Chapter Fourteen
Far above the dungeon, in the Master’s room arrangements had been completed for Verena’s sale. Ashley’s distinguished owners, the Conte Giuliano and Contessa Marisa Consenzia della Potenza had expressed a desire to obtain her. Apparently Ashley had asked them to buy Verena for her and as the Conte and Contessa encouraged sexual intimacy amongst their slaves they were quite willing.
The only thing that Mikhail found surprising was that they seemed to know that selling Verena had crossed his and Claudia’s minds. She must, he supposed have been talking out of turn. A handsome price was agreed with a minimum of fuss and Mikhail had had to work hard to suppress his astonishment at the string of noughts that followed the first digit of the figure agreed upon. But the amount easily assuaged any qualms he had about selling his ward.
The Master then rang for his secretary who placed the already prepared bill of sale before the three parties for signature. As the bespectacled girl blotted the pages, Mikhail noticed that she was completely naked under her minute apron and this, as was the case with other domestics serving in the Hall of Ceremony, was fastened to her nipples by pins stabbed through the umber tips, probably, Mikhail thought, through the holes left by earlier rings, now discarded. As the woman left with the papers, Mikhail also noticed that her fine, heavy rump had been prodigiously beaten and that very recently. Every employee at the castle - apart from the overseers and valets - was subject to the whip; thus discipline was part of the normal routine. and the secretary was an interesting example. Mikhail wondered where it was done. Had he but known it, it had been done right there in the Master’s study, the female slapped over the end of the desk, her cunt pressed against the mahogany, her head among the curricula vitae of slaves. And the Master had thrashed her round bales of flesh with his riding crop until the secretary had urinated in abandon down the side of the desk. For which, as she knew, her rump and thighs would receive thirty further slashes. She adored the humiliation before her august Master. The sole disadvantage was the inability to sit on her behind for a day or so. Hence she typed kneeling and relished being seen in that ignominious posture. The whipping was weekly, always on Thursday.
“Now that the matter of the sale has been satisfactorily settled,” the Contessa Marisa said, leaving her chair to stride up and own the length of the Master’s chamber. “I have one request to make, egregio Maestro. I understand that you have at the moment a special session in hand - or even under way already - for corrective work on one or more of your slaves. Is this correct? It was Ashley who informed us.”
The Master confirmed that the second part of the official evening was about to commence in an exclusive part of the castle, to which, naturally, the Conte and his spouse were warmly invited.
What the Contessa had in mind was something far more radical than mere attendance.
“I should like to try out our new acquisition if it does not interfere with your programme.”
The Master looked at the woman. There was no question but that he had to accede.
“Of course, Contessa. Your request can be easily met within the context of what is to take place in the Black Dungeon. We have a slave to be tortured and whipped and, as it happens and in response to a special request by one of our regular customers, another slave to be branded. What precisely would your request entail, Contessa, if I may ask? Merely to make adequate arrangements.”
The Contessa Marisa halted before the desk. “I should like to flagellate the girl just purchased and ascertain how she reacts. As you are well equipped, I can think of no better place. For this, I require a fairly wide space in your Black Dungeon or whatever you call it - and just a couple of chains from the roof.”
The debonair Conte then contributed a word. “As is the practice at the Palazzo in Venice, my wife would wish the slave to be hung by the roots of the breasts for her scourging. We have the necessary cords and hooks and the Contessa will use her own instrument of flagellation.”
There was a strange silence when the grey-eyed woman and her dapper husband had made their wishes known. Mikhail was relieved that the branding mentioned was not destined, as he thought for an uneasy moment, for Marina but for some other slave who must just have arrived or had been kept prisoner incommunicado somewhere in the bowels of the castle until the time was ripe for her body to be scorched with irons.
The Master rose. “There will be no problem, dearest Contessa. You may rely on me. I shall inform my chief overseer immediately so that your new chattel can be prepared for flogging. The three victims can coexist very pleasantly and be dealt with in turn. A truly rich session.” Smiling, the Master turned to Mikhail. “Let me congratulate you on your sale, Monsieur. Your cheque will be ready immediately unless you wish to discuss some special mode of payment - perhaps via Zurich or Geneva? And moreover, allow me to express our unexpected delight that both your slaves will be on display in the Black Dungeon! That’s quite an achievement at Beaucastel.”
