'No handcuffs, no drink,' Mark ruled.
'Crikey. I’m no ruddy criminal. Couldn’t you hold the glass up for me the way I am?'
Mark spoke with authotity. 'We are going to untie you. You’ll hold your hands out for the cuffs or we’ll use force.'
Mabel surveyed the company. She was outnumbered. She was thirsty. Sullenly she extended her hands, blushing furiously in shame as the metal bands clicked tight upon her wirsts. Dorinda deduced that, for Mabel, handcuffs invoked a stigma that rope did not. 'Think I was a bloomin’ shoplifter,' she complained bitterly. She held up the offending objects and examined the mechanism, by which she was confined. Distatse and revulsion exuded from every pore. Her blush deepened. She accepted her drink awkwardly, her first act with chained hands. She gulped it greedily and turned her attention to Dorinda.
'You just let ‘em put these rotten things on you?'
'Of course. What else can we do? I’m a prisoner the same as you. We can’t escape. We can do what we’re told or be whipped.'
'Come off it, dearie. I wasn’t born yesterday.'
An amused Mark handed Dorinda a small key. Their eyes met, mrthful. With no word uttered she knew his thought. She wished that Dave was not present. But she would obey. Awkwardly, she unlocked her own handcuffs.
Mabel watched, incredulous, as her fellow captive captive stripped. She obviously still considered herslef the victim of some unkind hoax. 'I seen one bare arse already,' she said huffily.
Dorinda staged her strip with artistry. It was not until her last scrap of covering had been set aside that she turned her zebra back. Had it not been for Dave’s heavy breathing and a shocked gasp from the girl with the empty glass, there would have been silence in the room. It was broken at last by a heartfelt exclamation.
'Oh, crikey!' Mabel was bemused. Blindly she held out her joined hands. 'Could I have another drink?'
Everyone had another drink except Dorinda. It would have spoiled her pose. Happily she held it so that the full enormity of her master’s whip upon her person might be plain for all to consider. Mabel’s verdict was incisive and obtuse.
'You are a damn fool to put up with it.'
'I’m a slave,' Dorinda said simply. Then added mischieviously: 'So are you.'
'Must have hurt something cruel.'
'You asked why I was so obedient.'
'He do that to you?' A coutious finger indicated Mark.
'He’s our master. He does what he likes with us.'
The proposition hung heavy in the air. The new prisoner responded to it slowly, with great emphasis but small conviction. 'Not with me, he doesn’t.' Then, in a much weaker voice, 'Could I have another drink, please?'
Dorinda felt the word ‘please’ was a concession to her stripes. Once more she caught her master’s eye. Once more she divined the message his sardonic lips need not utter. She brought the whip, knelt before him, kissed the cruel length and proffered it humbly. She stood erect, hands clasped hebind her neck. Her eyes on infinity. The slender crop sliced and curled round her wealed body. Exploding inwardly, she said her ‘thank you’ in a pleased and eager voice.
Now it was Terry. An exact replica. A second bar across her bottom. In addition to her ‘thank you’ she kissed the man who had put it there.
Dorinda dressed. Awkwardly she managed to lock the handcuffs back on her wrists. Dutifully she ensured their grip, then offered the key to her master and her bonds for his approval.
'You lucky bastard,' Dave exclaimed enviously. 'How the hell d’you do it?' He winked at Mabel. 'Think of it, love. Next time I come you’ll be like they are.'
'Kinky lot ok kooks, if you ask me,' Mabel affirmed without conviction. 'Make a fortune they could, back in Soho.'
'Strip!'
Mark’s voice was a pistol shot.
Terry handed the bewildered girl a pair of scissors. 'There’ll be a piece or two you’ll have to cut, darling,' she advised sweetly.
'Everyhting off. Just like me.'
The actions of the captive girl were purely instinctive. She dropped her empty glass and the scissors on the floor. Uttered an angry ‘up your arse’ that held all the indignation in the world. Then dashed out rhough the french windows on to the terrace and out of sight. Mark restrained persuit. 'Let her go.' He chuckled. 'After lunch we’ll have a hunt and pick her up again.. Or maybe just let her un and see what happens.'
Dorinda was glad when, after lunch, Dave accepted his cheque and said his goodbyes. His presence was disturbing. She knew that had she been able to use him to effect escape from the island she would have done so, more from a sense of duty: the feeling that any prisoner owes it to the general rightness of things to end captivity of the chance offers, rather than an urgent wish for freedom. She was wryly aware that, even though she might often feel the whip, she had an emotional need to play out her role in the small drama being enacted on Kyrexos.
She was inordinately pleased when, instead of hunting the errant Mabel, her master took her arm and announced: 'Let’s carry on where we left off, slave girl.' His boyish enthousiasm crinkled his eyes in laughter.
'Can I come too?' Terry was an eager child.
They left her in what Dorinda felt sure would be an infuriating captivity. It was a large simulated dog kennel. A leather collar was padlocked round the the angry young neck. It was tethered by about five feet of quite hevay chain. Terry could crawl on her hands and knees in and out as she chose. That was all she could do. She stuck her tongue out at her brother. 'You’re dimply horrid to me,' she complained.
Dorinda was quite sure that, beneath the pout, the youngster was happy with her lot.
She was not so sure about herself. The walk had been short. It was pleasant among the trees. But the thing planted there posessed a sinister quality as though it had been waiting for her alone.
'It’s very simple,' said her owner non-commitally.
A post. Six feet high. A narrower crosspiece resting on it’s top to form a T. She cringed. A perfect whipping post! Yet there were no rings or attachments by which she could be fastened. She looked at Mark inquiringly.
'I’m an absolute bastard, aren’t I?' He inquired pleasantly.
'No.'
'I’m going to be cruel to you.'
'Of course.'
'You know why?'
'It’s because I’ve slipped part way back to normal. Yesterday I was with Terry. This morning I became a sort of guest. I enjoyed it all immensly. But I’ve slipped. I know I have. I’ve been forgetting to call you master.'
'You are something special,' he said with frank tenderness. 'Tes. That’s as good a summation as I could have given myself. Not to worry though. It’s natural to have regressions. There will be a lot of them. I’ll be cruel to you every time it happens, so as to bring you back to heel. The cruellest thing of all is our demand for a sort of duality from you. You’ll constantly have to switch bach and forth between companion and slave and be sincere and natural in each. You see, little slave, Terry and I are sort of in love with you in our own paricular ways, so we won’t be willing to relinquish the companion bit.'
Dorinda sighed. Was ever a girl posed such a complexity? 'I’d like to try without the… persuasion,' she ventured.
'That’s the eternal woman talking,' Marks eyes glowed. A woman always feels ‘oh why must he’ or ‘does he really have to’ or ‘if he loves me he’ll do it to me anyway’. So the only way a man is going to have a perfect woman is to make her a slave girl right from the start.'
'Don’t we have anything to say about it?'
He laughed at her lugubrious voice. 'Women always have too damn much to say. No matter how abject a slave I might make you, you’ll still get a word in here and there. You’ll search my weaknesses and exploit them.' He grinned at her confidingly. 'You see, the trouble really starts with us men. We’re lazy. Actually we are subconciously glad to allow you to nag us into your decisions. It saves us the trouble and we have someone to blame if the
