Once inside, Belinda was able to forget her nerves for a moment, swept away by the high drama of their surroundings.
At one time, the roof of the chapel had been removed altogether, although there was no sign of the rubble and debris that should have resulted. Consequently, the small building was completely open to the sky and the moon that rode across it, surrounded by the tiny brilliant pin-pricks of a host of stars. Belinda knew little about church architecture, but she could see pews and what she supposed was a knave, but of an altar or an elaborate crucifix there was no sign. They had been whisked away as comprehensively as the roof. And a long time ago, too. The forces of nature clearly had no respect for hallowed ground because there were weeds and wild flowers growing here and there inside the building; springing up from pockets of silt-like earth that suggested a flood at some time in the past. In the bright moonlight the effect was strangely beautiful.
‘Is this wh –’
Michiko silenced Belinda’s question with a hand across her lips. No! came her psychic voice, commandingly. Do not think of that now. This is our night. Let us concentrate on us! She drew her hand laterally over Belinda’s mouth, then inserted two fingers into it, touching the quiescence of her tongue. In a reflex as old as life, Belinda suckled.
‘Ah yes, my little one,’ the Japanese woman murmured, letting a third finger join the other two and stretch the corners of Belinda’s mouth. ‘My little girl, my naughty little girl. What have you been doing while you have been here, my wicked child?’
The words should have sounded twee and rather silly, like the words of a mock Victorian nanny in an indifferent and poorly-written play, yet on Michiko’s lips they had the ring of true authority. Somewhere at the back of Belinda’s mind was the memory of what Michiko had described as her profession in the real world. She was an actress, a principal player in a world-famous Japanese theatre troupe, and she was a very fine one, judging by this, an impromptu performance.
‘I’m s-sorry,’ stammered Belinda as Michiko removed her fingers. The response was automatic; she suddenly even seemed to feel remorse. The submissive role had completely engulfed her just as smoothly as the mantle of dominance had been taken on by Michiko.
Belinda hung her head, unable to look her Japanese mistress in the eyes.
‘Sorry for what?’ A strong hand cupped her jaw, lifting her face again. ‘Look at me, little one. Are you not at fault?’ Belinda obeyed, meeting ebony eyes that glittered. ‘Should you not be punished?’
Again, a portion of Belinda’s mind remained rooted in reality and recognised the absurdity of the dynamic that was emerging. She hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, quite the reverse. She had been wanton because it was the spark that André needed –
But another part of her mind acknowledged ritual, theatrics and role-play – all key elements in Michiko’s way of thinking. It was clear too that the Japanese woman enjoyed pain and power exchange as a satisfying form of eroticism, perhaps even the one that most fulfilled her, but her civilised mind demanded they be presented in a framework. Hence the sudden appearance of a ‘mistress’ and her ‘penitent’.
Their eyes remained locked for perhaps thirty seconds, during which neither of them smiled or acknowledged any kind of covenant, yet even so Belinda sensed an agreement made. Looking down again, she slowly nodded her head.
‘Good girl,’ said Michiko softly, her thumb brushing across Belinda’s lower lip. ‘You will feel so much better.’ Her free hand brushed Belinda’s hair, ruffling it affectionately as a mother or a sister would. Or perhaps a teacher who was old-fashioned and lovingly stern.
The gesture was sexless, but Belinda’s response to it could not have been more different. She felt a wave of delicious languor sweep through her. A melting. A soft, hot weakness that seemed to pool in the pit of her belly. It was as if she had wandered into a dream within a dream, where a new set of rules and responses held sway. Just the lightest touch of her hair could set her body and her sex a-quivering, and the thought of being punished made her heart leap with a strange dark longing.
But I don’t like pain, she thought, as Michiko took her by the hand and led her across the uneven stone floor of the chapel. I hate it. I’m a baby; I cry at the slightest thing. What will I do when she actually starts to hit me?
