Damsels in Distress

by Amanita Virosa

  ‘Perhaps,’ Polly said, ‘but do not despair, my lady. My master will not see you on the scaffold if he can help it, and he is a clever man. Perhaps he will find a way…’

  ‘Oh, God in heaven have mercy, I cannot bear it!’ Lady Jane groaned again.

  ‘I am afraid that you must bear it, my lady,’ Lord Makepiece chuckled. He patted Jane’s naked thigh fondly and went back to lashing Polly with his leather strap.

  The beast was right, Jane realised as she bit her lip and vainly tried to move in some way that would help relieve the pressure. She was secured astride something he called his ‘hobby horse’. A length of wood an inch wide was set about four feet above the floor, its lower edge set into sturdy posts. The upper edge was cut into serrations, and Jane had been obliged to sit astride the cruel contraption. Her arms were manacled high behind back and fixed to a taut chain that pulled her wrists towards the stone ceiling. Her knees were bound together below the span, and the pressure on her most tender parts brought tears to her eyes, and was soon quite unendurable.

  Then the true cruelty of the arrangement became clear. There was one way she could relieve the pressure of the horse’s teeth as they bit into her vulva; she could try to take some weight on her arms. The problem was that her arms were already wrenched up painfully behind her, and any increase in that pressure sent agonising pains shooting through her shoulders. And yet, despite the cruel cost of pulling down, the action did little to relieve the agony in her privates. There was simply no way she could haul down hard enough.

  Yet every time she stopped trying this desperate stratagem, the pain between her legs engulfed her again. And so, soon enough, knowing it would not work but having no alternative but to try, Jane would grit her teeth and pull down on the chain once more.

  For the first few minutes Makepiece watched her closely, his cold eyes lingering on her writhing, naked body, while he stroked the bulge in the front of his breeches quite openly. Then he ordered Polly to fetch a strap and stand in position, bending from the waist to present her bottom, and grasping the chains at the point where they left her ankle fetters.

  ‘Watch and learn, my dear,’ Makepiece said to Jane, gesturing towards the bending girl’s presented bottom. ‘Polly no longer needs to be chained in position for her whippings, and soon you will beg me to chastise you in the same way.’

  ‘Please, Lord Makepiece, I cannot bear this any longer,’ Jane pleaded. ‘Please, whip me if you will. Flog me instead of Polly; only let me off this terrible thing!’

  ‘And will you sign the confession, my proud lady?’

  ‘Oh, yes sir!’ she wailed. ‘I will do anything, only let me off for pity’s sake!’

  ‘You see, I did say that you would sign, and I have also predicted that you will take your whippings readily and without being secured into position. But not yet. As yet you have only begun to understand the torments I can visit upon you…’

  ‘For pity’s sake, sir,’ she repeated desperately. ‘Let me off it… I will do anything…’

  ‘Indeed, in good time you will do anything I ask. But I doubt if you are yet ready, so here is a test, my dear. I require you to stop this foolish bleating and begging. Be silent now, whilst I flog Polly.’

  ‘There now, is that better?’ Lord Makepiece asked gently.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jane sighed as he gently massaged her aching shoulders.

  ‘Yes, master,’ he prompted, a harder edge entering his voice.

  To call this ill-born brute master, as if she were a yokel or a servant, it was intolerable.

  ‘Yes, master,’ he repeated, and his grip tightened on her sore shoulders, sending shards of sharp pain shooting through her upper arms.

  ‘Yes… m-master,’ Jane echoed hoarsely.

  Makepiece chuckled and kissed her on the forehead, before gently rubbing the stiffness from her shoulders once again.

  ‘Please, I cannot bear it…’ Jane babbled, her cheeks wet with tears.

  ‘Pish, my pretty traitor, have you no other refrain?’ Makepiece mocked. ‘It seems to me that is what you always plead.’

  ‘No, I mean… oh… it hurts like the devil, master, please have mercy…’

  ‘What I want is for you to remain motionless. I have told you more than once.’

