“The bastard, he broke the skin,” Lexia exclaimed as her hand slathered Delila’s wounded behind with a rich warm cream. “I hate it when Degas tries to prove a point like this; he’s such a villain.”
Delila listened impassively to the woman’s talk and the silent sound of her own private places responding to the tender ministrations. Like Briel, she was soothing, but unlike Briel, she was as interested in the sexually arousing aspects of this as Delila was.
“You’re Delila Armand,” Lexia purred in the prone woman’s ear. “Your crimes have been duly noted here. We’ve been waiting weeks for you to join us, and let all these immoralities you dearly love have a place of expression.”
“Waiting?”
“Of course. You were targeted weeks ago for this assignment.”
Delila wanted to challenge the woman, but what was happening between her thighs took charge over her brain. When Lexia’s fingers dipped low into the crack of her ass, she parted her legs wide, so wide the woman knew exactly what she desired.
“You’re quite a whore before the party’s begun, little slut,” Lexia said. “How wet, how warm, you could climax in seconds.”
Delila murmured and then Lexia slapped her hand fiercely against Delila’s cut bottom.
“Learn something quickly here: your pleasure will be yours, but you serve your masters first.”
The honey-haired woman jerked Delila’s shocked body about so that she was on her back. Climbing over her torso, Lexia moved her sinewy parted thighs over Delila’s face, her womanhood descending over her charge’s mouth.
“Bring me off first,” she ordered.
Tasting cunt was a new experience, so like the smells of autumn outside these walls, Lexia’s fragrant snatch was a stunning reminder of other worlds. Delila’s thoughts could instantly retreat to some sumptuous time distant from this moment, but she wasn’t given time to ponder these things. Lexia wanted satisfaction now. Taking the ripe hot cunt in her mouth, her tongue probing, her lips pulling at folds and labia, a steady sucking motion produced jubilant sounds from the woman above her. It took only minutes to satisfy Lexia’s lust. When she finally drew away, Delila’s face was wet, a dampness that would dry on her skin because she wasn’t allowed to wipe it away.
“You’ll smell like sex with my juices on your mouth,” she said. “In Outer Island, that’s an advantage.” She smiled, and then without saying more, Lexia turned about and buried her mouth at Delila’s cunt. Returning the favor, she had the initiate in the midst of bliss mere seconds later.
Delila watched the statuesque beauty drift across the room. Her silky clothes created a cloud of luscious color about her dramatic form. Her hair, once piled wildly atop her head, was now strewn about her shoulders, dancing around her face in wisps and ringlets. The savage mane cast shadows across Lexia’s face, clothing her in mystery.
Delila watched impassively, not knowing how she was to respond to the last few minutes. She was nagged by apprehension and fear. The lust driving through her was the highest carnal sin she could imagine, a blot against attempts to cure her adulterous passions. And yet, such a joy to her body!
“So, you’re Degas’s new prize,” Lexia exclaimed, as the woman wound her way back to Delila’s side. “That ring at your puss certainly makes your value soar.” She spoke with both admiration and contempt.
“I have no idea what’s happening to me,” Delila replied. So meek, so exhausted, so bewildered, it was no surprise, her comment.
“Of course, he’s told you nothing. Probably filled you with flowery words, terrific prose with a rose-colored interpretation of this common brothel.”
“Brothel?”
“Yes, brothel, whore house, house of ill-repute … before the overseers drove them out there were places like these where sex is an act exchanged for money. You’re a whore now, my darling, surely you know that term?”
Delila looked at her puzzled.
“Your body is a commodity for purchase, of course only when Degas finds you ready.” Lexia looked down at her knowing that a thousand thoughts were traipsing through the poor girl’s mind. “Surely your walk through the main chamber last night, you sensed the purpose of our enterprise?”
“It astonished me,” Delila replied.
