"Margo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell F E)
CHAPTER FIVE LOVE IN CHAINS
"I'm terribly frightened, Miss Davis. Please help me." The young voice and the wide, appealing eyes had cornered the new mistress in an empty classroom. The young voice, which was not much younger than Margo's own, continued urgently: "My name's Emaline. I get called Emmie for short. You may call be Emmie, please. Please don't brush me off, for my feet are chafed and I'm new here. I loved your class. I think you're wonderful."
There was a terrible poignancy in the appeal. Margo backed away, but grasped the bare shoulders of the naked supplicant in her hands and studied the tearful features. Emaline could be beautiful is she tried. She was not beautiful now. Even her body, which was in itself a slender loveliness, was drooping and her features wan. The new mistress remembered her own first day. Perplexed, she asked, "Emmie, is it really that bad?"
"Oh, yes." Emmie was under the stress of a most evident emotion.
"They've chained my feet so I have to take short little steps. They said it was so I couldn't run away, but I wasn't going to run away anyhow. Then they did the most awful things. They put handcuffs on me. Look." She held up joined wrists to show the gleaming chrome of her distress. "Nice girls aren't handcuffed, Miss Davis. Handcuffs are only for convicts and people in police stations. I'm not one of them. I'm so ashamed!"
"But, Emmie dear, handcuffs are used on all sorts of people, for all sorts of things." Margo contrived a short, cheerful laugh. "I've been handcuffed quite often, and if I wanted to stop a girl from running away, I think that's what I'd use. I'd handcuff one of her wrists and attach the other to something very solid. It's really not all that bad."
"Then they locked this collar around my neck. And it's got a ring hanging down in behind. I'm sure that's for some terrible purpose. I've tried and tried, but I can't get it off. Miss Davis, please help me. I promise I won't run away."
Margo sighed. Compared to this delightful creature, she felt a century old. Glimmering light in darkness as she asked, with a touch of incredulity, "Emmie, didn't your parents know what Rossland was before they sent you?"
"Of course not." Emmie sounded indignant. "They thought it was just another school for older girls. And that's what I thought too." She turned on the appeal again. "But it isn't, is it? It's not an ordinary school at all. I think it's a place for naughty girls, not for girls like me." Hesitantly, she added, "You see, Mommy and Daddy had to go abroad for a couple of years, and they thought this would be nice for me."
She held up her cuffed wrists. "But this isn't nice at all. It's terrible."
Margo took the child in her arms. Emmie was not a child, but she talked and acted and almost looked like one. Margo felt a tremendous maternal instinct well up in her whole being by the trust and choice imposed.
Comfortingly, she said, "Emmie, you mustn't get a crush on me. Girls often get a crush on their teachers, but I'm just here with the rest of you. Maybe they'll make you a mistress someday and you'll see there isn't all that much difference. If I lifted my dress, I could show you the marks where I've been whipped too."
"You!"
Another wave of pure horror engulfed the young slenderness. "But you couldn't do anything bad. I'm sure you couldn't." There was a prolonged pause while the two girls clung and clung. The young nakedness finding refuse against the scanty tunic of the mistress's attire.
It was then the question came.
"Miss Davis, some of the girls have told me about the things we have to do here. And Miss Harridance said something. I didn't believe it at the time, but now I'm beginning to wonder. It's about the master."
"Are these things true?"
"I'm afraid they are, Emmie. But there's no way we can escape them. They seem pretty bad the first time, but we get used to it. So will you."
"Oh, I couldn't. I won't ever get used to it!" The young voice was vehement. "Miss Davis, I thought of a way you could really help me. Please, if I have to do these things, can I please do them with you? I don't think I'd mind too much with you. But I couldn't possibly with anybody else."
Margo's heart went out to the waif. Emaline was indeed an orphan in the storm. Without addiction, as she herself actually was, she longed to take this girl to a private place and there make love. It would be a kindness. But she remembered the prohibition.
"I'm sorry, dear. I'd love to, but it's forbidden. I'm a mistress, and I'm absolutely forbidden to make love with any of the girls. If I did, I'd be punished. I'm just the same as you. I belong to the two people at the top, and only they can use me."
The girl-woman absorbed the bad news. She allowed it to simmer, without finding an answer until she came up with, "And they caned my bottom, and I hadn't done a thing!"
Her cry was one of pure injustice, of innocence in the face of evil. "Look, I'll show you." She broke away and turned around, bending over to display a well-whipped bottom. Probably only the cane had been used on it, but it was a delicious scarlet, and Margo felt her pulse race and her fire flamed at the sight of it. If this young woman was thrust into her company for too long, she would not answer for, the consequences. Soothingly, she said, "It's a lovely red, Emaline. It will soon fade. I bet the hurt's mostly gone already, hasn't it?"
"Well, yes, sort of. But I haven't done anything!"
What could she do? Margo surveyed her new responsibility with total sympathy and some irritation. Her title was almost meaningless, but if it gained her confidences such as this, it would be a punishment in itself simply because she was so totally helpless in giving aid to anyone. She took the tearful young woman by the arm and led her to where there were other girls with whom she could talk and perhaps find solace. It seemed a betrayal of trust.
On the following day, she received the summons.
"The master wants you, darling." Penny Pendleton was, as usual, bubbling with enthusiasm. "You're so lucky. I bet he'll either fuck you or whip you. Isn't that wonderful? I wish I was a bit older to get in on all these things. Everybody looks on me as just a kid. It's not fair."
How do you tell a child she is lucky to be young? Margo shrugged away the imponderable and asked, "What does he really want? Penny, you are so silly about the things you said."
"How would I know?" Penny asked irritably. "He simply wants you. And when the master want a girl, she doesn't ask any questions. She just goes and gets whatever he wants to give her." She giggled happily. "And I just told you the two things I expect he'll do to you." She sighed heavily. "You're so lucky!"
So this was it! Margo had no illusions, but she found herself looking forward to the interview as she made her way to the holy of holies, that one place in Rossland where man was omnipotent, in fact where he existed!
"Miss Davis, a pleasure! Take off that silly tunic." Henry Ross took her head in his hands and kissed her warmly on the mouth. "I hear nothing but good of you. Are you prepared for pain?"
"Yes, master, I am prepared." In his presence, it did not sound as silly as it had elsewhere. This man was a master. Power flowed from Henry Ross like a visible stream. She picked it up and realize he was picking up the emanations she was shooting at him. They were man and woman. Male and female. Primal.
Primly, she said, "This is my first time with you here, Mr. Ross. Please be kind. Please help me."
He laughed. "You don't need help. I've got the report on you here." He motioned to a sheet of paper on his desk. "And anyway, I've got my memory of our interview. You wouldn't be here if I were not convinced you were well suited to what I'll demand of you. They haven't thrashed you much, have they?"
"No. Is that because my skin must be saved for you?"
"Possibly." He sounded indifferent. "There's all too much fuss made of canings and croppings and floggings here." He chuckled. "But I suppose it has its uses. It keeps you girls in your place and feeling sufficiently humble. Instead of calling it Rossland, I should have called it Humble House. How would that strike you?"
Margo senses his humor. She shrugged. "Why not? Humble is what we girls become. It hurts too much to be anything else."
"My, my. Complete candor. Now tell me what do you expect me to do to you right now?"
