The Black Ribbon

But the ribbon had disappeared! The most likely explanation, of course, was Lily playing another prank. It was entirely possible that she had crept back out as soon as Katerina had entered her room and untied the fabric herself; it was even possible that the black ribbon story was entirely made up. Katerina didn't really believe that Selka would go along with something like that, though. The young woman acted like humor was not only one of the deadly sins, but she refused to discuss sex in any way with the other waitresses. Sighing, Katerina rolled so that her legs were hanging over the edge of the bed. She stretched, feeling the indent in her skin where the knot of her bra-ties had pressed against her back all night. It was slightly sore. She reached back, her fingers feeling against the knots.

Fuck.

If possible, she thought that it might be knotted even more tightly than when she had done it last night. She worked it for a couple of minutes with the tips of her fingers, finally giving up when her arms began to ache. She settled for breathing in deeply and wrestling the bra up over her head with her hands. She pulled down the panties, tossing them in the air and kicking them against the far wall. It wasn't fair, she knew--there was no point in taking her frustration out on perfectly fine lingerie.

"Sorry, guys." She directed the comment toward the crumpled garments as she stood. She gathered them regretfully and deposited them in her clothing hamper. She traded the lingerie out for a comfortable pair of bra and underwear. Then, pulling her hair back into some semblance of order, she dressed quickly in a clean uniform.

The day passed slowly, until about noon. Katerina started the day by cleaning behind the bar and tidying up the barroom for their lunch service; usually, they got a good numbers of farmers and woods-workers who stopped by the inn for a quick meal and a beer during their lunch break. Lily was working the bar that day, and she raised her eyebrows as Katerina entered the barroom. She shook her head, and heard the smaller girl curse quietly. It brought a small smile to Katerina's lips.

Just before noon, as she was doing her final sweep of the room, one of the Southie boys came down the stairs and strolled into the barroom. It was the shorter of them, though he stood well over Katerina's head; probably an inch shy of six feet, or perhaps six feet on exactly the mark. He went to the bar, pulling out a stool and exchanging a couple of words with Lily. Katerina could see a bit of the liveliness come back into the girl's movements as they chatted, and she emptied a bottle of beer into a tall wooden mug before she passed it to him. Katerina tried not to watch them out of the corner of her eyes as she busied herself setting the tables for lunch.

The people began to pile in, and the two figures at the bar were forgotten for the next few hours. Katerina guessed it was shortly after two that she approached the bar, moving to refill a pitcher for a table seated near the window. Lily caught her eye, a small smile turning up the corner of her lips. The Southie boy had disappeared--Katerina was not sure when. She approached the bar, setting down her serving tray and leaning slightly closer to Lily. The young woman's grey-green eyes shone, triumphantly.

"Guess who asked about you?" She raised her eyebrows, indicating that her question didn't actually require an answer.

"Guess who still owes me her tips," Katerina grinned.

"Girl, you convince that man to stop by my room for a night..." she whistled quietly between her teeth, too low for any of the customers to hear, "My tips for a week." The girl laughed suddenly, drawing a couple of looks from curious patrons before they went back to their own conversations, "My tips for his tip."

"Good Lord," Katerina rolled her eyes, but couldn't help the slight deepening of her grin at the young woman's irrepressible personality, "One pitcher of our finest beer, for table nine."

They only served one kind of beer, though it was, admittedly fine.

The rest of the day passed quickly. The service finished, and she and Lily cleaned the barroom. Morgan was upstairs, having arrived around noon, and was busy changing and washing the linens in whatever guest bedrooms had been used. She joined them as the daily service was wrapping up. Lily was busy polishing glasses behind the bar, and Katerina was rolling cutlery in napkins on the flat top. Both young women were drinking as they worked, and Lily wordlessly passed Morgan a beer as she entered.

Katerina proceeded to question Lily extensively about what the dark-haired Southie had asked about her, but only managed to extract that he had asked for her name. Anything else met with a wall of excited indifference from the fox-faced woman. They drank another beer as they finished up their duties, and then said their goodbyes. These were most of their days, during the busy season--wake, work, sleep. Katerina did not mind; they made good money, it was good company, and she would spend most of the other half of the year doing whatever it was she wanted to do. Mostly walking in the woods and spending time with family.

