Chapter 7
She said she'd been renamed Delphine. She made me undress. Then she put the bracelets on my wrists. There was a whole box-full of the bracelets. She said they were terribly expensive and each was individual to the girl who wore them. They locked on and no one knew where the key was until the day the girl left and they went back in the box. They were quite heavy and she found a pair that fitted me snug as could be. Each had a ring. When she pushed the rings together they snapped into each other. She invited me to get them loose. I couldn't. It seemed crazy that I couldn't. But there was just no way! She did it for me and told me it was just the girls who had no sponsor who wore the bracelets.
It seemed Mr. Dimbleby did not approve of handcuffs. He said they were plebeian and not quite respectable. Templar standards were high. I asked her if she had whip marks under her dress and she said yes of course she had. She smiled readily. I liked her. In between thinking of my master I liked her a lot.
It hadn't been easy for me to go through the door and leave him on the other side. I made it look like it was easy, but it wasn't. I knew if I looked sad or scared he'd kill his big experiment. I was sad and scared but I wanted to go through with what we started. I wanted to get married to man without hangups. Cedric had taught me slavery, I wasn't worried about keeping him happy that way. But he had a guilt complex over me: as though I'd be getting into something I did not understand. I did not think there was anything about what he'd made me do that I did not understand perfectly. But still...I'm female and curious, "With no sponsor, you'll be sort of 'at large'." Delphine explained. "That means any man can take you. The first few days here are awfully difficult. It's a good thing you've been whipped as much as I can see you have. A lot of those marks, are quite recent, aren't they."
"Will I... will they... oh damn, will I be screwed?"
"Yes. Does it bother you?"
"Noo, but I thought there was none of that here?"
"You know men, Cathy." She grinned. "When they punish us they get the darndest erections - can't blame 'em really."
"Does Mr. Dimbleby?"
Delphine giggled. "No, not him! Anyway, I don't think he can get it up. He professes to think it vulgar. But he sure does enjoy watching while a girl gets a bad time. He never whips me but he likes to stand there approvingly like a sort of High Priest."
"Is there some sort of initiation?"
"Not really. But you probably won't like what happens now." She turned me about and snapped my bracelets so they were joined behind my back. They made me as helpless as handcuffs had ever done. "Now we'll go out and meet the family."
"I've had some introductions."
"Not naked, you haven't. We're all different girls without our clothes." She paused awkwardly. "Look, darling, you have to be nice to everyone. We get punished if we're not. And we are punished for sarcasm and wisecracks. Anyone can do what they damn well please with us and we have to pretend we like it. Half the time we do of course. You are into B & D, aren't you.?"
"I was kept prisoner and enslaved for months."
"You're lucky. It's the very devil for girls who start out cold. There actually are a few. The men lap 'em up like virgins." Her face clouded. "There are some ripe bastards out there. I can't shield you. My status is the same as yours. Some guy may grab me directly we go out. All he has to do is close my bracelets. But there's one good thing: with those welts on your skin, most won't bother. But if your back or behind were bare white it wouldn't be five minutes before you were triced up."
Naked in a public place.
No hands.
Oh golly!
The Templars came in all kinds. Some were nice. Some prodded me like I was a cow. One chap insisted on looking at my teeth. Another made me bend over so he could push a finger up my rectum. I realised I was being tested. Gosh, was I humble and polite! I wondered if my blush would ever wear off. It was almost no time before some fellow took Delphine by the hand and led her away. She looked at me helplessly and I was on my own.
I'd be whipped.
Or worse!
We saw each other the moment he came in the door. One of those instant recognitions of someone you have never seen before. He strode to me as though by assignation.
"New today?"
"Yes, Master."
"Part broken, eh?"
"Yes, Master."
He excluded the rest. I was for him only. He gathered my hair into a taloned hand and jerked my head this way and that, scrutinising my features, turning me full face and profile. Then, at arm's length, he caresses my breasts and belly. My sex received the individual attention of a grasping hand.
"Why aren't you wet?"
"No one has made me so, Master."
He was not young, maybe fifty. Tall, big boned, a craggy face, his eyes deep and private beneath brutal brows. He used few words, shooting them at me in muted staccatos.
"You know why you are here?"
"To be punished, Master."
He permitted me a half smile. "What else can a man do with a girl!"
"He can love her, Master."
He shrugged. "They are one and the same."
His intent eyes never left me, but his thoughts seemed absently elsewhere. I sensed his vision of me, screaming. I shivered.
"Frightened?"
"Yes, Master."
"So you should be, come."
He propelled me, his hand grasping my hair as though I might seek escape. I was scarce aware of faces, but carry an impression that none were curious. Perhaps they turned discreetly from a slave girl about to be thrashed. Or was I now a 'subject'! I supposed I was.
"What's your name?"
"Cathy, Master. Or Catherine."
He stopped our purposeful march, jerking my head, turning me to be once more assessed.
'Wrong for you. You're a natural Elayne. Elayne is a slave's name. Understand me?"
"Yes, Master. I am Elayne."
"Not always this tractable, are you?"
"No, Master."
