Chapter 45 The Kneeler, the Cane, and the Bloody Corsage
Chapter 45 The Kneeler, the Cane, and the Bloody Corsage
In response to Richard Chan's taunt, Dao stared at Qieu's face intently
for some seconds before nodding his head in recollection. "Aye, sire, I think I
remember now. I broke the new bamboo cane in that night, I think -- the one from
the Hunan marshes."
"Precisely, Dao. And a fine weapon it proved to be, did it not?"
"Aye, that it did. Fifty solid strokes and it hardly frayed a bit.
You know," Dao added conspiratorially, anxious to get on more friendly terms
with his august master, "When I first saw her tonight she looked familiar. But
her hair is much longer now."
Qieu remembered the odd glance Dao had given her when she had opened the
door. And she remembered the cane too -- how could she not? She had felt its
cruel cutting bite on her tender flesh from her shoulders to her knees.
The silver-robed tyrant paced back and forth thoughtfully in front of
Qieu. "Let me see. How long has it been, Miss Wu? Three years? Or is it
four?" "George, I should say... in fact I would wager, that she still bears a
certain scar on her right shoulderblade. Do you remember that stroke, Dao?
And three, no, make that four scars on her bottom. There were ... let's see...
two nasty cuts on her upper right thigh. There were two more -- deep ones -- on
her left breast, and a nasty gash across her belly. Here. And Richard Chan
gestured from a point just below Qieu's right breast down across her midriff and
ending on her left hip.
"Well, George, what do you say? I'll wager you my '87 Chateau Lafitte
claret against that Mouton Rothschild that you prize so highly that she still
bears that scar on her shoulder... running obliquely across the scapula. Like
so." Qieu shivered when George Chan drew a line with his finger across the back
of her right shoulder.
George considered the wager for a moment. Was it really possible that
his brother could remember the location of this girl's worst injuries three
years and countless female dungeon-victims later? He was sorely tempted to make
the plunge. The 1787 claret was such a precious prize, being nearly a century
old. The Bastille had still been a mighty prison-fortress and Louis XVI had
still had his head when its grapes had been picked. And the crowned heads of
Europe had been drinking that estimable vintage ever since. His Mouton Cadet
from the house of Baron Rothschild was a treasure, without question, but it was
hardly of the nearly priceless quality of the Chateau Lafitte. His greed got
the better of him.
"Done!" said George. "Dao, let's see her shoulder."
"Right. Right away sire." And the hulking Scorpion stepped behind
Qieu, inserted a short-bladed knife into the fabric of her crimson collar and
proceeded to slit the fragile silk downward with no more difficulty than he
would have had tearing a withered scroll from the T'ang Dynasty.
"Mpfffghh ... mpfghh..." Qieu begged into her gag. She had spent many
hours making that dress in order that she might please her husband. And this
brainless thug had turned a beautiful work of domestic art into nothing more
than a colorful scrap of fabric in less time than it took her heart to beat
twice.
Qieu heard the sound of fabric ripping again and then the cool air of
the dungeon on her bare back. The scarlet silk had split open, baring Qieu's
gracefully tapering back down to the upper terminus of the appealing buttock
cleft which peeked seductively at her captors through her sheer undergarment.
The tear in the fabric also revealed a thin diagonal scar running across her
shoulderblade, in precisely the position that Richard Chan had predicted.
"Incredible!" George Chan marvelled that his brother could remember the
worst gashes of a flogging that he had administered three years ago. "I shall
send the Mouton by tomorrow, my brother." He regretted his loss of the wager,
but the girl, he was compelled to admit, was not easy to forget. Her black
hair, which swirled around her head in a an ebony cocoon, was lustrous, and
brilliantly set off by the flame-red hibiscus she wore behind her ear. And her
eyes, though bright with understandable fear, were alert, intelligent, and
soulful. And her body...
