Slave, slave, slave! How absurd a word in today’s world! She sought another. There was none so explicit to her condition. That was Mark’s thesis, wasn’t it? There were no longer nay slave markets. So he would create his own slave girl. Could she take comfort in the knowledge that her agonies and fears were no different from the same emotions, suffered by countless other maidens in centuries past? Hard to accept the knowledge. But it was true.
What was her cue? A dog-like grovelling on the floor? Sycophantic servility? She was sure Mark would reject both. His fantasy would dictate an emotion more valid…
Terry came cheerfully into the room. She was holding a small key.
It was pleasant on the terrace in mid afternoon. Dorinda had never admired English Tea. But now it was nectar. She sipped it gratefully and wondered if she should laugh or cry. Was she on her head or on her heels? She could not keep pace with what they did to her. No doubt they planned it so.
"The handcuffs won’t discommode you." Mark had become the smiling boy again.
They were a part of her now. Dorinda did not mind. She could drink tea and eat a sandwich with joined hands. She could understand the necessity that she wear them. They would keep her from forgetting. The blood was still on her forearms. No doubt that would keep her from forgetting too. It was in her own interest that she not forgot.
"Do you think we are absolute swaine?" Terry inquired interestedly.
"No."
"What are we then?"
"You are just you. Both of you." Dorinda scrambled for some elusive rationalization that was not there. "You have told me of the fantasy. I think the fantasy is the key. I am a prisoner because of it. All three of us will have to be aware of it always, in every situation. If I, for instance, forget it for a single minute resentment builds up. Anger. Perhaps hatred." She looked at them pitiously. "You see, it is so out of context. It is like trying to transplant a bit of Camelot or ancient Babylon into our lives…"
"You do not hate us?"
"No. That would make it simple."
"We are going to whip you again, y’know."
"Oh, I guessed that," Dorinda admitted miserably. "I suppose you can understand how much I want to dissuade you?"
"You have not pleaded as much as we expected. Why?"
The naked girl shook her head in bewilderment. "I suppose because Mark made a good jon of telling me of the fantasy and your determination to use me. Pleading would not help, would it? I have a feeling that the more I beg and grovel the less you would think of me. Silly perhaps. Why should a slave care? I know you are going to whip me. And, oh, I don’t want to be whipped! I don’t! It’s more awful than I ever dreamed. It scares me because a girl seems to survive. Look at me now! After those first two strokes I knew I would die. I didn’t. I’m sure you know more about it than I do. But please, don’t whip me so much that we stop liking each other…"
"It does not work that way," Mark was positive.
Dorinda considered. "You are thinking of Terry. But I’m not Terry. That other gorl, when she comes, won’t be Terry either. I’m not a bit sure any of us know what a whip will do to a girl like me. I admit I don’t…!" Her voice became animated and earnest. "Look darlings, I think neither of you is the stuff that beats a girl into submission. But you sincerely believe you have to whip her into slavery. Can I help? I’m purely selfish. Let’s say I don’t want to be whipped… well, unprofitably. If I must be whipped then I want every bit of the pain to take me where you have determined I have to go."
"Go on." She had caught Mark’s interest.
"Let me take over now. Oh sure, I know it’s backwards. But let me try to be a slave. I’ll work at it. I might surpise you. When I make a blooper, whip me. Okay?"
Terry clapped her hans. "Isn’t she super, Mark! I knew she would be. We’ll never, never let her go. Darling, let her be your slave today. But oh, can she be mine tomorrow? I know she’ll train just beautifully."
Mark looked at his sisyer with love. "Okay, kitten. But you pay a forfeit. I won’t need you for a while, so off with these rags and up against your column."
Dorinda watched in amazement. The moment should be grim. Instead it was pure joy. The moppet shed her clothes in a flash of motion as though glad to be rid of them. A moment later she was securely chained as Dorinda had first beheld her. Mark stood back admiring the effect. Both were smiling broadly with a shared happiness. Once again Terry deliberately provoked and stuck her tongue out at her brother.
Mark grinned cheerfully at his guest. "You see, girls are incorrigable. They have to be constantly punished. Our little minx has just asked me to make her stand on one leg. But I have something more appropriate. He went into the lounge. Terry winked broadly as though in complicity. When he returned he held a square of pasteboard. Seeing it, Terry uttered a plaintive wail of protest. "Oh darling, not that!"
The watching girl could not be certain of Terry’s plaint. The younger girl showed every evidence of distaste for whatever Mark was about to do. But her obvious joy in her chains was an inconsistancy. Would she, too, come to this? A mixture of joy and apprehension… the whole scene highly erotic.
The new captove had no more time for protest. Small spring clips bit at each of her nipples. From them, suspended as a bib, the pasteboard read in clear print: "I was impertinent.".
Terry was still complaining, but now with an obvious insincerity, when her brother led Dorinda back to the bare neat room.
Dorinda dived into her slavery, as a swimmer who fears the cold, dives in one swift plunge to end the agony. Colouring her own imagery with scraps of remembered fiction she played her part.
Taking the whip from her master’s surprised hand, she knelt before him, kissed the cruel object of her pain, tehn offered it to him with her chained hands. Gazing up in pure worship – was it all feigned? – she asked ardently: "Please master, whip your slave girl." Quickly she took a pose. Hands clasped behind her head. Breasts outthrust, face raised in serene contemplation of the stone wall. He could whip her where he chose.
Mark’s eyes glowed. She had stuck the missing chord. "Why would I whip you, slave girl?" he demanded.
"Because I am a slave, master."
"On what part of your insolent person should I lay the whip?"
The question caught her unaware. But she remembered something she had been told.
"On my bottom, master." She knew she blushed.
"stand still, girl."
She endured, doubly blushing, as he purposefully dragged down the briefs, she had been allowed to wear. Why, oh why, had she chosen her bottom. She should have known. But is was too late.
She held taut for the first two strokes. But then she did all the things she had longed instinctively to do when she had been chained upright. She moaned no less. But did manage gasping: "Thank you, master."
Mark watched, amused. A slave girl writhing on the floor after she had been whipped. It was all falling into place. Before she had expended all her body’s rejection of the pain, he barked: "On your feet, girl!! Stand as before."
Dorinda managed. The squirming had helped. She refused to think ahead.
"Two more. You’ll stand quite still afterwards. You can grown but not scream. Anymore gymnastics and I’ll rope you and give an extra five. Understand?"
"Yes master." She was afraid of him. But knew this was how it must be.
The two blows were deliberately cruel.
Dorinda achieved her miracle.
When she had stood motionless save for heaving breats for ten ten seconds, her master said: "You may now do your little dance. Scream if you wish."
Dorinda was furious. She could never win. She knew not what had happened in those ten seconds. But now she turned and faced the ardent eyed man with the whip and admitted simply: "I do not need to, master."