Mikhail was excited enough to sense his cock rising at the thought of the coming festival of sexual torture; this was worth the journey south and the fact that his own two bitches were in the thick of it only doubled his delight. He ached to get back to Claudia.
The definite arrangements were made for the issue of the cheque while the Master sent for Vasa to issue instructions regarding Verena. Mikhail tucked the ‘to the Bearer’ cheque and the bill of sale away in the folds of his cloak. What would he do if the cheque bounced? He laughed. No, they were the type of people who never reneged and whose cheques passed swiftly and noiselessly through hushed banks in Basel or Berne...
“Would you wish to have your former slave’s address in Venice perhaps,” the Master was enquiring, while beckoning Vasa towards him, “to send her belongings forward after her? “
“She has no belongings,” Mikhail replied bluntly, “only her body and a fabulous capacity to orgasm. Enjoy her and beat her hard.”
The group shook hands. The suave Italians smiled indulgently as Mikhail left; he had complied decently and with a polish they had hardly expected. Now Verena was theirs. And Ashley’s.
While waiting for Mikhail to join her and for activities to commence, Claudia had ample opportunity to size up the dungeon. Patently and as she had gathered, in the Middle Ages the huge rectangular vault with its series of alcoves and barred cells leading off, had served as the torture chamber of the Chateau de Beaucastel; if its current purpose remained essentially the same, the equipment and layout had changed. The former hideous furnishings of ugly brutality had given way to an array of exquisitely refined and exciting accessories calculated to display naked slave flesh in unbelievably erotic postures, glistening, shimmering and writhing in the light of dozens of candles of scarlet wax. The repulsive horror of the old bodkins, the rack, strappado and thumbscrew had been replaced by elegant whipping posts encased in velvet, well-equipped crucifixes with silver chains, tubular cages for delicious suspensions, and erotic gallows for binding the breasts of a kneeling slave. polished stone slabs with bondage chains and much more, several of the items puzzling even Claudia, despite her experience of such places. She looked around with delight and envy.
To the far right, rough hewn and sturdy, stood the flogging and torture trestles, designed to stretch the victim to the extreme limit of the sinews before being worked upon. Claudia then examined another breast bench, more ingenious than others she had seen; built on a square platform, the twin beams reached upwards, joined at their head by a horizontal bar; lower, another bar was moveable in order to fit the size of the victim. Thin buckled straps were bolted to the bar, their inner surfaces glinting with barbs to cradle and grip the breast meat, holding it firm for the slash of the crop.
With her finger Claudia tested the steel spurs bristling within the straps. A sharp thrill coursed through her womb as the vagina contracted and liquefied. She fully approved of these adjuncts and the tighter a
female’s breasts - or, for that matter, a male’s genitals - were throttled, the better the whipping. Frequently, she had herself envisaged installing such an apparatus in the Quai d’Anjou, with precisely such straps to constrict and bloat Verenka’s all too flaccid mammary hunks for regular caning. Mentally, she made a note of the dimensions of the device, deciding to convince Juliette too to invest in one. The thought of Juliette brought to mind the fantastic slave Tansu: Claudia imagined the sumptuous nude tugging and wrenching on her impossibly lovely breasts as she was whipped and, if the session went well, there would be minute trickles of blood seeping from the straps. That would be worth watching...
Claudia felt a quick gush down her cunt. She needed sex. Badly. She was overreacting to the potentials of the Black Dungeon and to her subconscious desire to inflict pain on some trembling nude. To control herself, she turned to examine the rest of the cellar.