  She tried to adhere to his demands but the pain in her knees was too much. She tried to shift her weight subtly, without him noticing, but there was a horrible hiss and she shrieked as the whipcord cracked across her naked breasts. For a second she was lost in a swirling universe of pain.

  For how long she had been there she could not guess. It was probably several hours at least, and yet the nearest candle seemed barely to have burned down at all.

  She wore a yoke; two thick planks hinged with openings for her neck and wrists, and now locked together like stocks. It was heavy on her shoulders and forced her head up uncomfortably, but far more vexing to the naked prisoner were the rough twigs placed under her knees. Exacerbated by the heaviness of the yoke, the twigs dug excruciatingly into her flesh. She had been forbidden to move, and Makepiece lurked ominously with his plaited whip. Every time her discomfort became too much and provoked any movement he lashed her across her naked breasts again.

  ‘Here girl, come,’ Lord Makepiece ordered, and almost eagerly Jane obeyed him. Chains clanking she crawled across the flagstones of the dungeon, wincing as her sore knees met hard stone.

  He held a piece of crust, but as she reached him he lifted it higher. Jane kept her hands on the floor but stretched her neck up, opening her mouth to receive the pathetic morsel, which she caught between her teeth when he dropped it. The bread was stale and tasted a little mouldy, but she was very hungry and chewed it thankfully.

  Not that it was solely hunger that made her so free of pride. Makepiece was not tormenting her, not whipping her or putting her on the cruel horse or rack, which made her happy. When he patted her head there was a warm glow in her belly. When he fed her stale bread she felt bizarrely happy. It was a transformation so strange she could not have begun to explain it.

  ‘Now girl, roll over,’ he ordered, and without hesitation Lady Jane Winterton did as he demanded. She lay flat on the flagstones and then rolled onto her back, holding her chained hands above her head and keeping her legs apart so that her naked sex was open to her master. The pose made her feel terribly vulnerable, particularly as he had a whip to hand and she was still unable to determine his moods or guess his intensions. Jane’s heart began hammering and she felt herself perspiring, and she also felt a keen thrill coursing through her body.

  To her indescribable relief, on this occasion he did not pick up the whip and flog her naked breasts and belly and thighs. Instead he reached down and stroked her head, just as if she were a favourite pet.

  ‘Good girl, Jane,’ he chuckled as he patted her.

  Relief engulfed her and she wallowed in a feeling of well-being. She was naked, she was on her back on the floor of a grim dungeon, and her brutal tormentor was treating her as if she were his pet creature. A few days earlier she would have died rather than endure it, but now she responded with smiles and whimpers of pleasure. Those few days had witnessed extraordinary changes in the once proud Lady Jane.

  Lord Makepiece stopped petting her and picked another crust from the wooden bowl at his feet. He held it up and shook it invitingly.

  ‘Jane,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘on your knees and beg!’

  At the first hint of a sound of key in lock Jane stiffened, and felt Polly, slumped close beside her in the iron cage, do exactly the same. The two prisoners lay, naked bodies pressing against each other in the confined space. Both began trembling with anticipation instantly.

  There was but one question in Jane’s mind as she heard Makepiece’s heavy footfall on the dungeon steps; the one question that always seized her heart when he made his entrance. Jane could not have said whether i
t was day or night, nor how many days or weeks she had endured in her master’s dungeon, but these were not the question that made her quiver tensely as she waited in the cage.

  He was walking across the floor of the chamber. He did not pause to take a whip from where they hung on the wall. Could this be a good sign? Might her master be coming to take his pleasure in her bottom or her mouth, or bring her and Polly food? She felt Polly shivering, every bit as apprehensive as she was, beside her. There simply was no way that she had found to tell if he was coming to whip her or to pet her, or to torment Polly similarly.

  Not knowing was a torment worse than all others, because hope chased fear and fear chased hope around her mind in a feverish circle. Then he was standing before the cage.

  Jane peered into the gloom as he unhurriedly unlocked the door.

  She could not see a whip or a birch, but that meant little. She could not see a bowl of food either, but that meant equally little. He had brought down trays of food before, set them on the top of the cage and then dragged her out to flog her before taking the tray away again.

