The Sufferers

by Caroline Swift

  Grasping her chains and suffering from the force of the initial whipping, she was left to hang in abeyance while the attendants proceeded to bind Louise's slim carcass over the flogging contrivance they had meanwhile dragged forward. Compared with the trestles and other frames in the slave cellar below, the structure appeared relatively prosaic; several wooden beams formed a rectangular base upon which a pair of short uprights rose to a horizontal bar. The solid crosspiece, Joanne saw with horror, bristled with a harvest of short spikes, honed sharp, destined to discourage the victim from contorting while being worked upon. Although the spectacle terrified her, Joanne felt an erotic thrill churning within her vagina - it was such as had accompanied her introductions to the various implements Francis-Etienne had bound her to, prior to her beatings at his adored hands.

  It was the whip's hiss and slash on flesh that brought her back to reality. Anthea's service whip - about the most painful at Lassignac - had sliced into Louise's rump along with an order to prostrate herself over the spiked bar that scared the newcomer but clearly not Louise who seemed unperturbed. Almost deferentially, she lowered herself along the crosspiece for the self-assured Marie-Félice to slant back at an angle a thick, hinged dildo. That too disturbed Joanne, for the shaft glinted with studs destined to enhance the pain and, she hoped, some pleasure...

  "Get it all the way up into you," Anthea told Louise. "We'll see how you use it after fifty lashes." Again the bitch's heartlessness appalled Joanne. "You've been through this before, haven't you?"

  For the first time, Louise spoke, the words devoid of any emotion; if there was fear or despair in her, the voice belied it. "I've been given this at least a dozen times, mistress. It was you who chained me to it last month to drip candle grease over me..." Anthea smiled. "How should I remember? To me slaves are all alike. Get it well into you, slut."

  The shaft slid slowly up into the vagina as Louise lowered her pubis and hips on to the array of points. As they penetrated the skin, she bared her teeth and gave a thin hiss of pain. Only too familiar with the posture required, she stretched her torso, extending her thin arms to the extremity of the planks to have each wrist shackled; she then brought forward her knees for them to be similarly chained to the uprights. Marie-Félice wrenched the ankles well apart and fettered them. "See the slug's absolutely taut," Anthea told her. "The Baron likes a body tensed and firm for his sort of thrashing. You've seen it before, so bind these thighs tighter, girl!"

  From where she hung, waiting for the session to proceed, Joanne stared spellbound at what was being proffered for beating. She just hoped Louise derived the same erotic thrill from being chained naked and whipped as she did.

  The slave's buttocks formed a crest on the bar, the anal trench well parted, disclosing the umber sphincter, bloated from constant use. Never having experienced sex with Louise, Joanne could not rate the anus or cunt, but the latter had to be resilient and slack to accommodate that monstrous dildo.

  Abruptly the drawing room came to life. The guest who had chosen Louise, in the same way as the Comtesse de Burre-Sage was already using Joanne, passed a gloved palm over the upraised buttocks. The flesh gave a shudder under the touch.

  "I advise you, whore slave," de Bessinge warned Louise, "not to try clenching those callow cheeks. Otherwise I shall have to flay them raw. Surely, Marquise," he addressed his hostess across the room, "a cheap trollop with her experience - for I've had her before, you know - should realise by now how to proffer her arse for a guest's whip!"

  Elodie gave him a look that was both a frown and a smile. The remark was unjustified. Slave Five, the devoted, well-trained Louise, never flinched, whatever was perpetrated on her submissive body. In fact, she was one of Lassignac's more mature subjects, staunch under the whip and in a torture precinct. "Well, Artemis," his hostess replied, "give her an extra twenty lashes, if she has upset you. The harder she's flogged, the more ravenously she comes. So, now that our second chicken's ready, I suggest we continue. Evelyn sweet, that lovely blonde slut of mine's going off the boil. You'll have to warm her up again. It's a pity Francis-Etienne isn't here. He considers her rather special but that's because it was he who negotiated her transfer here. Fine, but I prefer to buy or purloin mine! Far simpler." She gave the group a radiant smile. Oh, by all the saints, how she enjoyed these weekends!

  Now that the second slave was ready, the Comtesse asked nothing better than to continue the flagellation she had begun.

