by Victor Bruno
“For Christ’s sake make a bigger effort,” he kept saying, “or we’ll be for it.”
“I . . . I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” moaned Karen, sobbing for breath.
“Think of that tawse on your bottom,” warned Paul. But even that frightening incentive seemed to make no difference. Then, on one journey down to the pile, Karen finally tripped and sprawled in the dust . . . bringing Paul down too.
Instantly Delia’s megaphone-loud voice boomed at them. “You two . . . over here . . . at once . . .”
Karen and he struggled to their feet. Inwardly he cursed the girl. One way or another she and trouble seemed to go together. “Oh God . . . no . . . no . . . I couldn’t help it,” she kept whimpering as they doubled towards Miss Delia. Paul said nothing, he had resigned himself to the inevitable.
“I’ve had my eye on you two,” said Delia. “Your work rate’s been dropping fast in the last half an hour. Just because back and muscles begin to ache a bit, you think it’s okay to slack off. Well, it isn’t.”
Paul hated her. Did she know the agony of muscles straining to the limit? Of course not. ‘Ache a little’ she had said. What a hideous understatement. She pointed to the framework in front of the dais.
“Get yourselves over that,” she ordered. Already Karen was beginning to sob.
Paul felt the rough pine splinters against his belly. Then found his wrists and ankles being secured by slim thongs to what looked like large tent-pegs in the ground. Karen was similarly dealt with, right alongside him. He saw Delia unfasten the tawse from her belt . . . and gritted his teeth.
“A dozen apiece, I think,” said Delia. “That might encourage you to put your backs into it.”
The hideous injustice of it was like a dagger in Paul’s belly. Still, there was nothing to be done. One just had to accept it. There was a rushing sound then the resounding thwack of leather on flesh. Karen got the first one. A three-inch width of supple leather nearly half an inch thick. Little wonder that a howl of pain erupted from her. A sideways step from Delia and it was Paul’s turn to feel it. The flaming swathe blazed across flesh as Delia laid it on with all the vigour she could command. Paul’s head jerked up and a grunt of torment came from between his clenched teeth. Then Delia stepped back to Karen.
It was thus that the punishment continued. Alternate strokes. Somehow it made it far worse . . . to hear the tawse falling across another bottom alongside yours . . . knowing it was coming to you in a few moments. Even worse than that was Delia’s method of application. At least, in Paul’s case. With venomous skill she laid on each stroke in almost precisely the same area . . . so that the swathe of fire across him got ever more agonisingly tender. No wonder, then, that after some half dozen he was no longer just grunting but yelling out almost as loudly as Karen.
No doubt the sounds they were both making were a potent reminder to those who continued to toil in the background!
When it was over Delia released them both and they staggered to their feet. Karen was weeping openly, desperately clasping her hands to her plump bottom . . . a bottom now covered with pink-red welts. Fortunately, Paul had not been reduced to the humiliation of tears . . . even though the pain in his buttocks . . . a single blazing belt of it . . . was well-nigh intolerable. He had, of course, become incredibly hardened over the months.
“Get back to it . . .” rasped Delia. “And if I catch either of you slacking again, I’ll cane the living daylights out of you in the Punishment Room tonight!”
Oh Christ, not that, thought Paul . . . and poor young Karen uttered a shriek of dread. They both hurried back to the timber they had dropped and were soon relentlessly sweating their guts out again. Karen seemed to have acquired twice the energy. The tawse, and the threat of the cane, had worked wonders!
At long last the second stint came to an end. The exhausted slaves were formed in their squads, chained together and then forced to jog-trot back to the slave farm. Four hours of rest lay ahead of them . . . and they needed every minute of it!
Karen had been right. The afternoon stints were the worse. It was much hotter for one thing. Frankly he was amazed how some of the girls kept going as they did. Sheer terror drove them on, of course. In the afternoon Paul was teamed with another girl . . . a girl as buxom and blonde as Delia herself. Paul was much enamoured of the shape of her and, on odd occasions, got a strange sort of pleasure-satisfaction out of toiling alongside this lush creature. But even more satisfying was the fact that the blond was much tougher and stronger than Karen. If anything, on occasions, she seemed to be doing the lion’s share rather than the other way round. Thus they escaped Delia’s eagle eye though, during the course of the afternoon, Paul heard three other couples being flayed over the framework. In the last hour of the afternoon session, Delia changed her tactics. She descended from the dais and strolled among the teams. Ever and anon, her tawse would crack out like a pistol shot as she laid it here and there at random. Both Paul and his companion were the recipient of two or three such strokes - but it scarcely seemed that either deserved them.
The relief at returning at last to the slave farm was immense. They showered again, drank greedily and were fed. Then it was back into the cells, securely chained. Even those bleak places seemed a delightful haven of rest. Like the rest of those in his cell, Paul sprawled in exhaustion and was soon fast asleep.
He was awakened by the sound of the door being unlocked. One of the girls was taken out to receive extra punishment. Paul felt sympathy yet also relief that it was not he who was to suffer. Half an hour later the girl came back, her eyes red with tears. She had, he gathered, received a fifteen-stroke caning.
