Golden Wrists

4 Naomi’s Discipline

Betty and Constance were a tower of strength. Without them I would have been lost. They were beautifully methodical in the manner by which they never gave any girl freedom long enough to get ideas. Our pretty maidens were taken from bondage to bondage and punishment to punishment without the faintest opportunity to run, or fight, or effectively argue. Arguments were arbitrated by the cane, or, in more difficult instances, by a whip. By the end of the second week, we had a cage full of the most obedient young ladies in the United Kingdom. The school uniforms, having served their purpose, were stripped away and stored for future use. Nakedness was the true condition for the girls of Rockley, and I made sure they were constantly bare. After the canning of hands, I allowed a couple of days to pass before having Elizabeth Lord brought to my office in all the glory of breasts I could swear had swelled an inch, and a forest of pubic curls I could swear had grown even more. Prudently, I had ordered her wrists crossed and bound with thin twine behind her back.

We went through the meeting of our eyes and the challenging wait for the other to provide a clue. It was Elizabeth who broke the silence. “Why don’t you strip naked, the same as me, Miss Durrant? We both know what you want to do. Okay, okay, don’t get snooty, it’s what I want, too.”

I could not control laughter. She was a joyous creature and full of sap. Her husband was undoubtedly a clunk. I could think of nothing relevant to say except, “Are you hands still hurting, Elizabeth?”

“Not as much as my wrists are with this damned thin stuff you’ve had them tied with.”

“That’s good. Elizabeth, why do we beat around the bush? You want something, what is it?”

“You know what I want, you idiot! I want sex. But after watching the way you flounder around. I want something more. I want to see you exactly as I am now. One day I will.”

“What would you do with me?”

“Thrash you and love you. What else is there!”

I laughed with pretense. It was good to be with Elizabeth.

“You’re dreaming, Elizabeth,” I told her flippantly. “You’ll never get to thrash me, but that reminds me of why I had you brought here. I suspect it’s time I thrashed you. If you wore britches, I’d say you were getting too big for them.”

“Damn it, Diana, you don’t have to be the omnipotent goddess with me. And you needn’t think that caning of my hands didn’t hurt. It was the worse pain I’d ever known. If you’d given me a couple more like that, I’d have broken down. But you know that.”

We laughed away my wry admission. “I can’t have the girls regarding you as an invincible leader,” I told her soberly. “It’s natural they should look up to you but that performance you put on with the caning of your hands left all of us gasping. They worship you.”

“Okay then, whip me until I grovel at your feet.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Okay then, take me up to bed. You don’t have to untie my hands. I can manage.”

“I can’t do that, either. Elizabeth, you’re impossible! I don’t want you groveling at my feet but somehow I’ve got to make you cry Uncle and do it while those pretty little dears in the cage are watching. Sorry!”

“That sounds like the prelude to the whip. Are you going to have me flogged while forty nine teenagers busily secrete?”

“I’ve thought of it, of course. But whipping a naked girl is passe, even though it is basic.”

“If you whip me. I promise I’ll scream. And I’ll kick and twist like crazy so the little dears will know I’m hurting. But, please don’t whip my breasts ... Please?”

Elizabeth Lord was altogether too much. I took her to bed.

It was several hours before we bothered to talk, but eventually Elizabeth came back to a subject which held a fascination, and which I suspect she was deeply afraid of. Once more her approach was flippant. “If you really want to shame me in front of them all, Diana, why don’t you have me hung up by my heels with my legs far apart so they can all see everything I’ve got. You could have me whipped in that beastly condition. I’d be so ashamed, I’d cry.”

“Why tell me?”

“Well, I know you’re going to do something to me, and I know you have to. We’re sort of boxed in on account of our age. If I was nineteen. I wouldn’t be noticed.”

“If you had those breasts, you would!”

A long silence drifted deliciously. Elizabeth had made me very happy, even without the use of hands. She constantly complained of the cutting of the twine, but I paid no heed. I was a trifle scared of Elizabeth.

“Darling, you really should consider what I’ve suggested. You and I should change roles. You have trouble bringing yourself to punish me. But I wouldn’t have a bit of trouble punishing you. All you have to do is give Betty and Constance orders. How about it?”

“It’s a crazy idea. I’m no way submissive.”

“But with me you wouldn’t hate it. I suspect you’d adore everything I did to you.”

“I ought to gag you, you’re a menace.”

