Chapter 5

Helpless

"He's really frightfully handsome," Angel said reflectively. "And I bet he's really wonderful at doing, you know what, to girls," Fancy added dreamily. "I wonder when he'll get around to doing it to you and me. I'll bet he does it to Mia all the time. It really must be something to be grown up! Nobody takes us seriously."

"It's quite something the way he ties and chains us, I'd have hot pants all the time if I was wearing any. Have you got a fire burning down there, too?"

"You know I have. But that wouldn't stop me getting loose if I could. I mean, it's not that I'm not getting a charge out of what he does to us, but it's been days and days ... !"

The twins were delightfully held. When Mia had been shown them earlier in the day she had likened them to two maids held captive by a wicked witch. It was a fanciful fantasy but not too far from the truth. The basement room held a single post in its center, Fancy was backed against it on one side and Angel on the other. They had been compelled to cross their wrists with those of their sister, left and right, to leave them standing helplessly with one girl's wrists tight bound to her sister's on each side. They could shuffle around and around to their hearts content but could not leave it, nor could they raise their hands to use their teeth upon the nylon knots. It was a mischievous exercise in frustration which had sent Gentry away laughing at their dolor.

"I wonder why he didn't used handcuffs on us," Angel reflected, "they're so simple and so much more comfortable?"

"Because he's teasing, that's why," Fancy retorted irritably. "He's making us think we've got a chance to get loose just because he's used cord instead of steel. Darling, are you sure you can't get your teeth at anything?"

"Of course I'm sure and you can't either. I'll bet that son of a bitch is laughing his head off. I wish he wasn't so handsome, he makes me feel all gooey inside. Do you think if we offered to let him do, you know what to us, he'd let us loose?"

"No, why should he! And if we did and Mia found out she'd murder us. Besides I'm not at all sure I want him to do, you know what, to us. We'd look real cute with a couple of babies!"

In spite of the tribulations of captivity, the morale of the twins remained high. Gentry had shrewdly guessed their tolerance for privation and dealt with them accordingly. He took them always to the brink but never beyond. He spoke often of the whip but never used it, they were beginning to doubt he actually had one. But this doubt was now set at rest by Gentry's reentry and the thing he carried with such nonchalance. The twins eyed the leather thong with acute distaste.

"But we haven't done anything," Fancy affirmed fearfully.

"Don't you use that thing on us, you've absolutely no right," added Angel desperately.

"Time you earned your keep, girls," Gentry assured them. "I'm going to paint your pictures. For a start I'm going to get you both on one canvass. Are you going to behave?"

"No!" The negative came in unison.

"That's what I figured. That's why I brought this little thing along, I'm sure you recognize it. There's no need for you to act silly and get it used on your tight little asses."

"We think you're simply horrid," Angel said as though dismissing the subject.

"And I bet you never whip Mia," Fancy accused reproachfully. "You're just doing it to us because we're so young. We think you're mean."

They were easily handled. Gentry freed one right wrist from one left which left the two of them still joined but free to move as he directed. With his hand grasping one free wrist, he led them to the studio. He could feel them quivering and could sense their tremendous excitement laced with apprehension. On arrival it appeared they held deeply rooted notions about woman's right.

"Unless you let us all loose we absolutely refuse to pose," said Fancy with resolution. "We don't mind posing a bit, especially with no clothes on and as long as we're together," Angel assured. "So unless you'll untie us and Mia too, you can forget about us posing. We won't!"

Gentry used the whip as sparingly as he could. They were a delightful pair of moppets and he had no wish to be cruel. They were simply undisciplined and he was prepared to supply this lack. Experience had convinced him there was no more certain way of introducing reason and logic to the female mind. Releasing the wrist he had been holding, he backed away and slashed, first one bottom and then the other, as the twins danced with outrage and dismay. Ryan had prudently locked the door to reduce the avenues of girlish retreat. He simply followed the alarmed and still bound pair around in their choice of flight, cutting at them neatly where ever a suitable target was presented for his attention. That the presentation was unintentional in no way lessened the pain of the impact of his whip on maiden flesh. After a couple circuits of the room and much girlish protests, the startled and palpating pair mounted the waiting platform and declared, "All right! All right! We'll pose! Stop it! We've had enough, we'll do what you want. You needn't whip us any more, you can put that horrid thing away."

