“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.
11
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.