"What's your fault?"
"I am flippant and sarcastic, Master."
"Humph, I'll deal with it!"
We resumed our march.
The room was well appointed, more so than most. He released my bracelet rings and seated himself comfortably.
"Lay out the crops and and canes."
I sought and found the wicked things and laid them on the floor for his approval.
"Which of them do you. wish to be thrashed with?"
I picked the least painful and proffered it.
"Honest choice. Put it away." .
I put it back where I found it. Following his pointing finger, I knelt where we could both examine the things he would use to mark my skin. He discussed with me the relative venom of each.
"What are you ,Elayne?"
"I am a slave, Master."
"Whose?"
"His name is Cedric Hollings, Master."
"Get me a whip, Elayne."
I found one of the hated things and had scarce placed it in his hand before it slashed across my shoulders and then my thighs. I screamed and fled. The whip followed, cutting me wherever my panic turned.
"Kneel."
Trembling and sobbing I knelt as before.
"Whose slave, Elayne?
"Your slave, Master."
It had been thus always.
He was in no hurry to whip me. I was sent for drinks and found my way as best I could, none halting or querying my quest. One of the stray girls helped and whispered wisdom. I adored my bracelets and was scared to death of them. Once more I knelt. Proffering the tiny tray.
"May it please you, Master."
"You please me. Kneel as before. You may drink."
His talk was mostly questions. From them I gleaned his view of Cedric my first master, as a callow youth. In his eyes no doubt he would be. I dared not protest.
The stripes from his whip still scorched my skin.
"Has he not whipped your cunt?"
"No, Master.
"I will remedy that too. But with the proper tool."
"Thank you, Master."
"No sarcasms?"
"I fear you, Master."
"And your favourite punishment?"
"I have no favourite, Master. I wish none of them."
"There is a reason you are here."
I told him my story. All of it. He listened and was amused. It was a child's tale told to an adult. In the middle of it he sent me for drinks . He sipped quietly as I spoke of slavery and love. I gulped my potion between paragraphs. His comment was brief.
"It begins today, Elayne."
"Today, Master?"
"Stand beneath the bar."
Breathless I stood. The Templars had things easy. One wrist ring snapped to one end, its fellow to the other. A motor whirred until I stood upon my toes, "You have been caned thus before, Elayne?"
"Yes, Master - often."
"The boy had sense. Your breasts and pubes would be wasted on a bench."
"The cane hurts more upon the bench, Master."
"Did he not score you with a crop and draw your blood."
"A crop, Master. But never to cut my skin."
"I will attend it another time. The instrument is not here."
"Thank you, Master."
"Glad, aren't you that it's not to hand?"
"Forgive me, Master."
"It starts now, Elayne. Your most bitter pain."
I did not answer. But looked back fearfully as he made his choice. Why oh why was I here when I need not have been! I was stupid, flirting with fire, wanton.
Nostalgically I though of Cedric and The Humbolt and our home. I was a fool, an idiot girl wading into something beyond her depth!
He thrashed me without mercy. Bitter, bitter blows across the ripeness of my cheeks and thighs. The cane he had chosen was alive, a hateful limber cruelty cutting me from hip to hip.
I did not scream. I cannot tell you why, other than as a measure of this man's total possession of me. It seemed implicit that I should not scream. A thing understood between the two of us. Our first collusion. Instead, I writhed, I contorted. My legs flailed so that I feared he would surely tie my ankles. But he did not. It is a pretty sight to see a naked girl display her limbs in agony.
Suddenly it stopped. A hand thrust apart my burning thighs and grasped my sex. It squeezed and kneaded until I moaned. Its owner came and stood before me and held up the wetness he had garnered from my swollen lips. He made me clean his hand with my tongue. His male skin had a potency of flavour drowning the taste of me. He took his hand from my mouth while I still would have been content to lick it.
My thrashing continued.
After a century of pain I was set free, my loins ablaze. "Crawl!"
I crawled to where he sat. I was sobbing and uncaring of degradation.
"You know what to do."
I kissed his shoes. Again and again my lips sought the leather. I wanted no more of that cane.
"Wash my feet."
I paused at what seemed a strange request. But looking up at him, I knew what I must do. Feverishly, I removed his shoes and socks. Hating myself, I took his big toe in my mouth and sucked as though privileged.
"No flippancy's, Elayne?"
"No, master."
He waited until I had sucked and licked his feet as clean as they could ever be.
When I retied the last lace, he said bluntly: "Ask me to fuck you."
His cane had taken my courage. But I looked up in dismay. "Using that word, Master?"
"Now."
"Please fuck me, Master."
"Where?"
Inwardly I squirmed. "Where it may please you, Master."
"Name the places."
I named them.
He used them all - all three.
That night he took me to a small stone chamber and collared me so that my neck was tethered to the wall by six feet of chain above the tiny cot. He left without a word. I thought yearningly of Cedric and cried myself to sleep.
A whip cut my skin.
A month!
Ravished.
