by Wendy Leigh
“But how did his father’s death cause Robert not to trust women?” I ask, bemused.
“As they carried his father’s body off to the morgue, and little Robert was sobbing his heart out, his mother hugged him to her and then and there swore to him that she would never leave him,” Georgiana says.
“And then she was committed to an asylum,” I say, as the truth dawns on me.
“After that, Robert never trusted another woman again. Until me, that is . . .” she says, and at least has the good grace to look shamefaced at her own words.
“And you went ahead and stabbed him in the heart,” I say, then am awash with guilt because, of course, now I’ve done exactly the same thing to him.
“Looking back, the moment Robert found me again and I moved into Hartwell Castle, I should have been honest with him about Suzy, about Pamela, because he loved me enough to understand. Then when the blackmailer struck, I could have told him everything about me and my life, and we could have fought him together. But I made the worst mistake of my life and did not,” she says.
And I fell into the identical trap by not telling him the truth about Georgiana. So in the end, we both made the same mistake. The bitter irony strikes me to the very core of my being, and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to live with it.
Meanwhile, she carries on: “And then, when Robert got the better of me, and he did, I faked my own death,” she says.
Robert got the better of her? I couldn’t be happier. But now isn’t the moment to ask her how he did it.
“Tell me about the woman whose corpse was found in Hartwell Lake, Georgiana,” I say.
“Robert made it easy for us by refusing to allow an autopsy on the body, after Tamara had arranged to have it dumped in the lake,” she says after a while.
I recoil.
“So Tamara murdered the poor woman!” I say, once I’ve begun to recover from the shock.
She shakes her head vehemently.
“Tammy was many things, but she was not a killer. She just found me a stray warm body. The body of a hapless professional submissive named Patty,” she says.
Right on cue, the doorbell of Le Château rings.
Georgiana dashes over to answer it, and ushers a girl in her early twenties into the dungeon.
“Angel, my little poppet, it warms my heart to see you here so bright and early. This dumb little bitch I’m trying so fruitlessly to train today has got deep-dish delusions that she can make it as a submissive. But you and I both know that a proper sub isn’t born in a day, don’t we?” she says.
“Yes, Countess,” Angel says in a faint voice.
“Right, then. I have an important meeting connected with my daughter scheduled on the Upper West Side. And I think this is the ideal opportunity to give Dumbo her first experience of being held in strict bondage, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, Countess, definitely,” Angel agrees eagerly.
Ten minutes later, I’m trussed up like a prize turkey, and in such a way as not to be in the least bit erotic or alluring.
“Well done, Angel! Now you can watch her while I’m gone,” Georgiana says, and sweeps out of the dungeon, leaving me alone with Angel.
She spends the next half hour in an adjacent office, from where she makes personal calls in a loud voice. Meanwhile, I plot how to take advantage of my solitude.
I need to take a leaf out of Georgiana’s book.
Identify with my aggressor.
Better still: become her.
Become Georgiana.
Angel sidles into the dungeon.
“So you think you’re going to make it as a sub here and steal my best tricks, do you, Dumbo?” She sticks her face in front of mine, expecting me to cringe and crumble.
I flash her a look so imperious that I’m surprised she doesn’t wilt on the spot.
“I’d caution you not to fall into the trap of believing every iota of what you are told, Little Miss Angel,” I declare, in bell-like Georgiana tones. “Because once I’m through with giving the best performance of my life to your sainted patroness, and she’s hired me, every single trick you’ve spent months cultivating will be at my feet, and you’ll be toast.”
“But you don’t have any experience!”
“Dream on, pussycat. Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. Forty percent to the bellman, sixty percent to me, and practically every high roller in Nevada who imagined himself to be a dominant and longed to crack his whip over the delicate, pink, and perfect flesh of a nubile submissive was in seventh heaven with me.
“You see, Angel, I may not be eighteen years old anymore, but if I weren’t in the demeaning position into which your phony countess has currently placed me, you would immediately become aware of a seminal truth: I’m every dominant’s dream submissive.
“Luxuriate in this vision of submission currently in front of you, sweetheart. I look like an angel—big tits, long legs, perfect ass—and I always aim to please. A virtuoso at oral sex, I can take every inch of a man down my throat. Ask me if I ever gag and I won’t comprehend the meaning of the question. And when a man ejaculates in my mouth—and he will, far sooner than he imagines—I happily take every drop.
“Pain? I can endure almost anything, and give the most convincing appearance of relishing every slap, every lash, every stroke, every bruise, every welt meted out to me.
“Role play? Absolutely! In English, in fluent French, in perfect German, in flawless Italian, and even a little Russian, if requested!
“Oh yes, pussycat, any man who gets a taste of my submissive charms will be mine for life, in bliss forever. Compete with me, sweetie pie? Dream on! Within three months, Madame Countess will be history, I can promise you. But if you play your cards right today and do what I tell you, you’ll soon be working for me and making a fortune!”
