Forbidden Reading

by Lisette Ashton

  ‘Father,’ she said softly. Inadvertently her hands stole to cover her breasts and her exposed sex. The modesty of her actions struck her as being senseless but she couldn’t control the impulse to hide her body.

  The priest ignored Justine and glanced into the shadows behind her.

  Justine briefly marvelled over his ability to see those things in the dark that she couldn’t discern. But she got the impression that this was a ritual with which he and the other members of The Society were familiar. Two figures loomed close to her and she guessed they were acting on the priest’s instruction. They were asexual, and both cloaked in hooded robes that reminded her of Mrs Weiss’s assistant from the previous day. Neither had the commanding bulk that had been possessed by that man but the similarity in their clothes made Justine wonder if this was a dress code for subordinates of The Society and another facet that united the members as a group.

  Each of the priest’s assistants took one of Justine’s hands and raised it to shoulder level. She was led backwards until her buttocks touched something solid. Her wrists were swiftly bound to a horizontal plank behind her and she allowed her captors to tie her without protest. It was only when she realised there was no give in the bondage that Justine fully understood she was at the mercy of the priest. Surrounded by unseen strangers – naked, helpless and vulnerable – she was dismayed to think how easily the priest could now abuse her trust. The thought inspired a rush of fresh wetness between her legs and, with that response, she realised her appetites had sunk to a level that was truly depraved.

  From the shadows, the assistants lit candles and placed them at her feet.

  Justine was able to see that her ankles were touching the base of a stout wooden cross and she shrank from the blasphemy of the pose that the priest had forced her to assume. Struggling against the restraints, suddenly scared that she might be taking the concept of sacrilege too far, she tried to find the strength to pull free. Her stomach folded as she contemplated the irreverence of mocking the crucifixion. A part of her wanted to close her eyes and shrink from the wickedness of what they were doing but she knew Marais would see that as a sign of weakness. She also suspected the priest would be livid if he thought she was not proving herself worthy. But, more important, she found that a part of her longed to be involved in the sacrilege. Breaking so many taboos was a powerful and intoxicating thrill, and Justine found her body now needed that additional excitement that came from doing something so forbidden.

  ‘You’ve done well to get this far,’ the priest assured her. His voice was smooth and controlled: a stark contrast to her mounting panic and unease. ‘You’ve done very well to get this far,’ he corrected. ‘But I want a little extra from you this evening. Do you understand?’

  Too frightened to say or do anything, Justine could only nod. She remained uneasy with the thought of suffering this perverse punishment, fearful she was running the risk of damning her soul for all eternity, but the idea of disobeying the priest was equally unappealing. Not only was the fate of La Coste at stake but, if there was any chance of getting back her beloved penitent, Justine knew it would come from pleasing the priest. Anxious to do everything he asked as she pursued that particular goal, and telling herself she had no choice because the bondage made her an unwilling participant, Justine watched the priest remove a cat o’ nine tails from the folds of his vestment.

  The coils of leather unfurled like a nest of snakes. In the stillness of the night, Justine imagined she could hear them hissing as they fell to the floor. Shards of candlelight glistened from their restless bodies as they twitched and writhed ready to make their mark on her. A tremor of wet excitement bristled through the inner muscles of her sex.

  ‘Very nice.’

  Marais’s approving voice made Justine feel ill. She tried glancing through the shadows to see his face but could only make out a vague silhouette. It was impossible to decide if that made his appeal seem more sinister or more arousing.

  The threat of being whipped didn’t trouble her. After all she had endured at the hand of Mrs Weiss, Justine felt sure she could tolerate another scourging. Recalling the previous day, she remembered that it had not been without some pleasure, although she couldn’t understand how her body could take arousal and satisfaction from such callous torment.

  But she still felt queasy about the priest’s profane use of sacred imagery and her own involvement in that blasphemy. Drawing a nervous breath, and wishing her body were no longer riddled with the delightful eddies that remained from Marais’s heavy-handed use of her, she steeled herself in readiness for the assault.

  ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,’ the priest began. As his voice intoned the words, he slashed the cat hard against Justine’s naked frame. The multi-thonged whip cut heavily through the air, tearing the night into shreds. The cruel tips landed against her with shocking force and, unable to stop herself, she screamed.

  Each lash was powerful and scratched her with the full and vicious weight she had expected. A part of her had wanted to remain silent through the punishment but the stinging agony was more than her body could tolerate. Stunned by the pain, and disgusted by the excitement her suffering inspired, Justine released a second wail as the priest lashed her again.

  The wicked tips of the thongs bit at her breasts and abdomen.

  She didn’t dare glance down at herself, fearful of putting her face in danger and uneasy at the thought of seeing how severely her body might have been marked. When he struck again it felt as though he was aiming purposefully for her nipples. Both buds of flesh had been grazed by the cat and they stood hard, hot and proud. The stimulation was enormous, thrilling her with an urgent need for satisfaction. Equally powerful was the ache that also held her and Justine squeezed her eyes closed to keep back further tears. Breathing heavily, she tried to prepare herself for the next blow of the cat.

  But it didn’t land.

  When she dared to open her eyes and glance at him, she saw the priest was fixing her with a menacing glower. ‘I want to hear your confession.’

  She stiffened at the words, as she would have recoiled from another bite of the whip. Shaking her head, not sure who else was there listening from the shadows but appalled at the idea of confessing her sins to them, Justine thought of begging him to reconsider his punishment.

  The whip twitched in his hand, as though he was preparing to administer more stinging encouragement. His inscrutable features studied her with the gravest solemnity. ‘Your confession, Justine,’ he prompted. ‘Let me hear it now.’

  ‘Forgive me father, for I have sinned.’ She blurted the exclamation before he could hurl the whip at her again. Trembling from a combination of cold, terror and mounting excitement, she fixed him with a steely gaze and said, ‘It has been three days since I was last in a confessional box.’

  The priest’s smile was bitter. He genuflected quickly, the sharp movements of his hand making it look as though he was swatting at flies from the night around him. ‘Carry on,’ he encouraged her. ‘Tell me your sins.’

  She could sense an air of expectation around her and wondered briefly where she should begin. The sins she had committed over the past three days had been numerous and embarrassing. To reveal them to the priest in the privacy of a confessional booth would have been mortifying: to expose them to a crowd of peers that she couldn’t see was more intimidating than Justine would have believed. There was no question in her mind that she had to keep her association with Mrs Weiss a secret. But she supposed everything else needed to be confessed to the priest for fear of suffering further consequences.

  ‘I eavesdropped on the confessions of members of your parish,’ she began.

  The whip slashed through the night, its multitude of thongs biting harshly at her thigh. Justine squealed – incensed by the pain – and stung by the arousal that the punishment generated.

  ‘Shocking,’ the priest mumbled. ‘Have you no respect for the sanctity of the confessional booth?’r />
  She glared at him and knew there was no opportunity for her to remind him she had only been there at his instruction. Gritting her teeth in anticipation of the next blow, Justine said, ‘I submitted to the depraved demands of a priest in that confessional.’

  This time the whip flicked at her breasts. Her chest was a shriek of raw anguish that came close to blinding her with tears. Both orbs throbbed from the brutal treatment the priest was making her suffer and she began to realise the pounding pulse in her nipples matched the rhythm of her arousal. A wail of despair crossed her lips as she realised her body was enjoying the humiliating torment of being abused.

  ‘Go on,’ the priest urged. ‘Tell me all of your sins.’

  She snatched a breath before continuing. ‘I committed sacrilege on the altar of your church. I gave my body to you and your bishop.’

  ‘Despicable sins,’ the priest muttered. He slashed the whip back and forth. The first blow caught her across the breasts: the second scoured at the tops of her thighs. A stray thong – agonising and cruel – sliced at the pulse of her clitoris. The extreme pain was more severe than she expected and Justine almost choked on her cry of surprise. She stared at him through a veil of tears and braced herself when he urged her to continue.

