Slave Girl and the lash

"Won't the handcuffs stop you getting at my back!" I asked hintingly.

"There's always your front, lass."

"And I suppose my bottom?"

"Right you are! Damn sensible gal'."

"Why do so many men enjoy whipping girls?" I've always been curious about this one myself. Yolanda and I often talked about it. It's easy to think of a lot of reasons, but they can't be proved and not everyone would agree with them. My naive query caused my captor to slow down and rub his stubble.

"Well now!" He pondered and eyed me suspiciously. "Never really thought 'bout it. Young Daisy asked me the same thing once while I was warming up her backside, but she's a cheeky baggage, so I just give her a few extra hard to shut her up. "Now you come out with it! All I can say is it's natural, ain't it! I mean ter say… what's a girl's bottom for!"

"We do sit on them."

"So do men, but no one wants to cane their rumps."

"We're going to your stable now so that you can cane and whip me, Mr. Hennery. It must do something for you. What is it?"

"Gives me a hard on." He stated the obvious with relish.

"But just me does that for you, Mr. Hennery."

"Yer never said a truer word, lass. I got a shocker on right now. Lay yourself down and open them pretty legs." I abandoned my psychological probings, and disposed myself on the ground in the middle of his barnyard. Mr. Hennery acquitted himself with extreme vigor. I suppose it was the stimulation of our conversation. After we resumed a vertical posture and my captor was thoughtfully brushing dried hen droppings from the places I could not reach, he enlarged on what I could see might become a favorite topic.

"Have you ever had your cunt whipped, lass?"

"I didn't know anyone did such things," I lied demurely. "Idea just come, Phemie gal'. There you was with your legs wide open and your little fig standing out as pretty as a picture. Never realized how plump and pouting them things were. With yer thighs apart there's a lot more room to get at yer than I ever knowed."

"You'd have to have a girl upside down," I exclaimed with imprudent humor.

"We'll do it!" Hennery made the declaration in much the same manner in which someone had announced an intent to land on the moon. I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. Upside down! Yolanda would say I deserved all I got.

"You're so clever," I said without enthusiasm. The stable smell was familiar. We dispossessed a bored goat from the stall wherein I had spent the night. Even to my uninspired eyes it was evident the place offered innumerable possibilities for tying a girl in both conventional and original exposures. Hennery's recent attention to my sex had not dampened my usual sensations. They responded with a warmth I was glad he could not see.

"A good caning on your bottom, lass. It will do us both good." His statement was too absurd to deserve an answer. I hedged by giving him a girlish "Thank you, Mr. Hennery."

"I am going to drape you over a partition, Phemie."

"Thank you, Mr. Hennery. Can I help?"

"You could get up there," he said dryly. "Here's a box." I stood on the box and leant forward. The top of the partition was level with my puss. "It's going to hurt, Mr. Hennery, and I may fall on over — I haven't any hands."

"You stop complaining 'bout hands," Hennery said firmly.

"Them handcuffs stay on. I like 'em." He surveyed my pubic hair critically, then folded my faithful rug and placed it for my comfort. "Give me another idea, that has. But for striping yer bottom ye might as well be comfortable. I'll tie yer feet now, that'll help." He would never be aware of inconsistencies or contradictions. Quaintly enough, the tying of my ankles tightly to a lower plank gave me the anchorage to bend over so that my puss was on the padded rug and my behind well up in the air. He took away the box. "This is terribly uncomfortable," I daringly demurred.

"It's in a good cause," said Mr. Hennery. He studied my predicament. "Got to do summat' with them hands." I eschewed comment, I was biased. But my owner needed no help. He fastened rope to my handcuffs, threw it over a beam and pulled. My hands and arms rose away from the rest of me. I bent even further forward to ease the strain on my shoulders. "Why, damn me if I couldn't even whip yer back, lass!" my captor exulted in discovery. My wrists hurt, my puss was crushed. I could not move a thing that mattered, certainly not my behind. It pleaded for the whip.

"Got any preference, Phemie?" Hennery tossed a cane and a crop on the straw within my extremely limited range of vision. Both made me cringe. Daisy must be a girl of character if she did this for money. I did not like the look of the limber crop. "The cane please, Mr. Hennery," I requested gratefully.

"Must say I like yer attitude, gal'." My bottom was sliced by fire. I gasped and jerked. "Caught yer unawares, eh!" As though he'd been clever.

"Gee, that hurt," I said honestly.

"Try this one, lass." A different spot, a second agony, a raging fire. I could not ignore the obvious. I was positioned so that my puss got the full effect of everything. She was responding healthily. The rug imposed its rough contact under my weight, each jerk made it seem alive.

"Do you hit that girl, Daisy, this hard, Mr. Hennery?"

"For five quid!" He sounded shocked at so stupid a question. "I lay it on her like this one here." My respect for the absent Daisy grew. I had found it hard not to scream. "Do you have to gag her, Mr. Hennery?" I asked apprehensively.

"Don't like the gag, do yer." Mr. Hennery had noted my concern. "Nah, I don't bother. She howls a bit but it just gives me a better cockstand. Says the damnedest things too. Makes it interesting."

"Do you fuck her after?" Anything to get him talking and not whipping.

"Of course I do! For five pounds.!" The next couple on my bottom were almost a reproof. "Am I getting some nice marks, Mr. Hennery?"

"You mark lovely, lass. Let's take a good look." His 'good look' took a long time. I was thankful. Conversation really was a useful diversion. But I soon learned why.

"Yer cunt's sticking out behind, Phemie!" He sounded shocked.

"They do if you bend a girl double, Mr. Hennery."

"Never seen Daisy's do it. You sure it's respectable?" I almost giggled; but I hurt too much. "I think girls vary quite a lot, Mr. Hennery. Maybe mine does protrude a bit more than most when I'm positioned like this."

"Doesn't seem quite decent, y'know. Positively winking at me?"

"Well, it's just between the two of us," I consoled. "And, honest, I'm not doing anything to it to make it wink. A girl can't."

"Ought ter be taught a lesson, it did." His tone was highly moral. My heart sank. This absurd male was not one to ignore the gifts of nature. I had thought my puss well buried in the rug, but evidently my struggles and jerks had sent her peeping between my legs. "'Perhaps we could deal with her tomorrow?" I suggested without hope.

"Oh aye, and we will too. But right now — where did I put that dratted whip!" It was hopeless as usual. A girl might as well take her whippings and keep quiet, she's going to get them whatever she says. However, I tried. "But, Mr. Hennery, you're busy caning my bottom right now."

"I ain't that busy." It was a beastly kind of pain. Far too intimate. I could envision the lash entering inside me. But it was not the ideal position for punishing my puss. Between my buttocks and the rug the whip could not get its full impact. My tormentor amused himself for a few painful minutes and then returned to the cane and my taut rear. "Nothing like a good bottom, is there lass," he said approvingly, and struck. He made me scream. I expect I should have started earlier instead of trying to be a little heroine. He went well beyond my tolerance before he set aside the vibrating thing that had been thrummming into my flesh. "Bet you're ready for a good screw," he suggested kindly. I was not ready for it at all, but I got it just the same. All I wanted to do was curl up in a corner and weep. When he was finished with me I lay panting on the straw wondering what diversion I might think up against whatever his next cruelty might be. But I had misjudged him.

"You said something about being tied up, lass?"

"Would you like to tie me up?" I erased the hope from my voice.

"Well, I can't keep lacing into yer all day, love. More's the pity. I'll tie yer up real sweet and proper and give yer a bit o' rest. Besides, I got a few jobs." Artistry was something I would never have associated with Colin Hennery. But, with rope, he had it! "Back against that there upright, Phemie gal', I'm goin' ter make yer real pretty." It sounded normal. Dutifully I obeyed. I had to arrange my cuffed hands inside the curve of the small of my back, but I was surprised how well I could do this. I stood against the post, expectant. My bottom burned wickedly, but I was grateful for the respite. Perhaps I might manage to stay alive through the ministrations of this ridiculous creature who had captured me. But I shut escape from my mind. He would never let me. The bands 'round my tummy positively plastered me to the post. They were all he needed to make me secure. But they were just the start. "I don't like no rope across a gal's tits or her chest, love," he explained judicially. "I got me own way o' coming up under her armpits and across her shoulders. Holds her tighter nor any other way and looks right proper." I suppose this is where I apologize again. Being rendered helpless by such male and knowing hands engendered the lovely sensation I knew so well. I had always associated it with Yolanda. But Hennery's skill worked its inevitable magic with me. He noted my quickened breathing and laughed in satisfaction.

"See! I told yer, love. Yer liking it, aren't yer?"

"I can't help it," I admitted apologetically. "I'm sure it's silly, but yes I like it. The liking won't last. But for a little while I'll know a peculiar kind of peace." He tugged at a rope that went over my shoulder, behind my neck and 'round the post. It was brutal, but I glowed in the knowledge of being possessed by another. I had passed my point of no return and would be dependent on this odd man for future liberty. In the meantime he would have every little bit of me totally. The rope burned my shoulders as it bit deep, I loved it!

"You won't even be able to wiggle, Phemie." What an ill assorted pair we were, yet joined by this common need! I stood in a roseate radiance as my knees were cinched and then my ankles. Lastly he examined the placement of my chained hands, then used more rope to clamp them back to the wood and render them immobile in a manner the handcuffs could not do. He stepped away and examined me. In his way he was a sculptor who had wrought a statue. I felt a strange pride that it was me.

"What yer say to the rest o' the day, lass?"

"It's not for me to say, Mr. Hennery. I'm the captive. It's you who can do what you like with me." It was throwing my bread upon the waters. The devil of it was I meant every word. The way he had tied me was a work of art.

"You and me's going to get along a treat, Phemie." He stood for a long time, drinking in my strained and outthrust breasts and my coy pubic bush. Then, as though rendered speechless by what he saw; he turned and went about his affairs. Alright! I'm a silly girl. I'm a nympho', I'm kinky, I'm irresponsible, I deserve all I get. But I told you! I can't explain the phenomenon of me. I've got a notion I'm not all that different from any other girl. I'm just willing to talk. It was early in the day when I was tied. It takes me one or two hours to make the transition from loving it to wishing I hadn't been such a fool. Three hours has me panting to get loose. But, now at that point, my day stretched interminably ahead, still young. A naked girl helplessly and hopelessly tied has only one recourse: the visions she can evoke within her mind. It's not always easy, it wasn't this time. Hennery's artistic strands of rope across my shoulders were biting at me like personal enemies. They were deep in my flesh, had been ever since he pulled them tight. The kicker was that every time I breathed they sunk in a bit deeper and hurt so much I longed to tear them away or to burst into tears. I won't dramatize. It was not my first time. It did not hurt any worse than some of Yolanda's bindings. She'd made me feel sorry for myself often enough. So I sort of put my sensations out of gear the way I'd learned from long sessions as a bound slave, and contemplated my future. I didn't have any! This was my first thought. What was happening to me now was IT! I could pick no hole in Hennery's plan to keep me forever. If someone else discovered me or I was rescued it would have to be by accident. I didn't waste time thinking about escape. The way Hennery had me the word escape was a mockery. I'd never get away from him. Can you envision it? Quite a spot for a girl! I surged angrily against my bindings but did not move. I was tied tight. But it was the future that mattered. To go on and on with Colin Hennery! He was so hard to reconcile with all my past. He did not belong. He was not a beast or an absolute brute. In some things he was almost kind. But I had to recognize I was in the power of what I could best describe as an amateur sadist. My main hope was that he'd value my body enough to wish to preserve it in good condition for his enjoyment. He probably would do this, but it wasn't much comfort. There's a precept, isn't there, that things can always get worse. Hennery was evidently a believer in it. He showed up in the early afternoon, smiling broadly. "You look good enough to eat," he said, and meant it. I told him how I hurt. He didn't appear to hear. "Realized I forgot something, lass," he informed me jovially. What he had forgotten was more rope. Rope that went up between my legs. It was not needed to make me more secure, only to hurt and to emphasize my female nakedness. Beside my puss and up over my hip. Then the real dilly, the one that went inside and was cinched up and up until I howled. I could not look down and see myself, but I was positive it was well within the lips of my cunt. They probably even closed over it.

"It's lovely, Phemie." His eyes ate it up. "You've no idea how sweet you look. I'm a lucky man." He was! But little Phemie was not a lucky girl. I moaned my way through the afternoon. My poor puss complained bitterly about her treatment. But I had no one to complain to, no one to whom to pass on the pain. But I suppose that's slavery! When he let me loose I was even grateful for the ravishing he gave me on my back on the straw. That night I talked him out of tying my feet. I also got him to lock the chain and padlock on one of my ankles instead of 'round my neck. I had another lovely night's sleep. I suppose no story is all bad. The next day was something of a landmark. Or at least a change.

"I got sheep the moor, lass, and I'm a' goin' ter the village as well," he announced at breakfast. "But I ain't a'goin' ter leave yer all day tied in that stable. It smells a bit, you may have noticed."

"It smells a lot," I said bravely. "Thank you."

"A bit o' good fresh air, that's the ticket, love."

"Sounds lovely. Can I have that other egg?"

"Ain't goin' ter tie yer too cruel."

"I suppose I do have to be tied?"

"Well, love, what else would you suggest?"

"Haven't you a cage or a nice room to lock me in?"

"That cage idea, love! I like it. But I ain't got one. On a lovely day like this I don't like to make you helpless in the house. No, the fresh air's the ticket fer little Phemie today."

