Golden Girl Ch. 03

Suddenly, a piercing pain shot through her right nipple, quick and sharp as the stroke of a needle. At the same moment, the Duc's fingers stroked the wetness of her sex. Dorée gasped as she felt again that pulse between her legs, that constriction, pleasurable and painful at once. The pain in her nipple steadied but did not abate. The fingers on her sex moved gently, massaging and caressing her in ways that made her hips squirm.

"The purpose of pain, in most situations, is to tell us that which we ought to avoid. But like the wildfire that burns away the old, pain can also clear the mind and open the body to new heights of sensation. There are many whose constitutions are not suited to such sublimity. But there are some who know the truth, whose bodies respond to pain instinctively with pleasure."

The fingers of his left hand, the hand between her legs, penetrated just slightly inside the tight, hot place that throbbed there. The fingers of his right hand began to twist her nipple. Dorée felt her entire being come alive, flaring like the wildfire he described, dancing between a desperate desire to escape such intensity and an opposing urge to push herself down onto his fingers, to push them deeper into her.

"Your body is telling me that it needs this. For you, this is natural. For you, this is right. This is what you want and how you justly deserve to be treated. And this is how I can call what I do to you 'justice.'"

The Duc withdrew his hands. When Dorée opened her eyes, he was sucking on his finger like a honey-stick. Her mind whirled, trying to encompass his words. No one had ever told her that there was anything inherently right, good, or natural about her, much less about the things she was most ashamed of in herself. In his words she glimpsed something, or rather felt something, that she had never dared to feel before. It was a kind of acceptance or openness, a field of possibilities. And yet, all his talk of Nature also seemed somehow heretical, like a pagan belief of old. Where was the will of God in this? Where was the Law? Her brow wrinkled with unspoken questions. The Duc smiled ironically and said,

"The body knows what the conscious mind cannot compass. If you wish to put it in the terms of your religion, think of it as an ecstatic chastisement of the flesh, so that you may attain greater spiritual understanding. Or perhaps you would prefer to return to your step-mother's house, and endure her chastisements gainlessly?"

Dorée's head was shaking in refusal even before she knew she'd made the decision.

"No, your Grace."

"Then you agree to stay in the Chateau, and take your education from me? There is of course a paid position on the household staff available for you, should you prove an apt pupil."

Dorée imagined herself like Berenice, clad in a white apron and waiting upon the Duc in his grand manor. She would be well-fed, with a soft bed to sleep in. She would be serving the nobility and earning money that could be used to find her sister and pull her out of poverty...

...and she would have a chance to feel again what she had just felt. That, and perhaps more.

"Yes, your Grace. I agree to take your tutelage and serve in your household as best I can."

"Then, by your will and mine, it is done."

The Duc rang the bell by his bedside and the guards reappeared at the door.

They were bearing chains.

"What...what is this?" Dorée stammered.

"Your first chastisement." The Duc's gentle, persuasive voice had turned deadly cold.

"Never, ever think to question my justice again."

He waved his hand, and the guards stepped forward to seize Dorée roughly. They placed an iron collar around her throat and manacles on her hands and feet. Her slender waist was wrapped around with chains that weighed heavy and cold against her still naked and sensitive belly. One of the guards gave a pull on the chain so swift and sharp that Dorée lost her footing and fell. When she was slow to rise, the other guard pulled out a stick and struck her on the left cheek of her buttocks. She cried out in pain.

"Up! Now!" Yelled the guard.

She scrambled to her feet, tears flowing from her eyes.

"Please, your Grace! Not like this!" She begged.

He laughed again, that chilling, mad laugh.

"You'll have more to beg me for soon enough. Take her away!"

The guards pulled her toward the door. But just before they reached the frame, the Duc called out for them to halt and rose from his bed. Striding over in his rich robes, he seized Dorée's face and with his strong, thick tongue, he licked the tears of betrayal from her cheeks with relish.

"It is what my Nature most desires. And the Law of Nature cannot be denied." He whispered.

There was no darkness in the Chateau's dungeons that could match the blackness of his eyes as he watched Dorée being dragged away.