A quarter hour chimed before Elder Sister Aspasia got to her feet again, this time to come into her bedroom. Lalage looked up, her thirst and discomfort finally overcoming her fear, to meet the nun’s eyes. Elder Sister Aspasia merely glanced at her. Unable to hold back, Lalage mumbled a plea.
‘I beg to speak, Elder Sister Aspasia.’
The nun turned, to look down on Lalage.
‘Do you never learn?’
‘I am sorry, Elder Sister, truly sorry, but I am thirsty. I beg you for water.’
‘Water is it? What is wrong with the water I see you have made yourself?’
‘I will drink it, Elder Sister Aspasia, if I must, but it will not quench my thirst.’
‘Why not? It is liquid, is it not? You are a fool, Lalage, either that or you crave punishment, as some do. I must do it, do you not see that?’
‘I ask only for water, Elder Sister Aspasia. Unfasten my lead, please, and I will fetch it myself and return immediately.’
‘No!’ Elder Sister Aspasia snapped. ‘You must learn, Lalage. You do not disturb me with your needs. Be assured that I will see to your welfare, as the Lord commands us, but do not think to impose your wishes on your betters. Now I must punish you, and doubly, for placing this responsibility on me. You are a vexatious little brat, Lalage!’
She reached down, to strike Lalage across the face, then turned back to her bedroom. Pulling open a drawer, she took out an elaborately embroidered shift, considered it for a moment, then returned it in favour of another of similar design. Lalage waited, biting her lip as she tried to swallow her resentment and admit to herself that the Elder Sister was right. Finally the nun shut the drawer and turned back to Lalage, her voice now mild as she spoke again.
‘You see, little Lalage, you can not expect the firmament to centre on your needs. If you are to be a member of this order, in whatever capacity, you must come to place yourself last. This is the way of humility. Has Sister Tryphena not taught you this?’
‘Yes, Elder Sister Aspasia.’
‘Then why do you persist in this behaviour? You are not entirely stupid, are you?’
‘I do not know, Elder Sister Aspasia.’
‘Clearly not. Frankly, I doubt there is hope for you, yet in our love, we must try. Drink your waste, as you should have done without needing to be told, then we shall decide what to do with you.’
‘My hands are bound, Elder Sister Aspasia.’
‘Then place you head in the pot, stupid child! Must I lead you through every step?’
‘No, Elder Sister Aspasia.’
Lalage moved, struggling to keep her balance as she bent over the pot, only to fail at the last instant. Her face hit the surface of her piddle with a splash. She came up dripping, her eyes tight shut, struggling to make herself do as she was told, and unable to, until a foot came to rest on her neck, pushing her head back down. With a final, despairing sob, she began to drink, sucking up her piddle with her lips.
‘The sweetest charity is to bring penance to the unworthy,’ Elder Sister Aspasia quoted as Lalage swallowed her first mouthful of urine. ‘Are you unworthy, Lalage?’
Lalage managed only a bubbling sound.
‘I suspect you are,’ Elder Sister Aspasia continued, ‘certainly you are a poor pet. You are stupid, and slow, and cause me to waste precious time in explanation and correction of your faults. Yet I shall do my best to give you penance, out of love, to provide for your needs, and also to teach you a suitable lesson. You do detest piddle, don’t you?’
Lalage managed a weak nod as she swallowed her second mouthful. Elder Sister Aspasia said nothing more, but kept her foot resting gently on Lalage’s neck, watching as mouthful after mouthful of the tepid urine was sucked up and swallowed. As she drank, Lalage’s stomach threatened to rebel again and again, tightening and filling her throat, so that she was forced to swallow down what came up. She held back, refusing to let herself be sick, holding her mouth shut even when she went into a fit of uncontrollable gagging, and once more swallowing the contents. At last it was done, no more than a damp smear remaining on the china beneath her face. The foot was removed and she pulled herself back.
‘Are you still thirsty?’ Elder Sister Aspasia asked gently.
