gives me lots of time. It's the damndest thing... ! Lying here like a piece of meat tossed on the floor, I can't do a thing except wriggle and kick my legs. But then, I 'spose I have to be grateful he didn't have them chained too. The way I am... it's sort of half bearable."
Moira hung upon the words of her love. She could see upon the lovely features the lines and shadows of reflection. Ginevra continued as though she was surprised at what she had to say. "Fact is I haven't been all that kind to Herbert. He's been kind to me, but I've gone my own sweet way. Considering I'm his wife, I haven't given him much." She managed a faint giggle. "After all I did know about the treacle when I said "Yes'. 'Spose I thought I could talk him out of it."
There was another pause as though all three awaited a conclusion as yet unsaid. Ginevra tugged irritably at one chained wrist. "I'm terribly angry at myself over the whole thing. Here I am being sort of half tortured, and instead of hating the man who has sentenced me to it I'm feeling guilty that I wasn't nicer to him." She gazed up at them appealingly. "Dammit, if this is the way the female mind works we should all have a couple of days like this every month and our bottoms caned on alternate Tuesdays."
"Don't forget the treacle," Celie giggled.
"Oh, that's still to come. I get it when I'm set free from this rotten fix I'm in." Ginevra sighed resignedly. She cocked a bright eye at Celie. "You wouldn't know when that is, would you?"
The younger girl grinned sheepishly. "I'm not supposed to tell, but I'm pretty sure it's tomorrow. Everyone, even Herbert, thinks you've been like this long enough. Alastair wouldn't have punished you for more than a day."
The captive's face lit up, so that once more Moira knew the constriction in her throat. Ginevra glowed. "I should have married Alastair," she admitted pensively. "We have a sort of private 'thing' about each other." She laughed up at them, still tugging at a fettered wrist. "One of you two will get him, y'know. I'm sure of it." She slipped back into memory. "He used to whip me so much... We got to know each other's thoughts. I could always tell when I was going to get ten... or twenty... or something really awful. I can tell now. It'll be one of you, but I don't know which. Maybe you'll share him. Alastair isn't ordinary."
Celie laughed delightedly. Moira blushed. "Alastair would never marry a slave girl!" she exclaimed shyly.
"Why not?" Ginevra demanded hotly. "If I hadn't let Darling Herbert's millions get the best of me I'd have married him! I was a slave girl, not a bit different from you! I think he whipped me more than he ever whipped any other of his girls. I was always striped. I got nicknamed 'Zebra'."
The nominees for matrimony examined each other with fresh interest. "Well, if he marries me, he'll just have to whip me, won't he?" Celie mused pensively. "You two are terribly lucky, y'know... " She gazed into a roseate future of flagellatory bliss.
"It'll be a damn awful shock to you when it happens, cherub." Ginevra chuckled. "It hurts like hell... ! Ask Lovebird. There's been times when I'd have preferred treacle!" She laughed deprecatingly. "I never thought I'd see the day I'd look forward to getting Lyle's sticky muck poured all over me, but I could have it right now, I would!" she sighed woefully. "I'm so jolly tired of this silly mess I'm in. Seems as though I've lain like this for weeks and weeks. I've even cried quite a lot, it's been so lonely and this stone's so damn hard... " Her face lit up. "Think... ! Tomorrow! They'll let me loose. Damn the treacle! I'll even make Darling Herb pour on an extra tin." She paused in consternation. "But Darlings, who's going to have to lick me off?"
Celie shuffled her feet awkwardly. "I don't know," she confessed. "They just tease me when I ask. They laugh and say it's me. I'd simply love to, Darling." She added with obvious sincerity, "But I bet they won't let me. I've got sort of a hunch it's going to be Lovebird. I say, isn't that a simply scrumptious name for Moira?"
Ginevra's eyes sought her love. "I'd want it to be you. But all that sweet stuff... Doesn't it make whoever does it sick?"
"About half of it drips off on the paper down below," Celie advised helpfully. "Then there's always a lot left on the poor girl after they've lost interest. It gets washed off in the tub." Her eyes sparkled. "Ask Lovebird."
The captive tugged at her chains. She gazed at Moira in amused wonder. "Darling... ! Not you...?"
Celie giggled happily. "Just a couple of hours ago. And look at her now... you'd never know."
It became a jumble of laughter, of explanations, and of femininity that went on and on. When, finally, Moira stood in the passage and watched Celie close the heavy door on a now revitalized Ginevra, she was startled by the abrupt command: "Turn 'round, slave girl!" When her hands were free and she was rubbing her chaffed wrists she beheld a pleased cherub surveying her archly.
"But you mustn't!" Moira protested. "What if we're caught, and me not tied?"
The wisdom of all the Eves of all the ages shone in Celie's eyes. "You're going back in there." Celie allowed a silence to lengthen for emphasis on the single word she uttered next.
"... Lovebird!"
Moira gasped and flamed scarlet.
"Don't be such a silly," the youngster chided. "I know about you two. I know about everything that goes on... simply everything! Just because I can't get anyone to whip me, except Justin, doesn't mean I'm stupid. I'll keep guard. If I hear someone coming I'll slip in and have you triced in no time. Run along, Lovebird. You're so lucky...!"
Lovebird did as she was told.
