Bear laughed. “Spoiled meat, all right.”
“Don’t forget my cut, tomorrow,” Harkin called to them as they stormed out of the saloon door. “Or you’ll both be dead meat yourselves at the end of a hangman’s rope.”
The stranger stood, tipping his small hat, the coins and bills thrust deep in his hip pockets. “Thank you, sheriff. I’ll be retiring with my prize. I trust a room is arranged.”
Harkin leaned back, slapping his booted feet on the table. “Up the stairs, first door on the left. Got one question for you, first, though.”
“Certainly, sheriff.”
“Exactly how many aces did you have, tonight?”
The man smiled wryly. Tugging at his left sleeve, just above the diamond-studded cuff, he produced a playing card. Flipping it onto the felt, face down to reveal an ace of spades, he said, “One more than I needed, so it would seem.”
Harkin raised an eyebrow. “I admire your honesty, late as it may have come. Any reason I shouldn’t run you out of town on a rail?”
The man shrugged. “Might it be because I’m going to split the pot with you fifty fifty?”
“Sixty-forty, my way,” Harkin countered. “It’s been a slow week.”
Grinning, the stranger pulled two handfuls of money from his pocket, placing it on the table.
Not bothering to look at his take, the crooked sheriff pulled down the brim of his hat. “Go on,” he chuckled. “Enjoy your prize.”
“My name is Milo,” the card shark told her, tipping his hat.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Melanie, most uneasily, feeling doubly nervous on account of the overly genteel introduction.
She was at present, standing at attention in the middle of her room. The room assigned to her and Milo, and which was full of devices suitable for torturing a female. Milo, who’d removed his jacket to reveal a pink shirt and red suspenders, was occupying himself with circling about her. Back straight, managing herself as proudly as she could, Melanie fought to retain her dignity. The sheriff might have declared her to be poker booty, but her fate was her own.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” Milo asked.
“By all means,” she said, feeling her confidence growing by the minute. “I am not an unreasonable woman.”
“Thank you, Miss–Miss – what did you say your last name was?”
“Jones, if you please.”
He took a thoughtful puff of the newly lighted cigar. “A common name. Strange. You seem a bit…refined for this line of work. Although, I must admit, I haven’t much in the way of breeding to be the Judge of such things. In fact, I am known for only two things. One of those being card playing.”
“What is the other?” she breezed, hoping to keep him talking and away from violating her person. “Something noteworthy, I hope.”
He smiled shyly. “To be honest, Miss Jones, I’m known for the size of my cock.”
Melanie’s heart froze. “Excuse me?”
“My cock,” he repeated good-naturedly. “It’s quite huge, I’m afraid. Nearly eleven inches. A bit of a bother mostly.”
Melanie’s face bleached white. For the moment, a clever response eluded her.
“You will be taking it all,” he continued nonchalantly, drawing a deep puff of the cigar. “In every orifice. When I’m able to achieve my erection, that is.” He inhaled a second time. “That’s the tricky part, Miss Jones. It takes a lot to arouse me.”
Melanie swallowed. “What do you mean, sir, by a lot?”
“Pain, Miss Jones. Humiliation. I require quite a lot of it in my partners. You will take your clothes off now, by the way.”
Melanie removed the offensive little dress with trembling, numbed fingers, baring her pink flesh. “I–I do hope you will be reasonable with me. I am not accustomed to such things.”
Milo scanned the room, his eyes leisurely consuming the various whips, canes and floggers. “Most amazing,” he breathed. “Truly.”
“I am a lady,” she reminded him hastily. “I was one, I mean, till quite recently.”
She watched him pull down a riding crop, a mean and nasty little thing that had given her nightmares from its very appearance on her wall.
“Hands on top of your head, Miss Hawthorne.”
Milo circled her once again, this time inducing in her a blind and naked terror. Commingled with her exasperating but very real arousal, it was nearly enough to make her fall blubbering at his feet. “My uncle in New York has a good deal of money, sir,” she exclaimed, forgetting for the moment the need to conceal her identity. “He would pay you for my return.”
