The Pleasure Palace

by Caroline Swift

  She fully understood why men and women wanted to whip and torture her, leave alone use her orifices. She had seen other girls writhing, panting, groaning with pain and gasping, shrieking with pleasure; and, yes, they were so utterly beautiful. And again Marina wondered what it was like to hold the whip and flog. She would not demur if offered the shaft of a whip and a naked girl stretched taut before her. Particularly if that girl had number 106 stencilled in under her fat breast and happened to be called Verena Lucia Aurelia de Courton. Revenge was proverbially sweet; the whip substantially sweeter.

  How she would relish an hour, not even an hour - whatever the Master would accord her, to deal with that empty-headed slut, that bitch, crucified before her on the cross in the Slave Hall before all the inmates and she, Marina Sylvia Messery, potential overseer, swinging the knout.... Ah, what perfect delight... And Verena had such voluminous buttocks. Oh, God, yes, it would be sweet to whip them to the blood...

  She closed her eyes to rid herself of the vengeful thought and as she did so, the iron-braced door of the chamber was flung open as Lalaniere entered. He was equipped for the session in customary flagellator’s garb, a medium-length horsewhip suspended from his belt. A swift glance at the handsome overseer showed Marina that he was admiring her with a hardly perceptible smile, a smile not of the usual sardonic, predatory cruelty but a subtle look of affection. Marina was frightened; she knew not to trust the expressions of these ghastly, unpredictable dominants; but it was the first time she had seen him look at her thus. He ran his studded palms over her oiled and taut nakedness and finally he drew his forefinger up the sex slit behind the clitoris chain, he glanced at the residue.

  “Wet already, I see,” he muttered. “Why are you seeping so disgustingly, slave? All this curd is disgraceful. Have you no shame?”

  “It’s because... because, Master...” Marina’s mouth was as parched as her vagina was awash with fresh discharge. “Because... I’m to be whipped in public, I suppose.”

  “You suppose correctly, you slut. And this excites you?”

  “Yes Master,” she murmured.

  “Well, you have a tremendous night before you and the Master expects you to honour Beaucastel and our distinguished guests to the best of your sexual ability. We expect orgasms, slave.”

  The man smiled again and squeezed the girl’s elongated nipples as if pressing pips out of a lemon. Marina winced with a gasp, throwing back her shaved head. As she did so, she saw Gabrielle slide into the chamber.

  “You’ve prepared her well, Gaby. She’s been fully sluiced out, I assume?”

  Touched by her superior’s compliment the warder bowed. Yes, the anus was clean, ready to be entered.

  “Then we can commence.” Lalaniere turned to the trembling slave. “We do not want to keep the company waiting, particularly as your owners are present. Attach the chains!”

  The warder clipped a long length of links to the throat strap and a shorter span between the ankles. Marina was dragged forward, hobbling, through the iron-studded door, Lalaniere leading and hauling with jerks on the neck. The spiked globes swung murderously.

  The group traversed several dimly lit passages. At one point, Marina caught sight of a stark naked body, chained by the four parted limbs against the wall and glistening in the wavering glimmer of a nearby lantern. The girl was unknown to her - probably a delinquent servant, for she was devoid of flesh rings - but obviously a member of the staff; she had been atrociously whipped across the throttled breasts and flat belly.

  As the cortege passed, Lalaniere delivered a vicious stroke of his whip across the thighs, leaving a vivid stripe that flared up in the gloom. The chained nude leapt once and subsided in her manacles, moaning. She was very beautiful in Marina’s eyes.

  Trammelled by her chains, she did what she could to keep up with the group, feeling the inner surface of her thighs slithering together with the warm viscous fluid flushing down slowly beyond constraint from her slit. The sight of the naked scullion had affected and excited her; soon she too would be in the same condition, whipped and shuddering. The adrenaline and endorphins raced through her... Claudia would be there. Mikhail would be there, watching her penance. And that unbridled, promiscuous bitch, Verena, too, cuddling with Ashley, both staring...

