The Pleasure Palace

by Caroline Swift

  Lalaniere however led her to the bed.

  “I need to talk to you, Marina.” The soft words scared the girl even more than if she had been ordered to stand against the stake. Above all, the use of her name instead of her slave designation, 107, sent a cold shiver through her entrails. What was the man up to? All her danger lights were flashing in her brain..

  “We have noticed how appropriately you accept your beatings, yet never seem to abase yourself, like so many others, to abject humiliation. True, you appear resigned and seem to enjoy your whippings but keep your being intact. Am I right? You can call me Pierre.”

  “I suppose that’s so - the whip excites me. I like surrendering to it. I accepted it first on account of that bitch Verena and grew to love it - the nudity, the exposure as centre of attention, the pain merging into wild sexual pleasure... You know all this.”

  The overseer nodded before saying: “I watched you carefully while your former lover was being flagellated. Your eyes were hard and gleaming at the sight.” He paused before the question came.

  “Tell me, would you like to have wielded that whip in the place of the Contessa?”

  Marina’s heart missed a beat. The man’s candid query disarmed her. How did he guess? Should she be honest and declare that other hidden part lurking within herself?

  “You mean whip Verena?”

  “I mean just that. Stark naked. To teach her fidelity. But now she’s leaving.”

  A long stillness ensued before Marina could summon up her reply. “Yes, I would have given anything to lash her. Beat her until she begged for forgiveness, the bitch!” She blurted out the words and fell silent for a moment. “I gather she’s been bought. Too bad! But yes, Pierre, I should have loved to whip her just as that Janet scourged me. Are you surprised? “

  “Not at all. I knew from the start you had it in you. And thus you could pass to the other side of the s/m mirror, Marina. Am I right?”

  “Yes. Just give me the chance! I adored watching you flog and then approach slowly in all your handsome manhood with those long flesh tongs in your grasp. Whatever the price in terms of pain, your gorgeous erection and the lash thrill me. I’m sure I could do it.” She reached for the throbbing pole of male flesh and beginning to frig it. “I’ve learnt a lot here.”

  “As we thought.” Lalaniere smiled. “You are capable of both roles. You have immense poise. And, for me, you are one of the most beautiful, bewitching women I’ve seen here. When I flagellate you, I desire you. When I start to fuck you, I want to flagellate you again. And when it’s over, I want to have you to myself, right here in my rooms. I suppose, in this strange world, this is what is called love.”

  Marina felt her throat tighten with excitement. What was happening to her? Was this some sort of subterfuge to trap her in some further predicament, out of which the only issue would be sex torture and caning for endless hours? Yet Pierre enthralled her.

  Suddenly the handsome face leaned over and kissed her. “I want you, Marina. Not as in the cells but as an equal.” Marina returned his kisses with all the lust and meaning she had in her, instinctively massaging the full length of the cock as if she were a free agent. Her hand slithered intoxicatingly up and down the great shaft; she admired its silky head and the seeping slit that had propelled so much churning semen into her over the last week. The volume of erect flesh was hard and thumped with the man’s heartbeats; and her own sex slackened with craving, and then flooded uncontrollably.

  “Marina, you have the makings of a dominant female and you know it.” The overseer resisted the seductions of the fabulous sexual body next to him; he still had his message to convey. Then they would fuck as never before.

  “You’ve seen them at work, Vasa, Gerda, Gabrielle. This is something you could graduate to and we want you to try.” He thrust up his hips to provide the girl with the full gamut of his cock. “The Master of Beaucastel is prepared to offer you a place as a probationary overseer here. You would be under my wing and jurisdiction. Vasa more or less agrees but Gerda needs further convincing, though something tells us that she won’t be staying long among us. That would be a slot for you.” He gestured to her to seize his balls in her other hand. “Well?”

  The girl was now with her head on his chest. “I don’t really know, Pierre. Certainly I’ll never return to that couple of degenerates in Paris. And not to that damn lycee...”

