by Mark Andrews
“Found out something about yourself, have you, Ann?” he asked softly.
I turned and stared at him as I struggled against the inertia of the huge roller. His voice was not only soft, it now lacked the venom he had always displayed to me to that point. I decided to be careful.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Mr Hobbs?” I replied.
“Oh I think you do, girl. Now I’m not going to say too much now, but I know about your love for Big Balls. Just be careful not to let her see it, okay?”
I just about fell over. This wasn’t the Hobbs I had come to loathe as I hadn’t any man before. What was going on?
He left me soon after that but he did switch on the collar.
Once he was gone, I reached out to Sanjiv with my concerns but all I got back was more of the love and encouragement. That was nice, but it wasn’t what I wanted to feel from him. Of course, at that early stage, my command of that incredible power was both weak and undeveloped. I supposed I couldn’t really expect more. Or could I?
What I had experienced with Joel last night had been so clear that while we couldn’t exactly exchange words, the ideas of love and all the rest of it had been so powerful! I tried reaching him again but this time there was nothing. Nothing at all. Despair descended on me once more. But then I felt Sanjiv there and he was cross with me. I almost smiled as I felt his sadness at my weakness and I bucked up again.
Later, when Hobbs returned, he told me that Madeleine and her two friends had been taken into town by Joel so that explained his lack of communication with me. But then the butler opened up a little more.
“I think I can trust you, Anne,” he began, staring at me intently.
I nodded. I wasn’t sure if I could him, but I would play along, at least for now. “Yes, Mr Hobbs,” I said softly.
“Right, well, I am not what I seem. In fact, I was planted here to see what I could discover about Miss Madeleine Albrecht and her methods of acquiring slaves...”
I stared at him in utter astonishment. “Sent by whom?” I asked, still trying to remain neutral.
“Ah, that must remain secret for now, but be assured it is from high up in the government.”
“I see. And where have your investigations led you?” I said.
“Not very far, unfortunately. I have been here for months and in that time have made life for you and the other slaves utterly miserable without discovering very much at all. She is very careful. The one thing I have found out is that both you and Joel Harvey were not guilty of your crimes. It was Joel’s case which alerted my superiors for he was a high-flier in the faculty of medicine at UQ. His aim was to move into sports medicine after he graduated. Anyway, after much prodding by the university bigwigs, the powers-that-be had me sent here to try and unearth what she is up to.
“When you came here, I looked into your file and was immediately suspicious. I take it you aren’t guilty?”
“No, I’m not,” I said quietly, but didn’t elaborate. I didn’t trust this man one millimetre. Not then, anyway.
“I thought as much. Look, there isn’t much you can do to help me - unless you know anything of how you were framed?” He looked inquiringly at me but I just shook my head. No way was I going to trust this man. “No, I thought not. Well, I just wanted you to know that I am trying to get you and Joel freed and while I may have to whip or otherwise torture you, I am being as light as I dare to be. I hope you understand?”
Again I just nodded and he then grinned and said, “Good girl.”
He stayed with me for one more cycle then left, dispatching one of the scullery maids to water me. I noted though that he didn’t switch on my collar this time, leaving it to me to make an appearance of hard work when Madeleine and her disgusting friends reappeared.
All that day I toiled and I am pleased to report that I lasted the whole of the time on that second day. Yes, I was able to slow down just a smidgin as the collar wasn’t active and that was a help, but mostly my mind was working on what Hobbs had told me and wondering whether it was true or whether he was a master psychologist attempting to discover my innermost secrets and what, if any, plans were being made to upset Madeleine’s security.
Why didn’t I seek help from Sanjiv as soon as Hobbs had gone? I did. But all I got back was more of the love and encouragement. It was as if I was on a fixed loop from him and that didn’t change throughout the day. I began to worry, but not enough to deter me from completing my labour and then Hobbs came for me at six. He took me in and had me fed then escorted me up to Madeleine’s suite to be bathed but in the house he said nothing at all, which made me think that perhaps he was genuine for if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered what he said.
Chandra and Bjorn were also very correct in what they said to me, but from their thoughts, I got the feeling they knew exactly what had happened and bid me to be patient.
Once more I got strung up but Madeleine’s rage was obviously still very much to the fore for this time it was by just one thumb.
As soon as she made her appearance, I reached out to Joel and was relieved to feel him in my mind. Once more it was all love and encouragement except that this time he appeared in the hall and as I stared down at him, still naked of course and just as splendid of body as I remembered him, now that admiration for his physical self was reinforced by my love for him as a person.
And this time, perhaps because of his proximity, his thoughts were much clearer. Yes, he too had been approached by Hobbs and had been just as careful in his replies as I had been; so I felt vindicated in my own approach.
And then, at nine that night, I felt Sanjiv calling for me. Yes, he had understood my frantic pleas during the day but had been busy investigating Hobbs. Of course he had known from Joel of the butler’s alleged double identity but had been inclined to reject him as a Trojan horse - a double-agent of sorts. Now however, he had been surprised by his approach to me and had decided to investigate the man more deeply. He was still undertaking that project, so far without any conclusive result but at least I felt that something concrete was happening.