Lalage shook her head in frantic denial. Elder Sister Aspasia laughed, a sound clear and fluid, expressing real joy. Lalage hung her head in utter defeat, watching the yellow droplets fall from her fringe into the pot beneath as she struggled to cope with her emotions. Only when a large ewer of water was placed by her head did she realise that Elder Sister Aspasia had left the room and returned.
‘Thank you, Elder Sister Aspasia, thank you,’ Lalage babbled as a great wave of gratitude and dependence welled up inside her.
Taking the ewer, the nun filled the chamberpot to near the brim. Lalage bent forward again immediately, to suck up the cool, clear water, only faintly tainted with the taste of her pee. As she gulped it down, Elder Sister Aspasia watched, her mouth set in a gentle smile. With the pot half-empty, Lalage pulled back.
‘Drink, Lalage,’ Elder Sister Aspasia instructed, ‘all of it.’
Lalage nodded and put her face to the pot once more, sucking up the water, gulp after gulp, until once more her stomach started to rebel. She stopped, and risked a glance at the nun.
‘Sit back,’ Elder Sister Aspasia ordered, and as Lalage did so, she once more tipped the ewer over the pot, filling it once more. ‘Pause a moment, my child, then drink. I would not wish you to make yourself sick, after all, but you will drink it all.’
Again Lalage put her face to the water, drinking as fast as she could, and pausing only when she began to gag. Elder Sister Aspasia watched, impassive, until at last both ewer and pot were empty. Lalage sat up, shaking with reaction to her efforts. Her stomach was a hard ball, her bladder already tense.
‘I must go,’ Elder Sister Aspasia stated. ‘I trust you have consumed a sufficiency of water?’
‘I have, thank you, Elder Sister Aspasia,’ Lalage answered. ‘I am hungry also, or I will be once I have used the pot.’
‘Hungry? Why so? What have you done but laze on the floor? With that attitude you will grow fat, Lalage. No, you need no food, and besides, now it is time for your punishment. If I gave you food, you might not thank me.’
‘I would thank you, Elder Sister Aspasia. I would thank you from my heart.’
‘For a while, perhaps. Not in the morning…. No, it would be amusing, but I would have to send for somebody to clean you up, or risk soiling my carpet. There will be no food.’
‘Yes, Elder Sister Aspasia,’ Lalage managed weakly. ‘What then is my punishment?’
‘Need you ask?’
‘Am I to be caned again?’
‘Do you object?’
‘No, Elder Sister Aspasia, not for one moment! If I were to take, perhaps, a half-dozen extra strokes, might I be permitted to fetch a bowl of gruel for myself?’
‘Ah, now here you misunderstand the nature of punishment, Lalage. When you are caned, or given any punishment, it is a consequence of your sin. With the punishment you are absolved, and need fear no further retribution. To do penance is to absolve your sins, Lalage, but it does not entitle you to privileges. This is a common error, and an important lesson for you. Think well on it.’
Elder Sister Aspasia stood and left the room. Lalage heard the creak of the chest, the noise this time giving her a sharp jolt of fear. The nun returned quickly, holding a bundle of rope, leatherwork and a length of brass tubing.
‘Lie down,’ she ordered.
Lalage obeyed and her ankles were taken, to be wrapped in twin leather cases, much like those that restrained her wrists, but each with a double strap, and with a bar between, keeping them some two feet apart. With the cuffs fixed in place, Lalage found herself unable to close her ankles. Elder Sister Aspasia took hold of the rope attached to each cuff and threw one end over a beam. Quickly, Lalage’s lead was unlocked and her legs hauled up, until her bottom left the fl
oor, leaving just her back and head resting on the boards. Elder Sister Aspasia began to talk again as she tied off the rope on the iron bracket in the wall.
‘Here also is a valuable lesson. This is a simple version of a device used by the Quaestors for punishment, or the extraction of confessions. By contrast, my version is mild, comic even, now…’
She trailed off, bending to pick up another object, a wooden cup, crafted to fit over a woman’s pubic mound, as Lalage discovered when it was pressed to hers. Further straps fixed it in place. Again Elder Sister Aspasia bent, to pick up a similar device, which was fixed over Lalage’s mouth. The length of brass tubing was used to connect the two, and the full horror of the device sunk in.
