Madeleine

by Stephen Rawlings

  Madeleine shuddered. “That was a bit drastic, wasn’t it?” she said.

  “Pour encouragé les autres, as they say in France, my dear,” came the response, “I’m afraid there have been more drastic measures than that called for. We once had an African Head of State introduced to us. Very wealthy, lots of World Bank money stashed in Swiss bank accounts, rather than benefiting his people. We sent him a couple of girls, without incident, but with the third he went beyond all bounds. He told the poor creature that, where he came from, a woman’s clitoris was a shameful thing, and that real women had them excised, together with their labia. He tied the girl down, and cut out her clit and her labia, then raped her. She nearly died before we found her, and got her medical help, and the poor wretch was so traumatised that she had to leave the business. We organised a life pension for her, and set her set up in the country where she cares for mistreated animals.

  Ten days later, two masked men got past the President’s security, no one knows how, and put six bullets in his stomach. He died forty minutes later, on his way to theatre. They say, while he was still conscious, he was screaming like a girl. Of course, the press put it down as a political assassination, and the opposition party did, in fact, seize power. I understand they’re now as corrupt as he was but all the same, our members do tend to mind their P’s and Q’s. They know that they could lose more balls than the ones they play golf with.

  Anyway,” said Madame more lightly, to dispel the rather gloomy direction their conversation was taking, “you need have no fears about Maurice’s discretion, or reoccurrence of Zena’s potentially dangerous diversions. Meanwhile, you’ve had a pretty strenuous session with the Helworthy family, so take a little time off to make sure you are fully recovered, and I’ll try and arrange some suitable light duties for you in the meantime.”

  Ten days later, her split skin healing nicely, and her strained guts restored to something like healthy regularity, Madame sent for her again.

  “Nurse O’Brien seems to think you’re doing fine. Let’s have a look at you.”

  Madeleine slipped off her briefs, and hoisted her skirt above her waist, baring all before and behind. The three bars across her backside, top middle and bottom, showed as brown marks, tinged at their edges with all the colours of the rainbow. On the lower two, specially on the right, where Maurice’s black rod had bitten deepest, preparing the way for his vixen of a wife to lay the flesh open with excruciating cuts of the yellow cane, the last of the black scabs sealed the parts of the wounds, as yet unhealed.

  “Still tender? What about your belly?” Madame enquired.

  “Yes, still a bit sore underneath. The bruises went pretty deep, you know, and I can still feel them when I sit, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. As to my guts, they’ve settled down now, but there again, there are bruises internally, which I’m very conscious of when I’m on the loo, and I know all about it when my bladder is full. But it’s getting better all the time. At least I can control myself properly now. To start with I had to have fresh knickers every few hours, and my sheets were foul every morning.”

  “Well I’m pleased that you’re feeling so much better. I’ve booked you some nice light duties for next week. I think you could even enjoy them in their own right and not, as you do, when it’s all over, and you realise you’ve come through. I’ve booked you out to Richard for the week. He’s really a very nice man, who I think you’ll like. You’ll be his slave for the week, to serve him sexually and domestically, night and day, in any way he wishes, but he’s not naturally cruel, and will only whip you if he feels discipline is needed. He’s agreed that you’ll only get the cane in sixes, tens at the most, and kept well off your existing marks. I believe he intends to take some kind of holiday, and you’ll travel with him. You won’t start your week until next Monday, so you’ll be another four days down the road to recovery by then, and quite fit enough to take that kind of discipline.”

  “It sounds great,” Madeleine admitted, “I’ll look forward to getting back into harness.” She did not realise at the time the irony of that remark.

  Richard turned out to be all that Madame R had promised. Good looking, rich, even considerate in a sense. From the beginning he made her a slave in deed, as well as title, and she was worked hard, day and night, running his bath, putting out his clothes, making sure he was fed, when not staying in hotels, waiting on him, hand and foot, even if they were. At mealtimes, even in restaurants, he ordered for her and fed her while she sat docilely, making no attempt to use her own knife and fork. At all times of the day she made herself available to him, a ban on underwear facilitating the service, but it was no hardship, and she found herself responding to him sexually, and enjoying orgasms at his hands, and sharing others with him, although she was very conscious throughout that this was secondary to her primary function of giving him pleasure.

