by Aran Ashe
"There - was that so very bad?" she asked her coyly, then lifted the bowl from Anya's bottom and placed it on the floor. "And tell me," she insisted, "did you like that slapping of your person?" Ildren had moved round to the side; her fingers brushed upwards across Anya's breast, and lifted up the teat to stroke it. "Answer - did it bring you pleasure?" Anya had no choice; she nodded weakly. "Good. Your Taskmistress next has a very interesting style of pleasure to which she will subject your body."
Anya now became apprehensive about what the Taskmistress was doing - she was unfastening the chain of gold about Anya's waist. Ildren had to work the chain around in order to reach the fastening; Anya's heart was beating wildly at this treatment. It was as if in some way, she felt the chain to be a part of herself which Ildren, by breaking that symbolic loop, was trying to take away. This fingering at the fastening made her very much afraid; it seemed to her an assault upon her person, as if Ildren wished to strip her of her last shred of dignity, and to render her as nothing.
"No - please ma'am," she tried to beg her, but to no avail. The Taskmistress had released the fastening, and now unfolded the chain so it dangled down from each side of her body and across her bunched-up thighs.
"I wish you to be totally nude," the Taskmistress said quite coldly, though with a tremble in her voice. She removed the chains from Anya's wrist and ankle.
Anya's tears welled up inside her. She did not understand it, but she could not help herself, the shame was overpowering as the Taskmistress slowly pulled the large chain through from underneath her belly. However, Ildren did not take the chain away entirely from her slave. Anya felt her pin it with a finger or thumb to the small of Anya's back, and then drape it down the groove of her bottom; its weighted presence clung to Anya's parting, but it barely touched her sex before dangling straight down towards the floor. Anya's sobs had ebbed away under that pressured weight which seemed to fit so precisely to the split between her buttocks. She was reminded of that chain that Ildren wore and the way it had been lowered against her in that very place, while she lay on Ildren's bed, as a prelude to that pleasurable release which Anya had found to be so sweet and so delicious. Therefore, she was anxious to know what might happen next. Ildren's fingers parted Anya's leaves, which had gone so soft and so compliant that they remained open where Ildren pressed them back against her mound. "Mmm ... just the way I like those love lips," Ildren murmured, then gently lifted the end of the chain from Anya's parting, until it was held horizontally, level with her back, and then she let it fall. The heavy, swinging line of pressured contact travelled down Anya's groove, making her gasp in mounting pleasure, and then emit a tiny grunt, as the lick of pressure curled between her open leaves and pressed against her nubbin. Ildren caught the chain on the backward swing and sent it down again, repeatedly and at a constant rate, until that squeezing line of luscious pleasure, that pendulum of delight, made Anya want to squirm and close her legs around it and beg for Ildren to finish her, to press those links against her nub until she burst her pleasure. Ildren caught the chain again, and reaching underneath pressed the end to Anya's belly, so the links pulled tight along the divide of Anya's separated flesh. That pressure was exquisite, yet cruel; not rolling against her in the way she needed, not firm enough to bring release.
The Taskmistress sounded distant, as if she found it difficult to speak. "Now I shall feed this chain of love ..." she trailed away, then finally managed, "into your body ... Anya opened her mouth to cry out, but no sound at all came out. The icy fear and horror had sucked her breath away.
Ildren began by tightening the silken band, so Anya's sex felt pushed out and downwards from between her thighs, impossibly far. Anya shuddered as the Taskmistress touched her there, and those precise and probing fingers opened out her proffered sex, and then she shivered as each cold, heavy metal loop touched against the smoothness of her tender inner self as the Taskmistress worked it, link by link, into that living pouch. Anya felt herself distending under the moving weight of metal pushed inside her. That sinking kind of weight which she had suffered many times in imagination, at the stirrings of her pleasure, was now transformed into reality. Her sex felt like a swollen, overripe fruit, which was weighted down with liquid; the pulling pressure concentrated there, the heaviness behind her nub was sublime; her fruit was more than ripe for picking. Ildren gathered it up and closed her fingers round it, and traced its line of split. She sealed its leaves around the dangling end of chain, then tickled Anya's spine whilst Anya basked in the weighted pleasure slung beneath her belly. Ildren gently shook the chain and swung it to and fro, and then from side to side, and carefully pulled it; each movement was transmitted up into Anya's body; the pulling felt so deep and so delicious.
"Your honeydew is dripping from the chain," Ildren murmured very softly. "Now tell me, sweetest - does this give you pleasure, as I promised that it would? A deeper pleasure than the cockstem? Tell me." Ildren softly squeezed her sex. Anya's sigh was deep and heartfelt.
"Good. Your pleasure shall be sweeter yet." Ildren jumped up and moved over to the table. She collected up a jar, then dipped her finger in and tasted. She closed her eyes and threw back her head. "Mmm ..." she said. She dipped her finger once again and offered it to Anya, who was apprehensive as Ildren forced it through her lips and smeared it on her tongue. It tasted very sweet and musky, like nectar overlain with female heat; it was the distinctive taste of honey. Anya knew it very well for she had tasted it before, on quite a few occasions. Now Ildren held up the chain which she had removed from Anya's ankle; she took a sidelong look at Anya, then she dipped it in the pot. The slave was now a little worried. A stream of honey ran down the chain and back into the jar. "Now, this is a little messy," Ildren smiled. "But quite pleasant, I assure you. Open your mouth and push your tongue out very far."
