The Mistress of Sternwood Grange

by Arabella Knight

  ‘Again, you have failed. Across the ball,’ the angel snapped, her tone crisper.

  Crushing her bosom into the soft leather, the naked brunette straddled the medicine ball, presenting her bottom for punishment.

  ‘Discipline and dominance is all about timing,’ Erica whispered into Mandy’s ear. ‘The promise of punishment must be delayed, before it is fulfilled. Always dictate terms, and deny for as long as you can what the submissive most desires.’

  Mandy nodded her understanding.

  The angel knelt, thighs parted, alongside the bending brunette and fingered the cleft between the upturned cheeks. Thumbing the left buttock, she dimpled its soft satin swell.

  ‘I am disappointed in you,’ she whispered, now punishing the captive left cheek in a severe pincer of finger and thumb. ‘And when I am disappointed, what do I do?’

  ‘P–p–punish me,’ grunted the brunette, squeezing her thighs together against the leather ball.

  The cane cracked sharply down across the creamy cheeks, leaving a thin red line of fire across their curved swell. Again, the bamboo sang – a tuneless note of pain. Then again. The brunette squealed her dark response as she ground her splayed labia into the scuffed hide beneath. The angel, supremely indifferent to the brunette’s writhing, sliced the cane down three more times in a savage staccato, rocketing the brunette into the ball.

  Savouring every delicious moment of the discipline, Mandy gazed at the brunette’s mask of frozen ecstasy – gazed and suddenly understood. This domination and discipline brought the brunette back to some beloved memory of distant years: back to the dusty attic in the rambling rectory, perhaps, when, after tea, an angry aunt would spank her naughty niece for stealing plums from the orchard. Discipline and punishment were delicious, and here, at Sternwood Grange, the brunette’s yearning could be met by a discerning angel who could diagnose the need, and dispense the appropriate treatment.

  At the ninth stroke of the cane, the brunette cried out softly and hammered her thighs into the medicine ball with renewed fury. Methodically, imperiously, the angel plied her glinting yellow wand. At the thirteenth stroke, Mandy saw the crimson buttocks spasm as the girl tensed for her orgasm. Again, and yet again, the wood viciously caressed the curved cheeks. Peeling her breasts and belly away from the dull hide, the brunette toppled and rolled over on to her back. Pounding her whipped cheeks into the prickly mat, she orgasmed loudly. The angel bent over her, pressing the hot tip of the cane against her parted lips, quelling the brunette’s shriek of delight. Mandy’s heart thumped wildly within her, then stopped as her eyes fell on the dark wet patch where the whipped girl’s pubis had kissed the sphere’s scuffed leather.

  ‘Let’s see what’s going on over there,’ Erica suggested, touching Mandy’s elbow gently.

  As they approached the wall bars, Mandy could not resist the temptation to glimpse over her shoulder. On the mat, the young brunette lay spread-eagled, spent and exhausted after her violent climax. The angel knelt beside her, worrying the nipples of her captive with the tip of the bamboo. Mandy sensed the climactic release of pent-up longing from the brunette. After long winter months in the rectory, in the dimly lit drawing room where the large black grand piano was never played, and only scratchy 78s of Kathleen Ferrier grated against the heavy silence, the spring had come, quickly followed by the full blaze of summer. And under the fierce heat of the Suffolk sunshine, a spell for the brunette at Sternwood Grange. Such delicious memories to store up for the lonely months ahead, once harvest was home, for the girl. Memories of Sternwood Grange, and the angels, to consume furtively like the box of chocolate gingers smuggled up to her bedroom in the rectory on a cold winter night. Mandy remembered the wet patch on the hide of the medicine ball – and felt a surge of admiration for her late aunt and all she had achieved here at Sternwood Grange.

  ‘Bondage can be a difficult art to master,’ Erica remarked as they approached the wall bars. ‘What qualities do you think an angel needs?’

  Mandy remained silent, considering the question.

  ‘Not just for effective bondage, but for discipline and domination?’ Erica pressed.

  ‘The ability to create and sustain an aloof intimacy?’

  ‘Good. Yes. I like that. And?’ Erica coaxed.

  ‘A savage gentleness and an impatient patience.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Erica said, ‘you demonstrate a clear understanding of the qualities required in an angel. Our residents expect their angels to be either angels without mercy, or angels for whom mercy is denied.’

