“Yes, Mistress.” Donna wanted to cry. Her arms hurt, she had just been shamed by having to service a woman she hated, and she really didn’t want to have to stand there all night while Margaret slept. After a moment she added, “Would you please gag me now? My arms hurt terribly and I don’t think I’ll be able to keep quiet all night.”
Margaret got up from the bed and went to the dresser. But she came back with the riding crop, not a gag. Suddenly there was a swish in the air followed by Donna’s cry of pain. A vivid red mark appeared across her left breast, a mark which included the nipple. Donna bit back a gasp and forced herself to hold back her tears.
Margaret snorted and tossed the whip on the bed. She turned down the lights until there was only one soft light reflecting redness from one wall. Then she curled up on the bed beside the riding crop and closed her eyes.
It was a very long night. Several times Donna almost fell asleep but for the most part the pain in her elbows and shoulders keep her awake. She found that she had very little mobility, only an inch or so that she could shift her feet in any direction before the ropes to her upper arms grew too tight to continue. Towards morning she had to fight the urge to scream. Prolonged pain can build up and tear at a girl’s resistance until she is reduced to a mindless mass of raw emotions. But she could just make out that riding crop in the dim light and that helped her remember that things can always get worse.
In the morning, while Margaret was in the bathroom, Julie came and untied Donna from the post. Donna collapsed into Julie’s arms and was carried from the bedroom back down stairs to the dungeons below the house. It wasn’t until she was back in what she thought of as the drying room, that her arms and legs were untied, She found herself unable to move her arms at all and her hands had little feeling in them. Julie assured her that no permanent damage had been done and proceeded to lock her wrists in handcuffs. Her ankles were locked in leg irons and her collar chained to the wall ring. Then Julie went and fetched Jan from her bird cage. Donna was asleep when Julie and Jan came in. She had to be awakened to get her morning bath in the dunk tank and have breakfast.
After the food was taken away, the handcuffs on her wrists were changed from front to back and she was left alone while Jan was hauled away for her day’s torture, Donna slept on the hard concrete floor and for a long time had no dreams. When she did finally dream it was repeated dreams where her beloved Jan was tied between the posts of Margaret’s bed and lashed endlessly by a laughing Margaret.
Several days passed pretty much in the same manner. Each morning Jan and Donna were taken out of their bird cages, bathed, fed and then taken to some form of punishment to spend the day in some degree of discomfort ranging from mild restriction to constant, serious pain. Jan’s punishment was always more severe than Donna’s. Margaret seemed to take delight in watching Jan suffering and made sure she did plenty of it. Every third day Jan rode the Horse, suffering terrible pain between her legs so that she could hardly walk and was always crying when taken down. Donna did not ride the Horse in all that time but was tied to that bolted down chair each time Jan did so she had to watch her friend suffer. Usually Donna was bound in such a way that she was also suffering but hers paled in comparison.
The worst that Donna had to suffer were those days when she had to watch Jan moaning away the hours on the Horse. The other days she was usually bound in some uncomfortable position and left alone save for occasional visits from Julie who strangely enough seemed to take pity on the girls. Not that she slacked off a notch in how tightly she bound them or punished them when she was ordered to do so. But she didn’t add verbal abuse the way Margaret did.
It was on a quiet afternoon that things changed. Donna had been tied in what Julie referred to as the “torture pit.” It was simply a square area in the garden where a slab of concrete had been poured. But into the surface were set hundred of small, sharp rocks, none more than half an inch tall. At the four comers of the square were four large iron rings set into the concrete. The first time Donna had been tied there, she had been set down on her back and her arms and legs tied in a wide spread-eagle. It had been an uncomfortable day as she had very little movement allowed her and no way to lay that didn’t hurt. On the day in question, she had been tied face down and was considerably more uncomfortable. The parts that hurt worst was her breasts and hips. To give her a little slack without also giving a chance to escape, her wrists and ankles were locked in handcuffs the other ends of which were locked to the rings. Donna was not going to be getting up from that bed of pain by herself.
The gentle afternoon breeze had almost lulled her to sleep despite the constant small pains in her breasts when she hear approaching footsteps. Carefully she lifted her head and turned it to the other side to see who was coming. She let out with a gasp when she beheld Nigel Bransome standing there, grinning down at her.
“Hello, Donna. Fancy meeting you,” he said politely.
“How...? Where...? Oh, Nigel, in a way it’s good to see you. Please excuse me if I can’t get up.”
“Yes, I can see that you’re somewhat restricted. Are there as many of those little stones under you as I see next to you?”
“More. Oh, Nigel, what are you doing here?”
“Well, it’s a long story. Have you got a little time on your hands? Yes? Good. Well, I got to wondering when Mrs. Dawson told me that she tried to contact Jan to invite her to a party. Then I checked into it and found that Jan and the twins, and you, of course, were missing. The house was closed up and had no signs of anyone having lived there for days.” He paused to look around. “So, I got to thinking. Where would Jan have gone to? She apparently told no one of any travel plans. An unidentified voice on the phone told the phone company, post office and other utilities that she would be gone for an indefinite period. But no one knew where she had gone to. Strange, no?”
Without waiting for Donna to comment, he continued. “I had to consider the possibility that she had been kidnapped. And with her the twins and my favorite slavegirl; you. But who would do it? Only one answer, really. So I came snooping around to see if Margaret Summers had the four of you. And it looks as if I was right.”
“Sort of. She has Jan and me but not the twins. She sold them.”
“Sold them?”
“Sorry, Nigel, don’t have time to tell you the story right now. Can you get me off these damned rocks?”
“’Fraid not. Forgot to bring a handcuff key with me. Are you expecting someone by soon?”
“Normally Julie comes to untie me around dinner time. She shouldn’t be here for several hours yet. But sometime Margaret shows up to see Jan’s and my suffering. She likes it.”
“I don’t doubt it. Well, let me see what else I can find. Where’s Jan?” Donna sighed. “I don’t know. Someplace in the house I think.”
“Well, take heart. If I can, I’ll get a handcuff key. It would be nice to get you and Jan out of that woman’s clutches.”
That sounded so good that Donna almost cried with joy.