by Sarah Fisher
The slave girl’s sex was bare, and a narrow black leather thong that circled up between her buttocks and joined a studded belt divided the outer lips. To complete what was a breathtaking outfit, the model wore high black patent spiked thigh boots.
Sarah shivered, caught up in the stunning image. Was this what she looked like when bound and waiting for Doctor Casswell to lay on with the riding crop? She could feel a peculiar erotic charge surge through her veins.
‘So, what do you think?’ whispered Casswell, in an undertone. The sound of his voice made Sarah jump. For a moment or two she had been totally oblivious to either the doctor or Oliver Turner.
‘Amazing,’ she murmured thickly, and honestly. ‘Absolutely amazing.’
The waxwork was at once both astonishing and deeply disturbing. Behind the slave girl crouched a small muscular man, masked too, dressed in cream jodhpurs and a dark leather jerkin. His torso was oiled, almost as if he had already worked up a lather of sweat. He cradled a horsewhip in one thick paw, and looked for all the world as if he was about to spring forward and lay on the next cruel, breath-stopping blow.
The girl was wonderfully modelled, caught in the very instant before the whip exploded across her back. Sarah could almost hear her moans of pain and pleasure, her body taut, waiting… and then she noticed something that made her suppress a gasp of horror behind her hands and step back.
The fine chain between the girl’s nipples began to tremble, and then very slowly rise and fall. Sarah squeezed her hands over her mouth as comprehension dawned and nausea threatened… these weren’t waxworks at all!
‘M-my God!’ she blurted. ‘She’s – she’s alive, isn’t she?!’
Oliver Turner laughed, and catching hold of Sarah’s arm, pulled her up onto the dais.
‘The game’s up, my dear,’ he said to the slave girl, who slipped from the restraints, pulled off the hood, and shook out a tumble of lustrous blonde curls. She moved with the easy fluid grace of a dancer, and looked almost feline.
‘Bravo, my sweet,’ Turner continued, pulling the girl close and brushing her cheek with his lips. He stroked one of the rings that pierced her nipples. The bud hardened instantly under his caress. ‘I think we had Miss Morgan well and truly fooled for a little while.’ He turned to Sarah. ‘I would like you to meet my companion, Amelia. Amelia Cartwright, this is Miss Sarah Morgan.’
Sarah nodded dumbly. Unable to find her voice, she extended a trembling hand.
Amelia accepted and pulled it to her scarlet painted lips. Sarah shivered as the stunning blonde turned her hand over and ran her tongue seductively across the open palm in an all too obvious display of her inclinations toward Sarah.
‘Welcome to Oliver’s little museum,’ she purred seductively. Her dark brown eyes were outlined with kohl, re-enforcing the impression that she was some strange exotic cat. She smiled at Sarah’s obvious discomfort, and drew one of her fingers into her warm mouth. Sarah shivered.
‘Oh, come on, relax,’ Amelia whispered in a low, husky voice. ‘Wouldn’t you like to come play a little while?’
Although she was aware of Doctor Casswell and Oliver Turner standing just behind her, and beyond them the door that would lead her back into the main house, Sarah was rooted to the spot.
The blonde seducer’s talons dropped, clearly not even contemplating a rebuttal, to the buttons of Sarah’s dress. ‘Why don’t you let me see what Chang has found for you, my little darling? I’m sure it’ll be something rather nice.’
One button popped free… two… three… Sarah felt her colour rising along with her temperature. The growing tension in the pit of her stomach, though not totally unpleasant, made her tremble with a heady concoction of embarrassment, uncertainty, and longing.
Amelia pouted theatrically. ‘There, there. It’s all right, my little one, relax and let yourself go. This game is supposed to be fun, or hasn’t dear Rigel told you that yet?’ She grimaced, feigning disapproval, and then glared at Casswell.
Oliver Turner sighed. ‘Be careful, Amelia my dear, or I will have to take the horsewhip to you after all.’
Undeterred, Amelia chuckled sexily, and snatching the whip from the waxwork figure of the slave master, ran her hand suggestively down its black leather shaft.
