The Sisterhood of Slaves

"Nothing had been such a comfort to her as the silence, unless it were the chains. The chains and the silence, which ought to have bound her deep within herself, which should have smothered and strangled her, had not. On the contrary, they had been her deliverance, liberating her from herself." -- Pauline Réage,

Histoire d'O

In the darkness, still wide awake, Jane lay upon the bed, chained to the wall, listening to the sounds drifting up from downstairs, of more games being played by the Masters with their slaves. She was on top of the silk sheets and satin quilt, but not cold; the thermostat having been set to a moderate warmth. Then she must have fallen asleep, because she was startled when the lamp came on, and through bleary eyes she saw two men standing beside her bed. One was Master Ethan, the other an even younger man, tall and stringy, with unkempt brown hair.

"Get up," she was ordered. When she was standing, with her gaze fixed on the floor at the feet of her visitors, Master Ethan unclipped her bracelets and made a gesture with his hands so she knew to put hers behind her back.

"Face the bed," the second Master commanded, and then he took hold of her wrists and shackled them. After he had done so, he ran his fingers through the furrow of her backside, and between her thighs to enter her at the front. She squirmed.

"Remain still!" he barked.

"Please kneel," Master Ethan said in a gentler voice. "Move closer to the bed, and bend over it." He adjusted the chain which linked her collar to the hoop on the wall so that it was taut. She heard a soft swishing noise, and when she realized it was that of belts being withdrawn from the loops on the men's trousers, she braced herself against the mattress. There was a whooshing sound and a terrible burning pain on her buttocks. She screamed.

"Move your hands away," she was told, and she pushed her wrists up her back as far as her cuffs would allow. She screamed again, as the second strike seared her flesh. And again. Both men took it in turns thrashing her, maybe two dozen times altogether; and even after they had stopped she continued to shriek, and as her wails subsided into moans, tears streamed down her cheeks and into her mouth. But when she thought her ordeal was over, the men made her stand up again and turn to face towards them. Master Ethan pushed on her shoulders and she retreated until she was backed against the wall. Their eyes briefly met, and his look was one of apology... but not regret.

He reached behind her and freed her hands, but only to draw her arms over her head to hitch the bracelets on the hook above the bed. This forced her onto her toes, and stretched her body. Then the two men whipped her breasts and belly. She cringed and quivered and howled, but she never tried to evade the lashes, and was proud that she did not beg for mercy. On the other hand, she expected to feel mortification and shame at her abject submission, for allowing herself to be so abused; yet she did not.

The flogging was more intense and more prolonged than any she had received before this. The younger Master seemed unsure of himself at first, and Master Ethan showed him how to apply the belt to her backside in such a way that it was the broad, flat side which made contact with her flesh and not the thin edge. "It marks her less," he explained, but his concern was not to spare his victim but rather to prolong her agony. Each stroke was applied to a different part of her skin but onto flesh lacerated by her previous whipping. After every few lashes the men paused, to allow her screaming to subside, but only to make the resumption of her punishment all the more harder to bear. As before, they turned her so that none of her, front and back, between her shoulders and her knees, escaped the onslaught.

She wondered if the other residents of the house could hear her cries, whether it was a familiar sound in the middle of the night, whether anyone cared for her plight. She had wondered if she'd be treated any differently from the other females in the house, if her special status had conferred on her some degree of immunity from the worst of the treatment which the rest of the women (albeit willingly) suffered. Knowing now the answer, she considered more keenly what lay in store for her when the new day arrived.

The two men left her still sobbing. They'd freed her hands and extended her chain, for which she was grateful as she hobbled into the bathroom. Thereafter she went to sleep lying on her stomach, which was the slightly less inflamed side. The silk and satin were cool and soothing.

Just before sunrise she was awoken by Rachel, who replaced her metal bracelets with leather ones. The woman's expression when she saw Jane's fresh scars was revealing. It was (Jane later discovered) unusual for a newcomer to be flogged two nights in succession, especially when her body, abused by strap and cane, had not been entered by any of the Masters. But Jane wished that she hadn't seen Rachel's reaction, because it reminded her that her skin still burned. Yet for a reason she was only just beginning to understand, amidst the bitter memory was a sweetness that she could not have imagined before coming into the Château.

And that might have bewildered her, because she had never been conscious of this proclivity. But she was beginning to understand it, that it was something latent within her, an inheritance. She thought about that painting hanging on the wall of the dining room downstairs. The stern-faced man was Grandpa Joe, and the naked woman kneeling beside him was his sister-in-law, Daniel's grandmother, Jane's great-aunt. The rumors of an affair had not been wrong; but its nature had remained a dark secret. And by the looks of it the portrait had been made many years ago, around the time Joe acquired the great house which became the Château Chaînerie.

The sky outside the tiny window was grey, with just the faintest rosy blush of the coming dawn. Jane was taken downstairs. It was the first time she'd gone all the way through the house without a blindfold. The kitchen was on the ground floor at the back, and several women were already at work preparing breakfast. None turned to greet her, except for the supervisor, Justine, a statuesque, dark-skinned girl. Like all the females she was exquisitely, intimidatingly beautiful. Although she considered herself attractive, next to these creatures Jane felt plain. They were working naked over the stoves. Jane wondered if the women were permitted to protect themselves when dealing with hot pots and pans but out of pride chose not to. She did not ask. Apart from Justine giving curt orders, nobody uttered a word.

