It was hot and dusty inside the Mission. Very hot. The children had been crowded into the dugout beneath the floor, the whites of their eyes peering up in apprehension and the eternal question of why, why, why? The wounded lay in a neat row and Vanessa Pilgrim and the Sisters of Charity did their best to relieve their misery. The five black soldiers in their tattered uniforms had, so far, held the guerrillas within the shelter of the scrub which encroached closely across the dusty and well- trod compound. But Vanessa's eyes strayed constantly to the scattering of cartridges which were now their only defense. Two rounds for each of the rifles. After that, what? The firing had stopped, giving way to a strange and unnatural silence in which all of them knew it was now very close to the end of their time and possibly their lives. The soldiers would be slaughtered and the women raped and possibly later killed. In a wave of disgust of the whole useless exercise, Vanessa wondered why their own five black soldiers did not seize the chance to rape her and the two remaining nuns while they had the chance before death claimed them all. It would seem a natural enough act to seize this last piece of masculine joy before the end. She shrugged, it did not matter, nothing mattered anymore.
The Macusi had never before penetrated this deep into government held territory. They were unlikely to stay, they would level the village, destroy the Mission and work their will upon the those now huddled within its shelter. They would be safely gone before government troops were either alerted or on their way. In her assessment of her plight, Vanessa Pilgrim was certain of rape, it was the least she could expect. But she did not wish to die, although soiled by acts of lust, she would still long to live, and wondered, without much hope, if she would make terms with her captors. She supposed each of the nuns were thinking the same thoughts. Their habits probably concealed beauty. But if they had to die, they could only pray for a swift, merciful oblivion instead of the obscene tortures for which some branches of the Macusi were well known.
The sound of the horn, amplifying a male voice, was shattering. It was in the local dialect Vanessa did not understand. Every face was intent as the sonorous words spoke out the message. When silence abruptly claimed them once again, there was an awkward shuffling of feet and furtive glances back and forth until the American girl knew herself the focus of every eye in the Mission. Disconcerted, she demanded, "What's the matter, what did they say?"
Silence held, no one answered for a long time until Sister Faith poured anguish into words, "They told us that unless the American school teacher walks out to meet them somewhere in the trees they will destroy the Mission and kill us all." There was another shocked and pregnant silence before the young sister vehemently declared, "You mustn't do it, we won't let you. They are not to be trusted, they promise to leave us involute if you obey but we have only their word for it."
"You do it, Missy, you do it, you save us all." It was the black corporal, he was gazing at her in stolid pragmatism, "You save many lives and the children. They not kill you, ain't no way they's going to kill you." As though in inducement he added, "Maybe later on when they tired of you they let you go."
Vanessa Pilgrim allowed her eyes to rove over her companion's anxious gaze. Only the Corporal would tell her to obey the strident order but all were hoping she would do go. They were human and wished to live. Not daring to think or to delay Vanessa did what she had often done since childhood, closed her mind utterly to all except a single goal. She kissed the two sisters, motioned to the children down below, nodded smilingly at the watching men, then strode purposefully to the door and out into the African sun.
Heat smote her as she walked, and the village smell mingled with the odors of vegetation. But most potent of all was the smell of the dust her feet disturbed on the parched soil of her children's playground. There was also the smell of smoke from the single village dwelling the guerrillas had fired, probably as a warning. The village dwellings were flimsy and burned with swift, bright flame to leave only the smoke by which to be remembered. Holding firm to every scrap of courage, Vanessa Pilgrim approached the trees.
Safely out of sight of the Mission and those who watched, a black man rose silently from either side and took Vanessa's arms. She was turned around, her wrists crossed behind her back, and carefully tied with thin rawhide. There was the flash of white teeth and a deceptively bland assurance, "You no fight, Missy, you come very quiet with us, you no be hurt."
She had never been so frightened; hands bound behind her back and a pair of grinning black rebels walking on either side. But, save for the cruel tightness of the strip of hide, they had not hurt her, they had called her Missy in respect. Only one bothered to hold her by the arm to guide their progress. Suddenly the Mission was a thousand miles away.
They took her to their leader, a white man. He was a big, florid man in his early forties. Solid and massive, without an ounce of fat, he seemed insecure upon the folding chair behind the folding table. Vanessa's escort stood her squarely within his gaze and then, saluting, departed. Vanessa stood before the male regard, twisting at bound wrists, glaring indigently as a jocose American voice jeered, "Your name's Vanessa Pilgrim, you're one of these damned fool, do-good school teachers, who should have stayed back in the good old USA. My name's Rod Sykes. I'm a mercenary soldier who's working right now for the Macusi. You're my prisoner." He guffawed coarsely, "Glad to have you with us, Miss Pilgrim."
"The Mission You truly will leave it alone?"
"Oh, sure. " He chuckled at her concern. "That place and the people in it don't amount to much, and we do keep an eye on world opinion, you know. Everything here's political." His eyes met hers in frank enjoyment. "Ran a bit of a bluff, I'm afraid. Didn't want to walk in and grab you, much better this way. They can't point a finger and you'll mysteriously vanish." Again the frank chuckle. "I'm damned glad to see you. Black girls are OK but a man hankers after his own kind. You'll do nicely."
Vanessa's mind was swift in assessment. It was humiliating to be tricked into surrender. But Sykes would have gotten her anyway. It was a relief to know the his word, in so far as the Mission was concerned, was good. Her worries would now be for herself alone. Testingly she probed, "Your men tied my hands. I'd appreciate it if you untied them?"
"I like'm the way they are. You look damned pretty with your arms in back, in fact you look damned pretty all around. I'll get your clothes off when we get back to camp."
"There's no need to keep me tied. I have enough sense to understand you have me and I'm not likely to escape. I'm not going to be foolish enough to run off into the trees, even if I could. Look, Mr. Sykes, let's both try and be reasonable about this. Please untie my hands? Whatever it is they tied me with is far too tight and it's hurting."
"Good. It's suppose to. A bit of pain never did a girl any harm. When you meet any gal the first thing she needs is a good thrashing. After she's got over howling, you understand each other. I'll thrash you when I get around to it."
"Please don't bother. I assure you I can be reasoned with. I'm quite willing to listen to anything you have to say." Vanessa's voice was far more even than her pulse. "I suppose there are possibilities of my being ransomed?"
"Forget it, Sweetheart, too much trouble. Money's not much good out here, what really matter's guns and food and women." Sykes guffawed. "Hell, gal, out in these parts, you're almost legal tender. Shit, for the first time in your life you're worth a lot of money." Vanessa gazed around, there was only foliage, if men were hidden and watching she could not see. There were a few boxes and weapons around where her captor sat on his flimsy chair. But that was all. She felt as if she should ask a hundred questions but Sykes had already told her all she needed to know to assess her probable fate. Rod Sykes would take her and use her until he wearied of her flesh. After that ?
She wanted to ask him what he would do with her then but it would be foolish to look that far ahead or to admit too easily to an acceptance of what he intended for her. It would be cruelly frustrating but all she could do was accept her captivity and wait.
Hopelessly she said, "Look, Mr. Sykes, I'm resigned, I know I'm beaten, I know I'm your prisoner. But there's no need to brutalize me. I'll obey you. Please try to understand my wish to adjust to something I can not change."
"Hell, girl, I don't want sweet reason, I want a rebellious little bitch who'll fight and claw and bite so I can knock her around a bit, a girl needs to be whittled down to size. I'm going to enjoy ironing out that schoolmarm image of yours. Damned rummy how it sticks out all over you. Always hated schoolmarms, you and me should get along damned good, after I've given you a going over."
"But we're fellow Americans, doesn't that count for something with you?"
"It's and twits and twats that count, Miss Pilgrim, not where they happen to come from. You're lucky you're white, you'll get special attention." He laughed delightedly, "You ought to see your face, Honey, boy, you'd kill me if you could."
Vanessa stood like a prisoner before the bar, hating every moment and every word, yet deep inside there was a great thankfulness that she had not yet met the fate worse than death, it would be at the hands of a white man and not a grinning, renegade black. She believed that beneath Rod Sykes' gruff and hardy vulgarity lay a human being. But, for this moment, she felt only a frightening helplessness. Never in her life had she been bound or constrained in any way, but now her arms and hands were behind her back and tied there tightly. She could not defend herself, could not even scratch her nose or lift a cup to her lips, it was the strangest of feelings. She supposed it was rational enough to bind a prisoner, but Sykes had already assured her the only reason he kept her thus tied was for his own pleasure. She could well imagine he would find satisfaction in seeing the droop of her shoulders and detecting the constant emotions of revolt she could not deny her hands against their bonds. She was a captive girl and would not escape the consequences of her condition. Quietly she asked, "These things you are going to do to me, when do they happen?"
"Hell, you in a hurry? I'd screw you right here on the grass if there's that much of a rush about it, but I'd sooner get back to camp. Me and my boys are a long way from home. Me and my boys have done what we set out to do. I got you as a bonus. You're what they used to call in other days the captain's perquisite." He winked broadly, "You know the old saying, 'To the victor the spoils.'"
Vanessa was certain her humiliation was deliberate: a noose around her neck and a rope tether by which she was lead by a grinning soldier. Some thirty men had made a magical appearance and now marched in some semblance of order under Sykes directions. Rod Sykes did not hold her lease but sometimes walked at her side. His comments were always pithy, he leered at her now. "Bit better than marching in chains behind a Roman chariot, isn't it?"
Vanessa sniffed disdainfully. "I'm sure that, if you had a chariot and the shackles, that's exactly what I'd be doing now," she retorted acidly. "I'm hot and I'm dusty and this rope you've got around my neck chaffs my skin. My hands are numb. I'm not sure the girl behind the chariot didn't have the best of it."
"You want to be untied, hey?"
"Of course, I do. You've only got me bound and collared to please some kink in your mind. If you took the ropes of me, I still wouldn't be able to escape. You surely don't imagine I'd go running off in the trees, do you?"
Rod Sykes laughed enjoy ably while bestowing a touch, almost of affection on his girl. "You've got guts, Honey," he conceded congenially. "No hysterics and you haven't once mentioned the police and my going to jail. But you'd best stop beefing about your being tied. You're going to be tied a lot from now on, so you'd might as well get used to it. Sure, I'm enjoying your humiliation, it goes with the package." He chuckled at her discomfort. "Honey, there something you've got to learn and you'd best keep it in mind, for a girl like you are now things can always get worse."
Vanessa sniffed and queried, not without curiosity, "Am I your first white captive female, Mr. Sykes?"
"Hell no, Sweetheart. You'd be surprised how many damned fool females like you there are wandering around Africa. They're mostly do-gooders. But others are tourists mixed in there and I take them as they come. They just vanish and their consulates don't bother." He laughed bitterly, "Consulates have a bad time these days trying to sit on the fence and please both sides. A missing wench or two is something they've no time for. You'd best remember that. As of now you don't exist except for me and my boys."
"You accumulate these unfortunates, you maintain a harem?"
"Hell, no, I use them a while then hand them over to the boys. My boys are a good bunch and they deserve a bit of white ass from time to time. Not that it's any better than the black stuff, but a change is a change. I'm satisfied to get first crack for as long as I want and I don't begrudge the boys the fun of staking her out afterwards and going to town." He laughed reassuringly. "By the way, you can forget that old story about the girl dying from too many cocks. That doesn't happen. When the little dears get cut loose afterwards, their just as good as they were before they got tied down. You'll see what I mean when it comes your turn." Sykes pinched her bottom hard and laughed at her wince. "But don't start worrying about that, it's a long way off. I like the look of you and you and I may stay together a long time." Vanessa Pilgrim choked back anger and disgust. She knew she must play every weakness this man possessed. Casually she inquired, "Very well, but what happens to them then? They get gang raped and cut loose and then what? They surely can't just stand there."
"Hell, no, Honey, nothing gets wasted on our side. We tie her hands behind her back again and sell her to a slave trader." He gave her a sly, sideways glance to see the effect of his information. "And don't you tell me there's no such thing as slave trading. It goes on all over the world, but particularly in these parts where wars sweep back and forth and no one asks questions. I could have you sold inside a couple of days and you could go anywhere in the world, where ever your owner wanted to take you. You'd fetch a lot of money and a lot of money has no nationality. You might end up doing your stuff in an English castle, a Miami penthouse or maybe even a Japanese holiday resort. Nice life for a girl if she can just forget her antipathy at being restrained."
"You can't tell me, Mr. Sykes, that any girl enjoys being bound or forgets her position."
"Sure I do, they get used to it. You'll get used to it. It will seem as natural to you to have your hands tied as yours are now as eating. If a girl can sort of roll with the punches she comes out on top every time." He chuckled sardonically. "Honey, you've got a great future ahead of you, damned sight better than school teaching. How the hell'd you get into such a piece of nonsense anyway?"
"I wished to serve."
Rod Sykes guffawed at her simple affirmation. "Honey, you've got the right word there. You're going to serve me and serve me well."
"And if refuse, I suppose I get tortured, is that it?"
"Well, you get your pretty little ass whipped to begin with. Twenty good hard strokes with a crop 'cross a girl's buns makes her see reason where she never thought there was any."
Once more the newly captured school mistress from Michigan swallowed acid but kept silent. She had felt no curiosity as to their destination, supposing it a derelict village, but when it came into view she gasped with astonishment, not unmixed with a touch of admiration for the resourcefulness of the man whose property she now was. The camp was actually a cavalcade of vehicles and trailers drawn by a caterpillar tractor. Above the snake-like length of it was camouflaged canvas to hide it from the air. It looked wicked and purposeful and hinted that Macusi money and Sykes' ingenuity might be a formidable combination. Her tether was casually knotted to a wagon wheel while the business of getting the cavalcade under way was dealt with. Each man seemed to know his place and Sykes was everywhere with a word of command or a quip to draw a smile. Vanessa eyed the knots of her leash in speculation as to whether it was worthwhile trying to free herself with her teeth. But that was too absurd, she would only get laughed at and probably punished. She hoped the informality of her capture and during the short march could be maintained. But there was about this whole operation an air of discipline, an atmosphere of something planned and under way. It made her feel more helpless and feminine than ever. When Sykes himself took charge of her and led her to the most elaborate of the trailers, Vanessa Pilgrim felt certain the time of her martyrdom was close at hand. Once inside the homey masculinity of Rod Sykes' dwelling on wheels, the rope was taken from her neck and her hands untied. Sykes watched her vigorously massage her wrists and, when she no longer had an excuse for thus using her hands, he demanded crisply, "Strip."
The single word was like a blow. Vanessa realized that she had expected to be made naked but not by so civilized a course. She had supposed her clothes would be torn from her by the savage wrenching of rough male hands. She could have born that better than what was now required. To strip naked of her own volition before these hungry male eyes, so close and so wickedly wise, was an act from which she instinctively shrunk with ever fiber of her being. Miserably she implored, "Please don't make me, please don't. It's something I simply can't do."
Sykes shrugged. He rummaged around and produced the slender length of a riding crop which showed every evidence of much use, it was soiled and wickedly limber. He laid it, without comment, where it would be within her vision at all times, sarcastically suggesting, "You'd like to rephrase that last statement, Miss Pilgrim?"
With a sob of defeat Miss Pilgrim reached for the fastening of her dress.
It was Vanessa Pilgrim's first time. She had never thought of herself as naive or innocent, but she had never removed her clothes while a man, at little more than arm's length, watch her make herself naked for his pleasure. Her skin burned as if scorched and she knew a blush was mantling not only her face and neck but encroaching on her shoulders, now wickedly bare.
"Your every bit as good as I hoped." Sykes conceded in a tone which told the now naked girl he was pleased. "Damned if I see what made you a school teacher, you could have made a fortune as a model or in the movies, that figure you're showing me is absolutely magnificent." He paused as though searching for superlatives. "Look, Sweetheart, take your hand away from your twat. Just let your arms hang limp, don't cover anything. I'm taking inventory."
Rape would be very close now, and he had said something about a thrashing. It was all unreal and hard to reconcile to this man's amused attitude over her dismay in nudity. Seeing no profit in refusal, Vanessa raised first one leg up on a chair then the other to enable her owner to inspect her pubic area and the secret lips she longed to hid. But whenever she instinctively reached to cover a private place, she saw the crop and, even though she had never been struck in her life, could feel the cut and bit of it searing her skin. She contented herself with supposing that if a man saw a part of a girl's nudity he might as well see it all. She postured herself this way and that for his examination to a point almost clinical. He left her breasts until the last, slapping away her hands and using his own to judge and feel their firm contours. When he backed away he nodded again in confirmation, "You're prime, absolutely prime. Damned it, I never realized there was anything like you in that old mission house. I'm a lucky man. Let me tell you, Honey, you're being damned sensible."
"Thank you. May I dress now?"
It was days later before Vanessa Pilgrim could understand the truly genuine laughter with which her request was greeted. "Honey, you ain't got the message yet, have you. Damn it girl, you haven't any more need of clothes than one of those monkeys out there in the trees. What I want you to do is gather up everything you've just taken off, including your shoes, and put them over there inside that little cook stove. Then set fire to 'em."
She obeyed but did so in a daze of misery. She knew Sykes was telling her something in the most forcible way he could devise. He was going to keep her naked and this almost ceremonial burning of her clothes was an accentuation she would not forget. Tearfully, she crammed the scanty things and expense shoes into the fire box and accepted his offer of a match and a bottle of lighter fluid. When the blaze was at its peak and she knew herself devoid of covering, she turned to face the Macusi mercenary. Beneath his approving gaze she longed for covering, for the covering which presumably she would never know again. Impelled by a loathing she asked, simply, "Please don't tie me again. Honest, Mr. Sykes, there's no need of it. You've got me. I'll give you my parole, if you wish."
She could say nothing that did not delight or amuse. Dismally she watched him search and produce shiny metal, the sight of which made her winced. "I thought those things were for criminals. I'm not a criminal," she said defensively.
"Hell no, Sweetheart, these are the handiest little domestic gadgets you ever saw. They're a real help to us men. Every home should have a couple sets of handcuffs and a pair of leg irons. Turn your back to me and stand still."
Even in the heat the steel of the chrome cuffs was cold upon Vanessa's ankles. The racket sang its song of jubilation as the metal band was made snug and tight. The process was repeated on her other foot before she was turned around and told to hold out her hands, and she dutifully performed and watched while shining bit at each wrist to join her hands by a single link. Still thinking of criminal connotations, she said miserably, "I don't deserve this, these are hateful things."
"Just a convenience, Sweetheart, nothing to do with deserving anything, but if you prefer rope we can easily go back to it?"
"No, never mind!"
"Discovered they're more comfortable, hey?" Sykes laughed at her unintentional admission, "Don't say I didn't do something for you. Those little trifles will keep you safe and out of harm and they won't hurt, not unless you tug and struggle with them. Look, Honey, I've got things to do. I'll be back to have coffee with you. In the meantime you can hunt around for the makings. It will give you something to do while I'm gone."
Vanessa's first thought was of covering, a blanket, a towel, anything. But that was absurd. Her second thought was a conviction of helplessness, she had always equated handcuffs and leg irons with total loss of the limbs thus imprisonment. She was surprised now to discover there was so much she could easily do with linked hands and joined feet. It was humiliating and she felt ridiculous but nonetheless she had no trouble in gathering up what Sykes had called the "makings." The comforting smell of perking coffee returned her to a rational assessment of possibilities. One thing was sure, she could not escape. To stumble out into the trees thus handicapped would be madness. True, she could walk but she could not ran and would stumble constantly and would trip over the swirling chain by which her feet were captured and held captive. The handcuffs on her wrists would insure her loosing any tussle or fight which might ensue. Ironed as she was a child could control her easily. But above these consideration was the assurance of pain and rape. Both seemed remote in the quiet, rough comfort of this temporary dwelling. But it was only a partial comfort to know the use of her nakedness would come about by a more civilized process than she had expected while walking from the mission house into the trees. Vanessa was still hot with shame and anger at the thought of being duped, but she had only Sykes' word for the assurance the Mission and those within would not have been destroyed even had she failed to obey the demand of the bull-horn. From what Sykes had told her she had to believe he would have kidnapped her in any case. Perhaps all she had save by her sacrifice was the two nuns. She had no doubt Sister Faith and Sister Francis were as desirable beneath their clothes as she herself. She wondered, caustically, if Sykes would have had a sufficient supply of handcuffs and chains for all three.
The coffee imposed its customary magic. The two of them, the man and his captive, sat and poured. They spoke of mundane things and Vanessa's spirits rose only to be dashed after the final cup by being picked up bodily, her linked hands snared over a convenient hook, so as to cause her to stand on the tips of her toes stretched and bare and frighteningly venerable. Without preamble, Rod Sykes picked up the riding crop and proceeded to give Miss Vanessa Pilgrim the thrashing he had promised. In the confusion of unbearable pain, Vanessa pleaded, she yelled, she wounded her ironed wrists by lifting herself from the floor in futile anguish. Nothing helped, nothing stayed the male hand or the male purpose. She was to be thrashed as a matter of course, a part of her indoctrination into slavery by the manner of Sykes implanting that limber horror around her curves and planes and across her hips. Vanessa sensed his conviction in the purpose of what he did. To her it seemed a senseless cruelty, separating them forever. But her thoughts and exclamations were far from coherent as the pliant wand cut at her innocent again and again and again until, after the twentieth stroke, Rod Sykes lifted her from the hook and tossed her on the bunk that served as bed. He separated her knees and brought her feet hard up beneath her burning bottom to reveal that part of her his purpose now demanded. He stripped and she beheld his strength and masculinity. Rod Sykes was a big, hard male. And the weapon by which Vanessa would be impaled put to shame any previous knowledge or fantasies she had ever had. She viewed it in a momentary horror and dismay before he positioned himself and thrust his rigid hardness between her palpitating lips.
To that point he had been brutal, the pain of her whipping was still a scolding distress of her flesh. But from the moment he slowly began to enter her wet sheath, he became surprisingly gentle and immensely competent. The naked girl Rod Sykes was ravishing had little experience in sexual conquests but sensed herself fortunately in the mercy of his expertise. Understanding her bewilderment at a new and frightening experience, Rod Sykes lifted her arms and thrust her handcuffed wrists behind her head to remove them from interference with his intent. When his immensity of hard rigidity was firmly implanted within the maiden loins he turned his attention to the twin breasts pointing so flagrantly in wanton curvatures beneath his eyes. By the time he had worked upon them for five minutes, Vanessa Pilgrim had been transported into a multi-hued ecstasy of sensations beyond anything she had ever known or guessed. When the slow rhythm began its protracted prelude to the planting of the seed, she moaned and delivered herself utterly to the moment which was now.
Well satisfaction, Rod Sykes resumed his clothes, kissed her forehead as might a brother, and left her sprawled on his bed while he went about his affairs. Vanessa slept.
The act was repeated throughout the night. The man and the girl would sleep in a dreamless appeasing of emotional fatigue only to awaken as though by instinct and once more plunge into their discovery of each other. Vanessa remained chained throughout but became adept in the use of cuffed hands and linked feet. She still thought of what was being done to her as rape until she finally realized she was as much a partner in the act as the thrusting male who she could now accommodate with simple easy and enjoy with a flame of ecstasy. As if to make her aware of the increased joy, her whipped flesh contributed it's own burning feelings to the act of love. She rejected the word "love" but could think of none other by which to describe the things they did. In the morning she made breakfast and she and Rod Sykes ate it together as might any man and wife. It was all utterly unreal.
It was also the end of the beginning.
CHAPTER TWO - FETTERED FRUSTRATION
It was strange and frightening to stand naked and chained to watch the cavalcade rumble and jolt its way through the brush. The soldiers frankly enjoyed her. This was their first glimpse of her nakedness. Rod Sykes stood beside her but even his bulk was dwarfed, as was her own, by the passing of the wagons and the encroachment of the loneliness of Africa. With the passing of the last of the cavalcade. Rod knelt down and freed her feet. With the silver leg irons dangling he said, jovially, "You're on your own, Sweetheart." He laughed at his own joke. "You've become a camp follower, you walk along behind. I could make you do it with the leg irons on you ankles but that might be a bit rough, so I won't. Have a nice day all to yourself."
"But I can run, I can run away!" Vanessa said stupidly in suddenly dismay. "Why are you doing this?"
"Just a whim, Sweetheart. Pretty little male fantasy I have of you. I'm going back up front. I'll have to run and if you want to come alone you best not stand here too long wondering what to do. Of course, if you're thinking of escape " he made a wide, all encompassing gesture with his arm, "why go right ahead. Take any direction you please. You'll find a path here and there, maybe one of them will lead you someplace."
He was gone, his long strides slowly overtaking his tiny army and the hard working tractor at its head. Vanessa stood in naked bewilderment, her chained hands awkward in their limited freedom. Her first impulse was escape but the disappearing cavalcade left her in a frightening void, naked and handcuffed in an Africa wilderness... ! It was too utterly impossible. But might not this be Sykes way of getting rid of her? Yesterday and throughout the night he had enjoyed her to the full, used her in the totality of male desire, whipped and violated her flesh. Perhaps for all his talk of slave traders her would be glad to see her go... ! But that could not be true for he had left her wrists locked in shinning steel. Had he intended to cast her adrift he would have freed her hands as he had her feet. No, there must in another intention in his devious mind. With a sob of frustration she began to walk then to run after the last of the wagons before it disappeared around a bend.
Vanessa was annoyed with everything, particularly with the handcuffs, not that they stopped her running, they simply made her feel ridiculous as her joined hands found no rhythm in motion. Where ever she held them they were in the way. Since she had apparently rejected the forest and sought only the seeming safety of the cavalcade, she was in a panic to catch up with it. She could imagine all sorts of horrors at her back and was thankful when she finally reached the last wagon and was greeted by the cheers and laughter of the men who rode in it while she must trudge along behind. She could cover nothing so they might as well look their full. Vanessa supposed she could continue to run and overtake other segments of the mobile encampment but where ever she went she would remain naked and men would laugh. Rod Sykes was probably back inside his trailer. Disgusted with herself and with the fate delivering her to this servitude she pouted sulkily and strode forward with a will and without any wish to be left behind.
It was hot and it was dusty. Vanessa essayed excursions up besides the wagons, first one side then the other, in an effort to get away from the enveloping dust. She finally took a position half way along and to one side and, in spite of amused and watching eyes, tried to immerse herself in thought. It was a thankless task. Rod Sykes defeated her utterly. One moment kind and then suddenly cruel. She remembered his warning when she had finished their easy commune at breakfast, "Look girl, don't get ideas. I'm good in bed and so are you, that doesn't mean we have to get married or we're in love. That's all it does mean, we relate in sex. There's no mystery about it. I've had captive girls before fall in love with me, or what they think is love, simply because I'm the only white man in their life and when they look around Africa they're scared shitless of making a break for it or that I'll tire of them and cast them adrift. Forget romance, I'll enjoy you and you'll enjoy me. If you give me the least a bit of trouble or insolence, I'll whip your ass until you can't sit down."
"You've done that already."
"So, OK, you've got a sore ass but there's plenty of places to whip a girl besides her rump. Your back hurts twice as bad, remember that."
Vanessa was annoyed by the truth of his remarks. Naked and chained and far from home it would be all too easy for a girl to fall in love with her captor, even though he be brutal. Rod Sykes was a pillar of strength to cling to and she warned herself against the insidious possibility of falling in love with his maleness. She could accept all he had done to her as an inevitable part of captivity, but she had best leave it at that and not get silly, girlish notions. His threats of whipping her for infractions of his rules would probably be born out and would aid her in this determination to avoid emotional entanglement. In frustration and a stolid determination not to be abandon she strode along besides the watching black faces and fought the incessant irritation of the best manner in which to hold her hands. Leaving the handcuffs on her wrists had been just plain mean.
At midday they did not stop. The tractor with its roar kept stubbornly on its course, it was tireless. But the girl who walked in chained loneliness discovered weariness to make her look at the ugly vehicles with longing. Had she believed she could swing herself up on to one of them, she would have done so. But the attempt would probably only end in injury and she had troubles enough.
In early afternoon Rod dismounted and walked beside her for a brief visit and to assure himself of her ability to withstand the ordeal he'd imposed. He rebuffed her instant request to be allowed to ride, and then laughed to scorn her pleading to be rid of the handcuffs on her wrists. He had set a course for her and she must follow it. In the meantime they could speak of other things. "Got yourself a boyfriend someplace?" he asked laconically.
"I haven't."
"Good. I hate boyfriends. Boyfriends are a pain in the ass for any girl -- even if that's not the side of her they use." He gave her his assessing, sideways glance. "You were damned near a virgin yesterday, weren't you?"
"I suppose so, yes, by your standards. I don't mind admitting you taught me a lot, I expect you know."
"Oh, I know alright, and let me tell you, you came along wonderfully after the first hesitations. I suppose you were expecting to be tom, and pierced and tossed to the blacks, weren't you?' "Yes, I suppose so. I'll admit you were a surprise." She faced him squarely, "Look, Mr. Sykes, what should I call you? You call me Vanessa except when you want to be rude, but for me to call you Mr. Sykes all the time seems ridiculous."
"Call me Rod, that's my name."
"But isn't that too intimate for what you've made of me? Wouldn't 'Sir' or maybe 'Master' be more appropriate?"
"Sure. To you I'm all of those titles. Use any one you wish. I don't mind." His tone, generously good-natured, turned hard. "But remember this, I won't stand for insolence or any female twisting of the male. Try those tricks and you'll get the whipping of your life. And don't think I won't. I enjoy whipping you That's something else you'd best remember. I enjoy seeing those marks spring to life across your skin."
Vanessa swallow hot. This man was venerable in a way he might not guess. Some woman must have hurt him in the past. She would make allowances and do her best to keep within the latitudes of his law. Instinct told her she would be whipped anyway, she sensed his hungry for this cruelty, this erotic indulgence of the flesh. But she would wait and watch for her chance. This was only the second day.
Vanessa thought surprisingly little about escape. Knowing herself less a prisoner of Sykes than of Africa. After her captor had returned to his trailer and what he described vaguely as "work," she accused herself bitterly of cowardice for not allowing her steps to lag until she was once more behind the end wagon and then to quietly slip into the trees. It would be so easy. But probably Rod Sykes was having her watched and pursuit would begin the moment she was out of sight. Everything was ponderable and beyond the capacity of a handcuffed girl to cope. Disgusted with herself and with this whole adventure, she plodded steadily and doggedly to whatever fate had in store.
By evening they skirted a river and stopped for the night. The black soldiers entertained by one of their number, chosen by Sykes, to remove the day's dust from the perspiring nakedness of the captive girl. This was done simply and efficiently with a bucket which splashed and poured water over her by the gallon while she was forced stand, an indignity she was glad enough to accede to. Even her hair was deluged and clean but left for handcuffed hands to deal with as best they could. In an excess of zeal, two of the men raised her by her legs to spread her wide and expose her most secret place for its own special cleaning by bucket after bucket of cold water. If Rod Sykes saw what was happening, he gave no sign nor did he interfere. By the time she was led to his trailer and thrust inside she was dripping and sodden and close to tears. But he had a towel ready and she used it vigorously along with the unsuspected comb and brush which accompanied it. Perhaps he told the truth when he spoke of other conquests of other girls for, indeed, here was evidence of feminine needs. Vanessa used them all to the fullest extent and felt vastly better.
"Tired, Sweetheart?" There was a faint solicitude in the query.
"Of course, I'm tired. I've walked steadily all day, my feet are chewed up by the things I've walked on."
"I guess you'd like to give them a rest?" His tone showed concern.
"Yes, may I sit down? Its going to feel so damned good."
"OK. Hold out your hands."
Vanessa saw the trap too late. Not that it would have done her any good to have seen it in time. Glumly she extended her wrists and watched them relieved of the now again shining steel. They were immediately retied with a bandage of cloth she recognized as a soldier's puttee. This in turn was circled by rope and Vanessa glimpsed her fate.
"Bit of a disappointment, I'm sure, but I'm not going to whip your ass tonight. There's lots of ways to make a girl can feel sorry for herself besides wealing her skin." His voice was full of concern for her welfare.
It was hateful and cruel. Vanessa knew she should have expected something of the sort. Rod Sykes cheerfully confirmed her worst suspicions. "Don't suppose you've ever been hung up, have you, Love?"
Rod's facetious query was loaded with sarcasm. "Well, you're going to be hung up now. Just hold still a minute, I'll do all the work."
Vanessa held still but was instantly raised to where her arms could be slipped over the familiar ring. But this time when the male strength released her nakedness it hung free, her toes searching for a floor they could not reach. The distance between them and the solid space on which to stand was small but it was enough. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim hung naked and in total suspension from bound wrists. True, her wrists were bound kindly enough with strip after strip of material that would not cut or injure but nevertheless the stress on her arms and shoulders was serve and it constituted a form of punishment she had never imagined. She wondered if it could be called torture, it was all so matter- of-fact and unconcerned. Mr. Rod Sykes had simply suspended his slavegirl for a period she could not determine and there was nothing she could do about it. Hating the indignity she determined not to plead nor demand his reasons. She knew herself the victim of caprice. If it pleased her captor to have a naked girl thus suspended by her wrists, Rod Sykes was omnipotent enough to get away with it. His voice was so cheerful she longed to scream.
"Nice little diversion, get you off your feet after a hard day. You can watch me get dinner. I'm not a bad cook, we'll dine in style and there's a bottle of wine in the fridge. I'd advise you not to beef too much about what I've done to you. Like I've said, for a girl like you things can get much, much worse."
Vanessa longed to plead. It was a hateful inflection to hang like a side of beef. Her feet could find nothing on which to bare her weight. Her pride forbid her kicking in contortions of frustrated distress. She quickly realized it best to hang limp and passive, that way it hurt the least. But it hurt enough, her shoulders were wracked and in spite of the bindings, her wrists protested in a constant nag of pain. She could well guess a girl hung up as she was hung up would, within an hour, come to the point of tears and screaming. She was already utterly disorganized by the unfamiliar ordeal. With only small comprehension she watched her master go about the business of preparing a gourmet dinner from a fridge she had not bothered to explore. He was obviously taking his time and enjoying her intent observation of all he did. He knew damned well she was longing for the moment of release. He would therefore prolong it as far into the near future as he decently could. From time to time he surveyed her stretched and wracked nakedness and, with an immense show of appreciation, palmed her sex so prominently displayed and available. Vanessa could kick him but did not dare. Instead she hung in a passivity she did not feel and allowed him to have his way with her. By the time pots were steaming and cutlery gleamed on white napery she was panting in full arousal and wondering what it would be like to have an orgasm thus suspended.
"Think Fm a real bastard, Sweetheart?" For a moment Rod stood before her to appraise her suffering. Vanessa almost wished it was worse than it was to excuse screams by which to disturb his enjoyment. For her it was the strangest of punishments, something she had never dreamed of, a torture made bearable by a male hand which was not familiar with every crevasse of her body, and what was worse, her mind. She was totally possessed and allowed herself to hang limply and without complaint while he deal with her nakedness as a musician might deal with a violin, playing upon it to extract every sob and moan of anguish hidden in its wood and in its string. When, finally, his finger entered her sheath and sought her love bud, Miss Vanessa Pilgrim moaned in the strangest of ecstasies and howled herself into one of the most violent orgasms she had ever know. Rod Sykes was with her to the final twitch and exhalation of exhausted breath. When he knew her replete and satisfied he turned his back upon her suspended loveliness to attend to dinner.
Everything fell into place. The bemused and tumescence slavegirl realized what had happened was no more than an incident likely to be repeated again and again in days to come. If it was not the whip upon her skin or suspension it would be some other equally ingenious and degrading punishment. In all he did to her Rod Sykes showed a keen appreciation of humiliation and shame, she would be made to know both to the utmost limits of her capacity. Hanging in the aftermath of climax she could wish with all her heart for a resumption of the ministrations of his hand but this was denied and the denial was a fresh affirmation of his mastery over her. She was a nothing, a puppet on a string. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim wished she could feel worse about it than she did.
She hung in uncomplaining submission to her master.
"I think you'll enjoy this. It's been frozen, of course, like everything else except the wine but they do wonders with frozen stuff these days and the Macusi can do anything these days with all that lovely Russian money. You must try and get a little comfort. Honey, from remembering that you're eating a hell of a lot better and drinking a finer wine than the people who're financing this war."
Vanessa made no answer. She was existing in a vacuum of glorious relief, feeling only a great thankfulness to be able to sit down and examine the weals on her wrists the handcuffs could not hide. When the end of her punishment had come and her master desired her presence at the dinner table, being excused from farther suspension and her bandaged wrists unbound to be immediately placed once more in the bondage of the steel cuffs. Vanessa did not care. All she wanted was a cessation of pain and a return to normalcy. She accepted the glass of wine with an infinite thankfulness and drank it down like water. She knew her voice sounded broken and hopeless but did not care.
"I suspect you've made a science of breaking a girl's will, Rod Sykes. You seem to have adequately broken mine, right now I wouldn't say boo to a goose. After what you've just done to me these handcuffs feel fine on my wrists, I'm almost grateful for them.
Her host laughed delightedly, "And so you should be, my dear. You'll get a lot of comfort out of those handcuffs before I'm through with you. Damned sight better than being bound with cord or rawhide or anything else. It's best you get fond of them because you and those handcuffs are going to spend a lot of time together." He eyed her shrewdly as he refilled he glass, "Bit of a shock for you, wasn't it? I mean that hanging up with your toes unable to touch the floor."
"Of course it was. I've led a normal life thus far. Everything you do to me is something I can't quite believe." She eyed him across the table, she tilted her glass for one more swallow, "Do you mind if I get drunk? I've never been drunk but I think this might be a good time to start."
"Of course I mind, you little idiot." He was once again the rough, tough product of Africa. "I don't want to fuck a girl who flops all over the place or is mundane or tearful. Be yourself. Make that glass last. I'll ration you."
Vanessa rationed herself. To get tipsy would probably lead to another punishment and she had had enough. Instead she proceeded to enjoy the fruits of her master's labors, they were extraordinarily good but, when she said so, his retort was typical.
"Thank the Russians, not me. The Russians have financed this whole damned operation." He grinned across the table, "I'd pop a commissar in bed with you if I had one around handy, just to show our gratitude." Vanessa ignored the Russians but ate ravenously. Handcuffs no longer bothered her. She supposed Rod Sykes was correct in his assertion they would be a part of her. After the feast there was superlative coffee and she knew he watched for her approval. She gave it without stint, it was superlatively good. Replete, they sat and stared at each other until Vanessa's head drooped wearily within the comfort of locked arms and she went to sleep at the dinner table, a thing she had never done in all her life. When she awoke it was bright morning and Sykes was busy with his razor.
"Figured I'd let you catch up on bye-bye, Honey," he said without concern. "In case you're wondering you'll discover one of you feet is sort of attached. Didn't want you to go wandering in the middle of the night."
He was right. When she tried to leave the bunk Vanessa discovered her left ankle was firmly shackled to something very firm indeed. Rod Sykes had taken no chances and from this fact Vanessa gleamed the feminine intuition of affection. He had not some much desired to keep her prisoner as to avoid the danger of her wandering off into the wilderness naked and alone. She shrugged and wondered quietly to herself if she had scored a point.
Breakfast was her chore. She prepared it while her master was busy beyond the confines of their trailer. The tractor started up while they were still eating and they finished their meal under the jolting discomfort of an African dirt track. Rod's voice was bantering.
"Remember what I said about things always getting worse. Well, Honey, that's the way it's going to be for you today. I feel something of a hero over leaving you to sleep the night away so I'm getting my own back." He saw the sudden fear within her eyes and hastened to reassure, "But don't worry, it won't be nothing you can't bear. Everyday you'll become a more and more valuable property as we return to where a girl is appreciated for what she is, a slave to be bartered." He laughed at her obvious chagrin. But his tone suddenly lost its banter, "But not to worry. You're for me and me alone for a long, long time. If you cherish that female fantasy of being sold at auction on the slave block, forget it. The day may come but it's far away from now."
