It wasn't long after I had been whipped by Katrina that she learned that Bethany had altered her memories and manipulated her into hating me. Katrina requested permission to meet with me in private. After negotiating with Princess Bedrohlich, a meeting was arranged.
I was led by two castle servants to a candlelit chamber and tied spreadeagle between two tall, wooden posts. I was then told to expect a visitor and I was left all alone in the room. I stood there with my legs spread and my arms outstretched. I was left waiting like that for what seemed a long time. Were they playing some sort of sadistic game with me? Or were they just really disorganized? I wasn't sure. And I had a lot of time to wonder about it.
When Katrina arrived, she took one look at me with my wrists and ankles bound, my naked body vulnerable, and she immediately decided to untie me.
"They explained it all to me," Katrina said as she untied one of my ankles, "Princess Bedrohlich and Anna and Magier. Wow, I didn't believe them at first, but Bethany did something to me. She wiped my memory with some sort of.... well, something like the neuralyzer that they use in the Men in Black movies... only something mystical, not technological."
"The trickster stone," I replied as she began to untie my other ankle.
"Yes, the trickster stone," she replied. "I'm so sorry I whipped you. Bethany tricked me. I thought you were a horrible person. But those were just false memories. I am so, so sorry."
"So, did you really have a crush on me back in high school?" I asked.
"Oh, that part was real," she assured me, "I really did have a crush on you, but I was way too insecure to do anything about it.
Then Katrina attempted to untie my wrists, however, that proved to be a challenging task. Maybe it was the fact that my wrists were raised up at least ten inches above my head and thus were above Kat's eye level and she had to reach to fiddle with the ropes. Whatever the reason, she kept trying and failing to undo the knots.
"Dammit," she swore. "Why'd they tie you like this anyway?"
Kat looked exasperated, and then with shaking hands, she pulled out a prescription bottle from her purse and popped the cap off. She extracted two small, white pills and popped them into her mouth.
"It's sort of traditional," I replied. "If a slave doesn't have a task where she needs her hands, they're usually tied or manacled or bound in some way."
"But why make you a slave in the first place?" Kat asked after she washed her pills down with a large gulp from her bottled water. "Isn't slavery supposed to be a punishment for something? You never did anything bad enough to deserve this, did you?"
I sighed heavily and gave Katrina a look. Sidhe society could be barbaric and cruel. She seemed too civilized to be spending any amount of time in a Sidhe kingdom.
"I didn't do anything bad to be sentenced to slavery," I explained. "One of my ancestors made a deal centuries ago with Princess Bedrohlich to make sure he and his family would be protected from the plague. As payment, he had to agree that some of his descendants would become Princess Bedrohlich's sexual playthings."
"What? No way!"
Kat exclaimed and then a series of follow up questions were tossed at me. She thought it was terribly unfair that Albrecht's offspring were paying a price for his protections from the plague centuries after he died. Kat was a big believer in fairness, and she felt that it was unfair for me to be paying off a debt for an ancient ancestor that I had never even met.
I shifted my weight from one foot to another, squirmed and worried I might get into trouble for telling Katrina unflattering truths about the Sidhe, but I felt something of an emotional connection to her, and felt she deserved to know the truth.
"When the Sidhe make deals with humans, it's important to pay attention to the exact wording of the deal. Briefly, it will seem like you're getting a great deal, but the Sidhe are tricky. They'll word things so that there are loopholes that allow them to take advantage of the humans they deal with."
"They sound like conmen," Katrina replied.
"Don't ever say that to their face," I advised, "They act all courtly and polite, but if you insult one of the Faerie people, and they take offense, they'll likely bring down some sort of horrible revenge down on you. It's never a good idea to piss them off."
"I hate to see people mistreated," Katrina replied as she gave me a sad look, "And I'm sorry I whipped you and said all those mean things. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you that won't piss off Princess Bedrohlich or any of the other faeries?"
I rubbed my face against my upraised arm and shyly avoided eye contact. If she genuinely wanted to help me, I could think of one thing she could do to make my captivity more pleasant.
"Well, to be honest, the worst thing about being a slave in Verborgen isn't the spankings or the whippings or the bondage. It's the orgasm denial. We're kept in a state of constant sexual arousal, but orgasms are strictly rationed. Most of the time, my clit is so hard and swollen that it feels like it's going to burst."
"Oh, Candice," Kat said, her voice thick with sympathy, "I didn't know."
"They even keep our hands bound at night so we can't touch ourselves. There's a constant need between my legs that's almost never fed. So, if you could maybe do something to alleviate that..."
I let the sentence trail off, but Kat was smart enough to understand what I was requesting.
"Are you sure?" Katrina asked, "I want to help, but with you tied up and helpless the way you are, I'd feel like a sexual predator, like I'm taking advantage of a helpless victim."
"It's okay," I assured Kat, "I'm giving you permission."
Kat was still hesitant; however, she couldn't help but notice how my pubic lips were very visible, plump and glistening with moisture. And then I gave her my sad look and said, "You're not going to leave me in sexual distress, are you?"
"I suppose I couldn't leave a friend in sexual distress, could I?" Kat finally responded and then she got down on her knees and placed her face near my crotch.
I spread my thighs apart in a blatant invitation and sighed deeply. I panted and my chest heaved in anticipation. Kat looked up at me and gave me a nervous look, but I think there might have been some excitement mixed in somewhere with her nervousness.
With more verbal encouragement from me, Kat worked her tongue into the gap between my labia. She worked it in deep. She started off with slow, probing licks.
My blood sang in my veins as Katrina's tongue brought me closer and closer to orgasm. My whole body was feverish with lust and then she pulled her mouth away from my pink slit, looked up at me and said, "You taste good."
My heart was pounding in my ears and most of the blood in my body seemed to be circulating through my loins. My brain's ability to understand words was greatly diminished. I had no idea how to respond to what Katrina had just said.