Dee Dee stopped thankfully as did the eight-horse team. She sank to the hot, dry soil and rested her feet within the freshly turned furrow. Gratefully, she sniffed the reverence of horse sweat and freshly turned earth. She had come to value these pause in the day, and she sat now looking up questioningly at Chet.
Chet unlimbered himself from the shaped metal seat of the plow, stood erect, and looked down with a puppy dog amiability at the girl who was compelled to follow his plow. Dee Dee followed only because her hands were chained together, and from them a long span of links trailed its way to where it was securely attached to the iron and steel contrivance, which was about all she had to look at as she trudged. "How you making out, honey?" Chet inquired with a quite honest interest.
"I'm tired," Dee Dee declared with vehemence. "That's about all I know. I'm simply tired of following this damn team of horses.
I don't see what good it does to keep me chained behind the plow all day anyway."
"Better than a tractor, sweetheart. These old plows walk a hell of a lot slower. You wouldn't be a bit happy behind no tractor. "
"I'm not happy at all." She held up her chained hands for inspection. "You don't expect any girl to be happy when she's fixed like this, do you?"
"You'll soon get used to the whole thing, honey. You ain't been here that long. The place takes a bit of gettin' used to, I suppose. Guess it ain't a bit like you've been used to."
"Chet, let me go, please? You could. All you have to do is free my hands. I'd walk to the nearest town. I'd be ever so grateful."
"Honey, you know I can't. You keep askin', and I keep tellin' you: you're here for life, and you might as well make the best of it." He grinned. "Say, did I ever tell you how damn cute you look in that there little slip with that little string around your middle? You look damn near as good with it on as with it off. You sure is a purty girl. I sure do hope the Benbow keeps you walkin' behind this plow until I finish the field. You're a damn sight better company than them horses."
Dee Dee sighed. She repeatedly asked Chet to give her her freedom, but while he might have the key to the padlock by which she was attached, he did not have the key to the irons on her wrists. There was no key! She herself had watched them fabricated by the blacksmith, and had been obliged to kneel and place her hands upon the anvil for them to be fitted on her wrists. Her only hope of freeing her hands was a return visit to the blacksmith with his hammer and punch. Even the Benbow could not free her hands, and the Benbow was the leader of the Place. It was he who decreed her daily stint.
Her mind roved back as it had done a hundred times to that moment not so long past when her car had choked and died on the desert road. She had been told not to take that route, but had done so anyway out of some adventurous compulsion. With not a single motorist in sight, she had shrugged and gone to a nearby hill, climbed it, and, with the advantage of an elevated view, observed the distant cluster of farm buildings. Thankfully, she had trudged to what she supposed would be help. What she had found instead was a lifetime captivity. The Place had absorbed her, gathered her unto itself with loving but merciless arms. Benbow himself had summed it up: "You're a damned good looking girl, young woman. Ain't no sense turning you loose. We got a place for you."
The Place was unique. Dee Dee had picked up its history from Rachel, the girl into whose care she had been relegated. Rachel was as amiable as Chet. She had been born in the Place and knew nothing else. To Rachel, the outside world was an evil and frightening place to be read about in books and old newspapers. Dee Dee soon discovered that the inhabitants of the Place were happy with their lot. They wanted nothing more. They were the survivors of a camp created in the desert long ago in the first days of settlement. Its founders had built better than they knew, for the Place had blossomed, its population constantly increasing to where they had become a power. They owned a huge tract of land, which they lived upon, and they found relative peace within its borders. And since the united labor of them all provided a degree of prosperity and well being, the young people were content to stay. Dee Dee was not yet quite sure if any of them would have been allowed to leave if they had wished to. The whole place was, for her, still amorphous and ill defined. She suspected an iron hand beneath a velvet glove. What had been imposed upon her was a strange mixture of kindness and cruelty. Dee Dee thought of it cruelty, but admitted to herself that no one had laid a hand on her. Bewildered by the whole concept upon which she had stumbled, and frightened by a power she sensed but could not see, she had allowed her hands to be chained as they now were and as they seemed likely to remain for a very long time. If Chet had given in to her demands for release, she would have walked out into the desert with two hands held close in the relentless clutch of metal. Chet was not as interested or well informed as Rachel, but Dee Dee gleaned from him what information she could.
"Chet, after you finish this field, what will they do with me?"
"Guess you'll do chores same as all the rest of the women-- ain't real hard work. You'll get to lay down for any man who wants you, and that's sort of nice." Chet beamed his warmest grin. "I sure have liked the laying down I done with you. You're mighty nice. I ain't laid down with no girl half as good." He cocked an inquiring eye. "Hear tell they don't have no such fun like that outside?"
Here was the truly incredible thing about the Place. Its women were available to all, and they cooperated in these carnal encounters with a placid unconcern. Rachel had explained about the babies. A girl only had a baby when Benbow so ordered, and she was usually approaching thirty before that happened. Prior to that, she was too delectable a morsel to impair by the bearing of children. The sect itself was called Benbow, and its chosen leader had taken unto himself the name when he assumed the office. Rachel explained that the Benbows possessed their own knowledge of birth control, and only the leaders knew the ingredients mixed with their food to bring about sterility or reverse it as required. It was one of the mysteries. There were quite a few mysteries about the Benbows. At first Dee Dee had been unconcerned with their history or origins. All she thought about was escape. In fact, that still occupied most of her concern, but her dreams about release or getting away from the Place were becoming increasingly remote, and the chain Rachel locked upon her ankles each night as they shared their bed made it doubly dim. She was given to understand that her daily following of the plow was an indoctrination--what Benbow described as "getting it back to the soil." The Benbows saw their semi-punishment as no more than a cleansing of the stigma of her former life. It was very simple: when the field was plowed, she would be happy. Dee Dee did not see it with this extreme simplicity, but in the face of the universal good nature by which she was surrounded, she found it difficult to advance a convincing counterview. She had a distinct suspicion she was held captive by more than just the chain.
A more difficult thing had been the copulation--what most of them referred to as laying down. That did not necessarily mean that a pair who had decided to couple automatically sought either the toil or the bed. Coupling took place anywhere and in any position the male favored. Not that the males were always the instigators of the act, but they had that privilege. A girl could not refuse them, but an urgent maiden would often demand attention. Dee Dee wanly wondered if she herself would ever become that bored or that lascivious. Her own introduction into this strange freedom had come during her second day following the team. Chet had stopped the plow for a customary rest and had quite casually ordered; "Take that there slip off, honey, and let's do a bit of laying."
Dee Dee stared blankly, uncomprehending, but when Chet became more explicit in his desires and the means by which they would be fulfilled, she had become suffused with a blush she could not control. He was so damn calm and matter-of-fact about it, and she could neither fight nor run. His demand that she strip explained the practical nature of the simple garment she was allowed to wear. All the women wore one. They were made of whatever material was handy, but all followed the same pattern of a simple slip or shift with a drawstring above the breasts and a confining band of string around the waist to give form and feature to an otherwise shapeless garment. Dee Dee had noted that they were made skimpily and were usually tighter than need be. This no doubt was intended to enhance what they hid. It did so most effectively. Christian Dior would not have approved, but the effect of such a garment was a pleasant eroticism which was only partly due to the excellent figures most of the Benbow girls possessed. Dee Dee supposed it was the food and exercise that did it. If she remained chained behind the plow a couple more weeks, she knew she would also end up as prime Playboy material. But that was simply a fanciful thought. Playboy was gone, as was her former life and the outside world in general. She stood now in the furrow and gazed askance at a smiling boy who had blandly announced his intention of stealing any virginity she might possess.
"Take it off, honey. Ain't no sense makin' a ruckus. May as well do it right."
"Oh, but I'd be naked!"
"That's right. That's the way I want you. Like I said, you's a damn purty girl."
"But it's wrong. You can't do this. We mustn't!"
"That's silly. What's to stop us? You still got them fool outside notions? You get that shift off or I'll take it off myself."
Chet was not her enemy, but could she call him a friend? The fact was the people of the Place approached sex as did their domestic animals. If she fought him, he would unquestionably win. In the process her shift would be torn and difficult to repair. She could easily spend the rest of her day naked in the sun. Unconsciously, Dee Dee was already at the end of her chain and tugging in a futile demonstration of dismay. Chet was grinning and giving her plenty of time. She supposed Chet was. in his own way, a gentleman. Miserably, she pleaded, "Chet, give me a little time. I'm not used to any of this. It's all so strange. Just a couple of days maybe?"
"No sense waiting. Take it off.-' Any other garment would have been difficult to remove with chained hands, but not the shift. Dee Dee fumbled at the drawstring, tugged it loose, and let it fall. Her whole existence since she had come to this place had been one long embarrassment. This was simply another in a long string of them. She wondered if there was something in the food which not only was a contraceptive, but also made a female amenable to the male. She should have been fighting, but she was not. She knew she would not fight. She executed this lapse in proper feminine behavior, but her grandmother was shaking an admonitory finger from the grave, telling her that no nice girl would ever betray her chastity so meekly. Dee Dee closed her mind to her grandmother, spread the shift upon the ground for comfort, and arranged herself upon it in an appropriate posture. She was thankful the chain tether was sufficiently long to make this possible. She would let Chet worry about it being in the way, and what he chose to do "with her hands and arms. She suspected that despite his naivete, he was experienced in such matters, and she was by no means the first of his conquests. To bridge an emotional gap, she inquired, "Am I the first girl from outside you've done this with?"
"Gosh no! We get new girls once in awhile. Benbow or one of the elders will take a trip somewhere, and if they see anything they like, they arrange for her to be picked up. Then they bring her back here and she stays just like you're going to stay." He chuckled. "Ain't many walked in here the way you did."
"But what about the police? What about the people who live in this area?"
"They don't bother us none. Benbow hires professionals to pick up the girls. They deliver them to us." His voice took on a new pride. "Ain't no one bothers the Benbows! We get us a girl, and we keep her." He looked down at what he saw approvingly. "Gosh, honey, you sure is beautiful! I'm real glad you ain't going to fight. Wouldn't have wanted to knock you around or put in a report on you."
"Report? What do you mean, Chet?"
"Well, any man can put in a report on a girl if she don't behave. Then they have her up before Benbow, who asks questions, and if he ain't satisfied with the way she's acted, she gets punished."
"Punished? Punished! What do they do to her?"
Chet shrugged. "Ain't nothing real bad. Mostly she just gets swished."
Dee Dee felt sure she knew, but she just had to ask. "What does being swished mean, Chet?"
"She gets the soles of her feet or the palms of her hands switched with a willow. That's what it means. They got a place for doing it. The girl gets fastened down just to save her acting silly. Then there's the other punishment. That's when she gets put in the cage and left awhile. Don't hurt none, but girls get awful sick of it."
"Bet, Chet, the soles of her feet? The palms of her hands!"
"Well, what's wrong with that? The Benbows don't believe in whipping a girl in the ordinary way other folks do. They don't want her bottom and back all marked up. A girl only gets flogged when she's done something real awful, like that time one of them slapped Benbow's face. Of course, if a girl keeps getting reported all the time, then that's a reason for giving her a flogging too. But it don't happen very often. Girls get real sensible here." He laughed at her wan features. "Just like you, you're getting real sensible."
Dee Dee knew it might seem like a delay, but she was genuinely curious. "But to be punished that way--your hands and the soles of your feet. I think the feet must be really awful, but it's sort of like children. It's the sort of thing--the hands anyway--like they used to do in schools."
"Stop your fretting, honey. I ain't going to report you. Nobody else will if you act sensible. This is a real good place to live. You want I should sort of arrange you?"
Dee Dee lay passively beneath his hands. Chet's hands were more gentle than she would have supposed, but they were strong and determined and highly experienced. By the time he was finished "arranging," there could be no mistaking his or her intent. This was most definitely it!
Nothing is ever as we expect--it was so now. The naked girl, her chained hands held above her head, lay upon her tawdry shift and the sun baked soil in a strange resignation to accept the sperm of this most virile young man. There was nothing erotic about Chet, other than his skill and endurance in what, for him, was probably a pleasure often taken and always enjoyed. Without striving to, he conveyed the message that what the two of them were doing was the most natural thing in the world. It was not long before Dee Dee was prepared to agree. If she could have stopped him, she would not have done so, and she knew this was not a simple feminine susceptibility to the frictioning of this act, but to a quality that flowed from him to her, and in a strange new sensation from the earth itself laying there upon the dusty soil with the limitless sky above and nature taking its course with her body. Dee became aware of another force. It was in the earth itself, like a deep, fierce heartbeat sustaining and reassuring her and telling her that what she did was good. Robbed of action or decision, she surrendered herself totally to Chet, who was in his own way an elemental force, just as was the earth and the sky. the eight tired horses slumbered peacefully, contributing only the occasional rattle of a trace chain or bridle. It was as though the Place looked down benignly upon the team, the plow, and the two young people it possessed.
It was unlike anything Dee Dee had ever known. She had never performed the act upon the soil or with her hands chained. It was a new dimension. When the crescendo and the climax came and went, she lay dreamily content and felt more than ever the pulse of the earth beneath her back. For moments she was part of the universe or swirling planets in a timeless space. It was Chet who first got to his feet and ambled to the plow where he did something with tools. Dee Dee heard the sounds, but did not bother to look. It was not until Chet's always amiable voice suggested, "Honey, guess we get goin'." He offered her a helping hand, dragging her to her feet. He stooped and retrieved the discarded shift, watching her finger it back into place. He offered the finest tribute he could think up. "That was good sweetheart. We gotta do that again. You like it?"
What could she say? Society demanded a stout rebuttal, but instinct shaped her words. "It was lovely, Chet, thank you. I never know it could be like that."
The horses once more leaned heavily into their collars, and the huge discs of the plow began to rotate and throw to one side the fecund soil. Dee Dee's chain tautened and she took her first step in one more round of her homage to the Place.
Dee Dee's chain gave her the choice of walking in the furrow or on the unplowed ground at its side. Neither one was a perfect surface, and she varied it simply to break monotony, thankful for a slow progress which enabled her to place her feet painlessly. It was easy for her to maintain sufficient slack that she could pace naturally, and from time to time do something under the compulsion of an endless fascination. She raised her hands and examined the metal bands around each of her wrists and the chain joining them. The bond held a significance of its own. It was symbolic, like a badge she wore pro claiming allegiance to the Place. The metal bands and links were the focal point of her captivity. Without them she could return to freedom. Probably she could not outrun Chet, but it was a delicious speculation, one to be cast aside because it would never happen. Dee Dee always though of captivity as a thing of bars and stone walls, not of this wide open space, this grandeur of distant horizons and isolation. That within this immensity she should be helplessly captive by a few scraps of metal was a tantalization to constantly prompt her to gaze in desperation at her captive hands. Dee Dee's mind was in a puzzled confusion about the act between she and the boy boy upon the plow. It had been neither rape nor love. She had no word for it. Under different circumstances it could have sent her into screaming hysterics. She could easily have been tugging at her chain in blind terror. Such a though was ludicrous, but she was forced to wonder how she would react to a succession of such demands upon her flesh. It would be not only Chet, but every other man in the Place. She had not yet seen the full boundaries of the several communities the Place had spawned. Wryly, she supposed her ability to absorb the attentions of so many would be aided by the fact that she herself was one of an equally numerous sisterhood, all subject to the male lord.
Rachel was a blessing. Dee Dee knew Rachel was part of her indoctrination. She was a lovely creature possessing some of that calm immutability which was the key note of the Place. She view the neophyte with only a faint compassion. Rachel was complacently content in her conviction that here a woman truly came into her own, that there was nothing better beyond its boundaries. She was not uniformed. The Place permitted certain reading materials to penetrate within its boundaries. The Place did not reject the twentieth century. It simply held it up as a terrible example, a plague to be repelled. In conversation with Rachel, Dee Dee realized the cohesive force retaining the young upon the Place was almost entirely due to the natural flow of sexuality and sexual encounters which were a part of life here. After his use of her body that afternoon, Chet would be a satisfied young man turning his thoughts elsewhere without being driven by the endless hunger of the male beyond the limits of the estate. The captive girl ruefully considered the millions of men who would give half their lives to be in Chet's shoes. Rachel told her that a flood of males would have poured within the confines of the Place had it been permitted, but when a male did actually stray upon its territory, as she had done, they were politely treated, perhaps given a meal, and then sent on their way. When groups had sought penetration, they had been ruthlessly dealt with by the men. The population of the Place was numerous enough that none but a small army would dare confront it. Because of isolation and the aridity of the surrounding soil, there were few who approached or knew anything of its nature. It could not be called a relic of another age for it had made its own mores, its own laws, and provided its own legends. Except in its rejection of certain mechanical advantages of the twentieth century, it was reasonably modem. The Place took what it wanted from the world, rejecting the rest. Dee Dee knew it had taken her.
There was a dormitory to accommodate a class of girls who either did not live with their parents or whose behavior had been open to Benbow question, not sufficiently to merit punishment but as it were to place her on probation. Dee Dee did not like to ask if Rachel had in some way erred or whether the dormitory was her permanent home. It did not matter, but she shared a bed with Rachel whose duty it was every night to shackle Dee Dee's ankles to a ring bolt in the floor. Rachel, blushing, explained that the shackle was intended for herself. Each bed had beside it this warning which was not always in use. There were twenty girls in the dormitory, and when introducing her around Rachel had exchanged greetings with only five girls whose ankle was thus secured. It was taken for granted, no questions asked, simply a fact of life in the Place. They had done something! But Rachel was conscious enough of her charge's possible distaste for this extra confinement. On their first evening she had apologetically said, "I hope you don't mind. Dee Dee, but I have to chain your ankle. You're not supposed to be running around during the night. The chain is long enough it won't bother you."
The twenty beds were in two long rows. At the far end in the middle another bed existed in a prominent and foreboding isolation. It was not a bed at all, but was a similar surface of hard wood, a bench. At each of its extremities was a shackle and short chain. Its purpose was all too obvious, but was made doubly vivid by the naked girl who lay upon her back, her arms and legs stretched wide to the four chains and shackled thereto. It wasn't tautly stretched, and it imposed no pain, but the unhappy maiden would spend a hard, uncomfortable night upon solid wood and had no freedom in which to turn or twist to ease her punishment. The prisoner of the bench and Rachel had exchange casual words and greetings, but the delinquent one's condition was not referred to. It was known, accepted, and understood. It had been Dee Dee's first glimpse of the disapproval of the Place.
If any swishing had taken place. Dee Dee had not been aware of it. But there were other Benbow communities beyond the major one in which she was now captive. Anything could have happened in any of them and she would not have known. But the Benbows evidently believed in making examples of any girl who overstepped the rules. In the dormitory there was not only the hard bench on which a delinquent could spend a night, but there was also a hook in the ceiling beams from which a nude girl could be suspended either with her toes completely from the floor or with them just touching enough to keep her teetering and tantalized. Dee Dee had witnessed two such incidents and a third in which the girl presumably had not transgressed too badly to be allowed her heels upon the floor and thus to stand in relative comfort except for the weariness of raised arms as the night progressed. To the neophyte, the most extraordinary feature of these punishments and the girls suffering them was the casual way in which they themselves and the other inmates of the dormitory accepted the condition. She picked up from Rachel an awareness that the Benbows' punishments were part of that natural flow of existence she had sensed in the way Chet had taken her in the field that afternoon. They were all natural laws, needing no comment. To Dee Dee's searching eyes, it was evident that each of the girls being punished saw nothing remarkable in their plight. They saw it only as part of the ebb and blow of Benbow existence. When, in the morning, they were released they picked up their lives and duties as though nothing had occurred. It was the same with Dee when, in the morning, they were released they picked up their lives and duties as though nothing had occurred. It was the same with Dee when, in the morning, her ankle was unlocked. Rachel had had the key all the time, but Rachel was a Benbow and would have have used it ill advisedly. The girls donned their shifts and went to breakfast. It was after the meal when all the rest went about their diverse affairs, that a tax was placed upon Dee Dee's prudence. On the first couple of mornings Rachel had taken her arm and led her to where Chet was assembling his team and thence to the field and the plow where, upon the ground the chain tether lay in wait. It was very simple, it was picked up, a padlock was placed through its end ring and through the center of the link of Dee Dee's ironed hands and clipped shut to make her prisoner to the plow. But now she was in some measure trusted. Rachel no longer accompanied her, but told her to go her own way without surveillance. It was Dee Dee's first test, she would remember always standing in indecision, looking at her chained hands and wondering if it was worth the risk of walking or running out into the desert alone. She had decided against it, simply because the odds were so heavily against her. She would be seen or soon missed, her absence noted. Men on horseback would have followed and searched and dragged her back at a rope's end. Rachel had dispassionately explained how this would be and cautioned her not to be silly, not to go in search of something she had lost. In any case, what could a chained and nearly naked girl do out there among the sand and rocks? Dee Dee had lost direction and wander aimlessly toward a destination which could conceivably be much worse than Benbow slavery. She had shrugged and followed Chet to the plow and her day's humiliation. She went through this same hesitation each morning. She did so now, condemning herself for what she saw as cowardice, but then reconciling herself with reflections about common sense. The Benbow punishments held a terrible fascination, but she was frightened of them and was obedient. Chet's greeting was unfailingly cheerful. He was always genuinely pleased to see her. "Ready for another day, sweetheart?"
"I suppose so. I don't have choice, do I?"
"You don't need no other choice," Chet assured her genially. "You and me's got it good out there in the field. I'll do it to you again when I get around to it, gives the team a rest."
The chained girl watched Chet's tireless dexterity with trace chains, lines, reins, and leyers to where he took his seat and thacked the reins and said a sharp giddy-up. Dee Dee always took the first step, the team was never anxious to get going. If she wished to gather up a sufficient amount of slack in her chain, she could actually walk almost beside Chet and converse. It meant she had a load to carry and a much, much shorter tether, but she occasionally did this to defeat the isolation of being at the far length of her chain. Through this discourse she learned as much of the Place was Rachel taught. Most of Chet's information was imparted with a chuckle. "We don't get married until the Benbow decides. We don't pick each other either, and the Benbow doesn't allot a girl to a man until he figures it's time she had a baby," he chuckled. "You're safe for a long time. He don't usually decide until the girl's gettin' close to thirty." He grinned. "I'd pick you if I had a chance, but I'm way too young. I don't get me no woman permanent for quite a time. You'll be gone by then."
"That's horrible, Chet. That's no way for two people to find each other."
"No. it ain't. The law says that it takes a man and a girl quite a time before they produce intelligent children. You get kids too young and all they got's a lot of bone and muscle, sort of like me. Don't know how it happened, but my ma and pa got married real young, and just look at me!"
"I think you're very nice, Chet. What's wrong with you? We don't all need to be brainy. Anyway, I'm not a bit sure about that theory." Dee Dee hesitated and came up with what seemed to her a good idea. "Look, Chet, this chain is heavy to carry around. I like talking to you. I don't want to be back there at the end of the tether. Why don't you unlock the padlock and let me walk beside you without having to carry all this iron?"
Chet considered. "Damn nice idea, Dee Dee, but there ain't no way the Benbow would like it. You still ain't been here long enough to trust. It the team get themselves into some sort of mix up with horseflies or the blad hitting a rock, you could easily run while I'm straightening things out. You get far enough ahead and I might not be able to catch you. Even if I did catch you, I'd have to put you on report, and you don't want that."
"But, Chet, I'd give you my word--my parole. I just want to talk to you without lugging all this chain around the field all day. You're always telling me to be a sweetheart. Why don't you try it?"
"That's okay for you and me, but it ain't okay for the Benbow. He don't know you as well as I'm getting to. To him you're just another girl, and the girls that stray in here the outside have to be watched. They do the damnedest things." Chet grinned at her sideways in recollection. "Most of 'em gets themselves swished again and again before they get sensible. Girls from outside don't seem to have much sense. You're the best of the bunch. You're the best I ever seen."
"Then unlock my padlock--please?"
"Sorry, Dee Dee. You stay the way you are."
"But if you did that--if you unlocked me--I'd be your prisoner.
I wouldn't be Benbow's prisoner--I'd be yours. And you and I like each other enough that I wouldn't run away, not from you."
"You're meaning you want me to lay down with you again?"
"No, it isn't that at all, Chet. You ought to know it isn't. That's something else again. We'd even enjoy that more if I wasn't attached to the plow. Be nice to me."
Chet shouted his whoa, and the team came to a grateful cessation of their labors. Chet sighed, obviously convinced he acted against better judgement, but he fumbled in his pocket and produced a key. "All right, hold out your hands," he said with little grace. "But we had best not tell anybody or we're both in trouble. You can drop the chain and we'll let it trail behind, ready for when I lock you to it again. I can't do nothing about your hands."
It was Dee Dee's first victory. She felt an entirely disproportionate joy. It meant no real freedom--the chain would continue to trail without her at the end of it. It would be a constant threat and reminder, but to be without its weight and compulsion was something to be desired. Her heart went out to the boy now fumbling with his key between her hands. When the links rattled to the ground, her thanks were further proof. "Oh, Chet, thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise I will walk along with you all day. I won't run away, not even if you have trouble with the team. That's a promise."
"You mean that, don't you, Dee Dee?" he asked, eyeing her shrewdly. "Them promises mean something to you. Ain't sure I'd do this with any other girl. Let's keep the laying down until later on. Let's get a bit of work done first."
It was delightfully companionable. Dee Dee supposed that in times past a wife might easily have walked as she walked now, beside a plow and beside her husband. Had her hands been free, she would have thrown her arms around this young man who was showing her kindness and for all she knew running a risk on her behalf. With the discs revolving and throwing the soil aside in an endless stream, the released girl now took jaunty steps and looked back laughingly at the trailing chain behind the plow. It would serve not useful purpose now, until she as padlocked again on its last link. In the meantime, she walked where Chet could see her best. The team plodded on, needing little attention. They were wise in their work and, like Dee Dee, resigned to its continuance. She wondered if horses ever sought escape from their master and from their toil, but they would have no memories. For them there was no outside world. In a way, the horses and Chet were remarkably alike. In a sudden, total realization of a semi-freedom. Dee Dee actually leaped a dance beneath Chet's amused regard, taking steps this way and that, raising her chained hands to the sky, laughing back at the boy who had made it possible. Her exclamation was spontaneous. "Oh, Chet, if only you knew how good this feels! I'm going to kick my heels before I get too tired."
Her need of unchained motion satisfied, Dee Dee fell back into step. It was hard for her yet to think of anything beyond her own circumstances. She asked, "Doesn't any girl ever escape, Chet? I can understand that those who were born here maybe don't want to, but the other girls, like me, hasn't one of them ever gotten away?"
"Hell no! A lot of them tried, but figure it for yourself, sweetheart. You run over the hill there now, what are you up against? Miles and miles of sand, and you don't even know the way. When the boys take out after you, they spread out wide. They know directions. They probably know which way you headed out at first. They can go ten times faster than you can, so it's not long before you get caught. Honey, it just ain't worth it."
"But that's too simple, Chet. You say they know in which direction she's gone, but suppose the fools them and makes a circle around and goes in the other direction? They might never find her. "
"There's always one rider sent in the opposite direction. Don't really take more than one. He gets on a hilltop and keeps his eye open." Chet dismissed the subject tersely: "Anyway, I can tell you for sure there's never been a girl who made it, and I don't want you trying."
"I won't. Well, not today anyway. But, Chet, can't you sympathize with a girl's wish to go back where she came from? The Ben- bows have no right to steal her away from her world and her life. In a way. I've been kidnapped."
Chet considered. "Kidnap ain't a name we use. The Place don't need it. I suppose I can sympathize a bit with what you say, but you don't really need sympathy. After awhile you're going to realize you've got it good. You got it better than you had before. This is a place to be glad to come to, not to try and get away from. Simply takes a bit of time, and I don't wan you getting yourself swished in the process." He spared an admonishing finger. "And there's worse things for a girl than getting herself swished, and don't you forget that either."
CHAPTER TWO - PRISON WITHOUT BARS
Dee Dee's second interview with the Benbow took her into what she secretly called her slavery, and what the Benbows placidly described as getting to know us. The Benbow's office was strangely at odds with the rest of the establishment. It was austere, it was businesslike in the anteroom, even boasted a secretary busy at her typewriter. But the Benbow sat behind his desk in the same informal garb as most men wore. He was obviously busy and it was born upon his chained captive that the affairs of the Place were probably both extensive and profitable. Ushered into the sanctum to stand before the desk in a slave-like humility, she beheld all the accoutrements and trappings of a successful business institution. After all, there was a cattle and grain and even a couple of small mines. The Benbow eyed her kindly but did not invite her to sit down. She would not be given any false ideas of equality. She was female! The Benbow wasted no time. "Settle down, Dierdrie. I do have your named there correctly, don't I?"
"Yes, sir, but most people just call me Dee Dee. Just like I told you the first time." She tried to smile winningly. "And, yes, I'm settling down." She held up chained hands and said dryly, "These help a lot."
"Want them off?"
"Oh, please, could I?"
The Benbow laughed. "You want them off, all right, there's no doubt about that. That still means you have ideas about escape, so you'll be wearing them for awhile. Don't bother you none?"
"Well, I suppose not, but if I wear them much longer, they'll become a part of me."
"You do understand, Dierdrie, that we'll never relinquish you?"
"That's been explained to me," Dee Dee said diffidently, making her own mental reservations. "I don't have to tell you you're doing something illegal, something terribly illegal. Men have gone to prison for half their lives for such an act."
Thought aside, with a casual wave of a hand. "Rachel tells me you're adjusting. Have you thought of marriage?"
"In this time and place, the abrupt question held incongruity. Dee Dee counted them. "Every girl thinks of marriage, Mr. Benbow. Why wouldn't I?"
"I'm thinking of my son. He's just enough older than you. You're about right for each other."
"But I'm not old enough!" Dee Dee was remembering Rachel's information. She flushed. "I'm not nearly old enough. I mean. I'm only twenty-two. By your standards--"
"If I say you marry, you marry," the Benbow assured her without emotion. "I'd advise you not to make a fuss about it. I'm not talking about today or tomorrow. You're not ready yet, but it will happen when I say and if I say. You have to prove yourself, and I've got a few tests in mind. First of all, I want you to take off that shift. " Dee Dee had half expected it. After all, this man was the leader, so he could do as he pleased with her. It would be strange if he did not wish to sample his most recent acquisition. She wondered if the act to be consummated upon the office floor might be considered rape. She found it utterly unattractive in comparison to her coupling with Chet behind the plow. The sky and the earth had excused everything, but in this office she could excuse nothing. But, before she cried wolf, she had to strip, and this also was something she did not wish to do. She knew she would be forced to, but all her previous live was rising up and demanding she protest. That she demurred in any way would show reluctance. With her first show of defiance, she bluntly asked, "Why?"
"Strip! If you don't, I'll put you on report."
Report meant punishment. Feeling her conscience cleared by a threat she could not avoid or counter, Dee Dee gave way to the inevitable. Hating every motion, she used her shackled hands awkwardly to free the strings by which her figure was outlined. The shift fell, and she stood in naked innocence, confronting the man who could use her as he wished. She made no effort to cover any portion of herself. Instead, she stood listlessly for his approval. She did, however, stare back at his intent regard. "Stand up straight, girl. Stick your breasts out, widen your legs, and put your hands over your head and above your neck. Damn it, try and look like a woman."
Dee Dee did was she was told, making herself as vulnerable and exposed as any female could be. She met Benbow's eyes levelly and steadfastly throughout the minute in which he drank in all the beauty of what she was. Finally, he said gruffly, "Okay, you'll do. As a matter of fact, you're a damn lovely girl. I suppose young Chet lucked you?"
"Yes."
"Huh! Not proud of it, eh? You should be; he's a nice boy. I've heard tell he's one of the best. Put your slip back on."
It had been difficult to remove the scanty garment. It was twice as difficult to put it back on. With shackled hands, Dierdrie fumbled and grew red in the face while the Benbow watched. It was evident the Place left a girl little of herself, allowed her to hide nothing, casually inflicting shame as it might occur to any one of them. When she had finished, the leader said, "The day's still young. I'm going to send you back out to Chet and the plow. You can finish your day there. At the end of it, I want you tell Rachel to punish you. Will you do that?"
"Punish! Why why? I haven't done a thing."
"Never mind why, simply do it. Can I rely upon you?"
"I--I suppose so." Dierdrie's voice was sullen. She seethed with injustice, but until the punishment became manifest, it was difficult to protest against it. It might be something relatively innocent. Quietly, she asked, "Are you going to trust me to walk back out into the field? It's a long way. What's to stop me from running?"
"Tell yourself the answer to that one, honey. Sure, you can run-- you can take your chance. I know that a horseman will capture you before you've gone five miles. But you don't know this, so maybe you need to try it out."
Dierdrie shrugged. "You're not taking any chances. I'm too frightened of your punishments. I've been told about them." She gave a short bitter laugh. "And what girl wants to be naked in the desert with her hands chained?"
"Like I said, you've got good sense. You can consider yourself taking phase two of your training." He laughed at the expression on her face. "Didn't know you were being trained, did you? Well, you are. You think walking behind the plow a waste of time? It isn't. It's already done something to you. You are no longer quite the girl you were when first you came. Run along."
It was a bit out of this world, the way in which Dee Dee found herself mingling with those upon the main street. The community was large enough to boast streets and, while it could hardly be described as crowded, there were people who should have stopped and stared, but the way in which she was accepted as one of themselves was almost frightening. In its way it was an affirmation of their conviction that for her there could be no escape and thus she belonged. The Place possessed her. It was not as though she was the only female with chained hands. She saw another one across the street, presumably shopping, and further along there was a girl taking short hobbled steps against the leg irons on her ankles. She seemed quite unconcerned about the manner of her chaining, as though unconscious that her movements were at all restricted. She took her short steps with grace. Confused by too much happening too soon, the chained girl turned her free steps toward the outer limits and the fields.
From time to time, Dierdrie's pace faltered and her eyes dwelled longingly on the horizon. It would be so easy. She could get a good start ahead of any pursuit. But what had the Benbow said--he would give her five miles and then a horseman would throw a rope around her. She shuddered to think of what would happen then. She could now see Chet and his team distantly across the pasture land. She doggedly set her steps in that direction.
Chet was characteristically pleased to see her. "Wondered where you'd been, honey. I've been wanting you so damn bad. Get yourself in shape before I lock the chain."
It had been predictable and expected. The ironed girl chided herself for the inconsistency of preferring Chet here in the open field and laying on the dust in preference to the Benbow in his office. But it was true. For the second time she fumbled with the strings and then assumed the oldest posture in the world. It was quite a long time before she was obliged to stand again and hold out her hands to receive the tether's weight and the click of the padlock on her wrists. Her endless walk behind the plow resumed.
On receiving the message, Rachel simply shrugged. "Did he say what I have to do to you?"
"No, I thought you knew."
"Oh. I know all right. I know lots of things I can do with you. I just thought he might have been specific. I wish he had been because whatever I do to you now you'll think of it as my punishment and-not his." Rachel smiled wryly. "You won't hold it again me?"
"Of course I won't. Do whatever you have to," Dierdrie said recklessly. "It doesn't make any sense, but at least I was warned." It was a small but pretty cluster of nondescript trees in a hollow out beyond the pasture fields. Dee Dee walked beside her companion in a mounting excitement. It was hard to be afraid in Rachel's presence, but fear was mixed in with it also. Rachel carried weight, and reaching their destination, she said casually, "You'd better undress, dear. Girls are always undressed when they are punished."
Dee Dee backed up against the chosen trunk. She was shivering in the warm air. She watched silently as rope was threaded through the chain already confining her hands, but gasped in surprise when it was lifted and raised above her head to be tied there securely with several bands she would never dislodge. Rachel was performing her task with a matter-of-fact absence of either drama or excitement. She had obviously done it before, or perhaps she had been delinquent enough herself to be taken to this small grove for whatever punishment it imposed. As yet. Dee Dee could not fathom the purpose of what was taking place. "It's the simplest thing I can do to you, Dee Dee," Rachel explained as she wound other strands around the concave tummy of her prisoner and then around the tree, each drawn tight and tighter still. "It won't be so bad for awhile, but by the time you're real mad at me I won't be here."
"The Benbow just told me to come to you and ask to be punished; he didn't tell me why. Do you know why, Rachel?"
"It's sort of like walking behind the plow--it's part of your indoctrination. It will give you some sort of perspective. You'll know what waits for you if you're a naughty girl." Rachel laughed. "I always love that term: naughty girl. It's used even when a girl's old enough to be a mother. " She stood back and surveyed her work. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to tie your feet too."
"But I'm absolutely helpless. I can't get away!"
"That's just part of it, dear. Stopping you running away is easy. The rest of it is the punishment. " Rachel laughed. "You'll see what I mean after about an hour."
"You mean you're going to leave me here all alone, out in the open like this?"
"For the time being. I'd be surprised, though, if you don't get company. This is a favorite punishment for minor offenses. If someone ties another girl here with you, you'll have somebody to talk to."
Rope circled Dee Dee's ankles and was pulled tight. There was nothing horrid about her binding. It was calmly deliberate. She could almost believe Rachel was paying attention to the appearance and neatness of her work, as well as making it impossibly secure. Whoever Rachel tied would undoubtedly stay tied. Doubtfully, the captive girl ventured, "My arms are going to get awfully tired up in the air the way they are."
"Of course they are, dear. That's part of your punishment, but there isn't any other way of disposing of them. I can't get the chains off, so you'll just have to put up with it. If it's any comfort, I can tell you that you look terribly beautifully like that. You have the most gorgeous breasts!"
"So I've been told. Does everybody have to look at them? And it's not just my breasts!"
Rachel laughed at the query. "There was a time when females were naked all the time. There are often discussions as to whether we shouldn't return to that custom. It simply abolished modesty and shame, and everybody got used to it. We ended up with these little shifts we wear only because they are the most practical way--a sort of happy medium." She laughed again, and the laugh was purely amused. "Us girls have never been quite sure about male thinking on this point. We sort of suspect they want us to wear the shifts because they get such a bang out of making us take them off, and none of us girls have complained too much simply because we share the thrill. You see, when we are told to take it off, it usually means one of two things: either we are going to lay down with a man, or we are going to be punished. Either way it's an event. I think the original Benbows must have been very wise."
