And what’s this about ‘thin ice’? I want to know what happened before she arrived here. Where did he meet her? What did they say? What did he say to get her to consent to this? What did she do to earn this crawling climb on my Billy’s whip? I’m never gonna know, but that’s not going to stop me from wondering.
She’s sure not earning any brownie points with her hellishly slow crawl. She looks up into Billy’s face, almost as if she’s pleading for mercy. Fat chance, girl. I can see him smirk plenty behind his hard look. Seen it a hundred times. He loves this kind of drama, and damn, she’s quite a sight.
One hand over the other, over the other, sometimes slipping back, she has to start over when she slides. Her torso keeps bumping along to keep it from looking like she’s using her legs. When she has half the whip behind her, I can see the hope in her eyes. But she’s struggling harder now, gasping for breath, wondering when this is going to end. I coulda told her myself; it ends when those elegant little fingers of hers take hold of Billy’s hand. But she should have figured that out herself.
When she’s not fast enough to suit the man, West is there with a small knotted whip to flail against her firm, tight ass. She jerks each time he strikes, and loses her grip once, which only earns her another smack across that pretty pink fanny. By the time she’s finally hanging in the air on Billy’s whip, her back and ass are streaked with red stripes—real beauties too. If only I could kiss away that pain, I think to myself. Or maybe I’d rather lay it on—I’m almost giggling at the thought, but just as easily dismiss the silly idea; I’d be all thumbs for sure if someone told me to beat one of these sluts. And wouldn’t that be betraying them?
No, I couldn’t do it. You just can’t be switching sides.
When she finally reached out for Billy’s hand, West had her by the hair again and jerked her back.
“Too slow, Evie,” he says. “Better luck next time.” He tossed her toward the wall, saying: “Go sit in the corner until I’m done.” Like she was used merchandize.
Her stricken face looks back like she can’t believe what he’s just said. And to think there’s hurt in her eyes, and a whole lot of longing. Like she’s in love with the man. It’ll bring tears to the eye, I tell you. What I could tell the girl is that it’s not love she’s feeling when a man like West has you by the cunt. It’s all about sex and domination and her surrender. West is the kind of man that can twist minds into knots, until you don’t know what’s up and what’s down. Spawn of the devil, I’ve told Billy more than once. Though he scoffs at the notion, I know I’m not far off.
This is what West does. This is who he is—a fucking genius.
Now that he has this poor girl salivating for attention, he shoves her in a corner. Couldn’t get much colder than that. Girls like me quiver with lust when stuff like that happens; we keep coming back for more. Evie? It’s finally dawning on me that she loves it as much as the rest of us. As much as Kathryn and Brit and Kylie, Ashleigh, Lana and me.
“So, Jewel,” West whips around and looks me in the eye. Suddenly, there I am standing alone, even Billy has moved beyond my reach. I feel the urge to follow him to the side of the room—but like I said, West twists minds. Mine wasn’t so twisted into a knot as it was frozen in fear.
What the hell’s he want with me? I’m thinkin’. But I don’t have to sweat long to have my answer.
“You think the rules of the game are for every female but you. Is that it, brat?”
“No, sir,” I shake my head.
“No? But you just keep babbling when the world around you has told you to keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I utter the words I couldn’t say before. If I’m screwed for all that speaking out, then I’m screwed.
It’s pretty obvious by now what’s going to happen. West moves closer with his threatening look and all I can do is back up. But then he ends that too, grabbing me by the shoulder and drawing me in real close to his side. He looks down. I look up.
“Maybe Jewel needs to be gagged, hum?” he says. “Like we gagged Kylie?”
I shake my head emphatically, keeping my mouth shut tight.
“What do you think, Billy?” He looks ten feet off to where my boyfriend is looking on all cocky and sure of himself.
“I think you can do whatever the hell you want with her, West. You’d think she’d know how to behave by now.”
“You’d think?” West’s wicked glance bounces off my face, then back at Billy. “String her up, will you? Been too long since I’ve made this one suffer.”
‘Oh, shit!’ Oops? Did I say that, or was I just yelling it in my head?
