Chapter 4
The snickering lisp threaded through her dreams.
It was a dream, a deep one.
Buck-naked, she was bent over while a grinning colored thrashed her ass with a thin cane. Alec Reddick looked on, chuckling ... thwlckk!
Sweating, she squirmed on the sheets. It was a week later and Joanna lay soaked with perspiration under the mosquito netting over her bed. The windows of her room were opened to the veranda, but Territory nights were close this time of year, and her sheets had become no more than gluey bonds. She sat up quickly at the third quick snip, rubbing at her eyes.
Thwip! Four ... and a caught cry. A man's growl.
She bit her lip.
Silence seeped through the sleeping house.
Her heart was pounding. It had been a week in which almost nothing had happened and she had begun to forget the shadows that moved through The Territory. Now it was happening again. It was all coming together again. She knew it in her blood, like some inward consummation.
Along the balcony, which ran this side of the house connecting the bedrooms, there was a light. The sleeping house faced the watchful pine barren.
Slipping out of bed in her sodden shortie she went to the full-length windows and stood behind the muslin there. It was as she thought ... as she knew. The light came from Alec and Cynthia's room.
There were voices, running water, a protest. She was about to turn back when suddenly her sister strode out in the softly illumined night clad in a diaphanous pink nightgown of near knee length. This she held bunched up behind as her hands massaged her bottom. Her great chest rose and fell.
"You needn't have...." was all Joanna heard when Alec Reddick came out, smiling. He was naked, holding in his right hand a cane and in his left his prodigiously engorged cock, which he rubbed lazily.
"Please, Alec, please ... you know I hate it like that...."
Slowly he turned her, and slowly, consentingly, she let him do so, bending over the ironwork balustrade with her legs apart.
"Please, darling, not out here ... we'll be seen, they'll see us ... ow!"
Once, twice, thrice he cut her buttocks with calculated care, the cane circling her hips with fiery red, his prick bobbing as he hit. She mewled with pain, rising and holding her cheeks. For a second she gazed at the steadily swaying beasthood before her, then she pursed her lips, spat on its swollen head and bathed his glans with saliva. After which she turned, grasped the balustrade firmly in her hands, and bent, her legs parted widely.
"Please ... only the head ... I can't take any more than an inch...."
She was in profile to Joanna, but even thus, seen through milky muslin, the expectantly clenched teeth of her face could be seen as she awaited her husband's assault. This was not long in coming. Alec drew near, parted the offered butt with his ringers and nuzzled his slippery cock between the cheeks.
"Arch ... back," he grunted, guiding his pole at the center.
Cynthia hissed, half crouching, then her head came back with a cry as the stiff member sank into the lush tallow of her bowels.
"Aaaah ... no more ... that's enough ... please, darling...."
The man eased forward, then withdrew. Joanna saw for a second the slimy length of gnarled cock, before he thrust hard forward into her. Cynthia twisted, tried to turn as he began pumping rhythmically, driving her into the balustrade.
"Please ... uch ... I can't...."
Her hands went to her face, she half stood up.
"Please ... Alec ... shoot ... quick ... spend ... please...."
Faint, frightened, yet very awed, Joanna turned on tiptoe to her room.
She was first down to breakfast. Alec took his early in the estate office at one side of the house. Pam descended next, kissed her aunt, asked for another tennis lesson, and some high-diving practice in the pool. Then she helped herself liberally to cereals, saying, "Mumsie got it again last night."
Joanna restricted herself to an automatic, "Oh?" and continued with her eggs and bacon. The girl had been subdued for a day after her paternal caning but soon became her spirited self, once insisting on showing her aunt her "marks" in the poolside changing room.
With a sidelong glance she added, "I hear you gave Edna a great good going-over."
"If I did she deserved it," Joanna said primly, but with an odd flush of pride.
"She showed me her sitty-billies and you could have put a ruler over most of them."
"That's enough. Now you get on with your breakfast, Pam."
Bandbox neat in a fitting white sharkskin suit-they were going into Shaftesbury that morning-Cynthia sailed in and kissed them both. Then she too tucked away a hearty meal. Pam's eyes quickened as her mother sat, but she risked no cute comments this time, Joanna observed.
