The Alexandra Series

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  Ian had suggested she behave. She wisely decided that behave was her only option if she hoped to enjoy anything at all about the night.

  She was told to sit in a chair at the far end of the room, then was left by herself to wonder what fate she’d brought into this night. Her anticipation mounted with every tick of the clock, and yet her world seemed to move in slow motion with her brain still a little fuzzy. She was startled when the door suddenly burst open and another leather clad man appeared. This one wore a vest, leather straps around his arms, chaps and boots with spurs. On many men the attire might look silly, but on this man the clothes were perfect. He was tall, toned and tanned, like some odd combination of Reggie and Gus. Just the sight of him made her sex stir so that twittering commotion in her belly communicated arousal to her frightened brain. She had to hold back the intense desire to fall to her knees and bring his bared and swaying prick to her mouth.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” she asked him as he grabbed her hand.

  “You’re going to be whipped,” he replied succinctly.

  And this would be ‘fun’?” she wondered silently.

  It was no mere whipping facing her. The redhead American beauty became the third act in an evening long theatre of absurd sex, played out on a stage before a live audience of several dozen gentlemen and ladies. Some of the patrons were attired in leather bustiers and skirts, more chaps and defining muscle straps on men. Yet most of the crowd was wearing silvery evening gowns and tuxes that made it look as though they had just come from a fancy dinner party and this was the entertainment that would end their extravagant night of excess.

  The theatre in the round was arranged with a small stage in the center that was ready for the appearance of a docile female victim.

  The flame-haired beauty walked down the aisle like an elegant princess on the way to the gallows. Though still a bit numb, her mood seemed to match the solemn atmosphere around her—if nothing else she was utterly petrified to be the focus of so much attention. As she was led to a dais in the center of the stage, her attention focused upwards where the rigging overhead was a complex apparatus of ropes, chains and hooks that dangled ominously before her wide-eyed gaze. While someone attached restraints to the sturdy boots, her wrists were attached to the contraption above. Initially the ropes were slack, giving her plenty of room to move, then with a sudden jerk, the ropes and chains went taut, and Jocelyn Killian’s lovely body was stretched to its very limit.

  A man in a tux stepped into center stage a few feet from the shackled woman and tapped his microphone to get the attention of the audience. The whispered voices stopped their trivial conversation to listen to the introduction. A spotlight suddenly blazed on the center of the theatre, on the MC and on the bound redhead.

  “Tonight, my friends, you’ll feast on an unusual sight most often seen only in private salons, bedrooms and dungeons.” He spoke with authority and the energy of excitement. “Here we have for you a woman of remarkable sexual prowess with a decent masochistic need that you will see fulfilled before your eyes. I’ve been told that she is not some tramp from the street. Indeed she’s a woman of some stature in the States—a business woman with reputation, money and prestige in her community. Here in our obscene theatre, however, she becomes nothing but flesh to be used for our pleasure.

  “Her consent in this matter is minimal, so you may see some reluctance on her part to find the joy in her torture. Certainly before it’s over she will scream with pain and wrench against these bonds. But because she is here to serve our collective need, she will know no mercy. Be assured however, that she is a bonafide sexual submissive having on many occasions served a dominant master. I would be surprised, however, if she’s ever been whipped in such circumstances as these.” The man almost chuckled at the thought. Turning about, the master of ceremonies faced the other direction, not to let the audience behind him feel cheated.

  “That, of course, is the game, isn’t it?” he went on in his jovial mood. “I repeat what I’ve said earlier tonight. We have no rules in this wayward club. Our aim is to present you with the most licentious dramas, that you might yourselves be informed about such delightful sexual excesses and be inspired by them for your personal gratification—wherever that might lead. I’m sure you’ll find this spectacle to appear frightening, dangerous and certainly shocking. Be assured, our subject will heal—in time.”

  The man then smiled broadly as he gazed at her. “Why, she’s even hot between her legs with female dew.” Striding to Jocelyn’s side, he pushed his gloved fingers into her cunt and withdrew the wet juice which glistened in the spotlight. Walking toward the audience he circled the perimeter showing the results of his prodding to the first row, only to have a few muted gasps and sighs from the stunned company of men and women.