The direct demand was disconcerting. Taking her courage in her hands, Margo dived squarely into the male-female arena. "I can only go by what I've been told," she said evenly. "But that leaves me to suppose you will use a cane on me and then fuck me." She met his gaze evenly. "Or perhaps the other way around?"
"Any preference?"
"Perhaps I would prefer to have my bottom caned first," she said as she contrived a pale smile in his direction. "That would leave me something to look forward to."
Henry Ross was flattered. Margo herself had failed to realize the flatter implicit in her choice of options. Enigmatically, he asked, "You then regard being violated by me as pleasure?"
"Yes."
"And so you should. This stuff has done well with you. No resentments. No complaints." He laughed. "I'd expected both."
Margo realized Ross was enjoying this bandying of words, and she was too. Why not! It would delay whatever price she had to pay for being what she was. If Henry Ross enjoyed this exchange, she would be foolish to complain, but she had a wish to be done with it. She wanted to experience the hard male thrust and put them in their place in her consciousness. Because of Miss Harridance, she was no longer positive the hard cock was a girl's only road to ecstasy.
Without emphasis, she asked, "How would you like me to position myself to be thrashed?"
Ross was intrigued. Here was a girl of quality. She could match him in directness and had no illusions. But of course. Why not? She was not the simpering product of parents discontent. This girl had chosen her lot. She had expected and was prepared to suffer what Rossland chose to impose. Quietly, he spoke.
"I'm sure you do not need to be tied. You have a will. But I want you tied. It pleases me to have a girl tied when I whip her. It adds a piquancy. I'm sure you understand."
Margo understood. She positioned herself against the desk, leaned across it, and slipped her hands within the waiting loops of strap. Henry Ross buckled them brutally tight. He said with ridiculous cheerfulness, "I'm going to hurt you, Margo. I have here a cane."
The strapped girl hoped she emerged from the ordeal in good shape.
The cuts were cruel. They were precise. They were evenly spaced across her flesh. Each one deserved a scream. But she delivered her screams sparingly. Every time she took the scalding impact without sound was to her a gain of points in a silly game. Neither of them would have called it a game, but both were conscious of the imagined points and mentally were giving credit for the fortitude it represented.
Henry Ross caned the bent-over bottom of the helpless girl with immense relish. Margo could not fail to recognize his ecstasy in every stroke, and to know without volition she was bestowing upon him the greatest benefit a girl could give a man. She was making him intensely happy. To that end, she subdued her screams and made her moans and other sounds as femininely somber as her flesh dictated. She supposed that when a pain became too great, a girl was released from inhibitions.
"You are positively superb!" There could be no doubting the sincerity in Ross' voice. His bands were gently soothing the inflamed bottom he had caned, his fingers searching and finding every raised welt. Quite brutally, his hand thrust itself below the penetrate her thighs and find that which was pressed hard against the edge of the desk. He tested, kneading ruthlessly. When the hand was withdrawn, it was thrust beneath her lips.
"Lick it off." The demand was authoritative. The girl, whose wrists were still strapped, dared not disobey. For the first time in her young life, she tasted her own secretions. Afterwards, she wondered why she had felt no disgust.
When Henry Ross finally failed to recognize his ecstasy in every stroke, and to know without volition she was bestowing upon him the greatest benefit a girl could give a man. She was making him intensely happy. To that end, she subdued her screams and made her moans and other sounds as femininely somber as her flesh dictated. She supposed that when a pain became too great, a girl was released from inhibitions.
"You are positively superb!" There could be no doubting the sincerity in Ross' voice. His hands were gently soothing the inflamed bottom he had caned, his fingers searching and finding every raised welt. Quite brutally, his hand thrust itself below the penetrate her thighs and find that which was pressed hard against the edge of the desk. He tested, kneading ruthlessly. When the hand was withdrawn, it was thrust beneath her lips.
"Lick it off." The demand was authoritative. The girl, whose wrists were still strapped, dared not disobey. For the first time in her young life, she tasted her own secretions. Afterwards, she wondered why she had felt no disgust.
When Henry Ross finally desisted from his flaggelation of innocent flesh, he freed the tender wrists and brusquely told her to turn over.
Margo obeyed. It was brutally painful. Her whipped skin was now in direct contact with the edge of the desk. A moment later, her wrists had been strapped anew, but her eyes she must not fail to recognize his ecstasy in every stroke, and to know without volition she was bestowing upon him the greatest benefit a girl could give a man. She was making him intensely happy. To that end, she subdued her screams and made her moans and other sounds as femininely somber as her flesh dictated. She supposed that when a pain became too great, a girl was released from inhibitions.
"You are positively superb!" There could be no doubting the sincerity in Ross' voice. His hands were gently soothing the inflamed bottom he had caned, his fingers searching and finding every raised welt. Quite brutally, his hand thrust itself below the penetrate her thighs and find that which was pressed hard against the edge of the desk. He tested, kneading ruthlessly. When the hand was withdrawn, it was thrust beneath her lips.
"Lick it off." The demand was authoritative. The girl, whose wrists were still strapped, dared not disobey. For the first time in her young life, she tasted her own sensations. Afterwards, she wondered why she had felt no disgust.
When Henry Ross finally desisted from his flaggelation of innocent flesh, he freed the tender wrists and brusquely told her to turn over. Margo obeyed. It was brutally painful. Her whipped skin was now in direct contact with the edge of the desk. A moment later, her wrists had been strapped anew, but her eyes she must mm his flaggelation of innocent flesh, he freed the tender wrists and brusquely told her to turn over. Margo obeyed. It was brutally painful. Her whipped skin was now in direct contact with the edge of the desk. A moment later, her wrists had been strapped anew, but this time to compel her face up to the predatory male. Unless she closed her eyes, she must witness her own shame. The female orifice was cruelly exposed, and disregarding her moans, he impaled her as she lay. He could scarcely have chosen a great humiliation to inflict. At its commencement the girl of his choice blushed red and moved protestingly. But beneath his maleness the mood soon passed. Once more, Margo Davis entered another world, a world of ultimate sensation, of hot shame merging upward to ecstasy. She moaned again and again.
Henry Ross stayed the night. His bedroom was both plush and sinister. Margo's knowledge of it began when she was ordered to stand against one of the posts of the huge four-poster bed and raise an arm. Her wrist was cuffed by a waiting shackle and there she stood. The master casually reclined upon the bed itself and sipped a brandy.
"You need not tell me, Margo. Let me guess. You are quite willing to sacrifice everything for release, call it quits, to get back to what you call freedom."
"Yes."
"A good honest answer. The initiation must have been rough. Or was it the thrashing I just gave you this evening?"
"The whole thing." Margo looked down at him. Her arm unconsciously tugged to hurt her wrist within its shackle. She would never get used to being chained and bound and restrained – not ever.
Without vehemence, she said quietly, "I could stand it if it were for a lesser time. But for years, I can't. I just can't contemplate the years." Her eyes widened, her arms strained. "Can I get you to free me tomorrow? You would owe me nothing. I would write this off to experience. It is something you could easily do." She surveyed him somberly. "If you desired me, I could visit you in appropriate places at appropriate times."
"Logical enough. If I find a treasure, I don't toss it away."
"Very well then. How about keeping me for thirty days? I think I could endure thirty days. I can't possibly endure years, though. Somehow, I must make you understand."
