Chapter 9
Again.
He'd done it again.
For life.
Oh, damn, damn and double damn. There are not enough expletives in the world for what that idiot is doing to me. And I can't move him. He's got me and he's glad. He feels a little bit of a bastard but not much. I'm sure he thinks I'll promise to marry him after I get settled. Settled! Holy horse-shit, that means after he's tied me up and whipped me for a month.
Marriage! I'm already looking at it as the emergency door, the fire exit, the escape hatch. I can't face chains for life. I can't, I can't! I wonder if he would marry me now! I don't see how he can. If I said O.K. he'd be suspicious. He can't lead me handcuffed before a Justice of the Peace or a parson. He's as much up the creek as I am.
Love! I can act. But there's vibes between us, I think he'd know. He'd punish me terribly for that because it would hurt his pride. I've just got to be careful about these punishments, I can't stand too many. I wonder if he can guess how thankful I am for being forgiven the whipping I practically asked for like a damn fool! I'm like a cat with nine lives. I've got so many whippings to spend and no more. I must be a miser with them. There will be some I can't do anything about, I'll get 'em regardless.
Oh shit!
Chains.
Look at me now! Doing dishes. But chained to the wall. a metal collar locked 'round my neck. My ankles ironed that's the term, isn't it? I'm in irons! Nobody would believe! When I'm done I'll stand and wait for his Highness to come and lead me someplace else. I'll try and hold my temper and not break another dish. It's going to be hard enough to clean up the one scattered on the floor now. My leash isn't all that long ... and I can't reach out with my foot. Oh, balls!
And I've burned my bridges! Nobody's going to bother to look for me. This second time will prove I'm just a flighty piece of tail who's not worth losing sleep over. I wonder if Nancy Dwight will show up here. I wondered why she had me over yesterday. Now I know. Lousy little bitch! Asking me to read a mag' while she dashes down to the store. I wish she was chained here instead of me.
Cedric's incurable. I mean, this B & D business. It's part of him. He doesn't want to be cured, so he never will be. It's not a lunacy. It's something deep, deep down.
Look at those Templars! Rich successful men, but obsessed by visions of naked girls in pain. Maybe it is as well I went there. I certainly did learn! Ravel was a devil, but the others weren't angels either. And the girls, none of them would leave. Their hunger was too real. Cedric wanted to convince me and he'd succeeded. Out there somewhere were a million men who wanted to tie me up tight.
Chains are insidious, they affect my thinking. Because of a chain, and a collar 'round my neck I can't go away from this damn sink. I'm controlled. It seems impossible that a metal ring round my neck can stop me being, me, but it's doing it.
All I do or plan will be coloured by my awareness of it locked upon my throat. I constantly reach up and test it, trying to insert a finger but finding its embrace too snug, then tugging at the padlock and the ring by which my leash is attached to me.
Chains are a constant reminder of hopelessness.
I belong to Cedric.
"What, nothing broken, Cathy!"
I just sniff. He's pleased with himself but I'm not.
"We now come to the matter of my proper title, Cathy."
Oh gosh, here it is again' He can make me call him 'Master' but I don't want to, it's an admission of defeat I'm not ready for. Besides, it's so silly. But look at him smirking!
"Cedric, those chains you've locked on me prevent me walking out of your house, but while I'm in it can't we both just be ourselves?"
"That's the point!" He's jubilant. "The reality is that you're a slave and I am your master. You faced up to it before and accepted it, you'll have to do it again. That way we are ourselves. When we bicker we're not."
It's useless. He's morally wrong but rationally right. I look at him pathetically. "If you break me again, Cedric, you won't have anything except a sort of doll with a set of conditioned responses."
"That's better than nothing."
I stamp a bare chained foot that comes down hard on a link and hurts. I am impatient with this fatuous idiot. "Cedric, for Pete's sake, you're not that hard up!"
"Every man is."
"Bullshit. Go and kidnap Nancy Dwight. She'd be flattered."
"Be serious, Cathy. I'm talking about life."
"Sure you are life imprisonment! With lashes."
He is exasperated with me, and I with him. I have a vision of my empty desk at the office and of my poor little abandoned apartment. I have been robbed of a life. I glare resentfully.
