Charlotte had only seconds to appraise the rude affair before she was lifted to a standing rack, her manacled limbs tied to the four corners so she was spread wide in the shape of an X, forced to face the rowdy entertainment. To pretend she wasn’t there, she closed her eyes, thinking this her best defense against her defenseless plight. And yet, her small moment of comfort was quickly dashed as the sound of Mountbane’s voice rose above the mirth.
The bound young woman opened her eyes to see her husband’s sneer, and then a false face of concern as he withdrew from his harlots, rose to his feet, and sauntered around the table to where Charlotte hung bound.
“My, my, my, what have we here?” he stared in her eyes to gloat, then turned to his friends, “I would have preferred to present my bride in the usual manner, kind sirs, but it seems that she wishes to take a more circuitous route to surrender. I thought we might help her this evening.” Turning back, he nestled the key inside the lock of her chastity belt and freed her of the device—an act so rare now, she felt more naked than ever without the restraint.
His inebriated company began to shout their tributes.
“Why, Lord, you’ve made her bald!”
“But does she not retain that natural beauty?”
“Ah, see how she blushes.”
“You say she has no appreciation of her status?”
They were intrigued enough by the lovely ornament of virginity before them, that for a time, the masters abandoned their slaves, attending to their Lord’s theatrics.
“You say she’s shrewish, I say she deserves the cane to her plump cheeks.”
“Perhaps more pain and less indulgence.”
“A reaming of her ass with cleansing spirits.”
“More abuse to her nipples—see how they swell as if they beg defilement.”
“A greater degradation.”
“A misery of body and soul.”
The offers came fast from this sincere crowd of drunks.
“Or, perhaps, by wit and chicanery she’ll be conquered,” Mountbane suggested the alternative—seeming far more sane in his speech than the others did. “Come, Tristan. Help me now.”
“To what end, milord?” his counselor asked. Eyes lit, dark brows arching, Tristan rose, joining his sovereign before the room. Something reverberated from this man—as though the very earth at his feet rumbled from the energy of mystery embedded in his character. He stared into Charlotte’s eyes as if he were reminding the wench of the advice she’d shunned. He seemed determined now to punish her with his power to manipulate her body.
“Tease her as you wish,” Mountbane said. Those words inspired the dark knight to darker ends.
While the noble-born Tristan stared Charlotte down, his hands grazed the surface of her breasts and belly with such a delicate touch that she was trembling miserably in her efforts to turn away her arousal. Such delicacy was made of iron—with a will immovable, like Mountbane’s—though Tristan’s less quixotic and more enduring. She could not hold out with this abuse of her desires, but she would try. Each gesture made her body start—which seemed a hundred times taken to another level of need. Fingers probing girlish spaces, pinching lush folds of skin—tugging, rubbing, twisting bits of flesh, her reaction could not remain subdued. Perspiration burst on her brow, then in a wave moved downward so every pour emitted wet lust. With tension mounting at a fevered pace, she begged her body to end this torment and, so, closed her eyes.
Tristan’s hand moved immediately to her chin, tugging it around so that her eyes shot open forced on his, as his clipped nails dug into her flesh. “Don’t you dare shut me out, slave!”
“Yes, sir,” she meekly mouthed.
“Better,” he noted her more acquiescent tone as he continued his gentle torment of her flesh.
Mountbane was behind her now with his fingers moving along the cleft of her behind, finding the untried portal of her ass and rimming the sensitive tissue into a more obscene sort of pleasure than she’d ever known. And this before the luring eyes of the besotted throng. They shot off obscenities she tried to ignore, but she found ignoring made them stick with her more surely, like flies to honey.
“Take ‘err ass!”
“Fuck her, she’s your wife!”
“How about her mouth. Bring her down, Mountbane, I’ll stuff my cock…”
“Too much pleasure,” someone shouted above the others; though he was shouted down by another voice proclaiming, “Have her in steel claws!”