  Often he had come with a fearsome whip and then sent Polly to the top of the steps to fetch food. Jane knew it was Lord Makepiece’s method; that he meant his prisoners to spend time quivering with uncertainty. It was his way of breaking captives to his will, and she understood that utterly. But understanding did not stop the method working. He was her master now, and she his trembling slave. That was all there was to it.

  ‘Get out,’ he ordered, his voice brusque, her stomach tightening at the tone. Both girls hurried to obey, whereupon he produced a key and unlocked the collars around their throats. Then he handed Polly the key and ordered her to unlock the manacles that fettered their wrists and ankles.

  This unexpected order only increased Jane’s terror, for Makepiece’s dungeon had taught her to fear any sort of change, and as the heavy iron clunked to the stone floor she felt oddly naked and uncomfortable, almost as if she had derived some strange security from her brutal bonds.

  ‘Follow me,’ he ordered, and turned, knowing his prisoners would obey.

  There were two simple shifts laid on the rack, and he picked them up and threw them at the naked girls. ‘Put these on,’ he ordered.

  Jane did as she was told, her mind reeling. Being clothed, albeit minimally, felt incredibly strange. She glanced at Polly, who was looking down at her shift with astonishment and incomprehension.

  He ordered them to follow again, and as they unsteadily ascended the stone steps Jane’s legs were shaking uncontrollably. Being unchained and clothed was strange enough, but the idea of leaving the dungeon made her feel quite dizzy. Polly stumbled on the last step and Jane knew her fellow captive was feeling the same way.

  There was light from a window in the passage they passed into, and Jane found herself blinking at a brightness quite forgotten in her subterranean world of glowing braziers and guttering candles. A man approached, stopping to confer with Makepiece and casting a curious glance towards the two young women. Jane had almost forgotten there were other people in the world.

  The brief conversation concluded, they followed their master into a panelled study, where he sat at a desk and unlocked a drawer, from which he produced a scroll.

  ‘First, Polly,’ he said in a businesslike manner, ‘I have secured a pardon for your treason, girl. You will not go to the scaffold. Instead you will travel as an indentured servant to my plantation in Virginia, where I trust you will work diligently to repay my kindness.’

  He smiled at Polly’s uncomprehending face. ‘Don’t worry, my child,’ he added. ‘You will be worked hard and flogged often. My overseers run a tight ship, and you will soon feel quite at home.’

  He turned to Jane. ‘Now, my lady, are you ready to sign your full confession.’

  ‘Yes, master,’ she said quickly. Events were confusing and her head was spinning, but she was still his trained possession. Even so, as she added a slightly shaky signature to the document, Lady Jane wondered if she was signing her life away.

  ‘Good,’ Lord Makepiece said briskly, sprinkling sand on the fresh ink to dry it and then blowing it away.

  He pulled a cord on the wall and there was a brief uncomfortable silence as they waited. He smiled at his trembling, confused captives. ‘There is a ship leaving Bristol for Virginia in three days, so you will be sent off in the morning, Polly…’

  Makepiece was interrupted by a knock on the door, and then the appearance of a servant.

  ‘Ah, Mortimer, take this girl to my chamber and secure her to the bed, there are ropes waiting,’ he ordered the man.

  ‘At once, my lord,’ the servant said, and gripping Polly by the upper arm he steered her from the chamber.

  ‘I must say my goodbyes to Polly,’ Makepiece said to Jane, with a grim smile. Then he snapped his fingers, as if remembering something. ‘Oh yes,’ he went on, his eyes twinkling with a cocktail of amusement and malice. ‘I expect you are also curious to learn your fate.’

  ‘Yes, master,’ Jane confirmed; the response drilled obedience but also true. She was now quite desperate to know her fate – whatever it might be.

  ‘Of course, a traitor like you cannot be allowed to run free and conspire with other papists,’ Makepiece said deliberately. ‘And of course, you are too noble to be transported like Polly, to be an indentured bond-servant…’

  Dread seized her; she could almost feel the block cold beneath her throat as she waited for the executioner’s axe to fall, or would it be the hangman’s noose. No, her noble blood would ensure the block. She felt herself sway and was surprised not to fall in a faint.