"Don't be dramatic. If you were happy here once you can be again. You're forcing yourself to be disagreeable."
There's just enough truth in what he says to make me angry. I clank a chain at him.
"I was nuts. I should have gone to the police. They'd have sent you to a hospital for screwballs "
He's gone all white and funny. He stares at me a moment as though seeing me for the first time, and then unlocks my leash from the ring and leads me from the kitchen. I can guess where we're going.
"I didn't mean that last bit." I offer lamely.
"You said it."
Oh, gosh, I've torn it now! Me and my motor mouth! He's mixing up his pride, his dignity, his ego into something I'm going to have to eat.
"Cedric, don't do this to me please don't!"
"Do what?"
"Well, whatever you're going to do."
"Only a guilty conscience would say that."
He is insufferable. I give a furious yank on the leash and tear it from his grasp. I turn and leap and trip on the ankle chain I'd forgotten. From the floor I look up at a very angry Cedric Hollings and blurt out: "Alright, beat me if I'm not allowed to be human." "Get up."
I stand. He retrieves the chain, he tugs harder than he needs. My chains tinkle musically as I follow to what awaits.
"You can have your choice, Cathy. Either the bar or the bench?"
Sounds as though I'm to be caned. I look at what is offered, and hate both. I reject.
"I don't want either, Cedric."
"Lie on the bench."
He knows I hate the bench, but we have gone beyond where I may plead. I shrug disdainfully and drape myself on its contoured surface. A belt is instantly buckled across the small of my back to keep me safe while my leash and shackles are taken from me. The collar remains. While it is locked on me I will never forget what I am.
"Cedric, I beg of you, don't do this. Don't beat me, Look, I'll be as humble as you like!"
He keeps a grim silence while he ties me. His ropes are as uptight as we ourselves.
Wrists and ankles: I lose them one by one to savage little bands I cannot fight and which he makes bite deep. Then the one is drawn into the softness of my thighs which, with an additional brutal buckling of the belt, causes my shivering bottom to rear its curves to receive the punishment I am about to get because I'm a scared girl who wants to go home.
It's not fair.
He's crazy.
Pain.
"There isn't any other way, Cathy. We think there ought to be but there isn't. After I've punished you we'll be able to talk."
"It isn't a punishment. It's just being mean."
My words end in a yelp of shock as the cane slices my tight bottom. The pain is excruciating. I cannot move.
Cedric Hollings canes my immobilised derriere with a workmanlike vigour. He probably believes he's doing the right thing for us both, but I abandon analysis and turn to pain as its scalds and scorches, its cuts and bruisings take possession of my tightly tied nakedness. I have come by a thing about screaming. I don't want to scream. It helps the pain but diminishes Me, and I don't want to be diminished made less than the pitiful slave creature he has reduced me to. I bite my lip, I thrust my chin down on the bench, but as the blows cut and rake across my flesh I make small disgusting moans and cries which I hope will make him feel as ashamed as they do me.
He is not ashamed.
My beating goes on and on. He spaces the strokes, but their rhythm in implacable.
I wonder if he is making the count that I am not. I am sure my wrists and ankles are bleeding. I try not to struggle and heave but I cannot control that response to my agony. What does it matter! Nothing matters anymore. Catherine Hazlett has been sold into slavery without a dollar changing hands. Her price is pain. She pays.
"Well?"
Cedric's voice comes to me through the blanket of agony in which I am enveloped. I struggle to marshal my wits.
"Well what"
It was the wrong answer. The cane resumes its beat. From beneath its ceaseless admonition I tried to capitulate.
"Stop it! stop it! I'll say what you want."
"Say it then."
"You are my master, Master."
The test resumed. I cried in desperation. "I said it' I said it!"
In the pause that ensued his voice made me shrivel.
"You should have heard yourself, Cathy. Such a tone of voice."
"But it's the cane that says it not me!"
The cane picked up where my protest had interrupted its cadence. I squealed in outrage and sort of despair. I reject a noble resolve to die under its impacts. I ejaculate gaspingly: "Master, Master, Master It stops. I cock a hopeful eye.
"O.K. Now say its sensibly."
