The Mistress of Sternwood Grange

by Arabella Knight

  ‘That’s better, though you need to take another half-step back,’ Erica commented. ‘And come around to the left a little bit more. Remember, each stroke must stripe both buttocks, not just the cheek nearest to you.’

  Mandy repositioned herself as advised and levelled the length of cane against the swell of the bare bottom, pressing it firmly into the twin curves of smooth flesh.

  ‘Commence,’ Erica whispered softly.

  The first stroke sliced down with a venomous swish to stripe the creamy cheeks with a thin line of reddening fire. Mandy hated every moment: hated herself for bringing this doom down upon poor Sophie; hated the cruel, cropped blonde on the bed; hated the supple wand of woe clenched in her right hand.

  ‘No, not yet. Do not hurry the punishment. Both the caner and the caned must savour, in their different ways, each individual stroke.’

  Mandy bowed her head in shame, avoiding the scarlet stripe she had just drawn across the pale cheeks with her cane.

  ‘It is often quite useful to touch the buttocks lightly, just a tap of the cane across the cheeks, between each stroke,’ Erica observed. ‘This both paces the punishment and, while reminding the punished of the impending lash, establishes the dominance that exists between the whipper and the whipped.’

  Mandy raised the cane, swept it down to kiss the swell of the soft cheeks sharply, then raised it once more. The second stroke had been planted exactly a quarter of an inch below the burning brand of the first, and had caused Sophie’s toes to scrunch into the cotton panties at her feet. Mandy had seen the naked cheeks spasm in anguish – and had heard the yelp of response torn from Sophie’s parted lips.

  ‘No, no, no,’ Erica snapped impatiently. ‘Give me that cane. Watch. I’ll show you how to stripe a bare bottom.’

  Surrendering the cane, Mandy shuffled across to the end of the bed.

  ‘Come back. I want you to watch. Watch and learn. Kneel down there,’ Erica ordered, jabbing her finger at the floor. ‘Observe my methods closely. I’ll make an angel of you yet. As for you,’ she snarled, tapping Sophie’s twice-striped buttocks with her cane, ‘I’ll start again. Twelve strokes, I think we said.’

  Mandy smothered her gasp of dismay but Sophie failed to stifle her moan. Mandy knelt and gazed up, burning with shame and remorse at Sophie’s suffering. How stupid I have been, she thought. Worse still, Sophie was probably thinking that the cake had been bait for a trap. The trap had snapped shut, and the suffering was about to begin.

  Erica was thrumming the empty air above the bending girl with the wood. It whistled a note of eerie venom. Addressing the smooth cheeks with the levelled cane, Erica judged the distance with faultless exactitude. The cane rose up – then swept down with a cruel swish. Mandy blinked as the thin rod whipped down across the helpless cheeks, and closed her eyes tightly as Sophie squealed.

  ‘The punisher must own the bottom of the punished,’ Erica remarked briskly. ‘Observe.’

  From her kneeling position, Mandy gazed up to see Erica lowering the length of glinting wood across the cusp of the proffered buttocks. Depressing the yellow wand firmly, she dimpled the smooth curves of flesh. It was a display of sheer dominance.

  ‘Now I tap the buttocks,’ Erica continued, doing so in a gesture of superb control. ‘This reminds the whipped one of the stroke just delivered,’ Erica whispered, then plied the cane swiftly to lash the bottom with stinging accuracy, ‘and of the stroke to come.’

  Despite her remorse and sorrow, Mandy could not deny the hypnotic fascination of the dominance and discipline played out before her. Between her clamped thighs, her slit prickled and grew moist.

  Four more strokes followed, leaving thin pink lines that slowly turned blue across the creamy flesh of the suffering bottom.

  ‘Be sure to pace the punishment as carefully as you place the stripes. They should be at least twenty seconds apart,’ Erica said softly as, breasts bouncing, she delivered the seventh searing swipe, ‘and at least a quarter of an inch below the previous cut. See?’

  Mandy nodded, mesmerised by the caning. She hated it, but despite her hate she drank in every vivid detail: the long, slender legs sweeping up to the ripe peaches above; the blush of those superb peaches criss-crossed with reddening stripes; the sudden creasing of the cleft as the whipped buttocks spasmed in sweet pain. Dark as it was, Mandy acknowledged that discipline in all its aspects was quite delicious. More delicious than she would ever have dared admit before coming to Sternwood Grange.