  He subjected her to complicated codes of behaviour, governing when and how she should speak, what she should wear at any time, how she should deport herself in any given circumstance, and caned her for the slightest infringement, but she never felt he was being cruel for its own sake, but only playing by the rules of a very complex and strict game, and never resented the searing cuts laying fresh tracks on her tender hinds, for he was strong, skilled and accurate, and brought tears to her eyes on many occasions, even with the strictly controlled nature of the punishments she endured.

  Their tour took them to Paris and then back to England, staying in Country House hotels of the highest standard. They did all the things that tourists do, but everywhere she had to stay in her role of slave, obedient to his every whim. Indeed, it was a role not for the duration of the week, but a fact of her life. At one point he bought her a uniform, complete with peaked cap and polished leather boots, and she chauffeured him about on their tour.

  The climax of the trip came on the final week-end, when he took over control of the car again and drove her, blindfolded, to a house set deep in the country, somewhere west of London, and south of Gloucester, but otherwise lost to her behind the black pads over her eyes.

  A beautiful house in secluded grounds that seemed to go on for ever. Soft mellow stone, with gravelled drives, lawns, a park and, behind the main house, extensive stabling.

  Behind her blindfold, Madeleine was aware only of the swish of tyres on the long gravelled drive, until she was unhooded in the stable yard. Richard removed the handcuffs which had been holding her wrists so painfully behind her back to prevent her lifting the scarf which covered her eyes, and learning the whereabouts of the house to which she was taken. This was a quite unnecessary precaution, as she would never have disobeyed his order if he’d simply told her she was not to touch it.

  “Strip,” he said, with no explanation and then, when she was nude as a slug, even her watch and earrings joining her clothes and shoes on the floor of the car, “From now on you are forbidden to speak, unless I, or someone in authority, orders it. Now, get out and go in through that door there.” He pointed to an opening into the stable block.

  She walked across the yard, the sharp stones pinching her bare feet, and entered a long whitewashed room, divided down both sides into wood panelled stalls. She stopped in amazement. Standing in five of the stalls, as naked as herself, were five young women tethered by lead reins attached to halters round their heads, their wrists cuffed behind their backs to broad leather belts around their waists, and their chins held high. At first she did not understand this pose but soon realised that each had a thin leather thong woven into her hair, which ran down between her shoulder blades to the waist belt, forcing her to keep her head held high.

  As she stood astonished, a rough male voice spoke behind her.

  “Come up now, lass. Next stall is yours.”

  She turned in amazement, to receive a searing cut across the front of her thighs from the switch the man, obviously a groom of some sort, carried in his hand.

  “Come up, I said, not turn and gawp. Into your stall smartish like
, or you’ll get some more.”

  ‘Smartish like’ she did as she was bid, and the groom followed her in, producing belt cuffs and halter, and securing her like the other women in this curious stable. As she stood, obedient to his commands, he deftly plaited a length of leather into her own dark mane and adjusted it carefully until her chin was raised slightly, like her fellow ‘mares’ and ‘fillies’.

  For that was what she had been made into, a filly, a mare, a pony-girl. In the course of the evening she learned quickly how she would live for the next day or so. Tethered in her stall, forbidden to speak to her companions, she was to live as an animal, to eat from a trough, to drink from a bowl, to sleep on straw, to pee on her bedding and leave her droppings in the litter, to be mucked out by the stableman. She was groomed efficiently by him too, her hair combed out, and plaited like a mane, her body sponged, her feet and nails oiled. His touch was quite impersonal, even when he passed the sponge over her breasts or cleansed her soiled buttocks after she had voided her bowels. He trimmed her pubic hair carefully with clippers, as if preparing her for the show ring, all the while talking to her in the low comforting tone with which a groom ‘gentles’ a high strung blood mare. The care and control awakened an overwhelming response in her body and mind, both, as if she were the helpless, but happy, subject of a sinister mesmerist.