It's a bitter pill but I swallow it. I recognise its truth and hate it the more. I hear a voice I wish was someone else's "You are my Master. Thank you for whipping me. I guess you were right, it's the only way I'm going to face up to being your slave. I was silly. I should have had more sense than to be stubborn. Master, please forgive a foolish slave."
My master is still dubious. "Sure there's no sarcasm in that long winded affair someplace?"
"No Master - oh no - honest!"
"Hmmm!" He is pleased, I can tell. "Damn funny isn't it, that you had to have that beating."
"I'm a girl, Master."
"O.K. But now we've cleared up that little obstacle don't overdo it. You can be damn cunning with those 'Masters' of yours."
Much macho!
"Yes, Master. I'll watch it."
I wish I was a Samson to tear my bonds asunder and slap that pleased smirk off my master's face. But I am not! I am a slave girl and I'd damn well better bear that in mind My bottom blazes hideously. I am still tied so I can hardly twitch.
"I should leave you there for the day."
"If you wish, Master."
"But I made you a promise."
While I am untied, I wonder. I no longer resent the locking of my leash and ankle shackles. Why should I! They are the only clothing I am every likely to wear. My hands are left free, but I use them only to explore my wealed behind.
Cedric's house has everything. His workshop is well equipped. I am tethered to the usual ring so that I can stand and watch him being clever.
From an ordinary tin can he cuts a wide strip. He takes my hand and gently inserts this thin protection between my wrist and the Templar bracelet, The bracelet with my wrist inside is then clasped in a vice. My Master takes a hacksaw and goes to work.
In five minutes the bracelet comes apart, my wrist emerges unscathed. I offer my other hand. Soon that too is free. Ravel has gone.
We stand and look at each other. One task has been completed, we must move forward to the next.
But we don't have one!
This is the weakness of the slave condition: too many vacuums to be filled. I would like to press this knowledge upon this man who has made himself my master, but my bottom still hurts too much for me to want to take the risk. I wait respectfully.
"Turn around."
The old familiar order! I reflect on how many slave girls through the centuries have turned their backs and crossed their wrists. I now do it myself to have them tightly and cunningly bound. I might as well be handcuffed for all the hope I have of slipping such a tie.
My little cell! The hours and nights I have spent chained to its ring make it mine. It welcomes me with sunshine through the bars of its high small window. A massive click announces my attachment to the wall.
"A little time to think." announces Cedric brightly.
"But I don't want time to think." I wail. "Thinking is the last thing I need."
"What do you need?"
"Freedom."
Thoughtless truth. Oh damn, why did I have to! Now I'll get it again. My master's face is a thundercloud.
"Do you want me to whip it out of you again, Cathy?"
"No, master."
"Then why harp!"
"How would you like to be tied and chained the way I am, and wear a collar locked to the wall, and sit alone in a little cell!" My disaffection overflows, I cannot halt it.
"You've sat here often enough before."
"Well, I don't want to again. Something's changed I'd go crazy.
"O.K. I'll put you on the bar this time and use the whip."
He actually sounds weary and disappointed in me. I boil over in fear and outrage. I emit a frantic: "No!"
"Can anyone join in the fight?"
Nancy Dwight's voice jolts us both. She saunters into the cell, her bright eyes curious and busy, her satchel slung. She holds up an admonitory finger.
"Uhuh! No harsh words. I didn't break and enter. You left the back door unlocked.
I'm just being neighbourly and making sure you're both O.K."
"You sure do have a nerve!"
"Well, when a girlfriend vanishes out of my apartment!"
"O.K. So now you've seen where she is." Cedric sounded flustered. "Now take your little bag and leave. You can lock the door on your way out."
"Get the police." I cry recklessly. "Run, Nancy, call the cops."
Nancy does not run. Instead, she turns me this way and that to examine how I'm fixed. She is intrigued.
"My, my. You two do take this B & D seriously, don't you!"
I stamped hurtfully and shouted at her. "This isn't playing. He won't let me go. I'm being made a prisoner against my will. Help me."
"A lover's tiff?" She was infuriatingly superior. "I sure do envy you two you have the damnedest times."
I look at Cedric, he's pleased as punch, all panic gone. He is enjoying my dismay and Nancy's obtuseness. He's safe. But I'm in jeopardy.
