Abroad

Cesar took up Anne's noose and led her to the wooden stake, where the girl bound her. The phallus was quite heavy - it must have been cast of solid iron in a mold. She wondered who provided the original, she would like to meet him. It slowed and exaggerated the movement of her hips, making them sway suggestively as she walked.

She remained there for the afternoon. A pair of women approached her and looked her over. Yesterday they had called for Anne to be burned as a witch. The older one said "Perhaps the time will come when the priest will change his mind and we shall have our way. Gather fuel for the fire." Anne shuddered as the younger one patted her cheek before leaving.

Around sundown the girl brought her food and water. She fed Anne gruel with a spoon and held up the water bowl to her lips. Anne managed to drink most of it but spilled the last part on her breasts.

"I'm supposed to punish you for that," the girl said cheerfully. "You must learn not to waste any."

She was in a chatty mood. "My name is Bianca; I know what yours is. Cesar wants me to manage you when he is busy. I must learn how to beat you when you are bad. Are you bad much?"

Anne thanked her for her supper and said she would try to be as good as she was able.

"Though I think it would be fun to beat you now and then, you being a white woman and so grand. Would you like that?"

Anne said she would, very much, if it pleased her new mistress.

"Maybe I will tomorrow. Now I untie you and put you away for the night." She unwound the rope around Anne, standing close in front of her and passing it back and forth. Occasionally her body brushed Anne's and Anne found herself growing wet. Bianca wore a short cotton shift; it was plain she had nothing on beneath it.

She drove Anne ahead of her to the side of the temple and opened the hatch, closing and latching it once Anne was inside.

Anne inspected the walls. There was writing on them in a foreign script, like the pot by the fire this morning. She dared not ask Cesar what it meant; maybe Bianca would tell her.

She passed the night contentedly, tranquilized by the phallus despite the discomfort of her burning rear, eager to learn her new duties.

And hopeful that Cesar might find her appealing. She yearned for him while he took no interest in her as a woman. She fell asleep trying to devise a stratagem to attract her aloof and masterful new owner.

Bianca woke her early the next morning; she fed and watered Anne before leading her outside. At her direction Anne lay on her back. Bianca showed her how to release the chain and remove the phallus before setting it aside in an earthenware container with the same design of flowers and script as the pot.

"I made them both; do you like them?"

"Yes, the flowers are lovely; and" - wondering if this was safe - "there is some writing on it as well."

"It's different on each pot. Also on your, you know." She giggled and pointed to the phallus. "I can't tell you what they say, it's forbidden and I think you would have to be, well..." Anne knew what that meant.

"The marks on your behind are different. They are not a secret, but I will let him tell you." She giggled. "Now squat." When that was done, Anne prepared the phallus. She soaked a white cloth in water and wiped the object several times; then taking a second cloth she poured aromatic oil on it and applied it to the length of the instrument before reinserting it in herself.

Something in the oil caused a burning within her that began to build. She was reminded of a time when she bit into a chili pepper that released its heat over a minute or two until she was forced to spit it out. But there was no spitting out this time. She fastened the chain, driving the phallus deeper.

Seeing her grimace, the girl said "It is hot in you, no? It is part of your training; you must learn to ignore it and do your work. At first it will be hard, especially with your new marks, but you will learn.

"You have much to learn: when you were branded you threw your head around so much I feared you would hurt yourself. That is why I held you down."

Anne thanked her.

"In a week, maybe a little more, the marks will not burn so much; I will give you a hotter oil for the phallus then. Also I know some ladies enjoy it."

It was true; she liked having the fiery sensation in her belly, though it distracted her and made it hard to concentrate.

The girl told Anne to stand and led her to a small door in the back of the temple. "This is the one you must use; never go in or out the front. If someone wants you to, tell them it is forbidden. If they insist, do it and then take your punishment afterwards; perhaps Cesar will be lenient."

Outside the door was a cistern of water. Anne filled a bucket from it and followed Bianca to a closet with rags and other cleaning supplies. The girl told her to scrub the floor of the temple from front to back before nightfall and left her to it.