"Supposing it rains later on?"

"It ain't going to. I say; love, you ain't being difficult, are you?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hennery. I'm an ungrateful girl. Please tie me any way you want."

"A real champion you are! That's a fact. More tea?" I had to be careful with him. I sensed the chasm of his displeasure always waiting. Yet there was something quaintly domestic about the two of us at mealtimes. Him feeding me because of my handcuffed wrists, and our discussions about what to do to me. Utterly absurd, eh!

"If I'm going to be out in the open all-day, could I wear something, please?"

"I ain't got no girl's clothes, love."

"I'd be grateful for anything — an old shirt."

"No." I'd pushed far enough. I followed him out into the yard. It really was a super day. My heart sang. But I had a vision of me drooping in some painful set of bondage all afternoon, that was allowing for my spirits holding buoyant through the morning.

"You're a good kid. I'm going to be easy, Phemie." It was a post in the center of his yard. Nothing remarkable in size or shape or height, but, standing alone as it was, vaguely sinister. I couldn't help thinking of piles of faggots 'round my feet and someone setting the torch to them. He must have set it up after he'd locked me safe for the night.,Without being invited, I went and stood with my back against it. I had become positive that by showing myself very willing I lessened my travail. Hennery went and got a box. A slave girl is forever one step behind, forever being led up garden paths. The box didn't belong to that post. I looked my curiosity. "Up's a daisy," said my owner.. I stood on the box. It was then I realized that the post was not as tall as one might have expected. "I thought this one up special for you, Phemie gal," Hennery explained. I could have sworn there was affection in his voice. He joined me on the box. Grasping my handcuffs he lifted and heaved. It was a painful stretch for me, but he got my chained hands up and over the top of that post. When he took the box away there I stood, as neatly attached to the wooden column as if I was a part of it.

"Chap what put them cuffs on you done us both a real favour." Hennery was pleased with his ingenuity. I did the usual motions. I twisted and turned. I was effectively a prisoner. My wrists securely handcuffed behind the post would hold me more surely than a dozen ropes.

"You can wiggle around a bit like that," said my captor magnanimously. "You can even sit down." I almost said "Big deal!" in disgust, but remembered my status and said instead: "You're terribly sweet." After I'd said it I realized I partly meant every word. I was being given a day without pain.

"I'll fuck you when I come home," Hennery promised.

"It will give me something to look forward to, Mr. Hennery." Do these exchanges of ours sound nuts? They were. But they made him happy. When he was happy I didn't get whipped, or at least not much. Now we come to the real killer! When he said good-bye, he kissed me. I won't deny it was a relief. I watched him amble over the hill and then gave my attention to getting loose. Satisfied that I couldn't, I tried sitting down. It wasn't too satisfactory and I wasn't tired yet, so I struggled to my feet again and started a nice fantasy in which I was an Indian Princess captured by the Sioux and awaiting torture or worse: the worse being fucked by the Chiefs son who fancied me. It was a very nice little dream and took up at least thirty minutes and got me lovely and wet between my legs. Then I did some serious struggles. I was putting on a desperate escape attempt for someone watching. There wasn't anyone, of course, but I heaved at my chained hands as though trying to tear them from behind the post and kept bending almost double in the effort. I edged 'round and 'round my post and looked up to see if I could possibly get my hands back up and over. I then looked for the box, but Hennery had put it away in the barn. At last, panting, and with a sopping puss I leaned back resignedly and admitted defeat. I'd known all the time, of course, but it was a nice gesture. I half dozed. The sun was kind, there were no insects. I dreamed up one fantasy after another and the time slipped by. I even had an orgasm. It wasn't an earth shaker, but I saw it as a small victory. My head fell forward as I leaned back against my post. The pair of shoes did not belong, especially since they were feminine. One minute there had been just the ground, the next minute they were there. I looked up, blinking. She was my own age, blonde, pretty but untidy. She oozed hostility. "What's Colin pay you?" she demanded.

"I bet you're Daisy?"

"What if I am? How much money he give you?" Her concern was understandable. I was threatening a monopoly. I couldn't resist tossing a bomb.

"Nothing!" She surveyed my nakedness disgustedly. "Fucking liar. You don't strip and do this fer nowt'."

"I'm kidnapped. I'm a prisoner. Free me and I'll get you a thousand pounds."

"Oh dry up!" Her voice was contemptuous. "That's a fine old lot of cods-wallop."

"It's true." She looked me up and down. Then did the thing I feared most. She clutched my puss with a firm and knowing hand. When she wiped the resultant wetness across one of my breasts she asked sarcastically: "I suppose you're the Queen's long lost daughter." I couldn't blame Daisy. After all, it was too good to be true. "Don't you want a thousand pounds?" I asked dejectedly.

"Where's Colin?" She evidently considered my thousand pounds unworthy of her consideration. I would have been wiser to have offered fifty, it was more her size. "He's gone to the village," I said miserably.

"Won't be back for awhile, eh?"

"I don't suppose so. You'll have lots of time to get me-"

"You'll earn your money today, sister. I'll teach you to barge in. Colin hires me, it's my job. Understand?"

"You're welcome to it," I told her unhappily. "If you'll get me loose and let me go, it's all yours." She went behind the post. What she saw did not improve her temper. "The son of a bitch! Ruddy handcuffs! He never blew himself like that for me. Where's the key?"

"It's lost. I was handcuffed like this when he kidnapped me. It's a long story."

"I'll just bet it is! I'm not buying. Besides, how did he get your hands behind that post without the key?" I told her. I told her quite a bit. I pleaded and begged. I tried the thousand pounds again, and then asked her to get the police. She listened to it all with a sardonic smile. At the end of my passionate striving for freedom she asked sweetly: "You know what I'm going to do to you, don't you?" Instinctively, I did know. But I asked: "What?"

"Give you the whipping of your life." Back to square one! Even a girl wanted to whip me! There Was no hope. "Oh please, I've been whipped enough already," I pleaded. "Can't you see the marks?"

"Don't notice any on your tits." I curled up inside and heaved at the metal bands that were delivering me into her power.

"Can't get loose, can you. That fat cunt of yours can stand a few too. I'll teach you to barge in where you're not needed." I started to plead again, but she left me talking and stalked away to the stable. When she came back she carried the whip. She loved her dominion over me. She savoured it as nectar. She fingered and played with my handcuffs in curiosity to make sure they held me fast. Then she used her hands and her tongue to excite me beyond bearing. She was making good use of what fate had provided.

"I been whipped by Colin a lot, but I ain't never whipped a girl. I'm going to enjoy whipping you." As though in a sudden inspiration, Daisy stripped naked. It was not much of an effort. She did not wear much. She wasn't bad naked, and the marks of Colin's whip were evident on her skin. "See!" she said jubilantly. "I know all about being whipped. But I've always wondered…" She struck me a slicing blow across both breasts. I screamed. I think that scream was as much a cry against an unkind fate as from the pain. But the pain was bad enough.

"Lovely! Look at that scarlet line come up! I've always wanted…" She struck again, this time across one breast only. I heaved and bucked and howled.

"Colin ain't goin' ter want those pretty tits by the time I get through with them." She hit my breasts again.

"Please, you don't understand."

"I'll lace into that ripe cunt in a minute." She slashed away happily at my writhing nakedness. I could elude nothing. My wrists were bleeding. "Please, don't you want money! Please, please, please!"

"You'll learn to stay on your own side of the fence."

"Yes, oh yes! I'll promise. Never again." She stopped and stood back, pleased by my submission. "I suppose he fucks you, eh?"

"Yes, I can't stop him. He does what he likes with me." I was desperate to make her understand. "Get the box. Get me free of this post and I'll run for my life. You'll never see me again." She gave the proposition thought and rejected it. "Nah, Colin 'ud be so damn angry I'd get no cash out of him for a month. No, dearie, you stay right the way you are and take what mummy's going to give you."

"But he'll be angry with you. When he comes home and finds me… the way you're going to leave me. I'll be a mess."

"And so you should be, ducks." But there was that in her voice which told me I had hit a chord. Colin was a customer. Best not to offend him too deeply. I was the enemy. "O.K: then," she said cheerfully. "I'll just give that swollen cunt of yours a few cuts and leave you to it." It was a partial remission. But my mind was chaotic with the need to convince this angry sex strumpet of my bona fides. If only I could! She held the key to my release. I was about to offer more truthful logic when the first curling lash rose up between my legs. It was such a beastly pain! Such a cruel place to inflict it! I screamed in a flash of pain and anger. With this member of my own sex there was no warmth, no heat between my thighs. I looked at her in agony and pleaded: "Don't whip me any more. Please! I'm willing to do anything you want. We're just two girls…" She was clever with that whip. She flashed it again and scored a bull's eyes. If only I had been able to stand still with my legs crossed I might have saved my poor little puss some anguish, but I couldn't! I twisted and kicked in such distress that, seizing her chance, she managed to strike me at the moment I opened my legs for some fresh contortion of pain. The thong slapped squarely upon the wet, wounded flesh that should have been inviolate. My scream pealed out in a undulation of hurt which should have given Daisy intense joy.

"You sure do make a lot of noise," she said appreciatively.

"I suppose you laugh all the time he's whipping you!" I retorted bitterly. Daisy was just too much.

" 'Spose I do make a bit of noise," she admitted thoughtfully. "I'm always so busy hurting I don't notice."

"If you let him whip you for a rotten little five pounds, surely you could make a telephone call for me for a thousand?"

"Open your legs, love. I'll teach you to make fun of an honest girl."

"I'm not making fun, I'm not!" I wailed. "It's true."

"Open your legs so I can get inside."

"I won't!" Daisy seemed pleased at my refusal. She went to the barn and got rope. I quailed at the sight of it.

"Please don't tie me any more than I am. Please, please!"

"This is a real treat for me, kid. Being on the other end so to speak. I'm going to enjoy it."

"But it's cruel! I've never hurt you."

"Well, I've never hurt Colin. But that don't stop him cutting away at me."

"He's never whipped your pussy. I know he hasn't! I don't see why you want to whip mine."

"Simple, dearie. I can't get at your back."

"But it's not right, not decent, to whip a girl where you're whipping me. Can't I make you understand? I'm a prisoner. I'm not your competition for that idiot's five pound notes."

"First 'round this ankle, dearie — and don't you dare kick! Then round behind the post and now the other little tootsie."

"I'm going to fall forward if you pull my feet back like that."

"Thanks, love. You're right." Miserably, I watched her go and return with another rope. Daisy was well in charge of things. Our eyes flickered back and forth without any nice girlish communion as she made a loop over and above my breasts and around the post. She pulled far harder than she need have done until my back was positively clamped against the timber.

"Makes your tits stick out nice." She pinched them and laughed enjoyably at my yelps.

"A thousand pounds… a thousand pounds-" I moaned again and again. Surely the silly cow would get the message! "Shut up! You don't have a thousand pence, neither has Colin. This is just a nice fun day between us girls. Aren't you lucky! I'm sure I don't hit you as hard as he does." It was hopeless. I had become as much captive of her disbelief as of the handcuffs on my chafed wrists. In impotent silence I felt my feet pulled back and back on each side of the post until it was the band across my chest that kept me upright. My pussy gaped in its lonely prominence, but after a couple of experimental slashes that spent most of their force across my thighs my feminine torturer said a hearty: "Damn!" Peering at the wounds she had made on me she exclaimed angrily: "No good; is it! You're plastered against that post. I can't properly get in there on your cunt."

"If you'll let me loose-"

"Shut up!" She gave me another vicious cut.

"It's better without your feet tied," she decided. "If I can get your little butt away from that lousy post I can slice in there good." I was relieved of the ropes. Small impatient hands loosened them and cast them aside. I was back to square one, captive only of the implacable handcuffs. "I'll make you a deal, kid." Her voice modulated to sweet reason. "Stick that wet little cunt out a foot from the post — you can, y'know."

"Just so you can whip it!", I was heartbroken and scared.

"Sure, love. You do that proper or I'll whip your breasts until you do. How's that for a good offer? If you play along I'll leave those pretty tits alone." If you have never been a prisoner fastened to a post you can't understand. You can be forced into gratitude over a choice between two awful things being done to you. I was truly afraid of what injury a whip could do to my breasts. Ruefully, I supposed it would do no more than bitterly hurt my pubes. "I'll try," I promised. "But it hurts so much I don't think I can keep still."

"You can have a bit of time to wiggle in between strokes, love. But when I say the word you get that cute butt away from the post and your legs well spread."

"Alright." I looked at her appealingly. "I will try, honest! How many are you going to give me?"

"That's for you to find out, love. On your mark!" I parted my legs and pushed my loins out at Daisy in obscene invitation. She nodded, pleased. The cut bisected me cruelly. I could almost believe my haunches were sundered. I envisioned blood all over. I tore at my handcuffs and writhed in every contortion I could contrive. Here and there through my maze of pain I glimpsed Daisy's enraptured enjoyment.

"You've started something," I gasped bitterly. "When he sees these marks on, me he'll put some on you too."

"It's worth it, kid, just to watch you." Meekly, hoping to placate, I resumed the hated pose that pleaded for punishment. The whip sang and splatted where I wanted it least. I screamed and resumed my dance. Daisy did not kill me. I was surprised to learn later that she had done me no permanent damage. While she was using the whip on me I was convinced she rivaled Torquemada in skill and intent. When she had enjoyed me for as long and as much as she dared, she replaced the rope and the whip in the stable, then came and surveyed my striped and sweating nudity.