"If You don't help me he'll keep me here forever." I almost scream it into Nancy's delighted face.
"Do you two sort of rehearse? I mean, write out a script, a scenario for each day, or afternoon, or whatever time you have?"
"How'd you come, Nancy?" Cedric's voice was casual.
"Don't tell him a thing!" I hurl my warning.
"In my car. Just an impulse." She smiles sweetly at us both.
"No commissions today?"
"Hell no! A total loose end. If this keeps up I'll have to sell my camera."
"Nancy please! Get out! Go to the police! I beg you!" I put everything I had into my pleading.
A glimmer of concern flickered in her eyes. "Oh Cath', I'm Sorry. Look, darling, I'm sure Cedric will unfix you so we can all have a cup of coffee, or something. I didn't mean to."
She turned to make her demand of the man I must call master. But Cedric wasn't with us any more.
"He had gone out and locked the door."
"We've had it!" I wailed. "Oh, Nancy, why didn't you run!"
"Oh, he's just having fun."
"He isn't, he isn't! Oh Nancy!"
"He can't possibly keep me here. Don't be silly!"
"He can! He can! Don't you see, you've just told him no one knows you're here.
You'll just vanish the same way it happens to me."
"A neat summation." said Cedric from beyond the bars.
We turn and face his beaming smile. The world's his oyster. If one slave girl is good, two will be better. He gives his attention to Nancy.
"You can push your clothes through the bars and your satchel."
Nancy at last gets the message loud and clear. Her response is clarion.
"Drop dead."
"And I'll want you to back up and stick your hands through to be handcuffed."
"Look, Cedric, grow up. You can't possibly kidnap me."
"You are already kidnapped."
"Open that door."
"You are now a slave and subject to discipline. Watch it! Cathy will be a big help."
He smiled.
He departed and I get Nancy's full attention. "He doesn't mean it, does he? You're both putting me on still?"
She reads the answer in my face. "You mean he really thinks I'll do those things?"
"You'll have to. He can always use force."
"Well, Cath', I'll untie your hands, just in case."
"No! Oh don't! He'd punish us. If he wants me tied I have to stay tied." I gaze at her imploringly.
Nancy shakes her head. It is sinking in slowly. I can't blame her for finding it unreal.
In gasping urgent sentences I tell her the whole story. She blinks and comprehends. "Can't we jump him?" "With me helpless like this!" "But there'll come times?" "And get the skin whipped off our backs?" I turn and display my bottom "Oh Cath', I don't think I'd want that. You poor dear."
"No food, no water for either of you until you comply, Miss Dwight."
The master is back, triumphant.
"You're a son of a bitch, Cedric." Nancy stripped and passed her total belongings through the bars. Then turned and surrendered her hands. When she turned again I saw the shining chrome joining her wrists in the same helplessness as my own. But she remains undaunted.
"O.K. you rotten bastard. Screw us both to a frazzle and let us go."
"Ten strokes, Nancy."
"What the hell for?"
"One son of bitch and one bastard."
"You mean I can't even talk?"
"Only respectfully."
"He means it Nancy!" My sharp warning will save her another five.
Cedric departs with his bundle. We sit on the little cot, two helpless naked girls contemplating life imprisonment. I related and relate. After hours and hours of tugging at her cuffed wrists Nancy comes to believe in slavery. She does not like it, and she will rebel.
My heart bleeds for her.
It should bleed for me! I am furious. For dinner, we are suitably restrained as to feet and hands. We clink our handcuffs at our master while we eat. A faint bonhomie is engendered by the food and wine. Our Master is generous and expansive in his victory. Nancy has been soundly thrashed and is guardedly polite.
My own caned bottom is tender on the chair.
Then it happens.
Our Master chains me back here in the cell and takes a pleased and giggling Nancy to his bed.
Oh damn!
And there's nothing I can do! I turned him down, didn't I! I did not want him. Yet now I'm so furiously jealous I could cry. Or scream! I cannot beat upon the bars just to be mean he has tied my hands again behind my back. I can't even console myself while they make love. I have to lie here awkwardly on my tummy and feel sorry for myself and wonder if he's chained her to the bed. I lay awake hoping he'll just screw her once and then return his new slave for the night; presumably she gives satisfaction. I am still weeping in rage and chagrin when I fall asleep.