  Waddling to the side of the nude she had selected, she raised the lash and brought it down with refreshed force across Joanne's flat belly. Blinded by the power and shock of the stroke, the newcomer nearly fainted but she gritted her teeth as the milk-pale flesh flared up into purple ridges. Almost at the same instant, de Bessinge slashed across Louise's shoulders.

  For what to Joanne seemed like a timeless stretch of pure torment, Evelyn de Burre-Sage's mass of fat and muscle - the latter kept in trim by flogging her serving girls every day at home - slammed into the novice, driving the wind out of her lungs. Lash after lash cut across the thorax and ribs until the whip again reached the breasts, and no one present wanted to miss a mammary beating and a pillaging of the nipples. Evelyn sent the bulges bouncing, now up to the slave number, the black VII, on the chest, now across to the sweating armpits, and then flattening them, driving the teats, areoles and rings into the blue-veined flesh. Everyone knew breast whipping was the Comtesse's predilection.

  Again, Evelyn left the welts to mature and Joanne's screams to ease up. Though well accustomed to the whip over her dugs - one of Anthea's terms to describe and denigrate slave breasts - Joanne at one moment thought she was about to pass out. Then she glimpsed Evelyn shifting round to the juddering rear to tap the buttocks and prepare the meat, discarding her quirt for a six-thong of medium length, two of the lashes being plaited to give the slave, now that she was completing her novitiate, something to think about over the coming days... Joanne arched forward as the whip flailed like fire round the hips, raising incandescent paths of dark scarlet, tinged with blue. The blows turned Joanne into a battered marionette, each lash demanding more of her resistance; it seemed to ebb like the sludge leaking from her vulva as she slid further down the slope towards the dark. Ten more and she knew she was done for. And she would sag from the chains, disappointing Elodie, the guests and herself - herself particularly since she revelled in it all - the nudity, the flesh rings, the straps and shackles, and the whips - and yet feared it. She hated and loved it.

  The Comtesse slashed the buttocks with unerring precision, using the classical method of first reddening the flesh with her thonged flogger and then using the riding crop to raise the real welts. Yet a rear beating never failed to advance Joanne a step further towards orgasm. Suddenly again the obese monster ceased thrashing the bottom and, mopping her brow under the veil, came into view to ram the penis-shaped haft into her victim's slot. As she expected, it came away coated with gluten.

  "Ah, upon my word a gratifying slut, Elodie! The wanton's juicing like a lime. But I need a breather, treasure. I really must lose some weight," at which the Marquise nodded. "You know, Elodie, this blonde beginner of yours has potential. We'll see how she takes the rest of the weekend..." The booted ogress turned to her almost naked neighbour, de Bessinge. "Is your bag of skin and bone responding similarly to your lordship's wishes?"

  "It better had or it'll find itself hooked to a beam by the feet later in my room for raking," he replied, short of breath, "and a session under the breast bodkins." He continued to lash the groaning Louise with zest.

  Joanne found the abrupt pause distressing. It left the welts to throb mercilessly and left her in limbo, impeding her progress towards orgasm. Through her dazzling tears, she glanced round the room. Stimulated by the floggings, the guests were amusing themselves with the remaining slaves. Isabelle was on her knees servicing the Marquise slumped in her throne, the shapely cross-gartered legs over th
e armrests to give the slave full access to the crotch. The fiery Mariette was hard at work fellating the Vicomte de Challes, known to lust after her on account of the redhead's unpigmented skin, like cream fresh from the churn. So pale was the epidermis that even Elodie was astonished when she whipped her. The welts were always spectacular, standing out like cooked beetroot crushed on an egg-white cloth. Marietta's pallor drove guests to beat her breasts horrendously, desecrating her without pity, even using the cane on her areoles before leaving her to smoulder. A day or two later when the weals had subsided, the whips would stoke her up again into a scarlet blaze. Many guests chose her also because she bled dramatically - and like Joanne she adored every second of her scourgings.

