by Aran Ashe
The Gangmaster released his grip upon Denni's waist. He quickly whispered something to her and her look of oppression deepened. Then he pressed the crop against her breasts in one final gesture of ownership before turning on his heels and leaving.
In the recriminatory silence, Leah pondered why the love-life of a free girl seemed more tortured than a slave's. But in sacrificing herself to protect Leah and Ean, Denni had shown a generosity of spirit that shone through it all. Leah put her arms around the tear-stricken girl and kissed her. Ean looked on guiltily from the balcony. It fell to Beccanay to break the strained silence: 'Ean – return to your duties, if you will. Under my charge, no further danger will befall them.' Leah thanked the old man with her eyes. 'Now you two can stay in my quarters tonight. I'll sleep on the landing.'
'No,' Denni whispered. 'I'd better go back or he will miss me: there's the meal to help with. Let Leah stay.'
'I'm going with you, Denni,' Leah said protectively, ignoring Ean's forlorn expression.
'Then that's settled.' Beccanay sighed wistfully, shaking his head.
On the way down to their quarters they were silent until Denni said: 'You never told me you knew Ean.'
'No – I'm sorry. I ought to have said. But you never told me he was here.'
'Why would I? I had no idea you even knew him.' Then she said in a low voice: 'He seems to like you very much. How did you come to meet him? I never saw you up at the house.'
'No – I was never at the house.' Leah was forced to confess in outline, at least, whilst omitting many details, the gist of that first meeting with Ean.
'Do you love him?' Denni's tone was forlorn. It was clear she still held him in regard.
Leah felt trapped between the honest question and her own confused misgivings. 'I don't know. I think I might,' she finally admitted weakly. Then she put her hand on Denni's.
'No – it's all right,' Denni whispered. 'Come on.'
That night, after her ablutions, Leah was sitting on Denni's bed, watching the meticulousness with which she was washing. Leah's thoughts returned to anxieties about what had been allowed to happen with the firemen – their coming inside her sex. She knew that washing would not help. When Denni came to bed, Leah broached the matter. Denni asked about the timing of Leah's last issue of blood.
'Many days since,' Leah answered.
'How many?'
'I'm not sure.'
'The seed has to get all the way up into the womb, through a tiny hole; there are not many days when that can happen; the opening is mainly sealed. But sometimes you can feel it. The surround is swollen – like a flower bud ready to burst. It leaks nectar from the opening.' Denni's words, her expression, intent and knowing, hungry almost, caused a peculiar feeling in Leah's belly, as if the words laid her belly open to Denni's scrutiny. Her pupils were dilated to utter blackness as she stared at Leah. Leah felt her nipples stiffening and made to cover herself with her arms but Denni stopped her. 'Lie down. Let me feel inside,' Denni murmured.
Her middle finger slid without resistance into Leah's sex, far up inside until the pad pressed accurately against the small protuberant entrance to her womb, pushing against the tiny hole. 'It's open – I can feel it. Can you feel my finger?'
Leah nodded. Denni gazed at her almost hypnotically. The arousal from the pressure of the finger pad was growing stronger, from a dull throbbing to a deep dark wanting up inside her. When Denni kissed her, with the finger still there, it felt as if a squeezing hand was tightening about her womb. Then she felt her sex being held open so the finger might be withdrawn without smearing what was on the tip – a gluey exudation, slightly opalescent. 'Nectar,' Denni whispered, gently licking it from the tip.
'What can I do?' Leah begged.
Denni put her finger across her lips, then leant across the bed and opened a bedside drawer. 'Here,' she said. In her hand lay three small bulbous discs of resin. 'It's an emetic for your womb.'
'Where did you get them?'
'The Gangmaster has a stock. I took them when he wasn't looking.'
'Does he use them on you?' Leah ventured. Denni nodded. 'Do you like it, with him?' Leah whispered. She desperately wanted to know whether Denni was coerced into doing it.
'Stop asking so many questions.' Denni looked away until Leah put her hand in gentle apology on Denni's arm. 'Lie down again,' said Denni. Leah lay there while her friend carefully administered the emetic. Denni's fingers were so gentle and expert that Leah experienced arousal from the implanting of the disc – the sexuality of that pressure against the entrance to her womb. Denni said the disc would dissolve but Leah felt its presence for a long time as a coolness drawing the heat from her womb.