As the door to her room clicked closed behind her, she sighed. Leaning back against the door, she closed her eyes and let out a long breath. Then, lifting herself from the flat of the door, she went about her evening duties. She changed out of her uniform, depositing it in the clothes-basket, and changed into a pair of comfortable grey pants and a loose bra. She pulled a knit grey sweater over her head, grabbing her hair at the base and lifting it out of the neckline so that it fell over her shoulders. It came down just passed her collarbones, and slightly further down her back. She took a towel from the top drawer of her dresser, tucking it under her arm, and proceeded to leave her room.

The sun was just beginning to set, casting everything in warm, slanting rays of orange-gold light. Katerina walked on bare feet as she made her way down the creaking stairs and out of the front door of the inn. The flat stones of the pathway felt good under her soles and toes, and the slightly damp grass even better. She and the other serving ladies were welcome to use the shower in the Hatchs' house, and often did so during the colder weeks toward the end of fall and beginning of spring--but whenever she could, Katerina liked to use the outdoor showers at the back of the inn. They were walled on three sides, and had swinging wooden doors on the fourth. Water, pump-fed from a well beneath the property, came out hard and warm from the open-mouthed showerhead.

Hanging her towel over the top of one wall, she proceeded to step inside of the stall and remove her clothes. She hung them on a small metal hook against the door of the stall, where they wouldn't get wet. She placed her glasses carefully against the crook of the door, on top of her clothes. She turned the handle of the shower, and shivered when cold water came pouring down over her head and shoulders--some of the other women liked to wait for it to get warm first, but she did not. She had grown up on a farm, and the first blast of cold water reminded fondly--and occasionally not so fondly--of home. Turning so that the water coursed over her forehead and hairline, Katerina raised her face and proceeded to work her fingers through the wet, heavy length of her hair.

She heard it only vaguely, beneath the steady rush of the water, as the stall door opened behind her. It was more feeling, than sound; a slight awareness that the light in the stall had changed, brightened; a sensation that somebody was behind her. She opened her mouth, gasping beneath the lukewarm water, as a hand grabbed her. She did not try to scream, but she did jump slightly as she felt the hand go over her mouth. It was a man's hand. From the bottom of her wide eyes, she could see thin, dark hairs laying flat across a powerful forearm. Even if she hadn't seen that, the way she was grabbed made it abundantly clear--the arms were like stone. She felt an arm go beneath her chin, and she felt a moment of disbelief about how fast her vision darkened, flickering for only a brief moment as the arm closed at the elbow, tightening either side of her neck between forearm and bicep.

"Sorry love, nothin' personal." It was a man's voice, heard at a great distance--she knew that the distance was only in her mind. The man's mouth was almost pressed against her ear. His accent was Southie.

When Katerina opened her eyes, they opened to darkness. She had a moment of panic as she realized that her vision wasn't working--no matter how wide she opened her eyes, no light came to them. She shifted slightly, and her quickly rising panic settled somewhat as she felt a knot against the back of her head, and a slight pressure around the top of her face. I'm not blind, she could have cried in relief, but the relief was quickly stifled--I'm blindfolded. She tried to move further, and she realized that her hands had been tied behind her back. She was seated against something; something hard and round, possibly a tree trunk. She thought she could feel the roughness of bark against the skin of her back, between her shoulder bones.

She was still naked, and seated in the grass with her legs straight in front of her. The grass, she could feel, was long and unkept--not behind the inn, then. She moved her head slightly, and felt that her hair was still damp, though it did not drip--it was a decent reference point for time; a couple of minutes, she guessed. Based on the fact that her legs weren't cramped and she could still feel the individual threading of the ropes around her wrists, she guessed she had not been sitting for more than five minutes. She thought that she could hear voices, but they seemed to be speaking from far away. The voices stopped for a moment.

