The Sisterhood of Slaves Pt. 02
"You're lucky, Jeanne had repeated; they will be much harder on you. What had she meant by that? Then she ceased to be conscious of anything but the collar, the bracelets and the chain. Her body began to drift, to vanish in the wake. She was going to understand." -- Pauline Réage, Histoire d'O (Story of O)
It must have been close to midday when she awoke. There was just one small window to let in the sun's rays, but she could guess the hour from the shallow angle of their path.
Apart from that there was not much light, and it took a while for her sleep-blurred eyes to adjust. The room was sparsely but elegantly furnished. The bed was a large four-poster with slender carved columns of red oak but no canopy. In the corner were a velvet-covered sofa and an "Ottoman" style tuffet or footstool. The floor was of wooden boards polished to a high sheen. Beside the bed was a lush rug of rich magenta speckled with gold filaments and decorated with a circular pattern of linked S-shapes, also of gold thread, identical to the design she had seen on the finger rings of the men and the collars of the women. There was no door, just a crimson curtain draped across the opening. The walls were painted a glossy black, and more crimson hangings bedecked the entrance to a compact cubicle containing a hand basin and toilet. There were no lighting fixtures except for a bracket lamp glowing feebly next to the bed.
The bed on which Jane lay naked was queen-sized and sumptuous. The silk sheets and quilt were folded at the foot of the mattress. Above the headboard was fixed to the wall a steel circle approximately the width of a hand, and next to it was embedded a metal hook. They were far enough from the floor that Jane with her hands free could reach them only if she stretched on tiptoes; but she was not very tall, and the average man could do so without effort. A slim silver chain was fastened to the hoop and descended to her collar. She probed the neckband with her fingers. It was snug enough to girdle her throat and stay in place halfway up, and not slip around. Fashioned in several thin layers of leather, it was lined on the inside with fur or felt so that the edges did not abrade the skin. She could discern by touch an inscription embossed on the outside, flanking the small loop on the front and the lock on the back. As there was no mirror, she had no way of determining what the words might be.
Lingering in that foggy twilight of half-asleep and half-awake, she took a few moments to gain her proper senses. She needed a few more seconds to realize she could not lift her hands. Though her blindfold had slipped off her eyes during the night, her hands were still shackled. Clamped on her wrists were gold-plated bracelets crafted in the form of finely braided ropes. On each was a tiny clasp, and the means by which they were snapped together made it impossible for the wearer to unlink them. They were also clipped onto the ring on Jane's collar, so her hands were joined just below her chin, in "prayer" position.
Across the room, on top of the dresser, lay the key to her shackles. It was just out of reach. The chain which anchored her to the ring on the wall was long enough for her to move about and get to the toilet stall, but it had been looped over the hook in such a way that the slack which remained would not permit her to obtain the key. She tugged half-heartedly, and fiddled with the lock on her collar. Neither yielded; but what bothered her most of all was being deprived of the full use of her hands. It was frustrating to have the rest of her body thus made inaccessible to her, as if a reminder that it no longer belonged to her; and she worried how she would cope if she needed to use the toilet.
Memories of the night came back slowly, and might have been a dream but for the aching in her limbs and the markings on her body. Still bound, blindfolded and gagged, she had been taken to her room by the women, who left her standing against the wall with the chain that was attached to her collar and shortened so that she was forced to stand there for what felt like and may have been hours. It was excruciating to be alone in the dark and the silence, fighting fatigue, fending off the enervating boredom with all kinds of imaginings. Eventually the pain in her arms and her leg muscles gave way to numbness, and she descended into a sort of waking dream in which she heard voices and saw things that were not there.
But then, sometime in the middle of the night, men came, at least two of them but maybe more. One of them removed her gag, which felt good after so much time. Her mouth was dry, her lips were puckered and her jaws ached. He then freed her arms, but only to raise her hands over her head and shackle them to the hook that held her chain. She was made to face the wall, and from the way she was posed and her body exposed, she knew what was coming. Even so, the first stroke, from a cane she could tell because of how it stung, was a shock. She yelped and one of the men chuckled. The second was a burning slap, from a leather belt, and she groaned. There were several more before hands with a surprisingly gentle touch turned her around so that she faced her tormentors, albeit from behind her blindfold. Now her breasts and belly and thighs were assailed by the cane and the strap, but she no longer made any noise, too exhausted to expel the air from her lungs.