The two girls surveyed each other, a prisoner and her jailor. Their status was now vastly different to what it had been. Judicially, Rachel said, "I could tie your knees and I could put ropes above or below your breasts and pull them tight, everything real tight. Someone may come and test to make sure I haven't cheated, but I don't think anyone will complain with you as I have you now. After all, it is your first punishment. Any last requests? Want your nose scratched? I have to go now."
It was a peaceful place, the little grove of trees nestled coyly in the giant hand of the prairie and the desert beyond. It would be lonely, but a friendly loneliness, much like the plow with the earth beneath and the sky above. The rhythm of Benbow life was elemental, and she was a part of it. Dee Dee knew she could not break or wiggle loose, but she made some tentative motions to that end to confirm her convictions. She was right. She would stay tied to her tree until someone chose to set her free. To struggle would only chafe her skin and achieve nothing. She was glad Rachel had told her she looked so good in this posture. She could well imagine it was true. A girl wise raised arms always looked her best, but she wished she had had time to bathe. There was still upon her the dust of her walk behind the plow, but it was honest dust of which she was not ashamed. She reverted to the startling thought that the Benbow had planted in her mind: that she would marry his son. a man she had never seen.
Dee Dee wished she had not been told, and she had no idea when this might happen or even if it would happen. But it was a possibility to cloud every moment of her day. With the Benbows marriage meant babies. That was the last thing she needed. A baby would chain her to the Place in a way no rope or metal link ever could. It would be the end of everything she had ever wanted out of life. She would be a sealed woman, simply breeding stock. The act of copulation for such a purpose would be totally without love, a mechanical coupling without the vibrancy and wonder of her times with Chet. Dee Dee debated the possibility of discovering the contraceptive formula by which the Place was governed. How was it administered? When the time came for a girl to become a mother, what change took place, and would she be aware of it? But these were imponderables. Fretfully, she shifted and tugged against Rachel's ropes, but their only response was to tell her clearly that whatever the Benbows wished to do with her they would most certainly do.
It was a man and a girl. The manner in which they strolled into the grove might well have been that of two lovers, except that the man was much older than the girl. It was all very casual and understood. It was the man who carried the rope. They said their hellos to Dee Dee as though having met her on a walk. The girl shed her shift and backed naked against a tree in the same manner as Dee Dee herself had done. She fell limply passive, allowing the hard male fingers to use her as they wished. Cords were looped and tugged on female flesh with the same care and loving precision Rachel had bestowed on Dee Dee. When the man had completed his task, the girl was bound much the same as Dee was bound, except that her hands were behind the bole of the tree, her wrists crossed and tightly bound in a manner to drag her shoulders back and protrude her bare breasts. The man stood back, nodding his approval at what he had done. His query was curt and half amused. "Think you'll get loose?"
"No. I never get loose. Don't stand there and leer at me. Go away."
The exchange appeared to be no more than the male expected. Perhaps it was a form of repartee or a standing joke between them. He simply nodded, then came to Dee Dee and tested the strands which held her to the tree, but he found no fault in Rachel's work. Both girls would stay as they were until their sentence was complete. The man nodded again in friendly fashion to them both, then strode toward the buildings. Once he was out of earshot, the newcomer lost no time. "You're the new girl, aren't you? Your name's Dee Dee? Mine is Una. Did you do something, or are you getting this to show you what it's all about?"
After their first shy exchange of confidence, Dee Dee made her confessions and sought to allay her curiosity. "Una, have you ever been swished?"
"Of course. All the girls get it sooner or later. Some get it constantly--all the time. Just depends on the way you're put together. Don't worry, you'll get swished soon enough."
"And the cage? What's so remarkable about the cage?"
The delinquent laughed. "There's nothing remarkable at all. It's just a cage big enough to hold two or three girls and give them room to lay down and sleep. When you're put in the cage, you often stay there quite a long while. You're not allowed to speak, and nobody is allowed to speak to you. They can come and look as much as they like and stay as long as they wish, but they mustn't talk, and if you've been tied up when you were put inside, no one must help you get loose. You just stay tied." The fellow captive laughed in amused memory. "The usual punishment is when several girls are put in the cage together, all tied in different ways and all without their shifts, and they mustn't speak, and they must not untie each other."
"But if you actually untie each other, doesn't that make the whole thing sort of silly?"
"Gosh, there's nothing silly about it. Figure it for yourself. Dee Dee, suppose the girls do untie themselves. They're still locked inside the cage, and they can't get away. Then, when someone comes and finds them free of their ropes, you can guess what happens next. " Una sighed. "I suppose the real punishment about this thing is simply boredom. That and frustration. Gosh, I was never so frustrated in my life as when I was in there for a couple of days with another girl I was fond of. It was as though we were mad at each other. Sitting or standing there and just looking, never speaking, never touching, and outside the bars people laughing at the fix we were in and a bunch of kids making fun. I think I'd sooner be swished."
"What you really mean is you'd sooner be whipped."
"I suppose, but mostly they use willow switches on us and they really do make a swishing sound and hurt like all get out."
Dee Dee examined her companion. Una was a lovely creature of her own age, and the ropes with which she was bound accentuated every feature she possessed in a way no creation in lingerie could ever do. She obviously could not move and did not try. She was accepting her imprisonment against the tree in a way which told clearly that it had happened often before. Dee Dee asked the sixty- four dollar question. "Why don't you run away?"
Una looked startled. "Oh, you're new! I forgot. You don't understand at all. I suppose you might still want to run away, but none of us who were born here are that silly. You'll realize after awhile that we've got it good. We know what it's like on the outside in the world you come from. We feel sorry for people out there."
"But they don't whip girl girls out there, and they don't put them in cages or tie them to trees."
"They put them in stuffy offices and kitchens, and in the army and in prison, and they don't allow them to lay down with men, except in dark places on the sly. I don't call that much of a life.
I gather you're still thinking of running away?"
Dee Dee realized she could never make headway against Benbow conventions. The Benbows were solidly sold on the privileges of the Place and their own part in it. Defensively, she said, "Well, whether I am or not doesn't matter. I'll never get the chance. My hands are chained, and at night they chain my ankles to the floor. Look at me now--I'm as far from running away as a girl can ever be." She studied her fellow prisoner speculatively. "I bet the real reason you're all so pleased with yourselves is because you can't have babies until the Benbow says so, and in the meantime, you have all this wonderful screwing all over the place with anybody you choose. That's why you're all so damned complacent."
"You see! You're analyzing. We've all read about that too. You people on the outside do a lot it, far too much. You make your own problems. We don't bother with that stuff here. There's no need."
They fell silent, content to be on opposing sides until Dee Dee voiced a nagging fear. "Una, are they going to leave us tied here all night?"
"Of course they are. What else did you expect? We're not going to get to wishing we'd behaved ourselves in just a couple of hours." Dee Dee was dismayed. "Are you telling me I've got to stay tied here all night and then walk behind the plow all day tomorrow?" she demanded unhappily. "I'll be half dead."
"No, you won't, dear." Una was amused. "After it gets dark, you and I will go to sleep. You'd be surprised how easy it is. Both of us are tied so we can't fall over, so the ropes will hold us. It's not as good as a bed, but we will certainly get some sleep. Don't worry, you'll be behind Chet's plow again in the morning, and Chet is almost certain to lay you down a couple of times during the day. He's a real darling."
Dee Dee was forced to wonder if what Una was suffering was a punishment at all. She was taking it so casually, almost with an air of boredom. It left Dee Dee realizing that had the other girl been left alone she would be quietly resting and living thoughts within her mind. She would not be dismayed or distressed or fearful. So was it really a punishment for her at all? Irritably, she voiced doubt. "But if you're so comfortable and content and resigned, I don't see how this can be a punishment for you. Not the way it is for me. I can't bear the way all you females let yourselves be used and kicked around. Women here are just chattels for the men. I'd think you'd feel ashamed."
It was to no avail. Una simply laughed away the fears Dee Dee had brought with her from the outside world. She laughed away the shame and all the mental reservations by which a girl supports herself from puberty into marriage in a far-off world which, to Una, was a ridiculous place in which no one was really happy. The two girls talked away the twilight until they were alone with the ghosts of dusk and then of darkness. Not that it was ever entirely dark out there beneath the stars, but, little by little, their conversation dwindled and Dee Dee realize that in spite of the discomfort of her raised bound and arms and the strictures compressing her, she would truly sleep. True, the sleep was intermittent and fitful, but it was sleep nonetheless. When her final wakening came in the bright morning, Una was gone. Cynically, she supposed some man had desired the lovely girl and been unwilling to wait. No doubt he had come and freed her. then taken her away to satisfy his lust. And Una would have gone willingly and gladly. Would she ever get to be like that? The thought was disquieting. She knew herself already halfway there.
The effect of the most recent impositions of the Place upon Dee Dee was to send her with Chet and his team to the plow in a new mood of unconcern about her day. She had never previously approached her endless walk with misgivings and resentment at what was being done to her, but the Place had taken her to itself in fresh, insidious ways. The Benbow had singled her out for what he no doubt would consider privilege, and her night bound to the tree had acquainted her with the first glimpse of possible punishments. It had not been severe, but she had been thankful to be released, and she still bore upon her skin the weals of the cord. She had bathed and fed with the rest of the dormitory girls and was once more walking to become prisoner to the plow. When Chet locked her to the chain with a snap and a flourish, he boyishly kissed her. It was a boyish kiss, an immature intimacy, but Dee Dee's heart went out to him. She would have clutched him and brought him back that she might kiss him in return, but he had gone to his plow and was busy with his levers and tools. Dee Dee sighed and knew the lot of female prisoners around the world could easily be much worse than hers.
The young people had wisely decided not to push their luck in the matter of freeing the prisoner's hands from the tether of the chain. If this infringement of the code was discovered, punishment would be dire. Later, when Chet considered it prime to lay his captive on the ground, he could use his key and after their lovemaking, or what she previously had thought of as copulation, Dee Dee would walk beside him and they would talk. When this time came, she broached the subject uppermost in her mind. "Chet, the Benbow told me he's going to marry me off to his son."
"He can't do that!" Chet's exclamation was unusually vehement. "You're not that old. and that guy he calls his son wouldn't be good for you no how."
"But, Chet, isn't the Benbow also the law? Can't he make his own rules?"
"No, he can't. There's still the Benbow law, and there's still the elders. Girls are supposed to belong to all us guys until they's getting close to thirty. You're a long way off that yet. The Benbow don't have no right!"
She had never seen Chet so angry or disturbed. Dee Dee walked beside him and the churning plow while he uttered a tirade of assurances about immunity to marriage. To Chet, she simply was not old enough, and it was all too evident he was in love with her himself. He might not see it as that or used that word, but Dee Dee recognized the signs. His vehemence was almost longing in its intensity until she cautioned, "But, Chet, let's wait until there's a threat of it happening. Even the Benbow didn't quote a date. All he said was that he could make it come about any time he pleased, simply because he was the Benbow." Greatly daring, she voiced a sudden inspiration. "Chet, if you value me that much, why don't you rescue me? Get this iron off my wrist and both of us run away. Maybe you could get a horse and we could ride. Once we reach a town or village where there's a sheriff, we'd be safe. The Benbows aren't going to declare war on the United States over me."
The thought was new, and Chet twisted uneasily on the jolting seat, glancing sideways at her with a mixture of hot desire and cautious doubt. Dee Dee's heart raced. Slowly and deliberately, he asked, "You know more about the outside than me--Do you think we could make it?"
"Of course we could, Chet. How far is the nearest settlement?"
"About thirty miles. There's little tiny places, but they don't amount to much. Wouldn't be no sheriff in any of them, and anyway, they'd be too scared of the Benbows to give us any help. More than likely, we'd best steer clear of them."
"Chet, you mean you will actually do it?"
"Don't see why not. Wouldn't never have thought of it if it hadn't been for you, but there ain't no way I'm going to sit still and watch you married off to someone else. Wouldn't do no bit of good for me to put in a bid on you. They'd figure I'm too young. Guess I maybe am, according to the law. But I want you bad--for keeps." He grinned apologetically. "Just one thing: ain't no way I can get them irons off your wrists. You'll have to wear 'em, but it don't matter none. I'll look after you."
It was the way of life, these sudden reversals of fortune. She who had been a chained slave now beheld liberty. But, being a human and a nice girl, she was instantly smitten with guilt. She voiced it instantly. "But, Chet, this takes you away from everything you believe in, everything you value. All you'd have out there would be me, and I wouldn't be much help to you. The best I could do would be to go back to my hometown and get my job back. That would support us both. Would you like that?"
Chet's eyes shined. "Of course I would, if I was with you. You're all I want now. Ain't nothing else really matters."
To marry this boy would be an act of folly. Her feelings for him were maternal. Their frolicking beneath the sun had been the carnality of kittens or puppy dogs in a total absence of inhibition. She had become fond of Chet, but it was not a deep and abiding passion, nor was what he felt for her, but he was too naive to realize the compulsions of his flesh. He was a male who had been threatened by another male in the taking of his girl. He was being governed by the instinct to rise and fight for his possession. Dee Dee was troubled. But on the other hand. Chet was her path to freedom, and who could tell that he himself might not fulfill a greater destiny in the outside world than he ever would here in the confines of the Place. Dee Dee cast doubt aside.
It was surprisingly easy. But guilt told her it was easy only because of Chet. It was upon the head of Chet that the Benbows' wrath would fall if they were caught. Dee Dee supposed she herself would be punished in some disagreeable or perhaps horrible manner and then tossed back into the situation which had confronted her on the first day of her initial capture. That was all. But for Chet... !
They planned it was the following morning, and their plan was simple. Chet included in his eight-horse team a pair of lighter animals which when they reached the most distant part of the field he quietly unharnessed, replacing their cumbersome impedimenta with a sursingle and a pair of contrived stirrups. Dee Dee could never have ridden bareback. In fact, she could not ride at all, and would be compelled simply to cling on for dear life as they sped their way to freedom. She was suddenly frightened of this insecure freedom upon the back of a huge beast she could not control, but her fear was secondary to her desire for freedom. Within their first half mile she had overcome the first panic of motion in which she clutched the sursingle for dear life and found the rough rope stirrups totally inadequate for security, but a panic which soon gave way to a wild elation. The horse Chet had picked for her had an easy gait, and he controlled both animals down to an easy loping stride which his chained maiden soon accustomed herself to, and began to enjoy. Fear fled, and she spared brief moments to look at him adoringly. In Dee Dee's eyes, in this act of escape, the boy had become a man. She was totally dependent on his skill and courage. The time when their roles would be reversed was still ahead. From time to time they glanced back, but there were none who followed. Chet's decilated team might not be discovered for a couple of hours.
The town of Whitlaw accepted them with dubiety. The irons on Dee Dee's wrists aroused the gravest suspicions in the sheriff s mind. He knew all about the Benbows--or said he did--and seemed more inclined to be for them then against them. He obviously wished the young couple had gone elsewhere. For some minutes Dee Dee was convinced he would return them from whence they came, washing his hands of a pair of runaways from an authority he did not wish to contest, but a streak of luck transpired in the discovery it was he who had recovered the abandoned car in the desert and now held it impounded, awaiting its absent owner. The documents he had found in the glove compartment confirmed Dee Dee's story. There was also her luggage and her purse, which still contained the traveling money which would now be their salvation. It was not until the sheriff led them to the local blacksmith for the removal of her irons that disaster came into view. The blacksmith listened to their story of why, in this day and age, a girl bore irons upon her wrists, and flatly refused his aid.
"You belong to them there Benbows," he affirmed with certainty. "And I don't want them guys on my tail. If it was them girls riveted them irons on your wrists, it's them who'll take 'em off. I ain't having no part of it. Sorry, sheriff, you do what you like with them, but count me out."
"They made me a prisoner," Dee Dee pleaded. "They riveted these things on me several days ago and I've worn them ever since. I can't get them off. Nobody can get them off but you."
"Try the garage, they've got a hacksaw they can do the job with--if they want to." The blacksmith was irritable, possibly under the promptings of a guilty conscience. It was a Western tradition to help those in need, and he was turning away two young people who were probably innocent of any crime.
"Well, okay, let's try the garage," the sheriff said irritably. He, too, was not happy about interfering in the Benbow affairs. "I ain't a bit sure you two shouldn't go back home, but the garage is just down the block. You'll have to excuse me--I've got to make some phone calls."
The runaways eyed each other in dismay. "One town," Chet said disgustedly. "I should have known. These folks do business with us now and then. That there sheriff ain't going to help us none.
Best thing we can do is go on to the next place. You got your car now, so that's no problem. If I slap our horses on the rumps, they'll go on home on their own, but that don't get your hands free."
"I don't mind," Dee Dee giggled. "I've had my hands chained so long--what's a few extra hours? Let's get out of this place. I don't like the feel of it."
Dee Dee's shift and her chained hands had drawn attention on their walk to the blacksmith. The stares were repeated now, and they were most definitely not friendly. Curious, perhaps, but distinctly unapproving. Dee Dee's scanty covering and chained hands were an anomaly Whitlaw rejected.
The sheriff listened to their decision without comment. He shrugged. "Your car's out back. This way."
But Dee Dee's little car was not out back. It was nowhere to be seen. The sheriff professed the same dismay as they themselves, but Dee Dee wasn't convinced he wasn't feigning his surprise. They listened to his protestations of good intentions and aid in the car's recovery, believing not a word of what he said. At the end of it, he asked, "What you folks aiming to do?"
"Go on someplace else," Chet said dourly. "Wouldn't call this here place the friendliest lot in the world."
"But the little lady--her hands are still ironed. Wouldn't the garage--"
"Never went there. Ain't no need since we're not staying around." Chet stared at the official as though reading his mind. "We'll be saying good day to you."
The sheriff watched them go. When they were out of sight and earshot, he picked up the phone.
CHAPTER THREE - THE BARRED CAGE
The runaways had left their horses tethered among a cluster of small trees on the outskirts of the town. There the Benbow awaited them. One of the group of four men was the Benbow himself. The confrontation was high drama.
"Hiya, Chet boy," the Benbow said casually, then directed his greeting to the girl. "Good morning. Dee Dee. You aiming to go someplace?"
Dee Dee's world fell in ruins. Behind her was a hostile community, and facing her were four Benbow men on their horses. If forced was used, the Benbows would win. Fight would be stupid, and anyway, where could they flee? She looked down at her chained hands, seeing them as the key to the situation. They remained a symbol of the Benbows' possession of her. From them she looked to Chet. The boy's face was a study of conflicting emotions. Her heart went out to him in sympathy, understanding his dilemma and the thoughts which would be disturbing his mind. Dee Dee knew with a terribly certainty they had lost the battle for freedom. She did not want Chet hurt, and as for herself, it would be useless to resist. Any one of the four men could subdue her with one hand. Forthrightly, she said, "Chet, it's no use. I can't get away. We mustn't fight. " Craftily, she added, "It was good of you to follow me and try to talk me out of it, but it's all over now anyway."
"How come them two horses are missing from the team?" the Benbow demanded shrewdly. Dee Dee gulped. They were surrounded by suspicion, and any story she concocted would be flimsy enough. Defensively, she retorted, "I talked Chet into letting me have one of the horses. Then he took a horse himself and rode with me. He didn't want me to escape, and thought I'd get into trouble. You mustn't blame Chet for anything."
"Horseshit!" The Benbow glared derisively. "But we're not concerned with Chet. He's a good boy. If he's gone astray, it's you who led him." The Benbow chuckled. "Nobody wanna take them irons off your wrists, eh? We got friends. Ain't nobody steals our women." He turned to one of his three companions. "Mike, help her up on a horse. And you too, Chet. Let's get going."
It was the end. The runaways exchanged a glance of resignation as they mounted. The group of six rode across the sand, the boy and the girl separated by three men and three horses. After a couple of miles the Benbow called a halt. He addressed the man who was leading the horse on which Dee Dee sat dejectedly in a fresh captivity. "Milt, you know what to do. Chet, you come with us. We're going on ahead." Chet stared stonily ahead. He and his three companions loped away in the direction of the Place. They were soon lost from sight.
The man and the girl sat silent, staring out into the semi-wilderness after the rest had vanished. A dozen possibilities flashed through Dee Dee's mind, but she rejected them all. For her, there quite simply was no escape. She was literally surrounded by enemies. She looked at Milt enquiringly, but dismissed any thought of asking his aid. He bore the Benbow stamp and was staring back at her reprovingly. "You're a damn silly girl," he assured earnestly. "You had it good, and now you've horsed yourself up for sure."
"What will they do to Chet?"
Milt shrugged. "Most likely nothing. He's always been a good lad, until you showed up." Milt chuckled. "It's you who needs to worry, not Chet. Guess you'd better get off that horse."
"Why?"
"Never mind why--just you slide off that there animal."
Dee Dee obeyed. It took only a couple of minutes for her to realize the enormity of what was about to happen. Milt joined her on the sand and unleashed the lariat from his saddle. He grasped her unresisting hands and tied the end of it to the joining links. He then gathered her horse's tether, remounted, and set the tiny cavalcade in motion. Dee Dee, herself tethered to his saddle, stood in momentary disorder until the lariat grew taut at a distance of some fifteen paces. Then she took her first step toward a fresh slavery, which she now had reason to desperately fear. But she had no choice. If she paused, she would be dragged forward on her face. The lariat was demanding. After a few paces, she realized her best course was to step briskly ahead to gain slack and to gather that slack into one hand as she had done with the chain behind the plow. Milt looked down and grinned. "Lovely back there, eh?"
His query went unanswered. Dee Dee was concerned with but one thought. "What will they do with me, Milt?"
"That's not for me to say, honey. It likely depends on how bad the Benbow wants you broken in. Of course, you're on report, and that ain't never good for a girl. We're going to have to work that out somehow. You'll likely get a swishing on your hands and soles of your feet, I reckon."
Dee Dee shivered. Milt spoke the observation so casually, as though she should be lucky to get off so easily. Curious and scared, she asked, "Will I be able to walk after the swishing? I've never had it before."
"Won't be easy for a day or two. If the Benbow wants to be real mean, he may put you behind the plow first thing. You've been a damn fool, honey. You ain't in no position to quibble."
It was in her mind to ask a similar question about Chet, but it would be best not to. If she inquired about the boy too much, with a too evident concern, it would arouse suspicion or confirm those already in existence. From what had already been said, she sensed that a possibility that Chet might get off the whole thing free. He was one of them, and she was not--at least not yet.
She walked behind the horse as she had walked behind Chet and his team, until Milt brought the tiny cavalcade to a halt and told her, "You can take off that shift now, honey. Hand it up to me. Ain't gonna do you no damn good."
Dee Dee had heard the words before, or others like them. She was forced to one more assessment of possibilities, but shrugged them away. Dully, she asked, "Why? What good will it do? I'll be naked."
"That's right. Dee Dee. Do it!"
She obeyed. What did it matter? Her body was not her own. If she was not careful, the Benbows would soon also possess her mind. Her tethered hands rose to tug at the familiar string. She handed the discarded shift up to Milt and said, "There, now I'm naked. I hope you're satisfied."
The trek resumed. Because of her nudity, Dee Dee had no longer any wish to be closer to Milt than need be. Little by little, she allowed the tether to lengthen as she fell back. When she held no more than ten feet of slack, she maintained that distance from the two horses and the rider. If Milt wanted conversation, he could talk to the horses. Savagely, she longed to vent her anger. She was being given the treatment of a domestic animal, and at the end of it there would await only pain, shame, and a closer captivity. She wondered how long into the night she would have to walk to cover the distance. She wondered, too, why Milt did not compel her to lay down. But that was one of the few virtues of the Benbow: their men were always sufficiently satiated that they were never under the compulsions that afflicted other males beyond their borders. She took the endless steps toward the place she had no wish to go.
In the beginning of evening. Dee Dee was subjected to one more surprise. They had reached a tiny creek and a few trees, and Milt evidently considered his day's work over. He brought them to a halt, dismounted, and tended steeds, leaving the tethered girl to her own devices while he made camp. Noting the bulging saddle bag, Dee Dee realized this stop had been planned. For when the man, in whose care she had been placed, finished his preparations, he turned to her. his words more demeaning than the act of which they spoke.
"Suppose I may as well fuck you now, before we eat. Get it over with. Lay down."
This time it was a rough and brutal rape. Dee Dee endured it without joy. She longed for Chet, but Chet was gone. When it was over, she accepted the offered food and ate it only because she was famished. Milt brewed coffee which she drank gratefully.
"Ain't nothing to do in the dark except sleep," Milt announced with authority. "May as well get an early start in the morning, so I'll fix you for the night."
Being "fixed" for the night was at least original. Dee Dee's ankles were tightly bound and then tethered to a tiny tree. Her chained hands were still at the end of the lariat. She was already flat upon the sand so that when her hands had been drawn above her head and the lariat bound to a distant tree she found herself able to roll this way or that as sleep might demand, but had lost all control of her limbs, nor could she bring her chained hands down to where her teeth could reach the rope. It was a neat and effective captivity It would allow her to sleep, but that was all. After a number of experiments, she compromised by laying on her stomach and cradling her cheek on one of her pinioned bare arms. All things considered, she slept surprisingly well.
* * *
Around noon of the following day she was delivered back to Rachel. The two girls were left alone. Whatever fate the Place held in store for Dee Dee was not immediately evident. Dee Dee was grateful for being hosed down and the combing of her hair. Under Rachel's maternal eye, she sat upon the ground to dry and said what she had said several times before. "Rachel, I'm so terribly sorry! I expect it was dumb crazy."
"You just haven't been here long enough, that's all." Rachel was her usual placid self. There was affection in her eyes as she tested the ironed wrists to make sure they had not been tampered with. "You'll be punished, of course, but it won't be the worst possible punishment. I'm afraid I have to put you in the cage."
"That's bad, isn't it?"
"Well, for you it's just a beginning--somewhere to keep you safe and remind you of your guilt. There's only one other girl in there right now, and she can't talk to you. I suppose I may as well lock you in there right now. That doesn't stop us from talking. I can easily talk to you through the bars. If you're safe inside, then I can't be accused of being too kind."
The cage was one of many structures scattered on the outer perimeter of the main Benbow settlement. It was fabricated in bird cage style or heavy iron bars and was about eight feet in diameter. When the door was unlocked and Dee Dee stepped inside, the proceeding was watched with little interest by a naked maiden who was firmly gagged and whose hands and arms were equally firmly tied behind her back. It was obvious she was in some pain. "Sandra's been here since yesterday," Rachel informed. "You're not really company for each other because of the silence, but that's the way it is. You'll have to make the best of it. Gosh, darling, I'm so terribly sorry!"
"Am I forbidden to touch this girl, Rachel?"
"You can touch her, but you mustn't untie her. I know you'll want to but don't."
"The man who had me tied behind his horse--Milton--told me I'd probably be swished. What do you think, Rachel?"
"It's the least you can expect, darling."
"But it seems to barbarous! All I did was what any sensible girl would do. I don't want to give up my freedom without a fight. The Benbows have absolutely no right to hold me this way. Their changing and messing up my whole life."
Rachel sighed. It was so difficult to make a new girl understand how lucky she was. Patiently, she offered, "But you must remember, Dee Dee, that you've been here a little while now. This is the first time you've been confronted by physical punishment. The Benbows have really been kind to you. You've been offered the chance to be one of us, and you were allowed to walk behind Chet's plow because everyone knows Chet is a good influence, but you sort of subverted him. You talked him into something he knew was wrong. I suppose you know Chet loves you."
"I love him too, but I'm too old for Chet. It's silly for the two of us to think of love in that way. If I hadn't been put so totally in his power, I don't suppose we'd ever have looked at each other twice, but all day long I was there. I was chained to his plow, and I couldn't go away if I wanted to. Chet had to be aware of me all the time, just as I became increasingly aware of him. Damn it, we're only human."
"Well, I don't know what will come of it all," Rachel said unhappily. "I got swished once, but only on the palms of my hands. That was bad enough, and I've always wondered how a girl could possibly bear having the soles of her feet swished too. " She paused a moment and shrugged. "Of course, they fasten you down so there's nothing you can do about it anyway, but I sure do wish it wasn't going to happen to you. Maybe, if you're very humble and contrite, they won't swish you at all. If you can bring yourself to do it, you'd best act as though you know you've made a mistake and are anxious to correct it by becoming one of us. It may not work, but you can try."
"I suppose now they'll never take these irons off my wrists!" Dee Dee exclaimed thoughtfully. "They won't leave them on forever, will they?"
"There's no use talking about these things, dear, we just don't know. The Benbow and the deacons will simply do what they think is best. I don't want you to get the idea they are cruel or vindictive, because they are not. You're as much a problem to them as they are to you. Darling, I simply have to go."
Dee Dee was hugged and kissed in a brief spontaneous burst of sympathy. The cage door clanged shut and there was the snap of locks. The imprisoned girl watched Rachel for as far as she was visible, then turned her attention to her companion in the cage. Sandra obviously wanted to talk, but she did not dare. Her eyes were wide and sorrowful. Dee Dee's heart went out to the bound, hurt maiden with whom she would share the cage that night. She wondered if it was possible to remain mute, or if anyone would hear them if they spoke. It was all so silly, such a reflection of a totalitarian authority. She held out her chained arms invitingly and slipped her hands over Sandra's head to clasp the willing mouth to hers, then kissed in a communion of sorrow in which they both found release. Sandra's arm struggled in a futile attempt to do the same, an attempt purely instinctive, totally foiled. It was in Dee Dee's mind to free Sandra's ropes and be damned to the consequences, but Sandra read her thoughts and shook her head vigorously. The two girls stared. Bereft of speech, they had nowhere to go. They slithered through the still warm sand and tried to sleep. But sleep was elusive. Dee Dee had too much to think about, sorrow on one hand and pain on the other. She was also vividly conscious of the motions of the bound girl laying so close and so equally defeated. Sandra's bound arms hurt. There was no easy way for her to sleep or to position herself. The strictures deep within her elbows were a constant nagging torment and from time to time a tiny whimper of protest escape the silenced lips. It took perhaps a couple of hours for Dee Dee to reach a point of exasperation and call to the naked girl on the other side of the tiny cage. Without words, which would have brought an inevitable protest from silenced lips, Dee Dee's shackled hands sought and found the unkind knots. After an initial start of dismay, the bound girl lay quiet while her arms and wrists were freed. Dee Dee's heart surged in sympathy as she peeled away the cords from the deep indentations they had made within maiden flesh. They must have hurt cruelly, and Sandra's passive acceptance of release was no doubt a reflection of thankfulness for surcease of any agony borne too long.
Sandra was crying, her tears sprung from a mixture of relief, pain, and apprehension. While she wept, she massaged the wounds the ropes had left within her skin. Dee Dee helped. With gentle fingers she smoothed soothed the striations of the cords, blotting from her mind the consequences of her act. The Benbows could do as they pleased with her. Uncaring now of what might happen, she whispered, "Sandra, what did you do to get yourself in here like this?"
For a moment Sandra simply stared, fearful of the prohibition against speech. But she had crossed a point of no return and whispered, "I disobeyed an elder. He's a hateful man, and I refused to lay for him, so I got put on report and here I am." The young voice faltered. "Oh, Dee Dee, I'm so terribly grateful. You can't know how those ropes were hurting, but what about now? We can't possibly get out of the cage. We can't run away."
"Would you really run away if you could?" Dee Dee sounded as surprised as Rachel might have been. "I tried to run away, and look what it got me. You wouldn't dare."
"Yes, I would. The Benbows are good people, but that elder has it in for me. He'll never let me alone. He aims to punish me and punish me until I give in and whatever he wants." The youthful voice faltered. "But he's the law. I can't get help. So what else is there to do but run away? I'll wait my chance and steal a horse. Someone out there will look after me--won't they?"
"I wouldn't bet on it," Dee Dee said somberly. "You'd have to ride a long way. But if you see an opportunity, can I go with you?"
They whispered, sometimes their voices rising to a normal level, only to be hushed again in fear. Both girls knew a nemesis awaited them with a new day. Sandra sadly spoke of her convictions as to what would happen. "They may not punish me," she said reflectively. "They'll know it was you who untied me, so the guilt will be all yours. At least that's the way they'll see it. Oh, Dee Dee, this simply means more punishment for you, and you've got enough already."
"Forget it. Maybe if I break enough of their laws, they'll let me go as a hopeless case."
"Do you think the early in the morning you could tie me up again the way I was? That way they might never know."
"I'll try if you want, but I doubt I can. It's terribly difficult to do things with chained hands. Everything is wickedly frustrating. But I'll try if you want. For now, let's hold each other and try to get some sleep."
The problem of retying Sandra's hands and arms was solved for them. Exhausted, they slept later than they should. They woke up to discover Rachel and another girl gazing at them through the bars. "I knew you'd do it," Rachel said distressfully. "Oh, Dee Dee!"
"You should have fastened each one of them to the bars on opposite sides," Rachel's companion admonished severely. "Dee isn't ready for responsibility yet. She's found to do everything she shouldn't."
"But, Paula, do we have to tell on her?" Rachel asked hopefully. "Couldn't we just tie Sandra the way she was and pretend nothing happened?"
"Don't be an idiot! You know someone would see a difference in the way she was tied. I'm not running the risk. I'm going to put both of them on report and let someone else make the decisions. You'd best go along or you'll be in trouble too."
Dee Dee stood doubtfully to watch Sandra's wrists and arms retied. Paula was efficient. The job she did might well have been accepted as the original. The same strands in the same indentations in the flesh. Wistfully, she said, "That's marvelous job you've done, Paula. It wouldn't hurt either of you to pretend nothing happened. No one could tell."
"Quiet, you!" Paula said fiercely as she tugged and pulled. "You're in hot water, and I'm not getting in there too." She made a final tug and pushed the once more helpless Sandra back against the bars. "Come on, Rachel, bring that girl along. You've got to feed her-and wash her and get her up before the elders by ten o'clock. I hope she gets right and truly swished--she deserves it. "
* * *
The Benbows did things right. It might have been easy for Dierdrie to dismiss all that was happening as silly--an affectation of things done better elsewhere--but she was marched into the court room, cleaned, washed, and fed, between the two guards who were Paula and Rachel doing their duty as they had been told with a fine flourish. Six men, including the Benbow himself, stared down at them from a slightly raised platform and a dias running its entire length. The Supreme Court itself could have added no greater dignity to the proceedings. Dierdrie quailed. Nothing bearable was likely to emanate from this group of old men who would be little susceptible to her youth and nudity. Being on report and subject to punishment, she had been denied clothes. Her guards abandoned her before the dias, to leave her standing nudely isolated and trying in vain to do something with her chained hands. No matter how she held them, Dee Dee was positive the irons upon her wrists made her appear silly and awkward. She did not want this, for what she could offer the judges to look at might be her only defense.
Dierdrie's trial now followed a course similar to any in the land: prosecution and defense, question and answer. Dierdrie was defended by a man she had never seen but whose arguments were certainly not token ones. He tried to prove her innocence. In spite of his efforts, she was found guilty and formally sentenced. Her sentencing was the most awesome even of the whole affair. The man who sentenced her was, of course, the Benbow himself. He rolled out the words with a sonorous relish which left no doubt of his pleasure in their utterance. The chained, naked girl stood, fearfully cringing in the face of his majestic delivery. It appeared that Miss Dierdrie Moffat was to be swished on both the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. She would then be taken to the blacksmith who would rivet fresh irons upon her ankles to hobble and inhibit further flight. Dierdrie was told to be grateful for a mild punishment. She was being excused the more formal flogging she had earned. Her inexperience in captivity was offered by the excuse for leniency.
Dee Dee was led from the hall of judgement to the place of punishment by the same guards who had taken her from the cage. Rachel and Paula both assured her of good fortune. They had expected her to be flogged and given a period of imprisonment in what they called the lockhouse. Dierdrie asked no question about it. If she never got there, it would be too soon. She was more concerned with the reality of her sentencing and the infliction upon her flesh it formally sanctioned. Their first visit was to the blacksmith.
"Hear tell you done disgraced yourself," he said in a friendly manner. "Way you're heading, you ain't never going to be free of irons. Regular customer--that's what you'll be."
"Shut up, Caled." Paula did not share his good humor. "Get the irons off her wrists. She has to be swished."
"You want her free before I iron her feet again?"
"It doesn't matter. The silly little bitch can have a moment of freedom before we take it away from her again. Show he what she's missing. Go ahead."
Nakedness knelt. The anvil was the altar before which she prayed with joined hands. She placed them, now, for the smith's convenience, her heart beating hard. This would be the first complete freedom of body and limbs she had known since captivity. Dierdrie watched and winced as the punch was positioned and the hammer made its resounding impasse upon metal. It took only three blows to drive the rivet from the confining circlets. If she herself had been given the freedom to seek this sundering of her bounds, she would not have done so in a lifetime. The act was repeated on her other hand, and a moment later she rose to her feet, more totally free in body than since that time, so long ago, when she had abandoned her car to seek for help. "Go ahead and stretch," Paula advised. "You won't be getting may more chances."
It was glorious, a luxury beyond words. To stretch, to raise and lower her arms in a manner so long denied. Dee Dee did gymnastics enough to exhaust the tolerance of one of her jailers. "Good enough," Paula declared. To the blacksmith she snapped, "We'll bring her back to you after the place of punishments. By then she'll be a sorrier and wiser girl."
