Big Oil was flexing his shoulder muscles, building up his strength. I was trembling. My breasts swayed below me, that shiver of my own tanned flesh oddly soothing. My distended nipples, immune from pain, were actually enjoying themselves, and I could smell the faint musky aroma of my shameful arousal. My pubes were drenched and my tummy was sucked up in a hollow below my ribcage, the bones defined in a sheen of sweat. I could not imagine any position more exposed and, in a way, more erotic than this, legs stretched, arms stretched, toes pushing down into the floor, my damp hair in a veil across my face, my tanned bottom pushed out as arrogant as ever. What man could resist such a provocative display?
I had tensed the cheeks of my bottom before each lash. Now, I tried to relax. I counted in sixes, 6, 12, 18 … I got as far as 19×6 when the sonic boom exploding above my head broke my concentration. The wet tongue of the whip flashed across the small of my back just above the crease of my bottom and the scream that left my lungs was not in any way theatrical. The sum total of those first five lashes was equal to the pain inflicted by the sixth. That last lash made me feel as if I had been cut in two but, as in the trick of putting a lady in a box and sawing her in half, I was still in one piece, still standing, the embers from the first five strokes blazing again so that it felt like a forest fire running from the top of my skull down to the tips of my toes.
I wailed and screamed. Tears rained from my eyes. I was only vaguely aware of Ben Olson unhooking my bracelets from the bar and, when I stood straight, my bottom closed like a concertina and the pain was all the greater.
‘Come here, girlie,’ he said.
He crossed the room to the three-way mirror. I joined him, each step a separate torment, the lines on my bottom jiggling up and down. I stood before the mirror in such a way that I could see the six crimson welts. They were perfectly spaced, like steps, like a grid.
‘The Olson Ranch Brand,’ said Ben Olson smugly. ‘Now you belong to me.’
I wasn’t sure what he meant and remembered how Sergio Buenavista had said he wanted to ‘buy me’. Had the Texan pre-empted the sale? Was I in the world market a piece of merchandise? Were we all? Did it matter? I had taken six strokes from the bull-whip he was now hooking lovingly back on the display. I knew I had done well and knew by the set of Ben Olson’s craggy features that he thought so, too.
He found a jar on the shelf and came back to join me, unscrewing the lid. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from those six gorgeous red lines. I would wear the Olson brand invisibly for the rest of my life. The welts would go down and heal, the fine scars would fade, but on nights when I was naked in the moon’s waxen glow those lines would come to life and shine in the dark. I was and would always be a creature of the night, a slave to my senses, and it would all have begun that night in Black Spires.
Ben took a large dollop of cream from the jar and gently smoothed it across the welts. It was arnica, the same as Lee-Sun had used after Simon’s smacking, and it was surprising how quickly the fire died down to a gentle and pleasant glow.
‘What do you have to say for yourself now, girlie?’ he asked.
I swallowed. I didn’t know what he expected me to say.
‘Well, nothing, really,’ I replied.
‘It’s always best to say nothing when you’ve got nothing to say. Is that the first time you’ve been thrashed?’
‘Well, like that, yes.’
‘It won’t be the last, but girls always remember the first time,’ he said.
I do declare, there was a faint stirring in the tall Texan’s blue-veined and flaccid length of wrinkly cock. The moment he finished spreading the arnica on my bottom, I went down on my haunches and fed it like a lollypop into my mouth, sucking hard, moving slowly back and forth, pausing to stipple the big smooth helmet before swallowing it down once again.
He stood with his feet spread, his hands locked against the sides of my head, and I kept going for a long time, sucking and licking, using one hand to jerk off the creature, pausing to give my jaws a rest and using two hands, one above, one below, as if climbing a rope. It was getting harder, easier to manage. I plunged it back down my throat again, gagging momentarily, taking it all, the entire length pushing beyond my clanging tonsils, and back out again, up and down, up and down.
