Chapter 10
He couldn't get away. His lungs were on fire, his vision blurred by the sweat
that matted his hair and poured down into his eyes. Every step was pure agony,
and only the knowledge of what would happen to him should he finally be
overtaken gave him the strength to keep running. But when he glanced over his
shoulder, the harshly gleaming torches of the pursuing officers were if anything
a little closer. Their cold light shone on glossy black boots and bright steel
belt buckles, and on the pitiless handcuffs that would pinion his wrists as they
dragged him away. The hard-looking brunette woman in the lead caught his eye and
twisted her lips into an unpleasant smile, as though she couldn't wait to get
her hands on him and make him regret trying to run.
Edwin Sanderson tried desperately to find some additional reserve of strength,
to run just a little faster, but he was too close to the edge of exhaustion. His
toe caught some unseen obstruction in the darkness, and he stumbled and nearly
fell. Now his pursuers were so close that he could hear their pounding footsteps
and their gleeful voices as they shouted encouragement to one another. He
tripped again and this time fell heavily, crying out in terror as much as from
the sudden pain. He couldn't find the strength to push himself back to his feet,
but he lurched forward on his hands and knees, blind to everything but the
frantic desire to escape. He whimpered as he heard a cruel feminine laugh from
behind him, horribly close, and then felt a heavy boot slam into the small of
his back and drive him to the ground. Rough hands seized his arms and pulled
them behind him for the cuffs. The brunette grabbed him by the hair and bent his
head back till he was staring straight into her stony grey eyes.
"Got you now, you little fuck," she hissed. "We're going to have lots of fun
together, Ed. We know all about your little secret, don't we, ladies?"
"Please, no," he moaned, but another of the officers was already pulling down
his pants. They flipped him over, so he was lying on his cuffed hands, and then
the brunette reached down and jerked his underwear down to his knees. His penis
jutted up from between his quivering thighs, hard and erect and almost gleaming
in the bright glare of the torches. One of the women nudged it with the toe of
her boot, and laughed. "Yes Ed, we know your secret. Soon everyone will know."
* * *
"Ed, Ed, wake up. Please wake up."
He opened his eyes and took a long, shuddering breath. He was lying in darkness,
his penis stiff and his body bathed in sweat. But his hands were free of
confining steel, and the naked woman leaning over him was certainly not a
conscription officer. He reached a hand toward her and she caught it in a tight,
comforting grip.
"Was it the same dream? The one with the soldier women?"
"Conscription officers, not soldiers," he corrected slowly, fumbling for the
Greek words. The nightmare and the shock of sudden waking had left him
disorientated and inarticulate. "But yeah, it was the same dream. They chased me
down, and caught me."
"I don't know why it worries you so much," Demetria said, in a tone of concern
rather than exasperation. "You're safe here. They can't touch you."
"I know they can't. It's just - oh, you know, I can't stop thinking about it.
What might have happened, if I hadn't managed to find a way to sneak out of the
country. Or if the Orthodox Church hadn't decided the conscription system was an
affront to human dignity." That was, of course, among the main reasons the Greek
government - like many eastern European nations, but in contrast to most of
western Europe - had objected in such strong terms when Britain had begun taking
young men into custody. As things stood, he couldn't imagine the Greeks allowing
him to be actually seized and hauled back to face conscription in his own
country; the public outcry would be enormous.
"But it didn't happen," she said gently. "You got away. You can stay here as
long as you need to, until your government admits it made a mistake. It has to
happen eventually."
"I'm not so sure. Have you been reading the papers? Or looking at the internet
coverage? Nearly half the British public say they're satisfied with
conscription, and another twenty percent or so are unsatisfied only because it
isn't harsh enough. New Zealand just became the latest country to send a
fact-finding mission to Britain to look into the feasibility of setting up their
own system. It's the most successful British invention since the concentration
camp."
"The Americans still haven't decided one way or the other. They're the ones who
really matter."
"Oh, they'll come around. They just have to get over their annoyance at not
having thought of it themselves. Have you heard about the voluntary conscription
camp in Florida? Apparently men are paying through the nose to be locked up and
pushed around by brawny women in uniform. And they're working on getting another
one set up, with male officers."
"Why would a man pay for something like that? Even a crazy American?"
