Church of Chains

by Sean O'Kane

  He took a sadistic delight in taking Paula higher than the others. He reached further round under her belly and pushed his fingers up into her as well as rubbing at her helplessly swelling clitoris. He kept on until she was good and moist, her face pressed against the stone and her eyes closed to concentrate on what pleasure she could get from this teasing.

  Suddenly she felt him put his lips close to her ear and whisper. “You’re reckoned to be the hottest one we’ve got my lovely. So don’t go thinking it’s all over once you’re a novice.” He pulled the chain tight between her rings and moved on.

  She managed to stifle the groan of disappointment which welled up in her throat as he pulled his fingers out of her and thought instead about the implied threat in his words. She didn’t expect it to be ‘all over’ once she was a novice. She would have been desolate if she thought it was. If she had been allowed to speak she would have told him that she welcomed any further challenge.

  When the chain had been fed along the line their hips were pulled tight against the wall. But then the same brother came back and clipped the short chains which hung in front of them to their nipple rings. As each chain had a clip at both ends he was able to adjust them, by looping one end over the ring and then fastening the clip to the right link, to ensure that each girl’s breasts were pulled up and held fast. Paula now found that she had to turn her head to one side to press it as close as she could to the wall, and even then there was a constant and uncomfortable tug on her nipples.

  The men stood back and admired the view. And Paula could imagine that ten naked females, legs apart, kneeling submissively and held by their slave rings must have made a fine one. However, as always there was a finishing touch to be added. A metal bar was passed behind all of them and this was fed through the rings on their wrist restraints. Once in place it was lifted a little and pulled back to be slotted into two posts which were mounted in the floor at either end of the line. There was a chorus of agonised groans as all the girls felt their arms painfully wrenched up behind them and held by the bar. It also had the effect of making them press their faces even harder against the unyielding stone to try and alleviate the discomfort.

  “Very pretty,” the brother in charge said finally. “If you ladies wouldn’t mind waiting here a while, someone will be along shortly. Or maybe not so shortly,” he laughed and they heard the men leave, closing the door behind them.

  There was silence apart from the occasional whimper. Paula was sure that all the men had left and there was a terrible temptation to talk in whispers and try to guess what was in store for them. But until they were novices, any talking was forbidden. It must be a kind of test she decided. Obviously her companions had decided the same because the silence continued unbroken for what seemed like hours. The pressure on their shoulders, the ache in their backs and the pull on their breasts became worse and worse. The groans and cries became nearly constant. But still no-one dared speak.

  At last they heard a door open again and footsteps approach. A shadow loomed over them and Paula could see that it was Father Burton.

  “Well done,” he said simply. “Release their arms and we will proceed with the rest of the tests.”

  With sighs of relief they felt the bar lifted down and then pulled out from between their wrists. They had passed the first test.

  Two girls from the end of the line on Paula’s right were released. Their wrists were also freed and they stood up and began to rub their shoulders and flex their arms. The brother who had whispered to Paula was now in attendance and he allowed them a few moments before taking them through a door which Father Burton had passed through while they were being released. The rest of them were left alone, but they were too pleased at having passed the first test to jeopardise everything by talking now.

  Paula and the girl on her left were the third pair to be taken. They went through the door and found themselves in a sumptuous office. The carpet was deep and their bare feet sank deliciously into it. At the far end of the room, under a large window was a desk, and behind this sat Father Burton. He beckoned them over and the brother who was standing behind them, put a hand in the small of their backs and pushed. They approached nervously and stood uncertainly before him.

  “First you will repeat the vows that Brother Davis has taught you,” Father Burton told them abruptly.

  Haltingly to begin with they started repeating the vows which had been hammered into them after morning prayers, day after day. “I vow to serve the Church of Ultimate Purification with my body and my soul. I vow obedience to the rules laid down by the Patriarch and I vow obedience to all who act in his name...” They vowed to repay the church for their redemption by working in any way they could to its betterment. Above all they acknowledged that they were subservient to their masters and that complete obedience was the most important way in which they could serve.

  When they had finished Father Burton said he was satisfied that they had learned their words adequately and that aspects of their vows would be tested in due course. For the moment they would be taught the correct way to make them.

  “Now you have the chance to begin to serve, you must learn that more will be expected of you. You will have seen and maybe begun to learn that when you stand in front of me or any other person who the church has put in authority over you, you will stand with your legs apart, your hands behind your backs and you will look down. Failure to do this from now will be a punishable offence. Do it.”

  They did as they were told, and were then informed that Sister Lavinia and Sister Helen would be attending to their deportment in future. “The way a woman holds herself, the way she stands and moves is every bit as important in pleasing her master as any other of her actions,” Father Burton told them.