The place of punishment was not impressive. It was simply a cleared and tidy patch of concrete at one end of which was an obvious whipping post and at the other two small, insignificant posts which Dierdrie could not relate to anything. In the center was some small strange looking impediment the sentenced girl could not identify. Whatever they were, it became evident she was soon to know their use. It was to them she was led. It was fearfully simple. The girl to be punished was told to kneel, her knees upon designated spots, the whole thing had been well thought out. Dee Dee was by no means the first unhappy maiden to thus kneel in penitence. She was instructed to widen the distance between her legs to enable a wooden yoke to be placed over the hollow behind her knees and thrust hard down until its fastenings clicked shut with the snap of finality. The wooden bar had been shaped to fit the girls that came its way. An unkind refinement manifested itself in a metal bar, above and beyond which her ankles were now forced to rest. Paula tied one ankle securely while Rachel bound the other. This left the delinquent upon knees already protesting the implacability of concrete. "I'm afraid you have to stay kneeling, darling." Rachel's voice was soothing but anxious. "Somebody will be watching. You could make things easier by laying down and resting your face on your arms. But you're not supposed to. Paula and I have to warn you about this. If you don't obey the order, your bottom will be swished in addition to the rest, and there's no use getting that."
Everything was neat and tidy and well conceived. Everyone would be pleased with it except the girl whose knees were solidly clamped. Dierdrie listened to the instructions and made her assurances of compliance as fervid as need be, but found no pleasure in learning that the punishment itself would not immediately take place. What she must now endure was described as the pose of penance. She would stay kneeling until a crowd gathered in a circle to watch. She would, in short, have plenty of time in which to cringe and fearfully anticipate what was about to happen. It was a simple refinement of cruelty and would leave no mark other than bruised knees. The frightened girl sighed in dejection. No watcher was visible, and the temptation to lay forward cradled in her own arms was compelling. No doubt that was part of her punishment: to endure and abstain.
Dierdrie's isolation was complete. It was evident the Benbows had issued orders she was to be left alone until some appointed time. There was a frightening atmosphere of abandonment about the whole situation. The settlement could be empty and she herself left as she was for whatever fate might transpire. It was easy to be fanciful. Dierdrie knew her mind could run wild and deliver her to panic. She clenched her teeth and took the opportunity to massage two chafed wrists, still grateful for their release from metal, wondering what it would be like to have chained feet. The Benbows were taking no more chances with her. Without a lot of help, she would never leave this place.
Dee Dee tried to ignore her knees, but they nagged her constantly, imploring help. The insidious nature of this punishment became more and more evident as time passed. The two small portions of her anatomy in contact with the hard surface of the concrete refused to come to terms with that on which they rested. They also refused to become numb, but the fastened girl's paramount impression was of having hands and arms completely free and yet totally unable to ease her pain or give her freedom. From time to time, Dee Dee continued to form the motions so long denied by ironed wrists. There was a strange unreality about it, as though it was the normal condition for a girl to have her hands joined in a manner no one could put asunder, other than the blacksmith himself. She considered playing with herself, but beyond a teasing of her nipples, she dare not go. If someone watched, that act also might be held against her. In all, except their treatment of women, the Benbows appeared puritan. This also might come about by the freeing of the male from unappeased sexual desire. Whatever puritanism they possessed probably came about by their subjugation of the female to the male. It could be said that the Benbows had nowhere else to go. They had made a land of male fulfillment and were content. There was none to contest them, least of all the females themselves who in their own way knew gratification beyond the norm. The captured girl knew herself an anomaly in a land which did not tolerate dissent.
The forming of the crowd was similar to the tuning up of an orchestra in its pit before the overture. Those who came first had been granted access to the kneeling girl and had the right to question or advise as they saw fit.
"Didn't you like us, Dee Dee? We thought we were being kind."
"You're going to have some mighty sore hands and feet, love."
"She's damn lucky she isn't getting a tender ass to boot."
"You'll never get a chance to run again."
Perhaps the kindest thought of all was a gruff voiced male who assured her that if she was not on report and about to be punished, he would have had her lay for him, but since she was the wrong way around, he would be unable to deliver this solace. Dierdrie said thank you and smiled. It was all absurd and a phantasmagoria deying credence until after it had happened. Children eyed her solemnly and were no doubt edified by her example. There was also a young woman who assured the quaking delinquent. She had traversed the same path herself not so long ago, and while it happened a girl was certain she would did. She never did, of course, and you got over it and simply made up your mind not to be a naughty girl again. None of it was reassuring, and about the assembly was that electric atmosphere of something waiting to happen.
While Dierdrie had been at the mercy of those who arrived first, the crowd had unobtrusively grown to the point where men now appeared who marshalled them into a circle which widened as others arrived, until the kneeling girl was positively surrounded by a population which must surely be there to witness her shame. She was thankful that in order that all might enjoy an uninterrupted view the circle was wide enough and distant enough for too close an observation of whatever ways in which she was about to disgrace herself. That she would disgrace herself she had no doubt. She had no previous experience of pain, but was deathly scared of it. She could not conceive it as anything but unbearable. There would be no stoic dignity for her. She hoped she would not scream, but she was certain she would.
One of the elders was her executioner. He arrived with a bundle of willow withes, all of them of a length and limberness to daunt the stoutest heart. Dierdrie studied them and found them just plain wicked. Their number was also cause for alarm. Quite obviously, some were expected to wear out and need replacement after their contact with her skin. She listened without hope while the elder gave a brief description of her crimes and impending punishment. He neglected to mention the number of strokes she would receive. No doubt this was deliberate and with intent. Suddenly, she was being personally addressed.
"Dierdrie Moffat, you will hold out first you right arm with the palm of your hand uppermost and tautly stretched. After you have received the first stroke, you will count to ten silently and then extend your left arm in a similar manner. Your punishment will continue in this way until complete."
Dee Dee looked up at him askance. This was it, and it was all so matter of fact, as though it was something this man did every day. Obviously she was expected to comply, but only a count of ten between each stroke! It would be impossible to endure. She might manage a couple on each hand if she knew that was the extent of her punishment, but she was quite certain there would be much, much more. She was not a naughty girl standing before the class in school. There was something deadly earnest in what she had just heard. She wondered what would happen if she rebelled , if she refused to extend an arm. But, in her naked helplessness, she had not the courage. If she managed to do what was required of her, she might minimize this ordeal. Tentatively, she extended her right arm and opened her hand to stretch the palm as tightly as she could. A least she would be obedient for number one.
The cut, when it came, was beyond any vision of awfulness she had ever heard. It was unendurable, an outrage upon feminine flesh. It scorched her hand with an incandescent intensity to elicit a small wail of shock from her lips and to cause her to clasp the injured member beneath its twin armpit and hug it tight to herself, as might a mother to an injured child.
Agony blotted out all else. The naked girl knelt in a world of searing pain. She had no awareness of time and had forgotten the instructions of the count to ten. It seemed only moments before the willow was reefing on her bare shoulder in a stern reminder of other strokes to come. Dazed, and for the moment uncomprehending, she gazed up wide eyed at her inquisitor. His somber bulk loomed like a darkness against an azure sky. He was her nemesis, awaiting her own sacrifice of her own innocent flesh. In him she saw no pity or hope. She turned away and fearfully considered what she should do. But her time was past, and she was already in a fresh delinquency of delay. Dee Dee moaned and extended her left arm and the innocence of an unmarked palm. The willow bittered her again.
It was impossible! She had no further endurance to test. One such blow upon each hand was surely as much as any girl could bear. She heard her own voice despairing, explaining to the immensity of the man at her side how impossible this was. How she was only a girl, and naked, and fixed proplessly, because she had broken a law to which she did not ascribe. Her words came brokenly in a kind of undulating and prolonged wail. Somehow she must make him understand, somehow she must bring home to this dark visaged male the enormity of what he was doing to a nude and helpless girl. Surely there must be words somewhere, but there were no such words. Once again the willow was rapping in male admonition upon her skin. Forthrightly, she turned.
"I can't," she said simply. "It's impossible. It hurts more than any girl can bear. I can't stick my hand out for another stroke."
"Yes, they all say that," the male presence said dispassionately. "You right hand again, if you please."
It was as though she was in the grip of a force beyond herself, as though a will other than her own raised her arm and then, after a moment's hesitation, offered her palm for another wound. The blow was swift and fierce, and she relapsed into the keening moans she could not control. Now she had both injured palms beneath her armpits as though to absorb from them the pain they could not bear alone. It was an agony which crept up her arms and diffused itself throughout her whole being. She wished she could make the man understand how terrible it was, but he understood nothing. He was the male!
It went on and on forever without cessation other than the pauses always terminated by the rapping of the switch upon her shoulder. Dierdrie lost count. She lost awareness of everything except her agony. She could never have believed so terrible a pain could emanate simply from a girl's hands. She had been too young to have suffered such a punishment in school. The practice had been discontinued before her birth. In any case, it would never have approached the severity of what she now endured. Her shock was doubled and trebled by the fact of a new experience for which she had had no preparation. So far as Dee Dee was concerned, the pain went on forever and was far worse than any other girl had ever known. She snatched quick, fearful glances up at the male who held the willow, but always turned away again in defeat. She beheld the shredded and broken portions of willows that had spent their resilience upon her skin. It was hard to believe they had been worn out on her flesh--that they had become shredded because of her. She longed to point them out to the male--to justify the cessation of this cruelty--but she found no words. Perhaps there were no words. Dee Dee knew herself in the power of a force, a relentless pursuit of a justice she denied. When it was finally over, she did believe it was over. She could not believe it ever would be. Her hands and arms had taken unto themselves a life all their own, as though realizing she could never herself comply with the commands. They had been automatically offering themselves to adamant without any conscious volition of her own. It was a triumph for the male, for the Place, for the Benbows. Here was a maiden who had been tried and not found wanting. With her hands clasped beneath her armpits. Dee Dee sobbed out her agony in an abandonment of grief. When she finally turned to gaze up at the male, she found him gone. In his place was Rachel. It was as though she had exchanged Satan for her guardian angel.
"It's me, darling. Are you all right?" Rachel's query was an anxious whisper. The crowd lingering in formation told all too clearly that the show was not over. Rachel's voice was urgent. "I brought you some water. Here, drink. Is there anything else I can do?"
"Oh, Rachel, I can't bear it! It's too terrible. I had no idea!" Dee Dee gulped water gratefully. "And it isn't over, is it? They're still going to--"
"Yes, dear, they're still going to whip your feet. I wish I could do something."
"You can, Rachel--you can! Can't you try and explain to them I can't possibly live through it? No girl could. It's too awful. I think it will hurt more than my hands. The way everyone acts, I'm sure it will. And if it does, I can't bear it. Rachel, please go and tell them."
"But, darling, so many girls have been whipped this way. There's no use me telling them you can't bear it, because other girls have, and you'll bear it too. I know you will. Please try and understand that. I think it has to help."
"But that awful man--"
"Yes, darling, I know. You think he's terrible and brutal and evil, but he really isn't. He's doing what he thinks is his duty. Please don't ask me to judge whether it is or not, or how good or bad it is. None of that matters. It's simply going to happen. It's going to be done to you."
Rachel was suddenly lost to sight. She had busied herself with keys and locks and knots. First, the youthful ankles, and then the youthful knees, one by one the fastenings fell away until the punished girl was free. Rachel helped her stand and shared her moan of agony as the brutalized knees returned to normal. The prisoner rubbed them vigorously, but her hands were numb. Rachel took over while the swished girl returned her hands to the refuge beneath her arms. Paula's arrival put an end to compassion.
"Come along, you idiots. Stop standing here and fussing. Rachel, you know we have to get her ready."
Each of them took a bare arm. Paula's grasp was harsh, Rachel's kind. Bemused and knowing herself incapable of fighting these two girls, Dee Dee allowed herself to be led to the two tiny enigmatic posts. Paula seemed always the bearer of bad news. Once more her command was crisp and decisive. "Stand still. Dee Dee. Put your arms behind your back. We're going to tie your hands."
It was almost a relief. Tied hands were not a punishment. Dee Dee obeyed, crossing her wrists as instructed, then feeling the bite of cord to take her beyond the point of no return. Solemnly passive, her hands bereft of the comfort of hot moist armpits, the wounded girl felt the binding of her hands an abandonment to a power she could not brook. Paula and Rachel were the acolytes who administered to this power and would render her acceptable to male desire. Obediently, the naked girl knelt upon command, then was aided forward upon her stomach, breasts, and face. Two pairs of hands grasped her ankles and dragged them into a desired position. Once again the cords entwined, circle after circle tightly cinched to secure helpless ankles, and when that was done, the bruised and aching knees. Then, with ankles and knees tightly bound to the two posts, Paula made her brisk command. "Struggle, Dee Dee, try and get loose."
Dee Dee Knew the command was silly. She could not move her legs at all, and her hands were crossed and bound behind her back. Her weight now was upon her breasts and her tummy. Her struggles told the story: she could not move her legs at all. The posts were separated by perhaps eighteen inches and to each one she was firmly secured at ankles and knees to render her legs and feet immovable. Beyond that she could flounder like a fish out of water, painfully chafing her breasts upon harsh sand to no avail. It was not until that moment that Dee Dee realized the vulnerability of the soles of her feet. Bound as she was, they were exposed to the sky or to anyone who sought to give them pain. No matter how she tried, she could not move them even a fraction of an inch. They were offered as a sacrifice to whatever might ensue.
"That's okay then." Paula's voice was brisk. "Come on, Rachel. We've done our job. One of the elders can take over from here on. I'm going to get in the circle and watch. Last time I saw this the girl went half crazy."
Once more alone, the bound girl knew a fear beyond any previous fear she had known. The palms of her hands were a steady, incessant burn. Her fingers were numb. Paula's bindings were tight beyond testing. Dee Dee knew she could never free herself. But her main concern now was not her hands, but her feet. She could do nothing about them, but their exposure was such as to make it seem that every eye in the encirclement of Benbows was focused upon her upraised soles with a scorching intensity. Soon an elder could come and whip them. It was too impossible and she would refuse to believe it until it happened. In the meantime, she endured a posture and a constriction which was a punishment in itself. The sand harsh upon her breasts and belly, and the cords cruelly biting at knee and ankle. If they left her like this for the rest of the day, surely there would be no need for any further pain! But there was no one to tell this to. Dee Dee nurtured the thought, knowing it would not happen. The soles of her feet would be whipped, and she was quite sure this interim waiting was to extract from her the ultimate cringe. She glanced fearfully around at the Benbow circle. Pending her actual punishment, they were now engaged in conversation: small groups and couples, the children finding diversions of their own but often casting a wistful glance in her direction. No doubt they would have wished to approach closer to the main show to savor and observe the dolor of the naked maiden whose feet awaited their punishment. Dee Dee moaned and closed her eyes.
It was another elder. Not that it made any difference to the bound girl. To Dee Dee, in the extremity of her distress, it made no difference. They all looked alike. This one, too, arrived with a fresh bundle of willows. Surely the others had not all been worn out upon the palms of her hands! But it did not matter, nothing mattered. The only thing that could be meaningful to Dee Dee was release, and that was only an abstract dream. Once more she heard her own voice plead, "Please don't whip my feet, sir. I've had too much pain already. I'll go crazy."
"Nonsense! We're going to make a new girl of you. This is a bit rough, all right, but you'll get over it, and you'll be glad you had it. You mark my words."
"But I'm only a girl, and I'm naked!"
The elder selected a switch and cut the air with it to create sound to make his victim curl up inside. It was a fearful sound designed to demoralize. No maiden could be more vulnerable to it than she who now lay upon the sand so firmly bound. Dee Dee tried again. "If you'll let me off this punishment--if you won't whip my feet-- I'll do anything you ask. I'll promise anything. I'll be anything. Please, I can't bear to have you whip my feet."
She might as well have spoken to the wind. Benbow law and justice took its course. The elder measured and took his stance. As a preliminary and mischievous agony, he wrapped first one bare sole and then the other with the willow which would wound them both. Never in her life had Dee Dee so wished to shrink to nothing and disappear. Her bound, exposed feet cried silently for mercy, a mercy they would be denied.
The stroke bit shrewdly. The girl screamed a high-pitched peal of pure agony she could not control. The elder had chosen to strike longitudinally, wealing the bottom of the foot from toe to heel. It. was a pain like no other pain. It devastated and destroyed all courage, against the whipping of her feet no girl would be a stoic, their screams were as predictable as the cuts themselves. When the second stroke sliced her other foot as well. Dee Dee went berserk. Even though bound to the point of tugging frantically at their constricting cords, her breasts pitted with grit paying their own tribute to a force they could not see. A young girlish voice cried out over and over, "No! No! No! Pleas... no more, no more, I beg you, no more!"
The more was automatic, the elder saw no need to cease, some girlish distress was to be expected. He was prepared for screams, after all he must consider the circle of avid eyes and waiting ears. The Benbows had been assembled for a purpose and must receive their due. The naked loveliness bound so neatly upon the sand could provide them with a half hour's vivid entertainment if he spaced his strokes far enough apart and interspersed them with admonitions on girlish behavior. He struck again and was thereby edified by both female sound and motion. The elder congratulated himself upon having an unusually responsive subject. Some girls whose feet he had whipped had responded most untidily and with vulgar exclamations, but this one came close to perfection. Her cries were of pain alone. She accused him of nothing. All she did was suffer, and after all that was the name of the game. With the zest of righteousness, he struck again.
The elder was to be congratulated. At a later time his back would be slapped and he would be assured of a "damn fine job." The staked and bound girl responded vividly throughout the entire half hour. She never let him down and her screams varied in intensity and upon varying notes throughout. The elder hoped Dee Dee would seek to escape once more and thus give him a second opportunity to display his skill and extract from her such satisfying sounds. He considered the possibility of the elders having made a mistake in ordering her feet chained. It would be extremely difficult for a maiden thus fettered to escape by any means the Place might offer. When this was done to her it seemed probable that she would behave and give no further cause for being punished. He considered it a pity. Selecting another scarlet sole, he cut at it from end to end, this one was a delightful girl.
There were, of course, other punishments than this. What he inflicted on Dee Dee now was routine. Normally, it would be the preliminary punishment only for a girl who had sought escape. On the following day she would also have been flogged. But Dee Dee was new and he had agreed with his fellow elders that clemency was best. There were various ways to break a girl, and if what was done to her today proved insufficient, they would go on to something else, but it was a Benbow principle to be kind before you were cruel. Certainly by their standards they had been kind enough to this girl who had strayed in upon them from outside. Her progress towards acceptance by the cult was following much the same pattern as other girls who had arrived in the same manner over the years. There had not been many of them, and it had been necessary to supplement their ranks by occasional excursions by the Benbow himself or a couple of the elders on what was quite frankly nothing more than a kidnapping exploration. They recruited as need be. The need arose only from the pregnancies of chosen girls. It was considered most desirable to maintain a good supply of unmarried maidens who were available at all times to male carnality. After he had finished whipping the soles of her feet, Dee Dee would make a most excellent addition to the flock. She had already shown herself susceptible, so long as she knew escape was beyond her reach she would be an amenable addition. The elder changed position, he how straddle the bound nudity so that his strokes would impart their impact from another direction. As the punishment progressed, he would start to cut her crosswise. This was doubly cruel and it often resulted in a girl losing consciousness. But he would be careful, he had every confidence in Dee Dee's resilience. It was a confidence beyond her own.
To the punished girl time had stopped and with it her world. If the palms of her hands had been bad, this was atrocious. It was something no girl was made to endure. She longed for the surcease of unconsciousness, but the darkness and peace of oblivion was not something she could will upon herself. If the pain so far had not been drastic enough to take her across the brink, she dreaded thought of what might be needed to transport her there. But very little of her thought processes were coherent. Dierdrie was in a netherworld, suspended separately and apart from everything she had ever known or which those who watched her knew. She was certain she would never walk again. But when the elder commenced to stroke her from side to side, inside or lengthways, she realized there was always something worse, something far out and beyond. She was positive she knew it now. The thud of impact of willow on her flesh went on and on. At the end of the thirty minutes she was sobbing and hysterical and incoherent. She had paid a terrible price for her escape attempt. She was certain she would never try again. She longed to clasp her arms around Rachel or Sandra, but they were not there, and she herself could not move. Dee Dee was left tightly bound to lay upon the sand and await the male convenience for whatever was to be done to her next.
Dee Dee was brought back into an unkind world by Rachel. Paula was no longer in attendance, and for this the punished girl was glad. What she needed was kind words and sympathy, not Paula's irritable commands. Rachel, who had seen all this before, did her best to make the semi-conscious girl realize the worst was over. Dee Dee had been punished and survived, and Rachel knew that when her charge could grasp this fact she would return to the world and accept a life Rachel herself thought was good, but Rachel knew the tenacity of the outside world upon those who strayed from it and entered the Benbow camp. It had to be combated every time it raised its head. She looked down at her lovely, helpless charge. She knelt and reached for the knots.
"But, Rachel, I can't. I can't possibly stand it."
"You haven't tried, darling. It seems impossible now, and your first steps will be truly awful, but if I take as much of your weight as I can, we can walk to the smithy. Please believe me, Dee Dee, I know it's possible."
The blacksmith was the same, but Dee Dee's irons were not. The burly man's voice was jovial. "Been busy, missy? Seems like you're not going to run for awhile, but you're going to get some use out of those pretty little hands. See what I've got for you." He held up a long heavy strand of links as though they were weightless, beaming approval at his handiwork. "Take a bit of getting used to, I expect. You can come back in a week and tell me how you're making out."
He did her hands first. Dee Dee recognized the metal bands which now encircled her wrists once more; they were the same. But now between them, instead of several links as previously, there was a long length of the same weight of chain. For a moment she stared, uncomprehending, but then she realized this was a new and subtle punishment. She would be able to do much more, but she would also carry a far greater weight and be under the necessity of constantly rearranging the span of links.
Unexpectedly, Paula made an appearance. She and Rachel made a cat's cradle into which Dee Dee gratefully reclined with a clatter and clink of links. Paula ran true to form. "You don't deserve this, Dee Dee. The time my feet were swished I had to do my own walking."
Dee Dee saw no point in arguing. If Paula wanted to be miserable, well, she could be miserable. At least one of her bare arms was around Rachel's neck, and Rachel was a friend. But when Dee Dee recognized the direction their walk was taking, her exclamation was urgent and dismayed. "No, not the cage! Please don't lock me back in the cage--I can't bear it. It's hateful. Can't you put me somewhere else?"
"Don't be silly," Paula reprimanded. "Really, Dee Dee, you don't know when you're well off. In the cage you can simply sit. You don't have to walk or do anything except rest. You don't have to use your hands or feet. I wish I was so lucky."
"But that awful silence! I can't bear not being allowed to speak, and if there's another girl in there with me, she'll be looking at me with wide eyes and wondering why I don't help her."
"No, she won't. She knows the rules. You're just being a crybaby."
"But I'll be wanting to untie her all the same. She will know I can because I'm only chained, while she's tied. At least that's the way it was last time. I'll fell guilty because she's hurting and I'm not."
"You're thinking about Sandra. Sandra's gone. You can stop worrying about her. There's a girl named Goldie in there now, and she'll have other things on her mind besides you. I wish I could sit in the sun all afternoon, but I have work to do."
The cage door was unlocked and Dee Dee was deposited inside where she slipped first to her knees, then to a reclining position on one hip. She was told she would be watched and that one or the other of them would be back to feed and tend her as needed. Dolefully, Dee Dee watched them walk back toward the main streets. Wherever she looked, she was mocked by iron bars.
But for a moment iron bars were her least concern. Her awestruck gaze riveted upon the golden-haired maiden who was solidly gagged and laying unhappily upon her stomach on the sand and whose feet had been drawn back through the bars and tightly bound with their soles protruding uppermost. Goldie was not being whipped, and quite probably that was not the intent of this grotesque posture. What was taking place was the interest of a small boy and girl who, each armed with feathers, were busily tickling the soles of a pair of defenseless and helpless feet while their owner writhed and beat free fists upon the ground in a mute protest against the torture. Goldie spared only a brief glance for the newcomer. Her main concern was to reach back and untie her feet. But, simple as that might seem, it was something she failed to achieve. Her feet had been tied far enough apart that she could not roll over, nor could she reach that far back. Even had seen been able to, the knots were not in sight and would be inaccessible to searching fingers. Goldie's flushed features and angry eyes made it plain she had much to say about her predicament, but the band tight upon her lips prohibited protest. Whatever she had to bear, she must bear in silence as one more victim of Benbow subtlety.
Dee Dee stared. She recognized she was not witness to actual cruelty. Goldie was not in pain. Had she not been so obviously ticklish the ministrations of the children would have been to no avail. But her feet appeared most highly sensitive, and her reactions were constant enough to keep the children amused. Without thinking, the chained girl angrily exclaimed, "Leave her alone, you little beasts! Can't you see you're driving her crazy? How'd you like someone to do that to you?"
All motion stopped. The silence was pregnant with varying emotions. The girl child pointed dramatically at the maiden who had spoken in the cage. "Oh, wow, you spoke! You know you're not supposed to. Lester and I are going to tell on you and put you on report."
Goldie stopped struggling and awkwardly stared up in horror. The two children were alive with glee. Dee Dee realized she had instinctively fallen into a trap. For her, silence was close to impossible, but it was equally impossible to sit impassively and watch the children at their fiendish play. Now she had earned another punishment, she had little doubt of it. She wanted to cry. No matter where she turned, she transgressed. The Benbows had her for sure, and it was quite possible they had arranged this whole scene in order to test her ability and willingness to remain mute in the face of outrage. She shrugged indifferently. "Go ahead, you little beasts, I've been punished so much that one more makes no difference."
The bound girl had raised herself up by the arms to bring her eyes close to a level with Dee Dee's own. She shook her head vividly in negation, obviously advising the newcomer to remain silent. Perhaps she was saying also she could bear what she had to. But the pose did not last. The children resumed their pleasurable pastime, and Goldie sank back upon her breasts, once more beating her clenched fists upon the soil.
A girl adjusts to anything, and human feet also will finally become insensitive to feathers. The children tired of their play and left, uttering dire promises. Dee Dee raised Goldie's head, and since her lips were sealed, kissed her gently on the forehead in the only eloquence of sympathy she was permitted to make. She then turned her attention to her chains.
There could be no denying the skill of the Benbow blacksmith. Had they not been riveted on her wrists and ankles, it would have been easy to concede their beauty. There was a finish and polish to them, reflecting an obvious pleasure in his work. She was almost sorry she had been unable to accede to his request to show her how they looked when she walked. Perhaps, if she was ever granted freedom from the cage, she would go and visit him. But that was speculation. The chained girl had no idea of what lay ahead for her, whether she would stay within the cage or be given the chained freedom of the village. She wondered, too, what had become of Chet, and had a horrific thought that she might still be required to walk behind the plow when her feet had healed. As yet, she could not judge if such a punishment was possible, whether she could actually keep pace with the slow moving team. She had a terrible fear it might indeed be a practical possibility for her to make a clanking and rattling progress behind the plow. But it was useless to speculate about the Benbows. Rachel had whispered to her on their way to the cage that perhaps she would be relieved of the chain sooner that she thought, but Rachel was kind and had probably been indulging in wishful thinking. Dee Dee herself was confident she would wear this weight of iron for a long, long time and that the heaviness of what she bore would be more and more apparent to her upon the other side of these bars through which she looked. Fearfully, she twisted and contrived to look at one her punished soles and was relieved to discover she did not look at shredded flesh as she had supposed, but simply at cruelly swollen and purple weals. There was so many of them they had merged to make one huge bruise encompassing the entire surface of her foot. She thrust the sight away and vowed to look no more until confident of seeing something less gruesome.
Dee Dee now made one more awful decision. The children were putting her on report for having spoke, but at this moment she was positive there was no one to either hear or see. Impelled by an emotional need to set the record straight between herself and the gagged maiden with whom she shared the cage, she quietly spoke again.
"Goldie, don't worry about me speaking. I'll only speak this once and then I'll keep quiet. I simply want to tell you what a bitch I feel for not helping you. I've been told not to help you. Chained the way I am, I could take off your gag and probably untie your feet, but I did this once before and it turned out disastrously for us both. Goldie, we can't possibly be looking at each other in this agonized silence, so I'm going to suggest we do not let our eyes meet more often than we need. We only have our thoughts, I suppose. Don't worry about me, I won't speak again." The chained girl slowly lowered herself to the sand and buried her face within her whipped hands and wept again without restraint.
CHAPTER FOUR - THE DEATH OF LOVE
Dee Dee was a captive of the cage for exactly one week. Her first day after her floor of tears had been less dramatic than expected. Either the children had not kept their promise or they had been disregarded. At any rate, she was not put on report and the incident was never reported. Towards evening Goldie was taken away and replaced by another gagged girl whose hands and feet were locked into an iron contrivance of which the blacksmith must have indeed been proud. Without links, it was simply two wrist cuffs and two ankle shackles, all welded together to compel their wearer to sit and bend forward to maintain her extremities in such close proximity. It was unquestionably a punishment, far more so than Dierdrie's chains. It was something punitive which would give the girl whose limbs it clasped no rest, a constant admonition for whatever sin it was she had committed. There was the usual wide-eyed exploration of haunted eyes, followed by the lethargic lassitude of hopelessness. During the seven days, there had been a constant change of girls and a remarkable diversity in the manner by which they were constrained. Dee Dee became blase about the cage and those who suffered within, but ended up by repeating to herself the admission that a girl gets used to anything.
The healing of her feet had gone far better than she had dared to dream, but upon her release her first steps had been cautious and were watched with amusement. She quickly discovered her main concern now was in the dragging chain. Each step she took carried forward a weight of links to which she was totally unaccustomed. She would need to learn to walk again. Rachel bore a message.
"Darling, you have to go and be interviewed by the Benbow this afternoon. I'm forbidden to help you, either now or then. You have to make your own way and learn to walk. I'm terribly sorry'." They kissed and cuddled, but they obeyed the Benbow rules. When Dee Dee entered the village, she was a sight to draw attention. She had previously seen girls with either their hands or feet chained, but she had never seen one who bore both at the same time. Both children and adults found her interesting. Presumably, her punishment was past. Rachel had fitted her out in a new laundered shift which clung to and revealed her contours with cunning, emphasized by the drawstrings at her waist and above her breasts. Whoever had cut it to fit could have made a fortune for herself in a New York boutique. Like many feminine intimacies, it made her appear more naked than when actually bare. She spent the morning learning to walk once more and included in this exercise her promised visit to the blacksmith. In the afternoon, she endured the shame of clattering her hobbled pathway over rugs and hardwood, past the smiling secretary, to make her way within the Benbow's door.
Dee Dee was less fearful of the Benbow now. She had borne his punishments and survived. Even though she had been robbed of initiative by the chains upon her limbs, she still supposed she must obey a further along some sort of path to some sort of graduation into the Benbow cult. Once more she stood before his desk and his beetle-browed regard, a penitent and chained slave girl awaiting the master's pleasure.
"Think you've got some sense now, Dee Dee?"
"Yes."
After the brief exchange, they simply stared. It was a stare of assessment on which judgments might be made. Dee Dee had gathered up most of the slack chain between her hand and was holding it to avoid the strain on her wrists. She hoped the fact was noted and might earn her a release from metal bonds.
"Want to get rid of that there scrap iron, Dee Dee?"
"Yes."
"Cat got your tongue? That all you can say? One thing I can't abide is a sulky girl."
Dee Dee shifted uneasily, her protest lame. "I haven't anything to say. I wish I did." Inadvertently, she allowed the gathered chain to fall with a clatter to the floor. In a pathetic gesture of helplessness, she raised her hands to demonstrate the weight of links each must bear. Unhappily, she pointed out, "You've made me an absolute nothing. I can't walk properly, I can't use my hands properly, I've been in a cage for a week and not allowed to speak, and I don't know what anybody wants or expects of me. I'm sorry if I seem rude."
"Hmmmm. Thought any more about my boy?"
"I'm afraid not. Is it any use in asking you not to make me do that?"
"Recognize my authority, eh?"
"Of course I do. You recaptured me, had me whipped and chained, and then locked me in that cage for a week. I couldn't very well not be aware of your hold on me. Can I ask what's happened to Chet?"
"The boy's gone to the other camp. You won't be seeing him again. In case you're interested, we didn't punish him."
"Thank you. I really am grateful. Chet was such a nice boy." Strangely, the Benbow did not return to the subject of her marriage. No doubt he would allow her to stew and wonder about it until she would be grateful for whatever scraps of information he tossed her way. Instead, he spoke of the Place and the Benbow cult. Despite sulkiness, Dee Dee found herself listening, enthralled. It was one more saga of the West, much like, the Oregon Trail, the covered wagons, and the story of the Mormons. A group of people had followed a faith, and it had led them to a promised land. The Benbows had simply managed to maintain their isolation and anonymity better than the rest. They were a wealthy, closely knit community. The Benbow was frank in his half cynical admission of what Dee Dee herself had deduced. "It's the fucking that does it, Dee Dee. Keeps everyone content. No one's looking for greener grass beyond the hill." He chuckled. "The West was actually won by men and women who wanted to sleep together but never quite managed it because of too many clothes and too many laws. Kept 'em humping all their lives, and them that managed it ended up wondering what the hell all the fuss had been about. We do it better." He eyed her shrewdly. "You've been fucked a few times since you came to us. Do you see any harm?"
"No."
"See what I mean? Now, tell me why the hell you couldn't be content with us. What more are you looking for?"
"I don't really know," Dee Dee said unhappily. "It's no use telling you about pretty suburban houses and men who smell of tweed and expensive tobacco. I can see myself how silly that sounds. I don't think many of us on the outside ever had too many convictions about the way things are. You're partly cynical about the way it is with the Benbows. Well, that's how it was with us. But there wasn't anything else." Dee Dee's voice became vehement. "I suppose that's what gets all of us: there simply is nowhere else to go, no unless you're one of the clever ones."
"So why not accept us and stay here?"
Once again Dee Dee raised chained hands for him to see. "Do I have any choice?" she asked bitterly. "And if I say yes to what you've just asked, what is there for me except a forced marriage to a man I've never seen?"
"Could easily arrange something." The Benbow's eyes swept over her from head to toe, the chained girl aware of being assessed. "There's a bit more to you than most of our own girls. You're more interesting because you're been around more and see more things, and you're vividly alive because of your concern about your present condition. Is there a moment of the day or night when you're not thinking of escape."
" "No... I'm sorry."
" "You should be. But if escape is what you want, it's easily arranged. You're a glutton for punishment."
"What you're telling me is that any chance I have to escape will simply be a trap and I'll end up back here with some terrible punishment staring me in the face and everybody clucking at me like a hen with a naughty chick."
"Makes a good deterrent. Gives you time to settle until the thought grows thin." The Benbow smirked. "You should get fucked enough in that time to make it habit forming."
"I'm sure I would." Dee Dee shrugged. "Do you have to use that word? It's horribly vulgar. Girls hate it. There must be something else you can say."
"Name one."
She flushed, aware of being trapped. She reviewed all the possible alternatives and found them either obscene, absurdly clinical, or even more vulgar than the four letter term he had used. Listlessly, she agreed. "Very well then, I'll concede the point that the act doesn't have a single decent name for itself. Anyway you tell it, it's not polite."
"So we sweep it under the carpet? Then go around frustrated and angry and try to make a lot of money so we can get either a girl or a man. " The Benbow laughed at her consternation. "Honey, grow up. Make a place for yourself here instead of always getting punished and making us seem mean and cruel."
"But it's those terrible punishments," Dee Dee repeated earnestly. "Don't you understand what they do to a girl? They're barbarous. They leave us shattered. The outside world discarded them ages ago. You could do the same here."
"You're wrong. Think of it. You've been told how we do a bit of recruiting from time to time; you're simply one more. All of you would run away if you got the chance, so we have to think of a deterrent." He looked at her sardonically. "Name a painless punishment."
Dee Dee knew herself trapped once more. It was a trap of words, but deadly nonetheless. His demand left her in the same dilemma as did the four letter words. She could think of no painless punishment except a straight imprisonment. She supposed solitary confinement might deter, but she was more inclined to believe the reverse-- that it would turn her to a fresh resolution to escape. Listlessly, she agreed. "All right then, let's say girls have to be whipped. Let's say I needed that--what you call a swishing." She was flushed and in the full throes of argument. "That's another silly word--swishing! It sounds childish. Why don't you honestly call it what it is--a whipping or a beating or a flogging?"
"Suits us the way it is, girl. If it makes you feel like a naughty child, that's all to the good, and as for flogging, you've never seen it. You'd best pray you never do. When a girl gets flogged here, there's a damn good reason."
"That was what that post was for out there on that concrete space? It was hideous."
"It's intended to be, honey. It stands there as a sort of monument, a warning. No girl ever need be tied to it unless she's been more stupid than you've been so far." He laughed at the doubt on her face. "Thought you were going to get it this time, didn't you?" Abruptly, his tone changed. "What I want you to do now, Dee Dee, is go on down to the blacksmith and tell him to strike off those irons--all of them, the whole kit and kaboodle."
Dee Dee stood for a moment, stunned. "You mean everything--so I'm free?"
"That's right--free as air. Do as you damn well please."
"But it's a trap, isn't it? I wouldn't dare do anything."
The Benbow shrugged. "Suit yourself, honey. If you like the chains, wear 'em." He laughed again. "Mind you, I can well see a girl hesitating. Chained you have no decisions; free you do. Could be a terrible difference for you."
"But the blacksmith won't listen to me. He won't strike them off just because I say so. He'll want some authority from you."
"I gave it to him yesterday. We had a laugh about it, knowing it was something you'd never ask for. So if you go and ask now, he'll know it's genuine. Run along, and don't say I never did anything for you."
Dee Dee did not run. With her own metallic gait, she clanked and clattered upon her strange errand. Her mind was chaotic, groping for clues. Probably there were no clues. This would be one more test, one more opportunity for her to show the direction of her mind. She refused to think but found her way to the blacksmith with one single scrap of comfort: It would be wonderful to be free!
"Well, well, it's a marathon runner," the blacksmith said genially. "Now. how about a nice collar for your neck? I can hammer one out for you in no time."
"The Benbow sent me to tell you to strike off my irons," she said anxiously. "Honest, he really did."