Shaftesbury was the capital of The Territory, a pleasant, sprawling, tropical town. Joanna had arrived at its bush airport and been there for shopping once since. The Reddicks stocked up from its stores each week and today Cynthia had a list as long as her arm. The three of them had been invited out to the Bensons that same evening.
As her sister pushed the Lagonda down the divided throughway, Joanna could not shake off the darkly obsessive thing that inhabited her mind, filling her thinking as completely as Alec had stuffed ... stop! This groomed vision of womanhood beside her had just....
"Pammy mentioned," she started nervously, "I mean, did you get 'it' again last night, Cynth?"
"As if you didn't know." Cynthia shot her a wry smile.
"But for Pete's sake what was it for."
"Oh, stepping out of line," came the offhanded reply. "I deserved it and I got it, that's all. There's nothing very complicated about it." After a minute she put in, "I can't say it's my favorite way of making love, but Alec-likes it sometimes. I know women here who love it."
"Love what?"
"Being buggered. Weren't you? Didn't Tom."
"Of course not," she answered, indignantly. "All right, don't get annoyed. Look, there goes another."
"Gladiator Guard."
"Right."
A strong colored woman had just cut by on a colossal BSA. She was dressed in tight, white cotton breeches, black leather boots and tunic top. She was part of the Gladiators' highway patrol. To get into them, you had to be over six foot, it seemed. Cynthia had explained earlier how these policewomen punished corporally, carrying at their belts thin leather switches, one of which could now be seen whipping back over the pillion of the specimen in front. In The Territory traffic rules were strictly observed.
"Oh, don't forget. Whenever you come to town, for Christ's sake watch the parking rules. Only in the white spaces, or else. That's provided you really want to go through with this Immigration Visa bit you told us about last night, Jo."
"I do."
"Well, they don't mess with paperwork here. You simply find a note inviting you into the nearest Guard House promptly. A perfectly horrible time ensues, over a trestle. They use a penal cane in there."
"What's that!"
"Much longer and heavier. After six you feel as if your backside were peeling off. Anything more is murder. It's years since I got a Guarder, thank God, but I recall I spent the rest of the day in bed. No, it's quite different punishment from anything you've soon so far. Different in kind, not only degree."
"This-only applies to women?"
"You guessed it, dear. The men merely pay a fine, though a whacking one, I agree."
"But not so bad as the beating?"
"Right again. They can offer their ladies for that, in lieu. We're the privileged here. Grin and bare it, as they say." She added quietly, "But you don't have to worry, so long as you're only a visitor."
Something condescending in her tone caused Joanna to retort hotly, "You know I want to be more."
"I wonder."
"I know."
By the time they had completed their purchases, the stores were already closing. They decided to have a beer and a sandwich before setting out on the scalding, two-hour drive back. "Alec's not in to lunch today, so it won't matter us being late," Cynthia explained.
Cynthia gave a vigorous wiggle on the Lagonda's sunbaked seat and Joanna found her tongue unlocked-to one purpose.
"About that whipping you got last night...."
Cynthia chuckled as she drove off. "Across the nekkid fanny."
"Weren't you even wearing a nightie?"
"So you saw too, did you? No. somehow he felt that I didn't require that. It was lifted. Looking pretty, as usual, but being useless."
"But ... didn't it hurt?"
"I thought so."
"More than those paddlings we had?"
Cynthia frowned. "You mean, by the sorority? Initiation? What years ago it seems. You know, there was a story told about you, Jo, when I got there and they rushed me for Sigma Chi. I never did know whether it was true and I guess I just never had the guts to ask you outright. Then our ways parted."
Joanna sat brooding. "You mean ... that I got a real shellacking."
"Um-mn. But that the Senior who did the damage apologized and asked you back to her room after...."
"Yes, it was hell night for me, all right." Joanna dropped her head into her hands at the memory. "Oh Cynth, I feel so ashamed."
"You needn't, here. Frankly, I wonder if this silly guilt isn't the root of all your troubles with Tom. Out here we have no such complexes and hang-ups, thanks. The Indians may have reservations," she concluded with an attempt at humor, "we have none. And then the story went that this girl let you whale into her and that you and she used to meet once a year and give each other this terrific hiding."