The day ahead seemed all too near already.
*****
After three more days, Paul had acclimatised himself considerably to the slogging toil. Though it was still grinding, back-breaking work, it did not seem quite so bad as on the first day. Nevertheless, on the fourth day Paul, largely because of the weakness of his partner, had to pay another visit to the dais to get another murderous belting from Delia.
“If I catch you slacking again,” she warned, “you’ll get the cane as well.”
Paul could only pray that luck would be with him and he would get strong partners in the succeeding days. But unfortunately for Paul prayer was not quite enough. On the sixth day Delia pounced again. Once more the pine needles in his belly, once more the searing leather contorting him. Worst of all, Delia’s dire words when she had finished with him.
“You’ll be down in the Punishment Room this evening,” she said, her blue eyes glinting.
*****
Miss Mandy, the chief overseer, looked absolutely splendid, even though Paul was hardly in the mood for admiration, it could not be denied. Her coffee-coloured body was clad in a white leotard made of the very thinnest material, almost transparent and fitting like a second skin. He was shod in a pair of thigh-length boots of white leather. Delia was still in her black leather outfit of the day.
Ten minutes earlier Paul had been taken up from his cell and down to the Punishment Room . . . where Delia recounted the various ‘misdeeds’ of the day which she considered merited extra punishment. Then Miss Mandy adjudicated. The first girl - there were six of them in all - was awarded ten strokes of the medium cane.
Paul watched as she was secured to a whipping block right before them. Two overseers did the job then one of them, a beefy looking woman of about forty produced the rod and approached the curving hindquarters helplessly presented. She looked at Miss Mandy . . . and Miss Mandy nodded. The caning began.
Paul was appalled by the violence with which the muscular overseer laid on the cuts. She took two brisk steps forward before laying on each stroke, using the full force of her sweeping arm on each occasion. The wretched girl’s screams echoed round the chamber and her bottom squirmed violently as weal after weal was raised. Still, refl
ected Paul, by Bel Air standards, her punishment was relatively mild. He hoped he got off as lightly anyway.
It soon became apparent he was to be last . . . so had the added ordeal of watching and waiting. The strokes awarded varied between ten and fifteen . . . though one of the tens was laid on with the heavy cane. It was a thick as a middle finger, yet just as supple as the medium rod.
At last Paul’s turn came and he felt sick at heart. Miss Mandy regarded him icily as Delia detailed his faults, making them sound far worse than they were. One could almost have imagined he had been constantly slacking for the last six days!
“She looks big and strong,” said Miss Mandy. “There should be plenty of work in her. I can’t understand it.”
“Just laziness I guess, “said Delia, putting the knife in.
“You think so?” queried Miss Mandy sharply.
Delia simply nodded. Oh God, thought Paul, how could it possibly be said that he was LAZY! Like all the others, he had been sweating his guts out. It was typical of Bel Air ‘justice’ . . . from which there was no appeal.
“I can’t abide laziness,” said Miss Mandy coldly, “especially when it appears to be persistent.”
Paul felt the hair on the nape of his neck beginning to rise. His fault was being made to appear far worse than it was. For some deliberate purpose. And if his fault were worse so would be his punishment. He bit his lips in an effort to stop them trembling. Since he had been made to look like a woman . . . and had been filled regularly with female hormones . . . he had certainly come to react and behave much more like a woman. He both trembled and wept easily. Gradually the last traces of manhood were being taken from him. The bitterness of that was like iron in his soul. Paul felt the tears begin to prick the back of his eyes as he wallowed in self-pity.
“Give her twenty, with the heavy rod,” ordered Miss Mandy.
Paul shuddered. He had already seen the ridged weal that that rod produced across the flesh. The girl who had received it was still sobbing louder than the rest. And she had only received ten.
“I’ll give them to her,” said Delia.
Miss Mandy nodded her approval . . . and Paul saw the look of smug cruelty on the luscious blonde’s features. This woman, he thought, had already given me more pain than any other. More even than his actual mistress, Gloria van Meer.
“Put her on the block,” said Delia in that dispassionate way of hers.
Two of the overseers took Paul’s arms in a vice like grip. Anyone would have imagined he was actually going to attempt to escape his fate! One of the women also took him by a hank of hair as she forced him to his knees before the block.
“You’ll learn not to be lazy her, my girl,” she said. Like all the others . . . except Miss Mandy, Delia and his mistress, they were all unaware that Paul was not a girl. The transformation was now virtually undetectable, especially as his breasts had matured considerably.
Gripped still, Paul was forced curving over the block, his buttocks up thrusting by reason of the curved hump at the rear. Dread was like ice in his stomach. Used as he was to pain, he was aware this was going to be beyond the normal.
Turning his head a little to one side, he was aware of Delia standing alongside the block. Her long legs were a little astride; one toe of a high-heeled boot tapping lightly on the floor. In her strong fingers the heavy rod was being flexed back and forth. Oh Christ, thought Paul, how she loves doing this! Had she not told him so often enough? The woman was a sadist through and through . . . not simply an administrator in the slave camp.