The whip slashed through the air, slicing her left buttock. “Money doesn’t interest me unless I win it, Miss Hawthorne.”
“Forgive me,” she stammered, fighting against the waves of pain to keep her upright position. Milo strode to the desk, neatly placing upon it a deck of cards. The man seemed to have them growing from every orifice, she thought.
“The only thing I enjoy more than the sight of a woman in distress is the thrill of gambling. Do you like to gamble, Miss Jones?”
Melanie bit her lip. “I–I’m not sure,” she hedged, not knowing which answer might bring her the least suffering.
He laughed crisply. “Come here, my dear, and draw a card. High card wins. If you beat me, you’ll go free. If you lose, you’ll endure your ravishing while suffering the further indignity of nipple clamps.”
Melanie’s mouth hung open.
Milo thrashed the air with the whip. “Come here, Miss Jones,” he repeated more vigorously. “Now.”
“Cut the cards,” he told her when she’d reached the desk. Taking a trembling hand from her hair, Melanie did as she was told.
“Now draw, Miss Jones.”
Melanie hesitated before choosing a stack. Bracing herself for the worst, she flipped the top card. It was a jack of hearts. Containing her enthusiasm, she drew a sharp breath. She was nearly free. It was too good to be true!
“Very good,” Milo acknowledged. “That will be hard to beat.”
With a mild flourish, he turned over an ace.
Melanie wanted to cry. What a fool she was. She’d forgotten the man was a card shark, a walking factory of aces!
Milo took her left wrist, encasing it in a leather cuff. “Nice try, my dear,” he consoled her. “Care to try for double or nothing?”
She shook her head vigorously. Milo laughed, encasing the second wrist.
Melanie’s heart sank as she saw him reach for the clamps on the wall rack. For a moment, she’d hoped he’d been bluffing. She’d seen the nasty looking things often enough, hanging from their silver chains. Gretchen had explained their use to Melanie, inducing a near fainting attack from her on her second day in the town.
Milo thrust one of the nasty, metal-toothed things in front of her nose. “Last chance, double or nothing,” he tempted, snapping the tiny jaws an inch from her face.
“No,” she whimpered. “Please, no more cards. I couldn’t bear anything more.”
“Not cards,” he said, attaching one of the clamps to a helpless nipple. “Dice.”
Melanie cried out as the device bit into her soft flesh, like a piranha, a torturous, cruel demon. “Mercy,” she wailed.
“One roll of the dice each,” he persisted. “If I lose, I will buy your freedom and purchase a ticket for you to any city you wish, first class on the train.”
Melanie’s head was swimming. She’d sell out her own dear uncle to ease the pain in her breast. “But, sir,” she moaned. “What if I lose?”
Milo grinned, his eyebrows arching like the devil’s own. Offering but two words, he replied, “labial clamps.”
The very idea, the mere sound of the words made her swoon. She’d never endure such a thing. And yet, for even a chance to go free, wasn’t it worth it?
“Yes,” Melanie cried. “Please, yes, I’ll take the bet.”
The nipple clamp was removed. Melanie screamed, with the sudden release of tension bringing a fresh
wave of agony.
Milo produced a pair of ivory cubes, gaily dotted in red. “You know the rules, don’t you?”
“I–I think so. Seven and eleven wins. Double ones loses.”
“Yes, yes,” he nodded impatiently. “But for our purposes, high roll wins. Tie, you win. Fair enough?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’ll go first.” Moving to the corner of the room, he squatted down and took aim. With a lazy, sidearm toss he threw himself a two and a one. “Three,” he observed casually. “That should be easy enough to beat.”
Melanie took the proffered dice.
Squatting as Milo had done, doing the best to keep her moistened thighs together, she gave the dice a throw, praying as hard as she could. Her heart nearly quit beating when she saw the results.
“Tough break,” Milo said, his voice devoid of emotion. “A pair of ones. Now you’ll be taking the clamps all the way around and my cock as well. Best get it over with, eh girl?”
He pulled her to her feet and administered a crisp blow to her buttocks. “To the horse.”