"I've forgotten how many girls said those lines," Henry Ross said as he sipped his drink. "So much of this is a natural reflex – predictable. I find it amusing, but I can understand you do not. Doesn't the thought of the check comfort you? It is for a great deal of money."
"When pain reaches a certain point, money ceases to matter. I thought you'd know that. I'd thought with all the girls you have at your command, you would have understood this long ago. Please set me free."
Henry Ross chuckled. "You see, sweetheart, you put your finger on the most priceless pail of it all – the pleading maiden, the implacable bondage in which she is indentured. I pick up her vibrations and they are absolutely delicious. I'm picking up yours now. Damn it, girl, the implacability of maiden captivity is its very essence. The hopeless knowledge that she can never escape is what I'm paying for." He chuckled again. "After all, you don't get your bottom caned or your back whipped all that often, do you?"
"No, I suppose not. I suppose what's really getting to me is the word you used – implacability. The knowledge that nothing I can do or say can alter a course."
Margo motioned, impatiently. "But that's not strictly true either. You can alter anything in this place. You could set me free tomorrow. You could take me home to wherever you live and make me your mistress. You don't have to leave me here to be constantly punished. I don't see any sense in these endless punishments. I would if you were here to watch them, but you're not – you're a great distance away. And that's what defeats me."
"Ah, very well put!" Ross applauded in genuine approval. "But there is something you are not aware of. You've no idea of the tremendous impact this has upon my mind. To realize, as I got about my daily affairs, that you are suffering these pains, these punishments and this imprisonment. It is absolutely terrific. It's worth every penny of what I've offered you."
Margo's retort was bitter. "What you're saying is that knowing I'm being given a bad time here keeps you with an erection. Every thought of me being whipped or bound hardens your cock. Is that it?"
"My dear girl, you are being deliberately vulgar." Negligently, Henry Ross set aside his drink, rose from the bed, selected a cane, and without further preamble, proceeded to punish the already whipped surface of the twin globes that could not moved beyond his venom.
No matter how she turned and twisted, the girl with one hand securely shackled above laid herself open to the bite of the cane, until she hopelessly turned her face to the post and dared him to do his worst. The punishment instantly ceased.
"Vulgarity is something I cannot abide," Henry Ross said evenly, as he returned to his reclining position and his drink. "You would do well to remember that, young lady."
She was crying and dabbing at her tears with her one free hand. Enough of anything was enough, and to be caned anew for what she had just said scented an outrageous injustice. She had spoken no more than what she believed to be the truth. Pathetically, between sobs, she muttered, "There isn't any justice. You don't believe in justice. You just believe in your own belief in your own pleasure."
Languidly, the man sighed, and once more set aside his drink. For the second time, he thrashed the girl chained to the post of his bed.
This time he elicited screams that were at least half from anger and her burning sense of something utterly unfair. But at the end of it, she hung limply. In answer to his question, she said abjectly, "Yes, I will obey you. I will do anything you want. Everything I have said is wrong. I should not have said it, and I apologize." Desperately, Margo gave way to a second floor of tears she could not restrain.
For an appreciable time, Henry Ross stood surveying the punished girl. He found a pathetic loveliness in her forlorn pose. Her wrist was still cuffed to the post above her head, and she drooped against the carved wood in hurt weariness. Satisfied, he finished his drink, turned out the light, and went to bed. He was almost instantly asleep. His thrashed slave girl was ignored and allowed to stand as she was through the dark hours of the night.
"What the hell did you do to the man?" Mildred Harridance said, eyeing her youngest mistress with amused and tolerant eyes. "He's coming back this afternoon, and he's made a point of asking that you be in attendance. It's a royal command."
"I didn't do anything. He thrashed me and made an abject to a point where I bated myself. This time I'd better grovel on all fours right from the start."
"No, don't do that. He made his point with you last time – don't belabor it." The headmistress chuckled at an inward visit. "You're in for another little surprise. Henry's a bit of a kook in his ways. I have to round up a few delinquent girls, if I can find any, and that means he's here for a punishment spree. I suspect you're going to have to watch, and he'll be curious about the effect on you. Look, if you feel disgust, don't show it. He doesn't want any emotions to touch his shining male ego. When he thrashes a girl, he wants to be a shining hero in her eyes, not what he really is – a mean son of a bitch. There's no use my asking if you can handle it. You damn well have to handle it. I don't imagine you want to spend another night hooked to his bed post."
Margo went back to her class to bask in the adoring regard of Emaline and several others she had rounded up. She was beginning to see the class as a saving grace to Rossland's severity. Her class learned from her and she from them. At the moment, they were dissecting Dylan Thomas. It was an island of serenity in an ocean of the bizarre. But throughout the morning, their pursuit of significance in the Welsh poet's eccentricities was interspersed with apprehensions of the afternoon. Margo's wrist was still sore from her night by her master's bed. It was an undoubted fact that Henry Ross was as much the headmaster of Rossland as Mildred Harridance was the headmistress. Neither was called on toe exhibit academic prowess. They were simply authority, with a capital A.
It pleased Henry Ross on this occasion to don an academic gown. He had found its effect potent on quaking maidens as they were drilled and punished. It was, in actuality, a cruel sport since the maidens themselves often entered his class in the belief that they might acquit themselves well and gain his approval. The older girls knew better. Margo herself had no hope of anything good.
The owner of Rossland chose a classroom in which to exhibit his talents and impose such torments as amused him on his unfortunate class. Five young women had been selected by Miss Harridance as possessing some evidence of delinquency. She had delegated them and given them some wise instructions of what no to do. It was understood that Margo should stand to one side as an observer and to offer information as desired, very much in a pupil-teacher relationship in the presence of an examiner. Except that two of her pupils were naked and one was handcuffed, everything had the delightful appearance of normalcy.
Margo was seeing a new side to her master. There was a glint of amusement in his eyes, and he wore the knowing smile which he often shared with her. As part of his charade, he conferred upon her an extreme dignity and was markedly polite in his address. Scared and trembling, the first maiden to be selected for his attention was not long in making an appalling gaff. The master stopped the proceedings, and in the deepest silence managed to convey a sense of shock that such stupidity could exist. The young woman stood, flushed and awkwardly shifting her feet.
It appeared that there was no second chance with the master. His voice was stern: "Would you kindly step before the class, Miss Winton?"
Miss Winton left the shelter of her class with obvious reluctance.
Perhaps she had been forewarned, but at any time, to be the sole offender of the master's regard was a terrifying thing. As she trod the short but dreadful space to where she must stand before her concerned companions, she strove to make amends. "Could I amend my answer, sir?"
"Silence!"
The young woman completed what was, for her, probably the most anxious journey of her life. She stood before the master and the class awaiting male pleasure.
"Kindly remove your clothes, Miss Winton."
It was not Miss Winton's first time to be publicly nude. Baring herself before the male was nothing new. Except, in this case, she knew she was going to be punished. She folded her garments neatly and stood before the headmaster with hands cupping her breasts. She was obviously fighting back tears.
"Are you afraid your mammary development will fall off, Miss Winton?" The acid query was heavily sarcastic. "I have better use for your hands. You'll hold them out, one at a time, to be caned."
There was a shocked silence. Miss Winton was most shocked of all. Her exclamation was entirely without volition.
"But, sir, I haven't done anything! I'm not a child anymore. Adults don't have their hands caned."
"They do at Rossland, Miss Winton. Kindly extend your arm its full length. Stretch your hand out so that the palm is tautly uppermost. I am waiting."