“Well, it will not be the last time you’ll be astonished, I assure you. However, if it would offer you some comfort, I am the mother hen of this large brood of sassy chicks. In the colloquial old days commonly known as the “Madam.” You have a need, you come to me.” The reclining Delila looked as if she comprehended Lexia’s words, though it was a little soon to tell. “And, Delila dear, just between you and me, Degas thinks he has the power in this place, but he’s wrong.” She let a smirk creep across her red stained lips. “I do.”
She said it with such confidence and amusement, Delila was certain she spoke the truth.
***
Delila: In my first meeting with Lexia, it all made sense, disparate things falling into place in my mind so befuddled to that point by this Outer Island. What Degas said was true, half-true perhaps. What he implied though was far different from the present reality. I saw the truth written in clear bold strokes. For the next two years, my body would be sold for cash, the property not of the State, but of this carnal ground. For committing the most heinous acts known in my world, for having shared mere love with another lonely soul, my body would become the vessel of more sin, compounding the error.
Every time I moved in those hours after the caning and my meeting with Lexia, I was reminded of Degas cunning: how he must have picked me out from the crowd of offenders, zeroed in on me and snatched me away from the real world to his, like a predator stalking its prey and devouring it in seconds. I had no recourse against his treachery, any more than I had recourse against anything that had happened to me these horrifying weeks. Yet deep in me there was indignation, and a steadily mounting rage that had Degas as its focus. I would have dearly loved to have pummeled the man, caned him as I’d been caned. I killed him in my mind a dozen times that day, as I freed myself from this fate in my fantasies.
How twisted was that fate! If I were to free myself, what freedom could I purchase? Only to be cast back into a land that condemned me. And Degas, yes Degas. I was so in awe of him in a female way, and so profoundly lusting for what I suspected must be Degas’s ravenous sexual appetites, that as much as I wished some terrible revenge, I wished to be his lover.
Living in this tangled reality of convoluted reason and perverted virtue, I faced years of servitude to sexuality, the very thing that condemned me to this place.
I remember lying back on Lexia’s bed looking at that lustrous face of wantonness smile before me, as I listened to my rage mount, and for a brief time, take all my passions away.
Chapter Eleven
Degas swept the room with his eyes. He knew each movement, the bodies that slithered and wound their way from place to place, from body to body, and those that, bound by clever devices, were just teases for the crowd of dissolute and depraved customers that preyed on this atmosphere of the newly damned.
Delila Armand hung in the center of the room in a gilded cage, her body enthroned. He loved the lights that blinked at odd intervals, the way they made her creamy skin flicker as if there were flames dancing on its surface.
Lexia had schooled her well in the art of blatant seduction, though Degas had no doubt that this one would be a fast learner. She had a defiant streak in her. He could see that clearly. Every time he caught her gaze, she glared at him. She was pissed, and that was good. Although even with her rage, there was a sweetness, an innocence about her that intrigued even the most jaded of Degas’s guests. They’d all be clamoring to know how one as unworldly and untainted as this one, could be bearing the marks of an overt Sex Crimes offender. That little ring at her cunt would make Degas much money.
“You dance very well for your first time,” Degas said, as he strolled to her side, and looked up at the lithe form in the gilded cage move
to the pounding background music that filled the room with its constant roar. He alone had the authority to reach into the cage and stroke her flesh. “You look downright primitive, like some barbarous beast human from the north wiggling your groin like that.” Degas smirked at her; the girl was trying to avoid his comments and his stare. “You don’t have to keep a vow of silence here, love,” he added noting her vile mood.
“I have nothing to say,” Delila said.
“Oh, but you say volumes with your eyes. How they tell the tales of your life in what you choose to gaze upon. That rose-colored dress catches your fancy, does it not?”