Gentry nodded confirmingly. Fancy and Angel were conforming true to previous experience. Their features were flushed and angry and their one free hand was feverishly seeking to assuage the angry strips upon their skin. They gazed upon him with an infinite reproach.

It is not every artist who has an unrestricted opportunity to paint the slavegirls of ancient times. Gentry was prepared to use the opportunity to the fullest possible. He had completed a second picture of Mia and now grimly moved on to portray the twins in a preconceived pose which would probably entail a further application of the whip before his models understood what was expected. He made his explanation brief, "Angel, I want you standing, you are shamed, you are striving to cover two breasts with one hand, your head is bowed. Fancy, you are reclining at your sister's feet, you are clutching her thigh with you one free arm, your hand clasps her wrist in whatever manner the bindings allow. Let's try it for size."

It was a minor miracle. Gentry never knew if it was the whip or some innate gift. But the twins, almost without volition, fell into exactly the pose he had envisioned. It was, after all, a natural enough posture for two young girls to embrace in their circumstance of enslavement. The enforced joining of their tied wrists produced precisely the desired effect. The combination of holding tight while desiring release. In astonishment he backed away and said only, "Hold it. You've got it perfect."

Two naked nymphets kept strangely quiet in immobility. It was as though they were mesmerized in awe.

Gentry painted fiercely.

Mia was grateful for the comfort but was doubtful about its implication of something permanent. Gentry had mutilated an expensive and exquisitely comfortable armchair especially for its present purpose. With considerable skill and care he had contrived upon each of its arms a strap which fastened out of sight below and which could neither be seen nor reached. With these straps conveniently loose, she had inserted her hands and watched as the straps were drawn tighter and tighter until she squealed in protest. Gentry had then done something out of sight beyond to leave her captive with a tight, wide band around each wrist, a band without visible fastening. It was exquisitely neat and wickedly effective. Seated in comfort, Mia was nonetheless as much a prisoner as if tightly bound with hundreds of feet of rope. Her first experience evoked the plaint, "That's far too tight, Ryan, it's hurting."

Her captor laughed, she was a delightful subject and always good for a chuckle. His voice was calm as he reassured, "By the time you've done your wiggling act, sweetheart, it will be loose enough. Once I've left you alone, you'll really go to town in a effort to get loose, by the time you've finished your pulling and your tugging and your twisting, you'll be completely comfortable."

He kissed her and left her fuming in the embrace of his new toy. Mia hated to admit it but it worked exactly as promised. She could never resist the chance to test any bond placed on her. In spite of his laughing jibe she did so now in a small frenzy of irritation plus the futile hope that she might actually get free. But when she stopped, panting with exertion, she found herself securely but comfortably fastened in the chair. Her feet were still joined by leg irons but that chain restraint mattered little in her present condition. The leg irons had become a part of her by constant usage but her wrists were frequently involved in a variety of bondages, in none of which she found a hint of freedom. Almost affectionately and entirely without rancor she gazed down at her captive hands in admiration. The leather was so perfectly snug and the absence of visible fastenings added a touch of mystery to her constraint. With her arms resting thus an onlooker would have seen no trace of the mutilation of expensive furniture - Ryan Gentry was not an artist for nothing. Mia Argent smiled, relaxing back into the softness of the chain in a snuggling comfort. She was remembering the time she was first forced to sit as she was now in order for the measurements to be taken that resulted in her present condition. She had been indignant, sure of something far worse, but was now grateful for her master's forethought. If the owner of a slave wanted her comfortable, he could not do better. She flexed her fingers and shifted her elbows but her wrists failed to respond, they were held tight and snug by leather straps. She sighed again and dreamed.