Michiko paused when they reached the area where Belinda supposed the altar had once been, and seemed torn between two possible sites where her desires might be indulged. One was a deep, high-backed oaken pew, standing parallel to the nave; and the other was a heavy, solid-legged table – also of oak – which stood against the outer wall, behind the pew. Nodding her head, Michiko studied first the pew, then the table, then the pew again. She glanced sideways at Belinda, then squeezed her hand.
‘Both, I think,’ the Japanese whispered, as if she were offering not one gift, but two. Drawing Belinda’s quivering hand to her crimson-stained lips, she kissed it once, then gave it another encouraging squeeze. ‘Come along, my dear, it’s time we got started.’
Releasing Belinda’s fingers, Michiko stepped smartly towards the pew, then sat down on it, her long legs manishly spread. Lifting one elegant finger, she made a curling ‘come here’ gesture, then pointed to a spot a foot or so from where she sat.
Belinda hurried forward but stumbled slightly on the irregular flooring. The slip was barely noticeable and she recovered in an instant, but when she stood before Michiko she couldn’t help blushing.
Michiko gave her a look which indicated she had taken note of her clumsiness but was prepared to tolerate it. Slowly, measuredly, the Japanese woman reached out and laid her left hand on Belinda’s right hip, then with her right hand she touched Belinda’s left nipple. The little crest was hard to start with, and embarrassingly distinct beneath the moulded satin of the dress, but when Michiko’s finger settled on it, it puckered even more.
Belinda bit her lip. It was as if an encoded message was passing through the tiny contact – all the information she needed about this and other activities that loomed ahead of her. For a second, she had a wild urge to break away and take to her heels and run, but Michiko’s narrow smile seemed to act as a shackle. Belinda could no sooner move than stop breathing in and out.
‘This is a very revealing dress, little one,’ observed Michiko, taking the nipple in her finger and thumb and twisting it. Her other hand squeezed quite hard on Belinda’s hip. ‘It’s a whore’s dress. What could you be thinking of wearing something like this?’
‘I-I don’t know,’ gasped Belinda. Her nipple was hurting now, really hurting, from a combination of being tweaked and the crushing grip itself. Michiko’s hands were so slender and graceful that it was hard to believe they could wield such painful force. What on earth else could they do to me? thought Belinda, feeling panicky. Without her being able to control it, her pelvis began to weave.
Why? Why is this happening? She was in pain now, and she still didn’t like it; but down below she could feel her sex engorging. She was dripping with desire, but it was because she was suffering, not in spite of it. As Michiko pulled her breast outward, like a plump fleshly cone, she whimpered loudly.
Immediately, the nipple was released, though the low ache still remained. Still holding her by the hip, Michiko’s warrior hand travelled downward until it hovered lightly at Belinda’s pubis, then pressed on the thin satin slip and made it cling to her crisp knot of curls.
‘The grove of heavenly delights,’ intoned Michiko, pushing the shiny fabric inward. Belinda felt her sex-lips part and the pale satin begin to moisten with her juices. There was just a single layer of delicate cloth keeping Michiko’s finger from touching her vulva, and she could feel the pad of that finger a bare inch from her clitoris.
‘Take the gown off your shoulders,’ said Michiko coolly. ‘Come on, girl, lower the straps.’
Belinda flinched and obeyed. It felt like a miracle that she could actually move her hands and perform the simple action required of her. The situation, and Michiko�
�s presence, seemed to inflict a paralysis upon her limbs. Flicking the thin the straps of the slip-like dress off her shoulders, she allowed the garment to slide down her body and expose her swollen breasts. With a struggle, she slid her arms out from the straps, leaving her torso naked and the satin rumpled around her hips.
Michiko just looked at her, long and hard, her pressing finger remaining quite motionless in its hazardous position. Belinda seemed to feel the Japanese woman’s scrutiny like a strange, liquid ray cruising her body at a slow-motion pace. Her nipples stiffened even more and almost seemed to jump. Despite being exposed to the night air, her body began to sweat. She imagined perspiration forming in visible pools in her armpits, beneath her breasts, and in her groin. Phantom streams of it trickled over her skin and oozed down her flanks like jewelled, betraying rivers.