"They seem to find it sexy. I guess I can see the attraction. Being naked in
front of the women, having them touch your body and watch you even when you're
sleeping or showering or on the toilet, just knowing you're completely in their
power. Being hurt by them, having to do stupid, pointless things just because
they say so. It's a masochist's paradise, really."
Demetria sighed. "I don't know about the Americans, but they're just playing at
it. I've seen the real conscripts on the internet, the ones in the English
camps, and they don't look like they're having much fun. Oh, I know they get
turned on sometimes when the officers play with them, but that's just to
humiliate them. The stiffer their cocks get the more they blush and squirm."
"Sounds like you've been keeping a close eye on things," Ed grinned.
"It's all your fault," she giggled. "I've acquired a taste for naked
Englishmen." She leaned close and kissed him in that light, flirtatious way of
hers. Ed was beginning to feel much better.
"But if you go looking through the archived footage on the conscription website,
you'll see what I mean," said Ed. "There's this one clip in particular of a guy
being taken into custody - that Asian tennis player, Mavinder somebody, who
seemed to think he could get out of it just because he's such a celebrity. I
suppose they posted the clip to show how impartial they were. Anyway, it's
pretty rough. You see these two policewomen storm into the hotel room where he's
hiding, pepper spray him, handcuff him, and drag him kicking and screaming into
the back of a van, with a couple of other prisoners. It skips ahead to the
police station, and you see them go through a bit of paperwork and then take the
men into a bare little room for their strip search. They take off their cuffs,
and then this absolutely enormous blond woman yells at them to get their clothes
off. Mavinder refuses at first, so she slaps him around until he decides he'd
better do as he's told - it doesn't take long. But when he pulls down his pants
you see his penis is just rock hard, and dripping right there on the floor of
the strip search room. Everyone laughs, even the other conscripts, and Mavinder
bursts into tears. And then the clip ends. But I'm sure the whole process of
being handcuffed and dragged to the station and beaten into submission when he
wouldn't strip turned him on, no matter how much he might have hated it. That's
the kind of thing I'm talking about."
"I'll have to look for the clip sometime," she murmured. "So what about you, Ed?
Does it turn you on? Do you secretly want the big, tough conscription officers
to drag you to the station and make you take off all your clothes?" Her voice
dropped to a whisper. "Is that why you always wake up from that dream with a
huge erection?"
"Yeah, maybe. I - it sounds so silly, but - I just don't know. Does it matter?
They can't come after me here anyway, you said so yourself."
"I want to find out. Here, Ed, close your eyes."
"Demetria, is there any point to this?"
"I just want to understand the way you really feel about all this. Now imagine
you and I are sitting downstairs, maybe relaxing after you get back from
teaching your English lessons-"
"Demetria, I really -"
"Shh. And they burst in. Big women, strong women, maybe three or four of them.
Blond, like the one in the video clip. Really tough bitches. They tell you to
come with them, but you don't want to, of course. You're frightened. So they
grab you, right there at the dinner table, and drag you to your feet. One of
them pats you down while another puts handcuffs on you, tighter than they need
to be. I watch, but I know I can't do anything to help you. They drag you to a
car waiting outside, and bundle you in. They laugh when you try to struggle,
maybe give you a slap or two to make you quiet down. They tell you there's a
plane waiting at the airport, and that you're going to be locked up safe with
the other boys in just a few hours, naked and helpless. But it's a long way to
the airport, and they decide to have a bit of fun with you. One reaches inside
your shirt and pinches your nipples, just to see if she can make you squeal" -
and Demetria actually did pinch him, though not very hard - "and the other one
in the back seat with you sticks her hand down your pants, and finds..." Her
hand closed suddenly around his very hard, very stiff penis. Ed gasped.
"Okay, I'll admit it sounds kind of sexy when you talk about it like that, but
if it was actually happening -"
"Maybe you'd like it even better. Should I call that place in Florida?"
Ed laughed nervously. "I doubt they'd even let me into the country. And besides,
that's just the Disneyland version of conscription."
"The what?"
"A simplified, sanitised adaptation."
"Oh. But I think we have to do something about this, don't you? Dreams are
supposed to be a reflection of our desires, as well as our fears. Will it really
take cuffs around your wrists, and welts on your bottom, to make you happy?"
