Dearest Ch 03

Following the morning repast, I was granted a much-needed opportunity to relieve myself, then forced back into the same position on that appalling torture device which masqueraded as a chair. Surely, I had been subjected to many atrocious and unprovoked torments since my arrival at this mysterious abode, yet for some reason the feeling of being violated

there

of all places - ah, that was the most vile of them all!

Not long afterwards, I was greeted by an imposing figure of a man in an elegant velvet mask who bore a stack of books and a handwritten note. He placed the books on the table and handed the note personally to me, indicating his intent to linger until I had digested its message. I unfolded it and began to read.

Dearest,

I have been overzealous in my attentions to you, and so I have resolved to grant you a respite from my presence for the duration of a single week. Instead, we will commence with your education. Given your general lack of knowledge of your heritage, I have arranged for a number of well regarded volumes to be delivered along with this letter. Each contains important reading material that I must ask you to commit to memory.

Enclosed with this package that your tutor has so kindly delivered, you will find a list of these passages and a schedule revealing which must be mastered on which day. At exactly six o'clock in the evening, he will reappear to measure your progress. Any passages which are not completely memorized by the appointed day will be added to the following day's requirements. I strongly urge you not to fall too far behind, or the process of regaining ground will be rather laborious.

I look forward to a series of enlightening discussions with you upon my return.

Sincerely,

Your Humble Host

I was flabbergasted. This man expected me to read - nay, master - entire passages at his whim? It did not escape my notice that I was again referred to as "Dearest" for what reason I could not begin to fathom. Confused, I shook my head and looked at my supposed tutor for some sort of clarification, but he merely bowed formally and departed. As he left I glimpsed another man in the hallway outside, the light momentarily glinting off a long steel blade at his side. So I was being guarded as the younger maid had hinted earlier. So much for a quick escape, especially in my current condition.

Resignedly, I scanned the list of reading assignments and located the first one. I glanced at the longcase clock tucked away in a far corner. It was barely past 11 o'clock, which left me approximately seven hours to learn three and a half pages. Goodness knows what on earth this man meant by my "heritage" but I was grateful that the task beforehand involved my mind and not my body.

I had always been a quick study. The written word came to me with ease as a child, and despite the faded script and archaic language I finished the reading in not more than a quarter of an hour. It was a familiar tale, the story of Calistope, first of the syrens. She was the daughter of Aphroda and Phoebus, blessed with preternatural beauty and a voice that had no rivals. Aphroda was already promised to Haephestis, and so Calistope was born in secret and spirited away to be raised by the priestesses at Aphroda's temple in Delos. Her gifts soon manifested themselves, and it was impossible to hide her once she came of age. Against all decorum, she had many lovers of both sexes and felt no obligation to dedicate herself to any single one. Her lovers, ever under her spell, bore no ill will towards her, and focused all their jealousy on one another. After two noblemen fought themselves to the death in an open market over the right to be at her side, the matter attracted the attention of King Leonidas of Delos.

Calistope was charged with disrupting the peace and brought before the king and his queen, the vainglorious Helena. The queen was also lovely but between her and Calistope there was no comparison, and she instantly disliked the young maiden. When asked to explain herself at court, Calistope defied the order and instead sweetly sang to all present including the king, who quite forgot himself, dismissed all charges summarily and pursued her instead. Calistope had no desire to bed the aging king, choosing instead to tryst with a handsome stable boy, Endymion. The king was angered by her rejection, and ordered her imprisoned and the stable boy killed.

Queen Helena however had no intention of allowing Calistope to remain anywhere near her husband. In the dead of night she and a small coterie from her personal guard broke into Calistope's cell to assassinate her. The guards' ears were stuffed with wax to prevent them from falling under the girl's spell, but Helena failed to properly guard her own ears assuming wrongly that she would be immune. Warned by a messenger from her mother, Aphroda, Calistope began singing before the guards had opened the cell door, and by the time they had entered Helena found herself begging them to spare the girl's life. Unable to hear the queen's words, they assumed she was begging them to execute the deed more swiftly. In the ensuing confusion, Helena threw herself in front of Calistope and was killed.

The tale went on, describing the king's retaliation, Calistope's banishment and subsequent marriage to a prince of Cretia who took pity on her, further torment she suffered at her husband's hands when he suspected her of betraying him, and finally her escape and revenge on Cretia, culminating in the founding of a new temple of Aphroda and the beginning of a long dynasty of syrens. The cult of Calistope spread far and wide for centuries before declining in recent generations. Of course, many of the old gods and demi-gods were being ignored as of late in favor of the new religion adopted by many including my guardian and, somewhat reluctantly, by myself at his insistence.