  Mandy paled at these words, fully aware of their dark meaning.

  ‘The angel must be remote from, yet intensely connected to, her submissive client. And, when dispensing strict discipline, a touch of tenderness should sweeten her savagery. The punisher should have, shall we say, a fierce affection for the punished. Yes,’ Erica concluded, ‘I think the mistress will be pleased with your progress.’

  The mistress. Mandy’s heartbeat quickened.

  ‘Is she returning soon?’

  ‘No, but I am in constant touch. I believe she has hopes of you making a significant contribution to the success of Sternwood Grange. Do not disappoint her. Look –’ Erica pointed, directing Mandy’s gaze to the naked woman roped to the wall bars. ‘See how tightly those knots have been tied.’

  Mandy’s eyes flickered up. On the wall bars, spread-eagled and securely bound, was the submissive blonde she had birched with the hazel twig scourge in the sauna. The naked buttocks still wore the crimson kiss of the rods.

  ‘Your friend and admirer from yesterday,’ Erica purred.

  A waxed cord, threaded tightly round the captive breasts, was stretched out to bind the splayed arms at each wrist. A second biting cord hugged the hips to the wall bars, rendering the woman completely immobile. A third cord lashed the thighs together, welding the soft flesh into a cruel crease of suffering. Mandy’s gaze lingered on the fourth waxed cord of the naked blonde’s bondage. It arrowed down from the neck and shoulders, which it effectively haltered, along the sweep of her spine, buried itself in the cleft between the bound cheeks and disappeared up between the shadowed thighs against the pubis.

  Mandy plucked furtively at her wet labia, the sight before her had turned her hot and sticky with keen arousal almost instantly.

  The attending angel reached up, tugged the fourth tight cord and released it back into the cleft. The nude blonde grunted her pleasure.

  ‘Shouldn’t she be gagged?’ Mandy whispered thickly.

  ‘Not at this stage,’ Erica replied, obviously appreciative of the studious attention Mandy was paying to events.

  Taking two steps back, from the wall bars, Mandy looked up at the ceiling, then lowered her gaze to the vast sheet of glass. Eight feet from the wooden floor of the gym, the mirrored glass reflected a perfect image of the immobile blonde in her strict bondage. Mandy saw where the fourth waxed cord emerged against the pubis, threading between the splayed labia. She narrowed her blue eyes, noting where the bosom bulged within a fiercely restricting rope. Mandy’s gaze came to rest where the bound nude stared hypnotically into her own expression of exquisite anguish. At the point where the parted lips almost kissed the silvery glass, the blonde’s heated excitement spread a dull, opaque smudge.

  ‘It is always a difficult decision for the dominatrix to make,’ Erica remarked. ‘What would you choose to do now?’

  ‘Do?’ Mandy echoed, puzzled.

  ‘Whip her while she is still in her bondage or cut her down and release her for the lash, hmm?’

  Mandy considered this slowly, replying at length that she thought it all depended.

  ‘On what?’ Erica pressed.

  ‘On what she begged for. Whatever she implored me to do, I would do the opposite, to begin with. I would at first deny her desires, only later granting them – but strictly on my terms.’

  ‘Wonderful. You understand the submissive type really rather well, girl. And what about you, yourself?’


  ‘Me?’ Mandy blurted out, alarmed.

  ‘Do you prefer to be punished, or to punish?’

  Mandy blushed, unprepared for the question – and not willing to respond.

  ‘The whipper or the whipped? Which is it to be?’

  Mandy rubbed her foot into the polished wooden floor, her head bowed.

  ‘I’ll find out soon enough,’ Erica chuckled. ‘Half an hour down here in the gym, with you bare bottomed across that vaulting horse. My cane will soon search out your secret desires.’

  Mandy reddened, bitterly resenting the casual intimacy of the cruel, cropped blonde.

  ‘Punishing the maids is purely a matter of good governance,’ Erica observed, ‘but, with the angels, discipline is more of a voyage of mutual discovery. The mistress,’ Erica added, ‘has asked me to take close control of the angels. To become their tutor and mentor.’

  Tormentor, Mandy murmured silently, shrinking slightly from Erica. Anxious at the direction the discussion was taking, Mandy sought refuge in the plight of the naked blonde.

