Sharon

Sharon by F. E.

campbell

Other novels published by H.O.M. Inc. MONICA I MELYNDA I THE SIBLINGS I THE PRISONER OF ISMAUL I MONICA II MELYNDA II THE SIBLINGS II THE PRISONER OF ISMAUL II MIRANDA I DORINDA I CAPTIVE OF THE PRIORY THE GIRL BEHIND THE WALL I MIRANDA II DORINDA II THE DUNGEONS OF HAGADAR THE SEIGNEURY I THE SEIGNEURY II BARBARA

THE GIRL BEHIND THE WALL II CHAINS OF JEHDRA MOIRA IN JEOPARDY I WANDA & THE WHIP I STRANGE CAPTIVITY JEWEL SUKIE WANDA & THE WHIP II SLAVE GIRL AND THE LASH MOIRA IN JEOPARDY II SUSAN CATHY BARBE BOUND JULIE DRUSILLA THE GIRL IN CHAINS SHARON BELOVED BONDS

illustrated by the Bishop

An HOM Book Published by HOM Inc. Copyright 1982 by HOM Inc. P.O. Box 7302, Van Nuys, California 91409 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written persmission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may wish to quote brief passages in connection with review for a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television. First printing: 1982 Printed in the United States of America Note: All the characters and events are fictitious. No resemblance to real persons is intended or should be inferred. Cover art by The Bishop

Chapter One The House of Bondage The woman allowed little of her amusement to colour her polite smile of attention. He was so much as she had pictured: so young! So appealingly male! So intent. He was in awe of her, that was understood. But he would always have the courage to place fear or embarrassment where it belonged. She liked him, and deplored the wounds he so determinedly sought. "Miss Carruthers, I must insist on seeing Sharon Tredgold." He was so earnest, so flushed with purpose. The woman made her voice as gentle a weapon as she could. "Even if I tell you it is no kindness to either of you." "It would be a kindness to me." Nigel Greyston waved a deprecating hand. "I'm so . . . at sea! Whatever there is to be told - I should hear it from her." His voice was dogged. "She does not wish to see you. I talk to you by Sharon's request as . . . well, as a friend." "There is too much I do not understand." He eyed her stubbornly. "Is Presteigne a school, or something else?" "What else could it be, Mr. Greyston?" He shifted uncomfortably. "I would rather not say what I am thinking." Chartreuse Carruthers permitted a small trill of laughter. "You think it is a prison. Is that it?" "Can you blame me?" "You are in love, Mr. Greyston." "And you think it absurd - that I am young!" "Love flourishes on drama. It would hurt Sharon less to dispense with it." "She has been orphaned . . . and sent here." Nigel Greyston looked at the wise feminine eyes appealingly. "This executor I don't like, Lord Halcyon. There are stories Sharon is so alone?" "No more alone than half the girls in Presteigne." "It is then . . . that sort of place?" It was the woman's turn to flush. "Presteigne is not a 'sort of place,' Mr. Greyston. Under Lord Halcyon's patronage our credentials are impeccable. Half our girls are titled. I would have thought

the demesne itself would have reassured." "I wish to see and talk with Sharon." Chartreuse Carruthers sighed and tried again. "This is still Queen Victoria's England, Mr. Greyston. Sharon is nineteen. She is not of age. Her guardian deems it desirable that she finish her education here. He believes, and I concur, that affairs of the heart marriage and . . . well, love - male associations She is altogether too young. Such matters are inappropriate to her present condition." "What is her condition?" Chartreuse made her voice authoritatively firm. "Sharon Tredgold is enrolled as a senior pupil in one of the most exclusive girls' schools in England. She will receive special coaching in both French and German. It is that simple, Mr. Greyston." "If it is that simple, I should be able to speak to her." The Headmistress sighed again. With the Nigel Greystons of her experience it was never easy to contrive a satisfactory congé. They were at a costive age. She judged him at twenty-one, and eager to affirm his majority. Perhaps, after all, it would be best . . . ! The girl seemed sensible enough. Properly handled, the contretemps could be disposed of once and for all. Halcyon would not want to be irritated by importunate youth. She smiled winningly in compromise. "Very well, Mr. Greyston. Let us make no mountains out of molehills. If you will follow me . . . ." To Nigel Greyston it was a small victory confirming his manhood. To Chartreuse Carruthers it was a small and boring task to be summarily disposed of. She pushed open the heavy Gothic door with an air of disassociation from what portended. "I will leave you quite alone," she said generously. Should you want me when you leave, I will be in my study." The chamber was large. It was light and airy. Its vaulted ceiling was supported by several narrow circular columns. With her back to one of them there leant a girl who looked up in surprise, her meditation shattered. "Sharon!" Nigel Greyston's instinctive leap forward paused uncertainly. There was something strange. Something not quite right. "Oh, hello, Nigel." The young feminine exclamation was without warmth. "I hoped you wouldn't come. I asked Miss Carruthers -" He stood, held not only by the lacklustre greeting, but also by the strange garb of the girl he desired. A cascade of white fell from her neck to billow about her feet like the chaste sheet of a penitent. From above its purity Sharon's dark eyes were enigmatic. "I . . . I had to come." He was angry with his implied apology. "I couldn't believe . . . ?" "There's nothing to believe, Nigel. We've both been a bit silly." It was the tone of a mother to a child. "But after-! Oh, Sharon, what the devil!" The lovely face above the whiteness managed a wan smile. "I do wish you'd listened to Miss Carruthers, Nigel. This isn't a bit sensible. I don't want you hurt." "It's the not knowing that hurts - dammit, Sharon -" "There's nothing to know, silly. I'll be here for . . . for awhile. What we had . . . what we'd talked about - it was too soon. Please, Nigel, go away and live your life." "You're my life." His stubborn boyishness was both endearing and irritating. The girl surveyed him with faint exasperation. "Nigel, don't . . . don't dramatise. If I say please nicely, will you go away?"

"What are you standing there like that for?" The boy gazed at the white-clad girl in puzzlement, and then swivelled around the chamber. "What is this place: some sort of cloister?" His voice sneered. "A meditative solitude?" "Something like that, Nigel." "Has Presteigne a few nuns tucked away . . . ?" "You're being bitter. Surely Miss Carruthers doesn't remind you of anything like a convent!" "No she doesn't!" His emphasis accentuated justification. "She's altogether too young! And too . . . too well, handsome. There's stories, a scandal." "Does it matter? London seethes with stories." "It matters - if it touches you. I couldn't learn facts, but it was something nasty." Sharon grimaced in distaste. "There are stories about Disraeli, and Gladstone. Leave them alone. I like Miss Carruthers. She's been kind to me." He would not let go. "Oh, she's charming enough. And - what's the word: sophisticated!" Nigel grinned an admission. "She makes me feel like a little boy." "We are quite young, y'know." The lovely feminine features clouded in frustration. "Nigel, don't be stuffy. Look: just to please me, say good-bye and go." He was wounded by the reference to youth. "No I won't! I want some answers. There's something rummy . . . ." Sharon sighed. At that moment she too saw him as an obstreperous male child, a rebellious spirit to be quenched. Unhappily she spoke his name: "Nigel." There was that in her utterance to make him tense. He looked at her, sensing denouement. "Yes, Sharon?" "Take away this white cloak and fold it please." His every move betraying a vexed puzzlement, Nigel took the several steps and reached a hesitant hand to the fastening below the maiden chin. Freeing it, he swept away the billowing folds of white and stepped back in shocked horror at what his act revealed. For moments he stood, with quickening breath, before he gasped his exclamation of the obvious. "You're naked!" "Yes I am." The girl spoke the words as an affirmation, a challenge, as the tossing of a gauge. Her emotions were darkly hidden. She stared evenly at the stricken male, guessing what he must now declaim. "Sharon, you're tied . . . ?" "I am bound to this pillar with rope, Nigel." The incongruity of her acquiescence was defeating. He had never before beheld a naked female. Breasts and pubes and belly pouted at him in an unsuspected blatancy, their beauty lost in the enormity of shattered propriety. Instinctively, he moved to replace the shielding fabric. "Leave it be, Nigel! Drop it!" "But . . . you're . . . you're -" "I'm naked, Nigel. We said that. Have a good look at me." "Sharon!" Victoria herself could not have been more shocked. "It's your fault!" She was femininely angry. "We asked you to go, and you wouldn't . . . . " For a moment she seemed to struggle against the bonds that held her naked before his eyes, but she could

not move. "Now that you've seen my . . . my shame - I expect you'll call it that, will you leave Presteigne! Go away!" "I'll untie you. Then we can -" "No! Don't touch me!" "But you're a prisoner! You're being held -" "I'm not! I'm not! Nigel, be sensible. Would I be like this if I did not wish to be!" The girlish vehemence struck the boy like a physical blow. Her logic compelled reassessment. He examined the bitter ropes deep within the white flesh of the pillar's prisoner, they were neatly and strategically placed to render the exposed nudity helpless while at the same time enhancing its female aesthetics. Here was no hurried captivity driven by urgency. "But why?" He groped in bafflement. "Because I wish it." "You can't wish it! Who could!" "Because Miss Carruthers wishes it then!" Sharon's voice was tinged with desperation. Nigel Greyston stood, still clasping the white sheet. His eyes feasted unwillingly on beauty such as he had never seen. A hostile silence lengthened. A battle had been joined over an issue he did not understand. But as he looked at the sulkily defiant features of the girl he loved, there coalesced from memory the sneers and innuendoes about a legendary Chartreuse Carruthers. He glimpsed unholy vistas. "It's some rotten perversion, isn't it!" "Don't be pious, Nigel." "Some beastly thing between women!" The girl smiled tolerantly. "You mean we're lesbians?" "Sharon, you can't mean it! You can't!" "And why not!" Sharon's smile was mocking. "It's an old tradition, y'know. Nothing new about two girls . . . ." "This being bound . . . and naked . . . ! That's part of it, isn't it!" "If you say so, Nigel." "You're mocking me; It's not like you. Oh, Sharon . . . . ?" "Nigel, can we end this please?" The lovely eyes both implored and demanded. "I do not love you." And for final emphasis: "I love Chartreuse Carruthers. Nigel, go away!" Again the silence, the stricken eyes. This time the sheet fell unnoticed to the floor. Unable to tear his gaze from that which he had loved, the man backed slowly away from the pillar and its bound beauty. His face was a mask of misery, his mind a turmoil. Halfway to the door he gave vent to an inarticulate sob. Turning swiftly he strode angrily and determinedly from the chamber. The bound girl heard his footsteps beat a forceful march into the distance. The door had been left open, but she could not go to it. It was very quiet in the columned chamber. The nude girl tied to the stone pillar did not break the silence with her tears. They fell in solitary sadness from her eyes, welling outward from a grief demanding the surcease of their release. She could not raise her hands to deal with them. She did not even shake her head to clear their pearls of sorrow, but allowed them to trickle down her cheeks to fall, one by one, upon her naked breasts. It was no great span of time before the footsteps came, recognisably female. Sharon knew them already as those of Chartreuse Carruthers.

"You poor darling!" Feminine fingers and white cambric dried the captive cheeks. "Was it very bad?" "It was worse than I thought it could be." Sharon's admission was simple and unaffected. Miss Carruthers sighed. "The masterful male! They have to do their strutting. What did you tell him?" "Nothing really." The captive girl loosed a wry grin. "He jumped to the conclusion we were lesbians. I left it at that." "And it was sufficient! I saw his face as he went away. The poor sad little boy with his broken toy." Chartreuse Carruthers kissed her captive lightly on the lips. "Cherie, thank you. I am grateful." Sharon Tredgold's voice was tremulous. "That's the end for me - I mean, there's no one else. I've burned my bridges." "Let us say you have performed a task, dear. I would not have asked it of you if I could have done it half as well." The Headmistress patted damp cheeks and deftly arranged strands of errant hair. The captive girl looked at the older woman in a wry puzzlement. "I felt so . . . well . . . foolish, and inadequate. Nigel sensed something. He was bound to be appalled. But I sense something too. I only came here yesterday - it's all new and strange. Presteigne is a school for girls. But why . . . why am I tied like this - and naked?" The Mistress's chuckle was reassuring. "Could we have devised a better dismissal for poor Mr. Greyston! It was perfect." Sharon recognized the finality of the tableau by which she had terminated love. "I suppose so," she agreed hesitantly. "It was bizarre but it worked. Poor dear Nigel! May I be untied now please?" "No, dear, not now." The four simple words were so casual and mundane! It took several moments for their full import to register. When it did, the bound girl tugged fretfully and uselessly against the ropes. In sudden panic she demanded: "But why! I don't -" "You do not understand, Cherie," Miss Carruthers laughed gaily. "Of course you don't! I am being most unkind. I make you run before you learn to walk." "Is this . . . ?" I mean . . . is it quite - ?" "Is it respectable! That is what you wish to say, dear." The Mistress gently patted the now dry cheeks. "With my little charade I trick you into becoming a sweet and naked captive - and now I do not set you free. Are you worried?" "A little. I say, Miss Carruthers, they don't do things like this at most schools - I'm sure they don't. I'm not exactly a child, y'know." "That I can see!" Chartreuse Carruthers sparkled approval. "I expect poor Mr. Greyston saw it too and was properly shocked. As to other schools, I make no comment. Presteigne is not as other schools." Sharon fought down her alarm. It was hard to be afraid of this radiant creature who was regarding her with evident amusement. Warmth and sympathy were in the lambent eyes. But the ropes were harsh upon her skin, and nakedness before others was a condition so proscribed by all the edicts of which she was aware that she could not flaunt it without shame and guilt. It evoked in her strange sensations and awarenesses - her breasts suddenly seemed like taut melons . . . . Perhaps it was the tug of the ropes! She was bound too tightly to be able to look down upon her pubic hair, but the knowledge of its exposure burned between her legs like a brand of censure. "Please, Miss Carruthers, I want to please you, honestly I do!" Sharon essayed a pleading smile. "Please help me. Please make me understand why I am tied like this and why you won't set me free. I expect there is a good reason, but I just don't know . . . ?" "Of course you don't know, dear. Does it matter?"

"Oh, yes, yes! I can't help thinking I'm being punished. Am I?" "Not for anything you've done - only for being female." Sharon was aware of elusiveness. Miss Carruthers was not being playful, but there was an amused twist to the full red lips. "Why won't you tell me?" Cautiously she kept censure from her voice. "I'm nineteen. I'm old enough to . . . to, to know things?" Miss Carruthers gave her captive another, not quite maternal, pat upon the cheek. "Sometimes, my dear, we must take things in trust and be patient. If I ask you nicely, will you trust me now?" Sharon wiggled against the ropes. "I have to, don't I! I mean, what else can I do?" "I wasn't speaking of you being tied to that pillar, Sharon. That's simple: you can't get loose. You'll stay there until someone unties you. But you can stay there rebelliously or you can stay there in a quiet acceptance of something you don't yet understand - trusting me." The prisoner was not a child to be easily cajoled. She managed a wry grin of recognition but protested: "All right, I accept. But it's the same either way for me - I'm still tied up." "Thank you, darling. It's so good that you're sensible." The Headmistress seemed genuinely relieved. "You see, I like you." "Don't you like all your pupils?" The query came naturally. "No, not as I do you. We're all different, y'know." "Miss Carruthers, I'm lost! I'm talking to you as an equal - and you're talking to me . . . I mean, you're the Headmistress and I'm - I suppose I'm one of the girls, aren't I? Shouldn't I address you in some formal way?" "I'm not formal, Sharon. I never was. Here's some possibilities to pick from." Miss Carruthers was laughing again. "You can call me darling, or Mistress, or Miss Carruthers. Or you can call me Chartreuse. Chartreuse is actually my name. My father was addicted to the liqueur, and my mother adored the colour. I've never been sorry. I think it suits me." "But how can I choose! They're all -" "Don't! Not now. Let things happen. You'll settle on a favourite. That's what I do. To me you're already Cherie, and Sharon, and darling." "You don't mind?" "If you insist on being formal I'll punish you." The word awoke unease. "This is a school, isn't it - and the girls, me included, do get punished if we do something . . . wrong, darl - Miss Carruthers?" "You nearly called me darling, didn't you!" Chartreuse laughed delightedly. "You should have if that's what came to your lips. And, yes, this is a school, and bad girls do get punished." "How? I mean, what sort of punishments?" "Poor darling, you're so curious." The bound girl allowed intuition to prompt her words. "I bet it's not getting a hundred lines to write after class. Or standing in the corner. Or studying on a holiday!" "How did you guess! You're told to stand before the class and hold your hand out." "To be caned?" "Of course, Sharon, what else!" "But, a girl of nineteen . . . ? I'm a young woman!"

Chartreuse's eyes sparkled mischief. "The more mature student is allowed to bare her bottom and bend over." "You're laughing at me," Sharon complained, trying not to giggle. "We don't have to . . . do we?" "But of course you do, Cherie. It is a tradition of centuries. All the best schools . . . ." She was quicksilver. Neither Chartreuse nor her moods could be grasped or held. Sharon knew a quiver of something akin to fear. She was so helpless! She made her, now familiar, testing of her bonds and grinned wryly at her helplessness. Was this talk of the cane only in jest! Was it! After all, girls were caned and whipped in schools and sometimes in their homes. That it had never been done to her did not mean that it never would, that she was inviolate from a common practice. "I still think you're joking," she admitted awkwardly. "If I wasn't tied so tight to this column, and if I wasn't . . . like I am, I'd feel quite sure you were." "But now you're not sure, dear? It's because you're naked?" Sharon squirmed visibly and internally. "It's so strange," she conceded. "I feel it's . . . wrong. Isn't it supposed to be sinful!" "But it's lovely though." Miss Carruthers became serious. "It affects a girl's thinking, her attitudes, her understanding of Presteigne. We wouldn't be half as aware of each other if you were clothed." The captive sought meanings and found them not. She was about to try again when she was kissed by soft warm lips and found herself looking askance at the retreating back which mocked her as enigmatically as had the lovely face. When she cried a protest, only a trill of laughter came back from beyond the portal. The door closed. Sharon Tredgold had led a sheltered life, but she was no fool, nor was she naive beyond the average of her class. Being both young and female, she judged more by intuition than experience. In her bizarre plight instinct was her only guide. It told her two things. One, that there was something abundantly wrong. Two, was her enjoyment, almost her affection, for Chartreuse Carruthers. In the inconsistency of these reactions lay the immediate problem she must face. She did not know how long she had been tied to the pillar, but guessed it as more than an hour. Now, with the emotional diversion of Nigel and Chartreuse wafted into memory, the raw reality of her condition thrust itself demandingly to the fore. Sharon Tredgold hurt! As a child, and later in the reading of books, Sharon had casually accepted the term 'tied up.' It was commonplace. She had never queried that it might have been 'tied down' or 'tied back' or just simply 'tied.' It was something that happened to domestic animals and certain classes of human beings of an inferior social status, or who found themselves trapped in the exigencies of strife. It most certainly did not happen to her or to her friends! But she was 'tied up.' That she was also naked made the condition of being 'tied up' doubly emphatic. Sharon sensed that one condition held an affinity for the other. A girl who was tied up naked was far less likely to shed her bonds than one who was fully clothed. Each strand of the rope by which she was secured nestled into her flesh with a more implacable intimacy than garments would permit. Along with the business of being 'tied up' was the offsetting principle of 'getting loose.' This was always accomplished by the exercise of some crafty ingenuity. Or, if you were a man, simply by the bursting asunder of your bonds by sheer brute strength. Sharon had kept this thought in reserve. She now sought its inspiration. Her waist was very tightly belted to the pillar by several strands of rope. Her wrists were crossed and tied at the back. A stricture had been tugged above her breasts and another below, their clutch accentuating the blush-making prominence of the twin globes she had so righteously covered all her nineteen years but which now proclaimed themselves with a joyous abandonment to wanton carnality. Sharon's ankles were a question mark. Her legs were not tied together as they should have been.

Instead, they were tied one each side of the stone so as to offer, in exhibitionist display, the black bush of her pubic mound and the sinful lips below. One more female attribute she had faithfully shielded from prying eyes and the chill of draughts. The rope biting beneath her armpits prevented her leaning forward to look at this feminine shame. Sharon was almost glad. It was bad enough to know it was there. In the matter of 'getting loose,' the naked captive immediately realised her only hope lay in her hands. Most certainly no other portion of herself could best the rope. In forthright determination she began to twist her wrists. As with an aviator, whose fuel tank dictates his 'point of no return,' there eventuates in most human stress that awful moment of 'sudden realisation' in which our endeavour looms more vexatiously than originally supposed or may, in fact, reveal itself as quite impossible. So it was with Sharon in this matter of 'getting loose.' After fifteen minutes of increasingly anxious striving she was forced to recognize the fact that she was as firmly helpless as before she had made the first tentative tug. She was tightly tied and could never free herself. She would stand against the stone until another chose to cut the knots. She was a prisoner. Damp with the perspiration of her fruitless struggle, she lapsed within her bonds. Her impotence was frightening, especially since she knew not who might enter. Her nakedness had been her own private possession but, tied thus, it became the prerogative of any passer-by. She could not gainsay them, they could feast their eyes at will. The ropes had become malignant enemies holding her against her will. Since she could not free herself, her mind drifted to the swift sequence of events arising from the accidental death of her parents. She knew not why her father had chosen Lord Halcyon as the Administrator of her Estate, but it seemed logical enough that as the executor he should place her within the safety and advantage of Presteigne. The school spelt luxury and privilege. It was a name, an atmosphere. Chartreuse Carruthers was a surprise. Sharon admitted to herself that, without Chartreuse, her present plight would invoke panic. A primitive urge to struggle and to scream gnawed constantly. It was only the memory of dark wise eyes and full red lips and the husky vibrancy of Chartreuse's voice that kept her courage in balance and her emotions under control. But with the glowing presence gone, buoyancy had departed too. There was something desperately wrong! This naked bondage should not be! It could have no justifications. She must make a stand: cease to be a giggling girl under that spell of an exotic personality: stop being a child under the hand of maturity. When the Headmistress returned she would assert herself. Demand a return to normalcy and explanations. It was while she was immersed in the full flood of righteous indignation that the door opened. Within the portal stood a man.

Chapter Two Sharon's Story You know you'll die, but you don't! You know you can't bear it but you do. You know you're going to scream but you keep quiet. All I wanted to do was vanish, disappear, have the floor open and swallow me up. I knew I couldn't bear to have Lord Halcyon come any closer and see me naked, and tied, and not able to move an inch . . . or cover a thing! Lord Halcyon's such a handsome man, and so grown up! Not that he's that old, I don't suppose he is. But he's one of those men who have no age. You suspect he's always looked the way he does now and always will. It's the serious intent way he studies you that makes you feel he's senior and wise. He radiates power. You can feel it. Or maybe it's just me! But that's how Lord Halcyon has seemed in the few times I've met him. There was always something in the way he looked at me that made me conscious of being a girl. I felt myself trying to shrink as he approached, absurdly striving to hide behind my bonds. For Lord Halcyon to see me naked - especially the way my legs had been separated, was just not possible! It mustn't happen! It mustn't . . . it mustn't . . . ! "Good afternoon, Sharon." His voice was as unemotional as when I had last heard it.

"Good afternoon, sir." My poor little girl's greeting sounded silly but respectful. "You are looking well." My blush must have reached scarlet proportions and touched my navel. I've never felt more desperate. "Please, Lord Halcyon, drape that sheet over me. I'm . . . I'm -" "You are, aren't you! And quite charmingly so. Why the sheet? Are you chilly?" There was a hint of a smile on his straight lips. His eyes roved up and down the naked girl who was Me. "I should be covered, sir," I said firmly. "If you'll be kind enough to untie me I'll do it myself." It was the strangest thing, as though I had not, said a word. Lord Halcyon continued to examine me in a preoccupied sort of way as though I was a thoroughbred racehorse he was paying a few thousand guineas for and didn't want to be diverted by idle chatter. He did not smile. I'd never seen him manage a really proper smile, just a hint of something on his lips. My sheet lay on the floor. I remained tied to the pillar. "You're a very beautiful young woman, Sharon." The way he said it was an unemotional assessment of Me. I felt docketed. "Please, Lord Halcyon, I'd like to be untied." I managed a sort of desperate emphasis. "Miss Carruthers did well, didn't she! You'll never wiggle out of those ropes, young lady." He made it sound reassuring, as though I might have been worrying that the ropes were loose and I'd inadvertently lose them. I felt myself drifting from reality in the same way I'd done with Chartreuse. I made my next plea as piteous as I could. "But I want to! I want to be free. I don't want to be tied up like this. I can hardly move." "Excellent." "But, sir, I'm naked!" "So I noticed." This absurd exchange brought Lord Halcyon as close to a smile as he allowed, and me close to tears. His comments didn't seem particularly for me, they were just generalised exclamations. Sharon Tredgold was naked and she was tied. Jolly good! I was a filly up before the judge. "Why have you sent me to Presteigne, Lord Halcyon?" He did not bother to answer. Instead, he slowly circled my pillar and me. For a moment I thought he was untying a knot, but my hope plummeted when I realised he was just testing. He ended up where he could get a full frontal view. I could tell he was getting a tremendous enjoyment out of looking at me. My blush held steady. I longed to cross my legs and clasp a hand over each of my breasts. "This isn't a school at all. It's some sort of prison, isn't it, sir? No school would do this to me." A faintly raised eyebrow was all the acknowledgement I got out of that shot in the dark. What he did say seemed irrelevant. "I'd suggest, Sharon, you exercise complete obedience. Your Headmistress is a delightful woman. Charming and . . . competent." He gave me a quite impersonal nod and went away. He even closed the door. I don't think anyone knows aloneness until they've been tied helpless and left in a locked room. There's a unique sort of awfulness about it that dissolves a girl's courage. It did mine. I cried. In telling about this I expect I sound young and girlish and juvenile. Well, I'm not that old and it was startling and shocking. But the one thing nakedness did for me was to tell me very clearly I was

female and a woman. A young woman, maybe. But all my breasts and . . . and things . . . ! It was like being introduced to myself. I don't pretend to be clever or have a literary style. I'm just trying to tell this in the way it impinged on my mind as it happened. If I seem a bit casual here at the start it's because the horror was later on. It hadn't started yet. Not that the fix I was in wasn't bad enough! It was. The ropes were cutting away at me like angry little animals, and for all I knew I might stand against that pillar all day and all night. I might even be forgotten and just left there! But the thing I was most concerned about was not having any clothes on. If I could only have looked ahead a bit I wouldn't have worried about being bare. But I belonged to a world. In that world girls were never naked. If they went to a doctor or a hospital or were being punished they were not naked. I'd overheard a good deal of debate as to whether it was right and proper for a man to see his wife in what was awesomely called 'the altogether.' Girls in their teens giggled about this quite a lot and wondered about themselves when the time came. It seemed to us that Auguste Rodin was the only man alive entitled to a good look at a nude female. Even the word 'nude' was considered a bit risqué. I was bound to feel all sorts of emotions about being unclothed. There was a terribly hot shame I expect the blush contributed. There was chagrin and a simply cringing embarrassment. On top of these was guilt. I don't know why I felt it but I did! My world said that if a girl was seen naked she had committed a sin, a really awful sin. It didn't seem to matter how it happened. It was her fault. I tried to reason myself out of this one but I couldn't. I tingled all over from that blush - or maybe it was conscience! I had to make an effort of will to stop wondering what I looked like tied naked to that column. I know what I look like, of course, but I was worried about that bit of me. I'd never really examined myself . . . between my legs, a girl just doesn't push a mirror between her legs or lay on a table or something! Lord Halcyon had seemed terribly interested. But when I did push that worry out of my mind I started to hurt from the ropes. I knew now I could never get loose. That made it worse. I had to stand there and endure. I was tied so tight and in so many places! I started to wonder if Miss Carruthers was as kind and sympathetic as she'd seemed through that awful Nigel business. Poor dear Nigel! I started to cry again. I didn't bother about the tears. I let them flow where they wanted. It was then the door opened. This time it was a girl. She was pretty, about my own age and dressed in some sort of uniform. Not like any uniform I'd ever seen - there wasn't much of it. She carried a glass of water. "I expect you're thirsty," she said in an everyday voice. I did not get untied. She held the glass to my lips as I eagerly drank. With the last gulp I realised I would not be getting the drink unless I had to stay where I was a lot longer. "My name's Trina Simard. I'm a prefect." She smiled at me brightly. "You came yesterday, and your name's Sharon Tredgold." "How do you do," I said absurdly. "Are you going to untie me?" "Of course not, silly."' She grinned as though I'd made a joke. "You don't really expect me to, do you!" "I don't see why not," I said warmly. "I hurt . . . terribly." "Well, I'm not. So there!" Her voice chided without anger. "Cover me up then. Use that sheet."' "I can't do that either. You are new, aren't you!" This time her grin was sympathetic. "We're always tied like this our first day. It's to put us in a proper frame of mind." "Naked?"

"That too. Has His Nibs come and had a good look?" "You mean Lord Halcyon? Yes, he came. It was awful." Trina's eyes became speculative. "Nobody's told you, have they?" "Told me what?" Suddenly, I was more avid for what this girl knew than I was for the water. "Tell me now! Tell me . . . please!" "Oh, they'll break it gently," Trina said casually. "I can't tell a thing unless I'm ordered. Don't worry, you'll find out." "That means I'll be happier if I don't?" I ventured. "Well, I don't suppose you'd have been too happy yesterday if someone had told you about today!" Trina winked knowingly. "But just so's you don't feel hard done by I can tell you that being tied the way you are - and a lot more different ways - is one of the routine fun things at Presteigne." My shocked expression caused Trina to grin. She put a finger over her pursed lips and shook her head, then took her glass and went away. When the door thudded shut I did not cry. I didn't do anything. What could I do! I don't want to tell about the rest of the afternoon and early evening. The ropes hurt worse and worse, I was almost afraid to breathe, the way they dug into me. Trina hadn't helped much, though it was nice to know, there were girls like me and that they seemed happy enough. It was Trina who came to free me in the evening. "Are you going to do what I tell you?" she asked winsomely. "Do I have a choice?" I knew I sounded surly. "I'm going to untie you. You could fight or run, or just be stubborn." "Just untie me. I'm too tired to be anything but a good girl." She looked at my sulkiness dubiously. "I should tell you that you won't like some of the things we're going to do. But they won't hurt." I didn't care. To get untied I'd have agreed to anything. I gasped in agony as each cord was stripped from my skin, then sighed in ecstasy as, little by little, my freedom was returned. With the succession of bath and clothes, and a tête-à-tête dinner with Trina I knew I was once more back within my world. But Presteigne was waiting. "It's a cell, darling," said Trina. "Quite a nice one." I took her word for it. To me, it looked all stone and iron bars. "It's not for me, is it?" I asked hopefully. "Aren't you lucky, dear." She looked at me expectantly. "I am a prisoner after all, then?" I asked dismally. "It's just the first night, Sharon. Same as the first day. It's for you to get the feeling." Trina was watching me anxiously. It was a bitter disappointment. Presteigne was Probably full of them. "I'll walk inside meekly if that will set your mind at rest," I offered acidly. "You're sweet," Trina acknowledged gratefully. "I'll come in with you. It's a bit less awesome than walking through the door alone." It was very clean. There was a narrow cot and a mattress. The window was well barred. It was not a very large compartment. "Do you only use this for new girls?" I asked doubtfully.

"Well, not really. The cells actually get used quite a lot," She gave me an apologetic look. "I'm afraid you have to wear chains." I know it's absurd, but l thought she was talking about bracelets and things. "I didn't bring much in that line," I said regretfully. "Well no, the chains are provided here." It was too grotesque to be true. I turned to Trina, prepared to laugh. But her diffident grin told me the truth. Following the focus of her gaze I saw the wooden chest. "They're really rather beautiful," said Trina. "They cost an awful lot of money." I was sure they did. If they hadn't been meant for me I might have admired them. Some craftsman had used a lot of skill. Nor were they slender trinkets. Trina's muscles tautened as she heaved them out of the chest. They shone brightly. "Do I have to do anything, or just stand still?" I asked kindly. "You can take your clothes off, dear." I shrugged. Why not! I was going to bed. "Is there something wrong with the lock on the door?" I asked. "It clicks shut with a wonderful snap," Trina assured me. "You have to wear the chains on the same principle I explained." "To get me in the proper frame of mind." I said bitterly, and held out my hands. "Sorry, darling, little ankles first." I looked down in genuine interest. I'd never been chained before. Yesterday I'd have believed no one in Queen Victoria's England had ever worn fetters. . . . But I was going to! Lovely expensive ones. "These join your feet with enough chain so you can walk very slowly," Trina informed me busily. "Then there's chains on up to your hands. They all connect to the ring in the middle." I watched. This wasn't happening to me, but to another girl named Sharon Tredgold, a girl who was always naked. The lovely metal was vicious in its beauty of shining links and smooth bands. The anklets gripped me tight. The wristlets reached up and linked my hands a foot apart, but I was denied their use by the chains falling to the ring and from thence to my ankles. I tested my tethers and could raise my forearms no higher than my waist. "That's so's you can't assault your jailer, dear," Trina explained. "But this is barbaric!" I stood there, lifting the chains taut, and staring at Trina in dismay. She laughed at my consternation. "Not really, darling. You've no idea how beautiful you look." "You may think so." I retorted. "But I don't." "It's not just me." Trina's eyes were glued on my metal ornaments. "There's others . . . and if we had a mirror you'd see what I mean." She was so serious I was puzzled. Beautiful! She had used the word in a way I did not understand. I looked down at my captive limbs. I moved my hands and my feet as much as the links would allow. It was pitifully little, Yet I could move, I could even walk a bit. It was far better than being tied to the pillar - and different. An icy hand touched my spine when I realised I could stay as I was for life. Chains did not stop you living. They simply made a girl doubly captive. "There's something else," said Trina. It was when she locked the chain to the ring set in the stone that I noticed how strategically these iron circles spanned the walls. There was one about every four feet. I guessed what they were for. A girl - or a number of girls - could be tethered and held as might be desired.