The frightened girl hesitantly obeyed. Margo realized there was little else she could do. Revolt or argument undoubtedly increase whatever is was she was now destined to suffer. Miss Winton stood, arm outstretched, hand tautly open, and watched the headmaster make his selection of canes from the rack. He swished his choice in obvious approval. Without preliminary tappings or gauging of distance, he cunt a single swift slash upon the open palm. Miss Winton remained in stricken shock for only a moment. Her hand then instinctively sought the bare armpit waiting to comfort it. She bent almost double, and small animal cries came chokingly from her lips.
This was the caning of a hand such as no other school had ever seen. The headmaster stood in exaggerated patience for almost a full minute before ejaculating, "I am waiting, Miss Winton."
"I can't. I'm sorry, sir, but I just can't hold my other hand out. I can't bear such awful pain."
Margo saw the gleam of satisfaction in the male eye. She saw the beckoning finger point to another of the already naked girls and beheld that maiden rise from her seat and walk unhappily to the front of the class. The male voice left nothing in doubt.
"Miss Winton, you see this young woman I have just called out to join you here before the class. I intend to thrash her until such time as you obey."
The girl looked sideways to instantly comprehend. Her voice was weak.
"No. Oh, please don't. I'll try and do what you want me to." The vivid tableau resumed. The second girl, at a nod from the man, returned to her seat. Miss Winton tried to stand erect and hold out as yet an uninjured arm. Margo would have found it impossible to enforce compliance. She could make a good guess at the horrifying intensity of the pain. But the headmaster was obviously pleased with himself and the manner in which things had progressed. This time he went to considerable trouble to tap the unwilling palm in make-believe gestures of gauging distance. Miss Winton closed her eyes. The blow, when it came, was as brutal as the first. The naked recipient now clutched two scalding palms within the shelter of moist armpits.
Unrestrained, she sobbed. The tears fell to the floor beneath her face.
"This is a ridiculous posture, Miss Winton." One could not fail to sense the man's savoring of each word. This was a theatrical production in which he was both director and the male lead. He would make the most of it. His tone, heavily sarcastic, he inquired politely, "You appear to be examining your cunt – is there something wrong with it?"
"No, sir, oh, ohhhh… it hurts. It hurts so bad!"
"Excellent. We are therefore ready for you first hand again. It should be well rested by now."
Once more the silence, the awful silence. She was contemplating something too awful for speech. Each girl present was placing herself in Miss Winton's place, knowing that she could not extend her arm a second time. Miss Winton herself called on all her heavy artillery and managed to speak firmly.
"I'm sorry, sir. It's not possible to hold my arm out again, and I don't think you have any right to hurt me so badly."
Can silence double its shocked intensity? It would appear now that this was happening. After her brave pronouncement, Miss Winton had relapsed to again hugging her injured hands and paying no attention to the rest of those present.
Henry Ross was entirely divorced from the executive type Margo had first seen in his office. He entered the world of headmaster perfectly as though long rehearsed and secretly lived. It was as though this was not play acting at all, but vividly real.
Once more his voice came, this time he was crisp.
"The class is tired of seeing your posterior. And I'm tired of seeing your bowed head. I was no more such pronouncements such as you have just made I hope you will not compel me to use one of your colleagues to induce you to behave. Now! Upright! Out with that hand."
Molly Winton did her best. She managed to stand. She managed to hold out an unwilling arm and to open the wounded palm, but when the singing cane was humming to its mark, she withdrew it in a motion so instinctive that it was doubtful she could have done otherwise. She stood abjectly, awaiting male wrath. But she was entirely cowed. Several moments of shocked concern had passed her by. She once more straightened and once more held her arm out. Her voice was controlled.
"I'm sorry, sir. This isn't a bit easy. Please cane my hand."
It was swiftly done, and the punished girl returned to her pose of pained penance.
Henry Ross was a connoisseur of matters such as this. He had no wish to ruin a delightful afternoon or impose too great an agony on any of his victims. Magnanimously, he announced, "I'm prepared to consider the three strokes sufficient, Miss Winton. May I compliment you on your decision to extend your arm?"
"May I put my clothes back on?"
"No, you may not. I see no point in girls wearing clothes. They are simply a hinderance to those who attend you."
He pointed to the girl who had come forth previously.
"You Miss Hinton please be good enough to inform the class what you know about the autumn equinox."
Hefty Hinton looked properly distressed. She had no idea what the autumn equinox might be. She gulped a couple of times and then frankly admitted, "I don't know anything about it, sir. I never beard of it."
It was a repeat performance. Hefty marched bravely to the front and stood expectantly to learn her punishment. She managed to keep her hands close to her sides, covering nothing of her sex. The headmaster nodded approvingly and thrust forward a chair.
"Do not sit on this, Miss Hinton, but raise your leg upon it. I want you to stand in exactly that position."
Henry Ross moved majestically to the rack holding instruments of torture. He selected a wicked-looking small whip. Watching, Margo could make a shrewd guess about how Miss Hinton was to be punished. The headmaster continued to speak, now in an almost bland tone.
"Since you know nothing of the autumn equinox, perhaps you will be kind enough to tell the class and myself exactly the names of those portions of your person generally associated with sex. I will be satisfied if you name four."
Hefty Hinton blushed. She had been at Rossland long enough that her blushes had become infrequent, but she produced a magnificent specimen now. As though diving into icy water in one fell swoop to get the agony over with, she blurted out, "Two breasts. And… my pussy, sir."
"That last item? It escapes me, Miss Hinton. To what are you referring? I know the term is commonly used to refer to kittens."
Hefty's blush continued. She searched her mind, but found her store of euphemisms scant.
"There are several names for it, sir, but they are all rude. I mustn't use them."
"The most offensive is the most graphically descriptive, Miss Hinton. Be good enough to use it."
"My cunt, sir?"
"That is much better. I want all of you to use that term in speaking to me of that portion of yourselves. Rossland wants no false modesty. Now name the fourth item. You let that one out."
Hefty glanced anxiously around as though hoping to discover on others what she could not remember herself. Timidly, she suggested, "My mouth?"
The headmaster sighed. It was obvious he was a much put-upon man, confronted by both ignorance and stupidity. Thoughtfully, he swished the small thonged whip through the air, as though aiming for small invisible flies.
"You will remain quite still for ten, Miss Hinton. There will be a break when you change from one leg to the other. It might be best if you clasp your bands behind your neck. And face the class too. I'm sure they will judge you by your deportment."
The thongs bedding themselves within the virgin cleft making their own vicious sound, quite unlike any other. The recipient of their bite gasped and straightened even more erect in stark terror, but held her pose. The second and third strokes followed in even, measured cadence. Margo shrewdly guessed that he headmaster was gauging the pain he inflicted carefully. Quite probably, he had no wish to have naked girls groveling on the floor in an anguish too great to bear. Henry Ross was an artist. At the fifth stroke, when it was time for the punished girl to turn around, he suavely inquired, "I trust you feel some benefit, Miss Hinton?"
"Yes. Thank you, sir."
It was obvious Miss Hinton had wish to grovel on the floor either. But she was breathing heavily. She was flushed a bright pink, and in the motion of turning around, her hands instinctively sought her wounded sex, but were met by the swift cut of the thongs and told curtly to get them back behind her back, her bottom and whatever else was open view. The class gazed at her, speechless.