At breakfast he can't do enough for her. She's still safely chained but she does not mind. Cedric's prowess in bed had earned him her respect in a manner no whip would ever do. I am chained to the ring by the sink to do the dishes, last nights as well as this mornings and I do 'em alone. Nancy has the grace to give me a guilty glance as she is led away. My Master scarcely notices me. I try and make my face register a stoney indifference. The only reason I do not smash every dish upon the floor is that I do not want Nancy to watch me whipped.
Now I just stand. The dishes are done, but my leash is still locked to the ring by the sink. I feel silly and ignored, unable to leave this small domestic scene where I have been humiliated. I am certain my master flaunts Nancy at me to teach me a lesson. I wonder what they are doing.
Cedric is pointedly offhand as he leads me to the cell. I am almost in tears to think I must spent the day chained there alone while they enjoy themselves. I do not want to plead, but I do.
"Please, Master, don't lock me up for the day, it's so lonely."
No answer, just a jerk on the chain. I clatter obediently, hating every hobbled step.
But Nancy is already there. I feel better. She sports a collar and leash and shackled feet and is attached to the opposite wall. Her eyes shine as she watches the locking of my leash. A strange silence is upon us all as though we await an explosion, but all that happens is two pairs of handcuffs for which we silently turn our backs and proffer our wrists. I am sure he has clicked mine tighter than hers.
With out a word, our Master goes away and locks us in.
That's the end of silence. "Isn't he super!" Nancy breathes.
"No he isn't, he's a mean bastard."
"He screws so marvellously!" She hasn't heard a word I said. "And all these fun and games!"
It is as well I am helpless. I would scratch and bite this carnal little mink with her inflamed twat. I try to dissolve her euphoria "Nancy, snap out of it. We're prisoners for life. He's never going to let us go. Can't you get it through your thick skull!"
"Oh, Cathy, isn't it lovely!"
"What's lovely about being chained naked in a rotten little cell!"
She looks around, seeing nothing but a rainbow. "It's a darling little cell, and these chains...don't they give you the loveliest shivers."
"If you're that horny." I tell her coldly, "I can give you three or four orgasms and then you'll feel better, at least more sensible."
"Oh, would you, darling! I'm just absolutely on fire. I think our chains are long enough, he's so sweet."
"Didn't you get satisfied in bed last night?"
"Oh of course." She giggles happily. "I absolutely lost count. That chain on my ankle was a marvellous horn-maker. But it's like he's started a fire that gets bigger and bigger how do you want me?"
We arrange ourselves as our chains dictate. Nancy sees only a giggling novelty as we get hair and links in our mouth because we have no hands. She does not share my frustration, she is still glowing from the attention of Cedric's competent cock.
My tongue has no trouble in bringing her to a succession of volcanic eruptions. I'm so hurt and cheesed off I allow her to give me a little comfort too. I pretend it's Cedric in there working away at me. When we are breathless and limp we sit on the cot in our helplessness and take a good look at each other.
Nancy is a pert and cute kid with a lovely body. I foresee a lot of lonely nights.
"Aren't we lucky!" says my competition.
"Don't you want get out of here!"
"Oh no!" her eyes are shining. "This prisoner kick makes sex ten times as good."
"But your life, don't you see you've lost it!"
"Oh darling, I've found it. He's wonderful! He says I can call him 'Master.' Doesn't that crinkle your cunt!"
"Not mine. I want out."
"I don't! I think you're jealous, darling." She grins impishly. "Don't be that way. If he doesn't fuck you because he's fucking me I'll make it up to you with my tongue."
"What if he chains us apart?"
"Oh he won't darling. I'll ask him not to."
She is a small rutting mink secure in her concupiscence. But surely something can bring her down to earth! I ask sourly: "Did you enjoy that thrashing he gave you yesterday?"
She positively shivers with delight. "Isn't it awful while it's happening, darling a sort of beautiful awful! And afterwards!" Her eyes roll in ecstasy.
I long to kick her, or slap her silly face. We are lost! Even if Cedric let Nancy go free she would do nothing to rescue me. For her, this incredible slavery has become rational, she would look back at this house only with longing and affection.