‘Oh, my pleasure entirely, Oliver,’ she purred with a confident grin, sliding the whip between her thighs.
Oliver Turner laughed dryly. ‘You are a little vixen, and no mistake,’ he said.
Amelia dropped to her hands and knees, and nuzzled at the elderly gentleman’s crotch while still working the crop between her thighs.
Sarah gasped at the shameless display.
Turner shook his head, and then ruffled the blonde’s hair as he would a favourite over-indulged pet. ‘You are a very, very, wicked young lady.’
Amelia sprung agilely to her feet and turned her attention back to the spellbound Sarah. She undid the final button and then pulled the red coat-dress back off Sarah’s shoulders and allowed it to rustle to the floor, where it nestled around Sarah’s ankles.
‘Oh yes,’ Amelia purred appreciatively, almost to herself, her dark eyes working slowly over the sensual contours of Sarah’s constrained body. The basque fitted her like a second skin. ‘Oh yes… very beautiful,’ she drooled, licking her lips like a greedy cat with the cream. ‘Most definitely good enough to eat—’
Before Sarah could do or say anything Amelia matched word to deed. She dropped silently to the floor in front of her and, exactly as she had with Turner, began to nuzzle at the stunned girl’s perfumed crotch.
Sarah stiffened in complete shock as Amelia’s hair brushed her thighs, and then she gasped as a wet and skilful tongue lapped majestically across the outer lips of her quim. The sensation was electrifying.
‘Oh, my God—’ she managed to gasp. Her first inclination was to turn tail and run away, but then she sensed movement behind her. Shooting a glance over her shoulder she saw Casswell, his expression as impassive as ever, but his eyes smouldering with vehement excitement.
He slipped an arm around her waist.
‘Open your legs,’ he said into her ear, in a tone that brooked no contradiction. ‘Let Oliver’s pretty little kitten have a taste of the cream.’
Before Sarah could protest he snatched her upper arm fiercely with his free hand and held it painfully tight. As she groaned her dismay he nudged a foot between her feet and prised her legs wide apart. She shrieked as Amelia gripped her hips and dragged her closer, and then plunged her avid tongue into Sarah’s sex to trace the engorged ridge of her clitoris.
Sarah closed her eyes, stunned that anything so fleeting could create such an overwhelming wave of pleasure. The tongue flitted and lapped again, making her mewl with pure delight. Was this the magical enchantment that had entrapped Beatrice? Had it been this gift that Beatrice had given, kneeling at her mistress’s feet, locked in a passionate embrace so astounding that it overcame all natural revulsion?
Through swirling mists of pleasure Sarah knew Amelia was rapidly taking control, pressing forward, each white-hot kiss driving her out to the very edge of paradise. And as she did Amelia sat back a little and gently guided the handle of the horsewhip up into Sarah’s defenceless quim. The delirious captive’s head lolled back onto Casswell’s shoulder and she whimpered her shock, but did nothing more to protest.
The leather felt obscene and unyielding, and yet her body drew it in gratefully. Casswell tapped her feet wider with his toe, while his hand slipped up from her trim waist to pinch and twisted her erect and throbbing nipples. He lightly kissed her perspiring temple and whispered lewd promises into her ear.
It was all much too much for their besieged victim. As Amelia set the rhythm with her tongue and fingers, and the handle of the whip, Sarah surrendered. She ground down onto the inert black shaft, not caring that she gave the blonde seductress greater access to her rest
rained body while it drank in the wonderful sensations.
Oliver Turner looked on with evident satisfaction. He rang a discreetly placed bell to summon Chang, who had been waiting for them in an anteroom. When the Oriental appeared he was carrying something in a gloved hand; something that glowed cherry red.
Turner studied Sarah Morgan. The girl was exquisite in the black leather basque, her creamy flesh already shimmering with a fine gloss of perspiration. He knew she was struggling with feelings of revulsion and the more intense call of undiluted, unrestrained passion.
Casswell smiled conspiratorially and held the girl even tighter as Turner moved in. As though forewarned by some strange female intuition, Sarah, on the verge of a shattering orgasm, opened her eyes and saw him too. A strange silence fell over the room as Amelia also glanced up, her full carmine lips slick with Sarah’s juices.