Mia had been shocked and indignant by Gentry's whipping of his former wife, she had supposed it would happen to herself, but as time passed without further reference to or even the sight of the hated instrument with its leather thong her fears receded into a puzzled wonderment as to why Melody so offended this man who could do as he pleased with them. By Mia's standards Melody Gentry had not deserved the strips upon her skin. But obviously Ryan had seen it in a different light. Mia realized that in this business of enslavement she still had far to go.

There was no denying she was in love, or at least in the grip of a fascination born of the vivid erotism and sexual reality of her union with Ryan Gentry. The mere condition of being his prisoner and constantly being held in restraint was sufficient to inflame her female lust. Mia had abandoned her pleas for release or even for an easement of her chains or ropes. Ryan paid no attention, she found it preferable to keep silent. She made one more tentative struggle against the straps around her wrists in simulated rebellion. There was always a strange thrill in finding herself foiled and tight held. It was so now. Heat flared within her loins as she turned her thoughts to speculation about the twins. Ryan had told her of his intention to start painting them this afternoon. Wryly, Mia supposed his success would depend upon his cruelty but then Fancy and Angel would get only what they asked for, it was up to them. Drowsily she slept, her forearms neat upon the chair at each side, her wrists encased in leather. All was well in the home of Ryan Gentry.

The days of imprisonment drifted by with remarkable speed. Two weeks passed and then a third. Towards the end there was an anxious call from Melody which Ryan tolerantly allowed Mia to answer and tell the girl at the other end of the line not to worry but give them a little more time. Mia ruefully compared it to a convict before a parole board pleading, not for release, but for an extended sentence behind bars. If she was crazy ... well, so what! Never once in the whole time had her hands been free.

Their visits to Dovecove were almost absurd, certainly laughable. Sometimes she went with Ryan, sometimes he went alone. She was allowed to deal with her mail and make what phone calls were required. Mia wrote checks and mailed them to cover bills. Everything in her home remained normal except her presence or, rather her absence. That she made the journey back and forth totally nude and handcuffed and leg-ironed, concealed beneath a blanket while she sat besides Ryan in the front seat, because a matter unworthy of comment.

Mia supposed her mental processes must be as evident to Ryan as to the twins, he read her mind with the greatest of ease, "You've fallen in love with me, haven't you, sweetheart. And you're thinking how nice it would be if we got married. That's right, isn't it?"

His naked captive wished he had voiced it differently, but agreed it was true indeed. She almost made an apology for the aberration.

"It's simply because we sleep together and because of the pictures and also because you've got addicted to those handcuffs. You think I can't tell!" Ryan tweaked her nipples and kissed her. "I'm your big brother, sweetheart, leave it at that."

"I can't see anything wrong in falling in love with you," Mia protested, "you're nice and you're everything a girl wants. Almost everything."

"Ok, what's the almost?"

"The way you whipped Melody. That was terribly unkind. I still don't understand it."

"You'd understand it alright if you were Melody, but you're not Melody so there's no need for you to worry about it." Ryan paused as though thinking ahead. "As for this being in love business, I'm fond of you, I really am. You're a sweetheart. But I'm fond of you as a chained captive, my pretty prisoner."

Mia had no wish to be set aside without protest. "You're not my big brother and you're more than fond of me. I'm not going to apologize for being in love with you. I don't care if you keep me handcuffed all the rest of my life, I still want to marry you, so how does that grab you?"

Ryan repeated his kiss then said, "It grabs me all right. But you're blood is overheated, my pet and there's a way I know to cool it off."

It was all he would say. Mia teased and tormented, but to no avail. Finally she let the subject dropped. There was always time for a woman's wiles to work and for male intransigence to fade. Like a million daughters of Eve before her, she smiled a quiet inward smile and assured herself something nice was certain to happen.

