Despite her resolve, she glanced at Drake. He had kissed her and she had kissed him. His hands had set her aflame and her rapid breaths had drawn the scent of his masculinity deep into her nostrils, making her head spin with impossible excitement. And then, when she had been on the brink of begging him to take her, he had stepped back and given her a lazy, lopsided grin and a corny line about discovering how she tasted. She had felt no steadier on her feet when she had left the office than when she had entered it. Once more the question filled her mind – what the hell was in that Venus Dust?
All through dinner Christine stood naked at the post. All of the conversation Pam overheard was about the overseer and by the time the meal was over the air was crackling with tension and expectation. Christine was trembling and hanging her head. Her ordeal was prolonged by the arrival of Jerry Morgan on stage, who treated the audience to what he clearly thought were some choice witticisms and biting sarcasm at the bound overseer’s expense. He reminded the crowd that the flogging was to be in two stages – first twenty strokes with the thin cane to Christine’s breasts in what he called a ‘pretty novel way’, followed by sixty to her back and buttocks with the ox-hide whip. Her trembling grew worse as he spoke of the whip.
“And don’t forget, gentlemen and ladies, you each have a ticket for the sweepstakes. We all know the thin cane splits skin much quicker than a thick one and I guarantee the bosun will draw blood with the ox-hide, so keep an eye on your numbers. I’ll be counting the strokes out loud and I’ll announce the moment it happens. The lucky winners will each receive a magnum of champagne generously donated by Commodore Traske on behalf of the Empire Star Line. So make sure you call out if your number comes up.”
A smatter of applause followed. Pam shuddered. They had made it a game. Beside her, Drake shifted his feet and his frown deepened.
Even when the MC’s inane patter ended, Christine’s suspense did not, as a slave girl was brought to the stage to receive the standard dozen cane strokes for a routine transgression. At least she was spared Jerry Morgan’s wit. Pam felt the ache in her buttocks more acutely and her anus gave a little nip as each stroke smacked down. Since Drake’s soothing treatment, Christine’s replacement had only allowed her one more application of ointment.
A hush fell as the caned girl was led away and all attention focused on Christine. All except Persephone Peake’s. She rose from her seat beside the Commodore and walked elegantly and seductively towards Drake, the big diamond in her nipple clip flashing. Elbowing Pam aside, she slipped her arm through his.
“Isn’t it exciting, Rafael?”
“You’re a bitch, ’Sephone. You set her up for your own amusement.”
She pouted. “Oh, don’t be a sourpuss. You know the only fun I have is when I’m flying.”
“It’s not fun,” he said, tight lipped. “It’s pain and torture as far as she’s concerned. You may take pleasure in it but she won’t.” He looked as if he would have said more but the bosun and his mate stepped towards the helplessly bound woman.
Pam watched dry-mouthed as they turned Christine upside down on the post, bound her with thickly padded straps above her knees, bent her legs back and fastened her wrists to her ankles with leather cuffs. Her long hair had been pinned up and the anguish on her inverted face was plain to see as the bosun took the thin cane in his hand. She was fastened with her breasts at about the height of his waist, their rounded undersides uppermost - soft, defenceless targets for the wickedly slender implement that he lifted high. There would be no warm up, any more than there had been for Pam. Christine would take her punishment cold.
She bore the first strokes almost silently. The only sound in the saloon was the sharp wick-wick of the cane biting into the yielding flesh of her tits. At the seventh blow she gave a low moan and a jerk, but then barely moved under four more before at last she could stand it no longer. Her cries were shrill but still half-stifled, and drowned out by the applause when Jerry Morgan announced blood had been drawn at fifteen and a young woman leapt to her feet, heedless of the mad jiggling of her bare right breast as she waved her winning ticket aloft. Pam had stopped looking by then. She did not need to. She knew how the cane was marking Christine’s flesh; the instant whitening of her skin where the whippy rod struck and rebounded, changing at once to fiery scarlet, and soon to crimson and then a deeper, fiercer red. Pam had forced herself to keep her eyes open and see it happen as she had stood bound before the mirror. She had never experienced anything like the caning the helpless overseer was taking, but she knew the flaring sting that came with every blow, and the wicked, scorching thud that sank into the flesh, deep, intense and even more delicious. She had loved it. She had loved Rick. A different kind of pain stabbed her heart.