I take a breath, then give a sidelong glance to Angel, who—as the old song goes—has turned a whiter shade of pale.
“Lemme get this straight. You’re saying that you’re faking it? You’re not a new and inexperienced sub at all? You’re snowing the countess so that you can get in here and take over the joint?” she says, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
“So you really aren’t as stupid as you look after all, my precious little Angel-pie! But nonetheless, I’ll make it simple for you: once your precious countess has made her ludicrous attempts to turn me into a submissive, when I’m already light-years ahead of any submissive in this state, and in most of all the others, as well, I’ll take sessions 24/7 and, along the way, I’ll yank Le Château right out of her inept clutches.”
“I’ll tell her what you’re planning! I’ll tell the countess,” she says.
“Good luck, sweetie pie. She’ll tell you that I’m simply boasting, that I’ve got ideas far above my station and not to take any notice of me. At your peril, you won’t . . . not until I deign to show my hand, you won’t,” I say.
“But . . .” Angel stammers.
“And then I’ll own Le Château, and you, lock, stock, and barrel, my delicate little cherub!”
She casts wildly around the dungeon, searching desperately for something with which to counteract my claims.
“Let me give you some stellar advice that will hold you in good stead when you eventually attempt to make your way in the world, Angel. If ever you are confronted by the glorious specter of a full-blooded beautiful woman who lives by the motto ‘Only an act of God will stop me from getting what I want,’ you need to accept the inevitable: you will be trounced by her. And my advice to you is, throw in the towel. Because whatever you do, she will always, always win.”
“So I—”
“So you only have one alternative, Angel. Listen carefully, because here it comes. But first you have to untie me. And then I shall give you the key to your survival in this cruel and heartless business.”
Within se
ven minutes Angel has untied me, and I’m free and ready to run like the wind.
Except . . .
I hear a loud and insistent banging.
And then the words “Angel, Angel, open the door at once. I’m back!”
“One call, and that’s all it will take to get me out of your life, out of here and gone forever,” is what I tell Angel.
Half an hour later and Georgiana is still steaming.
“I can’t believe that little simpleton untied you, just because you complained of cramp!” she says.
“Please don’t make her suffer for it tomorrow. It’s my fault,” I say.
And inwardly I rejoice, because ten minutes ago, after Georgiana ripped into her for untying me, Angel burst into floods of tears and rushed out of Le Château, armed with Robert’s telephone number and his e-mail address, along with my message for him.
Georgiana switches on the tape recorder again, and I sit back and let her continue her story while I nod and smile, pretending to listen. But I don’t hear a single word.
Robert could get here any minute now.
Then he’ll find out she’s still alive, and that I kept the truth from him.
So how the hell do I get rid of her so he won’t?
My only solution is to do to Georgiana what she would do to me; get rid of her so that he won’t find her here.
Then again, I’m not a murderess, so how do I do that?
I get my answer when the dungeon door crashes open.
“I’ve come back to claim what’s mine, Georgiana,” a male voice booms.
And she freezes.
“But I assumed that you were long dead and buried . . .”
“Better luck next time, you blue-blooded bitch,” he says, and smashes his fist straight into her face.
“Murray?” I say, on a hunch.
“Mr. Hatch to you,” he says.
Then he turns to Georgiana, who is crumpled up on the ground, her face in her hands, sobbing.
“You fucked it all up once. Then I got you another shot at it. And you didn’t just fuck it up again, you took my beautiful Tammy down with you. My beautiful, beautiful Tammy who had to fight all these years to become the woman she wanted to be. Just when she was done with all the treatments and ready to start her life as a proper woman, you went and got her killed. So now it’s payback time.” And he pummels her head over and over, while I stand there, rooted to the spot in horror.
Georgiana and I are alone together in the dungeon now. We are both tied up and her power over me is a thing of the past, now that she is in fear for her life, which could end at the hands of either Murray or his sinister nameless associates.
And until he comes back to the dungeon again now that he has taken a pause from battering her, or Robert ultimately rides to my rescue, we both remain imprisoned here with time to burn.
It occurs to me that perhaps now, in the eleventh hour, she’ll finally enlighten me regarding all the many mysteries surrounding her story that have puzzled me for so long.
So I take a deep breath and go for it.
“I know you didn’t expect it to end like this for us both, Georgiana. And I wish it hadn’t. But whatever now becomes of us, the ghostwriter in me still craves some answers . . .”
She lifts her head up and her hair spills over her shoulders, yet her bruised and battered face still somehow retains that old Lady Georgiana Hartwell magic.
“You want me to give you the name of my blackmailer, tell you how Robert got the better of me in the end, why I finally faked my own death, and exactly how and why—when you suddenly materialized in his life—you tore down the house of cards I’d so painstakingly constructed, don’t you?” she says, her voice still slurred with pain.
“Of course I do, Georgiana. Wouldn’t you, if you were me?”