* * *
It was a buffet luncheon. Soniaive was at its best. The Special Ones had rallied to the call. There was a vibrant sibilance of conversation in the huge room. Moira found herself circulating among the guests with a quite astonishing lack of shame on her part or comment on theirs. She was becomingly clothed in nothing but a pair of shining handcuffs on her wrists and silver chains upon her ankles. She had long since learned to walk gracefully with fettered feet. Handcuffs, when not behind her back, scarcely impeded her at all. She stood now, holding a champagne glass within her joined hands and gazing up respectfully at the craggy features of the Earl Of Crocksford.
"Damn fine looking gal!" The elder statesman approved, eyeing her nipples.
"Thank you, Sir." Moira felt she should say something. She would have liked to flippantly inquire if he enjoyed what he was looking at too, but a slave girl must exercise caution. She sensed herself on unfamiliar ground.
"Beautiful hair." He had lowered his sights to her pubis.
She kept silent. Surely her blush was enough!
"Ever have anyone paint you?"
"I believe Mr. Harcourt intends to, but there doesn't seem to have been an opportune moment," Moira explained shyly.
The Earl exploded into a great bellow of hilarity. "I say, damn good that!" he guffawed, wiping his eyes with a half acre of virgin white linen. "I didn't mean your round little arse and old Herbert's pot of green paint. Never fear, the old boy'll get there sooner or later. He's painted more bottoms than Gainsborough did Duchesses. No, I meant a bit of canvas and some oils. You have a quality."
"No one but you seems to have noticed it, Sir."
"Never posed, eh! Damn pity." He eyed her nudity up and down with satyr concupiscence. "Want a job?"
Moira felt sure she would want no job he might have in mind. She clinked her handcuffs at him and kicked musically with a fettered foot. "I'm a slave girl," she explained simply. "I don't think we are supposed to have jobs."
"Nonsense!" He disposed of the objection summarily. "Directly I say you I knew the very thing. Not work at all really! Have you chained to the wall in the Great Hall at Crocksford all day. You know: object d'art sort of thing... living statue! Give the locals something to talk about. Damn dull hole actually... " Moira would have liked to laugh, but was not sure that a slave girl had that privilege. "Perhaps you should ask Mr. Landseer," she suggested timidly. She felt sure Alastair could deal with this craggy remnant of the nobility.
The Earl was struck by a sudden irrelevant thought. For the first time he appeared to notice Moira's face. "Met that sheep's arse woman yet?" he demanded gruffly.
Moira took a deep draught of champagne and registered shock.
"You know who I mean!" the nobility asserted testily. "Honoria Ramsbotham. She's one of those what-d'you-call-'ems."
Moira cocked a baffled eye.
"Dammit girl, you know what I mean. The Greeks had a word... Lesbian! That's it! The girls have a go at each other, y'know."
Honoria Ramsbotham turned out to be fortyish, stoutish and genial but with a bright discerning eye. She smelt of money. "Mustn't listen to all old Crockie tells you," she greeted heartily. "Him and his living statues! Got the idea from the Windmill Theatre back in the old days. His second housemaid tried the job once, got pneumonia. Bloody drafty place, Crockford." The bright eye assessed Moira's female attributes with frank enjoyment. "Get your pretty bottom whipped, regularly, I expect?"
"Not exactly regularly, but often," the slave girl admitted cautiously.
"Stick your tongue out, eh?"
Some memory of childhood and the medical profession prompted an involuntary response. Moira's red and healthy tongue was extruded to the full for inspection.
"You'd better work for me," Mrs. Ramsbotham said decisively.
In a sudden realization of implications, the girl being assessed retrieved her exhibit and blushed furiously.
"Ever hear about my love seat?" London's leading Les' asked affably.
"I'm afraid not." Moira was beginning to wish herself safely chained in a nice quiet dungeon.
"My own invention actually," Mrs. R. stated with pride. "Holds you caged and kneeling on your haunches. Seat fits 'round your neck so your head sticks up. The gal to be serviced sits astride with her fanny in your face. Jolly convenient." She chuckled reminiscently. "When we use it at social affairs, they usually pull their skirt down over your head and carry on with whatever's doing. You'd be good. I can tell."
Moira had a nauseating vision of herself gasping for air within the pungent confines of some dowager's pubic hair. "I'm kept pretty busy here at Soniaive with one thing or another," she offered tentatively. "It's nice of you to want me, though."
"You'd never be idle with me, dear," Honoria Ramsbotham assured warmly. "I have the finest collection of canes in the city, and my dungeon's much better than anything we have here. You'd be fully employed." It sounded as though she was inducing a hesitant secretary.
"Perhaps you should talk to Alastair. I'm not exactly a free girl." Moira displayed her handcuffs and kicked her chain. "I have to do what I'm told."
"A tongue like yours shouldn't be wasted. You've used it a bit, I'd judge?"
"Oh yes! It's lovely, isn't it?" No harm in being polite.
"I'll talk to the boy," Mrs. Ramsbotham mused thoughtfully. "Probably doesn't realize your potential. He's a good chap. Whips a lovely bottom." She drifted off toward the bar.
"Not letting that old trout talk you into a tongue and groove job, I hope?" The voice was feminine but acid. Moira swung 'round in surprise.
Miss Vinterra might have been thirty, curves were noticeably missing. Her features plainly said she expected little and gave less. Her clothes were no help. She surveyed Moira's chained nudity with a faint quiver of animation. "Honoria doesn't bathe regularly, you'd find her quiff a bit gamey," she added without emotion.