Glancing to the left of where the guests, who had accepted the invitation to descend, had taken their seats on various divans, couches and thrones, suddenly Claudia gasped. Half hidden by a pair of whipping stakes, Marina lay stretched out horizontally, gleaming like a star of tender, white flesh and quivering tendons. She had been staked out with fastidious care for what was to follow. Claudia was surprised she had not noticed the girl before but she was chained towards the end of the cellar, her four limbs attached to rings cemented in the adjacent walls. The elongated nudity in massive traction fascinated Claudia. The main weight of the slung body appeared to be resting on the summit of a stake of timber that Claudia first thought might be sharpened to penetrate the anus. Then she saw that it merely bore the small of the back aloft. In any event, she realized, the anus would be required, like the gaping cunt and the mouth in the dangling head, for use during the session to come, all orifices being at the requisite height to service whomever was to perform on Marina.
To approach her slave, Claudia had to move round a great battery of instruments aligned on a rack: whips, canes, pincers, tongs, hoods, gags and straps. The nearby walls were festooned with chains. Leaning against the stonework, as if weakened by the effect of the spectacle, was a tall, sparse woman. Her short cloak was open from the throat, revealing a thin, pleasantly moulded body with small, tight breasts and a well-thatched sex. Most of the frame was enlaced with straps and belts. The woman, obviously older than Claudia herself, wore high boots reaching to the upper thighs. Amused, she watched Claudia touching the plaited scourges hanging on the rack.
“They look innocent enough, don’t they? I mean, whips at rest seems so modest and lethargic and a moment later voracious for human flesh. My name is Janet. Janet Flixton-Clyde.”
They did not touch hands but Claudia bowed slightly and this over the taut body of Marina that lay between her and Janet; after telling the woman her name, Claudia laid her hand on Marina’s hollow belly, gathering up a meagre fold of flesh between her nails.
“I believe this is your slave,” the tall woman said, noticing the gesture. “She’s a tough gal to have put up with such a flogging, as she did up there.” She gestured to the world above the vaulting. “And now she’s in for more! We’ll see how she endures the frontal whipping. Far more strenuous on the nerves. You know, breasts, teats, clit and so on. But, I must say, she’s very good looking. Do you make her live shaved?”
“No, that’s Beaucastel. But it suits her.” Claudia let her finger delve into Marina’s vulva. The gesture was not to assert ownership over the nude but to ascertain if Marina was wet, stimulated by the preparations and her posture for punishment as well as by the remarks being bandied over her naked body. Claudia found the cunt torrid and saturated, still spicy and pungent, clogged with semen from the ejaculations an hour before. As she withdrew her perfectly manicured fingers, Janet leaned over the distended loins.
“May I?” she solicited quite naturally, thrusting in deep, almost up to the wrist, revolving the fist and the rings on her long fingers slowly round within the vagina. Marina convulsed abruptly, straining as far as her bondage would permit, which was very little but sufficient to grip and retain the gratifying hand for a moment in the hope of a long awaited masturbation. Janet immediately withdrew; she was not there to pleasure slaves.
“She clenches hard, your whore,” she commented with a touch of admiration. “I wonder how she reacts to the flesh needles. I hear she’s to receive thirty - into the breasts, nipples, labia and what’s really worth staying up for until this unearthly hour, through the clit. And the slut has a fair sized nubbin.” She smoothed the stub upwards along its length, making Marina arch her body with a hiss.
“Entertaining, Claudia, flesh needles.”
Claudia peered at the cruel lines surrounding Janet’s mouth and eyes. She evidently was accustomed to threading glittering steel through the breasts and sex - a sentence totally unannounced, of which Claudia had had no warning. Maybe Mikhail had agreed but surely he would not have done so without consulting her. She wondered how Janet knew of what was to follow and who had told her. Instead of enquiring, Claudia asked: “Do you employ needles?” It was said nonchalantly, as though comparing recipes.
“Of course I do, Claudia. That’s why I want to attend this session. And I also want to watch the branding. I’m very interested in branding, you see.”
Claudia was again taken aback. “Branding? What branding?”
“Oh, don’t worry, not your chattel. Some other slave who arrived during last evening, especially for marking. I truly enjoy the hot iron.”
Janet turned to the side table and played with something metallic.
