Chapter One

Prelude

For those within, there comes a time of day that has no name. It is the dying afternoon, telling of twilight and the threat of night, mourning the hours of the sun. A time of melancholy.

Drusilla was familiar with it. She had always supposed it to be the hour in which Claude Debussy had been inspired to compose his 'Afternoon of a Fawn': that tinkling lament for the lost felicity of the day and a satyr promise of eroticism beneath the moon. Its mood weighed heavily upon her solitude.

She welcomed it as sympathetic to her condition. Most of her day was past, but Bryce's return was still distant enough that she could savour her mastery of the pain and the panic; especially the panic! There had been times... ! Since none of what she was enduring made sense, it was as well to achieve a perspective from which it could be dispassionately viewed.

It was primarily physical. Its sexuality was still something to explore. A physical imposition to invoke responses in the mind -- or would it be the spirit! Cynically she supposed she could erase both words and substitute the heart. The poor human heart got blamed for everything. Its function was to pump blood, but people made it a repository for all their guilts. She recalled Bryce's words: "A change of heart... "

The pain was an ally. It was not severe, no throbbing. agonies. But its constancy proclaimed purpose. It belonged. It countered boredom. Increasingly it was giving her a sense of accomplishment. Virtue! Drusilla supposed this a discovery. Interwoven in her day had been wry glimpses of absurdity. Suburban basements lack character. Their atmosphere is domestic. From where she stood she could observe the washer and dryer against one wall and the shelves holding the jars of pickles and preserves at the other. If she strained her neck enough there would be Bryce's work bench and his treasured tools. He had mentioned them:

          "I can make some of the stuff we'll need... " But the basement was cool in the heat of summer. In addition, it possessed a facility. The post.

Drusilla was tied to the post with neat competence.

Bryce had taken a lot of time in the binding of his wife. She had helped by standing limply passive, her naked back against the wood. They had discussed her nakedness with the same polite detachment they had employed after the initial heated resentments had been set aside and they had begun their postulation of the impossible. Bryce had suggested it diffidently. With a willingness she found suspect within herself, Drusilla had agreed.

Nudity had added a quality of deliciousness to the mixtures of Drusilla's captivity. It had provoked awareness. It had also enabled Bryce's rope to sink intimately in her flesh and hold her doubly secure. After the first panics had passed she had ceased to struggle for release. The rope and her skin had found an affinity against which she could not prevail. In the first few hours of fruitless rebellion against her bonds she had repeated again and again a shocked admission: "No way... ! No way... !"

She found it necessary to constantly test her impotence.

The flexings and twistings caused the rope to bite in reassurance that she was indeed tied to a post in the basement of her own home and that she was truly naked and frighteningly helpless. Her situation was real, unfeigned, not contrived. She supposed the flickerings of fear arose from imaginings of discovery, of fire, of burglars! Ruefully she recognized these alarms as implicit in the validity of her plight. They, too, were a touch of spice.

Bryce had crossed her wrists behind the post and tied them there. Drusilla could not see how it was done, only feel. Several ropes made a band round her middle. They had been painstakingly cinched to weld her bottom and her back immovably to the stanchion's vertical authority. Her ankles had been similarly treated, but one to teach side so as to separate her legs enough that her cleft was murkily visible below its black pubic thatch. That was the totality of her bindings. Above her strictured waist there was nothing. But her shoulders were well planted against the pillar by the compulsion of her bound arms straining against the bondage of their wrists. She remembered Bryce's doubtful summation.

          "Think you can stand it?"

          "I'll damned well have to, won't I?"

She made her retort bitterly sardonic. That which was between them prohibited humour.

          "Well, it won't kill you."

He spoke in the same tone. They found it a workable medium, conserving pride, denying doubt. Nothing said in such a vein need wound.

          "Run along to the office, Bryce." Drusilla had injected into the injunction an insouciance she did not feel. "If we chit-chat I may change my mind. Then we'd be off on the wrong foot again."

          "How come?"

          "You'd refuse to untie me, and then I'd be mad." She had looked at him uncertainly. "You would refuse?"

          "Of course."

When the door had slammed and the car had revved its way out of earshot, Drusilla had considered those two final words. Having uttered them, Bryce had given her bound nudity a lingering scrutiny, nodded and shrugged enigmatically as he turned towards the door. He had meant what he had said. His "Of course!" had been the turning of a key. It had possessed the same implacability as did the rope. The silence in which she stood helpless was suddenly tangible. It was then she had fought her first battle with her bonds.

Her defeat was bitter. In the compliant yielding of her person, Drusilla had allowed a crafty feminine certainty to lurk, chuckling in her mind, that no healthy young woman of intelligence could possibly be constrained to stand still by a few pieces of rope. She had secretly conceded as much as thirty minutes for her fingers to find the knot or the loose strand. She had cherished a glowing and hilarious picture of a chagrined Bryce finding his ropes scattered on the concrete floor. When, after an hour of painful twisting, she had found herself as tightly tied as at the start, she had wept in fury, and been surprised and angry to discover she had no hands with which to dry her tears.

Now, comfortably bereft of hope, she searched over and over in her mind for a flaw in the reasoning that had placed her where she now stood. She could pinpoint a beginning.

          "I'm not going to bulldoze it at you, 'Silla."

His use of his pet name for her was a part of Bryce's casual approach to something that should not be casual. He had a gift for always putting the ball in her court.

          "But it's medieval!"

          "All punishment seems like that."

          "Don't use that word! It's -- it's -- it's beastly and inappropriate." She was conscious of fighting a rearguard action.

          "O.K. You name it."

          "I can't. It's absurd."

          "Forget it then, Dru'. It was a thought. We've tried everything else."

          "We're not half as 'don't give a damn about this' as you'd like me to believe," she accused, aggrieved. "And your constant muttering about divorce."

          "Name an alternative."

          "Why me? I don't want to be divorced -- and neither do you." Drusilla was panting. "But you keep pushing -- "

          "It was you who threw the wrench in the works, 'Silla."

          "All right, all right!" She knew herself flushed. "We've gone over all that. I've said I'm sorry."

          "For the umpteenth time."

          "Buy a whip then -- if you think that's the answer."

          "I've already bought it."

Drusilla remembered the shock. Her sudden sense of having taken a step into the unknown. Gazing at her husband she did not see a stranger -- and yet -- ! In irritable impatience, she plunged:

          "Use it on me then! Will that square the account?" Bryce grinned at her vehemence. "No, it won't. Not like that. Too simple. We'd both know it a shock therapy that was artifical. You'd hate me."

          "Will I hate you less for this -- this -- this being tied?"

          "Yes."

The single word left the issue once more on her doorstep. She surveyed it with distaste. "It will be a sexual kick for you, won't it?" she accused.

          "Yes."

          "Don't keep saying that. It doesn't help."

He chucked her under the chin. "Don't be starchy, sweetheart. Not after all the things you and I have done in bed."

          "But this is kinky."

          "So is climbing mountains, smoking cigars, or doing macrame."

          "Anything can be rationalized," Drusilla said resentfully. "It's just a case of what you want. If you want something bad enough you'll concoct an argument."

          "Don't get so het up, 'Silla. You can't live sensibly, so we contrive deterrents. Your behavior shows a pattern. We'll set up a code to deal with it."

          "Tie me up and whip my bottom?"

          "Practical and delicious."

          "You'd have an erection all day. I know you!"

          "True, but irrelevant."

          "How d'you know I won't get -- addicted? Then we'd be worse off."

          "Would we... ?"

His query had been heavy with possibilities. Drusilla, grudgingly, examined them. "I think it's nuts," she said doubtfully.

          "I knew you'd agree, darling," Bryce said amiably. "Tomorrow!"

Tomorrow was today. Awaiting release, Drusilla scanned the hours. They added up to a sense of something accomplished. She had survived. An air of faint condescension would rob Bryce of victory as he loosed. the ropes. An interesting experiment! She grinned enjoyably. And she'd make sure he had a barren bed - even though her own loins were heated! She supposed it was her nakedness.

Bryce was late. Drusilla was sure of it. He was being mean. But this was no more than to be expected. It was the obvious. Teach her a lesson! Let her know her dependence.

Seething inwardly, Drusilla dissembled. She would have to endure this. It would be altogether too satisfying for him to pass up. He must be positively aching for her to make some reference to her plight; ask him to let her loose; be a sorry girl... Piss on him! She held to the cool condescension but was anxious about the two drinks on an empty stomach. "Get yourself a Scotch," she suggested kindly.

          "This'll do." Bryce sipped and surveyed his naked wife over the rim of the glass. "Any reactions, sweetheart?"

          "Boredom... " She poured on the casual indifference.

          "Was I supposed to be repentant, or humble, or something?"

          "You must have felt something. You've got tear stains on your cheeks."

It was monstrously unfair! Bryce held all the cards. Tied and helpless, she was an open book. "I got so mad," she said truthfully.

He placed his glass on the floor and cupped her sex with a wise male hand. Drusilla clenched her teeth against the sudden gasp of sensation his touch evoked.

          "You seem to have felt something," he said amusedly as he wiped a wet palm on her naked hip .

          "I expect it's this being naked."

          "Enjoy any of it?"

          "I told you -- just boredom."

          "Enjoy any of it?"

He knew her too well! His male ego would magnify her wet sex. "It was interesting," she conceded airily. "After I discovered I couldn't get loose, there was a sort of clinical curiosity. What's the word u detachment?"

          "Ah."

The gin was making Drusilla feel giggly. But first she wanted to scream. The two of them were absurd. Both were waiting for her to ask: "Aren't you going to untie me?" Until she said it their exchange would be banal. Bryce could sit there all night sipping away and looking at her pubic hair. But she wanted to go to the bathroom.

          "Aren't you going to untie me?" she inquired in a wifely voice.

          "Hadn't thought of it."

          "I need to go to the bathroom."

          "Pee?"

          "Yes. "

          "Let it go on the floor. It's concrete."

          "Bryce!" It was the exclamation of an outraged housewife.

          "Oh, all right!"

With an air of long suffering, Bryce emptied nails from a can and held the receptacle between her thighs. "Go ahead."

          "I can't!"

          "Why not? We're married."

          "Because! Oh, Bryce, nobody can -- do -- do it like this!"

          "Why not? Bet I could."

          "I bet you couldn't! It's awful. Please untie me."

He shrugged and resumed his seat. He poured himself a second lemon gin. Between them on the concreted the rejected can waiting with inanimate indifference.

Drusilla blinked back tears. Bryce had scored -- and she'd helped! Why hadn't she kept quiet! And now that it had been accorded recognition, her internal need became doubly insistent.

          "Oh, very well then." Her tone was martyred. Bryce professed obtuseness. "Very well what?"

          "You may -- you may -- hold the can."

          "You mean I need permission?"

          "Bryce, don't be unkind! All right, I'll say it nicely like a good little girl. Please hold the can for me. I -- I can't -- I can't hold it for myself."

As she watched her husband empty her contribution to the can down the drain, Drusilla knew defeat. The fact that it was an honourable defeat against overwhelming odds made it nonetheless bitter. Some sort of precedent had been established; not in her favour.

          "Sensible girl." Bryce resumed his seat and his gin. "That doesn't mean you're not going to untie me, does it?"

          "What else? You're comfortable again."

          "I'm not comfortable at all. These ropes hurt."

          "But they're bearable?"

          "That's not the point. I've been tied long enough. Let me loose."

          "You telling or asking?"

          "What's it matter! But I'll say please. Will you untie me if I say a pretty please?"

          "No"

          "What's the use then! Oh, Bryce, don't be so mean! Don't frighten me -- please! And I'm so tired of standing here."

          "Hmmmm. Why didn't you say... ?"

Drusilla kept silent. She knew herself in a spot. It was infuriating, but the thoughts now flickering for expression in her husband's mind would affect her dramatically. She was owned.

          "Here's the Code," said Bryce.

Drusilla listened. She had no choice. As the words flowed, she knew that without this day at the post she would have listened to none of it.

          "Silla, I'm never going to really set you free. You're better off without freedom."

Drusilla sniffed disdainfully.

          "Any time you find the Code too much for you, tell me. Then it will be instant divorce."

          "Don't I have anything to say?"

          "You have the all-important thing. The power to veto. But that's all." Bryce grinned companionably. "But remember, you can't veto when you're in a spot like you're in now. You'll have to do it when you're a free agent without coercion."

          "You mean I quit and go away mad?"

Bryce let it pass. He said one word: "Obedience."

Sniff.

          "Punishment."

Sniff.

          "Restraint -- such as now."

With simulated boredom, Drusilla looked everywhere but at the man on the box. Her traitorous heart was racing.

          "And, since I'm going to be a bastard anyway, I'll simply use you. For pleasure. The good old wicked Pasha thing. If I feel like whipping your ass I'll do it. Or tying you to that post. Or maybe taking you to the theatre with a chain locked tight around your tummy, I'll think of things... "

          "I'm sure you will." She poured on the frost.

He went away and left her alone. Hours later he took her to bed. Drusilla forgot her resolution.

They were the most tumultuous orgasms she had ever known.

Chapter Two

Pain

          "You're up to something," Diana said pointedly.

          "There's a look about you."

Drusilla tried to erase the look. But without success. She could never hide anything from Diana Winslow anyway, so why try. From beneath the sunshade of the garden umbrella she looked across the Winslow swimming pool to the neatly coiffured Winslow palm. Breathlessly she said: "It's Bryce. He's gone crazy."

          "Of course it's Bryce." Diana Winslow's pick-up was always instant. "With you it's Bryce, with me it's Hinton. Don't try and hold out on me."

          "It's nothing really." Drusilla strove for diffidence.

          "He's just picked up some weird ideas."

          "Is that why you won't swim?"

Drusilla flushed. Diana had the damnedest knack!

          "Oh, Di', drop it. I'll tell you when there's something... "

          "That dress is two sizes too large." It was an accusation.

          "I know it is. I'll do better next time."

          "Taken up whoring? Where did you practice that swing of the hips? With your bottom going from side to side like that you should carry a red light."

          "Diana! Oh, Di', does it show that much?" Drusilla forgot reticence and stepped into the trap of girl, girl confidence.

          "Does what show that much?" Diana had scented blood.

          "Well -- " Drusilla blushed and looked unhappy.

          "Want me to tell you?" Diana persisted.

Drusilla sniffed. "You couldn't. Nobody could."

          "You've got something fastened around your tummy." Diana adjusted conversationally. "Something you're ashamed of."

The silence seethed. Drusilla dared not meet the amused regard.

Diana enumerated on her fingertips. "I'd guess it to be a chain and padlock. A strap and buckle that locks. Or a weirdo corset. And I'll bet you can't get it off?"

          "How could you guess?"

          "Don't be silly, darling. I'm a woman. Or hadn't you noticed?"

          "It's a corset. Oh, Diana, I'm so -- !"

Diana rose and grasped her girl friend by the hand. Her words brooked no demur. "This way to the bedroom, darling. "

Drusilla followed meekly.

          "Drusilla! Oh wow!" Diana Winslow backed away to admire the full effect of the miracle wrought by the shedding of the crumpled frock discarded at the feet of the transformed woman who now, before the big mirror, was one huge blush.

          "You're right," Drusilla said morosely. "I look like an old-time prostitute."

          "You don't! Oh, darling, never say such a thing. You're a dish!"

          "I'm all hips and tits."

          "Oh no!" Diana was breathless. "You're all of everything -- everything that's female. Be a sweetheart and take off that scarlet pantie. But don't touch the garter belt and nylons. Oh, yummy!"

          "Diana, you make us sound like a pair of lesbians."

          "Well, aren't we!" Diana stuck her chin out aggressively. "All females are. I'll eat you later. For now I've got to look."

          "Do you really like it?"

          "It's gorgeous!"

          "You're right about not being able to take it off. There's a padlock."

          "The perfect hour glass! The Victorians would drool."

          "It hurts -- sort of. I can hardly breathe."

          "You must never, never take it off."

          "Oh, Diana, you could at least sympathize. I'd use a knife and cut it off if I dared. But I don't think -- "

          "Sacrilege! Don't ever think of such a thing." Diana was awed. "Look in the mirror -- the way your breasts rise up and your hips! Your nipples are pink above the lace -- I suppose there's friction?"

          "Of course there is! It's embarrassing. I'm always half ready to come. Diana, what are you so damn pleased about?"

          "I'm looking at the most beautiful thing in the world. I say, darling, what are those slots for -- side and back?"

Drusilla's blush deepened. "Bryce puts straps through them for my wrists."

          "You mean he actually?" Diana's eyes were sparkling.

          "Yes, he does. He straps my wrists side or back and I can't do a thing. It's part of what he calls un-Iibbing me."

          "And you re loving it?"

          "No, I'm not!"

          "O.K. then! When's the divorce?"

Drusilla stubbed an exquisitely shod toe in the rug and. contrived only to look bashful. "Well... "

          "Well what?"

          "I haven't made up my mind yet. It's so - well - it's outrageous! "

          "You're the luckiest woman in the U.S.A."

          "Oh, Di', don't tease. You wouldn't want this instrument of torture cutting you in two."

          "I'd give half my life to have a man do something like that to me."

          "Diana!"

          "Don't sound so shocked. You know what Hinton is. Hinton's so square you could use him for a building block."

          "At least he doesn't punish you." Drusilla looked uncertain. "Does he... ?"

          "Of course he does, silly. You've seen him go into a sulk sulk -- moody as hell. And sarcasms... ! I'd far sooner he made me wear a corset. I say, darling -- has Bryce -- ? Well, has Bryce whipped you yet or something really exciting?"

          "Diana!"

          "You said that before. But has he?"

Drusilla sniffed resignedly. "He's bought a whip." She grimaced at her best friend. "I suppose that thrills you to bits?"

          "But of course! Oh, Dru', you lucky, lucky girl!"

          "Diana, don't be absurd. It's awful."

          "No, it isn't! Ask him if he'd like to whip me after he's through with you."

          "I certainly will. And I hope he does!" Drusilla gazed at her glowing companion with quizzical comprehension. "I never knew... I mean, where did you pick this up?"

          "No reason to tell you, darling. You're such a sweet pussy cat -- even though you're the naughtiest of the lot of us. And who'd have dreamed of Bryce! He and Hinton both vote Republican. You really must have rubbed him raw... Darling, would you like to see something?"

          "What?" Drusilla was cautious. "We'll go and visit Ginny?"

          "But she's your daughter. She lives here?"

          "Well, yes... but you may be amused, or consoled, or something. Put your panties back on -- if you want."

          "And my dress."

          "No. Not your dress. Give the little darling a treat."

          "But she's only a child. She shouldn't -- !"

          "Don't be coy. Ginny's fifteen, and knows more than both of us. Come along, you erotic package."

For a week, Drusilla had been reserving judgment. She suspected her husband of adroitly managing her. Freedom had been interspersed by penalties that led her to the brink of revolt but never pushed her beyond. She consoled her prides and chagrins by thoughts of a tomorrow when... ! But curiosity had held tomorrow at bay. Curiosity, not only in Bryce, but in herself.

Pandora-like, she had used her first freedom to search, and had met no trouble in finding what Bryce had not bothered to hide. The whip had looked up at her from the drawer with an almost personal air of complacence. It was beautifully new and shiny, wickedly tapering. Beside it lay a set of handcuffs, gleaming and cruel and shockingly provocative. She had been obliged to fight down a lust to fit one round her wrist. She had found in them a shivery delight, a sensuous promise which annoyed yet intrigued. It was the following day that she stumbled on the limber length of the slender riding crop in the hall closet. It, too, had its own personality -- waiting.

Ginny said. "Hello, Mrs. Hammill. I knew Mummy would show me to you sooner or later."

Drusilla gasped. Ginny was naked, a sweetly adolescent nudity. Her wrists were strapped to a bar drawn up above her head so that, whilst not exactly on her toes, her posture was strained and very feminine. The child had twisted to look around a bare raised arm to greet them.

          "Hello, Ginny."

          "Oh, Mrs. Hammill, you do look scrumptious." The pert teenager seemed totally unaware of anything untoward in her condition. "Oh, Mummy dear, can I have a corset?"

          "You don't need one, Squirrel." Diana Winslow's voice was placidly maternal. "Tell Mrs. Hammill why you're like this. "

          "I borrowed the car without asking ... and two dollars! And I was cheeky and sulked." Ginny's confession was brightly insouciant. "Now I'm waiting to have my bottom caned... " Her voice became only faintly coloured by concern. "I've been waiting quite a long time."

          "Are you complaining, Ginny?"

          "Oh, no, Mumsie!" Ginny's reassurance was hasty. "Is Mrs. Hammill going to watch my bottom get striped?"

          "Do you want her to?"

          "I don't mind. Honest! I expect you'd like to, Mrs. Hammill?"

          "Of course she does," said Diana firmly. "Where did you put the cane, dear?"

          "There're several in the second cupboard," Ginny said absently as though canes were a small matter in a girl's life. "I say, Mrs. Hammill, you're not shocked, are you?"

Drusilla was shocked into inanity. "You mean about you being punished?" she asked bemusedly.

The naked youthfulness giggled. "Not about being punished, Mrs. Hammill. I mean about the way Mummy does it?"

          "Oh, the cane!" Drusilla eyed the horror Diana was flexing between her hands. "Well, I'm sure your mother knows best."

          "Mummy loves caning my butt," the tractioned teen explained without rancour. "That's why she has this room. She calls it my 'Playroom.' Daddy thinks I do exercises and things. He doesn't bother."

          "And you, er -- you don't mind?"

          "She'd better not," Diana said grimly. "Ready, poppet?"

          "Yes, Mother. But please... not too hard?"

          "Always hard, Ginny. You know that perfectly well."

          "Yes, Mother."

          "D'you want a go at her, Dru'?" Diana proffered the cane.

          "Good heavens no!"

Even as she made the declaration, Drusilla was aware of hypocrisy. Ginny's small, curved, pink bottom was infinitely alluring. Even though the young slenderness stood straight with raised, tied hands it had a life all its own. Its contours were an enticement. She repressed a surge of longing for the cane with desperate guilt.

          "Oh, please, Mrs. Hammill" Young, wide eyes looked back appealingly.

          "The saucy minx thinks you'll hit her lighter than I will," the maternal voice explained, amused.

          "Well, she can give me extra then."

Drusilla could swear there was hope in the moppet's plea. "How do you know I won't hit you a lot harder, Ginny?" she asked, her pulse suddenly racing.

          "I just don't think you would, Mrs. Hammill," Ginny said ingeniously. "Anyway, I'm willing to take a chance."

          "l think I'll pass, dear."

          "Oh, well," Ginny sighed resignedly. "O.K., Mother. I'm ready."

It was cataclysmic. It was beautiful. It was absurd. It was shocking. It was mundane... ! Drusilla heard the cane snicker and cut the air, then beheld the neat, thin bar of scarlet form on the chubby cheeks and raise its proud flesh in acknowledgment of the impact. Ginny's sweet nakedness vibrated, exuding sensitivity. One of her legs jerked up from the knee... again... and again. Gaspingly, the punished girl accepted stroke two. Her legs, again, making its mute admission of agony.

          "Are you able to notice it, Ginny?"

          "Oh, Mother!" Ginny's voice throbbed with hurt reproach. "It's awful! Much worse than last time. You're showing off in front of Mrs. Hammill."

          "I've got to make you feel it, dear."

          "But you don't have to cut me in two. Oh, Mumsy... Please?"

          "Delightful little moppet, isn't she!" Diana flexed the cane.

Drusilla knew the adjective inadequate to match the heated surge within her loins. The naked Ginny was pure beauty. A strapped sylph, she was elemental in her agony.

          "Please, Mummy dear, not so hard?" The youthful plea was anxious.

          "That's a bit rough on the poor kid, isn't it!" Drusilla's protest was insincere. Guiltily, she knew she had no wish for the caning of the impudent cheeks to end, or even to be less severe.

          "All right, you give her a few, then." Diana offered hospitably.

          "Please, Mrs. Hammill. I wouldn't mind. Honest!" Drusilla never knew if it was her own overwhelming need or the naivete or the youngster's request that gave her the courage to accept the cane. With heaving breasts, she sliced the air in a wide arc. Then watched her own personal brand proclaim itself across the innocent rump.

          "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Hammill." Ginny sounded truly grateful.

          "You'll have to do better than that, darling."

Drusilla did better. A fierce new exhilaration set every nerve afire. Her arm seemed endowed with the speed of light. This time Ginny gasped more satisfyingly and her leg paid its homage to the pain.

          "Oh, gee, Mrs. Hammill, that was -- Woo... Woo... Oooo'" Ginny contrived to mix pain and adoration in a strange blend.

          "I bet you've done it before," Diana accused.

          "No! Oh, no!" Drusilla denied. "Here, take it back. That's enough." She was trembling. "I think it's enough for Ginny, too."

The maternal hand took back the instrument of punishment. The maternal voice admonished sternly: "Tell her; Ginny."

          "I have to have ten strokes," Ginny said politely, her voice a couple of octaves lower than before.

          "I think it would be nice for Mrs. Hammill to hear you ask for them, dear. Ask properly."

Ginny gulped and took a deep breath. Her fingers worked desperately above the straps that fastened her wrists to the bar. "I've been a naughty girl." she declared in a bolstered voice. "So I've been sentenced to ten strokes with the cane. I've had four ... or I think It's four," she amended hopefully. "Now will you please give me the other six?"

          "Well done!" Diana sounded proud. "You're getting off with one light one but I'm not going to quibble."

          "Thank you, Mummy."

It explained so much. The cheerful teenager everyone liked. The mother-daughter togetherness so often remarked... Or did it? Everything in her world had gone topsy-turvy. Drusilla watched, panting, while number five and six etched Ginny's skin and extracted Ginny's gasps When the strapped slenderness lifted itself from the floor in a paroxysm of pain, she felt obliged to ask:

          "Don't you think the poor girl's had enough?"

          "Tell her again, dear."

The delinquent daughter responded anxiously. "Don't worry about me, Mrs. Hamill. It does hurt quite a lot, so I do silly things and make silly noises. I'm awfully sorry."

          "Don't apologize, dear. I think you're wonderful."

          "I know I ought to stand quite still and not make a fuss, but it really is quite painful." Ginny sounded helpfully contrite. "But I've only got four more to go. I'll try real hard."

          "She's a good kid," said Diana with maternal pride.

          "Here, I'll show you something."

          "Oh, Motherrrrrr!"

Drusilla shared the childish embarrassment as Diana cupped her daughter's sex in a knowing hand and exhibited the glistening wet palm to their fascinated guest. "The little sweetheart actually enjoys every stroke." she said complacently. "Just bothers her a bit when they land."

Drusilla eyed the evidence and felt sorry for the girl, who, this time, did not look back over a wrenched shoulder. A moment later it was she herself who gasped in shock as Diana's other hand slipped inside her panties to make a similar test. Feeling betrayed, she gazed down at a hand that was very wet indeed.

          "Don't play the innocent, darling," Diana was laughing at them both.

          "But it's all so -- so -- "

          "Incredible?"

          "Yes, it is. I mean, I've never -- never -- "

          "Never had a daughter to practice on? Don't worry, Dru', it works both ways. Wait 'til you get whipped."

          "Oh, Mummy, are you going to whip Mrs. Hammill?"

Ginny was galvanized into vivid excitement.

          "I will if she wants me to." Diana's eyes were dancing at the interplay. "But right now I'm going to whip you."

          "Yes, Mother." Ginny stood very straight and very still. The cane smacked home. Ginny neither moved or gasped.

          "little Trojan, isn't she!" Diana exclaimed with pride.

          "Lets see if she can stand this one."

Drusilla wanted to protest, but she was in the grip of a stronger will. This time the caned child responded by the kicking of her leg and a barely audible whimper. The final strokes sent her into wild gyrations against her bindings and the utterance of small, strangled sounds of which she was obviously ashamed.

          "That's the lot, dear. What do you say?"

          "Thank you, Mother."

          "She means it, y'know." Diana said equably. "She knows it's good for her. You do, don't you, pet?"

          "Oh, yes, Mother."

          "She means it, Dru'. The kid isn't dissembling. Tell Mrs. Hammill what comes now, dear."

          "I'm left to stand like this and think about what's happened ," Ginny proclaimed brightly. "Mummy calls it 'letting it sink in.' I expect it does me ever so much good."

          "Aren't you quite sure, dear?"

          "Well, I do get awfully tired." For a moment Ginny drooped, but instantly brightened. "But of course I'm supposed to. I'm being punished."

          "That's my girl!"

          "Thank you, Mumsie. You're sweet to me."

Back at the pool. Drusilla gratefully downed a martini.

          "I don't believe any of this," she said, shaking her head. "I don't believe this damned corset that's locked round my tummy, and I don't believe you've just whipped your naked daughter."

          "You will, darling. Give it time."

          "But -- but -- " Drusilla waved a baffled hand. "How many people -- ?" She looked at her smiling companion in wide-eyed appeal. "Have I been living with my head in the sand?"

          "Not really. But there's more than you suppose. They're the lucky ones."

          "Lucky!"

          "Of course. You know the Albertsons. She's a perfect submissive. He whips her for every fault. When they're alone together he keeps her chained."

          "Why doesn't she leave him?"

          "She loves it, stupid."

          "What you're trying to say is that I ought to love it with Bryce?"

          "You already are. You just haven't found out."

There was between the two women an empathy born of old acquaintance. Drusilla, in a sudden need of sharing, looked Diana squarely in the eye and admitted:

          "So, all right, some of it makes me horny. But where does it lead?"

          "Couldn't that be the excitement, darling, the finding out?"

          "Suppose it doesn't lead anywhere, except a lot of discomfort for me?"

          "What would you have lost?"

          "Where do you fit in, Diana?"

Diana grinned. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "But I envy you, so I must want what Bryce offers you. I think I'd find the extra fillip -- about the threat of divorce, I mean, tremendously exciting. One hell of a turn-on."

          "You mean that old thing about his secretly wanting compulsion?"

          "I suppose... " Diana made a wry face. "But I've been carrying around a sort of fantasy. Remember Elaine Neilsen?"

          "Of course. She worked with us once."

          "Remember how she had a thing about Europe. Saved her money and took the trip and had a wonderful time?"

          "Didn't something go wrong?"

          "Badly! The day before she was due to come home some chap gave her a thousand bucks to deliver a package back here. She took it for a giggle. The F.B.I. picked her up at customs. She's still doing time."

          "She was an idiot."