Once West made his point, I got strung up—which means my wrists are cuffed together and attached to a hook that’s dangling from the ceiling. The tiptoes just aren’t doing much to hold me up, but this is what I’m gonna suffer until the whole whipping finally ends.
Oh, and there’s a gag, too, shoved into my mouth—not your ordinary ballgag, which would have been bad enough, but a penis gag that goes halfway down my throat. I’m about to choke, but that would be a useless waste of effort because no one’s out to rescue me. I work at making myself adjust until I feel the first thwack of a cowhide flogger rip a wide path of pain across my back.
Just one? I’m wondering when the second cut never arrives. But then there’s West again, holding that fucking flogger to my mouth, as if I had lips to taste the leather. Boy, would I love a lick; but I’m lucky to drink in that musty smell. It’s just like Billy in his leathers; I could drown in the pleasure of that alone. And sure enough, my crotch is sticky with wet juices practically dribbling down the inside of my leg.
There’s music all around the room, growing louder and creepier the longer it plays. The deep head-banging of heavy metal, mixed with the raw sound of a throaty female voice put me in an altered state. Any second I think that throaty female is gonna show up grinning. Soon, the sound is pounding in my ears so loudly that I know I’ll be deaf by the time it stops. Or maybe that’s just my heart pounding. It’s hard to tell, but I don’t have time to think it through.
“Just want you to know who’s beating you, Jewel.” West, the cold-hearted stud with the sly grin, talks like he’s trying to hit on me. But we all know what that’s about.
I love it. I love him. I love the thought of getting beaten, and I’ll almost love it when the pain finally comes.
The music gets louder, while the strong scent of West’s rugged body fills my nostrils, and somewhere in the distance a woman lets out a bloodcurdling scream.
The flogger strikes again and I’m nothin’ but a puddle of fried nerves.
And pain. Raw unforgiving pain. The man lays it on hard and I’m suffering from one end of my body to the other. I’ve never been whipped like this before. This hard. This hurting. And not an endorphin in sight. Whatever button that normally gets pushed to send me into lala-land is still waiting to get punched. Maybe it’s words. Maybe the hard crack of leather against the air will finally turn things. Or maybe it’ll come, like it usually does, after I’m half beaten and I’m screaming for the whole thing to end. That’s what I have to hope for. That’s what I cling to.
But until then? Damn the big huge hurt! Damn West and Billy, and the whole bloody asylum and its crazy inmates. I’m just another in a long line of perverts to pass through the doors. My eyes start doing funny things again. I can see these poor pitiful patients marching through time and before me with their glaring eyes and their vicious laughter.
While I’m tripping out, West lays it on so thick and heavy that I’m screaming behind that gag from the next blow on, body crazed with desire and so ramped up that, in spite of the pain, I start to come.
It went on like that, back and forth and back and forth, pain, pleasure and something else I’m not even gonna try to describe. I don’t know where my mind’s going, or what to think, or what to feel. Pain. Real. Rich. Powerful pain and I’m screaming one second, the next cumming like a street whore in the midd
le of a raunchy three-way.
“Yes, yes, yes, yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssss!” I’m yelling like I’m crazy, but all garbled because of the blasted gag. No one can make out my words but I really don’t fuckin’ care. I’m guessing they get the point.
When I opened my eyes, there was Billy staring at me. I see his itchy fingers waiting for West to finally give up the whip to him. Then I closed my eyes again, a suffering fool for this nonsense.
My body wrenched as far as the bondage would allow, although I stopped short of hanging there by my shoulders—I’m just not strong enough for that. But that’s all the control I had left.
The rest of me was gone. Escaped the world. Flown right off this fuckin’ planet into the big blue beyond—one rocky ride. I kept getting ripped back from the pleasure with a heavy dose of pain. I think I must be bleeding, my life spilling out on that old checkerboard floor.
Crown me…please…I’ve just landed on the other side of the board.
Finally, I get the feeling that someone has taken West’s place behind me using a pony crop, not the heavy flogger. Then there’s a genuine whip that sears my skin and my fear redoubles as the blows crack hard. Strangely enough, I’m hardly objecting. A smaller single tail whip follows as my assailant moves closer. I’m not sure what’s worse: this one or the bullwhip he used before. Both create a mean sting that’s hard to make erotic—though I seem to manage for a while. But when it’s the fuckin’ rattan—dammit, he knows how I hate that thing!
