Valerie was enjoying me. I wasn’t paying too much attention to anything but hurting but I could feel the intensity of her eyes as they traveled up and down my nakedness, and sometimes lingering upon my corded wrists and ankles. As though I were sharing her bed, she talked entertainingly of this and that, asked questions about Hugo, and described Uncle Andrew affectionately as a wicked old so and so. I tried to keep up my end of the conversation but mostly came out with little gasps and moan, interspersed with pleas to be freed. After a while, Valerie got tired of my absorption with my own punishment, turned off the light and went to sleep.
I was the loneliest girl in the world. I was terrified at the prospect of hanging where I was during the hours until dawn. The turning out of the light and sounds of Valerie making herself comfortable for sleep dissolved any courage I had. Recklessly I blurted out, “Don’t leave me like this! Valerie, you can’t! I’m begging you ... Please!”
I should have known! The light went back on and Valerie’s nudity slid from beneath the sheets and went to perform an errand I could not see but almost immediately I heard the placement of a chair and rubber placed against my lips. “Open up! I’m going to give you five with the cane in a moment, and you can easily make it ten. Hear me?”
Valerie stuffed my mouth and bound my lips tight in the soft leather strap buckled tight behind my neck. The chair was taken away and the pain began with swift, sure strokes biting at the bottom I could not move. I got the five strokes. “You’ll be able to make some noses through your nose, darling, but if you do, I’ll whip you again. Be a sensible girl and enjoy your punishment.”
Once more the light went out as Valerie sought her rest.
My hands were numb, my shoulders wrench with the stress. But I realized I had reached a plateau in my suffering and must endure in silence, if I could. It was coming through to me then that I really was going to hang there all night, spreadeagled across the end of her bed while she slept!
I told myself in dark despair that by morning I would be dead. Punished girls don’t die. I’m not entirely sure how I got through that awful night. Here and there I lost consciousness but those periods didn’t last long. I hated the tight strapped gag with a bitter loathing. Sometimes I cried, the tears trickling and drying to leave their salt upon my skin. The times in which I hung unconscious were a blessing I desired.
By morning I was pretty far gone and only dimly conscious of the cutting of the cords. I fell to the bed and lay there not much caring about anything except a vast welling of gratitude I had not the energy to express. Gentle fingers arranged my nudity and covered it with a blanket. I slept.
I awoke to the aroma of coffee. I drank it eagerly and came alive. Then I was led to the bathroom by a mistress who ignored my ordeal of the night. I was then handcuffed and led to the kitchen to be fed. There was not a spark of fight left in me.
“I’ll have coffee with you, dear. Haven’t the cords left the most gorgeous marks! I won’t bandage them, they’re altogether too lovely. I’ve got you the loveliest breakfast.” Valerie was quicksilver, slipping back and forth between a sadist and a warm and affectionate female, I couldn’t hate her, and basked in her affection all through four cups of coffee and food I ate as though starving. The sleep I had been granted worked wonders.
Handcuffs in front don’t bother a girl. When I had done the dishes and stood uncertainly in punishment-induced submission, my mistress got back to normal, “Seems we had something on the books for today, didn’t we?”
“You were going to whip me.”
“Yes, of course! Looking forward to it?”
“No. Oh, Valerie, must you!”
“I’m afraid I must, dear. A woman in my position absolutely must keep her word. If I let you out of that whipping, you’d think I was a softy.”
“No, I wouldn’t. Mistress ... Please?”
“Darling, I’ve planned a real flogging for you but you’ve had a rough night so I’ll leave your pretty back alone and concentrate on somewhere else. Ever hear of the bastinado?”
My stomach did flip flops. The handcuffs suddenly bit hard. “It’s where they whip the soles of a girl’s feet, isn’t it?” “That’s right, dear, nice change, don’t you think?”
I was broken. Without a word I sank to my knees, placed my handcuffed hand in my mistress’ lap and buried my face there, too, in a silence plea most graphically sincere. The fingers of my mistress played in my hair for minutes before she said, “I won’t let you off, Diane. Come alone and let’s get it over with.”
I stood in abject misery as my handcuffs were changed from front to back. Valerie eased me down to a blanket on the floor and placed me on my stomach, suitable for the punishment of my feet. It was wonderfully simple as she bent my leg upward at the knee and bound my ankle tight to the horizontal bar of a small metal frame. There was also a bar just above the floor at the level of the back of my knees. Ropes were also lashed around that bar and my legs. When finished. I could not move my legs at all. I could wiggle my feet but was sure that would do no good in any efforts to avoid the whip. The soles of my feet were pointed towards the ceiling and very vulnerable. They were about a foot apart and certainly ready for punishment.
I looked over a bare shoulder at the preparations for my punishment and my stomach twisted into knots. When Valerie said, “I’ll leave you a while, Diane, to think about what’s going to happen. Silly to get it over too quickly.”
I think waiting for something awful to happen must be one of the reasons people take to drink. Had I possessed hands and a bottle. I would have drunk it all. I’d read about the bastinado and while Valerie hadn’t told me the instrument she would use, I could already feel the frightful impacts on the tender soles of my feet.
Mine was a terrible posture in which to have to wait. Handcuffs give a girl enough freedom to tantalize and keep her struggling. I could scarcely believe how shockingly solid my legs were bound to that frame. I simply could not move them at all and figured that the metal frame must be somehow bolted to the floor. I wondered if Valerie would have been kinder to flog my back. I simply did not know!
It was a thin, yellow cane Valerie was flexing when she returned. She explained how desirable it was to employ a flexible instrument rather than something rigid which might break something in the foot. She explained helpfully that a whip was not suited for the punishment she would now inflict. I did not speak but pleaded with my eyes.
It was worse than I’d ever dreamed. The very first blow sent me into spasms and contortions against my bonds in a manner sure to please. My sounds of protest were little more than screams.
“Yes, dear, I know exactly how you feel,” Valerie Latimer said sweetly, “It’s a marvelous punishment, isn’t it? Quite a unique kind of pain, right?”
I could not move my feet not even a single inch, This awareness dominated my mind in the turmoil of emotions filling me. The bastinado was a new, fresh kind of anguish against which every part of my rebelled. It was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life.
I could not keep still, I just couldn’t! I floundered like a gaffed fish, even raising my breasts from the blanket so I could turn imploring eyes in a fascinated need to witness the punishment take place, I screamed outrageously.
After what Valerie said was the tenth, she paused. “I think it would be kinder to us both if you were gagged, dear,” she said as if bestowing a gift. “Wait right here. I’ll get one. Of course, so much noise is to be expected, isn’t it?”
Never the same gag twice. The one I got now was a steel bit capturing my tongue and brutally sealing my lips as the buckle tightened behind my neck. Steel and leather bit my cheeks against which I could make only the smallest sounds.