‘OK,’ Alice said, her voice unconsciously lowering, ‘I suppose we just keep going straight ahead.’
‘I’m right behind you,’ Suzanne said with unnecessary emphasis.
They set off along a hollowed path between the exposed tree roots. The bare earth was well worn, as though by the passage of many feet. The tall trees closed around them. As they went they began to notice burrows in the sides of the path and exposed banks of earth. Their numbers increased as they progressed. Alice, who was leading, suddenly felt the ground giving way under her foot and had to skip aside as a section of the path gave way, dropping into a small dark tunnel beneath.
‘You can see why they wouldn’t want to put the railway through here,’ she said with feeling. ‘The place is like a Swiss cheese.’ She picked up a long stick and prodded the ground before continuing.
They made their way carefully up the low hill. Suzanne tapped Alice’s shoulder and pointed to the interlaced branches above them. Several large nests were clearly visible, though they appeared to be empty.
‘Maybe they’ve all died out or left or something?’ Alice wondered.
‘I don’t know,’ Suzanne said. ‘I’ve got the feeling we’re being watched. Let’s get out of here as soon as we can. This place is seriously creepy!’
The trees began to thin and they found themselves on the edge of a clearing at the top of the small hill. In the middle of this grassy lawn was a curious structure which Alice took to be a sort of monument. There was a paved circle ringed about with a dozen oddly arranged pairs of stone blocks. At the centre of the circle was an upright column capped by a flat stone disc. As they got closer Alice saw there was a small triangular upright piece of metal set in the centre of the disc. Suddenly she laughed. ‘Well, there’s a sundial.’
‘I suppose a sundial in a land without a sun makes a kind of mad sense,’ Suzanne said. ‘But what are these other things for?’
They examined the ring of paired stone blocks. The inner block was a knee-high upright rectangular slab with a shallow convex top with two scallops cut out of its inner face. Below the scallops were some faded dark stains. At the bottom of each side, bolted to the stone was a hinged metal half-cuff, hanging open. The end of the second stone slab butted up against the lower outside face of the upright. It was like a low pedestal, narrower than the upright. On either side of its other end was another pair of open cuffs.
For a moment the arrangement baffled Alice, then she realised how it could be utilised. ‘OK, I think I can see what these are for. Maybe we’d better keep going.’
‘I think you’re right.’ Suzanne turned, then grabbed Alice’s arm. ‘Too late. We’ve got company.’
Alice looked round. As they had been inspecting the stones a circle of perhaps two dozen animals had silently formed around them.
There were the toves – slim, striped badger heads and front paws merging into reptilian hindquarters and long tails. Some rested on all fours while others stood upright, holding their paws neatly tucked in. Their improbable tapering corkscrewed snouts undulated sinuously as they regarded Alice and Suzanne with their sharp little eyes. Beside them were raths, who were indeed green pigs with large ears and mobile snouts like small elephant trunks, though she could not tell at that moment if they were feeling particularly mome or not. Finally there were the borogoves; shaggy balls of feathers balanced on stalk-like legs with long hooked beaks giving them an air of constipated self-importance.
It was disconcerting to be the focus of so much silent interest. Alice licked her lips and said, in case they could understand, ‘Hello. Didn’t mean to disturb you. We’re just passing through. Um, nice sundial … we’ll be going, then.’
But as they started to move off the silent crowd closed about them. Alice saw a knowing depth in their eyes. They might not talk, but they could think. Alice and Suzanne were edged back until they stood beside two of the paired stone blocks.
‘You know what they want!’ Suzanne said nervously.
‘What most animals down here seem to want, I guess.’
‘Can you think of any way out?’
‘We could probably outrun them.’
‘But we’d have to get past them first. Have you seen the claws on those badger things? And those beaks look pretty sharp.’
‘Then we’d better get it over with,’ Alice said resolutely. ‘Come on, we’re girlings. We’re supposed to like this sort of thing.’
