by G. C. Scott
Richard nodded, not wanting to provoke Margaret further by speaking. As he went over what she had said, he felt the stirring of excitement again. This was something he had never tried, and now he had got over the initial surprise, he found himself strangely eager to begin.
As if reading his thoughts, Margaret summoned the maid with a small silver bell. The same one who had brought the refreshments appeared a few moments later.
Margaret said, ‘Richard, I’d like to introduce you to your new colleague. His name is Raymond, but since he is French the final letter is silent.’ Addressing Raymond, Margaret directed him to take charge of Richard’s clothes, both those in the bag and the ones he was wearing, and to treat them ‘in the customary manner’. To Richard she said simply, ‘Strip and give your clothes to him.’
Richard looked at his colleague, and all at once he understood why the maid’s waist and legs, indeed ‘her’ whole figure and way of moving, seemed so strange. It was hard to believe that the person wearing the maid’s costume was male, but he didn’t doubt it now. He would have to learn to move and act as Raymond did. As he rose to take off his clothes, Richard remembered Margaret’s half-promise to answer his questions after she had finished explaining his new regime. There were a hundred questions he could have asked: everything was new about the fantasy he had fallen into. But he could think of only one clearly just then.
‘When will I see Helena?’ he asked.
‘When you have got through some training I may bring her to visit you. She will be due for more training herself, and I think she might enjoy seeing you in your new costume. You could show her how well you can walk in high-heeled shoes,’ Margaret replied.
Richard felt a flush of embarrassment at the idea of appearing before Helena in women’s clothing, but he never thought of backing out. In for a penny, he told himself. As he took off his clothes, he caught sight of a black cloth bag lying on the mantelpiece. That must be The Discipline which had been used on Helena. Once again there flashed into his mind the image of himself wielding the whip while she writhed and screamed under the lash. So vivid was the mental picture that his cock grew stiff, so that when he came to take his pants off he had to manoeuvre them around a full erection. The chain dangled down between his legs, and he was suddenly aware again of the nylon band around his scrotum. He had almost forgotten its presence during the ride from Hamburg and the conversation with his new mistress.
‘Look, Raymond,’ she said to the maid. ‘I think he likes us!’
Raymond said nothing as he took Richard’s clothing and folded it into the bag containing his possessions. Silently, obeying some rule of which Richard wasn’t aware, he extracted the small bag containing Richard’s toilet articles and laid it on the coffee table. From this Richard gathered that at least something would be left him.
Margaret looked on approvingly. ‘You will need your razor to shave your legs in a few days,’ she informed Richard. She gestured at the maid’s legs, and Richard noticed that they were as bare as a woman’s under the sheer black tights. Or were they stockings? What was the protocol about that here? He shrugged mentally. He would know soon enough.
At Margaret’s gesture of dismissal the maid withdrew, taking Richard’s clothes with him. She rang the bell once more and another maid came in. There was little doubt that this one was female. It would have been impossible to give a man that hourglass figure. Her movements were subtly different from Raymond’s: more natural, not so studied. And she smelt like a woman, with just a hint of perfume. Her voice was a pleasant contralto. He found it hard to place her accent. Dutch, maybe?
Trying, and failing, not to look at his erection, she asked what it was that ‘madame’ wished her to do.
Instead of replying, Margaret strode across the room to a low cabinet along the far wall. Bending down, and allowing Richard to see her legs all the way up to her bottom, she rummaged among the contents and selected a pair of handcuffs from the collection inside. Straightening up, she moved behind him. Richard didn’t need to be told what she intended. Wordlessly he brought his hands behind his back, and stood still as she locked the cuffs around his wrists. This tacit acceptance of whatever Margaret wished to do to him was yet more proof, if more were needed, of his complicity in his own transformation.
‘Take him to his room, and leave him chained in the usual way,’ she ordered the maid.
