The post was planted dead centre in the yard. The girl bound to it faced the ranch house at a considerable distance. Behind her was the bam, the corrals, and to either side the sundry smaller structures, little used now since the acquisition of the other properties from which the crews now worked. Bitterly, she knew her solitary isolation had nothing to do with keeping her nakedness inviolate from prying eyes. There were no prying eyes, at least none who had not already seen her bare body many times. Quince and Etta did not count. If John Scanlon wanted to see her breasts and pubic hair he could use binoculars. Brooke Atherton knew he did this. Perhaps he was doing it now! She tried, irritably, to shift against the ropes, but there was no slack in them. There never was!
She expected to remain tied to the post until shortly before the evening meal. Scanlon enjoyed her company then and they would fall into the easy converse of social equals. She would have readied herself for the occasion in something of her own choosing or of Scanlon' s dictation. He had provided her with a varied wardrobe, but there were times when he insisted on her nudity. Brooke Atherton was no longer shocked or much dismayed by his erotic cruelties. John Scanlon was as much a fact of her life as were the sawtooth outline of the mountains on the horizon. He must inevitably die, but while he lived he was as immutable a force in this sparsely settled land as the rock itself. No ordinary man could contrive the relationship in which they lived. Again, she sought easement of the ropes, a change of hurt. Brooke Atherton did not expect to free herself, that was not possible. If she twisted out of every strand of rope she would finally be defeated by the handcuffs joining her wrists at the rear. The handcuffs were Scanlon's cynical assurance of no escape.
He surprised her by a demand for blue jeans and shirt. It was far from her own choice at dinner but was better than sitting through the meal naked. Nudity was apt to disturb Etta's handling of dishes and attention to instruction. The servant was either all eyes or hurried steps back to the kitchen. The girl's embarrassment amused Scanlon. Her own feelings did not count.
"Have a good day, Brooke?"
"So, so. I expect you can imagine--?"
"Not really. You tell me."
He loved the normalcy of this exchange, the undefined thesis that her binding to the post was unremarkable. Brooke Atherton accepted the role in which she had been cast. It made life easier. There was even a certain zest... ! She made her reply musingly casual.
"I wished Quince hadn't tied me so tight." She shrugged. "I suppose you told him to use the handcuffs, I hate the things... they take away my sporting chance. Trying to get loose is something to do--I know getting loose wouldn't change a thing. But I'd like to manage it sometime."
"Rope's rough on wrists."
"Thanks for caring." There was no sarcasm in Brooke Atherton's even tone. "My next sensation was wishing I was not naked." She waved away his retort. "Sure, sure, I know it's part of the deal! But you asked me to tell you about my day. The next thing was wishing you'd let Etta tie me--or do it yourself. Quince gawps. He doesn't do anything, but he's obsessed with my breasts and pubic hair. I know he's simple but if he's anyway potent the sight of me naked must be driving him crazy."
"Don't worry about Quince. He's O.K."
"That's about the end of the drama. After he'd gawped and refused to loosen any knots I tried to loosen some myself--some sort of animal instinct, I suppose. When I became certain I couldn't, my real day began. I watched Quince go away, as far as I was able. Then I took in the view. As usual, it made me feel very small and very naked." She paused before adding. "I wasn't going anywhere, so I did some thinking... mostly about us--"
"Had a call from Sam Bristow." It was as though Brooke Atherton had not been speaking, or he had not heard. "They want me in the Senate."
"Good! You belong there."
"You know I won't go."
"Yes. I know." She pursed her lips in vexation. "Because of me. John, I'm not worth it, nor is Atherton Acres."
"You'd make a good Senator's wife, Brooke. You and me together... the White House could be up ahead?"
"John, I'm not good for you. I hold you back. Your revenge on Dad, Atherton Acres... the whole Atherton feud ! It's robbing you more than you rob me."
"I'd take you a long way, Brooke."
"I'm not so sure. The whole country thinks I'm your Mistress."
"There's precedents for that."
Her voice was bitter: "Why don't you whip me until I agree to marriage?"
"You want to salve your pride." He grunted wisely. "That would get you home free."
She looked across the table. Brooke Atherton held no illusions about her ageless and craggily handsome companion. John Scanlon was a rock, a power, a force. He would make a marvelous President. There was a strength... ! Yet, he had an Achilles' heel--herself! Reasonably, she complained: "You have me whipped often enough. I know it does something for you--and I bargained for it. You sentence me to a certain number of felon's strokes as though you were a judge and I a convict. Goodness knows, I scream enough ! I've never understood why you don't break me?"
"Not my way. You'll come properly or stay as you are."
There was no acrimony in their discussion. They were dealing in known facts, understood and oft' repeated. The girl got grim satisfactions out of their incredible relationship, wondering how much of it was her own fault, how much John Scanlon's pride. Idly, she pursued a point.
"John, I've never really understood how you assess me. You won't break me with a whip, but suppose you do break me with... with... well, this endless succession of humiliations? What's the difference?"
"I'm a sadist."
"No you're not. I think you see me as a prerequisite of conquest. The Romans chained a captive queen behind a chariot for all to see. You've done the same with me, except no one sees my chains."
Scanlon grunted approval. "So, you've a captive Queen! I like it."
She frowned at his impregnability, glimpsing how nearly a captive woman could become a wife. "That's what I mean. You get too much pleasure out of me. I hold you back." Brooke Atherton allowed her mind to rove a familiar path. "Suppose I sell you Atherton Acres? Will you give me the money and let me go?"
"The Acres are only half of it. You know that, Brooke." She knew! John Scanlon would take a dead enemy's land, but ego demanded the enemy's daughter too. She wondered why she could not hate him more. The fine bright hatred she had felt in the first days and months of this strange captivity had been diluted by their ability to communicate. Their understanding of each other had forged a bond unaffected by cruelty. Abruptly, she changed the subject.
"Do you want me in bed tonight, John?"
"Why d'you ask?"
"There's no profit in talking about those other things. We never get anywhere. I'm not sure why I asked." She grinned deprecatingly. "It's not as though I have other offers."
"You're bored."
"With my life. Not with you." Brooke made a moue of disparagement. "I'm not going anywhere. I suppose that's my trouble"
"Yes, I want you in bed." It was an order, "but you'll sleep on the floor."
"Chained?"
"By your ankle. That answer your question?"
"I suppose so, and thank you."
Scanlon grinned, his gaze searching. "Bitchy, eh! Get yourself some splinters off that post?"
"No I didn't." Brooke sniffed disdainfully. "Not that I wasn't up against it long enough." She sniffed again.
She sniffed again. "You know how I hate being made to sleep on the floor after we've made love."
"That's why you're going to do it."
"Oh sure, part of my treatment. Rub the haughty heiress in the dust." She smiled without rancour. "A woman can be damn good and bored when she's tied to a post all day, but she won't be bored with you. You know all the places where she hurts."
Scanlon nodded. He sat back for Etta to remove his plate. Whimsically, he looked up at the serving girl, his drawl studiously casual. "When dinner's finished, have Quince come here."
Brook Atherton sat very still. She instantly knew! Resentfully, she demanded. "Just because I said I was bored?"
"There's no better cure."
It was understood she would not plead. She had done so once, but those times were long ago. Inwardly she was palpitating but she ate dessert with seeming unconcern. They spoke of other things, ignoring the knowledge she was going to be whipped.
"Twenty strokes, Quince."
"Yes, Mr. Scanlon. For sure."
"Miss Atherton will accompany you of her own free will. That right, Brooke?"
"Yes."
The curt affirmative and the free will were not the least of her hurt, both were vulnerable chinks in Brooke Atherton's armour. Hating every moment and every step, she strode with the amiable Quince towards the bam. She knew what awaited her, and she knew Quince's enjoyment. His fatuous features beamed goodwill and satisfaction.
"Real nice of you not to give no trouble, Miss Atherton "
"I think so too, Quince. You can go easy on me."
"Gosh, you know I can't, Miss. You gets it right."
"Alright, Quince, so I get it right. I know." Brooke made a point of being nice to the two servants. Their loyalty to Scanlon was complete. If she could make them like her it was best to leave their simple mental processes undisturbed by hostility.
"You real nice lady, Miss Atherton." Quince was sincerely admiring. "The Boss, he thinks a lot of you. Sure does pleasure me when he tells me to whip your ass." He paused, puzzled. "How come you don't make no fuss no more?"
"It didn't do me any good, Quince, so why bother."
"Gosh, you got so much sense, Miss Atherton. How come you don't marry the Boss? He think the world o' you?"
"I don't want to get married."
"If you was married you might not get whipped the way you do now, Miss."
"Are you sure, Quince? I'd probably get whipped a lot more."
Quince's concern was sincere, his puzzlement in her seeming light heartedness was genuine. But it was best not to tax his reasoning powers beyond the obvious. Hastily, she added, "Your sister whips me real well when she gets the job, Quince. Etta's good at it. She likes doing it to me same as you do."
"You sure got a lovely body, Miss. Etta and me, we both gets a big kick outta' whippin' you, anyways at all. How come Mister Scanlon lets us whip you instead o' doin' it hisself?"
"It's to humble my pride, Quince. I expect I deserve it."
"But I'd have thought he'd have wanted to watch. You sure do kick real pretty when you's hurtin'."
"Probably he would like to. But he wants me to think he can't be bothered." She essayed a brief chuckle. "I guess he thinks women should be kept in their place. Never let 'em get to uppity."
"You mean, you get's uppity, Miss Atherton." Quince sounded shocked. "I wouldn't never have thought so"
"I think being uppity is why I have to be whipped now." They had reached the barn. Its familiar interior banished concern about being uppity or anything else but the business in hand.
"Want me in the usual place, Quince?"
"Guess so. Less'n you got a better idea?"
"You have to hang me up, don't you? Otherwise I'd a lot sooner have my hands tied to one of the uprights. I'd be helpless...?"
"Sorry, Miss."
Brooke Atherton shrugged. She would never argue. Instead, she asked: "Am I supposed to be naked this time?"
"Not right off, Miss. Now, if you'll stick out your hands--?"
Evidently she was to receive a double dose of shame. Bristow's phone call had put Scanlon into an irritable mood, and she was the whipping girl. Brooke Atherton watched the familiar process of making her helpless by the typing of her hands. Quince was good at it. But it was not until she was stretched taut, wrists biting under the cords, and her toes a foot from the straw, that the full enormity of what was being done to her became real.
"You sure looks pretty, Miss Atherton, hanging that-away'."
"Thanks, Quince. I don't feel a bit pretty."
She watched him select the riding crop with which she would be beaten. Its slender cruelty held the familiarity of old acquaintance. Her blush as Quince fumbled at her belt was another tried and true reaction. There would have been far less mortification in being naked than in what was being done.
"I gotta' drag your pants down, Miss Atherton."
"Of course." Her blush deepened.
"Down round your knees, Miss. Then pin up your shirt."
"I'd sooner you dragged my pants right off, Quince. They look silly... just sagging."
"Sorry, Miss."
Quince had two safety pins. They too were old friends. He used one to raise her shirt at the rear to bare her bottom for the crop, the second was unnecessarily employed in front to proclaim her public hair. The beaming executioner pulled down her panties to join the rumpled jeans. His subject was now ready for her punishment.
"You got the sweetest round ass, Miss Atherton. It's surely just made for this here lovely ridin' crop Mister Scanlon buys special for you."
"Thanks, Quince. Guess I'm just lucky."
It was beastly, hateful, utterly shaming. It was the Prelude! In the space between Brooke Atherton's raised shirt and her disordered blue jeans and briefs her female-ness was bared to view. Her pubic bush screaming for attention while the ripe curves of her bottom protruded in frank and blushing enticement to the whip. She could have wept for departed dignity and because Quince should see her so untidily and carnally exposed.
"You've got the nicest little cunt, Miss Atherton."
"Don't call it that, Quince. Call it my pussy. D'you mind."
"Hell no. That's what Etta calls hers. Seems sorta' silly. Them things ain't got nothin' to do with cats. I bet the Boss he fucks it a lot, eh?"
Brooke Atherton's wrists were hurting. She knew herself in shameful disarray. She was hanging in a bam waiting to be shipped on her bare skin. But still, the niceties of conversation must be maintained. However, she tried to sidestep a dangerous topic. "Shouldn't you start whipping me, Quince?"
"We got lots'a time, Miss Atherton. I was askin' you 'bout getting fucked?"
"Yes sure, of course I do. But I don't think Mr. Scanlon wants me to talk about it."
"Huh, no I suppose he don't. Pity mine ain't no good. I'd love to stick it inside under all that hair."
"Never mind, Quince. You have all the fun of whipping me instead."
"Never thought o' it thataway. Well... how's this!"
As usual, the pain of the first stroke was sickening, making Brooke Atherton certain she could never bear the remaining nineteen. She kicked and lunged, hoping her lower garments would fall off to the floor. This time she would try not to scream. Quince's second slash at her bare skin sent her to swinging on her rope like a puppet on a string. She moaned in a heartbroken desolation of hopelessness. Eighteen more like that... ! It was just not possible... !
"You're a'comin' up with the prettiest marks, Miss." Brooke moaned in reply. "Yes... I bet. Oh, Quince, do you really have to hit me this hard? It's awful."
"Sure do. But they ain't all that hard, Miss. Look, I'll rub 'em for you, real gentle. That alius' helps. The rest will come easier."
She had no choice but to endure the pain of his rough hands in intimacy across her weals. Perhaps he meant well. She dared not seem ungrateful. "Thanks, Quince. You're kind. If only you didn't have to hit me so hard."
But the next stroke was every bit as wicked. Brooke Atherton gasped her way through three more before there came a pause. Grappling with pain, the whipped girl realized her pants were inside out over the shoes. She kicked at their hobbling untidiness.
"Seein' as they bothers you so much--"
Quince bent and relieved the suspended semi-nudity of the offensive gear, taking her shoes along with the rest so as to leave her bare from her navel down. "Sorta' see what you mean, Miss, you looks a lot more purty."
"Thanks, Quince. You're a dear."
"Why's your pussy sorta' dampish, Miss Atherton?"
"I didn't know it was. I can't see down there, and I don't have any hands. Never mind about it."
Quince minded. Quince's hand explored. He held up the evidence. "See. I bet its got somethin' to do with getting your ass whipped."
"I expect it has. Don't bother about it, Quince."
"You want me to start whippin' you again?"
"Yes please."
The shamed girl was at the stage in her punishment when she longed only to have done with it. The strokes of the crop were bad enough without having to cope with Quince's carnal curiosity. She swung and bucked under the vicious impacts until a misplaced slash across her hip extracted a spontaneous squeal "Sorry 'bout that, Miss. Sure was a cute noise you made."
"Please, Quince... ? Not over my hips? That one was awful. I bet the skin's cut. It will bleed."
"Well... I guess, sorta'. You won't bleed all that much though. I'll watch not to hit there again. Say, Miss Atherton, think you could make some more o' them noises?"
It was not hard. Brooke Atherton greeted each cut on her flesh with a cry of anguish. None were feigned. They were actually a relief. In the presence of this simple soul who was whipping her they bore no shame. Had he been John Scanlon she would have bitten her tongue to keep mute. At the next pause she asked, wanly, "How many more?"
"I plumb forgot, Miss. Wasn't you countin'?"
Brooke had a hysterical desire to laugh. But she was to helpless for it to be a matter for laughter. Twenty strokes was a bad enough punishment without any extra. "I hurt so much I wasn't keeping track." She admitted. "I hurt so bad I could believe I've had fifty."
"You ain't had no fifty. What say we settle for another have dozen?"
"Five? Oh, Quince, I hurt so bad. Please... just five?"
"O.K. Five."
He was uncertain, a trifle aggrieved, ruffled. As a result the last five strokes across Brooke's bare bottom were the hardest yet. Quince was going to make sure she got her pain. Brooke's screams were terribly sincere.
"Sorry I couldn't keep quiet. You really got to me."
"Do I whip you real good, Miss Atherton, I ain't ever quite sure?" Quince was absurdly anxious for approval.
They were on their way back to the Ranch house. Quite probably he thought she would report his prowess with the riding crop to the man under whose authority they both lived. "I always think I go too easy on you because I think you're a real nice lady."
"Don't ever whip me any harder." She begged. "I'm hurting right now still under my panties as we walk. I shouldn't have put them on. I hope you don't have to whip me again for a long time."
"What you have to do to get yourself a whippin', Miss Atherton? You get lippy, or somethin'?"
"Yes, that's mostly how I get myself whipped." Brooke felt expansive and euphoric now her stripes were safely lodged in her flesh. "But Mr. Scanlon's the Boss, y'know, he doesn't have to have reasons. He can have me whipped whenever he likes."
"You sure are lucky he likes you, Miss Atherton."
"I expect I am, Quince." Brooke paused in one of the momentary flashes of amusement the "J Bar S" provided. "Thanks for walking me back. I guess I'll see you tomorrow when you tie me up." She stood, watching him depart. A hand stole back to feel her wound through the fabric of the jeans now belted and in place. She sighed. This was simply one more time. She had been whipped. So what! Slowly, she turned to the House and to the waiting man. "Sore ass?"
She knew what to do. Standing with her back to John Scanlon she loosened her belt and pushed her nether garments down to her knees. For Scanlon's added convenience she bent forward, holding the shaming posture while he explored her ridged flesh with experienced fingers. He did it hard enough to make her wince.
"Quince does a pretty fair job."
"He's conscientious. He thinks you're a deity."
"Hurt?"
"Horribly. I think he gives me all he's got. He made me scream."
"Good. He ever get sexual?"
"Only by way of curiosity. He says he's impotent."
"O.K. You can button up."
"That dates you. Girls don't have buttons now."
"But they still have their ass." He signed. "Brooke, you're right. You're under my skin. I'd sooner look at that red and purple rump of yours than anything else I know."
"I'm a vice. Get rid of me. For you, I'm worse than a narcotic."
Scanlon gestured sardonically. "Where else would I get a girl I can talk to like this a few minutes after I've had her ass striped with a riding crop?"
"You could train one. You've trained me."
"I might train her backside. Maybe I trained yours. But I can't train her mind. You brought your mind to the "J Bar S" along with your derriere."
"I didn't bring anything. You brought me."
"I got lucky. I thought I was getting the herd, with your tossed in as a bonus."
"John, I wasn't tossed in. I did not come. You captured me." Brooke tossed her head in vexation. "Captured is not the best possible word for what you did to me, but I can't think of another. Kidnapped isn't right, and conquered is too damn heroic as though I was an Amazon Queen instead of the daughter of a man you ruined."
Scanlon nodded approvingly. "You see what I mean. Another girl would be whimpering and watching what she said after getting her seat attended to the way yours is. But you revert to being Brooke Atherton immediately the last stroke beats out your last scream."
"I can't help being articulate. I didn't know it was that rare in women."
"It is. Believe it."
"So, O.K., I'm an articulate concubine. What are you going to have done to me tomorrow? Quince can hardly wait."
John Scanlon, the owner of an Empire and of the J Bar S picked his slavegirl up and carried her to their bed. It was an explosive coupling and they both knew why. Ruefully, Brooke Atherton wondered why he did not have her whipped more often. With equal whimsy she was ready for his command.
"Out on the floor, bitch."
Brooke could have clasped the waiting shackle on her ankle herself. She had often done so. But she extended her foot and watched his decisive theft of her liberty. Naked, she reclined on the rug. This was not a punishment. It was nothing new. With Scanlon's first snore she turned her thoughts within herself. For a little while before she slept she would re-live the strangest slavery of all.
CHAPTER TWO - PLAYTHING
She had been younger then, vivid with hate. The tally of the herd had been complete. They faced each other in what she supposed was a parting. She signed the manifest, took her receipt. Her father's herd was gone, the drovers with it. She and John Scanlon were alone in her father's house.
"Call it even by the board, eh?"
"If you're satisfied. You can kill me before I'll part with the land."
It was not so long ago but she seemed so young, so naive. The naked girl chained on the floor of John Scanlon's bedroom looked back in compassion at a girl who bore her name.
"You can't stay here alone?"
"I said good-bye." Frost tinged her dismissal.
"I'll buy Atherton Acres?"
"Ill see you in hell first. Even to her then the declaration had sounded theatrically dramatic.
Scanlon nodded, intent, amused, deadly. "You don't have even a yearling heifer to start a herd, Brooke?"
"I'll manage."
"You'll starve. Or some man's going to pick you up. You're vulnerable, Brooke. You're a catch for a roving cowboy."
"Please leave. I don't need John Scanlon's advice." She put all the hauteur she could summon into the dismissal.
"Marry me."
The chained girl on the floor could laugh now at the shattering affect the proposal had dealt, and at her retort.
"I'd sooner die! I suppose you want to get Atherton Acres?"
"You first. The Acres second."
"Drop dead!"
She still cringed at how easily John Scanlon had taken her. It was as though he had selected a few items around the house and tied them tight with string. Raging, she had faced him in fury, her hands tugging at his cords behind her back.
"You son-of-a-bitch! Are you crazy!"
Scanlon did not deign to reply. He watched, amused, while she struggled and blushed.
"Let me loose! You bastard, who d'you think you are!" Still, he did not speak. Not until she pantingly ceased to twist and pull at her captured hands. They faced each other, a scarlet faced girl and a rock hard man.
"I'll take you home with me, Brooke."
Brooke Atherton sensed the finality of his decision. But she flashed her answer. "I am home. Go away and leave me alone." Lamely, she added, "You'd best untie me first."
"Suppose I leave you tied?"
"I'll manage. I'm not a roped calf."
They faced each other: opposing forces. Scanlon shrugged and went out to his horse. Brooke used the time to struggle in the complete conviction that, somehow, she could free her hands. When the man returned he carried a plaited leather lariat with which he noosed her neck and led her fighting footsteps from her house.
"You can't do this, Scanlon! It's kidnapping, abduction!"
"I'll send someone over to clean up and lock up. They'll bring your things."
"My things stay right where they are. I don't need--"
The lariat had tightened. Following its compulsion, Brooke Atherton left her home and followed her captor's horse out into the dust of the trail. The noose on her throat cured her feet of their determination to drag. "You can get a lifetime in jail for doing this," she declared without conviction.
"You can phone the Sheriff later."
"This isn't funny, and it won't change my mind about a thing. You don't get the Acres and you don't get me."
"I've already got you."
It was hard to sound convincing when facing the hind end of a horse and the back of a man. Besides, she had to watch her steps to save her neck. For the time being Brooke Atherton forgot her bound hands and, seething with a dozen negative emotions, followed where John Scanlon led. She had tried threats and she had tried cajoling. Both had fallen on deaf ears.
"Do you have to treat me this brutally?"
"D'you realize I can fall over and get my neck broken?"
"This is theatrical nonsense. Let me loose!"
Brooke Atherton's view remained uncommunicative. She did a quick estimate of distance. Seven miles to the "J Bar S!" That meant two hours at least as a hot and angry captive on a leash. Sweat and dust would make her increasingly unlovely.
"If you call this off right now I can walk back home, and we'll say no more about it--?"
"If I was hard to deal with before, I'll be twice as difficult after this."
"Scanlon... Suppose someone sees us... ? We'll be laughed at forever."
And then, the most pathetic of all: "Scanlon, what are you going to do to me?"
The leashed girl trudging behind the horse realized how little she knew of this man who had bound and stolen her. John Scanlon's granite exterior might hide blood as hot as any man's. He saw her as a prize, his prerequisite in her father's defeat and death. He had offered her marriage. Her scorn of it might, in his estimation, justify a physical conquest of her maidenhead by force. She supposed it could technically be called rape. But such a term with such a man sounded absurd. John Scanlon had no more need to rape a girl then to steal pennies. He was probably taking her under the same compulsion which drove him to acquire Atherton Acres.
It took most of the seven mile of prairie to convince the leashed girl she could not free her hands. Brooke Atherton had never in her whole life been bound. It was incomprehensible that a bit of rope round her wrists could render her so utterly helpless. She became increasingly aware of her breasts, they were hidden by no more than a cotton dress and a bra. Her pubic bush sent stray fronds curling beyond the confines of her briefs. A ruthless male hand could bare both these secrets while her own feminine hands tugged in futile helplessness at cords. Without hands, she felt open and exposed. It was a new sensation, an extreme extension of the eternal male-female assessment of possibilities. Brooke Atherton was frighteningly aware of her body and the lure it held for men.
They stopped at the creek. Brooke drank gratefully, omitting thanks. With equal appreciation, she sat on the grass. She felt untidy and silly and without words potent enough to matter. He captor viewed her with an amusement faintly paternal.
"Ill brand you tomorrow, Brooke. The full "J Bar S". For moments she froze, even her breathing stopped as she contemplated the enormity of what he had said. She could not believe he would do it. But to put his brand on her skin was an act in keeping with all his other ruthlessness. Brooke's tied wrists told her how easily he could do it. "You wouldn't dare. I'd only have to show it--"
"And I'd tell 'em it was something you begged for."
"Who'd believe a girl would ask to be branded?"
"More than you'd think, Brooke." Scanlon's eyes glinted. "Your choice. You could have had a marriage certificate."
"The certificate would give you the Acres; branding me won't."
He shrugged. "Five years from now you'll look back and laugh at yourself as a silly adolescent."
"I'm not an adolescent."
"You've got all the noble gestures."
"Walking behind your horse with a rope round my neck should cure me of everything you disapprove of. I wish you'd untie my hands? I still couldn't run away."
"Your hands stay tied. But I'll put you on the horse for the rest of the trip."
"Don't bother! I'd sooner walk than share a horse with you."
"Not a day over fifteen. You'll learn."
She had never been so ill used or felt at such a disadvantage. Brooke Atherton was seeing herself as increasingly feminine, more and more helpless, and in the grip of a force she had underestimated and could not control. She was not an adolescent but she had the urge of a small girl to shed tears and kick shins. Rebelliously she spat: "I suppose you'll torture me to make me sign papers?"
"You'd enjoy the martyrdom."
Seething in frustration, and not a little fear, the captive girl obeyed the noose on her neck and followed horse and man for the rest of the journey to the "J Bar S." Nothing further was said about putting her on the horse. She wished she had been less heroic.
Brooke knew her captor's domestic menage. The isolation of his ranch house, the loyalty of Etta and Quince. She could expect no help from either. It was like walking into a cage. Weariness made it easy to be sulky while she was disposed of like an addition to the herd. Quince took the horse and a few curt instructions. His shallow eyes were curious but he said no word. It was Etta who received the order that mattered.
"Take her to the pumphouse and hose her down. Then bring her to the house." Scanlon strode away without looking back.
Etta controlled her easily. What use to fight! Brooke allowed herself to be led to a shock she had not yet guessed. But when the lariat was passed over a hook in the wall and tightened to give her only a couple of feet of tether the servant girl's bland statement left nothing in doubt.
"I take your clothes, Miss Atherton."
Each tom strap was an outrage Brooke refused to plead but bore each indignity with an air of martyrdom and pitifully accusing stares at the enraptured girl who was stripping her naked.
"You very pretty, Miss Atherton." Etta admired her work from Brooke's hair down to Brooke's toes. "I get soap, I get towels, I get something pretty."
Brooke Atherton stood naked, tethered and bound in a ranch pumphouse. She was not alone for long. Quince provided a polite and appreciative audience.
"I never seen a girl like you naked 'afore, Miss Atherton. You sure got some mighty purty parts."
It was a first for Brooke too, but she did not tell him so. The amiable Quince was only one part of a phantasmagoria of impossibilities hammering at her bound beauty in swift succession, But her retort was swift and casual. "Thanks, Quince. You can untie my hands now. Etta forgot." She turned and wriggled her prisoned wrists.
"You ask Etta 'bout that. I don't know. How 'bout you turn back round again. I likes your front parts best."
She turned. Why not! It was something she had best get used to. Scanlon's cruelties would not all be physical. She and Quince stared at each other in a blushing silence until Etta returned.
"You get outta' here, Quince. You not supposed to see."
"I already seen. Don't do no harm."
"Guess you won't mind that much, Miss Atherton?" Etta picked up the hose."
"Cold water? Straight out of the well...?" Brooke was aghast.
"Thass right, Miss Atherton. I hose you good."
No hands! She had no hands! Brooke tore desperately at her corded wrists as the icy jet struck her between her breasts. She gasped in shock, she gasped in indignity as the wet weapon sought her most private parts and she was tersely ordered to 'turn around' or 'sideways now' or 'spread them pretty legs'. But once used to the cold she was glad of the wash. She postured her nudity in docile acceptance of Etta's hands and Etta's soap. Even her hair was soaped and laved. The servant girl scornfully rejected her brother's offer of aid. When the towels came they were expensively comforting, but it was Etta's hands that used them. Brooke's remained tied behind her back, and no amount of blandishment could get them loosed. Etta was firm and disapproving. "You supposed to be tied, Miss Atherton, so you stay tied for sure."
Brooke was dubious of the cotton print and the pins. "Why can't I be properly dressed, Etta?"
"You be glad o' this here print, Miss Atherton. I bring it myself. The Boss, he say don't bother."
Etta's hands were deft as they tucked and pinned.
Brooke's breasts were the anchor for a flimsy sheath endowed with symmetry by a ribbon round her waist. When she stood alone, and thus attired, before the man whose captive she had become, her accusation was obvious: "It must be the thrill of your life, John Scanlon, the captive heiress securely bound at your mercy. Now you've enjoyed it, can we stop playing games?"
Scanlon left his desk and took the lariat from her neck. "Shouldn't need that." He judged heavily. "You'll learn to come to heel without a leash."
"Like a dog."
"Have it your way." His scrutiny made her trebly aware of nakedness beneath the cotton. "I'm keeping you. Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't?"
"It's against my will. It's against the Law."
"O.K. Can you think of any good reason why I can't get away with it?"
B Brooke's mind flitted back and forth like a caged bird. There should be a hundred reasons, but she could think of none that would stand up under Scanlon's derision. He must have carefully thought out her abduction over a long time. She was his! "Alright, so you've got me prisoner." She admitted resentfully. "Where does that get us?"
Scanlon vouchsafed a brief grin. His response was cautiously reasoned. "In fiction it would get you into my bed and give me a chance to thrash some nonsense out of you. Under the coercion of more pain then you could handle you'd sign over The Acres."
"Alright, that's fiction. What's for real?"
"Can't see much difference."
Her breasts heaved. He could do it. But would he do it! The change in her condition over the past few hours was incredible and hard to stomach. But she could not bluff, she held no cards. But she did have anger: "Raped, whipped and tortured! Is that what I get at the "J Bar S"?"
"Maybe no more than you need, Brooke." Scanlon resumed his chair, chose and lighted a cigar. "You'll get the first two, the other doesn't appeal. What I do see is something we're both designed for. It's one of those notions men have. Mostly they die, you'll make mine live."
"While you thrill me can I have my hands untied and be allowed to sit down?"
"Stay as you are." He blew a smoke ring and watched it dissolve; "You'll remain here as a prisoner. Every day there will be something done to you you're not going to like. But the two of us will enjoy formal dining, it's a weakness of mine. As a break for you, and so we may be seen together, I'll take you around. You'll come with me to the City "With my hands tied and a noose round my neck?"
"Mmmmmmm, you'll see."
"Is this a case of the deflowered maiden losing her will?"
"If the role fits, play it." Carelessly, he relinquished the cigar and removed Etta's pins and Etta's sheath. When he returned to the desk he scrutinized Brooke Atherton's breast heaving nakedness with approval. "Nice. No disappointment. You'll be more comfortable naked. You'll know where you're at."
Flushed and furious, Brooke spat at him: "I'd have thought you'd paid enough whores to satisfy your curiosity about what we girls look like under our clothes. Do I have to stand here to be stared at?"
"Yes."
"What's to stop me laying on the rug, face down?"
"If you do, I'll hang you up by your ankles and have a real good look. Figure it."
She could figure it easily. She could also believe he would do it. Everything happening emphasized her thralldom. Bitterly, she conceded. "Very well, I'll stand and stick my breasts out for you, I'm damned if I'll cover and cross my legs. It's just one more humiliation for me. You're racking up quit a score."
"Curious about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?" Scanlon spared her a grin. "... Or tonight?"
"Curious, scared. I don't want to know." Brooke Atherton lowered her voice. "Can't you understand how bad a time I'm having to stay away from hysterics." Her breath quickened. "I'm looking at what you've done to me, and at what you may still do. It's not pretty." She twisted her shoulders against her bound hands. "I have to try and guess how much of all this is real and how much fake. It's hard to believe you'll run the risk of keeping me prisoner forever. Maybe scaring the daylights out of me is your idea of fun?"
"Keep going, Brooke." He sounded interested in her reasoning.
"Alright then!" She was in the full stride of resentment, a resentment still tinged with faint hope. "You'll make me your concubine, Mistress, Leman, odalisque... All those lovely names for girls who don't own their own bodies. Or do you want me as a slave kneeling by your chair?"
"Continue."
