Madeleine

by Stephen Rawlings

  She took an experimental step and, despite her care, nearly overbalanced as the chain brought her up short; rather more strictly than she had bargained for. She recognised her temporary owner’s foresight in commanding her to commence her preparations early so as to adjust, and set herself to walk naked round the room, learning to accommodate her walk to the twelve inch step imposed by the chain. After a few minutes she began to adapt to the new rhythm and quick stepping gait demanded of her, and very tentatively, tried descending a stair. This was much more awkward, as the twelve inch chain barely let her put one foot down on the next step, but she found she could manage it by always leading with the same foot, so that each stair was, in effect, taken as two paces, rather than one foot swinging past the other to the next tread. The restriction imposed gave her a sense of being controlled, even though she was not directly under anyone’s orders, and raised a discreet warm excitement in her belly. She practised her new gait for twenty minutes, or so, them went back to the package for the next phase.

  The next item was a silver sheath in a knitted metallic fabric, like fine chain mail. Since her patron obviously didn’t intend her to have any underwear, she slipped it over her head, and smoothed it over her hips. The cool, heavy material clung to her contours from just above her nipples to below her ankles, only the height of her heels keeping it from touching the floor, and spaghetti straps from falling off altogether. The sandals and sheath seemed to be all the clothes she was to have, but the package contained two more items. The first was a wide silver collar, fastened at the front with a similar clasp to those on her ankles, including the dependent ring, but no chain as yet, though she wondered how long that omission would last. The last item was a pair of wrist bands, similar to her ankle straps including the ubiquitous clasps and an eighteen inch chain. Without hesitation she snapped them in place, and turned to look at herself in the full length mirror, seeing a tall silver-clad slave girl, her collar and manacles gleaming in the lamplight, her ankle shackles just visible beneath the hem of her metallic sheath.

  She practised her walking for a while longer, and explored the limitation on her actions of the chain linking her wrists, until the phone rang to tell her that a car was waiting for her outside. She went down to the foyer of the apartment block, moving now with greater ease, if no more freedom, and gave her key to the porter, hardly needing to explain that there was nowhere in that costume to carry it, and set off to meet her unknown purchaser for the night. She was wearing only what he had sent her, not even her watch, and was ignorant of where she was going, or with whom. A sense of the dangerous unknown created a feeling that would have her wet her knickers, had she been wearing any. As it was it started a warm trickle down the inside of her thigh.

  Her unknown destination proved to be a very expensive, and very exclusive restaurant, a place that required impeccable references from those who were in, even though you could sign a cheque for millions. It goes without saying that anyone without the millions needn’t bother to apply. The chauffeur had given her no further indication of what was expected of her, merely drawing up in front of the discreet entrance. He opened the car door for her to step very carefully onto the pavement, then resumed his place behind the wheel, and drove smartly off. With little other choice open to her she minced across the pavement, and up the half dozen steps guarding the portal.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Supping with the Devil’

  Thankful that she had tried out the manoeuvre beforehand, she gained the foyer without loss of dignity. Before she could think up any way to explain her presence, she was swept up by the Maitre d’, who expressed delight at seeing her, and requested her to ‘please to follow me’.

  Relieved at being expected, she duly followed him into the dining room and walked with the most grace that she could muster, tripping along with rapid short steps, her hands demurely together down on her belly, but her head held high as she traversed the long room, past a score of tables at which fashionably dressed women watched her bizarre progress, and their escorts looked at her with frank admiration, mixed with lust, and envy of the man who would possess her.

  He awaited her at a table set on a raised niche, at the far end of the room, the ascent of the steps giving any watchers a clear view of the cause: especially those who had not guessed the reason for her tiny paces. She saw he was of medium height, with short cropped dark hair, and a suggestion of the Eastern Mediterranean about him, although there was nothing of the Levant in his speech.

  “I am delighted to see you,” he informed her, “you are everything I was promised. I see you received my gifts and message safely.”

  “Thank you, yes,” she replied, as formally as he, “I am pleased I am satisfactory.”

  “I trust you will give every satisfaction,” he rejoined, “but first let me offer you a drink, and then we will see about the menu for this evening.”

  He ordered a Martini for her and then called for the menu and ordered for them both, without giving her any choice. When the waiter had departed, he passed her a small black suede pouch.

  “While the food is being prepared, we will have a starter. These are for your lips, though not those you are using to sip that Martini,” he added, “go to the powder room and put them on.”

