Anne-Marie's mouth puckered and she looked across at Andrea. 'Five minutes,' she said. 'Maybe six, no longer than that.'
'No,' Andrea agreed, 'not long, though we were both really worried about you.'
'Sorry,' I said stupidly. Now I did try to sit up. Aided by Anne-Marie, I managed it, and then held my head in my near-useless hands breathing as deeply as the tight corset would permit. 'Five or six minutes, you say? And I definitely never left here at all during that time?'
'Of course you didn't,' Anne-Marie replied firmly. 'We lifted you onto the bed and untied everything and then I was slapping your face and splashing water on you, though nothing seemed to have any effect. I was on the point of calling an ambulance, but then suddenly you started to come around again.'
'Good job I did.' Despite everything I had just been through, I chuckled imagining the expressions on the faces of the paramedics called in to revive me in my present get-up. Then I sighed and lowered my hands. 'It didn't feel like a dream,' I told them quietly, looking up at the two pairs of eyes fixed immovably on me. 'It felt dead real again. Too damned real, actually.' My hand went up to touch the locket that still hung around my neck and my fingers stroked the smooth metal of the casing. Idly, I noticed they had removed the choker I'd been wearing around my neck earlier. 'And it was far longer than five minutes, believe me,' I went on. 'More like five weeks, at a guess.' I drew in another deep breath and shook my head. 'I need a stiff drink,' I announced. 'A bloody big stiff drink!'
'But what about—?' Anne-Marie stopped herself.
I smiled up at her. 'A drink first,' I said fervently. 'A drink first, and then I'll tell you all about it, though trust me, you aren't going to believe me.'
'Go get her a large brandy, Andrea,' she commanded.
I laughed. 'Bring the bottle and three glasses, and a spare one if you've got one - a spare bottle, that is. This is some story, and you're both going to need a drink almost as much as I am!'
The men, Hacklebury men especially, were bad enough, Angelina knew, but the maids and the other women were even worse, especially the cruel-eyed Meg, who made no attempt to disguise the way she relished every moment of her master's wife's suffering.
'Strip the hussy to her corset!' Meg snapped. 'Strip her down and then bring her round to the small pond. We'll give her a thorough soaking, and then you two can tighten her laces even more. She still has on the leather corset with the leather laces, I presume?'
'Yes ma'am,' the younger of the two under-maids, Florence, replied eagerly. 'Master said she was to be kept in it other'n either he or you said different. Said there's two more of the same been ordered, so she could be changed if'n she got a bit too sweaty and smelly.'
'Let her sweat and smell,' Meg growled. 'T'won't be long now before he'll not want to roger the bitch any more any ways.'
'Can't see what he finds attractive in her meself,' the second under-maid said, and giggled. She was older than Florence, though younger by some few years than Meg herself, and had about her the look of one who had been brought up in the fresh country air. She preened herself and thrust her chest forward so that her substantial bosom strained against the black linen of her uniform.
'She ain't ever going to have teats like yours, Betty, that's for sure,' Florence said with admiration. 'Skinny as a bloody garden rake, she is. More meat on a butcher's apron, as my old pa would say,' she added cheerfully as she drew the top of the bodice down about Angelina's arms, revealing her small breasts thrust cruelly upwards by the strictures of her tightly laced undergarment.
'Not even a decent mouthful there.' Betty sniffed disdainfully and reached out one finger to trace a line gently across the small mounds where they emerged from the lacy top ruff of the corset. 'Maybe we should give a little suck every day and see if we can't maybe encourage the little eggs to grow.'
'You can suck her tits any time you like,' Meg declared, 'but it won't make the buggers grow any more. That's an old wives' tale, that is. Only thing'll make those titties get bigger is if'n either his lordship or one of his kind plants a sprig in her, which'll like as not happen soon enough, if'n it hasn't happened already.'
'Little belly's going to be full of arms and legs?' Florence rubbed an open palm across Angelina's flat stomach. 'Well, at least it'll get you a bit of relief from all these stays.' She laughed again and patted the whalebone-encased figure in a manner that under different circumstances might have been interpreted as friendly or sympathetic.
