The Sisterhood Of Slaves Pt 05 1

"You are here to serve your masters. During the day, in connection with the maintenance of the household, you will perform whatever chores are assigned to you... But at the first word or gesture, you will stop whatever you are doing and avail yourself for what is really your one and only duty." -- Pauline Réage,

Histoire d'O

Lydia said "Come," and Jane followed her downstairs. She felt light-headed and she wobbled. Her legs were stiff and she ached inside. She wished she had been able to wash herself, because she stank of her own sweat and effusions intermingled with the men's. It was early afternoon, and everyone in the house had gathered on the lawn for the sport to begin. Each day the women of the Château played a different game, or if it suited the Masters any number of games. Some of the men had been busy during at least part of the morning, because a large wooden apparatus had been erected. It consisted of a rotary base with eight horizontal poles projecting as spokes from the axis, like one of those grinding wheels in an ancient flour mill. Sixteen slavegirls including Jane were assigned places, two on each of the arms of the device, and hitched into place. There were "eye" bolts screwed into the wood to which their bracelets were attached with short chains. The eight women on the outer part of the arm were linked by a rope that ran from the collar of one, down between her legs and cleaving her labia, to the collar of the girl behind her, and so on to complete the loop. The eight inner girls were connected the same way.

Once they were so placed, music began to play, and according to the tempo the gears in the machine changed so as to make the revolutions more or less difficult. This altered the rate at which the women marched in their never-ending circuit. The mechanism was so designed that each of the arms rotated independently, and the result was that if one pair moved too quickly for those behind to keep pace, the rope between their thighs was dragged deep into their crevices; but if they slowed down the tug on their collars signalled that they were doing the same to those directly in front. They could not bunch up to relieve the tension without someone in the circle suffering, and the result was that as they trudged round and round, they had to keep in a steady rhythm with their partners side-by-side and front and behind, which was made more demanding by the fact that they were blindfolded, and also gagged, so their only communication could be grunts and groans. The gags were of the whiffle-ball kind which made it easier to breathe but caused, in a very short time, uncontrollable drooling. For some reason she did not fully comprehend, Jane found this particular, absurd degradation to be deeply and intensely arousing. Life in the Château had that effect.

To allow them the full enjoyment of the rope's movement between their thighs and prevent it abrading the tender flesh, the women had been given small loincloths to wear. It was the first time that Jane had covered her most private part (or for that matter, any of her apart from the eyes) since she entered the house. Yet this was not for compassion; it meant that the game could go on for at least two hours. With just a minute of rest and a sip of water every half-hour, the women were so exhausted by the end that, once released from their harness, all collapsed beside the wheel. Yet the worst part had been the boredom; and it was perhaps the most appalling aspect of the infernal machine that it had no purpose, it did nothing but turn under their efforts and make a pointless tune. But the Masters thought it amusing; and Jane found her ordeal as exhilarating as anything she had faced so far; and she was proud that neither she nor any of the other slaves had faltered.

Given no time to recover, they progressed to the next game. By the end, Jane was sore and drained, humiliated and elated. She had laughed herself silly, shrieked until she was hoarse, screamed in agony and ecstasy, begged for mercy and cried out for more of these torments. No part of her, inside or out, accessible to the players was left unscathed. She was astonished at what her body could withstand and how her mind coped. She was happy when it was over, and saddened that there was no more, ashamed at what she had borne without resistance, proud that she had endured.

Around her, the other women were reacting the same way; but being blindfolded most of the time she found out nothing about them apart from what they had in common, that which made them playthings. And every now and then, as she sweated and shuddered and whimpered and groaned, she sensed that Master Daniel or any of the other men might be cringing, imagining themselves to be the ones naked and writhing chained upon the rack, thrashing about lashed to the frame, squirming under the grill, struggling with the weights, bracing against the onslaught of outlandish appliances and bizarre contraptions, dangling, doubled up, stretched out, prostrate, cowering, crying, crawling, stumbling, shuffling, hopping, jerking, gulping for breath, yelling defiance, choking back the sobs and gasps of pleasure. That also gave her a feeling of pride.

The last event of the day was the pony show. Each girl was equipped with bridle, bit-gag, and blinkers, harness, plume and tail, shackles and hobble. They raced each other round the gardens, pulling sulkies driven by the Masters. They pranced and paced, piaffed and pirouetted, cantered and trotted for the dressage.

