what injury a whip could do to my breasts. Ruefully, I supposed it would do no more than bitterly hurt my pubes. 'I'll try,' I promised. 'But it hurts so much I don't think I can keep still.'
'You can have a bit of time to wiggle in between strokes, love. But when I say the word you get that cute butt away from the post and your legs well spread.'
'Alright.' I looked at her appealingly. 'I will try, honest! How many are you going to give me?'
'That's for you to find out, love. On your mark!' I parted my legs and pushed my loins out at Daisy in obscene invitation. She nodded, pleased. The cut bisected me cruelly. I could almost believe my haunches were sundered. I envisioned blood all over. I tore at my handcuffs and writhed in every contortion I could contrive. Here and there through my maze of pain I glimpsed Daisy's enraptured enjoyment.
'You've started something,' I gasped bitterly. 'When he sees these marks on, me he'll put some on you too.'
'It's worth it, kid, just to watch you.' Meekly, hoping to placate, I resumed the hated pose that pleaded for punishment. The whip sang and splatted where I wanted it least. I screamed and resumed my dance. Daisy did not kill me. I was surprised to learn later that she had done me no permanent damage. While she was using the whip on me I was convinced she rivaled Torquemada in skill and intent. When she had enjoyed me for as long and as much as she dared, she replaced the rope and the whip in the stable, then came and surveyed my striped and sweating nudity.
'Thanks, love.' A slave girl is forever astonished by the reactions her punished nakedness evokes. Daisy's thanks sounded sincere. I looked at her in woeful surprise. My surprise was doubled when she held my cheeks and kissed my forehead. Sardonically, she said: 'You can tell his nib's that he can have me free next time. Not a penny! That'll pay for me having you today.' She grinned happily and went. I watched her trudge over the hill. Once more I was alone. I leaned back against my post and sighed in an infinite relief. Such moments of surcease are a slave girl's only victory. Colin Hennery was furious. Not in sympathy with my hurts, but because his property had been used. He stood glowering at the wealed evidence of Daisy's pleasure I fully expected to be blamed. His vows of what he would do to Daisy were a little solace, but not much. It was not until he had got the box and returned my hands to, what was now, their normal resting place behind my back that he began to recover from his pout. He immediately laid me on my back and kicked my feet apart. I felt certain the savage thrusts with which he pierced me again and again were directed at the absent girl who had whipped my breasts and puss. But I won't say I did not enjoy them. After my sojourn against the post I needed something… anything… A slave girl must be satisfied with what she gets. At breakfast, his, lust appeased by an early morning ravishment of my loins, Hennery broke the news: He had actually phoned Yolanda in search of the thousand pounds. My heart leaped.
'An effing butler,' he said disgustedly. 'Might as well have been the Inland Revenue: Name, address, the whole bit.'
'Was that so hard?' I asked innocently. He looked at me sourly. 'I ain't that much o' a dummy. I told him nothing, nor her neither when she come on the line. Snooty bitch but anxious. A thousand in cash when I walk up to the door with you.'
'See! I promised!' I was jubilant.
'Think I was born yesterday!' My leaping heart fell with a bang at the sourness of his expression. 'More I thought on any of her propositions the more I could see meself walking right into the arms of a couple of rozzers. They'd call what you and me been doing a kidnapping.'
''Well, isn't it!' I could have kicked myself. It was not the right thing to say. 'Yer see what I mean! Who's going ter believe me! I'd get about seven years.'
'But I can prevent that. With me along you're safe.'
'Ain't too sure they'd believe you either. The whole thing's a bit rummy when you look at it from their standpoint. I don't see no sense running the risk.' He turned a pair of hound dog eyes in my direction. 'Fact is I like you. I like having you around. I'd sooner have you than any thousand quid.' I was surprised he did not hear the thud of my fallen hopes. 'But you can have Daisy anytime for five pounds!' I protested.
'It ain't the same. She ain't got what you got.'
'It's standard equipment.'
'I ain't talking about boobs and cunts, you know I ain't. And, anyway, yours are better 'n hers. It's quality. You got it.'
