Chapter 3
It's been a wonderful couple of months. Far better than I expected. I realise it's Cathy's 'intelligence that's made it so. She's come up with a neat blend of resistance and compliance. It's made for a very flexible relationship. If I feel like whipping her there's nearly always a legitimate excuse. And for her part she's arrived at what she believes to be the minimum degree of obedience and humility I'll stand for. She nags a bit about being chained and tied and more or less naked, but not more than I find amusing. She's beautiful. The whole thing's beautiful!
She's longing to be screwed. I'll admit that first day I was a bit miffed to discover she wasn't a virgin and had done it a good many times. But that's turned out good too. Before I kidnapped her she'd acquired an appetite for it. Under the right circumstances she enjoyed a good piece of tail. Right from the first she wanted it from me not because I'm me, but because she saw it as a brief bit of happiness in what seemed a damn rough deal. I've refused to give it to her because it keeps her wondering, off balance. If I screwed her every night, she'd think she had me. She'd get uppity. This way it's cute. I catch her looking at me, puzzled. She drops hints.
Shell even use her legs to tempt me. I discover she plays with herself. When I tie her so she can't she gets sulky as all get out. I don't suppose I can abstain forever, but while I do I get a kind of respect from her: keeping her guessing.
There was the one time she went too far.
From that first day she'd often ask me, politely curious, why I didn't do it to her.
When I'd laugh it off she'd drop the subject, not because she wanted to but because girls think they mustn't ask. But this time something grated and she turned on me like a tigress.
"You're gay! That's it! I might have known!'.
If I'd been gay I wouldn't have kidnapped a girl. But she wasn't thinking, she was mad. But she'd hit me wrong. I hate gays and their whole lousy scene. You can't hurt me worse than to call me one of them. I saw red.
Without thinking, I pronounced sentence.
"Twenty."
She sort of recoiled, hand to mouth, eyes wide. By that time she'd come to evaluate her punishments and know the amount of pain she'd have to suffer, from one stroke up. Twenty was bad. I wished I'd stopped to think. But I'd said twenty, so twenty it had to be. As I cooled, I resolved to make 'em a bit lighter than I usually laid them on.
"Oh, Master!"
"Downstairs on the bench. Bottom well up"
She fell to her knees and pushed her hair against my pants, her head was well bowed in submission. Her voice was tremulous.
"I'm sorry. Oh, Master I'm sorry! My fool tongue. Forgive me."
"No one will ever call me that."
She was sobbing. "I didn't know. I didn't know!"
"You'll know for sure when I'm through with you."
She positively wailed in anguish as she rubbed her wet cheek against my thigh. "But, Master, please, not twenty!"
No play acting. All for real. I get the damnedest erections at such times. Like I said, at the start I was half scared of her. But more and more I'm getting a new assurance. Cathy's my slave.
"Don't try and twist me. You know I don't bargain over punishment."
"Oh, Master, twenty's too awful. I can't stand twenty." The last comes out as a despairing wail. She bowed herself lower and beat on the floor beside my shoe with a small clenched fist. "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry! Please, Master, let me say I'm sorry?"
"You've just said it."
"Forgive me oh please?"
I'II admit it would have been easy to pick her up and kiss away the tears. I'd have felt much macho. But it wouldn't have been a good idea. Cathy's right in there if I show a weakness. So I just repeated: "Twenty."
She blinked up at me through her tears. "Master, please! Maybe ten?"
"Twenty."
A nice thing about Cathy is that when she knows she's beat she accepts it and stops snivelling. She did know now. She got to her feet, gave me her best sad reproachful look, and wept her way ahead of me to the room where the bench is. Only her feet were chained. She had her hands for her tears.
At that time I'd had her about five weeks and she was pretty well trained. She was beautifully obedient, she hated being whipped. It was mostly her tongue that got her into trouble. Mostly I did not chain her heavily.