When evening fell and the games ended, Jane accompanied the other women (all except Lydia, who had not been exempted from the games but remained aloof from her fellow slaves) to the communal shower, and revelled in the voluptuous stream of steam that washed away the sweat and the grime and the froth and all the other stains from her marvellous tribulation. Away from the watchful eyes of the Masters, there was some smiling and whispering. Some of the girls sudsed and scrubbed each other, and Jane was intrigued, and inspirited, by their affectionate tenderness. Such intimacy, she had believed, was reserved for those in the house whose body parts entitled them to rule.

After that they prepared dinner. The women were not given time to rest or relax. When one of the girls stopped for respite it was so that she could renew her best effort. As usual there was no speaking. Of course, the rule of silence did get broken now and then, but rarely for no good reason.

As Jane well knew, all were here of their own free will. They accepted and welcomed the impositions and obligations and compulsions, and anything else which the Masters ordained. There were punishments for disobedience, but Jane had so far had seen nothing but compliance -- abject and absolute. And what she discovered, often to her astonishment, sometimes to her dismay, increasingly to her joy, was that there could be pleasure and pride in such unqualified submission. Her experience had begun as a personal challenge, a test of her limits, a trial of endurance, a quest in search of herself. She had been promised an adventure the like of which she would never have imagined, a journey few people dared to take and fewer completed. She had not been disappointed.

In the evening, once the Masters had dined and the slavegirls had eaten, everyone assembled in the courtyard. All of the women except Jane were blindfolded; she was permitted to see that with which the others were already familiar. In the middle of the enclosure, a scaffold had been erected. From the horizontal beam were suspended three pairs of manacles. Jane shivered, and it was not just the bite of the cold air on her naked flesh.

In a low voice, Lydia explained why they were there. Two of the girls, Isabella and Natalie, had in same way caused offence to the Masters. But so that the third set of shackles should not remain idle, little Penelope, though not guilty of any transgression, had been selected, apparently at random, to share in the punishment. They mounted the platform trembling but looking resolute. Their restraints were adjusted so each was forced to stretch onto her tiptoes. After their whipping, they were left, their naked bodies exposed to the night air, their leg muscles strained and cramping. (Jane could hear their whimpering from well inside the house until late in the evening.)

When those three had been suspended on the scaffold, Justine and Sabrina were ordered to come forward. Each wore a frilly pink garter around her left breast. Jane had surmised that this was an award for pleasing the Masters in some special way, because she had witnessed Justine being conferred with hers shortly after breakfast. The tall dark girl appeared to be the slave most trusted by the men to keep the females in line. Sabrina, on the other hand, Jane knew only by sight. Elegant and dignified, intense and alert, she was the oldest person in the house -- aged in her late thirties or well-preserved forties. She radiated a vital energy which fortified the ingénue slaves and reinvigorated the veterans. Her manner and poise suggested, to Jane, a university professor (and perhaps she was, or had been). She seemed the most unlikely prospect for enslavement. But there was so much that Jane had yet to learn and to understand.

As she went to the drawing room to await the Masters, and the other women were sent upstairs, Jane shuddered at the shrill cries and ecstatic moans echoing down the passage leading from the courtyard. Justine and Sabrina were receiving their reward. The men were not yet finished with the three girls on the scaffold, either. Occasionally there was a particularly loud scream; and Penelope's high-pitched shriek was unmistakable.

***

"Was she no longer free? Ah! Thank God she was no longer free. But she was light, a goddess on the clouds, a fish in the water, lost in happiness." -- Pauline Réage,

Histoire d'O

She was kneeling with her back to the fire. Although blindfolded, over the crackling of the flames dancing amongst the logs she could hear masculine breathing, and the tinkling of ice in glasses being filled. No one had said anything at all since the men had come into the room. They were served whisky and brandy by one of the slaves. Jane recognized Caitlyn's sensuous voice purring "Yes, Master."

Jane was now ordered to stand up and face in the direction of the fireplace, away from the Masters. Her arms, which had been folded behind her back, were now roughly seized, and the bracelets locked together. The violence with which she was shackled caused her to lose her balance, and when the man who had done so released his hold, she toppled forward until she was kneeling once more. Someone grabbed a fistful of her hair and pushed until her forehead was pressed onto the floor; another man forced her knees apart. She felt the corduroy of his breeches brush against her buttocks. His large hands cupped her breasts, fingernails digging into their flesh; and she braced her body for the thrust.

All of the Masters in turn gave her the gift which her submission had earned. She could not tell how many there were because she had lost count of the number of times and ways her body was used. As before, none of her openings available to the Masters was denied their attention. Once again she felt the shame in being so wanton as to permit herself to be treated this way, indignation at what was done to her by these men whose entitlement was no more than to be what she was not, pride that she could still have these feelings and yet endure.