I could take six lashes from a bull-whip. I could do this too: I could make Ben Olson’s cock respond for the first time in a decade.
His grip grew tighter. I thought he was going to come prematurely and expected ten years of accumulated semen to pour down my throat. But he stopped suddenly, grabbed the back of my hair and pulled me to my feet. He kept hold of me this way, like a caveman grasping me by the hair. We crossed the room to the big bed where he tossed me across the sheets of white linen.
‘You’ve got a mouth that could suck oil out of the Texas desert,’ he said, and I felt inordinately pleased with myself as he lay back, his enormous cock like a lighthouse rising above his nest of pubic hair.
He spread his legs and, on my knees like a believer at prayer, I continued sucking him off, sliding my hands under his buttocks and pumping them up and down. His body was tense, but he stayed hard and I worked on that giant phallus, sucking, swallowing, stippling, licking its entire length, chewing on the bulbous head. I was like a dog with a bone, or a thirsty creature lapping away at a salt-lick, my dribble keeping the monster well oiled, my throat expanding and contracting as I swallowed it down once again.
As I came up for air, he again dragged me by the hair and, crablike, I swivelled round, took his cock back down my throat and wriggled with satisfaction as his tongue parted the cowling about my clitoris and pressed down on the magic button. It was weird but, after the beating, the little bulb was hot, electric, desperate for some action, and that big wet tongue was just what she needed. Now that I was getting some attention, and from this angle above the Texan, I was able to take the entire length of that astonishing cock down into the darkest depths of my throat and down, it seemed, to the place where my heart was beating faster and faster.
A spasm gripped me and, as if this was a sign, he pushed me sideways, rolled me over and plunged into my wet pussy like a battering ram breaking down the doors to the castle keep. I arched my back, pushed down with my heels and gasped as his long cock plunged up into those places never reached before, the membranes vibrating with unfamiliar sensations, my gymnast muscles firming and softening like a sea anemone swallowing a fish.
He had been silent all the time I was sucking him off, but now he started to pant like a runner at the end of a race, his breath coming faster and faster. I could feel the tension across his shoulders, in his loins. I could feel myself coming and wanted to hold back for him but couldn’t. Those places that had never been reached before were just too energised, too stimulated. The feeling started in my chest, ran down through my tummy into my womb and I roared as I’d roared being flogged, as a climax like a tidal wave gushed through my body.
The spasm overcame Ben Olson. He tensed and withdrew the monster as he was about to climax so that he could pour the creamy stuff like milk from an urn over my belly, my breasts, my face, a great stream of sperm ten years in the making, sticky as glue, hot and tasting of bitter chocolate. He held on to his cock as if it was the short handle on the bull-whip, pumping out every last drop of semen, and almost immediately he was flaccid again.
I was on my back. He dropped to one side, snuggled under my arm and lay there panting, fondling my breasts.
‘You see, Magdalena, you never know what you can do when you try,’ he said.
I wasn’t sure if he was referring to himself or me but didn’t think it wise to ask. He seemed content running his hand over my breasts, turning my nipples in his fingers, rubbing them with the flat of his palm. We were quiet for a long time, dozing, lost in our own thoughts.
‘You know something, I never felt any love from my mother and I never felt any love for her,’ he then said, his voice soft as if he was speaking in a confessional. ‘The only tits
I knew as a baby belonged to Mammy. Then, they sent her away. I never knew why, but it was a good lesson. I learned I could never trust nobody, that the things you love will always be taken away from you.’
He was quiet again. The sperm across my body and over my face had hardened and gone cold. I shivered.
‘You cold, girlie?’
‘I am a bit.’
‘Then why don’t you turn out the lights and pull the covers over us. You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow.’
We lay close like spoons and in seconds he was sleeping. Sleep for me came slowly, my nerve endings were tingling so, and I lay there as a storm moved across the channel and rain lashed the leaded windows.