Joanna chewed a knuckle. Perverts, they'd been called.
"And that you continued it for a time after school."
They had. The Women's Republican Club in Albany, a small hotel in Boston ... two club ladies walking out of the revolving doors with hot bottoms under their dutiful creaseless skirts....
"Do you think it ... horribly odd?"
"Of course not, Jo. If you wanted to, that is."
"It was always ... a sensation of release. Tom would have never understood."
"Well, we do here. Haven't you noticed? There's a special intensity of existence here. Hell, directly I saw you again at the airport I couldn't help thinking what a perfect bottom you had for beating."
"Heavens!" Joanna laughed. "In what way?"
"Oh, simply spankable. Can't describe it in words. One knows."
"Oh dear."
"And then I saw you on the diving board the other day. You're still nice and springy behind. Frankly, I'd like to see you caned."
"You would?"
"Sure. I'd like to do it too, but first I'd like to watch. I fantasied that it was you instead of Pam the other day."
"Cynthia!"
"Come on. Admit you enjoyed seeing me cooling off my can on the veranda last night. Did you go back in and play marbles?"
"Please." She dropped her eyes.
"I hope one day you'll be my guest. Only, not too soon. Oh, come on," she said suddenly, "you know you gave Edna a beauty of a beating the other day. I was delighted when I heard, and so was Alec. That girl needs lots of attention. But if you're planning to stay on out here with us, as you say, Jo, you're going to have to realize a lot of things. We have a very privileged community this day and age. We plan to keep it that way. We happen to have evolved a harmonious relationship with our coloreds, to whom we deeded a lot of land lately, as you may have read. We simply bring our young up to know they're lucky. Punishment unites us all."
Hitting the throughway they drove in silence awhile. Inside the car the heat mounted, despite open windows, and Joanna found herself mopping her face with a Kleenex.
"This whipping you had last night, Cynth. Was it ... I mean did you ... ? "
"Oh, all right." With a laugh Cynthia cut the Lagonda to the right and parked in a widened section, under overarching beeches. "We're not supposed to stop here, but just for a second."
Turning, she sat up on the seat, leaning over its back. She lifted up her skirt and pulled down the elasticized panties to which her stockings were tethered tautly. The silky ovals were threaded with long weals, less violent than Margot Morrison's perhaps, but painful-looking all the same, especially on the right where more than one met in an inky contusion.
"I see," said Joanna dumbly.
"Love pats only, dear."
"May I touch?"
"Okay, but make it snappy."
Wondering fingers traced the stripes. They were real. It had happened.
'"That's enough." She pulled up her things and slid in position behind the wheel. As she started the engine there came a prowling growl from behind and her face paled beneath its tan.
"Christ, no!"
With a contemptuous gesture a patrolwoman pulled in ahead, antenna snapping from her bike. "God! That's torn it."
Joanna's stomach turned. Her sister looked seriously scared. The Gladiator Guard stationed her cycle securely on twin stiff legs and strolled toward them, easing off her helmet and letting loose, as she did so, a mane of tawny hair. It cascaded down her jacketed back. She was immense, mulatto, and uninterested in expression.
"Please, officer, I," Cynthia began as the huge woman sauntered abreast.
"Let's see them."
The woman seemed in her twenties as she stood examining the papers Cynthia passed out. Beside the aggressive thrust of her profiled buttocks in the tight white breeches, the black eel of a leathern quirt dangled like a deadly snake. A meter of trimmed rawhide, it was clipped to the belt and looked well used.
"Please. I only stopped a minute."
"That's what they all say, sister." She was consulting a book. "First offense this month?"
"First offense this year. Please. I had to ... go."
The Gladiator guffawed. "That's another excuse they all have. Care to show me the turds? Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to learn to hold it better, Mrs. Reddick." She shut the book with a snap. "Friend with you?"
"My sister. She's visiting The Territory. From America."
It made no impression. "Is that right? Then maybe she'll appreciate a little lesson in our justice. I'm giving you four for Illegal Parking. Get out and get 'em off."
"Four!" came Cynthia's desperate croak. "I thought it was only three first time in a month."