She stood still while I unlocked the shackles from her ankles. She was going to be tied tight with rope and they'd have got in the way. Even when she stood completely free and knew she was about to be terribly punished she didn't do anything silly. By now she'd stopped crying, and in a businesslike way stepped out of the panties I'd let her wear, then arranged her nakedness on the bench the way she knew I liked - she's been on it before. As I tied her ankles, strapped down her waist, and bound her wrists out at the side above her head, she helped. When I went to tie a hand or foot it was already in its place. Cathy was resigned. Now all she had to do was please. She had come to accept that she was a slave, and was doing the best she could with it. I tied her very tightly. Her raised bottom wouldn't do more than quiver.
The ropes were deep into her skin at wrist and ankle. She did not complain, but what she did do was pretty nice. You may say she was just being clever, but I thought she was sincere. I still do.
"Master?"
"Yes, Cathy?"
"I deserve this I don't know about the twenty, that's a terrible punishment. But I shouldn't have said what I did. I wish I hadn't said it. I know it's not true; at least I know it now." She wriggled against the ropes in a way that told me she was embarrassed. "Master, I don't suppose you can believe this, but I didn't say that to get let off anything, honest I didn't! I know you're going to cane me the full, whole lot. I'm saying it because I was an idiot." She paused a moment and then blurted out: "You don't have to say a thing. Just start my punishment."
Amazing, eh! Quite a girl!
In telling you about Cathy and me there's no use giving a blow by blow account of every mark she got on her pretty skin. There were a lot of them. she was constantly getting punished for something or other. In fact, I sometimes figured the deliberately provoked me into giving her some small number of stripes just to relieve whatever tedium she might be feeling or to get us both sexually excited, that's possible too. By the time I'm speaking of she'd been a slave long enough that she could take up to five hard one's on her bottom or back without screaming mostly without much noise at all. It wasn't that she didn't feel 'em as much as ever, it was simply control and getting her ideas about being punished into a proper perspective.
I realised this time was different for her. It was probably the first occasion in which she felt genuinely guilty of something she regretted. From the first cut across her raised bottom, I'd forgotten and made it good and severe, I sensed she was going to be stoic I think that's the word for what the British call a stiff upper lip. She just gasped and tensed. And she kept right on gasping and tensing right through the whole twenty. Not a single scream. Oh sure, I was making them light after the first.
But they hurt plenty. Each one left its red line across those lovely curves. She was experienced enough that she had to know I wasn't going full out, that she was getting off a bit easier than she'd expected, but she didn't say a word. Neither did I.
It would have been an awkward admission for either of us.
"Thank you, Master."
I'd scarcely laid the last cut across her skin before she came out with her ritual thanks. She actually made it sound as though there was a bit of gratitude in it, and maybe there was. That night I roped her in the little cell.
She never spoke the word I hated again.
There's something Cathy hates. It's being left alone.
Can't blame her much, she's always more or less helpless.
But I'm not entirely a loner. I have to be out and around sometimes. So I pull a crafty one on her by once in awhile leaving her tied or chained in the cell or the punishment room, or even the dungeon. If she knows I'm in the house it doesn't affect her too bad. So now when I go out I don't let her know. I put her safe and go. But the idea got to bothering me too, finally it gave me the notion. The notion is part of this story and comes later. But first there happened something that damn near scared me out of my skin.
I'd been out for the afternoon. When I came back to the house from the garage the small broken pane of glass was like a scream of warning in the night.
I kept my cool. It might be nothing or it might be everything. I had to find out about Cathy and if she'd been found. I let myself in silently and went on tiptoe to the door that led to the steps downstairs where my slave girl was locked in her cell. Sure enough, there was a light.
Talk about luck! From the bottom step I could look down the passage to where a woman was also doing a tiptoe act. I could tell she was youngish. She had a camera kit slung from one shoulder. She was just approaching Cathy's cell, when she drew level with the bars she stopped dead, sort of frozen by what she saw inside.
I had but one thought. This snooper must not talk to Cathy. If they communicated I was sunk. I leaped down that passage with a speed that caused the interloper to to turn and view me with pure horror. She was younger than l'd thought and I expect I was a frightening sight.
She fought like a fury. I could have beaten her down with my fists, but I didn't. I don't think there's many of men who'd fight a woman the same way we'd fight a man. but I did manage to drag her away from the bars and down the passage a bit.