13
The Hunt
IN MY DREAM I was a mermaid with a shiny green tail swimming in a warm sea. There were other girls like me with long hair gliding behind them as they moved towards me and around me, their breasts bobbing above the surface of the water.
‘Shush, shush. Time to wake up.’
As my eyes fluttered open, I wasn’t sure if I were a girl who had dreamed she was a mermaid or a mermaid now dreaming she was a girl. I’d read that somewhere, or something like it, and smiled trying to recall where.
‘Come. Come.’ Lee-Sun was standing beside the bed, a finger to his lips.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ I said.
‘Shush. Is time,’ he whispered, and I uncoiled myself from Ben Olson’s circling arms. The Texan was sleeping like a baby.
The sun through the leaded windows lit the display of canes and whips, the glass and rubber phalluses, the metal clips and clamps. My gaze was drawn to the bull-whip, the fine leather glossy with memories in the refracted light. My smarting bottom reminded me that I wore the Olson brand. I had been whipped and serviced in ways girls can only imagine. I had been at the heart of an orgy, my first, and while I felt as if I should be vaguely ashamed, on the contrary, I was inordinately pleased with myself.
I had no idea of the time or how long I had slept, but felt refreshed and fully awake, primed for adventure. Perhaps all the semen I’d swallowed had given me fresh energy. I slid from the sheets, took Lee-Sun’s hand, and left Big Oil murmuring in his sleep, deciding on the day’s price of oil, I assumed.
We raced back along the corridor and down the stairs to the grand hall, empty now, the candle wax melted into grotesque carvings, wedding dresses for headless brides, the light through the windows like crossing swords. We climbed the staircase of the far wing and, on the top floor, I returned to the boudoir where I had learned the art of making love with a dildo from Milly. I had since coupled and trebled in every way and felt momentarily sad that in this house of love there was so much to learn and I had learned so much in so short a time. I showered and then followed Lee-Sun to a long chamber, like a dressing room in a theatre, and, like a theatre, it was filled with voices and laughter.
There were about fifteen girls in various stages of applying make-up and dressing in masks. Everyone was chewing toast and drinking coffee and fresh orange juice, and I realised that there was a kitchen somewhere with staff to care for us, that behind our pleasures others were working, cleaning, carrying the bags. I was content to be up above with the gods, not labouring in the basement below.
Several girls turned to wave. I recognised Milly, though barely. Her face had been painted in a palette of yellows, ochre and umber, and her body was dyed a dark coppery red. She was lacing up a pair of gold Nikes. I hurried towards her and we kissed cheeks.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello.’
‘Well?’ she asked.
I shrugged and grinned.
‘What if Sister Benedict could see us now,’ Milly continued and we broke down in a fit of giggles.
As my eyes ran over the other girls, from one to the next, I was reminded for some reason of making flick books as a little girl with my abuelo, my Spanish grandfather; he was quite the expert, drawing figures slightly different on the corner of each page of a notebook, then flicking through the pages to reveal the illusion of motion, a running bull or a flamenco dancer. As the newcomer, I was stark naked, but I could see the final image in the flick book, how I would appear when the costume was complete.
I was starving and stuffed myself with toast and jam. Milly combed my hair and helped me dress. It was a costume of sorts we would be wearing, but it amounted to merely the head and tail of a fox, a real head and a real tail, she told me. She started with the make-up, painting my face that dark-ochre colour before adding yellow streaks to highlight my eyes. I was still eating toast.
‘Careful, you’ll get crumbs smeared across your face.’
‘I’ve had a lot more than crumbs smeared across my face,’ I replied and we giggled once more.
It was like being in the showers at school after hockey, especially when we’d won a match and everyone was in good spirits.
By the time Milly had finished making up my face, I had stopped looking like me and had that haunted animal quality I’m sure foxes feel. That was the plan for the day, she explained. Now that fox hunting had been banned, our masters had devised their own variation. Milly used a large brush to paint my body in that coppery colour, down my arms and sides, my tummy and legs. She turned me round and paused to admire the six scarlet lines raised across my bottom.