  Erica was adept: a capable caner and a consummate chastiser. More, she was a cruel controller of bare bottoms with bamboo. Despite herself – and poor Sophie’s suffering – Mandy became a keen disciple of stern discipline as the cane swished down again and again, and the plucking sensation in her hot slit throbbed with a galloping pulse.

  ‘Three left. Three more strokes to administer,’ Erica said. ‘You will have noticed that this girl’s bottom is softly fleshed. The cheeks are pliant beneath their taut, satin sheen. When dealing with this type of bottom, I recommend very crisp strokes delivered to the centre and the lower quadrant of the buttocks.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mandy mumbled, nodding. She swallowed, her tongue now swollen with thickened lust. The tang of her excitement rose up from her wet slit to stab her nostrils. Kneeling to attention under Erica’s stern gaze, she ached to finger her labia further apart, and probe the burning flesh within the sticky flesh-folds.

  ‘Feet apart,’ Erica ordered, dragging the tip of the cane down along Sophie’s quivering thigh.

  The bending girl obeyed, well drilled in the ways of dominance. Parting her thighs a fraction, then a fraction more, she allowed Mandy a delicious glimpse of her dark fig. Mandy’s breasts tightened and weighed heavy as she saw how wet and juicy Sophie’s forbidden fruit had become.

  ‘Wider,’ Erica commanded, tapping the buttocks sharply.

  The pink lips greeted Mandy’s gaze with a welcoming, wet smile as Sophie parted her thighs. Erica’s stern voice was the only sound in the intense silence of the warm afternoon, but Mandy could hardly hear it, so loud was the rushing of hot blood in her ears. She could now see Sophie’s wet crease in its entirety, and shuddered with wonder at the oozing sparkle on the pouting lips.

  ‘I will let you dispense her concluding strokes, Mandy. Get up and show me if you have learnt anything this afternoon.’

  Mandy rose from her knees, accepted the cane and, as Erica retreated to the bed, swished the bamboo down across the striped cheeks. Sophie squealed her torment but then, to Mandy’s surprise, appeared to inch her bottom up in supplication for the next stroke. More in eagerness than in anxiety, the whipped girl submitted her bottom to the bamboo. Mandy frowned. What did this dark ambiguity mean? Was there pleasure for Sophie in her pain? Why was the bare bottom now seemingly eager to embrace rather than escape its sweet sorrow.

  Glancing at the spot where the rounded cheeks merged into the soft sweep of the thigh, Mandy saw a silver bubble at the caned girl’s labia. Biting her lower Up in concentration, she steadied the cane and tapped it briskly at the winking wetness. The bubble popped silently, and Sophie sighed softly with a shudder of pleasure. The tip of the yellow bamboo darkened slightly, stained with her hot juice. The cane trembled in Mandy’s grip, and she felt a flicker of delight forking down from the base of her belly to the tightening muscles within her innermost flesh.

  ‘Again,’ intoned Erica.

  Mandy raised the wet cane, then plied it with swift savagery across the bare bottom, bringing Sophie up on her toes in an anguish of ecstasy.

  ‘And again,’ instructed the cropped blonde, her voice curdled with lust.

  The cane glinted in the sunlight as it bequeathed a final kiss of fire across the crimsoned cheeks.

  ‘That was better, Mandy. Much better. You seem to have an appetite for doing your stern duty. And you seem,’ Erica purred, ‘to understand the importance of the dominance the caner must exercise over the caned. Punishment,’ she continued softly, ‘promises
much more than mere pain. It is so rich in potential pleasures. Later, I will teach you and you will learn that the time spent examining and inspecting the punished bottom can be as rewarding as the time spent dispensing the discipline. But more of those matters later, perhaps. It is time to take you to the sauna.’

  The sauna was for the exclusive use of the residents, Erica told Mandy as they entered the spacious room. Before being converted, Mandy speculated, it must have been a ballroom. The high ceiling was completely covered in pale-blue mirroring glass, the walls gleamed with clinically white Italian tiles. Six large bay windows, once overlooking the neatly arrayed rose beds outside, had been rendered opaque by gold frosting. It was well equipped – better than her Knightsbridge health spa, Mandy concluded as she ran her auditing eye over the silver chrome and dark-leather fixtures and fittings.

  ‘Strip,’ Erica ordered, flicking on a panel of fighting controls.

  Blinded by the flood of neon, Mandy hesitated.