‘I find a few hours on this generally help girls to get over their revulsion at the taste of urine,’ Elder Sister Aspasia remarked, ‘so it has benefit besides that as a penance. Now, think well on your sins, and also on thirst.’
Elder Sister Aspasia walked from the room. Lalage looked after her, pleading with her eyes, but was ignored. The door banged and she was alone, staring up at the tube down which her pee would gush as soon as she gave in to the already mounting pressure in her bladder, straight into her mouth. She would have to swallow, taking the pee back into her body, and so back again, on and on, for as long as she hung in her bonds.
She stayed still, staring at the tube, and trying desperately to tell herself that it was for her own good. The pressure in her bladder increased quickly, from tension to pain. The temptation to break the device also grew. She was sure it could be done, quite easily, suspiciously easily in fact, implying that if she did, some worse fate would be inflicted on her. Before long her eyes were shut in her pain and the muscles of her sex and belly had begun to twitch. Pee began to leak, wetting her quim, but still she struggled to hold it in.
It happened suddenly. Her will broke at a sudden, sharp stab of pain and urine was gushing out from her quim, up into the cup, to gurgle down the pipe. Her eyes came wide in horror for an instant before it reached the cup over her face, and then her mouth was filling with her own piddle. She struggled to swallow, sure that if she went into a coughing fit the device would break, giving her a faceful of urine and earning Elder Sister Aspasia’s wrath.
It was impossible, her stream gushing down the pipe far faster than she could possibly swallow, so that it quickly burst from the sides of her face cup, to run down her face and up her nose. Her vagina had filled too, and more pee was trickling down over her anus and along the crease of her bottom, to splash on the floor. Once more she swallowed, only to choke. Urine burst from her nose, the pipe came loose. More hot pee gushed out, full in her face. She lurched to the side. The upper part of the pipe came loose. Urine sprayed from the cup over her quim, squirting out in a high arc of glittering golden fluid, to patter down on her breasts and belly, in her face and in her hair.
She collapsed even as she became able to breathe again, lying prone as her piddle bubbled from her quim to trickle down front and back. Every part of her body was soaked except her legs, and she was lying in a slowly expanding pool of piddle. She felt utterly sorry for herself, and too broken even to move when the pee started to come again, running down her body in a slow, steady stream. Only when she heard Elder Sister Aspasia’s silvery laugh did she look up. The nun was looking down at her, along with two others, both grinning in open amusement. All three held canes.
Five
For ten days Lalage remained as Elder Sister Aspasia’s pet. Each was much the same, long hours spent with her lead locked to the wall ring, punctuated by the humiliations of acting as the Elder Sister’s toilet maid, with which she struggled to come to terms, but failed. A portion of the time would be spent with her head strapped between the woman’s thighs, face to quim, a torment of which the Elder Sister never seemed to tire. Several times she was made to lick other nuns, Elder Sisters and once the terrifying Mother Keturah, who took her pleasure seated on Lalage’s face, and made sure that her large, hairy anus was given plenty of attention. For much of the time her hands were kept tied, and she was never once allowed a chance to masturbate.
She slept on the floor in her tiny room. On most nights the nun rose once or more, either to squat on the pot or over Lalage’s face, depending on her need, seldom even speaking. Never was Lalage allowed into the Elder Sister’s bed, much less to have her own needs satisfied. She was caned or quirted every day without fail, on whatever part of her lower anatomy was most ready, always hard, but never hard enough to slow her in her tasks.
When her ordeal finally came to an end, she was simply released from the head basket and wrist cuffs and sent on her way with a kick. That breakfast, Elder Sister Aspasia took a new girl. Lalage watched with a strange mixture of pity and betrayal, only then realising that she had started to think of herself as the Elder Sister’s property. There was no chance to speak to her friends until after the morning lesson, and then briefly. Nest was nowhere to be seen, but she shared her story with Benedicta, and compared notes with Sabina, finding that their treatment had been to all intents and purposes identical.