  While Jocelyn listened to her fate recited as if she was a carnival sideshow, the gnawing in her body amplified. When she squirmed, however, she squirmed before so many eyes, it humiliated her to divulge such desire. At the same time she was taking a perverse pleasure from her predicament, there was anger, too. That Ian would force her to this just added to her theory of his madness. Each glib word from the smooth-talking peddler of obscenity only increased her inner fury. And yet she dangled before the eyes fixed on her without showing any protest. This might have been Alexandra’s venue. Her friend and lover might have thrived on this slave’s feast. But Jocelyn had been for years at serious odds with the submissive in her. Certainly there was a piece of her that might embrace the surrender and even the pain. But she’d never perform like a docile slut, and she hoped that these ghouls before her would see that in her defiant eyes.

  “So, gentlemen and ladies,” the MC roared with delight, “I give you now our main attraction of the night. Enjoy the spectacle. Be sure you witness our victim’s eyes and listen to her useless cries. Be sure you see how she dances in her bondage, and how her body will bear tonight’s torture for some days. Take it all in and enjoy. This will make a memory you’ll not forget.” He paused a moment for dramatic effect then added at the last, “when the torture is finished, the lights will dim and our show for the evening will be over. Please exit through the back doors. And ladies, be careful, perhaps the show will continue when you return to your beds.” The MC slunk to the side of the room so the spotlight was on Jocelyn alone.

  Ian stood in the shadows beyond a curtain peering at her, waiting for her flogging to begin, listening to the crafty comments of the MC. His narrow gaze was full of the devil’s designs. Though he might have enjoyed being the one laying on the whip, he was content this time to have delivered the submissive harlot to this venue. It pleased him to know that the haughty, irrepressible Jocelyn would entertain the customers paying for the pleasure of seeing a woman in agony. This was the culmination of his imaginings. Seeing this vision of beauty strung up like meat before the hungry eyes of a crowd of voyeurs seemed to quell for a moment that perverse piece of his nature that rose angrily inside him like an insane beast. She was better off being whipped by the man that held the two whips. He’d be more gentle with her, if gentleness was a word that could be used in such circumstances. He would be merciful perhaps, where Ian could not envision himself being merciful. The beast in him was strong, driving him to a calamity he couldn’t stop. Hating such obsessions, he hoped this night would end the terror in the back of his mind—at least for a while. He wanted to enjoy Jocelyn in all her fragrant ways. He wanted to relish the extremes of her that were sometimes rude and cold, but that were as often as sensuous as her mane of red hair and delicious as her lips. Sometimes her Irish eyes were wild with fire, sometimes like embers, glowing sensually. Her touch inflamed him, and soothed him. Too bad that it drew out such vileness. Maybe it was because she was associated with that time before he went totally mad. He hadn’t told her about that, about the asylum and his return from insanity to competence. Then again, he wasn’t so sure that his madness wasn’t lingering just beyond the next moment. Each day he lived jus
t a hairsbreadth from another collapse to insanity.

  “I love you,” he mouthed the words just as the MC was finishing his seductive invitation to the exhibition. He couldn’t tell if the hanging redhead could see his face or if she could lip-read the sentiment. She’d been looking in his direction when her eyes weren’t closed, but she looked away as soon has her body felt the first strike of the three tailed whip leveled on her backside.

  Feeling fire climbing in her with the first cut, Jocelyn screamed. It wasn’t yet from the pain. That would come later. The shock to her system of that first jolt brought to the surface the pent-up agitation that had arisen during the MC’s stirring speech. She was relieved not in agony. The dominant taking charge of her aimed carefully and placed each cut of the thongs exactly where he desired. She would have thought the three would be everywhere like a cat of many tails. It surprised her how this master could wield the whip with such precision. She thought of Reggie with it in his hand, and knew he’d have the same finesse. She thought of her husband, though the memory was quickly interrupted by another strike of the biting whip.

