Drew was comfy! This, too was ridiculous. But the fact could not be denied. Her joined feet meant nothing unless she tried to walk. The chain tether on her neck was similarly innocuous unless she tried to run away. Her arms and hands were free. She flexed them luxuriously. “I’m chained for coffee,” she said with a reluctant giggle.
“That’s right dear. Quigley does it to me all the time.
Everywhere in the house there’re rings.” Minnie beamed proudly. Then added anxiously “You won’t try anything silly? I mean, you can’t possibly get away.”
“Minnie, you’re sweet.” Drew sipped coffee. “If you’re my jailer, you’d better keep me chained. I don’t want to get you into trouble, but, if I get a chance to run, I’ll run.” She frowned. “Would you be punished if I did?”
“Oh, of course!” Minnie proclaimed the obvious. “I’d be terribly whipped. Or put in the dungeon for the longest time. I don’t like the dungeon—it’s so lonely.”
Drusilla used her unaccustomed freedom to reach out and pat an ann. Minnie was precious! But Minnie would also be another link in her chain. A vulnerability... How could she hurt her? “I’ll be a good girl,” she promised. “At least I will while it’s you who’s responsible.”
Minnie glowed. “I think it’s so lovely, the way it is with you and me. Fancy us not guessing before—all that time! I often look around at people and think how sad it is: not knowing... ! Haven’t you seen how unfulfilled most of them look?”
Drusilla was willing to concede the point. Minnie was as happy as she herself had been up to two days ago. But now she was obsessed by a vision of Diana’s naked back...! Her voice was urgent. “Minnie darling, Belinda says she’s going to flog Diana.”
“How lovely! I expect we’ll all be invited.”
“Minnie, how can you—?”
“But, darling, I’ve been flogged. I expect you will be, too—sometime.”
“But it’s cruel! Medieval.”
“Well, it’s not quite like that,” Minnie said as though describing a new rug. “There’re no bits of metal in the lash. There aren’t even any knots. But they use an awful whip. I know which drawer Quigley keeps his in, but I’ll never even peek. I hate it! The really awful thing about being flogged is the big production they make out of it.” She giggled. “A girl feels like a side of beef hung up to cool before it gets cut up.”
“Hung up! Oh, Minnie!”
“It is sort of bad,” the cheerful jailer conceded. “You’re hung by the wrists with your arms way out to either side. Then they do the same for your feet. They get tied down to rings in the floor.” She repeated her giggle. “You can imagine what your pussy looks like.”
“It’s awful!”
“Well, yes, but it doesn’t happen all that often. I’ve only had it once. Quigley was awfully sweet to me after.... ”
“You keep saying ‘they’?”
“Well, there’s Belinda and Homer and me and Quigley, and we used to invite Diana. There’re some other couples, a sort of group. We sort of gravitated... ” Minnie grinned. “It makes a girl feel terribly important—spread and tied like that, and all naked.”
“I’d die!”
“No,you wouldn’t. You’re scared, but you’re the star turn. Without you there wouldn’t be a show. It really does things to your pussy.”
“Minnie, you’re incredible. Give me another cup of coffee and tell me what you and Quigley are going to do to me now you’ve got me.”
“Well, half of you belongs to Belinda. I’m not sure.”
“Belinda says your Quigley will make me have intercourse.”
“He doesn’t usually call it that,” Minnie snickered. “You can guess what he does call it. And he doesn’t call your pussy a pussy either—and we’re not supposed to. You’d better watch that. He’s got punishments for everything.”
“He’s your husband! You mean you don’t mind?”
“I’m sort of hoping he won’t do it to you,” Minnie admitted. “But I’m pretty sure you’re going to get passed around to the other men. You see, darling, you’re a slave... ! I’m a slave, too, but in a different sort of way. You’re owned by a woman.”
“I wouldn’t have thought a woman would have wanted a mess like that inside her slave.”
“I really don’t know. I’m afraid they expect to get a big bang out of your reactions.”
“You mean they’ll stand around and watch while I get—”
“They call it ‘fucked’,” said Minnie innocently.
“On a bed?”
“Oh, darling, that’s not very probable. They think up the darnedest—”
“Oh, there you are! Got a cup for me? Hello, Drusilla.”
“Hello, Quigley.” Drusilla had to force her hands to stay where they were.
“Don’t bother about covering your breasts. I understand.” He beamed impartially at both as though a chained and naked woman at his kitchen table was no novelty. “We’re glad to have you with us. We’ll make sure you don’t escape. Matter of fact, I came home early in your honor.”
Quigley regarded his captive guest with grave courtesy.
He was not a bad looking man, but business had stereo typed him to match his sober name. It seemed incredible that he could whip a girl. Drusilla had always liked him in their infrequent meetings. That she should be his prisoner was one of the oddest shaped bits of the jig saw that was now her life. She poured all the appeal she could muster into her voice.
“Quigley, I’ve got to escape! I just have to—it’s Diana and Ginny—”
“She doesn’t think Belinda should give Diana a flogging,” Minnie contributed helpfully.
“Do Diana a world of good,” Quigley declaimed grandly.
“Put her feet back on the ground. Every woman needs at least one.”
“Oh, Quigley!”
Perhaps he was joking! His humor was dry to match his mien. The outrageousness of what he had said made it suspect. Drusilla pressed forward. “Look,” she pleaded earnestly, “let me loose on parole so I can go home and release Diana and Ginny and get things back to normal there. Then I’ll return and surrender myself to you.” She looked at the blank faces of her captors, then struck the table with clenched fists as to make the cups rattle, and her voice became desperate. “Honest! I will! I will! I give you my word!”
“Isn’t she sweet?” said Minnie after a long silence had greeted the captive’s outburst.
“Drusilla is a very nice person,” Quigley agreed soberly.
“Well, then?” Drusilla looked from one to the other hopefully.
Was there sympathy in Quigley’s regard? His voice was sober. “I’d be inclined to accept that assurance,” he said slowly. “But I’m afraid it’s not practical.”
“But why?”
He smiled kindly at his prisoner’s flushed face. “A matter of ethics. We are obligated to Belinda. The whole situation is almost entirely her prerogative.”
“I don’t see that Belinda matters.”
“Oh, but she does! Each one of us matters. What Belinda is doing is no more than a logical sequence arising from what you and Diana were doing.”
“What we were doing was voluntary. I wasn’t kidnaped.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that what you were doing was the dream? This is the substance.”
It had occurred. Drusilla cringed inwardly, even as her loins flared. The chain on her neck and the steel upon her ankles now were unquestionably more coercive and captivating than anything she and her mistress had contrived. “Let me go,” she said sullenly. “Just let me go... ”
“You are subject to the whip, Drew. Don’t forget that... in the things you say—your attitudes.” Quigley’s admonition was strangely kind.”
“Whip me all you like! Give me the flogging when I come back to you. And I will come back. I promise!”
“You haven’t seen the most important reason for not releasing. you,” Quigley continued gently. “It’s Diana. You give Diana her freedom and there’s no way she’s going to allow you to come back here. She won’t be bound by promises.”