Vanessa bore the changing of her hands from front to back without demur. This man who owned her now was a capricious schoolboy and she must always expect the unexpected. Yesterday she had walked almost free beside the caravan, but today was different. When Rod Sykes carried her from his trailer, unlocked the handcuffs but only to lock them again behind her back, Vanessa guessed her day would indeed carry more travail than yesterday. He strapped a collar around her throat, a quite lovely collar she had not time to examine, and from it he tied a lease to a ring in the back of his own personal trailer. She moaned inwardly but said no word. She would walk through the day, loosely tethered to the vehicle which would inexorably lead her into a permanent captivity. Knowing herself incapable of either defense or aggression, a girl with hands tightly cuffed behind her back is no longer a human entity, but has become a chattel. Without expectation of benefit she asked, "Do you have to do this to me, Rod? If I happen to fall or stumble I could break my neck. Why can't you let me walk free as I did yesterday?"
He laughed. "Male caprice, that's all, Sweetheart, it pleases me to see you this way, so that's the way it is. Takes a bit of getting used to, I expect, but you'll adjust, all of them do. Not much different really except for the compulsion of the collar. All you have to do is keep walking same as before." He patted her bare bottom and drifted back to deal with matters beyond her ken. Throughout the morning, whenever he passed her in his leap up into his trailer, she forbore pleading and complaint, keeping instead a haughty and disdainful silence as she marched forward in a procession she could not control. By afternoon she pleaded whenever he came into view and by evening her pleas were heartbroken in fatigue. But by evening they had reached the town of Lakesh, the immediate destination of Rod Sykes and his troop and of his slave. Vanessa was never more thankful in her life as when the snorting monster belched its last diesel fumes and fell silent and the wheels she had followed all day ceased to revolve. She leaned against the trailer of her master in naked helplessness for a few minutes and was ever so grateful when he freed her lease and let her within the relative luxury of his mobile home. Within the silent interior she did not care even if she was whipped, it was so damned good to be given permission to sit down. Vanessa was expecting a repetition of the previous day, some humiliating pain followed by a gala dinning event and Rod Sykes' exposition of his views. But she had forgotten Lakesh. Lakesh boasted a military barracks and a jail, relics of British rule in past years. Since the women of the town wore little or nothing Vanessa was noticeable only for her white skin as she was led from the mobile home to the fortress-like bulk of the barracks. Looking at it she quailed -- if she had been prisoner before, she would be doubly prisoner now.
"I've made myself comfortable, got a damned nice apartment fixed up and you can have a bath. There's plenty of things to tie you to or hook you up with a chain and downstairs there's the cells. We've kept those cells in good order and you'll be safe enough in any one of them." He laughed at her sudden dismay, "Don't worry you don't get put in a cell while I'm around, only when I'm called away in a big hurry, or maybe if you don't behave yourself."
There it was again always this insistence on obedience, on being a good little girl according to the Sykes' precepts. Vanessa stifled pride and bore the curious stares of the passersby until they reached the shelter of the barrack walls. From somewhere came the smell of cooking and she realized the pangs of hunger.
The apartment was a relief after the trailer. The walls were of mellow stone, untouched by interior decoration but there were hanging rugs and a picture or two and the effeminate prisoner couldn't help but noticing the heavy rings firmly embedded and waiting to be put to use. The place was a jumble of male gear and male furnishing but had an atmosphere of home. The entire of one long room was open to the air and the shaded side of the building. There was a balcony and a view of the huge courtyard below, surrounded by a forbidding wall. It was all very much in the British tradition of law and order. Rod Sykes instantly played host, "There's the bathroom, Sweetheart, enjoy it. You'll actually find hot water, you can soak in the tub as long as you like and there's a few odds and ends you'll probably enjoy using. Don't stay there all night. When you're through we'll have cocktails and they'll serve us dinner at our pleasure." He laughed delightedly, "I'm something of a person here, I'm the Commandant."
Vanessa felt only relief. She might share Rod Sykes' pride in possession but for the moment she was tired and the prospect of a bath was almost compensation for the day on a leash. She held out her handcuffed wrists and made what seemed to her an obvious query, "Please?"
"Never give up, do you?" he laughed at her innocent assumption that she would be freed. "Remember what I told you about things always getting worse for a girl if she didn't know when she was well off." He searched for and found the leg irons and fastened them on her rebellious ankles, then laughed again at even more rebellion in her features when he rose erect. His voice was mocking, "Go ahead and sulk but get in that bathroom before I deny you the privilege. Damn it girl, you're being treated like a princess and all you do is pout!"
Vanessa was aware of a growing blush of shame at the truth of what he had said. She turned hurriedly and walked her shackled and hobbled steps to the door and was thankful for the seclusion when she closed it behind her back. She knew the handcuffs would impede little of her mission and resolves to complain about them less.
The bathroom was scarcely equal to "American standards" but was surprisingly modem. The biggest surprise of all was the array of bottles and jars specifically designed for feminine use. Inconsistently she had to quench a pang of jealousy about those other girls who had entered this place in the same condition as she. Vanessa found herself unwilling to be one of a long line of captives who gave but a passing pleasure to their master before being dismissed and replaced.
The hot, soapy water cured everything. For the moment there was nothing but a chained and naked girl playing with the soap under the sponge and luxuriating in purely sensuous pleasure. The handcuffs denied her nothing and the leg irons had never been more than a humiliating mark of a man's authority. When she was dry she turned her attention avidly to the jars and bottles and the electric hair drier, forgetting the girls who had used them previously and diverting their whole purpose to herself. The result was gratifying, gazing into the sizable mirror she felt better able to cope with what she must. No doubt this enhancement of her beauty would provoke Rod Sykes to fresh expressions of carnality. But she cheerfully went to seek his approval, the chain between her feet singing a metallic accompaniment to her captive walk, her joined hand passive above her pubic bush.
Lakesh in the cool of evening offered comparative comfort to the soldier and his prize. The heat and dust and courtyard reaching them from across the open balcony were modified by approaching night. The man and the naked girl both knew themselves aliens in a strange and distant place. But a conqueror is a conqueror no matter where he may be and the same was true of the slave. Africa encircled them in a temporary benevolence.
Vanessa supposed here was no great humiliation in being told to mix their cocktails and to serve her master on her knees. Since there was none to watch, the exercise was not without a quiet humor and a silent communion between the two of them. When she was told to kneel in her chains, to sip her drink beneath his satisfied regard, she made no complaint but arranged herself at his feet and did as she was told. The drink was pure nectar to a parched throat.
"You looked damned good. Sweetheart," Rod Sykes conceded cheerfully. "I'm not a guy to fail to see when a woman's trying to look her best. With a girl like you that bathroom pays dividends." He sipped in quiet meditation before delivering his bombshell, "Would you like me to whip you before or after dinner?"
"Is that a serious question or are you having me on?"
"Dead serious, Sweetheart When you're around me you can figure on a certain amount of pain. It will never be enough to injure you but enough to keep chastened."
"Suppose it has the other effect, makes me hostile and rebellious and filled with hate?"
"That's a good question. But we'll find out, won't we. I wouldn't really recommend the course you've mentioned, but if it's the one you decide to take I'll find pleasure in breaking you."
"That's horrible!"
"Well, perhaps. What you have to remember, Vanessa, is I'm a much privileged man. I've got what most men dream of. Look at you now, a simply beautiful slavegirl kneeling in chains before her master. What man wouldn't give half his life to possess you." He laughed at the indignation clouding her features, "The only discordant note is the cocktail. The conventional picture would have you groveling in the dust at my feet."
"I can do that for you in the courtyard, if you want to take that much trouble," Vanessa offered. "I don't see why we have to dwell so much on the pain you want to inflect on me. There must be other things we can talk about?"
Rod Sykes tilted his empty glass upside down, "Didn't take as long to dispose of those. Sweetheart. Mix a couple more and we'll talk about the politics of Lakesh, if that would amuse you."
"You like to watch my chained walk back and forth, don't you? You like to hear the sound of my shackled feet and the clink of my handcuffs. " Vanessa rose and collected his glass, as she walked towards the sideboard and its tiny bar she said resignedly, "Yes, you are a lucky man, don't think I fail to understand. If any girl was made to feel a slave that girl is me."
Rod Sykes was enjoying himself. He accepted his drink from the kneeling girl but abruptly asked, "You didn't answer my question?"
"Oh, that!" Vanessa shrugged. "I prefer to be whipped after dinner, thank you. " She laughed a sad, small laugh of deprecation. "And I'll frankly admit I'm choosing that time simply to delay the evil moment. I'm too hungry to allow it to spoil my dinner."
"Never had one like you before," Rod Sykes commented, eyeing her with the pride of possession. "You're figuring everything to seek the ultimate advantage, not that you have much scope but just the same that's what you're doing and I admire you immensely. That's a quality I'm not going to whip out of you. You'd make a man a damned good wife if he could keep up with you."
"Thank you. But you appear to have obviated that possibility in my future. I don't suppose girls like me ever get married."
"If the Macusi ever did take over the Republic of Congi, I might sell you to the chap who'll take over in that case. He'd probably value a white consort and add a bit of respectability to his image with the United Nations." He considered the naked girl thoughtfully. "I could probably get quite a bit of cash out of him for you as well as promotion to head of the armed forces. Might work out pretty good all around. What do you think?"
What Vanessa thought made the metal circles on her wrists and ankles feel doubly heavy and twice as tight. She could feel this hot, dry land clutching her forever in its maw. She doubted she would ever keep track of Sykes' changing moods to detect true feelings beneath his raillery. Seeking conversation she inquired, "Supposing this happened the way you say, would this Ruler whip me the way you do? Would I be meeting the foreign diplomats with a scarred back beneath by pretty clothes?" She sniffed and eyed Sykes dubiously over the rim of her glass. "That's not likely to happen and you know it isn't. Why, in such a circumstance, I could escape all over the place. I could appeal to the US consulate, I could get in a car and drive away, get on a plane and be back in the USA in no time." She snickered. "Or would I be chained at all times, even in public?"
"Gosh, that's quite a mouthful, Sweetheart. With the attitude you've got now he'd probably keep you locked up and you ankles ironed. As for his whipping you, he wouldn't stoop so low. The guy who's in office right now has a sort of Lord High Executioner who does these little jobs. Whenever a lady of the court fails to please, even though she's someone's wife, she gets sent downstairs with a note and is dealt with accordingly. The name of the present incumbent in the presidency is Nagoda, I understand he only comes down to see the unfortunate maiden in the last stages by which time she is usually amenable to reason and likely to promise never to be naught again. Not a bad system, at least it's decisive and direct."
"If I asked you to please not whip me after dinner, would it do any good?"
"Not at all, you knew that before you asked."
Vanessa gulped savagely at an empty glass."
CHAPTER THREE - IRON BARS
The device was bitterly humiliating, that it was dragged out from under the bed simply made it worse. It was a segmented box with holes, the intent of which was all too obvious to Vanessa's apprehensive gaze. It was no ancient instrument of torture but of a recent construction with modem latches by which it could be separated and reassembled. "A little invention of my own, Sweetheart, make a nice change for you. Here, you see it's in three parts, one for your ankles, one for you wrists, and the other segment locks the whole together neatly and very securely. Care to step inside?"
"Its a sad and demeaning end to a delightful dinner, Rod."
"Mustn't confuse things, Honeybunch, dinner was dinner. This is punishment. After you've had your pain we'll move on to bed. So you see, you've a lot to look forward to."
"You don't have to do this go me, Rod." She kept her voice low and even. "We both know you don't have to do it."
"Is that a delaying ploy, Sweetheart, or are you working up to something?"
Vanessa's silence was a miserable admission. She searched for words but found no more than an honest expression. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not working up to anything except to tell you I just don't want to be whipped. You've whipped me once already and what I learned from that was that I don't ever want to be whipped again. Please forgive me. I'm only human. Where is it I put my feet?"
Sykes unlatched and separated his creation into its integral parts. Vanessa clinked her way unhappily to humiliation and a fresh ignominy. Suggestively she raised one shackled foot and clinked its chain. Without a word her master used his key to free her feet for their fresh captivity. Equally silent Vanessa stepped within the appointed place and fit her ankles into orifices apparently tailored for them. The center segment was thrust home to imprison them tightly, latches clicked. As though in a trance she held out her cuffed hands and watched the key work its magic to make them free. Still without a word she bent down and placed her hands as she had placed her feet, the third segment closed upon her wrists to clutch them tight. Latches clicked again and Miss Vanessa Pilgrim stood in the most shaming nakedness of her enslavement. Her feet and hands were held within the space of ten or twelve inches but her legs were more separated than her hands. Striving to move she discovered she could indeed move every part of herself except hands and feet, they were locked immovably within what Rod Sykes referred facetiously as the "Hot Box." Vanessa was wryly certain it would never be as hot as one other part of her person. "Recognize the pose, Honeybunch?"
"Yes, I recognize it. It's the old English thing, isn't it, the touch your toes business?"
"Right! The benefit of the Hot Box is it stops you from changing your mind. If you're in there for six or ten or twenty you have to stick it out. But you'll be surprised at the contortions you'll come up with... that is, unless you decide to play the haughty lady suffering martyrdom disdainfully?"
"I wish I could, but it hurts too much. If you'll forgive me I'll just act naturally."
"That a girl! You're probably thinking your poor bottom's had all it can take but, believe me, that's not so, a girl's bottom has a marvelous resiliency, it always comes back for more. But out of difference to your sentiments I'll give you a part of this little lot down below on your thighs. It hurts a lot worse but they're still delightfully virgin." He considered his captive, walking around several times to enjoy every facet of her humiliating pose. "Would I be right, Vanessa, "in supposing that at least half the punishment you are now commencing lays in the shame of being forced to bend over and expose your bottom in the same way as a delinquent Victorian miss?"
"That's right. I'm hating every moment. But are there any other statistics you'd like me to comment on?"
Vanessa had crossed the line into forbidden insolence, he reward was instant. She chocked back a cry of shock and outrage as her thighs were cut just below the curvature of her bottom by a blow she was certain was the cruelest yet. Despite noblest intentions she could not forbear sounds nor the weaving of her punished seat and the bending of her knees. It was all futile, no matter how she contorted she would always present a perfect target for whatever weapon Sykes chose to use on her flesh. She heard her own voice, as if from a distance, pleading, "Must you hit me that hard, must you?"
"I'm afraid I must." He voice was controlled in calm and seeming regret. "That one was extra, of course, for the insolence I'm sure you now recognize. It will help you to watch your tongue. We now begin the punishment as planned."
"But you're using a whip on me not the riding crop!"
"I can change back, my dear, if you desire. But the whip is much better suited for the curves I'm attending to this evening than the good old riding crop. The crop might cut, the whip won't."
Vanessa Pilgrim could well believe the Hot Box the worst of this present punishment. It held her implacably and was solidly fastened to the floor. As the lashes fell here and there upon her wealed bottom, and more viciously upon the softness of her thighs, she explored its latitudes to the full, bending and crouching and weaving in a mute eloquentness of agony. When the lash rose up between her thighs to bit her crotch and belly she screamed, a long keening of desolation, and made her only plea, "Don't! Not there, no please, not there!"
"Yes, Vanessa, in there. Learn to like it."
Vanessa Pilgrim had lost count, so could not tell how many strokes her punishment had been. She suspected twenty. When her master tossed aside the whip and devoted himself to the gentle massaging of her wounded parts, which were hot enough to almost scold his hands, she sobbed her way back from pain into a world in which she would soon be loved. Her concern at the moment was to be released from the hated Hot Box. But that was not to be!
"Let you stand a while, Sweetheart, I like the pose. And move all you want." He laughed, "Or should I say all you can. Do you prefer the Hot Box to being hung up by your wrists?"
"I'm sorry but I don't prefer anything, I hate it all. You've just hurt me cruelly, that all I know."
"Well, like I said, things can always get worse. Maybe tomorrow I'll make sure they do. Or the next day or the next. It doesn't matter. I want to get you to where, when a punishment is over, you will say with deep sincerity, 'Thank you, Sir.' I want you to be truly grateful for the attention I'm bothered to bestow."
"I'll say a devotee 'thank you' now if it will do me any good."
"No it won't. The way you're saying that sounds bitter as hell. I want a fervent thank you which comes from the heart, a genuine appreciation of a punishment to aid you in being a better slave." He was laughing at her. Vanessa was sure of it. She had wanted to cry but in her present posture, tears were and added indignity. They would splash down upon the Hot Box and be a glaring demonstration of femininity. She shifted in awkward rebellion but the box held her firm. Rod Sykes compelled her to stand as she was for thirty minutes before unlocking his contraptions and tossing her upon their bed, but was not even then satisfied until he had locked a metal collar around her neck and chained her by an adequate length of links to the inevitable ringbolt in the wall. When he slept she had best sleep to -- for Vanessa Pilgrim there was no escape.
"Rump hurt?" Sykes inquired inquisitively. "It should, I tried to do a job on it."
"Of course it hurts! So do my thighs and that awful stroke you gave me up inside. You didn't have to do that, it hurts abominably."
"You'll get a better orgasm out of it, Honey."
Vanessa knew he probably spoke truth. It was already hard for her to separate the pain of the whip from the heat of her loins, they had blended and become a single, burning flame. Mortified, she knew herself abundantly ready for what the two of them would now do. The sharp friction of the cover beneath her was only fresh fuel to a fire already almost beyond control.
In the morning, in the relatively early sunshine, the slavegirl sat upon the bed and watched her master dress and shave. Her neck remained collared and the chain imposed its compulsion of a limited number of steps. Vanessa did not mind, she was still dreamingly content and beautifully replete. That she was ashamed of both of these sensation altered nothing. She was a slavegirl most adequately used by her master, feeling only gratitude. She hated it but knew it to be true. She resolved to take Sykes' advice and try to see everything done to her within its own context. She had been whipped and that was that! She had been loved and that also had fallen into its own segment of her consciousness. When she was detached from the wall the two of them would go to breakfast and that was something else again. Knowing each of them busy with their own thoughts, she sat in passive captivity to await the conqueror's attention.
At breakfast she discovered herself wearing only the iron collar place on her neck the night before. She spoke of it in genuine curiosity, "Rod, had you forgotten? You've given me my hands and feet. I'm almost free?"
"If you want to look at it that way," he conceded amiably. "I like the effect of that collar, good mind to leave it on you all the time. And it's handy to attach you to things." He chuckled at her earnest regard, "But so far as being free goes, you know you're not. You couldn't get half way across the courtyard or out into the street without being grabbed."
"I didn't mean freedom in that way. I'm just grateful for having my hands and feet for a while, you've no idea how good it feels."
"Make the best of it, Sweetheart, it won't last forever. After we've had coffee long enough, I'll show you why."
There would be a price to pay, Vanessa was sure of it. Her conviction was confirmed when she was led downstairs by a firm grip on her arm, through an increasingly male part of the sizable premises, through doors, passages to where, beside a wide corridor, she saw the line of cells waiting as though expressly for her. There was six of them, each with three stone walls but blatantly open to the thoroughfare without which they could view through solid iron bars and could be themselves gazed upon by any curious passerby. When Sykes unlocked barred door and ushered her within, she said, aggrieved, "You said I wouldn't be put in one of these unless I'd misbehaved or unless you were going far away?"
"Right. I'm not going far away but I've got things to attend to this morning. I've been away for a while. I'm putting you in here, Vanessa, so you can get the feeling of being in a cell. The world's a different place when you look at it through bars, try it and find out." He kissed her, ostentatiously locked the door with her within, waved cheerily and departed out of sight. Vanessa stood nakedly within the tiny space, figuring her collar as she looked around at sparse furnishing. A narrow cot without a mattress, more like a bench than a bed. A wash basin and a toilet. Lakesh was surprisingly modern but everything had an air of being well-used over a long, long time, even the air seemed to have been used and struck her with a strange chill even in the Congi heat. Here in this hateful cell she was confronted with the very basics of imprisonment. She could be kept for an hour or for life. Vanessa shivered and understood Sykes' motive for locking her inside. This place would teach her its own lesson in the same way as the biting blows of the whip and the sore places they left on her soft flesh. Instinctively she walked slowly to the bars, clutched them and looked beyond, but there was nothing to see except the wide passage, there was nothing to do except stand thus and yearn or go back and side upon the bench. She chose the latter, it was equally strange for Sykes to have failed to place irons upon wrists or ankles. But she realized that the cell itself was iron enough, the whole front of it was bars, heavy, ugly iron bars made doubly strong by lateral strips running horizontally from side to side. No one had ever escaped this tiny prison. Ruefully she clutched the door and shook it vigorously without result, it did not move. Seated back upon the bench she gave herself over to dreams of freedom and the life she had lost, but there was little privacy even for that, soldiers passed back and forth, pausing to admire her naked beauty in its cage. There was also civilians bent upon their business. They spoke in a language Vanessa could not reply in. Mischievously she developed a stock answer, "I've been kidnapped. Please tell the American Consul I'm here."
The captive girl tried to divorce herself from peeping toms. Sitting sideways against the open bars and trying to compose her mind to a semblance of order. It was while thus postured she became aware of a different presence, of someone beyond the bars she had best not ignore. She turned and confronted a clean cut American type of about thirty-five or so, attired in a well-tailored business suit, he carried a briefcase and was obviously on business, but was now staring at her in frank astonishment. Without preamble he demanded, "Would you happen to be Miss Vanessa Pilgrim by any chance?"
Vanessa was instantly at the bars, forgetting nakedness, forgetting everything except a ray of hope that at last here was a communion with the outer world to buy release. Breathlessly, she exclaimed, "Yes, but how did you know? You're American, aren't you? Please get me out of here. I've been kidnapped or stolen or anything you want to call it but it's all against my will." She gazed up beseechingly, "Please...?"
"I'm with the State Department doing a tour of this place. We're concerned about Congi, it could go either way. The Consulate heard about your village," he laughed diffidently, "Weil, I suppose we could call it delivering yourself into slavery."
"I thought I was going to rape and an unpleasant death," Vanessa confessed. "Look, I'm terribly sorry about being naked, no one will give me any clothes and I'll bet I'm a problem to you but please, please get me out of here. Take me home. I don't ever want to see Congi again."
"Home... that's a tall order. Miss Pilgrim. By the way my name's Bill Patton and it's pure chance I walked down this passage. They've got a few government offices in this building I was doing business with."
"But if you demand it surely they'll free me into your custody?" Her fists were white as she clutched them around the bars.
"No they won't. The days when the Stars and Strips or the Union Jack meant something here are long gone. Only communication now is with foreign currency. If I'm likely to be a source of foreign aid I'm welcome, if not then I'd best go home."
"But they can't hold me, I've not done anything. I'm innocent! This horrible place makes me feel a criminal and I expect I look like one, but I'm not, I'm not!"
"That's right, you're not," Patton agreed slowly and reluctantly. "Your status is as a prisoner of the military, and it's the military that counts in these parts. You're a prisoner to a man calling himself Rod Sykes, and it could well be his proper name, but in Lakesh he's the Law."
"I'm sure he is. He makes the laws. That doesn't mean you have to obey them, you're an American, you've got diplomatic status, don't you?"
"For what it's worth. But it does not empower me to take sides. Certainly it gives me no authority by which to take a woman from a commandant. Lakesh sees you, Miss Pilgrim, as the property of Rod Sykes and to them this is natural and correct. You are simply part of the spoils of war." He shrugged and made a futile motion with his hands. "The reason the State Department wants to keep an eye on you is in case you get set adrift without any claim upon your person by either side. Its a slim possibility but it just might happen in this ridiculous place. If it does we'll give you every help we can to get you back to the USA in short order."
Vanessa looked through the bars at the gravely smiling face of a fellow American and seethed with frustration and disbelief. Dramatically she turned her back to her visitor and demanded. "Look at that, look at those marks on my skin. They're the marks of a whip! Does the State Department condone that too!"
Vanessa whirled around to confront an obviously troubled man, but the set of his jaw was firm and she realized she was dealing not with an individual but with government policy. Brokenly she exclaimed, "I'm sorry to trouble you. I'm sorry to have been a nuisance. " Bitterly she added, "If you care to report me to the Commandant I'm sure he'd be happy to have me whipped to your satisfaction."
Bill Patton sighed. This naked girl behind the bars was just one more of many frustrations he dealt with daily. In Congi nothing was rational, mostly it was indecent, obscene, cruel. To leave this delightful creature incarcerated within these walls was bitterly against the grain, the thought was revolting. But that was his job and he knew no good could come from interference in local affairs. Vanessa Pilgrim was one of many such young women on whom the State Department tried to keep an eye. Mostly they would vanish without a trace but a rescue had been affected here and there to keep hope alive for others. Perhaps Vanessa Pilgrim's case would be one of them. Stiffly but warmly he told the watching girl, "I'd best leave you, if I linger we will only become increasingly bitter. I told you all there is to tell and I know there's not much hope for you but try and hold to what there is. Some reversal in the fortunates of war could set you free and cast you adrift on almost any day. Pray for it, we'll be there."
To Vanessa Pilgrim it seemed doubly lonely after her compatriot had vanished from view, she shook the bars in petulance and to easy frustration. She wished the incident had not occurred, it only intensified her knowledge of captivity. It was only too evident she belonged to Rod Sykes and no one would say him nay. Unhappily she returned to the bench.
It was easy to see visions, to relate herself to any girl sentenced to ten years, to twenty years, or to life, to be robbed of all she valued and compelled to live out her days behind the bars she could not even rattle. She realized with wry humor that, if her jailer were Rod Sykes, he would keep her chained to perpetually for his own enjoyment his vision of the pretty bird within a cage, a bird dependent on him alone and for whom there was no escape. It was not a happy fantasy.
Another vision was of herself as a timid, youthful girl apprehended for some crime she did not understand. Handcuffed on arrest, taken to the precinct house and there lodged behind these bars to await a trial, the outcome of which she could guess all too readily. She had seen the issues and knew that after sentencing she would once more be handcuffed and perhaps legironed and taken to some institution in which to serve her sentence. There would be the drive, all too short, before the fingerprinting and the opening and clattering of doors and then finally the contemplation of bars which would look pretty much the same as held her now. All the visions spelt helplessness, spelt subservience to the will of others, a divergence of desire between herself and whoever held her captive. From beyond the iron and to either side down the passage there came to her ears the prison sounds or the military staccatos to tell of abundant life, a life in which she was forbidden to share.
Vanessa took pride in her ability to set events in their proper place. She did this now in relation to her leashed and collared confinement through the night. The chain and the iron about her throat had disturbed her not at all, Rod Sykes had absolved her utterly and totally, reducing her to a palpitating package of sweetly obedient curves responding to his every thrust with cries of joy mounting to the sounds of anguish. Rod Sykes had the ability to so control her in their lovemaking as to reduce her to an avid appetite and an endless series of responses to his thrusts. He turned her this way and that, picking her up with frightening easy and often rearranging her in poses of utmost obscenity. Vanessa did not care. Whatever this man did to her in bed was as close as she ever expected to get to freedom or transcendent joy. She was cynically aware that had she remained a free girl and married a suitable suitor, her performance in bed with him would in no way match what she delivered now to the warrior whose prize she was. If the garish day was long and she must spend it in chains or solitary confinement, then so what! Nothing was without its price.
Vanessa Pilgrim allowed her mind to focus on the incident of suspension in the trailer. It had been unexpected and bizarre and was a form of inflicting pain on her that was likely to be repeated and with deviations. She remembered Rod's bland assurance of there being many ways a girl could be bound in either discomfort or agony. He had not elucidated nor had she questioned. She was positive he spoke the truth.
The suspension, the hanging from her wrists unable to touch the floor an inch or two away, unable to kick or fail her feet or legs to any useful purpose had reduced her to the status of a puppet on a string, it had also been shockingly painful, wracking her shoulders, tearing at her wrists, and stretching her to a taunt impotence. Neither of them had described the punishment as torture but Vanessa well understood that had he gone away and left her naked hanging by her wrists it would have been less than an hour before she was crying aloud for release or screaming in hysteria. Being hung up like that was a whole new dimension of punishment in captivity. She had read often enough about people being whipped, whipping was a guilty residue of times past which lingered in human conscience. The riding crop across her naked bottom had been less of a shock than the punishment by rope. Idly she wondered now the scope and range of what Rod Sykes would do with her for his pleasure. She wished she could hate the man but she could not.
There were many names she could employee to describe Rod Sykes. A ruthless adventurer, a lustful kidnapper of youthful girls, a cheerful rogue who made his own rules as he went along, or perhaps simply as a mercenary male who was seeking whatever advantage a trouble world offered to his skills. He had told her often enough she was a part of the office he held, the captain's prize as in ancient days. She was an incident and not a reason for the way he lived. But she was well aware of adding enormously to his enjoyment of his job. She could well understand that after a hot and dusty day, harassed by the problems of his troop, it must indeed be pleasant for him to return home and inflict pain on a naked girl who would afterwards sleep with him in complete rapport. Ruefully, Vanessa saw herself as the ancient whipping-boy of medieval monarchs. But, of course, it was not the same, she was not a boy, she was very, very female, a female who had always gloried in the curve of breast, buttock or the crease of cunt.
Her musings were interrupted by the arrival of a nondescript creature, half of the east and half of the west, who spoke a brand of English all his own. He took the usual inventory of her through the bars, an intensity of assessment she did not bother to hinder. When it had gone on too long to bear Vanessa and standing in front of his regard spread her legs and outrageously and wantonly pointed to each of her most feminine parts, describing them in detail and taunting his impotence to touch. She assured him she was a prize beyond his reach. As if spurred by the irritation of this frustration he became vocal, "You think you damned smart. You white bitch not so smart when whipped in public place." He laughed delightedly at the shadows crossing her features. "People come from all over to see white whore get whipped. Whipped on back and breast and up her cunt. " He laughed uproariously at his own vulgarity, "You wait and see, that's what you gonna gets before they cut off you head because you spy for CIA."
It was a blow, a blow causing her to resume a normal stance and examine him with more care. Did he know something? Was this nonsense spouted anything more than a government indoctrination in the hatred of the USA! "Where did you hear that nonsense?" she demanded belligerently, "You're way off track. I belong to the Commandant, Rod Sykes."
"You no belong anyone, you belong Congi. Congi punish girl spy real good. Congi knows plenty punishments for bad girls. You wish you stay at home by time Congi get through with you." He laughed, "You get plenty whip all over, you get fuck all three places, you be made to crawl in Congi dirt." He thumbed his nose at her derisively from between two bars then went away still chuckling.
Vanessa Pilgrim stared after him in pure shock.
Miss Vanessa Pilgrim within her cell took a sober assessment of Rod Sykes and Congi. At the moment Sykes was riding on a crest of conquest. He could do no wrong. But suppose the tide turned and other forces displaced him, how easy it would be for her to become involved and accused of espionage or any other crime the Republic so desired. The little man's prediction might then come true. At the moment she felt certain she should regard it as only wishful thinking on his part. He would love to see her publicly flogged or punished in any of many ways. If he had gazed upon her through the bars of any American prison cell and spouted his rubbish, she could have scorned, but not in the Republic of Congi. Here anything might be credible. It was one more anxiety to add to her list. It was added to by a soldier who, sauntering by, stopped long enough to explain that, since she was a prisoner behind bars, she would be subject to prison discipline which included a Welcome and Farewell, two names which simply meant that the girl got whipped on entry to her cell and whipped again on her departure. Apparently everyone got to watch. It was a gala occasion. The soldier assured her that he would certainly be there.
"But I'm not a common prisoner, I'm not a prisoner at all, I belong to Rod Sykes, he's simply parked me here for a while."
"If you not a prisoner, you no be locked inside." His logic was unassailable. "You get whipped good and hard for sure." He laughed delighted by her obvious discomfort, "Or maybe they hang you by your thumbs out in town square. That is very good to watch. When girl hang by thumbs she makes much promise. She willing to fuck or suck or bend over her little ass." He laughed uproariously at his own vulgarities. "Ain't no way you going to not get something. Commandant, he like to watch too. He get great fun from pretty girl having much pain."
Vanessa watched him go. The cell was having an advantage of expose to a limited segment of the public but it also carried the hazard of the dire predictions and sly hints of agony. She knew all too well that Rod Sykes did enjoy the eroticism of female pain but she could not believe he would wish to share it with the multitude. Rod Sykes had established ownership of her body and her mind and would not easily relinquish either. He would wish anything she suffered to be of his own contrivance and not the brainchild of someone else. She thrust away the images of her visitors but could not entirely rid her mind of visions of flogging and whippings and things much worse. Suddenly she longed for the strong arms of her captor, the man who extracted from her the total obedience of her desires. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim knew for sure that if these horrors were perpetrated on her flesh by Rod Sykes himself in private they would hurt and demean her far, far less than if she received the harsh sentences in the public square for all to see. Either way it was not much to look forward to.
It seemed visitors to her cell were neatly timed. Now it was a middle aged woman staring at the naked white girl, enigmatic and remote beyond the bars. Vanessa sensed a sympathy and poured out her tale of threats and pain. The woman listened quietly and rendered a verdict. "You belong Rod Sykes, you no get hurt unless he say. If he tire of you these things happen for sure. But maybe he make good sale of you for much money. If that happen, you very safe. You be taken far away."
"Are girls really sold like that?"
"Every day. If you not so beautiful, the Commandant sell you by now. He only keep you because you so pretty. You get much whip."
Presumably the woman had said it all. Vanessa once more watched a retreating back. She wondered glumly if, in this place, it was possible to receive a visitor with good news. It seemed unlikely.
Strangely she longed not only for Rod Sykes' arms but for his chains. The handcuffs on her wrists and leg irons on her ankles had come to mean for Vanessa Pilgrim some of the security in possession a new bride found in the wedding band upon the third finger of the left hand. She supposed both symbolic. If you bore a man's chains it meant he wanted you. Bitterly she reflected on the strange comforts a slavegirl could device to bolster courage. It was not Rod Sykes who ended her brief imprisonment but instead a soldier. He carried familiar shinning metal in his hands and fitted handcuffs and leg irons upon Vanessa's wrists and ankles with harsh severity, evidently she was valuable and must not be allow escape. "You come," he told her briskly. "You no can walk I carry."
Vanessa assured him of her ability to walk even though shackled. She sensed his disappointment at not being able to hold a naked girl in his arms but also saw it as a measure of Sykes' authority. A man like this would doubtless would love to ravish her here and now but was exercising a military control because of his superior officer. He was dealing with his master's whore and had best be circumspect, no doubt expecting he would enjoy her in the course of time when she was discarded in favor of a successor. He contented himself with a firm clasp upon her arms as he led her through a passage and a corridor and down a flight of stairs.
It was obviously a discipline room, a place of punishments. Rod Sykes was there and also a girl of about eighteen who was stripped as bare as Vanessa herself and suspended by her wrists with toes a bare inch of two above the floor. She was coffee colored beauty, across who's virgin flesh Vanessa beheld the marks so similar to those she also bore.
It was not Rod Sykes who did the whipping, it was a majordomo or jailer or whatever his title might be who held the riding crop and eyed the pert, young bottom with avid interest.
"Thought you might enjoy this, Sweetheart." Rod Sykes patted Vanessa affectionately and kissed her cheek. "This young lady has broken the rules and she's being disciplined, she doesn't like it any more than you would but I want you to watch so you can understand the nature of Congi justice, it's a bit rough on girls who misbehave."
"But she's so young, so frightened!" Vanessa protested in instant reaction. "She shouldn't be punished by men. Haven't you got a woman who could use that awful riding crop?"
"Not really. These girls respect men, the do not respect women. If a man whips her she'll pay far more attention that for anyone else. The little darling's only had a couple of strokes, you'll be able to get in on the rest of her discipline."
"But I don't want to, I hate the idea. I feel sorry for the poor girl and all I can do is ask you to forgive her and let her loose. Look at the way her toes are reaching for the floor!"
"Same as yours did, Sweetheart, no difference. I want you to watch and see how she reacts."
Vanessa watched. There was not much else she could do. Once more she knew the strange thankfulness for being chained. The handcuffs and leg irons would keep her from fighting punishment. Her instinct was to go to the wealed and suspended nudity and clasp it in her arms and whisper comfort. But that was indeed wishful thinking. The girl would probably hate her for watching unaware of latent sympathy. As Rod Sykes' captive mistress, or as these people would call it, his whore, she knew herself apart and beyond their comprehension. This girl in her punishment would expect nothing from her. Chains undoubtedly imposed a social distinction beyond the norm.
Sykes nodded briefly at the man who held the instrument of justice. The delinquent maiden's eyes followed ever move, even to the point of looking back over a raised arm and bare stressed shoulder to where her inquisitor now took his stance and swung the wicked wand. Upon impact she abandoned any inhibitions she might have had and thrashed and jerked wildly at the end of her rope, her coffee colored loveliness paid tribute to the crop by gyrations and contortions which left Vanessa breathless. From the young maiden mouth there spew forth volleys of what, not doubt, were pleas for mercy and promises of repentance. The suspension was clever, for as the young nudity turned this way and that she presented every portion of her person to the whip. Taking his time, the man who held it suddenly cut again and once more the wounded flesh responded once more in motion and in sound. The young girl's eyes were wide in fear and pain and implored more eloquently than did her voice. Vanessa covered her face with her hands and refused to watch, but Sykes slapped them angrily away and directed her gaze to where one more stroke exacted its homage from the helpless flesh. The punishment continued in its own slow rhythm until the cries became weaker and the contortions less vivid and the delinquent girl's punishment was over.
For a few minutes after the whip had ceased it loving work against the naked body, her legs jerked in tiny tremors, a lingering reaction from the searing pain, but soon even they died leaving her hanging limp and passive, eyes closed. From beneath the dark, strained armpits beads of sweat still formed and trickled down her flank.
Sykes' fingers were once more on Vanessa's arm, she allowed herself to be lead back to the pleasant balconied mezzanine, "These girls are different from you, Sweetheart. You'd probably learn some sort of lesson from being whipped the way you've just seen, but she won't, she'll probably just go right back and do it all over again. " He laughed at her disbelieving expression. "Yes, honest. They don't seem to relate punishment to the crime, they see each as being separate and apart. They expect to be punished frequently through their young lives, and I've no doubt they're well aware of the erotic impact on the male. They probably think that's the beginning and the end of it. Their crime, whatever it was, is incidental. I bet that little damsel will behave perfectly until her skin is once more virgin and they she'll steal and be whipped again and figure both acts as part of a day's work. Interesting."
"I suppose so, if you're a criminologist," Vanessa agreed without much interest. "You probably said it all when you mentioned the male reaction, if men did not get erections out of whipped girls, girls would not be whipped. Why don't you lock the poor thing in a cell for a week or a month, I'm sure it would do as much good."
They stood facing each other, each aware of things unsaid. Sykes chucked Vanessa under her chin and suggested slyly, "Wondering how you'll spend your day. Sweetheart?"
"Of course I am. Rod, please don't have me whipped again."
"Gosh, what gave you that idea! No, I'm a man of resource. I promised you variety and today I've got a little treat in store for you. I bet you're tired of wearing those pretty brackets and irons upon your feet?"
"Not really, I've become used to them. Like you've often said, I'm sure there's things much worse."
"That a girl! You see, you do learn. You're becoming a wise little slavegirl. No, today you will not be whipped. But I've got something else in store. You'll learn something from it especially as I'm not involved. I've got business today so this little amusement you'll be occupied with will leave you with unclouded reactions. I'll be glad to hear about them when we dine." He patted her bottom, kissed her lips, and let her standing on the nig.
It was the same soldier as before who came for her, making the same offer to carry her and then sulkily leading her to the jeep. Without asking, he lifted her to place her comfortably upon the seat then climbed in beside her behind the wheel. "Where are you talking me?" Vanessa asked in surprise.
"No tell. You wait. You see." He chuckled as at a private joke and sent the small vehicle speeding down a dusty trail into a country side more and more bleak until it became little more than a desert.
Vanessa gazed about her in interest. It was nice to be out of doors again and the handcuffs and leg irons no longer seemed to matter. She was well aware of the encroachment of prisoner mentality. She expected little and refused to distress herself with useless longing. For the sake of something to say she again demanded, "OK, if you won't tell me where you're taking me, then tell me what you're going to do to me."
"No tell that either. You not to know." The soldier's laughter was immoderate, he was a simple man and easily amused. He took the liberty of reaching with one hand and pinching her closest nipple. This too brought merriment until he admitted, "You have real fine day, no one bother, no one whip. You most lucky girl."
It had become a sad, dreary countryside devoid of life. The single post standing starkly alone caught her eye long before they reached it. The post was a man-contrived intrusion upon the wilderness. Someone had planted the solid timber deep in the soil. Watching as they approached, Vanessa knew for certain she was the purpose of this solid menace, in some way she was going to give it purpose. It was not erected wit there in the sand for nothing!