“And don’t you love it, darling!” I loved it. The next day I had Elizabeth whipped. She and I knew it was in self-defense.

Somehow I had to assert myself as mistress of Rockley. I had no idea of the degree in which the involvement of Elizabeth with myself was known or understood by the rest of the girls with whom she spent her time in nude captivity. But I knew the little darlings well enough to be pretty sure they would sense the way things were. I combined Elizabeth s erotic notion with my own.

Our audience was intrigued but none more so than I as my cohorts extracted Elizabeth Lord from among the naked girls. Of their own accord the girls stepped back towards the wall as though knowing instinctively center stage would be exactly that and the star was Elizabeth Lord. With me as director and my two aides as executioners.

Elizabeth probably guessed what we were about to do to her but her only glances were for me in her usual amused challenge of the eyes. Relieved of handcuffs but with wrists crossed and unkindly tied behind her back, she stood for all to see, the girl about to be punished.

In a matter of minutes the woman I hungered for lay upon bound arms with feet spread wide and raised high enough to proclaim her sex to every watching eye. She tested this fresh infliction of bondage but discovered she could move very little. It was an unusual situation in which a girl about to be whipped would look up along her belly to see the part of herself destined for punishment Elizabeth was secreting outrageously but so was I!

Constance had concocted a solemn declaration of sentence, which she read aloud to proclaim the sin of pride and the manner in which it must be punished. From somewhere she and Betty had discovered a whip I recognized, a wicked looking thing which would not hurt half as much as watchers might suppose. It was ideal for the cleft between Elizabeth’ s thighs and the breasts she could not conceal. When Elizabeth looked at it, the sunlight ceased to shine in her eyes. Elizabeth was scared and I was glad.

“Fifty strokes.” I heard my voice proclaim the sentence. Fifty was a terrible punishment but I was placing my faith in the whip of Constance’s choosing and the knowledge the girls were being deceived. The whip would hurt as it sought the most intimate creases of that lush and wonderful body, but would be no more than Elizabeth Lord could bear. I could only pray she had the wit to put up a good simulation of utter agony.

My aides took turns, and from the very first Elizabeth picked up her cue and screamed lustily as the thongs slapped cruelly within her cleft, expending their venom on her most secret place. First her crotch then her breasts, back and forth in a slow but steady beat of correction - I loved that word, correction!

When we had punished Mrs. Elizabeth Lord, we left her where she was to enjoy the sympathy of forty-nine girls who could not raise their arms enough behind their backs to set her free. No doubt they had much to talk about and most certainly Elizabeth’s thighs and breasts were scarlet enough for any doubter’s eye. Before leaving the collection of them. I proclaim aloud that if any maiden held doubts about what Elizabeth received, she had only to say so and I would order her to undergo the same treatment No one said a word.

The days passed. Supposing there was an obligation on me to adequately punish these girls, and not allow my sympathy for their delightful curves to intrude upon judgment. I kept Betty and Constance busy with the disposition of feminine bodies. One day all the little darlings, and they weren’t really all that little, were tied tight to trees around the park. The next day they shared the darkness of a dungeon and its chains. I stood them in pillories and stocks, and hung them by their pretty little wrists from the limbs of trees. They were not bored. At the start Elizabeth Lord shared theses indignities, but, after all. I was mistress of Rockley, so had her isolated in a cell and allowed only myself to visit her. Loneliness is a terrible punishment and before long Elizabeth was greeting my arrival with delight. Sometimes I taunted her through the bars and went away. But mostly I unlocked the barred door and entered her prison, an barren little stone and steel place which sent shivers up my spine, always Elizabeth’s hands were bound or chained behind her back. And always she was compelled to wear a collar around her neck attached to the wall by a chain long enough to give some freedom but not egress from the cell. I often left her door open as temptation, knowing she could not use it In this cell with these precautions against Elizabeth’s escape, we became the females we truly were.

“I suppose you’re not allowed to tell me how long my sentence is, how long I have to stay in this beastly place?” It was Elizabeth’s favorite theme.

“I don’t even know and I wouldn’t tell you even if I did,” I said crossly. “Tell me which of us is mistress?”

“I am, of course.” Elizabeth stared in rueful defiance. “But I can’t get off this cords from my wrists or this collar from my neck, so you can go against nature, darling, and do whatever you want with me.” She pursed lush red lips to invite a kiss. “But We both know who the mistress really is, don’t we?”