I'll never forget Cathy's startled face or the way she ran to the bars and gripped them The main bout got started then. I only won it by being quite brutal and twisting her arm up behind her back. That way I got her into one of the rooms, pushed her back into a closet and locked the door on her. Panting, I retrieved the satchel she'd lost in the tussle and examined the contents. I had to know what sort of a tiger I had by the tail.
A camera, not too expensive, a light meter, the usual junk. There were letters, a little money, a bank book showing a four dollar balance, and a driver's license. Her name was Nancy Dwight. Nothing to tell me why she was snooping in my house. I set it all aside, found handcuffs and slipped them in my pocket, and unlocked the closet door on which she had been steadily pounding.
She leaped at me like a cat. So we did it all over again. She lost bits of her cute little frock and her bra strap broke, but I finally managed to turn her on her face and get a knee in her back. She was tired by then and getting the handcuffs on her wrists wasn't all that hard. I clicked them too tight. I was mad and scared! The silly bitch was messing up my life,.
When I got off her she struggled awkwardly to her feet, pulling madly at the handcuffs behind her back as though she really expected to break the connecting link. Her breath was coming hard and fast as she backed into a corner and glared at me. I said the first thing that come to mind.
"I'll call the police after you've told me what you're up to.
She didn't answer at first, just stood at bay assessing me. I saw now that, even with a smudged face and torn clothes, she was a damn pretty girl. One conical breast was peeping shyly at me through a tear.
"YOU call the police!" All the indignation in the world was in that first word. "You're some sort of a kidnapper I knew there had to be something!"
"Tell me more." I suggested pleasantly.
She twisted her shoulders and gave an extra hard tug at the cuffs. "Well, look what you've done to me! Let me loose.
"What's your line? Burglary?" I motioned to the camera. "Blackmail."
It hit her hard. If she hadn't seen a naked girl locked in a cell her position was damn weak. Even having seen Cathy, it wasn't that good.
"You can let me go." She gives me a real haughty sniff. "I won't lay charges about what what you've done to me. You can just pay me for the dress."
That was better. But I had to know. "I asked you question" "I'm a press photographer." "Where's your Press Card?" Hating me, she says: "I don't have one.
I'm free lance."
"Where have you been published?"
"I haven't yet, I've only just..."
She broke off in confusion and looked sheepish. She tried to pick up the slack by snapping at me.
"I suppose you know these these things you've put on my wrists are hurting me."
"Why are you in my house?"
Damn her wrists! Right then I couldn't have cared less. But she did look amusing boiling over with indignation, and wondering what lie to invent.
"This isolated house looked interesting - the trees. It's a bit eerie. I made inquiries and learned there was a man no one knew. When I came back for a second look I felt sure the place was deserted. It does look like it, you've let the garden go to weeds. So I broke in. I know it was wrong, and I'll pay for the glass. If you like, we can can call it quits about my dress."
She looked at me hopefully. But I wasn't a bit sure.
"Oh, come on. You can do better than that."
"Well it's the truth. I've just got to sell something soon or I won't eat." She stared back at me defiantly. "My intuition wasn't that far wrong that poor girl down the passage! In a cell! Boy, what a story!"
"It's not necessarily what you think."
She sneered. "Your wife, I suppose? Naked!"
How lucky could I be! It wasn't often I locked Cathy in there without either the handcuffs of the collar, but this was one of those times. I took a shot in the dark.
"And what was this poor naked girl doing?"
My captive looked sheepish. "Reading a book."
"Well, well, not using a file on the bars or screaming for help!"
The sarcasm reached her. She tossed her head angrily but kept silent. A second bit of luck occurred to me. Cathy was wearing a pair of panties that hid the worst of her welts. If snoopy here had seen any she'd have blurted it out for sure. She herself now came out with the answer.
"There wasn't time for anything. She was getting ready to say something when you grabbed me. Look here, there's no need for these handcuffs. I'm not a bandit.
They hurt. It's damn fishy you having a pair - what are you."
"I write. Hence the solitude."
"Who's your publisher?"
She snapped it at me quick, hoping to score. I'd stretched the truth once, now I had to do it twice.
"Ballantyne, and some stuff with Random House*."
She wilted a bit under those names. "Well, now we've been sort of introduced you can let me go. I'm sorry I've been a nuisance."