"I'm happy here, Demetria. I like Athens, in spite of the smog and the traffic."
"You're happy, except that you have sexy nightmares about conscription officers,
and spend half your free time watching men being abused on that stupid website.
Don't try to tell me there isn't something wrong."
"What do you want me to do?" he almost snapped. "Go back and turn myself in? I
couldn't stand it. They'd see - they'd see how I reacted to it, and God knows
what they'd do then. Yes, you're right, I have fantasies about being locked up
and tortured by women. But they're just fantasies. I know the real thing would
be completely different. That's why I knew, from the moment they announced
conscription, that I had to escape it one way or another. I just had to."
"And you did, of course. But you didn't escape me."
"What?"
"Shut up." She grabbed his wrists, pinning them above his head; he could have
broken free if he'd really wanted to, of course, but that was the last thing on
his mind right then. She climbed on top of him, and her tone became very
peremptory. "All right, boy. You want to be a captive? You want to be a
plaything? Let's see if you can please me."
If her moans and gasps of pleasure were anything to go by, he could please her
very well indeed. She released his wrists almost at once, but he kept them in
place, imagining she had bound him; it added an extra spice. Afterwards he found
himself falling back asleep very quickly, fears and fantasies of pursuing
conscription officers forgotten. His drowsy mind only barely registered the
sound of Demetria slipping out of bed and padding barefoot over to the desk
where he kept his computer. And his telephone.
* * *
"You did what?" snapped Connie Tipper. She was almost trembling with rage.
"You heard me," Claire replied levelly. "I helped Lady Briddington take off his
belt, so she could play with his penis and then make him pee in the bowl."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this! And then what? Don't tell me she really made
him drink it?"
"Yes, of course she did. That was the whole point, to make him do it. Don't look
at me like that! Would you rather I lied to you?"
"I'd rather you hadn't helped that sadistic maniac torture my son in the first
place. How could you, Claire? How could you?"
"It was the only way I could help him, as I've only told you about ten times
now. If you'd just shut up and -" Claire broke off and took a deep breath,
suddenly ashamed of herself as she saw tears well up in the other woman's eyes.
This wasn't at all the way she'd imagined the conversation would unfold; she had
expected Richard's mother would be rather grateful that she, Claire, was doing
her best to act as a restraining influence on Lady Briddington. Maternal
instincts, she reflected, could be very inconvenient things.
"Listen, I know it sounds awful," she continued in a much more conciliatory
tone, "but you have to believe me when I say it isn't half as bad as what she'd
been doing to him on her own. Richard told me that every night she would tell
him to urinate in the bowl and then drink it, and when he refused she would give
him electric shocks through that awful control belt until he was screaming and
writhing around on the floor. He was just a victim, an object for her to take
out her frustrations. Now she's begun to see that there are other possibilities
- ways she can enjoy him beyond seeing how loud she can make him squeal."
"What's she going to do? Rape him somehow? Make him drink her piss next, maybe?"
"Maybe. But so far it hasn't been anything that extreme. I've been over there
twice since my first visit, and I'm sure Richard's finding it much more
bearable. He still gets his bottom smacked a lot - she does get a thrill out of
inflicting pain on a man, and I don't think that's ever going to really change.
But she also spends a lot of time playing with his body, and making him pose for
her and do humiliating little tasks. Last weekend she had him all dressed up in
some sort of frilly maid's outfit, polishing the silverware. Quite adorable,
really. It makes him feel like a slave, but I wouldn't call it torture. It's the
kind of thing I hope he'll do for me when he's released."
"Oh, really? Claire, I hope you know what you're doing. I've always imagined
Richard marrying a kind, decent woman who would have no desire at all to treat
him like a slave and enjoy his degradation. If you want to be together, I don't
see why you can't just get married and settle down somewhere instead of playing
these - these perverse games."
"Because he needs a firm hand. I suspect most men do, when you get right down to
it. That's one thing Lady Briddington and I agree on - we're going to do our
best to make sure Richard never becomes the kind of husband who spends half his
paycheck in the pub and the other half on some girl he met there. It's built
into the conscription system, really. When a man's released he's supposed to be
humble, self-disciplined, and automatically deferential to the women in his
life. Lady Briddington's going to give Richard a double dose of that kind of
indoctrination, so that he'll need and want me to take charge of his life from
the moment they give him his clothes back and send him home. But I promise I'll
take good care of him and make him happy, even if I have to punish him once in a
while."