Vanessa was frightened, there was something hostile and brooding about the dismal scene. She longed to leap from the vehicle and flee back to the safety of Sykes' protection but that was a silly dream. She knew it best not to antagonize this military type who had her totally at his mercy in this lonely place. Apathetically she stood while her leg irons were removed and she was led to the post and trust against it to place her naked back upon the wood. A rope encircled her waist and was cinched tight.
"Now I take off pretty handcuffs."
It did not matter. Vanessa knew herself in the grip of an authority beyond that of this shoddy uniformed male. The rope around her middle held her comfortably erect and she made no protest or complain as her arms were drawn back and hands deftly tied tight behind the grim sentinel. "I tie you real good, Missy," her escort assured her. "You have much fun trying to get loose."
Vanessa did not answer. She was trying to glimpse Sykes' purpose in subjecting her to this strange ordeal. Binding with rope and rawhide was not an entirely new experience, but being tied to a post was likely to give her a new dimension of captivity. She contented herself with wincing and yelping whenever a cord cut too tight or in a too secret place. She was soon roped securely to the massive post by ankles, knees, waist and shoulders. Her crossed wrists were firmly bound in back with the same rawhide strip she had previously known. She wished it was with something else, she hated that rawhide strip. When the army stood back to assess its work, obviously with an intent to further structures, she exclaimed, "Good Gosh, Man, haven't you tied me enough? I can hardly twitch now and every bit of it is too damned tight!
He nodded and grinned but not in agreement, "Must be tight. Missy. Always must be tight. Missy get loose real quick if not tight. Now I tie your tits."
It was not exactly as described. The strictures crossed and crisscrossed above and below and between her firm, young breasts but did not mar nor compress their contours. Instead the bite of the ropes accentuated their arrogant prominence, seeming to make them larger than they were and to extend them an inch or two beyond their previous projection.
Vanessa looked down at herself in dismay and was annoyed at her nipples for their flint hard engorgement. Her breathing was now a continual thrusting at her bonds, a thrusting which hurt and would hurt more as time went by. She pleaded, "Please don't tie my breasts like that. It doesn't do any good. I couldn't get away before, and tying the way you have is a punishment, it won't keep me any more secure that I was."
The army nodded in an infuriating agreement, "That's right, Missy, is just to hurt not hold. Now I tie pretty cunt."
He did exactly that. Two strands of rope, one on each side of her pubic lips, drawn up within the cleft of her buttocks, then cinched tight to the pole. It was a hateful and useless harness, purely punitive. Solicitously he used a thumb and finger to insert the proper placement of his cords. Vanessa could not see herself down there but was certain her vaginal lips were plumply protruding and strictured on each side by bindings tight enough to hurt. This time, when the army stood back to survey its work, she knew that work was done and she would soon be alone in the desert with her post.
"Missy have pleasant day." The army pinched her nipples but not too hard. The army laughed when she winched at the pain. "You no be afraid. No wild animals. No bad man. You have nice day all to yourself. Maybe you get loose and run away."
It did not take long for the jeep to vanish from sight. The naked girl felt herself imprisoned not so much by rope and cord, but by space and silence and a terrible loneliness. If she was intended to learn something from her plight she could not tell what it was. She felt nothing and expected nothing except pain. It was already starting, every time she breathed and with a throbbing insistence within her crotch. There would be no orgasms for Miss Vanessa Pilgrim today.
Had she not been so tightly bound she would have struggled. It would have been something to do, not that she would have succeeded in freeing herself, but to struggle against bondage was an affirmation of existence, a reassurance to a slave of identity. There was always the improbably hope of success but that was pretty much like winning a sweepstakes -- you never did! Vanessa Pilgrim's eyes swept the horizon from rim to rim as best she could, it was a wide sweep revealing nothing. She most devoutly prayed the army had been correct in its assurance of "No bad men" and "no wild animals." Tied like this she was totally at the mercy of anything that happened by. Any small rodent could send her into hysterics. In sudden revolt she surged against the ropes, tugging at the rawhided wrists, but nothing moved, it was as though she had made no impulse or motion whatsoever. A tear formed in Vanessa Pilgrim's eye and trickled down her cheek. She could not touch it. It was going to be a long, long day.
The cut of cords had begun before the jeep was out of sight. It increased with a slow attrition against the defense of her courage. It was an insidious and fearful encroachment upon ever curve and crevasse of her body. Vanessa's breasts, even though unmarked by rope, ached and burned from restricted breathing. The captive maiden was discovering the impossibility of a deep breath, she was force to small, slow inhalations, and any thought she had of struggling for release was soon abandoned. The unkindest cut of all was the nagging scorch within her crotch, it was like a human presence deliberately hurting. The only virtue in being so totally bound was it inability of her body to sag or droop. He nakedness was clamped solidly against the post as though a part of it. She could thus sleep without danger, her head would bow forward but that was all. As the heat of the day increased and overstrained emotions made their demands, Vanessa Pilgrim fell into fitful sleep, short periods of unconsciousness interspersed by sudden awakenings and a return to pain and solitude. Her breasts throbbed distressingly and her sex was in constant revolt against the cords but pain merge with pain to make her insensitive and enable the short periods of unconsciousness both possible and welcome. It was in her suddenly wakefulness after one had passed that she beheld the caravan.
The slow moving collection of camels, domestic creatures and rickety vehicles had crept close before she had become aware of them. But they were still at some distance and Vanessa beheld them in almost disbelief. They might well be a mirage or a vision engendered by pain and overtaxed emotions. But when they were close enough to become a concrete fact she discovered herself in a strange mixture of fear of the unknown and a fervent hope of rescue. In the course of her ride she had been aware of trails and cross-trails indicating traffic even in this forbidding place. It was unlikely the caravan was here specifically on her account, but they must have beheld the strange, out-of-place post just as she had seen it at a distance. Perhaps they beheld her too and were curious.
It was typically African, half ancient, half modem, a nomadic group who were probably forever on the move. Men and women walked among the vehicles or ahead of or behind the stoic camels. Those who rode the ungainly beasts were obviously the elders of the tribe. When the leader rose his hand to call a halt, he was very close to Vanessa's bound and strictured nudity. In passable English he demanded, "Who are you, girl? Why are you thus bound?"
Vanessa choked back a hysterical need to giggle. The sharp demand had sounded incongruous considering her situation. Searching for something simple and concise, she briefly told her name, that she was kidnapped, that the American Consul would pay money for her safe delivery.
Slowly the naked Vanessa was encircled by dark, solemn eyes, men women and children. The entire band numbered no more than twenty. The leader dismounted from his camel and came close to survey her nakedness with surprisingly little lasciviousness. He answer was simple. "How much CIA pay for you?"
"Its not the CIA, it's my own country, it's the United States," Vanessa said in desperation. "I can't tell you how much they'll pay but it will be a great deal. Please cut me loose, I'm hurting."
None of the solemn faces moved. The leader spoke as though thinking aloud, "If you belong to Commandant at Lakesh we must leave you alone. We do not interfere."
Hope plummeted. Vanessa glimpsed the power of Rod Sykes and his men and perhaps of the Macusi itself. If these rough nomads could ignore a naked white girl, that power was indeed be great. Forced to quick decision she took an appealing chance, "I don't know what you're talking about, but I was taken by men far from here, I was bound and blindfolded and then tied to this post. That's all I know."
There was an excited jabber of dialect. Vanessa knew herself discussed and tom verbally in shreds. The dark eyes of the leader gave her no clue but she sensed his disbelief, he would be reserving judgment and leaving his options open. Vanessa realized all too well how flimsily and improbable her statements must seem, but she had cast a stone upon the water and must watch it's ripples fade. Doggedly she reiterated, "There will be much money if you will just take me to the nearest American Consulate. Please forget about the CIA, I have nothing to do with them."
She took it as a measure of their poverty. In the business of setting her free there was no flash of a knife but only a pair of teenage boys delegated to untie the army's knots and save the valuable rope and cords. It took a long time and there were a exclamations of ohs and ahs as the rope was peeled from the weals it had indented in her flesh. Even when the strictures were peeled away, the scarlet replacing them appeared to have changed nothing. There was much satisfied admiration of the rawhide strip thus salvaged. While she was she was still busily expressing thanks and massaging wounds she was roughly turned around, her wrists crossed behind her back and once more bound, not with the rawhide but with thin cord, thin enough to discourage attempts at freedom. Desperately she exclaimed, "But why are you tying me? There's no need! I want to go with you. I'll do whatever you tell me. All I ask is to be taken to a Consulate. Surely you can use money?"
"I not sure of you," the leader said unemotionally. "I think maybe you make big lie. We take you but a consulate is far away. I will think upon it."
Vanessa was left to stand in awkward nakedness. As always her hands instinctively twisted and tugged against the thin stuff around her wrists but soon stopped finding only pain against the inflexibility of skillful binding. A few small children stood regarding her with large, brown querying eyes while their elders discussed her fate. Only her hands were tied but Vanessa Pilgrim had never felt more helpless in her life.
They drifted back, not all of them, but enough. Their leader appeared the only one of them able to speak English, his voice discouragingly neutral, "My name is Hamid. You will call me Master."
His two wise eyes bored steadily searching her secrets. Calmly he pronounced sentence. "We make you prisoner. We take you where we go. We try consulate but is far away. Can send message only. You live with us. We make you work."
The bound girl moaned inwardly. She had made a mistake and would willingly have retracted her lie if she thought these people would again tie her to the post and leave her there. But she realized they had embarked upon a decision and any retraction of hers would arouse only suspicion. Wearily she knew she had made her bed and must lie on it but was gripped by a sudden longing for Rod Sykes' arms and Rod Sykes' punishments. To be a part of this dreary band would be a punishment in itself, even through it was devoid of whips and tortures and treated Vanessa only as a captive girl. Her bound wrists were a poor augury of her immediate prospects. Listlessly she said, "Whatever you wish. Perhaps when you come to trust me we can talk again."
"We no talk. We no trust. You know escape."
It was a brutal statement of intent, beneath its forthright honest Vanessa quailed, cursing herself for a fool. If only she had told the truth she would still be bound to the post and would, within the space of hours, be back within Rod Sykes' arms. If she ever did return to them, which now seemed unlikely, she would ask him to give her the whipping of her life to knock some sense back into her bemused intelligence.
A pubescent girl was thrust forward for Vanessa's attention. "This is Leisha. Leisha will look after you. You will obey her. If you do not obey her she will whip you. Leisha is a good girl but will not allow you to escape. You will call her by her name of Leisha and she will call you by the strange name you have given us, Vanessa. You will now say her name several times so we know you understand." Vanessa obeyed, her voice a mechanical monotone, "Leisha, Leisha, Leisha." Then, for the sake of clarity, she said, "My name is Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa. If you are kind to me I will give you no trouble."
"I learn good the American."
Leisha's voice was surprisingly civilized. It carried the carried a maturity beyond her age. The child had an amoral innocence but her words shocked, "I learn from American boys who look for oil. I sell them fucks, but my father catch me and whip me most terrible. He also take my money. Now American boys are gone. I very good girl. I not whip you too much. We be friends."
Vanessa was digesting this naive but startling information while the not so childish teenager noosed her throat with a length of Rod Sykes' rope, the full length of it trailing away to her young hand. But the young hand tugged viciously to assert her authority and Vanessa knew for sure she was in good hands. Everything was crazy, stark raving mad!
The caravan resumed its march. It's pause to absorb into itself a white female body had been brief. It's pace was slow but Vanessa did not complain, she walked in passive obedience besides the girl who held her leash, her thoughts stubbornly and irritatingly upon the man she had discarded for a tribe of gypsies. Leisha was the proudest of girls, the envy of the fellows. She looked adoring at the wealed flesh of her charge and spoke of it enviously as from long experience in the marking of a girl's skin.
Leisha only rarely tugged the rope.
CHAPTER FOUR - LEISHA'S LEASH
Vanessa Pilgrim's introduction into the Hamish tribe was slow but steady. Leashed, she walked among them but there were none with English speech other than the child who held her tether and the leader who now appeared to have forgotten her presence. Hamid rarely spoke and evidently regarded her as unreliable and without truth. He was obviously reserving judgment, possibly until they reached whatever might be their destination. In the meantime Vanessa Pilgrim was humbly dependent on the girl whose specific prisoner she was. Leisha accepted the responsibility with keen enjoyment and exploited it to the full. She was intently curious about America and asked Vanessa questions. She was also well-developed for her age and possessed an avid curiosity about all things sexual. Her experience in the brief selling of her maidenhead to a group of roughnecks had done little more than whet her girlish appetite.
"You been very much fucked, Vanessa?"
"No I haven't, and you shouldn't use that horrible word, it's a beastly word."
Innocent young eyes regarded her in disapproval. "Is a proper word. Is no other."
There was a sharp, admonitory tug on the leash. "You not tell Leisha what she say. Leisha not believe you not much used by men. You very beautiful. You lucky." There was a brief, reflective silence before she spoke again. "I think you so beautiful I whip you often. " She giggled and added, "Pretty girls get whipped more often, much more than girls not pretty. I been whipped many times." Pride was rampant in the later statement.
"Are these men, these men who look for oil, still around somewhere?"
"Is very sad. They pack and go away. But want to take Leisha with them. When my father find out he whip me much, that very sad, too." Leisha giggled resignedly, "You much want them to rescue you and untie hands, is not that so?" Her voice became arched, "Maybe they fuck you too and then everyone very happy." She sighed, "But is not to be. You and me not get fucked until another rig comes from USA. This time I no tell my father. I hide money. Is very much fun to lie down for such big, strong men who laugh so much and play with tits. I bet you like?"
Vanessa Pilgrim sighed too and was ruefully aware she would gladly do the unmentionable things with an American crew if they would gain her release. Such men might actually demand their price in her flesh but would also lead her to freedom. "You should keep you eye open, Leisha, in case another crew should come."
"My father whip you much if he hear." The youngster consoled wisely, "You best keep quiet about escape. I not let you escape. You try escape, I whip you most hard."
It was frightening and almost beyond belief to be in the power of a girl so young. Bound hands and roped neck were a poor beginning. The rope was already chafing under Leisha's sometimes unconscious tugs. But the child had possibilities. Without urgency, Vanessa inquired, "What will you father do with me? You father is the leader, isn't he?"
"My father most important man. He lead." Whippings had evidently not diminished Leisha's loyalty. "I listen but they not make up their mind. They think you not the way you say. They keep you prisoner and ask questions from those who travel. They make you work."
"What would I have to work at?"
"Is hard to tell. Maybe in the grinding of corn." The wise young eyes looked sideways with an almost pitting regard. "Not like one little bit." There came a lengthy pause before Leisha delivered her conclusion, "I think maybe my father sell you. He make you work a while first and see what he can learn. When he think there no more profit he sell you to slave trader." The young laughing eyes assessed her shrewdly. "Maybe you like be sold for slave? Is much fun if get right master."
"I don't want to be sold as a slave," Vanessa vowed fervently. "Being a slave is horrible."
"Then you been slave? You know? Maybe you slave who escape?"
"Never mind about slaves. I was kidnapped. All I want is freedom."
"You silly girl," Leisha passed judgment with conviction. "Is best life for any girl to be sold as slave. I ask my father to sell me for slave but all he do is whip me again. He whip me most often."
"Will he whip me too?"
"Of course. All girls get whipped. It makes most hard the cock when man whip girl. All girls get whipped often." The young voice was suddenly anxious, "they do, don't they?"
Vanessa sighed. How could she make this waif of the wilderness understand the life from which she had been severed that day at the Mission? She could scarcely believe it herself. Why should this youngster place credence in anything she said. Unhappily she rejoined, "I suppose you're right. I've been whipped more than I've ever thought I would be. I'm afraid it's one of the reasons men value us."
By evening Vanessa was exhausted. From somewhere in the conglomerate of nomadic life came and padlocks appeared as if my magic. They replaced rope around her neck and bound hands. The chain circled her throat and was stoutly padlocked. It's other end, a length of about six feet, was padlocked to the wheel of one of the wagons. She could stand, she could move in a shocking limited range, but that was all. It was fearsome and frustrating to know that her life was dependent upon a padlock on her neck. It was so small and innocent a bond. Leisha snapped it with a resounding click to the accompaniment of laughter. "I bet you not like be chained. I bet you think it much shame. But Leisha keep you chained always. No escape."
Vanessa's nakedness was left to its own devices. It was fed and watered and provided with a rusty pail. Leisha checked the padlocks then waved goodnight and went to join her peers. No doubt she would boast to them of her new responsibility and of what she had learned thereof. She would be much envied. Vanessa lay upon the sand and went to sleep.
It was all hateful and hopeless, out of the frying pan and into a fire. In the light of morning Vanessa viewed her predicament and found comfort only in the laughing Leisha and the hope some word of her plight might filter through to a consulate. Hamid remained a mystery. Sometimes she would look up and find his eyes upon her. But other than that she was ignored. She supposed she might be considered his perquisite in the same manner as with Rod Sykes, and was piqued by his indifference. Vanessa's chain was exchanged once more for the rope, her hands once more tied behind her back. Encouraged by Leisha, who had from somewhere obtained a wicked looking withe which she carried as a symbol of authority, the band resumed its march. "Leisha, why must I be the way I am? Why can't I have clothes?"
"Hamid say we find you naked, we keep you naked." There was the inevitable giggle. "Is nice to see big white girl all bare, is lovely breasts, is much fur on top of cunt. We all enjoy."
Vanessa sighed. It was as good an answer as she could expect. She was quite sure everybody did indeed enjoy her nudity. The women of the band were a jumble of shawls and cloaks and strange swathings. Leisha wore what appeared to be a made-over sheet. These people were poor. If they failed to pursue her demand for contact with a consulate, it would be only because of fear. Leisha amused herself by walking besides the adult girl whose leash she held and using her slender wand to touch, to rap and to flick just enough to hurt. The child was enraptured by Vanessa's wince and grimace. When the .prisoner protested such liberties, Leisha told her frankly, "It please me, I make you jump. It show you how bad I hurt if you not good girl. Leisha could make you scream."
There is was again, the good girl thing and the everlasting threats. But if Leisha whipped her it would not be with cruel intent but with what the youngster would see as "fun." Until the Hamish made up its mind what to do with her, she was the plaything of a child.
"I never see a naked white woman before," Leisha informed conversationally. "Is very nice, you very pretty, you very good to whip because all bare." Again the girlish giggle, "Hamid much like fuck you but his wife say no. If Hamid fuck you his wife whip you to pieces." The vivid youngster tugged playfully and added, equally playfully, "Hamid get you alone, you best cross your legs."
Travelers whose path crossed that of the Hamish caravan were few but one of them, a swarthy type upon a camel, paused to greet Hamid as an old friend. His eye inevitably strayed to the white girl, her nakedness and bound hands. There was a babble of inquiry and then the two men advanced to where Leisha was told to stand aside and the newcomer proceeded to maul and prod Vanessa with the expertise of a cattle dealer about to bid upon a cow. There was a constant chatter in the dialect while a rough hand explored the nude girl's crotch and tested her breasts for resiliency. Her teeth were examined and she was turned around so the proportions of her back and buttocks could be assessed. There was a brief laughter over her wealed bottom. When the two of them went away and the passerby resumed his journey, Leisha explained that Hamid had tried to sell her but his friend was unwilling to pay the price. Leisha informed gleefully. "You worth very much money. Hamid no sell you cheap."
It was disquieting. Slavery after slavery. To these people pretty girls were merchandise. One day Leisha would be sold and would be glad to be gone from the gypsy life. It was the child's burning ambition to be purchased by a rich man who would beat her and adore her at the same time. In Leisha's lexicon the two were synonymous. Concerned by the incident, Vanessa asked, "How much money does Hamid want for me?"
The young girl's voice held awe, "Is very, very much. Hamid want only Yankee dollar. He say he sell you for one thousand Yankee dollar. " Leisha sighed. "Is so much money no one ever buy you." Vanessa felt a fresh anxiety. The one thousand dollars probably seemed a fortune to these poverty stricken people, but was small enough sum to enable her purchase by a multitude of people, hardly any of which she would desire to have as her new master. As they drew closer to the coast they would meet more and more people who whom a thousand dollars was small change. This meant her days with the gypsy caravan were numbered and a new life, a continuing enslavement, probably under frightful conditions, might start anytime. Longingly she thought of Rod Sykes and the security of Lakesh. They were still on Macusi territory and her eyes roamed the horizon frequently in the futile hope of seeing the advance of Sykes' troop and of Sykes himself. It would be wonderful to be desired enough to be pursued and rescued. Vanessa felt like a silly romantic girl.
"I feel much sorrow you no get sold," Leisha mourned sympathetically. "So much money no one will pay. Hamid, he make you work."
"But why wouldn't he go to the Americans? They'd give him his thousand dollars."
"He frightened. They not like the Hamish that far towards the sea. And anyway, he no believe what you tell him. He think you so pretty you escape from whorehouse. He say if cannot sell you any other way he sell you to a house full of bad girls who get much fucked for money." Leisha sighed longingly. "But he will not sell me to one of these. He say my blood is his blood and would not be proper. Men are most strange, but they can beat us so is best to do their bidding."
Leisha would have no problems with life. Vanessa envied the child, she was precocious but lovable. It would be nice to rescue her from gypsy ethics, but that was just a dream. Vanessa Pilgrim could not even rescue herself. She tugged fretfully at her securely tied wrists and shook an impatient head against the chafing of the rope around her neck.
* * *
It was a nothing place, neither village, hamlet, nor town, just a collection of derelict structures the Hamish found useful. Life was already there and there were greetings and the exchange of gossip. Leisha proudly led her naked charge through the dusty street and to where ever people congregated. Vanessa knew herself admired and envied and hated, emotions were primitive and vibrations strong. Hostility beat upon her in waves, along with the laughter and grins. She felt like a captive of the American Indians who was to shortly to be bound to the inevitable stake, tortured and burned. She shivered and cast such thoughts aside. Leisha would look after her.
Vanessa's refuge for the night was a mud walled hovel, its only stability a stout pole firmly embedded in the soil to support what there was of a roof. While still bound she obeyed Leisha's order to sit and extend one of her feet on each side of this vertical support. Her ankles were then chained allowing enough length of the link tether between her feet to enable her to stand, to walk a pace or two, but to never let her stray too far from the anchoring post. Leisha made sure the links around each ankle were tight and the padlocks were firmly thrust home. The youngster then took the leash from the chafed neck and untied the bound wrists and assured cheerfully, "There. Is very nice, is very comfortable, you most lucky girl."
Lucky! Vanessa turned the word over and over in her mind.
Everything was comparative and no doubt to Leisha's mind, her present condition was merciful and kind. She was to all intents and purposes a free girl and should surely not complain because of a limited range. When Vanessa stood up and tested the latitudes of this new metal bondage it responded with the clink and rattle of metal against metal. Leisha gleefully assured her that everything was "Very nice," and left her for the night. In spite of chaotic emotions, Vanessa was exhausted enough to once again find sleep. When she awoke in the morning, the lack of metal on her wrists and neck made her feel free enough to make her forget the other chains. She blithely rose and headed for the door, only to be tripped by chained feet and to fall flat upon her face. Ruefully she went back to the anchoring pole. As Leisha had said she would never escape!
It stood in the center dust bowl of the village, a shapeless mass of gears and belts and hoppers. There was a vertical shaft from which protruded a fifteen foot long pole extending off to one side about four feet off the ground. From it there hung two objects which caused Vanessa's heart to drop and skip an apprehensive beat. The thing was a crude grinding mechanism requiring only the thrust of human hands to bring it to life. "Is where we grind our com," Leisha informed helpfully. "Pole go round and round and it makes much noise while meal comes out of spout." Leisha sighed mournfully, "Sometimes it is good girl who must push on pole. Is not like now, sometimes we have no bad girls to push."
"Girls! But why girls?"
Leisha was shocked. Her voice reprimanded, "Such work is not for men! Men sometimes whip but never push." Her voice became comforting in reassurance, "You now have work, you most lucky girl."
They had been followed by a donkey bearing two massive bags of corn which were unloaded beside the machine. Leisha, oozing importance, said, "I chain you now then I fill hopper, hopper is box to hold corn."
There was only the leash upon her neck, she could have run. But Vanessa looked around and saw no avenue of escape not already blocked by someone going about their affairs. The village was a busy place and a fleeing, naked girl would be caught before she reached the trees. Resignedly she allowed Leisha to lead her to the pole which reached above the level of her waist and there the objects she had seen were fastened firmly on her wrists. They were simply two shackles a couple of feet apart and bolted firmly to the pole with only two or three links to spare thus enabling the unfortunate slave to grasp the horizontal wood bar and thrust. It was simple and efficient. She knew she would hate it bitterly.
Leisha busied herself with pouring the corn while the chained girl watched. Vanessa could not sit down, the chains allowed her no freedom whatsoever other than to work. She watched her captor ladle corn into the hopper at the top of the contraption until it was full; this task completed, the child retrieved her wand of office, rapped it smartly across unsuspecting buttocks and advised with renewed authority, "Now you push on pole, pole go round and round, you not stop pushing or Leisha whip very hard the bottom and the back and maybe the legs." She giggled happily. "I stay and watch, you only stop when I say to rest." The gleeful imp tickled captive nipples with her wand and assured gravely, "You now work very hard."
Vanessa suddenly needed hands to rub portions of herself which mischievously began to tickle, but she had no hands, the short linkage by which they were chained to the pole gave no freedom for anything except to push and to work as Leisha had explained, "Very hard."
In a spasm of revolt the naked girl pulled hard against the iron but nothing yielded, the metal bands were tight upon her wrists and the pole itself implacable.
The girlish voice was commanding, "You start now, you push." A modest cut of the withe across Vanessa's shoulders emphasized the command. But the mill was a costive enemy. Vanessa heaved and strained but it took the combined efforts of Lesiha added to her own to gain the initial impetus to make a one girl operation possible. When this was achieved, Leisha slipped away and Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was on her own.
The small mill was an uncertain and cantankerous enemy, sometimes it choked on an overdose of grain and then it took every ounce of Vanessa's young strength to keep its wheels in motion. From time to time the chained girl found it necessary to lower her bare shoulder underneath the pole and heave with every ounce and muscle she possessed. When the grain moved slowly and evenly she was just able to manage her task. It was never easy but was within her strength. Soon the pole beneath her hands was wet with her sweat as was her skin, glistening but soon drying beneath the hot sun. Before long an overloaded machine brought Vanessa to a standstill, panting and distressed. She turned to Leisha and implored, "Please don't whip me. I just can't handle this." She gazed bleakly down at chained hands, "Its cruel to chain me to this thing, it's a punishment, it's not work at all."
Vanessa saw the whip coming but the chains held her were she was. It cut across her back with a cruelty Leisha had not previously displayed. Evidently the young taskmistress believed in the work ethics of another age. Unconcerned Leisha advised, "You push or I whip much harder."
With a bitter sob the chained nakedness strained and heaved and the little mill once more creaked and groaned and delivered its thin trickle of meal. Slowly the pole made its revolutions, the straining nudity panted and sweated at its task, Leisha squatted on the sand and surveyed the scene with the complacency of possession.
Vanessa toiled, falling into a quiet rhythm of heaving steps and thrusting hands. From time to time the Hamish passed and paused in their affairs long enough to make some caustic comment to Leisha and Leisha's whip. Children gathered and laughed then ran away from a scene that, for them, held only boredom. Vanessa could not say she did not welcome these visitations, they relieved monotony. But as she worked she was fearfully aware of increasing fatigue and of her chained wrists. Should she reach a point of exhaustion where she could not continue, would Leisha truly whip her until she fainted from the pain or staggered into motion no longer within her tolerance. She did not know but supposed she would discover sometime before the day was done.
Hamid came. He walked beside her at the end of the pole in its slow revolutions, admiring the play of muscle and sinew in the naked girl who chained wrists compelled her to an unwelcome labor. His voice held no more interest than previously, "Leisha makes you a good girl, does she not?"
There was a lengthy pause before, "Do you wish to change your story? Has your family money with which to pay me ransom?"
"No, my family has no money, I have no story to change other than what I told you. Please don't make me work this hard, it's beyond my strength."
"Your strength will grow, you sweat out the weakness. A couple of years chained to the pole will make you very strong." He laughed and went away.
Vanessa worked, shedding the bitter tears of a girl who has made a terrible mistake. Sometimes, when she slowed her pace, Leisha's whip cut its imprints on her skin. There was no escape.
Vanessa was learning fast. It appeared a girl actually possessed a second wind, a fresh supply of breath and energy by which she could accomplish the impossible. There were moments almost of elation when she found herself well able to cope with a task once considered impossible. In one of the rest periods she was bold enough to ask, "Leisha, I'm new at this and I'm not good at it, please don't hit me so hard when I slow down. I'm not putting on an act, honest I'm not. You don't need to whip me as hard as you did that last time, it was terrible."
The mischievous child put on a simulation of deep consideration, but for all Vanessa knew it could be real. Finally she tiptoed up to kiss Vanessa's parched lips and to tell her sweetly, "OK, I no whip so hard, not unless you real bad."
The whipped and naked slave chained to the pole heard herself exclaim a fervent, "Thank you," and then again, "Oh, thank you, Leisha, thank you, thank you, thank you." It was all absurd and should not be happening.
Vanessa survived day one upon the pole. She hated to admit it but day two came easier and day three easier still, her muscles were hardening as was her resolve to survive. True she got whipped often but more from the caprice of her impish jailer than from her lagered steps. Each night, chained to the pole either by hands, neck or feet, she fell into the almost instant stupor of utter fatigue and slept like a log until morning. On the fourth day she was able to grind com to the total approval of all who watched or passed her by. She was now a competent slave, trained, whipped, and useful to her owners. She was also increasingly obedient. She watched for chances to escape but, since there were none, she accepted passively her chaining and unchaining and gave her guardian no cause for complaint. It was on the night of the fourth day it happened.
A female hand shook Vanessa gently back from dreamless sleep. For a moment the bemused slave supposed it was Leisha but instantly recognize one of the women who had passed her by when she was chained to the pole, a woman who sometimes lingered and looked deep. There was no door to the hovel and only half a roof, the African starlight enabled recognition. The woman place a finger against Vanessa's lips to enjoin silence. It was the night on which Vanessa was secured to the pole by the chain around her neck, when she sat up erect there was a silvery clatter of chain and then stark silence as the two women stared hard in assessment of each other. Then came the swift turning of a key in padlocks and a moment letter Vanessa stood naked and free. Her savior led her by the arm through the door and into the African night, she pointed said simple, "Go."
In the intoxication of freedom Vanessa fled. It was not until much later she realized this freedom had been granted by Hamid's wife.
It was wonderful to leap forward, to use her arms in the rhythm of flight. She knew not were she fled and did not care. All she wanted was to put as much distance as possible between herself and the Hamish. There had been something about the Hamish deadening to the spirit and the soul. The little mill, the pole and its chains were a vivid nightmare she cast ruthlessly aside. Vanessa Pilgrim knew that far ahead of her was the coast, and somewhere in one of its cities or towns she would find a US Consulate and help. Her heart sang in exultation.
Vanessa Pilgrim ran or walked intermittently throughout the hours of darkness and walked on into the sunlight of dawn, but as the growing heat matched her fatigue she finally fell in a grassy hollow and was instantly asleep. When she awoke it was to see, in a circle around her, a group of unsmiling faces. They were soldiers of the Republic, uniformed and correct. She recognized them instantly and once again her spirits rose. It was a shameful shock to be wakened and examined by this circle of male regard, but in the certainty of a return to civilization Vanessa saw only good. Brightly she exclaimed, "My name is Vanessa Pilgrim. Please take me to your commanding officer."
* * *
The handcuffs had been a shock. The sergeant had produced them as though by magic and disregarded Vanessa's instant revolution of, "You don't need those, please don't put those things on me, I've had enough of leg irons and handcuffs and chains. I'll come with you, I want to come with you " They had paid no heed but gathered her arms behind her back and clicked the shining steel tight upon her wrists. Bitterly she reflected on the familiarity the act now held for her, if one faction did not handcuff her the other did. Handcuffs had become an integral part of her existence.
She was rid of them now, but only because she was seated in a bare, small room across a bare, small table to a smartly uniformed and much decorated male figure who addressed her with studious courtesy as "Miss Pilgrim" and informed her blandly that she was to be tried of a charge of espionage against the Republic of Congi. He further assured her the US Consulate had been consulted but refused to intervene in any case where one of its nationals was convicted of spying or the breaking of local laws. Vanessa Pilgrim felt the world slipping away beneath her feet as she listened to courteous but decisive tones of ultimate authority. There would, of course, be a trial, Congi did everything with scrupulous attention to protocol. The uniformed man shrugged and gestured, in his own way he was being kind. But he had explained the facts of her case to a delinquent maiden who should have had more sense. He shrugged and went away. Vanessa Pilgrim was returned to her cell. As though fearful of her powers of magic, she was once more handcuffed, this time in front but nonetheless securely. She was left alone. The trial of Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was a farce, she understood only bits and pieces here and there but enough to know she was accused of consorting with the enemies of the Republic and, in particular, with the Commandant of the guerrilla forces of the Macusi, whose name was Rod Sykes, possibly a pseudonym but well enough known to convict her utterly. She had been granted the aid of console who was a pleasant young man quite probably floundering in his first real case. The marshaled array of facts and indisputable evidence overwhelmed him and his client. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim of the United States of America and possibly of the CIA, was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.
Vanessa stood stunned. It had happened too swiftly for comprehension. She wanted to shout and scream and tell them how far from the truth they really were, but was intelligent enough to see their point of view and to realize that from that view she had no foot on which to stand. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was a spy! When she told them of being whipped and tortured and held naked in chains they gestured in an embarrassed silence as though to indicate, what else could she expect! In tears she was led back to her cell by firm female fingers on her bare arm. The native wardress was sympathetic but in a hurry, she was a busy woman and what was one spy more or less in Congi! Congi was full of spies. Vanessa Pilgrim was one of the few who got her just desserts. In an excess of zeal but in total authority she once more produced the fated handcuffs and locked them on the unresisting wrists of a girl who would be put work to under a sentence of hard labor for twenty years, thereby obliterating her youth, perhaps her life.
For a long time Vanessa sat upon the hard bench in her tiny cell and cried her heart out in desolation. None had come to her defense, she was surrounded by enemies, all of them sincere in their belief of her delinquency. The US Consul had expressed his regrets but refused to intervene. The handcuffs on her wrists were a final insult, a token of Congi's assessment. Quite probably they would stay upon her wrists for twenty years. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim wept and wept again.
Vanessa's journey to the prison wherein she would spend the next twenty years was in the best Hollywood tradition. She was informed that, in Congi, prisoners convicted of espionage were denied clothes, they spent their days in a shameful nakedness appropriate to their trade. First there was the chain with the big ring and then the handcuffs threaded through the iron and clasp on her wrists so she must hold them the level of her waist. She was very, very helpless. But Congi was not thus easily satisfied, it insisted also on leg irons on her feet before she was lifted and hoisted within the vehicle which would convey her to her fate. Within were two more girls similarly constrained, but since they could speak no English and Vanessa was ignorant of their own tongue, all they could do was smile and shrug in a feminine resignation to something now inevitable.
The prison embraced Vanessa with relish. She was washed and scrubbed and left to dry herself with handcuffed hands. Then came the ignominious fingerprinting and the camera which would record her for all posterity as a wicked, wicked spy dangerous to the welfare of the Republic. Throughout the whole ritual she remained firmly handcuffed but without benefit of the chain around her middle. This had been retrieved by the driver of the van which had brought them to their living grave. Such items were rigorously accounted for in Congi. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was thrust harshly within the barred confines of a cell and ostentatiously locked in. No tears or protests of innocence would ever set her free.
Survival in implicit in human life. Vanessa's mind, after the first storms of tears had passed, dwelt assessingly upon her chances. True, the consulate had ignored her trial but this did not mean they were unaware of her existence or her fate. This was a tiny ray of hope. Secondly, her case had attracted enough attention that surely Rod Sykes would become aware and might himself take steps. True, he would be in enemy territory, but he was a strong and resourceful man and the Macusi had friends everywhere. These two factors were on the credit side, but balancing them were the iron bars of Vanessa's cell and the handcuffs on her wrists. The wardress had told her frankly she was under suspicion and regarded as dangerous. She would be kept always handcuffed and/or attached to the bars as might please the wishes of those who dealt with her, and she would be naked also to reflect the shame of her activities against Congi's benevolence. It was matter-of- factly conceded that to keep her naked was a great convenience, both in the matter of her bonds and in consideration of punishment inevitably to come. It appeared that the terms "hard labor" were euphemisms for the whip and the yokes and the cords. Vanessa was assured of a painful twenty years.
Perhaps the bland assurances of torture to come were no more than a conditioning by which the actualities of prison were made bearable. Those who controlled the prison for female offenders of the Republic might, in their wisdom, take the trouble to assess and to test female responses to confinement; no doubt it was an interesting study. The inmates, in their recreation hour, laughingly admitted torture might be preferable to the prison farm, the laundry, the kitchen, and such other tasks as were found for them to do. None were given a chance to escape. Always they were legironed or handcuffed or coffled in continuing chain from one delinquent neck to another. The prison lost no opportunity of impressing upon them rigid standards of a new Republic under intense scrutiny by the world. Theirs was a model prison and their treatment the most humane. If they got whipped often it was, of course, entirely their own fault.
Vanessa came to hate the hoeing of potatoes and weeding of corn. The days under the hot African sun while she labored with the hoe or sought elusive weeds with handcuffed hands were long and sweaty and without reward. All too often at the end of a brutal day her labors were declared inadequate and beneath Congi standards, in which event she would be hung up by bound wrists and whipped according to her wardress' whim. She and all the other girls complimented themselves on acquiring an insensitive skin, leather in place of satin innocence and blunt resignation in place of sentience. At the end of thirty days all of them were well conditioned to a legalized enslavement and legalized punished which Congi flaunted to the world as fine examples of penal reform. The cells was worst of all. When, in the evening, Vanessa was returned to the barred cubical, hosed down and disinfected but still handcuffed, she relapsed upon the narrow bench which passed for her bed and never failed to shed tears of bitter remorse for that other imprisonment far away which she had so thoughtless fled. She wanted Rod Sykes more and more each day.
The longing for a man occupied most of the thought and conversation of the prison inmates. They were mostly young, as are all delinquents, and their longing for the male thrust was natural and to be expected. To be expected also was a reversion to the Lesbian Way and the feeding upon each other which the authorities condoned. Some of the wardresses were the most ardent exponents of this art of Lesbos and when one of the captive girls found approval in the eyes of authority she had best behave herself and give a good accounting with tongue and lips if she did not wish to be publicly flogged. It was all very methodical and followed an even course. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was given up into this stream of female despair and contributed her own desolation to its continuousness, but Vanessa's physical involvements were few and far between. For some reason known only to itself, the prison authorities kept her isolated at night in a single cell alone. Usually there were two or even four girls behind each set of bars. But Vanessa must have offended deeply, or perhaps been privileged, to rate a cell all to herself. It was a terrible solitude in which tears were her only companion.
Vanessa was kept handcuffed constantly, the shining bracelets never left her wrists. In the field she was legironed and these impediments were locked upon her ankles in the morning and unlocked every night. Her nakedness was a constant shame, true there were other girls as naked as she, but all who wore no clothes were the butt derision and caustic sympathy. But the white girl had little time with her fellow captives, her most regular human communion was with the wardress whose special charge she appeared to be. It was not long before this muscular and heavy-lipped black explained the service she would require of the chained girl upon demand, and on the earliest occasion stood with legs wide apart and hand holding a ready riding crop should the attentions of her prisoner lag. Miserably, but facing the inevitable, Vanessa knelt and surveyed and wide and heavy lips, the massive pubic patch and sniffed the pungent redolence of the distasteful area. It was useless to invite the crop, she had been cropped enough, with an inward moan but stem determination to survive, the white captive maiden clasp black thighs in joined hands and thrust her face hard within the most private place of a uniformed wardress of the Republic of Congi. It was all incongruous but nothing mattered any more. Presumably she gave satisfaction, her rations improved.