  The entry into the Hall of Ceremony, with its overpowering heat, the candles, spotlights and odour of sex, made Marina’s heart miss a beat and then race uncontrollably. The yawning vault in the very centre of the Beaucastel edifice loomed before her; she found herself on a stage and below, beyond the blinding lights, a mist of obscurity. Vaguely she glimpsed the throng of guests being serviced by her colleagues - male and female, all naked - and others. Instinctively she tried to pick out Verena and Ashley but in vain; the penumbra shrouded the company, which spontaneously fell silent as Marina was forced to her knees, the pain of her chains mercifully assuaged for a moment. In the centre of the dais, as if in some long-forgotten mystery play or slow-moving ballet, the slave presented her nudity to the lusting eyes...

  As the overseers retired to the side, she glanced around at the ominous stake with docile chains and straps drooping from its summit; the motionless chains hanging from the ceiling, the trestles. Marina’s spirit wavered, her bowels clenched in pure fear. And her panic increased when, like abstruse, occult sounds from another universe, two voices rang out. The first was Vasa’s.

  “The naked slave victim, gracious Master, awaits your pronouncement.”

  In turn, the Master responded. “Proceed! Let the slave be suspended according to the rites of Beaucastel!”

  While the lights were being lowered, leaving a single spot and candles, Mikhail eased Marie-Laure’s ginger head aside from his cock to move over to sit by Claudia who seized his erection with joy. As she bent to take the rigid, throbbing shaft into her mouth, she caught sight of Verena flicking and sucking the nipples of a handsome, lissom beauty with chestnut hair. Ashley was responding with her thumb on the girl’s clitoris, her hand plunged deep into the vulva. Claudia was taken aback at the girls’ assurance.

  “So that’s the girl Verenka’s fallen for!” she whispered to Mikhail, jerking her chin towards the sweating couple. “She’s playing a dangerous game!”

  “Forget it, darling. In any event, the other girl’s owners have apparently just arrived to take her home. They live in Venice and that’s far enough to prevent Verenka playing around.” Mikhail had correctly surmised that the handsome, greying couple who had just arrived had come only to retrieve their English slave. He had noticed them enter at the rear of the Hall. The man had handed his cloak to a naked serving girl and looked out of place in his neat tuxedo; his companion was tall, in evening dress, her quiet, dark eyes slowly surveying the scene with a signal grace that seemed to set her apart from the other women present. They had the look of the very wealthy and seemed to fit the role of owners of the most lovely of the Beaucastel slaves. Ashley merely smiled at them and continued to masturbate Verena openly. The Venetian couple returned her smile, the woman throwing her a kiss.

  “Watch the stage, Claudia,” Mikhail urged his mistress. He felt a certain anxiety for Marina, completely sheared and shaved; after all, she was his responsibility, bound to him by a frail contract. But he knew the slender lycee teacher’s resilience, as long as the punishment remained within reasonable limits. Certainly she should be taught a lesson but not damaged. He needed her back in the Quai d’Anjou where he would in turn make her writhe, begging for mercy...

  Suddenly the Master’s hoarse voice grated in the silence.

  “Slave 107, you have offended the canons of Beaucastel to whose walls you were consigned for training. You have affronted me, your Master. You have offended your owners here present and disgraced your colleagues. You will now be punished. After the established ceremony, your body will be taken down to the Black Dungeon for further treatment and be at the entire dispos
al and pleasure of any of my guests who may care to enjoy or participate in your ordeal.” The man paused in the tingling silence.

  “Before I order you to be hooded up and put to the whips, have you anything to say?” The meaningless privilege was offered only as part of the ritual.

  From her tight gullet, the words that Gabrielle had drilled into her during her preparation issued forth as if from the bottom of the well in the courtyard where Marina had sinned.

  “Master of Beaucastel,” Claudia could hardly hear the thin voice, “your slave has trespassed in attempting to abscond from the delights of your castle, in committing fornication with a menial and in accepting money like a whore. She is...” the voice trailed off into sobs. “She is ready... naked and shaved... to be punished...”