"Thanks, love." A slave girl is forever astonished by the reactions her punished nakedness evokes. Daisy's thanks sounded sincere. I looked at her in woeful surprise. My surprise was doubled when she held my cheeks and kissed my forehead. Sardonically, she said: "You can tell his nib's that he can have me free next time. Not a penny! That'll pay for me having you today." She grinned happily and went. I watched her trudge over the hill. Once more I was alone. I leaned back against my post and sighed in an infinite relief. Such moments of surcease are a slave girl's only victory. Colin Hennery was furious. Not in sympathy with my hurts, but because his property had been used. He stood glowering at the wealed evidence of Daisy's pleasure I fully expected to be blamed. His vows of what he would do to Daisy were a little solace, but not much. It was not until he had got the box and returned my hands to, what was now, their normal resting place behind my back that he began to recover from his pout. He immediately laid me on my back and kicked my feet apart. I felt certain the savage thrusts with which he pierced me again and again were directed at the absent girl who had whipped my breasts and puss. But I won't say I did not enjoy them. After my sojourn against the post I needed something… anything… A slave girl must be satisfied with what she gets. At breakfast, his, lust appeased by an early morning ravishment of my loins, Hennery broke the news: He had actually phoned Yolanda in search of the thousand pounds. My heart leaped.

"An effing butler," he said disgustedly. "Might as well have been the Inland Revenue: Name, address, the whole bit."

"Was that so hard?" I asked innocently. He looked at me sourly. "I ain't that much o' a dummy. I told him nothing, nor her neither when she come on the line. Snooty bitch but anxious. A thousand in cash when I walk up to the door with you."

"See! I promised!" I was jubilant.

"Think I was born yesterday!" My leaping heart fell with a bang at the sourness of his expression. "More I thought on any of her propositions the more I could see meself walking right into the arms of a couple of rozzers. They'd call what you and me been doing a kidnapping."

"'Well, isn't it!" I could have kicked myself. It was not the right thing to say. "Yer see what I mean! Who's going ter believe me! I'd get about seven years."

"But I can prevent that. With me along you're safe."

"Ain't too sure they'd believe you either. The whole thing's a bit rummy when you look at it from their standpoint. I don't see no sense running the risk." He turned a pair of hound dog eyes in my direction. "Fact is I like you. I like having you around. I'd sooner have you than any thousand quid." I was surprised he did not hear the thud of my fallen hopes. "But you can have Daisy anytime for five pounds!" I protested.

"It ain't the same. She ain't got what you got."

"It's standard equipment."

"I ain't talking about boobs and cunts, you know I ain't. And, anyway, yours are better 'n hers. It's quality. You got it."

"But if you and Daisy keep on whipping me like this I'll be dead in a month."

"Daisy ain't touching you no more. I'll guarantee it." His voice was grim. "As fer me, I got a bit o' judgement. I didn't whip yer yesterday, I ain't a' goin' ter whip you today. I ain't spoiling a good thing now I got it."

"I suppose I'm your secret desire come true?" I asked bitterly.

"Damn right you are!" He struck the table for emphasis.

"You think men, any men, don't dream about a gal' like you are and the things we been doin', -you'd be crazy. A lot o' the silly twits 'ud deny it, but they'd lust for you and a whip just the same as me." It didn't seem like much of a future. I'd just been sentenced to a lifetime of slavery. "Aren't you ever going to let rile go?" I asked wanly.

"I'd hoped you wouldn't want to, Phemie." The sincerity of his words was like a blow. If he loved me I was indeed lost. With feminine guile I used this new advantage. "It's hard for a girl to love a man who whips her all the time." I made my eyes as fawn-like as I could and focused them on him with full candle power.

"Dammit, Phemie, I ain't whipped yer that much!" I suppose by his standards he had been moderate. He had not been as cunningly cruel as Daisy. My real fear of him was the stringent bondage in which he kept me. There was no hope for freedom in it, none!

"You've really been very kind, Mr. Hennery," I acknowledged. "I'm sorry if I seem ungrateful." I gave him a sweet small feminine gesture. "It's all so sudden, and it hurts a bit, and that business yesterday with Daisy…"

"I gotta' leave yer again today, love: But I'll make it real easy…" After he had copulated with me again and was ready to go about his affairs he chained me to a tree. Alone again, after Hennery, had vanished over the hill, I assessed my new status. I was loved. But I still wore the handcuffs! On the other hand I was not being whipped, not at the moment! There had been no suggestion that I had said good-bye to cutting thongs and limber canes, but I now had a day in which to allow my weals to stop hurting. As for real freedom, I did not have any, but I was a lot better off than before. Hennery had employed his longest chain. One end was padlocked round a tree, the other locked to the single link between the metal bands round my wrists. I had no faintest hope of escape. But if I wanted to, I could walk 'round and 'round the tree in quite a wide radius. I could sit, lie down or stand as I might desire. Exploring this relative freedom I felt a bit guilty in not having given my captor more fervent thanks for it. It must have been about noon when James Pollard came into view.

I saw him before he saw me. He was walking. I longed to wave, but I couldn't. He was making a determined bee line for the house. Just before he reached it he caught sight of me.

"Phemie!"

"Oh darling!" I forgot everything else. You don't want the jumble of love and kisses and half coherent explanations. There were a lot of them. Until I reassured him, James' first concern was of enemies. Then my own concern got attention. Imagine my gorgeous long drawn out sigh of ecstasy… James had the key. It's funny though. When I pertly turned my back and proffered my chains I found myself loath to part with them. Nuts!

"Damn! I suppose that yokel's got the key to this padlock?"

"I expect he has, darling. It's for sure I haven't, and it's not hanging on a nail anywhere that I know of."

"That means I'll have to leave him the handcuffs. The lock's in 'em. But I'll have you free in about four seconds." He was as good as his word. Now that I had hands and arms we loved all over again. Golly, my shoulders were stiff. It had been days… Yet, when I finally looked down and saw the shining metal that had held my wrists so long I knew a pang of remorse. They lay on the ground at the end of the long chain. Empty and forlorn… James must have felt something of my regret. They did look like a pitiful small part of me abandoned and rejected. It was easy to find a hammer. With a rock beneath the padlock and a few hard blows he shattered the device that had held me captive. The handcuffs fell free.

"Snap them on me again, darling," I pleaded. "I don't feel right without them."

"Afterwards," said James. The afterwards took quite a long time and I was very thankful for my arms. But when it was over and I had brushed the barnyard off my back and bottom I turned and wiggled my hands. I know it's crazy, but the click, click, click as the metal tightened back 'round my wrists had the sound of wedding bells. We walked back to where James had hidden the car. I wondered what conclusion Hennery would arrive at when he found his empty chain and broken lock. I had a sudden prescience of his loneliness. Perhaps, on the following day, Daisy would be able to earn another five pounds. I couldn't hate either of them. It was gorgeous in the car. I pleaded not to be covered. What would be the use! We were on our way to Castle Glynt, if I arrived dressed Yolanda would certainly strip me. I wondered if she'd be angry at all the trouble I'd gotten her into. She could punish me to her heart's content and I wouldn't complain.

"I figured those two chaps of Ashad's had spirited you away while I was puttering around that damn farm," James explained as the car purred it's way over the dirt road to the village. "I had not broken with Bolling, so I went back to the office. There I learned Ashad was as puzzled about you as I was, his bloodhounds were still chasing a lost scent." He looked at me sideways and grinned. "Girls like you don't utterly vanish: They're around somewhere. So I phoned your uppity Miss Harding."

"Yolanda's not uppity."

"She was with me. She demanded I deliver you on her doorstep, pronto. What's with that female? It took me about five minutes with servants asking fool questions before I heard her dulcet tones. She sounded a bit distrait."

"That's what Hennery said."

"He was my clue, of course, She told me about this uncouth voice that claimed to have you and how shy he was of contact. He hung up on her. It sort of clicked. I couldn't figure how he'd fooled me but I knew I'd have to come and find out. How come all those whip marks?"

"He enjoys whipping girls," I sighed happily now that it no longer mattered, then added ruefully: "Who doesn't!" I didn't tell him about Daisy. And I thought it best not to mention all those times I'd laid down with my legs apart. I mean, after all! It was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! I snuggled into my handcuffs and into the upholstery. I kept my eyes on James in adoring contentment. I was safe, safe, safe! In a little while we'd be back at Castle Glynt and Yolanda. No matter what awaited me there I'd be happy, happy, happy! If a faint cloud of wonderment hovered as to how I'd reconcile Yolanda and James, I refused to think about it. Something always happened! I loved them both. My fire burned bright. The homecoming of a slave girl! What pictures it evokes! My heart thudded happily as we drew up at the foot of the steps. Capriciously, I refused to have my hands freed or to be covered. The Castle servants were conditioned. I'm sure the male staff regarded me as one of the more attractive perquisites of office. The females usually giggled or pretended I wasn't there. We mounted the steps like a victorious army. It was not Beddoes the butler who opened the door. It was one of the lesser housemaids. She produced only a faint giggle and gazed at my pubic hair with awe. "The Mistress is in the morning room," she announced breathlessly. Preceding us down the hall she threw open the door. Majestically, we made our entry. I never saw a thing. The rug enveloped me and strong hands held it down. Since I was inside it they held me too. How bitterly I cursed the joie de vivre that had prompted my sentimental plea for the familiar handcuffs. I was a neat package, obligingly delivered, helpless! I heard James's vehement: "You son of a bitch!" There were thuds and scuffles. They were still going strong when I was carried from the room and down the stairs. Even in my struggling distress I was too familiar with Castle Glynt not to know where I was being taken. Steps, doors, changing temperatures all combined to make me cringe in foreknowledge. When the last fateful door opened I was set on my kicking feet. The rug was whisked from over my head. Behind me the dungeon door thudded shut and the bolts shot home. In the dim light I beheld a girl. She was in the corner I knew so well. She was as naked as I. But, whereas I wore only handcuffs at my back, she was bedecked in chains. Ankles, wrists, waist and neck were encircled with the metal bands I too had worn. From the one 'round her waist a heavy chain tether ran to the ringbolt in the stone. She had risen to her feet at our entry and taken a hobbled step against the leashing iron.

"Welcome home, Phemie," said my Mistress, Yolanda. We kissed, we cried, we nuzzled, we bit. Abandoning our flood of incoherencies we made lesbian love within the constrictions of our chains. It was awkward, but we were compelled by a sudden feverish desire that made light of fetters and links and a measure of helplessness. To have my beloved Yola again was good, good, good! I revelled in her flesh and in the pungent scent of her — all else forgotten! Our devouring reached such an intensity that when it was over we slept. How strange a reunion! Never had a Mistress welcomed back an errant slave girl in so great a depth of humiliation. My darling knelt on the stone and played with her shackles. They were heavy and secure. I had worn them often enough by her decree. Now she was a more helpless slave even than I. She told me of her hatred of the span of links that fastened her to the wall. It allowed her a few steps, but that was all. She could not walk half way to the door. She stood to show me her full panoply of prisonment, kicking at the chain which joined her feet, holding wryly for my inspection the fetters upon her wrists, raising a captive hand to feel the metal about her neck, a band purely punitive since it was joined to nothing. "They've got me, Phemie," she confessed wanly. "And now they've got you too. It's what they wanted… both of us."

"But James-"

"They'll probably send him back to his precious Roland Bolling with an admonition to keep his mouth shut."

"You don't think…" She shrugged resignedly. "No, they won't kill him. This lot don't need to. Bolling will tell him to behave and shut up. Bolling's probably fed up to the teeth with slave girls."

"You're not a slave girl, darling." Yola raised her chained hands. "Aren't I!" It was then I saw her marks. "You've been whipped!" It was as though I uttered sacrilege. She smiled at my consternation. "The fainter ones are from your boyfriend's fun the day he and his louts took you and whipped me. The fresh ones are because I was considered far too haughty in my insistence that I owned this Castle. I was told they would teach me a lesson. I suppose they did. Oh Phemie, when I think of all the times I've whipped you!" Once more we wept together. This time I laved my darling's wounds with my tears and my wet lips. I never even thought of mine. We finally got around to the facts of why Miss Harding and, Miss Carstairs were chained in a dungeon. We would have preferred to make love on and on and on! But you can't, can you? I mean, there comes a time… I told Yola my adventures. I know I'm a wicked little something or other but I just couldn't bring myself to tell about the male thing and me. With my darling in that dungeon those huge male organs piercing me again and again just didn't seem real. They were gone! Why hurt this girl I loved, and to whom I belonged. I told of my captivities, that was enough. I made her laugh with my story of my handcuffs and how Fate seemed determined I should wear them behind my back forever. A girl with whipmarks does not have to prove anything she tells. They are a scarlet testimony of anything she admits. Through all my chronicle I had been aware of Yola's troubled eyes seeing beyond me into something else, some thing she did not wish to talk about. Abruptly, I broke the thread of my chatter and eyed her demandingly.

