Having delivered the sentence and watched Sister Madeleine's assistant, Annika, hurry off to escort Mother Priscilla down, Dom Anselme summoned his apprentice to his side. He gestured towards the second chained nude, who had meanwhile come to life.
"Meanwhile, Christophe, my lad, this other load of meretricious whore-meat also needs a further taste of the scourge before she too leaves these holy precincts - in her case for whatever brothel is negotiating her purchase. When you're stiff again which, faced with a nude of that elegance, should be soon enough, ratchet her up a shade so that she hangs free at the paving. And flog the depraved trollop. You may use her in any way you wish thereafter. She has to understand fully why she's being trained." With a wave of the hand, he added: "But, pray, don't waste too much time on the slag since we'll need you to deal with this one." He turned. "I presume, Sister, all is ready next door as usual - the slab, brazier and irons? The brand should be white hot. Waiting only debilitates a whore."
Debilitated also, the fucked nun nodded, hoping the young minx, Annika, would not be too long on her mission, for she required her help in stretching the victim. That was something one could not perform single-handed and the prelates - who always worked without gloves in order to feel the nude's flesh as it welted - could not possibly be expected to soil their chaste hands in merely readying a sweating female for branding.
While the young prelate lashed her colleague's suspended, head-hooded and gagged body, Martine was released and hauled by Madeleine to the neighbouring chamber. Fortunately she had not far to shamble. The unexpected condemnation to the scorching-hot flesh-iron had deprived her of what energy her flagging spirit had managed to conserve. She sensed herself sinking into the slough of despond, trepidation and a sick feeling of injustice chilling her as they had done during the first days at the convent.
Stumbling in chains again, Martine felt her body being greased afresh by the insufferable Annika who had returned with Mother Priscilla (always present for brandings). The slave looked fearfully across at the chains on the dark slab of granite being prepared by Madeleine. Handling her lean body that had shed so much lard, clearly delighted the nuns and the prospect of a heretic being branded intoxicated them. The brazier had not been used for some time.
Although prohibited speech, Martine risked a futile plea for mercy. "I don't think, sweet Sisters, I can take any more. And I'm due for release. Please be lenient. I'm at the end of my tether. I did what I could back there. I'm full of semen. Please, let me rest..."
"Nonsense, whore!" came the reply. "And keep your mouth shut unless it's needed for cock or cunt. You heard the Holy Father, so stretch out on the slab, belly upwards."
Crossing the sweltering chamber to be shackled, the slave was almost overcome by the reek of sweat and a lingering odour of seared flesh. Fleetingly, she noticed the brazier smouldering in the far corner, a long branding iron protruding from the incandescence. Remembering Bette up at the château, Martine realised what was about to happen, even if still unaware as to what part of her body was to suffer: someone would seize the iron, tap it free of cinders and advance on her... Clearly, the Dominican sought to ensure that her farewell was memorable and indelibly abiding. For the first time in days, she prayed.
In the Prioress's eyes, this now well-shaped slut by the name of Martine had not abjured and fully merited it. The brand could be planted on the cheek, shoulder blade, breast, rump or pubis; Dom Anselme preferred by far a nicely shaved pubic mound, amply frictioned and oiled, the body bound abnormally tight. A branded pubis attracted users.
In her time Martine had writhed, screaming deliriously, on several other torture slabs the convent had to offer its inmates, but certainly none had been fitted with these outspread iron rods hinged to the stone verges; more unsettling, the bars lay at the level of the breasts and terminated in parallel clamps fitted with screws. As her half-starved body was chained taut by the smirking assistant, the four limbs extended to their fullest extent, Martine tried inwardly to recite a psalm but the sudden reappearance of the two still unclothed prelates, unwilling to miss the shackling, daunted her. Their looks were enough to turn her again into the naked strumpet she had become.
At a sign from the head Sister, the young probationer, Annika, began to crank the windlass until the slave's articulations reached the limit; another turn spelled dislocation and torn ligaments. Then Annika jammed a pawl into the toothed wheel. Amazed at the slave's new slenderness, the onlookers gazed salaciously and in wonder at the extended flesh, admiring the change brought about through flagellation and sex torture.