Degas referred to the temptress, Lexia, clothed in a modest dress for this outrageous place. The smoothed-surfaced silk looked like glass to the eye. A thin strap held it at the Madam’s shoulders while the fabric descended her body, conforming to the voluptuous shape as an extension of the woman’s own skin. Her heavy breasts swayed back and forth across the bodice, at times more exposed than at other time, when the deep cut armholes revealed the inner flesh. Her bottom was distinct from behind, obviously naked underneath. The crack of her ass clearly evident. From the front, even the triangle of sexual desire was often on display with the garment clinging closely. The long thigh high slit on the side showed off Lexia’s lace adorned legs.
“You like the dress?” Degas asked again.
“Yes,” Delila finally replied, practically spitting out her answer.
“Ah, ah, be careful how you speak to me, unless you want more stripes to decorate your body,” Degas warned. “You could be caged for months so attired in nothing but the marks of your chastisement.”
“You’ve already perpetrated a hellish violence against me. I don’t see how anything could be worse than this.”
“My, you are a feisty whore.”
“I was not a whore when I arrived.”
“But well on your way,” he reminded. “Did you not succumb to the power of the sexual talk in my office?”
“You’re a vile man,” she seethed—and not under her breath. Several in the throng of happy guests noticed the quarrel.
“You’re doing many things to regret,” Degas said. “The anger does not become you.”
Seeing nothing but a scowl on Delila’s face, Degas walked away, ordering Fier to pull her from the cage.
***
Delila appeared before Degas as she’d appeared in the cage all night: naked except for thick cuffs at her neck, wrists and ankles. He peered up at her from behind a desk on which the dark haired Miska sat naked with legs opened wide. Apparently, she’d interrupted some sex act, though Degas didn’t appear distressed by the interruption.
“Ah, you’re here at last,” he said looking up from an engaging moment with the pixy like nymph before him.
“Fier brought me; he said you wanted to see me.”
“And still angry, I see, though it looks as though you survived your first night.”
“It is tiring in the cage,” Delila answered his observation.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. You’d probably like to be out on the floor taking pricks?”
“I have no desire for that,” Delila answered sharply.
“Ah, you don’t lie well,” the dark man mocked her. “But regardless of your feelings, it’s the way it will be. That is your fate, being a whore.”
“Of course, we do work up to things. I don’t want it to be too much a shock to your system. Besides, I want to give everyone the opportunity to enjoy your submissive status, your fragrant loins, the lovely stripes and that fine brass ring.”
Delila didn’t reply.
He snickered happily as his hand continued to play between Miska legs, fingers probing the woman’s cunt fast enough to make her wince at one point, groan with pleasure at another. “But pleasantries aside,” Degas went on, “let’s get on to why I summoned you here. Tell me, Delila Armand, why you’re so incensed? Your venom is pouring out even now. What’s worse, it set a nasty tone in my brothel tonight, let’s have it out.” She didn’t reply, a fact that made Degas taunt her more. “Do we disgust you? Does this tawdry place offend your finer sensibilities? Does this outpost of sexual deviance shock you? Are you perhaps, having difficulty realizing how you’ll be used these next two years, for you will be well used?”
“You tricked me!” Delila finally spewed her first thought.
Degas jumped back, as if he was in shock. “Tricked you? My, that’s an interesting thought. You say perhaps, I lied?”
“Not overtly, but you were deceptive. Bringing me to your garment factory, and then wooing me here.”
“Of course it was deceptive. These are deceptive times. You have perpetrated a deception of your own, committing such vile sex acts. Has not your entire floundering at the gates of hell been a gross deception?” Degas mocked her. “Your own deceit put you into a deceitful world, and I daresay, I’ve been the most honest with you of anyone who has dealt with your treachery since your arrest.”
He looked at her with a bold challenge in his nightmarish dark eyes. “Tell me, has anyone offered you anything better? Has anyone treated you with more care than I have? The pleasure you took from Briel was because of me, because I own her just as I own you. When I brought you here, I could have never told you everything about Outer Island, but I gave you its spirit as honestly as I could. And now you revile me in my own brothel, in front of my guests, in the presence of those that outwardly adore me.”