He was called Ravel. The Templars ignored me, treating me as his. Nothing was said, but he took me for his own. I was both frightened and fascinated by a treatment more ruthless than I had ever known. He whipped my skin and pierced my sex with a dark intent purpose that left me nothing of myself. When my despair approached hysteria he would suddenly be kind. His favourite relaxation was to affix my bracelets as for a whipping, and then to sit before me ten feet distant as I stood upon my toes. Cringingly expectant, I would await the lash that did not come.
His eyes would devour me all the time whilst intermittently he would talk.
"Elayne, do I pleasure you?"
"Master, you are incredible."
I had no need to lie. His virility was such as legends are made of. My violations followed my thrashings to take me to a peak of sensitivity and out beyond into a dark world of screams and ecstatic agonies. He had the power to keep me thus for hours on end to leave me limp and devoid of will. Loving and hating and lost.
"You are looking forward to the crop that will mark you for life?"
"No, Master."
Three fearful lashes with the cane, When would I learn! In among my moans he tossed my cue.
"Try again, Elayne."
"I want you to mark me for life with your crop, Master."
He was erratic and unpredictable. I never knew what the night would bring. A cell.
A dungeon. Or simply abandoned at large to find my own resting place. My wristlets might or might not be locked. Twice I managed to spend a comfortable and happy night with Delphine. At night Ravel went away. He was a mystery.
He made a big production out of the event he had primed me to fear. He told me it would happen. Then fastened me in his favourite pose, stretched and on my toes. he drank as he talked to me, but would give me none. He savoured my shivering fear. I knew him well enough by then not to plead.
He had it in a slender case which he placed upon the bench and opened before my cringing gaze. He fingered the strange thin strip of whalebone or whatever it was fashioned from with love. His eyes glowed and his fingers flexed and tested the extraordinary suppleness that was neither crop nor whip but a creation all his own. By the time he turned to me I was breathless.
At such a time I should have though of Cedric and the warm normalcy I had turned my back upon. But I did not. In the night and in the morning I cursed my folly often but when in the presence of Ravel my awareness was for him alone. He absorbed me by his strength and unnamed preoccupation with the enslavement and agonies of girls. I learned I was not his first. But, while we were together, none existed save myself.
"Ask for it."
How delicious his cruelty! How well considered for my abasement! I dared do naught else but plead.
"Whip me, Master. Please. Now."
"On what part of you, Elayne?"
I had never even thought of it. There was nowhere "Master Please! I don't know oh Please!"
He sneered at my fear. I followed his contemptuous steps to the place where he could strike me best. Then turned my head to stare only at the wall. My heart was pounding at my breast with frightening thuds.
It was quite different. I had expected that. It was the difference between a bruise and cut. What I had not expected was his choice of my back, barely below my shoulders. Its wound began beneath one armpit and spent itself below the other. I am not certain of the sounds I made or of the motions of my limbs. I am glad. I don't want to remember.
Ravel gave me the three promised wounds in fairly rapid succession. The agony mounted in such a crescendo that my consciousness became blurred. I remember his eyes as he came and stared: eyes alight with his own joy and a terrible, terrible hunger. He took me there, standing. His thrusts of such force that he used an arm to hold my loins receptive to his piercing. A long time afterwards a girl came and laved the three spaced cuts across my back with water and then with an antiseptic that made me moan anew. I hung there for the day.
I think the Templars saw my cut back as a symbol, a brand marking my ownership.
They were examined and much admired. Certainly they were well and carefully cared for so that they should heal rapidly and well. Ravel adored them. I knew, with a terrible certainty, he hungered to etch more of them upon my skin. Delphine told me of a girl he had almost killed.
The wounds hurt me little after a couple of days, except at those times when Ravel forced me to the floor and held my shoulders down while he used my sex. He did it on purpose, loving my pain. He forced me to tell him my orgasms were of a double intensity because of my cut back screaming beneath his male weight. My shame was that it was true. I had never known such concentrations of sensory joy. They left me limp and uncaring of anything but him. I had become a not unwilling vessel for both his pain and his sperm.
In between, I hated him.
Owen changed things.
He joined the Templars on the first of three days during which Ravel had warned of absence. Ravel had told me I was "at large" but left me without guidance. I did not ask him for orders, I feared what they might be. I had little hope of surcease. If Ravel did not use me someone else would.
I was serving drinks in the Lounge, a self appointed task that made me less obviously available. I was naked, flaunting my stripes. I was always kept naked.
Other girls sometimes were allowed clothes, but never me. Busily doing little, I became aware of eyes. The eyes were, behind spectacles and followed me assiduously. Their owner was a slight, nondescript young man who looked as little like a Templar as might be. He appeared lost and lonely and did not belong. I thrust my beaten breasts forward and offered him my tray.
"Oh I say, that's frightfully decent of you."
British, but not a Dimbleby! He seemed so innocent he stole my sympathy. A rising pinkness attested to his observation of my female parts.
"Your first time, Master?"
He visibly jumped at sound of the title. He was probably mostly addressed as "Hey you".
"Well, yes, actually" He blinked and gulped. "I say, you do know, don't you you don't have any clothes on?"
"You mean I'm naked?"
