When he finally stopped the blows, Kate hung in her bonds, her legs weak and her flesh on fire, breathing raggedly and with sweat streaming down her shuddering nakedness.
“Right, I’m off outside for a smoke,” he said. “When I come back it’ll be with a switch for your backside.” His familiar stern frown was on his face as he looked at her. “You blink away those tears, little miss, and ask yourself if you want to behave in future or if you want to go through this again.”
He disappeared through the door behind her and she heard it close.
Kate already knew the answer to the question. Every heaving breath she took heightened the smart of her breasts. A glance down revealed they were fiery red and her nipples were swollen and throbbing. She very definitely did not want to experience anything like it again. Her belly tightened. Ross had just told her it was not yet over. He meant to treat her poor, defenceless bottom in the same way.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing as shallowly as she could, vainly trying to ease the painful pulling on her trapped flesh.
A tormenting minute or two passed very slowly. Kate heard the door open but it was the one in front of her, not the one behind. She opened her eyes. Her sharp intake of breath stoked the fires in her breasts as she stared horrified into Jefferson’s forbidding features.
Chapter 2
“What the hell’s going on here?”
“N… nothing, M… Master,” Kate stammered, quailing under his angry stare. There were some occasions when Ross frightened her and others when he did not, but she was terrified of Jefferson all of the time.
“Don’t lie to me,” he snarled. “Sergeant Ross wouldn’t put you there for nothing. What have you done?” He prodded the tip of the varnished bamboo cane he always carried into the plump swell at her lower belly.
Kate’s mind raced feverishly. “I don’t know. R… really I don’t.”
With a glimmer of hope she added, “He’s just outside. He can tell you, Master.”
The man eyed her reddened breasts, which were purpling now from lack of circulation under the bite of the wooden bars. “He doesn’t need to. If he’s done this, it must be something serious.” He walked a circle around her helplessly bound figure. “Ah, he’s stretching you, I see, but he hasn’t flogged you there yet.”
Kate’s heart leapt as Jefferson paused by the rack of punishment implements. He looked into her face and she shuddered at his cruel expression. Ross had said he was a bitter man. She could see it in his merciless grey eyes as they stared into hers.
“Impertinent girl! We needn’t wait for Sergeant Ross. You’ve been rebellious since the beginning and you’ve just lied to me twice.
That’s reason enough to give you a good thrashing.” The lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth deepened as he smiled coldly. “One I’ll make sure you don’t forget.”
Terrified, her bound body aching and throbbing, her gut churning horribly and her heart pounding in her ears, Kate opened her mouth to plead. Several things stopped her. Her breath seemed trapped in her throat, preventing speech, and she knew, too, that it would do no good.
Mostly, however, it was because Ross had called her brave and she was suddenly stubborn enough to prove that he was right.
Even so, she almost wet herself when she saw Jefferson take a fearsome-looking whip from the rack and bend its stiff leather between his hands until it creaked. From its cord-bound handle to its rounded tip it had to be three feet long, two heavy strips of brown leather stitched together along their edges and widening over the last foot of its length into a long tongue that was not just broader than the rest but thicker too.
As Jefferson stood behind her, Kate steeled herself for the torment she knew was coming.
It was still an awful shock. The blaze of pain that followed the first sickening crack of leather on her bare bottom was incredible. Jaw clenching tight, Kate somehow managed to choke back the shriek that was trying to escape her so that nothing more than a guttural croak got through her gritted teeth. A thousand needles simultaneously piercing her flesh could not have hurt her more than the second stroke. Still she fought the need to cry her pain and gave a half-stifled grunt as her buttocks bounced under the scorching fire of the impact. Torment greater than she had ever felt before flared across her tortured rear-cheeks.
Only then did she realize that even Jefferson had held back when he had caned her that first day. This time he was not sparing his arm or her ravaged flesh. His third lash brought more tears to her eyes, and with the next they flowed freely down her cheeks as the pain seared her tender skin and started a fierce throbbing deep in the muscles beneath. It was agonising, and growing worse with every wicked bite of the whip’s long, broad tongue.
