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Joyce ....(118k)    by F. E. Campbell

CHAPTER ONE - TO WHIP A GIRL

Joyce Cortland savagely crossed out the bracketed (Miss) and substituted an emphatic (Ms). The damn girl had been told. Now she could stay and do a re-run. The President of Cortland, Inc. was not a woman to tolerate anything less than total obedience. Reference to femininity in connection with herself was forbidden. Knowing herself in a vile mood she would deal with correspondence until Dwight Willard arrived. With bitter competence she dictated terse sentences of decision, beholding in her mind the shining mahogany of the Board Room and the eagle visage of the Sheik Haarami.

Damn the blasted Arab! It had seemed politic to accept him on The Board. Cortland, Inc. would prosper from his power. But she had hated him on sight, he was the antithesis of what she had worked to build. Her unisexual image had wilted before his sarcasms. Haarami had made it clear: females were for harems...! She had held her own in the flight of vocal barbs across the polished wood. But the old man would be a continuing irritant. She was thankful that Dwight's holdings and her own could keep control. There would be no takeover nonsense! But still...!

Her clear voice faltered, she was making mistakes and no sense. Angrily, she switched off the tape and turned her thoughts to the man who would soon arrive. Dwight Willard also was a power, a dual power with his money and his potent ability to extract from her the physical responses she despised. But he was a friend. He would remain so as long as his quiet sympathy for what she was did not lapse into boredom. He was a craggily handsome man in much demand.

"You take me for granted." She pouted when he entered. "You could at least have knocked."

Dwight Willard ignored her plaint. Grinning in assured authority, he went straight to the bar. "The usual, Joyce?"

"Yes." She accepted the glass and motioned vaguely to chairs. Looking at him across the huge desk she said bitterly: "Dwight, I'm hopping mad."

"Why didn't you go and bop the old boy? You might just as well have done. All of us there picked up the vibes."

"Must I tolerate him?"

"For the good of Cortlands, yes. Actually he's an amiable old duck if you take the trouble to know him."

"And if you're a man!"

Dwight shrugged. "Or if you're less aggressively female. I think half his little quips arose from amusement. You're probably his first liberated woman."

"Is it true he keeps a harem and whips his girls if they fail to please?"

"I have reason to believe it is."

"He's of another century, he doesn't belong."

"His money belongs. He is also remarkably astute. You should try and get along with him. He won't try and recruit you." He eyed her shrewdly. "What's the trouble, Joyce? You've been out of sorts for days. How's about your glands?"

It was an old joke with them. Primly, she reminded: "Queen Victoria had no legs, Ms Joyce Cortland has no glands."

"That's a laugh, they're bothering the hell out of you.

Dammit, girl, you're only twenty-nine! If you hadn't inherited that block of stock and too much ambition you'd be married with a couple of squeakers."

"Dwight, don't be morbid!"

"Well, it's true. Look, sleep with me for a week and you'll feel better?"

She was not offended. This, too, was an old theme. Joyce dismissed it wearily. "I've tried that over the years with some highly recommended studs. I found it simply messy and disagreeable."

"That's because your mind was messy and disagreeable when you lay on your back and spread your legs for them."

"I like you too much to add you to that dreary roster."

"Feel better about it if we got married?"

"No. Dwight, we've done this scenario before."

"Right! And I'll tell you again: stop fighting being a woman. That's too big a load on top of managing Cortlands. Try being female, you'd find it a tremendous relief."

"I'm not female, not in the way you mean."

"You sit down to pee, don't you! Joyce, I could take you to a place where they'd turn you out as a raving beauty."

"I don't want to be a raving beauty."

"You don't have to look like a prissy schoolmarm those damn tailored suits and that hideous hair-do! You've got lovely hair. What you do with it is sacrilege."

The president of Cortlands eyed Dwight Willard with affection. She was aware of a malaise within herself, and was in an introspective mood. "I'm not the only woman executive in London, y'know." She said gently. "And don't think I haven't had a look at all you've ever suggested. But that elderly scion of Allah raised my hackles."

"He said what others think, Joyce."

"Possibly, but I don't want to hear." She twisted irritably. "Don't think I don't see an increasing isolation when I reach an age in which men no longer fantasise about me. Maybe I fantasise about myself. Do you do it, Dwight, about me I mean?"

"Of course. I dream of making you as beautiful as you are. I'd have to teach you to smile, and I'd have to dissolve Cortlands."

"An impossible dream-and forget about me and beauty, we don't go together." Joyce Cortland mused silently for moments, then demanded: "What d'you know about Desmond House?"

His surprise intrigued. "It's a place without interest for you." he said gruffly. "Where the devil -?"

"It's where Haarami buys his girls, isn't it?"

"Joyce, what have you been up to?"

"Got a dossier on the old bastard. He and Gunderson have something to do with the place. Could you buy it for me?"

"What on Earth for?"

"An irritant... and curiosity."

"Have you any idea of what goes on there?"

"Some. I talked to a Mrs. Paula Gantry."

"She runs it. Look, Joyce, there's nothing there for you."

Joyce Cortland stretched luxuriously and became feline. "Why not? Some sort of male prerogative? Could be recreation for someone like me."

"It's for kooks-or a rich idiot who wants to buy a slave-a girl, that is!" He frowned. "The only reason the authorities allow it to function is it provides a pulse they can sometimes put their finger on."

She was amused by his concern. "Isn't that its virtue." She countered. "It's neutral. It deals in sexuality, but without mess. No obligations, no involvement beyond what you choose."

"Try telling that to some of the little charmers in their inventory. There's no free choice for them."

"How come you know so much about the place?"

"Gunderson took me. Not that it's a hangout for bored men unless they want to buy. Its atmosphere is cloyingly female."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's fine for lesbians." Dwight looked at her sharply. "Don't tell me that all these years-?"

"Don't look so shocked. Sure, I've thought about it. I could promote that wench out at the front desk and replace her with something amenable I could take home every night. It would fill a vacuum. Keep the men at bay. I understand men have a built in antipathy for two women together."

"I have. Seems a waste. Dammit, Joyce, is that what you got me here to talk about?"

"That, and to buy me Desmond House. I also want to get rid of Haarami. Can we gather enough support to send him back across the Red Sea?"

Dwight Willard laughed, enjoying her cold vehemence. "That's quite a bag. You can easily find yourself a lesbian popsie, but the other two requirements. Hmmmm mmmmmm...!" He shook his head. "But I'll talk to Gunderson, he's the best man for both."

"I'm serious about those last two."

"I think you're serious about the first, and I don't like it. I don't believe you can buy Desmond House. The real owners are legendary figures way off somewhere. As for Haarami...!"

"Say it. You think I'm being female?"

"Well, aren't you?"

"I said it before: What's wrong with female?"

"Female's fine if it isn't frustrated half to death."

"That's laying it on the line, Dwight. The creed of the cock! The male assurance of the piercing with his prick.'.' He shrugged at her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. "It works, Joyce."

"Not for me!"

"We're starting to bicker, Joyce. Look, I'm serious about what I'm going to say: Please marry me?"

"Thank you, Dwight. I'm flattered... honest! But, no." He rose, heavily. "I'll phone you tomorrow."

They gazed at each other in silent perplexity before he went away. Joyce Cortland watched the closed door pensively, then dialed her private line...

"Mrs. Gantry? Remember Joyce Cortland...? It appears I'm a frustrated spinster." Her voice softened. "Would you happen to have a girl I could whip...?"

* * *

The girl wore the handcuffs with insouciant unconcern. She was attired in little else, but what there was provoked. Her eyes were serene and intelligent, her smile reserved, polite, perhaps faintly amused. The voice had been to school. "Mrs. Gantry says you'd like to whip me, Miss Cortland?"

It was not as she had envisioned it, but nothing ever was. This might hold challenge. Joyce Cortland was aware of Paula Gantry's assessing smile across the desk. She was displeased with her words immediately she uttered them. "Yes, I do wish to if you don't mind."

"Her name's Lorinda." Mrs. Gantry interposed. "We think she's special."

"I'll be completely obedient." Said the handcuffed girl helpfully.

Were they quietly laughing! Joyce tensed. This quiet understanding made her errand trebly outrageous. The girl she was to whip seemed unconcerned. She had envisioned a dolorous damsel securely bound to something and looking back over a bare shoulder in mute dismay.

"You make your own drama. Miss Cortland," Paula had read the visitor's puzzlement. "Lorinda will aid you in any rough spots. You will enjoy total privacy and your time's your own."

"You mean you won't be present! Not a part...?"

"Not unless you wish. If you like, I'll give you time to get to know each other and drop by later?"

"Er, thanks." The president of Cortland's clutched at authority. "I may as well admit this venture is by way of an experiment."

"If you will come this way please." The girl she was to whip held out handcuffed hands. "And I promise I'll help..." London's most prestigious female executive followed silently to whip a girl.

"I'm a disappointment." A cuffed hand rested sympathetically on a tailored arm. "I ought to be screaming or struggling or pleading for mercy or something...? I'm sorry. I'm a rotten actress."

"You are one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. It's your serenity-!"

"That throws you? I know! There's only one other girl we could have offered today, and she'd make such a commotion we felt sure it would put you off. Girls in a panic are sort of- messy."

The word struck a chord. Joyce approved. Her gaze roved the room in amused shock. It was what she'd asked for. But, face to face, it was daunting.

"Don't look at it as a torture chamber, Miss Cortland. It's just a place where us girls are taught to behave."

"I have a feeling you're laughing up your sleeve."

"Why should I! I'm about to be whipped."

"That's exactly what's bothering me. You're so damned unconcerned. And this room's a bit much for starters. Bear with me. No Board Room was ever like this."

"There's only one chair." Lorinda placed it apologetically and, herself, sat on the low bench of a set of stocks. "There's no hurry. Maybe I can explain things?"

"You certainly can! First, yourself. You're just not real."

"Oh, but I am! What you're really saying is that I'm beautifully trained. I'm a slave and I know I'm a slave." Amused, Lorinda held up her linked hands. "I can never escape, not ever."

"You're hiding something."

"Well, alright. I don't much want to escape. I belong to someone I love."

"You're not the property of Desmond House?"

"No. We have a joke about it. I'm being sort of-boarded. When you phoned Paula asked if I'd help. My owner gave permission, so here I am."

"If I hadn't phoned what would you be going?"

"Reading, Television... Of if I'd misbehaved, locked in a cell. Mostly I have the run of the house. The handcuffs are symbolic, a sort of badge I wear. Locked in front this way they don't really stop me doing things."

Joyce Cortland was intrigued. This girl was lovely, she was intelligent, but she herself felt a loss of initiative. Desmond House might be doubly worth buying just to get it back. Impetuously, she asked: "Could I purchase you?"

Lorinda was touched. This woman was lonely and lost. She was reaching out. She shook her head regretfully. "I'm afraid not. I'm heavily owned." She hated to sound trite, but offered the obvious. "If you very much wish to buy a girl I'm sure Paula will be able to come up with one. I never did know what I cost, but I think we're terrible expensive." Outrageous and absurd! But in this atmosphere rational. She could buy a girl, and the girl would be obedient to her whims, a slave. Joyce Cortland felt a novel excitement. Here was a relaxation indeed, the antithesis of the office and the world of men. Sensing the end of a prelude, she asked: "If I unlocked those handcuffs what would you do?"

"Hang them neatly on the wall over there so you could lock them back on me when you are finished. The key's there now."

"If the key's there, and you have access-why?"

"Because if I unlocked myself I'd be punished, a more awful punishment than I want. I'm privileged, but that wouldn't save me. Desmond House couldn't function without Rules and discipline. It's good for us girls too. It tells us where we're at."

"Bring me the key."

"There, see! I'm not running away." Lorinda, secretly amused, hung the cuffs and key in their appointed place. She massaged her chafed wrists and did a few joyous exercises with her freed arms. "I expect if you're going to whip me you'd like to start. How would you like to fasten me?"

"Must I?"

"Gosh, yes. I'm only a girl, y'know. I can't possibly stand still while I'm whipped. Have you a preference... Rope, straps or maybe the pillory?"

The chief executive of Cortlands was aware of a dry mouth and pounding pulse. "Well, is there-a usual--a favourite...?"

"If you're going to whip all of me it's best to stand me on my toes with my arms way up. If you only want to cane or crop my bottom you can bend me over a bench or put me in the standing stocks."

"Dammit, girl, aren't you the least bit frightened? You're so blasted casual you make me feel an idiot for wanting..."

"I'm sorry, Mistress." Lorinda was sincerely contrite. "I've been whipped so many times that I'm not exactly afraid. It's more being sort of shivery in knowing how much it's going to hurt." She grinned apologetically. "Being whipped on your bare skin is more painful than you'd ever believe. And you mustn't feel bad about it. Please don't."

"Why did you call me Mistress?"

"Because that's what you will be while we're together."

"I'm probably not much good at knots and such." Joyce hesitated. "Pick your own restraint."

The surprising slave grinned and flitted to the stark timber of a post. Raising her arms, she inserted her hands within loops of strap on either side. "This is the whipping post, Mistress. It makes it easy for you. All you have to do is pull two buckles tight. Then you've got me."

Dazedly, the head of Cortlands obeyed. Two slender wrists were trapped in bands of leather. Standing back, she beheld beauty and a pair of laughing eyes. This makes most of me available, Mistress. I just have to stand, I can't get away. If you don't want my feet to kick you can tie my ankles."

"No. You're sweet as you are."

"The whips and cops and things are over on those two shelves."

Joyce made her choice. The slim cane seemed designed for the pert bottom over which satin was invitingly stretched. Her steps were slow, her heart thudding.

"I'm supposed to be naked, Mistress."

Of course! Why had she not thought of it! This girl was incredible. If possession was possible she must achieve it. Joyce's voice trembled. "Why didn't you undress?"

"It is more potent when the slave is stripped by other hands, Mistress. It is easily done. I cannot hinder..." It was easily done! Lorinda nude was more exquisite than Lorinda clothed. The woman with the cane stood back in awe."

"Surely you have seen other naked girls, Mistress?"

"But none like you." Miss Cortland was unwilling to disclose how few she had bothered to examine. In night Clubs and at the pool they had seemed a part of the appointments.

"I'll stick my bottom out as far as I can for number one, Mistress. After that I can't promise."

Joyce's eyes widened. This girl was too pliant for her own good. The lovely slenderness leant against its strapped wrists, curved down its back, and straightened knees. Breasts jutted, but best of all the round cheeks of the impudent derriere thrust themselves into an insolent prominence. The Chairman of Cortlands, in an involuntary impulse she had no wish to control, cut the cane across both rosy rounds.

Lorinda gasped and straightened erect, her strapped wrists did not allow her to hug the post. Instead, one foot raised itself and hovered against pain, and a pale cheek rubbed against a raised bare arm. Her breasts heaved. Across her bottom there was forming rapidly the telltale scarlet line.

"Oh, damn, I'm sorry!"

"Why, Mistress? You did that very competently." Lorinda cocked a bright eye sideways. "You mustn't worry about me."

"But I hurt you frightfully. I can tell."

"Of course. Now the next one please. You mustn't stop just because I hurt."

Joyce could not resist. She cut again, savagely. The helpless beauty responded in ways to tear the heart. She watched, avid and breathless. Then, in sudden revulsion, threw aside the cane. Her voice was as savage as her cruelty. "That's enough of that!"

They eyed each other ruefully. Two females, not so far apart in age, but light years distant in the manner of their lives. "I'm sorry." Lorinda whispered sadly. "We hoped I could give you happiness."

"We-?"

"Paula and I. Desmond House is very human, y'know."

"Why don't you hate me?"

"I'm not that silly, Miss Cortland. We both did something of our own free will. You must have wanted o whip me or else--"

"I had the most shocking need to whip a girl. Not--"

"But I'm a girl." Lorinda twinkled. "I bet you it's the scenario that's put you off-not the way you wrote it."

"I like you too much."

"Sometimes there's a girl who whips me terribly. She loves me. It's a form of love play, a prelude..."

"You mean she's lesbian."

"It's not an ugly name. The Isle of Lesbos must have been a lovely place. I'm still your slave. Would you like me to-?"

"You would do that-actually?"

"Of course! Why don't you undress. You can unstrap my wrists and handcuff me again." Once more the twinkle. "I'm very proficient in handcuffs."

Joyce Cortland felt a flare of heat such as she had never known. This compliant nakedness was temptation. The strapped girl with her striped cheeks and clear eyes could well be heart's desire, but she was too much too soon. Joyce hesitated, and in that hesitation Cortlands re-affirmed authority. This loss of initiative was not to be tolerated, it could set a dangerous precedent. Lorinda nude and free would be a force she might not have the will to fight. It would be prudent to leave her strapped to the whipping post. Joyce cursed the regret she could not erase from her voice.

"You're very sweet, Lorinda, but I can't- do that. You do understand...?"

"If we were kids I'd call you 'Fraidy Cat." The slavegirl's moue of disappointment took the sting from her jibe. "You're being ever so silly... I've got the most marvelous tongue."

Joyce fought the demon of temptation. Seeking words, she found none to meet her need. From the post came guidance.

"There, I've called you silly! That's rude and impudent. It's punishable... so you might as well punish me."

"Lorinda, are you asking me to pick up that cane?"

"Well, that's what you started out wanting. And it's considered a suitable punishment for yappy slavegirls."

"You do try, don't you! I mean, to give me my money's worth."

"Yes. Really, Miss Cortland, I am trying. I think you need help, but I'm not sure in what direction. Look, let's forget the whip. Lock me in the pillory."

The girl possessed empathy. Here was an opportunity to save face. Amused and once more excited, the president of Cortlands followed instructions. In this heated atmosphere of girls the pride of initiative dwindled.

Lorinda nestled her neck into its half circle. Carefully, she arranged her hair beside her bent cheek, leaving the nape of her neck exposed for its prisonment. Dutifully, she placed her wrists in their appointed slots. "There you are, Miss Cortland. Lower the boom before I change my mind." Gingerly, Joyce obeyed. The fit was neat and snug. With a pang of pity she glimpsed the hopelessness of a girl thus held. But in the snapping of the padlock her heat returned. The trapped girl made a picture of submission she would never forget. "It's not hurting, is it?" She asked breathlessly.

"Not really, Miss Cortland, it's just that Well, it's actually a beastly fix for a girl to be in. She's sort of cut in two, with all the good parts back out of sight. All I can see is my hands."

"I can understand how helpless "

"And vulnerable! Just think of the things you could do to me back there. Everything's up for grabs."

Realisation dawned. Ms Joyce Cortland felt naive. "You really enjoy having girls do things to you?"

"Of course. Don't forget I'm in a beautiful position for you to use that cane should the urge return. I don't exactly love that one but it goes with the package."

"Suppose I just went away and left you like that?"

"It would be bad. I'd become frightened, and in this thing it doesn't do to panic."

"On and on--into the night-all alone...?"

"Trying to scare me?" The captive cocked an accusing eye. "You'd like to do it--I can tell. You're getting a thrill?"

"Probably like my urge to whip a girl. I'm chicken..."

"A girl would have to have it really happen to her to know what it's like. I was locked in this thing all day once. Nobody did anything to me, nobody came near. I was scared out of my wits."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing! A girl can't do anything except stand and hope she hasn't been forgotten, or that they'll leave her all night. You cry of course, and struggle... But that's so silly."

"You're a bundle of sensation, aren't you." Joyce mused. "It's never struck me before what a sensitive package a girl is. I was never like that myself, but talking to you I can see how a girl could be aroused and stimulated... I've always despised the giggly hysteria of the pubescent and the coyness of adolescence. But if anything as rational as you!"

"Try putting a hand between my legs. I'll explode."

"That's vulgar."

"Then punish me. You really want to, y'know."

"Yes, I do. You're so exquisitely sentient it seems a waste not to cause you to flare into agony or some other emotion. If I used the cane on you again would you eventually scream?"

"If you hit me hard enough-or between my legs or if you tell me it would give you pleasure."

"So you scream by special request?"

Lorinda twisted against the clamps. "You're picking it up wrong, Miss Cortland. I wanted to scream when you gave me those two strokes. But screams are noisy and vulgar and distressing, and a girl feels ashamed afterwards... and a slave has to consider her Mistress's feelings. But actually it helps tremendously to scream, against the pain..."

Unseen, Joyce retrieved the cane and cut shrewdly at the lonely isolated derriere. The captive of the pillory yelped in shock and kicked at nothing.

"Sorry, you caught me unaware. Not a very good effort."

"I couldn't bear to be locked in that hateful thing and have someone use a cane on me. I could never have your control, Lorinda. I find you--an experience."

"I'm going to spread my legs way apart, Miss Cortland. Hit me hard up in there anywhere. I promise a response." It was in Joyce Cortland's mind to refuse. It would be cruel: and once again she was being robbed of initiative. But when the lovely legs sundered themselves for her attention and the small bare feet took a firm stance against the pain to come she knew herself lost. With all her dexterity she swept the cane up into the inviting arch.

Lorinda's scream was a deeply satisfying ululation of agony. For the all too brief moments it saturated her consciousness Joyce Cortland knew a supreme and exultant joy. She watched the writhing hips and jerking foot in avid approval, and was erotically amused by the tight clenching of the soft thighs to shield the wound within. Here was the quintessence of femaleness delivered into her hands. "Thank you, Lorinda." She said softly as she walked to where she could meet the captive eyes. "You were very beautiful."

"It hurts so much-I wasn't sure-" Lorinda was panting. "You were exquisite."

"If you want to hit me in there again I'd be grateful if you'd tie my feet out. It's awfully hard "

"I'm not going to hit you again, not anywhere."

"No more screams? I've got lots?"

"No. I've reached some sort of peak. I'm replenished. Again, thank you."

"I'm not going to be heroic and pretend I want any more like that." The girl in the stocks made a wry grimace. "So I'll say thank you too. You're really terribly sweet "I'll get you out of this thing." Joyce was fumbling with a key.

"Are you sure you want to? It holds me nicely available for conversation or pain. You could even give me a shameful orgasm with your hand. I couldn't do a thing "Stop it, you erotic bomb. This is habit forming. I'm going to have to watch myself... There!" Joyce lifted the upper yoke. "You're a free woman."

The naked girl stepped back and stretched luxuriously. With unaffected naturalness she put her arms round the severe tailoring and kissed two startled lips. For moments she hugged and nestled as though within a loved one's arms, her voice a whisper close beside an ear. "Thank you, oh thank you..."

"What on Earth for!" Joyce stepped back, flustered. "I was cruel to you."

"No you weren't. You were sweet. You were darling...!"

In bafflement, the executive watched the wealed nudity slip back into the erotic trifles she wore as covering. Lorinda tripped lightly to the wall, handing the handcuffs to her Mistress she turned her back and positioned her arms. "Must you wear these things?"

"Yes."

"Sure they're not for my benefit? And why behind your back?"

"Because when I'm with my Mistress I should be helpless."

Joyce Cortland notched the metal bands snug on the submissive wrists.

It was one of Life's beautiful moments.

CHAPTER TWO - NAKED

The Sheik Haarami was amused and knew a deep content. The will of Allah was abundantly demonstrated. The she cat had come to him, and of her own free will. The afternoon might be diverting.

"Your journey, madam? Pleasant, I trust?"

"A bore. But I very much wish this talk. Thank you for receiving me."

He nodded, the acme of courtesy. Then clapped his hands.

Joyce Cortland was startled, the girl who answered the summons was nearly nude. Around the slender neck was a metal collar, the slim wrists were joined by wristlets of silver and a foot long chain. She was white. She served the drinks competently and unobtrusively, refusing to raise her eyes. Her task completed she withdrew.

"Her name is Wendy." The sheik's eyes twinkled at his guest's dismay. "I purchased her at Desmond House."

The Chairman of the Board took a long pull at the frosty glass. With Haarami she could be sure of nothing. The girl might have enacted a charade to disconcert. A chained maiden in a Villa on the Riviera in this day and age was hardly credible. She dropped her own small bomb.

"I'm making an offer for the place."

"So I have heard. I fear, madam, it will not be accepted."

Indignation flared. "I spoke to Mrs. Gantry and to the girl in strictest confidence. How on Earth-!"

"I am much privileged, madam. Should either of those two breach that confidence I would personally order them whipped."

Joyce swallowed again. She must keep her temper. She met the old eyes with a level gaze. "I would like to dispense with the medieval, if you wouldn't mind. Chained girls and talk of whippings... I find it out of context, theatrical. I hoped we might reach an understanding?"

"My dear Miss Cortland, have you not glimpsed this understanding as a need all your own, a personal malaise?" Damn the old bastard! He was going to be difficult. "No, I have not glimpsed that." She retorted tartly.

"Yet you visited Desmond House?"

"So you know that too! Please, Mr. Haarami, can we confine ourselves to the business of the Company?"

"That is what I am trying to do, Miss Cortland. You are the most vital facet of the corporation."

"I am not ill or suffering aberration, Mr. Haarami."

"Not in the accepted sense." The hawk features softened. "Would you do an old man a kindness and bear with an enchanting medievalism all my own?"

"What is it?"

"Don't you trust me? I am a man of honour."

"Very well, if it pleases you."

"It pleases me very much, my dear. It may please you. At least you will find it diverting." Haarami clapped his hands. "Wendy will lead you to our patio."

The scent of flowers. Mellow stone and green grass. High walls around a garden, the tinkle of a fountain in a pool.

Joyce failed to notice the disappearance of her guide. She saw only three girls, two of them scantily clad in gossamer scarves, the third naked. The naked girl faced the slender trunk of a tree. She was tied to it by tight bands of rope at waist and wrist, her discarded scarf lay abandoned on the grass. She looked back over her shoulder at the interruption, but it was one of the other's who gave greeting.

"You're Joyce Cortland. Our Master calls us the Naiads. Our names are Niobe, Naomi and Nicole. That's Naomi tied to the tree. I'm Nicole."

None of them were twenty, yet Joyce could not place them, they were ageless. They were extraordinarily lovely and bestowed upon her a sparkling interest faintly disconcerting. They spoke, not in unison, but with much the same effect.

"They were just getting ready to whip me." Naomi volunteered without concern. "I expect they'll let you whip me too."

"Isn't she darling!" Nicole enthused.

"We do it for fun, Miss Cortland. Today was Naomi's turn."

All three gazed upon their visitor with expectant love.

Female sexuality! It was as though she was following a pattern. Desmond House, Lorinda, now this trio of enticement. Joyce Cortland wished she could stalk from Haarami's house in anger, but discovered herself rooted by curiosity and the erotic beauty of the tableau her advent held motionless. And, anyway, she had come to The Sheik for a purpose not yet explored.

"Why don't you let that poor girl loose?" Joyce frowned. "I feel uncomfortable with her tied to that tree."

"Oh, we couldn't possibly! You see, it's her turn."

"We're never too terribly cruel to each other."

"Would you like to take my place, Miss Cortland?" Naomi's invitation was slyly dulcet.

"No, I wouldn't! Haven't you anything better to do?"

"There isn't anything better, Miss Cortland." Three pairs of young lips tittered. "Our Master doesn't use us much. We only get fucked about once in ten days, and no other men are allowed in here. It would be an awful bore if we didn't play with each other."

Innocence! Sadism! Lechery! And they were so beautiful, so youthfully lovely. Wryly, Joyce perceived their logic. She probed: "Actually you're prisoners?"

"Oh, you mean these!" Niobe lifted one foot to exhibit the silver fetter linking her ankles. "We all have to wear them. We don't mind."

Joyce had not noticed, but each girl was hobbled in exquisite silver. That she had failed to note the shackles was a measure of her disarray. In a world of female slavery she was far at sea.

"Our Master bought us, y'know. He doesn't want us to run away. Our chains are never unlocked, except by him, he has the key."

"Our Master often sits and watches what we're doing. He's fond of us. Sometimes he sends us a girl."

"A girl! Oh, you mean a visitor like me?"

More titters. "None of them are like you, Miss Cortland. Joyce flushed. She had not been flattered. But curiosity persisted. "What do these girls do? Or what do you do with them?"

"We usually take their clothes off. They're so silly about clothes. Who needs clothes! Then we make them squeal. There's ever so many ways to make a girl squeal, Miss Cortland."

"I hope you've no such silly idea about me!"

"Oh no, Miss Cortland. But we would like you to help us whip Naomi. It's such fun. You'd like Miss Cortland to whip you, wouldn't you Naomi?"

"Oh, yes please."

It took on the ethereal quality of a dream, but was not a dream. Volition vanished. Joyce wondered if her drink had contained a drug. Dazed by Naiad magic she felt the slender hands flutter upon her person as they relieved her of the severe jacket... They lingered... touching in ways and places she would never, normally, have tolerated.

"Ugh! You couldn't possibly whip Naomi properly in that suit of armour -and that's such a nice blouse."

The thin slenderness, neither whip nor crop nor cane, was in her hand. Sweet fingers propelled her forward to the tree and its helpless nudity. Close, now, Joyce beheld the cunning cords by which Naomi was held for her unearned punishment. They were deft and cruel. The young forearms had been raised on either side of the trunk and bound there at wrist and elbow, the elbows being at the level of the captive chin, the hands above. Around the small waist were several bands, cinched tight, circling and across. Below the strictures the bottom swelled. Above, the white expanse of the young back was an unmarked canvas waiting to be etched. Joyce sought to stifle the sudden hot wave of desire, but her pulse throbbed, all her senses screaming in demand. As had happened once before, her arm swept in a swift arc of passion and a scarlet line sprang into being across the ivory shoulders.

"Oh, Miss Cortland, not so hard!"

"Our skin couldn't possibly last out, y'know."

Naomi turned, dewy eyed. "That was yummy, Miss Cortland, but it sure does hurt... wow!"

"We wouldn't mind whipping you like that though."

The president of Cortlands stood back, sentiently quivering. Her passive hand surrendered the black withe. She watched in guilty, but unalloyed, delight as the two Naiads took turns whipping their bound beloved. They snapped the withe in crafty cruelty here and there upon the helpless nudity. Small shrewd cuts to evoke a pink response upon the skin and a gasp and flinch from the corded girl.

No part of the exposed flesh was safe. The wicked flickering of the whip's tip was a steady infliction rising in an unceasing crescendo to make the young nakedness strain against her ropes. Joyce's scarlet wound stood out accusingly across Naomi's back, in contrast the flicks now raised no welt, scarlet was replaced by pink. In a day or two the skin would again be virgin and ready for its next turn in the Naiad's erotic play.

When the pliant wand was returned to her willing hand Joyce Cortland knew content. She wanted no analysis, but only to ply the short arm and wrist dexterity by which the pink paint of pain sprang into life upon Naomi's skin. With flick after flick she explored the pulsing nudity bound for her delectation. Leg, thigh, armpit... There was no need to be orthodox. Emotion threatened to choke when she realised a girl could be bound to face the whip and to behold its play upon everything feminine such exposure offered. She knew herself watched. The Naiads would protect their own. Joyce was careful to snap her small cruelties within their tolerance. When the panting Naomi managed to turn and smile in gratitude back over a bare shoulder she knew herself accepted. When the bound girl heaved and twisted against the knotted bands deep within her flesh the woman with the whip sensed the sensuous writhings as a gift for her delight.

In an austere life, the president of Cortlands had known little of physical contact, she distrusted it. But now, an untied Naomi threw perfumed arms around her neck and kissed her startled lips again and again. There emanated from the moist dew of pain a heady pungency of young girl. Naomi was redolent of musk and a sweet scent entirely her own. It enveloped the woman and the naked girl in an aura demandingly female. Again the thought of being drugged flitted through Joyce's mind as she felt the light fingers upon her everywhere and heard the sibilance of whispering that reached her only as the soft sweet sounds of love. Even when the three Naiads had achieved their purpose and she was naked she found herself unable or unwilling to protest. When the ropes were insinuated around her wrists it seemed but natural. This scented garden of the Naiads was a magic place.

"Isn't she darling. Let's keep her always."

"Poor dear, she's got no tits. She's flat as a boy. But the rest of her... Oh, yummy!"

"Look at her gorgeous bush!" A delighted giggle. "A man would get lost in there. Some day we'll shave it."

She was drugged! She had to be... How else could she be suspended by bands about her wrists, her toes off the ground, stark naked! Joyce felt no urgent pain, yet pain should surely be a part of this impossible dream. Or were the Naiads with their enraptured tracery of fingertips across her flash a narcotic in themselves. She moaned softly from a surfeit of sensation she could not name.

"Maybe if we suck these tiny tits long enough she'll grow breasts."

"I'll rub her fur. I bet she's never had her fur rubbed. "You can't get loose, darling. You're all our's."

She belonged to three girl children in a perfumed patio. She was naked and helplessly bound. They could use her as they wished. The knowledge was there but it refused to impinge upon the proper cortex in her brain. Joyce Cortland did not care, nothing mattered except the two pairs of avid lips upon her aureoles and the small questing hand beneath her pubic hair. She hung passively without thought of struggling.

