The Sisterhood of Slaves Pt. 07

The last to leave the gravesite had been a petite, dark-haired woman in a short black dress, whom nobody seemed to know... or at least everyone pretended to not know. When they assembled again for the reading of the will, Lydia the executrix proved to be a high-powered agent or manager of some sort, with a top-floor office at the top end of town. She was stunning, with gleaming blue eyes and a penetrating gaze, a sexy charisma and an intimidating self-assurance which reminded Andrew of a sleek, predatory cat. She announced herself as Joe's business associate, but she was vague. After that, she called them in one at a time for a private conference. Andrew did not know what the others were told, but Jane, who had preceded him, came out of Lydia's office looking unsettled, her face flushed. She murmured something he did not catch and averted her eyes as she brushed past him.

The full details of the bequest were unclear, except that he found himself, along with his cousin, titleholder of an estate in the countryside, a mansion which Lydia referred to simply as "the Château." Since it was Jane who was Joe's direct descendant, Andrew was gratified that he'd been allotted a half-share; but he was curious about the exact nature of the old man's legacy.

A week later he was called back. He was ushered in by one of the secretaries, a thin, pale, stiff-backed fellow in razor-pleated grey trousers, starched blue shirt and a magenta-and-gold striped tie. The other was a tall, strikingly attractive young woman in a long-sleeved cream-colored blouse and knee-length beige skirt. Her coppery-red hair was cut short similar to Lydia's. They were introduced as Steven and Gabrielle. Jane was already there, she and Lydia deep in conversation. His cousin's expression was one he had seen before, when she was struggling with a momentous decision. Lydia whispered something as Andrew took his seat, and Jane smiled and shook her head. She may have blushed, because she pointedly turned towards the big window so her face was suffused with the orange glow of the late afternoon sun.

This part of the conference did not take long. They were given a mountain of paperwork to take away for signing and witnessing. Jane then left, while Lydia asked Andrew to accompany her and Steven to an adjoining room. Half a dozen armchairs were arranged in a circle, with three occupied by men in neat, expensive business suits. Serving them coffee, on her knees, was Gabrielle, and she had changed out of her prim and proper skirt and blouse into a barely-there, white negligée. The front and rear were open almost all the way down, and there were no tan lines on her back or across her superb cleavage. Her magnificent legs were sheathed in sheer silk stockings held up with a lace-and-ribbon garter belt. Around her slender throat was a thin black metal choker.

Lydia waited until Andrew and Steven had taken their seats. Then, as she lowered herself onto the chair, in a single, smooth movement she put her hands under her dress and drew her panties down to her knees and then swept her hemline backwards so that, as her bottom touched the upholstery, it was bare flesh against the leather. Neither her secretaries nor her guests reacted at all to this. Without so much as a pause for effect, she began speaking.

With what followed, Andrew came to understand the true nature of the Château. He found out about the masters and their slaves, was told stories about Grandpa Joe's business of which he'd not been aware (but had suspected). He had revealed to him secrets which left him troubled, intrigued and titillated. He was enlightened about matters he'd believed existed only in make-believe. He wondered about Jane, who had been closer than he to the old man. How much had she known, and how long had she known it?

There were hints during the conversation of a mysterious co-proprietor, but despite it never being said outright, Andrew was sure that everyone present sensed what he had learnt during the earlier session, that the covert partner was Lydia. After an hour, he was still ignorant about so much, but Lydia was insistent that the best teacher was experience, and anyway it was a provision of old Joe's will that if they wished to receive their inheritance, he and Jane must familiarize themselves with the ways of the Château at first hand. Then Lydia accompanied him down to the lobby, leaving the delightful Gabrielle to entertain the guests.

He met with Lydia a couple more times in the following days. The next time he saw Jane was outside her apartment building, on that rainy evening. She seemed no different. But as soon as she had entered the car and put herself in the hands of the two men, one a complete stranger and the other the cousin she had known all her life, he knew that she had changed. He could not imagine what Lydia had told her, in what ways she had been prepared, how Lydia explained the different paths that Andrew and Jane would take.