Something happened. It was not nice. It took place in the bleak little room in which Gentry had once imprisoned the twins. It was done with utmost simplicity and fell upon the unsuspecting girl like an avalanche. One single cuff was unlocked from behind her back and joined again in front, her arms were raised above her head by a conveniently waiting rope. While Ryan was still insuring her stretched nakedness she guessed his purpose but said no word. When he departed to return with the whip, she did no more than stare at him levelly and change her weight from foot to foot in an already fevered vision of what Ryan would do to her. She made her voice toneless, "Why are you going to whip me, Ryan?"

"You know why, I told you about your overheated blood. This will cool you off. You'll stop loving me. It's the best cure I know of."

"I won't stop loving you. Ryan, this is crazy."

"Aren't you going to ask me to stop, not to do it, tell me how girls should never be whipped?"

"No, why should I! You'll do it anyway." Mia bestowed a steadfast stare. "I wish I could promise I'll be as stoic as Melody, but I can't. She was miraculous, she must love you very much."

There was no more to be said. The two of them were in the grip of a current which pride forbid either of them to stem. Mia was desperately afraid. She had never in her whole life been whipped. She remembered how hard her stomach had tied itself in knots as she watched Melody's nakedness get streaked with red. The whole thing seemed impossible. She eased up her strained bare arms where the handcuffs bit at her wrists to hold them as high as possible. When she struggled, as she knew she would, they would hurt. The impersonal steel would bite her wrists and she would know agony from that alone. She closed her eyes in anticipation.

It was worse than Mia had dreamed. It was a wicked sear, scorch and impact against which she had no defense. But she was remembering Melody and from some unknown reserve of resistance, contrived to brace herself against the shock and bite back the screams of anguish and anger she longed to utter. In her mind, chaotic with emotion, it seemed incredible she should stand thus and meekly await the second and then the third strokes and on and on. It was asking too much of any girl. Despite her resolve, the cut of steel on wrists warned her of worse to come. She was panting in gasps, merging into moans. For the first time, Mia Argent understood what it was like for a girl to be whipped upon her naked skin.

Mia held herself tense for the second blow. She could always scream, but at least she would try to match Melody's courage. The weal burned hot upon her skin, sending its tentacles of pain into every part of her body. She closed her mind to Gentry's theories of the subjection of girls, they did not matter, men were ridiculous anyway except at those times when their arms were a refuge to be sought. Ryan stood back, watching his work flower on her flesh and giving it time to impose its maximum agony before striking again. It took almost a minute before the whipped maiden to realize she was alone.

It was a bitter refinement of cruelty, this delaying of the inevitable, to leave the naked girl, distraught and fearful, having given her the single awful stroke so she would know what to expect upon the return of her master. Distastefully Mia stepped from foot to foot and rose upon her toes to ease the stress on metal circled wrists. This time of waiting was as bitter as the thong itself. But as time passed without relief the scorch and burn of the single stroke changed in its nature to leave her in a quivering sensitive of expectation and this in turn changed to a flaring lust. The fire gathered itself within her crotch and burned with a terrible intensity of longing until Mia could believe it possible to be whipped anew yet feel no pain but only a transcendent ecstasy. She realized this was Melody's secret. Melody must have been whipped often enough to come to terms with the leather upon her flesh and to master it by her flesh's own response. She had always understood the whipping of a naked girl to be an carnal indulgence on the part of he or she who held the whip. It was Freudian stuff she had never bothered to analyze. There was no need to analyze it now, she was living it out in an highly sexual way. Her wrists had ceased to hurt.

Mia's loneliness lasted fifteen minutes. At its end, Ryan returned to stand facing her so close she could feel his breath. Between them was an intangible something without a name. They bombarded each other with vibrations and gazed steadily in wordless searching until the nude, stretched girl said, almost mockingly, "Go on, Ryan, finish what you started." Sarcastically Mia asked, "How many strokes do I have to have for loving you?"