"Well yes. I though perhaps something had slipped, y'know - fallen off."
He was dead serious. Not trying to be funny. He was trying not to see my breasts, so looked at them all the harder.
"Nice, aren't they!"
"The drinks? Oh delicious."
"No. My breasts."
He gulped and downed the cocktail. "Oh really, Miss"
"I've been named Elayne, Master."
"Jolly nice name. Mine's Owen." He dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. "Are all these chaps, and girls and things, and you - I mean well, do they all do they actually?"
For few moments I turned so that he enjoyed a close-up of my back. "Does that answer your question, Master?"
"Good heavens! Did you do - I mean, misbehave or something?
"No Master. I am whipped because it gives pleasure to Templars."
"But that's pretty awful. Your back! You've been whipped many times!"
"Are you going to whip me, Master?"
He took another drink to tide him over the shock. "You mean I could? You'd let me?"
"I couldn't stop you, Master if you'd tied me properly."
"That's what I love: the reason I'm here. To tie up a naked girl!
"Don't look so embarrassed, Master. That's why everyone is here."
"Do you call all the men Master?"
"If I didn't, Master, I'd be punished."
Poor little chap! I felt sorry for him. Or perhaps I selfishly, thought I'd be a lot safer with him than one of the others. I had also had a couple of drinks. The idea. of teasing this innocence appealed. Delphine had come into view, clothed. I beckoned.
At the introduction he insisted on formally shaking hands. "Are you a matron, a hostess perhaps visiting?"
Delphine shared my mood. "Oh, the clothes! Pay no attention to them. It's mostly a dress, nothing underneath."
"Well"
"It comes off easily. Did you want to pick me up or something? We have lovely rooms?"
"Oh I say, do you get paid? I mean a commission? Are you?
"No we are not! Don't look so anxious. We're quite nice girls. We've been put here to please, and to get the sharp edges knocked off our personalities." She giggled, "They do it with a, whip. Have you noticed Elayne's back and bottom?"
He reeled a bit under the word 'bottom' but rallied strongly. "You seem awfully cheerful?"
"I love it. Except most of the chaps go too far. I'm sure you wouldn't though. Want to practice on us?"
"That's awfully decent"
"Start by grabbing a handful of Elayne's cunt. Here, darling, let me take the tray."
Even for me the suggestion was a shock. It defeated Owen totally. He replaced his empty glass on my tray and fled.
But it was not over.
The following day I was claimed early and taken to one of the rooms by a Templar who seemed to have other things on his mind. He stood me against the wall and locked my bracelets to rings. Then left.
Ten minutes later Owen walked briskly in.
He had evidently come to grips with himself and B & D. There was a "do or die" quality in his inspection of my freely available charms.
"Sorry about yesterday."
"It does not matter, Master."
"I'm going to tie you up. Found this on the news-stand. Like to see how practical ..."
It was one of the better glossies, a quality magazine. On its cover a nude maiden, exquisitely bound with a white nylon rope, knelt at the feet of what was presumably her master. His hand was in her hair.
"These people do it awfully well." said Owen.
"I'm afraid you'll have to unlock me, Master."
"Oh! Well, of course." His briskness faded a bit. "I suppose you - you will let me?"
"Yes, Master, I'll let you tie me any way you wish."
He fumbled with my bracelets, breathing heavily at the gates of paradise.
I had to stand at attention with my breasts stuck out. Beautifully painless. I wondered if I could doze! He locked the bracelets behind my back and tied my elbows together. He should have taken lessons from the chap on the magazine cover. But he managed to hurt me a bit, and anyway I couldn't get loose.
He then tied my ankles, a fair job. embarrassment radiating in waves.
When he came to doing my knees I could feel the A man bending to such a task can hardly pretend to be far from an unforgivable word. He fumbled from one side to the other, but my pubic hair defeated him. He knelt.
"You're very lovely, Elaine."
"I'm glad you like it, Master."
"It! Oh, oh yes. Oh dear! I really didn't mean..."
"Yes you did, Master."
I would never have dared with Ravel. It was a relief to be a bit myself with Owen.
"Well, I must admit."
"You can use my pussy if you wish, Master."
The result of that coy suggestion was surprising. Without preamble, pause of by your leave, he thrashed my bottom savagely with the first cane that came to hand, fortunately for me, not the most severe..
"Let that be a lesson to you."
We were both panting. He from exertion and me from pain and shock. He'd even made me scream. It was the sort of caning Ravel gave me when he was a bit bored.
My bottom blazed. I twisted until I was in danger of falling. My boy was feeling his oats. I'd better be respectful. It was a chastening thought that even Owen could improve my humility with a cane. Dimbleby would be delighted.
"I'm sorry, Master."
"In England a lady does not use such words."
"They call it a fanny there, don't they?"
He started in on me again. But I wailed and howled so much he desisted, and held my arm to steady me from falling.
"Watch your tongue, Elayne."
"I'm terribly sorry, master. I will be good. I promise."
He wiped my tears. He did it competently since he was not close to any of my more intimate portions. He was suddenly very macho.