"Punish him?. I still don't like the sound of all this."
"You can see Richard anytime you want this month, you know. Why don't you talk
to him about it? And to her ladyship, for that matter. She can be prickly and
arrogant, but she isn't so bad when you get to know her. Maybe you could even
give her some training suggestions."
"I don't know if I can help enslave my own son. It just seems - wrong."
Claire shrugged. "Do you think your husband would be happier if he got into the
habit of doing what you told him?"
"Well, of course, but -"
"But nothing. It's something to think about, isn't it?"
* * *
"No, you can't finish the chapter! One more word and you can spend the night
hogtied. Come on!" Amanda grabbed the man - a conscript Matthews, she believed -
by the arm and shoved him into line with the others, giving him a crack across
the arse for good measure. A bare week into her two-month stint at Cambridge
University's newly established Advanced Centre for Behavioural Studies, she was
already getting fed up with the way the lads here took liberties and seemed to
expect the best of everything. The researchers insisted that the background
conditions be as stress-free as possible, so as not to confound their
experiments; the men were still kept naked when indoors, but were decently fed
and allowed plenty of free time, and were paired up in fully furnished cells
instead of being made to sleep in the comfortless dormitories that were usual
elsewhere. It was luxury, and it went to their heads. Only the often brutal
character of the experiments themselves kept Amanda from feeling that the place
made a mockery of the whole system.
She and the other officer on duty, a svelte woman called Annette who looked more
like a fashion model than a conscription officer, marched the boys straight to
the cell block. There was no need for last minute trips to the bathroom in a
facility where the cells all had toilets, sinks, and even toothbrushes and
electric razors. Annette lined them up for a quick count while Amanda checked
the monitor set into the wall opposite the line of cells.
"Goldsmith and Andrews, you're coming downstairs with me," she announced. "The
rest of you into your cells. Move!" A single button locked all the doors for the
night; the lights would dim automatically twenty minutes later, though remaining
bright enough for the officers to check on the men visually during their routine
patrols. One of the few strict rules here was that they had to lie quietly in
bed for the full eight-hour sleeping period, to keep them rested for the
experiments.
Amanda turned her attention to the two men who were still standing nervously
against the wall. She curtly gestured for them to turn around, then handcuffed
them, pulled black cloth hoods over their heads and chained them together by the
ankles before taking Goldsmith by the arm and leading them off down the hall.
Conscripts sometimes became very difficult to control when they were brought
into the lab area, and it was best not to take any chances.
A short elevator ride brought them to a cheerless underground corridor lined
with steel doors. The labs were all more or less soundproof, but occasionally a
door would swing open and a moan of pain or babbled plea for mercy would echo
down the hallway.
"Where are we going, ma'am?" Andrews asked worriedly.
"Shut up! Don't be such a baby - you know they won't actually damage you."
A bespectacled woman in a long white lab coat came storming out of one of the
labs, her face flushed and exasperated. She nearly bumped into the blinded
Goldsmith, and gave Amanda a murderous glare.
"Watch where you're going with those boys, would you?" she snapped in a crisp
American accent.
"I'm sorry, doctor. You came out of there rather suddenly."
The other woman sighed and ran a hand through her tousled greying hair. She
looked harried, like a kindergarten teacher on a day when the kids just won't be
quiet. "I'm sorry. It's been a long afternoon. The electrodes kept coming loose,
and now I've got vomit on my lab coat. I wouldn't have thought it was possible
for a man to spew that far."
Amanda wasn't quite sure what to make of this. "No problem," she replied. "I'm
supposed to be taking them to Room B-18. Any chance you could help me find it? I
haven't been here long."
"Obviously not. B section is three floors up. You'll find the doors clearly
numbered."
"Doesn't "B" stand for basement?"
"No, it's behaviour, as in modification of. I think B-18 is where Krista does
her phobia induction work."
Amanda grinned. "Thanks. Sounds like you're in for an interesting evening, boys.
