Episode XVIII
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The women ran quickly along the hall, joining and being joined by many of the other women Doralea had met or seen.
All were excitedly cheerful and eager as they ran.
They came to an open door and the pace slowed as they entered the large room -- a vast sound stage -- the metal-truss rafters hung with par cans, fresnels and scoop lights; corners filled with neatly jumbled C-stands, gel-carts and flag racks; the walls crowded with large flats.
In the midst of all the equipment, standing beside a huge large format camera and holding a Hasselblad, stood a striking, tall woman.
Her open, farm-girl face and cheerful expression contrasted starkly with the black eyepatch which covered one eye.
A thin line, only slightly fainter than her skin, offset her left eyebrow, traced under the patch and re-emerged to slip over her cheek-bones, then fell in a gentle curve to flare widely as it spilled over her strong jaw.
A camera hung around her neck by a thin black strap and she wore a photographer's vest with many pockets stuffed with the accumulata of the trade.
Under the vest she wore a red, plaid flannel shirt unbuttoned for the length of her sternum, it was pulled open by the bulk of her out-standing tits.
The shirt-tail was tucked into a tight pair of daisy dukes.
Her legs, skin the color of wet sandstone, flowed from the short denim tubes like buck-wheat pouring from a silo and dropped in twisting column into a pair of square-toed, block-heeled, eagle-stenciled boots
She smiled and greeted old friends, delighted to be back in this studio, thrilled with the new faces and intent on getting the current job done.
Wheeled racks held many costumes of leather and latex, sheer and eye-let, hook and lace.
Whips, crops, chains, clamps and accouterments of all descriptions hung neatly sorted on peg-boards, hinged to open like huge books.
"OK, ladies, let's get to work. We've got three sets to get through and I'd like to be outta here by lunch." This woman, called Zach, quickly scanned the group of glowing female faces arrayed around her.
"Margaret, you -- you'll be perfect."
She pointed to a tall woman with a voluminous chest that Doralea recognized with a start as the torpedo-titted woman from the film.
"Grendel, please fetch that long whip there, and some spirit gum."
The short, square-faced woman who had been Doralea's guide, strode to the peg-board books and lifted a long, stiff, braided whip from the hook.
"Jean-Gail," the sharp-featured woman who had just been riding Gavia lifted her head, "wipe yourself off and squeeze into that polished ox-blood rig."
"You, and you and -- "' Zach pointed out the women she chose, "and you," she pointed to Doralea, "strip and powder.
We need these flats rolled over here, no -- just the stone ones, the one with the shackles here and the other two -- like so."
A flurry of activity followed on her command; every woman there was eager to do her bidding.
And she knew it.
The flats were rolled into place, a few set pieces were set and very quickly a dungeon was created.
Ashley's wrists and ankles were clamped to a large wooden X - her hands were stretched apart far over her head, her feet bound wide to a low platform.
She could have torn the set-piece down and escaped, but she was caught up in the excitement of Zach's energetic vision and stood, pinioned spread-eagled, waiting to play her part in that vision.
Doralea stood and watched as Lady Blue was clamped to one of the flats by the black iron-looking shackles, her soft breasts lifting their dark oval areolae as her arms pressed her kinked-blonde hair against her square cheekbones, her hands chained together over her head.
Her bare feet were left loose, lightly touching the platform, painted to look like granite.
Doralea was then led, completely naked, to a wooden post set into a rolling stage-cart, painted in greys, blacks and maroons to look like a single block of dressed stone.
Wickedly thin, darkly oiled leather thongs were lashed around her knees, then threaded through rings on the post between her shins and pulled tight, lashing her knees to the far side of the wooden pillar.
The same thin thongs were bound to her elbows and led through another set of rings, set into the platform. These bindings stretched her arms down along the thick post.
Its blunt end was shoved against her sternum, her tits parted by its bulk.
Finally, a thick collar with bright brass studs was buckled around her throat and fit into a cleat set into the top of the post.
The result of all this was to thrust her ass back sharply and remove any possibility of defense or escape, while allowing a wide range of movement for the attempt.
"That's right, keep that butt out --" Zach tested the tension on Doralea's wrists. "Does that hurt? Is it too tight?"
"No. It's OK."
"Well, OK. We're not trying to kill anybody here." She turned to talk to Grendel.
