"Whatever made you think of yourself as a Mistress?"
Susan's lips returned to Ilona's left nipple while she teased its twin with knowing fingers.
The Mistress sighed, not in perplexity but in simple content. The massive new four poster embraced them lovingly, and Susan was as exquisite in the arts of love as in all else. "It was that girl I told you about." She explained, absently. "It was my first?"
"I bet you didn't want to whip her bottom at all, darling. You wanted to nibble her." Susan gently nipped with small white teeth. "I must be the most nibbled slavegirl extant, and you're quite fabulous at it. I'm climaxed to a climax."
"I'm not a very good Mistress, am I?"
"You're terrible as a Mistress, darling. That is, for a girl like me who needs constant discipline."
"You don't need it at all, you just love it."
"You've got the loveliest nipples, Ilona. I bet you never knew. I bet if I flicked one it would twang."
"Go ahead." Ilona giggled. "You could call it twanging my tit."
"You wouldn't have said that a week ago." Susan judged sagely. "And all the rest of you's grade 'A' too? good enough to eat. I might have eaten you up by now if you hadn't been so busy eating me."
"I keep seeing those workmen's faces." Ilona mused.
"They were in and out of here for three days. They must have guessed something."
"How would I know! You made me sit in the stocks all day and tied me to that bed in what you call my room at night." Susan complained, then amended: "Oh sure, I know I told you it was the best way of disposing of me."
"You looked sweet in the stocks, your feet peeping through."
"I'm terribly grateful, darling, for all the things." Susan held up her left hand.
Around its wrist was the snug shine of a steel shackle. It was heavy, as was the chain trailing across the coverlet to lose itself somewhere on the floor. "This is simply pussy perking, Ilona, I really know it's there. It doesn't just follow, I have to tug. But it let's me do anything? leastways in this bed it does."
"The bed meet your specs'?"
"Mmmmm! It will take us a month to tie me in all the ways it's designed for."
Two girls in a huge bed, both naked, one vividly striped by whipmarks. Both satiated by an orgy of lovemaking that had gone on and on. In the mind of each was a query of the future, a future in which they knew themselves already enmeshed. For Ilona Paisley the publishing house was receding into the distance. For years it had held her captive. Now she beheld other more fascinating captivities of which she had never dreamed. Susan could be a way of life, absorbing her utterly. She stirred responsively under the attentions of lips, teeth and fingers. Heat was again building within her loins. She wondered at the seemingly inexhaustible regeneration the platinum haired beauty had the power to provoke. She had entered a lotus eating land of infinite delight.
"What are you going to do to me tomorrow, Mistress?"
"Love you."
"But, darling, I need discipline. You're using me like a lesbian equal."
"I didn't think they ever were equal."
"Well, not really. But I'm not just a lesbian, I'm a slavegirl. Remember?"
"I can't possibly whip you again. You're still terribly marked. They're lovely"
"You do things for me and let me tell you what to do. You shouldn't, y'know. Right now, with my former Mistress, I'd be sentenced to a hundred lashes, or maybe tied to a post for a week."
"What on Earth for?"
"That's the point, darling, you don't know. When I'm bad you don't know I'm bad.
You're in love with me."
"What's wrong with that?"
"It gets in the way, Ilona. When it comes time to punish me you feel mean and unkind."
"I've got you chained right now, sweetheart."
"My wrist, yes. But you'd have forgotten if I hadn't reminded you."
Ilona Paisley was too happy, too relaxed, to be anything but amused by the bright eyes and pouting lips so close to her own. She was besotted by this lovely girl with platinum hair, lost in the flood of her own pent up sexuality. "Can't we love each other for a few days before I start being brutal to you, Susan?" She asked sleepily.
Susan's heart was easily touched. She was unsure of her own feelings towards this far too liberal Mistress. But the least she could feel was affection. Ilona was so lost, so visibly needing help. She looked down at the lovely nakedness with which she had been idly playing. It was lovely, and it was pussy heating. It was far more provocatively female than its owner realized. For a minute she lowered her lips again to the hard wet nipple before retorting: "Of course we can love, darling. Loving her Mistress is the biggest part of a slavegirl's life. I could love you to pieces no matter how many whipmarks I wore or how heavy my chains."
"Aren't we lucky." Ilona's voice was dreamy with content.
Susan sighed. She had a feeling she was still grappling with Paisley Publications.
Determinedly, she straddled her Mistress's passive nakedness and lowered her wet sex upon an unresisting tummy. Leaning forward, she placed the top of her index finger on the tip of a somnolent nose. Her voice was firm. "After our loving, Ilona, you absolutely must treat me as a slave. Will you?"
"Of course I will. Come and cuddle."
"What I really mean is, can you?"
"Yes I can. Don't be tiresome, sweetheart. Lay beside me so I can get my hand into your fur."
"Now I'm going to tell you of punishments. You must start using them on me in a couple of days. Don't tell me what I'm going to get, you just pick one?"
"You're so sweet. Mmmmm. . !"
"If you won't listen properly I'll cry or throw a tantrum."
Ilona perked. "I'd love to see you throw a tantrum."
