by G. C. Scott
Richard nodded, glancing around the smaller room that adjoined Hannelore’s office. It was lined on three sides with tall filing cabinets. On the fourth side, near the door, was the console with video monitors that obviously served the closed-circuit security cameras. Richard saw the view outside the main entrance. Several cameras presented a constantly shifting picture from the main lobby and the public spaces. Other screens showed the vault and the secure rooms with their rows of locked boxes. Richard guessed that the cash he had delivered was in one of them. There were pictures of the inside of several offices, some occupied and some not.
There were several blank screens. Richard moved to the console and studied the controls. There were switches which controlled the operation of each camera, and small joysticks which were used to pan and zoom individual cameras. It was all very neat, each control labelled and the entire console clean and new.
‘Gretchen,’ Richard said, ‘do you know how to operate this equipment?’
‘What?’ Gretchen looked up. ‘Oh, you mean the video surveillance cameras. Yes. Madame sometimes likes to look at the different operations, and I operate the system as she directs. It is very sophisticated. For instance, we can video any area of the building and store it on tape. In fact, that is the normal practice, since no one can monitor all the cameras. The tapes are stored and later one of the security guards will view them at random in case something was missed.’
‘What are these blank screens for?’ Richard asked.
‘Two of them are spare: if one or more of the operating cameras goes down, we can switch to them. And two are used to scan Madame’s office during the hours she is away, in case anyone decides to break into the confidential files she keeps here. Those two cameras are not wired into the security guards’ console. The tapes are kept here so that Madame or I can review them. Sometimes she tapes interviews with prospective clients. She does that with all of the couriers who operate the cash delivery system with Margaret Wagner. I would guess that you were videoed when you made your delivery. The tape would be here somewhere.’
Richard remembered the striptease Hannelore had forced them to do, and suddenly he knew how he would break away from Hannelore. And how he would ensure that she would never try to track him down or bother him again. That was an important consideration. People with as much money as Hannelore were never good to have as enemies unless one had some way to keep them from exercising their power. Richard knew that Hannelore would not appreciate him leaving, and would be inclined to cause trouble for him or Helena or Ingrid – or all three.
But he said nothing of all this to Gretchen. They filed the documents for the most part in silence, Richard doing the ones in the lower drawers that Gretchen would have found uncomfortable in her saddle strap. They worked undisturbed until lunch time.
Hannelore summoned them both into her office. She had disposed of most of the correspondence from the previous day and was looking carnivorous when Gretchen and Richard emerged from the file storage room. Richard noticed the riding crop lying on her desk at the same time as Gretchen did. He heard her low gasp as she saw the lash. At the same time Richard felt a sharp thrill in his belly and cock as he imagined what was going to happen.
‘Take off your clothes, Gretchen,’ she ordered.
Richard was taken by surprise. He had not expected the moment to come so soon. It looked as if the afternoon’s activity would be just what he needed. Gretchen began at once to strip. Richard had to act quickly. He cast about for an excuse to get back to the file room and activate the cameras in Hannelore’s office. The only thing he could think of on the spur of the moment was the old schoolboy trick. Suddenly he had to go to the toilet. Hannelore impatiently waved him away. Her attention was mainly on Gretchen, watching as the young woman undid the buttons of her blouse.
Once inside the file room, Richard quickly switched on the cameras in Hannelore’s office. As they warmed up, he sought fresh tape cartridges for them, and fed them into the slots with hands that shook from his need to hurry. The blank screens turned from black to grey, flickered, and steadied down into two views of the outer office. One camera was aimed too high. Richard corrected that with the joystick, then set both to automatic scan. As he watched Gretchen unhooking her brassiere, he noticed that the cameras were set so that one scanned the desk area while the other panned around the room. That might miss some of the action, but it would have to do. He hurried back to Hannelore’s office.
Gretchen was standing before Hannelore, naked except for her tights and saddle strap. Hannelore bent down to unlock Gretchen’s leg-irons. The young woman then peeled her tights down her legs. She blushed pinkly when she heard Richard’s step behind her, but Hannelore held her gaze and silently commanded her to continue.