"Don't tell me you were thinking of employing me too?" Moira was beginning to enjoy the party.
"You're not supposed to talk to me with that familiarity," Miss Vinterra said coldly. "I'll speak to Alastair about giving you a good hard six- soles of your feet, of course! You won't like it."
Moira was quite sure she would not like anything Miss Vinterra had to offer. "I'm sorry," she said humbly. "I'm a bit out of my depth. Everybody wants to do something different."
"I wouldn't!" Miss Vinterra dismissed the foibles of others with contempt. "I'd whip you. With those curves you're perfect."
"I do get whipped quite a lot," Moira admitted conversationally.
"Oh, the Soniaive stuff!" Miss Vinterra disposed of that, too, with a petulant motion of her hand. "Altogether too formalized. I'd want you for a whipping girl. Know what that is?"
"Some old historical custom, isn't it?" the slave girl responded without enthusiasm.
"That's right!" said Miss "When I'm out of sorts I slash away at you until I feel better."
"On the soles of my feet?" Moira was aghast.
"Not all the time. I'm not hidebound." The acid spinster voice affirmed testily. "You're perfectly shaped all over. I'd give you the jolly lot one time or another. You may as well come back with me after the show today."
"I'm not sure I could meet your standards."
"Nonsense! I'll always keep you chained or tied, so you wouldn't have to be worrying about running away or complaining. The job's a breeze actually." The assured voice clearly said that that was that!
"It does sound a bit arduous." Moira was fascinated by Miss Vinterra's utter aplomb. "How often do you feel... out of sorts?"
"Not being insolent, are you?" A cold glare impaled the temporizing nudity. "I can easily ask for twelve instead of six!"
"Oh, thank you, no! I'm really grateful you'd like to have me." Moira felt herself surrounded by the quicksands of temperament. "It's just that I'm not sure of myself... I'm still a bit new."
"But you've had your flogging!" Miss Vinterra seemed puzzled.
"Oh yes, of course! And a goad deal more. But I really think you should talk to Alastair. I don't think a slave girl is allowed to make decisions."
"But you would like to come?" Miss Vinterra was having no nonsense.
"Perhaps you could help me by giving me an idea of how much I'd be whipped?" Moira felt trapped.
The spinster shrugged off so trivial a consideration. "Couple of times a day, I suppose... Good sound thrashings... " She paused and gave Moira a keen scrutiny. "I suppose you know - or hasn't Alastair bothered to tell you? You Soniaive girls can be passed around; you're not fixtures. Any of us can put a bid on you, and if there's no impediments you're more or less pre-empted. Nice to have you come willingly, of course. But it's also rather good fun when you struggle."
Moira was saved the quandary of a reply by a brisk and authoritative male voice. "Go away, Vivian. I want her."
Vivian Vinterra looked at the newcomer with undisguised distaste. "This is Lord Stitchwort." She introduced Moira. "He's made a bloody fortune selling some poisonous laxative he calls 'Stitchwort's Saline Salts'. Now he thinks he owns the lot of us."
"Good dose would do you a world of good, m'dear," his Lordship pronounced cordially. He beamed at Moira. "Poor girl's constipated. Most people are. Not you, of course...!"
"Better be bunged up than blasted open," Miss Vinterra said viciously.
Lord Stitchwort gave the surprised slave girl a fine confidential wink. "Poor girl's had never had either," he guffawed coarsely. He was obviously a self-made man.
"Up yours too! You'd give any girl the diarrhea, you old fraud." Miss Vinterra venomously drifted into the crowd. Moira sighed in relief.
"Wants to whip you, I suppose?" He was large, affable, scarlet. He held a whiskey of noble proportions.
"Everybody wants to whip you," Moira admitted mournfully. "Do you?"
"Well, naturally." He looked startled as though she had asked him if he intended to drink his whiskey. He eyed her benignly. "I mean... what else! Damn pretty girl!"
"But girls do have other uses, you know," Moira ventured.
Lord Stitchwort looked shocked. "I say there! Not being vulgar, are you?"
The slave girl flushed. The slip had been hers. "Oh no! Oh please... I mean we can talk and cook and type and do all sorts of things."
The Saline Salts sighed with evident relief. "Ah! Glad to hear you say that. This copulation business... damned indecent. Worse than constipation and diarrhea put together." He paused as though examining an idea. "Nobody's invented a cure for it." He considered further. "Probably wouldn't sell... " He smiled down at her in a kindly paternal manner. "Whipping's the thing! That's when a girl comes into her own. You're made for it."
"But it hurts terribly."
He waved away the quibble and took a deep swallow.
"Nonsense! Good for the circulation. Damned decorative too."
"Miss Vinterra wanted me to go home with her. She said I might be compelled to. She wants to trash me twice a day."
"Pure self-indulgence," said the peer. "No business acumen in the girl." He leaned forward confidingly. "Now what I intend to do with you is make a bit of lolly. No! No! None of that laying on your back trick. But there's a lot of chaps can do me a favour. An hour alone with you and a whip, and there's no telling what concessions they'd make. Good idea, what! I mean, you wouldn't mind, would you?"
"Isn't it a bit one-sided? I'll hurt like blazes and you'll make a lot of money." The arch enemy of constipation refilled Moira's glass. "Drink up, girl! That damn woman left you morbid. What do you say to a nice mink coat?"
"But I'm not allowed to wear clothes!"
"Damn! You're right! Crime to cover you! What about diamonds?"