As she lay in bed she thought about what had happened with the two firemen. She felt remorse because she had done it all while Ean was a prisoner, chained up because he had been trying to get back to her. And none of what she had done was from slavish duty; she had gone willingly with both men and had knowingly used them for her own pleasure just as much as they had used her. She had already determined to sneak back to the brew-house to see Ean, just as soon as Denni was asleep. Leah waited and listened; then, the next thing she knew, her eyes opened with a start – she had dozed off, for how long she could not tell, but Denni wasn't in the room. Leah's plan had been foiled but she could at least get away without being followed. She collected some provisions in a cloth then crept out into the night.
Silently, she opened the door to the brew-house and stepped inside. There was a light in Beccanay's room and the door was ajar; stealthily she crept past, hoping he would be asleep. But she heard soft groans coming from inside. Keeping back from the door, Leah peeped through the gap and her heart missed a beat: a lithe nude figure balanced astride him on the bed; even from the back, the figure was unmistakably Denni. An overturned flagon of spring-water lay on the floor. Leah was shocked at first then quietly retreated, leaving the lovers their privacy. She turned for the stairs. And there on the stairs stood Beccanay.
Leah turned back in disbelief to the lighted doorway, and immediately saw what she had missed before – the chain, Ean's chain, no longer pinned, snaking across from the bed to a heap on the floor. She was felled as if by a hammer. Collapsing against the door-frame, she screamed: 'No! No!!' at the pitiless betrayal – by Denni, by Ean, even by Beccanay in his conniving.
She heard the outer door being closed, then a gasp from Beccanay. When she opened her eyes and looked up, the Gangmaster was towering over her, sweeping open the bedroom door and transfixing the terrified lovers with a sinister and calculating gaze.
He dealt with Ean first. In Beccanay's little room he took off his broad leather belt and lashed him exactly as he would a girl, across his naked buttocks while he lay prostrate on the bed. Then he dragged him, chain and all, out into the night, declaring that he would be back directly for the other two miscreants. For the next few minutes the girls waited petrified, Leah propped against the door-frame, Denni slumped naked against the wall, neither looking at the other. Beccanay paced up and down, helplessly wringing his hands; he didn't even speak to the girls to offer a thread of hope; there wasn't any. Finally the outer door burst open again and the Gangmaster was back. Denni ran to the far corner of the little room and slumped down, pleading. Beccanay tried to intercede but the Gangmaster knocked him out of the way and started slapping Denni into deeper submission. Leah stood up, shaking, sobbing. The Gangmaster bundled Denni under one arm and came for Leah. She winced, waiting for the hand to strike. Then a voice shouted through the doorway.
'Shardlan's here, asking after the slave-girl.'
'Show his lordship to my quarters.'
'I have done.'
Leah was jerked off her feet and carried away with Denni, down the track and into a large hut. It had ironmongery, buckets and all manner of ropes at one end and a bed, table, cupboards and fireplace at the other. In the corner, a tall secretive figure stood motionless in the shadows. Beside the fireplace was an enormous full-leng
th mirror with an ornate gilded frame. In the middle of the room, staked out between hooks on the ceiling and rings on the floor, was Ean, facing the bed, naked, gasping through the gag and shuddering, his limbs drawn out to the four corners of a cross, his buttocks striped with bright, fresh weals.
'I had to gag him to stop his caterwauling, my lord,' the Gangmaster snorted. 'I've had girls take their punishment better.' The tall figure in the corner didn't answer.
Leah wrenched herself free of the Gangmaster's grip and ran to Ean, throwing her arms round him, reaching to caress his anguished face, racked by humiliation and pain. With her fingertips wetted by his tears of shame, all thought of what she had witnessed with Denni was banished from her mind. Her own tears burst forth uncontrollably and she blurted out: 'I love you. It is all my fault that this ill befalls you.'
'I take it she is the slave?' A soft voice resonated from the corner.
'Aye, my lord. Shall you take her away directly?'
