Dorinda was glad when, after lunch, Dave accepted his cheque and said his goodbyes. His presence was disturbing. She knew that had she been able to use him to effect escape from the island she would have done so, more from a sense of duty: the feeling that any prisoner owes it to the general rightness of things to end captivity of the chance offers, rather than an urgent wish for freedom. She was wryly aware that, even though she might often feel the whip, she had an emotional need to play out her role in the small drama being enacted on Kyrexos.
She was inordinately pleased when, instead of hunting the errant Mabel, her master took her arm and announced: "Let’s carry on where we left off, slave girl." His boyish enthousiasm crinkled his eyes in laughter.
"Can I come too?" Terry was an eager child.
They left her in what Dorinda felt sure would be an infuriating captivity. It was a large simulated dog kennel. A leather collar was padlocked round the the angry young neck. It was tethered by about five feet of quite hevay chain. Terry could crawl on her hands and knees in and out as she chose. That was all she could do. She stuck her tongue out at her brother. "You’re dimply horrid to me," she complained.
Dorinda was quite sure that, beneath the pout, the youngster was happy with her lot.
She was not so sure about herself. The walk had been short. It was pleasant among the trees. But the thing planted there posessed a sinister quality as though it had been waiting for her alone.
"It’s very simple," said her owner non-commitally.
A post. Six feet high. A narrower crosspiece resting on it’s top to form a T. She cringed. A perfect whipping post! Yet there were no rings or attachments by which she could be fastened. She looked at Mark inquiringly.
"I’m an absolute bastard, aren’t I?" He inquired pleasantly.
"No."
"I’m going to be cruel to you."
"Of course."
"You know why?"
"It’s because I’ve slipped part way back to normal. Yesterday I was with Terry. This morning I became a sort of guest. I enjoyed it all immensly. But I’ve slipped. I know I have. I’ve been forgetting to call you master."
"You are something special," he said with frank tenderness. "Tes. That’s as good a summation as I could have given myself. Not to worry though. It’s natural to have regressions. There will be a lot of them. I’ll be cruel to you every time it happens, so as to bring you back to heel. The cruellest thing of all is our demand for a sort of duality from you. You’ll constantly have to switch bach and forth between companion and slave and be sincere and natural in each. You see, little slave, Terry and I are sort of in love with you in our own paricular ways, so we won’t be willing to relinquish the companion bit."
Dorinda sighed. Was ever a girl posed such a complexity? "I’d like to try without the… persuasion," she ventured.
"That’s the eternal woman talking," Marks eyes glowed. A woman always feels ‘oh why must he’ or ‘does he really have to’ or ‘if he loves me he’ll do it to me anyway’. So the only way a man is going to have a perfect woman is to make her a slave girl right from the start."
"Don’t we have anything to say about it?"
He laughed at her lugubrious voice. "Women always have too damn much to say. No matter how abject a slave I might make you, you’ll still get a word in here and there. You’ll search my weaknesses and exploit them." He grinned at her confidingly. "You see, the trouble really starts with us men. We’re lazy. Actually we are subconciously glad to allow you to nag us into your decisions. It saves us the trouble and we have someone to blame if the decision’s bad."
"So I have to be whipped regularly?"
"That’s right, love."
Their eyes met. They laughed.
"I still think I can be a maverllous slave girl wothout looking like a zebra or a tiger all the time." She twinled at him. "This morning, for instance. It seemed quite natural to me to pose and ask you to whip me for poor Mabel’s benefit. I don’t think I was acting. I wanted to. I did it well, didn’t I?"
"Granted, but for just one stroke. And remember, you got a bang out of it personally. Supposing it had been for ten or twenty, would you have been quite so spontanuous?"
Dorinda considered. "I really don’t know the answer to that," she admitted.
"Ah!" said her master triumphantly. "That’s what this afternoon is all about."
She made gesture of bafflement with her chained hands. Then accepted the small key.
"Take’m off, darling. The clothes too, of course."
Dorinda blushed. She was very concious of the scarlet. She knew Mark was too. "You only let me wear clothes so I feel this rediculous shame every time I have to take them off in front of you," she accused.
"Of course. Besides, you do it so damn well. And never underrate the view when you’ve done. By the way, would you like your hair shaved the way Terry has hers?"
"Good heavens. Have I blushed all the way down there?" She looked down at herself, then back at him. "Shave me any way you like, kind sir," she said.
Mark ahd brought a cord. He tied her arms behind her back, then threw the rest over the crosspiece. "I’ll lift you," he explained. "Youll slip your arms over the crosspiece and let your arms hang down over the other side."
He backed her against the post and kissed her soundly. She melted instantly in a way almost frightening. So great was her response that, when their lips parted, Mark placed his finger over hers. "Silence, little slave." He grinned down at her. "Because we both enjoyed that, you are about to ask me not tot do what I’m going to do, right?"
Dorinda was furious. He could read her like a book. She would never win with him. But, prudently, she contented herself with grinning back and saying: "Yes, master." With what she hoped was appropriate humility.
Mark lifted her high with ease. She resolved never to provoke a test of strength with him. She managed to get her arms as he had directed, then felt him drag them down and back with the cord in one hand while he held her in position with his other arm. Shifting her to suit his design, he pulled until her shoulders were well back over the cross. Gently then, he let her down and bound the cord round her tummy and the post while she gasped in pain as her underarms and shoulders took her weight. Her searching toes would never get closer than six inches from the ground. No matter how she striggled she would hang. Even at the beginning the pain was excruciating. She had no hpe that it would lessen.
The master stepped back and examined his prize. "You are very beautiful," he said, almost with awe.
"I hurt. Oh, master…"
"I can’t be whipping you all the time, darling," Mark said reasonably. "Up to a point stripes on a girl’s skin are beautiful. But too many ruin the effect. Fortunately there are all sorts of delightful things I can do to keep you in a proper frame of mind."
"This isn’t delightful."
"Depends on your poinjt of view, love. Right now you are as lovely a sight as I have ever seen."
"I don’t feel lovely."
"You wouldn’t be quibbling, would you?"
Dorinda wanted to cry. She was sure he could have no idea how she hurt. She probably did look exceedingly attractive in her strained suffering. But she was beginning to remember the whip almost with nostalgia. Her breath was coming irregular in panting gasps. It took her all her oncentration to keep back the moans and cries. No doubt they would come.
"No master. But… but… I can’t stand it!"
Mark paid no attention but sat comfortable leaning against a tree. "I could have made it much worse for you by using the handcuffs," he consoled.
"How long must I hang like this?" She made her voice pitiful.
"Oh, I don’t know," he drawled offhandedly. "The afternoon, I suppose."
The bound girl moaned.
"I’ll sit here and gloat."