The Mistress of Sternwood Grange

by Arabella Knight

  The cane flashed down twice, striping her buttocks severely. Her buttocks seethed where the thin wood had bitten into her naked flesh, spreading a flame of fire across the quivering globes. Again, and then again, the choice Indonesian bamboo cracked down, visiting the defenceless cheeks with blistering kisses of exquisite agony. Erica paused once more, pacing the punishment with strict supremacy over the suffering buttocks. Pressing the cane sternly down into the striped cheeks, she counted the reddening lines across the creamy flesh aloud.

  ‘And that is only a fraction of what you will suffer,’ she whispered, dimpling the hot curves with the tip of her cane. ‘We’d better have a few more, hmm?’

  Swish. Mandy jerked in writhing anguish as Erica plied the wood across an already existing stripe, turning the deep pink to a painful red. Swish. The next cut was equally severe and slicing. Swish. Again, the cruel wood lashed down, licking the bare bottom with a fiery tongue of flame.

  The door opened and Sonia and Sophie, propelled by Celia Flaxstone behind them, stumbled into the bedroom. Erica promptly shouldered her cane in a salute to the mistress of Sternwood Grange.

  ‘I think she is ready to sign,’ Erica gushed. ‘The bamboo has spoken.’

  ‘It has a very persuasive voice, but Miss Silk may prove to be stubborn. Will you sign?’

  Mandy shook her head. Sophie and the minx stared in fear at the stripes across her bottom.

  ‘Very well, then the cane must speak again.’

  Levelling her cane, and flexing her supple wrist, Erica took a pace towards the bed.

  ‘But across different cheeks,’ Celia purred. ‘Sophie and little Sonia have come to relieve you of any personal discomfort, Miss Silk. They will bare their bottoms and your stripes until you decide to change your mind and sign.’

  Despite her bondage, Mandy managed to twist her head around. She saw the two naked girls being ordered to touch their toes.

  ‘They will suffer twenty strokes between them, and then another dozen each, leaving you perfectly free to make up your mind. I shan’t hurry you, Miss Silk. It is entirely for you to decide. Cane them,’ she instructed. ‘Cane them hard.’

  Erica swished the cane down across Sophie’s bottom. Mandy heard the bamboo slice into the upturned cheeks. The next stroke swept across Sonia’s pert buttocks. Mandy heard the minx squeal and stagger forward.

  ‘No. Stop. No,’ Mandy shouted into her strict gag. They must not suffer, they must not be punished. But her pleading went unheard. Mandy strained again to peer over her shoulder. She glimpsed Sophie, a reddening weal across her rump, shivering as she tensed herself for the next stripe. Beside her, her naked bottom poised for punishment, the minx trembled under the shadow of the hovering bamboo.

  ‘Excellent. Give them six apiece,’ Celia instructed. Folding the draft agreements – there were two copies – across her heavy bosom, the solicitor sat down on the bed alongside Mandy’s ravished cheeks. Settling down comfortably, her thigh grazing Mandy’s with unexpected intimacy, she started to palm Mandy’s bottom soothingly as the cane swished down across Sophie’s poised cheeks.

  Sophie grunted twice under the bamboo, but Sonia squealed aloud. Mandy flinched at each sorrowful sob – and flinched again at the dominant hand caressing her own scalded cheeks. Erica sliced the Indonesian cane down across Sonia’s upturned buttocks again, and again, until the first six strokes prescribed by Celia had been ruthlessly administered.

  ‘Another dozen, each?’ Erica asked, expectantly.

  ‘Yes,’ Celia consented. ‘Wait,’ she added softly, as the cane was raised above the whipped cheeks. ‘Will you sign now, or must they suffer more?’ she asked, fingering Mandy’s bottom firmly.

  Sophie was silent but Mandy heard Sonia’s sniffling half-sobs and knew in her heart that she could not put the wretched little minx through any more sorrow. It was not fair, and it was not worth it. Sophie had a generous spirit despite her jealous streak and the minx had been loyal – and a loving little playmate. Whatever she was in danger of losing, Mandy was not prepared to sacrifice such affection.

  Mistaking Mandy’s silence for a possible refusal, the grey-eyed solicitor played her trump card. ‘Read it carefully,’ she urged, turning to page three of one copy of the closely typed agreement and holding it out in front of Mandy’s face. Intuitively realising Mandy’s concern for Sonia, she ordered Sophie out of the room. The minx remained, trembling as she strained to touch her toes, her striped buttocks perfectly presented for punishment.