“Come,” I hear West’s voice again, although it’s so far away, I wonder if I’m dreaming.
I shake my head like a madwoman. I would cackle and swear if I could.
“C’mon, Jewel,” he whispers real sweet like. Like that’s going to move me.
Oh, but it does. I’ll be damned if it does.
I must be damned.
He knows me like a book. He and Billy.
Then I’m thinking it’s Billy at my ear and West with the whip. I have no clue. My eyes are shut so tight that I’m betting gremlins sealed them with wax. I couldn’t open ‘em if I tried.
And I ain’t trying. I don’t want to see any more misery, what’s in my mind’s eye is bad enough.
I have no idea how long this sweet agony lasts, maybe it goes on for hours or maybe just a couple of minutes. Time warps when you’re having fun like this. That’s what being out-of-my-mind with raw lust does to me. The rest of the goddam world vanishes and I’m flyin’ like a bird. Riding a wave of pain into some special subspace—not your typical endorphin rush but something that goes way beyond it.
Someone, Billy I guess—so I can’t quarrel with that—gets hot and heavy with the cane, while West is in front of me fiddling with my clit, ramming fingers into my vagina. He tugs enough on my lady lips to have me jerking as hard as I can. Then he slaps my face back and forth until both cheeks burn from the stinging pain.
I’m cryin’ and comin’ and going crazy.
Then, suddenly, everything stops.
Just like that. West walks off. Billy disappears.
“Take her down,” I hear a voice rise out of that heavy metallic beat of music.
I drop to the floor like dead weight since there’s no one there to cushion the ride. No kindness, no warm loving hands to bring me back. I guess this is punishment: Me in a heap at everyone’s feet, wondering what comes next.
I think there’s bound to be something sexual, and damn if my body isn’t praying for the pleasure. But when I hear the sound of shuffling feet around me and finally open my eyes, I see that I’ve been left on my own. The activity moves on without me as though I’m not even there. Billy’s on the sidelines talking to West. Thayer has Kathryn on a leash, leading her out the door. The beautiful redhead Lana is leaning against the door, eyes all slutty and filled with want. All the rest have turned their backs on me. I’m no good to them now that the scene is over. Just a lonely centerpiece, the flower that’s faded, too bruised to be beautiful.
Looking around, taking in the scene, I see Evie in the corner watching me with a blank stare. And some yards from her is Mr. D’Lancy.
Somethin’ skips in me, the beat of my heart, maybe. Or maybe it’s just one of them bodiless spirits passin’ by. Who’s to tell—I’m certainly not figuring out complicated things like that. Only thing I know for sure is Mr. D’Lancy seems to rise up like a great dark cloud ready to unleash a kick ass storm.
West may scare the bejesus outta me, but Mr. D’Lancy is something else altogether.
For a long time, I’ve had the feeling he’s a bigger wig than West when it comes to these kinky weekends, but you don’t know that for sure. When you see him, which is rare, he’s standing on the sidelines like a statue. He ain’t going to move; I watched him before. He disappears, but he never seems to move a muscle…oh, maybe his eyes and his head take in the scene. Maybe he scratches his nose, or puts his hands in his pockets, but where he comes from and where he goes is one big mystery. Maybe he just likes to voyeur then jacks off later. But I wonder—a man like that wouldn’t spend his time in a place like this. There’s something he wants from this scene, something he takes away, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.
I mentioned him to Billy once, and my boyfriend looks at me like he hasn’t a clue what I’m talkin’ about. He can deny the man all he wants, but I know what I see, and what I hear. And most of all what I feel. He’s a minor mystery in this house of perverts. Sometimes I wonder if only I can see him. The only way I know his name was that I was eavesdropping a couple years ago and heard it said. But it’s one of those things I keep to myself. Even when I asked Billy about him, I didn’t mention the name. Maybe I’m thinking it’s something sacred.
When the man appears like he did that night in the asylum I wanna just walk right up and ask him what he’s doing at our party. Not that I’d ever be that ballsy, but it’s a good fantasy.