  The shaved head looked up. “Can I have time to think it over, Pierre?”

  “No way, delicious. Your proprietors leave today after lunch and the deal, if deal there is, must have been concluded by now. And the payment arranged.”

  “You mean Beaucastel would purchase me?” Her intestines lurched with elation. “Those bastards didn’t even buy me. I joined Verena for free because I fell in love with her!”

  “We are fully aware of how you became entangled with Madame de Clesson and her disgustingly wealthy lover. The Master has already broached the matter with them. It’s just the figure that remains to be agreed upon. That’s being discussed right now.” Lalaniere pulled the beauty towards him by the breast rings. He wanted her badly.

  “And incidentally your rings will be removed,” he added as an afterthought. Marina could not care whether they went or stayed; in a way she liked them. They excited her but basically they were unimportant. What was important was that she knew she was going to be fucked, not whipped at the stake beyond the bed but fucked, and fucked as a free woman for once. She knew the decision had been taken already. The man’s arms were around her, drawing her up to slide down on the splendid shaft offered.

  As if by way of confirmation, not only of what was about to enter her cunt but of what her future held in store for her, she smiled: “I agree, Pierre. If you will look after me, teach me the rules of the game ...And fuck me well. Just as you’re going to do now.”

  The man shafted her with a curious tenderness; to Marina it was totally unfamiliar. And her three orgasms were like none she had experienced over the last months; they came down into her from another world - where some women were free and other women were in chains, unable and unwilling to shuffle them off. And she had decided to liberate herself and join the wonderful, beautiful people of Beaucastel. She would issue forth from Lalaniere’s quarters a superb flagellatrice, equipped with spiked heels and tall boots to her upper thighs, and breast straps. She would be given, to begin with, an array of whips with which to train on the newly arrived slaves and would be favoured with instructions in disciplining from Lalaniere himself. Marina agreed unconditionally. It was a secret dream come true...

  Prior to her assumption of office, however, she was ushered into the august presence of the Master for a brief ceremony of formal induction as a member of the community. For the occasion, she was fastidiously prepared; one by one her seven slave rings and five bondage straps were severed. Once bathed, anointed and elegantly made up, Vasa helped her into the high boots and body straps, throwing round her shoulders a long velvet cloak with a high, stiff collar attached by a precious silver clasp embossed with sign of the crossed whips of Beaucastel.

  As she entered the holy of holies, her cloak billowing open about her, she recalled the last occasion of such an honour, that moment when her audaciousness had been rewarded with a mouthful of the inestimable semen that was shared by few. Had it helped?

  The Master rose from his desk to take stock of the girl he had agreed to promote.

  “You are a propitious candidate, my girl. And as such I have purchased you. You have proved yourself with mettle and indomitable faith in your body. Indeed, I have observed your compliance and composure throughout your time here, particularly during your recent tortures, and have no hesitation, now that you belong to Beaucastel through legitimate purchase, in offering you a place here among us as an apprentice overseer. If your conduct - which must be one of complete detachment when on duty with slaves -
is faultless during the first month, you will be upgraded to the rank of overseer. Should you give me grounds for complaint, you will be ringed again, whipped and put up for sale.”

  Marina bowed low. The threat jolted her uterus, making it contract.

  “I shall serve Beaucastel, sir, with faith,” she murmured, watching the man draw aside his own heavy, embroidered mantle. The thick cock had risen to its full tumescence, the pubis still shaved clean, as she remembered. The Master leaned nonchalantly against the edge of the table, thrusting a pile of papers aside. The pelvis urged forward.

  “You may express you appreciation by sucking me to orgasm as the official confirmation of your promotion. Kneel and perform.”

  In a state of bizarre euphoria, Marina unfastened her cloak and dropped to her knees, naked but freed of her emblems of slavery. She went to work as never before in her life, employing every skill, every resource of virtuosity she had learnt as a sex slave, until the glut of heavy, sluggish spunk swamped and clogged her throat. Desperately she tried not to choke on the massive load; then she swallowed in successive gulps, draining the shaft with all her fingers grasping, her lips tight. Not a drop of the spending was squandered. She felt a thrill of achievement invade her.

