Chapter 4
Much later he awoke.
"Awoke" wasn't perhaps the right word. He stirred. He tried to move. He tried to open his eyes. It seemed impossible. The pain was overpowering.
He decided to concentrate on his eyes. The lids were heavy and swollen. With much effort he opened them, opened them a crack, just enough to-see the light by, not enough to see anything. Then he closed them again.
The events of the past few hours flashed through his mind. He remembered another situation, another time when he had woken like this, but he had no idea how long ago that had been. Then, too, he had not known at first where he was or what he was doing or even what had happened, but then he had woken with a body refreshed by the pleasures of a recent fuck, a damn good fuck too. Now he woke up with a body racked with pain, and he slowly remembered the blows that had been rained on him. He could feel those blows now as one gigantic blow that covered the full and entire surface of his whole body. The joy and pleasure he had felt in the pain and humiliation towards the end of his conscious awareness of that event no longer survived and he could barely imagine, let alone believe, how he could at any time or in any way have found them pleasurable.
He groaned with the pain. His lips, he discovered, were swollen and distorted. They seemed numb with the bruises. His eyelids gradually opened and he could see slightly more of the room where he was. It was still the same loft, he assumed, though he seemed to have moved or been moved. A bright light was shining from the ceiling, bright, stark and unshaded. It threw the area of ceiling and wall that was within his field of vision into stark shapes and outlines.
He tried to move his head and found it was possible, though his neck was stiff and every muscle hurt. Some suspicion told him to seek out his crotch, to see if his cock or his testicles had been damaged in any way; he thought he should be able to feel them without actually touching them but the whole area seemed numb, seemed part of the general numbness that overlay the pain of his entire body. He managed to move his fingers and then his hands; his wrists moved and so with great pain did his elbows, but the muscles were too weak at first to move on the command of his befuddled mind. With a supreme effort he moved his whole arm, moved it down from the shoulders in the general direction of his cock. It was difficult to direct it and even more difficult to find the precise location of his tools of masculinity, but eventually, groping painfully along the walls and bruises of his belly and of his thighs, he found his cock, small and soft but apparently un-bruised and unharmed, and further groping found his balls, too, both of them. He tried rubbing them, tried evoking all kinds of erotic tableaux so as to arouse his cock to a hard-on in order to see whether it was still functioning the way it should, but all seemed hopeless. His cock was numb, his balls were numb, his entire body was numb. Try as he would he could not stimulate them into excitement.
It was hopeless!
Then he heard a whimper. A sob in the distance. Muffled crying and moaning.
Strange things were happening here!
Robin wondered what the owners of this loft were up to. Owners? He didn't really know who they were or what or how many. That girl who'd brought him up here, that innocent-looking one who'd picked him up, that child-woman who had tempted him so lasciviously and whom eventually in the full thrust of his aroused manhood he had fucked-could she be part of this plot? It certainly would not surprise him. And who was that other woman who had beaten him and lashed him and crushed him under her boot? What was she doing here? What was her relation to Lizbeth and what was Lizbeth's relation to her. Where was Lizbeth for that matter, and where was the woman-in-boots-and-leather?
Further sobbing changed the direction of his thinking. It sounded like a little girl, a sad little, lost little girl, in the throes of utter despair.
Robin stirred himself painfully. He rolled to one side, reached out an elbow, raised himself, tried to get his legs functioning. He couldn't stand but he could tuck his legs under him and by pressing on the one arm he could raise himself into a near sitting position. Now, through his puffed eyelids, he could see more of the room. He tried to focus his eyes.
What he saw aroused both his passion and his compassion.
In front of his eyes was the girl he had fucked way back in time when he was still strong and hale and well. It was Lizbeth, unquestionably Lizbeth, naked as the day she was born. No, not quite naked: she was "wearing" ropes and bonds that had her completely and helplessly trussed up.
A leather strap had been fastened around her neck. From here a length of chain dropped down the front of her neck and between her upraised knees and was linked to leather straps that encircled her wrists, under the back of her thighs. The wrists, fastened together, formed an circling bracelet that forced her thighs up close to her face, and they were fastened, in their turn, by another length of chain to straps that encircled both ankles and held them close together. She was thus drawn up in a squatting position, her head and neck drawn down to her knees, her wrists forcing her knees close up to her chest and her ankles drawn tight to her thighs and her hams. Her hair was disheveled but there seemed no sign of bruises.
"Lizbeth," Robin tried to say but it came out "Buh-buh" from between his swollen lips.
"Buh-Buh, a' 'u 'er?" His mind formed the words: "Lizbeth, are you hurt?" but his lips could not form it.
From the opposite corner came a sigh and a groan.
With a valiant effort, Robin raised himself to his knees and, using his hands for locomotion, he slowly covered the five or six yards that separated him from the trussed up girl.