George's speculations about Qieu's body were aided when Dao dragged her
back to her feet. Sensing the inevitable, Qieu tearfully turned her back toward
the Brothers Chan as Dao continued to shred the back of the crimson robe that
she had finished that very day in order to please her new husband. And it was
these same scars, of course, that had inhibited her from being intimate with her
husband. How to explain them? She even feared that he might think that her
beloved father had been responsible for them.
In a moment Dao had slit the back of her gown from collar to hem, and
only a flimsy wisp of white silk protected her shapely bottom from the
licentious stares of the fraternal titans of the Black Scorpions.
"Would you care to double up on our bet, George?"
"No, thank you. I have lost enough tonight. But let us see if you are
right again. You said, 'four scars on her bottom', Richard, I think? Let us
see if your memory is as sharp as Dao's blade. The rest, Dao!"
Gaptooth ripped at the sundered silk, and ripped it apart all the way
to the hem, revealing Qieu's nicely curved legs. The silky-smooth thighflesh
was marred by two faded, but noticeable striations high on her right thigh, just
as Richard had foretold. It was these thin ridges of scar tissue that Luk Yee
had felt when he caressed her on the preceding night.
"Just as you said, sire," Dao muttered, shaking his head in admiration.
And then, as if to prove his master wrong, he seized Qieu's flimsy undergarment
and ripped it apart, baring as lovely a pair of bottomcheeks as one would ever
want to see. Branded with four faint ridges, marks left by his own bamboo cane,
nearly forty months ago. Dao's manly cock stiffened in virile pleasure at the
sight.
**********
Had it been that very morning that he'd been at the Pit? Slamming Ci-ci
violently against the edge of the trough, spreading her baby-soft buttocks and
forcing his mighty truncheon into her fuckable young bottom? His cock throbbed
in remembrance, as if the lovely pigtailed maiden's rectal muscles were still
clenched unwillingly around it, fighting every centimeter of his penetration,
but succumbing, inch by spasming, ass-clenching inch to his punishing anal rape.
He had only been inside her sweet, clutching rectum a scant thirty
seconds before his blood-rich organ was ripe for orgasm, but somehow he had
contrived, by an immense effort of will, to defer his climax nearly a quarter of
an hour. Fifteen minutes during which he had thrust deeper and deeper into her
cock-grabbing ring with a rapacious violence unusual even for a veteran of a
hundred such assaults. He had fucked the whimpering beauty with an ape-like
savagery, ultimately jamming his mighty prick into her so hard that his simian
balls hurt from their innumerable violent collisions with Ci-ci's sweet young
buttocks. Dao had once witnessed the mighty Feng thrust his fleshy broadsword
in and out of the unwilling rectal scabbard of a round-bottomed young girl from
Kowloon for an hour to win a bet. He had thought then -- and still did -- that
it was remarkable that even a man-beast like Feng could persist in such an
ass-fucking marathon without abandoning himself to the consummate pleasures of
climax.
But this morning, when his volcanic lust had finally erupted several
inches deep inside Ci-ci, he had extracted his slimy, swollen cock-shaft from
her well-fucked bottomcheeks and flipped her around in the trough so that she
faced him. Only then had he seen how his ferocious butt-plundering had driven
her tender breasts into the splintered end of the trough time and again. The
pink globes, still inflamed from the scalding cataracts of water that had
drenched them repeatedly, were criss-crossed with swirls of blood.
His dwindling cock had begun to revive at the sight of the thin streams
of breast blood, and he had stuffed his still-dripping maleness into her pretty
mouth then, forcing her to cleanse his manhood by exchanging her sweet saliva
for the foul rectal juices and slimy seed which coated it. But even her
degraded cock-licking did not assuage his lust. Rather, it had inflamed it anew
and he soon began to thrust his pulsing thick-veined manhood deeper and deeper
into Ci-ci's warm girlish throat, choking her with his length and girth. He had
lasted even longer in her mouth than he had in her cock-hugging bottom, perhaps
half an hour, as he had throat-fucked her with thigh-thrusting vigor while she
lay pinned helplessly against the inclined edge of the wooden tub. And when he
had come, in a shuddering semen-shooting climax, and pulled away from her, he
realized that Lin the Drooler was standing directly behind him, stroking his own
firm erection, ready to pick up where he had left off...
