Mabel

accept to submit to my authority? Answer!'

The young girl's pride gave her a little strength, enough to answer:

'Never never! You're a monster and I despise you!'

'Very well, I'll take good note of it,' Dorothea said calmly. 'Bridget, help me carry this revolted creature down to the cellar. We shall tie her to the rack which I prepared yesterday'.

The two young women untied the fetters of the unfortunate girl and carried her — or rather helped her to walk, so weak she was — through the dark passages of the castle.

In a small damp and cold cellar there stood a rack, near the air vent. It was a curious instrument, consisting of a horizontal beam with four legs something like a wooden horse with no head. Mabel was placed astride on it, and the wooden beam's cutting edge hurt her flesh. She wag forced to lie down on it full-length and they tied her body to the beam so that her bust was resting hard on it-Then they tied her four limbs to the legs of the instrument This very painful position drew cries of pain from the girl. But Dorothea was not moved in the least. She addressed her victim in a dry despising voice.

'Mabel Sunway, I repeat again that I intend to have upon you a complete authority. You shall submit to it willy-nilly. I shall leave you here without eating or drinking until you have decided to recognize to punish you. She will start with then stokes of a birch twig, next it will, be a cane, then the horsewhip, then, if need be, the knout and the stick.

As soon as you have decided to obey me like a slave you will tell Bridget so and she will deliver you. Until then I won't hear from you!'

Having spoken, the governess went out, rolling her powerful hips and Bridget followed her.

Mabel remained alone, trembling with cold and fear, shaken now and the by pitiful sobs. She had no strength left to think nor to realize what was happening to her. All the events of the morning appeared to her like an, awful nightmare. She recalled confusedly her past life, her young yearn of a free and happy girl, wealthy and triumphant with youth and beauty. Then, nearly at once the vision of Dorothea von Berner superimposed itself on the other thoughts, cancelling them out. Was that young and beautiful woman a demon, a fiend in human shape? What would become of her, helpless creature, in the claws of this odious creature?

Her buttocks were giving her a lot of pain, and go did the cords that were tying her and the edge of the wooden beam that was cutting into the flesh of her breasts and sex. Was it really her, Mabel Sunway, being inflicted such treatments? She who, a few hours earlier, was still a laughing and carefree girl, with her body clad in silk lingerie and smart dresses, and with her heart full of songs and laughter?

The entrance of Bridget pulled her abruptly out of her reverie. The maid, made up like a prostitute, was drawing towards her with a birch twig.

With her hands akimbo, she stood in front of her victim, mocking:

'Well, Mabel, how are you, ducks? You're not very proud now, are you? Not now that your big rump is bleeding you wouldn't dare order me about like you did last night, with your lah-de-dah airs, eh? You, with your 'my maid, 'my orders, 'do this, do that, you little bitch! Now everything's changed and your buttocks will pay for your insolence.'

Pale with rage and humiliation the girl listened to this degrading speech. Her silence exasperated the maid.

'You see,' she went on mockingly, 'how you are at my mercy, you fair damsel! I can do what I please, and there's nothing you can do about it you know what? I'm going to spit on you, it'll make me feel good!'

She beat down and spat out three times on Mabel's face. Her Saliva, mixed with lipstick, ran slowly down the wane cheeks of the girl and even soiled her mouth and eyes.

'Brute, dirty brute! You appalling creature!' whined Mabel. 'I despise you! I hate you!'

'Well if that is so, as I don't want to hear your whining and cursing, I'm going to gag you, just as my mistress did a while ago! Tea, my dear, I'll do you the great honour of putting your nose into my panties! And I even peed in them to humiliate you still more!'

So saying, the pretty maid had dipped her hands underneath her dress and untied her pale blue panties which she picked up from the, floor. She folded up carefully into a gag which she applied vigorously against Mabel's mouth and nose. The damp panties gave off a powerful smell. The English girl gave a horrified start But already Bridget was fixing the improvised gag firmly by means of a leather belt Then she took hold of the birch twig, or rather several twigs bound together and started whipping Mabel's buttocks with it.

The twigs bruised the bleeding behind, but this time humiliation was still greater than pain. Mabel felt the many wooden twigs break on her flesh with dry cracking sounds. It seemed to her as if she were being pricked with a thousand needles, and the damp panties of the maid, pressing hard against her mouth, prevented her from crying out.

Bridget really whipped with a vengeance and gave more strokes than she bad been ordered to.

But finally she left, disdainful, not without having gratified Mabel with a pair of hard slaps on top of her gag. Purposely, she forgot to undo the gag, so that the girl, had, to have this, unclean material against her face for the next two hours.

When these two hours were over, another whipping with twigs took place. Mabel's rumps were in a pitiful state. But the proud English girl was not yet ready to capitulate. As Bridget asked her if she was willing to submit, she answered by shaking her head proudly.

The third beating was administered with a supple cane, which dug bloody furrows into the martyred buttocks. Mabel's cries were stifled by the gag.

And thus she received two more whippings with the stick. At last, Bridget, mockingly announced that night was coming that that she promised her twenty strokes with a horse-whip for breakfast the next morning.

It would be impossible to describe Mabel's night. She really suffered a lot, as can be imagined: abandoned in the cold damp cellar, with her buttocks aflame, her body immobilised in a painful position and her face in contact with the soiled piece of clothes of the maid, she despaired and called for death rather than to endure such torture. Her sufferings had a terrible effect on her nerves, so overwrought and tired. During the long hours of the night she meditated on her situation. What could she do if not accept the bondage that was required of her?

Dawn found her vanquished and weakened. She was also beginning to feel deeply the pangs of thirst and hunger.

At last, she started as she heard steps, soon followed by Bridget's voice:

'Well slave have you deckled to submit to your mistress?'

The word 'slave' set up a reaction of revolt in the mind of proud Mabel. She had enough strength left to shake her head in refusal.

The maid laughed and Mabel suddenly felt the lash of a horsewhip on her buttocks. The girl had never been horsewhipped before. Perhaps because it was striking already wounded flesh, the horsewhip made her suffer still more than, the dog-whip, the birch twig or the cane.

Bridget horsewhipped her with all her strength. Mabel wanted to scream and beg for mercy but she was prevented from doing so by her gag and she had to endure the terrible punishment till the end. At last, Bridget stopped and asked:

'And now, what have you decided?'

At the end of her physical resistance the girl nodded her head in submission, whereupon the maid delivered her from the underskirt and the panties that were imprisoning her head and, like a dream, Mabel at long last saw the light, and the first thing she saw was the vulgarly made up face of Bridget who was looking at her with contempt.

'Slave,' the maid said, 'have you decided to submit entirely to your governess Miss von Berner?'

'I submit,' whispered Mabel, 'but please don't beat me! Mercy!'

Bridget shrugged her shoulders and unhurriedly untied the cords that were holding the girl against the rack. Then she stood her up and had to hold her up a few seconds for the girl's legs were like cottonwood.

'Come, follow me!' she ordered.

Behind the maid who was holding her hand as a baby, Mabel painfully walked up the steps and along passages up to Dorothea von Berner's door, who lived next to her own room, Bridget knocked on the door.

'Who is it?' the governess asked.

'It's Mabel, Miss, she's come to submit and I'm bringing her in.'

'All right, let her in!'