"Law's been changed. Only applies to under thirties now. Under thirties and over sixties. You're in the age group, missus." She unclipped her switch and smacked the back of one boot with it, hard. "Four it is, sweetheart. Slap across that nice fat butt of yours. Step lively now."
With an expression of woeful dismay the blonde got out of her car and started fumbling under her skirt.
"Everything off. Skirt as well."
"Everything?"
"I want you buck naked, baby. Mos' 'specially that handsome heinie of your'n."
Tall as Cynthia was, the Guard towered over her. With a chuckle, she cut the air with her quirt and dust spouted. Joanna saw that the tail was a braided thong and she saw too that Cynthia could scarcely keep her eyes off it. She began to feel queasy and sick.
"Don't you people ever let anyone off?" Cynthia mumbled. She was nearly nude now and, though a car sped by, it did not stop. Heads turned and there were male smiles; that was all.
Finally she stood bare, her great breasts swinging outward, the darkish down at her center curling under her crotch as she paced first on one foot, then the other.
"Stand still."
"I can't. This tarmac's hot."
"Not as hot as that tookie's going to be in a second. You've got a great pair of knockers, kid. What's the magic measurement?"
"Forty-one."
"Not bad at all. Now turn round and let's see it."
Cynthia's hips seemed slim in clothes, since they fell straight, with the fat padded high, below the waist. Yet they were deep and soft and long, tender-looking in the fold which only slightly extended the vertical plus sign either way.
"Who gave you those?"
"My husband."
"Bully for him. I like my meat tenderized. Did you get it up you after."
"Yes."
The Guard chuckled richly again. "Tell you what I'll do, Mrs. Reddick. You squat down-yes, right here-and if you can produce two turds for me, two nice hot smoking turds, I'll let you off, understand."
Joanna blinked, breathless. After a second's pause, however, Cynthia squatted in the dust by the edge of the road, hugging her knees. She frowned in concentration, straining, dog-like.
"Shit," said the Gladiator Guard. "Come on."
She strained again. But to no avail. A scummy string made her stand up abruptly-"I can't."
"So you were back-scuttled after your little beating, were you?"
"Yes."
"And you lied about wanting to go."
"No. I wanted to go. But I can't now. I'm too frightened."
"Do forty squat-bends. Loosen your butt muscles up."
"Can I do them at the side? This tarmac's scalding."
"I'll make you sit on it if you ain't careful."
When she had completed the exercises under the eye of the switch-swinging Guard, she was made to touch her toes as many times. Several more cars passed by, but none stopped, and then there came another ascending low and a second patrolwoman drove up, gunned her cycle, cut, and got off it with a wide grin, shedding both gauntlets and helmet. She had long fair hair and was completely white.
"Having trouble-or just plain fun?"
"Ain't that one cute can?" said the first, "And all marked up for me already."
"What's the damage?"
"Four. Parking."
"You ought to get four nice marks across that pair." She yanked Cynthia forward by her bush. "Over here, Fat Ass," she ordered.
Could this conceivably be happening? Joanna asked herself, dazed with the heavy sunbeams pouring down. A thirtyish housewife, a mother and club member, hauled along an open civilized highway, to be whipped naked by an immense black woman. It was worse than any dream, much. But her curiosity held her riveted, to see if Cynthia's virtual terror was justified....
"In the sun, Lou."
"Cunt up, huh."
The two Guards went into action, working efficiently and fast. The first pushed her vast bike into a patch of light, anchored it firm with extra struts, and made some adjustments to the rear wheel. Then she peeled off her leather top, revealing a massive chest slung in the hammock of a white aertex bra.
"That's quite a nice thatch, all things considered."
"Yeah. Set good and low, too. Ought to get a good exposure when she's bent."
Watching riveted in the furnace of the Lagonda, Joanna understood, her face nearly in tears as the second of the pair extracted a wide black leather belt from a saddle bag, strapped it round her waist and forced her wrists into cuffs sewn into it in back. With her shoulders drawn tight, her breasts juddered, streaked with runnels of sweat from the exercises and with dust from the passing cars.
Slowly, lethargically, with an indolent smile, the first Guard drew the cruel quirt behind her in the roadway and hewed it into the drum of the pillion, which it lashed with a pronounced thud, indenting the leather there. Cynthia seemed unable to move and her legs shook. The power of her fear struck Joanna with its ineluctable logic, its tremendous excitement. This big woman, that lean leather ... then the first Guard was making a sarcastic bow.