“Personally, I use thicker needles than they do here but then my girl Zelda can take any amount of perforation. She’s very proud of it, especially when we perform in select company. Zelda has far bigger tits than your whore and longer sex folds. But then, a needle’s a needle, isn’t it?” She pointed to a sparking set of needles with jewelled ends lying in shallow trays of stainless steel; the antiseptic liquid was faintly pink.
Janet took one of Marina’s outer labia in her fingers and spread it out over the thigh.
“Yes, plenty of scope here. You’re lucky to have a well-fleshed cunt to play with.”
Claudia looked at the dark, narrowed eyes. “To be honest, Janet, I’ve never used needles. Why don’t you do it tonight on my slave and show me. If I ask that you be allowed to torture her, I know the Master and overseers will agree.”
Janet’s features crinkled into a genuine smile. “Oh, that would be great! And you could stand by and watch closely. But the slave has to be whipped first to excite and ready the flesh for the insertions. At least that’s how we proceed.”
“Well, why not propose you do the whipping too. I’m sure they can’t but agree.”
“Oh, they’ll agree all right. You see, I’m probably going to buy a slave from them, out of the next bunch coming in for training. It’s really for you to agree, Claudia. I’m pretty good with the whip. I’d use my six-thonged rawhide on a nude of this toughness. After all, God knows how many lashes she got in the Hall. Yes, my six-thong. I’ve not had it long and I’d dearly like to try it out on someone other than my Zelda. So if it’s O.K. with you, Claudia, I could do the whole thing, whipping and piercing.”
Claudia felt her womb clench with a sudden, sharp contraction of sexual frisson. The idea of offering her guilty slave to this comparative, if not total, stranger excited her with pure lascivious lust. It was as if she were throwing Marina’s body out like trash, like garbage. An uncontrollable surge of hot, clammy liquid flooded Claudia’s aching vagina.
“Well, the slut has to be punished and as all this seems to be your thing, why don’t you go ahead? I’d rather it that way and the overseers couldn’t care less, as the main session’s over. My lover would welcome it too. He’s too worried I might hurt the slave beyond repair! And I assure you there’s a real chance of that. The damn bitch!”
&nb
sp; Claudia slapped Marina’s belly with her open hand very hard, leaving a red mark. Janet smiled one of her conniving looks. “I’ll give her a lot to remember, Claudia. And you must come to my place in London. I’ll return the compliment and you can have a couple of delirious hours with Zelda in my torture chamber. You’ll love it.”
Claudia nodded. In a way, a night with Janet might be fun. Or a night with Janet and Gerda... Suddenly she realized Janet had left to seek the sanction she needed to work on Marina.
Claudia went round to Marina’s dangling head, feeling a rancorous, diabolical compulsion to taunt the offender, to humiliate her still further until she was slime.
“I’ve just given your whorish body to someone I don’t even know, my little sex slut. That’s what you’re worth - to be traded around. It’s because I’ve had just about enough of you and your haughty manners that I’m passing you on to her. She doesn’t care about you any more than I do. All she wants is to hurt you and enjoy the reactions of your stupid body. I just hope she really hurts you.” Claudia gave the girl a savage blow over the breasts. “You think you look tempting like this, don’t you, you sly vixen? Well, just wait until I get you back in the library in Paris. I’ll lash you and lash you until Beaucastel seems like a kindergarten. I’ll slit that epidermis of yours you’re so proud of until you’re raw!”
In her gathering fury, Claudia drew a finger up a welt over the girl’s hip where Vasa’s scourge had reached to carve into the skin.
Suddenly and without the least warning, Marina’s whole body tensed. She lifted her shaved head as high as she was physically capable, her eyes burning with hatred under the pale line where her eyebrows had been.
“I’ll never - do you hear? - never come back to you, you stale, primitive bitch, you provincial whore! You can’t even dominate a slave properly. You don’t know how to whip a body and share the pleasure. You’re just brutal. Just common. You’re not even worth my body, you cheap cunt of a street whore! You don’t own me. You couldn’t own a street walker!”
The Pleasure Palace Page 16