  Mystified, but warmly aware of what lips he was referring to, she retraced her delicate path, down the steps and across the room. She was the subject of renewed speculation and desire, not by any means confined to the escorts. Safely in a cubicle, she opened the pouch and took out a short silver chain - was he a silver dealer by any chance, or was it just the trademark? - and saw, attached to each end of the chain, a pair of silver clips. They were of the toggle type, spring loaded for initial grip, and constructed in such a way that any pull on the chain would increase the grip even further ensuring that, however hard the pull, the clip would never slip, but only clamp the tighter. She understood at once what was required and hauled her sheath up over her hips as best she could with her manacled hands. She crouched and spread her thighs, prising open one of the clips, and placing it on her right labia. She hissed through her teeth at the unexpectedly vicious bite, but persevered, opening the other clip and letting it grip her left lip, to a further expression of pain. For a few seconds she remained crouching, trying to assimilate the sting in her tail then, as a certain numbness eased the hurt, she straightened and tried to restore some order to her dress. It was fortunate that the heavy clinging material fell naturally into place for, with her hands fettered, she found it difficult to reach round behind to adjust it. Her mincing gait made even more pronounced by the aching grip on her pussy, she ran the gauntlet of curious eyes, back to the table, and handed back the empty pouch without a word.

  “Good. Now you may have your iced melon,” he said in greeting, “but use your hands only. No knives and forks for you, unless I say so.”

  Obediently she picked up her half moon of juicy fruit in her fingers, and bit into the sweet flesh, the sticky syrup smearing her face as well as stray tendrils of hair that had fallen forward. She reached for her napkin.

  “Leave that,” he said, sharply, “time for your main course, which goes with the starter.” He handed over the pouch again.

  Once more the long trek to the ladies’ room, conscious of the other women’s gaze as they took in her sticky face and hair, and of the painful grip on her labia. The ‘main course’ turned out to be a polished silver - what else? - weight, with a hook at one end, and a small eye at the other. It weighed about eight ounces, and she groaned as she imagined what it would feel like when added to the ‘starter’, but pulled up her skirt with her manacled hands, and, very carefully indeed, hooked the weight onto the centre link of the chain spanning her nether lips. She bit her lips as she felt the additional pull on her labia, and the proportionate increase in the bruising pincer grip, but dropped her skirt again, taking a moment to adjust to the new pain, then drew a deep breath, lifted her chin, and set off to rejoin her demanding host.


  The other diners were now treated to not only the oddity of her gait and posture and the bizarre restraints she flaunted, but also fleeting grimaces of pain which crossed her face at every other step. But she was scarcely conscious of the other women now, her whole mind concentrated on containing the beast pinching at her mound, so as to walk with some semblance of dignity back to her table. The half dozen steps up almost undid her, but she bit her lip, and drove herself to mount them without faltering. She resumed the chair a hovering waiter slid under her, and settled herself with blessed relief, careful to rest the weight on the edge of the seat and take the strain off her tender sex.

  “I see you’re having a little trouble digesting the main course,” he observed, “still, you should have hurried yourself, your plate is going cold.”

  She looked at the meal set before her but, mindful of her instructions, made no attempt to take up her knife and fork.

  “You’re learning,” he acknowledged, and proceeded to feed her with his fork. Kidneys in a rich Marsala sauce, mange tout peas and baby carrots, and the little round pommes parisienne. All the while he kept up a very one-sided conversation, as he alternately put forkfuls into her mouth as if feeding a child, and helped himself to his own meal.

  He talked about his interests, the opera, books, travel, the theatre. He spoke of the many places he had visited, and the people he met there, but he never let fall any clue as to what his business with them might be, or the source of his wealth. From time to time he held his glass of claret to her lips.

  Both plates emptied, for she had found a surprising appetite from somewhere, he announced that it was time for dessert and, with a twinge of apprehension, not unmixed with a perverse excitement, she accepted the suede pouch once more and lifted herself, oh so carefully, off her seat, feeling the crabs’ claws in her pussy resume their remorseless grip on her tenderest flesh. Unable to keep all expression out of her face, she made her pain-filled way, with her tiny enforced steps past all the openly staring eyes. She hoped, without much conviction, that they would think she suffered from toothache, though that would hardly explain her strange way of walking.

  If she had groaned when she saw the ‘main course’ she groaned even deeper now, for the dessert was another weight, fully as big as the first, but with only a hook at the top. Clearly she was expected to hang it below the other, and bear over a pound weight on her pussy as she walked back, the cylinders hanging in tandem between her thighs, swinging with her motion. With her ankle shackles, she couldn’t even throw dignity to the wind and walk spraddle legged. Gritting her teeth she set off on her now familiar ‘via dolorosa’. If the other diners suspected toothache before, they were probably adding bellyache to the list now, not to speak of the ‘runs’. With set face she slowly mounted the dais again and settled herself onto her chair with infinite care, very conscious that she could not rest both weights on the seat, and that one, at least, would hang over the edge, keeping up the tension on the cruel claws in her labia.

  He spooned chocolate mouse into her mouth, and onto her face as she flinched from the aching twinges in her flesh. When she was done, and her make up augmented by streaks of darkest Africa, he ordered cognac and a cigar, and a cherry brandy for her.

  “And here’s something to grip your cherries with,” he added, passing over the pouch once more, “make sure they don’t slip.”