The leather strap between Gretchen’s legs was slightly damp. Richard guessed that she was already wet and excited. The strap would of course have parted her long since. Gretchen’s hand strayed to her mons veneris, where she rubbed the strap against her body, rotating her hips slightly.
‘It seems our little Gretchen is already excited, does it not?’ Hannelore smiled mockingly as Gretchen’s blush deepened. Gretchen snatched her hand away as if the strap had burnt her, and then didn’t know where to put it.
‘Gretchen,’ Hannelore said, ‘put these handcuffs on Richard. It wouldn’t do if he interfered, would it?’
As before, Richard stood quietly while his hands were cuffed behind his back.
Hannelore picked up the riding crop. Gretchen’s eyes followed her hand as she raised it and beckoned Gretchen close to the desk. ‘Bend over,’ she commanded the young woman. ‘You know what we are going to do.’
Gretchen bent over the desk, placing her hands flat on the top. She never took her eyes from the whip. Hannelore moved beside her and tapped her knees with the shaft of the whip. Gretchen moved her feet further from the desk until her bottom was fully exposed.
Richard admired the taut muscles in her long legs as she presented herself for punishment. But Hannelore was not yet satisfied. She tapped Gretchen’s legs again, between the thighs, indicating she was to spread them apart. When Richard looked this time, he fancied he could see the pink rosebud of her arsehole. Gretchen’s cunt lips were fully exposed at the apex of her thighs as she held her bottom up in the air. The strap was dark with her juices where it passed between her labia. She was breathing heavily, and Richard could see that her nipples were taut and crinkly. Gretchen moved her hips, rubbing against the strap so that it pressed deeply between her lips. The strap must have been tight against her clitoris, for she caught her breath on a gasp as she moved.
Hannelore touched Gretchen with her hand, rubbing her labia and passing inside her cunt. She took her time, observing Gretchen’s reaction to the intimate touch. ‘She’s wet,’ Hannelore said, as she withdrew her fingers and wiped them on Gretchen’s thigh.
The young woman moaned softly. ‘Please, go on. I am ready.’
‘Should I go on?’ Hannelore asked Richard. ‘It is such fun to make her wait. When she is really desperate, she will beg me to strike her, punish her, do anything to her. Would you like to see that?’
The question was purely rhetorical. Hannelore could clearly see the lump Richard’s cock made as it strained against the tape and the constricting corselet. She moved closer to him and touched him with the whip. Richard gave a surprised grunt and jerked his hips at the touch.
Hannelore smiled mockingly at him. ‘It looks as if you are excited too. It will be great fun having the two of you straining at the lead.’ She turned back to Gretchen, leaving Richard to his own devices.
Two of those devices, he could see, were working well enough. The red lights on the two security cameras were lit, and they were steadily recording everything in the room. He hoped that Hannelore Bern would be too busy to notice them. If his own excitement was any indication, things should be all right.
Hannelore stroked Gretchen’s quivering thighs with the crop, pausing every now
and then to give her a light smack, teasing her with a foretaste of what was to come. Gretchen’s head hung down between her outstretched arms. She was breathing heavily now, great shuddery breaths. Her eyes were tightly closed, and she was apparently concentrating all her attention on the whip drawing lazy patterns on her body. The saddle strap was pulled tightly into her crotch by her posture, and she was thrusting slowly and steadily with her hips against it. Richard knew she was rubbing her clitoris against the strap, and he wondered what that must feel like. Obviously Gretchen found it exciting. She was moaning softly as she moved.
Abruptly, Hannelore raised the crop and brought it down on her bottom with a sharp crack. Gretchen cried out, more from surprise than pain. She jumped forward, then resumed her pose as Hannelore let the whip trail lazily down the backs of her thighs and over the red weal across her bottom. Another sharp crack, another surprised yip from Gretchen. This time the crop landed across her thighs, just below her arse cheeks. Hannelore resumed the teasing. Gretchen’s face was now red as she tried to contain her excitement. She lowered herself towards the desk top, raising her bottom more invitingly to the whip.