  ‘Your estates must be forfeit, your person prevented from ever threatening his majesty. We have discussed your case long and hard, and we can see but one solution.

  Jane licked her dry lips, saliva deserting her as she awaited her sentence.

  From the same drawer Lord Makepiece produced another scroll. Jane looked at it with terror as he unfolded it carefully, muttered quietly as he read it to himself, and then looked over it at her.

  ‘This is a royal warrant; it grants you a full pardon,’ he relayed the verdict.

  ‘A pardon, m-master?’ Jane echoed in an astonished whisper, the incredible relief making her feel sure she now would swoon after all.

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed, nodding sagely, ‘a pardon on one condition.’

  ‘On one condition, master?’ Jane mumbled dazedly, barely aware of what she was saying.

  ‘Yes, one condition.’ Lord Makepiece smiled like a hungry wolf eyeing the young deer he was about to bring down. ‘His majesty insists that we marry immediately, my lady…’

  Far Better than Boys!

  ‘Damn but if that isn’t a fine figure of a man!’ declared the Honourable Horace Wittingstall, admiring his reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Man?’ snorted Farquar Salisbury. ‘That’s not what that trollop in Covent Garden called you at half-term!’

  A guffaw ran round the senior common room and Horace blushed a little pink.

  Turning from the mirror he took a fob watch from the pocket of his gloriously patterned silk waistcoat and glanced down at it.

  Snapping it shut he pocketed the piece again and then picked up a cane from the selection in the elephant foot umbrella stand.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m off to thrash those little snots, Grindle and Denwood minor. I’ve had them waiting an hour for it, so they should be good and ready. Do you want to come, Salisbury? I’ll let you have a crack at ’em.’

  Farquar waved a hand in dismissal. ‘No thanks, old chap,’ he said in a bored tone. ‘Truth is I’m bored to death with caning snivelling boys.’

  ‘Hold hard, I’ll come and help you tickle ’em, Wittingstall,’ said Lord Valentine Strumpshaw. ‘Who the hell do you want to wallop if not boys then, Salisbury?’ he asked, as he selected a cane from
the same umbrella stand with professional care. ‘Full grown men, all fit and muscular?’

  The rapt way he said this caused another ripple of merriment to run round the common room. ‘Strumpet’ Strumpshaw was one of those chaps who treated beastliness almost as a religious vocation.

  ‘No, not chaps at all, actually, not even great rough oiks with bulging muscles,’ Salisbury said quietly but intensely. ‘I was thinking more of the fairer sex.’

  ‘What is it, Ginny?’ Penelope Simpson asked with concern.

  ‘Oh, nothing, just an old acquaintance,’ Virginia Chisholm said, trying to stay calm. She folded the letter quickly and stowed it in her pocket.

  ‘Come on, Ginny, you can tell me,’ Penelope probed, kneeling at her friend’s side and taking her hand. ‘Are we not the best of friends, dear Ginny? Truly, whatever it is, you can tell me.’

  Virginia looked at her companion for a moment. Penelope was a sweet lady of twenty-six, two years younger than herself. She had fair hair and clear blue eyes, which now blinked up at her questioningly. ‘All right,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m in an awful pickle, Penelope. You remember I told you about when I worked at Nettlesham Grange?’

  ‘Yes, when you were still a governess.’

  ‘So you see, I had her. I had her, and then before I got to enjoy the fruits, the trollop did a flit.’

  Salisbury and Wittingstall had sole possession of a carriage. The train rattled towards London, and at last they were released from school rules and prefectorial duties.

  ‘She ran away?’

  ‘Actually, she got married. Did rather well for a little governess. Married some obscure but wealthy old laird, a friend of Uncle Owen’s, who brought him down to shoot our pheasants. Miss Cavendish became Mrs Chisholm and disappeared to some Highland wilderness.

  ‘Good hunting in the Highlands, Salisbury.’

  ‘For savages like you, and I believe, for creatures known as ‘midges’. For my own part I prefer to stalk more sophisticated game.’