Fortunately the prison girls far outnumbered their jailers, the servicing of the sex of authority was therefore well spread around. The uniformed women were capricious in their choice, flitting from one preference to another. Only their chief penetrated Vanessa's cell, but in her daylight Vanessa was often approached, as were all the rest, by an overseer with a whip who had no need to speak but simply stood with legs apart and sex blatantly bared for the sweating prisoner's attention. After her initial revolution Vanessa came to know, not without shame, she was looking forward to these interludes as a strange substitute for male communion in the loneliness of imprisonment. She reflected wryly on how far down the latter of human intercourse she had fallen.
The field work was hateful. There was always the threat of the whip and a constant demand for a better and better performance with the hoe. Each girl must complete her allotted number of rows by the time the evening whistle would blow. Vanessa failed on two occasions and was, without comment, dragged to one side beneath a gibbet, from whose outstretched pole her bound hands were rudely suspended and her sweaty nudity marked by a methodical application of the whip. Throughout this ordeal the officiating officer kept up a constant conversation of explanation as to why Vanessa was being whipped and how it was hoped by authority she would benefit therefrom. It was slyly and sarcastically suggested that no doubt she would complete her allotted tasks on the morrow. Hating herself for her compliance, Vanessa always followed this good advice and on the following day contrived sufficient approval to escape the whip, stumbling to her cell in the evening in a state of utter exhaustion.
The prison was not without its own ingenuity. Authorities well understood the tendency to suicide when girls serving a long sentence were subjected too long to a single punishment or the same never-ending labor day after day. It was thus Vanessa made acquaintance with a strange device.
The prison had many rooms devoted to damsel's despair. In one was a tread mill which ground no com, its function was purely punitive and the knowledge of that fact added greatly to the dolor of any maiden compelled to lend her steps to its endless revolutions. It was all very simple. Loops of wire were tightened behind the knuckle of each thumb. The victim was invited to step up on the platform as her arms were raised. The platform was simply one of the broad blades of the endless mill. When both bare feet were solidly planted on this blade and the bare arms raised to the desired height, the punished prisoner was invited to start her walk and told to watch the pulling of a lever by a black hand. Immediately the lever was pulled into a fresh position the blades began to slowly revolve and the naked girl being punished had a choice of hanging by wired thumbs, a fate quite unthinkable, or stepping up to the next blade as it came around and then the next, and the next, and the next If you were not the girl whose feet must seek the blades it was an amusing contrivance, absolute uselessness adding much to the punishment. When Vanessa had been chained to the pole she had been at least grinding com, but now she must step up and step again forever in an utter futility of effort. No one had bothered to remove her handcuffs, they simply did not interfere with the function of the wire bands around her thumbs. But at the start, bewildered and confused by a sudden loss of stability, Vanessa stumbled in her steps and once or twice was briefly suspended by the wire. The pain was so shocking she dared risk no repeat. Obediently she watched the slowly turning blades and stepped each as they came her way. She turned to the watching uniform to complain, "But I can't possibly go on like this all day! I'll become exhausted I'll... I'll "
"Yes, you can." She was assured blandly. "You have very good walk. You lucky girl to have good walk." The uniform walked away with all its dignity intact. The naked girl had no dignity to loose. Vanessa stepped and stepped and longed to scream. There were evidently hidden controls. The treadmill would suddenly stop still and leave its occupant stumbling and uncertain. Always when it started up again it caught Vanessa unaware and once more her thumbs felt the bite of wire. But the hours slipped away as did the droplets of sweat from beneath the bare raised arms. It was in this dire distress, this sweaty disgrace, that Miss Vanessa Pilgrim received her second visit from Mr. Bill Patton.
At first Vanessa only sensed his presence. He had come in quietly through an open door and it took a few moments for the scent of his cologne to penetrate and defeat the pungency of Vanessa's sweat. The working girl looked sideways in deep shock and involuntary exclaimed, "Go away, please go away, I don't want you to see me like this, it's horrible!"
Patton pulled back the lever and the treadmill stopped to leave Vanessa panting with heaving breasts and mantled shame. No man should see a girl thus shamed and humiliated or so bathed in the pungency of her own sweat, she was positive she looked terrible.
"I know how you feel," Patton's voice held some urgency. "But this was the only way I could get to see you, and believe me it cost a pretty penny, these people don't bribe easily."
"Take me home, oh please send me back home. Get me off this hateful thing! Please...!"
"I can't send you home right now. What I want you to do is listen to what I have to say." Patton's voice was urgent as his gaze traveled from glistening crotch to up to the bare arms and captive thumbs. "I won't repeat what I've said before, nothing has changed. But I'm damned if I like the memory of you in circumstances like this. We can't beat the system, we can only bribe it and I don't have that much dough." He paused and added, embarrassed, "But I've discovered someone who does and who will part with it on his own terms. I won't disguise the fact his terms are damned stiff for any girl to accept."
"Yes Oh, yes Anything!"
"You're distraught. You say that all too easily." Patton's voice held true concern. "I would like nothing better than to gather you up and carry you out of this place. But I have to play by the rules and so do you." He paused again and this time his cheeks began to pinken in true embarrassment. "This isn't easy to say, but the fact is you've been enduring punishments like this for a long, long time and I suppose you must be getting used to them. I don't mean you're getting to like them but they're a fact of your life and I'm supposing you've adjusted to that fact. Am I correct?"
"Yes, yes, yes... ! Oh, Mr. Patton, I've told you I'll do anything, I'll be anything, I'll get into bed with anybody, I've no pride left. If this friend of yours wants to tie me to a post all day, whip me in the evening, then sleep with me each night, I'll willingly say yes just so long as he takes me to the USA and does these things to me there." She wailed in anguish. "Is that what you're trying to say?"
Patton was obviously relieved. "He's really not a bad guy," he told Vanessa reassuringly. "In many ways he's a gentleman, he's just got this thing about girls. I'm sure he's not a sadist, in fact I'm not sure of what things he does do to any girl he gets hold of. I remember he married one once, but it didn't last, they got divorced. But anyway, he's got the money to get you out of this prison and into the USA. This is the damnedest proposition I've ever made a girl but it's the only one I've come up with to fit your circumstances. Your circumstances aren't exactly normal, you know."
Vanessa gazed up at her wired thumbs and then at the immaculately clad member of the State Department. Patton's offer would have sounded fiendish once but not now. Vanessa had come a long, long way since her walk into the trees from the old Mission. Her mind was a phantasmagoria of impressions of punishments, none of them actually sadistic, but sufficiently onerous to build within her being its own strange immunity. She collected her own jumbled emotions sufficiently to stare calmly at her visitor and say, "Yes, Mr. Patton. I'll be glad and grateful and terribly thankful to accept your friend's offer. And I'm grateful to you, too. Believe me, you don't know how grateful I am. Please get me out of here."
Bill Patton nodded, "Will do. May take a few days so don't panic. And I'll admit I'm doing this as much to ease my own guilt as to set you free, I've been having visions of you ever since I first saw you and the way I see you now is something I simply can't take." He put his hand on the fatal lever and apologized, "Sorry about this." He pulled the lever, the treadmill started again. Mr. William Patton went away.
Vanessa Pilgrim would once have hated Bill Patton for leaving her thus. But that was long ago, today she felt only a vast and overwhelming gratitude. Patton was right, you did what you could and you paid the cost if you had the price either in money or in girlish flesh. The steps she took now upon the hated treadmill seemed lighter as a revival of hope sent the blood coursing through her veins. Vanessa gave only a casual consideration of the possibility of getting herself simply out of one frying pan and into another fire which might be hotter than what she endured now. She refused to believe Bill Patton would thus abuse her trust or would wish to see her thus used No doubt this friend of his would have some kinky quirks which she could easily cater to in a climate and place where fear did not lurk in every corner or over every hill. She had much to think of now as the big blades slowly turned beneath her feet. It's revolutions would not cease because of Bill Patton's visit, they would continue on and on and on, and she would do her best to keep up with them rather than be suspended by wired thumbs. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim trod bravely and with a heart more buoyant than at any time since her sentencing. The day wore on.
The following day Vanessa was returned to the fields, and was whipped for not paying attention to her task. It was the field's gain on the day after but in early afternoon she was recalled, hosed down and dressed in a white sarong, little better than a folded sheet fastened above her breasts. She was then vouchsafed a piece of string around the waist to give a more dressy appearance. It was a convenient covering leaving no necessity to unchain her hands. The matron led her to the bare, little room in which there was a bare, little table and two hard chairs. Vanessa was thrust inside and the door slammed at her back.
There are a few of us who do not cherish romantic fantasies which we diminish and adjust little by little in the awareness of what we get would not always be what we like. It was so with Vanessa Pilgrim now. She had hoped for a second Bill Patton or perhaps even Bill Patton himself but the man who rose now to give her greeting was a quite different type. He was masculine enough but lacked Patton's dimensions. His face was worldly wise, his eyes sharp and knowing. He sported a short, well-trimmed beard. About him was a touch of the artist. He clasped Vanessa's handcuffed hands and kissed them both in a manner courtly enough to send a faint flutter to her heart. He was dressed in a business suit which cried aloud of money, his shoes alone must have cost a couple of hundred dollar.
His voice also reflected stocks and bonds and title deeds, it was the voice of a man who did things and reaped a rich reward. It was also sufficiently vibrant to be exciting. He might not be another Bill Patton but Vanessa Pilgrim decided he would do.
"My name is Justine Moore, and you are Miss Vanessa Pilgrim. I am an entrepreneur, or if you prefer, a speculator. My pleasures are unorthodox. I believe Bill Patton has told you something of them... ?' "He said I would be your prisoner and be punished as it might please you." Vanessa's eyes sought his in a level assessment. The vibrations she was getting spelt instant rapport. "This is acceptable to me. I yield myself to you. If I can make terms they are simply that you take me back to the United States and use me there. Everything about this place has come to frighten me. I want no more of it. Will you do that?"
"Agreed." His smile changed his features for the better. "But I do want you to understand what you're getting into. I am utterly shameless about girls, I enjoy them immensely, but I also use them to the full. If you accept enslavement to me you will be kept a prisoner as it may please me, you will be punished in many ways, the principle one will, of course, be by the whip or similar instruments." He smiled again, "Of which I am sure you know there is a great many."
"I'm not shocked," Vanessa admitted with a wry shrug of bare shoulders. "Maybe I should be, and I would have been once, but not now. What you've told me is pretty much what's been done to me all through my several imprisonments in this country, but I think you will do these things to me in a kindlier climate and with a greater consideration."
She smiled, "I guess my willingness to accept what you offer will give you an idea how great my loathing of Congi has become. " Vanessa gazed down at her handcuffed wrists stretched before her on the table's surface. She lifted them and tugged to spay her fingers wide. "Congi has kept these on me all the time, I am never free of them."
"You may never be free of them with me, Miss Pilgrim."
She shrugged again and made a rueful grimace across the table. "Very well, so I spend the rest of my life handcuffed. There's one thing I'll say about handcuffs, they don't hurt if you don't fight them. I gave up fighting them long ago."
His voice was faintly anxious as he asked, "You don't find this conversation between us in this place incongruous and impossible?"
"No. I might have once but Congi has cured me of any inhibition I ever had. All I want is out."
"Stand up if you please and step away from the table."
Vanessa flushed, guessing his intent. She stood, stiffly expectant while he unpinned the folds of her garment and loosed the string. Naked she stood before him in all her loveliness. As thought to flaunt her beauty and emphasis her statement of being inured to every shame, she slowly raised her arms then crossed her fingers behind her neck in a total exposure of every feminine curve and plane, she even slowly separated her feet to show this man she would hide nothing from him. Justine Moore nodded reflectively, turning her this way and that and unblushingly palming her puss and testing the resiliency of her breasts. "You are a very beautiful girl, Miss Pilgrim, I will be honored to posses you."
Deftly he repinned her sarong and retied its string. "Please sit down again, there are things yet to discuss."
Vanessa obeyed. She took care to once again extend her forearms on the table to enable Justine Moore to enjoy her handcuffed wrists. His pleasure in this confinement would once have revolted her. It did not now. Rod Sykes had taught her a great deal about the sexual curiosities of men. Stumblingly she repeated, "I wish I could tell you how grateful I am for this opportunity you are giving me."
Justine Moore nodded and laughed at her frank sincerity. "Even without knowing the time I intend to hold you captive?' "Why should I question that? I am sentenced in this place to twenty years hard labor. Would you hold me longer?"
Moore shrugged indifferently. "I don't suppose so." He frankly chuckled at the blatancy of his suggestion, "There's always the possibility, you know, you may not wish to be released. Have you ever thought of that?"
"No. I'm not a masochist, I should tell you that at the start. If you whip me it will hurt and I will hate it, but I'll also know it's something I must endure."
"And the matter of your journey to the USA? Have you thought of that, Miss Pilgrim?"
"No, I haven't, and please don't call me Miss Pilgrim, my name's Vanessa. What do you want me to call you?"
"In public you will call me Justine. In private you will address me as 'Master.'" He motioned disarmingly. "This is a small conceit of mine but very vital to the context of our relationship. You will always show me a modicum of respect even though you may not feel it. Now, about your return to the US. Would you like to travel as freight inside a box?"
"Good, Gosh, no!" She stared aghast, "Do I have to?"
He chuckled at her alarm but pointed out reasonable, "Its one of several ways, you know. You can be strapped and gagged immovably in a crate and you'll get by as a piece of freight. I'll make sure of it. Another way would be to drug you so you'll have no idea of what takes place and you'll wake up a long while after in the good old USA. Do you like that better?"
Vanessa wrinkled her nose but was well aware that she should not tax this man's ingenuity or helpfulness beyond his temper. Quietly she admitted, "I won't like it, but it that's the only way... "
"It is not the only way." Justine Moore was gazing at her reflectively as though to gage her tolerances. He smiled as thought at something absurd. "There is an alternative. You could simply be a fellow passenger with me upon an airplane. Or would the intoxication of that freedom spur you to flight immediately your feet reached the ground?" He chuckled. "I wouldn't blame you if it did. This last choice is a bad one, it thrusts a terrible decision at you."
Of the three choices, the last was the one Vanessa infinitely preferred. But she could understand it would tax this man's credulity far more than her fortitude. It would be hard for him to believe in her willingness to once more submit to enslavement once her feet were firmly planted on US soil. He might consider her stupid if she did. "I'd be immensely grateful to be a passenger on an airplane," she admitted with a gesture of helplessness. "But I can understand how you could doubt my sincerity in yielding myself back to you once the journey was over. Could I give you my parole or promise or some assurance... ? I mean, I would be crazy to let myself be put inside a box if I can go as a normal passenger." Vanessa gazed in earnest supplication. "Can you understand how grateful I'd be for this, how willing to please?" She searched feverishly for adequate assurances. "Will you believe me if I tell you I'll yield my hands to you for the handcuffs at any moment you wish after we leave the airport." She laughed almost gaily. "I don't suppose you can keep me handcuffed on the plane or walking through the turnstiles. I won't object if that is what you want, but won't that get us in trouble with the stewardess?" Vanessa slyly allowed a moment or two to pass before she added the single word, "Master." Justine Moore smiled as her rose to his feet. "I'll consider your offer." He acknowledged amiably. "I'm inclined to believe you would keep your word. I may take a chance on you. One way or the other, you can feel assured of returning to the US."
"I'm so tremendously grateful Master. I can hardly believe any of this is happening."
"You will, my dear, you must assuredly will!"
CHAPTER FIVE - PRISONER ON PAROLE
Congi's prison for delinquent females might be open to bribes but was a stickler for ritual and prescribed procedures. It took Miss Vanessa Pilgrim, stripped her as bare as a billiard ball, changed her handcuffs from front to back, and as an added precaution, firmly bound her elbows as close together as they would go. The pain of elbows thus constricted almost dampened Vanessa's euphoria, but not quite! She was then marched to a waiting and anonymous van in which a black driver sat behind his wheel, indifferent to proceedings, while the staff performed it last function on their departing guest. They bound her ankles cruelly with thin twine then knotted them to a ringbolt in the floor to leave Vanessa the option of awkwardly sitting upright or laying back upon bound arms or painfully on her side. Before closing the door they assured the naked captive she was a very naughty girl to be thus dubiously freed. But by the time the van had traversed rough and rutty roads for half its journey Vanessa lost much of her enthusiasm. She had never been so painfully bound or so helpless. But the time the van reached its destination, a garage beneath a house, Vanessa was unashamedly crying. She always seemed to end up alone and hurting.
It was Justine Moore who cut her binding to the van and carried her bodily upstairs to a bedroom most obviously feminine. To Vanessa's immense relief he cut away the strictures on her arms and ankles to leave her only with hands cuffed behind her back. The relief was so great it felt like total freedom. "Insensitive lot," he commented dryly as he stood her erect. "I can understand your wanting to get away from them. "In their position I would still have tied you, but a great deal more artistically. There's no need to cut a girl's arms off just to keep her safe." He wiped tear stains from her cheeks and held a glass of brandy to her lips. "Sorry to rush you, Vanessa, but the plane is waiting and there's no point keeping you prisoner around this place any more. How do you feel?"
Vanessa gulped greedily and assured him she had never felt better in her life. Her heart was singing and her hopes soaring to new heights, the brandy helped enormously as did the caring regard of this new human of whom she must pay the honor of calling "Master. " Urgently she repeated her old refrain, "I'll do anything you want. Master. Just tell me what it is I have to do."
Justine Moore laughed at her eagerness. "You'll bath and you'll dress and I've got a girl in to do your hair. The immediate question is, you're still handcuffed. If I release your hands you'll be an entirely free girl. How do you intend to act?"
"The same as if I was chained, of course. I belong to you now. I understand the whole thing now, I'm certainly no novice at being the prisoner of a man. Like I said, tell me what to do?"
It was glorious beyond words to be entirely free. Vanessa had been handcuffed so long she felt cold without their clasp. But she reveled in the bath and the ministrations of a black maid servant who spoke no English but knew her craft. After Vanessa had been bathed and laved and dried and powder applied where ever the black girl considered it needed, she was seated before a dressing table and huge mirror and her hair attended to in a manner it had not been dealt with since leaving the United States. It all felt good and wonderful and beyond credence. The freed girl was flooded by wave after wave of relief and exaltation.
There was no more rope, no handcuffs, nothing! Justine Moore sat comfortably on the bed while his most recent purchase was dress and pampered by the deft black fingers. He was satisfied as Vanessa herself, though in a different way and for a different cause. When she was declared a perfect product of the maid's Art, she walked directly to the man on the bed and extended both hands, her smile almost mocking.
"No, no more handcuffs for you, young lady, at least for a while."
Justine got to his feet, slipped her arm through his, and suggested suavely, "Shall we go, my dear? I think it's time."
The airport embraced them with great goodwill, they were first class passengers and must be treated with respect. The airline almost groveled. Money had never fallen to the lot of Miss Vanessa Pilgrim and she reveled in it now. Justine Moore yielded to his slave by allowing her the window seat. The first class accommodations were spacious and oozed comfort. The drinks, appearing as if my magic and without command, were instantly available. Justine Moore accepted everything as is a normal and expected part of daily life but the girl at his side was a-quiver with delight. She did nothing but enjoyed it all.
Miss Vanessa Pilgrim had decided to close her mind to everything except the exact moment that was now. She refused to look backward or forward but only to enjoy the authority of her master's money. She sipped her drink and remembered, in quiet satisfaction, the tension she had sensed in her new guardian as they traversed the aisles and dealt with officialdom. It was still there but in a far lesser degree now they were safely on board the plane. Once airborne, it disappeared. Vanessa supposed it would recur when they disembarked, but she gaily and silently decided this was not her worry but that of Justine Moore. She knew herself firm in her intention to deliver herself in honor. Beyond that she refused to think.
"Pleased with your bargain, Vanessa?" the quiet voice by her side was mildly curious.
"Of course I am. What girl wouldn't be! Bill Patton must have told you the circumstances under which he talked with me the other day. Compared to that, this is a miracle."
Justine Moore nodded. He was finding tremendous satisfaction in his prize. He was a man around forty years of age and the stewardess probably mistook them for a couple on their honeymoon, they radiated that kind of excitement. Vanessa was radiant. "I can't help being curious, in fact this whole thing I do with girls is partly motivated by curiosity. I may write a book on it someday. Have you no apprehension at what awaits you at the end of this trip?"
"No much. I'm refusing to think about it. Don't worry about it. I'll be a good girl." Vanessa laughed frankly at the serious man at her side. "You've got it all wrong, Justine, it's you who should be anxious. I can run away or call the police. I'm curious too, you know. Supposing I did that, where would it leave you?"
"Up the creek." He laughed back at her. "Probably the most interesting air trip either of us will ever make."
"Thank you for trusting me." Vanessa bombarded him with female vibrations which were mostly of eternal gratitude. "I know you are taking a chance. I'm curious, too, to know how much it cost you to get me out of that prison?"
"Plenty. I could probably bought a girl from a slave trader for less, but not of your quality, not necessarily white. They do sometimes have something of quality, but not often. They would pay a fortune for you and get twice as much." Justine Moore laughed and added, "I can always get my investment back that way providing, of course, you don't elude my grasp."
Vanessa was not afraid of this man, she would hold him in deep respect and probably he would whip some fear into her, but for the moment her curiosity made her ask, with a sly whisper no one else could hear, "But, Master, won't you tell me in dollars just what my price was?"
She had touched him, she knew she had. His answer was without hesitation, "A hundred and fifty thousand American dollars. It had to be spread around quite a few places. Actually I had friends and got you cheap." Vanessa mulled over a sum greater than she would ever own. There was a thrill in it. Justine Moore had bought a girl in a poke, sight unseen, for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and she was the girl. She knew, in his shoes, she would be damned nervous when they got off the plane. Simply she said, "Thank you for telling me. I'm glad you did. I'll try to give you value for your money." It was almost a Pact.
They talked of many things. They ate, they drank, Vanessa reveled in all the luxury money could buy but, after a while, Justine Moore returned to a subject which evidently intrigued him. He admitted as much. "Look, Vanessa, I'm making a hundred and fifty thousand dollar experiment. In a way I'm playing a bit of Russian roulette with myself, you could prove the one live cartridge in my gun. But I'm making discoveries of you. Perhaps one more glimpse into the mysteries of your sex, although goodness knows I've seen enough. Don't hate me if I pile stress on top of stress."
"Why should I, Justine! You've already told me the things, or at least some of the things you'll do to me when you get me to where ever you're taking me. As far as I'm concerned, that's it." She smiled into his intent regard, refusing to be perturbed. "If I told you about the Macusi, and the Hamish and the things they did to me in that beastly prison you rescued me from, you wouldn't feel guilty. I think maybe you feel just a little bit guilty now? I believe men mostly do."
"When I've got you safely home and we've settled in. I'm going to whip you, Vanessa. It won't be a flogging but you won't enjoy it." His tone was a question in itself.
"Thank you, very much, Master." Vanessa deliberately made her voice coy and absurdly loaded with gratitude. There was a moment's hesitation before they shared laughter.
Their rapport intensified. It was hard for Vanessa to explain or understand but she was feminine and it didn't matter just so long as it was there. No doubt Justine Moore would be very cruel to her, but for the moment he was being very kind and, again with feminine logic, she was prepared to balance the two against each other and arrive at a comfortable acceptance at whatever fate he had in store for her. She still had no thought of running away.
New York taxed Vanessa's fortitude to the full. Their stay there was brief but gave her plenty of opportunities for flight. Justine Moore was wise enough to keep silent on the subject while they toured the boutiques and made a few purchases. If she ran, well, she ran! Justine Moore in no way wanted her to run but was prepared to take his own sporting chance. He was a gambler. But Vanessa did not disappoint him, and it was not until they got on their fresh plane that she asked, "Where are we going and did I do OK?"
"We're going to Los Angeles, and you did wonderfully and I'm proud of you."
"Proud enough of me to not whip me on arrival?" Vanessa's femaleness was arched.
"Whipping you on arrival has nothing to do with pride," Justine admonished firmly. "I'm doing it for reasons of my own. We're not going to talk about it any more, understand?"
"Yes, Master." Vanessa twinkled at him in outrageous mischief. "Did I say that right or did I sound silly?"
"You sound the ultimate in perfection," he assured her congenially. "Almost too good to be true, but keep it up, I like it."
Vanessa was thrilled; she had won a tiny victory.
"I've got a ransacked old ruin up in the hills," Justine informed her conversationally. "Keep a Japanese houseboy there to look after things, but watch your step with him, he won't set you free even if you offer your body or whatever else you happen to think will work. It's not my official residence. I keep it for purposes you'll understand when you see it. It's perfectly designed for damsels in distress. I should probably had Dante's injunction carved above the door, 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.' "
"Is it that bad? You make it sound like dungeons, racks and thumbscrews."
"Well, not really. Cato is a good chap, he'll feed you well but that's about as far as he'll go. He keeps the place in good trim." Justine chuckled mischievously, "He keeps the Brazier burning at all times and the branding irons are always hot, he keeps the rack well-oiled and the stocks and pillory dusted. He regularly airs out the dungeons and keeps the chains from getting rusty."
"I think you're pulling my leg." Vanessa was feeling more and more herself as she turned and slyly protruded her tongue at the man she must call "Master." She would not have dared do it an hour ago.
"That little bit of mischievous will cost you five strokes, my dear. " Justine's voice was even and equable as though speaking of dinner. "Remember what I told you about respect?"
"Yes, Master, I'm sorry." Vanessa made an unconcerned grimace and said, "I've having the damnedest time calling you Justine. That 'Master' bit sort of comes naturally."
The additional five stroke penalty, whether Justine intended to dish it out or not, did nothing to dampen the euphoria of his new possession. True, the stewardess thoughtfully provided replacement drinks, and their affect was to add fresh colors to Vanessa's rainbow, but in the quiet, logical recesses of her mind, Vanessa was satisfied with the bargain she had made. She realized how absurd it would seem to a third party for her to keep her word. By all normal standards the entire situation could not happen. But it had happened by virtue of Congi attitudes towards the female. By Congi standards all Vanessa was doing was correcting an imbalance and striking a happy medium. Justine Moore was an unknown quantity and might abuse her terribly once he had her helpless. But Vanessa did not believe this and it was upon what she did believe she based her judgment and her resultant attitudes. She lived with them happily throughout the voyage.
Cato appeared to have eyes only for The Male. Meeting them at Los Angeles domestic airport, his concern lingered for only the briefest moment on Vanessa but he bestowed his full attention upon The Male who paid his wages. Having closed the Mercedes door upon the man and the woman, her returned behind the wheel and then forth did not look back. A glass panel rose between himself and the two passengers in the back seat. It was as much privacy as they had ever had.
It was the moment for which Miss Vanessa Pilgrim had waited with a sort of "now or never"
"do or die" conviction; forthrightly she offered her hands and asked demurely, "Please chain me, Master."
"That was done beautifully," Justine conceded. "But I'll chain you in my own time and my own way. It is then that you'll show submission. Understand?"
Vanessa understood, but she was still within the roseate glow of gratitude, her voice vibrant with anxiety to please, "Perhaps you would prefer my hands behind my back, Master?"
"That will cost you five more strokes, little girl," Justine explained suavely. "You'll learn by these small mistakes to reach perfection. This business of behind your back was just a continuation of the offer of your hands in front." He laughed at her dismay. "Refer to instructions about excessive submission or redundant subservience. It's important to me."
Vanessa swallowed hard. She was still a girl at reasonable liberty, all her limbs were completely free. It seemed at variance with what this man had claimed to be but she would contest nothing, no doubt the confinements would come soon enough, meanwhile she would be foolish not to enjoy the possession of hands and feet. Laughingly she accepted the cocktails from the bar Justine Moore had disclosed by pressing a button. Everything in this man's world was magic. That magic was turning her into a fairy princess. Ruefully Vanessa realized she did not know the extent of the initial whipping she was to receive and therefore could not relate the ten strokes she had picked up to it. For all she knew she might now be destined for ten or twenty or a hundred strips upon her skin. The cocktail vanished the horrendous thoughts into the multicolored mists along with her memories of Congi. When they left the San Diego Freeway at Sunset and passed the Sherriden Hotel, Justine Moore's voice barely penetrated Vanessa's intoxication of happiness, "Give me your hands, Vanessa."
It was only the smallest of shocks, she had wondered how long it would be. Recognizing this quiet demand as a normal part of this new relationship, she offered her hands willingly. Justine took the glass and set it on the tray while he clasp the shining bracelets on her wrists. He then returned it to her fingers, quietly admonishing, "In my own time and in my own place, Vanessa."
The girl, once more captive but still able to scream, admired the expensive cuffs that joined her hands. Eyes sparkling, she raised her glass to the man who had locked the handcuffs on her wrists and playfully made a toast, "Here's to handcuffs and masters. Keep them on me always, please."
"You're up to fifteen now, my dear. " Justine said amusingly, "But I'll forget this last five you just earned by this 'always' bit. You're new to me and I have to make allowances. Actually you're doing damned well."
Justine had been right. It was all too obviously the relic of some forget film star's caprice, an ancient castle in miniature nestling within a canyon north of Sunset. Like so many of the multimillion dollar homes, it was well-shrouded by tress and shrubs from the road. It was only when Cato steered the Mercedes up the open drive to the forbidding portal that the place became real. Vanessa eyed it in total delight. Whatever horrors it held for her were effaced by its dignity of architecture. There was no moat and drawbridge but there might well have been. Within Vanessa's mind was the fantasy of the captive maiden, dragged from her father's home, to be imprisoned within this mellow stone castle for the pleasure of its master. Delightedly she exclaimed, "Why, it's beautiful. I don't care if it does have dungeons, it's still a storybook castle and I'm the captive princess."
Vanessa scarcely noticed the handcuffs, it was strange to wear them along with clothes but the clothes were now an anomaly in her life. She quivered in excited anticipation as she was led within the massive door and into the waiting hall. Justine's tone was that of the owner, proud of his home, "Left side modern, right side medieval. The latter is simulated, of course, but I bet it would stand up to anything you'd find in Europe and be in damned sight better repair. First off, we'll try the left, no use jumping into things too quickly. Cato will have dinner ready for us quiet soon and we need sleep. We'll save the fun and games until tomorrow. But there is a thing or two to get you back on track."
Vanessa knew the absurdity of seeing herself as the wife or consort of this man. But she was young and still romantic and the vision rose easily to her eyes as they entered the beautifully expensive lounge. For several moments while she looked around the two of them stood in diffidence, each well aware of something lacking and about to take place. Justine's voice soon broke their enchantment, "I want your clothes off, Vanessa."
She supposed it would always be a blow, this stem male desire to see her nakedness. But it was implicit in their bargain. Vanessa raised cuffed hands and said with feminine logic, "I can't undress with these, there's straps and things?"
"I'll undress you. Stand firm while I tug. There's a lot of stuff I'm going to have to tear away. You're right about the handcuffs, but that's the way I want it."
Vanessa knew that there would be much to learn. This was probably the first lesson. She did indeed stand firm and in her familiar deliverance of herself to others clasp her bound hands behind her neck while rude male fingers destroyed clothes she would have loved to keep. One by one they were riven from her until she stood before her master totally naked. Refusing to be coy or ashamed she said simply, "My nakedness is yours, Master. I hope you like it."
"I like it more than you'll ever know." It was the hungry assurance of a young man at his first sight of nakedness in the girl of his choice. But Justine Moore was not that young a man, from him it came as a fervent affirmation of worship. Vanessa realized she was in the hands of a man to whom the aesthetics were a vital part of his cruelty to girls. Justine Moore would always want her beautiful, even when she screamed. His voice was that of an impatience artist to his model, "Bring your hands back down and allow them to rest passive above your pubic hair. Incidentally, that's a lovely patch you've got." Vanessa obeyed, adding a touch of her quiet wisdom in the protrusion of her breasts and the separation of her legs. She was still abundantly grateful to Justine Moore and would give him all she could. He surveyed her sacrificial offering as though lost in dreams of what was to come. They stood thus for a long time. The handcuffed girl had the good sense not to move but to remain in a pose that evidently pleased her master much. It was painless and easy to hold, Vanessa's euphoria ran high. His command was abrupt emerging from visions in his mind, "Kneel. I'll show you how to do it properly."
Vanessa obediently knelt. She could think of ways to dispose her nakedness but, with wisdom, she decided to allow him to direct whatever erotic arrangement he desired.
"Allow your hands to rest as they did when standing, separate your knees so I can see within the cleft. Bow your head."
Vanessa did as she was told, picturing herself as the epitome of man's desire, the totally submissive maiden, quivering at male command and most anxious to please her master. It was a dream few men would ever realize, but it was now reality for this man before whom she knelt in the total sweetness of submission. Quite simply she said, "I obey you, Master."
So much time passed in Justine's contemplation in the beauty he had created as to cause the kneeling girl to wonder if he had forgotten the promise of the whip. She found herself uncaring as to whether he had or not. She was in a strange, otherworldly fantasy of her own, wishing it could go on forever. But the male voice shattered the figments of imagination, "You are too beautiful to believe. Stand up."
There was now a collar for her neck, a beautiful thing she was allowed to examine before it was locked about her neck. It was metal with gems but relentless in its sober promise, from the back of it dangled a ring, pendent and awaiting for chain or a padlock. The naked girl realized with the strangest of thrills that little by little her freedom was vanishing. When male fingers locked shackles on her ankles she supposed freedom was gone forever. It was their pact, she could not complain.
In the retracing of their steps back across the hall, Vanessa knew she was also shuffling her shackled feet back through the centuries. She was led through passages and corridors and up and down stone steps until they reached The Room. It was a bare and barren place but salvaged from despair by the mellow stone which lacked the animosity of granite or concrete. Somehow or other, without Vanessa knowing just how it happened, the handcuffs left her wrists and she dutifully raised her arms to place her thumbs within the small circlets offered by her lord, there came the same small clicks as with the handcuffs and the bite of the steel below her knuckles. When she tried to move from the post, of which the thumbcuffs were an integral part, she discovered she could not move, her thumbs were firmly held and any effort towards release or motion was rewarded by a pain.
"Something new, dear girl, an innovation," Justine informed her in quiet tones of a father-confessor. "That's all there is, just the grip of steel upon those pretty thumbs of yours. You'll stand facing that post as helpless as with twenty yards of rope or chains." His voice became vibrant with emotion, "Tell me why you are held thus?"
"You are going to whip me, Master." Vanessa's voice matched his in firm intensity.
"That is right, Vanessa. Do you believe you can stand what I am about to do to you without breaking your thumbs?"
"Yes, Master. I will struggle and scream but I will be held thus for your pleasure."
"Tell me the number of strips with which I mark your skin?"
"I have earned two separate inflections of five strokes each, Master, that is ten. Beyond ten strokes I do not know. I must bear what your pleasure dictates."
Vanessa could hear his indrawn breath of exaltation, she was saying all the right things and could only hope she would continue to say them. Little by little she was absolving Justine Moore's desires. They would demand much of her flesh, and perhaps the knowledge of them would be a weapon in her hands! Vanessa was about to break the awesome rule by saying, "Please whip me, Master," but bit back the words which would only earn her more strips. Seeking approval she very simply said, "I am helpless, Master -- I am yours."
It was hateful, as were all whips to naked girls, rendered helpless to the lash; a short stock, a single thong. Vanessa kissed it dutifully as it was held up to her lips, she did it in some subconscious memory of the symbol of which she told The Male of total submission to his will. Once again she heard his indrawn breath before agony exploded across her naked back. It was not until agony was piled upon agony and stroke upon stroke to the count of ten, that the screaming girl realized she did not know the dimensions of her punishment. Justine Moore's quiet voice brought her back from the mists of pain, "You have twenty more, Vanessa. Do you wish to plead?"
"No, Master."
The whip began again, not as swiftly as before, but with a rhythmic cadence by which each nuance of anguish might be rendered from the sullen flesh before the next stroke fell to mark in crimson the wicked strip Vanessa would bare for many days. Quietly her master said, "You are quite magnificent. You have fifteen more to go."
Vanessa was living vividly within the measured spacing of each stroke, each was cruel but the whip was not the worst her master could have used. She knew this and was grateful. Trying hard to contain her screams and assuage her pain with moans and the heavy gaspings of her breath. Thirty strokes was a truly terrible punishment for any naked girl but Vanessa was well aware the blows cutting across her back and bottom were not as hard as they might have been; her master was being merciful in this first "welcome" to his domicile. She twisted and contorted around and hurt her captive thumbs in the enduring of what she could not escape. She hoped most ardently to be beautiful in all of it, to generate within the man who held and used the whip a reverence for beauty beneath his lash. When the twentieth stroke had cut her skin, Vanessa would have subsided against the post in tears but the nature of the thumbcuffs denied that, they gave her only the choice of standing with arms stretched out from their clamps while she sweated, moaned and gasped her way from the mists of pain. Recovering, she supposed it a most satisfactory whipping which should have given her master great pleasure. Some innate wisdom prompted her to whisper, "Thank you, Master, you are very kind. You could have whipped me harder but were merciful." For good measure she added, "I'm helpless, you can do with me whatever you wish."
Justine Moore used the little key then led his slavegirl into dinner. "Better or worse than expected?" Justine gazed at the handcuffed nakedness across the candle light of dinner.
"It was what I expected. I am marked as you promised. Thank you for whipping me, Master."
"You're almost too good to be true, Vanessa." Justine Moore surveyed her stripped beauty with intense approval. "If you were a novice, I'd think you were having me on. But, considering your background, I'm willing to believe in your sincerity. You're quite remarkable."
Vanessa was feeling a considerable thankfulness that her initial punishment was passed. Justine Moore remained an unknown quantity, he had simply whipped her and that did not tell her too much.
Men loved whipping naked girls and their reaction was apt to be simply a hardened cock. It was expected that any man coming into possession of a naked slave would loose no time in whipping her to appease his lust. Usually he would expend his seed within her womb after the last stroke had marked her flesh, but this was evidently not Justine Moore's way. Justine Moore was a Sybarite and would extract from his naked females far more subtle nuances of expression and response than most men would ever dream. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was glad she belonged to him and not someone else. The lash marks across her skin hurt bitterly but she was deeply content and gave her full attention to the meal. If the pain and shame of what Justine Moore had so recently inflected was a frightening augury of things still to come, it was easy to reflect back upon the Hamish and their pole and Leisha's whip, or there was the treadmill and the floggings after a cruel day's work beneath the sun with her hated hoe. Such reflections set a balance and restored Miss Vanessa Pilgrim to a realization of being a very lucky girl. When, after dinner, she was taken to a feminine bedroom and chained by her neck to a feminine bed, she knew only a continuation of overflowing gratitude to the man who had whipped her and brought her back to the United States. She was almost instantly asleep.
* * *
The faithful California sun was well up when Vanessa awoke. The collar and chain was still padlocked but she was untrammeled by any other bonds. She sat up to tune of links and wistfully eyed the bathroom door. It was then she noticed the chain trailing from her neck and from the post of the bed looped themselves down to the floor. Looking over the side of the bed, she beheld a pile of links awaiting her pleasure. Excited as at a big discovery, Vanessa got to her feet, clutch her chain in one hand, and walked backward towards her desired goal. The chain was amply long enough for her to achieve her purpose, but when she experimented with windows and doors it snubbed her short. But the bathroom was a victory and a sign of her master's benevolence. She wondered where Justine Moore might be.
Even the most expensive and feminine of bathrooms is basically utilitarian. Soaking in the tub, the chained girl deliberately quenched euphoria and tried soberly to assess her new condition. She tenderly fingered the marks left by yesterday's whip, considered the utter incongruity of a naked girl maintained in a slavery amidst the respectability of Beverly Hills. No one would believe that in this house behind the trees she would be as much a slave as in the wilds of Africa. The chain upon her throat was just as secure as the bonds of Rod Sykes or the chains of the Hamish. Justine Moore or Rod Sykes were scarcely comparable but each had made her their slave and exacted the full toll of her femaleness. Vanessa chided herself over her too ready acceptance of a fresh bondage, but on the other hand to be a slave to Justine Moore seemed, on the face of it, to be a distinct improvement to the slavery which had held her for so long. Wisdom warned that enslavement in luxury could be as painful as in the desert. She had already been whipped by a man she had not ever seen a week ago. No doubt she would be whipped again. But the chained girl realized she had traveled far along a single path, she no longer thought of freedom in the sense she had once known and, in her first captivity, most ardently desired. Her captivities had molded her thoughts and mind to the perspectives of slavery. Her almost fawning anxiety to please her new owner had not been of a girl swished from the streets and so frightened she conceived no other course, but had risen from a more mature assessment of what Vanessa Pilgrim now knew her life to be. Even back in the United States and in the luxurious prestige of Beverly Hills the chain around her neck was all Justine Moore needed to keep her for him own. The chain separated her from the teeming millions of this fabled city. If she was to be happy, she had to realize there was no difference in form or intent between the handcuffs now upon her wrists and those she had worn in the wilds of Africa. It was hard to expel thoughts of the plane trip home. A nagging voice within told her constantly she could have run away, that Justine Moore could not possibly prevented escape. Vanessa countered by recalling the age of chivalry and the common practice of exacting a parole which, in fashion, was still resorted to in most penal systems. In whimsical amusement she shrugged away the doubts, the act of submission had been made and she was now a prisoner, possibly for twenty years. Vanessa looked forward toward the end of that period and wondered if she would still be an attractive woman. Then she cast speculation aside as profitless.