"Awake, whore?" Obviously, they had approached, because the voice spoke clearly from only a few feet in front of her. It spoke with the accent that Katerina had been expecting--what she had not been expecting, and what sent a shiver down her spine, was that it was a womans' voice. A womans' voice, and one that was deeply familiar.

Katerina blinked against the sudden light as somebody grabbed the blindfold and pulled it down roughly over her nose and mouth. It hung against her upper chest and around the back of her neck as she squinted against the light. Luckily, the light was that of evening; not the blinding brightness of the afternoon, but the inviting, warm light of early dusk. The woman that crouched in front of her seemed to fade in from a blur; the fuzziness in the features of her face sharpening, the impression of a dark shape forming arms and legs, covered in what looked like a black one-piece.

Selka's face smiled down at her. Even in the deep warmth of the evening light, her blue eyes looked cold. They touched Katerina's briefly; she saw that the young woman had one elbow balanced against her bent knee, and she was turning something over between her fingers. A knotted length of black fabric, torn on the sides. The ribbon. Her ribbon. If anything, the young woman's eyes became even colder as they travelled down Katerina's naked body; they shone brilliantly, moving over her body with undisguised desire while managing to remain somehow detached. She looked like an animal which was indifferent to its' own starvation. Katerina shivered, opening her mouth.

Selka's flat hand caught her point-blank between the cheek and temple. Her vision flashed as she fell sideways into the damp grass, and she opened and closed her mouth a few times, breathing deeply through her nose. Her right ear rang slightly, on the side where the girl had struck her. Like a small hammer tapped against a flat sheet of tin. The blow hadn't been particularly hard, but it had been delivered precisely, unprompted, and with such speed that it took Katerina a moment to realize what happened. Before she could fully grasp it, she felt a knee press against her back. It trapped her stomach against the ground. A hand was moving against her legs, pushing against the back and sides of her thighs to straighten them against the grass. She spread them instinctively. Then the hand was between her legs.

Katerina gasped as a pair of thin fingers touched the outside of her labia, tracing up from bottom to top. She tried to stop her hips from undulating against the ground, instead closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She tried to be furious, but found her anger fled the moment she touched it. The moment the woman touched her. She tried to stay afraid, but found that that was equally as difficult. She could smell the grass--clean and earthy; she could smell the residue of the previous mornings' rain, feel the dampness of it clinging to her cheek.

But mostly, she could feel the woman's fingers. Somehow, she knew that it was Selka. It was the slenderness of the fingers that gave it away, as well as the slightly rounded edge of her enameled nails, their length--all these were hints, but what truly betrayed the hand was how it touched her. There was something measured and impersonal about it. The knee pressed slightly harder against her back, and Katerina felt her shoulder bones draw closer together in answer.

"You speak when I tell you to speak," the woman's cool, lightly accented voice spoke from above her, "Nod if you understand."

Katerina nodded hurriedly, and then inhaled through her nose as she felt the woman's two fingers move between the lips of her labia. They continued to move slowly--up and down. The slowness of it was excruciating. She arched her hips away from the ground with difficulty, lifting herself ever so slightly with her knees so that the other woman's fingers were pressed firmly against her damp inner lips.

"A few things," Selka's voice continued above her. Her hand drew away so that she was touching Katerina just as lightly as before, "If you refer to me, it's as mistress, or Miss Meeres. When you refer to my friends', it's as sir. Nod if you understand."

Friends. Katerina nodded again, breathing quickly through her nose. Her chest felt tight, "Secondly, you take what I am willing to give you. You will ask my permission before you cum, and thank me afterwards. Nod if you understand."

Katerina nodded so quickly it made her momentarily light-headed; though she thought that the gentle rhythm of the woman's fingers between her legs might have something to do with it as well, "Third, any hesitation to do as you're told will result in punishment. That will look like this." Katerina jumped slightly, inhaling sharply through her nose as the woman's flat hand came down hard on her right butt cheek. Selka's voice spoke again, "Displeasing me will result in punishment. That will look like this." Katerina was expecting it this time, but the sharp blow still managed to make her body jump involuntarily; it struck her at an angle, with a sound like a snapping belt. Still Selka continued, "Making me repeat an order more than twice will result in punishment. It will look like this."