"I bet she's never had an orgasm, she's so hard to arouse."

"She's liking it though. Can't you tell."

"Directly she starts to pant we'll stop and start her whipping."

Joyce heard the mischievous words but they concerned her not at all. The Naiads were sweet. She had whipped Naomi, it was only fair she herself should take her turn. In the manner she was fastened they would be able to plant their small pink wounds upon her anywhere at all. The awareness caused a ripple of sensation to search every nerve...

"She's felt something and she's panting...

"You can be first, Naomi. Let's put marks all over her."

"She's terribly rich and powerful out where she came from. Our Master's so kind to us. Isn't she hot-making."

The first snapping flick across one cheek of her bottom was a kiss of love. The second, beneath her strained armpit, and the third biting inside the sharp curve of her waist were all an exquisitely new sensation of fulfillment. It was not until the fourth and fifth snapped the softness of her thighs that the taut stretched nudity gasped in shock. But the small moan which acknowledged a flicked nipple was one of complicity rather than complaint. The drug, if she was indeed drugged, worked another metamorphosis, this time upon her pain. Joyce Cortland's world faded into oblivion.

"I wish she had lovely big boobs. This whip-tip on breasts is super."

"Remember that Lebanese girl Master gave us? Hers bounced."

"But this one's perfect everywhere else. Let's tell her to spread her legs apart she won't mind."

Joyce obeyed without being asked. The withe flickered and burned within the most secret places of her being. She gasped and moaned but spread her feet even more widely apart. She was without sense of obscenity. Only of a wish to share.

"You can snap her cunt best from the back. Try it."

For the first time, Joyce jerker against her tethers. The Naiad's affection reached her in waves, diluting the pain of a whipped vulva.

"She responded beautifully. Do that some more."

"We must ask Master to let us keep this one."

"He will if he wants. If he doesn't we'll be punished for asking. Remember that beastly little box he put all three of us in last time? Two days and nights and nothing to eat. I thought I'd die."

A giggle. "Wouldn't it be fun to be locked in there with this one though!"

"Whip her cunt just enough to make the lips swell up good and plump, not any more than that."

"She's got lots of other lovely places."

"Maybe we'll be allowed to whip her properly sometime. That curved bottom is perfect for good hard strokes. Think of it with weals."

The Corporate president kept her legs widely spread as long as fortitude allowed. But the whip slaps, coming in quick succession, upon the tenderness of her pubes soon brought the burning thighs together in an instinctive defense of her previously cherished privacy. The Naiads rewarded her by diverting their attention to her concave belly.

"Right across her navel."

"It's a lovely navel. She should wear a jewel in it."

"Darlings, we're forgetting her back and bottom."

The unnamed sensation that was Joyce Cortland's pain mounted steadily as her nudity was patterned in pink by the unceasing strings of the cleverly applied wand. But the drug, or a strange hypnosis, kept it at bay, changing its nature to a tumescent demand. She moaned steadily in a feminine communion the Naiads understood.

"She's loving it. She's so lucky."

"So are we. I've climaxed twice: just listening."

"She's getting ready. I can feel her heat."

A hand stole between Joyce's legs and cupped swollen lips. The sensation was exquisite. She jerked and writhed. She could feel the wetness of her own secretions on fingers and palm. She closed her eyes and opened her legs. What happened then should have shocked her into violent protest, but the Corporate president was too far gone into the wilderness of the Naiad's Lotus Land. Lips found her nipples while Niobe sunk to her knees and hungrily engulfed the whipped vulva within her mouth, her Ups sucked avidly while her tongue sought joy...

The Naiads were very competent. Their captive's explosive come fulfilled their sense of what was proper. Gently, they withdrew and left the sweating and naked executive to hang by her wrists.

Only the tinkle of the fountain disturbed the stillness of the Patio.

Joyce supposed she had slept or become unconscious. But the effect of the drug was dissolving. Pain fired her wrists and her wrenched shoulders. What she could see of her body and thighs was laced with pink. She moaned anew in a sudden fearful desuetude.

"An enlightening experience, Miss Cortland?"

The Sheik Haarami came from her back and stood surveying Joyce's punished helplessness. "My Naiads deserve praise, Madam. You are an artistic creation."

Joyce longed to die, to scream, to demand. Never had a man seen her totally nude. That a male enemy should be able to enjoy her punished and suspended nakedness was pure nightmare. Unwilling to show emotion she kept silent, refusing to meet the male eyes, savouring her increasing pain.

"It should happen thus once to every woman."

Because her tethered wrists were wide apart she could not twist or turn or hide anything of herself. Joyce hung limp and passive, unwilling for this man to watch her kick and struggle. Why writhe under his impassive regard, it only enhanced her helplessness.

"An excellent situation for negotiation, Madam." Suddenly breathless, she realised his power. She was naked and helpless. He could torture her into compliance. Joyce thought of her massive block of stock in Cortlands.

Would pain bring her to the signing of a transfer! Half ashamed of her mission to Haarami's Villa, she had told no one of her destination. She had intended to fly home that night. But her absence for a day or two would concern nobody. Haarami had an abundance of time to bring her to heel in any manner he chose. Vehemently, she declaimed: "Don't you realise, what you are doing to me will defame you across the world."

Reading her mind, he was amused. "I have done nothing to you, Miss Cortland. You have simply spent a very human interlude with my Naiads."

"You are doing something to me now, Haarami, something shameful. Do you want me to plead or beg to be untied?"

"It would be a forward step. Are you thinking of taking it?"

"I am in considerable pain. Please untie me."

"That sounded like a directive from Head Office."

Joyce knew him right. She tried again. "I beg of you, sir: Please lower my feet to the ground and untie my wrists."

"Thank you, Madam. I appreciate the effort that must have cost."

"Well, am I to be untied?"

"No."

The bastard! He was playing with her. She felt doubly naked and became increasingly aware of her bound wrists. Without cordiality, she asked: "What are you going to do to me?"

"You are thinking of torture?"

"It would be in keeping " The hawk eyes were amused. "I will admit, Miss Cortland, there is an old Arabian discipline I would much love to have you suffer. Have you heard of the bastinado?" Joyce's heart almost stopped. "Yes."

"You are placed on your belly on the ground, your hands are tied behind your back, your feet are raised and bound to expose the soles to the sky."

"Thank you for the precis. I presume it gives you carnal satisfaction." Her words were icy but she was trembling.

Your soles are then beaten in one of two ways: a steady tattoo prolonged for hours, or an outright whipping. The result is always the same. Screams, contortions, a general untidiness. Dignity vanishes."

"When am I to enjoy this privilege?"

"There is a more obvious method of teaching a woman she is a woman." Haarami's discourse was urbane, ignoring her sarcasm. "I could have you staked out to invite several of my male staff to inseminate you. In a few days, with any luck, we could send you home pregnant."

"Do you have to be disgusting! And anyway, you forget abortion."

"But in the process you would be much aware of what you are, a woman. Your liberated mind could not ignore the disabilities of your sex. There is no way, Miss Cortland, that woman can be the equal of man. Nature denies. The Chairmanship of The Board should not be in your hands."

"I own the bloody Company!"

"Enjoy it. I suggest you allow Mr. Willard to Head it for you. Dwight Willard is an excellent man."

"And what do I do? Apply for entry to your Harem?"

"A charming thought." Haarami's voice remained benign. "But there is one more possibility of penetrating your armour I would like to describe."

"Go ahead. I seem to have plenty of time."

"The removal of your hair: your head, eyebrows and pubic. A close shave on each changes feminine temperament amazingly."

Joyce closed her eyes. She wished she could close her ears. Had this exchange taken place elsewhere she could have dismissed it as in vulgarly bad taste. But naked, and hanging by her wrists before these wise old eyes...! Any of the things Haarami spoke of became credible. He could do what he liked with her. "Haven't you thought of afterwards, Haarami?" She asked wearily. "There would be an afterwards and a reckoning--unless you kill me. I do not think you will kill me."

"There will be no reckoning, Miss Cortland. You will desire silence far more than I."

He was right, damn him! She would never cry her shame to the world. The simple fact frightened Joyce Cortland more than the threats. She was totally trapped. She would carry her wounds back to London and be forever after aware of this old man. "My torture will give you pleasant visions during the tedium of our Board Meetings." She suggested bitterly.

"And aid you in compromise."

"Please... please...!" Joyce could deny her pain no longer. "Let me down. Or at least allow me to stand. I could talk more rationally if you'd untie me and give me clothes. This exhibition you've made of me is obscene."

"Not me, Madam, my Naiads."

"What's the difference! Look, Haarami, I'm in agony. Untie me and you have my promise, my parole. I won't try to escape or make a silly fuss. I know I'm a prisoner."

"Scarcely agony, Miss Cortland, perhaps pain... some feminine discomfort from exposure...?"

She had not wept for years, but the sting of tears on her eyelids told the nude captive how close she was to hysteria, and how correct The Sheik's estimate of female frailty might be. Joyce Cortland was living wholly in the existing moment, divorced from her past, intensely fearful of her immediate future, so fearful she refused to contemplate it. "You want something of me." She acknowledged weakly. "Tell me what it is. I'll give it to you. I won't endure what you threaten."

"You have it wrong, Madam. I am striving to give you something."

"Then give me decency."

"And with it your armour! No, Madam. My kindest act is to leave you as you are. Think of that hirsute patch between your legs so delightfully displayed. That is your enemy, not I."

In disbelief she watched him go. As his venerable figure passed from the patio Joyce Cortland had to employ all her will to refrain from calling after him to return. Her mind was choked with things to say but none coherently emerged. In agonized indecision she let the moment pass. The president of Cortlands hung naked and alone in the garden of the Naiads. She could think of nothing she wanted less.

Joyce realised there could be few positions more helpless. To be held only by her wrists was frustrating enough, but that she should hang suspended, her toes inches from the ground and naked! She had a vision of her office, and of herself therein. The contrast taxed credulity. Hopelessly she gazed up the bare length of her arms to where her wrists were circled by the cruel bands, now deep in her flesh. Her hands had gone numb long since. Escape from her simple bondage was impossible, she would hang forever unless someone released her. There was nothing heroic or resourceful she could do. All motion hurt. Weakly, she cried out: "Help me...! Please... someone...!" She was rewarded by silence and was ashamed.

Soon she allowed her head to fall forward, losing all concern with anything but pain. In reverie there was no solace and no coherent thought. She was abandoned, a woman naked and alone. She never knew if it was minutes or hours before she heard the whispered Naiad voice.

"Poor darling! Master didn't release her."

"He must be very angry."

"Look at her hands. She ought to be let down."

Joyce Cortland gazed at their rapt young faces with a great thankfulness. "Please... oh, please!" Every particle of her being was in the plea.

"She wants to be untied. Should we?"

"But what could we do with her then? And she looks so sweet."

"Please!" Joyce begged again. "Please let me loose."

"We could tie her hands behind her back and make her eat us."

At first the casual suggestion did not register. The unfamiliar term failed to pierce the daze of pain. The Naiads helped: "Poor dear, she doesn't know what that means."

"I bet she's never done it."

"Her tongue's going to be awful tired."

She understood then and wailed denial: "No! Oh, no! You couldn't, not be so beastly."

"We could, darling."

"You'd love it after you got started."

"We taste lovely, all different."

She moaned in feeble protest as she was untied. But the joy of having her bare feet once more on solid ground overwhelmed all else. Had the girls not supported her she would have folded to the grass. She was weak with emotion. She scarcely noticed and did not protest when Nicole stole her hands, crossed her wrists gently behind her back, and bound them there with swift firm strands. Joyce Cortland wanted oblivion, to close her eyes and sleep and lose awareness, but her longing was denied.

"We think it would be nice if you had this inside, darling."

She shook her head and reluctantly returned to the Naiad's world. The eager young faces smiled at her with love. Naomi held up something for her inspection.

"Isn't he lovely!"

"We don't bother with little one's."

"We brought the vaseline."

The Company Chairman had never seen a dildo, but she knew what one was. She gazed at the plastic replica of a male organ with pure horror. It seemed immense.. Surely it could never be inserted in the sheath of these capricious youngsters! Most certainly it could never penetrate her own! It was a sculptured caricature. Her response was instant. "Put that thing away. It's disgusting."

"We want you to spread your legs and stand still, dear."

"I won't--!"

The whip cut a band of fire around her waist and across her tied arms. As loving hands held her against the motions of agony her feet, seemingly of their own volition, separated themselves upon the grass. The hands remained on her arms as the voices exulted.

"You have to obey us, darling, you're tied."

"We'll whip you terribly if you act silly."

"We're going to make you ready."

The whip and the cords and her own dismay robbed Joyce Cortland of will. She stood, dazed and passive, as lips and hands plied their skill upon her female sexuality. She was soon panting.

"She's nice and wet now, darlings."

She was spared nothing. She had to watch the lubricating of the huge prong by which she was to be impaled. Pain of the whip had been such as to discourage further protest but she was content to believe entry by such a monster impossible. She stood nakedly with spread thighs while a small hand busied itself with the swollen lips about to be pierced. When the grotesque head was thrust against her prepared flesh she was shocked to discover her portal's stretch to accommodate the questing predator.

"He's started. She's taken his head."

"Be gentle with her. Grease him and twist a little."

"Mmmmmm, she's going to take him all."

They were skilled. The pain was small and did not last. Joyce moaned as she was pierced. It was a moan of disbelief that it could happen.

"She'll have to be harnessed."

The belt now buckled round her waist was tight. Joyce could swear it compressed the phallus within. A leather spread the cheeks of her bottom and was run through a slot in the base of the thing now fully inside her. It was buckled, back and front to her belt.

"Just right, darling. He can't come out."

A giggle. "And he can't go on up either."

"Aren't you a lucky girl, Miss Cortland!"

She would have to wear the hateful thing. Her bound hands could touch nothing of it that mattered. In a way, she was as helpless as when suspended. Appealingly, her eyes roved the enraptured trio.

"We'll whip you if you aren't obedient, darling."

"You may as well stop twisting your arms, you can't get loose."

"We want you to kneel. We'll position ourselves."

A single scald of the whip ended hesitation. Joyce knelt. Niobe's thighs straddled her upturned face as Niobe's hands grasped her hair and thrust her lips where they must go. She was enveloped in pubic hair and the pungent scent of girl. Small firm hands shook her head demandingly. With a sob of helplessness the chief executive of Cortlands did what she must. Between her own legs a fire was beginning to bum.

CHAPTER THREE - FEMALE FEMALE

My Naiads have attended you adequately, Miss Cortland?" Haarami was again the perfect host.

Resigned to the loss of initiative, Joyce accepted the cocktail proffered by the kneeling slave. For a moment the girl caught her eye and they were sisters. Wendy knew! Probably she had spied on shame. The mortified woman sipped the tart fluid avidly and sought for the right thing to say. It was not there.

"They were sweet to me." She said slowly. "You behold me bathed and perfumed. I am even clothed in my own attire."

"And you can catch your night flight to London. But was there not some matter of business...?"

The sly old devil! The patio, and now back to normal. Against her turmoil within, the affairs of Cortlands seemed trivial. "I came bearing an olive branch." She admitted wryly. "Seems silly now."

"But your day was not wasted?"

"Not if there is profit in shame and hurt."

The Sheik nodded. "There are angry things you wish to say, but you have learned prudence. You have learned much. Perhaps I have learned something too. May I offer you a gift as a token of my esteem?"

Joyce tensed. Beware a Greek--! But her host smiled and gave his signal clap. The girl, Wendy, appeared as by magic, and busied herself with glasses.

"There, Miss Cortland. She is yours."

That morning it would have been absurd, now it was not. Joyce looked at the young loveliness and knew the girl was trembling. She herself fought back a wave of desire. Rejecting anger and reproof, she said simply: "In my life there is no place for slaves."

"Perhaps there should be. Keep her ankles chained. She is a sweet child."

The drinks served, there seemed no need of words. Haarami motioned, and Wendy took a position between them. With swift deft motions she discarded all covering. Nude, she stood erect with hands clasped behind her neck and tight breasts outthrust. Turning slowly, she displayed every inch of her youthfulness for inspection. Joyce hoped her sudden hunger did not show.

"Well, Miss Cortland?"

"You know I cannot. I'm sorry. She is lovely."

Another gesture and Wendy was gone. Haarami rose, his manner pensive. "Come please, Miss Cortland. I may tempt you yet."

It was little more than a large wooden crate. But the widely spaced slats were sturdy and re-enforced. The three naked Naiads within were open to view. Their pixie features brightened at sight of visitors.

"Thank you for putting us in the cage, Master." Gratitude for punishment appeared mandatory. Joyce gasped at the pathetic tangle of naked limbs. The cage was not large enough for three girls, but by some magic force or cunning they were inside. To make a comfortable adjustment to each other more difficult they were handcuffed.

"We wish you were in here too, Miss Cortland."

They were irrepressible, forever joyous. Joyce turned to their owner. "But what have they done...?"

"Nothing, dear lady. What you behold is a counterbalance to ebullience."

"It's so we don't get too bubbly, Miss Cortland. Punishments are very good for us."

"But you're all- all-bent and twisted-!"

"We have to be ever so nice. And we can scent each other. And we just have to hope it isn't too long - we can't move much."

Joyce caught his eye. "They are incredible. You are a lucky man."

"A wise man is aware of blessedness." The Sheik intoned gently. "You may take your pick--Any one of them. Choose."

Tears welled in unexpected emotion at a gift unearned and of such stupendous cost. Joyce blinked them away, and with them a vision of a Naiad chained within her home forever plaint and adoring. Choked, she dared not speak. A silence lengthened.

"Don't you want one of us, Miss Cortland?"

She wanted one of the four girls offered more desperately than she would ever admit. Her flaring lust for them shocked her inmost being. It was something she must hide. In anguished disarray Joyce turned to the beneficent male. "I couldn't. It would be too cruel to separate them."

"We wouldn't mind, Miss Cortland, as long as it was you. We're only slave girls. If you don't choose one of us I expect we'll all be whipped."

"They speak truth." Said Haarami. "Have you no feeling for them?"

"I adore them."

The feminine exclamation left her shamed, telling more than she wanted to disclose. From within the small cage three young faces glowed with love.

"Well then, Miss Cortland...?"

"I cannot. You know I cannot."

"I know nothing of the sort. Why flee from what you have learned?"

"Because I must. There is no place in my life for chained girls."

"Make a place. Be a woman." The old voice trailed away. "If you reject them they will each be flogged."

"You wouldn't surely? Why?"

"Their duty is to persuade you to my wish. Behold them, they ache for your approval. Your choice would come readily handcuffed."

"That's so wrong. If you must whip someone, whip me."

"My dear Miss Cortland--"

"Why not! Prove your omnipotence on me. I'll strip naked for your whip."

Joyce faced him furiously, her hand already at the button of her jacket. At the meeting of their eyes Haarami laughed delightedly.

"Touche! Our lovebirds skins will not be marked." Amused by her vehemence, Haarami's eyes held hers captive. "That offer could not have been made yesterday. We progress. Your olive branch is not wasted."

They returned to the balcony lounge, behind them a pathetic cry: "We love you, Miss Cortland."

"Thank you, Master."

"Each of us is very nice...!"

It was the hardest rejection Joyce had ever made.

In the short plane ride back to London Joyce Cortland drank three doubles but could not drown her memory of four girls. When the Stewardess noticed the red circles on her wrists she did not care.

The next morning she used the office as a narcotic, allowing it to envelope her in work and the safety of the familiar.

"Hear you visited the Desert Hawk yesterday?" Dwight Willard's voice was casual.

"How the devil d'you know that?"

"We had business. Haarami phoned."

Joyce tensed with caution. Dwight was not above doing a bit of fishing. She shrugged. "What did he tell you?"

"You offered an olive branch. He took it. That's good!" She was thankful for the long ruffled sleeves hiding her wounded wrists. "He's a really charming host."

Dwight chuckled. "Did you see Wendy?"

Once more the prickles of alarm. "The child who serves the drinks? Yes, I saw her."

"Chain and all?"

"It's an amusing affectation."

"Like hell it is! That little lady can't go home."

"I didn't notice her screaming for help." She was certain now that he was fishing. He knew her too well not to pick up vibrations. "Understanding his way of life makes him acceptable. It explains a lot."

"Wendy came from Desmond House. Oh, and by the way, the place is not for sale. Money is no object to those who own it. I talked to Gunderson..." It did not matter. She would bide her time. After yesterday nothing was the same. On impulse, she said diffidently. "There's something I want to do... Maybe four or five weeks. Can you take care of things."

They went to lunch together and talked of everything but what mattered. Returning to her office, Joyce locked the door and went immediately to the phone.

"We're really flattered to have you." Paula Gantry admitted.

"Was it my Lorinda who enticed you back?" Linda asked.

"Lorinda was very sweet to me." Joyce Cortland mused. Shyly, she looked at her companions across the desk. "But what I want to explore is the other side of the coin."

They absorbed her with interest. They could not be shocked. Linda giggled. "That sometimes hurts, y'know."

"I want it to. I have to find out something."

"Oh, you're not alone in that, Miss Cortland. You might be surprised..."

"I don't think I would be." Joyce said slowly. "And I've been thinking..." She looked to them for help. "Does a month sound too ridiculous?"

"Why should it?"

"Well... Do girls tend to ask for more than they can handle?"

"There's no general rule, dear. Most are a bit timid and take the ten day minimum. They're the ones who want to go home next day."

"But you don't let them?"

"Be pointless if we did...

"What about hysteria... panic?"

"The cure for that's simple. They can tidy up their act or be punished. Works every time."

"What's the longest sentence any girl's committed herself to?"

"Six months." Paula Gantry grinned. "Tessie had herself well assessed. Took three months to break her. For the second three months she was the happiest girl in the place."

"Break? That's a frightening word."

"We're not outrageously cruel. We soon find out the thing the girl hates most: it's a good persuader."

Linda reached and patted a tense arm. "You can pick your own punishments before you start, Miss Cortland. If you wish...?"

"No. That would impair authenticity." Joyce mused thoughtfully for several moments. "I want this to be real, a sort of playing for keeps. I've been saturated in authority. I want it taken from me. And I want that done your way, not mine."

"Suspense won't bother you?"

"I don't think so. Suspense must surely be a part of what I'm going to be."

"But alone with suspense behind the bars of a cell...? It can be a bit daunting?"

"I'll have to get used to it. Look, I've been thinking. I said a month. But make it more than that, anything up to six weeks. But I'm not to know. Don't give me a clue."

Paula nodded. She recognized authority. This woman was quality, she was also wealth and power. "That's what I'd expect of you." She agreed. "As one woman to another, tell me what you're looking for."

"Myself."

"That's what I thought. It will be a painful journey." Joyce thought of the Naiad's patio, and smiled secretly. She was tempted to tell them. But curiosity kept her mute. Let it be a time of discovery for all of them. Suddenly she perceived a hazard. "There are two men associated with this-place, Karl Gunderson and the Sheik Haarami... I wouldn't want them to know about me?"

"You picked two powerful names." Mrs. Gantry made a moue of disparagement. "They can overrule me--"

"My position...! I couldn't possibly have this-this experiment bandied about. Those men don't outrank me-"

"They would for your month." Paula grinned. "You're going to be a nothing. If the risk's too great we can call it off right now."

"I don't want to. Damn them. Surely you can keep me well hidden?"

"Look, my dear, will you leave this with me?" Paula asked gently. "It's possible this contretemps can be turned to your advantage."

"How?"

"Don't ask me. In a little while we may forbid you to ask questions. But, for now, trust me. O.K.?"

"I suppose it has to be."

"And sulky girls are punished...!"

All three of them laughed. Each, in their own way, saw it as a good beginning.

"Tomorrow morning then, not too early." The Chatelaine of Desmond House was suddenly businesslike. "Don't bring luggage."

Joyce Cortland had primed herself for vacillation. It did not come. Desire for the course she had set remained constant. She thought longingly of the Naiads and their patio. But Desmond House must surely open a wider door! After her sentence had been served Haarami's offer might still be valid. Her pulse leaped at thought of chained Wendy. It would be too cruel to divide the Naiads themselves. And yet...! She set such thoughts aside. Tomorrow might give her more to think about than she wanted. Irrelevantly she envisioned Lorinda's breasts across one was a scarlet weal.

"I'm going to prison. Joyce Cortland is going to prison." She repeated it to herself again and again as her time approached. It had an incongruous sound that suited her mood. Cortlands could damn well look after itself for awhile, and so could men. She was tired of both. She was about to immerse herself in cloying bonds of femininity. The prospect intrigued. She was also tossing aside decision. This was to be a holiday, probably her first ever. Tingling, she repeated her absurd exultation again and again: "I'm going to prison... I'm going to prison..." She felt the excitement of a little girl.

It was not as expected.

"My name's Marigold." Said the delightful girl brightly. "Do come in--and give me your handbag... Thank you. And now turn round."

It happened swiftly. The handcuffs clicked as their chrome bands circled round Joyce's unprotesting wrists and were made snug. Her first question died unspoken as the small rubber ball entered her mouth and was strapped therein by a buckle at the back of her neck. The president of Cortlands found herself surprisingly helpless and annoyingly mute. She did not resist as young hands turned her about and sparkling eyes assessed. The verdict was instant: "Mmmmm, you've been a boss lady. I can tell. You're not going to like what I'm going to do to you, not one little bit."

A blindfold and a walk in the dark, strong young fingers on an adult arm, uninhibited giggles. "I'm a trusty, Miss Cortland. If you try and bribe me you'll be punished."

It was humiliating. Joyce was chagrined. No pleasant prelude, no familiar face, made helpless by a mere child! Marigold's laughing eyes were reassuring, but the woman in the tailored suit felt silly. Irritated, she tugged at the metal on her wrists and fought the intrusion in her mouth. Her brief rebellion was unrewarding.

"Handcuffs are so final, aren't they." Marigold came up with another giggle. "They used to drive me bonkers. I was a slave myself once. I suppose I still am."

Joyce managed an unsatisfactory sound.

"Don't try and talk, Miss Cortland. I've got you nicely gagged. You may as well struggle a bit. When a girl finds she can't get loose it helps her settle down."

Lectured by a moppet! It was not what she wanted. But Joyce had come prepared for tolerance under inflictions. To be obstreperous now was to show weakness. And, anyway, she was helpless and Marigold was rather sweet. She took blind steps forward. Not yet frightened. Not yet angry.

"We've arrived, Miss Cortland." Marigold's giggle seemed inevitable. "Now I'm going to take your clothes off."

She had forgotten nakedness. Joyce's first reaction was revolt. But that too was silly. Nudity was implicit to Desmond House. Urgently she explained the impossibility of undressing when handcuffed. Her message came out as a few wet shameful sounds. She longed to be rid of the blindfold, but the rubber ball in her mouth defeated protest. The noises emanating from stretched lips and flared nostrils were mortifying enough to inhibit a repeat. She gulped unhappily and flung her hair from side to side in the only gesture of disapproval permitted.

"I know just how you feel, Miss Cortland." Marigold consoled brightly. "Just stand still and leave everything to me." Another giggle. "You sort of have to, don't you! I mean, what else can you do, except kick and if you kick I'll whip your legs."

Joyce stood still. But when insistent hands tugged the tailored jacket from her shoulder she twisted in dismay.

"I expect you think I should have asked you to strip naked before I handcuffed you, Miss Cortland. But that's not the proper way. You have to be stripped by someone else."

Joyce shook her head in negation. She was taut as a bowstring.

"Sure, sure! I know. You hate to think of this lovely jacket being ruined. But there's no other way. I've brought some shears...

What was the price of a tailored jacket! Joyce was annoyed by her own concern. But her sense of efficiently was violated. She knew herself being led across an unfamiliar bridge. She actually winced as the shears made their first destructive cut up a tailored sleeve.

"I'll soon have you naked, Miss Cortland." More giggles. Then you'll have something else to think about."

The dark was beastly. For all she knew there might be a dozen pairs of eyes watching the emergence of her body. She had had no chance to ask the reason for the blindfold. It was hard to stand passively while the shears sliced. The air, warm though it might be, felt icy on exposed skin.

"You haven't any breasts, have you, Miss Cortland. That's really lucky, y'know. I've got two beauties and they were always getting whipped. It doesn't matter how far a girl's into the scene she never likes a whip snapping at her tits. It scares me to death."

Strange consolations! How long would it take to become as insouciant as Marigold! Breasts whipped...! Good lord!

"But you sure do have a lovely puss patch, Miss Cortland. Isn't that a cute way to describe pubic hair. Gosh, it's a real forest and all shining and curled. I hope they won't shave it off. They do that sometimes as a punishment."

Shorn and shamed! Joyce had a vision of herself clutching a naked sex. It was oddly intriguing. She winced again as the shears slit her panties. They were her last covering, and there was no need to cut them off. No doubt the deliberate act was symbolic. She had been stripped! Within her being she understood the potency of what had been done to her.

"I'll help you lay down. Miss Cortland. Here... there's something to kneel on."

Joyce could swear it was her own ruined clothes on which the loving but insistent hands laid her face down. She tensed, expecting the cut of a cane across her bottom. But, instead, her right ankle was captured by a cuff and drawn back and back until the link could be drawn over the similar link joining her hands. Then her left foot, tugged by strong young hands, until the other cuff could be snapped around its ankle. There came the careful adjusting clicks...!

"You look very sweet, Miss Cortland. Here I'm real sorry about this..." She was pushed on to her side. The things on which she had lain were pulled away. Allowed to settle back into position Joyce found her belly and chin pressing against the unfriendly concrete. It was chill and probably needed sweeping...

"This is sort of the start, y'know."

The sympathy in Marigold's voice was alarming. Ashamed by her enforced posture, Joyce cried against her gag: "I'm hogtied! You can't not a hogtie!"

"Yes, I know, Miss Cortland. You're hogtied." The giggle. "Or should we call it hogcuffed."

Suddenly the blind was whisked away. Blinking from the floor, the captive woman beheld a vanishing Marigold and heard the dismal clang of a barred door. She was alone.

She hurt! The cuffs were cruel. But, miserably. Joyce Cortland managed to examine the place in which she lay helpless. It was a narrow concrete cell. Barred to the passage, so that anyone passing could look in and observer her plight and her nudity. The lock on the metal door was massive. The most remarkable feature of the small prison was its bareness. It contained nothing. No cot, no bench, no stool, no plumbing. It held only a naked woman painfully handcuffed on its concrete floor.

Joyce Cortland could not quench anger. A woman of her eminence should not be treated thus. On the other hand, just how should she have been received! She had envisioned a welcoming Paula and an erotic introduction to her servitude by way of a sympathetic Linda. But this! She shrank under the insidious prison panic Something was wrong!

The concrete was beastly. To lay on it naked was a degradation. To be hogtied reduced her to a butt for coarse humour. It was also cold. But the twin handcuffs were her real punishment, they simply hurt. If she struggled they hurt more. They were without mercy, and she could never get herself free of them. They held her in a relentless bow.

Marigold's gag was clever. Joyce knew that without it she would be screaming. Crying out in a fear of being forgotten or that something had indeed gone awry. To lay mute was agonizing, but at least she was saved the shame of giving voice to weakness.

Joyce rolled over on her side. All she achieved was fresh cold concrete and a shoulder that hurt under her weight. She was as helpless as a gaffed fish. The handcuffs mocked every move she made. She belonged to the handcuffs. They made of her a package, tossed on the floor and forgotten. After awhile she struggled back to her original position. It was not easy. The rough stuff on which she lay chafed her bare skin. Quietly, she began to cry. It was a new experience.

"You've been like this three hours, Miss Cortland. That's all. Did it seem like three days?"

Joyce looked up in thankfulness at Linda's sympathetic smile. Even to do that was not easy. She longed to speak, but was still gagged.

"It's not much fun the way you're fixed. We make a point of visiting half way through her time so a girl knows she's not forgotten."

The cheerful words came like a blow. Half way through! It was not possible...! To remain as she was for more interminable hours was too awful a fate to contemplate. Despite pain and weariness Joyce threw herself into every motion of denial she could contrive. She no longer cared what sounds got past her gag, just so long as they were sounds of deep distress. The result of her effort came close to nothing at all. Linda watched, amused.

"Gosh, you're all bothered, Miss Cortland."

Miss Cortland raised her head enough to nod. "Disappointments are part of the treatment, y'know." It was more than disappointment. It was catastrophic agony. She would die. Joyce made more sounds.

"We do understand how you feel. But you'll have to go through with it."

Once more the bowed woman wept. Her tears fell, one by one to the concrete. Joyce Cortland no longer cared.

"Such lovely tears!" Linda's laugh was warm. There were metallic sounds. Joyce Cortland's legs lost their stress, her feet fell naturally to the floor, bereft of handcuffs. "Keep crying, dear. It helps."