At the fifth stroke, Kate’s resolve faltered, and with the sixth scorching like a licking flame through the flesh of her bottom it deserted her completely. She threw her head back, opened her mouth and cried her pain aloud. She shrieked at every savage stroke after that, jerking and writhing in her tight straps, helplessly and horribly exposed to the whip’s cruel work. Surely her skin was ripped to pieces by now and the vicious leather was tearing into the tender tissues of the flesh beneath, carving and biting deep. The thought filled Kate with a fresh terror so intense her bladder betrayed her and she let go a little squirt of urine as she squirmed in the aftermath of another agonising lash.
“What the…?”
She heard the exclamation amid the dying echo of her last scream.
Another blow landed, a glancing one it felt like, though it still blazed like fire.
“No, Captain, that’s enough,” Kate heard Ross say from behind her. “Have you forgotten there are only a few days before she’s sold?
We’ll never get the full price if she’s covered in welts and bruises.”
“What did she do?” Jefferson rasped.
“Nothing much. She doesn’t like swallowing. I put her in there just to show her what to expect if she doesn’t get a taste for it soon. I only meant to switch her.”
“She’s insolent, and she’s resisting too much,” Jefferson said.
“She needed a thorough lesson.”
“Maybe so, but you put her training in my hands, Captain, and I’d be obliged if you’d leave it there unless you’re not satisfied with the way I’m doing it.”
“What? No, of course I’m satisfied. I’ve every confidence in you, Sergeant.”
“Well then, I’d like to get on with it, if you’re finished, Sir. I’d better do something about her backside or she’ll still be marked on the day of the sale, and we don’t want that.”
“Yes, quite. Excuse me for interfering,” Jefferson said. “I should have known you had everything under control. It’s just that I have a…
particular interest in this one, and the girl I let Jahngir Khan take. I hope he’s making a proper job of things.”
“Aye, I’ve noticed, Captain. And I’m sure Jahngir Khan knows what he’s doing, him having a particular interest too, as you might say.”
If Kate had not been so distressed and hurting, she would have wondered what the ‘particular interest’ was, but with her mind swamped by pain the men’s words were forgotten the moment she heard them. The man Ross called Captain left without even a glance in her direction. The old soldier dropped the whip he had taken from Jefferson’s hand and unfastened her as quickly as he could. She slumped against him the instant she was free, struggling to stay on her feet.
Carefully avoiding contact with her flaming rear, he scooped her up, carried her to his bedroom and laid her gently face down on the bed.
Kate whimpered at the pressure on her hurting breasts but it was the blazing agony in her buttocks that kept her weeping and sobbing as Ross hurried from the room. He was back in minutes, only a blur through her tears as he knelt at the bedside. She heard water sloshing and something blessedly cool touched her tormented backside.
“The ice-water will help keep down the bruising,” he said, “
and I managed to stop him before he split your skin.”
Kate gave a heartfelt sigh of relief. Her buttocks felt raw and she had been sure they were torn and bleeding. She felt Ross’s hand lift a corner of the cloth covering them.
“But only just, by the look of things. I’m afraid your bum’s going to hurt for a while, little miss. You have a sleepless night ahead of you, I’m thinking. Now, let’s cool your tits off.” He lifted her enough to slip a cool, damp cloth under her. She shivered, suddenly hot and cold, as she lowered herself onto it.
“If I’d known Jefferson was back I’d never have put you in that damned thing,” the ex-soldier said. “I didn’t expect him until tonight.
He’s been down in Peshawar picking up another girl. I’d have thought he had enough to do dealing with her without interfering elsewhere. He’s never in a very good mood but for some reason it’s been worse since a message came from Peshawar about you and your friend. You’d think he’d be pleased at the prospect of selling a couple of beauties like you and her, wouldn’t you?”