  ‘You get a one-off, non-repeatable payment of twenty thousand pounds. Sign, and the money is yours. You will be free to go tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Sonia blurted out. ‘Whatever it is, don’t do it –’ Her words were silenced, cut short by a brutal slice of the cane.

  ‘Sign,’ hissed the solicitor. ‘Sign, and we will consider the matter settled once and for all.’

  Mandy nodded.

  Gagged still, but with her right hand untied and given a pen, Mandy signed and dated both copies. Satisfied, Celia gathered up her copy of the agreement and tossed Mandy’s down on to the bed.

  ‘My visitors are due shortly. I must be there to receive them. Tie the other one to the bed, Erica. We’ll see to them later. And there is Partridge to punish, don’t forget. We shall put on a bit of a show for the prospective purchasers. Let them see Sternwood Grange at its best.’

  Sonia joined Mandy, face down, on the bed, and was tightly bound. Celia and Erica departed, closing and locking the door behind them. In the silence, Mandy heard Sonia weeping gently. She inched her soft nakedness closer to the little minx to comfort and console her.

  Sonia gulped and twisted her face sideways. ‘What did they force you to sign?’

  Startled, Mandy turned to find that Sonia was not gagged as she had supposed. Her blue eyes widened hopefully. The sight of Sonia’s wide mouth, and white teeth, filled her mind with a riot of possibilities.

  ‘Was it to do with this place? Sternwood Grange?’

  Mandy nodded vigorously, wishing Sonia would use her teeth to undo the gag around her own mouth.

  ‘A sort of secrecy clause?’

  Maddened by the questions, Mandy shook her head. Her blue eyes implored Sonia to work on the gag.

  ‘But the money,’ Sonia chattered on imperviously. ‘You’ve been given a lot of money, Mandy. Would it have been more if they hadn’t been caning me? You wouldn’t have signed,’ she added in a guilty rush. ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’

  Exasperated by her gag – and the minx’s endless questioning – Mandy writhed fruitlessly in her bondage. She ceased her struggling as Sonia twisted across and planted deep, devotional kisses on her shoulder. Relishing the velvety brush of lips against her aching flesh, Mandy suddenly laughed into her gag. If only Sonia was a bit brighter, she giggled to herself, they could be free.

  ‘Oh, look,’ Sonia gasped, reading the contract. ‘It says that you, blah blah on this day blah blah, Amanda Silk …’ She muttered the next three lines.

  Mandy screamed silently, letting go of her pent-up frustration. The means to freedom were only inches away, but the minx was now using her mouth to turn over the first page of the agreement.

  ‘You own Sternwood Grange?’ Sonia suddenly squeaked, her voice thrilling with excitement.

  Not any more, Mandy sighed silently. There was another pause.

  ‘Mandy,’ Sonia whispered urgently.

  Mandy grunted into her gag.

  ‘It doesn’t actually say anything anywhere here about giving you any money.’

  Mandy stiffened in alarm. No, it was a mistake. The little fool was reading the wrong page. Mandy had seen it in black and white.

  ‘I hereby grant unreservedly and absolutely blah blah …’ Sonia rattled on breathlessly. ‘Look. See for yourself. Was it on page one?’

  Mandy shook her head.

  ‘Page two?’

  Again, Mandy tossed her head impatiently.

  ‘Then read page three,’ the min
x grunted, squashing her breasts into the bed as she turned the page with her tongue and then, picking up the agreement between her teeth, placed it down where Mandy could just manage to read it.

  Mandy’s eyes burned into the paragraph which had promised the one-off payment. The original, now with Celia Flaxstone, had expressed the terms clearly in both words and figures. No such agreement to pay was contained in her copy. Mandy closed her eyes. She had been duped by the clever solicitor, duped into signing over her inheritance. Her rightful legacy was about to be sold. And Mandy, naked, bound and helpless, could do nothing.

  Nine

  There was a rustling in the ivy at the window. Mandy twisted and strained, expecting to see an owl. It was Sophie, balanced precariously on a ledge. Mandy remembered how high up above the ground they were.

  The window opened with a squeak which woke Sonia.

  ‘What?’ Sonia murmured sleepily, then whispered Sophie’s name excitedly as she saw the girl climbing down into the bedroom.

