The Mistress of Sternwood Grange

by Arabella Knight

  ‘Any moment now,’ Erica whispered, recognising the signal.

  Mandy’s fingers plucked feverishly at the edge of the rubber mat. The polished wooden floor at her slit was clouded with her moist heat. She smothered her mounting excitement as she watched Lady Davinia grind her pubis into the rubber, her thighs and buttocks tightening and spasming rhythmically. Rowena gazed down with knowledgeable eyes and smiled. Reading every little twitch and jerk accurately, she suddenly wrenched the strap aloft. The crimson cheeks rose up as if in pursuit of the sticky dark hide. Rowena inched the strap up higher; tormented and denied, Lady Davinia pummelled the rubber with fists of frustrated fury.

  ‘Now,’ hissed Erica excitedly. ‘The bitch gets it now.’

  Mandy, to her horror and delight, started to come. Rocking slightly, she pressed her labial flesh-folds down into the wooden surface of the gym floor. The feral aroma of her excitement hung like the scent of a Chinese musk-rose in the air. Mandy bit her lip as the tightness within became deliciously unbearable.

  Snapping the strap down four times in merciless succession, Rowena flattened the nude down into the rubber and jabbed her stockinged toes into Lady Davinia’s wet fig. Tossing the strap aside, the redhead angel scrunched her toes into her victim’s open crease, treading the flesh firmly to a strict tempo. Seconds later, the nude threshed in the frenzy of her long, shrill climax.

  ‘Go and look at our equipment,’ Erica said, rising from the edge of the rubber mat, utterly indifferent to the paroxysms of the nude orgasming at her feet.

  Mandy, her own muted climax still welling rather than spilling inside her, rose a little groggily and sought the dark, cool sanctuary of the storeroom. Fingering the gleaming chrome calmed her, but a brush with the polished leather of a vaulting horse – the harsh tang of the hide stabbing her nostrils – quickly inflamed her. Steadying herself against the horse, she found and fingered herself ruthlessly.

  ‘Caner or caned?’ whispered Erica, emerging from the shadows.

  Mandy, about to spill her own violent climax, gave a drunken grunt of surprise. She flinched as she felt the cool kiss of a cane pressed against her bottom.

  ‘Or are you not quite sure?’ Erica teased, levelling her cane firmly against Mandy’s cheeks. ‘You may come,’ she said, her tone crisply clinical.

  The presence of the wood against her bare bottom; the cool authority of the intimate command; indeed, the very fact of her self-pleasuring being scrutinized and sanctioned by the predatory cropped blonde rocketed Mandy into a fierce orgasm. Sinking down on to her knees, she came violently.

  ‘As your tutor and mentor, I am in control of you completely,’ Erica whispered, bringing the cane down on to the nape of the kneeling girl’s neck. ‘The mistress was most insistent on that point.’

  Celia Flaxstone. Mandy’s bare buttocks tightened in response to the unexpected reference to the solicitor.

  ‘You belong to me, just as we all belong to the mistress of Sternwood Grange,’ Erica continued, her voice treacling with excitement.

  Mandy felt the tip of the cane dragging down along her spine, pause at the swell of her buttocks, then visit her wet delta, tapping it gently.

  ‘As an angel under my tutelage, it is important that you share all your secrets with me. It will help me make a better angel of you, help you discharge your duties.’ The tip of the cane emphasised these words by tapping at the glistening labia. ‘And your duties as an angel are?’

  ‘To pleasure the residents,’ Mandy whispered. Looking down at the quivering cane, she saw the yellow wood darkened with her lust juice.

  ‘Precisely. Now go and wash yourself thoroughly and go back out into the gym. I will arrange to have a resident brought to you.’

  The gym was deserted when Mandy emerged from her shower. The doors flapped softly. She looked across to see Sophie entering. Mandy smiled.

  ‘Bitch,’ Sophie hissed. ‘You deliberately ditched my chances of being an angel, didn’t you?’

  Mandy instantly remembered the slice of stolen cake – given with affection – and the hot bottom it had incurred for the platinum blonde. ‘I didn’t mean –’

  ‘Got your wish, didn’t you?’ Sophie snarled. ‘She’s making you an angel.’

  ‘How is Partridge? I haven’t seen her –’

  ‘Keep your little claws off Partridge, understand?’ Sophie snapped.

  Mandy was surprised at the venom of the response. Turning away, she walked towards the vaulting horse. ‘Erica said she was sending a resident down to me.’