"The collar is lovelier than all the rest," Trina said gently. It was. It was exquisite. Polished smooth. Until that moment I had never realised how tiny is the neck of a girl. It seemed impossible I could wear so small a circlet. Yet when it was opened and placed about my neck it fitted perfectly. I even felt a ridiculous thrill as the cold steel nestled into the warmth of my flesh. Instinctively, my hands tried to rise and touch it lovingly but were instantly snubbed. It was Trina's fingers which deftly arranged my hair and set the new chain to cascade down my naked back with a cold intimacy that made me shiver. "It's a little heavy, darling," Trina deprecated. It was. The weight of the chain to the wall tugged at my neck like a demanding hand. But the band on my throat was wide and accepted the drag well enough that I was not actually distressed. It was not until that moment I thought to ask the obvious. "But, Trina, why? Why chain me to the wall?" She giggled. "Same reason. There's something compulsive about it, don't you find it so?" "You mean you've had to wear these . . . things!" "Of course! Poor darling, did you think you were the first?" I longed to see my collar, a purely feminine longing. But I had to content myself with an examination of the beautifully wrought bands tight upon my wrists and ankles. Each of them clutched me with an intimacy implacable yet strangely reassuring. Chained thus, a girl might find a small comfort in the loss of nagging decision and futile hope. I knew myself a prisoner many times over. I looked appealingly at my companion. "I'm so helpless . . . oh Trina!" "It feels like that at first, darling. But if you sit on the cot and hunch your feet and legs up you'll be able to reach your face and touch that lovely collar - I know you're longing to. I did. You can even feed yourself." She made a wry grimace. "It really shocks a girl to discover how much she can manage to do when she's chained." "Except escape." She laughed at my dolor. "Cheer up, dear. Oh, and forget about escape. Just forget it entirely. Girls don't escape from Presteigne." "Then we are prisoners!" Laughing, Trina went away and locked me in. It was not as lonely as being tied to the pillar. Not because there was company, but because the passage end of my cell was all bars giving my small prison the effect of a cage. No one was there, but I could not shake off the feeling someone was watching. That's what bars were for, weren't they! To peer through! I'd have gone and gripped them and pressed my face against their enmity myself if my chains had not pulled me up short. So I looked at my chains. Even with their weight heavy on my wrists and ankles they seemed unreal. I tried to make sense out of their confinement, and out of the cell in which I was locked, and to rationalize the chain tethering me to the stone wall. But nothing about Presteigne made sense. The girl who had locked me thus had done so with seeming love. Chartreuse Carruthers had left me under the spell of her loveliness and charm. Lord Halcyon was pure enigma. I had to do a lot of wondering. I was not yet of age. Life in my parents' home had flowed smoothly in comfortable paths. St. Winifred's School for Girls had been the same - except for one thing, the whisperings. We had done a lot of whispering in the cloakrooms and the dorms. I expect all teenage girls anywhere make these furtive excursions into speculation about afterwards. That wonderful and deliciously frightening 'Afterwards' when we would 'come out,' when we would meet men, where marriage loomed as a final unutterable bliss, and when we would at last 'know everything.' It was the 'know everything' I gave my thoughts to now. That 'Everything' we had giggled about was always understood to cover all the things 'Little girls should not know.' This included having babies and going to bed with your husband. But all of us had picked up more. There was something else! In fact, a lot of 'Something else's' which just had to be sinful and excitingly enjoyable. It was understood at St. Winifred's that anything excruciatingly scrumptious was inevitably 'Not nice' or downright sinful. Standing in my cell chained and naked, I could not help wondering if I had been precipitated into something 'Not nice' long before my time. But I wasn't being sinful. I wasn't being much of anything - except a prisoner. I was just 'Being.' I

was something others had a purpose with and an interest in. I was in limbo. I rattled my chains and sat on the cot. Then I experimented and found Trina was right. By compressing myself into a small package I got my hands back. The first thing I did with them was finger my collar. The metal band upon my throat held immense fascination. It was tremendously personal. Perhaps because of its power over me, or perhaps because of the chain by which it held me captive to the wall. Almost lovingly my fingertips traced its ornamentations and its scarcely perceptible lock. I shivered, but not with fear. "I'm so glad you like it, Sharon." Miss Carruthers' words brought me to my feet with a clatter. It was absurd but I was ashamed. Ashamed for her to see me thus. I felt a criminal in my nudity, my chains, and above all in my cell. True, it was she who had placed me thus. But the shame was real. I blushed. "It's beautiful," I said in a little girl response. It was then I saw Trina. They were both smiling at me through the bars, that same expectant affectionate smile that made no sense. But the reason I stood and stared like a dummy was because Trina was as naked as I was and her hands were chained. "We don't want you to be lonely this first night, dear," Miss Carruthers said brightly. I stood, like an idiot, and watched the door unlock and Trina, without a word of prompting, walked into my cell to share my captivity. They both seemed pleased as punch. Miss Carruthers leaned negligently against the metal of the narrow aperture and glowed at us as though gloating over a pair of newly acquired pets. I felt a small clutch at my heart when I realised how near the truth the thought could be. "I think it's lovely for two girls to be able to talk," said Miss Carruthers happily. "I've been given permission to explain some things, Sharon." Trina's voice held excitement. "You're very lovely chained, Sharon. You wear them beautifully. Be a dear and walk for me." The request, or was it a command, seemed silly. But the chain from my collar was hanging limp down my back so I took my small hobbled steps towards her until it drew taut and snubbed my neck. Then I turned and made the same progress, or lack of it, in the other direction. On my return trip of several tiny paces, she breathed gently as though confirming something within herself: "Beautiful! Oh, Sharon, you're lovely." I was lovely! The sudden knowledge struck me like a blow. Trina sat on the cot and hugged one knee with her chained hands. I have never seen a girl look happier. "Thank you, Miss Carruthers. Thank you very much." My formal words sounded foreign. "Do keep walking, Sharon - or just any kind of motion. I want to watch." The Headmistress sounded like a pleased child. There was a magic in my companions, turning my steel chains into costly bangles. It infected me. I was feminine. I preened and made feline motions and mincing steps. Trina was frankly amused. Chartreuse Carruthers was ecstatic. "You're so absolutely right, darling . . . . " Her voice was ecstatic. "But I'm a prisoner!" I said, breaking the spell. I was kissed. The cell door was locked. The magic mistress waved airily as she vanished beyond my narrow range. "Isn't she marvellous!" said Trina. I stood and stared. My eyes must have been wide as saucers. My fellow captive laughed and turned her back to me so that I might get a better view. "There. That answer any questions for you, Sharon?" "You've been whipped!"

"I have, haven't I! Hard. The day before yesterday." Her eyes were twinkling at my consternation. "But it must have hurt terribly!" "Oh it did! Something awful!" She was almost laughing. I almost said, then why are you looking so cheerful? But it didn't seem quite right. Instead, I blurted out selfishly: "Will I . . . will I be whipped like that?" "Of course you will, dear. You won't be cheated." I ignored what I supposed was sarcasm, and asked the obvious. "But why? What did you do to deserve something so awful? Your back's all crisscrossed with terrible marks." Trina turned to face me again, smiling serenely, hugging her secret. "I didn't do anything, darling, except just be me." I stood. Trina sat. After a minute of a sort of stunned silence she laughed again and said blandly: "We don't have to actually do anything, y'know . . . Chartreuse simply adores whipping girls." I sat down with a thump. Me at one end of the cot, Trina at the other. I expect my mouth was wide open. In a burst of sympathy at my bafflement she came, and taking my face in her chained hands, kissed me hard. "It's not all that easy to tell about, is it," she said softly. "That's why I've been put in here with you." She clinked her links and motioned at her nudity. "Take a good look at me, darling. I sort of speak for Presteigne. I'm self-explanatory." Trina rose and posed herself for me as might a mannequin. Her body had the same pert femininity as her face. As she turned slowly I was shocked to observe older and faded weals blended in with the more recent scarlet bars upon her back and across her curved bottom. She made much play with the shackles on her wrists. "They didn't need to chain you too," I said resentfully. "Oh but yes! I wouldn't carry any message at all if I was just a girl in a school tunic." "I don't want a message. I want to go home." "Of course you do!" She grinned confidingly. "I remember my first day - my first week. I cried buckets." "Why didn't you run away? I'm going to." "Oh I did, darling. That's when I got my first marks." "You mean we are prisoners, we can't leave?" "Well yes. I'm allowed to tell you that, Sharon. You can try if you want. I sometimes think a girl has to try before she believes it. But it's awfully painful when you're caught." "But Presteigne is a school! All these . . . terrible things! They can't possibly happen in a school." "They can, y'know." "But classes . . . and other girls . . . ?" "Oh yes, they're all here. But they're in the newer wings. This is the old house." "I was supposed to learn French and Latin." Trina giggled. "Well, you actually may. But you're one of the older ones. The older girls get called here quite a lot." "To be put in a cell? And chained?" "It's Lord Halcyon, y'know. Oh Sharon, I thought it would be easy to tell, a lovely giggle between us, but it's not. I wish Chartreuse would tell you."

"What's Lord Halcyon got to do with it?" "Quite a lot actually. He's one of the Governors. I'm not sure he isn't the only one." Trina looked at me pleadingly. "He's awfully rich and . . . and . . . well, powerful." I fingered my chains and asked sarcastically, "Did he buy these?" "Of course." Trina's instant affirmative frightened me. The dark intent features of my legal guardian sprang vivid to my mind, The metal making me captive was his, not the Headmistress's! My chains were suddenly heavy. "You can't get away, darling." It was as though Trina had read my mind. "Why are you happy?" I asked inconsequentially. "Do you like girls, darling?" she countered with equal irrelevance. "Of course I do." I said, puzzled. "If they're nice - like you." "No other way?" The three words seemed urgent. "What other way is there except liking - or not liking!" She nodded soberly, "I expect you're right. Oh, Sharon, it's all so difficult." We talked, but when I drifted into sleep I was no wiser than before. If, in telling all this, I sound normal, it's false. I was a terribly frightened little girl.

Chapter Three PAIN A large and somber chamber of stone and iron bars. Three human figures: one muscular and male in tights and hood. Black! An executioner. A dark-haired girl, chained at hands and feet. Naked. And Chartreuse Carruthers. For minutes it has been a still tableau. Its silence seethes with purpose but not with unity. The chained girl holds her tightly clenched fists hard against the compulsion of her chains. Her nakedness is the focus of her companion's eyes. "I won't do these things, not any of them!" Sharon Tredgold's declaration is frightened but firm. Her stricken eyes appeal to the woman, she dare not face the man. "Sharon please! Don't be a silly girl." The Headmistress of Presteigne glides to the helpless girl and pats into place the stray strands of hair the captive hands cannot reach. Lightly, she kisses the rebellious lips. Sympathy shadows the lovely face. "I'm not silly. It's all this . . . this -" A chained hand tries, ineffectually, to encompass the grey chamber. There is a clink of metal. "It's all wrong . . . and cruel! You've no right-!" "Poor darling . . . . " Again fingers caress the trembling skin. "We are female: you and I. This is our destiny." "Stuff and nonsense!" Sharon thrust the mundane exclamation forward as a shield. "I don't understand any of it, but it's bad. I'm sure it's bad. You're having some kind of silly game at my expense." Chartreuse's voice was loving. "Dear Sharon. When I loose your chains you must walk to those crossed timbers and place your hands inside the straps above your head. There is a box . . . ."

The 'X' was there. Sharon had scarcely noticed it before. But now it stood stark . . . and waiting! Heavy and grim. Its purpose evident, yet impossible to accept. "I won't do it." The girlish affirmation was tremulous. "And that horrible man - that black. . . . He shouldn't see me like this. I'm naked." "He has seen many naked girls, Cherie." "It's wrong. No man should see a girl naked." "Why not, darling?" The soft query was amused. To the captive, Chartreuse's mild question was another of the enigmas by which she was being led into a foreign world. A hundred refutations crowded Sharon's tongue. Yet, before the older woman's laughing eyes, none would suffice. Why not! A transient vision of the centuries opened up an endless vista of maidens as naked as she herself. Clothes had not always shielded the female form as they did now when the Lord Chamberlain could decree that women did not exist below the neck. "But I've never been naked . . . ! No girl in England . . . the Queen! The Church!" Her protest trailed away ineffectually. "And stuff and nonsense to that too," Chartreuse mocked. "Sharon, you are one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. How wrong and how silly it would be to hide those breasts and that flat belly under cloth." Sharon winced. The factual reference to what she had always called a 'tummy' was offensive. Breasts were sinful, as was her treasure below. She changed the angle of her defence. "If I did what you want . . . what then?" "Darling, you know. Must I speak it?" "You'll whip me. That's what that thing is. Isn't it - a sort of whipping post?" "Being whipped isn't the end of anything, dear." "It will hurt, hurt me terribly?" "Yes." "But why?" "To give two people the greatest happiness they can ever know." "But what about me! Don't I matter?" "You matter very much, dearest girl, but in ways you cannot yet understand." The rich soft voice was heavy with affection. Sharon remembered Trina's striated skin. Trina's happy acceptance. "You've done this to Trina, haven't you?" "Yes darling, she didn't die." "And if I refuse?" Chartreuse shrugged. "We are stronger than you." Sharon pulled at her chains. She could have wept in frustration at her impotence. Fettered as she was, a child of ten could control her. She used her only weapon. "Very well then," she conceded drearily. "Unlock me." Chartreuse, too, was feminine with all the intuition of her sex. As the last metal band fell away from the slender limbs, she laughed gaily as her captive leaped for the door. For Sharon, her pathetic bid for freedom was as futile as all else. The heavy door was locked. At bay, she turned nakedly to confront her enemies. In the moments of her striving with the door they had changed. Each held a whip.

To the naked girl - the vivid menace of her plight was taking step after step into frightening possibilities she dare not face. But her immediate problem demanded decision. To yield was unthinkable, yet the alternative of being whipped into submission was even less inviting. Sharon was a product of her age. She did the thing which came most naturally to a girl in the final year of the nineteenth century. With a poignant sob of desolation, she fled to the closest corner and thrust her nakedness against the stone. Her breasts and pubic hair were hidden from the world. It was a small victory. There was silence. With her face buried in her hands, and every inch of herself she could contrive clamped hard against the wall, Sharon waited. She did not care that her chosen pose was that of a naughty girl in school. She felt only two emotions: An inordinate joy in this shielding of her sex, and a cringing suspense awaiting the first whip stroke upon her naked back. "Why, darling, you look so sweet there in the corner. Don't move." Chartreuse's trill of pleasure was pure Presteigne. It disarmed and demoralised: an amorphous adversary against which there was no defense. By her own wish the captive stood as bid, every nerve on the qui vive? One nude leg trembled uncontrollably in an admission Sharon hoped they could not see. "Isn't she a perfect darling, Theo!" The name set an alarm bell ringing in the prisoner's mind. Theo! The vibrant male voice was confirmation. "She is exquisite, 'Treuse. We will cherish her." The man in black was Lord Theodor Halcyon: "Please, don't do this. Send me home. Please sir?" It was a cry for succor to the only source Sharon knew. "Stand just as you are, darling. Where did you learn such grace!" Hesitantly, Sharon looked back over one naked shoulder, her hands seeking her breasts. She could not stand thus forever. Halcyon and Chartreuse had not moved. It seemed to the youthful captive they were drinking her nudity, absorbed and intent in an enchantment to which she was the key. "Theo, what perfection!" Chartreuse's voice was awed. "I knew, directly I saw her." "I've known for years." Halcyon's sardonic voice vibrated satisfaction. "She has the quality." "Sharon knew not of what they spoke. She advanced her most urgent plea: "Please give me clothes . . . let me cover myself." Pathetically, she added without optimism: "At least a little." There was a flurry of skirts. Chartreuse dropped her whip and enveloped the frightened girl in loving arms. Her voice adored: "Sweetheart, no! Oh, a thousand no's! Cover you! It would be sacrilege." Her lips were warm and strangely sweet. It was as though the lasting kiss robbed her of will. Sharon, refusing to think or to meet the glowing eyes behind the mask, allowed the Headmistress to lead her by the hand to the waiting timbers and its straps. Her free hand sought to cover the parts of herself once hid and now blatantly exposed; But one small female hand cannot be in three places at once. Suddenly uncaring she let it fall. Was the box onto which the guiding hand prompted her a gallows, a block, a place of execution! It was symbolic. Her will anesthetized by a conflict of emotions, Sharon stepped up and thrust her hands into the loops of leather widely parted above her head. Shocked, yet fascinated by what was being done to her, she looked from side to side to behold the straps tighten into her wrists, tighter and tighter until each was clamped fast to the wood: then the click of buckles and the looping of the loose ends. Flexing against the soft leather, Sharon knew she had lost her hands, and with them her freedom to move. She had expected the removal of the box. But when it happened she could not muffle her gasp of dismay. She was suspended naked by her wrists. Her seeking toes could not find the floor. It was while her ankles were being spread and strapped tight to each base she realised the frame to which she

was now inexorably attached leant slightly forward to thrust her nudity into a more accessible vulnerability. "I think her elbows." Halcyon's casual suggestion led to cords above each of her elbows. There came others at her waist. When they were knotted, Sharon Tredgold was a part of the structure itself, she could not move. She said pitifully, as though propriety compelled. "Please don't hurt me." There was hurt enough already. Sharon hung. Each strap and rope exacted its toll. They took her weight and returned pain. She longed to cry but fear stanched her tears. A quick glance back told more than words. Chartreuse was smiling joyously, her eyes avid on the naked female flesh, the supple lash trailing from her hand. The pain jolted the helpless femininity into a spasm of rigidity, followed almost instantly by an equally spasmodic surge against its confinement. A surge in which muscles and sinews rippled and bulged in useless revolt against cord and strap and rope. Save for a shocked gasp that went on and on as did the pain, the girlish innocence made little sound. Her head arched back, straining for an impossible freedom. Slowly, they circled the frame and that which it held. Their eyes glowing with approval, whips trailing, their scrutiny an assessment of her worth. Panting, her breasts ardent with the thrust of lungs, Sharon waited in suspense. She moaned pleadingly when Chartreuse gathered the cascade of errant hair and, with feminine skill and the aid of a ribbon, coiled it upon the captive head to leave the white and waiting back a free and virgin invitation to the lash. "Mistress, oh Mistress, please don't! Not again . . . not again!" One from each side, the two blows followed close upon each other. Sharon's wild imaginings saw her back cut and scarlet with blood. She screamed piercingly as she futilely fought her bonds. She saw no reason not to scream. She was not trying to prove courage. Courage did not matter. Innocence did not matter. Nothing mattered except that the woman and the man cease whipping her. They ceased. Emotionally, it was the centre of a cyclone for the bound girl. With every screaming nerve alert for the next blow, Sharon tensed against her bonds. To either side stood the two figures with their whips, each a threat, each an enigma. She gave a trembling moan of despair. The 'X' offered her for sacrifice. The fingers were of Presteigne, inconsistent, illogical. Defeating as to intent. In the heavy silence they loosed the straps and took away the cords. For a moment they steadied the fear-filled nakedness, their touch warm and tender and of love. Then they were gone. Sharon's impulse was to cling to the stout timbers that had held her helpless, to bury her face in her hands and weep. Sensing some continuing imminence of pain, she feared to turn and face its reality in the watching eyes. "You may walk away, Sharon." The words were gentle and without emphasis. Bewildered, the nude pupil of Presteigne backed away and turned. She walked the few steps that enabled her to be one of the points of a human triangle, her hands seeking at her back the blood that was not there. They stood motionless, whips trailing from inert arms. The man anonymous within the menace of his black, the woman smiling sombrely in some knowledge of her own. The place had become a stage with each player taking their appointed place. The wealed girl looked back and forth in mute questioning. She felt certain words would avail her naught. "Darling, there is a small thing you must now do." The Headmistress's voice was alive with sympathy, yet it was firm and strangely remote. "You have been set free so that you may accept the role you must play." Sharon wanted no role, no play. She wanted only her clothes and sanity. She said tremulously, "Please send me home."

"You are home, dear. Come! Take this whip." It was impossible. A dream. A cruel joke. But the scald of the whip wounds across her back were very real, her nudity cried constantly to be covered. Sharon looked askance at the frightening thing Miss Carruthers was proffering. It contrasted brutally with the lovely face of the woman who, whatever she might be, was her only hope of charity. "I don't want it. Please . . . I don't understand." "You must take it, dear. Then go to The Master. Kneel before him, kiss the whip and offer it to him. You will ask him to punish you." "But I haven't done anything." The girlish protest was instinctive. "It does not matter, dear. Now do as you are told." Sharon looked only at the woman. But she was cringingly conscious of the dark presence of the male. The man to whom she should be able to look for succor but who had become a phantom figure from a medieval masque. In her mind she saw him as 'The Executioner.' From him, her thought flickered to the locked door. She was defenseless. "I can't," she said simply. "I cannot bear such pain. I cannot bring myself to ask for it." Pathetically she added,"Please let me go . . . away from here . . . ." "You belong to Presteigne, Sharon." The whip demanded. The moment was one for hysterical laughter or for screams. Sharon could contrive neither. Brokenly she pleaded: "Then help me, help me to understand." She waved a disparaging hand. "This is all so . . . so -" "Theatrical?" Chartreuse offered the word with amusement. "Of course it is. We wish it. Bear with us." As the pain of the whip receded it was replaced by the shame of her nakedness before these adult eyes. Sharon found her hand seeking her pubes and felt the beginning of a blush. She clutched at straws: "But to ask to be punished. . . . That means you'll whip me again?" "Of course, dear." They were making her feel silly, a child quibbling before authority, seeking to evade its penalty of delinquency. Pride flared. "I'm sorry, but I can't do what you want. It's wrong . . . I know it's wrong." "Right and wrong is comparative, Sharon dear. We ask you to do this as an acceptance of us, an acceptance of Presteigne. You have felt the whip and have been freed from it. Now we ask you to return. It is a first step you must take sometime. You are old enough that there should be no need of delay." The quiet reasoning voice was hypnotic. The captive girl found it impossible to hate or to fear its owner. She heard her own voice, as from a distance, asking plaintively: "How much will you whip me?" "Enough." The word held reproof. A milestone had been passed. Sharon recognized it. Involuntarily she had asked a question of the whip. It had been answered. She was still a girl: subject to the will of adults. The door was locked. Presteigne held her, The Executioner stood implacable as rock. In defeat she would surrender only her body, not her mind. As in a dream, she took the fatal steps. The leather of the stock was warm against her lips. With lifted arms but bowed head she managed to keep her voice even. "Please punish me, Sir." The second half of the ritual was no easier. But this time, in tendering the whip anointed by her lips, she looked up into dark and loving eyes. Her words came quaveringly: "Please punish me, Miss Carruthers." Rising to her feet, the naked girl's eyes sought as though from foreknowledge. They found the hanging ropes. As in a trance, she took the several steps and raised her arms. There had been no need of words. Sharon looked up as her wrists were bound apart. The Mistress tied the loops with swift sure fingers and pulled them tight. When she took the steps and moved away, a nude girl stood in the centre of the chamber, hands raised in supplication to a power unseen. She stood delicately upon her

toes, every curve and plane of her body gathering to itself such radiance as the place provided. She seemed fearfully alone. The very terror of her new vulnerability left Sharon numb. It was the ultimate in exposure just as the pain to follow would touch the limits of agony. Plumbing the depths of helplessness she found release. She knew herself drugged by some strange communion or exaltation from the woman and the man. From the first stroke, the girl being whipped was aware of a baffling tolerance in the lashes snapping across the skin she could not shield. They hurt cruelly but were not as the others had been. The welling blackness of unconsciousness was not a threat - or even a promise of surcease. Each slash was a scald, a violation of her nakedness. But her screams were short and choked back into moans and gasps of shock as each one impacted itself upon her virginity. Those who used the whips did so with a mercy as inexplicable as all the rest. It was a measure of Sharon's quality and state of mind that she was aware of pain and pride in the same degree. The pride was because she bore the pain and coped with it. She had taken its measure and ceased to be hysterically afraid. It was an enemy but that was all. She was aware, too, of a bizarre rhythm as the separate thongs cut at her, always unexpectedly in places that often shamed as much as hurt. They beat her with an even tempo so that she found herself responding to the sudden burns with an individual spasm flowing into the writhing contortions by which she tugged and strained ceaselessly at her bound wrists. Her struggles, which sometimes lifted her entirely off the floor, were not so much an expectant hope of freedom as an expulsion of agony. Sometimes, with shamed eyes, the bound girl would look over one shoulder or another in a wideeyed appeal, or perhaps in disbelief at the reality of her punishment. The black hood hid the features of the male, but Chartreuse Carruthers' face was lit in joyous adoration. The arms swept back, measured and struck in ardent homage to the pale flesh on which the scarlet lines sprang vividly to life. Cessation was as great a shock as the first blow. Suspense took over where pain stopped. Without warning, the whipped girl was enveloped in a heady female scent and two vibrant arms. Warm lips sought and found their target. "You are beautiful - so beautiful." The words were panted between kisses. Sharon herself was breathing heavily from the ordeal of the lashes still burning on her skin. With hands tied and stretched she could not grasp as she longed to do. But in her lonely need of solace she rubbed her cheek against the one so close and shed an unnamed tear. "Isn't she wonderful, Theo! I'm so glad you . . . ." The words trailed away. From the man there was no answer. Sharon thrust her breasts deep into the shielding dress of the woman who held her. It was a small strange comfort. "Darling, you did so well. You'll be so perfect." The small bound wrists tugged at the compelling tether that held them high. Sharon knew only that, for the moment, she was safe within a female world without pain. How good it would be to clasp and hold and strain with breasts and thigh. The black maleness standing close was forgotten. "We'll never, never let you go. Oh Sharon . . . !" It made no sense. The naked girl was without an anchorage in knowledge or experience. What had been done to her was awful beyond words, but her cheek was warm against the flesh of the woman who had whipped her. Her back was striped with weals she had not earned. The ropes were still cruel upon her wrists. Questions and demands crowded her lips, but she uttered none of them. What was there to say! What question ask! Before the solid silence of the Man and the warm vibrancy of Chartreuse there had come into being an inevitability, a preordainment. Presteigne was a world in which this could happen. "Enough. 'Treuse. Stand away." Sharon felt the lovely body tense. The words of the Man were as a knell of doom. For a moment the feminine entity was silent before the words of the Headmistress came in vehement denial. "No, Theo, don't. She's had enough." "Chartreuse . . . !"

The utterance of the name held a message. It was an exclamation, a demand, a threat. Sharon longed to be free. She sensed herself as the spoils of a war she did not understand. Fearfully, she let her anguished eye rove to the menace of the male. It had not moved. It was a black threat to her nakedness. It played lovingly with the supple leather of the whip. "But, Theo, she's so young." "Nonsense. You're simply hungry for her." "There are other days. Let us lead her gently . . . ?" "Sharon is nineteen. She is a woman." The male voice was impatient. "I wish to give her the first lesson." "Theo, to please me - not today?" "Stand away, 'Treuse. The girl is superb. You've said it yourself. There's no need of coddling." "I won't! She's adorable. I don't want her -" "Chartreuse!" This time the word was final. Sharon sensed it. It struck the woman holding her like a blow. The arms fell away. Chartreuse's face was stricken. "Theo, no! Oh please!" "Call a prefect." "Theo, don't. She'll know. And it's so soon." "Call a prefect to deal with her. You shall have your wish." Sharon stood, straight and nude and helpless, while her feminine defense went to the wall and tugged a cord. When Chartreuse turned it was to beg. "Please, Theo, I don't deserve -" "Prepare her." Motions became decisive. Words were dropped. The Headmistress of Presteigne gave a final kiss to captive lips before she loosed the rope. Sharon stood, without thought of protest, while her hands were unbound from before her and tied again at her back. Such a deprivation of freedom now seemed normal and to be expected. She was conscious of inconsistent sensations as the cords circled her already chafed wrists and were drawn tight. The imposition was of Chartreuse, the knots were tied with love. She wanted the firm grip and play of female fingers to go on and on. The loss of liberty was incidental. "You wanted me, Miss Carruthers?" Trina Simard's respectful query brought a matter-of-fact normalcy to the bizarre scene. The youthful prefect appeared to find nothing strange in what she beheld. Her smile conveyed only a cheerful wish to be of service. "Yes, dear. Sharon has just been whipped. We would now like you to prepare her and take her to class. I think to Mademoiselle Dulac for the French." "Yes, Miss Carruthers." The Mistress turned to the figure in black. "Sir, you wish Trina to . . . to -" "Of course." What happened then was incredible, the stuff of turgid dreams, of fantasy. With her hands firmly tied behind her back, Sharon Tredgold stood and watched a happening she scarce believed. "Trina, if you'll be kind enough . . . ?" They had so little need of words! The implications of half-finished sentences left the wide-eyed captive at sea, but by the others were instantly understood. The naked spectator beheld the willing

prefect select a length of rope while the Mistress of Presteigne stripped bare. With Chartreuse standing proudly naked, Trina busily tied the proffered hands of a woman who was obviously accepting a hard condition with wry resignation. Sharon gasped at the revealed beauty the discarded garments had hidden from the world. Breathless, she stood while the fresh nudity was firmly bound. She stepped away as Chartreuse took her place and raised her arms for the younger girl to tie them taut above her head. The lovely lips of the new captive had regained their half-amused smile which Sharon nervously and uncomprehendingly returned when their eyes met. The Headmistress turned to the man in black. "Sir, need they stay? Let them leave . . . ?" "You may go." The woman, revealed in beauty, smiled. Trina Simard grasped Sharon by the arm and led her to the door. At the portal, the captive girl resisted the compelling fingers long enough to stand and turn. But she and her companion had ceased to exist for the two who made the grim tableau for startled eyes. The man in black and the naked loveliness subservient to his will were totally absorbed in each other. Their world had narrowed to a small circumference around the willing victim waiting to be whipped. Between them was a terrible accord. Trembling, Sharon allowed herself to be dragged into the passage. How sensible it was that she be bound! How wise to make her helpless against protest or revolt! The cords deep in her flesh were almost friends. "You'll love Helene Dulac," said Trina brightly. "She's ever so nice. Come along, darling."