"Won' you step fo'ward, Mrs. Reddick? I'd like for to take the skin off your seat an itty bit."
The second slammed her over the saddle. With arms tethered behind, no complicated securing was entailed. Cynthia knelt on twin struts for the purpose to which she was fastened with straps. Two rings in the front of her belt were clicked into place either side of the riding saddle. Her body bucked with a cry. "Ouch!"
"What's wrong now?"
"The gas tank's scalding."
"Too bad."
She cambered wretchedly, raising her hanging breasts off the metal. The arching increased as the pillion was tilted till her whole pelvic area was thrust out on display. The tan of her legs finished high and between it the silken purse of her sex pouted back, slit and squeezed, clearly veined and hairy. Cynthia threw back the bleached vision of her face.
"Please, officer. Give them fast."
"For Illegal Parking, four."
"Real hard, Lou. This is one sweet butt."
Cynthia turned back her head and tried to cringe as the long switch flailed overhead and then whipped with venom across the stretched center of the hips. Joanna even heard the vigorous grunt as the Guard struck. The tail clung there, biting, then dropped to leave a vivid line. Cynthia sucked in breath with a jerk. It looked like an inconceivably painful stroke.
"One," said the second Guard.
There was a pause, then the leather ripped into the skin an inch lower, eating into the thickly fatted flesh either side of the cunt and welting the bruises from the last beating. Cynthia gasped loudly, clenched in a spasm, jerking the bike. But she seemed intent on not giving her tormentors the satisfaction of a cry.
"Two."
These were experts, Joanna saw, as Cynthia's leg muscles relaxed and she slumped back limp and the second Guard urged, "Now, Lou, quick."
The third agonizing slice cut in.
"Aaaaa ... noooooo!"
She spasmed back this time, tensely, spreading widely, her vulval lips contracting, and a thin bubble of dribble forming at her anus and bursting as she squirmed forward, gargling.
"Amazing how they do wriggle," said the first.
"You'd almost say they like it. One more time, Lou. Jus' the same. Right behind the you-know-what."
The switch whickered sickeningly in again. Once more the fleshy hips tried to rear and Cynthia emitted a strangled, animal cry.
"Four."
"Enjoy your ride, lady?" said the Guard who had done the whipping. She was already donning her tunic in a business-like manner. "Nex' time it's six. I can make six with this baby real pleasant."
Released, Cynthia writhed, doubled for a minute, her hands still strapped behind her.
Suddenly Joanna saw her jerk straight.
"No! No! You don't have to do that. Please!"
"Right up, baby. All the way."
Her legs threshed, she rose to tiptoe a moment as the second guard appeared to goose her behind. Then her wrists were unstrapped, the belt taken off, and she was urgently massaging her scored behind, face twisted.
"Help you to go in earnest, honey. Give you practise in holding it, too. Now get your clothes on. Real neat."
Knowing that Cynthia would be in no mood to drive, Joanna had shifted behind the wheel. The big guard, who had given the beating, lolled in at the window.
"How you like our methods, ma'am? They sure get results. There's one dame don't park on a throughway in a hurry."
Joanna found a trembling voice. "I thought ... it was much too severe."
The Guard simply shook her head. "Nah. Let her off too light. Now with six you can work 'em.
And eight. Oh boy. I've had 'em crawling over the road for five minutes after eight." She stifled a yawn with a ham-like hand, already regauntleted. "Young and old, big and small, they all get it. Guess you get to find one beating looks like another."
"Not that one, officer."
"Funny thing. There was this little ole lady ten days ago. Doing a few miles over, at night. I tell you, when I saw who it was I din't rightly want to do it. Speeding's six. But I had to make the charge. So there she stood, flush in the heads, while I fixed the bike for her. This short white hair, all trim and neat, but with the kin' of can I jus' knew this stinger would whup right through it. And then you know what?"
"What?" Joanna echoed sullenly.
"She lost her water."
"She what?"