"Get back in the closet."
She visibly flinched., "No I won't! It's horrible in there in the dark. Besides, why would I!" She looked genuinely puzzled. "I mean, why do you want to lock me in there?"
"I have to make some phone calls. Can you give me a reference I can call to check on you?"
She squirmed and her breast came through completely. She looked down at it in surprise and, quite laughably, tried to wriggle it back in. The face she turned to me was pink. "Look what you've done! and no, I don't have numbers to give you. I just came here. But there's the apartment manager. The office number is nine four three seven one six eight. I think there's his card in my satchel."
"Into the closet you go."
"Damn you. That's a rotten way to treat me. I'll get terribly frightened alone in there.
Look, will it be for long?"
"Half an hour."
"It will seem like days."
"I can't help that."
She shrugged resignedly. Then did the cutest thing - smart too'. She backed up to me, bent forward a bit, and raised and wiggled her handcuffs at me."
"You'll wear those."
She shrugged again. I suppose she figured it was a good try. Without a word she flounced her way to the closet, turned, and let me have a glare of hurt resentment, then stepped inside.
I locked her in.
Can you believe that kidnapping a girl is like marrying her? Your lives interlock.
What happens to one involves the other. I'd no sooner closed the door on Nancy Dwight than I hotfooted it down the passage to Cathy. Even before I got there I could see her knuckles 'round the bars. Her face was a study.
"What have you done with her?" She'd been bursting to ask.
"Locked her in a closet."
"Oh, thank God!"
She buried her face in her hands and started to cry, a sort of hysterical sobbing. I stood there like an idiot. This was something new.
"What's the matter, Cathy? What's wrong?"
"I thought you were killing her."
The shocking words came to me though her muffling hands. They were faint and broken by sobs, but they struck me like a thunderclap. I was horrified.
"You thought I'd do that!"
She didn't answer right away. But sobbed away her tears and finished them off with my handkerchief, for which she reached through the bars as though knowing I'd offer it. Then she cocked a questioning eye at me, an eye stricken by an awful knowledge.
"What else can you do with her! She's seen me."
Like I said, Cathy's got brains. Right off she'd seen what I was still trying not to see.
She'd hit the nail right on the head. What the devil was I going to do with that blasted girl back there in the closet! What indeed!
"Set your mind at rest." I said, a bit hurt. "I'm not killing anybody."
She brightened. Then in the natural way she'd become used to, she thrust both hands at me between two bars. In an absent minded way, I took the handcuffs from the hook on the passage wall where I'd hung them when we had earlier done the reverse motions, and tightened them upon her wrists. It was understood between us now that she would never be allowed an unfettered freedom in which she might be tempted to do something silly. then I unlocked the door and went in the cell with her. I sat on the cot while she knelt before me. all her slave actions had become ingrained. Her handcuffed wrists rested easily in her lap. I told her the story.
"What will you do with her, Master?"
"I don't know."
"She sounds a little stupid. Maybe, Master, if you say the right things she'll just be glad to go and do nothing."
I gave my slave girl a look she understood. She clinked her cuffs in an admission of guilt.
"I'm sorry, Master, that was feeble." She gazed up at me appealingly. "Forgive me for wanting freedom. I know perfectly well she'd go straight to the police. a naked girl behind bars in a cell makes too good a story. She'd have nothing to lose. Will I be punished for that?"
"No."
Cathy made me see the trap I was in with such a hard shocking clarity. That damn girl in the closet had my life in her hands. I wasn't about to kill her, but I could well see why some chaps did kill girls in binds like that. What could I do with her! Apart from being scared, I was irritated enough to want to go in there and whip her silly bottom the rotten little snoop!
For a little while we were silent with our thoughts. In between wondering what to do with my amateur photographer I caught a glimpse of a knowledge Cathy must be finding bitter. If I'd stayed away thirty minutes longer, she'd have been free by now.
In her place I'd have been tearing my hair and swearing. But then I switched back to worrying about me. In the middle of it a small quiet voice said.: "Cedric?"
Cathy's use of my silly name was about on a par with all the rest. I looked down at her in surprise. I could tell she was up to something.
"You thought of something?"
"Yes, Master." She sort of squirmed and looked embarrassed. "But I don't know how to say it."