Brooke took a deep breath. "Your ego's in there somewhere. You'll make me pander to it. I can imagine you using me as a whipping girl--the price of beef goes down, so I get a whipping to ease your feelings?"
"Best yet. Don't stop."
"You'll do something beastly to me every day to boost your pride and crush mine." She glowered. "As for taking me out and around, that's to feed your ego too. But you know damn well what I'll do the first time I get untied."
"O.K., you stay tied."
"Don't turn my own words against me. It's not fair. You're making all the rules."
Scanlon drained his voice of banter. It became serious. "You've figured all you need to figure for now, Brooke.
You've got a high I.Q. But there's a point you may have missed."
"You mean the Iron Maiden and the Rack?"
"In a way, yes. Those two aren't going to happen, but do you realize how you and I can talk about such things. If you're scared, you don't show it. You're a naked girl with tied hands but you still talk to me as an equal. You've lost everything except your ability to communicate."
"You mean, you want me to do a Scheherazade? Keep you amused?"
"Yes."
"What happens to me on the thousand and second night when my throat gets dry? Impalement?"
"See what I mean? You're diverting."
"Which means I can't win. Being ME simply gives you points."
"You've paid yourself a compliment. I second it." He nodded, pleased. "You've reasoned yourself well enough along. I need not add more now. The next step in your education is to be raped."
She became vivid with fear... unsure! "You wouldn't! Me with my hands tied? It's out of character--"
"A job to be done. We can call it something else next time."
He meant it! In sudden desperation Brooke Atherton looked quickly around the room. But to run would demean her more; he would catch her easily. She let herself go limp, but said: "I have to ask you. Please don't do it."
"I should carry you, but I won't. I like the idea of your walking to meet the loss of your own virginity. You first, go ahead."
The final shame! But was anything ever final for a captive girl? Her body offered endless scope for mortification, endless tomorrows. The girl with tied hands walked slowly to the stairs .-- But half way up both spirit and flesh rebelled. She chose her stair and sat on it defiantly. "Fm damned if I'm going to walk to it, Scanlon. You'll have to use force."
He carried her and tossed her on the bed. His strength was frightening. "Want me to tie your feet apart?"
"No, never mind." She lay on her bound arms and spread her legs wide for him. Her summation was bitter: "This is a damn poor first time...!"
"Quiet!"
It was a command. Brooke had given her body to her conqueror in resentful silence. John Scanlon had been surprisingly gentle. His expertise was unknown to her then: She knew it now. The loss of Brooke Atherton's maidenhead under his lovemaking lasted a long, long time. But she could not gauge that either. All she knew was her gradual loss of fear. It was replaced by something else she could not name. Tethered on the rug for the night, Brooke wept. But the tears were not for lost virginity.
* * *
The girl with shackled ankle grinned ruefully at the memory of her first night beside her conqueror's bed. There had been no shackle then: the shackle had come later along with other refinements for her subjugation. Her hands had remained tied behind her back and the now familiar noose prisoned her throat and led to the massive post of the bed. It was fastened high enough to be beyond the reach of questing fingers or sharp teeth. She had not tried to free herself it was hopeless and only hurt her wrists. She slept. In the morning Miss Brooke Atherton made her first acquaintance with the whip.
Breakfast was Brooke's first glimpse of John Scanlon's concept. Etta had freed her neck from the noose and, surprisingly, untied her hands. Totally free of bonds, she was left alone with the bathroom and the injunction to attend breakfast in thirty minutes.
Her first instinct was flight. But how and where? Rope was not the only bond by which a girl was held. Curious and vividly aware, she bathed, donned the cotton sheath Etta had left draped across a chair, and went downstairs. It felt distinctly odd to have her hands. The rope weals were like a pair of bracelets.
She was a guest, no longer captive. Scanlon talked, soon she talked too. Brooke discovered she could become animated with him over shared concerns. Their time in bed was ignored. Lingering over coffee, Scanlon killed her hope of a return to normalcy.
"Glad you didn't go leaping over the prairie, Brooke."
"What would you have done if I had?"
"Ridden you down. Brought you back at rope's end." She sighed. A door had closed. "This has been nice." She said wistfully. "Our talking... breakfast." She held up a wealed wrist. "I even have bracelets. Thank you." Scanlon nodded. "Damned effective. A woman needs to be marked, it's her best adornment. You get whipped this morning."
He had dropped the statement like a small unobtrusive bomb. The girl wanted to believe she had not heard. But Scanlon's casual words hung in the air between them like a thundercloud. Heart pounding, but in an even voice Brooke ventured. "I'd like to believe you don't mean... what you've just said. But I think you do."
"Ten strokes."
It was totally unreal, incongruous. She felt her way: "I'm trying to take this seriously. It's not easy. Am I supposed to see some significance in the number you mentioned?"
"It's small. Breaks you in easy."
"I'm supposed to be grateful?"
"If I raised it to twenty, would you be grateful to get it back down to ten?"
"Yes, I see what you mean." She paused hesitantly. "I've never been whipped."
"Every woman should be whipped once." He frowned. "That's not Male Chauvinism. In five years time you'll understand what I mean."
"It seems a pointless cruelty."
"It's something you need. That's why I'm having it done this morning."
"Having it done--?"
"You don't suppose I'm going to do your punishing, do you! I've got servants."
Another fine subtlety of shame. Whipped by a servant, and without cause. Brooke saw her new condition taking shape, and shrank from what she saw. She was a child against this man's omnipotence. "You mean, Etta will...?"
"Not Etta. Quince."
Brooke did not demur or ask for mercy. Scanlon would see such a peal as irrelevant. Instead, she asked: "When docs this happen?"
"Anytime. Finish your coffee."
"Is there a... procedure?"
Scanlon grinned, reading her disquiet. "No. No fanfare or trumpets. You and I can be civilized: that's a quality I value in you. You'll simply walk to the bam and ask Quince to whip you. He knows what to do."
She allowed it to sink in before complaining. "It's clever. You've thought this out. I ought to explode, become hysterical, run for my life instead of going meekly to the bam to get myself whipped." In mute distaste she viewed her options. "But it seems I'm not going to do any of those things."
"Didn't figure you would."
"I'm puzzled why you don't inflict something really beastly on me and call it quits--let me go?"
"Let's say I'm bored. I'm making you a way of life."
"What about your cherished revenge?"
"It's in there. Adds spice."
Brooke Atherton signed, deflated. She suspected such resignations would become familiar. Disgustedly, she asked: "Do you want me to go now?"
"Might as well."
Brooke took her time walking to the bam. She knew she was being played with in the way a clever fisherman gives line to a fish he is in no hurry to land. Scanlon would be watching from the house, probably hoping she would make a run for it. Riding down a fleeing girl would make fine sport for any man. She would refuse to play. She wished she could stem the rising tempo of her pulse as the bam loomed close. What she was doing was a miniature walk to the scaffold.
"Mornin', Miss Atherton."
"Hello, Quince. I guess we've got a job to do?"
"That's what the man said."
"Quince, I have to ask you to whip me. Mr. Scanlon said ten strokes."
"Right, Miss. Did he say where and what with?"
"He said a riding crop. As for where, I thought you did it to me right here in the barn?"
Quince guffawed. Here was humour he understood. Brooke blushed. She was going to have to use a word, and they were all wrong to be said aloud to Quince. Quince would call it whipping her ass. But an ass was a donkey. The British 'arse' was distasteful. Rumps were for horses. 'Derriere' would leave Quince baffled. Diffidently, she managed: "Ten strokes with a riding crop on my bottom."
"Be glad to oblige, Miss Atherton."
Again she had the terrible awareness of being naked under the shift, of helplessness and vulnerability, and of Quince's eyes. Striving to ignore nudity and shame, she said: "I've never done this before. How do we go about it?"
"Guess I ties yer' hands, Miss Atherton, and you stands on a box. When I takes the box away you'll be hangin' 'bout right."
"Hanging! But why?"
"Boss wants you thataway."
She crimsoned. "But I thought I'd bend over something. In fact, why can't I just bend over for you? There's no need to tie me...?"
Another guffaw. "You sure ain't bin' whipped, Miss! Believe me, you needs ter' be tied."
Brooke was willing to believe. She was sure she was about to suffer pain beyond bearing. To be tied might be merciful. But to be suspended like a side of beef! Unhappily, she watched her marked wrists once more wound in circlets of rope.
"I'll tie each hand well out, Miss Atherton, once you's up on the box."
"Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just tie my hands together and hang me up that way?"
"'Spose it would, Miss. 'Cept you'll be able to buck and twist."
"I don't mind if you don't."
Standing on the box and watching her firmly bound hands rise up above her head, Brooke wondered if she should not have kept quiet. She felt sure that hanging from her wrists would be no fun either way. When Quince took away the box she gasped in shock. It was another first, a bad one. Her shoulders and wrists both screamed in pained dismay. She strained her toes but they encountered only air.
"Works real good, Miss."
"I expect it does. Please whip me and get it over with." His fingers fumbled at her pins. The bound girl twisted furiously on her tether and implored: "There's no need to strip me, Quince."
"Boss says I gotta'."
"You can use one of the pins to tack the cotton up and uncover... the place you're going to whip."
Quince seemed not to hear. He took away the flowered sheath and admired what was not revealed. "You sure is nice without no clothes, Miss Atherton."
"Yes, I expect I am." She was sure she was one vast blush. "But please get on with the whipping. I want to be done with it. My wrists are hurting."
"Mind if I feel you a bit first, Miss Atherton?"
"Of course I mind, but I can't stop you."
"You can kick, Miss. I ain't tied your feet."
"I don't want to kick."
Brooke Atherton hung, nakedly passive, but fuming while homy hands explored her breasts, her mound and pubic bush, and discovered other interesting contours in which Quince found magic. She wondered, ashamed, if she would become used to this sort of thing in the life Scanlon had mapped for her. Quince's next comment was small solace.
"Too bad I can't fuck you, Miss Atherton, you sure is nice."
Brooke did not reply. She wanted only to be whipped. But even that wish was absurd. She would not ask again. Scanlon would be grimly smiling, guessing her predicament. "Mind if I stick my finger inside you, Miss Atherton?"
"I'd rather you didn't."
Quince's probing digit had to be endured. She dared not kick and struggle. Instead, she opened her thighs to avoid hurt. She was mortifyingly vulnerable.
"Guess I whips you now."
No prelude. No time to prepare. Only the sudden flash of fire across her cheeks, a fire so incandescent it encompassed her whole being in stomach turning agony. As the pain burned brightly, Brooke realized she was wildly kicking at nothing and writhing on her rope tether in a manner to demonstrate for sure a girl's need to be bound when she was whipped. She gasped in shock and moaned. "You can't hit me that hard, Quince. You mustn't. It's... It's...!"
He hit her again. Brooke screamed, certain it was worse.
She implored: "Oh no... No! Ohhhhhh, not again--"
He was spacing the cuts. The third explored new flesh. Quince paused to watch Brooke writhe and to allow her to scream and moan her way back to silence. "I'm--I'm sorry, Quince. I can't help it."
"Don't worry none, Miss Atherton. I'm likin' what yer' do."
"But the pain's so awful. Surely Mr. Scanlon doesn't want you to hit me this hard? Do you have to?"
"Ain't hittin' yer' hard at all, Miss. Just markin' yer up real pretty." He struck a sudden vicious stroke to take the suspended nudity into a new realm of shock. "See what I mean, Miss Atherton? Even that one wasn't hittin' yer all out."
Brooke sobbed in desolation, glimpsing how much she had to learn, wondering if she could ever manage not to scream at each stroke. Urgently, she explained; "That was only the fourth. I can't possibly stand six more."
"What yer' going' ter do 'bout it, Miss?"
"I can't do anything. Just don't hit me so hard... and my wrists are in agony."
Three more swift blows. Brooke screamed and screamed. But in the final peal of anguish there was a note of triumph. She was up to seven! Only three more... only three! Her scalded bottom was screaming for surcease.
"Ain't really all that bad, Miss Atherton, is it?"
"Yes, it is."
"You only got three more strokes."
"I wish you'd made them lighter?"
"I know you do, Miss. But it's Mister Scanlon I'm workin' for."
Scanlon was a deity. A girl could be stripped and whipped any time he said the word. In bitter determination to salvage something from her pain, Brooke Atherton gritted her teeth and managed not to scream while her flesh took the three remaining strokes to which it had been sentenced by a man who did not even bother to watch. "Gosh, Quince, it's good to be done with that."
"Bet it is, Miss. Specially seein' it's your first time. When you gets whipped again you'll feel better about it."
"I won't. It's awful!"
"Well, anyways, you got somethin' ter think on fer awhile."
Brooke tensed, all too aware. "Please let me down, Quince."
"You gotta' hang awhile, Miss Atherton. Boss says so."
"But it hurts terribly-?"
"Just for awhile, Miss." He put down the crop and went away.
To simply hang! Naked! Helpless and alone! Brooke Atherton's unexpected predicament held a quality of terror all its own. She could do nothing but writhe and kick. She did both but only hurt her wrists. Each passing minute would bring more stress. Suppose this travail went on for hours. Her wounded bottom was punished for the time being. But this... ! She moaned in desuetude.
Etta released her. Brooke had hung suspended by her wrists for three hours. Her fingers were numb, her wrists scarlet. When her feet found the ground she could have wept with relief. Cessation of pain was a seeming miracle. "You like gettin' your ass whipped, Miss Atherton?"
"Of course not! Who does!"
Etta giggled. "I gets my ass whipped sometimes." She was quite obviously boasting. "When the Boss thinks I oughta' be whipped he has Quince whale me real good. Quince, he's my brother but he sure do like to lace into my rump with that there crop. Hurts like crazy."
Brooke sensed undercurrents but had no wish to pursue them. Instead, she asked: "Pin me up, Etta, my fingers won't work. D'you know what I'm supposed to do now?"
"You go visit Mr. Scanlon."
"I walk over there alone?"
"You aimin' to run off back home, Miss Atherton?" Etta produced another giggle. "You wouldn't make it half way."
"What would happen if I tried?"
"You get caught, you get awful sore ass."
"I've got one of those already. Without trying."
"You just get tickled up a bit, Miss Atherton. When a gal' gets whipped proper she sure does know 'bout it."
It was another subject best left alone. Brooke knew her mind chaotic enough as she left the place of her unearned punishment. The fresh air of the Ranch Yard was good, the open always helped perspective. She looked at the mountains and the undulations of the prairie and computed her chances of escape. Suddenly, she understood why she had been whipped. It told her of choices and decisions. Her wealed bottom spoke eloquently of the penalty for a bad guess. Brooke still remembered Scanlon's promise of a brand. It was best to do what she was told.
John Scanlon's interests were vast. She found him in the Computer room busy with the Telex. He finished the message and signed off. His greeting was terse.
"Let's have a look."
More shame! But that was to be expected. Brooke positioned herself for his pleasure and raised the cotton print. She winced as his fingers tested her ridged flesh. He grunted approval.
"Quince is a good boy."
Brooke did not feel like raillery or banter, so kept silent while the cheeks of her bottom were thoroughly assessed for their resilience beneath the crop. His question was abrupt.
"Learn anything?"
"To be a good girl."
He ignored the sarcasm she had been unable to expunge. Lowering the print over her shame, he said gruffly: "I'm busy. Take an hour to do what you like. Eat, bathe, plan an escape . . He chuckled at his own quip. "Anything you please. Then go and hunt up Quince. You'll likely find him around the corrals. He knows what to do."
"You mean, I'm to let him punish me some more?"
"Hadn't thought of it that way."
She looked at him uncertainly. His rocky features betrayed to clue whatsoever. She sensed his preoccupation. On impulse, she pleaded: "You've had me beaten. Couldn't you let me go home now?"
"One hour." Ignoring her plea he turned back to the Telex.
Dismissed like a child! Brooke Atherton had never felt more chagrined or more frustrated. The friction of the sheath upon her beaten bottom was not exactly pain but it was a constant reminder of her condition. She wandered aimlessly through John Scanlon's house and found defeat in every room. She could neither fight no run. Yet to meekly submit was bitter gall. She would like herself better if she fought. Her conscience might be easier if she fled and was dragged back on the end of a rope. But this was pride, and pride had become a hangover from normalcy and freedom. Her scalded derriere warned her against pride. Pride was likely to be painful.
In the yard the Jeep was without keys, the garage was locked. But the barn was her undoing. It held a horse. Brooke's heart raced. A horse meant hope, with a horse she might reach someone who would help. Her eye roved and found the saddle and the bridle... She prayed Quince would not come.
Decision was exhilarating as she strapped and buckled. She would have ridden naked, but was thankful for the shift. With a bit of luck the pins might hold it under stress. The horse surveyed her with one uncertain eye and a cocked ear. Brooke loosed his halter rope and led him from the bam.
The fugitive had been with horses all her life; she was at home in the saddle. But Brooke Atherton was not a Rodeo cowgirl. When her stolen steed became a bucking weaving cyclone of revolt she cursed her failure to perceive the signs of equine recalcitrance and fought back grimly to retain her seat, her hands exerting all their strength in an effort to drag up the fighting head from between the fighting feet. By Rodeo standards she did well. But the fifth buck was one too many. Brooke Atherton landed on the ground with a thud to jar her teeth. Her enemy wandered to a patch of grass and began to graze.
"You hurt, Miss Atherton?" Quince's concern was real. Gingerly, Brooke got to her feet. Shame enveloped her like a pall. "No, I guess not." She admitted unhappily. "I expect I'm going to wish I'd broken my neck."
"Old Baldface don't like women." Quince imparted cheerfully. "Bucks 'em off every time. He damn near kill Etta. You done real well."
Brooke stood, rubbing her seat, tidying her hair. It was Quince's move. When he did no more than grin, she asked in exasperation: "Do I have to go and tell Mr. Scanlon I tried to escape?"
"I'll tell him, Miss. No need to go back--you was comin' ter see me anyway?"
"I was supposed to, in a little while." She could feel the fear curling her inside. "But, since I'm here... Quince, does me getting on that horse change anything?"
"Gosh no, Miss Atherton. The Boss sort of figured you'd try. You and me can do what we was going to do anyhow." Scanlon had laid a trap. Now he'd be laughing. Probably he had watched her fiasco from the house. She was certain to be punished. Unhappily, she asked: "Well alright. Where do we go and what do we do?"
"The corral, Miss. Ain't that much to it."
Brooke followed, hating every step. "You must think I'm an idiot, Quince, letting you do these things to me? I don't want to."
"Etta and me, we's sorta surprised, Miss Atherton--lestways, we was. But figgerin' it out, there ain't much else you can do. You bein' real sensible 'bout it."
"I want to run away. Mr. Scanlon's got no right to do what he's doing to me. It's against the Law. You could all go to jail."
"Mr. Scanlon, he is the Law round here, Miss." Quince pointed out reasonably. "Ain't no one goin' ter cross him. Etta and me, we figures he's goin' ter give you a real bad time before he gets around to marrying you, sorta' gentle you up a bit first. And he sure do want that land o' your's. That's a powerful lot o' land, Miss."
The brother and sister might be simple, but they could reason. Scanlon had planned her humiliations at their hands to make them doubly demeaning. Resentfully she forgot caution. "Quince, I'll give you some of that land if you'll get me to the city beyond John Scanlon's authority?" She gazed at him wide eyed, "Please, Quince... Please?"
"Can't do it, maam. The Boss told us you'd ask. He says you have to be punished every time you do." Quince beamed simple benevolence. "I won't tell him this first time if you don't want."
"Go ahead and tell him!" Brooke's vexation flared unreasonably. "Let's play it by the book and do things right."
"I understands you're cheesed off, Miss." Quince consoled. "And I don't guess you're gonna' like this next little deal--"
"Hurry up and get it over with, Quince, before I run away screaming. C'mon, what's next?"
Quince tied her hands behind her back. Brooke stood erect, nostrils flaring in anger, but said no word while her wrists were crossed and corded tight. She no longer had visions of rubbing them against sharp objects and getting loose.
Quince was surprisingly and shockingly strong. He lifted her to sit astride the top rail of the corral with an ease to emphasize her helplessness. Brooke gasped at insecurity and a painful seat. But before she could speak, her ankles were noosed and drawn down to either side to render her a secure fixture on the rail. The cotton print was tugged from beneath her crotch to make certain the bare flesh of her sex rested all her weight upon the pole. Her complaint was a wail of outrage. "Quince, you can't--!"
"You look real pretty, maam, a'ridin' a horse."
"Quince, get me down! This is absurd. Besides, it hurts."
"Wern't supposed ter be comfortable, Miss."
Feminine feet fought for a foothold but were denied. Brooke could not raise or lower them. Roped ankles bit as steadily as did the pole between her thighs. She was no longer in danger of falling off. She was neatly anchored.
"Quince, this isn't right to do this to a girl. You must know where "Right square on your cunt, Miss Atherton."
"Don't say that word! Oh, Quince, get me off! Oh, oh, please?"
"Lot better'n old Baldface, Miss Atherton. You ain't gettin' bucked offen' there. You're a' ridin' real sweet."
He would never understand. Etta might, but not Quince! Brooke Atherton had read of medieval torture in which a girl was set astride a sharp edge. She could not claim the same agony or cruelty, but the rail seemed viciously alive between her legs. It was discomfort now, soon it would become pain as her relentless weight bore down without mercy upon her most secret place, then would come agony as the hours passed. She turned to Quince who was her only hope. But Quince had gone. Brooke Atherton was alone upon the rail.
She could have wept in frustration. Helplessness and pain were new to her. The daughter of a wealthy rancher suffered neither. Her hands were the key to her condition but she spent little time on testing Quince's knots. They were tied tight and secure. She would sit, and sit... and sit! Her wrists would remain crossed behind her back. It was impossible but it was happening.
A girl with her bare crotch planted unkindly on a rail can scarcely be attuned to meditation. Shame and discomfort diverts the mind into anger and a nagging longing for release. But Brooke Atherton knew she must come to grips with a realization of motives and response still chaotic in her consciousness. Hope was by no means dead; she must foster it with small comforts such as the cotton sheath still covering what mattered of her body. To sit like this naked would be much, much worse. Quince and Etta were, in their simple way, kind. They would hurt her only as directed. She had been granted small tempting freedoms... ! John Scanlon himself was still an enigma. Even though he used her nightly, it was an intimacy of the flesh, leaving her hunger for freedom or knowledge unappeased. She could never master him, he could break her easily. But she was female... ! Between a woman and a man there were always possibilities. She would never marry him. Even if she did, her condition might be no different than it was right now, the sex lips of a wife could be as firmly bound upon a corral fence as those of a single girl. Scanlon was probably as much a husband to her now as he could ever be. She could not picture him domestically.
Twisting in a dismal acceptance of her plight, and the degree of pain motion might impose, Brooke turned her mind to escape. She knew it would be constantly in the forefront of her mind, giving her no rest, bothering her like a guilty conscience. But she could not escape, not unless Scanlon made a slip or Quince was smitten by pity for her plight. She was close to tears when she sensed she was no longer alone.
"You sit a horse well, Brooke." Scanlon was lolling against the fence, looking up at her. "Hurt?"
"Of course it hurts, it's beastly."
"Not torture?"
"It will be if you leave me on here long enough."
They gazed at each other, he sardonic, she uncertain. Brooke had a bad feeling they had said all there was to say. "Quince treating you O.K.?"
"He's a perfect gentleman when he's not obeying your orders."
"Had a ride on old Baldface, eh?"
The girl astride the rail sniffed and tossed her head. "I suppose that's a punishable offense?"
"Right. I'll give it a bit of thought."
"I bet you will! While you're at it you may as well know I've just tried to bribe Quince to help me escape."
"Guessed you would."
"Well, don't be so damn smug about it. I had to try. D'you think I like sitting up here hurting between my legs!"
"Bit higher up, I'd figure."
"Have it your way. Do I get a second punishment?"
"Yes."
Brooke Atherton seethed, her tears were gone. That single affirmative word condemned her as a slave might have been sentenced by a patrician lord, and Scanlon could get away with it--Damn him! She would be punished as little girls were punished! Resentfully, she ventured: "I'd have thought this beastly thing you've had done to me would be enough. Isn't the fix I'm in right now a punishment?"
"No."
Another monosyllable, wickedly eloquent.
"Well, leave me on this damn rail an extra hour, then?"
"You don't have an extra hour on there to spare."
She took a deep breath to dampen bitterness. "Maybe you don't realize what this does to me? I'm female!"
"Figured that."
She tore at her bound hands in vexation, her shoulders weaving helplessly. "You're going to leave me up here all afternoon?"
"Could leave you there all night. You won't fall off."
She could not win! Information was not for her. She was to suffer in uncertainty as part of the treatment. But Brooke tried: "What are the other two punishments I'm going to get? When do I get them?"
"Don't push. You won't like 'em when you get 'em." Brooke was hurting just enough to be reckless. "You said you'd brand me. When does that happen?"
Scanlon vouchsafed her a granite grin. "That pole's getting to you, eh! You're mad as a hornet."
"Wouldn't you be!" Brooke wailed a small cry of bafflement. "You're playing a game. You're making a toy, a sort of Barbie Doll, of me, You're stealing my life."
"Only got you yesterday."
"And look what you've done to me! If you must be mean like this you could at least tell me how long I'm in for?"
"Made you a proposal of marriage. That's generally figured for life."
"For life! Sitting on a rail... being whipped...!" Brooke snorted in angry impatience. "I don't believe it."
"You will."
"Scanlon, take me down. Leave my hands tied if that amuses you, but I can't talk seriously in this shameful state "You're doing fine. Nothing much to talk about. Just came to see how you were making out."
"You came to gloat."
"Could be. But you make a pretty picture--"
"Look, Scanlon, if I marry you... ? Does this treatment go on afterwards?"
"Depends. You're an irritating wench."
"That means it would go on." Brooke pursed her lips in bitter speculation. "The bridled bride! Make a nice headline. You're not giving me a thing to look forward to. As for marriage, I'd have to be nuts. I suppose you'd beat me yourself then instead of handing me over to Quince?" John Scanlon was amused. The girl on the rail was living up to expectations. Brooke Atherton would provide an endless flow of fulfillment in times to come. And there was no hurry... none! "How about Atherton Acres? They'd get you off that rail?"
"Thanks, I'll sit here." Curious, she added: "we couldn't transfer title without witnesses and setting me free."
"I'll bring my man out from Laidlaw. No problem."
"Yeah, he'd be your man. Ten minutes after he'd gone you'd have me hogtied again. You've boxed yourself in, Scanlon."
He nodded. "Right. We can't trust each other. Give it a bit of thought. You've got lots of time up there." He turned and left.
Brooke Atherton sat alone upon the rail.
CHAPTER THREE - SHACKLED REVERIE
Brooke Atherton reached down to fondle the shackle tight upon her ankle. She was careful to make no noise by which her sleeping owner might be disturbed, but this fingering of the metal band by which she was compelled to sleep upon the rug by the big bed was a thing she often did. The few links and the heavy circlet held an endless fascination of disbelief. Discovering anew the impossibility of freeing her foot from its clasp had come to be a strange reassurance of a condition she had best accept. Satisfied, she lay back down and resumed her reverie of a girl of long ago.
John Scanlon had been shrewd in his insistence on their evening meal. Its glittering formality and the instant rapport it imposed upon them healed the ravages of whatever humiliations Brooke had suffered through the day. They would often, in a wry humour of their own, discuss her tribulations at the hands of Quince, endowing their bizarre punishments with a plausible normalcy. Why shouldn't a girl be punished at the whim of a rich man... ! Why not... ? Brooke had given up worrying about it. Her travail was not always cruel, mostly it was an emphatic loss of freedom, just as with the shackle she had just caressed. Scanlon enjoyed keeping her off balance, he was doing so now.
"Been thinking about The Acres and the deeds."
"Don't bother. I won't sign. Anyway we've already--"
Scanlon motioned for silence. "Go to Laidlaw. Go alone. I won't be there. Talk to Rempson, you and he can figure out a way to protect your precious liberty."
"But that's crazy! If I was there like that I'd have my liberty. You'd never see me again." Her breasts were heaving in a wild hope. "You wouldn't let me."
"I figured on tomorrow. Quince will drive you in the jeep. You can do a bit of shopping or whatever amuses you. You've earned a break."
She had sat tense, silent, breathless, until the hurt overflowed. "D'you have to be this cruel? Dangling a carrot...?" John Scanlon had laughed at her disbelief. Everything about her gave him pleasure. On the following day, her emotions in turmoil, Miss Brooke Atherton entered the office of Scanlon's lawyer.
"Miss Atherton!" Rempson was unexpectedly charming. "Mr. Scanlon phoned. I gather you have a problem, an emotional impasse?"
It was anti-climax, the bomb which did not explode, the divorcee with no place to go. Brooke Atherton's bondage dissolved before the influence of chrome, plate glass, mahogany and deep pile carpet. In this freedom she felt absurd. But she took a deep breath and fired her first salvo.
"Are you aware that John Scanlon has held me prisoner?"
Rempson's charm survived. He motioned a deprecatory hand. "John Scanlon is a remarkable man, Miss Atherton. May I say you look remarkably well on whatever treatment you have received on the "J Bar S."
"He has had me whipped--by a servant."
A shrug, a motion of the hand. Silence.
"When I leave here I intend to go straight to the Sheriff."
"Of course." Rempson beamed benevolence. "Now, how may I help you?"
She told him. At the end of the interview Brooke Atherton felt like a very small little girl whose grievance has shattered and fallen against adult wisdom. As far as Mr. Rempson was concerned she could sign any document she wished and go her way without impediment. When she shook hands and said 'thank you' her face was red. On her way to the Sheriff she heard the whistle of a train.
Elation gripped her. Nobody used the train. It stopped at Laidlaw only twice a week. No one would think of her being on it. She would be in the Capitol in a couple of hours. The nightmare was over. The money Scanlon had given her for shopping had been well spent. It was not until the train made its third stop that the opposite seat was occupied by the pleasant middle aged couple who beamed at her with interest.
"Miss Atherton, I believe?"
Brooke's heart plummeted. "Yes?"
"We hold a warrant for your arrest." With the pleasant manner of bestowing gifts, they exhibited identification and the warrant itself. A quick scan showed Brooke she had been busily criminal. Bitterly, she returned the papers and asked: "Scanlon?"
"Mr. Scanlon has interested himself in your case, Miss. He is prepared to be of help."
"I bet he is! What happens if I scream?"
"I would not advise it, dear." The woman's voice was kind. "We are trained to cope with force, but it's so demeaning for you in a public place. I suggest you allow Officer Stedman to handcuff you without fuss."
"Handcuffs!" Brooke gazed at them askance. "Here? In a train? In public?"
"Regulations insist, Miss Atherton." The feminine voice remained sympathetic. "Your hands will be behind your back. If you sit well into the comer nobody will notice."
It was too much. Scanlon had planned the whole thing. There could be no doubt of it. She had blithely walked into the greatest humiliation of all. Through clenched teeth she declared, "I won't submit to such a disgrace. I'll fight you first."
They nodded amiably. No doubt they had seen it all before. She was part of a day's work. "Understand how you feel about the cuffs, Miss. But you have to see it our way too. You're an adult, you're strong. We have to leave this train and get on another, there's a wait... You'd be mighty tempted."
"There's an alternative, dear." The woman added sympathy to the male explanation. She motioned to a bag. "We do have the hobbles with us... and a cape...?"
The word was like a blow. Offensive! "I'm not a horse." Brooke retorted coldly.
"It's a silly word, dear. Just a belt for your waist and leather cuffs each side. Nicer for a girl, much the best thing."
She was panting, a lovely animal trapped. Despite instinctive urges, Brooke Atherton surveyed her options. They were few and unattractive. It seemed wrong not to fight. But how could she win! But, angrily, she affirmed! "I'm damned if I'm going to stand up for everyone to watch while you strap me into some harness--!"
"We've arranged with the Conductor, dear, there's a compartment... Everything done properly."
It was like going to Quince and asking for punishment. Scanlon would vicariously enjoy her every nuance of shame. With a frustrated toss of her head, Brooke allowed herself to be guided.
The compartment was a blessing. Brooke was grateful for its privacy as the full extent of her shame became manifest. She must stand erect, with fingers clasped behind her neck, while the wide band of leather was fitted round her waist.
"We use laces, dear. Much safer than buckles, and laces won't show." Strong fingers tugged.
It was a constriction worse than a corset, tighter and tighter until Brooke gasped: "Oh please, isn't that enough, it's going to be miserable...!"
"You'll ease into it, dear."
Brooke was certain she would not. But she stood still and braced herself against the lacing and the knots. One of her hands was gently possessed from each side and lowered to have its wrist thrust hard against polished leather, straps circled, broad stout supple straps, buckled as tight as the belt.
"Everything's been made nice and wide, dear, won't affect your circulation."
"And it won't allow me to escape either, will it!" Brooke was feeling the full flood of desolation in shattered hope. She pulled and twisted but moved nothing. Her searching fingers discovered only the wide smooth leather of the belt, they could touch nothing that mattered.