She moaned in the agony of relief, but even that gratitude was distorted by the ball within her mouth. For moments Joyce did not move. It felt too good just to lay as she was without pain. Her wrists were still handcuffed but they felt free as air. Soon, strong young hands helped her to her feet. She stood erect but shakey as her tears were dried and her hair put back in place by feminine fingers. Her eyes were eloquent.

"Sure, I'm a bitch, teasing you. You were petrified. But no apologies. That's part of the treatment too. We'll always keep you off balance, not knowing. Sometimes we won't be teasing..." To walk felt good. The bath felt better. It removed stigma along with the concrete's grime. Joyce remained helpless and without speech while Linda made her clean and scented.

"I'm leaving the gag in your mouth, darling, because if I take it out you're still in that state where you'd explain you've made a great mistake and you're sorry and you'd like to go home."

The chief executive of Cortlands blushed. Linda had read her mind. Or perhaps the response of all prisoners was the same. Either way, her awareness of prisonment became more real. It was humiliating, but her jailers were far too wise in female frailty. Her reactions were predictable. She walked where she was led in an agony of shame.

Paula's office was comforting. Joyce thought sadly of her own. She envisioned herself sitting in it as naked as she was now. She had turned her world upside down. Paula's kiss was comforting too. But she was still handcuffed and still gagged. The straps tight across her cheeks were a reprimand. Linda poured brandy, but the glass upon the desk was unattainable, a mockery to her helplessness.

"You can have that, dear, if you think you're ready for rational speech. No frantic pleading?"

Joyce nodded vigorously.

"It's much the best, dear. A girl is only ashamed of what she says when the gag comes out."

This time the nod was doubly emphatic. When the strap was unbuckled and the ball taken from between her lips Joyce gulped the brandy Linda held for her, and said a weak and cautious: "Thank you."

"Good. You're over the hump. Now blast away." Everything obvious would now sound trite. This left nothing to say. Joyce clinked her handcuffs and managed an apologetic smile. "Could I have another sip please?"

She drank it all in awkward gulps until Linda was tilting an empty glass. "We actually are interested in anything you have to say." Paula prompted kindly. "We'll consider the going home bit as already said."

"That doesn't leave me much to say." Joyce looked from one to the other of the attentive faces. "It was simply bloody awful."

"The old Army treatment, dear. After the Barrack Square battle seems a breeze."

"You mean I've had the worst?"

"Oh, you'll have worse than that, love, but only sometimes."

It was only a small reassurance. Joyce sought another. "Could I have my hands unlocked please? They've been behind my back so long."

"No."

Cortlands vanished. Joyce cursed her own idiocy. Suddenly the two of them were laughing at her dolor. Linda unlocked the handcuffs and placed them on the desk, she replenished the brandy. Joyce Cortland was warmly kissed by laughing lips.

"Go on home, Miss Cortland."

Joyce gazed at them both, stunned, speechless.

"You've got a business to run. You don't need us." Paula was decisive.

Linda handed her the brandy. "You probably need this one too. We told darling Marigold to be rough. She was.

And don't worry about your spoiled clothes. Between us Paula and I have a sizable wardrobe. Enough to get you home."

Anticlimax. Disenchantment. Joyce Cortland's surge of relief at release was melting into embarrassment. She drank brandy, and offered weakly: "It was that cold stone... and the bareness of the cell."

"Not much fun being a prisoner."

She looked at them appealingly. "I've let you down. I'm sorry."

With a motherly hand Paula Gantry leaned over and patted a bare arm. "Call it a dummy run, Miss Cortland."

"I feel an absolute fool."

Paula nodded and said, equably: "Of. course. Why not. But it doesn't matter. Don't worry."

"I was so damn sure of myself." Joyce was remembering the Naiads.

"If you were not who you are, a woman of considerable eminence, you might not be going home." Paula Gantry admitted soberly. "We make most of 'em sweat it out. As I said, it's the old Army game. Makes good soldiers."

"Now I'll never make corporal, let alone sergeant."

"Good heavens, Miss Cortland, you're already a general and an admiral combined. You've got the world by the tail." Paula Gantry's shrewd eyes became compassionate. "I realise something's troubling you. But are you sure the answer's in Desmond House?"

"I'm not sure of anything."

"You're naked and hurt and disappointed. Look, Miss Cortland, if you want a real adventure let me sell you." Joyce Cortland groped her way through a stunned silence. "You mean that, don't you, you're not joking."

"I'm not joking. The idea is entirely practical. You know perfectly well what goes on in Desmond House. You even tried to buy us."

"I have to be insane to even consider the notion, but you intrigue me, Mrs. Gantry. Are you selling my life or only a month of it?"

"A purchase is for life. But I've no doubt that Cortlands and ourselves possess enough clout to reverse the transaction should that seem desirable."

"But surely I'd be held incommunicado?"

"In theory. We would cope."

Aware of two speculative pairs of eyes, Joyce Cortland took possession of her errant thoughts. She was reacting like an adolescent. "This is absurd. Forgive me. I'm being ridiculous."

"No you're not." Linda's reassurance was warmly emphatic. "Paula's asking you to examine a human association unique in this age."

"You'd make discoveries about yourself, dear."

"But I'd be a slave! I'd be whipped and abused and and."

"It might not be a man who buys you. It could be a woman. We had a case not long ago where a man bought a girl to amuse his daughter."

Joyce knew guilt. The conversation was making heat flare within her loins, and she was doing nothing to stop it. She was, instead, enchanted by Arabian Nights visions in which she was delivered, tastefully chained, to a beautiful girl.

"Lorinda is owned by a man. He leaves her with us about half the time while he's away. Lorinda is a slave. She was bought and paid for in this house."

"The girl... that lovely girl I came to whip...?"

"Yes. Lorinda's a darling."

"That means I'd be whipped too."

"So what! D'you expect the meat without the gravy?"

"Nnnnnno, I didn't think I did. But after that cell...!"

"Good thing Marigold cuffed you in there."

"I suppose it was." Joyce viewed their kind regard in desolation. "I'm so terribly sorry."

"Come along." Linda said briskly. "I'U fix you up with everything in my own room. Clothes affect a girl's reactions."

"You're always welcome to visit, y'know, Miss Cortland." Paula's invitation was genuinely warm. "Us females get amazingly human over Tea" Joyce let herself be kissed.

CHAPTER FOUR - JOYCE CORTLAND

It's all my own fault, every bit of it. Or maybe Dwight Willard's with his nonsense about my glands or maybe it is my glands! Oh, damn!

I've made an absolute idiot of myself.

These lovely bits of femininity are all assessing me, mostly with pity. I'm not the oldest of them. There's a voluptuous creature--Ripe! I notice her chains are heavier than those we other girls wear on our ankles and wrists not that our's are exactly featherweight.

I suppose I've let Cortland's age me-mentally! I took to it like a fish to water, but probably that was because of daddy. Everyone seems suddenly to have discovered I'm only twenty-nine. Including me!

"You don't look as though you belong." Says the pert brunette with the pageboy hair.

"Wait 'till they've whipped you." Consoles the intelligent redhead. "It's like getting the keys to the City."

"How come you rate a scarf to cover your cunt...?" The scarf is a sweetness of Linda's, knotted over my bare hip. "It's not much, dear, and you may not get to keep it " She had looked at me and listened to me with such understanding there in her bedroom as we sorted clothes in which I was to return to normal. When I blurted it out she had simply said: "Yes, I knew it was coming. So did Paula."

"Then why?"

"You have to do it yourself, darling."

"I'm scared to ask any more. I'm such a coward." I dropped the bra' back on her bed. "But put me with the rest and treat me like the rest. Is it very bad?"

"They think so. Poor dears! For the first couple of days they're in shock."

"They've actually been kidnapped to to to -?"

"To maintain your inventory. Yes. You'll miss that initial shock stage. You'll probably enjoy the girls."

At that moment I wasn't thinking of enjoyment. I was concerned with saving face. I was smarting under the debacle of the cell and my sudden realisation I couldn't go back to my office, I just couldn't! "You really do understand about Cortlands...?" I implored.

"Of course. If I were you, I couldn't face it. Paula's probably hit on a happy compromise." She kissed me and gave me a hug. "You're going to be a woman, darling."

I had taken off what I'd put on. And that was that! "You'll be whipped later, or maybe tomorrow." A friendly young voice explained. She giggled. "They insist it isn't an initiation. It's supposed to help us be obedient and to make us take things seriously. Sort of like saying you're a slave and you'd better believe it."

They all have whip marks in varying stages of fading. But some have fresh marks and old marks and intermediate marks well mixed. I suppose they have misbehaved. I try and not think of being whipped myself. I have been told it is a quaintly ritualistic affair and very painful.

They are bored and anxious to impart information to a novice. A fresh voice says: "You're likely to be here a long time. You won't sell easily with that flat chest. Men like great big boobs."

"Well, you've been here awhile with those huge floppers." The chiding voice is tart. "Myself, I think the bastards like 'em firm."

She is a medium bra', probably a "D" with a "B" cup, most eminently saleable. Her whipmarks are fresh. I think how nice it would be to buy her myself and cane some of the conceit out of her bottom, I am becoming reconciled to these, increasingly frequent, flights of erotic fancy. They are not of Cortlands. But neither am I! Not now.

There are seven of us, all naked except for my scarf. Six white, one Hindu named Nuala. Nuala is charming and highly educated. She talks of the London School of economics and the decline of trade between our countries. When I speak of her whipmarks she responds warmly: "Yes, aren't they lovely! They were really very decent about whipping me, y'know. So careful not to cut my skin." She is the least affected of us all by what has happened.

We inhabit a huge room. Its only furnishings are cushions, all sorts and sizes of cushions on which we recline. At night we drape ourselves over them to sleep: what need have we of beds or bedrooms! The door leads to a vast bathroom, a feminine delight. There is a lot of window without much view. It is heavily barred.

A girl tells me we are variously attended and kept beautiful by Linda and Marigold, sometimes Paula Gantry. They carry a whip which is the arbiter of arguments and is used savagely if we all crowd too close for their safety. True, we are chained, but we are not entirely helpless. Our shackles are inspected. If our skin is chafed we get a tighter set.

I am told of the purchasers. Most are male. Their advent is sporadic and they follow no pattern. The girls take delight in male embarrassment as so many female eyes assess their masculinity as the merchandise stands in line and at attention with their hands clasped behind their necks and breasts protrusive. Anything less than a shining eyed demonstration of desire to be sold to that particular client is later punished. I am sure I will be punished, I like men less and less.

I am continually teased about my impending whipping. It makes it hard for me to blot the punishment from my mind. They do not mean to be unkind, but they are bored. I gather they get to watch my shame and hear my cries. The event holds drama. In my turn I will get to watch others similarly conditioned.

We are conditioned. That is the word. We are pets: kittens groomed and fed and watered to satisfy an ego someone else's, not our's! We are compliant female packages of breasts, nipples, pubic hair, vulvas and bottoms. I am told there are other portions of our persons also highly esteemed. In fact, there is no part of us without erotic lure to someone. It is hard not to feel flattered, complacent and conceited about being a girl. The word 'Girl' takes on a new significance. Properly trained and groomed we acquire magic. We also become amazingly expensive.

In all this barrage of helpful hints and teasing innuendo I manage brief speculations on my sale. Will it even happen! If it does happen how will I feel when being bound for transit to my slavery. In honesty I must concede an outrageous excitation from these visions. I am ashamed of a nagging fear I may fail to please and will remain as part of the inventory. That's a purely feminine attitude damn!!

My time has at last come. I am glad. When I have been given my pain I will be one of the girls instead of an interesting novice who is going to be whipped. Six chained maidens align themselves against a wall to watch my wrists strapped to a bar which is then raised to stand me on my toes. My hands are high and well apart. Linda removes my scarf and there is comment on the luxuriance of my pubic hair. I am trembling and have never felt more naked.

I blush as the company arrives. I had not known. There are members of the staff, some male. The butler and, I suspect, the gardener. There are girls in handcuffs, Lorinda is one of them. There are no greetings. I lock glances here and there but must deduce there will be no familiarities. After all, I am only a slavegirl about to be whipped! Paula bustles in last of all and wastes no time: "Carry on, Linda dear. The usual twenty, medium hard."

I take a deep breath. The lash catches me in the middle of the inhalation so that I choke and gasp in the shock of the worst pain I had ever known. Linda had spanned my bare shoulders with her thong. Recapturing my breath, I made a practical request.

"Please may I be gagged. I'm afraid I'm going to scream?"

"You will not be gagged, dear." Paula says comfortably. "You may scream as much as you like."

Idiotically that means, to me, I must not scream at all. I mustn't, Mustn't, mustn't!!!! To have all these people watch and hear me scream is a shame I cannot bear, worse than the whip itself. I clench my teeth.

The whip curls round my bottom with a snapping thunk. I cannot describe the agony, it was just too much! I did not scream but my foot kicked and kicked in mute protest. A girl tittered. I planted my toes as firmly as I could upon the floor.

The not screaming is the worst. I am punishing myself as Linda whips me slowly with care and precision from my knees to my neck. I am forever unprepared for the new place where the leather will plant its weal. After the eleventh stroke I damn my sorry fate and scream to the content of my scalded flesh. After several screams I condemn my stupidity in not having screamed before. Screams are a relief and a retaliation. I also contort wildly against my bonds. Let 'em look, damn 'em! I no longer care.

Thus are slavegirls conditioned.

By the time the twenty strokes have marked me I am prepared to concede logic.

Nothing is said. Everyone leaves, even Linda and her whip. I remain strapped on my toes. Deeply thankful it is over.

"We have permission to leave you like that as long as we wish."

My chained companions leave the wall and examine my wounds. The marks on my skin are professionally discussed. It appears I have been very well whipped indeed. Absurdly, I flush with pride. But I would like to be freed of stress, and tell them so.

"Poor darling, she wants to be let loose."

"Well, who in hell wants to stand like that all day!"

They discuss the pros and cons of my release. I deduce it can be long delayed if the girl is in disfavor with her peers. But I have not been in the slave pen long enough to make enemies. Laughingly, they make me stand ten minutes for their amusement while their hands play with my body and make me gasp and wince. Then a button on the wall is pressed and the bar lowers. When my wrists are unstrapped they raise it again and my whipping is officially over. But, damn them, they have lit my fire.

"Sorry, sweetheart, we have to put your chains back on."

"If we don't we'll all be whipped."

My lovely shackles had been unlocked for my punishment. Now, without much caring, I extend my limbs and watch the metal bands possess me once again. I can guess these small latitudes of authority are granted the girls as a relief from ennui. Perhaps I too will soon be grateful.

After a couple of days my weals are no longer wincingly tender. They have become marks I must wear with pride or shame according to my nature. I realise that, strangely, my whipping did not frighten me as much as had the cell and the twin handcuffs. Pain needs company. If another captive girl had been cuffed with me in that awful cell I would have been O.K.

I have been prodded and probed by prospective customers who did not realise how close they came to getting a good hard slap across their silly faces. I am told the punishment for such a natural reaction to insult is horrendous. Perhaps the knowledge stayed my hand. But my antipathy to the Male grows. I have to admit to myself that all along I have been hoping that if I am sold at all it will be to a woman. I find myself wanting a girl, quite young...! Of course I am thinking of the Naiads. The Sheik Haarami did more to me that afternoon then he may ever know.

I have not spoken to the girls of my peculiar association with Desmond House. I would like to confess. But it would set me apart and make me suspect. I do not want to be alone. Our jailers make no sign, and I find their aloofness a loss. I can understand Lorinda's adoration of the girl she calls Mistress. I could love Linda too. But intimacies are impractical unless I earned a punishment and was taken from this room to receive it. I find myself toying with such absurdities. But now I am no longer ashamed of them.

The girls confide. They have been kidnapped with frightening facility. I am astonished there are any girls left out there free at all. They have been "acquired" in tea rooms, bars, public parks and a cinema. One was taken from her flat. It appears that all the kidnapper needs is a bit of experience, a lot of gall and a bottle of chloroform. Oh, and a few bits of cord or handcuffs in case she regains consciousness sooner than desired.

We are surprisingly passive in this captivity. All the girls recognize the potency of being initially whipped. It has changed us all. We discuss our reactions and find them similar: we do not wish to be whipped again. We cannot escape so we behave. Being chained affects us too. It is a constant emphasis. If we wore no chains we still could not escape, the slave pen would hold us. But having them locked upon us inhibits the movement of our limbs enough to forbid revolt. We can take only small steps and our hands are separate by only three links.

It is my third day, and I am in trouble. I slapped the S.O.B. He had his finger half way to my womb and then bent and bit my nipple. I slapped him hard. I am standing before Paula's desk, awaiting my sentence, but I am still not sorry. Paula is irritated. Linda, who has brought me here looks forlornly perplexed.

"Dammit, girl, you're boxed us all in. Don't you see?" Paula frowns at me across the desk. "The other girls saw you. You have to be punished. We can't forgive and forget."

"I'm sorry." I said dismally. "But I'm afraid I'd do the same thing again. He was an animal."

"Well, yes... If only it had been in private I could have told him he got what he asked for. But now...!"

"We have to make an example of you." Linda mourned. I am still angry, and therefore brave. "You must have me whipped again then." I suggest tentatively.

Their sadness deepens. "That's not enough, dear." Paula confides. "Not unless we gave you a real flogging, and we're not doing that."

I stand bereft My chains have been taken from me. My wrists are handcuffed behind my back. I am in disgrace. Why oh why could I not have stood still and allowed the finger to explore my sheath! Damn! There is much of Cortlands in me yet. I suspect it is about to be expunged.

"We have to do something to you they can witness." Linda says dolefully. She looks at Paula in sudden inspiration. "Suppose we sit the poor dear on The Horse and have the girls file by? If we time it right she'd only have to endure it for ten minutes?"

They look at me brightly, and tell me about The Horse.

For them it seems an obvious solution. I am thinking of the ten minutes. But I have made a contract. I tell them, yes, I think it's a wonderful idea.

It seems a lot of bother to go to just to punish me. But there is a special room in which I will endure my pain, a nice light airy room in which my penance may be well examined. My hands are to remain cuffed behind my back. There are tight leather anklets for my feet. I stand nakedly astride the unfriendly edge on which I am to sit.

"I'll go and get the girls." Says Paula.

"I'll cinch her down when I hear their chains." Linda is busy with rope.

I feel foolish standing there. The young Mistress and I look at each other woefully, then laugh. It is all too absurd.

"Half a day of this is pretty bad." Linda confides. "Even an hour. We're going to tell the girls you're sitting there for the day, and they'd better mind their P's and Q's. Make all the fuss you like while they're here. The more the better."

"Wouldn't the flogging be a lot simpler?" I ask hopefully. I do not like the look of what is about to happen to me.

"Don't be silly. You're just frightened."

I am indeed. But at the first sound of clinking chains I have other things to occupy my mind. Linda tugs on ropes and kicks away the box beneath my feet. I am sitting on a hard brutal edge of wood. I am certain it penetrates my naked unprotected loins. The pain is brand new and cringingly unbearable. While Linda tightens my ankle ropes out to either side I gaspingly assure her I cannot bear it, that it is not possible to bear such agony. At that moment the ten minutes might as well be ten centuries.

When the girls enter I am well anchored. I cannot move. I do not want to move, it hurts too much. I am making shameful sounds such as I have never made or ever heard. I hear myself pleading for forgiveness as though the voice was someone else.

If I was not astride the Horse I might be amused. Paula had the girls in a coffle. Each is collared. The collars are linked by a yard of chain so they must walk in file. The effect is delightful. They are unconcerned with the metal they must carry, their eyes are for me. None are amused. They view my torture in dismay. Each is thinking it could happen to her and probably will. They look cringingly at the cleft of my sundered thighs and distorted sex.

"Pay attention to her." Paula admonishes. "If she'd had any sense she wouldn't be sitting there for the day."

They shudder at my sentence, but their gaze is avidly curious. My punishment is well absorbed. In their mind they see themselves as I am now, and they wonder. One of the younger one's weeps in sympathy -or is it fear! They trail their chained procession past me on one side and then back on the other. I make my shaming sounds and meet no eyes. I want them gone. When they clatter their way out the door I know a great thankfulness. I am alone with Linda.

Linda stands on the box and kisses me. "I'll have you loose in a jiffy, darling." She leaps to one of my taut ropes.

It is a long jiffy. A disturbed Marigold appears in the doorway and beckons urgently. Perplexed, Linda gives me a glance of apology and goes with her down the passage. I am now entirely on my own. The sharp edge on which I sit burrows deep within me. I moan in desuetude.

A minute? Two? I realise that in this predicament time is magnified. Any measurement of it is too damn slow. I yearn most urgently to get my pussy off this hateful edge. I cannot be forgotten, I cannot! Linda will be back to release me at any moment. But in the meantime I sit and hurt. I hurt, hurt, hurt abominably and outrageously. Even when alone I still make my mortifying sounds of pain, my breathing is laboured.

No one comes.

I weep. It is too, too cruel to leave me thus. This is an ancient torture designed for men. In this age no nude girl should have to endure it. I wonder dismally how long I can endure it without fainting. But even if I lose consciousness I will not fall off this beastly perch. The taut ropes will hold me here.

Something is wrong. There has to be. This is not funny. Neither Paula or Linda would do this to me unless there was trouble. Panic clutches at my mind. Suppose, suppose, suppose...! I envision horrors. Suppose I am left to sit like this for hours or days! Panic prompts me enough to make me struggle. But, moaning with the fresh agony, I soon stop that. I can never free myself never! My handcuffs mock my wrists and grow tighter.

"Well, well, and what have we here!"

The voice is female. It evokes memories. I turn in joy to my rescuer. Then I freeze and wish to die.

"Good heavens, Joyce! Are you imitating a chicken on a roost?" Lady Constance Taunton's laughter pealed delightedly. "You look absurd."

I know I look absurd! I am also mantled in shame and a dishonour I will never live down. Desolately, I mutter: "How did you get here? Let me loose. Oh, Connie, quick! Untie me!"

Lady Constance is delighted. She is London's best dressed, most beautiful... richest... and most cruel...!

I can hear her sparkling account to a breathless coterie: "And there she was, my dears, naked as an egg and sitting on this sharp edge..." To me, she remarks brightly: "I bet you've been a naughty girl?"

I could scream. Of all possible rescuers, Lady Constance Taunton is the last I would choose. Instinctively I realise she will not rescue me at all. I am a fortuitous amusement she will savour to the full. I swallow my pathos and ask, huskily: "Have you seen Mrs. Gantry?"

"She's around somewhere. Left me sitting in her office, so I decided to explore. Damn glad I did. This is priceless."

"Please try and find her, Connie. Quickly!"

"Oh, she'll show up. Bound to. I say, darling, I really like that ensemble you're in. Damned original."

"Please untie me."

"Couldn't possibly do that. Bad form, y'know! I'm a visitor."

"But I'm in the most awful agony!"

"I'm so happy for you, dear."

"I I'm not one of those. This isn't what you think "No...? Isn't it...?" Connie is avidly intrigued.

I am trapped. The reality is worse than her guess. Frustration and disappointment vie with my pain. I don't know how to deal with this lovely creature. I start to cry.

Lady Constance examines my tears with intent pleasure. "I'd never have guessed you knew how to cry." She says slowly. "Wouldn't this knock 'em for six at Cortlands."

"Please, please..." I am blubbering like a child.

"Please what, darling?"

"Please let me loose. Please find Mrs. Gantry-- anything!"

"I'll take the anything, dear, and just visit. I haven't had near enough of this yet."

She circles like a stalking cat, examining my torture from every angle. "Can't possibly get loose, can you?"

"No. Oh, Connie, please help me."

"Let's hope it doesn't permanently dent your cunt, darling. Not that you use it much Do you?"

"Oh Connie! Constance, can't you be a little kind?"

"I am being kind. I'm not spoiling your fun. If I untied those ropes you'd hate me afterwards. Besides, you'd fall off and hurt yourself. And I don't have a key to those handcuffs... I think they're darling."

If she really understood I think she might help. But I can never make her understand. I dare not try. I don't want her to know. So I must sit here and be mocked. I shed more tears and moan. It seems, to Constance, I have nothing to say, "Are they arranging for a man to come and see you like this?" Her query reflects a glowing interest. "I think that would be the real killer, f know I'd shrivel up." She consults her watch. "How long are you on there for? Is there time for me to phone Dwight?"

I moan in a double anguish and shake my head in negation.

"That gets to you, darling." She surveys my tortured face and figure in curiosity. "I must say, whatever treatment they're giving you here is certainly making you more interesting. You're more alive than you ever were at Cortlands. I do suggest you keep it up."

"Oh, Constance...!"

"Stripped off you'd interest a man. You even interest me." She chuckled. "I'm London's leading Lesbian, y'know Or didn't you know?"

"Please get Paula."

"Without that stuffy tailoring even your features have improved. And your figure...! Dammit, no one would have realised. No belly and a lovely bottom...! Not much in the way of breasts and nipples, but there's men who like us that way. I'm sort of partial to a boyish shape myself.

Conversational Constance! I know her of old. She is capable of keeping me in torture forever while she natters. And the way she looks at me...! I am a goldmine of interest. We never admired each other much so I have only a small hope of mercy at her hands. Right now she examines my sundered sex with intent interest, secretly enjoying her ascendancy over Cortland's Chief Executive. "I should have a camera, darling. Think how your office would enjoy a picture. I wonder if Mrs. Gantry-?"

I curl up inside. Of all the bad luck...! Constance can shatter the whole fabric of what I am trying to do. I am saved from saying something pathetic by the re-appearance of Linda.

"I'm terribly sorry!" She beholds my visitor. "Lady Taunton!" The darling's voice is shocked. "We've been looking everywhere...!"

"Oh, I'm quite happy. Joyce and I are old friends. We're just chatting."

She is chatting. I am not. With a cry of distress, Linda reaches for my ropes, her voice guilty: "Poor darling, all this pain, and for so long...! I couldn't help "

"Leave her alone, Linda. I'm rather enjoying this." Connie is suddenly Lady Constance. "A lovely case of 'how are the mighty fallen!', don't you think, dear."

"But she's suffering terribly, and we promised- "

"Do her a world of good. She and Cortland's were frightfully stuffy. A day with her cunt on that edge will loosen her up." Constance turns to me. "Tell her to leave you there, darling. The damn girl's officious."

Connie still does not understand I am not a masochist. And, anyway, she is enjoying my plight. Linda again reaches for a knot and is sternly rebuked.

"Dammit, girl, you know who I am. D'you want a thrashing? Leave Miss Cortland sitting as she is. I'll make it right with Mrs. Gantry."

"Someone call me?" Paula enters frowning. "Lady Taunton...! What on Earth...?"

"Just got bored. Glad I did, actually. Wouldn't have missed this for worlds."

"Linda, hurry! Get Miss Cortland off that thing."

"Dammit, no!" Constance has no mercy for me. "I want her left--"

"This is a matter that does not concern you, M'Lady." Paula has become a very firm Mrs. Gantry. "Miss Cortland is long overdue for release. Here, Linda, I'll give you a hand."

I am sobbing with relief and hysteria as the two of them literally lift me up and away from the cruelty within my cleft. They stand me erect and support me until I am stable.

I am kissed. For a few moments the pain is worse, but then subsides. I do not look at the place where I was punished. I do not want to see.

"Is this old Home week?" Constance is contemptuous. No one answers. I do not care if I never speak to her again. My jailers comfort me but do not unlock my handcuffs. My hands stay behind my back. I do not care. I am still panting from the pain.

"I came here to buy a girl." Lady Constance sounds aggrieved. "Get rid of this weeping creature and show me your stock."

"We're taking her back there. We can all go together " Linda suddenly remembers. She looks to Paula for guidance. "Ooops! I forgot. Miss Cortland can't go back with the girls yet. Shall I put her in a cell?"

Damage has been done. Constance pounces. "You mean you keep this forlorn female in with your inventory?"

"Yes. For reasons of our own."

"I bet you've got reasons! The silly bitch has put herself up for sale, hasn't she."

"Well, in a sense "

"Holy cow! Cortlands gone broke?"

"Please, Lady Taunton, you are embarrassing us all"

"Good! I'll buy her."

I quail, trembling inside. Paula seeks a diversion.

"Linda dear, pop Miss Cortland in a cell somewhere, perhaps with another girl. Leave her handcuffed. I will take Lady Taunton to the girl's lounge."

"No you don't!" Connie has scented blood. "Am I or am I not an honoured client?"

"Of course you are, M'Lady. But "

"No but's! I have formally offered to purchase one of your inventory."

"But there are unusual circumstances!" Paula is fighting hard for me. "I do wish, Lady Taunton, you'd allow me to show you our girls. Today there is a delightful selection."

"I've made my selection. I'll take her home in the boot of my car. We'll tie her in a bundle gagged."

I am lost. I see it in their eyes. The hell of it is that Lady Constance will seem made to order for me. I suppose, in a way, she is. She will save me from men. But we know each other too well. It is like being purchased by an aunt of my own age. I don't suppose she's more than five years older than myself. Paula and Linda look at me, diffident and uncertain. It is only kind that I relieve them of distress. It is the decent thing to do.

"If Lady Constance wishes to buy me, I expect she's entitled to." I offer bravely. "This is Desmond House, and we'll all understand."

"Well, that's better." Connie is mollified and looks at me with favour. From the others I receive gratitude and love. I can tell.

Paula kisses me. "Very well." She says firmly. "Linda, take Miss Cortland and arrange her as Lady Constance has described: you can drive her car into our garage for privacy. Come, Lady Taunton, we will go to my office." She does not look at me again.

In the garage Linda shares my tears. She is very sweet. We assure each other my slavery will be of short duration something will be contrived. But there is a daunting air of finality about what she must now do. We both feel sure our parting is forever but we do not say so. I stand very still as she binds my elbows, not too cruelly. My wrists stay as they are. Connie gets a free pair of handcuffs. My hands and their cuffs are roped by bands round my tummy. I am delightfully helpless. Linda provides a box and a helping hand for me to climb into the boot. I sit, huddled and unhappy while Linda binds my ankles and my knees. Then my knees are pushed up under my chin and tied there with a rope round my shoulders. I cannot move at all. I am truly a package. When Constance slams the lid, after tightening my gag an extra hole, I think longingly of Cortlands.

It is typical of Lady Constance Taunton that, on arrival, she opens the boot and positively gloats. I suppose she is entitled to. I have cost a lot of money and am now her property. I am sure it is a very satisfying feeling. If I'd had any sense I'd have accepted Haarami's offer and would now have Wendy or one of the Naiads sweetly chained in my own home. Instead, I am dusty, untidy and hurting in the back of Connie's car.

"You look too, too pathetic, dear."

I am tightly gagged. All I can do is shake my head.

"I've a few things to do, darling. I'm sure you'll be happy in there."

I am not happy in here, and she knows it. But she does not slam the lid. I sit here, bent and huddled and bound, with the jack and the spare tire and a smell of petrol. If I was ever rude to Connie she is getting her revenge.

I struggle against the brutal ropes. What a victory it would be if I could get free, grab a covering and run. But I remember the handcuffs. Even if I defeated the bindings I could not defeat them. And anyway, I can scarcely twitch so what's the use! Linda is a good girl. She has rendered unto Caesar...! I am superbly bound.

My gag remains in my mouth while I am untied. Connie evidently does not wish to hear anything I have to say. When my restraints are reduced to the rubber ball and the handcuffs on my wrists, Connie says brightly: "You can climb out of there yourself, Joyce. A big strong girl...!" The bitch! She stands and adores my struggles. Getting out of a luggage compartment when you're naked and your hands are cuffed behind your back is not easy. I am sure some of my contortions are obscene. She lends no helping hand when I slip back and hurt my bare skin. When I finally get over the hump and stand before my new Mistress I am dusty and untidy and scratched. I am grubby beside her femininity.

She lives in splendor in an ancient Manor of mellow stone. She takes me to her room and shows me the massive four poster with the rings by which I can be fastened as an erotic enhancement of her slumber. She gives me a shower, doing with her own hands that I cannot do with mine. She then removes my gag and I say a polite 'thank you.' "That all you've got to say." Connie is petulant from her labor. "I might as well buckle it back in."

"No. Oh, please Connie, I'm just waiting for you."

"Hmmmmm...!" She eyes me with pride. "You're a beauty, in your way, y'know. I'm considering whether to make you a lady's maid or keep you chained in a tower room where I can go and be unkind to you as the mood takes me."

I do not want to be her maid. Our backgrounds are all wrong for it. We would grate on each other and I would be forever punished. Cautiously, I feel my way. "Constance, do you want me to call you Mistress?"

"Yes, I like it."

"Mistress, have you done this before? How did you know about Desmond House?"

Connie has a delightful laugh, pure silver. "Everybody who's anybody knows about Desmond House, you idiot. And yes, I've bought girls there before. I won't tell you what I've done with them. But there's one still in a dungeon down below. I keep her chained there because I'm spiteful and a bit of a bitch and all the things you're thinking about me. Watch out you don't join the poor girl."