It was a delicious game and I played it to the full, keeping Elizabeth always under control but allowing her the fantasy of possessing me in chains and suffering beneath the whip. There was no possibility of this fantasy coming true but I thought of it often and wondered at its appeal and the tingling it generated in my sex. If Elizabeth became too insistent in this demand, I punished her by something she disliked, clips upon her nipples or her vaginal lips. Or being forced to stand in immobility by ropes. There was also the stocks and pillory and other disagreeable machinery by which a girl could be secured and punished.

I suppose it was inevitable that after a passage of weeks I would start think of New York and my abandoned law practice there. Controlling and punishing so much teenage flesh began to pall. I think that had there been only one or two girls my interest would have diminished less than with a herd of fifty. I went down to stare through the bars of their cage and wonder what to do with them next. I did the same with Elizabeth, keeping the bars between us as we talked, feeling her longing for freedom as if it were mine own. Unable to ignore mutual attraction. I often took her upstairs to my bed. At such times her hands were tied behind her back but that was all. It would have been nice to have them free for full expression in what we shared but I was frankly scared of the dominance in that woman and the smoldering in her eyes. Having her naked without hands beside me on the bed was a constant thrill and I felt gratitude to Uncle Andrew for making me a gift of so much loveliness beneath which was a female vulgarity to ad spice to our relationship. Finally the moment came when Elizabeth accused, “You’re bored stiff with this whole silly business, aren’t you? I don’t mean you and me but all those girls.”

Elizabeth was right! Boredom had crept upon on me and caught me unawares. “I’m not bored with you,” I said defensively.

“Of course you’re not, darling, we two are made for each other.”

Mischief danced in her eyes. “What you say the two of us escape?”

“That’s silly, I can’t possibly let you escape, and there’s nothing for me to escape from. I’m in charge.”

“Andrew Everleigh is in charge, darling, not you. There’s probably a lot I don’t understand about Rockley and the Estate, and those girls you’ve told me about on their Greek island. But anyway you look at it, you’re wasting your time. Untie me and we’ll make a run for it!”

“You’re a married woman, Elizabeth. Your husband would just send you back here.”

Her voice was something intense, “Look, you beautiful idiot, I’m sick to death of Herbert and his money. I’ve got money in my own right and it’s very much accessible. It can take you and I pretty much anywhere we want to go. Untie me. Please...?”

Elizabeth knew me better than I knew myself. I was suddenly on fire with longing. It would have been so easy to untie Elizabeth’ s hands and the two of us run back to my former life, but I remembered Uncle Andrew’s warning. “It wouldn’t work.” I told her. “In my own way, I’m as much a prisoner here as you. Andrew Everleigh foresees everything and he’s promised me that if ever I got the notion to do as you suggest, he’d have me kidnapped within a few days and right back here where I started from. It’s no use, dear, he’s far too powerful.”

We looked at each other soberly but the check on Elizabeth’s enthusiasm was momentary. “That’s supposing he knows where you are. But suppose he doesn’t??? I’ve thought of the perfect place.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to be brought back to Rockley in a wooden box,” I said.

“You’re being morbid, darling. Our ideal hideaway is that island you’ve told me about - what’s it’s name? Plessious? He wouldn’t dream of us being there. And even if he did, that girl you’ve told me about would hide us, wouldn’t she?”

Elizabeth’s excitement was infectious and I was beholding visions. “I don’t know how Naomi would feel about it. She’s a good deal influenced by Uncle Andrew, too. And he actually is her uncle, and he actually is a power in the handling of the Estate. Naomi was a prisoner here once, the same as you, and got herself well whipped and sent back to Plessious with stern warning to behave. But it’s a lovely idea.”

“Let’s do it then. You’d be going to friends and I couldn’t be much worse off than I am here. Think of it, darling, the Grecian sun and azure seas. And there’s those three other girls beside Naomi. Please take me there, Diane darling. Take me in handcuffs if you want but I’m bound to get possession of you sometimes. You can’t tell me I’m not getting you interested.”

Elizabeth was right, I was interested. But too cautious yet to untie her hands, even when she turned her back and wiggled captive fingers. Once more I was annoyed by the tingling up and down my spine by her suggestion of her possessing me as I now possessed her. There was still the question of boredom, and I was still the Mistress so clung to my authority. “I’m going to have you whipped, Elizabeth, just to teach you not to dangle temptation in front of my nose. You’re a menace.”