But Angelina knew only too well that these horrific people had no such emotions to spare where she was concerned. 'Damn you!' she said. 'Damn all of you! Damn all of you to hell!'
Florence stepped back and sneered down at her, her florid face contorted into an expression of contempt. 'And fuck you, little mistress,' she hissed, 'because that's just what he's going to do, you know. He's going to fuck you until that pretty little fanny is red raw and that oh-so-trim little belly grows round and fat.'
'Yes, you little cow,' Betty snickered, 'and then we'll be here to see you properly milked every day, won't we, Flo?'
'That we will,' Florence agreed. 'We'll make sure the little calf sucks good and hard on those dugs, that we will.'
'That's enough!' Meg snapped, stepping forward. She stretched out a hand and stroked the side of Angelina's face. 'Our little cow will come to discover the truth soon enough, but meanwhile let's just try to help her come to terms with her role, shall we?' She stood back again, pursing her lips and nodding. 'He only wants you for breeding, you know that, don't you? And it doesn't really even matter which cock does the necessary, either. Just so long as someone plants the sprig, that's all it takes, and then we'll see what the future holds. For myself, my dear little mistress,' she continued, leaning close to Angelina, 'I just cannot wait!'
Even before I opened my eyes I knew I was back, back in eighteen thirty-nine, that is, and also back in big trouble, for I could smell that mixture of my own perspiration and the tight leather into which I had been laced, and my hips and arse throbbed from having lain too long in the straw on the hard floor of my specially built prison.
I struggled into a sitting position, no mean feat without the use of my hands, which were still trapped inside those awful disabling gloves, my wrists locked to the broad corset belt that was part of the suit. Then, grunting into the foul tasting leather gag that was strapped between my achingly distended jaws, I managed to stand up using the rough stone wall as support. Just as before, my feet were encased in those ridiculously high heels and I had to pause for a moment to re-accustom myself and balance before finally tottering across to where the top half of the stable door stood open, the bottom half locked and bolted against any hope of escape.
My field of vision hampered by the narrow eye slits in the all-encompassing tight leather hood I wore, I peered out to where the outer door of my prison stood wide open. No sign of my huge Viking minder as yet, though there was little doubt in my mind that friend Erik was not far away.
The first fingers of dawn were beginning to stretch against the dark sky in the east...
Like hell they were. In reality, the sky was a very dark grey with just a hint of the deep navy blue tinge that lets you know it's no longer actually night but that it will be another twenty minutes at least before it will be light enough to see anything, and that the chance of the morning sun coming up within the hour has been made more than unlikely by a thick layer of clouds.
I sniffed at the air, mostly a waste of time and effort really as the leather smell of my mask was all- pervasive, but I did get enough from that whiff to know it was damp outside and therefore not much better inside. The tight kid bodysuit they were keeping me in was less than comfortable, but at least it offered some protection, both against the elements and against my chafing or grazing myself on unsympathetic surfaces.
Yet was that the main reason for strapping and lacing me into this accursed garment? The main reason possibly, but not the sole reason. Hacklebury had some very curious ideas when it
came to women and what he considered sexy, and figure-hugging leather fell into that category. What was it with men and leather? The magazines I'd seen, both behind the bushes at the edge of the school playing field and on the top shelves of a couple of newsagent's shops in Havant and Portsmouth, featured shiny black-clad female figures in outfits ranging from the more conventional motorcycle jacket and trousers - the jacket usually open in front to reveal varying degrees of amazingly well-developed mammary glands - to corsets I had regarded as being impossibly constricting, up until I'd been introduced to the real thing, that is.
I turned back from the doorway and stared at the featureless walls, pondering glumly. No, this whole thing smacked of something even deeper than Hacklebury being a leather fetishist. His mad maidservant had a hand in everything, or so it seemed, and apparently she was able to exercise an influence over her employer far above her presumed station as a mere domestic. She was obviously sane enough to appreciate that the likes of dear Gregory could never marry the likes of her, but she was determined to make it clear to me that my situation as his wife was considered even lower than her own might have been, even had I actually been his wife.