********
Qieu's nude buttocks, whose curved contours Dao had just bared, were in
no way inferior to the bottom-ovals he had pillaged this morning. Like Ci-ci's,
Qieu's derriere was plump and rounded and deeply cleft; perhaps Feng's death had
not been such a bad thing for him after all, Dao mused. Not if it meant that he
was going to be Richard Chan's most trusted 'bodyguard' and be entitled to a
greater share of these delicious female spoils of war.
"Miss Wu," continued Richard Chan, who, having won his bet, was now in a
high good humor. "That color," referring to the scarlet of the gown hat Dao had
ripped to shreds, suits you admirably. But then," he added with a wink to his
brother, "I always think that red looks good on a woman."
George beamed knowingly at his older brother; if the girl did not
cooperate, it was altogether likely that she'd be wearing a fresher, more
sanguinary shade of red quite soon.
Qieu, who well knew the savagery of which Richard Chan was capable,
turned to face him, holding what was left of her hand-made gown bunched together
in front of her. Her heart pounding in her chest, she decided to confront him.
When Richard Chan saw that she wished to speak he motioned for Dao to
strip away her gag.
When the scrap of fabric had fallen away, Qieu addressed the brothers
who appraised her semi-nudity with lust-filled eyes. "Why have you brought me
here again? My father has done nothing to interfere with your dealings."
"It pains me greatly Miss Wu," Richard Chan began sardonically, "to
inform you that you have a most lamentable taste in male relatives. A few years
ago your father earned my wrath with his foolish obstinacy. For which you paid
a severe price."
Qieu looked at him not speaking; his words were certainly true.
"After your father's change of heart, I bore neither of you any ill will
whatever. Have I harmed you in any way since?"
"No." And indeed he had not. But as she stood there trembling Qieu
asked herself the same questions she had been puzzling over for an hour. Why
had they come for her husband? How was Li Chang connected to this? Why was she
here?
"But you, you were not content to forget our little altercation, were
you?" Richard Chan's voice had grown darker, edgier. "You took it upon yourself
to marry one of the leaders of those who oppose us. And no doubt incited and
assisted his sedition."
"Luk Yee a leader? A leader of what?" Qieu's voice showed genuine
surprise. "He is guilty of nothing more than being a student. Or he was until
the death of Professor Leung."
Richard exchanged glances with his brother; the girl did seem genuinely
taken aback. On the other hand, the idiosynratic individualism of the
hunchbacked professor was well-known; it had come as no surprise to the Chans to
learn that some of the troublemakers had learned their rebelliousness at the
feet of that notorious free thinker.
"Do you deny that your husband was a friend of Li Chang?"
Qieu did not understand -- what did Li Chang, her husband's best friend,
and an honored guest at their wedding, have to do with the Chans?
"Yes. I mean, 'no'. We both knew Li Chang. What of that?"
"Miss Wu, your pretended naivete annoys me. Dao! "
"Yes, sire."
"The Kneeler. And be quick about it. Perhaps that will loosen her
tongue!"
********
Five minutes later, the silken-haired wife of Luk Yee found herself
shackled to the Kneeler. The Kneeler resembled a long, narrow, thick-sided
crate, about a yard long, a foot wide, and about two feet deep. The sides or
rails of the sturdy rectangular crate were fashioned from blocks that were three
inches wide and ran the length of the crate. Three heavy iron rings were mounted
in the rails on either side of the crate.
Qieu's ankles were fettered so that she knelt across the opening of the
narrow crate, with her widespread ankles shackled to a pair of rings which were
spaced about two feet apart. Her pretty bare feet were spaced about a foot to
the left and right respectively of the central, as yet unused, ring, and
pointed toward the grim dungeon floor. Her lower legs spanned the open middle
of the crate, so that her knees rested on the three-by-three that formed the
upper edge of the far side of the Kneeler. Qieu's wrists, too, were shackled,
and each was elevated directly upward by a chain affixed to a stout rafter
overhead.