Suddenly, Michiko withdrew her left hand for a moment and let the bunched satin slip off Belinda’s right buttock. The Japanese then grasped the naked lobe and squeezed it firmly, the tips of her fingers digging crudely and suggestively into Belinda’s bottom-cleft. The whole weight of the dress now seemed to be hanging from her one probing finger.
Belinda moaned softly, desperately wanting something to happen, but afraid that it would. She no longer moved her hips; she dare not. Michiko’s fingertips were so close to her most sensitive zones that the slightest of movements would bring them into contact with bunches of nerve receptors that screamed silently to be triggered.
‘Oh please,’ she whispered, remembering the same begging situation with André, the same state of being driven almost to madness in need of something.
‘Remember what you are begging for,’ warned Michiko, palpating the muscles of Belinda bottom-cheek. ‘Remember what I want of you –’
‘I don’t care!’ cried Belinda, rocking, and getting the most minuscule of half-nudges against her clitoris. She felt a brief but brilliant shard of sensation, then the hand was withdrawn and her dress slithered to the ground, leaving her bare but for the white stockings she wore gartered at her knees, the only other garments, except her shoes, that she had been provided with.
‘Do anything with me! I don’t care,’ she repeated, waggling her bottom in the Japanese woman’s hold. ‘I don’t care,’ she sobbed, her eyes filling with childish tears of thwarted lust.
‘As you wish,’ said Michiko, her face a mask, her eyes as fierce as supernovae. She released Belinda’s buttock. ‘Step out of your dress, then let’s have you across my knee.’
Belinda stepped clear of the pooled satin around her ankles, then dithered, feeling a wanton in just her stockings. Michiko gave her an intent look and she stepped to one side of the Japanese woman’s braced thighs, then with as much grace as she could summon, she went across them.
The pose wasn’t as easy to hold as she had expected. Though Michiko’s thighs were muscular and firmly braced, Belinda still felt an alarming sense of vertigo. She felt as if she were falling both literally and figuratively – tipping head-first off Michiko’s lap and cart-wheeling wildly into a new and frightening world. She was more relieved than she could have imagined when Michiko’s left hand settled securingly in the small of her naked back, while the other lightly toyed with her buttocks.
‘Hmm … Nice and firm,’ the Japanese murmured. ‘Resilient –’
Almost while she was still speaking, the first smart slap landed unannounced.
‘Oh God!’ shouted Belinda, in total shock.
It felt like a slab of wood had crashed down on her bottom, a seasoned timber that had been pickled to make it harder. After a second of blank whiteness, her right buttock flamed, then almost immediately its twin caught fire too.
Michiko’s rhythm was immaculate, each blow timed so that the previous one’s impact was given time to fully develop. Crying within thirty seconds, Belinda could not believe how hard the smacks felt, how hard Michiko’s hand felt. How stunning and painful a simple spanking could be.
Wriggling and squirming, she felt heat building and building in the muscles of her bottom, and at the same time sinking through into her quim. It was difficult to credit the way the sensations began to blend.
Michiko was really hurting her now, making her suffer far more than she had expected to, yet between her legs, Belinda was slippery and excited. Her brain seemed to be in a state of short circuit somehow, sending all the wrong responses to her breasts and her genitals. She was being hit, punished, belaboured; being made to experience excruciating pain and profound humiliation. But instead of despair, she felt jubilant, elated; her heart soaring with a wild, sweet desire.
‘Oh Michiko,’ she groaned, lifting her bottom high to meet a slap, then riding down on it to grind her crotch against her mistress’s thigh. Each hard blow made her clitoris jump and pulse. ‘Oh Michiko, I can’t bear it,’ she squealed, opening her flailing legs wider so her tormentor could seek out more tender targets.
When her climax finally came, she felt stunned and fought for breath, enduring pleasure waves so powerful she nearly fainted. Her throbbing, blazing bottom and the deep spasms of her vagina seemed to fuse into one huge, amorphous feeling, a fabulous sensation that transcended all description. It was ecstasy; it was pain; it was both of them and better … and it seemed to last for hours and hours, yet fade far too quickly.