  ‘She’s here,’ Sophie snarled.

  Mandy smoothed the surface of the horse with both palms. She did not see Sophie usher in the resident, a red-robed dominant. Sophie slipped off the red robe and buried it under a yellow one.

  ‘Your angel,’ Sophie announced softly, indicating Mandy at the horse.

  Mandy turned. Sophie was holding up a yellow robe and folding it carefully. In silence, Sophie retreated to the doors, pegged the yellow robe and departed. Mandy ignored the resident, merely snapping her fingers and pointing to the vaulting horse.

  Raising her eyebrows in surprise, the dominant strode purposefully across the polished wooden floor.

  ‘Up,’ ordered Mandy, still ignoring the approaching nude.

  It was a disaster. Within a minute and a half, during which Mandy had treated the dominant to a taste of what was usually experienced by the submissive residents, the nude exploded in outrage.

  ‘How dare you? Are you stupid? Stupid, or simply wicked?’

  Mandy paled. ‘I don’t understand –’

  ‘Fetch my robe this instant,’ thundered the angry dominatrix. Stunned and uncomprehending, Mandy took down the yellow robe from where Sophie had pegged it.

  ‘No, not that one. My red one.’

  A red robe. Mandy suddenly understood. Understood what an enormous error she had made – with Sophie’s cunning assistance. Trembling, she found the red robe buried beneath the others and retrieved it.

  Putting on her robe, the dominant sat down on a low bench and ordered Mandy across her knee. Arranging the angel across her lap, she sniffed at the musky tang of Mandy’s recent arousal. Prising Mandy’s thighs apart, she fingered the exposed fig.

  ‘Moist, hmm?’ the stern voice remarked. ‘We’ll see how wet a severe spanking makes you, shall we?’

  Mandy shrank at the touch of a firm hand pinning her down by the nape of her neck, and shuddered as a firmer hand palmed her upturned buttocks. The spanking hand stuttered into life, raining down a savage staccato across Mandy’s bare bottom. The spanked girl wriggled and squirmed but the spanker’s grip was as sure as her unerring aim was certain, allowing no possibility of escape for the sore-bottomed angel.

  ‘What’s this?’ Erica asked, entering the gym between the flapping doors. ‘Not satisfied with the girl?’

  ‘She is either colour blind, or very stupid,’ the dominant snapped, vigorously palming the buttocks she had just chastised.

  ‘Then should we not make the punishment fit the crime?’ Erica purred solicitously, anxious to assuage the resident. ‘Give her to me and allow me to punish her for your pleasure.’

  The dominant surrendered Mandy to her fate. Erica gripped a cruel handful of Mandy’s dark hair and led the captive angel across to the wall bars.

  ‘Touch your toes, girl,’ Erica ordered.

  Mandy obeyed, seeing the approaching feet of the curious dominant in her inverted vision.

  ‘I won’t be a moment,’ Erica remarked, departing. Seconds later, she returned from the storeroom, a table tennis bat in her right hand.

  ‘What colour is a dominant’s robe?’

  Mandy replied, whispering the word red.

  ‘And what colour is this bat?’ Erica murmured.

  ‘Red,’ repeated Mandy, peering through her legs at her bottom reflected in the mirror behind the wall bars.

  Erica examined the dimpled latex surface of the bat and nodded. ‘Red,’ she echoed. ‘And what
colour is your bottom?’

  Mandy remained silent.

  The bat swept down, splatting against the peach-cheeks. Seven times, in a furious onslaught, the bat whipped down, flattening the swelling curves on impact. The dimpled latex left blazing red blotches of pain on the creamy skin.

  ‘What colour is your bottom, girl?’ Erica hissed.

  ‘Red,’ gasped Mandy, squeezing a tear from her eye.

  ‘Wrong,’ Erica snapped. ‘The robe is red. The bat is red. Your bottom is not red. Enough. Not yet.’

  Thrilled by the discipline, the dominant nodded vigorously.

  ‘But it will be when I have finished with you. Up. Get up,’ Erica ordered. ‘I want you across the vaulting horse.’

  Mandy stumbled, naked and ashamed, across the polished wooden floor. Erica’s pumps squeaked as she followed with a menacing, measured tread. The red-robed dominant, her eyes sparkling excitedly, joined both punisher and punished at the leather horse.

  ‘Up,’ Erica commanded, swiping the bat down across the hide.