Strangely, although my suspension by my right thumb was more painful than the upside-down position last night, I actually did get some sleep that night.
Yes, at first I had all the comings and goings of the household to contend with and this time, Hobbs had suspended me much closer to the floor - with my toes about half a metre up from it, so I was much more accessible to them all and while the two pairs of guests spent a lot of time feeling and fondling my naked body - and twitching the hated tail up and down - because it always made me scream as the huge conical butt-plug inside my rectum then strained against my anus and they enjoyed my shame and pain immensely, the slaves always hurried by, not wanting to be included in the so indecent inspection of my so naked flesh.
But then the house settled down and I could explore the minds of my friends and of course, Joel. I didn’t get much from any of them that night except more love and encouragement but then my mind wandered into Madeleine’s and I gathered she had Billy and Joan Thomas in bed with her and the three of them were discussing me. The thoughts I was getting were a lot clearer this time. Still not actual words but the ideas were much more detailed and so I now gleaned that the two Thomas’ were well aware of my framing and of Peter Nixon’s role in it.
I didn’t bother trying to communicate this information to Sanjiv; I knew he would already be well aware of it - and in much more detail than I had. Surely she was riding for a fall? Surely they would soon bring her down and Joel and I could be free to return to our respective university courses and be rid of Madeleine once and for all?
It wasn’t to be. Not yet.
They needed hard evidence. She was one of Australia’s richest people and could muster enormously powerful resources to aid her defence. I understood only too well that they needed irrefutable proof of her
nefarious activities to bring her down and there wasn’t much I could do to help - or was there...?
Hobbs had hired John Caruthers on Madeleine’s behalf and had become quite close to him. Why couldn’t he aid his department (whichever it was) to hack into her control room and listen in to her conversations? If I could hear her in my mind, I was sure they must be able to tune in to her bedroom tête-à-têtes?
I reached out to Sanjiv with this idea - trying to communicate as much of it as I could and asking if I could trust Hobbs yet. I think he must have gleaned most of it for the answer came back with a definite, “YES”! It seemed he had been busy probing Hobbs’ agency (which turned out to be the police Special Branch) and had received a positive result. Hobbs was actually an inspector and had infiltrated Madeleine’s household very soon after her acquisition of Joel, which was some two months previously to my downfall. It turned out we were lucky for his negative results so far had prompted his superiors to terminate the project. Now, with my suggestion, they might just be able to achieve what had so far eluded them.
When he came for me early the next morning and had supervised my cleaning, feeding and waste removal, he escorted me out to the roller and on our way, once we were well clear of the house, I told him that I suspected Madeleine was confiding in her two friends, the Thomas’s, about Joel and me and the pair of them had giggled over her acquisition of the so handsome black boy and then her defeat of me, her arch enemy at school.
“How d’you know that, Ann?” he asked, staring at me intently until my whole skin prickled in fear, but then he grinned. “Don’t tell me, you’re psychic, aren’t you?” but then he laughed, thinking it a great joke and I nearly fainted in relief for despite his mirth at the idea that I might have psychic powers he seemed interested in the idea.
“It could be possible,” he mused, as we walked across to the roller. “I usually take over for John on his day off. I could assist the department’s boffins to get in then...”
But I still had to perform on that heavy roller, of course. And when he wasn’t there, he had to turn on the collar for when Madeleine and her friends came down to gloat over me, they sometimes shocked me a few times, just to watch my agony and, if I didn’t respond appropriately, Hobbs might get caught out and it seemed he was crucial to our plans. If he got fired for incompetence - and who knows which way Madeleine would jump any time - he would be lost to us.
Madeleine did indeed come down on that third day but it was to tell me that she had forgiven me and I could now return to my duties in her suite. It seemed she had had a falling out with the Thomas’s and they and the Uptons had departed.
That was a blow. With the Thomas’ gone who was she going to confide in? It looked as if Joel and I were in for another extension of our stay in her dreadful household.
I suppose it was a relief to get back to the suite, though, and to the company of my friends and it also brought me closer to Hobbs who now whispered to me that he had secured the department’s okay for the hacking operation and that it would take place the day after tomorrow when John Caruthers had his day off. After that, we would just have to wait and see who next came to the house.
I asked him if she had ever confided in him but he just smiled. “You may think she trusts me because I am so hard on you slaves, Anne, but she doesn’t. I am too new for that.”
We still hadn’t told him about Sanjiv and his activities with Joel and me and with Chandra and Bjorn. Not because we didn’t trust him, but because such psychic powers were either not believed, or were held in high suspicion. Sanjiv continued to labour on, working on Peter Nixon’s mind and trying to urge him to come forward and confess.
I suggested that he be approached and offered an amnesty or at least a lesser sentence if he would betray Madeleine, but Sanjiv said he was our trump card. If we let on his role in the affair and it failed, she would be doubly on her guard and we might never get her.