  The Master coughed. He detested tears. “On account of your recent performance in my chambers, I have exceptionally decided to spare you the customary whipping of your open crotch and also suspension by the breasts.” He marked a short pause. “I cannot exempt you further nor spare you from whatever may be inflicted on you in the Black Dungeon. You will now discharge your debt of slavery. Let the session commence.”

  He rang the silver bell he held delicately in his gloved fingers.

  Vasa seized the girl, drawing the slack hood of leather over the skull, forcing the huge gag into the mouth and buckling the straps tight.

  The experience of Claudia’s Inquisitor’s mask at the Quai d’Anjou fell far short of the smothering cowl; it blocked the ears, pressing into the eye sockets and gouging into the mouth. Deprived of her other senses, all that remained in her dumb, deaf blindness was the smell of sweated leather and the enhanced sense of feeling, a sense the slave was now to exercise to the full.

  Gerda and Roscoff let down the chains as Vasa forced the body, face downwards, on the flagstones of the stage. The four chains, clipped to the legs and wrists, rattled over the pulleys, the far extremities descending down the side walls to the ratchets and drums. With slow turns, the warder and valet cranked up the beautiful nakedness until it extended, spread and curved, in full tension. Marina was wrenched apart to the uttermost reach of her limbs, the flesh weights tugging on the tender nipples and sex. At the walls, the suspension chains were smartly cleated off.

  Below the superb arch of nudity the iron spheres swayed; blue veins stood out over the stretched breasts; the holes pierced through the labia and nipples became clearly visible and the stress began.

  Gerda then stepped between the splayed legs to bore into the anus with a ridged plug; the dildo sank in deep to ensure the orifice would be satisfactorily dilated to receive the male erections later. Content with the dildo’s hold in the sphincter, Gerda dragged her spiked palm over the length of the sweating curves to stimulate the victim to the apex of readiness; she left fine scarlet lines from shoulders to calves. Marina lurched, thrashing her head; then she relaxed, saving her strength.

  The silver bell chimed again for the four flagellators to take their stand, two on each side of the body.

  The bell rang out again and the scourging began.

  Claudia watched as Lalaniere, his great cock swinging, lashed the back, using a thin six-thonged whip, from the armpits to the coccyx. She watched as Roscoff slashed the left thigh and Gerda dealt with the right from the buttock crease to the knee, ensuring the tip of her thong bit into the soft underside of the perineum and distended labia. As was her habit - and privilege - Vasa reserved the white buttock meat for herself, beating the quivering mounds that clenched under each descent of what she always referred to as her ‘hot whore-humbler’. Vasa scourged with her usual truculent vigour, each shock of the curtailed sjambok summoning up mauve bruises over the twin cheeks.

  Claudia had admired Mikhail - and her own lithe body reflected in the wall mirrors - as thrashings were administered in Paris but here professionals were at work. The lunges of the overseers’ bodies and the thud of the whips exhilarated her; it was of unearthly beauty and it was her own slave jerking in frenzy... Claudia leaned voluptuously back in her chair, sensing her viscous secretions pouring from her vagina. The flagellation was beyond her wildest fantasies. Rising to straddle her lover, she closed her eyes and let Mikhail in.

  The silver bell rang only when Marina’s haunches and rump were running with blood. The slave hung motionless. The sight made Claudia come twice in succession and then she held herself back. She wondered if Marina had fainted and what would happen next.

  The sequence that followed entailed first the two male overseers after Gerda had peeled off the lower portion of the hood and extracted the gag. Marina’s mouth was agape as if locked open. But she was ready. Roscoff lifted the head and thrust into the throat.

  Gerda withdrew the anal plug with a wrench, making the slave heave and again Claudia saw that the body was ready. Lalaniere stepped over the chained leg and plunged in. With weird, revitalized energy, the flogged girl rode the double entry. After several minutes, Marina began to tighten her muscles. She came with a shudder, delivering to her torturers a fantastic orgasm without end. Then she took what was offered to her, swallowing as best she could Roscoff’s sperm and jerking as Lalaniere moved to the anus to release his load of boiling cream into the entrails that had been scoured out to receive just that.