My future is bleak. Connie is wise to keep my hands behind my back. "Mistress, if I am to be your maid, what of my hands?"

"Handcuffed in front. Your ankles chained so you can only take short steps."

She has it down pat. Connie will never let me escape. I try and speak naturally as I might have done with her in the life I have lost.

"Mistress, how must I talk? My attitudes...? I don't want to sound like a puppet... But we're so much the same, our backgrounds? We both come from wealth and authority...?"

"That's why I purchased you, you delicious executive. Every time I whip you I'll picture Cortlands watching in a state of shock."

So I am to be whipped for her amusement. Well, what else could I expect! "But, Mistress, wouldn't you be happier with one of those frightened girls who've been kidnapped and who would hold you in awe?" I ask hopefully.

"Don't be silly, Joyce. I'll adore humiliating you. When I think of what you were I'll get about ten times the erotic impact I'd get from a frightened popsie."

"Do you want companionship from me, or am I just a whipping girl?"

"We'll strike a balance, darling. Don't fret." Constance goes to a drawer and produces cord. "I want you in a little pain, Joyce. Turn round."

I turn and stand while she binds my elbows tight together. This time there is none of Linda's humanity I cringe with the pinch and scorch as my elbows are clamped tight and cinched with only a single strand so that I will hurt the more.

"There! That feel better, darling?"

"Yes, Mistress."

I want to shed tears. The bite of that single cord deep in my flesh is the sort of pain against which a girl has no defense. I glimpse our communication as a perpetual repartee.

"I'll try and keep you in a little pain always, Joyce. You'll find it terribly helpful in adjusting and keeping alert in your new status."

"Thank you, Mistress." I could murder her!

"You look charming, and so douce. With your elbows like that you almost have breasts."

"Mistress, would it-help? I mean, if I gave you my parole?"

"Don't be naive, darling. I think you'd honour it. Hell, I'd lose all the fun of having you the way you are right now. Don't you realise, seeing you hurting and helpless burns a fire in my puss. By the way, how's yours?"

I don't want her feeling. I know how mine is! "It's wet too, Mistress." I admit with shame.

"Good gosh, you're human! Y'know, Joyce that parole thing. If I accepted it and then levied a really terrible penalty for infraction-something like a hundred lashes...?" She tinkles laughter. "Poor darling... Don't you realise, you'd be in an agony of indecision all the time, especially if I left doors open and I would!"

Connie is right. A slave cannot win. Even her own temperament is stacked against her. How absurd to be grateful for chains! "I would like to try it, Mistress." I say without hope. "This agony with my elbows is hard to bear."

"But you are bearing it. You will always bear it, Joyce. You'll shed a few tears and I'll enjoy them. It's beautiful." Oh, how I hate myself! I say my "Yes, Mistress." and hope it sounds sincere.

As though we were two rational beings, Constance and I discuss how best to humiliate me and bring me low. I must be shamed and mortified. She wishes to hear the tremors in my voice as I say the things I did not want to say, and to behold the reluctance of my flesh as I yield it for pain. She decides, as a commencement to my thralldom, to try me out in the duties of a lady's maid. She explains that undoubtedly I will botch the job, thus justifying the whipping she is aching to give me. She wants the justification. It adds to the thrill. Lady Constance is blandly honest in her disclosure of intent. I think, longingly, of my office.

First, the linkage on my ankles. Click, click and clink. I take a step and am snubbed short. The gleaming shackle denies escape, I could not even struggle successfully.

"I'd like to leave this on you." Connie admits regretfully as she peels the cord from my elbows. "But never mind, I'll think of something."

There is an interesting moment when she unlocks one of my wrists and I have the use of my hands. We look at each other, a look loaded with terrible understanding. Hating myself for what I have made of Me, I extend both hands and watch my Mistress circle my wrist with chrome.

"Before you bathe me you may as well perform your basic service, darling. We're both hot. You can go on wanting but I'm not going to."

I wonder if Constance is really as cruel as she likes to think. She is so breathlessly lovely! I watch her dispose herself upon the bed. When she signals with her eyes I take little mincing steps, small linked paces of shame, and go to where I will give Constance my first homage with my tongue. I have no thought of rebellion and am ashamed.

"I have lovely whips and crops, darling, so be sure and be a good little girl."

I am more helpless than expected. My feet give me a message of caution with every step. The handcuffs gleam laughter as they rob me of my arms. My mind is captured by obedience. I sink submissively to my knees and seek the silken fronds of pubic hair.

I give satisfaction. Constance is surprised. But she does not know of the Naiads, or of Lorinda, or of the girls in the slave pen. I am grateful to all of them. I am not whipped. But the bathing of this redolent beauty is less easy.

"I'll make some allowances for the handcuffs, Joyce. But don't push your luck."

I hate the handcuffs instantly. Leaning forward and having to use both hands as one is tiring and awkward. The extra hand does not help, it hinders. It follows the compulsion of the steel obediently but is forever in the way. I marvel in the joy I never felt when, long ago, I had both my hands and used them as I pleased.

"I'll debit you with stripes as you earn them, darling. You'll collect them later."

"Constance, honestly, I will try. Please don't be cruel. I'm going to try and please you. I want to."

She is amused. "You want to because you love me or because you don't want to be shipped?"

"Oh, Connie, that's a loaded question!" I ply the sponge assiduously. "I guess I don't want to be whipped."

"One stroke for a wrong attitude, darling, and another for forgetting what to call me."

Damn and double damn! But this is what it's going to be forever all the rest of my life... unless Paula...? Petulantly I say no thanks, but I lave the lovely skin with care and tenderness.

"Give my cunt a good soaping, slavegirl, don't be afraid of it."

Constance loves that beastly word. I expect I will hear a lot of it. I apply my hands to the most shocking familiarity with her sex. She coos with pleasure as my handcuffs clink their mockery.

My enraptured Mistress allots me another stroke because she says my handcuff scratched her nipple. I can see no mark but express thanks for my punishment to come. I collect another stripe for the same offence when I wash her other breast. I am without guilt, but am being provoked by her mischievous desire to test my submission.

The hair of Lady Constance Taunton nets me four more. It is alive with hazards for a handcuffed coiffeuse. She metes them out with such relish I am close to tears, tears of vexation that she can use me thus. Constantly I trip against the short tether between my feet.

"Only eight strokes, darling. I'd say you did remarkably well."

"Constance ! Oh, damn! Sorry, that makes it nine " I stumble out my self sentence as fast as I can. I start afresh: "Mistress, I'm no good at this. It's against everything I've ever done. I'll never be any good at it."

"Yes you will, dear If I whip you enough."

I am sure Connie is right. I gaze at her bleakly. She smiles at me with what might pass as love. I plead weakly: "I don't want to be whipped. Please... I don't want to be whipped."

"Of course not, dear." Connie's voice is brisk as with a child. "But your whippings will do you no end of good. You'll come to recognize this and look forward to them."

"I won't! I won't...!"

Her voice softens. "I can whip you in ways and places you'll come to love. Give me time and I'll have you pleading for it."

"No... oh, no...!"

"But this time, of course, it's just going to hurt. I'm going to make it hurt terribly."

I stand in misery. I don't want to be polite or subservient or say thank you, or anything else. I want to go home.

"Would you like to have your nine now, darling, and start afresh?"

"Yes."

Why did I say that so meekly! I suppose I'm frightened. And what the hell else can I say! Connie is waiting to pounce on insubordination.

"I've got the loveliest room, Joyce..." Hobbled, it takes me a long time to reach the loveliest room. On the way, Constance speaks of how she loves Taunton and of how I will come to love it too. A servant passes and makes no sign. It tells me I am not the first to walk like this through this lovely house. When we get to where I am to be whipped, a glance tells me how well it is equipped for the pain of girls.

"There was a torture chamber of sorts, darling. But it was so morbid and gloomy. I'll show you sometime."

"Don't bother "

"And that makes ten, dear. No sarcasms."

It is a sort of pedestal, a pillory effect at its top, holes where my hands will be held. I lose the handcuffs and, without even thinking of a tussle, meekly place my wrists where they must go. Lady Constance lowers the shaped timber and my arms are prisoned, stretching forward from my shoulders to where my wrists disappear. I can no longer see my hands. I stand straight and naked, almost at attention.

"I always fasten a girl when she has to be whipped, Joyce. It's so undignified for the poor dears when they jinx around all over the place."

"Thank you." I say it carefully.

"I know you don't mean it, Joyce. I know what you'd love to say. But I do adore the way you come out with your sad little acknowledgements. This is doing you a world of good, y'know. Cortlands would be a better place if I ever set you free."

My heart leaps. "Oh, Constance, would you? I mean, is there a chance?" I see her face cloud, and amend hastily. "I don't mean soon... But when you're tired of me?"

"Can't wait, can you." She sounds bitter. "I'll never give you freedom, Joyce. If I ever tire of you I'll put you in the dungeon with that other girl. She'd be grateful for company."

"There'll be a frightful to-do over my disappearance."

"I'm sure there will be. But they won't look for you here. Just to be mean I'll let you read the papers."

I lapse into hopelessness, but keep a woefully expectant eye upon the woman who will whip me.

"When I've got a girl fastened for her punishment I always think it's nice to leave her alone awhile, gives her time to think about the pain to come and why she's getting it."

I can't think of anything to say.

Lady Constance runs her fingers lovingly over my nakedness. All of me stands there waiting. "Such a lot of gorgeous pain when I return, dear. Think about it. You can't get loose. And think about the way we used to be: The Chief Executive of Cortlands and Lady Constance Taunton. I find the contrast so damned piquant. I get the hots just thinking of us." She laughs delightedly. "Captivity is doing wonders for you, sweetheart. You're becoming almost sexy."

I stand. This beastly post affair in which I am fastened is designed for frustration. It seems impossible I cannot walk away from it but I can't! I will stand nakedly and await M'Lady's whim. I realise, wanly, I could stand like this for hours...! With Connie laughing. Damn, damn, damn! I tug at my wrists. Nothing moves.

Alone with unhappy thoughts the large bright room becomes more sinister. I cannot avoid speculating about the objects and instruments with which I will, no doubt, become more familiar. I can almost hear my screams and the laughter of Lady Constance. I also speculate about my eleven strokes for which I wait, and I wonder if they will be as cruel as Connie promises. I decide not to be heroic. Connie can damn well put up with whatever the pain makes me do.

We know too much about each other. This enhances Constance's enjoyment of my enforced obedience, but it doubles my humiliations in submission. We see ourselves in a constant comparison to what I was. For me, it is shamemaking. Lady Constance Taunton is unchanged, except for this dark side of her which she has so well hidden. If someone had told me the truth about Connie a month ago I would have dismissed it as nonsense. Now it fills my life. I would be more frightened being owned by a stranger but much less shamed.

I think about the girl in the dungeon. How sad and how terrible to be chained alone in silence. Shackled in a dungeon there would be no hope at all. I have been fastened here for but a very little while and already I am abandoning hope and conjuring awful visions. But maybe the girl does not exist. She is a creation of Connie's to make me pay attention. Surely Constance could not be that cruel! But a vision persists of a naked girl fingering her chains in loneliness. I could be me!

Will Paula wait 'till my novelty wears off and then negotiate my freedom? Will she bother? She does not have to. If she told of my plight to Dwight Willard I would be out of here in short order. But I am not ready for such a devastating shame. Cortlands and I would not survive what the media would do to us. The Sheik Haarami would chuckle wisely and pick up the ruins of my Empire for a song. By then I might be thankful if he would acquire me too. I detect in myself the beginnings of the resignation by which slaves survive.

There is something else too. It puzzles me. Connie was right in her observation, captivity is making me sexual. My mind tends to dwell on those parts of me which give pleasure to others. Now, the possession of pubes and nipples gives satisfaction to me too. The Naiads started it, and Lorinda, and now Constance! When I serviced Constance a little while ago I longed for her to love me too. She refused because she wants me excited and responsive and yearning. If she put her hand between my legs right now I'd fight these stocks in a frenzy of sensation. I am far. far away from Cortlands and my office. I wonder if the Sheik Haarami knows of my condition. It would delight his old age.

I love it. Sexuality sustains me. Without these intense fires between my legs and in my belly I could not cope with Connie. The whipping I am soon to receive would devastate, and these stocks daunt me to hysteria or cringing fear. But I stand here with my prisoned wrists and am able to examine myself as Connie told me to. Wryly, I perceive something of which I should be bitterly ashamed but am not. I want a screaming orgasm. I need to climax all these sensations into a vast explosion. I cannot do this myself, I have lost my hands. But Connie could do it. I wonder if she will, or if I dare ask? But no, if I plead for her tongue or her fingers it is most certain I will not be given them.

And this too is a part of this outrageous Me. To be so utterly in the power of a woman. To know only her hands can release me from this post, and that it will be her hand also which stripes my skin with a whip for her own pleasure. Neither of us makes pretence of believing I am being punished for a true delinquency. Connie herself created my misdemeanours. I shiver deliciously and wonder how badly the whip will hurt.

CHAPTER FIVE - THE LESSONS OF LADY CONSTANCE

"Miss me, darling?"

"Terribly, Mistress."

I am kissed. I am chucked under the chin. From behind a hand insinuates itself between my legs and cups my sex. I heave and tug against the post and moan outrageously.

"Wet and wanton. My, my, darling, you've come a long way. And no, I will not bring you to climax. You can hope the whip will, sometimes it does."

Is this really me! This palpitating package of lubricity! I am blushing, and try not to meet her laughing eyes. I twist against the stocks and unwillingly smile. "I don't understand these reactions." I say grumpily. "They're not of my choosing."

"Don't worry, Joyce. Leave everything to me. Don't you find it comforting no decisions."

I have to leave everything to her. I'm so damn helpless! I watch with much interest Connie's selection of the whip which is to mark me eleven times. The stocks have become a personal enemy, holding my hands to ensure my passive readiness. My Mistress takes a stand well to my rear. I strain, apprehensively and awkwardly, to keep track of her. I wish, most passionately, not to be whipped.

"Give your nice little bottom a rest, Joyce. You've got the loveliest back."

Lady Constance Taunton proceeds to whip my naked back. I no longer look over my shoulder, I am concerned only with pain. I lunge away from the whip towards the post, but I cannot embrace it. Unless I want to break my wrists I have to stand at arm's length, shockingly exposed. Until the fourth stroke I manage to keep some control over myself, after that I prance, kick, contort, and howl to my heart's content. Constance has not forbidden these gymnastics under the whip, so I get what comfort I can. The pain is so great and so cunningly spaced I have no concern with shame.

"I'm making them quite hard, darling. You're so beautiful."

If that's supposed to be comfort it fails.

"I'll try and make the last five harder still, Joyce. I do want this to be a nice experience for you."

Sarcasm? Or is she sincere? Who cares!

"Your weals are gorgeous, dear. You'll love them." Blindly, I cling to the number, eleven. Hang on, girl! Five, four, three to go... hang on...! If my sentence was twenty or thirty strokes I would go to pieces utterly. I am sure I would! But how can I ever be sure of anything, least of all of myself...!

"Waist to shoulders, darling, it's such a virgin expanse. We're going to be able to count the whole eleven on you. I've kept them apart."

Is it over? It must be. The whip has stopped cutting at me. I stand, panting and sweaty, and terribly fearful Constance may decide to give me a few more. I'm sure she could think up reasons. My hopeless nudity must be an enticing invitation.

"No more this time, darling. I'd love to stripe you with another dozen, but I'm a firm believer in slaves and their Mistresses keeping contracts. Tell me about it, Joyce. Was it bad?"

"Yes."

I hope the single word carries more conviction than all the exclamations surging on my tongue.

"Your motions... and sounds...! Mmmmmm, they were agonizingly exquisite."

"Connie ? Oh, damn...! Mistress, have you ever been whipped... that hard? You've no idea "

"Oh, but I have, dear." Connie giggles. "I've played games, y'know for a long while. As a Mistress I was curious... By the way, darling...? My title...?"

"I forgot. It slipped. I'm sorry. Please forgive me."' "Would that be consistent, darling?"

The slyness in Connie's voice tells me I am lost. From somewhere I find a scrap of courage. "No, Mistress, it wouldn't. Please whip me another stroke." I am anxious to placate, so add: "I expect it will teach me to watch my tongue."

"It is, of course, the worst of all. Connie abandons my back and slices me across both cheeks of my bottom, the tip snapping on an unsuspecting hip. I yelp in anguish and do a busy tattoo with my bare feet. All of me moves except my wrists. My wrists seem a part of the wood in which they are imprisoned. My mind rallies to my rescue by reiterating over and over: 'It's only one... only one... Then, anxiously, I pay my dues: "Thank you, Mistress."

"You are most welcome, Joyce."

How absurd we are, and we both know it. Connie can laugh at our stilted exchange, but I dare not. I don't want any more strokes I just don't! My blazing bottom partly quenches the fire within my sex but not quite! I look at Lady Constance Taunton, a shy fearfully expectant peek, and wonder what she has in store for me next.

"I've got the theatre this evening, darling. I think I'll put you away somewhere safe."

When Constance separates the stocks I retrieve my hands and look at them as at strangers. My wrists are red. In obedience to prodding fingers I turn and place them behind my back. I am not allowed even one good stretch, but thought of revolt does not enter my mind. The metal bands bite and I am once more helpless.

"I have the nicest idea for you, Joyce."

From the direction in which I am guided I easily guess where I am to spend the night. We go down and down. I pitter-patter daintily with my bare closely shackled feet. Escape from Constance is just a lovely dream. I will never escape.

"Isn't that a gorgeously forbidding door, darling. This is your dungeon."

A huge key and the thud of bolts. The light is artificial, a pale yellow from some hidden source. The air is warm. For the rest, it is bare stone with beastly rings and hanging links on the walls. It is no place for a naked girl, but one is kneeling submissively to greet her Mistress. She is linked to the wall by chains from every conceivable part of her to which they may be attached. Her hair, falling across one shoulder, is lovely as is her pose. Instantly in my mind she becomes "The prisoner of Taunton."

"Nancy, this is Joyce. She's spending the night with you."

"Oh, thank you, Mistress!" The gratitude is sincere. Nancy and I exchange the glances of sole survivors. We are glad of each other. I don't think I could face Constance's dungeon alone.

"I'll just chain darling Joyce and be on my way."

The chains are not Gothically heavy, but heavy enough. They are new and shining and the metal bands are snug upon our flesh. Under Lady Constance's busy fingers I become attached to the stone at neck, tummy, wrists and ankles. My hobble and my handcuffs are taken away and placed in a far corner where I cannot reach. I am kissed good-bye. It is all rather breathless, and Connie's exit and the awful sounds of the closing door leave me in bewilderment, my new chains tugging at me everywhere.

"When you sit down it eases the weight a bit." My companion says cheerfully. "I'm terribly pleased to see you."

We are girl-girl instantly. We like each other. We are grateful for other breasts and pubic thatch and lips ripe with promise. Nancy's sweetness bears many fading stripes.

"She's just whipped you, hasn't she, Joyce? Gosh, those marks are fresh." She grins. "Lady Constance is bored with me. I haven't been whipped for quite awhile."

"But she keeps you here in this dungeon chained all alone! That's a lot worse. I couldn't bear-"

"Did she tell you I'm like this for life?" Nancy laughs. "I'm not, y'know. I spend a lot of nights here, chained. But my days are spent in the kitchen. I'm hobbled short so I can't give cook any trouble and I do the odd jobs, a sort of scullery maid. Once in awhile M'Lady gets the hots for me and has me up to her bedroom. When I've orgasmed her to exhaustion she chains me to a ring in the floor and gives me a blanket."

"You poor dear, what a rotten-!"

"It's partly my own fault." Nancy assures me cheerily. "She was going to sell me to a real S.O.B. and I kicked up such a fuss wailing and pleading that she said, O.K., I could spend my life in the kitchen. She gave cook the right to whip me when she thinks I deserve it. Of course, her Highness whips me once in awhile just so I remember who I belong to."

I am all sympathy. I move to take Nancy in my arms but am snubbed inches short of consummation. She laughs bitterly. "That ring you're locked to is exactly measured to keep the bits of us that matter inches apart. If we wiggle and strain we can kiss each other on the lips, but that's all."

We kiss each other's lips. It is not easy but it is a small happiness. Straining at my chains I curse Connie's laughter. What she has done to us is not funny, it is cruel. We can touch a lot of each other but we cannot make love. Damn!

I have a band round my tummy, lovely shining metal a trifle too tight. There are metal bands on my wrists and ankles and a metal collar on my neck. All are linked by chain to the big ring in the wall. The length of each tether has been gauged for maximum frustration. After I have struggled against them to assess my helplessness we look at each other woefully. "There's nothing a girl can do with chains." Nancy says philosophically. "I've been tied and chained for a couple of years now and I no longer think of getting loose. I wear 'em like clothes... The only one's I'll ever have, I guess. I'm always naked except when I prepare food. Then I'm allowed a tea towel over my pussy."

I do not laugh easily, but Nancy does. She is making the best of a bad job. Her cheerfulness helps. When we decide to sleep we strain as close together as we can. We warm the cold stone with our flesh. That is our bed.

* * *

It is an ordinary bare room. Its only claim to attention is the short timber cross rising from the centre of the floor. I am strapped to the cross.

I cannot move, and the wood to which I am fastened is solid as rock. I kneel erect, my back to the small structure which reaches no higher than my head. Its cross piece holds my outstretched arms. Tightly buckled straps bind me to it at wrists and elbows. Another strap is deep in my tummy, anchoring me to the little cross as though I was a part of it. I kneel with a leg on each side of the upright, placing my feet well behind where I cannot see them. My ankles are separately strapped to the floor. This arrangement separates my thighs to give full prominence to my pubic hair and sex. As a final punitive unkindness a broad strap is snug beneath my chin. It circles my neck and is buckled, like all the rest, at the back where I can neither see nor touch. I have never, previously, suffered a tight stricture on my throat. It is a strange feeling not to be able to move my head. It accentuates the erectness of this kneeling posture I cannot change.

My Mistress sits on a stool, cross legged, negligent, where she can get the best view of what she has done to me. She has that pleased air of someone who has got a worthwhile project under way.

"You look so sweet, Joyce."

I am sure I do. Kneeling, suppliant... I probably appear to be pleading for punishment. I feel very certain punishment is what I am going to get. I have nothing to say, I cannot be forever intoning a meek 'Yes Mistress' like a litany.

"What are you expecting to happen to you, dear?" Damn! I cannot keep a sulky silence. I have to play Connie's game. "I think I'm going to be punished, Mistress."

"But you haven't done anything-have you?"

"It is a Mistress's privilege to punish me anyway."

"My, my, you're learning, darling! But do be a bit more specific. What sort of punishment?"

"You're going to whip me, Mistress."

"Oh, sweetheart, so unoriginal! You were whipped yesterday. If I whipped you the way you are now it would almost have to be your breasts. Such nice tight little breasts... Would you like me to whip them?"

"No, Mistress. Thank you."

"I'd love to do it if you asked me nicely?"

Cat and mouse! She's positively gloating. Gosh, what I'd love to tell her right now! But Constance reads my thoughts.

"You'd love to reverse our roles, and to give me a piece of your mind, a real blast, wouldn't you! Poor little Joyce! Little slavegirl Joyce who used to be Queen of Cortlands."

She laughs delightedly at the telltale expression on my face. But you can't move, can you, darling! And you have to be so polite to me."

"Please... Please, Mistress, don't rub it in. We both know what's in my mind. I can't help it."

"Don't you think it merits punishment, dear?"

"No, I don't! Please, Mistress, I'm trying my damndest."

"You are rather sweet, y'know. I'm glad I bought you."

"I'm glad too, Mistress." My admission is sincere. "I hated the thought of a man."

"Never did like 'em, did you! I always wondered why you didn't grab Dwight. If you had you wouldn't be strapped the way you are now."

"Mistress, please, could I have the strap taken from my neck? It makes me talk funny."

"I like to see it on you. It's there for a purpose." Constance gives me a searching look. "I've been curious about you and men...?"

"I told you, I slept with a few and didn't like 'em. They just make a mess of something clean."

"But you never did play around... You never got earthily carnal?"

"I don't know what you mean. If it's what I think, I don't want to."

"I'm going to bring a man in here, darling."

It's like a bomb, or a blow. I look at her askance. "You're not not really? Oh Constance... no! No... no... no! Please...?"

"Yes I am."

She is in her glory, and I am strapped like this. I take a fleeting comfort from my little cross. It is not designed for the ravishment of girls. But she will shame me, shame me horribly. The forest of fur between my legs will intrigue the grinning ape. I make the first plea that comes to mind. "Please, Mistress, don't bring a man in here to see me like this. I'm so shamed. Whip me instead."

"You're obsessed with the whip, darling. I bet it makes you feel good between your legs?"

"It doesn't! Ohhhh nooooo! I hate it! But I offered so you'd know. Please, Constance, no man?"

"My, my, you are upset. You twice forget my title and you prefer having your skin striped to having a male take a look at you."

"Yes, yes! Punish me another way."

"Oh, I will. Don't think I won't, dear. And his name's Alfred. He's one of the gardeners. A good honest country yokel."

I surge against my straps. Nothing moves, least of all Me. I wail over and over: "No... no... no...!"

"Don't be silly, Joyce. Men must have seen you naked--Or did you wear clothes while you copulated?"

"It's beastly horrible!"

"It's not, y'know. You'll be doing a real kindness. He's quite young and hasn't seen a girl sans clothes yet. You'll have to excuse him leering at your pubic hair."

"Anything else-anything!"

"You're being ridiculous, Joyce. You can thank me for not taking you at your word. I could have you screaming your head off."

Constance is right, damn her! Perhaps I am being silly. She will get great joy from watching me cringe while I am exhibited. And does it really matter that much to me! Does it...! I mutter a sad little "I'm sorry... I'm sorry...

"If you've never done it before you'll find it interesting, darling. Such intriguing overtones!"

I tense in my straps. There is something else! I hope my eyes are as anguished as my suspicion. The little cross takes on a frightening plausibility.

"I remember Roger had to plead like crazy and get me excited half out of my mind before I'd do it that first time." Lady Constance's voice is musingly dreamy. "I'd never even thought of it. But when you come to consider..." She smiles at my horrified stare with sweet compassion. "It's sort of inevitable... I mean, there it is!"

"Roger?" I repeat, stupidly. "And there's what?"

"His cock, darling."

I examine this fresh humiliation, this deliberate abasement of Cortlands and all I once was. I glimpse what she is going to make me do. It seems impossible. "What- what-do you mean?" I ask pathetically.

"Oh, Joyce, come off it!" Constance peals her silvery laughter. "You worship a man's cock, sweetheart. You take it in your mouth and suck and lick it until it ejects: and then you swallow."

"I won't do it."

"Of course you won't, darling." Connie's voice sinks to a positive purr. "But a Mistress has to be prepared for these little contretemps when her slavegirl takes negative attitudes. I have a standard inducement--call it a penalty if you prefer of hanging by your wrists all day and receiving ten strokes every hour. It works out to a total of a hundred, all hard. The poor girl usually spends the next couple of days in bed convalescing." The voice becomes brightly helpful. "And, of course, she also does whatever it was she didn't want to do: I make sure of that."

What's the use! She'd do it. I know she would. She talks as though she's already done it to others. Well, I'm damned if I'm going to endure anything that bloody awful. But, on the other hand...! "You can make me say yes to anything." I agree miserably. "But supposing I try...? I'll just puke and be disgusting over everything."

"No you won't. A cock, prick, or penis is not nearly as appalling as it looks. And I've instructed Alfred: he's going to give his a good wash. I'm being very lenient. If you got one that hadn't been washed for a few days you'd really wrinkle your nose."

"Oh, Connie...!"

It is a cry of anguish from one girl to another. I twist demonstratively at the straps, and toss in for good measure: "O.K., that's the third or fourth time I've used your name. I expect to get whipped for each."

"In that case I won't whip you. I'll think of something much nastier. I won't have you telling me how to punish you."

She leaves me nothing. Constance is stripping me of more than clothes. Unhappily, I voice anxiety: "Mistress, I'll try. I have to. But I've never done such a hateful thing supposing I botch it?"

"Try, try, try again, dear." Connie's laughter tinkles. "Look on it as having a light lunch."

I sigh heavily. My plight is hopeless. "With you... that first time, Mistress, don't tell me you didn't gag... try to evade?"

"Roger helped me, darling. Once he'd grabbed my ears it seemed best to be a good girl."

Constance can carry such things off with panache. I can't. Now I understand this wide band round my neck. Oh, damn! Partly from the fear I had best show willing, and partly from a selfish need of guidance, I ask, absurdly: "Mistress, can you tell me things? About how?"

Constance adores my surrender. "Just as I said, sweetheart. Suck as though you love it. Lick as though you worship it. Then get it as far down your throat as you can and sort of plow back and forth. When he orgasms swallow like crazy and keep up the motion. Then, at the finish, take it out and lick it clean and assure Alfred of your undying gratitude. Men love that bit. It's easy to kid 'em they've done you a favour, instead of the other way round."

All that! Good gosh!

"I'll go and bring him in now, darling. Be very polite." I am alone for several minutes. I strive uselessly against the straps, and allow my mind to run riot. If I dwell on the one specific thing I must do I'll become hysterical.

"Alfred, this is Miss Cortland. Joyce, this is Alfred."

"Pleased to meetcha', Miss."

Alfred spares a sheepish grin at my face before lowering his focus. He is perspiring. Alfred is a big lumbering youth who is evidently as embarrassed as I am. He is roughly dressed and turns a cloth cap over and over in nervous hands. Since the object of my martyrdom is not yet visible I decide it is unfair for Constance to have all the fun. "It's so kind of you to spare me the time, Alfred." I gush outrageously.

"My pleasure, Miss." The oaf is hypnotised.

"You are enjoying my pubic hair, Alfred?"

" 'Eh-what?" He stares blankly.

"That's what you're looking at. I have a heavier bush than most girls. Isn't it lovely."

"That it be, Miss." His poor cap is being torn asunder. "I was a'looking for summat'-suminat'--"

"Were you looking for my cunt, Alfred?"

He is devastated. Sweat stands out in beads. "Well, Miss, if that's what yer calls it "

"It's well down, Alfred. Most of the hair's above. You can see my mound...

"I expect yer right, Miss "Alfred is here on a mission." Constance's reminder is icy.

"Ah, so I be." Alfred drags his attention from my pubic fronds and focuses on my mouth. He is a simple soul.

"Then show Miss Cortland the gift you have brought."

"Eh gift?" The penny suddenly drops and he blushes. "That s a caution, that is, M'Lady. Yer means yer want me ter take it out?"

"Don't be shy, Alfred. Miss Cortland and I have both seen one before. I thought you were rather proud of yours."

"Oh, aye, M'Lady. I'm just a bit awkward like. Ain't never seen nothin' like Miss Cortland afore'. Yer sure she won't mind?"

"Tell him, Joyce."

The hundred strokes are implicit in the request, so I go all out. "I'd love to see your prick, Alfred." I lie sweetly.

"Can't rightly understand yer bein' strapped up like that there."

"This is because girls are so silly, Alfred, and sometimes change their mind. I can't change my mind. Lady Constance has been very kind going to all this trouble. Just think, Alfred, the only thing I can move is my mouth." Mention of my mouth inspires him. Alfred fumbles at his flies. He must have inherited his trousers, they have buttons. From the gaping cavern in the heavy tweed there springs into view the most appalling weapon I have ever dreamed of.

"I told you, Joyce. You're a lucky girl."

I have seen only a few of these male objects. I have no criteria. Alfred's is a size larger than the largest to come my way. My Mistress's voice is alive with warning, it modifies my shock. I manage to exclaim: "Oh, Alfred...! Oh, Alfred...!" In what I hope is ecstatic awe.

"Get on with it, man! The girl's had a good look."

"Ah." Alfred takes a step forward. "I do 'ope yer don't think me forward like, Miss."

If I could take a step back I would. But I cannot move. The engorged prong points at me like a cannon, the range at about ten inches. It appears clean. But every moment I can keep it out of my mouth is to the good. Ridiculously, I reassure: "Of course not, Alfred. Lady Constance has introduced us." Hysterically, I add: "Have you worked at Taunton long?"

"Stop procrastinating, Joyce. Open your mouth."

I have to obey. Alfred enters me like a well timed piston. My mouth is full. I cannot move my head or back away. I look up to my Mistress for help.

"Use your lips, stupid, and your tongue. You don't have to inhale the whole thing. Alfred, you must remember Miss Cortland is strapped tight. It is you who must initiate whatever motion you desire."

"That I will, M'Lady. Just at the start I'll give her the knob."

I catch M'Lady's eye. We both resist a giggle. I find I can deal with Alfred's "Knob." Under dual guidance I work with a will. What the hell else can I do! I expect every slaves knows the point where it is "Best to get it over with." I try and think of it as a large banana emerging from soiled tweed. It has a salty taste.