The girl picked up his shaving kit and took the chain attached to his scrotum like a lead. She tugged gently on it, and Richard followed her out of the room and down the hall towards the rear of the house. On the way they passed the maid who had come to the car. She was carrying two medium-sized suitcases into what appeared to be a dining room. At any rate there was a long table inside, and on the table were four more of the same kind of suitcase. The maid – Marie, Richard recalled – moved carefully lest she trip over her leg-irons, but she took time to smile briefly at Richard and his escort. Richard smiled tentatively back. His escort stopped before a set of lift doors. She pushed the button and waited until they opened. She led Richard inside by the chain. She pushed a button, and the lift went slowly downward. Apparently the house had a cellar, not visible from the outside.
When the doors opened, his escort tugged again on the chain, and once more Richard followed her down another hallway, this one lined with doors that gave it the appearance of a hotel corridor. The girl led him about halfway down the corridor before stopping in front of a door that stood open.
‘This is your room,’ she told him. Once inside she dropped the chain, and Richard felt it, cool against his leg. The girl faced him with her finger on her lips. She signalled for him to stand still while she made a circuit of the room. Richard followed her with his eyes as she checked the ensuite bath, the wardrobe (empty, of course), the bed, the television set and the stock of videos and paperback books with which the room was supplied. There were rugs on the floor, colourful islands in the stone sea. Reading lamps were arranged near the armchairs and over the bed. The room looked comfortable enough, even though it was windowless.
She came back to where he stood with a faint look of relief on her face. ‘I don’t think they’re listening to us now,’ she said, speaking softly nevertheless.
Apparently trainees were not supposed to speak to one another, although Richard couldn’t see why not. As with most places with strict regimes, there was an obsession with keeping the inmates from forming relationships with one another.
‘I’m Heidi,’ the girl told him.
‘Richard,’ he replied. ‘How long are you in for?’ he asked, thinking this was just the sort of conversation they would be having if they were in jail.
‘I’ve been here four months, with two more to go,’ she told him. ‘I’m supposed to be getting trained as a governess and housekeeper. Why are you here?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Richard said. ‘Call it curiosity.’
‘You came here of your own free will?’ Heidi asked.
‘Practically,’ Richard replied. Seeing the look of bewilderment on Heidi’s face, he added, ‘There was some coercion, but I suppose I could leave if I insisted.’
‘I don’t think so. None of us can leave without permission from the Mistress, or unless we are taken away by our employer. Even you would find it hard to get out, I think.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose that’s why they took away my clothes. But I think they would give them back and let me go if I made a fuss.’
Heidi looked dubious. ‘Then why have you been handcuffed?’
‘As you saw, I allowed Margaret to handcuff me. I could have refused.’
She still looked doubtful, but said only, ‘When I go, I am expected to leave you chained by your …’ She hesitated, as if groping for the polite word, before continuing, ‘your chain. To the ring there by the bed.’
She pointed to a heap of chain attached to a ring set into the stone floor near the foot of the bed. Richard also noticed other rings set into the walls and the ceiling. The room suddenly l
ooked less comfortable and more penal. He walked over to the bed to look more closely at the ring to which he was to be fastened.
There was a heavy padlock, open, waiting to be used. There was no key in evidence. ‘And what will happen if you don’t leave me chained as you were ordered?’ Richard asked the girl.
She looked startled, as if the thought of disobeying had just occurred to her. ‘I would be beaten, of course. They would be very angry with me.’
‘Have you been beaten before, then?’
‘Oh, often.’ Heidi shuddered as if the memory was painful.
‘Why?’ Richard wanted to know.
‘Once I dropped a stack of dishes and broke them. That was not very serious, and I only had twenty-five lashes. But when I spoke without permission, Madame was very angry. I cannot remember how many lashes I had that time, I lost count, but I hurt for days after. And several times just because I had not been beaten recently: to keep me in line, Madame said when I cried.’
‘So why don’t you run away?’ Richard asked. ‘You should be able to get outside and then just make for the woods.’