Margo remembered at this injunction not to show disgust. She composed her features carefully, and since she could do nothing to help anyone, stood silently to watch and memorize. Momentarily, her glance caught the eye of the girl being punished. A smile passed between them – a smile of understanding. As though encouraged by her knowledge of a limited infliction, the girl who still had five strokes to accept within her crotch stood bravely at attention, with no more than wincing, cringing, and gasping. When the tenth cut had reddened the tender flesh, the class would willingly have clapped in approval of the girl's courage, but they did not dare. The girl herself was given permission to return her foot to the floor and rejoin the class.
"Why are you handcuffed, Miss Hinton?"
The third maiden to wend her way to the front answered, "I dropped a dish at lunch, sir. It was stupid clumsiness, and so I am handcuffed."
"For an appropriate period of time, I trust."
"One week, sir. Handcuffs do not impede my class work."
"Excellent, and now since your offense is failing to answer a simple question is hardly an academic crisis, your punishment will be relatively mild. Be kind enough to put on these panties."
The headmaster handed an immaculate pair of spandex panties to his astonished pupil. "I think you will find them adequately tight."
The headmaster ordered two pupils to assist the handcuffed maiden to don the new panties.
They were tight indeed, but very becoming, a garment designed to improve on nature itself. Henry Ross nodded in satisfaction and returned his attention to Hefty Hinton.
"You will find a pail over in the corner, my dear. I want you to take the foliage you find therein and do a good job of padding the spandex covering this young lady's loins. I want every inch of space properly filled, and I want a couple of leaves inserted well within her lips down there. Kindly proceed."
Miss Hinton picked up the offending pail and looked at its contents aghast. She turned to the watching man, her eyes wide in concern.
"But, sir?"
"Quite sorry, my dear. They are stinging nettles. No doubt they are a cousin to our poison ivy. I had a patch of them imported from England several years ago, and they have flourished mightily. They will adequately supply our school with its requirements."
"But, sir, they sting, I can't possibly?"
"Yes, you can. Do it. If your hands suffer in the process, I will remind you that your own punishment was extremely light."
The girl with the nettles and the girl who was about to receive them in a place she leased wanted stood and stared. But what could they do? They shrugged at other, and Miss Hinton dismally said. "I guess you have to. Go ahead and do it. Here, I'll help."
It was both clever and cruel. The nettles stung the young hand, now busily thrusting them beneath the tight spandex. Miss Hinton used her cuffed hands to pull aside the top of her panties, so as to aide in her own punishment. She was instantly gasping and became increasingly pink as the panties were loaded with the deadly leaves. In the one last desperate detail of the sad proceedings, Hefty grasped a handful of the terrible things and thrust it hard down inside the spandex, pushing it ruthlessly into and upon the innocent sex. She looked at her own hands, now reddened and angry, and clasped them beneath her armpits in the same manner as the girl whose hands had been caned. She returned to her seat. All eyes focused on the girl with the cuffed wrists.
Shocked and distraught, she looked agonizingly at the headmaster and ejaculated, "Please, please… oh, sir!"
"You may sit down. You will keep your hands in view, upon the top of your desk." His finger swiveled to confront one more quaking girl.
Peggy Phillips followed the same path as her predecessors. Upon arrival at the fateful spot, she was handed a pair of simple metal clips and told to snap them on her own nipples. There was another shocked silence. It would be bad enough to have someone do that to a girl, but for the girl herself to be compelled to fasten the clips on the little rosebuds was an appalling thought. Peggy Phillips voiced it forlornly.
"But, sir, I can't. I can't possibly do that. It will hurt terribly."
"You will do it, young lady. And you will do it without any further quibbling. If you wish to quibble, we will perform the service for you, but will give you in addition ten strokes in a place you will not relish."
Peggy Phillips was holding the small metal monsters as though they were alive and likely to do her injury. She gave a despairing glance around to all the faces unable to offer her aid. In innocent naivete, she enquired, "What part of me did you intend to whip, sir?"
"Your breasts – five strokes each."
There was an inevitability about the ritual. Peggy Phillips would not say one word. Forlornly, she gazed down at the pink buds of flesh she was about to clip. Strangely, they appeared to have grown. She could swear that even as she watched, they became more erect. It was like an open invitation. With a tiny sob, she swiftly and with little care made the first entrapment of her flesh. She looked at the headmaster for approval. But the headmaster did not approve. His voice was brusque.
"A poor sloppy job, Miss Phillips. I want you to affix them properly on the nipple itself and not the areola surrounding it. I want moreover the clip to extend prettily from the flesh. I do not want it hung sideways or in some disjointed fashion. Please try again."
It was probably the most agonizing thing she had ever done, but Peggy Phillips unclipped the little monster and gasped at the sudden, unexpected agony. Gingerly, she positioned the small open jaws and carefully allowed them to close upon herself. She made a small whimpering sound of dismay, but bravely repeated the motions on her other breast. She now faced the headmaster of Rossland with breasts arrogantly out thrust, and on the tip of each, a throbbing small clip of wicked metal. She found it difficult to control her voice.
"Oh, sir, please may I take them off now?"
"Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. I want you to stand over against the wail there, clasp your hands behind your back, and remain stationary while we deal with the next young lady. Come. Don't stand there with your mouth open."
Dejectedly and quite anxious to say more but not daring to utter a word, Peggy Phillips did as she was told. She went to the wall, leaned back against it, and clasped her hands at her back. She stood in suffering misery for all to see.
The last girl to receive the headmaster's attention was both clothed and handcuffed. She was, moreover, a mistress. She inevitably fluffed the question asked, and without hope, made her way forward to receive her punishment. Without waiting to be asked, she volunteered, "I'm handcuffed, sir, as punishment for insubordination. I was rude to Miss Harridance. I must remain handcuffed for seven days. It does not impede me in my duties."
"Well, well. Does it impede the removal of that school tunic?"
"No, sir." The cuffed hands were busy with fastenings until the tunic fell to the floor. The girl wore nothing underneath and stood stark naked for the headmaster's approval. After a moment, she bent, picked up her dress, and folded it, placing it carefully to one side. Miss DuPont's voice was toneless.
"You wish to punish me, sir?"
"Indeed I do. I am wondering what punishment would be most effective upon a mistress. Quite obviously, you are more responsible than these unhappy maidens who have gone before. Would you care to make a suggestion?"
Margo was not sure about Miss DuPont. The girl could well be an exhibitionist or a masochist, or perhaps she was having a little quiet fun beneath a passive exterior. Miss DuPont's suggestion was cool and unconcerned.
"Whipping is such a bore, sir. It's been terribly overdone, and as a matter of face, I was whipped quite recently. I doubt that to whip me further would interest you much. Therefore, I suggest the employment upon person of those same metal clips you are using on Miss Phillips. However, you have mentioned that my maturity and official position merits a greater severity, so may I suggest that the clips be placed not only on my nipples, but also on the lips that are beneath my pubic hair."
Henry Ross gazed at her in amazement and admiration. Here indeed was a pleasant change from tearful subservience. This young woman was either a fool or remarkably courageous. He conceded a slight deference in his tone.
"I accept your suggestion, Miss DuPont. I had considered something more trying, but in view of your excellent attitude, I am prepared to make concessions. I believe we have a boxful of these little metal contrivances. Allow me."
Miss DuPont viewed the contents of the proffered box with distaste. But without pause, she reached out and counted four of the hated objects. She looked steadfastly at the man and suggested, "I have taken four, but if it will please you to affix one also to each of my ears, I will do so. But I must say that from previous experience they are extremely painful."
"Splendid, Miss DuPont. I am impressed." He set aside the box and patted the impressive delinquent's cheek. He was chuckling. "By all means, and do let me know if any of us can help."
Margo added her gasp to all the rest. Miss DuPont was magnificent. One after the other, she clipped the little horrors on the most intimate places. She did so with no more than a slight flinch and a gasp, just enough to give a piquancy to a proceeding altogether bizarre. The pink nipples, the almost hidden labia, the coral ear lobes. Fastened upon her ears, the biting clips took on the aspect of costume jewelry. Still unconcerned, she politely enquired, "Would you wish me to stand by Miss Phillips at the wall, sir?"
"I am about to disband the class, Miss DuPont. I would like both you and Miss Phillips to wear your ornaments for one hour, at which time you will present yourselves to Miss Harridance for her supervision in their removal. I'm sure I can count on your cooperation. You may go."
Margo watched the class dissolve. She was thankful it was over. She was tired of cringing and wincing for the agonies of others. If she received agony for herself now, then at least she would be going through the motions for some purpose.
Henry Ross wasted no time. He took her hand and spoke.
"I can't stand it any more. I'm too damn horny. Come along."
He led Margo to his private suite to the bedroom, not even stopping for a drink. His demand was almost savage.
"Off with that damn rag and get yourself on the bed. I've been wondering why I didn't fuck you half to death last night. Now I'm going to do it."
He tossed aside the academic gown and became more human. His speech was less stilted. The twinkle came buck to his eyes.
"I won't even cane your ass, and believe me, that's a big concession." Henry Ross was a man of moods. He lived up to his word and ravished Margo Davis to the point of near exhaustion. She could not deny his ability or the ample dimensions of his maleness. She could understand such a man having no patience with lesbianism. To him, it was a waste. And with him, in fact, it truly was a waste, so great was his capacity for satisfying the female. After he had emptied himself completely, and having brought to Margo a multitude of intense orgasms, she nestled beside the male, allowing his mood to govern hers. First, though, there were the handcuffs.
"I cannot abide a young woman without some restraint. Here, let me have your hands. These are not going to bother anything you and I will do."
He snapped the cruel circlets on her wrists and clicked them together tightly. Margo wondered if he knew how little she cared. For her, handcuffs bad become no more than costume jewelry. She said demure thank you and then added, "Would you like me to wear leg irons too?"
They were on the same wavelength – evenly matched. He took her to the lounge for drinks and then ordered a picnic lunch from the kitchen. It was all the greatest fun and a tremendous relief after the weight of Rossland's authority. Margo flashed her handcuffs, and her animated conversation was increasingly lively. When they returned to bed, it waste begin the most hectic night of abandoned sexuality she had ever heard of or dreamed of. But she was not aware of the erotic stimulus Henry Ross provided for the entire class. His maleness was quite inexhaustible. Before they slept, he brought Margo to total surrender and an exquisite satiety. In the morning, he was gone. But by some magic feat, while she was asleep, he had contrived to move her handcuffs from front to back. No doubt it was a bit of pixie humor he enjoyed. After dreaming happily for more hours than Rossland usually allowed, she went in search of someone to take them off.
Margo knew the status quo could not endure. No sooner had Henry Ross taken his magic and departed than Mildred Harridance moved in to fill the gap. Margo's mouth, tongue, and lips were expected to replace and erase the male. But the male was now a factor in her life.
Previously, Henry Ross had been abstract. Now he was a terribly, vitally real to her. They had reached a togetherness, a sense of belonging and common purpose. Mildred Harridance was an intrusion. But she was a lovely, forceful, authoritative intrusion. In between the visits of the male, she held Margo's life within her hands. She could demand everything and give as little or as much as she chose. Mostly, she gave lavishly. It was this wish to please her prisoner which told the prisoner herself she had the upper hand.
"Darling, I suppose I arranged an escape for you. I could keep you conveniently in an apartment somewhere. You would always be there, waiting for me. Since I cannot be free of his authority, I can at least take from beneath his nose."
It was tremendously tempting. But selfishly, Margo realized that Henry Ross could offer her far, far more than any female. Mildred was an employee and could be summarily fired. But suppose she and Henry had formed a more permanent bond. True, even as his wife – and this was aiming high – she could be whipped and chained and probably popped into sundry cages or cells as pleased his fancy. Still, she would be his wife. She would home some inevitable portion of his power. She could visit Rossland, not only on equal terms but as a superior. Margo had glimpsed a more rapid road to fortune than she had originally planned. But she ate Mildred assiduously, and with the zest of momentary superficial acts enjoyed doing so. Margo saw this as reprehensible and knew consequential guilt. But she also knew she had not yet reached any point of security with Henry Ross. He would need careful handling. And if Mildred suspected her intentions, she would unquestionably work upon him to thwart her slave girl's desire. It was a thin and narrow line Margo must tread. It came to an end on the evening Henry Ross unexpectedly visited Rossland and discovered Margo and Mildred inhabiting the same bed, busily engaged.
He had not fired Mildred. Henry Ross was a man of measured and cautious decisions. He knew the angles. He ordered Margo to be locked in a cell and prepared for a flogging before the assembled school on the following day. What he did or said to Mildred, Margo never knew.
It was a miserable little cell in the best tradition of TV and movie sets.
It held the bare essentials for existence. A girl could be kept there forever, simply by passing food through the already prepared opening in the bars of her cage. She was naked and handcuffed, but that was all. Her imprisonment could have been far more punitive or much longer, but what awaited her at the end of it was horrendous enough to absorb all her concern. To be flogged in front of the whole school!
It sounded beyond bearing. She remembered the flogging of her dream.
But that could hardly be comparable. She would simply inhabit the dismal little cell until the event was ready to happen. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Rossland, Mildred Harridance was facing her own future.
She was furiously angry and terribly afraid.
"But, Henry, it would destroy me utterly. My authority would vanish. You cannot possibly flog a headmistress and expect her to continue to function."
"Not if you flog her before the assembled staff and inmates, Mildred. This, I understand." Henry Ross was examining the woman who was totally in his power. Mildred would never be dull, even in adversity. There were lessons to be… learned from her. Quietly, he spoke.
"The staff and the pupils will know nothing of it. I will flog you personally. The only witness will be Margo, who will herself be flogged. In her case, it will be before the whole school."
"Henry, that's horrible! The poor girl?"
"Poor girl nothing! She was eating your cunt when I caught the two of you. I'm not giving her up, not by any means. But I'm taking her away from your influence. However, I want your work at Rossland to continue. You will simply be flogged as evidence of my authority. If you want to go, then go."
"You know I won't. Henry, are you are a bastard. You leave me no choices. You've got everything figured."
"You are a beautiful woman, Mildred. It will be one of the high spots of my life to see you under the whip. It will give me immense pleasure to witness your submission to being bound. I ask myself, 'Why are you doing it?' I'll be damned if I know!"
Mildred glared and sniffed defiance. But she knew her defiance was limited. "I suppose the fact is, Henry, you've got under my skin. I have a feeling for you. And then there's Rossland. I've got a feeling there too. You know as well as I do it would devastate me to either part from this place or from you. If the price of my retaining these things is to allow you to punish me, then that's what I'll do. But I still say you're a son of a bitch to make me do it."
Margo hated the tiny cell. Her sleep was intermittent, bothered to an unusual degree by the handcuffs on her wrists. She had said they didn't matter, but they did. They told her she was not free. They told her she would be flogged. They told her she would never escape. In fitful periods of slumber, she slipped hack into that other world of the dream she had never forgotten. She had been flogged there and had been a plaything of men and women. She wondered what Denby Wright would have done with her, or to her, or about her had the dream been real. In morbid fascination, she wondered too if Manley would have been allowed to flog her had his lash held fast in its entwinement of her ankle. She shrugged the whole memory aside. Her condition was morbid enough without nightmares. But suppose Mildred Harridance was actually Marcia Tremont and Henry Ross was Denby Wright.
But the idea was absurd. There was absolutely no resemblance other than their hold upon her person. That was terribly similar. Margo spent the morning clutching the bars with handcuffed fingers and gazing through them at what was almost nothing: a blank wall, a passage. She asked herself what she was hoping for, what she expected to see. But she realized she had become one of those caged animals in the zoo, who perpetually paced up and down against the bars. She supposed she should be devoting though to her behavior and attitude while being flogged, noble resolutions to silence crossed her mind. She visualized a contemptuous hauteur as she was led to where she would be fastened.
But she did not care. All she wanted was to get the ordeal over and done with and move on to whatever Rossland had in store for her. She felt sure her whipping would be for Henry Ross, a beginning and not an end. He had imprisoned her in Rossland. He could also set her free.
But Margo wan destined to be a viewer before she was watched by many eyes. She was taken from the cell to the room where it would happen. She saw a dangling rope and waiting straps. But they were not yet for her. A handcuff on one wrist was freed and attached to a ring in the wall, so she must stand and behold whatever first took place. It was a shock to both the woman and the girl to confront each other in this place of punishment, both naked, both sentenced to the lash. For Mildred, the dishonor and degradation of having her own slave witness her flogging was as great a shame as Margo would endure before the eyes of the entire school. Neither said a word. Their eyes flashed a female message. The slave girl found her mistress utterly lovely in her nudity. It seemed impossible that any man would whip a body made so well for love. But she herself was to be whipped, so it evidently was a thing a male could do easily. Margo looked at her handcuffed wrist hanging from the wall and silently cursed the impotency it imposed.
The preparations were simple. The victim's hands were bond in front of her and hoisted above her head. Her legs were spread and secured by anklets chained to either side. This left her sex open and exposed, compelling her to stand in the one posture without being able to turn or wriggle with the strokes. The chained girl stood in stunned amazement that this woman would allow Henry Ross to bind her without demur. It was a phantasmagoria, a vivid nightmare of the impossible. But there it was. Mildred had been securely bound and made shamefully naked by the man who evidently owned them both. If Mildred was without recourse, then certainly she was without hope. When Henry Ross picked up the whip, Margo used her one free hand to cover her eyes.
"You there! I want you watching." The male voice was fierce.
Margo opened her eyes and allowed her hand to fall listlessly at her side. She was quite helpless and knew that what she was being forced to witness was in part a punishment for herself. She had eaten the forbidden fruit and now must pay the price.
The master was a man of resource. He had no sooner picked up the whip than inspiration dictated his next move. He set aside the weapon with which he would strike and cut female flesh, and instead turned to the girl chained to the ring. Decisively, he went to her, unlocked the single cuff, and joined it to its fellow behind Margo's back. She could now move from the wall, but was more helpless than before. She looked at her master questioningly.
It was very simple – fiendishly simple, utterly male in its concept.
The slave girl was forced to kneel between the bound legs of her mistress and found herself confronted by the source of all their agonies. Margo scented its familiar pungency and knew what she would be compelled to do. The bindings of Mildred's ankles, far to each side, displayed her sex, obscenely open and available.
"Eat her. Go on, eat the bitch. You wanted to. I caught you doing it." Margo knelt. It was strange to be confronted this way with something which in bed had seemed wonderful, but which now was simply disagreeable. Strange too to have no hands to be no more than a seeking mouth and a searching tongue. But the scent of Mildred Harridance enveloped Margo in a cocoon of its own powerful perfume. She longed for her hands and tugged at the metal on her wrists to no avail. She was a female armed only with her mouth. With a tiny moan, she thrusted to her task.
There began then the strangest of rituals – love and lust and pain. The impacts of the whip on the naked back of the headmistress of Rossland transmitted themselves through flesh and blood and bone to the hungry mouth of the kneeling girl. Margo winced with each of them. The headmistress herself was transported to a land few women ever know: a land of female agony and ecstasy, combined. Strive as she could against the bonds, she was so totally exposed to the male wrath that she could evade neither leather nor lips. In the small motions she could make they both followed her implacably. Margo's view was limited to pubic fronds, but mostly she closed her eyes and pretended none of this was happening. She ignored the heat generated in her own sex, but she could not ignore the excitement of the sweat and smell now blending itself with Mildred's own perfume. No doubt it was her fancy, but she could swear the impacts now sounded wet on Mildred's skin.
Henry Ross wished there was an audience. Margo was lost to him in that capacity. She was busily and almost blindly involved. It would have been pleasant and effective to have had two lines of naked maidens watching this punishment of two female mouths, too hungry for their own good. There would have been cringing and wincing in every heart and each one of them would have learned a lesson. But he valued Mildred's authority. She had known Rossland well and yielded unto Caesar that which was Caesar's. The pain and shame of what was being done to her how would keep her in line. But he would keep an eye on her. She could use herself with the other girls, but Margo was his alone.
Mildred Harridance did not scream. Margo could not imagine what resources she called upon to remain silent through the agony. Perhaps it was Rossland itself, with all the authority it had placed on her, that helped her now. When the last stroke had fallen, she simply hung limp and sweating without comment. The girl left kneeling and solitary in the room could well imagine what would now take place. Dismally, she turned to the task of ridding her mouth of pubic hairs without the aid of hands. Her future seemed hopeless.
The school filed in to take positions around the four walls. They looked at the kneeling girl and the dangling ropes askance. Margo did nothing. She considered getting to her feet, but what then? Mistresses would have stopped her from leaving the room, so all she could to then was to stand in stupid isolation, tugging at handcuffed wrists. It was better to kneel, to give complete approval, she widened her knees apart in the position Henry Ross so dearly loved. She bowed her head and closed her eyes and entered a kingdom of her own, a kingdom inhabited solely by punished girls.
Henry Ross took his time. When he finally appeared, he was freshly washed and attired in slacks and a white silk shirt. There was a freshness about him, and if any girl present could guess what he had just engaged in, it did not matter. He was the master. He motioned to a pair of mistresses to do the world he himself had done on Mildred. In deep breathing silence, they bound Margo for her punishment. Hands together and held high, feet wide spread and locked fast. She could not move, but could evade nothing. Her sex was open to the thong.