"Thank you, dear. Just a little more please."
For a moment Brooke did not comprehend. The woman was having the effrontery to request her aid in making her helplessness doubly secure. But, with a resigned shrug, she heaved furiously at the restraints. The effort was an outlet for chagrin, for shame and for despair. The leather creaked, resisting her strength.
"That's real good, honey." On each side the wrist straps were drawn up one more notch to make them bitterly tight, loose ends were buckled, her arm was patted approvingly. "You're acting real sensible about this. We appreciate it."
They probably did! A struggling screaming girl would be embarrassing, no matter what their credentials. But Brooke felt only shame. She flexed her arms and her fingers to find herself completely helpless. In their way, the hobbles were worse than handcuffs. She could not avoid saying: "This is a beastly rotten thing to do to a girl. This harness makes me feel like an escaped lunatic being taken back to the Asylum."
"Don't take on so, dear. They don't hurt now, do they."
"Oh, I suppose not." Brooke felt ungracious. "I suppose I ought to thank you. I expect you're trying to be kind."
"We think you're a nice young lady. Mr. Scanlon wouldn't have anything to do with you if you weren't. Everyone thinks a lot of Mr. Scanlon."
"So I've noticed. Ill think of him every time I try to use a hand."
"Ill do everything for you, honey. Please don't fret."
"Yes. Well... thank you again. Is that the raincoat I wear to hide my shame?"
"It's very light. Ill leave it open, dear but just draw it in at the waist. No one will see a thing. Lots of people let the sleeves hand on a nice day...." To walk back to their seats took an effort of will. It was impossible to believe nobody would guess. The hobbled girl knew she was blushing as she resumed her place. Wise eyes would be getting an erotic thrill from visualizing her strapped wrists beneath the coat. But Brooke Atherton was wrong. Not a single passenger either knew or cared. After awhile she realized that if she screamed of being kidnapped and was to plead for help she would receive only blank stares of disapproval. She felt more a prisoner than ever.
* * *
"Had yourself a day, Brooke?" John Scanlon was as laconic as always.
"You should know!" Brooke Atherton twisted angrily at relentless leather. "I suppose standing here before your august Presence in these... these... hobble things, this harness, is part of my penance?"
"Yeah." His eyes glinted enjoyably. "Anyway you're fixed you look good."
"I don't feel good. I'd like to have these horrible things taken off and be allowed to sit down." Brooke glared. "You've given me an absolutely lousy day. Ill feel an idiot about it all my life... to walk into such a trap--!"
"Don't blame yourself. I'm the bastard."
"Thanks. I wanted to say that but didn't dare." She snorted in disgust. "What's my punishment this time?"
"Whipping's a bit passe--not that you've ever had a real one. I'll think of something. Don't worry about it too much. I'll make allowances for my having set you up."
"Gee thanks!"
"That's what I like about you, Brooke, you're not scared of me. Not many girls would practice sarcasm from where you're at."
"I don't figure that one myself." Brooke admitted soberly. "Today you've shown me how far your tentacles reach, you're an absolute monster. If it makes any sense, I could say I'm not scared of John Scanlon, but I am frightened of the things John Scanlon will order done to me."
"Nice state of mind. Impersonal. Leaves us free to talk."
"John, please take these horrible things off me?"
"You're stuck with 'em, Brooke. I like 'em. Dinner's not too far off."
"I can't eat dinner with you. I can't do anything. This harness is worse than having my hands cuffed behind my back."
"You're going to."
Brooke sensed her day had not yet run its course. She was still giving pleasure to this strange man she could never defeat. An awful possibility flashed before her mind's eye. "You're not going to make me eat off the floor... like a dog?"
"No hands?" Scanlon chuckled. "Damn attractive notion. But not tonight. You'll sit at table like a lady." He chuckled again. "Just a slight variation."
"So alright, no hands. Do I suck something through a straw?"
"What you're going to do, young woman, is go down to Etta and have her strip you naked. Leave the hobbles, she can cut away the frock. Then she stands by your chair at dinner and feeds you while we enjoy our unusual conversation."
"You'll enjoy that. I won't! Besides, if Etta's playing Nanny, who serves dinner?"
"Tell her to rake Quince in as butler. He's done it before"
"Scanlon, please don't?" The strapped girl wriggled in frustration. "Ill hate every moment, I'll feel a fool."
"Showing your body still bother you?"
"It always will." She tossed a disdainful head. "No woman likes it. It robs us of so much. It robs you men too, only you don't realize. A girl has to feel sorry for anyone who has an obsession to look at her breasts and pubic hair. It's feeble!"
"Feel sorry for me, then, because that's what I'm going to do. And figure on coming to bed tonight... hobbles!"
"Oh, John...!"
"Yeah. Should be good. Go on down to Etta."
John Scanlon could never be feeble, nor could she ever fail to feel sexual excitation when nude in his presence. Brooke could admit that to herself but never to him. Nostrils flaring in distaste, she sought the kitchen.
"Etta, you're supposed to strip me naked."
"Just a minute, Miss Atherton, this here's on the boil."
"And you have to feed me because I'm not allowed to have hands. Quince has to play butler."
Ella was impervious to farce or incongruity. She bestowed her interested attention. "That sure is a lovely leather thing you're wearing, Miss. But I'll have to take it off--all them laces in back...!"
"No, you cut away my dress and pull it out from under. Sorry, but that's the order."
"The Boss Man sure is somethin', ain't he." Etta's admiration for authority was unlimited. "Don't he want me to whip you?"
"Not today, I'm afraid. Maybe next time."
"Ah well... Guess you don't mind." Ella produced scissors. "Real shame 'bout the frock. But if that's what he wants--"
Brooke Atherton stood still to be stripped. She hated scissors and what they must do. She was positive the result would be hideous. The leather restraint harness belonged in an insane asylum, not round the waist of a beautiful girl, especially when the girl was otherwise nude. She was obliged to brace herself hard against Etta's tugging of the fabric from beneath the tightly laced belt. The thin stuff actually hurt as it rasped its separation from he skin. But the wide leather band gripped her nakedness as tightly as ever.
"Best I tighten up the laces, Miss Atherton."
"Don't bother."
"Bound to be a bit of slack, Miss--"
The nude girl stood as she was for the further humiliation of knots, of tugging and pulling, as a new constriction imposed its compulsion of her middle. Etta giggled delightedly as she thrust her knee against the rise of buttocks and pulled with all her strength.
"Gosh, it's like them oldtime corsets, Miss Atherton. You sure do look purty though. You ain't hardly got no tummy."
"You've got it too tight, Etta, it's awful. Oh wow...!"
"Can't ever be too tight, Miss. That's what Mr. Scanlon alius' says."
"Let me out, Etta. Just an inch...?"
"No way, Miss Atherton. You's lovely the way I got you now."
Brooke supposed she'd get used to it. Girls seemed able to accustom themselves to anything that hurt or restricted motion. She looked down at herself and was modestly shocked by the disappearance of her middle but a corresponding protrusion of pubic mound below and breasts above. She glimpsed why Victorians had considered corsets a 'must'. But breathing was difficult, and Etta was now tugging at wrist straps.
"Oh, Etta, don't try to tighten them. I'm helpless enough."
But the servant girl was strong. What had seemed tight before was double so now. Brooke was under the constriction of a leather vise. Her walk was outrageous, her hips swivelling provocatively as any harlot's. The shiny costly leather had turned her into something blatantly sexual, not feminine but female. When the delighted maid had tended her in the bathroom and performed magic with her hair, the laced up owner of Atherton Acres returned to Scanlon uncertain whether to blush in shame or glow with pride. "Run that walk past me again, Brooke."
"Oh, don't make me! Please? It's an agony and I'm embarrassed."
"Do as you're told."
Brooke Atherton did as she was told. No effort of hers could add or subtract on her wanton loins. Against her will her hips did as they wished. Her strapped hands were clenched into the fists of chagrin. She glared at the amused male regard and snapped: "I hope you have some idea of how ashamed this makes me?"
"That figures, Brooke. Take another turn or two."
"It also hurts, in case you're interested."
"Not interested." He shook his head. "A man might never see the likes of this again."
"If it pleases your carnal instincts that much, you'd best keep me strapped up all the time--"
The naked girl bit her lip in vexation. "I didn't mean that. I take it back!"
"You said it." Scanlon rubbed his chin meditatively. "Good idea. I'll think on it."
The teased girl flaunted her hips to a halt. "Have me whipped if you want, but I'm not acting the floozy any more. Would you have the decency to release me from this beastly belt?"
"I won't release you, and you won't be whipped."
"Then may I sit down?"
"We'll both sit down. Here's dinner."
Scanlon held the chair for her. The belted girl discovered it was much worse sitting than standing. She sat stiffly erect to ease the bite of leather. The constriction 'round her waist had come to symbolize the authority of the man across the table. She was owned, she was bound, for her there would never be escape. She looked up at an intrigued Etta, now in attendance, and said dolefully: "I don't think I want to eat, not like this."
"She'll eat." Scanlon's voice was harsh.
Brooke Atherton ate.
* * *
"I think this is a punishment, Quince. I mean it's not one of those days where I have to be comfortably miserable."
"You done somethin' bad, Miss Atherton?" Quince was not concerned with the more subtle niceties of feminine penance. "This here what you're gettin' today... it's sorta' odd. Wouldn't rightly call it a punishment."
"I think I've misbehaved twice, but I'm never quite sure. Mr. Scanlon never tells me. I'd like to think I'd get rid of both demerits today" Brooke sounded almost hopeful. "Are you certain it won't hurt?"
"Well, it ain't exactly no bed of roses." Quince guffawed at a joke perceptible only to himself. "You best come and have a look."
The horse was most certainly not old Baldface. He was a somnolent lop eared animal of uncertain age and lineage, quietly munching. He spared them an incurious glance before burying his nose once more in the hay. On him was cinched a surcingle. Above his back a rope dangled from a rafter. "If the end of that rope was a noose I'd be nervous." Brooke said cheerfully."
She had come to value these polite and sometimes formal exchanges with Quince. A rapport with one's own executioner eased the stress of punishments. By now the amiable Quince must possess a greater intimacy with her anatomy than any man alive. There was no part of it he had not bound or punished. He was bucolic and only superficially sexual: ideal for the punishment of a girl on a ranch. Quince was not tall, dark and handsome as a maiden in distress might wish. When he tied a rope he tied it tight. If his victim made a quip he understood he would guffaw heartily. He did so now. "Noways I'd ever hang you, Miss Atherton." He assured with sincerity. "But this here deal with old Simpson, that's his name, it'll rot your socks. Fust off you'd best get rid o' what you're wearin'."
It was silly to wear anything for an appointment with Quince. She ought to know better, but she always hoped. Without demur Brooke took off the cotton slip and shoes. In its way it was like a man rolling up his sleeves. When her wrists and ankles were roped, the long ends trailing, Brooke could guess.
"You use the rope to hold on to while you lay back on the surcingle." Quince lifted her astride, facing back. "I'll soon have you so you won't fall off, Miss Atherton."
Brooke was amused but uncertain. Horses had been her life, Simpson held no threat. She was obviously going to be bound on his back. But what then... ? Clutching the rope, the naked equestrienne positioned herself as desired. Her plaint was spontaneous. "Quince, I have to be crazy... the things I do for you!"
"You're just plain nice, Miss Atherton." Quince circled her waist with webbing and drew it down tight. "Be a helluva deal if we was fighting every time the Boss sends you. "There, that's got you sorta' anchored. You can hold onto that rope a minute while I fix your feet."
Brook held on. Her day's ordeal was taking shape. Her first negative shock was the sundering of her thighs and the rise into prominence of her Venus Mound. On each side of Simpson's flanks one of her ankles was attached to a ring in the surcingle, as the rope tightened, first this side then that, her foot was drawn back and down until she was immobilized below her waist, held firmly in an obscene revelation of her sex until it was stretched to a point where she could believe its lips were open.
"Don't need the rope no more, Miss Atherton. You wanna' scratch your nose before I fix your hands?"
Brooke scratched her nose, then lost her arms as her hands were roped and ringed in the same manner as her feet. They were cinched to bring her bare shoulders down on Simpson's mane. Her breasts became prominent in her view. She was bowed back and stretched in what came close to being a hogtie on a horse.
"You feel safe, Miss Atherton?"
"I feel naked and indecent and I can't move."
"Guess that's alright then." Quince said equably, faintly proud. I'll start old Simpson off for you."
"Am I going somewhere?"
"Dunno, Miss." The ranch hand led her steed out of the barn into the sunlight. To the girl on tied on her back the motion was strange, she had become baggage on a pack-horse, naked baggage without control. She kept silent while Simpson was led beyond the corrals and beyond the home pasture. On the prairie, Quince removed the halter and slapped Simpson's rump with the lead rope. The bound girl gasped as the horse on which she was tied leaped unrestrained towards open country. Feverishly tugging at her bonds, Brooke watched Quince recede. The ranch hand stood, holding the rope and halter, until the horse and girl were well distant. He raised his hand in salute and turned back. Simpson's hooves thudded to a destination unknown.
Brooke Atherton knew horses. Each had a temperament and temper of its own. She was tied, naked and helpless, upon a horse's back. It was like being married to man she had met minutes before. Wherever Simpson went she would go too. She had no choice. Quince had bound her with exquisite and implacable precision. Responding to her mount's galloping flight, her wrists and ankles hurt. They held her but they hurt. The webbing round her waist was as unrelenting as had been the leather band of the hobbles. She remembered the story of Mazeppa. Simpson was unlikely to emulate that flight across the steppe. But still...!"
Within an hour Brooke Atherton knew for sure she was being punished. This was not one of the bizarre bindings she had come to accept as routine. This could hurt. It could become frightening. Fear was gnawing at her now. She countered it with hope. Suppose John Scanlon had made a mistake! Suppose she could free a hand! With freedom and a horse... ! For another hour she worked in wretched urgency against tied wrists and tied ankles, but to no avail. Tied and dispirited she conceded victory to Quince's knots. She would not get loose. She and Simpson were wedded for sure, she had become the property of a horse. She had tried verbal commands as a measure of control, and for some time Simpson had responded. But, sensing her helplessness and the absence of whip or spur, he now ignored her importunities and rambled as he pleased Without resentment for the weight upon his back, he grazed.
As major hopes receded, the minor one's demanded attention. A lonely rider... ? Simpson might stray to a neighboring ranch. None were close, but for she and the horse there was lots of time. Surely anyone would free her... ? Surely... ? But of that she was not really sure at all. They would be Scanlon's neighbors, not hers. What was most probable of all was what Scanlon had, no doubt, planned. She would spend an uncomfortable and humiliating day. When Brooke thought of the exposure of her sex she shrank from rescue. To have a strange man look between her stretched thighs... ! The thought was devastating.
Simpson heard it first. The nude girl bound on his back felt him tense, his neck arch beneath her head. Brooke tried to raise herself to look, but she was bound too tightly. It was not until the two riders drew level on either side that she was able to return their entranced regard. A boy and a girl, about twelve or thirteen, avidly curious. "Please untie me." It was all she could think to say. "Please let me loose." They assessed her solemnly. The girl's interest in Brooke's pubic rise and exposed lips was as evident as the boy's. It was the girl who spoke. "You doing that for fun, Miss?"
"What could she tell them! What plausible lie? "No, it's not fun." She said firmly. "Somebody's played a mean trick on me. I just have to get loose. Please help me."
"You mean, you've been like that a long time and can't wriggle loose?" The young voice was scornful.
"No I can't! Neither would you if you were fixed the way I'm fixed." Brooke had no feeling of being among friends.
"She's tied real neat, Nance." The boy volunteered. "I been looking. Whoever done it musta' wanted her to stay thataway real bad. Let me try it on you sometime." Nance sniffed disdainfully. "Fat chance, Rick. Say, have you had a good look at her cunt? It's a honey. Boy, I wish I'd grow that much pussyhair."
"And lookit' her tits, Nance... Wow! What you figure we should do with her?"
Their disinterest in her plight was infuriating. Brooke could do nothing but fume. She had never felt more tightly bound or more helpless. She had no feeling of being among friends. There was something feral about this pair and their examination of her nakedness. Impatiently, she said: "I asked you to untie me. I'd be grateful if you'd hurry up, these ropes hurt."
"Don't see no reason to untie you, lady. You look real good the way you are. Someone musta' done you that way for a reason--"
"I was kidnapped and tied like this. Oh, don't just sit there! Untie me... Please?"
"Who kidnapped you?"
"John Scanlon--"
"Yeah, I bet!" They laughed derisively. "How much you pay us if we let you loose?"
"Whatever you want. Please hurry."
"Where's the money?"
Brooke flushed. "You can see I don't have it with me. But I'll get it for you when I'm free."
"No dice." The children looked at each other and at her. "Get a rope on her horse, Rick." The girl said abruptly. "We'll take her home and let Ma decide."
"Look, why don't we untie her so I could fuck her, Nance. You could watch. We'll never get a chance like this again, not with a growed up gal'."
"Don't be an idiot. If we let her loose from that horse we couldn't handle her. I couldn't hold her down for you." Nance snickered. "Even if she promised to lay still for you I wouldn't trust her."
The bound girl could have wept in frustration. Brooke was tempted to promise her body for release. Then, when untied, renege on the promise. But it was too sordid... Or was it! Did these two deserve decency! Cheating them would not be cheating them at ail... ! Wearily, she agreed: "Alright, let me loose and I'll lay down and spread my legs for you." Then, seeing skepticism in the girl's eye: "You can both do whatever you like with me. I won't complain. But I just have to be untied?"
"How we know if we can trust you?"
"You don't know. You have to take a chance. But I'd be so damn grateful to be untied--"
"Nance, couldn't we tie her hands behind her back some way so we could handle her? Put a rope round her neck? She'd have to come across?" The boy was eager.
Brooke shrivelled inwardly. Tie, tie, tie! Always to be bound! Never to be seen as an entity without bindings. She examined the proposition and wanted no part of it. Not be left naked on the prairie, hands tied behind her back... ! She would have no choice but to trudge back to the J Bar S. These kids were capable of stealing Simpson. She was better off as she was. But Nance's interest had been piqued.
"What you mean, you'll let us both do anything we like with you? Rick can fuck you good, but what can you and me do?"
Brooke's hands twisted impotently. She longed ardently to be free to slap smirking faces and knock together a pair of pubescent heads. To be bound and at the mercy of Nance and Rick was a hazard best avoided... if still possible!
"You know what we can do, Nance." Brooke turned her voice to a wanton wheedling. "I'd make it ever so good for you. But I can't do a thing with my hands tied behind my back."
"Don't see why not. You gotta' mouth. Don't need no hands."
"Yes I do. It wouldn't be any good for any of us if I'm still tied. C'mon', hurry up and get me off this horse. I want to get going."
"No." Nance's negative was decisive. "See what I mean, Rick. If she aimed to treat us right she wouldn't mind being tied. Don't hurt her none to have her hands tied behind her back."
"But the deal was for me to be nice to you in return for you untying me." Brooke wailed. "If you keep me tied it doesn't help me at all." She made her voice angry. "Besides, I'd fight you that way. I wouldn't submit. I wouldn't be nice--"
"Aw, shut up!" Nance had lost interest. "Halter her horse, Rick, and let's get going."
Brooke Atherton moaned inwardly. This was worse than Simpson's idle ramblings. The horse had placidly allowed rope to circle his neck and was now following where led. Sometimes the procession broke into a trot or a canter in which the naked captive was grateful for the tightness of her bonds. Had there been slack she would have been painfully bounced. When they entered the half light of a barn and Simpson was tethered in a stall Brooke knew an additional fear. Quince could not find her, she would have vanished! She was the prisoner of someone else.
"We found her out the other side of the old dry slough, Ma."
"You tie her thataway?" Ma was suspicious.
"She ought to be whipped." Nance suggested hopefully. "Riding around naked... ! It's indecent."
"Yeah, why doncha', Ma." Rick was an opportunist. "Girls didn't oughta' go round showing guys like me their cunts the way she's doing."
"I've been kidnapped." Brooke contributed dolefully. "Please help me?" Please untie me."
"I'd like to take a riding crop and mark your ass, dearie." Ma said comfortably. I'll lay odds you ain't no better'n you oughta' be. Gal's don't get naked without they want." She chuckled wisely. "Lucky for you you're on that horse. These young'un of mine would have given you a bad time if you'd been tied handy."
"She says John Scanlon kidnapped her, Ma. Ain't that a load of crap."
The atmosphere changed. "That true, dearie?"
"Of course it's true, or I wouldn't have said it. Please untie me, then we can talk."
"Being tied on that horse don't stop you talking none. I ain't seeing no good reason to let you loose."
"But I'm a prisoner. I've been kidnapped. I'm tied like this against my will! Oh please... I want to get free so damn bad--!"
"I bet you do, dear. That don't mean I oughta' untie them ropes." Ma paused thoughtfully. "You don't expect anyone to believe that guff about John Scanlon? You oughta' be ashamed--"
"You could whip her for that too, Ma. The three of us could handle her good. Hang her up by her hands .-..?"
"Shut up, Rick. You don't cut up an ass you ain't acquainted with." Ma was maternally concerned with the proprieties. "I don't doubt this wanton little trick will get what's coming to her. But it ain't rightly none of our business."
"Alright then, hand me over to the Sheriff. You can keep me prisoner some way until he comes?" Brooke pleaded desperately.
"Hell, dearie, you can stay right on that horse the way you are. We could take you to him, or he could pick you up. You'd make a real pretty package for the pokey."
"I don't mind being arrested or going to jail." Brooke assured unhappily. "All I want is to be untied from this horse."
"Suppose you shut up about that." Ma's voice was hostile. "Far as I'm concerned you can be tied up permanent. Don't see the hoss makes that much difference--"
"But, Ma, she deserves a thrashing." Nance's tone was wistful. "Can't we, please? I want to watch. I ain't never seen a grown girl this way before. You could whip her the way you do me sometimes?"
Ma did not reply. She was circling Simpson, examining horse and rider with narrowed eyes. In a friendly fashion she pinched a nude nipple to make its owner yelp. Suddenly she whirled around. "You stupid young nits! Didn't you see the brand?"' Silence! Neither boy or girl dared speak.
"Hell, kids, it's almost up in lights. The "J Bar S" plain as the nose on your face. The bitch is telling the truth."
It was a quick parting, devoid of sentiment. Simpson and his naked burden were led back to the open range. The unoffending steed received one more unkind thwack across his rump. He departed hastily in a direction Brooke hoped was toward her slavery. After Ma and her children the "J Bar S" seemed like home. Four hours later Quince found them.
If Brooke Atherton could have moved she would have kissed him.
CHAPTER FOUR - DISGRACE
The Cameos of her captivity seemed endless, each one vivid with the memory of pain, or punishment, of bondage. The girl shackled on the rug beside her Master's bed knew she should sleep, but the mood of reverie was strong. It often took possession of her private moments and was hard to relinquish. It was as though she sought a secret hidden in the chapter of her imprisonment. Perhaps, if she ever discovered it, the girl who was Brooke Atherton now would offer it in apology to the girl who had been Brooke Atherton long ago.
John Scanlon had moulded her. Brooke held no illusions. He had refrained from breaking her spirit but his disciplines had been sufficient to effect a change in her regard for him and her feelings towards herself. The impossible had become routine. The unthinkable was something to be desired. Quince had whipped her many times but she felt only affection for the simple man who was Scanlon's surrogate in her punishment. Her impressions were a mixed bag. But, of all of them, her accompaniment of John Scanlon is his social and political life was the most enigmatic of all.
Brooke Atherton possessed poise, social background, education. These were the attributes demanded of any woman John Scanlon escorted in public as wife or Mistress. She had no doubts of her eligibility as his consort. But, on the first occasion, had been staggered by the enormity of Scanlon's confidence and the emotional burden it placed upon herself. Ruefully, she remembered her outburst: "Whipped today, tomorrow the Governor's Ball! John, it's too damn absurd."
"I like it. The thing's got a piquancy."
"Am I escorted there bound and gagged?"
"We shop first. You'll be the best gowned woman of the lot. And not a rope on you."
"But, John, it's idiotic. Someone there will help me. I can even appeal to the Governor, I met him once."
"Go ahead."
Brooke Atherton sat tense, fingers nervous on the stem of a wine glass. Somewhere in this proposal was a trap: There had to be! Scanlon would not dare. Once safe in the Governor's mansion she could create the scandal of the century. In keen perception she accused: "You think I won't dare, that I'll be too embarrassed, that I'll lose as much as you."
"Hmmmmmmm, in part. Yes."
"You're not betting I've fallen in love with you?"
"No."
She distrusted his monosyllables, their intent was to fluster. She filled the gap with bitterness: "This morning I was stripped naked and tied to a partition post in the bam. I spent the day tied there with the stink of horse manure. Now you propose... this! John Scanlon, you're thrusting a contrast at me so wide... ! How the devil d'you expect me to react."
"We'll find out."
"I could ruin you."
"Mmmmmm, we'll see."
John Scanlon had won. Brooke Atherton had underrated the impact on herself of Joseph Magnin's and Tiffany's and the Bridal Suite. The graven faced man beside her could raise a finger and open any door. She sensed power. On the J Bar S the man whose prisoner she was had been big, but here in the Capitol he became immense. John Scanlon was a force. In the evening his promise came true. Without conceit, Brooke Atherton knew herself the most beautiful woman in the room. She glowed under the admiration of men and the envy of women. She was Scanlon's Mistress now, but Mistresses easily became wife. Ahead of Scanlon was Washington."
Her Master's political stature made Brooke irrationally proud, It was an unexpected tax on her emotions. At first it seemed an eminence from which his fall would be doubly lethal. But, in the mustering of her courage for the act, she found herself defeated by absurdity. How could she possibly denounce him in public! How could she demand sanctuary and offer whip weals as evidence of her condition! Her back had not been whipped, the gown revealed it flawlessly. There was something childishly humiliating about a whipped bottom. No one would take it seriously. There would be snickers and raised eyebrows. She would cease to be a lady.
"Thank you, Brooke."
They were in their suite. Scanlon's hands were on her shoulders, his eyes closed. Brooke's breasts were heaving, she was still euphoric in the glow of magnificence and success. Her triumph as much as his! It was heady stuff. "Why thank me. You had me figured. You're a Svengali."
"I prefer Pygmalion." Scanlon gently kissed her forehead and let her go. "You were an enchanting Galatea."
"It was me who was enchanted. Damn you!" Brooke's words were rueful and without bitterness. "I'm ashamed of myself. I've muffed my chances like a silly child."
"There's the phone. I won't stop you calling whoever you want."
"Oh stop it! I've been guinea pig enough for one day. You win all along the line."
"In that case, strip yourself naked."
For a moment Brooke considered revolt. Somewhere in this day was a decision affecting her whole life. She was unsure whether she had already made it. If she stripped now at his command was it a surrender to a new slavery. She shrugged. It was bedtime. All she was doing was removing her clothes preparatory to sleep.
"Hold out your hands."
Brooke looked at the shining chrome of handcuffs with only faint surprise. She had wondered why Scanlon had not purchased them for her long ago together with all the other expensive humiliations gradually acquired for the restriction of her movements. The ankle shackle by his bed was the most used of these. But there was the stocks, the pillory, an actual ball and chain, and sundry metal frames... There was even a cage. Quince had found these treasures hilarious. She herself had often shared his laughter. A captive girl got used to anything. Whimsically, she asked: "Why not behind my back? I'd be more helpless?"
"I want the effect."
Brooke watched the circlets click closed upon her wrists. They had a quality all their own. She lifted them up to examine and admire. Then stood as Scanlon directed in front of his chair. "There's something familiar about This." She accused. "You're taking me back to normal?"
"Right. Let your arms fall naturally. There... that's delightful. Hold it."
"The captive maiden, naked before her lord!"
"O.K. I like it. Keep still for me a minute or two, then go and look at the pose in the mirror."
Brooke obeyed. Scanlon was correct. She and the handcuffs made a pretty picture of captive innocence, the pampered slave. When she turned away Scanlon unlocked one cuff, placed her arms on either side of one of the massive posts of the bed, then clicked the cuff back on her wrist. She must stand there, captive.
"Good night, Brooke."
She said nothing while her owner killed the lights and got into bed. When his deep breathing told of sleep she dared not wake him. She leant against the post, clutching it with cuffed hands, longing for sleep. After a while she slid to the floor and cradled her head against a bare arm held high by post, mattress and covers. Sitting thus was not as miserable as she had feared. Captive to the cuffs she slept.
* * *
Scanlon was shrewd enough to avoid anti-climax. He had business to attend to, so gave Brooke a bundle of hundred dollar bills and told her to amuse herself alone, meeting him for lunch and again for dinner. By a determined effort of will Brooke made herself happy. She refused to look back at yesterday or forward to tomorrow. She was in the grip of a strange captivity. She had refused to break its chains, and now thrust escape from her mind. It would spoil things. She lived under the influence of a force. At lunch she tried to clarify it into words.
"John, thank you for today. I'm grateful."
"Thank you for yesterday. I was a proud man."
"I'm not going to marry you, John."
Scanlon shrugged. "Take your word for it."
"We're going back to the 'J Bar S'. When we get there will you have me whipped?"
Scanlon stared. "Your asking for it?"
"No, of course I'm not. It just seemed logical to put me back in my place."
"Hadn't thought of it, Brooke. But you're got a point."
"Well... are you going to?"
"I'll think about it."
He had told her nothing, she tried again. "Will you send me out to Quince every day for... the things he does to me?"
"I've told you, Brooke, I get a perverse pleasure out of what I do to you. I'm not going to stop. You'd be disappointed if I did."
"I wouldn't--!"
"Yes you would. What I do to you is good for you, you're twice the woman you were. It's good for me. It's good for the two of us as a pair. If you don't believe that you can run away this afternoon."
Brooke had not run. She was a character in a book she hated but which she must read to the final page, At dinner she summed it up "John, I'm crazy. I have to be. Or maybe I'm kinky some strange way. But don't ever laugh at me or sneer because I go back with you. I couldn't bear that."
"It's a deal. What d'you want me to do about your beefs? You sure come out with some barbs."
"Why shouldn't I when I'm hurting." Brooke sniffed petulantly. "I suppose you'll ignore them, you always do."
"You're a woman in a million." Scanlon gazed at her with eyes she could not fathom. "Tomorrow we'll be back at the 'J Bar S'. After breakfast I want you to go find Quince and ask him for your punishment for the day. Understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"In the meantime no more questions, no more analysis. We're what we are, and that's the end of it."
"Yes, John."
Brooke made her acquiescence meek to the point of satire. They shared laughter.
Nothing was changed.
"Hello, Quince."
"Betcha' had a swell time, Miss Atherton?"
"Marvellous. I hear you've got a punishment for me?"
"Wouldn't call it that, Miss. Ain't it more like playing a game?"
"O.K. Let's play. Clothes or nude?"
Quince blushed. 'Naked' was respectable. But, for Quince, the word 'nude' held dark depths of debauchery. He comprised. "You won't be wearing no clothes, Miss Atherton. You can hang 'em here in the bam."
A cotton shift and shoes were easily dispensed with. In a fair certainty of nakedness Brooke never wore more. Bare and expectant, she asked: "Don't you get tired of seeing me naked? Does it bother you?"
"Gives me a lot o' pleasure, Miss Atherton. You sure got a lovely figger and... things." His blush deepened. "Guess we use the post in the yard today."
Another innovation! High on the timber hung a shackle, heavy, wide, but small for the wrist of a girl. When it was locked tight below her right hand Brooke stood by the familiar anchorage with an arm held well above her head. "This all I get today, Quince?"
"Thass' all, Miss. Likely be enough come evening." The chained girl did not doubt his prediction. This would be an ordeal by frustration. Brooke snorted in irritation. She would have to stand there naked with one hand held up in the air. But she caught Quince's eye and laughed. "Alright." She conceded. "I'm going to stand here and feel an absolute idiot. You can have a good laugh every time you go by." She grinned placatingly. "Run along to your chores. I won't go away."
Brooke thought of herself as a nine to five girl. Her humiliations followed an eight hour day. If the day was longer it was because she was being punished. There was no lunch period and no coffee breaks. Quince provided her with water. Sometimes he smuggled a bottle, but these events were rare. She suspected a mild intoxication might prove entertaining for anyone who watched or stopped to talk. It might be Etta or John Scanlon... Quince was a visitor for sure.
She looked up at the shackle on her wrist, and wondered who made them and how he might wonder at their use. The snug fit indicated a made to measure especially for her alone. There were only four links of chain. They allowed her enough freedom to shake her hand or slightly flex her elbow, that was all. There was a beautiful illusion created by being held by only one hand. But Brooke had come to know the deadly quality of such a day. She would tire but would have to stand. Her arm would ache, her shoulder complain. But she was helpless. She could step, wriggle and twist within less than a single pace. Resignedly she would lean back against the post. To have been tightly bound against the wood would have been less tiring.