The heavy leather straps went about him. Two to secure his wrists, two to pinion his lower limbs; and one even broader strap to secure his waist flat to the block. The latter was drawn excruciatingly tight, crushing him down. No one could have felt more helpless. Paul felt the shivering quake of his nates as the seconds dragged by.
Then Delia moved and he clenched his teeth desperately.
“You, Pauline, will put your back into it in future,” he heard her say.
Then the rod whistled down . . . and flame of agony blazed across his rump. Deep . . . deep . . . searing deep . . . making his writhe convulsively as the howl of torment escaped from his throat. Even the strongest of men would not have been able to endure such pain in silence . . . and he, Paul, had been emasculated. The thought of twenty such strokes like that was well-nigh unendurable, but he was well aware he would receive every one of them and that every one of them would be laid on with all the force of Delia’s command.
Delia continued to lay on the whistling rod at five second intervals . . . and Paul’s howls grew louder and his writhings more convulsive.
After five strokes Delia moved from the left hand side of him to the right and continued to lay on the strokes in the same measured way. Even over his own cries, he could hear the grunts of effort as she whip-lashed the rod down with all her might.
“Merc . . . eeee!” Paul heard himself crying out in a high-pitched, feminine-sounding voice. “Merceee . . . eeee!”
Of course, he knew in his heart he would receive none. It was just an involuntary shriek from the depths of his pain-racked being.
After ten strokes Delia changed her position to the other side again. The torment grew worse as one weal began to overlay another. Thrashed as he had been often enough before, Paul could not remember a worse one. The weight of the rod plus Delia’s strength and venom, all conspired to produce the peaks of pain.
Eleven . . .
Twelve . . .
It was unendurable . . . yet HAD to be endured!
“Ahhhh . . . merceee . . . merceee . . . aaaiieeee!”
Thirteen . . .
Fourteen . . .
No more . . . ah no more . . . he could endure no more! Flesh and blood must have their limits!
Sssssswwwwee . . . eeeppptttt!
The fifteenth stroke contorted Paul as all the rest and, once more.
Delia changed the direction of her attack. With the same measured, remorseless cruelty, she caned Paul to the end . . . and the sweat was beading her brow and between the cleft of her heaving breasts when she had finished. It was very evident that she had put everything into it. Miss Mandy gave her a nod of approval.
“That should encourage her to a little extra effort,” she said.
“I reckon so,” agreed Delia, regarding Paul’s still juddering buttocks with satisfaction. They were covered in a mass of red and purple weals . . . weals that lacerated the flesh into distinct ridges . . . each one a living torment in itself. And Paul had twenty such to agonise him. He lay there sobbing unashamedly. Once again he had been completely broken. Once it had shamed him. Now he no longer cared.
Was he not but a weak woman?
His legs were like rubber when they took him off the block and he could not stand properly. Two of the overseers had to hold him . . . and then he was half dragged and carried from the Punishment Room. Chained back in his cell, crushed between other naked slaves, surrounded in fact by helpless female flesh, he sobbed himself to sleep. He realised that even his once fierce desire for that female flesh was fast fading. But perhaps that was a blessing in disguise!
*****
Paul continued to work on the new slave encampment for a further fortnight . . . and continued to receive his fair share of punishment. If not more than his fair share. However he was fortunate enough to escape a return visit to the Punishment Room.
By the end of that fortnight, the camp was completed and Gloria van Meer came to inspect it. Paul felt himself quivering at the very sight of this magnificent woman . . . the woman who owned him body and soul . . . and who had brought him to this pass. Linked by chains about the neck the naked slaves stood in a line while Gloria passed along in front of them, on a kind of tour of inspection. All the same, she didn’t actually deign to look at the slaves who had toiled the
mselves into the ground on her behalf. Paul’s heart beat faster as she approached his position. She surely would look at him. He was HER slave, after all!
But Gloria passed him by in icy indifference, as she did all the rest. The gall was biting in Paul’s throat. Tears actually came to his eyes. He had become just part of the mass of slaves. No longer was he HERS.
It was, perhaps, the unkindest cut of all!
*****
ENVOI
Paul didn’t mind being Pauline anymore.
He’d got used to it.
Of course, one had to accept the fact that the repeated hormone injections made all the difference. Every day a bit more of the female was pumped into him, gradually overwhelming his previous masculinity. Before long, it was not necessary to shave him anymore; his flesh took on the smoothness of that of a woman. His curves increased, his breasts developed.
On day, holding them gently in his palms, he felt almost proud of them.
Truly, I am now Pauline rather than Paul, he reflected. And does it matter all that much? So long as I can serve my divine Mistress Gloria?
How good and kind she is to me now. . .
So long as I serve her absolutely, of course!
Truly there is nothing I would not do for her. . .
And she knows it!
Admittedly, she punishes me from time to time. . .
But then, I know I deserve it!
What a servile joy it was to lie between his Mistress’s smooth thighs and please her with his mouth and tongue, as she wished! What a remarkable lesbian-type relationship had developed between them!
I AM HER SLAVE. . .
FOR EVER AND EVER. . .
Paul told himself that every day that he awoke. The idea of that sent a throbbing-thrill of pleasure through his being. It was a quivering of pure masochistic joy.