They had been warned that their destination was a place where dreams were made real and fantasies fulfilled. But these were very special, very specific fantasies and dreams. Still, Andrew had the feeling that the story of the Château Chaînerie was, as yet, only half told.

"Nothing had been such a comfort to her as the silence, unless it were the chains. The chains and the silence, which ought to have bound her deep within herself, which should have smothered and strangled her, had not. On the contrary, they had been her deliverance, liberating her from herself."

— Pauline Réage, Histoire d'O

In the darkness, still wide awake, Jane lay upon the bed, chained to the wall, listening to the sounds drifting up from downstairs, of more games being played by the Masters with their slaves. She was on top of the silk sheets and satin quilt, but not cold, the thermostat having been set to a moderate warmth. Then she must have fallen asleep, because she was startled when the lamp came on, and through bleary eyes she saw two men standing beside her bed. One was Sir Ethan, the other an even younger man, tall and stringy, with unkempt brown hair.

"Get up," she was ordered. When she was standing, with her gaze fixed on the floor at the feet of her visitors, Sir Ethan unclipped her bracelets and made a gesture with his hands so she knew to put hers behind her back.

"Face the bed," the second Master commanded, and then he took hold of her wrists and shackled them. After he had done so, he ran his fingers through the furrow of her backside, and between her thighs to enter her at the front. She squirmed.

"Remain still!" he barked.

"Please kneel," Sir Ethan said in a gentler voice. "Move closer to the bed, and bend over it." He adjusted the chain which linked her collar to the hoop on the wall so that it was taut. She heard a soft swishing noise, and when she realized it was that of belts being withdrawn from the loops on the men's trousers, she braced herself against the mattress. There was a whooshing sound and a terrible burning pain on her buttocks. She screamed.

"Move your hands away," she was told, and she pushed her wrists up her back as far as her cuffs would allow. She screamed again, as the second strike seared her flesh. And again. Both men took it in turns thrashing her, maybe two dozen times altogether; and even after they had stopped she continued to shriek, and as her wails subsided into moans, tears streamed down her cheeks and into her mouth. But when she thought her ordeal was over, the men made her stand up again and turn to face towards them. Sir Ethan pushed on her shoulders and she retreated until she was backed against the wall. Their eyes briefly met, and his look was one of apology... but not regret.

He reached behind her and freed her hands, but only to draw her arms over her head to hitch the bracelets to the hook above the bed. This forced her onto her toes, and stretched her body. Then the two men whipped her breasts and belly. She cringed and quivered and howled, but she never tried to evade the lashes, and was proud that she did not beg for mercy. On the other hand, she expected to feel mortification and shame at her abject submission, for allowing herself to be so abused; yet she did not.

The flogging was more intense and more prolonged than what she'd received the night before. The younger Master seemed unsure of himself at first, and Sir Ethan showed him how to apply the belt to her backside in such a way that it was the broad, flat side which made contact with her flesh and not the thin edge. "It marks her less," he explained, but his concern was not to spare his victim but rather to prolong her agony. Each stroke was applied to a different part of her skin but onto flesh still seared from her previous thrashing. After every few lashes the men paused, to allow her screaming to subside, but only to make the resumption of her punishment all the more harder to bear. As before, they turned her around so that none of her, front and back, between her shoulders and her knees, escaped the onslaught.

She wondered if the other residents of the house could hear her shrieks, whether it was a familiar sound in the middle of the night, whether anyone cared for her plight. She had wondered if she'd be treated any differently from the other females in the house, if her special status had conferred on her some degree of immunity from the worst of the maltreatment which the rest of the women (albeit willingly) suffered. Knowing now the answer, she considered more keenly what lay in store for her when the new day arrived.

As the two men left her, she was still sobbing. They'd freed her hands and extended her chain, for which she was grateful as she hobbled into the bathroom. Thereafter she went to sleep lying on her stomach, which was the slightly less inflamed side. The silk and satin were cool and soothing.

