The captive drank it gratefully. The glass was refilled.
Handing it back, empty, she said: "Thank you. Do you have a name?"
"You can call me Nora, Miss."
"Nora, I would pay a great deal of money to get rid of this hood."
"I expect you would, Miss."
Ilona sighed wearily. "Alright, so I have to stay blind. Will you tell me what sort of a place this is? I mean, so I won't hurt myself trying to stumble around."
"Just a room, Miss. A bare room with nothing but you. There's chains on your wrists and ankles, and they're connected so's you can't try and hit me. There's a collar round your neck and it's padlocked to a seven foot chain fixed in the wall. That's as far as you can go: seven feet."
"Thank you, Nora. You'd be surprised how that helps. Look, if I can't have the hood off, will you tell me why it's on?"
"I think it's for a punishment, maam."
"But I haven't done anything!"
"No, Miss, but a girl doesn't have to do much to get punished."
"Couldn't you use handcuffs on me?"
"Could, but you got to wear them irons."
"Nora, this is all damn awful for me! How long have I got to be like this?"
"You ain't supposed to know, Miss." Was there a hint of satisfaction in the superior voice! "Maybe you stay this way the rest of your life."
"I'd go insane in a week."
"Not likely, Miss. Here, it's a pail and a cover. You take and put it against the wall yourself. That way you know where it's at. You know what it's for." Nora's footsteps receded and were gone.
Even if someone was watching, the hood hid Ilona's blush. She would never know if she was observed. . and to use this pail before a dozen eyes. . ! She began to understand the insidious punishment of the hood. In loathing, she pushed the essential utility well off to one side. She longed to cry, but the hood inhibited tears.
Alone in dark silence, Ilona Paisley toyed idly with her chains. They were far heavier and uglier than need be to keep her restrained. No doubt they were, like the hood, a punishment. Someone did not like her. Ruefully, she saw her nakedness as practical, both to herself and to her captors. She wondered, shrinkingly, if silent eyes came and feasted on her breasts and pubic hair. She would never know.
It could be a kidnapping for ransom, her present plight a softening up before the demand for cash. Perhaps the three others were held as she was held. Her thoughts drifted, she was in limbo. Soon she slept.
For Ilona Paisley there was neither night or day. But three times in each twenty-four hours she was given milk or soup which she sucked up through a straw.
"You're a lucky girl, Miss Paisley. The hood will lose you weight. It's too tight under jaw for solids, you can't chew properly."
"I'm not fat. Nora, how much money do you want to set me free?"
The pain was fearsome in her darkness. It slashed across her shoulders like a fiery brand. Ilona yelped in shock, her chains rattling.
"Please do not try and bribe me, Miss." The voice was cold.
"Was that you? It was a whip, wasn't it?"
"It was me, Miss. I will whip you as I think needful."
"But, Nora, I don't even know when I'm doing wrong. I don't know anything? this beastly hood! Please don't hit me without warning. It's? it's too frightening."
Another cut! It laced the length of Ilona's thigh. She screamed at the hatefulness of what was being done to her. It was too awful, not knowing, not seeing! While her chained hands were exploring her wound Nora's calm voice continued.
"You do not give orders, maam, you do not complain. You are a white cunt that must be humbled."
The four letter word was as frightening as the lash. Quivering with apprehension, Ilona said: "I'll do what you want. Please tell me. So I don't get whipped."
"The whip will teach you, Miss Paisley, it will teach you far better than anything I can say."
"But in the dark. . ! It's so awful? the not knowing. Oh please, Nora?"
The whip cut her sentence as it cut her skin, this time her other thigh. In pure animal fear, Ilona tugged and twisted at the chains. . She was chained everywhere. It was too, too cruel, the links snubbed her every act. No animal had ever been chained as she was chained. The collar on her neck seemed a personal mockery.
"That was a complaint, Miss. It earned you a stroke."
"I'm sorry, Nora. I will try."
"Good. That way you just get properly whipped at proper times. You will know it's going to happen."
The naked woman froze. 'Properly whipped'! She believed she knew the meaning behind the term, but she was compelled to ask.
"You will be whipped from time to time for punishment, Miss Paisley. The whip will humble you. That is desired."
"But, Nora, am I proud? I didn't think I?"
She should have known! The thong cut her from hip to armpit. In desperate misery she fell sideways and writhed out her pain amidst a clash of chains. When the paroxysm ended Nora pul ed her back to sit against the wall. The girl's voice was faintly amused.
"When you are properly whipped, maam, I will inform you of what you are sentenced to, and just how you must stand or kneel. Perhaps I may take you to where you can be properly tied or strapped to receive your whipping."
"Thank you."
"I don't think that was sarcastic, Miss. It sounded better."
"I will try, Nora, honest I will. I'm frightened."
"You're supposed to be frightened, Miss Paisley. I'd be frightened too."
The naked prisoner was no longer entirely alone, now she had pain to keep her company. Desperately keeping the ghosts of darkness at bay, she traced the whipweals Nora had bestowed, wincing and thankful that for the moment there would be no more. It was a change from fingering the metal links of her chains like a rosary. Over and over in her darkness she thought of the word, humility. She had to be humble, someone wished to break her, reduce her to naked compliance. It was not really a clue, there could be many motives behind such a wish.
Ilona saw herself as a planet drifting in dark, dark space. She could measure neither the space or the time. Mostly she was alone. Nora's visits became increasingly important to her. Often they brought pain but she came to know that Nora and pain was better than no Nora at all. She could not know if others observed her. It was possible. Nora proved its possibility by sometimes coming silently and standing beside the chained captive until a sound or an instinct betrayed her presence. There were other times when Ilona was driven to speak to someone who either was not there or did not answer.
The first of her whippings was traumatic. As whippings go, it was by no means cruel, only the darkness made it so. Nora's hands and Nora's voice guided her to stand and face the wall and to bend forward enough to place her forehead against its surface that she might find support and have an anchorage easy to find after her responses. It was suggested she should stand quite still for the six strokes to which she was sentenced, but neither girl believed this possible.
"Nora, am I forbidden to scream?"
"No, Miss, but as time goes by I'll teach you not to." She would once have asked why that need be. But she had learned not to ask such questions that might hint of criticism. Meekly, she held her forehead as directed, the long chain dropping away from her collar, her hands clenched and tight against their shackles below her waist.
She was quite helpless and knew herself cruelly open. She could shield nothing.
Miss Ilona Paisley waited to be whipped.
She had come to understand the hood. It was the most potent of her punishments, eminently practical in doubling and trebling the intensity of all she must suffer. To sit chained and blind was an infinitely worse captivity than to sit, restrained, but with all her faculties. She found bitter frustrations in her compulsive need to explore the limits of her chains. Again and again she would rise and shuffle this way or that until her neck was snubbed. She tugged and twisted her hands and arms and kicked her fettered feet against their linkage. Then it became a hazardous and frightening journey back to the wall. She had learned to identify her place by the warmth her flesh had bestowed upon where she sat and where she leaned.