  He went on to tell them that on the command ‘drop’ they were to get onto all fours immediately. On the command ‘kneel’ they were to kneel back on their haunches, part their thighs and again place their hands behind their backs. Finally they were told that if the command ‘Open’ was given them, they were to stand with their legs wide open and their hands clasped behind their heads with their elbows pulled back level with their shoulders. As soon as they adopted this position Paula realised that the command meant exactly what it said. They would be open to anyone to examine any part of their bodies.

  They were tested on these commands until Father Burton was satisfied and then in the respectful stance they had been taught they repeated their vows. They had hardly finished when there was a knock at the door. Telling Paula and her companion to remain as they were, the brother opened the door and one of the initiates came in. She held a sheaf of papers and went straight to Father Burton, and stood beside his chair. “They require your signature Father,” she explained.

  He spread the papers and began to scan them. Paula managed to raise her eyes enough to watch and was amazed to see that quite casually the hand that wasn’t busy went straight between the girl’s legs. She was standing in the same posture Paula was and she saw how easy it was for him to get up under the short dress. His long fingers stroked at the insides of her firm thighs for a moment before going farther up. She saw the girl’s body make a subtle shift and she guessed she was accommodating the fingers in her sex. When he had finished the paperwork he looked up and told the girl to drop, then he waved Paula and her companion away. The brother guided them to a door on the other side of the desk, and as they left Paula caught a glimpse of Father Burton swivelling his chair to face the girl. However she had no time to wonder what she would be commanded to do for the Father because in the next room Brother Davis was waiting for them.

  He was dressed in a full robe like the Father and it bore the same red X, but his was brown. He stood beside an arrangement of metal bars fixed into wooden posts. In his hand he held a long cane.

  “You have two more tests to pass. Here your willingness to suffer pain for the Church will be tested. In addition your obedience will again be tested.”

  Paula listened in dism
ay as the nature of the test was outlined. Each of them would take two strokes at a time while they were bent over the bars. The one who wasn’t being caned would be made to stand just behind the one who was. In that way she would be able to see exactly what punishment was coming her way. They would not be tied, they would not be told how many strokes they were to receive and each order to bend over would only be given once. Paula glanced at her companion and saw her swallow nervously.

  “This beating is given solely for your instruction in total obedience. It is neither for your punishment nor my pleasure. Number Three, I will start with you. Bend over.”

  Paula braced herself, but the idea of refusing never even entered her head. She bent over the first bar which was at waist height and then reached forward for the second bar. This was set slightly higher and far enough away from the first to make her stretch forward. She didn’t need to be told to open her legs. She spread her grip on the second bar to brace herself better. Although she didn’t have to bend right over and grasp her ankles, she was well stretched and knew her buttocks were nicely taut.

  Brother Davis gave her no warning. There was the briefest of whirring noises behind her and a Thwack! immediately after. Paula had thought that she had experienced everything that could be inflicted on her. She had been on the receiving end of the crop, the horsewhip and a variety of lesser whips and straps. And as she had settled herself she had thought that a caning couldn’t be all that much worse; if at all.

  But the very first stroke drove the breath out of her and left her gulping stupidly, her eyes staring ahead of her in disbelief. As she drew in her breath again the second stroke landed and she shrieked with all her might. So concentratedly did the thin shaft deliver its pain that for a second there was a delay and then the full force of it arrived. And went on growing. Even as Paula dazedly straightened up she was swallowing and gulping for air as pain raged through her body.

  She tottered away from the bars but stopped on Brother Davis’s command. The other girl, looking very pale was lowering herself now. She had seen what just two lashes had done to Paula. But Paula was now to watch, and know what was going to be unleashed on her in just a few seconds. She wiped a tear from her eye and obediently fastened her gaze on the tight curves of the buttocks in front of her.

  She bit her lip and winced as the cane whipped in with wicked relish, seeming to bury itself in the soft skin. Paula saw ripples run through the flesh and immediately a far more livid line than the crop left was traced across her bottom. The girl jerked and gave a breathless sob before the second lash came in and she too shrieked.

  In a haze of terror Paula could once again only marvel at the Church’s ability to concoct exquisite tortures. To take six and get it over with was one thing, but to have an unknown number of strokes delivered so slowly, and to see how she herself would look as she suffered was quite another. But it was this very ability to create slaves and then make them submit, time and again to worse and worse tortures that made Paula embrace her slavery.

  She didn’t wait for the command to bend over. However reluctant her body was, she knew she didn’t want to do anything else.

  Thwack! Once again there was that second’s numbness before the line of fire blazed fully, but this time she managed to clench her teeth over the scream that rose in her throat.

  Thwack! There was no restraining the scream this time. It blasted out of her and she felt herself wriggling frantically to try and diffuse the full agony.

  She couldn’t help clasping her hands over the four incandescent lines on her bottom as she watched the other girl scream and writhe her way through another two.