          "A nice idiot. Harmless as they come. Happy, lovable. Civilized. Surely you remember the papers? They made a big tarada over the case because Elaine was a pretty girl."

          "But what's she got to do with... ?"

Diana gestured in frustration. "You may well ask. But the press and T.V. featured so many pictures of the poor girl being led here and there in handcuffs -- and sometimes with a chain around her middle so she couldn't raise her joined hands! It got to me."

          "Sympathy?"

          "No, dammit! Pure lust."

Drusilla remembered the naked girl strapped to the bar back in the house... waiting! Something glimmered.

          "Bryce gets a charge out of seeing me like that. I know he does." She looked at the earnest woman across the table. Understanding came easily. "You mean you'd get a sexual bang out of seeing me handcuffed?"

          "I think I'd melt in joy."

          "And that's the reason you do that to Ginny?"

          "Am I a bitch?" Diana looked contrite. "Actually, it's working out real well. Can't you tell?"

One more anomaly! But there was no denying Ginny was fine. A girl to be proud of. Drusilla grinned. She began to feel on top of things again. "Bryce bought some handcuffs," she admitted demurely. "I'll model them for you if you like."

          "Would you! Oh, darling... !" Diana was suddenly an eager child.

          "Of course I will, Di'. But this Elaine thing? Is that all?"

          "No, that wasn't all," Diana said slowly. "The fact was I couldn't get her out of my mind -- I mean, the visions of her as a chained captive. After knowing her around the office. So normal. So well-adjusted and with so much to look forward to. Young, lovely. Now, here she was, locked in a cell, hauled around in handcuffs wearing a prim little prison dress that was actually damned sexy."

          "But she must have got a fair trial?"

          "Oh, sure. But it didn't do her any good. She was still sentenced. And that's where the compulsion thing hit me. It still wets my puss when I think of her behind bars. She's basically innocent. She made one silly goof. Now she's shut away from life, and love, and... and everything. I wish it were just sympathy I feel. But it isn't. It's envy! Can you understand that? Good old green-eyed envy."

          "For a girl in prison!"

          "Nuts, eh?"

          "A month ago I'd have said yeah, it was nuts. But now... !" Drusilla shook her head angrily. "What the devil are we females made of anyway!"

          "Longings. "

          "You want to be put in a cell? And handcuffed?" Diana nodded whimsically. "Yes. Don't you?"

          "I don't know. But it looks as though I'm going to find out. How about Elaine? Was that the end?"

          "I couldn't let it be." Diana chuckled. "I got permission to visit her. I laid it on the line. Told her the visit was to help me, not her. Told her the way I'd been affected... Guess what."

          "I bet she got mad."

          "Hell no! She burst out laughing. It had worked the same way with her."

          "You can't mean... ?"

          "Sure, I do! She said, without a blush, that all through her arrest and trial her panties were sopping, and that they weren't much drier now she was in the house of correction. She told me that to have to walk through a door and have it locked behind her still took her half way to a come. She said she and several others had been moved not long past. In a transit they were handcuffed together. She had two orgasms. She didn't pretend to understand it, but she was grateful it was there."

          "Crazy!"

          "And wonderful."

They looked at each other in discovery. It was Diana who broke the silence.

          "I'd like to whip you; Dru'?"

Drusilla got decisively to her feet and offered her hand.

In a silence neither of them needed to break, they retraced their steps.

A helpless Ginny viewed their return with eyes that were big question marks. But she, too, was chary of words. When the bar was lowered and her wrists unstrapped her youthful resilience reasserted itself. "Am I forgiven?" she asked hopefully.

          "You're forgiven, poppet, but only because we need the bar."

          "Coooo... Oh, wowie!" The child's orbs sparkled. "One of you's going to be whipped?"

          "Watch that tongue, girl," Diana admonished. "Be grateful and run along while you're home free."

Thankfully rubbing chafed wrists, the teenager looked from one to the other of the two women. "Can't I watch?"

          "No, you can't! Vamoose."

Drusilla blushed under the youthful, speculative gaze. "I bet it's Mrs. Hammill who's going to get it," Ginny said with the wisdom of intuition. "It's not fair I can't watch. You watched me get it, Mrs. Hammill."

          "Let her stay," Drusilla laughed. Her mind was in such turmoil that Ginny's presence was without menace. Besides, she liked the girl.

Diana was still a mother. "Two on each hand," she said decisively. "That's the price of indulgence. Want to pay it, Ginny?"

          "Oh, Motherrrrr!"

Ginny's exclamation was a feminine blend of vexation and acceptance. But it left no doubt as to her willingness to pay the painful price.

For Drusilla it happened very quickly. Diana disposed of the shapeless frock and scarlet panties with an air of disdain. Drusilla moved as in a dream, placing her wrists and watching them snugly strapped as though they belonged to someone else. The leather was soft and warm and slightly damp from Ginny. The two women were very close, their vibes almost tangible.

          "You do look lovely, Mrs. Hammill." Ginny was enraptured.

          "Shall we leave her the garter belt, the nylons and the shoes?" Diana now treated her exuberant daughter as a partner.

          "Yes, please, Mumsie! They're so -- so - ! You do want to wear them, don't you, Mrs. Hammill?"

          "It's not for her to say," the mother chided: "Her corset's locked on, so we may as well maintain the ensemble."

          "And her bottom does stick out so nicely. It's -- it's sort of framed." Ginny was breathless.

          "With that corset I can't whip your back properly, darling," Diana decided thoughtfully. "So I'll cane your derriere same as I did Ginny. O.K.?"

          "Yes, please."

Ginny might have said it. The affirmative was a child's acceptance. In a strange transformation she had returned to adolescence. Her sit-me-down was about to be punished with a cane. Drusilla refused to think. She surrendered her whole being to sensation. When the bar ceased to rise and she was almost on tip-toe, her principal awareness was of vulnerability. The erotic scraps fastened upon her nakedness offered no protection at all.

          "Since you're here, poppet, you might as well start things off. Here's the cane." Diana's voice held mischief.

          "Oh, Mummy, you're so sweet! I say, Mrs. Hammill, you don't mind?"

          "Go ahead, dear. Do as Mummy says."

          "Oh, Mrs. Hammill, I do think you're nice. But I'll hit you terribly hard. I won't be a bit kind."

          "I'm sure that's the proper way, dear."

          "And you won't hate me after?"

          "Get on with it, you little vixen. You're deliberately making her quiver." Diana's admonition was maternally discerning.

In the flash of agony, Drusilla had a momentary vision of how she must look. Mouth agape fighting a scream, eyes staring in dismay, her torso and legs obscenely active.

          "Worse than you thought, darling." Diana made a complacent statement. It was not a question.

          "Yessss -- oh yes! Oh - !"

          "The first one's always awful, Mrs. Hammill."

The second was no better. Drusilla was prepared to believe it worse. The third brought capitulation.

          "I don't think I can stand it." Drusilla's admission was tremulous. "I'm awfully sorry... "

          "Now you grasp what I mean about the compulsion, darling. Give her a really good one, Ginny. Square across. Not on her hip."

Drusilla beheld a vast abyss. What had she done? What had she allowed Bryce and Diana to inveigle her into? The story of Elaine and the clanging door had become real. Looking up at the straps about her wrists she knew herself lost. "Please... !" she whimpered. "Don't be mean."

The cut was very mean indeed. Drusilla abandoned silence.

          "You react so beautifully, Mrs. Hammill." Ginny was awed.

          "I'd like to be unstrapped, please," Drusilla quavered.

          "Ginny knows how you feel. Don't you, Ginny?"

          "It's sort of beautiful terrible, Mrs. Hammill."

Drusilla considered the next scald across her flesh as terrible. Its beauty escaped her. "Oh, stop it! Oh, don't do this! Diana, make her stop."

          "You're thinking we don't understand how it hurts, darling." Diana's words were placidly reasonable. "But we do, don't we, Ginny?"

          "Do we ever!" Ginny's agreement was fervid. "Give me the cane, dear."

Drusilla's scream was part anger, part protest, but mostly pain. She felt herself curling up from the awfulness of the searing blow. Bemusedly she realised she had lifted herself from the floor in a writhing seeking of an impossible escape.

          "That's all, darling. Ginny, you run along now."

It was heaven to be rid of the straps. To know herself returned to the world. To fling her arms around Diana's neck and sob. To have Diana's hands pat her back and, tenderly, trace the weals on her bottom.

          "Ashamed, darling?"

          "Yes," Drusilla sniffed.

          "So you should be! Such a fuss!"

          "But it's so awful! Couldn't you have - ?"

          "No. It's best you know. Next time there won't be the shock."

          "There won't be a next time."

          "Yes, there will. In thirty minutes you'll be horny. Maybe you are now. Let me feel."

Unconsciously, Drusilla separated her legs. Diana's hand tested.

It came away wet.

Chapter Three

Her Master

          "That virgin ass belonged to me, 'Silla."

          "If you hadn't turned me over you wouldn't have seen it." Drusilla complained petulantly. "We had the loveliest time... and then you had to do that."

          "Sensational, wasn't it!" A naked Bryce gazed down at his naked wife on a crumpled bed. Interestedly, he traced the angry weals on her bottom with an inquisitive finger. "Were these the reason?"

          "Yes." The admission was grudging. "How d'you know?"

          "I've been horny ever since Diana did it to me. It's absurd."

          "No, it isn't. I think we've stumbled onto something. With a whipped ass you're the most fantastic lay."

          "Well, I'm not getting myself whipped again. It was awful. "

          "It's right in there with our deal, Drusilla."

          "We don't have a deal."

          "I haven't noticed you packing any bags, sweetheart." The naked wife lay silent with her thoughts. When the tracery of male fingertips paused, she implored: "Don't stop, darling, it feels so good."

          "And what do I get?"

          "Another fantastic?"

          "It's a deal."

With her scorched bottom imparting wave after wave of golden sensation, Drusilla considered decision. She could not make one. Retreat as she might, decision followed relentlessly, a demanding Nemesis. She wondered if her adventure with Diana and Ginny had affected her will to decide. She did not think so. The caning of her bottom had brightened her. But its aftermath had been a wave of passion such as she had never known. She would have called it lust but the word had a bad sound.

          "I know what you're thinking," Bryce said evenly. "Don't bother with any cute, wifely evasion. It's still clear-cut."

Drusilla sighed. She was angry with the obvious premise that the longer she wavered the more she must be examining Bryce's demand. She constantly caught herself peeping at its possibilities. She no longer dismissed them out of hand. Unwillingly she accepted that what had been done to her so far had undeniably made her life more vivid and exciting. The carnal pleasures she at this moment was enjoying made previous adventures in bed seem tame.

          "I could save you the trouble of deciding by keeping a lock on you all the time." Bryce's fingers gave no pause to her pleasure. "But I think you ought to have a more positive say in the deal, and anyway, it's best we continue to go out and around. No reason our social life need suffer. But if we do it that way you're going to have to constantly resubmit yourself. No balking."

          "Be a good little slave," Drusilla's voice was only faintly bitter.

          "You'll dramatize everything at the start. But we'll fall into easy patterns."

          "But anytime I - balk; I pack my bag?"

          "It's the only way, 'Silla."

          "So we're talking about my life? All of it?"

          "The best life ever. Honey, push your hands up front."

Absently, Drusilla obeyed. She made no pretense of shock when the handcuffs clicked tight upon her wrists. When the male hand resumed her pleasuring she raised herself on her elbows and examined the chrome bracelets by which her hands were joined. "Are these on me for life?" she inquired complaisantly.

          "Just a trial run, sweets. How do you feel?"

          "Funny. I bet they'd hurt if I tried to get them off." She did not tell him she had seen them in the drawer. Idly, she asked: "Where on earth did you get them?"

          "Bought 'em. Anyone can. Not just the cops."

It was the first time! Sheepishly she felt curiosity and a strange excitement as she gently tugged at the confining link and fingered the gleaming steel.

          "I'm handcuffed!"

It was like a discovery. An admission. Drusilla recalled Diana's wish to see her thus.

          "That's right. You're handcuffed." Bryce's voice was light but there were undertones. "Try and get them off. I'm told some girls can."

          "I can't." It was the certainty of acceptance.

          "You look good in them."

Drusilla s lips twisted in amusement. "They're all I'm going to be allowed to wear, aren't they! Wow, what a title for a book! 'The Bride Wore Handcuffs.'"

          "'Silla, you've fallen in love with them."

          "No, I haven't. Don't think that because I don't go into hysterics at something you do to me I must necessarily like it. I'm trying to be reasonable."

          "Feeling your way?"

          "Let me, please! Don't go and whip me or something awful right off the bat."

          "Not until after our next fantastic, pet," Bryce chuckled. "But I hope you realize you've earned something for allowing Diana to get at your derriere before me?"

          "Couldn't you sort of write that one off? It did give some benefits, y'know?"

          "Not a chance! Matter of principle."

Drusilla let it rest, but pursued a tangent. "Bryce dear, would you mind if Diana saw me like this? Handcuffed, I mean?"

He grinned. "She'd get a charge, eh?"

          "So she says. You two would make a pair."

          "It's you and I who're the pair," Bryce said soberly. "And don't you forget it. You've been a bit absent-minded about it in the past."

          "Oh, Bryce!"

          "You're blushing. We can let that drop." He grinned boyishly. "Tell you what: I'll go all out for darling Diana. I'll loan you to her. You'll be delivered in handcuffs."

          "You needn't go overboard." Drusilla was remembering the cane. "I think all she wants to do is look."

          "Don't you believe it. The poor girl's starved for a morsel like you. Poor old Hinton leaves her high and dry."

It was strangely comforting. Things fell into place. Drusilla made a mental note to pursue whatever knowledge Bryce and Diana may have shared. Maybe it was Diana... ? But her immediate concern was the handcuffs. She could not ignore the significance of them on her wrists. They were a symbol. Had Bryce craftily relieved her of decision!

          "Darling, am I a prisoner?"

          "Hmmmm." His hand did not pause. "In a way."

          "You mean -- it's started?"

The hand ceased its ministration. Bryce's voice was serious. "It's started unless you ask me right now to unlock those handcuffs."

          "They're on me as a sort of symbol?"

          "Yes."

          "But, darling, I can't ask you to take them off." Drusilla's voice was a wail. "If I do we go right back to square one."

          "That's right."

          "You never help me when it comes to this," she complained.

          "I've given you all the help I can. Those handcuffs." He was right. The steel bands answered most of her questions. Drusilla was tired of indecision. She was also very sure she did not want to pack a bag. Aloud, she mused:

          "I'm weak, aren't I? I mean, I really am one of those - what d'you call 'em: a submissive! I need to be herded."

          "Yes."

          "Oh, Bryce, you and that word! And you've found out the same thing as I've found out." She twisted to look up at him. "So, O.K., I want you to lend me to Diana. And even though I'm scared silly I want you to go on doing what you want with me. It's been a turn-on -- the whole thing. It's been a turn-on even when I've hated it. If I burst into tears sometimes you'll have to put up with it -- I'm so damned lost..."

Bryce made love to her. Its beginning was tenderness. Its end was volcanic.

Drusilla wondered if it were the handcuffs.

          "How'd you like to run over?" Drusilla asked demurely. Diana hugged the phone. "You're up to something."

          "Can't you pop over here?"

          "No."

          "Oh ho, like that, eh?" Diana chuckled. "I bet you're naked."

          "I have to be, Di'. It's orders," Drusilla giggled. "But I might manage panties and maybe a bra -- just for you."

          "What, no corset?"

          "No corset." Another giggled. "Much worse."

          "Don't tease, Dru'. What is it this time?"

          "Handcuffs. "

          "You mean on you!"

          "Yes. And they're on tight. And I don't have a key."

          "I'll be right over," said Diana.

In honest self-examination, Drusilla had come to accept that her own compliance was every bit as responsible for her new condition as was Bryce's intransigence. She could not divine the degree of percipience by which he had correctly gauged the feminine submission latent in her psyche. At first she had been petulant at his baring of a facet of her being unknown to herself. But his probing had uncovered a rich vein of sensuality yielding unexpected discoveries. She lived from day to day. The price of termination was one she would not pay. Perhaps she would never pay it. The thought was spine-tingling.

Drusilla chose a pair of latex panties she had once purchased in a moment of mischief. They were just right for Diana's visit. They moulded themselves upon her loins like a second skin, accentuating the obvious without blatancy. The handcuffs hindered the careful tuggings and smoothings to the point where she decided to leave her breasts bare. Joined hands would make a bra a chore.

          "Oh, darling: Oh -- oh -- oh!"

Diana's breathless exclamation was an excitement. Drusilla felt loved and very rich. She primped her hair so as to deliberately clink her handcuffs.

          "Let me see! Let me hold them."

Demurely the privileged captive extended her hands.

Diana's rapture was reminiscent of engagement rings and large diamonds.

          "Must I be careful? I mean, will they go tighter if I press?"

          "No, there's a little lock gadget Bryce used. See those tiny hoes... ? They're fixed." Pride tingled. It was like a casual dropping of their origin as Tiffany's.

Diana fingered lovingly, a pilgrim at the shrine. The shining metal and the encircled wrists were turned and lifted and scrutinized from every angle. "Darling, model them for me. Oh, please?"

Drusilla happily obeyed. Diana's joy was one more unexpected dividend. Pleased amusement lit her face as she performed housewifely motions around the room, each one extracting glints of steel. "Bryce has kept them locked on me for four days and nights," she explained cheerfully. "I'm getting quite good at doing things."

          "But, Dru', how can you dress -- or leave the house?"

          "I don't. I'm forbidden to dress, and I haven't been out of the house the whole time," she giggled. "I thought it would be awful but it's not. I'm horny all the time."

          "What d'you think I am! Oh, Dru', I'm consumed by lust. But how long... ?"

          "I think the first stage is nearly over," Drusilla confessed. "Bryce says I have to be punished because I let you cane my bottom before he got at it."

          "Gorgeous!"

          "For you, maybe. What about me?"

          "You'll love whatever he does to you. You know you will."

Drusilla wrinkled her nose. "And he insists we have to go out and around. I'm positive he's got something fiendish in mind. Probably that damned corset."

          "Lucky you."

          "Maybe we should trade husbands."

          "Darling, if only we could!" Diana sighed sadly. "You're certainly welcome to Hinton. He's so disgustingly safe."

          "At least he doesn't cane your bottom or put you in chains."

          "That's what I mean. I'm unfulfilled. If it weren't for Ginny... !" Diana shrugged. "I suppose you've figured out that Ginny's her mother's daughter?"

          "Sort of. She's a darling."

          "She's a teenage volcano! What's that make me?"

          "And Hinton's no idea what he's sitting on?"

          "Oh, he's got an idea all right," Diana admitted slowly.

          "But he doesn't want to be bothered. I'm an exotic piece of furniture and Ginny's all mine to worry about. He kisses us on birthdays."

          "Don't sound so sad." Drusilla, once again, experienced the lovely rich feeling. "Bryce is going to lend me to you. I think he figures you'll be shockingly cruel. Will you?"

          "I'll put you on the bar and alternately nibble and flog you. How's that?"

The surge of flame through her inmost being left Drusilla breathless. Diana had to be kidding. But the impact of her words had been like bullets. The handcuffed woman had a mental vision! "You wouldn't!" she accused with feeling. Then, suddenly eager, "Would you?"

          "Of course I will, stupid! I'll whip you and love you and send you home totally fulfilled -- a bit limp, perhaps."

Again the searing flame. Drusilla wondered if anything showed though the latex. "He's going to deliver me to you in handcuffs," she informed meekly, loving the sudden passion in Diana's eyes.

          "I can't bear it any more," affirmed the wife on Hinton Winslow. "I don't care whether you're hungry or not, Dru', you're going to have to eat. I need relief."

Watching Diana fling aside her clothes, Drusilla was aware of power. Slaves were not always petitioners! She fed very hungrily indeed, her chained hands clutching and loving as best they could.

After the tumultuous journey, rendered all too short by Diana's pulsing excitation, the serviced woman lay back and pantingly exclaimed: "I needed that! Oh, Dru', you're wonderful!"

          "Slaves strive to please, mistress."

          "If you say things like that you'll have to do it again." Diana shook her head bemusedly. "You're a sexpot."

          "You taste sweeter than honey, mistress."

          "Drusilla! ! !"

Drusilla feasted once more.

          "I'm going to have to watch this," Diana mused as she disdainfully resumed her clothes. "I've been addicted to you for years. You're habit forming." She shook an admonitory finger. "And if you come up with any more of those erotic remarks I'll go and find Bryce's whip."

          "It's in the drawer of the hall stand."

          "That's a deliberate invitation -- you minx!"

Drusilla giggled. It was becoming a habit. "Not really. I don't think Bryce would like it if you marked me any more."

          "Do you care?"

          "Well, sort of. I have to find out what his ideas of punishing me are." She held up the handcuffs. "These aren't a punishment. They're a sort of prelude. Could be he'll do something I'll hate and won't want."

          "It's almost certain to hurt, idiot." Diana smoothed her frock. "Did you put that latex on to please me or to hide your cunt?"

          "Handcuffs make a girl feel about three times naked, Di' You're a visitor. I had to do something."

          "But you'll be punished if he finds out?"

          "So he says." Drusilla paused. "I haven't really disobeyed him yet."

          "Scared?"

          "Hmmmm, maybe. But I haven't wanted to. And he's been a dear and gone easy on me. I'm saving it up."

          "You melt at the thought, don't you?"

          "Diana, it's you who's melting. Gosh, I wish I felt like you."

          "You do. You just don't know it yet. Think of how far you've come in a week."

It was true! Drusilla was denied comment by the door chimes.

          "That's Ginny," Diana said without concern. "I left a note for her to follow on. There's some unfinished business... "

Ginny was blushing. She carried a long, slender something, untidily wrapped. She absorbed the impact of Drusilla's nudity, the latex and the handcuffs without shock. "Oh, Mrs. Hammill, you look lovely like that," she exclaimed with girlish sincerity. "I expect Mummy's told you why I'm here?"

          "Just unwrap it, Ginny," Diana ordered.

It was the cane! Drusilla suddenly remembered the agreement. She looked from mother to daughter, amazed by their dedication.

          "Bet you thought I'd forgotten, Dru'?"

          "Mother never forgets, Mrs. Hammill," Ginny assured anxiously. "I have to have my hands caned. Remember?"

          "Well, yes, but surely... ?"

          "Oh, you're thinking of the four days delay," Ginny said brightly. "Mumsie didn't bother that day you were there. I'd had -- well, my bottom had been well looked after. I was sort of tender. Mummy's so sweet."

          "Yes, isn't she."

          "Two on each hand, as I recall?" Diana asked cheerfully.

          "Yes, Mother, but I was wondering... ?"

          "Your bottom's not so tender now, so you'd like them there?"

          "Yes, please, Mother. Could I?"

          "No."

          "Oh, Motherrrr! I make such a fuss when it's my hands! I'm always ashamed. And with Mrs. Hammill! Mother, could I have it on my bottom, well bent over, and get an extra? That would be five."

          "Not for five, and not for six. Off with your clothes, Ginny."

          "But if it's just her hands, why naked?" Drusilla watched the phenomenon of Ginny's swift conversion to nudity in puzzlement.

          "It's so I feel ashamed, Mrs. Hammill," Ginny explained helpfully. "I'm getting sort of used to it. But having you watch makes me all goosey. Do you think I'm nice?"

          "You're lovely."

          "I'm so glad." Ginny sounded deeply sincere. "I'd hate to have to hold my hands out to be caned if I was fat or flat-chested or something."

          "You've nothing to worry about, dear."

          "Stop chattering, minx, and hold your hand out," Diana interposed ominously.

          "Yes, Mother."

Obedience was instant. The conversion from nattering nymphet to sweet statue with arm outstretched took but a moment. Ginny's insouciance was in abeyance.

          "Just a little test to show Mrs. Hamill what you're made of, dear. I've thought of something simple."

          "Yes, Mother."

          "No hugging."

The words were simple. For a bare moment Drusilla failed to comprehend. But Ginny's wail of anguish told all.

          "But, Mother, I can't help it! My hands do it all by themselves -- they hurt so terribly."

          "The first two you must take without moving, dear. After you've had the second two, you can hug all you like. Fair enough?"

          "I suppose so, Mother. I really will try."

          "If you fail, and start that silly hugging business it means two extra." Diana's nonchalance was superb.

          "Thank you, Mumsie." There was no reproach in the young voice.

The handcuffed woman watched in an awareness of privilege. Ginny was one for the book. The child was incredible. The cane whirred and slapped home on the taut palm held out to receive it. The arm was depressed under the force of the blow, but immediately returned to the horizontal. Small, sad sounds came from Ginny's throat, but her other arm obediently rose. The small, pathetic hand stretched itself, palm up.

          "She's a little sweetheart." Diana's maternal pride was unmistakable.

It happened again. Ginny's eyes were riveted on the wall. The child refused to watch or turn. Her lips were a small, straight line. The second whirring arc cut the tiny hand with cruel precision. Ginny did not move, but the wail her teeth bit back tore at Drusilla's heart.

          "You're doing fine, dear."

To the woman who watched, it seemed inadequate praise. The slender youthfulness stood now with both arms extended, head high. The young breasts rose and fell tumultuously. Two hurt hands offered themselves as sacrifice to an impetuous tongue. Diana took her time. Drusilla guessed she was demonstrating her daughter's total involvement.

This time Ginny's total nudity responded. It twisted and turned under the bite upon the open palm. But the lapse was momentary. Within seconds the youngster had stiffened and resumed the pose required. Both arms remained outstretched, one hand limp and curled, the other with fingers stiffly inviting the final stroke. With pounding heart, Drusilla watched it happen.

This time Ginny's response was as old as the centuries.

Immediately her arm flinched under the worst blow of the four she uttered a sobbing wail, bent forward and tucked her punished hands under her armpits. As though making up for her previous fortitude she now gave herself utterly to the absorption of her pain. But even as she sobbed and writhed she enunciated in a clear young voice.

          "Thank you, Mummy."

          "You're welcome, dear. Hurt nicely?"

          "Yes -- oh, yes!"

          "She's a good kid. Isn't she, Dru'?"

          "I think she's wonderful," Drusilla said with heartfelt sincerity. "I don't think I could have done that."

          "Want to try, darling?"

          "Good heavens, no! I'd go crazy after number one."

          "Maybe." Diana examined her handcuffed friend with amused assessment. "But you never know, do you! Wait till you're on loan to me."

          "Diana, you wouldn't?"

          "Darling, you know perfectly well I would. In fact, I will."

Drusilla felt outraged by this incipient betrayal of friendship. But the emotion was heavily laced with the tingling excitement that now seemed a part of all her days. Sulkily, she proclaimed the obvious.

          "I won't hold out my hand."

          "Want to bet?"

Drusilla blushed. She did not want to bet with this new Diana who knew too much. She was conscious that Ginny, whilst still busy hugging, was now taking a lively interest in in the exchange. "I'm not going to let you punish me like a child," she proclaimed huffily.

          "Tell her, Ginny."

          "Oh, Mrs. Hammill, you have to!" Ginny was anxious to offer the voice of experience. "If you don't do what you're told Mummy just keeps adding more."

Drusilla sniffed. She had a suspicion she was being laughed at. "That's all very well for you, dear," she said kindly, "But I shall just go home."

          "Will you, darling! What are you wearing?"

Lust flared. She was naked. She was handcuffed. It was another of the new moments of realization. She would go nowhere. How could she! She glared at Diana in mock anger. "Oh, all right, have your fun. And anyway, it's not likely to happen."

          "Is your bottom still tender, Mrs. Hammill? Mine's stopped hurting." Ginny's query was politely sincere.

          "You can dress and run along, poppet." Diana's directive was maternal. "And take the cane back with you."

          "Yes, Mother." Ginny picked up her panties, then paused. "Mother, aren't you going to cane Mrs. Hammill's hands?"

          "Why should I?"

          "Well, I think it would be nice. You are sort of learning, aren't you, Mrs. Hammill?"

          "She can't hold her hands out wearing those handcuffs," Diana complained with obvious regret.

          "I bet I could." The girlish voice was eager. "All she'd have to do - "

          "Ginny!!!"

          "O.K., Mother, O.K., I'm dressing!" The small, swollen hand selected another feminine trifle. But the curiosity was unappeased. "I would so have loved to watch," she added hopefully.

          "Do you want to earn another four?"

It was impossible! Drusilla scarcely believed her eyes.

The bra stopped halfway to the youthful cones. Ginny's face lit with excitement. "Oh, Mummy, could I!"

Diana's reply bubbled laughter. "Ask Mrs. Hammill."

          "Oh, Mrs. Hammill, would you -- please? I'd so like to watch. All you'd have to do is hold your hands out front instead of sideways. You could put the one that isn't being caned underneath the one that is. Then change over each time. I'm sure it would work beautifully."

          "Not today, dear. I'm not as brave as you."

          "Poppet, go home!"

          "Yes, Mother."

Ginny's disappointment was patent. Drusilla felt unkind and knew her values tumbling about her ears. She repressed, with difficulty, an impulse to offer her hand for one stroke only. It was too absurd!

          "She's quite insatiable." Diana meditated after a once-more-smiling daughter had departed with the cane. "I sometimes wonder what I've started there."

          "She's the happiest child I know."

          "I'm sort of proud of that end of it. But what will happen in a few years with boyfriends and husbands!?"

          "Don't let it happen, Di'." Drusilla found her voice surprisingly vehement. "Keep the little darling. Keep her always."

          "The way I'm going to keep you?" The query was vibrantly sly.

Again the flame within the latex on her loins! She had known Diana for years -- or had she? Were their true natures only now surfacing! Her lips still savored the flavor of her laughing companion. A sudden, delightful vision of a world devoid of Bryce or Hinton flashed and was gone.

          "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Diana persisted.

          "Yes."

It had been easy to say. Once said, it changed everything. Drusilla shivered deliciously and raised her hands so that the handcuffs gleamed. Wonderingly, she said: "Without these - things wouldn't happen... "

          "Locked on your wrists like that they do a lot of things," Diana admitted. "They make me horny and force you to recognize something you'd otherwise reject. They stop you turning your back on what you're scared to face."

          "Am I scared, Di'?"

          "You were. But those handcuffs are giving you strength. I bet if I had the key you wouldn't let me use it."

Drusilla fingered the steel. It had become as much a part of her as her fingers themselves. "You're right," she admitted slowly, "But, Diana darling, don't spoil things between Bryce and me. I seem to be committed to something or other -- let things take their course."

          "I'll wait," said Diana comfortably.

Chapter Four

The Cell

          "Best you go to the bathroom," Bryce advised briskly. Drusilla had become accustomed to such injunctions.

They were necessary where someone knew things you did not. The handcuffs no longer bothered her much at such times. When she returned, she voiced what appeared to be a certainty.

          "Is this the day of reckoning, Bryce?"

          "How did you guess!"

          "The room's finished."

The room was as potent as all else that happened to her now. Drusilla felt it pointing at her like a beckoning finger. Because of her it had come into being. The carpenters had worked fast.

          "like it?"

          "It's a prison."

          "Just the cell part, sweetheart. The rest's for fun and games."

          "I don't think I'm going to like it at all. Oh, Bryce, those -- those -- things! It's grim."

          "It's well illuminated." Bryce turned a knob proudly. "See? It can be as bright or as dim as suits the mood."

          "Turn it on full. And that poor little window up there -- it didn't need to be barred."

          "Nice effect, though. Don't you think?"

          "And this awful little cell! Are you really going to lock me in it?"

          "Only sometimes."

          "Oh, Bryce, don't sound so damned pleased."

          "Why not! I am pleased. I'm particularly pleased with you. Come here."

She went to him and clasped her shackled hands over his neck. Bryce hugged her tenderly. "Sometimes this isn't easy for me," he admitted in her ear. "But the way you've taken hold... ! You're making me very happy."

Drusilla nestled against her husband's masculinity.

          "This place reminds of me a Nazi interrogation chamber."

          "You've got goose pimples."

          "I'm going to disgrace myself. I know I am. You're going to whip me, aren't you?"

          "Sure. The way you let Diana."

          "I didn't 'let' her. I sorta' got talked into it."

          "Probably hurts about the same either way."

          "Oh, Bryce!!"

          "Well, don't ever let's get too gloomy about this."

          "You mean about my punishments? See, I've even managed to use that hateful word."

          "I'm beginning to like you a lot, darling."

          "What happened to the word love?"

          "That's different. A man can love a trollop. liking implies respect."

          "Was I really a trollop?"

          "Ask yourself. You know best. But, sweetheart, no going back?"

          "The way you said that means it's going to hurt."

          "You may as well lie on the bench now."

          "Why? Are we going to make love?"

Bryce chuckled. "I'm not a bit sure that remark was innocent." He lifted her joined hands back over his head and patted her seat. "This facility was specially made for you. Dispose yourself, woman."

Drusilla knew a giggly wish for repartee, but recognized it for what it was: a tactic to delay. Scorning it, she climbed aboard her hard couch. "Face down, I suppose?" she inquired meekly.

          "And bottoms up," Bryce agreed cheerfully. "We'll turn you over another time."

Another time! And the monarchial 'we'! Drusilla knew herself riding on a tide that could drift her anywhere. She discovered that her ankles had fallen neatly into circlets with her feet protruding beyond the end of the bench. Bryce was busily buckling them tight with straps that must have been there waiting.

          "Honestly, sweetheart. Don't you hate to lose these?" Drusilla looked up the length of her stretched out arms to where Bryce was inserting a key in a cuff. "Yes, I would," she admitted slowly. "If it wasn't that you're about to fix me far tighter -- you are, aren't you! And don't think I haven't figured that you strapped my feet first so's I couldn't struggle."

          "Go ahead, struggle." Laughing, he held up the jawed handcuffs warm from her skin. "Your hands are free."

Drusilla had no intention of providing her amused husband with a demonstration of contorting frustration. But she massaged her wrists and stretched her arms wide in a sensual enjoyment of motions long denied. lifting herself on her elbows she confirmed the fact that there was no way she could free her feet and find freedom. "I'm helpless," she conceded. "The way you've got my ankles strapped down I can't possibly get off this contraption. There's no need to fasten me any more."

          "Good try, 'Silla. Push your arms up."

She did not complain. Might as well be tied for a sheep as a lamb, she thought wryly. Her wrists found other circles and other straps. Bryce buckled them tight and snug.

          "I'll whip your bottom sometime when only your ankles are strapped," he promised genially. "Should be quite something, "

          "What you mean is that my agonized writhings would give you an erection," she accused, falling into his mood. "Oh, gee, I can't do anything like this."

          "Yes, you can. Try."

          "I can lift my head and get a bit of a wriggle out of my hips."

          "We must fix the hips, sweetheart."

The strap across the small of her back was so inevitable she made no comment, contenting herself with an exaggerated "Ouch!" when Bryce buckled it tight.

          "That noise was just in the hope I wouldn't draw it as tight as I might," he accused knowingly. "So now it gets tugged one more notch."

Drusilla said "Ouch" again and meant it. The leather band circled her waist with a compulsive intimacy. "I can't move at all now," she mourned.

          "Good! Don't want you threshing around when the whip bites."

          "I wouldn't thresh around. Can't you give me credit for a bit of self-control?"

          "Would you really like to lie there without restraint?"

Bryce asked gently.

Drusilla instantly remembered her shameful dance from Diana's straps and bar. "No, never mind," she declaimed hastily.

          "Save you a lot of embarrassment, sweets. You've seen this before, haven't you? I know you peeked." .

Drusilla peered over a taut and helpless arm at the whip dangling from Bryce's hand. It looked a lot more menacing now than it had in the hall stand. "I thought you'd just bought it to scare me," she admitted. "And, yes, I peeked. But, darling, aren't you going to use a cane -- like Diana?"

          "You liked Diana's cane?"

          "I don't like either. But her cane looked less lethal than that awful thing you're playing with."

          "On your lovely bottom, love, I suspect the cane hurts more than this. But I do have one."

Without enthusiasm, Drusilla watched her husband go to the cupboard. It was easy to convince herself the cane he returned with was more deadly than Diana's. Bryce held both instruments of punishment up for her inspection.

          "Take your pick, 'Silla."

          "How do I know!" she retorted pettishly. "I don't know either of them."

          "I do have a tawse." It was as though he had saved the best till last.

Every nerve was tingling as Drusilla beheld the several thonged perfection of some leather-worker's craft. At least it was shorter. She wondered if that was good. "And you bought all these things for me!" she said bitterly.

          "Think you'll like this better?"

          "I'll try it."

It was like making a purchase in a store. Drusilla tensed against her restraints, not bothering to ask if her choice was irrevocable. She was sure it was. "Go easy on me, Bryce," she begged. "I am a novice, remember."

Bryce did not bother to answer. Watching, Drusilla was willing to believe his arm might have swung harder. But when the short, tough thongs lapped her bottom she was by no means sure. It hurt like blazes! Her bottom blazed under the stroke.

          "You took that remarkably well, 'Silla."

          "I bloody well have to, don't I!" Drusilla exclaimed bitterly between gasps.

The second slash brought home to the strapped woman her frightening immobility. The strap round her middle was punitive. No matter how hard it was struck, her bottom and hips would move no fraction. They were displayed in total vulnerability for her punishment. It didn't seem fair. Surely a girl should be allowed to wriggle a bit while receiving such pain! "You're hitting me awfully hard," she offered dolourously.

Bryce's next blow evoked a gasping cry. It was by far the worst of the three. It burned Drusilla's tightly fastened bottom with pure venom.

          "You were mentioning something about hitting you hard?" Bryce insinuated slyly.

          "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Forget I said it." Drusilla was in full retreat. The demonstration was convincing. She longed to clutch her wealed flesh.

          "You find the original impacts preferable, dear?"

          "Yes! Oh jeepers, yes!"

          "Perhaps you'd like to ask nicely?"

How easy it would be to say something! But how unwise! Drusilla gulped and swallowed pride. "Please, darling, whip me the same way you started. I'm sorry I interrupted."

          "You feel your tawsing humane?"

          "Oh, of course -- oh, yes!" She longed to smite him.

          "Would you care to ask me to continue?"

          "Oh. dammit, Bryce, must you have your pound of flesh? Must you rub my nose in dirt?" Drusilla could contain her humiliation no longer.

If number three had been frightful, number four was pure nightmare. The tawse splatted on the prisoned flesh with the full force of a man's arm. Drusilla screamed, but part of her peal of agony came from shock and outrage. The room was quiet except for the panting female breath.

          "You were saying, dear?"

It was a polite inquiry, moderate and urbane. Drusilla debated whether to scream again as her only vent for frustration. But she deemed it late. It would be misunderstood. Her response was urgent.

          "I'll be good! I'll behave! Honest!" And then, in a small, pathetic voice: "I'm sorry I was smart ass."

          "That's better, sweetheart. And I think you still wish to make a request?"

          "Oh, yes -- of course! Yes! Will you please whip my bottom the way you -- like those first two?"

          "The ones you complained about?"

          "Yes, dear. I'm sorry about that."

          "Your beef was ill founded?"

          "Was it ever!" Drusilla's exclamation was heartfelt.

          "You realize I was letting you off lightly?"

          "Yee-e-s-s... "

          "You don't sound all that certain?"

          "I am! Oh, I am! Please whip me like that!"

In the momentary suspense awaiting the next stroke, Drusilla had time to marvel at the words she had just uttered. Their humility was both laughable and frightening. That they had emerged from her own lips would have been incredible a month ago. That they expressed only a deep sincerity was a thing of wonder. She had just asked Bryce to whip her in a certain way and been anxious that her request be granted. How crazy could a woman get?

Number five was admittedly more bearable. Bryce had returned to the rhythm of his original blows. Drusilla found she need not scream. She fought the straps but did not move. The effort was a substitute for writhing. Diana's cane had inured her to shock. She held panic at bay while her immobilized bottom received her punishment. She was completely absorbed by the pain as the tawse slashed and seared and extracted responses from every crevice of her being. But she could not fail to know her punishment was moderate. Diana's cane had been more cruel. With Bryce she was simply a naughty girl being reasonably whipped. The tawse was teaching her a lesson. Everything fell neatly into place within the context of what she and Bryce had set out to do. She counted the strokes silently. Surely it would not be more than ten! Drusilla clutched at the round number with an anxious hope. When it passed and the tawse continued to scorch her skin With eleven and twelve she was about to utter a resentful plaint, but was stopped by her husband's announcement.

          "Thirteen! That should be about right for a start. What d'you think, sweetheart?"

Drusilla schooled herself to caution. She was very helpless and very naked. "I expect it is," she ventured noncommittally.

          "Not sure, darling?"

          "Oh, Bryce, don't tease. I'd have been glad to stop at ten -- or even five."

          "Your bottom's beautiful."

          "It doesn't feel beautiful."

          "How does it feel?"

          "As thought a fire's burning on it."

          "But you're not dying?"

          "All right, Bryce, you've proved your point. I can be whipped and survive. If you're a little bit kind about laying it on I can manage not to scream."

          "I'm proud of you, 'Silla."

          "I'm proud of myself." Drusilla cocked an anxious eye.

          "But it's not going to be a daily event, is it?"

          "That's up to you."

Bryce's serious rejoinder made the straps seem very tight. "You're reducing me to childhood, aren't you? I'm either a good girl or a bad girl. If I'm bad I'm punished?"

          "And I lay down the rules."

          "O.K. We've gone over this before," Drusilla agreed wearily. "I've just made the discovery that, even after what you've just done to me, I don't want to call it off. I have to be crazy but that's how it is." She paused, half ashamed of her admission. Then added, more carefully: "I guess we've proved something. You can let me loose now."

There fell a silence. For the naked woman strapped to the bench it was more eloquent than words. Her heartbeats quickened. She knew!

          "In the morning, love."

          "Bryce!" Drusilla's exclamatory word vibrated with emotion. "You're not going to leave me strapped to this damned bench all night?"

          "Yes, I am, pet."

Drusilla drew a deep breath and warned herself inwardly: "Careful, girl, careful!" Bryce was no longer predictable. A couple of wrong words and the tawse could be cutting at her again. She forced her tongue to moderation. "Isn't that taking a mean advantage of me?"

          "I don't think so. You could have asked the same about the handcuffs."

She was forced to examine his proposition in a way she would not have done in freedom. He was right, of course. Her punishments would vary in degree. But the principle was established. "Do I deserve it?" she asked cautiously.

          "Not in the sense you're thinking of," he admitted. "But in this -- this -- thing we've agreed on you have to lose a lot of freedom. Some of the loss will be uncomfortable."

          "All right!" She allowed some of her resentment to seep into her words. "Strapped tight like this! I can't move!"

          "Don't beef, sweetheart. You're lying down. You'll sleep."

          "I won't! I won't! It's awful!"

          "It can always be worse, 'Silla. Would you prefer standing against the post?"

His tone was a warning she could not ignore. Angrily she knew it best to accept what she must. If she was going to play this experiment out with him she must not be constantly shaming herself with outraged exclamations. She contented herself with sad reproach.

          "Oh, Bryce! All right -- all right...!"

He kissed the back of her neck and left her alone. Immobility! Helplessness! The totality of it was scary.

For a few moments Drusilla fought the straps to assure herself again of the impossibility of escape. Then desisted. It would be too easy to get into a panic. She hoped it meant something that, despite the indignities, she wanted to hold on to her husband's regard. A screaming, hysterical woman would get neither of them anywhere. She possessed a safety valve. She must make it sustain her over the humps! Resolutely she closed her mind against an unattractive vista.

On his way out Bryce had lowered the light. The bench and its nude captive reposed in a dim yellow gloom. Chafing at the restraint imposed on her by another's will, Drusilla became aware of an enemy. It was the strap around her middle. It held her with a venom in which there was something almost personal. Idly she savored the strangeness of being unable to touch herself. Her hands were way off in a captivity of their own. She could not use one to reach down and seek easement. She could do nothing beyond wriggling her fingers and toes or resting her cheek against one or the other of her prisoned arms. She wondered if her pussy was wet! But that was a test impossible.

Ignoring discomfort, the woman in bondage turned her thoughts to the increasingly exciting glimpses of eroticism which she had, at first, refused to recognize. She had enjoyed the handcuffs. Silly perhaps, but true. In retrospect, the punishments of her flesh had left her with a glow that burst into flame every time she allowed her mind to dwell on them. At that very moment her bottom was imparting a myriad of messages to which the cleft between her legs was vividly responsive. The straps holding her motionless were the imposition of a male hand -- a hand that had loved her! By morning she might hate them. But now, save for the nag at her waist, they bound her with an erotic intimacy that joined forces with her burning bottom to excite... Drusilla's mind drifted back and forth across the spectrum of her domestic captivity. Soon she slept.

Drusilla had decided to greet her husband in the morning with a remark couched in such a way as to make him properly ashamed of what he had done to her. But the flaring light and his cheery "good morning" caught her dozing in the aftermath of sleep.

          "Oh, Bryce... !" Annoyed, she knew her greeting held nothing but thankfulness.

          "Caught you asleep, eh! Bet you never thought -- ?"

          "No, I didn't! That strap across my back's cutting me in two."

          "Hmmmm!" His fingers searched. "Bit tight, all right. Sorry, love. Here, I'll unbuckle it."

Drusilla remembered the story of the tight shoes. She gasped in the sensual ecstasy of release. "I love you, I love you, I love you... !" Her gratitude was heartfelt.

          "All set for the day then, eh?"

She tensed. Surely not that! But she was still helpless... !

She looked up wanly at her captor's smiling face and pleaded: "Please... oh, please?"

          "Want to go to the bathroom?"

          "Yes,"

          "O.K. I won't tease. Just a moment. There's a little something -- "

The "little something" was a length of chain. Drusilla was still fastened too tightly to be able to see her husband's actions. But the cold links went round her tummy. They were pulled tighter and tighter. ... A padlock clicked shut. "What's that for?" she asked uncertainly.

          "Just a small reminder, pet. And now -- !"

Drusilla wanted to cry with happiness. It felt so good to have her hands and feet. The agony of their stiffness was pure joy. She pushed herself achingly from her hard couch and was grateful for Bryce's helpful arms. "Oh, darling... !" She hugged and cuddled, suddenly aware of how lonely the night had been. They made love with a tremendous urgency and new, strange agonies of delight.

Their time had been far too short.

When Bryce, in a flurry of motion, had dashed off to the office, Drusilla was left wondering if something had been forgotten. She was free! Had he forgotten to handcuff her! Or had she been promoted?

Exactly how free was she?

The chain was hurting. It was meant to, of course' It divided her as neatly as had the corset. Her journey to and from the bathroom had told her all to graphically that her hips were once more wanton and that she walked as provocatively as did a whore. Her fingers searched the padlock at her back. It was secure. She belonged to the man who held its key.

The hurt was not unbearable. The chain was, as Bryce had said, a reminder. It would nag her constantly, telling her what she was. Yet, in the privacy of their home, its effect on her was intriguing. In their bedroom Drusilla strutted up and down before the big mirror and gigglingly admired the outrageous behavior of her hips. Try as she would she could not make them behave. She was not sure she wanted them to.

Drusilla bathed. She washed her hair. Luxuriating in her possession of hands no longer joined, she did slowly and pleasurably all the things she wanted to do, some of which the handcuffs had inhibited. She walked about her house. made coffee and toast, read the paper. It was not until she leant against the sink to do the dishes that she realized she was still naked.

She dressed, more from a sense of what was proper than any wish to be covered. Anxiously, she examined her contours in the mirror for any tell-tale intrusion at her waist. But the chain was sufficiently indented within her flesh to betray no hint of its presence. The padlock was at the small of her back and was only faintly discernible.

She considered phoning Diana. Diana would drool over the chain and lock. But today was hers alone. The metal constricting her waist made Bryce a tangible presence in the room. Another woman would be an intrusion. She was about to go downstairs to explore what shocks the new room might hold for her, when the phone rang.

          "Thought you'd be at your lawyer's," Bryce's voice was jaunty.

          "You didn't think any such thing."

          "You're wearing some damaging evidence, y'know." Drusilla sniffed. "You could say I locked it on myself."

          "How about your bottom? I bet it's rosy red?"

          "Never mind," she said icily. "Was there something you wanted?"

          "Hoity-toity, we are feeling our freedom, aren't we?"

She was certain he was chuckling into the mouthpiece. "But actually, I did have something in mind."

          "Bryce, don't be mean... ?"

          "Oh, you'll love this one!" His voice told her plainly she would not love it at all. "You'd like a bit of exercise? Get out of the house... ?"

          "Not wearing this chain. You know what it does!"

          "Well, that's sort of the idea." She could imagine him grinning. "I want you to walk down Tilbury Street."

          "No!" Outrage pronounced the negative. "Why not, pet?"

          "You know perfectly well why. That's where the whores solicit. I wouldn't walk down there any time. I certainly won't now the way you've got me fixed."

          "Fifty with the tawse, darling?"

          "I don't care! I won't do it!"

          "Plus a night against the post?"

          "Oh, Bryce, don't be so unkind."

          "Don't say no too hastily, pet. Think a bit."

          "That's mean. You give me such awful things to think about. It's not fair. Either way I lose."

          "A free choice, darling."

          "There's nothing free about it. It's coercion."

          "You'll get a tremendous charge."

          "Bryce, you're spoiling my day. Are you serious about -- about -- what you'll do to me?"

          "You know I am, sweets. Stop quibbling."

          "I'll be arrested -- or accosted -- or something." In the midst of her protestation, inspiration dawned. "Very well then," Drusilla amended crisply. "I'll do it."

His chuckle was audible. "In the middle of the block there's the Pacific News. Remember?"

          "I've seen it, going by."

          "Drop in there and buy a copy of the London Times.

It's the only place in town that sells it." Another chuckle. "Just a bit of proof in case you were thinking of cheating."

          "Bryce, I hate you!"

          "No, you don't, sweetheart."

She slammed the receiver savagely back on its cradle. Driving the car was surprisingly uncomfortable. The chain protested her every movement. While she wrenched at the wheel to park it was like a live thing round her middle.

There is a Tilbury Street in most towns. They are all alike. In order to face it Drusilla had donned her most unattractive garment and made herself as dowdy as possible. Setting out upon her challenge, she wished she had been less thorough. The sway of her hips was now doubly grotesque. She had practiced walking, but nothing helped. She approached the fateful block on Tilbury with a forthright stride.

Purposeful speed was the answer. It carried her past interested eyes, post hostile glares. A policeman spared her only a flicker of attention. Potential clients withheld their offers. Drusilla was pink cheeked and panting by the time she handed over the coins and accepted the foreign news-paper. Passing the bookshelf on her way to the door she saw the paperback.

It had received raves. Its cover blurb was unblushing.

Drusilla could not resist. She put down her purchase and browsed. But it was the old story of promise unfulfilled. The more she thumbed, the less her urge to buy. Disappointed, she replaced the epic on its shelf, brushed forcefully past a loitering male, and once more ran the gauntlet to her car. Settling into her seat she felt a thrill of victory. The rolled paper beside her was a prize. Now her ordeal was over, she wished it prolonged, and in more bewitching attire! The loiterers were mostly sad middle-aged men who looked harmless -- it might have been amusing. She was tempted to retrace her steps, but thought of the policeman deterred her. She started the motor. Her chain burned.

Supper was a success. Drusilla had hummed happily while she worked. When she kissed her husband, home from toil, she was wearing his favorite dress. It was not until after the dishes were disposed of that the loving wife sank to her knees before her lord and proffered the newspaper that was her proof of obedience.

          "Meanie, making me do a thing like that... !"

Their mood was good. Bryce accepted the offering. His eyes approved her humorous approach. He bent forward and kissed her.

          "I bet you had three orgasms and loved it."

          "Only one - and it was sort of fun. I was of a good mind to get myself arrested so you'd have to come and bail me out."

          "Enjoy your chain?"

          "Oh, Bryce, how can a girl enjoy a thing like that cutting her in two all day!"

He nodded complaisantly. "Yeah, you enjoyed it. I can tell. "

          "Darling, please take it off me now."

          "If you'd really wanted it off you'd have been after me immediately I got home."

          "I was busy with supper and I didn't want to spoil things."

          "That's a good girl! You only have to wear it for a week."

          "Oh, Br-y-c-e! You do tease." She shrugged prettily. "I suppose I'll have to get used to it. I'll starve myself to make it comfortable."

          "Won't do you any good. I'll take up the slack daily." Drusilla enjoyed their repartee. It was one of the good things they shared. They had always teased; making a game of it. Now, in her voluntary captivity, it was doubly piquant. It held the potent spice that she could never be quite sure -- ! She sat back on her heels, finding herself unwilling to abandon her slave girl pose. Amused and quaintly triumphant she watched Bryce examine her trophy.

          "S-i-l-l-a!"

She sensed disaster instantly. Her eyes widened in disbelief at what was being displayed for her attention. It was a copy of the local morning newspaper.

Bryce's gaze had become sharp. But he was still attuned to fun. "Funny, funny." He acknowledged her tease. "Now! Where's the London Times?"

          "I must have left it on the bookshelf and picked this up by mistake." Even to herself it sounded lame.

Bryce said nothing, just looked down at her. "I wanted to look at a paperback -- "

Her explanation shattered against his disbelief. He clung to silence as though giving her plenty of rope. Desperately, Drusilla knew this was a moment that must be turned to laughter. Somehow she must be amusing, witty, clever - above all, convincing! "I wouldn't cheat, y'know," she said brightly while her heart thumped.

          "No, I don't know." He said it very slowly.

She gestured ineffectually. "But there wouldn't be any point to it. You'd -- you'd -- "

          "Yes?"

          "Well, you'd know I was cheating. You know me too well -- "

          "Maybe that's the trouble."

          "But I was there! I was! Oh, Bryce, don't be so - so - "

          "Skeptical's the word."

          "I know it is," Drusilla acknowledged bitterly. "And you're simply oozing it. Look, darling, I can describe things, tell you what I saw."

          "We've driven past there too many times."

They had! It had been a fun thing to traverse the block.

Most everyone did it. Suddenly she knew herself back at square one. Because she had fibbed in the past, Bryce would believe she fibbed now. She could not blame him. The lovely mood crumbled around her in ruins. Kneeling before the disappointed man, Drusilla buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Bryce sat, saying nothing, letting her cry.

Beneath his dour silence Drusilla felt as guilty as though she actually were. Her husband's refusal to utter the obvious cliches and platitudes gave her no scope by which to search for ways to touch or seek his sympathy. Everything had gone hopelessly wrong.

          "I could laugh this off," he said finally. "It's no big deal. But in the light of what you and I have been trying to do -- "

She nodded blindly. "I know."

          "There's no use crying." It was man's eternal plaint. Drusilla allowed one brimming eye to peer through her fingers. "Isn't there any way you can possibly believe me?" she asked wanly.

          "Can you suggest one?"

          "Don't you love me?"

          "Oh, Silla, that's got nothing to do with it."

With frightful clarity she understood the quandary she posed for him. A wave of hopelessness sent fresh sobs and fresh tears into her cupped hands. Drusilla wanted to stay within the dark and feminine refuge forever but knew what she must do. The chain around her center was a reminder indeed. She scrambled blindly to her feet. At the door she looked back humbly. "May I - ?"

Bryce waved a disgusted arm. "Sure. Run along." Drusilla ran to their bedroom. While she flung her clothes from her the tears dried. She went to the bathroom, washed and fixed her face. Then returned and stood naked before the man who had not moved. The chain within her flesh was now a badge of shame.

          "I've been to the bathroom," she said pathetically.

He got the message instantly and looked up in surprise. "I'm going downstairs now, Bryce. I'll be -- ready."

He said nothing. When, minutes later, he followed, Drusilla was sitting on the bench. She was the calmest of the two. "Don't let's talk about it," she said listlessly. "Let's just do it. Do I lie on the bench again?"

          "No. Stand against the post. Put your arms round it."

His voice was as drained of emotion as her own.

          "Of course. How silly of me. I'd forgotten."

Drusilla recalled his promise on the phone. She had already been sentenced. Keeping her mind a prudent blank she did as she'd been told. Facing the wooden surface she compressed her arms so as to accomodate her breasts between them as best she could. Then hugged her nakedness close to maintain the position she had chosen. She was aided in this endeavor by the ropes that quickly looped around her center.

          "Oh, damn!" Bryce irritably searched for the key, then unlocked the padlock and drew the chain carefully away from the weals it had made in her skin. "Sorry. I forgot. It doesn't belong now." It had the flavor of apology.

Now the ropes were tight around her and the post. A strand cinched her flesh to the wood, welding her to the stanchion. Her breathing became tremulous, confronting pain.

          "One on each side." His voice was brusk as he pushed her feet where he desired them and bound them fast. Once more he took the trouble to effect the cinch so that the ropes became more than ever circlets intimate within her skin.

He handcuffed her limp wrists which she offered passively. Then raised them and locked their chain to a fixture she could not see on the reverse side of the post. Her arms were held up but not high enough to make the metal bite.

          "That will do."

Drusilla was quite sure it would "do." She was allowed more movement than when on the bench. But it was little enough: A fluttering of the elbows and knees, that was all. Her bottom was held tightly and protuberantly. She supposed it was upon its exposed contours the tawse would snap its fifty bites. But she was conscious now of her back. It seemed more naked and more vulnerable than previously. Suppose Bryce used his whip on it! Drusilla saw her back as a white and virgin field, femininely inviting. She shuddered.

          "I'll come down again before I go to bed." It was a disinterested but polite reassurance.

It was all wrong. Everything had gone wrong! Under the spur of anxiety, Drusilla asked the most imprudent question of her life.

          "Aren't you going to whip me?"

          "D'you want me to?" It was as though he was reminded of something forgotten.

          "Oh, Bryce -- !" It was Drusilla's plea for understanding. "I don't want it, and I do! Oh, darling, I've messed something up somewhere. We had things so lovely. Supper was such fun. And now -- boom, it's gone.

          "Yes."

Her voice became vehement. "I don't want this spoiled. I don't! I don't! I didn't cheat the way you think. But that doesn't matter anymore. I don't care! I want you laughing. I want to please you."

          "I expect it's a mood. It will pass."

          "You don't sound as though it will pass. Darling, don't go away and leave me like this."

          "You want to be untied?"

          "No, I don't. Being tied this way is part of our deal. It belongs. I meant, don't let's part with this state of mind nagging at us."

          "So what d'you want me to do?"

          "Whip me."

Long afterwards, Drusilla would relive the moment as high drama. But at that moment she knew only shame that her plea for punishment arose from a sudden furnace heat between her thighs. A surging lust for Bryce. The tawse would fan it to fresh flame and would bring to him also a hunger for her flesh. Shaming as it might be, the whip would restore to both of them their lost rapport. That the punishment might be beyond her ability to bear was a possibility that did not cross her mind.

Drusilla's whipping took place in near silence. Bryce had made no reply, but had presumably stood studying his captive wife while she herself pressed her forehead against the timber and awaited his reaction. When she heard him go to the cupboard she quiveringly looked back over a naked arm. Seeing him select the whip that, as yet, had made no mark upon her flesh, she quickly returned to her illusory refuge and closed her eyes.

With female logic, Drusilla had considered the pain implicit in her plea as some huge monstrous thing that would work its will on her, then go away. That it might leave her unconscious or moaning in agony seemed no more than was to be expected. In the travails of being flogged she was still a novice.

In the self-imposed darkness between her shackled arms, the delinquent wife recognized her emotional approach to her ordeal as unique. She wondered if any other woman had ever asked as she had asked, or been granted her request with the same impersonal detachment. She was imbued with a fierce determination not to scream. Whatever the agony, she must cling the silence of assent. If this path led to the salvation of her marriage she would tread it without demur.

It was a new and different pain; and on another part of her. The tapered thong slashed the width of her shoulders and the narrow span of her waist. Then, as though demonstrating versatility, lapped her loins with venom. But, even as the first sense of violation sent her thrusting against the post, Drusilla knew with certainty that she was not being whipped as cruelly as might be. The pain was frightening enough but, within the latitudes of such punishments, Bryce was being kind.

Drusilla soon lost the tally. Perhaps it was best not to count and not to hope. Let it happen. Suffer. Endure! Above all, accept. Holding to silence as she might cling to love, she found what expression she could by tugging at her handcuffs until they hurt, and turning her head from side to side so that one cheek and then the other shared the solace of the post with her forehead. Only under the worst of the blows did she open her eyes, and then briefly. She made no effort to look back at the man who held the whip. It was as though, while she was whipped, each of them had a privacy all his own. A privacy that her beseeching eyes might violate. The searing cuts mounted. She wondered if her back was raw and bleeding.

When it was done, Bryce quietly went away.