'Not directly.' The tall man stepped forward: he was mature in years and very calm. 'We are grateful for your reporting her, Gangmaster.' His eyes were knowing but his expression seemed not unkind. 'We have three other runaways in the boat; my assistant is presently dealing with them. She may require a little time, though they will all come right in the end. And I confess I am interested simply to watch and learn a little more of this one here.' He nodded towards Leah. 'Pray continue, Gangmaster.'
'I aim to find where the fault lies and where the ill is owing,' the Gangmaster proclaimed, dragging Leah off Ean and across to a chair by the bed. 'Now strip, girl – everything off. Now sit. Legs open – wider! Move once more without my say-so and I'll whip him till he bleeds.' He turned round. 'Denni – on the bed . . . run!' he growled and Denni tripped and dragged herself up again in the panic of compliance.
The Gangmaster collected his crop from the table and the interrogation began. The visitor simply folded his arms and watched.
'Denni – prepare yourself,' the Gangmaster barked and immediately Denni tucked up her knees to expose herself to scrutiny. The speed and precision of the manoeuvre clearly showed he had trained her like a slave. Her knees were almost touching her chin; her sex and bottom were raised in offering. She was straining to push her inner flesh out – like a slave girl being assessed for service. Leah stole a glimpse at the visitor but could discern nothing from his expression.
'You too,' the Gangmaster barked and Leah flinched. 'Don't make me tell you twice.' Leah struggled to achieve the pose without overbalancing. She raised her knees, then clasped her ankles and finally wriggled forward to expose her sex and bottom. When she pushed, she felt her sex opening to the inner pink and staying open. Still the visitor looked on inscrutably.
The Gangmaster sat on the bed. His weight made Denni's curled-up body roll towards him. He extended a finger until the coarse nail touched the edge of the lip of her open sex, making her shiver. 'I cannot trust you one iota – can I? Can I?' Though the tone was measured, still the flame of jealousy burned within him. Before Denni could answer, the crop whipped down between her legs. Denni gasped and her knees shook. 'Keep still! And keep it pushed out.' The crop whipped down again and Denni moaned. The tall visitor moved to the end of the bed. But he was watching Leah more than Denni. The Gangmaster now turned on Leah. 'You! Start at the beginning. Well?'
'We . . . we went to the spring in the hill,' she stammered, her belly tense, waiting for the crop to fall. Through the dread sinking feeling, her gaze crept across to the visitor – the lord. She prayed he would intervene. He did nothing but his eyes stayed on her as the crop edged into the nakedness between her tucked up legs, sliding under her chain, its thin shaft pressing into the sensitive crease between outer and inner lips, pressing firmly, so the inner lip, chain and all, curled over it and the responsive inner flesh erupted, creating a sensation of something being slid inside her body at the front, all the way upwards, like a smooth impalement, up through her belly to her throat.
'We?' the Gangmaster repeated, still pressing on the crop.
'Denni and I,' she whispered. Again she felt compelled to glance at the visitor, seeking some reaction, but none came.
'And who else?' the Gangmaster urged, glancing disdainfully at Ean before his free hand moved in to scavenge her inner flesh. She felt the rough fingernail scraping up the out-turned inner lip, then under the sheath of her clitoris. The sensation made her squirm.
'The boys,' she confessed in hopelessness and again looked past him to the visitor, who now spoke to her across her interrogator:
'Don't heed me.' He mouthed the words almost in a whisper. 'Pay attention to your present master.' The words implied that he would become her new master, and that gave her heart, for his reproof seemed measured and gentle, not harsh.
'Boys?' the Gangmaster repeated.
'Firemen,' Leah whispered. The Gangmaster said nothing at first and didn't even look at Denni, who was hardly daring to breathe. Instead he concentrated on completing the minute fingernail examination of Leah, stimulating little pulses of swelling in the head of her knob while the crop pressed deep into the crease to the side of her sex and the skin of her hood thinned and tightened over the swelling.
'Which firemen?' he asked.
To her shame, Leah gave the names. In reward he exposed her erect knob in all its fullness, touching it very gently with a moistened fingertip – now rubbing it, side to side, then pressing. 'You see – she's an honest girl, my lord. I like that. And such a beautiful cut – so smooth and naked.'