Anya felt the sticky chain, coaxed by Ildren's carefully probing fingers, being fed into her bottom. She closed her eyes against the shame of it. Ildren carefully wiped off the excess, and after she had licked her fingers, she dipped them in the bowl of water sitting on the floor. Taking hold of the end of the chain which dangled down from Anya's bottom, she said, "Open your eyes and look at me." With a cold, wet finger, she tickled very lightly down Anya's spine, from the level of her silken waistband, to the very tip. Anya shivered with that icy tickle, and that pulling deep inside her. It made her close her eyes in delectation. "No ... keep those delicious eyes open, that I may look upon their beauty whilst I pleasure you." Ildren wet her fingers once again. "Now, that delightful little tongue ... push it out again, and make it as pointed as you can ..." Anya felt that wave of pulling, drawing down and making her contract. "Now move that tongue round and round, in a circle." And as she did so, Ildren stroked her moistened fingertip round and round that tender, pouted, pulled-out rim of bottom flesh that gripped the tautened chain. "There, isn't that nice? No, keep that tongue moving. There ..." Anya was almost passing out with pleasure at this treatment. "Your little mouth is pulsing its delight. Good. Now, we shall try another very naughty kind of pleasure. Take a breath - a very deep one - and hold it ..."
Ildren now had hold of each of Anya's chains and pulled them, alternately, very slowly but very fully, so Anya felt that pulling pleasure shift inside her, as it rocked from back to front. "Breathe out ... and in ..." Ildren kept doing this to Anya until her sex could take no more and went into a deep and pulsing spasm. "My darling ... you really must contain that recklessness of spirit. I want you to promise me that you will stay quite relaxed for this next procedure. I do not want to witness so brazen a display of rudeness again. Is this quite clear?" Ildren forced the slave to give her word, but Anya knew that Ildren would just as surely make her break it.
"Mmm ... your love lips are so soft and warm." They felt so sensitized that the slightest touch was making Anya want to squirm with delight. "Let me spread them very fully ... Oh! What is this hard little knot in there? It feels so firm and so deliciously naughty. Let Ildren stroke this lit
tle wet tongue of pleasure." She used one hand to hold back Anya's hood and to hold her leaves apart. Ildren's middle finger slowly and systematically tickled Anya's poked-out nubbin, whilst her thumb wrapped around the chain in Anya's sex and kept pulling at it, then releasing, at a carefully timed rate. The Ildren's free hand took that other chain and very firmly pulled, increasing the strain until it began to move, whereupon she ordered her slave to begin to pant, whilst she very slowly, so deliciously, and with so very cruel a pleasuring, drew that chain out of Anya's person. Anya tried so hard against that drawing pleasure, and that pulling in her sex, and that finger pressure round her nubbin, which Ildren was tickling so exquisitely, and she very nearly succeeded - until that thread of dripping honey trailed upwards in her groove, and Ildren deposited that sticky weight of drawn-out chain along the base of Anya's spine, and the line of liquid pressure there was just too much to bear. Ildren was already kneeling down beside her, not touching her at all, but looking deeply and very lovingly into Anya's eyes - those deep black pools of defenceless pleasure - as Anya's trembles swelled and waned and swelled once more, against those wrenching gasps, and the honey welling slowly down her groove, and then her belly shook in wave upon wave of delicious liquefaction.
Ildren shook her finger. "You very naughty girl, and after you had promised me so sweetly." But even so, Ildren's voice had faltered, for she was filled with so much love for this very special slave that she was almost moved to tears. She washed her slave, so very lovingly, deep within her groove, and dabbed her dry, and then she washed her ankle chain. She closed Anya's love lips round the chain that still lay nestled within her sex, and left the end dangling. She stroked her back, while she waited patiently.
A sudden noise - a thumping sound - made Anya jump with fright.
"Oh," cried Ildren, in obvious dismay. The banging came again. "Oh no! - Who could it be? Who is at my door?" Ildren sounded quite surprised at this unannounced intrusion. Anya was distressed. Just one minute!" Ildren cried, then whispered, "Let me get my robe ... and here, my darling, let me cover you up." She threw a blanket over Anya's body, leaving only her head exposed. "There - you never know who it might be," she said, in a kindly, protective way.
The thumping came more loudly. "Open in the Prince's name!" a voice boomed from behind the door. Anya's heart stood still; the blood drained from her face.
Ildren then admitted the Prince, and all his retinue, who arranged themselves in a half circle near the door. Anya froze, her eyelids almost closed; she held her breath and wished that she were invisible. Why hadn't Ildren placed the blanket over her head, so she could hide completely from her shame? She could not bear the thought of him, of all people, seeing the depth of her depravity.
