The Pleasure Palace

by Caroline Swift

  When lunch came, it was delicious, served in expensive Gien crockery, silverware and crystal by nude waitresses - the term ‘maid’ (femme de salle) Marina discovered was reserved for the female version of the valet. The inmates sat on the long velvet-covered benches - a trifle stained with sex juices here and there - and chatted gaily, telling their individual stories, which fascinated the new arrivals. They also described the underworld of Beaucastel and some of the arcane procedures, essential knowledge for survival. They described the various cellars: Cell I, where deportment and sexual servicing was taught, frequently with the help of male slaves, brought over in erection from the masculine prisons; Cell II, where worn-out, jaded slaves were recycled with the encouragement of the breast quirt; Cell III, that dealt exclusively with triple orifice penetrations and the manner in which females should react to stringent, dutiful servicing.

  Nastasia then depicted the performances that took place in Cell IV, a place to be avoided at all costs - and she knew its uses - for there sex torture with tongs, ropes and bodkins was applied to the slave bodies, principally on the breasts and sex.

  “Then, there’s Cell V where they deal with male slaves and where probably, as you’re new, you’ll have to participate. But that’s rather fun if, like me, you relish a stout cock bound up in leathers and loads of hot spunk. Plenty of spunk here.”

  There was a silence before Ashley spoke. “Cell VI is rather special and I must say I’ve never been in there, thank goodness.”

  Verena wanted the whole picture. “Well, Ashley, what goes on there?”

  “The last slave we saw go into that cell was Mirta. She’s gone now, back to her boat on the Adriatic or somewhere, branded with her owners’ initials on both buttocks and over the shaved pubis. It marked her terribly but she was so proud. Yes, they brand very neatly with white-hot irons - but that’s the owners’ requirement.” She paused before enquiring: “Do you think your people have ordered branding for you? It’s very popular these days.”

  Marina frowned. “God forbid!” she exclaimed, seating herself on the bench next to Katia, the Ukrainian girl with the septum ring in her nose. “1 don’t think our proprietors would go that far. I wouldn’t stand for it.”

  Katia smiled and stroked the girl’s pubis. “You never know, dearest. You never know. The point is that, once you’re branded, there’s little likelihood of your owners discarding you. A branded slave is not worth much on the market, you see. You’re theirs for good, in a way. It only takes a minute but it’s there for eternity.”

  It was Ashley, the gorgeous English femme fatale, who again took up the listing of cellars; she knew most of them well after her fortnight of refresher training. “Cell VII is a particularly unpleasant place,” she wrinkled her lovely nose as she spoke, “but I guess you’ll have to get to know it sooner or later. A lot of whipping goes on there and sex torture to bring you to the level they want. Impalement, too. But once you’ve been through that, your price goes up fantastically...”

  “But we’re not for sale!” Marina choked as she said it. “Ashley, we’re not for sale!”

  “Well, they’re lucky, aren’t they?” Ashley shook her chestnut hair back and fingered her sex rings, looking round at her colleagues. “But you won’t escape whipping, especially with Gerda. The others, and particularly Lalaniere, are fairly tolerable. But not Gerda.”

  When lunch was over and the coffee offered by the nude serving girls, Verena and Marina were shown around. First, they were conducted by the shaved Renee, content with two orgasms with her freckled Sylvie before lunch, to the cleansing rooms; the bathroom was magnificent, equipped with deep floor-level baths of black marble and faucets in the shape of swans’ beaks; beyond were two saunas, a large Turkish bath, in which the slender form of Marja was sweating naked on the porcelain tiles. To the side yawned a sort of boudoir lined with shelves, ladened with flasks and phials of perfumed oils; a slab of stone reared in the centre. It was evidently there, Marina guessed, that the slave bodies were flushed out and scented for their descent into the cellars. Strangely, the scene excited and frightened her and she told Verena so.

  “You smell good as you are, darling.” And Verena kissed the girl’s teats in rapture. She was beginning to enjoy the place.