The hand on her arm was a miracle. Moira felt a wave of comfort flow from the male fingers. She looked up and sideways into Alastair's eyes. "Everyone wants to whip me," she told him forlornly. "I don't think I have enough skin." She downed her champagne in a couple of gulps. "Please whip me, Master, and tell the rest there's not enough left." She felt a little drunk and a trifle scared. They had all be so determined.
"I'm inviting you to the theatre," said Alastair charmingly.
"But I'm a slave, Master!" She looked at him, awed.
"A most delightful slave." He bit her ear and patted her bottom. "Come." He gave her his arm. "I'll walk very slowly."
The slave girl's chains clinked musically. She allowed her Lord to guide her into dreams.
* * *
Soniaive held wonders. Among them a theatre. Moira supposed it a dungeon or huge stone chamber adapted to the comfort of an audience who would watch a naked girl find torment. Her Master guided her to a favoured seat among the tiers rapidly filling with The Special Ones.
There was a stage. It was all very, very perfect. The heavy folds of the curtain hid mystery. Behind it might be the unmentionable, but those who would watch sorted themselves out in a genteel sibilance of voice and motion.
"It's Ginevra's debut," Alastair whispered in his slave girl's ear.
The slave girl herself was in a seventh heaven of delight, not unmixed with relief. Her Master would be a bastion against absurdity. She would bear the cuts of his whip with joy against the sombre notions of those who desired her body as a convenience. Miss Vinterra could buy a mattress and whip that! Moira wanted more champagne. As though by magic the glass was placed within her chained hands. Avidly she drank.
Celie was nowhere to be seen.
Theatre is magic! It was so now. Long afterwards Moira wondered about directions; there was none! Intuition prompted. Instinct chose the motions and the words. It was all so terribly, terribly right! She clutched Alastair's arm in a vibrant excitement. The curtain slithered back to either side. The lights dimmed, save for the stage itself. The play had begun.
There is nothing more evocative than an empty stage. Thus it was! Moments passed, waiting. When Celie led the naked woman forward by a chain, the hiss of indrawn breath was a whisper of delight.
Ginevra was glorious. She could be no less. Led to the couch of love or to the headman's block she would dominate all else. Moira sensed her love as being happy with the role in which she was cast. With her own mischief she would play it to the full. Ginevra glowed.
The tether was ritualistic. Ginevra would have done what she must do without it or the cords that bound her hands behind her back. Her nudity held no shame. It was a paen of tribute to beauty. She was Eve; she was Astarte. But, above all, she was Ginevra! Moira's heart rose to her throat in longing. Celie sparkled, an adoring satellite to the naked woman she held in thrall.
Ginevra faced them, the lights full upon the nakedness she could not hide. She had no hands, and thus was bereft of shame. She flaunted her glory. She was beautiful beyond the dreams of men. She raised her head tauntingly, looking at all and seeing none. The bound captive was Mistress of them all. Her voice was melody.
"I've been a bad, bad girl." She mimicked the falsetto of a child, her eyes roving in Puckish glee to find her lord. "I have been punished." It was a simple statement as though in testimony of a task and the payment therefore. Her gaze flickered back and forth across her mass confessional; her voice became throatily female. "But my punishment is not done. Before you know I yield to my Master's dearest wish. I will give myself gladly to be bound. All of you know what will be done to me. I accept it with thankfulness that I am loved."
The sigh that flowed from those who watched was one of envy.
The naked woman smiled. She had said all that she need say. Her eyes mocked. There was laughter in her voice. "I'm a sacrifice. Perhaps there is one among you who will cleanse my sin...?"
The air was electric. Each man and each woman knew themselves elect. The ultimate female on the stage turned to the adoring child and demanded, "Tie me!"
A male voice breathed into Moira's enthralled ear. "Good of Gin'! Trust her! She's stolen the whole show." Alastair chuckled. "Herbert ought to be damn proud. Wonder who'll volunteer for the treacle."
She looked up at him in adoration. "Please, make it me," she pleaded. "I love her."
Smiling from his own infinite wisdom, Alastair gently bit her ear then kissed her lips. Producing a key, he unlocked the shackles from her ankles. "The stage is yours." He laughed and patted her bottom in encouragement.
The handcuffed slave girl walked shyly to the stage and to her love. From the wings, Herbert Harcourt emerged bearing his familiar green and golden tin. An enraptured Celie corded the Leading Lady very tight indeed.
Operation Treacle had begun.
* * *
The matinee had been Ginevra's But the evening performance belonged to a Star whose name Moira could not discover. Celie knew but would not tell. Ginevra was in ignorance but unconcerned. She and Moira had shared their bath and their love. I was, for them, a parting. Moira remained nude and handcuffed. Ginevra donned the best that Paris could offer and became Mrs. Herbert Harcourt. Neither was quite sure of being happy with the older girl's return to grace. Alastair was not to be questioned. But he took his slave aside and spoke gravely of that which concerned her more.
"What you have been told is true," he admitted. "Any slave girl can be temporarily claimed by one of the Special Ones. If there is no valid objection, she is loaned. Perhaps a week or ten days." He eyed her with affectionate amusement. "They'd have to draw lots for you, the way they are clamouring."
"Master, I am afraid."
"It is less awful than you fear."
"But, Master, from them I might try to escape."