It was Madeleine who swung the heavy bars on to the chest and, bending over the thorax, slowly tightened the metal screws. Martine let out a hoarse groan - it was all she had left in her - as the iron jaws sank into the breast roots, the flesh belling into scarlet domes. As the areoles and ringed teats bulged, the veins pulsated like trapped worms.
Dom Anselme, his cock stiff again, nodded to his acolyte.
From the far side of the vault came the rap of iron on the brazier's rim as the youth freed the brand of clinker, and the heat approached. The cross of metal sparkling and smoking at the extremity of the rod was the last thing Martine saw. Fully expecting it to descend into the summit of her strangled breasts, she went rigid as the iron seared into the pubic hump. There it hissed and fumed a second, the unearthly yell reaching Mother Priscilla, watching attentively from the shadows. The slave called Martine had passed out. As well she might - they always did under the irons. By Monday's first light the young bitch of an infidel, always risky stuff to have about in a training centre, would be gone, and good riddance. As Prioress, Priscilla much preferred forming brothel merchandise but a good turn done to the nobles up at Lassignac never went unrequited. Moreover, branding a slut brought in revenue. But as it was for the Marquise, Mother Priscilla did it gratis.
Donning their white habits, Anselme and Brother Christophe left, magnanimously escorting the forbidding superior to the door. There the wimpled head turned. "The devout and gracious Marquise de Lassignac, Sister, will send her lackey to collect the heretic at dawn on Monday," And the Dominican put in: "when their weekend revelries are over and which," he added with a touch of offended pride that rankled, "as their chaplain, naturally I do not attend. See the scum's carcass is cleaned and salved before departure."
Madeleine bowed, delegating the task to Annika for her name rhymed with arnica.
In her Spartan quarters, Priscilla allowed the friars to kiss a pallid hand, white as parchment, and offered them a flagon of small beer, which she believed they deserved.
"Well," Anselme announced, "that drab of a slattern should serve the noble Marquise well now. And, pardi it will be one more off your overburdened hands."
"Oui-da," she agreed. "And, by the bye, did the girl abjure while being thrashed and tortured? Just for my information, you understand."
"Overtly, no. But inwardly she has learnt her lesson, I believe. She will assent to anything now, as long as there is a whip around. Conversion will come later."
Martine was hardly aware later of kneeling, thighs well parted, before the Prioress, this time in the refectory. Apart from Madeleine, they were alone.
"You have, I am glad to say, graduated into womanhood," the ethereal voice told her, "and hopefully your horrendous beliefs have been whipped out of you. Your conduct, sexual and otherwise, has improved noticeably since your entry here. I only regret it was necessary to brand you but that is a detail." The woman's eyes descended to the dark purple cross, pitted in the lower belly. "You will now be returned to your noble mistress to serve her with devotion. Should you, by chance, be sent here again for correction, I shall be constrained to have you flogged to the blood, branded again but this time on both breasts, and sent to a field brothel to serve our gallant dragoons who labour so valiantly to rid the kingdom of heresy. Therefore strive to fulfil your calling." She glanced at
Madeleine who nodded, the Superior adding: "Come Monday, a château servant will remove you from our sacred confines and return you to where your now more presentably slender body belongs. Meanwhile, you may watch the evening's flesh sale here in the refectory and thereafter, grace my bed. If you fall short of my requirements there - and I warn you I tend to be demanding - I'll have you hung by the legs and thrashed. Now you may go."
Thus, for her final moments at the convent - and doomed to Mother Priscilla's crotch - Martine found herself for once in the company of the other dozen or more inmates assigned to the convent for special training. The females were led in and chained stark naked to rings arrayed along the refectory wall; there they were examined and appraised for value by a small group of beribboned, professional slave dealers who were intermediaries between the Convent of the Annunciation and the more notorious stews in the capital, places known in Paris as fish ponds. There, whores were hooked for good.