Cato was far less silent than Justine had suggested. Carrying a breakfast tray, he caught Vanessa half way from the bathroom to the bed, clutching about herself a damp towel of no great dimensions. She stared in an absurd dismay. Numberless men had seen her naked but here and now it was something she most ardently did not desire. Cato's English was perfect, "Your breakfast. Madam. Your Master left a note."
Vanessa dived for the bed as her most stable refuge before oriental eyes. Clutching the covers tight she held out a bare arm then read the single word written on a virgin page. It said simply, "Dinner."
"Your Master will not be home until late afternoon, Ma'am. If you will allow me, I will arrange your tray."
"You mean I'm going to be alone like this all day."
"I am empowered to lock you in a cell, if you should prefer, Ma'am." If there was sarcasm in the suggestion, it was well hidden.
"No, never mind. No thank you." Vanessa gulped coffee gratefully and then, to the still standing servant, "If you are going to stay here while I eat, you might as well sit down."
"Thank you, Ma'am. I will do so."
Vanessa turned from the grave-faced man of indeterminate age and gave her attention to the food. But it was instantly evident that if she was to hold one hand clutching covers with which to hide her breasts, she was going to be a very sloppy eater. She thought of asking the servant to leave and respect her privacy but was unsure of Cato's rank in Justine Moore's scheme of things. Cato's voice was silk, "You are not permitted covering, Ma'am. Might I suggest you enjoy your breakfast without concern for baring breasts and nipples, I have seen a great many of both, they are no novelty to me."
Vanessa blushed, feeling herself a child doing a childish thing in seeking to cover her nakedness before male eyes. Knowing she blushed, but knowing also she had best get used to it, she allowed the covers to fall away to reveal her twin curves with their attendant rosebuds. The breakfast was good and Cato was sure to see her naked often enough, so what did it matter!
Half way through her food she demanded, "How many girls has Mr. Moore had like this? Am I somewhere around the twentieth?"
"I am not at liberty to say, Ma'am."
She did not want to know anyway, Vanessa assured herself. She refrained from asking where the discarded mistresses were disposed of, Cato would surely not tell her that either. But, annoyed by the servant's indifference to her charms, she asked sulkily, "What am I expected to do with myself all day? " She fingered her chain, "This thing only allows me to go to the bathroom, I can't even look out the window."
"Mr. Moore forbids what he calls 'noisemakers,' Ma'am. You can not therefore have either radio, television, or a machine for tapes. I can, however, bring you some books and magazines?"
"Well... if you wish. Its going to be a damned boring day."
"May I suggest, Ma'am, your boredom arises from an unusual degree of liberty, you are being held only by your collar. I should explain that I am also empowered to constrain you or inflect corporal punishment should your attitudes or behavior warrant. Would such inflections help you to pass the time, Ma'am?"
"Oh, shit!" The vulgarity leap from Vanessa's lips unbidden. She looked up questioning, "You're kidding?"
"No, Ma'am."
There seemed nothing more to say. Vanessa shrugged and waited for him to gather up the things and leave. Alone she threw back the covers and stood up to test a strange, restricted liberty. Amused, she walked here and there to the limit of the tether around her neck. She fingered the collar and found it of implacable metal. The mirror told her it was probably of bronze; it lent a fine barbaric touch to her nudity. Idly, Vanessa opened draws, as though waiting for her attention there was a sheet of paper in each. One told her she was beautiful, another told how whippable she was. Humorously, one offered a ten thousand dollar prize should she be able to escape. They were amusing and a little frightening, indicating as they did Justine Moore's complete conviction of possession. He could afford to play with her body and emotions as he chose. She would not dare be sulky, but the effect of the little notes was lighthearted and spoke of a fun side to the complex man who had whipped her with such calm judgment the day before.
Without distraction, the girl's mind flitted here and there in search of interest. It found a fleeting touch of amusement by remembering how, upon waking, she had considered herself free of bonds save for the collar upon her neck. It showed the degree in which handcuffs had become a part of her being, she wore them without consciousness. When they stopped her from performing an act of any kind, she simply shrugged and wrote it off as a part of her existence. Only the Hamish had failed to clasp the metal bracelets on her wrists. Justine Moore had replace the utilitarian prison irons with handcuffs of his own. She raised them up before her eyes to admire their beauty. Like everything else about Justine Moore, they were expensive, quite possibly tailored to his custom specifications. They clasped her wrists in a snug and loving intimacy.
When Cato returned with books and magazines, he nonchalantly hung upon the wall a slim and wicked length of a riding crop for her to see. He made no comment, none was required. Vanessa got the message. Alone once more, Vanessa plunged into the fashion magazines and reveled in them for an hour. She saw them now as belonging to another world even here in Beverly Hills, which was their most exclusive market, they were not for her other than to look and visualize herself thus clad. But there was arising in her consciousness the awareness that, if she must be chained, she did not wish also to be garbed. The two extremes were in violent contrast. The books she could not settle to, well aware of her own story being more remarkable than any fiction There was, however, among the cluster of gaudy covers, a magazine she was positive must be aimed at her with deliberate intent.
She had previously only hear of them as hearsay, but here in all the loveliness of color and the graphics of black and white were endless depictions of naked girls in bondage. The photos were ingeniously bound or chained or caged for the reader's delight. They were accompanied by a running commentary of text. The girls were extraordinarily beautiful and disposed themselves in varying degrees of confinement with appropriate facial expressions. The photographs might well be real and of girls who, like herself, had lost their liberty. It was an expensive publication, expensively produced. There was nothing shoddy about it and, as she turned its pages, Vanessa became aware of the aesthetics of bound beauties. There was a most appealing picture of a naked maiden, handcuffed and confined in a small cage little bigger than herself. She was peering through the heavy mesh she clutched with chained hands as though in search of succor or a friendly word from a master or a mistress. Vanessa had once been laughingly told that in California anything was possible and was happening all the time. She turned the pages to discover the publishing house was based in this vast city of which she was now a part. There was a strange thrill in realizing that in these very houses, hidden behind the trees and shrubs, there might be other girls like herself, girls snatched from life and imprisoned in the lap of luxury to cater to male lust. The magazine had an editorial which spoke of politically of the arts and crafts of bondage but there was nothing within its covers to indicate why men found such joy in captive maidens and the whipping of their flesh. She would ask Justine about it, he would be sure to know. In the afternoon, in a restless need of motion. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim had a second bath.
When the working male returns at five pm from his labors it is hard not to think in terms of husband and wife. Vanessa thrust the whimsical thought aside. Justine Moore had no need to marry any girl, least of all herself. But he made his appearance carrying a tray on which four cocktails glistened frostily. "Two for you and two for me," he said congenially without any other greeting.
"I like a drink before dinner, it's civilized. I don't usually drink in a girl's bedroom but let's say I'm visiting you. Had a good day?" It was annoying the way his presence changed everything and made it good. Handcuffs and collar were now the most natural things in the world as was her nakedness. Vanessa knelt and sipped and looked adoringly at her owner, lounging in an armchair. "I was bored being alone. I wanted you. You were right about Cato, he's not conversationalist. "
"Cato's a good boy. I see he's hung a riding crop on the wall, he's got a sense of humor."
"It doesn't show. He told me you allowed him to whip me if I give him cause." She hesitated uncertainly before adding, "Do I have to badly misbehave or is he allowed to whip me at his pleasure?"
"Only with cause, dear girl. Mine is the privilege of caprice." His eye roved. "I see you've noticed that magazine?"
"I was going to ask you. What's it all about? I mean, who buys it?"
"Any one who can't afford to own a girl the way I own you."
"All men want to bind us and whip us...?" she sounded incredulous. "A great many do." Justine Moore spoke causally of something he had long known. "The wish, in both sexes, is wide spread. I can't give you statistics, but if you don't have the dough for a girl, you buy the magazine." He laughed easily, "I'm one of the luck ones."
A comfortable silence fell upon the man and the girl. The owner gazed with pleasure upon his property as he quietly sipped; his property basked under his regard, content to be desired, if she was desired in chains so what! After a long while Vanessa said, "I want you to know I'm still grateful over what you've done with me. If I'm silly about this, well then I'm silly. But kneeling here like this in California, talking with you is paradise compared with the life from which you rescued me." She shuddered physically. "It still frightens me to think about it."
"If I asked you to give Cato a blow job, would you do it?" Vanessa flinched as from a blow. This man would always enjoy tossing bombs in her path and watching her react. Temporizing, she said anxiously, "I wish you wouldn't ask?"
"You'd do it for me?"
"Yes, of course I would. But you're different."
"No, I'm not. The difference is in your mind. You know I can compel you and the compulsion will be painful. May I suppose you have the good sense to be obedient when I give the order?"
The kneeling girl ruefully supposed slavery would always impose the bad with the good, not that the act required was brutal but mention of it seemed incongruous in this hour before dinner time. "When the time comes I will obey you," she said slowly and thoughtfully. "I'll do it because I have to, but also because I've got a feeling of sort of owing you something, owing you much more than what you've just spoken of." She shrugged and smiled apologetically, "Forgive me, I'll get used to things. Being a slavegirl within civilization is a whole new experience."
Justine Moore was quietly enjoying his recent acquisition, testing her tolerances and watching her react. He was in the grip of a pleasant lassitude after the hard day and to find this delicious creature in her chains awaiting him was pure delight. Quietly he probed, "There will be days when you are not either tortured or punished. Will you be bored?"
"Yes." Vanessa exclaimed the single affirmative in sweet simplicity. "A slave without her master is only half alive." She laughed gaily, "I must have read that somewhere. I'm quite sure I didn't make it up myself."
"A charming thought, cling to it my dear. Its absolutely true." They sipped and talked like happy children. Occasionally the man slipped a rapier-like probe at her to catch her unaware. But Vanessa was becoming used to his moods and methods and finally thrust one of her own, "Would you like to fuck me. Master? I'm terribly ready."
"I can't. I'm impotent."
The silence was of shock, a shock of which Vanessa Pilgrim found herself utterly shattered. Instinctively she put down her glass and clasped her master's knees to lay her head upon his lap. "I'm terribly sorry.
Oh, Master I never dreamed... " Justine stroked her hair with a lingering sensuality, ticking the nape of her neck. In spite of the terrible import of his statement, his voice was a quiet chuckle, "Sorry? For you or for me?"
"For you, of course!" The affirmation was vehement, "I don't matter."
"Yes, you do." Tenderly he raised her chin to look down into her eyes, he beheld tears. His voice was quietly unconcerned, "I have to somehow make you understand that what I've told you is of no matter or concern to me. I can extract from you or any girl such exquisite pleasures of the flesh that the carnal act pales into insignificance. As time passes you'll understand what I'm telling you. There are now two demands I impose, first that you never offer sympathy, second that you will never speak of this again unless I broach the subject. Understood?"
"Yes, Master, I understand." Vanessa did not resume her kneel, her mind was agile in adjustment. She remained nestled against him as though in some sort of protection, her voice a whisper, "Would you like to whip me again, Master?" There followed a short pause of indecision, "That is your compensation, isn't it?"
Justine Moore leaned down and kissed away her tears. "Kneel back again and drink your drink," he ordered amiably. "I should punish you for that question, surely you realize you are touching on the subject when you ask it. But this first time I'll let you get home free. You and I are going to make a lot of explorations together and in the course of them you're going to become far wiser that you are now. Let it at that. You have to understand neither of us has lost anything." Seeing her features still stricken, he added with laugher, "I know what you're mourning, but I'll make certain you get more orgasms than any other girl in Los Angeles, and that's saying a lot."
"Its not the same. And you mustn't feel you have to do that for me Please!"
"Don't underrate my ingenuity, child. There will be times when I'll make you the most satiated young woman in the USA. There are many ways I may even bestow you as a favor on a man."
"I'd hate that."
"You are a slave."
It could not be said a mood was broken, but Vanessa felt nothing would be quite the same again. She was ashamed of the surge of lust which must now go unappeased and was doubly demanding as a consequence. She resolved to use her finger in the night.
Justine unlocked the padlock but left the collar on her throat. He added a metal belt which fitted snugly within the softness of her waist. It locked and would require a key. While she was still kneeling, he fastened metal anklets in a viciously tight grip and told her to walk. When Vanessa essayed, her swelling tendons rewarded her with pain. She took several anguished steps in disbelief and wonder before slipping down once more to the rug. She looked up at her owner questioningly.
"New idea, Vanessa. Something I thought up myself. With those bands locked on her ankles, a girl is not going to run. She won't ever want to walk, but it does save that inconvenience of the chain between her feet. I can't have my favorite slavegirl tripping and falling on her face. You may now consider yourself dressed for dinner."
He was unexpectedly strong. Vanessa thrilled to the age old clasp of male arms. Her master smelt pleasantly of cologne, good cigars, and that indefinable aroma of wealth found only in the most expensive offices. So long as she did not stand upon her feet the anklets imposed no pain. She could quite probably bare their agony for half a dozen steps but they would swiftly bring her to her knees in any serious effort to escape. They were neat idea and typically Justine Moore.
Vanessa was placed in a chair held ready by the impassive Cato. Justine took his place at the head of the table, opposite Vanessa, across the gleaming silver and white candles. The candlelight was soft and, had it not been for Vanessa's bare breasts, an onlooker might have supposed that with her anklets, the belt around her middle, the collar on her neck and then her handcuffed wrists that the maiden was adequately clothes for the intimate dinner between a man and his girl. The service was superb and the food impeccable. Cato was a jewel.
"Consider the potency of contrast, my dear." Justine suggested quietly, "Your chains and whip marked skin against the tete-a-tete and candlelight." He chuckled at her rapt attention. "Think further of those days when your diet will be the fabled bread and water in your cage as against these gourmet masterpieces Cato now serves. You see my point?"
"You're a Sybarite, Master. Is that the word?"
"It will do. Sybarite is simply a civilized male, appreciative of the good things of life." He bestowed a sly, meaningful glance, "Of which you are the first and most important."
Again there was the sense of being wanted and longing. Vanessa routed the insistent jibes of her being a coward, a masochist, and a lickspittle. If that was what she truly was then, once again, so what! If the only way a girl of her station could enjoy the wealth and luxury of power was to be a slave, then so be it, she would be a slave indeed! She was well aware of Justine's eyes admiring her dexterity with knife and fork while handcuffed. She deliberately made great play with handcuffed wrists and their gleaming bracelets. Perhaps, after being punished a great many times, she would cease to feel a gratitude towards this man, but for now the gratitude submerged all else.
It was in the pause between the main course and dessert that Justine once more asserted himself as the owner of a slave. His voice was quiet but deadly, "You will now perform fellatio on Cato, my dear. You will remember our conversation."
Vanessa supposed such hammer blows as this would always strike her at the peak of some particular enjoyment or perhaps as one emphasis on contrast. Her master was equably nibbling asparagus and appeared to have said nothing untoward. The chained girl longed to cry out against injustice and to ask why so lovely a moment should be shattered by the vulgarity of sex. She stole a glance at Cato as though seeking help. But Cato had stationed himself well within the master's view and was standing legs slightly apart, his hands disposed behind his back. He was a picture of studied unconcern whose gaze was somewhere beyond a horizon only he could see.
"Why are you waiting, Vanessa?" The query was softly polite. Vanessa was not waiting, she was merely suffering from shock. This was a brutal time and a wrong place for what she was suppose to do Between the main course and dessert! With a small sob, she rose to her feet then collapsed with a gasp of agony upon the rug.
Vanessa had forgotten the metal circlets on her ankles, they had brought her low as surely as if under an electronic impulse. Her master paid no heed but sipped wine, his eyes surveying another comer of the room. Cato stood as passive as ever, awaiting his tribute from a chained white girl. Vanessa treated her fall as a inevitable part of the exercise and crawled on hands and knees to the highly polished shoes of the waiting Major Domo. From the indecent vantage between Cato's legs, Vanessa looked back in wide-eyed appeal at the master, but Justine was still involved with food and gave her no more than a smile of approval and a quiet nod. Furious with the whole situation and herself, Vanessa raised her joined hands to the fastening of Cato's pants and drew the zipper down. Thus had a thousand maidens through the years paid tribute to the conquering male. The revealed exhibit was fully as large as expected. She took it inside her mouth as though in a great hunger, remembering the first time she had been compelled to perform this service with Rod Sykes. It seemed a long time ago. Following the ancient adage, she applied herself lustily to a phallus for which she felt no love.
Justine Moore watched. He was enchanted.
CHAPTER SIX - SEXUALITY
Impotent, Vanessa Pilgrim rolled the ugly word over and over in her mind. She supposed it would explain much of what Justine Moore was. And what his treatment of her would be. She was discovering in him a deep and throbbing sensuousness. She supposed nature's deprivation of the male function had made him something of a voyeur. But she could easily have done for her master what she had done for his servant. But Justine had preferred to watch. She had heard of complexities within the mind far keener and more sublimating than the ordinary physical things of everyday. Justine Moore was an uncharted ocean on which she was about to steer a course. Most certainly his voyeurism would not interfere with what he did to her himself. The whipping she had already received at his hands had hurt every bit as much as if delivered by Rod Sykes in the same degree. It had given Justine great pleasure, but Vanessa supposed it was so with all men.
When Vanessa pilgrim had completed her assignment with Cato she experienced moments of deepest shame as she zipped up what she had previously zipped down and then turned back to be on all fours, handcuffed and ankleted, to make her ignominious return to Justine Moore's dinner table. She slipped back into her seat with a small gasp of pain and a furtive, sideways glance at her master. Justine was frankly looking at her with admiration and approval. He would not allow her to sit in sulky shame nursing the memory of what her mouth had held and her lips caressed. He spoke aloud the thoughts she hoped were true, "I don't want you ashamed, Vanessa. What you have just done is a nothing, a negative, a diversion without significance. There would have been little difference had you sucked Cato's thumb. Wipe those shadows from your face and smile."
The chained girl might have found Justine's order difficult had he not followed it up with a demand for an accounting of her captivity since the Rod Sykes beginning at the old Mission. Soon she became animated and he listened attentively, asking questions relative to the individual punishments inflected upon her by a succession of captors. She found herself laughing and protesting, "Please don't install a treadmill, I couldn't bare it!"
Night crept upon them both. For Vanessa it held terrible question marks. Justine seemed unconcerned. For an hour in the lounge before bedtime they were husband and wife, sipping brandy and recounting experiences. The man knew the girl was hungry for information as to what he intended to do with her, but this he deliberately withheld. Only once did she transgress and then the order was swift and firm, "Go to the cabinet, Vanessa, and fetch me the strap you'll find in the second draw."
"But, Master, I can't walk?"
"Crawl."
Once more the shame. It would have been so much easier had she not been handcuffed, but as it was she progressed by undulation motions much like a caterpillar. The strap was there, it was an implement she had not previously seen; it was wickedly flexible and had the appearance of much use. On her return trip she carried it in her mouth. Vanessa Pilgrim knelt. She kissed the leather by which she was to be given pain, and offered it to her master with bowed head.
Justine Moore did everything right. He was an artist employing the instruments and materials of his Craft. Since his slave girl could not stand, he arranged her instead in a kneeling posture with knees brought up to her elbows and her forearms flat upon the carpet. He thrust hard down on the small of her back where the metal band already constricted her waist, and patted her upraised bottom approvingly, "You will keep still for six. If you fall sideways, it will be twelve."
Vanessa's slip of the tongue and her master's instant response had been so swift now she found herself in a turmoil of mixed emotions, the principle one of which was fear. It was going to hurt, she knew it was! She would be compelled to hold this shaming pose to received the six blows from the heavy leather but to make no complaint. She hoped she could; most desperately she would try.
The first blow smacked across her bottom with a resounding crack. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim moaned but did not move.
"Excellent, my dear, I am proud of you. Try number two."
For her master this would be better than orgasms, Vanessa was sure of it. In this shaming, pussy-protruding pose, Justine would find his own particular joy. In the thwack and thrum of the flagellum he would find the most exquisite joy. She knew instinctively he would prefer her to maintain the pose and not earn the extra six strokes. He was a sensualist, not a sadist. For Justine Moore, whatever he did with his slavegirl would have to be ritualistic and beautiful. He would find no pleasure in her groveling upon the floor and pleading for mercy. Vanessa did not wish to see the expression his features would bare if she fell short of perfection. She steeled her mind and clenched her teeth, her hands were already white-knuckled fists beyond the handcuffs.
Vanessa was certain number two was worse than number one. But each separate stroke had its own venom on her flesh. A maiden bottom offered many curves for a flagellum's bite. When the wicked leather impacted across her cheeks, between which her pussy was coyly evident, she squealed in pain. Except for that one lapse she knew she had composed herself to good advantage.
"You'll get used to these little interludes, my dear," Justine said affably. "We have to expect them, they're a part of your training, a part of our getting to know each other." He laughed at her woebegone expression. "And don't ever expect to be free of these corrections, you'll never fail an excuse. Very well, you may uncoil yourself and resume your chair. If your bottom hurts, they sit over on one hip." Miss Vanessa Pilgrim sat solidly upon her hurt. She was not going to sit in some shameful posture because of a bit of pain. But she not no sooner arranged herself when another curt order brought her back to her condition, "May as well put the strap back where you found it, Vanessa. Get with it."
Again the shameful journey, the dog-like clenching of her teeth upon the instrument of pain. When it was done and she was once more seated upon her tender flesh her master said, pleasantly, "I'll always keep you alert, Vanessa, I'm going to make sure we never fall into a rut," he laughed at her stricken face. "The thing to avoid in these situations is the atmosphere of domesticity. If a girl does start to become domestic the instinct must be thrashed out of her. Just a warning."
The easy with which they slipped in and our of normalcy amazed the chained girl. Vanessa had no sooner resigned herself to pain and pouts and sulkiness than she discovered herself suddenly animated about topic her master discussed with consummate easy and charm. Here was a man of many part, she might never know them all. Perhaps Justine Moore's impotence had accentuated his other faculties. Vanessa sensed his potency of pleasure in a girl went far beyond the norm, she could feel his vibrations and knew they spurred a volley of return fire from herself. By bedtime they were a man and a girl tremendously aware of each other.
Vanessa had stopped comparing Justine Moore to Rod Sykes. They were such worlds apart, comparisons would be ridiculous. Justine was a new breed of The Male she had never previously encountered. But the nature and potential of her new master was not solely intellectual. When he had chained her to the bed in the same manner as the night before, he stripped himself of clothes and stood before her unashamed. Vanessa tried hard not to look at his genitals but inevitably her eyes focused thereon and told her this man was both large and normal. If the flaccid phallus had the power of erection, she knew she would be quivering in anticipation and excitement. She arranged her chain, the ankles would not matter through the night and her braceleted hands could cope with anything. Justine Moore got in besides her and turned off the light.
The heat and pressure of the, by no means small, male body against her own flesh aroused both Vanessa's carnality and female sympathy. She put an arm across the hard male torso and whispered in the quiet male ear, "I'm so glad you bought me, Master. I'm terribly, terribly glad." She kissed his cheek and then his eyes and then her lips sought his willing mouth and glued themselves thereon with deep, deep passion.
They cast aside the bed clothes and were swiftly engaged in adult love-play. Nipples were laved with tongues and nipped with teeth, no crevasse or cleft of either went unkissed. Their erotic joy went on and on a long, long time until male lips found the female vulva and entered therein to make their owner thrash and wildly toss her head and shackled hands in an abandonment to an ecstasy beyond previous knowledge. When Vanessa Pilgrim had exploded again and again and was still gasping and moaning from the last ecstatic agonies of sex, she was impelled by but a single thought, she had received abundantly and must now return her joy from whence it came. She had totally forgot the ugly word. It was not until Justine's phallus was deep and rigid in her throat, that she realized the miracle.
Neither of them mentioned it. It was as though a pact of silence held the rigid male member thrustingly erect, words could do nothing for it and were best unsaid. The two of them gratefully entered a tremulous tumescence and played it to the full until, gasping and moaning in satiety, they fell asleep.
"I want to do something tremendous, Vanessa." Justine was sitting astride his captive nakedness and playing with the nipples on her breasts. "I've been thinking that miracle, a miracle I can't explain and neither can you, but somehow I must show my gratitude." With majestic fervor he pronounced, "I hereby grant your freedom!" He chuckled at the growing comprehension in Vanessa's eyes. "Think of it, Darling, you'll walk out the door of this house then be driven down to Sunset Boulevard and then to Santa Monica Boulevard and after that the freeway to where ever your little heart desires. Is that reward enough?"
Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was crying. One tear followed another down her cheeks without her handcuffed fingers making any effort to stem the tide. The man sitting astride her naked loveliness watched, motionless and absolved. After a while Justine asked, in a voice unlike his own, "Do those salt drops tell me you don't want to go?"
"You know I don't." Vanessa's voice was almost aggrieved. "Don't you ever dare say something like that to me again."
Instinctively they returned to the erotic love-making they had begun the night before. The male rod punished the female sheath with huge, satisfying thrusts. They made the age-old journey to the stars and returned to earth in time for a very late breakfast Cato had prudently delayed. "It won't make a bit of difference to the way I treat you, Sweetheart." Justine Moore studiously buttered a piece of toast. "I'll probably be extra cruel just to affirm what I've just said. " He paused to eye Vanessa thoughtfully, "You really would be smart to escape now while you still can. My offer is still open, you know?"
"I wish you'd stop talking about that, you idiot Master." Vanessa flounced her hair and gulped coffee. "You can whip me after breakfast, if you want. I'll hate it but it will serve me right. Maybe you should. I'm not leaving you, you're stuck with me."
"I can toss you out the front door with some clothes and some money, Sweetheart. What would you do then?"
"Break a window and get back in." Vanessa's answer was instant, leaving no doubt of its sincerity. They referred to the miracle no more, it was a secret between them and no other, it transformed their lives and their relationship. Each understood that between them they had created some chemistry by which potency flowered once more in Justine's loins. Vanessa secretly hoped this virility would apply only to herself. Perhaps it would, but she did not mention this hope, she was wise enough to know when she was wining.
Their days drifted comfortably by. For the first of them Vanessa was in halcyon mood and cared nothing about anything except the return of her master in the late afternoon. She was a bride, still enamored by sexual discoveries and the delights of possession and being possessed. When boredom asserted itself, as it was bound to do, in the loneliness of the afternoon she insisted Justine arrange, either with himself or with Cato, to assure her some diverting discomfort or, if he so willed, actual pain. In this incredible slavery Vanessa was catching sight of the devastation of ennui by which marriages dissolved. Hers would not dissolve, the chains would make sure of that. But she wanted it to endure in a constant sexual arousal and erotic excitation. This might have been an impossible ambition for most but certainly not for a slavegirl owned by Justine Moore. Justine's sexualities matched and surpassed her own, in one of them he contrived a situation his slavegirl would never have chosen of her own accord.
The house had many room, it had cells and dungeons and an endless array of erotic punishments. Before leaving for the office one morning, Vanessa was led by her master through a fresh portal which disclosed a cage in the center of the floor. It was not a large cage, and its floor was wood. Its top was completely open but framed by metal groves. Vanessa was certain this boded her no good. Leaping to instant conclusion she exclaimed, "But Justine I can't possibly sit in that little thing all day, I simply can't!"
"You don't have to, stupid girl. Step inside."
Vanessa's feet bore no painful anklets, she was constrained only by handcuffs, the collar on her neck and the band around her waist, none stopped her doing anything. Blithely she threw a leg over the side and stepped up and into the heavy wire mesh enclosure, the upper level of which was at the height of her tummy. When Justine, thoughtfully taking his time, tied her ankles, one to each side against the heavy mesh, it caused her to exclaim, "They're so far apart, Justine! I can't possibly sit down."
The master made no reply. Instead he selected a wide board which he thrust within the grove at Vanessa's back. It was shaped to accommodate her waist and, when locked tight, gave her something solid to lean back against. The fit was, as usual, tight to perfection. Another panel of wood fitted in the front and was thrust home to encase her middle solidly in heavy wood. Vanessa tested it and found it firm, it would not move. Because of it, she could see nothing of herself within the cage, she was a maiden sundered at the center of her being. Justine snapped locks tight then stood back to admire. "Nice, very nice." He approved grandly. "Try and get out, Sweetheart, I want to see you try."
Vanessa did as she was told. She knew it a waste of time, her ankles were bound tight and out of sight, her waist held in the tight grip of the shaped boards. Her handcuffed hands could beat upon the wood or reach ineffectually to either side without results. She was fixed and helpless, but this was par for the course. She told her master this, with amused indifference. As punishments went, this one was mild, it would frustrate and prevent her playing with herself, not that she resorted to that relaxation much any more, it was just that she thought of it within her mind as a "funny feeling," this funny feeling resulting from her inability to see the lower half of her person. She laughingly saw herself as a girl cut in two halves and the top half placed upon a panel of wood, her wrists baring shining bracelets to render her hands ineffectual in any attempts to escape. Playfully she demanded, "Where on earth did you get this idea, Justine, I'm going to feel an awful idiot in front of Cato."
"Not quite through, Pet, this cage is a bit more versatile than you suppose," Justine assured her cheerfully as he removed the vertical wire segment from the cage's end. His cheerful "back in a minute" left his slavegirl wondering but without a clue.
The dog was an amiable collie. Justine must have borrowed or purchased or rented it from elsewhere. It was a friendly beast and walked to heel as though from long acquaintance. "Let's call him Bowser, shall we, Sweetheart?" Justine suggested, eyes gleaming in amusement and a secret knowledge.
It did not instantly register in the captive's mind. It took several moments of looking at the long-snouted dog before a vision dawned, a vision Vanessa did not relish. Knowing the answer, she demanded, "You're not going to put that dog in here with me, Justine...?"
The collie answered on his own. It seemed probably he was previously acquainted with the cage and what he might find therein. He left the master's side, as though tracking a sent, sniffed his way to the entrance to the cage, examined what he found waiting for him inside, then stepped within and out of Vanessa's sight. Trying not to laugh, Justine replaced the wire mesh segment to make Bowser prisoner in company with the naked lower half of a captive girl. He then kissed the upper half of the captive girl and departed for his day.
It was unthinkable and outrageous! Vanessa longed to laugh or to scream or to do something effectual about her dilemma. She could guess what was going to happen and when, a moment later, a wet, cold canine snout nuzzled the twin lips of her waiting and exposed vulva, she gasped and beat at the panel of wood with clenched, chained hands. She could see nothing of what was taking place within the cage but could visualize it clearly from the messages imparted by her sacrificial sex. Down below, out of sight, within the cage her naked loins and belly were available to the collie dog to do with as he pleased. The cords around her ankles held them tight and far apart. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim could do nothing.
Vanessa was, at first, thankful to be alone. She wanted no male eyes beholding this fresh shame. The dog was highly skilled or perhaps hungry for a female sex within to find a flavor long denied. Suffering the ministrations of Bowser's tongue and Bowser's wet nose, Vanessa found herself making motions with her free half above the panel, motions totally degrading and of which she was bitterly ashamed, but these witherings availed her nothing. She knew the busily lapping animal below was unaware of them. That portion of herself held motionless within the cage was available wholly for Bowser's pleasure and he was not a dog to turn his back on good fortune. Vanessa could only nourish a fleeting hope that after she had orgasmed the dog might be content and leave her alone. The hope was futile.
The flowering of each successive orgasm under Bowser's busy tongue finally came to last fruition more and more slowly. Bowser did not mind, in fact Vanessa became convinced that each of her climaxes supplied him with a fresh secretion on which to feed. She ended up by burying her face within locked hands and standing to simply endure and endure She prayed the rasping tongue would do no injury.
All things end. Suddenly as he had started, Bowser discontinued the unwelcome attention without notice. Presumably he had grown bored and Vanessa prayed he had curled himself up to sleep. She dared not try to find out, having no wish to arouse him from slumber. Ruefully she remembered some ancient saying about allowing sleeping dogs to lie... !
The concern of the captive girl now was to remain still enough so as to not disturb her company within the cage. It was a lonely vigil she must keep but with the exciting ingredient of the certainty of a return of canine attention. She judged it to be early afternoon when Bowser once more shook himself from slumber to feed once more at the nectar and ambrosia of Miss Vanessa Pilgrim's maiden sheath. Bending with the wind, she had thrown herself into an particularly unseeming contortion when the door opened and she found herself confronted by Bill Patton's startled features.
The captive's reaction was scarcely flattering. It was a long drawn- out cry of dismay and orgasm, "OH, OH NO!"
Her next panting words sought to make amends, "Oh, Mr. Patton Bill, you shouldn't see me like this, please don't come in."
Bill Patton came in. With his usual serious demeanor he advanced as close as decency dictated, his voice offering the comfort of male maturity, "Don't worry, Vanessa, Justine did warn me. Please don't be embarrassed."
"But you always catch me in these awful circumstances," Vanessa wailed. "We've never seen each other when I'm normal. I'm always being punished. This thing you're forced to see me in makes me so damned ashamed...!"
"Don't be." He was always studious, a courtly voyeur of something he did not wish to see. He laughed, "Don't worry, I'm accustomed to Justine's notions. If I had not known them a lot more humane than that bloody awful prison in Congi, I would never have gotten you into this."
"Oh, don't feel guilty. Being with Justine is so... So... Well, it's so much better than all the others. But I do so wish you didn't have to catch me in jackpots like this. I can't help feeling so ashamed." In a sudden wild hope, she asked, "Would you get this dog out of this cage and get him away from me? Oh, please...?"
"I can't. Sorry. Justine made me promise not to do a thing for you. Those were the only terms by which he would let me visit you." Bill Patton waved a distressed hand. "Please don't worry, Miss Pilgrim, my guilt matches your shame, we're even."
The man and the girl looked at each other from poles apart, each aware of a Code never to be broken. Distressed, Vanessa asked, "Why did you come? Why did you wish to see me? You knew you would have to refuse help when I would probably ask for it, but you came anyway. I don't understand."
Patton once more gestured as though tossing away something of value. "I'll level with you, Vanessa," he said, "I've got these same instincts as Justine and all those others who kept you in cages or tied you to trees. For me the most beautiful thing in the world is a bound girl." He laughed apologetically, "I don't care if she's tied with rope or handcuffed or in some incredible situation such as you are right now. All of it gets to me. If I had Justine's money I'd probably have a girl just like you and be just as mean to her."
"Justine's not mean! He's -- he's mischievous and I'm so grateful to him for getting me out of Africa. I'm grateful to you, too."
"I've always felt guilty about this, I mean this wish Justine indulges in. If I had the chance, I'd do it, I know that. But maybe it's as well I'm not a rich man. It would give me immense pleasure to whip your bare back as you stand there helpless." Once more the gesture and grimace of apology, "I tell myself I don't do it because I'm too civilized. I mean, men do have strange, erotic fantasies, and it's up to all of us to keep them under control. We can't possibly go around whipping girls or tying them up or imprisoning them in cages, much as we might like to." He looked at Vanessa imploringly, "Am I making sense?" Of course, he made sense! Vanessa felt sorry for this big, handsome man so obsessed and so frustrated in his obsession. She tried to explain what she herself had come to understand and the two of them, together with Bowser, made up a ridiculous trio because Patton had found a stick and was pushing it through the wire mesh to discourage Bowser's wet snout from its attention to Vanessa's most private place. Vanessa exclaimed her thank you and how she could not possibly talk properly while being licked into orgasm by a canine tongue. After that conversation became more relaxed. Vanessa stopped covering her breasts with handcuffed hands and earnestly consoled, "But why don't you ask Justine to get a girl for you? Why hasn't he given you one of those he's discarded? He's had quite a few, hasn't he?"
"Yes. I've been damned silly, Vanessa. I don't suppose you realize how shy a man can be about things like this. I was a very well brought up man."
"Well, then, why don't you advertise? California newspapers will print anything."
Patton spoke with satire, "What do I say? Man wishes to whip young lady. Please phone?" He laughed disgustedly. "It's not as easy as you think. There's a number of clubs where a man can satisfy his fantasies at a price. I've been to them and I'll admit it wasn't a rip-off, it was a genuine service offered for a fee, but there was always a deadline and the deadline kills it." He shrugged, "If a man wants a girl in a cage, he wants both the cage and the girl in his own home, not in circumstances where he has to say, 'Thank you very much, same time next week.' "
Vanessa felt sorry for him, not that he was a pitiful figure, far from it, he was simply a man with a hangup he had not controlled or satisfied. Once more she suggested, "I'm quite certain Justine would help you out. I don't think he has a bit of difficulty getting a girl in a cage." She laughed at Patton's dismay. "I just bet if you did ask him he could deliver both girl and cage to you in short order, I think he's that kind of man. Have you come right out and asked him?"
"Well, no, I haven't," Patton made a jab at a still-interested canine snout. "Justine and I aren't blood brothers, you know. And I never figured I had the right to ask that he spend that much money on my behalf. " Patton eyed her keenly, "I suppose you know how much you cost him, or how much any other girl would cost?"
"Well, yes, I have. But I still think that's the way for you to go."
"How about I ask him to lend me you?" Bill asked.
It was unexpected. Vanessa had not seen it coming. She realized now it had been inevitable from the start. Patton had sincerely wished to rescue her from the Congi prison but had also desired her for himself.
Since he could not afford her himself, he had introduced her to someone who could.
"I don't think you should. I really do belong to Justine. I know he's mean to me, and I'm not a bit pleased about this dog. But you want me for things like that, too." She laughed with real amusement. "Can't you see how defeated I am, every man who sees me wants to whip me or put me in a cage. Seems once a girl's been kidnapped the first time, she never gets a chance to go back to real freedom. It's not long since Justine offered to let me go, to turned me loose, completely free, but I said 'No thank you,' I didn't want to go. Does that show you how crazy this whole thing is?"
"It's not crazy when it produces a girl like you?"
"Look, Mr. Patton," Vanessa said firmly, "you're fighting a Thing, an obsession. If it would give you pleasure why don't you whip my bare back right now? It's beautifully available, I can't possibly get away."
"I can't possibly do a thing like that without asking Justine's permission."
"Ask him then." Vanessa was in a mood of martyrdom. "See if you can get him on the phone. Oh, and be sure to ask him where he keeps the whips."
The man and the captive girl stared at each other, Vanessa with amusement tinged with mischief, Bill Patton in dismay at an unexpected confrontation. He was obviously searching for words but, unable to find them, he muttered a hasty farewell and hurried from the room. The door closed behind him with finality. Between Vanessa's widely tied legs, Bowser once more entered the breach.
* * *
"Bill Patton come to call?"
Vanessa had not spoken of Bill Patton's visit nor of his confidences. She was certain her master knew but was content to await his pleasure. It was pillow talk time and, as the two of them lay close, it was easy to unveil one's thoughts. Carelessly Vanessa said, "I wish you hadn't sent him, Master. He walked in on when that damned dog was giving me a really bad time. That tongue was driving me crazy and I must have looked simply awful."
"Told me you were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen," Justine said, noncommittally. "Poor old Bill has a hangup over you. I suppose you're aware of it?"
"I wasn't until today. But today, and with that damned dog licking at me, he told me the whole thing. Please, Master, I would appreciate if you wouldn't let that kind of thing happen to me again."
"That was coming awful close to punishment. Sweetheart. You sure do forget easily, don't you." Justine chuckled at the sudden tensing of the nakedness besides him in the bed. "But don't worry, I'm too drowsy to get up and whip your saucy bottom. Maybe another time. "
"I suppose you know Bill Patton would like you to lend me to him?"