"I was sorry to have to cane you over all those those cane marks."
"It doesn't matter, Master. I get caned a lot."
"Why don't you behave better. A nice girl like you shouldn't have to be constantly punished."
"I will try, master."
Poor idiot! If he only knew! He was another evidence of how men prefer to have a supposedly good reason to whip the girl they control. My mention of my un- offending pussy had put justice into partnership with lust to give me a very tender bottom. It had also sent Owen's inhibitions scurrying. But there was still one left.
"There's a picture here in fact there are quite a number. This, this arrangement seems absolutely de rigueur over here."
He showed me the picture. I almost laughed. The rope was wickedly cinched into the model's crotch. I wondered if they got paid extra.
"I'm afraid you'd have to untie my legs, Master. Or sort of thread the rope through between my thighs."
Poor Owen! He just had a tiger by the tail and was, himself the tiger. He was blushing but thrilled.
"I don't quite get the motive. I mean, it doesn't really tie up anything at all, does it."
"It ties her - oops! Oh, Master, I nearly said it."
"You see, the caning did you good." He just luxuriated in virtue.
"You're ever so kind to me."
"Yes. But this rope effect, what's it for?"
"It's sort of punishment, Master. But it does sort of help a girl behave. Every time she moves she hurts."
"Is it I mean, is it actually?"
"Inside her four letter word? Yes, that's where it goes. A girl gets her lips parted and it's cinched in."
"I... Oh really, I'm afraid I..." He looked at me in dismay. "It's quite easy, Master. And, of course, you can make it as tight or as loose as you wish. The girl doesn't have anything to say about it."
"The effect is pleasing." And his mind was obviously filling with visions. "Does it have... I mean, is there a pleasant...?"
"You mean, does it pleasure the girl's clit, master. Not if it's very tight it doesn't"
He gazed at me, boggle eyed. "The 'it' word you used, is it spelled with a 'C' or..."
"A 'C' Master."
"Good heavens! I've never heard. I say, d'you think we might try it.?"
"I am for your pleasure, Master."
Owen played it safe. He untied my ankles and knees. Like the good slave girl I was, I spread my legs.
"That's extremely kind of you." He looked at the rope in his hands, and at the crevice of my thighs.
"I hope you'll forgive..."
Poor Owen! I do myself a favour. "If you prefer, you can use two strands underneath me. That way you can tug one up each side of that thin gully I mustn't put a name to."
I've heard the British have a gift for compromise. Owen used it. He worried away at my loins with tugs and pulls and knots. He pinched my skin horribly with the bands 'round my tummy. I had to explain the down and under bit, but when he was through my pussy was neatly framed by two bits of rope which: if he'd tied 'em any tighter, might have cut it off. I had the feeling it was pouting and sticking out a mile.
Add to that the ropes ,round my elbows and you have a normal Templar day. I hurt.
Owen turned a page of his magazine. Then looked at me meditatively. "Would you mind kneeling down, Elayne? By those rings."
I knelt. It would be hard on my knees, but better than Ravel.
"From this illustration it would appear they should be somewhat, further apart."
I moved my knees somewhat apart. Owen bound my knee hollows tight down, then my ankles. I was fixed but good.
"Quite lovely, quite lovely. His voice was hushed. He stood and gave his full attention to my nipples, my navel and my bound vulva. Sight of the latter inspired him to a height of daring. "Perhaps the, er, lips - a small adjustment."
He was blushingly fumbling with my cunt when Ravel walked in.
It was one of those moments.
Owen picked up the vibrations. My stricken face betrayed my fear. Seeing it, he backed away.
"Sorry."
Silence.
A clashing of eyes.
"Expect I'm intruding."
Maybe someone had told him about Ravel. Maybe he guessed. Owen looked from one to the other of us. The air was thunderous with portent. "I'll leave you two together - Mustn't ..." Owen faded away as though he had never existed.
The silence remained "Why? you little bitch!, why?"
"I was at large, Master. He chose me."
"You know better than that. You're mine."
"I didn't know, Master! I didn't! Oh please!"
"Please what, bitch?"
"Please forgive me, Master. I did not know."
Ravel did not bother to speak or to command., Standing before me, he thrust his immense phallus at my face.
I did my slave girl duty.
Replete with his semen, my tongue and lips tired. I knelt there to await my sentence or his forgiveness. My heart was pounding. The ropes cutting me everywhere told me all to well I was delivered to his wrath.
"Kneel there, bitch."
"Thank you, Master."
"Tomorrow, I'll whip you. Today you can think of it." I looked up questioningly. He read my eyes.
"Yes, bitch, it's the crop; nor will I stop at three."
He went away.
It is terrible to kneel.
In an hour I was in tears. I could not move. My knees screamed their protest, my elbows ached and scalded. The ropes 'round my tummy were too tight. Had she been able to my pussy would have wept in pain. Owen had done a better job than he knew.
I could not dry my tears. I could do nothing. It would have been kinder had I been able to close my legs, but I could not. I knelt there, strained and open as though no more than a frame displaying the darkness of my pubic thatch with its swollen pouting lips below.