Ross kept talking even after Kate’s tears dried up and her sobs subsided. For a long time she was sunk too deep in the fiery throbbing of her bottom to pay much attention, but eventually his constant soaking of the cloth with ice water seemed to have a lasting effect. The pain still pulsed through her buttocks but the shock had worn off sufficiently for Kate to listen to what he was saying.
He talked of his army days and the places in India he had seen and the things he had done on and off the battlefield. It was all new to Kate, a glimpse of the underbelly of the British Raj that she had never even known existed while she had lived within the protected cocoon of upper-class colonial society. Much to her surprise, she found it interesting.
There had certainly been no lack of adventure in the old soldier’s life so far, and he had already made it clear that he was not done with it yet.
The sun set and the room grew gradually darker. Ross switched on the bedside lamp and fetched more ice, soothing her hurts while he told her about himself and the people he had known, some friends, some enemies. He had lived life to the full, she thought, and felt a twinge of envy that he had done so much and she so little. As the knife-edge of her pain dulled slightly she listened with increasing fascination, forgetting everything that lay beyond the dim pool of lamplight that encompassed only her and the softly speaking man beside her.
Ross paused to light a cigarette, the match flame illuminating the planes and angles of his face, emphasizing light and shadow. Once more Kate was struck by its familiarity. It was as if she had known the man for years, not days. The memory of her moment of recognition as he had plucked the gun from her hands returned. Her belly flipped. It was her father – that was who she saw when she looked at Ross; her father before he had put on weight and settled down behind a desk. It was he who had told her her first tales of adventure when she was a girl; of expeditions to Burma and Nepal, and the time he had spent in China and the South Seas before he had married. Ross would never marry, Kate thought, nor settle behind a desk. His lust for adventure would never wane with the years.
They did not really look anything alike, she decided, surreptitiously studying the ex-soldier’s face. It was only the stern frown, the determined lines of their mouths and firm set of their jaws where their similarity lay. From his photographs, Kate had always thought her father had looked dashing and rather raffish when he was young. Ross looked very dashing too.
He blew out a cloud of tobacco smoke and looked at her. “How is it? I know it hurts. I wouldn’t have flogged you half as hard with the switch and I wouldn’t have used that whip at all.”
“I know,” Kate said huskily.
He smiled and kindled a glow of warmth inside her that had nothing to do with the fire in her bottom.
“Shall I take the bum-stretcher out? It’ll likely hurt a bit if I do.”
Her muscle contracted around the ivory the instant he mentioned it.
She had been aware of its presence the whole time but her focus had been on her pain. “No. I’d like to hear about the lost city you’re going to search for.”
“There’s not much I know. It is lost, after all. They say it’s full of grand buildings, temples and the like, and there must be some trace of the people who lived there. Maybe their descendants live there still.” He grinned. “Or maybe it’s full of lost treasure, eh? There’s only one way to find out.”
“But it’s not the finding that’s important. It’s the looking.”
“Aye, you’re right there. I always did want to go to the next hill to see what was on the other side. It got me into trouble a few times when I was soldiering.”
“I wish I could go with you,” Kate said wistfully. “It sounds really exciting.”
He laughed. “There’s a different kind of excitement in store for you, little miss. Mind, you’d warm up those cold nights in the mountains and no mistake.”
“Then let me come too,” Kate said impulsively. “I’m sure you could get me out of here without Jefferson finding out until it was too late.”
“I could, but I won’t.”
“Then… then couldn’t you b… buy me?” Her stomach fluttered as she spoke of herself as a chattel.
“I wouldn’t need to buy you. When I joined Jefferson he said I could choose a slave girl of my own whenever I made up my mind I wanted one.”
“Then you could choose me,” Kate said excitedly.
He shook his head. “Nah. Just look at you – a proper posh, cultured little miss.” His thumb tapped his chest. “And look at me – a hard-bitten old wreck who’s seen better days. A youngster like you doesn’t want to be hooked up with the likes of me.”