  Wiping away the tears which the savage stinging was forcing from her eyes she came forward for her next two and stole a glance at Brother Davis as she did. He was casually flexing the cane and waiting for her with no particular expression on his face. “Bend over,” he told her with complete authority in his voice. And once again that feeling she loved, the feeling of being helpless, of being nothing came over her. It didn’t lessen the pain of the fifth and sixth strokes but it turned it into the breathtaking excitement she was becoming familiar with whenever she was whipped. And the fact that it was Brother Davis helped her moisten and melt even as she screamed in delicious pain and jigged up and down frantically to try and absorb the savage heat. She hoped he could see how wet and open her shamelessly exposed lips were before she stood up.

  When the caning had started she had nurtured some hope that six would be all they were going to get. But now she didn’t care, it was nothing to do with her. She was simply there to have inflicted on her anything they chose to inflict, this thought made her want to plunge her hand straight between her legs and masturbate while she watched the other girl being beaten. Controlling that urge wasn’t helped by seeing how seductively the girl’s hips swayed and how the buttock flesh trembled at each lash, and like Paula her lips were so open the glistening pink flesh within was clearly visible. In fact it even came as a relief to be ordered to go down again when the other girl had had her six. And this time Paula didn’t hurry, she settled her grip firmly on the bar, shook her hair back proudly and arched her back so that her buttocks were better offered for beating.

  Brother Davis saved the best for last and sadistically laid the last two lashes across the tops of their thighs. This time the pain was so acute as the thin whippy shaft cracked across her sex lips that Paula thought she would faint from the exquisite blend of absolute agony and piercing joy. It seemed as if fires were being lit right inside her and she arched her back even more and froze in a kind of spasm that imitated orgasm but was only its precursor on this occasion.

  Thwack! The last lash came and Paula heard herself let out an animal wail as the pain climbed to regions where it went beyond a physical sensation and became her whole being, every nerve ending in her body seemed to burst into flame and she came with an intensity that left her bucking and twitching on the bars for several minutes before she could stand. Brother Davis gave her the merest hint of a smile as she straightened up and turned around. Paula’s heart sang.

  But still she danced on her toes and rubbed at the ridges of fire while the last two lashes were delivered to the other girl. She too arched, froze and screamed at the end when the pain and her willing submission to it carried her to a blinding climax. And then it was over.

  The girls looked at each other, both rubbing and both jigging but neither with a trace of self-pity for having suffered for no reason other than that they had been told to. And they were both filled with the same pride and pleasure. Brother Davis smiled openly for the first time ever.

  “There are bowls of cold water and flannels in the corner. You can use them before your final test,” he said.

  The relief was delicious and they took it in turns to dab the flannels gently on each other’s welts. Paula was filled with admiration for her companion’s slender hips and tight buttocks; she herself was more fully built. She knelt behind her and spent a long time pressing the cloth to the livid lines. And when she stood back she had to admit that the marks suited her. She would please any man looking like that. And as she bent forward to allow the girl to do the same for her she saw the brother who had brought them in shift his stance a little to accommodate the straining bulge in his trousers. She would have loved to have been ordered to her knees in front of him. But they had other ideas.

  Chapter 14

  In a passage at the back of the house, which was far less grand than where they had been, they were stopped outside two doors. The brother who had taken them from the caning room addressed them.

  “In each of these rooms is a man. They are men the Church will redeem in due course and by methods which needn’t concern you. All you need know is that you are required to please them. They can do whatever they want with you for the next hour. They have been in prison for some years and have only been released today. Do you understand?”

  It was only their relentless training which allowed them to stammer
out, “Yes Master,” as his words sank in.

  The brother nodded, opened a door and shoved Paula in. Before she could recover, she heard a key turn in the lock.

  Again her training came to the rescue and she adopted the respectful stance she had been taught.

  But her thoughts whirled.

  An ex-con? She was supposed to submit to someone she might have helped put away in the first place? She was caught in a bizarre role reversal. The ex-cop becoming the prisoner of the ex-con.

  What would a man who had been in prison do to her? And he could do anything he liked. She was aware that she was sweating with fear, but one thought came to mind and calmed her. She wasn’t really serving this man at all. She was serving the Church. She was nothing except what the Church wanted her to be.

  They were testing her and she wanted to be tested. That was all that need concern her, obey and serve. She looked up a little and her courage nearly failed her.

  She was in a bedroom. There was a four-poster bed in the middle. Over against the far wall was a dressing table and beside it was a doorway to an ensuite bathroom. She took all this in at a glance but then focused on the man who was lying on the bed.

  He was gross, squat and heavily built. He was stripped to the waist and his stomach rose in a pallid mound covered in hair. As she looked at him he rose on one elbow and returned her stare. She noted that despite the fat his chest was broad and powerful, but his face was a network of scars. He took a long pull on the cigarette he was smoking before grinding it out in the ashtray beside his bed and then he sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed.