by Sarah Fisher
The elderly gentleman preened with delight. ‘Oh yes, quite excellent isn’t it? She’s a wonderful girl, but she really does need to be kept in line. Like Sarah, she is high-spirited and needs a firm hand. I have to ensure that she’s reminded regularly exactly who is the master in this house, and who the slave. Which, of course, is exactly how it should be. I want impassioned obedience, a challenge, a lively companion with a little fire in their loins, not some snivelling little mouse.’
‘As ever,’ smiled Casswell, ‘I agree with you wholeheartedly.’
They glanced across the room to where Amelia was tied. Spread-eagled and naked except for her long leather boots and the broad, studded belt fastened tight around her waist, the slim blonde awaited the men’s pleasure.
‘Why don’t you help yourself?’ offered Turner, with a nod of his head. ‘Let me see how my favourite apprentice fares these days.’
Casswell smiled thinly, accepted the generous gesture with a curt bow from the waist, and picked up a short flexible whip from amongst the wide selection on offer on the sideboard. Whilst Sarah Morgan slept off the effects of Chang’s sleeping potion and recovered a little from her branding, he would be only too pleased to take his host up on his kind offer of hospitality. He knew he needed to satisfy the little plume of passion that lay like a coiled snake in his belly.
He flexed the whip speculatively. He could see Amelia was already trembling, and wondered how long it had been since she’d had a proper beating. Oliver Turner was robust for his age, but the years had not been overly kind to his mentor. He doubted whether the older man had much stamina these days – and Amelia liked it rough.
He saw her tense as he approached, and then she relaxed, probably assuming he would have a practice stroke or two before laying on the punishment in earnest.
How wrong she was.
Casswell swept the tasselled end of the whip back and brought it down with a resounding crack across her creamy back. He watched her struggle to snatch a breath, and then a split second later she shrieked like a banshee, her body thrashing into a wild spasm of pain, breasts thrusting forward, legs splayed wide as she struggled instinctively to escape the cruel kiss of the leather.
‘You bastard, Rigel!’ she hissed with gritted teeth as he swung the whip again. Casswell and Amelia went back a long way.
The whip cracked again and again, with no more than seconds between the strokes. It was relentless. If the luscious blonde had any further curses to expel they were lost in a high-pitched mewl of pain.
Sarah kept catching glimpses of her reflection on the way down to one of the living rooms. A mirror here, a glass door there – and she was totally entranced by what she saw. Chang’s innate ability to emphasise the beauty of the female form was really quite astonishing. She glanced at him; he was a true paradox, swinging between willing and gentle servant, and something far less benign.
Tonight, she was wearing a strapless black velvet evening dress, lightly boned to emphasis her full breasts and narrow waist. Beneath it she was again wearing the basque and stockings she had arrived in – one outfit complementing the other perfectly. Chang had added long black silk gloves, and around her throat her only ornament was a diamanté collar. The overall effect was perfection.
Chang had led her down through the house from the bedroom where she had slept off the effects of his painkilling potion. He walked a pace or two ahead of her, in total silence, a solicitous guide, opening doors, directing her through the quietly understated luxury of Oliver Turner’s enormous country mansion.
Despite his silence, or perhaps because of it, Sarah felt more uncertain in his company tonight than usual, although there was nothing noticeably different that she could put her finger on. While dressing her he had been as efficient as ever; but there was something indefinable and disturbing about his demeanour that unnerved her. It was as though he knew some dark secret to which she was not to be privy.
To allay her fears she tried to concentrate on her surroundings. Turner’s house was a stunning contrast to Doctor Casswell’s run-down gothic pile; plush carpets, exquisite antique furniture, glittering chandeliers.
At the door to the living room Chang paused and indicated for her to enter. She hesitated. She could hear indistinct sounds from within that unsettled her, and as she lifted a knuckle to knock on the polished oak, the evening was shaken by the sound of something swiping viciously through the air and an impassioned scream.
An icy chill stabbed down Sarah’s spine and her flesh crawled. She knew it was Amelia Cartwright. She knew she was being beaten; being beaten by Doctor Rigel Casswell. She froze, her gloved hand over her mouth.