"Piddled on the pavement. Jus' like a kid. She didn't look that frightened, but there it was. So I rubbed her nose in it a bit and said that's three for soiling a public highway and then I put her to it and she spread beautiful. I must say I laid on. She took it terrific, a real lady. After the six I asked would she like a rest, before the three, see-'cos I aimed to make them cutters-and she say, 'Put them across me, officer, let's get it over with.' An' I tell you those las' three were real...uh, sign here, would you, lady."
Dressed once more, Cynthia had got back in the car, and signed the Guard's book before Joanna, to an ironic salute from the second one, drove off down the right hand lane.
"JesusBloodyFuckingChrist, that hurt." She twisted actively on the seat.
Joanna was dry-throated. The two Gladiators duly overtook them, their spraddled breeches thrust aggressively back, one gauntlet waving sarcastically as they passed. She climbed to a few miles below the limit and held the car steady there.
"What was it ... what she did to you afterwards?"
"It was totally unnecessary."
"But, what?"
"If you must know she put one of their blasted punishment suppositories up me. We can't leave this highway at limit speed for half an hour. I suppose I can hold it, somehow. Gee, it was a good big thick one, too. Seemed to slide up under my ribs." She writhed one nyloned leg against the next. "They always manage to make it degrading, and coarse. It's their bit. I told you it was another kind of punishment, not just a matter of degree. Christ, but that switch can half take the starch out of you. The trainer's made of sinews."
"Trainer?"
"Tail, dearie." Suddenly she arched with a gasp. "Hell, it's beginning to take effect. I suppose you can't go any faster, Jo. But you can't, can you? Not unless you want six with that brute."
"I'm willing to risk it, Cynth."
"I wouldn't ... I may just be able to ... ungh! God. Mavis has a place ... just off ... take the right at the next clover-leaf." She doubled with a wince, and an accompanying grimace of disgust. "I can't ... it's coming down ... sorry, Jo. Don't mind me if I do this. But it's the only way to beat it. And no pun intended."
Joanna stared straight ahead, her mind in tumult. Her foot eased down a fraction on the gas pedal. Cynthia moaned and squirmed.
"Uh-uhh ... it's too much for me ... I can't ... I've got to go ... there's a shopping bag in back ... oh mercy me!"
Grabbing a handful of Kleenex from a side pocket, she climbed heavily over the seat to the back. Joanna heard her gaspingly emptying a paper bag of its contents. She heard the "adjusting" of clothes, and cut back, compassionately, on the speed. Pink in the cheeks herself, she stole a surreptitious glance in the rearview mirror.
Cynthia's face was tense as she squatted on the seat, gripping the front for balance. Joanna shot her eyes away. There was an intense poignant silence, finally broken by a little grunting whine and a papery thump. Another pause and Cynthia groaned, "I knew these things gave bulk, but this is ... aaah....crazy."
There was again the sound of a potato being dropped into a bag. Then Cynthia said, "Christ, not another!"
Then there were adjustments, rustlings. "I think I'll stay back here for the moment, darling. I guess that's what they call beating the shit out of you, huh?"
Soon she pulled off the auto route onto a leafy lane where, after some miles, Cynthia directed her up a gravel drive to a typical white frame house, similar to their own. She flung open the door and led the way to the steps, insouciantly swinging a paper shopping bag. It made a thud when she dropped it in a trash can. Cynthia commented wryly. "We'll just put this here, shall we."
When she walked up the steps, Joanna noticed that a line of red had seeped through the material on her sister's right hip. She followed her dully into an empty, well-groomed drawing room. She felt she was entering another world.
There was no one there. Cynthia had gone on ahead. Joanna picked at some periodicals when a jingling made her turn. A charming woman of about thirty was coming forward in a light tropical dress. Her pure little-girl face was smiling shyly and she was walking in mincing steps since her ankles were fettered with a golden chain.
"I'm Mavis Smith-Peters," she said wistfully. "I'm sorry I can't shake hands with you properly, but you see how it is."
Her hands remained at waist level. She had on, Joanna saw, a wide leather belt of the type Cynthia had had strapped on her by the Guard, and through a golden ring in front of this a similar narrow chain kept her cuffed wrists closely confined.
"I'm in Restraint for today," she said, smiling sweetly as if that explained everything.