"It’s like I was saying, miss. They’re a rare pair, they are: Miss Terry and Mr. Mark. Got something up their sleeve, they ‘Ave. One of them there psychological efforts I expect. Does a lot of practising on Miss Terry, Mr. Mark does. Rare old games they get up to."
"Oh, his sister."
"She loves it, miss. Don’t you believe different! Don’t mean to say you’ll love it too. But you are a different subject, see. Different background and attitude. E’ll get them there reactions out of you what ‘e can’t get out of ‘er. Tell the truth, miss, me and ‘Islop sort of looks forward to seeing ‘ow you’ll be in a month’s time."
"So I’m an interesting experiment!" Dorinda’s words dripped frost.
Amity ignored the ice. She had become animatedly involved. "That’s ‘ow it ‘ud be best for you to look at it, miss. Bloomin’ awful for you to feel put upon. See. I ‘secks that’s why no force ain’t been used. Mr Mark, ‘e’s up to some little dodge ‘h though up for himself. Not that Miss Terry ain’t capable of thinking up some pretty pickies too."
"I suppose I’m a sucker," Dorinda sighed. "And, mind you, I’m not promising a thing, but if I promise to be good this time, what happens then?"
"Oh miss, you got it all wrong." Amity looked distressed. "You don’t ask questions, see. You don’t tell me what to do. Or make no bargains. You’re a… I ain’t a’going to say, not yet I ain’t."
"You mean I am a slave?" Dorinda cocked an eyebrow.
Suddenly they both laughed.
"Sounds silly, don’t it?" Amity tittered. "I mean, you ain’t behaving right for one thing. ‘Cepting you ain’t got no clothes and you do ‘have them ‘handcuffs. I ain’t never seen a gal ‘what acted less like no slave nor you."
"Thanks."
"But that’s the point, miss. You are just what the doctor ordered. They want to make you over, like." Amity turned a most serious gaze upon her captive. "I wouldn’t laugh, miss. Honest. I wouldn’t! Me and ‘Islop thinks they knows what they’re doing."
"How about taking the handcuffs off me on trust?"
They measured each other. There was no enmity in their assessment.
"I’ll unlock one cuff miss. You can ‘ave a good stretch."
"Oh no you don’t! I want both wrists completely free from my stretch. You have no idea how I’ve come to hate those bits of steel."
Once more the eyes questioned. Amity grinned. "All right, love. You win. I got a good feeling about you…" She busied herself with the keys. A few moments later Dorinda was free. Her companion stood back, the shining cuffs with their single link dangling from one hand.
Until that moment the captive girl had not realised how badly her shoulders had ached. It was pure bliss to raise and flex her arms. She did so again and again in an ecstasy of sensuality. Even closing her eyes to better savour freedom.
"You do ‘have a loverly shape, miss, if you’ll excuse me saying so." Amity’s tribute sounded entirely genuine.
It ended as all things must end. Dorinda did not push her luck. Nor would she evade an issue.
"Well?" she asked innocently.
Amity held up the wicked bits of metal. "In front please, miss."
"Do me a favor," Dorinda pleaded like a little girl asking for candy. "Let me hold and feel those rotten things for a moment before you lock them on me. It’s an urge I’ve got. I won’t try anything, I promise."
Dorinda took the handcuffs from a quite willing hand. She sensed that her companion understood her strange need to hold and to handle the potent bits of steel that could so totally render her a helpless captive. She played with them. Examining them in a way she had never been able to. She had never actually seen them before. Locked behind her back they had been invisible. She slid the cuff round and round though its ratchet, savouring the series of clicks until it had completed its circle. Savouring her momentary power over the things that had prisoned her so long and which were about to prison her again. It came almost as a surprise when she realised that somehow in the past minutes while they talked she had come to accept the inevitability of offering her wrists that they might be once more locked within the metal bands.
Yet when the moment came it proved to be one of the most soul searching acts she had ever performed. Only by a compulsion of will could she return the shining circlets and hold out her hands. Every instinct cringed as she watched Amity cuff the proffered wrists. She winced at the small clicks as notch after notch was pressed home to make the inflexible metal snug with a dreadful intimacy.
When she was done she knew relief. Decision had been taken from her. It was Dorinda’s first glimpse of that small beneficence of bonds. Her first lesson in a new school. In fascination she held up her linked hands and found an unexpected beauty in their joining. The handcuffs were no longer a dangling shapelesness. They had become potently a living part of her from which she could never escape.
"I suppose now I have to walk over to that rope?" she inquired helpfully. She felt sure she had divined its purpose. She had read the books..
"Yes please, miss."
Once more she must offer her hands and watch as they were secured. She rejected a silly instinct to run when she was left standing for the few moments it took Amity to reach the wall and press the switch. Unreality flooded her as the rope tautened and the prisoned hands began to rise. She followed their brief journey almost with disbelief as, starting from the waist level, they came up before her eyes, above her head, and stopped only when her nudity was as taut as the rope itself. Her heels were still on the floor. She was not suspended. But she must stand very straight and more helpless than she had ever been. She felt all breasts and pubes. Her first reaction was thankfulness that no male was there to see. But this was replaced by a tingling knowledge that Mark might walk in at any moment. No doubt she was stretched and exposed like this for some purpose! A sinister phrase from fiction drifted into her mind: ‘Held for questioning…’ It was a position in which few girls would be stubborn.
"Coo! You do look lovely, miss." There was actually a trace of envy in Amity’s voice.
"Let’s change places then!" For a moment Dorinda managed to feel playful- "I’m sure you’d look just as good. I expect it it’s a very flattering pose for any girl."
The cockney girl meditatively ran caressing fingers up and down the planes and curves of the pinioned girl. Her touch was soothing. Dorinda found she could not resent the intimacy. The touch was reverent as in the handling of anything of beauty, an exploration of tactility.
"’Ow does it feel, miss? A bit draughty like?" She stood back and admired the living statue she had helped create.
"O Amity. I’m scared! I’ve never felt so vulnerable."
Amity tittered. "You mean if there is a gentleman around like! Get there’s a lot of blokes would give all they got to get a good look at you like this."
"Amity…? Is Mark going to see me?"
"That would be telling, miss. Remember? No questions."
The captive girl twisted in frustration. There had remained in her mind throughout a nagging memory. "Amity, don’t be angry. But before he called you Mark was playing with a whip… He was just trying to scare me, wasn’t he? I mean… he was just joking..?"
Amity laughed delightfully. "You know very well he was not joking, miss. That there whip is for pretty girls who ask too many questions."
Suddenly she kissed her prisoner lightly on the lips. A moment later she was gone. The door closed. Dorinda stood naked and alone.
A quailing Dorinda felt quite certain Amity had gone to produce a whip with which to prove her assertion. Would she return in a moment and send the lash curling round her shockingly available person? How awful to stand and watch yourself whipped, denied all defence! But as the minutes passed the captive found her mind possessed by other imperatives.