Madeleine

by Stephen Rawlings

  She was better prepared for the second, though it was just as fierce, and greeted it with just a gasp of indrawn breath, let out in another groan, as deep and agony filled as the first. And so for each of the other four, not conceding more than gasps and groans, and twitching, clenching nates. Yes, she could take it but how much more? Would a longer thrashing break her and, if so, how much more punishment would it take to make her howl outright, or cause her body to rebel against the submission it still seemed anxious to make? Far from trying to flee in panic from this awesome chamber, and its stern master, she only felt more firmly set in it, and her captivity more welcome. What on earth was happening to her?

  What was happening right now was a barked command to stand, and keep her hands from her bum. Her Master, for she’d already conceded that status to him, took a collar of black iron from the cupboard and closed it round her neck where a catch, whose workings she did not observe, clicked to make it fast. A light chain hung from the collar and he used it to drag her over to the end kennel. Once she had obeyed his order to crawl in, onto the straw inside, he fastened the chain to a staple by the kennel entrance, and went back to the cupboard.

  He must have stored his supplies there, amongst other things, for he produced a bowl of water which he set down by her doorway, and a pan and foodstuffs, which he took to the fire. She bent to the bowl to suck up water, for to use her hands to lift it seemed somehow inappropriate, and winced as the movement stretched the welts on her throbbing bottom. Then she sat back on her heels, her hands on her thighs, to watch him at work.

  Soon the delicious smell of bacon, chops and tomatoes wafted across the room, and brought her to awareness of an empty belly and ravening appetite. She hadn’t eaten since her modest breakfast and it must be well past mid-day, though she’d no means of knowing, having deliberately come to the island not only naked, but with no possessions of any kind. Since breakfast, she’d swum a quarter mile, explored the island, thought till her mind reeled about the central problem of her life and, last but very far from least, expended a month’s worth of emotional energy in something under a minute, while he had welted her maiden bottom with ‘six of the best’ from that cruelly biting switch. Her mouth watered as she thought of the succulent food sizzling in the pan.

  But it was not for her. When it was cooked to his satisfaction, he served it onto a plate and then reached for a blackened pot standing beside the fireplace. Crossing the room, he slapped a soggy pile of sticky grey substance into her bowl.

  “Eat up, woman,” he ordered, “it’s good healthy porridge and you’re going to need all your strength here.”

  Stifling her disappointment, she obediently bent her head and ate as best she could, her face soon sticky, and the ends of her auburn mane also, where they had fallen into the glutinous mess. From time to time he threw her scraps, some bacon rind, tomato skins, a piece of gristle. When he offered her a chop bone with the remains of meat on it, she took it gently in her mouth, but immediately laid it in her bowl, so that she could suck clean the greasy fingers he extended to her. After he’d cleared his plate he took a large green apple, streaked with red, and proceeded to peel it carefully, giving her the long, continuous spiral he had cut and, later, the core. He poured beer for himself and refilled her water bowl.

  The meal over, he unclipped her chain from her collar and ordered her to follow. Crawling from her kennel, she rose stiffly to her feet, her sore buttocks reminding her again of their striated condition, and walked after him, up the spiral stair to the sunlit courtyard. Here he pointed out an old iron pump in the corner, and a sink hollowed from a block of stone. Under his direction, she pumped water from some underground cistern into a bucket, which she carried downstairs, where she was set to work, scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. Time and again he pointed out deficiencies in her coverage, which he emphasised with cuts of the switch, which never left his hands.

  When at last he declared himself satisfied, the pain in her hinds went far beyond the mere ‘sixer’ she had thought a severe punishment, and it began to dawn on her that her life with this red-headed Master would be a litany of toil and suffering, but, standing outside her own body again, she marvelled that, far from feeling resentment and fear, she felt a great sensation of relief, as if coming home, or discovering a welcome harbour. Oh, yes, it hurt like hell, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming, and the work was degrading and onerous, but when she was not actually fighting the pain at the point where it was inflicted, her whole being was fired by it, and submission to her task-master brought a definite feeling of satisfaction.