As her senses wavered, she heard, Well done, my little one.
‘Is Michiko a lesbian?’ asked Jonathan, apropos of nothing.
Of all the questions he could have asked, having heard the bizarre story his companion had just told him, it surprised him that this was the one he had posed. What did it matter which way the Japanese woman’s preferences swung? And what difference did it make to their involvement in André’s future?
‘Sometimes,’ said André, staring back at him over the rim of a rounded crystal glass. They were in the library, drinking brandy, while the women walked in the garden. ‘And sometimes not. It depends,’ he continued, then took a sip of the amber-toned spirit.
Jonathan drank some brandy too, although rather more than the count had done. This was the first occasion that he had spent any length of time with their mysterious host, and the conversation alone would have been enough to drive the most abstemious puritan to the bottle, dealing as it had done with gothic magic and abnormal longevity.
It’s more than that though, thought Jonathan, studying the other man. André was sitting at the other end of the leather-upholstered settee, and seemed to be lost in deep, dreamy fugue.
It’s him, as well, Jonathan told himself. Him, and the weird effect he has on me.
Reaching for the bottle which stood before them on a low table, he sloshed a little more into his glass, then gestured towards André’s glass with it.
‘Why yes, I will,’ said the count, his smile still a little distracted.
Jonathan poured more of the glowing fluid into his companion’s glass, wondering as he did so whether it would have the same effect.
Is he still human? Can he even get drunk? he pondered, watching André’s throat undulate as he sipped the warming spirit. The count was wearing a loose royal blue silk shirt with a tiny tab collar, and the vibrant colour made his smooth skin appear very pale.
‘About Michiko,’ he prompted, returning to the subject of the Japanese woman because his thoughts about André von Kastel were too alarming. ‘You said “it depends”. Depends on what?’
‘On how beautiful the other woman is,’ said André mildly. ‘How spirited. Michiko is a great admirer of physical beauty, but if there’s no spark there, no fire of individuality, she’s not interested.’
Jonathan sighed. ‘I suppose that means she’s seducing Belinda right now, even as we speak.’
‘Probably,’ replied André, his blue eyes so bright that Jonathan couldn’t look away. ‘Does that bother you?’
Did it? He really didn’t know what to say. Or to think. The idea of two women making love was a classic male fantasy, he knew, and it had worked for him well enough in the pas
t – in general terms. But he had never visualised Belinda with another woman. Not even here, when the way she had spoken of her dealings with the two mute girls seemed to suggest that Feltris and Elisa had been as affectionate to her as they had to him.
‘I detect that your feelings are ambiguous,’ said André, into the quietness of the big high-ceilinged room. The only sound, apart from the occasional creak of the leather sofa, was their breathing.
Jonathan opened his mouth, but still couldn’t seem to form a word.
‘The idea of Belinda with another woman is new to you, is it not?’ the count continued. ‘And puzzling. You wonder why you do not feel more jealous.’
‘I-I’m not sure what I –’ Jonathan faltered, swirling his glass then lifting it to his lips, trying desperately to analyse his feelings. About Belinda. About Michiko. About all the strange revelations. About the man with whom he was sitting and drinking; the man who suddenly seemed far closer than he had a moment ago. So close that their thighs were almost touching. So close that he could see the toned shape of the musculature beneath André’s tight, faded denims – and the size of the firm bulge at his crotch.
With brandy in his mouth, Jonathan spluttered furiously and felt himself choke and start to cough, his face turning a bright, blushing red. Eyes watering, chest heaving, he felt his brandy glass being removed deftly from his hand, and the impact of a solid, well-placed thump against his back. He coughed again, gratefully this time, and suddenly found he could breath deeply and evenly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, wiping his bleary eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Maybe I’ve had too much to drink.’
‘Perhaps you have not yet had enough?’ countered André, and Jonathan felt the hand that had struck him stroke his back.
The caress was so light and innocuous it was almost illusory, but coming after the realisation of a moment ago, it made Jonathan start to shake and blush again.
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