My thoughts turned to whoever it was they had found and used as my doppelganger, the girl who had stood in at the travesty of a wedding ceremony to make sure Angelina didn't say 'I won't' when it came time to say 'I do'. I still didn't know much about my ancestor, who's dainty little body I now once again occupied, but there was a feeling I couldn't get away from that she had a courage far greater than most young women of her age would have possessed. She had stood up to Hacklebury and to Meg and that was no mean effort, for she must have known the awful pair would make her pay for her defiance.
Where are you now, Angelina? I wondered, and grimaced in a kind of smile around the disfiguring gag. Her body was here, of course, and I was in it, but where was her actual spirit, her so-called soul? Was she still in here with me somewhere, dormant, or simply keeping a low profile while I took over? Or was she elsewhere, maybe in someone else's body or simply floating in the ether? Could she see me? Could she feel me? Did she know I existed? Was she watching me now, perhaps even tuning into my thoughts?
Talk to me, you silly little bitch!
No answer. I waited, listening both outwardly and inwardly.
I could do with your help, Angelina. You may have a few answers that could be a bit useful.
Still nothing.
I'm on your side, girl, and two heads are better than one. Of course, in our case, it was a matter of only one head between us and maybe two minds, but I'm sure you get the idea, and I hoped and assumed she would, too, if only she was listening.
Please? Pretty please?
I sighed. Oh well, I hadn't really expected her to suddenly pop up on the side. She'd made no effort to communicate the first time I'd found myself in her body, so why would she bother now? The conclusion, therefore, had to be that she couldn't rather than wouldn't communicate with me.
You're on your own, Teena my girl. How long this time, I wondered, trying to remember exactly how long the experience had lasted the first time. It had seemed like an eternity while I was going through it, but it had probably only been a few days, while back in the year nineteen seventy-five it had only been a few minutes. My eyes narrowed as I thought of Anne-Marie and Andrea. Presumably, I would have passed out in front of them and they would be doing their best to revive me, Andrea possibly thinking I had fainted as a result of her efforts with her otherwise carefully disguised manhood.
I felt guilty as sin when I thought about how little persuasion it had taken for me to fit in with my odd new friends' weird sexual proclivities, and because straps and chains hadn't really been needed in order for Anne-Marie to reduce me to a kneeling little slave with my tongue licking eagerly at her dripping pussy. I stared down at myself as best I could, and a shiver of something ran up my spine. I tried not to admit to what had caused it, but deep inside me I damn well knew the truth.
The games I had played with Anne-Marie and Andrea were just that, games. They had been exciting, but this now was no game and these chains, though not actually any more real than Anne-Marie's, had been locked onto me with an intent approaching permanence. No, this was no dalliance or role-playing but a game that was being enacted in deadly earnest, and this bondage was both thorough and cruel, designed to reduce me to the level of a helpless plaything with a status scarcely above that of any four legged stable inmate...
And that thought excited me, I realised with horror!
As the leather corset began to dry out, its laces started shrinking and tightening even more despite the fact that Angelina had been convinced the last round of tightening, following her dunking into the pond, had constricted her waist as far as was humanly possible.
The two younger maids had earlier bound her wrists with another length of lace, although this they had used dry and not allowed to become wet afterwards. However, the various turns were tight enough and cinched through so that Angelina knew there was no chance of her slipping out of this simple bondage. Now she was helpless to try and ease her newest torture even had her fingers been able to deal with the knots that held the corset closed. All she could do was stand and try to stare back at the three women with an air of defiance, a posture and attitude made increasingly difficult, and eventually impossible, as the unforgiving garment drew tighter and tighter about her.
Finally, with a gasp and a small squeal, she sank to her knees. 'Mercy!' she cried, blinking away tears of pain and humiliation. 'Mercy, I beg of you, before you kill me!'