She had only been kneeling on the three-by-threes for thirty seconds
before both her ankles and knees were aching -- her entire weight pressed
downward against the only parts of her shapely body that were supported by the
sharp rails of the diabolical crate.
But it was not her ankles and knees that gave Qieu her greatest concern;
Dao had stripped the ragged remnants of her red dress away, leaving her naked on
the crate, her kneeling body held upright by the chains that lifted her arms
heavenward. Her dark-tipped breasts, wearing the striations Richard Chan's
unerring memory had predicted, and her exquisite pleasure-nook, topped with a
delicious tangle of silky black pubic hairs, were once again frankly displayed
to her captors. Or at least to one of them -- Dao was now out of view
somewhere behind her. But the Lord of the Black Pagoda stood directly before
her.
George Chan had lingered until Qieu had been stripped of her scarlet
gown, his dark eyes raping her nudity, but then he had made his excuses
explaining that he had an assignation with Ming-tsu in a short time. So now it
was Richard Chan alone who stood before her, pensively admiring Qieu's charms.
His thin-slitted eyes, that had known the nude bodies of a thousand maidens,
compared hers to the numberless females whose delights he had sampled in the
past. The fact that he had remembered her flogging so well spoke volumes about
the high regard in which he held her youthfully slender figure.
Qieu's breasts were not overly large, but they seemed to have been
crafted to perfection by some lustful god, high and close-set, perfectly round
and yet perfectly pointing, capped by a delicious pair of quivering mahogany
tear-drops. Her belly was no less perfect, the bones of her lower ribcage
pressing gently against her beautiful skin, her navel a deep-etched jewel of
loveliness. Her torso tapered to a tiny waist, before swelling into womanly
hips; midway between her rounded hip-curves was the vertex of desire between her
legs; with her knees widely splayed, the puffy folds of Qieu's labia seemed to
beckon Chan's hands and mouth and manhood to explore the treasures hidden within
her lovely portals of desire.
But it was not of her delicious body that Richard Chan spoke first.
"Such a lovely flower," he began, inclining his face downward toward
her head so that he could inhale the fragrance of the tropical hibiscus. "And
such a vibrant shade of red. I am gratified to see that you share my interest
in botany, Miss Wu. On your last visit, I believe that I introduced you to one
of the many uses of our native bamboo. This evening, I would like to continue
your botanical education. Dao is holding a slender cane made of the denxia wood
of Borneo. Perhaps you have heard of it? No? A pity. The indigenous people of
that island use it to make bows for their archer-warriors. Because its wood is
both extremely hard and extremely flexible. Dao, why don't you demonstrate for
us?"
"WHISHHKK!! "Aaaaaghhhhh!!"
Dao had struck her viciously across the backs of her naked thighs, a few
inches above her knees, causing Qieu's body to jerk in agony and her chains to
rattle. Richard Chan was pleased to see that Dao's very first stroke had
brought tears to Qieu's almond-shaped brown eyes.
"Although you were not in a position to see, a denxia cane, properly
swung, seems almost to bend slightly when it is wielded, giving it a most
unusual and effective snap when it finds its target. Would you not agree?"
Qieu nodded her headed silently; her thighs were on fire -- after only
one stroke from the atrocious cane.
" I regret that you can not see the cane's flight at present; but
perhaps you will have a better vantage point to study its path later on."
Qieu shook her head from side to side fearfully. "A better vantage
point" could only mean that the dreadful instrument might soon be flashing
toward the front of her unprotected body.
Richard Chan merely smiled his thin-lipped smile at her demurrer. I must
say, Miss Wu, that you look most charming indeed on the Kneeler. So vulnerable,
so naked, so beautiful. I think, Dao, that henceforth I shall call it the
Nanking Kneeler, in honor of Miss Wu and her native city."