She needed none of that. Her attending masters put her at the edge of climax twice, and backing off, then proceeded a third time making her wrench orgasmically, until nary but a single touch would propel her into ecstasy.
A moment too soon, the bound young slave felt Mountbane withdraw. Then she watched in horror as Tristan backed away as well, saying with the polite deference one gives to the lofty, “It is not my right to allow you this, milady.” He bowed and took his seat at the table again.
“Lena, Jontile,” Mountbane called his whores to him. “Take her to a finish with your mouths so we can all see the expression of wonder on her face as she makes a liar of herself.”
The twin lovelies dropped to the floor on either side of the rack-bound slave. The brown beauty, Jontile, opened a proud pair of labial lips in front to find the tumescent pistil of Charlotte’s sex. Covering the sliver of engorged flesh, she drew it into her mouth, running circles around it with her tongue until Charlotte panted anxiously. Her chest heaved so greatly that her tits bounced in frantic circles. From behind, the gentle, fair-skinned Lena parted her tail end to find her rectum’s imperious door. She slithered her tongue into the ready channel making the new slave groan with desire. These measures brought back the fire that had, for just seconds, eased for lack of stimulation; and brought back with thunder echoing through her groin, she succumbed. Every nerve in her clenched, her fists squeezed tight into themselves, and without wanting any of this, her hips moved on the conquering mouths while her own mouth gasped.
Charlotte’s final passionate cry fell about the gathered almost as a balm of contentment—as though it were good enough to supplant their own need to spew (though spew they would, later).
As the tension in the hall eased, Mountbane strode before them again. There was other business to conduct. One forthrightly commenced as soon as the disgraced slave’s cum had withered away and the two tarts slipped off to attend to their Lord again.
“So,” he said, “what would my noble gentlemen suggest to punish this contrary slave? I’m so weary of the battle that I leave it up to you.” He was mocking them—which they all guessed. Mountbane would never weary of a battle as choice as this. But then, this was a fair game they could not help but enjoy. “Sir Ellemore, what would you say?”
“To punish, sir? I prefer the strength of a whip, long and hard against the flanks.”
Mountbane nodded his appreciation. “And Jerrod?”
“Torture by suspension,” he said as though he had it all figured out in his head and was ready with his ropes. “A complete bondage.”
Mountbane acknowledged the picture he brought to mind. “A worthy thought,” he agreed. “And Harrow? You know the subject as well as anyone?”
The wrinkled elder scowled as though that was his only mode of expression, as though disdain was all he could feel. “Save exhibiting her on a rack through the streets, I can’t think of any means to impair her unwholesome pride. Caius finds her insolence remains mean-spirited.” He would go on, but Mountbane stopped him, turning to Tristan, whose steady eye seemed willing to read from the woman’s heart.
“I would recommend the claws to punish her,” he said as Charlotte worried over this unknown. “If she doesn’t learn her lessons well, she’ll never survive Ilusia.”
Charlotte shuddered so that another wave of orgasm seemed to clutch at her crotch.
“That is so,” Mountbane conceded to the comment. “Affix the briared halter and girdle to her chest and loins, and let her pride thin
k on that.”
Charlotte waited meekly in the aftermath of sex, frightened by Sir Tristan’s words, wishing desperately for even one brief moment of respite before her next trial appeared.
Now, almost in a stupor, she watched as an act she’d soon find more painful than she could ever imagine began to unfold. Two attendants came to her with chain mail garments in their hands: the halter that her husband spoke of, and the girdle for her loins. Beginning with her torso, she felt the heaviness of the metal and how it clung solidly to her body. The halter fit tight—and then more snugly still when a fellow behind her back began to thread the ends together with a metal rod. Most notably, she felt the briars, piercing metal barbs, which pinched, poked and stung the delicate flesh about her full breasts. To move even the slightest degree caused the barbs to bite more severely, making Charlotte certain that soon she’d bleed from a dozen tiny cuts where these desperate claws gripped and would not let go.