I was a fool. The word went over and over in my mind: "Fool, fool, fool!" To have delivered myself willingly to this! It was maddening. Had he been able to see me, Cedric would have been equally dismayed. He had not wanted this for me. I had wished it on myself. And for why! A girlish fancy about nobility and sacrifice for the man I was going to marry. Or was it a selfish striving for a psychological perfection to erase from his mind any thought that I could not live up to what he would demand of me as his wife? I wept in frustration, in anger and in pain.
The whip.
Thoughts of what Ravel had sentenced me to on the morrow would hound me incessantly until the first lash cut my skin. He planned it so. It was not enough for him that I should kneel naked and agonised; my mind too must be tortured. He chose to speak of the beastly weapon as a crop, but to me it was a whip. It was thin and lissom enough to cut a band around my waist, should he so wish. By this time tomorrow... I shuddered in remembrance of the girl Delphine had told me of. would I, too, nearly die! Dimbleby had said I would not be damaged but would he know! And knowing, would he care! He would probably be pleased. And Ravel outranked him, I was sure he did.
The three wounds I now bore across my shoulders were healing. They had received much care. The Templars at least did that for their female prisoners. We were costly merchandise to be treasured.
The rest of me was just blatantly marked, but not with wounds. In this kind of a house, a girl had to bear all of her weals with pride or shame according to her nature.
Had mine been less I would have loved them more.
In the afternoon Ravel came again. He brought a thonged whip with which he beat the soles of my feet. I could not move them. They stared up from their bondage on the floor, imploring attention. I twisted against Owen's ropes. I screamed and longed to die as the lashes swiftly fell in alternated agonies across the bottom of my helpless feet. Without a word, he adjusted the ropes on my loins, contemptuously separating my sex and thrusting the double strands within, then tightening them until I cried aloud in protesting anguish, and was lashed again.
At night I was given to Delphine. My bracelets were locked behind my back and she was warned not to loose them. She tended me.
She was as perturbed as I. She was frightened of Ravel.
He had used her once. She wanted him no more. To Delphine, Ravel was a demon. a man possessed, driven by dark desires, using his potency as the final subjugation of his girls. Hearing her talk, my plea became inevitable.
"Delphine, help me escape?"
She held me close as a mother might a child. Her tears wet my nakedness and blended with my own. "Darling, I can't, I can't!"
"There must be a way. Oh Delphine, is that why I'm braceleted like this? They think I'll try?"
"Yes. No one would blame you. Ravel's a devil."
"Escape is possible, isn't it? You must have thought of it?"
"Only in an abstract sort of way, darling. We're all here because we want to be, remember. No use running away from something we've chosen. You wouldn't be thinking of it yourself if it wasn't for Ravel. You were just unlucky that he got a thing for you."
I nestled against her shoulder. She felt good. I had a need of female sympathy. I wished I could share her satisfaction with the Templars.
"But they're all bastards." I sobbed. "Most of what I was shown that first day. How can you?"
"But the girls like it, darling. They have their own needs. We may not look happy while it's happening to us. But before and after...you aren't really one of us, are you? You shouldn't have come. I thought I was."
"A man made you think that. There's a little bit of it in most girls and a man can bring it out, if he's the right one."
"I so wanted to do it. But no one's been kind. Dimbleby, Ravel."
"Owen was amusing."
I had forgotten Owen. Ravel had dissipated him like a mist against hot sun. "Owen was just ridiculous. That's all, Delphine."
"Look, darling, about this escape. You're desperate and might try it if you're given a chance. But don't! It's the unforgivable sin. The punishment when they catch you is just too much. It's not worth it."
"It's worth it to me. No punishment is worse than what Ravel's going to do to me."
She held me close though the night as we slept.
Ravel never betrayed much emotion only his eyes. When he possessed me in the morning I saw what Delphine had seen. They were the eyes of a devil. Eyes haunted with visions of tortured girls. I walked before him to the room, trembling.
"Why do you tremble, Elayne?"
I dropped to my knees and thrust my cheek against his thigh. I could not clasp him: my wrists were still braceleted behind my back. But I pleaded Oh how I pleaded!
"You don't expect mercy, do you, bitch.?"
"Oh, Master, don't - don't call me that. I'm not a bitch, I'm not!"
"Think of it girl, I'll mark you for life. On your feet."
"Please, oh please! Oh, Master, I promise. I'll be a good slave."
"You are not a slave, Elayne. You never have been. There is always rebellion in your eyes. You think I haven't known!"
"I will be! I will! Master, give me a chance. Don't whip me."
"Your back shall be bloody, Elayne."
"No! Oh no! Oh, Master."
He had seen what I sought to hide. I had abased myself to no purpose. I had abandoned flippancy and sarcasm and thought myself cured of them, conceding to myself that a whip upon a girl's bare skin can cure her of any fault or any virtue.
Now I must be whipped anew that the little bit of Cathy Hazlett still surviving be excised. This man would kill me. No one would know. The Templars were powerful.
"Get up."
I struggled to my feet. There was no mercy in his face at all.