'But if you and Daisy keep on whipping me like this I'll be dead in a month.'
'Daisy ain't touching you no more. I'll guarantee it.' His voice was grim. 'As fer me, I got a bit o' judgement. I didn't whip yer yesterday, I ain't a' goin' ter whip you today. I ain't spoiling a good thing now I got it.'
'I suppose I'm your secret desire come true?' I asked bitterly.
'Damn right you are!' He struck the table for emphasis.
'You think men, any men, don't dream about a gal' like you are and the things we been doin', -you'd be crazy. A lot o' the silly twits 'ud deny it, but they'd lust for you and a whip just the same as me.' It didn't seem like much of a future. I'd just been sentenced to a lifetime of slavery. 'Aren't you ever going to let rile go?' I asked wanly.
'I'd hoped you wouldn't want to, Phemie.' The sincerity of his words was like a blow. If he loved me I was indeed lost. With feminine guile I used this new advantage. 'It's hard for a girl to love a man who whips her all the time.' I made my eyes as fawn-like as I could and focused them on him with full candle power.
'Dammit, Phemie, I ain't whipped yer that much!' I suppose by his standards he had been moderate. He had not been as cunningly cruel as Daisy. My real fear of him was the stringent bondage in which he kept me. There was no hope for freedom in it, none!
'You've really been very kind, Mr. Hennery,' I acknowledged. 'I'm sorry if I seem ungrateful.' I gave him a sweet small feminine gesture. 'It's all so sudden, and it hurts a bit, and that business yesterday with Daisy…'
'I gotta' leave yer again today, love: But I'll make it real easy…' After he had copulated with me again and was ready to go about his affairs he chained me to a tree. Alone again, after Hennery, had vanished over the hill, I assessed my new status. I was loved. But I still wore the handcuffs! On the other hand I was not being whipped, not at the moment! There had been no suggestion that I had said good-bye to cutting thongs and limber canes, but I now had a day in which to allow my weals to stop hurting. As for real freedom, I did not have any, but I was a lot better off than before. Hennery had employed his longest chain. One end was padlocked round a tree, the other locked to the single link between the metal bands round my wrists. I had no faintest hope of escape. But if I wanted to, I could walk 'round and 'round the tree in quite a wide radius. I could sit, lie down or stand as I might desire. Exploring this relative freedom I felt a bit guilty in not having given my captor more fervent thanks for it. It must have been about noon when James Pollard came into view.
I saw him before he saw me. He was walking. I longed to wave, but I couldn't. He was making a determined bee line for the house. Just before he reached it he caught sight of me.
'Phemie!'
'Oh darling!' I forgot everything else. You don't want the jumble of love and kisses and half coherent explanations. There were a lot of them. Until I reassured him, James' first concern was of enemies. Then my own concern got attention. Imagine my gorgeous long drawn out sigh of ecstasy… James had the key. It's funny though. When I pertly turned my back and proffered my chains I found myself loath to part with them. Nuts!
'Damn! I suppose that yokel's got the key to this padlock?'
'I expect he has, darling. It's for sure I haven't, and it's not hanging on a nail anywhere that I know of.'
'That means I'll have to leave him the handcuffs. The lock's in 'em. But I'll have you free in about four seconds.' He was as good as his word. Now that I had hands and arms we loved all over again. Golly, my shoulders were stiff. It had been days… Yet, when I finally looked down and saw the shining metal that had held my wrists so long I knew a pang of remorse. They lay on the ground at the end of the long chain. Empty and forlorn… James must have felt something of my regret. They did look like a pitiful small part of me abandoned and rejected. It was easy to find a hammer. With a rock beneath the padlock and a few hard blows he shattered the device that had held me captive. The handcuffs fell free.
'Snap them on me again, darling,' I pleaded. 'I don't feel right without them.'
'Afterwards,' said James. The afterwards took quite a long time and I was very thankful for my arms. But when it was over and I had brushed the barnyard off my back and bottom I turned and wiggled my hands. I know it's crazy, but the click, click, click as the metal tightened back 'round my wrists had the sound of wedding bells. We