Pam shook herself. They had Christine on her feet and were fastening her against the post, arms stretched above her head. Her back and rearward jutting buttocks looked pale and vulnerable, and glistened with sweat under the bright lights surrounding the stage. The ox-hide whip made Pam shudder. Long, stiff and tapering, it was made of layers of thin strands tightly plaited over something she was horribly afraid was a steel rod. She had seen the intricate imprints a far less wicked implement could make on soft, delicate skin – her own skin. How much worse it must be for the tormented woman bound to the post.
As the bosun began to ply the whip, Pam looked away again and tried to ignore the hand Persephone was stroking back and forth between her sore bottom and thighs. She jumped at the first blow, the crack and thud of its impact so close together they melded into one. Christine fought hard but the battle between soft flesh and stiff leather was one she was never going to win. As her anguished cries grew louder and her writhing in her leather straps more tortuous, some of the passengers grew restive and even the bosun and his mate, taking turns to mete out the punishment, seemed glad to reduce the severity of the blows. Persephone’s groping became faster, more adventurous and harder to ignore. His face like a thundercloud, Drake reached across and pushed Pam out of her reach.
The minutes passed like hours before the whipping finally stopped. One glimpse of the ragged mess it had made of the woman’s upper back and buttocks was enough. Pam turned away, throat tightening. Drake stared straight ahead, his mouth a grim line. Persephone’s face was flushed and her eyes sparkled. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly and the nipple covered by her silken gown was thrusting hard against the thin material.
Incredibly, Christine stayed on her feet when she was released and, with two slave girls supporting her, managed to stagger away to the dispensary without having to be carried. Pam felt sorry for her. The woman had flogged her backside but she could understand why, and she had spent less than four days on the airship, let alone twenty years.
“That was interesting, darling.”
Drake pulled free of Persephone’s arm. “Interesting.” The word was quiet, neutral, but the anger he was holding back was plain to see.
Persephone appeared not to notice, or not to care. She giggled.
“I’d like to see you take a punishment like that,” he said more hotly. “It might teach you the real cost of your frivolous behaviour.”
“Oh, are you offering, darling?” She laid a hand on his sleeve, giggling again. “That could be interesting too. Shall we go to my stateroom now?”
Drake shrugged her off. “No.”
Her glossy lips pouted. “Oh, spoilsport! You’ve disappointed me, Rafael. I suppose I’ll just have to have these two naughty slave girls instead.”
He swung on her. “No, ’Sephone, you won’t. They’re off duty and they’re staying that way. You’ll leave them alone, and me too, you hear?”
Pam waited for the blonde’s anger but she only gave him a hurt look. There was something between them, or there had been once.
“I ought to be jealous,” Persephone said. “Someone has finally got past that thick armour of yours and into your heart. You’ve taken a real fancy to this one, haven’t you?”
“Get to
the slave quarters,” Drake told Pam and Daisy, and gave the blonde the stern look that was so familiar to Pam. “You’ll have to find someone else to torment tonight.”
Persephone gave her feline smile and shot out her arm to stop a passing slave girl, a full-breasted, dark-haired beauty. “Go to cabin seven now, darling, and your pussy had better be very pink and very wet by the time I get there.” She screwed up her face, stuck out her tongue at Drake like a petulant schoolgirl, turned and stalked away.
He gave a small shake of his head. “Get moving, you two. I’ve got to get to the dispensary.”
*
“We’re gaining on her,” someone in the crowd called excitedly.