Our Master enjoys us. We are his own beautiful pets safe in a cage. Next time he peers at us through the bars I peruse a faint hope.
"Master, now that Nancy's so happy here you don't need me. Please let me go?"
"Sorry, couldn't possibly."
"I think she's jealous... Nancy giggles.
"Please, Master, I'm no good to you any more."
"That's for me to judge. Stop whining."
I am furious, I blow my top. "Don't be such a S.O.B. Cedric. You've got what you want, Nancy will lick your boots."
"Good idea, I'll have you do that. For now, stop pushing."
"Are you such a weak idiot you have to bolster your ego by making me sit uselessly in this damn cell!"
"It needn't have been useless, that was your idea."
"You're trying to make me jealous, you're treating me like an asshole."
I've done it again, gone too far! But I don't care, I don't. Oh damn, look at his face.
Oh help!"
Nancy is intrigued by the click of locks and by our shameful procession to the place where I will be given pain. There are tears in my eyes, it is all so unjust. Our master absently locks her leash to a ring in the punishment room wall where she will have a fine view of my shame. I take a silly comfort in knowing that, for a little while, I will receive his full attention how ridiculous can a girl get!
I stand, seething and sorry, while I lose my leash and shackles. I am politely invited to drape myself on the hated bench. I look from my amused but angry master to Nancy's entranced attention. I'm damned if I'll plead or try to reason while she can hear every word. But I do ask tearfully. "Please, Master, not in front of her?"
"Get on that bench, Cath'. Right now!"
It is awkward with tied hands, but I manage. Perhaps in the awfulness of what's about to happen to me I can forget those avid female eyes. But oh my poor seat, its last dose was so recent! It rears itself over that beastly hump and cringes with a life of its own whilst my waist is buckled down and my ankles tied.
"Let's try it with yoru hands the way they are." My master says cheerfully. "Just keep 'em well up, I wouldn't want to hurt them."
It is horrible. I have to lay on my breasts. When I pull up my tied wrists to leave my bottom unobstructed for the cane my elbows seem to stick out like wings. My behind is immovable but I bet the rest of me behaves shamefully. Oh, shit!
"Tell Nancy why you're being punished, Cathy."
The bastard! I flare at him. "How should I know! You tell her!"
The cane cuts my bottom in two. I almost rear off the bench.
"Tell Nancy why you're being punished, Cathy."
"I'm being punished, Nancy, because I was rude to my master."
"You might mention whether you think its deserved." My Master's voice is studiously casual.
"And I do deserve it, Nancy, I was silly and angry. I hope he whips me good."
"Wasn't there something else?" Cedric's voice is almost dreamy.
My tears come, he is too cruel. "I was jealous of you, Nancy."
"And are you still?"
"Yes I am. Oh damn! Don't be so beastly to me. Of course I'm jealous you're just being mean. I hate you both."
The cane begins its rhythm on my flesh.
My Master makes me scream.
In front of Nancy.
I'd sooner die.
It is an awful kind of awful. On top of what my bottom had already gotten and now this! My breasts take a beating as I twist and heave and howl. I don't care if Nancy does watch, damn her! I can't bear this pain, I just can't. Piss on Nancy! I'll scream and scream I'll put their teeth on edge with my screams. Oh Master!
When it stops I sob my tribute. "Thank you, Master."
"What are you, Cathy?"
"I am your slave, Master."
"And Nancy. She might need your services..."
"I will be your slave, Nancy."
They are pleased with me and what the cane has made me. They take me back to the cell and lock my leash and chain my feet; maybe I will never have my hands again. My master checks my handcuffs and tightens them one notch. Nancy follows him, leashed and happy, when he goes. The door locks with a hateful snap.
I am alone in the cell.
Naked, chained, helpless.
I hurt.
They will be happy, and make love, and laugh, while I lie here miserably on one hip to ease my blazing bottom. I cry and cry, my tears are a distillation of pain and frustration and anger and sorrow.
They are jealous tears.
It it an act to punish me! Does he really like Nancy! Have I spoiled everything by being Me!
Have I!
I wrench at my handcuffs fretfully.
Will my Master take me back into his heart! I do not know.