“But a lovely menace, darling.” Once more she pursed her lips. “Twenty strokes,” I said decisively. Elizabeth stuck out her tongue at me. “You’re only having me whipped to salve your conscience. You think Uncle Andrew is looking over your shoulder and it’s something you have to do. Sure, I’m tempting you, and it’s a gorgeous temptation you can’t resist.” She laughed in my face as if the threat of twenty strokes with the whip was a mere nothing. “After you’ve had me all marked up you’ll feel sorry for being so mean to someone you love - see if I’m not right.”

I did not have Elizabeth whipped but I personally locked her back in her tiny cell and snapped the metal collar around her throat. I hurried away before becoming prey to more outlandish temptation.

For two days I let her sit in chained solitude, expecting the whip but not getting it. She would be, I hoped, somewhat more tractable. Finally I could resist her no longer and took her back upstairs to bed. It was as though the two days of solitary confinement had not passed. Elizabeth Lord was irrepressible. “Thank you for not having me whipped, darling. I really thought you might. I would have hated it and I wouldn’t have talked about our escape for several hours afterward. I thought of the two of us a lot while you keep me locked down there. Diane. I love you.”

I sighed. “Then stop nagging at me to set you free and run off someplace like a couple of kids.”

“I won’t do that, darling. Whip me all you want. Both of us will still know my idea is perfect. You can’t poke a hole in it.” Once again she turned her back to me, wiggled bound hands invitingly. “Untie my wrists, Diane, I want to see what it feels like to have hands. I’ve almost forgotten.”

I was enchanted and bewitched. For very sure I was utterly besotted by this captive beauty I adored. Elizabeth’s crossed wrists so tightly and expertly bound held potent appeal as though they cried aloud, reminding me of love. Savagely I found scissors and cut and cut and cut until the many strands of twine fell shredded to the floor and she who had been my prisoner turned swiftly to envelope me in ardent arms. It was a long time before we spoke again.

Apart from the first swift dash to Elizabeth’s bank, we made our flight as leisurely as plane schedules permitted. Once well on our way, I realized how absolutely right Elizabeth was, I owed nothing to Uncle Andrew and Rockley, and couldn’t spend my life whipping the bottoms of girls. Elizabeth Lord was all the female I would ever want!

That night in our hotel room, we scattered our sparse belongings into draws and on the dresser. While placing her things, Elizabeth casually placed a pair of handcuffs where I could not fail to see. Her explanation was typical for her. “I picked them up at Rockley, darling, a little memento I knew you’d love.”

“I don’t love such things,” I said crossly. “Drop them in the trash or out of the window, get rid of them.”

“Darling, they’re not for me, they’re for you!”

How can I explain the tingling nerves up and down my spine and the surge of excitement in my sex! But Elizabeth was being all too much Elizabeth all too soon. I picked up the shinning circlets to say. “You’re dreaming. Elizabeth, there’s no way I’m having these things on my wrists. Get rid of them.”

“If you hate them so much, why are you holding them like that, darling?”

Hastily I put them back on the dresser as though to rid myself of temptation. Striving to keep alive the atmosphere of fun. I offered, “I refuse to have them on me anywhere, but if you want to sleep tonight with handcuffed hands, I don’t mind a bit. You look sweet when you’re handcuffed.”

Elizabeth sighed as though bearing a great burden. “I know you have to put up a defense, darling, you can’t possibly just stick you hands out. But you’re going to be handcuffed whether you think so or not.”

“If you think you’ll get the best of me, you’re crazy.” I responded.

“I couldn’t possibly use force on you, darling.” Elizabeth’s eyes were glowing as she beheld my nakedness. “I can’t possibly throw them out of the window, darling, and I’m sure you don’t expect me to. Leave them there on the dresser. I’ll find a use for them.”

“I bet you will!” I agreed without feeling the least bit angry. “I know what you intend, you’ll wait until I’m asleep. Then when I wake up they’ll be on my wrists. I wished to goodness you’d left them at Rockley.”

Elizabeth pouted prettily. “Spoil sport!” She laughed at my dilemma. “I’ll get you handcuffed one of these days, darling. It’s something nice for both of us to look forward to. Stop worrying about your precious little hands.”

Suddenly inspired. I grasp the metal restraints and clicked both cuffs tight around my left wrist. “There, that’s the best place for them,” I said triumphantly. “I honestly don’t trust you.” I held up my steel encircled wrist. “This is all the handcuffing you’re ever going to do with me.”