  On the brink of orgasm, Joanne saw Therèse tonguing the Vicomte's wife, the depraved Christine de Challes. The clubfooted Raymond de Montclamart, known for his aversion to vaginas, had laid Bette across his chair and was rigid in her rectum - the infamous L branded on her bottom fascinating him; he had even asked Elodie to be allowed to brand the other cheek, which she had promptly refused. Branding was Bouchard's chore.

  Dalinde was licking de Bessinge's odious mistress, Claire, while de Bessinge himself continued to work hard on Louise. Flogging females was his chief occupation in life.

  "Enjoying it, whore?" he asked his victim, lashing her rump.

  "Yes, master," came the choked response. "Scourge my cleft... like the last time..."

  That he was only too ready to do. He enjoyed the splatter of Louise's clammy outpour. For her part, Joanne drifted into a doldrum of erotic pleasure, as in her dreams, with orgasm still eluding her.

  Laurent had to content himself with Marie-Félice, the former slave who had graduated to the status of a 'slave handler' and was always ready to enjoy a male or a female or both at once. Looking on superciliously from the panelled wall, Anthea was contemplating revenge for what the Marquis had done to her. She leaned next to the funereal Simone, Bouchard and Coursel, the two men eying her lasciviously but without the slightest hope of using her; in any event, her spiked nipple shields were disconcerting...

  Still awaiting further lashes, her wrists beginning to ache, Joanne saw clearly what Louise was enduring. The entire back, rump and chained thighs, together with the dangling breasts, small as they were, had been ridged with the force of the rawhide. Joanna watched the final moments as the Baron moved round to the moaning head and straddled it to slash directly down into the anal furrow. His scourge buried its length along the trough, the extremities striking the dildo. Louise's groans sharpened as the rod jerked in her vagina. De Bessinge gave the anal crevice a prolonged beating until the slave became frenzied, lurching up and down the wooden stanchion. Satisfied she was on the verge of spending, he strolled back to the flayed buttocks, bent his cock down and bored into the swollen sphincter. Watching, Joanne knew the girl's thin membrane within was straining between the dildo, crammed up her cunt, and the phallus sodomising the rectum. The chained slave began to ride both, rasping her clit on the knurl projecting from the dildo. A silence fell over the room, broken only by her yelps, the slushing and an occasional smack on the arse, as if the man was taking a mare into a canter before the final gallop.

  Despite the spikes stabbing her pubis and haunches, Louise pumped vigorously on the dildo. Without warning the head jerked up with a shriek as the body exploded hysterically with not one but several orgasms that laid the whipped beauty waste. The Baron sent half his load into the bowels, spattering the rest over the welted back.

  "Better than expected, Elodie dear, in the name of Priapus," he gulped, wiping the sweat from his slave-scourge. "Your whore comes well, as usual. I'll have her again in my room after dinner, if you agree." Then he smiled at Evelyn: "I hope yours does as well and comes as cleanly as this slut. It's really worth the journey to be able to flagellate a slavegirl who empties out so appreciatively, don't you agree? And, by the way, this slag comes just as competently when her clit's snug in the grip of a pair of tongs. Well worth the journey, Evelyn, ma chere," he repeated. Although voided, he was cold as a serpent.

  Joanne was envying the exhausted Louise when suddenly the Comtesse slapped her across the rump amid the final bleats from the platform. "Now that I'm refreshed, Number Seven," she said gaily, "and I've given you the chance of watching a well-tutored bitch flagellated to orgasm, let's see what a novice can do under the quirt." Already armed with the thing, Evelyn slashed the hips. "Spread those nice thighs, whore, and keep them wide. Close them just once and I'll have you hung by the legs with milking pails chained to those teat rings," - she struck each nipple with the quirt haft, then generously she purred: "You may spend whenever you're ready."

  The legs yawned wide, the probationer quivering with fear and exhilaration - fear, since her vagina was probably oozing too copiously, excitement at the promise of the long-awaited climax. And that before a host of shrewd arbiters.

  Evelyn de Burre-Sage liked nothing better than a splayed vulva, bar perhaps an erect penis, and knew how to induce substantial pain with a quirt and, at the same time bring a slave off. Joanne had already experienced the quirt with its plaited grip and the triple lashes that clacked when used on a girl's breasts or sex - its prime targets at Lassignac. She had received it on several occasions but as yet never over her ringed labia. Mariette had told her that probably the vulva would be chained by the rings round the thighs to bare the target and that this would help. The more exposed one was, she claimed, the fiercer the orgasm. Joanne marshalled her courage, regretting her ankles were not shackled wide to prevent her from clenching her thighs.