"Don't push it too far down her throat, Alfred, or she'll gag."

Thank goodness for Lady Constance! Without her supervision I might not survive Alfred's enterprise. He is panting and sweating and has a hand in my hair. If only my neck was not strapped I could do so much better. But, held immovably, I am forced to rely on him to control his strokes. I suspect Alfred is in no condition to control anything. Some of his thrusts-!"

The leather band is suddenly taken from beneath my chin. My Mistress's voice is soft. "There, darling, you don't need it now."

It is as though I am a whore. I discover skills, techniques and ways and means. All I can do in gratitude is cock a thankful eye at Connie's smiling face. She is entranced.

Alfred has staying power, or perhaps I am inept. Constance sweetly calls an intermission. When the thing on which I am working is withdrawn from my mouth I discover I am panting. My tongue feels as though it has walked twenty miles.

"Miss Cortland is inexperienced, Alfred. We must make allowances."

"Bloody marvel, she is, M'Lady. I'd be willing ter many 'er, so I would."

It is my second proposal, and most sincere. I dare not look at Constance. I work at catching my breath and resting for the second half of my travail.

"I am sure Miss Cortland will consider your offer after her term with me expires, Alfred."

"Term, M'Lady...?"

"Let us call it an indenture or contract. It has a little time yet to run."

I can feel his disappointment. But he has respect for the nobility. He also has enterprise. "Well then, M'Lady, if it's a while ter go... mebbee' us could do this 'ere every so often-bein' engaged like?"

"I'll think about it, Alfred. I'm sure Miss Cortland will too. She is a very obedient young woman. If you whipped her once a week she would make an excellent wife."

"Whipped 'er, M'Ladyy...?"

"To keep her lustful female impulses under control, Alfred."

"Ah yes. M'Lady-See what yer mean Alfred obviously saw little, but was intrigued by an erotic responsibility hitherto unglimpsed. M'Lady nipped complications in the bud. "I think you can resume now, Alfred. I am sure dear Miss Cortland is anxious to demonstrate her ardour."

The damn Thing has shrunk little during intermission. It regains what it lost as it re-enters between my lips. I am rested, resigned, and have acquired knowledge, my neck is free. Alfred has lost the initiative. It is I who advance to the attack. In a gratifyingly short time my mouth is filled with raw oysters which I must swallow in gulp after gulp as the hands tighten in my hair and the weapon thrusts and thrusts as it spurts and spurts. Maybe there is no great amount of his semen but it seems like a quart as I strive to cope. I am glad it is salty. Had it been sweet I would have retched. As he holds it for me at the finish I proudly lick and polish his receding knob. My task is done. I have learned something of men... and of women. I could laugh in joy.

Alfred is busy with buttons. "D'you think Miss Cortland and me could 'ave a little walk in the garden, M'Lady? Sort of talk things over?"

Poor Alfred! If only he knew! My Mistress makes short work of my romance. "Miss Cortland is under penance, Alfred. She stays as she is for the rest of the day."

"Penance, M'Lady...? Sort of Catholic like?"

"Exactly. She is also in one of the more beneficial postures of Yoga. Before you leave she has something to say."

I have forgotten. Hastily I retrieve honour. "Thank you for allowing me to suck your cock, Alfred."

"Yer right welcome, Miss " Lady Constance Taunton pushes her serf back into the wilderness. He does not want to go. At the door he takes a last look at my pubic hair, but is gentleman enough to also give me a leering wink of promise. "I've been meaning to speak to you about the roses... It is M'Lady's dismissal as she propels him down the passage.

I kneel alone. I am honestly tired, and content in the clasp of my straps. I have done something inexpressibly awful and have been rewarded with more laughter than tears. Nothing about slavery ever makes sense. I feel sorry for poor simple Alfred. I doubt he will ever take me to wife. My knees are hurting.

"I'm so proud of you, darling. I'll never, never sell you now."

Constance is very sweet. She smells gorgeously of Constance as she bends to kiss me again and again. While she kisses me I do not mind that I must kneel like this through the whole day.

"Enjoying your penance, Joyce, strapped to your cross?"

"Yes, Mistress. I don't mind what you've sentenced me to- honest, I don't."

She unbuckles the straps with gusto. First my arms to enable her to handcuff my wrists. I recognize her prudence, it has become routine. Then my tummy and feet... my ankles swiftly hobbled.

"I wouldn't have resisted, Mistress."

"I know, but I'll never give you the option."

"I thought I was to stay strapped to the cross all day, Mistress?"

"So did Alfred." She chuckles. "Mistresses can change their minds, y'know. You've made me so damn horny...!"

She leads me upstairs to her bedroom. It is close to the following morning when she takes me from her bed and chains me to the ring in the floor.

We are both exhausted and very happy.

It is early afternoon when Lady Constance joins the stocks to imprison my ankles. I sit, naked, on the low bench and take a wry interest in the proceedings. I have already made my only protest: "But Mistress, my ankles...! So far apart! I'm almost split?"

"Well, it doesn't matter, darling, you're not going anywhere."

"It's not decent."

"It is, between girls. Your pussy's chastely closed."

"It feels wide open."

"Don't complain, dear. This is about as simple a little penance as a girl could ask."

Constance is right. If this is all I must bear I should not complain. During the night there came into being between us a rapport, a warm girlie something, quite precious. It does not absolve me from obedience. But I wish to be obedient, even though I am less afraid of this woman by whom I am owned. It is the usual jumble I cannot analyse.

"There is a reason for spreading your legs, dear. That's why these stocks are made this way. But I won't tell you what it is. But there's no man in the picture and it's not so you can handily play with your puss."

"But I can't play with anything, Mistress. You've locked my hands behind my back."

"To keep you out of temptation, dear. Girls are not supposed to finger their clits."

"You know I don't. But I can see how, if she sat like this long enough, a girl might relieve the boredom. Is that what the punishment is, there has to be something...?"

Constance pats my exposed puss. "She's quite safe, dear, you can't touch her."

"I can't touch anything."

"Aren't you lucky."

"How long do I have to sit here. Mistress?"

"I won't tell you."

My Mistress kisses me lovingly and goes away. The punishment room, with all its objects for making me uncomfortable, becomes lonely when she has gone. When Constance is kind she bestows sunshine.

I assess my helplessness: two things emerge. Handcuffed as I am I cannot shift position, where my bottom sits now there it will stay. Secondly, my widespread legs. My loins are going to ache. Immobility will go to work. This thing in which I am fastened may not be as innocent as it first appears. I try and move. I can only twist my shoulders back and forth and flutter my joined arms. I shrug ruefully. As Connie has said, I should not complain.

It is very frustrating. I can see a bit of the big padlock by which I am secured. I can see the key to it hanging on the wall. In a hundred years I could never reach either. I can also lean forward and look down to observe my Pussy. I don't know why I should wish to do this, it is just one more of the sexual impulses becoming increasingly common to my being. I seem to be forever aware of my nipples, my armpits, my genital hair, and the cheeks of my bottom. Constance says I have a gorgeous bottom. I am ashamed of my pride. But, anyway, my bottom seems likely to be less happy after an hour or so of this. The bench on which I sit is hard, and the place on it where my derriere is planted has been cunningly carved to give extra exposure to my sex between my spread thighs. I sigh and settle down to dream. If my dreams are coloured by sexuality it is something ! deplore but don't seem able to reject.

A little time has passed. The opening and closing of the door makes me sit upright in hope. But it is not my Mistress. It is a girl in her early teens. A maid's apron labels her as staff. Her eyes are precocious and wise. Her voice is common: "Hello, Miss Cortland."

"Go away. You've got the wrong room. Close the door." I say it firmly but without hope.

"No I ain'."

"What d'you want?"

"I come ter visit. Yer oughta' be pleased."

"Well, I'm not. Please leave."

"You like sitting there like that, all alone?"

"Never mind. Just go."

She does not go. She moves close. "Yer all naked, aintcha'."

"That's none of your affair. Stop looking at me like that."

She moves behind and fingers my wrists. "Yer locked in 'andcuffs!" She is thrilled. "Just like ruddy criminals on T.V. Can't yer get out of 'em?"

"No, I'm not supposed to."

"Guess yer right. They ain't supposed to neither. What's it like- bein' 'elpless and all?"

"That's exactly what it's like Helpless."

"You bin' naughty or summat?"

Has this coarse little moppet drifted in here by accident, or has Constance sent her! It is something Connie might do. This child's account of my reactions might amuse her. I take the bull by the horns. "Kindly go and fetch Lady Taunton." I request coldly.

"She wouldn't come. I know she wouldn't." The young voice is possessed of knowledge. "We all know about Lady Constance. You ain't the fust gel' I seen naked and locked up. Lady Constance, she's a rare one, she is."

I am trapped. This little bitch can divert herself at my expense. I cannot be too angry with Lady Constance. She will be chuckling at my dismay. Perhaps if I had been sitting here long enough I might welcome the vulgar little so-and-so. "Then how about asking Nancy to drop in for a moment?" I ask guilelessly.

The moppet guffaws. "She can't. Cook's got 'er locked in a closet with 'er 'ands tied behind 'er back 'cos she dropped the dessert."

"Does that ever happen to you?" I ask hopefully.

"Not bloody likely. I ain't one of you lot." She looks indignant. "And me' name's Pansy, in case you're interested. I know yours. It's Miss Joyce Cortland, ain't it. Whatcha' want me to call you?"

"I'd just as soon you went back to the kitchen Call me anything you want."

With much deliberation the little horror announced: "I'm a'goin ter call yer Miss Cortland, all formal like. Makes yer look a lot sillier, sittin' there with a bare arse."

How wonderful it would be to hurl her through a window! But I cannot. Instead, she seats herself on the stocks between my legs and looks, pointedly, up between my legs. "You sure got a crop of cunt hairs." she observes conversationally. "I wish mine was that thick."

"You're still quite young. It will grow."

"Never sprout as much as you've got." She predicts wisely. "And such a cunt! Them lovely plump lips!"

"Couldn't you call it something else, Pansy? That's not a nice word."

"Don't know none other. Yer won't mind me 'aving a feel?"

It does me no good to mind. A grubby young hand clutches a handful of Me so hard I yelp. From where she sits I am beautifully available. As she leans forward her face is close. "Might as well bite one of yer tits while I'm at it." Her suggestion is utterly casual.

"No, please don't!"

"Why not? I want to." She giggled. "I want ter bite one of Miss Cortland's tits. 'Ow's that sound. They ain't all that big, are they."

I twist away but the fingers follow. Oh, how I long for my hands! The handcuffs make me so damn helpless. I can twist all night but she can win the game any moment she chooses. Resignedly I keep still and allow my nipples to be frictioned. "Won't never be big, but they come up a real treat." Pansy exults. "I got bigger ones nor' you. Nice and 'ard they're gettin'."

"Please leave them alone, Pansy."

"Doncha' like it, Miss Cortland? Come off it, yer knows yer startin' ter twitch."

"Stop it! Oh, please, stop it."

Pansy exchanges a hand for her lips. I now have fingers busy on one of my nipples and a pair of eager lips on the other. The tides of sensation I do not want are starting to mount. Damn the girl, she knows altogether too much. Probably a lot more than I do about such things. Can I sit here in cold immobility while she brings me to climax! I am quite sure I cannot. I yelp again as small teeth nip my most sensitive bud.

There is a brief reprieve. Pansy ceases her assault upon my femininity. She sits back on the stocks and surveys all of me as though I am a new and distant place. "Yer bin' hoity-toity afore' 'er Ladyship got yer." She opined shrewdly. "I can tell. Thinks I'm dirt, doncha'."

I squirm awkwardly against my bonds, feeling certain I look guilty under her assessment. She is dirt! But how dare I say it! I look at Pansy appealingly, wondering what plea might find response.

"See, yer can't deny it!" She is triumphant. "Lady Constance 'ull whittle yer down, yer see if she don't. And yer better be careful what yer say ter' me. Yer right 'elpless, yer can't do nothin'. No gel' can get out of them stocks."

"Yes I'm helpless." I admit placatingly. "But please, Pansy don't be unkind to me."

"All I done is work on them little tits." She sounds aggrieved. "Yer ought ter be thankin' me."

"Oh, I do. Oh, Pansy, thank you."

"Huh, just puttin' that on. Yer scared I'm goin' ter'urt yer. I can pinch them little things 'till yer scream, and I'm a good mind "

"I'll be polite, Pansy. Honest I will. Please don't do that to me."

This is hateful. I am at her mercy. I'm so damn exposed and vulnerable I could scream. I can't cover my breasts at all, she can do what she likes with them. And as for lower down...! Pansy will get down there soon, I know she will. Why, oh why did Constance have to do this to me!

"Real scared, aintcha' " She relishes my distress. "Well, Miss Cortland, I just thought o' summat'..." With a giggle of delight she has gone and I am alone.

I twist and squirm uselessly. I am firmly held. I try and fight down the tumescence Pansy's fingers have provoked. It obligingly recedes under my distress, but she will re-awaken it. She is the sort of little scruff whose horizons are sexual. I am sure she will be back, and when she comes it will be to extract from my body the spasms, the moans and gasps which are her gauge of pleasure. Damn and double damn!

The dog is one of the larger and busier terriers with a long pointed nozzle. Pansy smirks with pride at her inspiration. Lest the animal be lacking in enterprise she wastes no time, but thrusts his cold snout into my widespread cleft. Once there, he does not turn away. "Yer goin' ter love Percy." She tells me as one girl to another.

" 'Ee's real good at it is Percy."

If anything could get me out of the stocks it would be Percy. At his first cold probe I seem to leap a foot. Actually I do not move but the impulse and the sensation is real. I am utterly appalled. This cannot possibly be happening to me. I am Joyce Cortland- !

"Gosh, yer really goosey, Miss Cortland. You and Percy are goin' ter 'ave the time of yer lives."

The prurient moppet resumes her seat between my feet. For her, it is the front row at the Opera. She is immensely content.

"Get him out of here! Stop him! Get rid of him! Oh, Pansy, take him away! P L--E--A--S--E--!!!

"Dontcha' like 'im?"

"Of course not! He's... he's "

"He's lickin' yer cunt, Miss Cortland."

"I know! Stop him! Right this minute! Oh, damn, I can't move."

"Spreadin' yer legs out that way, Miss Cortland...! What else can yer expect."

The little tramp! She's got me! And the damn dog's got me. His tongue is sending wave after wave of shuddering sensation all through my being. The Chief Executive of Cortlands is sitting naked on a bench while a dog licks and nibbles at her vulva. I twist and writhe and tug at my handcuffs, but it is only my arms and shoulders that move. The rest of me is immobilised for the enjoyment of Pansy and Percy.

"Percy 'ull lick away like that all day if I let 'im."

"Please, Pansy, what can I do or say to get you to take him away?"

"Nothin'."

"I'll give you anything--?"

"Yer naked, Miss Cortland. Yer ain't got nothin'."

She has summed me up well. I am naked and helpless. I have no assets. A dog is licking and probing steadily at my sex. A teen-age girl is watching avidly and will give me no help. There is nothing I can do but gasp and cringe. I can do nothing... nothing.

"First time a dog's licked yer cunt, Miss Cortland?"

"Yes, of course I abandon civility. "Damn you, you little bitch, stop him. Take your blasted dog away from me. It's not decent, it's beastly."

Pansy enjoys my outburst. She is also enjoying the signs I cannot hide of an impending orgasm. Thoughtful, she reaches forward and pinches my left nipple so hard I scream. "That's for calling me a little bitch." She explains equably.

I am sick with the pain of it. I sit in mute misery while the dog laps happily within my pubic hair. Pansy and I can battle verbally all we wish but Percy's intent application on my sex will continue undeterred. As the pain of my pinched nipple recedes it is overtaken by a sexual excitation I cannot control. Pansy resumes a crafty frictioning of my nipples until I burst into shameful climax before her eyes. Now, the sounds and motions I indulge in are of the obscenity of sex. I am a woman brought to a fulfillment unsought, gasping and moaning my way through the concupiscence generated by the fingers of a child and the snout and tongue of a dog. Pansy watches my bitter humiliation with a clinical appraisal.

The dog continues hungrily.

Pansy's fingers continue their play with my nipples.

I am in the aftermath of orgasm. My nerves can stand no more. But they are getting more, the dual excitation of my senses does not stop. Inexorably the female fingers and the canine tongue take me on into a new world of ugliness and sensations I cannot endure. My being cries aloud for surcease. I scream hysterically.

"Stoppit! Stoppit! You must stop, you're killing me, I can't bear it!" My voice screams to a crescendo: "P-L-E-A-S-E-" In the tumult of my distress I hear a sound. In the tossing of my head from side to side I spare a glance and am electrified. Lady Constance stands watching. Her face mirrors the horror of my own.

"Pansy!"

The moppet fingers leave me as though burnt. Pansy's mouth opens in dismay. In sudden realisation, she snatches the still busy Percy from my cleft and pretends to comfort him. Her smile is false and frightened.

"Yes, M'Lady?"

"Did I give you permission for this beastliness?"

"No, M'Lady. But it's just a bit of fun like "

"Throw that dog out in the passage and shut the door. Then remove your clothes."

"Yes, M'Lady."

I glory in Pansy's trepidation. I glory in my Mistress as she releases me from the stocks. I cannot hug her, my handcuffs are still prudently upon my wrists, but Constance hugs me enough for two. I am kissed and kissed, and these I can return.

"Pansy, tell Miss Cortland what your orders were."

The girl is blubbering as she undresses. She sniffs and gasps out her confession.

"I was supposed to tease you, Miss Cortland Make you feel embarrassed like."

"And the dog? Tell her."

Pansy is now nude. She is trying to cover her breasts and her pubes with two hands. Her voice is anguished. "Percy was my idea, Miss Cortland. I didn't think anybody would come. Wot' I mean is... I didn't mean no 'arm..."

"What do you deserve, Pansy?"

"I don't know, M'Lady." She sniffs absurdly. "I'm right sorry 'bout what I done."

"Pansy, you know perfectly well. Tell us."

"I expects I oughtta' be whipped, M'Lady." The admission is sullen.

"That's better. You can place yourself in the stocks. You should know how by this time."

Pansy knows. I suspect she has been this way before. Before my astonished eyes and Connie's stem regard, the nude nymphet heaves up the yoke of the pillory and arranges her neck, her hair, and her wrists in their appointed slots. The structure is low. If I was in it I would be well bent, no doubt to expose my bottom, but for Pansy it is perfect. Lady Constance lowers the fateful section upon the delinquent's cringing segments and locks it with an authorative snap which causes me to share Pansy's wince.

"I'm awful sorry for that there dog, M'Lady."

"And you are about to be sorrier still, my girl."

My heart leaps. Constance is locking the hobbles on my ankles. When my handcuffs are taken from my wrists I can guess. She places the lovely length of slender cane in my hand and winks archly. "I expect you know what to do with this, Joyce."

Do I ever! Never in my life have I had a clearer conviction of purpose. I take up position behind the slender bareness of Pansy's bottom. It's a nice little bottom for her age and for what I am about to do to it. Aware of action at the rear, it weaves uncertainly in cringing anticipation. I know the feeling all too well.

"Please don't 'urt me too 'ard, M'Lady. I didn't 'eal fer three weeks last time I got it."

"This time we will try and make it six." My Mistress says sweetly.

"I knows I bin' a bad gel' an' all, M'Lady, but please don't 'it me between me legs with that there cane."

I suspect Pansy of being an experienced negotiator in these matters. I am glad we cannot see each other. The pillory neatly divorces us. I am about to punish a naked torso which terminates at wrist and neck. There are no reproachful eyes or quivering lips to dilute my courage. I take my most uninhibited act in many days and cut a lovely red line across the young posterior. The torso jerks and sways, a young leg kicks. From beyond the timber there rises a wail of anguish.

"It's too 'ard, M'Lady! Oh crikey, it's too bloody 'ard. I can't stand no more 'ard one's like that."

"A mere dusting of the surface." My Mistress declares airily. "Carry on, Joyce dear. A little harder, please."

I am utterly ashamed, it feels so good! Inhibitions vanish. I suddenly understand why I myself am whipped at the caprice of others. For joy like this a maiden's pain is nobly spent. The striations spring to vivid life across the young bare bottom, and they are mine, mine, mine! The impacts of my cane on girl flesh are exquisite, a soft cutting thunk after the glorious swish and vibrant whirr. The pilloried female torso gives out with a magnificent performance of tugs and heaves, of twists and weaving hips. Sometimes the bare feet beat an agonized tattoo upon the floor, the rest of the time they kick and kick at an enemy which is only pain.

Pansy's vocals are in the best tradition. Yelps, screams, cries are interspersed by harrowing moans. But the young mind is active. About every fourth stroke she lets us know we play with fire.

"You just wait 'till my muvver' sees my arse."

"Give her a few on her thighs and back, Joyce."

"Killin' me you are. Yer goin' ter be sorry."

I splat a couple over the dancing thighs.

'My Ma 'ull go to the pleece, you see if she don't."

"You deserve what you're getting, Pansy, and you know it. You're a despicable little fraud."

"All I done, M'Lady was let Percy lick 'er cunt."

"Give me the cane, Joyce. I'll finish this young lady off in style."

I am not sorry to relinquish the wicked thing. I am beginning to feel guilt at sight of the blazing young bottom.

Pansy is young and vulgar. But I have stood as she now stands...!

"Your feet wide apart, Pansy." Connie exchanges the cane for a whip, a short snakelike horror that makes me cringe.

"No! NO...! Oh please, M'Lady, not up in me crotch!"

"You will do as I say, or receive an extra twenty."

The command of Lady Constance is firm as granite. Fearfully, the youthful legs separate in a dire knowledge of things to come. Pansy sobs and moans in noisy repentance for Percy's pleasure.

"You may dance all you wish after each stroke, Pansy. But I expect you to return immediately to the open legs."

"Yes, M'Lady. Oh crikey!"

It must feel like a knife, slicing up there between her thighs. Its 'splat' is impressive. I am sure it must have separated Pansy's labia. I am glad it is not me, glad, glad, glad! The sounds of girlish agony are intense.

"You'll get a more entertaining view in front, Joyce."

My Mistress is right. Pansy's tear stained face turns to me wanly without hope. Her hands clench and spread wide from the viselike grip of the wood in which she is secured. The whip snickers again, and I actually behold the thong slice the plump fig within the pubic hair and spend itself upon the flat belly where it leaves a four inch brand.

I have to admire Pansy. She goes berserk after each lash. But, obediently, opens herself wide to expose her sex. Lady Constance whips the inside of each adolescent thigh with care. Then unlocks the yoke and lets her victim go. Pansy departs, weeping, her clothes under one arm. She does not look back.

My Mistress handcuffs me, in front. Her eyes are lambent. She brushes my nipples lightly and feels my fur. "Horny, Joyce?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"So am I." She leads me to our bedroom by my joined hands.

* * *

It is the next evening, early, in the still of twilight. Our lovemaking carried us beyond the dawn, since then we have slept. I ask uncertainly: "Is this a punishment, Mistress?"

"Not really, darling. Call it a vignette, a little cameo to cherish in memory. Maybe you'll see a leprechaun or a ghost. Perhaps a Druid seeking mistletoe." She laughs gaily at my anxiety.

I back my nudity against the trunk of the sapling Connie has chosen for my binding. My handcuffs are swiftly changed from front to back. Behind the tree they hold me safe. Without other bonds I would still have to stand here in the darkening Wood, awaiting her pleasure. My Mistress backs away, surveying her work that is Me.

"You look very sweet, darling, just as you are. I am almost tempted..." I dare not speak. There is a magic in the fading light, and I am a part of it. It would be nice if I could be held here by the handcuffs alone. I could lean back against my little tree and dream. I would not be hurting. But my Mistress resists temptation, she selects a strand of slender rope: "I'm conventional, darling. The picture calls for this."

I share her mood. In this small glade at eventide we have gone back into the legends of time. There were no handcuffs a thousand years ago.

"I won't be cruel to your elbows, dear, just tight enough to hold your shoulders back."

She is very sweet. I have come to love her terribly. Perhaps I am a masochist or perhaps I am just discovering myself! I brace against my trunk to bear my bonds.

"A cinch round the bands on your tummy, Joyce. It delineates your waist so enticingly."

The tree and I are very close now. I am almost welded to it. But I am destined to be closer still.

"A foot on each side, darling. I'm going to cinch them the same way I did your tummy."

Now I cannot move much at all. I am tremendously relieved when Constance backs away and observes: "I'm not going to tie your shoulders, that hurts. You're nicely held up above. I won't tie your knees either. I'm rather proud of you as you are."

I too am proud. I am the damsel in distress. My Mistress has created this picture of a nude bound girl from the mists of legend. It is not until I have been well kissed and Lady Constance is lost in the shadows on her way back to the house that a shiver of fear trickles down my spine. I am alone.

I am a naked female bound to a tree in Taunton Park, and night is falling...!

I am still the Joyce Cortland who does not panic. I repress imaginings of goblins and poachers and things that creep in the night. I wish to retain the spirit of what Joyce has achieved here in this glade. She promised me an experience. If I can compose myself sensibly these hours of darkness I face can hold enchantment. A strange and magic memory to conjure back at will. I do not hurt-at least not very much. But the tree and I are one. I can never escape.

Constance and I have become lovers. Yet it is tacit between us that I be vouchsafed no faintest chance to escape. My handcuffs and the hobbles make this denial easy. Constance uses, and I accept, them in much the same manner as a caress. Without them I would be naked indeed. But now I find myself questioning what I would do if she forgot my chains or inadvertently allowed me access to their key, and suddenly I was free! I tell myself I would slip away and resume my former life, treating my escape as a small victory she and I would laugh over at some later time. I truly believe this is what I would do, but I no longer thrill with yearning at the thought.

We forgot the mosquitoes. When the first of them alights upon my skin I fight my bonds in frantic distaste. The thought of it feeding on my blood while I stand helpless is not to be endured. I hurt myself against the ropes until I realise I cannot even shiver enough to hinder its search for the sustenance which is Me. It feeds busily upon me whilst I seethe with indignation.

A faint memory eases my concern. If you slap the creature so as to break its beak off in your skin you get the itch and the bump. If it is allowed to drink its fill it will quietly withdraw its proboscis and go about its business, leaving no ill effect upon its donor. I hope it is true. I am certainly going to find out.

But the mosquito's dining hour is evening. I am not beset by swarms. As darkness deepens I provide dinner for fewer and fewer of the avid pests. But, for as long as they feed upon me, I return to the same impotence I experienced with Percy the dog. This imposition may not be obscene. Even when one selects my nipple and inserts its probe I cannot accuse it of anything sexual. Yet every time I play unwilling hostess to one of the winged predators I have suffered a tiny rape. The play of my displeasure chafes my wrists within their cuffs. After awhile I neither see or feel them. It is very dark.

It is possible to sleep. Bound as I am the tree supports me. My head falls forward, that is all. Because my Mistress and I slept but little it is easy for me to slip away into dreams. Night has brought no goblins, I am at peace.

Sound wakes me with a start of fear. I twist anxiously but my tree holds me fast. There is no ambiguity about what I hear. It is footsteps, more than one. They approach from the direction of the road which borders Taunton on one side. There are two voices, one of each sex.

This is one of the awful moments of bondage, to know you must escape but cannot. The footsteps are approaching this glade. They will pass close enough that they can scarcely fail to see me, even in the dark my white nakedness will proclaim my presence like a beacon. Strangely I sense no rescue, footsteps in the dark mean only menace.

"It's right around here somewhere." The voice is male. "Makes a longish walk back." The woman is unenthused. "Looks like the clearing. Perhaps if we separate..."

"No need. Look over this way."

They tramp to my tree, unconcerned with noise. Our eyes are accustomed to the dark. In silence we assess.

"A lovely woman."

"And well fastened." The comment is amused.

They are respectable and ordinary. My fear shrinks as my puzzlement grows. I shrink from saying the obvious, so say nothing. The woman speaks for me. Her voice is kind. "Please don't be frightened. We will do you no harm."

"You are Miss Cortland, Miss Joyce Cortland?"

I am now excitedly curious. I say: "Yes... Yes, I am." I watch the woman take the plastic pouch and the bottle from her bag. From the pouch comes a wad of cloth on which is poured part of the contents of the bottle. I know instantly what is about to happen. It is the woman who holds the chloroform against my face as she says gently: "Don't struggle, dear. It's going to be alright."

It is not alright. But I am helpless.

The darkness takes me.

CHAPTER SIX - WHODUNIT!

When I slowly merge back into consciousness I am still in the twilight mood of Taunton Wood and the little Glade. I am fey with memories of other times, of centuries past, long, long ago. I can still feel my naked back against the tree. The man and the woman enter the focus of my mind but change nothing. I am not afraid of them. They did not hurt me. But something has happened. I think it must be like this when we die.

I was chloroformed. I am still euphoric from a drug. But as memories clarify so does my vision. I am not tied to a tree in the dusk of evening. I lie upon a narrow bed in a white room. It is bright day.

I am possessed by lassitude. But after a dream or two I am aware of a presence. A nurse stands beside my bed. We exchange smiles.

"Everything O.K., Miss Cortland?"

My answer is as silly as the question. How do I know how I am! I am as lost as a female can ever be. I tell her so.

"No pain, no nausea?"

I shake my head. "Where am I?"

"The Braemar Nursing Home, dear."

"Why? What for?"

She gives me the professional smile which tells me I am a child to be treated kindly and told nothing.

"Who brought me here?"

She feels my pulse. I raise my forearm automatically to aid her in the routine motion-But I do not raise it! It refuses to move. In panic I test my fingers, they are normal. I flare up accusingly.

"My wrist is strapped-?"

"Just for a little while, dear. Don't worry."

"My other wrist is strapped down too. You've got me strapped to the bed!"

"Hush, dear, it doesn't matter. It's part of the treatment."

"What treatment? And it does matter. It matters to me a lot."

I get the smile. In panic I test my feet but find them free. I am fastened only by my wrists. They are strapped, one on each side, to the frame where I cannot reach.

"You're nice and comfy, dear."

I am patted and left alone. I tug fretfully at my wrists but they are tightly secured. This is a hospital cot equipped for all emergencies...! Panic strikes again. The damn place may be an asylum I have been put away! Hospitals don't keep their patients strapped down, I can't even reach for the glass of water on the stand. I can't do anything but fume. Out of my dismay emerges disquiet. Not pain, but a sense of something wrong. These people have been messing around with me!

Being female, my first reaction is obvious. I have been raped or in some way impregnated. There is a word... Inseminated. For some reason these people are going to make me have a baby. I will be kept strapped to this cot until I conceive. It cannot be Constance who has had this done to me... it cannot!

Or has some bizarre humour been practiced on me! A tattoo? Some obscene horror I will bear with loathing all my life? But tattoos don't need hospitals... Or do they?

A brand! This is plausible. Constance would adore her brand on me and I would wear it with such pride. Tentatively I shift this way and that. I rub what I can move against the sheets. But I can locate nothing. The unease nags but I cannot pinpoint it. No bandages, no pads or tapes.

Or is it internal? What may they have done to me inside! Removed my clitoris? I have- heard of it being done. Reshape my vulva? But surely there would be pain! No doubt I am heavily sedated.

The doctor is a pleasant youngish type. The nurse hovers with a tray. Their professional smiles are defeating.

"Wide awake, Miss Cortland?"

He grasps the covers from beneath my chin. It is not until then I realise I am stark naked beneath them. Goodness knows, being naked should not bother me any more, but in this context it does. Tense, I freeze against the straps. "I... - There's no nightdress... I've got nothing on."

He could not care less. Gently, he pulls the covers far down and my world is shattered. Joyce Cortland is destroyed. The fluffed up sheets had hidden them, but now they are nakedly revealed.

I possess two huge firm breasts.

* * *

The days pass. I am certainly not shaped like a child but I am treated like one. Smiles, pats, and gentle reassurance, but never an answered question. They will discuss these female monstrosities upon my chest, but are mute as to why they are there.

My wrists remain strapped. I must not finger my new breasts or the incisions by which they came into being. Tape holds gauze wads over my wounds. It is changed daily.

I have never been so frustrated in my life. My need to handle these heavily nippled mounds becomes an obsession. But it is denied. They are fearful I will strive to undo their work. When the scalpel cuts are healed it will be too late. The breasts will be mine whether I want them or not. In an agony of loathing I reject them. But it does no good. They are there.

I have plenty of time to think. Someone has had this done to me for a reason. I had a flat chest and was glad of it. Now I have blossoming boobs! The vulgarity aptly satisfies my sentiments about the two objects forever in my view. Only smiles greet my request for covering. My twin feminine volcanoes are kept ostentatiously bare. I hunt for a reason and cannot find anything except a pattern: Everyone who has possessed me since that day I visited the Sheik Haarami has chosen to emphasise my femaleness, a femininity I have always despised but which so many enforced orgasms have compelled me to acknowledge. One of them has done this. They have made me ultra female with a vengeance.