"Oh, sure, he told me all about it. If you want me to, I will."
"I don't want you to, I'd hate it. He's a nice guy and all that, but you're my Master and a girl can't serve two masters, can she?"
"You solve all your conversational dilemmas by a corny saying, darling." Justine put a firm male hand upon her pubic patch. "And I'm not saying they don't fit well enough. How do you think old Bill would act if I let him take you home?" "He'd be cruel to me, I know he would. It's not that he's a cruel man but he's been deprived so long and he's so Well, so obsessed I'm scared he'd go overboard. He'd whip me to death."
"No one would whip you to death, Vanessa, you're far too precious."
"Well, OK, then, he'd whip me into unconsciousness. He'd whip me until I just hung there and didn't feel anything."
"Well, I'll be damned! That's an analysis of poor old Bill that I wouldn't have dreamed of! I'd say he'd muff the whole thing simply because of a tender heart. The first time you let out a genuine scream he'd cut you free."
"Couldn't we talk of something else, Master?"
"OK, how about we talk of what I'll do to you tomorrow?"
"That would be nice."
"You little minx, you're trying to soften me up! Well, it won't do you a particle of good. How would you like to be hung up by your wrists for the day?"
"You know I wouldn't, no girl would. Oh, Master, that's an awful punishment.
"I was thinking I could have Cato come in once an hour or so and push a box under you feet to give you a rest for five minutes. How's that grab you?"
"It doesn't grab me. It sounds awful. What would Cato and I do during the rest periods, make polite conversation?"
"I thought I would liven it up for you a bit by having Cato give you a few sharp strokes each time. I realize how bored you are going to get just hanging there."
Vanessa could never be sure of him. Justine Moore was many men in one. His pixy moods alternated with streaks of mild cruelty which he gauged with the uttermost nuance of the pain they gave. He had also become a superb lover. True, his love-making was often interspersed with small, erotic cruelties, but these had crept upon Vanessa so slowly and unaware that she now missed them when he forgot. The frustrating thing was that she was forbidden to ask for punishment, even though that punishment be trivial. But sometimes her frustration was so aggravating that she deliberately transgressed and was instantly rewarded by the scorching of her flesh with the crop or flagellum. It made their love-making tremendously exciting and the chained girl often wondered how the stayed and conservative couples she had know in her one-time freedom kept the excitement of bedtime alive without them. She saw herself as a marriage consular, but this was only if she ever needed a job and in the unlikely event she was ever again a free girl. During their pillow talk in bed, and before the drowsiness of sleep claimed her, Miss Vanessa Pilgrim entered an enchanted land in which her glands throbbed wantonly and she quivered expectantly for The Male, or whatever agony Justine chose to impose as substitute for himself. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim sighed from the deeps of a great happiness. Vanessa woke late. Justine was gone. This often happened and Cato would look after her. She was always securely chained and was never in danger of escape or roaming. She had forgotten the things said the day before and was in a contented state of euphoria until breakfast was done and the tray cleared. Cato then ventured, "Now, Miss, if you are ready?"
"Ready? For what?" Vanessa was striving to think of something forgotten.
"Your day's diversion. Miss." The servant's voice was politely respectful.
"OK, how do I get diverted?"
"Mr. Moore gave me to understand you had been briefed, Miss." Vanessa had not taken it seriously at the time but now she remembered. Now, with Justine gone, there was nothing she could do about it. Justine had set in motion a wheel she could not stop, a wheel Cato would refuse to tamper with. In emotional disarray the handcuffed girl followed the butler downstairs. She was trembling.
"I fear I must remove the handcuffs. Miss. I hope you don't mind?"
"Why should I? I'm quite sure they'll go back on again."
"Thank you, Ma'am. There will be a brief moment in which you will be relatively free. I trust you will behave yourself and do nothing foolish?"
"You mean give you a chance to practice your karate... ? No way!" Vanessa was annoyed with herself. If she had taken Justine more seriously she might have talked him out of a punishment she did not relish. In fact, the more she thought of it the less she liked her immediately prospects. Five PM was a long way off. Sulkily she extended her hands and watched the lovely silver bracelets taken from her wrists. She felt a ridiculous pang at their being unlocked and removed, it was like loosing an intimate piece of clothing, but her wrists were bathed in cool air only briefly. Each was bandaged with soft elastic material which ended in several bindings of tough webbing from which there hung a ring. When this binding had been completed she was asked to step upon a box. If she had not guessed her fate before, she most certainly did now. She stepped upon the box a most unhappy young woman.
"There are ropes from above and also hooks. If you will forgive me " Vanessa forgave him. Cato was as much a part of Justine's authority as she herself except that she suffered and he imposed. She watched with faint interest as the ropes descended and the hooks engaged with the rings and she was stretched taunt, her hands a couple of feet above. "I'm truly sorry about this. Ma'am. It is the master's instructions." The sudden removal of the box beneath her feet brought instant shock. It also brought wrenching pain to shoulders and arms. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim hung suspended, her toes only a couple of inches from the floor. In this case, two inches might have been a mile.
"I am instructed to leave you as you are for a full hour. At that time I will return and allow you a short rest period upon the box. I trust this meets with your approval?"
Vanessa wanted to scream but all she did was exclaim, "Oh, Cato, you know it doesn't meet with my approval! I hate the whole thing. Couldn't you come back every half hour, or even every fifteen minutes? No one would ever know!"
"The master told me you would make this suggestion. I regret I will be compelled to report your indiscretion to him. Might I suggest you suffer your err with good grace. I'm sure if you occupy the time with pleasant thoughts it will pass quickly."
"I'm going to hate every moment. Oh gosh, Cato, this if awful!"
"You will suffer no damage, Ma'am, the bandages will protect."
"Oh, piss on the bandages, my arms are coming out of their sockets. I'll be dead in an hour."
"No, Ma'am. You will probably be more vividly alive than at any time in your life. May I be excused?"
"You can excuse yourself," Vanessa said heatedly. "Any man who would do this to a girl...!"
She wished she had not offended him. If she had kept her mouth shut he might have lingered and any company was better than none in this frightful predicament in which she momentarily expected the dislocation of her shoulders and other horrors she could not name. She was aware of her flat, concave tummy beneath the belt, which by some magic, appeared to shrink in order to maintain its snug hold on her vitals.
Vanessa Pilgrim simply hung. It was one of the most frustrating and disorganizing experiences of her life. She could not say she was in agony, the soft bandage prevented hurt wrists but her shoulders cried aloud and she was shamingly conscious of her lower regions, her hanging legs and that which stood at the juncture of her thighs, all of it was outrageously on display and she wanted to cry. Only indignation and hurt feelings prevented the flow of tears.
Cato was as good as his word. The captive girl was certain it had been hours since he had left her alone but she was well inured to the deceptiveness of time. When a girl hurt time passed slowly. Vanessa had been hurting.
The box was a boon, a gift from paradise, an ineffable relief. She stood upon it thankfully, panting, breasts heaving, every fiber of her being crying out in gratitude, but also crying in distress at the prospect of once again being suspended. Vanessa looked up at the bandaged wrists to observe the hooks. She was still stretched too tightly to be relieved of them. Even in this rest period she was still in punishment. "I trust you feel the travail beneficial, Miss." Cato's voice was devoid of sarcasm but Vanessa was certain it was there. She was not above a little sarcasm herself and said acidly, "I enjoyed every moment of it, Cato. Is there any possibility I don't have to do it again?"
"Alas, no Ma'am. My orders are specific."
"Piss on your orders," Vanessa said in vulgar irritation at his suave imperturbability. "Look here, Cato, I'll make you a deal. If you'll forget about this punishment and let me go back to normal I'll let you fuck me and I won't tell the Master a thing."
"Your suggestion is deplorable. Ma'am. It is I who will report it to the master. I fear you are earning additional discomforts." Vanessa could think of other vulgar exclamations but forbore. With a thrill of genuine concern she realized she had already piled up a number of demerits. If Cato was as good as his word The box was removed to leave the naked girl once more suspended. Cato placed it at the precise distance beyond which her toes could not reach, even though she swung herself like a puppet on a string. She moaned as she saw him go. Cato, with all his faults, was someone to talk to. And, if she fainted... !
Vanessa Pilgrim did not faint. She was annoyed with her own vitality which withheld that boon. She stepped on and off the beneficial box under Cato's commands and continued to build up demerits via outrageous offers and suggestions. In a state of semi-delirium she thought it impossible for Cato to ignore her offers. Damn it, he was only a man and human! If Justine took all she had said in seriousness, she would be in deep trouble. But what could she do about it? Nothing!
On his next visit Cato paid an unusual compliment, "If I may be permitted the familiarity, Ma'am, I would like to tell you how exquisitely beautiful you are in suspension. You are exquisitely lovely beyond words."
"I'm not. I'm horrible, sticking out in all sorts of places, all stretched and distorted. Oh, Cato...!"
"You wished to say something, Ma'am?"
"Of course, I want to say something, I want you to let me down. Please handcuff me again and let me go back to being a good little slavegirl."
"You know I can not do that. Miss. Suffering builds character. I'm sure you are deriving good."
Vanessa was unsure of possible sarcasm. Cato was so text-book correct a girl could never tell. She had despaired of offering her body. If a man would not accept that, he would accept nothing. No doubt men of less integrity would have accepted her offer but when their pleasure was over would have suspended her once more in punishment. Cato was honest! Vanessa belonged to her master and Cato was simply the instrument of her master's caprice. To hang with her feet off the floor in the knowledge of having done or said nothing to warrant the punishment, made it a doubly hard to bare. She voiced the thought unhappily, "Oh, Cato, I haven't done anything. I haven't done a thing to deserve punishment, certainly not this horrible punishment. This absolutely wicked hanging me up by my wrists ought to be reserved for the most frightening crimes I could commit. But I haven't committed them! I haven't committed anything. Cato, it's just not fair!"
"Might I remind you, Ma'am, of your original acceptance of enslavement. What you suffer now was and still is implicit in your vow."
"I never made a vow. I made a deal."
"If I let you down, setting you free, give you clothes and money, and bid you farewell. Ma'am, what would you do?"
"Oh, Cato I've heard that one before! I'm not going to answer, I refuse. Look, couldn't you put me in a cage or tie me to a post for the rest of the day?"
"No, Ma'am. You are half way through this punishment. You have cause for optimism."
Vanessa watched Cato's retreating back. She seemed to be forever watching retreating backs and to be left all to herself with pain. She couldn't decide whether she was happy or sad to be half way through this present punishment. It was good that half of the punishment was gone but the remaining hours stretched ahead interminably. She thought of other punishments and would have accepted any of them gratefully in place of what she now suffered. She was quite certain that to be suspended by the wrists was something she would never want again. She would tell Justine, but Justine would probably be in an irritable frame of mind from having received reports of her injudicious offers. She really had been extremely foolish and had brought upon herself whatever punishments lay in store. She was going to have to simply smarten up and pay attention. Slavegirls did not offer their bodies to a servant, their bodies were not their own, Vanessa's body belonged to Justine Moore. Surely she should be able to remember...!
* * *
"I gather your behavior was deplorable, Dear?" Justine interjected into their pillow talk that evening. "Cato has given me a full report."
"So, OK, whip me or something, anything you like." Vanessa was still irritated by her punishment and her own behavior. She saw no way out of the inevitable and so became very feminine, "You shouldn't have given me such an awful punishment in the first place. Oh, Justine Master, if only you knew how horrible it is to hang like that hour after hour. A girl simply looses all hope."
"You seemed in remarkably good shape at dinner, Vanessa."
"So, OK, I was hungry and I was scared. Don't hold that against me. Master, I adore you, please don't have me punished any more."
"That sounds a little like a bribe; adoration in return for immunity. You know what that will get you?"
"Oh, Master, please ! I'm in a spot now where this is nothing I can say that's right. I can see all sorts of punishments building up and I don't want them, honest I don't. Can't I just be your slavegirl and make you happy?"
"You know that's not possible, Darling." Justine's use of the term of endearment gave only momentary hope. "When you have earned punishment you have to have it. Once I start being merciful with you, there's no end to it. I may just as well unlock those handcuffs on your wrists and those anklets from your ankles and let you go." He sighed as though in dolor. "I offered you freedom, but you turned it down. Perhaps now, with all these punishments hanging above your head, you would like to reconsider?"
"No. I won't. Punishment me."
It was on that note they went to sleep. It was at least half the time Vanessa found herself alone upon waking in the morning. Justine would be gone about his affairs and Cato would attend to her. Still miserable, Vanessa toyed with her chain, visited the bathroom, then returned to the bed to await breakfast. When Cato showed up with the tray, she abruptly demanded, "So, OK, Cato, what's the bad news today?"
"I am permitted to whip you today, Ma'am. However, the master is extremely generous and offers you an alternative. Should you find yourself adverse to a whipping, the number of strokes not to be divulged, you may choose to be incarcerated in a tiny cage, the one you are acquainted with in another connection."
"Thanks, I'll take the cage."
"I would advise against a hasty choice, Ma'am. The cage is small and the day is long. A whipping, thought severe, is soon over. Would you care to reconsider?"
Vanessa longed to reject everything, the whip, the cage, and Cato as well, as she munched bacon and toast in deep thought. She knew from past experience she would regret whatever choice she would make. This was in the nature of slavery. But since she was compelled to a choice, she thought kindly of the cage. Surely it could in no way match the awful scorch and sear of the whip upon her skin. Cato had never whipped her, but she was certain he would do it with vigor. It was an agony she did not want to face, as it would be from a man she did not love. She knew she could bear the whip from Justine Moore but from no one else. She repeated, without enthusiasm, "Thank you, Cato, I'll still choose the cage."
Vanessa ate her breakfast without the enjoyment she usually felt in a new day. She got an erotic stimulus from the sexual impositions Justine often left her in or which Cato was instructed to perform. But today was not like that. When Cato came for her, she followed him down stairs dejectedly.
The cage was not as she remembered. The top was now solid wire mesh, the wooden panels gone. The only orifice was that the dog had used and which was now open for her own humiliation. Handcuffed, Vanessa wiggled within the small confinement. She twisted and managed to sit down, her knees beneath her chin, her braceleted wrists resting upon her legs. With a sinking heart she watched the closing of the door and heard the padlock snap. She had made her own choice. She had made her bed and would have to lie on it.
"I will visit you from time to time to check upon your progress," Cato said gravely then went away.
Miss Vanessa Pilgrim tried to raise her head to watch him go but could not. It remained bowed in unintentional submission. Its owner wept.
The first hour was bearable, the second was not. By midday, Vanessa knew she had made a terrible mistake. Every muscle and sinew she possessed cried out in anguish at their immobility. Her knees mocked her before her eyes, her cuffed hands had no where to go nor could they help her a particle. It was a sad young woman who greeted Cato when he came to call.
"Cato, let me out. You were right. This is unbearable. Please let me out and whip me instead."
"But, Ma'am, in that case you would have suffered both punishments."
"I can't help that, Cato. I'll willingly take a whipping if you will let me out of here."
"But, Ma'am, you know the rules...?"
"Piss on the rules. Let me out and whip me. Good gosh, surely that ought to be a good offer, isn't it?"
"No, Ma'am. It contravenes your choice."
"Well, piss on my choice, too. Can't a girl be forgiven a lapse in judgment?"
"You would not enjoy being whipped any more than you enjoy this cage, Ma'am." Cato's tone was admonitory and disapproving. "Really, I have no wish to make further adverse reports on your behavior to your master. Please be prudent."
"Fuck being prudent. I want out."
Cato turned and departed. Possibly to save himself further pain, too. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was left fuming in her cage. This time the tears welled and the cage permitted her to dry them only against her knees. For the rest of the day, Vanessa condemned herself for not accepting freedom when it was offered.
"Had a bad day, Sweetheart?" Justine speared something with his fork and sipped his dinner wine. He eyed his slavegirl with tender affection. Even though, at the moment, she was out of sorts with him.
"Of course, I had a bad time. Oh, Master, that cage is something else again. It's for the birds! I almost went crazy locked in there all day. When I chose it I thought I would be able to move at least a little. Please don't put me in there again."
"A free choice, Beloved Child."
"Yes, I know it was. I should have chosen the whipping. I would have had a lot of marks on my skin but I would have been happier."
"Tired of your life with me, Sweetheart?"
"Not with you, only with your punishments. Oh, Master, I've had an awful day!"
"Very well, Vanessa, my sweet. Tomorrow you have no punishments at all. Think of it; a whole day with nothing to inhibit your desires except a pair of handcuffs and some anklets."
It was in Vanessa's mind to plead the anklets be withheld. But she had best not push her luck, and with the anklets she could always crawl, it wasn't as though they attached her to anything. In fact, the prospect was delightful after her last two days. She said a simple and heartfelt, "Thank you, Master."
"You'll have a visitor. Cato will serve tea. I want you to be the polite hostess. Can you manage that?"
"Of course. Oh, Master, I'll be glad to. Who is it?"
"Never you mind, you'll find out soon enough."
Vanessa was compelled to leave it at that.
They had experimented with their love-making. Since Justine's return to potency they had tested his rigidly erect organ with giggles from Vanessa but with serious intent on the part of its owner. Justine would never cease to owe this girl gratitude and feel wonder at the magic she possessed. But he was also curious about himself and, after many false leads, had arrived at a single stimulus which never failed to enhance and invigorate an already standing prick. It demanded of Vanessa only that, suddenly and out of the blue she ask, "Please, Master, whip my pussy?"
It was an outrageous request which should, under normal circumstances, have been ignored. It was infrequent enough now, being uttered only when, from some deep well of mischief, the slavegirl felt certain of an increased virility within the man who owned and because she was herself in the throes of an intense sexual excitation. It was infallible. The one single wicked stroke was enough. Vanessa would rise, spread her feet outrageously apart, bend down to expose her uttermost privacy, and they invite the thong. When it impacted, wetly and cruelly, she scream and fell to the floor but was instantly aware of obligations and leaped back upon the bed, her chains rattling and singing their own song of expected anguish, to say, "I am ready, Master. Please, please, please?"
Justine adored every inch and crevasse of her. She regenerated him endlessly. With Vanessa he was capable of endless orgasms. Those she extracted from his own libido were an endless miracle.
The following morning was a delight for the slavegirl with no punishments pending- Cato was simply his usual polite self, tending to her needs and concerned for her comfort. Vanessa was still confined by the handcuffs and the anklets. She had never managed to conform to the anklets, they always defeated her. She would rise to her feet with good intentions to step out bravely, but always they brought her instantly to her knees. She had learned that, as long as they were locked on her ankles, she had better forgot about walking. The nice thing about them was she could sit or lay down or do anything save stand or walk and they did not bother her. Justine had purchased the most expensive handcuffs to be had and she wore them with an immense pride and without regret.
Vanessa realized she should have know, she should have guessed. When Cato formally announced, "Mr. William Patton," she was totally unprepared. She had supposed Bill Patton would pass her by and forget her after their last meeting. She had suggested the ways by which his problem might be solved if only he had had the sense enough to follow those suggestions. Bill Patton was surely a person in his own right and should not need feminine guidance.
"Nice to see you again, Vanessa," he laughed gaily. "This time completely normal, just handcuffs and those pretty rings around your ankles. Justine told me about them, so I won't ask you to go for a walk. " Vanessa accepted a brotherly kiss. She owed Bill Patton a lot but hoped he would not become a big, bearish brother who kissed her cheek while longing to take her to bed. Her greeting lacked cordiality. "I'm going to give you tea, Bill, we can talk about anything you like, but please, please don't lets get into heart-searching about whips and chains and cords. Please...?"
"Hell, Vanessa, that's what I came about. You don't think I came up here just for a cup of tea, do you?"
"Well, that's what Justine intimated... "
"Tea, my ass! I'll drink a cup but what I want is you."
He remained his boyish self but with a difference of now being mature and in command of the situation. Distrustful of the change, Vanessa saw herself as very much the slave, even as she poured the tea.
"Justine has business in New York. He'll be away two or three days. He says I can borrow you for that length of time. Isn't it wonderful!" Vanessa's heart went out to the shining eyes and the boyish fervor. But, quietly, she suggested, "I've been thinking about you and me a lot. Bill, haven't you realized you're not ready for me yet?" She raised a hand to stem his outburst of protest. "I want you to think of all I've been through these last few months. You've seen me in the middle of some of it. You may think the result of all you have seen has been to make me some sort of a "she hesitated and blushed, "some sort of a whore."
"Vanessa!" Patton's voice was shocked. "You don't know what you're saying. And, anyway, it's not true. There's something immaculate about you. You couldn't be that that word you said."
"Not for cash. You're right there, Bill. But I've been conditioned to accept things, to understand them, to be a part of them. I suppose I always was a part of them but did not know it. That first time with Rod Sykes and the Macusi told me what I was, the rest confirmed it. Bill, you don't need me. What you need is a nice girl from a nice family in a suburban house with children and all the rest of that. This is stamped all over you. If you can get a girl who will go along with your whipping her bottom. I'd be terrible happy for you. I'm sure she's out there, waiting."
"The only girl waiting for me is you," Patton said with deep conviction. "Justine has a gift with girls and he's got all that money, don't equate me with him. Justine has suggested I play out the game with you for the time of his absence. It's on a sort of kill or cure basis. Vanessa, darling, can you understand."
She understood all too well. She wished she did not. What concerned her now was the means by which she could evade this obligation. She simply had no wish to spend two or three days along in the power of Bill Patton. Bill Patton was a nice guy but not a nice guy for her. She wished devoutly her master would not get her into such jackpots, such outrageous dilemmas, from which she would only gain more marks upon her skin.
"You will like it, won't you? You will say you'll come?"
"Do I have a choice?" Her tone was bitter. At that moment Vanessa knew for sure that, if during her captivity with this enthusiastic male, she could discover an opportunity for escape, she would take it instantly. Bill Patton would absolve her from guilt. Quietly she countered, "I must do what I am told. If Justine wishes to lend me to you, I will have no choice." She lifted up the handcuffed wrists, "You see these, I'm always kept restrained, on my ankles are metal bands to prevent me walking or running away. Why do you bother to ask me what I want! My only function is obedience."
The transfer of the slavegirl named Vanessa into the safe keeping of Mr. William Patton was affected with extreme easy but also extreme caution. Vanessa remained nude, her hands were cuffed behind her back and her elbows drawn tight and cruelly bound. Her ankles remained banded as a deterrent to sudden flight, and around her waist was roped strands of cord which were drawn down between her legs and up within the cleft of her bottom cheeks. It was cinched cruelly tight and had no function other that to tell her who she was and impede struggles or an actual contest of strength and determination. It was very simple. Justine kissed her. Bill Patton put her in the trunk of his car and took her home. Within the darkness of his car, Vanessa's tears were salt and as bitter as gall.
It was understandable Bill Patton would be inadequate in bed, not from a lack of virility but from the expression of endless frustrations. Vanessa bore his thrusts and immature ejaculations without complaint. She saw her role as only to suffer and be as pleasant about it as she could. She bore the secession of Bill Patton's couplings without complaint, telling herself they were something that matter not at all. His whipping her was different.
It was inevitable from the first. To whip a naked girl was Bill Patton's heart's desire, along with millions of other men less privileged. In boyish eagerness he talked about it with her in their first night of sharing a bed. He had taken the precaution of keeping her heavily chained but was unwilling to forgo her hot presence by his side. "I'm going to whip you tomorrow, Vanessa. Will you mind?"
Vanessa's laugh held genuine amusement, "You idiot, have I any choice? Of course, I'll mind. That's a myth about girl's liking to be whipped. It hurts like hell and I'll hate every stroke you give me. Does that answer you question?"
"But Justine whips you all the time!" Bill Patton said aggrieved. "If you like it from him...?"
"Oh, Bill, I can't explain it. If you don't know by your age, you never will." Vanessa had resigned herself to two or three bad days until her master returned. She was not disposed to quibble or split hairs over her own personal reactions. She had hoped the succession of orgasms Patton had planted in her sheath might have exhausted his erotic curiosity. Apparently she was wrong.
"I want to do this sort of ritualistically," Patton informed her boyishly in the morning. "I hope you don't mind."
"Bill, for Pete's sake, stop asking me if I mind!" Vanessa felt a cross between a mother and a frightened girl. "Don't you understand the whole essence of this thing is that what I mind doesn't matter. What you mind does. I'm owned, I'm chained. I'm naked, you can do whatever you like to me and I can't say boo. It's sweet of you to ask but you had best do some more thinking about whether you want a slavegirl or a wife."
On the basis nothing lasts forever, Vanessa allowed herself to be manipulated to Bill Patton's desire. He had fixed up a room in his house for no other purpose than her punishments. It was not heavily furnished but held enough to promise pain. The most obvious object was an ancient, military triangle. "It's what they used to use in the army," Bill infused. "As I fasten you, you'll get the hang of the thing and realize how well suited the thing is to punishments of either sex. It's maybe a bit rough, but I'll go easy with the whip. That is," he added hopefully, "unless you tell me to whip you harder. You're far more expert about these things than I."
Vanessa moaned silently within. Bill Patton would require careful handling. It was possible she might get out of this mess without too much injury. He was essentially a kind man and was doing this only under the compulsion of an unsatisfied obsession. This obsession was now to find vent upon her flesh. She thought of Justine and longed for his return.
Once more her handcuffs were removed, but this time there were no soft bandages but only cord. Patton bound her crossed wrists in front with surprising skill. Vanessa wryly supposed he had been a Boy Scout in childhood. She was then invited to stand upon a box. It was all terribly familiar. Upon the box she was invited to hook the bindings on her wrists over a waiting hook at the apex of the timber frame. But when she could not contrive this, Patton lifted her bodily to aid her in this self-immuring in preparation for pain. For minutes she hung in suspension, her wrists screaming a silent protest, while her ankles were roped and drawn out to either side to the semi-vertical timbers of the tripod. When Bill Patton stepped back in complete satisfaction with his work. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim hung from her wrists at the apex of the triangle with her feet stretched obscenely wide to each of the side timbers of this instrument of pain.
Bitterly she said, "You don't need to whip me, Bill. This is agony enough. Have you any faintest idea...?"
Patton whipped the naked loveliness with crude vigor, each stroke appeasing by the minutest degree the pent up passions of his mind. He had promised to whip her only lightly but Vanessa instantly was aware of his forgetting. This plying of the lash might not be a cruel as he could contrive but it was cruel enough. She could scarcely move but did what she could with jerks and struggles and in the end screams, to tell him of excess. She could not recall ever being whipped upon such a archaic frame as that which held her now. Her wrists burned in agony as did her ankles. Her sex was so blatantly open and stretched wide as to be a punishment all its own. Bill Patton stopped his strokes long enough to make a slow circle of her nakedness and to observe, "You're terribly beautiful, Vanessa. You're more beautiful than anything I've ever seen." When he retired back out of sight she retorted, hopelessly, "I'm not beautiful at all. You were looking at my cunt and my stretched crotch. You were finding beauty in my pubic hair and the marks your whip has put upon my belly. If you call that beauty, you're nuts!"
It was as though Patton had not heard a word she had said. He was beholding a glory he had never before known. Justine had made him a gift of heart's desire and, for Bill Patton right then, Miss Vanessa Pilgrim represented all the beauty of the world, she was Eve and Aphrodite, she was Bo Derek and the Venus de Milo, she was the subconscious vision of every man. Reverently he palmed the wet vulva so blatantly exposed. He did this with a sense of wonder and the panting, sweating girl wondered if indeed this was his first knowledge of nakedness in the female. Vanessa could not restrain a feminine thrill at the thought of being the first nudity Bill Patton had touched. She gasped as he easily evoked from her sensations she did not want, his fingers rising to trace their mark up her belly, over the metal stricture on her waist and to her breasts and nipples which were stretched and taunt in a manner she deplored, but which to this totally absorbed man, held all the wonder of the world. Bill Patton tilted her chin to look into her eyes and whisper, "Darling girl, I could whip you forever. Will you forgive me?"
"I'll forgive you if you'll let me loose from this triangle," Vanessa said without hope. "How can you expect me to forgive the awful pain while you're using that terrible whip across my back. I'm not a saint. I'm not good at martyrdom."
Patton whipped the inside of Miss Vanessa Pilgrim's thighs. He did this thoughtfully and deliberately and savoring each stroke. To achieve this purpose he deliberately stood facing her so she could see the swift curve of his arm and the arc of the whip. Vanessa tried desperately to suffer in silence, but his persistence was too much and soon she was screaming directly into Bill Patton's face. He smiled and nodded back at her as though she was doing fine and he was proud to be the instrument of her agony. Quite probably that was exactly how he felt!
Patton ceased his cruelty to the soft thighs as suddenly as he had begun, he was almost panting, not all together from exertions, but from the intensity of emotion with which he had plied the thong. Distraught and clutching her courage like a cloak, Vanessa tried to stare him down as she gasped, "If you'll stop whipping me now, Bill, we can still be friends. Please?"
"I'm sorry, darling." Patton's voice was vibrant with regret. "I can't stop whipping you. If I stop, I'll have cured nothing. I'll go on wanting and wanting. But you understand."
"I do understand and I'm trying more and more to understand. But please. Bill, if you have to whip me some more, can't you do it tomorrow. Surely you don't have to get it all out of your system in one session? Justine has loaned me to you for more than just this one day."
"Yes, I suppose that's true. You're a bright girl, Vanessa, way ahead of me." Patton's face brightened at a sudden thought. "Tell you what, Sweetheart, I'll untie you and let you rest now and you and I will go to the kitchen and make coffee. You're certain to feel better and then I can tie you on the triangle again and finish the job. How's that?"
He was absurd. Vanessa felt maternal towards this man who chased a dream. She was sure it would take more than one or two whippings to assuage the demon in Bill Patton's mind. He would need to punish her in various ways until her reached total satiation and she recoiled from such a horrendous prospect. If only Justine had spoken to her before leaving, she might have suggested he simply purchased a girl off the streets for a few thousand dollars to endure these agonies. But she was fairly sure Justine had not guessed the depth and intensity of his friend's need. For the moment Vanessa knew herself defeated and abandoned, but she would pass up no advantage, no matter how small. Quietly she said, "Thank you. Bill, that would be very nice." She would leave the pleas for mercy until she had been freed.
The pain was now in reverse. Patton freed her wide-spread feet and Vanessa closed them gratefully. But this still left her suspended and badly hurting until she was clasp in a bear hug and lifted high enough to where she could free her wrists. To be once more solidly upon the floor was a joy beyond expression. She was totally free of bonds except for her collar and her belt. But her joy in this freedom was so great she actually forgot what she might do with it. She stood, massaging hurt wrists and flexing strained limbs until Patton gently reminded her, "I think these are called for, aren't they?" He was holding her handcuffs.
"If you wish." Vanessa knew she could not best him in a struggle so submission would be best. She offered her hands and even drew his attention to the possibility of clicking the lovely bracelets a notch tighter than he had done. Patton was breathing heavily and repeated his refrain, "You're marvelous, Vanessa. Justine is so damned lucky. Will you marry me?"
The handcuffed, naked girl moaned inwardly. She was well aware of the susceptibility of the males to purpose marriage when in the throes of sexual excitation, especially when it went unappeased. But Patton's proposal had been direct, he was gazing at her steadily in mute admiration. She almost said the ancient cliche of, "This is so sudden," before saying gently, "That an unexpected honor, Bill. I think you're being hasty, but can we talk about it over coffee."
The snug kitchen had a stabilizing effect for which the handcuffed girl was thankful. The two of them bustled around with spoons and canisters and pots until they sat, facing each other at the small table, sipping the fragrant brew their labors had produced. It was a bond. It was a bond Vanessa determined to strengthen and explore. "It's sweet of you to want to marry me. Bill. I'm only a slavegirl. You don't have to marry a slavegirl, you can do whatever you want to her."
"You can if you own the girl," Bill Patton conceded morosely. "The only way I know to own you is to marry you. And it's something I'd want to do anyway. You're the most marvelous of girls."
"If you take me to bed, and I guess Justine gave you permission.
didn't he, some of the rainbow would dissolve, you know," she said soberly. "I think whipping me the way you've been doing has got you all excited."
"Of course, it has, darling, but that's not the reason I want to marry you. I want to marry Vanessa Pilgrim not a naked girl screaming in pain."
Vanessa stared directly at Patton's troubled features. Setting aside the nature of her wounds and the tight clasp of handcuffs on her wrists, she produced a maternal suggestion, "Are you forgetting, Bill, who owns me? I'm not a bit sure you and I should be talking about marriage when I belong to Justine Moore. You're a nice guy, Bill, don't get hurt over me." Vanessa put her heart into her words, "Please ask Justine, we both owe him that, you can't be a bit sure he won't say yes."
"He'd be crazy if he did," Bill retorted. "In his shoes, I would never part with you, especially since he's got your loyalty the way he has. You shouldn't forget, Vanessa, that it was me who introduced you. You owe me loyalty, too."
Vanessa sighed and quietly sipped. She felt herself getting deeper and deeper into the imponderable. If sex was not involved, then Bill Patton was a nice guy. Right now he was a time bomb ready to explode. And his explosion would take the form of a whip cutting at her skin. Hopefully she asked, "Why don't you just keep me prisoner until Justine returns then you can have a talk with him. Then the three of us can get together and arrive at what you want?"
"You don't want to marry me," Patton's tone was dogged.
"I didn't say that. It's just all so sudden. Gosh, Bill, be reasonable!"
"I'll show you how reasonable I am, Vanessa." The male voice was suddenly firm and decisive. "I'll set you free right now and the two of us can go and find a Justice of the Peace and get married. How's that for a deal, you get me and freedom both at once?"
The thought was shattering. It caught Vanessa unaware and for several moments the possibilities danced around her mind before she asked, "But, Bill, even if we did that you'd bring me home and whip me anyway, wouldn't you? I mean, it is this wish of yours to whip me that's really at the bottom of your desire for ownership. Am I right?"
"Damn it, Vanessa! I'm making concession after concession. Don't you realize you and I can't possibly walk around town with you handcuffed. We can't go to a minister or Justice of the Peace with your hands chained. You'll be free, you'll have to be free, there's no other way. You can easily cheat me by running a way while I don't have a constraint on you. Damn it! I have to be sincere to offer you a deal like this!"
"I know you are, I know you are. But, Bill, you're a nice guy, you'll trust me. But you haven't answered what I asked about being whipped. After we've been made man and wife and you've been told, 'you can now kiss the bride,' you'll take your bride home and whip her -- that is unless I run away in the meantime. But if I marry you I wouldn't want to run away. Oh, Bill, you've got me all mixed up! Gee, I wish you'd keep me prisoner some way until Justine comes back. Or maybe you'd like to take me back to Cato? Cato would lock me in a cell or something and we'd all be safe from temptation."
Silence claimed them. The man and the naked, whip-marked girl quietly sipped coffee, each busy with their own thoughts until Bill Patton, ponderously and slowly suggested, "So, OK, I want to marry you. I want to marry you so damned bad it hurts. But I can see how you'd be scared about how you'd be whipped to death half the time. So, tell you what. Let's fix it this way. You'll be willing to let me whip you a certain amount and at times of your choosing. So, sometimes when you're at loose ends or in the mood, you'll simply say to me, 'Bill, darling, I'm ready to be whipped. Please whip me now because I'm going to be busy for the next two or three days,"' Bill Patton beamed genially. "How's that for putting control in your hands?"
Her heart went out to him. At this moment Bill Patton was a shaggy puppy dog with a waggy tail. He was so anxious to please but was holding tenaciously to his most ardent need of whipping the bare skin of a willing girl. But Vanessa was no longer willing. She had been whipped enough already as a contribution to his needs, but from Bill Patton's point of view they had scarcely got started. He seemed quiet capable of slashing away at her all day. In a mixture of anger, disgust and fear, Vanessa sat down her cup and suddenly leaped for the door and down the passage to where the front door would give her access to the street. She cared nothing for nakedness or handcuffs or the iron around her neck. All she wanted was flight, the glorious freedom of speeding feet and leaping legs. If she would once get beyond the door she could probably outrun this lumbering, big male. She had no thought of consequences. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim simply wanted "OUT."
Patton caught her when her locked hands were on the knob of his front door. He grasped her bare arm savagely and yanked her back. Vanessa held and struggled with all the strength born of fear and despair as he dragged her back to the fatal room. As he bound her once more to his triangle she screamed again in hysterical anger and dismay. It was quite hopeless, he handled her with easy and bound her more tightly spread than before. As he stepped back she screeched in fury into his face the horrible, inarticulate sounds of desolation. Neither wasted words. Bill Patton reclaimed his whip and Vanessa closed her eyes and clenched her teeth.
Mr. William Patton whipped Miss Vanessa Pilgrim intermittently throughout the day. At first his blows were savage in the frustration and hurt of her attempted escape. But reason reasserted itself and he contented his mood with blows he presumed she could bare without loosing conscious. He was careful not to cut her skin and was feeling elements of guilt about his friend, Justine. By evening his wrath and lust were both appeased, probably from exhaustion, leaving him uncertain what he should next do with his prisoner. When he freed Vanessa from the triangle, she feel limply into his arms, clutching at him in a desperate need for succor and a comforting arms even though it be the arm of a captor. Patton carried his conquest to his bed and there expended the last of his passion upon the unresponsive flesh of a maiden seemingly unaware of his penetration of her sheath. When he had had his way with the almost unconscious girl, he chained her and went to sleep with his head upon her breasts. Later, he was to regard this pillow as his greatest dividend of a bad, bad day.
* * *
Breakfast was not a happy meal. Vanessa ankles were handcuffed close together in disapproval of a maiden who might seek escape. Patton carried her back and forth as need. He was no longer angry but appeared drained. Vanessa wisely guessed it was a case of too much, too soon. He had been immoderate the day before and was now paying the price of second thoughts and regrets it would be hard to voice.
"I'm taking you back to Cato," he informed his prisoner, dismally. "I've mucked things up for both of us. I'll take you back to where you belong. Maybe we can try it again sometime." He laughed bitterly. "I'll try and borrow a book on the care and feeding of slavegirls."
Vanessa knew a great thankfulness. She had been prepared for the most terrible of punishments, having supposed that this man would effect upon her flesh the frustrations of the day before. But evidently he had whipped her enough and expended his sterile conquest of her loins to a point of satiety. All she could think to say was, "Justine won't be home yet. I wish we could have talked with him."
"You'll be save enough with Cato. He'll lock you in a cell." Another bitter laugh. "At least you won't get whipped again today." Patton raised an inquisitive eyebrow, "Or does Cato whip you along with everyone else?"
"He is allowed to, but hasn't. He won't unless I do something stupid."
"I'm sorry about yesterday, Sweetheart."
"Don't be. I'm just not the right girl for you. Anyway, it was a case of too much, too soon. Before you try it again you should think about it a lot. Any maybe talk with Justine. Justine is terribly cleaver with us girls."
"I feel a bit of a bastard about taking you back and having Cato lock you in a cell until Justine comes back. You'll be bored stiff."
"Prisoners have to put up with being bored stiff, I'll survive." In a flash of inspiration she added demurely, "There's another alternative, Bill. You can set me free and give me some clothes and money and let me have a day all by myself in town. I'll go to Cato this evening and give myself up then."
Patton stopped eating and sat tense in disbelief. But his features cleared and he emitted the first bellow of genuine laughter Vanessa had ever heard from this man. "You mean that, don't you! I'll be damned! And I'll bet you'll keep your word, you'd actually go back to Justine this evening to get locked up like a convict in a cell."
"That's right I would. I'll be an absolutely good girl. I think you know that by now."
"A good girl, sure you'd be a good girl for him but not for me."
"Damn it, Bill, none of us girls can tell any man why we love one and not another. We can't love you all any more than you can love all of us. It's only a fact of life, please don't be angry." Vanessa knew she must be cautious if she was to be granted the boon of a day's freedom. "Don't let's be dramatic over this. You tried something out and it didn't work. But why can't we try it again? Why can't you set a date with Justine for a week or a month ahead in which you'll own me for one more day?" Vanessa laughed brightly. "By that time the whip marks will have faded or maybe be gone all together. The way you whipped me yesterday takes about a month to heal."