  The tension mounted within her and within the room. For a while she saw the audience mesmerized by the careful man behind her. They were waiting for the real pain. For real screams. For pleas for mercy. For tears to flow and her brow to knit with anguish, and her ass to dance as though she was dancing on hot coals. They waited with a voyeur’s impatience, as each stroke of leather kissed her skin and they silently longed for the worst of it.

  Jocelyn did her best to keep them guessing when she’d lose control and sputter all the vulgarity that was in her heart, and wrench her body in ways that would only produce more pain. She held on, however, groaning when the leather hit. Her ass stung, and her shoulders took strikes that felt as though she was a slave being beaten into the ground, just for the crime of being less human than her masters.

  All that punishment she could take, and in some twisted way inside her submissive woman’s soul, gather some satisfaction. She was sure that her sexual juices had not stopped flowing and that she ached for a man’s prick or a woman’s fist in her cunt. But the audience was not happy with a woman exercising such control. On cue from a script the Dom had obviously memorized, he began moving around her body to the front.

  Once facing her with his whip, the master took a moment’s pause to admire Jocelyn’s untouched breasts, her white belly and the cum-sticky thighs he’d use as his next canvas. For a second the two were eye to eye, communicating nothing except their joint intent to see this act finished. Then rearing back, he began with the whip again, while Jocelyn watched the first strike hit.

  “Oh, gawd!” she moaned louder in spite of herself.

  He hit her next, fast. Followed by another immediate strike.

  “Nooooo!” Her face screwed up mournfully guessing that there was yet another series of three on its way. And so it was.

  “Yeeeeawwwwwww!” her cry lifted into the air, to the satisfaction of the attentive audience.

  After the first cut, she closed her eyes more than kept them open. Still, she couldn’t help herself when the whip’s lash nicked a nipple and she screeched loudly. Her eyes flew open to see what damage had been done. Across her breasts the lines were at first distinct and then turned into one hot looking rash of red. On her thighs it was the same. Across her belly where her skin had only rarely known the feel of a whip striking her tender abdomen and pubis, the welts stood out most painfully of all. They boldly marked the places on her body where the most sexual heat was stored.

  She became a dancing, delirious ragdoll, bouncing to each blow, only to jerk more erratically with the next strike to sear her flesh. Wounded, pricked, nipped, to fight was useless. To relinquish her only smart choice. Sacrificing any control she might have envisioned before the whipping began, she gave up all pride to have this entertainment end. Mustering some courage she never realized existed within, she allowed her psyche to pretend it was that jerking, mindless marionette, and that her forlorn state of mind would draw some mercy from the master.

  In her gut she knew it was not her state of distress that would move the master but the audience. She knew that each agonized cry and quivering response incited them. They heaped their satisfaction on her, viewing her reddened flesh in awe, with malicious amusement. No doubt this was the best game they’d seen in months. For some it was an initiation into a sadist’s pleasure they would enjoy again. And like the MC suggested, they didn’t fail to capture the picture of Jocelyn’s pained expression and find exhilaration beyond their imagination.

  When her physical perfection was marred to the danger point, Jocelyn glanced up to see her master looking into her eyes, as if he were searching for something. There was only one last cut of the whip after that moment. Maybe he did indeed consider her plight and respond with mercy.

  She stopped jerking with the whipping over, except for an involuntary twitch now and then. The room was utterly quiet, while she and the whip-wielding master remained in the center as though they were frozen on the stage. On cue, the lights began to dim around them until they were surrounded in darkness. And then the doors opened, and outside the theater tiny lights went on to mark the spectators’ path to the exit. Deprived of viewing the aftermath of the whipping with snickers and jibes, the crowd hustled their exhausted bodies from the room. And such quiet, as though they were all guiltily fleeing to their homes, realizing the torture they’d observed and their fascination for the sport.

  With the audience turned away from her Jocelyn breathed a last sigh of relief. The pain was over. And when the last of the theatre doors closed, the master finally moved from his frozen stance. The rigging was lowered, her limbs set free and her feet removed from the too-tight boots that pinched her toes. It had been a torment she’d almost forgotten until the blood rushed into her lower limbs again and she realized what an ache was there.