Susan pouted. "You wouldn't like me a bit, Mistress. I become a nasty little girl who says the awfulest things and stamps her feet."
"Please throw one now."
"I'm not mad enough. Besides, you're too nice. Now, are you listening?"
"Shall I make a list?"
"Ilona, darling, take me seriously."
"Oh alright. I'll flog you the first day, then you tell me."
"Well. . " Susan had lost steam. "There's hanging me by my wrists, it's very effective. After an hour with my toes off the floor I become delightfully meek."
"Mmmmm. .!"
"Then there's the pillory, my neck and wrists yoked. I'm always terribly grateful when the yoke gets lifted."
"I think you're a masochist, but carry on."
"There's a horse thing you can make me sit on, tied so I can't get off. It cuts a girl's crotch in two and makes her awfully easy to deal with."
"I bet! But doesn't it ruin her pussy?"
Susan sighed again. "Pussies are almost indestructible, Mistress. You'll be surprised. . Ilona, are you listening?"
Ilona giggled. "We were putting your pussy on a painful perch."
"I ought to put your's on one, you might wake up."
Susan sniffed disdainfully. "Anyway, there's also just tying me up. There's so many ways of doing it just a bit painfully so as the hours go slowly by. . ! I was tied tight, standing against the post, all night once. Gee, when I think of all the vows I made about behaving. . ! The rope marks in my skin made me look like an old time convict."
"We must try that one, it sounds cute."
Susan shifted enough to enable her to make a sudden savage bite at an unsuspecting nipple. Ilona yelped. "That was to get your attention, Mistress." The implacable slavegirl settled herself comfortably astride. "The next lesson is to get you to understand all the things I have to be punished for."
"If you say so, dear."
"That remark's no help. D'you want me to go looking for another Mistress?"
"No!" The negative was a small explosion.
"Alright then! Look on me as a pretty plant that has to be nourished in unusual ways. Without discipline I die."
"Oh, darling, so dramatic!"
"I have to keep you listening. Do you realize my former Mistress would have thrashed me three times already for the outrageous way I've been talking to you?"
"But I like it!"
"O.K. So when you're in the mood you give me permission to be bratty. Or, if I feel it coming on, I kneel and ask. You don't have to say yes."
"I rather like that one. You now have my permission to play with both my nipples while we talk."
Susan wrinkled her nose. "There you go again. That should have been an order."
Susan's hands became busy. "There, instant obedience. Forgive my wrist chain rubbing you, I can't help it."
Their eyes met, Susan's pout dissipated under a flood of affection. Soon, her tongue would once more seek its prey, her fingers tingled their vibrations into receptive breasts. Ilona smiled. The perfume of girl musk enveloped them.
Ilona removed her shoes. She was ashamed of peeking but was under a compulsion she could not control. She wished to see but not be seen. Within her mind was a turmoil with which she had become familiar, a small cyclone of emotions with Susan at its centre. . She tip-toed cautiously and peered around the punishment room door.
It was a picture so exquisite she was obliged to stifle a gasp. It was a picture she herself had created an hour ago. But, like most masterpieces, it had mellowed with age. Rebellious flesh and muscle had lost their tensions, the naked girl hung passively without motion, the tight straps upon her wrists sustaining her weight, her toes several inches above the floor. Al of Susan's femaleness had flowed in pain and fatigue to create a picture of resigned helplessness. Her head was bowed, her eyes closed.
Breathless, Ilona Paisley drank in the pure beauty of the nude who believed herself alone. Every detail would be forever etched upon her mind. The tension of suspension had ironed out nothing of Susan's loveliness. Her breasts were tautened but remained superb cones. Her Venus Mound was actually accentuated, as was the pubic triangle crowning its visible contour. Her bel y was flat beneath the delineated rib cage, her bottom impudent but motionless. High above, the straps bit deep round punished wrists, the hands limply open, fingers drooping in resignation. For' several minutes the Mistress watched her punished slavegirl, then silently returned from whence she came.
It had begun at breakfast. Pertly handcuffed, Susan was toying with toast and belabouring her favourite topic:
"Darling, you simply have to punish me." As usual she was animatedly vehement.
"I was rude to you in the bathroom, I tore your bra' strap, and I made some rotten coffee. I've been a lousy slave."
"I never noticed, darling. Besides, I punished you yesterday. You sat on that horse thing, remember?"
Susan sniffed. "Sure I did? for thirty minutes."
"Well, you didn't like it. I know you didn't."
"You should have left me there at least four hours."
"That, would have been far too long. Sweetheart, I'm fond of you, I can't possibly be that brutal."
"Then I'll never be a proper slave. I want you to punish me properly, and very severely, today. How are you going to do it?"
"I'm not. You're far too sweet for these excessive disciplines. The worst I'll do is change your handcuffs from front to back."
There had been a silence while they nibbled. Then, Susan had picked up a cup and admired it. "It's lovely, I bet it's imported?"
"Uhuh. English bone. Shockingly expensive."
Susan deliberately dropped the cup. It shattered on the tile.
Ilona surveyed the damage in dismay. She had cherished those cups a long time.
Angrily, she accused: "You did that on purpose."
"Yes."