“But I’ve got the key, darling...”

“So what! I’ll wear them as lovely, heavy bracelets.”

It was a gorgeous, wonderful game that left us laughing and in each others arms. I forgot the handcuffs before they’d been on my wrists ten minutes. If knowledge of Elizabeth’s possession of the key sent the familiar tingling up my spine. I saw it only as a bonus to everything else we shared.

Airports are wonderful. You forget all about everything and luggage and the time. No one noticed my handcuffed wrist. I used the journey to tell Elizabeth about Naomi’s island in the sun, about Honey and Thea, and my beloved Ivory. As I tried to tell Elizabeth what to expect I realized how little I actually know about the island, which the Estate so casually owned, and on which Naomi reigned as Queen with her three darling captives in as strange and bizarre a Court as the world had ever seen. Elizabeth listened avidly, eyes shinning and breathless with curiosity to make the steel upon my wrist weigh with a hot insistence I found intensely pleasurable. Knowing full well I would have allies in Naomi and the girls. I could have cared less.

“No men at all?” Elizabeth could hardly believe.

“Only Thorpe, the butler, and Blandish, the gardener.” I assured her joyously. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Gosh, yes!” Elizabeth was thinking hard as the plane droned its way towards a female paradise. “It’s lovely not having to worry about men, and what they do, and what they want. But these three girls ... Can I cane their bottoms?”

“Of course not! You’ll be a guest.”

“Well. I’ve been a prisoner so long, darling, it would be nice to sample the other side. You mean they wouldn’t stand for it?”

“Ask them when we get there. Goodness knows what Naomi and her three handcuffed maidens get up to. You can find out for yourself.”

The closer we got to Plessious, the more I remembered Hugo Markham. He had retained me in New York to press his legal claim for a share of the Estate. I told Elizabeth about him, also, and voiced my curiosity as to where he was, and the things he might still do. Since he was male. Elizabeth showed no interest, leaving me wondering what sort of cad Herbert had to be.

It was not until we were on the last lap of our journey, the supply ship to Plessious, that the full enormity of what we were doing struck home. Naomi and I had previously been on opposite sides of a legal fence, and the defeats my client, Hugo Markham, and I had suffered had rankled me a long time. I had to wonder how much of our battles might still irk the uninhibited creature we were about to visit. When I spoke of such sentiments to Elizabeth, she waved them aside with an imperious hand, and told me to leave everything to her. And wouldn’t it be best to unlock the handcuffs from my wrist in case they gave a false impression. Doubtfully, i agreed.

Blandish was on the jetty to look after whatever business the supply ship might have with Naomi’s island. Nothing every surprised Blandish but his sense of what was proper prompted his query, “Shouldn’t you young ladies be taking your clothes off? If I had known you were coming, I would have brought handcuffs.”

“We brought our own,” Elizabeth assured him in the same spirit of doing the right thing. “I think I should leave myself clothed until I’ve meet Naomi. Diane can do as she pleases.” Mischievously she placed a kiss upon his cheek, and thereafter, I knew Blandish was on our side. Thus we arrived at the big house which was a replica of the old and bore the same name of Rockley. My heart was thudding hard because I was about to see Ivory again.

It was Honey of the platinum hair who took the mail from Blandish’s hands and viewed me doubtfully. She, herself, was as naked as they come and wore her handcuffs in front with the unconscious grace I remembered so well, and envied so much. Naomi’s three naiads were something for the book. Honey surveyed Elizabeth with somewhat more favor than reserved for me, Led by the golden skinned beauty, we marched to Naomi’s office.

The sudden appearance of Elizabeth may have been a delight but the advent of myself was not. Naomi listened politely to what I had to say, and as I said it. I realized how poor our story was. What it amounted to was our asking for refuge for a relative of Naomi’s. Honey discreetly stood to one side and said no word but was obviously there as a safeguard in our intrusion. Having listened to all I had to say, Naomi inquired, reasonably enough, “What on earth are you going to do here!”

“Enjoy sun and freedom.” said Elizabeth promptly.

“Why didn’t you phone first?”

“I wasn’t sure of our reception,” I admitted. “Look, Naomi, we’re in trouble and we need help. Please let us stay.”

The air was suddenly tense, and a silence lengthened until Naomi said, “Of course you can stay. I’m not going to cast you to the wolves. But you know how we do things on Plessious, are you sure that’s what you want?”