  ‘I took an innocent woman from your church,’ Justine breathed. ‘And I used her as my sexual plaything.’

  The whip fell again. It cut viciously through the night before landing against her bare breasts. The pain was phenomenal and, this time, she did risk glancing down at herself. Blinking through the tears she was amazed to see that her nipples were still attached to her body. The punishment had been so severe she would not have been surprised to find the beads of skin had been torn away with the last bite of the cat.

  ‘I allowed myself to be used at Sartine’s party,’ she gasped.

  ‘Whore!’

  She locked her throat, desperate not to let another cry escape into the night. When he snapped the whip this time it branded fiery anguish in the centre of her sex.

  ‘And I enjoyed every second of it,’ Justine declared.

  ‘Filthy, unrepentant whore!’

  She turned her face away from him, unable to watch the cat leaping out of the dark and then feeling its scratch against her tormented flesh. The night’s cool breeze continued to caress her bare body but she was sweating freely from the ordeal.

  ‘There were scores of men and women,’ she gasped.

  She clenched her jaw so as not to squeal when the next blow struck.

  ‘And I was used by them all.’

  ‘You’ve got a lot of repenting to do,’ the priest growled.

  She stared at him through the dark, half-expecting to hear another crack of the whip and not daring to hope that that part of the punishment was ended. Watching him toss the cat aside, then seeing him extend a hand into the darkness, she was puzzled to see someone hand him a rosary.

  ‘I want to hear the paternoster from you and ten Hail Marys.’

  She cringed from the idea of reciting more prayers while suffering his sadistic abuse, but didn’t dare make her reluctance known. Despite the blasphemy of mimicking the crucifixion, she told herself that the act of penance was to be expected following her confession. And, because the priest was walking toward her with the rosary, she believed he might actually release her from her bondage on the cross. Daring to hope that her ordeal might soon be over, she shivered with relief as he bore down on her.

  ‘The paternoster and ten Hail Marys,’ he reminded her.

  She nodded.

  And then, with sudden horror, she watched the priest fall to his knees. He still held the rosary in one hand and used his other to swat her legs so she spread them further apart. On an intuitive level she understood what he was going to do it before he had pushed the beads against her. The act was depraved and obscene, but she realised that those factors no longer stopped her from indulging in any act if it seemed likely it would satisfy her needs.

  He slipped the first bead against the tight ring of her anus.

  She bit back a squeal.

  Working quickly, slipping them easily inside her bowel, the priest mumbled something in Latin as his fingers gently pushed bead after bead through her sphincter. The weight of the first one made her feel full, its alien presence sitting heavily in her rear. By the time he had completed the first decade Justine thought she had never endured anything more profane or embarrassing.

  ‘You will begin when I tell you,’ the priest mumbled.

  She stammered in her haste to agree, and parted her legs wider to allow him slowly to ease a second decade inside her rear. The muscle of her rectum felt overfull and bloated. Heightened sensitivity made her acutely aware of each bead inside her bowel. As the priest’s large fingers forced another and then another through her sphincter, she recoiled from the blend of discomfort, shame and humiliation. His face was unbearably close to her exposed cleft and she wondered if he could detect the scent of fresh musk that seemed to be flowing from her. Despite the embarrassment of this ordeal Justine could feel the fresh waves of sexual excitement charging through her, and she dreaded the idea that the priest might notice her response and disapprove.

  Without warning, he flicked his tongue against the lips of her sex.

  After all the attention he had invested in pushing the rosary into her rear, she hadn’t realised her pussy was so excited and swollen. The sensation of his mouth against her sex was unexpected and allowed her body to shift to a plateau of unwonted pleasure. As the eddies of delight began to subside she realised he had stopped thrusting the rosary beads into her backside and understood it was time to begin her penance.