  That evening, Restif handed over the two newcomers to Gabrielle. The woman was booted with black stockings appearing above, over the thighs; her sex was shaved and alluringly plump, split by a raw length of leather that cut into the slit, to disappear between the cheeks of the strong buttocks. The belt she wore was broad, adorned with a golden buckle above the pubis, and from it, next to a bunch of keys, hung a classical quirt, the lashes punctured along their short length with holes pierced into the five digits of tough hide. Her ash-blonde hair, drawn strictly back, glistened on either side of a handsome face with sensuous lips and unusual eyes; there was an almost imperceptible strabismus in them, which lent her a look of immense, mean cruelty.

  Her fine breasts swinging heavily above the nudes, Gabrielle affixed the bondage straps to the girls’ limbs, laying the bodies over the slab in the bathroom area. It was done in silence, the rivets being flattened with the bondage, clamping tool. Each manacle, lined with felt, fitted perfectly, boasting a ring at each ankle and wrist and four equally spaced rings in the throat strap; the steel rings matched the girls’ flesh rings in size and weight. Stoically, Verena and Marina accepted the bondage, exalted at last to be like their colleagues. Gabrielle then marked the underside of each girl’s left breast with the requisite slave number, using special indelible ink. They were ready.

  The girls rose, sensing the grip of the leathers of slavery, and knelt before their female warder.

  “You are free for the evening - except for your routine sex service, naturally, later with the overseers. Tomorrow, you will both be summoned and dealt with in Cell I. I hope you enjoy it. It’s fairly mild.” Then she added: “To begin with.”

  With that, the half-naked warder allowed the girls to return to the Slave Hall.

  As they rejoined the group, they experienced a bizarre sensation; both sexes were flooded, leaking with lust occasioned by the bondaging. Without a word of greeting to the others, Verena drew her lover to the bed.

  “Suck me off, darling. I can’t wait.”

  As the group prepared for dinner, no one paid the least attention to the festivity of predatory cunnilingus, even when Verena screamed obscenely, juddering under Marina’s tongue, mucilage discharging viscously over the girl’s face. Four closed-circuit TV cameras in the Slave Hall recorded the orgasms faithfully - no doubt, Katia added, for the benefit of the Master monitoring somewhere in the far reaches of the castle...

  The deportment session in Cell I the next day was lenient. At least, both girls were allowed to carry out together their posturing, walking and naked exhibitioning, which delighted them. Lalaniere seemed content, as did Vasa who watched with professional concern. The girls’ performance the night before in the overseers’ quarters had been proficient, despite their apprehension; Lalaniere had hammered Marina with energy, surging into her sex and throat but fortunately sparing her anus. Vasa had discovered in Verena a new delight; the slave sucked with avid competence. The girls regained confidence but were glad to return to their beds.

  Profound enjoyment was the hallmark of the next day. Each inmate recounted her experience in the outside world. Nastasia and Krystyna had been left high and dry by owners, who had selected younger and more voracious body slaves; neither knew what awaited them if and when, in a week- end ceremony, they might be purchased or at least rented. The lesbians, Sylvie and Renee, who rarely left each other’s arms, declared themselves deliriously happy with their wealthy proprietor; true, they were beaten, put on show hung together by the ankles, made to perform on each other’s crotch and given to guests without discrimination but they adored it all.

  Her red hair cut short, forever s
triding around on her high heels, Marie-Laure seemed to constitute the most highly-sexed of the inmates; she yearned for sex, in whatever form, ceaselessly but her owner required she be trained for more serious flogging than she was used to. She longed to return to her beloved master who, she confided nervously, owned a second whipping slave whose performances in bed and on the trestles were a manifest threat to her. But Beaucastel had done her a world of good... As to Katia and Marja they were apparently both treated atrociously; secretly they hoped their dissatisfied owners would agree to arrange an exchange between them, now they had learnt to withstand the power of the overseers’ cocks and whips.