Let's go."
There were three women already gathered in B-18, a very imposing auburn-haired
Amazon of an officer and two researchers. One was a frail, white-haired creature
who might easily have been in her nineties, the other a vivacious brunette
hardly older than Amanda herself. The brunette came forward at once.
"Finally! Let's get them strapped into the chairs to start with. We'll give them
a half-hour or so to get settled before we start applying stimuli. Those
restraints will have to come off, of course." She directed Amanda and the other
officer as they guided the unresisting men into heavily constructed chairs and
buckled their arms and legs into place. There were straps for the biceps,
thighs, chest, shoulders and forehead, as well as the wrists and ankles;
obviously they didn't want the men even twitching. Once they were secured the
brunette came forward herself to blindfold them, put headphones over their ears
and sensors on their forearms, and finally force a gag into each man's mouth.
When Andrews wouldn't open up she gave him a peremptory slap, as though quite
used to dealing with that sort of thing.
"We want them helpless and silent, but also relaxed," she explained. "The
headsets will play soothing music, as well as preventing them from hearing our
conversation, and they'll get a light massage from the chair. Once they've
calmed down we can start the stimuli."
"Stimuli?" Amanda echoed.
"Various sounds, most of them quite normal. Running water, people talking, car
engines, animal noises, that sort of thing. The idea is to apply moderate pain
in association with one particular sound, so that the subjects develop a fear of
the sound itself. We've already learned that this is quite feasible, to the
extent that our best subject actually bursts into tears and becomes physically
ill when he hears the blast of a whistle. Unfortunately, he's such a nervous
wreck that he'll be unusable till he's had a few days recuperation. We want to
induce similar auditory phobias in these men, and then see if they'll also
respond to visual cues associated with the sounds. For instance, a few hours of
training over a period of two days should get Goldsmith here to the point where
he displays a very nice terror response to the sound of a barking dog, meaning
measureable physiological cues as well as overt signs like crying, pleading and
trying to break loose. But how will he respond when shown pictures of dogs? Will
his subconscious automatically link the image to the sound, and therefore to the
terror response?"
Amanda was intrigued despite herself. "So how do you produce this "moderate
pain"?"
"Oh, that's Camellia's department." She nodded to the big officer; it seemed
absurd that a six-foot woman with arms like a gorilla's should have such an
effete name. "It actually works better if you vary the exact pain stimulus a
bit."
"Usually I just squeeze their bollocks," said Camellia cheerfully. "Or strap
them across the thighs. I pinch them with pliers when I want to surprise them."
"Camellia should be able to manage, but you're welcome to stay and help if you
have time. It shouldn't be too long before we're ready to get underway."
"Sure, why not?" She was officially off duty for the evening, and this sounded
interesting. "I'm Amanda, by the way."
They shook hands. "Margaret, but everyone calls me Mags. My colleague there is
Izolda, sort of a consultant."
The old woman at the desk waved vaguely. "Much pleasured," she said warmly in a
thick accent that Amanda couldn't quite place.
"Would you like a cup of tea while we're waiting? Or maybe a quick tour around B
section? Camellia can keep an eye on the subjects."
"A tour sounds great. I've only been here a week or so, and I'm curious to know
what kind of research actually goes on around here. Does it all involve
inflicting horrible pain on helpless young men?"
"No, not by any means," Mags replied as they stepped out into the hallway. "You
wouldn't believe how restrictive university ethics committees have become in
recent years. Placing human subjects in any kind of stressful or embarrassing
situation is usually out of the question, whether or not it involves actual
pain. It's ironic that a number of psychological studies that are now regarded
as textbook classics - Zimbardo's prison experiment, for instance, and even
Milgram's work on deference to authority - would never pass muster by today's
standards. Fortunately, these men are slaves, so the standard guidelines are
greatly relaxed. We can hurt them, humiliate them, sexually abuse them, and mess
with their minds all we like, as long as we don't do any permanent damage.
Needless to say, the phobias I induce are more or less cureable.
"So to answer your question more specifically, our experiments run the gamut
from mildly unpleasant to sheer torture. Here in B section most of the
experiments are designed to put the men in an unusual situation and determine
how it affects their behaviour over a period of days or weeks. In there, for
instance" - she nodded to door B-7 - "we have men locked in cells that are
really quite comfortable, but soundproof and totally lightless 24 hours a day.