‘Go on in,’ Chang coaxed.
Sarah couldn’t bear to witness the possible horrors on the other side of the door, but something compelling drew her like a magnet. Her hand dropped slowly to the handle, she pressed down, the door creaked a little, and she drifted hypnotically into the room. So mesmerised was she by the tableaux before her that she didn’t really hear Chang quietly close the door and leave her in the company of Casswell and the sobbing slave.
In the middle of the room Amelia hung in a purpose-built wooden frame, rivulets of sweat running down between her shoulder-blades. Her skin was pale, while across her back were at least a dozen scarlet weals that served to accentuate the creaminess of her supple body.
Casswell stood behind her, legs akimbo, cradling a whip. His eyes were feverish with gratification as he stared salaciously at the timid newcomer.
‘Well, how very nice of you to join us, Miss Morgan,’ he said with a throaty growl. ‘And how very delicious you look this evening, I must say. I’m certain Amelia would appreciate a little feminine tenderness and solace. Perhaps you would like to return the compliment she paid you earlier; a little cream for my kitten?’
Sarah reddened, but found herself drawn towards the naked slave, despite the strong desire to turn and run from the oppressive room. She realised, to her utter dismay, that part of her was jealous of the female and the sadistic attention Casswell was lavishing on her. She swallowed hard and shook her head, trying to dispel the incredible yearning.
Tiny beads of sweat glistened on Casswell’s top lip. ‘Come along, my dear,’ he snapped as Sarah reached the frame. ‘Do not keep me waiting.’
Without thinking, Sarah reached out and ran a gloved finger over Amelia’s naked shoulder. Amelia groaned softly. Sarah could smell the other woman’s body. It was a strange heady perfume; a mixture of eau de cologne, and darker, more oceanic scents.
Casswell’s expression hardened. Sarah knew exactly what he expected, and she knew that, no matter how much the prospect appalled her, she wouldn’t deny him. Without a word, despite the smart of the brand still hurting her flesh, Sarah sank to her knees in front of Amelia and pressed a single kiss to the trussed blonde’s flat belly.
Amelia gasped.
Sarah shivered and then lowered her head; a supplicant at the ancient altar of desire. And in that instant, as she ran her tongue along the naked junction of Amelia’s fragrant sex, she understood a little of what arcane magic drew men to this sacred place.
The delicate skin beneath her lips was warm, moist and salty, and trembled in the aftermath of pain and fear. It was as soft as spun silk and as fragrant as new mown hay. Any revulsion was tempered with a strange sense of resignation and wanting.
Amelia, her kohl-streaked eyes dark with need and blurred with tears, gazed down at her. ‘Please, Sarah,’ she whispered hoarsely, ‘take the pain away, set me free, I need the antidote… take me to the edge.’
Sarah shivered again; there was no going back. As her tongue parted the lips of Amelia’s quim her senses were totally overwhelmed. The act of worship was as old as time itself and beyond any rational explanation. All she could taste was the salty gossamer of Amelia’s excitement. All she could smell was the rich perfume of Amelia’s pleasure.
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nbsp; Casswell smiled as he watched Sarah open Amelia’s quim with her gloved fingers and then press her face forward. Her eyes were closed and her tentative tongue circled and stroked back and forth across the swollen bud that nestled between those engorged lips, and then her mouth settled on Amelia’s flesh.
It was such a beautiful sight to see: the naked and bound beauty, her stretched body still perspiring and marked from the kiss of the whip, and the subservient Sarah on her hands and knees, in full evening dress, her head buried between the other’s thighs, and her tongue paying homage to those wet and fragrant folds.
‘Shall we join the adorable ladies, my boy?’ said a voice at his shoulder. Such was the tension in the room, Oliver Turner had been able to slip in unnoticed.
‘Why not,’ Casswell said, with a sly grin at his friend and mentor.
Turner nodded towards the frame. ‘Any particular preference?’
Casswell shook his head. It crossed his mind that it was almost a shame to disturb the lovely twosome.
But Turner wanted his share of the fun.