Just before sunrise, she was awoken by Rachel, who replaced her metal bracelets with leather ones. The woman's expression when she saw Jane's fresh scars was revealing. It was (Jane later discovered) unusual for a newcomer to be flogged two nights in succession, especially when her body, abused by strap and cane, had not been entered by any of the Masters. But Jane wished that she hadn't seen Rachel's reaction, because it reminded her that her skin still burned. Yet for a reason she was only just beginning to understand, amidst the bitter memory was a sweetness that she could not have imagined before coming into the Château.

The sky outside the tiny window was grey, with just the faintest rosy blush of the coming dawn. Jane was taken downstairs. It was the first time she'd gone all the way through the house without a blindfold. The kitchen was on the ground floor at the back, and several women were already at work preparing breakfast. None turned to greet her, except for the supervisor, Justine, a statuesque, dark-skinned girl. Like all of the females, she was exquisitely, intimidatingly beautiful. Although she considered herself attractive, next to these creatures Jane felt plain. They were working naked over the stove, while aprons hung from pegs on the wall. Jane wondered if the women were permitted to protect themselves when dealing with hot pots and pans but out of pride chose not to. She did not ask. Apart from Justine giving terse, curt orders, nobody uttered a word.

Jane and two other girls, Suzanne and Isabella, were assigned to serve the Masters. Before they began, each had her ankles shackled. The chain was just long enough that Jane could shuffle across the floor without a fear of stumbling (unless she was careless). As she picked up the first tray, containing bread-rolls, croissants and other assorted pastries, Isabella showed her how to hold it correctly, at belly button level such that her breasts and lower parts remained visible and available for inspection. So it amused her that the diners seemed more interested in the delicacies on the tray than those under or above it. Only her cousin paid any attention to Jane. She was charmed, in a way, that Sir Andrew, with so many naked females at his service, could still be distracted by her bare body, until she realized he was staring at the pink welts and purple bruises covering her flesh. Their eyes made contact again, for just an instant before Jane lowered her gaze to the floor, where it belonged... although more in embarrassment than in accordance with the rules. Yet the shame had a sweet savor.

The same dozen men were seated as last night, but not Lydia. As the men ate, those women not serving, including Lydia, stood silently at one end of the room facing the wall, their hands behind their backs but with the cuffs not linked. Two girls were playing music on violins and they were very good. Every now and then a couple of the standing women were commanded to dance to entertain the Masters as they dined, but then they returned to their places against the wall. Jane was glad that she was not one of them, but was instead kept busy, because the breakfast lasted more than an hour.

All of the females in the house appeared to be present. Jane had counted twenty altogether, which she knew was but a fraction of the total number who spent time at the Château. She had but a vague idea of how many women belonged to the Chaînerie — perhaps a hundred — and wondered if even the Masters knew for sure. Lydia alone had that knowledge.

As for the Masters, on this morning the females outnumbered them by just two to one. Normally it was twice that, but the arrival of Jane and Sir Andrew had been an event of some importance. The males were also on average several years younger. They were all aged, it appeared, in their early to mid-twenties. There were no women as young as the youngest man, and there were slaves in their thirties.

A sharp whack on her still raw backside wrenched her out of these distracting thoughts. She was pouring juice with one hand and coffee with the other, and when she returned to the galley for refills, the women who'd cooked were busy washing plates, pot and pans. It was only when the Masters retired to their quarters for their ablutions that the women had their meal. They consumed the remains of the breakfast, but there was more than enough food and Justine insisted that everyone ate enough to sustain them through whatever the day would bring. And even though there were no Masters present, aside from Justine's terse instructions nobody spoke. There were meaningful looks and insightful expressions, but the rule of silence was not once broken.

For the remainder of the morning, all of the women went about their household duties, again directed by Justine, who wielded a cane on backsides, apparently at random, for encouragement. Neither Jane nor Lydia was exempt. Their chores, although tedious, were not onerous, because there were so many pairs of hands. But they worked in chains, to remind them (as if their nudity, the cane and the rule of silence were not enough) of what they were, and especially of what they were not.