Thinking this the worst of all suffering, she soon learned that her woes were just beginning. Having removed the bonds at her feet, her captors had her step into the chain-mail pants as they slowly dragged them up her legs until they reached her groin. Once there, Mountbane moved forward, gingerly placing his hand at the apex of her parted crotch underneath the chains, where reaching carefully inside, he clutched her labial lips and pulled them wide, so her sex was splayed the moment his attendant tugged the crotch of the garment into place. Again, thread with a metal rod from behind, the chains tightened down into her skin and another dozen barbs pricked their way into her tender sexual treasures. This chastity belt was devised to cup her pubic mound and vulva below, giving that place the worst of the torment. Trembling nervously, Charlotte dreaded any movement, and so, held her breath.
“So, my wife, you like my present?” Mountbane queried.
Seeing tears pour from her eyes, he asked no more; but proceeded to the real torture. Circling her body with a tender reed in hand, he snapped it briskly, but not hard—not hard enough to even cause a simple blemish on her skin; but enough to cause her pain—indirectly. Her body twisted on impact and the dreadful metal barbs did all the work. There was no peace in this. When one pricked bit of flesh would feel relief, another would scream in agony. Each jerk was new abuse, with one agony heaped on another.
“Please, please stop!” she wailed in her heartiest of voices coming straight from her gut.
“You don’t like my gift?” Mountbane mocked her at one point.
Her despondent face replied for her—half pleading with remorse, the other half tempted to scowl in anger.
“We’ll see how my dungeon fares with you now, gentle lover.” Then turning to one aide, he said, “Remove her to the dungeon and see that Caius keeps her so attired until morning. She’ll serve me in these chains until I tire of hearing her screams.”
The journey to the dungeon was more gruesome than any she’d undertaken in her short life. She crawled on hands and knees, each movement compounding her woe. And once in her cell, she found but one position free of distress; though by the time she discovered that one, there was so much discomfort in soul and body that she could hardly sleep. Not until the cock crowed in the castle courtyard, when Loria finally arrived to remove the chains, did she fall asleep.
The week that followed slipped into a bizarre ritual of abuse. When she was free of her chains, her body was given pleasure from the slaves that served with her. Mouths and soothing hands would mend the scratches and tears from the biting briar and kiss away her sad tears. Strangely, she was more sexually aroused than ever; it took little to bring her senses to a crashing fruition of lust. Could it be true that even the chains brought her more desire?
Worst of all were Mountbane’s visits. With her miserable clothes still securely fixed to her flesh, he’d toy with her in the gentlest manner. His fingers stroked the slips of skin between her labia until she couldn’t help but respond, jerking into more stinging agony. Her attempts to squelch her physical responses were useless. It seemed her body loved the pain as much as it loved the tenderness of man or woman. Her mind struggled with this mire of anguish, until that eventual moment when she’d suddenly let go and shriek with pain for the jarring orgasmic blasts that careened through her loins.
It was a daily venture, so fraught with anticipation that the hour before Mountbane descended to the dungeon; she felt his loins beating from afar. Her body would quicken so she could smell the aroma of her sex and wonder if it were reaching out to grab him in.
He came one day as her body ached so for the awaited release—and as expected, she found the physical mirth astounding as her pained cry reached high about her, reverberating through the dank air of the castle above. When Mountbane was finished bringing her to climax, he drew away. “Where is your heart now, slave?” he asked as he crouched over her.
“My heart has died,” she replied.
“Has it now?” he pondered, his voice almost kind. “What then, if I were to remove these chains and bring you to the comfort of my bed? What if I were to bathe your body and make it ready for its further duties as my wife? What then, Lady Charlotte?”