  And that satisfaction was not over with the scrubbing of the floor. The pans had to be cleaned, including the glutinous porridge pot, scraping and rinsing with only cold water and a stick. Each time it failed his inspection, and it failed many times, she had to bend, she felt so much more exposed to the whip, touching her toes out there, under the open sky, and the switch cut into the tumified flesh, just below the widest part of her swelling haunches. He was cutting short, so that the tip burrowed into the right cheek, rather than wrapping round her flank. The throbbing ache told her that its repeated bite was raising a solid mass of bruised flesh, though she did not dare to put her hand behind her to feel, much though she might wish to.

  The pans washed, it was time for his laundry. He produced a plastic sack of soiled socks, underpants and T-shirts, their odour not improved by confinement in polythene, and she was sent to wash them, as serving women through the ages had done, beating them one a stone in the loch margin, and spreading them on bushes in the sun. While they dried, she was set to gather driftwood for his fire, the harsh bundles digging into her tender shoulders as she staggered along on sore feet, carrying load after load, driven on by the inexorable bite of that asp-like switch, as he slashed it into her now cringing hinds, to the accompaniment of cries she was too exhausted to suppress.

  As the sun began to sink lower, she was allowed to gather up the washing, though she earned two particularly vicious cuts for a pair of socks, whose welts had been folded under and were not quite crispy dry, and return to the security of her chain and kennel where she lay, worn out and sore, on her bed of straw. But not for long. Called to heel, she crossed the floor on hands and knees, dragging her chain behind her, and was set to cook his supper, a steak grilled over the fire, some vegetables, stir-fried in the pan, and potatoes, boiled in the pot. Again the delicious scent of the food set her salivating after her exhausting toil in the sun all afternoon, but her portion was only a share of the boiled potatoes, put in her bowl on the floor, though he fed her some trimmings from his steak.

  Supper over, she was released from her chain temporarily, and sent to wash the dishes under the pump. He did not go with her, to see her secure, and seemed to have sensed her acceptance of her serfdom, nor did it occur to her to swim back to freedom.

  On her return, she had to put oats to soak in the pot for tomorrow’s porridge. While she did that, he took an inflatable mattress from the capacious cupboard, and she was set to pump it up, ready for his use. When this task was complete he had her kneel in front of him, sitting on her heels with her hands crossed behind her, while he told her how, as a slave, still new to the life, she would be disciplined each night, after serving her Master and before retiring to her kennel for the night. A sixer if her performance had been satisfactory, a dozen if not.

  So now she knew. It had seemed pretty certain from the start that a naked woman, enslaved and beaten, could expect to be sexually used as well, but his behaviour all day had been so lacking in anything that might have been construed as sexual interest, as opposed to subduing and working her, that the possibility had slipped to the back of her mind, but now it had sprung to the fore. Though she feared what this callous man might do to her, she made no attempt to protest, but passively awaited her fate. He looked at her a moment, then stood and pulled the clothes from his large coarse body, revealing a slightly fleshy torso, adorned with more of the red tufts th
e showed on his arms, an incipient belly, already displaying folds of fat, and a large, flaccid penis, partly shrouded by the rampant growth between his thighs.

  Grabbing her by a fistful of dark hair, he dragged her to the mattress and threw her on her back. It was little more than a quick and brutal rape. He mounted her, thrust his prick, by now aroused to monumental proportions, into a surprisingly moist vagina, and battered her mercilessly as she lay passively beneath him, until, with a series of animal grunts, he discharged a copious warm, sticky wetness deep inside her and collapsed, panting, on her body, crushing her with his weight until she could hardly breathe.

  After a short rest he lifted himself off her, and she filled her lungs properly with relief.