Tears staining her eyes, her movements heavy with dread, Melanie moved to the chosen device—a wooden four legged beast over which a woman could be secured for beating. It wasn’t fair, she sniffled. It wasn’t fair.
Milo attached her ankles to two of the legs, wide apart. “It won’t be possible to hold back your screams for the next part,” he explained, shoving a wooden dowel between her lips. “So I’ve taken the liberty of stilling your tongue for you.”
Milo licked his lips, his pupils dilating at the sight of her rising distress. True to his word, he seemed to be enjoying himself enormously. “Bend over now,” he ordered, his voice having gone to a dark faraway place.
He secured her wrists, attaching the cuffs to clips on the other two legs of the horse. Her backside and cunt were hopelessly exposed now, to pleasure and pain alike.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Melanie strained to raise her head. Wide-eyed, she watched as Milo stood in front of her, leisurely unfastening his trousers. She’d hoped he’d been exaggerating about his length, but now she saw to her great misfortune that, if anything, he’d been underestimating his size.
“A preview, my dear,” he stroked his gargantuan flaccid shaft. “Later you well come to know me much better—while you are tied down underneath me, pleasuring me with your cunt and ass. And don’t worry, I shan’t forget the clamps, either. How does that sound?”
Melanie moaned, paradoxically craving the very invasion, the hostile penetration that would both distract from and confirm the rightness of the pain at her genitals and nipples. “Mmm,” she whimpered, telegraphing her conquest, already won.
“Patience, my dear,” he crooned wickedly, running his hand down her spine and between her quartered cheeks. “To begin with, the meat must be tenderized, don’t you agree?’
The question was rhetorical. Melanie was forced to wait in silent agony as Milo retrieved the proper device, one in keeping with his particular corrective inclinations.
“I do enjoy the bullwhip,” he mused, thinking aloud. “Though it is a bit nasty. Canes are wonderful, too. Maybe a buggy whip?”
Milo settled on the last item, returning a moment later to rub the slim leather device suggestively over Melanie’s highly sensitized flesh. “Would you like to gamble for the number of strokes?”
She shook her head, frantically, comically.
Ten blows were administered, in rapid succession. Melanie cried out, her agony stifled by the humiliating dowel. Truly, she’d never imagined such a thing as this, to be lashed like an animal, a horse or dog, and yet it was not an animal she felt like, but a flesh and blood woman, naked and beautiful in a way only a captive could be. Pressing her cunt to the horse, shamefully, savagely, she wrenched for herself an orgasm, a prelude to what this Milo had promised to do, with his monster cock, his infernal clamps…on and on she went, till she was beside herself, scarcely recognizing when he was done and unbuckling the cuffs.
“And now,” she heard him saying, from somewhere outside the protective bubble of her private universe. “The real fun begins.”
Chapter Twelve
Melanie awoke the next morning to the sound of shouting downstairs in the saloon. The voice belonged to Colonel Beauregard. There was another, softer one as well. It was accented and halting, its tone, that of an elderly male. One of the Powatan chiefs, perhaps? She sat herself up, remembering only then the pain her body had endured. She’d been the poker prize, and Milo had collected in full on his winnings. Every orifice ached. From her violated, blasted open nether opening to the recesses of her jaws, and even between her legs, where her sex lips, still swollen and chafed even now cried out at her usage. Little better than a receptacle for the man’s monster penis. And the clamps—these had been a fate worse than death. And yet, at the height of her torment, she’d scarce been able to tell pain from pleasure. Incoherently, she’d begged for more, craving the sensations, the throbbing and pain. What a whore she’d been! Worse than a whore, really, for when it was time for Milo to go, she’d begged him to stay or take her with him.
“I have a wife,” he’d laughed. “Two in fact.”
“Your slave,” she croaked, “I will be your slave.”
Milo left her, pitifully at the door, her body at his feet at the threshold. “To remember me by,” he’d offered, tossing a coveted ace to the floor at her cheek.