No apology. Nothing! Just a cool speculative appraisal. Furious, with herself and with Susan, Ilona had demanded: "You wish to be punished?"
"Not a wish. I need to be punished."
They had glared at each other for long minutes before the Mistress muttered:
"Very well, come with me."
And that had been that. Ilona had hung a pouting Susan by her wrists and gone away. But not before the delinquent had demanded: "Four hours, eight if you want, but nothing less than four. Then whip me." She had emphasized her dictum by a frosty: "And good-bye."
It had been one of the longest hours of her life. As one of four or of eight, Ilona saw it as impossible to endure. Perhaps Susan could endure it but she could not.
Returning from her silent survey, she sat in the lounge and mixed herself a drink.
She saw the glass but it was superimposed upon the punished loveliness of the naked girl. She made the drink last as long as she could. Then she went to the phone.
In the punishment room nothing had changed. Susan had learned long since that, in a suspended nakedness, motion hurt. She still hung motionless. It would have been easy to suppose her asleep. Ilona knew she was not. Susan was absorbing her punishment in silent pain.
Determinedly, Ilona Paisley went to the switch. A moment later Susan's feet were firmly on the floor. She was still obliged to stand with raised arms, but her agony had been stolen away. The Mistress took the helpless nudity in her clasp and kissed and kissed again. Soon, Susan kissed back. Moments later Ilona was on her knees feeding avidly at the centre of her loved one's being.
"It was too soon." Susan moaned out the accusation with the final spasms of her climax. "Ohhhh, darling, I had hours yet to go. I still have."
"No you haven't. You've had enough."
"No. . Oh no. . Oh, darling!"
"O.K., so it's me who's had enough." Ilona said crisply. "I can't stand it, knowing you're hanging here all alone."
"But, my punishment. . ?"
"You've had it!"
Susan hung her head in defeat. Spontaneously, as though triggered by the same need, tears wel ed from both girl's eyes. Ilona clung harder and rubbed her wet cheek to mingle its salt drops with those of the punished girl. "I'm sorry," she sobbed, "I'm so, so sorry. . "
It was an epitaph.
Susan did not dress. She wore the handcuffs in an absent minded manner as though they had just happened. She had mixed their drinks and downed her own savagely. She mixed a second and sat in the lounge chair to sip it while contemplating her Mistress with sad, sad eyes.
"I've let you down, Susan." Ilona Paisley said flatly.
"You've loved me and been kind."
"But that isn't enough."
"It would be if we were just lovers. Darling, you love so gorgeously, you give so much."
The woman who had been Paisley Publications smiled somberly. "Sweetheart, don't let's rehash, don't let's debate. I'm supposed to be an executive type, y'know. Let me try something constructive. I'm a dud as a Mistress, I love you too much. Let me see if I can give you what you want."
In a single anguished motion Susan was on the rug and leaning on her Mistress's knees. She looked up longingly, her voice was choked: "You're too good to me, darling, I don't deserve?"
"You've given me the greatest happiness I've ever known. And, Susan, we're not talking about an end. We're going to talk about an idea."
"Yes, Mistress." The handcuffs clinked as Susan raised her glass. "Tell me about the idea. For once, I'll shut up."
Ilona laughed, her fingers riffling through platinum hair. "Ever read the story of
'O'?"
"Of course. Are there any of us who haven't!"
"Remember the first chapter when he ties her hands behind her back and takes her to Roissey?"
Susan sighed nostalgically. "It was beautiful."
"She didn't know where she was going or what lay ahead, but when he sent her to the door she went willingly?"
"She must have been scared to death." Susan mused. "I mean, with her hands tied behind her back, and a strange house, and then the way they made her wait in the anteroom."
"Would you do it, Susan?"
"Me! But I'm not in love with any silly young man like Rene."
"Rene always seemed to me a neuter. Who needs him!" Ilona studied the young intent face reflectively. "Suppose I drove you to a house, handcuffed you, and told you to do exactly what 'O' did?"
Susan's sudden inhalation of breath was an answer in itself. The young eyes became bright with query. "Oh, darling, there'd be the door? and on the other side of it??"
"I can't tell you exactly. But you would find things I don't seem able to give you, things you've got an emotional need of."
"A Mistress?"
"Yes, a Mistress." Ilona laughed. "But whether she matches the picture in your mind only you can tell."
"And if she doesn't, can I come home?"
"Not at your own request. She will decide."
Again the inhalation. "I'd be. . a prisoner?"
"You're my prisoner here now, sweetheart."
"Mmmmm, I suspect I could talk myself out of it with you, darling. Could I with her?"
"I would believe not. But I've arranged for you to phone me in a week. That reassures us both."
Susan held up her joined hands. "I'm handcuffed. I'm ready?"
Ilona bent and kissed the eager young lips. "Yes, sweetheart," She whispered gently. "You're ready, you're terribly ready."
If you love something, set it free.
If it returns, it is your's.
If it does not
It never was.
The lines haunted Ilona Paisley without cessation. Her mind was filled by a vision of platinum hair, and of Susan flaunting her cuffed hands to wave good-bye before she entered the opened door. Ilona Paisley was in love.