Pain is a companion. For a little while the prisoner at the post was not lonely. But from her previous inflictions Drusilla had learned the treacherous transience of a whip's agony. As the blows fell upon the helpless flesh they seemed forever, but within minutes of the final stroke their scald began to fade, leaving only a tenderness to the touch and the flaming weals that proclaimed an erotic beauty all their own. The fire within her sex was more permanent. It burned demandingly.

Drusilla wept. The tears were a relief; a port after stormy seas. They were also an angry expression of her frustration at her helplessness and the fire within, which would burn smolderingly through the night with no hope of assuagement. She tugged fretfully at her handcuffs, unable to get a good look at them. The rest of her was fastened too tightly to offer any hope of release at all. Under the compulsion of loneliness and longing, she leaned back against the ropes confining her waist and tried to friction her nipples against the post to which she was tied. But the result was only more pain. She soon desisted from any effort at all, but hugged the post and allowed her tears to drift into fitful dozings through the night.

Drusilla did not know the time, but it was not yet morning when Bryce unlocked the handcuffs from behind the post and then joined them again the front. His hands tore savagely at the ropes by which she was bound. When her tired, hurt nudity fell gratefully into his arms he lifted it bodily and carried her to their bed. In the darkness before dawn, lying upon her wounded back, Drusilla shared with the savage male the most transcendent love-making she had ever known.

The phone awakened her. The bedside clock said ten forty-five. The whipping, her tiring time against the post, and then the tumultuous orgasms had kept her deep in slumber while Bryce rose and departed for work, leaving her to sleep to satiety. Bemused, she fumbled for the receiver.

It was Diana's voice; a controlled intensity. "Did you know Bryce picked Hinton up this morning? They had a project they were both working on."

          "No. Bryce slipped away without waking me. I was asleep."

          "Haven't you had a phone call?"

          "Only yours."

          "Oh, darling... !" Diana's voice trailed off into a wail. Drusilla knew instantly. But her voice said the expected:

          "What is it, Di'? What's happened?"

          "There was a pile up -- on the bridge. A truck smashed the car through the rail. They've recovered the bodies - "

Death is not like the whip. Its impact grows with the hours. Drusilla was numb. Driven by urgency. Men would soon be knocking at the door. The phone would ring. She must be ready -- she was naked!

The sudden shocking realization struck her like a blow.

Frantically she dialed Diana's number.

          "Yes?" Diana sounded tired. And then: "Oh, darling, it's you! What's the matter?"

          "I'm handcuffed."

          "Good God!"

          "And I don't have a key -- and I'm naked!"

Diana's laughter was hysterical, a recognition of farce.

When she got it under control her voice was decisive. "We'd best be together; the way it's happened. Do what you can while I'm getting there. I know a store... I never had the nerve... ! I'll buy handcuffs... there'll be keys... "

Thankfully, Drusilla replaced the receiver. Ruefully, she looked at her handcuffed wrists and at her clothes. She reached for panties...

The phone rang stridently.

Chapter Five

Moppet

There was no beginning. It was preordained. Both women accepted it without debate. A force like gravity. Ginny's laughing acceptance was the wisdom of Eve.

Time heals. They let it work its magic.

          "We may as well live together," said Diana the practical.

          "No sense keeping two homes. We're neither of us going to be exactly rich."

          "Your house," said Drusilla. "It's the nicest."

          "That the only reason?"

They could always be direct with each other. It made things easy. "You and Hinton were just - sort of marking time," Drusilla said slowly. "I loved Bryce -- terribly. He's still there."

Diana nodded. "Best for Ginny, too. No move." She grinned. "But aren't you forgetting... ?"

          "The room!" Drusilla had not forgotten. "No! That's his too. I don't want to be -- to be -- put in there." She leaned forward and kissed her pensive companion. "Selling my place gives us lots of money. Build a new room just the way you want."

          "You'd better have yours dismantled before you call the realtor. I'd love to see his face... !"

They employed the same contractor to do both jobs.

Diana dealt firmly with his hesitations and curiosities. Material salvaged from one was used on the other, particularly the bars and gratings. Since the project had been dumped into her lap, Diana insisted that Drusilla should see none of it until after completion. Then there would come a day... ! Only one of Drusilla's demands was listened to: that there be daylight. She wanted no captivity beneath the glare of neon. The thud of hammers and the rasp of saws imparted to her a suspenseful and quivering anticipation.

Thus the practicalities.

Quaintly, Drusilla was not the Room's first victim. "There's no use sitting out a period or setting a date."

Diana sipped her after-dinner coffee and gazed with approval upon a sleek Drusilla. "We didn't wear black. No one does anymore. What's bothering us is a - well - a sort of feeling of infidelity."

Drusilla nodded. "We need an icebreaker."

          "I suppose we could get drunk," Diana mused cheerfully. "But we don't want to approach it like that. One of our troubles is a fear of anticlimax... But I'm ravenous for you. I want to talk about our pussies and the cane and the handcuffs... "

          "I've been going easy on account of Ginny."

          "Ginny's no problem. The darling's an asset, not a liability. She's recovered from the funeral. After all, it's over a month... !"

          "Darling, I've left it to you. I'm really a novice."

          "With those marks you had. on your back! You've still got a few... ! That's initiation enough."

          "Yes. But you know - well, you know what I am."

          "You're a gorgeous submissive."

          "I'll accept the role," Drusilla agreed demurely. "But that leaves the ball always in your court."

          "That's O.K. for now," Diana glowed. "I'm a gourmet and you're exquisitely edible. Go upstairs and strip. Let's get back where we were."

Drusilla was half out of her chair when she remembered.

          "What about Ginny?"

Diana laughed delightedly. "Ginny's downstairs."

          "You mean -- the Room?"

          "The Room, Dru'. Hurry."

Drusilla leaped for the stairs.

It felt so good. It was reality. Drusilla examined her nakedness in the mirror and found it good. She guessed what awaited her. When she approached the waiting Diana she sank gracefully to her knees, head bowed. "From now on I'm going to call you Mistress," she said softly. "I want to. I've always wanted to."

          "Hold our your hands, witch."

The handcuffs slipped on to the eager wrists. It was a coming home. The clicks were music as the steel tightened. "Don't ever let me loose, Di'. Not ever."

          "Silly. I'll want to take you around sometimes and show you off. Come along now."

A nude Ginny was pressed against the bars of the cell.

Her face lit up at sight of visitors. "Oh, Mumsie, you've left me here the longest time. Hello, Mrs. Hammill, isn't this place a gas?"

The child was enchanting. As unselfconscious as a statue. Her acceptance of Drusilla's condition was without affectation.

          "Why are her hands behind her back, Di'?"

Ginny answered the query by turning round and wiggling a pair of handcuffed hands. "It's so I can't play with myself, Mrs. Hammill," she said brightly. "Isn't Mummy mean?"

          "That's one of the reasons," Diana admitted. "But she needs restraint. She's altogether too exuberant."

          "Don't ever get put in this cell, Mrs. Hammill," Ginny advised without visible dolour. "It's awful. You can walk around and sit down and stand up but you can't go anywhere. I'm frustrated to death. There's absolutely nothing to do. I've been locked in here for ages and ages."

          "Six hours, poppet."

          "Well, it seems like ages. Please, Mummy, can I come out now?"

Without answering, Diana unlocked the door. Without knowing quite how it happened, Drusilla found herself inside with Ginny while the door clanged shut behind her back. The turning of the key was a thunderclap. When she swung round in laughing protest, Diana had gone.

          "You should never trust Mummy, Mrs. Hammill," Ginny advised sagely. "But I expect you wanted to be handcuffed?"

          "You're here, Ginny. It's not as bad as being alone."

          "Well, no. And you're here, too. That makes two of us.

I'm so glad. I was getting awful lonely." Ginny was a girl who always saw the bright side. "But are you sure you want to be locked up?"

          "I didn't have much to say about it, did I?"

          "That's because you let yourself be handcuffed. Did you take your clothes off yourself, Mrs. Hammill?"

          "I'm afraid I'm guilty on both counts, dear."

          "You don't have to blush, not with me, Mrs. Hammill. I know how lovely handcuffs are, and being tied, and being naked... Mostly I only get to wear clothes when I go out or there's company." .

Drusilla had come to adore the radiant child whose life was now interlocked with her own. She cupped the happy face between her linked hands and kissed the full red lips again and again. "Don't call me Mrs. Hammill anymore, Ginny. You know my name. Use it any way you please."

          "Oh, may I?" Ginny was delighted. "May I call you Drew? Like it was spelt with four letters?"

          "Of course," Drusilla laughed and looked ruefully at the bars. "We're two girls together, aren't We?"

          "Oh, Drew, you're so sweet. I've loved you for so long. But when you were Mrs. Hammill and I was just Ginny... ! I do so long to eat you. You will let me, won't you?"

Drusilla knew herself blushing now for sure. "Of course... "

          "I don't suppose you're all that much older than me," Ginny conceded generously. "I've always thought you awfully young. And you're so lovely!"

          "I wish I were as young and lovely as you."

          "Oh, but you are! With me you are, Drew. With me you're about nineteen. Not a day older. So don't call me 'dear' anymore. Call me something else. I think 'darling's' nicest."

          "It's easy to call you that. It's what you are."

          "Let's sit on the cot, Drew," Ginny giggled. "At night we'll have to sleep on top of each other. Did Mummy tell you how long she's going to keep us locked up?"

          "No. You saw how I got pushed in here." Drusilla considered possibilities. "But she'll have to let us out for -- "

          "She doesn't, y'know," Ginny said soberly. "Watch this."

Suppressing an urge to laugh, Drusilla now saw why the plumber's bill had been so large. With teen agility, Ginny contrived to pull back the thin mattress on the cot that suddenly revealed itself as a cabinet. Dexterous handcuffed hands managed to fling back hinged segments. Beneath them reposed toilet, washbowl, taps and buttons. There were towels and paper...and a drinking cup... !

          "She doesn't have to let us out, not ever," Ginny said triumphantly as she flipped things back into place with a nimble foot. "Mummy could keep us locked in here forever. Isn't it scary!"

It was scary. Drusilla knew a flicker of fear. The bars were implacable. She could believe that, without Ginny's radiance, she might be screaming for release. She realized a sudden sympathy for claustrophobics. "But your hands... behind your back, Ginny! You can't -- !"

          "Yes, I can, Drew. I've tried. It's messy and hurts my wrists but it's amazing what a girl can do if she has to. I bet nobody's put your hands behind your back yet?"

          "No. It seems so helpless."

          "Well, it is if you're trying to defend yourself or something. Mummy can handle me like I was a kitten when I'm like this," the youngster grinned reassuringly. "But now you're in here, and with your hands in front, everything's easy. What I can't do, you can."

The child's happy confidence germinated a suspicion.

Drusilla trusted Diana implicitly. But suppose she had been thrust in with Ginny for a purpose! It was legitimately within the context of slavery that a slave be caged, kept behind bars, imprisoned! Diana could come and gloat through the bars - perhaps remove Ginny and leave her alone... ! Drusilla resolutely thrust the thought away. She would not voice it to Ginny and rob them both of the teenager's effervescence. But a bit of it hovered in her mind. After all, no slave, no matter how loved, could expect to enjoy all that slavery might demand. Drusilla did not enjoy being whipped -- not until the afterwards! Perhaps for all of it there was an afterwards...

          "Ginny darling, have you ever been punished more than you can bear?"

          "Oh, Drew darling, you're not worrying, are you? You're not thinking we're locked in here forever?"

          "No, silly, of course not. But it's all so new to me. I'm not as brave as you about it."

          "But your pussy does get lovely and wet, doesn't it? May I feel?"

The darling was irresistible. Half amused and half ashamed, Drusilla disposed herself so that the small, locked, questing hands could satisfy their curiosity. Their attention caused her sex to flare in demanding palpitation ..

          "Oooooo! Oh, Drew! Mmmmmmm!" Ginny wiped a wet hand on a dry hip. "I knew you would be. Oh, I'm so glad we're together."

          "I'm glad too, darling."

          "Even if it means being in prison?"

          "Especially in prison, Ginny."

          "Now you feel my pussy. I know what it's like. But I want your hand on it."

Drusilla wet her palm. The youngster's sex was throbbing. She had an impulse to thrust Ginny back upon the mattress and feed hungrily. But thought of a sardonic Diana happening upon them so engaged was dampener. Instead, she kissed the proffered lips and said huskily: "I love you."

          "You're so nice." Ginny rubbed a soft cheek caressingly against Drusilla's. "If I had my hands I'd love you to pieces." She frictioned happily for a moment, then giggled. "It was buying the handcuffs to get you a key, Drew. We'd never had handcuffs. All of a sudden it was so easy to clip them on me. You haven't known, but there's been lots of nights I've been sent to bed wearing them."

          "What, behind your back?"

          "About half the time. I'm getting quite good at sleeping that way." Another giggle. "I have to pull up the covers with my teeth."

          "That's unkind of Diana - "

          "Oh, no! Oh, Drew, it isn't at all. I adore it - I thought you knew. When I pout and complain it's mostly make believe. Mummy knows!"

          "Ginny -- have you always?"

The young lips sought and kissed Drusilla's eyes.

          "Mmmmm, you're so yummy. But you are worrying. I can tell." Ginny backed away, her eyes wise and sympathetic.

          "I know about you and Mummy. She's going to keep you always and you're all shivery about what you've got yourself into."

          "Am I being silly?"

          "'Course not. Mummy makes me all shivery sometimes.

It's terribly exciting, even when it's scary." .

          "Don't you ever panic when you're helpless?" "'Course not. Mummy's a dear."

          "But, I asked this before, aren't there times when you just can't take what's being done to you?"

          "Darling, that's the whole idea! That's why Mumsie ties me. She'll tie you too. It's the most wonderful thrill to know you're really going to get it, and you can't move."

Ginny's excitement was infectious. Her effervescent lubricity was an armour of protection. She blossomed in a land of enchantment Drusilla sought to explore. "Ginny, was there a beginning? Can you remember a time when - " Drusilla exhibited her handcuffed wrists, " -- when things like this didn't exist?"

          "No."

          "Just like that? You mean -- ?"

          "Why not, darling? Even in my first memories there was always a ribbon or something around one of my wrists, or my neck, or my ankle." Ginny grinned in amused recollection. "As I got older, the ribbons and things sort of got joined. After awhile, Mumsie dropped the ribbons and just tied me with the things... bits of cord or string or strap. I say, Drew dear, these handcuffs are gorgeous, aren't they?"

          "They're beautifully shivery ," Drusilla laughed. "It's you that's gorgeous."

          "Am I? Oh, Drew, do you really think so? Do you like my breasts?"

          "I love them. They're sweet."

          "It's awful not being able to touch myself but knowing anyone else can. I'd want you to play with them, but I'd go crazy wild. Want me to nibble yours? I think yours are much lovelier than mine."

          "They're not, Ginny. You've got the most perfect cones... "

Drusilla knew herself wallowing in lust. This innocently concupiscent child was everything her heart desired. A cornucopia of female magic palpitating with heated feminine longings. How lucky Diana had been, and how wise! Seemingly without volition, her cuffed hands rose, two fingertips kissed the already tumescent buds so that their youthful owner gasped in sweet agony. A moment later Drusilla was thrust back by eager female flesh while lips and tongue and small, cruel teeth found her nipples and fed upon them in avid hunger. Uncaring of consequence she sank back upon the narrow couch.

For what may have been hours, the small locked cell enclosed the beauty and wonder of female loveliness twisting and pulling against the shining steel that did no more than impede tumultuous love. Ginny, even with hands locked behind her back, took on all the sleek dexterity of a seal, turning and pouncing, her lips swollen with delight. Less handicapped, Drusilla discovered responses of which she had never known herself capable. They became two girls chained and ecstatically lost in a rainbow world the bars could not confine.

          "I might have known this would happen."

Two nudities tensed as Diana's sardonic observation intruded on their felicity. Two flushed faced rose from moist flesh. Two pairs of eyes gazed guiltily at their jailer.

          "We were just playing, Mummy dear," Ginny offered brightly.

          "So I noticed."

Drusilla kept silent. She was uncertain of the gravity of her sin. If coping was possible, Ginny would know how.

With a gesture of disdain, Diana tossed a handkerchief through the bars. "Dry your lips, Drusilla. And Ginny's, too. You can finish it off on your cunts. They both look as though they've been drinking beer."

          "You didn't tell us we couldn't, Mumsie," Ginny ventured, looking up from where her obligingly spread legs were receiving Drusilla's attention.

          "But did I tell you you could?"

          "I expect it's my fault, Di -- "

          "What did you call me?"

          "Oops!" Drusilla wanted to laugh, but was uncertain of the authenticity of Diana's displeasure. "Sorry! I expect it was my fault, MISTRESS."

          "No need to overemphasize."

          "Very well, Mistress."

          "As to the fault. yes, you'll be punished."

          "Well, you could at least have told us - "

          "Drusilla!!!"

          "You're not allowed to complain," Ginny prompted.

          "You're supposed to say thank you."

          "Thank you, Mistress." The novitiate submissive was ashamed of the alacrity with which she repaired her lapse.

          "Hmmmm, you are trying, darling. It will be five with the cane -- and that's being generous."

          "Thank you, Mistress."

          "As for you, Ginny: you knew better!"

          "Did I, Mother?"

          "Don't be impudent. For you, it's ten."

          "Thank you, Mother."

          "No supper for either of you."

They sat upon the couch. Two nude delinquents sentenced to punishment, respectfully attentive to their wardress beyond the bars. Handcuff chains clinked as captive hands betrayed their nervousness.

          "And you can both stay where you are for a week." Neither of the prisoners offered thanks.

          "I know perfectly well you'll do it again. But if I catch you out in it you'll stand on your toes for a whole day."

          "Oh, M-o-t-h-e-r-r-r!"

          "You needn't 'oh mother' me, you little minx. And you'd better put Drusilla wise about what sort of behavior's expected of her."

          "Yes, Mother. Could I have my hands in front now, please?"

          "No, you can't! Drusilla."

          "Yes, Mistress?"

          "Give me your hands."

Drusilla's heart thumped. "Oh, Di', not me too!"

          "That earns you two more strokes for the 'Di'.' Now, get over here by the bars."

Drusilla was trembling; a strange mixture of anger and delicious humiliation. She knew herself owned. She knew, too, she was watched keenly by both her companions. This was a test. She was not sure what the test was, but it hung heavy in the air. Awkwardly, she thrust her locked hands through the bars.

          "Going to be silly?"

          "No, Mistress."

Diana gave her small chance. She unlocked but a single cuff and held it firm against a bar. "Turn your back and give me your hand again."

Drusilla realized this as one of the moments. Cliches sped through her mind: The moment of truth. Time of decision. Point of no return. She rejected them. She had made a gift of herself, so why deny obedience to her chosen mistress! There was also a delightful tingling up her spine. Meekly she turned and placed her free hand beside its captive twin and shivered visibly as the warm metal once more clicked it into custody.

          "Oh, Mumsie! Poor Drew! It's so strange for her."

          "She has to learn, dear. I can detect traces of rebellion. You must see if you can help her understand what's expected. Maybe you can save her sweet little bottom a lot of strokes."

Drusilla flushed and felt young and silly and about ninety percent breasts and pubic hair. The sudden loss of her hands and arms made her trebly naked. She tugged testingly at her locked wrists and knew she had lost them.

          "Teach you what it's like to be dependent, Dru'." Diana was briskly cheerful. "I'm going to make you mind."

For a moment their eyes met and they were Mrs. Hinton Winslow and Mrs. Bryce Hammill again. Drusilla's eager smile faded against the authority of the metal on her wrists.

          "Back up here again, Dru' dear."

Hopefully the slave obeyed. Perhaps Diana had relented!

Again her hands found their way between two bars.

          "I don't need them. Stand still."

Drusilla tensed, then began to melt as beloved fingers caressed her neck, disposing her hair. For moments her breathing stopped as the leather band circled her throat and nestled snugly. A padlock made a decisive snap and imposed a tiny weight.

          "Oh, darlings, it's gorgeous!" Ginny sparkled her delight. The newly collared slave turned wonderingly. "Why - ? I mean, what's it for? It's some sort of collar...!"

          "And it won't come off, sweetheart," Diana gloated.

          "You'll have to wear it always. It's my gift to you this day."

          "Oh, darling!" Drusilla forgot the dolours of her captivity. She thrust her radiant features against the bars, her lips pleading. The two women kissed in a tremendous need until Ginny broke the spell.

          "Oh, Mumsie, can I have one like that?"

          "No, you can't, dear. I got it specially for Drew."

          "But it's so lovely, and it really does something for a girl," Ginny giggled. "It makes the rest of Drew look beautifully naked."

          "I can't see it and I can't touch it," Drusilla mourned.

          "I'd be ever so good if I could have one?" Ginny coaxed. "I'll get you an iron collar, Miss Impudent, if you don't shut up," Diana threatened affectionately.

          "I wouldn't mind, Mother. I'd look simply scrumptious."

          "I'd make sure you couldn't get it off. You'd have to wear it to school."

          "I'd tell them it was gold or silver or something."

          "I believe you would, you little baggage. If I did get you one it would have little points inside. You wouldn't like it a bit."

          "Oh, Mo-t-h.e-r-r-r-r!"

          "Isn't she a darling?" Diana chuckled as she turned away. The prisoners heard her receding footsteps. A door slammed.

          "A whole week! Oh, gollies!" Ginny's return to reality was abrupt. "Oh, Drew, seven days - in here!"

          "She's just scaring us, darling."

          "You sure?"

Strangely enough, Drusilla was sure. Despite her less comfortable condition, the kiss and the brief communion of the eyes had given her a confidence she knew she should never have lost. Things had slipped back into place. The collar, harsh as it might become, clung lovingly to her flesh. "I'm sure ," she affirmed jauntily.

          "And no supper!"

Drusilla felt mischievous. "Want to bet we won't eat?" she teased.

          "Oh, darling, you're so sweet. But don't forget: You've got seven and I've got ten. D'you want to risk some more?"

          "I bet your mother was stringing us along on that, too."

          "Oh, Drew, she wasn't. I know Mummy."

          "But she hasn't given them to us. She could have."

          "She'll let us stew. It's awful." Ginny's voice betrayed her delight in the awfulness.

Seven cuts with a cane across her bare bottom! Ginny's certainly carried conviction. Drusilla shrugged. "We'll just have to grin and bear it," she said cheerfully.

          "You and Mumsie have got something going, I can tell," Ginny grinned shrewdly. "You're feeling better. You don't even mind being caned. I'm ever so glad."

          "I'm a silly girl. Your mother can do anything she likes with me," Drusilla admitted wryly.

          "She does anything she likes with me, too, darling." Drusilla shrugged.

          "There's probably a difference some where. But don't let's worry about it."

          "Let's rub our tits together, Drew."

          "How on earth can we? No hands!"

Ginny giggled. "I expect we can if I kneel up and you kneel down. You're not much taller. Oh, Drew darling, is it very awful for you to be handcuffed like that?"

          "Not when I'm with you, Ginny. Here, try this position. If you straighten, and I sort of hunch forward... !"

Before they fell asleep, they had forgotten their handcuffs entirely.

Somewhere in the dead of night a scented hand cautioned silence on Drusilla's lips. Strong fingers clasped and pulled her from the warm entanglement of nudity where she had slept, and propelled her from the cell. She heard the door click shut upon a still unconscious Ginny, then stumbled after her mistress to their bed.

          "I'm not punishing myself as well," Diana whispered urgently into a complaisant ear. "I'm so damned hungry for you - " There came a brief pause. "Do you need your hands?"

Drusilla snuggled close. She was very happy. "Not really," she said dreamily, " -- unless you want me to -- ?" There seemed no need of words.

Soon she was busily employed.

Chapter Six

Her Mistress

          "Keep your handcuffs above the table, Drew."

          "Yes, Mistress. May I pour the coffee now?"

          "Do you realize this is our fifth breakfast like this? Ginny's off to school. Just the two of us. I don't believe you even know you're handcuffed. You've worn 'em day and night the whole time, back or front."

It was true. Drusilla glowed. She floated within the heated confines of a female fantasy, utterly absorbed, totally possessed. She had never been so happy. She bit at toast and twinkled at her mistress. "You love my handcuffs more than you love me," she accused.

          "Your handcuffs are you." Diana made a deprecatory gesture. "Sight of 'em makes me as horny still as on the day you phoned."

          "Are you always going to keep me naked?"

          "You're not naked. You're wearing handcuffs and collar. I'm going to think up a few other things... " she grinned. "That collar keeps you as horny as the cuffs make me."

          "What about handcuffs for Ginny? Same effect?" Drusilla was curious.

          "Yes. Shocking, I suppose," Diana chuckled. "Isn't she gorgeous?"

          "I adore her. I just can't help it."

          "We'll have to watch the little darling," Diana admitted.

          "She could easily steal you from me and me from you."

          "No, she won't," Drusilla said with certainty. "Ginny's something special all by herself. She's us when we were her age: only more so. You're awfully rough on her, y'know."

          "She loves it," the proud mother said complaisantly. "I gave the poor kid a shocking time before you and I got properly started. It was the handcuffs... ! I just couldn't help myself. I locked 'em on her for every excuse I could find. Sometimes I didn't even bother with an excuse. If she hadn't had a love affair with them herself I'd feel guilty as hell. "

          "Why haven't you caned our bottoms yet, Mistress? Ginny said you never forget."

Diana chuckled. "You've fallen into the neatest habit of calling me all sorts of things when we're just talking. But once your slavery is the topic you revert to addressing me as Mistress - I love it."

          "I won't get punished for the other times?"

          "I should, but I won't. I love that, too. As for caning your saucy seat, I've been waiting for you to give me an excuse for adding to the tally. Seven's not all that severe."

          "Just me being me's an excuse, Mistress."

          "I know it is, you little fox. You're becoming so sweetly demure my panties are always sopping. But I do like to have a worthwhile excuse with Ginny. Kills two birds with one stone."

          "But, Mistress, isn't ten going to hurt her enough -- the way you lay 'em on?"

          "Mmmmmm, it depends... ! Fact is, our little sweetheart's derriere is getting just a trifle inured. I'm not sure ten's going to make her cry. I've always made each caning an event. Something for her to carry around a few days."

          "Does she always have to cry?"

          "Oh, of course! It's a sort of a seal of approval. Ten used to make her cry buckets. But lately--"

          "Do you want me to cry too, darling?"

          "Yes," Diana mused quietly. "I think tears sort of belong. A girl becomes so feminine when she weeps, especially if it's because she's been punished and her bottom hurts... Am I a bitch?"

          "Oh, darling, don't say such a thing! You used to wish Hinton would beat you. That time I was whipped you were envious of my marks."

Diana made a gesture of bafflement. "So what does that make me?"

          "Right now, you're my mistress," Drusilla said with certainty. "You're a stronger character, and you're stronger than I am physically. If I tried to escape, you could get the best of me. Don't let's analyze each other."

Diana's face lit up. "Want to try and escape, Drew?" Drusilla lifted her handcuffs. "In these?"

          "I'll take 'em off. It would be a colossal turn on. I'd love to drag you, squealing, back to your punishment."

          "No. You'd have to make me do that, and then it would be contrived - no sale." Drusilla gulped coffee hastily. "But, Mistress, could we get my caning over, please?"

          "Drew dear, you that horny?"

          "Is that what made me ask?"

          "Or else the suspense is getting to you."

          "I don't think it's that. It's our talking - like this. It's so - so - it's put me in the mood."

          "My, my! Our little slave girl is feeling her oats!"

          "If seven isn't enough, Mistress... ?"

Diana laughed gleefully. "Oh, don't worry, pet. As of now you're up to fourteen."

          "Thank you, Mistress."

          "You're a simpering little fox. I should make it twenty-one."

          "Thank you, Mistress."

          "You actually want it, don't you?"

          "Yes, Mistress. I'm sorry I'm so silly. I'm sure I'll cry."

          "I'll make quite certain of it," Diana said grimly.

          "You're simply seething with sex. A few tears and a warm seat will get you back on track."

          "Thank you, Mistress."

          "If you say that again in that sweet, innocent, demure, little-girl tone of voice I'll take my clothes off and hand you the cane," Diana threatened. "You're a menace like that. You'd melt any female. Even Ginny doesn't have that particular potency."

          "I expect it's because I'm bad."

          "Stop it!"

          "I'm a naughty girl."

          "Drusilla!!!"

They burst into laughter. A girl-girl sharing of joy. "Am I really that good at being - well - whatever it is?" Drusilla asked ingenuously.

          "Between you and Ginny I shall die of orgasms," Diana affirmed ardently. "It will be a lovely death. But first - let your bottom beware!"

          "After breakfast, darling?"

          "After breakfast, saucy slave."

It was not quite as she had expected. But then, it was not supposed to be! Drusilla understood Diana's need to keep her always off balance. Once things started to be taken for granted... ! That would never do. But still... !

It was not an enjoyable tie. It was an infuriating pose to be compelled to hold. The fact that it protruded her behind most conveniently seemed coincidental. She mourned the loss of her beloved handcuffs but was thankful they did not join her wrists at this moment. Instead, her wrists were crossed behind her back and bound fast by quite a few strands of soft white rope. The rope was tight. Not that its bite mattered. What did matter was that her hands had been raised high behind her back by some sort of pulley that was no more visible than a whirr in the ceiling.

          "All conveniences, Drew darling."

          "Oh, Mistress, I'm almost on my toes."

          "Lovely, isn't it! Just a single rope from the winch."

It was not lovely at all. But its authority upon her bent nudity was total. Drusilla had a good view of the floor, her bound ankles, her corded knees, and her pubic hair. If she wanted to see anything else she had to strain awkwardly and painfully.

Drusilla had protested the binding of her feet. But an amused Diana had been adamant. "If you can kick and cavort you'll just struggle that much more and bother your poor shoulders more than you need. So shut up, darling, and think about the lovely cane and your dear little bottom."

Under the compulsion of the cords, much of Drusilla's erotic titillation over the cane had evaporated. She felt very bare and very bent and very vulnerable. The final indignity had come when something had been forcibly thrust into her unsuspecting mouth. It was there now: a metal ring held behind her teeth by a strap across her cheeks and buckled firmly at the back of her neck above her collar.

          "Silence and immobility, darling," Diana had cooed wickedly. "Perfect conditioning for a slave girl."

Drusilla silently agreed. She was quite prepared to be, say, do, or promise anything so that her arms might be released and she return to normal. She would have been very vocal about this obedience had the gag not silenced her protestations. No doubt that was why it was put in her mouth. Diana did not want to hear. If this was conditioning, she would be well conditioned indeed.