  As to Ashley, the resplendent Ashley, Verena found her immensely attractive, never failing to smile at her when they were at table together.

  The girls felt comforted and exceptionally fortunate. Claudia and Mishka - and even Gemma - were worth Beaucastel.

  The drama took place the following evening.

  The two girls were separated for the first time, Marina being summoned to the Preparation Chamber at nine, alone. After being sluiced out, greased and perfumed, she was hooded up cruelly, depriving her of all her senses except that which allowed her to feel; her seven flesh rings were weighted with gross iron spheres that hauled her fragile extremities to lengths she did not believe possible. She screamed mutely within the grappling clasp of the leather hood, the gag suffocating her. Led down, stumbling, dragged on the end of a tight chain, she felt herself being thrust into a sweltering, confined space. Cell I was not like this, she panicked. That tame place had carpets, she recalled. Oh, no, could it be Cell III, perhaps? Surely not Cell IV! After just two days! Surely not that place! Her mind reeled with progressive waves of utter fear. Her womb clenched within her. Instead of lush carpets, the ground under her bare feet seemed to be strewn with straw and gravel. She felt the presence of human beings around her nudity; gloved hands armed with trenchant barbs caressed her sweating ribs as she was tugged forwards blind, deaf and speechless. She was too paralysed to react to her terror.

  Then she was spread, the wrist rings clinking as they were hooked to chains, to be lifted abruptly off her feet. The thigh joints cracked as the limbs were parted to their utmost reach and tied; she sensed her labial folds gape, despite the lugging weights dragging them down, wrenching the clitoris hood from the cusp of her sex. Her moans were lost in the taut leather as she thrashed her masked head madly, champing on the enormous gag. Voiceless, she shrieked for Verena, for Claudia, for Mikhail, even for Vasa - anyone to help her. In her striving innocence, she could not know that Vasa stood one step from the gorgeous hollowed thorax, running a plaited scourge through her gloved fingers, waiting until Lalaniere had, with Gabrielle’s eager pull on the limbs, satisfactorily secured the writhing slave flesh that had to be educated.

  She received the scourging over the buttocks, thighs and belly in raving pain, trying to heave her body away from the lashes, the iron spheres rebounding against her nude abdomen and between the tensed thigh muscles. The body was honoured with the whips of both overseers, laid on viciously and precisely. The white flesh welted readily, perfectly.

  Suddenly it was over and she was penetrated where she hung, the voluptuous cock thrusting past the dangling clit chain to thud and ream the innermost reaches of her dripping, clenching vagina. Clawing with her fingers on the bonds that tore her arms upwards, Marina felt the inexorable, inexplicable response seething deep within her. Then she orgasmed in a lightning flash of sensual craving, responding without restraint, frantic with lust. The whipping had brought her to a height she had never known - not even with Mikhail inside her. The floggers appreciated the muffled shrieks; they were supremely aware that pain had duly led into pleasure. That was their objective.

  It was close on four in the morning, the rain beating against the barred windows of the Hall, when the slave was led back to the dormitory, relieved of her chains and hood, slick with sweat, flushed full with acrid semen.

  She was thrown on her bed without even being linked to the statutory wall hook. A flogged slave rarely presented the need for even token bondage. In any event and to take account of their physical needs during the night, the girls were only cursorily hooked by their collars to the rings cemented in above their beds, predominantly to remind them, even in sleep, of their servitude.

  Sobbing and shaken by the flagellation and her orgasm, she sought compassion. Marina groped instinctively for her lover. The bed was empty. Raising herself on her elbow in alarm, the girl peered into the penumbra of the Hall. Her heart missed a beat, her eyes widening in disbelief.

  Verena was in Ashley’s arms seven beds further down.