How she’d gotten to the bed, she had no idea. Thankfully, Lyla hadn’t been about, or even Gretchen. But what was all that noise about? Deciding to steel herself into the hall, she took up a place around the corner from the balcony where she could effectively ease drop.
They were talking about Red Wolf.
“Running Coyote, I’m telling you, you’ve left me no choice. We were quite clear in our arrangement, were we not? Red Wolf was to be delivered to me, with or without his scalp, and now you tell me he’s slipped through your fingers?”
“Great White Colonel, you must understand,” protested the Indian chief standing before the seated officer. “Red Wolf is much honored among the braves. Man have many allies. Not possible to stop him.”
Beauregard slammed a fist on the table. It was gloved, in white. “Don’t tell me that, sir! Do not ever tell me such a thing!”
“Running Coyote, what the Colonel is trying to say,” offered a more placid Sheriff Harkin seated next to him “is that a good deal depends on getting Red Wolf and his kind out of the way. You know Red Wolf wants war, don’t you? A war that would be suicide for your tribe?”
Running Coyote nodded enigmatically. “Red Wolf is son of my sister. Running Coyote knows his ways, yes.”
Beauregard ran an exasperated hand through his slick, elegantly waved hair. “Sheriff Harkin, if you would kindly remind our visitor of the realities of life, it would be greatly appreciated. For example, the fact that I am getting daily telegrams from Washington wondering what the holdup is in getting this area settled down. There are some five thousand settlers, right now, waiting for land. And on top of that—” Beauregard cut himself off, having become aware of the ever increasing volume of his voice. Turning directly to the chief, a dangerous smile on his face, he said, in a very soft voice. “Running Coyote, as God is my witness, if I don’t have Red Wolf tied to my saddle in a fortnight, I say again, as God is my witness, I shall ride from Fort Collins with my entire force. Do you hear me? We shall wipe out the lot of you!”
“But we made deal, Great White Colonel. We give you Red Wolf, you give us gold.”
“Give you gold!?” the Colonel laughed, giving a strong indication how absurd he thought the point. “For what? Red Wolf?” Beauregard pounded the table again. “See here, you has-been savage. The deal was, you move your people quietly and quickly to the reservation, making me look good come promotion time, and then you get the gold. Red Wolf was your problem, not mine.”
The chief’s face bore no expression. “As long as Red Wolf fr
ee, Powatan people no move to reservation—that’s your problem and mine.”
Beauregard looked at Harkin in disgust. “You see what I am dealing with sheriff? You there, girl!”
At first Melanie thought he was calling for her, but then she saw he meant Gretchen, who at the moment was lying at the deputy’s feet as he noisily cut at a thick steak at the next table. Homer put his knife down, uneasily as soon as he understood the colonel’s interest in his woman.
“Here, Gretchen,” seconded Harkin. “Now.”
She looked up at Homer, who gave his reluctant assent.
Beauregard snapped his fingers as soon as Gretchen arrived on all fours. From the angle of his pointed finger, she knew she was to fall to the floor on her belly and apply her tongue to Beauregard’s boot. It was his favorite thing to demand from a woman, at least when his clothes were on.
“All the way down,” Beauregard complained. “On your belly.”
Giving no thought to the cleanliness of her pretty green dress, Gretchen pressed her belly and breasts to the dirty floor. From here, she could barely reach the topside of the man’s high boots.
“There, you see, Running Coyote,” Beauregard exclaimed. “This is how the United States government functions. From a position of absolute strength. These boots represent our power. Women, Indians and every other form of lower life on God’s green earth belongs down here.”
He was pointing straight down at the hapless girl. Gretchen moaned slightly as Harkin placed his own foot on her back for good measure.
“Would you like to try her, Running Coyote?’ the sheriff offered. “She’s quite tame.”
Running Coyote frowned, his face etched in stone.
Beauregard threw his hands in the air. “For God’s sake, man, what will it take to get through to you? Would you like to keep the little slut as a sign of good faith? Take her to the reservation with you? She’s yours if you want her. Take the other whore, too. Anything at all, man, just get the job done.”
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