'I want to be really cruel to you, darling.' Cicely mused languidly in deep content.
'You do need to be taught a lesson, y'know.'
'A hundred lashes.' Suggested Ilona dreamily.
'You're being flip. Liberty doesn't become you, pet. Give me your hands.'
Obedience was instant. Ilona watched her mistress reach beneath the pillow. The handcuffs were the dark gun metal one's she adored, expensive, handcrafted. They encircled her wrists with oiled precision. Her nostrils flared with a gasp of enchantment. 'They're gorgeous!'
'I'm clicking them one notch too tight, sweetheart, a constant reminder.'
'Don't ever take them off, not ever!' Laying nakedly beside her love, Ilona lifted her cuffed hands and admired their linked allure. Testing their snugness, she pouted:
'You could make them a notch tighter still, Cicely. I wouldn't mind.'
'We're getting maudlin.' Her Mistress warned. 'We're besotted with each other's cunts and pubic hair and breasts and nipples, the whole ensemble. You've changed incredibly. You're not the woman who wrote that article. You're not a woman at all, you're a little girl. I don't know how you ever ran that damn business of yours. Since I bought you you've blossomed into the most submissive creature I've ever known.'
Cicely laughed softly, 'And I've whipped a lot of submissive bottoms and clipped a lot of submissive tits.'
'You've never put clips on my nipples.'
'Don't sound so cheated. Give me time. That reminds me, I've got to get you collared.'
Ilona lowered her handcuffed wrists, she was suddenly tense. 'You mean that iron thing with rivets?'
'You hate the idea, darling, and you might have talked me out of it if you hadn't been a bad girl. But you'l look wonderful with that on your neck. It will have a mental effect too because you'll know there's no way it will come off.'
'Oh, alright, I expect I'll live.'
'You bet you will. And I've been thinking about your ankles. If they'd been ironed you'd never have run away.'
'Oh Cicely, those things. . like on Nora? Those iron bands and all those links swirling every time I take a step?'
'Why not?'
There was laughter in the Mistress's voice, but the slave was unsure, her position weakened by recent guilt. She rejoined, doubtfully, 'Well. . I suppose. . !'
Cicely was amused, thrilled by her own power. 'Oh, stop pouting.' She said gaily.
'I'd iron you like a shot but it's so permanent. I can't be taking you to the blacksmith shop every time I want to use you for this or that. I've got some that lock and use a key but the mental effect's no way as potent.'
'I don't mind.'
'Of course you don't, you little idiot! What girl wants to be ironed! I ought to have Josh hammer rivets on you everyplace, and keep you that way for a month.'
'I'm sure I deserve it.'
'Stop being a masochistic kitten. You're getting a lubricated cunt out of self immolation. It can get to be a vice.'
'Alright, Cicely, so I have to wear an iron collar. Now, what about my real punishment? Do I get the hundred lashes?'
'No. You're positively wallowing in lust at the mere thought of all those lovely stripes. I'll punish you, but not because you ask for it or want me to. I'll do it my way. Come along now, I've got something you ought to see.'
'Aren't you going to wear something, Cicely?'
'I feel like being naked. Come along, you quivering kitten, I'll make you quiver some more.'
Intuitively Ilona knew. In the punishment room Nora hung suspended by her wrists. Her feet were off the floor but the heavy irons hung pendent from her ankles so that some of their links found a resting place beneath the punished feet. Her eyes had been closed in suffering, she opened them now and, beholding Ilona, wept. 'I thought you got away.' She sobbed brokenly. 'I thought you got away.'
Ilona's attempt to embrace the suspended nudity was foiled by the handcuffs she had so recently adored. She could do nothing but cradle tear wet cheeks and kiss the disconsolate lips.
'Turn her round, darling, she swings easily.'
Again she knew! The handcuffed girl obeyed. As the loveliness revolved under the guidance of her locked hands Ilona gasped. Nora's back, her buttocks, her thighs, were criss crossed by weals, ridged bars of proud flesh raised by Cicely's crop. She wailed in anguish at the sight.
'Stop that!' The Mistress's command was peremptory.
'We take her down each night to sleep, and hang her up again each day. If you hadn't run I might have let her off with twenty strokes.'
'Every day?' Ilona was aghast. 'You mean, ever since I ran?'
'That's right, darling. Her attitude improves daily.'
The theatrical gesture came naturally. Ilona the slave fell to her knees and clasped her mistress's thigh in locked hands. 'Please, Cicely, oh please! Don't punish her any more. Oh no, no, no. .!'
'Why not?'
'Because it was all my fault. Let Nora down and put me there instead.'
'Darling, that line's stereotyped, positively threadbare. Can't you do better?'
Cicely patted the bowed head. 'And it might be a good idea if you stood up.'
Shamed, Ilona obeyed. Looking in anguish at the whipped beauty turning slowly on her rope she understood the implacability of Cicely's justice. Here on the ranch a slave was a slave, even if much loved she would remain a slave. At first sight of Nora's whipped skin Ilona had felt unfairly privileged. But her own punishment was still to come, judging by what she now beheld it would be a thing for tears and penitence. She trembled and twisted locked wrists but was strangely glad.
'Come along, dear. Nora would sooner be alone.'
The handcuffed girl allowed herself to be led from the room. The fingers on her bare arm were tender but they were the fingers of a woman who owned girls, a woman by whom she herself was owned by right of purchase. Wanly, Ilona asked:
'How long must she??'
'She'll be freed this evening, sweetheart, but I wasn't going to tell her so.'
'It's such a terrible punishment. . so long!'
'Think it would fit your penance, pet?'
'If you wanted?'
'That isn't what I asked.'
'Yes, I think it would punish me enough.' Ilona ventured with simulated bravery.
'Oh, Cicely. .!'
'She's only had forty strokes, dear. All hard, of course.'
Cicely informed equably. 'None of that hundred lashes you're so fond of tossing around. D'you still want 'em?'
'Yes.'
'Well, you're not sentenced yet, darling, I'm still thinking about it. You can think about it too. In the meantime we've got a little job.'
As they walked to the blacksmith shop Ilona longed to plead. Every feminine instinct revolted against an iron band riveted on her neck. But sight of Nora's punishment told her clearly she could not be forever on her knees. Cicely owned her.
Cicely would use her as she wished. Ilona looked down at the black metal on her wrists but felt no wish it be taken from her.
'Hate me, darling?'
'Oh, Cicely, you know I don't.' It was almost a wail of anguish. 'But tell me why I love you? I do, terribly.'
'I'm sort of fond of you, sweetheart.' Fond fingers were once more on a bare chained arm. 'If I wasn't you'd