  Chapter Ten

  The rain had cleared outside, as far as the inmates could tell, but storms were threatening, the principal one being Marina’s fury. The other girls, even when they were summoned to the training cellars, had to smile at the local problem that had arisen. After all, they were all sex slaves and sex was their stock in trade. The mere fact that one girl slept with another was of no importance; a body was a body with breasts and a ready sex; only vicious beating and unmitigated torture would deter them from enjoying whatever was at hand. No one could understand Marina’s anger. She kept herself apart and even had her place on the row of beds changed. She refused to address a word to Verena who offered no sympathy for the session Marina had undergone below the previous night. Nastasia attempted to mend the rift but was curtly spurned by Marina.

  “Leave me alone,” she muttered, “and get yourself an owner.” The insult not only hurt Nastasia but also shocked the others.

  The training sessions proceeded regularly, the girls being used and abused as usual. The conversation diminished, the females taking up the pornographic literature to read, playing chess and maintaining a healthy distance between the two lovers and themselves. Marina was not called below throughout the following days and nights, although she was taken by Gabrielle twice to her rooms and returned exhausted, severely whipped for no reason.

  As the weekend approached, the group began to preen their appearances, particularly those who anxiously awaited buyers. The initial three days and nights of education had, contrary to Verena, appalled Marina. Verena seemed to accept the strictly imposed exigencies with equanimity and even a curious excitement; she was well accustomed to being handled naked and used in all orifices. Above all, she was ready for the whip, displaying the magnificence of her nude body, fully aware of its effect on the overseers carrying out their duties with spontaneous lust. She participated willingly with whatever the fornicating floggers did to her. Marina deplored the ceremonial antics of the grim, leather-clad torturers, and suffered increasingly from the stringency of bondage and scourging. She exerted her sexual powers to the best of her diminishing ability; the co-operation demanded of her began to take its toll.

  The callous, flagrant treachery and venality of her lover infuriated her. Even when Verena attempted to reason with her - “it’s only sex, darling, just unvarnished sex, nothing more” - and tried to cajole her into bed again, Marina fulminated, crazy with resentment. The other inmates exercised discretion, leaving the pair to settle their dispute alone. Curiously, it was Birgit who consoled Marina. With touching compassion, she claimed that, for different reasons, they were, both of them, wronged and humiliated.

  Sitting on Birgit’s bunk the next day during the lazy, after-lunch period of rest, Marina confided in her, looking into the handsome Swedish eyes that reflected the azure of her Scandinavian lakes and also the blue whip marks over her rump and breasts.

  “Birgit,” her voice was no more than a whisper. “I’m going to escape.”

  An old-timer, Birgit was not overly disturbed but she warned her of the dangers.

  “Just think what they would do to you if you were caught. And your owners! Imagine their embarrassment after all the trust they put in you and in this stupid place. I would never do that, darling
, but then I love my wonderful owners and don’t condescend to bow before these so-called educators. They’re just vicious professionals without elegance.”

  Yet Birgit was understanding. Acquainted intimately with Beaucastel, she offered her counsel with genuine, candid affection.

  “Listen, darling. There’s a guy who cleans out the ablution rooms adjacent to the Preparation Chamber, a squat, ugly fellow but amenable. You see, he’s not permitted access to our bodies. He’s a menial.”

  Marina listened carefully with a serious expression of a decided woman.

  Birgit suggested that, for a small price, the man could be tempted to arrange for a slave to abscond - at least, that was the rumour. It appeared that a ravishing Lithuanian slave whose spirit had been broken in Cell VII some two months before, had concluded a sort of contract involving her flesh and money, and had escaped. Birgit admitted she did not know the result; it was before her first visit but the attempt had been made. One had to trust people, which at Beaucastel was perilous but nevertheless feasible.

  With a courage that startled even herself, Marina made the decision and, at the moment when the man was scouring out the ablution room, discussed rapidly with him.

  The precise timing was fixed, with instructions how to elude the vigilant video cameras by crawling to the door leading to the small garden surrounded by the castle walls; how to scuttle across the opening and enter the gardeners’ shed in the yard where the man would await the slave. While striking the bargain, the loutish under- valet stared at the exquisite, sophisticated nude before him whose body, by reason of his subordinate rank, was beyond his jurisdiction.