‘You can see how our little Gretchen loves the whip. She would do this every day if I allowed her. I have to ration her strictly so that she continues to enjoy it. Neither of us would like it if she became too accustomed to pleasure.’ Hannelore spoke without breaking the rhythm of teasing and lashing Gretchen.
To Richard, this sounded very close to what Gretchen had said about Gertrude. Hannelore Bern’s sadism consisted partly in denying the two women what they wanted. But now Gretchen was getting what she craved.
Her bottom and the backs of her thighs were crisscrossed with bright red stripes. Hannelore was teasing her now only by letting the crop trail over her cunt and arsehole before resuming the lashing of the rest of her exposed rear. She was squirming and thrusting with her bottom and hips, as if seeking the lash. Her moans of pleasure were almost continuous now, broken mainly when the crop struck her, and then resumed when she had regained the breath that had been driven from her by the blow. Her head now rested on her forearms on the desk top, and her bottom was thrust high to offer the best target. Her legs were braced apart and her muscles taut under the satin of her flesh.
Hannelore broke off the whipping long enough to unlock the saddle strap. She unbuckled it and helped Gretchen to shrug out of it. It fell to the floor at her feet, and her cunt and arsehole were now fully exposed. Hannelore used the handle of the crop to tease her arsehole open. Then she pushed it inside, so that the whip stood up like the tail of a cartoon dog. Gretchen rolled her hips as it went in, and then her eyes opened in surprise as her orgasm took her. She gasped and moaned, shuddering as the waves of pleasure swept through her.
Richard remembered how Helena had responded to pain, and thought he knew how Gretchen must now be feeling as she bucked and heaved.
Hannelore grasped the whip protruding from Gretchen’s arsehole and began to move it in and out. The pink hole stretched outward and inward as it was pulled out and then thrust back in. Richard, and the cameras, watched as Gretchen cried out and came, heaving herself backward and forward in time with the movement of the plug inside her. Bent over as she was, her cunt lips were fully exposed. Her pubic hair was damp with her sweat and with her juices. The smell of her musk was strong in the room. She looked as if she would never stop coming. Hannelore reached between her outspread thighs and rubbed Gretchen’s clitoris with her free hand. The young woman cried out again as another orgasm swept through her. She thrust wildly with her hips and rubbed herself hard against Hannelore’s finger.
Suddenly Hannelore plucked the whip out.
Gretchen shrieked, ‘No, please, leave it in!’
Hannelore instead brought the whip up between her legs, striking her squarely on her exposed clitoris. Gretchen screamed, in ecstasy as far as Richard could tell, and presented her cunt again to the whip. It struck her again and again, on the insides of the thighs, on her arsehole, on her cunt, until Gretchen was once more screaming with pleasure and gasping for breath. She was covered with her own sweat and her body was shaking, but she was oblivious to everything except the eruptions in her belly and between her straining thighs. The whip rose and fell and the young woman cried out for what seemed an eternity.
Richard watched, his cock stiff with excitement. He would have gladly buried it in Gretchen’s abused cunt – or her arsehole – if they had been alone, and if his hands had been free. As it was, he knew that Hannelore would object. At least. And he wanted to stay out of camera range while she had the stage all to herself. It would be easier for him if he were not on tape.
When it was all over, Gretchen was quivering from her climaxes. Hannelore was glowing pleasantly, a thin sheen of sweat covering her face and neck. She was panting gently, her breasts rising and falling in time. Even though she was still wearing her jacket, Richard could see that her nipples were taut. He suspected that, if he could put his hand on her cunt, it would be wet. For a moment he regretted that he couldn’t. It would be interesting to see how Hannelore Bern would react when faced with a stiff cock.
Hannelore laid the crop on the desk and told Gretchen to go to the bathroom and clean herself up. Turning to Richard, she asked, ‘Did you enjoy that?’