Meg stepped forward, stooped over her and seized her hair, hauling her head up so Angelina was forced to look into her sneering face. 'Oh, you'll not die, you simpering child,' she said quietly. 'You may faint, and you'll fight for every breath, but you'll not die, not for a long while yet, I promise you.'
Angelina groaned, her eyes wide and her nostrils dilated as the air hissed in and out of her protesting lungs. 'And then what?' she begged to know, the words now little more than a series of sobs. 'What is it you want of me?'
'Want? Of you? Ha!' Meg released her vicious grip and allowed the blonde head to drop forward again. 'I want nothing of you, little missy,' she said in a tone of dismissive contempt. 'The master did want certain things, but you have made it obvious you cannot, or will not, provide them, more fool you, and now it is simply a case of teaching you how to behave.' She turned to the other maids. 'Go, both of you,' she ordered. 'Get back to the house and prepare the horse. I'll bring this creature with me shortly.'
The two maids scuttled off in a swirl of skirts and petticoats, leaving Meg alone with Angelina. The older woman now crouched down beside her captive and raised her chin in one hand. 'I'll have everything I want, miss cold fish,' she hissed. 'I already have most of it, in fact, and when you are no longer of any use or value, I shall have it completely.'
'You want Gregory for yourself?' Angelina whimpered.
Meg laughed. 'I already have him, in truth, and now I also have you, and by his order, whilst it makes my flesh creep to think of him with his proud cock in such a tight and unresponsive pussy as yours, by God I shall turn you into his whore as well as his wife.'
'But why? Surely that will go against your hopes if I were to do all the wicked things I know he wants of me?'
'Then you do not know men, little girl,' Meg retorted. 'When you are finally ready and are begging him for it, lapping his cock and balls at every tip and turn and squirming like a three penny slut at his feet, what appeal do you think you will have for him then? You, with your tiny titties and skinny shanks, do you think a man like that will choose you over what I offer him? Ah, I know he can never marry me nor give me his name in any way, but have him I shall in every other fashion.'
'And then you will kill me, I suppose?' Angelina fought to get the words out as the pressure around her diaphragm continued to intensify.
Meg patted her cheek. 'Perhaps, in time,' she conceded, 'but first I'll have y
ou as my little lap dog, madam. You'll crawl to me as you would crawl to him and offer me that tart little tongue as readily as I will accept it where it belongs, down here!' She jerked a finger towards her skirts. 'Yes, down here, my little bitch, your little tongue will lap my pussy to prepare it for your very own husband, and then you will watch as he rogers a real woman.'
'You're mad!' Angelina groaned, her eyes widening in even greater horror. 'I... I thought Gregory was mad enough, but... but you... you are completely... insane!' The last word emerged as a strangled squeal and faded into a sigh as she toppled forward, fainting into merciful oblivion.
Memories or dreams? Dreams or memories? Her memories or my dreams? As I opened my eyes to find myself once again staring at the blank stone walls of my confinement, I knew I had already begun to understand and accept the truth.
Wherever Angelina's own personality now was, little snippets of her memories were beginning to filter through to me. It started happening the last time I had come back, and now... still like a half remembered dream after waking but clearer, much clearer than before. Or was it, had it been, simply my imagination?
I turned slowly, studying each of the walls in turn trying to use their very blankness to focus and concentrate my mind. The scene by the pond had been real, of that I was all but certain, and now as I narrowed my eyes I found I could almost relive it, the vice-like pressure of that awful corset, the sharp pains against my spine as the steadily shrinking laces cut into my flesh... no, not my flesh, her flesh.
I shook my head, blinking fiercely. Her flesh, my flesh, what did it matter? This was her body, but now it was my body again. And for how long?
A terrible thought struck me and my teeth dug deeper into the leather gag. How long before the murderous bitch finally tired of her game and killed her helpless victim? And what if that helpless victim just still happened to be me at the time? Would I die in, and with, this body? Reason told me that I ought not to; that if I was Angelina when the time came I would simply be whisked back to my own time and body. But reason had played no part in this so far, so why should it begin to now or any time in the future?
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