  She was an overseer of Beaucastel. Inconceivable!

  “Get Alana to apply liniments to your skull and eyebrows to ensure rapid regrowth. They are the badge of your past slavery.” Astonished, Marina then heard the unimaginable. She could not trust her ears as the words reached her.

  “I regret having had to crop and shave you, Marina. You suck with unimpeachable lust and finesse. Go now and render service to our illustrious institution.”

  Marina had heard her name and the expression of remorse in one sentence and that from the Master of Beaucastel! She bowed, seized her cloak and left to assume her new calling: the profession of a committed and devout flagellatrice in the enclaves of a mighty castle where the whip ruled supreme. For the first time since the night before that obscene slug of a whore had changed beds, Marina was wreathed in smiles though her body ached and smarted with a memory of delicious, atrocious pain now fading into the past.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the following hours, the castle saw a great deal of movement. Not only were the guests departing, some accompanied by their own slaves, others with their purchases, but a fresh batch of five girls and two youths were being signed in for their period of training under the procedures that rarely varied. One novelty, however, was noticeable to all concerned: Marina was instructed to attend the induction ceremony to learn from Vasa, She sat, a little unsure of herself, at the table as the newcomers were checked.

  Mikhail and Claudia were packed and ready to leave under the driving sleet, although the blonde beauty would have gladly stayed on but Mikhail had a bankers’ meeting the next day in Paris. Moreover he was loath to leave his mistress under the same roof as Marina after the scene in the dungeon. Claudia had mixed feelings.

  Despondently, she stared at the Rouergue countryside drifting past with its inhospitable, endless causses, stone walls and miserably wet sheep.

  Mikhail reminded her gently of the price they had negotiated for Marina, for a slave they had acquired almost for free. That, Claudia conceded. Maybe, she thought Juliette could be persuaded to lend them Tansu while they looked round for replacements. Though she doubted it. A docile whore from Madame Flora’s establishment could perhaps suffice for a day or two. She couldn’t bear to think of the Quai d’Anjou empty, the library unused.

  Claudia’s mind went back to Gerda, the seductive Gerda who was so capable of pleasuring a woman. But she was a dominant. If the overseer did in fact relinquish her place - and salary - at Beaucastel, she would be worth talking to... But to be bereft of her whipping slaves depressed Claudia de Clesson, a dynamic creature who, she admitted to herself, could not be destituted for long of sleek, female bodies with tender breasts and hungry cunts. Mikhail was of very little help and anyway was fast asleep. Even if he had access to the private Falcon plane from Rodez on, he was of pathetically little help to a damsel in distress. And Claudia hated his snoring. Maybe she was wasting her life with him. She needed a change.

  Wrapped in furs, the Master bade a phlegmatic goodbye and a buon viaggio to the group of Venetians at the castle drawbridge. The man had been flattered by the attendance of such noble guests - and shareholders - at the sessions; they had been fed abundantly, accommodated graciously and had paid up promptly when, for reasons beyond the Master’s comprehension, they had selected the common slave 106.

  Yet he was aware of their gratitude. The slave, number 90, the oversexed English girl, had been stimulated to the maximum, her stamina strengthened and her delicious body flagellated beyond reason. That was what they had requested and the Master recalled the vision of Ashley, hung by the legs, swaying under Vasa’s black whip. An exceptional one

  He was comforted to see Verena leave. The young whore had nearly caused bedlam with her sexual appetite for the English beauty and her changing of partners in the midstream of training. The Master recognized the flogging the girl had received from her new mistress as a due. The less he saw of Verena in the future, the better. Let the Serenissima hang her again by the breasts and carve her gross buttocks, like silver moons, into strips of welted meat...

  The two Venetian owners dozed in the warmth of the old Hispano-Suiza forging its majestic path through the slush and the timorous winter light of uncertain day. Verena felt she was being transported to some allegorical, sexual heaven to be so close to her darling Ashley, despite the flesh smarting with the memory of the beating.

