be hanging up in there with your poor devoted Nora.' Cicely's laugh was a silvery acknowledgement that life was good. 'Look at Josh, there in the doorway, waiting for you. He's so proud.'
The captive could understand the craftsman's pride. She supposed that if a girl was obliged to wear an iron collar the object held to view was probably as good as she could expect. Its edges had been bevel ed and polished, its pendent ring would have foiled the tug of a horse.
'Josh, you do the nicest collar.' Cicely's tribute was warm.
'Little lady gonna' like it, maam. I takes a lot o' trouble.'
'And the rivets. .?'
'Like you said, Miz Woods, they ain't gonna' show. I'se recessed the holes so's I kin beat 'em down in and file 'em flat. Iron's heavy 'nuff to take a long drill without no flange.'
'But, Josh, there's no hinge to open and close??'
'Ah aims fer smooth circle, Miz Woods. She open now and I got leverage ter close it.'
'Darling, you're so lucky. Let Josh arrange you.'
Miss Ilona Paisley, formerly of Paisley Publications, knelt beside the anvil and allowed a coloured blacksmith to insert her neck within a metal band and drape it across the waiting surface of brutal steel. Her handcuffed fingers clung desperately to the wooden block on which the anvil stood.
'I figger's this'un out fer meself, maam. Sure takes a lot o' pressure to close that cold iron, but I ain't usin' no hammer.'
Breathlessly, the naked girl felt the slow closing of the strangest confinement a girl could know. Ilona could barely see the long and heavy bar by which the smith was exerting such relentless force, but her neck received its message like the closing of a trap.
'Look'a that, maam. Fit real good she do. Ain't no daylight showin' nowheres.'
It was true. The prisoned neck felt an even contact. Josh was skilled. The kneeling girl waited passively for what she knew she would hate the most.
'I git's me one rivet in there, Miz Woods, afore I lifts the lever. Then we got her fer sure.'
It was hateful, but had become strangely exciting. Perhaps royalty felt thus in their ritualistic regalia. Ilona felt the fumbles and the friction of metal within metal. Then the hammer blows that touched her not but rang in her ear as a knell of doom.
The bar was lifted, the collar remained. Josh was happy.
'The other rivet, maam, and then the little lady has herself the damnedest collar ever was.'
Ilona did not move, she did not demur. She thought of the headsman's block, it was a frightening simile. But in a little while she would be allowed to stand. She winced with the second rivet and flinched from the hammer. But it was the file and the electric buffer which set the seal on her shame. She was a slave, collared! Ready always now for the chain and padlock.
'Up's-a-daisy, darling: I can't wait to see.'
The weight was frightening. Lifting her neck from the anvil Ilona was sure she could never bear it. Standing, she met her mistress's eye and grinned ruefully. 'You own me now for sure.' She admitted, and was suddenly inflamed by lust. Never had she felt such an onrush of emotion as now when her captive fingers explored the broad band of iron she would wear forever.
'You're gorgeous darling!' Cicely was exultant. She took her collared slave within eager arms and kissed and kissed, her lips sinking to find the soft and pulsing throat above and below the black iron band in which it was imprisoned. 'Come along, I must get you to a mirror.'
Suddenly the iron was weightless. Ilona had never felt more happy.
The reflection staring back at Ilona from the glass was shocking. It was ugly. It was beautiful. It was wonderful and scarce to be believed. The collar changed her. It took possession of her nakedness and transformed it utterly. The flat thick band was as wide as it could be without intrusion. Its fit was snug so it would not chafe. The round iron ring hanging below the nape of her neck was of the same proportions.
The effect of the black circlet in contrast to her white nudity was exquisite.
'It's better than gold or silver, darling.' Cicely was awed.
To the owner of the slender neck that bore the iron it held all the magic of a wedding ring. It was a bond indissoluble between herself and the woman she loved, the woman who owned her so totally. Ilona stared back, entranced. She was a naked slave, her wrists darkly chained, her neck banded and ringed. With a thrill of delight she saw herself more beautiful than she had ever been. Within her sex a fire was rising in sweet agony.
After such an erotic feast it was inevitable they seek their bed, lips wet and swollen, tongues avid, nipples hard and high. Satiated, they slept. When Ilona woke she was alone. Drowsily, she let her feet slide to the floor and became aware of change. Suddenly alert, her locked hands flew to her neck, knowing what they would find. The ring no longer hung empty, within it was a padlock and a chain. The chain was formidable, so was the padlock, far heavier than need be to hold a girl.
Excited and filled with laughter, Ilona lifted the trailing links and traced them to a ringbolt in the floor. This anchorage was as solid as the rest. Delighted with her mistress's whimsey she stepped out the radius of her tether. It gave her the freedom of the bed and a few paces to one side only, then snubbed her hard. For moments she stood, savouring the new sensation, knowing she would be chained thus every night, glimpsing the stern utility of Josh's creation. It was not a punishment, it was a facility every slavegirl needed. Alight with longing for her mistress she threw her constrained nudity back upon the sheets.
It was delicious to dream. In slavery Ilona discovered a narcotic by which all things were dreamable and nothing real. Slaves lived vividly in the moment, the rest did not matter, they could not influence it so why treat it seriously! Their life was not their own, it belonged to someone else. In the punishment room Nora was suffering the last hours of her penalty. Nothing Nora or Ilona could do would change that one iota. At some moment in the future she herself would suffer for her truancy. She was sure her penance would be dire. But that, too, she could not change. It was in the realm of fantasy. Ilona envisioned herself screaming beneath the lash, moaning away the hours in nude suspension, or perhaps to have her ankles locked in the stocks to sit day after day in lonely longing to be free.
The weight on her neck had changed her life. Ilona was sure of it. Miss Paisley was gone. She could not but wonder on the potency of what had been done to her. It had changed her image of herself and all her thinking. Its effect was exquisitely erotic, no matter how she sought to close her mind to it, the iron collar imposed a constant titillation of her senses. Her fingers played with it constantly so that her handcuffs became an erotic presence on her wrists. She was ashamed of her female responses, her abject but glorious submissions to Cicely. But she would change nothing, not even if she could.
In a contentment such as she had never known Ilona went back to sleep.
Chapter Eight
'You're going to shock them out of their socks, darling.' Cicely was excited and pleased. 'You're a perfect package of contradictions. Look at yourself.'
Ilona was already doing so. The big mirror was sending her pulse into a galloping race. She was not believable. 'They can't possibly accept me like this.' She said breathlessly. 'Someone will call the police. . or the men will want to rape me.'
'Of course they will, darling! The rape, I mean. Not the police! These people are my friends, hand picked. They'll be expecting something. .! You're my answer.'
'I can't possibly! Oh, Cicely, I just can't. . like this with all those people!'
'The alternative is the dungeon and a hundred strokes, darling. You don't want that, do you?'
'Oh, Cicely, you wouldn't?'
'Yes I will, and you know I will.' Cicely's voice was loving but incisive. 'Smarten up, my little chicken. After the first five minutes you're going to love it.'
'They won't. . just look at me!' Ilona wailed. 'A Stetson hat, an iron collar, and a pair of riding boots. The rest