Pleased by his own generosity of spirit, The Lord of the Scorpions
continued, "Now that you have felt the bite of the denxia cane, perhaps you will
tell me what I wish to know." His smile vanished, and his voice rasped out,
"What do you know of your husband's dealings with Li Chang?"
"I know noth.... "
WHISCCKK!! "Auggghhh". At an almost imperceptible nod from Chan, Dao had
whipped the slender rod across her honey-gold legs again, halfway between her
trembling knees and her nicely curved buttocks.
"Do not lie to me, Miss Wu. Can it be coincidence that the daughter of
Cheng Wu should marry this conspirator?"
"Please...you must... believe... He does not even know that...."
THWICKK!!! "Aaaarrghhh!!" The gaptoothed thug had ripped the cane into
the pleasingly rounded juncture of Qieu's thighs and buttocks, leaving a third
red streak across her nicely curved legs.
The Lord of the Scorpions leered at his nude captive. Each of Dao's
vicious strokes caused her perfect breasts to jiggle gently on her slender
frame. Richard Chan felt his cockshaft stiffen with pleasurable anticipation.
For a moment he was tempted to wrench the cane from Dao's hands and lay a thin
stripe across her bobbling love-plums himself. But there would be time enough
for that later. In his dungeons, time was ever the ally of the Lord of the Black
Pagoda. And forever the enemy of the long parade of young women who had been
whipped, raped, and tortured for his pleasure.
"He does not even know what, Miss Wu?" Chan hissed. "You speak in
riddles."
"That I... that you..."
WHICCCCKKKK!! "AIIIAAHH!" The lovely wife of Luk Yee felt her bottom
erupt in pain.
"Speak, woman ... quickly ... the truth."
Qieu looked up at her tormentor; even though the air in the dungeon was
of a nipple-chilling coolness, she could feel perspiration beginning to trickle
down her face and body. "I never told him about....what happened here before.
I was afraid that he would not love me ... if he knew..."
The elder Chan gestured again. THWICCCKKK!! "Aaaghh!" Her buttocks
were ablaze.
"You insult me, Miss Wu. You feared that your treacherous scum of a
husband would not care for you if he knew that my filthy hands had enjoyed your
charms first? Is this what you are telling me?"
"Y-yes...No... " THWICCKKK!! "Eeyaaaahhh!! ....please... no..."
WHHICCCKKK!!!! "Aaaaaiiiiiiaaahhh!" Behind her Dao was grinning
through his crenelated teeth. The last four blows had been to Qieu's quivering
bottomcheeks, each one ever so slightly harder than its predecessor. A most
effective tactic that he had learned from Feng -- the subtle, inexorable
escalation of pain hung over a victim like a cloud of doom. Causing a dreadful
anguish that stemmed from the victim's ever more certain conviction that no
matter how violent the stroke just endured had been, the next one would be even
worse.
Richard Chan strode around behind the girl on the Kneeler to see the
results of Dao's efforts so far. "The denxia wood seems to have made quite an
impression on you, Miss Wu," he said with a sardonic sneer. And indeed their
were already four livid lines that straddled her buttock-crease, and three more
across her sleek golden thighs.
Qieu hung in her chains, her nude breasts rising and falling with every
labored breath; in between blows the dull ache caused by the Kneeler added to
her woes.
"Please...my husband does not know ... that you... you brought me here
before... I was ashamed to tell him."
"Very well...Then tell us what you know of Li Chang."
"Nothing...nothing at .... THWICKKKK!!! "Aaaaiiaahhh!!"
"Foolish, stubborn woman. I see we shall need to take harsher measures.
Dao, take down her hair."
The gaptoothed man gave the Lord of the Black Pagoda a puzzled glance,
but walked around in front of Qieu and held the denxia cane out horizontally in
front of her with his left hand, making it clear that she was expected to take
it submissively in her mouth. When Qieu merely glared at him, the gaptoothed
Scorpion spanked her smartly across the left breast with the palm of his right
hand, causing her to jerk backward in chain-rattling pain. Grimacing in pain,
Qieu did then accept the instrument of her torture into her mouth, while Dao
proceeded to clumsily remove her rather intricate series of hairpins.