It was her saddest plight yet. Wryly, the naked captive supposed it a promotion. Diana was not playing kid's games and she was not a kid. She was being taught what she was. If the tuition was painful, that was her hard luck. Drusilla gazed down despondently as another drop of wet joined others on the floor. The ring strapped in her mouth promoted salivation but robbed her of control. Her saliva slipped past her lips at will. Her efforts to swallow it back were ineffectual. After Diana had left her alone she had explored the possibilities of speech. But the sounds that escaped through the ring were too demeaning. She soon desisted.

Knowledge of time was not for her. Drusilla sadly guessed her estimates colored by longing. But she was sure she had stood thus for a long time. Diana was making her wait and think. Maybe when the cane actually began to stripe her skin she would be grateful. Her wracked shoulders howled their plea for release.

She was completely helpless. The elevation of her bound hands defeated normal wrigglings. She would have to stand, her head and shoulders bent well forward, until such time as her mistress chose to end her travail. In a forlorn attempt to speed the passage of time, the mute captive had striven to have her first good look at the New Room. To do so she had to fight the tether to her hands, straining them up almost to her neck so as to raise her head enough to look around at the goodies on which Diana had spent so much of their money. What she saw was not reassuring. The circumstances for viewing were all wrong. listlessly she relapsed and resumed her staring at her feet. Her only comfort was that her breasts did not hang. This was a test to which they were responding with magnificent firmness.

          "I'd imagine it's quite an experience, darling?"

          "Nnning!"

          "Sorry, I forgot you were suffering in silence. Is this little ensemble very bad?"

          "Nrrrrrgh!"

          "All right, I'm a meanie. I'll take it out. I really shouldn't. I'm sure it's doing you no end of good. But it spoils your loveliness. Besides, I want someone to talk to."

          "Oh, darling... ! Oh, Mistress!" The still-helpless captive was overwhelmed with gratitude and relief.

          "Pretty bad, eh?"

          "It's awful. You've no idea. Oh - ohhhhh!"

Fingers were forcing a passage between her constrained thighs. Drusilla gasped at the firm contact and was sorry when it was withdrawn.

          "You're O.K., sweetheart. Plenty of moisture."

Drusilla longed for release but was sure she should not ask. Suddenly, a long, slender streak of yellow was held within her range of vision. "I won't make you kiss it, Drew. I want to avoid cliches in what we do together."

          "I want to kiss it. Oh, Mistress, let me?"

          "You funny little fox! Why?"

          "I don't know. I just want to. It's something from you to me, isn't it? I guess that's why."

The rod was raised to her straining lips. Drusilla kissed it again and again. "I'm kissing you," she said huskily. "Couldn't you guess?"

          "Drew, what's come over you? I could almost believe you were about fifteen."

          "It's Ginny," Drusilla surmised. "I told you, she's infectious."

          "Hmmmmm, yes maybe. But there's something else... "

          "Well, then, it's you and me. You own me now. I've become Ginny's twin. I do what you tell me. Oh, gollies, Mistress dear, this is awful tough on my shoulders!"

          "Good!" Diana's fingers tested the moist armpits so cruelly exposed beneath the wrenched shoulders. "I think I'll let your hair grow in your armpits, darling. Quite a novelty in this day and age."

          "Oh, Mistress!"

          "That sounds like Ginny. When you get a good bush under both arms, I'll shave your pubic hair. The effect should be gorgeous."

          "Diana, please!!!"

The exclamation was lost under the snicker of the cane and its thunk upon the unsuspecting cheeks. Drusilla yelped in shock.

          "Good thing for you I'm not a man, Drew. If I were, I'd have to take you right here and now the way you are. The scarlet line that's forming on your seat is lighting a fire in me I can barely stand."

Drusilla contented herself with a whimper. The pain was intense. She was very thankful Diana was not a man. For the next several blows she was able to control herself against a mounting agony. When Diana paused, the whipped girl moaned: "Oh, please... ! Go easy. Oh - oh - oh... ! Oh, Mistress, couldn't you untie my feet?"

          "What on earth for?"

          "I think it would help. I'm so - so - so lumpy and helpless. And I'm trying so hard not to scream."

          "I want you to scream, darling. I don't mind. And, no, I won't untie your feet. You'd kick and lunge. This way you have to stand still and all the action's in your darling bottom. You should see it weave! I wouldn't miss what you're doing with it for the world."

          "It's doing it itself," Drusilla mourned. "I didn't even know it was doing anything - except hurt."

Diana resumed the flagellation of her beloved. When, after several impacts, Drusilla emitted a tentative scream, she paused again. "You haven't started to cry yet, darling." There was real disappointment in her reproach.

          "It's because I'm trying too hard," her victim gasped. "I want to but it won't work. Or maybe it's because I hurt so bad."

          "Sorry you're my slave?"

          "No!" The negative was vehement.

          "Want to be untied?"

          "No!"

          "You're a darling, and quite incredible. But it won't save you a single stroke."

          "I don't want it to -- Arrrrrragh!"

Drusilla clung to her love for the woman who yielded the cane. The pain would go away. But the love would go on and on. It was so wonderful - so wonderful! She gasped and twisted her way through to the fourteenth cut. She was sure her bottom behaved outrageously, but she did not care.

          "You've had it, poppet. Feel better?"

          "I'll tell you in a minute," Drusilla gasped. "Oh, Di'!" The cane cut her ruthlessly.

          "I'm sorry, Mistress. I forgot."

          "I had to do that, dear. I mustn't start letting you get away with anything."

          "I know. But it's so hard sometimes! Oh, Mistress, are you going to untie me?"

The cane savagely added a sixteenth weal to Drusilla's scorched flesh. "You mustn't ask. You mustn't hint," Diana admonished.

Drusilla burst into tears. The fortitude that had coped with the fourteen strokes crumbled. Diana stepped back and viewed what her cane had wrought, her heart torn by its beauty, her sex flaring at sight of the ridged flesh and bowed loveliness of the girl she now possessed utterly. The tears were sweet. They fell, one by one, to join the other pathetic stains upon the floor.

          "There, there! You're so beautiful. The punishment's over." Drusilla's head was cradled against Diana's middle. The familiar perfume and the scent of sex dragged the tied girl back into her new world. She nestled lovingly against Diana's vibrant femininity.

          "Poor little darling. I'll always be beautifully mean to you." Diana stroke the damp hair, then bent and kissed the nape of the bent neck above the locked collar. "You've earned a little something," she whispered mischievously.

Drusilla allowed the thousand tingles of sensation to possess her being. She felt no need of words. She hurt, she glowed. Her spirit soared, her shoulders ached. Her wrists were afire but the ropes were falling from her ankles and knees under Diana's urgent tugs. The world was very wonderful and wholly good. Her wealed bottom was singing its own paean of praise for benefits received.

          "Now you can kick, darling. Nice feeling?"

          "Mmmmmm! Ohhhhhh - !" The moans were of joy. Diana's heart raced. Once more she retreated to behold her palpitating creation. The still helpless nakedness was stretching a tentative leg back and forth and sideways. Most intriguingly she was kicking and flexing from the knee, savoring their freedom. The rope from her bound wrists to the pulley swayed and shivered from her small essays in a limited freedom. Drusilla was helpless but happy.

          "You do have to stay there, darling."

          "Mmmmmm... " It was an ambiguous acceptance.

          "Slave girls are never let loose after punishment."

          "Mmmmmm... !"

          "You can bear it, can't you, darling?"

          "It doesn't matter, does it, Mistress? I haven't a thing to say."

          "My, you are coming along nicely, Drew." Diana clasped the submissive head in loving hands. Raising it against the compulsions of its bondage she sought the eager lips. The two women kissed longingly and long. When she knew herself consigned once more to lonely pain, the prisoner did not complain. It was forbidden and she would obey. Drusilla's shoulders wept but she did not. At the door, Diana paused. "I won't leave you there all day, darling."

          "Mmmmmm... !"

          "I want you rested for this evening."

The bowed head raised in surprise. "Mistress?"

          "Cocktails at seven, Drew dear. The Pendletons." The Pendletons! Drusilla moaned. The Pendletons had money. Drusilla had always thought it silly to try and keep up with them. But Belinda Pendleton was a force and her consort, Homer, was an amiable shadow from a world of distant 'deals' beyond suburbia. They exuded a generous patronage to the hoi polloi. Their food and drink were always superlative.

          "So nice for you two to be together." From her middle-aged eminence, Belinda Pendleton contrived to infuse her remark with coy significance. She viewed Diana and Drusilla with a knowing eye. "I'm sure you get along splendidly."

          "We sleep together," Diana matched innuendo with impudence.

Belinda Pendleton was un-shockable. She oozed benevolence. "And which of you is... ? Dear me, there is a word?"

          "I am," said Diana sweetly.

          "I should have guessed, dear." Their hostess cocked an assessing eye at a flushed Drusilla. "Such a lovely collar! And that padlock! I do envy you both." She bathed them in approval and melted back among her guests.

          "She's guessed it right off," Drusilla wailed. "Oh, Di', I told you!"

          "So what, darling!" Diana was radiant. "You're mine! I'm showing you off."

          "But my collar! It's so - so - and the padlock!"

          "My brand on you, darling. But I love them looking. I'm the most envied woman in the room."

          "But, Diana darling, I'm scared to walk."

          "Enjoy it, silly. You're a positive traffic stopper."

It was true! Drusilla wanted to laugh and scream and cry. It was too wonderful and too absurd. The locking of the band about her middle was still a vivid happening. Diana had been laughing at her concern.

          "I'm never going to let you out without something on you somewhere, Drew."

          "My collar's on me. The padlock's like waving a flag."

          "Not enough, darling. I want you wearing something from me to you. Something under your clothes that hurts."

          "Oh, Mistress, please!"

          "You know you're dying for it. Look!"

Drusilla remembered her gasp and the instant heating of her sex. The silver belt was as lovely as her collar. She feared it but desired it more than anything else in the world.

          "It's got a quite simple lock. But you'll never get it off with your fingers. Raise your arms, dear."

It had been instant ecstasy. She had raised her arms without thought of consequence. The chill of the metal round her waist had melted in to the clasp of love. After the click at her back she had lowered her hands and sent them questing.

          "You can't get it off."

It had seemed terrible tight. But, in front of the mirror, Drusilla could only gasp and emit exclamations.

          "Now walk."

She had forgotten! When her hips jauntily flaunted her loins she turned, aghast. "I can't go out like this!"

          "Of course not, silly. You'll be dressed."

          "Not that -- my walk! Oh, darling!"

          "I'm going to be so proud, Drew."

Drusilla sipped and glowed in her mistress's approval.

She understood that the party was another test. It was desirable that she be seen out and around. Desirable, too, in their own private way, that she be constrained and kept aware of her condition. The belt nagged, but it was a lovely sex-wetting nag she adored. If only her hips... ! In sauntering across the extensive floor she might as well be beating a drum.

          "We mustn't cling, darling. You're on your own."

The strictured slave watched her mistress mingle with the groups. Drusilla knew she could not possibly just stand. She downed her drink and headed for the bar. Her hips proclaimed her a whore. The giggle was insidious. It was Minnie Albertson.

Minnie was a thirtyish moppet who would never grow up. She clinked glasses with Drusilla and whispered throbbingly: "Belinda's on to you."

The embarrassed slave felt out of her element. She gulped hastily and felt a conspirator. She liked Minnie, but even the stricture round her tummy did not dissipate inhibitions. "On to what, Minnie?" she asked innocently.

Minnie's giggle covered all contingencies. She used it again. "Poor darling, you feel so conspicuous, don't you? But doesn't it positively curl your spine?"

          "My spine?"

          "Drusilla darling, not with me! You don't have to dissemble with poor little Minnie. I've been there. 'S'matter of fact, I'm there right now."

          "I'll have another." Drusilla pushed her glass across the bar. Minnie was sweet. But between them loomed an abyss.

          "I found a few drinks real helpful at the start," Minnie confided. "Quigley didn't break me in easy."

          "Minnie, what are you babbling about?"

Minnie was unperturbed. "You've got some sort of belt locked round your tummy, Drew. I can tell."

          "It's a corset."

          "No, it isn't. Your breasts aren't lifted. I bet you can't get it off. Diana's got the key, hasn't she?"

          "Does it matter?"

          "Of course it matters. I bet your panties are sopping and you'd like to tell me about it but you're shy."

          "All right, so you know!"

          "Don't be sulky, darling. Is Diana being mean to her little slave girl?"

          "No!"

          "Don't bite my head off. Would it make you feel better to know there's pair of plastic balls popped inside my puss and my vulva's closed by a padlock to which I don't have a key?"

          "Minnie, don't be ridiculous."

          "It's true. I've been pierced. Quigley insisted."

While Drusilla sought solace in her glass, a nimble hand explored her waist, probing knowingly beneath the fabric.

          "Yeah, it's there!" Minnie said in a matter-of-fact voice. "If you show me yours, I'll show you mine."

          "Minnie!"

          "Want me to ask Diana?"

          "You haven't! You're not padlocked... "

          "I am, too! Here, I'll stand. Be careful, but feel." Drusilla knew herself lost. This was too good to be true.

She sent one nonchalant hand upon a mission. She gasped. It was true! Her fingers encountered the unmistakable contours of the, by no means tiny, metal cruelty between Minnie's legs.

          "For Pete's sake don't pull, Drew!"

The hand withdrew. Drusilla viewed her cheerful companion with respect. She refused to concede envy. "Doesn't it hurt?"

          "It used to. But I've got used to it. I like it better than the chastity belt Quigley bought."

          "Oh, Minnie, no!"

          "Oh, Minnie, yes!" The gamin eyes twinkled. "I am a bit susceptible to men. The belt and the padlock have been a relief - saves me decisions. You should see their faces!" For a moment Minnie turned serious. "We all wondered why Bryce didn't lock one on you."

Drusilla refused to be drawn. She made her voice as casual as her leaping pulse would allow. "Those plastic balls... ?"

Minnie tittered. "They're not really a punishment. On the other hand, they're a bit hard to live with. I'm all the time amorous. If I walk around too much I have an orgasm. You'd think it would show. But Quigley says I always look like I'm about to come. I say, Drew, does Diana whip you?"

Drusilla gave up pretense. Or perhaps it was the drinks. She sparkled. "Only when I'm bad."

          "Quigley uses that excuse. You ought to see my bottom."

          "I'd love to. May I?"

          "If I can see yours?"

Simple! Drusilla drained her glass.

The Pendleton powder room was magnificent and commodious. Inspired by the nectar of the bar, the giggling couple took possession of a cubicle and raised their dresses like naughty little girls.

          "Oh, it's lovely!" Minnie's finger traced the steel round Drusilla's waist. "And it won't come off, will it?"

          "I can't get it off;" Drusilla admitted proudly.

Panties were lowered, then impatiently removed. Exclamations of admiration for wealed flesh accompanied an interchange on bottoms. Breathlessly Drusilla instructed:

          "I'll sit down now and you sort of spread your legs."

It was there! Minnie's cooperation was total. The padlock nestled deep within her sex, closing its lips. It was beautiful, implacable, exciting. Drusilla fingered it in awe.

          "Every girl should have one."

The hearty feminine voice came from above. Two pairs of startled eyes looked up at the flushed features of Belinda Pendleton peering over the partition. "I'm standing on the can next door," she explained amiably. "Knew you were up to something."

          "Belinda's seen my padlock before," Minnie explained, unabashed. She dropped her dress and retrieved her panties. "What she's snooping over is you and what's round your tum-tum."

          "I like it!" Mrs. Pendleton said decisively. "Now just turn your bottom this way a bit, dear, so I can see."

Only partly under the influence of alcohol, a proud Drusilla gathered her dress beneath an arm and bent over for inspection.

Chapter Seven

Teens In Trouble

          "Knees straight. Head up!" Diana's was the voice of authority.

Ginny stood to attention. Her eyes were dreamy. Drusilla's handcuffed nudity watched from the sidelines. Ginny made her breathless -- always!

          "How do you plead, poppet?"

          "Guilty on all counts, Mother."

They were incredible! Drusilla knew she would never cease to marvel at the female rapport between mother and daughter. Nor at Ginny's penchant for punishment. The child was insatiable. An eternal innocence impervious to guilt.

          "You already have a tally of ten, girl."

          "Yes, Mother."

          "Doesn't it bother you?" The query was sharp.

          "Yes, Mother."

          "You don't look it."

          "I'm standing at attention, Mother. Awaiting sentence. I'm not supposed to show emotion."

          "I stand corrected," Diana conceded dryly. She turned to Drusilla. "I don't think the cane gets through to her anymore."

          "Oh, Mummy, it does!"

          "Quiet, nymphet! Speak when you're spoken to."

          "Yes, Mummy."

          "Don't be too hard on her, Di'." Drusilla's heart was melting for the delinquent damsel she adored.

Diana chuckled. "The little fox has got you under her spell. You have to watch her. She's a witch."

          "Oh, M-o-t-h-e-r-r-r!"

          "Two extra for interrupting."

          "Thank you, Mumsie."

It was a picture to touch the heart. Sneakers, shorts and a close fitting shirt through which the nipples showed erect. The bare thighs and legs proclaimed a potent youthfulness as they tapered their length below the svelte hips.

          "You're not wearing a bra, Ginny."

          "No, Mother."

          "Well, why aren't you?"

          "Because it feels all lovely when my nips rub -- and people turn and look."

          "That's enough!"

          "Well, Mummy, you did ask!"

Diana turned to her watching slave. She made a motion of mock helplessness. "You see what I mean?"

          "But she's so sweet - "

          "Drew, stop it! You, too! If you can't get yourself out from under the little witch's spell, I'll cane your can too, just to bring you back to your senses."

          "Don't get into trouble over me, Drew. Mummy knows best."

          "Good thing you made that amendment, Ginny," Diana grumbled. "I was just about to raise the ante. You just can't keep quiet."

          "I do try, Mummy."

          "If you hadn't told us we'd never have known." Diana's remark was heavy with sarcasm. "What am I to do with you?"

          "Cane my bottom, Mummy?"

          "I've done that so often you've got so you don't notice. "

          "Oh, M-o-t-h-e-r-r-r! I notice terribly."

          "Oh, yeah! I've got to think of something."

          "You've got a lovely whip, Mummy. You could whip my back. I've never had that. I expect it hurts something awful."

          "Good try, kid. But your back's so lovely I hate to mark it."

          "Isn't my bottom lovely, Mumsie?"

          "Your bottom is indestructible, darling. I'm not sure about your back."

          "I don't mind you trying on my back, Mummy. Honest!"

          "Isn't there something you do mind?"

          "I expect there is, Mummy. But you get so angry when -"

          "When what?"

          "Nothing."

The teenager stood before the desk, chin up, breasts outthrust. Her eyes were still mistily intent upon the wall. Her discipline was perfect. Diana eyed her daughter shrewdly. "How do you feel about Drew watching you punished?"

          "It's lovely, Mummy. Makes me feel all -- "

          "All right, all right! Suppose it was a stranger - or some one you don't like - or someone who might laugh? Remember you'd be naked."

The youthful figure tensed. "Oh, Mummy... !"

          "Not so good, eh?"

Silence.

          "I was thinking of Petty Prentiss."

          "Mummy, she's my best friend!" It was a wail of anguish.

          "Is that bad?"

          "Of course it is! Seeing me all naked and - and - "

          "She goes swimming with you."

          "Oh, Mummy, you know it's not that. It's a different naked. I'd feel awful -- and Petty would laugh."

          "Your best friend laughing at you being beaten!"

          "Oh, M-o-t-h-e-r-r-r!" For a moment Ginny's shoulders twisted in frustration. "You're putting it all wrong. I think you're laughing at me."

          "No, I'm not. I think I'd like Petty to come over. What have you got against her?"

          "Oh, Mummy! It's not Petty, it's the humiliation."

          "Ah, now we're getting somewhere! Do you agree, dear, having Petty watch would make your punishment a little less - enjoyable?"

Ginny pouted, but did not reply. "Answer me!"

          "Yes." Ginny managed to make the single word sound as though the bottom had fallen out of her world.

          "Excellent! You may phone Petty, dear, and ask her over."

          "Mummy, I don't want to. Oh, please?"

          "Do it, Ginny."

          "Mumsie, can I have extra? Something really terrible instead?"

          "No, dear. We've gone into this often before. I refuse to flay your back or bottom just because of a notion."

          "Is that it, Mummy?"

          "That's it, dear. You've been sentenced. You needn't stand to attention anymore."

          "Thanks, Mummy -- I'm sorry."

          "That's all right, Ginny. I'll just allot you a couple more for all those quibblings. What's your total?"

          "Fourteen strokes, Mother."

          "That's my girl! You can now phone Petty."

          "Thank you, Mother."

Ginny picked up the phone as though it were a venomous reptile.

Drusilla knew herself privileged. Private winks had passed from her mistress to herself as Ginny's small drama unrolled. No doubt there were those who would pay vast sums to witness what was about to take place. The Room had become a stage.

          "I want you to kneel to one side, Drew. You may sit back on your heels and rest your hands on your thighs so we can all see your handcuffs."

Drusilla obeyed, blushing under Petty's startled scrutiny.

But at least she had been told her place. She would not be flitting from here to there. She placed her palms upon her thighs so as to stretched the handcuffs' single link as far as it would permit.

          "I don't want you to feel awkward about this, Petty dear," Diana said kindly. "I think you know, don't you, we're a bit unconventional?"

          "Oh, yes, Mrs. Winslow. It's kind of you to want me to come."

          "You must forgive Ginny if she's embarrassed by your presence. But that's part of her punishment, dear. Do you get caned at home?"

          "Gosh, no, Mrs. Winslow."

          "What a pity! It's so good for girls your age." Diana made it sound as though their guest was undernourished.

          "I expect it is, Mrs. Winslow. But we just - I've never - I say, Mrs. Winslow, where's Ginny?"

          "Ginny will join us shortly, dear. We like to carry off these little affairs with a touch of ritual. It's wonderful for building character."

          "Ginny's awfully lucky," Petty ventured doubtfully. "I do love her so."

          "We all love her, dear. That's why I'm very strict with her punishments. Has she told you?"

          "Well, some -- "

Petty was out of her depth. Drusilla longed to laugh at the poor child's puzzlement. For herself, she wanted only to be as unobtrusive as possible... ! What must the girl be thinking of a naked woman, handcuffed! Diana was having herself a field day.

Ginny made an entry.

Drusilla could not be sure, but she shrewdly guessed the youngster had assessed her predicament and decided to milk it of as many titillations as it might provide. Ginny's native exuberance was under control, but her eyes were shining. Her dress was unchanged but her hair had been groomed as had her features. For one brief moment she and Petty locked eyes. Then the delinquent daughter strode into the Room and stood before her mother.

          "I ask permission to be punished."

          "Of course, dear."

          "I am to receive fourteen strokes on my bare bottom from the cane."

          "That is correct."

          "I ask permission to prepare myself."

          "You have it, dear."

It was beautifully done. There could be no doubt Ginny was enjoying herself, pushing Petty and the cane into the back of her mind. With graceful forethought she began to strip. She wore almost nothing, but she made the most of what she had.

          "There is no need to perform a strip tease, Ginny."

          "No, Mother, sorry."

Nude, she stood before her parent. Diana examined her exposed daughter with pride.

          "I ask permission to be fastened, please."

          "Yes, dear. I think standing."

Diana was being kind. Drusilla shared Ginny's sigh of relief. To be bound upon some contraption with your legs apart was an indignity no girl would relish in front of her best friend. With a perfect presence the girl about to be caned positioned herself beneath the bar and raised her hands.

          "I'll bring it down, dear. No need to strain."

          "Thank you, Mother."

The trapeze halted its downward course at the level of Ginny's breasts. Without prompting, she pushed her hands through the loops and held them passively while her mother buckled the straps tight. Then the motor sang its song and the bare arms rose until their owner's heels left the floor.

          "If you're well up it will save you floundering, dear."

          "Yes, Mother:"

          "Isn't she beautifully behaved, Petty?"

          "Gosh, yes!" Petty's stock of exclamations was limited.

But her eyes were eloquent. They were alight with vivid interest.

          "I'm so proud of her. Are you ready to be caned, darling?"

          "Yes, Mother."

Drusilla feared an orgasm. What she was seeing and hearing was just too much. She wondered anxiously if, in her kneeling pose, she could absorb the tremors and tumults of a come without betraying herself. With an observant Petty! She closed her eyes and fought back the rising tide.

She had witnessed Ginny being caned before. How long ago that seemed! How much had happened! Wryly, the handcuffed woman tried to compute the stripes she herself had felt planted on her skin since that first day. Her arithmetic was interrupted by the whirring of the cane and a solid smack.

The response of girls beneath the whip must inevitably vary. Yet, basically, they are the same. Stoicism fights surrender. Panic pleads. The wealed flesh is provoked to writhings. The clenched teeth part so that the lips may wail. Drusilla watched breathlessly as the crimson bars sprung into life on youthful curves. From time to time she spared a glance at Petty. The teenager was transfixed by awe, an enraptured vision of wonder, of the incredible, of something new and spine-curlingly exciting. Something that would surely lead to a hundred maiden whisperings.

          "Halfway, dears," said Diana brightly.

Ginny was engrossed with her scalding bottom. In unconscious grace she was rubbing one cheek against a raised arm and doing her favorite exercise against pain by bending and flexing her leg at the knee. She looked at no one. She was alone with the cane.

          "The darling behaves awfully well, don't you think!"

          "She s beautiful!" Drusilla poured sincerity into the obvious.

          "Oh, Mrs. Winslow... !" Petty evidently felt called upon for polite comment. "Doesn't it hurt her terribly?"

          "Why not ask her, dear!"

Petty giggled prettily. She would hold no illusions about her girl friend's state of mind. "I'm real sorry - " she began tentatively.

Ginny did not turn. Her voice was crisp. "Don't be. I do this for fun."

The words held a bitterness of which Ginny was rarely guilty. Drusilla realized that Diana had indeed discovered something to which her effervescent daughter was allergic.

Petty filled the awkward silence with another try: "I expect it hurts something awful...?"

          "I love every stroke!"

          "She's a little upset, dear," Diana soothed sweetly. "But she shouldn't be rude. What do you think, Petty? Does she deserve an extra stroke? She wasn't very grateful for your concern."

Drusilla swallowed a giggle. Petty was looking as embarrassed as a girl could be. "Oh, no, Mrs. Winslow! Poor Ginny -- ! Not on my account."

          "I am not a 'poor Ginny.'" The voice of the punished nudity was remote and icy. For the moment the tied girl was in complete control. "And, yes, Mother, I would enjoy an extra stroke. Please give it to me."

It was youthful bravado. But it was magnificent. Petty was crushed. Diana was vastly entertained. Drusilla was thankful it was not her bottom on which the next eight strokes would fall.

They fell hard. Diana felt challenged. Petty must be impressed. Ginny must be chastened. The trapeze bar creaked under the stress of anguish. The straps bit snugly against protesting wrists. Both knees worked overtime. But the only sounds to emerge from determined lips were small moans, the gaspings of shocked breath, and tiny inarticulate cries bitten off at their source.

          "That's a beautiful bottom. I"m proud of it," Diana proclaimed after the final slash had seared her daughter's skin.

          "Thank you, Mother."

Drusilla wondered how much of Ginny's panting composure was for the benefit of the wide-eyed visitor. Her heart bled for the strapped maiden. She, too, had once known the cruelties of pride.

Diana was determined to extract her pound of flesh.

          "Would anyone care to come and look?" she enquired innocently.

The moment was unkind to all. Any response was wrong.

But the woman with the cane was a force. From the depth of young chagrin, Ginny piled on a caustic quip. "Do please come and look at my bottom. I'm sure it's worth a glance. Why not feel it too! I expect it's all ridged."

Petty was aware of a need to repair damaged fences.

          "Oh, Ginny, no! We don't want to do that. I'm so sorry."

          "You enjoyed every minute." There were tears in the youthful accusation.

          "I didn't! I didn't!"

          "That's enough of that!" Diana exclaimed crisply. "I'm going to let her down now. Petty, perhaps you'd be kind enough to unbuckle her straps?"

          "Oh, yes, Mrs. Winslow."

The eagerness of the girlish voice faded as Petty glimpsed the trap. Ginny was not going to be grateful.

Drusilla noted the awareness, the hesitancies, the tension. Here was the final shame - that Petty should handle the straps by which she was bound!

Petty fumbled. She dared not raise her eyes to be accused. She tugged awkwardly.

          "Thank you." The pained politeness was grudgingly vouchsafed as the speaker massaged red wrists.

Diana chose the moment to acerbate the atmosphere with sarcasm. "You seem a bit put out with your friend, Ginny? Perhaps you'd like to cane her bottom to even things up?"

          "M-o-t-h-e-r-r!!!"

          "You can if you want to, Ginny. I want to stay friends." The unpredictability of girls! Diana and her handcuffed slave both gasped, but Ginny rose, haughtily, to the occasion.

          "It's Mummy who wants to cane you, Petty. Ask her." Except for the wounded girl's fingering of her caned bottom, there was silence and immobility. Petty was overwhelmed by enormity. Diana broke the impasse.

          "I really do enjoy it," she agreed shamelessly.

Petty squirmed and sought advice. "What should I do, Mrs. Winslow? Ginny's mad at me."

          "Well, it would be a nice gesture, dear."

          "You mean - ?"

          "Generous and forgiving - ?"

          "Like Ginny was! Ooooo-o-o-o - I'd howl."

          "We wouldn't mind." Ginny's voice was still frosty. Petty looked her girlfriend squarely in the eye. "Ginny, if I say yes, will you get over being mad at me?"

Moments of confrontation melted before Ginny's sob and a whirl of arms as the naked girl embraced the one still dressed. "I'm a pig," Ginny confessed vehemently. "A rotten, unkind pig."

Two women watched two girls. It was a very private moment. Drusilla absorbed the cloying sweetness of ultrafemaleness, the scents and vibrations of which filled the Room with sensual potency. Her orgasm hovered.

          "Mrs. Winslow?" The teen embraces had worn themselves out. Petty looked at Diana appealingly. "Could I have just one? To sort of make things right - ?"

          "She really wants it, Mumsie."

          "Why, of course, dear. How very sweet!"