  Although medicated with soothing lotions, she lay on her side in the car to alleviate the residual throbbings and pain; the Contessa had gone deep into her epidermis and slit the buttock and thigh flesh. The roots of her breasts still seethed as if the thongs had never been unwrapped; the teats lingered in remorseless erection, tugging at the steel rings, now linked together to conform with the Contessa’s wish. She detested loose dugs on slaves. Especially in travel and on safari.

  Ashley looked superb in her Russian chapka of white wolf - a present from the Conte after visiting the prison and torture chambers on the banks of the Neva - and a fur coat down to her heels. Verena wore more or less the same but admired the way Ashley set her cap at an angle; she adored her, like a serf adoring Catherine the Great.

  “Tell me about Venice, darling,” Verena implored, kissing her lover’s freckled cheek.

  Ashley laid a warning finger on the girl’s mouth. “Whisper, sweet. Don’t wake them. Well, the Palazzo Consenzia is paradise,” she went on. “You’ve never imagined a place as luxurious - our rooms are vast and furnished totally Rinascento. You’re going to be spoilt beyond words!”

  “Are we the only ones? I mean, just us two, like Marina and me in Paris?”

  “Well, not quite, darling, there’s another slave but she’s kept in the cellars. They’re damp as they’re below the level of the canal, you see. I’ve only seen her once when she was brought up for some medical treatment by our dear old dottore, called Raspoli. I like him but you always have to give into him when he treats you. He adores a quick cock suck. Anyway, she was laid flat on the ottoman in the salotto and I could see what they had done to her. She was stark naked, scourged to the blood.”

  Verena’s eyes widened. “But that’s not going to happen to us, is it? That last beating was ghastly even if it excited me when I got used to the first load of lashes.”

  “Of course not, silly. That’s not for us. They thrash us, but with moderation. That whore was just a flesh slave.” Ashley smiled and kissed her, her tongue probing deep into her mouth.

  “Who are ‘they’, Ashley?” Whenever Ashley mentioned whipping, Verena’s slit seemed to become tacky as it opened to let her juices seep out and slide down the luscious inner thigh. Ashley sensed the slight quickening of her
lover’s pulse, enough to encourage her to slide her hand deftly under the furs into Verena’s vagina. And there she kept it while talking softly. On no account should the dozing couple catch a word of the exchange.

  “Oh, ‘they’?” she whispered. “I mean the guests at the Casa Consenzia. They go down to the nether regions after dinner - you’ll adore the dinners in the Hall, hearing all sorts of secrets and confidences - and sexual crud- talk. We slaves are always chained to the table and have to smile all the time. And whatever goes on down there must be exacting because they always emerge flushed and covered with sweat. Fortunato - he’s my private fuck, by the way, - won’t tell me more. And for heaven’s sake, don’t utter a word of all this in front of the Contessa Marisa. She’d whip me to death for even hinting at the cellars.”

  Ashley glanced up at the sleeping couple before going on. “And by the way, you can only suck and fuck with those the Contessa designates. Don’t ever forget, you’re a sex slave and the property of Marisa. Whatever she commands, you do. And when she tells you strip and fetch the thongs and riding crop, run like hell and then slap your belly firmly against the stake. Move fast!”

  “Otherwise, darling,” went on the ash-blonde, more ravishing than ever in her furs, “one risks finishing up like the one downstairs.”

  “What sort of things do they do to her?” Verena wanted the full picture or as much of it as she could get; it gave the unknown Palazzo some reality, and Verena a lot of strange pleasure she found difficult to control.

  “It’s pretty fierce, says Fortunato. Apparently the poor girl is chained, all the time she’s not in use, to some sort of grating, on her knees, arms above her blindfolded head. The nipples are drawn down to the clit ring with golden chains and she’s impaled up the cunt and in the butt on huge iron phalluses to keep her fit.”