It had begun as one of those small jokes which, if the mood took them, could be turned into reality, a tacit but giggling contemplation of the delicious. They made a big deal of debating the length of time, they called it 'the sentence', during which Griselda would be handcuffed. They toyed delightfully with six months. . twelve?
Certainly nothing less than three! There was also the portentous question of in front or behind Griselda's back? and should she wear something or be nude? Each girl knew the answers but it was warmly erotic to roll alternatives off the tongue. And the lady must protest?!
"But, 'Tonia, behind my back I won't be able to do a thing."
"I'll do it all, darling. It's not the first time, y'know." Griselda pouted.
"You'll get tired of that. I bet you unlock me the second day."
"You know I won't It's you who'l be pleading? and it never has stopped us making love."
Each tucked the inevitable into a mental recess, the suspense of evanescence was too precious to deny. They savoured an erotic possibility they could so easily make real. Reflectively, Antonia Noyes questioned: "How long have I owned you, Griselda?"
"Always."
"Yes, I know. But since I first brought you here?"
Griselda laughed. "I was handcuffed then, don't you remember? It was four years ago, four years and five months. I was twenty-two." She laughed again. "We'd both agreed on a week-end."
"Suppose I never did unlock them, just left them on you?"
"So? So, alright. There's nothing to stop you."
"That's a dare. You're being foxy."
"Want me to go and get them?"
"That black pair, the expensive one's."
"O.K."
Ilona Paisley was uncertain whether to be intrigued or annoyed. They could be putting her on. Or perhaps her reputation had preceded her. In interviews like this it was so important to hold on to initiative, but her's had slipped. The naked girl on the floor, even though she had spoken no word, had stolen it.
"Paisley Publications." She asserted. "I am Ilona Paisley."
"Yes, of course." The voice was beautifully modulated. "I have to feel honored, and I have to ask why?"
"Well, you are the daughter of Senator Noyes. He wasn't small potatoes." Miss Ilona Paisley allowed her attention to stray to the nude beauty reclining against her hostess's knee. "And word does get around, y'know. I've always given the avant garde a lot of space. They fascinate the middle classes, and that's where the circulation is."
"I'm not one of them."
Miss Paisley nodded at the girl on the rug. "I'd say she was your price of admission." She hesitated, then demanded: "Her arms are handcuffed, aren't they, behind her back?"
"Yes." The smile was amused. "Does that make me 'way out'?"
"Way far out. What I'm looking at is good copy."
"It's also private. I once read an article about you in one of your own magazines.
It called you the 'Sybarite Tycoon'."
"Yeah, wrote it myself. Can't have people messing with me in print. Look, I'll give your story any treatment you like? write it yourself if you want?"
"Griselda, cocktails please." The smile was still amused. Miss Ilona Paisley was entranced. Story or no, this was worth the price. Aware of excitation, she registered every motion for future reference. These were an elusive pair to docket. They appeared of an age, the late twenties. One of her favourite words, 'soignee' applied to both, even the nude was immaculately sophisticated. In a single unfolding fluidity it rose to its feet and went to the bar.
Ilona Paisley watched the impossible. The damn girl was handcuffed but it did not seem to matter. One bare arm circled back to accommodate the other, a twist of an exquisite torso, reaching fingers only partly inhibited by steel. Straining like that, the girl showed the loveliest breast the publisher had ever seen. There was the tinkle of glass and gurgle of a bottle. . By the same expedient the glass was carried and tendered without spillage. Miss Paisley had the feeling she was being laughed at. But she trod lightly. "Care to tell me what goes?"
"Actually, nothing. Griselda belongs to me, that's all."
"Hmmmmmm, Am I allowed to speak to her?"
"Oh, yes. She'll answer what she wishes to."
Ilona Paisley was conscious of two pairs of extremely feminine eyes regarding her with polite attention. If one was subservient and the other a Mistress their faces gave no sign. The naked girl seemed totally self possessed, relaxed, intelligent.