‘But there’s so many of them!’ Suzanne’s fine white teeth caught over her bottom lip. ‘Since I was sold my master’s the only one who’s ever had me, except Ruddle. Sorry, I’m a bit scared.’
Alice felt equally fearful. These were half animals. Did they know the rules? But she tried to sound assured when she said, ‘It’s OK. A little fear spices it up, right? Just get yourself warmed up and let it happen.’ She made a show of licking her fingers and rubbing them into her cleft. ‘Get the juices flowing. Good thing we didn’t screw last night. I was feeling a bit horny anyway. Twelve each, maybe, we can handle that.’
Had she managed to convince herself or was her body priming itself regardless? She was not sure, but she could feel her nipples swelling and the familiar slick warm wetness filling her cleft. With two fingers she scooped some of the lubrication out and rubbed it into her anus, just in case. Then, heart thudding, Alice knelt down over the upright stone and straddled the lower slab, so that her legs were parted and calves were pressed against the sides while her ankles lay in the open cuffs. She bent forward so that her chest rested in the hollowed top of the slab and her breasts nestled in the scallops on the other side. Her arms she placed against the sides of the block and her wrists in the invitingly open cuffs. Beside her she saw Suzanne adopting the same position on her blocks, then she looked up expectantly at the animals.
Two toves shuffled purposefully forward, circling round them, their weird snouts rippling curiously, making small snuffling sounds. They reached out with their front paws, which Alice now saw had opposable thumbs, and deftly closed the cuffs about their wrists and ankles. Suzanne gave a little whimper and Alice instinctively tugged at the cuffs but she was firmly secured. No going back now, she thought.
Now the borogoves stepped up, strutting importantly. They subjected both girls to a beady-eyed examination, but seemed to find Alice particularly interesting. The cream she had been using to slick back her hair for the last few days had been mostly washed out by her dunking in the pond. Now her feathers were pushing out clear of her scalp, forming a golden halo over her head and beginning to smother her remaining hair. The borogoves investigated this growth with their beaks, delicately picking at the feathers. Alice winced at their touch, horribly aware of the sharpness of their hooked tips, but they did not hurt her. It was rather like being meticulously combed.
‘I think they’re preening me,’ she said nervously.
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Suzanne replied. ‘Maybe they think you’re a distant cousin or something.’
The borogoves stepped back, apparently satisfied with their work, and stood in front of their prisoners for a moment with their heads tilted back as though lost in thought. Then one of the birds right in front of Alice swayed forward on its ridiculous legs, stabbed down with its beak and jabbed her painfully in her right breast.
Alice’s yelp of pain mingled with that of Suzanne who had suffered the same sudden assault from a bird standing before her. Before Alice could recover, another beak jabbed down, then another. The two girls were gasping and squealing in chorus as their breasts were systematically pecked, punching tiny neat triangular holes in their soft flesh. Some of the deeper pricks oozed blood and a few trickles ran down their breasts and over their perversely erect nipples, adding their stains to those left by who knew how many suffering girlings before them.
Alice managed to gather herself enough to gasp through her tears: ‘Please don’t … eek … do that! What do you … ahh … want us … ahww to do? Uhh … you can … ugh … have us … oww.�
�
And they both wiggled their out-thrust backsides in desperate invitation.
The pecking stopped. Almost immediately Alice felt a moist blunt-ended snout snuffling between her legs and investigating the ripe fig of her pubes and the cleft of her buttocks. Despite the stinging pain in her breasts she had to stifle a giggle. It tickled! Twisting her head round she saw Suzanne also had a rath admirer. It was probing her intimate parts while standing on the slab that parted her legs and ducking its head. Alice groaned and licked her lips. The snout was getting playful.
Suddenly it was withdrawn and a potbelly bore down on her buttocks and trotters scraped along either side of her ribs. The rath was mounting her by standing on its hind legs on the slab. A hard pizzle was jabbed two or three times into her crotch before finding its goal in her anus, which it forced its way into and began to sodomise with rapid thrusts. Beside her Suzanne was gasping under a similar assault. Alice wailed as the pumping shaft up her rear drove the breath out of her, even as she was infused with a wonderful sense of utter perverse delight. She was being buggered by a green pig!