Vanessa had struck the right note. She had divined it instantly. Bill Patton would content himself and find a joy in contemplating possessing her again and perhaps again. He might reasonably suppose that, if Justine loaned her once, he would loan her twice. Optimistically he felt that she would not complain to her master about harsh treatment. Justine might draw his own conclusion from her weals, but that was something he could no longer help. Watching his face, Vanessa knew she had won.
"I have to be crazy," Patton said with caustic humor as he used the key upon her bracelets. "I suppose you had better take these with you, they belong to Justine, they're not mine. You can put them in your handbag."
"I don't have any handbag, I don't even have clothes. You can loan me some money, Justine will pay it back. But I'm bare naked?"
"I can fix that," Patton admitted, shamefaced. "There's a few things kicking around, they'll get you by."
Over and over in the mind of the freed but naked girl a song repeated itself endless, "I'm free, I'm free, I'm free!" That her freedom would be short, all the more value. A thing to treasure and use wisely. She sorted out and chose feminine clothes and asked no questions. If Bill Patton kept some feminine stuff around the house, it was no affair of hers. Apparently he had some female visitors. She wondered why he did not whip them instead of her. But, of course, they would be free, they would not be handcuffed or enslaved. Men did not need to kidnap a girl for simple, good, old-fashion sex.
Vanessa put Justine's handcuffs in the bag along with some money Patton gave her, then admired herself in the mirror, deciding she would do well enough for just one day. She considered getting a hairdo in the afternoon. The iron collar would have to stay upon her neck, there was no way of removing it. And it did add a little something to the ensemble. There would be no need to apologize for it to anyone.
Their parting was awkward. Vanessa stood on tip-toe and kissed the man who had whipped her so cruelly. She tried to make it a sisterly kiss, avoiding arousal to passion which might cause Patton to change his mind; she was not yet beyond his door. It would be too easy for him to seize her once again and take her back to square one and possibly the beastly triangle. She banished the thought and said brightly, "Don't let either of us say a word about yesterday. It simply happened and that's an end to it. If Justine asks questions, I'll answer them but I'll volunteer nothing."
"Like I said, Sweetheart, you're marvelous, simply wonderful, a jewel of a girl." Bill Patton was beginning to breathe heavily in a Vanessa recognized. She pecked his cheek once more and made her escape from his house while he was still content to let her go. From the safety of the street she looked back at the man standing dejectedly in the doorway. He waved and she waved back. That was the end of it.
Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was free.
CHAPTER SEVEN - COMPULSIVE CAPTIVE
Vanessa well understood her freedom arose from an impulsive remark made at the precise psychological moment. Bill Patton was probably already regretting his weakness in letting her go. But she was safe from him now and in the coming night there was Cato and the cell and Justine's return to look forward to. It did not strike Vanessa as the least bit strange she should consider nothing else except a return to her slavery. She was free and could stay free. She could contact her family and return to the fold. She knew if she dwelt too long on this subject she might succumb. It would be wise to look steadfastly ahead to a single goal, to think only of Justine Moore.
An impulse had gained her this short freedom. Another impulse took her to a quiet and private phone booth. Again she refused to dwell on consequences or issues, she was simply being feminine. The call went through in surprisingly little time. Hearing the male voice she could never forget, she said, excitedly, "It's me. It's Vanessa."
"Where the hell are you girl?" Rod Sykes sounded the same as ever. It was as though he were standing beside her in the confined space.
Vanessa told him where she was, and how she had got there, she did this to the extent of approximately forty dollar's worth of the money in her bag. She finished on the accusing note, "It was all your fault. Master. I didn't escape, I didn't try to escape. I was stolen. You should never have had me tied to the post out there in the desert. You thought you were so damned smart...!"
"Had yourself a bad time, hey?"
"Awful! Oh, Master, you've no idea... "
"Get your little ass back here right now, quick!"
"But, Master, I can't... "
"Why the hell not! Look, girl, you get back here on the first plane. I can't enter Congi territory but I'll arrange to have you picked up and delivered."
Vanessa giggled. "In chains, or tied up in the trunk of a car?" she asked mischievously.
"Never you mind. I want you back. You belong to me. Damn it, if it hadn't been for me you'd still be a half-assed schoolmarm. Hell, you owe me."
The masculine voice of Rod Sykes sounded so damned good over the phone. Vanessa was thrilled by his wanting her, and already her life was falling into a better perspective. Rod Sykes could have given Bill Patton a few tips and pointers on how to use a slavegirl. She wondered about Rod and Justine, there would indeed be a case of Greek meets Greek. Inadequately she said, "Rod, I only made this call to revive an old memory. I've never forgotten you and never will, but we don't belong in each other's world."
"You belong right here in this house, Vanessa. Like I said, get back here Pronto! I want you naked and in chains within forty-eight hours. Do I make myself clear?"
"Well... yes. But couldn't you say you love me just a little?"
"You damned girls!" A male snort of make-believe disgust reached the palpating maiden in the booth. "Of course, I love you! Why the hell to you suppose I've been turning the whole damned country upside down in search of you? I was scared the Hamish shitless, figuring they had you hidden someplace. You're excused for escaping, it wasn't your fault."
"I'll have to say good-bye now, Master, my money is about used up."
"You can't possibly hang up. Look here " The male expostulation was consigned to limbo as Vanessa thumbed back the receiver. Even if her money had lasted she dare not prolong a conversation becoming increasing intimate and more and more impossible. She condemned herself for making the call, but in some way she could not analyze, it had strengthened her and rid her mind of doubts and fancies and indecisions. Rod Sykes was a forthright male. She would be a steadfast woman. Feeling better, she made her way to the hairdressing salon. When she was through there, there would be just enough money left to treat her to the luxury of dinning out. All in all, it was not a bad day.
* * *
If Cato was surprised by the early return of his master's property, he gave no sign. Instead of the "May I take your hat, Sir?" he substituted with unconscious humor, "Your clothes please, Ma'am, I will put them away for you."
Vanessa wanted to laugh, to jump for joy, even to kiss this impassive servant on his impassive cheek. It felt so damned good to be back where she belonged. She stripped as casually as might a male in tendering his hat. Handing Bill Patton's feminine garments to a waiting hand. Totally bare, she inquired with sparkling eyes, "How and where would you like me, Cato? I promise I won't be a nuisance."
Her incarceration was not immediate. She roamed the familiar places while Cato disposed of her discarded coverings. When Cato returned and said, "If you will come this way. Ma'am?" she responded gaily by a saucy request, "Cato, could I have a drink first before you lock me up, or chain me, or whatever you're going to do with me?"
"Indubitably, Ma'am. Would you wish me to mix it for you or will you mix your own?"
"Why don't you mix it for me, Cato. And, while you're at it, fix one for yourself."
Cato was visibly shaken but he bore up well. "An unorthodox suggestion. Ma'am, but thank you."
Vanessa knew herself impishly testing the limits of this freedom. She had best make the most of it for it would not last long. She was well aware of Cato's responsibility to assure her imprisonment. While he was mixing drinks she said casually, "Oh, by the way, my handcuffs are in the bag. I forgot to mention... "
"Quite so, Ma'am. I have already discovered them. They are in my pocket."
Vanessa sighed. There was something so absolutely right about Cato. She accepted both an armchair and cocktail with the abandon of a thrilled teenager dabbling in the forbidden. But Cato did the correct thing and sipped his while standing. "The house has not seemed the same without you, Ma'am." He coughed deprecatingly, "If I may say so, you are in the nature of a ray of sunshine."
"Oh, Cato, I'm so pleased." Vanessa's joy was genuine. "You're not going to whip me or something are you? I mean, you're not building me up for a let down?"
"Indeed no, Ma'am. The master left no orders for this contingency. I will therefore keep you in what might be called a 'holding' situation."
"Cato, you're so sweet." Vanessa stood and turned slowly for his inspection. "Look what Mr. Patton did to me. I've never been so terribly whipped in all my life."
"I have already noted your wounds, Ma'am. I would never presume to place such marks upon you skin. You master will not be pleased. I doubt exceedingly you will be loaned again."
Vanessa was grateful for tete-a-tete, it cemented a bond. But she would not presume, she would not push her luck. When her drink was finished, she set the glass aside and held out her hands to the man with the handcuffs in his pocket. No word was said, none needed. Cato carefully fitted each bracelet on its appropriate wrist. He went to much care to assure them being precisely snug then securely locked with the reserve end of the key. The now-restrained girl watched with approval and a comfortably secure sense of well-being. With Vanessa, handcuffs most definitely belonged!
"If you will come this way, Ma'am?" Cato motioned to the door. The handcuffed girl knew the moment had come and, without demure, offered her bare arm to Cato's grip. She knew herself captive.
"I believe this the most appropriate, Ma'am," Cato said as he unlocked the cell door and held it open. With an awareness of coming home the naked girl walked within.
"Perhaps, if you would be seated a moment, Ma'am?"
Cato's pockets held more than handcuffs. He produced the shining bands which, locked upon Vanessa's ankles, would inhibit walking. Vanessa simply shrugged, sat down and extended her shapely legs, one at a time. When the bands were locked upon her ankles, she said, wryly, "I wasn't going anywhere, Cato. But thanks just the same."
"You are most welcome, Ma'am. I will bring you a dinner at an appropriate hour."
"But I've already eaten."
"A light snack, then Ma'am. A glass of warm milk will help you sleep."
The cell door clanged shut most resoundingly. Upon the bed/bench Vanessa watched her jailer depart. Cato was a dear. Amused by his attention to detail, she fingered the metal bands around her ankles, then tried to stand. But the test proved she would do neither run or walk while wearing the wicked metal. Resignedly she lay back on the bed. She had not slept well the night before. She slept now.
In the morning it was her master who freed her from the cell. Never had a reunion been more joyous. Justine picked his slavegirl up and carried her directly to their bed. He had no need to chain her for the anklets prohibited escape. They made such outrageous love it was noon before they blinked themselves back into the world. When Vanessa tried to tell her master of the one day of slavery to Bill Patton, he curtly said, "I have only to look at you. I'll talk to him. If you can, forget it." He grinned a reassurance. "But now I've got to run, there's something I have to do, I could be late."
Vanessa was thankful for their time in bed, it had made everything right again. In his hurry Justine had forgotten her anklets but she shrugged and thought they did not matter. If she wanted to go somewhere around the house she could always crawl or ask Cato to carry her. The circlets were deadly things but she preferred them to the heaviness of shackles or the gross bulkiness of police irons which were not irons at all but simply a large set of handcuffs. She amused herself with baths and magazines until Cato arrived with tea. Having served it, he lingered. "I regret, Ma'am, I have some bad news."
"Sit down and tell me."
"I would prefer to stand. Miss. The master has just phoned. I fear you are in disgrace."
"But I can't be. I haven't done anything." Vanessa nibbled a sandwich and sipped tea. "You make the nicest things, Cato, I do wish you would join me."
"Thank you. Ma'am, but no. May I suggest you eat hardy." Vanessa picked up the inference but refused to pursue it farther. She was in one more of her light-hearted, joyous conditions from being loved and only lightly restrained. If Cato had bad news, he could keep it to himself.
"I will leave you to your tea, Ma'am. I will be back for the tray. And, again, I suggest you leave nothing uneaten."
Vanessa munched happily. She examined her bracelets and anklets and fingered the iron around her neck. The iron was an endless source of curiosity. She supposed being chained by it at night justified wearing it always. It was even more a part of her than the handcuffs. She finished the tea and sandwiches and rang the bell. When Cato returned, she said, "Well, let's have the bad news, I've finished tea. I'm well fortified."
"I fear it is not a matter for levity. Ma'am. Your master is displeased."
"OK, then, my Master is displeased. He can tell me about it when he comes home."
"I fear his return may be delayed, Ma'am. He has phoned me instructions. I regret having to inform you that you have been sentenced to punishment."
"Oh, Cato, don't be so solemn! What on earth have I done now?"
"No doubt you master will inform you when you are next together. In the meantime I have my instructions. I regret I must unlock your anklets."
Vanessa stuck out her feet and watched the departure of the metal bands around her ankles. She was never sorry to see them go. They were preferable to shackles but that was about all she could say about them. Still in the grip of euphoria she exclaimed, "Thank you, Cato, you're a darling. What happens now?"
"Nothing you will like. Ma'am. I must ask you to come with me."
"You sound like a policeman, Cato, making an arrest."
Vanessa got willingly to her feet and motioned with chained hands in an uncertain questioning. But her bare arm was firmly grasped and she was led to a room in which an unwelcome structure stood bare and stark for her attention. Her response was instant, "Oh, Cato, not this horrible thing!"
"It is a replica of a seventeenth century pillory. Ma'am. You master added it to his collection some time ago. You will find it accommodates your dimensions with remarkable accuracy."
"I just bet it does! That isn't out of the seventeenth century, it was made especially for me. Look at the size of those holes!"
"You will have every opportunity to test them, Ma'am," Cato assured her. "There is, however, one impediment I must deplore. You must lose your collar. I'm sure you'll miss it while it is gone from your neck."
"I don't want to lose my collar. Oh, Cato, isn't there something else you could do to me besides put me in that awful thing?"
"I fear not, Ma'am. The master's orders are explicit. I have here the key."
It was a sad, sad moment, like a parting from an old friend. For Vanessa, the collar around her neck had been symbolic of something she could not name. She had a fear that, when it was taken from around her neck, a new era would commence. But she turned around, gathered up her hair as best she could with her joined hands and stool quietly while Cato used the key. When the collar was taken from her, she impulsively asked, "Oh, Cato, let me hold it. I've never held it before. Please... " The iron was warm from her flesh. It was almost like holding one of her fingers or ankles or a wrist. Vanessa looked and marveled at the small diameter needed to hold a girl in duress. She returned it to Cato with a shrug of regret. He said, "I fear your handcuffs, too, Ma'am."
Vanessa had forgotten the handcuffs. How silly she was, a girl could not be place in the grip of a pillory with chained hands or a collared neck. She could wear the metal belt around her waist or shackles around her ankles but that was all. Unhappily she said, "Look after them, Cato, and put them back on me as soon as you can. I'd a lot sooner be handcuffed than what is going to happen to me now."
It was one of those times when a girl needed to giggle. It was all too absurd, all too solemn and ritualistic, especially with Cato officiating. Cato lifted the top half of the yoke by which she would be imprisoned and invited her own participation in her punishment, "You may place your neck and wrists in their appointed places. I would appreciate it if you would arrange your head so it will cause no impediment."
Vanessa did just that. She felt like stamping her bare foot in anger and impatience. She was sure she had done nothing to earn this punishment but maybe this was one of those cases where she didn't have to do anything, where Justine had come by a quaint notion he could not wait to impose. He would be picturing her the rest of the afternoon, a helpless captive awaiting his pleasure. She shrugged, whatever it might be, she had no say in the matter, her duty was to obey. The top half of the yoke was gently lowered to affirm Cato's assertion of a perfect fit. Her wrists and neck were locked in hardwood with such perfection as to become a part of it. She looked sideways as Cato lowered the hasp and inserted the padlock. He closed it with a deadly click. "I am instructed to leave you, Ma'am. I am not allowed to linger and exchange pleasantries. Good-bye."
"But, Cato This isn't forever, is it? You'll come and unlock me later on, won't you?"
"I am not at liberty to say, Ma'am." The door closed behind a model of discretion. The girl in the pillory actually stamped a bare foot against the floor but it hurt enough to dissuade her from stamping the other, too. She snorted in disgust.
For any maiden ever incarcerated within the hardwood grip of a pillory, it is a memorable experience. The divorcing of her body and her legs behind the pillory and out of Vanessa's range of vision had a strange effect. She could look to either side at her hands, which were in exactly the same plight as her neck. She was only slightly bent but was certain the bend would be enough to exact its tribute in the form of an aching back. Carefully she thrust a foot forward until she could see it. It looked as it had always looked. She put it back where it had been. Vanessa sighed. There was not much left to do.
She wished Cato had stuck around. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim felt in need of moral support.
The captive of the pillory wracked her mind searching for a reason for this indignity, this horrible punishment once reserved for the convict class only. But she could think of nothing, and moodily reflected that, if this was an example of her master's pixie caprice, she could only hope he was not often so inspired. Vanessa was well aware of other rooms and within those rooms other things, but for the moment did not want to think of them. The pillory was enough for now! It was hateful to not be able to see herself, to be thus divided between hands and head and the rest of her person. She supposed that she should be thankful that no one else was present, she was wickedly vulnerable in the rear. If any one was disposed to cane her bottom or whip her back, she could scarcely be more disposed. She was alone and was wise enough to know the loneliness might be the worst punishment of all.
The light was fading when Cato brought the glass and the straw. "I have taken the liberty, Ma'am, of making this a cocktail rather than a glass of water. I trust you approve?"
Vanessa approved. She said so in no uncertain tones. She pleaded for release. But all she got out of the butler's visit was to suck the cocktail dry through the straw thoughtfully provided and to request another.
"I fear not, Ma'am. Second cocktail would be, in my opinion, an indulgence."
"Oh, damn your indulgence, Cato! Get me another drink. Get me tipsy, if I've got to stand in this awful contraption for long, I'll go crazy."
"I'm sure you'll handle your punishment in your usual good style and with grace, Ma'am. I have always admired your control."
"Piss on my control, Cato! Pleeeeeeeeease Just one more?"
"Very well. Ma'am, I thrust this will not be mentioned to the master?"
"Never! Oh, Cato, I adore you. You're so sweet!"
Cato was absent a long time. The yoked girl struggled fretfully in useless attempts to gain some advantage over the wooden monster in which she was so cruelly clamped. The second drink would be a blessing, perhaps it would enable her to sleep! She would try by leaning her weight against her arms and neck and hoping neither of them broke in a sudden fall. Going to sleep within the grip of a pillory could well be hazardous. When Cato reappeared, her thankfulness was vocal.
"Oh, Cato, you're a darling. I do admire the way you carry a glass on that little tray. It adds such consequence to something ordinary."
"There is nothing ordinary about this cocktail. Miss. It is well fortified."
It was indeed! Vanessa took a long pull and tried not to choke. She wondered if any other girl had experimented with intoxication while thus imprisoned. Under Cato's insistence, she imbibed it rapidly and then dolefully listened to one more goodbye. Cato went to the door.
"But Cato, you can't leave me like this, can you? I mean, chivalry and all that and leaving a maiden in distress. Cato, I'm distressed, honest I am!"
Cato was gone. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was along and firmly locked within the pillory.
She did not sleep. Every time slumber reached her limbs they proved traitors, bending beneath her weight and threatening suffocation and a broken neck. So long as she was conscious she could take whatever weight she wanted by her imprisoned hands, but that was not the idea. Vanessa wept, but it was now too dark to see her tears splash on the floor. When her master came home she received the unkindest cut of all.
"You've been drinking, Vanessa. Where the Devil "
"Only one, Master, Cato was so kind. He felt sorry for me."
"He's not suppose to, and I'm damned sure he gave you more than one, I'll talk to him," the master was brusque.
Vanessa hoped he had not had a bad day and would vent his displeasure on his slave. But she wasted no time, "Please let me loose, Master. Please take me out of this awful thing. I've been in here so long."
"Not long enough, you little idiot. If you're wondering why you're standing there, I can tell you very simply, it's about a phone call."
"How did you learn about that?" The words escaped her lips before Vanessa could clench her teeth. "I mean, what about a phone call? What's the harm in calling someone on the phone?"
"That idiot, Bill Patton, gave you a day's freedom. To all intents and purposes he made you a free girl who could run away if she chose. You took the opportunity to call that mercenary fellow -- what's his name-Rod Sykes, I believe. You should not have allowed yourself to be loosed upon the street and you should not have made that phone call. Have you any idea what penalties you've earned by those two acts?"
"I'm sorry. Master. I didn't know, honest I didn't." Vanessa contrived a sob in her voice. "Please don't punish me. Please don't punish me any more."
"I can see you've been punished enough. Patton went overboard. I'll take that into account, but you've earned yourself more than just standing in the pillory for a few paltry hours. Look, Vanessa, I'm going to free you now. We'll have our normal dinner and then a chat. Then I'm going to put you right back where you are now."
Vanessa tensed in disbelief. Her voice was involuntary, "Ooooooh, Master! Don't, oh, please don't. I've had a belly full of this hateful thing."
She might as well kept silent. Justine used a key and freed the padlock, he lifted the yoke and said, roughly, "Ok, you're free now, get yourself out of there. Stop sniveling."
"Was I sniveling?" Having made the question, Vanessa discovered she actually was sniveling. In a suddenly, glorious freedom of hands, she brushed away tears and gratefully accepted a white cambric square in which to blow her nose. She felt pathetic and frightfully abused. But she was aware of a need for caution, she was in trouble and best get in no deeper than she was. She allowed herself to be led to the bathroom and, a few minutes later, joined her master at dinner. Her only bond was the metal band around her middle. No one noticed.
The naked delinquent soon realized that part of her punishment was normalcy. As Cato served the courses and conversation flowed (ignoring the subject closest to her mind), Vanessa more and more shrank from a return to the awful room and wicked machine to which she had been fastened. But if she allowed her mind to become hysterical, and she was certain Justine would not like that, she would fall in his estimation, something she must never allow herself to do. She drank as much wine as she was allowed and managed to match her master's conversational agility. When it was all over and even the coffee things were taken from the table, Justine said, without emphasis, "Well, I guess its time to go back downstairs, Vanessa. Come along."
She followed like a whipped dog. But when Justine switched on the light in the awful room, she lost control and, falling to his feet, clasp his legs and wept bitterly upon his pants, imploring, "Please, Master, don't put me back in there. Please, please!"
"You know what to do, Vanessa, behave yourself."
It was hopeless, there was no way out. Miss Vanessa Pilgrim knew herself a girl condemned. She was sentenced by a man she had come to adore, sentenced to a punishment she hated and loathed. But, in her realization of the possibility of loosing Justine's respect, she knew there was only once course open. Miserable she went to the pillory and arranged herself for imprisonment, the yoke was lowered, the hasp fell into place and the padlock shut. She had gone a full circle and was back at the starting place. After Justine had gone, leaving her alone, she wept bitterly with none to see her tears.
The pillory was bad enough in daylight, but in the dark it was truly fearsome. Ghosts lurked in the shadows and the captive girl was forever positive lewd hands were questing for her sex and for her breasts. She stepped from one bare foot to the other in a constant, but unjustified fear of ghostly hands clutching her nakedness or a ghostly whip descending upon her already marked skin. That none of these things happened helped not at all. She could not move, that was what mattered! She was held rigidly helpless as though in the grip of a living thing. Throughout the hours of darkness she came to hate the pillory more than the hatred she bore for any of the punishments or tortures she had experienced since that first day at the Mission. She tried screaming but her voice was lost against the walls and the closed doors. It sounded horrible to her own ears so she desisted. She had no weapon, none! Her only freedom was to shed her tears and this she did.
It was well along towards morning before Justine flung open the door, unlocked the padlock, picked her up and carried her to their bed. If Vanessa had loved him before, she loved him tenfold now. Their lovemaking was the fiercest yet.
* * *
Miss Vanessa Pilgrim was glad when her master returned to punishments heavily sexual; sometimes they were purely and simply sex and need not be called punishments at all. Her interlude with Bill Patton, followed by the ordeal of the pillory, had made a deep impression on the captive girl. She believed she would never be the same again, but believed also she had caught a fresh, new glimpse of The Male. She still refused to analyze why men did these things to girl or why girls got wet between their thighs because of it. The whole thing was crazy, but sometimes the craziness was intensely pleasurable.
Vanessa looked at the object and said, "You can't possibility expect me to take all of that, Justine!"
"That and more. You can do it. Sweetheart."
Vanessa had been told that she would be punished by a few hours spread upon the horse. At first she was unconcerned, that punishment did not matter, it would soon be over and wasn't too unpleasant. But this was not the horse she had seen in another of the rooms, this was something by itself, holding a menace of its own. She had given up her maidenly protests against the punishments her master sentenced her to. She had become inured to them and was well aware her quiet acceptance often gained her a shorter period of their inflection than otherwise. She was now almost always in a feverish anxiety to please and to immolate herself in anyway The Male desired. Luckily Justine had become more and more busy with his affairs and delegated the correction and discipline of his slave to Cato, who performed this function of inquisitor with a calm disinterest that made Vanessa long to tear her hair or, heaven forbid, claw his face. But she would never do that, Cato was sweet. As for tearing her hair or jumping up and down in anger -- she rarely had the chance.
As though regretting the small liberties Vanessa had taken during her interlude with Bill Patton, she was now heavily ironed or stringently bound. Mourning this lose of freedom and the strictness of redundant bonds gave her something to think about in the boredom of her isolations. She was now warmly kissed, patted here and there, and told to await Cato's arrival.
"This is a sexually immodest inflection I would prefer not to impose upon you, Ma'am." Cato's voice was as suave as ever. "But the master's orders were most explicit. Perhaps, as a commencement, I should lubricate the knob."
"Lubricate the whole damned thing, Cato! It's a monster! It's simply awful."
"Punishments have a tendency to be as you describe, Miss. I will now tie your hands behind your back."
"Is that part of the drill? Why can't you use handcuffs?"
"The tight stricture of cords is considered more suitable to this occasion, Ma'am." Cato's voice was bland. From one of his magic pockets he produced thin cord.
"Cato, that stuffs going to cut my wrists, it's so thin!"
"An impediment to struggling, Miss, nothing more, I do assure you." With the passing of time in her imprisonment, Vanessa had become increasingly cautious of rash statements or immoderate demands. She longed to suggest to the imperturbable servant that the two of them say that her punishment had taken place, and allow her to spend the day in the relative comfort of a cell. But Cato invariably reported all her frailties and they drew their own punishments in grim reward. She look dubiously at the immense phallus emerging upward from the sturdy pedestal. "I'm not going to like this, Cato," she said with certainly.
"Quite so, Miss. It's design is punitive. The promise of the phallus is, I fear, deceptive. It is overly large for pleasurable impalement."
"Its bloody awful. Its like being dropped on a telephone pole from a great height. Cato, must we really...?"
"I fear so, Miss. There is no escape."
"How do you get it inside me, it doesn't look possible?"
"I will lift you. Ma'am. It is a cooperative effort."
"That's all very well to say, you don't get the damned thing shoved up your thingummy. Are you sure it won't come up out of my mouth?"
"You are indulging in hyperbole. Ma'am. It is not designed for pleasure but will do no injury. And now you hands...?"
Vanessa stood erect and defiant, her nakedness taunt with indignation as she put her hands behind her back, crossed her wrists, and stood firmly beneath the bite of the thin cord she deplored. From time to time she winched and bit her lip but carefully maintained a prudent silence. Anything Cato made her suffer would be according to the book and had best not be protested if a girl knew what was good for her!
Cato was immensely strong. He picked her up like a baby beneath her arms and Vanessa felt silly and effectual as she rose to find herself immediately above the object on which she must be impaled. It all seemed impossible but she knew it was going to happen. If Cato said she was going to suffer no injury, well, she took his word for it.
"If you will open your legs, Ma'am, and direct proceedings, I will follow your instructions. Ma'am." Cato sounded a trifle breathless. He lowered her half an inch and she felt the first touch of the massive object. "I believe we are at the point of entry, Ma'am, I will move you back and forth to facilitate passage into what you describe as your 'thingummy.' We must observe strict caution."
"You're damned right we must, Cato. Look, can't we abandon this whole project. I... I... Oh, damned! You've got the lousy thing right inside me."
"A mere commencement. Ma'am. It is the protruding end you feel. The rest will follow."
Vanessa wanted to laugh, to scream, to do anything but what she did. In a stressful knowledge of risk she guided Cato's slow lowering of her person upon the greased pole. Little by little her sheath absorbed the unbelievable immensity. She hear Cato sight with relief when her crotch was planted firmly on the saddle, designed not so much for support as for punishment. It was the strangest of feelings and she was much concerned that Cato should continue to support her weight. But Cato withdrew his hands and Miss Vanessa Pilgrim left herself sitting astride the strangest horse in all the world.
"Cato, I can't possibly sit on this thing, it's hurting something awful!"
"Quite so, Ma'am."
"Don't say 'quite so' like that. It sounds as though I'm a babbling idiot you're trying to shut up or placate."
"Quite so, Ma'am."
"There you go again! Oh, Cato, lift me off, please lift me off!"
"You are well adjusted, Miss. I am well proud of our joint effort. I will now fasten your ankles."
Vanessa sat still in utter dismay, not that she could do much else, but a new dimension was making itself felt. The pedestal upon which she was impaled was now gently rising to lift the tiny saddle on which she sat and the wicked phallus deep within her womb to a height adequate to raise her feet from the floor and to allow Cato to shackle them loosely to the pedestal itself. Vanessa's indignation was vocal, "What are you doing? Why are you chaining my feet like that, Cato?"
"A mere precaution, Miss. You may, in the course of time, be tempted to try to throw yourself from you perch. It is necessary, therefore, to fasten your feet to render such an act impossible. At the same time we must insure that your feet in no way bare your weight or support you by any means. Your weight is intended to rest entirely upon your narrow perch and, if I may say so, that thrust within your crotch."
"Of course, you may say so, Cato. That's exactly what's happening. Look, I can't possibly stand this, it hurts too bloody awful. You ought to do these things to yourself to try them out."
"It would not be the same. Ma'am. May I commend the admirable adjustment you are making to adverse circumstances."
"Commend all you want, Cato, but for Pete's sake get me off here."
"Alas, no, Ma'am. You are nicely postured. This will be your perch for some time to come. You are, in effect, riding the horse."
"What's that you're doing to my hands?"
"Binding the strictures down to the back of the small saddle, Ma'am. This will kept you erect and be a further assurance against escape."
"Escape! Oh, Cato, don't be silly, how in hell could I escape from this?"
"Quite so, Miss."
When Cato left her along, Vanessa had never felt more lonely or more in need of moral support. The support she was getting now was wickedly painful and concentrated upon a portion of her being where she wanted it least of all. All the fastenings were craftily designed to position her and keep her sitting astride the saddle upon her pussy.
She thought of the poor, pouting lips on which she sat and wondered if they would be totally ruined or if some vestige of female response might still be had from them. She had entertained a fleeting hope of present carnal arousal as the day wore on. But if this was to happen it would need be from the phallus and not the thing on which she sat.
Justine Moore was never dull. His captive maiden, impaled upon the pedestal, conceded this fact with wry humor. In all he did to her there would always be moments when a giggle had to be suppressed or given rein. Vanessa had long since discovered how much depended on a state of mind. If Bill Patton had done this to her, she would simply feel miserable, hurt and untidy, and be longing for release but not expecting it. But now she recognized the originality of her plight and slyly conceded the hope of the phallus bestowing an obvious benefit as time wore on. There was no one to see her in the disarray of orgasm, so she did not have to worry about that. A twisting and shuddering girl, with her belly fill of rubber, her hands tied behind her back, and her feet shackled to the pedestal below could hardly be an aesthetic delight to an observer, at least that was the way Vanessa felt about it. If someone had to watch, she wanted that someone to be Justine Moore.
Cato reported passage of time when he brought a drink. He was attentive with the drinks, alternating water with something stronger. The impaled girl could scare believe the hours passed so slowly. That on which she sat became increasingly a scorching bum of bitter discomfort. The thing deep within her being finally had its way and took her into what might once have been Rainbow Land, but which now was nothing more than an untidy, gasping, and moaning without release. The thing itself, so deep within her, inhibited the motions which would normally arise from a maiden climax. It was all terribly unsatisfactory and most unkind. Vanessa made up her mind to speak forcibly to Justine when he came home about her disgraceful day. She hoped he would think up something less demeaning for tomorrow. Vanessa, on her perch, wondered why she had come to love Justine. She supposed what she felt for him was, in actuality, exactly that. She was a girl in love with her master. Her captivities had awakened in Vanessa a latent talent for submission and carnality. She had given up being ashamed of herself and now drifted with the tide, a tide controlled by the man whose property she was. Justine was shrewd in his punishments. The one she suffered now was, by normal standards, outrageous and impossible. She should have been in raving hysterics and hating every minute of it. But this, like all her other punishments, simply took her to the brink of her endurance but no more. She knew it a tantalizing experience for both of them, the discovery of a girl's tolerance of pain and the effect pain had on her mental attitudes. The nag between her thighs and within her cleft she now suffered was a case in point. This thing upon which she was tied and chained was a refinement of the ancient "Horse," but it was still a refinement, a civilized and faintly humane approach to an old torture. Vanessa was quiet willing to tell Cato she would die unless released immediately, but she was well aware she would sit out the day and be a loving slavegirl to her master when he so willed.
In these reflections she became once more aware of a growing fire kindled by the hateful prong she must keep within her belly. She could almost see it as a laughing male thing having its way with her against her will. Savagely, Vanessa turned her mind to pure thoughts, abandoning all carnality, but to no avail. The growing heat and the encroaching tide of sensation could not be ignored, she could not kill it or close her mind to it. Slowly it possessed her totally. In the middle of one more shameful surrender of the flesh, while she moaned and flung her damp hair from side to side, the door opened and Bill Patton walked in to stand speechless in amazement.
It was not until the hateful spasm had fulfilled its purpose with her that Vanessa became aware of an audience. Her eyes had been closed during the flowering of her climax. Then now opened very wide indeed. Her voice was vivid with outrage, "You!"
"Sorry, my dear. I seem to have a gift for catching you at awkward moments. Please don't feel as ashamed as you look. Oh, and by the way, Justine gave me permission for a short visit. Cato knows I'm here. I won't embarrass you long."
"Go away."
"You don't really mean that, Vanessa. You're just angry because I came in and watched what was happening to you. Damn it, girl, I've seen girls in orgasm before, it's nothing new."
"You've never seen a girl have an orgasm in a fix like I'm in," Vanessa accused bitterly, then added, hopefully, "Are you going to get me off this thing?"
"I'm afraid not, dear. Justine warned me I have to leave you alone. " Bill Patton flushed uncomfortably. "What I wanted to see you about was getting married. I asked you to marry me, now I ask again. How about it?"
Bill was impossible! Bitterly Vanessa expressed her shame, "You can't tell me you still want to marry a girl who looks the way I do now and who was doing that horrible thing when you opened the door. Don't you realize I'm absolute impaled on this pedestal and there's a great big rubber thing up inside me and it brings me to an orgasm I don't want. And sitting on this little saddle things is pure agony. Good gosh. Bill, a man doesn't ask a girl to marry him under these circumstances! You're looking at a female Well, sort of tortured."
"Justine explained about your punishment, Vanessa. I think he believed a visit from me would amuse you, take you mind of your discomfort."
"You're both crazy. No girl wants to be seen the way I am now." Vanessa sniffed angrily. "Why won't you lift me off this thing and give me a break?"
"I know I've always sounded ineffectual, Vanessa, my love, every time I've run into you. You're always in some kind of dire straights and I can't rescue you. I can't now. Don't you see, Sweetheart, I don't have the key to those shackles on your ankles and there's a matter of honor with Justine. It's decent of him to let me come and visit with you."
"Go away. Bill. But before you go have a good look at all the whip marks you put on me. Everybody admires them but me."
"They make you doubly beautiful," his voice had again returned to reverence. "I know you don't like me constantly telling you how beautiful you are. But I have to. I can't help myself."
"Tea, Sir?"
It was Cato with his tray. Upon it the appurtenances for tea for two. He drew up a small table and chair and place his burden upon it. "I am sure, Sir, I can rely on you to hold the cup up to the lady's lips." Discretely he left the young couple alone.
"Jolly decent of him," Bill Patton said in surprise. "Damned civilized. Mind if I pour?"
"It's for damned sure I can't," Vanessa said sharply. "I can't do a damned thing and I'll bet Cato's quietly laughing up his sleeve."
Patton carried it off well. The incongruity of the situation appeared to pass him by. One might suppose that having tea with a young lady impaled upon a post was a daily occurrence with him, that the young lady's skin was crisscrossed with whip marks he had himself inflected affected him not at all. He found Vanessa exquisitely lovely in her distress. He had remembered her preference in sugar and cream, stirring the cup then holding it to her sulky lips.
Vanessa sipped. It would prove nothing to thrust the cup away with her chin and, anyway, this idiot meant well. Tonelessly she said, "I'm not going marry you. Bill. And please don't talk about Justine's cruelty to me. If I married you and you took me home you might not be half as kind. Go buy yourself a girl on the street and whip you fancies out on her. Maybe you should whip two or three of them, if you can afford it, I'm sure you'd feel better."
"You're making fun of me."
"Not really. It's good advise. Bill, I do wish you'd go away. I feel terrible having you look at me like this. I'm in constant pain and not in the mood for polite conversation. I am certainly not in a position to consider a proposal of marriage."
They stared at each other in silence. Suddenly Patton knelt beside Vanessa's pedestal and busied himself with the heavy shackles on her ankles, searching for some way to free her feet. He did not find a way. Vanessa Pilgrim would remain firmly a prisoner astride the tiny saddle so deeply embedded in her sex. Sadly he rose to his feet, "I can't free you without the key. Justine told me I couldn't. He's got the key in his pocket. Vanessa, I'm so damned sorry...!"
"Don't be. I'm a slave. I'm being punished. It's all very simple, nothing for you to worry about."
"But I want to marry you!"
"So you said. I think it best you go, Bill, while we're still friends. If it pleases you to see me naked and in pain, I'm sure Justine will allow you to do a bit of voyeurism any time you're in the mood, he gets a kick out of it himself. I'll bet he's getting a chuckle out of thinking about the two of us alone here and not able to do a thing about it. Run along, I'll survive."
Bill Patton's kiss was almost brotherly, his retreat out of sight almost a rout. With him gone the helpless girl eyed Cato's tray in longing, it contained unused sandwiches she wished Patton had fed her before leaving, but perhaps she could persuade Cato Everything was wrong, it was a bad day. Morosely, Miss Vanessa Pilgrim, shrank back upon her pain.
"I thought it best to let him come," Justine said simply, as his eyes roved the tired nakedness of his slave. "He's got a thing about you, a fixation in his mind. I figured you might be able to put him on the right track."
"I wish you won't exhibit me to people when you're punishing me in ways like this," Vanessa complained. "It was horrible having him stare, knowing what was up inside me and the way I must be feeling. I didn't even know he was standing there while I was making a idiot of myself, trying to kill what this beastly thing was doing to me and not having any luck. Oh, Justine...!"
"Want me to get you off of there?"
"Of course, I do! Oh, Master, please...
I've had a belly full!"
Vanessa blushed, "I didn't make that pun on purpose, it's bloody awful. Master, Please let me off."
"Just one thing I want to do while you are so beautifully positioned. I've been saving it for myself rather than let Cato do it. And, anyway, it's not too wise to inflect it on you for too long."
"I'm hurting enough, don't hurt me any more. Please. Justine!"
"You're suppose to call me 'Master,' remember? Since you forgot, we'll treat these little trifles as your punishment."
The "little trifles" were exactly what Vanessa expected. She knew the hated wooden clothespins would show up to good advantage on her breasts in the posture she was forced to hold. Her hands, tied down to the back of the saddle, drew her shoulders and arms back to make her breasts demanding. She wanted to moan at the injustice of it all as her master played with nipples already rampant, and then carefully positioned the tiny, gaping jaws, hungry to impose their pain. As each one bit hard, she could not restrain winching and a short gasp. Justine was pleased with his slave girl, standing back then walking around to get the full effect. He annoyed her further by whispering the same words as her visitor of that afternoon, "You're beautiful, Vanessa, more beautiful than any other girl."
The clothespins hurt. Vanessa gazed down at them as they protruded from her breasts like spouting growths as part of her physical makeup. With the least motion, they bobbed and they danced as though with joy. Fretfully, and to please her master, Vanessa sharply motioned with her shoulders to extract pain from herself and make the wooden clips upon her nipples do their Thing for the man who put them there. She sniffed and said, more sharply than she should, "I hope you're enjoying yourself. I'm most certainly not."
That night Justine Moore was doubly attentive to his slavegirl, clothing her chained nakedness in the rainbow hued garment of their love.
CHAPTER EIGHT - STOLEN BREASTS
Vanessa's mind was soon disabused of the fallacious supposition her sex might be ruined by a day's sitting upon the pedestal. In fact, if anything, it appeared its energies and potency were improved by compression beneath her weight. She and her master appeared afflicted with a glut of pure lust in which they fed upon each other constantly and to the point where, for several days, Vanessa was not punished at all. She wore her collar and her belt and her handcuffs as symbols of her status, but that was all. It was on the fifth day, Vanessa came to while away the hours inside what her master laughingly described as a "prison without bars." When Vanessa was introduced to it, she laughed.