This time, there was no possible way for Katerina to ready herself for the blow. Whatever it was--it was not done with Selka's hand. For a fraction of a second, something made a low whistling sound, and then cracked against her skin. Katerina's mouth opened in a silent scream against the grass, tears forming in the corners of her tightly- squeezed eyes. It felt like the edge of a knife had been drawn with unbelievable speed over the bare skin of her behind. She whimpered, partially in pain and partially in relief, as the sharp streak of pain slowly lessened--after a few seconds leaving behind only a thin, throbbing line against her skin. And still Selka's voice continued, "Finally, you will no longer be referred to as Katerina. You are my little whore, and that is how you will refer to yourself. Nod if you understand."

Katerina nodded until her neck hurt.

She knew that she would have agreed to anything--so long as the other woman kept touching her. She could feel the fingers again, moving slowly between the now swollen lips of her labia. She felt them separate, spreading her lips. A third fingers touched her while they held her apart, stroking slowly from the opening of her vagina to the soft, wet skin just below the hood of her clitoris. Katerina felt her knees trembling, ever so slightly. She wriggled her upper body, managing to get her arms out from under her stomach and up beneath her chest. Placing the pointer finger of her right hand in her mouth, she bit down--hard. Not quite hard enough to break the skin, but certainly hard enough to leave perfect indents of her teeths' edges around her knuckle.

"I certainly named you well. We haven't even begun and you're already soaked. You are a little fucking whore, aren't you?"

"Yes mistress." Katerina's voice was breathless, shifting the grass in front of her lips slightly. Her head spun.

It wasn't the fact that this was the first time that Katerina had ever heard Selka swear, and it wasn't the fact that she had never thought she'd hear the other woman saying words like this--it was how good she sounded doing it. Katarina had never before thought about the fact that Selka's succinct, slightly lilting voice would be perfectly suited to delivering orders. Even as the speed of her fingers increased, their movements remained tight and concise; their motion practiced to the point she obviously no longer needed to think about it. Her clipped voice spoke again as a second finger joined the first, moving smoothly up and down the wet surface of her vagina. She wasn't just wet, Katerina realized--she was so turned on that she was dripping; slow-moving lines of moisture tracked from the bottom of her vulva down the creases of her legs. She whimpered as the woman's fingers slowed slightly, their range narrowing until they moved only against the opening of her vagina.

"Do you want my fingers inside of you, you little whore? Is that what you want?" Holy fuck. Holy fuck--yes, "Speak."

"Oh--oh my g-god, yes Miss Meeres. Please put your fingers in my pussy. Please," Katerina did not care that she was begging, or that her voice shook almost as hard as her legs.

"Good girl," Selka's normally austere voice was nearly a purr.

The fingers continued to move for a moment, tracing an outline of her vagina. Then they moved inward, toward her opening. Katerina breathed in and out quickly, feeling the round edges of the woman's nails against the sensitive skin--it wasn't uncomfortable. Far from it. It made her distinctly aware of the woman's fingers, exactly who they belonged to, and their meticulous position against her. And then, at the exact moment that she went to take a deep breath, Selka pushed the fingers inside of her. Katerina felt herself stretch as the fingers entered her, slightly curved toward the woman's palm; and then she felt herself loosen even as the muscles within her contracted.

Katerina's trembling, half-drawn breath fell into her throat, coming out of her as a low whine. She turned her knees out against the grass, as if she were trying to push her upward- facing heels into the ground away from her body. The action spread the cheeks of her bum slightly. Selka responded by sliding her fingers in to her bottom knuckle. She began to stroke in and out, her fingers curling with each motion, as though she were trying to touch them to her palm on the outside of Katerina's vagina.

"Fuck--" Katerina's voice matched the whine of her breathing.

Selka continued the steady motions of her hand and fingers as she spoke from behind the prostrate girl, not breaking a beat.

"Marin, please punish her. You don't speak without being spoken to, no matter what is done to you, you little whore."