Was it Constance? If these breasts are hers I can bear them happily. I have no illusions about being able to get rid of them, not while I am enslaved. But I have an uneasy suspicion of Haarami... To equip me thus would satisfy his sense of what is proper. I can see his wise old eyes admiring... If these have been bestowed upon me by a man they will drive me insane.

My thoughts have been of my condition as a slave, a slavegirl with breasts. But I am suddenly appalled. These two breasts are bad enough in slavery, but outside...! Out in the world they are impossible. I can hear the sniggers and see the smirks... Joyce Cortland with breasts...!

I can never face it.

A Board Meeting at Cortlands. Every male eye would strive not to see these protuberances on my chest. Awareness of the Chief Executive's breasts would hang as a tangible cloud above the shining mahogany. And afterwards the snide comments: "She must be looking for a man."

"Damn fine pair though! I wouldn't mind . .

"Wonder what they cost her."

But if I was free I could go to a surgeon-even that thought nauseates. Someone has trapped me in the similitude of womanhood. I am blatantly female.

At the end of a week my wrists are no longer strapped tight to the bed. They are granted a little freedom with a short chain and a handcuff. I can reach my new breasts with fingertips only. But I am more comfortable in my enforced convalescence. I have passed the stage of wanting to do myself an injury. The incisions are healing.

"They're really lovely, Miss Cortland. I wish I had them." The damn nurse is quite sincere. She never tires of running her fingers over my new curves.

The doctor reminds me of something I do not want to know. "You'll be one of the most beautiful women in London." He chuckles. "It's quite a responsibility."

"What you've done to me is cruel."

"That feeling won't last, Miss Cortland."

"Please tell me who...?"

"Sorry. Confidential. Seriously now... You're going to get a lot more out of life with these... than the way you were before."

"They'll be erotic symbols for someone to paw. Why must you leave them bare like this?"

"I want you to become accustomed to them, to see them all day long while you are unable to... interfere."

"I'm a prisoner, aren't I? Or are these chains on my wrists a part of surgery?"

"Let's not worry about that. It's very necessary too for you to become aware of other people looking at them."

"You certainly do that." I tell him crossly. "Tell me, do they give you an erotic stimulus?"

"Yes."

Damn him! He is the beginning. Wherever I go these huge breasts will promote erections, lewd glances, envy. From somewhere they draw upon a force to radiate sexuality. The force is in me. Oh, damn!

"Why did you have to make them so immense?"

"They aren't really. You're just not used to anything there. They are beautifully firm, they won't sag. I assure you, Miss Cortland, you'll end up being very proud..."

"How the devil did you make my nipples like I mean stand out--up--so big? And they're always erect... as though"

"Professional secret." He chuckles again. "I'm good at this work. It's possible to plump up the lips of a girl's vulva, but you're already well equipped down there. However, if any time you want some special effect...?"

I blush like fury and we both laugh.

"I'm a slave." I tell him carelessly. "I suppose you know?"

"Yes." His voice becomes intense. "I wish I could afford to buy you, but you're way beyond my means."

I make my query casual: "D'you happen to know if I'm for sale?"

"Lovely weather for the time of year." He counters, and winks.

On the fourteenth day I get my hobbles back. My ankles are joined by the lovely silver chain. The nurse locks them on me with the same care she employs with a bandage. My wrist chains are removed. The first thing I do is cup my huge breasts. Then, ashamed of my femininity, I blush and stretch my arms wide in glorious freedom.

"Gosh, that feels good!"

"Your breasts or the stretch, Miss Cortland?" The nurse is amused.

There is now a fresh indignity. From the band on my right ankle a long chain runs to the far wall where it is firmly locked. "Sorry about this, dear, but we can't have you hovering around the door."

"You mean I might bop you or jump you?"

"That's right. We need to see where you are when we come in. Probably you'd never do it but just in case."

I clink around, testing. ! can cover most of the room but cannot get near the door. I suppose the precaution is sensible- for them!

"You'll be here another week, dear. We might as well all be comfortable."

I stand and watch her go. The door locks with an emphatic snap. They must think me a resourceful prisoner! Trembling, I shuffle my hobbled steps to the mirror.

They are gorgeous, incredible, beautiful beyond words! The doctor was right. Their proportions are the largest size suitable to the rest of Me. They ride high on my chest, their nipples are impertinent. They are the dream of every man and every woman and I hate them bitterly.

Do I!

Dammit, I don't know. I don't know anything. I envision a hundred scenes in which I am unutterably shamed by people gazing upon this evidence of my femaleness. But there are a hundred more in which I glory and a fire burns hot between my legs. In a tentative exploration I friction my new nipples and am rewarded by shafts of sensation at which I gasp and desist. It is too intense. It will take some getting used to.

I wonder what they'll be like in a Bra'!

As a slave, I may never know.

My breasts are too firmly protuberant to lift. But by an upward pressure I can see the thin white lines that no one else will know are there. They are healed and will soon vanish. My breasts are prisoners within their own skin, and I am their prisoner too. I can never escape.

They know my fate but will not tell. I see it in their eyes when we talk. I feel sure something has changed. I want Lady Constance, but when I ask for her I get only a blank stare. I test them with all the names, but they are terribly cautious. I get the dismissive smile.

"The start of a wonderful new life, Miss Cortland. I envy you."

"You'll be the talk of the town."

Was that last one sarcasm! I shrug off their enthusiasm. I don't know how much they have been told. I wonder what they thought of the whipmarks that were on me when I came. I have prodded both with that query but they will have none of it. But I'll swear whipmarks on a girl do not embarrass them. Like the lines beneath my breasts the whipmarks have vanished. Some lucky owner is going to have a complete virgin skin to whip. I wonder, with considerable concern, who it will be.

I cannot escape.

I do not need to.

"There is everything you need, Miss Cortland and money."

It is the twenty-second day. We stand in the nurse's own room. I am free of all restraint. Around me on the bed and on chairs is truly all I need to go back into the world. Suspiciously, I begin to dress.

"Nurse, are you really going to let me go?"

She laughs at my incredulity. "As far as the Braemar is concerned you were never a prisoner, Miss Cortland."

They are safe. I will never go to the police. I won't do anything... Dammit, how can I! Trembling, I pick up the exquisitely fabricated bra'.

"I measured and picked it out specially, dear."

It is utterly perfect. But my breasts do not need support. After being naked so long it feels like wearing a tent. "Do I really need a bra'?" I ask doubtfully.

"Your nipples will drive you crazy if you don't."

How right she is! I blush and make adjustments. My breasts respond in added glory. I finish clothing myself. I am in a maze of wonderment. I am outrageously beautiful.

"I'm going to drive you home myself, Miss Cortland. This place is in London, y'know."

It is all unreal. I am free! At least I think I am! Absurdly, I consider that someone has been cheated out of my purchase price, and wonder how huge a sum it may have been. Was it Connie? If so, I'll write her a cheque.

"It's been lovely having you." My nurse is shyly sincere. We kiss in sudden affection. A moment later I stand on the pavement outside my own house. I am exquisitely attired, everything about me is right.

But I have breasts.

I thank providence it is not my butler but the maid. She is sufficiently startled by my advent to be flustered. I fob her off with trivia and go directly to my bedroom. I don't think she noticed...!

But here in this haven I face decision. What the hell do I do now! In all that has happened this is the most tumultuous jumble of emotions I have had to cope with. I have a terrible fear that Joyce Cortland would know what to do. But I am not Joyce Cortland, not any more. I am two lovely breasts that everyone will admire, and behind which I will quiver in mortification. I will wear an endless blush.

My breasts are vibrant with sensation. It is the Bra' and the clothes. My nipples, even though covered and confined, contrive a constant friction against my dress. Every quiver generated beneath my bra' transmits itself instantly to the fire already burning between my thighs. I see now why breasts make a woman so vulnerable. Lasciviously manipulated they can bring her to her knees or lay her on her back. It is disgusting. It is frightening. It can happen to me. It is like a disease flaring up unexpectedly, perhaps when you want it least. A disease for which there is no cure.

But there is a cure!

It shows my mental turmoil that I should forget. My doctor is also a friend. He will have me back to normal in no time flat and no one will know. In a wave of relief I go to the phone and start to dial.

I dial three digits, then place the receiver back on its cradle. I don't know what I look like but I feel torn asunder. In a desperate reversion to childhood I fling myself across my bed and cry like a baby. I cry a long time. I go to sleep.

"It's Mr. Willard, Miss." The maid's voice penetrates more forcefully than her discreet knock. For good measure, she adds: "He knows you're at home."

Dwight! Oh damn! I say 'thank you, Millie' and fly to the dresser. I have the ravages of many tears to repair. My heart is thudding. I need Dwight desperately enough that I will walk in as though nothing has happened and come what may!

I refuse to try and keep Dwight at arm's length. And anyway, he would not let me. He speaks my name and enfolds me with such a tenderness I wonder if he knows. But that is impossible. This is just a kindly man who loves me and for whom I am most grateful. We hold each other close and I feel him tense.

"You look better than your best, Joyce."

He has backed away and absorbs my new look. If he sees my breasts he gives no sign. I am Joyce and he sees me as a person. Perhaps he had not seen my breasts. But he must have...! He has certainly felt them against his chest. It is impossible he cannot be aware of them. Or is he just a gentleman!

We talk business over Tea in my home office. There is much to talk about but it is all unreal. Since sitting here last I have been naked, chained and whipped and been loved by a woman. I can tell Dwight none of these things. I just can't. Starkly stated they would sound beastly, and he is so dear a friend. Instead, we talk of Cortlands and debentures and a possible merger. I feel sure my breasts must seem to point at him like the guns of a battleship, but his eyes rove across them without focusing. It is my business that I have acquired them, he will not pry. After he has gone I cry again. He would have helped me but I did not ask. Dwight will be hurt that I did not speak, but I could not speak, I cannot now. Under the compulsion of my breasts I leave a letter of explanation for a longer absence, then go and take the smallest of my two cars.

On the outside Taunton is unchanged. On the inside it has acquired a new butler. But I am recognized and taken instantly to Connie's favourite room. Constance is there.

So is the Sheik Haarami.

Lady Constance Taunton is naked except for handcuffs. She wears them with a flair. I have caught the two of them over cocktails. Connie winks and goes to the bar to provide me with mine.

"You are most welcome, Miss Cortland." The old hawk's voice is pure silk leavened with laughter. "We were expecting you."

"In fact we had a wager over whether you would or would not stay with Dwight." Connie chimes in. "I won't tell you who won."

I stand like an idiot. The world is insane.

Or am I.

Constance drops to one knee in a delightful curtsey and proffers my drink with her chained hands. I pick up her heavy vibrations and know I must follow her lead. I take a chair and sip.

"In the business world you call it a takeover." Connie explains brightly. "The Sheik Haarami decided you and I need a lesson, so he has taken us over. He's been awfully clever." She displays her handcuffs. "I wear these all the time now." She snickers. "But that's about all. We're both slaves, darling, and tomorrow I get my first whipping, one of those solemn warning affairs."

"Lady Taunton is a jewel beyond price." Intones my new master. "I am greatly blest. You will witness her first punishment, I hope?"

"I expect that's an order?"

"Subject to the will of Allah." He says piously, and I detect the very faintest of winks.

"And I now address you as 'Master'?"

"It is only fitting, dear child. Would you wish to be whipped with your beloved?"

"Willingly, Master, if it lessens her stripes."

Haarami sighs happily. "We both knew that would be your answer, my dear. Yes, perhaps a small concession."

"Isn't she a darling, Master?" Connie sounds enraptured. "She is a pilgrim on a long journey, dear girl...

The conversation wanes. An elderly Arab and a nude and handcuffed young woman are staring at me fixedly, and I suddenly realise they are not looking at me at all.

"You will bare them for us." The Sheik says gently. Shock had driven from my mind the existence upon me of the two things which now concern me most. The order I have just received was inevitable, and if it was Connie for whom I must bare my breasts I would expose them joyfully. But for Haarami...! To protrude my new breasts naked for his inspection is the last thing I wish to do.

"You have to do it, y'know, darling, you must." Connie's prompting is urgent. There is a thread of something in her voice which denies her insouciance. With a touch of pathos she adds: "A slavegirl should not displease her Master."

I turn to the old male eyes. "Master, you wish me naked?"

"No, child, simply bare your breasts that I may perceive those twin delights by which Allah, in his wisdom, has made you whole."

I do not owe my breasts to Allah, I probably owe them to him. But I dare not say so. If Connie is frightened, I had better be frightened too. I discover I would sooner strip naked than bare these female things upon my chest alone. There is something shameful about the act, and Haarami knows it. If he was ever a hawk he is one now!

I tug at the expensive things I have worn so short a time. I drag them down to below my rib cage and clutch them there in a tight band round my middle. I brace my shoulders back to offer our Master what he could easily take by force. The gifts of Allah proclaim themselves in all their glory.

"Come closer, child."

I am not a child. But, obediently, I kneel beside my lord. With an almost touching reverence he explores my globes and the two nipples which seem forever seeking trouble. When his fingertips brush them I gasp and wince in ecstatic response. The Sheik Haarami smiles. He is proud of what he has done with Miss Joyce Cortland.

"Exquisite! Have you any idea how lovely you have become, child?"

"Yes, Master."

"You may now remove your clothes."

I do a strip tease for him. I don't know what else to call it. I do not wish it so, but the seductively coy and feminine motions possess my totally and enact their witchery beyond my volition. If this is how breasts make a girl behave the Mohammedan Houri becomes most plausible.

I stand before my Master, nude, and am no longer ashamed. He takes me by the hand and leads me to where I will give him pleasure. He no longer seems old. I look back at Lady Constance, she shrugs and puts a finger to her lips. She is the slavegirl who has not been chosen. I am about to behave outrageously.

I am sure of it.

* * *

"I was only brave for the first ten minutes."

My Mistress is sobbing, her head rests between my breasts. I have one free hand with which I smooth her hair. Her flesh is warm on mine, but she is trembling.

"They didn't waste words or time. Joyce. They stripped me and hung me up by my wrists..." My beloved is racked by the agonies of memory. "I had no idea... I wouldn't have believed it could be so terrible... They let me hang the rest of the day and all through the night. By morning I said yes to anything and everything. I wasn't a Mistress any more, I was a slave. Darling, I'm a coward."

"You're not! You're not. I'd have said yes too."

"It wasn't 'till then that Haarami showed up and took possession- of a female who'd been completely subdued." The darling voice pauses unhappily. "I'm not a bit proud of the rest."

"You don't have to be, Mistress."

"I'm not a Mistress, I'm a slave, a lousy subservient female who'll crawl to escape a punishment. Oh darling... I understand how it was with you... Now I've gone the same way-Oh, damn!"

"Mistress, don't fret. We're what Haarami's made us. That's all."

"These lovely breasts, they're so gorgeous."

"I wasn't thinking of them."

"They're so exciting, so sweet against my cheek." She snuggles closer and pulls against the handcuff by which my left wrist and her right are joined. "But about the Sheik... He's as charming as he's wicked... and he was kind... and I suppose I'm weak. But there was a sort of instant rapport. I found it easy to fall into the... sort of privileged slave role you saw me in today. We talked a lot, and amused each other. He took me to bed almost every night. I surprised myself, I suppose I could say I was happy."

"But he's having you whipped?"

"Well, isn't that a part of the scene. The same as the handcuffs and the chain and collar with which he fastened me to the wall when he didn't want me in bed." Connie actually giggles. "The old boy's got the most musical snore."

"Isn't it just that we're female, Mistress...?" I let my voice drift. I hate to complete an admission of which I am still ashamed.

She hugs me with her left arm and kisses my nipples.

Once more my breasts deliver me...

We are in Nancy's dungeon. Nancy has vanished with the rest of Taunton. The sheik's mercy is kinder to us than Connie's was to her. We have a couple of blankets. We are not chained to the wall. The one pair of handcuffs linking our wrists is our only restraint. We wear it happily. It makes a sixty-nine awkward but denies us nothing else.

Constance is till my Mistress. Or will I cease to see her in that role once our Master has had us both whipped! I no longer trust emotions, femininity makes them unstable. Neither Connie or I seem much concerned with the punishment awaiting us. This is one more anomaly. I suppose I am inured. But Lady Constance Taunton...!

"When you tied me to the tree." I whisper. "Did you know?"

"About your breasts, darling- yes, I'm afraid I did."

"But who...?"

"I can't tell you. But the request came from Desmond House- It's an order really because--well, never mind. They asked for it to be done the way we did it. I was supposed to get you back the way you are now. I was so excited... A darling slavegirl with sumptuous breasts...! I didn't care whether you wanted them or not. I wanted them." Her voice drifts musingly. "But something went wrong. This happened, and I'm damned if I know whether they're connected. Haarami has forbidden me to ask any more questions about it."

I remember my brief freedom, and Dwight. The freedom I could not bear to face. But this is not the Taunton to which I fled for refuge. "Are we like this for life, Mistress?"

I ask dejectedly.

"You don't want to be owned by a man, darling?"

"No. I want to be owned by you. I came back--" I am hugged again as my Mistress whispers: "The old boy's been hinting... having fun, I guess he's been so easy to talk to. I think he's got something up his sleeve. I get the idea it isn't for life at all... something's going to happen."

"And in the meantime?"

"Yes, Joyce, we're slaves and we'd better bloody well remember it. We've got along fine, he and I. But once I stepped over his line of tolerance--he's adamant about a girl's attitudes. I said the wrong thing. He just clapped his hands and in about three minutes flat I was standing naked with my wrists tied way up in the air and my feet about to leave the floor--"

"For the second time!"

"Yes. Our Master walked in to superintend the show and watch me dangle. But I created such a fuss and pleaded and begged and so abased myself that he told his boys to untie me and put the handcuffs back on. The moment they'd clicked tight on my wrists I flung myself at his feet and wept disgracefully... I'm ashamed to tell you..."

"Don't be. D'you think I don't know the feeling!"

"The hell of it was my performance was real. He knew it was real. That's why he let me off. But I won't be forgiven next time, I know I won't."

We muse quietly and lightly kiss bare skin. I make an irrelevant observation. "He's amazingly potent."

We leave it at that and go to sleep.

The Sheik Haarami is a wily old fox who will forever keep us off balance. I have a terrible suspicion he has gone to all this trouble and expense to create a sort of Masque in which Constance and I are the stars, with him an omnipotent power in the wings. He amuses himself by changing our lives. He is so damnably rich...!

Look at us now! The three of us are having breakfast, and Connie and I are clothed in the smart sort of things a girl would wear for a day in Town. Yes, we are actually clothed! And our hair-do's are sleek. The handcuffs on our wrists are the only incongruity. But our hands have become nimble in restraint and we have no trouble with our knife and fork. Needless to say, we are hoping our Master has forgotten about our whippings.

Haarami twinkles. "With the right companion a dungeon becomes a Palace, does it not?"

We demurely agree. We also blush. He knows our secret, he knows damn well what we do together. Perhaps this is a prelude to being punished for having busy tongues.

He turns to me and blandly suggests: "I've been thinking about the new issue of Cortland debentures. Perhaps I should underwrite the whole thing myself. It is only sixty millions?"

Damn him! This one leaves me high and dry. Am I supposed to take him seriously? His face betrays no clue. Will I shortly be hanging by my wrists!

"I am but a slavegirl, Master. But this slavegirl believes the Board would view your offer favourably. Such funding does not effect control." I am trembling.

"Thank you, Miss Cortland. Your opinion is valued."

He turns his attention to my Mistress. "I believe there are considerable land holdings held in fee simple along with Taunton House, Lady Constance?"

Connie concedes his assumption. The questions and answers broaden. He favours both of us with queries and information. We become three business people--absorbed. Our handcuffs clink unnoticed.

Damn his infernal charm!

When the last of the toast, marmalade and coffee have disappeared and talk of business loses animation, the Sheik Haarami bestows one of his best twinkles. "I would suggest half an hour, ladies. This will give you time...? And then- you know the room." He has not forgotten!

"Silly of us to think he might." Constance admits as we share her bathroom. "You have to hand it to the bastard, he's got style."

"He forgot to mention clothes, Mistress."

Constance laughs delightedly and displays her handcuffs. "We can't undress with these on. Not unless we tear--" She makes a wry face. "It's probably on purpose. It will amuse him to see what we do."

We do nothing. At the appointed time we walk sedately to The Room. Two svelte business women going to be whipped.

It is too absurd.

But that's its subtlety. Our Master will extract from the situation every cringe and humility with which it is loaded. We find him comfortably ensconced in a chair. He rises with his own grave courtesy at our entrance, then gestures us into the care of the two helots awaiting our disposition. Nobody says anything. What is there to say! But we are breathing faster than we would wish.

We are dealt with one at a time. With two men attending her a girl will not revolt. Lady Taunton's handcuffs are unlocked. It is politely indicated she should bare her shoulders. When she has done so her wrists are strapped one on each side of the whipping post. She stands untidily while I am similarly disposed. It is the same post. Our strapped wrists compel us to face it at arm's length. The stark timber rises between us girls but we can lean to either side and smile at each other. We do so. The smiles are pale.

Now we are both untidy. Our clothes are supported by our breasts. Mine counter gravity most adequately. But we look silly. It is not hard to realise we are supposed to.

We are now stripped. Male hands on each of us, casually slow. We are exquisitely mortified. The Sheik Haarami smiles and nods. If we turn to him the smile seems for us alone. I know I am silly, but I could die of shame when the fingers slip inside my panties and tug them down. I obediently step out of them but I am close to tears. My morale is somewhat sustained by the gasps when they take my bra'.

We are now nude.

It was cleverly done. I have never felt more naked, or more aware of eyes. So far as my helplessness goes I begin to feel a veteran in such matters. My body is most efficiently exposed for the whip.

"I had considered twenty as a pleasant introduction." Our Master explains suavely. "But in view of Miss Cortland's sacrifice the number is reduced to fifteen for each of you. Eight on your bottoms with a cane, and seven across your backs with the whip. I trust you concur?"

"Yes, Master." Our voices are as one.

We are to be whipped alternately, in segments so that our pain is fully shared. Lady Constance Taunton has the honour of being first. A meditative helot taps her waiting bottom with his cane, then flexes the limber horror back and forth between his hands. "You may begin."

It is a skin cringing proclamation. I shrink from looking at my beloved as she receives her pain. She is unusued to it and may be shamed by her reactions. But there is a fascination, a compulsion. I lean and look as her whole being is galvanised by the thunking impact on her flesh. Her head rears and she strains against her straps. She catches my anxious gaze and tries to smile, but pain is etched too deeply on her face.

Lady Constance accepts half her eight before she starts to scream. At number six I cease to look, and hide behind our post. I am quivering with the fear of my own turn. We approached this punishment light heartedly but now that it is real we cannot bear it. We are so naked and the cane on our bottoms cuts so cruelly. Worst of all, we are being thrashed by male hands.

My own bottom is now to receive its portion. I am respectfully requested to extend it back into greater prominence and to keep it thus as it is slashed. My obedience is automatic. Experience has taught me it hurts just as much if I warp my loins this way or that. The first thud across my virgin skin jolts me into agony, all courage dissolves. A girl may be erotically aroused by a light caning. But not like this! Never, never like this! This is awful, awful, awful! I lean to see if Connie is watching. She is. I try to give her a smile but the second stroke erases it. My straps creak and hurt my plunging wrists. I stick my bottom out a bit further in order not to give offence. I follow my Mistress's lead and begin to scream at number five.

"Allah has greatly blest me. I am doubly fortunate." Haarami sounds truly sincere.

Constance and I stand, panting, glistening with the sweat of pain and fear. We manage smiles around our post. So far we are not going to die, but our bottoms are curved blazing furnaces.

"I compliment you both, my dears. Your motions are pure poetry, your dolor is the song of nightingales."

"Thank you, Master." Once more we hit the same key. I hope we do not sound eager.

A whip is different than a cane. A girl's back is different from her bottom. With me, my back hurts worse. It must be the same with Lady Constance Taunton, she screams at the first whirring cut. It is a scream of shock. I cannot see her back but I can visualise the weal. She keeps silent at the second, as though ashamed, but surrenders to number three. I can see her hands clench and her wrists strain. Thereafter she screams with each stroke. After number seven she continues to moan.

I give a duplicate performance. My seven seem an outrageous infliction on a girl, the blasted man must think he's flogging a criminal. I am well sweated and gasping when it is done, and my new breasts are heaving ..magnificently. They keep providing me with fresh vistas. I am tremendously grateful the whip tip did not reach their slopes.

"This afternoon for cocktails, my dears."

We express breathless thanks, and watch our Master and his retainers leave. No doubt we are to be left alone with our pain and our thoughts. This humiliating abandonment of a whipped girl in her bonds appears to be de rigueur in these situations. I lean as far to the side as my straps will let me, and cock an eyebrow at my love.

"Oh darling!" Constance is vehement. It's simply ages since I've been whipped: and never by a man! I'd forgotten... and when I think what I've done to you...! Oh, Joyce!"

"It doesn't matter. Honest it doesn't. Are you O.K.?"

"I suppose so." She sounds uncertain. "Gosh, that hurt!"

"Mistress...? Did you get anything between your legs? Heat, I mean? Should I have done?"

"Hell no! Not with pain like that." Constance pants gently for several moments, then shyly concedes: "It's just beginning now... I'd never have believed... Darling, how about you?"

"Yes, it's starting. But I think it's because of you. If you weren't here-"

"Well, it won't do either of us any good the way we're fixed. Darling, I'll never strap you to this damn post again."

"Yes you will, Mistress. You must."

"We'll probably never get the chance. But look, sweetheart, if you ever have the opportunity to fasten me like this I want you to. Then give me a damn good thrashing to teach me a lesson. I've been so rotten mean to you."

"Mistress... I'd never "Probably not, but you should. Joyce, dear, has it occurred to you how long it is to cocktail time? We're going to be standing strapped to this damn post for hours."

"Yes, Mistress, I'd thought of it. But as long as you're here too-"

"But, darling, we can't T--O--U--C- H -!"

We sigh longingly and lean against our straps.

CHAPTER SEVEN - SHEIK'S JUSTICE

We had hoped for gorgeous cocktail gowns. We did not get them. But we are not quite nude. A girl comes to where we bathe and affixes costly jewels after we are dry. Some we adore, some we do not. The sparkling choker is lovely, so are the glinting armbands above our elbows. We are not too keen on the big stone she glues into our navel, and when it comes to the little clips adorned with tiny gems we are even less than pleased. She bites one on each lip of our sex and does the same for our nipples. They do not hurt very much, but they do hurt. We will constantly be aware of them. When she clips mine on my nipples I nearly jump out of my skin. If they jiggle, and they will, I can envision endless orgasms. She completes our ensemble with a silver belt from which silver chains run to silver bands upon our wrists. All are locked. We discover the use of our hands is limited. We could not tilt a glass to our lips, but if we suck through a straw we may just strain our hand high enough to manage. We have lost our handcuffs but feel slightly more helpless. She then clips our ears. Admiring each other, we have to admit to being a gorgeously erotic pair of Houris.

We forget our small pains.

Our Master is benign. He enquires solicitously after our weals and examines them with pleasure as we turn and pose for his attention. We feel a ridiculous pride.

He waves us to the bar where someone has thoughtfully provided the straws we are going to need, and also a squat footstool for us to stand on as we mix the drinks. Without it our chained hands could not perform the task. But our metal belts and the gleaming chains are almost jewelry, and the silver bands about our wrists are wide and exquisitely wrought. Everything fastened on us reflects light and sparkles as we move. We are costly odalisques, but under the Sheik's approving eye feel more like kittens. We serve our Master and ourselves, then dispose our shining nudities before him on the rug and gaze up at the Sheik Haarami with respectful attention.

"The transition at Taunton will require some co-operation from you, my dear, if it is to take place without attracting undesired attention." Our Master smiles down at the kneeling nakedness which was once the Lady Constance Taunton.

"What must I do, Master?"

"Primarily you must be seen."

What he says is obvious. Lady Taunton cannot just disappear any more than I can.

"And when you are seen you must be happy."

"Yes, Master." It is not assent. She is waiting.

"Essential business contacts, small social affairs..."

"Someone will guess, Master."

His chuckle is dry. "Not necessarily, my dear. Remember, you will be clothed."

He is right. Clothes affect females, even our thoughts. Connie cannot restrain humour. "I could show them my whipmarks, Master." She represses the giggle. "Perhaps in the powder room..."

"You consider such liberty impractical?"

"Yes, Master."

"Why? Come, tell me. You will not be punished."

Poor Constance. How can she tread so fine a line! She looks up appealingly at the man who now owns her body. "I am human, Master... I will be constantly tempted. A little while ago Taunton was mine and I was free." She looks at me with love. "I even had a slavegirl of my own..."

"Are you sure you do not still possess her?"

We blush. Constance feels her way slowly: "Now you have made me a slave, Master... If I must be a slave I will try and be a good slave... and often I will be happy. But it is not what I would choose for my life. If freedom was offered I would take it." She shook her left hand to agitate the links of its chain. "You need these on me, Master. Without them I would go."

Haarami nods in agreement. "An excellent precis. You are honest. Once outside these walls, clothed and without chains you would invoke... forces... against me?"

"Yes, Master."

"In that case I must keep a chain on you, my dear. An invisible chain..." We rear our heads, our nostrils flare. We guess!

"Please, Master, no. Not that way?"

"Can you suggest another?"

"No, Master."

"I don't mind, darling-honest I don't!" My exclamation is spontaneous.

Haarami is holding up his hand. We had best keep quiet. We relapse into an obedient silence: two slavegirls on their knees.

"If there was another way I would use it."

His regret is sincere. We know it is. We clutch our glasses in our chained hands, the straws forgotten.

"When you go, Lady Taunton, Joyce will stay."

"As hostage for my good behavior, Master?"

"Yes."

Lady Taunton gives me a fleeting smile of tenderness. I will behave, Master."

"You will be obedient?"

"I will be obedient, Master. I will not escape."

"No, you will not escape." Haarami bestows upon me a regard in which I sense affection. "But, lest dubieties exist, I will be specific... During most of your excursions into your former status, Miss Cortland will do whatever she would do if you were still in Taunton House in handcuffs. Penalties would not be imposed on her unless you gave cause."

"Yes, Master... But... penalties?"

"Suffering is a part of life, my child."

We know what he means. If Connie flees the coop I will be whipped half to death! But he is not yet finished.

"There may be urgencies in which time is as vital as compliance." Haarami has become the desert hawk. "On these occasions, that you be not tempted. Miss Cortland will stand with her hands held high, her arms strained. The tension will increase too slowly to measure but it will increase until her toes no longer touch the floor. Her true punishment will then commence "Please, Master, no, oh no there is no need!"

"You will be sorely tempted, child. This visual picture of your love will give you strength."

"It's too awful "

"With your obedience Miss Cortland will suffer little.' The rock and the hard place! We are betwixt. Haarami is an old fox, his judgment of us faultless. I think my role is easiest of the two. My poor darling's decisions will be agonizing.

"Use your straws, dear girls." Our Master has compassion on our dolor. "When you consider it, this is a most happy solution."

"Yes, Master."

Our affirmative is perfunctory. We sip thoughtfully, seeing visions... mostly of a naked Me hanging from the bar.

"Replenish our glasses. Miss Cortland."

He uses my proper name with deadly effect in all the places where it emphasises what I have become. But there are three glasses and I have only two hands, both chained. In the fluster of trotting back and forth, of stepping up and down on the footstool, and of striving for one more inch of reach, I forget everything but what might happen to me if I spill a drink. Work is wonderful! When I once more kneel and sip from a straw I can barely reach, our Master drops his bomb.

"There is also the matter of Cortlands..." It is inevitable. I should have realised! Haarami gives me his most serious smile. "Quite soon there will be many things demanding your attention."

"Could I not... disappear... Master?"

"No. I have an interest in Cortlands. You will protect it."

"Don't worry about me, darling." Connie grins and shrugs. "If you can bear it so can I."

"There need be little to bear, my dears. You play hostage to each other, but that which burns between you will protect."

He is so wise. And we are so helpless! The silver on my wrists seems suddenly afire.

The cocktails work their magic. Our Master sparkles, we sparkle too. The conversation, and later on dinner, is animated and worthwhile. Our new chains are well adapted to knife and fork. By bedtime Constance and I are giggly enough to enjoy the drama of the draw.

The longest straw will entitle one of us to our Master's bed.

It is too absurd, but we are still enchanted.

"I would once have summoned you both, my dears, but my years are many." He is not embarrassed.

We understand.

Lady Constance Taunton draws the longest marker. The three of us love each other as they go upstairs. A hand is gentle on my arm. It is the girl, the girl who locked me as I am. She does not unlock me now, for if she did I would be free. She leads me downstairs.

I had not expected the dungeon.