Sometimes I think about the last time I come to the ball—I mean eventually this is gonna end. Someday I won’t be coming back. Maybe Billy will find a new girl and he won’t need me anymore. If I had my way, if I knew that I was in that spooky company for the last time…Oh, man, I’d blow the rules all to hell and do everything I’m not supposed to do. I’d thumb my nose in their faces. I’d probably slap West’s face, then I’d walk right up to Mr. D’Lancy—trembling like crazy, of course—and I’d ‘out’ him one way or the other. I’d get under his skin and let him see who I really am. Sure, it’s just fantasy that will never come true. But for now, it’s a good one, and a good way to get me from that lonely middle of that room full of deviants to somewhere less obvious. I low-crawl my way to the sidelines—no, I don’t exactly have permission to do that, but what would they dare do to me after what I’ve just been through? I crawl in the general direction of the girl and Mr. D, although the next time I look up, I see that West is leading the girl away, her neck in a lasso, and Mr. D’Lancy has disappeared—again.
I wait for Billy to find me, and eventually he does.
***
The night’s a hellish one—and I’m talkin’ about the hours between two am, which is when I imagine the main events are winding down, and dawn when the asylum begins to stretch its arms toward that nasty sky. I suspect that the powers that run this strange organization must have some say with the man above, or mother nature, or whoever’s responsible for this weird weather. It’s the most godawful nasty night that one could imagine. Thunder, lightning, downpours that make you wonder if God above has blown a gasket. You can hear it all, even in the dungeon where we’ve been told to sleep.
We were all bedded down on the damp basement floor, no cage this time, thank the lord, but it’s really not much better when we’re all shackled together like a chain gang of dangerous convicts. Kylie is on one side of me, Ashleigh down a ways. I don’t know the girl next to me, but next to her is Lana, all stretched out like she just dropped in from some ancient old painting. Evie is on the far end, curled into a ball and slumbering away, far as anyon
e can tell. She’s not moving a muscle.
We hear the rain beating on the metal roof of a shed just outside the cellar door. Takes me back to Alabama, so I’m not all that upset. But it makes the rest of the women restless. Then there’s the crashing storm that marches through the next few hours. I know we’re all pretty much awake when the warden comes in, that hefty old bitch they hired on a year or so ago. She’s undoing locks and loosening shackles, pulling an arm here and there, until there’s Kathryn, Lana and me between the two lines of stretched-out females.
“On your feet and out of here,” she barks, “And make it fast. The rest of you get back to sleep.”
Lovely Lana stares at me cool as ever. Kathryn shows a little more concern.
As the light goes out, we take off through the dank corridors of that basement hanging onto shoulders as we stumble along. I swear there are bats flying around the place. I scream several times only to have my ass cracked hard with dyke’s cane. I’m unlucky enough to be last in line, so my butt is hanging right out, ready for her to use for target practice.
“Okay, okay!” I forget and talk again. You’d think eventually I’d learn.
Then the stairs, ancient and creaking, boards splitting apart from rot. We’re ordered to our knees as we make the trek up the steps. I think the whole thing is going to fall away and the crawling upward never seems to stop. Two, three floors maybe, but I’m just guessing, trying to remember how many stories make up this strange asylum.
A door creaks open and Kathyrn leads the way, crawling from the stairs into another creepy place in this house of horrors.
The attic. Yes. It’s a musty smell I’ll never forget—same in every old house. The stench of rot, trash, and the carcasses of small animals, caught but never found and thrown away. Attics have their own world, filled with treasures and turmoil and stories no one will ever learn—about when the cat caught a whole family of mice and devoured them all, or the bees that make honey in the walls—their buzzing sound never going away—or the scritching noise of termites and carpenter ants dismantling the place piece by piece. I could go on, but you probably got the idea. Maybe there was a patient once, or even a lonely soldier who walked up those steps and peered inside, then thinking they found a real treasure away from the madness below, they made a cozy space for themselves inside. Maybe the young man masturbated in its privacy, glad to be alone, maybe that lunatic patient did too, or maybe she’s the one who haunted the asylum with ghostly noises until the doctors and nurses were scared away.
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