with a 'Wooooo!' or a 'Mmmmmmmm!.' Cocktail parties are not really all that difficult for a slave girl. But through it all my mind was occupied with two separate visions, one of Yola's whip, and one of the smiling countenance of the boy who had tempted my downfall. Strangely enough, it was the memory of James Pollard that got most of my attention.
'You don't deserve the Tower, Phemie,' Yolanda said crossly. 'You're going downstairs.'
'Of course, darling.' I said it blithely, but I was trembling. I was about to start payment of my penalty. I am only joyous about such matters to a point. Going downstairs whittles that point to almost nothing. Going downstairs means the dungeon.
'Naked, Phemie. I won't even leave you those soaked panties.' I'm always naked when I'm punished. The dungeons have some cunning heating ducts Yola had installed. You can't see 'em but they keep a naked prisoner from catching pneumonia. But it's the stone that gets a girl. Bare, cold stone! I shivered as I let the silver lame fall to the floor for the second time that evening. My hands were still chained, and Yolanda was not helping. I found my panties were still wet — that makes me awful, doesn't it! I can't help it, I just am.
'Over in the corner.' Yola's crisp order means the metal collar and the chain that links back to the ringbolt in the wall. I stand passively while it is locked around my neck. It is very heavy. It does nothing for the spot between my legs.
'Ankles, too.' I am indeed in disgrace! They are the beastly heavy shackles that tell me what and where I am. I spread my legs a little as they are fastened with solid ominous snaps.
'Your wrists can wear what they have now.' I nod without happiness. My bonds could be much worse, hut they are bad enough. The weight of the metal on my neck will nag and nag.
'It's past midnight. You can spend the night and the day as you are. On the day after you will get your whipping.'
'Thank you, darling.'
'Oh, don't be so bloody humble! Don't you think I feel badly enough as it is'?'
'Honest, I didn't mean! Oh, darling, I'm so sorry.' The chains hold me. I cannot touch my darling or give her the heat of my flesh and find comfort in hers. I do take a tentative step, but it is too absurd. I am weighed so that motion is like wading in mud; the links from my collar warn they will soon snub me. I hold out my joined hands in supplication.
'Phemie!' There is an ocean of yearning in Yola's voice. She too takes a step, then determinedly backs away. 'If I touch you I'm lost. It's best I go. I'll leave you the candle, it will last most of the night.'
'Can I have a blanket?'
'No. You don't deserve that either. I'll leave it folded on the big chest. You can look at it and yearn. If it hadn't been for your James Pollard and your own stupidity you could be warm in bed with me.' My angry darling is punishing herself as well as me. She wants me. I know, just as I long for her with a terrible anguish. But the penalty denies us both, and I must serve it. She flounces in exasperation from the dungeon and thuds shut the door and the cruel bolts… In the sparse light of the candle I cannot reach I survey my plight. It is not the first time I have stood thus in this spot. I know the feel of stone and the clutch of chains. I long desperately for the blanket I can behold but am denied; it is part of my punishment. I shrug and sink cautiously to the cold stone. It will take a little while for my body to warm it enough that I can sleep. It is a hard bed for a naked girl. But I am not angry. I deserve this. I do! I do! What is done is done. It is over. At least I thought it was. I did not know then that it was not over at all. It was just beginning.