"Okay, okay. I know all about it. But did he tell you about the collar?"
"No, he didn't. Please don't be unkind."
"Go back and ask him if you wish--don't take my word for it. But if you lose them irons, you'll wear a collar around your neck. I'll make it pretty."
Always a fresh discovery, always a hidden kicker somewhere! But Dee Dee had no doubt he spoke the truth. If he riveted a collar on her, it would be there for all to see. He would not do it without sanction. She shrugged, her voice robbed of some of its elation. "All right, if that's the way of it, I won't argue. What do you want me to do?"
"I want you free first, so I'll knock off them irons. When you take the collar, you'll do so as a free girl. Symbolism--that's the stuff! You wouldn't expect symbolism out of me, now would you?" Having her irons stricken from her limbs was much the same as when they had first been riveted upon her. It was just doing the same thing in reverse. But nothing could rob Dee Dee of the glory of release. A great weight of metal links and bands now lay upon the ground close to her feet. They had been a badge of shame and had hindered everything she tried to do. Now she was free of them. It would be nice to think she was free of them forever. She accepted the blacksmith's invitation to sit upon the box and watch him fabricate the iron band which would encircle her neck. In spite of distaste, she admitted to herself an unexpected thrill. It was like watching something born, something that would be dear to you and wholly your own. From a shapeless piece of iron the hammer shrewdly shaped a pretty but implacable band. Dee Dee blushed when her measurement was carefully taken. "Got to be just right, honey. Could be you'll wear it all the rest of your life. Snug but not too snug--know what I mean?"
Who could fail to know! Dee Dee's heart was thumping with as strange excitement when she was told to kneel and place her neck across the anvil. The blacksmith excused the need to shape and bend the bondage band to a precise fit. That this must be done with the crude tools of his trade was something unworthy of note. The kneeling girl wished she shared his confidence, but she knelt in docile submission, her hands resting upon the wooden block beneath the anvil itself, and sensing, rather than seeing, the motions and tools by which she would be made to bear the insignia of her station. She could not look up when the cheerful voice came again. "Could have put a hinge in it, honey. Makes it simple, but it don't look half as good. What I'm doing now is sort of welding it. Sure, there'll be a rivet at the back and a ring for whatever it may be needed for, but that's all. There'll be no brackets or joints or nothing. But it ain't easy when you've got a real live girl on which to shape a chunk of iron. Get the idea?"
"I get the idea, thank you." If there was a trace of bitterness in the words, it was well hidden. "I'm sure I'll be very proud of it."
"Hell of a lot of girls pay a lot of money to get something pretty around their necks," the blacksmith guffawed. "Don't cost you a penny--this one's on the Benbows."
When it was done, Dee Dee rose thankfully to her feet and longed most ardently for a mirror. Her fingers instinctively sought the metal which had become almost a part of her. Even though she could not see, she had heard the splat of the hammered rivet which would ensure the wearing of this band, perhaps for the rest of her life. With a fine flourish, the blacksmith produced a mirror large enough to give her a modest view of his work. He was probably more proud of it than she. But, gazing at the reflection, Dee Dee could not deny the enhancement of her throat. She remembered pictures of velvet chokers in another age. Her grandmother had sometimes worn one. She recalled now their potency--an eroticism she had not then understood. She wondered how many women of the Victorian age would have worn a choker had they truly been aware of its importance. She turned and twisted in a sudden surge of vanity. She tried to turn to the collar so that she might view the ring she could feel but not yet see. The act proved difficult and she abandoned it, undoubtedly she would have plenty of time to look at herself and this fresh badge of slavery. Much as she might admire its beauty, she knew without a doubt exactly what it was. Instinctively, she exclaimed, "Thank you! It's beautiful. You're terribly clever." He took the mirror and then took her hand, kissing it gallantly to made her blush. But Dee Dee walked from the blacksmith with her head held high, knowing she advance into a future she knew not of.
Under the spur of impulse, she returned to the Benbow's office. There were two reasons. First, she wanted to see what had been welded around her neck and make quite certain it had been done at his behest. If he acknowledged it, he might drop some clue as to his intent with her and for her. She was certain she was not sentenced to wear an iron band around her neck for no purpose. It would not be purely ornamental. Her second thought was as to what she was expected to do with the new freedom which as far as she was concerned could only be utilized by an attempt to escape. The Benbow was strangely moved at sight of what the blacksmith had wrought. "Makes you twice as pretty, girl. Should have had it done to you first thing. It's a notion I've been having for a long time now."
"But does it mean something?"
"It means you belong to the Benbows. Isn't that enough?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so. But I've never had anything like this done to me before. It's a little scary. Does it give me any rank or status or anything? Or does it mark me simply as a slave?"
"You worry too much. I'm not sure you don't ask too many questions. Wear it and be pleased you got ride of them irons."
"Oh, I am! What I'm thinking of now is what do I do? I mean, do I just wander around, or is there some work you expect of me? Where do I sleep?"
"Go see Paula. See Rachel too, if you want, but I've given Paula authority over you. She'll look after you--not with love and kisses the way Rachel does--but she'll look after you just the same. You're not forbidden to talk to Rachel, though. Stay friends. But she is far too easy on you. You need a firm hand."
"Paula will be mean to me."
"The come and see me. That girl is not above getting her ass whipped, but she is a Benbow through and through. It's what you need." He copped a quizzical eye. "I'm glad you thought about the work. I've thought of a choice for you. How about walking behind the plow again?"
"But isn't that a punishment?" Dee Dee asked in dismay. "Don't you want me to do something useful?"
"Tell you what, honey, I'll give you a choice--domestic service or the plow. The domestic service is mostly scrubbing floors and doing the dirty work, but you'll have a woman to talk to instead of a man. Can't promise she'll be polite, though."
"Thanks, but I'll choose the plow."
"You're a wise girl. Always choose a master over a mistress." Paula was Paula. She was obviously pleased and flattered by the trust now imposed. But she was equally envious of the band upon her charge's neck. She asked demeaning questions and was unsatisfied by the replies. She shrugged it off. "You'll sleep and eat with me," she informed crisply. "At night I'll lock a chain to that lovely collar you're so damn proud of. Don't think it doesn't have its uses, and don't think either I'll ever trust you. If I can't see you, I'll chain you. Understand?"
* * *
His name was Josh. At least that was all Dee Dee ever knew him by. He was older than Chet, probably a year or two older than Dee Dee herself. She was thankful to find he had the same exuberant cheerfulness as his predecessor. He greeted her with every sign of enthusiasm and blushingly excused the fact that she would have to be attached to his plow. Expecting a return to irons and the chain tether. Dee Dee was pleasantly surprised at an innovation which Josh himself had devised.
"They don't want no more chains on your right now, honey.
so I got me a real good idea. Gimme your right wrist and watch." Dee Dee watched breathlessly. After all, this was a matter of considerable importance to her welfare. The rope was nylon and not of vast dimension. At the most it was a half inch strand. She held her wrists steady while Josh slipped a loop around it, drew it tight, then drew it together and fastened it by the simple expedient of pliers and a piece of wire. The wire circled the main strand and the loose end. The pliers drew them tight together, then twisted and twisted until they were welded tight. Josh snipped the wire off short and repeated the process at the very end of the jointure. Dee Dee was held captive by a single loop of rope and two tightly fastened pieces of wire. When it was done, she felt certain it would hold her as implacably as had the iron and the chain. The rope from her wrist trailed forward and was knotted to the plow just as her previous tether had compelled her compliance with the Benbow will. Rightly, she said, "Thank you, Josh. This is a lot better than last time."
Josh was pleased. There was about him much of the same ingeniousness of Chet, but he was older and had a more experienced eye. Dee Dee was quite certain they would not circle the field many times before she would get the Benbow order to lay down and take position. She was resigned to it, but knew the Benbow had misread her. These couplings in which she had no choice and dared not deny dept alive in her an almost guilty compulsion to escape. "Aren't you afraid I'll escape?" she innocently enquired.
"Go ahead and try." Josh was assessing her, his eye evaluating the contours the shift could not hide. "Hell, I'd never let you go. If the two of us was old enough, I'd marry you for sure. How'd you like a baby?"
"No thank you. I've got enough' troubles."
"You ain't got no troubles at all, girly, and you won't never have none if you stay close by us. You'll be fucked and fed real good." Dierdrie shrugged and managed a grin. She had heard it all before and could feel quite certain her shift would not stay on her long unless Josh was lazy and simply dragged it up above her hips. She watched him tie her tether to the plow. It was not a tether knotted beyond her ability to loosen if given time, but she would not have that time--not ever. Josh took his seat, adjusted the levers, and got the team in motion. Experienced and cynical. Dierdrie gathered up such slack as she required and experimented with her new freedom. Compared to ironed wrists and a heavy chain, the rope tether upon one hand only was a relative freedom. She walked almost joyously behind the plow, savoring the delights of sun and a hot earth beneath her feet, the feet so recently healed from their punishment. She toyed with the possibility of freeing herself by gnawing through the nylon should she ever be left alone long enough to try. At those times when Josh was preoccupied with his team, she made tentative explorations, but found the nylon resistant in a way she would never have dreamed. She shrugged the thought away and was content to enjoy what she had, rather than hanker after possibilities. At least Jowsh was amiable. It was only on their second trip around the field that, at the most distant point, he stripped her naked and coupled with her in a joyous abandonment to pure sexuality. Afterwards, she gathered up all the rope she needed to enable her to walk beside him on the plow, just as she had done with Chet. Dierdrie knew herself possessed by a strange new happiness.
That evening, Miss Dierdrie Moffat was arrested on a charge of grand theft auto.
CHAPTER FIVE - PRISON FARM
It was the second day. Dierdrie did not count the time spent in the county jail while the formalities of making her imprisonment legal ran their course. For her, this chapter in her life began when, handcuffed and leg ironed, she had sat miserably in the van with two other girls and seen the sign: Aurora County Farm for Delinquent Girls. The sign had declared the intent of the place, and the gates had been massive, clanging shut behind the vehicle and its prisoners with a resounding clash. She leaned for a moment on the hull, scanning the potato field in a maze of wonderment that this could happen. Then, as she had done many times before, she bent down and dragged the huge metal ball which was locked to her ankle by a chain and padlock, the necessary distance along between the rows to give her scope to continue working with the hoe. Inmates of the Aurora County Farm for Delinquent Girls were given a quota, and it was wise to live up to it. The consequences of failure were drastic.
The forty-eight hours seemed like a lifetime. The prison absorbed her like a sponge does water, but what mattered most to Dee Dee was the things Sheriff Cowper had told her after she had been sentenced to a correctional two years. She had stood before him in his office, wrists cuffed behind her back, and listened in disbelief.
"Sure, honey, you and I know it's a trumped up charge. You're innocent, being convicted of stealing your own car." He leered up at her knowingly, a self-satisfied plumpish man with an eye to profit. "That car of yours had your fingerprints all over it, so what we do is change your name, get you some bits of identification. As far as the state is concerned, you're just a stray, like a thousand others. You stole the car and the owner whose papers we discovered in the glove compartment disappeared." He grinned as though imparting cheerful news. "Could be you'll face a charge of murdering yourself," he guffawed and clapped his knee in appreciation of his own wit. "Damn neat and tidy if you ask me."
She did not ask him. Dierdrie Moffat had said remarkably little as she had seen and heard the hammer blows of evidence by which her fate was sealed. She had protested innocence often enough, but since no one listened, she had finally desisted after she had learned she was in the grip of an evil outside the law.
The confrontation between the Benbow and Sheriff Cowper had given Dee Dee a momentary hope to be followed quickly by an even greater despair. The Benbow had listened to the sheriff and examined by documents by which Dee Dee was condemned. He had looked at her and shrugged. "We can't fight the whole U.S.A., Dee Dee. This man will have to take you." His face grew fierce. "But we'll get you back, you may rely on that--we'll get you back!" The quaking girl had seen the Benbow as her enemy, but now she remembered only the kindnesses she had received from him, his warnings and advice, almost his pleading to becoming one with the rest of them. His beetle-browed image was erased by the man in the state uniform. Sheriff Cowper was brisk in the execution of what he would no doubt call his duty. "Sorry, miss, it's only routine. If you don't mind... " Dee Dee viewed the shining chrome of the handcuffs in pure horror. She had been bound and chained enough for any girl in any situation, but the sight of this gleaming steel had about it the stigma of criminality, once the shining circlets were locked upon her wrists, she would become a felon and there would be no escape. She would then belong to a force more implacable than the Benbows themselves. But the Sheriff nudged her on, turned her about, gathered her arms behind her back, and bit the hard steel upon her wrists. Dee Dee felt certain they were tighter than necessary.
"We can wait for leg irons until you're in the car, miss," the Sheriff assured her genially. "They make a hell of a clatter on a hardwood floor."
There had been but the one goodbye. It had been to the Benbow himself. The rest of the settlement would not know of her being taken away until the following day. The Benbow had kissed her awkwardly, holding her pinioned shoulders in firm, strong hands, a heavy middle-aged beetle-browned man unaccustomed to such intimacies with girls, whispering that she must not be afraid.
But Dee Dee was terribly afraid as she was led to the Sheriffs car. She was place in the backseat to find herself surrounded by heavy wire mesh and her ankles locked in irons which looked remarkably like a bigger pair of handcuffs with a longer chain. Certainly she would not run away.
Her next most vivid impression had been etched upon her mind after her trial and her sentencing. She had been taken to the Sheriff's office and the door discreetly shut. She had also been handcuffed, her arms behind her back, a needless indignity which she suspected as having a motive, probably to make her doubly and terribly aware of her condition as a sentenced criminal. Sheriff Cowper was his usual hearty self. "Don't talk to most girls the way I'm going to talk to you, Dierdrie. Ain't too many young women come through here I can do anything for, but I can do something for you." He eyes her assessingly, a trim neat slenderness of feminity in the tunic provided by the state. The awaiting girl knew herself striped and docketed.
"The Benbows screw you good. Miss Moffat?"
The question was unexpected. Dee Dee felt the color deepening in her cheeks. Defensively, she retorted, "That's none of your business, is it?"
He shrugged. "Maybe not, but if they looked after you the way they look after most of their girls, it could be a help. To you, I mean--not me."
Dee Dee felt an arctic touch upon her spine. Was this punkish, ugly man going to claim her body too? She supposed there was no reason why he should not. She was probably one of the perquisites of his office, he could very easily couple with any girl placed behind his bars. But she said nothing, waiting.
"You're going to the state farm, you know that. They'll work the ass off you, I expect you know that too." He barked a short, sharp laugh. "And that ain't all they'll do that little ass of yours. You bat an eye out of line and they'll beat it until you think you'll never sit down again." He eyed her silently for a moment, seeking reaction. "Your ass isn't the only bit of you they'll attend to. Hear tell they ain't no part of a filly they don't sneak a whiplash into. I don't have to tell you about solitary confinement; everybody knows about solitary. Understand it ain't much fun."
"You're trying to frighten me. Why?"
"Smart girl. That's one thing I do admire is a smart girl. I picked you as the right stuff, and you certainly are. I figured you'd meet the specifications directly I saw you that day you came looking for help with young--what's his name--Chet, wasn't it? Hated to let you go then, but things have worked out okay. " He grinned a comradely grin. "Sure, I'm trying to frighten you. What I'm really doing is handing you the facts. That farm ain't no holiday resort, and Hazel Broddrick is a damn demanding hostess, she's the matron. If there's one thing she loves above all else, it's whipping a girl's bottom, and she likes them bare. Watch out for her."
"Thank you. But I still don't--"
"Sure, sure, I know. Seems like I'm taking the wrong way around, but I want you to get the picture. How'd you like to be fucked two or three times a night and avoid all the hard work--live like a lady?"
So this was it! There had to be something, and in a view of all else this was within the bounds of comprehension. "Where will this be done to me?" she inquired listlessly.
"Hell, girl, it won't be done to you like that. You're going to have to accept it. Can't expect you to give three hearty cheers, but we do want you acting reasonable with the clients. You see. Hazel's got a thing going. She's got a damn fine residence out there, and every evening there's a few of the boys go out there for a bit of fun, and you're the bit of fun. You'll be expected to act like you're enjoying the whole damn thing." He laughed shortly. "Believe me, some of the girls actually do. After all, they ain't all that bad." He sighed wistfully. "Always wished I was a gal. They sit on a goldmine every day."
"And if I refuse?"
"Oh, honey, you don't need to ask that. I don't have to draw you no chart. You have a talk with Hazel when you get there. She'll make sure you do that anyway and see if you can't come to some working arrangement. If you can't, you'll be hoeing potatoes and sleeping on a hard surface for a long time. Don't kid yourself. For a girl like, if she's too pure to screw, that there farm is pure hell." Dee Dee sighed but hoed steadily. It was all behind her now, the shameful ride, handcuffed and leg ironed and in the company of actual criminals. There had been the short, sharp, no-nonsense interview with Hazel Broddrick. Hazel had minced no words. "You won't be a whore, honey. Whores get paid. You'll just be a good item girl, sleep all day and fuck all night."
"Thank you, I'd rather not."
"You're nuts!"
They had battered back and forth briefly. The condemned girl knew within her heart she would try to resist, but that the farm would probably win in the end. She had accepted Miss Broddrick's disgust as a matter of course. She had accepted the tiny cell and the fact her handcuffs had not been removed, she slept in them throughout the night. Then had come the fields, the hoe, and the quota.
As Dee Dee plyed the hoe, her mind revolved over and over upon what she was increasingly seeing as a tiresome contradiction. Before her first captivity, she had slept with men only by her own choice, and then only if she liked them very much and they had been kind to her. She had been known as a girl a little hard to make. Her pleasure in these encounters varied greatly and left her wondering, there seemed no consistency in the reaction of her glands or in male potency. She had giggled with other girls about the uncertainty of what you got after you had uttered the blushing yes, or simply laid down upon the couch. Then had come the Benbows and their total acceptance of a natural act. The Benbows had been a revelation, but she had not been with them long enough to be truly sure their way was best. Now she was confronted by the prison farm and Hazel Broddrick's demands. The bothersome question was, which of these conditions was right? In fact, were any of them right? Or, on the other hand, were any of them entirely wrong? Dierdrie Moffat simply did not know, but some quality of the immaculate born in her insisted she resist the blandishment of the women's farm and cling to integrity as long as she could.
But the women's farm was waiting!
It came as swiftly as all the other dispositions of her person. Dierdrie simply failed to make her quota. She never knew what her quota was, but was earnestly assured by the overseer that she had failed to meet it. The arrest had been femininely informal. "Guess you get your little ass whipped, honey. I'll take you downstairs."
It was a fine, large, well-lit room. It contained several items most obviously designed for female discomfort, the most prominent of which was a truncated cross, a vertical post with a horizontal shorter length across its top. At each end of the shorter lengths was a strap and buckle.
"Get yourself naked, honey. Hurry up."
"I'm going to be punished, aren't I?" Dee Dee asked timidly. "Couldn't I have a bath first? I'm all sweaty."
"Hell, you don't need no bath, and you'll be sweating real good before the matron gets through with you. I ain't yet seen a girl who didn't sweat after the leather's been biting her back for awhile. Honey, don't you worry about no bath."
Dee Dee had no thought of disobedience. The Farm for Delinquent Girls was altogether too frightening to combat. Its stone wails and clanging iron doors were enough to daunt the strongest man, let alone a flock of frightened girls. Dee Dee slipped out of the prison tunic, kicked off the prison shoes, and waited expectantly.
"Get yourself up against that there post, girl. Face it, get your hands where they belong."
She did not need to ask. Everything about this room was self- explanatory. Dee Dee quailed at what she had to do, but she did it. A leather strap circled and was then buckled around her right waist to hold it firmly against the beam, then the same with her left. That she stood, arms outstretched, her beautiful nakedness almost like a bird in flight with outstretched wings. She looked apprehensively back across a bare shoulder.
"Don't look so anxious, honey. It ain't me who's going to whip you. The matron may be down in five minutes, or she may be in an hour. In the meantime, you stand. Savvy?"
Dierdrie stood. The overseer had closed the door. It was lonely and very silent in the room of maiden punishment. The girl strapped to the heavy timber shivered in pure fright. She had never been whipped as she would be whipped now. There was a formality about this, portending something truly awful. It could well be much worse than the Benbows whipping of the soles of her feet. Dierdrie frictioned her nipples against the rough surface of the wood. It was about the only pleasurable thing she could do. It was scant comfort. Defeated by her mental turmoil, her nipples refused to respond. The naked girl shivered again and wondered what she had ever done to deserve this sequence of events. She gazed up a bare arm to where the strap held her wrist tightly enough to hurt. She flexed her muscles and spread her fingers, but the strap gave no particle of slack. She tried her other hand, but that was just the same. She was firmly held and probably the only reason her feet were not also fastened was for someone's pleasure in watching them kick in futile protest against pain. Miss Dierdrie Moffat shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and silently awaited Miss Broddrick's attention.
"Done some thinking, I hope, Miss Moffat?" The matron bustled in busily, her manner that of someone attending an amusing social event. "I trust you've reconsidered?"
"No, I'm afraid I haven't. Please don't whip me, I haven't done anything to deserve it."
"Don't be silly. Deserving it doesn't enter into the picture. If you wish to declare your intention to be sensible. I'll unbuckle those straps."
"I can't. I'm really sorry."
"You'll be a lot sorrier, dear. There's something you must realize. Once I've started your punishment, it will be carried through to the end, regardless. It will be no use changing your mind halfway.
I want you to think about that."
"Thank you. It was kind of you to tell me. I wish I could do what you ask, but I simply can't. Am I really being punished for not meeting my quota out in the field, or are you going to hurt me to make me agree to do what you want?"
The matron did not bother to answer. She went to the wall and selected something that Dee Dee had already observed: a tapering black whip which had probably cost a lot of money and would hurt cruelly. Without further ado, or even a pause, the strong right arm of the matron of the Aurora County Farm for Delinquent Girls swung in a wide arc. Shocked, Dee Dee pressed her forehead hard against the post.
There are many different kinds of pain. Often they are differentiated only by their origin, accident, intent, punishment, guilt, each has a quality of its own. For Dee Dee, the whipping of her feet had been quite different and far more terrible than the whipping of her hands. It was now so again, here a fresh awfulness with which she was unprepared to cope. The snape of the thong upon her bare flesh was a frightening horror she had never previously heard. The sound was unique to what was being done. "You mark beautifully, dear," the matron said conversationally. "Please feel free to kick or scream or struggle as much as you like. I do like to make allowances. I always feel girls have such a difficult time at your age."
"I can't stand it! Oh, matron!" The helpless girl twisted to stare back at the woman with the whip, absurdly convinced she could convey the impossibility of striking her again. Surely Miss Hazel Broddrick could be made to understand . "Please! I beg of you--"
"Don't be silly, dear. You can't tell a thing from the first stroke. If you haven't been whipped like this before. I'm sure you'll find it difficult."
It was more than difficult. It was impossible! Dee Dee yelped as the second stroke seared her shoulders from armpit to armpit. Despite the resolution, she found herself struggling in a frantic expression of agony. Her wrists screamed under the stress as did all the rest of her being as the third stroke lapped her twin cheeks from hip to hip. She knew now that she could not possibly last out whatever number of strokes Miss Broddrick intended to inflict. It was just not possible. It would be best to surrender now, rather than suffer more. Dierdrie Moffat heard her own voice most urgently exclaim, "Please! No more, no more! I'll do what you want. I promise I'll do what you want."
"Haven't you forgotten something dear--something I told you?"
She had forgotten! With a gasp of dismay, Dee Dee realized her weakness had come too late. If you are not of the stuff of stoics and martyrs it was best to accept whatever fate destiny imposed.
She moaned and pleaded and implored, but in each case her answer was the whip. Miss Broddrick slashed it heartily upon bare flesh with a tremendous gusto. By the tenth stroke, the strapped girl was both sweating and screaming. Dee Dee had abandoned dignity and cried out. What girl in her predicament would not? The rise and fall of the thong and its impacts upon girlish skin ceased. The matron's voice was, as always, honeyed. "Just a breather, dear.
I do want you to get the utmost benefit from this, and I always feel a pause is helpful, especially when the girl knows there is further punishment to come. I'm sure you find yourself in a receptive frame of mind."
"Yes! Oh, yes! I can't bear it."
"Of course, dear. You girls do say the quaintest things with a little pain. I'm sure you would like me to free your hands and forgive you, but that simply won't happen. You and I have set a course, and we'll follow it to the end."
"Oh, please, no! No, no!"
"Yes, yes, yes, dear. I'll ask you now something the Sheriff told me you were vague about. How vigorously were you fucked with that Benbow cult?"
"Not very much. In their way, they were terribly kind to me."
"But you did get fucked?"
"Yes."
"Well, at least you're not a virgin. Virgins are an absolute nuisance. Even the men who pay extra to get one are always disappointed. They make such terrible fucks. I take it you really do intend to be sensible?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'll give you ten more by way of getting acquainted. There's nothing like pain to give a girl perspective. Girls wander around in a dither until they get their first whipping. It's a pity most of them never get one."
It went on and on, the scorch, the sear, the terrible bum and scald, coupled with the snapping crack of leather upon her own skin, took Dee Dee into the same world she had entered when the Benbows had whipped the soles of her feet. She was positive the strokes went far beyond the promised ten, but she had lost count in the incoherency of agony. It might have been ten, twenty, or thirty for all she knew, but one thing was firmly imprinted in her mind--she must never allow this awfulness to happen to her again, not ever!
"Delightful, dear, you took it very well. I'm sure you don't believe that but you did. You can stand at the post awhile. I won't unstrap you yet. In fact, in view of your initial hesitations. I'm inclined to believe I should keep you down here for a few days. I'd like to cement those good resolutions I'm sure you've just been making." Miss Broddrick patted a wealed bottom reassuringly. "I'll leave you now, and I'm not sure when I'll be back. When I do, if you have any confessions to make, I'll be glad to listen to them. Goodbye, Miss Moffat--pleasant dreams."
With Miss Broddrick gone, the room of punishments seemed twice as large as before. Miss Broddrick was a woman who required space, but Dee Dee was unconcerned with such thoughts. All she felt was pain and dismay. To stay in the awful room for a period of days was a thought she could not endure. The potato field was a holiday by comparison. She flexed her arms, constantly shifting the feet she had kicked so widely at nothing during her punishment. Even without the infliction of a whip, it was tiring to stand thus strapped to this unholy cross and to learn that she was not yet done with it was a bitter blow. She could well understand the matron's intent. Girls easily change their minds, no doubt for many the good resolution melted away with their pain. Evidently, the matron was taking no chances with her. The pact they would make together would be indelibly planted in her mind and on her flesh. Knowledge that a punishment once started could not be curtailed was frightening. Dee Dee wondered unhappily what other of the engines she could see around the walls would she be strapped to next. There was also a pillory and a set of stocks. She could well imagine a girl would become very tired of being fastened within either device. She had simply become a girl who had nothing to look forward to.
The matron was wise in the way of girls. She had been one herself and dealt with them daily. When she reappeared and unstrapped the tired, chafed arms, her tone was honeyed as ever. "A good hot bath is what you need. Miss Moffat, and I have a girl who will attend to your hair. Can't have you looking the way you are now. You've got work to do this evening."
"But I thought you said--"
"I did, and you will. In the meantime, you've got work to do. I'm very careful about punishments. It's easy to overdo them and defeat their purpose. I'll handle you carefully, young woman. You're valuable merchandise. Just how valuable you become depends on you."
The potency of contrast! Dee Dee savored it to the full in going from the whipping post to one of the most luxuriously appointed bathrooms she had ever seen. A girl was there waiting, a girl of her own attired in the same prison tunic as the one Dee Dee had shed before being whipped. She gave a cheerful greeting and said, "My name's Jimmy. Matron's told me to look after you." She grinned. "Look, if you want to fight or run away, I'll get into trouble. Please count me out. I've had a belly full and some of you girls are so damn stupid."
"But aren't you a prisoner too? I mean, that tunic you're wearing--"
"Sure, I'm here for half my life," Jimmy assured cheerfully.
"In the meantime, I do the best I can for myself. You will too."
"You mean you're a girl who's said yes to what the matron wants?"
"Sure, I've been doing it for a long time. It's a hell of a lot better than working in the field and getting your ass whipped every day." Jimmy laughed in genuine amusement. "You can be damn sure any girl the matron sets her eye on is going to get whipped to a frazzle until she says yes. Sure, she'll fuck any man in sight." Jimmy sighed. "Don't feel too bad about it. Some of the fellows who come here aren't all that hard to spend time with. But don't ever ask any of them for help. That's a no-no."
It appeared Jimmy had been a beauty operator before that fatal day when she had aided her lover to, unsuccessfully, rob a bank. Her skill became more and more evident in the mirror as she worked on Dierdrie's hair. Perfume and the clone scents of the female enveloped both girls as the operation progressed. As it neared its close, Jimmy's voice became more than casual. "Do any nibbling, Dee Dee?"
"Nibbling!" Dee Dee's mind groped searchingly until inspiration dawned. Nibbling--well, it was as good a word as any. Abruptly, she said, "No!"
"You will, sweetheart--we all do. This is a girl's prison, remember."
"But why would you do that! If you spend every night with men--" Dee Dee blushed. "I mean, it seems so... so... I'd have thought it was too much of a good thing."
"We don't love the men. but we do love some of the girls, darling. That's the answer. Love makes one hell of a difference to that little treasure we've got between our legs, or haven't you noticed?" Dee Dee agreed that she had noticed, but added her regret in having no interest in the matter of "nibbling," ending her affirmation with a question. "But what about the authorities? Surely they don't allow the girls to do that."
"Honey, you've got a lot to learn. Why, Miss Hazel Broddrick herself is going to proposition you eventually. I can tell by the way she looks as you. You must be naive as hell if you didn't pick up on her vibes. I've eaten the matron more times than I can count. She tastes real sweet, and it's a lot better than getting yourself whipped."
"You mean, we get whipped for that too--if we refuse?"
"Hell yes! What do you expect? That's the way all prisons are. A girls' prison is so heavily overloaded with sex I'm surprised the walls don't crumble or the bars melt. I had to use both pairs of my lips the first day. It's a case of bending with the wind, honey."
"What do I have to do this evening, Jimmy?"
"Oh, just watch me. I'll be right in there with you. Mostly the men want to simply talk about themselves. They actually think a girl's interested. Then, when they stop pawing at your breasts and lifting up your skirts, you simply take them to the bedroom. There's quite a few bedrooms. Don't worry about invasions of privacy."
"And then... then it happens?"
Jimmy was enjoying herself, her laughter infectious. She was at peace with her world. "Even then it doesn't always happen, honey. Half the silly bastards can't even get it up; you have to work on them like crazy. And if the two of you can't make it, well, you know what comes next, don't you?"
Dee Dee knew. She had once performed fellatio after a few drinks at a party and in a very dark room. She had never been sure which was better or worse, either pleasurably or morally in the act, an act of which she had been half ashamed and which she made no effort to repeat. Dully, she acknowledged. "Yes, I know. I suspect every girl knows. I imagine wives do it quite often. That doesn't mean I'll enjoy doing it, though. I'd like to refuse."
"It's your ass, honey."
By the time they were scheduled to meet the guests, the two girls had fallen into a pleasant camaraderie, but that did not stop Dee Dee's heart from pounding painfully as they approached the festive sounds. The gathering was by no means rowdy, but the conversation was not being held in whispers. Dee Dee supposed that came later. The matron, sheathed in satin and heavily bejeweled, greeted them as though they were honored guests who had unexpectedly accepted a casual invitation. She directed Jimmy to an awaiting male quietly sipping by the fireplace, and she herself took Dee Dee in charge. "You let me down. Dee," she said in an urgent whisper, "and you'll be the sorriest little girl in these parts. Understand?"
"I've said I'll do it, and I meant it. I'm not a virgin." Dierdrie saw them simply as men. the predatory male, half of them playing truant from their wives. They saw her as what she was--a beautiful and desirable female--and they lusted after her accordingly. They stripped her naked with their eyes and became small strutting boys in their urgent need she should be aware of them alone. One by one, their names trickled from the matron's lips, Dee Dee doing her best to remember each one, and every single one was assured that the favors of Miss Dierdrie Moffat were available. Miss Moffat herself began to fear that before the night was over, she might easily be available to too many for too long. She thought longingly of freedom.
"I'm the youngest, the handsomest, and possibly the richest man in this room," said the youngest type who had almost weaned her from the matron's arms. He gazed earnestly into Dee Dee's eyes and assured her of his undying affection. He gulped one more drink on top of too many others and suggested they retire immediately. Dierdrie disposed of him easily. She pointed out another girl and dropped the hint that her breasts were most definitely better proportioned than her own. The young and picked quince agreed and made his unsteady pathway to the quarry. Dee Dee heaved a sigh of relief. She badly needed preliminaries and was not anxious to give herself to the first comer.
The voice was suave and middle-aged. "Glad you don't like 'em young," it suggested affably. "You have my permission to mix me a drink."
Dierdrie turned to examine him. Sleek was the word. Sleek, genial, armored by cash, he possessed an assurance no acid of hers could etch. But he was civilized, so she cautiously enquired, "Is that one of my duties? Miss Broddrick didn't mention--"
"Not a house rule." His eyes roved up and down what her scanty sheath revealed. He chuckled. "I'm simply a bastard who likes to have a girl work for him. It pleases me to see you go to the bar and do what I've asked. Is that bad?"
"I suppose not," she joined in spontaneous laughter. "You'll have to forgive me--I'm new. Sure, I'll get you a drink."
"Murder? Robbery? Incest?" His eyes were shrewd. "You don't look the type."
Dee Dee wondered if she should tell him the actual facts, but it would be like asking for aid. and that was forbidden. "I'm afraid I'm dull," she admitted coyly. "All I did was steal a car. At least that's the way the charge sheet read."
"You're innocent, of course?"
"Of course."
They laughed again. Perhaps this was the way to handle men-- lubricate their absurdities with humor. Repartee might delay the final act indefinitely. Dee Dee assumed that if a man took possession of her in conversation, she would be considered to be doing her duty and would cease to be available to others. She mixed the drink and brought it to him, eyes twinkling. "On my knees?" she asked.
"Damn nice idea. I like you. We'll do that in private sometime-- this isn't the place. Will Miss Broddrick let you out for a weekend?"
"You could ask her. " The prison girl quivered at such a prospect but dared ask no questions. He said his name was Winslow and that Dierdrie was a lovely Irish name. He said it made him think of pixies and elves and the lakes of Connemara. No doubt because of the pleasant report they had so easily established, it was not as long as Dee Dee would have wished before he suggested they find themselves a room.
Entering it, finding the bed unsoiled and untouched, Dierdrie asked coyly, "I expect you'd like me to take my clothes off?"
"Yes, please. I'll stay as I am, if you don't mind."
Dee Dee shrugged. Jimmy had told her of these strange desires and notions these rooms revealed in the male. It was not her place to ask questions, but only to obey. Hoping she performed the act with grace and whatever beauty was to be found in it, Dee Dee stripped naked under Winslow's intent regard. He was still quietly sipping, evidently not a heavy drinker. He stated the obvious as though making a discovery. "You're beautiful."
"Thank you. I think a lot of girls are."
"How come you're all marked up? Those whip marks are fresh, aren't they?"
Dee Dee had forgotten. By some standards she was terribly whip- marked and wondered how best to explain. Once more she had need of caution. Complaint might easily be construed as an appeal for aid and sympathy. Demurely, she replied, "I'm afraid I was a naughty girl."
"They do that to naughty girls here?" Winslow was intrigued. "How naughty can you get?"
"I'm afraid there are no limits. It hurts terribly--when they were doing it to me, I mean."
"They?"
"Well, Miss Broddrick, actually. She's very strict."
"Turn slowly around--let me get a good look." The naked girl obeyed, sensing something new in a strange relationship. Diffidently, she ventured, "Please don't think I'm complaining. I'm sure I deserved to be whipped. I wouldn't want Miss Broddrick to think--"
"Oh, I won't tell the barracuda." Winslow chuckled. "I've got an idea how this place works and what you girls have to do. I suppose I'm a bastard for taking advantage of it, but I'd be a fool if I didn't. How often does she whip you?"
"I'm afraid this is my time. I've only just come here." Winslow remained silent and deep in thought for almost a minute. What he then said came as a surprise. "I've always wanted to see a beautiful girl whipped." His voice had become dreamy and distant, as though he was seeing visions, which he no doubt was. "Think the Broddrick woman would allow me to watch her whip you?" This was dangerous ground but Dee Dee did her best. "I expect you could ask her," she suggested brightly. "I really have no idea."
""Ask her."
"Who, me! She won't listen to me. I'm afraid, Mr. Winslow, you'll have to mention it yourself."
"No, I want you to do the asking, but I will come along and listen. I'll get a charge out of it."
Breasts heaving, slightly breathless. Dee Dee allowed herself to be escorted from the bedroom and back among the gaiety outside. As they approached the matron, she felt quite certain there was trouble ahead. Miss Broddrick. however, eyed their linked arms with complete approval, nor did her features change one iota when Dee Dee forthrightly informed, "Mr. Winslow would like to see you whip me. Miss Broddrick. He's asked me to tell you."
"Such a charming man." The matron smiled upon them impartially. "I'm sure that can be arranged. What would be a convenient date, Mr. Winslow?"
"I was thinking of right now."
Two females sighed, the matron in exasperation at immodest males and Dee Dee in apprehension. The last thing she needed was to be whipped again, but she was certain this was not the time or place to say so. The matron sighed again and did her best. "Mr. Winslow, it would be much preferable, and perhaps more satisfactory to you, if we waited until next week. I'm sure dear Dierdrie undressed for you in the bedroom and you must have noticed she has been whipped once today already. Or perhaps there is something else you would enjoy seeing done to her?"
"Okay then, we'll call it next Tuesday. Same time, same place," Winslow said briskly. "I'd have liked it now, but I'm not one to quibble." He winked at the matron and turned back to Dee Dee. "All right, young lady, there's certainly one thing I can do to you. Come along and let's get with it."