  ‘I’ll just see how tight those bonds are,’ Mandy said, mounting the bars slowly. Her foot curled over the smooth wood as she came to rest five and a half feet above the floor. Inching closer to the blonde, Mandy tentatively fingered the rope that bisected the rounded buttocks. Inserting her index finger knuckle inwards, Mandy felt the intense pressure of the waxed cord against her flesh. Gliding her knuckle down into and along the velvety ribbon of the cleft, Mandy gasped as the naked blonde shuddered, suddenly tightening the strain of the rope so that Mandy’s knuckle was pushed into the wet sphincter. Writhing in the strictures of the waxed cords, the blonde groaned her delight.

  Who was she, really? Perhaps not the daughter of the shambling rectory, Mandy thought. No. A high-powered futures dealer from the City? Perhaps. If so, she would be one of that army of Armani-suited executives making million-pound decisions in a minute, shaping future fortunes in an hour. Fingering the roped breasts lingeringly, Mandy formed a picture of the blonde. Driving a gunmetal BMW down to Dulwich under the sodium street lights after a gruelling day in the Square Mile. On the front seat, a winking laptop that never slept. Mandy imagined the crisp blouse, expensive dark tights and a pert but appropriate hemline: the blonde was shrewd enough to know that girls who dare to bare mid-thigh do not make important decisions in the office – they make the tea.

  ‘Ask her,’ Erica called up. ‘Ask her what she wants. Make her confess to you.’

  Mandy nodded down obediently, secretly resenting the intrusion into her thoughts. Deciding that the blonde was indeed a supercharged City high-flyer, Mandy mused upon the path that had brought the girl here to her bondage in Sternwood Grange. It was a chance to shrug off the huge burden of pressure and responsibility, no doubt. An opportunity to taste the delicious torments of surrendering utterly, of submitting completely, to the stern authority and cruel will of another.

  Mandy, who had been caressing the tightened cheeks once more, withdrew her finger. The waxed cord snapped back into the dark cleft. Mounting another bar, Mandy levelled her face with that of the blonde. Slowly, carefully, Mandy stretched out her thumb and brought it to the passive lips. The mouth formed a surprised circle and then closed over the thumb, sucking fiercely. Mandy probed the wet warmth of the blonde’s mouth, marvelling at the strength of the tugging muscles. Reflected back from the mirrored glass, the blonde’s eyes were wide with excitement. Mandy stiffened. The sound was unmistakable: warm golden pee was cascading down between the blonde’s thighs. She’s wetting herself, Mandy realised. Actually wetting herself in ecstasy.

  Back down on the floor, Mandy stared in fascination at the dark stain below the blonde.

  ‘The angel will take her away shortly,’ Erica remarked, ‘for a bath. Then she’ll be dried, powdered and babied. A spanking will follow, then nappies, perhaps, or a bed made up with a rubber sheet. But not yet. The angel has not finished with her submissive blonde.’

  Mandy shivered as she saw the angel produce an eight-inch solid-rubber dildo.

  ‘Dominance and discipline, for the female, is not always achieved with a cane, crop or cords,’ Erica remarked, reading the wonder in Mandy’s widening eyes. ‘Come along.’

  As they turned and walked away from the wall bars, Mandy stole a backward glance. The cord that had arrowed down into the dark cleft was now bisecting the bulging left buttock. The bulbous tip of the rubber dildo was being firmly stroked down the cleft. Below, the wet, shining thighs – recently soaked by the golden rain of the blonde’s delight – were clamped tightly together. A shrill scream echoed around the gym. Mandy quickened her pace to catch up with Erica. As she joined the cropped blonde in the centre of the gym, another piercing scream of raw pleasure split the air. The probing rubber shaft would now be gliding firmly into the blonde, she realised, exactly where her own knuckle had worried and nuzzled the hot, sticky sphincter. Mandy shivered with delight and fingered her own seething slit.

  They stopped at the edge of a black rubber mat. Straddled by a strap-wielding angel (Rowena, the redhead who had helped Mandy in the sauna yesterday), a submissive was executing sweaty press-ups face down into the rubber. Mandy recognised the bare buttocks. She had seen them being punished shortly after her arrival at Sternwood Grange. It was Lady Davinia, her matted chestnut curls tumbling down in a riot about her aristocratic features.

  ‘Faster,’ instructed Rowena. ‘You’re not really trying, are you?’ The leather barked harshly as it lashed the buttocks.