‘You don’t understand. You have just arrived, so you don’t know about the wall. It goes around the whole estate. We call it the Berlin Wall, and it is impossible to get over. It is electrified. And there are alarms, just like the ones they had in Berlin.’
‘Are there minefields and armed guards who shoot on sight?’ Richard asked half-jokingly.
‘Oh, no. No mines. Guards, yes, but they do not shoot. They just bring you back, and then you get a beating, and they make you wear leg-irons, like Marie. She tried to run away and they caught her. They made us all watch as she was whipped. And then they locked those chains on to her ankles. They are only removed when she has to dress and undress, and then only with one of the trainers in attendance. She has to sleep in her chains. I would not like that.’
Richard had a sudden thought. ‘Heidi, do you know Helena? Short, pretty face, dark hair, about twenty-four or twenty-five?’
Heidi nodded. ‘I have seen her come for visits to Madame. And once I watched as she was stripped and beaten. She seemed to like the beating.’ Heidi sounded puzzled at the idea.
‘Do you wear a chastity belt like hers?’
‘Oh, yes. All of the women do. I have got used to it. Now I hardly know it’s there.’
Heidi lifted her short skirt and Richard saw her belt resembled Helena’s. She wore stockings. Her legs were rather fuller, but very nicely shaped. Richard felt his erection growing as he looked at her.
Heidi let her skirt fall and looked at him shyly. Then she caught sight of his cock standing at attention, and she blushed down to the tops of her breasts. ‘Oh, I wish I were not wearing it now,’ she said. Nevertheless she came closer to him, her eyes fixed on his erect cock. She stroked it, shyly at first, and then, as if coming to a sudden decision, she knelt before him and took his cock into her mouth.
‘Heidi, you don’t have to …’ he began.
‘Shhhh. I want to. Please let me.’
As before, in Helena’s apartment, he could do nothing to stop her. And as before, he had no wish to do so. Her lips and tongue sliding along his cock, and the teeth that nipped him gently, made his blood pound in his ears. He felt himself sway on his feet, and Heidi steadied him while she continued to work on his cock. When he looked down he could see the top of her head, her long hair falling about her face and over his thighs in a heavy curtain. Once she moved back to reposition herself, and he could see her erect nipples through the satin bodice of her dress.
He wished that his hands were free, and that she were not locked into the chastity belt. He wished … Then what he wished ceased to matter as he came. Heidi swallowed and kept working her head back and forth until the spasms ended and he felt shaky on his feet.
She looked up at him with a smile. There wasn’t anything either of them could say. Heidi stood up slowly and faced Richard. Abruptly she put her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth. He could smell his own musk on her breath as she embraced him. It was a new experience to him. None of the girls he had known in England would have done what this stranger had done to him.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening in the corridor. Heidi jumped away as if stung. Hurriedly she picked up the chain with its padlock. Richard stood still as she approached him.
‘Please understand,’ Heidi said softly. ‘I have to do this or –’
‘You’ll be beaten,’ Richard finished for her. He looked at her for a moment and then nodded. Heidi looked immensely relieved. She looked at him for a moment longer and then looked down to fit the padlock through the ring on the chain that dangled from his balls. The lock closed with a heavy snap, and she let it fall between his legs. He felt the weight of the lock and the longer chain dragging at him. Not painfully, but definitely there.
‘I’ll just put your case in the bathroom,’ Heidi called a little too loudly as she moved away from him. She dropped the case in her haste and alarm. When she came back into the main room, she had herself just barely in control. She was frightened and trying to look normal.
‘Heidi,’ Richard said softly, ‘wipe your mouth and take a deep breath.’
She did as he directed, and looked at him once again with more composure. She even managed a shaky smile.
‘Who keeps the keys to my handcuffs, and to the lock and your own belt?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I have to go now.’
‘Try to find out,’ he told her as she disappeared. The door closed behind her with a heavy thump, and Richard saw that there was neither handle nor keyhole on the inside. He knew without further exploration that he was locked in. Since there was no immediate escape, he decided to make the best of things. The bed looked comfortable enough.