“But the caning,” blurted out.
“You’re going to let a little caning make you mad?” He laughed.
“You led me to believe …”
“Necessary, it was necessary,” he cut her off. “Unfortunately necessary, I admit. You didn’t deserve it in the real sense, but it served its purpose.”
“I hope you don’t think it’s made me into a compliant slave.”
“Ah, so unbridled you are!” He grinned, though the grin did nothing to redeem his face from the dark lair where his spirit lived. “You’re not a slave here,” he continued with the grin retreating, his voice beginning to rise as he spoke. “But the line between that and grateful servitude can sometimes look very thin. It would be best not to misplace your anger, Delila Armand. In here, that could be disastrous for you. You’ll take any caning, any whipping, any measures to discipline your body and your mind; indeed, you’ll take any sexual act demanded without balking. That is all that’s required of you.” What had once been amusement and mockery turned into a vehement rebuke, with his soulless black eyes staring out, adding power to his words.
Seeing the vigor behind his words, Delila was compelled to respond humbly. “I’ve offended you,” she said. “I’m sorry.” Somehow, the stilted words came from her lips, but neither Degas, nor Delila, nor the woman that was sitting on the desk thought they were from her heart.
“I’m afraid you’ll be caned again tomorrow,” Degas informed her. “That’s unfortunate since your wounds have not had time to heal, but your behavior makes it imperative that we take care of first things first. If it takes a dozen days in a row to bring out the attitude of surrender and gracious sensuality that I require here, then so be it. Understand, over this much of your life, Delila, you do have control. You can choose to enjoy.” He stared at her with cavernous eyes that in all their inky blackness did not reveal even a glimmer of light.
“Fier!” he shouted at last for the valet. When the redhead man re-entered the room, Degas gave her over to him swiftly. “Fifteen of the bamboo. And don’t hesitate to apply them to her thighs; perhaps the sting there will cure her of her testiness.”
Delila winced inside, though her exterior remained passively defiant.
Chapter Twelve
“You’re going to make a mess of yourself if you don’t get a hold of your ire,” Lexia said, while she dabbed a clean white cloth on Delila’s ass and thighs.
Delila was sobbing, her head buried in the brocade pillow at her face. “Ouch, that stings,” she protested.
“Fier was
especially hard on the thighs, they burn don’t they?” Leaving Degas offices, Delila returned with Fier to the hallway alcove, not even waiting for morning light. She’d been ravaged with fifteen sharp cuts, six hitting her upper thighs.
“They hurt like hell,” Delila told the woman.
“More advice, my pet,” Lexia said. “You have to consider yourself lucky to be here at Outer Island. Even if you don’t think so, you have to put on that guise for Degas. You cannot show your fury, not for any reason, and especially not before the customers.” Lexia dabbed the welts listening to the girl’s “ouches” and “ooooos” as the liquid made the wounds burn. “Whatever is your rage about anyway?”
Delila heard the question, but she had no answer. The reason behind her rage was not clear to her, and all the things that were trying to spill from her mind sounded so ridiculous that she dare not speak them.
“You know this place is better than the topside sweatshops?” Lexia asked.
“Yes.”
“Better than the mines?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“Are you sure? Do you know what hellholes those wretched places are, how they sap the nerves and the minds and the passions from women, so they leave there like shells of people, only to be blown away by the first wind that rises when they return to the world? You’ll die before you’re thirty if Degas sends you back. You might even die before your time’s up. Many do.”
“Perhaps that would be easier,” Delila replied.
Lexia slapped her ass. “Hush! You don’t want to die, and you know it!” She slapped her again, a reproachful smack to which Delila jerked and issued another “ouch!” “Accept your fate, and quit brooding over it. You’ll surely never square this in your head. Just take the pleasure and be happy. Forget that this place makes no sense, anymore than the world on the outside makes sense.”
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