"How long have you been wearing handcuffs, Miss. . ?" She searched back to the introduction, "Miss Sanderson?"
"On and off for over four years, Miss Paisley." It was another voice to remember, educated, articulate.
"But this time? Did you put them on 'specially for me?"
"They have been as they are now for more than two months."
"You're putting me on?"
"No, really! It was something we both wanted." The words were patient in understanding. "You noticed with the drink, I'm not completely helpless. But what I can't do myself 'Tonia does for me."
"Would you mind backing up and letting me see your wrists and hands. . and the cuffs?"
Again the exquisite fluidity, this girl was ageless. Miss Paisley found herself gazing at a round taut bottom, above which two hands were open and relaxed and two wrists pulled tight the metal linkage of their bond. But there was something else:
"Your derriere's got. . marks?"
"It was caned a few days ago."
Ilona Paisley experienced lust. There was something wickedly sexual about what was being offered for her attention and about the quiet acquiesence of Griselda's tone. Momentarily at a loss, she fingered the shining chrome bands. They' had been made firmly snug on the wrists they confined. She could not tell the degree in which the skin was chafed, certainly it was slightly red. But then, if the girl did not struggle. . ! "Thank you." She said evenly. "Naturally I'm curious. Care to tell me anything?"
"We're just what you see. No mystery. Griselda, give Miss Paisley another drink."
"Could we make it first names? I'm Ilona."
"Of course." Antonia gave her Mona Lisa smile. "I'd pictured publishers as fat and forty or tweedy British. You're a relief."
"Mind if I watch this girl of your's, I find what she's doing utterly beyond belief."
"Griselda's very special, she won't spill a drop."
"What's with you? Mistress and slavegirl?"
"We don't see it like that. We're just two girls."
"But those marks on her bottom?"
"She earned them. If she spilt your drink she'd earn some more. You could watch her receive them."
Ilona's pulse thudded. She longed for a dropped glass. "Alright then." She conceded, "What's with you two? B amp;D. . ? I've run a feature or two on S amp;M. I think they're for the birds. Anyone can get horny over a whipped ass, especially a cute little can like she's got."
"We don't use those names. They're not really us." Antonia Noyes was enjoying her visitor's avid curiosity, it bestowed a pleasant omnipotence. She was envisioning Ilona Paisley in the nude and with a well striped bottom! The woman was not a great deal older than herself, as a diversion she might be worth while. She would amuse Griselda. "You'd like to whip Griselda's bottom." She suggested blandly. "I can tell."
Ilona Paisley was again viewing the buttocks in question. They came along with her fresh drink. The lines across the rounded curves were definite, they had been placed there by some slender instrument of punishment. She was shocked by her wave of concupiscence they evoked. Forthrightly, she admitted: "Well, yes I would.
You two seem to have dragged something out of the closet. Don't tell me you'd let me?"
"Ask Griselda, it's her bottom."
"If it would give you pleasure, Ilona. Why, of course you can." Griselda's eyes were limpid pools. But she was a woman bestowing a privilege on another as an equal. "I'm afraid you'd have to tie me though. I can't stand still while. . it happens."
Ilona was annoyed with herself. These two had got under her skin. They were so impregnable, their beautifully svelte exteriors were more than a facade. She was accustomed to shocking others. . she was not even coming close, but they had managed to get her into a dither of desire.
"Why don't you let Griselda give you the Grand Tour?"
Were they playing with her? Perhaps! But what had she to lose! Ilona Paisley said, with some sincerity: "I'd like that. You're really being very kind to a nosey Parker."
She got to her feet.
The damn girl was magic, erotic as all get out. Nothing about her fitted a pattern.
Despite the handcuffs, it was like having the President's wife show you around a bawdy house. Ilona supposed it was the handcuffed wrists and the weaving bottom, walking ahead, that was arousing her responses. She was heatedly aware of them.
