"Phemie!" Yolanda's outraged voice dissolved the Scotch, my courage, and the lovely dream. I slumped down on my heels and, quite absurdly, covered my puss with my chained hands. But, finding I had to bend forward to achieve chain between my wrists was just long enough.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Yola was furious. Dejectedly, I let my fettered hands fall to the level of my navel. It seemed as good a place for them as any.
"Be so kind as to leave." Yolanda turned her anger on the man who still stood, unperturbed by her fury. "Get out before I call the police." My sudden prescience of the dungeon and the whip did not divert me from the cause of my disgrace. James Pollard's cheerful insouciance absorbed Yolanda's onslaught without a quiver. He assessed her now in the same intent manner in which he had assessed me. His little boy innocence was a bulwark shielding him from scorn. He shrugged deprecatingly as one whose position is indefensible, tendered by fuming Mistress a small courtly bow, gave me a jaunty motion of the hand and a knowing wink, and sauntered from the room. I stood, naked and bereft. Yolanda's breasts were heaving. She glared at me with infinite impatience. "Don't think I'm going to forgive you."
"No, darling."
"Phemie, you're impossible." I could tell Yola was sorry about the awful punishment she had set as my penalty. She would inflict it rigidly, but was wishing it was less severe. I hiccuped.
"And you're drunk! Oh Phemie!"
"I'm sorry, darling." I really was sorry. I love Yola so much. What I'd done with James Pollard was an infidelity.
"You belong to me. Haven't you any will power with men at all?"
"I'm an idiot, darling. Don't let me loose at any more parties, keep me locked up. I'd much sooner-"
"You'll go to my parties and you'll behave." Yolanda's voice was vehement. "We, both of us, go right back down now before we're missed. You'll act normally and be nice and amusing. When the last guest has gone I take you to the dungeon. Understand?"
"Of course, darling." She surveyed me in exasperation. "Aren't you going to ask me to let you off the punishment because it was all the fault of that… that… whoever he is?"
"No darling. His name's James Pollard." I wanted to add: 'And he's awfully nice!' But thought better of it. I'd hurt my darling enough. I began to fumble with the silver lame.
"And naked for him!" Her voice held a vast disgust. "Here, let me help, I'm not going to unlock your hands." The party enveloped us. With the aid of coffee I managed to divert the influence of the Scotch to silly giggles and rapt attention to inanities. People fingered my chain and dropped their hints and queries to which I responded only with a "Wooooo!" or a "Mmmmmmmm!." Cocktail parties are not really all that difficult for a slave girl. But through it all my mind was occupied with two separate visions, one of Yola's whip, and one of the smiling countenance of the boy who had tempted my downfall. Strangely enough, it was the memory of James Pollard that got most of my attention.
"You don't deserve the Tower, Phemie," Yolanda said crossly. "You're going downstairs."
"Of course, darling." I said it blithely, but I was trembling. I was about to start payment of my penalty. I am only joyous about such matters to a point. Going downstairs whittles that point to almost nothing. Going downstairs means the dungeon.
"Naked, Phemie. I won't even leave you those soaked panties." I'm always naked when I'm punished. The dungeons have some cunning heating ducts Yola had installed. You can't see 'em but they keep a naked prisoner from catching pneumonia. But it's the stone that gets a girl. Bare, cold stone! I shivered as I let the silver lame fall to the floor for the second time that evening. My hands were still chained, and Yolanda was not helping. I found my panties were still wet — that makes me awful, doesn't it! I can't help it, I just am.
"Over in the corner." Yola's crisp order means the metal collar and the chain that links back to the ringbolt in the wall. I stand passively while it is locked around my neck. It is very heavy. It does nothing for the spot between my legs.
"Ankles, too." I am indeed in disgrace! They are the beastly heavy shackles that tell me what and where I am. I spread my legs a little as they are fastened with solid ominous snaps.
"Your wrists can wear what they have now." I nod without happiness. My bonds could be much worse, hut they are bad enough. The weight of the metal on my neck will nag and nag.