Charlotte’s eyes glittered as the torch above her flooded her in its eerie light. She struggled with heart and body both speaking passionately of her true feelings. But her mind was much more persuasive. Arguing the opposite, it broke free from the turmoil and spoke aloud with the same venomous tongue she’d known since her first day harbored in Ilusian misery, “I would still hate you, Mountbane,” she said, her voice calm as a gently rolling sea, as determined and willful. “I would not call you husband, and I would resent every service I was required to render you. Would I submit? I suppose I’d have no choice in this; but I would not beg you to breach my untried door. You’d have to take it, just as you’ve taken everything else from me.”
If she had a mind keen enough to think clearly at that instant—which she did not—she would have seen the flicker of disappointment in the man’s eyes. Instead, she focused on the mockery that swiftly followed, which seemed so common to this scoundrel.
He rose from where he’d crouched at her side and announced to her jailer, “Caius, have her chains removed and send her to the kitchens. She is of no use to me.”
“Aye, sir,” he replied.
Mountbane was gone, Charlotte was freed, and her terror in the dungeon was at its end.
Chapter Four
Life torn asunder, twisted by this cruel fate, it would seem the castle larders, scullery and storehouses would be some relief from this tangle of terror. In her new occupation, Charlotte served as a common kitchen slave—wearing the simple garments of a serf. Only the collar about her neck remained to indicate that she was not a free woman with the right to come and go as she pleased—that is, the collar and the chastity belt which was now well-hidden from view by her simple clothes. Her companions in this venture were like any she might face in life: some were compassionate to her situation; others mocked her, knowing of her noble birth and fall from grace; still others were the surly sort who cared not a wit about who she was and freely ordered her about. Charlotte was one of the lowest of the kitchen workers, given the least favorite tasks. For several weeks, she spent most of her hours cleaning—pots, utensils, floors, walls, and greasy tubs.
She rose before dawn to start days filled with one hard labor after another until finally exhausted she’d collapse in bed. Unaccustomed to this heavy toil, it took some weeks before she became used to the burden of her job. When she flagged in zeal before one of the kitchen matrons, she might be flogged for laziness, or simply scolded by the more compassionate women.
“You’ll get used to it in time,” she was advised.
“Best keep a cheerful countenance—makes your day go faster.”
She took these comments in the best of spirits, truly hoping that these kind souls were right.
At the beginning, it was enough that Mountbane was done with her and she was freed from the dungeon horrors. Though what she hadn’
t counted on were the advances of the boys who moved through the kitchens at their leisure just for the sport of fondling a breast, or playfully whacking a fat behind to the squeals and slaps of the embarrassed kitchen wench. Charlotte did wonder, though, if her so-called husband was entirely done with her, since her chastity belt remained. Had it simply been forgotten, or was this a sign that he still intended to have her as he’d always planned? As it turned out, the encumbrance, though still awkward, was a blessing in warding off the most serious advances of these knaves. She soon understood that in this back world of Ilusian society, a woman’s virginity was much ado about nothing. Such silly slips of skin were only important to nobles and proud men.
Days into this new life, she thought she might settle into it—except for the curious aching that began to plague her. Her groin would enliven the moment some dashing fellow walked by her toiling body—and more still if he took note of her. She was still fair enough, with a pleasant grin; and those not put off by the short fuzz of blonde covering her head found her a most attractive woman—even for a slave. They flirted with her as they would other slaves and servants; and Charlotte found their attentions invigorating her body.
Time advancing, she scrubbed floors and cleaned the scullery with feverish abandon, her passions building with an increasing fervor. Such desire brewing, surely it was far more than just the occasional playfulness from a randy rogue that had her so aroused. Her loins knew the answer to this perplexing state of stimulation. In his despicable and ruthless fashion, the scoundrel Lord Mountbane had enjoined her body to relish the physical release in the crude and often painful turns it took. Unable now to hold back her desire, her mind was driven to the cruelest fantasies—all without any promise of release. The damned chastity harness prevented her from playing with her roused crotch! And so, she was caught in a sexual bind from which she could not break free.
The Surrender of Lady Charlotte Page 4