The leather belt was removed. The shining steel that replaced it was not unduly massive. But it was metal clinging above the slender hips. From it ran the same tether to the wall, but also heavy links ran down to the ankle shackles.
'Darling, it weighs a ton.' The girl on whom it was fastened shook herself and tried to kick to test the new confinement. The result was to evoke a cry of protest.
'But Amity! This doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t stop me doing motions I could do before. Just makes it more miserable.'
'I believe the intent to be punitive, miss.'
It was Terry’s turn to watch. Dorinda meekly accepted the collar and grimaced at it’s cold clutch and weight of metal that her neck must bear. She knew she would be forever rearranging the tether to seek easement of the strain.
'Amity.' Terry’s voice had come to live.
'Yes, miss.' Their jailer’s voice was politely attentive.
'If we were very nice to you and made you come about six times, would you take these last things off? They’re just so much.' 'Thank you miss. But I would consider the risk inadvisable for all of us.'
'You mean Mark might walk in and catch us?' Terry chuckled.
'He caught you, miss. Red handed so to speak, if I may say so. I would find a similar situation most mortifying.'
'What would he do to you?'
'I would rather not say, miss.'
The youthful captive’s laughter gurgled accusingly. 'I bet he’d chain you to the other wall.'
'There is a clause in my contract to that effect, miss,' Amity admitted reluctantly. 'At the master’s discretion so to speak.'
Dorinda was startled. The housekeeper had dropped her small bombshell without a qualm. A mental picture of this precious female chained as they were chained was entrancing. Bizarre, but quite in keeping with the rest of Kyrexos.
Terry could not allow so delicious a tid-bit to be ignored.
'Come on. Oh please, Amity. Do it. I’d love to have you chained with us. It would be such fun. Do you no end of good. By morning you’d be talking normally.'
'Thank you miss. But it would not be fair to ‘Islop.'
'See, you’re exited. You dropped an aitch.' Terry tried to clap her hands. The effort produced a fine metallic orchestration.
Amity stepped back, her task completed. Dorinda surveyed herself ruefully. The weight of what she must carry was frightening. It would be too easy to think of things she had read. To be chained for life in a dungeon…
She wanted to test her bonds and explore whatever tolerance they might concede. But not before this woman who had placed them upon her nakedness. She could wait.
'What are you going to give us for supper, darling?' Terry asked expectantly.
Amity was distressed. 'I am indeed sorry, miss. But the master felt it appropriate that none should be served.'
'But we’re hungry.' The girl’s voice was anguished. 'You mean the absolute rotter’s treating us like two bad little girls sent to bed without supper…?'
'I fear so, miss.'
'But you’ll smuggle us something, won’t you darling?'
Amity sounded genuinely distressed. 'Water only, miss. I cannot counter the master’s wishes.'
'We’re famished.'
'I’m sure you are, miss. It has been an exacting day.'
'Oh damn and blast! Wait ‘till I get at him. I say, Amity, it’s almost dark. What about some light.'
'The same prohibition, miss. You are not to have any.'
They watched her go in silence. Then clung together as best as they could and wept.
It was very dark and much later when they remembered to make love.
Breakfast was not encouraging. A little water, a little bread, a little fruit. Amity refused to answer questions.
'He’s going to teach us some sort of lesson,' Dorinda decided. 'We really must have hurt him.'
'He’s not hurt. I know he isn’t. He’s just working out some notion of his own about behaviour and discipline. This could go on for days.' 'And we still have to be whipped.' Dorinda found it hard to forget.
Amity’s mien, on her return, boded ill.
'May I have your word, ladies, that you will not resist? That I may expect obedience?'
'What on earth are you going to do? Behead us?'
'No miss, But the master feels your day might be better employed than just sitting.'
'Nice of him. Okay – do what you must do.'
'If you will allow me, miss.'
It took very little time. When it was done and Amity gone, two naked girls surveyed each other from opposite walls, their hands spread wide at head level, wrists clamped snugly to the stone. They could stand without strain. But stand they must! There was no pain. That might come later. Two maiden quims invited a guest that would not come. It was a very frustrating pose.
Dorinda looked at the two piles of chain beside their bench. It seemed impossible their slenderness could have endured it. She felt miserably certain it had been left there to be used again. It felt so good to be rid of it, that for a little while she would feel a sense of relief in her new plight. It would not last. But, for the moment, only her wrists felt bonds.
No one came. They spent the day alone. Drooping wearily as the hours passed, their pinioned wrists protesting as they accepted a little of the weight that had tired the legs so long. As the light faded the two girls became two pale ghosts in the uncertain light. Inconsistently, at night, their chains came almost as a boon. But now the separation that had sundered them through the day continued. Their tethers were on opposite walls. No tears or pleas or threats prevailed. Once more their ultimate bribe was rejected. On opposite sides of their dungeon they wept themselves to sleep.
The following day was both better and worse. Less tiring. But a shaming posture. They lay upon their backs, bottoms tight against the wall, legs up in a 'V', ankles chained to the stone. Their view was restricted to small portions of the wall and ceiling. They could only see each other by painful strain and twisting. Their hands were free, but to what purpose.
On the third day they were whipped.
They suffered together, receiving single lashes alternately. The other’s agony always before their eyes as they felt their own. Amity used the fearful whip. Mark had vanished from their ken.
That morning, released from their chains, they had been suspended by their wrists, heels barely on the floor. Amity left them to wait. They hung, well separated, in the big dungeon, the most hated whip between them on a stool specially provided so that it be well displayed before their stricken eyes.
'Is it possible to bear, or will we faint?' Dorinda had built a devastating vision of suffering within her mind.
'I didn’t faint, darling. But don’t let that fool you.' Terry searched her memory for consolations. 'It depends on who whips us. I hope it’s Amity. She doesn’t hit as hard as Mark. She probably thinks an employer – that’s me – has to be whipped with respect. Then it’s a case of how fast they let you have it. I’m damn sure I couldn’t take fast from that awful thing. I would faint. I think you’ll find now we’ll get it laid on slowly and spread over a long time. If it’s any comfort I can tell you they won’t whip you nipples with that thing.'
Was there comfort anywhere? Dorinda cringed in her nudity. She longer for the whip to get it over, to pass through the agony over to the other side. But she longed, with equal ardour, that the whip not touch her at all. She felt no bitterness against Mark. He had told her she would be trashed if she touched the forbidden fruit. She had knowingly gorged on it. Thus it was proper that she now stand naked with her hands high, the familiar bite of the cords urgent on her wrists, the whip before her eyes. Soon she would know its searing cuts and scream the pleas of a slave who has transgressed.
How awful to stand thus. More naked than naked. Curvature of breasts and Venus mound accentuated by the traction of her arms. Only the soles of her feet were denied the whip. She had read of the bastinado. No doubt Mark
