Tenderly the girl who held the whip dried her captive’s eyes and wiped her cheeks. Gentle fingers smoothed the hair damp with the emanation of fear and pain.
'Tell us what it’s like, darling,' Terry asked soothingly.
A broken Dorinda looked Mark squarely in the eye. 'It’s a worse cruelty than I thought anyone could inflict,' she said desolately. 'I can’t stand anymore. If you are going to whip me more, than kill me and be done with it.'
There fell a small silence broken only by the sounds of the whipped girl’s distress.
'I’ve been whipped like this many times,' Terry said brightly.
Dorinda did not know whether to accept the statement as a rebuke or as consolation. She only knew a panicky compulsion to end her martyrdom. 'I’ll do anything at all,' she offered flatly. 'There’s nothing I won’t do… I’ll be a slave gladly. Don’t whip me anymore. Oh please, don’t!' She looked from one to the other of her owners with abject eyes.
'It’s not over, y’know,' Mark told her somberly.
'We’ve stopped for a little while because the is a genuine experiment,' Terry explained soothingly. 'We hope you’ll examine it along with us.'
'What is there to examine in such awful pain?' Dorinda asked bitterly.
'You have had two strokes with a whip. Have they taken you anywhere?'
Dorinda knew very well what Mark sought. But she was too distressed to deal with subtleties. Within herself she was crying resentfully. ‘Why me! Why me!’ But she knew it useless to propound the same question to her captors. Pure chance had delivered her to where she now stood. Her agonised wrists told her very clearly that she had been cast in a role and would have to play it. She wished she had been shown a reward for playing it well.
'Pain will make me obey you.' She looked from one to another. 'Please help a bit. I can’t give a lecture.'
Terry handed the whip to her brother. 'Step two, darling,' she suggested queryingly.
Their victim watched the transfer with pure horror. If Terry could hurt her with such intensity, what would Mark’s stronger arm inflict? Only the brake of reason inhibited her from another panic driven struggle with her tether. Her vulnerability devastated courage.
'At this stage we have to compel your participation,' Mark said reflectively. 'So you will ask me pleasantly and intelligently, to give you two more strokes. You may even choose where they fall.'
'I’d have to be nuts!'
The exclamation got out before she had time to think. Mark grinned understandingly. 'Sounds damn silly, doesn’t it? So to make it valid we do the Pavlov bit. Ask for two nicely or get four.'
So simple. A sort of conditioning process. Dorinda was furiously angry at being its subject. But she was also desperately afraid, she glimpsed the path devised for her unwilling feet. She was defeated by their faces: two nice young people with a mission, earnest and dedicated. She knew they liked her. It was paradoxical. A discordance that defeated reason. How would any girl be expected to adjust?
The four strokes cut in rapid succession. Her cry of protest faded before her cry of agony. She groped her way, sobbing and gasping, through the dark forest of pain to the distant point where she could look at Mark reproachfully with incredulous eyes. 'You took too long to make up your mind,' he explained evenly. 'Never believe I will not be cruel. We will start again. Ask for two or get four…'
At that moment Dorinda would have asked for anything. But not the whip! She manufactured his demand. It was on her tongue. But it was insincere. Surely Mark would recognise the words as false. She did not utter them. She was groping for others when the whip found her again …
This time, returning from the pit of agony, she found her head thrown back, her gaze resting on her tractioned arms on each of which a thin trickle of blood fell from wrists cut by shining metal. In the thoes of her wild threshing she had not known of that wound. It came as a surprise, but did not matter. Nothing mattered, save that she be no more whipped… Hopelessly she turned to plead.
But the room was empty. Mark and Terry had gone while she was still in that fearful other place. Dorinda was alone.
It was with great thankfulness that the naked girl stood simply in her enforced pose.. An onlooker would have found her exquisitely lovely in her weariness and pain. The whipping may have paused. But the handcuffs continued their unyielding compulsion. Dorinda stood very straight, even with tired head and bent knee. From time to time she stood on her toes to ease her wrists. Her pain was constant. When coherent thought returned, curiosity came with it. Straining, she tried to examine her body. There was no blood, but the ridged welds were as frightening. She had no previous experience with such inflictions. She could see little of herself, and wondered what her back might show.
Released from immediate threat she wept quietly, wiping wet cheeks against her raised arms. Fear spurred her thoughts, confronting her with the knowledge of a lesson learned: she would have to be obedient. Only by a responsive act she could save her skin. Hesitation spelled out a mental reservation. The master would perceive and punish. Reservations and secrets were denied a slave…
Slave, slave, slave! How absurd a word in today’s world! She sought another. There was none so explicit to her condition. That was Mark’s thesis, wasn’t it? There were no longer nay slave markets. So he would create his own slave girl. Could she take comfort in the knowledge that her agonies and fears were no different from the same emotions, suffered by countless other maidens in centuries past? Hard to accept the knowledge. But it was true.
What was her cue? A dog-like grovelling on the floor? Sycophantic servility? She was sure Mark would reject both. His fantasy would dictate an emotion more valid…
Terry came cheerfully into the room. She was holding a small key.
It was pleasant on the terrace in mid afternoon. Dorinda had never admired English Tea. But now it was nectar. She sipped it gratefully and wondered if she should laugh or cry. Was she on her head or on her heels? She could not keep pace with what they did to her. No doubt they planned it so.
'The handcuffs won’t discommode you.' Mark had become the smiling boy again.
They were a part of her now. Dorinda did not mind. She could drink tea and eat a sandwich with joined hands. She could understand the necessity that she wear them. They would keep her from forgetting. The blood was still on her forearms. No doubt that would keep her from forgetting too. It was in her own interest that she not forgot.
'Do you think we are absolute swaine?' Terry inquired interestedly.
'No.'
'What are we then?'
'You are just you. Both of you.' Dorinda scrambled for some elusive rationalization that was not there. 'You have told me of the fantasy. I think the fantasy is the key. I am a prisoner because of it. All three of us will have to be aware of it always, in every situation. If I, for instance, forget it for a single minute resentment builds up. Anger. Perhaps hatred.' She looked at them pitiously. 'You see, it is so out of context. It is like trying to transplant a bit of Camelot or ancient Babylon into our lives…'
'You do not hate us?'
'No. That would make it simple.'
'We are going to whip you again, y’know.'
'Oh, I guessed that,' Dorinda admitted miserably. 'I suppose you can understand how much I want to dissuade you?'
'You have not pleaded as much as we expected. Why?'
The naked girl shook her head in bewilderment. 'I suppose because Mark made a good jon of telling me of the fantasy and your determination to use me. Pleading would not help, would it? I have a feeling that the more I beg and grovel the less you would think of me. Silly perhaps. Why should a slave care? I know you are going to whip me. And, oh, I don’t want to be whipped! I don’t! It’s more awful than I ever dreamed. It scares me because a girl seems to survive. Look at me now! After those first two strokes I knew I would die. I didn’t. I’m sure you know more about it than I do. But please, don’t whip me so much that we stop liking each other…'
'It does not work that way,' Mark was positive.
Dorinda considered. 'You are thinking of Terry. But I’m not Terry. That other gorl, when she comes, won’t be Terry either. I’m not a bit sure any of us know what a whip will do to a girl like me. I admit I don’t…!' Her voice became animated and earnest. 'Look darlings, I think neither of you is the stuff that beats a girl into submission. But you sincerely believe you have to whip her into slavery. Can I help? I’m purely selfish. Let’s say I don’t want to be