  Mandy relished her freedom from the gag and sighed with relief as Sophie’s fingers loosened the knots of her irksome bondage. Untied, Mandy wriggled off the bed and rubbed her wrists as Sophie undid Sonia’s restraining ropes.

  ‘The door’s locked,’ Sophie warned.

  Mandy nodded.

  ‘We’ll have to go out through the window.’

  Sonia and Mandy hugged and kissed their rescuer.

  ‘Partridge is down in the kitchens. Erica is punishing her. I must go down –’

  ‘We’ll come with you. We’ll help any way we can,’ Mandy whispered.

  ‘I just want to be there, afterwards…’

  ‘I know,’ Mandy said sympathetically.

  Sonia whimpered, admitting to her fear of heights. Naked and afraid, her eyes filled with tears and her breasts trembled.

  ‘Stay here, we’ll come back for you later.’

  ‘No, don’t leave me, Mandy, oh please don’t leave me,’ the little minx pleaded. ‘I’m more scared of Erica.’ She rubbed her striped buttocks, remembering the cruel slice of the cropped blonde’s cane.

  ‘I must get to Partridge,’ Sophie said impatiently.

  ‘Yes. You must be with her.’ They exchanged glances, then smiled. ‘We must all go,’ Mandy added gently, putting her arm around the little minx. ‘Sonia. Do you trust me?’

  Sonia nodded vigorously.

  ‘Then listen. We’ll put a blindfold on you and get you out of here, OK?’

  The minx was silent but eventually agreed. They found a strip of linen and, with her soft bosom brushing Sonia’s breasts, nipple to nipple, Mandy tied it tightly around the trusting eyes that gazed lovingly into her own. Sophie took one hand, Mandy the other, as they guided Sonia to the window.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Sophie volunteered. ‘I’ll take the same route that got me in.’

  Mandy nodded, holding Sonia gently to her breast as she watched their rescuer clamber out on to the ledge.

  ‘Now you,’ she whispered encouragingly. ‘I’ll be with you all the time. Just feel your way. Don’t think about anything.’

  Sonia’s cleft widened as she straddled the window sill and pawed her way out on to the ledge. Mandy’s controlling hand guided the shivering girl’s thigh, remaining at the left buttock as the minx stood up and clung to the ivy. Mandy gave the captive cheek a reassuring squeeze.

  ‘Get closer in towards the ivy,’ Sophie urged.

  The minx shuffled closer in to the wall, her bosom rustling the dry leaves. Mandy checked the hand and foot holds.

  ‘We’re going to go sideways, like crabs. It’s only twelve feet then there’s another open window,’ Sophie explained.

  Their progress was slow. Sonia, wedged between the supporting thighs on either side, gripped tightly as she inched her way along the ivy-clad wall. She suffered the most: with her breasts squashed into the ancient brickwork, her nipples were ravished up into peaks of fierce pain. Then she froze, refusing to go any further. Mandy caressed the nape of the minx’s neck, then drew her fingertip slowly down along the dimpled spine.

  ‘In a moment, you will feel me. I will be inside you. As long as I am connected to you, you have nothing to fear.’

  The minx nodded, brushing the ivy with her fringe, then gasped aloud as Mandy slid her straightened finger inbetween her cheeks, directly into her tight warmth.

  Guiding and gently propelling Sonia, Mandy kept her finger tightly in place. She felt Sonia’s sphincter grip. Connected so intimately, and feeling more secure, the little minx inched gingerly towards the waiting window.

  Inside, Mandy cuddled and comforted Sonia, examining and then kissing the bruised breasts. Holding the shivering minx tenderly, she undid the blindfold and praised her for her bravery. Cupping her naked buttocks, she squeezed the cheeks gently as she sucked on each nipple to soothe and ease their soreness.

  Sophie had been rummaging for clothes but could only unearth a pair of white cotton panties and a pair of black sheer tights. She handed them over to the naked girls with a rueful grin.

  ‘That’s all, folks,’ she said, doing the Bugs Bunny voice.

  Mandy grinned, took the white panties and coaxed Sonia into them. Easing the stretched cotton up over the minx’s buttocks, she fingered the elastic and let it snap into the slender waist. Sonia knelt to help Mandy into the sheer black tights but there was no more time for amorous play – Partridge was being punished downstairs. Even as Sonia’s inquisitive fingertips were dappling against Mandy’s meshed bottom, the brown-eyed housekeeper was being severely lashed.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Sophie urged.