This is how he wanted girls, bereft and in despair, walking to their punishments, hands bound. I turned and stumbled to where I would be whipped.
Always the same way. Ravel adored me on my toes with hands braceleted high. I suppose there is no better pose in which to whip a girl. Satisfied with my naked helplessness and waiting skin, he possessed me. The act, performed thus, pleased his sense of the grotesque. Or perhaps my distaste for being thus violated added piquancy. His strength was so great that he was able to handle my nudity like a puppet on a string, raising and positioning me to ride astride his awesome weapon, knocking my legs to where he wanted them, pulling my sex forward for the piercing and the thrusts. When my cries fell to moans after the tumult of sensation and my toes once more found the floor he took a sardonic delight in lowering my tractioned arms to where I could kneel and cleanse the instrument of my humiliation with my lips and tongue; my hands still braceleted to each end of the bar. The job performed to his satisfaction, I must fumble with a single captive set of fingers to replace and make tidy before I was, once more, raised so that the whip could cut me as it chose.
"You'll wait for it, Elayne."
The bastard! The dirty bastard! To stand like this was agony. But I was broken by apprehension.
"Thank you, Master."
"You say it well, Elayne, but mean it not at all."
"I want to mean it, Master. I do! Oh, I do!" He took the beastly instrument from its case and laid it where I must see it as I stood. "Worship it, girl." "Yes, master."
"Open your legs."
I obeyed instantly, puzzled by the demand. It was not easy on tiptoe. With my feet well apart I was almost suspended. Ravel picked up the lash he had used on my soles the day before.
"A preliminary."
"Thank you, Master."
It was not as I expected. Far from it. The thongs whistled up from behind, cut me between my thighs and splatted its force upon my sex. I screamed in shock and pain and outrage. Always something new to fear and for which to offer false thanks.
"I promised you, Elayne."
"Yes, Master. Thank you."
"Stop that moaning. You can moan later when there's cause. And keep your legs apart. Close 'em and I'll half kill you."
I kept my legs apart. It was as hard a thing as I have ever done. But whatever Ravel demanded of me I would do. His power was absolute. I felt certain that even though I was free I would position myself to accept his punishments and hold that position until I dropped. I was crazily thankful for being tied. My wrists were bands of fire.
Six times in the same place. Six scalding cuts on a part of me that should have been inviolate. My poor, poor, pussy' It shrank, scalded, beneath it's black bush, but could evade nothing.
"And now your breasts."
I screamed before he struck. Snapping my legs together upon one agony, I knew I could do nothing to shield another. My breasts belonged to Ravel. I could not move them. They stuck out taut and firm under the stretch of my raised arms. He whipped them one at a time, standing well to one side to give his individual attention to each.
Not striking them as hard as he had struck my sex, but hard enough that I feared for them and to make me dance my jig of anguish.
"I leave you now, Elayne. Thank me for what is done and plead for what is still to do."
He was a devil! Extracting every drop of essence from my hurts. But disobedience was never in my mind.
"Thank you for whipping my cunt and breasts, Master. Please return and cut my skin with the special crop."
I got a courtly inclination from his head. Then he was gone.
I hung there. What else could I call it! My poor toes weakened and tired so that half the time it was my wrists that must bear my weight. I went from foot to foot and feet to wrists, an endless round of seeking an easement utterly denied. I hurt hatefully in places where a girl should never hurt. I wept and dried my tears upon my upraised arms. And I hated Ravel with every particle of my being!
And I could not tell the time. That is a cruelty of which I should be accustomed. But a girl is never accustomed to these vacuums in which she is tied or chained to await the pleasure of her owner. You wait, you hurt, you look at the whip with which you will be marked. It is a special time of awfulness, a time of terror. A time to panic.
Little by little you accept all of the pain and cease to strive. It becomes easier to be possessed by pain and to let your head bow and your mind to rove. Time drifts by like a hazy nightmare. It was in the midst of this I heard the step.
It was not Ravel!
It was Delphine. Her finger was on her lips, a bundle was draped across her arm.
As she loosened my bracelets she whispered instructions.
"But they'll half kill you, darling!"
"They need not know. but they can't be sure. good alibi."
I'll dash right back up so I'm not missed. They may suspect I'm going straight to a room with a Templar. It's a pretty We kissed and hugged in a desperate need, then she was gone.
It was impossible. It was a miracle. But it had happened. I drove the little car for all it was worth. If I could reach the city I was safe. If Ravel overtook me on the highway I would precipitate a collision rather than be dragged back to his Templar torture.
Feverishly, I computed and reviewed. I was dressed, skimpily but dressed. I had a car, with directions where to leave it when it had served my need. The directions were written on a slip tied to the steering wheel, typewritten on Dimbleby's typewriter so as to betray no one. I had a small bag containing money and girl's basic needs.
Delphine's terse directions had taken me from my place of whipping to the car with an ease born of her long knowledge of the Templar's mansion. If only they did not see her as the architect of my escape! I prayed feverishly they would not.
I was free! Free, free, free! I sang it as a song.
But I was free!
Cedric.