When the men had gone, one of the girls returned and loosened the chain to allow her to lie on the bed; but she attached Jane's shackled wrists to her collar so that she had no good use of her hands. After that, she was left in peace, and in solitude, visited only by occasional moments of terror as she considered her condition. It occurred to her that, though her bed might be soft, she was chained in a cell, humiliated and flogged, as if she were a convict condemned for some heinous atrocity; but the worst prisoners were not subjected to the cruelty she had suffered while guilty of no crime. So it fascinated her that she felt no anguish or indignation, but rather a strange exhilaration.
Soon after she had awoken, Jane was brought a meal. It could serve as breakfast or lunch; it did not matter; but it was skimpy, just a piece of dry toast, a peeled banana and a slice of melon. In any case, she wasn't hungry. The cup of tea, however, was a blessing. She normally drank coffee in the morning; but flavoured and scented with something sweetly aromatic she could not identify, on Jane's parched lips this was empyrean nectar.
Her server was the chauffeuse from last night, still wearing her choker and wrist and ankle cuffs, but otherwise nude. Jane could not help but stare. Exposed by the daylight, the young woman was even lovelier than she had looked in the evening rain. Her lean curves, satin-smooth skin and sleek long legs, her short, golden-brown hair and sparkling hazel eyes conveyed a vibrant athleticism and a fresh-faced innocence. Jane thought back to the lively, laughing girls she used to watch on the hockey field and the running track, their lustrous tanned limbs dancing in a sensual ballet of energy and grace, their breasts bobbing and jogging and swaying to the rhythm of their moves. She had wondered then about the feelings stirring inside her, never really understanding -- or if understanding, never really accepting.
While she ate and sipped, sitting on the edge of her bed, her hands still shackled at her throat, the two of them did not speak. The fact is, Jane felt embarrassed, naked and chained as she was, even if the girl standing silently before her was equally bare. Plus there was an awkward moment when the girl proffered a small tablet, the purpose of which Jane understood immediately; and when she shook her head the girl gave her a quizzical look. But it would be the last time while she was in the Château that Jane would refuse the little pill.
(Before entering the house, knowing what she was getting herself into, she had asked about protection. She was told, ominously, that inserted devices might not withstand the rigorous lifestyle of the Château.)
As she put the empty cup back on the tray, she looked closely at the collar on her server. It was the first good view she'd had of the women's collars. Imprinted on it, next to the § symbol, were the words
RACHEL PROPERTY OF THE CHAÎNERIE
She was about to say something when there was a noise outside the doorway, and the curtain parted. Rachel immediately stood back from the bed, rigidly at attention but with her arms behind her back, not folded but with fingertips touching elbows. She pulled her shoulders backwards, to push out her splendid chest. She kept her eyes downcast in humble submission to their visitors.
Daniel and another man came into the room. Her cousin was wearing the clothes he had arrived in last night, but they looked freshly laundered and pressed. His companion was clad (rather absurdly Jane thought) in brown breeches and black boots and a ruffled white shirt (the sort of thing you imagine being worn by poets and pirates). He looked to be not much more than twenty, was short and stocky with the chubbiness of youth not yet entirely burnt off. He had lank, flaxen hair and greenish grey eyes, and a thin-lipped mouth that drooped at the corners. Lodged in his right boot, Jane noted with alarm, was what appeared to be a riding crop.
"Time to rise," Daniel said.
"What o'clock is it? Have I really slept all morning?"
"It's not a lot before noon. So yes, you did."
The other young man grinned benignly. "You needed it. You weren't allowed much sleep, were you? You're still..." He did not finish the sentence.
She shook her head in agreement, and to disperse the remaining fog. She waited for one of them to speak again. An uneasy silence followed. She stole a peek at Rachel, grasped the problem, got up from the bed, stood ramrod-straight and bowed her head. She did it so quickly, so mechanically (once she knew what was expected of her) that she did not think about the shame of her nudity until it was too late to worry.
Daniel nodded appreciatively. Jane blushed, surprisingly proud of her unquestioning compliance. But she flushed a bright red when he added "Good girl."
Beside her, Rachel giggled.
"There's a problem, female?" the other man demanded.