          "But could I keep my clothes on, please? You can just uncover my - my - "

          "How very sensible. Would you like Ginny to do the whole thing, dear?"

Petty squirmed and sought Ginny's eye. "I think it would be more - well - well, more proper if you did it, Mrs. Winslow."

          "I shall be glad to."

Petty had the stage. The poor child was suddenly aware of focusing eyes. Her cue was now. She walked slowly to the place of martyrdom. "Is this - where I stand?"

Drusilla allowed her orgasm to flower. It did not matter. The others' eyes were fixed in fascination on the tiny tragi-comedy of Petty's preparation. While Drusilla buried her shamed face in her handcuffed hands, Petty's wrists were thoughtfully strapped and her arms elevated to a lesser tension than Ginny's.

          "You do agree it's best to be fastened, dear?"

          "Oh, yes, Mrs. Winslow. I'd only be - silly."

          "Such a sensible girl! Ah, yes, and now the shorts! I'm afraid they'll have to come off."

          "Of course, Mrs. Winslow."

The teenager stepped out of her principal protection. Her panties were of chaste white cotton.

          "And these, too."

          "I don't mind, Mrs. Winslow." Petty visibly gulped. There were no indiscreet exclamations about what was revealed. Petty's bottom was small and impudent, her pubic hair a dark small triangle. Both peeped from under a soiled tee-shirt as though surprised.

          "One quite hard stroke, dear?"

          "Whatever you think best, Mrs. Winslow."

          "Mummy will give you more if you ask," Ginny volunteered.

The cane swished its fateful arc. The small, curved derriere flinched forward under the impact. Petty made a choked repression of sound, her eyes widened.

          "There!" Diana exclaimed briskly. "Is honor satisfied?"

          "Yes - oh, yes! Oh, dear - oh, wow!"

It was probably Petty's first confrontation with the monster, pain.

          "You might as well try another while you're at it," Ginny insinuated mischievously.

          "That's as Petty wishes, dear," Diana said primly.

          "You can stand another, can't you, Pet?" Ginny was obviously beginning to feel better.

          "Ooooo-o-o-o-o, I'd rather not. Gosh! Oh jeepers!" With studied nonchalance, Ginny cupped the young, exposed pussy with an experienced palm. She nodded at what she found. "She is enjoying it, Mummy."

          "G-i-n-n-y-y!!!" The exclamation was heavy with reproach. Petty eyed her friend askance.

          "It's all right, dear," Diana reassured her punished guest.

          "Ginny is being silly. I am sure we have a cure."

The silence was pregnant. "Hold out your hand, Ginny."

          "M-O-t-h-e-r-r-r!!!"

          "Do as I say."

          "But, Mummy, what have I done?"

          "You know perfectly well. Hold your hand out."

Ginny stood, a picture of naked dismay. In instinctive defense her splayed fingers sought and clasped her striped bottom.

          "Oh, Mummy, don't cane my hands! Not my hands - I can't hold a pencil - or anything - after."

          "The infliction will not be severe, dear. If you behave."

          "How many?"

          "Ginny! That was impertinence. You do not bargain."

          "I was only asking. I'm sorry, Mother. Must it - must it be my hands?"

          "Yes, it must! Hold one of them out - and stand where Petty can see. Your sentence is two, one on each hand," Diana glowered maternally. "Or do you want to be silly and go for four?"

Ginny swallowed hard. Burning with shame, she took the required position and held out a bare arm. The cane cut at her palm. The operation was repeated. She stood in naked misery hugging her hands. When she took guilty steps she was sent back by Diana's order: "Stand where Petty can see you perform those absurd contortions."

The hurt eyes flashed. The slender nudity tensed erect.

The punished hands were withdrawn from wet armpits and casually offered for the scrutiny of the girl with strapped wrists. "There they are, Petty. They're hurting quite a lot, in case you're curious."

It was beautifully done. Drusilla longed to exclaim "Bravo!" Ginny was infinitely precious - to be adored.

          "I think you're super, Ginny." Petty was reverent.

          "I think you should let your friend down, dear. I expect it's time she went home. Thank you, Petty dear. I'm so glad you came." Diana beamed maternally at all.

Chapter Eight

Unsought Captivity

Drusilla was willing to admit to weariness. She estimated she had been tied to the cell bars a number of hours. There was no panic. Diana had said simply it was a "tie day," an essential conditioning for girls who were slaves.

Her knees hurt. But that was to be expected. Kneeling on the concrete with her legs thrust behind her through the bars could not possibly be pleasurable. True, her pussy was wet. But Drusilla had come to regard her pussy as a traitor - sometimes! The rest of her was roped securely to the bars. Her thighs, her waist, her shoulders. Her hands and arms had been pulled back through bars as had her feet. Her wrists were handcuffed. Thus she knelt facing the small cell. her immediate view the stone wall. She was not alone.

          "I'm getting awful tired of this, Drew."

          "So am I, Ginny. Think it's for all day?"

          "It likely is," said the voice of experience. "You quite sure you can't slip those handcuffs?"

          "Oh, Ginny, of course I can't!"

          "Well, I think handcuffs are really made for men," Ginny sniffed. "They don't have girls' sizes, and my hands are awful small. If Mummy didn't click 'em so tight - "

          "Mine are clicked too tight, Ginny."

          "So are mine. Oh, Drew, I wish I hadn't smashed that vase - " Another sniff. "But then, if I hadn't done that you'd be in here all alone. This place all alone is creepy. 'Specially when you're naked."

Drusilla took a sideways look at slender hips. By straining forward she could glimpse pubic hair below an adolescent tummy tightly constricted by rope. Ginny was standing beside her. The youngster's hands were similarly constrained, but her ankles were bound to separate bars. Two strands of rope above her breasts strictured her back against the metal. Her breasts pouted under the strain. Her view was as limited as her older companion's. "Are you hurting?" she asked anxiously.

          "Sort of." Ginny was always casual about pain. "It must be worse for you." She giggled. "Did you make Mummy mad or something?"

          "No, darling, we're both here to build our characters."

          "Mmmmmm! Have you come yet? I wish I could help."

          "No, I haven't. I expect it's because my knees hurt so bad - not the right mood. Have you?"

          "Not really. It's sort of hovering. Even if I don't like the way I'm tied it. still turns me on. I say, Drew, how about if we talk real sexy about our breasts and cunts and how we hurt here or there and what we'd do to each other if we were loose?"

          "It would be contrived. We'd have done it already if we hadn't been gloomy in all this rope."

          "Can you rub your head against me anywhere, Drew? It doesn't take much."

          "I've already tried. It's hopeless. We're both fixed, but good! Gosh, one of these ropes across my shoulder... !"

          "Me too. Being tied up is the pits. Ever figured out why it makes us horny, Drew?"

          "Because a girl did it. Someone we love. The ropes are her hands on us. They make us know we're owned and controlled - that we can't get loose unless they let us."

          "What about if a man did it to you?"

          "Same thing. But if you didn't like him you'd hate it."

          "You sure about it?" Ginny asked with interest. "I've wondered... I'd hate to be tied by a man. I don't want anything to do with boys or men... ugh! It would be horrid to be owned by one - not when I've got gorgeous Mummy and gorgeous you! I'd sooner let Petty... "

          "Suppose it wasn't a case of 'let.' Suppose you were forced by physical strength?"

          "Oh, wow! It is sort of a turn on, darling. Have you... ?"

          "No. But it's the female rape fantasy."

          "Oh, that! No, thanks!" Ginny's disgust was vehement.

          "That's a real ugh! One of those - things inside me."

The child was infinitely sweet. Drusilla wondered what life might do to her. Would Diana be able to keep her captive always within this cocoon of scented femininity in which she herself was a happy prisoner! Here, no matter how she was bound, the child would never sense captivity.

          "Say, Drew, did you hear something?"

          "Probably your mother moving a chair."

          "It didn't sound - right."

          "Well, there's bound to be noises in a house."

          "I s'pose. I say, Drew, d'you think Mummy might let you tie me sometime?"

          "I expect so. Gosh, Ginny, I'd like to. I'd like it a lot."

          "Just thinking about it's made me all goosey. I just know I'm going to pop!" Ginny's voice oozed excitation. "She could lock us both in here. But no handcuffs on you! She could leave you lots of rope and you could do anything you liked with me. It's groovy!"

This time the sound was more pronounced. Both girls tensed against their bindings, listening.

          "It's absolutely cunt curling," Ginny whispered. "We're completely helpless. Just think... !"

Drusilla was thinking. It was most likely Diana pushing furniture around under some feminine caprice for change. But suppose... ! A burglar! An intruder! But it was broad daylight! It was absurd!

It was then they heard the door open and the step upon the stairs.

          "Don't play the haughty lady with me, Diana," said a vaguely familiar voice.

Drusilla strained to look up. Ginny looked down. Each face reflected consternation. "I can hardly move," Ginny whispered hoarsely. "Oh, damn!"

Drew slammed her nakedness against her bonds in a frenzy of need to be free. It amounted to no more than a reflex action. She was held fast. "It's no use, darling," she mourned. "Whatever's happening is going to happen."

          "What the devil have we got here!" The unknown voice from somewhere in the past sounded surprised and pleased. "I've been wondering where you kept your little cunts. Damn neat, I must say. Where's the key?"

          "On that nail - the passage wall." Diana's voice was oddly strained.

          "Aha! The old trick. They can see it but can't reach. Tantalizing as hell."

The lock on the cell door made its now familiar snap.

Diana stumbled inside, propelled by a lusty hand. Her arms were handcuffed behind her back. She was flushed with fury and shame.

          "M-o-t-h-e-r-r?" Ginny's familiar exclamation was anguished.

          "It's all right, dear. Don't panic." Diana's voice clearly said things were not 'all right' at all.

          "And how's my little slave girl's rump today?"

Mrs. Pendleton's muscularity made the cell seem doubly small. She surveyed the naked captives with beaming approval. Her voice was hearty. "Did a good job on 'em, Diana. They're safe. Young'un's your own, eh? Starting her out right."

          "Belinda, stop this! Ginny's a child. She shouldn't --"

          "Nice cunt and tits, Diana. Looks big enough to me."

          "That's not the point! This is all wrong! You are not invited! And you tricked me, damn you!"

Mrs. Pendleton guffawed. "You fell for it. When I said it was something new in handcuffs you were eager as all get out. Got one cuff on you, the rest was easy."

          "You took a rotten advantage. It's a betrayal of friendship. Let me loose. Take these things off my wrist."

          "Cool down, Diana. Think a bit. I've stumbled on a gold mine here. I'd be nuts to pass it up. There's no way you can get out of those handcuffs. I've got you! I've got all three of you."

It was then that Drusilla saw the marks on Diana's arms.

Diana wore a sleeveless dress. Both her bare arms bore the scarlet of the riding crop Mrs. Pendleton held beneath one arm. Her resistance and its punishment would explain the sounds.

          "You can't possibly do this. It's too outrageous!" Diana was tugging at her cuffed hands in the resentment of a new captive Drusilla remembered all too well.

          "You know I can, love. I can certainly get away with it long enough to whip you all into shape - most especially you, Diana! You're vulnerable. If I want to be a bit crafty I can possibly whip you for life."

          "But why? You've got - ?"

          "I'm a bored, middle-aged sadist, love. A bit jaded. You'll put new life in me."

          "But my daughter! It's just not - !"

          "Your daughter's doing just fine. Look at the little pretty! Naked and all tied up! Where's your beef'?"

Drusilla watched in impotent misery as her beloved Mistress was herded from the cell. When she was marched back, her neck was circled by a chain. She was led to one of the upper rings in the opposite wall. A padlock snapped. Diana stood tethered by no more than twelve inches of metal links. Mrs. Pendleton removed the handcuffs.

          "Undress!"

Drusilla's heart quickened in apprehension. Her darling Mistress! The vividly beautiful Diana chained, at bay, her authority shattered by a sardonic beldam intent on carnal joy.

          "Belinda, be sensible! We can still be friends."

          "We are friends, darling. Undress!"

Diana's hands were busy at her throat, exploring her own chain, her own padlock. She made a motion forward and was snubbed back. Save for her neck, she was free! But she was also helpless. She could do no more than stand against the wall of her own cell, glowering.

Mrs. Pendleton made suggestive flourishes with her riding crop. Concerned eyes focused on its flexing and its cutting of the air. Mrs. Pendleton basked in their attention. "All right. That thing hurts. You've made your point," Diana declaimed angrily. "Surely you're not bitch enough to use it on us while we're like this!"

          "Undress, dear. I want to see your cunt."

          "Belinda! Don't talk like that! Remember - !"

          "The kid?" Mrs. Pendleton guffawed. "I noticed the bottoms on those two on the way in. That youngster knows the score." She turned to the bound and indignant Ginny. "Where's your cunt, kid?"

          "Same place as yours," Ginny said sullenly.

The crop flashed across a slim hip. Ginny yelped.

          "Where's your cunt, girl?"

          "Between my legs." Ginny vouchsafed the information resentfully.

          "Belinda, she's only a girl. For Pete's sake - !"

          "She's a girl with a well-caned bottom, and you're likely to have one too," said Belinda expansively. "Now, stop nattering and undress."

          "I refuse. Not in front of my daughter."

          "What have you got that she hasn't?"

          "That's an absurd question. It's indecent."

          "I'm looking at two cunts and four tits right now," Mrs. Pendleton pointed out reasonably. "It's not as though you'd be breaking fresh ground."

          "I simply refuse. That's final."

The crop cut at the leg below the skirt. In a sickening knowledge of pain, Drusilla saw the nylon shred and ladder under the blow. Diana lunged to clasp her injury but was jerked back by the chain upon her neck.

          "I can stand here and cut you to pieces," said Mrs.

Pendleton affably. "And there's nothing you can do about it except wave your arms and kick."

Diana stood, panting, her hands against the wall beyond which she could not retreat. "Untie Ginny and take her somewhere else." Her voice was pleading.

          "Don't want her to see you do a strip, eh?" Mrs. Pendleton was intrigued. She turned to the child bound against the bars. "You'd like to watch Ma do a tease, wouldn't you, kid?"

          "No, I wouldn't! I think you're horrid!" Ginny's fury strained at the ropes. "You let Mummy go - let her GO!" .

          "Why should I, love?"

          "Because! Because she's my mother, that's why!" Ginny glared in fierce adolescent indignation. "Look, you old trout, you've got Drew and me. We're helpless and we're naked. What more do you want?"

Mrs. Pendleton nodded and beamed approvingly. "You ever service a woman, kid?"

          "I'm fifteen, not five - and I'm not going to service you!"

          "Old trout, eh!" Mrs. Pendleton's voice was cheerfully pensive. "Ever had your tits thrashed, Ginny?"

          "Belinda, no!" Diana's cry was anguished.

          "Your ma's concerned about your breasts, love," Belinda suggested suavely. "Pity she doesn't want to take her clothes off."

It had been inevitable from the beginning. A riding crop can be all powerful in a world of naked girls bound for its caress. Diana kicked off her shoes.

Drusilla had seen her Mistress naked. But never in the context of what was taking place. A woman nude in bed is a world removed from the same woman chained naked against a wall. What she beheld now left her breathless. It was beauty. It seethed eroticism. It was spiced with shame. No matter how Diana courted indifference she could not disguise her mortification at what she must do. Her clothes came off in slow, sharp jerks of fury.

          "Dammit, Diana, if I had your figure I'd never wear clothes." Belinda's tribute was grudging and envious.

          "Have a good look. There's no charge." Diana was bitter. "At least you have the sense not to try and cover anything. Keep your hands back against the wall - or lift 'em up. Just so long as I can get a good look."

          "It's normal equipment," Diana retorted listlessly.

          "But high quality! Dammit, I'm glad I thought to bring those handcuffs. You can turn and face the wall and put your hands behind your back."

Drusilla saw her Mistress tense, saw the involuntary glance at the crop and the woman who held it, saw the tentative hand reach up to the chain. Then, hopelessly, the lovely nudity turned and two hesitant hands offered themselves in surrender. Handcuffs latched their familiar song, two wrists tugged against the steel, then relaxed.

          "Turn back, honey."

Diana obeyed. Mortification was pink upon her face. "Don't like taking orders, do you, love?"

          "Belinda, you're in the catbird seat. Don't be mean to us."

          "Mother, don't be humble just because of me. That's just what she wants." Ginny's sense of the rightness of things was outraged.

          "You want that little can of yours caned, honey?" Mrs. Pendleton enquired amiably.

          "You'll do it anyway. You're a meanie!" Ginny spat. "That's right, kid. You're down for a licking. It's a deal."

          "Leave Mummy alone. She's never hurt you."

          "It's no good, Ginny," Diana interjected tonelessly.

          "We're all so damned helpless, we'd best behave."

          "M-o-t-h..e-r-r-r!!!"

          "Your ma's right, honey. I don't need an excuse to wail your back or your boobs, but it's nice to have one."

          "Oh, Mummy, you've tied me so tight!" An infinite yearning for freedom was in the young voice. "If I could get loose I'd scratch her to bits."

          "None of us can get loose, dear. Don't antagonize Mrs. Pendleton. Don't provoke her into giving you punishments."

          "My, my, Diana, you have seen the light!" Belinda Pendleton surveyed her new captive with beaming satisfaction. "I bet if it wasn't for dear, little Ginny, you'd still be spitting fire."

          "Look, Belinda, you and I know the score. So does Drew. Keep Ginny locked in a room or something while you have your fun with us. You don't need a child."

          "Hell, the kid's first on the list for a thrashing. Haven't had one her age before - wouldn't miss it for the world."

          "Thrash me instead. You'll get more pleasure out of my screams."

Belinda smiled beatifically: "You haven't grasped the beauty of this yet, have you! I'm going to thrash you all. As long as I like and as often as I like. And that's just for starters. There are other things, y'know... ! Your lickings will just be the hors d'oeuvres... !"

          "Belinda, don't torture us. I'd have thought you'd have got a big enough charge out of seeing me like this. I've never been so shamed in my life."

          "It's all beautiful, darling. I'm so damned lucky. Like I said, the three of you are a positive gold mine. I'll be burning a fire in my cat all day."

          "How long do you intend to - use us?"

          "I've been mulling it over. I don't see why it can't be permanent. I've been thinking of possibilities. I suppose you have?"

          "Yes."

          "And I see you don't like 'em," Mrs. Pendleton chuckled. "I don't need the money, but I've a good mind to rent you out. A high class cat house with the inmates always on call - or should I say 'on chain'? How'd you like guys peering through the bars at you and making their selection?"

          "Guys?"

          "That got to you, didn't it! Yes, guys. I'm sure your little twats can take something bigger than a tongue."

          "Don't be beastly."

          "Dyed in the wool Lesbians, eh? That adds a bit of spice. I'll tie you down and watch the disgust when he shoves it in."

Diana looked levelly at her tormenter. "Will Homer go for this?"

          "Homer gives me my head. Least I can do is offer him a piece of tail."

It was useless! Belinda Pendleton's banter was impregnable. Her possession of all three of them positive. Diana shrugged disdainfully and fell silent.

          "Just occurred to me... " Their new owner gazed from one to the other of them brightly. "I'm going to need a few things. I may stay the night. I expect you'll still be here when I get back!" She guffawed happily and was gone.

The clang of the door and the turning of the key was a knell. A death and a beginning. Three naked females exchanged expressions of dismay. After Belinda Pendleton, any silence was profound.

          "I deserve anything she does to me," Diana said bitterly.

          "To let myself be tricked like that! Like a silly kid... ! Now look at me! I'm so damned helpless I could cry."

          "It's not your fault, Mummy."

          "Yes, it is. And at such a time! You two totally helpless ... ." She looked at the bound girls with a flicker of hope. ... Any faintest chance you can wiggle loose?"

          "None at all, Di. We tried for hours before this happened."

          "I can't! That's for sure! She's got the handcuffs biting my wrists in two - and this chain round my neck... Oh, damn!"

With the coming of the silence that finally took possession of the three despondent nudities, the pain returned to Drusilla's knees. She had knelt upon the concrete a long time. Her strained efforts at easement brought only minimal relief. The ropes bit. The handcuffs were tight upon her wrists. She was engulfed in impotence. Tears hovered but she fought them back. Diana had troubles enough without a weeping slave.

Drusilla had entered slavery with an open mind. Enslavement had engendered responses undreamed, both in herself and from others. Now she was gripped by a fresh emotion that had not formerly been present. Fear! She had been captured and fallen into the possession of a hostile force. Bound tight and helpless, she faced a thralldom in which there was no love. She would actively long for escape, and be denied. Mrs. Pendleton would be thorough. Rope or chain would be on her always. She would be made subservient to the whip.

Was it so different? Of course it was! But the difference was not in the rope or chain. It was in the woman who fastened them upon her limbs. Drusilla would never have fought Diana. But she would fight Mrs. Pendleton tooth and nail if given half a chance. Did that make her previous captivity false and this real? Drusilla strained against her bonds. They had been bound upon her by Diana. They were real enough! It was unlikely that Belinda Pendleton could tie or lock her more stringently... But there was something else.

Drusilla was excited. It was the familiar beat. The new fear accompanied but did not quench it. She was still owned. She had changed mistresses. This one would be more cruel and less lovable. She saw herself as a bound maiden awaiting sacrifice. Awaiting the pleasure of a personality she could not influence. To Belinda Pendleton her tears would be an aperitif. Hesitantly, she sought the eyes of the woman chained against the wall.

Several times since they had been left alone, this silent communion had exchanged the guilty secret they had no wish to share with the youngster tied to the bars. Each one was admitting to the other that, no matter their loathing for Belinda Pendleton, they felt in this new captivity an erotic potency more compelling than the old. Drusilla's writhings against her ropes, and Diana's constant testing and fingering of the metal bands upon her wrists were not a seeking for escape. They were a savoring of feminine bondage. The deliciousness of resignation to a helplessness imposed by another female.

It was one more discovery!

          "A damned well-behaved trio," Belinda Pendleton commented on her return.

No one answered. The mood was melancholy.

          "Get organized. Make a fresh start." Belinda was brisk.

She was busy with a key.

A cuff fell away from Drusilla's wrist. Her arms were guided back to normal. The cuff snapped again. She raised her joined hands thankfully, rediscovering something she had lost. The skin of her wrists was chafed red. When the last rope was peeled from her wealed skin she rose stiffly to her feet and massaged her protesting knees.

          "Don't get any ideas, honey." Mrs. Pendleton patted the newly released bottom with her crop. "I'll cut you to pieces if you get foxy." With Ginny, it was different. Pulled through the bars, her hands were cuffed behind her back. To make this possible, the ropes were loosed from above her breasts. They left the same scarlet and purple indentations with which Drusilla herself was decorated. Only when the teenager had been made helpless were the rest of the ropes taken from her limbs.

          "What! No thank you?" Belinda asked sardonically. "Thank you for untying us." Drusilla felt the thanks appropriate, but the words fell mechanically from her lips.

          "No reason I should tell you the agenda," Belinda said comfortably. "Things will happen to you. I promise you won't be bored. I'll take you one at a time. Handcuffed, you won't give me much trouble." She shook the crop menacingly. "This says you won't give me any trouble at all. I'll keep you naked so its bite will be worse than my bark."

          "Aren't you going to unchain my neck?"

          "Do you good to stand a while, Diana. Let your two little quails see how the mighty have fallen."

          "It's a rotten way to keep me. I'll tire."

          "I can make it worse." The offer was crisp.

          "Oh, all right. Have your fun." Diana took a deep breath and avoided her daughter's commiserating eyes. No one could doubt her shame.

          "I intend to." Belinda Pendleton's words commanded attention. "I'm arranging a little entertainment. You're the star."

The silence was electric.

Chapter Nine

Discipline

          "Elbows hurt?"

          "Yes." Drusilla turned to the woman driving the car.

          "You didn't need to tie them - not so tight. My wrists would be enough."

Mrs. Pendleton chuckled. "Keeps you tractable and makes your tits stick out. What's it feel like, going through town naked?"

          "We'll be lucky if the police don't pick us up," Drusilla sniffed disapprovingly. "Someone gives me a double take at every red light."

          "Keeps your cat wet," Belinda assured expansively.

          "You sure look cute with the handcuffs on your ankles. Makes a nice change. Keep snuggled well into the corner. You were sensible not to choose the trunk; damned uncomfortable in there."

          "I'll try and be sensible, Mrs. Pendleton. I don't want to be terribly punished."

          "Call me Belinda, honey. And I'll help out on the sensible business by keeping you hogtied."

          "Hogtied?"

          "Figure of speech, love; You'll just be wearing something so you don't run."

          "I'm completely helpless."

          "Well, don't bitch about it. This isn't routine. You're in transit."

          "But why the Albertsons?"

          "Can't keep you at my place, sweetheart. Homer would fuss."

          "Why can't I stay with Diana and Ginny?"

          "You'd all get comfort lapping each other's cunts. Best you be separate. I'm even taking the chick from the mother hen."

          "Please don't be cruel to Ginny."

Belinda chuckled. "I'll be as cruel as I want. That perky pigeon is a dish. But I'm not all bad. little Ginny's my ace in the hole. Any time Diana balks at something I want, I'll just trice her sweet little daughter up by her wrists and whip the little darling steady until Mama decides to behave. Think of the possibilities, honey. Diana would walk through fire to save her poppet from a licking. I'm going to have Madam walking tightropes."

Drusilla thought of it with aching heart. It was foolproof. Her darling Mistress was lost. "Am I going to be whipped today?" she asked forlornly.

          "Quigley will probably want to. It's his thing. Dammit, Drew, I'm getting a charge out of this! I can do anything I damn please with you three. Anything! I own three cunts, two used and one virgin, and six tits and boobs... ! It's staggering. "

          "Couldn't you be satisfied with just me?"

          "I could if I had to. You're sweet. You're a natural, aren't you? I mean, you love it all?"

          "I don't love these ropes on my elbows."

          "Yes, you do. I can tell. There'll be a stain on the seat...." Belinda contemplated her blessedness. "It's out of this world, Drew! I keep looking for kickers but there aren't any. Nobody's going to go to the police. None of you can escape. I'm the luckiest woman in the U.S. of A." She spared her captive an amused glance. "If I stopped the car right now, would you want to get out and go looking for help?"

          "No!" It was an alarmed negative.

          "See? You're foxed! The lot of you. Not that I'd make the offer to Ginny, she's an impetuous kid. I'll keep her well corralled."

Drusilla knew her familiar shame at the flare of lust that engulfed her from this vivid awareness of impotence. Bound and delivered! She was Belinda's chattel. "Are you really going to do that cruel thing to Diana?" she asked anxiously.

          "What cruel thing, honey?"

          "That - you called it a 'Ritual Flogging'?"

          "Oh, my little drama! That's going to be precious, Drew. You'll want to watch, won't you? Darling Ginny's going to have to. I bet she'll kick up a fine old fuss. Probably have to gag her."

          "But Diana hasn't done anything!"

Belinda's guffaw was instant. "Yes, she has. She was born a beauty, and she's Diana Winslow. That's enough. Besides, she's upstaged me too often. I'll adore lacing her back. I'm just wondering how big a crowd to ask in. It would be wasted on just the kid."

Drusilla felt butterflies in her tummy. "Flogged!" It sounded too awful to contemplate. Diana was handcuffed and locked in the cell with nothing else to think about except that she was going to be triced up and her back slashed and lashed with some beast of a Whip. Ginny would suffer the same agonies of suspense as her mother. Her indignation gave her poor comfort. Drusilla recalled the day before and the restless night.

          "She can't possibly do that awful thing to you, Mummy!"

          "You mustn't get all het up, Ginny pet. There's probably going to be a lot of this sort of thing."

          "I'll scream the place down."

          "Ginny, cool it. What happens, happens. I'm so damned helpless I could weep."

They had been a sad and ineffectual trio. Belinda had finally unchained Diana's neck. But she and her daughter were helpless with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Belinda had laughingly told Drusilla her hands were locked in front so she could "help out." The small cell had seethed with naked frustration. Ginny's hesitant apprehension had been pathetic.

          "Will she really whip my breasts, Mummy?"

It had stared them in the face. The implacability of their bonds and the grim bars, and Belinda's laughing threats. Or were they promises!

          "I'm collecting pubic hair. I pull 'em out one at a time with tweezers."

The threat had sent Drusilla's hands to clutching her crotch. But no one had laughed. Diana's black fronds flaunted themselves as though in daring.

          "Mummy, she won't do these awful things! She won't!"

And then the pathetic amendment. "Will she?"

It had been a very female captivity.

          "You were asking about Quigley," Belinda mused. "I suppose you realize he'll fuck you?"

          "No!" The rejection was violent. And then: "Why would he?"

          "You're a slave girl, that's why, honey. You're available. "

          "Against my will?"

          "Don't you find that a cunt curler, sweet? I do."

It was! Drusilla knew it was! Her flesh was a traitor. She thought longingly of the captivity she had lost. "Don't let him," she pleaded, struggling ineffectually in her distress. "Tell him he mustn't. You could tell him... ?"

          "Those two really conditioned you." Belinda was amused. "Might say you were 'tongue tied.'" She chuckled at her pun. "Quigley will be a nice change for you. But remember this. He expects you to enjoy it. Act sulky, and he'll do things to you that'll make you howl for him to have another try."

          "What things?"

          "You can easily find out, love."

That was her life now. To be a plaything, a receptacle for lust and lash. Two days ago she could have added love. But that was gone! The soft breasts and pungent curls were locked in a cell. Even their owner's hands had been taken from them.

          "Well, here's Minnie," announced Belinda as she steered the car up the short drive to the waiting figure at the front door of the Albertsons' not inconsiderable residence. "You should try and look pleased. She adores you and she's thrilled to bits over what you've become. She's damned near a slave herself."

          "Oh, Drew!" Minnie's hands were clasped in delight.

          "You're tied so beautifully! Did you tie her, Belinda?"

          "Best way to keep a quail sensible, Minnie."

          "Minnie, get me out of this. It's gone far enough. Please!!!"

          "Give her a licking for that. About five, I'd say," Belinda advised heartily.

Minnie never managed to cope with life. She allowed it to flow over her. "Oh, I will, I will!" she assured. And then, anxiously. "You won't mind, will you, Drew dear?"

          "Of course I mind! Minnie, you absolutely must make a stand. Let me loose!"

          "Poor dear's been under a strain. But better raise the ante to eight - and make 'em hard." Belinda's voice had lost some of its bonhomie.

