I went and fetched my favorite cane. Pettie eyed it in fascinated distaste. "You're going to use an awful thing like that on a naked girl?"
"Yes."
"Where? I mean, where on me?"
"Your bottom."
"Like kid's stuff." She sounded offended.
"Was it kid's stuff on your legs?"
She shifted uneasily and lifted one leg. The loss of her clothes made her aware of vulnerability. She came out with the inevitable. "Can I say I'm sorry?" "No."
She digested the negative. Then offered: "I'll make the apology as humiliating as you want… You tell me what to say."
"Thirteen." I loved the sound of it. "Don't you know by now that we can't wiggle out of everything in life by saying we are sorry? Sententious but satisfying! Pettie twisted in her bonds, hurting her wrists without caring, realising, for the first time, how truly naked she was. Searching for the right words without finding them. She looked at me dejectedly. "But after… after, you've hurt me… I'll still be me?"
"I'll let you answer that one by yourself." I told her cheerfully.
There is something quite heartbreaking about the apprehensive female face that looks back at you over an upraised arm. The conflict of certainty and disbelief makes magic of a face. Feminine eyes are never so lovely as in that last appeal before they turn back in horror to be ready for what they can no longer evade.
I slashed the petulant bottom as hard as I could.
Pettie did not move, She did not cry. She had tensed herself into frozen immobility. Had it not been for the wound springing into livid life acros the curves of her cheeks I might have wondered if I had struck her. Whatever Pettie Corbin may or may not have been, there was steel in her.
But the second stroke turned her back into a hurt naked girl. She fought the cords and screamed. When she was half composed she sobbed: "You dirty rotten son of a bitch!"
"Fifteen."
She screamed as though I had struck her again. Screamed in fury and frustration. Contorted in hopeless determination to rob me of her nudity. Before she could spit out the words that would increase her penalty I cut into her with number three.
It was the same as before. Except that this time she flung atme in sobbing exhalations: "No! Oh no! No, no, no!" As though the negatives could erase her agony.
After the seventh Pettie made so rational a plea that I paused. "Please stop! Oh stop, if only for a minute… please!" I stopped caning her, but did not move. Her tear streaked face sought mine over her shoulder in wide eyed appeal. "I can't stand it!" she choked. "No one could stand this. It's more awful than I ever dreamed."
"There are eight more to go."
"Yes. I counted. I can't bear another eight likt this."
"You'll bear them very easily. You'll be surprised. Think a bit. Is there anything you can do but bear them?" I swung again.
When her writhing on that one had slowed, she asked weakly: "Please don't whip me any more. Do that… that, other thing."
"What other thing?" I'd made her say it.
She swallowed a few times but managed to sob it out: "Do what you have to so I'm not a virgin any more… Do in instead of whipping me… please!"
A smasher! One for the book! Gengis Khan, Attila the Hun and the current movie hero: none of em touched a moment like this. I was drunk with power.
"I will give you two more," I said grandly. "Then you will ask me nicely, using the four letter word."
She did not protest. Perhaps I was being kinder than she dared hope. I gave those two strokes all I had. She danced like a puppet on a string, moaning and sobbing. But she managed it: "Please fuck me, sir." That 'sir' was a real killer. Showed sincerity.
"I'll untie you. You'll immediately go and lay on the bench and open your legs wide…" I was a conquerer.
"Oh yes! Oh, thank you… Oh yes…!"
I untied her. She brimmed over with thanks, rubbing her cut wrists. I bent and picked up the cane, just in case… It was when I straightened up that she got me: her heel squarely on my testicles. All the force of her lithe body was behind the kick. I doubled over and lost interest in everything except myself. I had a blurred image of my asailant grabbing her clothes and making for the door. I couldn't have care less…
It's a standard joke. Sure, I know. Bloody funny when it's someone else or a cartoon story. Fact is it had never happened to me before. Don't suppose it ever happens to most chaps. But it's one of the few things that's every bit the way it's supposed to be. Too damn awful for words. I hgged myself and twisted and turned in agony. Serve me right! Well, O.K. maybe it did. But it hurt!
I really don't know how long it took me to get to where I could stand up and think. When I did I was flooded in pure horror. I'd let that damn girl get loose. Goodness knows what would happen to her running around half dressed in a place like this. Then the next one: Old Rabin and Mrs. Corbin! I'd let em down. Let em down bad! But then I came to the worst of alclass="underline" Terry and Dorinda! My darling girls. They'd have to laugh at me. I'd look a fool, an absolute jackass. Chain them helplessly with those handcuffs and then let that slippery little vixen make a fool of me! My Empire crumbled at my feet.
Without Terry and Dorinda I wasn't safe.
The sounds followed the thoughts. They were equally disturbing. Noises!
I had not been told that hallucinations were a part of being kicked in the groin. Or was it illusion? It did not matter. There they were, large as life and smiling broadly, at least Terry and Dorinda were. Darling Petulance looked thoroughly cheesed off. Her wrists were once more handcuffed behind her back. She was naked. She was controlled by Terry's firm grip in her hair.
"We grabbed her on her way out," said Dorinda.
"She's a really terrible girl," said Terry.
Pettie Corbin said nothing. She looked scared.
"She tried to kick us in the same place," Terry explained.
"But it's not quite the same with girls…."
"I'd like to shove a red hot poker up yours!" Petulance said tenderly.
Terry shook her fistful of hair vigorously. "Naughty, naughty! Mama spank."
"Oh, fuck off you naked bitch!"
Dorinda thoughtfully took one of the captive's nipples between thumb and finger. "How about another apology, you ill-tempered little beast?" "You're another naked bitch too – Yow!" Pettie fought strenuously and uselessly. The hand in her hair was implacable. "Let that go you miserable whore…" Her ugly words trailed off into a cry of pure agony as Dorinda pinched harder. "Oh alright! Alright! I'm sorry."
The apology was obviously insincere. But the punished nipple was released. It was an angry red. Its owner looked down at it without pride. Pettie turned to me. "You going to let these lousy whores- " She let out a howl of protest as her nipple was once more put in a vise.
"I'm… I'm sorry! I forgot. Oh please…!" Once again Dorinda released the hurt bud. Pettie finished her sentence, her voice dripping sarcasm: "Are you going to let these dilightful young ladies do what they like with me?" She tacked on the word, sir for full measure.
My girls exchanged a glance. This time each of them possessed herself of a guilty scrap of flesh and pinched hard, holding their captive as she went through all the motions with which I now had a sneaking sympathy.
"I'll be good! I'll behave! Honest….!"
"We've heard that before." Terry said thoughtfully.
"We can't believe a word you say," Dorinda sympathized.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…! Ohhh! Oh please… anything!"
The two nipples that came back into view looked as though they were on fire. Pettie groaned. Her hands worked uselessly at the cuffs.
"Would yoy like us to, er, immobilize her for you, master?" Dorinda asked respectfully, eyes twinkling.
"If you would please?" It was ineffectual but the best I could do.
They marched their prisoner out, I suspect with glee. Pettie wisely refrained from comment. I tottered to the living room and found my favorite chair. The dear girls did not take long. "We just pulled her hands way up behind her back," Terry explained.