Better than some horrid, barbarian native, Kate thought. “I’m not posh,” she said, “or cultured. My mother says I’m far too rough and ready and… and my father says I need taking in hand.”
Ross laughed. “Aye, well you’re a neat little package to be doing that to. But how long do you think you’d last in the mountains? You’d be begging to go home by the end of the first day.”
“No I wouldn’t. I don’t want to go home and be tied down by some boring old husband.”
He laughed again. “I suppose you’d rather be tied down by me?”
“Yes,” Kate said and was astonished that she meant it. Heat rushed to her cheeks but she persisted. In his arguments he had not once mentioned that she was intended to be someone else’s slave. “I don’t think you’re nearly so old as you pretend. I’ll bet you’re not even forty and….” The warmth in her cheeks increased. “And you don’t look like a wreck to me.”
“Well, thank you, but I’m old enough to be the daddy of a soft young thing like you.”
“I’ll be twenty-four soon,” she told him, “not so young, and I’ve got myself out of a few tight spots of my own on my travels.” It was a lie. The only tight spots she had ever been in were facing Roger’s marriage proposals, which had been coming far too frequently and persistently before she had left for Europe.
“Is that the truth?” Ross asked, and the stern look he gave her sent a wriggle through her belly.
“No,” she confessed, “but I’m tougher than you think. Watch.”
He would have stopped her as she levered herself off the bed, but she slid under his outstretched hand, gritted her teeth as she rose to her feet and hobbled a few steps across the room. Her buttocks flamed and throbbed. Ross steered her back to the bed with an arm at her waist, wet the cloth that had slipped off when she stood up and laid it over her bottom.
“That was brave, but foolish. You’ve only hurt yourself. You won’t be capable of much tomorrow and that only leaves seven days before you’re sold.”
Kate’s heart shrank and her hopes with it. She felt him pat her shoulder.
“But maybe you are tougher than I thought.”
For a while she drifted on the verge of consciousness, feeling the regular, constant pulses of pain in her backside battle with the e
xhaustion that was overtaking her. Kate felt the warm hand resting on her shoulder-blade too. Despite her knowledge of what its owner was and what he planned for her, its gentle pressure was comforting until her mind surrendered to its fatigue and she sank into a fitful sleep.
She woke to full daylight, and from the angle of the shafts of sunlight streaming through the window Kate guessed the day was well advanced. After her night of torment Ross had let her sleep late. She still lay belly-down on the bed. She was sore and stiff and her breasts buzzed uncomfortably, but the cold cloths the old soldier had spent most of the night applying to her bottom seemed to have worked. The awful flaring throb that had filled it the day before was no longer present.
What had remained was the odd feeling of fullness in Kate’s behind caused by what Ross had called her ‘bum-stretcher’. Recalling the name was enough to make her sphincter contract involuntarily around the hard ivory still firmly held in place by the cords and the belt at her waist. She felt a twinge of discomfort as her buttocks tightened, but at the same time there was nothing at all unpleasant about the sensation that ran through her inner tissues. In fact, it felt very nice. Shocking herself, for it was only the previous day that Kate had discovered men could take pleasure from a woman there, she deliberately squeezed her muscles onto the broad base of the ivory cone filling her. The quivering thrill it gave her was not confined to her rear entrance but was transmitted to the front, which gave a tremor of its own.
Suddenly mischievous and feeling daringly naughty, Kate tightened herself again and then several times more, regardless of the ache it awakened in her bottom. The effect was almost like masturbating without having to use her fingers. Captivated by its novelty she gave a series of short, quick contractions that sent tickles of pleasure through her at both front and rear, and prompted a growing warmth within her. The buzzing of her whipped breasts increased as her nipples stiffened but the temptation to keep gripping the ‘bum-stretcher’ was irresistible.
Kate and Julia: Slave Girls of the Raj Page 3