On her knees, Anne began to rub down every tile until it was clean. About midday, Bianca returned.

"The day is half over and you are no more than a third finished. You had better hurry." Anne stood and drank a bowl of water that she held up, this time without spilling any, proud of her small achievement.

She returned to her knees and began to scrub faster. So fast in fact that she was done five minutes before the girl returned.

"Very good," Bianca said. "Cesar wanted you to go without dinner if you failed, but I told him you could not work without food and he agreed to just cutting it in half. I don't think he understands women." She smiled.

"I said I would beat you today but it is late. Tomorrow we will have more time; I need to learn more about you if I am to train you properly."

Anne thanked her and put away her tools before being led back to the side of the temple for her dinner and the sandbox.

She slept so well that she did not wake till Bianca opened the hatch of her cell the next morning. She knelt before the girl and at a sign from her crawled out onto the dirt where bowls of water and kibble awaited her.

She was becoming familiar with the morning routine; after her breakfast she lay on her back and removed the phallus before using the sandbox, then washed it and applied the oil to it.

She used a little more this time, and when she lay back to fasten the chain around her waist its heat was already filling her belly. She let it build with her eyes closed as a smile of contentment spread over her face. This was what she lived for; her masters were good to her.

Bianca allowed her a minute or two of this before pinching a nipple and recalling her to the present.

"Get up, lazy; you have a busy day before you. In the morning you must wash the tiles of the courtyard in front of the temple and do them all by noon; there are not so many as inside but they are dirtier and everyone sees them.

"Then I shall give you some water and in the afternoon beat you. Pilar will show me how; she has been to the holy island and will know how to reduce you."

Anne thought she had misheard. "Reduce me?"

Bianca turned solemn. "Yes. It will not be easy with one like you, but she thinks we can do it. Cesar does too, he told me, otherwise he would have burned you."

The air around Anne suddenly felt very chilly. She shivered and thanked Bianca, who told her to stand and led her to the temple.

Anne filled her bucket at the cistern and started to enter the temple with it, but Bianca stopped her. "Do you mean to go out by the front door? Did you forget already what I told you yesterday?"

Ashamed at her mistake, Anne lowered her head and took her rags from the closet before going around the outside of the building.

Bianca showed her where to begin at an edge of the courtyard. The tiles outside were indeed very dirty, and despite her best efforts she was unable to complete the job by noon. Bianca frowned but said only "you will finish this tomorrow" before setting a bowl of water on the ground.

When Anne had drunk it all, Bianca led her to the stake. Waiting for them there was an athletically built woman about Anne's age. She wore only a loincloth and displayed firm breasts and muscular thighs. In her hand was a short corded whip.

She greeted Bianca and told her to back Anne to the stake and bind her. Bianca hastened to wrap Anne with a single length of rope leaving her thighs and belly exposed. Pilar examined the phallus in Anne, gave it a turn which brought tears to her eyes, and decided to leave it in.

She showed Bianca how to grip the handle of the whip for best control and demonstrated a few flicks to Anne's belly before turning the instrument over to the girl.

At first unsteady and a bit clumsy, Bianca was a quick learner. Under Pilar's guidance the girl brought Anne to the point of delirium and held her there all afternoon, her mind flickering in and out of consciousness.

Her universe shrank to the stake and the whip and it was an effort to regain her senses at the end. She did not know how long Bianca had worked her over until she saw the sun approaching the western horizon.

Covered in sweat, the whole front of her body stung from her neck to her knees. And this was Lesson One of she did not know how many.

They gave Anne a few minutes to recover before Bianca untied her and led her back to her dinner beside the temple. As she stowed Anne inside her cell for the night she said "tomorrow you will finish the courtyard and I will beat you some more; Pilar thinks you have a chance to avoid the fire."

Anne dared to put a question to her mistress. "When you said you would reduce me this morning, did you mean to an animal?"

"Yes, that is right; like a dog. No one would burn a dog."

That evening Anne saw her future; Cesar and the women would domesticate her. It was what they wanted her to be for them. As if in response she felt the phallus shift within her, and the marks of her branding, and was content.