if her lips had not been pressed into the grass it would have been useless to ask mercy. She was not being punished, she was being conditioned. Her prescribed aphrodisiac was the quirt. It was being applied on her bottom as a sexual stimulant. Hating her captors and herself she had to acknowledge its efficacy. The arousal in her loins was all that separated her from the simile of a small but naughty girl being held down by stern parents while her perky derriere was well and truly tanned.
'Bet she's hotter'n a firecracker.' Luke was proud of his work, emphasizing its quality with a ferocious swipe across bounding cheeks to bring out Ilona's first scream. 'Y'see, she actually felt that one. She shore got a flaming little ass.'
The weight was lifted. Ilona was turned back upon her bound arm, her burning bottom protesting its contact with rough grass and bits of twig. Within seconds she was impaled. Before Luke and Rance were done with her Miss Ilona Paisley climaxed four more times.
After she had been coarsely complimented on the superlative quality of her cunt her captors laughingly broke the news of being not many miles from the ranch.
Ilona's flight had turned to circle. Al three of them speculated as to where it might have taken her had she not brought it to a halt. They hoisted her behind a saddle and fastened her thighs to it with the latigo laces. Her quirted skin screamed disapproval, her tied wrists denied action. She sat astride to gaze at her captor's red neck and smell his sweat.
Chapter Seven
It was an almost theatrical tableau. Even though she was still dustily naked and her hands were still tied behind her back and a frightful punishment undoubtedly pending, Ilona felt sure that if she caught her mistress's eye she would giggle. It was too classic a scene to be true. But it was true. 'Innocence before its Judge': 'Guilt standing before Justice': 'Awaiting sentence': 'The condemned.' The Victorian titles of a hundred paintings of douce damsels about to get their just desserts flitted though her mind. She would like to break the pose, but could think of none more practical. She wanted to exclaim: 'For goodness sake, Cicely, don't sit there like Julius Caesar about to send me to the Arena,' but lacked the courage. Instead, she ejaculated lamely:
'So alright, Cicely, I'm guilty.'
In the ensuing silence the prisoner reviewed her return to the ranch. It had been far from triumphant. For the last mile she had been made to walk, entering the big yard and Cicely's range of vision at the end of a long rope, one end noosed round her neck, the other coiled round Rance's saddle horn. Her tired feet had been made to halt before the disdainful figure of a woman with a riding crop.
'We git the right gal, maam?'
The crop turned the runaway around to be examined. Its tip hovered upon the rawhide knots on her wrists and flickered across the scarlet evidence of the quirt.
Both were ignored by Cicely's cold acknowledgement. 'Yes, she's the right one. I see you quirted her rump. Why?'
'It was part of them fucking me!' The exclamation burst from Ilona's lips in hot resentment. Sullenly, she added: 'The bastards fucked me again and again.'
'Really.' Cicely parted with the word in contempt.
'I'm sure you enjoyed it.'
'I didn't! It was hateful?!'
'Quiet!' The crop curled round Ilona's hip. 'I don't want to hear. Save it.'
Ilona had relapsed into sullen silence while the rope was taken from her neck and an Envelope changed hands. She seethed with the injustice of Luke and Rance being rewarded for her rape, their protracted violation of her sex for which they ought to go to jail. Resentfully she tugged at the rawhide on her wrists. It was all she dared do. The weal on her hip scorched as bitterly as her mistress's contempt.
For a minute the slave and her mistress watched the riders out of sight. Then Cicely had curtly commanded. 'Come in the house you absolute idiot.'
The Mistress mixed herself a drink but did not share it. Gulping the cocktail angrily she glared at her bound and naked slave before impatience spurred it's resentful flood.
'I'd have thought you had more sense. I had to call in men from all over, too small a chance of catching you myself alone.' She snorted angrily. 'There's the expense. . and the snickers. . and you've got yourself fucked. . Ugh!'
It was at that point she had pleaded guilty. The impulse to giggle had gone away.
Ilona looked at the woman she loved and said, wanly: 'Cicely, I think I'm going to cry.'
'Go ahead. If a few licks with this crop will help your tears let me know Dammit, girl, why, why, why?'
'I don't know myself. Honest, Cicely, it was an impulse thing. I'm sorry.'
'And you'll be a lot sorrier, darling.'
'Yes, of course. But please don't hurt Nora?'
'Nora's been hurt already, and she'll be hurt some more. If her feet hadn't been ironed she'd have run with you.' Cicely gestured in disgust. 'Do I need to have a hundred pounds of iron riveted on your ankles to keep you around?'
'I won't run again, Cicely. I promise.'
'You're damn right you'l run again, but not the way you think. Blast it all, Ilona, what the hell am I going to do to you?'
'Punish me.'
'How?'
The delinquent nudity found herself not wanting to be punished at all. She wanted to be loved. But love seemed unlikely to be part of her immediate future. Unhappily, she suggested: 'You can always whip me.'
'Sure I can. Any other ideas?'
'To stop loving me would be the worst of all. I don't want you to stop loving me.'
'A disloyal slave!' Cicely sneered. 'You let that silly little bitch talk you into running away from me, and now you expect love?'
'I expect to be punished.' Ilona said doggedly. 'After you've punished me I hope you'll love me again.'
'I love you now, damn you!'
The delinquent heart raced. 'Would it help a bit if I told you I was on the way back here when they picked me up? I was asleep when they found me. It wasn't all that far from here.'
'How can I know that's true?'
'Only by whatever you think of me. I sat on a little hill way out there somewhere and assessed the whole thing. There I was, naked in a wilderness, and you were here.
I knew I'd been damn stupid. That's when I turned around.' The penitent paused. 'I thought about Paisley Publications then too. But it didn't seem real, it doesn't seem real now. I don't think it ever will again.'
'D'your wrists hurt?'
'Yes.'
'Come here. I'm going to untie you. Go and bathe and make yourself beautiful.
Oh, and have a douche, have three or four. Those damn men. . ! Ugh!'
'Yes, Cicely.' The slave was breathless. 'Thank you.'
'Don't think you're forgiven. I'm still going to punish you.'
'I want you to.'
'You're free. So if you feel like running, go ahead and run.'
'You know I won't do that.'
'I'll be waiting for you. We can talk about your punishments in bed. .
afterwards.'
Breathlessly, Ilona went to bathe.