"What is it, Yola, you haven't told me? What is it? Whose prisoners are we?" We were kneeling on the stone, facing each other. She gazed at me with what seemed an infinite pity, and spoke a name…

It began a long time ago as girls count time. A travel folder and a wish to get away. Alone! A two week holiday that would be pure adventure without the nag of girl friends or boy friends or relatives. I was terribly young. It was my first time. I chose the wrong place. Someone had hinted, but I had just laughed. The travel agent had just shrugged and said there were always stories about any place. Any doubts I started with evaporated in the excitement of the flight. The North African resort of my choice was colorful and smelled to high heaven. It had a lot of flies and men who wanted to sell you dirty postcards. It also had the most exciting shops. They were run by the most villainous chaps you've ever seen; so evil in appearance you could feel quite sure they'd be ever so nice if you got to know them. I mean, no villain is deliberately going to look like one. The chap who kidnapped me was positively hideous. Since I'd insisted on being alone it wasn't much of a trick for him. He handed me a brass pot to admire, then while my hands were busy he draped a rug over my head and tied a cord around tight. He then put me in a big wicker basket, the kind used for laundry, and some men carried me away to slavery. I could not see a thing, but from sounds and motion I could guess. In the dark in that damn basket I was frightened almost out of my skin. I knew for sure I'd be taken to a brothel and broken in by a huge nubian, but the only mental picture I could think up was the reassuring smile of that blasted travel agent. To the woman who released me I was just another job of work in a hard day. She did not have too much English, and seemed unwilling to use what she had. "You are now slave girl," she said brusquely. "You will please to behave."

"You don't think I'm going to stay here, do you!" I demanded angrily. I was so frightened I was brave. She just smiled quietly and motioned with her head. I looked around and got the message. It was a very large stone room. The windows were barred and the door was closed. The woman went to one wall and took a whip from a nail where it had hung waiting, presumably for me!

"You needn't think you're going to use that thing on me!" I affirmed with a fine British confidence I did not feel. She used it on me with great competence and a frightening absence of emotion. To her I was a silly child. I was clothed, so she contented herself with my legs which were bare. I skipped and ran and howled, but she was always there. She slashed away at me until I was reduced to a pleading bundle on the floor. The only way I could think to shield my legs was to sit on them the way a hen sits on her eggs. The woman's name was Lotta. After the whipping of my bare legs I treated her with great respect. I gave instant obedience to her slightest word. I had no idea where I was. The wicker basket had been loaded into a truck and the journey had been long. Between the basket and having my legs whipped I was more than ready and very surprised by the modern bathroom. Lotta stood by watchfully while I made myself very clean. There were oils and perfumes she poured in the water for me. You can guess what was coming. I never did get my western clothes back. With the help of a giggling native girl who looked at me with the most avid speculation in her wise eyes, Lotta bedecked my nakedness with some pretty odds and ends and bangles that made me feel twice as nude as nude! I was then escorted to The Presence. He was old. Hawk faced. Arab. I liked him instantly, there was something paternal about his lined face and bright intelligent eyes. He said, "Good afternoon, Miss Carstairs." In perfect English. As I said, I was very young. Instead of returning his greeting I said frostily: "The police will make a frightful fuss about this, y'know." He inclined his head, just fractionally. "You will give me much pleasure, child. You shall have no regrets." I muffed everything. I said the first thing in my mind: "But you're old!" Surely grandfathers didn't ravish maidens! His eyes clouded momentarily, but his voice remained even: "I must ask you to forget escape, the police and the past. None of those things exist for you now. All in my house welcome you." I was a pompous little pussycat. "If you let me go now I won't press charges," I said in the manner of the best fiction.

"Allah has willed that you be a member of my household. Heed his will and mine, child."

"I'm not your child, and don't bring Allah into this!" I retorted, painting my path to pain with profligate abandon. The old man sighed. He looked at Lotta with only a faint lifting of one eyebrow. He dismissed me briefly with two awful words: "Twenty lashes." For me to fight Lotta was nonsense, but I tried, After a silly scuffle she picked me up and carried me from The Presence under one arm. I was kicking and beating my fists against her impassivity like a fractious little girl of nine. This time a quite different room. Large, of stone, punishment implicit in every inch. I quailed at the things I could recognize and at those I could not. Lotta hung me up by my wrists. She was a faithful custodian. She stripped me completely naked and folded my rejected finery neatly. I hung with my toes six inches above the floor, trembling, feeling foolish and shamed. Exposed! Some instinct told me to keep quiet. Without preamble she proceeded to whip me very, very slowly and very, very hard. The cuts of the lash falling from across my shoulders down and down to meet the scarlet and purple on my legs and thighs. Her strokes might have been governed by a metronome. I remember my screams. There were a lot of pleadings here and there, and some promises. They sounded shameful even as I uttered them, so I won't repeat. I had not known such pain existed or that it could be endured by a naked girl. During the first ten strokes I was sure I would die. Twenty was not possible to bear — I knew it wasn't! But the blows fell regularly as I shrieked and kicked. Twelve, fifteen, eighteen… My youth and Lotta's skill deprived me of the drama of demise. I was led back to The Presence, bare naked and shivering. I was made to pose. I was still young and English enough to be afraid of my own nakedness. I had been taught it was shameful and that no man should ever see it except my husband. True, I had taken some of this with a grain of salt. But just the same I had done very little hopping around in the nude, Now I was forced to stand erect with my hands clasped on my head. First with my back to my owner so that he might count my stripes and judge them adequate, then facing him so that he might assess the quality of his most recent acquisition. I also had to stretch my legs far apart and to bend down to expose my bottom. He viewed my enforced performance with a grave regard that might have prompted me to revolt or sarcasm had not Lotta stood to one side with her whip. I wanted no more of that. Then the catechism. I answered his questions respectfully and promptly. I was a changed girl. I stood there with my breasts thrust out as he desired and told him all he wanted to know, I'd have told him anything. It shocks me still to know how easily and how well a girl can be governed by a whip. I was then taken to a very bare room. Its only furnishings were a thin mattress, a slop pail and a collar and chain. The metal collar was locked around my neck, the other end of the chain was made fast to the wail. This tether enabled me to move about in approximately half the area of the room. It snubbed me short when I tried to reach the door. I spent an hour or so feeling sorry for myself and pulling uselessly at my collar and chain. I found that tether bitterly humiliating in its simile to the control of dogs. No girl wearing it could fail to realize its superfluity so far as keeping her prisoner went. The massive door and its bolts did that! My chain and collar were locked on me to tell me what I was and to induce a proper submissiveness. They did it very well. I have told you of my induction into slavery in a factual sort of way. But I don't suppose I can portray the psychic shock. It was tremendous: Yesterday, a carefree young female tourist, today, a naked slave in a barren cell and with a chain 'round her neck and her skin well striated by a whip, a whip used in pure utility to teach obedience. When I desolately lay down on the hard little strip of mattress, it was logical enough that I should remember that other time with Miss Hilde… It was my first understanding of the singularity of pain. It can be given and received with love, or it can be inflicted purposefully as Lotta had whipped me. But then it happened! I suppose the friction of the mattress on my nipples, or on my puss as I wriggled to find a comfort that was not there, was what sparked it. But, seeping through my misery, I was astonished to recognize a familiar heat between my legs. It was like meeting an old friend you thought had dropped you. I found an immense comfort, a sort of sanctuary, My eager hand and seeking finger were involuntary. As I drifted off into rainbow fantasies it was not Miss Hilde who exerted her dominion over me. It was Lotta. I slept, of course, You always think you can't, but you do. In the morning I began my new life as a slave. My behavior was meticulously proper. But once, as though I couldn't help myself, I deliberately provoked Lotta into whipping me: nothing dramatic, but enough to fan the embers of my fire. I did not quite understand it, but it was good, something to hold on to. I was not alone. In the same faintly preoccupied manner in which she did everything, Lotta used her authority to make me service her. That is the polite term; isn't it, for having me feed between her legs? It was a minor Sheikdom, and my owner was the venerable Sheik Inman Azzam. He told me, with a rather sweet regret, that he could no longer pierce my loins, but that until a man died he would worship beauty, and that was why I was there: I was beautiful! That was enough. I would be an exquisite plaything who always did his bidding. About the time I was feeling as though I was promoted to Princess, he explained how I would be whipped quite often as the mood took him. He smiled benignly as though bestowing a mark of favour which, in a strange way, he was. Being young I adjusted. Azzam was lovable. In serving him I found a contentment I would not previously have believed possible. He was wise and kind — unless offended. Then he was implacable and cruel. The oddly detached Lotta with her smoldering eyes supplied me with the need Azzam's departed virility could not fill. Satisfied that she had me well broken, Lotta bestowed on me the same beneficence that I daily rendered unto her. I became compliantly happy in a small enchanted world. The fact that I was always, in some intriguing manner chained bothered me not at all. I would have felt unloved without it. Silver shackles completed and enhanced my scanty costumes — no one could call 'em clothes! I was whipped constantly. In the moulding of what is now me, those whippings were important. They never injured but they sure did hurt. As my fire grew I approached them in a trembling dither of lust. But Lotta always ensured that I ended them in tears. Often, afterwards, I was left fastened for the rest of the day. Sometimes when I remained bound in my pose of punishment Azzam would come and talk to me as though nothing had happened. I grew accustomed to nudity before his eyes. The days became weeks and the weeks broadened into months. It was then that Yolanda happened. I was standing naked in the room where I was whipped. My hands were chained above my head. I'd been there a couple of hours and was half asleep in fantasy land when a girl walked in. She stood for several moments staring at me with wide, startled eyes. Then, in an endearing English voice, said: "Frightfully sorry?" and turned to leave.

"Don't go… please!" She turned back. I could tell she was curious. She came and stood before me, examining my nudity and the tell-tale whipmarks it bore.

"You must have been a very bad girl?" That's Yolanda! Not shocked. Open mind. Curious! Actually she was loving it. I had absolutely no thought of escape, or rescue, or of using her. I fell in love with her on the spot and wanted only to keep her from discreetly leaving. "I'm afraid I like it," I told her mischievously. She nodded, eyes shining to match my mood. "Then why are you chained?"

"Well, it does hurt quite a lot. And besides, I'm a slave girl."

"I'm sure you deserve every stroke." It was as though we had known each other always. I was thinking up a cute retort when we were joined by Sheik Inman Azzam. He was unperturbed. "Miss Harding. Allow me," as he inclined his head in my direction, "Miss Euphemia Carstairs." We were frightfully British and came up with a pair of frigid "How d'you do's". The Sheik told me afterwards he found us hilarious. "Your last remark was correct, Miss Harding. This beloved child is in constant need of the lash," he said with grave courtesy. "Perhaps you would assuage her hunger?" He took the whip from the wall and offered it to the girl who had wandered into my punishment room by accident. Yolanda looked from one to the other of us, gauging the mood. She accepted the whip. Carefully, and with cruel skill, she lashed my back and bottom five times. I almost swooned with joy. Azzam nodded approval.

"You have done this before, Miss Harding?"

"No, but I've always wanted to."

"You are unusually honest, my dear."

"Daddy always told me I could be, with you." Azzam sighed. "He was a fine man and my friend. It has pleased me that you should visit my house." His eyes twinkled. "I think it matters not that you have stumbled on this domestic scene."

"It was inexcusable. I should not have wandered-" My owner waved a forgiving hand and relieved her of the whip. "It is perhaps the will of Allah. I sense between you that strange intangible for which man has no name. Is she not beautiful!"

"She is lovely beyond dreams," Yolanda breathed. Two days later she purchased me and took me home to Castle Glynt. At the last moment I did not want to go. I fell to my knees before the Sheik who was my lord. I kissed his hand as though I could not let it go, wetting it with my tears.

"Azzam isn't all that rich," My new Mistress explained to me on the plane that winged us home. "My fifty thousand means something to him. I think he has some special need of it. If there's any oil in his kingdom no one seems to have found it." She patted my nylon clad knee. "I'll tell you this, you outrageous sexpot, if he'd been thirty years younger a couple of million wouldn't have been enough to pay your price. He loves you, I think he believed he was being kind…" I was terribly, terribly happy.

"But Azzam was kind, he liked you," I protested.

"Azzam hasn't arrived yet, Phemie. It's a sort of an advance guard that's taken over Glynt. I think they're soldiers in civilian clothes, but Lotta's the boss."

"Lotta! Here?"

"Is she ever! I owe these to her." Yola ruefully traced a finger the length of some of her wounds, then rattled her chains. "She's an absolute virago if you argue." I remembered Lotta whipping my legs that first time.

"But the argument… how-?" My darling Mistress was instantly indignant, "About six of them walked in and took over — just like that?"

"But what did they say?"

"Damn little. Some shocking gangsters were after you, and they'd been sent to intervene. They called in help. When I told them this was England and the police handled things like that, they produced the handcuffs. I'm sure that Lotta female enjoyed snapping them on behind my back. It was while I stood there tugging at the damn things on my wrists and not quite believing any of it that they told me they were staying and that I must brief the servants and have them carry on normally. I had to make a plausible story so I could be absent a day or two here and there without raised eyebrows. Lotta was the chatelaine in my absence."

"Absence'!" Yola sardonically shook her fettered hands at me. "I'm not exactly present right now, am I!"

"And you said no."

"Of course! I was outraged. That's when they whipped me. After they'd whipped me quite awhile it didn't seem quite so preposterous and I said yes." My heart went out to my darling. How well I knew! "But why the dungeon?" I asked, puzzled. She shrugged. "They don't trust me. Suppose you can't blame 'em. I haven't been very polite." She gave a brief giggle. "Phone calls have been a bit of a poser for 'em. With those they wanted me to take — those referring to you, Lotta dashes down, unlocks my waist band and carries me to the nearest phone. She told me what to say. Afterwards she carries me back and locks me to the wall again. I suppose it is a neat disposal of a nagging female."