  Hot bottomed and afraid, Mandy straddled the horse then eased her breasts down to kiss the leather. The table tennis bat suddenly appeared before her eyes.

  ‘Kiss it,’ Erica demanded.

  Mandy pressed her dry lips into the dimpled latex submissively.

  ‘Lick it.’

  Licking the latex with her rasping tongue, Mandy shivered at the watching dominant’s appreciative grunt.

  ‘I’ll hold her down, my dear, while you use the bat on her bottom,’ the red-robe volunteered eagerly.

  Mandy felt the powerful grip at her shoulders, and, to her misery, felt the warm breath of the dominant against her nakedness. Erica swished the table tennis bat down – again, again and yet again. Pinioned, naked and helpless, Mandy squealed as her bare bottom blazed.

  ‘Harder,’ hissed the dominant, her face now pressed into Mandy’s flesh. ‘Harder.’

  Erica needed no such encouragement, but heeded it as the bat swept down repeatedly to explode across the upturned cheeks.

  As the cool of the evening bathed the elms surrounding Sternwood Grange with its soothing air, the doves broke their silence and murmured dreamily. In the purple twilight at the edge of the darkening copse, an early owl hooted its mournful reply. Someone, somewhere – a maid in a remote attic dorm – was playing Elvis Costello’s ‘Watching the Detectives’. It was a short-lived pleasure. Someone, probably Partridge on the prowl, Mandy thought, had quickly seen to that.

  Outside the linen room, she paused, her hand resting lightly on the door handle. From inside came the muffled sound of a girl weeping. Mandy entered and found Sonia, the little minx of a maid she had seen, and had been obliged to spank, in the Gibbet. Sonia sniffed, hastily wiping her eyes.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Mandy whispered, circling her arm around the minx and cradling her gently.

  ‘Had enough of this place. Not enough to eat and Erica’s always punishing me and all my so-called wages go in fines and I’m going to run away tonight and I don’t care –’

  Mandy stemmed the sobbed outburst with a kiss and a tender caress. Aunt Clare, she knew, would be horrified to see any of her girls in such a state. She felt honour bound to help. Besides, she liked the plucky little minx.

  ‘But you can’t possibly get away. Not without proper plans.’

  Mandy listened as the minx defiantly said that she had been watching the midnight arrival of vans and thought it was a perfect means of escape and return to London. Mandy made no comment, but filed the information away for her own, undisclosed, purposes.

  ‘But where will you go if you make it to London? What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll sort it when I get there,’ Sonia sniffled, nuzzling her wet face into Mandy’s soft bosom.

  ‘And how much have you actually got?’ The question was put gently, without any hint of sarcasm.

  Sonia murmured that she had amassed the prodigious sum of seventeen pounds. Struggling not to smile, Mandy hugged the minx, then slipped her hands down to cup and squeeze the girl’s firm buttocks.

  ‘You know you can’t survive. Not on seventeen pounds. Wouldn’t last long on seventy, in London. You can’t go. Not yet. Let me look after you, hmm? I’ll see you’re OK.’

  ‘And what can you do?’ the minx snapped petulantly. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’

  ‘Stay here,’ Mandy said quickly. ‘I’ll be back in a minute or two,’ she promised, resolving to give the minx a special treat.

  The housekeeper’s office was empty, the kitchens deserted. With her heart hammering louder than the clock ticking on the wall, Mandy secured biscuits, sweets and fruit by the handful, and, scuttling away with her brazen spoils, rejoined Sonia in the linen room.

  ‘Here, enjoy these. Eat the apple last, it’ll mask the smell,’ Mandy whispered, showering Sonia with treats.

  Wide-eyed, the pert little maid accepted the gifts and was soon gobbling greedily. ‘You have some,’ she said generously, her mouth full of Belgian pralines.

  ‘No, you enjoy them,’ Mandy said. ‘And we’ll talk about getting you out of here later.’

  ‘You could get the Gibbet for this,’ the minx said solemnly, swallowing an inelegant chunk of Mantuan nougat. ‘You’re just like a prefect I knew in school. She was kind.’

  Mandy snapped a chocolate biscuit in half and munched it quietly. ‘Better now?’ she asked the minx at length.

  ‘Mmm.’

  They embraced and kissed, the minx’s tongue-tip flickering out to wipe the tiny biscuit crumbs from Mandy’s lips before Mandy forced her mouth dominantly down on to the upturned face of the younger girl. Again, Sonia’s tongue wriggled and probed.

