There were other things besides the whip.
'Miss Paisley, I want you to kneel, up on your knees, erect.'
'Yes, Nora.'
Even so small a thing was fraught with awkwardness and the clink and pull of chain. The naked prisoner knelt as bidden, expectant, quivering and frightened. The tension of her arms dragged a chain up inside her crotch and through her pubic hair. Silently, she waited for the voice or the blow.
'Well, Miss?'
'What must I do, Nora?'
'Nothing. Just tell me what you feel.'
'Naked and frightened. Nora, I think I'm facing you, and you're standing close.'
'Where's the chain between your legs, Miss Paisley?' Ilona knew what to do.
Lifting her shackled hands as high as she could, she said: 'There, the chain between my legs is tight up against my cunt.'
'You hate using that word?'
'Yes, Nora.'
'What can you smell?'
Every sense alert in her darkness, the kneeling girl became aware of a close proximity. 'I can smell woman scent, Nora.'
'In plain earthy language, please Miss?'
'I can smell your sex.'
'One more try before the whip, Miss Paisley.'
'I can smell your cunt, Nora.'
Strong fingers grasped her hair and thrust her hood and its orifices hard against what Ilona knew to be the black girl's pubic hair. The pungency of female sex was overpowering. She was held so for many seconds before being pushed back.
'If I ordered you to eat me, Miss Paisley, would you obey?'
'Yes, of course, yes please! If you only knew my hunger. . ' Ilona was shamed by her own words, but Nora's musky spiciness had triggered her terrible need of feminine communion. Susan had been gone so long! Miserably, she mourned: 'But I'm hooded, I can't.'
It had been one more emphatic victory for the hood.
Long after Nora had left her alone, Ilona continued to kneel. She relapsed upon her heels for comfort, the pose catering to the illusion of a female presence. Her chained hands rested between her thighs, feeling her own heat. She wondered if anyone was looking, she suspected she looked pretty and pathetic like that.
Ilona Paisley's second whipping was a tremendous adventure.
'This time you get ten strokes, maam. We're going to do it right. You're going for a walk.'
She was speechless with emotion as the padlock clicked open on her collar and the chain fell to the floor. It immediately snapped shut again, but she was no longer attached to the wall.
'I'll hold your arm and guide you, Miss. We'll take it easy.'
Her steps were pathetically short, and accompanied by a tremendous clatter. One after the other her ankles were snubbed in her slow progress to punishment. Nora's grasp on her bare arm partly defeated the dark.
'Will anyone else watch my punishment, Nora?'
'Figure that out for yourself, Miss Paisley. You get one extra stroke for asking.'
'I'm sorry. . I should have had more sense. Nora. . If you have to free something so's I can be fastened to be whipped, I promise I won't struggle or be silly.
I'll obey you.'
'Like I said, Miss, the whip teaches you things. You wouldn't have said that before you got the hood.' The fingers on her arm squeezed approvingly.
The hobbled walk was a joyous thing: absurd but true. Without the tether, and with Nora's hand on her arm, the chained woman took her tiny steps with a sense of immense freedom. She was walking to a punishment but the walk itself revived hope.
It was a longish walk for restricted steps but ended far too soon.
'We are there, Miss Paisley. I am going to free your wrists. Your ankles stay chained.'
Even without her promise, Ilona could have done nothing to escape. Her feet were chained, the hood was locked fast. She was as impotent as though her arms were tightly bound. When the irons fell to the floor with a clatter she let her hands hang limply at her hips, even that felt good.
'I'm going to tie your hands above your head, maam.'
'O.K., Nora. Here, I'll hold them for you.'
In spite of what it portended, the upward stretch of arms too long held below her waist came as one more small pleasure. Ilona guessed her wrists were being spread apart and tied to some sort of solid bar. Cords circled and were tugged tight, but her feet remained flat on the floor, she was not tip-toe. True, she was completely delivered to the whip, but still. . !
'Ten strokes, maam, and one extra for the question you asked.'
'Thank you, Nora.'
'From your thighs to your shoulders, Miss Paisley. No particular number on any particular place.'
'Yes, I understand. I'll try to not scream too much.'
'Should you wish to test yourself, Miss, you can be forgiven the extra stroke by remaining silent.'
The small wait in darkness was as agonizing as the blow Ilona momentarily expected. She wondered if there was an audience and, if there was, were they approving her behavior or seeing her as a spineless female already whipped into submission. Ruefully, she realized the hood had reduced her far more than the stripes upon her skin. She tensed into a gasping immobility as number one encircled her taut waist.
Long after her whipping, Ilona was to wonder whether the remission of one single stroke was reward enough for the loss of the relief of screams. Probably it was a poor bargain, but she treasured the victory of silence. If there were watching eyes they would respect her fortitude, Nora would respect it, and she herself would be strengthened. But she had clenched her teeth.
Desperation finds what solace it can. Ilona Paisley, naked under the whip, tugged one chained ankle against the other, she gasped in huge inhalations and exhalations, sometimes she lifted herself and her chains off the floor in a silent but agonized reflex. At such times her wrists did not matter, only her whipped flesh. She writhed, she twisted and tugged, but she did not scream.
In these whippings there was never any pretence of awfulness beyond the simple fact of being whipped. Nora never spoke of them as floggings or of the use of more cruel instruments than an ordinary whip or slender crop. They were simply the whipping of a girl who was required to be punished. Even so, they were awful enough.
The ten strokes seemed interminable to the nude woman who received them in a dogged silence. Screams did help! She knew now they helped tremendously. But she would not utter them. Somewhere in this saga of submissions she had a need to prove she was still Ilona Paisley. Cut followed cut, her bottom, her back, her shoulders. In her agony she wondered if the pauses between each stroke were kind or cruel. She longed most ardently for the last lash upon her flesh, but with an equal intensity dreaded the next one about to fall.
The walk back was less joyous. Soon she would be tethered and alone. As she left the place where she had been whipped she could have sworn she smelt the smoke of a cigarette, but she dared not speak of it as she took the linked steps back to boredom.
She was learning to be cautious with her words. When the padlock once more gripped her chain she longed to cry.
Nora instituted drills. They were interspersed by whipstrokes for fumbles but became increasingly easy to follow. They were simply a verbal assertion of authority on one hand and humility on the other. Ilona never admitted it aloud but she welcomed them. She bore their swift savage pains in tolerance, so thankful was she of a human presence. She believed she could accept the whip hourly if it would keep Nora in the room. Whenever she was allowed to do so she grasped soft thighs and hugged them hungrily in longing.
'What are you, Miss Paisley?'
'I am your prisoner, Nora, I will obey you.'