Gentry allowed his slavegirl's mockery to trail away into silence, making her wait breathlessly for an answer, Mia's hate burned fiercely. Before Ryan's voice mocked hers, "How many, sweetheart?" Ryan pinched her nipple playfully. "Just one."

"But I've had one already?"

"That's right, love, you've been whipped."

Mia stared, at first in disbelief, until the amusement in Ryan's eyes told her the truth. Even then she could not grasp the enormity of his compassion, or was it merely a reprieve? Breathlessly she exclaimed, "Ryan, I love you terribly, but I don't understand any of this. Please free my arms so I can hug you."

"You don't have to understand anything, my pet. Leave that to me. You needed a whipping and you've been whipped. Aren't you the lucky girl!"

"Ryan Gentry, I adore you!"

"As well you should, my love. And now let me tend the fire." Ryan came close and while he kissed her lips and embraced her nudity with a single arm, his other hand sought her sex, palming and kneading it with male omniscience. "My, my, did we ever get results!" He held up an open palm glistening with secretions. "Her, sweetheart, you'd better dry it off for me." He thrust it against her lips.

Mia licked avidly in pure animal hunger. She went on and on, using her lips, until her master laughing called a halt. "There's only one thing to do with you, Mia Argent," he said forcefully, "and that's take you to bed. How would it be I whip your rump until it glows. I'm told the effect is the best aphrodisiac in the world."

"Yes! Oh, yes!" Mia was lost to shame and to all else except the fire which consumed her fiercely. "Ryan, do it to me. Do it to me quick!"

Ryan laughed. He lowered the tractioned arms and replaced the steel-clad wrists behind the maiden's back. He picked Mia up and carried her to his room.

At the end of one more week of Ryan's almost feverish painting of his prisoners, Mia asked a question knowing herself little concerned with the answer. "Ryan, you've had us a month now, when are you going to turn us loose? Are you going to turn us loose?"

"Do you want me to, sweetheart?"

"Oh, Ryan, that isn't what I asked? When are you going to give the twins and me our freedom?"

"You don't want to be free, you know you don't. You're a bit of a hypocrite about that freedom, Mia Argent. You're simply hoping I'll tell you, 'No, I'll never set you free,' so how about I do exactly that? I'll never set you free, you and I can go over to Dovecove as needed and you can wear my handcuffs for life."

"Ryan, don't tease. It's my life you're talking about. Not to mention Fancy and Angel."

"Don't worry about Fancy and Angel, those two sex pots are enjoying every moment. Right now I've got the two of them against a wall, their arms stretched wide out and their waists strapped to the wall. They can wiggle and kick all they like and you ought to hear their complaints. But when I put my hand on what they call their 'pussy' I discovered they were secreting like crazy. I suspect they wanted to put their hands there too." Ryan laughed in memory. "They're damned cute about these things. Before I left they absolutely implored me to do what they call 'You Know What' to them. The only reason I don't do it is because of you. You're about all I can handle, you lascivious witch!"

Mia knew he spoke truth about the twins. True, they sometimes complained bitterly of what he did to them, but mostly they were a pair of concupiscent kittens finding erotic pleasure in their punishments which were not truly punishments at all but rather an overemphasized facet of captivity. With her own feminine logic, Mia pointed out, "Ryan, the point we've reached ... you know I won't run away, you know I won't leave you. I'd marry you tomorrow if you weren't so stubborn and so cheesed off with Melody. So why do you have to keep me chained? I hardly ever get out of handcuffs and leg irons. I'd feel naked without them."

"I keep you chained because I want to, Mia Argent. It pleases me, I damned near get an erection every time I look at you. You were made for captivity and constraints. You glow, there's a sort of radiance ..."

He kissed and patted her bottom gently. "Forget it."

"Oh, all right, but how about a day off once in a while? And for the twins, too?"

"I've given it thought but it's not a good idea. Freedom is habit forming and all three of you are happily in a captive rut. Leave it alone."