It was unnecessary. Everyone could see the Empire’s Triumph was catching up to the enormous airship ahead of her. The line between slave and free had blurred in the excitement of the chase. Passengers, crew and slave girls mingled indiscriminately at the windows of the forward observation lounge in the same eager anticipation.
Pam was there with the rest, her troubles momentarily forgotten amid the distraction, and only half-aware of her stiff nipples rubbing on the coats of the two men in front as she stood on tiptoe to look over their shoulders. The deck had been vibrating for several minutes and, with the airship ahead for comparison, for the first time she had the sense that the Empire’s Triumph was really moving through the sky. The four down-swept funnels, jutting rearwards close to the other vessel’s stern, were belching clouds of black smoke. Big propellers mounted on pylons on the boat shaped hull beneath its vast superstructure whirled in a blur as it strained to put on more speed. Like Christine’s struggle against the whip, it proved to be an unequal one.
“It’s the Spirit of Liberty,” someone said as the gap between the airships closed. The name was written in large letters on its side beneath the words American Airship Corp. in even larger ones. Half the passengers of the Empire’s Triumph were Americans, as well as many of its crew and slave girls, but this was about Company rivalries, not national ones. Everyone wanted their airship to win.
“I hear the First Officer is at the helm and the Commodore has ordered full speed ahead.”
As if to confirm the unknown speaker’s words, the vibration under Pam’s feet increased. A body behind pressed closer, heightening the hurt of the welts carved across her buttocks, but she did not yield her position. She glanced around and saw it was Lord Brinley, but all of his attention was on the Spirit of Liberty as they began drawing level with it. It was half a mile away, yet still almost filled the port side windows with its massive bulk as they overtook it. Soon afterwards they left it behind. The thrumming of the deck eased to its normal level.
“With Rafael Drake at the helm there was never any doubt.” Persephone’s voice came from somewhere on Pam’s left and held a note of admiration. What did the blonde mean to Drake and he to her?
“If any slave girl isn’t back at her post in one minute she’ll have a sore backside before we’ve landed.” Talbot, the second officer, stood in the doorway, but he was grinning and the passengers’ laughter was good-humoured as the girls scampered back to their duties.
They passed another airship, the Empire’s Destiny a man watching it through binoculars said, outward bound for London. Pam thought of the black phenomenon that could be waiting to pluck some unfortunate from its decks somewhere out over the Atlantic. Had she been good enough to satisfy Drake? Would he keep her or send her to the pool to be sold like a chattel? Painfully aware of the irony of wanting to continue as a sex-toy for wealthy travellers, she still hoped desperately to be kept.
She recalled Persephone’s comment of the previous night. Had Drake – Rafael the blonde called him – really taken a liking to her? But why would he? He had a reputation for doing everything by the book, yet he had bent the rules several times to help ease her suffering. And he had kissed her. Her lips tightened at the memory, joined immediately by her pussy. Silently cursing, Pam pushed the feeling away, but she could not quite suppress the recollection of taking his rigid, up-curved cock into her mouth. She swore silently. He was just another man, and she had had enough of men. She remembered her tongue flicking against Eve’s swollen clitoris. She had had enough of women too. Trust him, Rafael had said.
The saloon was quiet. Many passengers were in their cabins packing, and others were still in the forward observation lounge waiting to catch a first sight of landfall. Pam went to one of the windows as the airship turned to starboard, and found herself looking at a familiar coastline. They were approaching it from the southeast. New York Harbour lay to port, its outline and islands so familiar she could almost have been back in her own world, and around its shores was a city as big and sprawling as the one she had known. They began losing height, flying in a wide arc over the city as the Empire’s Triumph manoeuvred for landing. A great pall of smoke, pouring from a million chimneys, hung over New York. There were skyscrapers but not as tall as the ones Pam was used to, and huge chimneys of grey or red brick that towered high above everything else. Pam blinked. There was no Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island.