‘Big Oil?’ she asked and I nodded. ‘Did he make it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know exactly what I mean, Magdalena,’ she said and I blushed through the sunny shades of make-up.
‘For the first time in ten years,’ I boasted, and Milly brought me back down to earth.
‘He always says that, the old devil.’
‘No …’
‘You can’t trust a thing they say.’
She carried on painting and I carried on eating. There was fruit salad and hard-boiled eggs. I hadn’t eaten a thing the previous day and I had a feeling I was going to need all my energy. When she had finished with the painting, she sprayed me from head to toe with a fixer that made my skin feel tight, as if I was covered in sperm again.
There were numerous boxes containing new trainers. I found some that fitted and slipped them on. Milly attached the tail to my belt and it hung down all tickly between the tender cheeks of my bottom. Poor little fox, I thought, and stopped stuffing myself to put on the mask. It fitted over the top and back of my head, leaving a gap for my eyes and providing me with a long snout – to sniff out what, I wasn’t sure. Milly hooked the rings on my collar to the clips on the mask so that it fitted snugly and felt more comfortable. I helped her do the same and we turned to the mirror. I was ready. A foxy little fox identical to all the other girls, in fact so identical I’m sure our mothers wouldn’t have been able to tell us apart.
Just like in the theatre, now we were in our costumes and make-up, we had to wait an age before Lee-Sun reappeared.
‘They are ready,’ he announced.
‘And we are ready for them,’ said the Maasai, recognisable as she was the only one among us barefoot.
We ambled down the staircase, out through the double doors and down the steps into the raucous gathering assembled in the courtyard. It was an astonishing sight. There must have been about thirty, perhaps forty men on horseback, quad bikes and motorbikes, some in jogging clothes limbering up ready for the chase. Among the horsemen I recognised the Duc de Peralada dressed in riding pink. Ben Olson looked refreshed in a cowboy outfit, a whip coiled in his hand, silver spurs attached to his boots. The sheikh was on a tall black stallion with an ornate saddle, magnificent in white robes that danced on the breeze.
Riding bareback, naked as ever, was the woman who had lowered her cleft over my face during the orgy, poised, back straight, awe-inspiring. It was difficult to tear my eyes away from her and I only did so when Simon Roche approached with his two giant poodles on leads. The waft of our scent was driving the dogs wild. They were slobbering and barking, their jaws a hair’s breadth from our slippery parts.
Sandy Cunningham looked like a Hell’s Angel in an ensemble of chains and black leather. He revved his Harley Davidson and drove towards me, then swerved to a stop.
‘Is that you, Magdalena?’ he asked.
‘How did you guess?’
‘You’re wearing the brand, girl,’ he replied, and glanced at the Texan. ‘We had a little chat about you this morning.’
I turned to look at my bottom. The red lines were visible through the thin layer of copper paint, a raised grid I was strangely proud of, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. I wanted to ask Sandy what exactly he and the Texan had been chatting about, but he dragged on the accelerator and shot off again.
Two butlers in black appeared with silver trays balancing sherry in crystal glasses and the men raised those glasses as you do before the hunt. I noticed the butlers never looked in our direction, at this gallery of decorated girls, and it occurred to me that, just as there were workers in the kitchen, there must also be grooms in the stable, cleaners, maintenance staff, chauffeurs and pilots. Serving the masters of the universe was big business, almost certainly well paid, and I was sure it was only men who were offered those jobs.
That would explain the glass ceiling, but not the fact that among the men gathered in the courtyard was that solitary woman. Was she just a token, the exception that proves the rule? If she were equal to the masters, why was she naked?
I turned to Milly, and pointed. ‘That woman …’
‘I’m told she’s a Minister in the French Government,’ she whispered in reply. ‘And, by all accounts, more powerful than the President.’
‘But why hasn’t she got any clothes on?’
The Gift of Girls Page 19
