"You'll be on my right, of course," he said. "And I was thinking of putting Erika on my left."
"Erika will soon pick up the idea of the game, I've no doubt," said Marlene.
"Yes," said Erika. "I've picked it up already." She ran her hands over her dress just above her breasts. "I'm longing to pull on my own end."
"What a wonderful idea," breathed Margarete, watching Per button up his trousers. "I'm only sorry you haven't got three more lengths of cord."
"Do you dine with him as a rule?" asked Marlene.
"Yes," said Margarete. "Except when he has business dinners. Even then I sometimes do."
Marlene laughed. "It might be a little difficult to put a cord on him for a business dinner. But you can do it whenever you're alone."
"And I certainly shall," said Margarete, with determination. "It's a wonderful idea."
With the cords around his testicle-bag making him walk a little stiffly, Per vent to the door and unlocked it. "Now that I'm decent again," he said, "it had better be unlocked. Dinner'll be announced in a minute or two."
"And I'm hungry," said Marlene.
"So am I," murmured Birgitta to Anna. "But not for food."
"Ssssh!" said Anna softly. "Behave yourself."
Birgitta pouted. "Behave yourself, you say! I wonder what they'd say if they could see that dildo in your bag."
"Ssssh, will you! They'll see it soon enough."
The door opened and the butler announced formally that dinner was served.
2
Per Petersen sat at the head of his table in a condition of even greater dither than he had been an hour before when he and his guests left the study. His penis had been stiffly erected for nearly two hours without interruption, and now seemed to have something like an ache at its base.
Marlene sat on his right and Erika on his left. At the beginning of the meal, when the backs of the butler and the maid were turned for an instant, he had unbuttoned his flies and taken out the cords. He had passed one cord under the table to the waiting hand of Marlene, and the other to Erika. He had then sat as closely as possible to the table, hiding his lap with the tablecloth. Marlene's first pull on her cord had been gentle. Erika's, from lack of experience, had almost pulled his testicles off his body. He was glad that her subsequent pulls, throughout the length of the meal, had been less violent.
Birgitta sat on Erika's left, and Anna on Marlene's right. Excitedly, but enviously, they watched their host being tortured as he tried to eat naturally. They wished they could take part in the activities. Anna, however, was a little awed by the regality of Marlene and did not dare to ask for her end of the cord for a moment or two. Birgitta, on the other hand, had leaned to her right on one occasion and had felt under the table for Erika's cord. A warning cough from Erika had emphasised the danger of something being noticed by the servants, and she had at once let go of the cord, leaning on downwards to pretend to pick up a fallen napkin.
Margarete, at the other end of the table, opposite her employer, watched the effects of the pulling of the cords with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. It was exciting to her because a man's genital organs were being tortured under her eyes; it was worrying because she felt that one or other of the servants could not fail to notice that their employer was not sitting in his usual relaxed posture but was from time to time making jerky movements on the seat of his chair.
At last, the dessert was served, and the servants left the room.
"So," said Marlene to him, giving a pull on her cord, "we are six tonight. You, my dear, and five women who are now going to flog you a good deal. The question is, where shall we do it?"
"There's no need to worry about noise," said Margarete. "The servants will all be out. And the children are far away at the other end of the house."
"Exactly," said Marlene. "I usually flog him in his bedroom-because it's the safest place from the noise point of view. But it's not necessary tonight, and five of us may be rather on top of one another. So where?"
Margarete looked at Per. "May I suggest the main salon? There's plenty of room-and there are plenty of sofas and things."
"I approve of that," said Birgitta. "I mean the sofas."
"I've been wondering," said Per, "which of you two is the sadist and which the nymph. You're the nymph, aren't you?"
"Yes," said Birgitta, simply. "But I can be quite a sadist too. I am feeling one tonight, in fact."
"Now who is the pig?" said Anna. Per raised his eyes at her enquiringly.
"You'll soon see what she means," said Birgitta. "She has another perversion, on top of her sadism-and I tell her she's a greedy pig most of the time. You'll soon see what it is."
Per laughed. "All right, I'll be patient." He turned to Erika, the warmth of whose body was causing her rubberised dress to give off a very heady and exciting perfume. "And you, too-you have another perversion, haven't you?"
She blushed slightly. "This dress?"
"Yes."
"Yes, I love anything made of rubber." He nodded his head. "Looking at you, I think I'm beginning to like it too."
Marlene said: "So, what do you say to using your big salon?"
He turned to her. "Very well. It's probably the best place." He was slightly disinclined, now that the moment had arrived, to leave the safety of the dining-room. He glanced round his table again at the five lovely girls who were going to thrash him, and his masochism overcame his fear. He said: "Let's move there, then-if you're ready."
"Have you still got that ladder?" asked Marlene.
"Yes," he said.
"Go and get it. And bring it to the salon. We'll be there waiting for you."
"A ladder?" said Margarete. "What for?"
Marlene smiled at her. "A ladder is a wonderful thing to tie a man to if you want to flog him and play with him a little, too."
3
The scene in the main salon half an hour later would have delighted the hearts of both the Marquis de Sade and the Baron Sacher-Masoch.
Per Petersen, stripped of all his clothes, was standing on the bottom rung of a three-metre-high ladder that leant against one of the walls. His legs were slightly open because his ankles were tightly bound to the sides of the ladder. His arms were stretched above his head, with his wrists tied, too, to the sides of the ladder. His testicles, still bound with the two lengths of cord, and his erected penis lay in the empty space between two of the rungs. He was silent because he had been gagged with Anna's panties.
On a piano-stool on the other side of the ladder sat Margarete. She held the ends of the two cords in her hands and pulled on them lightly but firmly as she put his penis in and out of her mouth. From time to time she lifted her hands tip to his breast, and scratched and squeezed his nipples with her long pointed fingernails. On the floor by her side were the instruments that she had bought that morning-a long whalebone riding-switch, a cruel-looking dogwhip, and a heavy leather razor-strop. She had not yet used any of them but she knew that a long evening was in front of them all and she was content to wait her turn. She had stripped herself down to her brassiere and panties.
It was Marlene now who was using one of her whips, a savage instrument made of two strips of leather with square edges. She had taken off all her clothes and put on her long black rubber cloak to protect her flesh from the blood which she knew would soon begin to fly. For the moment, she was whipping only his buttocks, as she usually did on her visits to him. She knew that he was not so much of a masochist as to take willingly a whipping across his back, but she also knew that such gentleness could not, in these circumstances, last for very long. With no fewer than four other girls ready and waiting to take her place, somebody was sure to become over-excited and start on his back. The thought occurred to her that when that happened it would be nobody's fault but his own. If he was so unwise as to fill his house with no fewer than five bloodthirsty women at the same time, he had it coming to him…