The first of these liberated the fragrant red hibiscus flower from its
position behind her left ear.
"Let me see it, Dao."
Dao, mystified, handed the Master of the Scorpions the flower while he
proceeded to undo the rest of the hairpins. When the last came free, Qieu's
long straight tresses tumbled down to the shoulderblades that protruded gently
against the smooth skin of her back.
Richard Chan turned the flower over in his hands. "It would be a shame
to deprive you of this ornament, Miss Wu. But let me see...Yes the stem looks
thick enough..." Then the silver-robed mandarin turned toward Dao. "Take her
hair and pull it together in a pony-tail."
The gaptoothed thug, unused to the ways of coiffures, bunched Qieu's
hair obediently.
Richard Chan, still holding the flower, stalked across the dungeon
toward a small wooden cabinet. Then without looking backward he gave Dao
further directions while he opened the door to the cabinet. "You will find a
reel of twine cord on the south wall. Cut a yard from it and knot it around
Miss Wu's ponytail. Tightly."
After obtaining the desired length of cord, Dao encircled Qieu's pony
tail twice, knotting it securely, and leaving two feet of string dangling from
her hair. Meanwhile Richard Chan continued to open a series of compartments in
the cabinet.
"Ah, here we are. I was sure that I had one down here."
Qieu watched in trepidation as Chan fiddled with the flower briefly
before retracing his steps and taking his position in front of her again, his
hands clasped behind his back. "The French have quite a way with flowers, Miss
Wu. Have you seen not their diplomats' wives with their ornate corsages? No?
Je regrette beaucoup. But it is quite a lovely custom, ma cherie. It involves
fastening one or more flowers to a woman's gown."
Richard Chan smiled a chilling smile, while his eyes ravaged Qieu's
ripe-breasted nudity. "Oh, ma foi! -- I nearly forgot, you're no longer wearing
your gown, are you? Cela ne fait rien, my dear. It makes no difference. We
shall make do quite nicely without it."
Qieu's soft brown eyes followed Richard Chan's right hand, as he
withdrew it from behind his back and made a conjuror's pass through the air
before her eyes. When his hand at last stopped moving she could see that it
still held the fragrant crimson flower. But there was something in the flower's
stem that caused it to reflect light from the glimmering torches in the dungeon.
And then she saw it. A sharp-gleaming inch of silver needle protruded
from the hibiscus. Looking upward at her tormentor, she noticed that Richard
Chan's were dark and malevolent and seemed to be mesmerized by the dark
chocolate tip of her left breast. And his right hand was moving, with the utmost
deliberation, toward the object of his fascination.
Qieu began shaking her head wildly from side to side sending her chains
rattling and her new pony tail flying. "You can't ... no... for the love of
heaven..."
"Since you are married, the left breast would be appropriate, would it
not?"
The ruler of the Scorpions cupped her the rounded fullness of her breast
in his left hand, while Qieu rocked back and forth in her chains.
"Hmmm. Miss Wu -- If you are to wear this lovely corsage I have
prepared for you, your nipple will need a bit more -- elan." Smiling
maliciously, Richard Chan held the dull rounded length of the needle beneath
Qieu's nipple-bud, and then flicked upward, scraping her dark pebble briefly and
then quickly back downward. He repeated this stimulating exercise a few times,
and then, holding the needle point upwards, he flicked her love-nugget back and
forth from side to side, watching carefully as her breast-tip gradually
thickened in response to his touch. He continued on in this vein for another
minute or so, teasing the brown nipple-crest until his gentle stimulation caused
it to thrust toward him yearningly."
"Lovely...very, very lovely. Now, ma cherie, I think you are ready for
your corsage." Then, his face a mask of cruelty, his eyes as dark and deadly as
those of a dragon, Richard Chan's right hand, bearing its diabolical fleur de
mal, inched toward the quivering nipple-bud of Qieu's left breast...