Mia left it alone. Strangely she could understand Ryan's reactions. He was savoring a power and an authority denied most men. Everyday upon his canvass he depicted some feature of a slavegirl in a series of works Mia was positive would make his rich. Under the inspiration of rope and chain upon the flesh of girls, he was creating masterpiece after masterpiece with a fierce absorption which denied his assertion of permanent captivity. It was more as though he possessed her for only a very limited time and intended to make the most of it. Mia gave up worrying. In a shameful knowledge of great happiness, if Gentry sometimes performed small cruelties, it was perhaps no more than the icing on her cake or the addition of a touch of spice to counter boredom. At the end of their painting one day there was a case in point.

"Sweetheart, take a break, we'll call it a day. Look, there's something I want you to do. In exactly thirty minutes come to my office." He grinned broadly, "I'll be amused, maybe you'll be amused, too."

The freedom of the house had become commonplace to the chained girl. Without hands, she could do little, but she could take as many short, hobbled steps as she pleased. Gentry had long since realized her reluctance to go out into the fields or roadways naked and chained as he kept her. It was understood between them Mia was as safely prisoner as within a cage. Without thought of anything untoward, she snoozed for thirty minutes before presenting herself at The Master's office. Before she reached the open door, she heard Angel's plaintive wail, "Please, Sir, I don't want my hands caned. It hurts something fierce. I had it done to me once. It's awful!"

It was hard not to gasp in amazement or to laugh. Ryan had carefully arranged his small tableau for Mia's benefit. She was now a witness to a play in which the first lines had already been uttered. Angel was, as usual, naked, her feet impeded by leg irons, but all the rest of her free. Angel seemed to not know what to do with her hands in their unexpected freedom. There was no sign of Fancy.

But the showpiece of the Play was The Master himself. Ryan Gentry was attired in an academic mortarboard and gown. He was seated behind his desk, a desk which had been cleared of all clutter save one single exhibit. The exhibit was a long length of slender yellow cane which riveted Angel's attention as though mesmerized, her eyes leaving it only long enough to endeavor to enlist her elder sister in defense. "Mia, darling, make him stop, make him not do this to me. Look at the awful thing on the desk. I just couldn't bare it, I know I couldn't. He wants to cane my hands!"

Despite big sister sympathy, Mia could not fail to remember the many times she herself had desired to do exactly what Gentry now proposed. But, without doubt, Gentry's inflection would be two or three times as severe as anything she would have done. But her voice was soft, "It's no use looking to me, Angel, I'm helpless as I usually am. If Mr. Gentry wishes to punish you, I'm sure he has a reason. It might be best not to argue too much."

"Well said!" Gentry approved in a fine academic baritone. "I suggest, Angel, you know hold out your right hand and keep it still."

"I can't! I can't possibly! Oh, please, sir, don't cane my hands." The naked nymphet gazed around the office in desperation, her tone urgent, "I haven't done a thing to deserve being punished. Couldn't you whip my bottom instead?"

"I intend to cane the palms of your hands, Angel," Gentry explained as though he had just caught the delinquent damsel in some misdemeanor. "It is a child's punishment, nothing to make so much fuss over."

"But I'm not a child!" Angel said defensively. "And you shouldn't cane me if I haven't done anything and anyway I don't want to be caned, it hurts terribly." She stood, quaintly clutching to two cheeks of her bottom as though it was there she was to receive the inflection of the dreaded thing upon the desk. "Please, Mia, darling, do something."

The elder sister knew she fought a lost cause. Gentry was enjoying the entire scene including her own distress for her younger sibling. She said what she must, "Please, Ryan, do you have to punish her like this, isn't there something less painful you can do? I mean, tie her up or something like that."

"Good girl, you've done your duty and now your dear little sister will hold our her hand for the first of four cuts. I'm really being very lenient to give her only two on each hand." Gentry rose in all his academic majesty, picked up the cane and said, "Come now, Angel, hold out your hand."

Angel held out her hand.