Chapter 8
Slowly, the Whipmaster unbuckled the utility belt which was fastened around his waist. Sheree watched as he pulled back the leather and slipped it through the brass buckle.
He pulled it out from under his robe and held it up for the gathered throng to see. The brass buckle glinted in their eyes, as it was hit by the light from a myriad of candles surrounding the altar on which the ritual of punishment was taking place for the naked slavegirl.
As the Whipmaster unfurled the leather from his waist and held it up for the congregation to behold, Sheree wondered if he planned to use it on her in any way. His movements were so slow and so deliberate, she was left wondering.
That was exactly what the man wanted. He wanted to keep her nerve ends tingling in suspense. He wanted to slap the nerve endings and make them tingle with burning pain, but only if he could take her by surprise at first.
He toyed with the leather, running it through his hands; slapping it against his palm, as if to test the weight of its blow.
Meanwhile, other Whipmasters, also dressed in the ceremonial robes, stepped forward to secure Sheree with the special ropes they had cut from her head. The long strands were used to tie her wrists together behind her.
The men forced her wrists up high on her back as they tied them together. They wanted to be certain that the buttocks of the young girl were in full view. "Your bottom is full and meaty. Those flanks will take a lot of abuse," the Whipmaster whispered in the girl's ear as he fastened her. He had noticed that she was slender from the waist up, but that her buttocks were full, and developed like the bottom of a mature woman.
"Can you allow me to lower my wrists a bit," Sheree asked. "It feels like you've got a wrestling hold on me the way you've forced my arms up on my back," she whispered.
"I don't want your hands in the way of the target," he told her sternly. "If you lower your hands, they'll be beaten along with your buttocks," he added.
Sheree decided that she would have to bear the pain of the uncomfortable bondage position. Once the whipping began, the strain on her arms would seem like nothing in comparison to the fire of the whip.
The long golden hair was tied around Sheree's ankles, binding them as one would bind an animal ready for slaughter. Her arms and legs now formed one sleek line with the rest of her form. Nothing stood out on the girl except for the two ripe globes of her breasts. The candle light illuminated her entire body in a warm hue.
The Whipmaster who had removed his utility belt placed his hands on Sheree's naked body. With his right hand supporting her front and his left hand at her back, he bent her forward, doubling her over so that her breasts dangled downward. If her hands and arms had been free, she would have been touching her toes.
"This position will raise your posterior," the Whipmaster told her. "And it will place your gaze where it belongs." Her eyes were directed to the floor, of course. She saw only her own feet, and the feet of the ultimate Master who watched as she was placed in position for punishment.
The Whipmaster began by caressing the girl's body with die belt. He teased her with the buckle end of it, running the cold brass against her young flesh. She shuddered when the cold brass touched her young nipples. They became more firm when kissed with the brass, which soon heated to the temperature of her body.
The belt was snaked up and down on her flesh, touching every part that might later be pelted with hard lashes. She wondered if the Whipmaster was going to warm her up with the belt, to prepare her body for the whip of the ultimate Master. She knew that it was the custom to make the flesh sore and ready before laying on the punishing whip.
But he didn't beat her with the belt. He wrapped it around her right upper thigh, pulling the girl closer to him when he pulled the strap upwards by the two ends. He closed the circle of the belt and pulled, positioning her buttocks higher.
Sheree now had to stand her toes with her head bowed in submission. By standing on her toes, she was able to keep her full bottom raised as high as physically possible. Her rump was guided upwards by the belt, which cut into her inner thigh and vaginal flesh as the Whipmaster tugged firmly.
Sheree was in position for punishment. It was not comfortable, but then, the object was not to make her comfortable. The object was to prepare her for a punishment which she would never forget. Bound with her own hair, and positioned so that she could not possibly wriggle away from the rain of blows, it was unlikely that she would ever forget what was about to happen to her.
"It is an honor to be disciplined by the ultimate Master," one of the third-level slavegirls told a novice. "It aids in the correction by speeding up the process."
"I'm sure it does," the novice replied. She was in awe at the sight before her. The ultimate Master looked so powerful. His presence would calm the storm within any arrogant or unruly young girl.
"You are now to take the punishment of disrespectful bitch," the ultimate Master announced. His voice was booming. It filled the chapel with thunderous sound. It was almost as if a microphone were enlarging the power of his lungs.
Sheree wanted to raise her eyes and acknowledge the Master's announcement to her. But she could not. As far as the Master was concerned, she could do her acknowledgment with her face pointed down to the floor in humble submission and total degradation. She was going to receive the punishment of a complete slave.