It seems to be gradually altering their activity cycles."
Amanda was more interested in a window a bit further down the hall, through
which she could see what looked like a comfortably furnished sitting room. There
were three naked men lounging on sofas, each with an officer seated beside him.
All six of them seemed to be calmly conversing.
"What's going on in there? Are they having some sort of break?"
Mags chuckled. "Far from it. That room has developed a very sinister reputation
among the conscripts, believe it or not. Just watch for a few minutes - it's
one-way glass, of course."
Amanda did, puzzled. For two or three minutes, nothing seemed to be happening.
The officers were all talking and laughing quite animatedly, the men nodding
along and apparently contributing much less to the discussion. Then one of them
slouched lower in his seat, and his head sagged forward toward his chest. The
officer beside him immediately slapped him hard across the face, and forced him
back upright. She shook his shoulders and seemed to be speaking to him harshly,
then went back to the conversation as though nothing had happened. Amanda looked
at Mags in utter bemusement.
"They're being kept awake," Mags explained. "It's been almost seventy-two hours
now. They're not allowed to nod off even for a second. If the last couple of
runs are anything to go by, we should be getting hallucinations and panic
attacks very shortly. At that point the men get put in restraints, and we start
using more robust measures to keep them awake. Spraying them with cold water
usually does the trick, or one can put a knotted thread through a nostril or
earlobe and tug on it as needed." Amanda imagined the sudden, tearing pain, and
actually shuddered.
Mags gave a short laugh. "Nasty, isn't it! That was Izolda's idea. She's been a
great help in designing many of these experiments. She's one of the few people
in the country with practical experience in this sort of thing, you know."
"Practical experience! Where on earth could she have picked it up?"
Mags actually glanced up and down the hall before answering in a hushed tone.
"We try not to talk about it too much. She's originally from Budapest, but let's
just say she got her degree at the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin in the
mid-nineteen-thirties, and was based there for the first decade or so of what
has been a brilliant career in experimental psychology. She's really a very
nice, grandmotherly sort of person, and she has all kinds of wonderful ideas for
things we can try with the conscripts."
"I can imagine. This must be a fun place to do your research."
"Oh, it's a wonderful opportunity. We have women from all over the world working
here, eager to do things their own countries would never condone. Over in this
room, for instance, we're trying to alter sexual behaviour patterns. We have a
dozen very masculine, heterosexual men locked up together in a luxurious little
suite full of homoerotic pornography, with absolutely no privacy. They're nude,
of course, and they just can't get away from each other's bodies - the toilets
are in full view, and there's only two very big beds for the twelve of them,
with no blankets or anything to hide under. In the beginning they'd take turns
sleeping, or some would go on the floor, but now they all curl up together quite
happily. I don't think it'll be long before it starts to look like a Roman
bathhouse in there."
"At which point I suppose you'll have them dragged back to the cell block, where
there are rules about that sort of thing," laughed Amanda. "Pretty diabolical.
But do you go the other way? Try to get faggots interested in women?"
"Oh, of course. Although that actually seems to be a little more difficult,
oddly enough. We'd like to try bestiality, too, but even here we're not allowed
to do that. It would violate the rights of the animals, you see."
"Life's full of disappointments. Even so, this sounds like it's going to be an
interesting place to work."
"Are you here long, then?"
"Until February. Then I'm supposed to go help train conscription officers. We'll
need more and more as men continue to enter the system, until we release the
first batch and the numbers level off. We have a contingent of Japanese ladies
joining us, too, so that they can go home and start up their own conscription
system."
"I suppose they practice on actual conscripts?"
"Yes, but not right away. They start their training by turning themselves in at
Intake Centres, and for the next week we take their clothes away and treat them
just like conscripts. It's supposed to give them an understanding of what it
will be like for the men. Afterwards they get physical training, and learn
proper techniques for handling the conscripts and taking them through the daily
routine. At first they practice on each other and male volunteers, like we had
to, but after a couple of weeks they'll be ready for real conscripts."
"Did you go through all that? Being treated like a conscript, and everything?"