He sidled up behind his beautiful willowy blonde and ran his hands up over her ribs to cup her breasts. His lips brushed the curve of her neck and her shoulders, while thick fingers toyed with her nipple rings. With her eyes tightly closed, Amelia moaned and wriggled seductively against her master; an invitation so unmistakable it made the watching Casswell’s penis lurch in his trousers. From the tension in her muscles and her staccato breathing he knew she was already careering towards a mighty orgasm. The elderly gentleman fumbled with his trousers and unleashed his straining member. Without hesitation he thrust his hips forward and entered Amelia with one accurate lunge.
Crouched between the blonde’s legs Sarah was completely entranced, eyes closed, she was making soft slurping noises of pleasure as she nuzzled, lapped and fingered Amelia’s throbbing quim. As Casswell watched, Turner’s gnarled erection slipped between those rich moist folds. Sarah obediently lapped at the underside of that too, as it speared up into the blonde’s waiting body.
Casswell noticed she’d slipped a hand down between her own legs. Just like Beatrice de Fleur, Sarah was seeking her own pleasure, longing to travel the same road as the luscious slave who gyrated and moaned above her.
He dropped to his knees behind Sarah, suddenly desperate to be a part of the end game, and lifted the soft velvet folds of her skirt. She dipped her back and ground her hips towards him. Under the lightest of caresses her juicy sex opened like an exotic flower. Casswell smiled; his slave was everything he had ever hoped for – and more. Unfastening his fly he pressed his curved shaft home without any further prelude. She reached back between her parted thighs and her silken fingers joined his, guiding and welcoming his phallus home.
She needed him as much as he wanted her.
Sarah’s body enfolded him, drawing him deep, deep into the ocean of delights. Above them, Amelia suddenly cried out with pleasure and began to thrust raggedly back and forth against Sarah’s busy tongue. Casswell groaned and bit down on Sarah’s shoulder, making her whimper with pain and thrust back onto him all the harder.
Within seconds all four of them were lost amongst the crashing white-plumed waves of pleasure. The moment of climax echoed and re-echoed through them all; a continuous charge, so intense it was impossible to decipher where one person’s pleasure began and another’s ended.
An hour later dinner was being served by Turner’s uniformed staff in an elegant room overlooking the gardens and the ornamental lake. The table glittered with a wealth of silver, cut crystal and crisp white linen. Sarah took a genteel sip of her soup and glanced surreptitiously around the table.
In the candlelight the setting looked so opulent. At the head of the table Oliver Turner looked like an elder statesman, a successful mature businessman at ease, while seated beside him Amelia could easily be taken for his niece or goddaughter. The blonde was now dressed in a stunning copper silk column dress that whispered wealth and emphasised her exquisite creamy skin. With her hair dressed and her make-up applied to perfection she looked for all the world as though she had spent the evening making polite chit-chat and passing around appetising hors-d’oeuvres. Further down the table their guests – a distinguished-looking academic in a beautifully cut dinner-jacket and his companion, wife, lover, it would be hard to tell which – sat in companionable silence while their host told them about his recent trip to North Africa.
Sarah doubted that anyone would ever guess the true nature of the liaison.
She could still feel the silky juices of excitement trickling and pooling in the warm space between her thighs; the good Doctor Casswell’s excitement mingling with hers. In sharp contrast, every time she moved she was reminded of the raw stab of the branding iron. Pleasure and pain, was there ever a more heady cocktail?
‘A little more wine, my dear?’ asked Casswell politely, indicating her glass.
Sarah nodded. The food was superb, and the conversation between Casswell, Turner and Amelia flowed seamlessly and merrily between art and music and history, on past the theatre and recent exhibitions; matters Sarah knew very little about.
As if he sensed her feelings of isolation Casswell stroked her cheek; it was the gesture both of reassurance and possession. ‘Your education is only just beginning,’ he murmured in a low voice. Sarah nodded and blushed under what she sensed was his growing approval.