The girl noticed his approach and lifted her head to the extent that the restraints permitted this. He approached her, inch by painful inch, and when he finally got to her he slowly raised one hand and stroked her tied-up thigh.
The girl flinched, whether in pain or surprise or disgust Robin could not tell.
Slowly, painfully, carefully, he got out his words: "Are you hurt?"
"No, not yet." And she broke into new sobs.
"There...I'll try to help. You mustn't cry. What happened?"
"She came back and found us...O God! We shouldn't have...I was naughty...I know it was wrong...and she's going to punish me now."
Her phrases were interspersed by sobs and crying.
"She? Who's she? What's her business here?"
"Oh you must know who she is. It's Arbella. I love her and she's been so good to me and she's taken such good care of me and every now and again the devil gets inside me and I have the urge to go out and cheat on her with a man.... O God! I can't help myself. What can I do? I'm a woman after all and I need a man sometimes, but I love her and I've cheated her and she's going to punish me."
Head down, she was crying and sobbing. Gone was the innocence she had worn when they first met, gone was the poise and self-assurance of the young lady, gone was the teasing nymphet whom he had fucked. All that was left was a self-pitying, woebegone, loveless, hopeless, damsel-in-distress. Where once she had aroused desire in him she now aroused nothing but disgust. He should have been able to pity her in her dejection but pity at this moment was an emotion alien to him. He wanted neither to love this woman, this abject, self-pitying wretch of a woman, nor to pity her. The only desire he had for her at this moment was to kick her and beat her and see the tears flow more copiously.
"Stop sniveling!" he ordered. He suddenly found his strength returning. His body still hurt, but as the blood coursed through his veins in mixed anger and disgust, he found he was able to bring all his limbs once more under control.
"What's your game?" Robin demanded brusquely.
"It's...it's no game. I wanted you. I got turned on by you. I thought we could.... I thought we . . .I mean I...I mean we could fuck. She wasn't supposed to be here. She's supposed to be on the Coast for another week. I didn't think she'd be back."
"Are you a lesbian?"
She sobbed.
"Are you, yes or no?"
"I suppose I am."
"What do you mean 'suppose'. Either you are or you aren't. Are you a lesbian."
"Yes."
"Is Arbella your mistress."
"Yes."
"Are you her slave."
"Yes."
"How long have you been her slave?"
"For a year, I think. For a year, since I started working on my M.A." She burst into renewed sobbing and for a few minutes Robin could get no sensible words out of her.
"Who is Arbella?" he finally asked for the umpteenth time.
"Arbella! I love her! She's everything to me. She's my sun, my stars, my god!"
"You're being silly. I don't want to hear your hysterical exaggerations. Tell me who she is or I'll slap you hard."
His words sounded convincing.
"Arbella. She's an...She's very wealthy. She's very well connected. She's an artist and she stages plays and works in television."
"How did you get to her?"
"She had an ad on the notice board at N.Y.U. Something like: Free accommodation in home of wealthy artistically-inclined professional woman for attractive young graduate student, 'willing and able to help with sundry chores.' I fell for it. She already had two other girls staying in this loft and I fell in love with her. Now I cant get away from her. I'll do anything to make her let me stay here and to let me serve her and love her. Oh, I'm sure you can't understand...."
"Do all these girls live here?"
"Yes, both of them, much of the time."
"And Arbella?"
"She has a home on Washington Square but she spends much of her time here, too."
"And I expect all four of you get up to your lesbian tricks together?"
"Sometimes."
"And when the big cat is out of the house, the little pussycats go wild and pick up men."
"Sometimes."
"Is that the only time you can get fucked by a man?"
"No, quite often Arbella lays on parties, and then we all get to fuck all kinds of ways."
"Parties."
"Well, orgies."
"I see. Tell me, does Arbella always walk around in that crazy dyke outfit."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, that helmet for instance. And those boots." He felt disloyal calling it "crazy" since he had really been excited out of his mind by it, but he wanted to put a distance between his feelings and those of this girl. There was no call for him to let her know that he found excitement in the bizarre. "And those high heels. And all that leather and stuff...."
"No, she has all kinds of outfits. That's what she wears out on the street. She wears more interesting things at home."
Instinct was telling Robin he should cut short his conversation but curiosity made him stop and ask for more. He should run and escape from this crazy, perverted menace before worse things befell him but now he was captivated by the very mystery and perversion he knew this contained. He wanted to run and escape-and at the same time he wanted to stay and experience more.
Tm getting out of here," he announced, totally unconvinced by his own words.
"The door's locked."
'That's absurd. There's sure to be a way out. At least there must be a fire escape. I know New York City laws are very stringent on that. If I can't get out of the front door like a gentleman, I'll simply climb out of the window and down the fire escape."
For the first time since he had discovered the girl crying in the corner, he heard her laugh.