Jane did not know what kept the Masters occupied or amused, but whenever one of them came up or passed by, the women would stop and stand at attention, eyes downcast; but if there were two men they knelt; and if more they prostrated themselves on the hard, cold tiles. Now and then, one or more of the girls would be taken away, returning sometime later flushed and sweaty, trembling and dreamy-eyed.

Jane was assigned to clean the Masters' bedrooms. Each was three or four times the size of hers (which was, in turn, luxurious compared to the quarters of other women, who slept on mats packed together.) And when it was time to put away her broom and mop, it was Sir Andrew who came for her. He locked her bracelets behind her back and took her to her cell. He tethered her collar to the ring on the wall, shortening the chain so that she was forced to stand erect beside the bed; and he freed her hands, but only to secure them overhead to the hook. And without a word he then went away.

Jane's climactical initiation into the Chaînerie was thereafter less of a ritual than she had expected, perhaps than it should have been — almost callous in its consummation. She was visited by each of the Masters in turn. They made use of all of her openings, and although they were gentle (mostly), they showed no warmth or tenderness. It was as if she were an object, a receptacle for dispassionate lust.

To have a man inside her completes a woman. To feel two bodies becoming one is more than a physical pleasure; the woman's body is her gift to the man, and his virility is his gift to her. Yet it left her untroubled that the Masters took her and used her the way they did. For though it was she who submitted, she wondered if they were equally enslaved, by their hormones, by their desires, and by the competitive urge of each man that he do and be no less than his brothers. Indeed, she felt a sort of pity for the males, that they were missing out on the true and essential experience. As each of the men entered her, she had never felt so alive, so self-aware, to be desired, to be taken, to have her body breached and invaded, to surrender to the Masters' power and penetration, to be their object and prey, and yet by her very presence in the house to be the mistress of her own destiny and the controller of the men's virile status. When they whipped her, she felt pride in her endurance but also in the fact that they had such a need, such a compulsion, to try to break her, to scourge the body they could own but never possess. When she was degraded and humiliated, she embraced the shame, as a liberation from conceit and hubris. Whereas the Masters were trapped by theirs. Jane might envy their privileges, but not the price — of never knowing the joy of transcending all egocentric needs and wants...

Rachel brought her lunch, and was obliged to hand-feed her, with difficulty since Jane was now spreadeagled on the bed with wrists and ankles shackled to the four posts. Rachel did not have permission to use the key. Sir Simon, her fifth or sixth visitor, had been the one to put her in this position, and that must have been satisfactory to the Masters who came after him, because she stayed that way, with her legs apart and her body open... as if any of the Masters required or demanded an invitation to enter.

It was Lydia, after some more time, who freed her from her restraints. As Jane washed her face and cleaned the other parts of her as best she could in the hand basin, Lydia asked "Are you happy?"

"Yes," Jane replied. It was an odd question, and she expected a follow-up, but none came. But she did not care, because she was not yet ready to express her feelings about all that had happened so far, because she had not quite decided for herself exactly what these were.

In any case, Lydia said "Come," and Jane followed her downstairs. She felt light-headed and she wobbled. Her legs were stiff and she ached inside. She wished she had been able to wash herself properly, because she stank of her own sweat and effusions intermingled with the men's.

It was early afternoon, and everyone in the house had gathered on the lawn for the sport to begin. Each day the women of the Château played a different game, or if it suited the Masters any number of games. Some of the men had been busy (or more likely their slaves had been) during the morning, because a large wooden apparatus had been erected. It consisted of a rotary base with eight horizontal poles projecting as spokes from the axis, like one of those grinding wheels in an ancient flour mill. Sixteen slavegirls including Jane were assigned places, two on each of the arms of the device, and hitched into place. There were "eye" bolts screwed into the wood to which their bracelets were attached with short chains. The eight women on the outer part of the arm were linked by a rope that ran from the collar of one, down between her legs and cleaving her labia, to the collar of the girl behind her, and so on to complete the loop. The eight inner girls were connected the same way.