"They don't need all those chains on you." My Mistress gave me a wry grin. "I put this many on you often enough. It's been a marvellous opportunity for me to gauge their effect. It's quite potent, isn't it?"

"Keeps a slave girl in her place and lets her know what she is."

"Sure. That is actually the way it works on a girl. It's having that effect on me, and I didn't have a predilection the way you did."

"But, darling, you can't possibly be a slave girl, you're not the type, and you don't want-" Yola gazed at me solemnly. "A few days ago that's what I'd have said myself. But now I'm not sure. I just don't know!"

"There's a difference between a slave girl and just a prisoner. You're a prisoner." Yolanda looked at me with love. "You're being sweet, Phemie. But look at the two of us. We're both locked in and chained, aren't we. What's the difference?" There wasn't any. In a second frenzy of wanting we fought our chains to appease our hunger with avid lips upon the hot wet sex. At night we slept peacefully entwined. The days and nights of our imprisonment slipped by. Each morning I was taken, by a solicitous Lotta, and bathed and perfumed and loved. I could tell she was genuinely pleased to possess me again. To her I would always be a slave girl, our status was normal. She refused to change my handcuffs. She had shrewdly divined their presence on my wrists. It amused her to keep them there. I did not argue. I'd asked for them and I'd damn well got them! I thought nostalgically of James clicking them on me. It seemed a million years away. Whilst Lotta treated me with affection, she had nothing but an indignant scorn for my Mistress. Yola had offended some deeply ingrained sense of what the Arab woman considered proper. Quite probably Lotta saw all Western females as slaves and had no patience with one of them who refused the appellation. She flatly refused my plea that Yola enjoy the same privileges as myself. No bath! No removal of a single shackle! She was adamant. I dared not push too hard for fear I'd earn us both a whipping to keep us quiet. With my wrists handcuffed behind my back I could perform no service for Yola that she could not manage herself. Apart from the indignity of their weight and intent, her chains actually gave her more scope for the use of her hands than my handcuffs granted me. Despite our metal bonds we gloried in a veritable orgy of making love. On the day when, after I had been bathed, I was taken to Yola's bedroom and bedecked in the flimsy exquisiteness I remembered so well, I knew what to expect. Lotta smiled but would not tell. My handcuffs stayed. I pleaded for their removal, but was laughed at. They had not impeded the trifles which now adorned my breasts and loins. Lotta saw them as appropriate to the other bangles she placed upon my person. I was propelled into the huge drawing room with something of a flourish. He was there! The same lined face that had no age, the same kind wise eyes that glowed with delight at the sight of me. With a small cry of pure love I sank to my knees at his feet and sought his hand. The cuffs prevented me clasping it, but he pressed it to my lips and held it firm while I kissed it again and yet again… I cannot tell you the quality or name of the affection I bore the Sheik Inman Azzam but it was deep and it was without lust.

"My child, my dear child!" He raised me to my feet and kissed me softly on my forehead. "Let me look at you." He held me at arm's length for a long time. "You are more beautiful than ever, a dream of loveliness." He turned me gently around. "Come, come! You have been a bad girl?" He fingered my handcuffs. I confessed to my erotic folly.

"And you wish to wear them still?"

"If it please my lord."

"It pleases me. You are a treasure of delight."

"Master, there is Yolanda, Miss Harding. She is chained in a dungeon." His eyes lit with humour. "It appears our esteemed Miss Harding had offended my trusted Lotta."

"It is a difference of cultures, lord, a misunderstanding."

"Ah yes. A difference you overcame most readily as I recall."

"Not before you had me whipped, lord."

"Even so, your adjustment amazed me."

"I am a slave girl, Master. It was born in me. Your lash explained everything I had not known,"

"Are you certain your adored Miss Harding cannot find grace by the same path?" I must have looked startled. Azzam laughed at my dismay. "Come, come, you exquisite creature! Stand out before me while I sit and feast my eyes and tell why I am here." I did as bidden. I arranged my femaleness to its best advantage. I wanted most ardently to please this man who had once owned me.

"Money, child. Always money! In that time when my delightful guest: the daughter of an old friend, stumbled on you in your chains I had a need. Because of it I gave you away." He gestured testily. "Fifty thousand pounds… to any of us now it is a bagatelle." I clinked my handcuffs and looked bright and attentive. "It is the oil. Since I sold you the oil has flowed from beneath my desert. I am richer than your King or your Queen." He gave the sigh I knew so well. "Where there is oil there comes the jackals, Their leader is Ashad."

"He is in London, lord."

"Ah yes! He is indeed! He is in England for you."

"Only for me? But Master-"

"This Ashad is a fox as well as a jackal. He had become aware that you possess my love. How he knows does not matter. He knows! He believes that with you as hostage he can wring concessions from me for his tattered Communists."

"Me?" I was askance. "For me-"

"Do not dissemble, child. I have loved you from the moment Lotta marched you before my eyes. As a father perhaps… but a father's love is strong."

"My lord-" My voice broke. I was crying. He must have pressed a bell. When Lotta came his order was terse: "Her handcuffs: remove them." When she had gone with the steel bands warm from my flesh I was trembling, "Master… may I?" The sheik Inman Azzam held out his arms.

"I think you get bathed and perfumed tomorrow, darling." Yola knelt in her chains and eyed me with amusement.

"What are you doing back in this dungeon wearing those pretty trifles? They belong in a Pasha's bedroom."

"I can't take them off, darling. They handcuffed my hands behind my back again."

"You mean they actually took them off for awhile! I wish I could be so lucky."

"You will be tomorrow."

"Why not today?" I felt a traitress. "They seem to feel you don't have the right attitude."

"I take it you have?" I moved up within the radius of her chain. "Strip me, darling." For a moment I thought Yola would angrily refuse. But, sulkily, she used her fettered hands to take from me all that Lotta had used for my adornment. Naked, I felt less guilty. Impelled by the same longing for beloved flesh we sank to the stone and, once again, tangled ourselves in each other's chains, Our mouths wet and seeking.

"I'm a decoy, darling," I explained afterwards, "Azzam believes Ashad's men will come and try to get me back. They know I'm here, but they don't know about the half dozen soldiers. Azzam says they can pick Ashad up anytime. It's the others they want most. They're dangerous types. They're out there somewhere, sort of hovering."

"Hmmmm! Wouldn't someone like to kidnap me out of my own dungeon! Phemie darling, I'm tired of being chained up down here." I was still on ticklish ground. Azzam had told me more.

"Darling-" I choked on what I found hard to tell. "It isn't just Ashad," Yola knew instantly. "No, Phemie, no! Not you!"

"He's going to take me back with him,"

"And you're willing!" Her voice was pure heartbreak.

"I don't have anything to say about it. He has a private plane and I'll be loaded on board in a big wicker basket, tightly bound, of course." I let a giggle slip by, "It's probably the same basket they used on me that other time, I'll be gagged too. He said it will save me the agonies of decision, About screaming, that is."

"You don't sound too put out about it."

"Darling, you know Azzam, I think I love him in a daughter-like way, In fact I know I do…" I tugged fretfully at my handcuffs. They're useful at such times as an expression of frustration. I wished ardently it was someone else who would say what had to be said, "But that isn't the crux of the problem. He's going to take you along too." It was the deepest dungeon silence ever. Yolanda broke it with an emphatic and outraged "No!" I did a bit more clinking, and hoped I looked as unhappy as I felt. "I don't think you'll have anything to say about it either."

"But it's… it's… nuts! And by their code and standard it's dishonest. I paid money for you."

"He mentioned that. He says he could easily give you a million for me if he was leaving you here. But he says it's not possible to buy a slave from a slave."

"What century does he think he's in!"

"He spoke of that too. He says the oil has created a whole new morality. The ones who have it possess unlimited power. He is quite sure that even if the authorities know he has taken you — I suppose abducted or kidnapped is the word. He says they won't do a thing. They won't want to offend him. He says it's going on all over that part of the world," Yola gave a tremendous sigh of impotence. "Oh damn! Damn these chains and damn this dungeon. I'm sure Azzam is a decent old fart in his own Arabian way but he's got delusions of grandeur. He's misjudging things, and one of the things is me. I'm not a slave, I'm the wrong type. Can't you tell him what a rotten slave girl I'd be for him?"

"I've already told him, darling. He says I love you too much to be able to judge. But anyway, he seems convinced that any girl, if she's properly dealt with, gets to be like me sooner or later."

"What he means is if you whip her enough?" I was constantly squirming. Trying to explain Azzam seemed to put me on his side against my darling. "Well, I suppose so, but there's these chains too. He thinks being held captive the way you are is bound to affect your feelings."

"He couldn't be more right! If I'm ever given a chance I'm off to the police. What sort of an idiot does he take me for!"

"I don't think you'll be given the chance, Mistress. I know I won't. He says it's kinder if we don't have chances."

"And is this your reward for being a nice little slave, to be tossed in here with me, handcuffed so you can't scratch a tickle?"

"Azzam says we're good for each other. He wants us to be together."

"Oh Phemie!" Yola looked at me piteously. "He can get away with it, can't he! Oh damn, damn and double damn!" Furiously she fought the chain to the wall as though she believed it might break. In telling this story of me, I come now to an odd mixture of farce, and sadness and laughter. It has been said that a man cannot serve two Masters. I found it true that a girl cannot serve a Master and a Mistress. It's just not possible! The chasm between Yolanda and the Sheik Inman Azzam was so wide I could see only vistas of pain for my darling if that chasm was bridged. I had the temerity to expostulate with my Master about Yola's unsuitability for the role in which he had cast her, and was instantly sent to find Lotta and request her to beat each of the soles of my feet five times with a thin cane. I have never known such agony. Receiving it I understood why she had tied me so tightly. When I was freed I was a very subdued little girl who realized how infinitesimal was her capacity to influence events. I hadn't intended to show my feet to Yola. They hurt when I walked, but in a dungeon you don't do much walking. But when the poor darling let go a burst of frustration and demanded that, with my influence at Court, surely I could do something! I let her see what the cane had done. We both cried together and felt better. I did get a promotion. My handcuffs got changed from back to front. In the front they were purely symbolic. I wore them with immense panache, But they were all I did wear. After Yola had stripped me in the dungeon no one thought it worth the trouble to dress me again. I didn't mind. I know I'm nice naked, and I've got sort of used to it. Jennie was a surprise. She was in the cell with the barred front and barred door. This means that anyone inside is like a goldfish in a bowl. Anyone can get a good look at you and there's nowhere to hide. Lotta sent me down there on some pretext and there she was.

"So you were here all the time!" That was my greeting. She sounded jubilant. Before I could say a word, she demanded: "Get me out of this mess." Jennie was naked, and a very well constructed naked too! Her hands were tied palm to palm at her back and her elbows bound tight together with rope. I could see it hurt. I held up my hands and grasped a couple of bars. Seeing my handcuffs she also took the trouble to notice me. "What are you running 'round like that for'?" she demanded. "And those things on your wrists… "

"I'm a prisoner too."

"Come off it, ducks, yer on the wrong side of bars."

"Miss Harding is a prisoner too."

"Oh her! Is this all part of that fool game you two play?" At that point I was joined by Lotta. I was glad to see her.

"She one of Ashad's?" she asked bluntly.

"Yes."

"She no work for Board of Health — ask questions?"

"No. She's Ashad's Mistress." Lotta looked pleased. The captive said: "Up your arse, love." And gave me a glance of pure venom. Lotta looked through the bars and asked: "You are talking please?"

"And up yours too!" said Jennie. No time was wasted. Lotta got one of the royal guard and between them they carried a writhing and obscene Jennie to the room designed for the discomfort of bad or uncooperative young women. They put a rope from a pulley round her hands and drew them up behind until she was almost off the ground.

"You're pulling my arms out," Jennie gasped. "Good. Now we whip." Lotta never wasted words. "This ain't cricket," Jennie complained.

"Not cricket. Whipping arse." Lotta proceeded with her metronome beat. Jennie expressed colorful character references for all present. My heart went out to her as the cane thudded regularly into her quite nice bottom.

"Where Ashad live?"

"Seventeen Ashenden Square." Jennie's answer was too prompt.

"We know that wrong." The metronome speeded up. The blows became exceedingly cruel.

"Oh, damn you! It's Three two three Elm Terrace."

"Much better. Now the other two: Musad and Narranah."

"I don't know. Let me down." This time only two strokes before Jennie's memory improved.

"The Mermaid Inn at Nettley."

"They come here?"

"How the hell should I know!" Lotta's slash made me wince. Jennie howled. "What's today. Tuesday? That means they'll be here Thursday, damn you."

"Be no ashamed. Lotta hurt. You do well for man."

"Thanks a lot," Jennie moaned. "Now that I've been an absolute bitch, how about letting me down?" Lotta allowed the wracked arms to fail. Her fingertips explored the ridged weals on the perky bottom and found them good. "We lock you up," she announced genially.

"How about taking this' damn rope off my elbows, it's killing me?" Jennie demanded.

