The walk back was less joyous. Soon she would be tethered and alone. As she left the place where she had been whipped she could have sworn she smelt the smoke of a cigarette, but she dared not speak of it as she took the linked steps back to boredom.
She was learning to be cautious with her words. When the padlock once more gripped her chain she longed to cry.
Nora instituted drills. They were interspersed by whipstrokes for fumbles but became increasingly easy to follow. They were simply a verbal assertion of authority on one hand and humility on the other. Ilona never admitted it aloud but she welcomed them. She bore their swift savage pains in tolerance, so thankful was she of a human presence. She believed she could accept the whip hourly if it would keep Nora in the room. Whenever she was allowed to do so she grasped soft thighs and hugged them hungrily in longing.
"What are you, Miss Paisley?"
"I am your prisoner, Nora, I will obey you."
"Are you grateful for being whipped?"
"I am grateful, Nora. Thank you."
"Why are you captive like this?"
"Because I am a woman, Nora, and someone wishes me thus."
"Would you like me to whip your cunt, Miss Paisley?"
"Oh, yes, if it pleases you."
"And your breasts?"
"Yes, and my breasts too."
"Ask me nicely, Miss Paisley."
"Please, Nora, will you whip my cunt and my breasts?" It could go on and on.
The key to unmarked skin was humility.
Days passed. In chained darkness Ilona Paisley was more and more aware of dependence on the coloured maid. Her whole existence now centered on the capricious creature who held the keys to her captivity. When Nora was kind a strange love would flow between them. When she was cruel, Ilona believed the cruelty emanating from someone else and bore it without rancour or resentment. While she was receiving her pain it was a potently personal thing tangibly from Nora's flesh or Nora's lips for whatever brief period they were vouchsafed. She obeyed Nora now without question.
The chained captive kept no count of time. She was not going anywhere, no period had been placed on her imprisonment. Questions were punished, so she no longer asked them. Her future was the same as her present, a dark void interspersed by pain and controlled by a girl she had seen briefly only once. But had Ilona been forced to guess she would have supposed it ten or twelve days before her life was once more changed.
"Want a bath, Miss Paisley?"
"Of course I need a bath, I smell?" Ilona suddenly beheld implications: "You mean??"
"That's what I mean. But don't get excited, maam, you're not going home."
"I didn't expect. . Oh, Nora. . just to get in a bath, even chained??"
The maid laughed. "I'm going to take off that hood. "
"Nora, I love you!"
"You may not love me at all, Miss Paisley. Kneel down." Obedience was instant.
Ilona Paisley had become a small child. She was quivering, her pulse raced as the padlock and chain fell to the floor to be followed by the collar. It felt as though a thousand pounds had been taken from her neck. But she was still utterly helpless.
"You don't get to see anything, Miss. Sorry 'bout that."
"But, Nora, you're untying the laces, you're taking the hood away from me!"
"That's right, Miss Paisley. But as I lower it from your face I'm going to slip a metal blindfold over your eyes. Are you going to keep still or be silly?"
"I'll keep still. Oh, Nora. . ! But why metal?"
" 'Cos you're going to have a bath, Miss. You'd look silly with a soaked scarf over your eyes."
It was one of the tensest moments of Ilona's life. Her clenched fists pul ed at the chain bisecting her sex, she held her head high to aid Nora in whatever she must do.
Suddenly the hood was free. As it slipped forward across her nose there was a brief flash of light and then, once more, darkness as shaped metal blinds possessed her eyes and were secured at the back of her head. Nora made them tight, tight and tighter yet. They felt strange so that the naked woman longed to finger them. But she could not, the shackles held her hands.
"Want a sporting proposition, Miss Paisley? I'm supposed to tie your hands in back?"
"Oh, Nora, anything! I won't struggle or try to escape."
"O.K. So I unlock your chains and you're free? What would you do?"
"Whatever you tell me. I won't touch the blindfold."
"That's hard to believe, Miss."
"No it isn't!" Ilona's voice was high in longing. I know you'd punish me terribly if I did give you a bad time. I just don't want some awful punishment."
Metallic sounds! The shackles fell from Ilona's wrists, then her ankles. "You can stand up, Miss Paisley. You can do what you like 'cept touch that blindfold or run."
Ilona did what she liked. Blindness prevented her running round the room, but she did all the physical jerks she could remember from school. She then felt her weals and touched her nipples. The three words she uttered held a tremendous sincerity:
"Thank you, Nora."
She walked totally free, guided by a female hand that held her own. She stood still, arms behind her back, while Nora ran the bath. When she sat in the hot perfumed water she sighed ecstatically. "Oh, Nora, you're so good to me!"
"Now you're going to be good to me, Miss Paisley." Nora's voice held vibes. "I'm as naked as you are and I'm getting in the bath."
Ilona reverted to her teens. Nora was the girl next door who was giggling in the tub with her while their parents were gone. She wished she had eyes, but it did not matter too much. Her hands found familiar contours, caressing nipples, reaching for pubic hair.
"Do it, Miss Paisley. I want you to."
Ilona did it. By the time the bath was done they had brought each other into orgasmic flower time after time. Ilona had forgotten her blindfold, in such a feast of tumescence it did not matter. When she had dried herself with hot absorbent towels, Nora's command did not matter either.
"Cross your wrists behind your back, Ilona."
Thrilling at the use of her given name, the blinded girl obeyed. As the cords criss-crossed her wrists she knew concupiscence again. She was being bound by a girl, a girl with whom she had just shared love. Without realizing what she was saying, she whispered: "Tighter, darling, tighter. Make them hurt."
It did not matter that now she could not touch her eyes. Nothing seemed to matter except that Nora stay close. The girl whose wrists were tied behind her back knew herself even more helpless than she had been when chained. But that did not matter either. Flexing her arms, she knew she could never free herself, her wrists were tied to stay. They hurt but the hurt was pleasure. Once more, the libido of Miss Ilona Paisley was flaring heat.
"Someone wants you." Nora's hand guided the steps of her newly bound charge.
"You behave real good, d'you hear."
"I'll behave, Nora, I promise. Besides, I'm tied, I have to."
"It's not what you do, it's what you say, Miss." Nora's hand added impetus to the captive's steps and thrust her forward. "Here now, you're through a door. Walk four paces then stop." Suddenly, Nora's hand was gone.
Feeling doubly nude and doubly helpless, Miss Ilona Paisley took four deliberate steps.
"Stand still, darling." It was Susan's voice. There was something wrong with that voice but it still belonged to Susan.
Ilona stood still in her darkness, wrists tensed within their cords.