Once more in the bedroom, Winslow made a shocking declaration. He minced no words. "I wanted to see you whipped real bad, honey," he admitted heavily. "The fact is the only way I can get it up is by watching something done to a girl. Whipping's much the best. You'd be surprised the way you girls react--you're absolutely exquisite. I'm surprised more men haven't made the discovery. Any girl who doesn't mind a bit of pain could make a fortune." He sighed once more and unzipped his pants. "I wonder if you'd mind... " Her duty done and once more in circulation. Dee Dee remembered she had not been told she could have a drink. She went to the matron and simply asked for one. Miss Broddrick laughed. "Was it that bad, honey?"
"No, not really. In fact, he's rather nice. I've never felt sorry for a man quite the way I did with him."
"That a girl! You're going to make out all right. Sure, you can have a drink. Go help yourself."
Fortified by alcohol, Dee Dee found the temerity to return and ask, "Will he really come back next Tuesday? I mean, to watch me being whipped? Do I have to be whipped next Tuesday? I don't see why."
The matron laughed and patted a sleek, sheathed bottom. "Run along, honey. Get yourself another man. Forget Winslow. He may or may not show up. We never can tell. If he does, you'll simply collect a few more marks. Come on now, don't waste time."
In the brief pause before she was again possessed, Dee Dee wondered if she was unconsciously a whore, a prostitute, a girl of easy virtue. But, of course, all these terms were commercial and Could scarcely apply to a girl who received no rewards other than a cessation from pain. But, she admitted to herself, a failure to be as shocked as she had expected. If this failure was immoral, then she was a bad, bad girl. But, she felt exactly the same now as she had felt before entering a room with Mr. Winslow. It had been the same with Chet and then with Josh, each of these intimacies had left her clean. She had been raped several times in the Aurora County Jail by the Sheriff and one of his deputies, and these violations had not left her feeling clean at all. They had been dirty and disagreeable and totally unsatisfying. She had striven to accept the wisdom of Confucius but had neither relaxed nor enjoyed. She shuddered at the memory and set it aside and with it the unprofitable analysis as to why she felt no more guilty that she did. She was positive she should have been bathed in shame. Her pause for reflection came to an abrupt end. The male voice was one of authority, its owner a tall cadaverous man heavily haired.
"Thought Winslow would never get through with you. I suspect he is a bit of a duffer at this sort of thing?"
"I found him charming. My name is Dierdrie, you can call me Dee Dee if you want. What's yours?"
"My name doesn't matter. Would you like me to fuck you?" She wondered if the ugly four letter word was flung at all girls who catered to the lusts of men, she would never get used to it. Its incisive sound was like the impact of a whip upon her flesh. Stiffly, she replied, "If it would give you pleasure."
He took her by the arm.
When the last male had departed for the night, the girls shared the rooms and the beds on which they had paid their dues. It was Jimmy and not the matron who took Dee Dee to her place of rest and locked leg irons on a pair of passive ankles. "Go to sleep," she advised tersely. "I'm beat and I'm damn sure you are. We'll do our nibbling another time. And don't go wandering around in the night in those leg irons. You'll only get into trouble, and you can't get away. Take my word for it."
CHAPTER SIX - FETTERS AND RIGHT
Dee Dee supposed there were worse punishments than being tied to a pole, but it was the manner of her binding which made it a punishment. Her hands were bound well above her head and took some portion of her weight, the main strictures were round her middle cutting into her stomach below her ribcage so painfully evident. She had been made to strip before standing on the box, this had made possible the ropes indenting the flesh within her crotch and compressing both groins. These, too, sustained their share of her total weight, the rest was born by her ankles firmly bound to the pole so that when the box was taken away from her feet, she sagged against the ropes, each one of which took its proportionate share of the burden of a naked girl. When the matron had removed the box, Dierdrie had simply gasped in surprise and some shock, but the discomfort had not been sufficiently agonizing for her to protest, the pain had begun to manifest itself after she had been left alone.
But she was not short of company. The pole was some facility of the gymnasium and it was there she would have to spend her day. Her punishment was understood and properly evaluated by all. The matron had been utterly frank. "I want you properly convinced about what you're doing, Dee Dee," she had explained as she knotted the cords. "I don't want you backsliding. If you hadn't been so damn good last night, you'd be getting worse than this today. But this is a good enough reminder. You'll have time to think, and if any girls come in here, don't dare ask them to untie you. Understand?"
"Yes, matron."
Dee Dee understood perfectly. She was resigned to her day. Her only concern was how long it would last. The party girls had all been allowed to sleep late and had had a leisurely breakfast together. Each one of her companions in Miss Broddrick's bordello had assured her honestly, but without enthusiasm, of the rightness of her course. The general feeling was simply that a girl had no choice. It would be stupid to endure perpetual punishment for the sake of the sanctity of the thing between a girl's legs. Each one of them knew a million other girls had reached a similar decision in ages past. If they thought of the tragedy of so much youth and beauty wasted in such captivity, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Each girl lived from one day to the next, hoping for release or parole or maybe a miracle. Dee Dee would have to do the same.
She could not move. Her weight against the ropes robbed them of slack and herself of any possibility of wriggling free. Her upraised, stressed arms imposed an additional burden upon her breasts which were partly flattened by the strain. After several hours, when the pain had taken a firm hold of every crevice, the naked girl could well understand how a punishment such as this, if allowed to go on and on, could leave an indelible mark upon the mind. It was so useless and cruel, and there was no escape. From time to time, girls came and went. Some did not bother, and others came and looked, and a few talked. Mostly, though, they remained silent. Conversation was not encouraged with any girl who was delinquent or undergoing punishment. Dee Dee herself had been forbidden to utter a single word. Jimmy brought her water, that was all. Toward the end of the afternoon, she was startled by the entry of a man. With him was the matron with whom he appeared on easy terms.
"This is Dee Dee, Mr. Jacobs. At the moment she's undergoing punishment, but she'll be available for you this evening. I can recommend her highly."
"Nice, very nice," Mr. Jacobs said approvingly, examining the girls constricted body. "I like the way you have her fixed. Mind if I sit around awhile and simply look at her? She's a damn pretty sight."
"Of course. I'll fetch you a chair."
Mr. Jacobs seated himself comfortably and fiddled with a pipe. He was no more than ten feet away from Dee Dee, and the captive girl caught the scent of expensive tobacco. "Hurt bad?" the man asked affably.
Dee Dee was quite certain sulking would not be tolerated. She cast the thought aside. Since she had already given all of herself, what else was there to lose! A honeyed tongue and eager compliance might earn her merit, and merit might lead her beyond the prison walls. It was little more than a pleasant fantasy. But who could tell! Sweetly, she explained, "Yes, sir, it hurts. It's supposed to hurt. I'm being punished."
"Of course--how stupid of me. But you look very charming like that. If I had you, I think I'd fix you this way every day."
"Thank you, sir."
Dee Dee did not know why she thanked him. On the face of it, she was being absurd, but Mr. Jacobs seemed pleased, and that was something. Tentatively, she asked, "Does the matron let you take us girls home?"
Mr. Jacobs puffed cheerily. "It's happened a few times." He twinkled at her benignly. "Want to go home with me?"
"If you please, I think that would be nice."
"You do, eh? You wouldn't think so if I took you home. I'm mean--very mean." He sighed without regret. "But I do dearly love tying up a girl. The way that woman's got you now makes the prettiest picture I ever did see. You do understand that you and I are going to couple this evening, eh?"
"Yes, sir, I understand." Dee Dee almost felt grateful for his failure to use the four-letter appellation so satisfying to so many. It was hard to see this quiet, undramatic, business type as a monster of cruelty. But who could tell! And anyway, he was probably just kidding her. Wearily, the bound girl wondered how long she would have to stay as she was. The pain was increasing by leaps and bounds. It would soon be difficult to maintain a light conversation. But perhaps Mr. Jacobs would enjoy a few moans. She had come to realize that beauty in distress held a tremendous, almost universal appeal. Hopefully, she enquired, "If you took me home, Mr. Jacobs, what would you do to me?"
"Eh? Oh, yes! Well, I suppose I'd whip you." Mr. Jacobs beamed at her with most obvious good will. "A whipping is much the best for a girl. It's easy, and you can make it as hard or as gentle as you like. The main thing is to find out her tolerance, then take her a step or two beyond that. But I'm a great believer in allowing her to enjoy the first few strokes. I guess you enjoy that, too, don't you?"
Once more Dee Dee thought longingly of freedom. How good it would be to have done with all this sexually related nonsense. Mr. Jacobs was probably a very nice man, but he would enjoy whipping her just the same as would Mr. Winslow. Wearily, she enquired, "It's nice of you to tell me, but wouldn't there be something else? Doesn't whipping a girl get to be a bit of a bore after awhile?"
"Not if you do it right. The thing to remember is to space it out," Mr. Jacobs said earnestly. "For instance, I could tie you up and come and whip you several strokes every hour. It would work fine. If we ever get around to it, you'll see what I mean." He pondered momentarily. "That idea of yours about there being something else--well, of course there is. There's the way you are right now, for instance, and there's all that equipment they've got down in the punishment room. Seems a damn shame not to use it. I can see you've already been on the whipping post."
Mr. Jacobs sat with Dee Dee for an hour. He smoked, he chatted, he told her of the various pains and anguish she would suffer it she belonged to him. He gave her to understand also that she would become a very wealthy young woman. He commiserated with her that her present circumstances rendered her work unrewarding, but said he supposed one couldn't have everything. When he finally left. Dee Dee hated to see him go. Quite probably most of what he had said was pure fantasy. After that, things became blurred and misty. She supposed she had either gone into semi-unconsciousness or had simply fallen asleep. Dee Dee's days in Miss Broddrick's bordello went on and on. There were days when she was punished, and there were days when she shared a big cage with the rest of the girls who had sold their virtue in return for surcease from pain. Once or twice she spent her nights in a tiny cell, but its bed had a costly mattress and equally costly coverings. It was extremely comfortable and she was released early in the morning. Her strange confinement and the yielding of her body every night seemed likely to continue for the full length of her sentence. Dee Dee wondered what she would do when release finally came. How could a girl used as she was used ever return to normal? And could she ever relinquish or fail to be aware of so marvelous a source of wealth as the cleft between her legs offered? By then, there would be no barrier, no inhibition, no anything except survival. Most of the girls frankly avowed their intention to making their livings by the same means they implored to save their skins.
She would always remember Tuesday night and Mr. Winslow. Mr. Winslow had actually returned against the matron's supposition. While Dee Dee had been punished often during the week, she had not been whipped. The matron had taken no chance with male caprice. Dee Dee's back and buttocks, while not totally healed, were now sufficiently virgin for his attention. His wishes were studiously enquired- They were simple.
"Why not simply tie her hands above her head--anyway you like?" he suggested conservatively. "Don't tie her feet--I want to see her kick."
"Her hands together or apart, Mr. Winslow?"
"Hmmmmm, I expect apart is best. It will stop her from jimmying around. They don't have to be wide,, y'know. Have you got some sort of bar?"
Everything was done to please. In this annex to the County Farm for Delinquent Girls no pain was spared to satisfy a client. Dee Dee had been made to strip naked, stand upon a box, and extend her arms towards the sky. The matron bound them, separate and apart, to a convenient bar and then removed the box. This left Dee Dee teetering upon her toes, very helpless and wickedly exposed.
"Excellent, excellent!" Mr. Winslow was a most satisfying customer, his enjoyment of every privileged intense. He voiced it now. "She really looks exquisite, quite delectable. I would like you to apply the thong from somewhere above the level of her shoulders down to just above her knees. I've found that each segment of the female responds in its own way. We must give the dear child every possible scope."
Mr. Winslow's thoughtful latitude was appreciated by all. In a previous conversation before the arrival of the guest, the matron had explained to a nervous and trembling young woman that her application of the whip upon bare flesh this evening would be as moderate as she could contrive and still convey conviction. Mr. Winslow was no fool and would not be easily deceived. Dee Dee remembered the reassurance as the first cut of the whip snaked across her shoulders. She had become, in some measure, inured to this form of punishment. She was willing to believe the blow had not been of utmost severity. But its pain was the same misery as all the other strokes of a whip her flesh had borne. She gasped, kicked, twisted against her strapped wrists, and teetered on the instability of bare toes. "That was absolutely perfect," Mr. Winslow enthused. "Please whip her again. I'm going to enjoy this immensely."
Miss Dierdrie Moffat did not enjoy it at all. It was precisely as Mr. Jacobs had described. It took her a couple of steps beyond her tolerance and inflicted a pain bitter enough to wish Mr. Winslow far, far away. She doubted her enthusiasm in sharing his pleasure over her pain. She wished the strokes had been truly light so she could have borne them with insouciance and perhaps have exchanged the occasional quip with he who watched. But pain defeated everything. Dee Dee closed her eyes and moaned and occasionally yelped as the leather bit her skin. Mr. Winslow stood with shining eyes.
It went on and on. Whipping always went on and on. When she had lost count of the strokes, Dee Dee was certain it would go on forever. She beheld Mr. Winslow's face, but his happiness failed to register. She swung, she kicked, she twisted, and contrived to look imploringly back over a pinioned arm with wide, frightened eyes which met the matron's in mute appeal.
When, several eternities later, her wrists had been unstrapped and her feet once more back upon the floor, and she and Mr. Winslow had retired with suitable beverages to a private room, Dee Dee found herself enveloped in a pair of masculine arms and heard a masculine whisper in her ear. "You were marvelous, absolutely marvelous! Dee Dee, while you were being whipped, you were the most beautiful thing in all the world." Mr. Winslow's adoration knew no bounds.
Why argue or spoil her record? Dee Dee simply said, "Thank you, Mr. Winslow. I'm glad you enjoyed me."
"How often could you stand being whipped like that?"
"Not too often, I'm afraid. It hurts terribly. It hurts far more than a man can ever realize."
"Yes, well, I expect you're right, but if I had you at home, that's how often you'd get it. You are just too beautiful."
"Would you like to take me home, Mr. Winslow? If you did, I wouldn't mind all that much, being whipped the way you want." There was a stunned silence. The words had slipped out in an instinctively feminine guile. Dee Dee looked at her client askance. "I'll think about it," Mr. Winslow promised. "Mind you, don't hold your breath. You girls are so damned expensive. I know you don't get a penny of it, but you'd be shocked to know what it cost me this evening to watch you whipped."
"If you had me at home with you, you could whip me for free." Once more the words had seemed to utter themselves beyond her control. Perhaps Mr. Winslow was as nervous of their import as she was herself. At any rate, he had made his hasty goodbyes and obviously false excuses and departed, he had not been back since. Dee Dee sighed at one more memory.
On the following evening, Dee Dee's first client was young Chet. She stared at his shining face in mute astonishment. His whisper was urgent, "Don't let on you know me, act like I'm one of the boys." He smirked. "Maybe I am. Can I take you in a room?" It was very easy. Young men are supposed to be ardent in their carnal need, for Dee Dee to retire with this youthful client before the usual sipping of drinks and exchange of loaded innuendo was smiled upon by those who watched. Once inside and the door safely closed, the young couple clasped in an ecstasy more intense than either of them had ever known. Chet's news burst from him in an urgent stream, "We followed the trial, We followed you here, we made inquiries. I hung around the town long enough until I was approached. All I had to do was pretend I wanted a girl. That was the key, it led me here. Now I've got to get you out."
"You can't, Chet. This is a prison. I'm a prisoner. I've been sentenced to two years in this place."
Chet laughed. "You've been sentenced to two years in a prison, but this place is not a prison. It's a private residence of the warden. I've discovered it's been added to a great deal since she took over. Busting you out of this place wouldn't even be a crime."
"But they'd kill you--you'd be hurt."
"Sure, if I tried it alone. But I'm a Benbow." His voice took on a tone of pride, his stature increased. "I'll get the Benbows and we'll get you out of here now that we know where you are." They coupled in an abandonment to joy. The sky was not above nor the earth below, but they drew strength from each other and the knowledge that this was a new beginning. The naked Dee Dee sobbed ecstatically in joy upon her lover's shoulder. Everything would be all right now, she knew it would. Chet would fix everything, just as he had fixed the plow and tethered her and was always able to make incredibly wonderful love. Against Chet, the Aurora County Farm for Delinquent Girls did not stance a chance. When they parted, each of them was quivering in frantic joy.
"The young bucko feeling his oats, Dee Dee?" The matron's eye was keen. "Haven't seen him before. Acts like he had the biggest hard-on ever. " Dee Dee laughed. "He's young, and he was terribly good at what he did. I hope he comes again."
After that, the days were long. Each one brought fresh hope and fresh despair. One minute the imprisoned girl was positive of escape, the next she abandoned hope. She had to work at concealing her feelings. She was certain if they were revealed, she would be taken back to the prison and kept chained within a cell that not even the Benbows could penetrate. She had great faith in the Benbows, but knew them not infallible. Dee Dee thought constantly of Chet, brushing impatiently aside her knowledge of his youth. Men often married women older than themselves, didn't they? She comforted herself with the thought. She had no statistics, but they would not matter anyway, with her and Chet. Dee Dee was in the deepest throes of desire. She saw Chet as the ultimate male. That the Benbows might deny their marriage was a consideration she banished as soon as it appeared. She, too, was young and desired him with every fiber of her being. Her memories of earth and sky and of Chet deep within her loins became more and more vivid in her mind, taking on the aspects of a pure glory ineffable. In the meantime, she dealt with her imprisonment the best she could. She did everything the matron wanted and said everything the matron wished to hear. Uncaring now of how true or false the premise might be, she saw herself unblushingly as a lady of the evening. It was a term she had remembered from a book, and it served well enough to erase the ugly names most often implored for what she did or was doing. She pleasured men outrageously and became the favorite girl of Hazel's Place, which was the name given to the warden's residence by those in the know.
It was the Benbow himself who heralded the even to change Dee Dee's life. On an evening when her hopes had been growing dim, he was suddenly there, in earnest conversation with a man she did not know. She gasped and steadies herself against the sudden shock. If the Benbow was there, there would be others. Perhaps tonight was the night! She used all the expedience she had learned to avoid entanglement with other men to thus leave the Benbow with an easy choice to seek access to a room in her company. But he never caught her eye. He studiously avoided looking at her, but she knew he was aware of her. She could sense it. She was receiving his vibrations by intense bombardment. She exuded her own almost in defense but actually a pleading in her need. She trembled and wished certain that whatever plan the Benbow had would be adversely affected. She dared not refuse an open, straight forward offer for her body. If a man desired it badly enough, she would have to give it to him. The matron was there, her watchful eye as keen as ever. Unable any longer to bear the suspense, she deliberately brushed against the Benbow as though in accident, making a swift apology and receiving in return one single word in an almost inaudible whisper: "Tonight."
Dee Dee knew she must not make herself conspicuous. To fortify her nerves, she made her way to the bar, but before she reached it there was a demanding male hand upon her arm. She turned to be confronted with the beaming features of Mr. Jacobs. "Remember me?" he enquired amiably. "I've been talking to the matron, but in the meantime, there's something I'd like you to see. Would you mind?"
Dee Dee did not mind. Mr. Jacobs was probably as good a subject to keep occupied with as any. Talking as vivaciously as she knew how, she allowed .herself to be guided through the end door and into the passage. They entered a small bare room, and in it was Hazel Broddrick holding a length of cord at the ready.
"Just for the weekend, Dee Dee dear. You'll find Mr. Jacobs wonderful to work with."
Dee Dee turned to flee. This could not come at a worse time. She was impelled by an instinctive panic to return to the Benbow and seek his instant aid. The frightened girl cared nothing for reason, only escape.
Mr. Jacobs and the matron overpowered her easily, Mr. Jacobs proving unexpectedly masculine, his fingers hard and strong. There were no words, only the gasping breaths of those who fought. When Dee Dee sought to scream, a wad of something was stuffed within her mouth and her lips firmly taped together. "You silly girl. What are you making such a fuss about?" the matron demanded irritably. "Good heavens, it's only Mr. Jacobs. You know Mr. Jacobs. You're being ridiculous." She chuckled and turned to the client.
"She's giving you your money's worth. I hope you get a thrill out of this little tussle. Seems like you'll have to be stern with her, but I don't have to tell you, do I?"
It was a bitter moment for the girl in the torn gown whose hands and arms were now tied tightly behind her back, bitten by additional cords at her ankles and knees. She floundered in a couple of protesting contortions but soon desisted, realizing helplessness. A bandage wound softly over her eyes several times was knotted behind her head. She wept into it and hoped they would see the stains of bitter tears. In darkness, she was carried away from hope and everything that mattered, and she couldn't say a word.
From the smell and discomfort. Dee Dee realized she had been placed within the trunk of a car, the lid slammed shut, and the motor started. With every revolution of the wheels, she would be taken farther and farther away from the Benbow and her heart's desire. Fate was being cruel. The Prison for Delinquent Girls would reclaim her and make certain she never had another chance. It was possible the matron had learned of the plans for her escape and, using Mr. Jacobs, had circumvented it with a neat maneuver by which she would also receive additional profit. The dark, trussed journey took Dee Dee into the bitterest despair she had ever known.
* * *
"I really must take a picture, my dear." Mr. Jacobs fussed busily, never taking his eyes from the captive girl still tightly bound but now relieved of blindfold and gag. "You look exquisite. That torn dress or whatever it is and the ropes and the expression on your face--it's all just wonderful! I'll get you naked in a little while, but I must make a couple of snapshots of you the way you are now. " Dee Dee said nothing. Her mind was furiously at work considering whether to tell Mr. Jacobs the truth of her predicament and ask his air, or to simply endure what she must and hope that the Benbow would understand something had gone wrong. It showed the depth of her pessimism that she chose the latter course. She felt certain she would return to the prison and its bars and its punishments, and if she pleaded for help to escape, those punishments would be dire. Meekly, she said, "Whatever you wish, Mr. Jacobs.
I'm sorry I made all that fuss. I was frightened and didn't understand."
"Wouldn't have had it any other way, dear." Mr. Jacobs was busy with his lens and his shutter and his flash. "Gives a beautifully authentic touch, this business of trying to escape. It would be nice if you continued to struggle all the time you're with me. I don't mean like now, but anytime you think you have a chance." He chuckled gleefully. "I'll be able to handle you; you needn't worry about that. " He gazed appraisingly at the neat package he had purchased for the weekend. "What I have to do now is get those clothes off you."
Mr. Jacobs was a middle-aged satyr, well experienced in the handling of captive girls. To Dee Dee's surprise, he untied her hands, arms, and knees, leaving only her ankles tightly bound. "There we are, my dear. You can take the rest off yourself. I'll watch." He chuckled. "A little strip tease, eh! I do dearly love to watch a girl undress."
The girls of Miss Broddrick's bordello wore no panties--why should they! The rest of Dee Dee's scanty covering was easily removed. Realizing Mr. Jacobs's goodwill was vital to her wellbeing, the girl with bound ankles did her best to make this baring of her charms as erotically pleasing as possible. "Your ankles stay tied, my dear, and I'd advise you not to fuss with them. It would take you a long, long time to free yourself, and I'll be watching. Leave them alone."
Standing nude before his ardent gaze, Dee Dee felt strangely shamed. Nakedness had become so normal for her that she had given up cringing in the eyes of men. But now, to stand teetering before the appraisal of this ridiculous man, made her feel doubly bare. She would have clasped her hands behind her back and given him a full frontal view of what he prized so highly, but she needed her hands for balance and knew not where to dispose of them. Mr. Jacobs solved her problem. "I'll now give you a friendly whipping, my dear, before I make you ready for the night. You'll remember how I told you of my enjoyment in whipping girls."
Dee Dee remembered. But was there such a thing as a friendly whipping? Feeling a need to make some response, she timidly ventured, "Thank you, Mr. Jacobs. I'm sure I'm in good hands."
"What I want you to do now, Dee Dee, is hop. I could carry you, but I prefer to see you dance your little jig on the way to the whip." Mr. Jacobs's tone indicated that he was offering manifold delights. "I'm sure we'll get along splendidly, but please do remember to struggle sometimes, and if you want to complain about something, I won't punish you for that. I always feel a girl's complaints are informative. They're a big help in determining what to do to her. Girls really are exquisite creatures."
Dee Dee obediently hopped. It hurt her ankles, not only from the hop itself, but from the thrust and swell of tendons against the cord. Mr. Jacobs did indeed know what he was doing. In the room with the ropes, the pulleys, and all the now familiar accoutrements, she stood to await whatever indignity Mr. Jacobs would think of next.
"Do you have any preference as to how you are fastened while I whip you?"
Dee Dee considered asking to be left exactly as she was--it was horrible to be helpless while someone beat you--but she had a mental vision of herself falling to the floor, rolling back and forth in a fruitless evasion of the whip, which would still find her and in places she would least desire. "Isn't tying my hands up above my head the best way possible?" she shyly asked. "I'm terribly vulnerable like that."
"A bit overdone, though. Since this is just a friendly affair, I'm toying with the idea of the bench. I don't have to whip your back, and seeing that it's just a friendly thing between us this evening, I'd be quite content to use a strap on your bottom. You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you. Dee Dee?"
Dee Dee longed to scream. She was in the poorest of moods for this silly man's pleasantries. He would have been difficult enough at any time, but now all she wanted was to bury her face in her hands and weep out her bitter disappointment. She contented herself with a noncommittal, "Thank you. Mr. Jacobs, I expect that would be nice."
It could have easily been called a "girl-bench," its was so perfectly made to fit. Dee Dee knelt on a sort of low step, then bent forward across the larger surface of the bench itself. Mr. Jacobs pulled upon her extended arms and strapped them to each far end of his creation. Another broader strap encircled her waist and was cinched down so cruelly tight as to make her squeal. Some sort of bar was placed upon the hollows of her knees and fastened down to make them also immovable. Her already tied ankles did not matter. She was now a young woman immovably postured for punishment and was painfully aware of the prominence of her derriere. Timidly, she asked, "Please don't hurt me too badly, Mr. Jacobs. I do so want to be nice for you. I don't want to scream too much and be all weepy and untidy."
"Like this?" The limber leather of the flagellum impacted with a resounding thwack across both the exposed cheeks. There was nothing friendly about it at all. Dee Dee's teeth had been clenched, and she contrived to survive the shock and pain with no more than a gasp and a moan. "What do you think of that, eh?" Mr. Jacobs asked with all the exuberance of a school boy. "That sound was really something, and you're wiggling beautifully." He gently patted the swollen flesh he had just punished. "I'm so glad I got you. Think of it--two whole days!"
"It hurt terribly." It was a simple statement of truth and was all Dee Dee could think to say. He could make what he wanted of it. She now doubted whether the flagellum was either friendly or kind. It was fearful and frightening to lay as she was and be fastened so that no part of her that mattered could move, least of all the round tight portion of herself from which the leather had extracted its fine percussion, the two pink cheeks continued the sweet innocence of their offering. It was as though they desired a second stroke after their failure to recoil from the first.
Mr. Jacobs's second stroke was as unkind as number one. While it still burned and scorched, he apologized. "I'm afraid it takes a good strong swing to get this effect, dear," he explained solicitously. "You really should see your bottom--it bounces beautifully and then blushes at me invitingly. " He repeated his gentle pats upon Dee Dee's tenderest spot. "You're irresistible, my dear, but I won't beat you too hard. Just enough to get these two lovely rounds of yours nicely reddened. I expect there'll be some overlap, but that's to be expected. Hold still now--here's another."
It was not hard to hold still--she could not move. She wanted to tell him so, but realized how anything she said could be misconstrued. She wondered if she should ask for a gag which would stop her either screaming or saying the wrong thing. But perhaps asking for the gag would itself be a mistake, and in any case, it might not be wise to seem too eager for such inflictions. She would remain strapped down to the bench, receiving blow after blow, until Mr. Jacobs's juvenile enthusiasm had run its course. Her bottom screamed.
"Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" Mr. Jacobs finally uttered. By that time, Dee Dee had come to a realization and decision: she could get this sort of treatment back at the Aurora County Farm. She did not need to be rented out to sundry, erotically disposed males. Assuming she got back safely to Miss Broddrick's care, her first request would be a return to prison. If Mr. Jacobs could rent her once, he count rent her again. "I'm becoming fond of you, dear girl," the man intoned. "I'm going to talk to that Broddrick woman and see if I can't lease you for the entire term of your sentence." He pondered thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, if she agrees, there's nothing to stop me from keeping you after your sentence expires." He paused to enjoy vistas of delight. "There's really no reason why I should ever let you go at all."
Shock and dismay kept her mute while the straps were unbuckled. Her hands, when freed, flew instantly to the burning welts left upon her by the flagellum. Her feet were still tied, so she remained kneeling on the step. Politely, her owner asked, "I'm curious about that iron collar around your neck, you can't get it off, can you?"
"No, it takes a blacksmith."
"Well, well, I'm surprised they riveted that on you in prison. Bit unorthodox," he laughed. "But then in a prison full of girls, who knows what goes on! Doesn't seem to bother you."
Dee Dee had become so accustomed to the iron band that she mostly forgot about it. When she was reminded, as now. the tears were apt to well up and had to be controlled. The iron collar would become increasingly nostalgic as more and more time separated her from the Benbows. What she had just suffered at the hands of this man who she might just as well call master, had made everything she longed for infinitely remote. She no longer believed in the place or in freedom. She was as far from both as any girl could be.
"Come now, mustn't spend our time daydreaming, must we?" Mr. Jacobs might be treating her brutally, but his diction was that of someone speaking to a child. Without thinking, Dee Dee innocently asked, "Would you like me better if I was ten years old, Mr. Jacobs?"
"Actually, no," Mr. Jacobs informed earnestly. "I have found little girls lacking in everything that matters: no breasts, no pubic hair, not much of a bottom. But you can't always be sure about the bottom; some of them surprise you. About the only good thing I remember of them is a deep little--well, what they call a pussy. Damn silly name for it. It's about as much like a cat as what I've got." He switched topics without warning. "Want me to put you to bed?"
Being "put to bed" was sufficiently ambiguous to prompt caution. "If you think it's time," Dee Dee agreed timidly. "Would you mind if I went to the bathroom first?"
"Of course not! Silly of me to forget." He shot her a sudden suspicious glance. "You won't be untying those feet, though, will you?"
Dee Dee gave her promise. She hopped and hopped to her master's keen delight. She stole enough time to lave the bum and scorch of the leather's legacy upon her flesh. Returning to her awaiting master, she inquired brightly, "What would you like me to do next, Mr. Jacobs?"
It was very simple and actually was a bed. It was not even a hard bed, but had some kind of coverings and a smooth unwrinkled surface. However, the captive girl was quick to note the chain and the shackles at each corner. There would always be something, she thought bitterly. No real comfort, no real freedom, always chains and straps and whips! Like so many of the men who had used her in Miss Broddrick's bordello, Mr. Jacobs was an enigma, a constant fluctuation between cruel and kind. Both these extremes were genuine and she was certain he rationalized both in his own consciousness. She was sure he felt no guilt for what he had just done to her, even though by the standards of the outside world he had punished her cruelly. But perhaps under the surface all men were the same strange mixture. Perhaps all those male eyes of which she had always been conscious when they had passed her on the street had seen her naked and bound and punished in some queer fantasy all their own. But she remembered Chet. Chet would never treat her thus. Chet would never whip a girl or bind her limbs. But there a vision intervened. It was of herself behind the plow and of Chet clicking the padlock on her irons. He had not been unkind about it, but she had sensed his enjoyment. The girl with tied feet cast such thoughts aside. Men defied analysis. Under the direction of the one who owned her now, she lay upon her back and stretched her arm toward the waiting irons.
"Shackles are so convenient," Mr. Jacobs infused. "It's not that I don't enjoy tying you with rope or cord or even string, and we'll get around to that in time, but you and I have only got a couple of days now, and we should make the most of it. You see, a couple of snaps and I've got your wrists safely anchored. You can never get them free, and there's a bit of chain there, too, to give you a little bit of leeway so that you won't be painfully strictured. Now I'll look after your feet."
It felt good to lose the biting cords. She could not touch the weals where they had been, but she could rub one foot against the other. Mr. Jacobs instructed her to lay down on the bed. He took her two wrists and secured them tightly in the chains at the two corners of the bed. Laying there while he watched, with her arms stretched wide, Dee Dee guessed what he would do to her, but there would be other things too, and these she could only surmise. Any way you looked at it, she was going to be quite frighteningly helpless through the night. To speed things up, Dee Dee's owner had take a hand was now massaging the indented ankles with masculine vigor.
but this did not last long. No doubt with a view to saving time, he quickly desisted and without reference to her stretched her legs apart and pulled them sufficiently down to reach the iron bands and the metal links waiting for them. Dee Dee blushed at the close proximity of his eyes to that portion of herself normally secretly hidden. But he was totally absorbed. There could be no doubt that Mr. Jacobs was an aficionado of the first water. His delight in the fastening of her limbs exceeded and replaced all other pleasures. The naked girl recumbent on the bed could not restrain a flinch and a wince as the band locked snugly around her ankle upon the same spot as the rope burns. There came the usual disheartening snap of a lock and then the busy man transferred his attentions to her other foot. They were both soon stretched wide in an obscene disclosure of her pubic bush to render her completely helpless. Miss Dierdrie Moffat had neither secrets nor freedom to enjoy.
"I won't fuck you just yet, my dear," Mr. Jacobs said conversationally. "We'll get around to that, of course. In the meantime, I'm sure you won't mind if I play with you a little." He smiled and lifted her chain in a playful gesture. From there his fingertips strayed and began a sensory tracing of her contours. The breasts came first, of course. Dee Dee was to ask him what the hell was so remarkable about a girl's breasts that men had to go ga-ga over them, but she supposed she knew the answer. Why wouldn't they! They had started out in life right there and doing what Mr. Jacobs was doing now, lustily sucking and lipping and generally behaving like an infant child. Evidently, they never forgot. She wondered then why girls were not similarly affected, but some of them were, of course. As usual she had to shrug off the imponderable and consign it to all the other unanswered questions about sex. In the meantime, Mr. Jacobs had supplemented his lips and tongue upon her right breasts and was now tickling her left with shrewd and knowing fingertips. Quite suddenly, his subject was transferred from pain to pleasure, but she found only shame in this new sensation. She did not want to be tickled and teased by a middle-aged satyr. If it had been Chet, that would have been something else again. But in his ministrations she saw only an irate Hebrew lady in their home impatiently awaiting his return in order that they might enjoy some social gathering. She was quite sure Mr. Jacobs was married, but that did matter either. He had her safely chained down upon a bed, and he was enjoying her immensely. If he had a wife, so what? Her owner was nothing if not thorough. From her breasts his interest searched lower and lower, tracing a wet pathway to her navel and below. Meeting her forest of pubic hair, he rubbed his nose in it as though savoring the pungency of her sex. Then, without a word of warning, he was deep within the cleft of her widely spread thighs, hard at work at what Dee Dee had always supposed was a lesbian prerogative. She came alert and was shamefully aware of sensations which, if continued, must inevitably lead her to a fresh climactic embarrassment. Had it been a girl who was playing cunnilingus with her, she would have been most concerned, but with this busy business type who was still fully clothed and whose balding head was clearly visible if she strained her head above the vision of her breasts, it seemed obscene and without eroticism or virtue. She wished he would stop and move on to his next interest even though it might be painful.
Mr. Jacobs must have read her thoughts. He did indeed stop and knelt erect to gaze down upon his prize. "I'm not going to give you an orgasm," he declared with his usual geniality. "I'm keeping that for later. I want you to be in fine fettle when I fuck you. We must never waste these wonderful gifts." He paused and surveyed her bonds. "Have you tried to get loose, dear? I'd like you to struggle a bit and reassure yourself about how secure you are."
It was typical of this silly man that he should leave her in a dither and slightly warm, but Dee Dee obligingly struggled as though striving to get loose. It was a waste of time, and she knew perfectly well his only interest was to watch her doing so. It did something for him to see a naked girl striving for a freedom he denied. What power he must feel! He could do as he pleased with her. There she was spread and open and totally available. Could any man anywhere ask for more?
"Lovely, lovely, lovely! I could watch you struggling like that all evening." Mr. Jacobs pinched a nipple she could not withdraw.
"I really must talk to Miss Broddrick. I can't possibly let you go. When I think of all the years you and I could be doing things together," he sighed ecstatically, then suddenly demanded, "Would you like me to fuck you now?"
With a deliberately douce weakness, she said, "I think that would be nice. You're ever so good at it, Mr. Jacobs."
She could almost swell with pride, evidently a man's sexual prowess was the true way to his heart, rather than his stomach as the ancient adage had claimed. He retired from the bed to bestow upon his captive the privilege of watching him undress. The result was scarcely edifying, he was faintly ponchy and his hair was sketchy. Dee Dee had a previous acquaintance with his male equipment, and while it did indeed function, it did not function with either skill or any great potency. She was wiling to believe that, compared to the whipping of her bottom or some similar unchivalrous act, it came a definite second. Perhaps it was one of the symptoms of middle-age. She tried hard to neither laugh nor giggle as her ravisher took his place between her chained legs, shaking his weapon a few times to encourage whatever virility it might have stored away, and then he lowered himself upon her for the most ancient male privilege in history. After several unsuccessful efforts, he did actually contrive to impale her and commenced the operation which quite probably regarded as a duty to compensate her for some of his pleasures in which she would feel only pain. As usual, it was all mixed up, and Dee Dee closed her eyes and did her best to be a real good girl.
"Don't thank me." Mr. Jacobs made a grandiloquence gesture. After ten minutes of a piston-like action he had achieved his goal. "I want you to enjoy this as much as I do, dear girl, and I know how much a piece of tail means to someone like you. In a women's prison I don't suppose you get all that much, and I've never been able to see a girl's turn as any substitute for a man's cock." He sighed. "But we come in all kinds, and I try to keep an open mind." He consulted his wrist watch, then asked abruptly, "Ever had clips on you nipples?"