  The pain of the clips, and the humiliation of exposing herself, soiled and limping once again, to her fellow diners, especially those exquisitely groomed women in their elegant costumes, went through her like a knife. Still she took the ominous suede bag without protest and forced her tortured body to cross the floor, as all heads followed her anguished progress. In the privacy of the lavatory stall she took out the contents of the pouch. Nothing to worry about, surely, in two thin silver wire rings, each about an inch across. But these rings had to grip her cherries, and not slip, and there was only one meaning she could place on that. Well, at least it wasn’t another weight for her lips. A third would be rather more than difficult, though she didn’t suppose that what was coming was going to be a picnic. Her host seemed to have a very carefully calculated scale of torments, ranging from ‘difficult’ to ‘downright unbearable’, but ‘easy’ was definitely not on his list. She shrugged the shoelace straps of the gown off her shoulders, letting it fall to expose her breasts, her nipples hardened by the sexual arousal she always experienced, when subjected to treatment such as this.

  “You wouldn’t be so cocky if you knew what was coming to you,” she told them, “but then again, you do know, and you are,” she sighed.

  She pulled one ring open, springing it with difficulty until the rounded ends of the wire could be pushed over her right teat. Her nipples were quite large, and very well defined at any time. In their fear and lust hardened state they stood out like the cherries he had described, with a distinct neck joining them to the pink aureoles of her breasts. A nice decision, where best to place the ring, but she pushed the points until they trapped the fleshiest part, and slowly let them close. The pain was indescribable. She had never been pierced, yet, she somehow felt that it was inevitable one day, but she imagined that a quick clean pass of the needle would be preferable to this ongoing scorpion bite in her tender dug. She whined through her nose as she fought to avoid crying aloud, and being heard by other women in the stalls, or at the basins. Gradually the pain sank from unbearable to merely excruciating, and she realized that she still had to subject her other nipple to the same agony. Jaw clenched, she set about the task of inflicting the prescribed torture on the pouting morsel of pink flesh. God, how it hurt! This was going to be bad. She had worn nipple clips before, men seemed to find them irresistible, women did too but in a different sense, they had clamped the whole fleshy nub and cut off the circulation, so that the pain faded into numbness. Admittedly it was hell when the clips were released, and the blood rushed back into the starved tissue, but these rings, pressing as they did on mere points, seemed likely to maintain their cringe-inducing torment with undiminished venom indefinitely.

  She adjusted the top of her dress, trying to ignore the excruciating stabbing pain in her teats, and composed herself to face the long journey back to the table. It could not be said that she had actually forgotten the tearing grip on her pussy, but she’d had to give her best attention to the new problem in her nipples and while she was standing still, the aching bite on her labia had been sustainable. Now she had to move, and the agony down below could not be ignored. She tried to keep her head up and her face impassive, but in vain, as waves of pain swept through her with every step, causing her to screw up her face as if she had eaten a lemon, while sudden hissing intakes of breath marked where the weights had swung extra violently, or the throbbing in her nipples reached a sudden crescendo.

  “I hope you were able to grip your cherries satisfactorily,” remarked her host, “they’re such slippery little things.” She nodded, dumbly, and he went on, “I believe the best way to hold them is to spit them on a cocktail stick, but I’m expected to return them as I found them.” He picked up her glass and held it to her lips, and she sipped avidly at the sweet strong liquor, grateful for its fortifying warmth as it entered her stomach. She needed all her strength to cope with the torments he had inflicted on her or, rather, had her inflict on herself. And the evening was not over yet as she was about to find out, for he leaned forward and fixed her with a compelling gaze.

  “Would you care to dance?” he asked, holding her eyes with his. She did not flinch, but accepted his challenge with an almost imperceptible nod, and struggled painfully to her feet, gasping as the full weight was restored to her labia. The dance floor was a tiny circle, only room for half a dozen couples at the most, and the live group played music for body contact, not disco style. She rested her manacled hands on his shoulders while he pressed her close to him, her breasts crushed against his chest, which did nothing for her tortured nipples. With considerable expertise, he guided her round the cir
cle, forcing steps on her that took her shackles to full stretch, but not beyond. Even so it was a demanding situation. Even the slightest movement, the most restrained action, swung and jerked on the clamps in her lips, and the merciless pincers, digging into her nipple, felt as if they must pierce right through, and meet at the centres of the tender pink buds. Perhaps it would be less painful if they did.

  He kept her dancing through that number, and the next and, by the time he returned her to the table, she was close to tears. He gave her a few minutes to recover, then announced that it was time to go.

  “All that remains is the tip,” he said, holding her gaze again, “the tip is the most sensitive issue, properly handled, it ensures complete and unstinting service. Do you take my meaning?”

  She looked at him steadily for no more than a second, then nodded, resignedly, and held out her hand. He didn’t bother with the pouch this time, but laid a tiny, but powerful, spring loaded clip on her palm. A silver bell, such as one might put on a cat’s collar, hung from it on a short, fine silver chain. She closed her fingers on it and started, once more, the painful process of struggling to her feet, ready to limp across the dining room, under the watching eyes of the fashionable diners. As she turned to leave he called after her,