"Your mind and your body belong to me," he told her, fingering the black whip which had come to symbolize the cult. "When you misuse your mind and body, it is for me to set you back on the path of correction. That way you will again be able to know the peace and happiness of pure love."
The words were a signal for the candle-bearing Whipmasters and slavegirls. Every other person circling the bound, naked slavegirl blew out the flames on their candles, sending the chapel into a darkness which blurred the features of the ultimate Master. He was now a towering outline, with the coiling whip as part of the silhouette. In the darkness, it appeared that the whip was part of his body; an attachment as basic as his arms and legs. In a way, it was.
The ultimate Master moved around behind the girl.
"I am going to punish you now, for you have sinned."
The words cut through the assembled, and there was a silence in the chapel. The silence was so thick, it could be cut with the slice of the whip whistling through the air.
Sheree's naked bottom was completely vulnerable. The sex realm of the restrained slavegirl was peeking out and dripping. The lips were twitching in anticipation of the punishment which promised to be so severe.
Sheree thought of Culver as the whip was raised high above her upturned bottom. The bare flesh had been bound during her time in solitary confinement, but it had not been beaten. The skin was flawless. It was ready to be marked.
She could see the shadow of the ultimate Master's arm raised above her. The shadow appeared on the floor, and it elongated the man's arm and the ominous extension of the instrument of pain. It made the inevitable discipline all the more fearsome.
She sucked her breath in. The Master stood back to give himself the maximum amount of space in which to swing the whip. All eyes were on her white buttocks. The young girls observing gasped as the whip was brought down into the flesh which was so like the vulnerable flesh of their own teenaged bottoms.
He thrashed the biting whip into her left bottom cheek. The punishment had begun. The whip was the powerful whip on which rested the entire reputation of the cult. It was enough to cut the hide of a full-grown bull.
The knotted end of the thin rawhide cut into the naked bottom, leaving an immediate welt of redness with swollen flesh all around it. The bruise was long and curved. It would become purple and blue where the under-flesh was injured and the blood vessels were damaged.
"Oh my God!" Sheree gasped. The impact of the first stroke was more than she had ever expected. It would have sent her crashing to the floor, except that the Whipmaster kept her bottom up, holding her in position with the belt which dug into her inner thigh and sex lips.
"That was hard enough to let you know that I mean business," the ultimate Master said. Then he ordered a Whipmaster to place a goblet filled with wine at the girl's lips. "Drink it," he said.
She sipped the scarlet liquid. It made her dizzy. She hoped that it would numb her to the pain of the stinging whip. She knew that after a few such blows, the whip itself would dull the ache across her entire expanse of bottom.
The ultimate Master raised the whip and brought it down again. The second blow cut directly over the first, making the soreness obvious to the observers, some of whom fainted just at the sight of it.
Sheree was not to be spared the pain by passing out. She was told that she dare not attempt to avoid the punishment in any way. She was to experience it fully in order to get the full benefit of it.
After the second welt had cut into the first, again Sheree had moaned the word of the Lord. It seemed fitting. She could think of nothing else more appropriate to utter as the whip came down on her.
The third blow was delivered to the other bottom globe. "You needed that, didn't you?" the Whipmaster said, as the ultimate Master burned the girl's bottom with the blistering whip.
"Yes, I needed that," she sighed, the tears beginning to flow.
The whip continued to bite into the flesh of young Sheree, criss-crossing her bare bottom so that red stars were formed on the skin with the whip. This was how the red star was tattooed into the bodies of the cult members of the black whip clan. No needles were used. The powerful whip, wielded by the ultimate Master, was weapon enough to mark the bodies of the slavegirls forever.
One could only imagine the pain which the Whipmasters endured to have the red stars placed upon their sex organs. It was all to show their undying alliance to the cult of the black whip, as an allying or close association of nations for a common objective. It was a bond, like the marriage bond, cemented with more than a simple ring.
This ring could not be removed as easily as a wedding band. This really was forever.
At some point in the ritualistic domination of the girl under the whip, another slavegirl was brought into the chapel. She too was flanked by naked slavegirls and robed Whipmasters, but these slaves and Masters tossed rose petals into the congregation. There were also whole, fresh roses among the petals, red roses, with thorns still attached.
The thorns were considered as beautiful as the rest of the flower. That thorns should be considered less than the petal of softness was another of the backward beliefs of the outside world, according to the ultimate Master.
Naturally, when the naked slavegirls were struck with the full roses, the thorns scratched them. "You must learn to accept the pain along with the sweetness," the ultimate Master said. "That is part of life. To deny that part is to create falseness, and to deprive oneself of the ability to profit from punishment."