  It was then Vasa’s turn to demand the attention of the mouth. To Claudia’s astonishment, her blonde submissive used her tongue with fury on the female genitals that crushed against her face. Finally Gerda, the junior, had her moment of pleasure on the same weary lips, grunting with lust as her orgasm filled the Hall.

  Only then did the bell ring again. Claudia, refreshed, noticed that a reckless orgy was in progress among the guests, each using a male or female slave. To her bewilderment she saw that Verena had managed to remain glued to Ashley throughout the session, possibly on account of the presence of Ashley’s owners.

  While the overseers wiped off their scourges and cleaned up their bodies, the valet Restif helped Gabrielle to lower the victim. She slumped to the flagstones and lay still, thoroughly beaten. The Master was satisfied with two hundred lashes.

  Food was served by the naked girl attendants and the conversation resumed as before the session. Restif ripped off Marina’s hood and, to Claudia’s surprise, also unhooked the spiked spheres from the body, laying them carefully, almost with devotion, on the instrument table. Gerda did her duty also - again to Claudia’s startled eyes - by rubbing ointment into the girl’s teats that had become extended to twice their normal length, and into the sex. Marina lay sprawled on the ground as she was treated, licking her lips caked with discharge.

  What she had endured was a long voyage between the depths of Beaucastel’s hell and the incredible reaches of its heaven. The torture had lasted an hour.

  Salmon, soufflés, fruit and two Bordeaux were brought in and few noticed Gabrielle and Restif lifting Marina by the armpits to carry her out.

  They helped her to stagger to the doorway and then escorted her down an interminable flight of stone steps.

  The Black Dungeon was already fully prepared to receive its guest. But she was not to be alone. Marina would have company, unexpected company.

  Chapter Thirteen

  During the intermission Vasa strode over to Claudia and Mikhail. She was freshly showered, perfumed and sensually arrayed in a tight, night-blue vinyl sheath from head to foot, slit only over the combed pubis and allowing the sharp breasts to rear out bare from the encircling grasp of the stretch. Her sjambok, newly cleaned and greased, swung menacingly from the slope of her hip belt. She addressed Mikhail imperiously, conscious of the effect her figure was causing.

  “The Master would be obliged, Monsieur, if you would spare a moment to meet with him in his chambers for matter of some importance.” The woman turned to Claudia who sat calmly euphoric, her loins open and wet. “It will not be for long, Madame. Do not hesitate to call on a wa
rder or valet should you care to amuse yourself here or in your room or in a cell below with a male or female slave.” She gestured towards a well-proportioned youth against the wall, the only slave not in use but ready, his vast, thonged erection in hand, and then towards the trembling Renee, cringing against a table leg.

  “Frankly, I’d rather chat to one of your colleagues, if possible. The blonde one with the ponytail,” Claudia proposed, the workings of the castle interested her more.

  “Certainly. I’ll send you Gerda, our little intellectual.”

  While Mikhail was following Vasa out, Claudia watched Gerda approach; she was radiant, slick in vinyl like Vasa but displaying far more flesh, the corset reaching to the waist where black suspender thongs descended to the scarlet stockings. Below was the sleek length of the riding boots. She was perfectly made up in shades of mauve - eyelids and cheekbones, lips, nipples and areoles, navel and the bulging fig of the sex. The handsome pageboy cut framed the face and gave her added neatness. And authority.

  She greeted Claudia with an enigmatic smile and having ordered champagne from a naked serving wench told her how she came to be at Beaucastel, in answer to Claudia’s question.. Crossing her legs before Claudia’s admiring glance she recounted how she had worked at a German institution catering for a select clientele and with its own stock of slaves. Her beauty and dedication had attracted the attention of the Master when he had visited once, and after using her and testing her for hours had engaged her. She had rapidly proved her worth, she said proudly, when employing the whips.

  Claudia started to enjoy the sight of the sleek female next to her. The latex sheath was like a second skin, Gerda’s curves clasped as it were by a thousand hands or rather sucked by a thousand mouths over the entire body except the breasts, lower belly, buttocks and sex. Claudia caught the sensuous squelching of the sheath on the sweating flesh beneath as the woman’s body slithered with each movement she made. She felt intensely attracted to the overseer.