I had forgotten how ridiculous these fables were, riddled with inconsistencies and laughable plot twists. Though this retelling was considerably more intricate that those I had read as a child, the details were no less plausible. Why I was being compelled to commit these stories to memory was a complete mystery to me. Having completed my first read-through I stretched my arms over my head, grateful that the wrist-rope tying me in place was of considerable length. I began to stand and extend my legs, only to be quickly reminded with a sharp pain in my posterior that I was firmly anchored to the chair by another means. Alas, the desire to prevent further injury to my most sensitive parts was greater than my need to stretch.

And so I sat, staring at the opening sentence of the myth of Callistope. I felt no urge whatsoever to complete the day's assignment, nor any of the others. After all, what more could they do to me? I had been punished far past the limits of what my young imagination thought possible, and I had survived thus far. I would survive whatever came next even to the point of death, I told myself, setting my jaw with determination and choosing to stare stubbornly at the wall in front of me. I would simply wait out the hours and confront whatever fate awaited me at the end. Unfortunately, this strategy backfired, for my mind soon began to relive recent traumas, from the attack on the road, to the forceful taking of my virginity, to the abuse I had suffered that very morning. Before long, a nagging suspicion began to present itself: what if I had desired this? After all, I had not put up much of a fight at any point. And yes, that could have been the result of shock, but what if it wasn't? What if I was somehow...defective?

An involuntary shudder ran through my shoulders and my heart began to race. My gaze faltered and my eyes landed once again on the page in front of me. Anything was preferable to steeping my mind in such horrid thoughts, and so I resigned myself to the day's assignment, hoping that it might prove a strong enough distraction. Thankfully it did, and yet lack of sleep dulled my mind as the minutes dragged on into hours. Despite my best efforts to remain alert and make progress, and the arrival of a mid-afternoon treat, I eventually drifted off into a deep slumber, lulled by the steady quiet ticking of the clock.

I was awakened by the sound of the chamber door opening. I sat up with a start, wincing from the sudden change in posture, as my tutor returned wearing the same mask as before, a leather bag slung over his shoulder. In one hand he carried a wooden pole attached at one end to a heavy iron stand. He was followed by the same two maidservants who approached me and, to my surprise, helped me out of my chair and began to undo my bodice and my bindings. At first the flow of blood to parts from which it had been restricted caused intense throbbing, but once it subsided I was much relieved to be freed from the day's bondage.

The maids did not stop there though, and it slowly dawned on me that I was being fully disrobed prior to the promised test, for reasons I could not fathom. In his letter, my captor had promised me a respite from his vicious machinations, could that have been a lie, or a trick of phrasing? Perhaps I had been naïve to assume the best. Or perhaps nudity was simply a means of humiliating and humbling me before a strange man. Despite all that had happened to me already, I felt my cheeks begin to redden at the thought and I averted my eyes out of instinct.

Still, my curiosity got the best of me when he planted the pole in the center of the room, reached into his bag and removed an object whose shape I could not make out. Though his back was to me, obscuring my view, I watched with growing consternation as he seemed to be attaching the object to the top of the pole and securing it. My alarm increased as one maidservant placed my neck and hands into a wooden stock device designed to keep my arms bent and secured away from my body on either side of my head, while the other nudged my legs apart then repeatedly inserted inside me two clammy fingers smeared with a greasy substance of unknown composition. Repeated questions went unheeded as usual. Their work complete, all three finally backed away and I began to comprehend the nature of the apparatus he had erected.

The finished assembly was roughly waist height, and affixed to the top was a metallic replica of a male organ, roughly hewn and grossly enlarged. Its entire surface was covered in small, bulbous protuberances. I stared at it in abject horror as the maids left me naked and alone with my tutor. After placing a measuring candle on the table and lighting it, he turned and gestured to the device.

"Mount," he ordered.

I stared at him and blinked, jaw agape. There was no possibility of fitting that monstrosity inside me, even with the previous stretching I had been subjected to. After several seconds of waiting for me to respond, he reached inside his bag again and brought out a large braided whip. With a practiced hand he flicked it back and aimed across the room just out of my reach. The crack was terrifying, and I jumped nearly out of my skin.

"Mount."