A girl in chains wakes early in her dungeon. For her there are no delightful stretchings and turnings and relapsing into slumber. You dare not move an inch from the stone now heated by your flesh. It has become precious. You cherish this spot of the exact dimension of your contact. The candle has burned out, and the bit of daylight seeping through the brutal bars of the high recessed small window is more gloomy than its artificial glow, but it is enough for me to see the blanket so neatly folded to torment me. I long for it and rack my brain for expedients by which I may reach it. There are none! Chains are implacable. A chained girl need not deal in hope. A chained girl thinks. It is all she can do. I thought about the whip. Yolanda might not come to my dungeon for a long time, so I speculate as to how she may possibly modify the awfulness of a hundred lashes on my bare skin. I will get the hundred alright, but perhaps she may not make them as hard as if I was to bear a smaller number. It is a small hope, but unlikely. Yola is a stickler for discipline and your word being your bond. I had best not build false optimism. I ponder what I may say or try and do to touch her compassion and her love. But I have both already. I have a sort of pact with myself that I will not make my punishments more painful for my darling than need be. I will keep my tears and my pleadings until desperate pain releases them past the determination of my will. Yola and I have never discussed my pact, but we both know it is there. There is, of course, what we call 'weaseling,' This is any sly bit of conniving by which I may artfully reduce my pains. It is a fun thing we both recognize. It will not do me any good in the penance which confronts me now. I twist my chains this way and that. The night has made them chafe. The collar on my neck is an enemy, It is alive and malignant with the pull of its tethering chain. The collar makes a mockery of the dungeon door, if it was wide open I could not reach it. The chain from the ring-bolt only gives me three or four shuffling paces, I move the metal bands that circle me and find a little easement here and there,I think of the whip curling round my hips; it is part a memory. I have been whipped so often. Sighingly, I wait. I wait a long time. Here and there I know that panic which is implicit in my plight. Am I forgotten? Will I just lie here in these chains! Helpless. It is useless to cry out, my voice will not penetrate the stone. As the light increases I know the day no longer young. I am hungry. When Yolanda comes she is a small, female whirlwind exuding disturbance. When she clasps and kisses me it is as though we face a sundering. Her lips arouse me so that I strive to clasp her too, but my chains deny. For urgent moments we feast before she uses her keys to free my neck and my ankles. Her orders are breathless.
'Bathe and make yourself pretty, Phemie. Rush, rush!' She is half way to the door when she remembers and turns. 'Oh, and put something on.' In the scented warmth of the bath I forget the dungeon and the whip. I am pleasantly excited. Whatever portends now is certain to be better than what was promised. In my room I hastily garb myself in such lovely expensive trifles as my chained hands will allow me to fasten. I have just brushed my hair when Yola enters. I pose for her.
'Good!' Her eyes sparkle. 'Oh, Phemie darling!' She lets the sentence die while she finds the chains for my feet, the ones that match those on my wrists: costly, gorgeous and cruel. I am still admiring them and kicking one foot tentatively to get their feel again when she unlocks my linked hands and replaces the sapphire bond with shining functional handcuffs. 'I'm striving for a certain effect-' She backs away and surveys her work. I walk beautifully with chained feet. I've had lots of practice. The handcuffs give me only slightly less freedom than the metal they replaced.
'You poor darling! Hungry?'
'Starving.'
'Good! Lunch is ready. We have company.' I clink my way beautifully. I am secure in the knowledge that nothing of my slavery can embarrass me any more. I ask no questions. I am savouring the surprise I know Yolanda has prepared me for. The surprise is James Pollard.
'You wear handcuffs with a flair, Miss Carstairs.' He has risen from his seat and now takes my cuffed hands and kisses each. An old world courtliness goes along with his boyish grin. I stand, nonplussed, and look to my Mistress for help. 'Mr. Pollard is an associate of Roland Bolling, Phemie dear.' She breaks the news as though it explains everything. I am about to ask who he is when he's at home, when I remember: Roland Bolling is famous. He makes vast sums from vast enterprises. Yola's father had known him.
'Mr. Bolling has heard of you,' says James. I am not interested in Mr. Bolling. Hunger makes me aggressive. 'Do you know what you let me in for yesterday?' I demand sulkily.
'I have already told him.' Yola dismisses the subject. We seat ourselves for the lunch which I attack in a most unladylike manner until I catch Yolanda's eye and slow down. Mr. Pollard keeps an interested eye on my handcuffs as though wondering how I'll manage.
'I plead ignorance of your penalty, Miss Carstairs,' James says without contrition. 'Had I realized… ' He embraces us both with a glowing smile. 'I am endeavouring to incline Miss Harding to leniency.'
'Phemie will receive her punishment in full, the fault was hers.' Yola is keeping well on top of things. James might have been speaking of the weather. 'I was wondering if her penalty might be reduced to… shall we say… a bare fifty.' He is amused by his own pun, then adds: 'With me watching, of course.' I cannot explain or understand