Chapter Four SHAME It was nostalgically familiar, the schoolroom smell compounded of chalk and dust and ink and musty paper. Sharon embraced it as a cloak of the comfortably mundane. It was reassuring, too; to be clothed. True, the school tunic was brief and better suited to a twelve-year-old, but it covered those parts of her of which she had been so blushingly conscious. Best of all, she was untied. Trina had laughed at her immense pleasure in being able to massage her indented wrists. Mademoiselle Dulac was of Presteigne. She should have been lean and middle-aged but she was not. She should have had a steely eye and a French accent but she had neither. Her English was perfect with French inflections. Divorced from the authority of office she was a very pretty young woman. "Ah, it is our so new girl!" Her eyes were bright in welcome, her handclasp warm. The lips, lightly brushing a hesitant cheek, were affectionate. "Mlle. Sharon Tredgold, how sweet a name! There is a desk beside our dear Trina's, and we are in class. Voila, begin." Seated at her desk, which was slightly too small for her, Sharon beheld the girl. Ordinarily the girl would have been the first thing to catch the eye. But Sharon's emotional turmoil had led her to concentrate upon the French Mistress and the blackboard with its promise of Academe. But now the girl, or that portion of her which was visible, seemed to fill the horizon, robbing all else of significance. Presteigne was versatile: this was comedie bouffe. It was a girl's bottom, attached to which were a pair of shapely legs tapering to the floor. They were properly hosed, the feet were shod, but the bottom itself - so obviously the piece de resistance was completely bare save for the six scarlet bars imprinted on its ivory by a cane. The rest of the owner of these deliciously feminine attributes was hidden from sight by the panel clamping down her waist, gripping it as in a set of stocks, rising above and below to give the effect of a maiden thrust headfirst through a wall which then closed in a neat circle to imprison her tummy above the hips. To Sharon, striving anxiously to achieve equanimity, it became evident that her fellow students saw little of concern in the bare female bottom inviting their attention. A wandering eye would linger for a moment in pensive contemplation of disgrace, but that was all. It was a detachment she herself could not maintain. Constantly her startled gaze returned in a compelling fascination, noting the pouting sex lips and stray curls peeping back between the soft thighs, and the legs held so stiffly rigid

as to raise the hips and place pressure on the small of the girl's back. Once, when the firm stance weakened and the knees sagged, Mademoiselle Dulac's sharp command was instant. "The legs, Paula! The legs! Please to straighten." The kind eyes beamed admonishment to the unseen half of the delinquent. The errant legs instantly obeyed, the punished bottom reared. Sharon realised the girl thus held must be in constant discomfort, perhaps actual pain. Realised too, that Presteigne demanded instant obedience and got it. The tableau before the class provided a quaint touch of humour inasmuch as the delinquent's dress had been lifted high to a hook provided in the panel above the bowed waist. The effect was to place an emphasis on shame. The newest member of the class shivered at the thought of being herself thus exposed. The class worked at acquiring French. Mademoiselle Dulac worked at teaching it. There was nothing dilatory in the atmosphere of the classroom. Had it not been for the bare bottom, staring at her like an accusing eye, Sharon would have found comfort in this application to scholarship. It was normal. It helped repel the visions and quiet the scald of the stripes upon her back. But Presteigne was Presteigne. It was no more than thirty minutes before the curt command split the silence. "Millicent!" A girl of thirteen or fourteen stood erect. She was frightened. "Please to parse the sentence just completed, dear." Millicent's only response was a few tears and a sniffle. "You were daydreaming, dear?" "Yes, Mademoiselle." "You will be so kind as to step before the Class." The dreamer looked anxiously about as though hopeful of an avenue of escape. Finding none she tried temporizing. "I'm terribly sorry, Mademoiselle, really I am." The childish words were pathetic. "I am sure you are, Millicent. Now, be so kind as to step forward." "Please, Miss, I was whipped yesterday." Millicent was a reluctant penitent. "That is not to your credit, my dear." "Please, Mademoiselle, don't punish me again. I'm always being punished." Millicent dabbed at copious tears. "I am losing patience, Millicent." Mademoiselle Dulac's voice had lost some of its bonhomie. The sniffling maiden shuffled forward unhappily to her punishment. "Please now to remove your clothes." The command that would have elicited consternation in any classroom in the land scarcely caused a ripple across the studiously bowed heads above the busy pens. Curious eyes were cocked in amusement at Millicent's humiliation, but that was all. "The cord, Millicent. You know what to do." The French Mistress's voice was still honeyed. Quite evidently Millicent knew. She gathered her clothes and shoes and placed them in a drawer. It seemed probable she had performed this prelude many times. From a hook on the wall she selected a length of thin rope which she proffered to the waiting hand with a demure curtsy. Without further ado she turned and crossed her wrists behind her back and stood passively in her slight immature nudity while the Mistress expertly tied them tight. Watching, Sharon found herself wincing in sympathy as each loop was tugged and knotted round the slender girlish wrists. "And now to stand and face the class, my dear. I think beside our naughty Paula, s'il vous plaît." It was cruel in its simplicity. A child who had been fully clothed but moments before must now stand naked and face her classmates in her shame. Her small hands had been taken from temptation and held away from pubes and budding breasts by the stricture of the cords. The penitent meekly walked to the designated spot beside the wealed curves and rigid legs and turned to face the watching

eyes. Her tears dried untended on her cheeks. "Erect like to attention, legs apart." Mademoiselle Dulac wanted her pound of flesh. The naked slenderness obeyed. Millicent's blush deepened. The slight silky bush between her legs hid nothing. Pens scratched on paper, work resumed. Two maidens suffered for their sins. Presteigne possessed them all. Despite distractions, Sharon found herself involved in the lesson. She supposed a girl could get used to anything, even a bare bottom and pubescent nudity. French droned. "Millicent!" All eyes followed the word. The naked child had tired of exposure and separation and allowed her legs to close. Hastily and guiltily she thrust her feet apart once more. "The little feet stray, no'?" "I'm sorry, Mademoiselle. I'll be more careful." The young voice quavered tremulously. "Let us give them help, my dear, so there is no forgetting." Sharon watched in disbelief as the mistress selected a sizable spring paper clamp and approached the guilty girl. Millicent evidently knew only too well what to expect, her voice was a wail of anguish. "Please, Mademoiselle, don't put that on me - oh please!" "It is keeping the memory wide awake, little one." "Oh please - not in front of the girls! Oh, Mademoiselle, punish me some other way. That thing's simply horrid, and it hurts terribly." Poor Millicent was desperate. "It is therefore the very thing to use," said Mademoiselle Dulac cheerfully. "No more dreaming while at work, hein la petit. Come, spread the little legs and hold quite still." It could not be happening! It violated every convention, every precept. That a metal clamp be placed upon a female place never mentioned or referred to in polite society was unthinkable. That it be worn there in view for twenty maidens to behold was a thing of nightmares. Sharon watched it happen in disbelief. It was an intensely feminine operation between a woman and a girl. It had been done before, a female thing for which the motions had been oft rehearsed. Abandoning hope, Millicent spread her legs wide and stood firmly waiting, her agonized eyes staring at the wall above and behind those who were her audience. With neat precision, the Mistress grasped the smooth adolescent lips beneath the pubic hair and pulled them tight together and out so that the jaws of the spring clip could encompass its maiden length in its metal maw. Slowly she allowed them to close. Millicent showed unsuspected courage. Perhaps she knew of worse to befall should she fail to accept her punishment in the manner prescribed. She gasped and squirmed as the metal clamped her pussy tight shut, engulfing its lips within their own. A moaning cry died half uttered. Resolutely she braced herself erect, staring straight ahead. Her breasts were rising and falling in panting breaths of pain, but she kept control. Sharon was shocked and astounded at the small girl's voice as it paid homage to authority. "Thank you, Mademoiselle." The class resumed its work. At lunchtime, when the room emptied, the two punished girls remained where they were. When the girls trooped back to their desks for the afternoon they were still there. The metal between Millicent's legs had become a part of her. There was an inevitability about Sharon's punishment. She had sensed it hovering. Even though she was guiltily at fault she suspected its contrivance as her introduction to discipline: perhaps a test of her compliance. When a conjugation of verbs was required of her she was caught at a loss. With flaming cheeks she walked to where she would hear her sentence. "You are deserving of punishment, Cherie?" "Yes, Mademoiselle." She knew not what else to say.

"Be pleased to undress." It had come! This nakedness before a class would be shaming beyond anything heretofore. Pride flamed. "Mademoiselle, I am fully grown, a woman!" "Indeed you are, little one. You should be most proud of so lovely a figure." The Mistress glowed approval. "I should not go unclothed . . . anywhere." "And why not, Cherie?" The French girl's eyes twinkled amusement. "Because it's not right, not decent. It is not done!" "It is done within the walls of Presteigne, my dear." "I know it is, Mademoiselle. But it is still not right. I beg of you, punish me without that?" "I should make you hold out the so small hands?" There was laughter in the words. "And then I should cane the poor dear little fingers?" "If that is your wish, Mademoiselle." Sharon felt a fool. "You would not like it, Cherie, It hurt most badly. And after . . . you must still undress." Sharon's mind was in turmoil, everything was insane. Seeking anchorage she clung to a conviction. "But, Mademoiselle, why must I be naked? I'm sure it's wrong. The other girls may be used to it but I am not." The French Mistress trilled laughter. "Ma pauvre petit, it is all so strange for you. Helene will not therefore punish extra. It is a rule of our school, of this lovely Presteigne, that girls to be punished are first made nude. It is most sensible, n'est-ce pas? The nice skin is then ready for the cane or for the whip, and when it is fastened with the rope or with the chain it is less likely to wiggle free." "But it is so shaming!" "For the first times, oui. But punishment is shaming, is that not so! And then, after a little while . . . pouf! We are all girls." "But that poor girl who has been caned, whose bottom is . . . is there for all to see! She is partly clothed?" "Ah, my poor little prude! You cling so to covering. When you have been punished many times you will understand that Paula suffers more for the little that she wears. Should she be naked she might earn pity - but as she is . . . she is a little ludicrous . . . and much shamed before all. She knows this and is thus more punished." Sharon had been told the French were pragmatists. Certainly these sparkling eyes and fluent tongue would easily refute and easily rationalize the bizarre demands rejected by English mores. It was at that moment she found herself in a position to examine the top half of the anonymous bottom. Confrontation with punishment had placed her past the level of the panel. Paula was regarding her with curious but unhappy eyes. The caned girl leant forward from the panel upon a small table upon which her wrists were strapped out beyond the reach of her teeth. Thus she was supported and forced into the posture whereby the prisoning yoke thrust her middle down to enable her stiffened legs to protrude her captive behind into an inviting posture for the cane. She was quite helpless. "You see, little one, you are already interested in punishments." Mademoiselle Dulac surveyed her new pupil with amusement. "Would it please you to take Paula's place in the caning stocks?" Sharon flinched. She was suspicious of being teased. On the other hand . . . . She was about to be punished with a penalty as yet unnamed. It could well be that to accept Paula's plight might be more merciful than a humiliation as yet unknown. But to have her bottom bared: the cynosure of every eye! She cringed. Memory of the peeping tufts and pouting labia was daunting. "I know nothing of

being punished, Mademoiselle." She faltered lamely. "Then we must teach you, must we not, Cherie!" The vibrant voice was as bright as the laughing eyes. "So to begin - you become bare." Sharon believed it the hardest thing she had ever done. Because she was new the girls were frankly looking, their eyes alight with interest and speculation. She had become a show, a welcome diversion. No doubt it was part of her punishment that they should witness her shame. With burning cheeks she forced her fingers to fumble with the fastenings of the school tunic. "You should never fear nudity, little one." Helene Dulac's tribute was innocently admiring. Sharon stowed away her discarded clothes in a designated drawer. When she turned back to face the Mistress she knew the time had come. "The cord, Miss Tredgold?" The Mistress was enjoying herself. Sharon fetched the limber length to render herself helpless. She felt all breasts and sexuality as she moved and eyes followed. "You have been so beautifully whipped!" Helene's exclamation of delight was genuine. "Please, before your punishment you must show the class." Sharon had forgotten her whip marks. So great was her shame and preoccupation with punishment that memory and soreness had faded. But her weals had not. They blazoned their scarlet in blatant exhibition. The girl who bore them had little pride in her striated skin but she allowed her nakedness to be turned round and round to the fullest advantage for all to enjoy. She half expected a round of applause. "My dear, you are so very beautiful." Sharon could not disguise from herself the knowledge that, for Mademoiselle Dulac, the stripes upon her flesh enhanced her beauty. She was not only a naked girl but a whipped naked girl, and thus in her pain had acquired some strange virtue she did not understand. But a something to which the Mistress was vividly responsive. In Presteigne a whipped maiden was found lovelier than one whose skin was virgin. She stood, uncertain of what to say or do. "Your hands, Sharon." Miserably, she turned as Millicent had turned, and crossed her wrists at the small of her back. Already she could believe she felt the bite of the clamp upon her sex. "N on, non, Cherie." Firm but gentle hands turned her about and crossed her wrists before her. Rope twined. Once more, the girl to be punished felt the strange sensations. She was being bound. Bound by a girl, a girl whose fingers were cruel but warm. The rope bit but without the hurt to be expected. The hurt was there but it had become a sensuality, a sensory excitation emanating not from the cord but from the female fingers drawing it tight and tighter yet. For those moments during which her hands were being tied, Sharon found an inexplicable oneness with she who tied the knots. "And a collar for the sweet small neck." It was as though they were dressing for a party. Excitement vibrated from Helene Dulac in palpable waves as she fitted the leather band about the slender neck and snapped the lock. "And now the little hands! Up and over . . . so!" The authoritative hands helped. It was a strain to wiggle her bound wrists up over her head and down to the ring at the back of the collar. But it was done. Sharon's hair was rearranged for her and the bound hands were tied afresh to the ring. She stood defenseless and utterly exposed. She had never felt so Vulnerable in all her life. Her breasts jutted outrageously. Never before had she so assessed their firm dimensions. Looking down at her

nipples was to behold magic. Timidly she struggled and tested her impotence. It was complete. Questioningly but without rancour she looked at the girl who had fastened her thus. "Ma pauvre petit. You are helpless, no?" Sharon was surprised to find she could still nod. She did so. Her face was framed within her jutting elbows. "Is this my punishment?" she asked anxiously. "Come, come, Cherie! To be made supremely lovely is not a punishment." Merriment bubbled from Helene as from a fountain. "I will lead you to your penance." It was very simple. Two wooden blocks, each a foot high and a yard apart. Ardent hands aided the treacherous ascent. A moment later Sharon was nakedly facing twenty pairs of eyes, her hands bound behind her neck, her feet straddled wide, one on each block. Her perch was dangerously insecure. But, worse still, was cruelly shaming in the blatant flaunting of the black bush at the base of her belly and that which nestled beneath. No slave girl on an auction block had ever stood for inspection as she stood now. "It is best not to fall, Cherie. To fall is to be punished more." The female voice was solicitous. Sharon knew her danger. If only she had been allowed to stand with feet in normal rest! But she was being punished and this was a part of it. Her legs, in their inverted 'V' would tire, balance was not easy. Cautiously she edged her feet into such stability as her punishment permitted. She was blushingly certain her breasts were pointing at the class like cannons. She had never seen her nipples so hard and eager. Once more the class applied itself to knowledge. Mademoiselle Dulac became briskly busy with pointer and with chalk. Three punished girls strove mightily to stand as bidden. Sometimes a wandering eye would rove across their nakedness and then return to the paper and the pen. The clock ticked away the afternoon with cruel sloth. Sharon's downfall was a wandering wasp that had found its way through an open window. Buzzing uncomfortably close to her face, it caused the helpless girl to shake her head and recoil. The inevitable happened. Her balance lost, she stumbled from the twin pedestals of her punishment. There was a loaded silence. The naked girl stood awkwardly, uncertain what the small disaster required of her. Hesitantly, her eyes sought guidance from Mademoiselle Dulac. "Cherie, you have done what is not permitted." The voice was warm but heavy with reproof. "But the wasp-!" "Pouf, the wasp he is not a good excuse. Come, we resume. I help." The blocks were carefully positioned. Mortified and feeling foolish, Sharon mounted them with the needed aid of strong French hands. Aching for surcease, she contrived her previous semi-stability. The Mistress circled her pensively. "There is, of course, the penalty, little one." "Yes, Mademoiselle. I'm sorry." Sharon made her voice submissive. Tied as she was, revolt was impossible, argument futile. Presteigne and punishment were synonymous. She thought of the hateful thing between Millicent's legs and quailed. "You are so sweet standing there in your shame, Cherie. We must spoil nothing." The fun-filled voice was speculative. "I think perhaps we add a small something for the so fine effect." It would be the clamp! Sharon was sure of it. Instead, she found herself looking at a small pasteboard box. "These are small things of much beauty, dear. You will adore them." Helene Dulac lifted the lid. At first it did not register. Between apprehension and concern for balance, the punished maiden saw only the cotton fluff on which nestled two objects of ornamentation, seeming products of a

jeweller's craft. "Two of them, dear girl, you will be so proud." The word 'two' told all. Sharon could guess! With cringing concern but fascinated curiosity, she watched the fingers lift the jewelled clip from which hung pendant a silk tassel. "No, oh no! You mustn't!" All the outrage of virginity and social usage made her exclamation piteous. Like most girls of her age and station in society, Sharon had watched the growth of her breasts with both wonder and shame. Men did not have these appendages, and since men were the master sex, it could only mean that these soft cones were one more punishment of Eve, to be borne with fortitude and well hidden. The fashions of the day helped, they provided frills. The idea that breasts, with their strangely temperamental nipples, should be exposed to public view was a thing for nightmares. It did not happen . . . it could not happen! But in Presteigne . . . ! "Keep quite still, dear, while I get them hard." It was as though she was being fitted for a dress. A polite concern that everything should be 'just so.' Wise fingertips found the naked nipples on the thrusting breasts and commenced a frictioning that evoked turgid sensations and quickened breathing to jeopardize precarious balance. A cry of protest died unborn on captive lips. "You are most responsive, little one, n'est-ce pas?" In innocence, Sharon supposed the French girl knew some magic, some wicked secret of their sex. Lowering her eyes she blushed hotly at sight of the betrayal of her flesh. Her nipples which, often enough, were totally inverted now were hard with congestion. From somewhere they had acquired a life of their own and were wantonly flaunting a growth of which their owner had been unaware. "There! So nice and large, so sweetly hard." Helene sounded proud. The act of appending the jewelled punishments on the delinquent buds of flesh demanded caution. With a metal jaw ready in her hand, the Mistress looked up above the heaving breasts. "Ma pauvre petit." Her words were alive with sympathy. "You must be most brave and hold most still. I want not to have to punish you more." Punishment begat punishment! The shamed girl steeled herself to stand. What was being done to her now was enough, she wanted no more. She was about to plead but was robbed of words by the flaming burn upon her left breast and then her right. Sharon moaned brokenly, every nerve in protest against an agony so feminine and so cruel she could not believe it had ever happened to any girl ever but herself. Unable to control her need to know, she looked down. They were exquisite, they were female, they were outrageous! They bit and hurt cruelly. There was a vicious personal animosity in their intimate clasp upon her two nipples on which they bounced in buoyant joy, their silken tassels pendant for added shame. Sharon suspected such provocations belonged in a house of ill repute rather than the classroom of a school. Her breasts burned. "You are most lovely, little one." Once again there was that with the awed voice that went beyond the normal tribute. Mademoiselle Dulac was saying that the torturing trifles trembling with each motion of panting breasts made the girl who wore them beautiful beyond her nakedness. Presteigne dealt in nuances beyond the norm. "Please, Mademoiselle, I cannot bear it. I cannot -" "Poor sad child. Naughty and nice." The Mistress's voice oozed sympathy and encouragement. "You are bearing the so sweet inflictions very well, my dear. You have my permission to weep should you wish. You may even make the small moans. But that is all. You will stand still." How easily the impossible became possible and the unbearable a familiar enemy to be kept at bay with tears and resolution! How easily youth could mount the steps of pain and shame and outrage, each one shattering a preconception, each one the ultimate and last yet going on forever! Sharon wept and Sharon moaned. But Sharon stood still and suffered. After awhile she forgot her nakedness and the interested eyes. Evening brought the cell and the company of Paula of the striped bottom. It brought no freedom from either cord or pain. Sharon's hands were tied firmly behind her back, the impish tassels still danced gaily from her breasts.

"If you're lucky, someone might take 'em off at bedtime," Paula consoled. "But don't ask me to. We'd be caught with them off for sure, and then heaven help us both. I'd be flayed alive." She was a cheerful moppet, sharing Trina's incomprehensible insouciance in a condition more conducive to tears than laughter. Her hands were loosely chained before her in a token bondage in which she could have easily removed the clips from her companion's breasts or untied the bound, hands. It was a testimony to Presteigne's discipline that she did neither. For Sharon it was an infuriating frustration. "I'll keep very still for you to put them back on me?" she offered tentatively. "Don't ask me, darling. I'm scared." "But they hurt so! It's beastly not to be able to take them off myself." Sharon longed to be rid of the punishing demons. "I know. Don't think I've not worn 'em. We all have. Mademoiselle adores clipping them on us." "Are they the only reason my hands are tied like this - so I can't take them off?" "Goodness knows, darling. It's all part of the fun. They love to keep us . . . well, sort of surprised - off guard." "Fun! D'you call this fun?" Sharon tugged irritably at her bound wrists. "Why are we both naked, and why are your hands chained?" "Don't get shirty about it, darling. We're all of us naked about half the time. I've got so I like it." Paula held up her fettered hands admiringly. "Aren't they lovely! Much nicer than not wearing anything." Frustration on frustration! A girl who delighted in nudity and wore her chains with pride! Sharon's tone was caustic: "Did you enjoy being fastened in that awful contraption in class and getting your bottom caned?" "Well, the cane hurt something awful while Mademoiselle laid it on." Paula's words were cheerfully judicial. "But the rest wasn't all that bad. I didn't have to fuss over those rotten French verbs. I hate French." "But weren't you ashamed . . . ? The way you were fastened and uncovered?" Paula giggled. "You mean a bare bottom! Presteigne's got more bare bottoms than any place in England - all female, all well striped." "But why endure it?" Paula examined the question as though finding it new and strange. "Well, what else can we do?" She enunciated slowly. "Right now, for instance. You and I can't exactly pack up and go home, can we?" "You mean we're prisoners? Surely there are some freedoms?" "To do a bunk?" Paula giggled. "Sounds easy but it's not. We've all tried . . . but it hurts too much: the punishment, I mean. And then, after awhile you don't want to. You like it here." "But why, why, why?" Sharon stamped a bare foot in vexation. It hurt. "What's there to like in being caned and whipped and tied like I am, and with these beastly things biting my . . . my -" "Your nipples, darling. Don't be shy. Think of young Millicent with her clip on a place I bet you don't talk about. What would you call it if you had to?" "I don't talk about it." Paula was intrigued by innocence. "But just supposing . . . suppose you had the awfullest pain in it and went to a doctor: where would you tell him it hurt?" The teased girl flushed. "Oh very well. I've heard really awful words - the girls at school. . . ! I won't call it anything but a pussy." Paula's prurience persisted. "I suppose you know what it's for?"

Sharon had indulged her own girlish curiosity and picked up scraps of whispered information and innuendo, the authenticity of which left her dubious. "You mean . . . you mean - about men?" she asked hesitantly. "Of course, silly." The young face was alight with interest. "You know they've got hair the same as us, but they've also got a great long thing they stick inside us. Isn't it exciting." "I think it's horrible." "Well, what about girls? Want me to nibble you? It'll make you forget those lovely clips for awhile." Sharon had the feeling of standing on a verge. Presteigne was about to explode another bomb. "Nibble?" She gazed at her animated companion in wonder. "You don't mean kiss . . . ?" "Of course not, silly! You know?" "But I don't! I don't know what you mean. I had a girl once bite my ear - it was rather nice." Paula's giggle was infectious. "You don't know a thing, do you. I'd better leave you alone, darling. Virgins aren't for humble little girls like me. I'll get you later." Was she being teased! Was Paula professing to some esoteric wisdom she did not possess! Sharon's interest waned. She was preoccupied with the biting imps upon her breasts. At that moment the most vital thing in her narrowed world was to be rid of them. Despite her loathing of what she must perforce wear, she found herself constantly looking down at her pert punishments. The clips stood out from her hard nipples with a saucy demand for attention, she could move no whit without sending the hanging tassels into a jig of their own; It seemed incredible that she could not remove them but she could not. Her crossed wrists were snug and secure at her back. They were well chafed from their prisonment of the day, a tenderness she was adding to constantly in twistings and strivings instinctive and largely unconscious. Her hands were denied. They would not lift the torture from her tits. "Poor dear, you do hate them, don't you!" Paula easily divined her companion's concern. "They're beastly. They hurt so . . . and I can't . . . I just can't -" Sharon tugged and wrenched, striving with captive fingers to reach the unreachable. "Oh, all right then. You look so unhappy with them, I'll take a chance. Promise you'll let me put them back on without a fuss?" Paula was sympathetic but anxious. "Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh thank you." Sharon's promise was as instinctive as her struggle to get free. She protruded her chest invitingly. "Don't blame me if we get into trouble over this," Paula warned. "And it's going to hurt something fierce when I do it." "Please, oh please!" Sharon shook her breasts to make them plead their cause. "I don't mind . . . anything!" The punished girl watched breathlessly as Paula's chained hands rose to their task. With fingers and thumbs firm upon the tiny instruments of pain, the links of her shackle almost taut from the dual task, she lifted her eyes to Sharon's in a communion between two girls. "It's going to hurt, darling. Ready?" Sharon gasped in agony and disbelief. It was hard to equate release with such a penalty of pain. Blindly she fell writhing on the cot. She found no immediate significance in the hands that positioned her and the wet hot lips which sucked avidly at her wounded rosebuds. Once more she tugged angrily at her bonds. The sensation was almost instant. It was as though her nipples blossomed in joy, not so much from their release as from what was being done to them now. Their owner stopped writhing and lay quiescent, startled by a response of her flesh totally new. Her breathing quickened. Strangely, what she was feeling was allied to those other quiverings and vibrations brought to life

by feminine fingers binding her with rope. She recalled how she had stood passively to be tied and how the delicious heat had pervaded her loins as the cords found her flesh under a compulsion wholly female. "Oh don't stop!" Sharon was abashed by her exclamation the moment she had made it. The words clothed a simple act of compassion with overt significance. She looked up sheepishly into Paula's smiling face. Paula was licking her lips. "Liked it, didn't you!" Paula seemed pleased. Then, irrelevantly, "Sharon, you're gorgeous." "That was nice, Paula. They were so tender. Please do it some more." Sharon's request held all the innocence of the world. "I wish my hands weren't tied. I long to . . . well, I long to -" "Like this?" Gossamer fingertips traced themselves teasingly across the hard points to evoke a panting gasp that even Sharon herself recognized as ecstacy. "Oh yes . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh . . . mmmmm!" "You'll get all hot and bothered. I'd better stop." "But why! It's so nice." "If you don't know, silly, I'm not going to tell you," The girl with chained hands was amused by some secret knowledge of her own. Her hands fell away from the avid breasts. "I'd love to untie your hands for awhile, darling, but that's asking for trouble. Sorry." "I don't mind, Paula. If you'll do that to me again I don't need hands. Please dear?" "Well . . . maybe a little." Paula was torn between concupiscence and caution. Hungrily she lowered her lips once more to their task. Sharon was virgin. Her schools and her friends and her elders had been conservative in a conservative era. For a girl of her age and station in Victorian England sex was but a word, a word rarely-used and without special significance. The sexual responses of her body were never recognized. They were sublimated into expressions and curiosities purely aesthetic. If sight of beauty brought ecstacy the creeping warmth within the maiden loins were but a part of a quite respectable response. Now, naked on a cot in a barred cell, and with her hands tied behind her back to render her an amenable package, the seeking lips and teasing tongue carried her into a painted wonderland of pure delight. A carnality totally innocent because, for the captive girl, it had no name. For the first time in her life, Sharon was glad she had breasts and that her breasts had nipples. It was a wonderful dreamland in which vividly hued colours and visions swept in an endless panorama of enchantment. That her dreams were peopled by naked girls, some of them in chains, seemed no more than was to be expected in the circumstances in which she was held. They could be rationalized. Sharon wanted more. The sly tongue performed small miracles: A slender hand with its knowing fingertips sought the tender bud that wetly waited for the lips. Metal links were irritably thrust aside in panting urgency. When the loving attention stopped, a hopeful voice asked: "Want to try me?" The impossible was so easy. Tied helplessly, Sharon needed little help. In sinuous nudity without hands, she and the glowing Paula writhed into position with an urgent haste. Sharon's lips eagerly found what was eagerly offered. The maiden with bound hands began another excursion into the mysteries of Presteigne. Sharon longed for her hands. Of their own volition they tugged and twisted against their cord in their own anxious desire to reach the breast the lips must need leave without attention. But breathless and wet the excited girl went from nipple to nipple with her mouth to transport Paula into the muskscented fairyland of female sharing. It was sacrilege when Paula cautiously announced the end. "It's no good taking any more chance than this, darling," she mourned. "You were simply spiffing, you're gorgeous. I'm so glad I made you happy. But I think it's time . . . ?" Sharon could have wept. Her tears would have been half of joy and half regret that the joy was past. She was still transported in a turgid world of quivering awareness that Paula and she were not as other mortals: they had found a magic key. She watched her companion retrieve the tasselled clips. She was numb with happiness. At that moment she would have accepted anything Paula wished to do to her without question.

"You promised to hold still. Sharon darling?" She nodded, bright-eyed. Uncaring of the pain to come, she would believe it when it happened. She took a deep breath and protruded her breasts. "I don't mind," she whispered. "I don't mind." "I have to be ever so careful, Sharon." Paula was rapt and intent. "Mademoiselle knows just where she had them on you. I've got to try and clip them just the same place - sorry." To all her other sensations, Sharon now added fear. But it was a delicious trembling fear. Something was being done to her by a girl. It would hurt frightfully, but because it was a girl who did it she would not mind. She would bear the pain as she had borne the ecstacy of the lips. They seemed strangely similar. "Well, we did have a lovely time with them off. So I suppose . . . . " Paula's hand rose to the expectant scarlet bud. Sharon watched. She had to. She had no choice. She had neither will nor wish to evade the awfulness of suspense or the visual evidence against which her flesh would scream. With loving precision, the girl with chained hands positioned the sacrificial breast and the metal beast designed to punish it . . . . Sharon was certain the agony was worse than the first time. Fire lanced from her nipple through her whole being. She emitted a moaning gasp. It was only by the exercise of all her will she refrained from falling sideways and writhing on the cot. The tassel, quivering from her own pain, mocked gaily. "It seems worse, I know darling. It'll settle down." Paula was concerned and shrinking in sympathy. Involuntarily, the wounded girl leant forward and kissed the one who held the second clip. This pain was a stimulant. It dissolved one kind of courage and provided another. "Don't worry," she consoled. "Clip it on me and then it's done. I can cry afterwards." Almost insolently she thrust forward the as yet unmarred breast with its pleading scarlet nub of sensitivity. "You're terribly brave, darling," said Paula admiringly. "I'll try and be ever so quick." Again the agony! Now two tassels danced their delight and two nipples burned scaldingly. Sharon closed her eyes and moaned. Her hands twisted and pulled fruitlessly. Paula's links clinked musically as she who wore them pulled forward the lovely face flushed with pain and kissed two captive eyes. "Oh darling, I wish . . . I wish -" "And what is this so urgent thing you wish, Paula?" The voice of Mademoiselle was soft but filled the cell as a thunderclap. Two naked prisoners sprang apart. Guilt, pain and consternation flaming across startled features. Two pairs of maiden eyes beheld nemesis smiling at them through the bars. A speculation loaded silence was ended by Paula's quaver: "We didn't hear you. Have you been there long. Mademoiselle?" Helene Dulac trilled Gallic laughter. "Such naiveté, dear child. It matters much, n'est-ce pas?" Neither prisoner wished to admit how much it mattered. They remained discreetly mute. "I have seen all" The French Mistress obviously savoured her own dramatics. "And there remain your faces . . . if you could but see the guilt. I tiptoe to behold my little pigeons in their cell, and what do I see!" Mademoiselle paused for full effect. "I witness two kittens busy with their mouths and little tongues . . . and breasts still wet. I see my lovely tasselled jewellery lying discarded on the cot." "We're terribly sorry, Mademoiselle," Paula offered inadequately. "But of course! I would be most sorry too. To be caught in flagrante delicto is of the most embarrassing. You have perhaps some excuse?" "No, Mademoiselle." It seemed probable this was not Paula's first time. She was troubled but resigned. "And you, dear Sharon? For so heinous a disobedience, have you naught to tell me?"

The unhappy delinquent twisted in her bonds and longed to be far away. "No, Mademoiselle . . . except it was my fault, all my fault. I pestered Paula to take them off me. She did it in sympathy." "Ah, of course!" The mistress was drily amused. "The temptations of Eve! They go on and on. And you wish the punishment instead of her?" "Yes please, Mademoiselle." "What touching nobility! Ah, to be nineteen!" "I know I did wrong," Paula interjected forthrightly. "I won't make any excuses, Mademoiselle." "Then let us end this lovely glow of righteousness." Helene Dulac laughed gaily. "Tomorrow, Paula, you will be whipped with fifty strokes. And you, Sharon, because you are new, shall watch her punishment." "Thank you, Mademoiselle." Paula's voice trembled but she did not plead. In response to a beckoning finger Sharon walked to the bars and gasped in both pain and wonder as Helene's fingers reached in and relieved her nipples of their clips. "You deserve to wear them, but for all the night the circulation would be bad. Had you been a good girl I would have untied your hands. But now . . . pouf! You are bad, so you wear your cords." "Thank you, Mademoiselle." It seemed the thing to say. "And so I bid you bon soir, little pigeons." They wept together on the cot. Strangely, as she fell asleep, Sharon saw only Chartreuse's lovely nakedness standing penitent before the hooded man.

Chapter Five The Strapped Virgin Lord Theodor Halcyon smoked only the finest Havanas. Sharon found their expensive fragrance oddly comforting: her father had smoked them too. Sitting, clothed and prim, across from him in the Headmistress's study, she was aware of one more of the incongruities of Presteigne. "And how long has it been. Miss Tredgold?" His voice was suavely courteous. "Nearly three weeks, sir." "Ah. And you find yourself . . . settling?" "I find myself a prisoner, sir." He allowed the protest to pass without comment. "Presteigne is not as other schools. Miss Tredgold." He smiled. "And yet I venture the belief you have found your studies fruitful?" Sharon was annoyed that he was right. Mademoiselle Dulac and a Miss Cheryl Mitchum had contrived to invest her with a gift of tongues by virtue of their personalities rather than by fear of the bizarre punishments they both constantly imposed. Seeking, now, an adequate expression of her confusion with the incredible, she managed only a lame: "Yes sir." "Sharon, you are closer to being a woman than a girl." She did not catch his drift. But she could agree inasmuch as her involvements with both pupils and teachers had made her constantly aware of her body and its potentialities. She seized the opening: "Sir Halcyon, because of what you have just said. I must ask, why am I prisoner? Why was I subjected to that cruel experience with Miss Carruthers and yourself? That black hood . . . ! It is frightening and unreal." "Are you frightened now?"