His tone of voice was stronger and more ominous this time. Still I refused, shaking my head and backing away slowly. The whip cracked again, this time striking flesh. I jumped away with a yelp, my hip stinging from the sharp blow and involuntary tears forming in corners of my eyes. He drew his arm back and aimed again as I stammered out a plea for mercy. Alas, the plea was in vain, and the next crack landed squarely across my stomach. I twisted away in agony, losing my balance and landing hard on my knees, the stocks securing my wrists having prevented me from breaking my fall. Five more stripes delivered at close distance decorated my back before I swore to obey his command.

Rising to my feet, I approached the menacing device and took a deep breath. Letting it out slowly, I straddled the tip of the phallus and gingerly lowered myself down. It was cold and unyielding, stretching me to extremes and abrading my insides beyond anything I had heretofore endured.

"Ride," he continued, seemingly limited to single-word commands.

I understood that I was to impale myself repeatedly on this rigid phallus. My legs began to bow and straighten at a glacial pace as I strained to fit its length inside me. The whip cracked again, closer to my skin.

"Faster."

With a whimper I increased my speed, insides burning from the abrasion.

"Recite," said the man in the mask, brandishing his whip.

Eos, surely this was not happening. I resisted speech until I saw his arm reach backwards in preparation for another strike, then quickly thought better of my decision. Whispering a prayer of fortitude to any and all deities who might heed it, I began to speak aloud the tale of Calistope I had studied earlier in the day, all the while moving up and down, penetrating myself again and again as my masked tutor circled me like a predator stalking his prey. After several sentences I was relieved to feel my juices mingling with the greasy spread and lubricating the pole. Despite my embarrassment the resulting heat that spread throughout my groin was most welcome. After a while I began to lose myself in the moment, closing my eyes as the words came more haltingly, punctuated by sighs and shudders.

With a crack, the whip landed on my left thigh and I yelled in protest.

"Recite," he barked at me.

Concentration jolted, I wracked my brain for the next phrase and eventually found my place again. No sooner had I spoken the next handful of words that the whip smacked me across the other thigh.

"From the start," he growled.

My heart sank as I realized that every time I foundered or spoke in error, I would be forced to return to the beginning until I had successfully finished the entire recitation. Of course a perfect recitation was impossible, for I had fallen asleep before committing the entire passage to memory.

The remaining hours of the evening were filled with the tearful sound of my voice punctuated by the crack of the whip, shouted commands and much sobbing and climaxing. No mistake escaped his expert hearing, much to my dismay. When the measuring candle had almost run out, my tutor ordered me to cease. I had made it through less than half of the story and I was drenched in sweat from head to toe, more exhausted than a plough horse at the end of planting season. My first trial had been a miserable failure. Tomorrow I would be required to recite this passage again, in addition to whatever came next in the syllabus.

With firm hands my abuser lifted me off the large phallus, laid me gently in an oversized armchair, and removed the stocks. I gave no resistance, for my arms were cramped and my leg muscles thoroughly spent. I watched through half-closed eyes, thighs still twitching involuntarily, as he disassembled the apparatus, repacked his satchel, and exited leaving nothing behind. As he left, my ever-dutiful attendants reappeared and began to prepare me for the night. Thankfully they applied a soothing salve to my thighs and calves in addition to other sore bits, though I realized the act was less a kindness and more a necessity to ensure I would last the week. That was the extent of their generosity however: I spent the night in wretched condition, arms and legs stretched and bound to the four bedposts same as before. When I was not lying awake in dread, my sleep was punctuated by nightmares of daemons come to drag me into the abyss for my willful participation in such depraved acts.

The morning of the second day, convinced that I would not make it through another night, I assaulted the maids and made a frantic attempt to escape, only to be accosted and forcibly returned by the guard posted outside. He remained in the room to discourage any further disobedience during the remainder of my morning routine, his eyes drinking in my every reaction as the women went about preparing and dressing me.

My resolve broke after that incident. Over the remaining days, I alternated between two states of mind: apprehension during the day as I studied hard to memorize my assignments, and terror during the night as I was repeatedly forced to bring myself to climax after excruciating climax while proving to my tutor that I had learned my lessons perfectly, the lick of his whip never far from mind or body. I do not know how I found the strength to persevere, but by the end of seventh day I had committed all the required texts to memory.

On the seventh night, I was at last allowed a measure of autonomy. No bindings encumbered my limbs, and I was provided a thin nightgown of blue cambric, however my sleep was no more restful than before. Whatever else was to come, it could not possibly be worse than the hellish week I had just endured.