"That would be your greatest cross to bear," Alastair conceded. "I'll say this for 'em, they'll do their duty." He laughed. "None of them have lost a slave girl yet. But, yes, you'd really be tied and chained and behind bars." He lifted her handcuffed wrists. "We're really spoiling you here." He patted her shoulder. "Come along, it's almost curtain time."
The stage held an incongruity, a small dresser and stool that looked strangely feminine in so grim a setting. Moira tensed and felt the same tension in Alastair's arm as it rested on her own, as Celie stepped forward from the wings; a Celie no longer a girl, not yet a woman. An ageless female sprite radiating a new and vibrant authority. In one hand she held the slender riding crop; twisted around the other was a white silken cord that trailed its length to the collar round the neck of the captive, Cherry, who obeyed its tug with a grudging obedience that, Moira suspected, emanated more from the spikes within the band upon her neck than cooperative intent. Her crossed wrists were tied tightly behind her back. She glared balefully at the enraptured audience. "Ladies and gentlemen." Celie's voice was magic. She was in the grip of a deep joy that projected beyond the footlights. At that moment she was Eve, the oldest and most knowing of them all. She exuded radiance. Pointing to the rigid nudity of her unwilling companion, she announced the play. "Our subject's name is Cherry. She is unwilling and untrained. She obeys my leash only because her collar is spiked. She has a foul tongue and no manners. You will be entertained now by watching a disagreeable woman become a thing of beauty - "
"Up your arse!" interjected Cherry cordially.
Celie smiled at her audience. "You behold the dross. And now, our alchemy." Holding firmly to the silken tether, she untied Cherry's hands.
The naked woman was by no means free. It was evident she respected the restraint upon her throat. She did not test it, but stood uncertainly rubbing her wrists and glaring in hostility at the faces she could not identify beyond the lights. As though in need of the reassurance of vulgarity she spat venom: "Fuck the whole ruddy lot of you!" Her words were part fear and part humiliation at her condition.
"Our subject has been briefed as to what is required of her," Celie continued unperturbed. "At the moment she rejects. We will change her mind."
"I'm not playing any of your damn silly games!" the naked woman retorted contemptuously.
For a moment, Cherry stood, poised and femininely appealing in her fury. Only the sullen scowl of her features prevented her nakedness being beautiful. Then suddenly, as though cut down by an unseen blade, she was writhing on the floor; her lips emitting peal after peal of agony. It was then Moira saw the bands: Justin's bands around each slender ankle, as unobtrusive within the skin as were her own. She cringed in sympathy and herself knew fear.
Celie stood watching the contortions of her leashed captive with amused tolerance. When they stopped as suddenly as they had begun, she asked casually, "Ready now, Darling?"
Cherry had pushed herself to her knees. She was panting, breast heaving, eyes dilated. For the moment she was speechless. She looked up at the girl who held her in leash, shaking her head as though to clear it of agony. But then her jaw hardened. "You dirty rotten bastards!" she exclaimed vehemently, "think you're clever with your lousy electricals - " Her retort was cut short by another surge of Justin's power. What had gone before was as nothing now. The naked woman clawed the air; she tore at the floor as if by so doing she could escape the thing that ate at her with agony. She sought to rise but fell back screaming. At long last she forced herself to raise a pleading face to the girl who held her leash. The power stopped. Cherry lay, resting on her arms. She was bedewed with sweat and fighting for breath. Celie held her leash and surveyed her with pride and expectation.
There was no sound save for Cherry's laboured breathing. The audience was gripped by the female magic the beheld. Moira saw herself there upon the floor, broken, subservient to the collar and the leash. But Cherry was an unknown; she was possessed of a great sore of vitriolic vitality that was unpredictable. Yet it was not on the captive alone that eyes were focused. The slender slip of femaleness that was Celie held her whip and her cord with a total assurance that commanded attention. Celie glowed with a secret knowledge.
Little by little the punished nudity raised itself to a crouch, to kneel, and then slowly to stand erect. Once more the shake of the head that sent the damp hair flying to dispel the mists of pain. The lined face, etched with quite new emotions, gazed blankly across the lights to those she had reviled, then slowly turned to assess the smiling features of the girl who held the cord and the whip; a girl who intently watched but did not urge. Their eyes locked and held. They stood thusly for a long time: Mistress and thrall. Between them flowed a force as potent as Justin's power. Between them passed a message none other might read. Tentatively a captive hand rose to a captive throat and felt at the spiked collar as though the feel of it held reassurance. Their owner took a deep breath and imbued her nakedness with purpose.
It was beautifully timed. Janice had merged upon the scene without seeming a part of it. She was pertly attired as a petite French maid. She held a silver tray; on it lay the slenderness of a yellow cane. As though the act was prearranged, Cherry turned and took the wicked thing. As though hypnotized, she knelt before her youthful mistress, kissed the thing she held, and proffered it. "Please cane my bottom, Mistress," she asked in a clear and level voice. A voice from which all malice had been carefully erased.
Interest swivelled to the woman whom pain had changed. All knew the seething resentment within Cherry's breast; the metamorphosis Justin and Celie had wrought held them spellbound. Here was drama! They watched the fluidity of nakedness become beautiful; the baseness of vulgarity transmuted into honeyed words. Something had happened to Cherry!
"Please cane me, Mistress!" Cherry pleaded. Those who heard her plea could not doubt her wish.
Celie radiated an aura of her own, a deep sensuality. Clothed, she was more naked than her slave, fully as female! She set aside her whip and accepted the proffered cane. Her nod was almost regal.