These two positively had to be lesbians to reach out and grab her as they did. And the agility! Griselda opened doors and pointed things out with the same dexterity she had employed in serving drinks. Maybe she actually had been handcuffed like this for weeks and weeks?
"There's really only the punishment room and where we sleep." Griselda was faintly apologetic. "And, of course, the dungeon."
"I'd like to see the dungeon."
"It's a bit cold now. I haven't been naughty for a couple of days." Griselda smiled from some remote solitude all her own. "I'm not a bit fond of the dungeon. You're suspecting I'm a masochist but I'm not. And the chains are so heavy."
"Chains?"
"Yes, of course. A girl put in a dungeon is always chained. It's Purely punitive? I mean, it's part of her punishment."
The Publisher looked around in journalistic joy. What a story! The damn place actually was a dungeon. Any medieval monster would have been proud of it. And there were the chains, the cuffs of their shackles open and waiting. . hanging from the stone of the wall. She turned to her guide: "You mean, you get locked in this awful place, and you wear all that hardware on your wrists and ankles?"
"Of course." There was a hint of impatience at so redundant a query. "As I said, I don't enjoy it one bit. But it's a punishment, and a girl's not supposed to enjoy her punishments."
"Take it seriously, don't you!"
"Is there any other way?" There was a hint of reproof.
"I suppose not." Ilona was now having to cope with breasts and pubic hair of which their owner seemed unaware, but which were affecting her breathlessly. Their contours and their colours could not be ignored. Hiding arousal, she enquired: "The other room?"
"Of course. It gets used more often. I don't always deserve the dungeon, y'know.
We go back upstairs."
"You get a kick out of this stuff!" Ilona Paisley gazed around the large bright chamber with an interest only slightly tinged with disapproval. "I mean. . having it. . happen to you?"
"How quaint? your expression? 'Happen to me'. The answer is yes."
"You'd let yourself be fastened in those stocks, or hoisted up on that pulley? And isn't that what they used to call a 'horse', a girl sits on it with her thingummy squashed?"
"Yes, if 'Tonia orders me."
The blasted girl was showing a faintly superior boredom. The Paisley Publishing House felt itself slighted by a nude product of Vassar whose wrists were handcuffed behind a strikingly beautiful back. Ilona's retort was terse: "Suppose I ordered you?"
"No. I'm sorry. But you can always ask 'Tonia? about me, I mean. I'll do whatever she says."
"You are a slave then? Or a masochist?"
"We find such terms offensive, if you don't mind?"
Dammit, she was being talked down to, a plebeian being put in her place. Ilona Paisley had a momentary vision of whipping the pert bare bottom that had such a high opinion of itself. At that moment it would be a most satisfying act. Gruffly, she demanded: "How'd you feel about it if I did ask that girl friend of your's about using you some way?"
"Oh, by all means! I can't promise 'Tonia's answer? Oh, and I should warn you, if I have to experience pain I make the same sounds as any other girl."
"Who said anything about pain?"
"Your face, Miss Paisley. For a moment it was avid."
"Look here, Griselda Sanderson, d'you realize you're talking at me as though I'm a moron fresh from Skunk Hollow?"
"Oh. . ! Oh, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean?!" The words were undoubtedly sincere. "Tonia and I have something most people don't understand, so now I don't even expect them to? and since it doesn't really matter. . ! I say, would you like me to show you our own room, our bedroom? It's probably a bit different??"
It was different! Ilona Paisley looked around and wished she shared such erotic luxury with her guide, the bed screamed of female love.
"As you see, it's a four poster, and the posts are heavy and joined across the top to make them very, very solid." Griselda's voice had become more softly tolerant. "I can be tied, chained, fastened to it in a hundred poses?"
"Poses?"
"We like that word. 'Tonia and I want anything that's done with me to be aesthetic."
"Tied to her bedpost. . ! Why?"
"Ohhh, I think you know. Wouldn't you like to drowse in that bed with me. .
arranged to please?"