  Still, there were no words spoken but one small command from the dominant.

  “Go home and masturbate,” he whispered to her. “Then sleep.” She was sure of the later, but not so sure she could feel anything akin to an orgasm rising within her. Somewhere in the middle of the whipping, the sex part seemed to slide away to become the last thought in her mind.

  Ian brought her back to the hotel and put her to bed. After he’d doused her wounds with cream, he was astute enough to leave her by herself. If he’d as so much as tried to take her sexually she would have revolted.

  But in spite of her exhaustion, Jocelyn lay awake for nearly an hour, too sore to sleep. Every inch of her body smarted. Sharp pains and dull twinges reminded her constantly that another cut of the whip could land any minute, until she reminded herself that the whipping was over. There was no more leather. No more audience. The patrons of that cruel work of art were all home in their beds likely sound asleep. Hopefully having nightmares.

  Trying to relax enough to drift off, she thought a lot about fate. She wondered if in being whipped she’d touched on the seeds of guilt she’d sown months before. For her crimes she needed punishment, for her guilt she needed resolution. Was this a wise god giving her exactly what would bring her peace?

  If Reggie had been there, what would he have done? Would he have viewed the scene with vengeance in his eyes or would he have been entertained? Or would he, like some conquering knight, have rescued her from the horror of it, and taking her on his steed, ridden with her clutched to his chest far away from the fiends and Ian and her own shame?

  It was a tough pill to swallow, the truth of how she’d brought this on herself. As long as she pondered the thought—until the new day dawned when she finally fell asleep—she couldn’t figure how a woman of her mirth and bright-heartedness could fall into such desperate straits. The thought did not escape her that she was in as dire a predicament as she’d been when Ian first absconded with her. Not that the act of being whipped and humiliated in front of such an audience was so bad; but unlike the rough stuff she’d experienced with Reggie, ther
e was not a shred of affection or hint of regard to soothe the pain and bring her raw body some ease.

  By the time the night was at its end, she finally followed the master’s suggestion and masturbated to an orgasm. She was surprised how quickly it came, having assumed that it would be hard to let loose the stored passion. Once done, she slept. In contrast to her unsettled hours, Ian had been sleeping peacefully since he brought her back to her bed, and had himself laid down in the room next door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It didn’t take a day for Alex to understand the method in Reggie’s madness, or his reasoning for having her perpetually bound in the garment of leather straps. Aside from being uncomfortable, having the thongs always running up her ass reminded her of who she was. Submissive, punished and Will Kozak’s wife. She got Reggie’s message loud and clear the first day she wore the thing to work underneath her clothes. However, as if he wasn’t entirely sure she understood, he added a chain that attached to the ring piercing the hood of her clitoris—the one he’d put there seven years before. That chain attached to her waist belt and was drawn up tight so with every movement there was a gentle tug on that sensitive bud. Gus, by his own inspiration, tightened the chain a little each night. To add to the mental torture, Reggie attached three locks to the leather garment to prevent her from trying to remove it by herself. While tiny, these hasps could be noticed under form-fitting clothes, so she was dressed to disguise what she was wearing closest to her skin.

  To endure the internal humiliation and discomfort for five days seemed extreme. But it was five days after Reggie’s orders came down before she even had a chance to suggest as much to the man who imprisoned her.

  Reggie had taken up with his trollop. For three nights, while Alex languished in her room by herself, she heard the sounds of sex. To her despair, the bubbly blonde and the man of the house were engaged in more than just frivolous sex play. One night there was the distinct sound of a paddle laid against the woman’s bottom. At least Alex assumed as much, considering the smacking noise of wood meeting flesh and the spirited four-letter exclamations that followed. Another time she heard the more startling sound of a lash striking skin. She could only guess the target. And then, because they were in the study, just a short distance from her maid’s room, she realized that Reggie was tying the woman with ropes. The grunts, the groans and the exclamations gave away their sex play, which only made Alex envious since she was having no fun at all. She figured that Reggie must be gloating over this new form of torture—didn’t even have to lay a hand on her to have her suffering.