Paisley Publications re-possessed her. She saturated herself in work, dreading to return home. She chided herself constantly for what she believed to be an erotic romanticism. But she could not delude herself into a belief she could erase the etch marks on her mind made by the three females she could not forget. She condemned herself for setting the period of a week before Susan's phone call would be made, a couple of days would have imposed far less stress. But on the other hand the prisoner might need that time in which to properly assess her new captivity. She counted the days. On the seventh day she thought only of the phone and Susan's voice, she was shivering with excitement at the call.
It did not come.
On the eighth she used the phone herself, but there was no answer. She called every hour throughout the day and on into the night. The lovely voice of Antonia Noyes did not respond.
Ilona considered the possibilities, but soon realized she was not prepared to live with any of them. On the ninth day she walked the path up which she had sent her love.
The maid was as svelte as the Mistress, her trim uniform a costly creation. She was black but only slightly. She cocked as supercilious an eyebrow as the visitor had even seen. Her whole effect was one of pert insolence. But her response was polite and instant.
"This way please, madam." The girl stood aside, opening the door wider in welcome.
Miss Ilona Paisley walked through the portal into darkness.
She awoke to darkness, a close warm stifling darkness, delaying consciousness and perception. Ilona lay in it drowsily until she realized it was not the darkness of night.
It was something else! Something was wrong, wrong, wrong. . ! She was blind.
She sat erect. But to do even that was an awkward and inhibited motion. She took a deep breath, fighting panic, and took what inventory she could of her condition.
She was hooded. Soft leather was moulded to her features and her head. She could breathe, so presumably there were orifices. But no light reached her eyes.
Lifting her hands to explore, she found them shackled. A band of metal round each wrist, a few links of chain. . From the center link another chain went down between her legs to connect with the chain between her similarly shackled ankles. If she stood she would be unable to lift her hands above her hips. But, sitting, they could find slack enough to explore the hood.
It was laced at the back. Tight! It also seemed part of a collar round her neck, a collar which contrived to hide the ends of the laces and was fastened by a padlock.
But the padlock did more. It also secured the end link of a chain which trailed down her back and beyond her reach. Presumably she was tethered.
Her tracing fingers discovered the slit for her mouth and the small round holes beneath her nostrils. Evidently she was not meant to suffocate. But, tug as she would, she could move nothing to give her sight. She was captive in darkness. Feeling foolish, she spoke aloud to herself, but the hood restricted her chin and the words came to her muffled ears as an odd distortion.
Cautiously, she stood up. The chains permitted her to do so. Hands restricted at a level below her waist, she took a tentative step which she guessed as ten or twelve inches before the links s sprang tight, four more hobbled paces and her collar was snubbed to bring her to a halt. She stood, literally at the end of her tether, feeling absurd, frightened and terribly lost. Her next discovery was surprisingly late in reaching her consciousness.
She was stark naked. Ilona fought the hood. It was her first and worst enemy.
True, the chains would hold her captive, but in this darkness it imposed she was frightened to move for fear of hurt. Crouching down to gain slack chain, she tore and scratched and sought to grasp. But the thing was a part of her, tight everywhere, locked immovably, the collar and padlock mocked her silently. On all fours she moved back. She found the wall, and in it the anchor of her chain tether. She was held by bonds it would be useless to fight. She made herself as comfortable as she could, her back resting against the wall, her knees drawn up so that she could clasp over them her shackled hands. Miss Ilona Paisley was a prisoner. Ruefully, she wondered whose prisoner she might be.
She suspected chloroform. The maid may have had a soaked pad, or perhaps a man had been hidden behind the door. Her brief struggle before unconsciousness had been against strong hands. But what had happened to Antonia Noyes! Above all, what had happened to Susan! She herself may already have been taken far away.
She thrust aside the possibility of white slavery, it was too melodramatic. But on the other hand. . ! What a haul for a brothel the four of them would make! Uneasily, she fingered the metal bands by which she was made prisoner. She had been penetrated only a few times, and had found the impalements of her sheath disagreeable and unrewarding. Miss Ilona Paisley shivered. She had been made naked, it was not a hopeful sign.
The footsteps were firm, they were female. The voice was that of the maid who had opened the front door. It was an educated supercilious voice. But, as before, it was polite.
"You are awake, Miss Paisley. Not too uncomfortable, I hope?"
"You know damn well I'm uncomfortable." Ilona was ashamed of the sound of her voice. "I am also naked, I am chained up, there's a hood locked on my head."
"That's right, Miss Paisley."
"What do I have to do or promise to get released?"
"Nothing, Miss Paisley, just nothing. You ain't going to be released."
"Then, if I'm to be kept prisoner, may I have this hood removed?"
"No, maam, you may not."
"Do you realize how frightening this is for me?"
"I'm sure it is, Miss. I'd be frightened."
"Well, can't you have a little pity on me then? Take off this infernal hood."
"No, Miss Paisley, you have to wear that hood."
"Who says that? Is there someone I can speak to?"
"Just me, Miss."
Ilona was shocked. "You mean I'm your prisoner?"
"Sort of."
"Where is Miss Noyes?"
"You want a drink of water, Miss Paisley?"