  As Lady Davinia’s spilling breasts grazed the rubber mat, they bunched deliciously. Mandy watched, transfixed, as the next press-up was completed: it powered the hips down and forced the pubis to kiss the dark rubber. Another crack of the strap made Mandy blink, and the naked hips of Lady Davinia jerk: pounding the nest of chestnut fuzz into the hard rubber once more. Rowena placed her bare foot dominantly down upon the hot cheeks. Lady Davinia wriggled and writhed, squealing her excitement. The angel’s foot lifted, moved up the sweep of the spine, and lowered itself into the chestnut curls, toes curled. Lady Davinia’s second squeal of delight was smothered as she mouthed the rubber mat.

  ‘Silence,’ snarled the redheaded angel, fingering her length of leather.

  ‘This is a simple exercise, devised by the former owner of Sternwood Grange,’ Erica observed. ‘Simple but very effective.’

  Aunt Clare? Had her late aunt really devised this exercise herself? Mandy was about to follow up this unexpected line of inquiry, but remained silent. Better not raise any suspicions by showing any interest whatsoever, she decided, in the provenance of Stern-wood Grange. But, in her silence, Mandy was amazed. The casual remark fired her imagination. Aunt Clare was more suited, she thought, to a mild hand of bridge and a traditional high tea served in the drawing room at three minutes after four. But if this was all her work, what was Mandy’s potential? A blood relative, similar talents for dark pleasure probably flowed through her veins, she conceded. Was her inheritance from her late aunt to be more than money and property? Was it also a Sadean propensity for devising delicious torments for naked females?

  Mandy brushed these thoughts away and tried to concentrate. Erica was speaking. Mandy listened.

  ‘Simple, but an exercise in which control is exerted absolutely. The subject is brought to the very edge of her ecstasy –’ a harsh snap of the belt whipping down across the upturned cheeks punctuated Erica’s commentary ‘– but her climax is denied. Let’s just stay and watch. I think you’ll find it quite instructive.’

  They sat down together at the edge of the rubber mat. Rowena, Mandy noted, was not wearing the clinical white uniform sported by the other angels in the gym. Like Lady Davinia, she was utterly naked. No, not exactly, Mandy realised. Rowena was wearing a pair of light bronze tights. As she turned, Mandy caught their delicious sheen in the glare of the bright neon light. The tights sculpted Rowena’s buttocks superbly, moulding and hugging the bottom as the dominatrix bent over to ply the lash. Mandy
, her wet slit now almost molten, yearned to lick and tongue the tights, mouth the thighs they sheathed, bite the soft buttocks imprisoned in their taut sheen.

  Rowena snapped the leather down once more. Screaming softly, Lady Davinia sprawled across the rubber, dragging her nipples across its dull surface. Mandy knew that, like the erect nipples, the nude’s clitoris would be rasping the rubber, hungry for orgasm.

  ‘Bottom up,’ Rowena commanded, positioning her foot – which Mandy had supposed naked until she had seen the gleam of the sheer nylon – upon the nude’s neck.

  The whipped cheeks rose up in submissive obedience, peeling the pubis away from the rubber mat.

  ‘Her climax –’ Erica motioned to the prostrate nude ‘– is now within her angel’s gift.’

  Mine too, Mandy realised with a sudden rush of self-knowledge. She parted her thighs a fraction to ease the burning torment. Mine too.

  ‘It is for the angel to grant or deny the ultimate pleasure,’ Erica added. ‘See how absolute the authority of the angel is.’

  Pointing her foot as she lifted it up from the nude’s neck, Rowena dragged her nylon-sheathed toes down along the spine, bringing her foot to rest on the crown of the left, reddened cheek. Mandy’s slit spasmed and tightened as she watched the dominant foot spreading the whipped cheeks apart. Into the yawn of the cleft, the angel dipped the tip of her dangling leather strap. Lady Davinia bucked and jerked – to reject the cruel hide? Or hug it between her hot cheeks? Mandy considered the problem, but could not be sure, could not be certain, of the answer. Slowly, she forced her brain to repeat the question, applying it to herself. She blushed and shivered as she saw the answer unfolding: if she were Lady Davinia, she would want to capture and keep the tormenting strap between the buttocks it had just severely lashed.

  Mandy shrugged these thoughts away and watched as the redhead teased her submissive for several spellbinding minutes before eventually allowing the bottom to secure the dangling leather.