"No." "It does not matter then. You will understand much in the course of time." His gaze became speculative. "Miss Carruthers has asked me to speak to you of things she believes me better able to explain." "Why did you whip her that day? Why does she allow-?" Sharon broke off in confusion. The heavens did not fall. The august male across the desk even produced a tolerant smile. "That too will become intelligible, Sharon." "You realise I shall escape and go to the police" She flung it at him with a heat engendered by three weeks of frustration. "And what will you tell them?" He was but mildly curious. "Everything!" "Ah. Perhaps you will have the opportunity. Speak of it to Miss Carruthers when you are together." Clothed, and in a semblance of normalcy. Sharon examined her Guardian from a fresh perspective. His attire was heavily formal, a London figure of counting houses and clubs. But beneath it was a man, a handsome and forceful personality radiating power. He was of a type without age. She realised, with something of a shock, he could well be below forty. Once more she plunged: "You are the Trustee of my Estate, and Guardian of my person. Lord Halcyon. If I asked you to send me to another school, would you do so?" "No." "Why are all the girls here kept prisoner?" He dismissed her heated question with a careless wave of the hand. "You mentioned your Estate, Miss Tredgold." He paused as though weighing his words with care. "It is considered expedient to disabuse your mind of a crutch on which you lean." The listening girl felt the ice of fear touch her spine. Premonition held her breathless. "You have no Estate. Miss Tredgold. No girl in Presteigne has an Estate. An Estate is an encumbrance inhibiting your function here." The awful announcement was bland, casual, faintly bored. "But how . . . why?" Sharon was adrift. Her Guardian shrugged. "T am a businessman, my dear. These matters are easily managed. You signed a great many documents . . . ." "You mean YOU have stolen - embezzled!" Lord Halcyon's smile was quite charming. "I have relieved you of a handicap. Possessions are not for girls." A hundred questions and denials fought Sharon's tight - clenched lips. She sensed their futility. Instead, she faltered: "You spoke of my function here: what is it, sir?" The Guardian savoured his ward's query with amusement. "You are delightfully shrewd, dear girl. But I think that a question to ask of our beloved Miss Carruthers." He mused quietly. "I will only say that this . . . function . . . has, from the remotest ages, been an honourable estate." His eyes twinkled provocatively. "I am told you are doing remarkably well in French." His ambience was like the rest of them, evasive and elusive. Lord Halcyon kept silent because he wished to. Sharon suspected the others were mute in fear. But perhaps Chartreuse. . . ! "Am I intruding?" There had been no knock. Sharon suspected Miss Carruthers' entry prearranged.

"Ah. 'Treuse, your arrival is opportune. Would you mind . . . ?" Lord Halcyon contrived to sound relieved. "Come along, darling," Chartreuse was aglow. It could have been an invitation to the theatre. The bereft girl, feeling more an orphan than ever before, looked to her Guardian. Lord Halcyon bestowed a nod and controlled smile of approval. Sharon hoped her relief and precipitous, haste in following Miss Carruthers' scented loveliness was not too rude. "I've arranged this just for us, darling." The Headmistress was happily excited. 'This' as a darkened room Sharon had never seen. Heavy rugs and velvet drapes were its motif. In the centre of the considerable space was 'Something' . . . ! It was hard to name. A Bench. A narrow platform. A raised bed! With a little shiver of excitation of her own, Sharon placed it in her mind as an altar. She shivered. "You won't mind being naked, will you, dear?" It was not a question. It was an order. But an order given with Chartreuse's special emanation of affection. Sharon said: No, she did not mind. Then, in sudden alarm: "Are you going to whip me again?" Chartreuse was delighted. "Not this time. Cherie." Then, mischievously: "Or would you like me to?" Sharon's instinctive: "Oh no!" carried conviction, Teasing or no, there had been that in the gay enquiry seeking an affirmative, a face-saving invitation by which the now naked girl could have said yes with a flip answer or a blush. It would always be like this: an unspoken something hovering, a word or suggestion to throw her off balance. Sharon realised how far she had travelled down Presteigne's path that she could unblushingly strip and find the act routine. Her further comment was cut short by another of Chartreuse's small bombshells. "And a blindfold, darling. I think it will be so much nicer for you with a blindfold." It was a contoured mask for the eyes, held tight by elastic. So cunningly was it shaped and padded it totally excluded light. Sharon was blind. She wondered why it would be "so much nicer" but supposed it useless to ask. "Relax, darling, and let me guide you." It was easy to allow the gentle hand to have its way. Chartreuse was magic. Outrageous as her plight might be, there was no thought in Sharon's mind of revolt. Instead, she knew the excitement of discovery, and a feminine curiosity as to what was to be done to her. "You have your hands, dear. Climb up and lie down." It was the altar thing, it had to be. Its surface was of leather, cold on her naked back. The words 'rites' and 'initiation' flitted through Sharon's mind. Had she been led here by other than Chartreuse she would have been afraid. "Let your arms fall, darling." Her resting place was narrow. Obeying the whispered order Sharon found it easy to let her hand and arms hang limp to either side. But when the busy fingers fitted the first strap around the first wrist her appeal was urgent. "Please don't strap me down." "It's much the best, Sharon." "Oh please, Miss Carruthers, I'll be good. I won't move. I promise . . . I promise . . . I won't be . . . be bad." How childishly silly it sounded! Sharon felt ashamed. As usual, the Headmistress sounded amused. "Why don't you want to be fastened, darling? I'm going to do it anyway, y'know." Why indeed! Presteigne was quietly smiling in the shadows. What was untoward in a naked girl lying strapped down to a bench! Sheepishly, Sharon produced the school's required response: "Yes, Miss Carruthers. Thank you."

It came again. It crept upon the naked girl without anticipation. As the leather band was drawn snugly to prison her wrist, the fire stirred and came to life within her secret place. By the time Chartreuse had patted the final buckling to her satisfaction her nude pupil was palpitating with pleasurable responses precluding further complaint. When the second wrist was positioned by the firm feminine fingers its owner helped, "You're terribly sweet, dear," The words of the Mistress were an accolade. There was a quality of the obvious about the strap around the narrow girlish waist. The centre of a girl's being always was an anchorage, even a skirt . . . . It was very tight. When it was buckled Sharon could not move above her hips. Presteigne had made the captive conscious of her legs just as it had bestowed awareness of her breasts. Suddenly she found them flailing air. A bottom segment of the bench had been removed allowing them to fall without support as had her arms. But they found no resting place, no waiting strap. Whatever she did with them was strained and uncomfortable. Aware of indecent exposure she strove to cross them but the result was too absurd. "Poor darling, there's nowhere to put them, is there! Just a minute." Chartreuse was laughing. It was obvious once you knew! An ankle was pulled back beside the bench to find its leather bond. Again the thrill of the taut pinioning. When it was done to her other foot as well Sharon knew herself open, vulnerable, totally at the disposition of the lovely and enigmatic woman whose strictures she now wore in immobility. Thought of that portion of herself now most in evidence sent a blush flaming to her cheeks. Perhaps Chartreuse was right: it was better to be blind. "Oh Sharon, you're so lovely." The immovably strapped girl wryly considered an exclamation on her helplessness more appropriate than one upon whatever aestheticism was achieved by rendering her thus impotent. The judgements of Presteigne were far removed from the world beyond its gates. They were strange . . . . Or were they! Her sexual embers had been stirred to flame. "Just a little something here darling." The little something was a wedge-shaped pad thrust beneath her hips. It enhanced the indelicacy of her exposure and made the straps hold her more tightly than ever. Sharon's gasp was one of shame. "I thought we might talk a little. Cherie." Blind and helpless, and now conversation! Sharon used all her youthful strength in an effort to move. She could not. The straps held her in a fond embrace. Had it not been for the remorseless separation and stretching of her legs there would have been no pain. But to talk! Talk when she was like this . . . ! "I think Lord Halcyon told you . . . something?" It all came back. The cry of agony denied before the man, now found its outlet. The daunting presence of Halcyon coupled with the contrasting enchantment of Chartreuse had thrown her business affairs into the shadows from which it now emerged. Robbed of sight. Sharon put all her feelings into words. "He told me I had nothing. That in some way he had diverted all my possessions to himself. It can't be true! Is it . . . ?" "It is true. Sharon." "He said . . . the other girls . . . ?" "It is true of all of us here in Presteigne." "Not you! Oh. Miss Carruthers. . . !" Sharon had a momentary vision of the naked slenderness standing before the man in black. Chartreuse's laugh was as carefree as ever. "Even I." The lovely voice was faintly mocking. "Don't take on so, dear girl. Once I owned Presteigne. Now it is Halcyon's. It does not matter." In her emotional turmoil the straps had become enemies. Sharon fought them. She needed

freedom, expression, protest! "You cannot get loose, darling." The whispered words were sweetly feminine as to a child. "I must . . . I must! Oh, it's all so wrong. Oh please?" "Please what, darling? If I free you now - what then?" It was true. Freedom would change nothing. Sharon fought back her panic and allowed the straps to have their way with her. But she longed to see the lovely face looking down at her helplessness. "Please take away the blindfold?" she pleaded. "No." Her impotence was frightening. The lovely presence at her side controlled her utterly. Thought of her dependence on Chartreuse heated her loins anew. She was in a nightmare strangely interspersed with beauty. Fighting for identity, she asked the fatal question: "You . . . and the girls - you're happy? Why?" "Because we have everything we desire. Cherie." By Presteigne standards the answer was clearcut and matter of fact. Yet she was no wiser. Bitterly, she retorted: "Chained and whipped . . . and locked in cells?" "Yes, dear, we have all those things. But, most of all, we have each other." She had been answered. Sharon sensed she had been given the Open Sesame to understanding, yet had failed to see it. "We're prisoners." she said unhappily. "Just a sad lot of girls and women kept in a sort of lovely prison." "Sad! You said yourself we were happy." "All right then. You all adore being tied up and whipped." Sharon poured all her bitterness into the accusation. "That's right, darling." Sharon could make no physical manifestation of shock. But the calm amused admission in the darkness was like a blow. She was about to refute it when she felt again the flush within, the heat, of a force she could not divine, Suppose. . . just suppose . . . ! "He, Lord Halcyon, said I had a function here. Something real. He said I should ask you . . . ?" "Poor little girl lost!" Chartreuse was enjoying her pupil's groping in a darkness beyond the blind. "I've thought about a name for it. I can't really find one I like. When I was angry at first I thought of myself as a slave - it could still be the best word." She pondered a moment in thought. "I expect each girl sorts it out - carries her own pet word for it: that is if she must have a word . . . there's no need . . . ." "A slave! But that's . . . that -" Chartreuse chuckled. "Let's call ourselves handmaidens." "Handmaidens!" The blind and bound girl savoured the sound and implications. "Handmaidens to whom, Miss Carruthers?" There came no answer from the darkness. But there were sounds. Sharon, taut within the straps, could guess at them but not be sure. She gasped and tensed as two tentative fingertips touched her nipples and began to play. Instinctively she struggled but could not move. Her breasts were an open sacrifice. "No! Oh please . . . ! You mustn't." Her protest was as instinctive as her struggle. It was as equally devoid of purpose or profit. She could not get free and knew it. She would never wish to repel the touch of Chartreuse's hands, she knew that too. In total darkness, unable to move, she lay and quivered.

She would look back at it afterwards and understand. But, now, the naked girl knew only bafflement and shame. The shame was not voluntary. Society bequeathed and she accepted it. Presteigne and Victoria Regina lay in different worlds. Yesterday Latin composition, today . . . today was not of any world Sharon had known or heard of. Today was Chartreuse! The fingertips were cunning, they were wicked. Whimpering protests died beneath their touch. With eyes blind, the naked girl's mind was vivid with a kaleidoscope of erotic visions. She knew them not for what they were. Through them danced Trina and Paula and, strangely enough, her own body. But the principal figure was Chartreuse. All were naked. Paula wore the chain loosely linking her wrists. They were all enchantingly wonderfully happy. There was no cessation in the frictioning, Sharon's breasts rose and fell under the compulsion of quickened heartbeats. She knew that had she not been so tightly strapped she would have arched her back to more readily offer her hardening nipples. Little by little, inhibitions flowed away. She longed to bespeak this miracle but knew not what to say. Chartreuse was naked! Awareness arose when the Mistress sought lodgement beside her prey the better to achieve her purpose. A bare hip brushed against the naked waist. Bare forearms came to rest on rib and flank. When lush lips sought a breast, the twin nipples of the woman who was free flickered lightly here and there as their owner moved between the two delights on which she fed. "Please, let me see you." Sharon whispered. To be blind in Paradise! The bound captive longed to share sight with this glowing witch who held her in such passionate thrall. But there was no answer. The lips and fingers plied their predatory task in a purpose intent and absorbed. Unable to contain the seething surges of sensation. Sharon moaned . . . and moaned again. The acolyte was as unready for the Mistress's next move as for all the rest. Gentle as was the loving hand upon her sex it had all the impact of a blow. It was a beginning. It was an end. It was impossible but it had happened. It was happening to her now, A hand other than her own was cupping and squeezing the moist lips that crowned the apex of her legs. When its ministrations were joined by its fellow on one nipple and wet lips upon another the straps creaked under her surging struggle toward ecstacy. Nature guides. Untaught, we follow the pathway of our senses. To the bound girl stretched naked on the bench it became evident that what was happening to her now must have happened to others. To her, Chartreuse was Eve. But to how many others had she thus ministered! Eve was the eternal woman . . . . Perhaps Trina and Paula . . . ! Sharon recalled the knowing eyes and lush lips of girls in class. Watching . . . As a blinding revelation Sharon knew she would not voluntarily end the joy of what was being done to her. At this moment, given the chance to leave Presteigne, she would not take it. Chartreuse held her captive by more than leather bands. But this was not a time for reason. It was precious for the moment that was now, for an intensity of living and sensation like a blinding light of gladness in being female, of glorying in herself and what she was. Of being grateful to life for the naked loveliness that played upon her as upon a palpitating instrument. A turgid wave of musk rose to her nostrils. Wonderingly she knew it for her own. Blind, she could only guess at the mysteries of her initiation into Sappho's scented Isle. Sometimes she was glad of the blindfold. It heightened her sensibilities, narrowing her consciousness to the entity of herself and the ardent femininity possessing her. There was naught else. If this was Presteigne she wanted not the world. When the hands slithered to her parted thighs and the fierce lips and probing tongue entered the pungent wetness her stringent bonds laid bare and open, Sharon gave a great cry. A cry of exaltation in being woman. A cry that went on and on and on forever until it merged in one vast explosion of incandescent light. So absorbed in the intensity of awakened emotions was the helpless girl that she failed to note the moment in which the scented presence departed from her side. She remembered a kiss and the sweet tracery of fingers from her chin down to the end of the nude contours of her being. But after what may have been a long time her senses told Sharon she was alone. Strapped helplessly on the altar of Sappho she relaxed within the clasp of the leather bands and pondered the implications of what had been done to her. It altered everything. It was an end and a beginning. She suspected, with a quickening excitement, Chartreuse had given her the answer to all her questions, or at least to the most urgent of them.

Sharon was exquisitely helpless. After she had ceased to pant, and the colours faded to leave her blind beneath the blackness of her mask, the pain of her sundered legs demanded attention as did her longing for her eyes. It was eerie and frightening to know herself thus held. As time passed it became difficult to believe she was being punished. Seeking purpose in her plight she could think of none. Unless Chartreuse would return and . . . and . . . ! Her wave of lasciviousness at the thought was almost frightening. Desire flared rampantly to leave her quivering. And yet . . . ! Suppose there was something else, something not lovely and beautiful at all . . . a lesson to be learned - a price to pay! She stirred fretfully and fearfully against the straps. From time to time as she waited she trembled. The presence, when it came, was without sound. The bound girl sensed it vividly but it had no name. It was when her nostrils told her what her eyes could not that she fought the straps in frantic rejection and cried again and again: "No! Oh no! Noooo!" It was the scent of a cigar. Halcyon, if indeed the man was he, had seen her nude before. But not like this! Not strapped in wanton invitation to the Male! Knowing little of a male and female coupling, Sharon guessed enough to realise the true significance of this spreading of her thighs and the sacrificial helplessness of her binding to the altar. She was a gift to Man. Into the black silence she poured her pathetic plea: "Please don't do it to me . . . oh please!" The silence mocked her instinctive cry. How he must be smiling if she had wrongly interpreted his intent, A silly girl. . . ! Nothing happened. No sound. No contact of the flesh. In a desperate need of knowing - of communion - she quavered: "I'm sorry . . . I didn't mean . . . I'm so frightened." Chartreuse had gone, and with her all her magic. In its place was maiden fear. There was no prelude, no reassuring voice or touch of hand. The foreign aroma of the male intensified. When Sharon was straddled and felt the nudity of her invader she screamed and screamed again. It was suddenly gone. But there were sounds. Sharon took no comfort in them. Without warning, a garment was drawn across her face, back and forth, and then allowed to rest. Shamed, she knew it for what it was: her own most intimate piece of fabric. Its pungency drove her to a frantic shaking of her head to be rid of it. It was suddenly withdrawn and ruthlessly torn. The naked girl heard its tearing and refused to comprehend what would now happen. It was unthinkable, impossible! Even the most depraved. . . ? That which had absorbed the flavor of her sex was the first to be thrust upon her tongue. It was followed by enough of the torn shield of her loins to fill her mouth. The horrified girl choked and fought against the secretion-loaded gag with all the strength of head and tongue. But it was useless. Fingers smelling strongly of tobacco thrust the material back into her mouth faster than she could expel it. Some sort of band entered between her teeth and was tied at the nape of her neck. She was erotically and cruelly gagged. Save for wet and choking moans Sharon's rape would be as soundless as the invasion of her virginity. The darkness was now a tangible enemy. It held a menace, the shape and form of which Sharon could only guess. Braced for brutality, none came. The snickering speculations of cloak room and dormitory as to the nature of the Male were now less than helpful. Blind and bound, the naked girl spread wide for entry realised her apprehensions were clothed in legend and adolescent hearsay. What had been done to her left no illusions as to her fate, but her mechanical knowledge of the act about to be perpetrated upon her helplessness was vague and frightening. There would be pain . . . terrible pain. There was no pain! When the unclothed maleness once more hovered above her shrinking flesh the contact was not as total as she expected. She sensed care and preparation as she tensed against her straps to meet the sudden violent thrust of the phallus into her womb. But Presteigne was laughing quietly in the darkness. The thrust, when it came, was simple contact. Something probed the lips of her sex, rubbed itself tentatively up and down the sacred slit to

produce sounds at which she flushed in shame and sensations that made her grateful for her bonds. Cautiously it parted the palpitating gateway and inserted itself only minimally within the portal. Sharon was panting as flesh made contact and weight increased. Without the gag she would have screamed and pleaded. It was live within her mouth so that she constantly gulped her own taste and swallowed the secretions of her sex. There was no nausea; briefly, she wondered why. Nothing happened. A male was poised. She was entered, but the sacrificial blade had paused. Heated male breath fanned her face. Without warning, a tongue lapped her earlobe and teeth bit testingly. Her resultant spasm made her straps and buckles strain in seeming laughter. Pantingly she lay impotently beneath her ravisher and awaited whatever lesson she must learn. Without knowledge or comparison, Sharon was lost in a welter of sensation and fear. But in the absence of pain the fear diminished and sensation fed awareness of a gradual thrust, a pressure . . . . Angrily she recognized the now familiar heat: no longer could she fail to comprehend its nature or its source. She moaned in a strange conjunction of defeat and desire. Her virginity was taken from her in a sudden lancing flare of agony. The predator had played his prelude long enough, and now the cymbals clashed and brass vied with percussion in a crescendo of sexual sensitivity against which the helpless girl writhed and contorted without being able to move. The straps absorbed her agonies. Absorbed, too, the violent panting responses for which she felt only shame. And then the shame was gone . . . . The human coupling invites description and defeats it. It belongs with the elements, defying words. It is awesome. A maiden's moans are its best and most time-honoured tribute. Against the wet pungency of her gag Sharon paid her homage to the full. She believed the presence hovered after it was over, and then was gone. In her darkness, stretched and strapped, she awaited the disposition of her person. The Male had uttered no word. The pungent gag was still within her mouth, she had become used to it. Her legs, from ankles to hips, rebelled painfully against their enforced sundering. A fevered vision pictured her violated sex as swollen and agape. She realised fitfully and resentfully that every female in Presteigne had probably been used thus, and that what had been done once could most certainly be done again. She wondered idly at the absence of hysteria, of anger, and the brevity of agony. When the blindfold was whisked away it revealed the laughing face of Trina Simard. Sharon blinked thankfully and made wet sounds of protest against the gag. "Oh, I'm going to set you free, darling, but not right away." The girlish voice was gay with mischief. "Just think, I own every little bit of you, I can do anything I want. You can't move, can you!" Sharon moaned and proved she could not move. "You're so gorgeous! And I'm longing to hear. . . . Want me to play with these?" Nimble fingers found the captive's nipples. Their owner moaned negatively. Enough was enough. The gag was deftly removed. "All right then, but now tell me everything?" "There's nothing to tell. Oh Trina, please undo the straps." "No I won't! You've got to tell me first." "But I can't. It was too awful." "Don't be a humbug. I know what's happened to you, but I want to hear you tell it - just for me, darling?" "I'm so ashamed. And if you know anyway -" Trina bent down and bit one of Sharon's nipples, bit it hard so that its owner squealed. "If you're going to play shy and bashful I'm going to play with these and with this nice furry thing down here." Her hand cupped her captive's vulnerable sex. "No don't! Oh Trina, don't be unkind. I've had the awfullest time." "And you hated every moment?"

"Of course I did. Oh Trina . . . ! Unstrap me. Please . . . !" "You're fibbing. C'mon now, or 'I'll keep you strapped all day." Sharon grinned ruefully and began to speak.

Chapter Six The Pains of Puberty Effie Stokes looked at Lotty Badger and made a dire prediction. "I bet we're going to get it good. It's that new girl they got - she's going to watch." "You mean our bottoms as well as our hands?" Lotty was inured to shock. "We'll have to take our clothes off?" "That's what Trixie told me - she always finds things out. Golly, I wish we were in the upper school. We always get it worse 'cos we're only twelve." "I ain't so sure," said Lotty dubiously. "They do awful things to them girls up there. We ain't old enough yet. I say, Effie, think we'll get tied?" "Don't let her catch you saying 'ain't', or you'll really catch it. Of course we'll get tied." Effie giggled. "I can't standstill 'less I get tied. Neither can you." "I sort of wish we'd done something bad," Lotty mused. "It always hurts worse when we ain't. Fancy getting our bottoms whipped for nothing!" "You said it again. And we don't really get whipped just for nothing," Effie explained sagely. "Miss Carruthers was ever so nice about telling us how much she enjoys whipping girls, and how she wants us to enjoy it too. I expect we will when we get a bit older." "We won't have any bottoms left by then," Lotty said morosely. "All I know is it jolly well hurts like billy 'O, and I wish she'd picked Molly Stevens and Nancy Tripps instead of me and you." "That should have been 'you and I'," Effie admonished. "And we can't really complain. It's been quite awhile. Our last marks are all gone. I expect it's our turn. Miss Carruthers is awfully fair." Lotty giggled. "Think you and me will enjoy whipping kids' bottoms when we grow up, Effie? And them other things - you know . . . ?" "We can start before that, Lotty. Just get to be a prefect." "But that takes years," Lotty mourned. "D'you think it's right some prefects cane each other? Trixie says -" "'Course it's right. Prefects can do 'most anything." "Except escape and go home." Lotty found joy elusive in light of coming events. "They don't want to, silly," Effie chided. "All the big girls are terribly happy. They don't want to run away." "Not after they've seen a girl flogged for trying." "Well, I suppose they deserve it, don't they!" Effie was always on the side of reason. "They do tell us what happens if we try and get away, so it's our own fault really." "I'll do a bunk if I ever get a chance:" "Then I'll be able to watch you get a flogging. Oh, Lotty, you're so stupid." "They don't flog us younger girls, they punish us other ways," Lotty said sagely. "The time to try

is when we're just kids. It 'ud be awful to be a grownup girl and get a flogging . . . all naked and in front of the whole school. Remember Miss Bedford and Miss Forsyte and . . . and -" "I think we're too old already." Effie Stokes' voice was thoughtful. "I don't think it's always age. I think it's when our breasts grow and we get that hair between our legs. You and I stick out in front a lot nicer than some." "What we're going to get will probably be worse'n a flogging," Lotty opined without visible evidence of dolor. "Shouldn't we go up now? Wonder what the new girl's like. Her name's Miss Tredgold." To Sharon it was part and parcel of Presteigne. Chartreuse's effervescent invitation that was an order. "They're so simply delicious, dear. You really must see these young ones caned. They've got a lubricity all their own. Such tasty morsels." Sharon was uncertain about the 'lubricity' but she had no doubt about the rest. The younger girls of the 'Lower School' did indeed possess a quality all their own. Especially those accepted in 'Charity.' Their eyes were wise beyond their years. The sympathy she would normally have felt was tempered by the marks upon her own skin and the chafing of wrist and ankle. They were sisters in the strangest of captivities. "What have they done, Miss Carruthers?" she inquired politely. "Done! Oh you mean their sin!" The Headmistress laughed gaily. "Why, nothing at all. That's the nice thing about Presteigne. None of that guilt business . . . except sometimes." "But, Miss Carruthers, doesn't it affect . . . make them resent -?" "I've told you before, darling, while we're alone I want you to call me Chartreuse. And of course it doesn't do them any harm. They're a pair of saucy little baggages. They still don't exactly adore it but they're coming along nicely." Sharon's path had been beset with thorns strewn by innocence. She was still mentally struggling with Chartreuse's concept that all that took place within the walls of Presteigne was a part of love, or at least affection, and that to be whipped was to know joy: before and after and sometimes when it was happening. Sex, which had been an obscure word, now had meaning and relevance. The heat within her loins was never quite allowed to go away. She could relate it to causes and events. She wondered if, had she remained beyond the walls, she would ever have acquired such knowledge. The bright and expectant "Good morning, Miss Carruthers," was delivered in unison by as buoyant a pair of moppets as Sharon had ever beheld. Effie Stokes and Lotty Badger betrayed none of the melancholy to be expected from those about to receive both pain and indignity. They were definitely of Presteigne. "Good morning, darlings. This is Miss Tredgold." Chartreuse bathed the youngsters in her warmest smile. "I expect if you ask her nicely she'll punish you too." "OOOOO, how lovely! Good morning, Miss Tredgold. We're so glad you're going to cane us." It might have been rehearsed, it was so perfect, and so natural. In acknowledging the greeting, Sharon felt idiotic. Nothing had been further from her thoughts than the suggestion just made. "They have the darlingest bottoms,"' Chartreuse said helpfully. "Should we undress, Miss?" Sharon could have sworn the query held an innocent hope. "Not yet, dears. It gives me the loveliest feeling when we lower your drawers." "We've got knickers on too, Miss." "How thoughtful, dear. Miss Tredgold will take them down. I do so want her to share our happiness." "We'll be ever so obedient, Miss Tredgold." The fresh young voices seemed without guile. "Wonderful!" The Headmistress's voice was warm with approval. "Now I've a small errand, so I'll leave you with Miss Tredgold. You can help her with what to do. When I come back I'll expect

you both to be properly triced." Sharon felt like a mariner from whose ship the ocean had suddenly vanished. She suspected mischief from the sparkling eyes, but they regarded her only with pleased expectancy. "We haven't been naughty, Miss Tredgold." Lotty seemed to feel the disclaimer pertinent. "So I understand." Sharon felt a fool. "We hope you don't mind. If we'd known you'd be here we'd have done something bad." The outrageous statement oozed sympathy. "Does this happen often?" "We haven't been caned for the longest time, Miss Tredgold. Our skins are all ready. You'll have the nicest time . . . ." Sharon abandoned the rational. "You enjoy being punished?" she asked with polite interest. "Oh yes, Miss Tredgold!" If the spontaneous response lacked sincerity Sharon failed to note it. Puzzled, she asked: "But it hurts so terribly?" "Well, we do cry a little. Sometimes we sort of scream. We're terribly sorry. We hope you won't mind." It was too absurd, this polite exchange between captive girls. Sharon was absolved from continuance by a note of anxiety. "You'd better tie us up, Miss Tredgold. Miss Carruthers might be angry." "Is there some special way?" Sharon felt herself blushing. "Miss Carruthers likes one of us over the pedestal and the other one on the bench, please. You must do us up ever so tight." Sharon stood awkwardly as Effie draped her youthfulness over the pad on top of the short post. The pose held shocking possibilities. Lotty produced ropes. "Would you like me to tie her, Miss Tredgold?" she asked winningly. "She's ever so good at it," Effie volunteered. "Then you'll know how to tie me." The binding of Effie was a work of art. Lotty's hands flew to their task with zest. Orders were terse and instantly obeyed. "Up a bit, Effie. You got to hang a bit, y'know. Here, I'll push your feet up so's your hands can hang well down 'tother side." Slim-booted ankles were soon bound firmly to either side of the pedestal. All the childish weight was dependent on the short padded bar at the top. When Effie's wrists were tied together and tugged down to a ring at the base she was held immovably in a posture cruelly inviting. Turning a flushed smile to her audience she said: "See, it's ever so easy when you know how." Lotty almost leaped upon the bench. Pushing a hard bolster beneath her own hips she explained: "You have to keep it up in the air - my bottom, I mean. But tie my ankles first, that's best." Sharon ruefully realised she herself was hardly a novice. She had spent long hours looking at cords tight around her own wrists. She tied the willing ankles without difficulty or criticism. "Now my hands up front as far as you can get 'em." Lotty stretched her slenderness obligingly. Sharon shrank from the cords biting into the young wrists. But there was no help for it. Lotty's helpful: "You have to tie 'em tight, Miss, or they'll slip off," left her no option. First one, then the other tugged up and to either side, then cinched down. It was a strange sensation to be doing this to another

girl. A sensation soon finding its way to the place between Sharon's legs of which Presteigne was making her increasingly aware. Nothing made sense. "A little tighter, please, Miss. Miss Carruthers likes us tight." Pathetic, yet delightful. Sharon strove for unconcern about the indented skin of the tiny wrists. She cinched ruefully and was rewarded by Lotty's approving gasp of pain and Effie's admiring tribute: "You're going to be awfully clever at tying up, Miss Tredgold." "This is where you tie my waist, Miss." Lotty's voice was slightly tremulous. "If you do it ever so tight it'll make my bottom stick way up in the air. That's the way Miss Carruthers likes it." It was quite startling. As Sharon tugged to compress the tiny waist and flatten the small tummy down to the bench, the well-covered bottom reared into a remarkable prominence. Lotty's instructions had produced a pose pleading for the cane. "I expect you'd better get our bottoms bare and all ready, Miss Tredgold." Effie appeared to be a conscientious girl who wanted things done properly. "You'll find safety pins on our drawers, Miss. We brought them 'specially for you." Lotty's sideways look held arch complicity. "You need 'em to keep our dress up." For one girl to bare the bottom of another is hardly a traumatic task. Yet Sharon shrank from what she must now do. There was an endearing quality about the two moppets that made their imminent punishment seem doubly unkind. The older girl had seen enough of nakedness in her own captivity to cease to regard it in shrinking awe. But to lay bare this most intimate portion of these two girls suddenly took on an aspect of obscenity. She hesitated. "You'll have to tug everything real "hard to get at our bottoms - it's the way we're tied, Miss." The practical hint spurred action. Sharon pulled up Lotty's skirt. Sure enough, the safety pins were waiting. She used one to fasten the dress high, then tugged at drawers. "I'm sorry I put so many on," Lotty apologised. After the drawers, knickers and more tugging. A wealth of cambric and cotton billowed below the girlish thighs. Another pin dealt with slip and camisole. At the end of strenuous effort the pert round bottom of Lotty Badger proclaimed itself to the morning light. "Coo, it's cold." Its owner giggled. "It'll soon be warm, love," Effie consoled darkly. "Hurry up, Miss Tredgold. You do things ever so well." If Lotty's exposure had been startling: Effie's was doubly so. With upper garments pinned up and over, and lower protections tugged down, the skin of the twin-curved cheeks was as taut as a drum. Sharon cringed at thought of the impact of a cane across the sweet helplessness. "Golly, you stick up beautifully, Effie." Lotty sounded envious. "But doesn't it hurt a lot more like that?" Sharon exclaimed incredulously. " 'Course it does, Miss. Miss Carruthers is ever so clever about caning girls. I expect you will be too." Sharon wondered if this maiden insouciance could survive the biting cuts of the cane so soon to come. It seemed impossible. Effie's next query was a shock. "Does my slit show up behind, Miss Tredgold?" It took a moment to register. All posteriors are cleft. When Sharon realised the inquiry referred to that which was unmentionable and unacknowledged she blushed hotly in indignation. "I really don't know," she said coldly. "Would you mind having a look?" The request was delivered with such innocence she could not refuse. Embarrassed, she examined the exhibit in question. "Yes it is," she informed tersely. Then added in a burst of generosity: "You have a very nice one."