Jane and two other girls, Suzanne and Isabella, were assigned to serve the Masters. Before they began, each had her ankles shackled. The chain was just long enough that Jane could shuffle across the floor without a fear of stumbling (unless she was careless). As she picked up the first tray, containing bread-rolls, croissants and other assorted pastries, Isabella showed her how to hold it correctly, at belly button level such that her breasts and lower parts remained visible and available for inspection. So it amused her when the diners seemed more interested in what was on the tray rather than under or above it. Only her cousin paid any attention to Jane. She was charmed, in a way, that Master Daniel, with so many naked females at his service, could still be distracted by her bare body, until she realized he was staring at the pink welts and purple bruises covering her flesh. Their eyes made contact again, for just an instant before Jane lowered her gaze to the floor, where it belonged... although more in embarrassment than in accordance with the rules. Yet the shame had a sweet savour.

The same dozen men were seated as last night, but not Lydia. As the men ate, those women not serving, including Lydia, stood silently at one end of the room facing the wall, their hands behind their backs but with the cuffs not linked. Two girls were playing music on violins and they were very good. Every now and then a couple of the standing women were commanded to dance to entertain the Masters as they dined, but then they returned to their places against the wall. Jane was glad that she was not one of them, but was instead kept busy, because the breakfast lasted more than an hour.

All of the females in the house appeared to be present. Jane had counted twenty altogether, which she knew was but a fraction of the total number who spent time at the Château. She had but a vague idea of how many women belonged to the Chaînerie -- perhaps a hundred -- and wondered if even the Masters knew for sure. Lydia alone had that knowledge. It was also difficult to estimate how many Masters there were altogether. In the house at present the females outnumbered the males by just two to one. But from what Lydia had told her, it seemed that the sex ratio (slave to Master) was often twice that. And more to the point, the men were on average several years younger than their slaves. They were all aged, it appeared, in their early to mid-twenties. There were no women as young as the youngest male, and some were in their thirties.

A sharp whack on her still raw backside wrenched her out of these distracting thoughts. She was pouring juice with one hand and coffee with the other, and when she returned to the galley for refills, the women who'd cooked were busy washing plates, pot and pans. It was only when the Masters retired to their quarters for their ablutions that the women had their meal. They consumed the remains of the breakfast, but there was more than enough food and Justine insisted that everyone should eat enough to sustain them through whatever the day would bring. And even though there were no Masters present, aside from Justine's terse instructions nobody spoke. There were meaningful looks and insightful expressions, but the rule of silence was not once broken.

For the remainder of the morning, all of the women went about their household duties, again directed by Justine, who wielded a cane on backsides, apparently at random

pour encourager les autres

. Neither Jane nor Lydia was exempt. (For as Daniel had explained in Lydia's office, no woman in the house was superior to any other, all being equal in the service of the Masters.) Their chores, although tedious, were not onerous, because there were so many pairs of hands. But they worked in chains, to remind them (as if their nudity, the cane and the rule of silence were not enough) of what they were, and especially of what they were not.

Jane did not know what kept the Masters occupied or amused, but whenever one of them passed by the women would stop and stand at attention, eyes downcast; but if two came by, they knelt; and if more than two, they prostrated themselves on the hard, cold tiles. Now and then, one or more of the girls would be taken away, returning sometime later flushed and sweaty, trembling and dreamy-eyed.

Jane was now assigned to clean the Masters' bedrooms. Each was three or four times the size of hers (which was, in turn, luxurious compared to the quarters of other women, who slept on mattresses packed together). And when it was time to put away her broom and mop, it was Master Daniel who came for her. He locked her bracelets behind her back and took her to her cell. He tethered her collar to the ring on the wall, shortening the chain so that she was forced to stand erect beside the bed; and he freed her hands, but only to secure them overhead to the hook. And without a word he then went away.

Jane's climactic initiation into the Chaînerie was less of a ritual than she had expected, perhaps than it should have been -- almost callous in its consummation. She was visited by each of the Masters in turn. They made use of all of her openings, and although they were gentle (mostly), they showed no warmth or tenderness. It was as if she were an object, a receptacle for dispassionate lust. And while this left her untroubled (which was still something of a mystery to her), she felt a sort of pity for the males, that they were missing out. She had never felt so alive, so self-aware, to have them inside her, to be desired, taken, breached and infiltrated, to surrender to their power and penetration, to be their object and prey, and yet by her very presence in the house to be the mistress of her own destiny and the controller of the men's virile status.

Rachel brought her lunch, and was obliged to hand-feed her, with difficulty since Jane was now spreadeagled on the bed with wrists and ankles shackled to the four posts. Rachel did not have permission to use the key. Master Simon, her fifth or sixth visitor, had been the one to put her in this position, and that must have been satisfactory to the Masters who came after him, because she stayed that way, with her legs apart and her body open... as if any of the Masters required or demanded an invitation to enter.

Then they came again, in pairs and in threes.

It was Lydia who eventually freed her from her restraints. As Jane washed her face and cleaned the other parts of her as best she could in the hand basin, Lydia asked "Are you happy?"

"Yes," Jane replied. It was an odd question, and she expected a follow-up, but none came. But she did not care, because she was not yet ready to express her feelings about all that had happened so far, because she had not quite decided for herself exactly what these were.