It took a little while to sink in. Having had a good look at Honey.

Elizabeth caught on instantly, but I was slow in observing the principle behind her statement. “I think you’re saying you want us to take our clothes off and be handcuffed,” Elizabeth said cheerfully. “You want us the same way as Honey is. I don’t mind a bit so long as whatever you do to me you do to Diane.” She turned the radiance of her smile upon both Naomi and myself and I knew for certain I was lost.

Naomi did her best imitation of The Sphinx and I knew for sure we still had a little way to go. “What we’ve just determined is routine,” she said evenly. “You can’t expect to come here and not conform. But what I’m concerned with now is your sincerity. You’re both adult and you’re taking a lot for granted, including me. Would you be willing to accept a test?”

Elizabeth instantly exclaimed, “Of course we would! Honest, Naomi, this is serious for both of us.”

I longed to tell my companion to keep silent but it was too late, Naomi knew she had a good thing going and, ignoring me, asked Elizabeth. “Supposing I asked you both to accept a quite severe whipping as proof of all you’ve told me, what would you say?”

I was, not surprised, Elizabeth was. But she was on the uptake with laughter as though Naomi had said something funny. “Everyone connected with your silly old Estate has the fixation about whipping girls. I’m surprised you don’t all get whipped regularly before breakfast.” She smiled at Naomi and I brightly as though inviting comment.

The lawyer in me said “shut up” so that’s what I did. Elizabeth would get us into trouble but would be equally gifted in getting us out. I wished I hadn’t had that trouble with Naomi long ago. Things now began to get worse instead of better. “Well, anyway, it’s silly to whip both Diane and me, so why don’t you just whip Diane. I understand you’re not in love with each other?”

Elizabeth made it sound like the solution to everything. “I think that’s a lovely idea,” said Naomi sweetly.

I was outraged, They were both looking at me expectantly so I said the obvious, “Forget it. A stay on Plessious is not worth a marked up skin. You’re both being offensive.” I looked straight at Naomi. “I’d be grateful if you’d call that water taxi service on the mainland to come and pick me up.” To Elizabeth I said, “You’d be wise to come with me but suit yourself.”

Nobody did anything. Naomi and Elizabeth sat like a pair of cats, while I knew myself blushing and out numbered. Impulsively I reached for the phone but Naomi pulled it back.

“Do you always wear handcuffs on one wrist, Miss Durrant?”

Honey asked.

I felt a fool, even the truth would sound silly but I told it anyway and knew I blushed some more. Naomi asked the obvious, “But why not unlock them, surely you have a key?”

“No, I don’t. Elizabeth has it.”

“And she won’t let you use it?”

“No. Look, never mind my bracelet. Will you make that phone call for me or would you prefer I did it myself?”

“If I use the phone it will be to tell Uncle Andrew where you are. If you don’t like the rules at Plessious. I think that would be the best way out. I would have preferred the sunshine here on Plessious, even with a whip marked back, to the dungeon at Rockley. But there’s no accounting for tastes.”

I could feel the trap closing. The supply ship that brought the mail was still a week away. Crossly, I said to the girl I adored, “Elizabeth, why don’t you grow up? If Naomi gets you naked and handcuffed, there’s no telling when you’ll be free again, if ever! The same goes for me. We’d best both go down to the jetty and stay there until some sort of ship gets near the island. Perhaps we can signal it.” I turned a venomous glance at our hostess, “Naomi, I think you’re being a bitch. Please phone for that water taxi thing. We’ll get right out of your hair.”

“I’ve told you. Miss Durrant, that if I phone at all, it will be to Uncle Andrew.”

I stood and held out my hand to Elizabeth. I could tell she was disappointed over the way things had gone but would not betray me. She grasped my hand and the two of us marched from Naomi’s office and the big house so much like that other Rockley. When we were beyond it’s gardens, Elizabeth tried to make amends. “I really am sorry, darling. Gosh, what a blooper I made! This seems a glorious little island but with you and Naomi being enemies, we should have stayed away. It’s all my fault. Oh, damn!”

“Do you really want to see me naked and chained and whipped? Elizabeth, I love you.”

“And I love you, darling. But I’m still a beautiful bitch with a fantasy. You’re my fantasy, and you know what I want. Sorry, sweetheart, but I guess I’m just a plain bad girl.”