Cherry was transformed. Perhaps Justin's magic went beyond pain; perhaps his impulses touched the spirit and the mind. Cherry rose to her feet, glad that the thing with which she would be caned had been so graciously accepted, anxious now only that it should find her flesh. With a real curtsy to the female entity of which she was but an appendage, she turned and faced the audience she could barely see. "I am about to be punished," she said in a voice unaffected by emotion. "I have misbehaved." She turned away from them and bent and touched her toes.
Celie was force; she was power; she was female. She caned the offered bottom with a terrible and beautiful dexterity. The scarlet lines rose one by one across the curved flesh for all to see. The obedient nudity moaned but did not scream. She panted and gasped but did not move. She was being caned by her own request. At the end of the sixth slash across her skin, the cane paused. Cherry rose stiffly erect; her hands searching her bottom for the ridges of puffed flesh that were the medals of her courage and her penalty. In slow motion she went, now, to Janice's tray and selected therefrom new glittering objects of chrome. Bending, again, on one knee she offered the handcuffs to she who was whipping her. "Please chain me," she requested pleasantly. "The pain is more than I can bear."
The youthful mistress chained her thrall at wrist and ankle. The watchers could see the metal bands sink deep within the skin. Once more the victim bent as though in gratitude. The cane whirred and splatted upon the sacrificial skin; the moans rose musically. A deep content pervaded the huge stone chamber.
Twelve strokes: that was all. A prelude in a symphony of submission that had scarcely begun. When the full agony of the twelfth had seeped within the consciousness of the recipient she straightened up and passively offered her handcuffs for the key. Freed, she went to the waiting maid. Unnoticed, Janice had left and returned with a bowl. Now she sponged the sweated nakedness that stood proud and straight for the ministration. Every inch of the once rebellious body was laved and vigorously towelled. When it was done Cherry sat before the mirror and performed the ago old rites of woman.
It was not new; for the satiated it should not have been erotic. But it was! Cherry sat well back upon the stool so that a part of her striated skin was blatant. Her motions as she brushed and salved and plucked were pure poetry. Between them, Justin and Celie had wrought a miracle. Yet to what end!
Cherry could not strip; she was naked. When she swivelled on the stool and began to pull on the black nylons, a gasp of disbelief whispered through the tiers of seats. Hungry eyes watched her position the garters with their hinting rosettes and thrust her sleek toes within the confines of the shoes with heels impossibly high. She was no longer Cherry: here was woman! When she began to stain her nipples a deep scarlet a faint susurration of applause whispered its way from the gloom. When she opened her legs and applied the same vivid scarlet to the lips of her sex, the clapping burst the bounds of reticence.
When, once more, she stood, she was no longer the virago or the shrew. She had joined the ranks of the ineffable. Her features glowed from some inward light; her eyes sought and found a Nirvana of her own. Within her navel was set a jewel that sparkled and glowed as though with life. She smiled in compassion for those who were only human stuff. She had become eternal. When Celie unlocked the collar from the unresisting neck, Cherry stood, a study in black and white and scarlet, and raised hands in worship to the sun.
It was enough. To see her was to worship too. She might have stood an hour without a murmur from the ranks. But instead, having shown them her quality, she pirouetted to her mistress and pleaded prettily, "Please, Mistress, clip my nipples!"
The ubiquitous Janice was there with her try. From it a glowing Celie took the two small instruments of torture. Cherry thrust forward her right breast and watched its nipple inserted within the gleaming jaws and saw them close upon one of her most secret treasures. Everyone heard her gasp. But, without flinching, she now turned and thrust into an inviting prominence her left breast that it might, too, offer its nipple for the cruel serration of tiny teeth that would cherish it with pain. She smiled sweetly at the adolescent eyes and said with infinite sincerity, "Thank you, Mistress."
Once more Cherry turned, still free of bonds, her nakedness more vividly enhanced and emphasized by her sleek black encased legs, the scarlet emblems painted on her sex, and the shining metal biting inexorably upon her nipples. Now she faced those beyond the lights whose treasure she had become. Opening her arms wide, she displayed herself with a great pride. She was in agony, but she was proud.
They shared her glory. Perhaps she gave them less time for their sharing than they wished before she swung and faced her mistress. "Please, Mistress, I have transgressed. I must be properly flogged. Please flog me!" The simple words filled the chamber and hung heavy in the pregnant air. The breasts of she who uttered them were impudent in their thrust; the two scarlet nipples bore their wicked small sets of teeth and absorbed their torment.
"The trapeze, beloved," said Celie tenderly as to a child.
They had scarcely noticed it, but it was there, waiting. Cherry placed her wrists within the looped straps at either end and turned an inviting eye. Celie buckled them tight, and tighter yet! Once again the naked woman had crossed a point of no return. From that point on, Moira shared every thought and motion. With fists clenched white within the jaws of her handcuffs, she sat tense as the naked arms rose high until the naked femininity stood upon its toes; taut and ready as she herself once stood. Fastened thus, Cherry turned mocking eyes back over one shoulder and then the other as though inviting her audience to share her suspense. Celie stood back, with a showman's perfect timing, that all might behold the loveliness of the female figure she was about to flog.