Scanlon never denied using binoculars when she was bound in some fashion visible from the house. A naked girl is easily susceptible to the suggestion of a peeping Tom. Whenever Brooke Atherton remembered the possibility she always blushed. Binoculars could be cruel in their intrusion into every crevice of her skin. Chained with her arm in the air she felt she must appear all armpit. But there were no bristles, so let him look. But today was to be an occasion. In early afternoon when she had been locked to the pole long enough to be tired and dispirited she saw his approach and made ready her greeting, sulkily forestalling the obvious.
"Yes, I know. I make a pretty picture standing like this. You enjoy me." Brooke wrinkled her nose in petulance. "I hope I give you an erection. And no, I'm not enjoying my day at all."
Scanlon surveyed her dourly. "Hmmmmm, 'bout says it all, eh!"
The chained girl tossed her head in irritation at his composure. "I don't know why you don't take pictures of me, you're so proud of my punishments."
"They're not punishments, and I don't need a picture, not while I've got you."
"Well, you've got me. How much did this damn fetter cost?"
"I forget. Got some other stuff at the same time. The guy does nice work."
"No doubt I'll be introduced to the 'other stuff?"
"Oh sure. They'll make you prettier than ever."
"I can imagine." She looked at him wistfully. "How about a break while we talk? Let my arm down...?"
"No. I like you as you are."
"Alright, forget I asked. I promise I won't be any sulkier than I am." Brooke managed a wan smile. "I love you to visit. I get lonely in these things you have done to me. But I bet you came to do more than gloat?"
"Hmmmmm, yes. I'm surfeited with gloat. I do see quite a bit of you, y'know."
"You see all of me. No girl ever got looked at more. Do you want me to raise one leg or something?"
"Watch impudence! It could get you a sore ass."
"I'm sorry. Ill try and behave."
Scanlon nodded absently. "I walked down to have a close look at you, it always pays off. I don't tell you enough how beautiful you are."
"Especially when I'm tied or chained."
"Alright, O.K. I had another thought too. I keep seeing you at that affair of the Governor's. You were magnificent, the way you mingled as though you owned the place."
"Not a soul suspecting my whipped bottom."
"That makes you even more remarkable. Whenever we were not together I watched you. I found myself wishing that under that lovely gown somewhere you bore my brand."
So Scanlon had not forgotten! Nor would he let her forget! A brand with a hot iron on her bare flesh! Brooke Atherton tried to hide her shudder beneath insouciance. "I suppose if I was branded it would be useful to you whenever I ran away--proves ownership."
"You're frightened of it. I know you are."
"Dammit, Scanlon, what girl wouldn't be! A red hot iron pressed into her flesh... ! And tied down so she couldn't move." Brooke glared defiantly. "Look, if you have to do it I can't stop you. But, for Pete's sake, don't gag me. Let me scream?"
Her vehemence evoked a chuckle. "You're way ahead of me, Brooke. You won't be branded today."
"I don't want to be branded at all. John, please don't have me branded... Please!"
"But surely you see my point. My brand on you would mean a lot to me."
"Yes, I'm sure. Better than the marriage Certificate I don't want. Maybe I'd wear it with pride--after I got through screaming. But right now I don't want it. Can you understand that!" She tugged at her chained wrist in vexation. "Please, don't brand me?"
John Scanlon produced the grin she distrusted. "O.K.--O.K. don't get pixilated. I'll have you branded, but not right now. When I decide on the date I'll tell you. On the day before I'll send you to the City with a bag full of cash for a wonderful day of total freedom."
"Noooooo... Oh, not that again!" Brooke's plaint rose in a wail of pleading. "I don't want any more soul searching, no more agony of decision, no more analysis of why I do what." The naked captive was panting, her hand unconsciously dragging at its chain.
"You know the bit of philosophy about 'If you love something set it free.?"
"Sure I know it. But that's not what you do to me." Brooke looked up at her shackle and rattled it defiantly. "You put me in some damn awful spot just so you can see me crawl back for more punishment. You think I'm too scared to do anything else." She slumped against the post. "It's not fair. You make all the rules. Now you're making the ante rougher and rougher to make my day in the City pure hell."
"You'll be free. You can run."
"Sure I can!" Brooke sniffed unhappily. "Or I can come back here and say: 'Please, John Scanlon, I want you to brand your initials in my skin with a hot iron. Hallelujah!"
"You sure do dramatize, Brooke. But don't stop, I like it. Actually I have in mind some new method of doing it without too much agony and with a neater finish. The old time brand was for cows. On a girl it turns out sloppy."
"You could anesthetize me. Or is that asking too much?"
"You see! You're already adjusted to the idea. Where d'you want it?"
"I don't want it, and I'm not adjusted, and if I did want it I'd have it on my bottom. But it would hurt when I sat down, and Quince would wear it off with the whippings he gives me."
"How about your breasts? The 'J' on your right and the 'S' on your left?"
"You wouldn't do that." She said it with finality. "You would never be that cruel to me. I honestly believe you would not."
"You're right. We'll both think about it. See you at Dinner."
Brooke watched him walk away. She was always watching someone walk away, knowing herself unable to follow. It was probably one of a prisoner's greatest frustrations. It put such an emphasis on lost freedom. She looked up at the shackle holding her wrist and muttered ridiculously: "Damn you, damn you, damn you...!"
At Dinner that night Brooke Atherton crossed another invisible line in her enslavement. Perhaps it was the wine Scanlon had insisted she try out, a favorite vintage. She raised her glass, and very soberly, proposed a toast: "To my Brand." She said calmly. "May I wear it with pride." Scanlon raised a surprised eyebrow and drank. When they returned their glasses to the table, he asked: "How come?"
"I'm a bit tipsy, I guess. But I'm grateful, I'm grateful because you want to mark me with a minimum of agony. The red hot iron scares me silly."
"Wearing my initials for life? What about that?"
Brooke shrugged. "It doesn't seem to bother me. Maybe that's because you're a man of power and consequence, or perhaps it's because of these times we spend together--like now." Her voice firmed. "It doesn't mean I want to marry you."
"Female contrariness."
Brooke gestured in frustration. "Everything's all crazy. We start out on the wrong foot, you enslave me--no girl in her right mind is going to marry a man who whips her."
"I don't whip you."
"No, you have me whipped. In some ways that's worse. And anyway, you're a lot older than I am."
"That's all horseshit."
Brooke raised her glass again. "Let's call it manure."
They laughed it off.
* * *
" 'Morning, Etta. Mr. Scanlon sent me down. He says you have to be mean to me for the day."
Brooke had always supposed the serving maid inevitable in her list of tribulations. Brightly, she gazed around the huge kitchen. "Gosh, Etta, you sure keep this place immaculate. Do you want me with my clothes on or off?"
"Off please, Miss Atherton, I don't want to stitch on you. Gee, you do say the nicest things!"
Brooke made herself nude. The act had become so commonplace she performed it unconsciously. "Mr. Scanlon says you can do what you like to me, but I mustn't be allowed to run around free."
"Ain't it fun, Miss Atherton, It's a... it's sorta' like an honour for me." Etta beamed. "It weren't fair the way Quince has bin' havin' all the fun."
"Today I'm all your's, Etta. Would you like me to peel some potatoes or something? You'll find me very well behaved."
"You's quite somethin', Miss Atherton. I'd 'a ben' screamin' my head off over some o' them things they done to you."
"Oh, I did some screaming, Etta. Maybe you didn't hear. Are you going to make me scream?"
Ella was suddenly wistful. "Would you mind, Miss? I mean, if I did make you scream? You wouldn't get mad...?"
"Oh, I'd mind, Etta! But I won't be mad at you. You're only doing what you're told."
"But I 'specks I'll enjoy it, Miss Atherton. Is that bad?" Brooke moaned inwardly. Surely the servant girl was not joining the ranks of self analysis! She suspected the simple girl had a guilty conscience. She resorted to platitudes. "Don't worry about it, Etta. Doing one's duty is never bad. But, right now, shouldn't we get started?"
"You go get me a piece of rope, Miss Atherton. 'Nuff for just your hands. Over in that cupboard."
The cupboard held many treasures. Brooke selected a length of cord for herself and wondered if Etta might actually understand these subtleties of humiliation.
"Behind your back, Miss Atherton."
The maid was feeling the intoxication of authority. Brooke stood quietly while her wrists were crossed and bound. Etta must have taken lessons from Quince; there would be no getting loose.
"On your knees, Miss."
Brooke obeyed. Then sustained shock as Scanlon's kitchen wench lifted her frock to reveal a bush of pubic hair. "You know what this is, Miss Atherton?"
"Of course. I've got one too, or haven't you noticed."
"You was bein' a little rude there, Miss Atherton, sorta' sarcastic." Etta was heavily reproving. "I'm makin' a rule fer today: You gotta' be real polite and sorta' humble."
The bindings on Brooke's wrists suddenly seemed tighter. "I'm sorry, Etta." She apologized hastily. Ill try and remember. You're quite right, it's important I be polite to you. You're my Mistress for the day. Would you like me to call you 'Mistress'?"
"Gosh no, Miss Atherton, I'd feel real silly. But there is one thing... The girl went to the cupboard and returned with a thin and vicious riding crop. "Whenever you act ornery I'm again ter give you a cut or two with this. Fair enough?"
"Sure it's fair. It will make me behave."
"Gee-whiz, Miss Atherton, you're so sweet and understanding. Someone promise to whip my ass I'd be havin' the heebie-jeebies. How you manage it?"
Brooke shrugged, "I expect it's a part of what Mr. Scanlon's doing to me, making me an obedient slave. Is that how you see me, Etta, a slave?"
"Gosh, Miss, I never thought of it that way. I've bin' figgerin' the Boss was gettin' around to marrying you one o' these days and just wanted to gentle you up a bit first." Brooke laughed up at the earnest young face. From a male view, Etta's summation might hold logic. Mischievously, she asked: "If you were going to be married would you like to be 'gentled' the way I am?"
"Gosh yes! I'd know where I was at."
"But, Ella, I've been turned into a slavegirl. Do you want to be a slave?"
"You ain't no slave, Miss Atherton, you're a lady, a real lady. Even when you get's your pretty ass whipped you're still a lady." The servant girl grinned slyly. "I got something I want a lady to do." She raised her skirt again.
"I want a lady to suck this."
Brooke's spirits plummeted. Quince might be impotent, but his sister was not. About this girl there was a ripeness... ! Etta exuded a juicy sexuality. Dismayed, the tied girl looked askance at the pubic bush and plump lips being thrust invitingly closer.
"I washed her real good, Miss Atherton."
"I'm sure you did, Ella... but--"
Ella raised the whip. "You don't do it, you get's this 'till you do."
"But I've never done it! I don't know--!"
"I ain't never done it neither." The girl holding the whip giggled. "I'll do it to you after. That's fair enough."
Brooke Atherton signed desperately. "I don't think we ought to. I'm sure Mr. Scanlon didn't send me down here to you for that--"
The supple withe cut viciously and unexpectedly across the exposed soles of Brooke's feet. She yelped in agony and fell sideways, writhing. A second slash bit the full length of the inside of her thigh. "Right sorry 'bout havin' ter do this, Miss Atherton, but you ain't takin' me serious. You gotta' do what I says."
Brooke writhed herself back on her knees. The pain had been excruciating but it had made her face reality. It was not wise to patronize or talk down to this girl with the riding crop. This might not be an easy day at all. Somewhere upstairs Scanlon would be guessing her dismay, and smiling. She looked up in supplication. Etta slipped out of her dress. Brooke Atherton signed and did what she was told.
It was unexpectedly easy.
Ella emerged from her own private land of rainbows and constellations, roseate and moist. She was still panting. "Gee-whiz, Miss Atherton, I didn't have no idea--!"
"Neither did I."
"You want I should do you now?"
"Ella, I'm scared. If Mr. Scanlon caught us--you doing that to me... ! I think he'd be really mad. Honest, I do" Scanlon's name was sobering. Ella beheld 'the Boss' as a deity. "Well, O.K. for now. I ain't promisin' nothin' though. You're goin' to do that to me again for sure. It's so goooood!"
"I'm so glad. Do you want me to stay keeling?"
"You kin' get up. Go get me another bit o' rope." It was less easy this time. But bound girls learn to do the impossible. Ella took the proffered length and brightly suggested: "How 'bout I hobble you?"
"I won't run away, Ella. I promise."
"No, but I'd like to hobble you. You'll look cute." Brooke did not argue. There were far worse things than having her feet joined by rope. She looked down in amusement to watch the careful binding and knotting of each of her ankles. When it was done she was hobbled indeed. Both girls laughed as she demonstrated a snubbed and awkward strut across the room. "You're right." She admitted. "They are cute. Now I can't even kick."
"I gotta' do some things now, Miss Atherton. You wanta' stand by the sink so's we can talk?"
"Whatever you say. But why don't you untie my hands so I could help?"
The maid paused. "There you go again, Miss. You ain't supposed to drop no hints 'bout bein' untied. You don't try and manage me, see?"
"Yes, I see. I'm sorry." Brooke interpreted the glint in Ella's, eye, so added: "If you want to whip me I'll stand in any pose you want. It's better for us both that way."
The maid considered, searching suspiciously for traps. "Alright, Miss Atherton, you sorta' bend over a bit so's to make your ass real handy for me. I'm gonna' give you three good licks."
"Thank you." Brooke bent and absorbed the swift crescendo of agony as best she could. "I'm sure I'll learn a lesson from being whipped... you do it so beautifully hard."
"Do I really!" Ella was flattered and pleased. "I don't have no experience. "Quince has to whip me when the Boss tells him to, but I never get to whip no one. This is a real big day for me." Her voice turned to wistfulness. "I expect you'll misbehave again...?" It was almost an invitation.
"I expect I will, Etta. Quince isn't allowed to train me as strictly as you're doing. You're really good for me."
Felicity and rapport! The two girls chattered while one worked. But after an hour conscience smote the servant once again. "Gosh, here I am talking... ! I oughta' be doin' somethin' else to you, didn't I?"
"Whatever Mr. Scanlon told you--"
"You're bein' real cautious, Miss Atherton--"
"Yes, but my hands are tied tight. I can't do a thing. And my feet are hobbled. I'm a prisoner."
"Yes... but--"
Ella was thinking hard. "Gosh, I've just figured the real thing!" She darted to the cupboard.
When Brooke saw the two spring clip clothes pins she knew instantly how they would be used and where. She twisted her bound wrists unhappily and asked: "Will you punish me if I ask you not to use those things on me?"
"I sure will! They're marvellous."
Brooke looked at the clothes pins, she looked at the whip. She remembered her father's saying about a rock and a hard place. She was there right now! "Quince never does things like that to me, never anything really sexual... Please not?"
When Brooke gasped her way out of two slashes across her thighs, Etta chided: "Quince don't know nothin'. He's a man, but I'm a girl. Girls can think of things to do to girls. Like these here pins... they'll look so damn cute on your tits."
The scald of the two admonitory stripes were still vivid on Brooke's flesh. She stood still, saying nothing. But protruding her breasts invitingly.
Enchanted with her notion, Etta concentrated on the twin pink buds she intended to torture. "Stand still." She commanded. "I'm goin' to make 'em come up aways." It was easy to stand, less easy to stifle response. Brooke's breathing increased as did the size of her nipples. She was blushingly ashamed of their ardent response to the fingertips of mischief. Looking down, she beheld her nipples rigid, suffused, more arrogant than she ever remembered. As though mesmerised, she watched the approach of the small hungry open jaws.
"Take a deep breath, Miss Atherton."
Dual agony! Twin torment! The naked girl gasped at a new and more intimate kind of pain, a girl pain, a female anguish. It lacked the brutal impact of the whip or the scorch of a crop. This pain was alive and venomous and would not cease or dwindle. It was like having a pair of voracious beetles gnawing at her breasts, merciless and uncaring.
"I want to fix 'em on you so's they stick out and up real perky." Etta busied herself with painful experimentations until she achieved the desired results. Brooke, still compelled to watch her own torture, mutely conceded the eroticism of the two clips as they bit her breasts and quivered as she breathed. On someone else they might have been curiously amusing. She felt she should commend the servant girl's ingenuity, but refrained. There was no use being too humble or to seem in anything less than agony.
"Jeepers, I'm so pleased!" Etta backed away to enjoy her work. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Do they hurt?"
"Yes, terribly."
"I bet not as much as you make out. Try and take one off. I want to see if you can."
It was tantalizing. The bound girl could get the fingers of one captive hand within six inches of a breast. But, strive as she would, she could not touch her nipple or its clip. Both clothes pins vibrated mockingly and painfully at her struggles. That was all.
"Good!" The servant was proud and pleased. "Now we can go on talking where we left off. I've got this work--"
But it was not the same, The tied girl found it hard not to twitch and twist against the incessant bite of what she named in her mind the 'Breast Beetles." They gave her no rest. Whipcuts faded, the beetles did not. For her part, Etta was equally distracted by sight of the perky twins bobbing on female breasts at her side. She hated to take her eyes from their impudent eroticism or to stop enquiring as to the quality of misery they imposed. It was not long before she threw down her dishcloth and declared: "I just can't take it no more, Miss Atherton. You'se just too damn pretty with them clips on your tits, the way they make you move and gasp, and everything. I gotta' have you get between my legs again. Down on your knees, Miss Atherton. Quick before I explode."
"But, Etta...!" The naked prisoner was distraught. "Did we ought to--this quick?"
This time it was four swift stripes to leave the slavegirl gasping and contrite. "I'm sorry... I really am... I forgot. I'll do it. Do you want to take the pins off my nipples before I kneel?"
"They stay right on your tits, Miss Atherton. Them clothes clips won't faze you none down between my legs. Pity I can't see 'em bob while you work. Down you go!" Governed by a girl who had the power to inflict pain, Brooke slid to her knees, wondering woefully if the bites on her breasts would spur her endeavours on Etta's behalf to fresh heights of ecstasy. She wished her hands were not tied behind her back, pubic hairs were such a nuisance in the mouth. Assiduously she went to work. It was not until the recipient of Brooke's mouth and tongue was well into her private rapture, flushed, sweating and gasping, that the male voice split the kitchen's silence.
"What the devil do you two think you're doing!"
Lust fled, tumescence died. The kneeling girl tensed in horror. She could feel the knotting of Etta's thighs. As the girl, half way to orgasm, stepped away, Brooke gazed askance at their Master. Scanlon appeared ten feet tall, his granite features livid in distaste. She was painfully conscious of her wet lips and chin and of a public hair adhering in a comer of her mouth. She shrank from the picture he must see of her. As usual, she longed for hands.
"You! Etta! Go to your brother. Tell him fifty hard." The servant girl departed, sobbing. It was indicative of Scanlon's power and temper that she made no plea for mercy, no excuse. The rocklike face turned to the naked girl still kneeling.
Brooke knew herself condemned. She was not a Lesbian, and was aware of the repugnance in which the carnal love of girls was viewed by many men. Evidently this man who owned her was one of them. But her mind seethed in horror of the sentence meted out to Etta. Etta was simple. Allowances should be made. She looked up woefully and pleaded: "Fifty strokes... all hard! Oh, John, it's a flogging. She's only a silly girl!"
"It's less than you'll get, Brooke."
"Yes, I know. I deserve to be punished. But have pity on Etta?"
"She's a simpleton. She gets fifty. You know better. You deserve a hundred."
"Very well." The tied girl accepted her sentence calmly. It might take her close to death but, at the moment there was something more demanding. Piteously, she said: "John, I want you to believe I'm not like that. I'm not a Lesbian." It was as close as she would come to placing blame elsewhere.
Scanlon shrugged, then demanded: "What the devil are those things sticking out of your breasts?"
"They're clothes pins. They hurt and shame me. You did send me here to be punished."
"Stand up and let me look at you."
Brooke stood, a picture of nude innocence, shamed, of female helplessness without a friend.
"Whipped you too, eh?"
"Yes."
"You look damn sweet, Brooke, and you know it. You can stay as you are until that fool girl comes back."
"Yes, John." There seemed little else to say, except to ask: "Please... ? Take these hateful things off my nipples?"
"No."
John Scanlon turned and left his prisoner naked and alone in his kitchen. Guilty and distraught, Brooke kicked despondently at the hobble, snubbing her ankle. She tugged at her hands, but that was hopeless too. She thought briefly of her punishment to come. One hundred stokes! It seemed impossible. She had never been given more than twenty, and those on her bottom, and never as hard as Quince could have made them. She shuddered.
The beetles on her breasts burned steadily.
On Scanlon's rug the shackled girl shuddered in retrospect. This was enough of reverie, of thinking back. There was no profit in reliving her captivity. But it held an endless fascination. She knew she would dream again. But, for now, it was enough. Tomorrow held for her another link in the endless chain of her enslavement. It no longer frightened her.
Brooke Atherton arranged her nakedness and went to sleep.
On her ankle the shackle held her safe.
CHAPTER FIVE - SCANLON'S BRAND
At breakfast Brooke's mood of reverie was still heavy in her mind. She had slept but had dreamed of Scanlon and herself and the 'J Bar S'. The brand had been there too. They had not spoken of it for some time but she dreamed of it often. The dream was not always a nightmare. The captive girl was more puzzled by Scanlon's failure to send her to Quince for the hundred strokes to which he had sentenced her more than a week ago. Neither of them mentioned that either, but it was a living presence between them. Etta was still exuding hurt and reproach. For a couple of days after she had been given her fifty stripes she had been pathetically anxious to please. Brooke had been forbidden the kitchen, so had not seen the servant's wounds, nor had she questioned Quince about his sister's punishment.
"Are they worth a penny?" Scanlon enquired caustically.
"I stayed awake awhile last night thinking about us." Brooke made a small moue of diffidence. "Maybe it was more probably thinking about Me. John, where am I going?"
"After breakfast you go to Quince."
"You know I don't mean that."
"You could be a senator's wife. All benefits."
"You know I don't mean that either."
"Then you've no place to go. You're already there."
"With daily visits to Quince?"
"You'd be bored stiff without 'em. I'm anti-social until past five."
"We must be the only couple anywhere who cure a girl's ennui by whipping her bottom or tying her to a post." Brooke mused without resentment. "I cure your boredom too. You'd miss me after five P.M. if I escaped or if you set me free."
"Yeah, I've got it good."
"You've got me good." Brooke dropped all raillery from her voice. "You'll never let me go. I just know you won't You're going to keep me always."
"What's wrong with that."
"Nothing I suppose... The way the two of us seem to be. I don't see why you want to marry me. I bet if I did marry you I'd still be sent to Quince every day? Or would you punish your wife yourself?"
"Mmmmmmm, probably Quince."
"Poor Quince! He'd be so embarrassed calling me Mrs. Scanlon instead of Miss Atherton." She chuckled. "He worships you. Whipping the Boss's consort would seem lese-majeste."
"He'd do it though."
"Oh sure, for you! I'm not sure he isn't more your slave than I am."
"I haven't had you whipped in a long time. Sticks in your craw, doesn't it."
"It hurts so damn awful--"
Brooke was smitten by a sudden memory. "I'm scared all the time now because of what you sentenced me to that day in the kitchen. You've never mentioned those hundred strokes... Am I forgiven?"
"No."
"Alright, John, I won't plead. You saw what I did as filthy, and maybe it is. But I can't help being scared, it's such a terrible punishment for a girl. I'm honestly frightened I won't make it."
"You'll make it." Scanlon surveyed her dourly. "Why don't you blame Etta, it was her fault. She got you into it?"
"Because you punished her terribly. She's had enough." Whenever Brooke Atherton walked across the ranch yard for her date with Quince she never failed to scan the horizon and ask herself why she lacked the conviction to try for it. Run and hide, run and hide... ! Might an honorable escape not be possible! An effort all her own without compromising Scanlon. She had no belief she could make it, she knew it was her conscience that nagged her to try. But not today, it was never today, always tomorrow.
"I'm always ashamed to put you in there, Miss Atherton." Quince looked down at the small cage dubiously. "Sure ain't much room for a nice lady like you."
"Don't worry, Quince. If it wasn't the cage it would be something else. D'you want me naked?"
"Yes please, Miss. And tere's these here--"
Brooke stepped out of her coverings and laughed. "So he gave you the handcuffs, eh! Why not!"
"There's more than one pair, Miss. The Boss give me two."
"My wrists and ankles... that it?"
"They're real pretty, Miss Atherton."
"I suppose they are." She patted his cheek affectionately. "They don't matter in the cage. They'll give me something to play with. What really counts is my hands... ? Back or front?"
"He didn't say, Miss."
"May I have my hands in front then, please?" Brooke held them out invitingly and watched them joined. Without being ordered she got down and wriggled her nudity backward into the bars. She giggled. "Now my feet, Quince. I left 'em outside for you."
Handcuffs clicked to adorn the caged girl in shining chrome. Brooke brought in her linked feet to enable her to hug her raised knees. The cage did not offer much latitude to a girl in any other pose. She faced the barred door which Quince carefully closed on her.
"There's two new padlocks, Miss Atherton. They're awful big."
They were immense. One at the top of the tiny door, the other at the bottom. They would be there in front of her eyes all day, mocking her. Scanlon's innovations were not always cruel, he sometimes exhibited a pixie humour in the irritants he purchased.
"I'll be good and safe, Quince."
"Sure will, Miss. You can't do nothin'."
"Quince, do you remember the time you had to whip Etta fifty strokes?"
"Do I ever!" Quince snorted disgustedly. "She like to never speak to me again. She ain't treatin' me decent yet. Says she's still sore. But it was quite a ways back."
"I expect it hurt her terribly. Quince, did you give her the full fifty?"
"Sure did, Miss Atherton. I wouldn't cheat on the Boss, not even for my own sister. Gosh, she sure did howl at me."
"You wouldn't cheat Mr. Scanlon for me either, Quince?"
"I couldn't! Say, Miss Atherton, you askin' me somethin'?"
"Not really." She smiled up at his earnest visage through the bars. "I'm sort of dreaming out loud. Did you know I'm going to get a hundred, twice as many as your sister?"
"Yeah, I know. Wasn't goin' to talk 'bout it, not less'n you want me to."
Brooke wriggled in her first effort to find a comfort she would never achieve. The handcuffs did not hinder much but they certainly did not help. "I want to talk about it, Quince." She admitted soberly. "I'm frightened. Is it really possible for a naked girl to take a hundred and... survive?"
"You mean, will that there hundred kill you?" Quince was aghast at the thought. "Hell no, Miss! I wouldn't ever want to hurt you no more than in the fun things you and me do for the Boss."
Brooke smiled whimsically. "Do you call whipping me twenty strokes or putting me in this cage 'fun things'?"
"Sure do, Miss. They are, ain't they?"
Her heart went out to his simplicity. He was so delightfully earnest and naive. Nor could she contradict. She knew herself absurdly mixed up in these evaluations. She tried again: "O.K. Quince, so I get a hundred strokes, and I don't die. Clue me in on how I'm going to make the grade."
"You ain't gonna' like it, Miss." His eyes always drank in her loveliness when they talked. She had ceased to mind his scrutiny of her breasts or bush. Sometimes he only looked at her face. He did so now. "I don't think you could stand a hundred all in one go. The Boss don't think so neither. So he's plannin' somethin' special for you. He calls it a ritual affair and it has to last all day. You'll be tied up real pretty, he says, and you get ten strokes an hour. The way the Boss figures you'll come through just fine."
"My back as well as my bottom?"
"Oh sure. Gotta' find room. A hundred on your ass and you'd never sit down again. Your legs will be spread too, the way he's figuring."
"I get whipped inside my legs!"
"Spread's 'em out a bit, Miss Atherton. I mean, not all one place."
"I'm a lucky girl, aren't I!"
Her sarcasm was lost on Quince. Surveying her fate soberly, Brooke conceded faint hope. But ten an hour! That meant she would be stretched for the whip an endless day. "Ten hours strung up some beastly way... Oh, Quince!"
"Works out at nine, Miss. But you get an hour midday for rest, so that makes ten. I'm figgerin' there'll be a bottle of brandy" Alone within the confinement of her small barred cage, Brooke wanly supposed she should take heart. It would be awful but she would come out the other side. Possibly on the night of its happening Scanlon would take her to his bed and enjoy the privilege of coitus with whipped flesh and rope-burned wrists. That day, for sure, would not be fun and games!
She turned her attention to her present state. She had been put in the cage before and well knew its attrition on the spirit of a naked girl hunched into a fetal posture she could not change. Now there were handcuffs! The steel bands on her wrists and ankles were a further inhibition to enterprise. She would sit all day exactly as she was. As the hours passed her bottom would more and more cry out its complaint against immobility. There was also the wry discovery that the handcuffs, holding her hands where they now were, prohibited the comfort of a finger in her puss. It would be a dull cramped day. Hours later Scanlon's voice dragged her back from dreams.
"I'm always telling you how lovely you are. Want me to say it again?"
"I'm glad you like me in a cage, John. What's the time?"
"Not time for you to come out."
"Then time doesn't matter. Getting out is the only time I'm interested in."
"Don't tell me it's that bad?"
"No, it's not. I'm just being female. What can I do for you?" Brooke sneered. "As if I could do anything."
"How about another trip to the Capitol?"
Her spirits soared. Her voice betrayed their joy. "Of course. Oh, John, I adored that last one. Are you considering...?"
"There's a function, men I have to see. Best I talk to 'em on neutral ground."
"I want you to be a Senator. Make me beautiful for you."
"I'll do that." His eyes admired her through the bard. "Can't move much, eh?"
"Not much. I don't mind. Thanks for the handcuffs."
"You're one in ten million, Brooke."
"Thank you, kind sir. But there's something on your mind?"
"Yes." Scanlon allowed the affirmative to hang. Then added: "Before we go I'm going to brand you."
It was like a blow, and the cage seemed smaller, the handcuffs doubly tight. Striving for insouciance, Brooke rejoined: "So you can watch me with pride, knowing I bear your mark?"
"Right!"
Brooke managed to laugh. "Alright, it's going to happen. I've been thinking about it long enough. I'll be sort of glad." She laughed again. "I can't help thinking of a seduction scene where the male strips me for my loss of virtue and finds your initials staring him in the face--along with my pubic hair, of course."
"Is that where you want it?"
"I think so. You've possessed me so many times you may as well stake your claim." She twinkled up at him. Just above my pubic hair please. What d'you call it: my belly?"
"It doesn't matter what we call the place. My 'J.S.' will be deep in your skin." Scanlon walked slowly round the cage to admire her total confinement. "The affair's a week away. You'll have stopped hurting."
Brooke wondered why she was not more concerned. Alone once more she even sensed relief within her being at thought of the branding and ticking the ordeal off her list of inevitabilities. When she was released from the cage in early evening she was amused by Quince's apology. "You gotta' wear them handcuffs on your wrists, Miss. Just the one's on your ankles get unlocked."
"So I won't get scared and run!" She laughed at his concern. "Don't worry, Quince, I'm a prisoner. You know about me being branded?"
"Yes, maam."
Blithely, Brooke Atherton went to the house and to dinner with a man she ought to hate. Tomorrow she would be branded--branded--branded! The awful word echoed in the cavern of her mind. She did not care. At dinner she would get drunk, and would never mention her coming ordeal. She would clink her handcuffs at John Scanlon mockingly. She was beginning to see them as nothing more than bracelets.
* * *
"It is less embarrassing for all concerned if the subject is totally immobilized." Said the pleasant man with the black bag and the white coat. "There is, of course, anesthesia?"
"The lady prefers to be conscious." Scanlon was curt. Brooke did not want to be conscious at all. It would have been nice to go to sleep with an unmarked tummy and wake up to discover the 'J' and the 'S' safely on her skin forever. But she knew Scanlon's desire. Perhaps she could not complain or seek oblivion. It was, she supposed, one of the big moments of her life. "We both of us want me conscious." She said gently. "Mr. Scanlon has made arrangements for me to be--for me not to be able to move."
"Of course." Whoever the man was, he was tactful. "Whilst in no way as bad as the old method, I have to warn of considerable pain?"
"Yes, I know. I don't mind." Brooke grinned at her master. "John, you'd better show us... I mean, whatever or wherever it is?"
It was a simple bench in a spare room. When she was strapped down to it she had lost any kind of control over that part of her anatomy which would bear the hot iron--or whatever it was they would use on her. Brooke discovered she could flex her arms and legs a little, but her sex not at all. Her loins were rigidly held by leather bands as in a vise. Catching sight of the white coated man's dubious eye, she assured brightly: "Please don't be embarrassed. This is by my own request. There is no coercion."
"Thank you maam. This is somewhat unusual...."
"I'd like her gagged." Scanlon's voice as hard. "If it bothers you, say so."
"Not at all. If the lady agrees?"
"I do agree. I'm sure it's a good idea." Brooke purred. "Please don't be distressed on my account. I don't suppose it's near as bad as having a baby...?"
A discreet cough, a blush. "Very well, madam. I applaud your composure."