"I asked you a question."
"I'm going to put a glass of water in your right hand, Miss."
The captive drank it gratefully. The glass was refilled.
Handing it back, empty, she said: "Thank you. Do you have a name?"
"You can call me Nora, Miss."
"Nora, I would pay a great deal of money to get rid of this hood."
"I expect you would, Miss."
Ilona sighed wearily. "Alright, so I have to stay blind. Will you tell me what sort of a place this is? I mean, so I won't hurt myself trying to stumble around."
"Just a room, Miss. A bare room with nothing but you. There's chains on your wrists and ankles, and they're connected so's you can't try and hit me. There's a collar round your neck and it's padlocked to a seven foot chain fixed in the wall. That's as far as you can go: seven feet."
"Thank you, Nora. You'd be surprised how that helps. Look, if I can't have the hood off, will you tell me why it's on?"
"I think it's for a punishment, maam."
"But I haven't done anything!"
"No, Miss, but a girl doesn't have to do much to get punished."
"Couldn't you use handcuffs on me?"
"Could, but you got to wear them irons."
"Nora, this is all damn awful for me! How long have I got to be like this?"
"You ain't supposed to know, Miss." Was there a hint of satisfaction in the superior voice! "Maybe you stay this way the rest of your life."
"I'd go insane in a week."
"Not likely, Miss. Here, it's a pail and a cover. You take and put it against the wall yourself. That way you know where it's at. You know what it's for." Nora's footsteps receded and were gone.
Even if someone was watching, the hood hid Ilona's blush. She would never know if she was observed. . and to use this pail before a dozen eyes. . ! She began to understand the insidious punishment of the hood. In loathing, she pushed the essential utility well off to one side. She longed to cry, but the hood inhibited tears.
Alone in dark silence, Ilona Paisley toyed idly with her chains. They were far heavier and uglier than need be to keep her restrained. No doubt they were, like the hood, a punishment. Someone did not like her. Ruefully, she saw her nakedness as practical, both to herself and to her captors. She wondered, shrinkingly, if silent eyes came and feasted on her breasts and pubic hair. She would never know.
It could be a kidnapping for ransom, her present plight a softening up before the demand for cash. Perhaps the three others were held as she was held. Her thoughts drifted, she was in limbo. Soon she slept.
For Ilona Paisley there was neither night or day. But three times in each twenty-four hours she was given milk or soup which she sucked up through a straw.
"You're a lucky girl, Miss Paisley. The hood will lose you weight. It's too tight under jaw for solids, you can't chew properly."
"I'm not fat. Nora, how much money do you want to set me free?"
The pain was fearsome in her darkness. It slashed across her shoulders like a fiery brand. Ilona yelped in shock, her chains rattling.
"Please do not try and bribe me, Miss." The voice was cold.
"Was that you? It was a whip, wasn't it?"
"It was me, Miss. I will whip you as I think needful."
"But, Nora, I don't even know when I'm doing wrong. I don't know anything? this beastly hood! Please don't hit me without warning. It's? it's too frightening."
Another cut! It laced the length of Ilona's thigh. She screamed at the hatefulness of what was being done to her. It was too awful, not knowing, not seeing! While her chained hands were exploring her wound Nora's calm voice continued.
"You do not give orders, maam, you do not complain. You are a white cunt that must be humbled."
The four letter word was as frightening as the lash. Quivering with apprehension, Ilona said: "I'll do what you want. Please tell me. So I don't get whipped."
"The whip will teach you, Miss Paisley, it will teach you far better than anything I can say."
"But in the dark. . ! It's so awful? the not knowing. Oh please, Nora?"
The whip cut her sentence as it cut her skin, this time her other thigh. In pure animal fear, Ilona tugged and twisted at the chains. . She was chained everywhere. It was too, too cruel, the links snubbed her every act. No animal had ever been chained as she was chained. The collar on her neck seemed a personal mockery.
"That was a complaint, Miss. It earned you a stroke."
"I'm sorry, Nora. I will try."
"Good. That way you just get properly whipped at proper times. You will know it's going to happen."
The naked woman froze. 'Properly whipped'! She believed she knew the meaning behind the term, but she was compelled to ask.
"You will be whipped from time to time for punishment, Miss Paisley. The whip will humble you. That is desired."
"But, Nora, am I proud? I didn't think I?"
She should have known! The thong cut her from hip to armpit. In desperate misery she fell sideways and writhed out her pain amidst a clash of chains. When the paroxysm ended Nora pul ed her back to sit against the wall. The girl's voice was faintly amused.
"When you are properly whipped, maam, I will inform you of what you are sentenced to, and just how you must stand or kneel. Perhaps I may take you to where you can be properly tied or strapped to receive your whipping."
"Thank you."
"I don't think that was sarcastic, Miss. It sounded better."
"I will try, Nora, honest I will. I'm frightened."
"You're supposed to be frightened, Miss Paisley. I'd be frightened too."
The naked prisoner was no longer entirely alone, now she had pain to keep her company. Desperately keeping the ghosts of darkness at bay, she traced the whipweals Nora had bestowed, wincing and thankful that for the moment there would be no more. It was a change from fingering the metal links of her chains like a rosary. Over and over in her darkness she thought of the word, humility. She had to be humble, someone wished to break her, reduce her to naked compliance. It was not really a clue, there could be many motives behind such a wish.