Ilona conceded a smile. "The way you explain that? It grabs. Some other female, no. But with you, yes. I suppose you realize you've got a built-in eroticism that makes this whole thing credible?"
"Oh, yes, I know." The admission was vaguely abstract. "But here's something else you should see."
The fluid coping with chained hands once more came into play. With simian dexterity Griselda used a bare foot to snare a chain and lift it to the coverlet. At the end was an open shackle. Contorting her nudity, she contrived to fit the metal circlet round her left ankle and snap it shut. Gracefully, she got to her feet and walked around the bed, the chain swirling on the rug with every step. Brightly, she enquired:
"D'you like it?"
Ilona Paisley liked it very much. It was absurd, but in this situation it possessed a rightness. "What's it for?" She asked breathlessly.
"It lets me go to the bathroom and around, but it won't allow me to reach the door or the key on the far wall. When my ankle's locked this way 'Tonia knows where I'm at."
"But to chain you! It implies a wish to escape. Do you want to?"
"Of course not. But everything we do must be totally valid. If I walked around free and wore clothes we'd simply be a couple of girls who slept together."
"So?"
Griselda smiled. "You know better than to toss that 'So?' at me. You're just probing. I think you're managing to put a label on 'Tonia and I. Most people can't, and it doesn't matter."
"I'm flattered. I'm going to ask your Antonia to order you to do something."
"Very well. May I ask what?"
"To service me."
Ilona Paisley's bomb did not explode. Griselda's reply was unconcerned. "Yes, I understand. I will do whatever 'Tonia tells me."
"Dammit', you're too improbable to exist, and too bloody beautiful. Where's that key, I'll unlock your foot."
"Oh no, you mustn't! That would spoil it. Don't you see, you've started something.
Go and ask 'Tonia I'll stay here and wait. I have to, don't I. Afterwards. . then you can set me free."
Antonia Noyes laughed unaffectedly. "I've been wondering which you'd ask for. I guessed wrong, I thought you'd want to cane the darling's bottom? your face when you saw her marks. . !"
"I'd like to do that too."
"D'you want to include that in your request?"
Ilona was breathing heavily. "Right now I wish I'd kept my mouth shut. I feel a fool."
"But why?" Antonia was concerned.
"Well. . barging in here the way I've done! You've both been so. . so. ."
Ilona laughed nervously, "Superciliously tolerant. I have to wonder why?"
"The darling and I sense you as belonging. We get the right vibes. Don't act a role with us. You don't need to."
"I'm trying to put a label on you two. But I'll stop, it doesn't matter. Look, Antonia, I called myself a sybarite: it's true enough up to a point. But my pleasure seeking never got close to what you do. The bed thing, sure! You tagged me there right quick. I'm damn good at the bed games, I shed my inhibitions with my clothes.
I think you'd like me naked, I stop being a publisher. Dammit', I'm only thirty-three."
Antonia laughed. "I'd be glad to see you naked. Oh, and I'll bet you left Griselda with a chain on her ankle?"
"It was her idea. That girl and everything she says or does is pure aphrodisiac."
"And she's awaiting my decision in trepidation?"
"Hell, no. I think she sees me as passing trivia. There's something ageless about her. You sure the two of you haven't been around a couple of millenniums?"
"We're not witches. Griselda becomes very human when she's whipped. She screams beautifully."
"May I whip her?"
"No."
"May she service me?"
"No."
"Dammit', I expected you'd say Yes. Griselda doesn't like the idea, eh?"
"It would amuse her. The negative is mine."
"No poaching on the preserve, eh?"
"Well. . " The calm smile lit the lovely features in friendliness. "What would you say if you were me?"
"A resounding negative." The publisher shrugged ruefully. "You've got something, why cheapen it! But you say Griselda would be amused? How d'you know?"
"We know each other's thoughts. I can't explain. But the darling has an incredible tongue, and she's proud of it. So far as whipping her bottom goes, she thinks you'd blow it and retreat in confusion."