I could never be mad at her for long. And my spirits were raised by the stand I had taken in Naomi’s office, and the fact that Elizabeth and I were both fully clothed and still free of the Plessious handcuffing of girls. We would get off the island anyway. I could go to New York where I could once again be a self-respecting member of the legal profession. Suddenly I felt better.

The jetty had lonely isolation. Elizabeth and I set down our suitcases and searched the ocean for a sign of life. There was none and my spirits fell accordingly. But Elizabeth was as ebullient as ever. “We couldn’t expect one to be waiting for us, darling,” she pointed out reasonably. “We’ll probably have to sleep under some bushes tonight and spend tomorrow looking out to sea.” She sighed in mock dolor, “And just to think that I could be sleeping comfortably in the guest bedroom in the big house. With you beside me in the bed!”

“Likely with me locked in a cage or dungeon, or a chain and collar on my neck somewhere.” I retorted. “It’s all right for you, darling, but I should never have come here.”

“Maybe I’d be in a cage with you. That would be nice.”

“Elizabeth, for pete’s sake, stop being silly! You’d hate being locked in anything and so would I.”

Elizabeth wasn’t listening. Something had caught her attention.

“What’s that little shed over there?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I expect it’s for storage.”

The shed had a sturdy lock and key but was empty. It was illuminated by a couple of porthole effects. Thoughtlessly I went inside.

It was my own fault, of course. Elizabeth’s closing of the door and snapping of the lock told me all I needed to know of a hazard I should have foreseen. Her laughing features were soon at one of the small windows which I could open from inside but which were no way big enough to provide exit. “Nice little prison, darling,” she said happily. “I think you’re in trouble.”

The sea air flooded through the porthole and improved the stuffiness of the shed. But what I was more interested in was Elizabeth who peered in at me happily to remark. “You sort of walked into this one yourself, darling. I suppose you know what you have to do to get out?”

I could guess but said with all the authority at my command, “Don’t be a bitch, Elizabeth! Let me out of here, this isn’t giving me a sporting chance.”

“You can’t possibly expect a sporting chance, darling. Would you like me to dictate terms?”

“Don’t bother. But I’d like to know which side you’re on and what you’ d do to me if you got me helpless.”

“You mean, after you’re nicely naked and properly handcuffed, dear?” Her tone was as a parent with a child.

I was breathing heavily in alarm. Elizabeth was unpredictable and had found on this lovely island an atmosphere conducive to fantasy. I was afraid of Naomi, but Elizabeth was not. I had been able to discern some sort of pixie rapport between them back in the office. I was the odd girl out, a discord in Eden. Snappishly I said, “All right, what do you want?”

“Darling, you know what I want. Strip yourself naked and pass everything through this window to me. I’m so glad the window isn’t large enough for you to try and slide through, you can’t possibly but it’s perfect for everything else.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You can stay here, dear, while I go back to the big house and tell Naomi how difficult you are.”

“All the thanks you’ll get for that is a good whipping. Let me out of here, Elizabeth, and somehow or the other we’ll get off this damned island.”

“I think it’s a lovely island, and I think you’re being silly. We know the way it is with Naomi and her girls, and if she wants us the same way. I can’t see any harm in it. We can have the most glorious vacation before someone catches up with us.”

I sighed and felt deflated. Unwillingly, I asked myself what harm it would do to give Elizabeth her way and share her fantasy. We loved each other and surely she would allow no harm to come to me. All I’d have to put up with was a great deal of humiliation. But even there it wasn’t as though I’d never been naked and handcuffed before! But no matter what my reasoning. I loathed the thought of being led back to Naomi in that condition ... I’d be so damned ashamed!

Elizabeth was equal to the occasion, and, because she either didn’t care or didn’t believe Naomi, she was thoroughly enjoying this possible fulfillment of her own dream of possessing me. Reasonable, she pointed out, “Diane, darling, don’t let’s go in for that silly business of pleading and threatening or appealing to reason, and all that stuff. It will be so much nicer for both of us if you simply take off your clothes and shoes and hand them out to me. Honest. I’ll love you to bits.”

The nice thing about Elizabeth and I was always knowing each other’s thoughts. And I knew damned well I might as well surrender now instead of making an idiot of myself with pleadings and threats. Obviously it wouldn’t kill me to be in the same condition as Naomi’s three girls, even if I was almost twice their age. There was also the matter of the familiar shivering up and down my spine as my eyes met those of the girl on the outside. My fingers were strangely eager as they reached for the fastenings of what I wore.

How the mighty have fallen!