  ‘A paternoster,’ the priest reminded her. ‘And ten Hail Marys.’

  She hadn’t forgotten the instruction. Even with his breath warming the tops of her thighs, and the sacramental beads filling her bowel, Justine didn’t think it would be possible to have forgotten what was expected of her. The crucifix she had seen dangling from the rosary tickled at her buttocks. In her mind’s eye she could picture it swinging between the cheeks of her backside and that image alone was enough to make her believe she was committing the ultimate profanity. She shivered from the idea of saying the prayers, and then told herself the alternative wasn’t worth considering. Nervously, she took a deep breath and steeled herself to do as he had asked.

  ‘Our father, who art in heaven,’ she began.

  As she spoke, the priest tugged on the crucifix.

  Justine had expected this humiliation, and yet it was still a shock to feel the nauseating pleasure being torn from her anus. Her sphincter clenched tight around the first bead, fighting him for possession, and she fervently wished her body would relent and allow him simply to tear the beads away. Wishing there was time to think about all that was going on, trying to concentrate on the words of the prayer rather than the sordid pleasure she was enjoying from this terrible sacrilege, Justine mumbled her way through the paternoster as the first decade was torn from her.

  Her anus reluctantly opened to allow each bead to be pulled free, and then closed tight as though trying to hold on to the remainder of the rosary. The sensation was horribly reminiscent of visiting the lavatory, and she knew those associations were colouring her shame and arousal. The priest applied an unhurried pressure on the crucifix: constantly pulling downward and perpetually making her sphincter feel as though it were fighting him in a tug o’ war.

  Occasionally, almost as a random treat, he flicked his tongue against the swell of her clitoris. The sudden rush of pleasure, usually coming while she was trying to recover from another burst of shame, invariably made her stumble through the words of her prayer. The priest’s growls of displeasure, and her own torment as she was torn between arousal, frustration and embarrassment, threatened to overwhelm her with confusion.

  As she mumbled the first ‘amen,’ he pulled a full decade from her rear.

  She groaned.

  ‘Now the Hail Marys,’ he demanded.<
br />
  Sobbing back tears of frustration, she mumbled, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace.’

  He tore another bead from her backside. His tongue rubbed easily against her clitoris and Justine moaned. If not for the ropes at her wrists, holding her against the cross and forcing her to accept this twisted ritual, she would have doubled over and hidden herself from him. Because he was continuing to pull at the rosary, perpetually threatening to wrench another bead from her anus, she knew she had to continue.

  ‘The lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women…’

  She remembered the words with frightening ease and was appalled that they could come back to her at this particular time. The priest was merciless in demanding that she repeat the prayer again and again, constantly easing one bead and then another from her rear. The discomfort was only minor but the blasphemy of what she was doing struck her with the same force she had suffered when he had been striking her with the cat.

  By the time he had wrenched the final bead from her backside, Justine realised she had gone beyond shame. His tongue brushed her clitoris again, inspiring the climax she had known was coming, and she continued to babble the words of the prayer as the unholy orgasm coursed through her body. Sobbing with relief and satisfaction, she barely noticed that the priest had pulled himself from the floor and gone back to the shadows where he conspired with Marais. It was only as the haze of pleasure began to subside that Justine heard their lowered voices.

  ‘I told you she was more than worthy,’ the priest grumbled. ‘The twisted little bitch has appetites that even I consider depraved.’

  Justine flinched on hearing the words, not sure if they should be considered as praise or condemnation. She saw the priest turn his back and wished there had been some chance to shout after him and ask him about her beloved penitent. If there was ever any opportunity of reacquainting herself with the woman, she knew it would only be through the priest. But, before she could call him back, or make her interest in the woman known, he was already disappearing into the shadows. And, as the blackness shrouded him, she saw a host of others bearing down on her, each striking life to their own candles. The number of them surprised her: a dozen at first, and then twice or three times that amount. It wasn’t until she recalled Sartine’s penchant for group pleasure that she understood what was going to happen.