Moira supposed they were watching the initiation: the flogging after which no girl could ever be quite as she had been. She knew its potent effect upon herself, but was forced to wonder now if Justin's power did not even more subjugate a girl into acceptance, a most willing and joyous acceptance, of her lot. The Cherry they beheld now bore no resemblance to the coarse creature they had captured. She herself had gone to her flogging in fear and trembling; for the tied and naked woman on the stage it had all the atmosphere of the ecstatic fulfilment of a dream. Moira became frighteningly aware of Justin's bands upon her ankles; metal bonds she could not sunder and which no one had seen fit to remove. If Justin could perform this miracle on Cherry, he could do it also to her!
The magic touched the screams. Whatever her possession may have been, it did not inhibit Cherry's vocal agony. But it changed it! As the first wound of the lash sprang scarlet across the taut white back, the ululation that pealed and beat itself against the stone was, itself, as heart touchingly lovely as the striations upon the stretched skin. Cherry's was a song of agony, but it was beautiful.
Moira was in conflict. She longed to clutch Alastair's safe strong arm and bury her face in the tweedy security of his jacket. But a powerful fascination held her gaze riveted on the stage. Vicariously she felt the strokes, the searing wounds, the awfulness of being tied naked for the lash. She cringed as the naked body jerked beneath the blows and the captive lips uttered their screaming tribute. She watched, wide-eyed, as stripe was added to stripe upon flesh as sentient as hers had been, as it still was... She saw Celie as a pagan goddess, serene, but bright of eye and strong of arm. The whip circled and flashed as lightening... Cherry's nakedness jerked and swayed, undulating in a poetry of motion beneath the thong.
It should have ended at the count of fifty, but it did not end. The flogging was over, but there was more! The punished woman hung naked from her wrists. She had not fainted, but her head was hard pressed against one raised arm; she glistened with sweat; her heavy breathing was punctuated by gasps and whimperings. Celie stood back surveying her work with approval. Turning to the audience, she placed a finger on her lips, enjoining both silence and patience. Then, from Janice's ever present tray, she took brandy and held it to the lips of she who was punished; they drank greedily until none was left. The glass was filled again.
Moira watched life flow back into the limp nudity until Cherry stood taut and alive as when she was first tied. She watched as the prisoner was turned and strapped tight facing the lights that had cast no shadows on her whipped back. Cherry exhibited no surprise at what was done to her. Hers was almost an interested curiosity at a new experience. When Celie strapped her ankles wide apart with a spreader bar, it was she who straddled herself to accommodate the separation of her thighs. Stretched now without ability to move, she faced the watchers, took a deep and determined breath and spoke: "Ladies and gentlemen, I was cruel. I ask now that the same cruelty be inflicted on me as I imposed upon two of you." Having made her strange request, she allowed her gaze to rove away into some vision of her own. Serenely, she waited for the most awful thing of all.
The ubiquitous tray yielded the heavy curved needle and the nylon thread. Celie took them as a votive offering and held them up for all to see. Smiling, she held them for close inspection by the captive whose flesh they were to pierce. The female eyes once more locked in unity. Celie and her slave understood each other. Celie knelt. Here was the most sacred female rite of all!
There unveiled itself in Moira's mind an ancient wisdom. Perhaps the thing that had been done to her, and which she was about to watch performed on another of her sex, held a symbolism deeply satisfying to the lesbian. It denied entry to the male; it tied tight the portal by which he stormed the female Citadel. That it denied, too, the seeking female tongue was perhaps a small thing by comparison. It was an Amazon act proclaiming inviolate the sanctity of female choice.
"Please, Mistress, sew my cunt lips together," the helpless Cherry requested in a clear warm voice. It was as though she was drugged.
Celie sewed. She performed the age old motions with the slow precise absorption of the perfectionist. As best she could, she gave those who watched an uninterrupted view of her needle's work. The piercing of the flesh by the bright steel, the pulling through of the cruel thread, the small tug that sealed the slit beneath the pubic hair. Again and again she plied the implement of her victim's impotence until the full length of Cherry's scarlet vagina had been joined and made secure. There was surprisingly little blood.
Moira watched enthralled. This was different to the utilitarian sealing of her own labia. Here was no animus, but simple artistry. The stitches were many and close; their last knot was the final closing of a door. Because of the bite of the buried threads, Cherry was set apart from all other women in the world. Yet it was not on the ligatured sex alone that her eyes lingered. They lifted in wonder to the placid features of the woman who should have screamed, but who stood immobile in calm acceptance of a bizarre horror that she herself had asked for and received without evidence of pain or desolation. Moira could scarcely believe the serenity of the face transformed, either by Justin's magic or the alchemy of Celie's whip. Or perhaps an anesthetic had been cunningly introduced with the sharp steel and the following nylon! She might never known.
With a swift dexterity Celie freed her thrall. Relieved of restraint, Cherry advanced to the centre of the lights, looking out to the sea of faces that had witnessed her shame. Lifting her arms as though in greeting to the dawn she said simply: "Thank you for my punishment." She stood for a moment, statuesque and lovely, then turned to the waiting Janice and the tray; from it she took a jeweler's box and, kneeling before the girl who had punished her, offered it in silent gratitude. Thus have conquered women through the ages paid tribute to those who mastered them.
It was clear to see that Celie was as surprised as was the audience. With a small inhalation of pleasure she opened the box and took therefrom two pendant earrings on which the gleam of gold and the flash of jewels proclaimed their costliness. With girlish impetuosity she instantly manipulated them into place in ears already pierced to receive them. They were very lovely! She bent and kissed her kneeling slave, then looked out uncertainly into the audience as though wondering who among them had so contrived the gift. The same thought was in every mind, including Cherry's. Moira supposed it would be Alastair, and had to firmly repress a surge of jealousy.