“Not for a second. I’ve always lived my life by two creeds. I’ve already told you the first one: ‘Only an act of God will ever stop me from getting what I want.’ The second one is even more to the point: ‘If I don’t get what I want, I shall just obliterate the past, and move on.’ Which is what I firmly advise you to do from now on, Miranda,” she says.
I open my mouth to answer, but the door crashes open and there stands Murray, naked and brandishing a single-tail whip.
“While I’m waiting for my forensic accountants to show up, I guess I’ll kill time and have a bit of fun with you two sluts,” he says, then strolls toward us, whistling.
Chapter Twenty-Six
An hour later and Murray is still toying with us. Georgiana is locked in one cage, and I’m tied hand and foot to a sling swinging from the dungeon ceiling. We are both naked.
“Collateral damage, aren’t you, pretty babe?” he says to me.
I bring myself to look straight into his ice-cold blue eyes and a shudder goes through me. I follow his gaze to a pulley on the ceiling from which hang a series of ropes with cuffs at the ends of them.
He drags Georgiana out of her cage, pulls her to her feet, and she screams like a banshee.
“No point in screaming. All the dungeons are soundproof, remember, Suzy?” he says, and punches her in the face so hard that the blood pours out of her nose and mouth.
Without giving her a second to rally, he attaches cuffs to her wrists and ankles while she tries to fight him off—but fails. He anchors her ankle cuffs to two rings in the floor, and her wrist cuffs to the rope that hangs from the pulley.
And then he clicks a lever on the wall and she is hoisted up high on her toes and hangs from the pulley, helpless.
Then he advances on me and I cringe.
He sets about releasing me from the sling with such speed that the freedom, coupled with the discomfort from where the ropes bit into my flesh, is dizzying.
“Rope marks all over you—I love a woman with rope burn all over the most tender and intimate areas of her flesh,” he says, running his paws over the raised welts on my flesh and pinching them one by one while I yelp in agony.
Then he drags me over to where Georgiana dangles, naked and terrified.
And anchors my feet to the floor, cuffs my wrists in the shackles, and then hoists me up on my toes, just as he has done to her.
And we both hang there, just a foot away from each other, both naked, trembling, and suddenly so shamed that we are unable to meet each other’s eyes.
“Shy, are we?” he says with a laugh, then marches over to the wall and presses a button, and all of a sudden, to my horror and Georgiana’s, the ropes attached to the ceiling pulley move together, so close that our naked bodies touch.
“Time to get to know each other better, isn’t it, girls?” Murray says, and takes a big rope and ties it around Georgiana’s waist, then mine, so that we are pressed tight together, face-to-face.
And at that moment I thank the universe for making her so much taller than me, otherwise our breasts would be pressed so close together that our nipples would touch, and if we moved, they would abrade each other.
But within seconds, move we do, as Murray swings a cat-o’-nine-tails, first against Georgiana’s back and ass, then against mine, and with each stroke we press into each other, and our sweat mingles with every cruel stroke Murray inflicts on us.
First our backs and asses, then our sides, as he moves around us, slowly, so slowly, and lashes whatever parts of our bodies take his fancy.
When he has finished we are both sobbing pitifully, and our bodies are scored with marks.
He must be done with us by now!
“And now for the fun bit,” he says, then clicks the button in the wall again and the pulley slides so that Georgiana and I are apart once more.
Then he smiles and unties Georgiana, only to retie her again, this time with her back to me.
And then he proceeds to do the same to me, so that Georgiana and I are now back to back.
Or rather, his lack of it.
Because this time, his lashes come fast, well placed, with a rhythm that makes us swing from side to side to escape him, while he is afire at each and every stroke he inflicts on us.
But each time we grind our welts against each other in a desperate attempt to escape his strokes, we only inflame those welts even further.
Then he unties us both.
Next he attaches every part of Georgiana’s body, even her neck, to one of the St. Andrew’s Crosses so that she is immobilized and facing the wall, and secured there so tightly that she is unable to move an inch, never mind turn her head and look behind her.
Then he spread-eagles me on the other one, only this time with my back to the wall.
Then he takes a red Magic Marker and draws a dartboard around the circumference of each of my breasts.
“Let’s see if I can hit a bull’s-eye,” he says, and raises his whip high in the air.
The first shot blows all the fingers off Murray’s hand; the second, his hand from his arm. And the third his arm from his shoulder; the fourth, his shoulder from his neck, and the fifth, his neck from his head. His body slumps to the ground. Robert has come for me at last!
He wraps his arms around me as if we were the only two people in the dungeon, and gently unties me, cradles me in his arms, and rocks me. Then he ever so gently wraps me in a trenchcoat, covering the evidence of my abuse at Murray’s hands.
As the paramedics approach the cross, Robert pulls away from me for a second.
“Untie her and get her to the hospital as fast as you can. Charge all her treatment to me.” He says, and then carries on kissing me.
Over his shoulder, I watch terrified, as the paramedics untie Georgiana and help her onto the stretcher. They carry her past us while Robert keeps on kissing me.