Ilona saw herself as a planet drifting in dark, dark space. She could measure neither the space or the time. Mostly she was alone. Nora's visits became increasingly important to her. Often they brought pain but she came to know that Nora and pain was better than no Nora at all. She could not know if others observed her. It was possible. Nora proved its possibility by sometimes coming silently and standing beside the chained captive until a sound or an instinct betrayed her presence. There were other times when Ilona was driven to speak to someone who either was not there or did not answer.
The first of her whippings was traumatic. As whippings go, it was by no means cruel, only the darkness made it so. Nora's hands and Nora's voice guided her to stand and face the wall and to bend forward enough to place her forehead against its surface that she might find support and have an anchorage easy to find after her responses. It was suggested she should stand quite still for the six strokes to which she was sentenced, but neither girl believed this possible.
"Nora, am I forbidden to scream?"
"No, Miss, but as time goes by I'll teach you not to." She would once have asked why that need be. But she had learned not to ask such questions that might hint of criticism. Meekly, she held her forehead as directed, the long chain dropping away from her collar, her hands clenched and tight against their shackles below her waist.
She was quite helpless and knew herself cruelly open. She could shield nothing.
Miss Ilona Paisley waited to be whipped.
She had come to understand the hood. It was the most potent of her punishments, eminently practical in doubling and trebling the intensity of all she must suffer. To sit chained and blind was an infinitely worse captivity than to sit, restrained, but with all her faculties. She found bitter frustrations in her compulsive need to explore the limits of her chains. Again and again she would rise and shuffle this way or that until her neck was snubbed. She tugged and twisted her hands and arms and kicked her fettered feet against their linkage. Then it became a hazardous and frightening journey back to the wall. She had learned to identify her place by the warmth her flesh had bestowed upon where she sat and where she leaned.
The first lash came, circling her waist to spend its venom on her forearm, a forearm pulling frantically against a chain that would not yield.
Her lonely need or stability in darkness kept her head bent in contact with the wall while she moaned and writhed. But the second stroke, lapping both her bottoms and her hip sent her convulsing on the floor in a reckless abandonment to anguish.
Matter-of-factly, Nora lifted her to her feet and pressed her forehead once more into contact.
"Don't you worry, Miss Paisley, Nora will give you all six real good." Whatever emotion the maid's voice dealt with, it was unfailingly polite.
"Thank you, Nora."
Was it humility, or was it gratitude for such small benefits as the maid bestowed!
Ilona did not know. Miss Paisley received her other four strokes with various reactions and various sounds. When her forehead left the wall for the last time it received a firm warm kiss to leave the captive more lost than ever. Perhaps it was a clever psychological trick to keep her off balance, or a kindly gesture to keep her sane. But how could she tell! She could not tell. Nora had left her alone with her pain. This time she bore weals where her chained hands could not reach back to comfort.
There were other things besides the whip.
"Miss Paisley, I want you to kneel, up on your knees, erect."
"Yes, Nora."
Even so small a thing was fraught with awkwardness and the clink and pull of chain. The naked prisoner knelt as bidden, expectant, quivering and frightened. The tension of her arms dragged a chain up inside her crotch and through her pubic hair. Silently, she waited for the voice or the blow.
"Well, Miss?"
"What must I do, Nora?"
"Nothing. Just tell me what you feel."
"Naked and frightened. Nora, I think I'm facing you, and you're standing close."
"Where's the chain between your legs, Miss Paisley?" Ilona knew what to do.
Lifting her shackled hands as high as she could, she said: "There, the chain between my legs is tight up against my cunt."
"You hate using that word?"
"Yes, Nora."
"What can you smell?"
Every sense alert in her darkness, the kneeling girl became aware of a close proximity. "I can smell woman scent, Nora."
"In plain earthy language, please Miss?"
"I can smell your sex."
"One more try before the whip, Miss Paisley."
"I can smell your cunt, Nora."
Strong fingers grasped her hair and thrust her hood and its orifices hard against what Ilona knew to be the black girl's pubic hair. The pungency of female sex was overpowering. She was held so for many seconds before being pushed back.
"If I ordered you to eat me, Miss Paisley, would you obey?"
"Yes, of course, yes please! If you only knew my hunger. . " Ilona was shamed by her own words, but Nora's musky spiciness had triggered her terrible need of feminine communion. Susan had been gone so long! Miserably, she mourned: "But I'm hooded, I can't."
It had been one more emphatic victory for the hood.
Long after Nora had left her alone, Ilona continued to kneel. She relapsed upon her heels for comfort, the pose catering to the illusion of a female presence. Her chained hands rested between her thighs, feeling her own heat. She wondered if anyone was looking, she suspected she looked pretty and pathetic like that.
Ilona Paisley's second whipping was a tremendous adventure.
"This time you get ten strokes, maam. We're going to do it right. You're going for a walk."
She was speechless with emotion as the padlock clicked open on her collar and the chain fell to the floor. It immediately snapped shut again, but she was no longer attached to the wall.