"No, Master," she replied through gritted teeth.
Daniel -- or rather Master Daniel, now-- stood there in silence, and though she dared not raise her head she knew he was studying her naked body. She felt her skin prickling, and for the first time since entering the car outside her home she felt the pangs of regret. She could almost feel his eyes creep over her body. They were cousins (albeit second cousins) and childhood playmates, and this felt so wrong. But when she took the chance of glancing up, what she saw on his face was not lust but pity. She bit her lip to suppress a smile. His gaze flickered past her breasts and pubes, to settle on the red welts on her thighs and belly which looped around to her back and bottom. There were a dozen, some narrow, the marks of the cane, others the broad streaks from the strap. Oddly enough, until reminded by Master Daniel's sympathetic stare, she'd forgotten about them.
Jane glanced cautiously at her other visitor. She frowned. There was something about him and the girl that caught her attention. Rachel was several years older, and half a head taller. Whereas he was somewhat flabby, his clothes ill-fitting and dishevelled, her dénudé body was trim and taut. But there was enough similarity between them that with a shock (and a little revulsion), Jane realized that the two might be brother and sister.
Master Daniel went over to the dresser and picked up the key. He gestured to Rachel, who took it and unlocked the chain from Jane's collar, and released her hands as well. But the girl immediately took hold of her arms and drew them behind her back. She nudged Jane forward until she was just in front of the Master, but turned away, so that he could clip together the bands on her wrists. Then he blindfolded her, with the same red sash he had used the previous night. After that, he attached a tether to her collar; and with this he led her out of the room.
"Hurry up," she was told. "The games begin in half an hour."
Behind them, Rachel was most likely taking the tray to the kitchen.
The terrazzo floor in the hallway was numbingly cold under Jane's bare feet, and she almost stumbled as they entered the stairwell. "Mind your step," her guide advised, being far less helpful than he no doubt intended to be. As they came out into the vestibule, she could hear hushed voices and muted laughter, male and female. Unable to see, she had no way of knowing if she was the focus of attention; but from somewhere off to her right came a muffled squeal and elsewhere a moan, both feminine and partially smothered by passage through a gag.
They entered another corridor, a short one that led into what seemed to be an interior courtyard, since it was an open, sunny space with neither breeze nor the sounds of trees and birds and insects, and the men's footsteps echoed. She was steered to a pole or pillar on one side of the enclosure, and made to stand with her back to it, the column nestled between her shoulder blades. With her hands still cuffed behind her, she ran her fingers along its surface. It felt smooth but slightly granular, like half-polished marble. The cable which had served as her leash was secured to a hook or a peg above her head so that she could not move away from her position, nor bend her knees or body without pulling on the collar and choking herself.
Before leaving her there, one of the men drew his hand up the inside of her thigh and briefly penetrated her. She gasped, but that was all. Could she have imagined, just twenty-four hours ago, responding thus... hardly responding at all? She heard them depart, and then she waited... and waited. It was impossible to judge the passage of time, because she was placed in the shade of an awning, so she could not keep track of the sun's movement.
She was not by herself the entire afternoon, however. Every so often one or two or three men would come into the courtyard. This would be during a lull in the chorus of noises and voices, shrill shrieks and quavering screams she could hear emanating from beyond the walls. Her piqued curiosity was tempered by the dread certainty that she would soon be a player in those games. But for now her visitors came mainly to gawk. Some made crude comments about her body. Others fondled her breasts and probed between her legs. Once they brought with them several of the slavegirls, who pleasured her with their lips and tongues. But most of the time she was alone, attended only by her thoughts and feelings, questioning why she was there, wondering where it would all end and what she would become.
She knew when it was getting near sunset because she sensed, behind her blindfold, the sky begin to darken. A breeze swirled across the flagstones and, starting at her toes, the cold air crept up her naked body like an oozing, muculent shroud. Then two of the women came for her, and took her to a bathroom on the second floor -- one guiding her on the leash, the other tapping her lightly on the hip when they reached the stairs and on the shoulder to warn her of corners to be turned. They said not a word. Her cuffs and blindfold were removed and she showered alone. Then Rachel accompanied her back to her gilded cell. Another girl, Siobhán (each girl's name was inscribed on her collar), was waiting for them, and she informed Jane that they had been ordered to prepare her for dinner. Before they started, her bracelets were locked behind her back, and she sat on the edge of the bed as they applied perfume, lipstick and eye shadow, rouged her cheeks and the tip of each breast and the lips below her belly. Siobhán lovingly stroked Jane's hair before tying it up. (It was impossible to ignore that all the women Jane had been able to see so far in the Château had short-cropped hairstyles, whether sporty like Rachel's or boyish like Lydia's or pixie-cut like this girl's. She had no idea, then, why this might be so, whether it was a rule or a custom, a practical measure for some reason, or just a fashion.)