The gag had been purchased. Brooke opened her mouth and accepted the rubber wad that compressed her tongue. She looked deep into her master's eyes as the straps were buckled. It was a very efficient muting of a girl: she could not scream, she could not speak. If she made sounds it would have to be through her nostrils. Fearful of his concern, she turned to the white coat and archly winked. She was in the grip of an euphoria for which she had no name.
The voice became crisp. "A 'J' and an 'S'? Inch and a half letters?"
"Correct."
"And a bar between?"
"Correct."
Agony.
Brooke Atherton bit the gag and hurled herself against the straps. The powerful surges of the power of her muscles was clearly discernable to the man who watched. Scanlon had overridden the white coat objections of total nudity. Brooke was naked on the bench, every spasm and thrust of her young strength was plain to see. But, in effect, she did not move. She was held.
The white coated movements were swift and precise. Brooke could see only part of what was being done to her. After the first anguished straining of her neck she relapsed and closed her eyes. She had seen an electric cord trailing to a wall socket; she had seen instruments; she had seen a faint curl of smoke from her own burned skin. It was enough.
Sear. Fire. Scorch. Scald. The words raced through the captive's mind. Brooke had no previous comparison by which to judge her travail. The pain mounted in relentless agony as the 'J Bar S' was skillfully etched above her pubic mound. But the branded girl was willing to believe her suffering far less than with the red and smoking iron. The work of the white coat would leave her with a prouder emblem on her flesh. She was grateful for the gag and for the straps. She screamed steadily and soundlessly into her bound mouth and tore with all her might against the leather bonds, finding in the repeated heaves and twistings a partial surcease against unbearable pain. Her anguished mind registered the quiet fact that her branding was progressing remarkably well. There was the sound of an aerosol spray and a flash of cold, pain diminished, then returned full force. The helpless girl wondered briefly which of the symbols were done or yet to do. But what did it matter! The straps and the gag held her in a sweet absence of volition. They were her friends. She opened her eyes a moment to search Scanlon's face, but his granite features betrayed nothing beyond total absorption in what was taking place. She closed her eyes and hoped the white coat would use the spray again.
"I trust you're pleased, sir?"
"Remarkable."
More spray, more cold, a diminution of hurt. Brooke realized she was still thrusting against the straps. She willed herself to relax, but had a strange reluctance to open her eyes.
"The spray may be used sparingly. It is a small compromise where anesthesia is not desired."
"Thank you, doctor."
The discreet cough again. "An unusual situation. But, since it exists, I suggest the lady remain exactly as she is for an hour or so. It is not impossible she may sleep."
"You mean, leave her... fastened?"
"Exactly. Even the gag. She has suffered much less than by the old way. But still... it is a traumatic experience for a girl. She is best left in repose and the knowledge the matter has been dealt with."
"Very well. But let me say, doctor, that job you've done is clean, neat, graphic."
"It will heal in the same perfection you now see. It is one of the advances medicine has made in the past few years. Oh, and no bandages. Give it all the air it can get. In just a few days...." The voices drifted away. Brooke Atherton lay on the bench in a great welter of thankfulness. Her eyes remained closed. She wriggled deliciously at the leather bands buckled on her wrists, her elbows, her ankles, her knees, her waist. Her bonds were wet with her sweat but they clutched her nakedness with an intimate delight. She did not care. The fire on her lower belly burned fierce and bright. Brooke did not care about that either. It was done! She was branded. She was the property of the 'J Bar S.' Within the hour she slept.
CHAPTER SIX - THE LITTLE CELL
Clay Randolph was big. He was one of those powerful smooth men who move property and funds from here to there and back again in a never ending search for profit. Unquestionably he was a force. He was blandly polite and solicitous, and utterly ruthless. In his arms, Brooke Atherton felt the emanations.
Gubernatorial occasions are, by protocol, apt to be both proper and a trifle stuffy. In keeping with this spirit the old fashioned waltz was to be expected. It made no heavy demands on agility and gave opportunity for conversation and intimate whispers.
"How big a stake has Scanlon got in you, Miss Atherton?" The bland query was disconcertingly forthright in the slow rhythm of the dance. Randolph looked down at the girl in his arms and tightened his grip on Brooke's waist in an unmistakable message.
She had been warned. Scanlon had told her to be cautious with Clay Randolph. Randolph was a predator. His prey included women. Brooke hedged: "I'm not sure what you mean. I've supposed my relationship with John Scan- Ion is generally understood. He and I haven't bought shares in each other."
"Met your father a couple of times." It was as though she had not spoken. Randolph was hewing a straight line to a goal. "That's a lot of land you inherited. Atherton Acres, eh?"
The profit motive! Brooke relaxed. Clay Randolph danced well for so large a man. "Yes." She said with equal casualness. "But they are not for sale--if that's why you asked."
"It is why I asked. Thirty thousand acres. Did you know I've run a seismic survey?"
"You had no business to."
"Probably not. You won't sue me. Did you know you're on structure?" He squeezed reassuringly. "I'm being honest in telling you. I'll bid five million?"
It was a shock. Scanlon had not told her. But perhaps he did not know. Seismic crews came and went across the range. Atherton Acres was not fenced... ! Striving for unconcern, Brooke asked, "What's its true value?"
Randolph chuckled at a cynicism he understood. "A helluva' lot more." He admitted. "But all I want is the mineral rights. You can keep the acres."
"Have you spoken to John Scanlon?"
"Why should I? It's your land."
Brooke bit her lip. This man was shrewd. "If I sold The Acres it would be to him. Sorry."
"You're not sorry, and you're the property of John Scanlon. You've told me what I needed to know. Thanks for the dance."
Brooke watched him go. It was hurtful to a woman to be picked up and dropped as abruptly as Randolph had dealt with her. She felt certain she had not seen the last of him. But next time she would give him some icy insolence of her own. Mischievously she wondered how he would react to the brand in her skin nestling beneath her gown.
Irritation diminished as Brooke Atherton's absorption with Scanlon's brand on her flesh repossessed her mind. For the week since the white coated doctor's attention she had thought of little else. For the first couple of days pain kept the 'J Bar S' on her belly vivid in her consciousness. But as the pain faded she found herself obsessed by a Narcissistic urge to admire herself in the mirror or, when there was no mirror and she was nude, to look down in wonder at the symbol of Scanlon's ownership she could never remove. Even before its final healing the 'J Bar S' was exquisitely delineated. It was an erotic work of art. John Scanlon was equally involved. The brand welded a bond between them she would never have supposed possible.
Quince was, in his own quaint way, enchanted and approving. To him, the brand held logic. She was Scanlon's prize, so Scanlon marked her lest she stray. To Quince, the brand she bore was as simple to understand as were the ropes with which she was daily bound. He was, however, extremely careful about those ropes. None must touch her wound until it healed, nor would the whip. His concern for the scarlet symbols was almost proprietary. Etta was frankly jealous.
It was implicit in their strange relationship that the City and its associations changed nothing. In the privacy of their suite they reverted to whatever degree of her enslavement Scanlon chose. Brooke fell into her role now with a naturalness of which she was only slightly ashamed. She had lost concern with analysis. If there was something deviant or aberrant in her compliance, her failure to run away in the brief periods when escape was obvious... so what! Obedient and unconcerned, she followed his command.
"Naked, Brooke... handcuffs."
Brooke Atherton stripped. She found, and handed to John Scanlon, the shining metal things so convenient for City use. She turned her naked back and positioned her hands. It was all very simple and understood. When her wrists were locked tight in the handcuffs she turned to face her master's chair.
"That's right. Stand easy. Let me look at you."
He had never tired of Brooke's loveliness in bondage. He drank it in with an insatiable hunger. She had lost shame in standing in naked helplessness for his pleasure. Instead, she felt a small measure of power over him in her ability to make him happy. She was willing to believe few men received as much from a woman as Scanlon absorbed from her.
"Dammit', Brooke, that brand on you... ! I'm like a kid with a new toy."
The captive looked down at the scarlet above her pubic mound and laughed. "I am your toy, John. Haven't you realized?"
"Hmmmm, you're more than that. You know you are." He grinned. "Tonight I wanted everyone in that room to know--"
"I wanted it too." The handcuffed girl giggled. "I longed to raise my skirt and shock them to bits."
"Twice over. A branded cunt; that's the way they'd see you."
"They'd see me as your property, John."
"Well? Aren't you?"
Brooke shrugged. "I could run away tomorrow while you're busy with business. You couldn't very well post a reward for a lost girl branded with the 'J Bar S'."
For answer, Scanlon found another set of handcuffs and locked them on her ankles. Resuming his chair, he asked: "Can you run away now? I could leave you safe."
"The maid would adore me in this ensemble."
"I can fix that. Don't tempt me. What did Randolph want?"
The abrupt switch was typical of Scanlon. It no longer flustered. Brooke's reply was faintly accusing. "He wants to buy Atherton Acres. He says there's oil... He offered me five million dollars."
"Yeah, I just bet he did!"
"John, why didn't you tell me--about the oil?"
"If I had, you'd have stayed tied just as tight."
"Nice little kidnap package, wasn't I! You got yourself a girl, a ranch, and an oilfield... Gosh, I was innocent."
"I don't have any of those things, Brooke. All I have is the package in protective custody" Brooke clinked and rattled her two pairs of handcuffs. "What d'you call these?"
"I honestly don't know." Scanlon chuckled. "I simply enjoy them on you. I'll keep you like that all night. We'll manage."
"I'm sure we will." She wrinkled her features in perplexity. "John, can you tell me why I won't take Randolph's five million tomorrow and live the life of Riley--totally free?"
"If you don't know the answer to that, it's time you did." Scanlon's tone was sardonic. "I'm damned if I'll let you analyze the two of us to shreds." He picked her up and threw her on the bed. "Keep your mind on impure thoughts and behave yourself."
Brooke Atherton behaved. It was not hard to do.
Even with handcuffed ankles.
Randolph caught them at breakfast. "Mind if I join you?" He made himself comfortable, beckoned a waiter, and focused on the granite displeasure on the features of his unwilling host. "The little lady will have told you, I suppose?" He was blandly assured. "I want the Atherton place."
"It's not for sale."
"O.K. How much?"
"A hundred and fifty million."
"Good!" Randolph sounded pleased. "That's got rid of the bullshit. Now, let's get down to cases."
Brooke Atherton had rarely been so piqued. She was ignored. Two giant samples of masculinity played a terse brutal game of thrust and parry with her property as the prize. Scanlon's ownership of her person and her property was implicit in every word, even in Randolph's parting insult: "If you tire of her, Scanlon, I'll take her off your hands."
Brooke shivered. "Ugh! He frightens me. There's so much of him--and he's gone away mad."
"Half blubber, half venom, all dangerous." Scanlon was irritated by the intrusion on their privacy. "He'll try again. If he ferrets you out, say nothing. Refer him to me." He gazed at her intently, "Unless you want to be a millionairess--and free?"
Brooke was ashamed of the shiver of fear on her spine, ashamed of an increasing dependence on this man whose initials were burned in her flesh. Diffidently, she admitted "I thought I was strong. But that man and all that money, and parting with The Acres... ! The whole damn thing leaves me frightened, like a child wanting to run and hide."
"You are a child. Atherton kept you in wraps. The best day of your life was when I put a noose on your neck." There was no hypocrisy between them. Puzzled, she asked: "How did you know I'd become--what I am?"
"I didn't! I figured a few thrashings would knock some sense into you and get you out of that nostalgic futility you were living in. I figured you'd sell me The Acres and go your way with a sore ass and some wisdom--and quite a lot of money. I'd have given you that...." Scanlon smiled at visions in his mind. "This... that's happened--It's a bonus for us both."
Thinking aloud, the branded girl groped her way toward a new captivity. "I hated you that day you put the rope round my neck and dragged me to the 'J Bar S'. I was mad enough to kill... and so damn ashamed." Brooke's words came slowly and thoughtfully. "You were clever, damn clever. You knew every way I'd react, and you made the mix I had to swallow in exactly the right proportions. I knew what you were doing. I was able to watch myself... moulded? I suppose that's as good a word as any?" Across the table, Scanlon watched her intently. She had his full attention. "Go on, I'm listening."
"Those things you had done to me--and the one thing you did yourself--"
Brooke Atherton smiled archly. "They told me things about myself; they became habit forming. I got so I realized I'd be lost without them. When you tossed me a chance of freedom like you'd toss a dog a bone, I didn't have whatever it takes to pick it up. John, am I lazy, shiftless, scared of life?"
"No."
"I'll take your word for it. I've liked to think it was our dining together every night--those times together were so damn good! And then, after you'd raped me that first time, you made me so damn glad to be in bed with you--even though I might be someway bound and had to sleep chained on the rug after." Brooke chuckled. "I wasn't sure whether I was a Mistress or a slavegirl, and I really didn't care."
"You are admirable at both."
"Thanks! Then you have me branded. Instead of hating it and you, I've loved it. I'm so all fired proud of those initials above my pussy--"
"Call it a cunt. It's the only honest name there is for it."
"Oh alright, I'm branded just above my cunt." She shrugged. "You see, I'm obedient even to a four letter word. Then I'm told I can have five million dollars and freedom. John, I'm just a girl. What the hell am I supposed to do?"
"Take the money and run."
"I can't. I'm still the little girl. I'm frightened. That Clay Randolph creature made me think of monsters out there waiting to gobble me up." Brooke made a wry grim- ace and a gesture of bafflement. "So I run and hold your hand. When you have me chained or bound or locked in a cage I'm safe. I'm hiding in your shadow. I won't kid myself about myself any longer." Brooke Atherton took a deep breath. "John Scanlon, please marry me?"
If Scanlon felt triumph, he hid it well. His voice was even. "In exactly seven days. Do you want the trimmings or something simple?"
"Could we have just you and me and Quince and Etta?"
"Of course."
"But, John, why the seven days?"
"Give you time to think. Randolph and the City have bothered you. I want your final decision to be made quietly at the 'J Bar S'."
"Tied to the post in the yard?"
"Something like that. You don't expect to run around loose, do you?"
"I'd wondered--not that I mind!"
They laughed, a spontaneous recognition of incongruity. Scanlon gave it voice. "O.K.! The damndest proposal a man ever had--or a girl. No love, no kisses, no hugs! Nice to have them safely behind us in bed. Must be one hell of a gamble when you haven't tried each other out."
"Or whipped her bottom or put her in a cage?"
"For me, yes, that's important."
"John, I feel so terribly good. Thank you."
"Good? Or simply safe?"
"For me, they go together."
"Damned unromantic for you, Brooke, all this at breakfast. I can't even take you back upstairs to bed. There's those appointments."
"I think it's all delicious."
He reached across and patted her hand. "I'll make it up to you, Brooke. Any kind of a honeymoon anywhere you want."
"I'll think about that one." She sparkled at him. "Promise you'll bring handcuffs and whip?"
Scanlon sobered. "I'll bring 'em. Don't doubt it. But we'd best understand something right now. Marriage won't change one thing: I'll still send you to Quince whenever I want. I believe I told you this before."
"Whenever you like. I don't mind. You don't want a bored wife."
"And those hundred strokes. You'll still get them." Brooke's heart pounded. But she said, simply: "Yes, of course."
"You're not frightened silly?"
"Of course I'm frightened. But I was frightened of being branded." She patted his hand. "Like I said, I'm only a girl, but let me lay it on the line. Those hundred lashes have been hovering so long, and the reason for 'em was so real, it's something we have to do. Something I want done... to me!"
They went their separate ways. Brooke happily shopped. Her spirits soared in an excitation only partly erotic. She felt tremendously at peace. She belonged to John Scanlon. Everything would be safe and wonderful and deeply satisfying. Laughing at herself, she twice sought the privacy of powder rooms in which to bare her loins and admire her brand. She banished thought of the hundred strokes and of Quince's explanation of the manner in which she would receive them. She was indeed a small girl in her joyousness. At midday she sat down for a lonely lunch. But she was not lonely long.
Brooke looked up at Randolph's smiling face with frank distaste. "Are you having me followed?"
"Yes. I intend to buy you lunch."
"I am not short of money. Please go away."
Clay Randolph sat down. "Where's Scanlon?"
"On business--and it's none of yours!"
"Good. This is between you and me." He studied the menu with immense panache.
Again, Brooke picked up his vibrations, he was an alarming presence. "Do you wish me to ask the management to remove you?" She asked icily.
"You won't." He gave his order, and hers, while Brooke was still wondering how best to cope. She longed for Scanlon. "I know a good deal about Scanlon and I can guess a lot about you." Randolph said heavily. "Put the pair of you together and I can figure where you're coming from." He was insufferable. Probably there were marks she had forgotten to hide. Flushing, she looked down at her wrists. Taking a deep breath, she fired her biggest gun. "Mr. Scan-long and I are going to be married. The event is not far distant. I wish you would stop bothering me. I have nothing to offer you."
"Well, well!" Clay Randolph was surprised and interested. "Congratulations, he's a good catch." His eyes narrowed. "He must think a helluva' lot of you?"
"I suppose so."
- " v "He trashed you yet?"
She met his gaze calmly. "Yes, several times. I find it beneficial."
She had scored a bull's eye. She was pleased with her lie herself. Randolph beamed bonhomie. "I figured something like that. Look, baby, forget your land. I'll get that somehow. I still bid the five million. It's a good offer."
Brooke Atherton sat, stunned. There was no subtlety about this man. Heart thudding painfully, she enquired. "You are bidding on me? On my... body?"
"Yes."
Brooke sneered. "What good would all that money do me if I was locked in a cage for your enjoyment?"
"We can put a period on it. What d'you say to a million a year? At the end of five years you're home free, and you still have that precious ranch."
"Mr. Randolph, you're insane. Compared to John Scanlon, you offer me nothing. Why don't you hire a call girl to abuse? I'm sure there'd be one interested."
"Because I want quality."
"Well... ! Thanks for the compliment. Can we now forget the whole thing?"
"No, we can't. I've decided to have you. The Acres will come along with you, I've no doubt." He leaned forward earnestly. "Look, baby, I'm serious. You can't fight me--no way! Remember, I'm not scared of John Scanlon. Most are. I'm not. Let's make a deal while you and me are still on good terms--?"
Brooke Atherton had had enough. She threw down her napkin and get to her feet. "You are totally obnoxious, Mr. Randolph." She said decisively. "I'll buy my own lunch elsewhere. If you follow me I'll call the police. I find you despicable." She strode away with all her dignity intact. But she was desperately afraid. Late that afternoon, on her way back to the hotel, Brooke Atherton was arrested.
* * *
The transition from the first moment of being read her rights to being placed in the back seat of a police car, wire mesh separating her from the driver and his companion, a chain round her waist to anchor the handcuffs on her wrists, took very little time. It was all unblushingly contrived. She was refused the phone call. She was refused a lawyer. She was segregated alone without contact with other girls behind bars until the conveyance was available to take her to the prison to which she had not been sentenced. There had been no Judge, no trial, no court.
Brooke Atherton could not refrain from a whimsical smile in looking down at her chained wrists. She could understand the efficiency of her condition. She was quite helpless, yet in no pain. The officers could chat in total unconcern as they drove. She could not bother them except with her voice. But, even there, she had been curtly warned to 'shut up'. She was helpless. She was caged. She was close to tears. What would John Scanlon think of her vanishing! He could draw but one conclusion. Her tears welled over.
The Hibernia Women's Correctional Institute had received much praise. Its rehabilitation of wayward girls was well known. The doors of its cells were easily opened by good behavior and contrition. It did, however, possess a facility never mentioned, a facility of which few were aware. It had started as a lower floor where girls were taken when they misbehaved. Solitary cells. A room containing certain items designed with the intent of teaching naughty girls to be 'Good'. The lower floor had been used less and less until it came to have but a single function. Brooke was taken there almost immediately on arrival.
She was not booked, she was not fingerprinted; there was no mug-shot; her protests were ignored. Brooke Atherton was taken to a concrete bath house where she was stripped naked, sprayed with disinfectant, then hosed down with water almost cold. When she had towelled herself dry with the roughest towel she had ever used, the female officer's command was curt. "Give me your hands."
"But you don't need to handcuff me! I'm in prison!" Brooke looked askance at the shining steel. "Besides, I'm naked. I can't dress if I'm handcuffed."
"You're not dressing. Hold out your hands."
In a daze of misery, Brooke complied. What did handcuffs matter compared to everything else. She winced as her hands were put in limbo by the familiar clicks. "They're too tight... Oh, please!"
"I can make 'em tighter. Don't beef."
She was led down. Descending the steps, naked and with cuffed hands, Brooke Atherton had a terrible premonition. Every step she took buried her deeper away from John Scanlon. He would never find her here. Then there was the passage and the bars, the clank of keys in huge locks. A cell door was held open invitingly. After one imploring glance at her jailer, Brooke shrugged and walked inside. The door clanged behind her with a fearful finality, a key turned. She was alone.
Brooke's thoughts flitted ruefully to Quince's little cage and her hours therein. She would joyously make an exchange. The cell she was in was small. No windows. A wash basin and toilet. A cot. She was enclosed by monolithic concrete except for the barred end facing the passage. It was cruelly claustrophobic. The bars themselves were frightening in their massiveness. Behind their iron reproof a naked girl shrank into insignificance, a palpitating microcosm of warm flesh held within concrete and steel. She raised her linked hands to woefully examine the handcuffs on her wrists. They were purely punitive, serving no purpose but to punish. Brooke could not but be thankful for her months under Quince. For an innocent girl without previous knowledge of bonds and imprisonment this hateful little tomb would be devastating. She shuddered. The air was warm, but she would never feel warm. There was no blanket on the hard thin mattress of the cot. Without hope, she went to the bars and grasped their immovable strength. Her view of the passage was sadly small.
Dorothy Winthrop was Hibernia's pride. It was generally understood she had friends and influence. Her uniforms were more expensive and better tailored, her hair-do's immaculate. Her authority was crisp and decisive. She was an attractive woman in her thirties, an excellent Supervisor. The master keys to the lower floor were in her care. She was well briefed as to the disposal of Miss Brooke Atherton, but she allowed several hours to pass before satisfying her curiosity.
It said much for Miss Winthrop that the prisoned girl's first reaction to her appearance beyond the bars was hope. Clutching two segments of the heavy metal with her joined hands, she gasped: "Oh, thank goodness! I thought you'd never come."
"But you don't know me, dear."
"Yes, but you're some sort of authority... intelligent. I've been pushed around by such... creatures! I've been denied all my rights."
"Are you sure you have any, dear?"
The assured educated voice held a quality Brooke could not mistake. But she made her own equally positive. "There's something wrong. I've been arrested, stripped, handcuffed, and locked in here in what amounts to a kidnapping. Except for a few uniforms I haven't caught sight of The Law, or The Law of me."
"Your name's Brooke Atherton, isn't it. Yes, dear, you've about summed it up. You've been sequestered incommunicado "But why? And how can it possibly happen?"
"You probably know why, and it has most certainly happened. You're a prisoner." Miss Winthrop produced a bright smile. "If you're willing to behave I'll open the door. It's a bit pleasanter for you than talking through bars."
"Of course I'll behave. What else can I do!"
The metallic sounds of the huge lock and the opening of the barred aperture were surprisingly cheering. Brooke backed away until Miss Winthrop demurred: "Come along. You sit on one end of the cot and I'll take the other. These little traps weren't made for visitors."
Brooke sensed sympathy. She sat down and pleaded. "I'm terribly frightened. Please help me?"
Dorothy Winthrop shook her head, her smile was one of pity. "Honey, there's only one person in the world can help you, and that's yourself. You're here because you hurt someone's feelings or because you have something someone wants--"
"Clay Randolph!"
"Honey, I don't want to know. But I'll relay any message you like. You can tell the guy to drop dead: in which case you'll begin a very disagreeable life down here. Or you can promise to be a good girl, and please come and take you home. It's very simple."
"But how--?"
"Oh, it takes a lot of money and a bit of influence. But you've become a member of the world's most exclusive Club. In fact, right now, you're the only member I've got."
"But you seem so... decent?"
"Oh, lam! Upstairs!"
"But it doesn't seem possible...?"
Dorothy Winthrop's voice changed. "Honey, would you believe I was once like you?" She laughed ruefully. "I've never forgotten being tossed in this same cell, my first time naked. The bastards even cuffed my ankles as well as my hands. I had to hop. I was sure I was going to die or go insane."
"But why--?" Brooke's eyes were wide in dismay. "Someone like you...?"
"I was younger then. I had something someone wanted. When I said O.K., they unlocked the door and gave me my clothes. I held out nearly three weeks. It's knowing about the room at the end that gets to a girl." The feminine voice became weary. "I suppose I'd better show you. Come along."
It was a large bright room. But what the handcuffed girl beheld in it sent her heart to racing. Prominent, was a vertical timber. At each end of the crosspiece at its top was a metal cuff. "The whip is still the most effective." Miss Winthrop said casually. "You can be cuffed against that post with your arms well out. You can face in or out according to what part of you we intend to whip."
"But it's barbarous!"
"Yes. I sure thought so every time they handcuffed me on it. That's the time a girl really knows she's naked."
"Will you... ? I mean, will I...?"
"Yes. You'll stand there. You won't like it."
"But you? Now you're a--?"
"Oh sure." Dorothy Winthrop shrugged, "after I'd paid my dues and got myself well whipped, they saw a use for me. I took this job. It pays me a very high salary for being like the little monkey: No see, no hear, no speak. I perform some normal functions upstairs. Honey, I just have to ask: what's with the brand?"
"The man who had that put on me is more powerful than Randolph. If you release me to him he and I will make you rich."
"The 'J Bar S', eh. That means John Scanlon. Honey, you sure got connections."
"Then, you'll help...?"
"Hell no! I'd like the money but I don't want a pair of broken legs or to find myself fixed to that damn post again."
"But he'll never find me if somebody doesn't help--!"
"That's right, honey, you're on your own. Want me to send a message. If it was the right message you'd be out of here pronto."
"I can't. What Randolph wants is impossible."
"There was a girl who held out more than a year once. Another was given no options, she just had to put up with us for two... Down here, Brooke, you can't win."
"This is a sort of torture chamber?" Brooke looked around in dismay. "Will all these beastly things be used on me?"
""Yes, they will. Honey, you're nuts to fight the system." They walked back to the cell. The naked girl had to exert the pressure of will to pass inside. "I'd best tell you too, Brooke, our guests down here get treated two ways. The girl can sit here forever and rot, or the guy who sent her here can demand a quick decision. That means you don't get to sit much, and when you do it hurts. You've in group two."
The only thing of comfort Brooke possessed was Scanlon's brand above her sex. Whenever she could she caressed it often. But there were days when this was not possible.
She was victim to a play with handcuffs--one day in front, another day behind her back. Another day found her thrust against the bars, arms raised, wrists linked around a bar to compel her to stand in lonely and tiring nakedness. Sometimes her ankles also were cuffed.
In the nights Brook Atherton cried. She was lost and abandoned and without hope. The girl who fed her refused to speak. Had it not been for Dorothy Winthrop's cynicism and sympathy she believed she would go insane. It was Miss Winthrop herself who changed the handcuffs. Instead of making a breach between them it formed a bond.
"Would you sooner have one of the girls cuff you, Brooke? I don't have to."
"No. Oh, please, I want you."
"I wish I felt a bitch about it. I suppose I ought to, but I've cuffed so many girls."
"It doesn't matter. I'm glad it's you."
"You're so damned obedient, Brooke. Most of 'em bitch and beef." Dorothy Winthrop chuckled. "It's that brand on your belly, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"You're not a nonentity. That means you've found something. Want to tell me?"
It was glorious to talk. Her hands were behind her back, her feet were joined. But Brooke Atherton told Dorothy Winthrop all there was to tell. It was a feast of girl talk, endowing the hated cell with life.
"Miss Winthrop, does it mean I'll be here for always?"
"Call me Dorothy. Looks like I'm going to have you a long time."
"Will it be you who whips me?"
"I can get someone else. Whichever you like?"
"I'd sooner it was you."
"O.K." Dorothy sighed. "My conscience has got a bit blunted about that too."
"This business with the handcuffs every day, it's a sort of softening up process?"
"Yes. I've hoped it would break you before the rough stuff. But I can understand why it hasn't."
But I can understand why it hasn't."
"You're going to have to start taking me into that awful room soon, aren't you? I think you've been being kind to me." Dorothy Winthrop nodded absently. "I've been thinking. Is there any chance this Randolph guy is so mad at you he wants to see you hurt? A sort of punishment for offending his dignity?"
"I'm sure he feels that way."
"We had a case once where the guy arranged to come once a week for a month and give the girl a purely hell of a session. But after the fourth trip I was told to send her home. Any chance your guy would be satisfied with something like that?"
Brooke sniffed disgustedly. "He'd like me to have the pain, but he'd consider it beneath his dignity to do the job. He sees himself as big, big, big."
"I could do his dirty work? He could watch?"
Brooke considered. Clay Randolph would want her half killed. But it was such an easy way out. It would be paying a price in agony to get her life back. She looked at the uniformed woman gratefully. "Would you ask... try it... see if he would?"
"Sure I will. But, honey... it will be bad ..
"I know. I don't mind--if it gets me out of here. I'm simply scared he won't agree."
The little cell contained silence for a few moments before Dorothy Winthrop ventured: "Brooke, that brand above your pussy hair, it gets to me. I wish I'd had a man who thought that much of me or wanted to own me that bad."
The naked captive heard the wistfulness in the simple words. Laughing, she said: "But would you let him, or would he have to use force?"
"I'd prefer he used force. Romantic as hell."
"Mine had used force on me so long that when the time came it never occurred to me to make a fuss. I'd got so I wanted it on me as much as he did."
"You're a damn lucky girl."
"You mean, I was." Brooke gazed around the cell and shifted against the handcuffs. "My luck's run out."
"I'll get the message away, honey." Dorothy Winthrop wrinkled her nose in distaste. "But, regardless of that, tomorrow you get whipped. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, Dorothy. I've been expecting it. Thanks for letting it go this long."
It was their first kiss. It lasted longer than it should. In sudden heat, the Supervisor at the Hibernia Women's Correctional Institute tore herself into nudity. The handcuffs on Brooke's ankles were unlocked and cast aside.
"Your hands can stay cuffed, dear. A touch of piquancy." Miss Winthrop was panting. Her arms were strong as they sank together on the cot. Brooke had a fleeting vision of Etta's kitchen and of her master's angry sentence of a hundred lashes.
She would never get them now.
CHAPTER SEVEN - RETURN TO SLAVERY
It was lonely, tiring and dispiriting. Just about what Brooke Atherton expected. There was also suspense and fear. The only variation possible in her pose was to look along the length of one bare arm or the other to where her wrist was firmly circled by steel and held against the wood. The Hibernia whipping post was neat, tidy and efficient. For two hours she had been left to stand there and wait to be whipped. It was more of the softening up. It too, was efficient. Brooke wished ardently she could surrender. In vivid imagery she could feel the cut of the lash across her back.
"I'm sorry, Brooke. No reply."
Dorothy Winthrop was standing close. Her heat, her perfume reaching out to the fastened nudity. Brooke looked back wistfully over a bare but pinioned shoulder. "I didn't expect one, Dorothy. Thanks anyway." She paused, flexing against her bonds. "Dorothy, you've been sweet. But do what you're supposed to do to me. I'm just one more girl sent downstairs... I'll scream like crazy but I won't be mad at you."
Miss Winthrop whipped Brooke Atherton's back, her buttocks, her thighs, with studious expertise. Her terms of reference were to inflict pain without blood. There must be no cut flesh. She followed this instruction to the letter, striving also for the artistic effect of well placed weals on female skin. Each nude back presented for punishment was a virgin canvas for the brush of her whip. Girls being persuaded on the lower floor would receive much pain but never injury. It was a policy of the House. Her arm paused in the steady rhythm of its strokes.
"You've had ten, Brooke. I'm curious. Better or worse than you're accustomed to?"
Brooke was panting. She had to still her heaving breasts to answer. "It's worse. Oh, Dorothy... ! But not as much worse as I thought it would be. Are you being kind?"
"Hell no! You're getting the regulation treatment."
"I'm sorry I scream so much. I do try, but the pain's so hard to take."
"Scream all you like. No one hears a girl on the lower floor... and I'm used to screams."
The whip picked up its thread of agony. Beneath its bit Brooke writhed and tore at the circlets on her wrists until they bled. She thrust hard against the post or backed as far as she could from its solidity. It did not matter how she stood or how she struggled. The lash was her mistress, marking her flesh as it pleased. Soon she was glistening with sweat, her screams less strident.
"Only ten more to go, honey."
"Thirty strokes? Is that what I get today?"
"Isn't it enough?"
"Yes, oh yes!" The naked sacrifice to Randolph's pride panted and gasped her way back to control. "But I thought it would be a lot more... Oh jeepers, that hurts!"
"I'm making it low key, honey, in the hope that bastard eases up on you."