A slave!
It was a bit of a shock to realise I had only this moment remembered my first master. Since Ravel's discovery of me with Owen, Cedric had not entered my mind.
Ravel, pain and Delphine had pushed him into limbo. But he was the man I was going to marry. He was the man I had suffered for. Cedric was waiting. What a beautiful wonderful shock I was going to give him. I had been the Templar's prisoner for only three weeks. Three weeks so potent with pain they were like three centuries. Cedric and I were going to be married. I sang that word too in the same way I had serenaded freedom: Married, married, married But it didn't come out right.
Not right at all.
By the time I reached the city limits I was in a fine old dither.
Decisions.
Oh damn!
I was not yet Cathy. Ravel had obliterated Cathy and replaced her with Elayne. But who was Elayne! She was nothing either. In limbo. When I turned my thoughts to Cedric's waiting arms, I felt only the wounds of enslavement. Suddenly I saw the bracelets on my wrists. I could not get them off. The key to them had been beyond Delphine's magic. I hated them. As long as I wore them I belonged to Ravel. The motions of the car chafed the three wounds across my shoulders and accentuated the scald of my whipped sex. My breasts burned against the fabric of my dress.
My breasts had been lashed by a lunatic.
Suddenly I saw myself with a terrible clarity: Myself as I now was as compared to the Cathy hazlett before she was kidnapped. Two different girls. A slave girl is not as others, she is a being apart and separate. I had allowed myself to become a slave.
Allowed! Well, perhaps I should not be that hard on myself. A girl is made slave by whips and chains. If she suffers enough of them she will truly see herself as thrall.
It is that simple.
Don't go back.
Ever.
I was washed clean of taint by a great wave of longing for normalcy. Once more my skin would be inviolate, my sex a secret cache, my limbs free always to do my bidding. I shuddered in an involuntary spasm of revulsion at what I had become, what I had been made to do. If I had sometimes been privy to my own enslavement it was because of the disorientation of emotions tossed on storms of mistaken motives and wishful thinking. I could no longer focus on Cedric. He was gone.
Marriage! It now seemed absurd. I though back to the exuberant and shining girl who had gone to the Templars so blithely to prove a point that mattered little or not at all. There had been a streak of perversity in that girl, more than a streak of bravado. She had been a girl wanting to play with fire. She had been burned.
But the Templars had not made that girl. Cedric Hollings had moulded her to his heart's desire long before that day. Cedric might be weak or strong, but his whips and chains had done the task he required of them. From this alchemy of motives and methods had emerged Elayne.
Elayne was dead.
Let her die.
It was a damned awkward couple of days, fraught with infinite embarrassments. The manager of the apartment, my employer, my parents. But there came to my rescue all the current suspicions and inferences of a girl's behaviour. I had been somewhere with "A Man!" I blushed and stammered and was evasive enough to please them all. Fortunately, no one asked me to strip. In a week I was back to what, in my mind, I called 'The pre-kidnapping era'.
At first the bracelets bothered me. I wanted them off. But I could not face the ordeal of a locksmith or mechanic. I spent hours in my apartment fiddling with bits of wire and pins and nails and things. Quite hopeless of course. The bracelets had been locked on my wrists to stay. So, on the day before I returned to the office and my typewriter, I had the janitor borrow an enormous pair of bolt cutters and shear off the telltale rings. I made a joke of it and gave him ten dollars. This left me wearing a pair of quite lovely bracelets of which no girl need be ashamed. The anathema was wearing thin, I was almost proud of them. I'd use them as a hair shirt to remind me to be sensible and not look back. They would endure on my wrists long after the weals on my skin had gone all but the three. They were healing fast, but I was yet to discover that symbol of Ravel I would eventually bear forever.
It took me several days to really believe I was free. There was unreality in the absence of constraint. My walk took on something of a stride to affirm the absence of metal bands and the chain between my ankles. I found myself doing things with my hands in close proximity as though still hand cuffed.
I chose a letter. I could not trust myself on the phone.
I could trust myself even less in a confrontation. I tore up a few 'Dear Cedric' effusions before dropping one in the mail. I was free. I had burned a bridge.
But I was not happy. The fact was I was out of sorts with men, and a girl without a man is lost. We live in a vacuum. We are absurd. But we need the male presence, the daily reassurance of our desirability. Without it we wither. But the gap between the bonds of slavery and the bonds of matrimony was too wide. I doubted I could ever bridge it. And babies! Good heavens! If I had a baby the poor kid would be born wearing handcuffs.
I was not actively unhappy. I went to work, wrote letters, watched T.V., went to the movies, accepted a date or two which left me feeling completely neuter. I even went to visit Nancy Dwight and stayed the night with her, leaving in the morning without a wish to repeat. I was a bundle of female something or other going no place.
So was I in love with Cedric? No, it wasn't that. Well then, I yearned for my Svengali Ravel? But the thought of the Templars could still send cold chills down my spine.
It wasn't that either. I did a lot of self analysis which was well reasoned and accurate. I had answers. What I needed now was answers to the answers. I was lonely.
But not for long.