The airship began losing height. They were approaching a large field in what Pam thought would have been South Brooklyn in her reality, moving ever more slowly and sinking lower all the time. To her left was Governor’s Island but what caught her attention were the six great vessels, almost identical to the Empire’s Triumph, that were tethered by their noses to enormous concrete and steel towers at the far edge of the field. Two massive tractors carrying a huge cable reel between them puffed clouds of steam and smoke as they made their way towards the approaching vessel. Pam’s view was cut off as the airship turned and drifted until it almost touched the ground. There were several clunks and thuds and then they began moving more purposefully towards the other moored airships, towed, she guessed, by the tractors.
A hand closed on Pam’s bare shoulder.
“Come on, Miss Peake wants you,” Eve said.
“But we’ve almost landed.”
The bodyguard shrugged. “You’d better come, lover. But she’s pleased about something. I don’t think she means to flog you.”
Not reassured, Pam followed her to Persephone’s cabin. As Eve opened the door Drake appeared from forward, leading the docking crew back from securing the airship to its mooring tower. He turned aside.
“What’s going on? She’s due to go to the pens with the others.”
Pam felt a surge of relief. The pens were where the girls were kept between flights. “Then I am staying aboard. Oh, thank God! Now if the blackness would only come….”
“What did you say?” Drake’s fingers sank deep into the flesh of her left shoulder. “What did you say?” he demanded again. The intensity of his stare frightened Pam.
Persephone appeared in the doorway of her cabin, wearing nothing but her make-up and a self-satisfied grin. “You can’t have her, darling. She’s mine.”
Chapter Eight
Persephone held out a piece of paper. “The Commodore’s written permission. She’s under my control until we’re ready to fly again.” She turned her grin on Pam. “Three nights in New York, Ann. We’re going to have such fun.”
Pam’s gut lurched. Drake read the paper and stared at her with the same intensity as before. She saw him regain control, and his usual imperturbable expression return as he handed back the sheet. “That’s in order, if unusual. I want her back in a fit state to do her duties.”
The blonde laughed. “She will be, darling, providing she behaves herself.” She gave him her sly look, provocative and feline. “Perhaps you’d like to come too? You can keep an eye on us both and make sure we don’t do anything naughty.”
Drake bared his teeth. “Why, thank you, Miss Peake. Since I’m now off duty for the next forty-eight hours, I believe I’ll accept your kind invitation.”
Persephone quickly mastered her arching eyebrows and hid her surprise behind a thin smile. “My, this slave girl really has got under your skin, hasn’t she?”
She struck a pose that Pam had to admit looked very seductive, and spoke low and breathily. “I hope you’ll find time for me too, Rafael. You know you’re the only man who ever managed to tempt me away from my girls.”
Drake laughed softly and kept his gaze on her face, as if she was not standing nude with her nipples pointing stiffly in his direction and the lips of her sex puffy and pink. “You can count on it. I’ll see you in Customs in thirty minutes.” He looked at Pam as he spoke, turned on his heel, and once more she was alone and in Persephone’s clutches. The blonde mistress drew her into the cabin. A suitcase lay open on the bed and a tall travelling trunk rested on the floor. Beside it stood Milly and Tania. Pam stared.
“Milly, your clit is sticking out again,” Persephone said. “I swear it takes nothing at all to get you panting, does it? Help Tania get Ann ready while I dress.”
The girls gleamed with gold. They were dressed in identical corsets made from plates of the metal, laced tightly back and front with black leather thongs. The corsets nipped their waists tight and accentuated the round swells of exposed hips and breasts. Around their necks were three-inch deep collars, also gold, and edged at top and bottom with thin, black enamel bands. At the front of the collars a ring hung down over the hollow of each girl’s throat and attached above it was a white satin bow tie. Slim golden shackles encircled the slaves’ wrists and ankles and from the rear of the latter a short chain was clipped to rings at the backs of the white, open-toed high heels they wore. Their breasts and sexes were bare. Pam’s stomach fluttered. Almost bare, for their nipples and the clefts of their vulvas were rouged a bright, glossy red.
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