"He won't. Oh, Dorothy, what happens then? Do I get whipped every day?"
"Hell no, we can't wear out girls like that. You'd be in shreds in a week. What d'you think all these other bits and pieces in here are for? They're to rest you up in between. I'm not sure some of 'em aren't worse than being whipped, but at least they move the pain around."
"It's so crazy, Dorothy. Here I'm being whipped and he doesn't even know. He doesn't want to watch me squirm."
"The type who sends girls here are more interested in the bottom line. They know we've got a treatment. They get back a girl who's still alive. The service suits them as long as it brings the end result."
"But with me it can't!"
There was a sad silence in which the whipped girl panted and played her wrists against their fetters, and Dorothy Winthrop gazed regretfully at her own work until she, hesitantly, said. "It can, honey. That's the hell of this place and us girls--It can! We simply admit defeat and give in."
"You mean I should sell Randolph the land and then deliver myself to him as a slave?"
"That's right. I discovered they have an address upstairs. When you're ready, we make a neat little naked package of you, all tied up tight, and send you there."
"And you're thinking I should say yes to that before I get punished a lot more down here... ? Oh, Dorothy...!"
"I'm afraid that's what I think." Dorothy admitted slowly. "I've seen so damn many girls come in and out of here. There really isn't any other thing they can do, poor little bitches! I was one myself once... and now there's you. Honey, I can't go on punishing you every day. I like you too damn much. I'll have to delegate the job."
"Oh, Dorothy...!"
"I'll come down and love you a lot. That's about all I can do...." The whip resumed its play across her flesh. Brooke Atherton screamed and screamed... !
The naked girl, handcuffed and locked in her cell for the night, was forced into the cruelty of reason. Wistfully, she caressed the 'J Bar S' brand below her belly. Woefully, she frictioned the whip weals on her skin as little as possible. She would sleep face down. But most potent in her thoughts was the advice of the girl who was her friend. Dorothy said it like it was: Capitulate!
And if she refused! The whipping had eaten some of her courage, and sight of the other instruments waiting to clasp her nudity had eroded it further. The stocks, the pillory, the Rack, the thin edge of 'The Horse' on which she would be bound to sit astride... ! All were daunting to a helpless girl, and they were waiting for her just down the passage. In the meantime she was mocked by bars. Her hands were locked in front only because of Dorothy's pity. They could well have been behind her back. Brooke Atherton was seeing herself as a female object to which things would be done. The infliction of the pain would be impersonal but it would happen. She was quite welcome to scream, the staff expected it.
And so! They could send her as a helpless feminine parcel to Clay Randolph. Brooke pictured herself standing naked for his approval, hands behind her back. The Pirate's Prize! She shrank from the thought in disgust and loathing. And anyway, as Randolph's slave, she would never see John Scanlon again. No, it was best to suffer. Something would happen... something had to happen... ! She wept herself to sleep.
.
"My name's Amy. I'm a trusty. I know about this whole deal. Miss Winthrop said you'd behave. Will you?"
The girls was Brooke's own age, but burly, oddly impersonal. She had an air of patience and long suffering. "Yes, I'll behave." Brooke said without enthusiasm. "I may scream a lot but I won't give you any trouble."
In the hateful room, Amy asked casually: "What you want today? You was whipped yesterday, so that's out."
"You mean I have a choice?"
"Sort of. But it's got to hurt, so that irons out the stocks and pillory. How about the Rack or The Horse?"
"I don't know a thing about either. Doesn't the Rack tear your limbs out of their sockets?"
Amy snickered. "We don't stretch you that far. But if it scares you we might as well give you the horse." She giggled. "You'll enjoy the ride."
Brooke remembered Quince and the corral rail. Her spirits rose. "O.K. The Horse. What do I do?"
Amy unlocked the handcuffs. "Turn round. Hands palm to palm."
Rope imposed its familiar bite while Brooke Atherton stood erect, conceding helplessness. She wondered what would happen if she fought. Probably they would call men to handle her and she would be doubly punished. She sighed in resignation as she felt the knots tugged, then she tensed as rope circled her elbows.
"Keep still." Amy was engrossed. "A girl isn't properly tied unless her elbows are roped. That fixes us good."
B Brooke could agree. Her elbows met and were bound tight. It was a merciless way to be tied. She could never escape. It also hurt. "Do you have to?" She asked wearily. "I'm not an escape artist, y'know. I won't even try."
"Part of the treatment, baby. This ain't a fun day."
Next, anklets. In each a ring. The nude girl endured their buckling without demur. Amy patted the cheek of a captive bottom. "I'm beginning to like you, kid. You got the right spirit. The way I have to work over some of these broads... Wow!"
It was a trestle, not a horse. A bit high perhaps. A stanchion at either end. Beneath it a box. "Up you get, baby. On the box. A leg each side." The sneer returned. "Horsey, horsey!"
It was not a pole or a rail. It was a plank, its narrow edge would be less friendly. As Brooke positioned her legs she thought longingly of Quince. When a rope from above was hooked into the bindings on her wrists to lift them high she glimpsed possibilities she had no wish to see.
"Sit down."
Brooke obeyed. But knew, instantly, such a perch was beyond bearing. When she sought to stand again, the box was gone. In its place was only air. With sure swift motions Amy dragged a foot far to one side and snapped its ring. The rope from above kept the captive girl balanced while her other foot was treated in the same way. She was now seated on the trestle, her feet spread wide to the point of splitting her crotch. Tied tight. She could not move. Brooke's response was instant.
"I'm sorry. I can't stand this. No girl could. Do you know what you're doing?"
"Oh sure." Amy still sounded bored. "Been on there a couple of times myself. Can't say I liked it."
"But it's impossible! It's agony--and I can't move."
"You ain't supposed to move. The ideas is you sit."
"If you'd let my hands down it might help."
"Then you'd sit back on your ass. This way you sit forward on your cunt. That's the way you're supposed to be."
"It's impossible. I can't stand this!" Brooke was frantic. "You'll have to let me down. Do something else."
"You got to sit on the horse sometime. Might as well be now. Don't get so het up about it. Your cunt will get numb after awhile."
"It's inhuman." Brooke moaned in distress. "Utterly cruel. Miss Winthrop would never approve--"
"Hear tell she sat there herself once. She knows all about the edge of that plank, same as me. You ain't gettin' nothin' other girls haven't had before, kid." Amy was circling her captive, her manner studious. "I'd best get your hands up an inch or two. You need to lean forward a bit--"
"No, no, you mustn't! You can't!" Brooke moaned in anguish as the threat was made good. That which was most prominent in her view now was Scanlon's brand. She gazed down at it and groaned anew.
"You think you got it bad, honey? Just look at that upright in front. How'd you like to have your tits tied to it while your hands are tied to the one in back? It's awful easy to noose a girl's tits. There's even some little clamps...."
"No... Oh, no!" Brooke was consumed by pain. She was sure the plank edge was within her flesh. She could look down and see the bulge where her crotch took the strain below her brand and her Venus mound. She could not move.
"Well, so long, kid. You're on your own."
"No! Oh, Amy don't go! Oh please...!"
Brooke Atherton was alone.
It was terrible to be alone. To know she could scream and not be heard. Without moving her limbs, her eyes were able to assess her plight. It's very simplicity was a torment in itself. Her legs were far, far apart, almost horizontal from her loins. All her weight was on her cleft, and her cleft was firmly planted on a plank's edge. Her hands and arms were lost. She could move nothing. She was consumed by a sickening fire within the juncture of her thighs... Involuntarily she was moaning without cessation. She did not care. On the horse, shame had lost its sting.
It might have been an hour or five hours before Dorothy Winthrop came. But she was not alone. Her concern was elsewhere than with the girl upon the horse. The nude girl she propelled was a pretty little thing, wide eyed in terror, her hands bound behind her back. Brooke surveyed them apathetically, without hope. She was sure her day on the horse was not yet done. She watched a collar locked on a slender neck, and the collar leashed high on the wall beyond the reach of bound hands or seeking teeth. Dorothy Winthrop was terse but kind.
"I'll leave you here, Susan. The girl being punished on the Horse is Brooke Atherton. She's new here too, but she can tell you a lot. You can ask her questions, and you'd best listen to the answers. Don't blame Brooke if she gasps and moans a bit. She's in considerable pain. If you're wise you won't ever get on that Horse." She turned to the tortured girl. She nodded and produced an unseemly wink. Brooke stared at the closed door in astonishment before turning an anguished attention to the girl.
"I'm sorry you have to see me like this. But I suppose they want you to. Don't be frightened of me. I can't hurt you."
Susan looked around, awed and seemingly puzzled. "This whole thing's nuts." She said timidly. "Can't you get off that thing?"
"Does it look as though I can! I can't move."
"Well, no, I suppose not. Here, I'll come--"
She stepped forward in bland innocence to cause her leash to snap tight and snub her neck. "Oh shit!" She shook her head savagely against restraint, twisting her shoulders in revolt at bound hands. "I don't believe this." As though making a profound discovery she exclaimed: "We're helpless. We can't do a thing!"
"That's right. In this place girls never can."
"You must be sitting square on your cunt?"
"That's the way they want me. I have to sit like this all day."
"Gosh...!" The newcomer was striving to absorb the impossible. Doubtfully, she asked: "Brooke Atherton. Is that really your name?"
"Of course it is. Why?"
"I thought that woman might be shitting me. This whole deal has me scared. What's that mark above your pussy hair?"
"It's a brand."
"Holy cow! Crazy and more crazy. I can't get over there to look--this damn thing on my neck! That brand...
what's it say?"
"It's the 'J Bar S', if that means anything to you."
"Must have hurt, didn't it?"
"Everything hurts."
"John Scanlon sent me."
It took a moment to register. While Brooke was coping with the incredible, Susan anxiously demanded: "Can anybody hear us? I mean, is this place bugged?"
"I wouldn't think so. All they'd hear is screams." Brooke was alive with a fearful hope. "What did you say about John Scanlon?"
"He sent me here with a message for you."
"How could he? You're a prisoner in a prison?"
Susan contrived a giggle, "I wasn't a couple of days ago. But this Scanlon guy, he's quite a fixer. He gets things done. I guess I got here about the same way you did. I just hope he can get me out again the way he promised. Twenty-five thousand for a few days in the pokey... It ain't that bad, even if they do whip my ass." Her eyes sparkled. "And I get me a bonus if I get whipped real bad or have to put up with something like you're doing." Afire with joy, agony forgotten, Brooke pleaded. "The message, what was it?"
"Oh, that! Mr. Scanlon wants you to tell the bunch here you'll do anything some guy wants. His name was--Randy--?"
"Clay Randolph?"
"That's him! You're to say you'll kiss his ass anyway he likes. That gets you out of prison. Mr. Scanlon says once outside the gates you don't have to worry no more. He'll take it from there."
Suspense, longing, hope... ! They were new and joyous agonies to counter the flaming misery of her weight upon her sex, to give the punished girl courage against wracked shoulders and throbbing arms and wrists. Brooke Atherton could almost feel the presence of her owner in the room, his granite features inflexible with purpose. He had found her, achieved the impossible. Her heart beat high in an immense thankfulness. Despite her immediate condition, the lower floor of The Hibernia Women's Correctional Institute had lost half its menace.
"The day after you get our of here, I send the same sort of message to Mr. Scanlon." Susan informed complacently. "Gosh, I can hardly wait! But what's the chance of them being real mean to me before that happens?"
"They'll probably be real mean to both of us. We'll just have to put up with it, Susan."
When Amy came to check their ropes and give them water, Brooke Atherton sent her message to Clay Randolph.
* * *
"I'm terribly happy for you, Brooke." Dorothy Winthrop patted a bare arm. "When I learned who it was sent Susan here the rest wasn't hard to figure. Scanlon must be quite a man."
"I'm so lucky."
"He must love you a lot."
"I don't know what he'd call the feelings he has for me. But as long as he's got me I'm happy. To be in his possession is what I want most."
"There's sort of a bad time in between, Brooke dear."
"Yes, I know. It's time for you to tie me the way Randolph wants, isn't it? Do it right, I don't want anything to go wrong."
"He's sent a bag with the stuff, and instructions. It has to be just his way, and you're not going to like it. The rope isn't rope at all, it's thin cruel stuff, and the gag's a brute. I wouldn't do the job on you if I didn't know it's the last time. And, of course, you have to be naked."
"We knew what he'd want. Don't worry."
"His car will be in our garage downstairs. There's little room real close. He'll inspect you there." Dorothy sneered. "Claiming his prize. Come along."
Glory! Freedom! Exultation! Brooke Atherton knew the emotions premature but they were there and would not be quenched. Even the bars little room and the materials for her binding did not quench her palpitating joy, She had been bound many times before... !
"You have to be standing for him, honey, tightly trussed. He wants you looking pretty and helpless. Maybe a few tears... He must be a real bastard."
Brooke clenched her teeth at the bite of Randolph's cords. Dorothy would bind her right, and she would not complain. She would hurt in silence and think of the 'J Bar S'.
"Wrists and elbows behind your back, dear. Your elbows will be bad with this stuff. Sorry."
Brooke stood, bracing herself against tugs and knots. Cords went over her shoulders, under her armpits, over and under her breasts. It was a little like being dressed, except it hurt to breathe and hurt to move.
"This next one's lousy, Brooke, just plain mean."
Band after band to make a tight stricture round her waist. From it three strands. One each side of her labia, one within. Heaved tight to make her gasp, then up to the belt in front.
"I wish he hadn't wanted this. Not after what was done to you yesterday--Gee, Brooke, this is a real bitch!"
It was! Her crotch was still tender from the Horse. A little swollen, a little bruised. But in better working order than the punished girl would have dreamed possible. She had expected mangled flesh, but her pussy was perking much as usual. Girls were wonderful! She hoped she would not be made to walk, walking would hurt.
"Knees and ankles, dear, and your wrists to the crupper tie. Then you're ready for delivery. Can you balance?"
"I think I'll teeter O.K. Don't tug too hard when you buckle my gag."
"I've left that to last. I hate the look of it. Any last words?"
"A hundred thank you's. You've been kind--"
The steel and rubber entered her mouth, compressed her lips and cheeks, imprisoned her tongue. Dorothy had been right, it was a brute. Her mouth was mute, but Brooke's bright eyes carried reassurance to the girl who pulled the strap. She was kissed hastily by a uniformed young woman who then made a swift escape. A minute later the bound and naked girl, standing precariously in the centre of the small room, found herself facing the blandly smiling immensity of Clay Randolph.
"Nice." He nodded approval. "I knew you would be. Scanlon wouldn't bother with anything but the best."
Brooke could not answer, nor could she cry. She simply stood, trussed for his enjoyment. Randolph's revenge must surely be most satisfying.
"And he branded you! I like that." Laughing. Randolph knelt to examine the symbols in her skin and the cords cutting her sex. "Nice work all round. Nice brand, nice cord job, nice cunt. You're what I ordered: a pretty package."
Brooke could not speak. Randolph had robbed her of a female's greatest need, her trusted weapon. She could make none of the icy retorts springing to her tongue. Mute, she watched her new owner get to his feet and brush off his trousers. Clay Randolph was a happy man. "I suppose you realize how much I value humbling you, you snooty bitch." He said amiably. "I see you've been whipped. Well, baby, those marks on your skin are just a sample of what I'm going to give you. I'm going to make you crawl."
Brooke met his eyes and was frightened. He would break her. She had no doubt of it--if he got the chance.
"Burns you up, eh! Having to stand there with your boobs hanging out and not able to say a word. Don't worry, baby, I know every word you'd like to say. By the way, they must have given you a bad time here."
Brooke nodded, sending messages with her eyes.
"It's a good service. Damned expensive but worth it. Maybe I'll send you back to 'em from time to time when I'm away on business." He chuckled at visions of his own. "Give you a refresher course. They've worked wonders on you in less than a month. The immaculate Miss Brooke Atherton... Well, well, well!"
From every crevice of her being Brooke welled thankfulness that she would be delivered from this man. She had no doubt of deliverance--but if something went wrong! Randolph would be a brutal master, he would reduce her to the status of a whimpering bitch, following at heel, kneeling abjectly beside his chair. He would be everything John Scanlon was not.
"I'll fuck you to a fare-ye-well, Miss Atherton." Randolph made her formal title pure sarcasm. And, better still, I'll lend you to my friends. If it pleases me I can have you fucked by twenty different men in one evening. You'd be an easy way of paying off favours."
Hate burned from Brooke Atherton's eyes. They were here only weapon. The cords were biting wickedly in her flesh. She wished he would be done with his gloating and take her away--beyond the gates!
"And as for that property of yours." Randolph was utterly contemptuous. "I'll thrash you until you sign the deeds. It's as good as lost to you right now. You'll do no bargaining. This place may have cost me a mint, but it makes you a cheap buy."
The bound girl feared to fall. So great was her need to fight, to resist, to batter at the big bland face with her fists, that she swayed and kept balance only by an effort of will. Her flesh screamed wherever there was a binding. The three strands between her legs mocked her with a steady bum.
"And one last thing." Clay Randolph affirmed with relish. "That bastard Scanlon is going to think you chose me. I'm going to make sure he gets the message." He chuckled at inspiration. "I'll make you write him a note -- a 'Dear John' letter telling him to drop dead, that you've followed the biggest cock--that'll really get to him."
Laughing, he picked Brooke up and carried her to the garage for his Mercedes. Tossing her to the back seat, he roped her hands to her feet, not in an extreme hogtie but enough to keep her where she was. He winked at her imploring helplessness and sat beside his driver. The car purred its way out into the sunlight.
A flaring crescendo of hope, tempered by pain and apprehension. The cruelly tied nudity in the back seat felt as does the bait of a tiger... bound... waiting. Something would happen. Fate would not deliver her to Clay Randolph--it would be too cm el! She struggled uselessly and relapsed. Two men were fighting for her body. Only one could win. The steady cut and bum of the cords made Brooke want to cry.
It was quickly over. It did not happen for a painful hour, but then was swift. The harsh braking of the Mercedes, the crunch of coachwork, the squeal of tortured steel. There came the barking blast of gunshots, and the Mercedes came to an unguided halt in the ditch. Heaving herself to her knees on the seat, Brooke beheld shattered glass and the dead bodies of Clay Randolph and his man. Beyond the windows were faces. In but a few moments the door was opened and a voice demanded: "Your name Brooke Atherton?" She could not speak but her nods were vehement. She was picked up and deposited in another back seat. There was no other communication. The car drove forward fast and hard.
"Hello, Quince, it's so good to be back."
There could be no doubt of Quince's welcome, it was sincere enough to warm a captive heart, just as Etta's had been. Everything about the 'J Bar S' was good, good, good. Brooke Atherton moved about the familiar places in an euphoric cloud of rapture.
"Mr. Scanlon says you can do what you like with me today."
Quince shuffled and got pink. "Gee, Miss Atherton, I'd sooner you or the Boss told me." He beamed enquiringly. "You sure there ain't somethin' special you'd sorta' like?" In with the euphoria was embarrassment, a strange awareness of walking on a fragile surface not to be destroyed. Confronting herself, she discovered that the Hibernia Women's Correctional Institute had planted in her heart an overpowering need to go back to the way things had been, a need for time, a need to be once more Scanlon's plaything and Quince's prisoner. If it was a little girl's desire for a safety and security previously loved--So what! "Quince, it this sounds silly--"
"You ain't never silly, Miss Atherton."
"Well, I feel sort of silly. Something awful happened to me out there and I want to forget it. I want an antidote. Quince, will you suspend me by my wrists, like that first time you whipped me?"
"'Course I will, Miss. You look awful pretty that way. But, you quite sure?"
"I'm sure. Here, I'll get ready." Brooke Atherton slipped out of her sheath and shoes. She held out her hands. "Stark naked, Quince! If I'm crazy...." She shrugged and laughed under his adoring regard. "Then, O.K., I'm crazy."
The nudely suspended girl had been deliberately unkind to herself in an overpowering need to erase Randolph, the Prison, and her torture on The Horse from her consciousness. She looked up at her bound wrists and the rope from which she hung, her questing toes found only air. Today, like this, would be a catharsis. Brooke Atherton sighed in a strange content. She was home.
The mercenaries had placed her standing before Scanlon's desk. Randolph's thin cords had become torture. Her teetering balance was precarious after the weary pain of the long drive. But agony was forgotten when Scanlon came and sat surveying her bound nakedness in sardonic amusement. It was typical of him to revert instantly to where they had been a month ago.
"Got yourself in a peck o' trouble, eh! I warned you." Brooke made pleading sounds from behind her gag.
"Oh, alright. I'll get that thing out of your mouth--it suits you though."
"Oh, John... ! Oh, John-!"
It was all she could say against the pressure of his lips and the reassurance of his arms. Scanlon touched no cord or knot, but left her bound. Again seated, he observed whimsically: "Can't leave you running around loose. Damn near lost you."
"John, don't tease. I'm hurting. Please...?"
"No, I won't untie you , not yet. I'm enjoying you. That's a damn neat ensemble--and we both know I'm a sadist."
"You're not! You're wonderful--"
"About Randolph... I had him disposed of. I've got connections. .Cost a bundle but worth it. He'd never have left you alone."
John Scanlon was a giant, an omnipotent force, and he owned her! The bound girl gazed at him in worship. "But how did you know where he'd put me?"
"I employ men. That sort of thing's their job. Sorry it took so long." Scanlon nodded approvingly. "That's a damn effective way of tying a girl's cunt--neat and tidy."
"I'm glad you like it. I don't! Have I any hope of being untied?"
"That's my girl!" Scanlon laughed at her flushed cheeks and uncertain balance. "I'm glad you're not changed. So now, get it into your lovely head that nothing will change. If I untied you now I might send you out to find Quince."
"I don't mind. Honest, I don't! After what they did to me... and that awful cell... Ugh!"
"That glad to be back, Brooke?"
.
"Yes, I am. Send me to Quince to be whipped if you want. I won't complain. John, it was so bloody terrible--! "So even my brutality seems good?"
"Don't be silly. You've never been brutal to me." Brooke squirmed against the biting cords. "Back in the first days I thought you were--that's all gone." She arranged her features to be femininely provocative. "If I said a really nice 'please' would you untie me?"
"I'll think on it."
"Oh, very well!" Brooke affected petulance. "Keep the slavegirl in her place. Don't let her get ideas."
"I couldn't have put it better."
They laughed in the strangest of rapports. But, for them, it was vividly real. They understood each other with an uncanny prescience. When Scanlon spoke again his words came naturally and without diffidence. "That wedding... ! Clay Randolph horsed it up for sure. We won't set another date until we're back to normal. I want you exactly the way you were."
Brooke wondered if he had read her thoughts. A romantic clutch after rescue and a dash to the alter would have been out of character for them both. Scanlon was always right. In the same tone, she said: "You can make an honest woman of me at your own convenience, John. Now, as I was saying, about these ropes...?"
John Scanlon untied Miss Brooke Atherton and carried her upstairs. A tremendous thankfulness held both of them in silent content.
The nude girl, suspended in the bam, sighed in a great awareness of good fortune. John Scanlon was a man, a man beyond the stature of most men. And she was his!
Or did he belong to her! She was not sure, and it did not matter. Brooke hung passively without the struggles and revolts with which she would once have fought the ropes Quince had knotted round her wrists. She had already made the small motions and explorations instinctive to her condition. She knew herself very naked and very helpless, and with the old familiar hurtings of a suspended girl. That knowledge accepted, she could turn her mind to rove among her thoughts.
She now understood John Scanlon's preference for the 'J Bar S'. Captive and enslaved, the ranch was where she herself belonged. A U.S. Senator could scarcely keep his wife caged, bound or chained around the house in Washington, D.C. Or could he! The notion held a piquancy. A politician's wife with whip weals and rope bums... ! Brooke chuckled at the thought. Or they could confine themselves to handcuffs, but handcuffs would satisfy neither of them for long. Brooke Atherton wanted the best for the man she was going to marry. But perhaps he already had the best! He had her! The voluntary captive now knew how much she meant to him. To repossess her he had caused a man to be killed.
Brooke wondered idly if she would come to condemn herself for the manner in which she had pronounced sentence, a sentence on her own nakedness. Hanging by her wrists could become a punishment not to be taken lightly. Most girls would call it torture. Months ago she would have used the same term. It showed how much was in the mind. She could contemplate her day like this and think beyond. At dinner she and Scanlon might speak of it casually or not at all. Yet their life without it would lack cohesion. It was a beautiful puzzle best left unsolved.
It was many hours before Scanlon's voice dragged the suspended nudity away from reverie. Startled, Brooke opened her eyes.
"You are very lovely like that. I never cease to marvel...."
"Thank you, kind sir." She smiled in adoration. This was the man who had taken her from the cell. "I want to be lovely for you, I want it terribly."
"I wish I could paint." Scanlon mused. "There's an aesthetic streak of sensuality in me I can do nothing about. I want to paint you just as you are now." His eyes feasted. "That must be one of the most erotically female poses nature ever devised."
"Nature didn't devise it. Today I chose it. I must have guessed you'd come--Oh, John, I'm so happy!"
"In your condition, that statement should get you entry into any asylum."
"I don't care." In sensuous feminine motions she slowly pedaled an invisible bicycle, slyly aware of its erotic provocation. "John, I've given up worrying about me--just so long as you tell me I'm not a masochist?"
"You are not! But if you were you would be the most beautiful masochist alive."
"I only bear pain when it comes someway from you. Any other way I can't bear it at all. In that prison there was nothing but beastly agony. I don't know how I'd have felt if you'd put me in there instead of Clay Randolph--not that I want to find out."
"That damn place has got itself quite a reputation--in the underground! Someone in there runs a racket. In select quarters it's offered as a service--no names mentioned.
"The woman there, she was kind to me, said men could send a girl there just for punishment. They didn't have to want something from her, the prison would punish her every day until the man said she could be released."
Scanlon chuckled. "What's the difference between you and me?"
"John, don't say that!" Brooke's nudity swayed gently from her bound hands. "There's all the difference in the world. To make a comparison soils what you and I have.
I love you."
"You didn't once!"
"So, alright! You've conquered me. Every day you affirm your conquest. Go ahead, I don't mind. Have Quince leave me like this an extra hour."
"And make us later for dinner?"
"O.K., then. Let's have our dinner on time. Tomorrow have me whipped. I like being conquered. I want to know I'm conquered and belong to you. I adore the brand you've put on my tummy."
John Scanlon stood and absorbed the suspended nudity as a dry sponge absorbs water. She was his heart's desire, incredible in her acceptance of all he asked. Her transition from the hate filled rebellious captive he had dragged to the 'J Bar S' by a noose 'round her neck to what she now was had been a process most deeply satisfying to his ego and his dream. She was his to a degree in which few men ever possessed a woman. He lacked the gift to paint her on canvas, but in her submissions and as he saw her now, Brooke Atherton was as much his own artistic creation as if she was immortalized in oils. Her eyes had closed again... Silently he went away.
"You were damned argumentative at dinner, Brooke."
"Well, so were you!"
"And insolent to boot! No fuck for you tonight."
"Huh, that's your loss as much as mine." Brooke sniffed disdainfully. "Go ahead, punish yourself. See if I care."
"And impudent too! You're asking for it. You're in your masochistic mood."
"It was you who told me I wasn't a masochist." Inwardly thrilled and quaking, Brooke disposed her nakedness on her master's bed, lifted her knees and spread them wide. "Don't tell me you'll let this go to waste?"
"It will keep." Scanlon scrutinized her offering with approval. "You're in a foxy mood. Let's hope it gets you through the night. On your feet, girl! Back against the post."
It was a delightful game, Sometimes Scanlon let her win. She could never be sure. If she lost, her punishment was never kind. Scanlon saw it in the light of discipline, and thus inflexible. Brooke pouted prettily. "I'm sorry I was a naughty girl. Please fuck me?"
"You do try, don't you!" Scanlon laughed down at her beckoning sex. "The way you behave convinces me that kidnapping multiplies female carnality. On your feet!" Brooke stood erect. This was one she was not going to win. Her immediate prospects were negative. "I don't want to be tied to your bedpost all night. Oh, John... Please?"
"Too late. Back up so I get you in profile."
"Naked back against carved hardwood. Arms back, wrists crossed for her hands to be tied behind the post. It was an electric moment. The beginning of a bad night for a bad girl. Brooke stood tense and breathing quickly as the cords made her captive to the bed. When rope had branded her waist and then sought her elbows she wailed. "Oh, not any more! You don't need to tie me all over. Just my hands would hold me here all night. I can't get loose."
"Shut up."
The curt command told her fate. The naked girl thrust hard back for her master's convenience, but pouted sulkily. By the time her breasts were bulging from the hard drawn strictures, she ventured: "Oh alright, if you must! But please not all night?"
"Want to be gagged?"
"No, I don't! I promise I won't wake you. I'll behave. But promise you'll take me into bed sometime in the night?"
"You're being punished, not rewarded."
"I didn't think I was going to a picnic--Oh, John... not that damn rope down between my legs, you know how I hate it--!"
"A reprimand for what you like to call your pussy."
"Yes, I know, but it always ends up inside--and you pull it so tight."
"You enjoy it."
"I don't, I don't! It's bad enough to have to stand like this all night while you snore--"
"I'm sorry. You never snore! I'm sorry...."
"That's better. Want to complain about having your knees and ankles tied?"
"Hell no!" Brooke contrived an icy hauteur. "I love every knot."
Scanlon completed her binding. Brooke was welded to the post by neat cruel bands tugged tight. In his bed, he could view her nudity in profile. When he extinguished the lights she would become a pale statue of loveliness in the gloom. John Scanlon had no need to envy Pygmalion his Galatea, he had his own.
"Goodnight, Brooke."
"Goodnight. I hope you have nightmares."
It sounded like acrimony but was not. The tied girl knew that without their repartee her ropes would feel twice as tight. Scanlon lay down, amused. The absence of a gag would infuriate the girl in frustration. She could speak but dare not! It would be the worst punishment of all.
Brooke was bound tightly enough to sleep without falling. Her head would fall forward and she would constantly waken with a stiff neck. But sleep would be slow in coming, if it came at all. For the moment she was acutely aware of scrutiny. Scanlon was looking at her. She could not move, but a dozen acerbic retorts crowded her tongue in response to the amused regard she could actually feel as a vibration from the male. But she quenched them. Enough of punishment was enough!
The captive girl was also well aware that her sin at dinner was largely imaginary. But her master liked to justify these inflictions of the night. She herself found in these fictional sins an added piquancy to whatever Scanlon chose to subject her to. She sighed and hoped Scanlon's conscience would bother him enough in the night to set her free.
After he had kidnapped Brooke Atherton and satisfied himself of her quality, John Scanlon had installed around the house, and particularly in his bedroom, certain conveniences for her humiliation. He made them as inconspicuous as possible but a visitor might have been shocked. Each one had made its own impact on the captive girl's reactions. They were introduced casually without fanfare.
"You're taking things for granted, Brooke. Tonight there's a change."
The change was simple. A metal collar on a very short chain... a padlock. Brooke, naked for bed, viewed it without favour. "I'm not a dog. You wear it."
It was attached to the wall at exactly the right height for her neck. When Scanlon locked it round her throat Brooke stood normally, staring him jauntily in the eye, but guessing her fate. "Had it made to your size." Scanlon said thoughtfully. "See what you can do in it."
She could turn round, but her motions in any other direction from the wall were limited to a half step. "You know perfectly well I can't do anything in it." Brooke said petulantly as she fingered the padlock and the snugness of the band she could not remove. "Do you want me to stand to attention, or may I lean against the wall?"
"Suit yourself. You've got the time."
She tensed. "John... ? Not all night?"
"Why not?"
"You know why not!" Her hands were tugging in earnest now at chain and lock. "I'd just have to stand. I couldn't possibly sleep. If I fell asleep I'd slip and break my neck."
"Seems humane to me. Dammit', girl, except for that collar you're absolutely free."
"Don't tease!" Brooke was still worrying at the locked circlet at though convinced she could find a flaw. "I don't see how you can sleep over there in comfort all night when you know I have to stand here and keep quiet."
"Believe me, I can."
"I'll be half dead by morning--no sleep."
"I'll have Quince put you in the cage. You can sleep in there."
"It's an awful way for a girl to spend the night. Couldn't you be satisfied with leaving me like this two or three hours?"
"No." He watched her sulky motions musingly. "You might adjust to it better if I tie your hands behind your back."
"No, never mind!" Scanlon had hit a nerve. Her exclamation was vehement. "I don't want my hands tied. I'll behave. Sorry!"
Brooke had stood there, collared, throughout the night. In the morning she was laughably docile and walked to the little cage with a great thankfulness.
The owner of the 'J Bar S' had provided one small cruelty of which he was particularly proud. His prisoner remembered her introduction to it with distaste.
"This shag rug, Brooke: looks innocent...?"
"I suppose it's full of ants and I have to lay on it?"
"I'll remember that one. Never thought of it. But, no. With this you kneel."