  The next morning she discovered the purpose of their care, keep and grooming. They were to race. After breakfast of cereals and milk, eaten from their troughs without the benefit of hands, came a thorough grooming and morning ‘stables’, when half-a-dozen men, Richard among them, and one very ‘butch’ woman, passed along the stalls, inspecting their occupants, and commenting on their physical attributes, as if they were indeed dumb animals. She was struck by one man in particular who displayed a palpable air of command, and appeared to be the owner of the estate. The other guests, who all seemed to defer to him, addressed him as Jack.

  After each mare had been intimately inspected, down to handling of her genitals and breasts, presumably to assess the overall health and fitness of the subject, they were led out into the yard. Here they were introduced to their ‘sulkies’ for the first time; light tubular metal carriages on bicycle wheels, a cross rail with a padded seat for the rider, and twin shafts between which the ‘pony’ was harnessed, her hands still cuffed behind, her head still held high by the thong in her hair.

  The carriage was attached to the waist belt by light chains on either side, and the harness was completed by a bridle, complete with steel bit, which was forced into the girl’s mouth, and from which reins led back to the driver’s seat. Madeleine was not sure how the drivers and mounts were selected, she only knew that Richard had a tall, athletic blonde ‘mare’ in the shafts of his buggy, while it was the formidable female who took up her own reins. She suspected that, on this occasion at least, no ‘owner’ drove his, or her, own beast.

  Each driver carried a long thin switch, capable of reaching the exposed and vulnerable back and buttocks presented to him, and stimulate the ‘mare’ to further effort when the going got tough. It did not take much to work out that they would have to drag the buggies, and their riders, round some sort of track, and that any slacking would bring painful rewards.

  Madeleine’s rider flipped the reins, crying out, “Forward, mare,” and reinforcing her order with a stinging flick of the switch on her unprotected flank. She started forward, taken aback at first by the inertia of the loaded buggy, and then stumbling as it started to move, and the resistance dropped.

  “Clumsy cow,” growled her rider, catching her haunch with another flick of the switch, “pick your feet up, and keep your body straight. This is a trotting race, and I want to see some class form from you, or you’ll be sorry.”

  Spurred on by the rebuke, her pride stung by the reflection on her carriage, she straightened herself up, and set off with a high stepping gait. A tug at her bit brought her circling to the right until an opposite pull corrected her course back to the left.

  “Good girl. Now you’re getting the idea,” her driver said encouragingly, and she glowed with pride, trying to present herself to the woman’s satisfaction, and trotting steadily forward. It was not without its problems. The gravel of the yard, though rounded, was nevertheless painful to unhardened bare feet, while the wrist cuffs were hard and uncomfortable in themselves, and their position behind her back strained her arms and shoulders. The thong woven into her hair made its own contribution, in the form of stiff neck and sore scalp, and she had only just started.

  For half an hour the new teams exercised in the yard, learning what was expected of them, and practising control and the proper high stepping gait. At last the signal was given to move out to the track, a cinder oval about the size of a standard 400 metre athletics track, entirely surrounded and screened by a strip of dense woodland. Three of the teams, Madeleine amongst them, were drawn for the first heat, one to go through, as of right, plus the fastest second place.

  The track felt gritty under her soft soles, her shoulders and arms ached from their constricted position. She could feel the strain in her thighs from the unnatural lift she had to give them to achieve the correct gait, and her haunches stung from the application of the whip, but she stood at the starting line, full of excitement, keen to pit herself against the others, and proud of her rapid mastery of her role.