Not wishing to risk punishment from Sister Clarimon, Lalage hurried to the dairy, only to discover another girl working in her place, naked, and smeared to the thighs with dung, as she had been so often. Novice Jael was there too, dozing under a tree, her caning having apparently failed to break her laziness. Lalage retreated, wondering if she dared find a quiet corner of the library in which to spend the day, or if she should report to Sister Verena immediately. Knowing that whatever explanation she gave it would cut no ice with the Preceptress, Lalage made her way reluctantly back to the Great House.
Sister Verena was not in her study, or anywhere close by. Realising that she was sure to be punished either for avoiding her duties, failing to report to the Sister or both, she searched ever more frantically. Finally she was sure enough time had passed for her to be certain she would be accused of shirking even if she did find the Sister. Desperate for a respite from the constant beatings, she risked going up to the dormitory, twice having to hide in darkened arch-ways as Novices passed. To her relief, Lucilla was in, lying at ease on her sun-dappled bed, reading a book. The Tesserette looked up.
‘That old witch Aspasia has had enough of you then?’
‘Yes,’ Lalage answered. ‘I was released this morning.’
‘Shouldn’t you be about your work?’
‘I would be, but I have been replaced at the dairy, and I can not find Sister Verena to give me a new position. If she finds me now, she will beat me for shirking, and look at me!’
Lalage turned to display her rear view. Lucilla made a face.
‘You’re worse than Mouse was. So, you want me to say I set you to work?’
‘Please, Lucilla…Lady Lucilla, that would be merciful.’
‘No, merely friendly, yet if I am to be friendly, you must be friendly in return.’
‘Of course, Lucilla, anything. Shall I lick you, your bottom maybe? Would you like me to pose? I shall adopt the lewdest positions…’
‘No…or not yet anyway. While you were away, Mouse and I were talking about your experience with the goat, and possession generally. She swears it means that this billy, Baudus, is possessed by the Beast. I say he merely smelt your cunt, and without a nanny goat to hand, was hoping to mount you.’
‘I saw no evidence of possession, no,’ Lalage said carefully.
‘That’s what I told Mouse,’ Lucilla answered. ‘She says you must have been too scared to notice, but there is no logic in that.’
‘No…I am sure possession would be obvious. How may I help in any case?’
‘By testing the assertion. I want you to kneel for the goat, with your cunt well flaunted and juicy.’
‘Kneel for the goat! But…’
‘Do not worry, Babbles, I am not asking you to risk your precious virginity, although it would be extremely entertaining to watch Baudus take you in your cunt. You will kneel on the far side of the fence, in the
little grove you spoke of. Nest wouldn’t do it, even after a dozen strokes of the cane and an afternoon eating grapes I’d been feeding up her bottom hole.’
‘I see…’
‘Good, I thought you would be more sensible. Now, I have every detail considered. We reach the grove by the door you spoke of…’
‘The back of the graveyard is thick with nettles. Anyway, Lucilla…’
‘What matter a few stings? I’ll go first in any case, in a thick dress with woollen stockings beneath. I might even lend you a pair of stockings if you ask sweetly.’
‘It is forbidden.’
‘So is tempting goats to fuck you. You needn’t put them on until we reach the back of the graveyard, silly. If we do get caught, the fact that you are wearing stockings will be the least of your worries!’
‘We will get caught, Lucilla, we are certain to!’
‘No we will not. Listen, and stop interrupting. We do it at noon service, when all but the Elders are in chapel. We’ll have you on heat before. I’ll even lick you myself. In the wood we can not be seen, and the experiment will take only moments. You will already be near nude, so down you go, arse up, and along comes the goat. Go close enough to let him have a good sniff at your cunt, and I’ll be able to look into his eyes. Possession is invariably indicated by a dancing flame of red or orange, deep in the eye. I checked in the library.’
Lalage paused, the awful implications of Lucilla’s idea sinking slowly in before she spoke.
‘But…but Lucilla, if Baudus does become possessed by the Beast, he will tear through the fence to get at me…no, us. He’ll fuck you, Lucilla!’
‘I doubt it. With you kneeling he’s bound to take you first, giving me time to get away. Anyway, that is beside the point. He won’t be possessed. After all, there must be more to summoning the Beast than simply flaunting your cunt, or every slut in the countryside would do it! Witches are rare, and…’
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