"Oh, of course. Only I was part of the original recruitment of conscription
officers, so when we went to the local Intake Centre there were female prison
guards and soldiers waiting for us. It seemed almost like a game at first,
getting frisked and checked in and hearing all sorts of dire threats about how
miserable they were going to make our lives. They sounded like drill sergeants
in a bad war movie. Even when I was being strip searched and put in chains, I
didn't really take it seriously. Things were happening so fast, there was hardly
time to be frightened. But then we had a long ride to the training camp, and I
was sitting there on the bus beside another naked woman with the chains digging
into my wrists and ankles, and suddenly my nose started to itch. I wanted to
scratch it, but I couldn't, because my hands were cuffed to a belt around my
waist. I think that was when I realised what I was really getting myself into. I
couldn't get over the thought that there was absolutely nothing I could say or
do that would make them let me take care of that damn itching; it was such a
little thing, and it made me feel so helpless. And after that - well, it was
pretty bad. I guess we had it a bit easier than the men do, because after all it
was other women ordering us around and punishing us, but even so it was pretty
tough. And humiliating. This greasy lesbian prison guard took a shine to me, and
I had to put up with her groping and pinching me every time she had a spare
moment. It's funny, though - now that I'm the one who gets to do the groping and
pinching, among other things, I'm glad I had to go through all that. It gives me
a sense of how all this feels to the men, and of course I can use that against
them."
"I'm still glad I never had to put up with it, thank you very much," Mags
smiled. "It sounds even worse than being an undergraduate at Oxford. But you can
take an indirect revenge on the lads - it's time we were getting started."
Back in the lab, Mags checked the sensors. "Nice slow pulse... even
respiration... not sweating much... they're fine. Amanda, why don't you take
Goldsmith, and Camellia can have Andrews. We're going to play a random sequence
of sounds for the next couple of hours, and every time the target sound comes up
- that's the dog for Goldsmith, and a ringing telephone for Andrews - that red
light on the headset will go on. That's your cue, Amanda, to start hurting
Goldsmith, and keep hurting him until the light switches off in four to six
minutes. Like Camellia said, you can strap him, pinch him, squeeze his genitals
- whatever you like. You might want to keep an eye on her at first, to get the
right level of intensity."
"And keep pain constant while light on," Izolda broke in from the desk. "Very
important. It change, you maybe weaken link with stimulus. Hurt him steady."
Amanda grinned. Strapped into his chair, Goldsmith looked so vulnerable, so
perfectly naked. His body was lean and tanned, and tight with muscle. She could
hardly wait to dig her fingernails into those heavy testicles, that thick stubby
cock with its tuft of stiff black hair. It was too bad about the gag; when she
punished a man, she liked to hear him squeal. But when the red light finally
came on, and she grabbed his soft, warm scrotum in her hand and twisted it
mercilessly, she discovered that desperate squirming and muffled whimpers were
also very satisfactory. And she couldn't help but feel a thrill of sheer, savage
delight when tears began to leak from under his blindfold. It was going to be a
long, unpleasant evening for conscript Goldsmith, and he knew it. She just hoped
the dog whose recorded bark warned him of impending pain happened to be a bitch.
* * *
Lady Briddington lay awake in her canopied bed, her mind awhirl with strange,
disturbing thoughts. Her crippled legs prevented the usual tossing and turning
of the restless, but she had subtler ways of expressing her disquiet: plucking
and pulling at her satin nightdress, and twisting the bedclothes into hideous
tangles. She would have to call Sara to straighten them if this went on much
longer.