"Say it anyway."
"Promise you won't punish me?'.
Ordinarily, that bit of wheedling would have got her five with the cane right quick.
Masters don't have to promise slaves anything. But I remembered her voice when she'd pronounced my name. I was curious.
"I'll only punish you if you don't come out with it."
"It's crazy and you almost have to be suspicious."
"What file hell of?"
"Me and my motives."
"Out with it."
"You're in trouble, Cedric. I don't want to get you angry and be beaten."
My name again! She had me going., "Alright, alright! I promise."
"She only got a quick look at me through the bars."
"So?"
"She didn't have time to see my whip marks. But she must have noticed I wore panties, your most respectable pair. I wasn't chained or tied. I was reading a book."
Cathy was recapitulating, marshalling facts. Her eyes were on me, but intent.
"You were still locked in a call." I said glumly.
"She can't be sure of that." Cathy had become eager.
"She did not try the door. I didn't run to the bars until the fight started."
"Does all this prove something?"
"It proves I could get dressed and go in there and laugh her out of her confidence.
Make her feel a fool."
Masterly, wasn't it! It takes a woman! Then I saw the hitch.
"She'd never buy it. Not with you handcuffed or your ankles chained."
"I wouldn't be handcuffed or chained."
She said it quietly, a little fearfully. Her eyes were very anxious.
"Then you'd just walk out with her and go home, Or to the police."
"No."
We looked at each other, seeing only the shocking thing she had propounded.
Everything was closing in on me. Even my own slave girl was able to jockey me into a comer.
"Cathy, don't be silly. You'd be crazy not to. Even if I tried to subdue the two of you, one would get away for sure."
She nodded. "Yes, I know. This is why I'm scared you'll punish me. It's an outrageous proposition and I'd deserve to be whipped if it wasn't sincere." she looked up at me earnestly. "I wouldn't even try to escape."
This had to be nuts! Cathy sounded so damn genuine. But I expect my face was loaded with doubt.
"Why, Cathy, why*?"
"Look, Master. I'm not going to call you Cedric any more. Try and look at this from where I'm at. I'm in as much of a bind as you. First, look at these handcuffs."
She held up her linked hands and I looked at them.
"I'm always helpless, aren't I. I'm never given the faintest hope of escape. Right?"
"I suppose so."
"No matter what you do with this Dwight girl I'll remain a hopeless prisoner. Is that not so?"
"No need to make it sound so awful."
"So I've nothing to lose?"
There was excitement in her voice as she made her points. I couldn't see where we were headed but I sure wanted to know.
"No you haven't." I said morosely. "The loss is all mine."
"So! If I go to work on little brighteyes and either succeed or fail, I then let you chain me again and go back to square one. I haven't lost a thing."
"Except a marvellous chance at freedom."
"Not really. The chance could not exist under any other terms but these."
I think it's what they call "devious logic", I couldn't pick a hole in it other than it was far out - far, far out! But, for sure, one thing screamed aloud.
"You'd be doing this to save my neck, Why?"
Her eyes became very large. She was ready with her points though she stumbled a bit at the start.
"Look, you've kept me your slave a long time now. We've got to know each other.
You've refused to sleep with me. I don't know why; you've known I wanted you physically. We're not in love with each other, so that doesn't enter into this. But I don't hate you." She grinned ruefully. "Except sometimes when you whip me. I certainly don't hate you enough to make me want to see you go to prison for life. Maybe I'm crazy, but I wouldn't want that. I just wouldn't! What you've done to me is something you felt you had to do even the pain."
Her voice became as still as her body. She looked down at the handcuffs in her lap.
I hadn't a thing to say. I mean, when you're offered the world you can't just say "Thanks", I had never seen her more beautiful.
"It's a sort of parole." I said stupidly.
"Just trust me, Master."
I trusted her.
I mean - what the hell...
It was quite a moment when I took off her handcuffs. We both recognised it as symbolic. Cathy did a strange thing. She took my hand and kissed it lightly. Just a brush of her lips but it burned like fire. Then she got to her feet briskly. It was a good thing I didn't have to speak. I couldn't have done it not with that lump in my throat.