"She wants to know if it's sticking out enough to catch the cane," Lotty informed. A further examination of the young behind left little doubt. "I'm afraid it is," Sharon acknowledged. "You've got the best of it then, Lotty." Effie's accusation was without rancour. "It hurts something awful when the cane cuts . . . one of those, I say, Miss Tredgold, have you had your . . . your whatsit caned?" "I'm afraid not, Effie." "You're bound to sooner or later. It really hurts. I remember Miss Comstock, she had a real plump one and ever so much hair, she got hers punished specially. She was tied up specially too. But Miss Carruthers used a whip instead of a cane. I 'spose it's more suitable, but Miss Comstock seemed to think it hurt a jolly lot. She made an awful fuss." Effie pondered a moment. "I don't think Lotty and I are old enough yet to have our . . . our things whipped. But I don't suppose it will be too long. You'll have to tell us when they do yours." "They! Who's they?" "Well, you know who does these things to us girls. The teachers and the prefects and Miss Carruthers." "Don't forget Lord Halcyon." Lotty chimed in. "That's his favourite place. I say, Miss Tredgold, has he stuck his thing into you yet?" So they knew that too! Even the twelve-year-olds! "Don't ask rude questions," Sharon said crossly. "Has he done it to you?" "We're not supposed to be big enough," Lotty said regretfully. "But he plays with us. Whenever we're tied up and blindfolded he comes and does the awfullest things." She giggled happily. "We know it's him by the smell. Last time he had a try - you know, a sort of 'fitting'. It was terribly exciting. But he must have thought we weren't ready. He just caned us some more instead." Sharon had a momentary vision of these two nymphs in seven years. By the time they were her age they would know every female secret in the world. Their anxiety to become 'big enough' answered so many of the questions Presteigne posed. She looked at them now, bound tight to the structures that would hold them fast while they endured pain. Endured with fortitude or enjoyment, or whatever other emotion Presteigne had the power to endow on the bound and naked girls within its walls. Perhaps some ancient magic clung within the mellowed stone . . . . "Oh, that's simply splendid, darlings!" Chartreuse drifted back into the scene like a summer breeze. "I'm so proud of you all. Are you ready to be caned?" "Yes. Miss Carruthers." "Good. I'll pick a nice slender one. They've all been freshly sized, they'll hurt beautifully." "Thank you, Miss Carruthers." "I see your cunny's sticking out behind, Effie. You are growing up. I'm so pleased. Can you feel this, dear?" Exploring fingers ran the length of the engorged lips lost to their normal bearings. "Oooooo! Mmmmm! Oh, that's lovely, Miss Carruthers." "I'm sure it is, dear. You are a lucky girl. Lotty's doesn't show much on the bench." "It's just as nice as hers. Miss." Lotty defended warmly. "If you'd like to feel under a bit . . . ?" "Are you going to cane mine, Miss Carruthers?" Effie asked anxiously. "Would you like me to, dear?" "Not really, Miss. But thank you ever so." "Perhaps just a little?"

Effie gulped a noble gulp. "Thank you, Miss Carruthers. You're ever so kind." "And now I do think we should start." Chartreuse looked brightly around as though for comment. Finding none, she selected a lean length of limber yellow and, without warning, cut it whirringly into the young bottom perched and pinioned on the pedestal. Sharon watched the impossible. The stroke had been cruel. The youthful flesh paid its tribute to pain with a scarlet ridge, rising as if by magic from the virgin white. Switching her fascinated gaze to the flushed face of she who was attached to the hurt member, she saw features set in a trancelike immobility, eyes wide, lips set. But a moment later there was a softening and the lips spoke words beyond belief. "Oh, thank you, Miss Carruthers. That was gorgeous. It hurt splendidly. I'm sure I'm going to cry." Sharon watched as in a dream while Lotty received her wound and gave generous thanks, Chartreuse turned to her radiantly. "Aren't they delightful, Sharon!" Sharon found herself troubled by finding delight and a strange beauty in what she beheld. The impact of cane on stretched skin was vividly in her hearing still. The two youngsters, bound tight, had lost their perkiness but in its place had acquired a 'little girl' submission infinitely appealing. "I want you to cane them now, dear, while they've got lots of lovely white skin." The cane was thrust into Sharon's hand with a generosity of giving reflected in Chartreuse's winning smile. She looked at it fearfully as though it was to be used upon herself. "I've never caned anyone," she said cringingly. "I don't think I can . . . ." "Nonsense, Sharon! Cane them hard." "I'd rather not, Miss Carruthers, if you don't mind." "I do mind. This is part of your education. Cane them." "Oh please, I'm sure I won't do it properly." "You will do it, Sharon, or I will strip you and thrash you as well." The threat was horrific, but the smile that accompanied it glowed with affection. Sharon found herself a naughty girl rejecting kindness. "I think you'd better cane us, Miss Tredgold," Effie advised kindly. "And I think you'd better cane us hard." "Don't mind if we howl, Miss;" Lotty contributed nobly. "It will hurt you terribly if you get thrashed, Miss." "You see, dear, they're so sweet and want what's best for you," Chartreuse said proudly. "Come, mark their little bottoms. Each stroke must match the one that's there now." Sharon swung the cane, then gazed in fascination at what she had done. The weal coming angrily to life across Effie's bent little seat was a thing of beauty: all her own; she had created it; her mark was etched on maiden flesh. She trembled from the reaction of decision and from a new and strange emotion. "Sharon, darling, I'm delighted. You see, you cane beautifully." There could be no doubting the Mistress's tribute. "Oh . . . oh . . . Miss Tredgold!" Effie's admiration vied with agony. "I bet mine'll be just as good," Lotty prophesied bravely. It was. With flushed face and heaving breasts, Sharon watched the evidence of her new-found skill. She was not too engrossed in Lotty's punished flesh to be unaware of a demanding heat within her sex, or to fail to link it with the act she had just performed. Without thought she struck again with all her strength.

Lotty screamed. Chartreuse's arms were around her. Ardent lips sought and found her own, a tongue probed. Whatever difference there was in their ages vanished. They were two girls, one of whom was whispering: "You've found it, darling. You're feeling it deep inside. You are, aren't you?" "Yes." The single word said all. The arms hugged and strained. "Three strokes on each of them. Sharon. That's all I'll let you have this time." It was a munificent gift. Longing for more, Sharon savoured it to the full. When the scentdrenched clasping was done she advanced to the pedestal. "This one's going to hurt, Effie," Lotty spoke feelingly. Sharon inhaled deeply and swung on the ball of her foot. The cane snickered and whined. The waiting flesh responded ardently. Effie tugged fiercely at the ropes tying her for sacrifice. Her scream was music. Sharon could not wait, she struck again. It took Chartreuse's gentle hand to halt the eager blows when the sixth had left its wound. Sharon stepped back, panting. She looked about her dazedly as though returning from a distant place. Between her legs a fire burned with a fierce bright heat. "I'm so glad for you, darling . . . so glad," Chartreuse whispered. Both caned girls wept, but they managed to turn and smile up at her through their tears. Sharon knew not what the smile was for but found it comforting. She placed the cane in Chartreuse's waiting hand. With heaving breasts she watched the Mistress play out her symphony. "Well, darlings, that's your little bottoms looked after," Chartreuse said briskly. "Miss Tredgold can untie you now and we'll all have a nice glass of sherry." "Thank you, Miss Carruthers." The twin voices were not vibrant, but managed to sound grateful for manifold blessings. Sharon marvelled at the resilience of girls. She busied herself with knots. The weals in the young wrists were ferocious. "I do think it's nice to have a rest in the middle of the enjoyment," the Headmistress enthused as she poured generous libations of an expensive vintage. "It makes us all girls together. How are your bottoms, girls?" "Ever so sore, Miss." "Mine's on fire," said Lotty happily. "I expect you'd like to rub them?" Chartreuse's voice held mischief. "Oh yes, Miss Carruthers, if it wouldn't be rude." "I tell you what, dears: take your clothes off. You can rub so much better without clothes, and you're going to have to undress anyway for your next punishment." Sharon had never seen clothes cast aside so readily. The stripping revealed two slender immaturities that nonetheless flaunted curves and a dusky promise of a pubic thatch. The flaming bottoms were in odd contrast to the white and ivory of the rest. "Aren't they darling, Sharon!" They were! Their innocent acceptance of nudity robbed it of lasciviousness. It was hard not to laugh as they stood, sipping hastily, while their other hand explored their tender buns. They accepted a refill with an avidity betokening previous acquaintance. Sharon wondered why they need be nude

to have their hands caned. Chartreuse read her thought. "It's such a delicious contrast," she explained. "The bare bottom peeping out beneath the dress, and now the bare body on display while the little hands are caned. These two are really precious. And in another year or two . . . ." Chartreuse was right, the sherry got them back into perspective. The youngsters perked. Sharon's breasts ceased to heave. "Our ankles in the stocks, Miss Carruthers?" "Yes, dears, it works so well." The stocks were neat little structures in the floor. Each girl to be punished stood in one of them, her ankles a few inches apart and thrust into a waiting half circle. When the other half was slid into its groove and locked the small feet were invisible beneath the snug grip of the encircling wood. It was as though they stood in shallow boxes whose lids were fashioned to accommodate their ankles. "It stops them flopping to the floor and rolling around," Chartreuse explained matter-of-factly. "They do a lot of lovely writhing but they have to stand up." "It stops us being too silly," Effie conceded. "We'd never run away," Lotty affirmed stoutly. "But it is awfully hard to stand still - when your hands are caned," she added fervently. "You first, Effie?" the Headmistress cooed. "Thank you, Miss Carruthers. One at a time, or do you want me to hold them both out?" Effie wanted to please. "One hand at a time, dears." The Mistress smiled encouragingly at her quiveringly expectant pupils. "After the first stroke on each hand you are at liberty to ease your pain by any motion you wish. But with the second you must extend an arm to each side and accept the strokes without moving. You will stand like that until given permission to move." "Thank you. Miss Carruthers." "It teaches the darlings control," Chartreuse confided. Without hesitation, Effie extended a slim arm, the palm of the small hand tautly exposed. She looked from Sharon to the Mistress with a bright expectancy as though about to receive an award. Sharon caught her breath at the sweet innocence of the child. To stand naked, feet locked fast, and offer her hand for the cane with such goodwill was an act of courage. It was also a picture of immense erotic appeal that stirred the older girl's response to fever heat. Effie watched the preliminary tapping and positioning of her hand with a polite interest. Even when the cane sliced the air in its journey to her waiting palm she did not move. But then, with the blow absorbed by her hand, she flashed into writhing motion. The hurt member fled beneath an armpit, its owner twisting against her prisoned feet. Sharon remembered school. When a girl was caned she did exactly what Effie was doing now. It was impossible not to. The pain was unbearable: and the strokes at school had been of only half the severity of the one Effie had just received. "It's beautiful the way they always do this," Chartreuse breathed. "It never fails. I did it myself when I was a kid. I'll give Lotty one now while dear Effie is coping. I do try and be a little kind." Lotty extended her arm without bravado. It seemed probable she would have preferred to leave it by her side. But she was a good girl and received her stroke with motions identical to those of her companion in distress. Neither girl screamed, but their gasps were piteous. Chartreuse glowed. The two writhing moppets exuded an aura of eroticism in which she basked. Sharon felt it, a tugging at her loins, a swelling of the heart. Vicariously she shared the younger girl's agony and found a strange joy. Effie and Lotty hugged their hands and weaved enticingly above their clamped ankles. Sometimes they cocked an anxious eye to see if they were prolonging the indulgence of their pain beyond tolerance: meeting the rapt regard of their elders they smiled apologetically.

"Well, Effie?" The slight figure instantly straightened. The as yet uninjured hand shot out to meet its agony. A tremulous adolescent grin conveyed complete and sympathetic understanding of what was taking place: she was suffering in a good cause and had no complaints. Sharon's breathing quickened. Her heart went out to the piquant pair who had learned the mysteries of Presteigne and made light of them. Once more Effie watched the wounding of her hand. Sharon felt certain she herself could not have done so. The testing taps perhaps, but not the blow! For Effie it seemed a matter of pride, of a true involvement in what was being done to her. After the cane had marked her palm she relapsed into being a little girl hugging two burning palms. Lotty followed suit. With bated breath, Sharon watched and waited for what she firmly believed was the impossible. For a naked girl to stand, proffering her hands, to receive on each a bitter cut, and then to pose motionless in the posture of punishment . . . ! It was too much. Neither child nor woman was capable of such control. The two girls became endowed with an innocent beauty as they stood with arms outstretched like slender birds about to fly. Their faces had taken on a trancelike detachment as though their girlish nudity had made a votive offering of their hands from which they were now separate and apart. The cane whined in four successive slashes, but they made no move. Their nostrils flared and very slowly, like pearls of great price, tears formed in limpid eyes and spilled in shining drops down maiden cheeks. They stood as Chartreuse had ordered them to stand, twin treasures all her own. They stood and were adored. The Headmistress of Presteigne became a Priestess, her cane a magic wand. Effie and Lotty, in their anguished nakedness, became her acolytes. The stone chamber was a chapel, a place of esoteric feminine rites. Female musk was heavy in the still air. Sharon knew it to be one more step she had taken into another world, a step she would not willingly retrace. "Such a wonderful happiness!" With shining eyes the Headmistress looked at her three pupils. There could be no doubt, that in the punishing of the twelve-year-olds, she had entered Nirvana. Nor could Sharon doubt Chartreuse's wish to share her ecstacy. Its deep sincerity was evidenced by Lotty's and Effie's acceptance of an ordeal severe enough to have sent the average adolescent into hysterics. They had been touched by magic. "Darling." The Mistress turned her full attention on the watching girl. "They've been so wonderful I think they deserve a little something." Sharon guessed instantly but was neither appalled nor pleased. The words to come were an inevitability. "I think it would be so nice for them to put you on the pedestal." She turned beatifically to her pubescent captives. "Would you like that, darlings?" "Yes, please, Miss Carruthers!" Excited joy was rampant. "Release them, dear. They know what to do." Sharon took the key and opened the stocks from the eager ankles. She could not feel the fear she knew appropriate, only an anxiety lest she shame herself with screams. The heat between her legs did not diminish. She went to the pedestal and stood uncertainly. The moppets bound her with cruelty and with love. Their excitement was infectious. It transmitted itself through the tightening ropes that reduced Sharon to a doubled-over nonentity whose loins throbbed against the pad over which her femaleness was draped. When they were done she could move only her head. Clothed in such a posture she felt absurd. "Get the safety pins, Lotty." Effie was intent upon her task. "This is going to be ever so nice for you, Miss Tredgold." Sharon did not voice her disagreement. It seemed wrong to introduce dubiety into such pleased anticipation. Perhaps her hesitation was one of the keys to Presteigne. Into such a living happiness it would seem wrong and foolish to cast a shadow. "What a lovely camisole, Miss Tredgold! And all this lace. Lotty's approval of the intimate garments made their lifting all the more shaming. Participant as she might be, Sharon shrank from a

vision of herself obscenely exposed as Effie had been in her place. "I'll just pin everything up and over before we take your drawers and knickers down." They were so busy and so happy with her! Sharon hoped her blush would be mistaken for the flush of a lowered head. Having savoured nakedness to the full she would have preferred it now. When the small hands tugged and pulled to thrust down to her knees the fabrics that now laid her bare and allowed the coolness of the air to envelop her behind she gazed steadfastly at the floor, only too well aware of enraptured eyes she dared not meet lest she smile compliance. "Oh, Effie, look! Isn't this gorgeous!" The bound girl tensed and tugged against the outrage of the small hand manually exhibiting the plumpness of her sex. Having seen Effie's immaturity thus, she could well believe her own exposure outrageously blatant. Yet she said no word. After all, fair play - was fair play! "It's a lovely cane, Miss Carruthers. Thanks ever so for letting us." "We're going to cane you terribly hard, Miss Tredgold. You'll have the loveliest marks." Sharon gulped and was quite unready for the blow that slashed across her cheeks with all the force of youthful exuberance. The pain was so great upon her tight stretched skin she screamed. She bit the cry off at its peak. But she had screamed and was ashamed. "Doesn't she scream beautifully, Lotty!" "Oh, Miss Tredgold, you're so lovely! I'm so glad we're caning your bottom." Such amazing felicity! Only a boor would protest. Sharon swallowed hard and stole a glance at the Mistress. Chartreuse's face was rapt and radiant. The victim of so much happiness bit her teeth together hard. Three strokes from each twelve-year-old nymph. Each one a searing experience in agony under which the flinching owner of the punished flesh found silence well nigh impossible but contented herself with moans instead of screams. The pedestal creaked under her pain. "And your lovely hands, darling? You won't mind, will you?" Sharon knew herself lost. She contrived a passable smile. Released from the shaming pedestal and her clothes rearranged, she moved to the tiny stocks. "Oh, Sharon dear, your clothes!" Ruefully she stripped. Presteigne would always demand its pound of flesh. But to be naked before the curious and admiring eyes of these two knowing nymphets was a new experience. Their interest in her pubic hair was frank and unabashed. "Oh, Effie, look. It's black and all curly." "Oh, Miss Tredgold. I can hardly wait to grow such lovely hair. Do you comb it?" For a moment Sharon exchanged a tolerant adult smile with Chartreuse, then moved to her new martyrdom. Quivering with an emotion now becoming recognizable she stepped into the wooden trap and fitted her ankles into the waiting circlet. With a prudent haste Effie thrust home the prisoning yoke and locked it tight. The captive shiveringly rubbed her striped bottom and wished this was not happening. She turned to the Headmistress and voiced the fear uppermost in her mind. "I'll never be able to do that with both hands and the standing still after." "It doesn't matter, darling. That's the nice thing about us, we're not stuffy." "But then I'll be punished extra?" "Only if the little dears think you deserve it. Just leave everything to them." To be caned by a twelve-year-old! Naked! Her feet locked! Even in school the caning of a girl's hands had been shaming. But it had been done by adults. Now . . . ! Sharon gained what courage she

could from the appreciative eyes, and held out her hand. The cut was like an enemy springing out at her from a dark place. No girl could ever be prepared for such a violation. No female hand was designed to absorb it. Uncaring of redundancy, Sharon hugged her wound, but her mind was churning with thought of the real ordeal to come. Writhing within her cocoon of pain, Sharon knew only that the thing she feared most was upon her. Petulantly anxious to end suspense, she straightened up and held out both her arms. "Don't you want to know the penalty, darling?" "I'd rather not, thank you. I'll trust the girls." Sharon felt she could bear no more of anything. "We thought we'd give your bottom twenty strokes," Lotty said demurely. "You'd just have to stand there," Effie pointed out reasonably. "You can't possibly get away." "Or I expect Miss Carruthers would let us use a whip if you'd prefer it on your back, Miss Tredgold." Lotty's voice throbbed with anxiety to please. "You don't mind standing like that awhile, Miss Tredgold? It's not hurting too much?" "Stop it, you little vixens," Chartreuse ordered, laughing. "I didn't say you could tease. Sharon didn't tease you." The cut caught her unawares. It struck the taut palm on top of the previous wound. The pain was explosive. Clamping her wound beneath her armpit and writhing against the prisonment of her feet, Sharon heard the comments as from far away. "Poor darling, she's not used to it." "We must whip her nicely for her punishment." Laughing joyously, they set her free. It was Presteigne.

Chapter Seven Striations She hoped she would acquit herself well. She was no longer a novice. Sharon had learned much as the months had drifted by. Sardonically enough some of it was French and Latin. The classes were not easy, they carried their own bizarre hazards. But it was the Mistress and the Master who exacted from the girls the utmost of what they had to give. She wanted very much to please today: to prove she could, and to escape the punishment if she did not. She was tied tighter than she need have been: at least she thought she was. It depended on how long she must wait. The ropes hurt now, in an hour or two the pain would be bad. But she hoped she looked nice like this. She knew her nakedness thoughtfully displayed to give pleasure. There was always a little thrill now when her bonds or her agony drew favourable comment. It made it worthwhile, something to look forward to. It seemed impossible that once she had never been bound, or naked, or whipped! It made her feel tremendously superior to the girl she once had been. She wished she could see more of herself, or at least more of her ropes. But her hands had been raised and pulled back and bound against the post, one on each side, where she could not lift her eyes. For a little while, while she was being tied, she had hung from them. But then her waist had been bound and cinched in a tight encirclement, and then her ankles. Her ankles, like her hands, had been separated to each side. Her black bush shone at the parted apex of her thighs. Her feet could not reach the floor, so that her wrists hurt a lot from the semi-suspension. To admire any of her ropes she had to strain painfully away from the post to which they clamped her. Even then she could see little. She sighed resignedly. She had seen from Chartreuse's eyes that she was beautiful. Beauty was so important at Presteigne. Halcyon was demanding, but no more than a Master should be. She had learned painfully how needful it was to please him, and the ways by which this could be done. If a girl got sent back to the Headmistress for punishment and further instruction it was her own fault. Sharon had been returned several times. She could see now how gravely in error she had been and how stupidly she had earned

her penances. These penalties were usually inflicted by the Headmistress or Mademoiselle Dulac, either one of which might delegate the task to a giggling but sympathetic Trina. Such punishment took many forms. It was not always the whip. Looking back, Sharon mourned the stripes and agonies with which she had paid her initiation to The Male. The frightened girl whose back had been lashed by the man in the black hood had given way to a naked captive whose single wish had been escape from the threat of the phallus: an object of frightening legend she had felt but never seen. It had been Chartreuse who had led her, step by step, to the nature and purpose of Man and her female destiny. The bound girl knew that beyond the walls she would never have learned. The knowledge was of Presteigne and those who lived within its citadel. It was an ancient knowledge denied the world. How lucky she had been that Halcyon had brought her to this kingdom of girls. Outside was a vacuum at which she shuddered. Sharon realised, in confusion, that Halcyon had been watching her for some time. It was so easy to fall into reverie when bound in solitude. Dreams were a defense. They repelled panic and dulled pain as the lonely hours drifted by. Startled, she smiled a greeting. The word 'beautiful,' applied to The Male, seemed wrong. But the muscular nakedness surveying her with admiration was beautiful. 'Handsome' seemed inadequate, hackneyed. 'Masculine' an overemphasis. He was heroic Greek. She thought of him as Apollo. "I never cease to marvel at your loveliness, my dear." In his discard of the banker's garb and the theatrical hood, Halcyon had also shed his heaviness of speech and diction. His voice was vibrant in communion and consummation, or ice cold in rejection. The girls adored and feared him. He was 'The Master.' He loosed her ropes. Gratefully she fell to her knees before him. "Thank you, Master," With head bowed, she remained in submission awaiting his pleasure. "When were you last whipped, Sharon?" "Four days since, Master. I was impudent to Mademoiselle." He raised her to her feet. Passive but quivering, she allowed his hands to turn her as he pleased and his fingers to trace the whipmarks implanted by Gallic displeasure. "Please me." Instantly she knelt, her fingers and hungry mouth lapping the thing she had once so feared. For a minute he stood, pensively looking down at her busy absorption with her task. His hand toyed lovingly with her hair. "That's enough." There was nothing peremptory in his command. The naked girl who had become a slave knew she had been tested. Without pause, she lay upon her back on the whipping bench and spread her legs in a wanton offering of herself. She turned a smiling face, hopeful of approval. "No, Sharon. Later." She was not at a loss. Her naked feet glided to the wall. This time when she knelt it was to offer her lord a whip in one hand and cord in the other. She had kissed them both. The Man laughed delightedly. She was all he had hoped for. To own her was to possess a bountiful treasure. She learned so quickly and so well. But, of course, Chartreuse . . . ! The Headmistress of Presteigne was Aphrodite. He sighed in deep content. "Sharon my dear, later I will whip you and I will find joy within your sheath. For now, I wish to talk." "Yes, Master." The cord and whip were laid aside for later use. The slave girl knelt before the man who disposed himself comfortably on the bench whereon he

would, in his own time and manner, ravish her. She looked up, wide-eyed and expectant. "When was it Chartreuse allowed you to spread your wings, Sharon?" "It is more than four months past, Master." "Tell me of it. I am curious." She flushed and looked sheepish. "It was a foolish thing, Master." "Perhaps. But tell me. In your own way." His eyes devoured her. She was unsure. This could spell punishment. But the slave girl took a deep breath and smiled brightly. "You had said. Master, that if I desired to sample freedom I should ask my Mistress." She made a moue of apology. "I was very young." The man smiled. "Four months younger than now?" The girl twisted in embarrassment. "It seems silly, I know. But I was a child. "She waved a hand in deprecation. "I am not a child now." "Go on, my dear. You have begun well." "Chartreuse is so -" She broke off in confusion. "I am sorry, Master. My Mistress is so kind. She dressed me gorgeously and gave me money for the day. I was driven to the station." "You call your Mistress by her Christian name?" "It is by her wish, Master. She will confirm -" He waved the matter aside. "She loves you, child. 'Treuse is magic. Cherish her." He smiled indulgently. "Possessing freedom, what was the first thing you did with it?" "You will punish me, lord." "Not now. You are free to speak." Sharon flinched at his ambiguity but continued: "I went to the solicitor who used to look after Daddy's affairs. I told him about . . . well, about what you had said. He told me it was true. I was penniless. Everything had been legally conveyed to you." She looked up imploringly. "Oh Master, please forgive me." "What is there to forgive, child?" It burst from her as a confession. "I asked him if I should go to the police." She paused unhappily. "He advised me against it." "And then?" "I went to them anyway - oh please, Master, be merciful." "I have not picked up the whip, Sharon. Continue." The kneeling slave looked up ruefully. "It was awful. And so terribly silly . . . I felt such a fool." She mused in retrospect. "They didn't believe me. The more I insisted, the more politely incredulous they became. When I spoke your name, and about Presteigne, they told me bluntly I was dealing in slander and libel and some other things I've forgotten. They put me in a cell." "They charged you with something?" Halcyon was amused. "Well, not exactly." She flushed. "They didn't know what to do with me. They put me in this horrible narrow little compartment and gave me a cup of tea while they made some enquiries. They were quite kind, but I was frightened of what I'd done." "What, no handcuffs!" He was enjoying her chagrin.

She took his banter seriously . . "No, nothing like that. After a couple of hours they said I'd better 'go back to school,' that's the way they put it. They told me if I insisted on wandering about London I'd get into some sort of trouble and probably be properly arrested for - oh, they had names for it. When I walked down their steps to the pavement I'd never felt more lonely in my life." "So you returned to the fold." "Not right away, Master. I know London a little, so I walked around and I had lunch. But people looked at me. I'm . . . I'm the wrong age and my clothes were wrong for me to be alone." "Did you come back to Presteigne because you wanted to or because London made you afraid?" His question was serious. Sharon saw the waiting chasm well enough, but knew she could not evade it. "If I give the wrong answer to that, I'll be punished, won't I?" she asked resignedly. "Never mind punishments, child. I want your story." "I didn't really want to come back to Presteigne, Master," she admitted unhappily. Her eye flickered toward the waiting whip and rope. "But I had no money - less than a pound after I'd paid for the lunch. So I suppose I was less afraid of Presteigne than I was of a world I didn't seem to belong in anymore." "No other excuses, Sharon?" His gaze was benign. "No, Master." "And you were never punished? Never flogged?" Her eyes were piteous. "It was not an escape, Master. I didn't run away and get caught." She shared a wry grin with the male regard. "My Mistress spoke of punishment, but it was never . . . done." "Do you feel guilt?" "I suppose I do. When I went away from Presteigne that morning I had no intention of coming back." She looked up doubtfully. "I can't help feeling that makes me guilty of something." Again a pause. "And the return: there's guilt there too. I came back because I had to . . . . Although -" "Although what, child?" "Chartreuse. I didn't want to lose her. I couldn't bear the thought." "A very mixed bag, Sharon, isn't it." "Will you have me flogged, Master?" "You are thinking of being formally triced up in the Great Hall and flogged before the whole school and its staff?" Halcyon asked drily. "The classic reward of the escapee?" "I suppose so, Master." She had captured his interest. "You truly feel guilt, don't you?" he asked kindly. "Do you have a wish to be flogged?" "Oh no!" Her exclamation was instinctive but lacked conviction. "At least I don't think so - it would be too terrible. Girls faint." Her eyes widened in appeal. "But if you wish it, Master - if it would give you pleasure I will not complain." His curiosity held. "It is your wish, my dear, not mine that we discuss. I believe you have a subconscious need to be flogged. Examine its origins and tell me why." She had no need to meditate. Her answer was simple and unfeigned: "It is because of Chartreuse, Master. The moment I left Presteigne that morning I knew I had been unfaithful to her. It was a terrible unfaithfulness, I had betrayed love." "Have you talked to her of this?" "Oh yes, Master. On my return I knelt and cried into her lap. I can still feel her fingers caressing

my hair." "But she does whip you?" "Of course, Master. But it is because she finds joy in whipping me. And because it gives her such happiness I am happy too." She hesitated briefly. "Soon you will whip me for the same reason, and for the same reason I will be glad." "But not as glad as if it was Chartreuse who striped you?" Sharon allowed herself a deprecating shrug. "It is because I love her. You are The Master. All we girls see you as The Master. It seems right to us that your strokes should hurt us more." "So you love me less?" "Oh, Master! Oh please . . . ! What have I said!" Sharon was distraught. She was exquisite. Perfect beyond words. Never had a female thing so generated the virility of his loins or liberated his tenderness. How good it was to hold this power over her! Even in her speech she was unintentionally erotic. She had an innocent sweetness. "Tell me," he said gently, waving away her fear. "You have learned the secret of Presteigne. How close have you come to adoring the whip that scores your back and the ropes that bind your limbs?" "I adore them, Master." She ventured a wry grin. "Not always while it is being done. But in the before and in the afterwards I am glad it has been done to me." "That whip on the floor. It's waiting for you. What of that?" Sharon measured her words with caution. "At this moment, Master, I do not adore. But it excites me terribly. I cannot be unaware of it." "It heats your loins?" "Yes, Master." She could feel the beginning of the blush she would be unable to hide. "Yet you will scream?" "I cannot help it, Master. I am sorry. All the girls try so hard not to, but we always do." She paused reflectively. The gaze she lifted to his was winsomely serious. "I don't think the screams matter - I mean they're not significant. They're not significant - because we don't want to scream. It's a reflex - is that the word?" She brightened. "The nice thing is, you can always gag us." They considered each other in silence. Each was completely at ease. Without words, they achieved empathy. Halcyon found himself reluctant to relinquish this communion. He was uncertain himself if his question was mischievous. "If I sentence you now, Sharon, to this flogging to which you have given so much thought, but, at the same time grant you freedom and ten thousand pounds: which would you choose?" She took him seriously. Why not! He was the Master! The spontaneity of her response surprised Sharon herself. "I would choose to be flogged." "But, good heavens, girl, why?" She shrugged without concern. "Master, I have tried it - the going away. It's no good. I'd only come back." "But with ten thousand pounds! And here, a flogging awaiting you!" "Ten thousand pounds will not buy me Chartreuse, Master." Halcyon sighed in pure delight. This girl was incredible. Clear-headed, without guile. Innocent in

her acceptance of Presteigne. "I will tell 'Treuse of this," he said gently. "She is richer than she knows." The lovely head of the kneeling slave lifted. "And are you going to have me flogged, Master?" The temptation to say yes was great, but Halcyon quashed it. His lips had an amused slant as they uttered his verdict. "No. Not today." With slave-girl wisdom, Sharon let it rest. "And now, you lovely temptress -" Halcyon viewed the kneeling nudity with tenderness. "Perhaps you would like to be whipped?" "That would be nice, Master." Sharon glowed at him. She was almost as aroused as he. The talk and the reprieve had been potent. "Does the whip I chose please you?" "It is severe, child. Change it for one less unkind. I wish to whip you much but damage you not at all." "Thank you, Master." Like a sunray the naked slave flitted on her errand. Once more she knelt. "How do you wish to tie me, Master?" He stroked the silken tresses and pinched the unresisting ears. "I will let you decide that, child. I am in an indulgent mood." Sharon sensed the warmth of affection and the heat of virility and took pride in her femaleness. The privilege would have defeated her months ago, but now she was experienced. She was also honest. "I am most ready for the whip when I am hung by my wrists, Master." Her voice was demurely soft. "Thus I can mark every part of you?" "Yes, Master." Halcyon marvelled. His pulse throbbed with lust for this, the most lovely of all his slave girls. But he was a gourmet who would hurry nothing. It would be pleasant to whip this submissiveness throughout the afternoon. Sharon would moan and emit small cries of pure pain. If not too harshly bound, she would writhe. She would be delicious. She offered her hands as though for homage. Halcyon bound tight bands about each chafed wrist. Sharon quivered beneath the constrictions from which her nakedness would hang to be whipped, quivered too from the closeness of the male and his intent regard. She was so totally his! So lost to that other Sharon of long ago. Trancelike, she moved beneath the bar and watched as her hands were secured and pulled taut above her head. "My feet are not off the floor, Master?" "Stand upon your toes, child. It is enough. Your motions beneath the whip will be more graceful." It was a command. She must not be stoic. Halcyon did not want her to fight the lash with pride. In a way, she was glad. It was so much easier to let her flesh rebel and have its way. Yet when the thong curled across her hips she stood, frozen with the pain, and did no more than gasp and rub her cheek against the bareness of an upraised arm. A second stroke did not come. Instead, the male hands caressed her nudity, running up and down her flanks, cupping her breasts, frictioning her nipples, and then as though in confirmation grasping her sex to find it wet. She stood helpless and quiescent, breasts heaving. She no longer tried to disguise her love for what was being done to her. She wanted the frank exploration of her charms to go on and on forever. Sometimes she moaned as she might have done beneath the lash. Her arms constricted against the ropes by which they were held high, but not in agony. Rather it was as though, in testing her tethers, they emphasized her beatitude. So many of our inmost thoughts are punctuated in our mind by exclamations. Trite clichés as they may be they mirror truth. 'If mother could see me now!' 'A year ago I'd have laughed!' 'I'd never have believed it possible!' 'I could scarcely believe my ears!' The list is endless. Thus it was with the naked girl with tied hands. Presteigne constantly thrust at her comparisons with that other life