But I do not demur. What the hell could I do anyway! She could handle me with ease. She takes my jewelry. When she unclips my nipples she plays with them, fascinated, and I flare into desire. But she only smiles and propels me through the devastating door. She nods brightly and leaves me in the dungeon alone. The door mocks me with thuds.

I stand there, naked and desolate. But she has left me both blankets. I seek their refuge, and have the damndest time disposing them with my chained hands. I refuse to think of upstairs. I wriggle in discomfort and start to cry.

* * *

The door wakes me. I feel sure it is past midnight. I am frightened. I know a fleeting gladness I am not chained to the wall.

It is Nancy.

Nancy is clothed and self-possessed. She holds a finger to her lips and looks around for her former Mistress. She is disappointed. We whisper brief explanations and she fingers my chains.

"I can't get these off. I could have loosed the others. I stole keys."

"It doesn't matter. I can run."

With Nancy's keys we defeat Taunton with ease. It had held only two captives, one in the Sheik's bed, the other in a dungeon. What need had they for guards or alarms. Our run through the park is a breathless adventure. On the road she has a small car. The tiny vehicle flees too, with us inside.

"Where d'you want to go, Miss Cortland?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Curiosity. Where to?"

Oh, damn, I am back at square one! I want to go home and use the phone. But I can't knock at my door in the middle of the night, not naked and chained... and with breasts... bare breasts! I turn to Nancy. "Where are you?"

"With friends I'm afraid..." So O.K.! I am grateful for what she has done. Inspired by compromise I plead: "Desmond House. Can you?"

She laughs as though amused. "Cup of Tea, Miss Cortland. Hold on." Our chariot purrs with added fuel. "Are those chains bothering?"

"Not unless I try and do something." I am flooded by relief. "Oh, Nancy, thank you, thank you!"

"Never cared much for that dungeon myself, Miss Cortland." She giggles. "That Arab lot thought I was one of the staff. Gave me a week's wages."

"We sit in the snug warmth and talk. The motor sings, as does my heart. I forget I am chained. By the time Taunton awakes in the morning the police will be there. Is it my heart taking me back to Taunton and the woman who purchased me, or is it my breasts that drive me from Cortlands and my home? The question rings incessantly in my mind but I cannot answer it.

"I love your breasts." Says Nancy.

My breasts have changed my life.

Desmond House easily absorbs the shock of my nakedness and chains on its doorstep. Paula is intrigued. I babble absurdly, clinking my shackles in agitation. Nancy gets a word in here and there. When Linda comes my breasts are again the center of attention. Someone brings hot cocoa which Nancy holds to my lips.

"We'll get those chains off you in the morning, love." Paula chuckles. "Need tools. Damn shame to spoil 'em though."

"I don't mind a bit. I've got so used to not having my hands. The thing is to call the police and rescue Lady Constance. Please, Mrs. Gantry, quickly. Right now."

"Of course, dear. Don't fret." Her hand goes to the receiver. "Now, who did you say this Arab chap is??"

"It's the Sheik Haarami. Didn't I say -?"

The silence is pregnant. Linda looks shocked. Paula's hand slips from the phone, she views me askance. "I suppose you don't know he's one of the owners of this place." She says tonelessly.

My spine feels the chill of doom. Something is terribly wrong. I look down at the silver bands upon my wrists and long for the freedom of my limbs I never seem to have any more.

"But because I've escaped he'll torture Constance. Please phone."

"Are you quite sure you've escaped, dear?"

Oh, no, no, no! This can't be happening. It can't! I look from one face to another in desperate appeal. Linda and Paula are embarrassed. Nancy looks uneasy. "Perhaps I should be on my way." She suggests diffidently.

"Perhaps you shouldn't." Paula's tone says more than her words.

"Yes, really I must. I can't help--" Poor child! Because of my breasts we are here instead of in my home, safe and secure and with a phone. Why the devil have I allowed these things on my chest to trap us. I should have had more sense. "Let Nancy go." I say without hope. "She's been more than kind."

"Haarami is one of the most powerful men in the world."

Paula's statement says everything. But I try. "Very well, I won't involve you. Nancy can drive me home. Perhaps you can lend me a blanket?"

Paula Gantry sighs. "You're forgetting so much, Miss Cortland: you're forgetting everything. Desmond House sold you and Nancy to Lady Constance. We can't renege-"

"But you promised to effect my release "

"From Lady Taunton, yes. But since the Sheik now owns Lady Taunton he also owns both of you. Desmond House won't cross him "

"But this is absurd this slavery nonsense!"

"Is it! What's that thing locked round your waist!"

She is right. For Nancy and I, and a few more, enslavement is starkly real. Mrs. Gantry gives my rescuer a sympathetic shrug. "I'm afraid you're going to have to revert, dear."

"Oh no... please! Haven't I done my stint!"

Paula locks the door and says, abruptly. "Strip."

It is shocking to watch. The young face becomes lined and haggard. Nancy looks about her in desperation. "Please don't send me back." It is as simple a plea as a girl can make. I add my own: "I'll pay, I'll reimburse whatever money will cover?"

"You have no money. Miss Courtland."

Once more she is right. I am a slave. Salves do not have money. My fists clench in impotence as she says to Nancy: "If you prefer a tussle first, dear, Linda and I will oblige--seems a bit silly."

Sulkily, Nancy undresses. She is young and lovely, and so forlorn. I could weep, and so could she. But she flares into protest when Linda produces rope. "Oh, please, that hurts so. Can't you handcuff me?"

"Behind your back, Nancy."

It is like an old, old drill, evoking memories. The rebellious hands are placed palm to palm and neatly tied. When Linda ties a girl's wrists they are tied to stay! When Nancy sees the second cord she grimaces in distaste but says no more as her bare elbows are carefully bound. She has been a slave and recognizes the inevitable.

"We'll be punished horribly." I look at Paula with appeal.

"Let's hope not, love. Haarami does have a streak of chivalry, y'know. I won't tell him you wanted to call the police."

"Thanks." I expect my voice is bitter. "How about Lady Constance?"

"I expect we can have you back there before her feet are too far off the ground." She grins at a sudden thought. "Be damned amusing to do a reversal if we can get you there in time..." Linda ties my elbows. I am too miserable to protest. She does not do it out of spite, but to keep me tractable. I am warmly kissed and patted by a regretful Paula. "This is a difficult business, dear." She shakes her head. "Sometimes too damn difficult..." She laughs dryly, "Good thing we didn't touch those chains."

Linda leads us to the car.

* * *

To be back in the dungeon is unreal. But the keys and the dark made Linda's task possible. We could have fought and screamed but then might have been worse off. There is also a rueful humour in Haarami finding himself the beneficiary of Nancy as unearned increment. She and I stand in the dim artificial light and look at each other in despondency.

"She forgot to untie us. Damn!"

"Think we can get at each other's knots?"

We try, but our fingers are numb. With her elbows bound behind her back a girl can't do much of anything. It is less painful to await the opening of the door. We crouch together on the blankets and survey our future. We will be punished. I may be punished terribly.

Breakfast is an incongruity.

I feel ridiculous. I am off balance. It is all too damn civilised. Haarami is playing with me. I can be sure of that. Underneath my skin I am frightened. For Nancy and I the bath was wonderful, and to get rid of the burning ropes more wonderful still. But punishment hangs like a cloud above our heads. It has not been mentioned but it is there.

"Allah has blest me with increase." Our Master beams across the breakfast table at a naked and embarrassed Nancy. He holds up a silencing hand. "No, I want no details. I accept the gift with humility."

Lady Constance and I exchange glances. She is probably more at sea than I. She is still chained as I am chained. Surely, during the night...? But our Master's use of his bedslave is not of pressing moment.

We eat with enjoyment. The Sheik exudes tranquility. His grey eyes twinkle at me over the coffee cup. "You seem apprehensive, my child?"

"Of my punishment, Master."

"Ah, you believe you deserve one?"

"Yes, Master."

The table is electric with concern. Eyes flash back and forth. My Master gives me his full attention. "And what punishment do you suggest?"

"Whatever pleases you. Master."

"That is not an answer."

"I expect I should be whipped."

He sighs. "We speak overmuch of whips, dear child. Have you no other thought for your penance?"

"I know little of such things, Master. I could be suspended. To hang by my wrists is terrible."

"You become trebly desirable in your submission, child."

"Thank you, Master."

"A most practical reward for a runaway is to brand her with her Master's initials," The indrawn breaths are like a gust around the toast and bacon. For several moments three nudities are utterly still.

"I will wear your brand with pride, Master." I fear I may have overdone the humility, but what is a girl to say.

"On the other hand the whip need not be unoriginal.

For instance... those exquisite breasts."

My heart almost stops. I have hated my breasts! But now I cannot bear the thought of them being striped by a whip-or injured! My breasts are beautiful. My acknowledgement of their loveliness is also an admission. I am half way to being in love with them. I falter: "Please, Master, do not whip my breasts."

"Ah, you have come by a regard for them. And so you should. Those breasts make you the most exquisite woman in the world."

"Thank you, Master. I am yours."

His quick glance is a flash of fire. "The words you are using are of the theatre, child?"

"I know, Master. I am ashamed... They form upon my lips... I cannot tell you why... and then I utter them."

"But they are not entirely false?"

"Oh no, Master!"

"In the matter of the whip, Miss Cortland, there are also your feet-the soles of the little feet that run."

I almost choke with emotion. Haarami is giving me such vistas of agony that I would now welcome an ordinary whipping on my back as an act of mercy. Again my lips betray me.

"Yes, Master. It would be fitting."

He sighs again. Haarami is very clever with these sighs. They disconcert, they leave a girl viewing forbidding chasms. "We will consider these matters, Miss Cortland. There is no hurry, punishment is salutory whenever it is received. Today we have visitors. Three separate interviews relevant to Cortlands: Wickes, Gunderson, and Lord Glissing."

I tense in horror. My breasts...!

"You will be present, Miss Cortland, in your capacity as Chairman of The Board. Your breasts will be bare."

I shudder most visibly. "Please, Master...!"

"You will carry off these interviews as though nothing untoward is taking place. These three men are gentlemen, they will respect your modesty and my authority."

"Oh, Master... why?"

"That your breasts be seen and noted." He chuckles. "We should send out birth announcements: A woman has been born!"

"Master, I cannot. I will die of shame."

"Think, my dear, think...!"

I think. I see my darling Mistress... hanging... whipped! I please: "Master, please... let me be clothed?"

"There are occasions when you will be clothed, Miss Cortland. The attire chosen will be most flattering... above the waist."

"Thank you. Master."

"You are reconciled to being a bare breasted business woman?"

"I will not cause Lady Constance to be punished, Master."

"You are of a price beyond rubies, child..." At that moment I am sure I am.

* * *

It is exquisite cruelty. Haarami has me thoroughly perplexed. I am to be punished. I am to be exposed. I am to be shamed. I must also talk business as though I had no breasts at all. The girl attends me. In her own shy way she is a torturess. Her smile probably hides laughter at my shame.

Waist high leotards. That is all! For my Master's purpose it is ample. They are tight, delineating my Venus mound and crotch: not too blatantly but enough to invite a glance--a male glance! Damn! My chains are still locked on me, I suppose it's a sensible precaution. But suppose they are not removed...!

I have said I will obey. I hope I can, I hope...! Visions of Connie being tortured may give me courage But my breasts already burn at thought of flaunting themselves whilst Lord Glissing and I discuss contracts.

A severe simplicity has been chosen for me. No jewelry, nothing to divert attention from my breasts. The girl carefully stains my nipples a maidenblush pink. Perhaps in mockery, she sculptures the most provocative coiffure I have ever had. It is not until we reach the door, within which my martyrdom awaits, that she unlocks my chains.

I am lucky, or perhaps the Sheik is kind. The first of them is Gunderson. Gunderson is not easily shocked, and there are stories... Both Karl and the sheik rise as I enter. Karl and I shake hands. Beyond the first start of astonishment he does no more than raise an eyebrow and watches my face more intently than he does my pink nipples. With Haarami present I can make no appeal for help- and it could be a trap.

"Miss Cortland is my honoured guest, Mr. Gunderson."

"You are a lucky man, Haarami."

Damn the man, surely he notices my breasts. They are the most prominent thing in the room. But even if he ogles them will they offer a clue that I need help. He has a poker face, I cannot tell. My nipples point like guns as we pass our papers back and forth. The girl has used cosmetics on my wrists, but appending my signature enables me to stick them under his nose. I consider turning to show him my whipped back, but that is as eloquent as words, and Haarami is watching. I think of Connie, nudely suspended, and am fortified.

"You see, dear child, your breasts are glorious beyond comment."

"Master, I think Karl knows or guesses."

"I think so too, but he is a friend."

"If he does, will I be punished? Or Constance?"

"No. But take care with the ostentation of your wrists." He misses nothing. But there is a good feeling between us. Mine comes mostly from having crossed my first hurdle, a business man has seen my naked breasts. "Master," I say meekly and without intending to "I had no interest in what we have done. I have changed."

"Have you only just noticed?" He is laughing at me.

I produce my faithful blush and show temerity: "Should I sell you Cortlands, Master?"

"What would you do with the money, child?" He is still laughing.

My blush deepens. I go all out. "Slaves have no need of money, Master."

"Are you telling me you need not be tortured into signing a transfer, Miss Cortland?"

"Master, please don't call me Miss Cortland. It--it--throws me, I feel foolish."

"Of course. It is what I intend. All your pretence of Corporate dignity must be incised."

"Yes, Master."

Good Heavens, I must be insane...!

I am saved by the next arrival. It is William Wickes. Nobody calls him Bill. His reaction is instant.

"Good heavens!"

I am drugged with success. I am enjoying my breasts and my painted nipples. "It seemed a pity to cover them, Mr. Wickes. I do hope you approve?"

He approves. But is not going to say so. "You are a most beautiful woman, Miss Cortland, but I would suggest a more conservative attire."

"The Sheik Haarami feels this more in keeping with my present status, Mr. Wickes."

"And what is your present status, Miss Cortland?"

I dare not say it. I long to shock him but it is not worth agony. "Let us deal with the tenders, Mr. Wickes." I say sweetly, and flash my Master's stern features a reassuring glance. I am a good slave.

When Wickes has gone I am penitent. "I am sorry, Master. It is a mood."

"Be careful of it, child, I could bring you pain."

I have not forgotten pain. I already have some shocking punishment hovering. I greet Lord Glissing sedately.

"You are looking remarkably well, Miss Cortland."

The old smoothie, he's had a few girls in his time! He also looks lower, which shows he is not as old as he looks. To be helpful I separate my legs a bit. I am still in the grip of what I can only call 'Breast euphoria.' I am longing for one of these idiots to speak of what I've got on my chest. "I thought you might enjoy this dress."

"Er... well." He has not noticed a dress, only its absence. He sticks an eyeglass in his eye and peers. "Remarkable..."

"You really like them?"

"Where have you been keeping them all these years?"

"The Sheik Haarami owns them."

"You don't say! Pity! Might have made an offer myself."

He opens his brief case.

It is over. I eye my Master contritely. "I was not a good girl?"

He laughs at my contrition. "You made a discovery, my dear. You found it heady stuff."

"They will tell their wives."

"Gunderson has no wife. The other two most assuredly will not."

"What now, Master?"

"For you, sleep. You got none last night. Tomorrow there is a gathering for cocktails."

"A preview of my breasts, Master?"

"Yes. I make no apologies."

"There will be women present, Master?"

"Indeed yes."

"I would rather be punished."

"You will also be punished. Have no fear."

"Thank you, Master."

How humble my thanks, and how absurd! But these humilities cover so many awkward moments, they are slave talk. I know myself in the influence of a female euphoria such as I have never known. The three men and my breasts have something to do with it, as though I have won a victory. In Haarami's eyes I have. I compound my submission.

"Is it the dungeon, Master?"

"You will get more sleep there than if I choose you."

"Yes, Master."

"But I do not want you pining. You shall have company." He sees me tense hopefully, and laughs. "No, it will not be your beloved, you would get no rest with her either."

"Yes, Master."

"I'll have that set of chains taken from you, they have served their purpose well."

"Thank you, Master."

"But I will order you well draped in shackles. They will not stop you sleeping."

"Please, Master, not a collar on my throat?"

"A light one. A girl is very conscious of a bond upon her neck."

He is right. A metal circlet upon me there makes me ten times slave. But if the chain is not heavy...! For the rest of me I know what awaits. I will be banded and linked so I cannot move without metallic music. I will waken in the night and wonder at the weight upon my limbs. I say my thanks.

"Your companion will be Nancy, a charming child."

"Thank you, Master."

"To ensure your rest, you will be chained to opposite walls."

Oh damn, and double damn!

CHAPTER EIGHT - ON FEMALE TOES

The process was slow, as had been promised. First, her bare feet flat upon the floor, her raised arms under no great tension from the bar to which her wrists were strapped. The naked hostage had been able to rest a cheek upon her bare arm and allow her mind to dwell, mortified, upon her shame.

The shimmering sheath was enchanting. She had never worn a thing of such soignee loveliness. It was woven of moonbeams yet was opaque. Viewed in the huge mirror it was as though her body had been painted with its iridescence.

"I am worse than naked, Master."

"A poor choice of words, child. Nudity alone could never achieve such beauty."

"Oh, Master, this rubber girdle thing-It doesn't show but it constricts outrageously-my breasts...?"

"Superb."

"Master, I cannot walk among them thus."

"You will... and you know why."

"But my nipples...! This stuff affects... it moulds itself... my nipples thrust out."

"A charming effect. They compliment your breasts."

"But, Master, my breasts are already outrageous."

It had done no good. Shrinking and trembling, and unutterably lovely, she had been taken to view Lady Constance Taunton. Lady Constance was already almost on her toes. They had adored each other with their eyes, but that was all. They had not been allowed to touch... Lady Constance could touch nothing.

"Please, Master, forgive us both... please!"

A band of fire had been etched upon the taut abdomen of the tractioned girl. One of the helots had done it while she watched, and cried aloud in dismay that she would obey, obey... obey! The tapered lash had curled around the narrow waist to raise a weal of proud and scarlet flesh. Connie had screamed.

After that she had done what she was told.

The reactions had been predictable. Lady Elisabeth Haskell had been concisely vulgar. "Dammit, Joyce, why bother to wear it? I can see your cunt."

And Pamela Crosbie: "Darling, those breasts! Can we go to the powder room? I want to feel."

The males who chose to acknowledge her breasts were overly jocular: "Have you got something going with Haarami?"

"Good heavens, Joyce...!" A shocked pause. "Will you marry me?"

"I say, dear girl, are you thinking of the Stage?"

There had been one wise and speculative appraisal. "You don't need the money, Joyce. But how much? I'll pay."

It had taken nearly an hour for her blush to fade.

Joyce Cortland sighed. It had been a river to cross and she had crossed it successfully. But there were so many rivers...! Uneasily, she became aware that her heels were not as solidly planted as they had been. It was starting.

The girl was Haarami's, utterly. His authority showed in the amused insolence of her eyes. Yet between them had grown a regard. If the girl spoke English she refused to do so. Her hands sufficed. She used them with intent concentration to bestow pain upon the woman's body delivered to her care. Joyce no longer spoke or protested but, in silence, accepted what she must. Sometimes they smiled.

They smiled now. Joyce did no more than gasp and raise a foot in reflex as the matter-of-fact fingers adjusted the clips upon her labia. A clip to each. Not the jewelled beauty previously used. These were strict utility. They hurt. It took several minutes after the girl had gone before pain merged and the cheek fell back upon the arm.

"It's my own fault." Said Nancy without rancour. "I'll never get out of here now." She raised a fettered arm from which the links fell weightily. "It's like old times. Lady Constance was always loading me with hardware. It wasn't so I couldn't escape but just to show me who I belonged to." She giggled. "You and she have a marvelous time with your tongues, don't you--at least, you did?"

"Yes... Oh, Nancy."

"Yes, I know. I'd like to too. But we're foxed all this blasted iron. It's been figured out to about two inches. Gosh, the way young Pansy and I used to strain to reach! Some nights the agony got so bad we'd tug and heave on the chains to get as close as we could and then we'd just pick up scents... sniffing like things in a barnyard."

"I can imagine, with Pansy."

"Well, she was all I had. But there again it was my fault. Originally I was M'Lady's favourite. I was kept in handcuffs or light chains and I serviced Lady Connie quite happily she tastes gorgeous, doesn't she! But one day young Pansy tempted me and I ate, and Her Ladyship caught me in the act. That's when I got demoted to the kitchen."

"How d'you stay so damn cheerful?"

"Hopelessness, that's all. When all hope has gone you do your best with what you've got. I say, Miss Cortland, is this old Sheik actually fucking Lady Constance?"

"I'm afraid he is."

"Think he'll fuck me too?"

"If he doesn't one of his retainers will. This is a male world. Haarami thinks every woman needs lessons on how to be female--his idea of female."

"He's right, y'know. We're mostly a tight cunted lot of bitches." Nancy mused thoughtfully. "I used to be before I was kidnapped. But Lady Constance had me half hung with my feet apart and my shoulders on the floor and whipped away between my legs with a special little whip she had-splatted it right across my puss. Drove me crazy. I ended up begging. You know, anything, anything at all if only she'd stop. She didn't stop for a long time. I was never tight after that."

"Nancy, are you going to be punished?"

"I'm supposed to be whipped Arabian Justice, or something. But I think the old boy's stringing us along half the time. It's sort of... hovering."

The heels were now definitely off the floor, the leather round her wrists beginning to hurt. There would begin now the tip-toe stance. It would last quite a while before the last of her toes left the floor. But it was going to happen. Connie would be hurrying... hurrying... Joyce shifted uneasily against the steady burn between her thighs. The clips were hateful, almost alive. Soon there would be two more. She looked down at her jutting breasts, the stress had not flattened them. No matter what was done to her they seemed to thrive, their nipples seeking beyond the anchorage of parent flesh. She felt a whimsical irritation that if the girl put clips on them it would serve them right.

"I am forever exclaiming on your beauty." Haarami was studying her taut nakedness with the eye of an art critic before a masterpiece. "Your pose now is one every woman should insist upon."

"But it hurts, Master."

"Not more than you can bear. And of course, so much depends on Lady Constance."

"Is it needful that I be slowly raised, Master? Lady Constance will return."

"It pleases me--a small conceit."

"The clips, Master, they are a hateful pain. Must I bear them?"

"Since it pleases the child. She has permission for small inflictions."

"But, Master-"

"Her life is unexciting. You represent a world of wonder to her. I could give her no greater boon than freedom to use your body."

"A girl sadist! Oh, Master "

"Not at all. She would not understand the word, or what it implies. For her, pain is power. When she is bad she is whipped. When she is good she has no pain. She draws a simple conclusion and looks no further."

"She thinks I am a bad girl?"

"Naturally."

"Master, is this I mean, am I being punished?"

"No. This not the punishment for runaways. But I have considered your penalty for that. It is to be the bastinado."

"The soles of my feet whipped?"

"Yes, child. We will dispense with the long drawn out rapping with the rods. A cane or a crop will be used on you. Your travail will last no more than an hour."

"I will believe it when it happens, Master. I dare not think of it now. I am already frightened."

"Think of it, child. But I will pot tell you when."

The naked woman pondered. She thought of Cortlands and of her breasts. Both were of diminishing impact on her being. Haarami was re-moulding her. The bastinado would take her deeper into his world.

This time the girl stood with a hand on each naked flank. They were close, looking into each other's eyes, seeking woman secrets. Their gaze was intent, smoldering... Joyce flinched and gasped as the clips were taken from her sex and replaced with a cupping palm.

The orgasm was inevitable. It was a part of pain. The girl would believe that if a woman was to be punished the gasping spasms of orgasm would belong. The small hand was very wise, its fingers trained. Joyce was soon alight with sensation. She did not plead, it was useless. And anyway, what did one more matter! Fingers frictioned a nipple and young lips encompassed its twin. She was sure too that, strained and bound as she was added the potency of other fingers and other lips. Miss Joyce Cortland writhed and twisted her way into a moaning upheaval of nerve and sinew. When the hands had shepherded her past the final fringe of sensation they replaced the clips on the soft flesh, now moist and swollen in tumescence. They bit into the trembling intimacy more venomously than before. The girl gently pulled and twisted the metal punishments to evoke more startled moans and the reflex kick of legs. Smiling, she went away.

Joyce Cortland now stood well upon her toes.

It was ten minutes before her visitor arrived.

It was Dwight Willard.

It was, of course, the end of her world. It was the end of everything. Her whole existence was shattered by this man's grave regard. He was shocked, she could tell. But no particle as much as she herself. Stretched naked, still glistening with the sweat of orgasm and pain, pungent with woman smell, shameful objects clutching within her pubic hair... It was a phantasmagoria. Above all, she was helpless.

"Should I release you, Joyce?"

Need of the question betrayed his suspicion. The tractioned beauty had no answer.

"We are alone. You are free to speak, Joyce."

"I cannot. Oh, Dwight, go away."

"I would like to release you."

Joyce realised her eyes were tight closed to shut out what she was afraid to see. Dismally, she opened them and met his. Clutching at sanity she asked, dully: "How much do you know?"

"Probably everything."

Why not! He was influential. He sat on Boards with Gunderson and Haarami. Her breasts would have given him a clue... and yesterday the party. Dwight was wonderful, her heart went out to him, but her lips were agonized.

"Oh Dwight, to see me like this!"

"You are very beautiful."

"Tortured?"

"Are you sure it's that?"

She was not sure. She was sure of nothing. But Dwight must not stand and behold her thus, not to look and look. All her femaleness and frailties bared for his inspection, even her armpits, now darkly shadowed by Haarami's orders. "Please, Dwight, don't stand there. Go to Haarami... go to him... please!"

"I must release you first."

"No! No! You must not!"

"He owns you?"

"No! Oh, not the way you think. Oh, Dwight, I don't want you to see me like this."

"I don't suppose you do. But I'm here. I can't see more of you than I've seen." His tone was faintly acerbic. "I didn't come to see your skin. I came to see what's underneath."

"There's nothing underneath, not any more."

"So it would seem. Joyce, you owe something to Cortlands...?"

"Take Cortlands. I'm no good to Cortlands any more."

"Dammit, woman, you must be in considerable pain! Are you drugged? Are you under coercion?"

"No. Dwight, I'm not worth bothering with. Leave me here, go away. I can't tell you what's happened, but its happened. If you have to know details ask Haarami."

"And leave you in this--this Hell, I don't know what to call it. Are you being punished or enjoying a spot of masochism?"

"Oh, Dwight, don't... Oh don't!"

"Don't what?"

"Don't look for answers. I don't have any."

"Good gosh, girl, what's that... between your legs?" She wanted to scream, or to giggle, or to cry. Dwight had only just focused on the clips. The clips were beyond explanation. She was one vast blush. "Nothing... they're nothing. Dwight, don't look down there."

"Very well, I've no wish to. I'm damned if I am going to probe your sex--unless you wish? Joyce, can I help?"

"No."

When he was gone it was very quiet. The only sound was her own panting. Her breasts were heaving... Miss Joyce Cortland examined her rejection of release, her rejection of a man, her destruction of a life. Ruefully, she recalled her first visit to Desmond House--and now this! Why had she not allowed Dwight to take her in his arms and carry her away? Why, why, why? She suddenly realised she was standing on tip-toe and her wrists were screaming at her to ease their load. But she could do nothing. It was too late--too late. She moaned in bitterness, and the smiling girl came and snapped clips upon her nipples.

Cortlands was gone.

When Her Mistress, a handcuffed Mistress with chained feet, came to set her free, the slavegirl sank at her feet and wept in thankfulness.

"I hurried, darling, I really hurried."

"It's alright, Mistress. My feet weren't off the floor."

"But you're so tired and sad and have you seen a ghost?"

"Yes. His name was Dwight Willard. Oh, Connie...!" The Mistress smoothed the damp hair of her slave, kissing away the wrinkles on the lined face, bestowing all the tenderness of fingertips. "I was told." She said slowly. "You reached a decision."

"Did I? Well, yes, I suppose I did. Mistress, I could have had us both free and I didn't."

"And you don't know why? Darling, I know. It's because you're a slave."

"I was your slave, now Haarami's stolen me. I'm nothing."

"But I'm nothing too, darling. Look what they've got on my ankles. And these dear familiar handcuffs."

The slave fingered the shining links, and suddenly realised: "Mistress, I'm free! I'm not tied or anything."

"Just noticed, pet. It just shows how far Good heavens, what have they got on you down there?"

"On my puss? I thought they were hurting so much... and now... I haven't noticed them either. They're clips... Ugh!"

"Want me to take 'em off?"

"You do it, Mistress. I daren't."

"Little brutes. They've made you all swollen and pink. You're so lovely..."

"Mistress, can we... dare we...?"

"No we daren't. Not unless we want to get ourselves whipped. I'm supposed to take you to that damn girl. Something's cooking."

"But I'm free!" Joyce looked around in quaint dismay. She flexed her limbs in a glorious stretch. "Has someone made a mistake?"

"I don't think so."

"You mean...? I'm being given another chance?"

"Looks like it. You know your way around, you could grab a covering and walk away. You could avoid the staff." Joyce surveyed the incredible. "If I went free... that way, I'd be obligated to no man." She glimpsed clarifying vistas. Then gasped in disgust. "But, Mistress, your feet are chained!"

"So I'd noticed. I'm also handcuffed."

"Then I can't go."

"Yes you can, you idiot. I can't but you can. Run like crazy."

"Then he'll have you tortured. Oh, Mistress, that's awful... that thing you've just released me from. It's deadly cruel."

"Darling, this is some sort of a test. Haarami loves 'em. He's playing dirty. It's like watching which hole a mouse will run to when you set him free. You've told him something already with Dwight -probably too damn much! But now, with this kind of freedom! If you get away he'll know you'll go to the police, and in some graceful and charming manner he'll let me loose too. He'll have had his money's worth."

"No! Mistress, he'll hide you away somewhere, tied up tight."

"He daren't. Not in my house. The police can insist on seeing me."

"Then he'll take you away and they'll find Taunton empty."

"Well, I suppose..." Lady Constance ruefully fingered her shackles. "Dammit, I can see how a girl can come to hate these things. There's no use me trying to hobble to the road. That's stretching luck too far."

"Let's go and find the girl. I won't leave you."

They looked at each other in perplexity.

* * *

The tailored suit evoked a blush. It had obviously been made to her new measurements. It was a severely perfect fit. Whether she wanted it or not, she was once again Miss Joyce Cortland. But she was also a figure ill suited to a tailored suit. Her breasts were imprisoned and sought release by a continual thrust. The two women were a screaming incongruity. Lady Constance Taunton was clothed only in the metal of her chains.

"Lady Constance, if you will pour?" Haarami was laughing.

A naked female, handcuffed, pouring Tea! Dwight Willard digested this as he had digested all else. His appraisal of the clothed figure of the woman he had once wanted to marry was approving, but he refused to meet her eyes.

"I expect you think I'm awful." With joined hands Lady Constance Taunton proffered his cup and sparkled at him without a blush."

"Not at all. The Sheik Haarami has explained a good deal I did not know."

"I can imagine! There's a good deal of it. Are you going to rescue us?"

"Miss Cortland is accompanying Mr. Willard back to the City, my dear." Said the Sheik blandly. "I trust her attire is appropriate?"

Constance was unsure of herself, unsure of anything. But her tone was as bland as her captor's. "And I'm the little hostage?"

"You could hardly fill that role without Mr. Willard's compliance, Lady Taunton."

it was a waiting silence, charged. Lady Constance was well aware of eyes. In desperation she held up her cuffed hands. "Look, I can't do a thing. It's not fair to all look at me."

For answer, Dwight Willard placed two keys upon the coffee table. He said nothing.

"I suppose they fit my handcuffs and my leg irons?" Lady Constance was cross.

"Yes. No conditions."

She picked them up, fingering them slowly, looking for clues on the men's impassive faces and the troubled features of her love. Impulsively, acting purely on intuition, she handed the tiny bits of metal to The Sheik. "Thanks just the same." She offered a pixie grin. "And anyway, they probably wouldn't fit."

"But why?" Dwight was exasperated.

"I'll tell you why." She looked evenly and directly into the hawk eyes of her captor. "You've been playing with us. You've been kind and you've been cruel. But everything's been in your Court." She paused to gain momentum and a bit more courage. "I won't say I'm ungrateful for what you've shown me about females, and about Me. Poor Joyce had more to learn than I did, but just the same... Now, if we all go home I'm not sure..."

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Dwight was impatient.

"No decision, Lady Constance?"

"That's right. It's been a holiday with you calling all the plays. Even when they hurt I sort of enjoyed it. So now you can make the last one. I won't go. You can forcibly eject me from my own house: in which case I'll make a legal re-possession. Or you can damn well keep me as I am. I can be curious too, y'know."

"I've messed this up for you, Haarami." Dwight was annoyed. "Damn sorry. Don't pretend to understand all this, but I've a feeling I should have stayed away."