"Stay on. Do you good," Lotta decreed. I had to feel sorry for Ashad's wealed Mistress, she'd only been doing her job. I did not envy her the rope on her elbows. When I was put back in the dungeon there had been a change. "That damn Wardress type thinks I've been too comfortable," Yola exclaimed angrily. "And this afternoon I'm going to be whipped." My poor darling! She had been released from her shackles, but now stood against the stone wall, her arms spread wide and raised and chained. It was a beautiful pose, with Yola's loveliness an absolute breath stopper. But as the day wore on she would tire. I knew! I too had stood thus. Adding insult to injury, a chastity belt had been locked upon her hips. It mocked me. I could give my love no solace. She listened to my story of Jennie, but found no joy in it. Shifting irritably against her bonds she eyed me pathetically. "Two days, Phemie, maybe three. Then your desert patriarch whisks us off to slavery. Phemie, I'm scared." I was desolate. To tell my love that Inman Azzam was kind would seem to her an insult. By his order she was chained and would soon be whipped. She would find no joy in the lash. The first and the last stroke to mark her skin would hurt her with equal bitterness. She would feel only injustice and cruelty. I knew that in every moment of this captivity she was longing for release with all her heart. She was not like me.

"I am a happy slave-" My pitiful sentence died.

"And you think I could be. Phemie darling, I know what you're thinking. It's that I should accept and bow the knee."

"Is there no heat in your puss at the thought, Mistress?"

"You have called me Mistress. Mistresses aren't whipped." Without a word I employed my fingers and my lips upon her breasts and nipples until she was panting and tugging at her tethers. Then I stood back and used my small store of courage. "Yola!" She looked at me, startled.

"You are a slave, Yola. You have no choice any more than I. If you give Azzam love, or at least respect, he will be kind." She was furious. "You know, don't you, that if we're ever freed I'll punish you terribly for what's in your mind at this moment."

"Yes, Mistress, I know. I'll understand."

"He'll whip me daily yet you ask me to love him!"

"You have whipped me, Mistress. Besides, in all that time he owned me my whippings were never cruel after the first — or when I misbehaved."

"Are you sure you're not being used as a Judas goat, Phemie?" She had put her finger neatly on my pulse. Before I could frame another plea, the door opened and Lotta beckoned. Her impassive features betrayed about as much amusement as they were designed to proclaim. I followed her, expectantly, to the big room I now thought of as The Audience Chamber. The first thing I saw was another amused smile, this time on the face of my Master. The second thing to claim my startled attention was Daisy.

"I believe you have met?" The Sheik Inman Azzam inquired amiably.

"I've come for my thousand pounds." Daisy's greeting was terse. She looked absurdly out of place. Her attire was rustic with a brave attempt at 'Sunday best'. She sat on the bare edge of her chair and held on to the handbag in her lap as though for moral support. She looked at me irritably. "How was I to know you done a bunk!"

"No thanks to you!"

"That's as may be, ducks. But I went over to Nettley and phoned like yous said. Sorta' curious like. Some arsehole said to bring you and I'd be paid. Couldn't do that, so I come myself to collect and tell 'em where you was."

"Didn't Hennery tell you?"

"Ain't been near him, love. Bin' letting him cool."

"Someone else rescued me."

"So I see!" Her indignation was absurdly genuine. "Can't blame me fer' that." She turned to Azzam. "Under the circs' I'll take five hundred." He inclined his head. "You are most generous." I could tell he was enjoying the silly charade.

"You expect to get money for whipping me!" I was reliving those cuts of her whip on my puss.

"Just a bit o' fun, love. You're one of them what likes it." I knelt respectfully, well away from my Master and well away from Daisy. I wanted to take in the scene. "I spoke of this girl to you, lord. She is the one on the farm." Daisy was intrigued. "What goes on here!" She looked from one to the other of us. "You two pulling my leg?"

"This is the Sheik Inman Azzam. I belong to him," I told her simply.

"Blimey!" said Daisy with deep feeling. "I wouldn't take service in this house." And then, accusingly: "Why don't you wear some clothes!"

"I am a slave girl." She decided to be offended, and turned her attention to the omniscient male. "She's barmy. How about a couple o' hundred? I gone to a lot o' trouble on account of her."

"Payment in kind perhaps?" His voice was silk. She was instantly on guard. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You whipped this child of my delight; now we whip you." She turned instantly to me. "Is this old duffer crackers?" For her benefit I turned on the Middle East. "My Master is rich and wise and has great authority." Switching back to the British Isles I added: "If I were you I'd express regret and leave."

"That time is past," Azzam intoned sternly. Maybe it was the 'old duffer' bit, or maybe the purple marks she had put across my puss. Perhaps a bit of opportunism tossed in; but whether she liked it or not, Daisy was now a guest. She was a strong girl and gave Lotta and one of the men a good fight. I could tell she had offended deeply by their care in tying her. It was the hanging 'X': Suspended, arms and legs spread wide. Taut in the center of the punishment room she made a lovely picture she could not appreciate. As her clothes were taken from her she dealt vehemently in threats: The police, the government, the United Nations… her mother and father got in there too. One gathered they were formidable. She had an audience of three. The Sheik had guided me along, and there was Lotta. The soldier had, regretfully, departed. She acknowledged the honour of our Master's presence by a typical Daisy: "That old bastard's looking at my cunt!" I did feel sorry for her. I mean, right from the start she had been out of her depth. Compounding her tactlessness she looked Lotta in the eye. "You keep your hands off me, you wog bitch!" she menaced. Daisy had a positive talent for losing friends. Giving my Master the full benefit of a basilisk glare she suggested: "As for you, Grandpa, why don't you go and have your afternoon nap!" Sheik Inman Azzam courteously handed me the whip. "What are you going to do with that?" Daisy demanded with prescient apprehension.

"I would suggest the pubes," the Sheik said suavely. I was suddenly a slave girl holding a whip. I was not happy. I felt like the ingenue surrounded by name stars. From the look in Azzam's eye I knew I dared not decline the honour. But our guest helped. She came out with another lovely Daisy: "You hit me with that, you little bitch, and you'll be sorry!" I slashed her across the same spot she had chosen on me. She let out a surprised "Wow!" And then, as though I didn't know: "That was my cunt, damn you!" I won't say I didn't enjoy it. There was a sort of challenge about the way Daisy was tied, everything was so beautifully available. She was stretched taut and sort of 'thrrrrruuuummmmed' after each blow. She couldn't move much. In the matter of screaming she was uninhibited. I remembered that day with my hands behind the post and how she'd made me stick out my puss for her to hit. After I'd given her six or seven good ones, Azzam placed his hand on my arm and asked Daisy gently: "Perhaps you now wish to express thanks for my child's attention?"

"She ain't no child, and you're a dirty old man!" It was hard not to titter. Daisy was so predictable. After five more my Master softly inquired: "And now, Miss Cowslip, would you consider service in my humble house?" Cowslip! Daisy Cowslip! I suppose she must have told her name. It was almost too good to be true. It fitted perfectly. She lived up to it with her next response.

"Fuck you!"

"And now her bottom," my owner instructed sensibly.

"We must not injure a facility."

"You're not getting in there you old prick!" My Master sighed happily. I applied myself to those ripe curves so naturally designed. In her anguish poor Daisy became quite beautiful. I had exchanged the whip for a lovely snappy cane. It was my first chance to watch the ridges rise on someone else's behind. I knew I might never perform this task again, so I didn't feel too guilty.

"Look, couldn't we talk this over?" It was a Daisy cliche. But it was also a change of tune. I looked at my Master for guidance.

"You have a suggestion, Miss Cowslip?"

"I suppose you want a piece o' tail, eh?"

"Your social status precludes, Miss Cowslip."

"Sure it ain't a limp dink?" I continued my task, The ridges began to criss-cross. The rustic vocals were terrific. "Well, what the hell do you want'?" Daisy burst out between screams.

"Complete obedience, complete respect."

"You mean like her!" Daisy was outraged. "Get down on my knees an all. I ain't no ruddy slave."

"Are you quite sure?" An emphasis in the query gave her pause. "You mean you're going to keep me here, not let me go?"

"Precisely."

"I ain't going to stay. Forget it."

"Have you noticed the handcuffs Miss Carstairs wears so prettily'?"

"Shove 'em up yer' arse! I ain't wearing any." My Master took the cane from my hand, then handed the whip to an amused Lotta. I joined the audience. "That ain't fair!" Daisy protested "That big cow's too bloody strong to be whipping a girl." Lotta performed exquisitely, My own efforts paled before her competence. The white back became a scarlet grid. At the end of ten or twelve the Cowslip capitulation was vulgar but explicit. "Alright, you bastards, fuck me or whatever you want. I won't say boo, But stop whipping me… please!" The please did it. From Daisy, it was total surrender. My Master was pleased. He patted my head and motioned to the sweat soaked nakedness panting in the aftermath of agony. "Try and help her, child. She has far to go." They did not lock the door when they left. I found a box and sat ten feet in front of the whipped nudity that had become slave. I waited to be noticed.

"We alone, kid?"

"Yes."

"Then let me loose. We can scram together."

"I don't want to scram, and you can't. Even if I set you free you couldn't escape."

"You mean you won't untie me?"

"Did you untie me?"

"That was all in fun. This ain't!" I tried to sound serious and consoling. I even ran my fingertips across her breasts in the way Yola does for me when I am helpless. "Daisy, it's just no good! Stop fighting. Stop talking about intercourse and bodily orifices. Being Azzam's slave is different from what you think…"

"It don't make no sense, love. It ain't possible."

"It's already happened. It's done."

"You mean ter tell me?" I told her. I told her everything. Getting angry with her intractability I told her that if she could accept Colin Hennery she could accept Lotta and me and our Master. Her sulky vulgarities interspersed my harangue, but she listened, I suppose the poor girl had to. I was still talking when my Master and Lotta returned. With them was Yolanda. The only bond upon her nakedness was Lotta's firm grip on her arm. Azzam placed a hand gently on my shoulder. "My child, I wish to see you whipped." My fire leaped. I was irradiated with gladness. My Master desired me. Glowing, I offered Lotta my hands. She relieved me of the handcuffs, then bound my wrists with soft nylon rope in a manner I knew well. When I was suspended with my toes just off the stone, I caught Azzam's eye and said: "Thank you, Master." I knew why I was being whipped. There were two reasons. The first was to give my Master pleasure and because a whipping was due. The second was to show the girls who watched an example of what was expected of them. I felt only pride. Daisy was released. She and my darling were thrust against a wall and told to stand. Their view was perfect. I gave them reassuring grins, but got only a wan smile from Yola in response. Daisy was busy fingering her bottom and puss. I was tied the way I was for a purpose. Between Lotta and I there was complete understanding. I was a puppet on a string, but very much alive. The lash would animate me. Lotta whipped me beautifully. No one watching could tell the weight of her blows upon my helpless nakedness. Under the impacts I swung like a pendulum, twisting this way and that without control. She stuck me as she pleased in the varying postures this tethered mobility offered. I made no sound other than the sharpness of indrawn breath through flaring nostrils as my skin was scalded by the thong. I knew that which would please my Master most and at the same time offer a message to Yola and Daisy. I writhed, I twisted, I squirmed. I flung my head and my hair forth and back. I raised myself by my bound wrists as though striving to climb above the searching lash. I kicked; oh how I kicked! Partly from a natural reaction to what was being done to me, but also to give Lotta the chances she desired to bring the whip upward to weal my inside thighs. I used every inch of me to maintain a fluid and rhythmic motion to accompany the whining song and the impacts on my flesh, Even when the whipping stopped I continued on. I was totally absorbed in an artistry of pain. I was terribly, terribly happy. I was released. My Master's glowing eyes were an accolade. Daisy looked at me as though I was a being from another world. Lotta locked the handcuffs back on my wrists. I dared not meet my loved one's eyes when she stepped forward to take my place. I knew an infinite longing to share with her some of the heat within my sex. I was close to orgasm. Intuitively, I knew the task Yolanda Harding would impose upon her flesh. I felt every cut of the lash upon the lovely skin. I shared with the girl who had owned me the wish that she acquit herself as befits a Mistress fallen from her pedestal. I longed not to watch her punishment, but knew I must. Yolanda Harding did not move, She allowed, or forced, herself to hang limply from the hurt wrists inside their cords. Her nostrils flared as had my own as each blow fell, but she refused to kick or to writhe or to do other than sway passively under the impacts that told her she was slave. It seemed endless. But it was no more than had been done to me. It was the routine whipping of a slave girl lest she forget her state. When it was over and Yola again stood free, she thrust herself erect and looked her Master in the eye. When she said "thank you" in a voice without warmth I could not tell whether her words were mocking or meek. But, watching, I felt certain her slavery had begun. It was on the following day that James Pollard came back into my life.

Lotta attended me to the Audience Chamber. Safely delivered, she unlocked my handcuffs, ostentatiously placed them with their key upon a chair, and went her way. James rose and kissed my hand. The grave courtesy set the tone for what transpired. If my Master was troubled, he hid it well. I knelt before him but he raised me to my feet and led me to a chair. "There are those who desire your services," he told me gently. "It is expedient that I lend you to them. The honour of my house will be in your hands."

"It's more of those wheels within wheels I told you about, love," James explained as I sat beside him in the familiar car. "A bit of political wrangling has entered into this one. Fact is, Bolling is curious about you. Any man has to be curious about a girl who's pursued and kidnapped the way you have been. He wants to use you once for his own amusement and once as leverage with some Johnny who can do him a favor. Then back you go to his Nibs." It was all too much! I'm only human. He gave me a sideways look, uncertain. "That's if you want to go back?"

"And if I don't'?"

"There's always me, love." He got the message from my eyes. He turned the car into a lay-by, stopped the motor and took me in his arms. He felt very good and smelt the way I remembered. I discovered I was crying great floods of tears on to his jacket. He was the same wistful boy I had loved upon the moor. He patted me gently on a bare shoulder and buried his face in my hair and let me cry myself out.