Ilona shook her head sadly. "The girl's psychic. Why d'you keep referring to her as
'The darling', she's a long way from being a child?"
"It's right for us, that's all. Ilona, don't you realize you keep calling her a 'girl'.
She's as old as I am. There's not all that many years between the three of us."
"Would money buy her? Could I throw a rug round her and take her home?"
"No. But that one would really amuse her. Why don't you go and let her in on the offer. Oh, and while you're there you can let her loose."
They had given her everything and nothing. Ilona Paisley made her way back to the chained girl, speculating possibilities, loathe to take no for an answer yet glimpsing the impregnability of Antonia Noyes and the girl called Griselda. They lived in a Pre-Raphaelite Arcady that would have delighted Burne-Jones and inspired John Millais. They were timeless and ageless and the most sensual experience of her career. One moment she saw them as distantly ethereal, in the next they exuded a rampant female sexuality which set her afire with longing.
Griselda was seated at the vanity, lost in thought. When she turned about she sent the chain swirling from her ankle in a provocative clash of links. Her reflective smile was as sincere as her condolence: "I hope you're not terribly disappointed, Ilona?"
"You knew all the time."
"I'm afraid so. The real disappointment is mine. I would have liked to feed between your thighs and had you whip me. I'm more precocious than I appear."
"Let's do it anyway?"
"No."
It was the same negative finality: Griselda was owned.
Ilona switched: "You kicked that chain out for my attention." She accused.
"Yes. You like it, I know you do."
"Yesssss. . you're right." Ilona acknowledged slowly. "What the hell's with this chain. . and those handcuffs?"
"The door's open but I can't leave this room. I'm naked and I cannot clothe myself. I am owned. Only 'Tonia can change anything for me. I live in a perpetually excited awareness of obedience to her."
"But your life, the real You?"
"This is Me. Anything else is a sham. You envy me."
"Envy! Oh, c'mon, now!"
"Yes you do. You're not what you show the world at all. You should give yourself to 'Tonia but you won't, not now."
"I could never be like you."
"You are like me."
"You're a slave, there's no other word. Or would you sooner be called a prisoner?"
"I'm just a girl whose hands have been cuffed behind her back for more than two months, and I love the girl who locked them there." Griselda smiled companionably.
"Don't try and make me complex? Ilona, please get the key off the wall and hold it, the key to my shackle."
Ilona Paisley plucked the bit of metal from its ring, with it came a curious excitation. She turned to the naked girl. "Well?"
"Hold it. Sit down. Talk."
The publisher relaxed in a chair. "Can I ask questions?"
"The answer to all of them is in your hand." Griselda bestowed a pixie smile.
"You hold the key to my freedom or captivity. While you control that key I belong to you. Feel anything?"
"Good gosh, yes!" Ilona was startled by the demanding flare of heat between her legs. "I've been feeling something ever since I walked in here. I just made Antonia an offer to buy you."
"That's wrong way round. Let 'Tonia buy you."
"You're so gorgeously gorgeous?" Ilona shook her head as though dazed. "It isn't as though you're opulently endowed or voluptuous or any of the cliches. But there you sit with those marvellous breasts and that positive jungle of pubic hair. .! And you don't seem to possess a tummy. You're the most provocative female I've ever seen.
You're the original Eve."
"Tonia says things like that. But she's the same. Maybe sometime you'l see her naked."
"Look, Griselda, this is outrageous, but I want to whip you."
"Of course." Griselda's agreement was calmly insouciant. "I'd love you to whip me. I want to watch your face. . that's if I was tied any way that would let me."
"I've never whipped a girl? I suppose you realize I'm talking about whipping you because it's generating my secretions by the pint? It's a beautiful agony."
"Me too! Want to test?" Griselda stood invitingly.
Such carnality from a creature so immaculately nubile. Ilona Paisley thought of this only briefly as her hand made its invasion of a forbidden place and was enveloped in heat.
"Griselda, you're scorching, you're?!"