"It does not matter, old friend. The tale is not yet told." Haarami's eyes twinkled. "I too am learning."

Joyce was trembling as she walked with Willard down the front steps of Taunton House. Reaching the car, she stopped and said, bleakly: "I'm sorry, Dwight..."

"Good-bye, Joyce."

She watched him drive away. She felt numb. Slowly, she retraced her steps. The Sheik and his slave greeted her without surprise.

"I had to come back- I had to." She removed the tailored jacket and fingered the fastening of her skirt. "Where would like me to hang these things?"

CHAPTER NINE - TRIAD

Lady Constance Taunton had been seeking the knot securing her bound hands for the last hour without success. She tried again. "It's sort of hopeless when they're crossed behind your back." She admitted ruefully. "But it's something to do, and it's a change from that chrome hardware."

Joyce Cortland gazed up sideways from the floor. Her view of things handicapped by the fact she lay flat on her stomach, her hands bound as Connie's were behind her back. She had not even tried to free them, knowing it hopeless. "It's not much of a pastime." She complained morosely. "If I got mine loose I'm not a bit sure I could reach my ankles."

"He needn't have fastened you like that so early. Poor darling, all this waiting."

Joyce strained to look back over one shoulder. Her left ankle came into view. It was strapped tight to a low bar. The knee bent, the leg raised. The soles of her feet pointed to the sky, and she could not move them. They were well apart, so would be whipped separately. In the meantime her strapped ankles held them, and her, in as demeaning a posture as she ever remembered. She considered it an injustice that her hands were bound as they were. They did not need to be tied at all, she could not reach the straps. In this agonizing wait for her punishment it would have been nice to possess her forearms to take her weight off her breasts. Once she could have lain thus without concern, but not now. Even her breathing frictioned her nipples against the rug, drawing from them an inevitable response and she could do nothing about it. She Could do nothing about anything.

"It wouldn't have hurt him to let me take half your sentence." Connie said unhappily. "Ten on each foot's a lot."

"Then you'd be laying the way I am, Mistress."

"Well... I'm not very happy the way I am."

"But you're not going to be punished, are you?"

"Well, in a way. I've got to watch you get your feet whipped. Oh dammit, Joyce, what's wrong with us! We had it in the bag and we blew it, tossed liberty away. And it's all my fault. Just damn fool bravado."

"Mistress, I don't mind."

"He's calling my bluff, that's what this is. Oh shit! If only I'd been drunk...! But I was cold sober and look where its got us."

"You'll still get the last word, darling."

"We'll probably both get the last stripe across our bottoms!"

"But, Mistress, he isn't calling a bluff. I was sentenced to this before Dwight showed up and he's not punishing you."

"Give him time. I never dreamed he'd go through with what he's going to do to you now." Lady Constance shook her strained shoulders irritably. "Think, if I knelt and wiggled enough, could I get to unbuckle those straps on your ankles?"

"Mistress, no! You mustn't. We'd be caught, and then you'd end up the way I am, and we'd both get fifteen on each foot instead of ten."

"It's so blasted irritating-to walk around and still be helpless... tied like this. Darling, if somebody finally unties me I'll never tie a girl's hands behind her back again, it's too damn frustrating."

"Yes you will. Mistress. You'll tie mine. You know you will."

"Humph, if I ever get the chance. But look at the spot we've put ourselves in. Haarami's got us. He can keep us for life. We not only burned our bridges but we scattered the ashes. Oh damn, I can't reach a single knot. I wish the old bastard had had someone tie my feet at the same time, I wouldn't feel half as idiotic."

"Did I hear the term 'Old Bastard,' Lady Constance?" The captive women gasped. The Sheik was eyeing them benevolently from around the door. From the depths of disgust, Connie exclaimed: "Oh shit, that's torn it!"

"Indeed it has, your Ladyship."

Constance squirmed. "Don't rub it in, Haarami. Can't you call me Connie-or something simple? Ladyships don't have their hands tied behind their back."

"Conversely, you might address me with respect." Constance shrugged hopelessly. "If I call you 'Master' now and eat humble pie, you'll just think I'm scared and trying to weasel out."

"Well... aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm scared. And if I could sweet talk you into not punishing me I would."

"You are engagingly honest, Lady Taunton. I am looking forward to your punishment. 'Old Bastard' indeed! And from a woman, and a slave..."

"Master, she's upset. She's frightened for me and my feet." Joyce looked up imploringly from the floor.

"Lady Taunton, frightened? Surely not?"

"Haarami, you're still rubbing it in. Sure I'm frightened. Not so much from the punishment I'm going to get, but because of the fool thing we've both done. Because of some idiotic female compulsion Joyce and I have handed ourselves to you on a plate."

"A gift for which I will be eternally grateful."

"We're both sorry we did it. We want to go home."

"A natural reaction. Surely you expected-?"

"Haarami, are you going to hold on to us for the rest of our lives?"

"If I tire of you I'll sell you. You are slaves." The old man smiled. "There is no slavery more abject than that deliberately sought."

"Oh alright. But this rudeness of mine you overheard...? Couldn't we talk it over?"

"Of course!" It was as though Haarami was bestowing riches. "A discussion as to the method of your correction should prove diverting. Would you care to suggest an appropriate penalty, Lady Taunton?"

"How about ravishing me?"

"That is not a punishment. Tonight, Miss Cortland will share my bed. A girl with whipped feet makes love superbly."

"I'm sure you'd know. So couldn't I be chained or locked up or something?" Constance grinned ruefully. "I suppose something appropriate would be to gag me?"

"An admirable thought-along with your main punishment, of course."

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Connie tried an impish grin. "Look, I really am sorry I called you a bastard. It's just a--a--figure of speech. I'm sure you're not illegitimate." She wriggled enticingly. "How about ten on my bottom... Master?"

"You are being deliberately provocative."

"A girl has to try. Especially when her hands are tied behind her back."

"Perhaps there is our answer." The Sheik glinted with enjoyment. "Suppose we leave your hands bound as they are for the next three months?"

"Oh... Master...!" Connie's anguish was very real. "It would drive me crazy."

"Excellent. Shall we settle 0II that -?"

Connie was tugging feverishly at the rope round her wrists. "No... please no! And look, I'd be no earthly good in bed."

"Quite the contrary, my dear."

"Oh shit, I can't do anything. I'm so damn "

"You will be adequately attended."

"But, T H R E E - M O N T H S! If you're going to punish me that long, couldn't you forgive Joyce her bastinado?"

The sheik clapped his hands. When the girl entered, he said curtly. "A gag for Lady Taunton."

Constance submitted unhappily. With her mouth full of rubber she stood meekly while the strap was buckled savagely at the nape of her neck. Her lips were strained and her cheeks compressed by the unforgiving leather. She was then handled to one side as a package that no longer mattered.

Haarami now turned his attention to the girl whose strapped ankles awaited his justice. "You are adjusted to your penalty, my dear?"

"Yes, Master." Joyce was fighting hard against hysteria. Forlornly, she asked: "Could I be gagged, please... I'll scream?"

"You will not be gagged, Miss Cortland. Your screams will enable Lady Taunto to share your anguish."

"Yes. Master." There seemed no use arguing.

The Master turned to the waiting girl who now held a limber crop. "You may begin. Ten on each of her feet. Medium severity."

Joyce had never felt more alone.

The crop bit at the flatly offered sole from toe to heel, expending its venom over the full length of the small foot. Joyce Cortland's scream filled the room.

The girl, bound for punishment, had expected pain. But this was a quality of pain beyond bearing. There was nothing erotic or sensual about its nerve destroying, stomach turning horror. Her beaten foot was tugging madly at its strap but did not move. In desolation, she moaned: "Please! I can't stand--" The crop erased her words. Her second foot leaped into agony in an explosive blaze of pain. Joyce writhed and heaved, punishing her breasts, uncaring of the shameful sounds.

"Excellent, most excellent." Haarami's voice was hushed.

"Please... Oh, mercy--" There was no mercy. In Joyce's brain was a single thought: 'Twenty, twenty, twenty... No girl could stand twenty. Between screams she heard her own shaming words: "I'll be good. I will, I will, I will! I'll never escape never!"

"Most darling child." It was as though he worshipped.

The cuts were measured, cruelly accurate. The girl must have done such work before. They gave the woman with bent knees exactly enough time to catch her breath after her screams and broken words, then again the incisive stroke, shattering all preconceptions: "I'll do anything, be obedient... Oh, Master..." The old man nodded and gazed with love. "Perfect... perfect."

Joyce was certain her feet must be cut and bleeding, that she would never walk again. Defying pain, she strained to look back. It was a defeating glimpse. Her foot appeared normal. It was not swollen to twice its size. Even as she watched, the crop impacted to trigger the involuntary reactions she could not control. After her screams her lips muttered. "No more... no more. Please let me rest."

There was no rest. The strokes continued. In between pain, the punished girl realised, as every whipped girl must, that her travail was half way through its course. Each of her feet had received five blows. If she had survived thus far...! She caught a glimpse of Connie's wide eyed anguish, and tried to smile.

The sheik turned to the gagged woman, seeking to share his ecstasy. "Is she not beautiful...?"

But Lady Constance Taunton was mute. She nodded, hating to concede his point, yet unwilling to deny. Her wrists twisted against the hemp. She visibly winced as the next stroke cut the sole of the woman she loved. Her mind was filled with visions of what she and Joyce had once been, as against what they now were. And she could neither plead nor condemn.

To Joyce, the last strokes of her sentence were a miasma of suffering in which her responses diminished to jerks and moans, more from exhaustion than any loss of awareness.

"You were magnificent."

When she said "Thank you, Master" it emerged as a whisper.

"You will be released and handcuffed. Make your own way to the lounge, my dear. But you will be expected within fifteen minutes."

Joyce watched them go. Her being was irradiated with a great thankfulness. She lay inert, her panting breaths thrusting her breasts hard against the rug. The girl's fingers, loosening the straps and untying the knots were a benediction. Obediently, she pushed her freed arms above her head, bending up her elbows to join her wrists. She watched them snugly handcuffed. Meeting the girl's eyes, she smiled. The girl smiled too and, bending, kissed her forehead before she went away.

It was over. Joyce wished only to lay as she was, savouring her throbbing feet and the relief of surcease. She rolled cautiously upon her back and lay there looking reflectively at her breasts. It came to her then that her breasts were the answer to a riddle, without them she would have gone away with Dwight. Her breasts had changed her life. They made her more potently a slave than any chains had done.

She sat up and did what she did not want to do: looked at her feet. Beholding them, she blinked back tears. They were red and purple and swollen. Not as bad as she had feared, but still... She bent a knee and tested on the rug. She could not walk...

* * *

Connie followed her Master to the lounge. Despite the punishment she had witnessed she was in a reckless mood, still determined to test Haarami's resolve. Surely a man of his eminence would not make a life's work of two women he had brought low from arrogance and high estate. The task must pall. True, he had detected in each the fatal flaw he had exploited to make them slaves, perhaps this flaw was in every woman. But now it was accomplished, what profit could there be in forever whipping them! His enjoyment of them in bed would eventually be nullified by their wounds. When he had found his favourite chair she knelt and pushed her luck.

"Master, you see! With my hands bound thus I cannot serve my lord."

The sheik found pleasure in her spirit. She was an admirable property, a female beyond price, rapidly becoming as high in his affection as the woman with wounded feet downstairs. He laughed at her dolor and taunted: "Are you quite sure?"

Her nostrils flared. She was not sure. Even with bound hands...? She looked up and declared: "I am not sure, master. But I will probably spill his drink upon his rug."

"For which you will be whipped."

It was always the same. A slavegirl could not win. The whip made certain she could not win. With head high in dudgeon, Lady Constance Taunton went to the bar.

"You are a woman of infinite delight, my dear."

"Thank you, kind sir. I am a woman infinitely frightened."

It was too absurd! Connie was certain her captor would be laughing. With hands bound behind her back her task was close to impossible. But not quite. With the aid of the footstool...!

To pour a drink with her bottom rubbing the bar and her corded wrists hurting was as demeaning an act as Lady Constance had ever performed. Her pussy seemed everywhere. No matter how she turned or bent it became part of a picture the man must see. But this was Connie's first lesson in how much a girl can do, even when she supposed herself helpless. In a succession of outrageous postures she captured glass and bottles in a bound hand and used them to her need. The mix achieved, she faced the return journey to the Male enjoying her discomfort. With the glass held by its lip behind her back, Lady Constance began her return.

It was agony. Each step fearful. After several short shuffles Lady Constance rebelled. She was acknowledging the mastery of the whip, her natural fear of pain. This was Haarami's game and she was playing it. She straightened up, clutching the glass behind her back as best she could, she strode to her doom. On arrival, she was forced to turn her back and proffer her Master both his drink and her bottom. It was then she saw the stains: the carefully nurtured glass had slopped.

Haarami was holding a glass less than half full. He, too, was looking at the rug. He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Well, I couldn't help it! I'm not a magician." Connie was furious with herself and with him. "I should never have tried. You shouldn't have made me." She sniffed disdainfully and awaited her sentence.

He did not speak. Instead, he himself went to the bar and replenished the glass. Returning, he held it to her lips. "I'll drink it all." She warned after two frantic gulps.

The old man held it to her lips until the last drop was gone. He replenished it for himself and resumed his chair. "You may kneel, my dear."

"I don't want to kneel. How many lashes do I get?" Haarami shrugged as though the whipping of a careless woman was of small moment. He said,-simply: "Kneel." Lady Constance knelt. She recognized authority.

"I have said before, we speak too much of whipping. I could easily suggest a number of strokes across your delectable back or bottom. But you are a noblewoman. You possess an irresistible charm when hanging by your wrists."

"I am a slave, Master, and you know it." Connie looked up plaintively. "And I don't want to hang by my wrists, you know that too."

"It was the reason I mentioned it." Haarami said affably. "But you are well equipped here. Various stocks, the pillory, a small cage in which the delinquent damsel sits crouched and bent. Have any of these an appeal?"

"Alright, rub it in. I've used 'em on girls. I suppose I can't complain if you use them on me."

"But you will?"

"Yes, I will. Master, be a good chap and have my bottom caned or my back whipped so's we can go on to the next item of business."

Haarami sighed. "You have a death wish, woman."

"Something like that. I expect all I really want is for you to go back to Arabia and let me have my home back." Constance looked her Master squarely in the eye. "Why not do that? You've had a good innings. You've changed the lives of two women completely "I have not broken you."

"Yes you have. Nothing's ever going to be the same for me again."

"And you'd like your beloved returned to you too?"

"Yes. You've robbed me of Joyce. Give her back."

"Is this a slave or Lady Constance Taunton talking?"

"I don't even know that. But punish me for it. Why not have one glorious Grand Finale in which I am ceremoniously whipped, violated by yourself and staff, and left hanging by my wrists when you exit "

"Pure masochism, child."

"If it is, it's your fault. Before you came I'd never " Haarami gestured towards the door. Joyce Cortland knelt there, her smile uncertain and apologetic. "I think I'm late. I -I can't walk... and I tried so hard... I'm sorry." She held up her cuffed hands. "It was difficult to come on all fours wearing these."

"There is no penalty, my dear. Please mix us drinks. Lady Constance is handicapped."

It was a shaming shuffle. Without the handcuffs it would have been easy, but with linked hands Joyce could contrive only a three legged effect. She felt certain that from the rear she must appear ninety percent bottom. At the bar she lifted herself up on a stool. The drinks were easy, but their delivery was not. She achieved it in two trips, walking slowly on her knees, erect as might an amputee.

"You are an admirable woman, Miss Cortland."

"Thank you, Master."

Joyce was aware of tension. Her bound Mistress was upset. Holding the drink to Connie's lips she sought her eyes, but found in them only bafflement. Haarami sipped meditatively, looking down at his nude possessions with unmistakable affection. In spite of her scorching feet, she herself knew only happiness. Her punishment was done, her feet would heal, she was with the two people who now governed her life. She glowed, and hoped her companions would soon glow too.

The quiet appearance of the girl was no longer a surprise.

At Haarami's careless gesture they followed her beckoning finger. In the Hall, Joyce was picked up by one of the male retainers and carried. The sun and Taunton Park were a benediction. The two captives inhaled the perfumed English air gratefully.

It was not the same glade. It did not need to be. It was another quiet place, well hidden. Two trees had been selected. Between them lay a small pile of rope and cord. The girls exchanged glances, their pulses racing.

"You behave. I not hurt."

Their male escort leant against a trunk and watched with benevolent amusement as the girl went about her familiar task.

The fingers were gentle. They positioned Joyce to kneel between the two slender stems whose diameter was no more than three inches. They then bound her ankles, carefully, neatly, and very tight. Next, they pressed down on her bare shoulders until she was sitting back upon her heels.

It was like being a toy or a pet. Joyce held out her hands and watched the shining bands unlocked and taken from her wrists. Her arm was guided out from her shoulder so that the back of its wrist pressed against the smooth bark. In response to the invitation of a shy smile she held it there while it was bound. The thick soft cord was loosely circled round the tree and the girl, then artistically cinched between to completely encircle the flesh. The job was cunningly competent and pleasingly neat. When her other wrist had been similarly treated, its owner felt like a Christmas package made secure with love. Her cheek was patted in approval. She could not pat back.

With Lady Constance it was different. She was backed against a sapling and her neck tethered to it while her wrists were untied. "She doesn't trust me." She remarked to no one in particular. The man laughed, appreciating her dolor.

No handcuffs. Lady Constance Taunton was bound to one of her own trees in her own Park with rope and cord. Her wrists were crossed and re-tied, this time behind the trunk. It would have pleased her mood to struggle but the rope upon her neck was tight and the man would undoubtedly maul her breasts and pubes in making her behave. She stood woefully and let herself be strictured by the wise small hands. Ankle, knees, waist and shoulders. It was very complete, an almost charming ensemble upon her nakedness.

"And one through cunt." Suggested the watching male. But the girl shyly shook her head. Without trace of shyness she kissed each of Connie's nipples before she and her companion went away.

"I think she likes us." Connie said disgustedly. "She's made us into the prettiest picture."

"Is it hurting, Mistress?"

"Hell no! That must have been why she took so much trouble. I'm damn tight but I don't hurt. It's suspiciously like we're going to be here a long time, they don't want constrictions. What the devil's that old son of Allah got planned for us now."

"Maybe just fresh air." Joyce giggled.

"Aw, shit!" Lady Constance fluttered against her bonds. "You got any slack, darling? I mean, d'you think we can get loose?"

"I can't." The kneeling girl said with finality. "I'm practically welded to these trees."

"Gee, you look sweet. Kneeling... and with your arms out." Constance laughed bitterly. "If there was someone with a camera we'd make a wonderful set of pictures for one of those magazines they sell in back rooms."

"Remember what happened to me when you tied me in the glade, Mistress? D'you think it possible...?"

Connie's nostrils flared. "You mean--?" She examined a possibility in fascinated horror. "You mean I'm going to get a pair of boobs as big as yours! Oh, damn it all... we're a pair of peaches waiting to be plucked." She gave her pixie grin. "You spell that with a 'P,' darling."

"I suppose it could also happen to us with an 'F.' " Joyce Cortland said thoughtfully. "Any man who came along...?"

"He wouldn't come here unless he knew something. That means if one comes he means business. Darling, are you sure you can't move a wrist up or down?"

Joyce obligingly struggled. The net result was a wry grimace. She examined her bindings with an expert eye. The cords were arranged to hold her forever. Looking down the length of her arms they were so near and yet so far. She leaned and tugged, thinking of her teeth. But it was useless.

"Alright, sweetheart, never mind. You're glued to those damn trees. I'll keep wiggling a bit whenever I'm bored with just standing here. But she pulled ropes over my shoulders, it hurts, and my tummy's cut in two." Lady Constance contrived what small motions she could, then asked, glumly: "Darling, suppose someone came and cut us loose: What would you do?"

"I don't know." The slave admitted despondently. "If it wasn't for these breasts I've had foisted on me I'd go back to Cortlands. But with these female mountains I just can't."

"You don't hate them any more, y'know. You just think you do."

"So alright, I'm proud of them. But they've changed me. They've altered my glands or something. I behave outrageously."

"The bitch in heat!" Lady Constance was delighted. "You probably owe some of your new sexuality to getting your bottom whipped. It's had the same effect on me. My morals were never the best. Now I belong in the barnyard. Gosh, I'd like to get my teeth into you!"

"If we ever get the chance again..."

"Well, I know what I'd do if I got loose." Connie's voice was disgusted. "I'd grab a bit of bush to cover my puss and head for the police. I was an idiot to think I could outsmart Haarami." She tugged fretfully at rope. "Before you came in the room he and I had been going hot and heavy. I'd racked up about a hundred stripes, or maybe something worse. Oh, shit, I've been a lousy Mistress. I've mucked up everything!" Connie broke off abruptly. "Did you hear something?"

"Someone's coming."

Both girls focused on the sound. When it took shape and form they gasped in unison: "Alfred!"

"Pleased termeetcha', M'Lady. Ain't never seen yer wi'out yer clothes 'afore." Alfred beamed with rustic goodwill. "You ladies sure do 'ave the loveliest times."

"Alfred, cover us up."

"Ain't got nothin'--"

"Your jacket, man! Your shirt, anything!"

"Wouldn't be decent, M'Lady... undressing in front o' girls."

"Damn your decency! Untie us."

"You sure you want me to? I mean... ain't this fun and games, like? I ain't no spoil sport.

"Hurry up, Alfred. Be a hero. Rescue us."

"What's it worth, M'Lady?"

"Alfred!" Lady Taunton's voice was deeply shocked. "You mean to tell me you want money?"

Alfred was unperturbed. "If yer don't want ter pay, then yer don't want ter get loose very bad." He pointed out reasonably.

"Alfred, you're an idiot. We're both naked. How can we have money?"

Alfred's gaze instinctively lowered to two mats of pubic hair. He had the grace to blush.

"We don't use our cunts for a purse, you idiot But peep inside if you want to--or if you can."

"Thought I'd use 'em fer summat' else." Alfred offered diffidently. He turned to the kneeling Joyce. "You don't really want to be untied, do you, Miss?"

"Yes I do, Alfred. I'm tired, and my wrists hurt. Please be nice to us?"

" 'Ow 'bout yer bein' nice ter me?"

Both girls had seen it coming. The barter instinct blossomed. "What would you like me to do, Alfred?" Joyce contrived an outrageous coyness.

"Same like yer done last time, Miss."

"Qooooo, Alfred, you liked it!" Joyce registered sweet maiden modesty. "Just for you then. Untie my wrists."

"You don't need 'em untied. Yer done real good 'afore." Joyce Cortland's heart sank. The oaf was right, she was perfectly positioned for his need. Even if she refused he could compel!

"Alfred, behave yourself!" It was the voice of Lady Constance Taunton. "She did it last time. I'll do it this." Alfred was impressed, not so much by the words as by his good fortune. A Peeress of the Realm! And she was all his! His yokel eyes drank in pubic hair and breasts and the lovely features, now flushed and angry. "Don't see 'ow I can get me cock up ter yer mouth, M'Lady." He said, bemused.

"Untie me, stupid, then I can kneel down for you."

"I ain't that stupid, M'Lady. If I lets yer loose I've 'ad it."

"My word of honour! How's that?"

"Yer mean--?"

"Yes, I'll get down on my knees and suck your cock. Think of telling that one in the pub-if anyone believes you!"

Such a superfluity of riches was almost more than Alfred could comprehend. A blow job from a member of the Nobility! Envisioning the act, he beheld a further enrichment. "If I was ter untie yer there's nothin' ter stop...? I mean, that there cunt, like...?"

"Oh alright, Alfred. Fuck me instead. Take your pick.

I'll keep my word."

The rustic mind considered options. "Don't need ter untie either of yer." He said complacently. "If I just loose yer legs so I can spread 'em apart "

"Alfred, you're disgusting. We'd neither of us get much out of you impaling me against a tree. Dammit, let me loose!" Connie was desperate. "You can overpower me if you have to. What are you worried about. You could even tie me up again... after. If that's what you want."

Alfred dissembled. "I was thinkin' o' 'aving the young lady do me fust, M'Lady."

Lady Constance clutched feverishly at what she would normally have considered unmentionable. "That's not practical, Alfred, not if you want to use both of us. You'll need an erection to get inside me, but when you get out it's going to be limp. That's when Joyce can take over."

The cautious rapist was impressed. "Cor blimey, M'Lady, yer don't 'arf think things out. But I'm scared o' you, I am. I don't want no fight wi' a Countess."

"Keep a rope on one of my wrists. Tie it down to a root or something. Then I can't fight you. That way you can enjoy me to your heart's content."

"Why couldn't I tie both yer wrists, nice and spread out like?"

Constance was in despair. It was infuriating to think how easily Alfred could bestow freedom. But to be ravished, and remain helplessly tied...! "Forget the whole thing, Alfred." She said bitterly. "You're impossible to please. I think you're scared."

She had hit the right key. Three minutes later her right wrist was being dragged down to an exposed oak root and firmly tied. She lay on her back, arm outstretched, and prayed she could cope. Even with only one hand tied she found herself more helpless than she had supposed.

"I ain't never done this 'ere 'afore." Alfred was unashamed.

"Aren't I lucky."

"Yer got one 'and, M'Lady... if I needs 'elp."

Lady Constance used her hand to the best advantage of her ravisher, and closed her eyes. Joyce Cortland watched unhappily and longed for freedom. When the male brought his offering for her mouth she strained at her bonds and comforted herself with the hope that what she was tasting came from her Mistress.

Nature was kind. The regeneration of Alfred's glands took time. Whilst Joyce did her best with lips and tongue, Lady Constance Taunton tore savagely at her bound wrist. Her left hand was clumsy and the knots were harsh. She fought in panic. To have Alfred tie her again in helplessness was an all too real possibility. But when he staggered away from his second ecstasy she stood free.

Alfred tucked his immaculately licked organ back into his trousers and buttoned them up. "That ain't fair, M'Lady." He said, aggrieved. "I was goin' ter tie yer up again."

"Why?"

"So's I cud' come back in an hour and do it again." Connie's heart raced. With Joyce still helplessly tied she was at his mercy. "You'll have to kill me." She said evenly. "I'll fight."

Alfred was no hero. To do battle with a naked Countess was out of his Class: and Lady Constance would be a handful! He temporized. "Could I call on yer at the big 'ouse, M'Lady?"

"What on Earth for?"

"Well, M'Lady, I'm 'opin' yer enjoyed it a bit like. I sure did. 'Ow 'bout us doin' it agin'?"

Lady Constance wanted to laugh and to scream. But she was magnanimous in victory. "Very well, Alfred. But phone first for an appointment." She watched him amble off through the trees, and wondered if he had detected the hysteria in her voice.

"You're an indecent Mistress." Joyce pouted.

"I am also a free Mistress, or hadn't you noticed?"

The kneeling captive gazed up with love. "Am I to be a freed slave, Mistress?"

"No. I'll make sure you are never free again. You don't know what to do with freedom."

"Thank you, Mistress."

They laughed over the familiar humility, then quickly sobered. "I think I'll leave you there until I come back with the police." Connie mused. "You don't want anyone to see your gorgeous breasts, so I'll run for help. But I'm not leaving you loose. Goodness knows what nonsense you'd think you had to do."

"Please, Mistress." The kneeling nudity was mischievously contrite. "Don't leave me like this. Alfred may come back."

"No he won't."

"And bring his friends next time." Joyce twisted deliciously against her well secured wrists. "Please, Mistress...?"

"Oh alright. But you'll come with me, breasts or no breasts."

The slave watched her Mistress tug at knots. When the cords fell away she slowly massaged her chafed wrists, and said demurely: "Have you forgotten, Mistress, I can't walk?"

"Damn and blast!" Connie looked at her askance. "I had forgotten."

"But if I could lean on you I might make it back to the house?"

"The House! Darling, what on Earth-!"

"Yes, Mistress, hasn't it struck you as strange about Alfred? I mean, he came right to us. He knew where we were. Something's happened. I'm sure it has. I think he was sent to untie us. But he used us first."

Constance considered the proposition. "The son of a bitch." She said, chuckling. "The best day of his life, and here we were begging! O.K. darling, you've got a point. I just can't part from you." She held out her arms. "So here we go--chains and slavery...! I have to be nuts."

It was very painful for bastinadoed feet. But, leaning on her love, their owner's heart was singing. They hobbled slowly to Taunton House. When they got there they found it empty.

"I told you, Mistress. I could feel..."

"I don't believe it. That old bastard--"

"Mistress, let's search."

"But, darling, your feet!"

"Damn my feet! They can put up with it!"

They made their tour. Lady Constance's ancestral home was bare of intruders. Everything was polished and intact. Inevitably, they ended at the bar, feeling most potently the vacuum of Haarami's absence. On its polished surface was a cheque. The counterfoil declared it a month's rent for Taunton House. It was for one hundred thousand pounds. Lady Constance wept. It was the slavegirl who poured the drinks.

It seemed only fitting to choose brandy. It was an occasion. Perhaps the greatest occasion of their lives. When Lady Constance dried her tears of gratitude she said determinedly: "There should be handcuffs."

"I'll get them for you, Mistress."

"But, darling, your feet! You can't--"

"Yes I can. I'm getting a masochistic pleasure from my feet: agony in a good cause."

Joyce Cortland limped upon her errand. When she returned she knelt and proffered cuffs and keys to her beloved. Rising, she held out her hands. "I wish the clicks were twice as loud." Connie mourned as she circled the already chafed wrists with steel. "They're so beautifully final, more binding than a wedding ring." Holding up her slave's linked hands she kissed them both. "You sleep with me tonight, slavegirl--chained."

"Yes, Mistress."

"And to think that in this room I was told my hands would remain tied behind my back for three months!" Connie shook her head. "Was it all a dream, darling?"

"No, Mistress."

"I'm going to phone Weems, the butler. He'll bring things back to normal--even Pansy."

"Yes, Mistress. I'm so happy."

"So am I. I'm happier than I deserve. I made such a mess..." Connie mused thoughtfully. "I want you to do something for me, darling, something you may not like."

"Anything, Mistress."

"I was going to be punished when you crawled back in here, and if any girl ever earned punishment I did then. I'm guilty about Haarami, he's actually a lovable old hawk. I need to do a penance. I want you to whip me. Twenty strokes-hard."

"I can't do that, Mistress."

"You just said you'd do anything."

"I can't whip you."

"Can you understand my wish?"

"Yes."

Quite suddenly, Joyce's loins were aflame. Her pussy pulsed with passion at thought of the crimson weals, her weals, being born upon the back and bottomcheeks of Lady Constance Taunton.

"It will be the last and only time, darling girl. We will remember it--always."

"When, Mistress?"

"Now."

The unlocking of the handcuffs was a rite, a symbol, a pledge. They swallowed their brandies, eyes meeting eyes alight with purpose. On impulse, the slave held up the handcuffs still warm from her own wrists. Lady Constance Taunton meekly held out her hands. They went downstairs.

"The stocks hide us from each other, darling. The bar is best."

Joyce Cortland was savouring an ecstasy she might never know again. She tugged straps tight on compliant wrists. The motor whirred, and Lady Constance's arms tautened high in a strange surrender.

"My bottom and my back, darling."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Medium hard."

"Yes, Mistress."

Joyce Cortland slashed the crop across the impudence of a bottom she might never whip again. The owner of the bottom yelped.

I "That's too hard, darling."

"They're going to be all like that, Mistress."

The Mistress did not complain again. Sometimes, when crop or whip cut her in the same place, she screamed. The slavegirl who was punishing her Mistress paused from time I to time to stand back and adore the greatest beauty she had ever beheld. But she did not lighten the impact of her strokes.

"Thank you, darling."

"You are welcome, Mistress." A pause. "I cannot wait until tonight."

They did not wait.

After that, too, had passed, Connie made an exclamation of dismay. "Darling, we forgot the dungeon--to look!" Nancy was a badly frightened girl. Unlocked from her fetters, she fell at the feet of the only Mistress she had ever known. "Don't send me away, please don't. I'm frightened out there." She clutched hungrily at bare legs.

Joyce held up her own cuffed hands. "I'll get another pair." When they were tight upon Nancy's willing wrists, the Mistress looked at her two possessions lovingly. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"I'll whip you terribly, y'know, and keep you chained."

"Oh yes, Mistress."

"I think we're all crazy, but it's beautiful."

"Perhaps this will help, Mistress." Locked hands proffered a letter. "He told me to give you this whenever you found me."

Haarami's note was brief. "A delightful child. She is my parting gift. Whip her with love. I suggest you think of yourselves as "The Triads."

"Do you wish to be one of a Triad, Nancy?"

"Yes, Mistress. Yes please!"

"I like the sound of it, darlings."

They went upstairs.

THE END
Joyce ....(118k)    by F. E. Campbell




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	"Double for Nothing!! Tricks for Free!!!"™ A MrDouble Production: mrdouble

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