"We won't gag you, Miss Harding." James Pollard managed to make the concession sound munificent.
"You'll go to prison, you know that, don't you?" She glared defiantly at him over a prisoned arm. James ignored the threat. "Someone's bound to find you sooner or later," he consoled cheerfully.
"If you've made the servants helpless it could be days!" Yola was frightened, I could tell. I longed to speak. I'd have promised anything if only they would leave her free. I cursed the gag that filled and sealed my lips. I had a mental vision of my darling standing there strapped to that damn post all through the night. It would be terrible for her, much worse than for me.
"Shouldn't we undress the lady?" one of the helpers inquired brightly. "She doesn't look quite right as is."
"Nudity is implicit in her circumstance," James agreed pensively. "What are your sentiments, Miss Harding?"
"You are being beastly," Yola sniffed angrily.
"De rigueur, wouldn't you say?" Yolanda twisted uselessly in her bonds and said nothing. "I'm sure the servants deserve a treat when they release you," James said generously. "O.K. boys." It does not take long to undress a girl who is strapped helplessly. Yolanda stood, her wrists fastened to each side of the post and hands clenched 'till they showed white while she was stripped. What could not be unfastened was torn. I watched the blush envelop her. I knew what it was like.
"Lovely chassis."
"Super tits."
"Come 'round here and look at her quim. What a bush!" The boys enjoyed themselves. Yolanda stood, flushed and mute, while her naked attributes were frankly discussed.
"Shouldn't we take her along too?"
"Lovely crumpet, I bet." But it was James Pollard who dropped the bomb.
"Interrupted something, didn't we?" he recalled casually.
"Little Buttercup being swished, eh."
"Sweetie-pie getting her arse whipped."
"You're right! Hardly sporting… " I saw Yola tense, she was a frightened statue in marble, I myself was rigid with premonition.
"Only fair to carry on, wouldn't you say, Miss Harding?" It was cat and mouse. Yolanda had no chance. I think she instinctively knew that to plead would enhance their pleasure in what they were about to do. She kept silent and bowed her head between her captive arms. It was her only refuge.
"A par figure of a hundred, I believe? May we have the tally on the balance to go, Miss Harding?" He made it sound like a query at Bridge. There was complete silence. It was broken by a glib suggestion from one of the helots: "We can count the fresh stripes on Buttercup and subtract." It was a labour of love for them. Shamefully, but in an urgent need to reduce Yola's sentence, I spread my legs so that they could count any marks hidden where they might not think to look.
"Naughty, naughty! Whipped the poor girl's cunt, eh."
"And look at Flossie's things! Best way is to count the ridges with a finger." I stood while they had their fun with my whipmarks and my sex. They saw my wet and enjoyed it. Ruefully, I knew that had it not been for the agony about to befall Yolanda I would have enjoyed the piquancy of this erotic interlude. I belong to Yolanda, but I do not dislike men, not the right ones. The two sets of handcuffs so totally secured me I had little sensation of being more than a palpitating package. The shining steel and the gag divorced me from participation in anything.
"About three dozen, I'd say. Leaves sixty-four to go."
"Hard to tell — there's some overlap. I say, Miss Harding, would fifty leave honour satisfied?"
"There's no honour in what you're doing." Yola's voice was piteous.
"We're only finishing what you started, Miss." In argument Yola was lost. She had been whipping me. We all knew this. Logic would dictate that if they did not whip her they should finish whipping me. One of us would get it. But it is one thing to be whipped by a girl who loves you, it is something twice as fearful to be whipped by three vigorous men! I looked at my naked Mistress standing invitingly where I had stood, and quailed. They whipped my darling. Helplessly, I stood and watched the weals spring up and become scarlet on the innocent scented flesh I adored. Yolanda stood still for the first few, but soon she was writhing and moaning with each lash. When her first high scream pealed through the room I could endure no more. Furiously, I leaped to where she was bound and pressed my own nakedness against hers in the only protection I could offer. I glared balefully at James Pollard.
"Greater love hath no wench… " The voice was sarcastic. "Dammit, these two have a thing going!"
"Wish Flossie loved me like that." James shook his head sadly. "O.K., O.K. You've made me feel like a bastard. We'll return to the business at hand." He made a wry motion. "I'd never have believed what an erotic joy it is to whip a naked girl." He eyed his companions ruefully. "How'd it hit you?"
"I've got a simply shocking erection," one admitted.
"I couldn't have borne the fifty," said the other. "I'd have been obliged to fuck one of them if we'd continued." Men! They're nothing but a throbbing penis. They're like those metal detectors you scan the ground with. They pick up a girl's sex and go beep, beep! Absurd creatures!
"Sorry and all that, Miss Harding. Just too damn inviting, y'know." James sounded as though he meant it. I stepped away from my hurt darling. She was quietly sobbing and rubbing her wet cheeks against her strapped arms. I watched, amazed, the thing James did next. Extracting a slip of paper from his wallet he used a thumb tack to affix it to the whipping post before the eyes of the girl who was it's captive. Moving closer I read its message. It was a Roland Bolling cheque for one hundred thousand pounds in favour of Yolanda Harding. Whether she or I liked it or not, I was paid for. The rest was swift. My ankles were roped together. One of the boys had found the blanket I had yearned for through dungeon nights. I was laid on it and rolled into a dark bundle. The last I saw of Yola was a wealed back and two wide and anguished eyes. Rope went 'round and 'round the blanket and me. In helpless sightlessness I was carried from Castle Glynt.
It was a long journey. I guessed it to be in the back seat of a car. I wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was better than the boot. After a few experimental twitchings I gave up the idea of escape or getting loose. I just endured. Slave girls get used to it. There was conversation but it didn't come through the blanket enough to help. I was then carried around a lot, put down, picked up, and finally stood upright. Strong hands steadied me while others stripped me of the rope and the blanket. While I was still blinking they also untied my ankles.
"Superb!" The voice was foreign. The approval sincere. "We were certain you would be pleased, sir." James Pollard's tone was deferential. Everything I saw spelt money. The room was a library, or study, or office, or all three. There was a business-like desk. I stood before it where I had been placed. Gazing at me across it's polished surface was a man, undistinguished save for that faintly withered look that comes from a lifetime of worrying about large sums of money. James Pollard lolled negligently in a chair to one side. He winked at me. It was a nice boyish wink that hardly belonged in this oppressively opulent room. I had no idea what it was meant to convey. On the basis that attack is the best defense, I asked firmly: "Would someone like to take these things off my elbows?"
"Come, come, my dear," said the withered character. "They do wonders for your breasts. Indulge an old man." Believe it or not, it was the first moment I'd felt naked. "I can always stick my breasts out to be admired. They're very nice breasts. They don't need handcuffs on my elbows," I told him haughtily.