"I haven't any clothes on," I said absurdly when the tears were past.

"You haven't, have you!" he agreed amusedly.

"I forgot. I just walked out with you."

"A shameless hussy."

"Well, it's all been a bit much. After all-"

"Terribly thoughtless of me, love, you should wear something," Gently but very firmly he handcuffed my wrists behind my back. "Picked 'em up off the chair, y'know, where that woman left 'em."

"I'd be lost without them, darling."

"I knew you'd be pleased." His old grin was back again.

"Fact is, I brought a pair of my own along, just in case."

"My ankles are slender, they'll probably fit," I said demurely. We both laughed. I got soundly kissed. We were back where we had been before. At least we were on the surface, or perhaps in a sense of wishful thinking. But the weight of emotion thrust upon me in the past days was heavy in my mind. Yolanda and Azzam were tugging at me from different directions, and now James! In different ways I loved them all. But to each I was a captive specifically their own. Right now, I was securely handcuffed by this glorious boy who professed to love me with his own male brand of adoration, The handcuffs might be no more than a joke or tease. Probably he would remove them instantly if I asked… probably! I knew I ought to ask so as to find out. But for the life of me I could not bring myself to do so. I told myself it would show a lack of trust. But I was scared to find out. Those handcuffs, on or off, had become symbolic. Wryly, I admitted to myself that wearing them gave me a constant erotic thrill. Quite hopeless, aren't I!

"You don't mind about Bolling, darling?" Actually I did mind. I was tired of being tortured by people I did not love. I had faced the fact that had it not been for the fire that burns constantly between my legs, my misadventures since meeting James that night at Yola's reception could have been shockingly traumatic. Some of them had scared me half to death anyway.

"Of course I mind, It's an odd distinction to be wanted because I get a wet puss after six of the best or wearing these handcuffs."

"Say the word and I'll take you back, love."

"It's too late. Azzam has committed me, and if we're going to be married you need Bolling's goodwill. I don't see why you can't keep your job with him if I put in these couple of sessions with rampant and sadistic males. If everybody's satisfied then it's worth a bit of pain." James squeezed me. "You're wonderful, Phemie." He tensed, "But there's still your return to the Sheik. If you go back to your slavery with him there's no wedding bells. If you don't go back there's no job."

"We'll open a hot dog stand," I said with more courage than I felt. James pensively started the motor. Bolling was better than I expected. Large and intense and alive. A girl always feels good in pampered luxury; Bolling had it. I almost disappeared into the soft upholstery of the huge chair. "We won't remove those handcuffs, if you don't mind," he decided conversationally.

"I love wearing them, Mr. Bolling." It was half truth and half sarcasm. He eyed me with approval. "You have a lovely figure, Miss Carstairs." Then added: "Quite remarkably decorated."

"I didn't love much of that."

"Ah! Now, how about a drink?"

"You'll have to feed it to me, y'know. I've got no hands."

"How charming!" He was pleased with me.

"I took a very large sip and looked up into his eyes. "Am I going to need this?"

"Frankly, that's what I'm curious about." His smile was disarming. "I've heard all these stories that infer Torquemada would extract nothing from you but a smile of delight?"

"I'll disappoint you. I manage the preliminaries very well, but after that I scream. With someone I don't like I scream from the word go."

"With me?" I had to like him. I winkled. "With you there will be a delay in the vocals." He gave me another drink. I knew he was enjoying me, but the look I got now was quizzical. "I'm a novice, y'know, Miss Carstairs. I'll rely on you for guidance. Do we start out with me giving you a sound whipping, do I hang you up by your toes. Do I get a hot iron? Is there a formula?"

"People seem to like whipping girls," I explained brightly. "That's what happens to me mostly. All those other… er, nice things are a bit of a bother for them. I've never had the hot iron. I'm sure it would be beautiful to have in suspense, but I don't think I'd want it any more than I'd want a tattoo."

"Interesting! You can contemplate the pain but not the permanent blemish?"

"Yes, I suppose that's it. You're not going to brand me, are you?" His grin was reassuring. "I must not send you home damaged. There's a gentleman's agreement. But I'm puzzled: all those whipmarks and you so blithe and cheerful'?'"

"Isn't that why you paid all that money, Mr. Bolling?"

"I'd feel a bit of a cad to put any more on you." I kept silent. There was something in his voice. He looked at me in frank apology.

"Fact is I'm not going to inflict any of these arcane delights on you at all. For my money it's a waste of a nice girl."

"You wish to make love to me, Mr. Bolling?"

"Of course! Who wouldn't!" He brushed the thought aside with an impatient wave of the hand. "But with you I'd see it as sacrilege. You're out and beyond that."

"Thank you, but I'm not really, y'know."

"Miss Carstairs, I have a confession. I'm not going to do anything to you at all." I waited, expectantly but without hope. "I have a daughter." Here it came!

"Dina is only twelve. She has persistently exhibited traits…"

"And I'm to be her guinea pig! Can I have another drink?" While I gulped, and gulped again, he radiated his charm so that I wished it was him I had to please. I looked up doubtfully, "I've never been the plaything of an adolescent, Mr. Bolling."

"Dina will seem more than her age. I need to know how she will react to you and you to her, In short, I need to know if I have a problem."

"Suppose she kills me finding out!" Roland Bolling laughed. "You may even like her." He pressed a button.

"You're really beautiful. Daddy said you would be." Dina Bolling's entranced gaze flickered up and down my nudity." I had risen at her entry and her father's exit. I felt silly, and wished I had my hands.

"I expect you're old enough that your breasts and vagina are fully developed, They're quite lovely, Euphemia — that is your name, isn't it?" Dina was lovely herself. I realized I was seeing one of those rare flowers that blossom early and forever. She was a youthful Eve or Aphrodite, Her poise was inborn. She laughed a delighted girl's laugh. "You like me too, don't you."

"You'll have to tell me what you want me to do, Dina."

"I want to explore cruelty and sexuality, Euphemia. I won't use those other names." She grinned confidingly. "I'm trembling with eagerness. You're so… so… female! Those are whipmarks, aren't they?"

"Yes. I've been whipped a lot lately."

"Is that a hint to me not to! I'll do what I want with you, y'know. I say, why are your arms-?" She turned me swiftly about, "Oh darling, how simply marvellous! You're handcuffed."

"I usually am. It's so I'll behave."

"You mean without them you wouldn't?"

"Sometimes."

"I don't see any key." Her eyes glowed with moppet wisdom, "Would it be… "

"No it's not." I parted my legs impudently. "See for yourself." If I had thought to disconcert her, I failed. She grasped a handful of my hair with one hand to control me and inserted two nimble fingers. "You mean feel, darling. I say, what a lovely big wet cunt inside such a shiny bush." I gasped and made an involuntary bend against the tug on my hair, The fingers knew too much. "O.K. No key!" The small digits quit me as abruptly as they had entered, "You do respond beautifully, Euphemia. Tell me, does being whipped effect you the same way?"

"If it's not deliberately very cruel."

"You're almost helpless, aren't you, with those hand-cuffs?"

"Yes. I could kick but I won't."

"Are you totally obedient?"

"I've never thought about it like that. I suppose I am, but I never really have any choice."

"If I told you to eat my pussy?"

"I would do it. Do you want me to?" Her eager features clouded. "That isn't just what I fantasied about. Wouldn't the really truly Classic thing be for me to subdue with pain?"

"You can do that with me. I'll grovel and scream and plead and promise if you hurt me enough. I'm not a bit stoic."

"Hmmm!" Her small hands darted to my breasts. A moment later I screamed and writhed against thumbs and fingers pinching my nipples with bitter cruelty.

"Oh please! Please don't. Not my nipples!" I screamed again.

"That was beautiful. Oh, Euphemia, I like you!" I moaned and panted; my head bowed. With instinctive accuracy the child had instantly discovered a girl's most innate vulnerability.

"I shall do it to you again, Euphemia." My slave girl reflex made Dina gasp in wonder. At her threat I had obediently stood erect and thrust out my breasts to be punished. But, at the same time, I pleaded. "Please don't Dina, please!"

"You've made my cunt all wet," said Dina happily. I relaxed too soon. Small fingers again captured my left nipple. But this time the pinch was only what she needed to control me. Using my breast as a leash she led me from luxury to something else.

"It's my playroom, Euphemia. But I've arranged all sorts of things for you. Daddy was terribly sweet." If a girl had to be tortured, this was a nice room for it. I said so. I also said: "Hold my nipple if you want to, of course, but you don't have to. I'll obey you, Dina."

"I have to hold it now. I can't have you telling me what to do." She pinched so that I screamed again. Then she let go. "See!" I saw! Dina would have to be treated with respect. I also saw something else.

"Oh, darling, we think alike! You caught sight of it instantly. I do hope you'll like it."

"It's beautifully made. I'm not supposed to like it, am I?"

" 'Spose not." In a surge of happiness Dina reached up and kissed me. "You're terribly, terribly understanding, Euphemia. I love you! You see, what you're looking at is sort of special with me."

"I've read about them."

"Well, yes. I suppose that's how I got started with the fantasy of putting you on it. I know it's not a bit original. But once I read a story. It was terribly cruel, but so romantic."

"I don't know how I'll behave, Dina."

"Isn't that part of the thrill!" Her eyes sparkled with visions, "I may whip you, darling, but all those marks where others have had a go at you turns me off. To whip you I'd want your skin virgin, not used by someone else first. But the reason that thing's sitting over there is because I want power over a girl, over you, Euphemia, I want you moaning in constant agony and me sitting and reading a book, Looking up at your tortured loveliness from time to time in a nice bored sort of way." The eternal dreams! I'd had enough of them to know their vivid potency, "And if I can't help screaming, Dina'!"

"I want you to scream a little. But if your noise gets ugly I'll gag you so you don't disturb my enjoyment. My fantasy has you sort of moaning in a nice feminine way. Enough so I know you're hurting."

"I'm sure I'll hurt."

"I want to know it too. Are you frightened, Euphemia?"

"Of course I am. I can't stop you putting me on that thing. But I'm still at the stage where what I'm getting is a wet puss thinking about it. I bet yours is too?" Dina explored my mound with a small eager hand which she wiped on my bottom afterwards. "You're an absolute flood, darling! I know I am. Isn't it lovely you and I can talk like this! I mean, just two girls." Suddenly Dina was naked. It took her but a few swift motions to bare an exquisite immaturity. Instantly I knew what to do, I sank to my knees. She arranged herself as it pleased her. I pleased her too. Afterwards we approached my martyrdom and Dina's joy. "I suppose you do have to help a little, Euphemia. Would you like me to whip you into doing it?"

"Wouldn't be authentic, love," I told her, and swung my leg over the edge of the plank. Standing on the box, my puss was well above the cruel two inch edge I straddled. I wondered how many times through the centuries girls had stood trembling as I was now, I was in the grip of a delicious fear as I watched Dina's vibrant nudity buckle the leather anklets with their ominous metal ring. When she snapped on the ropes and threaded them through the floor rings on either side I knew my time was close.

"Why don't you ease yourself down, darling? It will be nicer for you than if I just tug." Dina was right. But I felt silly and awkward as I let my knees bend to allow the junction of my thighs to seek its cruel perch. I was still cautiously wiggling for an advantage I could not find when she pulled evenly and hard. My feet flew out to each side towards the rings and support my toes would never find. I found myself sitting on the edge of a plank, a trestle, high above the floor, isolated in anguish, tugging instinctively at the handcuffs for hands I needed desperately but was denied. It took me about the time spent by my busy companion in removing the box and in knotting her ropes to fully comprehend the enormity of what had been done to my innocent flesh. When she straightened up and smiled at my startled expression all I could say was: "Oh Dina!"

"You look simply gorgeously helpless, Euphemia." I passionately wanted to share her joy. For a brief span the realization of my plight and its implications generated the old familiar heat. But, almost instantly, a new and awful kind of pain began to rob me of its comfort.

"It's supposed to get steadily worse, darling," Dina assured me exuberantly. "I'll tighten each rope as much as I can. They'll hold you firm so you won't teeter."

"No don't! Please, Dina, not tighter."

"Oh, but yes! You haven't a thing to say about it." She was right. I had lost all liberty. Gasping, I watched her adjust the ropes by which I was held in this strange lonely captivity. They pulled my legs out to either side with a tension so great I could not move them at all. I was doing the splits with all my weight resting on my sex upon a narrow edge which was burrowing into me with a vicious intensity like a blunt knife. "I can't stand it, Dina. I can't!"

"I expect all the girls say that, darling. The nice thing is you have to stand it. There's nothing else you can do."

"Take me off. I'll do anything to please you."

"You are pleasing me now, you gorgeous Euphemia. Did you know you're beginning to sweat."

"Please, I don't deserve this. It's something no one's ever done to me. It's a pain I can't cope with. Please Dina?"

"You're coping very well. You're a perfect dear."

"It will injure me. I can feel-"

"No it won't." She walked slowly round her torture device, examining me minutely. "Your pussy and a bit of your behind has sort of flattened out a bit and is taking the weight nicely."

"It's torture."

"Of course, darling! Hadn't you realized?"

"But Dina, you, said you liked me?"

"I do, I do, darling. I positively love you now you're like this."

"It's too awful. You can't keep me-"

"Oh, but I can! Try and get loose. I want you to try."

"I can't get loose, not ever! And I can't try, the pain's too awful."