"I'll hold your arm and guide you, Miss. We'll take it easy."
Her steps were pathetically short, and accompanied by a tremendous clatter. One after the other her ankles were snubbed in her slow progress to punishment. Nora's grasp on her bare arm partly defeated the dark.
"Will anyone else watch my punishment, Nora?"
"Figure that out for yourself, Miss Paisley. You get one extra stroke for asking."
"I'm sorry. . I should have had more sense. Nora. . If you have to free something so's I can be fastened to be whipped, I promise I won't struggle or be silly.
I'll obey you."
"Like I said, Miss, the whip teaches you things. You wouldn't have said that before you got the hood." The fingers on her arm squeezed approvingly.
The hobbled walk was a joyous thing: absurd but true. Without the tether, and with Nora's hand on her arm, the chained woman took her tiny steps with a sense of immense freedom. She was walking to a punishment but the walk itself revived hope.
It was a longish walk for restricted steps but ended far too soon.
"We are there, Miss Paisley. I am going to free your wrists. Your ankles stay chained."
Even without her promise, Ilona could have done nothing to escape. Her feet were chained, the hood was locked fast. She was as impotent as though her arms were tightly bound. When the irons fell to the floor with a clatter she let her hands hang limply at her hips, even that felt good.
"I'm going to tie your hands above your head, maam."
"O.K., Nora. Here, I'll hold them for you."
In spite of what it portended, the upward stretch of arms too long held below her waist came as one more small pleasure. Ilona guessed her wrists were being spread apart and tied to some sort of solid bar. Cords circled and were tugged tight, but her feet remained flat on the floor, she was not tip-toe. True, she was completely delivered to the whip, but still. . !
"Ten strokes, maam, and one extra for the question you asked."
"Thank you, Nora."
"From your thighs to your shoulders, Miss Paisley. No particular number on any particular place."
"Yes, I understand. I'll try to not scream too much."
"Should you wish to test yourself, Miss, you can be forgiven the extra stroke by remaining silent."
The small wait in darkness was as agonizing as the blow Ilona momentarily expected. She wondered if there was an audience and, if there was, were they approving her behavior or seeing her as a spineless female already whipped into submission. Ruefully, she realized the hood had reduced her far more than the stripes upon her skin. She tensed into a gasping immobility as number one encircled her taut waist.
Long after her whipping, Ilona was to wonder whether the remission of one single stroke was reward enough for the loss of the relief of screams. Probably it was a poor bargain, but she treasured the victory of silence. If there were watching eyes they would respect her fortitude, Nora would respect it, and she herself would be strengthened. But she had clenched her teeth.
Desperation finds what solace it can. Ilona Paisley, naked under the whip, tugged one chained ankle against the other, she gasped in huge inhalations and exhalations, sometimes she lifted herself and her chains off the floor in a silent but agonized reflex. At such times her wrists did not matter, only her whipped flesh. She writhed, she twisted and tugged, but she did not scream.
In these whippings there was never any pretence of awfulness beyond the simple fact of being whipped. Nora never spoke of them as floggings or of the use of more cruel instruments than an ordinary whip or slender crop. They were simply the whipping of a girl who was required to be punished. Even so, they were awful enough.
The ten strokes seemed interminable to the nude woman who received them in a dogged silence. Screams did help! She knew now they helped tremendously. But she would not utter them. Somewhere in this saga of submissions she had a need to prove she was still Ilona Paisley. Cut followed cut, her bottom, her back, her shoulders. In her agony she wondered if the pauses between each stroke were kind or cruel. She longed most ardently for the last lash upon her flesh, but with an equal intensity dreaded the next one about to fall.
The walk back was less joyous. Soon she would be tethered and alone. As she left the place where she had been whipped she could have sworn she smelt the smoke of a cigarette, but she dared not speak of it as she took the linked steps back to boredom.
She was learning to be cautious with her words. When the padlock once more gripped her chain she longed to cry.
Nora instituted drills. They were interspersed by whipstrokes for fumbles but became increasingly easy to follow. They were simply a verbal assertion of authority on one hand and humility on the other. Ilona never admitted it aloud but she welcomed them. She bore their swift savage pains in tolerance, so thankful was she of a human presence. She believed she could accept the whip hourly if it would keep Nora in the room. Whenever she was allowed to do so she grasped soft thighs and hugged them hungrily in longing.
"What are you, Miss Paisley?"
"I am your prisoner, Nora, I will obey you."
"Are you grateful for being whipped?"
"I am grateful, Nora. Thank you."
"Why are you captive like this?"
"Because I am a woman, Nora, and someone wishes me thus."
"Would you like me to whip your cunt, Miss Paisley?"
"Oh, yes, if it pleases you."
"And your breasts?"
"Yes, and my breasts too."
"Ask me nicely, Miss Paisley."
"Please, Nora, will you whip my cunt and my breasts?" It could go on and on.
The key to unmarked skin was humility.