Halfway through, to relieve some of her discomfort -- or so the Masters claimed -- Caitlyn, who must have been waiting outside the room, was summoned once more. She lowered herself onto her hands and knees to serve as a sort of footstool, over which Jane was bent on her stomach, and then later was turned over to lie across the girl on her back (with her arms still pinned behind her, making it much less comfortable than was promised). And just when Jane thought they had finished, a surge of panic swept through her as the braided leather strands of a many-tailed whip slithered over her breasts and belly. But one of the men said "No, let her rest now." It was, she noted, not Master Daniel who had spared her. She lay on a soft rug, on her left side, her blindfold removed but her hands still locked behind her back. She was staring at the fire, not daring to look away. Behind her she could hear moans from the other girl. The Masters were not yet done with their pleasure.

A little while later, she went upstairs with Caitlyn (who was still trembling from her service in the parlour), not to her private room but to the dormitory, where all the slaves slept when not sharing the bed of a Master. Two dozen mattresses were laid out in two rows on the bare wooden floor, side by side and wall to wall. They were, if not as plush as that on which Jane had spent her first two nights, soft and scented, like a flower bed, like the naked bodies sprawled upon them.

Twelve women were already there; the others must have been performing chores in other parts of the Château, or perhaps waiting in the Master's bedrooms. The arrival of Caitlyn and Jane must have been a signal, for all of them immediately rose and stood in a single file in front of one row of the mattresses, facing towards the doorway, each with her head bowed, legs spread, arms folded behind her back, breasts pushed out and pelvis thrust forward, completely still and in absolute silence. When Cailyn took her place at one end of the row, Jane did as well.

They waited like that a long time, none emboldened to move or speak. It may have been an hour, perhaps more. Once, Jane heard movement in the corridor outside the room but, being at the far end of the line, she could not tell if, as she suspected, one or more of the Masters had come to check on them.

Only when the light suddenly dimmed did the women sink down onto their common bed, still without a word spoken. They all occupied one row of mattresses and Jane found herself not on the edge but in the middle. It was warm so there were no sheets or blankets. Yet they were forced to huddle on the limited space, their torsos and limbs interlocked and intertwined. And in the red half-light, she saw that some of the girls were cuddling even closer. They caressed each other's bodies with more affection than the Masters ever showed. Juliette massaged the tender flesh between Caitlyn's thighs that had been ravaged in the parlour. A girl whose name she had not yet earned began to fondle Jane's breasts, and she did not resist. She realized that there were lovers in the Château who had in common that which was the property of men.

***

"Keep me in this cage, if you dare. Anything that brings me closer to illness and the edge of death makes me more faithful. It is only when you make me suffer that I feel safe and secure. You should never have agreed to be a god for me if you were afraid to assume the duties of a god, and we all know that they are not as tender as all that." -- Pauline Réage,

Story of O

It was raining as Daniel stepped out of the limousine, just as it had been that night, almost a year ago, when he and his cousin had first passed through the gates of the Château Chaînerie. He strode briskly into the lobby, which was deserted but for a bored-looking receptionist, and took the lift to the top floor. He was greeted by the ever lovely Gabrielle, who offered him coffee or something stronger (both of which he declined) and accompanied him to the lounge.

Jane and Lydia were already there. They were both naked, their clothing folded neatly on one of the armchairs. As soon as he had sat, Lydia knelt before him, kissed the ring on his finger and, with his nodded permission, opened the zip of his trousers. She bent forward between his legs to perform her duty. Neither was Jane deprived of the honour of providing her service, for Steven, Lydia's other assistant, had followed Daniel into the room.

Once they had paid their tribute, the women took their seats. Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his. He felt tiny beads of perspiration leaking from his brow. These meetings rarely went well for him. Lydia and Jane never raised their eyes to connect with his, but downcast they glistened with a familiar steely resolve. He didn't need to see them to know that.

"If I may begin..." Lydia began. "The first item is a review of the memberships and apprenticeships."

Daniel sucked in a nervous breath. He hated this part. "Again? Is it necessary?"

Jane, her impatience ill-concealed, passed across to him a single piece of paper. Below the purple-and-gold letterhead, with the familiar § motif of the Chaînerie, was printed a short list of names. Next to some were small green ticks, against others large red crosses.

Neither woman spoke, nor lifted her head, as Daniel scanned the list, stroked his chin and nodded his assent. He knew that there was no point in discussion, let alone argument. His silent partners would remain that way, reverently and insistently mute. Yet these reviews were becoming a serious issue. Since he and Jane had first gone to the Château, as the number of Masters dwindled the demands of the slavegirls had become insatiable.