  They followed her down through the silence of the sleeping house. Sternwood Grange was in darkness as they crept, floor by floor, down to the kitchens in the basement. The glow of yellow light greeted them as they approached along the final passageway – as did the ominous sound, the swish-crack, of a slicing leather strap. They froze. Against the yellow wall ahead they saw, silhouetted on the peeling plaster, the dark shadow of a naked woman. The line of the ripe breasts, wide hips and rounded buttocks was unmistakeably that of a voluptuous woman. Sophie moaned softly as her eyes traced the familiar curves of Partridge. Mandy reached out and held Sophie’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

  The shadow showed the nude’s arms stretched up and drawn together at the wrists. Above the bound wrists, they could just discern the faint shadow of the links of a taut chain. Partridge was naked and strung up in the Gibbet for her punishment.

  A harsh snapping sound accompanied the flickering shadow of a leather belt: the curve straightening out as it savaged the swell of the naked cheeks. Sophie gasped and bounded down the passageway towards the light. Mandy followed swiftly, her nyloned footfalls silent upon the flagstones. Reaching out, she caught and restrained the girl in front. Folding Sophie in a comforting embrace, she drew her back away from the danger of discovery.

  ‘No. We can only wait. Wait and watch. When it is over, then you shall comfort her. We all will comfort her.’

  Sophie pressed her tear-stained face down into Mandy’s shoulder. Mandy felt her wince as another crack-snap of the belt signalled the kiss of leather across defenceless cheeks.

  Sophie looked up and nodded tearfully. They kissed, all jealousies and misunderstandings forgotten. Mandy felt once more the softness of the other’s body pressing into her as Sophie flinched in response to the sound of the strap across the naked buttocks in the kitchen. The punishment was out of sight, but it haunted their imaginations, forcing them to visualise the cruel hide licking the reddening cheeks. Sonia joined them, her eyes wide with fear as she gazed at the shadow of suffering etched upon the flaking plaster of the wall.

  Eight more times the strap was raised, out of sight, in the kitchen. Eight more times, they saw its shadow crack down across the silhouetted buttocks. Eight more times, the huddled girls shivered at the sharp snap of leather across quivering flesh – and renewed their shivering as they heard the grunts and moans of Partridge in
her suffering.

  They scattered, scampering into the shadows like mice before the paws of a patrolling cat, as Erica emerged from the kitchens. Her cropped head down as she trod the flagstones, she rolled up the leather strap into a tight curl. Halfway down the dim passageway she stopped, thrusting her buttocks up against the plaster wall. Dragging up her skirt and yanking down her panties, Mandy watched as Erica brought the leather strap – curled around her right fist – against her exposed slit. Signalling Sonia and Sophie to remain absolutely silent, Mandy crouched and gazed as, further down in the shadows, the punisher pleasured herself with the instrument of punishment with increasing ferocity.

  Mandy closed her eyes and tried to extinguish the flame of erotic curiosity, the flickering tongues of dancing lust, that burned in her brain. She shuddered with delicious dread at the thought of the warm hide, soft and supple and fresh from the buttocks it had just blistered, rasping against the wet, silky flesh of Erica’s labia. The cruel lash which had planted hot kisses upon soft creamy cheeks was now being plied against the punisher’s splayed, wet slit.

  Opening her eyes and peeping into the shadows, Mandy’s tongue grew thick in her dry mouth as she watched the cropped blonde ruthlessly leather her clitoris. Arched up on her toes, her thighs wide, her panties stretched between her knees, Erica was punishing herself against her open flesh-lips with the tip of the strap.

  The black mesh of the tights grew warm and damp at Mandy’s pubis as she watched the sadistic punisher use the strap to a different purpose. Mandy tried to deny her excitement and wet arousal but succumbed to the overwhelming thrill of pleasure coupled to pain, of delight bound tightly to dread. Sad as she felt for Partridge, she relished the sight of the cropped blonde punishing her slit sweetly into orgasm.

  Erica came silently, pounding and grinding her naked buttocks into the rough plaster wall as her knees buckled under the powerful spasms of her climax. The leather strap slowly unfurled to dangle, limp and lifeless, down from Erica’s open right hand. Mandy saw, under the light bulb, the glint of wetness spangle the dark hide, saw the sweat glisten on the cropped blonde’s face – and sensed the wet heat at her own slit behind the taut mesh of the sheer tights that clung to her pubis.