“Would you! I wish you would. Naomi, I really am frightened of being taken back to England, drugged in a box, and waking up in a dungeon. Or a rotten little cell. Please, Naomi, keep Elizabeth here if you can.”
“You prefer being chained in here like this? You’re crazy.”
“Well, at least you leave the door open so I can see the sunlight. When you’re taken downstairs at Rockley, there isn’t any sunlight and you know you’re in trouble.”
“But you’re in trouble here, darling. I’m going to have you whipped!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Naomi, don’t harp on it. I know it’s coming and I’m trying not to plead or beg or be silly about it. But if you think I’m not frightened, you’re nuts. Being whipped is awful!”
Naomi laughed, amused by my dejection. “Have you forgotten, darling, both of us were whipped a long time ago, strung up by our wrists, if I remember correctly. I thought you handled yourself rather well.”
Naomi has a gift for making the incredible seem entirely possible. Having a practicing female lawyer whipped naked didn’t seem anything out of the way or worthy of discussion. “I think we should stop worrying about what’s going to happen to you tomorrow,” she said cheerfully. “There’s a lot of other things I’d like to do to you, if I have the time, before Uncle Andrew shows up. You mentioned being hung by your wrists. I’ll try and fit it in someplace.”
It was just that simple for Naomi, just make a list of tortures and then do them to the helpless girl. But she was as much a part of Plessious as the sunshine or Ivory and Thea. And, of course, the girl with all the blonde hair. If she actually did succeed in keeping Elizabeth and I captive on the island, she had a herd of girls, a group of beauties that would drive any man wild, to say nothing of a woman! Here I was chained in a condition no one could possibly believe. I even stayed kneeling long after she had gone. Sure it hurt my knees, but pain can also be a companion in the awful boredom of imprisonment.
I didn’t sleep well on the cold stone of the floor. In trying to avoid thinking about being whipped, my mind dwelled instead on Elizabeth. I wanted her terribly but I was pretty sure I’d never be given her again. It was ironic that at the very moment of capturing me and making me helpless as she did, we both lost our freedom, and now were thrust into a condition in which we might never love again. It was the story of me and Ivory all over again, I actually shed a few tears in this contemplation of my lot.
In the morning it was darling Ivory who brought me the breakfast I could not eat. Without words, we clung together, in remembered love and said nothing about anything except ourselves. I knew I would never get Ivory back, any more than I would ever get Elizabeth, and I wondered if Naomi had sent her just to tease me. Ivory said she had only five minutes and then must report back to the house. She carried my breakfast away and that was that! I had even forgotten to ask her the time I would be whipped.
Alone I stood and leaned against the wall. My hands were still fastened behind my back and I was shivering with fear at the sentence I had yet to serve, the punishment still to mark my skin. It was a horrible impotence with the open door and sunshine beyond mocking me, In anger at myself and everything else, I sought what relief I could find in motion, gathering my chain in handcuffed hands. I clutched it’s links and lunged back and forth in a futile hope of finding a weakness in the tether. It was quite useless, there was no liberty for Miss Diane Durrant. Panting, I finally desisted and resumed a pose of dejection to await my summons to the whip.
It is so easy to control a naked girl. Naomi unlocked my collar and she and Honey each took one of my bare arms and led me to the place of execution. I could do nothing, my hands were still handcuffed behind my back as I stumbled forward on the path I had no wish to travel. The two of them spoke brightly of the weather and the dinner menu for that evening. Our destination turned out to be the big tree with wide spread boughs most suitable for the tethering of girls. Darling Elizabeth was already standing naked with her hands roped high above her head. She greeted me cheerfully enough but I could tell she was also scared. It is easy to make fun of being whipped but another thing when the moment comes and you stand helpless and naked, knowing yourself about to be hurt, your courage leaves you. Ivory and Thea had handled Elizabeth, and in a few minutes I, too, was relieved of handcuffs, my wrists corded, and my arms drawn hard until I stood ten feet from Elizabeth to share her agony. Our eyes sought each other’s constantly, but in love and not in hope.
“Come along, girls, we’ll let them stand a while. Suspense will do them as much good as the whip,” Naomi said cheerfully as she gathered her girls and led them from the place of punishment to leave my love and I in a fearful isolation.
Our arms were spread wide as well as high, but Elizabeth and I were not really stretched. Our heels were still upon the soil. Our punishment was to be the leather thongs and not the pains of suspension. “Well, anyway, once we get this over, we can enjoy the island and the girls,” Elizabeth said bravely, “But, gosh, I never thought I’d be this scared. It’s creepy being tied like this, I seem to be all armpits and breasts.”
Poor darling Elizabeth! She was dreaming if she thought good times were ahead. Remorsefully I reminded, “Even after we’ve been whipped, we’ll still be prisoners, darling. Naomi will never give us any freedom. She will simply amuse herself with us as a pleasant change from the teenagers she owns. I’m tied tight, I can’t get loose, How about you?”
“Not a hope, Diane, I’m fixed for sure. There’s butterflies in my tummy and something crawling up and down my spine. Oh, damn, I wish we could talk our way out of this!”
“All you need, girls, is a good, sharp knife.” The male voice was laughing.
Hugo Markham stood surveying our nakedness with masculine approval. Hugo had never been my idea of a knight in shinning armor but that’s the way I saw him now. I did not know or care how he had come, but he could not fail to know my thankfulness. “Oh, Hugo, thank you. I’m so glad you came. Cut us down quick.”
Hugo did nothing except provide an even wider male smirk.
“Give me time to look at you.”
“We’re going to be whipped. Please hurry before they come back.”
“How much will you pay?”
“Hugo, don’t joke. This isn’t funny, if you don’t hurry up, you’ll have four young women to deal with, and they might just happen to get the best of you. You won’t be welcome.”
Hugo was making no pretense of being a gentlemen. Casually he went back and forth between Elizabeth and I, and, without shame, enjoyed what men call ‘feeling us up.’ He gave careful attention to everything female we possessed. Standing while playing with my breasts, he reminded, “Lawyers charge a pretty penny for everything they do. You can’t expect me to rescue you for nothing.” He pinched my nipples to emphasis his point.
“All right, anything you want! But cut us down!”
“Does that ‘anything I want’ include total obedience, doing anything I want, being a humble little slavegirl?”
“Yes. Yes! I really will be anything you want if only you’ll free us. And get us off this damned island.” I was desperate.
“My, my! You don’t look the least bit like a lawyer, Diane, And aren’t you forgetting I’m going to whip that nice skin of yours the same as you’re waiting for here. If I take you away, you can’t be the least bit sure I’m doing you a favor. I want to be fair.”