Brooke knelt. "Am I going to pray?"
Scanlon grunted, amused. "Hadn't thought of that either. Maybe you will. Here... I'll push you around a bit. That's right! Now, your knees further apart--"
She knelt erect, stiffly, uncertain, while her wrists were crossed and tied behind her back. There came the cold touch of metal as a clamp was thrust down and deep into her knee hollow. Somewhere below the shag it clicked into place and held. The same was done for her other knee and for each ankle. Brooke knelt, firmly anchored, helpless. Ruefully gazing down she beheld her pubic bush in blatant display above her parted thighs.
"You can sit back on your heels."
Gingerly, she obeyed. "But, John, you've made everything so damn tight."
"You'll ease into it. Now the dog collar--"
She held erect while Scanlon pushed her hair aside to buckle the leather round her neck. A snap clicked into its ring. Looking back she saw the end of a tether snapped to a ring beyond the reach of her bound hands.
"What's that for? I can't get out of these things clamping me to the floor."
"Think a bit. You'll figure it."
Puzzled, the naked girl made the only motions possible. But when she sought to lean forward while kneeling erect the tether snubbed her collar, jerking back her head. She could not fall forward to find repose flat down upon the rug. She had to kneel. "How long do I have ta suffer this?" She demanded sulkily.
"Why not all night?"
"While you sleep comfortably in the bed... ! You leave me kneeling here like this...?"
"Seems appropriate."
"Master and slavegirl--Oh, John, don't be mean."
"Would you care to rephrase that last remark?"
The kneeling girl wriggled in frustration. "Oh, very well!" She sniffed in vexation. "You're not a bit mean, and I love you. There! Is that laying on the humility thick enough?"
"A bit tongue in cheek, but I'll accept it." Scanlon chuckled at the constant small revolts the naked girl was making against her fastenings. "How d'you find the clamps? Neat, eh?"
"If I tell you what I think of them you'll punish me for impudence. So, I'll just say I hate them and they're lovely. Do I have to kneel like this all night? Really...?"
"Yes."
"It's torture!"
"I'll tell Quince to ease up on you tomorrow."
"John... please? If you'll let me off this and take me to bed, I'll--I'll... Well, I'll do anything you want."
"You're doing what I want now. Good-night."
Scanlon liked to have her kneeling, and there were many ways... ! Brooke recognized the appeal for any man to have a nude girl in the pose of supplication, dependent on his whim for release. She could not be unaware of the sexual impact she had on him when he used her thus. There had been the night when he had given her what he laughingly called a 'break'.
"Kneel facing the bedpost. Clasp it. Then a knee well in each side."
Brooke embraced the post, it was like making love. She adjusted a breast each side and rubbed her nose on the wood. Her master positioned her forearms, one on each side, in contact with the post from elbow to wrist, her hands on a level with her face. She watched, dolefully, while he bound her thus. When he was finished her forearms were solidly anchored.
"Rawhide, Brooke. Recognize it?"
"Should I be pleased?"
"The knots are on the other side, away from your mouth."
"So I noticed. You think of everything."
"You're in a nice position to get your ass whipped. Watch your sarcastic little tongue."
"Yes, sir. What should I do now, sir?"
"You stay right there. I'm going to bed." Scanlon patted her cheek comfortingly. "If you can get loose you can come to bed with me. No penalty."
"That means I haven't a hope."
"No it does not! I'll be surprised if you don't get loose. I'm handing you a nice sporting proposition."
Brooke examined her bound wrists. It was not hard to do; they were tied helpless in front of her eyes. They were invitingly accessible to her teeth, and she had lots of time... Perhaps? "Promise you won't punish me if I make it?" She asked hopefully.
"Cross my heart. To give you an incentive, you'll get ten across your rump if you're still there come morning."
"That's not a bit fair."
John Scanlon laughed and flipped off the lights. Irritably, Brooke knelt, seeing herself as praying to the bedpost without hope of being heard. Savagely, her teeth attacked the supple hide strips with which she was bound. She bit, tugged and gnawed, and at the end of an hour knew defeat. She had found no knot and had made no indentation in the raw leather now slimy with her saliva. Her jaw was aching and her teeth hurt. She suspected John Scanlon of being still awake, chuckling at her clearly audible efforts. If she kept him awake all night he might be angry--and anyway it was hopeless. Disgustedly, she slumped down to cradle her head against a bound raised arm. In the morning she would be whipped. So what! She let the rawhide take her weight and hope for sleep.
At breakfast the next morning, Brooke queried: "I didn't get loose and you didn't whip me. Did you forget?"
"That's a servant's job. You'll be seeing Quince. You can tell him to give you the ten on your rump."
"Haven't you told him?"
"I forgot."
She was sure he had not forgotten. But it was a pretty humiliation for her to have to ask for her own whipping. It was part of their game in which he scored nearly all the points. Ignoring pain to come, Brooke asked politely: "Did I keep you awake last night with my gnawing?"
"I enjoyed it. You were a busy little girl. But you quit too soon. I ought to make it fifteen instead of ten."
"You're so sweet to me. Do I have to tell Quince fifteen?"
"No. I'm in a good mood. Just tell him the ten have to be good and hard--make you squeal."
Their eyes belied their words. Each was amused. Brooke's was a wry and rueful humour, but it was there. Scanlon was never hypocritical about his frank enjoyment of her punishments. She was an exquisitely wrought instrument from which he had the power to elicit the most delicious and satisfying response. They understood each other.
"They're always hard, and I always squeal." She said demurely. "I can never figure why you don't come and watch. You don't have to demean yourself with the work, but I'd think you'd enjoy watching me kick and yelp and howl every time that damn crop plants itself on my derriere."
"I enjoy talking with you about it like this far more. And, since I mostly keep you naked, the lines on your seat are there for me to enjoy anytime. Besides, I like the way you gasp when you sit down afterwards."
Brooke Atherton went in search of Quince to ask him to whip her bottom.
CHAPTER EIGHT - THE PRISON
"Time's up, Miss Atherton."
Brooke opened her eyes in genuine surprise. Quince was beaming. "Have I really been like this eight hours, Quince?"
"Sure have, Miss. You're a miracle."
"I'm getting used to being tortured, that's all it is." She smiled to disarm the ugly word. "I surprise myself. I go into a sort of dream world."
"Don't your wrists hurt, Miss?"
"Oh sure, and my arms and my shoulders... but it's bearable when I'm dreaming." She smiled impishly. "And I know I look pretty--Mr. Scanlon told me."
"Ain't nothin' as pretty as you when you're hangin' thataway." Quince tugged at rope. "But them, you're pretty all the time--don't matter what way I fix you up." Brooke stood thankfully. It was so good to have her feet on the ground. She watched and winced as the rope bands were peeled from her wrists. At moments like these it was sometimes hard to separate the state of being punished from the state of normalcy. For her, they merged. Blithely, she headed for the house.
Scanlon was in a quizzical mood. He raised his glass in a toast: "To suspended nudes." They drank, laughing, in love with her return to the 'J Bar S'. They were back where they belonged.
"Have a good day, Brooke?"
"You should know, you saw it." Her next words were serious: "Yes, it was a good day." She gestured hopelessly "This has to be crazy: But, yes, my day was good. I made you and Quince happy and I was happy too."
"I'm not complaining, but why the devil did you punish yourself with suspension, and naked to boot?"
"Female vanity. I know I look pretty. In some screwy fashion I saw it as a way of getting the Hibernia out of my system."
"That bad, eh?"
Brooke nodded soberly. "For me it was. Everything about it tells a girl she'll never get out. The bars are huge, the concrete's claustrophobic, and there's that room full of things made to hurt girls." She shuddered. "What got to me was my loss of you. I never expected you to find me. Right up to the last moment I was positive I could never give in to Clay Randolph. What he was demanding was all my life: Atherton Acres and my body. I'd look at those brutal bars and the handcuffs they kept on my wrists and then I looked at what I'd be with him, and there didn't seem much to choose...." Brooke smiled wanly. "But if they'd put me on that horse thing every day they'd have broken me. I couldn't stand that. I'd have given in."
"And you were the only girl they had in this place, getting this treatment?"
"Yes. After they'd locked me up and gone away I sat naked in that beastly little cell, my hands joined together, and nothing to do... It was eerie, scary--"
Brooke laughed apologetically. "It was so easy to believe they'd forget me and I'd just stay and look through the bars day after day--"
She shook her head disgustedly. "This is morbid. Can't we talk of something else?"
"But suppose there'd been another girl in there with you?" Scanlon insisted, following some train of thought all his own. "Would that have helped?"
"Gosh yes!" Brooke looked across the table, surprised. "Are you trying to make a case for the Hiberinia?"
"Just curious. Remember the girl, Susan, I sent in to find you? Susan hasn't showed up for her cheque. I'm wondering...?"
"Oh, poor thing!" Brooke was stricken. "You think they're holding her, keeping her in the cell?"
"I don't know. But by making a few waves I can find out."
Dorothy Winthrop told me they were meticulous in following the client's orders. With Susan, you'd be the client... ? They sure did what Randolph wanted with me.
Scanlon dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. "I'll deal with the matter." His tone changed. "I'm going to have to make a trip. I'll be away up to a couple of weeks--"
"But, poor Susan! You will--?"
"Sure I will." He laughed at her earnestness. "We both owe that kid. What puzzles me is the place itself and how they get away with it. When you consider it, they deliver a damned remarkable service." He chuckled. "If they had each cell full I'd like to make a tour. Should be interesting." He thrust Hibernia aside. "This trip. I'd take you with me but it's to Saudi, no place for you. What d'you want to do while I'm gone?"
"You mean, I've got a choice?"
Brooke's exclamation was without sarcasm. She was intrigued but oddly disturbed. Two weeks without the rocklike stability of this man who owned her loomed as a vast vacuum. His absence from her life had defeated her in the Hibernia. Scanlon's next words made the vacuum more pronounced.
"We'll get married soon. What about a few days after I get back?"
"Tomorrow, if you like. I've thought about it a lot."
"Good. When I return. No use marrying as lovely as you and then going off on business." He bestowed one of the searching glances she had come to know. "You may as well consider yourself a free girl."
"Oh, nnnnnno!" Brooke's denial was involuntary, springing from the heart. Shamefaced, she said: "I don't know who said that--it sounds so ungrateful. Oh, John...!"
"You've probably been free for quite some time, without realizing. You were free today."
Brooke Atherton took a deep breath and counted to ten. Sulkily, she retorted: "I don't want to be free."
"Oh, I've known that for some time."
"Don't laugh at me, I'm dead serious."
"You're damned astounding, Brooke, a female treasure." Scanlon looked at her with pride. "The hell of it is we don't have a word for you, for what you are. I repudiate masochist, that word is not you. You're like the professional students in University, you've found a safe place to hide. You're a professional prisoner--damn nice thought."
She pouted. "I'm not that at all. It's you. You affect me that way. With another man I'd run, screaming."
Delighted with her vehemence, he jibed: "No you wouldn't. You'd be pointing out that the rope of the left side seemed a bit slack."
"John, you're making fun of me. It would serve you right if I moved back to Atherton Acres... If I'm all that free?"
"You're free, Brooke. With a few reservations. For instance, that hundred strokes?" His regard became intent. "D'you want 'em before or after the wedding?"
"John, we've worn that hundred threadbare in conversation. Maybe I should have them before you go on your trip, then I could spend your absence in hospital."
"Funny, funny." Scanlon grunted amiably. "Fact is, I enjoy holding them over your head. I've been watching for you to try and weasel out of getting 'em. But you haven't. I begin to suspect you enjoy having them hovering."
"I'd miss them if they weren't there." Brooke wrinkled her nose. "How 'bout I get them on our wedding night?"
"Serve you right if I said yes. But I won't. You'll get that whipping after we're married, Brooke. They'll help you know marriage doesn't change us."
Archly, she teased: "They'd be grounds for divorce."
"O.K., I'll keep you in the cage until the marks disappear. You'd have no evidence."
They laughed their way through dinner, pleasantly excited, enjoying each other. Still euphoric, Brooke studied her new status dispassionately. "John, I don't want freedom. What the hell would I do with it?"
"Trip to the City...?"
"And get myself kidnapped... or something!. No thanks."
"Alright then. You can call freedom a privilege you now have. It need not stop you going to Quince every morning."
"Yeeeeees, I suppose... but would it be valid? It's your authority that welds the whole thing together." Brooke looked appealingly at the man who had been her master. "Dammit', I need you."
"O.K. Freedom revoked until I leave. I'll tell Quince to be extra rough on you."
"Thank you, John." Brooke smiled apologetically at her husband to be. "Us females are odd, and I'm the worst of the lot. I don't want to be free when you leave. Especially, I don't want freedom then. I want to know I'm your prisoner while you're gone, and I want you to know it so you'll be able to think of me back here safe on a chain or in a cage."
"Hmmmmmm!" Scanlon gazed at his female possession in wry amusement. But he was pleased. "I'll have to think of something. Seems damn silly for you to sentence yourself to aches and pains every day just because Pm not around."
"That will be nice. Pd much sooner you did it for me."
They drank a toast to it.
Brooke Atherton accepted her additional penances philosophically in the days that drifted swiftly by. She had asked for them, they served her right. But the vacuum had gone! That was what mattered. She still belonged to John Scanlon. It was the most comforting thought she had ever known. But the time came when, squatting cramped and handcuffed in the tiny cage, Quince's appearance had been far too early.
"I gotta' let you out, Miss Atherton."
"Why?"
"The Boss wants you in the house. He says there's someone there you have to meet. He wants you to sneak in and dress and fix yourself up and then go to his office. Here, I'll unlock the handcuffs."
She was only mildly curious. It did not matter. The little cage was not exactly a picnic, it was nice to be let out of it early. Brooke made herself conventionally beautiful with care. As she approached the office she heard Scanlon laugh.
It was Susan.
"I was whipped three times, Mr. Scanlon--" The douce maiden spared the newcomer a smile of recognition before returning to her chronicle of Hibernia. "Then there was two days on that horse thing Miss Atherton can tell you about. And a day on the Rack... and I got hung up by my thumbs too." Susan smiled proudly. "How much does that make my bonuses, Mr. Scanlon?"
John Scanlon was amused. Susan had a naivete most appealing. He grinned at Brooke. "Hear that? What would assess little Fanny's aches and pains at?"
"They did all that to you!" Brooke gazed at the insouciant nymphet in disbelief.
Susan's dress slid to the floor as if by magic. It was hard not to gasp at the whip weals with which her nudity was well patterned. "Of course, this is all three times." She explained helpfully. "Miss Winthrop said they'd last plenty long to show you."
"Did she do all those things you said?"
"She was so sweet, and so understanding when I told her about the bonuses and how my family needs the money so bad." She beamed in innocent trust. "Miss Winthrop said she was sorry the other things didn't leave marks to show you."
"You--you mean... ? You actually asked to be punished?"
"Of course, and she's such a dear, helping me figure what it might all come to. I wanted her to do some more, but she said she didn't think we should. How much does it all add up to, Mr. Scanlon?"
Eyes met. Laughter exploded. Susan looked gratified and put on her dress. "I'm so glad you're pleased."
"So that's why you were there so long?"
"Gosh yes." Susan looked contrite. "I'd only been whipped once when your call came to release me--and just once wasn't much good. I do hope I did right? I wanted you to get good value."
Brooke was aghast. What would John Scanlon believe now! "But, all those awful things... ? Didn't they hurt terribly?"
"They sure did! Hurt like crazy... That what you were on where a girl sits square on her pussy--well, you know, Miss Atherton."
"It half killed me. I thought I was going to die!"
"Well, I didn't really enjoy it, Miss Atherton. But I kept thinking of the bonus."
"And that hateful little cell, and naked, and handcuffed?"
"I expect you're right." Susan said doubtfully. "I didn't notice all that much. Miss Winthrop was so kind to me when it came time to be locked in. Mostly she stayed all evening... ! She's awfully good at it, isn't she?"
"Good at what?" Scanlon's voice was a rasp."
The nymphet giggled. "Gosh... you know! She nibbles so good, and she tastes really super."
Scanlon's face became a thundercloud. Brooke wilted. Now her sentence would be two hundred!
"Perhaps I should have left you in there?" His voice was cold.
"Well, in a way I wouldn't have minded--with the bonus and all." Susan mused thoughtfully, unaware of turpitude. "'Specially since I got to share a cell with Miss Winthrop. But she said I oughta' go on account she couldn't help me no more."
"Why? What happened?"
"She made someone mad at her, and they bunged her downstairs for the treatment, same as me, same as Miss Atherton. 'Course she didn't get no bonus or nothin'."
"You mean, Dorothy Winthrop's a prisoner?"
"It's a cryin' shame, her sittin' in that cell all naked and handcuffed and waitin' to be whipped... It ain't as though she got paid. You figured what I got comin', Mr. Scanlon?" John Scanlon sighed. He recognized defeat. It was impossible to remain angry with this amoral maiden. Brooke was something else again. On Brooke Atherton he reserved judgment. "What d'you say to a total of thirty thousand, Susan?"
"Oh jeepers, Mr. Scanlon, I'd go back there any day for that. It ain't that bad--and there's Miss Winthrop!"
Brooke was dismayed. This child made her seem a sissy. Annoyed, she sought to regain lost ground. "Since you enjoy pain for cash, Susan, how much do you want to be paid for staying right here and being whipped every day?
At night you'd be chained so you couldn't run away." Susan's face lit up. "Gee, Miss Atherton, that's a real swell offer." In apology, she added: "And my folks need the dough so awful bad--I mean, I'm not a kook 'bout gettin' my ass whipped. Would you go for a thousand a week? I mean, if it's a good permanent job."
"You'd take all that awful pain for a thousand a week?" Brooke was incredulous, one eye on John Scanlon's interested regard. "I don't see how you could bear it?"
"I'd have to bear it, wouldn't I." Susan pointed out reasonably. "Besides, I don't suppose you'd whip me steady. You'd do some of them other things to me...?"
"But they're worse!"
"But, gosh, Miss Atherton... for fifty-two thousand a year... ! Gollies, when do I start?"
"Not necessarily. Different types, different ages, different motivations."
"But Susan likes it--I thought I was dying."
"But you weigh more than I do, so your pussy hurt more, Miss Atherton." Susan said anxiously. "I don't weigh all that much. Besides, you weren't getting paid." They regarded her with affection. Susan was a delight. Watched by concerned feminine eyes, John Scanlon wrote a check and handed it to a starry eyed girl. "You are a remarkable young woman." He said gently. "If you wish it you may return to the Hibernia. You can mail the check to your family."
Brooke was stricken. Here was a piquant situation for Scanlon to test and enjoy. But... ? Her heart was racing. Scanlon turned and bestowed his full scrutiny. "You thinking what I'm thinking, Brooke?"
She knew instantly. Her plea was broken. "John... ! Please... don't do it to me."
"I'm leaving tomorrow. Two weeks. Saves you wondering what to do with the time."
"I couldn't bear it."
"You can, and you will. I'll instruct them to give you the mild treatment."
"But, that awful place--!"
"I'll send young Susan with you for company. She can pick her own treatment."
"Oh, Miss Atherton, we're so lucky!" Susan was bright eyed. "I'll be ever so sweet to you--and for only two weeks--!"
What else was there to say!
No tailored uniform. No coiffured tresses... Nothing! The naked woman whose wrists were handcuffed round a bar of the cell did not bother to open her eyes until the lock turned and the barred door clanged open and shut upon a twin nudity.
"Oh, Dorothy!" Brooke was aghast.
"Brooke! What the devil...?"
Joined arms inhibited the embrace, but searching hands did their best on captive flesh, their lips were ardent.
"Oh, this is so good!" Dorothy Winthrop's heart was in the words. "But they won't leave us together long--the bastards!"
"Yes, they will." Breathlessly, Brooke explained the strange compact by which she was compelled. "Susan's here too. They've put her in another cell." She stood back to admire. "Gosh, you're lovely like that! I've seen you naked before. But John's right: bondage becomes us. Dorothy... ! You've been whipped!"
"And why not! That's what I'm down here for. I said the wrong word at the wrong time to the wrong person. I'm receiving full adult treatment, same as you started out on."
"But when I think of you and what you were... ! This just isn't possible! It's all wrong."
The naked supervisor raised handcuffed wrists in a rueful admission. "And now I'm cuffed to the bars so I have to stand up, just like anyone else down here." She laughed a bitter laugh. "That's part of my punishment. They know what hurts."
"But they won't leave you here--they can't!"
"Why not! They refuse to tell me how long. Knowing the bastard who sent me here, it could be for life." Captive shoulders shrugged. "But that's part of the treatment too, isn't it."
The same cell, the same bars, the same handcuffs on her wrists. It all flooded back in Brooke's memory. But, now a difference. She had hope and Dorothy Winthrop. Somewhere in this place of punishment Susan would be prisoner too. She looked at the girl clutching the bar by which she was forced to stand, and knew a great thankfulness. Not for Dorothy but for herself. "I'll get you out of this." She vowed passionately. "John Scanlon will manage it somehow."
"He can't. No one can." Dorothy grinned ruefully. "You're forgetting. You can't get word out of here any more than I can. We're sealed and buried. Oh, and by the way, it's mostly Amy who punishes us. Best be polite. She's a little bitch if she gets offended. I think they're going to punish me this afternoon. I don't know what they'll do to you."
It was not long before they found out. Amy was irritatingly cheerful, surveying her nude captives with a proprietary eye. "Gosh, Miss Winthrop, I sure do get a charge outta' seein' you this way."
"I'm sure you do, Amy. The folks upstairs want you to feel good about me. They do."
"Gee, Miss Atherton, I'm glad you're back. They tell me I get to whip your ass. Not right now though. But I got some things...." Brooke winced. The mild treatment might not be all that mild. In docile resignation she allowed her neck to be collared. There was the snap of a leash. Apathetically, she stood while her handcuffs were changed from front to back.
"You next, Miss Winthrop."
Dorothy was taken from the bars, her hands joined behind her back. For her too there was a collar. "I got me the damndest idea 'bout you two." Amy informed blissfully. "You'll love it."
They did not love it. Each had guessed her fate. Brooke's leash became a tether, compelling her to stand where Susan had once stood in the fatal room where girls were given pain. Twisting against handcuffed wrists, she leaned back against the wall. She was a fixture.
"Know where you're going, Miss Winthrop?"
"Yes, I know, Amy. I guessed." Dorothy's voice was wearily resigned. "Too good a chance for you to miss. D'you want me on the box?"
Brooke watched, breathless, as though seeing herself that other time when the Horse had claimed her crotch as its prey. Miss Winthrop mounted the box, positioned a bare leg on each side of the wicked plank, then stood in mute grief as her arms were raised and the ringed anklets strapped tight. "I'm not sure I can keep my balance." She ventured dismally. "Not while you're fixing my feet."
"I've got your arms so high they'll hold you when you sit, Miss Winthrop." Amy said encouragingly. "And I promise I'll hurry. "You can sit down now." She said it as though making a generous offer. "Want me to sort of guide your cunt?"
"If you wouldn't mind, please."
The tethered girl tensed, her eyes wide in beholding the impossible. The polite exchange was bizarre, incongruous. How had the mighty fallen! Poor Dorothy! Brooke shrank in sympathy at every motion she was fastened there to see.
"That's right, nice and slow." Amy actually sounded solicitous.
"I'm going to behave horribly, I know I am." Dorothy was gritting her teeth. "And the handcuffs are hurting like fire. Shouldn't my hands be tied with rope?"
"Never mind that now. Let's get you square on the Horse. I can fiddle with your hands later."
Suddenly, it was done! In two quick leaps Amy snapped the anklets. The former Supervisor at the Hibernia Women's Correctional Institute sat naked astride the thin edge of a plank, her legs tautly tractioned to either side to make them grotesquely horizontal in a cruel imitation of a ballerina's split, her handcuffed wrists high above her back. She moaned in total misery but made no complaint. Bent forward to ease wrenched shoulders, she was forced to a close-up view of the torture of her loins.
"Dead centre on your cunt, Miss Winthrop." Amy was pleased and proud. "You sure are pretty, such a nice figure! And this way I've got you fixed...!" Amy signed in exuberant content. I'm going to be thinking of you all the time I'm upstairs."
"Please... ? The handcuffs...?"
"Jeepers, I can't go to all that trouble!"
"Oh, please? They hurt terribly. I promise I won't give trouble. I'll let you tie my hands."
"Oh alright!" Amy searched for a key. "So far as trouble goes, Miss Winthrop, you ain't in no shape to give any." Brooke relived it all. She recalled the painful forward bend as bound hands were raised and raised while shoulders screamed and a sundered sex burned in incandescent agony. But she was a helpless spectator.
"Well, be good girls while I'm gone." Amy patted bare skin in insouciant goodwill. "I'll see you after a long while."
"At least she didn't come out with the 'Don't go away' bit." Miss Winthrop muttered when they were alone. "But I bet she's right about the long time. They'll keep us like this for hours and hours."
"Doesn't matter about me, I'm not hurting."
"You'll get awful sick of it though, dear. You can't sit down, and you can't do a thing to help. Watching a girl squash her pussy on a plank isn't much fun."
"It's not much fun for your pussy, Dorothy." Brooke was trembling. "Look, if I can persuade John Scanlon to get you out of here, would they give you your job back? Would you want it?"
"If they hear even a whisper of what you've just said they'll whip us both half to death--even if you are getting the V.I.P. Course. Honey, you can't help me."
"Alright, but does it help to talk, or should I shut up?"
"Oh, honey, talk... please! If I groan too much, pretend you don't notice."
Brooke talked. Sometimes her words faltered at sight of the crushed crotch upon the plank's edge, at sight of the corded wrists and tractioned arms. Dorothy Winthrop could not move any more than she herself had moved in similar plight. The two lovely breasts, tautened by the stressed arms, mutely attested to their owner's suffering. The black curls of Dorothy's pubic bush seemed a pathetic epitaph to that which was smothered and compressed out of sight upon the bitter wood.
"You're going to have to get used to seeing me in spots like this." The tortured girl muttered slowly between gasps. "I'll get the whole repertoire, and they'll get a bang out of making you watch. They'll figure it will humiliate me into the ground."
"Dorothy, you had a job, a real position of authority, doing this to girls. How did you feel about it?"
"Yeah." The affirmative was one of utter disgust. "I deserve what I'm getting--poetic justice... Is that it? I wasn't any more of a bitch than the orders demanded. But I did what they said. You remember?" She made a negative small motion of her head. "I was always ashamed of myself, but it was a damn good job." She sniffed disgustedly. "I sort of want what I'm getting. Maybe I'll feel better about myself after." She sniffed again. "If there ever is any after."
Brooke Atherton shook herself like a wet dog, a motion symbolic of casting off collar, leash and handcuffs. All remained firmly fixed on her person. She could no more help the girl with spread legs than if she was still safe at the 'J Bar S'. She thought, woefully, of John Scanlon and wondered if he would have used force to place her where she was if she had protested more vehemently and dug in her heels. The speculation was intriguing. She knew in her heart that the two week vacuum of his absence was being logically filled. The Hibernia was robbed of much of its menace by a certainty of eventual release and the comparative mercy of the 'mild' treatment. She doubted her treatment being all that mild. But still... ! And anyway, it was too late to change anything now. The collar and handcuffs mocked freedom. To keep her presence alive for the tortured girl, she asked: "Dorothy dear, did they put you on the horse that first time years ago?"
"Oh sure. I didn't like it then either. It's hateful for a girl. But, honey, did it make you homy?"
"Gosh no! Should it?"
Dorothy wrinkled her nose. It was one of the few painless motions she could make. "I just wondered. It doesn't do a thing for me either, except hurt. But there's been one or two girls--they've actually had orgasms sitting on this blasted edge. I saw it happen."
"Well, there's been times--"
Brooke admitted slowly, then laughed at memories. "I think it's when something is done to us, to a girl, I mean. I expect it begins with rape. That's a sort of ultimate 'doing to us'. It's against our will, but most definitely by the will and power of the man who thrusts his penis inside us whether we like it or not. We've had something 'done' to us and we've had to take it--Dorothy darling, am I making any sense?"
"Of course you are. Go on. You're keeping me from screaming."
"Well, from the rape thing it branches out all over. Because men are stronger they can 'do' things to us. A lot of lovemaking is being manhandled. If it's the right guy we love it. It's a gorgeous feeling when his stronger hands position you for his pleasure--"
"But it isn't always a man, Brooke?"
"Same thing. If a girl has the power to 'do' things to us she becomes a surrogate male. If we're in love with her she takes on the role completely."
The girl on the horse almost achieved humor. "Wait 'til they lock us in the cell." She promised. "I'll make you forget about men." Dorothy's voice faltered. "That's if I'm still in working order. Right now I've got doubts. Keep talking."
"I never thought about this--I mean, about getting a hot pussy because you've been pushed or pulled, until after I became a prisoner. When I was made captive, someone was forever 'doing' something 'to' me. At first I hated it all, regardless. But, gradually, that changed. I found myself getting excited when my hands were tied or I was forced to crawl into a cage. It was terribly potent when I knew I was being tied to be whipped. I suppose being whipped ranks up there close to rape as the ultimate 'having something done to you' sensation."
"You didn't have an orgasm when I whipped you."
"I was frightened of you then. I'd have one now if you tied me and whipped me, not too hard, with love."
"I wish my pussy could get excited now--"
Dorothy gasped distressfully. "She's about as far off--!"
Brooke tugged at her handcuffs to make them clink. "If I was anyway in love with Amy I'd get a hot puss by her 'doing' this to me. Making me helpless and laughing at me when she goes away. Or you when you'd tell me to hold out my hands to be handcuffed." She paused to chuckle. "Maybe it's nature's way of compensating female prisoners. They sure don't have much else."
"Clever little trick, aren't you." The punished girl was fighting to keep her voice under control. "I'm glad I never had to hurt you with any of the other things in this room. Some of 'em are mean." Miss Winthrop let her mind rove, guiltily, across a panorama of the agony of girls. Musingly, she said: "There was a punishment once... I always wondered about it. Far as I know nobody ever thought of it before. But I'm not sure it isn't the unkindest of the lot. A girl was sent here to be made pregnant. Her name was Crystal."
"Crystal had got someone really mad at her. Whoever it was sentenced her to endure as many sexual couplings as we could contrive for her. Then, when we were sure she'd conceived, she had to be kept prisoner for another four months until she'd gone beyond the time for a safe abortion. Then she was released."
"No whip or anything?"
"No. Nothing. There was her imprisonment, she had to endure that. I always figured it was a woman who sent her to us. There was something female about what was 'done' to that girl."
"But you'd need the men!"
"That wasn't too hard. We got Crystal the damndest collection of unattractive genitals a girl could have nightmares about. There wasn't a tall dark and handsome in the lot. We figured out her sponsor wanted to see what she'd do with her child when she got it."
"What did she do?"
"We never knew." Miss Winthrop rationed herself small piteous sounds before continuing. "Our job was the mechanics. She started out naked, handcuffed, locked in a cell. That's routine here." For moments the tortured nudity gasped her way through agony to resume: "Crystal was a beauty. Probably snooty when free, a pretty rich bitch. But here, when she heard her sentence, she was simply frightened and pleading. She promised us just about anything if we'd let her to. When I locked her in the ceil for the first time, she stood there, naked, looking at her handcuffs as though they were poisonous, and then all around. She buried her face in her hands and wept and wept. I couldn't take it. I tip-toed away. Crystal was altogether too damn lovely."
"I know how she felt." Brooke remembered the moment all too vividly. "When I got out of here it was the cell and the bars and the concrete that kept me shivering. Alone in one of the cells down the passage I can't bear it. But if you're locked in with me it does not hurt the same." Nobody got locked in with poor Crystal. We fixed her cot with a handcuff at each comer, so when we laid her down and snapped her wrists and ankles she was plenty helpless but had lots of leeway to wriggle and buck. It took three of us to fasten her down the first time. She knew what was going to happen and fought like crazy. When the first man arrived I thought she'd tear the cot apart. He was the plumber, middle aged, paunchy, needed a shave, but damn good and interested in what he was going to do."
"But, how many-?"
"Oh, only two or three a day. Sometimes only one. We always unlocked Crystal after she'd been violated. After the first few days she became meek and resigned enough to stop fighting every time she had to lay on the cot for a man to put his sperm in her. I could just make a motion and she'd position herself so all I had to do was snap the cuffs. Crystal was with us a little over five months."
"Wow!" Brooke surveyed horror. "I think I'd sooner take this room. But did she... ? I mean, when she got resigned, did she--?"
Miss Winthrop made sounds, perhaps one was laughter. "Oh, sure she did. But it took her a long time, and she was terribly ashamed. I guessed it to be loneliness in that cell that wore her down to where she could take pleasure from a man. Towards the end, just before she conceived, I knew her well enough to tell the times she was sexually excited when I locked her on the cot. I checked by palming her pussy. She'd given up minding."