"You see, you're really truly mine." I screamed. I had to break the thread of chatter in which I was outclassed. Throughout the brief exchanges my pain had steadily worsened. It was a relentless horror. I was certain this darling child had no comprehension of the depth of my distress. To stay like this for hours… in a peal of pure agony I screamed again.

"You scream beautifully, Euphemia. Everything about you is beautiful. Scream again." I was totally at her mercy. I let my head bend forward and closed my eyes. I moaned steadily.

"I've just had an orgasm, darling. You're too beautifully erotic to bear." Speech was too frustrating. I moaned steadily.

"With those sweet noises, darling, I'll have another orgasm in a minute. You're just too… too — I say, Euphemia, did you know the proper way real torturers do this is to raise your hands up behind so that you have to lean a bit more forward on your pussy?"

"No, please! Oh no!"

"Of course, you lovely sweating female thing! It's no trouble." When my shoulders were wracked by my raised arms I leant forward as she had predicted. I had to. I screamed and screamed. I had forgotten the gag until she put it in my mouth. It was so easy for her to insert the ball and buckle the strap behind my neck. I could still dribble and make whining sounds, but my screams were denied me. I watched her seat herself where she could watch me comfortably. Dina smiled with love. I closed my eyes again. When I opened one from time she was happily reading. After centuries of agony the darling girl jumped up exclaiming. "I almost forgot! Oh Euphemia, you'll get the most pussy wetting thrill out of what I've got planned." She hastily donned her clothes and fled. I couldn't have cared less. I closed my eyes and returned to my battle. Voices are potent. I tensed. When they entered the room I raised my head in hopeless disinterest. But then! Had I been able to move I would have moved a lot.

"Hello, Phemie old girl," James greeted cheerily. Imagine me! Naked and sweat soaked. My sex displayed and distorted, my posture grotesque. Even my features spoiled by the ball strapped behind my teeth. As the enormity of my humiliation seeped well in I became aware of the most shocking blush I ever remember. James! To see me like this! All I wanted to do was disappear.

"Isn't she superb?" The girlish voice was ecstatic. James was not insensible. He must have guessed. "Phemie darling, there is a terrible beauty-" I did not want to be admired. I wanted to be freed. I raised my pain wracked face and shook my head again and again in denial of what was being done. With James there the gag was a final defeat. He was distressed. The little minx had put him on a spot. His eyes devoured my torture. He was obviously searching for something to say that was not absurd. He did not find it. "Phemie dear, I'm sure that's pretty bloody awful-" He looked his perplexity, then switched it to Dina. "I say, Dina, hasn't she had enough? Can't you take her down now? I'm sure there's other things…"

"No! Don't be silly, James." The young voice held all the authority of her father's million.

"Do her hands have to be up behind like that? They look so-"

"Yes, they do."

"How about taking the gag out for a minute so she can talk to me?"

"No! She'd probably just scream. She doesn't like this."

"I don't suppose she does," said James fervently. As though by sudden impulse, he turned and left.

"The poor dear was embarrassed." Dina giggled "He'd have loved to do the noble male thing if I'd let him. He'd have let you loose and felt terribly proud. Men are so silly." Dina returned to her chair and to her book. I had nothing I wanted to return to at all. When Dina freed me and I gingerly stepped off the box I crumpled to the floor and wept. I'd had enough. But I was not abandoned. Young arms cradled me, young lips sought mine, a pointed red tongue licked my tears. After a short time young hands employed themselves with my body. In about ten minutes that little sexpot, Dina, had me raging with lust. She dealt with that also with the greatest competence. In that child's hands I became a palpitating bundle of erotic response, all agony forgotten.

"I'm not a bit repentant, darling," she whispered into my ear while we lay tangled on the floor. "You were too, too gorgeous. I'll always remember. Thank you, oh thank you for being You." I adored her passionately. I suppose this is where my difference pops up. Instead of hating Dina, I loved her. Instead of being in some aftermath of trauma from sitting on that plank I was tingling with concupiscence. I did not wish to be placed on it again, but the memory was spurring my secretions shamelessly. I was glad of the handcuffs, they enabled this lovesome nymphet to handle me with ease, and they absolved me from decision. I was hungry for Dina. I wanted more and more of her. James had dissolved. I had a momentary shock when I discovered I'd been on that wicked perch for two hours. I'd thought it twice that time. But I was slave enough to know these betrayals of the mind. I shrugged it off. When, through the maze of lips and tongues and fingertips it was made known I must suffer more the knowledge did nothing but generate an erotic suspense. I almost felt guilty. But I was vividly alive. Dina did things that caused the trestle with its punishment plank to rise a couple of feet. A noose of rope circled my tummy and was pulled very tight with its knot in front. My cuffed hands were lifted over the plank to fall to the other side. I knelt on the box.

"You're going to be an amputee, darling," Dina giggled as she bound my ankles back to my thighs. This left me standing on my bent knees, supported by the plank now beneath my armpits. When the rope from my waist was brought down and between my legs, then up behind to connect with my handcuffs I got the picture. In a total absorption, of joy my lovely torturess brought that rope back between my thighs and pulled and pulled. She carefully opened the lips of my sex to ensure entry of the tautening strands. When she was finished pulling and adjusting my shoulders were well back, my hands well down, the edge of the plank well into my underarms, my breasts well displayed, my puss sliced asunder and entered. It all hurt. Dina then removed the box.

"You're as lovely as before," she breathed. I could not move. I hung. My stubs of lost legs well above the floor. Fire burned beneath each arm and through my crotch. But the one inside my sex burned brightest of all. "I do hope it's awful, Euphemia. Is it?" I gasped confirmation and gratitude. She frictioned my nipples until I moaned from desire instead of pain.

"Would you like me to untie you, darling? I won't, of course, but do you wish I would?" I shook my head and moaned: "No, oh no! Love me." Dina busied her lips and fingertips. I blossomed into climax against the cords within my puss. We moaned together into each other's mouths. The child who possessed me was all the beauty and wonder of the world.

"Daddy let me have these. 'Specially made for you, darling." I looked down at my breasts as Dina, with shining eyes, carefully and lovingly positioned the gleaming silver ornaments. As each jaw bit my nipple and attached itself to the utmost curve of my being I gasped in a complexity of sensations that left me panting. The clips were so lovely and so cruel! Their pain burned steadily.

"Want them off, darling?" I knew she was teasing. But I shook my head vehemently.

"No, no. Oh, please no!" Thus I was suspended. Bound in agony by this child who sat close and feasted and fulfilled her hunger. I let my head fall, my eyes close, and knew that I too was fulfilled through her.

"Darling! I have to let you loose sometime. I wish I didn't." It was aeons later. Both of us were replete and exhausted. I knew I would be grateful for release, but I did not want it.

"You can sleep with me, Euphemia. I'll just chain you by one ankle. Daddy said I could." I made moaning sounds of pain and love.

"Darling! I'm scared about tomorrow. What are they going to do to you?" I struggled back from the lovely dream. "I'm to be given to a man to be tortured so that he'll feel under an obligation to your father." I heard the hiss of her indrawn breath. "A man! Ugh!"

"It's happened before, Dina. I'm a slave."

"You don't want it though?"

"No, but I'm helpless. And I did sort of agree — for a reason."

"Phemie! Oh darling!" I had nothing to say. I was lost.

"You're not going to! I won't let you! You're too beautiful to waste on men."

"But Dina, what can I do?"

"It's what I can do, darling." She put a small finger on my lips. One word of protest and I'll gag you." Her fingers flew to my bindings.

"Female love is incomprehensible to man," the sheik Inman Azzam intoned gravely, his bright eyes flickering between Dina's flushed and anxious face and my chained and kneeling nudity. "You have driven through the night to return this, my beloved child." His eyes twinkled at Bolling's daughter. "I suspect she had little to say about it?"

"The fault is mine. Please don't punish her, sir."

"How charmingly noble. But is it not you who should feel the lash?"

"I expect my father will punish me in some way. I don't mind — really I don't!" Dina was suddenly a little girl.

"I doubt your skin will bear a single mark, child." Dina wriggled exquisitely. "Well, I suppose-" She was close to tears. "I'd better drive home now. Thank you for not being too angry." Azzam, as always, was in command. He picked up one small hand and kissed it gravely. "I am forever in your debt, child. One of my men will escort you to your father's house. He is thrice blest in thee." For moments I was engulfed in a whirl of arms and lips and tears. Then Azzam led her to the door with a paternal hand. "Go with God, my dear." It was suddenly deathly quiet in the big room. Sheik Inman Azzam resumed his chair. "The heart of a slave girl is beyond knowing," he said gently.

"I failed you, lord. Please have me whipped." His chuckle was as gentle as his words. "And free the fire that burns deep within you? Come child, I know you well."

"I should be punished. If Lotta strikes me hard enough-"

"Lotta will not strike you. She is busy with a pleasant task. Come." Azzam led the way, I followed. My hands were still cuffed behind my back but I had no need of them. When I beheld Jennie and Daisy I found it hard to repress a giggle. Both were naked, both were bound at wrist and elbow so that they seemed mostly breasts. They teetered on bound feet. Their eyes were piteous above lips widely parted by the gags buckled beneath their hair. They gazed askance at a large wicker basket Lotta held open.

"Allah has bestowed two most excellent slaves upon me," said Azzam. "Under Lotta's whip they will become superb." Lotta picked Daisy up and placed her in the basket. I knew the bound girl was trying to struggle but could not. Jennie followed. It was a tight fit. The lid closed. "In six hours they will be safe within my House," said Azzam. He saw the question in my eyes and smiled. "No basket for your beloved, child. She is safe. Chained and angry, but safe. A most intractable young woman."

"And the men; lord — Ashad?" He sighed and without regret. "They are with their forefathers, child. An imprudent trio who delivered themselves into out hands. The damp soil of this island holds them safe." I knew his words meant they were dead. I shivered, and followed him, bewildered, back to the Lounge. Again I knelt, hands clasped behind. "It is an end and a beginning, child." He mused silently for a moment. "The young man, the most excellent James, I suspect he is gone?" I had forgotten James. "Yes, lord, he is gone."

"I part from you with sorrow." My nostrils flared. I tensed.

"A man cannot cope with such love as exists between thee and our esteemed Miss Harding. I could subdue her with the whip, of course, but it would be to divert the waters of a stream. You both might wither from the diversion of that I will not judge."

"Master, I love thee."

"As a father, child. And I you as the daughter I did not have." The Sheik Inman Azzam lifted his slave girl to her feet and unlocked my handcuffs. I clung to him in a passion of memories of his love. We exchanged words and blessings I will not repeat. I was bereaved. I stood at the big window for an hour and watched them go. Several cars and a van. The small airport was no great distance from Glynt. I knew that Yola's servants would be busy about the Castle, but I was alone in a strange free loneliness such as I had never known. On the table my handcuffs gleamed. I would never part from them. In my hand were keys, some were large. They had been clasped there by Azzam as a last gift with the slip of paper that told a Bank to pay me One Million Pounds Sterling. It was a familiar path I trod, avoiding the staff. I could traverse the steps and passages of Glynt to the dungeon with my eyes closed. I used the largest of the keys in its door.

"No handcuffs, Phemie!" My darling was loaded with chains, their metal bands clasped her everywhere. She was thrice fastened to the stone by heavy links. Crouching in the corner like a lovely prisoned animal, she looked up at me in wide-eyed question. Her nudity was vividly striped.

"No Mistress, no handcuffs." Her voice was bitter. "Better drop the Mistress, Phemie. Can't you see?" She held up fettered hands. "I'm a slave. I'm not your Mistress anymore. We both have a Master." She was so beautiful! So utterly desirable! My heart thumped and all the days of travail passed into limbo. My Yola! Briefly I told her all there was to tell. She listened quietly as though none of it mattered. When the words were done I showed her Azzam's cheque.

"You're rich, Phemie. Richer than I was. Will you keep me as your slave? I'm half trained." I kissed her forehead, then used the keys. When the last shackle fell metallically to the stone I helped her stand. I placed the keys, the cheque and my handcuffs in her hands, then knelt at her feet, head bowed.

"Mistress!" The silence seethed. Neither of us moved. "One hundred lashes, Phemie. And this dungeon." The voice was my beloved's.

"Of course, Mistress. I was bad."

"Why not keep me as a slave, Phemie. Wouldn't that be the obvious thing to do. You could, y'know. I'm tired. I won't fight."

"You know why, Mistress: I am the slave."

"I shall punish you terribly, darling"

"I wish it, Mistress. The fault of all that happened was mine."

"If you allow me to chain you, Phemie, you will never again be free."

"I am your slave girl, Mistress. What need have I of freedom?"

"You know what to do." Yolanda's voice had become vibrant with life. I rose, turned and offered my wrists. The handcuffs clinked. I was enfolded in ecstatic arms, my lips found hers in joy. For a long time we loved and found happiness in each other.

"You will stay in the dungeon, Phemie."

"Of course, Mistress."

"Tomorrow you will be whipped. Fifty strokes."

"Thank you, darling." Her hand sought my puss, then wiped its wetness on my thigh.

"You are quite incurable, Euphemia."

"I'm so glad, darling, aren't you!"

"You will then stay in the dungeon two more days and at the end receive your second fifty. You will also wear those chains I've been keeping warm for you. But today just the handcuffs — there's something about you handcuffed…"

"Keep me handcuffed always, Mistress. I'm afraid I like it." Yola sighed happily and tightened each cuff a single notch.

"You are an impudent puss." As I told you at the start, there's no explaining me.