Once she had been made ready she was blindfolded once more and taken downstairs. When the red sash was removed, she found herself in a spacious dining room opulently adorned and furnished, with marble flooring, polished wood-panel walls, a baroquely carved ceiling and ornate crystal chandelier. On the wall at the far end there hung a large portrait, of a stern-faced middle-aged man and a sweet-faced woman. Wearing an old-fashioned three-piece suit and a flowing black cape, the man stood with one hand clutching his vest and the other resting upon the head of the woman, who was nude and kneeling by his side. The couple's resemblance to Jane and Daniel would have been obvious to everyone present.
Seated at the heavy oak table were a dozen males, who looked to be aged between twenty and thirty years, and in no way distinguished in appearance except for their tuxedos. At the head was Master Daniel while sitting to his right was Lydia, the only woman at the table, who was nude. The chair at the other end was vacant, and to it Jane was led by her two attendants, one of whom freed her hands from their golden shackles. Lydia alone rose, and remained standing until Jane was in her place. The leather under her naked bottom felt clammily cold and slippery, and she did not experience the sensual congeniality of the limousine's upholstery. The edges of the seat pressed into the raw skin of her thighs, and the intricately chiselled slats that formed the hind part of the chair left their imprint in her bare back. But she was famished, having eaten nothing in more than a day apart from that scanty noontime repast.
In deciding how to behave in the presence of the Masters, Jane took her prompts from Lydia, who kept her gaze lowered or otherwise averted to avoid the insolence of eye contact with any of the Masters. Nevertheless, she talked freely when spoken to, though she did not initiate conversation. She nibbled at the food on her plate, took but a few sips of her wine. She never acknowledged the presence of the half-dozen slavegirls who served the meal and drinks. The males ignored them as well, except for Daniel who every so often nodded his appreciation.
The Master who sat to Jane's right was the young man who had come with Master Daniel to fetch her at noon. He tried to engage her in the table talk more than once, but she resisted being drawn in, for fear that her words or simply her presumption in speaking to a male as if she were his equal might get her into trouble. (She did not try to emulate Lydia in this respect.) The Master good-humouredly shrugged off the rebuff and finally turned his attention to one of the waitresses, graceful, raven-haired Elizabeth. He pushed his chair back to put her across his knee, and the woman's forehead rested against Jane's thigh under the table, as she began to gasp and moan. The other diners glanced at them with only mild curiosity, while without being instructed a diminutive redhead stepped forward from her waiting station against the wall to take up Elizabeth's serving duties.
After the dessert had been finished, the dishes cleared away and the coffee brought out, one of the men rose from his place with glass in hand. The other Masters, and Lydia, joined him in standing, facing Master Daniel who remained sitting. Cued by a subtle shake of Lydia's head, Jane stayed seated as well. The half dozen slavegirls in the room lay on their bellies, arms behind their backs, legs apart.
The speaker made some remarks before offering a toast. Jane, staring at the prostrate females on the floor, didn't really listen and hoped she would not be called on to respond. All she heard were his final words.
"So let us drink to the lord and lady of the Château Chaînerie."
She noticed the same red sash used as a blindfold on her previously, now attached to a steel hoop above the headboard of the bed. The inscription on her collar, still unreadable without a mirror, piqued her curiosity.
The gold-plated choker and wrist cuffs on Rachel, the chauffeuse, caught Jane's attention as she ate her meager meal. The sight of the nude woman made Jane reflect on her own past feelings towards athletic girls, their bodies moving in harmony and grace.
In the hallway, minus her blindfold and shackles, Jane was led to a pillar in the courtyard. The hum of voices and sounds of pleasure from the adjacent rooms hinted at the games that awaited her, leaving her in a state of both anticipation and fear.