          "Oh, dear!" Minnie looked compassionately at the bound woman in the car. "A whole eight strokes right at the start... !" She visibly swallowed her concern and added brightly. "But, of course, it could be worse, couldn't it?"

          "Don't be inane, Minnie. You don't have to baby her. Just make sure she doesn't get loose."

By an effort of will, Drusilla remained mute while the handcuffs were taken from her ankles. Silence might be golden while Belinda was around. She could work on Minnie later. She suffered strong hands to pull her from the car, and a blanket to shield her naked bondage for the short journey to the house. She looked around hopefully but there was no one and nothing in sight.

          "I'll phone you, Minnie." Belinda was urgent. "I've got me things to do. Don't you get softhearted with her, now! Quigley will have your ass!"

Alone, the two girls assessed each other. Between their previous social intimacy and this moment there lay a chasm of things unsaid, unknown and undone. Minnie whisked away the blanket.

          "Oh, Drew, you're so beautiful!"

Her admiration was unfeigned. Her eyes were soft. "I don't feel beautiful. I feel - dejected."

          "It's having your elbows tied, darling. Quigley does it to me. It hurts gorgeously and pulls your shoulders back and sticks out your breasts - and a girl sways when she walks. Oh, I'm so glad you've come!"

          "Minnie, I didn't come. I was brought here, delivered like a sack of potatoes!"

Minnie giggled. "Isn't it a lovely feeling?"

          "Never mind the feeling! You absolutely MUST let me go! I've got to do something about Diana and Ginny! Please, quickly!"

          "But I couldn't possibly!" Minnie looked askance as though at a suggestion of treason. "Oh, darling, don't keep on at me about untying you. I just can't!"

          "You can!"

          "No - Oh, you don't understand... ! There's Belinda and Quigley... and a sort of trust - and doing the right thing -- "

          "Untying me is the right thing. Quick!"

          "Oh, but it isn't! Oh, darling, I have to give you eight strokes now. Don't make me have to give you any more!"

          "You don't have to give me even one."

          "I do! Oh, dear - ! Really, Drew, you must try and understand. I mustn't lie about it - and they'll check for the marks!"

          "You mean you're actually going to cane me or whip me or something... !" Drusilla gazed at her companion in dawning realization.

          "What else can I do?"

          "Let me loose! You must! You must!"

Minnie's face betrayed her concern. "Darling, if you keep on like this I'll have to give you more than eight. It bothers me so your pleading like this. I thought we were going to have such a lovely time together. Comparing well, comparing the things that get done to us, and our marks, and our pussies... Oh, Drew!"

Minnie was a dear. The bound girl longed to take her in her arms. Drusilla swayed her bound shoulders in irritation at such helplessness. Minnie Albertsons' intransigence was as defeating as the ropes deep in her flesh. Defeatedly, she asked "What must I do now?"

          "I thought we'd have coffee, darling, and a few giggles."

          "I can't drink coffee tied like this, Minnie."

Minnie brightened. "Oh, I can look after that, Drew!" The chagrined captive could not forbear sarcasm. "Does the coffee come before or after you've whipped me?"

          "Oh, let's leave it till after!" Minnie was a child again.

It was hard not to laugh! Or to cry! Or to have hysterics.

It was all too absurd! But in its simplicity, frightening! Sitting naked on a kitchen chair by Minnie's kitchen table, Drew watched her ankles ringed by handcuffs once again. She was already collared: all Minnie had to do was attach a chain. The chain led to a ring in the wall above the chair. A padlock completed this domestic captivity. Then, and not till then, Minnie loosed the ropes.

          "Poor darling!" she exclaimed as the weals proclaimed themselves at elbow and wrist and were massaged for a moment by tender hands. "But I won't rub them too hard. They're so lovely. We may as well let them last. Comfy, Drew?"

Drew was comfy! This, too was ridiculous. But the fact could not be denied. Her joined feet meant nothing unless she tried to walk. The chain tether on her neck was similarly innocuous unless she tried to run away. Her arms and hands were free. She flexed them luxuriously. "I'm chained for coffee," she said with a reluctant giggle.

          "That's right dear. Quigley does it to me all the time.

Everywhere in the house there're rings." Minnie beamed proudly. Then added anxiously "You won't try anything silly? I mean, you can't possibly get away."

          "Minnie, you're sweet." Drew sipped coffee. "If you're my jailer, you'd better keep me chained. I don't want to get you into trouble, but, if I get a chance to run, I'll run." She frowned. "Would you be punished if I did?"

          "Oh, of course!" Minnie proclaimed the obvious. "I'd be terribly whipped. Or put in the dungeon for the longest time. I don't like the dungeon - it's so lonely."

Drusilla used her unaccustomed freedom to reach out and pat an ann. Minnie was precious! But Minnie would also be another link in her chain. A vulnerability... How could she hurt her? "I'll be a good girl," she promised. "At least I will while it's you who's responsible."

Minnie glowed. "I think it's so lovely, the way it is with you and me. Fancy us not guessing before - all that time! I often look around at people and think how sad it is: not knowing... ! Haven't you seen how unfulfilled most of them look?"

Drusilla was willing to concede the point. Minnie was as happy as she herself had been up to two days ago. But now she was obsessed by a vision of Diana's naked back...! Her voice was urgent. "Minnie darling, Belinda says she's going to flog Diana."

          "How lovely! I expect we'll all be invited."

          "Minnie, how can you - ?"

          "But, darling, I've been flogged. I expect you will be, too - sometime."

          "But it's cruel! Medieval."

          "Well, it's not quite like that," Minnie said as though describing a new rug. "There're no bits of metal in the lash. There aren't even any knots. But they use an awful whip. I know which drawer Quigley keeps his in, but I'll never even peek. I hate it! The really awful thing about being flogged is the big production they make out of it." She giggled. "A girl feels like a side of beef hung up to cool before it gets cut up."

          "Hung up! Oh, Minnie!"

          "It is sort of bad," the cheerful jailer conceded. "You're hung by the wrists with your arms way out to either side. Then they do the same for your feet. They get tied down to rings in the floor." She repeated her giggle. "You can imagine what your pussy looks like."

          "It's awful!"

          "Well, yes, but it doesn't happen all that often. I've only had it once. Quigley was awfully sweet to me after.... "

          "You keep saying 'they'?"

          "Well, there's Belinda and Homer and me and Quigley, and we used to invite Diana. There're some other couples, a sort of group. We sort of gravitated... " Minnie grinned. "It makes a girl feel terribly important - spread and tied like that, and all naked."

          "I'd die!"

          "No,you wouldn't. You're scared, but you're the star turn. Without you there wouldn't be a show. It really does things to your pussy."

          "Minnie, you're incredible. Give me another cup of coffee and tell me what you and Quigley are going to do to me now you've got me."

          "Well, half of you belongs to Belinda. I'm not sure."

          "Belinda says your Quigley will make me have intercourse."

          "He doesn't usually call it that," Minnie snickered. "You can guess what he does call it. And he doesn't call your pussy a pussy either - and we're not supposed to. You'd better watch that. He's got punishments for everything."

          "He's your husband! You mean you don't mind?"

          "I'm sort of hoping he won't do it to you," Minnie admitted. "But I'm pretty sure you're going to get passed around to the other men. You see, darling, you're a slave... ! I'm a slave, too, but in a different sort of way. You're owned by a woman."

          "I wouldn't have thought a woman would have wanted a mess like that inside her slave."

          "I really don't know. I'm afraid they expect to get a big bang out of your reactions."

          "You mean they'll stand around and watch while I get - "

          "They call it 'fucked'," said Minnie innocently.

          "On a bed?"

          "Oh, darling, that's not very probable. They think up the darnedest -- "

          "Oh, there you are! Got a cup for me? Hello, Drusilla."

          "Hello, Quigley." Drusilla had to force her hands to stay where they were.

          "Don't bother about covering your breasts. I understand." He beamed impartially at both as though a chained and naked woman at his kitchen table was no novelty. "We're glad to have you with us. We'll make sure you don't escape. Matter of fact, I came home early in your honor."

Quigley regarded his captive guest with grave courtesy.

He was not a bad looking man, but business had stereo typed him to match his sober name. It seemed incredible that he could whip a girl. Drusilla had always liked him in their infrequent meetings. That she should be his prisoner was one of the oddest shaped bits of the jig saw that was now her life. She poured all the appeal she could muster into her voice.

          "Quigley, I've got to escape! I just have to -- it's Diana and Ginny -- "

          "She doesn't think Belinda should give Diana a flogging," Minnie contributed helpfully.

          "Do Diana a world of good," Quigley declaimed grandly.

          "Put her feet back on the ground. Every woman needs at least one."

          "Oh, Quigley!"

Perhaps he was joking! His humor was dry to match his mien. The outrageousness of what he had said made it suspect. Drusilla pressed forward. "Look," she pleaded earnestly, "let me loose on parole so I can go home and release Diana and Ginny and get things back to normal there. Then I'll return and surrender myself to you." She looked at the blank faces of her captors, then struck the table with clenched fists as to make the cups rattle, and her voice became desperate. "Honest! I will! I will! I give you my word!"

          "Isn't she sweet?" said Minnie after a long silence had greeted the captive's outburst.

          "Drusilla is a very nice person," Quigley agreed soberly.

          "Well, then?" Drusilla looked from one to the other hopefully.

Was there sympathy in Quigley's regard? His voice was sober. "I'd be inclined to accept that assurance," he said slowly. "But I'm afraid it's not practical."

          "But why?"

He smiled kindly at his prisoner's flushed face. "A matter of ethics. We are obligated to Belinda. The whole situation is almost entirely her prerogative."

          "I don't see that Belinda matters."

          "Oh, but she does! Each one of us matters. What Belinda is doing is no more than a logical sequence arising from what you and Diana were doing."

          "What we were doing was voluntary. I wasn't kidnaped."

          "Hasn't it occurred to you that what you were doing was the dream? This is the substance."

It had occurred. Drusilla cringed inwardly, even as her loins flared. The chain on her neck and the steel upon her ankles now were unquestionably more coercive and captivating than anything she and her mistress had contrived. "Let me go," she said sullenly. "Just let me go... "

          "You are subject to the whip, Drew. Don't forget that... in the things you say - your attitudes." Quigley's admonition was strangely kind."

          "Whip me all you like! Give me the flogging when I come back to you. And I will come back. I promise!"

          "You haven't seen the most important reason for not releasing. you," Quigley continued gently. "It's Diana. You give Diana her freedom and there's no way she's going to allow you to come back here. She won't be bound by promises."

          "But I'll explain - "

          "A free Diana isn't going to listen to explanations, Drew. You know that. Diana will be a raging fury if she's freed. Halfway through your explanations you'd find yourself flat on your face, her knee in your back, and your hands tied."

          "Oh, Quigley, don't be so -- "

          "Well, it's true! Isn't it?"

It was true! Drusilla knew defeat. Diana was the stronger. In a tussle, she would win - just as Quigley had described. She had nothing to bargain with. This, then, was the reality of slavery -- a total subjugation to the will of others. She glimpsed a frightening vista. "Are you going to keep me -- always? Never let me go?"

The phone rang demandingly.

Drusilla's urgent question was dissipated into limbo as Quigley lifted the receiver. He responded with quiet monosyllables to the distant voice. Then turned a puzzled gaze upon his captive.

          "Drew, stand up. Turn around -- both ways."

Drusilla obeyed. Why not! Her nakedness belonged to everyone but herself! When, at a motion from him, she resumed her seat, he returned to his caller, his voice incisive: "No. Nothing new." He listened attentively, then responded. "You may rely on it."

The two girls exchanged wide-eyed apprehension. They had guessed. Quigley returned to his coffee, each of his casual words ominous: "It appears we have some unfinished business."

Nobody answered.

          "And why is it unfinished?"

          "Well, it hasn't been that long -- "

There was little optimism in Minnie's assertion. Drusilla quivered in anticipation.

          "A matter of eight strokes -- ?"

Minnie fidgeted. "Well, we thought we'd have coffee."

          "Ah!" It had a portentious sound. "No doubt you were both prepared to forget - ?"

          "Oh, Quigley, don't make a big thing out of it. Belinda dramatizes... "

          "But we have rules, dear. A code."

          "All right then!" Minnie abandoned a weak defense. "I was lax. I let it slide."

          "And you, Drew? I gather you were quite content?"

          "Of course I was!"

          "Ah!" Quigley sounded triumphant. "Now we are getting there! Minnie, you may undress."

          "But, Quigley! Just for that? You mean I'm going to be punished?"

The delinquent wife's indignation was tempered by the same excitement that was fanning Drusilla's smoldering fire. Minnie achieved nudity with surprisingly few motions.

          "I thought it was me who was supposed to get them?"

Drusilla exclaimed naively.

          "You may rest assured you will," Quigley responded gallantly. "But we have here a case of negligence. It will be summarily dealt with. Minnie, touch your toes."

          "Yes, dear." Minnie was breathing rapidly, her attractive breasts in agitated motion.

Four vicious cuts with a cane that had appeared from nowhere. Drusilla flinched with each. Fresh red bars joined faded lines on Minnie's humbly proffered posterior. The bent nudity gasped and swayed but managed to last the course. Minnie wept the hurt tears of childhood.

          "Four will be adequate," said Quigley grandly. "Thank you, dear," Minnie sounded relieved.

          "You may stand, but do not dress. And now Drusilla!"

          "Oh, all right! How do you want me?"

          "You must not sound bitter, Drew. You are taking part in a simple process of justice. You may adopt the police search pose. We will move the table."

Drusilla discovered the humiliating quality of voluntarily offering her person for punishment. Mostly she had been bound, relieving her of participation other than as a recipient. What Minnie had just done seemed heroic. She recalled, cringingly, the act of holding out her hands to be caned. Doubting her fortitude, she turned and faced the wall, her palms on each side of her tether.

          "Feet well back and wide apart."

Drusilla could comprehend the posture's value. She was shamingly vulnerable. Looking cringingly back she saw the cane that would cut her and the man who held it. Why oh why hadn't she had the sense to keep quiet in front of Belinda! She might have known!

          "Minnie, you were given a directive. You will now obey it. Eight strokes. Hard!"

          "You're much better at it than I am, Quigley dear. Couldn't you... please?"

          "M--i--n--n--i--e!!!"

          "Yes, yes. All right. I just thought -- " She accepted the cane and looked appealingly at the girl she must punish. "I'm terribly sorry, darling -- "

          "Minnie, you have nothing to be sorry about. Drew has earned punishment. You administer it." Quigley had a gift for logic.

          "Don't mind me, Minnie," Drusilla ventured forlornly. "Would you mind not looking at me, dear? I feel so embarrassed. I feel so badly -- "

          "Would you like four more, Minnie? You are nude for that reason."

          "No, no! Oh, dear!" Minnie bestowed another apologetic glance upon the girl she must cane. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to hit you awfully hard, Drew."

          "It's all right, Minnie. I understand."

          "Well, now that we've got that settled -- !" The male voice said clearly that enough was enough.

Coming from Minnie, the blow was surprisingly painful and shockingly accurate. Drusilla clenched her jaw. She must try and behave so that poor Minnie would not get into further trouble. She arched her back to show good intentions. Her bottom reared.

Drusilla was competently thrashed. Minnie's expertise could be attributed to her husband's influence. It was out of character. As an earnest show of good faith she made number eight a memorable slash that extracted a reluctant moan from the owner of the bottom.

          "Excellent, dear! Lovely marks." Quigley sounded proud. He turned to the punished slave girl. "You didn't feel obligated to remind Minnie of her lapse, Drew?"

          "I'm afraid not."

          "A pity! It was delinquency. You understand?"

          "Yes, Quigley."

          "Stay exactly as you are. There will be two extra. I will administer them myself."

          "Yes, Quigley." Drusilla knew one of her legs was visibly trembling. The pain and the pose were hard to cope with.

          "You will find them salutary."

Why the devil didn't he come right out and say he was going to hurt her like hell? But Quigley was Quigley. Mechanically, Drusilla said: "Thank you, Quigley."

Her handcuff had been loosed from one ankle to enable her to obey the command to "spread her legs." Now, when her master cut her cunningly between her thighs, Drusilla yelped and flailed one foot so that the loose steel jerked and jingled. In the midst of her agony she repeated over and over to herself. "One more! Only one to go." She was certain that had the number been greater, stoicism would fail and her pose crumble. Grimly, she tensed motionless.

Quigley changed sides. The cane sang.

Chapter Ten

Punishment Party

The Albertsons' downstairs room had been made festive.

Its less agreeable features had been cunningly disguised or removed. Trestle tables formed a "U." Their napery and cutlery were impeccable. Candle-light and wine lent glamor. In the center of the "U", so that every guest should have an uninterrupted view of her nakedness, stood Drusilla.

          "There's no reason why you shouldn't derive some enjoyment from this yourself, Drew," Quigley had said as he strapped her wrists at each end of the rigid bar that was, itself, a part of an even more rigid column descending from the ceiling. When Quigley touched a button the column rose. It stopped barely short of compelling her to stand upon her toes. Drusilla thought, absurdly, of periscopes.

          "Should take out a patent," said the Master proudly.

          "It's a real innovation."

          "To make me stand naked for everyone to gawk at as they eat?" Drusilla had enquired acidly.

          "Can't tell me you won't get a thrill out of it," Quigley had admonished. "I can tell you this, if it's any comfort, you're about as lovely a statue as I've ever seen. Minnie did a fine job on you."

          "I'm sure they'll enjoy the ridges on my bottom!"

          "An occupational hazard of which you need not feel ashamed," said Quigley primly.

          "I'm going to feel damned good and ashamed of standing and offering all my erogenous zones for a bunch of strangers to sit and look at."

          "They are not all strangers, Drew. There are Minnie and I and the Pendletons."

          "I'm not sure that isn't worse."

          "The evening will bring some surprises."

          "I bet!"

Quigley had shaken a warning finger. "I've told you before, watch that tongue. You're ideally positioned for a correction."

          "Sorry, Quigley. I'll try."

Drusilla's repentance had been sincere. It was hard to eschew normal retorts with people you had known for a long time. It was harder still to realize that such retorts were punishable by weals upon her skin. But her burning bottom was a helpful reminder, for which she was almost grateful. She had plenty of time in which to consider these matters. Having been safely prepared, she was abandoned to her musings while awaiting the arrival of the guests. The caterers were an unobtrusive husband and wife who affected not to notice her. She rejected the thought of appealing to them for help. It would only lead to another punishment. Wryly she recognized it as a slave decision.

No one had told Drusilla to meet the eyes. She shrank from recognitions. As the tabled filled, she kept her gaze detached and distant. It was her choice to observe far horizons or to bow her head in shame. She had already discovered that to bow her head placed an additional strain upon her arms and neck, so she stood erect, her skin tingling under the impact of delighted eyes.

          "A little beauty," Belinda Pendleton boomed.

          "Shouldn't have parted with her. You've made a good job of her, Minnie."

          "Just look at her bottom!" It was a feminine voice, ecstatic. "You never do that neat a job on mine, Timothy."

          "You don't have as neat a rump."

          "Are you going to brand her, Quigley?"

          "I noticed her underarms. Don't tell me you're letting her hair grow?"

Drusilla knew herself blushing. Hers was a cruel exposure. Her hands were strapped too high to make possible the crossing of her legs. It was a thing she longed to do to rob them of her pubic hair. But best not. They would find the pathetic effort hilarious.

          "You haven't shaved her cunt, Quigley." The voice became pedantic: "It was the custom in ancient Rome to depilate a maiden slave's bush. The theory was that it enhanced their defenselessness, made them conscious of their availability - "

There was a cackle. "Let 'em know they'd had something to hide, eh?"

          "If you wish." The pedantic voice sounded faintly irritated. "We may give some credence to their conviction that, once robbed of their pubic hair, the girls became more amenable, in much the same way as was noted when the first irons were riveted on their wrists or ankles."

Another cackle. "You tried it out on Helen, Proctor?"

          "Of course he has," a feminine voice proclaimed proudly. "Proctor knows what he's talking about."

          "Going to show us?"

          "If Proctor wishes me to."

          "In this connection, the Romans used another interesting expedient." Proctor's drone washed over the facetiousness. "Should the slave girl prove intractable, her head was shaved. But usually the threat alone was sufficient to bring a change of heart."

          "That how he keeps you in line, Helen?"

The feminine retort was crisp and strangely proud. "I'm bald right now. What you're looking at is a wig."

There was an excited babble. Drusilla knew herself no longer the prime cynosure. She seized the opportunity to make a quick survey. The stricken gaze that instantly locked with hers almost stopped her heart.

It was Diana Winslow.

Her fellow captive was dressed in a simple white sheath.

Under the pretext of arranging its folds, Diana rose momentarily to give her former slave a view of the belt that circled her waist. A ring at its back held the chain joining her hands, the links slipping back 'and forth as she used one arm at the expense of the other. With a wristlet against the ring, she would have enough slack to enable her to raise a fork or cup. She could use either hand but only one at a time. When not in use, her hands would be loosely chained at her sides.

It was a desolate communion. They could view each other's plight with pity. That was all. No doubt Belinda was chuckling. Diana shook her head in impotent despair. The wave of chatter reasserted its authority.

          "Well, if you won't show us yours, let's shave Drusilla." She recognized them now. Known for years, yet not known at all! She. would be a doubly delectable morsel, holding a greater potential for shame than a stranger. She and Diana Winslow. To humiliate and bring low the former Mrs. Winslow and the one-time Mrs. Bryce Hammill was an erotic feast indeed!

          "I wonder if she'd sit and submit?"

          "Hell, no We'd have to tie her so she couldn't twitch."

          "Either way it would be one hell of a tum-on."

          "Saw some damned potent pictures in a mag'. They had the girl only handcuffed. But she was resigned. She just sat and accepted the inevitable. One guy I showed it to had to go the the bathroom for relief."

          "What d'you say, Quigley? After dinner?"

          "I had something else in mind."

Drusilla was thankful for Quigley's prim evasion. The pack was in full cry. She could see herself shorn and shamed.

          "We could get together in a few days."

Quigley believed in extracting every essence. "Why don't you ask Drusilla how she'd behave?" he suggested casually.

          "Want to be a baldie, Drew?"

There was a throb in Helen Frobisher's voice that warned of dark desires. She was sexually aroused. In spite of fear and horror, Drusilla felt a cruel fascination in a vision almost too erotically shocking to contemplate. She refused to answer, glaring her hostility.

          "Silence means assent."

          "No! Oh, damn you all! No! You're a rotten lot of - " Her panicked regard swept the assembly in search of an ally. Minnie' looked embarrassed. Diana sat with head bowed, not wanting to see.

It was at that moment Drusilla became aware... !

A disorientation. When first strapped tight by her she had faced the open end of the 'U'. Now she was looking squarely at one of the tables. She had not been aware of moving - in fact, she could not move! She was a fixture. But that to which she was fastened was moving. Imperceptibly, the steel column above was turning... The motion was so infinitesimal she had changed her stance without noticing the compulsion. But the compulsion was there. Testingly, she flexed her prisoned hands against their anchorage. But the motion was inexorable. Quigley was insuring his guests a complete inspection of her charms.

          "She doesn't like barbers!"

          "An electric chair would be perfect to strap her tight."

          "It's the most incredible turn-on, darling," Helen Frobisher drawled. "You tell her, Proctor."

          "What about shaving her eyebrows, too?"

A sudden silence was reverent with awed approval.

Drusilla longed to hide, hide somewhere where her lovely hair was safe. She strained at the wrist straps, but what was the use!

          "That notion deserves a medal." Belinda Pendleton's endorsement vibrated with lust. She paused for effect, then added: "If one's good, wouldn't two be better?"

Diana jerked erect, eyes wide. Drusilla kicked wildly at nothing and wailed. "No! Oh no, no, no!"

          "You've hit pay dirt, Belinda. They're actually paying attention. "

          "You mustn't! Oh, please! Don't be so cruel." Drusilla fought her bonds wildly in the only outlet she had for her despair.

          "I think perhaps it is time to eat," said Quigley gently. Drusilla moved too. Slowly, shamingly, and helplessly.

One after the other, she met the amused regard of men and women who were no longer social acquaintances but initiates of an arcane esoterica whose captive she now was. They could do as they pleased with her. Or as much as Quigley would permit! Helpless and naked, Drusilla wondered if there was any hope in Quigley. Would Quigley allow her to be made hairless and hideous? Would he?

But Helen Frobisher was not hideous! Helen was happy.

The ever present heat in captive loins awakened. Drusilla took a captive peek at something inevitable, something to be DONE to HER! The heat flared anew. It was absurd! It was impossible! But it was so. She wondered guiltily about Diana.

Food inhibited but did not stop the flow of wit and wish. The hounds were worrying a flavorful bone.

          "After every last hair has gone, let's push her in a room with some guy who doesn't know the score, and see how he reacts. "

          "Use lather and a blade. No electrics!"

They did not hate her. In fact, she was adored! She was a chosen virgin awaiting the sacrificial blade. All were edified. Uncaring now, she met and returned their warm regard. She had become an infinite treasure basking in their adulation ... She wondered idly if she were invited.

Before dessert had been dealt with, Drusilla's nakedness had revolved four times for their enjoyment. She felt certain that in all the history of the world no female breasts and pubes and bottoms had been more glaringly exhibited than hers. With the coffee, she glimpsed a fresh novelty of Quigley's hospitality.

Slingshots!

The almost lethal toys were distributed by the impassive pair of servants. Each came with an envelope of pellets. They were joyously received. Diana was omitted from the largesse.

          "The rules are simple," Quigley proclaimed portentiously. "No shots above her nipples, none below the junction of her thighs. There will be an award for any marksman or woman whose aim achieves lodgment within orifice or cleft. I am afraid the targets are limited to the cleft in her gluteal cheeks, her navel, and her chief facility lower down. You may shoot at will."

There was a round of applause. Before it withered, the first B.B. shot impinged on Drusilla's left breast. She yelped, more in surprise and indignation than pain.

Quigley announced an addendum: "The subject is permitted such contortions as her circumstances allow."

It was a beastly kind of giggle, ludicrous and demeaning.

The pellets hurt enough to compel a flinch. There would be no standing on her dignity. Her nipples were the favorite, a satisfying bulls-eye. When a pellet impacted on a pink bud, Drusilla yelped. If they enjoyed her yelp, let 'em! She was past caring. The straps permitted her to make small, evasive twists, but she refused to give them such satisfaction, and anyway, there was no real accuracy. Mostly she stood, wincing when she must, flinching or yelping when shrewder shots achieved simultaneous impacts on tender flesh. Slowly, the spent pellets accumulated around her feet.

Once only, she allowed her eyes to lock with Diana's.

They exchanged mute misery. Their slavery was total. They had become pets, nourished to provide erotic sport, their nakedness a common property. As she obeyed the compulsion of the column, Drusilla sometimes looked apprehensively back over a wracked shoulder, fearful of some fresh infliction catching her unaware.

A male sharpshooter folded his envelope and inquired hopefully: "Anyone going to look in her cunt?"

          "There's nothing in there!" Drusilla's assurance was vehement.

          "Got any darts, Quig' old boy?"

          "How about whipping her ass?"

They were so happy! Drusilla marveled at the versatility of a girl's nakedness to provide joy. It was like being loved! She drooped wearily against her belted wrists when the last bit of lead rebounded from her skin and joined its fellows on the floor.

          "I think we should move on to the next," said Quigley. "Next what, Quig'? You got something up your sleeve?" Quigley took the floor. He coughed in the manner approved to demand attention. His mien was that of a senator seeking re-election for the fifth time. "We are privileged this evening to take part in a ritual, a ritual that, regrettably, comes Our way all too seldom," he informed, savoring every word. "Our charming Drusilla is to be replaced by one of our number who has transgressed beyond the bounds of tolerance." He paused to generate full impact. Then dropped his bomb. "Mrs. Diana Winslow is to be flogged."

first a breathless silence, then excited chatter. All eyes turned to the woman who sat with head bowed, striving to hide her face with one chained hand, its fellow drawn helpless behind her back. Drusilla looked from face to face in frantic appeal.

          "Quigley, don't! You mustn't! Oh, Minnie, don't let him."

          "Shut up, Drew," Belinda Pendleton ordered without rancour. "Feel lucky it's not you. It could be."

Diana got slowly to her feet. Her chained hands fell, listless, at her hips. She faced the woman who wanted her flogged. In utterly feminine pleading, she threw her pride to the winds.

          "Belinda, I beg of you, show me mercy. Please don't have me flogged."

There came a round of applause. In some bizarre way it seemed appropriate.

          "You won't die, Diana."

          "It's too awful a thing to do to any woman." Diana looked agonizedly at the hungry faces of her friends.

          "You'll be proud of your back - after!"

          "But it's so unfair. I haven't done anything! Belinda - !"

          "Button your lip, girl!" Belinda ordered amiably.

          "You've done plenty and you know it. Just being you's enough." She beamed cordially at all. "It's going to be such a come down for the darling. I'm willing to take bets she'll scream beautifully."

There were no takers. Just an excited murmur of approval. None present voiced a word in defense of the chained and naked beauty who had been a dynamic member of their circle, but who was now a slave.

          "All right!" Diana's voice demanded attention. "If you must use me - " Her gaze roved the room and found no ally. "Can't you be halfway decent about it? There's no need to flog me."

          "But, darling, it isn't going to be a cat-o'-nine-tails. We've got the loveliest whip!"

150

          "No coddling!" Belinda again took possession of the floor. "I want Diana flogged, and flogged she shall be! I want her humble."

          "But look at me! Can I be more humble than this?" Diana tried, impotently, to raise her chained hands in supplication. The loose white sheath in which she had been clothed fell limply to the floor. Her helpless nakedness was so beautiful it evoked a moment of hushed admiration. The captive Drusilla stared, as fascinated as the rest.

Events moved smoothly. Perhaps they had been prearranged. Helen Frobisher wound a firm hand in Diana's hair. Others loosed her chains and held her arms. Save for one instinctive motion of revolt, quickly quelled, the captive woman allowed herself to be escorted in helplessness to the place of her punishment.

It was the same with Drusilla. An authoritative feminine hand possessed itself of silken strands, and complained, giggling, "Oh, damn, no handcuffs!"

Male hands loosed her wrists. It was good to get her arms back. For a moment the reprieved captive considered flight. But those who held her would enjoy a tussle. Her breasts and pubes would be harshly handled before she was again tightly bound. She knew her company. She stood passively while the male chuckled: "Damn good excuse to get rid of my tie." A moment later she discovered how well adapted the male adornment was to female wrists. Hers were cunningly circled, cinched and knotted. The tie felt more secure than rope.