  “Get up, you worthless bitch,” he growled, “you had your chance, and you muffed it. I said you would be judged on your performance, but you didn’t even try to perform. I gave you plenty of time to start taking my things off, but I had to do it myself. You should have done it for me, and then set about arousing me and ensuring I got sensual pleasure, and full satisfaction. You’ll get the full dozen for that and, if things aren’t a damn sight better tomorrow night, I’ll double the dose until they are. Fetch the switch and get into position.”

  Shaken by the anger in his tone, and trembling at the thought of having to take a round dozen of the full-weight strokes she could expect when presented in the formal toe-touching pose, rather than the casual slashes that had enlivened her labours, she hurried to obey. The switch delivered to his unrelenting hand, she forced herself to bend, putting her fingers on her toes, and exposing her sore striped buttocks. Until that morning, they had never known the excruciating bite of a whip, now they were bruised and lined by a score or more of livid purple welts, some as thick as a finger, all sore and throbbing, stretching from mid-buttock to the tops of the thighs, but mainly grouped on the under curve of the firm mounds, where the bruised mass on the right oozed bright droplets from the plum coloured ropes of bruised flesh.

  Humiliated by his contempt for her performance as a sexual partner, or rather sexual object, fearful of the coming onslaught on her sore and suffering hinds, she felt her courage slipping, but held on to his promise that she could seek a respite in her straw after it was done. She gritted her teeth and waited.

  He did not spare her, indeed he seemed to set out to break her and, by the end, he had. She held out while four fearful cuts mauled her bottom, but the fifth fell on skin that was already splitting and drew a scream where she’d only conceded strangled cries before. Once the dam was broken she screamed at every stroke, and at the ninth, a terrible stroke that opened up the pulpy mass, her fingers left her toes as she arched back in a paroxysm of agony, her hands reaching for the wounded flesh. Under his threats she went down again, was awarded an extra stroke for her loss of position, and shrieked her way through four more agonizing cuts which seemed to slice right through her. But she stayed down, for he’d promised a steadily rising tariff for each failure. When all had been laid on her cringing flesh, she fell on her knees, wracked by sobs, until he seized her by the hair and dragged her to her kennel, where, chained and barred, she lay curled up in the straw, her shoulders heaving, and tears running down her cheeks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Exploration’

  Exhausted, beaten and sexually abused, caged, chained,lying naked on the straw strewn floor, she might have been expected to give way to despair through a sleepless night. In fact, for the first time for a long while, she fell quickly into a deep, satisfied sleep.

  Though her mind seemed to have accepted her fate without protest, indeed in some perverse way to have welcomed her degradation and abuse, her body was less successful, and she woke, as a thin light filtered down from two grilles set high in the end wall, to find her bruises stiffened, but still throbbing, and her limbs cramped from her hard bed. More urgent was the pressure in her bladder. Yesterday she had been able to deal with her natural functions among the bushes while she worked outside, but now there was no provision. She dared not wet her straw, being uncertain if she’d get fresh, or would have to spend her nights lying on her own wastes and he would probably punish her severely for soiling her bedding, but neither did she dare risk disturbing him. She clung on to her bursting belly in rising distress, hoping she could last out. At last, agonising ages later she heard him stir and called out, almost hysterically, for permission to speak and, when this was granted, to be allowed to relieve herself.

  “Hold your water, bitch,” he replied, “you’ll regret it if you foul your kennel,” and released her from her cage and chain. Hunched over, clasping her belly, her knees turned in, she scuttled up the stairs to the nearest grassy spot, where she anointed the turf with a golden flood, groaning at the painful release after such desperate retention.

  More composed now, she straightened, and walked with head high, to deliver herself to her gaoler again. She revived the fire, set the porridge pot to cook, hanging from an iron hook over the flames, made her master tea, though she was only allowed water for herself, and cooked his breakfast of bacon and eggs. Porridge again for her portion, though he fed her the bacon rinds and she was allowed to lick the egg stains from his plate when he had finished. Housework then, the dishes to wash, his bedding to fold and put away, the chamber to be scrubbed and tidied, his boots to be polished by licking every inch of the supple leather and burnishing it with a cloth. She was getting more adept at such work now and escaped with only a handful of stinging flicks of the switch. Just as well, for the welts and bruises on her bottom had lost little of their soreness overnight, and had stiffened so that movement of any kind drew twinges of protest in her behind.