Turner smiled; it was a tableau well worth savouring, but it was destined to last no more than a few seconds, although in his mind the whole sensual scene seemed to be played out in slow motion.
Sarah noticed Chang and the object he was holding.
Such prescience. She tried to protest, but all coherent sound was efficiently smothered by Casswell’s firm palm. She tried desperately to struggle free, but he was easily too strong and held her with contemptuous ease. With little effort he twisted her in his arms, and as she watched with wide eyes over his fingers, Chang handed the branding iron to Turner, and with a sickening piety, the elderly gentleman sank it onto her exposed right buttock.
Sarah tried to scream into the hand clamped over her mouth, but nothing came up from her lungs. She swooned, felt nauseous, and fell limp and unconscious in Casswell’s arms.
Oliver Turner closed his eyes and lifted his face to the high ceiling, luxuriating in the moment.
Chapter 12
When Sarah opened her eyes she was quite certain she’d been dreaming. It had been a strange and very intense dream in which her life and Beatrice de Fleur’s had finally merged; a peculiar dark fantasy where she had been seduced by another woman – a friend of Oliver Turner’s – and then she’d been branded. Something in her mouth, some unfamiliar residue, tasted peculiar too.
She tried to quieten the ramblings of her waking mind and shifted her focus. She was lying on her stomach in an unfamiliar and dimly lit room, on a red moquette couch. As she lifted herself gingerly onto her forearms her head pounded, but she turned very slowly and came face to face with Turner’s slave girl, Amelia, sitting elegantly on a chair beside her. She was now wearing a short white cotton robe, which was drawn tightly in at her waist and stretched tautly over her generous breasts. Despite her inner turmoil, Sarah’s eyes were drawn inexplicably to the deep shadowy cleavage that nestled within the slightly gaping robe. Amelia laughed musically as she noticed where Sarah’s furtive peeps were resting, and leant forward a little to stroke a strand of hair back from the patient’s damp brow. The movement only served to open the robe a little more, and Sarah couldn’t suppress a soft moan of despair and frustration as the soft perfumed valley hovered even closer.
‘Hiya,’ Amelia murmured smoothly, the simple greeting just oozing sex. ‘Are you okay now? You fainted.’
Sarah swallowed hard, panic and pain suddenly flooding her mind. It hadn’t been a dream after all. She could still feel the sensation of the branding iron touching her flesh; a white-hot lightening strike of pain that had unplugged her consciousness. Even now she could feel the remnants of its heat searing into her buttock, a knot of unspeakable rawness that glowed like a neon beacon in her mind. And yet there was also an odd fuzziness to her thinking, and for a second or two Sarah wondered if her thoughts were somehow being muddied by images from Beatrice de Fleur’s drugged mind.
Gently, she tried to twist herself around to look at the brand mark, but found it too difficult. All she could see was a thick white surgical dressing, and wondered if it had been Amelia or Chang who had tended to the burn. Her head spun from the effort of trying to crane around, and she closed her eyes to try and clear it.
Amelia touched her arm. ‘Don’t try and move. Just lie still and rest. Chang gave you something for the pain. It’s not very strong, but he said it might make you a bit heady for a little while.’
Sarah closed her eyes tight. The darkness twirled and made her feel sick again. Like a glass marble the centre of the darkness had coloured twists spiralling through it, and the twists in her darkness were pure red pain.
‘Why?’ she asked at last, opening her eyes. Her mouth and lips were parched.
Amelia smiled and lifted her towelling robe to reveal a tiny brand on her own thigh. No bigger than a man’s thumbprint, it was an O overlaid with an ornate T. Sarah had seen the design earlier on the wrought iron gates leading up to the estate, on the front doors to the mansion, and even on the book-plates in the library. It was Oliver Turner’s personal mark and Amelia, it seemed, was part of his collection.
Sarah shuddered in dismay; she imagined her own brand to be as big as a saucer, the pain was so great, but guessed that the final scar would probably be just as discreet and imply just as much to anyone who saw it.