The two girls talked in desultory fashion through the afternoon. Brooke tried to gauge her utterances to her companion's obvious suffering. It was not easy. She tired of standing against the wall, and spent a little time striving to free her neck. She gnawed at her leash and contorted to try and reach it with her cuffed hands. Neither effort was rewarding but it helped pass time. After an eternity of hours Amy was colorful relief. She bestowed a feminine pat on Brooke's cheek and offered the woman on the horse an outrageous greeting.
"Well, Miss Winthrop, how's your cunt?"
"It's dead."
"Betcha' it comes to life again. If it doesn't, let me know. I'll give it a good whipping, that'll warm it up."
"Thank you, Amy. I'll remember."
The 'trusty' wardress possessed herself of Brooke's leash. "You two make me homy. Down on your knees, bitch, and between my legs. Make it good."
"But, poor Miss Winthrop--?"
"Poor Miss Winthrop can watch. She's going to have to service me later." Amy signed ecstatically. "If they let me keep this job down here I don't ever want to be paroled. Get with it, girl."
Brooke Atherton got with it, thankful it was not her first time. Since her hands were useless behind her back she was grateful for Amy's help. She sent her mouth and tongue into battle and tried hard to please.
"Not bad, Miss Atherton, not bad at all." A satiated Amy gave another sigh of happiness. "And to think I used to believe cunts were for peeing and pricks! Gollies, that was a waste. Eating and whipping, that's what they're really for. Stand over by Miss Winthrop, sweetheart, so's she can lean on you."
Brooke obeyed. She watched the captive wrists lowered and untied, then handcuffed in front. She braced herself as a groaning rider left her steed and clutched her bare shoulder for support. It took both girls to ease the punished flesh back to stand erect. Brooke had no hands but did her best.
"Oh, Amy, don't ever put me on that thing again... please?" There could be no doubting Miss Winthorp's sincerity. Even after release she was still moaning. "It's just too damn awful for any girl."
"Spread your legs, Miss Winthrop. I'll take a look."
The captives exchanged rueful glances as their wardress made an examination both digital and visual. "Gee, Miss Winthrop, you've got a lovely cunt! No one would ever know. Sure, it's red and swollen, but that makes it all the prettier." She chuckled. "I bet Miss Atherton will love eating it later on this evening."
"Oh, Amy, it hurts too much to kid. Just lock us in the cell."
"Would you be giving me orders, Miss Winthrop?" Amy's voice took on the ring of steel.
"I'm sorry! I forgot." The captive voice was instantly contrite.
"That's better. You watch it, Miss Winthrop. I can whip your nice ass all I like and nobody's going to say boo." y "I really am sorry, Amy. Please forgive me."
"Huh! Well, anyway, come along."
Brooke was still leashed. The 'horsed' woman limped beside her painfully. Behind their bars, they were sternly admonished. "You'll be getting supper. I'll ask the girl to sponge you down a bit after, and maybe fix your hair. But remember, no funny-funny stuff. If you two nibble each other before dark you'll spend the night facing each other on the horse. It takes two comfortably--or should I say un-comfortably!"
"Yes, Amy, we'll behave. Thank you."
Their jailer gone, the former supervisor looked at Brooke appealingly. "Do I sound too nauseating, Brooke? I'm sorry, but I'm scared. I won't fight."
"You poor darling!" Brooke Atherton became a bundle of feminine sympathy. "And I've got no hands to cuddle you. Let's kiss and rub breasts and nipples."
The two females pressed against each other, hard! Finding, in their fleshly contact, a comfort their handcuffs denied. When they pulled apart, breathless, Dorothy Winthrop mourned. "I feel like eating you, I want you so bad. I can almost say: damn the consequences. But, Brooke darling, I couldn't face all night back on that beastly horse -- and with you there too! Amy's capable of doing it to us. She'd excuse doing it to you by claiming you needed discipline."
They were tended and fed by a surly young woman who appeared to regard them as highly privileged rich folks. She sniffed her way in and out of their presence and closed their cell door with a ringing clang. Her departure was followed by Amy's return. Amy carried something Brooke failed to recognize.
"No! Oh no, Amy! Oh please?" Dorothy was distraught. "And why not?" Amy was prepared to enjoy herself. "Because... ! " Miss Winthrop's voice was pleading. "Don't do that to us. Don't take away the only thing we've got. Look, I'll get down on my knees?"
"Why don't you shut up, Miss Winthrop. You know perfectly well I'll do it anyway. Besides, in this case... I've got orders."
Brooke Atherton glimpsed her fate slowly. When she understood, she knew that somewhere John Scanlon would be smiling. She did not plead. Pleading would be useless against his edict. She looked at her disturbed companion and shook her head.
"Open your mouth, dear."
A gag thrust into Brooke Atherton's mouth, a supple band smothered her closed lips. Both were harshly buckled at the nape of her neck. There came an ominous click.
"Non detachable, Miss Atherton. You'll love it."
"Amy, don't be so unkind. There's no need."
"Yes there is, Miss Winthrop," Amy informed self righteously. "Seems like the gentleman who sent Miss Atherton here doesn't want her cunt licked--'cept by a whip. So, since she's gotta' have a gal' in the cell with her and they sleep on the same cot, there ain't no other way." Brooke gazed at Amy's other exhibit in a horrific understanding. But she stood stiffly erect while the chastity belt was fastened on her hips and loins. Looking down, she knew for sure her sex as inviolate. There was the usual fatal snap of a padlock.
"You look really pretty, Miss Atherton. Suits you."
"Mmmmmmm, grrrrrrrrr... ug." She had forgotten she could not speak. Brooke had lost her pussy, her mouth and her hands. She stood in forlorn prisonment and gazed at Miss Winthrop pathetically.
"Amy, you could have put belts on us both--that awful gag!"
"Seems like you gotta play with yourself, Miss Winthrop."
Amy departed, laughing.
CHAPTER NINE - LIFE SENTENCE
It was nice to be able to walk freely around the awful room. Nothing but her hands cuffed behind her back, and on her neck the collar, but the collar had no leash so did not matter. Brooke Atherton might have been reasonably content had it not been for her companions. Because of them she was doomed to frustration.
Susan hung naked, suspended by her thumbs from a bar above. She had ceased to struggle. She was crying. Miss Dorothy Winthrop was stretched nude within the framework of the Rack, There were tears on her cheeks too. She was stretched taut, breasts flattened, belly concave, ribcage cruelly pronounced. It looked like a day in which no one would be happy except Amy.
Their wardress entered, smiling with goodwill, in her hand a chain. "Forgot something." She announced cheerfully to Brooke. "Those little hands of yours."
"What's the matter with them? You've got them locked behind my back."
"I'll show you. Stand still."
The chain went round Brooke's slim waist to form a belt, but it continued on down between her thighs and was dragged tightly into her crotch and up between her cheeks. It was tightened to be locked to her handcuffs.
"Neat, eh? You might have reached out back and fiddled with Miss Winthrop's straps."
"Oh, Amy... ! You've fixed me so I can't fiddle with anything! Besides, I wouldn't have dared."
"You're a model prisoner, Miss Atherton. I'll whip you this afternoon--just so you don't get bored. The mild treatment can be awfully boring unless someone helps."
"Thanks a lot."
Brooke wriggled against her new handicap. As usual, the chain and padlocks had her foxed. If she had been able to help anyone before, she certainly could not do so now.
"You mustn't worry about me." The husky voice came from the victim of the Rack. "I know I look awful, all out of shape. But nothing's been dispocated. They're careful... ! They simply stretch a girl to where she can't move, then they leave you."
"Oh, Dorothy...!" Brooke's exclamation was pain filled. "She's made me so damn helpless. I can't do a thing. If Amy hadn't locked this chain between my legs I might have played--"
"You're sweet, Brooke." Dorothy's voice was a husky lament. "But it wouldn't have been any good. My nipples are stretched flat and my pussy's a tight closed slit. Nothing's right about me in this blasted contraption." Ruefully, she added: "I've examined other girls...."
"Good morning, Miss Atherton. I say, is there any way you can let me down?" Susan had come alive.
"I don't see how, Susan. I haven't got any hands."
"Oh shit! I figured you could set my feet on the floor and then jack me up quick when we heard her coming." Susan sighed without dolor. "But never mind. Gosh, Miss Atherton, this place is really way out, isn't it."
"But, Susan, you were crying--?"
'Tm silly like that, Miss Atherton. It hurt so awful when she first wound me up, I guess I was scared."
"But, isn't it still hurting?"
"Oh sure. But I don't weigh all that much. This isn't as bad for me as it would be for you. I say, Miss Atherton, do you think Mr. Scanlon would go for a bonus every time they're mean to me like this?"
"I'll ask him."
Pensively, Brooke looked at Susan's suspended slenderness. It did not show to the same advantage as her own or Dorothy Winthrop's. There was something childlike about Susan. Her breasts were pert and her pubic bush luxurious but she was not yet a woman. Suddenly, Brooke Atherton felt revulsion against the plethora of breasts and pubes into which John Scanlon's sardonic humor had thrust her. A terrible longing for her hands and freedom rippled through her being. But, most of all, she wanted Scanlon himself. His rocklike features and implacable maleness had become an anchor on which she relied. No matter what he did to her she felt safe. In this women's prison she felt no security at all. Even her punishments could be imposed by Amy's whim.
"They're being real mean to you, Miss Atherton."
"How come, Susan? I'm not hurting."
"But your pussy and hands are chained, and you're not allowed to wear any clothes, and they make you stand around all day--"
The girl's sympathy was real. "And all you have to look at is Miss Winthrop and me, and we ain't very good company."
"Yes you are. You're both sweet."
"I expect we'll both cry a lot and make funny noises. I just know it's going to bother you."
The child was right. Brooke knew herself already bothered. It would go on and on for an interminable two weeks. If she had been able to speak to the man who dominated her life she would have pleaded for mercy for all three of them. But, particularly for herself. She wanted to go home to the 'J Bar S' with an intense longing. As usual, a thundercloud of menace was ever present on the lower floor of the Hibernia Women's Correctional Institute. Suppose something went wrong! Suppose Scanlon had an accident! Suppose he whimsically extended their incarceration! Suppose, suppose, suppose... ! The atmosphere of The Hibernia made freedom and release seem a silly dream, something that could not possibly happen.
Brooke wanted to tell her master she would never again employ her mouth for a woman's pleasure. He hated it, so she would hate it too. She would not be able to convince Amy about this change of heart, the chastity belt and the padlocked gag would be used on her again and again. But, at least, they would excuse her from lesbianism. Wryly, she knew the change was only a part of her need of a man. She suspected most females used each other briefly. Brooke Atherton shuddered. She wanted out.
There was a sound. The door opened and Amy was beckoning. In the passage her manner was portentous. "Miss Halloran wants to talk to you, Miss Atherton."
"Who's Miss Halloran?"
"She's the boss, the Chief Warden."
"What have I done?"
Amy giggled. "I don't know. But I've got to take you right now."
"But, Amy, I can't possibly go upstairs... like this!"
"Why not, Miss Atherton?"
"Naked, and with this chain between my legs...?"
"Oh, she wants you just the way you are." Amy assured earnestly. "No one's going to see you except some of the staff, and they won't mind. Most of 'em have an idea what does on down here."
"But this chain hurts when I walk!"
"Tough titty. Gosh, Miss Atherton, you sure do beef a lot. C'mon, it ain't like it's a couple of miles."
Feeling like Lady Godiva, Brooke Atherton made her naked way back into the relative normalcy past a door marked: "Administration". Such as beheld her nude helplessness and Amy's proud authority did no more than raise an eyebrow in amusement. The Hibernia was evidently a liberal Institution.
Miss Halloran was not frightening. Early middle age, poised, authoritative with charm, and well tailored.
"Do sit down, dear. Or is that uncomfortable?"
"I'm afraid it is. Perhaps I'd better stand."
"Amy, you may leave us. I can ring for you." Authority returned its attention to its nude captive. "What about coffee, Miss Atherton?"
"I'd love some. But--"
Brooke shrugged resignedly. "I don't have my hands. I'm handcuffed and chained."
"Yes, of course. " A finger pressed a button. "I'll hold the cup for you. I understand these things."
"You're awfully kind."
"Not at all. You interest me. I want us to have a cozy chat." Miss Halloran frowned. "I wish you could sit down."
"Amy has the keys if you wish to unlock me."
"I'm not going to call her back. Sit down anyway. I'm sure it can't be that bad."
Brooke sat down. It hurt. She bestowed polite attention. "Our lower floor has intrigued me ever since I came here," Miss Halloran said evenly. "There are certain influences--wheels within wheels which make it possible." She smiled in deprecation. "Most of the girls who go down there probably deserve what they get. But we don't pry too deeply into motives." The smile became winning. "Here and there we get young women of quality. You are one of them"
"Thank you."
"You are also an extremely beautiful girl. Your figure makes me envious--Ah, the coffee!"
The fingers holding the cup were firm and wise Brooke drank greedily. It was good, good, good. She felt embarrassingly out of place in the expensive office, and blurted out, blushingly, "I'm sorry I'm naked. I did ask Amy about clothes."
"We keep the girls downstairs naked, dear. We find it affects them favorably. And it's so convenient--I believe you're to be whipped this afternoon?"
"Yes. Amy told me I was."
"The thought bother you at all?"
"Yes, it bothers me. But not as much as it would have done a year ago."
"Ah yes, you've been whipped before, haven't you." Miss Halloran made it sound like a Congressional award. "That's always helpful for a girl, it removes the shock factor. I will remind Amy not to be too brutal." The Head Warden smiled benignly. "We feel honored to have you here. Mr. Scanlon has never used our service previously. We hope he will use it frequently. We would like to see more of you, dear." Again the smile. "Mr. Scanlon explained you were not actually delinquent?"
"No, I'm not." Brooked managed a wan smile. "Is there anything I could do or say to persuade you to send me home?"
"No, dear, I'm afraid not. But your use of the word 'home' is very sweet. Try not to be too nostalgic. Your sentence is very short. Most girls would feel lucky--"
"Yes, I know I am." Brooke weaved her bare shoulder in an attempt at a gesture. "But I'm just so weary of naked girls and handcuffs and cells." She grinned apologetically. "Probably if I was guilty about something I'd feel better." Miss Halloran nodded. "The reason I wanted to talk to you, Miss Atherton, arises from a curiosity of my own. I have been fascinated in conjecture as to the reactions of young women of wealth and position, girls who have enjoyed a privileged life, when they are confronted by their sentence downstairs."
"When I was handcuffed alone in a cell down there I wanted to die. Those bars frightened me. I couldn't ever believe in release...."
"Ah, that's interesting. Was the cell really worse for you than the... other things?"
"For me, they were different. Two separate punishments. I'd never been locked in solitary confinement before." The naked girl contrived another apologetic smile and slowly admitted: "I've been punished before, some strange and hurtful punishments. But Mr. Scanlon sentenced me to them, so I didn't mind."
"You were sent here, not too long ago, by another agency, a different sponsor?"
"Yes. He sent me here to be punished. I hated everything done to me on his account. That's when I wanted to die."
Miss Halloran nodded thoughtfully. "Would you mind, Miss Atherton, if I was present when you are whipped today?"
Brooke was less surprised than she felt she should have been. "No, I wouldn't mind, Miss Halloran. There's really nothing shameful about being whipped--except some of the noises a girl makes while it's happening. It's awfully hard to keep silent."
"I'm sure it is, dear. We'll make that a date." The woman behind the desk was still thinking, still curious. "Tell me, Brooke, about your reaction to restraints? The various things fastened or tied on your hands or feet to inhibit movement. Where does that rank in your antipathies?"
Brooke laughed. "I'm so accustomed to being bound or chained I'm afraid it scarcely ranks at all. It matters right now because I'm in a situation where I need my hands badly. But a girl in prison... When I'm locked in a cell it doesn't matter much, except to shame me and tell me what I am." She shrugged in diffidence. "There's the times when my hands are locked or tied behind my back, that's worse. A girl can't even--"
"Play with herself?"
"Well, yes. But I shouldn't have--"
"Of course you should, dear. Remember, this is a prison, and it's part of my job to know what girls do behind bars." Miss Halloran's eyes became clear and cold. "By the way, I am not a lesbian."
Relief! Silly, but relief was there. Brooke watched authority consult its watch. Authority was crisp but smiling kindly. "It would suit my schedule to have you whipped now, dear. Would you mind?"
"Not at all."
It was absurd. It was crazy. It was where you said: "Be my guest." Brooke wriggled in embarrassment. Her cuffed wrists hurt, the chain in her crotch bit viciously. She would be glad to stand.
"You're hurting, aren't you, dear. How thoughtless of me." Miss Halloran oozed concern. "My... That ensemble you're wearing does hold your shoulders back so well, and your breasts--! Mmmmm!"
It was a different room and a different device. A triangle. Amy stood by it in pride. "This is somewhat varied method of immobilizing you, Miss Atherton, but it does make you so exquisitely available. I'm sure you won't mind?" Miss Halloran's voice was gentle.
Brooke minded, but was not about to say so. She was sure the triangle meant her no good. She had been expecting a mild whipping: now she was not so sure. "Isn't the triangle what they used to use when they flogged soldiers and sailors?" She asked politely.
"Yes, dear. But we are not about to flog you. The way they flogged people in those days was most unkind. We use only a quite nice whip which I'm sure you'll approve."
"Thank you." Brooke felt an idiot. "Am I sort of stretched out on that thing?"
"The triangle, dear? Amy will show you. Pm sure you're going to be sensible?"
Brooke hoped they would not notice her tremors. She was shivering, frightened. She guessed what was to come. Freed, she massaged vigorously the places where she hurt.
"That's right, dear. Please take a minute, it's so comforting. Don't be ashamed of where you rub."
Brooke was not ashamed.
"Your hands out front please, Miss Atherton."
The girl to be whipped watched the crossing of her chafed wrists and their binding. Obediently, she stood up on the box and thrust her hands over a hook at the apex of the frame on which she would be punished. When the box was removed only her toes touched the floor. She gasped in shock as her feet were dragged to each side and strapped to the verticals of the 'V'. Miss Brooke Atherton was semi-suspended and shamefully spread wide. She was panting.
Soft gentle hands caressed the softness of her thighs. From her knees to her pubic hair the palms and fingers traced contours and tested resilience. "Whipping a girl's back is so trite, dear." Miss Halloran mused happily. "Pm sure you'll be glad of a change."
They were going to whip the inside of her thighs! Brooke was shattered, it was a brutal disappointment. Inside the inverted 'V' of her legs and crotch the thong would hurt viciously. "Is this part of my mild treatment?" She enquired politely. "I've never been whipped like this before."
"Yes, dear. We consider this mild. You are at liberty to scream. Amy dear, please commence Miss Atherton's whipping. Twenty-five strokes, not too hard."
At the first impact of her softest flesh Brooke screamed. The triangle shivered as she fought her bonds. Miss Halloran's bland assurance dragged her back. "You'll find this different, Miss Atherton, a fresh experience in pain. I do so hate to be hackneyed."
It was new indeed! Amy's lash snaked in and out and up and down between Brooke's widespread legs. Looking back over a stressed shoulder, Brooke got little comfort from the seeming innocence of the whip or the arc in which it swung. The pain was beastly, hateful and not to be borne. But she bore it. The triangle made sure of that! Her wrists and ankles fought their bonds without cessation, but loosed none of them.
"Your struggle beautifully, Miss Atherton. Please don't stop or feel self conscious. All your motions are poetry."
"I--I--I'm sorry." Brooke was gasping. "I--I simply can't stand it. It hurts too much--"
Her plaint ended in a wail of agony as Amy snaked the thong to cut the unprotected crotch and splat hard on the palpitating belly.
"You are standing it marvelously, dear. I would not dream of stopping. Amy dear, you may give Miss Atherton a brief rest. She is such a sweet girl."
Brooke hung, gasping, breasts heaving, her most tender flesh ablaze with fire. Dimly, she suspected the punishment of her thighs was no more than half done. Dazed and distraught, she pleaded, "It's too awful. I can't endure such pain. Please don't whip me any more. Please...?"
Amy whipped her carefully, six more strokes. They paid no attention to her screams, her protests, her pleas. When the blows paused again to give her breath, Miss Halloran's tone was chiding. "It really is a mild whip, dear. You shouldn't make so much fuss. We can easily get the other one. I assure you, there isn't a drop of blood."
Amy continued. Brooke achieved silence, but sobbed her way bitterly to the end. When the count was twenty-five the Chief Warden of the Hibernia Women's Correctional Institute used her handkerchief to dry pain drawn cheeks. Her voice was sincere. "We're proud of you, Brooke. You don't think so, but you behaved superlatively. I have rarely been so moved by the motions of a girl in pain."
With a strange tenderness the Wardress and the trusty took their whipped captive back downstairs. But they did not take her to the room of punishments, they took her to her cell. Placing her nakedness against the bars to face the passage, they handcuffed her hands widespread and high to the latticework of metal, then did the same for her ankles, to leave her fastened in an 'X', her scorching scarlet thighs abundantly displayed. They kissed her, they locked her in and went away.
It was useless to struggle. She could not defeat the chrome cuffs. Brooke knew she would stay as she was until someone decided otherwise. She pressed her forehead against a bar and wept anew.
* * *
It was comforting to lay in John Scanlon's bed in John Scanlon's arms. Brooke Atherton felt the Correctional Institute slipping slipping into limbo as does the after-math of a bad dream. Her happiness spilled over into vehemence.
"Don't ever send me there again, John. Promise?"
"I'll think on it."
For Scanlon that was an affirmative. Brooke pressed harder. "And get Dorothy Winthrop out of there. John, you can do anything--Please, please, please!"
Scanlon was as content as the nudity he held, his response was drowsy. "Enquired about that gal. She's in dutch. How'd it be if I bring her back here to work out her sentence? She could be a plaything for you."
"John, is that possible?"
"Discovered who has it in for her. I think he'd go for it. Trouble is I'd have to keep the both of you in chastity belts."
"John, if I promised? I really would promise."
"She'd be a pain in the ass, y'know. She'd come between us unless I give her entirely to Quince. Could make a sizable cage for her in the barn." Scanlon chuckled. "Way you tell it, she'd be better off as a slave here than where she is. And if you're thinking of young Susan too, forget it. I'm not running a filly farm."
"She's awful sweet, John."
"Yeah, I bet she is!"
"I didn't mean it that way. Oh, John, I'll never live that down, will I." She clutched his staunch maleness tighter. "So, O.K., no females here but me. I wanted you so damn bad in that female prison!"
"That's fine. It did you good."
Brooke Atherton tucked Dorothy and Susan back into a recess in her mind. They could be brought out whenever a time was ripe. She was still remembering Dorothy's distorted beauty on the Rack. She must not forget the tortured loveliness for which there could be no escape save by her help. Somehow, quite soon... ! But, for now, there was John Scanlon's male omnipotence. She drew herself closer to his strength and whispered, as though in discovery, "I love you... I love you...!"
"Dammit', girl, you're ready to be married!" It was as though he, too, had made a discovery.
"Yes I am. Oh, John, make it soon, soon?"
"Sooner than you think." He chuckled. Then drawing her close, whispered instructions in her ear. Brooke listened entranced, until she was thrust again upon her back and her legs kicked apart into the oldest submission in the world.
Atherton Acres was unchanged. Scanlon's authority had kept it inviolate. Dust and the sadness of abandonment, that was all. The girl who owned it discovered a sweet nostalgia, devoid of longing, as she relived the past in the empty house and bam and untenanted corrals. She had no feeling that, in marrying John Scanlon, she had betrayed anything or anyone. He had led her from this place as a captive girl, noosed and bound, but had freed her as a woman to relive whatever dreams she chose. He was concerned with only one. Brooke's preknowledge of that concern had kept her in a state of heart pounding excitation since Quince had given her the horse in early morning and she had ridden away from the 'J Bar S'.
Scanlon's timing was perfect. When his bulk filled the door way, it dispersed boredom or any hint of tears. Each was letter perfect in their role. Perfect enough to make their play poignantly real.
"Go away, John Scanlon, you'll not get me or The Acres."
The owner of the 'J Bar S' surveyed the flushed features of his defiant prey. Amused, he flexed and tugged a length of rope. "Come here, you! Turn round."
"Like hell I will! If you think you're going to tie my hands you can drop dead."
"Want it the hard way, eh?"
"I don't want it at all. You can take your rope and stuff it."
"Look, girl, if I have to fight, I'll strip you naked."
"Come near me, and I'll kick you where it hurts!"
Their fight was tremendously and most satisfyingly real. Neither of them pulled a punch. Brooke used all her young strength, glorying in hot breath and the smell of sweat. With each lost garment she squealed in outrage. Scanlon, prudently, dragged her boots from protesting feet as his first act in her subjugation. When he tripped her face down on the floor and knelt on her naked back to bind her crossed wrists, Brooke Atherton knew herself conquered without disgrace. Her nude breasts were heaving against the dusty rug.
"Not a bad tussle for a girl." Scanlon's tone was patronizingly mocking as he stood his captive on her feet. "Got half a mind to take you back to the 'J Bar S' and whip a bit of that sass outa' your pretty little ass."
The naked girl faced him, defiant, frustrated, helpless. Her shoulders and arms twisting vehemently against the wrists he had tied so cruelly behind her back. "Damn you!" She panted. "You just can't do this to me!"
"I've done it."
"Then undo it, quick! Like right now." Brooke turned and waved her bound hands invitingly.
It was a mistake. The noose encircled her neck while she was not looking. She whirled in chagrin. "And you needn't think you're going to drag me along behind your horse the way you did last time." Brooke flung her head from side to side against the chafe of rope, her hands still busily fighting their losing battle with the cords. Thus engaged, she watched Scanlon mount, leading her own steed and its empty saddle. Suddenly the tether on her neck was taut, and she took her first sulky step back into the role it pleased her master to make her play. Brooke Atherton was intensely happy and in the grip of a powerful female excitement. From the depths of that femaleness she ejected appropriately feminine retorts.
"You needn't think I'll ever speak to you after this."
"Dragging me naked in the dust--and with my hands tied! And a pair of horses asses to follow! Or should I say three!"
"I'll never sleep with you, you can be sure of that. No matter how you whip me."
It was fun. Brooke's mind flitted from threat to threat and plaint to plaint, all were deliciously satisfying. From time to time her captor looked back and nodded approval at what he saw. John Scanlon was aware of blessedness.
The trek was long. The captive girl was grateful for the pause behind the low rise before entering the demesne of the 'J Bar S'. Dismounting, Scanlon loosened her hands and gave his captive panties and bra. Standing, still noosed, she sullenly clothed her breasts and pubic hair.
"Give me your hands, girl."
Brooke watched the gleam of chrome steel as her wrists were handcuffed. Neither spoke again as her shameful march resumed.
It was as they had once planned: Only Quince and Etta and the Minister, a man of Scanlon's age and breed, impervious to shock.
"Hiya, Chet."
"Hiya, John."
Speechless with embarrassment, the handcuffed girl accepted and scanned the parchment which proclaimed that the Reverend Chetwynd Morrison was indeed a Minister of the gospel and empowered to solemnize a marriage. "Just in case you were doubtful, maam." His voice was kind. "And I don't want you feeling a bit awkward 'bout the way you and John is getting hitched. I've known John a long time."
Quince was awestruck, Etta giggled, as they took their places. The bride stood, close to naked, her neck still noosed by the trailing lariat, her linked hands falling demurely below her navel. When the service and its responses wound its way to where a glowing Quince handed a ring to a stone faced groom, the truly blushing bride held forth chained hands to received the golden circlet from the strong sure fingers of the man who had owned her for so long. They kissed with a fierce passion before approving eyes.
John Scanlon's woman knew herself doubly captive as the small group moved towards the house. Brooke Scanlon was in a maze of heart throbbing emotion, a passionate excitation bearing her forward as a tide she could not stem. At the door, the noose was taken from her neck. She was kissed again, and sent with Etta to be cleansed of dust and the disarray of her trudge behind her captor's horse. When Mrs. John Scanlon rejoined her husband her hair and skin had been made immaculate, exuding a, by no means, subtle perfume all her own. Her breasts and sex were discretely covered by a fresh bra and briefs. Everybody signed papers, and the Reverend Chetwynd Morrison pressed her marriage certificate into her handcuffed hands. He joined them in their toasts and champagne, then went his way. Suddenly, John Scanlon and the girl he had married were alone.
"Want the handcuffs off, Brooke?"
"No, leave them on me." Brooke sparkled up at the man who was viewing her with pride. "But make me free in bed tonight."
Scanlon nodded, then kissed her savagely in passion. She sensed his joy in her and was enthralled. "O.K." He conceded gruffly. "Free for this one night. Maybe never free again."
"I don't mind."
The man's voice was husky with desire. "D'you think it's time you went and found Quince?"
The handcuffed bride tensed. They had planned it thus. But, even so... ! The depth of their emotions was almost tangible as a presence in the room. She met her husband's eyes and beheld only love. Frankly, she whispered: "John, I'm scared."
"You don't have to go through with it, Brooke."
"I know." She lifted her cuffed hands as though to find courage in the steel. "But I will go through with it. You've always known I would." Brooke's laugh was almost joyous. "Being scared is just a part of my punishment." She raised a pert eyebrow. "It is a punishment, isn't it, John?"
"I don't know." Scanlon confessed. "More like a sacrament. Closer to a pledge than the ring on your finger." His steel grey eyes held hers inflexibly. "One hundred strokes, beloved girl."
"One hundred strokes, John, and I love you."
Mrs. John Scanlon marched away towards the whip.
* * *
Quince had built a frame. It stood in the centre of the largest corral. Quince was anxious for approval.
"It will have to be twenty strokes an hour, Mrs. Scanlon, maam. That's too long to hang by your wrists and be whipped as well."
"You're very thoughtful, Quince."
"This way you don't hang at all. I'll tie your hands up and your feet down. You just stand."
"You're sweet." Brooke held up her chained hands. "But what about these?"
"I've got a key, maam. Here, I'll take them off."
"Thanks, Quince. I'll take off my bra and briefs. I expect you'd like me naked?"
"Thank you, maam." He blushed. "Being bare sorta' goes along with the deal."
"And I fit inside the frame?" Breathless, she added, "Come on, let's get it over with."
"But, we ain't even started. It's gonna' take four or five hours--!" Quince also was breathless and flushed. "Gosh, you sure do look mighty purty standing in there with your arms up and--and--"
"And my feet apart!" Brooke was in a mood to burn all bridges. Few girls had ever been bound naked and whipped a hundred times on their bare skin. She was making history. "Hurry and tie me, Quince, before I change my mind and run away screaming."
"You wouldn't never do that, maam." Quince assured expansively. "But I'll tie you good and tight anyways. That O.K. with you?"
"It's real O.K., Quince. Tie me tight. I want to be tied tight." Apologetically, the girl soon to be whipped added: "I'm sorry you have to go to all this trouble to tie me up. I'd stand still for the whip if I could. But I just can't! I know I can't. I'm going to hurt... bad!"
Quince and his ropes were strangely comforting. They were very tight, but she was not stretched in pain. Brooke stood at ease, an exquisite nude, waiting to be whipped.
was as helpless as she had ever been in her life, her wrists bound to the bar above, her ankles pegged down to either side. No matter how she writhed they would hold her safe. She thought of Scanlon and their night to come when she would lay ecstatically on her whipped back to accept his thrusts. She closed her mind to that which lay between.
"It's me who's going to whip you, Mrs. Scanlon." It was Etta's voice, breaking a reverie. Quince had disappeared. "I hope you don't mind." There was a faint giggle. "The Master thought it would be more fitting... a whole hundred lashes, and you a naked girl?"
"I don't mind, Etta. I'm glad."
"I've been told to whip you awful hard, and I'm going to."
"That's right, Etta. Be a good girl and do what you're told."
"You're so sweet, Mrs. Scanlon. You scream and struggle all you like, I won't mind a bit, and I won't stop whipping you. And I'll count each stroke out aloud for you."
"Thank you, Etta. How about we get started?"
"Yes, maam, right quick. The Master told me to tell you he loves you a whole lot--"
Brooke gasped as the familiar fiery slash cut across her back. Then yelped in the agony of a whip cutting snap across the cheeks of her bottom. The frame creaked under the tug of her muscles, cords bit her wrists. But Brooke Scanlon did not move. She stood, nakedly fastened, as the delighted girl struck and struck again: Eight, nine, ten... !
"Gosh, Mrs. Scanlon, you sure do mark pretty. The Boss, he's going to be so pleased with you. You're so lucky...!"
The blows resumed.. Etta's arms was strong. The whipped girl whimpered and fought the cords, her mind fixed determinedly on the man awaiting her in bed. The hundred strokes were her wedding gift. Through a wall of agony she heard Etta's count: Eighteen--nineteen--twenty.
"I'm bein' right careful 'bout Your tits, Mrs. Scanlon. And there ain't a drop of blood... You're simply gorgeous."