For a few minutes we were busy as bees. We planned while she dressed and fixed her face. The first time I'd stripped her before tying her to the bed I'd kept all her clothes. They were undamaged. She was tremendously pleased to see them. She even took my panties off and put hers on. It's true what they say about clothes.
They're far more erotic than nudity. Watching, I even Considered if I'd let her dress sometimes afterwards if there was an afterwards!
"I'll have to let her out, Master."
I gave her the keys to the closet, and the handcuffs.
"Oh damn!" She grinned at me. "I can't call you Master again until after. Since we're supposed to be married I'll mix in a few darlings with the Cedrics."
Strange how I trusted her.
I do have a study and I do have a typewriter. I put a sheet of paper in it and scattered others around. My heart was thumping. There was nothing to stop those two girls trotting off down the road. I might never see 'em again except in Court!
I made sure I was tapping busily when laughter heralded their entry. I looked up as though they'd interrupted a genius at work. They must have been busy with girl tricks. They both looked smart as mannequins. Nancy Dwight seemed a bit stunned, but not unhappy.
"Cedric dear, this is all too idiotic." Cathy was giggling enough to get a smile out of our guest.
"I still don't like snoopers." I said uncompromisingly.
"Nancy's explained all that." My one time slave girl waved away my objection with an airy hand. "I might have done the same thing myself. Look darling, I think we owe her a drink. and she's going to stay for dinner."
I let out a sad, sad sigh over leaving my authorship, but said politely. "Well, O.K.
Let's go have the drink. Maybe I could use one myself."
Cathy was a miracle. Girls have a natural gift for dissembling. I suppose it comes from twisting men all around their fingers for centuries. Between her own hot effervescence and the gin, Nancy Dwight blossomed. I wouldn't have given her points for real intelligence. But once she'd forgotten the closet and the handcuffs she became a very acceptable bit of female. I had to entertain her while Cathy prepared dinner. I was on tenterhooks the whole time, wondering how she was making out. We'd decided it had to be her and not me who did the job. But I suppose a bit of absent mindedness is forgivable in an author. I began to have a feeling things were going to work out.
I needn't have worried. Like I said, Cathy is a miracle.
Being a husband, I grumbled a bit but ate it with relish. Nancy was now enjoying herself immensely. She insisted on helping with the dishes. I let them go, and for several minutes heard the echo of their laughter. They were having a ball. It looked as though we'd won our battle.
When Cathy came in alone I could tell from her face we were sunk. She had a finger on her lips.
"I have to hurry. She thinks I'm in the john. Whatever you decide will have to be quick." she whispered "That damn girl's just dropped a bomb, she's going to write an article on us and try to sell it."
"Can't we talk her out of it?"
"It's worse than that. She's going to a big newspaper and the police."
"What in hell for?"
My slave girl waved her hands in disgust. "She's talking about it as though I ought to be pleased. That cell jolted her. She says that even though I seem free and happy I may be under some sort of compulsion. 'Coercion' is what she suspects. I can't laugh her out of it. She says for me not to worry because, either way, I'm going to be alright. And she's got it in for you over those handcuffs. Oh Master!"
My mind raced. I didn't waste time wondering why Cathy was so incredibly loyal.
That was a miracle by itself for another time. I considered holding our guest long enough to get rid of the house and move away. But that was hopeless, tracing would be easy. The fool of a girl was almost asking to be murdered...
Then I remembered my notion. "Cathy."
"Yes, Master?
"Remember the times you've been scared to be left a prisoner here alone?"
She nodded.
"How'd you like company?"
It was so simple we almost laughed.
Cathy's whisper trilled amusement. "But Master: two of us!"
"Why not!"
"Master, I may hate her."
"No you won't. Besides, she's to be your slave, not mine."
Cathy's eyes widened in delight. She put a hand over her mouth to stem giggles.
We headed for the kitchen.
Nancy Dwight wasn't there.
Neither was her satchel.
We caught her at the car. In her rush to get away she'd pushed the wrong key into the ignition. This was our third fight. Without Cathy's help I would have been obliged to hurt her. For Nancy, this one was a no holds barred. She probably guessed what she was fighting for.
Her life?
Certainly a good portion of it.