Chapter 13
In the conference room the following morning Rigel Casswell refilled his coffee cup and then glanced down at the typed notes he had been given by Oliver. The long narrow room had formerly been a covered walkway, and its large arched windows gave a breathtaking view out over the rolling parkland of Oliver’s country estate. Its shape concentrated the attention firmly on a low and subtly lit dais backed by a screen. Casswell stretched – it promised to be a fine day. Already the mist was lifting off the lake, softening the shards of the morning sunshine. He added a splash of milk to the coffee and went to find his seat.
The room was busy with the low murmuring of in-depth conversations. Gathered around the large oval table were some of the world’s foremost experts on historical erotic literature.
On the dais, standing behind a clear lectern, Rupert Lassiter, the first of the day’s speakers, re-lit his pipe, quickly called his audience to order, and then began his discourse. His role had been to confirm and verify the existence of Beatrice’s diary from other written sources of the time. He spoke with bluff good humour about letters between bishops commending the care of the work to the other, and a letter from two honoured guests who had been privileged enough to see the diaries on a visit to the religious order and had written – very discreetly – to thank the Abbot for his kindness in letting them read extracts from it. And then, to peals of laughter from the gathered men and women, he added that the guests went on to praise the Abbot for the two ripe serving wenches he had lent them to take away ‘the powerful ache for pleasures of the flesh that lingered in the aftermath of reading the Mistress de Fleur’s astonishing journal’.
‘Here,’ said Lassiter, pointing with the stem of his pipe to a screen behind him, ‘are some very nice photographic reproductions of the lists of contents of the chests that rested in the Abbey. And here, a complete inventory of the holy and secular books stored in the Abbot’s private library at the turn of the last century. Rather like an inner sanctum it was here that the order’s treasures where kept, both for safekeeping and as, with these diaries, to keep them from prying uneducated eyes. And here—’ he tapped some lines of faint, almost indecipherable hand-written text, ‘—we appear to have a record of the complete work that interests us. As you will see, the diaries were listed in the centre of the page, their titles amongst a column of several other volumes. That’s a very good sign. I would have been far less happy had these appeared at the foot or head of the page, as this could infer tampering. And by that I mean that the works had bee
n added to the inventory at a later date. Now if we move on to contemporaneous accounts of—’
A hand went up on the far side of the table. A delegate from America began to speak in a lazy mid-western drawl. ‘I would like to make this point clear, Doctor Lassiter. Are we saying there is definitely more than one volume?’
Lassiter nodded. ‘Oh, absolutely, it would certainly appear so, yes. All the documentary evidence points to there being several small books, all very much like the one Oliver has in his possession. Small, portable, quite crudely made by Beatrice or one of her compatriots. But yes, four, perhaps more volumes. A very rare thing indeed, I grant you, but for us quite a miraculous find.’
There was a murmur of surprise and pleasure around the table, while Rupert Lassiter turned his attention back to his notes. ‘Now, as I was saying, next I moved on to the contemporaneous accounts of…’
But Casswell’s thinking had already moved on, to thoughts of Sarah and Amelia making love to each other in Oliver’s private apartments while he looked on. He imagined the two girls dressed as a matched pair, in black shiny leather, a studded collar around each of their necks and a matching body harness that lifted their breasts and then, after circling their slim waists, framed each thigh so that their sex was naked and exposed. He shivered at the delightful image. He would order Sarah to tie Amelia into the frame they had used the night before and then beat her with a rigid leather paddle he had with him. He swallowed hard, imagining the sound as it bit into the blonde’s succulent flesh.
He had seen the compassion in Sarah’s eyes when she had discovered Amelia hanging from the frame. How very hard it would be for her to overcome her fear and reluctance, to obey his orders and lay on with the strap. Or perhaps it would be better if it was the other way around. In his mind he reversed their roles, imagining Sarah now writhing with pure delight as Amelia abandoned the paddle and fell to her knees, driving her tongue deep into the secret places on Sarah’s tied and sweating body. She would be caught on Amelia’s wriggling tongue like a beautiful bird in a trap, writhing and sobbing as the pulse of orgasm throbbed through her. Oh yes, that would be delightful. Casswell closed his eyes and let the fantasy take flight.