All too soon it came inside Alice, and with a few reflex thrusts its weight was lifted from her. But she had no time to recover before a tove had taken its place on the slab between her legs, its sinuous snout worming its way into her pouting vagina. And in and in. How far could it go? Then its snout began to twirl and corkscrew within her and she cried out aloud as her hot wet clenching passage was bored out. She orgasmed wildly and it eagerly licked and slobbered up her outpourings. It withdrew and another rath took its place.
After that her impressions became vague as she surrendered to pure sensation. She recalled Suzanne coming with a wild-eyed yell as another rath used her rear. She was brought back from post orgasmic swoons by warning pecks on her breasts from the borogoves. She recalled peeing helplessly when the pleasure of her next orgasm became too great to maintain control, but eventually all this dissolved into a relay of mobile wickedly pleasurable snouts and thrusting pizzles, sharp beaks, and herself at their mercy coming again and again …
An unknown period of time later, Alice became aware of Suzanne helping her to her feet. Her legs felt stiff and useless and her crotch was one big reamed-out dull pulsing ache, dribbling sperm and intimate juices from both orifices. But her mind was still high with the afterglow of half a dozen orgasms and she didn’t care.
She looked around her with bleary eyes, but the clearing was deserted. ‘Where … have they gone?’ she asked stupidly.
‘I don’t know. When they finished with us they undid the cuffs and wandered off. We’d better get out of here before they change their minds and come back for seconds.’
An odd insight struck Alice as she staggered along rubber-legged beside Suzanne. ‘They won’t bother us again,’ she said with conviction.
‘Why not?’
‘Because we’ve paid our toll, haven’t we? This place is a short cut, but the locals make sure you know who’s in charge, and you have to give them something they want for the privilege of using it.’
‘Couldn’t they have charged sixpence like anybody else?’
‘Then we wouldn’t have been able to pay, would we? It’s lucky we’ve got something that’s always welcome … like a good credit card.’
For a moment Suzanne stared at her in confusion, then she began to laugh and Alice joined her.
They tottered down the far side of the small hill and through the dark wood until they reached the next brook. They did not jump it but waded across through the barrier and sat on the other bank, shielded by a screen of rushes from whatever lay beyond, washing themselves off and scooping cooling water into their sore groins. Their labia and anal rings were scarlet with the vigorous use they had undergone. As they tended them, Suzanne said, ‘You’re amazing, you know that?’
Alice frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I think a few of those raths had seconds with you. I always thought I liked sex, but you must have come six or seven times.’
Alice shrugged. ‘I know I turn into a pretty hot slut when I get forced into it. That’s my sub-masochist side coming out. I can’t help it.’
‘But the rest of the time you look so … well, fresh and innocent.’
‘Butter wouldn’t melt between my legs, sort of thing?’ she said with a grin.
‘Not quite. A little naughty, perhaps, just starting out, one careful boyfriend, etcet.’
‘That was me a few months ago. A lot’s happened since then. But I think you came a few times as well, and you don’t exactly look like an old slag.’
Suzanne grinned. ‘Only after I let myself go like you said.’
‘You OK with what happened?’ Alice asked gently. ‘You know we had to do it.’
‘Like you said, we’re girlings, we expect that sort of thing. I’ll be fine … but I’ll be glad to get back to my master. He’s the only animal I want to screw me ever again.’
‘I envy you,’ Alice said simply.
Suzanne broke the silence that followed by saying briskly, ‘Anyway, I’m glad we won’t ever have a “Who Can Come Most” competition, because you’d beat me hands down.’
Alice blinked and shook her head to clear it. ‘“Beat”? Did they screw our minds too? We were taking a shortcut to beat the train. How long were we in there?’
Suzanne suddenly looked anxious. ‘I’ve no idea. We’d better get going.’