"Good gosh, no!" Dee Dee's surprise was genuine. She looked up at him in wide-eyed distress. "You wouldn't do a thing like that to me, would you, Mr. Jacobs?"
"Why not?" he asked kindly. "Somebody's going to do it to you sometime, and it might just as well be me In fact, if you've never had it before, I've got a pair of clips with a fairly light spring that will get you accustomed to it slowly and easily. If you don't mind?" Dee Dee minded. But, unhappily, she watched him amble to a cupboard and return with a pair of little red wire objects she had to presume were the fatal clips. Uncaring of penalties, she flatly affirmed, "I don't think I'd like them fastened on me, Mr. Jacobs, if you don't mind."
"Of course I mind, don't be silly." Mr. Jacobs busied his fingertips upon her nipples. They were slow to respond, but in the end he had his way. Both of them became hard and ideal for his purpose. With great care and solemnity, he positioned each of the small wire horrors and allowed their open jaws to slowly close upon the coral buds. Screams seemed inappropriate, but the victim of this fresh interest contented herself with moans and a tensioning of her entire body against the chains. The pain was bitter. She supposed it could be far more bitter still, but that was something else again. Gasping for breath, she said, "I don't think I can stand this, Mr. Jacobs. I've never had anything like this before. Please take them off."
"Don't be silly. You don't want me to think you're a sissy, do you?" Mr. Jacobs flicked one of the clips with a mischievous feature to make it bounce and vibrate upon its pained perch. Dee Dee moaned again and reaffirmed, "I really can't bear it. I can't! Oh, please, Mr. Jacobs, take them off! They're awful!"
"You don't really expect me to take them off, do you?" His tone was one of quiet reason as though speaking to an inferior intelligence. Earnestly, almost as though speaking to himself, he continued, "They're having the most potent effect on me. I've never seen anything more beautiful. Dee Dee, you are just a succession of delights. Would you mind very badly if I fucked you again, while they remain on your nipples?"
What a question! Could any girl be given a more impossible demand? Did she mind? Of course she minded! She longed to scream, to claw his face, or, worse still, to burst into tears. The idea of having these beastly, biting atrocities sharply gnawing at her nipples while their owner bumblingly brought her to another unrewarding climax was something hard to contemplate. But she knew her helplessness. Instinctively, she tested it by stringing arms and legs against the four tethers by which she was held. It was quite hopeless. With a small moan, she said, "You must do whatever you think best, Mr. Jacobs. I'm not really supposed to have anything to say about anything."
Mr. Jacobs performed the act. He did it with his usual lack of finesse and without bringing Dee Dee to climax. Hurting nipples and despair countered the erotic friction to which she was subjected. All it did was make her feel hot and untidy and at the end of it the small wire miseries were still biting hard and decidedly at her buds. When Mr. Jacobs finally unclipped them, the pain was so great she felt certain she would faint. It was a new and terrible pain, one more to catalog in her memories of captivity. She felt quite certain there would be others.
"Tired, sweetheart? I know I'm being an absolute bastard, but this is my first real go at you. I simply can't resist. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be quite satisfied simply to whip you from time to time."
Dee Dee was thankful he had not posed one of his unanswerable questions. She would not have known what to say. The best she could hope for now was to suffer with as little friction as they divergent interests might make possible. The next tow days would robe everyone, rob herself, rob the Benbows, and in a way, rob Miss Broddrick since she would lose a girl back behind the prison bars. Once more the chained and naked girl debated full confession to the man who looked down upon her now with such pride of possession. Suddenly, and without pausing for thought or weighing consequences and in a terrible need of sympathy and understanding, she blurted out her entire story, missing no detail for Mr. Jacobs was quite obviously enthralled. His eyes shone, he was a little breathless and made no interruption but heard her out silently to the end where she lay back looking up at him with wide and pleading eyes.
"Extraordinary, quite extraordinary. My dear, I'm immensely flattered that you've chosen to tell me this. I'm sure you must have a motive, though."
"Enjoy me for the two days you have purchased, then set me free." Dee Dee said no more.
"I see your point. It would be so easy. I could easily tell Miss Broddrick you escaped. She could not make too much fuss because what she is doing is illegal. Yes, it would be quite possible." Mr. Jacobs pondered deeply while Dee Dee held her breath. He then shattered her sudden hope by being totally and completely himself. "Do you realize, my dear, what a tremendous sense of power this gives me? Your life is mine. I can do what I want with it. In a couple of days I could send you packing, totally free, bake to your lover-- I'm sure you must have one." He sighed dismally. "And right there you have the crux of the whole affair. You've got someone back you'll screw you to a fare ye well, he won't pay a dime and you'll love every moment of it, and then there's me. What do I get? What do I have to pay?" He sighed heavily. "Then when I get you, you ask me to give you your freedom. You ask me to give you everything--everything I cherish. Do you understand how much you ask?"
Dee Dee had supposed she did indeed understand, but the intensity in this man's voice, the underlying sadness of what he proclaimed touch her deeply. Suddenly, she glimpsed all the loneliness of all men beyond their first youth to whom she and all the girls her age were an endless enticement which most could never satisfy and which Mr. Jacobs was appeasing now only by virtue of the payment of much cash. She could indeed understand his color. But back in the world from whence she came Mr. Jacobs would be held quite wrong. The course for Mr. Jacobs to follow was either to be true and faithful to his wife, or if he had no wife, to seek out a woman his own age, and despite arthritis and a family from another marriage, make the best of her. She understood his desuetude, but was not prepared to offer her life to salvage his lost youth. Again she said, "Please, Mr. Jacobs, give me my freedom. You can. I bet of you--make me free."
The man shook his head. Perhaps other girls had asked him too. Most certainly there had been other maidens chained as Dee Dee now was chained. They too had felt his fingertips and thrusting sex and listened to his requiem for what he had once been. The naked girl now sadly glimpsed the motives behind those carnal glances in the street. Half of them would reflect no more than a terrible hunger for a departed youth and a blank space of years spreading forward into death. Momentarily, she saw herself for what she was: the very quintessence of life itself, a young and ardent girl. From her could spring sons and daughters, a new and better race which was forever a generation beyond man's vision, and here was poor Mr. Jacobs bemoaning a lost ecstasy he could only regain by whipping her and listening to her scream. She could almost believe it worthwhile to bear his agonies in recompense for the void that was his life. She was watching him intently, alert for any sign that she had touched his heart as he, unwittingly, had touched hers. She believed she had indeed succeeded, but the stone reality of his arid existence brought Mr. Jacobs back from dreams of playing Sir Galahad. He shook his head with real regret. "No, dear. I can see how plausible it seems to you and how easy it would be for me, but no, most definitely no. I have you and I'll keep you." He sighed. "If it's any comfort, you may feel quite sure that ail through history there's been a million girls just like you and a hundred million men like me. In the end the answer is always the same. We take what we can get. We hold what we have." He walked away, obviously enveloped in a hundred memories. When he had gone, the girl upon the bed allowed her tears to flow. She could dry none of them.
Mr. Jacobs slept late enough to cause his prisoner to fear she had been abandoned. She had slept moderately well for whatever it was upon which she lay it was at least comfortable and the chains by which she was compelled to stay there had sufficient slack to enable those motions which in sleep are so necessary to its continuance. When her owner did finally appear, he was his usual brisk and cheerful self and lost no time unlocking the shackles from her feet. However, Mr. Jacobs was not a man to take chances. He immediately locked them again in a pair of shining leg irons before freeing her hands. He then told her to make her toilette and join him at breakfast. He would await her in the kitchen and it would be wise for her to avoid seeking escape by either window or door. He assured her each one of them was trapped with an electric sensor she could not detect. Such escape attempts would be heavily and ruthlessly punished. He gave an avuncular kiss upon one cheek, patted her bottom, and sent her on her way. Dee Dee's day had started well.
Bathrooms are a female place. This one was fitted and appointed for every feminine need. Thoughtless of possible escape and well aware of the irons upon her feet, Dee Dee simply enjoyed herself. When she joined her enforced host in the small kitchen, she knew her enjoyment had born fruit. Mr. Jacobs's admiration was clear to detect, he also voiced it. "You look charming, my dear. In fact, simply ravishing. I can't wait to punish you."
Dee Dee realized he was a man who would always shatter the goodwill of anything he said by a conclusion to a sentence. She shrugged it off and enjoyed his cooking. If breakfast was ever a gourmet repast, this one certainly was. The care he had taken with it spoke once more of a lonely man and a wish to please. Dee Dee wished she could fall in love with him and make him happy, but that was as much a fantasy he himself carried in his mind. Waiting until she had enjoyed the food, she casually asked, "What re you going to do to me today, Mr. Jacobs?"
"I've been thinking about that. While we've been eating I've been considering the extraordinary contrast about the way we are now and the way we will be in an hour's time. I expect it's occurred to you too, hasn't it?"
"Of course." Dierdrie returned to the fray. "I'm determined to make these two days as happy for you as I can. Yesterday you gave me a glimpse of what girls mean to you, and I am a girl, so I'm not going to be sulky or bitchy. I'll try to accept whatever you want to do with good grace. If I scream or shed tears, you'll simply have to forgive me. You will, won't you?"
He patted her hand, and then, for good measure, patted her cheek. "Of course, of course," he agreed. "What do you say I fix you up in something or other while I attend to the dishes?"
What could she say? Dee Dee simply followed her captor, making her short, hobbled, and metallically musical steps as swift as she was able in an effort to keep up. She could understand how effective such leg irons would be despite their innocent appearance. They virtually made escape impossible unless someone carried her or she could crawl into a vehicle. She looked around the familiar room and at the familiar instruments by which a girl knew pain with only an abstract interest. Dee Dee was becoming blase about the semitortures by which she was constantly threatened. She wished ardently she was back with the Benbows and their simplicity of restraints.
"Copied this from the one at the girls' prison of yours," Mr. Jacobs commented casually. "Don't really need half the stuff that's here, but it's a nice atmosphere, don't you think?"
"It scares me--it always does. What would you like me to do?"
"Well, like I said, I've got a few things to clean up in the kitchen, so how about something nice and simple while you wait?" He looked around brightly as though expecting one of his devices to volunteer its service. "Ha! Here we are. I like this one. I think you will too. It's beautifully simple, and when you consider it's possibilities, it's versatile. Hate to take off your leg irons, but I guess we must." The object in question was puzzling. It was simply a fluted stone column about fifteen inches high. It was obviously affixed solidly to the floor and could not be moved. Resting upon the flat surface of its top was a shackle and three links of chain. Like everything else in these rooms, it had the air of waiting. It was waiting for a girl, a naked girl who would cause it to come alive and be potent. Dee Dee stood, confused as ever, while the man who had purchased her busied himself at her feet. She reflected sardonically upon the fact that Mr. Jacobs was doing all the work, but she was sure it was a labor of love. With the leg irons cast aside, Dee Dee enjoyed once more that brief period of total freedom in which she could have done anything with untrammeled limbs. But her captor was impatient and saw little entertainment in a girl who was free of her bonds. He indicated the truncated column and suggested, "Now, my dear, just one foot on the top of this, if you please."
It was simple and deadly. Dee Dee did as she was told and watched her ankle once more shackled with a broad band of metal.
The three links gave her a deceptive illusion of some latitude of movement, but when she sought to put her foot back on the floor, the motion was denied. She could get it off the top of the column, but that was all. Evidently, her punishment was to stand on one foot or perhaps a foot and a half since the raised member could indeed take some of her weight. "I expect it gets tiring after awhile," he suggested. "You're the first girl I've tried it on. I'll be interested in your reactions."
She knew that she too would be interested, but refrained from saying so. She was obviously expected to show some interest so she hopped a little closer with her free leg and wiggled the other one around to extract some music from the links by which it was held. She demonstrated its control, and Mr. Jacobs appeared very happy with the results. He patted her in the usual places and assured her he would be right back.
The versatility suggested by Mr. Jacobs appeared limited. Dee Dee tested it by hopping in a circle on one foot but found this stressful. The other option appeared to be to sit on the floor with one foot held in the air, or at least resting on the top of the column. It was far from graceful, but it was better than standing. In a few moments she lay upon her back and idly kicked her fettered foot the few inches back and forth that the links allowed. It was in this relative comfort that Mr. Jacobs found her upon his return. He was undismayed, clucking like a hen he helped her to stand again upon her single foot and drew from above a strand of rope which he loosely affixed to the ring in her iron collar. "Damn useful this collar they put on you, my dear. Pity not to use it. Silly of me to forget about letting you lay down, but it's all part of the exercise. We live and learn, don't we?"
Cliches mixed with pain! Mr. Jacobs was a master of the obvious. "Sorry about forgetting the rope," he apologized. He tested the item in question with a hearty tug. "Can't possibly have you sitting down now, can we? I mean, it defeats the whole thing." His regard became more than ever intent. "I'm wondering whether to tie your hands." He mused quietly, ever intent. "I'm wondering about what to do with them, but the best thing is to maybe try both.
If you don't mind, we might as well get started."
If she didn't mind! He was so ridiculous, and yet, Dee Dee could not fail to feel some sort of feminine thrill at his obvious adoration of everything she was and did. Without enthusiasm, she watched Mr. Jacobs arm himself with a small, wicked, thonged whip. It did not appear lethal, but she began to have a glimmering of what he was going to do to her.
He wasted no more time in conversation but struck swiftly arid skillfully on the underside of her raised thigh. It was one more new and different pain. In agony, she clutched the tiny wound. While she was hugging it in the same manner she had once hugged whipped hands, he took the opportunity to place a similar cut upon its twin which was equally exposed even though not raised. The facility and convenience of the tiny column was manifesting itself graphically. The hurt girl spared a hand for each of the smarting areas and spared a reproachful glance for the man who had etched them on her skin. "Something different, eh? Felt sure you'd like this. Nothing brutal about it. In fact, I find it rather feminine. Wonderful for breasts and that thing you call your pussy." He chuckled. "But, of course, the underside of a girl's thighs is very hard to beat. They're exquisitely tender but take a remarkable amount of punishment. I'll be showing you."
Dee Dee consigned her amiable tormentor to Hades. She supposed his rambling discourse preferable to brutal threats, but the pain he inflicted was nonetheless deadly. She was now concerned with not only being whipped and having to stand on one foot, but the addition of the rope attached to her collar was a constant threat. It could well be more of a hazard than Mr. Jacobs realized. If somehow she fell... ! Passionately, she hoped he would not tie her hands.
"I play the stock market," Mr. Jacobs informed. "I'm sure you won't mind if I catch up on the financial pages while I give you an occasional flick to let you know you're not forgotten. " Without waiting for an answer, he found a chair and took a good deal of time positioning it to his satisfaction. He then sat down and opened the newspaper, being careful to keep the wicked little whip clearly visible upon his lap. Without bothering to rise, he demonstrated his dexterity with a swift cut up into her most secret crevice before turning his attention to the Dow Jones averages.
Dee Dee was hurt. She was outraged. She suppressed an urgent longing to tear the newspaper from his fingers and hurl it in his face. She did not wish to be whipped in this casual fashion She did not wish to be whipped at all! Such treatment was cavalier enough to offend every female instinct she possessed. But caution prompted her to prudence. Perhaps if he got sufficiently engrossed in his stocks and bonds, she might be forgotten, at least for a little while. Every break was welcome. She shuddered at the thought of spending two days in her present predicament.
"It's those communists," Mr. Jacobs sighed, tossing the offending bundle of paper away in disgust. "Strikes and strikes and strikes! What else do they expect from a bear market!" He stood up and, as though Dee Dee herself was the cause of his disgruntlement. repeated the two blows already made, cutting her with the neat severity from side to side. He walked around and used the cruel little thongs from the opposite direction to catch her unaware. This resumption of his pleasure and Dee Dee's pain cheered him immensely. When he turned to view, he was smiting. "Nice thing about this whip is it doesn't leave bad marks. You'll find they fade inside of a few hours and you can handle a surprising number of strokes with it without breaking down. I remember one girl. I think she must have taken a couple of hundred during the day and she was still quite chipper when we went to dinner Ever been in the market, Dee Dee?"
The hurt girl spared him an irritated glance as she looked up from attending her wounds. She was burning and smarting in a number of places, all of them more intimate than she wished. It was bad enough to be naked, but have such graphic attention drawn to the little whip marks on her skin was an added shame. Her answer reflected this distaste.
"No." She spared another distracted glance. "I don't have any need of investment. I don't have any future."
"I wouldn't say that, my dear. Everyone should have investments." He was evidently off on a favorite and familiar theme.
"Take yourself, for instance. If you stay at the girls' prison a couple of years, you'll come out and you'll still be quite young with all your life ahead of you. If you like, we can keep in touch and I can give you some tips." He paused, lovingly playing the slender thongs through affectionate fingers. "On the other hand, if I get Miss Broddrick to go along with me and I keep you permanently, I'll buy you a few shares from time to time. Stay with me long enough and you'll be independent." He chuckled gleefully. "Not that you'll have any choice about staying with me, but you get what I mean. The idea would be that should anything happen to me, you'll have a nice little nest egg. I do want you to know you'll be well looked after."
"Thank you, but I'm far sooner have my freedom."
"Now you're getting the hand of it. I see you've stopped rubbing. That's because they've stopped hurting. When I saw this little whip in the store, I just couldn't resist. I bought it instantly." He held it up. "I think you should kiss it in gratitude. I could be using something much worse."
Despising herself. Dee Dee did as she was told. She kissed the slender strips of leather by which she was already marked and which would mark her again in the immediate future. She had read of the symbolic act in fiction and once again picked up the absolute adoration in Mr. Jacobs's eyes as he watched her submissive kissing of the thongs. They were very close and she knew he was scenting her female perfumes. Dee Dee had no doubts about those perfumes. Girls exuded their own particular scents and males picked them up. It had amused her in the past to discover they were never sure they were smelling the art of a perfumier or simply she herself. In this case, Mr. Jacobs would have no doubt! He now delivered one more cut into the crevice she could not hide. She clutched herself instinctively as he resumed his chair and the newspaper. "May as well get the rest of the news." He straightened out the crumpled newspaper and resumed his seat. As a perfunctory afterthought, he suggested, "Best remind me if I let you go too long without the whip. Can't have you just standing there for nothing, can we now?"
Standing on one foot is wickedly tiring. Dee Dee experimented with other poses and postures, but there was no escape. Her condition was accentuated by the rope to her collar. She fingered it as often as she did her wounds. It denied her the only comfort she might have sought. It all seemed so innocent but was in fact so deadly, and it could go on and on and on. Dee Dee watched the man and his newspaper as the minutes passed and then was confronted with awful decision of either continuing to ignore the passage of time and thus risk a punishment or simply to ask him to resume her whipping. Quite possibly he was enjoyably speculating on the course she would follow. Swallowing pride, she dealt forthrightly with the dilemma. "Isn't it time you whipped me again, Mr. Jacobs?"
"Yes, it is." He beamed up at above the theatrical news. "But since you remembered and asked for it so prettily, you're forgiven that one. Just carry on."
Mr. Jacobs resumed his reading and Dee Dee resumed her tiring wait. It was a wait without reward and would be followed, she was certain, by something equally disagreeable, if not worse. The Aurora Prison and the Benbows' cage became increasingly attractive in her eyes. When Mr. Jacobs finally dispenses with the day's news and set his chair aside, she was almost relieved that he returned his attention to her person. She absorbed a couple more cuts with Mr. Jacobs's "little beauty," then rubbed the pain away with swift, sure fingers beneath her captor's admiring gaze.
"Yes, I think we can improve on this," Mr. Jacobs mused thoughtfully. "I've enjoyed watching you clutch yourself and rubbing your skin the way you do, but now I think perhaps... " He went to a cupboard and returned with cord. "Your hands behind your back, Dee Dee."
It would be worse, much worse. Not only would she be denied the soothing effect of her touch where she was hurt, but she would now be increasingly unstable on her single foot. But, drearily, she crossed her wrists behind her back and allowed them to be tightly tied without complaint. She wondered if she would ever complain about anything ever again.
"There--nice, neat job, if I do say so myself. Pity you can't see, my dear." To put emphasis on his approval, Mr. Jacobs bestowed another upward swish of his whip into the forbidden place. "There! That's wonderful. And don't you ever think I don't know I'm a lucky man."
CHAPTER SEVEN - DESPAIR
Her hands had been her only expression. Dee Dee stood, bereft of everything except the capacity to bear pain. Her crotch burned horribly, but she could not touch it. She could not touch anything. With her hands tied in this particular fashion she was more helpless even than if handcuffed. As two more blows wrapped themselves around her thighs, she gave an involuntary whimper which the man must have heard as a sign of approval. He cut again and again until, in desperation, the helpless girl sought to evade the blows by hopping on her one free foot around the column to which she was safely chained.
"Got to you, eh? Don't think I don't know how bad it is when a girl gets one swift one after another. You can howl if you like, Dee-Dee--I don't mind. This little whip isn't designed for making you scream, but I'm a tolerant man."
The morning wore on and on. Mr. Jacobs did not spend all his time with his chained victim. He occasionally absented himself with the suggestion it would give her time to catch her breath. Dee Dee was grateful for these pauses in her punishment. She realized that by his own standards, Mr. Jacobs was being kind. She was not being flogged, nor was she being really severely whipped. It was simply the very intimacy of the places upon herself the thongs gleefully left their mark that made the punishment particularly distressing. Now, with her hands bound behind her back, it was doubly so. She realized that the actual pain was perhaps not much different than it she had been tied to a whipping post or suspended by her wrists, but the posture she was compelled to maintain upon the truncated column was exasperating in a manner almost as bad as the whip itself. She could hide nothing and the result of her raised leg seemed a flaunting exposure deliberately inviting the next stroke. Her collar rebuked any effort she made toward comfort. Miss Dierdrie Moffat was a very thankful young woman when her foot was finally freed and back upon the floor. Anticipation of her next travail erased concern about smarting loins. Their nagging burn became only a reminder of her condition.
Mr. Jacobs viewed his scarlet handiwork. He was visibly moved. "I find their affects me deeply," he apologized. "Really, those striations, and the fact that they're where they are is affecting me. I wonder if you'd mind?"
"You mean you want to lay with me?"
"Well, that's not exactly the word I would have chose but yes."
"You want me to lay down right here?"
"Why not? The act is about as basic as the floor, isn't it? So, my dear, if you please."
Dee Dee was free. The man had forgotten to iron her feet or replace the cords he had taken from her hands. Somehow this made what she was about to do far more objectionable, infusing it in her own mind, with guilt and something obscene. She was once again the whore. Dutifully, she lay upon the rug and spread her legs to offer one more sacrifice in the cause of lust. Mr. Jacobs knelt and minutely examined the effects of his lovely little whip. He was breathing heavily and his most evident happiness with her and what he had done to her almost made Dee Dee feel the whole thing was worthwhile. She Wondered if wives ever felt like this. With some fumbling, Mr. Jacobs contrived a penetration. Dee Dee closed her eyes.
"Perhaps I shouldn't whip you any more today," Mr. Jacobs confided after lunch. "I don't want you getting bored, and I'm sure there are other things." His eyes roved hopefully. "Have you ever been fastened on the panel?"
"I don't even know what the panel is."
"Actually, it's a four by six panel of plywood attached solidly to a frame. It's over there. You've probably been looking at it. Come along. I'll show you."
She followed. Her irons had been placed upon her ankles and the chain accompanied her with the clinking of links. Being hobbled did not matter in here. There was no need for natural strides. In view of what she walked towards. Dee Dee was thankful for hobbled steps. She was positive she would not like what she was about to see. When she got there, it was exactly as Mr. Jacobs described. A bare austere wood panel seemingly without purpose. She knew the purpose was herself. Mr. Jacobs pushed against it a heavy wooden box and invited her to melt there on. Chivalrously, he offered a helping hand. Standing in the fresh exposure, she was directed to place her back against the object they had discussed. "You'll find you can raise both your arms and put them over the top edge and down behind. You may have to strain a bit, but I think it's possible. If it isn't, we'll raise the box a bit." Mr. Jacobs was once more engrossed.
Dee Dee obeyed. She was thankful to find the upper edge of the panel had been rounded and sanded down smooth, but it still edged up into her armpits in the new position. It would be a bore to stand thus all afternoon, but at least it was better than most of what Mr. Jacobs had to offer. She sighed expectantly, but her optimism was short lived. Her captor disappeared out of sight at her back. Dee Dee felt her arms grasped and pulled down, but this made no appreciable change in her condition. It was not until her wrists were being bound with what appeared to be some kind of bandage that she was alerted to further possibilities. The panel might not be as innocent as she supposed. "This is something I haven't heard of too often," he informed her from where he busily worked. "I don't suppose you'll enjoy it, but it has a delightful aesthetic quality." The girl with ironed feet stood taut with a fresh expectancy. She was still uncertain of what the panel would do to her, or she to it. Aestheticism seemed improbable, but the man who owned her now had his own standards of what was beautiful. She feared he would behold her in pain and find more beauty therein than when she was unbound and free. He had finished the binding of her wrists and was tying the final knots. She essayed to move them, but they were as tight as any rope could have made them. She felt a rope slip between her forearms and tighten down upon this gentle bond. It tightened and tightened until it began to drawn her arms down behind the panel, leaving her upon her box with no visible bondage whatsoever. When Its tensioning ceased, the upper edge of the panel was thrusting painfully beneath her arms. Mr. Jacobs came back into view. He surveyed her approvingly, then, without warning, took away the box.
Dee Dee's armpits burned in a bright flame of agony. Had they been vocal, they would have screamed in sudden shock. She herself gasped and moaned, lifting an ironed foot in mute protest and finding nothing beneath her toes except air. She was totally suspended upon her armpits, her hands and arms being sufficiently tractioned down beneath the panel to hold her firmly in this position so that she hung upon the panel without visible suspension, an exquisite nude upon the canvas of the wood. Dimly, beyond the sounds she herself was gaspingly making, she heard the indrawn breath of her captor's ecstasy. The agony was impossible, unbearable, but Dee Dee, for a reason she did not understand, refrained from these avowals. The man would pay no heed and she sensed his rapture in what he created. For him this was the quintessence of loveliness, but she had little thought for the watching eyes. She was absorbed with pain and disbelief that this was happening. It was something totally new and beyond any previous knowledge. As time passed it would become viciously cruel. She fluttered her feet like a butterfly caught upon a spider's web, but any movement she made caused the panel's edge within the secret places of her arms to hurt and hurt terribly. It was best to hang limply and, in Mr. Jacobs's eyes, beautifully for the male attention. It was as though she had been painted there in oils and was an artist's masterpiece. Her loins flamed their scarlet, adding their own erotic touch to a picture no other would ever make.
The room was hushed. Only Dee Dee's own labored breathing broke a reverent silence. To scream, as she desired, would be an obscenity in the face of the male's worship. As a backdrop to her palpitating nakedness, the panel and the entire room became a cathedral in which Mr. Jacobs was the high priest. Dee Dee moaned softly and then again. She knew the man was well aware of her agony and would do nothing about it. She was there to suffer, her beauty excused everything. Mr. Jacobs obtained his chair again and sat down happily to adore her.
Time passed. Dee Dee believed she fainted, an assertion which Mr. Jacobs later refuted. After several eternities her eyes misted and the world took on a haziness in which she lived only with her pain, and the pain too dwindled until she was in a merciful netherworld without sensation. Her head could not bow forward without adding to the pain. Of its own volition it fell back above her tractioned arms and remained there for the latter part of her ordeal. No doubt it would add one more touch of loveliness to Mr. Jacobs's memories. When, at the end of the afternoon, he pushed the wooden box back beneath her feet, Dee Dee knew he did so with regret. Her feet and their chain found it with the greatest gratitude she believed she had ever felt.
On release, she wept. Standing naked with only her feet restrained, she buried her face in her arms and cried. The man stood and watched. He found this of exquisite beauty. This girl could do nothing wrong. She endowed everything with vivid life to excite every erotic fiber of his being. If a maiden's tears were indeed the salt of the earth, then truly she enriched him with each fresh sob. Instinctively, he gathered her into his arms and patted her damp head against his shoulder in a gesture as ancient as the act of love itself. Dee Dee did not object. She did not hate him, but she knew not why!
* * *
When Mr. Jacobs suggested taking her out to lunch, Dee Dee stood rooted in surprise. Her shocked retort was ungracious. "You must be joking!"
Mr. Jacobs was delighted with her surprise. "I have a little arrangement with a local Italian place," he explained earnestly. "I've been there often with one of my girls. They understand me, and there is no one there who will aid you in any way. We could sit secluded in a booth, but I think that defeats our purpose. I want you out on the floor where people can see you and admire you and envy me for escorting you. You need a little light undercollar after the drab time you've been having, and I intend to give it to you." He looked at her searchingly. "But I must warn you: if you scream and struggle and make a fuss, the whole idea falls apart. Should you do this, you'll be severely dealt with and quite brutally punished when we return here. I give you this warning. It is something I would not wish to have to do to you, but it makes the project viable."
"But the other diners! What will they think? What will they do? What's to prevent me from asking them for help?" Dee Dee stared at him aghast, unable to believe what she had heard.
"They will probably notice nothing unless you give them cause," he explained gently. "You'll only be handcuffed. They will seem no more than bracelets on your wrists. They will not impede you eating, and if anyone notices them, their concern will be nullified by the fact that we are together by mutual consent and obviously enjoying a good dinner. It would please me to do this."
"But I can't go to a restaurant naked!"
"You'll go with me exquisitely gowned, my dear. I wish to be proud of you. I'm not short of feminine fripperies. I will show you to a bedroom."
"But my feet--the leg irons?"
"They will be removed. Stop worrying. You're acting as though I'm offering you another punishment."
"I'm sorry." She was instantly contrite. She realized what he was offering and also realized her own hunger for the colorful lights and sounds and smells of a restaurant. She would be once more amongst people. She would be alive and in the midst of life. She hastened to make amends. "Thank you very much. It's hard for me to believe... but, yes, I'd love to go with you."
It was obviously Mr. Jacobs's assertion of being known was no more than true. They were warmly greeted by the maitre d'. If anyone noticed Dee Dee's handcuffed wrists, they made no sign. Mr. Jacobs had insisted on a quite unnecessary corset. He called it a basque which was designed for the purpose of lifting and thrusting out any pair of female breasts, whether they needed this assistance or not. In Dee Dee's case, they endowed her with a pair of quite outrageous protuberances which no doubt did divert attention from her hands. Mr. Jacobs was no fool. The excited girl blushed more about her breasts than about her bondage. She wore her handcuffs with an air. For her they impeded nothing. Engaged in animated conversation with her host, she was well aware of an occasional glance which included the shining chrome, but no one saw fit to either act or comment. Dee Dee could well believe she initiated a new fashion in costume jewelry. "I believe in contrast," Mr. Jacobs informed genially. "When you compare this to the way you spent your day, I am certain you must get some very vivid impressions. I do myself. As usual, I find you utterly irresistible."
The sounds and sights made the girl across the table from him doubly daring. "Then why don't you marry me instead of hurting me?" she demanded forcefully. "I know there's a song about how we always hurt the ones we love, but it doesn't have to be true. If you hurt me enough, you'll kill my capacity for loving you." He allowed it to pass. She wondered if she had actually touched him. He was strangely reluctant to comment. Instead, he said, "I find the way you handled your knife and fork with those handcuffs on quite remarkable and quite charming."
"Thank you. I've done it before, you know."
Having dared once, Dee Dee dared again. When the waiter hovered continuously to ensure satisfaction with all provided, she turned to him brightly and said, "I want you to know that I've been kidnapped. I'm asking you to go immediately to the police, inform them of my presence here, and ask them to come to my aid." The result was defeating. The young Italian beamed his friendly smile and said, "Yes indeed, we are having really lovely weather for this time of the year." He winked at Mr. Jacobs and went about his tasks. Dee Dee sat, deflated.
"You see what I mean?" Mr. Jacobs was solicitous that she did indeed understand her plight. Unless some unlikely event occurred, she was much a captive here as when chained down upon her bed. Benignly, he added, "Should you consider a quick dash for the door, and you could without your leg irons, you would be apprehended somewhere between here and the outside road. Please enjoy what I'm giving you. I very much want you to enjoy this evening."
Dee Dee's femininity responded. She became vivacious, speaking of her sensations and the contrast of which he had spoken and of what she had to look forward to when he returned her to the Aurora County Farm for Delinquent Girls. He was delighted seeing her in this mood as one more creation of his skill. Mr. Jacobs was an artist whose medium was the flesh of girls. From that flesh he extracted a multitude of sensations and reactions, both for them and himself. They were an endless delight.
He knew himself a lucky man and having the money with which to cater to his whim. He spoke of the things they would do together if he succeeded in purchasing her permanently. It would not be all whips and chains and dungeons. There would be gaiety and the privileges of wealth. He drew for the shining eyed girl a picture so alluring she began to excited and found herself actually longing for it as an escape from the prison to which tomorrow night he would return her as promised. She knew it absurd, she was not even certain if all he said was true, though from what she could see of Mr. Jacobs, he did have it in his power to make things happen. She wondered if the pleasures of being Mr. Jacobs's plaything could offset her instinctive yearning to bear the children of a man. Neither of them mentioned the morrow. She clinked her handcuffs deliciously without being too ostentatious. She knew he loved the sound and sight of the steel bands upon her wrists. He should get his money's worth. In a sudden excess of female guile, the considered playing upon his emotions simply as a female in some manner to divert him from his punishments and make him see her only as a woman to be desired. Dee Dee did all of the things she had learned or been taught by which to entrap the male. If Mr. Jacobs had been susceptible instead of middle aged, she suspected they might have spent the day in bed together. But, no doubt, tomorrow he would make her scream again. Everything was possible. But she enjoyed her food and wine immensely.
The interlude was without significance other than to bring more vividly home to the captive girl the degree in which she was indeed a prisoner. With their return to Mr. Jacobs's residence and the replacement of the irons upon her feet, they returned to what she cynically supposed might be called normal. But in the most civilized fashion they sipped brandy in the lounge while she told him of the Benbows and her conviction, but cautiously omitted mention of her planned escape his rental of her body and denied. He listened with interest but made no offer nor any comment. She supposed the background stories of all the girls he brought to this house might be as sad or picturesque as her own. He would be blase about such tales, probably only believing half of them. In a pleasantly mild intoxication, she made no demur when he replaced the handcuffs and from them trailed a padlocked chain to the foot of his bed to compel her to sleep upon the floor at his side. He told her with complete naturalness and a touch of naivete of the pleasure it would give him throughout the night to know she was chained there on the floor beside his bed. It was the traditional master and slave relationship. As a concession to the warmth of his affection, he tossed her a pillow, and then, after she had given him with he laughingly referred to as "lip service," she lay down and went instantly to sleep.
With an adaptability she would once have denied, Dee Dee went through the preliminaries of the following day with an almost careless disregard of things to come. Absurd as it might be, the restaurant had forged a bond. They got used to each other, and when she followed him to the fatal room to provide her accolade of anguish, she was little more than curious about what he would do to her. Loving as she had been, he had not responded by taking her to bed. Nothing would be changed. Today was the second of two days he had paid for and he would use her to the limit.
"I've been thinking about putting you on the horse, my dear, but I'm not sure it isn't too severe. I suppose you know about the horse?"
"I've never heard of it, what is it?"
Mr. Jacobs had the grace to see discomforted. "It's a punishment that appears to have been used all over the world for a long time;" he explained patiently. "I tie your hands behind your back, then sit you naked on the edge of a board on a sort of trestle. This is the horse. Your feet are then drawn out to either side to the utmost extent and tension possible. You can guess where this places all your weight. An adjustment of your posture is affected by raising your arms behind your back as much as is needed to cause you to bend forward upon your most sensitive spot." He surveyed her hopefully, as though expecting she might say it was a lovely idea and when do we start, but shook his head regretfully. "I fear it is a little bit much. You would look exquisite, of course, but it's something I've never tried with any of the girls. I've simply read about it. Perhaps one day... " Instead of the horse. Dee Dee was led to a small, quite bare room whose only feature was a segment of one wall into which her neck and wrists could be locked so that she found them in a similar room on the other side of the wall. A yoke was lowered and she was a firm prisoner. She could see no portion of herself and wondered what Mr. Jacobs might be getting ready to do to her. However, he simply patted her bottom, an act she could recognize, and then simply nothing! After a few minutes, he came into the room which held her head and hands to continue his dissertation on the merits of punishments for girls. He walked back and forth in front of her prisoned head and helpless hands, admiring all three items to the full. While he did so, the feminine owner of these objects of interest was busy wondering what .might be about to happen to the rest of her on the other side of the wall. She soon found out. "Did I mention," he concluded, "that before joining you in I freed a couple of rats in the other room? I've closed the door on them, so they can't get out. They are in there with--well, shall we say, the rest of you."
Dee Dee froze. She could have borne mice better. She had heard of rats appeasing their appetites on living human tissue. Instinctively, she moved her unseen feet anxiously up and down, kicking at nothing, as though to warn away a thing unseen. "Delicious idea, don't you think?" her owner inquired anxiously. "What I mean is you won't be bored."
"Please don't." She could not be heroic in the face of what her mind's eye was seeing. "Please don't leave them in there with me. They could do something horrible. I've read about rats."
"Rest assured, my dear, you'll come to no harm. Goodness gracious, do you think I'd sacrifice anything in which I get as much pleasure as you!" He shook his head at so solemn and terrible a thought. "But there is one thing I think I should do. I'll be away quite often while you're in this situation, and it might be as well that you do not scream for help. I can imagine how your mind may be working. So, if you don't mind, I'll strap a gag on you."
It was the familiar question about whether she minded. She paid no heed. Of course she minded--she minded very much. Ignoring the hazard of the rats, she pleaded, "Please don't gag me, please! It would be just too awful to be gagged after what you've told me."