  The Comtesse swept the conjoined tails of tawny leather up into the dripping slot, the slap setting the metal jangling. Joanne managed to weather a dozen perfectly aimed strokes, each dull damp thud jerking the clit ring upwards in a splash of pre-come. Then she yelled. But the cries were not screams of pain as she rocked her blonde head and protruded her crotch, offering all she had. The quirt lashed her from pubis to perineum until she was the colour of dark burgundy wine.

  "Aaah, yes, mistress! There... there! On the ring... please!" The cliff edge was in sight, and beyond, the myriad stars beckoning her into space. "Oh, sweet mistress, whip me harder... fuck me with it... Ram it into me, pleeeese!"

  Amazingly, Evelyn did just that. The handle of the quirt sank in up to her glove, grinding hard into the pinnacle of engorged, whipped gristle. Joanne came so violently that even Anthea was taken aback. Again the blonde head shrieked as she discharged again. Those orgasms were stronger, more complete than any she had had so far in her life.

  Released, the two welted corpses were left sprawling on the polished floor. Louise was then dragged down to the cellar by the legs, while Joanne tried to gather her senses. She saw Evelyn retrieving her cloak and seating herself, the fat thighs rolling apart.

  "Now it's my turn," the Comtesse said. "Do your duty, slave. Approach and lick."

  Joanne, expecting as much, slithered towards the chair to comply. Faced with the clit in the shaggy crotch, she sucked and tongued with what stamina was left to her. Evelyn made her work hard before bucking and spewing. She came suddenly and thickly.

  In her turn, the blonde was hustled out and down the steps to be chained, like Louise and the others, on her palliasse beyond the bars. There Mariette helped them to swallow the bowl of gruel, forcing water down the throats, parched with yelling. Both needed strengthening if they were to outlast the night.

  In the castle's lofty, machiolated turrets, the wise owls hooted derisively; they well knew what was to follow, once the guests had dined.

  ***

  Evidently not wanted during the weekend at the château, Dom Anselme and the young Christophe mounted their mules at sunset and made their way down to the convent where Mother Priscilla greeted them cordially.

  "Ah, there you are at last. We have continued work on the plump parpaillote entrusted to our custody
and I must say the profane wench shows more promise than expected. We have, of course, following your earlier visit, put her to further sessions under the whip in the preparation Cell and she now awaits you in the Chamber of Pleasures. You will find her bound over the slab. I am sure you will hasten her training."

  A frown darkened the Dominican's pious features. "Training, as you put it, exalted colleague, is your burden. We seek her contrite conversion. But I trust she's orgasming regularly by now. I hope we shall not be disturbed for the rest of the night down there."

  "Naturally, your Holiness. I presume you would wish our devoted Sister Madeleine to be present to help. At least, to prepare the implements and help with bondage..."

  The bald-pate nodded. With a formal bow, the gaunt figure, followed by Brother Christophe, left the presence to be led down to the so-called Chamber of Pleasures.

  The cell glimmered with a single candle, sufficient to display Martine's sobbing body spread, belly up, on the torture slab. The welted breasts lolled sideways from the chest and seemed less massive than the Dominican recalled from earlier beatings and indeed the buttock meat, crushed on the stone, looked firmer and more compact than before. Beyond the throat, strapped to the far verge of the slab, the dark, bedraggled hair hung down, the eyes swathed under a broad strap, the mouth gouged wide with a leather stopple.

  "I'll need the throat freed, Sister," the Dominican observed calmly, "if we are to hear the bitch abjure. We may also require fellatio. Kindly remove the bung."

  Only too ready to assist, Sister Madeleine prized the object out of the teeth. The customary cajolements began, the man wrenching the head up by the hair. "Do you or do you not recant, you stiff-necked whore? Or must we convince you of your errors by other means? We have the entire night before us. You should know that your blonde accomplice has abjured and she's attending Mass and confession, thus unburdening herself of past mischief. So, do you abjure?"