"The thing about this is the wire inside will hold its shape," she bent the end of the whip through a small arc, "and then you can take this on a brush and," she brushed a bit of spirit gum onto the whip and touched it to Grendel's arm, where it stuck, "there you are."
Zach pulled the whip and it held fast to Grendel's arm. "We will set up the action, the tension, it'll work fine."
She hollered up to some riggers, invisible in the cloud, the darkness above the lights hung high over head.
"Drop that pick, come on. Right here."
"Keep yer shirt on. We have to yoke from seventeen to twenty three. We're almost there," a distant male voice echoed from the overhead grid.
"OK, but we're ready now."
"Its happening now. Hold on."
As the short woman Zach had called Grendel used a large powder-muff on Ashley, Doralea watched the tall, soft woman from the movie, Margaret, get fitted with a stiff pair of black cuffs.
Her soft, smooth-skinned wrists were pressed together and the cuffs were clipped to a chain which snaked across the floor. This was attached to a wire cable hung from high overhead and lay coiled over a small gaff-tape "X" on the floor near the center of the "dungeon."
"HEADS!
Everyone looked up to watch a thin, black cord drop from the grid overhead.
A guy in a faded "Sturgis Run" t-shirt, his long, dishwater-blonde hair held back in a tail by a huge do-clip, moved quickly and smoothly to attach the cord to the end of the chain at the "X".
"HAUL AWAY!"
The cord immediately began to feed up into the darkness, pulling the chain.
Margaret ambled slowly over, following the chain, until she stood at the "X".
When her elbows were level with the top of her head, Zach yelled up, "Hold it there, that's good! Tie me off!"
The guy in the Sturgis t-shirt yelled up, "HOLD! MARK! TIE IT OFF!"
He waited, standing impatient beside the naked, chained torpedo-titted woman.
From above echoed, "FAST!"
Then the stage hand pulled down hard, testing the chain and, satisfied walked quickly back behind a flat.
Zach looked quickly around, "Where's Jean-Gail, come on, we're ready."
"I'm having a little trouble with this --" the woman with the Dutch-boy bob stepped from behind a flat, her form accentuated and constricted by the web of dark blood-colored strips riveted together into a tight-fitting corset-bustier which cinched her waist and smashed her soft tits against her ribs.
The lower edge, which now hung loose from her hips and draped behind her off her plump ass, was obviously supposed to link together somehow. Zach stepped to her and quickly and deftly made some adjustments.
"First off, this is supposed to be to the side," Zach twisted the whole affair about a quarter turn. She reached into the top of the rig and lifted the blonde's breast flesh out.
The ox-blood strapping crushed the lower curves of her tits against her chest, but lifted the central meat of her mounds and rigorously shaped it.
Zach reached between Jean-Gail's soft legs and grabbed the veil of straps which hung off the shelf of her ass.
She yanked hard.
"These come through here and through this D-ring. Lift. Lift your pelvis, forward and -- yes, like that."
The network of reddish straps spread wide over her large, soft ass and compressed it, molding it as rigorously as the upper part had her tits.
Doralea was amazed at the transformation the blonde had undergone: she was now a harsh and cruel leather queen, mistress of all she surveyed and conqueror of all who beheld her.
"OK, good, now, over here. You will stand here, turn that light, yes, good, not that much, back a little, yes. Now, Grendel, we'll shape the whip."
She led Jean-Gail over to where Margaret hung, and handed her the stiff whip.
"Stand here, arm up, like you were really going to lay into her. Margaret, hon, turn a little more -- away from us, yes, now, look back over your shoulder.
Lower that shoulder, the near one, please, yes, now look back and -- yes, yes, you see the whip and you know -- yes, you will be terrified. This will bend."
She reached up and smoothed both hands along the whip, imparting a sinuous path such as could be followed by a whip being cocked.
The braided leather held that shape and Zach quickly leapt to the large-format camera and checked her angle.
"Perfect. Everybody hold. Margaret -- you're about to get a vicious thrashing -- that whip will cut deep -- look scared --"
Margaret's face shifted to a frightened mask.
"OK, but looser. Other ladies, Ashley -- uh, you -- all of you -- you are involved, you are awed, scared, you know you may be next, but you're glad its not you now.
Come on, give it to me. Yes. Yes.
Blue, dear, can you turn - no, just your hips, point that one at me, yes, now get your shoulder back, yes, twist away, that's it, good strong twist, that's it, good everybody, good.
OK.