"Down the fire escape!" she said, not hiding her amusement.
"And what's funny in that?" Robin wanted to know.
"In your birthday suit?"
"Of course not, I'll get dressed."
"Some hope! She's locked us both in this room and all the clothes are in the other room."
"I'll break down the door."
"Four inches of solid oak. Sheathed with quarter-inch steel plates. I know the specifications here. Think people before you haven't tried to run away?"
"But she can't keep me here. That's kidnapping, slavery, involuntary servitude. I don't quite know what but I bet I could throw the book at her. I only have to get out and then . .
"Has it ever struck you, buster, that once Arbella has worked her way with you, you may not want to get out. And if you should get out when she's done with you, you might be too much enamored of her to want to lose her love-and besides, far too embarrassed at what you've gone through and what you've learned to enjoy, to ever want to run and tell the cops about it." something about what the girl was saying seemed to ring a bell with him. Something in what she was saying made sense. He could already feel the tugs of desire and admiration for this strange, masterful woman who had beaten and degraded him to within an inch of his life.
At the same time, however, his logic tried to intervene. It couldn't be possible. This couldn't be happening to him. He was masculine, virile, strong, powerful. He could never submit himself to domination and mastery by another, least of all a woman-and a woman as crazy and absurd as Arbella the Queen of the Lesbian College Set.
"Look, Lizbeth, I don't know what sort of tricks this Arbella woman has played on you, but she's obviously got you quite entangled. Now don't get me wrong: you re young, you're impressionable, you have quite a bit of the hysteric in your make-up, and you probably had a sheltered sort of childhood and youth that made you ripe to be this woman's victim. But not me. I'm a man, I've experienced a lot, I've seen and done a lot of things you wouldn't even dream of. Now I'm not going to stay here and play this woman's game. When she gets back to let us out, I'll tell her exactly what I think of her and then I'll take my leave and if she tries any funny business, she'll find that I'm quite a one with my fists. I used to be an area amateur boxing champion and I can certainly take care of myself."
"Arbella is a black belt karate."
"Nonsense, that's what she feeds you on. Look, I'm clearing out as soon as she gets back. If you like, you can come with me and I'll help you get away from her clutches."
It was strange. Just a few minutes before he was despising this girl for her abject servility and her self-pity. Now, somehow he began to like her again. He saw her as a fellow victim, an ally even in case of need. If they could escape together, he could maybe work out something with her. They might get back to the sort of fun relations they were developing from the moment she had picked him up to the moment just before Arbella had entered the picture with her spike heels and her whip. He could have fun with Lizbeth under the proper conditions, for a few days at least, and if Lizbeth really had the subservient attitude that she now declared for Arbella-so totally different from the roles she had been playing with him-he might, even, allow Lizbeth to become his slave. Having been in the role of victim for a brief while here, it would be nice to turn the tables on a woman and become the master.
"I don't want to get away from her. I love her too much."
"I'll get away."
"Maybe."
"Just let me get my clothes on . .
"No, just stay the way you are. I like the way you look, all bruised and sore and beaten with your cock hanging down so tired and so limp."
"Funny! Look, let's stop this nonsense. I'll undo your bonds and then if you like you can help me when she comes. I'll make a grab for my clothes and...."
"No, please don't undo my straps. It'll only make it worse. We can't get away in any case. No, she wants me to be trussed up until she gets back and I have to take my punishment like a Stoic. I don't mind being tied up, I really don't. On the contrary, I find it very exciting."
"I don't believe you."
"Look for yourself! Can you see my nipples, how hard they are? And my cunt's all a' twitching and aflame. I bet you can see it dripping."
He looked. Indeed, she was right. Of course, he thought to himself, a typical masochist. And then he remembered his own excitement while he was being whipped by Arbella just a few hours before.
"I'd enjoy it if it wasn't for one thing."
"What's that?" Robin asked.
"I get so excited I throb all over and I'm dying to jerk myself and get an orgasm to stop that incessant itch. Only Arbella is clever and she knows it. She's got me trussed in such a way that I can't possibly reach myself anywhere I could do myself some good. Be a sport Robin, make me come."
Robin needed little bidding. His cock was already showing its willingness by rising to the occasion. He reached one arm down the front of Lizbeth's face, between her breasts and her knees until he reached the erect clitoris, and with the other hand he reached her from the back, letting his finger dig deep into her cunt. He found the surfaces wet and slippery, easing his work. His fingers dug in and out and around and around. He pressed his nude body against the fiery body of the excited girl and found that the contact of flesh upon flesh considerably eased the pain and soreness he had been suffering.
His body snuggled against hers, his hands were at work, they rocked together in unison, and in only a few minutes he was able to bring Lizbeth to the heights of her passion from which she found release in a loud, moaning, shuddering orgasm.