It was the boy, of course. She simply couldn't take her mind off him. When he
had arrived she had thought he would be a pleasant diversion, and perhaps (she
now admitted to herself) an outlet for certain frustrations. She had not
expected that he would come to lurk constantly at the back of her thoughts, or
that he would rekindle feelings so long repressed that they now seemed unwelcome
and almost alien. Earlier that evening she had had Ms. Bonner and Ms. Reynolds
bring him up to her sitting room, where she and Sara had been preparing for an
exquisite little game, hiding twenty or so sealed envelopes in the unlikeliest
places they could think of. Richard had been divested of his control belt and
made to kneel and rub his nasty thing until it was hard, a ritual that seemed to
humiliate and frustrate him as much as it fascinated her. And then he had to
crawl around looking for the envelopes, with Ms. Bonner and Ms. Reynolds
hurrying him along by smacking his thighs and buttocks with riding crops from
downstairs. Oh, how frantic he had been as he whimpered under the blows, and
squirmed desperately to avoid them! And the henchwomen were appropriately
merciless, never letting up for a moment. When he had found an envelope he had
had to carry it back to her in his teeth, and wait while she opened it and read
the message inside. Some of them had called for him to be spanked, others for
teasing and rubbing his nasty thing, or for those cruel little clamps that he
seemed to hate more than anything else to be fastened on his nipples. Lady
Briddington had carried out all the punishments herself, with great enthusiasm.
At first he'd been brave, but as the pain and humiliation accumulated he'd
sobbed and whined about the unfairness of it all until she'd threatened to have
Ms. Bonner gag him. But there had been one envelope, very cleverly hidden inside
a copy of the collected works of the Bronte sisters, with instructions for Sara
to put his nasty thing inside her mouth and suck on it till he spurted.
It had taken him a long time to find it, but in the end he had succeeded,
although only after going through almost all of the punishment envelopes. In her
mind's eye she could still see him lying pinned on the floor between Ms.
Reynolds and Ms. Bonner, literally trembling with anticipation as Sara knelt
down beside him and slowly lowered her lips to his throbbing shaft. She
carefully swept her long chestnut hair out of the way so that Lady Briddington
could see her mouth pumping up and down on his nasty thing, her fingertips
tickling his scrotum, and finally the white milky stuff oozing from between her
lips as Richard moaned and bucked in place. And Lady Briddington had felt -
peculiar, warm and flushed with a kind of tingling deep in her belly, the way
she felt when Sara gave her those special massages that strayed onto her breasts
and bottom. The way she felt now, lying in bed remembering. It was sexual
arousal, of course - that was what it was called - but knowing the term didn't
mean she had any idea how to deal with it. It was like seeing the name of a
disease in a medical book. Asking Sara about it was out of the question; there
were some things one simply did not discuss with servants.
What had she used to do, when she was so much younger? Her breathing became a
little faster as she hitched up her nightdress and rested her hand at the
junction of her mangled thighs, feeling heat and moisture and the luxuriant
softness of her bush. Curiously, she pressed down a little, and suddenly gasped
and twitched so hard she sent bolts of pain shooting through her legs. She
started a tentative rubbing, exploring herself, and was shocked at the sounds
she found herself making. It was Richard's hand down there, or perhaps his
lips... Yes! Ms. Bonner was behind him, caning him, and she could feel every
moan and whimper of pain in the spasmodic movements of his mouth. He was trying
desperately to please her, knowing that the caning wouldn't stop until she was
satisfied. She was moaning, biting at the sheets - and suddenly Richard was
gone. She was lying in another bed she remembered, a hospital bed, and a big,
sweaty man was on top of her. She was struggling desperately, but he was too
heavy and too strong, and he only laughed at her frantic attempts to push him
away. She couldn't fight him, she couldn't even scream, not with a meaty gloved
hand clamped over her mouth, and he was suddenly crushing her, crushing her
ruined legs, and fumbling between them, and his nasty thing was pounding at her
like a battering ram, and she was bleeding, and she couldn't scream, and he was
laughing and grunting like a rutting baboon under that hood, and she wanted so
badly to get away. He was a monster, a brute, like the filthy drunkards who had
found her moaning under the rubble and run off with her necklace and handbag
instead of trying to help her. Hours more had passed before rescue had finally
arrived, and days after that before they'd been able to get her out of India and
into a decent English hospital. The earthquake had left everything impossibly
snarled up. Were there any men anywhere who weren't brutes, now that her father
was dead? She wanted to be dead. It hurt, it hurt, and she couldn't scream...
And Lady Briddington did scream, over and over until Sara came running to her
bedroom. It was horribly embarrassing, especially since Sara couldn't possibly
have missed the tell-tale wet spot on her nightdress as she straightened the
covers and tucked her mistress in with solicitous care. But the girl didn't say
a word, bless her, and climbed right into the bed and cradled Lady Briddington
in her arms until she finally fell asleep.