He woke from his doze at the sound of the door opening. This time it was an older woman, perhaps forty or forty-five years old, Richard estimated. She was still an attractive woman, one who had obviously taken pains to combat the signs of ageing. Her body was still firm, and she carried herself well. She was stylishly dressed, not in the ubiquitous maid’s uniform. He concluded that she was somewhat higher up the pecking order here than Heidi. As she came closer, he thought he detected the signs of cosmetic surgery in the firmness of her chin and the lack of wrinkles around the eyes and mouth.
‘You are Richard,’ she announced. She looked at him for a long moment before nodding her approval. ‘Margaret has asked me to take your measurements. Will you please stand?’
Richard got awkwardly to his feet. ‘Since you know who I am, might I not know who you are?’ he asked.
‘My name is not important,’ the woman replied.
‘It is to me,’ Richard retorted.
The woman shrugged and said, ‘Very well. I am Ingrid.’
‘And are you one of the trainers here?’ Richard asked her.
‘No. I own a small dressmaking and tailoring shop in the village. But I am often asked to make things for those here, at what we in the village call Schloss Margaret.’ Smiling at what she thought of as a small joke, Ingrid produced a tape measure, a small leather-bound notebook and a pencil from her handbag, which she laid on the bed. She looked once more at Richard, then said, ‘May I use your bathroom before we begin?’
She was already turning towards it as Richard said, ‘Of course.’ He continued to stand beside the bed as she left the room. When she returned, Ingrid smiled her thanks. Richard liked her. She was an outsider in what was, to him at least, a bizarre setting, and she was treating both it and him naturally, without embarrassment or awkwardness. He felt more at ease with her.
Ingrid held a key in her hand. ‘I am allowed to remove your handcuffs, Richard. Indeed, I must do so in order to measure you. I hope you will conduct yourself correctly.’ She unlocked the handcuffs and laid them on the bed beside her handbag.
‘And the other lock?’ Richard asked, indicating the one dangling between his legs. ‘Are you al
lowed to remove that as well?’
‘No. I am sorry. I was not given the key.’ And she did sound regretful. ‘Now, if you will just stand naturally, we will begin.’ Ingrid unrolled her tape and began to measure Richard: around the waist, around the chest, across the shoulders, sleeve length, height, everything in fact but his inside leg.
But her next measurement surprised him. Ingrid asked him to hold one end of the tape at his waist in front, while she stooped down and took the other end through between his legs. With her free hand she grasped his cock and held it upright against his belly while she took his measurement through the crotch and up to his waistline at the back. He felt himself growing stiff in her hand.
So did Ingrid. With a chuckle, she said, ‘Richard, you promised to behave correctly.’
‘And it’s incorrect to get an erection when an attractive woman is holding your cock?’ he retorted.
‘So you think I am attractive?’ Ingrid asked. ‘I am almost old enough to be your mother.’
‘And aren’t all healthy boys supposed to have a crush on their mothers? Freud said so.’
‘Do I remind you of your mother, then?’ Ingrid asked him.
Richard, who remembered his mother as a rather plain and very ordinary middle-aged woman, said, ‘No. She didn’t look anywhere near as good as you do. Nor have I ever wanted her as much as I do you.’
‘So. Gallantry too,’ Ingrid said, sounding pleased nevertheless. She stood up with a grunt and put away her tape. When she removed her hand, Richard’s cock returned to its normal position, and his erection was much more obvious. She looked at it for a long moment before saying, ‘Now he tries flattery. Enough already.’ But she was smiling. ‘Thank you for the compliment, for so I shall take it. But it will have to wait for another time. I have much to do today.’
‘So there will be another time?’ Richard asked quickly.
‘Perhaps. We shall have to wait and see.’ Ingrid gathered her things together and picked up the handcuffs from the bed.
Richard wondered if she had been instructed to re-apply them, but she was moving towards the door. There she paused to smile broadly back at him.