          "What about her feet?"

          "Let her walk around. She can't do anything."

Bereft of her place in the spotlight, Drusilla felt lost. She had become a piece of surplus baggage. It was Diana who was "On Stage." Unobtrusively, she devoted her strength to besting the foulard about her wrists. Surely... ? But the hands were snug, the knot beyond her reach. She looked longingly at the door. But she had seen it closed and locked. As though carried by a wave, she found herself a part of the circle that would witness her darling Mistress' humbling. Her own nudity and tied hands received scant attention.

It was strangely formal. The occupants of the room were witness to a happening. Diana had acquired a presence. Belinda radiated purpose. Quigley hovered, watchful for the niceties of the occasion, The rest, including Minnie, were enraptured spectators of a woman's shame.

When it came to the strapping of her wrists, Diana fought. Drusilla knew the 'now or neve'r' compulsion to evade the total helplessness that would deliver her nudity in which the frightened woman sank to the floor against the grappling hands. But the column from above followed her down. Helen's grip upon her hair dragged back her head. Male fingers were strong in the buckling of the straps round rebellious wrists. Then, before a breathless audience, Diana was obliged to follow the dictates of the column at it once more rose, forcing her to scramble to her feet, and then to stand with arms held high, taut and strained and proudly naked.

          "Diana, you're lovely. Don't feel badly... "

          "Take her up another inch or two."

          "It will hurt her more if her skin's well tightened."

          "What about her ankles?"

          "Let her have her feet. It's lovely when they kick." Drusilla shared the shame. Her own wrists still bore the imprints of the straps. She wrenched at them restlessly in frustration. Agonizedly she beheld her darling stand as she herself had stood. Captive of the column, a vulnerable loveliness available to pain.

Diana knew herself lost. The straps were brutally tight.

They would contain her writhings. In the firmness of their clasp she would be able to lift herself from the floor in a futile seeking to escape the lash. Her hurt. eyes sought and found those of her slave. She smiled and shook her head as though in denial that what was about to happen mattered. She closed her eyes and surrendered her lips to a silence that might be short. A mental vision of Ginny crossed her mind. Where would the radiant child be now! Doubtless locked lonely in her own cell. Bound. Frantic with concern for those from whom she had been sundered. Ardently she prayed they would not transport her to witness her mother's punishment. It would be too cruel.

          "The salutary effect of a flogging can be greatly enhanced by the old formalistic rituals employed in the past century ," Proctor's precise delivery droned its way to dominance.

          "Want her to make a speech, Proc'?"

          "Rub her back with salt?"

Proctor was not easily extinguished. "Both suggestions have some merit," he admonished. "But I had in mind the confessional. It was considered edifying to all that, before the punishment or execution, the convicted person confess his sins, thus obtaining absolution or a degree of mercy."

          "Got anything to confess, Di'?"

          "I bet it's juicy!"

          "Hell, she ain't done nothin'!"

          "It was also customary to provide two floggers. A right hand and a left to ensure evenness of application." Proctor was standing firmly on his Member's Rights.

          "You left-handed, Proc'?"

          "What about you, Belinda?"

          "What say we get the caterers to do the job on her?" Helen's consort was unruffled. "There was always present a clerk or factotum to record the strokes. Maintaining an accurate count in a clear voice. I would be most happy - "

          "You want Proctor to count your stripes, Diana?"

          "Say, Di', I'm left-handed."

          "Maybe she'd sooner count her own."

          "I bet he got to feel her up!"

          "How'd you like to be whipped by a waiter?"

          "It was generally supposed the subject was too preoccupied with, ahem, discomfort to pronounce a proper tally."

Proctor Frobisher's diction flowed on and on, assailed by quips that halted him no whit, but which made Drusilla long to lash out verbally in defense of the woman she adored. Diana herself refused to respond. She recognized this as part of her punishment for a sin she had not committed. The group was enjoying her and themselves. Nothing she could say or do would influence anything. Her role was to provide them with the manifestations of her suffering so that they would be sexually aroused. She drew scant comfort from the knowledge that some, if not all, the females present had stood as she stood now. She paled and her heart thudded painfully as Belinda and Helen moved to where she stood. Each held a whip. Each one had stripped naked to the waist.

It was immensely dramatic, almost unbearably erotic as the female whippers found their places and measured their thongs against the white and helpless back. To one side stood Proctor, armed with clipboard and pencil, his lean features solemnly stern and righteous. Drusilla had the sense of being transported to another age. The preparations for the flogging of Diana Winslow had become breathlessly impressive.

          "One."

Proctor's pronouncement and his tick upon the paper were swallowed up in the avid concentration upon ridged flesh and the silent motions by which Mrs. Diana Winslow acknowledged her agony. To Drusilla, they were beautiful and terrible. Hating herself, she knew she was sharing the heated excitation of the rest of those who watched. Her loins were afire even though her eyes held tears. Her bound hands would absolve her from nothing.

          "Two."

The first blow had been Belinda's, the second Helen's.

The face of each was alight with glory as she surveyed her handiwork. The whippers stood back to admire what they had wrought. The nakedness of the woman they had lashed paid tribute to their skill with fluid writhings, limited by her strapped wrists, but shocking in their mute testimony to pain.

          "Three."

Drusilla flinched as though the cut was upon herself.

She, too, thought of Ginny held somewhere helpless while her mother was striped for the delectation of the group and the more personal animus of Belinda Pendleton. The suffused bars upon white skin stood out like a beacon across the strained back.

          "Four."

Diana screamed. It was the bursting of a dam of silence sustained by a pride now defeated in the dust. She leaped wildly in her bonds, her legs thrashing, her hair tossed back and forth between raised arms. Her vocal protest spilled over into words. "No! Oh, no! No more! No more! Oh, please!"

          "She isn't enjoying it," Helen drawled reproachfully. "She'll love this one," said Belinda.

Diana did not love the fifth biting cut. She howled in a bitterness of anger, shame and pain. She lunged and surged against her strapped wrists, uncaring of the delight her struggles generated within the loins of her audience.

          "I'm almost ashamed. of her," Helen declaimed with affected nonchalance.

          "I can't bear it! I can't! Nobody could." Diana's voice rose and fell between her moans. "Quigley, make them stop - make them stop - "

          "You belong to us, dear," Helen Frobisher said with unholy zest, and struck again.

Drusilla beheld the incredible. While her beloved Mistress plunged and screamed, Helen Frobisher slowly circled the wounded nude, examining and listening intently, a quiet and secret smile upon her red lips, her eyes aflame with excitement. Standing before the punished beauty for quiet moments, she then leaned forward and kissed and kissed again the face drawn and lined with pain and apprehension.

          "Isn't she exquisite?"

The exclamation called for no answer. The room remained hushed.

          "But she's so noisy! Not a bit grateful." The room waited. It sensed a purpose.

          "I'd like to teach the darling a lesson. Would' you mind?"

Only Quigley overcame suspense. Quigley was a man always conscious of the proprieties. "We cannot whip Diana more severely," he reprimanded primly. "Her present sentence is fully adequate. You must remember she is not inured to pain."

          "I said teach her a lesson," Helen's voice throbbed. "Please, no more! Quigley, please - please - please!" Diana had ceased to moan. She tossed dank hair back over her pinioned shoulders and looked from one to the other of her captors in helpless appeal. Drusilla sensed her anguished longing to be free.

Casually, as though testing for raindrops, Helen palmed her victim's vulva. Holding up the wet evidence for all to see, she jibed: "I wouldn't say our precious pet was exactly dying."

Drusilla quailed. Her bound hands could not touch her sex. But she knew it would betray her just as had Diana's. Why was it the whip and the cord affected them both so potently! But it needed only a glance at the feminine faces around her to believe that they, too, were cherishing their own heats and pulsing secretions. Some women were born to it. Perhaps they all were but did not know!

          "That's not fair!" Diana retorted, squirming. "There won't be a dry slit in the room, and you know it!" Her appeal roved the avid, intent faces. "Please don't whip me any more. It's too awful."

There was no response. Only the smoldering eyes and Helen's contemptuous: "Crybaby!"

          "Then use another whip; not this brute - and there's no need to hit me so hard."

          "There's no need to hit you at all, darling."

The strapped nudity tensed, as did all those who heard the enigmatic words fall in mockery from Helen's lips. None could doubt a fresh purpose in the woman with the whip. Her eyes scanned her fellow guests as she drawled:

          "I don't find this screamer a satisfying subject - do you?"

          "You mean gag her?"

          "Get the cat and do it right?"

          "Lift her right off the ground?"

Helene was loving every moment. She had the floor. She had the full anguished attention of the woman she had whipped. Diana was gazing at her in pure fear, panting.

          "Wouldn't you all sooner have a girl who KNOWS how to be whipped?"

The question rippled round the room. The implication undoubted but impossible. The young woman who had asked it was exuding vibrations almost tangible.

          "Proctor, may I?"

          "Of course, dear," Proctor sounded proud.

Quigley stepped forward uncertainly. "Helen, what the devil! You don't surely mean - ?"

          "Oh, but I do!"

          "Take Diana's place? Be whipped?"

          "That's right, darling. I'll put on a much better show."

          "Helen, layoff. I want Diana flogged." Belinda was not about to be robbed.

          "But, darling, she can be!"

          "Then let's get on with it. If you want your ass tanned after, I'll be glad to oblige."

          "That would be anticlimax, Belinda dear. Take your pretty crybaby home and be unkind to her, then bring her back for our next meeting. You can take the skin off her back to your heart's content."

          "You're so damned horny you can't bear yourself."

Belinda was off-balance, uncertain. She was also intrigued by a fresh vista of eroticism.

          "I'm quite delightful when I'm whipped. Ask Proctor." Helen contrived to mix coyness and carnality into a sensual blend.

          "My wife is offering you all an immense privilege,"

Proctor droned in faint reproof.

          "You mad at her or something?"

          "Oh, Proc'! Your own wife? Flogged?"

          "Gosh, Helen! You nuts?"

Proctor cleared his throat portentiously. "It is a matter of record that intercourse with a whipped woman is more stimulating. Lying on their lashed back imbues them with an added potency." He parted with a pint-sized smile. "I must confess to a selfish interest."

          "Let's whip every ass in the room," said a male voice "Who gets the job of flogging her?"

          "I bet she can't take it. She'll howl same as Diana." Quigley raised a commanding hand. "Let's take Helen seriously," he commanded. "Proctor's right. We're being offered something way out. We should show gratitude."

The voices droned on, but Drusilla saw only the motions of the protagonists who held the stage. The column slowly descended. Diana sagged in relief. Her hands' were unstrapped from the bar and bound behind her back, wrists crossed, the cords cruel and implacable in Belinda's hands. Diana was pushed aside and would have joined her fellow prisoner had she not been firmly directed to another vantage point. Evidently they were not to be allowed communion.

          "And now, my little chickadee - ?" Belinda's invitation was caustic. The eye she cocked at Helen was sardonic.

Helen was radiant. She was in command, not only of herself but of the room. A mischievous confidence wafted from her like perfume. She pivoted slowly to include all, and flaunted a promise:

          "I'll show you."

Drusilla knew it was beautiful. She could find no other word. It was also erotic - and startling. Startling beyond belief. Helen made herself naked. It was not a "strip" so much as a transformation. She shed her clothes with grace. Nude, she was doubly beautiful. No ribald comment greeted the emergence of her loveliness. With hands clasped behind her neck, she posed for them, thrusting her breast cones and her pubic mound. Having exhibited her body with studied enjoyment, she exploded her bomb.

Drusilla gasped. Her inhalation was echoed by all as Helen's arm casually rose to place her fingers in her hair.

Bald!

The shaven feminine pate was like a beacon, drawing to itself all light, the focus of every eye. Helen's discarded wig lay twisted on the floor. That which had been spoken of in jest had become shockingly real, a thing to grip the loins or touch the heart.

After the first gasp of revulsion, Drusilla realized the continuing presence of beauty. Helen had lost much but gained more. Her pubic hair was gone, shaven from her vulva, her belly and her thighs. Her sex was smooth and provocative in its own nudity, a separate part of her possessing its own personality. The thieving blade had left its own legacy of femaleness.

But it was the head, the denuded female head that riveted attention. Drusilla supposed all heads were not alike, and wondered momentarily about her own. Shaved, would she possess this sleek winsomeness! This smooth, feminine curve and plane, shadowed by a hint of roots within the taut treasure that, without Proctor's razor, might never have been seen! What did it feel like! Her longing to explore its tactility was an agony in her heart. She tugged fretfully at the tie upon her wrists. The shaven Helen was delectable beyond words, an enchantment beyond the norm.

No one spoke. There was no need. The trebly nude young woman placed her wrists within the leather bands and smiled mockingly at Belinda as they were buckled fast with savage strength. The column rose, and with it the helpless hands and arms. The armpits were as devoid of hair as were the pubes.

The depilated darling of the party stood taut upon her toes. Her eyes were heavy lidded in a small half smile, sharing a secret with herself... The room waited breathlessly.

It was one of Belinda's best. No doubt she was venting her vexation with Diana upon this new and helpless loveliness donated for her whip. The lash cut squarely across the wrenched shoulders to bestow its indentation and its crimson line.

As the shrewd blows found their cunning female nestling places, Drusilla realized she was witness to a small miracle. Helen was there, visible, naked, helpless and whipped. But it was her body and her limbs. Somehow the real Helen had found escape and was present only in the sensual movements that began with the first cruel slash and flowered and bloomed with each successive stroke. It was as though Helen was a separate spirit prompting the responses of muscle and sinew for her own enjoyment as well as for the edification of those who watched.

Drusilla flinched beneath each blow. She was there, strapped to the column. She knew! She found it hard not to simulate each undulation of the shaven nakedness. She longed for a taut, raised arm against which to caress her cheek as the thong cut her flesh. Helen was visibly finding joy in this frictioning of herself. Sometimes it would be her thighs, laved one against the other as her leg rose and fell or swung slowly to achieve maximum contact. When Belinda's whip found its way between parted thighs they obligingly parted again in a wider separation to invite a second private punishment of shaven skin.

          "Perhaps that is enough," Proctor's voice was gentle but authoritative.

Belinda paused. She was sweating more than the torso she was flogging. She found a handkerchief in her handbag on the floor and patted beneath her breasts and beneath her arms. Then, amusedly, performed the same service in the exposed armpits of her victim. "I've got to hand it to you, honey," she affirmed admiringly. "You're good."

          "My wife is superlative," Proctor conceded grandly. "It will be acceptable that she remain strapped as she is should any of you wish to examine... "

          "I propose a toast," said Quigley.

The bottles and the glasses clinked. A kindly hand lifted something to Drusilla's lips. She drained it avidly. When she made to go to the side of her bound Mistress, it was Minnie's hand and Minnie's voice, "Here, drink mine, too. But stay away from Diana. You're not allowed to talk to each other. You'll be watched."

Drusilla could have wept. It was all so hopeless. They were tied and had to do what they were told. They would inhabit separate prisons. Things would be done to each that the other would know nothing of. Belinda would be cruel, and in a week would bring Diana back to this room for the flogging she had partly escaped today. By that time she, too, might have earned a flogging! It seemed unlikely one would not come her way... ! Miserably, she turned her attention to Helen.

The whipped beauty was still busy. It was as though the thong was still finding its crevices within her skin. Her sensuous writhing had not stopped. Her cheek was still finding comfort against her arm. From time to time a foot would caress the column of her leg and thigh as high as it was possible for it to reach - and then the other! Helen was in a self hypnosis of sensation. She had enjoyed a love affair with Belinda's whip. So far as she was concerned, her flogging could have gone on and on - ! Drusilla circled and examined the striations. They were many! They were ridged! They were scarlet and purple!

They were beautiful.

Ashamed of her lust, she turned away. She wished she had been vouchsafed panties... Her thighs were glistening wet and she could not rub them dry. Unhappily, Drusilla watched a triumphant Belinda take a handful of Diana's hair and propel her bound captive from the room. Now she was alone with friends who were not friends at all. She sought Minnie and demanded another drink. Their eyes met above the rim of the glass.

In Minnie's there was only sympathy.

Chapter Eleven

Behind Bars

          "It is the male prerogative, Drew." Quigley's voice was gentle.

          "I don't care!" Drusilla's retort was petulantly resentful.

          "I don't want to be - let's call it by its proper name - I don't want to be - fucked!"

          "You really have nothing to say about it."

          "Perhaps not. But I'll turn myself off - be no good!"

          "Drew, don't be silly. There are ways - !"

Drusilla wanted to cry, to beat her fists, to stamp, to scream. She was being reduced to a nothing, a neat parcel still bound with a man's tie around her wrists. The knots had been examined and found adequate to keep her helpless. She supposed she was to spend the night thus secured - in Quigley's bed. Her responses were sulkily defiant.

          "You mean you can torture me until I spread my legs nicely?"

          "No problem about spreading your legs, Drew," Quigley was trying to be patient. "You're helpless. I can tie you spread-eagle... I can even put a pillow under your bottom."

          "I'm sure you can." Drusilla wrenched angrily at her fastened wrists. "But I still won't make it good for you. I'll hate every poke."

          "Diana made you that much of a Lesbian?" Quigley's tone was cooling.

          "Does it matter? I just don't want to be fucked - not by any man."

          "But a woman's tongue's O.K.?"

          "Well, why not! It's my cunt, isn't it? I ought to have something to say about what goes inside."

          "Drew, you're forgetting." His voice was blandly final.

          "You're a slave."

          "Oh, that - horseshit!"

          "Well, aren't you?"

          "I'm kidnaped. Quigley, I don't want to sleep with you."

          "Would you like me to take you back downstairs?" Drusilla's heart missed a beat. She most ardently did not want to return to The Room and its myriad of possibilities of pain. "All right then." She surrendered listlessly. "Go ahead and use my cunt to plant your seed. I can't stop you. But don't expect love as well."

          "I expect something more than sulky hostility from a slave girl."

          "Piss on your slave girl business!"

          "You are one!"

          "All right, so I'm a slave. Go ahead. Use me."

          "I want more from you than that. We've known each other a long time. I'm fond of you."

          "Damned funny way of showing it."

          "I intend to have intercourse with you often."

          "That word makes it respectable? Quigley, be a dear and chain me up or something for the night and let's both get some sleep."

          "Not until we've settled this."

          "If you insist on love along with your tail, you'd better take me downstairs and start whipping me - or whatever."

          "Drusilla! ! !"

          "Well, I can't help it. You ask too much. I used to like you - "

          "But you don't now?"

          "Dammit, Quig', you're talking about torturing me! What d'you expect of a girl?"

Quigley Albertson eyed his recent acquisition with exasperation. Drusilla's constant strivings against her simple bond kept him persistently erect. She was beautiful and responsive enough to offer him more than an opened crotch. But he found the idea of whipping her into a tearful or hysterical submission displeasing. He was more irritated than angry with her obduracy. His possession of this entrancing creature would be long enough to ensure a final victory. But the events of the evening plus the sight of her tensed nudity had excited him to a demanding need. She was his! She was here - helpless! And yet...?

          "Drusilla. Be a nice girl. Be sensible."

          "I am a nice girl." She shrugged disdainfully and hoped he could not discern her fear of the downstairs room.

Quigley sighed and said: "Very well, Drew - " She almost felt sorry for him.

A girl's hair was a great convenience for slave owners, Drusilla reflected bitterly, as a male hand gathered hers and led her to where she had no wish to go.

The Room had been cleared. Its party over, it had resumed its functional appearance. To the naked woman with bound hands it seemed trebly bleak. Drusilla was trembling.

          "I shall cane your bottom. You can tell me when to stop."

It was uncomfortable and demeaning to stand with her arms dragged high to an unseen pulley. Obeying the compulsion of wracked shoulders Drusilla bent forward, her hair falling to the floor. It was very simple. Quigley was seeking a quick and easy disposal of her intransigence. Her protruding bottom was helpfully available for the convenience of the cane.

It was like an internal explosion. The flash of fire, the scream of every nerve. On top of her day, it was too much. Drusilla wailed and wept. Her tears were unashamed.

Quigley surveyed his prize in dismay. Whatever reaction he had expected, it was not this. Tears were Minnie's last resort. They left him disturbed and uncertain. "Stop that blubbering," he admonished crisply.

          "I can't!" More tears.

          "If you don't stop crying I shall strike you again."

          "If you hit me again I won't be able to stop crying." Quigley observed logic. Quigley, too, had endured a long and tiring day. Bed loomed invitingly. "You're not going to get away with this," he declared ominously.

          "I don't expect to," Drusilla sniffed sadly and waited for her next cut.

It did not come. Instead, her arms were lowered and loosed, leaving her still prisoner of the foulard. Without hope, she watched Quigley gather rope. When he repossessed her hair, she made no protest.

          "I do this to Minnie," Quigley said gruffly. "It gives excellent results."

Drusilla supposed it might. It was not until she had been backed against the tree and belted to it with rope round her tummy that her wrists were freed of their male adornment. It was instantly replaced, this time with her hands behind the slender trunk.

          "It's quite a big garden and lots of trees. No one can see." Quigley did not pause in his task of welding her nakedness to the trunk. The rough bark hurt her back, but it was better than the Whip. Drusilla kept a discreet silence while her feet, her knees and her shoulders were securely roped. When Quigley was done with her she could scarcely twitch.

          "I don't suppose you'll enjoy spending the night like this," he said dourly. "But it gives you a chance to think. I've found it a wonderful softener with obstinate females. You may even be glad to see me in the morning... Oh, and by the way, there's this."

The small ball went into her mouth easily. Straps held it there.

          "To gag you properly the ball should be much bigger," Quigley explained. "But this prevents you screaming or calling for help, whilst allowing you to breathe properly."

Drusilla made sounds. They were small and absurd.

Quigley nodded in a satisfied way. He turned and left her.

It was a summer night without chill. But the woman tied naked to a tree had never felt so bare. The night stretched endlessly. Her tummy flipped at thought of small rodent creatures, Of beetles, or a dog! There would be the cold of morning. There might be mosquitoes... Drusilla's mind roved and found easy visionings of horror.

She struggled. With all this rope, surely there had to be a bit of slack! But Quigley's competence was soon manifest. The rope bands upon her nakedness were neat and very tight. Before morning they would hurt. There was no escape from them. Each was carefully cinched. She was captive without hope.

The gag was a punishment. She was hating it more with every minute. It made her drool and turned her experimental screams into tiny mockeries of sound. There could be little doubt the rising sun would find her as tightly secured as when she was left alone. She uttered a heartfelt but silent "Damn!"

She could have been warm in bed! The price of that comfort began to seem small when compared to her present plight. Quigley knew his stuff. She could well picture poor Minnie or herself greeting him tearfully and gratefully when he deigned to release them. Drusilla tossed her hair in bitter frustration. It was the only motion she could make.

She was a slave! And this was the sort of thing a slave might expect. Slavery to a Master would bear little resemblance to slavery to Diana. Only the rope would be the same. Resentfully she faced the certainty of becoming amenable to her Master's love-making. Quite probably she would eventually be grateful for his attention. He would never allow herself and Minnie... !

The sound was faint, but it was there! She tensed fearfully within her bonds, envisioning creatures of the night. But the sounds persisted and became more positive. Someone was exploring the Albertsons' garden. When the shadow became real before herself and her tree, she was too petrified to do more than whimper into her gag. Under its prolonged scrutiny, she cringed in total impotence.

          "Why, Mrs. Hammill!"

Petty Prentiss' voice was thrilled and intrigued. At the sound of its youthful excitement, the prisoner of the tree exhaled a great sigh of thankfulness...

Young but nimble fingers brought blessed relief from a hateful gag.

          "Petty -- Oh, thank God! Oh, Petty -!"

Petty tittered. "Is this for fun, Mrs. Hammill, or should I let you loose?"

          "Let me loose! Oh, darling, quick!"

          "I thought something was wrong, so I broke a window and got in. Ginny was locked and chained in the cell and I had no keys. But she told me where to come; to come and see if I could find - ! I say, Mrs. Hammill, should I have gone to the police?"

          "No, dear, no. You did absolutely right. But please oh, please untie me."

          "And Ginny didn't know about Mrs. Winslow. Is she there?"

          "She will be when we get there. You will help me, Petty?"

Petty giggled. Evidently she had never been tied to a tree. "Of course I'll help, Mrs. Hammill. I'm so thrilled. I told Mummy I was spending the night with Ginny - it's not really a fib."

          "No, of course not! Oh, Petty, I'm so glad you came. Hurry!"

          "You do look nice like that, Mrs. Hammill. I do envy you and Mrs. Winslow and Ginny. Is Mrs. Winslow tied up somewhere?"

          "Petty! Please! Get me loose!"

          "Oops, sorry! But, like I said, you do look so sweet - " The young fingers had trouble with Quigley's knots.

Drusilla needed all her fortitude to fight back panic while they fumbled. If her Master returned and found them - ! She longed to help but could not. She was totally helpless. With the falling away of each rope her suspense deepened. So much to lose! So much to gain! When, at last, she was joined to her tree by no more than the foulard on her wrists, her rescuer paused and became thoughtful.

          "I say, Mrs. Hammill, what are we going to do?"

          "Get me loose, that's what!" Drusilla knew herself still helpless.

          "Yes, for sure! But I mean... You're naked." Petty desisted in her endeavor and returned to view, obviously puzzling. "I mean, back at Ginny's place, do we break in again?"

          "Yes. Oh. Petty - !"

          "But suppose we get captured?" Petty sounded hopeful. "We won't! But if someone grabs me, you run for the police, O.K.?"

          "O.K. Oh, Mrs. Hammill, this is so gorgeously exciting! But what about the keys to the cell and an that?"

          "I think I know where to find them. Petty, are you going to untie - !"

          "Oh, wow, I forgot! Just a moment."

It was more than a moment. Drusilla could believe it hours before the adornment for a male neck was peeled from her damp wrists and her hands became her own again. She massaged in an ecstasy of thankfulness.

          "Isn't it lucky I'm wearing panties and bra, Mrs. Hammill? You can have my dress."

Petty's slender covering suffered in the exchange. But it rendered Drusilla's breasts and pubic hair into a tenuous privacy. They traversed the midnight streets like active moonbeams, hiding when they must, running gleefully when they could.

          "It's the little window by the back door, Mrs. Hammill." It was still broken, the sash still raised. They climbed into the familiar utility room. Stealing quietly downstairs into the passage, they heard a familiar voice.

          "Mumsy, don't take on so. If it wasn't for these handcuffs behind my back I'd - "

There came the murmur of another voice, low and lost.

          "But, Mummy, will it be for always? Won't she ever let us free?"

Diana's voice became clearly audible. "Ginny darling, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. Mrs. Pendleton can go home to her own place every night, just like now, and come back to us during the day. It looks foolproof. I think she'll keep us a long time. We'd better resign ourselves to that."

          "Why does she handcuff us? We can't get out of the cell."

          "It amuses her - and keeps me so I can't do anything."

          "You mean, like fight? And she didn't have to hang the keys on the passage wall where we can see 'em but can't reach. "

          "It doesn't matter where they are, Ginny."

          "Yes, it does, darlings. It matters a lot."

          "Drusilla! ! !"

Two captive faces turned eagerly to the bars.

          "And Petty!!!" Two voices spoke rapturously in unison.

Then exclaimed in amazement, "You're not handcuffed!"

          "Free as a bird," Drusilla gloried in their joy. "You mean it's over?"

          "Your slavery is. In the morning we'll catch Belinda unaware and give her a taste of her own medicine. Three of us should be able to handle her."

          "Make it four?" implored Petty.

          "Oh, Drew, I do love you!" Ginny was once again the joyous moppet with sparkling eyes.

          "It's Petty you have to thank."

The keys were used to the accompaniment of delighted chatter. When Ginny's handcuffs were removed, her bottom was patted and she was told to go and find clothes and make coffee. There were hugs and kisses and a scampering of youthful feet. When the Mistress and her slave were alone in the suddenly empty cell they stood awkwardly in indecision.

          "Am I still handcuffed on purpose, Drew?" Diana's voice was wary.

          "Yes."

          "You're going to reverse our roles, darling? Maybe you should." Diana sounded weary. She grinned wanly at her erstwhile slave. "That bitch spoiled things. I feel soiled, and cheap, and ineffectual. I'm no Mistress."

          "Yes, you are."

          "I screamed... ! Oh, Drew!"

          "I'd have screamed, too."

          "But I'm me! At least, I was me! Now I don't know. Drew, leave me handcuffed. So long as it's you - "

          "I intend to."

Diana tensed, her head reared, then drooped. "I don't mind. I'm glad. Keep me always - the way I was going to keep you."

Drusilla became a whirlwind of arms and lips. "Silly, silly! Ginny can't possibly have a slave girl for a mother."

They looked at each other and laughed. "I'd forgotten that," Diana admitted. "But you're keeping me handcuffed for something. What is it? Tell me?"

          "You'll stay handcuffed until I'm sure you're going to be sensible."

          "Drew darling, if you mean being your Mistress again, I can't. It's ruined. You saw what Belinda made of me. Everyone saw. I'm just Diana. That's all."

          "Then you can stay handcuffed."

          "But, Drew... ?"

          "Ginny can have one key and I'll have the other. We'll keep you as a pet."

          "Drusilla!! !"

          "Yes, darling?"

          "We can't! I'd love it, I'm shamed! But there's Ginny."

          "I knew I'd have this trouble with you," Drusilla said cheerfully. "If you won't have me for your slave, I'll make a present of myself to Ginny. She'd put my handcuffs back on in two seconds flat."

          "And cane your bottom to boot, I've no doubt." Diana managed a wry grin.

          "Well, what's it to be? Want me to call Ginny?"

          "Oh, Drew!" There was infinite longing in the words.

          "Yes, Mistress?"

          "You're too beautiful. Too perfect. I don't deserve - "

          "I also love you."

The pause was brief. Diana turned her back. "Unlock me."

It was a precious moment. When Diana turned again, her slave girl held the handcuffs and the key. They looked deep into each other's eyes before she proffered them. When the Mistress took the familiar metal in her hands, she asked softly: "Front or back, dear?"

          "In front, Mistress," Drusilla requested demurely. "I have to lift my coffee cup." She knelt and raised her hands. The shining steel was warm, prisoning her wrists with its own special sounds, tightly and forever.

          "You look so sweet," said Ginny from the door. "I told her the same thing," said Petty proudly.