"Show me!"
With two hands Mabel lifted up her dress up to her waist. Myriam, dumbfounded, saw her friend's enormous bottom sheathed in white silk drawers and strapped between her legs by a wide tape of varnished leather. Dorothea, putting her felt and pawed for a long while Mabel's femininity, hands under the strap after having unbuckled it.
"Have you been punished this morning?" she asked.
"Yes, Divine Mistress. Her Honour Miss Crimpton gave me the whip on my breasts because I hadn't prostrated myself quickly enough when she was passing by. And Her Ladyship gave me the whip on my bottom because she found I hadn't polished her shoes well enough."
"That's perfect!" mocked Dorothea with a cruel smile, "that will teach you, to be more careful in future. And how come you have your hands free? Don't you know that a slave like you should always have her hands tied when she's not working? Turn 'round!"
Picking up the strings from the top of a table, the governess tied up with care the hands of her slave, palm against palm; then, behind her back, she tied one elbow against the other, which was a very painful position to remain in for any length of time. Then she slapped Mabel violently.
"That's for teaching you to walk about with your hands free," she said.
Myriam Hekings had viewed all that with growing stupefaction. It seemed she was having a dream and she hadn't even the strength to raise a murmur of protest in front of the shameful spectacle that had been offered to her.
Miss von Berner rang and Bridget appeared, with her fists akimbo and a mocking smile oil her lips. Dorothea seized Mabel by her ear and threw her down to the chambermaid's feet.
"I heard that you had some complaint this morning about the slave, my dear Bridget?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am, I had given her my shoes to clean and she didn't even trouble to scrape the mud from under the heels, so I whipped her severely."
"You did quite well. And you, bitch, beg Her Ladyship's pardon again for your negligence!"
Crimson with shame, Mabel prostrated herself before Bridget and kissed her feet.
"I beg Your Ladyship to excuse and pardon me," she moaned. "I shall be more attentive to Your Ladyship's orders and more obedient in future."
With a kick in her face, the maid obliged the slave to stand up.
"We'll see if you're as good as your promise," she grumbled. "Don't you forget that Miss you Berner has given me all rights upon you and that you must learn to serve me like a well-styled domestic. I shall force you to with the whip!"
"Now, Bridget," Dorothea said, "take this girl away and put her until lunch-time in the toilets on her knees. And this afternoon, you can have her so that you may teach her to obey you as she should."
"Thank you, ma'am. I'm very glad, for to-day is my day off and I intend, if madam doesn't mind, to receive a few friends for tea at the bottom of the park, and Mabel will be my maid and wait upon us."
"All right, Bridget, the slave is yours until tonight. When you have put her in penance, come back here for I shall probably need you."
Bridget bent down over Mabel and gave her a formidable pair of slaps on her already red cheeks.
Follow me, and beware if you aren't the submissive slave I want you to be!"
Dorothea remained alone with Myriam Hekings. Smiling, she sat in front of the girl, who had become very pate.
"I think," Myriam said, "that you won't mind if I leave the castle immediately. I had come here invited by my friend Mabel, but now that I what you've done to her, I don't see how my presence here is in any way necessary."
Dorothea did not answer at once. With a ghost of a smile playing upon her lips she was playing with her horsewhip and seemed to be absorbed in thoughts.
"That's where you're wrong, Miss Hekings, quite wrong. You've come here in the hope of sojourning here for a long time. So I insist on satisfying that desire. I wish to see you remain here for a very long time!"
"In this castle? Or rather in this prison…!" the girl hissed angrily.
Dorothea stood up suddenly like a released spring. With flashing eyes she fixed Myriam.
"You've said it — a prison! That is the'mot juste'," she ejaculated. "But it's not only Mabel's prison, but yours as well. For I intend to make a slave of you."
"A slave? Are you mad?"
Dorothea's arm jerked out and her horsewhip lashed Myriam's cheek, tracing a bleeding mark on it. The girl howled with pain.
"Mad?" Dorothea went on." Is this the way a slave should speak to her mistress? You'll pay for that, my dear, you'll pay for your insolence, your pride, all your horrible defects of a spoilt girl! I'll make a servant, a bitch, of you, whether you like it or not! And, first of all, a slave should kneel when her mistress condescends to speak to her. Go on, on your knees, bitch, on your knees!"
Miss von Berner, to give more weight to her words, lashed out again with the riding-crop, reaching Myriam Hekings right across her breasts and tearing the silk of her blouse, swollen by her pretty bust.
The girl, howling with pain, drew back against the door. Her green eyes flashed with fury and her mouth foamed with rage. One felt within her a fearsome strength all reared against the despotic force of Dorothea von Berner.
"You wicked woman!" she lashed out, "you darned creature! I despise and hate you! You want to make a slave out of me! Well, you'd better forget it!"
With a brisk gesture, she opened the door and made as if to rush out but her body collided against Bridget's who was barring the way and who seized her in her powerful arms.
"Quiet, my girl, quiet! A slave doesn't escape like this from her mistress! I'm stronger than you are, and you should realize it!"
The maid twisted violently Myriam's wrists, and the poor girl screamed with pain and fury. Bridget made her go back into the room she had tried to leave.
"Nice work, Bridget!" Dorothea exclaimed, laughing. You're going to help me to give a whipping to this slave, for she's really deserved it for her lack of submission."
"I'm not a slave and I forbid you to treat me like this!" Miss Hekings howled, furious.
Bridget did not heed her protests and, having tripped the girl's body and sent it sprawling against the carpet, she nailed her to the floor by sitting astraddle on top of her.
"What shall I do with this fury, ma'am?" she asked quietly.
"Let's tie her up on the sofa," Dorothea answered. "We're going to undress her and whip her bottom as she deserves."
The maid got up and seized Myriam like a parcel and threw her down on a low sofa. Quickly and expertly the girl was trussed up like a sausage by a rope around her loins, another tying her ankles and a third fixing her hands to-the legs of the sofa.
Vanquished and unable to defend herself, Myriam did not stop throwing abuse right and left But Dorothea only laughed at her insults and useless fury. She took out a pair scissors from the drawer of a cupboard.
"It would be difficult to undress this slave without untying her," she explained to Bridget, "so we shall use this method!"
She bent down over Myriam and used her scissors to cut through the material of the tailor made suit, the blouse and the brassiere the girl was wearing. Then she removed the torn pieces and threw away in a corner of the room. The velvety bare back of Myriam appeared in its sculptural beauty, which Dorothea contemplated with a satisfied smile. Then the governess slipped her hand under the sprawling body of Miss Hekings and palpated her bare breasts crashed against the sofa.
"This is a mighty fine bust for a slave!" she exclaimed. "What pleasure I shall have to torture these arrogant breasts which are mine from now on!"
"Brute, dirty brute!" cried Myriam, who was choking with rage. "Better think again! I'd rather die than submit!"
"And now, the shirt! "Miss von Berner said.
Arming herself again with the scissors she split the grey dress on all its length, made it slip down and threw it in a corner of the room. The girl's insolently curved out bottom offered itself to the mocking sight of the two torturers. It was a really massive buttock, straining at the material of the pink silk panties which Myriam was wearing. Under the lace hemming the knickers there appeared the long, sun-tanned, appetising thighs and the fine legs sheathed in beige silk.