Beyond the brook were fields and meadows populated by ordinary-looking sheep and cows, all peacefully grazing. They ran through them until they came to a lane where a helpful signpost pointed the way to Wabe. There was no time to find props to explain their presence so they hurried along it, trusting they would be taken as local girlings if anybody saw them. After a mile or so they found the lane dipping down into a shallow valley along which ran the railway line, passing through the outskirts of Wabe itself. On the opposite side of the line was the station platform with its green board awning, waiting room and booking office, while on the near side was a small cottage whose woodwork was painted in the same green. A neat walled garden extended out from the back and in it they could make out a figure digging over a small vegetable plot. He was in shirtsleeves but had on a blue peaked cap.
Alice and Suzanne ducked down behind a hedge.
‘If he’s the stationmaster or porter or something, he ought to know if the Brillig train’s been through,’ Alice said.
‘But we can’t just walk up and ask him,’ Suzanne pointed out. ‘And even if we’re in time, how do we get back on the train with him around? And if we do, what’s to stop them throwing us off again if they catch us? The Queen bribed them, so they’re not going to admit to what happened, are they, not to keep a couple of girlings happy.’
Alice frowned thoughtfully. ‘Maybe we can get him to help us.’
‘How?’
‘By telling him most of the truth and making as much fuss as possible, so that he has to confront the Queen when the train stops here. I mean even though we’re only girlings she shouldn’t have had us pushed off the train. That has to count as cruelty to pets, or something.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we threaten to tell everybody her real name if she doesn’t hand Juliet over. That should shake her up a bit.’
‘But who’ll take our word against hers?’
‘We tell them to look in her hatbox. Who else carries a crown around with them? If we get away with it we ask to be taken on to Brillig. I mean we did pay for the tickets and we’ll all travel in the cage if they want. When we get there we contact your master and hope he’ll help.’
Suzanne looked doubtful. ‘I suppose it’s the only chance we’ve got.’
‘Can you think of anything better?’
‘No.’
‘Right. First let’s get these cuffs back on. We should look as helpless as possible to start with …’
Five minutes later they stood at the back gate of the cottage calling out plaintively to its tenant: ‘M
aster! Please help us.’
The man in the peaked cap left his gardening and came over. He was of large, squarish build and had a light grey beard. His eyes were pale and his expression as he walked up to them was of mild surprise.
‘Now what’s this? I don’t recognise the pair of you.’ His eyes narrowed as he took in Alice’s feathers. ‘I’m sure I’d recall one like you.’
‘No, Master,’ Alice said quickly, ‘we’re not local. Something terrible has happened to us. But please, are you the stationmaster and has the train to Brillig passed through yet?’
He touched the badge on his cap. ‘I’m Deputy Stationmaster Hoar and –’ he consulted the watch hanging on his waistcoat chain ‘– the Brillig train’s not due for another hour and a half. But what would it be to you?’
Alice and Suzanne exchanged relieved glances, and Alice said, ‘Thank you, Master. You see we were on that train, but we fell off.’
‘And we’ve had a terrible time getting here, Master,’ Suzanne added. ‘We had to go through the Slithy Woods and look what they did to us …’ and she pushed her perky breasts out so he could see the mottled peck marks that adorned them.
‘Fell off the train? Slithy Woods?’ Hoar scratched his beard in agitation. ‘Maybe you’d better come in and tell me about it.’ He opened the gate and they trotted in.
Hoar led them through his back door into a small but neat kitchen, warmed by a black-leaded range set into one wall.
‘Are you thirsty?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Master,’ they replied.
He filled a bowl of water and put it down on the floor where they knelt over it and lapped away gratefully. Alice appreciated his consideration and did not for a moment resent being treated as one might a stray dog. What more could a girling expect, after all? Hoar opened a tin and offered them a biscuit each, which they neatly took from his hand, tipping back their heads as they ate to help them go down, as one learned to do with cuffed hands. How simple to live like this at knee level, Alice thought. To be a favourite pet – playful, obedient and loyal, and occasionally pampered as a reward.
Alice In Chains Page 14