"I know I am. But feel me properly."
The hand came away wet and glistening. Ilona looked at it hungrily. Her eyes sought those of the handcuffed girl. "Darling. . " Her voice was choking. "Oh, darling. . !"
"Make me lick it dry for you. I like to taste myself." Ilona Paisley raised her hand.
In amazement she beheld Griselda's tongue as it lapped and laved. It started as an impudent pink tip, then elongated into inch after inch of a seeking probe. "I use it a lot." Griselda explained matter-of-factly. "Its grown. So has 'Tonia's."
"But, it's incredible!"
"Yes, isn't it! We're so proud of them."
"After seeing that I'd feel foolish."
"You shouldn't. Anything about any girl is delectable." The confined shoulders twisted in frustration. "I wish 'Tonia hadn't said 'No'. You seem so lonely."
"We mustn't blame her. After all, I did intrude." The publisher made a moue of resignation. "And. . and, I do realise I'm out of my class. You. . you're so exquisite. You make my adventures sort of. . seamy and soiled."
"Could I taste you now, please?"
Hope leaped in Ilona's breast. "You? you mean??"
"Oh, no, but I'm so sorry. Oh dear, how foolish!" Griselda's features pleaded understanding. "I mean perhaps you'd wet your own hand for me? I can't do it because I'm handcuffed."
"Don't you hate those handcuffs?"
"I adore them. They're 'Tonia's hand on me. I'm conscious of them day and night.
But, your hand. . ? I mean, you don't have to?"
Up under her dress, thrust aside the soaked panties, cup her throbbing sex! The publisher of women's magazines wondered if this was really she or someone else. The heat between her thighs could not match that of the handcuffed girl but she was shocked at its intensity. When she raised her inundated palm to the waiting mouth her eyes sought those of the younger girl and locked fast. While the prehensile tongue sought and absorbed its nourishment the two of them became one. They were sisters.
"Mmmmm. . You don't taste a bit like 'Tonia. We're right about you, y'know."
"What you're saying is I ought to be naked and handcuffed like you?" Ilona laughed uncertainly. "Oh, and with a shackle and chain locked tight on one of my ankles?"
"Of course! What's so strange?"
"Well, dammit girl, until I walked in here?!"
"I'm glad you came. You're glad too." Griselda's eyes danced. "Buy a pair of handcuffs and wear them sometimes at home. You can fantasize that it was 'Tonia or me who locked them on your wrists."
"No, I'm not going to play sad lonely little games like that. I shouldn't need to. I want you."
Griselda's eyes wel ed sympathy. "I expect you're right." She admitted slowly. "But talk to 'Tonia. I won't do anything she does not tell me to, but perhaps. . !"
Ilona held up the key. "Want your ankle back?"
"Yes. I expect 'Tonia will be wondering." She held out a bare foot and its shining shackle.
When she inserted the key Miss Ilona Paisley was breathless. Unlocking the shining band from the slender ankle she clasped it round her own and clicked it shut.
Sharing Griselda's amusement she walked a few paces this way and that against the drag of the metallic links. Cautiously, she headed for the door but was snubbed short.
"If you weren't holding the key, Ilona, we could keep you always. There's no escape from that shackle." Griselda twinkled. "We could take the key away from you
??"
Thought of Griselda's insinuation was a high voltage shock. Captive to the two of them! Prisoned by a band of steel to which they held the key! It was a prospect utterly absurd, incredible, enchanting! Paisley Publications dissolved into limbo. She had become a captive maiden on a chain!
"You poor dear!" The girl in handcuffs had read her thoughts. "You want to, don't you. If I wasn't helpless you'd love me to grab that key. Poor, poor Ilona."
When they rejoined Atonia Noyes, the flushed but forthright publisher lost no time: "One hundred thousand dollars for her?" She bid firmly.
"No. We're both sorry, but no."
"For the same sum, give her to me for one week?"
They kissed her sadly in their understanding of desuetude.