That was fortifying to Sheree, who had to endure the continuing barrage of whip strokes to her lashed and cut bottom. When the whip had embedded her bottom with red stars, a cane was used to give her some dull, throbbing anguish.
The cane, as used in British discipline sessions, was a thin cane which also left its nasty red calling cards across the flesh. Because it was a wooden stick, it gave a different kind of hurt than the whip did, and it was intended to serve as the second layer of pain on the pulsating bottom, before the whip was administered for the third and final round.
Sheree was only vaguely aware that another slavegirl had been brought forward into the chapel to share in the participation of ritual abuse. The other girl was Angelica, there to receive the order of the whip strokes, but for a different purpose.
"You are to be rewarded," the ultimate Master said to Angelica, as she was placed beside Sheree. "You have earned the stripes which will be placed on your body. You have jumped levels in your training. You are that much closer to the ultimate reward of intercourse with your ultimate Master."
Angelica was weak. She felt the trembling of every curved muscle in her young, naked body. She was trembling with excitement at this moment. It hadn't been long ago that she had observed such a ritual in this very chapel. Then it was new and strange to her. Now she understood that the disciplinary movements were giving her purpose for the first time in her eighteen years.
She was proud of her progress, and she was ready to submit with pleasure.
"You are to receive the same lashes as Sheree is receiving," the ultimate Master told her. "For you, the lashes will be a reward."
"Yes, I want to feel them," she said. Her breathing was heavy and her voice was throaty with desire. She was almost in a state of lust for the whip, and then she recalled that lust must be whipped from her body so that pure love could grow.
Still, she could not control the stiffening of her nipples. They were stretching outward from the softness of her breasts. Each nipple protruded an inch from her breast flesh.
"You are to receive the red star on your left breast," the Master told her. Angelica gulped. She had hoped it would be this. She wanted to show her slavery to the cult of the black whip. She longed to be part of the exclusive group. It was the first group to which she had ever felt that she truly belonged. Perhaps it was because she gave so much of herself to be part of the cult. Every girl did. They had to.
"The Whipmasters are going to spread eagle and hold you down," the ultimate, Master told Angelica. "I'm sure that you would like to stay down without such human bondage, but it would be impossible, even for a good slave such as you. The whip is a evil one. It will burn the tender flesh of a virgin bosom."
"Thank you, Master," Angelica moaned. She could hardly believe that the words were coming from her own lips. She could hardly believe that she had no control over the shivers of passion which were coursing through her body, from the tender center of her virgin core, all throughout her chest, where the tattoo was to be cut.
She could hardly believe that she had forgotten all about her job and about the outside world from which she had come that rainy night of the previous full moon. Her parents had set search for her, and her picture had been on the front pages of the local papers. What a way to get your face on the front page of the newspaper!
Her parents had reported that perhaps she had been kidnapped by some such religious cult. They couldn't believe that she would have joined on her own free will. She had never shown an interest in such things, and besides, "she was such a good girl," her mother reported.
Her parents didn't really believe that they had lost their daughter, but they had. She would never return, for she was not fulfilled by their way of life. She needed something more. She needed what so many directionless girls need. She needed the cult of the black of whip. It enslaved her forever, and brought her happiness.
This she was certain of as she was pressed down on the altar. She felt the strong hands of the Whipmasters at her ankles and her wrists. Her legs were parted, exposing her bared cuntal core.
The ultimate Master opened his robe. The congregation gasped.
Then the remaining candles were blown out, leaving the chapel in darkness.
It was not unlike the ritual which Angelica herself had observed on the night of the previous full moon. At the moment when the ultimate Master bared himself, the room went dark, and the congregation began to file out of the chapel.
Again, the higher-level slavegirls led their novices out of the chapel to go to their small rooms and prepare for the nightly punishments. The Whipmasters also departed, returning to their rooms to fortify themselves for the task of administering the nightly punishments up and down the corridors.
Only Angelica and Sheree remained in the chapel with the ultimate Master. The four Whipmasters who held Angelica down also remained, as did the one who kept Sheree in place with his belt.
"I am not going to press beyond the membrane of your maidenhead," the ultimate Master told Angelica. "You are not ready for that. You need more breaking in, and more experience as a true slave."
But he did take the head of his enormous organ, and place it at the entrance of her virgin hole. He twisted it several times in the natural lubrication of her young body. The huge knob rotated against her pleasure zones, making her writhe in frenzy.
It was a good thing that the four Whipmasters had her pinned to the altar. The sensation was absolutely inhuman. It was beyond human. It was the beginning of intercourse with the ultimate Master.