  ‘Quickly, girl. You will be receiving two residents shortly. I want you to serve them.’

  Mandy raised an eyebrow.

  ‘See to their every whim,’ Erica translated. ‘You must be changed and ready to receive them.’

  Mandy wriggled out of her vest and skirt and stood, braless but tightly pantied, before Erica. The cropped blonde’s cruel mouth pursed appreciatively as she stared at the proud swell of Mandy’s pubis sheathed within the stretch of cotton.

  ‘Panties off.’

  Mandy thumbed them down over the swell of her ripe hips and rump and stepped out of them, her face a sullen mask of resentment as she felt Erica’s narrowed eyes feasting on her nakedness.

  ‘Hmm. A natural blonde,’ Erica murmured.

  Mandy flushed, covering her pubic nest with both hands. That was a bit close, she realised. If Celia Flaxstone ever came to notice her blonde curls, she might just possibly recall the blonde Amanda Silk.

  ‘Apron and gloves,’ Erica said, handing the clear-plastic uniform over. ‘Hurry up.’

  Mandy wrapped the plastic apron around her belly and breasts. It was not an easy task: the thin plastic clung to her lovingly. Twice she had to peel it away from her soft nakedness and start anew. Eventually, she had donned the plastic apron and, reaching out behind, was struggling with blind fingers at the tabs.

  ‘Come here,’ Erica snapped crossly. ‘Turn around.’

  Mandy obeyed, presenting her bare bottom to the cropped blonde. Erica drew the tabs together tightly and tied them, causing the plastic apron to squeeze Mandy’s bosom, pressing the trapped breasts deliciously. Down at her golden nest, the stretch of plastic crackled the pubic fuzz. Mandy shuddered at the sudden closeness of Erica: the cropped blonde’s hot breath on the nape of her bowed neck, the swell of the breasts thrust into her naked back, the brush of Erica’s firm hips against her bare bottom.

  ‘Now the gloves.’

  The command, and the warm breath that carried it, made Mandy shudder. She took a step forward and struggled with the clear-plastic gloves. Erica took a similar pace, matching Mandy’s, bringing her lower belly close against Mandy’s naked cheeks once more. Reaching around her captive, the cropped blonde snapped the stretchy gloves into place. Mandy flexed and splayed her fingers, thrilling to the unexpected pleasure of the tight feel.

  ‘Red robes are dominants, yellows are subs. You’ll get one of each this afternoon.’

  Mandy turned, frowning.

  ‘Red robes. Worn at all times by the dominant-type residents outside their private quarters. Here in the sauna or down in the gym. They are very strict with the angels and have sharp appetites. They take pleasure in others’ pain. The yellow-robed residents,’ Erica continued, disregarding the mounting look of dismay on Mandy’s face, ‘are subs. Submissive types. They take pain for their pleasure. Be stern with them, and manage them strictly. They yearn for the humiliation, discipline and bondage you will dispense.’

  As these words sent her pulse throbbing, Mandy dragged her gloved palms down across her belly and smoothed the plastic apron over the swell of her upper thighs.

  The door opened. ‘They’re here,’ Erica warned. ‘Remember, when serving a dom, you are hers entirely. And, when serving a sub, she is utterly yours. I will,’ Erica said sternly, ‘deal with you most severely should you fail to please.’

  Erica withdrew, leaving Mandy to greet and receive a red-robed dominant resident. Mandy gasped. Surely she had seen this beautiful woman’s face on late-night intellectual talk shows shredding to pieces the vapid opinions of the good and the televisually great. Yes. It was her, here in the flesh.

  The resident gazed impassively ahead of her, ignoring Mandy completely. Only the impatient jerk of her shoulder signalled her readiness to be disrobed. With trembling fingers, Mandy led her client into a cubicle, drawing the curtains together behind her. Turning, she caught the edge of the red towelling robe gingerly, curling her fingers into its softness to steady herself. After pulling at the belt, she peeled it down over the woman’s shoulders, exposing her superb breasts. The dominant, a haughty beauty of thirty-six, tossed her raven hair as she stepped out of the robe. Mandy stooped to gather up and fold the discarded robe, shyly glimpsing the arrogant thrust of the proud bosom above. Silently, the raven-haired beauty motioned Mandy to stand before her. For a full minute, Mandy shivered in her client’s stern gaze.

  ‘Kneel,’ whispered the sensual, cruel lips.