And so things returned to the status quo. Chandra, Bjorn and I served her in her suite, Joel was her driver and maintenance man and the other slaves performed their respective duties as before but all feared Madeleine as much as anyone I have ever heard of. And Hobbs was only a tiny way behind her. Of course we three and Joel knew of his real role in that house but he couldn’t afford to be lenient with any of us. If he had, she would have been immediately suspicious and so we were just as careful in his presence as the rest of the slaves.
Sanjiv did his best to keep a rein on her but even his extraordinary powers were not enough at times and so any of us were subject to her sadistic whims and might end up for a day on the roller or some other dreadful punishment. But I was her prime target, of course. I was the only person in the world who had ever gainsaid her anything and, spoilt rotten as she had been, that was a total anathema to her.
I often wondered how she equated her original intention to make me the lowest of the low - a scullery maid - with my position as one of her body-slaves, the highest position to which a slave could aspire. Sanjiv told me he had to work on it constantly otherwise I would be swiftly demoted but even he couldn’t manage it all the time and my next punishment was to serve as her naked pony-slave for a few days.
We were well into the fifth decade of the twenty-first millennium by now and the institution of criminal slavery had been around for around thirty years. In that time people had come to realise that criminal slaves could be shown off as items of status. The best way to display one’s property was to harness them to a light gig and trot them out and about, stark naked of course.
At first they had been harnessed to the gigs by clips attached to a belt around the waist which were then attached to lugs on the two poles. The slaves were otherwise naked as the shame of public nudity was deemed to be an excellent additional punishment for the slaves.
Some bright spark then came up with the idea of using a single pole between the slave’s thighs with anal and vaginal plugs (for female ponies, and a genital cuff in place of the vaginal plug for male slaves) as the sole connection to and support for the gig.
This was what I now faced. To that point, Madeleine had been so enamoured of Joel’s good looks and fabulous body that she had used him and the Rolls exclusively but now she decided to trot out her gig and have it polished up for local trips.
Hobbs took me down to the garage himself. “I’m sorry, Anne, that I can’t prevent this. If only the Thomas’s had stayed, we might have had tapes of her admissions. As it is, we have nothing.”
“It’s alright, Mr Hobbs. I know you’re trying. It’s just that being shown off naked out in the streets has to be about as bad as it gets...”
“I know and believe me, I am keeping my ears open for anything that might incriminate her...”
We reached the garage then and Joel was there with the gig, freshly polished and gleaming in the sunlight. It really was a beautiful object: the high but very narrow chromed wheels, the gleaming black fibre-glass shell with its red leather seat and her crest emblazoned in gold leaf on both sides.
Joel had carefully greased both plugs with Vaseline and so I positioned myself over them, standing astride the shiny black pole with the gold eagle’s head on its end and bending forward at Hobbs’ direction and spreading my bottom cheeks for the anal intruder.
By now the pain of the tail I had worn during my previous punishment had worn off but fortunately it had left the anal muscles quite well toned and so the plug went in without too much bother. It was fixed immovably to the shaft but the vaginal one, angled slightly backwards (whereas the anal one leaned forward a little) was on a collar which could slide up and down the pole.
Hobbs knelt down and carefully inserted its tip into my quim and then, sliding it backwards down the pole, pushed more and more of it right up into my body, stopping only when the collar met the base of the anal plug, at which he then tightened the knurled screw underneath the collar. The pole was now
fixed firmly to my body and could not drop out.
“Try walking, Anne,” the butler said. I did and was surprised to find it remarkably easy. “Okay, now try a trot around the yard. Jump up into the seat, Big Balls, while I bridle her.”
He kept the bridle as loose as he dared but the bit was still uncomfortable in my mouth. He handed the reins up to Joel and then watched as my man steered me around the yard outside the garages, flicking them against my shoulders and moving me up from a walk to a trot. It was still bearable but I wondered how it was going to be when she ordered a gallop - as she inevitably would.
“Alright, Big Balls, that’s enough. We don’t know how long Miss Albrecht will wish to keep the slave running so best not to tire her out. Take her around to the front door and then stand beside her head. Don’t talk to her.”
This last was for both of our benefits. He was telling us the porte cochere was wired for picture and sound and John would be watching us carefully as we waited for the mistress.
It was a dreadful outing, at least for me. I don’t know how often she had used the gig before and which slaves had been the ponies. I could see the vaginal collar could come right off and had noted there was a male genital model to replace it if she required a male pony - and then suddenly I knew! She must have used Joel as a pony at times and I wondered what had happened to give him a relief from this so dreadful duty for as a pony, she would be able to perv on his body much better than when he acted as her driver in the Rolls.
I couldn’t imagine what it was but then it hit me. Sanjiv, of course. As soon as he had arrived and seen Joel’s disgusting use as a human pony, he must have ‘persuaded’ her to abandon the gig for the Rolls, no doubt playing on her snobbishness and self-conceit.
She arrived eventually, after keeping Joel and me waiting over an hour, then Hobbs handed her up into the beautifully crafted seat and Joel passed the reins to her. She flicked them against my shoulders and I took off, trotting down the freshly-raked gravel driveway, through the magnificent gardens (set in over three hectares) and then out through the great wrought iron gates which opened at her command from the little pad at her side, and closed after we had passed through.