Days passed. In chained darkness Ilona Paisley was more and more aware of dependence on the coloured maid. Her whole existence now centered on the capricious creature who held the keys to her captivity. When Nora was kind a strange love would flow between them. When she was cruel, Ilona believed the cruelty emanating from someone else and bore it without rancour or resentment. While she was receiving her pain it was a potently personal thing tangibly from Nora's flesh or Nora's lips for whatever brief period they were vouchsafed. She obeyed Nora now without question.
The chained captive kept no count of time. She was not going anywhere, no period had been placed on her imprisonment. Questions were punished, so she no longer asked them. Her future was the same as her present, a dark void interspersed by pain and controlled by a girl she had seen briefly only once. But had Ilona been forced to guess she would have supposed it ten or twelve days before her life was once more changed.
"Want a bath, Miss Paisley?"
"Of course I need a bath, I smell?" Ilona suddenly beheld implications: "You mean??"
"That's what I mean. But don't get excited, maam, you're not going home."
"I didn't expect. . Oh, Nora. . just to get in a bath, even chained??"
The maid laughed. "I'm going to take off that hood. "
"Nora, I love you!"
"You may not love me at all, Miss Paisley. Kneel down." Obedience was instant.
Ilona Paisley had become a small child. She was quivering, her pulse raced as the padlock and chain fell to the floor to be followed by the collar. It felt as though a thousand pounds had been taken from her neck. But she was still utterly helpless.
"You don't get to see anything, Miss. Sorry 'bout that."
"But, Nora, you're untying the laces, you're taking the hood away from me!"
"That's right, Miss Paisley. But as I lower it from your face I'm going to slip a metal blindfold over your eyes. Are you going to keep still or be silly?"
"I'll keep still. Oh, Nora. . ! But why metal?"
" 'Cos you're going to have a bath, Miss. You'd look silly with a soaked scarf over your eyes."
It was one of the tensest moments of Ilona's life. Her clenched fists pul ed at the chain bisecting her sex, she held her head high to aid Nora in whatever she must do.
Suddenly the hood was free. As it slipped forward across her nose there was a brief flash of light and then, once more, darkness as shaped metal blinds possessed her eyes and were secured at the back of her head. Nora made them tight, tight and tighter yet. They felt strange so that the naked woman longed to finger them. But she could not, the shackles held her hands.
"Want a sporting proposition, Miss Paisley? I'm supposed to tie your hands in back?"
"Oh, Nora, anything! I won't struggle or try to escape."
"O.K. So I unlock your chains and you're free? What would you do?"
"Whatever you tell me. I won't touch the blindfold."
"That's hard to believe, Miss."
"No it isn't!" Ilona's voice was high in longing. I know you'd punish me terribly if I did give you a bad time. I just don't want some awful punishment."
Metallic sounds! The shackles fell from Ilona's wrists, then her ankles. "You can stand up, Miss Paisley. You can do what you like 'cept touch that blindfold or run."
Ilona did what she liked. Blindness prevented her running round the room, but she did all the physical jerks she could remember from school. She then felt her weals and touched her nipples. The three words she uttered held a tremendous sincerity:
"Thank you, Nora."
She walked totally free, guided by a female hand that held her own. She stood still, arms behind her back, while Nora ran the bath. When she sat in the hot perfumed water she sighed ecstatically. "Oh, Nora, you're so good to me!"
"Now you're going to be good to me, Miss Paisley." Nora's voice held vibes. "I'm as naked as you are and I'm getting in the bath."
Ilona reverted to her teens. Nora was the girl next door who was giggling in the tub with her while their parents were gone. She wished she had eyes, but it did not matter too much. Her hands found familiar contours, caressing nipples, reaching for pubic hair.
"Do it, Miss Paisley. I want you to."
Ilona did it. By the time the bath was done they had brought each other into orgasmic flower time after time. Ilona had forgotten her blindfold, in such a feast of tumescence it did not matter. When she had dried herself with hot absorbent towels, Nora's command did not matter either.
"Cross your wrists behind your back, Ilona."
Thrilling at the use of her given name, the blinded girl obeyed. As the cords criss-crossed her wrists she knew concupiscence again. She was being bound by a girl, a girl with whom she had just shared love. Without realizing what she was saying, she whispered: "Tighter, darling, tighter. Make them hurt."
It did not matter that now she could not touch her eyes. Nothing seemed to matter except that Nora stay close. The girl whose wrists were tied behind her back knew herself even more helpless than she had been when chained. But that did not matter either. Flexing her arms, she knew she could never free herself, her wrists were tied to stay. They hurt but the hurt was pleasure. Once more, the libido of Miss Ilona Paisley was flaring heat.
"Someone wants you." Nora's hand guided the steps of her newly bound charge.
"You behave real good, d'you hear."
"I'll behave, Nora, I promise. Besides, I'm tied, I have to."
"It's not what you do, it's what you say, Miss." Nora's hand added impetus to the captive's steps and thrust her forward. "Here now, you're through a door. Walk four paces then stop." Suddenly, Nora's hand was gone.
Feeling doubly nude and doubly helpless, Miss Ilona Paisley took four deliberate steps.
"Stand still, darling." It was Susan's voice. There was something wrong with that voice but it still belonged to Susan.
Ilona stood still in her darkness, wrists tensed within their cords.
The searing agony of a whip burst across her back.