from which she had been wrest. The Sharon Tredgold of that time would have laughed to scorn the suggestion that she be whipped and bound by a Peer of the Realm and that she would find joy in her punishment. Even as it happened and the strokes cut to keep her in constant response she marvelled at what she was and felt laughter welling at thought of what she once had been. Instead, she moaned and writhed in tumescent concupiscence. The whip might be mild, as whips were judged, but it hurt. Halcyon was enraptured by his slave. Her reception of the cuts of his whip were pure poetry. He whipped her with great care: slowly that she be not soon exhausted. The half-suspended nudity repaid his moderation a hundred-fold. Its motions and its moans tore at his heart. "Are you happy, child?" Belabouring the obvious as it might be, it was a simple question he felt compelled to ask. The answer he received was fervent. "Oh yes, Master! Yes." It had been spontaneous. But Sharon had no other words to speak. If she had pondered long she would have used the same. Within the welter of emotion engulfing her she recognized the influence of her heated sex. A harsher whip might have subdued her lust. She did not care. It was not a time for introspection. She emitted a gasping carnal cry as the tip of the thong bit beneath her armpit. "Tell me, my dear, of your thoughts when in your cell?" The blows stopped. Sharon was able to turn to face her Master as he seated himself to survey her sweat-drenched and whip-etched body. She saw no incongruity in his question. Once she would have done but not now. This male was her Master. Between a Master and a Mistress she had become accustomed to caprice. She welcomed its diversion. "I am not put in a cell every night, Master. Often I share a room with Trina." "And sometimes with our beloved Chartreuse!" Sharon flushed at his jibes, if jibe it was. "Yes, Master," she admitted demurely. "I am put in the cell when I have misbehaved." "Or when your, ahem, roommates are indisposed?" More pink to her cheeks, but she said softly: "Yes, Master." Halcyon was amused, he teased. "Did you know that in some Eastern societies lesbianism is punished by death?" The bound girl trembled. "No, Master." "It is so. Another punishment is to excise with a blade the core of female joy." She moaned and tugged at her tied wrists. "What is it, child, guilt?" "Oh Master, please!" It was a cry of agony. "I think I would want to die." She calmed herself determinedly and faced the smiling man. "Master, tell me. Am I guilty?" "Of course you are, you little baggage. You know it as well as I." He laughed enjoyably at her discomfiture. "But remember, this is Presteigne. I could not, in conscience, mutilate you without also using the knife on Chartreuse." The girl shivered but took heart. For a moment she had been afraid. She could understand how The Male might resent female love. But the Master was smiling. She had been teased. "And now, my lovely Sappho, you were going to tell. . . ?" "At first all I wanted was escape, Master. It filled my mind completely. The sound of the lock when they closed the door made me wince. I cried myself to sleep." "Charming. How well I picture you." "Almost always my hands were tied behind my back or I wore chains." She grinned ruefully. "When I was tied I always struggled until my wrists hurt - it passed the time. I never did get loose. Sometimes I'd go to the bars and press against them - I couldn't hold them the way you see in pictures. They were cold on my skin but they made me feel I was doing something. . . . I expect that

sounds silly." "You are incapable of silliness." His gaze remained intent. "But now it's different." She smiled briefly. "Now I'm mad at myself for doing whatever got me in there. After I've worn that out I lay on the cot and dream. I don't dream about the outside anymore. I dream about Presteigne." Sharon wiggled her bare shoulders. "I expect there's a lesson in there somewhere." Again a pause. "They still mostly tie my hands behind my back, so I can't . . . I can't . . . ." "No, I'm sure you couldn't!" Halcyon was laughing at her confusion. "Damned unsporting of them, eh!" "I'm sorry, I didn't mean -" Her cheeks generated their familiar pink. "Don't apologise. Now, one thing more. You hated being whipped. All girls do the first time. When did you stop hating?" Sharon's face lit up. "I've asked myself that too, Master. I still hated it when I got over the fear I'd die. It was such a relief to know my back wasn't cut to pieces the way I supposed while . . . while it was happening. But liking . . . being glad . . . that was my Mistress, Chartreuse, taught me." "Taught?" "I suppose that's the word, Master. She told me very plainly what she was going to do. But even then - it was only good because I adored her." "And her secret?" Surely he must know! He was playing games, making her stumble over intimacies of the flesh. But she did not care. He was her Master. If he wished her to bare her mind as she had bared her body she would obey. "Master, she did not flog me. I am frightened of being flogged. I think it is very different from being - just whipped. I don't think any girl can endure being flogged." A latent fear was vivid in her words. Halcyon nodded. "Of course. And you are right. Please continue." "First she tied me, Master. There were so many ways. . . . Then she did things. Things to make me terribly-excited. Beautiful lovely things. I expect I should be ashamed of them. I'm sorry I blush so easily. I'm trying to be -" "You are engagingly frank. Scherezade must have taught you." "Then she wouldn't . . . she wouldn't - well, when she had me in a dither of longing I was told there would be no love . . . no release until after I'd been whipped. Forgive me, Master, but I entered each of my whippings with a gorgeous reward I hungered for at the end. Often I did not even feel the first stroke. I was so aroused. And anyway, it was Chartreuse who was whipping me." "Poor child, didn't you feel abused?" "Oh no, Master! Because it was she -" Sharon broke off in retrospect. "The first time I only had to endure five strokes. But she hit me terribly hard - I screamed and screamed. But when it was over I was still burning on fire for her. It was gorgeous." "Dammit, girl, you make me wish I'd been born female." The whipped girl shared his grin of amusement. "Then, Master, she gradually increased the severity of the whippings I must receive to earn my rewards. Five, ten, fifteen . . . varying degrees and not always in the same place - I found out I had many places. . . . It was somewhere in there - I cannot tell exactly when. I began to long to be whipped because of the afterwards. And then while it was being done to me . . . my Mistress has magic." Halcyon raised the whip. Instantly they fell into their roles: Master and slave. At the second stroke Sharon cried out in hurt and her torso twisted responsively. He whipped her slowly for a long time.

"There, Sharon, that is it." "Thank you, Master." She was panting and glistening with sweat. Her wrists were sore from her struggles. Purposefully, he cupped her sex, exploring. "I could easily be jealous, girl." "You have no need of jealousy, Master." "Upon my soul, you're right! You're in heat." "Yes, Master." "Perhaps I should summon Chartreuse?" "No, Master." The moment he loosed her, she fell to her knees, clasping his. A moment later she had fled to the bench and disposed herself thereon, legs wide in invitation, pubic hair wet and shining. In an adoration he dared, not voice, the Master took his slave. Sharon's back and bottom scalded and scorched. She was very happy.

Chapter Eight The Ungrateful Captive "Quiet, Sharon! It's Nigel." The naked girl sprang into wakefulness. Thoughts of nightmare were dissipated by the male hand across her lips. In the gloom of the cell, Nigel Greyston's face peered down at her anxiously. "Please keep quiet, don't scream. I've come to take you away." Perhaps it was a nightmare! She was in the cell because she had misbehaved the day before. Her hands were tied tight behind her back. It was impossible for Nigel to enter Presteigne, impossible for him to enter her locked prison. "I've bribed someone, Sharon, a maid. I had to." His distressed voice answered her question. "Come quickly. We mustn't be found." Roused from deep slumber to face so shocking a dilemma, Sharon's mind raced. She could think of more than one reason why Nigel should go, and that he be not discovered. It is hard to make a whisper urgent, but she did her best. "Nigel dear, this is absurd. Go away. I told you -" "I refuse to listen." His voice was heavy with righteousness. "You are under some evil influence perhaps drugged. I shall carry you." "Nigel, stop it!" Sharon could have kicked his pomposity. "I'm no more drugged than you are." "Then it's some sort of spell these people have you under. Just look at you and this place - locked in a cell!" "I was a bad girl." She choked back a hysterical need to laugh. "You don't know a thing about Presteigne! Oh, Nigel, please go away." "You see! You're talking nonsense, you're irrational. Thank heavens I came." Despite herself, Sharon giggled. Poor Nigel! He was so theatrical and so noble. She cursed the ill chance of his finding her in punishment. Had she been asleep in the bedroom she shared with Trina he would have been disarmed. "Dear Nigel, I know this seems odd to you," she implored urgently. "This cell and all. . . . But it's

because I want it. It's a joke between us girls." "I don't believe you. Oh Sharon!" He was shocked at her mendacity. The captive girl shuddered at thought of the possible misconceptions arising from his discovery. How hard for them to believe her innocent! "You don't have to believe anything - just go away," she implored vehemently. "If they catch you -" "They can do nothing to me. I am concerned for you." His gaze explored her in the semi-dark. "You're naked again! And your hands - why are you holding them like that?" This time she did not even try to curb the giggle. "They're tied there, that's why. Nigel, don't try and understand any of this." "Turn round, I'll untie you. It's an outrage." "No you won't." She faced him angrily. "Leave me alone. If I'm found untied in the morning I'll never be able to explain." "You won't be found. You are coming with me, even if I have to use force." Nobility vibrated in every word. "I am not!" If Sharon had been vehement before, she was doubly so now. "If you try and pick me up I'll scream." For a moment the threat halted him. But Nigel was both desperate and determined. His thrusting of his handkerchief into her mouth caught her unawares. In a flash of fury, Sharon realised herself delivered into Nigel's hands. Tied for punishment she was powerless. She made a dash for the open door, but he was angry and watchful. He gathered her flying hair in a forceful hand that curbed her into a painful halt. Searching, he easily found an item of which Presteigne was rarely short: some pieces of rope left idly on the floor of the cell. The longest he looped around his captive's neck as a leash. Another served to bind the white cambric firmly in her mouth. A third went round and round the girl's protesting ankles and was knotted in savage haste. Sharon was delivered to her knight errant whether she wished it or nay. Nigel carried her with ease, her wiggles were ineffectual and short-lived. The grey shape of the conspiring maid met them in the passage and guided them silently through the dark house. Cool in the night air outside the small back door, Sharon heard the key turn inside. The girl could easily lock everything in good order and go to bed. The disappearance of the prisoner of Presteigne would be a total mystery. Thought of Chartreuse's anguish tore at Sharon's heart. The gallant rescuer of a maiden in distress was jubilant. His elation showed in his purposeful strides down the carriageway to the main gate. But a full-grown girl, even though naked, is no light burden. After a few hundred yards Nigel was panting. Decisively, he placed his captive on her feet and loosed her ankles. Prudently he pocketed the rope and grasped the leash from his loved one's neck. "You'll have to walk, dear," he announced firmly. "We've quite a way to go." Sharon made indignant sounds into the gag and planted her feet in eloquent defiance. "Oh, Sharon, don't be an idiot." Nigel was perplexed. A naked girl in the middle of a strange and possibly hostile Parkland in the dark of night was bad enough. But that the damsel be recalcitrant, repulsing rescue, was a contretemps for which he was ill prepared. His prisoner made negative sounds and backed away, testing her leash. Finding it unsympathetic, she stood still and glared. "It's for your own good. You absolutely must trust me." Nigel was becoming as angry as his charge. "Oh damn, there's nothing to cover you. There wasn't even a sheet on that cot." He eyed her accusingly. The bound girl made what she hoped were derisive sounds into her gag. She longed to tell him she enjoyed being naked - just to see his expression. Her affection for this earnest young man was crumbling under irritation. She was so helpless: and Chartreuse was going to be frantic. "I can't even put my jacket on you while your hands are tied, and you're being so ridiculous I daren't untie you. Sharon, for goodness' sake, have some sense." The kick of her unshod foot barely missed his genitals. The lashing out had been impulsive and

instinctive. The moment she had done it she felt guilt. Nigel was shocked. Nothing this inexplicable creature had done or said had carried so clear a message. But that she should aim for, for the unforgivable so enraged his Victorian sensibilities that, in an impulse similar to her own, he took the rope from his pocket and gave her a hearty slash across her bottom. Seeming to take heart from the positive act, he held her leash in one hand and thrashed her with the other. To any student of the female psyche it is understandable that this male reaction enhanced his loved one's respect rather than diminished it. Sharon gasped and knew anger, but her rescuer's image grew in stature. The first blows caused her to wonder if the heat in Nigel's genitals matched the sudden flare of passion in her own. But soon, the slashes of the abrasive rope imposed a degree of pain to send her sprawling on the leafy sward, whimpering. "I'm sorry -" Nigel had the good sense to cut his apologies. "It's your own fault, Sharon. You brought it on yourself." He was panting. With female guile, she looked up in deep reproach. The motions she made with her mouth were unmistakably a request for the removal of the gag. "I'll take it out if you'll promise not to scream?" Abjectly, Sharon nodded. She would forego screams for speech. Speech was a weapon. "Thank you, Nigel. Please don't gag me again. I'll be good - at least about screaming. I'm sorry about that kick. Really I am." She looked up at her new master appealingly. He loved her, but never was a lover so beset with absurdity. Nigel longed to free this delectable creature and clasp her in his arms. But her apology and promise were qualified. She was not to be trusted. In vexation he tugged at the leash and resumed the trudging journey. "We should be running," he complained. "I will if you will?" "I won't!" Her refutation sounded adamant. "I don't even want to walk." Nigel flushed at the implication. With rope he had whipped this girl he loved. She walked only because she must. She made him feel a cad. But, at the same time, he had to fight down a compulsion to place her across his lap and spank her bottom. It was a delectable thought. The leashed girl had no choice but to follow where she was led. Her hands worked incessantly at the cord, she cared nothing for hurt or abrasions. If she could free her hands she could flee. Nigel was unlikely to use brutal force in subduing her. But tied she was infuriatingly in his power. As usual, the bonds upon her wrists were implacable. "I'm taking you to my Aunt Octavia," Nigel said stiffly. "She's the closest of my relatives to this awful place. She'll know what to do with you." "Nobody has to 'do' anything with me. Oh, Nigel, let me go. This is kidnapping. I don't want to go to your Aunt Octavia's or anywhere else. I belong here at Presteigne." "Sharon, I know it's ridiculous, me pulling you along like a dog on a chain. If I untie your hands and take this rope off your neck will you give me your parole, your solemn word?" He kept up the steady pace, but added quaintly: "You'll be able to wear my jacket." "No I won't, Nigel." "But why!" He was genuinely distressed for her. "Because I like you too much to make a promise I'd intend to break. I'll run back to the house the first chance I get. You're wasting your time." "You make no sense, Sharon." "Not to you. But I do to me. You've no right to dump me in your aunt's lap. She'll be horrified. I met her once, remember? Isn't she the widow of old Lord Drawbridge. She's a dragon." "Whatever she is she'll know how to deal with this situation." Nigel sounded hurt. "The only 'situation' is the one you've created, Nigel. Look, take this rope off my neck and let me go. You don't even have to untie my hands. I'll find my way to where I belong."

"There's something wrong, something depraved." The disgruntled rescuer muttered angrily. "I don't understand -" Suddenly he raised a warning hand, his voice fell to a hiss. "Here's the lodge and the gate. Remember, you promised not to scream." "Oh, I'll keep that promise," his captive retorted irritably. "My only hope now is a stray policeman." Nigel ignored her bitterness. The huge gate yielded to his tug. When they had passed through it he retrieved the chain and padlock from the ground and locked it fast. The simple act would add to the bafflement of Presteigne. The locked gate would be a barrier between the naked girl and a return to heart's desire. The would-be deliverer looked up and down the deserted road. It was by no means a main artery, but it was a public highway. "Aren't we going to look a little odd walking down the road like this?" Sharon asked icily. "We aren't walking down the road." The wish to paddle her bottom was still alive. "We're going through the woods. There's a path, several paths. It can't be more than a couple of miles." "Aren't I the lucky girl, two miles with bare feet over the flints!" "There are no flints. For goodness' sake, Sharon, try and understand my position. I've got to do this. I have no choice." She understood his crass nobility all too well. It would be as inflexible as the rope binding her hands. Unwillingly, but with a curiosity tinged with amusement, the captive girl allowed herself to be led to a fate promising embarrassment to all. "Look Sharon, there's a postern door." They had halted in the shadow of the considerable bulk of the Drawbridge Mansion. Nigel's voice was anxious and awkward. "There usually is in these older houses." "Don't be so snarkey. What I mean is I'm going in that way to find some clothes for you. I can't possibly lead you in to Auntie like this." "I don't mind a bit. She's almost certain to know what girls look like - under their clothes, I mean." Sharon was enjoying his distress. "There! I haven't rescued you a moment too soon," Nigel exclaimed triumphantly. "You're . . . you're -" "Incorrigible?" "I . . . I suppose that's the word. Sharon, I'm afraid you'll have to stay here while I go. I may have to wake the housekeeper - she likes me." "Run along, Nigel dear." Sharon kept her voice level by an effort. Would he! Was this her chance! It was not her chance! Shamefaced, he tied her tether to the bough of a tree, well above her reach. "I'm sorry, darling." "Call me Fido," she threw bitterly after his retreating back. Leaning against the tree to which she was captive, Sharon sighed wretchedly. She could see no hope of benefit accruing from this droll exercise. She cared little for embarrassments outside Presteigne, but she cared a great deal for her honour within. Unless the bribed servant girl was willing to corroborate her story, who would believe it! She could already feel the hurt eyes of Chartreuse, and the accusing gaze of Halcyon reducing her to tears and protestations. "I bin' a' watching yer, so I have." The male voice carried heavy censure. Startled, Sharon beheld the figure of a middle-aged gamekeeper loom up in the grey light of dawn. He was carrying a double-barreled shotgun, and was frankly assessing her charms. "You ain't got no clothes on, Miss." He offered the observation as though she might be unaware of her condition.

Sharon was desperate to the point of not caring. "No I haven't, have I," she agreed brightly. "If you'll just loose this rope round my neck I'll be running along." "Trespassing, Miss. You be trespassing." "I'm awfully sorry. I've just been brought here from Presteigne. It's a school for girls, y'know." The battle might be a losing one, but she would fight it. "Ah." Sharon had never heard an 'ah' more loaded with suspicion. "I won't put you to any trouble." She made her voice as cheerful as she could. "If you'll just undo this rope -?" "Young Mister Nigel, that was. I knows 'im. Summat' wrong somewheres. 'Er Ladyship best know about this 'ere. You're a'coming along o' me, young lady." Sharon did her best with protest and with plea. But she had long known that under the shield of 'duty' the lower orders were thrice armed. It was only minutes before she was tethered to a post in a potting shed. "I thought you were taking me to Lady Drawbridge?" she demanded indignantly. "That I be." Her latest captor eyed her benevolently. "But 'er Ladyship don't get up this time o' day. You'll see 'er soon enow'." Despondently, the tied girl watched him go. The door closed. There was the unmistakable sound of a padlock. The potting shed smelled verdant but earthy. Most of its light came from the roof. She explored her leash. It was tied well above her head. She considered gnawing it with her teeth, but what was the use! Her hands were still tied and she was locked in a shed. Nigel would never, never find her. She could see nothing ahead on which to base hope of charity. She leaned against the post and wept. "I never did approve of you." Lady Octavia's statement was deliberately offensive. Unhappily, the misunderstood captive looked about the opulent study and at the angular tweed-clad woman behind the desk. "Can I sit down, please?" "No, you cannot. You will stand. Nigel is an impressionable boy. You have seduced him." "But that's absurd! We were friends. Nigel got romantic ideas about me. Where is Nigel?" "I sent him packing. Silly young idiot." Lady Drawbridge smiled complacently. "I did not encourage his puppy love by telling him you were still on the premises. He doesn't know what's happened to you." "Lady Drawbridge, do you realise I'm still tied underneath this sheet you've used to cover me?" Lady Octavia made a barking sound of approval. "And that's the way you'll stay - the rope on your neck too. Damned convenient." "Please send me back to Presteigne. They'll be terribly worried." "Glad to be rid of you, I'd have supposed. You're a shameless baggage. All naked . . . tempting my nephew." "But it wasn't like that! Please, Lady Drawbridge, lend me some clothes and let me go. I'll walk back to Presteigne and never bother you or Nigel again. I promise." "Hoity-toity! So you're giving orders." "Oh no, no . . . !" Sharon realised how impossible it might be to tell this termagant any story she would believe. "I'm going to teach you a lesson, m'girl." Sharon was appalled. An awful inevitability was taking shape. Her nudity and her bound hands condemned her with everyone. She searched her mind for some rational appeal, but could find none this self-satisfied shrew would find plausible. Lady Octavia

mistook her frustrated silence for guilt. "You're going to learn what punishment is, young lady, before you are returned to Presteigne. I'll teach you to strut around naked and bewitch callow boys." "But, Lady Drawbridge, I can be disciplined at school in the proper way. If you'll just make your complaint when you take me back -" "Are you suggesting my punishment is 'not proper'?" The voice of the widow of the nobility throbbed with outrage. "Oh please, don't be so angry with me." Sharon's cry was that of a small girl at the end of her tether. "If you think I should be punished, just tell Miss Carruthers. I expect she'd whip me, if that's what you want . . . or something." Sharon gulped. "I expect she'd let you watch." This time the barking sound was of disdain. "These schools . . . pshaw! A namby-pamby lot. What you need, m'girl, is a good riding crop laid across your seat." "I'm sure they'd do that to oblige you," the innocent delinquent offered pathetically. "Was that sarcasm? Pon' my soul. . . !" "Well, do what you like with me." Sharon's voice was wan and hopeless. "I can't stop you. But I'm not what you -" "Silence!" Sharon wiggled sadly beneath her sheet. If only her hands weren't tied! If only, if only . . . ! Close to hysteria, she realised that had it not been for the length of cord binding her wrists none of this would have happened. Apprehensively she awaited judgement. "You will be bathed, fed, and punished. You may live to thank me for it, girl." Sharon doubted it. Her doubt was intensified as she was ministered to by a young woman who obviously regarded her employer as one of the lesser deities. "Proper terror she be, Miss." Lucy Bletts minced no words. "I don't suppose you'd consider untying me and letting me go?" "I couldn't do that, Miss. 'Alf kill me, she would." "If you'd get me back to Presteigne there'd be a reward?" "Not for no money, Miss." "What's she going to do to me, Lucy?" "I dunno, Miss. But it'll 'urt." The tied captive had learned enough at Presteigne to recognize Lady Octavia Drawbridge for what she was. Without their charm, their poise, their warmth, she was of the class of Chartreuse and Halcyon. To punish a naked girl would give her exquisite joy. Sharon sighed sadly. If only this stark female was more prepossessing her coming ordeal might enlist the anaesthetic of the heat within her sex. But, as she was, there would be only pain and indignity. Lady Octavia appeared to possess none of the humanities. "Stand still while I tie your feet." Sharon followed her female inquisitor's train of reasoning. With her ankles bound, it would then be safe to free her hands. The long slenderness of the riding crop would discourage struggle or protest. Obediently she stood, facing the brutal timbers of the stocks, while Nigel's aunt rendered her feet impotent. "We can dispense with this."

Rising, Lady Octavia snatched away the sheet and studied the nude loveliness it had hidden. Her eye was keen. "You're a damn beautiful little bitch," she conceded sourly. "I see someone's had a go at you already?" Sharon ardently wished her whipmarks were more recent and more severe, they would have added credence. But they were faded and undramatic. They would simply encourage this absurd woman to do better. "I suppose you know what this is?" "It's a set of stocks, Lady Drawbridge." "Right. Stick your neck and wrists in there." What else could she do! Already the crop had rapped on her thighs in stern reminders. A girl fastened in the stocks was well positioned for a whipping. Her plight might be bizarre but it had its rationality. Resignedly, the supposed culprit positioned herself. She had never done anything she wished less. "A good thrashing will clear your mind, young woman." Lady Drawbridge's voice oozed false bonhomie. Her utter vulnerability within these daunting timbers was frightening. Sharon braced herself for the agony of the first blow. It did not come. Nothing happened. In the grim chamber around the naked girl there was only silence. Strangely, it was more fearsome than the expected pain. The captive could see only to the fore. Behind the stocks in which she was immovably prisoned could be anything. It took little imagination to envision the hostilities in preparation out of sight. It was several minutes before the captive dared a tentative, "Lady Drawbridge . . . ?" There was no answer. Silence mocked her. Sharon was alone. Her first reaction was vexation. To be thrashed and sent back to Presteigne was the best she could hope for. Now, it was not happening. The prospect of standing in the stocks all day was frustrating to the point of panic. It would also be a miserable and wearying punishment. Sharon's heart thumped painfully in a sudden realisation of how totally she was in Lady Octavia's power. If the woman was cruel enough she could be kept a prisoner for days or even weeks. Thoughts of Chartreuse brought tears to the downcast eyes. "You want a drink o' water, Miss?" It was Lucy Bletts, armed with a glass and sympathetic eyes. Quite evidently she found nothing strange in Sharon's plight. "Orful, ain't it, Miss. I bin' in 'em meself." Sharon drank the water. With her yoked neck it was not easy. "Let me loose - just for a little rest?" she pleaded. "No jolly fear! You think I'm daft." "But my feet are tied. I can't get away." "Well, I ain't a'doin it - not that I wouldn't like to. But it 'ud be askin' fer trouble, so it would." She was probably right. Sharon savoured a terrible impotence. "What's going to happen to me!" Her exclamation was rhetorical. It was taken seriously. "You'll likely stand in them things the day, Miss. Come night, I 'specks you'll get proper chained up. 'Er Ladyship, she'll make 'ee wait 'til tomorror' 'afore 'ee gets sliced wi' that orfull crop o' hers." "She does this to you!" Sharon was aghast. "She does it ter all us girls, Miss," Lucy giggled. "She tells our ma's straight when she hires us - a bit more siller' fer our work and we gets our bottoms whipped. I gets whipped every week regular. 'Long wi' other things." "What other things?"

Lucy giggled. "You ever sit on the edge o' a plank - all naked?" "No, and I don't want to." "And hung up by yer wrists?" "Yes, I've had that." The admission spurred Lucy to more lurid reminiscence. Sharon shrank from the disclosures. Presteigne receded into a far distance. When Lady Drawbridge came to release her prisoner in the evening she found her in tears and weary to the point of being totally amenable. Hysteria entered into the distraught pleas. "Please. M'Lady, whip me and send me home?" "Dear girl, you are becoming quite charming." "Torture me . . . anything! But send me back to the school?" "Don't worry, my pretty, you'll be well disciplined. And now for your night." The ugly little stone place in which she was to wear her chains was dismal. The chains themselves, strewn upon the floor, were grim. "Am I being chained to prevent me escaping, Lady Drawbridge?" "They're mostly so you'll know some honest repentance through the night," the titled jailer affirmed dourly. "Hold out your hands." The chains were beastly. They permitted nothing. Sharon found she could almost do a lot of things, but not quite. She crouched dejectedly on the stone, surrounded by links. The night would seem forever. "Please, I haven't done anything to deserve these." She gave her captor her most winning smile. "You're a strumpet and a wanton baggage. Chains and you go together. I'd have you in 'em every night if I had my way." Sharon knew defeat. Her only crime was youth and comeliness. Both were unforgivable in the eyes of this harridan. "Can I go back to school tomorrow, M'Lady - after I've been properly punished, of course?" she asked manfully. "We'll see about that when the time comes." Lady Drawbridge sniffed disdainfully and went away. The prisoner was sufficiently exhausted that she slept. Sharon's thrashing with Lady Drawbridge's riding crop the next morning was excoriatingly painful but mercifully brief. To receive it she was hung pendant from her tied wrists. "I like to see a girl kick while I cut at her," Lady Drawbridge confessed ingenuously. "Scream if you want." Sharon screamed. The crop across her buttocks and hips was a new experience in pain. It was different from the whip or the cane. It had a stomach-curling cruelty of its own. From the first blow, the naked girl abandoned silence and stoicism. Her screams and her writhings were as much a protest against injustice as they were against pain. "You mark nicely, I'll say that for you." Sharon did not care how she marked. She howled and kicked. Her wrists were soon an agony. "Get those legs too far apart and I'll get up inside 'em," the self-appointed arbiter of morals promised darkly. Suiting action to words, she did just that. Such an agony in such a place demoralised. "Oh don't! Oh please, you mustn't! Not there. Oh, M'Lady . . . ohhhhhh!" Sharon cast pride to the winds. "I'll do anything . . . ! I will, I will!" She was rewarded by a biting slash across her back - a place on a girl where a riding crop should

not be used. Her cry of desolation filled the room. . "You'll carry that mark for a week or two, m'girl," the whip mistress pronounced with satisfaction. Sharon was sure she was cut and bleeding. She had no defences against this woman. Had it been Chartreuse whipping her, even with the awful crop, she could have coped. But now she was desperate. "Please, there must be something I can do? Something you want? This isn't . . . it isn't just punishment . . . is it?" "For instance?" Lady Drawbridge's voice was bleak. "Can I . . . can I give you pleasure? Please let me do something. I can't stand this pain." "Do you mean what I think you mean?" The tone was ominous. "Oh yes, oh yes - I'll do anything. Don't keep whipping me. I'll be ever so nice to you." The tied victim was frantic. "You filthy little bitch!" The crop scored her back again, her thighs. Amidst the flood of anguish Sharon glimpsed her error. She was lost. For her there would be no mercy. "That's enough of that!" The strong male voice cut the atmosphere like a knife. Lord Theodor Halcyon strode into the punishment room like an avenging thundercloud. He wrenched the riding crop from its owner's nerveless hand. "You ridiculous witch, out of my way! I've a mind to call the police." Then to Sharon: "Are you all right, girl?" "I . . . I think so, Master." "Ah, so it's 'Master', is it!" Lady Octavia scored a point. "I'm going to cut you down, Sharon. Can you stand?" "Yes, oh yes!" She could have stood a hundred times for the glory of release. With her feet on the ground and her hands free, she stood uncertainly awaiting his command. "Turn round." The familiar heat flared as her hands were bound at her back. She shot a look of triumph at the older woman's perplexity. "Any trouble from you and I'll make you the laughing stock of four counties," Halcyon promised the lady of the house. He led his joyous slave girl from the room.

Chapter Nine Prelude to the Lash "I believe every word, darling. And I'll make Theo believe too. I promise. But he's a man - it touched his pride to lose you." Upon their shared bed, Chartreuse was as naked as the captive girl whose silken hair she so lovingly caressed. "But my story . . . it's so hard to believe it," Sharon moaned for the umpteenth time. "That awful girl - denying everything."