‘You are marked with the same crest that was used on Beatrice de Fleur,’ Casswell said, and Sarah jumped at the sound of his voice, not realising he was with them in the room. ‘I thought you would understand and appreciate its significance far more than any other mark we might devise.’
Sarah twisted around, trying to see him.
‘Beatrice?’ she said, struggling to find her voice. ‘How do you know what her brand looked like?’
‘It is sketched several times in the original diary. Its design was of great importance to her. I had the iron made up by a local blacksmith.’ He was moving closer to Sarah now, and the subtle smell of his cologne made her mouth water. What was this bizarre alchemy?
‘Rest now,’ he said. ‘Chang will be up later to help get you ready for dinner.’ He stroked her shoulder, and she shivered under the unexpected caress. ‘You did very well today,’ he said, leaning so close his breath danced through her silky hair, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘I’ll see you later.’ And then he was gone.
Sarah shook her head again, desperate to clear the remnants of Chang’s medicine. Had she detected a strange note of concern in the doctor’s voice?
Amelia pulled a soft woollen blanket up around Sarah’s shoulders. ‘Don’t try to fight it, my little darling,’ she purred, and just the sound of her soft voice made Sarah’s nipples tighten. ‘Sleep now. You’re going to need all the rest you can get.’
Sarah realised she had no desire or will to resist the invitation. She closed her eyes and let unconsciousness claim her, without really considering the implications of Amelia’s last sentence.
‘Well, I’m very glad your lovely young lady has suffered no lasting ill-effects from this afternoon’s performance,’ said Oliver Turner, handing Rigel Casswell a brandy. ‘But it is more important that we keep out minds focused on the business in hand. Perhaps I ought to propose a toast for tomorrow. A good luck gesture?’
It was later that evening and, while waiting for dinner to be served, Casswell and Turner were in the study. Casswell was seated comfortably by the roaring fire, reading from the list of guests that Turner had invited to join them to discuss Beatrice’s diary.
‘And they will all be arriving here tomorrow?’
Turner nodded. ‘Indeed they will. Kosford, Lassiter, some chap from Prague who Rees-Miles has recommended. Altogether, it’s an impressive gathering. Everyone should be here in time for a breakfast meeting, and by this time tomorrow evening, God willing and a fair wind, we should have all the information we require.’
‘And then?’ Casswell asked, savouring the sensation of the alcohol as its warmth eased into his bloodstream.
Turner smiled. ‘Now, now, my boy. You know that all depends on the combined results of their fi
ndings. It’s tempting to dream a little though, eh? I have information from a very reliable source that there are several other volumes of Beatrice de Fleur’s diaries in existence. Apparently, the collection was kept in the vaults of a monastery near what is now Prague for quite some time. But in the aftermath of the Russian revolution it was broken up for safekeeping. There are supposedly one or two volumes in a museum near Minsk. Another instalment is apparently being kept under lock and key in Berlin. And of course, there are countless stories of other parts of the diaries existing in dusty old libraries and vaults the length and breath of Europe. But then again,’ he added philosophically, ‘you know how these tales escalate once you express an interest, however discreet the enquiries.’ He paused to light a large cigar.
‘However, if I get the authentication we need, I might seriously consider sponsoring an expedition to try and track the other volumes down. To the right collector they would be priceless.’ Turner lifted his glass in salute to Casswell. ‘And it goes without saying that I’ll need a man on the ground to protect my interests. At my age I’m really not too keen on undertaking all that fieldwork myself.’
Rigel Casswell smiled with pleasure. It was a commission he would relish. ‘In that case, here’s to tomorrow, Oliver, and the arrival of the rest of your team of experts.’
The dancing fire reflected in Turner’s eyes as he gently tapped his glass against Casswell’s. ‘Indeed, dear boy. And here’s to the endless search for new pleasures, and the marking of your precious little slave girl.’
Casswell laughed and returned the gesture. The chinking of the crystal glasses echoed around the elegant room. ‘Talking of slave girls, Amelia looks very well these days, Oliver. Your new attraction in the museum had me completely fooled.’