  ‘Is that what your prefect taught you at school?’ Mandy asked in a tone of mock severity, squeezing Sonia’s bottom.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What else?’

  Sonia slid her hand, palm inwards, up inside Mandy’s blouse. The inquisitive fingertips paused at the swell of the left breast, then inched up boldly to rub and stroke the nipple. Mandy pulled the minx towards her. The minx was fresh from the bath, scrubbed, and mildly carbolic to the nose. Mandy sniffed the delicious scent of freshly washed, slightly aroused girl. The busy fingers at her nipple brought the pink nub of flesh up into a peak of pleasure. Mandy eased her thighs apart, feeling the stretch of her damp panties across her mons veneris. The minx playfully pinched the nipple, and pulled. Mandy spanked the minx. Sonia’s fingers withdrew, sliding sinuously down across Mandy’s belly. Mandy felt them scrabbling at the elastic waist of her panties.

  ‘Not now, little one. I will try to come and see you.’

  ‘When?’ whispered Sonia urgently.

  Mandy cupped the minx by her buttocks, then, dividing them with her thumbs, spread the soft hillocks painfully apart. Sonia squealed, and rose up on tiptoe.

  ‘Soon. Now off you go.’ She spanked the bottom firmly. ‘And no more wild talk of running away. Not till we plan it properly. Understand?’

  Sonia, nibbling her apple, nodded. Looking up, she smiled shyly. ‘You’re just like that prefect,’ Sonia blurted out. ‘I loved her so much.’ Turning, the minx ran out of the linen room, dropping the apple in her haste.

  Mandy picked up the apple, wiped and then ate it, carefully disposing of the core. Even a stray pip could merit a whipped bottom in Sternwood Grange.

  Remembering the deserted office in the empty kitchens, she returned, opened the door and entered: risking a brief examination of the accounts. The encounter with Sonia had unsettled her, troubling her mind with thoughts, and possible means, of escape. But her work here was not yet completed. She needed more facts and figures. She needed to open and peruse Partridge’s carefully kept ledgers.

  She was not disappointed, and within ten minutes had gleaned a great deal of new information. A strange sensation of discomfort, almost like the chill of a sudden draught, stilled her hand on the page of the accounts book. What was it? What was her sixth sense t
elling her? Something was wrong. Something was different, missing. She closed the leather-bound volume and stole out of the housekeeper’s office into the shadows of the kitchen. The coast was clear. She relaxed a little, the tightness in her belly easing. All was still and silent. Silent? The clock. Mandy’s brain missed the ticking of the clock.

  ‘Looking for something?’

  Mandy turned swiftly and saw Erica emerging from the shadows. She was cradling the clock against her breasts.

  ‘I was just –’

  ‘Just?’ Erica sneered. ‘I rather think that anything you had in mind was far from just. Quite criminal, no doubt.’

  Mandy shivered. Had Erica seen her emerging from the housekeeper’s office?

  ‘This little chap needs regular attention,’ Erica whispered, winding the clock up with a slow, rhythmic motion of her supple wrist. ‘If I neglect it, the mechanism becomes irregular.’ She paused, then added meaningfully, ‘I abhor irregularity.’

  Mandy tugged at the cuff of her blouse nervously. ‘I only came down to see if there was a bit of spare fruit. Spoiled fruit,’ she added earnestly, trying to minimise her crime – and impending punishment. ‘Bruised apples that wouldn’t be fit for the residents.’

  Erica ignored this frank confession and patted the clock at her bosom. ‘It is quite simple. If I attend to this clock, it serves me well. Works for me, reliably. And it is the same with both the maids and the angels. To make sure they run reliably, I attend to them. Vigilantly. Sternwood Grange has a delicate mechanism. I strive to maintain the balance. I find that nothing oils the wheels better than punishment. Into the Gibbet, girl. At once.’

  ‘But I was only –’

  Dangling in the Gibbet, her panties pulled down to her knees, Mandy clenched her bare buttocks in fearful expectation. Erica checked the leather collar around her captive’s wrists, then addressed the ripe swell of the naked buttocks with her wooden spoon.

  ‘Looking for a bruised apple, you say. I think,’ she whispered, tracing the curved cheeks menacingly, ‘you will not go to bed disappointed. You start with an advantage,’ she purred, lowering her face down to slowly lick, then fiercely bite, the fleshy warmth. ‘Being apple-buttocked,’ she mouthed into the squirming cheeks, ‘all you need is the bruising.’