It had no bars in the ordinary sense of the word. The bars had been cleverly twisted and fashioned into something not even a cage, it resembled nothing so much as the creation of a modern artist who had fashioned it with tongue in cheek. The metal was heavy enough and the whole thing was entirely constructed of shaped bars opening into two segments on a pair of hinges at its base. It came alive to take shape and form when a naked girl was introduced within its intricacies. "I should paint a picture of you in it. Sweetheart, and call it a study in frustration. I haven't used it before, you can tell me your reactions this evening."
Vanessa reflected on always telling her master of reactions. There were plenty to tell. Looking down at the shapeless mass to which she found it difficult to relate, she was certain there would indeed be reactions.
"You sit down inside the two halves, Vanessa, but be careful to arrange yourself as you go, step into the holes with the larger holes for your thighs and then, as I rise the front half, I want you to thrust your hands and arms within the two smaller holes above. Nothing will hurt. Go ahead, darling, it won't hurt, I promise."
Vanessa sat down. Her day's punishment began to take shape. There were bars at her back culminating at a half-circle into which she nestled the back of her neck. Her collar and her beloved handcuffs had been taken from her to accommodate the demands of this fresh penalty into which her nakedness would be tightly inserted and inflexibly held. She placed her feet within the large orifices as directed and then, as Justine raised the frame, found it easy to thrust her hands inside the two smaller holes above which were advancing upon her steadily. There were actually two holes for each limb, one larger than the other, so that, as the frame came closer and closer to enclosing her, she discover that her thighs were tightly circled as she thrust her feet into the accompanying circles of round iron. At the top of this segment also, was a half circle which fitted neatly upon the front of her neck and was padlocked to its sister half behind. Vanessa found herself sitting, arms out thrust and held above her breasts and below her elbows, their grip was not either tight or close but she discovered she could neither move her arms or withdraw them. The same was true of her thighs and legs. Control of her nakedness ended below her knees. When the padlocks had clicked their jubilant note of finality, Justine stepped back to admire, and his slavegirl said, dolefully, "I feel supremely ridiculous, Master."
"Doesn't hurt, though?"
"Well, no, I suppose it doesn't. Do you want me to struggle as a demonstration and to give you an erection -- not that it would do you any good."
Justine was delighted. "You forget your mouth, darling. But, yes. I'd like you to struggle, let's see what this thing amounts to." Vanessa struggled and twisted, but met defeat from the cold, round iron in which she was so frustratingly encased. She could pull neither arms nor legs back far enough to withdrew hands or feet. She could not stand up or lay down. The padlocked circle around her neck held her rigidly upright, inhibiting escape. At the end of a futile minute she exclaimed, "Well, there you are, Master, I hope you're satisfied. I still feel a fool sitting here the way I am. But I suppose that's the whole idea, isn't it?"
Her master kissed Vanessa good-bye and left her to find what amusement she could from the wrought iron in which she was cunningly encased. By evening she would hate it bitterly, she was sure she would. Once more she struggled and fought but could withdraw no part of herself from anything. She supposed that if someone would set her on her feet she might contrive a shuffling walk which might end in disaster. She was very much like a turtle tipped over on its back.
Cato hid his amusement. "An interesting configuration, ma'am. Most ingenious."
"I'm glad you like it," Vanessa retorted. "I'm not enjoying myself a bit."
"You are not intended to. Ma'am. May I offer coffee?"
Cato was really a dear man. It was unkind to be abrupt or short with him. He was only doing his duty and was as kind as circumstances allowed. He never provided her with easement, but it was always worth a try. "Cato, can you get me out of this? If you can, I promise to let you put me back inside before the Master comes home."
"No, ma'am. I must warn you about such offers, they are not permitted. In this instance I will not mention your indiscretion to your master."
"Thank you. Damn it, Cato, I can't even give myself a drink. This is absolutely the most frustration contraption!" Vanessa's voice was anxious, "Cato, be a dear and tell me if my cunt is showing."
"Not unduly so, Ma'am. Your pubic bush is quite well displayed."
"How about my nipples?"
"All is normal, Ma'am. Have no fear, you look extremely charming. I will now make coffee."
Her day was long and Vanessa would have welcomed any diversion, even a visit from Bill Patton. But no one came, nothing happened. From time to time Cato ministered to her needs and provided brief conversation. It would have been amusing to kid him and tempt him to set her free. It would at least have provided scope for repartee, but since it was a punishable offense, Vanessa was reluctantly obliged to forego the pleasure. Whatever intimacy she might share with her master, it had not reached a point where transgressions went unpunished. Justine
[missing text in original book]
her that way and to please stop beefing. It was all very frustration, but the slavegirl was never unaware of an erotic stimulus within her own being because of it. Almost everything Justine did to her or in his casual conversation was a seasoning of wit and hot eroticism. If a girl had to be a slave and had to have a master, she supposed she was the most fortunate of all. Vanessa often reassured herself about this during those times when the pain threatened to get the best of her. But now there was no pain. By its ultimate simplicity, the prison without bars impelled a need to scream as potent as the whip.
It was while thus engaged in quiet reflections in the early afternoon that Rod Sykes walked back into Vanessa's life.
His greeting was typical, it was no more than information, "Brought a couple of the boys with me, they're looking after that Japanese chap downstairs, don't worry, they won't hurt him, they're locking him in a cupboard." Sykes bend down, grasped a handful of Vanessa's hair and dragged her head back to plant the hungriest of kisses on her shocked but ready mouth. He then got up to survey her situation and laughingly demanded, "What the hell is that thing! Who put you in that contraption? In fact, who the hell thought it up? You look damned cute in it." The quiet room was suddenly in Africa, Vanessa could smell the hot sun on dust and rotting vegetation. She could smell the man sweat and the scents of her own pungency. This shocking and outrageous intrusion seemed nothing more than normal, Rod Sykes was that kind of man, brutal, evocative, creating his own atmosphere as he desired and placing within it whatever female presence he might choose.
"You're helpless, aren't you?" He was mocking her. "You can't do a damn thing except jiggle around a bit. Here, let me kiss you again. It's going to take me a while to get enough of you."
Vanessa once more knew herself flotsam on a flowing tide. This great hulk of a man would do whatever he wished with her, disregarding whatever she might say. Strangely, she wanted to say nothing. What Vanessa Pilgrim most of all was exactly what was taking place, that she be audience to the vulgar, forceful polishing of a male ego in hot pursuit of its heart's desire. That she was the heart's desire did admittedly add a great deal to the situation.
Rod Sykes filled any room and dominated any scene. Vanessa felt tiny and childlike within the clutch of the twisted iron. When Sykes had once more grasp her hair and fed eagerly upon her lips, she managed to gasp, "Oh, Master, why have you come, you shouldn't have. I belong to someone, can't you see, I'm owned."
"Horseshit! You belong to me, you always did belong to me. These damned fool situations you've been victim to don't count. This bozo who thinks he owns you now probably has a lot of money and may not be a bad guy, but he can get himself another broad, there's plenty of them in LA. I'm taking you back where you belong."
"Oh, Rod... Master, don't be so silly, you can't possibly take me back to Congi and, anyway, I don't want to go."
"You don't know what you want. Of course, you want to go. I own you, I'm in charge. Tomorrow you'll be back in Macusi country and, if you give me any lip, you'll get a good thrashing first off. Can you understand that?"
"Yes, Master." Vanessa's voice was weak.
"Now about this scrap iron... " Sykes lifted both Vanessa and her prison to test it's quality. He suddenly chuckled at an idea. "Damn it, girl! When I come to look at it, it's made to order. Suppose you feel you have to put up some token resistance out of some damned fool loyalty to your new owner, so I'll leave you right were you are. We'll bung a blanket over you and carry you down to the van. Gosh, I should leave the guy a check for his neat delivery. By the way, are those your handcuffs?"
"Yes, they're lovely handcuffs."
Sykes retrieved them from the floor. He snapped a cuff around an unprotesting wrist and, since the link would not reach to her other captive hand, clasp it shut besides its fellow on her right wrist. More than ever the shining metal showed up as a massive bracelet. "Well, that looks after that. I'll go get the boys."
"But, Master, you can't possibly take me in this thing I'm in. You can't possibly put me on an airplane in this!"
"Want to bet, sweetheart?"
Vanessa did not want to bet. She would never bet against Rod Sykes. Rod Sykes was a Force she could never cope with other than on her back. When he returned with his two "boys," appropriately attired in denims and shirts, Vanessa tried once more, this time from pure curiosity. "But, Master, I don't see how."
"I bet you don't, sweetheart. Fact is, the Macusi have been damned obliging. Loaned me their executive airplane. I've hired a van and inside
[missing text in original book]
s carried from the Beverly Hills residence of Justine Moore.
The staked-out, very naked girl ruefully realized some small stigma of guilt must inevitably attach itself to her in her master's eyes. Sykes would always suppose there was something she could have done in any one of her captivities to return to him instead of getting herself freshly embroiled in one more imprisonment. He had already hinted as to why. when free of the Hamish, she had run towards the coast instead of back into Macusi territory. Vanessa had no defense and would be punished accordingly. Strangely, she did not mind. Africa and Rod Sykes were all together too big for her and she was sure it was best to do and comply with whatever they desired to do to her.
It was in this spirit she accepted her present punishment. To guard against the merciless African sun upon her upturned face, she had been planted beneath the spreading foliage of a big tree. The four stakes had been carefully measured against her outspread figure and then pounded deep into the African soil. Her wrist had been spread and tugged and securely bound to two of them as were her ankles to the others. She was not stretched taunt because her master decided he wanted some small mobility on those time when he visited and violated her in between looking after his other affairs. So far this had happened only twice, but the day was young! When Vanessa mentioned the possibility of other men finding her thus available and making use of her facilities. Rod Sykes simply laughed and assured her it was the luck of the draw. The possibility added an element of spice to a day already heavily laden with hazard.
Vanessa twisted and twitched. She was prey to a constant stream of visitors from an adjacent ant hill. The ants might well be harmless, but she wished they might find amusement elsewhere. No crevasses were immune from their attentions. When she complained to her master, Rod Sykes again bellowed with laughter to assure her the ants were only Africa welcoming her home, as long as they found her helpless nudity attractive, she would never be alone. No girl would ever be lonely when ants were busy in her pubic hair. Vanessa wished she could share his laughter.
It had been so easy! Vanessa realized she was in the hands of one of those giants who strode across the world like a colossus, striking down every obstacle, enemies and gathering unto themselves whatever they desired. Rod Sykes was utterly ruthless: a man who had stolen her heart from where she believed it had been immovably lodged in the person of Justine Moore. Justine and the United States were sinking into oblivion, and she now felt one more guilt in having deceived herself into the belief she could love any man other than this giant who's prisoner she was. Rod Sykes was Africa, just as these four stakes to which she was bound and the ants crawling over her nakedness was Africa. Vanessa Pilgrim belonged to Africa, and that was that. With a touch of humor, she realized it was not the end at all, but a beginning.
In other circumstances it would have been pleasant beneath the tree. As it was, Vanessa was constantly twisting against the four stakes in hope of finding a bit of slack in one of the ropes. She did not have the faintest idea what she would did if she succeeded in freeing herself. But it was a diverting occupation, and if successful, would give her the deep satisfaction of killing a few ants before her master tied her back down tighter than before. It did not happen. Nice things like that never did.
Rod Sykes had described it as "the unveiling" when she had been finally deposited in his house and the blanket whisked away from her imprisonment. Vanessa recognized the lovely room with its balcony and view out over the courtyard. Everything was immensely familiar and suddenly much loved. The USA had seemed her home, but now the scent of hot sun and jasmine and the tight clasp of bonds told her most potently of an enslavement from which she would never escape. She looked up at her smiling master and the tools he held whereby her padlocks fell asunder, the tiny prison pulled apart and her limbs extracted from the almost shapeless iron. Vanessa was stiff enough to be grateful for his lifting and his grasping her tight against his sweat. When Rod Sykes was done with kissing and biting his reclaimed slave, she was close to swooning with hunger and fatigue and a freshly kindled blaze within her loins. It was then she decided to purge all else from consciousness except this giant of a man by whom she was once more owned. She stood in a rainbow haze while a cuff was locked and relocked about the wrist it could not previously reach. She held up the lovely bracelets to ask, "Do you like them, Master?"
"Of course, I do, and you'll wear them." He laughed his great bellow of a laugh. "Don't you ever doubt you'll wear them. Whenever I have to take them off, they'll go right back on first thing. I'll feed you now and then we'll go to bed. What do you say to a good thrashing tomor
[TEXT MISSING IN THE ORIGINAL BOOK]
ed slavegirl told her first master of the trials and tribulations of her enslavements and they shared the humor which always comes in retrospect. Considering she had been promised a thrashing, Vanessa was a very happy woman.
Rod Sykes was a happy man. His love for the fragile loveliness he had ruthlessly reclaimed was strong and deep. He would continue to be cruel to her as was his wont but only in the degree by which their erotic lovemaking would be enhanced. He well knew that to whip a girl did not earn her hatred but, more often, her love. In spite of the marks already on her skin he had decided to make the thrashing he had promised a ritualistic affair to please his military sense of what was proper. The mechanics of administrating a disciplinary whipping were still in evidence in the barracks yard but seldom used. The whipping of a white girl, especially the mistress of the Commandant, would be an event to break the monotony of barracks life for all concerned. Rod Sykes gave the necessary orders.
It had been hot in the barrack square. Vanessa nakedness was covered by a sheet, she was led to her martyrdom by a hand on each arm. No doubt she would feel flattered by being thus escorted to her fate before the eyes of what appeared to be a multitude. Her fate was a gibbet from the outstretched arm of which men might once have been hung, but now it innocently offered nothing more than a dangling length of rope. It was not even needed to remove her handcuffs. The rope was threaded between her wrists and hoisted up by a soldier on a ladder above her head. When she was in danger of standing on her toes she was left tautly stretched and the ladder removed. She was the focus of every eye. She and her master had examined her whipped back and decided the marks of Bill Patton's indiscretion had faded enough to not matter. Her hands held high, military fingers snatched away her covering to leave Vanessa standing naked before a hundred African eyes.
Vanessa had been promised a thrashing but she no supposed the word "flogging" would be more appropriate. Rod Sykes was no where in sight but the stage was now taken by a Sergeant Major who solemnly read out the transgressions and her punishment. It appeared she had been guilty of both treason and unlawful escape. She was to receive twenty strokes with a sjambok. There was a frightening, heart-stopping rattle of drums before the first blow snapped across the bareness of her shoulders. Vanessa instantly realized the sjambok could not possibly be the standard model beloved by the Boers of the Cape. It hurt like hell but was a hurt she could bare. Twenty strokes with it would be bad enough but in what was taking place, she clearly discerned the mercy of her master. The assembly would be vastly entertained. She would dance at the end of her rope, she would kick and scream. But she would be returned to Sykes' waiting arms when it was all over and would, no doubt, be comforted.
Vanessa bit her lip as the second stroke sliced her waist, then moaned as number three cut her from hip to hip. She was evidently to be beaten from her knees to her neck. It was a pleasantly literate sounding sentence.
In the pause after the tenth stroke had sliced her skin. Rod Sykes made his appearance with a military Medic complete with stethoscope. Vanessa strongly suspected the dark fingers were simply playing with her breasts and nipples rather than performing a clinical attention. However the stethoscope was most certainly applied upon her person here and there and listened to with rapt attention. At the end of this exercise, authority pronounced the prisoner in excellent condition and well able to withstand the rest of her sentence. Before they walked away. Rod Sykes caught his slavegirl's eye and broadly winked.
Vanessa had never been sure which was the worst between the first half and the second of any sentence she had endured. Both had their own particular awfulness, the first had the initial shock, the second the growing intensity of pain and a terrible longing for it to cease. Even though this ritual whipping was not the worst she had ever had or was likely to receive, it hurt bad enough to give her every encouragement in her performance for her audience. Vanessa danced and tugged against the rope above and flailed Hashing bare legs at nothing in particular When a stroke caught her twin buns with a square and resounding impact she had no need to act or simulate the weaving of her hips. All in all, it was no doubt a most satisfactory occasion. After the last blow had fallen on her flesh, Vanessa was left to stand beneath the gibbet's arm, in the full glare of the sun, in a court yard now empty of life. It was the strangest feeling of all.
Her exposure lasted one hour. Vanessa seemed to remember reading of such things, it was pan of the ritual.
No doubt it was intended to give the delinquent an opportunity to reflect on his sins and make a resolution to better behavior in the future. She wondered if those who watched would believe or comprehend the true reason for her being whipped. The thought was academic, it did not matter. Rod Sykes had wanted her whipped and that was that!
Sykes fed her brandy, pouring it himself as a farther tribute to what he called her "bravery."
"You did damned well, Vanessa. I was proud of you. That little farce after the tenth stroke was part of a deal, you know. I suppose some poor bastard who really and truly got flogged needed that attention. A real sjambok can kill. I had the one used on you especially made up as a, well, fairly innocent replica of the real thing. We can call it your welcome. You are now officially at home."
It had been nice to be at her master's feet and quietly sip the brandy. It brought back memories. Vanessa was still restrained by handcuffed wrists. Her iron collar had been forgotten in the home of Justine Moore but the metal band around her middle met with Sykes' approval. He pronounced the effect as "dressy" and Vanessa had become so accustomed to it she did not care. "I'll get you a real collar, Sweetheart, something that will knock their eye out."
Her whipping had been punishment number one, and for the moment appeared to appease Sykes' appetite for giving her pain. He laughed at her anxieties and told her not to worry because the punishments immediately in her future would leave no marks. Vanessa wryly wondered if their insistent couplings could be called punishment. For her they most certainly not. She was once again in the full flowering of concupiscence and forever guilty at the vivid and incandescent responses of her flesh. Sykes played upon his slavegirl's nakedness as might a musician upon a costly violin. He was innovatively skilled and highly ingenious in approach, even to the point of suspending his darling by handcuffed wrists to bestow an agony he immediately relieve by gathering her up in his great arms and impaling her as though she was a child clutched lovingly to his bosom. Before they were half way to climax the tortured girl resolved wickedly to request repeat performances.
The days passed swiftly.
The spread-eagle girl sighed in sweet lassitude. The ants were a nuisance, but like everything else a girl got used to them. She had almost achieved slumber in an effort to pass time when a new and different voice brought her into tense wakefulness.
"Missy like fine big fuck? I give."
She recognized one of the soldiers. He was gazing down at her with a broad, amiable grin, his eyes focusing on her most private place now fully exposed. Vanessa knew the clutch of fear at her belly was inappropriate. Sykes had told her of this possibility and spoken of it lightly as a "hazard of her trade." In swift submission she realized how doubly helpless she was. Not only in being bound spread-eagle for male attention but in the matter of any complaint she might wish to make. No one would hear her scream, she had been told of the possibility, she would have no wish to injure this laughing man prepared to enjoy her body. If her complain brought discipline upon his head, she would feel guilty. Vanessa was well aware of the potency of the nakedness thus bound, there would be few men who would even try to resist the allure of her loins. Quietly she warned, "I don't think you should. I don't think we are allowed to. I think you should go away."
"You think, you think. You think too much! Your master will not mind. Is just one fuck, you have plenty left."
"But soldiers aren't suppose to do that to their Commandant's mistress."
"You not mistress, you slavegirl."
He had her there! Vanessa already knew the four letter word was going to happen. She tried to shrug but couldn't. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she said evenly. "But I can't stop you, I can't stop any man."
It did not take long. No doubt her visitor was over excited. Vanessa was quite sure he could put on a far longer performance in more favorable circumstances. But no doubt he did not wish to be discovered on top of her any more than she wished to be found underneath him. He thanked her profusely as though it had been she who offered him her body. He went away. The ants reclaimed that part of her he had so briefly used. Vanessa wondered if any of them could possibly get up inside.
Laying spread-eagled in the quiet shade, Vanessa, in amusement, considered this would be another situation in which Bill Patton might follow his practice of discovering her in embarrassing circumstances. She felt more kindly towards him now in this far away land. He had convinced her of repentance for that one terrible punishment she had endured at his hands. Vanessa damned him utterly with her feminine wish he might find a nice girl who would satisfy his needs. Her half closed eyes opened to discover the subject of her thoughts standing, gazing down at her. "I don't believe it," she said. "Where on earth did you come from Bill?"
Patton laughed easily, he was now on his home ground of a diplomatic mission. "Unfinished business with the Macusi, Sweetheart. I also felt pretty certain where I would find you."
"Well, I hope you enjoy the way you find me," she said bitterly. "It's about par for the course, isn't it? Look, in case you're thinking it, don't you dare untie me. Let's just say hello and goodbye. I belong to Rod Sykes, and he's a bad man to tangle with. Please, just leave me be."
What happened then was something the spread-eagle girl could scarce believe. As though in his own bedroom. Bill Patton divested himself of clothing and then possessed her with an assurance he had never previously manifested. There were no hesitations, no apologies, no questions. He entered her with authority and proceeded to work out the male rhythms as though forever regenerated from his poor showing back in California. Vanessa was shocked and frightened. If Rod Sykes found the two of them like this there would be a terrible, terrible time. She was trying hard not to respond to thrusts and refinements she had never known this man possessed. When raped, ravished or loved by Rod Sykes she tore wildly at bound wrists and ankles, humping her hips to meet his thrusts. Now she lay supine and unresponsive, not because fire was not rekindled but because she wanted this semi-rape over as quickly as possible. It was funny she should think of it as rape, but the place and the circumstances and the manner of Patton's possession of her loins made the word inevitable. In spite of grim determination she matched his orgasm with her own.
There were no apologies nor was there any of that boyish enthusiasm manifested when a young man knows he was acquitted himself well with a woman. "That to show you I can do it, you aggravating wench," he told her good-naturedly as he dressed. "This mission of mine calls for an interview or two with this man Sykes. I'll arrange with him to take you back home when I go."
Africa transformed him. Bill Patton was now very definitely the CIA and no longer a private citizen. He had things to do and authority to do them.
"Rod Sykes will kill you, Bill. Don't be silly!"
"No he won't. If he cuts up a rough about loosing you, I'll arrange to have you arrested." He laughed delightedly, "You can go back to the USA in chains, be a nice change for you!"
Vanessa's heart contracted at the threat. It was probably something Patton could do very easily. Vanessa envisioned herself handcuffed to him on the plane and the sympathetic glances of the stewardess. But it would not get that far. Sykes would make sure of that. Yet she wanted neither of these men hurt. She tensed angrily against the ropes tying her to the stakes. She was almost tempted to ask this man for release, but in the eyes of her master that would be an unforgivable offense. Grimly Patton muttered, "You've made up your mind not to like me. When a girl does that you can't please her. You talk about how badly I'd treat you if we were married but for damn sure I'd never stake you out on an ant hill!"
"I'm not staked out on an ant hill! The ant hill's a little way off. I can't help it if a few ants find their way over here."
"I'm not going to leave you here in Macusi country, it's not safe, and one of these days this great hulk of yours is going to get himself killed and where will you be then?"
"Oh, Bill, don't be so morbid. Isn't your mission to bring peace to this place instead of war?"
"Yes, it is. And when that happens your Rod Sykes is going to be unemployed. He'll probably whisk you off to South American where there is another trouble spot hatching into guerrilla warfare fed by Russian aid. Vanessa, it's a hell of a life for you!"
"What's so damned bad about it!" Rod Sykes had approached silently to catch the last remark. "You're name's Patton, isn't it? You're a CIA boy and you'd best go home pronto. And, what's more, you'd best leave that girl alone. If I chose to stake her out like this, it's none of your business. She's just resting."
Sykes gave a great guffaw of laughter. At the same moment Patton's clenched fist struck him squarely on the chin. Sykes looked surprised and took a backward step before reaching out to grasp his assailant in both hands, shake him as he would have done a dog, then turn him around and kick him hard enough to send the representative of the CIA sprawling in the dust. "Get to hell away from me, and more particularly from Vanessa. Do you hear me!"
Patton was a not inconsiderable chunk of man, there were few who could have treated him as Rod Sykes had done. He was untouched, unharmed, dismissed as a schoolboy might be dismissed and sent home. For moments he stood indecisively, eyeing the massive bulk of the man and the slender beauty of the staked-out girl. "That was a mistake," he said abruptly as the turned and went away.
"Silly asshole," Sykes said genially. "Doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Same with all those politicos. Look, honey, I was going to fuck you but he's put me out of the mood for it. I'll let you loose and we'll go back to the house."
Vanessa was infinitely grateful. Sykes had not even suspected or thought to ask about anything Patton might have done to her. He did not even ask about the black man who had availed himself of her sex. He was angry and disturbed by the political presence of the man just gone. He might kick that man in the seat of the pants but he also knew the authority vested in him. Angrily he pulled up the four stakes as though there were matchsticks and helped his possession to her feet. "If he said anything to you. Sweetheart, forget it," he advised gruffly. "If I catch you so much as looking at him sideways you'll be a sorry girl."
It was wonderful to be loved. But none of her loves were normal. Vanessa ruefully surveyed this fact on the walk back to the house. She was not handcuffed and for once was content to have her hands free. Her mood too was spoiled. "Next time you punishment me, you'd best do it in the house. Master," she said soberly. "Have you any idea how rotten it is to be tied down helpless and have strangers or enemies or a guy like Bill Patton come and look at you?"
"You ought to get a charge out of it, honey," Sykes assured her with a complete return to goodwill. "I would if I was a girl. Shit! I get a bang out of just thinking about you under these circumstances Sure, I can see your point of view but it's a sort of Russian Roulette game, you never know your luck. Anybody else walk by?"
"Yes. One of your soldiers. He fucked me." Her confession was angry. "I suppose it's me who gets punished for that."
Rod Sykes was delighted. He paused in their walk, slapped her bottom, and then kissed her again and again. "Hell no, Sweetheart. I told you it might happen and it did! Come on, that cook of mine makes a damned good cup of coffee." He snorted disgustedly, "Piss on that tea the English used to drink in these parts all the time. Gave the servants the wrong idea."
The Congi forces attacked in the middle of the night. At the first sound of firing Rod Sykes left their bed with a curse and flung over his shoulder as he left, "I'll soon sort this out, whatever it is. You're quite safe, don't worry." He laughed at his own joke and left Vanessa was indeed quite "safe." They had made love until exhausted and then in a pixie mood her master had returned the handcuffs and put a second pair upon her ankles to hold them close. The crowning achievement was the presentation of a truly beautiful collar to match the band around her waist. When he was through with these embellishments, Vanessa was very beautiful and very, very helpless.
She sat up now in bed and lowered her joined feet to the floor with the intention of going to a window. But an unaccustomed weight upon her neck led her fingers to the new collar and discovered that, after she had fallen asleep, her master had continued his mood to the extent of locking a chain to her collar as an additional precaution. The other end of it was solidly padlocked to a ring in the wall in a fashion now old and familiar to the captive girl. Frantically Vanessa searched beneath the pillows for a key but none was there. The tethering chain was giving her only enough distance to move around the bed but not reach any of the furniture. She was frightened.
The firing intensified, the rattle of rifles was now superseded by the heavy booms of artillery. The sound was terrific. She realized she was in the middle of a full scale war. Rod Sykes was out there somewhere and she could do nothing to help.
The end came as suddenly as it had begun. The town of Lakesh had either been conquered by a hostile force or had conquered them. Vanessa was not left long in doubt. Sitting unhappily in what her master had laughingly described as "hardware," she awaited his return.
Rod Sykes did not return. In his place the door was opened by three uniformed men. The chained girl recognized the insignia as those of the Congi government. Her heart sank before it started its rapid tattoo of fear. She was as much a surprise to the soldiers as they were to her. They gingerly advanced as though fearing land mines and beat questions at her in a tongue she could not answer. They examined the handcuffs and the chain upon her neck in what was obviously pleasurable surprise. She was thankful indeed when they were joined by an officer in search of his flock. This man spoke English. He shouldered his way to the bedside and demanded, "You are the whore of Sykes?"
"Yes, I'm his whore." She spate the hated word at him like a bullet. "Where is he?"
"Sykes is dead. Killed in action. You are a prisoner of the Republic of Congi."
Vanessa had guessed it before the words were said. Tears overflowed and she buried her face in her cupped hands. They were ruthlessly beaten aside and she was told, "You should not weep, woman, Sykes was a mercenary and an enemy of the state. Where are the keys to these things in which you are locked?"
While they searched, Vanessa collected her thoughts enough to ask, without hope, "You said I was a prisoner of the Congi. Why am I a prisoner? What have I done to be a prisoner?"
"You are a whore, you are a spy, you are an enemy of the people." The captain flung the angry answer back over his shoulder as he rummaged through draws.
Vanessa moaned inwardly. It was the same threadbare accusations as had been made around the world in the last decade, "Enemy of the People!" It was nonsense, but it might be enough to cost her her life. Her mind was speeding through possibilities but the best she could find now was to find favor in the eyes of someone in authority who would keep her for himself and from a firing squad. It was not much of a choice. Having found the key the officer gave thought as to its use. He carefully unlocked one cuff from her left ankle and thoughtfully clasp it above its twin on the right. She could now walk but the handcuffs were there if needed. He unlocked the chain from her collar and she could now leave the room. Her hands he left as they were. She was grateful he had not changed them to behind her back. Plaintively she asked. "Can I have some clothes?" No one answered.
Vanessa Pilgrim was taken down stairs below the barracks and locked in a cell. It all seemed very appropriate and very official. Left alone, she expended her grief for the dead commandant as she sprawled out upon the hard bench and used her joined hands to shut away a world she had no wish to see.
On the following day Vanessa was taken before a Court. There she was asked questions to which she had no answer. There she was described in the most vilifying and obscene of terms. Fortunately she did not understand the language. But what got through to her with a cold and cruel certainty was the sentence. As had happened once before, in that other town on the coast, Vanessa was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor without chance of time off for good behavior. Still handcuffed, she was led back to her cell. As they marched her down the central corridor of the barracks, they were passed by the hurrying figure of a well-dressed man who gave them only the briefest of glances. But in that glance Bill Patton's eyes had focused on hers and she had picked up the communication of the briefest of nods. That nod constituted Vanessa's only hope in a hopeless world.
The handcuffs had never left her wrists, they did not now. She sat desolate in her cell still embellished with the lovely metal of Sykes' adoration. It was fast locked upon her limbs and she could not get rid of it. No doubt it would be seen and remarked upon as one more evidence of her depravity, or perhaps the perversion of the man who's slave she had been. Nothing mattered, her life was over.
The Congi warriors retreated as quickly as they had come. Vanessa realized this was simply one more thrust at the enemy in much the same way that Rod Sykes had struck in the opposite direction back when he had taken her from the Mission. The cavalcade of vehicles and armor rumbled away one by one towards the distant coast. Some one had found Vanessa's tethering chain which was now locked back upon her collar and the other end of it to the last of the row of wagons being towed by a tank. She left Lakesh as she had come, a prisoner of war, the prize of battle.
The march was long but at a speed with which the captive girl could cope. Vanessa Pilgrim arrived at the coastal city in superb physical condition but in utter dejection. As one day passed after another, as her chain and collar had compelled her to the most shameful journey of her life, she had glimpsed her fate. It was probably to be the same prison as before and the same privations and strictures. It appeared they were going to keep her handcuffed all the time and they had certainly put Sykes' collar to good use. Perhaps she would wear that all the rest of her days, too. Each day she was caked in dust from the rumbling wagons and each night she was hosed down by a grinning black soldier who insisted upon the most obscene postures into which he directed the full force of his jet. Vanessa was not raped. An officer curtly informed her this mercy was only because the Republic was concerned with journalistic fervor and wanted no scandal with the United Nations. He clearly inferred that, if this were not the case, he would turn his men loose upon her to enjoy her person to the fullest. Whenever she asked for clothes to cover her nakedness, she received a sharp blow from anything handy, a piece of rope, a branch torn from a bush, or, with the officers, the riding crop they carried as a badge of office.
Perhaps they had forgotten she had been there before. The same rituals had been used a second time: the disinfecting and the fingerprinting and documentation. After it was done Vanessa Pilgrim wept bitterly in the same cell and wondered what kind of hard labor would be her lot.
Nothing happened except that she was fed three times a day. Vanessa was beginning to suppose herself forgotten when a truly magnificent officer complete with much ribbons, metals and other decoration on his uniform and a star on each shoulder, visited her cell. He was ushered in by the Warden and left with her in such privacy as open bars can offer. His first words made her want to scream.
"You are very beautiful, Miss Pilgrim."
"Thank you." She said it automatically.
"It is a pity for such loveliness as yours to waste itself chained and working beneath the hot sun in the field." He paused as though for effect.
Vanessa's reply was swift and bitter, "Yes, it is truly shameful. Yes, I will accept your protection. Yes, you can chain be beside your bed. That is what you're about to say, isn't it?"
The resplendent officer laughed in genuine amusement. Vanessa could not be sure if his English was Harvard or Oxford, it was most certainly not Congi. "Thank you for your offer," he said easily. "But I'm afraid that was not what I had in mind." He shrugged, "Even though it is, or might have been, a delightful prospect. Do you realize how that offer condemns you and confirms you description in the Court?" Vanessa gestured with chained hands, "It does not matter. I've lost everything. Why should I care what people call me? What is it you want with me if not to take me to your bed?"
"I was about to offer you a return to the United States." His voice was quietly amused.
Vanessa tensed. This had to be a trick. Her hands clenched into fists and tugged at the familiar bracelets on her wrists. She fell back upon a vulgar colloquialism, "You've got to be kidding?"
"No, Miss Pilgrim. It is very simple. You have been condemned and sentenced but not to death. As long as you are alive you will be a source of interest to every journalist who comes to Africa. They will seek interviews and ask to take pictures. You will be tossed around by the press of the world as a curiosity, an erotic titillation to excite their readers. Our government does not want that. No doubt we should have executed you immediately. But since that precaution was overlooked, we find ourselves embarrassed. We are, therefore, going to send you home to serve out your sentence in an American prison."
"Why must you have me imprisoned over there? Why can't you simply send me home? I'm only a girl, I can't hurt you or do you any harm."
The officer was touched, his words became more kind, "We can not dictate what they do to you in the American penal system. Perhaps they will be merciful and give you your freedom after you have served only a few years. I believe that is common practice over there."
It was hard to still the beating of her heart. A tremendous relief was flooding through Vanessa's nakedness. She was going home. Going home in disgrace, but to a system more humane the anything the Congi could ever dream up. Tentatively she said, "I'm immensely grateful, I'm sure you can understand. I'd like to say thank you over and over again."
"There is no need, we take your thanks for granted. There is now the matter of your transportation."
Vanessa raised questioning eyes. She had leapt to the absurd conclusion that they would simply give her a ticket and put her upon the plane under guard. Perhaps something would be said to the pilot or stewardess to keep an eye on her. But, of course, that was ridiculous. She was a prisoner sentenced to a long term and must be kept a captive. The quite male voice answered the question vivid in her mind.
"There is an American diplomat conferring with our authorities who had consented to act as your... shall we say 'consort' and deliver you to the proper jurisdiction."
Sardonically Vanessa was on the brink of exclaiming, "And I bet I know his name. It's Bill Patton. Mr. William Patton, isn't it." But she bit the words back in time, at this point they were imprudent and might raise suspicion. She waited and allowed the officer to tell her what she had already guessed.
"Responsibility will end at the plane where you will be delivered to this Mr. Patton for safekeeping. I thrust you approve?"
She said that she approved. She could have jumped with joy. Bill Patton, whatever he might be, was an American and in love with her and wanted to be her husband. Comfortably she replied, "Of course, I understand. I'm sure Mr. Patton will know what to do." She contrived a smile up at the stem military man and added coyly, "With me, that is."
It was a long, long night. When morning came Vanessa lost her collar, her handcuffs from both wrists and ankles, but the metal band around her waist was left intact, no doubt because no one knew how to get it off. She was bathed more gently that with a hose and her hair was attended to by a skilled maiden who appeared much thrilled by the contact. She was then given clothes, not the clothes she would have chosen, but still covering for her nudity. When the time came she was escorted to the airport by no less a personage than the high ranking officer himself. Bill Patton was waiting and her exchange was affected by a number of compliments from both sides. Vanessa did not share those compliments but kept a proper and demure silence. With the air of a man who did this sort of thing every day, Bill Patton snapped a handcuff on Vanessa's right wrist and fitted the other cuff around his own left. He tightened both with the utmost care and locked both. With a mischief bubbling over from fresh hope, Vanessa looked up into his eyes and said sweetly, "Thank you, Mr. Patton, I'm sure you'll take good care of me."
The officer saluted smartly, turned and departed. The Republic of Congi had washed its hands of an embarrassing young woman.
"May as well have a cocktail, ay? The plane isn't scheduled to go for an hour." Bill Patton was laughing down at his prisoner. He tugged at her cuffed wrist to emphasize his suggestion. This was a new ball game. Vanessa was trying to rearrange her thoughts but was principally conscious of a terrible shame over her cuffed wrists. Everyone would suppose she was some sort of desperate criminal. Bill read her thoughts and laughed. "Most people won't even notice, Sweetheart. Come on, there's no way I'm going to set you free while we're on Congi soil. Come on, have a cocktail, you'll feel better."
Her escort spoke the truth. It was not long before Vanessa was feeling a faint chagrin over the airport's failure to pay attention to her chained hand. There were a few who noticed but they were in a hurry and, anyway, it wasn't any of their business. If she was careful how she held her arm, the handcuff did not show. Bill Patton gave her every cooperation in this desire to hide her shame.
"So, OK, what are you going to do with me, Bill," Vanessa asked after the first cocktail had worked its tiny miracle. "Where are we going?"
"We're not going to prison, sweetheart, if that's what you're thinking. Congi doesn't even expect you to do your twenty years back home. All they wanted was to get rid of you."
Vanessa considered. She was handcuffed to a man she did not dislike. She was on her way home. But suppose, when the time came to uncuff her wrist, Bill Patton became stubborn and refused? Suppose she was truly his prisoner?
"Do you intend to keep me for yourself, Bill?" she asked without emotion.
"Of course, what else would I do with you, sweetheart."
"I wish you'd stop calling me sweetheart. I'm not really your sweetheart at all. If I was, I wouldn't be chained to your wrist. Bill, surely you know I don't want to be a prisoner all my life. I don't want to belong to different men and be whipped as a pretty little plaything that screams when she's hurt. I don't want to be fastened into all those awful things every man has put me into. Don't you understand?"
"Yes, you do, Vanessa my pet. You just think you don't want it. But I'm willing to bet you can't go back to your old life as it used to be before you first went to Africa as a school teacher. You were bored stiff then. Think what it would be like now."
"Well, at least I wasn't chained to men who wanted to keep me a captive plaything and whip the daylights out of me. Be sensible, don't you realize that once we're in the plane all I have to do is make a fuss and you'd be really up the creek. What the hell would you do? You'd have to let me go."
"No, I wouldn't, Vanessa -- you underrate me. In my pouch I've got the official documents of your trial and sentencing and deportation. The handcuff joining us is an official seal of approval. Nobody, but nobody, is going to protest it."
Vanessa wilted. She had done her best and even though she might still be captive to a man, she was rid of Congi. Without much concern, she watched her escort open the diplomatic pouch, not subject to X- rays and such things, and looked inside as he directed. There, nestling among the papers was a collar, her extra pair of handcuffs and a bunch of keys. Despite herself, she felt a familiar thrill course through her veins. The hidden erotica was beautiful and her thoughts leaped ahead to the moment when they would be locked upon her flesh. Almost without volition she said, "Yes, I know, I'm glad you've got them. May I have another cocktail?"
Vanessa had her cocktail, and another after that. By the time she and William Patton walked, padlocked, to the plane, she could have cared less. She was riding another high tide of euphoria and was almost inclined to shake her cuffed hand at the stewardess. When they were seated, she stole a glance at the man to whom she was chained. He was undeniably handsome, a well set-up diplomatic type who had not fallen in her estimation over his encounter with Rod Sykes. He had simply refused to fight. Most girls, especially those sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, would be proud of him. And he did want to marry her! Perhaps, if she handled him carefully, he would whip her only once a week.