  Domestic duties seen to, he led her up into the open again.

  “Hard labour and discipline is the lot of a slave on this island,” he informed her, “and I intend to see you get both in full measure.”

  He set her to work to rebuild the boundary wall, where she had first transgressed by picking blackberries. It was arduous work for a naked woman, used to a city life. She was not totally unfit, for she took care of her body, indeed sometimes worked out almost to excess in the hope that it would alleviate that empty feeling that troubled her, but lifting the large flat pieces which had fallen from the dry stone wall, and setting them back in place at the level of her naked breasts, soon began to make very taxing demands on her back, arms and legs, to say nothing of her sore bottom, though the enforced exercise did at least serve to take some of the stiffness out of the latter. Nor was the muscular effort her only discomfort. Her bare feet and legs were scratched and stung by brambles and nettles, and her soft white hands soon became sore from the rough stone, and the inevitable knocks and abrasions. Nor could she relax her effort for a moment, for he stood over her with that feared thin whip in his hand, and punished any slackening in her work rate by barked rebukes, reinforced by vicious cuts to back, shoulders, aching arms, lacerated hinds, whatever part of her bare and vulnerable anatomy was most accessible at the time.

  By the time he declared a break for a mid-day meal, she was weeping with exhaustion and the pain of her wounds, both deliberate and accidental. Preparing his meal, and the portion of coarse bread which was all her reward for a hard morning’s labour, came as a blessed relief, but it was short lived. Once more she endured the back-breaking labour, the soreness, the stings and thorns in her feet and legs, as she toiled at the endless seeming task. Sweat ran into her eyes, and matted her hair, dirty and neglected, into rat-tails. Her finger nails were broken, and her hands blistered, she ached in every joint, but now she could actually see progress, and earned full-blooded cuts into her welted buttocks when she paused to admire her handiwork. Several yards of once amorphous stone heap now stood clean and straight, as their original builders, centuries ago, had planned them. She felt a flush of pride in her achievement, and a searing flame across her thighs for the break in the rhythm of her work.

  “You’re meant to be raising the wall, woman,” he growled, �
�not standing admiring it, like Hadrian, or the Emperor of China.”

  Shortly after this he declared time out for a tea break, for him of course, only water for a work worn female slave. When it seemed time to resume the unremitting labour, he surprised her by saying she was not to return to the wall but would, instead, be set to contemplate her deficiencies, and accommodate her mind to her status. Thinking she would be put into her solitary confinement again, she prepared to move to her kennel, but he had other ideas.

  “To the trestle, bitch, that’s where you’ll sit to meditate on your position in life.” He laughed coarsely. “You’ll find the position makes a great impression on a woman’s mind, seeing she keeps it between her legs.”

  The trestle was nothing more or less than that, constructed of solid timbers, with a triangular sectioned top rail, point upwards, and two lower rails, parallel to the first, joining the front and back legs a few inches off the floor. Under his direction, she placed a short piece of board at right angles to the two lower rails and resting on them to form a step, which enabled her to swing one long shapely leg over the top rail and stand astride it with her weight on her toes.

  “Pull your cunt open, bitch, and lower yourself,” he ordered, “I want to see the edge parting your fat lips.”

  When she had done as instructed, he came behind her and tied her wrists together behind her back. It would be an awkward position for prolonged contemplation, she considered, but at least she was spared the bruising labour of walling. Ten seconds later she would have gladly returned to the heartless stone. With no warning, he pulled the board out from under her toes and she found herself, literally, sitting on her mound. With nothing else to support her, her body weight rested on the narrow pointed edge of the rail which drove with painful force into her soft parts until she could feel it cutting into her pubic bone. She leaned back to ease it and found it pressing into her anus and her coccyx.