The hucksters seemed more vulgar and terrifying than anything Martine had yet seen. Bouchard and even Coursel up at the castle were gentlemen in comparison. For once she felt strangely relieved to be predestined for Lassignac and all its works rather than for the flogging brothels of St Lazare and the Marais in Paris.
The 'convent' was a fashionable watering hole for procurers and flesh-peddlers and, quite naturally, demanded its percentage on transactions. Females up for sale, Martine noticed, were clearly distinguished by metal discs dangling from the neck strap. Some of the nudes were hot from flagellation possibly, she thought, to demonstrate their mettle and carnal resilience, while others stood temptingly unblemished. Staring in disbelief, the heretic found it difficult to understand the distinction since all on sale were certainly destined to places where leather-clad libertines had the whip hand over slave flesh.
Towards the end of the room, separated from the merchandise on offer, a bevy of freshly arrived candidates for training or revitalising looked on with bewildered eyes and melancholic expressions of despair, particularly when sister Tertia or Véronique lashed out with the service whip to correct a harlot's stance. Only Martine felt apart, her swollen, cauterised pubis still seething; bearing no disk and hence unpriced; she was ignored by the buyers but she watched each sale being concluded and the purchase being hauled out to be summarily prepared for the arduous ride north to her new abode, being used endlessly on the way. At least Martine reflected, she had only two leagues to cover to Lassignac.
The bartering over, she waited anxiously for her own transport at dawn to be announced. The prospect of rejoining Joanne, whether she had abjured or not, set her heart racing, for her former colleagues would barely recognise her, so slender had she become! Too excited, there was no point in trying to sleep, although she needed it sorely.
Long after the sales were over and the human wares had left the refectory, Sister Tertia came for her and led her to Mother Priscilla's bleak chamber. What happened there between the coarse sheets she would never forget. But she survived.
She would soon be shivering before the convent portal, anxiously waiting for the arrival of Coursel with the mare. And probably the loathsome harrow.
***
Up at the Château de Lassignac, the tension in the castle cellar had risen to a point Joanne found hard to bear. She had been lying extended on the ladder for the better part of an hour and knew how erotic her body must appear to anyone devoted to whipping young women. The position that kept her thighs crossed and clenched sent weird thrills through her entire body.
Roped tight by Marie-Félice, she knew it was reckless but asked the question.
"What happens now, Mistress?" She felt she had the right to know what her first ceremonial weekend entailed.
"Silence, drab!" the assistant hissed, although little pleased her more than to be addressed as 'mistress' by a slave of her own age, bound and awaiting torture. "You heard the sentence, so keep those ringed teats stiff, and wait. The guests will be down shortly - they had venison for dinner," she added cruelly, "including the one who chose you and your delicious body. I trust he'll let me whip you, to get you heated up and ripe."
Although relatively new to her role, the shrewd bitch knew a promising slave when she saw one. She gazed again at the sweating contours she had secured to the rungs. The bunch of metal sex rings lay practically concealed between the clenched thighs; an almost imperceptible line ran from the rib arch over the diaphragm and navel to the sex mound above the sex slit. Parpaillote or not, this one's figure was spicy, made for the whip!
Escorted by the Marquise the visitors entered amid a waft of heady perfumes, to discard their cloaks and select their instruments from the cellar table; those who had brought their own handed them to Simone for greasing. From where she lay, Joanne could just glimpse the group of veiled dominants, now stripped for action, sauntering among the nude offerings and no doubt uttering platitudes before each bound body. In fact, she heard one female voice complimenting the hostess: "Oh, Elodie, what a truly charming spectacle once again. You never fail us! Just how I like a girl to be chained - tight each side of the cunt." Joanne saw the spiked glove caress the links splaying Dalinde's slot.
What surprised and disappointed Joanne was the absence of the Marquis Francis-Etienne. Strange and unsettling. She remembered the smile he had given her in the holding chamber when, weeks before, he had flogged Martine. And she recalled the other, more recent moments of privacy... But why was he so often missing? Out hunting perhaps - for boar or unfeathered game with big breasts. Mariette had often jested that the handsome Marquis could not decide between nocturnal adventures and his castle's homely comforts.