‘Not as much as Gretchen did,’ he replied.
‘Yes, she really enjoys the whip. Do you?’
‘Not particularly,’ Richard replied. ‘It’s all right when used as an occasional variation.’
‘Well, maybe you will change your mind while you are with me.’
Richard said nothing. He hoped again that no one would notice the cameras in operation. Gretchen came back looking more composed and began putting her clothes on. While she did so, Hannelore removed Richard’s handcuffs. When Gretchen was dressed again, she ordered them back to work. Gretchen was sent out to collect some letters that needed signing.
To his relief, Richard was ordered back to the file room. He quickly shut down the cameras and removed the tape cassettes from them. These he hid in his handbag, inserting fresh blank tapes and removing all traces of the recording which, he hoped, would be the means of getting free of Hannelore Bern. Nothing else interrupted the afternoon routine, and they were driven back to Hannelore’s estate at the end of the day.
Gertrude, still wearing her leg-irons, met them at the door. She wanted to know what time Madame would like her dinner. Hannelore gave her the key and told her to remove her leg-irons and Richard’s. After he was locked in his room, Hannelore said, she would be required at the main house. She smiled languorously at Gertrude, so that it was clear what she would be required for.
Gretchen had had her pleasure at the bank that afternoon. Gertrude was looking forward to hers this evening. Only Richard would be left out, it seemed. But he had to view the tapes and make plans for their use. That would be best done undisturbed. Therefore he went to his room without protest. He undressed and took a shower before sitting down with the video tapes.
The cameras had caught most of the action. Gretchen was in almost all of the footage, but was not identifiable because her face was hidden by her posture. Hannelore’s face was readily identifiable, and there was no mistaking her excitement as she plied the whip. Richard imagined she would lose a great deal of credibility and face if these images were to be seen by any of the men of high finance in the city’s banks. The trick now would be to devise a way of letting her know what leverage he had.
Clearly it would do no good to use the tapes while he was at the country estate. He had no allies there. Hannelore would simply order the security guards to confiscate them. And what she did thereafter would be most unpleasant. Richard imagined that anyone who seriously tried to cross her will or who threatened to make real trouble would be in for a very bad time. Such a person might even be in line for something permanent in the way of silencing. He did not really know Hannelore well, but she had to have a certain ruthlessness to have achieved her present
status. So, safety first.
Richard rewound the tapes and stowed them in his handbag. There was no place at the estate where he could safely leave them. They would have to accompany him everywhere.
Eleven
Sometime during the night, as it were subconsciously, a course of action suggested itself to Richard. The day of action would be partly decided by circumstances, but he had to be alert for the right occasion, ready to flee when the chance came. To that end, he packed his bag and left it in the wardrobe. He would live out of his suitcase for the time being. Then he got dressed for the day, taping his cock as usual and leading the chain on his balls carefully through the holes in the corselet and tights. He was dressed once more in the uniform of a female junior assistant, and was ready to leave when Gertrude unlocked the door and summoned him to breakfast. Today there were no leg-irons. Presumably Hannelore was satisfied that lessons had been learnt.
At the bank, Gretchen was employed as usual, fetching documents from the front office and filing them. Richard was given the task of filing and tidying in Hannelore’s office. He made the coffee when needed, and retired to the file room behind closed doors whenever a client came to call. Hannelore was no more willing for him to see her callers than Margaret had been. Richard began to think that there might be a shady side to the business. The amounts of cash involved were too great to be solely the proceeds of legitimate business. That sort of transaction was usually handled by cheques or electronic transfer. Illicit cash could not be handled that way. But there was nothing he could do about the situation, even if he had had any desire to interfere.
Richard took the opportunity to duplicate the video tapes while he was sequestered in the file room. He hid the duplicates as well as he could among the rest of the cassettes. At the same time, he used the cameras to watch the meetings in Hannelore Bern’s office. It might be useful to know something of what went on in case further persuasion were needed.