Margo sensed the master's mood. It was transmitted to her with each leather strap which cut her skin. The punishment was potent and terrible enough, but she was not being flogged. There was something lacking in the vigor of the blows. Henry Ross had found some surcease for his anger, some venting of his spite. What the newly stretched girl was receiving now was the residue of a greater anger, now appeased. It was still very terrible, but Margo was becoming adept at gauging the cruelty of punishments. Once more, her mind returned to the dream, to the smoke-blackened room and the scourge. This was nothing like that. There she had bled. She would not bleed now. But quite soon in her punishment, she screamed and continued to scream intermittently to the end. After the final stroke, she was left to hang limply as she was. Her audience filed out in orderly fashion. Henry Ross was the last to go. Margo was left to hanging in the punishment posture for an hour. She supposed it was for emphasis and to give her the opportunity to savor the scalding agonies which persisted in the more intimate crevices discovered by the lash. She could use her hands to assuage nothing. Her back burned, her buttocks were scalded and scored. Her belly had received the overlap of enough strokes to say that it tqo had been whipped. It sang its own song of anguish. Her sex throbbed painfully and distressfully. She wondered if it had been cut or injured. But she could see, nor could she feel. She hung in passive sweatiness until the master once more appeared. They spoke no words as she was freed. But he caught her as she was about to fall and once again carried in triumph the trophy of his anger, bearing her to his bed where her bottom and her back and all the rest of her were to pay its female price for being female.
For Henry Ross, it was a gala day!
Rossland absorbed them. The tunic of a mistress covered Margo's wounds. She was now sufficiently uninhibited that if one of her colleagues shyly suggested she would like to observe more closely the terrible results of her punishment, she cheerfully raised her tunic and allowed her wounds to be examined. There was no cut skin. But most certainly, there was an array of rainbow colors to evoke quite satisfying gasps from those who ventured. But there was not a single girl in the school who either had not or would not receive a similar coloration of her skin. None were immune from the thong. It was, in fact, very much a part of their daily life. They lived with it.
Mildred bore herself well. None would suspect the wounds she bore beneath her dress. Her punishment remained entirely secret. Only Margo knew. The headmistress waited a couple of days before summoning the whipped girl to her office.
"The bastard!" she said. "It's taken me this long to look you in the face. He didn't have to do that, but he's a clever son of a bitch, and he knows what hurts most." She laughed dryly. "Not that I didn't enjoy the role you were cast in. I could not have endured being whipped half as much without your help. Even if I did nearly go crazy when you made me orgasm. How many times was it? The whole damn thing is best forgotten."
Tonelessly, Margo asked, "What now? I'm under your authority here while the master is absent."
"Of course I want you! I want you right here and now, but we are both frightened, aren't we? That asshole has got us so scared we won't dare act naturally. We'll see him peeping at us from every corner. Is that the way you see it?"
"Of course," Margo admitted. "That's the effect of any punishment. That's the intent behind it all – to make you too frightened to do it again. But it won't last. By the time the marks on your skin have disappeared, we'll have relaxed, and we'll be doing it again."
"And eventually he'll catch us, just as he did this time," the headmistress said somberly, sharing Margo's disgust with female dependence on the male. "How do you still fell about me setting you up in that apartment and having you all to myself?"
"What's the use? He'd find me. We couldn't keep anything from Henry Ross." Margo shrugged hopelessly. "With all his money, he can do anything."
"All we can have of each other is illicit and subject to punishment."
"For the sake of this position you hold, which has to be valuable to you, you would do best to forget me. Just let me go out there among the rest of the girls and don't ever bother to notice me again."
"Is that what you want?"
"No, it isn't. You know it isn't. But in a way, we're both prisoners here. What the hell else can we do?"
They surveyed each other in rueful silence. Both, in their way captive, by invisible bonds. Mildred spoke again, forcefully.
"I won't let you go. I simply won't! It's too much to ask, to have you walking around this place and neither see nor touch you."
Standing before the desk, in the posture of humility, Margo realized the strange alchemy of female love which had made her this woman's equal. It had ceased to be headmistress and pupil – it was now lovers, fugitive from male wrath. Margo knew herself torn between male and female, but knew also she would not desert this woman in a crisis. Helpfully, she made a suggestion.
"You could make things easy for me here. You could easily make certain I was not constantly punished. I would simply serve my time and be available to Henry Ross when he wanted me. Isn't that the best way out?"
"No, it isn't. He'd find out. If I make things easy for you, the other girls will be jealous and suspicious, and one of them will tell him. You mustn't forget that he occasionally picks one of them rather than you or me, and a girl in bed will tell a man anything. The little bitches are so damn, grateful for a male cock!"
"Well, how about letting me escape? Surely we can figure some way of my getting out of here which will place no blame on you."
"You're dreaming, sweetheart. That's my job – to make sure you don't escape." Mildred shook her head, perplexed. "So, all right, we get what we can of each other in the way we've been doing. And fuck Henry Ross! I'm having you in my bed tonight, regardless."
It was not to happen, but neither knew it then.
Henry Ross appeared early in the evening. He wasted no time, but had Margo stripped, her hands cuffed behind her back, and another set of cuffs securing her ankles. Since she was not quite helpless, he picked her up bodily and carried her to his car. He did not put her in the trunk, but sat her on the sat by his side and drove away with her in much the manner of a conquering hero taking his prize to the family castle. Margo was quivering with excitement. She was outside the walls of Rossland in the owner's Rolls Royce. She felt she bad been promoted.
"Rossland will have done you no harm, sweetheart. I will have prepared you for what I now intend." He spared her an affectionate sideways glance, his voice softening and taking on a more normal tone.
"Don't worry about the handcuffs. I've got them on you just in case you change your mind or find this sudden change too much for you. I'm setting you up in an apartment and having you all to myself. There will be a woman to look after you and to look after the place itself."
"I'll still be a prisoner?"
"Yes, of course." He smiled. "Do you think you're quite ready for freedom?"
It was a question Margo could not answer. Of course, she was ready for freedom, but her what terms and at what price? She was unsure about spending her days in freedom and yielding her body every evening to his caprice. Henry Ross had not yet unbent enough for her to feel she truly knew him. His headmaster role clung and dictated her regard. But she was still in no position to quibble and bad no intention of doing so. With in sight of freedom, she would be stupid to ignore its possibility.
Wryly, she was forced to concede within her own mind the absence of ignominy in the yielding of her flesh to either phallus or whip. These things were now a part of her life, possessing a potency to make the routines of everyday life insignificant. She was about to speak of these things when they saw the fallen tree.
They were still well into the country. The road was narrow and the tree blocked it completely. It was not a big tree. A man might, with considerable exertion, drag it to one side. Without concern, Henry Ross left the car with that intent. The man who had delivered the blow to knock the master unconscious ad risen from the foliage of the tree and now proceeded to drag it back into the ditch out of sight. He dragged the unconscious Henry Ross to one side and left him on the grass. Margo was aghast. Helplessly, she had seen the whole terrible charade without being able to use either hands or feet in defense of the master or herself. The man responsible came closer, and she watched his approach as the victim of a snake might watch the hypnotism of its eyes. He wore a hood of transparent spandex, totally obliterating his features. He drove the Rolls Royce to the side of the road and parked it. Silently, he plucked the nakedness from the seat and deposited her roughly in the trunk of his car, which was parked a few feet from the Rolls. The whole thing was well conceived and had taken only minutes to execute. The car, with its helpless burden, drove away without even a screech of rubber. The abduction had been discreet. In the total darkness and discomfort of the trunk, Margo was mystified. She could not be other than terribly afraid. In her fear and loneliness, she wept.