  Mandy knelt, her knees kissing the cold tiles.

  ‘You will attend to me in the sauna, then dry me when I emerge. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mandy murmured; her eyes level with the dark, matted pubic nest before her.

  ‘And I shall need to be oiled.’

  Mandy raised her face, expectantly.

  ‘Not now, fool. Later.’

  Mandy cast her large eyes down and blushed. She attempted to rise, but was immediately quelled by an imperious hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Shave me first, before the sauna,’ came the strict command.

  The nest of matted pubic curls rustled softly as the thighs before Mandy’s face parted an inch, then another half-inch. Stretching out her plastic-gloved hand, she tentatively stroked the dark fuzz with her fingertip. Shave her? Mandy’s heart thumped against her rib cage at the very thought of this intimate act of homage and service. But how? With what?

  ‘Over there.’ As if reading Mandy’s mind, the dominant woman placed three fingers under the kneeling girl’s chin and swivelled her face towards the sink. It was, Mandy saw, a small onyx basin with taps of dull gold. Mandy shuffled across the hard tiles on her knees, gathered up the scented foam, petite razor and hand towel. Returning to kneel submissively before the naked dominatrix, she set out her equipment in neat array.

  ‘You’d better lick me first,’ came the curt command.

  Inching her face closer, Mandy heard her taut plastic apron crackle. Within its crisp embrace, her heavy bosom bunched, the breasts swollen and rounded as they bulged within the sheen of bondage. Maddened by her tingling nipples as they pressed into the clinging plastic, she risked a furtive touch. Instantly, the nude’s right hand taloned her hair, forcing her head back.

  ‘You are here to pleasure me, girl. Not yourself. If I catch your fingers where they should not be once more, I shall have you whipped. Do you hear me?’

  Mandy nodded, wincing at the controlling hand that punished her hair.

  ‘What will you be if caught once more?’ came the stern interrogation.

  ‘Whipped,’ Mandy whispered through dry, parched lips.

  The fierce fingers in her hair relaxed and Mandy saw the hand return to brush against the swell of the woman’s naked thigh.

  ‘Lick me. Wet me thoroughly, then shave me.’

  Timorously at first, but with a gathering boldness soon fuelling her tongue, Mandy moistened the nest of dark pubic curls. At last, sniffing the feral tang of the pubis, she flattened her tongue against the rasping fuzz.

  ‘Good,’ the d
ominatrix remarked, nodding her apparent satisfaction as she fingered her delta.

  Mandy squeezed out a line of scented foam into the open palm of her left hand. With the first and second fingers of her right hand, she scooped up a smear and worked the white softness into the pubic curls. As the tip of her third finger accidentally caressed the hood of the clitoris with a fleeting touch, she sensed the woman rise up on her toes.

  ‘Careful,’ came the stern warning. ‘Serve me carefully or your bottom will suffer.’

  Mandy, panicking, accidentally parted the thick labial lips. Her cornflower-blue eyes flickered up penitently. The towering nude merely grunted softly, motioning her kneeling slave to continue. Mandy took up the tiny golden razor and, taking a deep breath to steady her excited hand, started to shave the foaming delta. With short, delicate, sweeping strokes she exposed the gleaming skin beneath.

  As the foamed coils curled up before the blade, a strange sensation tightened Mandy’s breasts and thickened her tongue. Suddenly, the pulse at her throat throbbed uncontrollably. The sensation was confusing, erotic and disturbingly delicious. Kneeling in submission and forced to perform this humiliating act of intimacy, she nevertheless sensed a curious feeling of power and of being in control. This dominant woman with her legs splayed apart was, she realised, utterly at her mercy. The tiny golden razor in her hand was as potent as any cane or crop hovering above bare buttocks. Fired by this electrifying awareness, Mandy grew imperceptibly bolder: she framed the flesh of the delta with two fingers, stretching the skin and exposing it to her blade. Soon, the proud swell of the pubic delta surrounding the glistening fig was shaved clean. Mandy felt a heady mixture of relief and exultation surge up within her. Though kneeling in subjugation before the dominatrix, she still felt the intoxicating thrill of being in control.

  ‘Kiss it,’ whispered the raven-haired beauty, cupping her ripe breasts and squeezing them ruthlessly.

  The harsh command broke the spell: Mandy was a slave once more. She strained forward, steadying herself with her plastic-gloved hands delicately upon either hip. Her lips closed on the sweet flesh-folds.