"We thank you, Sire," the Taskmistress began, with unction on her tongue. "Your noble presence brings honour to our humble quarters." Now Anya's lungs were bursting, and she had to breathe; her heart was thumping in her throat.
"Yes, yes. The slave - ?" The Prince was speaking now, referring to her. "Is she not here, Taskmistress - as your message has advised us?"
The force of meaning in these last few words pierced Anya's heart like a knife blow. It cut her to the quick, for at that point she realised just what this evil woman had done. Now she understood the wicked inner purpose behind these cruel seductive games. Ildren had contrived that Anya's presentation to the Prince would be crowned with degradation.
"The slave is here." Ildren stood aside and Anya could feel the weight of the Prince's gaze upon her, even though her eyes were now so very tightly shut.
For a second, he did not speak; then his voice sounded tense.
"But Taskmistress, I do not understand ... Why is she being punished? And have I not made my own feelings very clear to you on the use of that contraption?"
"Sire - the slave is not being punished." Ildren now could barely contain her delight. "This is the manner in which the slave prefers to take her pleasure."
"Taskmistress," the Prince's voice was stern, "do not try my credulity, and do not try my patience. Release her now."
Now Ildren sounded hurt. "As Your Highness requires ..."
Anya was powerless to prevent the blanket from sliding down her body, and then she heard the Prince's gasp. She wished she could have closed her ears against the shadow of that gasp. The pit of Anya's shame was bottomless. She kept sinking down and down, and wishing with her heart and soul that this was not really happening, that the Prince was not witnessing her humiliation in this way. If Anya had been allowed a knife, she would gladly have cut out Ildren's poisoned heart and burned it, and then cut out her own, and watched it shudder and then lie still, in a mirror of that mortal blow to her hopes and her desire.
"Open your eyes, in the Prince's presence," the venomous creature said.
"No! No. Do not oblige her so to do." The Prince sounded shaken.
Ildren was quite undaunted. "Shall I untie her now, or - ? Her blackness is set out for your noble self to examine, at your pleasure."
The Prince cleared his throat, but did not speak.
"Your Highness will observe, within the cleft, that knot of flesh. That is not normally so prominent as it now appears. It has been accentuated by the spanking - in which the slave took pleasure. She will confirm this if you care to ask her." Anya died a thousand deaths. "Oh, and the chain that is there because the slave insisted she prefers it to a cockstem. It seems to give her fuller pleasure that a man's part ever could. Perhaps your noble self would wish to touch and test the ..."
"No, I - No." The Prince sounded very upset, and very uncertain and embarrassed. But Ildren did not seem to notice this.
"You will find the slave has worked herself, in preparation for this moment. The chain is moistened with her juices ..."
"No, I must - No. Thank you, Taskmistress, I ..." Daylight was a tiny point above Anya's pit of black despair.
And now the Prince was gone; the Taskmistress was left alone with Anya, whose leaden body slowly heaved and dropped, and heaved again, in shudders of misery. Uncontrollable thick salt drops of fire stung her eyes and wet her cheeks and dribbled in her mouth.
"My darling dearest," Ildren put her arm about her slave and gently comforted her. "Do not upset yourself. These men are all the same. They are quite indifferent to a woman's feelings." Ildren stroked her brow. "After everything the Prince had said about you, and promised for you too. And now, when you have prepared yourself, displayed your body for his pleasure, His Highness does not want to know, and - who can tell? - even now is probably in another's arms ... some other slave who has chanced to take his fickle fancy."
But Anya's tears would not stem, not even when the Taskmistress, with a swelling, nervous bosom, filled with love and sadness for her charge, very softly cupped Anya's weighted flesh within her palm and squeezed it, sealing those lips of love about the chain, then wrapped the suspended end of it around her fist and pulled it, link by link, from Anya's body, saying, "There, there, my precious pet, never fear, for your Taskmistress loves you very deeply." Anya's sobs came louder now, and Ildren's heart swelled as if to burst through her breast. Those sobs were music to her ears.
The Taskmistress wiped the tears from Anya's cheeks and smeared the tear juice round her nipples, then sucked upon these salted, blackened, fleshy droplets one by one. She untied the slave and stretched her limbs and tenderly massaged them, until Anya's tears had slowly ebbed away. Ildren pressed her soft cool lips upon those swollen burning cheeks and, lifting Anya down, she replaced the chains about her wrist, her ankle, and her waist and led her to the window.
Slave and mistress looked out, across the grey stone turrets, to the rolling snow-white scene that merged to distant blue, and each, in her own way, was uplifted by the vision of that vastness of Lidir.
Anya's heart and soul could gladly have soared, out above this place, out into the air, out into the sunlight, through that cold blue air above that endless snow, and let its icy crispness wash away her fears and deliver
her to freedom.
"Together, we could rule this land," Ildren's voice had broken Anya's reverie. "The legend could come true ..." Anya did not understand. The voice became seductive. "Who needs a prince - when we have a princess?" Ildren kissed Anya very fully on the lips. But Anya pulled away when she realised exactly what this evil woman was saying, and she backed against the wall.