'You’ve borne it before, kitten.'
'Oh, but only when I’ve been very, very bad. I’ll howl terribly.'
'I don’t mind,' said Mark simply. 'You can howl too if you want,' he added for the benefit of his new slave girl.
'Thank you, master,' Dorinda felt inadequate to the whole situation.
His sister wept reproachfully. 'You could cane my bottom,' she suggested.
'You’ll like it.'
Fresh tears. 'It still hurts like billy-o.'
'So does this one.'
'Couldn’t I be locked up?'
'With your slave girl, I suppose. Nice.'
'All right then, you horrid thing. Alone.' It was the ultimate concession.
'For how long?' Mark sounded interested.
His sister tensed hopefully. 'All night?' she tried tentatively.
'I was thinking more in terms of weeks. Say four?'
'Oh Mark, you’re teasing.'
'With really heavy chains. I’ll go and get the cell ready.'
Once more they were alone. The new whip had been left where both could see it. Dorinda shivered. Not after yesterday. She prayed. Not the whip again…
'I think he’s up to something,' Terry observed sagely. Her tears had disappeared. She was able to wipe her wet cheeks on her raised arms.
'Sounds awful,' Dorinda mourned. 'Do you think it’s better than being whipped?'
'Not four weeks in chains! He never kept me in a cell that long. A week at the most. If he hadn’t come in and whipped me often I’d have gone crazy even with that. It’s awful just to sit or stand with nothing to do. I was sort of hoping he’d toss us in together for maybe a couple of days. Even if he did put some chains on us it would still be fun.'
Mark came back and released them. They were quivering and anxious to please. 'Stand back to back!'
They obeyed, wondering.
He passed a chain round their middles and heaved it very, very tight so that they both gasped at the conrtiction that welded them as one. A padlock snapped. They would not release themselves.
'There you are, ladies. I couldn’t bear to part you.' He picked up his whip, the handcuffs and the bits of rope and disappeared into the house.
'The absolute rotter!' Terry’s vehemence held both relief and anger.
Two pais of hands sought the chain that joined them. They found it unsympathetic. 'I suppose it’s better than being whipped?' Dorinda vertured doubtfully.
'It’s because of what I made you do,' the youthful captive wailed. 'I know him! Thinks of all your wek point. Then that’s where you get it. He’s done a bit of thinking here. I suppose you realise we can’t do anything… for fun, I mean.'
'The thought had occurred,' Dorinda admitted dryly. 'But I’m also wondering what happens now.'
Nothing happened. That was their punishment. With a bit of practise they managed slow and cautious motion. They were not denied their hands. If they came upon Mark in their handicapped perambulations, he affected to notice nothing wrong, passed a polite word ot two and left them to their own devices. Neither girl dared utter a word of complaint. Their motto was ‘leave well enough alone’. Both remembered the whip. It was still around somewhere.
Dinner was formal at the appointed time. They ate it standing, taking turns to twist this way or that as their need arose. Amity did not raise an eyebrow. Mark maintained a politie conversation to which they responded woth equal gentility. She was sure the servants guessed their sin.
Their night was pure frustration.
'Cute bit o’stuff, ain’t she?' Dave enthused. 'Nice clean lines, but a bit foul in the mouth.'
He was a young man, cheerful of mien with a sly eye. The female to whom he made reference was an angry damsel partly attired in a torn and dishevelled pant suit
Her hands were tied on her back. She glared furiously at the small welcoming committee. 'I’m going to make trouble over this,' she informed them darkly.
'Name’s Mabel,' Dave vouschafed. 'Got more threats than a dog has fleas.'
'Fuck you,' Mabel dismissed him and turned her attention to Mark. 'Untie my hands, you silly bastard. Don’t just stand there.' She turned her back and offered her bound wrists confidently.
'He’s the bloke that bought you,' Dave jeered. 'Ought to be polite to him, you ought.'
Mabel looked uncertainly over her shoulder. 'Aren’t you going to untie me?'
'I’m in a good mood to gag you as well.' Mark was amused
'Do you realise I’ve been kidnapped?'
'Of course. I placed an order for you.'
Bafled Mabel turned to the two girls. 'You in on this?' She examined the naked Terry’s shaved pubic hair. 'Your twat alwys been like that?' she asked incredulously.
Dorinda had been ordered to resume her expensive habilment which Terry approved as making her ‘a slinky sex-pot’. She made a vivid contrast to her happily bare companion. It earned her Mabel’s puzzeld attention.
'You his wife?'
Feeling a bitch for compounding the newcomer’s bafflement, Dorinda held up handcuffed wrists and smiled sweetly. 'We’re just slave girls. Same as you,' she responded innocently.
'I want to go home,' Mabel affirmed without dubiety.
'You’re home now, you silly bitch,' Dave told her helpfully. 'Proper little harem old Mark’s got. You’re a damn lucky girl if you ask me.' 'Nobody asked you, you grinning arsehole,' the guest told him conversationally. She obviously had no confidence in her abductor, so gave her attention to her new owners. 'Drugged me, he did. Two days ago I woke up on his damn boat. Now look at me. Where the hell am I?'
'You’re on an island.'
'Oh gawd, and I can’t swim!' Deflation was evident. She called on her reserves. 'Okay. I ain’t no bleedin’ nun. How about if you all screw me and let me go?'
The generous offer met only silence.
'Show her your bottom, Terry,' Dave suggested.
Pleased to prove her virtuosity Terry placed her favorite curves on prominent display. Mabel’s eyes fixed in fascination on the purple stripe. 'Whodunit?' she demanded virtuously.
'It wasn’t Agatha Christie, duckie,' Dave assured her.
'Well, are you going to do it?' Mabel demanded. 'I ain’t like her. You don’t have to whip my arse.'
'Mark’s a gentleman, he is,' Dave admonished. 'He ain’t going to fuck the likes o’you here on this warf. And I ain’t going to either. I done it last night to you twice.' He turned helfully to his audience. 'Bit’o allright she is too,' he offered informatively.
'Let’s all go to the house and have a drink,' Mark suggested.
'Gawd, what I couldn’t do for one of those.' Mabel’s voice was fervent.
Dorinda found herself subject to strange sensations, She loved her clothes. But being clothed felt odd. Did three days of nudity change a woman? Make her wanton? She felt guilty about her present enjoyment as a watcher of Mabel’s introduction to a new status. No doubt she should be adding het protests to the newcomer’s verbal indignation. She should appeal to Dave. Two raving females might dent his composure and invoke second thoughts about what he was doing. She knew she would not do these things. She asked herself why. Was she already so broken into slavery? She faced the fact that she would not bring herself to injure or to cross Mark and Terry. The whip was in there, too, of course. She was unsure which influence most potently dictated her decisions. She wondered if two days of slavery would have as vivid an an effect on Mabel as they had on her. She doubted it. Lastly she tried not to admit to herself that she was jealous of the attentions Mark must inevitably give his latest possession…
She held her drink easily in her chained hands. Sipping it comfortably she watched the little play unfold.
'I ain’t wearing no bleedin’ handcuffs!' Mabel seemed to have a gift for firm negatives.