  The started dropped his flag, and they were off, spurred by the lashes of the whips on bare female flesh, a quite unnecessary stimulus in Madeleine’s case, as she threw herself against the shafts with all her weight and set off, high stepping in the approved manner and putting all she had into the race. For most of the first lap honours were pretty even, but as they approached the bell, the girl on her left visibly weakened; no amount of whip or words from her driver could get her up to the others, and it became a two horse race. Pride kept Madeleine going against a heavier, stronger girl, who she suspected had done this before, but the strain was telling, along with the soreness of her feet and limbs. Her rider drove her on with more stinging blows to her back and buttocks, but she could make no impression on her opponent who crossed the line, sweating and panting, a scant few feet ahead.

  She was disappointed to fail at the first challenge, and surprised when the apparently ruthless female, who had whipped her unavailingly, around two laps of the punishing track, did not bawl her out for failing to qualify.

  “You showed a lot of promise, for a beginner,” she said. “We’ll do better next time, though I may have to take the skin off your back in the process.”

  She was still digesting this heady mixture of praise and threat when the second heat started. Again all three stayed close for the first lap, but then first one and then another went lame. Madeleine’s feet were already sore from the sharp fragments scattered throughout the track material, and the winner came home alone. It didn’t require a stop-watch to deduce that Madeleine would qualify after all as the fastest second place.

  A short break was called, to rest the winner of the second heat; the grooms moved among the ‘mares’ sponging them down and adjusting harness, before they were called to the line again. Madeleine’s driver came over to where she stood in the shafts.

  “I can see you’re making quite an effort, but I think we should have a little something to keep you lively,” she said, “bend over, and get your legs well apart.”

  Setting her feet as wide as she could manage, and bending as low as her harness, and the backward pull on her hair would allow, she felt her spread buttocks parted by the driver’s fingers, and something soft and greasy was thrust into her anus and deep into her rectum. At first it tingled, but then came the burn, a monstrous sensation that made her want to turn her sphincter inside out, a hot throbbing fiery furnace in her arse that made her dance on her toes, clenching and unclenching her buttock cheeks, fretting her knees against each other, as she tried to ride the caustic burn in her fundament.

  “Feeling a little frisky now, are we? Well, no time to l
ose, Gid up Gal,” came the order, “let’s get to that track while you’re hot to trot.”

  Almost grateful to be allowed to move and work off the irritant in her behind, she moved off to take up her place alongside the other two finalists. They all started fast, encouraged by the shouts of their drivers, reinforced by stinging cuts of the long thin switches. Once again, for most of the first lap there was nothing in it, then Madeleine found herself alone with her rival of the first heat, the winner of the second apparently flattered by the weakness of the rest of her field. Stride for stride they came down the back straight, and round the final curve. Down the home straight, Madeleine’s driver flogged her unmercifully, the whip criss crossing her back and buttocks with angry red lines. She pounded on, on feet cut and sore from the sharp cornered particles in the track, her back and backside almost raw now from the unceasing rain of blows, her arse burning and her breath coming in painful gasps. She put everything she had into it, determined to best the long strong girl racing alongside, but her rival was just too strong and experienced for her, and held on to cross the line a bare two feet ahead, as in their first trial.

  “Pity,” remarked the mannish female, who had just come close to making good her threat to skin her back, “I thought we were going to have our revenge there. Still, you did well to run Gilda so close. She’s good at this you know.” Madeleine didn’t doubt it, but retained her animal dumbness. “You’d be good yourself, with more experience. Your owner ought to have you properly trained, you know.”

  The mares were returned to the stable yard to be unhitched, watered and rubbed down. Humiliating as it was, Madeleine was grateful for the wet sponge worked round and into her anus to remove some of the burning caustic still at work there, though the relief was only partial. Her driver had worked much of it deep inside, and the slow leakage continued to burn even after she had been washed. They had just eaten, ravenous after the demanding exercise, when Richard entered, carrying the black scarf she had worn on the way to the weekend ‘race meeting’. He blindfolded her again and led her out to the car, her hands still cuffed to the belt at her waist, her chin held high by the thong in her hair.