"I'll catch her out in a lie, dear," Chartreuse said firmly. "That's the only reason I haven't discharged her." "But our Master . . . ! I don't want him thinking wrong things. Does he want me flogged for escaping?" Chartreuse chuckled. "Well, he did mention it while he was positive you were guilty. He was terribly angry and hurt." "Am I guilty, Mistress? I mean sort of technically. It all looks so bad." Sharon's distress died hard. "You're not guilty to me, dearest one," Chartreuse murmured tenderly. "Would you like your hands untied?" "Oh no." Sharon was very certain. "It feels so good to be tied like this by you again. That awful, awful woman!" She paused, pondering. "She made me feel soiled. As though I actually had run away from you, and as though I was all those things she called me. Please Mistress, about that flogging, are you sure?" The Mistress's hands were playful upon her captive's flesh. "No, I'm not sure at all, darling. Not about the flogging but about you." The tied girl tensed in ecstacy, waiting. "You really wish to be flogged, don't you, Sharon?" The air was electric. Sharon was aware of battles raging in her mind. Aware, too, of the delicious heat. "I suppose I do," she admitted slowly. "Am I too absurd?" "I've thought about you and that flogging a lot, darling." The Headmistress of Presteigne confessed. "I know what's happened with you. You've built up a guilt feeling. You've had it a long time. This Nigel thing has thrust it out in the open for you." "There's something in the Bible about the guilt of wanting to do something - even if you actually don't do it," Sharon mused. "Even when I first loved you I was wanting to escape all the time. And now, with this Nigel affair . . . I keep thinking I should have screamed or done something. Oh, I was such a fool!" Chartreuse chuckled. "I doubt I'd have done better in your place, dear. With tied hands you were beat from the start." "Yes, but -" "But you still feel you let us down. Because we love you, you think you should be cleansed of sin by a flogging to prove you love us too. Is that it, darling?" It was so perfectly 'it' Sharon felt silly. "Yes," she admitted shyly. "That's it." "You do realise, don't you, the idea of being flogged has a powerful erotic attraction?" "I'd thought of that. But the pain must be so awful -" "Oh, of course! While it's happening, and for an hour after. But remember all that delicious suspense beforehand, and the retrospect lasting forever. When it's over you feel as though someone's given you a million pounds. It's toe-tinglingly gorgeous - even if you did faint." Sharon was shocked. "Mistress, not you!" "Why not!" Chartreuse was enjoying her sensation. "I was acting absurdly when he took Presteigne from me, so he had me flogged. The full ritual before the whole school. I thought I'd die. I even wanted to." She laughed gaily. "You know, darling, it was the kindest thing he ever did for me. It cured me completely." "Cured you! What of?" "Of thinking I was Me instead of His." The laughing statement caused the captive to eye the Mistress soberly. "That's what we both are,

aren't we?" she mused aloud. "I've been seeing it differently - as though I belong to you and you belong to him." "But, darling, he's possessed you often enough." Sharon giggled. "Well, I thought I was sort of on loan, or something." "Dearest, we both belong to him utterly. He's our Master," Chartreuse acknowledged her admission with a wry grin. "In our hearts we're glad of it. Theo and you and I have found our place in the scheme of things. The girls find theirs. But sometimes. . . . Well, sometimes its very totality is frightening. We are owned." "Slaves?" "What else, darling! I ceased to shed tears long ago." "So, if you didn't want to have me flogged but he did, I'd be flogged?" "Of course." The mischievous fingers worked busily. "But I don't think he'll do it. He's in love with you too, y'know. You're too delicious to flog." "That word." Sharon frowned. "What's the difference between a girl being flogged or being just whipped?" "Still obsessed with it, aren't you! Really, darling, you're going to talk yourself into standing up on that platform and showing the whole school the hair between your legs." "Is that the difference, ritual?" "Goodness no! The cat-o-nine-tails used to be the difference. It simply flayed a girl. It's never been used in Presteigne in its original form. After all, this is a girls' school. It's still here, but minus the bits of metal and the knots in the tails. It still isn't much fun." "Ugh! Do we bleed?" "Yes. And it takes ages to heal. Here, I'll turn so you can examine my back." Shocked but fascinated, Sharon beheld the faint white lines she had never previously noticed on the revealed loveliness. Not many and not blatant, doubtless in time they would vanish. But they were there. She had a momentary vision of. Chartreuse hanging from her wrists and screaming as the nine tails wrapped themselves across her back. Heat flared demandingly. "They're beautiful!" Chagrined by her involuntary response, Sharon was confused. "Oh Mistress, I didn't mean -!" Chartreuse turned to once again gaze upon this most erotic of all the feminine creatures she possessed. "Don't be sorry," she said softly. "They are beautiful - just as you are beautiful. Darling, you are terribly involved . . . more than any of us. You're panting." "I can't help it. Oh Mistress, what am I!" "A slave girl. Perfection." "You've got me so excited, Mistress. Your fingers . . . and, what you've told me. Please untie my hands now so I can do things to you." "No. You're in disgrace. You stay tied." Sharon made a little moue of mock distress. "Aren't I either guilty or not guilty? If I'm guilty I should be flogged. If I'm not, you could untie my hands?" Chartreuse chuckled delightedly. "That's a bit of feminine sweet talk. It's you, darling, who's laden with guilt. You've turned yourself into a judge and jury. The only reason you haven't pronounced sentence is because you're enjoying the awful suspense." She was right, of course! Sharon knew it. Knew, too, she was playing with fire. She knew herself under a frightening erotic compulsion leading her to unspeakable agony. But she was on a tide she could not stem. She had no illusions about the nature of her obsession, but the more she strove to

subdue it the more it raised its ugly head. "It must be the same sort of instinct as women accepting the agony of having a baby," she questioned thoughtfully. "You'd think they wouldn't want it. Or if they did it once they wouldn't again. But they do. It's as though, for a woman, pain doesn't count." "What are you rambling about, silly!" "Mistress," Sharon's voice became very clear. "If our Master wishes me flogged, don't dissuade him." They spoke no more of it then, but between them was a terrible knowledge. Presteigne took its time. It was several days before Trina's pitying eyes and anxious voice. "I say, Sharon, what have you been up to?" "Why, Trina?" She had guessed instantly but had to ask. "Because I've got to chain you in the dungeon, that's why," Trina said crossly. "It's not nighttime. It's midday. That means you're in trouble bad." "I expect it's because I tried to escape." "I don't think you tried to escape at all. There's something queer about that whole business. But if that's it, you know what you're in for, don't you?" "I'll be flogged." "Don't be so damn casual about it." Trina was aggrieved at being in the dark about a school mystery. "I've been flogged once. I'll never risk it again. Besides, who wants to escape!" "Well, come on. If you have to chain me up let's get on with it." "Sharon!" Trina sounded faintly shocked. "What's got into you! You're positively wallowing in . . . in . . . oh, I don't know what the word is, but you're wallowing in something." "I'm just plain naughty," said Sharon demurely. "Lead me to my fate, darling. Aren't you supposed to grab my arm." They teased. But emotion clung about them like a pall. The removal of the culprit's clothes in preparation for punishment was always a moment charged with portent. Sharon shed hers far too blithely for Trina's sense of what was proper. "You ought to act a little bit sorry to lose 'em," she complained. "Oh all right, I'm sorry," Sharon agreed obligingly. "I expect I'll be ever so much sorrier." "I could help you in that," Trina warned. "Just do your duty, darling," Sharon cooed. She looked around the dismal stone place to be her prison. Its gloom was contagious. "I say, Trina, you will drop in and see me sometimes?" "You don't deserve it. Oh Sharon, you've been so silly! I wish I didn't have to do this to you." Sharon kissed her tenderly. Trina was sweet. Soon she would be chained and unable to give so simple a token of affection. They clung. "Don't worry, dear," she consoled. "Just do it. For some strange reason I don't seem to mind too much. I say, Trina, who'll flog me?" "You do know? It's true then?" "Not for sure, but sort of - who is it flogs us girls?" "Usually one of the Mistresses. If a girl's been very bad, or if she's older . . . it could be Lord

Halcyon." "What happens if we faint?" "They use smelling salts and carryon," Trina grimaced. "You have to stand up the whole day. I'm allowed to chain you differently at night. Oh Sharon, why oh why!" The captive in disgrace recognized her mood as that strange intoxication which feeds on danger. The inspiration of heroism. The exuberant exhilaration of foolhardiness. The pulse races, euphoria inhibits judgement. It sustained her, even in loneliness after Trina's exit and the slamming of the door. Her heart thudded out its rhythm that chanted over and over: 'This is it! This is it!' Chained fast against the stone, Sharon savoured the emotional orgasms of the condemned. Her new captivity was neither cruel nor kind. It would get tiring as the day wore on, but for the moment she could assess it comfortably. Her back was to the wall, her hands were raised and stretched to either side and chained, chained loosely enough that she could flex her arms. It was not torture. The metal collar round her neck was pure punishment. With its short chain to the wall it served no more than as a burden she must bear, the metal bands about her wrists already rendered her helpless. The same might be said of the shackles on her ankles. They loosely secured her feet to the wall. She would wear them in disgrace like a dunce's cap. But was she in disgrace! Sharon was honest enough to know she was not. She was chained in this dungeon, as one of the preliminaries of her flogging, because she wished to be. She had asked for it. Chartreuse would be thinking it served her right. Trina, if she knew, would think the same. In her delegation of the task of chaining the condemned, the Mistress had disassociated herself from what was to happen. Sharon was positive her Mistress was sharing her own erotic stimulus, but would sanction no part of it as a punishment justly earned. She was innocent but she was going to be flogged! It was an anomaly exquisitely her own. Standing in her nude confinement, the prisoner realised she had failed to elicit all the details of a girl's flogging at Presteigne from Chartreuse that day they had talked so much of it. The 'Cat,' yes! But she was sure there were created suspenses and humiliations. They had started now with this chaining - which could go on and on for days while she waited and stewed in anguished apprehension. There could be other things that, in the end, would lead her to the fateful punishment thankful that it was at last being done to her. Presteigne's punishments usually possessed a subtlety . . . . "I think they're going to think up something special for you," Trina announced excitedly. "I can't stay - I'm not supposed to be here at all. But you said you wanted - oh Sharon, I think you're in for a bad time. I think they're going to exhibit you in public. You know: a terrible example sort of thing." Alone again, the captive considered it. How plausible, and how punishing! The girls would adore it. Her heat burned brightly. Inevitably, the dungeon, the chains, and the hours had their way with her. It was a tiring pose. She could move with relative freedom but could not take a single step. Like an impaled butterfly she stood spread against the stone; contrite and dubious she awaited her jailer. "Oh, darling, you look so tired." Trina's presence in the dismal place was like a ray of sunlight. "And I mustn't unlock you yet. They're being awfully strict about you." Sharon could well believe she was to be taught a lesson. The Master and the Mistress were probably both irritated and amused by the obstinacy of her obsession. They would be curious to test its sincerity. Would she mount the dreadful platform with the same insouciance as she had entered the dungeon! "Are they very angry?" she asked briefly. "They don't seem angry at all. But I think you're going to get it just the same. Oh, Sharon, the whole school's so excited, they've all heard about it." "Trina, there's something I'm worrying about. I'm so helpless now and so sort of . . . launched. You know: it's going to happen. When the time comes, how will they tie me?." "There's a sort of triangle affair, dear. You hang from your wrists, and then your ankles are strapped out to either side. It's terribly shame making." "Do they use the 'Cat' thing all over us?" "Well, not exactly." Trina eyed her charge with amusement. "You're starting to worry, aren't you. Not that I blame you much."

"But how much of me will be flogged? Please, Trina?" "Well, they won't flog your tummy," Trina giggled. "And they won't actually go to the front and flog your pussy. They won't flog your legs or your arms . . . ." "You 're trying to tell me kindly they will flog my breasts?" Sharon's voice was breathless. "Oh darling - not really they won't." Trina paused, seeking evasions. "I mean they don't take aim at a girl's breasts and hit them." She parted with her disclosure reluctantly. "But while they're flogging your back it's so easy for a thong or two to flick under your arm and snap at one of them." Sharon sighed. She supposed it was best to know. She looked down at her virgin breasts as though seeing them for the first and last time. "Does a nipple ever get cut off?" she demanded forthrightly. Trina chose odd moments in which to giggle. "I've never heard of it. We girls are awfully bouncy, y'know. I expect resilient is the word." "And lower down?" Sharon could not bring herself to use any of the names. Certainly not in this connotation. "It gets the same," Trina admitted. "You see, our legs are spread so far apart. I don't think they actually try." "No one's ever told me, how many strokes?" Another giggle. "They always call them 'lashes' in books, don't they. A hundred's supposed to kill you. It's usually fifty for a girl your age. By the time you've had twenty you know you're going to die." Alone, Sharon was angry with herself. She was too honest not to recognize her questions as fuel to feed the fire between her legs. She was indeed incorrigible and no doubt did deserve to be soundly flogged. But, in response to the thought, her heat doubled its intensity so that she saw herself trapped in a vicious circle of eroticism. Perhaps the cat-o'nine-tails would be itself the cure! Or would it! The following day brought Sharon only a change that mattered little. It was the manner of her chaining. Now her shackled wrists were at the level of her eyes, pendant from above. Her feet were parted and chained to the floor. That was all. She must stand in lonely nakedness in the centre of her dungeon. It was worse because there was nothing to lean against. She could rest a tired head upon the prisonment of her hands. By straining, she could reach a finger down to scratch her nose. Halcyon came. Sharon was shocked by his sudden appearance, then shamed that he should see her thus. There was a ludicrous incongruity between his immaculate business attire and the place in which they stood. The prisoner knew herself privileged - he was a businessman in a hurry. He lifted her chained hands and kissed her lips. She strained toward him pathetically. "I admire what you are doing, Sharon." "Thank you, Master." "I think your motives are muddled." He chuckled drily, his hand shot down between her separated legs, grasping. "The inspiration is here, is it not?" "I'm sorry, Master." "Don't be. What you are doing is illogically British." "Master, tell me I'm not too silly." "No man would embrace what you have chosen, you loveable little idiot. But no, for you it is not silly. I love you the more."

"Thank you, Master. I need your approval. As . . . as it gets closer I am becoming afraid." Sharon gazed at her lord in longing. Her thighs were afire. "You want me, don't you, you little minx." He kissed her again. "I will tell you this. Whether you are guilty or whether you are innocent - and I know not which or in what degree, I would not condemn you to be flogged. I do not think I could ever bring myself to such a sacrilege." "But you had Chartreuse flogged!" Her exclamation was involuntary. It burst from her lips in wonder. His eyes were dark and close, their intensity made her breathless. "Does that not tell you something, little one?" She was speechless. Halcyon had chosen her. He had placed her flesh before the ivory loveliness of Chartreuse. She was his utterly. "You have but to ask, Sharon, and I will have you freed. Do you wish it?" "Oh no!" Again the exclamation was from her heart. "You need not be flogged." "Oh but I must! I must." Halcyon kissed her and went away. "Isn't she beautiful," Lotty Badger said enviously. "I say, Effie, I do hope we stick out in front like that when we're her age." "Do they feel funny, Miss Tredgold?" Effie Stokes inquired curiously. "I mean sort of heavy, as though you're carrying something on your chest?" Sharon assured herself she did not mind. If she must stand naked in the Great Hall throughout a day the youngsters might as well enjoy her. It was a day which promised to be more fatiguing than the others. Her ankles were bound apart to rings in the floor, her wrists were authoritatively tied behind her back. She simply stood and was admired, or pitied, or mocked according to the nature of the passers-by. She was blushingly conscious that in the time she would stand thus every soul in Presteigne would come this way at least once. They did, of course, have the option of hurrying by with averted eyes: few exercised it. The enraptured duo was joined by a third with an enquiring mind who went immediately to her particular interest: "Don't you wish you could put your legs together, Sharon?" "So we couldn't see her cunny?" Lotty snickered. "Suppose your hands weren't tied, would you stand all day with them over your nipples or covering your bush?" number three pursued. It was a question the girl to be flogged had asked herself. She knew not the answer. "Try it yourself," she suggested genially. "Then you'll know." "It's a shame we mustn't touch her," Effie reflected regretfully. "We could have such fun." "When I get older I'm going to do something just to get myself a flogging," number three boasted. "It must be gorgeously exciting. Are you excited, Sharon?" "I'm scared." "Well, of course. But aren't you excited too? How's your pussy, I bet it's wet?" "How am I supposed to find out when I haven't any hands!" Sharon complained irritably. "I'll take a chance and do a quick feel?" "Don't bother." "The poor dear's embarrassed." Effie was always on the side of reason. "Are you looking forward to being flogged, Miss Tredgold?"

"I don't want to talk about it." "You'll bleed a bit, y'know," number three volunteered brightly. The captive strove to keep her temper and to make what rejoinders she must as pleasantly as she could. A succession of lewd moppets was better than the silence of the dungeon. The blushing consciousness of nakedness in a public place wore away after the first hour. If people wanted to see the hair between her legs and the nippled curvatures of her chest they could jolly well look! Mademoiselle Dulac was perturbed. Without regard to prohibitions she embraced her delinquent pupil ardently. "What is this flogging?" she demanded indignantly. "I have spoken to our Headmistress, but she wishes not to talk of it." "I've been a bad girl, Mademoiselle, so I am to be flogged." "This is of the nonsense! If lessons are to be taught you should be given to me." The captive suspected self-interest. "But I expect you would flog me too, Mademoiselle," she offered mischievously. "Mais non. Or if I did it would be in private. All this exhibition . . . ! Ma pauvre petit. Tell me how it is between your pretty legs?" Helene Dulac too! They all knew about the heat. Sharon was amused by the eagerness of the query. Presteigne was a mother hen fostering a brood of prurient pullets hungering for female flesh. "I'm not supposed to be touched," Sharon informed coyly. "But if you'd like to feel?" She was felt! The hand was wise. She had no wish for it to stop its digital survey. But Mademoiselle was prudent. "You are most ready, dear child. You are so very sweet. Ah what a waste! This whole day." "Perhaps Miss Carruthers would permit you to take me where you wished for a brief whipping?" Sharon suggested innocently. "I have already asked, Cherie," Mademoiselle confessed. "It is of the most forbidden." She sighed in dolor. "The sight of you like so, affects me prodigiously. Most certainement I must whip someone - perhaps dear Elizabeth Winstanley: she is forever in heat." "I'm sure she'll be grateful." "I have asked that it be me who flogs you on The Day, ma petit. It would be a privilege of the greatest joy. But that too I am denied." She sighed once more against the injustice of life. "Poor Elizabeth, I fear she will be of the most sore." "But in a good cause, Mademoiselle." "Ah oui. You are so tres sympathetique. You must tell me afterwards of your emotions as that dreadful 'Cat' thing lashes your back." "Indeed I will, Mademoiselle. Had you ever thought of requesting a flogging yourself - on clinical grounds, of course?" "Alas I have not the courage," Helene Dulac admitted. "But I am thinking I will commit the what is the word! Ah yes, the insubordination in some most bad way. Then events will take their course and, pouf! I will find myself up there on the platform with the little girls all looking at ma fess and hoping I will scream most loud." Mademoiselle Dulac was a bright spot in a dull day. She came and she went as did the others. In this prelude to her flogging the innocent delinquent ran the gamut of emotions from shame to amusement, embarrassment to anger. None really mattered. The true victory was to the tight bindings on her wrists and ankles. The day was theirs! Forever aware of their compulsion, she stood in her nakedness and nursed the demanding heat about which she could do nothing. When Trina locked her away for the night there were no chains. Sharon's hands remained tied behind her back, and her ankles tightly roped. The cords had a personal quality, like a message from someone who was not there. Presteigne did itself proud. The quaking penitent lacked only a roll of drums as she was escorted to The Great Hall and its sea of faces with their diversity of expression. Ritual achieved its desired

effect. Sharon was Trina's prisoner. Trina made no pretense: it was The Day! The prisoner's wrists would remain tied. She would be bathed and fed and made beautiful. But she would be naked and bound. She had become part of an inevitability. "I've smuggled you some brandy," Trina giggled. Sharon gulped it gratefully. She was neither afraid nor elated. She was embarking on an adventure. The cat-o'-nine-tails would be her dragon and there would be a total absence of knight errantry. She had no idea of how she was going to behave. "Want some more, love?" "Yes please! Oh Trina, I feel so silly: I needn't have got myself into this." "You're in it now, darling. They wouldn't let you out of it no matter how you pleaded." Trina gave a consoling giggle. "That's why you've remained tied like this - just in case. Some girls make an awful fuss about now." Sharon flexed her tied hands and fluttered her shoulders. "I'm safe enough," she ruefully conceded. "But what about when I'm untied to be fastened on the frame or the triangle or whatever it is. Couldn't I make a run for it?" "That's been tried, darling. One girl got as far as the conservatory before they grabbed her. In your case there's half a dozen of the prefects been briefed. They'll watch you like hawks. They did try chaining a girl's ankles so she couldn't run. But it took such a time for her to shuffle the length of the hall and her chains made such a clatter on the parquet. . . . Besides, it's sort of more sporting this way." Sharon had always wondered about the noble figures who had strode to the block or the scaffold through the pages of history with seeming unconcern. She grinned at thought of joining their ranks. She could see, now, the explanation. Over and over she repeated to herself: "There's nothing else I can do . . . nothing else I can do . . . !" She supposed she'd better make the most of it. Make an entry! After all, it WAS her show. In minutes she might scream. But until that time she could embrace majesty. In honesty she recognized this theatrical moment as one of the subconscious lures influencing her progression to where she now stood. She took a deep breath and grinned at her excited jailer. "The condemned is ready, darling." They kissed. "I hold you by the arm, love." Trina spoke from the depth of old experience. "Hold your head high - you get a better view." It was undeniably impressive. Presteigne awaited them. The school, the staff, even the servants. So did the Great Hall whose aisle they must traverse. And at its end . . . ! The Triangle possessed a stark beauty. The naked captive guessed that when she was strapped, her spread nudity would complete its cruel symmetry. They were not present! Sharon's gaze roved across recognition after recognition, but those she sought were absent. Chartreuse and Halcyon had deserted her. She wondered why. The condemned girl stood for a moment free of bonds. She grinned reassuringly at the prefect's wary readiness. It was while she was rubbing her wealed wrists that the black-hooded figure mounted the steps and took its place. The tailed 'Cat' in the negligent hand drew an audible gasp from the younger of those present. It was not Halcyon! The figure was patently feminine. Mademoiselle Dulac was in the audience. So . . . ? It came to Sharon with a thrill of joy - it was Chartreuse! Chartreuse was the one to flog her! The skin-tight black and the shielding hood were not enough to defeat intuition. It was her beloved Mistress. She knew! Almost eagerly, Sharon stepped upon the box so that she could raise her hands and place her wrists on each side of the short rod vertical from the apex. A strap circled them and was buckled very tight indeed. It was by this band she would be suspended. Trina had help. Simultaneously, the two girls pulled the naked legs apart to strap one to each side of the triangle. The configuration was

complete. Sharon was more than uncomfortable. She hurt.Being flogged was not starting out well at all. She was strained, her arms were rigid with stress. They framed her head. Her legs, too, were immovable. She longed to close them, but between their stretch and their straps they defied control. With but three belts and buckles the Triangle contrived to proclaim her nudity and her sex, not only for the lash, but for any eye curious enough to look. Of these there were a great number. Punishment by exposure of a girl's most private parts was a favourite at Presteigne. The total femininity of the place rendered the custom innocuous enough. The hovering masculinity of Lord Halcyon was sufficiently abstract as to be no more than a titillating possibility. Sharon had endured such punishment many times. But never, never had she felt as shamed and open as now. There was her elevation: there was her vulnerability in unmentionable places to the seeking lashes of the cat: but worst of all was a general feeling of untidiness as though she was a side of meat hung upon a hook. The sudden silence was her warning. Sharon looked back as best she could. It was an unsatisfactory look limited by her bondage. It took a quick glance past either arm to tell the platform had been cleared save for an anxious Trina in a far corner and the svelte black threat by whom she would be flogged. When a black-clad arm swept back in a motion unmistakable Sharon gasped and turned away and closed her eyes. "One." Trina's voice rang out loud and clear. It was an hallucination. Or she was numb from emotions overtaxed. Or, perhaps, the flesh when cut is slow to respond with agony . . . . The blow across the loveliness of her back had not hurt. True, she had felt the rasping friction. She had felt the impact of the manifold lashes. But, by the standards of an oft' whipped girl, there had been no real pain. It was like a blow from a toy in the hands of a small child. "Scream, you little idiot, scream." The urgent command of Chartreuse was delivered in a hissing whisper under the simulated need to rearrange the victim's hair. It was as startling as the painless blow. Chartreuse's next admonition sounded desperate. "The thongs are stained to mark you. For heaven's sake, howl." "Two." Was triumph discernible in Trina's chant! Sharon screamed most piteously. The triangle shook beneath her frantic contortions against a nonexistent anguish. "Three." The lashes of the cat must be simulated, some light fibrous stuff without the weight to wound. Sharon could feel a stickiness upon her skin where the tails licked at her. She screamed lustily. How had her darling Chartreuse known her courage would fail! But she, too, had been strapped thus. For a girl, the triangle defeated fortitude. The four and the five were firmly proclaimed. "Make it good, darling, make it good." Sharon made it very good indeed. "Six."

Chapter Ten The Pungent Punishment It was the private study of the Headmistress of Presteigne. Lord Halcyon sat, as though enthroned, in the chair of authority. He had pushed it away from the desk in order to better view the two nude kneeling feminine figures whose heads were meekly bowed to his regard. "It was an insult to my intelligence." There came no denial. The humble nudities stirred slightly beneath the controlled anger of the Master.

"You reject my offer of clemency and then engage in that charade." They had no defense. "You handled it cleverly, 'Treuse, I'll say that for you. I assume no one else but the girl, Trina, knows?" "No, Master. Only Trina." Chartreuse's voice trembled. She took a quick glance up at the man who possessed her, but quickly bowed her head against what she saw. "You'd have kept your little darling safely locked out of sight or safely clothed so that none might see her still virgin back?" "Yes, Master." Chartreuse did not move. "Did you suppose I would not see it?" "You had spoken of going to the United States on business." "You must love the child greatly?" "Yes, Master." "What, no heroics! Aren't you ready to die for her, accept her punishment? Aren't you going to plead for Trina?" Halcyon's voice was hurt and mocking. "All those things, Master. You know them already." "Why the devil didn't you simply announce forgiveness and call the whole show off? You had the authority." The eyes of the kneeling woman rose to his in innocent appeal. "It was an obsession in Sharon's mind, Master. I deemed it best to play it out in the manner you condemn. I thought that neither of us wanted her back cut and scarred. Besides, the school had been informed and assembled." "Is your back cut and scarred, 'Treuse?" "Not anymore, Master. It has healed. My flogging was long ago." "Sharon's would have healed too." There were no answers. Neither the woman nor the girl had aught to say. To plead would anger their lord and demean themselves. Chartreuse had sown the wind and they would reap the whirlwind. "I will listen to anything you wish to say?" "There is nothing, Master." Chartreuse tried to smile up into his injured pride. "The fault is all mine." "Nonsense! The other two would have uttered no word. Neither came to me with the truth. They are as guilty as you." "I ordered Trina, Master, used my authority. The poor child had no choice." "She was as involved and pleased as either of you." "Master!" Sharon's heart was in her plea. "It was because of love . . . all of it. You should punish no one . . . . Please!" The dark male eyes encompassed her with longing. "You are very sweet, my dear," Halcyon said slowly. He shook his head regretfully. "I shall thrash you both." "Thank you, Master." They said it in unison, recognizing hopelessness. "Trina will attend you. It will add a piquancy. May I hope you will be docile?" "We will not resist, Master."

To Sharon it had some of the flavor of her first days at Presteigne. Fear, pain, uncertainty. She and her Mistress followed a clothed and obviously briefed young woman along the passages to their unknown, but suspected, fate. They were naked but still unbound. Flight was possible but attracted neither of them. "We're all going to get it bad, aren't we, Miss Carruthers?" Trina asked anxiously. "'Fraid so, pet." Chartreuse shrugged resignedly. "Our lord and Master isn't a bit pleased with any of us, 'specially me." "I feel so . . . so . . . well, sort of silly." Trina was distressed. "I mean, Miss Carruthers, are you going to . . . to let me . . .?" "Why, darling, you can tie me any way you wish. I'll let you, and I'll love you no less for it." Chartreuse was actually laughing. "It's going to happen and we can't stop it - don't let's have long faces as well." "Oh, Miss Carruthers, you're wonderful." Trina breathed worship. "But it seems so wrong - me tying up a Mistress so she can be punished." "Don't feel badly, darling, your turn's coming. I wish I could stop it but I can't." Chartreuse was determined to make the best of a bad job. "Any idea what we're going to get?" "I think Sharon's going to be whipped. But I'm not sure about you. Oh, Miss Carruthers, isn't this awful!" "Why aren't you sure about me?" "Well, all I have to do is tie your hands." Sharon felt like a participant in a dream. They were all absurd! They walked blissfully toward agony. One clothed, two naked: all to be punished in ways unknown but certain to be drastic. One of them would render her two companions helpless then go in search of her own harsh penalty. Three slave girls who had offended their Master! It was ridiculous. But in the stone chamber dedicated to the punishment of girls Sharon did not hesitate to stand beneath the bar. Perhaps it was the magic of Chartreuse sustaining her, but it was with a cool detachment she placed her wrists and watched them firmly bound, one to each end, and the bar go up and up before her eyes until she stood upon tiptoe. If she was indeed to be whipped she was perfectly positioned. "Behind my back, I suppose?" Chartreuse inquired brightly. "Oh, Miss Carruthers!" Trina was blushing. But with deft and practiced fingers she tied the proffered wrists, not behind the Headmistress's back, but crossed in front. "You have me curious, dear," Chartreuse admitted. "It's not a bit kind, Miss Carruthers," Trina said woefully. "And it's not my idea. I'm afraid there's a collar." It was a beautiful collar for a beautiful neck. Sharon watched its buckling with a sad suspicion of its use. "You have to put your hands up and back over your head, Miss," Trina apologised. Grinning in a determined effort to be cheerful, Chartreuse obeyed. It took Trina only a minute and a couple of knots to secure the crossed wrists to a ring at the back of the collar. She stood back and viewed her work in deprecation. "I'm all elbows and armpits." In wry good humour, the Headmistress tested her bonds. They were simple and cruel. They exposed her nude loveliness in a wicked vulnerability. She could never free herself. "I can think of some things this might be for," she said, struggling to test whatever small freedoms might be left to her. Sharon, too, could envision cringingly awful probabilities. The Headmistress's exquisite breasts were raised and offered beneath the upward stress of her arms. The white back was bare and virgin,

the twin curvatures below offered their own faint blush and enticing motion. The heavy pubic thatch in front hid nothing. "Don't I get my ankles chained or something?" Chartreuse wryly made it sound like a complaint. "No, Miss. Now I've got to go away and lock you in. Oh . . . oh . . . I feel so awful." Trina's face betrayed her distress. As though fearful of what she might do, she fled and slammed the door. Chartreuse instantly thrust her nudity hotly against that of the girl more helpless than herself and kissed with a fierce longing. In a terrible hunger they could not appease they writhed and frictioned in desire. "I suppose I deserve this," the Mistress who had fallen from grace conceded thoughtfully. "But it seemed such a good idea. If only Theo had gone to his silly old Chicago or somewhere we'd have been all right. I say, darling, you didn't really want to get flogged, did you? At the end, I mean - the last moment when you knew it was about to happen?" "I was scared silly," Sharon admitted sadly. "But what an idiot I've been all the way through. You should have flogged me. It would have served me right." "Don't worry, darling, you'll probably get it now." "But this isn't the same. The motives . . . oh goodness, I'm so mixed up. Are we both going to be flogged now?" "We're certainly tied for it, love. Oh damn! And that stain I had on the lashes . . . ! It marked your back so perfectly. I say, darling, I'm curious. You wanted that flogging so badly. Is any of the heat left? Think about Theo walking in here now and flogging you - how's it feel between your legs?" "Oh yes, I'm all hot there. Being flogged by a man . . . it curls me up. But it just isn't the same. I think it's because of you. Oh Mistress, I don't want you to be punished." "I think I'm going to be, and I think you're going to have to watch it happen. Kiss me again." They were still kissing when Halcyon came. In silence they watched him strip. Naked he was larger and more frightening. His face was impassive. He studied them impersonally, approving their bondage. Going to the rack he took time to select his whip. "I do not like the 'Cat'," he said heavily. "It's a bludgeon unsuited to the female. This will hurt you more." They were sure it would! A single tapered thong of supple hide. They shivered at the sight of it. "There is nothing to say," Halcyon said tonelessly, and slashed the leather in a snapping curl around Chartreuse's waist. The act was so unexpected it left both girls breathless: Sharon in horror at sight of the weal springing into scarlet life upon her love: the victim herself in pain and consternation. Chartreuse writhed ineffectually, her hands and arms lost in the strange but lovely pose in which they were tied. She did not scream but moaned instead: "Oh Theo . . . ! Oh Master . . . Master!" The Master's flow of motion was so fluid there seemed no pause between the first blow upon Chartreuse and his second which wealed Sharon cruelly across her back. Sharon screamed. The whip had lived up to its promise. In her panting and twisting agony Sharon could not fail to see the Master's attention turn from her casually and devote itself to the Mistress of Presteigne. They faced each other: The Male and the nude woman whose wrists were tightly tied behind her neck. Chartreuse faced her Master from between her raised elbows. She was panting, breasts heaving. Her scarlet wound a symbol of her servitude. "You are going to whip me, Theo?" "Give me my title." "Forgive me, Master." Contrition was in every word. "Master, are you going to whip me?" "I am."