'Delicately put, Gangmaster. But she is altogether beautiful,' the visitor replied, moving closer. 'No – pray continue. Don't let my interjections stop you.'
'Now tell his lordship all that you did to your firemen and all that they did to you. And spare no details – or Denni's wanton little cut shall pay the price!' He turned to the bed and knelt heavily between Denni's ankles.
'Oh, no, master, please . . . please!' The crop descended swiftly three times between the lips of Denni's slit. He waited for the stinging to bite before whipping three times more. But the visitor was still watching Leah. Denni was sobbing, gasping, trying to keep her shaking knees high up beside her chin while her master spread her swelling inner flesh wider with his thumbs. 'I must shave you and make you pretty here, like Leah,' he mused. 'And expose you that much better for your whippings. Would you like that, Denni?'
'Yes, m-master,' she blurted through her sobs. But Leah noticed that he was now touching Denni quite tenderly between the legs. In fact he remained there, touching her sex, sometimes reaching for her nipples and pinching them gently, while Leah told all that had happened with the firemen. He had only to use the crop on Denni once or twice, when Leah was discovered to have omitted some detail, either forgotten or suppressed. Everything that had befallen was laid bare before the master and the visitor. Even Ean in his anguish could not help overhear from her own lips what Leah had done in seeking gratification with those other men. Her heart sank to the pit of her belly when she glimpsed his pained expression. And the Gangmaster had all his suspicions about Denni's promiscuity vividly confirmed. He called her his little harlot but did not punish her further on that account; in fact he seemed to grow almost tender with her, twirling her nipples up to points.
When Leah first mentioned the peeing, the visitor advanced from the end of the bed and stood by Leah's chair, listening with great interest, examining the token round her neck, then venturing to stroke her hair. In the end, he sought the Gangmaster's permission to touch her more intimately. He sought Leah's permission too, first introducing himself as Lord Shardlan before asking: 'May I touch it while you tell your tale?'
It was a strange request, coming from a powerful master: in the acceding, Leah looked into Lord Shard- lan's grey-blue eyes only very briefly but saw steadfastness and gentleness there. Control had now shifted from the Gangmaster to Lord Shardlan. He kept stroking her hair while he touched her, seeking quite directly and unashamedly the naked place of which s
he was speaking. He asked about the pleasure that the drinking had induced there. He made her push out hard for him to examine the tiny mouth where the liquid had come out. His touch was as confident as a physician's but far more tender; it caused sexual shivers. He asked Denni and she confirmed the depth of Leah's response. He touched again, repeatedly pinching the minute rim until she gasped under the peculiar, deeply sexual feeling. He asked her if she knew what a wet-slave was and, when she nodded, asked if she would like to learn to become one. She was unsure how to answer. He did not press her but said: 'We have many wet-slaves at the Retreat, young men as well as girls.' And he detected another little shiver in the flesh that he was pinching.
Leah glimpsed Ean's erection, bobbing hard, for he had once touched her there, exploring those feelings. She felt the inner walls of her sex becoming slippery and swollen as Lord Shardlan continued to touch and probe the entrance to her pee-hole, making its tiny rim erect. The act of pushing her inner self out to meet that pressure drew a delicious sinking feeling through the pit of her belly, as if a thickly oiled cord were being slowly drawn out through her pee-hole. She wanted him to touch her knob now, to squeeze it while the fingertip continued to stroke that tiny erect circular rim.
He had noticed the way she kept glancing at Ean, and asked if Ean had ever touched her there. 'And you liked it from him?' Suddenly he got up and went to Ean and she turned her head away in shame but her heart surged when she heard Ean's sensual murmur. Then the lord came back, his fingers glistening with Ean's pre-come. 'See – he sheds it even now for you.' She gasped as the pre-come was smeared gently all about her trembling clitoris and the rim of her pee-hole and she shuddered as he tried to push a clear droplet up inside it. 'There – take him within you.' Then he said: 'Now I would like to take the inner measure of this lovely narrow place. I have something I can test it with but I want you to consent.'