The curtain fell.
"We have an appointment upstairs with food and wine and someone who is particularly interested in you," said Alastair.
It was comforting and prideful to clutch his tweed clad arm with her handcuffed hands. Moira could almost believe he was hers and that they were leaving the West End theatre for Ciro's and the Savoy. There was about them that atmosphere of wealth and privilege that The Special Ones exuded from every pore. The Play having reached its finale, they adjourned for refreshment and the exercise of criticism and comment.
"Damn clever show!" Mrs. Ramsbotham approved heartily. She cocked a ribald eye at her host. "How long you going to keep that wench with a crocheted cunt?"
"It's Celie's province," Alastair assured her.
Mrs. Ramsbotham diverted her attention to Moira. "I won't sew yours up, m'dear," she said with a faintly proprietary air. "Not that I wouldn't like to; damned diverting notion if you ask me." She guffawed coarsely. "But I wouldn't sew my purse up either, 'bout the same thing." She turned a stern eye once more to Alastair. "When can I have her?"
Alastair visibly squirmed. "Could we talk about that later?" he temporized.
"Humph! I'm going to get her, y'know. Gal's wasted here."
"I'm rather fond of her," Alastair said thoughtfully.
"Dammit man! You'll get her back." Mrs. Ramsbotham eyed Moira's handcuffs with disapproval. "Be a good thing for the gal' to have a bit of discipline. You let her run around almost fancy free. Handcuffs indeed!" She contrived to make the metal confinements sound like a piece of string. "You'll be having the little baggage run off on you."
"I wouldn't!" Moira exclaimed vehemently.
Mrs. Ramsbotham ignored the affirmation. "Never trust the little fillys. Gals of that age are capable of anything. I know, I was one once myself!" She peered back through the centuries. "Whip 'em every day and keep 'em well chained at night, it's the only way."
"I don't think I want to visit you," said Moira, greatly daring.
"You have nothing to say about it, m'dear."
"I don't need whipping every day," Moira advanced reasonably. "I'm very well behaved. Ask my Master."
"You're no judge of such matters, dear," Mrs. Ramsbotham said kindly.
"She's a quite exemplary girl," Alastair suggested equably.
"Nonsense! These little baggages twist you men round their little fingers. One pair of handcuffs, and in front, too! Why, she could just walk out of here."
"But, Mrs. Ramsbotham! Naked and handcuffed, how far could I get?" Moira was torn between laughter and a growing fear.
"As far as the nearest pub - you'd be well looked after," Mrs. Ramsbotham affirmed stoutly. She turned to the amused Alastair. "The least you can do is put a chain on her ankles."
"I find her quite charming as she is," Alastair said firmly.
"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter," the older woman conceded grudgingly. "But while she's in my care she'll be properly looked after." She made it sound like a better class of board and lodging.
"Will you really chain me and whip me?" Moira asked plaintively.
"The gal's getting impudent." Mrs. Ramsbotham pointed out without rancor. "Just goes to show: spare the rod - you know the rest of it. Would you like me to give her a sound trashing now?"
"She's had rather a bad time of it lately," Alastair ventured. "I always try and space things out a bit."
"Ah well," the socialite sighed. "I don't suppose the poor dear's entirely spoiled. I can pick up the slack when she's with me. I've always found my own training most effective. It takes a woman to know the time and place for a bit of cautionary whipping. You'll be pleased at the improvement when she returns."
"The poor kid's not exactly a delinquent, y'know," Alastair suggested.
"Not by your standards perhaps, but it's there, latent, waiting to pop up. I've had experience."
"I'll do whatever you tell me," Moira ventured.
"You see!" Mrs. Ramsbotham sounded as though she'd scored a point. "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, a bad sign."
"Do you use only the whip in dealing with your girls?" Alastair asked cautiously.
"I know a hint when I hear one." The beldame chuckled expansively. "You don't want the child too badly marked. Can't say that I blame you; she's a damn pretty piece. Don't you worry, the little sweetheart can hang by her thumbs for the odd day, and I can tie 'em as tight as the next man." She endowed the anxious girl with a large and knowing wink. "In fact, if I give her the cord treatment the little dear will be pleading for the whip inside a week." She patted her new acquisition on the shoulder as though in reassurance and demanded jovially. "There! That set your mind at rest, dearie."
It was a strange comfort, but probably as much as Mrs. Ramsbotham was capable of giving. Moira caught her Master's concerned glance and smiled brightly to tell him without words she would bear what she must and would return to him with gladness and with love. Alastair was about to enlarge his sentiment on his slave girl's behalf when the older woman broke in with a sudden thought.
"I say, aren't we supposed to toast that young jackanapes, Justin and his bag of tricks? Don't like the young rotter, but he certainly put on a damn good show for us. That woman could never have done what she did without some sort of stimulus."
They went in search for Justin. But he was nowhere to be found.
"Bit rummy," Mrs. Ramsbotham suggested ponderously. "The young bounder ought to be around somewhere. It's really his night, when you come to think of it... clever son of a bitch."
They searched further, but the object of their quest and all his possessions had vanished. Their exploration did, however, disclose a fact far more startling: Celie and her captive Cherry had disappeared too. They were not in Soniaive.