"It's past midnight. You can spend the night and the day as you are. On the day after you will get your whipping."
"Thank you, darling."
"Oh, don't be so bloody humble! Don't you think I feel badly enough as it is'?"
"Honest, I didn't mean! Oh, darling, I'm so sorry." The chains hold me. I cannot touch my darling or give her the heat of my flesh and find comfort in hers. I do take a tentative step, but it is too absurd. I am weighed so that motion is like wading in mud; the links from my collar warn they will soon snub me. I hold out my joined hands in supplication.
"Phemie!" There is an ocean of yearning in Yola's voice. She too takes a step, then determinedly backs away. "If I touch you I'm lost. It's best I go. I'll leave you the candle, it will last most of the night."
"Can I have a blanket?"
"No. You don't deserve that either. I'll leave it folded on the big chest. You can look at it and yearn. If it hadn't been for your James Pollard and your own stupidity you could be warm in bed with me." My angry darling is punishing herself as well as me. She wants me. I know, just as I long for her with a terrible anguish. But the penalty denies us both, and I must serve it. She flounces in exasperation from the dungeon and thuds shut the door and the cruel bolts… In the sparse light of the candle I cannot reach I survey my plight. It is not the first time I have stood thus in this spot. I know the feel of stone and the clutch of chains. I long desperately for the blanket I can behold but am denied; it is part of my punishment. I shrug and sink cautiously to the cold stone. It will take a little while for my body to warm it enough that I can sleep. It is a hard bed for a naked girl. But I am not angry. I deserve this. I do! I do! What is done is done. It is over. At least I thought it was. I did not know then that it was not over at all. It was just beginning.
A girl in chains wakes early in her dungeon. For her there are no delightful stretchings and turnings and relapsing into slumber. You dare not move an inch from the stone now heated by your flesh. It has become precious. You cherish this spot of the exact dimension of your contact. The candle has burned out, and the bit of daylight seeping through the brutal bars of the high recessed small window is more gloomy than its artificial glow, but it is enough for me to see the blanket so neatly folded to torment me. I long for it and rack my brain for expedients by which I may reach it. There are none! Chains are implacable. A chained girl need not deal in hope. A chained girl thinks. It is all she can do. I thought about the whip. Yolanda might not come to my dungeon for a long time, so I speculate as to how she may possibly modify the awfulness of a hundred lashes on my bare skin. I will get the hundred alright, but perhaps she may not make them as hard as if I was to bear a smaller number. It is a small hope, but unlikely. Yola is a stickler for discipline and your word being your bond. I had best not build false optimism. I ponder what I may say or try and do to touch her compassion and her love. But I have both already. I have a sort of pact with myself that I will not make my punishments more painful for my darling than need be. I will keep my tears and my pleadings until desperate pain releases them past the determination of my will. Yola and I have never discussed my pact, but we both know it is there. There is, of course, what we call 'weaseling,' This is any sly bit of conniving by which I may artfully reduce my pains. It is a fun thing we both recognize. It will not do me any good in the penance which confronts me now. I twist my chains this way and that. The night has made them chafe. The collar on my neck is an enemy, It is alive and malignant with the pull of its tethering chain. The collar makes a mockery of the dungeon door, if it was wide open I could not reach it. The chain from the ring-bolt only gives me three or four shuffling paces, I move the metal bands that circle me and find a little easement here and there,I think of the whip curling round my hips; it is part a memory. I have been whipped so often. Sighingly, I wait. I wait a long time. Here and there I know that panic which is implicit in my plight. Am I forgotten? Will I just lie here in these chains! Helpless. It is useless to cry out, my voice will not penetrate the stone. As the light increases I know the day no longer young. I am hungry. When Yolanda comes she is a small, female whirlwind exuding disturbance. When she clasps and kisses me it is as though we face a sundering. Her lips arouse me so that I strive to clasp her too, but my chains deny. For urgent moments we feast before she uses her keys to free my neck and my ankles. Her orders are breathless.