As if by way of compensation for his absence, a powerful figure approached her sweating body, a sturdy erection jerking with each step the man took with what seemed to be a halting, lame gait. While the other guests took their places next to their allotted victims, the man gazed down at Joanne's taut nudity confronting him. For a moment he did not move. Masturbating slowly, he stared almost wistfully, pleased with his choice.
Suddenly Joanne heard Therèse - or was it Bette? - groan as a length of leather slashed into bare flesh. Then other cries and thuds resounded through the vaulting. Joanne's attempts to identify each moan filling the cellar were cut short, very suddenly.
De Montclamart - she recognised him from Marietta's earlier remarks whispered in the drawing room upstairs - addressed her directly while she stared at the pulsing cock and torso above. The terms he used were far from harsh; they sounded almost placid.
"I have selected you because your breasts attract me. The sexual entry to your body, though enticing, I leave to others. I am about to treat your breasts to a session under the quirt and tongs. That should provide ample stimulation for you to climax, should it not, slave? After all, we both seek enjoyment, no?" A gesture brought Marie-Félice's steely beauty forward and suddenly the girl slashed into Joanne's breasts, the broad lappets at the end of the quirt adding fresh marks. Gritting her teeth, Joanne recognised the sound all too well - the hiss through the air, the dull schlack! and her own grunt. And again the hiss, schlack and whine. And again... Joanne could hardly believe such licence was given to a junior slave handler and yet, to be scourged before a guest by a common domestic proved as exhilarating as it was humiliating. After the waiting, the bite of the whip was almost a relief. Joanne bore the punishment well; her superb udders squelching under the blows. The position on the ladder did not vex her. On the contrary.
The beating also pleased de Montclamart. "Oui-da, ma belle! Now whip the teats harder but slower, while I sort out my instruments. There's little I relish more than one female whipping another's saddlebags. The triple-thong always arouses a bitch, diantre!"
The slave managed to restrain her cries as the prancing bulges - or saddlebags - began to bloat again; it was as if somehow she lay outside her body, watching the flagellation. Then the flesh began to numb under the strokes, the
crushed vulva leaking.
"I think that should suffice," the clubfoot announced. "Now, rattle down those long chains and haul up the teats by the rings as far as they'll stretch. Yes... Now block the chains. I need the flesh tensed,"
Sweating from her exertion, the dark-haired servant had lowered the links from the pulleys in the vaulted ceiling, passing the hooks through the teat rings; then, pulling hard on the chains, she distended the whipped breasts aloft into straining steeples of taut flesh.
Although week after week of stringent torture had enhanced her stamina, the victim groaned like a beast in labour; the elongation became unbearable. In a forlorn attempt to ease the tension, the slavegirl arched her spine but the higher she raised her thorax, the tighter the bitch hauled. With a nod, the man signalled to her to secure the chain ends to the wall, Joanne clenching her teeth in terror, moaning with pain. She had endured breast torture before but this eclipsed all the earlier ordeals.
Almost choking, she managed to raise her roped neck sufficiently to see through her tears what the guest had placed on her belly; the heavy pair of flesh tongs felt cold, like icicles in a Cevennes winter. Whatever he then laid on the black-numbered chest she could not discern but that further weight turned her to goose flesh. Shivering, she let her head subside again between the rungs as the torment commenced.
Straddling the ladder and body, de Montclamart launched into what Marie-Félice saw was to be a exceptional session, executed slowly, methodically and erotically.
What had been laid on the slave's chest then came into view. The man's gloved grasp sprang ajar the first of the metal crocodile clips. Joanne heard it rasp and recognised the jaws soon enough; she had seen Elodie one night use the clasps on Isabelle's outer sex labia; the staunch girl had taken the pain well as the sharp cusps bit deep into the flesh, only hissing with bitter affliction when an hour later the minx Anthea wrenched off the clips. Mariette had said they were the latest fad in some Paris slave-brothels, replacing the usual screw clamps. A slave just had to accustom herself to them.
The Sufferers Page 18