"But think of the thrill, my dear. Your situation is unique. At the end of the day, after I've removed your gag, I will expect a full report on how the little animals behaved. I know it's quite possible they may run all over you, but you can surely shrug or shake them off, or kick or scare them away in some fashion. I'm sure you'll cope."
Protest the gag as she might, he nonetheless slipped between her teeth some sort of rubber wad and then soft leather across and tightly compressing her lips. It was buckled at the back of her head beside her collar. Dee Dee knew its potency lay in the silence it imposed. No matter what the rats might do to her, she could not scream or cry for help. She would endure whatever happened with only the inarticulate sounds the gag permitted. It was a hateful thing to have strapped within her mouth, but now it was doubly terrible. She hoped Mr. Jacobs knew what he was doing. She endured the patting of her cheek and watched him leave and close the door.
Miss Dierdrie Moffat was alone with terror.
She stood in silent dread. Her mind filled with pictures of what might be happening in the other room. From time to time her feet moved of their own accord as though to assure her they were still there and perhaps to keep away the sniffing snouts of rodents. She could hear nothing and feel nothing, but she was certain something would happen. It had to happen! A pair of rats would surely not ignore a naked and helpless girl on whom to feast. It was only a matter of time!
Her captor's visits were infrequent and when they came were confined only to the testing of the means by which she was held. She used them in for a time in which to make the strangled and hopeless sounds permitted by the gag but he paid no attention and left her still to stand in trepidation. He seemed preoccupied. When the expected contact came upon that portion of herself she could not see, it was not a rat! A man's hand stowed between her legs and cupped her sex, kneading it slowly as though to assure itself of the existence of so female a facility. Dee Dee exclaimed, "No, no, no!" but made no sound. Her feet shifted uneasily and her hips swayed. The familiar pat on her bottom told her it was Mr. Jacobs amusing himself at her expense, but it immediately became evident that he could just as well whip that curved portion of her he had patted, or if the hand came again, she could not be certain it was his. Suppose it was another man!
After the hand was withdrawn, there was an absence of both sound and motion. Once more, Dee Dee stood tensely expectant until, in some urgent need of doing something, she raised a foot and stretched it out exploringly. But the motion had not been wise, her ankle was immediately snared by a noose which was then drawn up to lift her foot from the floor and rob her of its support. Once more, as on the previous day, she stood upon one leg. A few minutes later, her visitor did indeed return and explain in his usual genial fashion that this additional torment might not last long. He would leave her to her thoughts and return before her plight became too drastic. He did not mention the rats!
Dee Dee stood. It was worse than the day before. Yesterday she could hop, but now she could not. She just simply stood in the one position and endured a rapidly increasing fatigue and the apprehension of wondering what really was going to happen. Mr. Jacobs took his time. She was certain it was a matter of hours before he reappeared. He removed her gag. "I like gags. Dee Dee, but they limit us. I want to hear your speech. How have the rats treated you?"
She knew then there was no rats. He had been having fun with her. Instead of being angry at the deceit, she was overwhelmingly grateful that he had not seen fit to impose this horror. She offered him heartfelt thanks and asked timidly if she could have her foot back on the floor.
"I was thinking of giving it a couple of strokes with the cane, my dear, while it's in that vulnerable position. The idea is to leave you in suspense and not knowing when it's going to happen. Clever, eh?"
"It's awful. I don't mean what you've just said, but I've had the soles of my feet whipped. It's the most awful thing you can do to a girl. It's quite unbearable, and then I can't walk afterwards." Brokenly, she told him of the Benbow punishment.
As usual, he was enthralled. Instead of a deterrent, her vivid description of the anguish of her soles held him spellbound. But his victim heaved a sigh of relief when he grandly said, "I won't go that far with you. If I had you for good, it might be a wonderful thing to try out just once. I can well imagine it's a memorable experience, but I'll still stay with a couple of strokes and you won't know when they're coming. I won't gag you again either. I can probably hear you scream through the wall." This time he raised her forehead and kissed it gently before he went away.
It was almost childish. He had turned it into a game, a suspenseful game which in her adult state was truly terrible, but still a game. She would stand as she was in a terrible suspense waiting for the blow upon the vulnerability of the bottom of her foot. When it came, all she would be able to do was scream, and then sometime later the blow would be repeated and she would scream again. Dully, she wondered if that then would be the end or would there be something else? She had lost all track of time. She never knew the time anywhere about anything. It was like being a captive in space.
The blow, when it came, drove her into all the motions she could possibly make. She screamed and hoped he heard it beyond the wall.
not that it would impel him to mercy, but perhaps he would feel some guilt. There was no need for him to be so cruel. But she realized that all he would think of was that he was limiting the agony to a mere couple of strokes instead of a multiplicity of impacts. Gradually, her moans subsided and once again she waited in a terrible anxiety. But, like the rats, the second blow never came. Instead, Mr. Jacobs returned, patting her in his fatherly manner and told her she had done very well and there would be no more. He did not want her limping as she walked. He replaced her leg irons and set her free.
Mr. Jacobs's subject, over lunch, was their disposition of the afternoon. "It would be very easy for me to do something very terrible to you, Dee Dee, but that would be trite. I don't ever want to be obvious. I'd like to whip you, of course, but there's the question of the marks on your skin. I'm thinking of Miss Broddrick. I don't want to offend her. If I don't get you permanently, I'll be wanting to rent you again for another weekend." He ate in silence, no doubt quietly reflecting on the pleasures of whipping girls. After a thoughtful minute or two, he offered the suggestion, "Of course, there's always your breasts."
Her breasts! Dee Dee was appalled. Did people actually whip a girl's breasts? It seemed incredible. She considered the idea and slowly realized it was neither incredible nor impossible. It could be done. Timidly, she suggested, "I don't think Miss Broddrick would be pleased to get me back with scarlet and purple breasts, Mr. Jacobs."
"Yes, a pity. It's this limitation of time, of course, that handicaps us. You see, my dear, all the delicious things we could do if I had you permanently. I do hope the damn woman will be sensible about that." He suddenly brightened. "How would it be if I caned the palms of your hands? You know, the way, they were supposed to have done in schools long ago."
Once more the naked girl writhed internally. Her prospect of the afternoon was stretching out as an interminable anguish. She brought sweet reason to her aid. "I've had that done to me too, Mr. Jacobs. It's almost as bad as having my feet whipped, and it has a bad side effect of making my hands useless for a day or two. I don't think Miss Broddrick would like that either." Silently, she offered a prayer of thankfulness for Miss Broddrick and her unknown reactions. "Hmmmm, see your point, my dear. Damn it, we're stymied at every turn. Can't you think of something?"
Once more absurdity, he was forever leaving her out on a limb. Did the man really believe she was going to suggest something for her own torture! Timidly, she suggested, "You're got a pillory in the room there, Mr. Jacobs. Would you like to lock me in that for the afternoon?"
"Oh, damn it, girl, we've already done that, you know. We did that this morning. You don't want anything else around your neck, do you?"
"I saw those stock things they lock a girl's feet in. You've got a set of those too."
"Oh, those! They're just a mild diversion, dear. No pain at all. But their only value would be to keep you around if I was going away somewhere."
"I'm afraid I'm not very experienced in these things," she said apologetically. "I mean, I have been hurt a great deal, but it's not in any esoteric ways. Mostly it's just been plain old painful." Dee Dee waited expectantly. In the end. was inevitable, her inquisitor returned to his favorite theme. "Not much left but your back," he said gloomily. "I can't whip it hard, of course, but I could probably use a lightish strap which would fade enough by the time the Broddrick woman gets sight of it, so it wouldn't matter." He gazed apologetically. "We'll try it out. I suppose it simply means a lot more strokes, but the exercise will be good for me." Events moved swiftly. They made their way back to the place of her punishment. It was not long before Dee Dee found herself in the most conventional of poses for any girl about to be whipped. She stood there naked, with her hands tied high above her head and her heels threatening to leave the floor. She watched expectantly and apprehensively as Mr. Jacobs made his choice among his weapons. He appeared now with a limber looking length of leather which was by no means as heavy as the flagellum he had previously used on her. Dee Dee's spirits rose in spite of this fresh vulnerability, there was the possibility now of getting through the afternoon without drastic consequence. The first blow across her shoulders made a quite alarming slap and left her uncertain. The second, which followed immediately, told her she could probably cope. She discounted the effect of shock, having become accustomed to it, and braced herself for number three. It did not come. What came, instead, was Miss Hazel Broddrick. She swept into Mr. Jacobs's punishment room, placed an enveloped in his astonished hands, and crisply said, "There's what I'm going to owe you. Now get that girl down--I'm taking her back to Aurora. Don't quibble. I've got my reasons." Mr. Jacobs did not quibble. He caused the pinioned arms to fall and then unlocked the ironed legs. While he was thus engaged. Miss Broddrick made her irritable explanation.
"I have to account for the damn girl. Something's going on. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm going to be accountable for her, so she'd best be around. The sooner I get her back behind bars, the better. Sorry about this."
Dee Dee was sorry too. She was being robbed of an afternoon in which her punishment would probably have been extremely mild. On the other hand, Mr. Jacobs, like all such men, was unpredictable. She would be glad to be done with this indignity of being a chattel. She vowed to herself that if she could possibly prevent it, this would be the last time. Expecting nothing else, she stood passively while the two of them busily trussed her tight in the manner in which she had been brought here the day before, ankles, knees, wrists and elbows, then the gag. She was maiden merchandise ready for transport. Mr. Jacobs kissed her regretfully. She could not kiss him back.
She was not placed in the trunk. The matron had come alone and no doubt required company on the return journey. A cloak was placed around the naked shoulders and draped over naked knees. She would simply appear as a demure young woman sitting beside the driver of the car. Passersby would have no time to examine the covering of her lips or the strap and buckle at the back of her neck, her hair had been artfully arranged to cover both. Once beyond the city limits, Miss Broddrick removed the offending object from the innocent mouth. She wished to talk. "That old coot hurt you, honey?"
"Yes, I think all men would hurt me if they had the chance. Please, Miss Broddrick, may I go back to prison? These men who come to visit us girls frighten me."
"Huh, you don't really want that, honey. You're just cheesed off, that's what's wrong with you. Prison ain't that much fun, y'know, and you've got a long way to go yet. How'd it be if one of these silly twits wants to be mean to you, we have him do it down in our own punishment room in the basement? I've been worrying about you myself, hell, I'd look damn silly if all I got back was a corpse."
"But do I have to have men punish me at all?" the bound girl asked plaintively. "I'd have thought it was enough if they simply use me between my legs. Why is it men want to hurt me?" The matron laughed without surprise. "Hell, girl, who knows! Men are a pain in the ass but they got the money and that's all I'm concerned with. Okay, we'll go as easy on you as we can." She chuckled. "But you'll spend a day or two back in the prison. There's an inspection coming up and you girls have all got to be present and accounted for. I want you safe behind bars."
Dee Dee indulged in a half truth, she was bursting with curiosity. "Miss Broddrick, on the night you sent me away with Mr. Jacobs, there was a man there, a dark-haired, heavy-set, muscular, middle- aged man. I didn't see him doing anything with any of the girls. I purposely brushed against him to attract his attention but he didn't respond. Did he get around to anything?"
"Funny you should ask,' sweetheart. Sure, he got around to something. He asked for you, then he seemed to be surprised you weren't around. But that's what I say about these silly twits. One minute they wanta girl and then the next they don't, then when they get her they claim her pubic hair is the wrong color. If you'd had as much to do with them as I have...!"
"Do I have to work in the potato field again?"
"For a day or two, not for long. But you'd best make your quota or you'll be getting your little ass attended to. It's a prison rule and I'm not going to show favorites. Showing favorites with you girls never does any good. Don't you like your ball and chain?"
"No, I don't!" Dee Dee considered the question, then in a burst of honesty added, "But I can't see why you lock it on my leg. If it wasn't for that ball and chain, I'd run and take my chances."
The matron gave her a short, sharp laugh. "They wouldn't be no chances, honey. You'd be caught, you wouldn't have a chance with them dogs the boys used to track down you girls. Even if you managed to get away from them dogs, honey, the first person you spoke to would make damn sure you got back to us real quick. All the folks around are accustomed to runaway girls. We get quite a lot of them." Once more the short, sharp laugh. "We tell all of them not to do this running, but we ain't that fussy if they insist on having a try at it. We're quite happy to whip their little asses when we get them back, same way I'll whip yours if you're that stupid."
That was that! Dee Dee felt herself properly docketed and informed. She once more faced the two years of imprisonment to which she had been sentenced. She wiggled unhappily against the manifold bindings by which she was trussed. The matron's sardonic comment was amused. "Don't like being tied up, honey? Hell, you could be back in the trunk. That's one thing you've got to learn: you can always have it worse. I've kept a girl trussed the same way you are all around the clock. When I let her loose, she didn't have no arguments. Want to try it? Jacobs must have been real mean to you, you're more docile than I recall. There's one thing I do dearly love and that's a submissive girl. How'd you like to be my personal maid? I could easily fix it, comes within my jurisdiction."
The bound girl longed to cry aloud against the injustice of life and of the prison system in particular. She had no doubt the matron could do as she promised, so what she herself was being offered was a choice between becoming a lesbian or opening her thighs to an endless succession of men. She wanted neither, but decision was swift. "Could I please? I'd be so grateful. I'd do what you told me."
Having uttered the words. Dee Dee was sorry. They committed her. As the matron's girl, she could be sacrosanct. If the other girls came into contact with her, they would treat her with respect for fear of what she might tell. She would be the favorite of the queen just as other girls had been in ages past. But whatever regrets she might have were cut short by the matron. "Got yourself a deal, honey, but don't you ever think you won't get that little ass of yours well whipped. A well-whipped ass goes with the territory."
There was no use worrying. The prisoner knew nothing she did could be wholly right. In the Aurora Prison for Delinquent Maidens, a burning bottom was to be expected. If there were a hundred girls incarcerated, there would be two hundred cheeks burned, blistered, beaten, and turned to manifold colors of the rainbow. But Dee Dee, in her own eyes, was already besmirched, seeing herself as sullied beyond redemption. Probably neither Chet nor any other male would want her now, other than as a casual lay. She said quiet, perhaps sincere, "Thank you, matron. I'll try hard to be nice for you." For Dee Dee, it seemed the final surrender of all she had once held dear.
But her arrival at the so-called correctional institution was depressingly routine. She was relieved of the cape and the cords which had bound her so tightly in transit. Leg-ironed and handcuffed, she was led to a cell and locked therein. Fearing a mistake, she made protest, but it was laughed aside with the cynical assurance, "Sure, you've got irons, honey, but you're down on the books as a runaway over the weekend. What else do you expect?" The matron had thought of everything!
It was quiet and peaceful behind the bars. Dee Dee sat on the hard, narrow cot and played with the metal confining her hands and feet. She knew them punitive, an accentuation of imprisonment. Most inmates did not wear them all the time. They were a form of punishment or were kept on new girls simply as a precaution against violence. Girls suddenly finding themselves within the claustrophobic confines of Aurora sometimes went berserk. Handcuffs and leg irons were a great blessing to those who tended them. A girl thus locked could give little trouble and the confinement of her limbs was within the law. Dee Dee examined the metal means by which she was rendered impotent. She shrugged--so what! In the narrow cell such curtailment simply did not matter. Later in the day, Jimmy was thrust into the cell to keep her company. The carefree girl was ironed in the same manner as Dee Dee, but shrugged off the indignity with her usual casual insouciance. "They just put them on me so you won't feel bad, honey. They didn't say that, but I know it's true. It don't much matter. If they leave us together through the night, we can still play. That old bastard that rented you give you a bad time?"
Despite the disability of what, in her mind, she thought of as chains. Dee Dee contrived an affectionate embrace. It was so good to have a girl of her own age and in the same plight as she herself to talk to. Girls simply did not want balding middle-aged men or equally unattractive middle-aged women. Jimmy was a relief. Under a sudden vehement impulse, she whispered in her companion's ear, "I want to escape. Oh, Jimmy, doesn't any girl ever get out of this place?"
"When your sentence is done they let you out. There's parole and such like, but mostly a girl is in her full time. And there ain't no way you're going to get out of here--no girl ever does."
After a long time they disentangled. Looking at the manner in which they had been chained made escape seem totally abstract, something to be desired just as one desired to win a sweepstakes. Anxious to correct her perspective, Dee Dee asked, "Don't you ever get whipped, Jimmy? I've never seen you marked up."
Jimmy laughed. "Oh, that's all past with me, sweetheart. I've been here quite awhile, y'know. In the first year I went through everything you're going through now. I got my ass whipped regular. For awhile I was Miss Broddrick's girl. I've been in solitary and I've had to put up with every damn thing they've got in that punishment room. You'd be surprised at the things they can do to a girl-- it's a real bummer. After awhile they know they've turned you into a submissive. After that it's a lot easier. I haven't had my ass whipped for weeks and I haven't been put in solitary for months. Watch it. Dee Dee, don't ever let them put you in solitary. Don't give them an excuse. If I knew I was going back there tomorrow, I'd kill myself."
Dee Dee nodded soberly and asked that next question. "Is it possible to make phone calls or send letters or get in touch with anybody on the outside?"
"In theory, yes, but that never actually let you. If you write a letter, they'll be sure and read it, and they'll pick something out of it which gives them an excuse to whip your ass again. Any girl here who sort of does things--she can get be sure of getting her hind end warmed up every day. I just simply don't give them an excuse." The two girls talked until the lights went out. After that they made love. This was the routine of the Aurora County Farm for Delinquent Girls. It could go on forever.
CHAPTER EIGHT - ROPED ON THE RANGE
They called him The Auditor. He did not bother to enter Dee Dee's cell, contenting himself with gazing at her through the bars, his questions irritating and perfunctory. He was obviously anxious to get the job over with. He had a clipboard on which he made notations. As he turned to leave, he stared her in the eye for the first time and said the single word: "Tonight." He then tossed a tiny metal object through the bars.
Dee Dee stood, transfixed. Jimmy had been taken away for her day's work. Dee Dee was now alone as she stared at the small key lying innocently on the cell floor. Her heart was thudding almost painfully. In a feverish anxiety, one eye alert for the intrusion of authority, she fitted the metal into a leg iron lock. It turned and the steel jaws opened. The imprisoned girl knew that for the first time in a long while she held a portion of her destiny in her own hands. Hastily, she once more clicked the steel circlet tightly upon her ankle. If those who tended her discovered she was free, there would be hell to pay. She supposed the key was a safeguard to be used when the time was right, but that time was not yet. The knowledge that it would come and that the man who had had so little interest in her was in fact a friend flooded her with vivid hope. She was not forgotten; the Benbows were on her trail.
She was not released from the cell and no one told her why. In secret joy, she sat and nursed her irons. Now that she knew she could discard them at any time, they seemed like old friends. She cherished them almost lovingly and pictured herself purchasing a pair, keeping them hidden in a drawer from which she would take them out from time to time to relive old memories. But the cell still held her, and the tiny key would convict her if discovered. Naked, she had nowhere to hide it except within the tresses of her hair, fumbling and contrived to secret it away. It was all she could do and she must hope for the best and await the moment when she could safely reach for it. By the time the task was done there was a face on the other side of the bars.
"You're wanted in the office, Dee Dee. Come along."
Hazel Broddrick was obviously ill disposed. She looked at her chained, naked charge as though beholding a recurrent problem. "Damn it. Dee Dee, I'm going to have to move you." The hard eyes searched for guilt. "Did you know there was a plot to get you out of here?"
"Me! A plot?" Dee Dee prayed she sounded convincing. "We got feelers out all the time, y'know. Ain't much we don't hear about, and there's something underway about you. Someone wants you out. Someone who's got clout." The matron's eyes softened as she surveyed the helpless cause of her annoyance. "Sorry, love, but I'm going to have to get rid of you. I don't want the hassle. They'll take you over at the state pen until this blows over. Shouldn't take more than a month. You won't like it there, but I can't help that. Here, I'll get you into this tunic--can't hand you over as bare as a billiard ball, y'know."
Once more defeat! In dumb misery. Dee Dee allowed herself to be clad in the flimsy covering. What good was the key now? She would be either safely locked up or in the presence of others. There would be no chance to use it, but at the first opportunity, she would transfer it from her head to the pocket of the symbol of shame she had to wear. In the meantime, the Benbows would be frustrated once again. It was easy to suppose they might tire of seeking a hopeless rescue and abandon her. Lamely, she pleaded, "Couldn't you hide me somewhere, Miss Broddrick? I don't mind where it is. I don't want to go to a real penitentiary."
"Won't be for long, honey." The matron pressed a button. "They won't be too rough on you if you tow the line."
Everything was going wrong. It was just too, too cruel, but Dee Dee's trials were only just beginning. The uniformed woman who took over was brisk and was holding something the unlucky girl eyed in disbelief. It was a broad leather belt which was instantly put around her waist and tightly buckled at the back so tightly as to make her gasp for breath. The handcuffs, to which she had the key, were taken from her wrists and her hands positioned within a strap at the side of the belt. Once more there were the tugs and adjustments, then her other hand to leave her standing helplessly with one wrist strapped tight at her waist on either side. "Better than handcuffs, Hazel. She can't do a thing but wiggle her fingers, but we'll leave the leg irons on. She shouldn't give me any trouble." There was a short bitter laugh. "They never do."
Again the mobile cage. Dee Dee was ushered into a back seat surrounded by heavy metal mesh. Unexpectedly. Miss Broddrick kissed her on parting. "I like you, honey, and I'm damned sorry about this. Them friends of yours, whoever they might be, aren't doing you any favor. You'd be better off if they left you alone. Behave yourself."
Dee Dee had rarely felt more demeaned. Her strapped wrists were somehow an affront, but she could understand why the matron favored them. She was quite helpless. She could touch nothing except the belt itself. Her elbows were well back and her hands well apart. Whatever the leather atrocity might be called, it was certainly effective. The door slammed upon her, the motor started, once more she was on her way a fresh imprisonment.
The State Penitentiary for Women was a monolithic menace of masonry. Its greeting for the new arrival was brief and to the point. She stood before the director's desk while the matron unbuckled the confinement around her waist. The official voice was obviously preoccupied with something else, but nonetheless was crisp and to the point. "You won't be with us long, Miss Moffat,. We don't want you here, and we'll tolerate no nonsense. During your stay with us. you'll have to be treated as dangerous. I'll consider exactly what to do with you, but in the meantime, Miss Lennox will put you through the routine. It should be familiar to you by now." It was familiar! It was, in Dee Dee's eyes, one of the most demoralizing experiences any girl could suffer. For a little while you became a naked animal pushed this way and that, scoured and scrubbed and, worst of all, disinfected. The institutional pall enveloped her like the menace of a tomb. She had been told the leg irons would stay upon her feet. The label of "dangerous" was being taken seriously, and so was the iron collar around her neck. If someone had seen fit to put it there, the penitentiary was content it should remain. Never in her life had Dee Dee felt less wanted. Suddenly disaster had a voice.
"Best comb your hair. Here's a comb. Get it while it's still wet." The naked inmate viewed the proffered comb in dismay, but she was forced to take it and go through the motions of combing her hair. She did so vigorously where she knew it safe, but the area in which the key nestled comfortably could not be touched without dislodging it. Her hesitation caught the wardress's eye. "Damn it, girl, what are you fumbling about? Here, give me the comb." Strong fingers snatched it from Dee Dee's reluctant hand, then turned her about and vigorously combed the area she had ignored. The key fell accusingly to the concrete.
"Well, well, what have we here?" The wardress sounded almost pleased at tangible proof of guilt. She examined it, laughed, and put it in her pocket. She sounded pleased. "You know what that's going to get you, don't you honey?"
Dee Dee knew. It would get her punished or put in solitary or something she would hate. It was a bad, bad start in this new confinement. She hated the impersonality of this place and longed for Miss Broddrick, no matter how harsh she had once seemed. The Benbows were fading into a dream. It was significant that when she was marched once more before the director's stem regard, her tunic had not been returned. She stood there naked with chained feet and the evidence of her guilt held in an accusing female hand.
"You're a troublemaker," the director said disgustedly. "I'll be damned if I'm going to have you around with the other girls, and since you're going back to Aurora, I can't put you in solitary. You might be one of those silly bitches who comes out of there with a screw loose. I'm sending you back to Hazl. I should have known better in the first place. I'd like to give you a good thrashing, but you're not my responsibility, damn it! Hazel can keep you out in the cow barn or the tool shed if she wants you hidden." To the wardress, she directed, "Get her out of here. Take her home, and take the key as evidence. Hazel must be slack as all get out to allow that key inside her walls."
Everything was now in reverse: the replacement of the tunic, the replacement of the leather restraints around her waist and wrists, the car and its humiliating cage. Dee Dee felt like an untidy bundle the post office had refused and was returning to sender. She wanted to cry, but had no hands to dry her cheeks. She blinked back her tears and spent the journey fruitlessly endeavoring to free her hands. It was quite impossible, but it was something to pass the time.
It was not until they turned off the main road to the narrow strip of asphalt leading to Aurora that the Benbows reclaimed their prize.
It was done with surprising ease, a truck across the asphalt and Rachel weeping in an urgent need of aid. When the prison van stopped, Benbows appeared from all directions. Timbers were thrust before and behind all four wheels and the indignant wardress told to mind her own business. Axes and bolt cutters made short work of the wire around the captive girl. Dee Dee was picked up bodily, placed in the truck, and before leaving, the Benbows thoughtfully removed an essential wire from the ignition of the prison vehicle. They drove away. The whole operation had taken little more than two minutes.
* * *
The Place took Miss Dierdrie Moffat back into its arms with manifold affection. They held a party and a barn dance, and as Rachel expressed it, "Did it up brown." As a final manifestation of its love, Dee Dee's leg irons were removed. She was allowed to walk free, the prison tunic replaced by the familiar shift and its two string ties. Now, more than ever, the captive girl was prisoner to more than chain or rope. The outside world that had once beckoned so demandingly was now a hostile place. Out where she was a convicted criminal and would be on the wanted list. She had to believe the authorities must be aware of the Benbows' part in her escape. But no action was taken. She suspected the Benbows knew why, but they did not tell her and she did not ask. She was simply thankful Sheriff Cowper made no call. On the fourth day she was summoned to the Benbow's office.
It was strange to enter the building, mount the stairs, and cross the hardwood floor to where the secretary greeted her as an old friend, waving her grandly within the presence. This time she did not stand as a prized prisoner not to be trusted, but instead was seated as an honored guest. The Benbow patted her hand and asked if she was happy.
She told of her adventures and the gladness she now felt. As she spoke, she became increasingly aware that the Benbow himself had news to impart. He was waiting patiently, but probably already knew everything she could tell. When Dee Dee said her final word and smiled invitingly, the Benbow said what she had most feared to hear.
"I want you married, Dierdrie."
Even though expected, it was still a blow. Dee Dee devoutly wished it need not happen. Wide-eyed, she stared back at him across the desk, waiting. The Benbow sensed her mood and dropped his second bomb.
"I want you to marry me, Dierdrie."
Dee Dee wondered how she could pluck sanity from the confusion of her mind. Since that time the Benbows had first taken possession of her, events had moved so swiftly that she was finding judgments hard to make. The Benbow had been kind to her--she could believe in his affection--but love and marriage and babies were altogether different. Her whole being recoiled, not in revulsion against the Benbow, there was nothing revolting about this strong determined man. He was wholly male and altogether admirable, but he was twice her age and she desired no made-to-order babies. She longed to speak to him of love, but with this man it was not possible. He was motivated differently. He would have been right at home on the great trek across the desert with Brigham Young. She heard her own voice stammering, "You honor me. I--I don't deserve it. But please understand it isn't possible--it isn't practical. And I'm not ready."
"Dee Dee, I'll allow you one month. In that time I'll expect you to become sensible."
"I can't change myself. Oh, please, try and understand."
"My age?"
"I suppose it's that," she agreed. "But that's not all. I simply don't love you in that way. All I feel for you is a tremendous respect. Why can't you leave it at that? Friendship is sometimes better than love."
"Wonder if I'm virile?"
Dierdrie blushed, the thought had not entered her mind. She was about to tell him so when he barked the Benbow order. "Lay down!"
Dee Dee was taken aback. She stared, not believing her own ears. "You're not going to--not here! You wouldn't do that to me in this room, and with the girl outside the door!"
The Benbow chuckled. "She won't worry us. If she comes in. I'll lay her down too."
At another time and in another place she would have laughed at the visions thus evoked. She did not laugh now. The Benbow was not Chet or Josh. He had in his way been a father to her, and it was in this context that she beheld him. To couple with him on the floor of his office would seem like incest. It would be untidy and disagreeable, and would shame her deeply. Falteringly, she told him of these thoughts, longing for sympathy. But he was male, and perhaps in the grip of rut. While her own words had been weak, his were demandingly forceful. "Lay down."
It was a royal command. Kings in ages past had used the wenches of their court thus, but this man sought only to prove virility, presupposing her only concern that of his potency. He would couple with her, and she would be reassured. He rose heavily to his feet. "Do you want me naked?" It was the sort of query she had made to the clients of Hazel Broddrick. Dee Dee flushed in memory and discerned how male hunger leveled everything to rob the act of love of its significance. She had been told that in marriage, after the honeymoon, it became for the wife something to delay and for the husband simply an irritating appetite. What the Benbow was about to do to her would prove nothing. She heard his voice as from a distance. "Yes, take them off. Everything. I want you naked. I want to see you. I want to see your breasts and your cunt and your pubic hair, your belly and your buttocks. Don't you understand, girl--I intend to marry you."
Dazed, Miss Dierdrie Moffat stripped and disposed herself upon the office carpet in a manner best suited to what was to be done to her.
When it was over, they rose to their feet dejectedly, to stand and stare, knowing nothing had changed. Dee Dee beheld in the Ben- bow's eye that male appeal for approval, the terrible need of a reassurance of potency. His performance had been competent, untouched by age, but the distressed girl had not the words to match her feelings. Without waiting for the Benbow to speak, she answered the question all too evident on his face. "I'm sorry. I really am."
He nodded and resumed his seat. "Put your things on," he ordered gruffly. "I don't read you." He sighed heavily. "But I promised you thirty days. You've still got them. Run along, I'd talk to Rachel and a few of the other girls if I was you. I guess it's my son after all."
Passing the reception desk, Dee Dee wondered if the svelte secretary knew what had taken place, being female she could probably read the signs. But what did it matter, that girl, too, had probably paid for her femininity upon the office rug and what did that matter either! She went in search of Rachel. Out in the sunlight, Dee Dee regained delight in untraveled motion. Every step brought her fresh wonder that she could stride of leap or run or wave her arms. Reflecting on the incidents just passed and the sadness of the Benbow's face as she turned to leave, she realized that this great bear of a man had left the confines of the Place but rarely, and when he did, it was upon a business by which he would get a little insight into the life she and others had led and were still leading out beyond. They were a man and a woman of different cultures, separated by the Benbows' dominance of the male and submission of its women. In her hometown, a male order to "lay down" would have been met by a blank stare or giggles. It would have been too absurd to even merit a slapped face or an appeal to the police. But here the Benbows were supreme. She was still wondering why the outside world had not penetrated this peaceful place in search of her. She was an escaped convict with two years yet to serve in prison. But perhaps the manner of her conviction was good cause to hesitate, but it was hard not to see Sheriff Cowper and Hazel Broddrick as anything else than enemies.
Finding Rachel, the two girls spent ecstatic minutes in greeting. The hugs and kisses past, Rachel anxiously asked, "Are you to be punished?" Then laughed her question away with the gay assurance, "How silly. Of course they won't punish you. You're something of a hero, did you know?"
They talked, and as they talked, Dee Dee became aware of something on her companion's mind. Rachel could not contain it long. With coy diffidence, she said, "Chet's in town. He's not supposed to be here, but he is and he's waiting for you."
Dee Dee's heart leaped. In all her present vicissitudes the laughing boy had been foremost in her mind. She had asked herself repeatedly if she was in love with him, but rejected the thought in her more mature knowledge that it was simply youth calling to youth and his gay exuberance was such pleasant contrast to the Benbow and most of the males of the camp. The fact that her time with him had been as a captive girl tethered behind his plow had not in any way affected her regard, not had his insistence on extracting from her the Benbow tribute of the female to the male adversely affected her picture of his smiling face. But she was too old for him and was now awkwardly considering the almost certain male demands he was going to make. But there was never a doubt in Dee Dee's mind that she would seek him out, whatever their discrepancy in age, he possessed a strength she sadly needed.
"He's staying with friends," Rachel volunteered. "I can take you to him."
It was another exuberant homecoming. Rachel discreetly vanished, leaving them together. They had ceased to be aware of her and were totally absorbed in each other's arms. Dee Dee began to doubt her previous convictions. She doubted them even more when she was led beyond the village limits to where they could once more be boy and girl upon the grass, the sky overhead and the earth beneath her back. Not only was the old magic still there, it had intensified! Long after their communion with the elemental earth had subsided, Chet whispered portentously, "I'm going to take you away, Dee Dee. You don't belong here, and when I'm with you, I don't belong here either."
"But, Chet, it's just not possible. You know what happened last time. If we try it again, they'll punish you too."
"They won't catch us. " There was a note of triumph in the voice so close she could feel his breath. "We never planned anything. This time it's going to be different." He kissed her avidly, still hungry for the feel of her. "This time we'll have money. I never told you, and I guess nobody else has, but the Benbows make a great deal of money out of everything we do here, and that money is portioned out among us and grows as we ourselves grow older. I've got five or six thousand dollars to my credit now, and I can get it. Will that be enough to get us back to where you used to live?" Dee Dee was suddenly a-quiver. This would not be a flight in blind panic. With money they could bribe someone to take them in a motor vehicle beyond the jurisdiction of those authorities which had made her a convict. Back in her own hometown she would regain her job, Chet would get work, and they could set up house. In this fevered sequence of visions she forgot about marriage. With Chet beside her, nothing else mattered. Dee Dee only vaguely considered that millions of other girls of her own age around the world were thinking similar thoughts and coming to the same conclusion.
"I'm frightened." she admitted, "but, Chet, how do we go about it? How do we get out of the Place without someone seeing or knowing?"
"I've thought it out. honey. I've been over in the other camp all this time, and there they don't even know you. It won't be safe for us to be seen walking around together here, not unless we do something to make it seem like the Benbows would expect. Would you mind if I put them irons back on your wrists, the ones you were fixed in when we first saw each other on the plow?"
Suddenly Dee Dee did not mind. She would have accepted the ball and chain as well had Chet desired. She understood his point. She was still a stranger to most, but if her hands were ironed, they would accept her as they had accepted her before when she had walked their streets with hands in limbo. "But we'll have to go to the smith!"
"No, we won't, sweetheart. It's no trick at all to flatten out a couple of rivets. Come on. I'll show you."
Dee Dee's admiration blossomed. Chet had recovered the same irons she had worn so long. He also had a hammer and two rivets. When they adjourned for a farm implement and used one of its sturdy iron beams as an anvil, her pride in this young man knew no bounds. Chet knew everything! Without a qualm, she allowed the metal to encircle her wrists, held it down firm upon the unyielding steel and kept still while the hammer smoked the rivets flat to make her captive. It was so simply done the could not believe that somehow she could not free herself, but she tried and discovered the same impotence she had found before. Dee Dee's hands were most securely ironed, and she was a very happy girl.
Everything they did now must be carefully considered. Rachel agreed to pass around the word that they had gone to the second camp to give Dee Dee a greater knowledge of the Place and its people. She eyed the metal upon Dee Dee's wrists with doubt, but agreed it was probably a wise precaution. When Chet assured her he could get them off in two shakes of a lamb's tail, she was content to let it pass. Camp Two accepted them without a qualm. Chet had prepared the ground for Dee Dee's lodgement and had even asked for a plowing job so she could once more be tethered to follow him around the field. It was very much like old times, and if the team was stopped and given rest beyond the norm, the horses were as pleased about it as the young couple who disported themselves upon the soil. Had it not been for the Benbow, Dee Dee would have been happy to stay exactly as they were, tethered to Chet's plow each day, then sleeping with a friendly family each night, until in some way she and Chet could resolve the dilemma of their lives. But above her head and as a shadow upon them both there remained the Benbow's resolve. Speaking of it, she learned something she had not been told.
"That guy!" Chet was disgusted. "Didn't he tell you? Didn't he tell you this son of his is deformed? That's why you've never seen him. People don't talk about it, and they're kind to the guy because he's who he is. The Benbow is doing something evil in marrying you off to him. What he wants or what he hopes for is healthy grandchildren out of you." Chet held her fiercely tight. "But he won't have that assurance until it happened, and they might just as easily be monsters like their father." He kissed her earnestly. "That isn't going to happen. I won't let it happen. We'll be long gone from here before your thirty days are up."
The family with whom she stayed accepted her at face value. Her ironed hands told them she was in some partial disgrace or under some slight suspicion. They were willing to go along with the popular belief that walking chained behind Chet's plow was a punishment. If they had other opinions, they did not mention them. Dee Dee used her chained hands in front of them, and they accepted them without comment. Girls with chained hands were not uncommon in their lives. Iron upon young female wrists was a frequently employed reprimand. Perhaps one day a child of their own would be thus confined, yet would bear no stigma any more than Dee Dee. The Benbows and the Place had its own code.
The day of their escape held no other significance. It was a day like any other. They had played out their charade long enough for community acceptance. It was understood that Dee Dee was a semiprisoner and being mildly punished, and Chet was her keeper. Since the Benbows' law of coupling with any female at any time was totally accepted. There were no raised eyebrows on account of the proximity of two young people of opposite sexes. If Chet chose to use his chained maiden while out in the field, it was his prerogative, and since the maiden herself made no complaint... !
They selected two horses from a reserve herd in a close-by pasture. This time the plow was not left as tell-tale evidence; they simply mounted, rode off into a cluster of trees beside the creek, and on around a hillside out of sight. The route they took this time was in an opposite direction to their previous abortive effort. They rode hard until nightfall which was familiar with the Benbows' camp and the Benbows' codes. They were not yet beyond the long arm of Sheriff Cowper, but on the morrow would keep their eyes open for isolated farms or ranches in which motor vehicles might be parked. They would buy, rent, or simply hire a car and driver. It did not matter which.