"Like this?" She fluttered her wracked shoulders. "You are exquisitely prepared." "Fasten me. Please, Master?" "You are fastened enough." "But how can I stand! The pain is so awful. Oh Master!" "I am sure it is. That is the idea, y'know, 'Treuse. I'm going to hurt you and your beloved Sharon." "Yes, Master." Chartreuse was searching for a sentence she could not find. Her plea, when it came, was pitiful. It tore at Sharon's heart. "Please fasten me, Master, so I must stand in one place while you whip me. I don't want to flounder and cower round the floor like a punished cur." Halcyon might not have heard a word. He thrashed his Mistress with skill and cunning. Sharon moaned and found herself tugging at her tied wrists in an outpouring of sympathy. She longed to close her eyes against her Mistress's shame, but could not. She watched the Whipping of Chartreuse in a terrible fascination almost hypnotic. The Mistress of Presteigne tried hard to salve her pride. She stood erect in the posture dictated by her bonds. With head high and without a sound she took two of the frightful blows. She stared Halcyon in the face as her skin blossomed into crimson under his thong. But at the third impact she crumbled. With a choking scream she fled. In the locked punishment chamber there was no sanctuary. Reaching the far wall, the fugitive from the lash stood at bay facing her Master. Her breasts heaved fearfully. Her lovely eyes pleaded for mercy. Halcyon was unperturbed. He did not move from where he stood. His smile was brooding as he used the whip to point to where Chartreuse must return to resume her punishment. It was the familiar motion of the Master to his dog. The punished woman shook her head in horrified negation of an act no girl could contemplate. "Please, Theo, don't make me. I can't! Oh Master, not anymore. I just can't." The Male nodded in perfect understanding, and said briefly: "When you wish this to stop." His thrashing of the helpless girl suspended and on her toes was methodical and without pause. His whip sliced air and flesh again and again. Sharon's screams turned to hysterical shrieks. Her contortions from her bound wrists were pure animal reaction. Her wounds mounted steadily, some of them in the cruelest of places, revealed and laid open to the lash by her frantic struggles. "Stop it! Stop it!" The Mistress's distraught cry was an order. Chartreuse cared not what punishment her temerity might earn. In a blind and urgent need to end the flogging of the girl she loved she strode to that spot upon the stone delineated by the whip where she must stand. To Sharon it was a release from hell. But at what a cost! In a fresh agony of spirit she watched her Mistress pay the price, a price she bore with an incredible fortitude until, once more, her flesh rebelled and she leaped away from the searching instrument of her agony. Halcyon had planned it well. It would be hard to assess which girl suffered the most. Their love thrust upon each an anguish of the spirit the equal of the hurts upon their flesh. Alternately they screamed and watched, watched and screamed. The Master moved but little, so humble and implicit their obedience. When he replaced his whip upon the rack its leather was flecked with red. Sharon hung sagging from her wrists, her sweat-wet body etched in purple and in scarlet. Upon the stone, the Headmistress of Presteigne crouched in similar condition. The sound of their wracked breathing filled the room. The Master left them thus, and locked the door on them. It was a long time until one of them spoke. There was nothing to say. It was Sharon who first

dragged herself out of the mists of pain. "Mistress . . . darling, are you all right?" The striated loveliness of the woman on the floor stirred. Two loving eyes were raised in concern. "I . . . I think so. Oh Sharon! What about you?" "I just hurt a lot. Is it over, Mistress?" "I think so." The vibrant voice was somber. "I know him. Theo's as tired of the whip as we are, at least so far as our skins are concerned. Oh Sharon, that was awful. I thought I was brave but I'm not. I'd have done or said anything to make him stop." "We're still tied, Mistress. He could come back and start again. I can't possibly get loose. Can you?" "Of course I can't, darling. Girls in Presteigne don't get free. And Trina's so clever. Oh damn, this is an awful way to be tied. You're fixed hopelessly." "Mistress, come and kiss me." It was surcease, a renewal. That it rekindled an unquenchable heat did not matter. They needed each other. Their bound nudities thrust and frictioned, finding what joy they could within their bonds. "It was awful, wasn't it!" Trina mourned when she came and held water to their parched lips. "Aren't you going to let us loose, Trina?" Trina was apologetic. "You have to stay tied as you are for the rest of the day. I can look after . . . well, things . . . that's all." "Are we going to be whipped again?" "I don't think so. I think it's me." "Oh; Trina darling, what's he going to do to you?" Trina shuffled and looked wan. "I don't know. I daren't ask." She paused and came to a momentous decision. "Do you want me to untie you both and we'll all make a run for it?" The two negatives were hesitant with yearning and regret. "It's no use, we'd only be caught and punished," Chartreuse said sadly. "You're both in love with him," Trina accused. The Headmistress looked up between her captive elbows at the girl with tied wrists. "Are we, darling?" she asked mordantly. "Of course we are," Sharon affirmed angrily. "We're a pair of idiots. I say, Trina, couldn't you untie us for a rest? We'd let you tie us again after?" "Oh, I can trust you, darlings," Trina agreed. "But I'm scared. If Lord Halcyon came back and caught us he'd do awful things to me. I'm in enough trouble as it is. I'm afraid he'll do something really shocking like whip my breasts or make me sit on the edge of a plank all day." Sharon closed her eyes and drooped wearily. This was a nightmare that would pass, but as yet it had not ended. Of the three of them she was by far the most helpless. Trina was free and clothed. Chartreuse could, at least, walk. But she must stand with her hands held high. As the agony of her back lessened the pain of her wrists increased. She longed for release with a most ardent longing. She wondered the true reason for their rejection of Trina's offer. Was it only Chartreuse's conviction they would be caught! She did not believe this. Both Presteigne and the man who ruled it had a hand upon their hearts. They had been terribly punished, but it had not quenched the heat within. They were female and possessed all the female capacity for suffering in a cause they cherished. Was it love they felt for Halcyon! If it was not love, then it must be some strange unnamed devotion of slave girls for their Master. They would bear his whip happily enough for a kind word. It was an aspect of slavery beyond the lash and the cord. Halcyon owned them. He was lord of Presteigne. "I suppose there's a poetic justice in what's happening to me," the Headmistress mused aloud after

Trina had once more locked them alone. "You must have thought me an awful bitch, Sharon?" "Only after the first times, Mistress." "Presteigne became a passion for me. All the lovely girls! Such a wealth of maiden flesh waiting to be coloured by the cane! Am I very terrible, darling?" "You're adorable, Mistress." "You like calling me that, don't you, dear. You savour it on your tongue. I'm your Mistress, you're my slave. A gorgeous kids' game I managed to make real." "Mistress, can it ever be real again - after this?" "You mean Theo! I don't see why not. He had me flogged in public once, long ago. It changed nothing, except to tell me I could never best him." "He adores whipping us and having us naked and making us kneel? I mean all of us, Mistress, all the girls?" "Of course! He's the same as me. Neither of us can tire of whipping female backs and caning female bottoms. Lovely bottoms like yours." Chartreuse was feeling better. She grinned companionably from between her captive elbows. "Theo became aware of a heart's desire in my Presteigne. He diverted it to himself. I expect people outside would see him as a monster - in his way he is. But if you or I could put him in prison we wouldn't do it. Would we, Sharon?" "Mistress, I have become like you. I hurt so much now the way I'm tied, but when I look up at the ropes round my wrists the heat flames and I want you terribly. Does being tied the way you are make you wet between your legs?" For answer, the naked Headmistress of Presteigne rose and thrust her hairy sex against Sharon's bare thigh. The friction of the slick wetness made the younger girl moan and twist yearningly. "That answers that question for you, love. Here, let me get my knee in between your legs." Considering their helplessness it was strangely easy. Standing on one foot, the Headmistress leaned breasts against breasts for support, and frictioned assiduously against the wet apex of the willing thighs. So great was Sharon's need that her moans mounted in a swift crescendo toward the explosive orgasm that rocked them both. Chartreuse leaned close while her adoring slave panted her way back into the world of dungeons and chains and ropes. "Now me, darling. I'm burning up." Both girls were bound. Each would have declared herself helpless. Yet with their naked limbs they achieved ecstatic release. When the Mistress stood back to better survey the tied beauty of her love she was panting, her hands twisting impotently against the collar round her neck. "Oh, Sharon, that was -!" Chartreuse broke off suddenly to exclaim: "Good heavens, the way that whip cut you . . . ! Am I marked like that?" She pivoted on one foot. Sharon gasped. The whip weals upon the willing nakedness were turning to purple. Here and there was blood. She could see little of her own body, but knew Chartreuse a mirror of herself. In involuntary astonishment she exclaimed: "They're beautiful!" Chartreuse laughed delightedly. "You're a convert, you little witch. You're every bit as bad as I am. I don't care whether we're crazy or not: I think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I know it's cruel, but I don't want you to be untied . . . ever! I want you like that always so I can keep coming to look at you the way a collector returns to a painting he adores. Would you mind?" Sharon said she would not mind. At the moment she believed it true. Halcyon's whip had subdued Chartreuse for but a little while. Her magic was reborn. "Want me to do it to you again, love?" Sharon wanted it very much and said so. Breathless in wonder, she looked down at the dark head now burrowing into the clefts of her sex. "Oh damn these elbows," Chartreuse panted.

"This is a rotten way to be tied. I think you'll have to lift a leg, darling, and drape it over my back. Do your best to help." Gaspingly, the Headmistress of Presteigne buried her face in maiden hair. Sharon did her best. Ecstacy revives, it nourishes, it defeats despair. The two girls had discovered a glorious possibility. With infinite striving and many giggles they defeated their bonds. It was during the third assault upon Sharon's sex that Halcyon returned. With him was a wide-eyed Trina. They were not quick enough. They were caught. Everything that happened then was as though rehearsed. "Stay as you are. Don't move." It was swiftly done. A band of rope tight around Sharon's middle, its surplus end at the back brought down and between her legs and looped within the collar of the kneeling Mistress. When all was tugged tight and knotted, Chartreuse's face was buried deep in Sharon's pubic hair, her mouth where it had been found upon her Master's entry. So intimate was the union of mouth, nostrils and wet sex that the Mistress's breathing became laboured and gasping. Casually, Halcyon hobbled Sharon's ankles a foot apart. "Just in case you had ideas of wiggling through, 'Treuse," he informed without rancour. Sharon was mortified. Her Mistress's hot breath was an inflaming stimulous. She knew the woman whose lips were wet with her secretions was in distress, yet neither could aid the other. They now became witness to Trina's travail. "You have something to say, Trina?" "Yes, Master." Trina surveyed her bizarre audience with determination. Lord Halcyon was now severely attired in city garb. He made a weird contrast to the tableau of the naked girls bound fast in their pose of forbidden love. Trina wore her everyday clothes. She now recited glibly: "I have been disloyal. I am to be punished." "Excellent, dear child." Halcyon's good humour had returned. Trina took a deep breath and swallowed. "My bottom is to be caned very hard because I've been a bad girl." "Your bottom, Trina?" "My bare bottom, sir. I'm sorry." "Quite so. Elaborate." "I must remove enough of my clothes to make my bottom and my thighs naked. Then I must bend down and touch my toes while I am caned." "Really, Trina, you are a most excellent girl. What a pity you have misbehaved." Lord Halcyon's unction was hypocritical. "Yes sir." Trina's pity for her bottom was fervent. "Perhaps you will now prepare." "Thank you, sir." Pain strips away hypocrisy. Sharon knew she was about to enjoy an erotic feast. No matter what her pity for the punished girl might be, the scene itself was vividly stirring. She wished the face bound tightly against her sex might have a better view. Whether she gave or received punishment, Trina was adept. Feminine furbelows and female necessities fell victim to her flying fingers and joined each other in a small pile of pathetic protection on the floor. She even had the vital safety pin.

"Do you wish to lift my dress, sir?" "How very thoughtful, my dear." Lord Halcyon accepted the large pin in much the same manner he would have reached for a warrant of nobility. Slowly and with care he lifted and rolled and pinned an amplitude of cloth to reveal the curved and cringing flesh he would so zealously striate. "Thank you, sir." Trina was determined to please. "As you are - service me. Do not kneel." Trina blushed. Getting her bottom caned had complexities. But without pause her fingers busied themselves. Bringing into view the rigid member by which she must be shamed she leant forward from the waist and engulfed it with her mouth. The bareness of her reared bottom was like a beacon betokening punishment to come. "Thank you. You may desist." The master had made the unfinished task symbolic. Trina had been shamed, her obedience tested. Now she would be hurt. With obvious approval he gazed down as the penitent prefect made him tidy. "I think a length of cord." Trina fetched it and watched while her meek hands were tied painfully tight before her. "Pure symbolism, my dear. You may now bend." The poor sad girlish flesh in wanton display amidst the swirls of Victorian textiles made Sharon long to cry. It was so deliberately obscene. A few errant pubic hairs made it doubly so. She longed to tuck them out of sight. Lord Halcyon observed them with satisfaction. Trina's flushed face was well down, her bound hands obediently touched her sensibly shod toes. The cane thrummed as though it was a reward for merit. Trina was magnificent. Sharon wondered how many times she had bent and suffered thus. No girl could be so stoic on a first or second occasion. She accepted four cutting thunks with only gasps and moans and a bending of the knees instantly corrected. At the fifth she looked back desperately and pleaded. "Oh please sir, they're terribly hard." "You feel I should lighten the strokes, dear child?" The tyrant's voice was utterly benign. "Oh if you would please, sir. I don't think I can stand -" The sixth cut her sentence as it cut her flesh. It sent her to her knees and evoked the first cry. It had been the cruelest blow of all. It was followed by a waiting silence while the caned girl got stiffly to her feet. "I'm terribly sorry, sir." "I am sure you are, my dear. No doubt you will do better?" "I will try, sir. But it hurts so much. Please sir, may I ask for mercy?" "No, you may not." "Thank you, sir." Its heartless formality made it frightening. Sharon watched askance, yet thrilled. She tried to move her hobbled feet in such ways as to aid the weirdly bound Chartreuse to share her view. The best the face within the pubic hair could manage was a sideways glance from a single eye. The hot breath upon Sharon's vulva was a torment to both. The cane whined through the air for number seven. Its splat on maiden skin told of its severity. "More acceptable, I trust, dear girl?" "Thank you, sir." "That didn't answer my question."

"Well, sir, the pain's so awful I don't think I can bear it. But I am awfully grateful to you for caning me." Lord Halcyon was pleased. He caned Trina's bottom with vigor. When he was finally satisfied with the prefect's punishment, he said pleasantly: "And just one final stroke, my dear." Trina absorbed it heroically. To offend now and thus risk more of the same was unthinkable. When she was given permission to stand, her words were almost sincere. "Thank you for my punishment, sir. You've been very kind." "Not at all, Trina. Come, give me your hands." Halcyon loosed the knots and gave his final order. "You will come with me. We will leave these two lovebirds to their billing and cooing. When evening comes you will attend them to their dungeon." "Thank you, sir," said Trina humbly. "Thank you, Master;" said Sharon, hopeful of mercy. Chartreuse said nothing. When they were alone again the captive lips and captive tongue made ardent use of the enforced proximity of their pungent prisonment. Sharon forgot the hurt of her roped wrists.

Chapter Eleven The Inevitable Slaves "I came as soon as I thought it safe." Trina surveyed her captives anxiously, then grinned. "Or maybe you didn't want me to hurry - I could come back a little later?" There were muffled sounds from within the younger prisoner's pubic hair. "I think you'd better let us loose," Sharon said without the same urgency she might once have shown. "Our Mistress is very tired, and she's probably had all she wants of me too." "I wouldn't have believed that possible," Chartreuse exclaimed between her gasps for fresh air. "Oh darling, how many times?" Sharon coloured. "I lost count." "I won't bother asking if you'll behave," Trina said cheerfully. "I'll let you walk to the dungeon untied. If you want to escape you can tie me up so's I have an excuse, then run." Sharon sighed in pure ecstacy and rubbed her wealed wrists. "Wouldn't you come with us, Trina?" she asked, puzzled. "No," Trina said heavily. "I've thought about it a lot this afternoon. Especially before I got caned. But the Master was awfully kind to me afterwards. He made me realise I haven't any better place to go." "You mean you got impaled?" Chartreuse demanded amusedly. "I suppose you could call it that," Trina admitted cheerfully. "It's that huge thing men have. He pushed it into me beautifully. He's so clever knowing all these things. I've always been terribly grateful whenever he's chosen me. I can't understand why some of the girls don't like it." "What have you been told to do with us now, Trina?" "I'm afraid it's the dungeon," Trina admitted. "But you were expecting it, weren't you?"

"Heavy chains or light, darling?" "I'm afraid it isn't chains at all, Miss Carruthers." There was a sudden silence, charged with dismay. "We're not going to be locked in those rotten stocks, are we?" Chartreuse demanded. "No, it's not that," Trina tittered. "I'm supposed to tie your hands. Are you sure you don't want to try and get away - and leave me tied up instead?" "Lead the way, darling," the Headmistress said grimly. "It sounds as though it could be worse. Still naked, I suppose?" "I'm afraid so, Miss Carruthers. Oh, I'm so terribly sorry." Sharon had no wish to be once more tied. Her wrists were still complaining of their day. But Halcyon was punishing them with care and forethought. No doubt he wished it to be a day they would remember. "Behind our backs. I suppose?" she asked when the gloom of the dungeon was heavy about them. Trina set the obedient hands palm to palm and tied them. Inclined to mercy as she might be she tied with professional skill. Sharon would never free herself. When Chartreuse was served the same, the two captives grinned at each other in resignation. "The four T's," Chartreuse mocked their plight. "Trina ties too tight." "I'm afraid that's not all," said Trina. Two nudities tensed. Chartreuse eyed the fresh length of rope in their jailer's hands and instantly guessed. "Oh, Trina, not our elbows!" "I was told to 'specially, Miss Carruthers. I don't want to, it's a beast." Sharon said nothing. What was there to say! Words would not absolve them, but they would embarrass poor Trina. She bit her lips determinedly as the rope slithered round and round her arms and was drawn tight. "You will use lots of rope, darling?" the Headmistress implored anxiously. "Half a dozen bands does help a bit." "Only three, Miss Carruthers," Trina mourned. That was said 'special too." "Three will cut us in two - or maybe our elbows don't have to meet?" "Tight together, Miss Carruthers. I'm ever so sorry." "But it's a punishment," Chartreuse protested. "It's more than just making us helpless. We'll never be able to sleep." Sharon realised the truth of it. She winced and gasped as the rope was drawn tight and tighter and her elbows closer and closer. When they met and were crushed in the embrace of the bond the pain was bitter. Her shoulders were wracked back and her breasts became tightly protuberant like half melons. "Oh Trina! Ohhhhh!" She could not restrain the moan. "That settles it!" Chartreuse had reached decision. "Sorry, Trina, but I'm not going to let you tie my elbows." "You can't really stop me, Miss Carruthers. Not with your hands tied the way they are." "Oh damn! I must have been an idiot. Theo doesn't have to treat us like this. We've been whipped. That's enough. Look Trina, I've got to talk to him. Take me - you can leave my hands tied." "Oh Miss Carruthers, I'm terribly sorry. Lord Halcyon's gone. He left after he . . . he -" "After he ravished you?"

"Well, yes. I say, Miss Carruthers, is that what they call it?" Chartreuse grinned ruefully. "It's one of the words. Trina, I have an idea. If Halcyon's gone, why not leave us untied for the night so we can sleep. Tie us tight in the morning. We can stand it for an hour maybe, and it will make the marks in our skin as proof?" "I thought of that, Miss. So did Lord Halcyon. Mademoiselle Dulac has been told to drop in and check." Sharon shared her Mistress's bafflement. The ropes burned her elbows with a steady intensity. She felt only relief when Chartreuse announced, "All right, Trina, it's hopeless. Untie us. We'll do as you suggested and try and escape. Theo's a fool to push us over the brink like this." "Very well, Miss Carruthers. I feel so terrible about it all." Trina was genuinely distressed. "I'll untie you. Then, after you've tied me, you can let yourselves out by one of the posterns." "There will be no untying. And of the letting out also none." The voice of Mademoiselle Dulac was firm and shocked. She surveyed them from the doorway with a retributive eye. "What I have heard said is of the most disgrace. I have listened in the passage. Madam Headmistress, I am ashamed for you." "Oh Helene, don't be so stuffy. Untie my hands." Chartreuse's voice was as firm as the Gallic reprimand. "Madam, I must disobey. Milord Halcyon is the final authority in Presteigne." "Just for the night, Helene?" Chartreuse coaxed. "He can whip us to death tomorrow if he wants to." "It is ordered that you have a shaming night, Madam. Trina, tie tightly the elbows." "I may be in this sorry pickle tonight, Helene, but I will be the Headmistress again," Chartreuse warned. "Is this the way you want to treat me?" "My duty is clear, Madam. I offer condolences." "You know what you can do with your condolences," the fallen Mistress said bitterly. "And your duty along with 'em." "You are distressed, Madam." "Well, wouldn't you be! Dammit, Helene, be human. Look at Sharon and me. We're striped like zebras: and now you want to cut our elbows off." "The wish is not mine, Madam. But may I say how charming is the effect. Behold dear Sharon's breasts." "How can we help beholding them?" the Headmistress rejoined bitterly. "I don't want mine sticking out like that." "You will be of the most proud when it is done." "Don't be sarkey, Helene. If you have my elbows tied, and if you won't untie Sharon's, I'll find a way to get even with you sometime. I won't always be in this rotten dungeon, y'know." "No Madam, I do not know. If it is Milord Halcyon's wish, it is possible you may remain here for life." "Helene!" The voice of the delinquent Mistress was stricken. "Do you know something. Is Theo-?" "It is not for me to say, Madam. Now, Trina, the elbows, s'il vous plait." "Hold on! No, Trina, don't! Look here, Helene, there must be some way out of this?" "It is to tie the pretty elbows, Madam."

"That's torture! I'll struggle. I can still kick." Mademoiselle Dulac smiled winningly. "I have, from Milord. Halcyon, an authority of the most compelling." Both naked girls tensed. Mademoiselle was enjoying herself. She radiated authority. Sharon unhappily recalled the many punishments of the French classroom. They were in competent hands. "And what's that?" Chartreuse demanded. "I am empowered to whip you, Madam." "Oh damn! Theo's being an absolute rotter. Helene, you wouldn't do that . . . would you?" "With infinite pleasure, ma petit." The diminutive was convincing. Mademoiselle's eyes sparkled. The deposed owner of Presteigne locked eyes with her French Mistress in a battle in which defeat loomed with a dismaying inevitability. "Whip me! Oh Helene, don't be absurd." Mademoiselle's voice was almost tender. "But Madam must consider: it is not every day a young woman as humble as myself is permitted to whip a Headmistress." "You're insufferable, you're impertinent! You're discharged." Chartreuse was furious. "I think perhaps the cane," Mademoiselle Dulac said thoughtfully. "It is of the most shaming to bend down for the caning of one's bottom." "I'll never do it. I refuse. You'll regret -" All eyes followed the French Mistress to the rack where she selected, first a limber cane, and secondly a short whip with light and slender thongs. Returning, she laid them on the bench. With a beaming smile of pure happiness she announced, "The so lovely cane is for the bottom of Madam Carruthers, our Headmistress. The whip is for the exquisite breasts of our beloved Sharon should Madam fail to bend." It was so absurdly theatrical. For a moment Sharon longed to giggle. Chartreuse's face was a study in frustration and rage. Trina's eyes were wide. But a second glance at the whip curled in readiness to cut the breasts whose prominence she could not control was sobering. Mademoiselle Dulac was without inhibitions when it came to the punishment of girls. "That's damn unsporting, Helene. Leave Sharon out of this. You've got the poor dear tied the way you want." "I am about to cane the bare bottom of a Headmistress," said Mademoiselle Dulac dreamily. She contrived to endow the words with a particular offensiveness. "Please to bend and touch the little toes, Madam, s'il vous plait." "Oh all right. I'll stand still and let you tie my elbows if it's that important," Chartreuse offered with sulky optimism. "It is of the most importance to first bend down." "I can't touch my toes with my hands tied behind my back." "It is tres gentil to so remind, Madam. But please to bend." "Helene, you can't possibly be serious about this?" The Headmistress eyed her subordinate askance. "I am of the most serious, Madam. First you bend so that I may cane you for contrition, then we tie your elbows for to punish." "But I'm your Headmistress!" "Most piquant, n'est-ce pas?" Chartreuse looked from left to right in desperation. But she' was trapped. Bestowing a glare of

pure venom upon her French Mistress she bent forward. "Lower, Madam. Let us not quibble." The lovely bottom reared. The bound hands worked fruitlessly. "The so lovely knees so very straight, s'il vous plait." It was both cruel and beautiful. If curious eyes sought only the plump-lipped sex thrust wantonly backward from the soft thighs, it was obscene. Mademoiselle picked up the cane, and with her other hand grasped the lewd labia and pulled them into an even greater exposure. "I will try and give the sweet fess their share," she promised generously. The bedding of the cane into the waiting flesh of the Headmistress of Presteigne was altogether too cruel. It drove Chartreuse to her knees. She scrambled instantly erect and faced her tormentor. "I can't stand that," she gasped flatly. Then, in resignation, "Do what you damn well like with me. But even if I try, I can't stay bent over for you if you hit me that hard." "Tres bon. I am most pleased. The cane works magic. You are now a naughty girl and not a Headmistress at all." Mademoiselle smiled benignly. "Your so lovely bottom is Milord's. I will not intrude on it further. Trina. I think now Madam is pleased to have her elbows tied." It was sadly true. Sharon shared her Mistress's shame and recognized defeat. Mademoiselle was a force. In sympathy she watched Chartreuse's arms compressed, the ropes positioned and pulled so that a minute later the Lady of Presteigne was as cruelly and painfully bound as she herself. "May I compliment you on your breasts, Madam, they are superb." "Helene, you're going to be sorry for this. I promise you." Chartreuse was close to tears. "You wish more of the, cane? Or perhaps we tie the little elbows with but a single strand?" Mademoiselle's voice oozed anxiety to please. "Oh all right! You've got me. I'm helpless and I hurt. What now?" "There was the little matter of escape." The French voice was honeyed. Three girls tensed. "We were just joking." Trina lied without optimism. Mademoiselle appeared not to hear. Her voice was brisk. "The plan is most clever. Please to strip naked, Trina, so you may be tied." "But Mademoiselle -" "Naked. Now!" Trina stripped. Then meekly turned her back and positioned her arms. With swift expertise the dominant Mistress bound her cruelly at wrist and elbow. "It is that you must be of the most convincing," she said drily. Defeated, the captives said nothing. The stage belonged to Helene Dulac. "And now we waste not the time. Escapes are of the most urgent, n'est-ce pas?" She surveyed her three nude and dejected captives with relish. "Our dear Trina shall enjoy the dungeon, and our two little pigeons shall flee the nest. Follow me." Sharon felt strange to be on the outside of a slamming door. Her last glimpse of the bound Trina was heartbreaking. Almost certainly the prefect would be terribly punished. The cords now deep in her elbows would be but a start. In baffled wonderment she followed the naked Headmistress along the narrow passages to the small door. Mademoiselle had brought her cane, and helpfully rapped a shinbone whenever its owner betrayed hesitation. "Such lucky girls to have their freedom!" The sardonic exclamation vibrated with menace. The night air was cool on their striated skins. The firm hand thrusting them through the tiny door had the quality of nightmare, as did the silky mockery: "There, little ones, so fine a freedom. You have escaped Presteigne." Chartreuse turned in anger. "But we're tied helpless!"

The door slammed in her face. Twin consternation imposed dismayed silence. Moments ticked away until Sharon asked, baffled: "Has she let us go? Are we free?" "Tied like this!" An infinity of bitterness was in the words. "Can't we untie each other - our mouths?" "You know better than that, darling." "The gate then - perhaps we can slip out?" "Oh we'll try," Chartreuse agreed. "But I think the bitch is just punishing us. Oh damn! If only we weren't tied! We're as helpless as fish out of water. My elbows are on fire." "Mine too." Sharon twisted her shoulders in revolt against her pain. "Please, Mistress, let's run. If only -" "It hurts too much to run. And besides . . . " Chartreuse had no gaiety left. "That rotten vixen! To tie our elbows . . . !" The big gate was unlocked. With bound fingers they pulled it ajar and slipped out into the public domain. "I don't believe this," Chartreuse muttered in puzzlement. Sharon found herself more concerned with their condition. To stand thus on the deserted road made freedom real. But naked and bound so wickedly! Tentatively, they took their first steps towards deliverance. The hedge erupted into life. Great gusts of beery breath smote them as male hands grasped. "Cor' blimey, Bill, look what we got. Naked and trussed." "And ready for a screw," agreed Bill heartily. They were an unprepossessing pair. Labourers sleeping off a drunk in the hedge. But still tipsy and without judgement. Even so, they offered the hope uppermost in the girls' minds. "Please cut these ropes we're tied with?" Chartreuse asked sweetly. "She wants ter get loose, 'Erb." Bill managed to make it sound an impropriety. "No bloody fear." Herb was emphatic. "Never trust no woman. We'll screw you like you is. Which 'un you want, Bill?" "We'll be much nicer untied." "Oh aye. But you'll be a lot nicer the way you are. Wot' say, 'Erb? Let's take 'em to that old-shed in Burton's Wood. We could keep 'em for a month - mebbe for good. Screw 'em to a frazzle." "How much money do you want?" Chartreuse was frantic. There were loud guffaws. "Hell, lady, we don't charge thee nothin'. It's free, so it is." "I mean money to cut these ropes and let us go." "And where you got the money, lady? Up yer ole?" "I can get it. But I know what you want. Cut us loose and we'll give it to you." "Yeah, I bet! Along o' the crown jewels." "Grab their 'air, 'Erb." Another guffaw. "The long stuff on their 'eads. They'll come quiet that way - can't do nothin'." It was an ignominious defeat, a cruelty to bring tears to maiden eyes. Freedom for this! It was too unkind. The naked girls walked unwillingly down the road, the hair of each grasped in an avid male hand against which they could do nothing. Beer fumes enveloped them. They were marching toward an untidy and disgusting rape, and even after the unwanted male seed had been planted within them there would be no freedom. Their elbows would still be in agonized helplessness.

The act was spurred by despair. Sharon swivelled and kicked Bill squarely in the genitals. In instant intuition Chartreuse did the same for Herb. As the two girls fled, the vivid imprecations of emasculated male distress followed as a threat. The gate of Presteigne was as they had left it. They slipped within, and with thrusting backs and searching fingers contrived to slip the lock. It closed with a satisfying snap against their pursuers, and an ominous threat of a resumed captivity against themselves. Without pause, they leaped into the blackness of the trees. Panting, Chartreuse exclaimed sadly: "Oh Sharon, I got you into this." "It does not matter, Mistress. I want to be with you." "We can't escape now. There was only the gate. We can never get over the wall. Even if we weren't tied -" Sharon saw the inevitable. Her heart bled for her beautiful Mistress who should never be punished. Her elbows scalded brutally with a promise of penalties to come. "I don't mind being whipped, Mistress," she said with feminine sincerity. "We didn't really try to escape. Maybe -" "We'll get flogged or something awful just the same." "Kiss me, Mistress." They kissed and rubbed breasts and nipples lovingly. It was a small reassurance. "I haven't the heart for anything else," Chartreuse admitted sadly. She was in full retreat, seeing only Halcyon's wrath. "You know what we're going to have to do, don't you?" "I know." Sharon's vision was very clear. "We're slave girls. For a little while we forgot that's all. I don't mind being a slave girl as long as I'm with you." They kissed again, then walked slowly back towards Presteigne. Their elbows and their wrists blazed in protest at their fate. They saw it as a 'Presence' and entered it as such. There was no thought in either of their minds that they should do other than kneel and bow their heads. Their arms were still joined from wrist to elbow, the ropes deeply embedded in their flesh. The bond was a throbbing misery to keep them in subjection. They exuded guilt in the same degree they emanated their woman scent of musk. They had nothing to say. "If either of you can think of a suitable punishment for yourselves, I am open to suggestions," Lord Halcyon said amiably. Sharon and Chartreuse kept their silence. Their minds were seething with thoughts of penance, they had no wish to speak of it. "I make allowance for your enticements and provocations. Do you plead other than a limited guilt?" His voice was menacingly kind. "No, Master." They were terrified. "No request for clemency?" "No, Master." "Like Mistress, like slave. I suspect you of being a sly pair." Lord Halcyon looked down at the bowed heads and the wealed flesh. His voice was as tender as his eyes. "You will take advantage of my affection for you." They trembled and kept quiet. "At least you do not deny it. Have you no wish to be rid of those cords so deep in your arms?" Sharon looked up at him in wide-eyed yearning. "Oh, Master, yes, yes! They are an agony." "Wear them then, child."

She bowed her head again in submission. "I will admit you touch my heart. 'Treuse, have you no wish to be given back your hands?" "No, Master." Halcyon smiled gently. "Do not be absurd. You are longing to be untied." "I will not long for what I cannot have, Master. I am a slave." "You will cozen me yet with your humilities. Do you wish to be thrashed?" "If it pleases you, Master." "That is not what I asked." "We do not want to be thrashed, Master." "Ah, that is better. But there was the matter of a flogging. I seem to recall one of you obsessed by a need?" Sharon quivered. "I was a foolish girl. Master. Forgive me. I was in love with an erotic fantasy. I have learned a lesson." "But you have not been flogged?" Halcyon was pleasantly curious. "No, Master." She was trembling. "But if it is your wish -" The Master raised his hand. "Enough of these indulgences. I begin to suspect confession of feeding the fire between your legs. Thrashings and floggings hold a morbid fascination for you both. Supposing we substitute a day of hanging by your thumbs?" "Thank you, Master." He laughed outright. "That is the most ambiguous response the female mind can devise. By the way, your faithful Trina is presently suspended in that manner. There could, of course, be a month in the dungeon for you both. Heavily chained, and to opposite walls." Sharon looked up at Halcyon, clear-eyed and decisive. "Master, can I end these matters by asking to be flogged. Our faults began with my stupidity. Let me pay for it." "It is not that simple, child. The heat of your thighs triggered unsuspected faults in others. I am in your debt." He was mocking her, of course. While she pleaded with her eyes Chartreuse's voice cut incisively. "All right, Theo, so I'm a bad slave! Leave the darling alone. Punish me. Hang me beside poor Trina. Let Sharon return to her classes." Halcyon enjoyed them. They were magnificent in their self-immolation for each other. He envied their love. It was worth exploring. "Name your punishments," he demanded inexorably. "I insist. If you refuse you shall both have them all." He was The Male. Twin heats flared in separate loins. Sharon knew herself lost in the welter of eroticism she had never understood. In simple innocence she asked, "Please have me flogged before the whole school, Master. It is my wish." "Your wish is granted, child. I adore you." Chartreuse knelt erect and faced her lord. "I cannot ask for less." She looked from one to the other with yearning. "Please, Master, have me flogged too." "You are both ridiculous. My most beloved slaves with cut backs." Halcyon was a father chiding wayward daughters. "We know we are absurd, Master. But we wish it." "You are both already terribly marked." "We do not mind, Master."

"But I mind. I sentence you both to be publicly flogged in thirty days. Does that please your guilty consciences and heat your hair?" "Yes, Master." "You can spend the thirty days in the dungeon. You will have something to look forward to." "Thank you, Master." "What, no pleadings!" "Please, Master, do not chain us to opposite walls." Lord Theodor Halcyon gazed at his slave girls with love. "So be it." He laughed. "I said you'd get the best of me." "Thirty days," said Chartreuse dreamily. "Aren't we lucky!" said Sharon. The End