It was their first real night together. They could not contemplate successful pursuit. Who was there to know the direction they had taken? They would probably not be missed until the family became concerned about Dee Dee's absence. The Benbows had stoutly resisted the modem motor vehicle. This dependence on a horse gave the runaways a full day's start. Thus they laughed, rolled, and made their love in a carnality shared by both. They forgot the world.
* * *
The Ford pickup shined bright red in the sunlight. There was also another older sedan. The farm itself had that rundown, dilapidated appearance that spoke of semi-poverty. It was as good a choice as any.
Throughout the night they had giggled constantly about Dee Dee's forgotten irons. The metal remained solidly welded on her wrists and could not be removed. Chet gaily assured her they could certainly borrow a hammer and a punch wherever they also obtained a car. It was no problem. In the meantime, both of them enjoyed this continuing confinement which added a touch of erotic spice to what they did. To avoid a first embarrassment Dee Dee stood slightly distant, holding the two horses' tethers while Chet knocked at the door. The farmer's appearance was like his farm: tattered and rundown but hospitable. This was the West, and nothing would do but that they come in for coffee and a quick lunch. The farm son took charge of the horses, taking the reins from Dee Dee's grasp in an overwhelming wish to please. Perhaps they were lonely and prepared to enjoy visitors, but the horses and the reins aside, Dee Dee stood revealed in her shame. The farmer viewed her joined hands in sudden doubt. "You young folks ain't in trouble with the law, are you?"
They made a joke of it, pointing out that the metal on Dee Dee's wrists were obviously not of police origin. They were homemade and had been put on her for a silly joke which was now in need of rectifying. Could the farmer lend them a hammer and a punch?
"S'pose so. Young Henry can look around while we're having coffee." Some of the farmer's goodwill had evaporated, his eye looking in curious doubt at Dee Dee's shining bracelets. "You wouldn't be runaways from them there Benbows, now would you?"
They made their reassurances and enlarged and embellished their story about how it happened. They drank their coffee while the farmer listened to their proposition about his car or truck. Shrewdly, he dickered on his proposition of taking their horses in part payment. They could take the older car since he himself had need of the pickup on the farm. He went with Chet to examine the ancient vehicle and pointed out to Dee Dee the door to the tool shed where Henry was at work with the tools for her release. Blissfully, she walked through the open door into semi-darkness. While she was blinking in search of the promised help, the door slammed shut behind her with a most ominous solidity.
She stood transfixed as her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom. Knowing what she would find, she tried the door, but it was solid and the shed itself had been built for some purpose requiring stout timbers. Light filtered in above and below the heavy door and from chinks and cracks in the structure itself. There were no windows. Dee Dee used her metal-shod hands to make as much noise as possible in beating frantically at the closed panel. She made her voice equally importunate, but no one came to her rescue, and she could hear no sounds beyond her prison. After awhile she gave up. She leaned against the wall and then slid to the dirt floor in total dejection. It seemed impossible that once against their plans were foiled. Surely fate could not be this cruel. But whatever the purpose of this fresh captivity, it imprisoned her as surely as stone and iron bars. When, after an hour or so, the door did finally open, it revealed only the farmer. Her urgent appeals about Chet were ignored.
"You and me, we'll be going on a trip, young lady, and I don't want no sass. You behave yourself now or I'll knock you around. That there boyfriend of yours, he's gone. I don't want you asking no questions about him neither."
As she followed where he led. Dee Dee noted the absence of the pickup truck. It was gone, and the son was gone, and Chet was gone. There was just herself and the farmer, and the farmer evidently knew what he was doing. Dee Dee debated running, but she did not wish to be "knocked about." What was happening was bad enough without black eyes and puffy cheeks or split lips. She got into the front seat of the car as directed and sat in pure misery as the farmer bound her feet with a length of twine. It was thin, and it bit, and it was cruel. His voice admonished, "Seems like you've been a damn silly girl, young lady. I ain't taking no chances with you." He produced a length of chain and a padlock. He circled Dee Dee's waist and linked the handcuffs within the tight cinch, then padlocked the whole thing together. Dee Dee would keep her hands in her lap throughout the journey. Dee Dee was helpless! The farmer sat beside her, started the motor, and they crept from the farm yard she wished she had never seen. She had little doubt where she was being taken.
CHAPTER NINE - HOPE IN CHAINS
The elders were disturbed. Dee Dee stood before them, her hands still as the farmer had locked them. Evidently, whatever price the Benbows had paid for her return included the bit of chain and the padlock. She hoped she would have no need to scratch her nose.
The Benbow sat at the head of the table presiding over the six men who gazed upon the culprit with varying degrees of disapproval, sympathy, or anger. The Benbow, when he looked at her, did so with saddened eyes. She had hurt him just a she had hurt the Place.
Dry-eyed, in a grief too great for tears, Dee Dee allowed herself to be led and half carried to the cage, thrust therein, and the door clanged shut behind her and firmly locked, her escort departed, she stood for a moment to gather her thoughts and to become aware she was not alone. The girl Paula stood, impaled against the bars like a butterfly, and stared back at her with her usual cynical amusement. Paula's wrists had been stretched out to either side and firmly bound to a bar. She was naked for punishment. "You're the silliest bitch in the camp," she said without animosity. "I thought you had more sense. You will not easily forget what they'll do to you now."
"But you--what have you done!" Dee Dee was thankful for a diversion from her own misery. "Don't tell me--"
"Oh, sure," Paula said nonchalantly. "Never mind what I've done, but I've been sentenced to be flogged. I bet that's what you got too, isn't it?" She told Paula what there was to tell. The bound girl nodded understanding, her voice bitter. "Well, it's done, it's past, there's no use going over and over it." After a lapse into silence in which both girls were busy with their own thoughts, Paula, with unusual humility, asked, "Please suck my nipples."
Dee Dee shook her head dazedly as though to clear her mind and assure herself she had heard right. "You want me to do that!" she demanded in astonishment. "I don't see how you can feel that way."
"Look, honey, I've been standing here ever since morning. I'm tired, I'm fed up, and I'm bored. They may not whip either one of us for a week or more. In the meantime, we stay the way we are. We'd best make the most of what we can. I can't do much, but you can. You can service me completely if you want to. I'll do the best I can for you, but it won't be much. And don't tell me you'll bite through my wrist ties. You can't, and even if you could, we'd be crazy to try it. If they find me walking around free, they'd murder us both."
Dee Dee knew it was a strange reflection upon a state of mind that she accepted Paula's suggestion as normal and something to occupy the time. Passionately, she did not wish to think, and she was quite sure Paula was the same. Neither one of them had anything pleasant to think about. As though by natural gravitation, she approached the bound and outspread girl and lowered her lips to a grateful breast. She commenced the female frictioning careless of who might see. Later she knelt between two outspread female legs.
On the following day, Paula received her punishment. A stake had been driven into the ground, and to this her leg irons were fastened. She simply stood, naked and chained, and was the single member of an unhappy audience beholding an ordeal she herself must soon endure. Dee Dee had been positioned first of all, perhaps to demonstrate what was expected of her when her own time came.
Free of all bonds, Paula was magnificently naked. She was escorted and held right up to the perimeter of the circle who would watch her whipped, then she was pushed forward toward the awaiting post and its two acolytes who stood there to attend her. Fearfully, she looked from left to right and then at that which waited. Paula shrugged, this was not new to her, resolutely she strode into the open space and was the focus of every eye as she sauntered casually to where she would be flogged. Reaching her destination, she offered her hands as though they carried gifts. They were reverently raised and tied, one on either side of the massive timber. She could never free herself but possessed a sufficient of absence of restraint to enable her to writhe, to kick and to seek evasive action. This shameful conduct, shrewdly anticipated, was a part of the penalty she must pay. Girls would laugh and remind her of her behavior beneath the lash. Dee Dee saw it as absurd that from somewhere, perhaps from long past, the Benbow had produced a drum and a drummer to give the added solemnity of a drum roll to the proceedings. When all was ready, the rat-a-tat-tat made their fearsome crescendo to where, in the sudden ensuing silence, the first blow would mark its weal on Paula's back.
The performance was predictable. Dee Dee had been told to watch, told that failure to do so carried a penalty. So she watched, hating everything she saw and cringing fearfully in the knowledge that it was Paula today and herself tomorrow. She watched the bound, naked girl's first short gasp and stiffening of every limb in an agony too great to bear. The whole affair was merciless, totally devoid of the kindness the Benbows usually disposed towards wrongdoers. Evidently, the Benbow authority saw Paula's sin, whatever it may have been, as beyond either mercy or pity as she must endure the sentence before finding redemption. Evidently, the flogging of a girl marked an end to Benbow patience.
Dee Dee knew it was not Paula herself who now provided a Roman holiday, but rather Paula's flesh. It could stand only so much and responded accordingly. Mostly, the thong did not break Paula's skin, but as blow after blow smacked and thudded in a succession of impacts, some bright spots of scarlet did appear. When she showed signs of slipping into unconsciousness, she was dowsed with a pail of cold water standing ready, and thereafter the thong slapped wetly and more viciously until the wounded skin dried in the hot sun. When, after it was done and her hands were untied from the post, Paula slumped inertly to the ground, she was tenderly raised and carried back to the prison from whence she came. She was there in a pathetic bundle, sobbing on the ground, her face buried in her hands, one ankle only shackled to a bar, when Dee Dee was returned to the bondage of the cage to keep her company. Compassionately, the chained girl fell to her knees and sought vainly to give the sympathy of hands and arms, but she was totally defeated by the Benbows' irons and the farmer's chain. The best she could do was strain to use her fingers to stroke the damp, hurt hair of the sobbing girl. It took a long time for the paroxysm of desolation to exhaust itself into silence. It was then that the girl, whose back was wealed from neck to knees, made her savage declaration.
"It was never this bad--never, never, never! What they've just done to me is too much. I've been faithful to the Benbows, but now I'm going to leave. Dee Dee, do you want to run away with me?"
"But how can we, Paula? We're both chained and naked, and we're locked in this cage. We can't do anything."
"Yes, we can." The assertion was savage. "Of course we can do something. Of course we can get away. It's just a matter of waiting. After they've flogged you, they'll get careless. They won't keep us in here forever. We'll get let out, and then we'll have a chance." Paula paused momentarily. "I'd like to get you out of here before you get what I've just had. No girl should get such an awful punishment, but the way they've got jus both fixed I suppose it's impossible. You're going to have to go through with it. Please say you'll run away with me afterwards when we get the chance." It was a decision Dee Dee had supposed she would never face again. Perhaps even now it was wishful thinking on the part of a girl hurt beyond bearing. At this moment, escape was an impossibility, something best not talked about simply because of its impossibility. Dee Dee was moreover in a frame of mind to contemplate surrender. Chet's death had affected her in drastically, in a way she had been the cause of it. Chet would be on her conscience all her life. She wanted no more harm done to anyone, including herself. What the Benbows did to her when they got around to administering the flogging would be enough for life. She had little doubt that when it was over, she too, like Paula, would be a sobbing bundle of disorganized femininity upon the floor of an iron-barred cage. But hope is never absent from the human kind. So it was easy to promise something that might never become real. "Of course I'll run away with you, Paula, the very first chance we get." She paused unhappily. "If we ever get a chance, but I'm afraid we never will. You don't really think we will, do you?"
"Not unless we make it ourselves. We have to make it. I'm going to make it! Stay with me. Dee Dee. I need you. We need each other."
Strangely, they were left alone, safely prisoned in the cage. To enable Dee Dee to tend her companion's wounded back, the Dee Dee reflected ruefully that if there was any virtue in being flogged, it was in the glorious initial release from bonds. She shed a tear upon the smithy anvil as the rivets that Chet himself had smashed flat upon the irons on her wrists by a hammer and punch they had so sorely needed in their flight. A key unlocked her leg irons and she was free. Two men then grasped her bare arms. Her penalty had begun.
Paula had been left in the cage. The Benbows evidently saw little point in giving her a privileged point from which to witness something she had herself experienced. But the wide circle was there and the isolated space between its perimeter and the post at which girls were whipped was there for hesitant bare feet to traverse. Dee Dee stepped across the fearful space with a heart beating so hard she thought that surely it would do her injury. The days since Paula's flogging had passed, leaving indelibly upon her mind a seemingly endless terrible anticipation of what was to be done to her.
It had been cleverly thought out, Paula first and then the long, long way in which she tended Paula's back, her buttocks and her thighs, living vicariously the same agonies and envisioning them close within her own future. It seemed absurd for her to walk thus innocently to her place of execution. She had always wondered about condemned men and women and what they thought of in these moments. But she couldn't believe this was happening to her. She knew, though, that her disbelief would vanish with the first stroke of the whip.
And then the drums. It began as a low rumble working through the range of its scope to a terrible crescendo, a volume of threatening sound. When it stopped. Dee Dee went berserk against her bonds in an agony beyond any agony she had previously known.
Dee Dee's behavior at the whipping post was, by her own standards, deplorable, but the Benbows enjoyed it to the full. When they carried the limp, sobbing feminine remnant of a flogging back to the cage and locked her ankle to a bar, she was tended by the girl to whom she had ministered to in the past several days.
It was a week before Paula's ankles were ironed and her nakedness clothed in the Benbow outfit. She was taken from the cage and told to go about her affairs. Unhappily, Dee Dee watched the hobbled steps until her companion was out of sight. She was now alone, her ankle still chained to the bar. For the next several days her own wounds were tended by a girl she did not even know. Twice she saw Paula advancing to the cage, but in each instance the hobbled girl was intercepted and told to return from whence she came. There would be no further communication between the two captives. So far as the Benbows were concerned, the only thing the two girls had in common was they had both been flogged. For the girl still in the cage, her ankle still locked to a bar, the first sign of a return to normalcy was a visit from Josh. She watched his ambling approach with surprise and a touch of hope. Arriving at the bars, he looked at her with a cheerful grin, reminiscent of Chet, and made the fatuous remark, "They sure done fixed you good, Dee Dee."
"Are you going to let me out? Do you have a key to this chain on my ankle?" Release from the cage was foremost in Dee Dee's mind.
"Afraid not, sweetheart--don't have no keys. I come to ask you something."
They stared, both aware of a decision to be made. Dee Dee apprehensively denied hope. She had given up hoping for anything good. All that would happen to her was more pain or more chains or a closer confinement. Politely, she asked, "Yes, Josh, what is it?"
"The Benbow give me permission to marry you."
Dee Dee's mind raced. She liked Josh, and Josh was infinitely to be preferred to the unknown deformity of the Benbow's son. The message he had brought told the caged girl forcibly of the Benbow's affection. He would not have made this about-face under the impulse of any other emotion. No doubt he wanted her married to keep her safely within the boundaries of the Place and her brief association with this man had been enough to set Josh apart as the obvious candidate. By Benbow standards they were both still too young, but Dee Dee was certain she was marked as a dangerous female who needed the bit and bridle of the married state. Quite simply, she said, "I don't want to get married."
"Neither do I."
They stared unhappily through the bars, then shared laughter, and Josh hastened to make amends for faint chivalry. "I'd like to marry you, honey. You're a marvelous lay and sort of sweet, but I ain't ready yet for no horde of babies, and that's what the Benbow wants of us. He done told me so. I can fuck you to a fare-thee- well, he says, until we got ourselves a dozen. " He fell into doleful silence.
"I don't want that either, Josh. We're both too young. The law allows you to lay with me all you want, so we don't have to worry about that. But, Josh dear, the only answer for me is to go away from this place. All I do here is-cause trouble for everybody and myself." She turned her back to him. "Look at my back. Look at the way I've been flogged. No girl wants to live like this. If it happens once, it can happen twice. The Benbows shouldn't bring in girls from the outside; we're not ready for this. We're not attuned to your way of doing things." She gazed up at him through her prison. "Josh, would you help me escape? Would you get me out of here? I don't want you to go with me and run the risk, just some way make it possible for me to walk on out over the hill without having some sort of iron riveted on me somewhere."
They stared again. Josh was neither horrified nor surprised. He had expected such an appeal from this girl and would have been disappointed in her hand she not made it. Cautiously, he asked, "Supposing I could do that, would you want to run the risk?"
"Yes."
Josh nodded. "I sort of see the way you feel," he admitted slowly. "But they'll flog you again and put you in the Dark Place if you run and they catch you. I don't want that to happen."
"I'll run the risk."
Josh nodded safely. "I have to tell you, sweetheart, you're best bet is to marry me. I guess we're stuck with the babies, there's nothing we can do about it. Once we're married they'll take you off the stuff they put in a girl's food. After that, every time I lay you we're running a risk. Gee, I sure would like to get in that cage and lay you now. You're so damned beautiful."
Dee Dee warmed under his flattering regard, but she remained firm in her conviction. "It wouldn't be any good, Josh. Not for you and for me it wouldn't, not with our convictions. The best thing for me is to get out of here and go far away and never come back. I don't see why the Benbows want to hold on to me. I've been nothing but trouble to them."
"It's the law, honey. The law don't allow no one to go away. I guess maybe if they let one go, they there'd be another, and first thing you know they'd just be the old people left. They make it good for us young'uns by letting us lay all we like. If it wasn't for that, we might be hard to hold." Josh grinned. "I gotta admit, sweetheart--it keeps me here, and it keeps me happy. Hell, it's what a young fellow wants more than he wants anything else, and we got it here. " He sighed heavily. "But I guess it's different with a girl. It don't mean that much to her."
"Josh, please help me. Get me out of here. Will you do that?"
"Sure, I will, honey. What I'm thinking about is the best way." He paused and shuffled awkwardly. "How'd it hit you first to say okay we'll get married? We'll do what the Benbow wants. That almost has to get you out of this cage, then on our wedding night you'll be completely free, there won't be an iron or a rope on you."
He laughed bitterly. "That would be our chance. Before we make a baby, I'll make sure you're well on your way."
"But, Josh, won't they watch us? Won't there be guards? Are you quite sure they'll let me be your bride and have the wedding without some kind of an iron on me--something neither you nor I can get off?"
"If they take you anywhere near the smith, I'll call the whole deal off. How's that?"
"You've got to remember, Josh, I'm a girl who's been flogged. It's made me cautious. It's made me frightened of the Benbows. I can't help but think that they will have considered this possibility. You know all they have to do would be buy a pair of modern handcuffs. If they didn't give you or I a key, I'd be in no condition to walk out into the wilderness, would I?"
"I got tools. I could get them off--don't worry about that." It was ridiculous to quibble. Here Josh was offering her everything she could ask for. He could offer no more. The only thing that would make her escape more certain would be a motor vehicle, but that was dreaming. She would have to take her chances on foot, and it would be a precarious chance indeed. But she knew it as playing with her life as the stakes. The Benbows would not kill her if they recaptured her, but it would be an end to everything, she just knew it would. She was determined it should not happen. Once over the hill this time, she would get away for sure. She knew not by what miracle this would happen, but she was sure of it. Brightly, she looked up at the shiny-eyed young man. "Okay, Josh, we'll do it that way." Then, putting all her heart into the words, she said, "Thank you."
In the morning it was the Benbow himself who set her free. Dee Dee was pathetically grateful and as the last of the meal fell away from her limbs, she clutched him and cried against his chest in a terrible need for the communion her prison had denied.
"You and Paula have something going?"' Dee Dee knew this big strong man felt her stiffen in alarm. In order to free her, the Benbow must have repossessed the girls from the girl who had planned to engineer their escape. That meant one more avenue was closed. Temporizing, she faltered, "Paula and I have come to like each other. She didn't like chaining me and locking me down here. Is that what you mean?"
"You know damn well it isn't. How come we picked her up on her way down here at one o'clock in the morning? Don't tell me she was socializing."
"What did Paula say? Surely you asked her."
"Never mine Paula. I want to hear it from you."
She had no idea what Paula had told him, so she knew she might be walking into a trap. "Quite probably she felt sorry for me," Dee Dee said. "I know she did! Isn't it likely that she was coming to unlock some of my chains so I could sleep?"
"She had a bundle of food. Do you suppose he was aiming for a midnight coffee clatch?" It was hopeless. Dee Dee's instinct was simply to tell the truth and avoid lies which could easily be disproved, but they could incriminate Paula in a way not yet achieved. She stepped back from the sheltering arms and miserably said, "I don't know. I just don't know. You'll have to do whatever you think best about it. If you want to punish me again, I don't suppose you can find anything worse than you had done to me last night."
"Huh--you girls!" The Benbow shook his head sadly. "You still aiming to marry young Josh?"
"Of course."
"Best go find him then. He's pretty damn browned off over this Paula affair. First thing you know there won't be a man in the place wanting to marry you at all. Not even me."
"That would be a nice change." The words were out before she could bite them back, but the Benbow was ready for such a declaration.
"Look, girl, you're not thinking that being married is the only way to get a baby, are you? You give us much more trouble and you're going to get babies from all directions. We'll make sure you stay pregnant for the next ten years."
The Benbow stamped heavily away to leave the stricken girl in her usual confusion of longings and loyalties. She made her own way from the hateful hole. The sunlight was a benediction.
Josh's first act was to turn her around, cross her wrists behind her back, and tie them tight with thin, painful cord he produced from his pocket. He had evidently had it in readiness for this moment. His voice was gruffly apologetic. "Seems like you done disgraced yourself again, sweetheart," he said soberly. "You're half in disgrace with everyone, so I'm keeping in the mood by tying you this way. We got to hope they'll take it as a sign I'm mad at you too."
"But, Josh, I don't mind. Kiss me."
Josh kissed his bride-to-be. Dee Dee most ardently longed for hands, but kissed him hard and long enough to cause them both to emerge gasping. "Gosh, honey, you must have wanted that." He held her at arm's length, studying her intently. She was still nude from her punishment. No one had thought to provide a shift. "You kiss me like that all the time, and I'll never let you go."
"Of course I wanted it. You'd want it too if you spent the night chained down in some dark hole underground. Oh, Josh, that was awful! Don't ever let them do that to me again--please."
"Dee Dee, you do the wrong things, and there ain't no way I can stop them. What's bothering me now is that there escape plan of ours."
"Yes?" Dee Dee's heart was in the single word.
"I'm damn sure they're onto us. They've figured it out--they're suspicious. We're going to be watched. Honey, we're going to have to think of something else."
It came as no surprise. Dee Dee had reached the same conclusion. Demandingly, she questioned, "So, okay, we think of something else. In the meantime, are you going to give me a baby? Please don't, Josh, please, please don't."
"This moment right now could be the last time you're safe, honey. They'll cut you off the preventative. Let's do it while we can."
They did it in total abandonment to a hunger they well knew would not long stay unappeased. It would soon recur, and what they did then they did not know, but for the moment they would rid themselves of what was their most immediate hazard. It was a strange appeasement devoid of joy. When it was done. Josh told her to go in search of Paula, to let herself be seen with hands bound behind her back to allay suspicion. It would be understood by all that she had been tied in this manner by her prospective husband.
Paula was not easy to find. Those she asked made excuses. Some obviously did not know, and others were evasive. Dee Dee finally tracked down her co-conspirator in one of the barns. Paula was nude for punishment. Her legs were ironed, and her hands bound just as Dee Dee's own, but they had been tethered and drawn high behind her back to cause her to lean forward in discomfort, and there she stood. She looked sideways in thankfulness when Dee Dee came into her restricted view. Around the two captive girls was now a strong smell of horse manure. Paula's first query was urgent. "Oh, Dee Dee, thank goodness! What did you tell them?" Dee Dee brought her up to date. Once more she herself was helpless to offer aid. She could not reach the bindings by which Paula was so unkindly held. "But why do this to you?"
"Well, it doesn't cost them anything, and then consider the way they caught me. It wouldn't have been so bad without the food, but with that I didn't have a single worthwhile excuse. All that's bothering them now is they're not sure if we were in cahoots or if it was just my idea. Don't tell them a thing. There's no sense in both of us getting punished. If we both play injured innocence, we may get another chance."
"But I'm going to have to marry Josh. I don't see any way out of it, and he and I will be watched. We won't be able to do anything." Her laugh matched Paula's. "Not outside our bedrooms."
"And he'll give you a baby the first night, won't he? We all know men. "
"He's promised not to, and I'm sure he won't. Not the first night anyway. But if we have to sleep together long enough, it's bound to happen. Oh, damn!" Dee Dee turned her back and wiggled bound hands. "Have a look at these. Do you think there's any way I'm likely to twist out of them?"
"No. Besides, you'd much best stay tied. A girl with her hands tied like that is a good little and nobody's going to look twice about you. Right now I'm a good little girl too. Just look at me!"
"That's a horrible way to be tied. Is this a punishment, or are they just keeping you for some purpose?"
"I wish I knew!" Paula twisted in a manner which placed an additional stress on her arms and hands. She could only hold the posture for brief moments. "See, that's all I can do, and it doesn't help a bit. It's much easier when I simply give way to it and bend over and look at the straw. Have you ever stood with your hands tied way up in the air and being forced to look at dirty straw for hours and hours and hours!"
Dee Dee marched in a fine fervor of indignation to the Benbow's office. Those who saw her on the way noted her flushed cheeks but attributed them to the shame of bound hands in public and the nakedness arising from her temporarily doubtful social status. To deepen the pink in her cheeks, she was confronted with a delay outside the Benbow's door. The Benbow was busy and she would have to wait. As always, the receptionist was charming. Her remarks may have been appropriate in her own mind, but Dee Dee was by no means sure of them.
"You have beautiful breasts, Dee Dee. I really envy you those breasts."
"Thank you. Do you know how long it'll be?"
"Not long, dear. Would it be asking too much of you to turn around so I can see the effects of your flogging? I was so busy here that I missed seeing it."
It could not have happened beyond the boundaries of the Place. This was a piece of Benbow deliciousness, something to laugh about if you were safe beyond their borders but perfectly ordinary within. Grudgingly, Dee Dee turned and backed close to the desk to give the interested girl the best possible view of the marks of her punishment still vivid upon her skin. Bitterly, she remarked, "I hope you enjoy them. I believe they're very easy to get in case you're interested."
"I'm sure they are, Dee Dee. I get whipped sometimes when I make too many mistakes, but there's no way I want to be flogged, and I'm not going to do anything to make it happen. But thank you, dear, for showing me. In its way your back is every bit as lovely as your front. I do hope you don't start having babies too soon." Dee Dee watched the door open and the departure of the Benbow's visitor. She received the receptionist's nod and entered the office.
"What the devil now, Dee Dee! Can't you amuse yourself without coming to me all the time?"
Dee Dee paid his irritability no heed. She went directly to the point. "Why are you treating Paula like that? She hasn't done anything. You're just being mean to her on suspicion. Is that what you call Benbow justice?"
"Oh, for Pete's sake! I suppose you're going to give ma blast about maiden innocence, is that it?"
"All right, but please set her free. There's no need to do this to her. She's hurting."
"Very well," he conceded. "If that's the way you feel, you can go join her there." He laughed at a sudden inspiration. "Go and tell Josh to take you to the barn and tie you the same way, along with that other silly bitch. Maybe you can talk some sense into each other." He returned to the work at his desk and waved her away.
Josh irritated his bride-to-be by being faintly amused. "If you and me actually stuck together, sweetheart. I'd have a job on my hands with you. Damn it. Dee Dee, I'm sick of this whole damn thing. Come on, we'll walk to the barn."
Dee walked obediently beside the man who might one day be her master. In the Place, husbands were most definitely masters. She herself could think of nothing fresh to say to their dilemma, but Josh was obviously deep in thought--he had an idea. Before they reached the place of Paula's imprisonment, he voiced it. "You know about the second camp, don't you? There's a trail from here to there. Dee Dee, you and me's going to take a chance. I'm going to rope your neck and lead you out of here as though we're going to go to the second camp. On the way I let you loose. It's the best I can think of."
"But, Josh, what about Paula!"
"Can't help her none. You tell me the they got her ankles ironed.
She can't walk that way."
"But, Josh, please!"
"Oh. all right then. Likely the best I can do is cut the chain. She'll have to walk with it dangling from her ankles, but it won't stop her none, and it shouldn't hurt." He stopped in their tracks and turned her to face him. "You know the chance you're taking, don't you? Couple of girls on foot out there on the prairie?"
"We've gone into that. It's a chance I'll take. Paula will take it too."
Josh shrugged. They resumed their march to the girl whose ankles still were chained.
* * *
It was a strange cavalcade but doubly convincing to those who might observe. A man on a horse. Behind him, and led by a tether around her neck, was Dee Dee trudging manfully in the dust, her hands still bound with the thin twine of Josh's own doing. Tethered also and leashed was another horse. Across its back lay the naked figure of a girl. It had been impossible to break or cut the links of Paula's chain, so in desperation Josh had hoisted her across the bare back of a second steed and cinched her hands and feet to keep her securely in place. It was an uncomfortable ride, but unquestionably suitable to a prisoner in Paula's standing. Everyone they passed looked, smiled, and nodded in approval. This improvisation of the moment might well turn out far more effective than a well-laid plan.
There was no great amount of traffic between the two camps. What there was soon thinned to a trickle or ah occasional rider or vehicle. On every occasion of a passing, wise heads nodded and wise eyes approved Josh's treatment of two delinquent girls. No doubt they deserved every bit of what they were getting.
It was no easy escape for either Dee Dee or Paula. When they reached the dry creek bed with its pathetic small clusters of stunted trees, Josh left the trail and headed into the cover of sparse foliage. There he freed Paula. She stood, kicking at her still chained feet in a desperate conviction there would be no escape for her. But with great thankfulness she watched Josh loose the leash from Dee Dee's neck and cut the twine from her wrists. One of them was free and a had a horse. It was a better prospect than either girl or Josh himself had imagined. Hope was beating high in Dee Dee's heart.
"Sorry I can't do nothing about them chains on your feet, Paula," Josh mourned, gazing at the offending irons in speculation. "Can't ride no horse with them things on your feet."
"You'll have to take me back to camp with you," Paula said bravely. "Give Dee Dee the horse, and you could pretend to have caught me and dragged me back. You can tie me some miserable way so it will seem convincing."
"Huh--doubt if it will deceive anyone," Josh said doubtfully. "They'll wonder how in hell you got this far with them feet that way."
"You don't have to tell them how far we got, just that you discovered me outside town."
"Shit, honey, that ain't no good! All sorts of people seen all three of us. There's fingers going to be pointing at me from all over. Ain't no way I can explain how the two of you got out of the barn and out here with one of you tied to a horse."
"But, Josh, you won't be safe. They'll punish you!" Dee Dee exclaimed. "We been so busy thinking of Paula and me we forgot all about you."
"I'll ride on to Camp Two after you two have taken off. I've got friends there--we'll think of something. " Josh chuckled. "Camp Two don't always approve of what goes on in Camp One. Don't you worry none about me. Thing is, what we going to do about Paula's feet?"
"Josh, come with us." Dee Dee's heart suddenly went out to this easy-going, raw-boned boy who was staking so much on their freedom. Neither of them had wanted marriage, but he would have been kind to her, just as he was being kind to she and Paula now. Josh was a good guy. She suddenly realized his plight in trying to adequately explain what had taken place, particularly his own part in it. He would be highly suspect. Again, she urged, "Josh, you must come. You can ride and carry Paula some way across the horse, can't you?"
"I been thinking." Josh took off his stetson and scratched his long hair thoughtfully. "Best you take the horse with the saddle, let's see how she makes out with a leg hooked over the horn." How easy it would have been without Paula! Dee Dee thrust the thought from her mind, but it constantly returned. Freedom lay ahead, but between freedom and herself were two metal bands connected by a number of metal links. The leg irons could defeat them all. It seemed too cruel for the Benbows to have the last laugh again. In acute anxiety, Dee Dee watched as Josh picked up the other girl with greatest of ease, placed her on the saddle, and awkwardly arranged her leg over the horn With free hands, Paula clutched at what she could, but her chained foot could not reach a stirrup, and about all her anchorage to the saddle itself achieved was an unkind, indecent exposure. Dolefully, she shook her head. "It's no good, it's no damn good at all." She allowed herself to slither into Josh's waiting arms. "I'll have to go back--there's no escape for me."
The three exchanged anxious glances until Dee Dee broke the awkward silence by declaring, "I won't go without you, Paula. If those things on your feet defeat us, we best go back to the barn and Josh can tie us both up the way the Benbow said. Maybe that would keep everyone happy."
"I been thinking about this. There's a way I just figured, but it ain't a pretty way. I don't think I'd want it. How'd it be if I put you back on that horse and fix you the way I did before? You couldn't fall off, and when the two of you get somewhere safe, you can do the best you can about them irons. Once you got rid of them, you could ride like any other girl." He turned to Dee Dee. "I don't have to tie her real tight--she ain't no prisoner. If you feel her slipping, you can give her a hoist."
"Come with us?"
"It ain't no good, honey. I can't. I belong here. I wouldn't fit out there. I'd just be a damn nuisance to you." He grinned coaxingly at her concern. "Come on, what you say?"
There was nothing to say. Dee Dee looked agonizingly at the unhappy features of Paula. Instinctively, the two of them gazed down at chained feet in bitter realization of what the chains were dong to all three of them. Dee Dee wondered if the Benbow had contrived this whole scenario and was somewhere quietly laughing. She looked at Paula and asked, "Do you want it this way, dear? I mean, suppose we have to go faster than a walk?"
Paula was suddenly decisive. "Okay, hoist me up, Josh. Tie me just tight enough to keep me steady. Can the horse take the two of us?"
"Sure, he can. You don't neither of you way nothing." He picked up the discarded rope. "Is that the way you want it?"
It was against borne upon Dee Dee the sacrifice this boy was making on their behalf. Impulsively, she went to him and clutched his broad shoulders to place her cheek against his beating heart. "We can't ever repay you enough, Josh," she said brokenly. "Why don't you take mw now. this one last time?"
There was no quibbling--it simply happened. A natural gravitation no one could deny. Paula turned her back to busy herself with ropes and straps. When it was done, she turned and asked simply, "Want me too, Josh?"
Josh was only slightly abashed by this plethora of feminine enticement, but he was forever practical. "Hell, gal, how the devil can I with them feet chained?"
"You can--I know you can, Josh. I've done it with chained feet. I'm surprised you haven't. Come on, I'll show you."
It was Dee Dee's turn to stare at the horizon. There was no trace of jealousy or rivalry between the three. For that brief time they were children of the sun and the soil, the aspen leaves of the little coppice whispered enchantingly as though in approval of what they saw. The freed girl thought of the incredulity with which she would have viewed this scene in her previous life and how it might seem to her once again in the future if she found liberty. As the final act, they kissed before Paula was flung across the horse and secured. She would remain a prisoner until they found help. Josh lifted Dee Dee up behind the bound girl and slapped the horse's rump in a final parting. "Get along, little doggy," he said as he started the animal into motion. "You show up here again and I'll whip both them asses."
It seemed as good a parting speech as any.
They followed the dry creek bed. Josh had told them what he could about the terrain, and at least they would not be silhouetted against skyline. They were only visible from the low bluff on either side. As she guided their hose upon an unseen path. Dee Dee dejectedly said, "This has to be the craziest adventure ever."
She looked back once to see Josh mount his horse, wave, and head in the opposite direction. In spite of her prisoner across the horse's withers, she felt a terrible loneliness. Josh was a man with a man's strength and never had she needed that more than now. Considering past failures, this adventure toward freedom seemed doomed from the start, but so much would depend upon the Benbows' guess as to the direction and the nature and loyalties of those they might encounter. The prairie seemed bare, but Dee Dee knew it seethed with enemies.
At night they found another clump of trees in which to hide. Dee Dee freed her companion and for long moments the two girls clasped each other in a frenzy of need. It was not a sexual need but a tremendous hunger for the assurance of companionship and the touch of a loving hand. They had no food, so must lie upon the ground hungry. Perhaps in the morning there would be berries.
The earth is a sounding board. When Dee raised her head in alarm, she could hear nothing, but with her ear upon the ground as when she slept, it was clearly audible. It was the clip-clop of an ambling trot. She could not tell whether it was one or more animals, but even one might be too many. She looked down at the girl sleeping by her side, but did not wake her. With chained feet, Paula would be helpless to either aid or free and was much best as she was. It might, moreover, not be safe to talk. The oncoming rider might hear them in the strange telegraphy of the night just as she had heard the hoof beats or pursuit. Knowing her nakedness would be hard to hide in the prairie starlight. Dee Dee crept as unobtrusively as possible to where she might view whoever it might be who followed. But no precaution availed. Their own horse, lonely and suddenly aware of company, neighed lustily. Paula sat up in alarm, and Dee Dee froze in pure horror. They were betrayed.
"Hell, I thought I'd never find you. You two girls made damn good time." Josh's voice genially greeted them in the silvery night. Unconcerned, the male who had followed them dismounted and led his horse to where their own was tethered. He did not wait for questions but gave the answers. "Couldn't let you go out there alone. Just wasn't no way I could do that, honey." He tilted Dee Dee's chin and kissed her fondly. He did the same for Paula; Josh was not a man to play favorites. "I been thinking what could happen to you if you meet the wrong guys. What you need is a man around."
"Oh, Josh!" Dierdrie was overcome with emotion and relief. She realized how bitterly she had mourned his passing and how thankful she was to have him once more in her arms and on her side. Men who might have molested her and Paula would not do so now.
"Piss on the Benbows," Josh declared. "But if we're going to get out of their path, we'd best be moving. Ain't got no time to sleep. Horses have had a rest. Come on, Paula, you get yourself tied like a sack of spuds again."
With Josh, everything was easy. He threw the leg-ironed girl across the now familiar horse's back, tied her as tight as need be, and then lifted Dee Dee up behind and handed her the reins. "There's a farm I know about if we can make it that far."
The three of them rode out into the prairie night that was never truly dark.